He was a very tasty Halloween treat!
Showing posts with label party foods. Show all posts
Showing posts with label party foods. Show all posts
Friday, November 1, 2013
Cheese Monster Head
I love food. I love talking about it, creating wonderful dishes, and feeding people. The kitchen is my happy place and I love conducting experiments there, whether the dishes are savory or sweet. I like to blog about it when I have time, in hopes that I might help or inspire others. I don't consider myself a food snob, though I am picky about how certain meals are prepared. I'm happy with a simple meal at home, like beans and cornbread, as well as a meal in a fine-dining establishment (and everything in between). I hope you enjoy my blog and leave me some feedback if you have time.
Wednesday, January 30, 2013
Fun Food, Fast Preparation
Here's a little something I whipped up that turned out to be interesting visually, so I decided it needed to be on the blog.
The taste was excellent, too.
Story is: I had some leftover spaghetti sauce that I made for us the other day. I didn't feel like eating pasta, but wanted to have more of a pizza-type dish instead. But not pizza. I also had some of that delicious rolled mozzarella left over, (the one with prosciutto & basil).
So...I just needed some bread. French bread or baguettes. I didn't feel like baking any of those and driving to Katy was out. Wal-Mart was definitely out. That left the local grocery store, which is where I buy the majority of food items between trips to H.E.B. and other good stores in Katy & Houston. Support your local merchants!
Okay, the grocery store, Bill's, used to have a bakery but after they moved back to their old location a few years ago, they didn't have the room or the equipment. They purchase baked goods from a bakery in Houston. The items from this bakery are okay. I don't buy them that often. When I decided on this little endeavor, the baguettes that were available were in horrendous shape. They were under-baked and had weird looking spots on them, as if something was dripped into the baguette pans before the dough went in. So those baguettes were out.
Next best thing? At Bill's, that would be: Alexia's Garlic Baguettes. These baguettes are really, really good. They are partially baked and you do the rest at home. Bill's started carrying these...let's see....last year? The year before? It wasn't terribly long ago.
First, they had single baguettes. I noticed that they were almost always low on these when I went through the frozen section while shopping. Now they have double packs of this bread, plus some Alexia Dinner Rolls (the whole grain version). Good! Maybe we'll see even more Alexia products at Bill's in the future!
Back to the original story:
Of course the garlic baguettes already have garlic and butter, but I thought they would be okay for some pizza action. I opened the package and one of the loaves was broken in half. Dang it! I was going to cut them lengthwise, even though they are partially cut into slices.
Okay, so I ended up with two slices and four sections cut lengthwise. No problemo, Ahnuld.
Added "pizza" sauce and a slice of the mozzarella roll on each piece, then popped them into the oven until the cheese melted pretty good.
So here is the result. With the Superbowl coming up and all, I figured, enh...why not post it? It's a fast, fun food for a party, even when it's not Superbowl time. It looks impressive and it's really easy to make. It only took.....(how many paragraphs now?)....a little bit of yakking on my part to finally get to the point. Ha ha!
I suggest doing this next time instead of wasting money on frozen pizzas or frozen french bread pizzas. Those things have a LOT of crap in them, and frankly, they aren't really that good, even the more expensive brands. And yeah, pizza delivery. Convenient, but not all places have French bread pizza and really, there's a lot of junky-monkey crap in those products as well. Make it yourself whenever you can! You'll be eating less junk (chemicals, etc.) and have more flavor, even if you use a bottled sauce (as long as it doesn't have a lot of junk in it).
Okay, I will shut up now. Here is the photo of the baguette pizza:
The taste was excellent, too.
Story is: I had some leftover spaghetti sauce that I made for us the other day. I didn't feel like eating pasta, but wanted to have more of a pizza-type dish instead. But not pizza. I also had some of that delicious rolled mozzarella left over, (the one with prosciutto & basil).
So...I just needed some bread. French bread or baguettes. I didn't feel like baking any of those and driving to Katy was out. Wal-Mart was definitely out. That left the local grocery store, which is where I buy the majority of food items between trips to H.E.B. and other good stores in Katy & Houston. Support your local merchants!
Okay, the grocery store, Bill's, used to have a bakery but after they moved back to their old location a few years ago, they didn't have the room or the equipment. They purchase baked goods from a bakery in Houston. The items from this bakery are okay. I don't buy them that often. When I decided on this little endeavor, the baguettes that were available were in horrendous shape. They were under-baked and had weird looking spots on them, as if something was dripped into the baguette pans before the dough went in. So those baguettes were out.
Next best thing? At Bill's, that would be: Alexia's Garlic Baguettes. These baguettes are really, really good. They are partially baked and you do the rest at home. Bill's started carrying these...let's see....last year? The year before? It wasn't terribly long ago.
First, they had single baguettes. I noticed that they were almost always low on these when I went through the frozen section while shopping. Now they have double packs of this bread, plus some Alexia Dinner Rolls (the whole grain version). Good! Maybe we'll see even more Alexia products at Bill's in the future!
Back to the original story:
Of course the garlic baguettes already have garlic and butter, but I thought they would be okay for some pizza action. I opened the package and one of the loaves was broken in half. Dang it! I was going to cut them lengthwise, even though they are partially cut into slices.
Okay, so I ended up with two slices and four sections cut lengthwise. No problemo, Ahnuld.
Added "pizza" sauce and a slice of the mozzarella roll on each piece, then popped them into the oven until the cheese melted pretty good.
So here is the result. With the Superbowl coming up and all, I figured, enh...why not post it? It's a fast, fun food for a party, even when it's not Superbowl time. It looks impressive and it's really easy to make. It only took.....(how many paragraphs now?)....a little bit of yakking on my part to finally get to the point. Ha ha!
I suggest doing this next time instead of wasting money on frozen pizzas or frozen french bread pizzas. Those things have a LOT of crap in them, and frankly, they aren't really that good, even the more expensive brands. And yeah, pizza delivery. Convenient, but not all places have French bread pizza and really, there's a lot of junky-monkey crap in those products as well. Make it yourself whenever you can! You'll be eating less junk (chemicals, etc.) and have more flavor, even if you use a bottled sauce (as long as it doesn't have a lot of junk in it).
Okay, I will shut up now. Here is the photo of the baguette pizza:
 |
| Baguette Pizza |
I love food. I love talking about it, creating wonderful dishes, and feeding people. The kitchen is my happy place and I love conducting experiments there, whether the dishes are savory or sweet. I like to blog about it when I have time, in hopes that I might help or inspire others. I don't consider myself a food snob, though I am picky about how certain meals are prepared. I'm happy with a simple meal at home, like beans and cornbread, as well as a meal in a fine-dining establishment (and everything in between). I hope you enjoy my blog and leave me some feedback if you have time.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)