Back to the Basics

When in doubt go back to what you know and love. Like Pasta. And Pizza. And Salad. Yum.
Dinner tonight was at the request of my future niece/nephew's incubator, so who am I to argue? Kudos to Trader Joe's for your garlic and herb fresh pizza dough. Hint: If you freeze it, when you're ready to use it toss it in a bowl and leave it on the counter for at least 4+ hours.
I had a messy good time rolling it out on a flour'ed counter. It ended up an odd shape and I finally resorted to slicing it and splitting it up onto two cookie sheets. Really, when it comes to pizza, its not the shape of the dough that matters.

Of course I didn't dare just pour sauce on it. I had to go and be all fancy with my olive oil and simmering minced garlic (can someone please buy me one of the Pampered Chef choppers? my half birthday is in a few weeks?!) If you don't I will have to steal my brother's when we move out.
Some shredded mozarella, a little parmesan, 10 minutes at 475 and voila!

The mutitasker that I am, I also had a pot of pasta boiling and some other sauce simmering for that. And about 2 hours prior I had made a chopped salad.

It wasn't an inventive day in the kitchen but I did discover a recipe for "Restaurant Style Italian Dressing" It's brilliant. You take a cup (or whatever) or crappy italian dressing, add a clove or two of finely minced garlic, a sprinkle of sugar, 1/2 teaspoon of dried basil, 1/2 tspn of dried parsley (it says oregano but I didn't have that)...it's the perfect way to salvage your relatives' insistence on buying and eating Kraft salad dressing!

Since I like writing in backwards order of my day....way earlier I threw together the ingredients for the Slow Cooker Chicken Taco Soup (posted prior) I let it do its thing on low for 5+ hours, shredded up the chicken then kept the chicken in a separate container and fridged the crockpot (sans mechanical parts) and the tupperware of chicken. Why, you ask? Because it's safer to let the chicken chill on its lonesome ASAP, meanwhile the rest of the soup would be taking its time in the fridge. It's scientific. I'm just not bothering with the numbers for you. Take my word for it.

Tomorrow I will be mixing the chicken back in with the rest of the soup, baking up some easy-boring-from-a-box corn bread, and when my visiting parents show up with the grocery requests, attempting a knock-off of a Philadelphia favorite...and it's not cheesesteaks...