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Posts Tagged ‘parmesan cheese’

  1. Tony’s Pizza, FIXED!

    January 22, 2012 by The Yum Yum

    On a regular cheese Tony’s Pizza, I added onions and chopped green olives, along with cumin, garlic powder, red pepper flakes, and parmesan cheese.

    The result was one of the best pizzas I’ve eaten.

    I want some dates soon so I can make a date and tomato pizza. I’m so hungry all the time. Last night, I kept eating and eating and eating, even finally giving into some Raisin Bran because I was so hungry. I have no idea why! I had eaten just fine!

    But we’ve all been feeling crappy again here at Hickory Shade.

    The weather’s been RIDICULOUS.

    My Tony’s pizza, however, stood out as absolutely exemplary. It proves that one can take regular, everyday, store-bought, pre-made food AND make it taste good.

    I need to invest in some good green tea soon and make that a daily ritual.

    My daily haiku idea apparently has failed, no!

    But my mind’s not been working well recently. It’s either some spiritual happening or a collective mind happening or my brain’s getting older and has to have greater amounts of rest for all the processing it does, gah!

    Get your nosh on!

    Beaux 

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  2. The Great Publix Adventure AGAIN!

    September 30, 2011 by The Yum Yum

    As you read this blog, I will likely be at Kelly’s house or in Publix, freaking out, as we’ve moved the Great Publix Adventure to her house for this week since she’s read so many times the adventures we’ve had and the delicious food we’ve cooked.

    On the menu: Beaux’s Harvest Bake alongside Pasta Salad!

    What would’ve been only a few people has expanded to a wider circle, which is of course okay, but now I have a kind of performance anxiety welling up inside of me. Doesn’t that sound awful? Yeah, my immediate family can eat any old thing I cook, but for other people, I want to make the food taste good.

    Every time I’ve tried to cook something for Kelly’s house, I’ve run into a failure. Nothing keeps well from my house to Kelly’s house and the 30 minute long drive down Highway 52 because some set of idiots, for some god-unknown reason, decided to reduce the speed limit from 55 mph to 45 mph, thereby taking me even longer to get to Dothan by 52 than it would have before.

    Anyway, the Harvest Bake is simple:

    • Morningstar Crumbles
    • Peas and Carrots
    • Potato Soup
    • Bread Crumbs and Cheese for the topping

    Cooking the crumbles a good way through, then put them in a baking dish. Cover with peas and carrots and potato soup mix. Then add the bread crumbs and cheese. Bake until golden and bubbly.

     

    Pasta Salad

    • Your choice of pasta. I plan to use Wacky Mac’s rainbow pasta.
    • Spinach, chopped
    • Parmesan OR Feta cheese
    • Mayonnaise

    Boil the noodles. Drain. Drizzle them with EVOO, add a little mayonnaise, add cheese and chopped spinach. Salt and pepper to taste.

    Carpe Diem! I already feel so busy!

    Beaux

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  3. Carb-less Mini-Pizzas

    July 17, 2011 by The Yum Yum

    This entry goes out to both the Onyx Plate and Sharpshooter, since I’m sure they’ll both get a kick out of it.

    Now, I can’t claim to have wholly invented this recipe, as I’ve seen others do it before, or at least some variation on it. But you know me- I like to break things down to their basic level of abstraction and work from there.

    First, let’s consider: what’s in a name? What qualifies something AS something? This question may seem ridiculous and trifling at first glance, as after all, most of us have no trouble labeling this or that thing.

    But the reality is that philosophers have long struggled throughout history to understand what qualifies something as something. Do real categories exist, or are they arbitrary inventions of the human mind based on similarities?

    Language affects us heavily. What I mean to say is that the human mind can be “primed” by putting forth certain ideas and concepts. You’ll almost always automatically respond with something for which you’ve been “primed.”

    So this recipe I’m about to give could easily be called “baked tomatoes.” But “baked tomatoes” doesn’t sound nearly as much fun as “Carb-less Mini-Pizzas,” does it? And here’s the problem: are these really simply a modified version of baked tomatoes, or are they really a mini-pizza that has no crust? Further still, do they perhaps represent a hybrid between the two, a meeting ground of common ingredients that produces something that isn’t quite this or that?

    The kind of debate and argument this could create is the sort that can destroy both friendships and marriages.

    None the less, the intellectual exercises prove that humans cannot agree on anything, and so the practical person’s only true response is to simply make the recipe and eat it without trying to categorize it.

    Because if you think about it, some things we might call “pizza” may be very far from the idea of pizza as we have it anyway. What happens when you use Tandoori Naan bread as the crust with pesto instead of tomato sauce and top it with spinach and feta cheese? That’s not traditionally what we think of when we say “pizza,” is it? Yet every day, many people make very un-traditional forms of pizza that are still categorized as pizza.

    Maybe it’s all in the eye of the beholder (or the mouth of the eater.) Maybe it’s all in the mind of the thinker.

    Whatever it is, if you change what it’s called, people will actually understand it differently- they will understand the role of it differently, they will perceive it differently. As so many say, perception is reality.

    What you need:

    • four or five medium to large tomatoes
    • shredded parmesan
    • oregano

    What you do:

    1. Slice the tomatoes as evenly as possible.
    2. Sprinkle on oregano and parmesan.
    3. Bake at 450ยบ for 10-15 minutes or until cheese is melted.

    This is the so-called “basic” form of the recipe. If you do this and only this, you will end up with a bunch of mini-pizzas without any carbs, and yes, it will taste like pizza.

    But to alter this recipe, you can also add any or all of these:

    • extra virgin olive oil
    • salt
    • pepper
    • basil
    • parsley
    • garlic
    • onions
    • bell peppers
    • sausage
    • pepperoni
    • bacon

    Do you see what I mean here? The possibilities are endless. You’re going to be having a healthy pizza here without it being full of carbs. And you can have several of the healthy pizzas. This is a great and fun recipe, it’s super-easy, and it’s in season for the summer.

    Carpe Diem!

    Beaux

     

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  4. Sinfully Delicious: Shrimp and Noodles

    July 13, 2011 by The Yum Yum

    There’s an inside joke about why I call this recipe “sinfully delicious,” but I won’t expose myself here.

    What you need:

    • half a pack of your choice of noodles. I used a kind of short egg noodle.
    • a half pound of shrimp; frozen salad shrimp work well.
    • a medium-sized tomato
    • a quarter to a half of a medium-sized onion
    • a clove of garlic
    • 2 teaspoons of oregano
    • 2 teaspoons of basil
    • feta cheese or parmesan cheese
    • 3 teaspoons of pepper
    • salt and any other spices to taste

    What you do:

    1. Bring water to boil and prepare the noodles.
    2. While the noodles are boiling, heat 3 Tablespoons of Extra Virgin Olive Oil in a skillet.
    3. Slice the tomato, onion, and garlic and add them to the skillet; heat on low.
    4. Add the basil, oregano, and pepper.
    5. Add frozen shrimp to the skillet and increase heat.
    6. When noodles are done, drain and add to the veggie-shrimp mixture.
    7. Cook on medium to low-medium for five to ten minutes or until most of the juices have evaporated.
    8. Remove from heat.
    9. Add cheese, stir well, and serve immediately.

    This recipe is quite similar to on that my friend Kelly made recently. Also, today, I added a squirt of lemon for extra flavor and seemed to have a problem getting the food salty enough. I’m not quite sure what happened.

    In addition, always remember that you can flavor your noodles by boiling them in a seasoned water. You can add crab boil, for instance, to the pot to season them before adding them to the main recipe. This is in fact the only real time you can add flavor to your noodles. After they’re cooked, the show’s over.

    Carpe Diem!

    Beaux


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  5. Beaux’s Sunshine

    May 30, 2011 by The Yum Yum

    Tonight, I did something wonderful.

    I’ve finally made friends with squash.

    I stared in the fridge, looking at the yellow chunks of vegetables with their odd shape, wondering what I should do, what I should cook. Finally, the hour had come upon me- Gigi had fought the battle with squash long enough, and now my time had arrived.

    Heroically, I brandished my knife (which had oddly been used to carve up a watermelon) and began to slice the squash. I relied on my intuition for what to do next. A skillet was filled with EVOO, and garlic salt and celery seed were pulled out.

    I fried the squash for about ten minutes or medium heat, adding celery seed about halfway through, along with garlic salt. Then, around the ten minute mark, I turned the heat off and added parmesan cheese.

    The result?

    Squash and I are now friends, to say the very least.

    I’ve named the dish “sunshine.”

    Bapaw would likely assert that it’s just my tastes having changed over the years, but I would disagree with him on this. Let’s have a quick recap of what’s really happened:

    From an early age, “squash” meant “squash dumped in a pot and boiled,” resulting in a soggy and sour taste vegetable.

    Bapaw insisted that I just “try it.” I did not like it.

    I tried it again- my open-mindedness is always at work. Again, I did not like it.

    Random Southern family member says, “Oh, you ain’t never et my squarsh; try mine, you’ll like it!” They present their squash. Their squash is yellow-vegetable-boiled-and-dumped-in-a-bowl. I try their squash. I do not like it.

    The 27th time of my open-mindedly trying yellow-vegetable-boiled-and-dumped-in-a-bowl leads me to the conclusion that I don’t like the stuff.

    But tonight, preparing the squash on my own, I proved my suspicions correct beyond a shadow of a doubt- often with food it is not the “what” but the “how,” meaning not the food itself but how the food is prepared. The squash that was once my enemy is now a mouth-watering vegetable side dish that could potentially be transformed even further by adding it to main dish.

    Maybe the next Great Evil Food to attack is corn.

    Beaux’s Sunshine:

     

    • 3 small to medium squashes, sliced
    • 2 Tablespoons EVOO or Butter
    • garlic salt
    • celery seed
    • parmesan cheese

    What you do:

     

    • Heat the oil in a skillet over medium heat.
    • Add the squash.
    • Add the garlic salt and celery seed after a few minutes.
    • After about ten minutes or so, add the parmesan cheese and turn the heat off; stir well.
    • Serve immediately.

    Try it folks, seriously. You’ll love it.

    Beaux

     

     


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  6. Seafood Surprise!

    April 22, 2011 by The Yum Yum

    In our pantry, we’ve had an 8 ounce can of white crab sitting for over a year. Luckily, this kind of food does not spoil easily and was good to keep until next year.

    Lately, my burst of blogging had ceased- I’ve been sick on and off for the past two or three weeks, so now I have to try to get back into the groove of writing and catching up on writing blogs. Being ahead of the game is half the fun.

    Tonight, I did my magic again, going to kitchen, facing that can of white crab, and making something delicious out of it.

    Gigi’s cole slaw, which sat happily on the kitchen island, prompted this recipe.

    What you need:

    • 3 cups of cole slaw
    • 8 ounces of crab meat or imitation crab meat
    • 3 or 4 cups of salad shrimp
    • 1 large onion
    • 3 Tablespoons of Old Bay seafood seasoning
    • 3 Tablespoons of lemon juice
    • 1/2 cup English peas (optional)
    • Parmesan cheese to garnish
    • croutons -or- crushed cheese crackers
    • bacon bits -or- actual bacon to garnish

    Here’s what you do:

    • First, prepare the cole slaw and set it in the fridge to chill. I’ll post another blog specifying the rather easy process of cole slaw.
    • Chop the onion finely without outright mincing it.
    • Heat oil or butter in a large skillet.
    • When the skillet gets hot, add the onions and allow them to cook for a few minutes over medium heat.
    • Add the crab meat and the shrimp. Allow to cook for a minute to a minute and a half.
    • Add the Old Bay seasoning. Allow to cook for a few more minutes.
    • Add the lemon juice and English peas.
    • The onions should be tender, and the whole mixture should have reduced significantly at this point.
    • Remove from heat.
    • Spoon cole slaw into bowls, then add the seafood mixture. On top of that, sprinkle Parmesan cheese.
    • On top of this, add crushed cheese crackers. Serve and enjoy.

    I definitely recommend using the chunky pieces of imitation crab instead of using canned crab meat, because the texture is better and generally the meat is more flavorful.

    This recipe would also be good if made with a cream sauce and served over pasta.

    Carpe diem and happy eating!

    Beaux


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