Mini Margarita Pies

1 pkg Refrigerated Sugar Cookie Dough (Pillsbury or Nestle break and bake 20 count)
1 pkg cream cheese
1/3 cup sugar
1 or 2 limes
8 oz container of cool whip
Pretzels (optional)
Strawberries (Optional for garnish)

Cut each of the dough cookies in half. Roll into a ball and place in Mini Muffin Pan. Press with floured Mini Tart Shaper (or something that will form them into little pie crusts). Bake cookies at 375 for 10-12 minutes or until golden brown. Remove from oven and cool for about 1 minute, then REPRESS because they will start to collapse.
Remove from Pan to Cooling Rack. Meanwhile, combined softened cream cheese with powdered sugar. Zest lime. Cut lime in half and press with Citrus Press. (Add both limes if you prefer lots of lime flavor!) Mix it all together. Add in Cool Whip. Pipe filling into cups however you can get it in there. If desired, add chopped pretzels to cup before filling (to add a bit of salty flavor), OR stick a pretzel stick into each cup. Garnish with strawberry slice if desired

ALERT! ALERT! ALLISON!

This recipe is in my "Cooking w/ TJ's" Cookbook:

Perfectly Paired Gorgonzola Quesadillas
4 Tortillas
1 (8 oz) Pkg Crumbled Gorgonzola Cheese (or maybe bleu, for the Obsessed?)
1 Pear, thinly sliced (fresh or jarred [preserved, not impacted])
1 Tbsp Butter
1 C Pear Sauce (i guess available at TJs?)
1/4 C Candied Walnuts

(from here there are a lot of instructions, but what they boil down to is this)
1. Assemble Quesadilla
2. Cook quesadilla (preferably in a cast iron skillet)

Make it and tell me how it is. K, thx.

Blue Cheese, Pear & Carmelized Onion Pizza

This pizza was so good that between two of us we ate the whole thing before it had time to get cold. Goes great with beer and movies on the couch on yet another windy and rainy winter evening.

You will need:

1 recipe pizza dough - I cheat and use Trader Joe's pizza-dough, and for this recipe I used whole wheat - makes a medium pizza

1 pear, sliced into thin wedges - I can't imagine any variety of pear that wouldn't work, I had an asian pear which, sliced into smaller wedges, baked up sweet but still firm and juicy.

as much mozarella as you like, shredded - I ended up using one of those individually packaged balls

at least 2 cloves garlic, finely chopped or crushed

1/4 cup blue cheese, crumbled - I had a delicious Danish Blue on hand, and as this is the first time I have cooked/baked with blue cheese, I wanted to be sure the flavor would not overwhelm the sweetness of the onions and pear. The general consenseus was that the pizza needed a little more blue cheese, but not by much!

1 medium onion, carmelized - slice, cook in 1 tbls butter and 2 tbls olive oil over very-low-heat for about an hour (stirring/flipping occasionally), then cook over medium-high heat (stirring often) until golden brown

***optional*** about 1/2 cup broccoli, chopped small - I wanted a little extra filler but not too much flavor

Preheat oven to 450 degrees

If dough is refrigerated, leave out at room temperature for 1/2 an hour.

Mix in a bowl about two-thirds of the shredded mozarella with the chopped broccoli, add half of crushed/chopped garlic, mix, set aside.

Roll out the dough on a lightly floured surface - as often as I try for a nice circular shape, I usually end up with a rustic rectangle, which fits better on my lightly oiled cookie-sheet anyhow. Once desired geometry is achieved, transfer dough to cookie-sheet, rub surface lightly with olive oil.

Spread all of the mozarella-broccoli mixture first. Then pears, onions, blue cheese. Top with the last of the mozarella and garlic.

Bake for about 10 minutes

The Gorgonzola Cheesecake Dare

My mother was visiting recently, and downloaded this recipe to my desktop - she swears it is delicious, but I'm a bit wary of stinky cheese getting near the beloved cheesecake recipe - I have not yet been brave enough to try it - anyone else brave enough to take up the challenge?

Gorgonzola Cheese Cake

Crust:
4 ½ cups water
1 ½ cups corn meal
1 tablespoon garlic, minced
2 teaspoons salt
2 tablespoons dried oregano
½ cup Asiago cheese, grated

Pre-heat oven to 375 degrees.
Grease a 12 by 17 sheet pan. In a sauce pan, bring water to a boil and stir in corn meal, garlic, salt and oregano. Reduce heat to low and simmer for 15 minutes, stirring every few minutes. When mixture is cooked, stir in Asiago cheese and pour into the sheet pan and smooth out evenly. Set aside and let cool.

Filling:
12 cloves garlic, chopped
1 pound gorgonzola cheese, room temperature
5 (8 ounce) packages cream cheese, room temperature
5 eggs, room temperature

In a large mixer, place cream cheese, gorgonzola and garlic. Combine thoroughly. Add the eggs one at a time, blending well after each addition. Pour into corn meal crust and smooth out. Place cheese cake in middle of center rack. Bake for approximately 30 minutes, or until “insta-read” thermometer reads 160 degrees. Remove and let cool to room temperature.

This versatile dish can either be served as an appetizer by cutting into 1 inch cubes or as an entrée by cutting into 4 by 4 squares and served with your favorite salad and a glass of chardonnay.

(from Alexander Valley Vineyards)

Things I love at Trader Joe's

The following have become staples in my kitchen. They are currently saving my life;

1. whole wheat pitas. They are good for everything. I use them for sandwhiches, I eat them with hummus, I make them into mini pizzas. They form the basis of my breakfast wrap. They taste good with melted cheese. They are great.

2. Pastry wrapped Brie. This is what I eat when I want to have a hurting stomach the next day. Note - I am lactose intolerant but trying to convince myself that I am not. I love brie. I love baked brie wrapped in pastry dough. It's in the cheese section. It's heaven.

3. Frozen - precooked brown rice. It's in a box, in the frozen section, it comes with three packages of rice each serving 2 people. It takes three minutes to cook in the microwave. PERFECT rice every time. Note my rice problems in past posts.

4. Pirate's Booty. Reminds me of the cheese puff I used to eat as a kid, but healthier and franky, anything with the word Pirate and Booty in the title is good for me.

5. Just Chicken and Just Salmon. It's amazing, it's cheap, it's pre-cooked and ready to eat. I use the chicken and put it in a toasted pita in the morning with some melted chedder. The chicken is also good in sandwhiches or salads. I need quick protein fixes in a big way so it helps out. I haven't tried the salmon yet but i bought it and am looking forward to it.

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It's been a while and I forgot about this post. I tried the Salmon, it scared me, but I wasn't sure how long it was good for.

I love everything at TJs

Le French Onion Soup

See, I have made zee french onion suup, ok?

I make the onions small, like so: and in a pan, I made zem brown with zee butter and zee olive oil (dirty italians). After zey have been made brown, I add garleek and thyme and sugar. Well. Zee recipe calls for sugar, I had le honey.

So, ok, le onions are le browning, and zee recipe calls for beef stock. I do not have le beef stock. Zen I remember! Sacreblue! I have zee leftover gobblestock from zee...what do you call... le Thanksgiving. Frozen. In le freezer. Le Crap.

So I dump le frozen block of gobblejuice into le big pot, and turn on le burner in hopes that it returns to its liquid state before le onions burn. Zen I remember I need to add some fleur to le onions. Can't find le fleur. Add le Semolina. Same thing. Heehee.

Eventually I get all le pieces together and WALA! LE FRENCH ONION SOUP! (except instead of le french bread, I use le sourdough. And zee only fromage that I have is le parmesean.)

MWA! Bon Apetit!

Mac and Chizzle, fo' Rizzle

I got this recipe from a friend, who I believe got it from a cookbook.

You will need:
1lb pasta (macaroni, rotini, etc.)
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup flour
1 qt milk (4 cups)
20 oz cheese (I used sharp and white cheddar. The recipe called for cheddar and guyere, but thats wicked expensive)
Salt, pepper, nutmeg
Every dish in the house

Boil your pasta.
In a pot that will fit a quart of milk, heat up your milk. Don't let it boil, just let it get warm.
In another very large pot, melt 6 Tbs of your butter (this should leave 2 Tbs).
Once melted, whisk in your flour.
When the flour/butter mix is nice and pasty, dump in all that hot milk, followed by all the cheese (i suggest shredding the cheese-it helps the melting process).
Season with salt and pepper, and a dash or so of nutmeg. Less is more in the nutmeg arena, FYI.
Follow this with all your pasta (this is why the pot must be large). Mix this all together and dump it into a 3 qt. baking dish, AKA your 9x13 inch pan.
Use a bunch of bread crumbs mixed with the last 2 tablespoons of melted butter, and dump on top. I toasted 5 piecces of bread, and in the future, I will likely only use 3 or 4.
Pop that bad boy in the oven at 375 for 30 or so minutes, until brown and bubbly.

Steam some veggies while you are waiting and toss with a bit o' EVOO and salt/pepper.

Heart-stopping fettucine alfredo

B.'s birthday was a couple months ago, and upon finding out that this was his favorite dish, I emailed my mother for the recipe that was long a treat of my childhood. It tastes nothing like the kind of alfredo you might buy jarred, and everything like cheese and cream and decadence.

Of course, there is absolutely NOTHING healthy about this recipe. But that's hardly the point.

Fettucine all'Alfredo (fettucine tossed in butter and cream)

for 5 or 6 people

1 cup heavy cream
3 tablespoons butter
salt
fettucine (the recipe recommends fresh, but I am not yet that industrious)
2/3 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
fresh ground pepper (4-6 turns of the grinder)
a tiny grating of nutmeg (according to my mother's notes, absolutely KEY to this recipe)

1. Choose an enameled cast-iron pan, or other flameproof cook-and-serve ware, that can later accommodate all of the cooked fettucine comfortably. Put in 2/3 of the cup of cream and all of the butter and simmer over medium heat for less than a minute, until the butter and cream have thickened. Turn off the heat.

2. Bring 4 quarts of water to a boil. Add 2 tablespoons of salt, then drop in the fettucine and cover the pot until the water returns to a boil. If the fettucine are fresh, they will be done a few seconds after the water returns to a boil. If dry, they will take a little longer. (Cook the fettucine a little bit firmer than usual because they will be cooked some more in the pan.) Drain immediately and thoroughly when done, and transfer to the pan contained the butter and cream.

3. Turn on the heat under the pan to low, and toss the fettucine coating them with sauce. Add the rest of the cream, all the grated cheese, 1/2 teaspoon salt, the pepper and nutmeg. Toss briefly until the cream has thickened and the fettucine are well-coated. Taste and correct for salt. Serve immediately from the pan with a bowl of additional grated cheese on the side.

Amazingly, the first time I tried this recipe, it came out just as I remembered it. :)

Grilled-cheese dressed up

Spur-of-the-moment blog startup...welcome!

Just got the call, B. is on his way home for lunch, with a quick turnaround to class. Luckily, I'm prepared. Grilled-cheese, but spiffed up thanks to some random cooking show on TV.

Instead of regular sliced bread, use sourdough rolls, or sections of a baguette - slice them open, but leave a 'hinge' of crust, and toast inside-out, with the cheese on the crust side, the bread toasting on the pan. Butter or a similar substitute gets that perfect golden brown...

Maybe include sliced tomato or some fresh leaves of basil, and it's a perfect quick fix!

P.S. Just remembered...I cook mine on a flat skillet thing usually, and to help keep the thick bread closed (that 'hinge' makes it tough sometimes) I put a plate face down on the closed sandwich to add some pressure...it helps the cheese melt faster than the bread toasts too.