Thoughts on homemade pizza

By Paul Briand
This isn’t the first time I’ve featured homemade pizza here.
My niece’s husband (does that make him my nephew-in-law?) wrote about his Late Night Pizza in December 2011. And my daughter, Elizabeth, in August 2011 described her Grilled Pizza as “our new favorite Sunday dinner.”
I made pizza the other night, with a wheat-based crust, using store-bought dough.
A lot of folks struggle to get the dough in the shape they want. Here are a couple of tips I found helpful to getting my dough to shape perfectly into a large cookie sheet I used:

• First, get the dough to room temperature;

• Press it into a disk shape and use a little flour on your hands and on the dough;

• Let gravity help you do the work of stretching the dough - hold the dough at the edges and just turn, turn, turn to let gravity stretch the dough toward the floor;

• I placed the dough over the cookie sheet, draping about a half inch over the four edges;

• And it rested for a few minutes;

• Then I rolled the edges of dough over to build an edge for the crust.

This worked real well for me. I had a great looking crust with nice edging, and to the edging I brushed on some olive oil and sprinkled on some Parmesan cheese.
To the body of the pizza, besides store-bought pizza sauce and a package of mixed Italian cheeses, I added cut up pieces of chicken sausage that I had cooked on the grill, sweet onion and sweet pepper that I had grilled, and mushrooms.
It was a big hit, so big that my wife Jane said we can’t do take-out pizza anymore.

Grilled Steak with Thyme Butter, Mushrooms and Onions

By Paul Briand

It’s grilling time, boys and girls. This is all done on the grill. It’s simple, easy clean-up, and - most of all - very tasty.

Ingredients
1 ½ pounds of Porterhouse or T-Bone steaks, enough steak for four
1 sheet of heavy duty aluminum foil
1 medium sweet onion, cut in half, thinly sliced
1 8-ounce package of mushrooms
1 yellow bell pepper, sliced
2 tablespoons butter, cubed
1 tablespoon chopped fresh thyme
2 garlic cloves, thinly sliced

Directions
1. Heat the grill to medium high;
2. Place onion, mushrooms, pepper, butter, and thyme in center of aluminium foil;
3. Fold the foil over the mixture, creating a packet;
4. Grill, turning occasionally, for 20 minutes;
5. Season the steaks with pepper and salt to taste and grill, turning once, to desired doneness;
6. Serve each cut of steak topped with buttered thyme and onion mixture.

Click here for recipe card.

Creamy Mushroom Skillet Chicken

By Paul Briand

I appreciate the fact that you can make a mushroom-based sauce for a chicken dish using a good old Campbell’s soup recipe, especially now that the company is introducing low-salt soups into its line.

I had good success with Southwest White Chicken Chili using a Campbell recipe.

But sometimes it’s just good to create your own creamy mushroom sauce for pan-fried chicken, and I found this recipe recently while combing through my news feeds from the Associated Press.

Ingredients

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 large onion, diced

8-ounces sliced white button mushrooms

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 1/4 pounds chicken (breasts, legs, thighs or mix)

2 cups chicken broth

4 sprigs fresh thyme

2 teaspoons cornstarch

1/4 cup cool water

2/3 cup low- or no-fat sour cream

Directions

1. In large skillet over medium-high, heat the olive oil, and add the onion, mushrooms and garlic, saute for 4 minutes;

2. Add chicken, turning to brown evenly, four 4 minutes. Be mindful to stir the vegetables as well;

3. Add chicken broth and thyme, bring to boil then reduce heat to simmer. Partially cover and cook for 12 - 15 minutes or until the chicken pieces are cooked through;

4. Remove chicken and set aside. Cover with foil to keep warm;

5. Return skillet heat to medium. Mix cornstarch and water in small glass, and add to the skillet, stirring constantly until mixture thickens;

6. Remove skillet from heat and add sour cream. Season with pepper;

7. Serve chicken over rice or pasta. Spoon creamy mushroom sauce over it.

Click here for recipe card.

Shrimp, Mushroom and Onion Quesadillas

By Paul Briand

Continuing from last week's exploration of recipes in a new diet that I'm testing out, this quesadilla recipe caught my interest.

I liked what the new book "Flat Belly Diet! For Men" did with the shrimp in this recipe, draping it with onion, mushroom and cheese -- how can you have a quesadilla recipe without cheese?

Yet it still falls within the Flat Belly parameters of not going overboard with calories (this has 401 calories per serving). And it has a so-called MUFA -- monounsaturated fatty acids -- which the Flat Belly diet champions as being an aid to overall good health and a flat belly. The MUFA in this case is the olive oil.

Ingredients
1/4 cup olive oil
12 ounces peeled and deveined medium shrimp (I bought mine precooked and frozen)
3/4 teaspoon chili powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 onion, thinly sliced
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1 8-ounce package of mushrooms
2 cloves garlic, minced
4 7-inch flour tortillas
2 ounces shredded reduced fat Cheddar cheese

Directions
1. Heat 1 tablespoon of oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium high heat;
2. Sprinkle the shrimp with chili powder and 1/8 teaspoon salt and add to the skillet, cooking 2-3 minutes until opaque. Transfer to a plate and reserve;
3. Add remaining oil and cook the onions and oregano until the onions soften;
4. Add the mushrooms and remaining 1/8 teaspoon salt and cook until the mushrooms start to brown;
5. Stir in the garlic and cook about 2 minutes;
6. Transfer entire mixture to a bowl and reserve;
7. Arrange tortillas on a work surface and build the quesadilla on one half of the tortilla -- add some cheese, then onion/mushroom mixture, then shrimp, then some more cheese;
8. Fold the tortilla over to form a semi-circle;
9. Repeat with three remaining tortillas;
10. Heat tortillas two at a time in the skillet until lightly browned and the cheese is melted;
11. Transfer to a cutting board and cut each tortilla in two.

You end up with eight pieces. The hard part, since it's so good, is not overdo it by two or three of these bad boys at one sitting.