Garbage Pail Pasta

I wanted spaghetti with meat sauce so we made this crazy pile of pasta where half the noodles are farfalle and the other half are elbow.

The sauce started as about six to eight ounces ground beef, three chopped garden tomatoes, canned plain tomato sauce, garlic powder, freshly ground black pepper, basil and Italian seasoning.

But then I threw in leftover julienne carrots, artichoke hearts, and a handful of kalamata olives.

Topped the whole mess with crushed red pepper.

Scrumptious.

Crazy pizza

I didn't intend on blogging this one as I thought it'd be a boring, normal pizza albeit with artichoke hearts.

But I didn't have pizza sauce, or I couldn't find it anywhere. And I mixed up a crust with coconut flour, flax meal, and rye flour so maybe it is worth an attempt.

Because it turned out scrumptious.

My husband was doing some grout and caulk work in our bathroom. Child handled grating the cheese.

Preheat to 400 degrees 

Crust (all measures a guesstimate)

In one bowl, no metal utensils:

- 1 cup hot tap water

- 1 teaspoon honey

- 1 teaspoon extra virgin olive oil 

- 1 teaspoon yeast 

Set aside while prepping the dry ingredients. 

Dry ingredients:

- 1/4 cup flax meal

- 1/4 cup sesame seeds

- 1/4 cup coconut flour

- 1/2 cup dark rye flour

- about 2 cups white flour

(And more white flour to avoid stickiness if needed)

Combine, knead, and set aside to rise about 15 minutes.

Coat pan with extra virgin olive oil & corn meal. Spread the crust thin. 

Sauce: I used 1/2 plain tomato sauce & 1/2 buffalo sauce

Toppings: black olives & artichoke hearts

Cheese: some Swiss, some cheddar, about 6 ounces mozzarella and Parmesan.

Frozen White Pizza

After my canning fiasco yesterday, imagine my pot bubbling water everywhere, I had no energy to cook. So we got two frozen white pizzas from Giant. One was the Giant brand with spinach and garlic for about $4. The other was $5, it was a California Kitchen pizza with spinach and artichoke. Both were good.

The California Kitchen one had a complex creaminess to it and the artichokes reminded me of sausage.

Artichoke and black olive pizza

With five inches of snow and rain getting it all wet, I surprised my family with a hot breakfast of scrambled eggs and English muffins when my husband came in from shoveling. My daughter had just gone out to play. My husband could not avoid going to work, as apparently he is essential these days since the students are still buying textbooks...

My daughter and I made black olive and artichoke heart pizza. The artichoke hearts were an impulse buy at Wegmans. I have already detailed my pizza making process (click on pizza below). I thought I'd treat my readers to some "how-to" style photos. My four-and-a-half year old is doing the work.  

This meal was originally intended as lunch tomorrow, but with the snow it gave us something to do. I also needed to use up some tomato sauce that had hung around my fridge too long.