Crock Pot 5-Spice Chicken {at Stacy Makes Cents}

February 10, 2012 By

 

 

 

5 spice chicken Stacy Makes Cents is a blog I discovered last year, and love. Stacy is frugal (like me) and likes to eat healthy food (like me). I like Stacy! Her blog posts always make me smile, and sometimes laugh right out loud.

Today’s your chance to check out her blog, because yours truly is guest posting there with a delicious (if I do say so myself) recipe for 5-Spice Crock Pot Chicken. (Which, by the way, Stacy features crock pot recipes every Friday, another reason I love her!)

A few months back, I was at Ollie’s (a discount store kind of like Marshall’s or Ross but without the clothes and even messier) and stumbled across a little bottle of Spice Islands’ Chinese 5-Spice Powder. I don’t remember how much it was – maybe $1.99? – but I remember it was cheap. And I like cheap spices. So I bought it.

Problem was, I had absolutely no idea what to do with it! I had never before in my life made or even eaten anything (that I recall, anyway; I suppose there’s always the chance I ate it unaware) made with Chinese 5-spice powder. It was one of those random spice mixes that seemed non-essential to my life.

Until I saw it for $1.99.

Find out what I did with that 5-spice powder by reading my guest post at Stacy Makes Cents. Say Hi to Stacy for me!

Cast Party Wednesday realfoodallergyfree

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Sizzlin’ Soups: Slow Cooker Chicken and Whole Wheat Garlic Dumplings

February 10, 2012 By

Welcome back to Sizzlin’ Soups! Day2Day Joys, Christian Mommy Blogger, The Humbled Homemaker, Intentional by Grace, The Purposed Heart and myself have had a lot of fun bringing you our favorite heart-warming soup recipes.

In case you missed them, we’ve already featured:

I’ve already tried the Creamy Chicken and Rice Soup (I made the wheat-free, dairy-free version), and my whole family loved it! These are recipes you will want to include in your regular meal-planning rotation, I promise you.
And we’re going to make it easy for you to do just that… we will have a free gift for you after our last installment that you will definitely want to take advantage of! Be sure to subscribe to one of the above blogs so that you don’t miss out on the announcement!
Now on to this week’s soup. It’s my turn, and I’ve had fun experimenting with Chicken & Dumplings in the crock pot. Can you believe, by the way, that I had never even eaten chicken and dumplings before? Not that I can recall, anyway. But it always sounded like such a delicious comfort food, and one I knew I would love.
And I was right! Delicious comfort food that I will definitely be making again and again. I started with this chicken and dumpling recipe at Goodbite.com, and modified it to make it easier and healthier. I don’t believe in sauteing things before I put them in the slow cooker, because that just adds extra work. I don’t do extra work. Keep it to the minimum! So this is simplified for anybody like me who doesn’t have time for extra steps. (I did make use of a stash of frozen cooked chicken - if you don’t have such a stash, you’ll probably want to saute your fresh chicken at least briefly before putting it in the pot.)
Speaking of saving steps, there is one thing about making soup that seems to take for.ev.er. and that is chopping up the ubiquitous celery and carrots that always end up in soup. I’ve recently discovered a trick that significantly reduces my chopping time and makes soup an even easier weeknight menu option. Here it is:
I am probably the last person in Christendom to have discovered this trick… but just in case, I’m sharing it with you. (So tell me, do you chop your veggies this way?)
Note: I used granulated garlic in the dumpling dough because I’m not a huge fan of fresh minced garlic in my baked goods. But if you prefer fresh garlic, you can just use the same amount (1-2 cloves) of fresh garlic in place of the granulated garlic.

Chicken & Whole Wheat Garlic Dumplings

Ingredients

  • 2 cups cooked shredded or cubed chicken
  • 3-4 carrots, chopped
  • 3 stalks celery, chopped
  • 1/2 cup onion, chopped
  • 3 cloves garlic, minced
  • 6-8 cups broth
  • 1 tsp each rosemary, oregano, and parsley
  • salt and pepper to taste
  • 1/2 cup cream
  • Dumplings:
  • 1 cup white whole wheat flour
  • 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 1 tsp granulated garlic
  • 1 egg
  • 1/2 cup plain yogurt

Instructions

  1. Place chicken, vegetables, and broth in slow cooker and cook on high for 4 hours or until vegetables are tender. Add herbs; add salt and pepper to taste. About half an hour before serving, stir in cream, then make dumplings. In a separate bowl, whisk together dry ingredients. Beat egg lightly and stir into yogurt. Add this mixture to the dry ingredients and stir until you have a moist biscuit-like dough. Drop by large spoonfuls into the soup. Cover and allow to cook on high for 15 minutes or so, turning halfway through if desired.

This is not as QUICK as many slow cooker recipes, because there’s the added step (sorry, couldn’t eliminate that one) of making the dumpling dough. However, you can set the soup going in the morning, then make the dumplings about half an hour or so before dinner-time - that will still save you some dinner prep.
It is very EASY. The only thing to be aware of is not to add too much liquid to the dumpling dough, or you will have a mass of dough that never quite cooks through covering up a delicious pot of chicken soup. Not that I would know from experience or anything.
This is a good CHEAP dish. Soups are so good for using up odds and ends of meat and vegetables, and this is no exception. (If you have corn, peas, or green beans instead of the veggies I used, go ahead and throw ‘em in the pot!) The dumplings take the place of the pasta typically found in a chicken noodle soup with very little extra cost.
I love my HEALTHY changes to this recipe, namely the use of whole wheat flour. You can use buttermilk in place of the yogurt (which is what the original recipe called for, and is just as healthy), but I usually have yogurt on hand, and I found it made the perfect substitute. These dumplings are SO much better for you than the typical canned biscuit recipe most people use. And I think they taste a lot better, too!

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Sizzlin’ Soups: Creamy Chicken and Rice Soup

February 3, 2012 By

Welcome back to Sizzlin’ Soups-a 6-week series sharing cozy, wholesome soup recipes! I have to admit, the weather in my neck of the woods has been more spring-like than wintery, inspiring thoughts of gardening and fresh salads more than soup. But according to Punxsatawney Phil, we have 6 more weeks of winter, so let’s not put away the soup pots yet!

So far, we’ve warmed up with

At the end of the 6-week series, we will have a surprise for you. *hint: it’s FREE* To be sure you don’t miss out, consider subscribing to any one of these participating blogs:

This week Erin at The Humbled Homemaker is bringing us her favorite soup recipe!
This soup can be classified as the comfort of all comfort foods: Creamy, frugal and filling, it’s the perfect addition to any cold winter night. Check out the recipe for this Creamy Chicken and Rice Soup over at The Humbled Homemaker!

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Sizzlin’ Soup: Sausage and Kale Italian Zuppa

January 20, 2012 By

I am so glad we’re doing this soup series now! For one thing, I am freezing my tail off even inside my apartment (I am no engineer, but I’m seriously beginning to wonder if that earthquake did some damage to the building structure! When it’s cold outside…. it’s cold inside!). Soup is just the thing to warm me up. For another, I have been in such a soup rut - potato soup and chicken noodle soup have been taking turns on my menu rotation for a while. Time for some inspiration!

Rachel from Day2Day Joys will be sizzlin’ up some Zuppa this week. What is Zuppa? Click here to find out and to get the recipe for this Italian favorite. It’ll be sure to spice up the sizzle in your soup recipe stash!

Don’t forget, at the end of this series, my bloggy friends and I will be offering you a free gift with your email subscription to any of our blogs! You’re gonna love it! To be sure you don’t miss out, consider subscribing to Quick and Easy Cheap and Healthy, or any one of these other participating blogs:
Rachel @ Day 2 Day Joys
Nikki @ Christian Mommy Blogger
Erin @ The Humbled Homemaker
Leigh Ann @ Intentional by Grace
Mindy @ The Purposed Heart

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For My Vegan Friends: Black Bean Stuffed Sweet Potatoes

January 18, 2012 By

Black Bean Stuffed Sweet Potato

First, let’s get something straight. I am not a vegan. I have tasted life without cheese and I didn’t like it. I won’t go back voluntarily. However, on Facebook recently, I asked my readers to give me some ideas for recipes to post in January; and to my surprise, several people requested vegan recipes.

Huh.

I am not entirely a stranger to vegan cookery - having a child who is allergic to beef, dairy, and eggs kind of thrust me in that general direction on occasion when searching for recipe inspiration. In fact, my favorite ever chocolate chip cookie recipe is Happy Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies. I suppose if I were a vegan, I could forget about the cheese if I could eat those cookies all day long. Maybe.

In any case, as it happens, I do have a vegan recipe to share with you, my vegan friends! I bet you’re not surprised that it involves beans. And sweet potatoes! The two together work some pretty awesome magic, let me tell you. I started with this recipe for black bean stuffed sweet potatoes, and then livened it up just a bit.

If you’re not vegan (or dairy-free, if that’s the case), you can un-veganize it by dressing it up with a little cheese (you know what my choice is!) and sour cream if you’d like. But honestly, they’re delicious as they are. Even without the cheese. (Really.)

Black Bean Stuffed Sweet Potatoes

Black Bean Stuffed Sweet Potatoes

Ingredients

  • 4 small-medium sweet potatoes
  • 1-2 TBSP olive oil
  • 2 cloves garlic, minced
  • 1/4 cup chopped onion
  • 1/4 cup chopped green pepper
  • 1/4 cup chopped hot pepper of some kind (I used Carman peppers)
  • 2 cups cooked black beans
  • 1 cup salsa (I used some leftover homemade salsa)
  • 1 tsp cumin
  • 1/2 tsp dried cilantro
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 1/4 tsp black pepper

Instructions

  1. Pierce the sweet potatoes with a fork several times, then place directly on the oven rack (make sure you have a sheet of foil on the floor of the oven to catch any drips). Bake at 400F for 45-60 minutes, or until tender when pierced with a fork.
  2. While the potatoes are cooking, prepare the bean filling.
  3. Heat the oil in a large frying pan over medium heat. Saute the garlic, onions, and peppers until fragrant. Stir in the cooked beans, salsa, and seasonings. Cook until heated through.
  4. When potatoes are finished cooking, cut them in half lengthwise, and top with the bean filling. If desired, sprinkle with shredded cheese and/or a dollop of sour cream.


The bean filling here, folks, is kickin’ awesome, I can assure you! I could eat that on its own endlessly. Thank goodness my boys were there to stop me, or they might not have had any lunch.

Black Bean Stuffed Sweet Potatoes

This is QUICK if you have cooked beans on hand. (I like to freeze extras, or I make them on a day when I have extra time in preparation for a meal like this.) If you don’t have cooked beans on hand, you’re going to have to plan ahead: soak them overnight the day before you plan to make this dish, then cook them in the slow cooker all day until you’re ready to get started with this recipe. Once you’ve got cooked beans to start with, you can make the black bean filling while the sweet potatoes are baking in the oven. Dinner will be ready in an hour or less!

It’s very EASY, for sure. In fact, it’s a one-pan meal, so that means very little clean up!

Both beans and sweet potatoes are super CHEAP, so this one’s a frugal winner in my book.

You’ve never seen so much HEALTHY packed into one little dish! You’ve got the Super Food Sweet Potato, combined with Vegan Protein Extraordinaire (otherwise known as beans), all wrapped up with antioxidants and vitamins from the cute little veggies and spices.

Sharing at Tastetastic Thursday. Frugal Food Thursday,
Miz Helen’s Country Cottage

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Sizzlin’ Soups: Creamy Chicken and Vegetable Chowder

January 13, 2012 By

It’s that time of year when the big stock pots come out, the broth starts simmering, and the mouths start watering. It’s soup season!

When the temperature starts dropping, I start putting “soup” on the menu once a week. It’s comforting and warming, and can be incredibly nutritious.

I’m so excited that for the next 6 weeks, a few lovely ladies and myself will be bringing you a whole bowl full of sizzlin’ soup recipes! Each soup will use good, wholesome ingredients! At the end of the 6-week series, we will have a surprise for you. *hint: it’s FREE*

To be sure you don’t miss out, consider subscribing to Quick and Easy Cheap and Healthy, or any one of these other participating blogs:

Now without further ado, Leigh Ann at Intentional by Grace brings us this week’s soup: Creamy Chicken and Vegetable Chowder. The added bonus? It only takes twenty minutes to prepare!

 

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Try a Brined Turkey This Year

November 20, 2011 By

Last year at Thanksgiving, my sister brined our turkey for the first time, and I decided at that point that I would definitely have to do the same thing as soon as I had the chance. The turkey was seriously the most moist and flavorful turkey I’d ever had. And I’ve had a lot of turkey.

I had to wait a whole year (what’s up with that, anyway?), but I finally got my chance last week. I read quite a few articles on food magazine or newspaper websites, plus a few blog posts by illustrious bloggers around the internet (including this super simple turkey brining tutorial with some great tips), and in the end, I just dumped a bunch of stuff into my brine without following anybody’s recipe.

Which, apparently, is part of the beauty of a brined turkey. Essentially you need approximately a gallon of water (for a 10-12lb turkey) with a cup each of sugar and salt. In fact, it doesn’t even need to be water! I saw plenty of recipes that used broth, juice, or cider for the brine, which I imagine would be amazing. On top of that, you can add whatever you jolly well please into the brine (OK, with a certain amount of discretion, I suppose!) for all kinds of different layers of flavor. Really, though, the important thing is the water, salt and sugar. Those ingredients are what gets the job done.

I decided to go with a citrus-y element to my brine, basically because I was going through my freezer and found a bag full of chopped up clementines that I had decided to freeze before they went bad. To that, I added some very traditional herbs and spices like bay leaves and peppercorns. It was delicious! To be honest, the citrus flavor didn’t come through very strongly, but it was still very moist and flavorful as I expected it to be.

Like I said, you can add whatever floats your boat to your brine, but here’s what I put in mine, plus specific directions for brining.


Citrus Brined Turkey

Ingredients

  • 1 10-12lb turkey
  • 10 cups water, divided
  • 4 cups turkey, chicken, or vegetable broth
  • 2 cups orange juice
  • 1 cup sea salt
  • 1 cup raw sugar
  • 5-6 clementines (or 3 oranges), chopped in quarters
  • several stalks celery, chopped
  • 5-6 bay leaves
  • 3 TBSP peppercorns
  • For roasting:
  • olive oil
  • black pepper
  • sage
  • several cloves of garlic
  • 1/2 onion, chopped
  • 1-2 stalks celery, chopped
  • additional bay leaves and peppercorns

Instructions

  1. You will need a large sturdy food-safe plastic bag (like Ziplocs XL) or a very large stainless steel pot (like a big canning pot).
  2. Heat 4 cups of water on the stove together with the sugar and salt. Stir until dissolved. Remove from heat and refrigerate until cool.
  3. Meanwhile, pour remaining water and other liquids into your bag (place a bag into a large pot or the produce drawer from your refrigerator), and add the rest of the brine ingredients. Pour in the cooled salt water mixture.
  4. Rinse your turkey, and remove all the innards. Place the turkey in the brine, making sure it’s covered. (If it’s not completely covered, you’ll want to turn it over about halfway through.)
  5. Seal the bag and place the whole thing in your refrigerator for at least 12 hours.
  6. When you are ready to roast the turkey, remove it from the brine and rinse it thoroughly. Pat dry and place in roasting pan breast side down. Rub olive oil generously all over and sprinkle liberally with black pepper and sage (no salt!). Place garlic, onions, celery, bay leaves and peppercorns inside the cavity.
  7. Roast at 325F for approximately 3 hours. Brining can make a turkey roast faster, so check it after about 2.5 hours, and regularly after that until it reaches an internal temperature of 165F.


Brining a turkey isn’t exactly QUICK, but it doesn’t add that much time to the whole process. You have to defrost the turkey thoroughly in the fridge for a few days beforehand anyway, so chances are, leaving it in the fridge overnight before you roast it is not going to cramp your style much. The actual process of putting the brine together does add a little extra time into your routine, but not much.

It is SO EASY, though, and unlike other unusual methods of cooking a turkey, like frying or smoking, it doesn’t require any special equipment. Plus, it’s hard to mess up!

It’s not any HEALTHY-er than any other method of cooking and preparing a turkey, and may perhaps be slightly less, with the inclusion of all that salt and the sugar. That’s not going to stop me, though.

What’s your favorite way to prepare a turkey?

Some friends and I have collaborated to bring you an awesome little eBook just in time to help you with your Christmas baking! It’s chock full of easy, delicious cookie and candy recipes to help you celebrate the holidays in tasty style. Each recipe is built around wholesome ingredients, so you won’t even feel guilty indulging in one… or two… or even three! What’s more? We’re offering this book absolutely free - no strings attached - to each of our email subscribers! All you have to do is subscribe via email to any one of our blogs and you will receive a link for a free download of this sweet little book.

Collaborating with me are: The Purposed Heart, Intentional by Grace, and The Humbled Homemaker. Subscribe to all of these blogs just because you’ll be glad you did. Yes, they’re that good.

Shared at Real Food 101.

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Fight the Flu with Garlic & Potato Soup

November 16, 2011 By

garlic rosemary potato soup

Who needs a flu shot? This year, we’re fighting back with food instead! Each Wednesday we reveal a different food that is purported to support your immune system in the fight against cold and flu viruses. What’s more, each post will be opened up to all our readers, who will be linking up their favorite recipes with these key flu-fighting ingredients, so you can get lots of ideas for creative ways to serve them to your family! To be sure you don’t miss a single post in the series, consider subscribing to one of these participating blogs:
Christian Mommy Blogger
Day 2 Day Joys
Intentional by Grace
The Purposed Heart
The Humbled Homemaker

So far, we’ve added green tea, breakfast, and pumpkin into our diets to help ward off the cold and flu. This week, we’re featuring a tried and true home remedy that has stood the test of time. Way back when, it was even thought powerful enough to ward off vampires.

No vampires around here, but cold and flu viruses are a plenty! That’s why you’ll need a hearty stash of garlic to include in at least one meal every day. Why garlic? For centuries, traditional people groups, including the Cherokees (according to Wikipedia), have used garlic as both a preventive and cure for the common cold. This traditional belief was given modern credence by a scientific study a decade ago that indicated that regular consumption of allicin (the main medicinal component of garlic in pill form) reduced the incidence of the common cold by half!

And although it’s also famous for its tendency to induce foul breath after consumption (how’s that for a nice way to say “it makes your breath stink”?!), garlic is well worth the consequences! It adds delicious depth of flavor to any savory dish, which makes it a rather enjoyable way to fend off the flu.

Unfortunately, around here, we have to limit our garlic consumption because my DH can’t tolerate very much of it, so I usually only use a clove or two at a time in any dish. For this special post, though, I went all out and used not one, not two, not even three cloves. Nope, I used 5! Half a head! I was living dangerously. Well, OK, not that dangerously. The recipe I was working from actually called for 5 heads of garlic, not 5 cloves. Um, yeah. Not gonna happen.

I am happy to report that this soup was just as delicious with 5 cloves of garlic as I’m sure it would be with 5 heads. Actually, I’m afraid that 5 heads of garlic in one dish would foul my breath for days, so I’m happy I stuck with the 5 cloves. You can determine your own comfort level. (Just warn me if you’re going for more than half a head!)


Slow-Cooker Garlic Potato Soup with Rosemary

inspired by Paulchen’s Food Blog

Ingredients

  • 1/2-5 heads garlic
  • 1/2 onion, chopped
  • 2 carrots, peeled and chopped
  • 6 potatoes, peeled and diced
  • 2 sausage links, chopped (I used al fresco chicken sausage)
  • 4 cups chicken broth
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 2 small stalks rosemary
  • 2 bay leaves

Instructions

  1. Leave the garlic in its skin and place in a 400F oven for about half an hour. Remove from oven and cool until easy to handle. Squeeze the garlic from the skins into the slow cooker.
  2. While garlic is roasting, prep vegetables and place in slow cooker, together with broth and seasonings. Cook on high for 4 hours, or low for 6-8 hours.


Cooking soup in the slow cooker isn’t necessarily QUICKer than putting it together on the stovetop, considering it’s a time difference of hours.

But it is EASY-er! I love making soup in the slow cooker because you can just drop everything in it and leave while you go about your business.

Soup is such a CHEAP dinner, I just can’t say it often enough! I put it weekly on my menu for this reason.

Aaaaannnddd, of course it’s HEALTHY, too, especially if you’re trying to fight the flu. But we’ve already covered that, so I won’t bore you with more of that.

See what my friends have cooked up for you this week:

Garlic-Lemon Salad {& Baked White Fish Recipe} at Christian Mommy Blogger

Better than Red Lobster Garlic Cheese Biscuits at The Humbled Homemaker

Creamy Roasted Garlic Soup at The Purposed Heart

Garlic Salsa at Day 2 Day Joys

7 ways to Eat Raw Garlic at Intentional by Grace

Now it’s your turn to share your favorite recipes featuring garlic, but first, let me share one of my favorite entry from last week’s Green Tea blog hop: how cool is this? A chai tea concentrate made with green tea:

Chai Tea Concentrate

Feel free to link up any of your favorite recipes with garlic! It doesn’t have to be the main ingredient, just one of them, so it should be easy to find one or two. We’d love some more garlicky inspiration!

Please keep your entries limited to recipes including garlic, and please link back to one of the hosting blogs. Thanks!

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Fight the Flu with Pumpkin Soup

October 26, 2011 By

Forget the flu shot! This year, fight back with food instead! I’m excited to be joining the following 5 amazing bloggers in hosting a 5-week series that will arm you with recipes to stay healthy this season!

Nikki @ Christian Mommy Blogger
Rachel @ Day 2 Day Joys
Leigh Ann @ Intentional by Grace
Erin @ The Humbled Homemaker

Mindy@ The Purposed Heart

Come back each Wednesday as we reveal five different foods that are purported to support your immune system in the fight against the cold and flu viruses that run rampant this time of year. What’s more, each post will be opened up to all our readers, who will be linking up their favorite recipes with these key flu-fighting ingredients, so you can get lots of ideas for creative ways to serve them to your family!

First up is pumpkin! Yeah, yeah, I hear you say. And I know, I know, I’ve really been quite obsessed with pumpkin this fall. But this is the last one, I swear. At least… I think so, anyway. I reserve the right to blog about anymore amazing pumpkin recipes I may come across in the future.

pumpkin soup

But there really is a good reason to include pumpkin in the list of foods that will help you ward off the flu this season, and that reason can be summed up in one word: beta-carotene. You know that gorgeous, rich orange color? It comes from the antioxidant called beta-carotene, which the body turns into vitamin A. How does this help you fight the flu?

According to the Mayo Clinic, one benefit of vitamin A - among many - is that it improves immune function. My personal opinion is that good ol’ vitamin A as it’s found in nature is a lot more effective at helping out your immune system than a shot that’s loaded with chemicals and fakes out your immune system.

Whether or not you get the flu shot, though, you’ll love this recipe for pumpkins and the extra vitamin A will do you good, too! I was inspired by this recipe for Armenian Pumpkin Soup, but I’m afraid I totally un-Armenia-fied it by switching out the spices and sauteing the onions with garlic instead of boiling them as suggested.

Pumpkin soup makes a nice stand-in for tomato soup, I think, perfect with a grilled cheese on a rainy day!

pumpkin soup

Pumpkin Soup

inspired by The Armenian Kitchen

Ingredients

  • 2 cloves garlic, minced
  • 1/4 cup finely chopped onion
  • 1 cup pumpkin puree
  • 1 1/2 cup broth
  • 1 tsp Chinese 5-spice powder
  • 1/2 cup half-and-half, cream, or non-dairy substitute
  • salt & pepper to taste

Instructions

  1. Heat some olive oil in a saucepan over medium-high heat. Add garlic and onion and saute until fragrant. Stir in pumpkin, broth and spices. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for about 5 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in milk or milk substitute. Return to heat until hot throughout, but not boiling. Add salt and pepper to taste.

This soup recipe is QUICK enough for even the busiest weeknight meal.

Very EASY, too, if you have the pumpkin puree on hand.

Quite CHEAP, as well, with the minimal amount of ingredients.

And certainly HEALTHY, as we’ve already made clear!

Need more pumpkin inspiration? Be sure to check out the great pumpkin recipes and tips shared by the other amazing bloggers hosting this series with me. They have some great stuff that you don’t want to miss!

Pumpkin Cran Smoothie @ Christian Mommy Blogger
Pumpkin Pear Muffins @ Day 2 Day Joys
How to Roast a Pumpkin @ Intentional by Grace
Creamy Pumpkin Soup @ The Purposed Heart
Probiotic Pumpkin Dip @ The Humbled Homemaker

Come back next week to find out which meal you need to eat or increase your risk of contracting the flu!

We want to hear your ideas for how to add pumpkin creatively into your diet! So go ahead: link up your delicious pumpkin recipes below.

There are only two guidelines for participation:

1. Your recipe must include PUMPKIN as an ingredient. Any entry submitted that does not include pumpkin will be deleted.

2. Please link your posts back to one of the hosting blogs. This way your readers can have access to all of the other great pumpkin recipes as well!

 

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Pumpkin + Pizza = A Match Made in Heaven

October 19, 2011 By

pumpkins spice nice

I’ve already complained at length about my diet-enforced pizza woes, so I won’t bore you with that whole diatribe again. Suffice it to say that necessity encourages creativity around here if we are ever to enjoy our favorite food group (which would be pizza, in case you didn’t follow that).

And honestly, as much as I love pizza, and as much as I have been goofing off with pumpkin since at least the middle of September, it never once occurred to me to put the two together … until I saw Anne-Marie’s Pumpkin Chorizo Pizza a few weeks ago.

Dude. Pumpkins and pizza.

Together!

This was some serious serendipity here, people.

So I definitely had to try it. Unfortunately, I wanted to par-bake the pizza crust the day before to save a little time, but… ummm… I got a little distracted. It reminded me of the days when I was growing up, and my mom was teaching me how to cook. I remember a few - only a few, of course - occasions when my mom was rather exasperated (to put it mildly) because I had been reading or playing with a friend or reading or maybe even just daydreaming while the food I was supposed to be cooking was pretty much just burning.

I am all grown up now, and that occasionally rarely happens anymore. Hardly ever, anyway. And this time, I was doing something I should have been doing when I was a teenager, which was practicing the piano. (I think my childhood sins are coming back to haunt me.) Moral of the story? Don’t practice piano when you’re par-baking a pizza crust at a high temperature.

Unfortunately, my over-baked crust detracted from the awesomeness of the pumpkin sauce and the sausage. Oh well. You won’t make the same mistake, because you never get distracted like I do, and therefore, your pumpkin pizza will be simply amazing!

The next time, mine will be, too.


Pumpkin Pizza Heaven

Summary: adapted from This Mama Cooks

Ingredients

  • 1 pizza crust (I use my artisan bread dough)
  • 3 cloves garlic, minced
  • 1/4 cup chopped onion
  • 1/4 tsp paprika
  • 1 tsp cumin
  • 1/8 tsp salt
  • 1 cup pumpkin puree
  • 1/2 cup chicken broth
  • 1/3-1/2 lb cooked chicken sausage (I used al fredo’s garlic chicken sausage), sliced or crumbled
  • 1-2 cups shredded mozzarella or other nicely melting mild cheese
  • a handful of dried or fresh sage, crumbled, optional

Instructions

  1. Spread tablespoon of olive oil in a frying pan over medium-high heat. When it’s heated, stir in the garlic and onion, sauteing until fragrant and tender. Stir in spices, pumpkin puree and broth. Bring to a boil; reduce heat and simmer until slightly thickened (this won’t take long.)
  2. Spread pumpkin sauce on crust. Top with sausage and cheese. Sprinkle with sage if desired.
  3. If the crust is not baked, bake at 425F for about 12 minutes. If the crust is par-baked (or overdone. ahem), bake just until cheese is melted and lightly browned and pizza is heated through, about 5 minutes.


And look! My Certain Little Someone even had his very first taste of pizza, too! I made some flatbread using my go-to allergen-free artisan bread dough recipe , and used it as his crust. Of course, like me, his pizza was cheeseless, but still! This was a breakthrough, folks!


Homemade pizzas are so QUICK there is rarely a need to order in! Even making this sauce (instead of dumping canned pizza or pasta sauce) takes very little time.

EASY, too! Making your own crust may seem a daunting task, but honestly, it’s one of the easiest and most forgiving bread products you can attempt.

Pizza is a great CHEAP weeknight meal, too, because it’s a great way to stretch your meat and use up lots of vegetables.

This particular pizza is pretty HEALTHY, because I used homemade sauce (made with pumpkin, no less!), all-natural chicken sausage, and a whole-wheat crust.

Special thanks to my DH, who snapped the photos for me while I was giving a piano lesson. That darn piano kept getting in the way of my precious pizza!

Linked to Tastetastic Thursday, Feasting in Fellowship Friday, and…

Miz Helen’s Country Cottage

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