Country Breakfast Pizza

     

     After going back and reading all of my old posts, I've decided to format them a little differently. Unlike before I’ll list out both the ingredients and the steps instead of just including all of them in paragraph form. I’ll still provide a link to a recipe if applicable.

     The first post back from the two and a half year hiatus is for Country Breakfast Pizzas. Christine and I are always looking for new recipes to try and if they’re quick to make, all the better. She stumbled upon Pillsbury’s website and found a slew of recipes that we’ll be trying over the next couple months. One that I found interesting was ham and egg breakfast pizzas made with flaky biscuits as a base. After reading a few reviews someone suggested instead of making the mayo and mustard sauce, use country gravy. And instead of the ham, use sausage. I know, how healthy. We both decided they sounded better with the gravy and sausage. Because we radically changed the recipe, I’ll link you to it but please follow the instructions that I used because they’re a bit different. Instead of buying regular sausage and frying it up, I bought Jimmy Dean’s Turkey sausage crumbles because they’re somewhat healthier than the former option. Instead of making the gravy from scratch, to save time I opted to buy a packet of McCormick’s sausage gravy mix.

4 Eggs

1 Package Refrigerated Flaky Biscuits

1 Packet McCormick Sausage or Country Gravy

½ Package of Jimmy Dean’s Turkey Sausage Crumbles

4 oz Italian blend shredded cheese

4 oz Sharp cheddar shredded cheese

Pinches of salt, pepper, onion powder, and garlic salt

1. While preheating the oven to 425 degrees, flatten biscuits to a ¼ or ½ inch thickness. Once preheated place the biscuits on a greased baking sheet and bake for 6-8 minutes or until golden brown on the bottom.
2. Crack all four eggs into a small bowl, season with salt, pepper, onion powder, and garlic salt. Beat and then pour the eggs into a skillet over medium heat. Stir them lightly until they start to firm up but leave them slightly runny. Add the sausage crumbles and continue stirring lightly for 2 – 3 minutes until eggs are cooked thoroughly.
3. Make gravy according to directions on the packet, set aside. (I used the creamier version listed)
4. Take the biscuits out of the oven and check for doneness. Spread the gravy over each biscuit like you would pizza sauce on dough. Top with egg and sausage mixture and then with both cheeses.
5. Put under the broiler on high until the cheeses melt and then serve immediately.

     I don’t know if I didn't flatten the biscuits enough but they did start to rise considerably. So before topping them with the gravy and such, I made sure they were cooked through and then flattened them with a spatula. When I make these again I might use a rolling pin and get them really thin and just adjust the baking time. I think they turned out really well, but they are filling. The package of biscuits we bought had 8 in it so we ended up with 8 small pizzas. We both had three but couldn't eat the last two. The possibilities of these are endless because, after all, they are pizza. So let your imagination run wild and see what you can come up with. I’d love to hear what you've tried.

Rating: Yummy - Can't wait to try out different versions of these.

Chicken and Biscuits

     Chicken and biscuits isn’t really a summer dish but this recipe makes it easy because the chicken part is made in the crock pot. The biscuits are a dry mix that you just add water to and put in the oven for about ten minutes. The most time consuming part of this meal is making mashed potatoes but they are optional. I made them since Matt was coming over and needed more than just chicken gravy and biscuits for three people. Unfortunately, I forgot to buy sour cream so the potatoes didn’t come out as good as they usually do. Here are the ingredients for an easy meal that cooks while you are busy:

2 large chicken breasts

2 tablespoons butter

2 10.5oz cans cream of chicken soup

1 14.4 oz can chicken broth

1 large onion finely chopped

½ bag frozen mixed vegetables

1 packet Bisquick biscuit mix (I use cheddar biscuits)

½ cup water

     Plug in the crock pot and set the temperature on low. Everything will be done cooking long before the 8 – 10 hours that the low setting is for but because of the cream soup, you don’t want it to burn. Chop the butter into a few small pieces and scatter it in the bottom of the pot. Place both chicken breasts on top of the butter, side by side. Evenly top the chicken with the vegetables and onion. Pour in both cans of cream of chicken and spread evenly over the vegetables leaving room around the edges of the pot. Finally, pour the entire can of chicken broth over the contents of the pot making sure to get some to the bottom around the chicken. Let this cook for at least 4 hours but no more than 8. Just before serving you may notice the mixture looking kind of watery, don’t panic. Using tongs or forks shred the chicken thoroughly in the pot. While you do this, everything will mix around and thicken up. Following the directions on the biscuit mix, bake these in the oven and place one or two on each plate and top with the mixture from the crock pot. If you make mashed potatoes, put them on the plate and top with the mixture as well.

     Like I said before, the potatoes didn’t come out great but with the chicken mixture poured all over them I didn’t really notice. If you look at them recipe again you will notice that there are no spices or seasonings used. Despite the lack of those there was a lot of flavor from the chicken and the soup. The cheddar biscuits were a great vehicle to thicken up this dish as the chicken gravy soaked right into them. This dish would be perfect during a cold winter night but it was good on a humid one too.

Rating: Yummy – Potatoes didn’t work out but everything else did

Shepherd's Pie

     Shepherd’s Pie is a very involved dish with many ingredients and many dishes needed to make it. Because I was short on time and wanted to eat before 7, Christine was nice enough to assist me make this dish. I peeled about 2 pounds of potatoes while Christine chopped up a green pepper. Once I got a pot of water boiling, I threw the potatoes in and was lucky enough to be the one to chop up the onion. Tears welled up in my eyes as I was cutting the onion as Christine started peeling 3 carrots. I heated up some olive oil in a pan and sautéed about a teaspoon of minced garlic before adding the pepper, onion, and ground beef. I was waiting on the carrots but they joined the party a few minutes later. While the vegetable and beef mixture began to cook, I made a roux to start my gravy in small sauce pan. I melted two tablespoons of butter and added two tablespoons of flour. Once that was fully mixed, I added a cup of beef broth and two tablespoons of Worcestershire sauce. I dropped the heat to low and let that thicken up.

     Matt showed up around 6:30 and we weren’t even close to done so I had him join in on the fun and finish the mashed potatoes for me. I have never made the mashed potatoes like I did last night but they came out great so I think I will be making them like this from now on, but I will keep making changes until they are perfect. Once Matt had mashed the potatoes I added one egg yolk, ½ cup of chicken broth, two tablespoons sour cream and about a cup of Colby jack/cheddar cheese. Using a hand mixer, Matt mixed them up until they were silky smooth. Corn isn’t yet in season so I used a steamer bag from the frozen section and cooked that in the microwave.

     Finally, I could put everything together and throw it under the broiler to give the potatoes a little bit of a crust. I combined the gravy with the beef and vegetables and put that in the bottom of an oval pan. On top of that was the whole bag of corn followed by the mashed potatoes. I sprinkled some paprika on top of the potatoes and put it all in over for about 5 minutes until golden brown. It looked good once it was done, I just hopped it would taste as good as it looked. Everything mixed together when I scooped it onto our new plates, so it took some time to pick out the flavors from each piece of the dish. Like I said before, the potatoes were great. They were fluffy and had a light cheesy taste. The paprika added a little heat which went well with the heaviness once everything had combined. All of the vegetables gave the dish a lot of color and added a nice crunch to what could have been a mushy dish. The beef had little flavor which I think the gravy was suppose to make up for. The gravy didn’t really add much to the dish so I’ll need to fiddle with the recipe because it was after all, pretty basic.

     This definitely came out better than my previous attempts but I think I may switch out the ground beef for sirloin next time. Hopefully it will be worth the added expense that comes with the sirloin. Christine and Matt both seemed to enjoy it which is all that I could have hoped for. I thank both of them for assisting me; it was fun working with others on the same dish.

Rating: Yummy – Getting closer to a go to dish, needs work on the gravy though.