There has never been a more one-of-a-kind pizza like the bar pizza. For the most part they are never good, many times they are awful, but that has never stopped anybody from ordering one. Patrons order them because they are drinking. Combine it with hunger and it makes these pizzas far better then they would ever be if a shot of better judgement was in hand. Without exception a bar pizza reigns over the pink pickled eggs languishing in the murky liquid of the large glass jar back by the whisky. Bar pizzas are also infinitely better then the microwavable cups of Spaghetti-Os or the burritos ensconced in a cardboard tortilla. Even so, that doesn’t make them good. Continue reading
Tag Archives: quick
No Recipe Greek Nachos
You don’t need a recipe. You can make these from scratch and it will take you less then 10 minutes. Of course that doesn’t include grocery time, I am making the assumption you did a little pre-planning. Although when I made this the other day it came out of leftovers, no planning required. (Don’t want to make the tzatziki, sub in ranch dressing and go for it.)
Pile good quality corn chips onto a plate. If you are making the ranch/tzatziki sauce scoop about 1/2 cup of mayonnaise into a bowl, just eyeball it don’t dirty a measuring cup. Add a splash of buttermilk, milk, or kefir and whisk it to make a smooth dressing. To thick, thin it out with another splash of liquid. Add a half a tablespoon of chopped dill. No dill, use dried oregano just make sure to let it sit and hydrate in the dressing for a few minutes. Again just put it into the palm of your hand, does it look like half a tablespoon? Toss it in, add salt, pepper and a little lemon juice if you want. Stir it again then set it aside until you get the rest of the ingredients together.
Slice some grape tomatoes in half, cut some olives, pit them if you have the fancy kind but pitted California black olives work fine. Chop some cucumbers, I like the baby kind but big ones work too. Any kind of cooked chopped-up ground meat works here. Don’t have any animal protein around, drain a can of chickpeas and rinse them.
Drizzle the chips with the tzatziki, top with everything else, add a bit of crumbled feta, a sprinkle of minced parsley and green onion, if your heart is in it, and serve.
Perfect Microwave Broccoli
Rarely do I use my microwave. I use it to take the chill off my coffee. I heat leftovers for lunch. Whenever a recipe calls for “butter, melted” onto the glass turntable the fat filled Pyrex measuring cup goes. I don’t cook with my microwave in any real culinary sense. I sometimes wonder why I have it, why I allow it to take up precious counter space when I know everything for which I use it can be done just as easily on the stove.
Of course there is also the fear that has been around as long as the microwave, that somehow it poses some sort of health risk. I don’t know if it does or not but if I error on the side of solid scientific research, it would tell me the microwave is harmless. Even so, I will lean on the side of caution and repeat the mantra I continually voice to my children, don’t put your face right up to the microwave door to watch as a cooking pizza pocket swells and shrinks, as if it is coming to life, and please, stand back an arms length.
I don’t believe the microwave has ever lived up to its original space age expectations. Nonetheless I read an article touting the healthy aspects of cooking vegetables in a microwave. Because it basically steams the vegetables, the vegetables retain a large portion of nutrients then if you used other cooking methods. It made sense, and I am buying in, or at least I want to and there are lots of reasons why. Continue reading
The Cutting Board Diaries 