"From Scratch" Pumpkin Pie

Another one of Mike's all-time favorite foods is the Pumpkin Pie. This Thanksgiving classic dessert can actually be consumed year-round!

I semi-jokingly call this from "scratch", as it was made with a can of pumpkin (not pumpkin pie mix). The name "from scratch" is a joke that our friend "Tshay" called their's from scratch, when it was sourced from a can of pumpkins. We added in our own repertoire of herbs and spices from a Top Secret source (okay - fine, it was the "Libby's" Pumpkin container.)

-Mike

Note: Names have been obfuscated for the personal safety of the sources.

Spinach Lasagna

I wanted to make a Spinach Lasagna because I have some lasagna pasta noodles in the cupboard that have been there for a while and Spinach is good for you.

I found a recipe for Easy Spinach Lasagna.  I had made some Creamy Roasted Tomato Garlic Sauce that I had made using 3 Roma tomatoes.  I wanted the sauce to be "runny" instead of thick, so I turned off the Vitamix after 2 minutes instead of the instructed 4 minutes.

I'm not really sure if the lasagna pasta noodles are supposed to extend the whole length of the pan or if I was just using a really big pan, so I just staggered them.

Here is a picture of the uncooked Lasagna.

I only ran into a few problems making this dish.  

1. I skimmed the recipe, and thought I was making a really big lasagna.  The recipe makes it sound like there will be layers and layers in this lasagna.  I thought that I could just halve the recipe and make half the layers.  I didn't realize my mistake until I had already started making the lasagna.
2. I forgot to add the Parmesan cheese to the ricotta/spinach mixture.  I didn't realize this until I was doing the top layer.  I lifted the last layer of noodles and sprinkled some Parmesan cheese on the lasagna.  I then added the last layer of noodles and sprinkled the top with what was left of the Parmesan cheese.
3. I used shredded Mozzarella instead of 1/4 inch thick slices.  This wasn't a mistake, although next time, I think I would use the 1/4 inch slices.  The cheese on top was kind of hard because we cooked it for so long, and it was so small.
4. I didn't have enough pasta sauce.  Since I thought I would only need half the ingredients, I thought I would only need half the amount of pasta sauce as well.  I also don't like lasagna with too much sauce, so I figured I wouldn't even need half.  This may have contributed to the dryness of the noodles.  I kind of ran out of sauce on the top layer, so there wasn't as much.  I wanted to put more on the top layer since if you don't put enough sauce on the top layer, the noodles on the top layer can be rather dry.

I hate when recipes say "salt and pepper to taste" or just tell you to add salt or pepper, but don't tell you the amount.  It should be obvious that you would add the amount of salt and pepper to your tastes.

Stuffed Baked Idaho

One of my favorite meals, has always been the Stuffed Baked Idaho from Claim Jumper. Its a delicious combination of a ginormous baked potato filled with blackened chicken and veggies and is topped with Alfredo sauce. It makes one heck of a combination and meal!

To start off, I made the "Perfect Baked Potato", which essentially involved rubbing the potato with olive oil, poking with a fork, and then rubbing a little sea salt on the surface and finally baking for an hour. Once the potato was done, Kim blanched some broccoli, added in some Costco Rotisserie Chicken and made her famous Creamy Low Fat Alfredo Sauce using the Vitamix blender.

Ingredients:

• Potato - Russet makes for good baked potatos.
• Sea Salt
• Olive Oil
• Broccoli
• Chicken - We used the Costco Rotisserie Chicken (which is delicious and makes a scrumptious meal all by itself).
• Alfredo Sauce

Instructions:

1. Pick out a nice plump potato to use as your victim and rinse the potato in the sink. Rub a light coating of olive oil around the potato to provide it with some moisture. Poke the potato generously with a fork (failure to do this could cause the potato to EXPLODE in your oven!). Rub on a little sea salt to add flavor. Bake the potato at 350 degrees for roughly 1 hour, or until the potato can be easily pierced by a fork. Allow the potato to cool when it is done.
2. When the potato is done, prepare broccoli to your liking (we prefer to blanch our broccoli).
3. After the baked potato has had a few minutes to cool, you will want to cut a wedge into the potato so that you can add in the stuffing. Pull the wedge out (I ate mine) and use a fork to soften the interior of the potato.
4. Add the chicken and broccoli into the potato and top off the whole thing with your Alfredo sauce.

Sweet Potato Biscuits

I had half a sweet potato left over from making a Vitamix recipe. I didn't want to throw it out, and Mike didn't want to eat it. I also tried asking Mary and Joseph if they liked sweet potato, but alas they did not.

I went on the Vitamix website and used the "Find Recipes" function to try to find a recipe that used sweet potatoes. That's when I saw the recipe for Sweet Potato Drop Biscuits. I knew that Issac and Esau love the Pillsbury biscuits and that Mike was going to visit them soon. He can bring these biscuits over for them!

Here is the dough after it has been mixed.  I didn't use the Kitchenaid mixer at all!

Here are the biscuits after Mike put them on the cookie sheet.

Note: Names have been changed to protect the innocent.

Home Made Neapolitan Pizza

Just a little background on Mike:

He loves pizza. I do not think that can be overstated. Currently, his favorite pizza parlor is 2 Amy's, which is located in the Cathedral Heights district of Washington D.C. 2 Amy's is a Neapolitan-style pizzeria, where they serve beautiful pizzas made with the freshest ingredients, many of which are shipped from Italy for the best experience possible.

With that said, I have been on a quest for a decent Neapolitan Pizza recipe, so that I can re-create my favorite pizza in the world. After much hunting around, we have found a worthy recipe. For this, we predominantly follow the recipe from the book, but we used the homemade "Creamy Roasted Tomato Garlic Sauce" (from the Vitamix recipe book) as our pizza sauce.

-Mike