Chicken & Cheese Pizza with white Sauce

I am not a pizza person, anything tomato sauce or with tomatoes I just won't eat. So I decided to make my own pizza, with a white cheese sauce and chicken (not a fan of ham or pepperoni either). I found a really easy recipe for a crust, that you only need to let sit for 5 minutes. No waiting for it to rise. And then I added a white cheese sauce that's actually for pasta but very good on pizza. Finally, I added pieces of cooked chicken, green onions, shredded cheese(mozzarella or cheddar, or both), and parmesan.

Recipe for pizza crust: (modified from allrecipes.com)

INGREDIENTS:
1 package dry active yeast (1 1/4 tsp)
1 tsp white sugar
1 cup warm water (110 F/45C)
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
2 tsbp olive oil
2 tsp italian seasoning

DIRECTIONS:
1-Preheat oven to 450 F. In a medium bowl dissolve yeast and sugar in warm water. Let stand until creamy, about 10 minutes.
2-Stir in flour, oil, and italian seasoning. Let rest for 5 minutes.
3-Turn dough onto lightly floured surface and pat or roll into a round. Transfer crust to lightly greased pizza Pan.
4- Add sauce and desired toppings. Bake for 15-20 minutes.

Recipe for White Cheese Sauce:  (don't remember where I got this from)

INGREDIENTS:
8 ounce package of cream cheese, cubed
1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese
3/4 cup milk
1 dash ground nutmeg
1 dash pepper
2 tsp italian seasoning
3 cloves of garlic, minced

DIRECTIONS:
On Medium heat, mix cream cheese, milk and permesan. Stirring occasionally, until sauce is smooth.
Stir in nutmeg, pepper, italian seasoning, and garlic. Remove from heat, and let sit for a couple minutes. Spread on pizza crust. This will cover 2 pizzas.

Till next time, thanks for reading!

Fudge Rounds

I found this recipe on Confession's of a Cookbook Queen's blog, and just knew I had to make these. I'm so glad I did 'cause they are awesome. So awesome that I've made them 3 times now. (as of Jan '12)

 Right when you take the cookies out of the oven they look slightly poofy but they settle down once they start to cool. I found making them slightly small and flattening them before baking made it easier when putting the cookies together.

 I found the frosting recipe made a lot of frosting. I used the whole recipe and used it for 2 x the cookie recipe. If you were to put twice as much frosting on each cookies to use it up, the frosting would just squish out the sides.

And here is the recipe. From Confessions of a Cookbook Queen

INGREDIENTS

1 1/4 cup salted butter, softened
2 cups sugar
2 eggs 
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 cups flour
3/4 cup cocoa
1 teaspoon baking soda 

Heat oven to 350.

In the bowl of a mixer, cream butter and sugar on medium until fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time mixing after each addition. Mix in vanilla.

In a medium bowl, combine flour and baking soda. Add slowly to the butter/sugar mixture in the mixing bowl. Beat until combined.

Drop spoonfuls on ungreased cookie sheets and bake for 7-9 minutes. Remove baking sheets to cooling racks and remove cookies after a few minutes to continue cooling.


While cookies cool, make your filling.

FILLING


1/2 cup shortening
1/2 cup salted butter, softened
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 cup cocoa powder
3 cups powdered sugar
4 tablespoons warm water


In the bowl of a mixer, beat the shortening and butter on medium speed until smooth and combined. Beat in vanilla. Add cocoa powder and powdered sugar and beat on low until just combined. Add water and beat on medium high for about 2 minutes or until light and fluffy.


Once cookies have cooled, pipe or spread filling on the flat side of half of them. Gently press another cookie on top of the filling.


For the stripes, microwave 1/2 cup milk chocolate chips and 1 teaspoon vegetable oil in a microwave safe bowl, stirring every 15 seconds until smooth. Drizzle or pipe on top of Fudge Rounds. Refrigerate until chocolate is set.

Pink Water Marble & Morning Glories

First off some pictures of the white and blue morning glories.

This is the third water marble I've done. This time I did it on my 8 year old sister.

I used Joe in White as a base colour. For the marble I used Joe in White, Joe in Jet, and Sally Hansen Hard as Nails Xtreme Wear in Fuchsia Power. (at least I think that's the pink I used)

Every nail turned out quite differently, but it was difficult getting her to dip her finger in the right way.

Till Next Time, Thanks for Reading! =)