Quick Pizza Magherita

This recipe comes from Cooking Light, and it was super super yummy and fast.

the ingredients are:

1 10 oz. can of refrigerated pizza dough (we used pilsbury)
cooking spray
5 plum tomatos
1tsp extra virgin olive oil
1 garlic clove, halved
1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese
1 tsp balsamic vinegar
1/2 cup thinly sliced basil
salt and pepper



working with the pilsbury dough was interesting. we preheated the oven to 400 and then placed the dough by itself for 5 minutes to make it a little crispy...it sort of tasted like a big crescent roll though....for our next pizza adventure i think we'll try making our own crust.



plum tomatos are awesome...really easy to slice and they are super meaty.



once the crust comes out you brush some olive oil on it, rub a halved clove of garlic and then start layering the tomatoes and then sprinkle the cheese on top. we grated the cheese fresh so it tasted really great. be sure to leave about an inch of crust around the sides. and then back in the oven for 12 minutes



once it comes out, sprinkle balsamic mixed with some oil all over, place the basil on top, and your'e good to go! it was very drippy, we're not sure if it was the cheese or the tomatoes but a lot of liquid poured out when it was cut, but still very very delicious.

Fried Plantains!

first of all....YUM

holy crap these were delicious.

These also come from Vegetarian Planet by Didi Emmons. I made them last week as a quick snack from scratch because I was really too busy to make a whole meal from scratch on any particular night. These were sooo easy and I plan on frying up some more tonight

Ingredients include:

1 yellow or black plantain
salt
pepper
1/2 cup canola or corn oil
and 3 slices white sandwich bread

below, is a plantain.



so 1 plantain cuts nicely into 8 bit size but still meaty pieces, cut on an angle.

the bread has to be de-crusted and lightly toasted. then, chop it up into really fine bread crumbs. this takes a little while but i'm sure it would have worked much faster if i had a cutting board. the crumbs in the picture below are still far to big and had to be cut some more.



and...then...fry them. didi suggests a trick to test the heat of the oil in the pan. take one plantain and put it in the pan, if the oil is too hot the plantain wil burn instantly. but these were ok. i reccomend staying close to them as they brown quickly. once brown on one side, turn them over, brown again, and then place on a paper towl.







then eat! serve them hot. i was tempted to let them cool a bit but the plantain is so watery that they really were ready to eat prety much right out of the oil. and soooooo good. it was almost like i was back in Costa Rica when fried plantains were part of our daily diet.