20 Meals in 2 Days and Hawaiian Pizza Recipe

Good morning, friends!

I bet some of you are wondering what the freezer in the living room is all about.  If you hadn't heard, I made a bit of a boo-boo in my excitement to buy new appliances.  For starters, I just went in for a stove, but came out the proud owner of a couple of new goodies. (That whole "buy appliances in January thing, it's true!)

The stove is in (big hugs, Mr. W - you are the best!!) but the frig?  Well, that's another story.  That boo-boo I made, it's that the one I have is a smaller than the one I bought (minor detail) and the new one won't fit through the door into the kitchen!  So, it sits in the living room.  A very large room decoration.  Till this weekend when I decided to jump off the deep end of cooking and whipped up a bunch of yummy dinners!

I blame it on the Pinterest searches for household cleaners I was doing...all those wonderful folks who had those great ideas ALSO had food boards and well and I got this idea to have REAL food, from MY HOUSE for a bit!!  Those of you that know us personally, know that Whitt and I are pretty busy with coaching and such.  This winter's schedules were particularly brutal with no gym for ConVal and the teams practicing in other locations.  It all worked out, but made the concept of dinner almost non-existent in Whitt-World.

Having had enough of that, I was dying to do some cooking.  I looked at what parts and pieces I had for ingredients and then turned to Pinterest for menu ideas.  As usual, it didn't disappointment me.  :o)

While I was preparing, mixing and cooking these yummy meals, I had a chicken dinner going in the oven so that when I needed a break (haha...thought I'd be done then...) we'd have something delish that I could sit back and enjoy for a bit and, oh, right, use the chicken in another dish!!!

So here's what I made up - keep in mind, there is just the Mr and I most of the time and some of these will get doubled up on, cutting my freezer supply down when the girls and their fellows are here:

• 3 pans of stuffed shells
• 1 Shepard's Pie
• 5 different "Chicken Dump" packages - couple are to bake in oven and a couple are for crockpot
• 2 ham/cheese/broccoli quiche (1 for lunches for me)
• 2 sets chicken chimichangas
• 6 pizza doughs (will need sauce, cheese, meat, veggies, etc to cook)
• 2 pans macaroni and cheese *plus a set of 6 mini's in a muffin tin I can take to work
• 2 nights of meat lovers calzones
• 1 container tomato/basil/cheese soup to combine with sandwiches one night *plus a small one to take to work
• 1 set of crabcakes
• 1 dozen blueberry muffins...oh wait, I had one...so 11 muffins!
• 1 crockpot filled (3 containers worth) with Chex Mix - who'd of thought you could do it in there?
• and oh, I almost forgot, little cinnamon curly-ques from the left over pie crust for the quiche.  Right, did I mention I MADE MY OWN PIE CRUST????  Yah baby, I am all that! 

What fun it was!!  I will give you each of the recipes ONCE I've actually tried them.  That way, if there is anything wonky I found out like, "OMG... DON'T freeze this..." or "Holy cow...blah, blah, blah..." it won't be a shock.

I will start with the pizza today because I used the rest of the chopped ham, pineapple and bag of cheese from other recipes to make a Hawaiian pizza for dinner!

Chez Whitt Hawaiian Pizza 

Ingredients:

• pizza dough (homemade or store bought)
• sauce (1/3 can spaghetti sauce)
• 1 - 1 1/2 cup shredded cheese 
• 1 cup chopped ham
• 1 cup diced pineapple
• cornmeal

Pre-heat oven to 425.

Sprinkle cornmeal on your cutting board and roll out the dough.  I like the texture the cornmeal gives - if you don't, just use flour to keep it from sticking.  Once you have the thickness you'd like, transfer to your pizza stone or cookie sheet.

Spread sauce on the dough.  I use whatever sauce I have available (I am just getting started with this whole "planning thing") so what I used was about 1/3 can of spaghetti sauce.

Sprinkle cheese on top.   If you like light cheese, go with a cup.  If you are my DD, go with 2 cups!

Add the chopped ham and pineapple.  I cut the diced pineapple up a bit more to spread it out.  The size of the chunks is up to you.

Bake at 425 for 15-20 minutes.

Notes:

• You can use store bought dough - I am on this kick to make my own things, so I chose a recipe from Annie's Eats for my dough.  It's a basic flour, yeast, water and EVOO mixture.  I made the 3 batches - a pair of dough balls from each.  Her directions are clear and I like how she has information she learned, like double bagging as my dough did continue to rise in the freezer for a bit, so that was a good idea.
• Several of the recipes I looked at pre-heated their stones.  Personally, I haven't tried that because it's a known fact around here I get burned easily, sooooo..... no hot stones for me!  Do you pre-heat yours?
• Pizza stones - I love them.  My sister has been in Pampered Chef for many years and got me turned on to them ages ago.  I cook with stones most of the time in the oven.  I have pizza stones, baking dishes, you name it.  I have broken a couple, but overall, I found they have improved my baking experiences.  Just my opinion.

There you go!  It was yummy and the last two pieces were lunch for hubby today - a win win!  You could say we got 3 meals from one pizza.  Not bad considering that it was about $1 - $1.50 to make it!  That's .50 cents per person! HA!!

Check back over the next few days for more recipes from this cooking extravaganza!

Quilty hugs,
Carrie