Mediterranean Omelet

The morning after we made the Mediterranean pizza, my Mom and I used the left over turkey-sausage/tomato/spinach mixture and made one heck of an omelet.

We also used a cooking technique we saw Paula Dean (food network) use to make a 'no-mess-omelet'.

Ingredients:

*4 large eggs- beaten,

*Any left over amount sausage mixture from the Mediterranean pizza recipe

*A handful of sharp cheddar

*light sprinkle of salt and pepper

What we did:

Beat the eggs and pour them into a large resealable bag. Pour in the handful of sausage mixture, the handful of cheddar cheese, and a sprinkle of salt and pepper.

Close the resealable bag, letting out most of the air.

Start to boil water in a pot big enough to hold the bag of omelet mixture. When the water comes to a boil drop the bag into the water. Let the hot water cook the egg mixture until eggs are fully cooked. If the bag begins to fill with hot air, just open a small hole in the resealable bag.

It might take a little longer, for this big omelet it took 40 minutes for the omelet to fully cook, but there is no clean-up afterwards. We just cut the bag away from the omelet and served it up. This serving fed all three of us (Mom, Dad and myself) easily.

We also served this awesome omelet with some turkey goetta and toast.

Hope you enjoy this wonderful breakfast.

Mediterranean Pizza

This was another Bunko night experiment! My mom found this recipe in the August 2008 issue of Georgia Magazine, put out by Flint Energies. There was an article titled "Cream of the Crop" by Jennifer Hewett, talking about Georgia native food contest winners and their recipes. One recipe was for Mediterranean Pizza with Cheese-Stuffed Crust from Barbara Williams; a 2008 Pillsbury Bake-Off finalist from Lawrenceville.

We read this recipe and just had to try it. We modified it a little by substituting Pillsbury pizza crust with just a regular store brand pizza dough, switched the spicy pork sausage for turkey sausage, and subbed sun-dried tomatoes for drained diced tomatoes. We also added a sprinkling of sharp cheddar cheese, and subbed shredded mozzarella for shredded muenster cheese, because you can never have enough cheese.

Complete list of ingredients:
1-1/2 tablespoons cornmeal
1(13.8-ounce) can refrigerated classic pizza crust
7 pieces (1 ounce each) mozzarella string cheese
1/4 cup tomato sauce with basil, garlic and oregano (or just regular tomato sauce)
1/4 cup chopped, fresh basil leaves
1/2 pound bulk turkey sausage
1/3 cup diced tomatoes
1(10-ounce) box frozen spinach, thawed, squeezed to drain
1/4 cup sliced black olives
Hand full of sliced green olives
1/2 cup (2 ounces) crumbled feta cheese
2 cups (8 ounces) shredded muenster cheese
Hand full of shredded sharp cheddar cheese
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1/2 teaspoon Italian seasoning
1/2 to 1 teaspoon garlic salt

What we did:
Heat the oven to 425 o, spray 12-inch pizza pan with cooking spray.
Sprinkle cornmeal evenly over the pan and unroll pizza crust dough onto the pan.
Press dough to at least 1 inch beyond edge of pan, then place string cheese on dough along the inside edge of the crust.
Fold edge of dough over the cheese, press the dough down firmly and presto! instant stuffed crust. Pinch dough to seal. Spread tomato sauce evenly over dough.
Sprinkle with basil leaves. At this point basil makes the kitchen smell so good!

Heat a skillet over medium-high heat. Then add sausage, cook stirring frequently until no longer pink; drain off any grease. Reduce heat to medium and stir in drained dice tomatoes and drained spinach. Cook about 3 to 4 minutes more until everything is heated through. Spoon the sausage mixture evenly over basil on crust.

Then top with sliced black and green olives, feta cheese, muenster cheese, and just a sprinkle of cheddar cheese. Brush the crust with the olive oil and sprinkle Italian seasoning and garlic salt onto the crust.
Finally stick the pizza in the oven and bake for 15 to 18 minutes or until cheese is melted and crust is deep golden brown.

As you can tell by the before and after pictures, the pizza turned out great! It tasted superb. Everyone at Bunko loved the pizza, and we used the left over sausage mixture to make omelettes the next day. I will have to blog this recipe next.

A Week in Atlanta for Work...and Food!

I had to train for my work in Atlanta. We stayed at one of the embassy suites hotel. I love embassy suites, but I took my mom with me and each day we would venture out and find some good eats!

One place we went to was the Cheesecake factory. If anyone has been there they know that it has every type of food imaginable on their menu. The menu is literally 20 pages, with everything from Chinese, Italian, Mexican, up-class food and of course 60+ different kinds of cheesecake.

I wish I would have taken a picture of my piece of cheesecake. I had the chocolate-raspberry cheesecake.
It had five layers of delicious!

The bottom was a chocolate crumb crust, then on to a chocolate cheesecake layer, then a chocolate-raspberry cheesecake layer, then a chocolate ganache layer, then finally topped off with a chocolate icing.


Another place my mom and I went was Joey D's Oak Room. It was within walking distance of the hotel.

This place was kind of expensive, but boy was it worth it.

The first course was oyster shooters. These were fresh cold raw oysters in shot classes, covered in a slight spicy vodka water and spicy cocktail sauce on top. I would take an oyster with cocktail sauce and a squeeze of lemon, place it on a cracker and gulp it down. Fantastic!

My mom had a very large filet mignon with creamed spinach on the side. The spinach was a little heavy on the nutmeg, but her steak was cooked perfect.

From where we were sitting we could see the filet cooking in the large rotating oven. Couple passes in the oven and it was a excellent medium.

As for me, I had a mushroom and shrimp pasta, with a light wine sauce. It was very good. I could only eat half, but that was the best next day lunch. I am not a drinker, but I love the taste of cooked wine; it permeated the pasta and really sent this dish over the top. The mushrooms also absorbed the flavor so they just popped in your mouth with juicy flavor.

All in all, this training trip for work turned into a food extravaganza. I really had a wonderful time enjoying the sites, smells, and food of the little area of Atlanta we stayed in that week.

Hopefully I will need more training soon!