Quick Italian or French Bread Pizza

I'm off to do my yoga practice but I thought I'd write a quick post.  Since it's Wednesday and the deadline for the Blogging Again blog post, I decided to include my recipe for a fast and easy summer time pizza.

 I hate cooking during the summer but unfortunately unless I wish to starve, I have to.  I don't have a gas grill and charcoal is just too time consuming and messy so I'm stuck with cooking inside.

I live in New England, and this summer has been reasonably mild, with low dew points and mild temperatures, but yesterday was a killer.  Temps in the 90's and dew points close to 70.  It was just a yucky, sticky day.  So I went looking in my frig for something quick to make.

If you read my Chicken Sausage and Quinoa Rice recipe post, you know how things in my frig tend to crawl to the back and sprout legs and teeth and molder into a sloppy mess.  Yesterday, I found some spaghetti sauce that hadn't quite gotten to that stage, so I pulled it out.  I had a French bread in the freezer, so out that came.

Peppers, onions and garlic, lurking in the veggie drawer were next.  There was some leftover chicken in the cold cut drawer that didn't fight too hard when I tried to retrieve it, so I figured it was still edible.  My garden supplied me with fresh basil, so I was off to the races!

Here's my recipe for French or Italian Bread Pizza.  I'm sure there's a million of them out there but here's mine.


French or Italian Bread Pizza

 French or Italian bread
Canned or home made spaghetti sauce
Peppers, onions, mushroom or whatever you like on your pizza, thinly sliced
Garlic, chopped.  (We like fresh chopped garlic on our pizza, but you can omit it if you don't.)
Fresh or dried basil
Shredded mozzarella cheese
Leftover chicken, sausage, meatball, or pepperoni, or whatever you have in the frig

Preheat oven to 375 degrees

Warm the sauce up a bit to make spreading easier.

Cut bread in half lengthwise.  Spread sauce and cheese over bread.  Add thinly sliced veggies and meat.  Top with chopped garlic and basil.

Bake for 10-15 minutes and there you go!  Serve with the salad of your choice.

 This is great left over, as well.  My husband takes it for lunch and he has his co-workers drooling over his desk.  Quite messy but a hazard when you bring something home made and tasty to work!  I suggest you supply extra napkins.

Best Homemade New England Clam Chowder

So, yesterday I decided to try out this new clam chowder recipe I found.  It was in a novel by Karen MacInerney, although I found the very same recipe on a cooking website, as well.

I've tried making clam chowder before and it always turned out awful but this recipe is the best!  I've decided to post it here, in case anyone is interested in trying it,with the disclaimer that I did not create it.  If I knew who did I would certainly give credit where credit is due.

Downeast Clam Chowder

6-7 pieces of bacon

1 med onion

10 oz. canned baby clams, w/juice reserved

6-7 med potatoes, cubed

2 10 1/2 oz. cans of cream of celery soup

1 C heavy cream

1 C milk

1 T butter

Dice the bacon, cook in a saucepan until crispy, then add onion and saute until translucent.  Add clam juice and potatoes and cook, covered until potatoes are fork tender, about 15-20 minutes, stirring occasionally so the potatoes won't stick to the pan.

Stir in clams, soup, cream and milk.  Season with fresh ground pepper and cook for about 30-45 minutes or until thickened, stirring occasionally.

I served it with a green salad and homemade garlic bread.

Absolutely delicious!