Food For Thought

Welcome to the weekend edition of Snapshots in which I will share a bit about my other love ... good food ! :)  We are off camping this weekend and while the menu isn't terribly fancy - as anyone knows, food eaten outside and cooked over a fire is almost always guaranteed to be delicious.  So I will have my once-a-year hot-dog roasted over a campfire and a couple gooey s'mores ... and enjoy every bite!


Here at home, we still turn out some yummy meals albeit usually not over an open blaze.  We have been enjoying lots of fresh foods this summer as a result of the wonderful garden Brett built.  We are truly enjoying the fruits of the season and just have to share a few snapshots of our own bounty:

Tomatoes, Cucumbers, Eggplants, Zucchinis ... oh, my!!

The Mortgage Lifter Tomato 

The story goes that a farmer back during the depression cross-cultivated the biggest tomato plants in order to grow these big guys.  He was able to sell the tomatoes for a dollar a piece ... and paid off his mortgage. :)

They were worth every penny!  Yum!

I wanted to share with you a recipe that we tried last weekend ... which was a huge success!  Hopefully it will be a hit in your home, too.

Grilled Taco Pizzas
(modified from the FoodNetwork Magazine, September 2010)


Ingredients:
1 lb ground beef, cooked
1 cup shredded mozzarella
1 avocado
1 tomato
2-3 green onions
1 lime
Taco seasoning packet
Bread dough (I made my own, but you can use a 16-oz tube of pizza dough from the grocery)
Salsa, sour cream and fresh cilantro as toppings

Cook up the ground beef and season to taste.  (I like fresh minced garlic, kosher salt, ground red pepper and cumin.)  Set aside, but keep warm.  Cut up the avocado, tomato and green onions and toss together.  Add the juice of 1/2 of the lime (cut the other half up for garnish) and add a little salt and pepper.  Set this aside and let the juices mingle.  Heat up your griddle on the stove on medium/high (I have a griddle with raised ridges that gave the crust grill lines ... but you can use just a regular griddle.)  Divide up the bread dough into the number of balls you need for individual pizzas.  Roll out the first ball into a thin circle on a flour dusted counter.  Brush the side facing you with a little olive oil and then dust it with the taco seasoning.  When the griddle is hot, place it face down on the pan and repeat with the oil and seasoning on the other side.  Don't walk away because they cook fast.  When the bread puffs up a bit, use tongs to turn it over and cook the other side.  Repeat with all the dough.  I layered the crusts on a cookie sheet and covered them with a towel and put them in the oven on low to keep them warm.  When everything is ready, put one crust back on the griddle and top with meat and cheese.  Let it melt and then move it to a plate.  Use a pizza cutter to slice it into quarters and then top it with the avocado mixture, a dab of sour cream, a bit of salsa and then a few leaves of cilantro.  Ole!

Grilling the crust ... it smelled so good!

Norah going back for seconds!

Now those of you who know us are familiar with our Saturday night pizza tradition.  This in no way will become a substitute for Brett's delicious, home-made pizza ... but it was a treat to have a little something different!