Thursday, August 23, 2012

Who You Gonna Call? DOMINOS

Bacon & pineapple = killer combo

I'm a lifer

We used to order from Mazzios all the time, then we started ordering from Pizza Hut, then Papa John's, and then finally just flipped back and forth between the three. Never did we order from Dominos. I have never cared for Dominos pizza, until recently. Ever since they revamped their recipe and came out with the famous "pizza tracker" I have been hooked. So hooked that I will NEVER order from Mazzios, Pizza Hut, or Papa John's ever again. Not because they aren't good, but because Dominos is better, way better. Let me start by saying that their cheesy bread is enough to make anybody break a diet(I am guilty of this,) their buffalo wings are extraordinary for a pizza place and their new pizza recipe is OUTSTANDING. Let me note that I have never really been a pizza person either, I have never craved it until recently. I now crave pizza. Weekly. Dominos has somehow perfected the pizza to a heavenly crispy crust, a perfect amount of cheese and their toppings are above any other. They always have my pizza at my door in less than 20 minutes. That's impressive. I order my pizza with pineapple and bacon, yes bacon. If you have never thought of putting bacon on your pizza, now you do. You're welcome. It's delicious. The crispiness of the bacon and the sweetness of the pineapple create the perfect taste, in my opinion. Give it a try, you won't order differently ever again.

Dominos Website

Shammy Says "You can call me shammy any day as long as I can shove Dominos in my face"

Sunday, August 19, 2012

Any Dish That Begins With CARB...

How beautiful is this?

Carbonara is one of my favorite dishes to eat, but not to prepare. If any of you ask me the one dish I absolutely hate to make, I would vehemently answer "CARBONARA!" Every time I make it I feel like I am running a marathon with two broken legs. You need to have nearly all of your ingredients prepped and ready before you begin cooking your bacon, because once the bacon is done, you have about 30 seconds to chop it up, add the noodles, make the sauce and whisk in your eggs fast enough so that they don't scramble. However, on the bright side, once you're done being a maniac in the kitchen you get to sit down and enjoy this delicious meal, with a few glasses of wine of course. I have made numerous carbonara recipes, from healthy to heart attack on a plate. After making this particular recipe by Emeril Lagasse, I find that with food, along with everything else in life, "less is more." (Nacho cheese does not apply to that.) The healthy recipe I tried was by Bethenny Frankel--which was AMAZING by the way--but this one was better. She used turkey bacon instead of regular(which is sacreligious in my opinion,) soy milk instead of regular, and whole wheat pasta. My love for Bethenny runs deep and her recipe was very yummy so I will post a link to her recipe at the bottom as well. Some of the others I tried used heavy cream(whole milk works just as good in my opinion,) along with excessive amounts of fancy cheeses. This resulted in a dish that was too rich and when a dish is too rich you can say sayonara to leftovers, blegh! Ok now on to the winner, Emeril! I found this recipe after scouring the internet for an hour in search for the perfect carbonara recipe. His recipe seemed so simple and easy, that I almost didn't even make it. But Emeril is one of the greatest so I trusted his recipe and decided to go for it. His recipe was one of the only ones that didn't call for milk or cream. All it called for was bacon(duh,) spaghetti(I used linguine-which I find to be a perfect fit for carbonara,) garlic, parmesan of course, eggs and parsley(I sub'd for chives, because chives are the shit.) I also added cooked chicken, because my husband has to have his meat. The end result was so delicious that I was standing over the skillet(after two servings,) spooning more into my dome. Who has been there before? That's what I thought. It was creamy and delectable but not too overwhelming, the perfect combo. I will say that when you go for the leftovers add a bit of milk or water before re-heating it because it was a tad dry, but that still didn't stop me from devouring the entire bowl. Overall, this was the best carbonara recipe YET!

Emeril's Classic Spaghetti Carbonara - The winner

Bethenny's Low Fat Pasta Carbonara - If you are wanting a healthier version that still kicks ass

Shammy Says "BAM!"

Tuesday, August 7, 2012

If At First You Don't Succeed...




Can you guess which picture above is mine and which one is the original? Yeah, I can too. I am very upset with myself for how I screwed up this recipe. I am notorious for never getting a recipe right on the first try, the guilt and self loathing never goes away either. Sigh. Ok, this recipe could have been phenomenal, and super easy I might add. But I got ahead of myself and thought I would rush it instead of doing it right. First of all, the recipe calls for double the amount of filling, but I used half per the comments from the woman who posted the recipe. She explained that it was too much filling. WHY did I listen to this woman? There is no such thing as too much cream cheese filling! Lesson number one learned, moving along. My next mistake was making them and then refrigerating them overnight, big mistake--HUGE! Of course refrigerating it dried out the crust. The glaze was also too much, I should have halved that. So for any of you wanting to give this recipe a shot, and you really should because even my ruined disaster was still quite good, go ahead but follow these tips: use the suggested amount of filling, half the glaze recipe, and DO NOT REFRIGERATE! I will be buying the ingredients this week to make up for my blunder. 


Shammy Says "Don't mess with my cheese"