Pizza Toppings - Love 'em or Leave 'em?

There are so many different toppings that can be put on pizza and they can vary from country to country. Here in the USA, the toppings most often listed on a menu are: pepperoni, ham, ground beef, bacon, sausage, onions, green peppers, roasted peppers, black olives, mushrooms, pineapple, and extra cheese. Recently some others began to appear as specialty items: spinach, broccoli, grilled zucchini or eggplant, chicken, hot sauce, BBQ sauce, Ranch dressing, Alfredo sauce, even macaroni and cheese. 

Now, personally, my favorite toppings are (not all together): ham, sausage, bacon, onions, green peppers, black olives and pineapple. Extra cheese is always welcome, too. I've eaten slices of bacon ranch chicken pizza and found that I really liked it, although I won't ever order it as a whole pizza. I've ordered spinach and ham or spinach with black olives and enjoyed it, too. Baby spinach leaves aren't bitter like canned spinach is. I've had the eggplant as a topping and loved it. Ham and pineapple with black olives, bacon and hot sauce is another one I love. 

Toppings I flat out refuse to have on my pizza are: mushrooms, anchovies, ground beef, sliced sausages (I want the uncased sausage, not the kind that comes in links). I would eat the pizza in the photo except I'd take off the mushrooms. I really and truly dislike mushrooms. I'm not a big fan of pepperoni, either, but I will eat it at times if it's well cooked and crispy. Otherwise, I take that off, too.

So, what pizza toppings do you like? What ones won't you eat? What toppings do you like that I haven't listed? Are they popular in your country or just to you?

Originally posted at: Bubblews.com

Peppers, Onions and Eggs for Dinner

Veggies atop the chicken at the restaurant.

Over this past weekend, my friend Tom and I went to a local Mexican restaurant we hadn't been to in a while. I decided to try something I'd never tried before and went with the Pollo Salvadoreno - Grilled Chicken El Salvador style. I had imagined that the veggies would be cooked down more than they were, but they were still mostly crispy. If you've ever had fajitas, you know what they looked like, but they were cooked LESS than that. I was disappointed, but still ate the chicken, which was delicious. The veggies smelled fantastic, so I brought them home along with the leftover rice, beans, chips and salsa. 

I decided on Thursday that I was going to use those peppers and onions. Perfectly good food that deserved being eaten, even if it was in a different way than originally served. But, I didn't want to thaw out any meat. I wanted something fast and easy. 

Peppers and eggs are very popular in our area, especially where there are a lot of Italians. I'm sorry to say that I refused to ever try them until after my mother passed away five years ago. She would have been thrilled to see me eat them. I discovered I liked them quite a bit. Yes, these peppers came with onions, too, but they were sweet onions, which I'll eat cooked. I don't like onions that have a sharp bite to them and I'll never ever eat an onion raw. So, I tossed the

Shortly after pouring the eggs in the pan.

Salvadoreno vegetables in the pan with some olive oil and began to pan grill them to where I like eating them. While that was happening, I got out seven eggs and put them in a bowl with some milk and scrambled them. 

Once the veggies were cooked (some might call these burnt - I prefer "blackened"), I poured the scrambled eggs over them and began cooking everything together. I took two pictures of the eggs - one while they were setting up and one after I'd stirred them and they were done. There is also a photo from the restaurant showing the veggies as they were before I decided to cook them again. 

After stirring with a wooden spoon until they were just set.

Add two slices of some fantastic artisan whole grain bread from Trader Joe's, toasted and buttered, and I can't deny that I had a pleasurable meal. 

Have you ever brought leftovers home and turned them into something else?

Originally published to my Bubblews account.

It's Never Too Hot for Chili

Restaurant Widow's chili 

Yes, I said it. Despite it being the hottest summer season we've ever experienced here in South Jersey, my daughter wanted chili and set out to make a pot full using some of the fresh ground beef I had just bought. Chili is one of her favorite foods. She loved it when my mother would make chili. And, she liked my chili (which was a bit different from my mother's). But, once she began making it herself, she swears by her own. 

Of course, it is good, I have to admit. But, I don't quite know where she got her taste for adding hot sauce since that's never been part of my cooking or my mother's cooking. Even her father, of Mexican heritage, isn't too fond of spicy foods. But, my daughter likes to kick it up a notch, as Emeril might say. I don't even know which of the several hot sauces she's brought into the house she uses because I don't use it, although I might consider Tabasco sometime now that I'm familiar with it on spicy Hawaiian Pizza (thank you, Dominos!! You ROCK!)

Anyway, this time she decided to add corn to the mix. Corn is her favorite vegetable - well, second favorite. I'd have to give potatoes the edge. In a very close third position for her would be either French style green beans or broccoli (cooked beyond all recommendations). Neither of us has put corn in chili before, but I've seen some recipes call for it and I've even considered it in the past.

Deb wanted tater tots to go along with the chili, so that was my job. Toss them on a cookie sheet and pop them in the oven. Can't get much easier than that.

What made this even more interesting is that this was all taking place between 12:30 and 1 a.m. What can I say? We were hungry and it was a bit cooler by then (although temps never dropped below 80° all night). We both really like chili and can eat it any time of the year. We still have over a quart left over and that includes eating more today and her taking some to share with a friend. One of these times, though, I'm going to have to  make some of my somewhat less spicy chili. I like mine as much as she likes hers, although the basics of both are the same (ground beef, diced onions, diced green peppers, kidney beans, tomatoes and tomato sauce, chili powder).

I have included an image from The Restaurant Widow. She makes her chili differently than we do, but the image looks very much like what my daughter made.