I almost hate this to be my first recipe to post, since I truly have been taking pictures of some pretty awesome things I’ve made since moving in with Hubs’ to our new house. But Hubs was so enamored with this dinner, he actually asked if we could have it everyday (he’s such an adorable big kid).
The only thing is, it wasn’t even a planned dinner! I had decided to make a rice dish tonight with my new steamer/rice cooker, but failed to realize it would take 100 minutes to cook my brown rice. I was hungry NOW, so I figured that wasn’t going to fly. Instead, I turned to my kitchen and decided to make something fantastic out of what we had that would probably go bad pretty soon (I like to keep my fridge stocked with primarily fresh ingredients).
First, I realized I had half a loaf of Italian bread. I made garlic bread for a fancy Italian meal two nights before because some friends came to visit. Also, I had sliced up some random veggies and already grated mozzarella and parmesan because I made a salad platter for my guests, and I had tons of left over spinach because I made fresh spinach dip the night before too.
DOINK! Of course! I’d make an Italian bread pizza! I always have tomato sauce in the pantry for occasions such as this and layered a beautiful mushroom, spinach, and turkey sausage pizza with mozzarella, parmesan, olive oil and garlic powder and various Italian seasonings. The sausage came from some frozen precooked patties we had in the freezer already. One serving covered the whole half loaf! I toasted the whole thing for about 15 minutes on 350 degrees and it was fantastic. Next time I think I may broil it though to make it crispier.
Then I went back into my fridge for something I’m even more proud of– a salad Hubs said was the best salad he’s ever had. It was big helpings of fresh spinach, left over cut up carrots from the salad platter the night before, some grapes and apple chunks (also fruit that I did not want to be going bad in the fridge but we got a while ago). I topped it with some left over almonds I used in a pesto sauce and some feta I was saving for a salad. I brought it all together with a balsamic vinaigrette.
Never mind the fact that I hand rolled ravioli two days prior and spent hours roasting a local chicken. Nope. Hubs thinks this dinner is the dinner of all dinners.
Looks amazing!!! 🙂 I wish I was that steady in the kitchen… I usually look around and panic!
Aw, don’t panic. View nights like those as a time to get creative. Hubs calls me “iron chef” when I get freaky with my pantry like this. Honestly, it just takes some imagination or a decent Google search of what ingredients you do have. I think Allrecipes.com has an app for that too! Check it out ❤