Need Simple dinner recipes

Do a search of the recipes forum...  lots of ideas there!

Super Simple

Boboli pizza-- buy the Boboli crusts and make pizzas. Don't use their sauce packets though. Bleah. For pizza, a simple uncooked sauce is best.

14 oz can crushed tomatoes

1 clove or two of garlic minced

Fresh basil or dried crumbled oregano to taste

salt and pepper to taste

Mix that up and let it stand for a bit for the flavors to meld.

Heat your oven to 450.

Meanwhile, set up your pizza. Brush the crust with olive oil. Sprinkle with a little dried oregano. Spoon on some sauce and spread it around thinly. It doesn't take a lot of sauce to properly sauce a pizza.

Top with cheese of your choice,, many work well. Again, light with the cheese. Good pizza is more about restraint than gluttony.

Meats go on top of the cheese. Not a lot needed here either. Bake it 10 minutes or so until the cheese is bubbly and browned. Let it rest a few minutes outside of the oven before cutting or the cheese tends to slide off in the cutting.

If you have a food processor, you can make your own pizza dough quite easily and it's much better than pre-fab crusts and such. I give some detailed steps in this thread.

Simple Black Bean Soup

14 oz can of black beans

14 oz can chicken stock, low sodium

1 clove garlic minced

sour cream to garnish

Mix the first three ingredients in a saucepan. Do not rinse the beans, you want their liquid and starchy parts. Heat, taste and correct seasoning with salt and pepper as needed.  ladle into bowls, garnish with a little sour cream. Tasty, easy, fast.

Tilt different directions with salsa for example. Or saute a strip of bacon first, remove to cool. Then cook the garlic in the rendered bacon fat for 30-60 seconds, add the rest of the ingredients, and crumble the bacon back on top when you serve. Or add some chopped ham.

One simple dish I enjoy is pasta with a quick sausage sauce.  I usually use angel hair or thin spaghetti.  Take a couple of italian sausage links, or half a pound or so of bulk if you can buy it that way.  If using links cut them open and peel off the casing.  Put a frying pan on medium heat, add a splash of olive oil.  When the oil is hot, you can usually tell by the aroma it starts to give off, brown the sausage.  Meanwhile cook the pasta in a lot of salted water.

When the sausage is done add a 14 oz. can of diced ( or crushed ) tomatoes and about a teaspoon of Italian seasoning blend, let it simmer, stirring frequently.  When the pasta is done you are ready to assemble.  There are two basic ways to do so.  The first is the usual American way of putting the pasta on the plate and topping with sauce.  The other way is to put the pasta into the pan with the sauce, stir until coated, then serve.  Grated parm if desired.

You can always experiment with the sauce, like adding diced onion or minced garlic when you fry the sausage, or putting a couple of chopped anchovy filets in - they will cook down and give the sauce a nice, but not fishy extra flavor.  Crushed red pepper, minced garlic, red wine, vermouth, mushrooms  are all good candidates to be added.

It is quick and simple, seems like it takes longer to describe it than cook it!

Welcome to ChefTalk, feel free to ask about anything related to food.

mjb.

How about Pizza dough? It's fun to make, or cheap to buy fresh at your local pizza shop. In addition to endless varieties of pizzas you can make, try some calzones, stromboli's, garlic knots, bread sticks, etc.

For a new twist on tacos, make a taco pizza using salsa for the sauce, cheddar for the cheese topping, and taco meat over the top. After cooking, sprinkle with diced onions, shredded lettuce, cilantro, chives, sliced black olives, and dollops of sour cream.

Tommy