Playoffs!

It is a good Monday, after a GREAT Giants win! I have 2 recipes to share with you today.

The first one is for BBQ chicken pita pizza. On Friday night, we made BBQ chicken calzones from this recipe http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/BBQ-Chicken-Calzones/Detail.aspx?ms=1&prop25=75115967&prop26=DailyDish&prop27=2012-01-06&prop28=DailyRecipe&prop29=FullRecipePhoto&me=1. These came out pretty good, but if you try this recipe don't totally cook the chicken. When we baked it in the oven the chicken got a bit over cooked, so we will cook it less next time.

We had leftover chicken, so I wanted to find a good use for it.  I had some pita's in the fridge and decided to make a pita pizza. I preheated the oven to 350. I sprayed the cookie sheet and pita with Pam.  I then spread the mixture (bbq chicken and bacon) onto the pita and topped with mozzerella cheese.

I baked this in the oven for about 10-15 minutes - until the cheese was melted.

I cut up into smaller pieces and this was our lunch during the game! It was definitely a good use of the leftover chicken and bacon!

My second recipe of the day was for a Shepherd's Pie.  I've been wanting to make this for a long time now, so I decided that today was the day! I adapted my recipe from http://simplyrecipes.com/recipes/easy_shepherds_pie/

I started with peeling and quartering the potatoes. I put them in a pot to boil for about 25 minutes. I probably could have boiled them a bit longer to help with the potato mashing process.

While the potatoes were boiling, I browned the ground beef. Once the ground beef was cooked I added a can of mixed vegetables and mixed it all together.

I added a half can of beef broth to the mixture and kept it on low heat while the potatoes were boiling. Once the potatoes were done boiling, I put them in a bowl and added some butter. I mashed the potatoes up with a spoon the best I could. Next time I make this I will use a few more potatoes. The recipe called for 3, but I didn't have enough to really spoon over the entire mixture.

I then added the beef mixture to the casserole dish.

And topped it with the potatoes

It was a very thin layer of potatoes - that is why I'd use more next time. I put this in the oven at 400 degrees until it began bubbling. With about 10 minutes left, I turned the oven to broil, so I could get the top of the potatoes to brown.

It came out looking and tasting good! We topped with some cheddar cheese as well.

Looking forward to next weekend! See you then!