Pecan-Crusted Chicken Salad

As the weather gets warmer, I try to have salads for dinner at least once per week. It just seems appropriate—warmer weather means eating less and “cooking” less. The problem is, though, that I’m not really a salad person (I’ll take the fat with a side of cholesterol, please), so to get myself to eat salads more I need to find ones that have something special to offer, such as a special ingredient or a phenomenal dressing. I usually like creamy dressings (I have a great mayo-based one—stay tuned for that), but vinaigrettes can be great, too.

In fact, a vinaigrette is what initially caught my attention about this pecan-crusted chicken salad. This salad is dressed with—are you ready?—caramel-citrus vinaigrette. As in, there’s actual caramel sauce right in the dressing. I used Smucker's Caramel Topping, which I think is meant for ice cream, and it was awesome! Not only is the dressing delicious on its own, but it’s a perfect accompaniment to the chicken, which is coated with a cinnamon-and-sugar pecan mixture. This is my kind of salad.

I changed the recipe just a bit. For the actual salad part I used romaine, cucumber, tomatoes, and scallions, but the original calls for mixed greens, tomato, and carrot, and that would be good, too. I made the dressing taste even more caramelly by using half as much olive oil as called for, and it was deliciously sweet, but not too much so. At least not for me.

Pecan-Crusted Chicken Salad
adapted from Pecan Crusted Chicken over Field Greens
Serves 4

For the chicken:

4 chicken breast halves, pounded to an even 1/2-inch thickness
1 1/2 cups buttermilk
1 1/2 cups crushed pecan pieces
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1 tablespoon sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 teaspoon oil

For the greens:

2 hearts of romaine, chopped
4 Roma tomatoes, sliced
2 small cucumbers, seeded and sliced
2 scallions, thinly sliced

For the vinaigrette:

1/3 cup caramel sauce
2 teaspoons water
1/4 cup lime juice
3 tablespoons lemon juice
1/4 cup olive oil
1 lime, zested, optional
Salt and freshly ground black pepper

For the chicken:

Place chicken and buttermilk in a plastic bag and allow to sit for 15 minutes up to overnight.

While chicken is marinating, combine pecans with spices and mix well. Place mixture into a shallow dish. Remove chicken and allow excess buttermilk to drain. Coat both sides of the chicken pieces with the pecan/spice mixture. Lightly press in to chicken.

Place a nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Heat oil and, working in two batches, sauté chicken for about 4-5 minutes per side, making sure pecan coating has set before flipping. When chicken is done and has slightly cooled, slice and arrange over salad bed.

For the vinaigrette:

Combine the caramel sauce with water and citrus juices and whisk. While whisking, drizzle in olive oil, lime zest, if using, and season with salt and pepper, to taste.

Garlic Oven Fries with Pesto Mayonnaise

I have a sincere and undying love of mayonnaise. I enjoy adding large quantities of it to many things. On nights when I don’t feel like cooking, Adam will bring Subway home, and I will sit on the couch with my sub, mayonnaise jar beside me, butter knife in hand.

I’m afraid to tell you any more than that. Let’s just say that there’s lots of mayonnaise involved.

We have burgers a couple times per month, and I must have mayonnaise on my burger. We usually have fries with our burgers, and I like to have mayonnaise with my fries, as well. On burger-and-fry night, I usually make garlic mayo, which is just mayonnaise mixed with a drizzle of olive oil, a squeeze of lemon, and a clove or two of grated garlic. Adam, who claims not to like mayonnaise, uses his fries to shovel the stuff in by the mouthful.

One of my favorite light meals is a tomato sandwich. Vine-ripened salted tomato slices, fresh basil leaves, and mayonnaise on white bread. That’s it. I love basil as well, and basil and mayo is so, so good. So when I saw Emeril’s recipe for Pesto Mayonnaise, I don’t have to tell you that I was all over it like mayo on my Subway sandwich. I made it tonight for burger-and-fry night, along with some oven-baked garlic fries.

Oven-baked fries can be a disappointment, because it’s hard to get them as nice and crispy as fried ones. But then I found another Emeril recipe, this one for oven-baked fries, that calls for coating the fries with a beaten egg white before baking them at a high temperature. The egg white forms a crackly coating on the outside of the fries and—voilà—crispy oven fries.

Just to really kick it up, I tossed the fries in some garlic butter when they were done in the oven. Then I served them with turkey burgers and, of course, the pesto mayo. I have some of the mayo left over, and I know what I’ll be having for lunch tomorrow: a tomato sandwich with pesto mayonnaise. Yum!

Garlic Oven Fries with Pesto Mayonnaise
Adapted from Emeril’s Oven Fries and Pesto Mayonnaise

Pesto mayonnaise, recipe follows
2 teaspoons vegetable oil
2 large baking potatoes, peeled, about 1 1/2 pounds
1 large egg white
Salt and pepper
1 tablespoon butter
4 garlic cloves, minced

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F. Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper, and grease the parchment with the vegetable oil.

Slice potatoes lengthwise into 1/2-inch-thick slices. Turn each slice flat and slice again lengthwise into even fries, 1/2-inch thick. In a medium mixing bowl, whisk the egg white until very light and foamy. Add the potatoes to the egg whites and toss to coat evenly.

Spread the coated potatoes on the prepared baking sheet, not touching, and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Bake for 30 minutes, or until golden brown and crispy, turning halfway through the cooking time with a spatula.

Melt butter in a small sauce pan over medium-low heat, and cook garlic in butter for 2 minutes, stirring so garlic doesn't burn. Pour garlic butter over fries, toss to coat, and serve immediately with pesto mayonnaise.

Pesto Mayonnaise

1 cup (packed) fresh basil leaves (about 2 ounces)
1/3 cup lightly toasted pine nuts
1 tablespoon minced garlic
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1/4 cup freshly grated Parmesan
1/4 cup mayonnaise

In the bowl of a food processor or blender, combine the basil, pine nuts, garlic, salt, and pepper and puree, scraping down the sides as needed. With the machine running, add the oil through the feed tube and process until the mixture is thick and smooth. Add the Parmesan and process for 15 seconds.

Transfer to a bowl and add the mayonnaise, stirring to blend well. Cover tightly and refrigerate until ready to serve.

Arugula Salad with Spring Onions and Blood Orange Vinaigrette

I have previously expressed my love for the blood orange and what it can do for a martini. But blood oranges aren’t only great for martinis, of course. They also make a darn tasty salad. I used them this evening in Emeril’s Arugula Salad with Blood Orange Vinaigrette and discovered that arugula and blood oranges make an amazing pair. The arugula is peppery, the blood orange is tart, and the marriage of the two strikes the perfect balance. Add some romaine or any other green that you like, top with some spring onions, and you have a delicious jewel-toned salad.

I’m thinking I’ll submit this post to Nutriferia, which is doing a roundup of spring salads. Sounds like a great idea!

Blood oranges will be around until May, so get some while you can and enjoy this gorgeous delicious fruit.

Arugula Salad with Spring Onions and Blood Orange Vinaigrette
adapted from Arugula Salad with Blood Orange Vinaigrette

3 cups arugula
2 cup romaine
2 spring onions, sliced
2 blood oranges, segmented
Blood Orange Vinaigrette, recipe follows

Combine arugula, romaine, scallions, and orange segments in a bowl. Toss with vinaigrette to coat. Serve immediately.

Blood Orange Vinaigrette
1/2 cup blood orange juice
1 finely chopped spring onion
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
1 teaspoon sugar
1 tablespoon white wine vinegar
1/2 cup olive oil
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper

Whisk together juice, onion, mustard, sugar, and vinegar in a medium bowl. Slowly whisk in olive oil in a steady stream until combined. Season with salt and pepper.

Andouille Sausage Pizza with Onion Confit and Oven-Dried Tomatoes

Yesterday was a day of firsts for me. It was the first time I made a Michael Chiarello recipe. I've always enjoyed his show, and I wish it was one of the more popular shows on FN. It seems that, with the exception of Bobby Flay, all the shows hosted by chefs are fading away, and, in turn, the more advanced recipes, at least in terms of technique, are being replaced by all things quick and simple. It's true that I'll more often make a Rachael Ray-type recipe than I will a Michael Chiarello-type recipe, but that's only because there are 2 days per week that I have hours to spend on a meal, and 5 that I don't. So while I, like most home cooks, may more often turn to a relatively simple recipe, I much more appreciate a complicated one, because it is in working through those that I find my cooking improves the most. Although I wouldn't exactly call Andouille Sausage Pizza with Onion Confit and Fontina Cheese complicated; it is, however, a bit time consuming. Most of that is down time, but you have to have a couple hours free to let things cook slowly in the oven.


The other first I experienced with this recipe was the making of a confit, which refers to a food item that has been immersed and slowly cooked in a flavoring liquid, traditionally for preservation. The confit here consisted of onions cooked in a mixture of oil, vinegar, wine, salt, and sugar. Though I've only done it once, I already feel like the making of an onion confit is a valuable method to become familiar with. The onions really absorb the flavor of whatever you cook them in, so much so that, by the end, they hardly taste like onions anymore. So if you're ever looking for a way to take a liquid and concentrate its flavor in a solid form, consider an onion confit.


Overall, this pizza was very good. I wish I had a pizza stone, so that my crust would have turned out more crispy, but that's another item on my wait-'til-we-have-a-house list. The crust was tender though (I used Emeril's recipe), and the toppings worked wonderfully together. The spicyness of the andouille and the sweetness of the confit balanced each other nicely, and the cheeses brought all the flavors together. The oven-dried tomatoes were a welcome alternative to the usual pizza sauce--they were sweet, delicious, and full of the flavors of the garlic-thyme oil in which they'd been cooked.


Andouille Pizza with Onion Confit and Oven-Dried Tomatoes
adapted from Andouille Sausage Pizza Pie, using Emeril's Basic Pizza Dough

Extra virgin olive oil
Salt and pepper
2 links fresh andouille
4 cloves garlic, divided
2 yellow onions, sliced
1/2 cup champagne or white wine vinegar
Pinch of sugar for confit, plus 1 teaspoon for dough
2 tablespoons white wine
2 roma tomatos
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
1 cup warm (110 degrees F) water
1 (1/4-ounce) envelope active dry yeast
3 cups bleached all-purpose flour
1 oz. fontina cheese, shredded
2 oz. mozzarella cheese, shredded
1/4 cup grated parmesan
2 tablespoons chopped parlsey

Preheat oven to 250 degrees.

First, prepare the sausage. Remove the casings from two links of andouille, then tear the sausages into small pieces and drop into an oil-drizzled skillet over medium-high heat. Saute until cooked through. Reduce heat to medium, add two cloves of thinly sliced garlic, and cook 2 minutes more. With a slotted spoon, remove garlic and sausage from pan and set aside.

Next, prepare the onion confit. Add enough olive oil to andouille renderings to equal about 1/4 cup. Add onions, and cook for a few minutes, or until they begin to soften. Add 1/2 tablespoon salt, vinegar, pinch of sugar, and white wine. Cover skillet with a parchment-paper circle that's had a two-inch hole cut out of the center to allow steam to escape. Place skillet in the oven and allow to cook for 2 hours, or until pizza dough is ready. (You can plan to cook the vegetables for 3 hours if you have the time, but I'm impatient.)


Slice tomatoes into four slices each. Drizzle a baking pan or sheet with about 2 tablespoons olive oil, top with tomatoes, then drizzle an additional 2 tablespoons of olive oil over the tomatoes. Top with 2 thinly sliced garlic cloves, 1/4 teaspoon of salt, a couple grinds of pepper, and 1/2 teaspoon of dried thyme. Place in oven to cook with onions (tomatoes and onions will be done at the same time).


About an hour before tomatoes and onions are finished, prepare pizza dough. In a large bowl, combine the water, yeast, 1 tablespoon oil, and 1 teaspoon of sugar, and stir to combine. Let sit until the mixture is foamy, about 5 minutes. Add 1 1/2 cups of the flour and 1 teaspoon of salt, mixing by hand until it is all incorporated and the mixture is smooth. Continue adding the flour, 1/4 cup at a time, working the dough after each addition, until all the flour is incorporated but the dough is still slightly sticky. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead until smooth but still slightly tacky, 3 to 5 minutes.

Oil a large mixing bowl with 1 1/2 teaspoons olive oil. Place the dough in the bowl and turn to oil all sides. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and set in a warm, draft-free place until nearly doubled in size, about 1 hour.

Remove the dough from the bowl and briefly knead. Place on a lightly floured work surface and let rest for 10 minutes. Transfer to a lightly oiled baking sheet (or a baker's peel, if you have one) and shape into a large round.

Remove vegetables from oven, and adjust oven temperature to 450 degrees. Scatter shaped dough with fontina, then top with onions and the tomatoes and reserved sausage, being sure to include the garlic that was cooked with both. With a pastry brush, lightly brush the edges of the dough with the oil that the tomatoes cooked in, using just enough to lightly coat the outside of the dough. Finally, top with mozzarella and parmesan cheese and bake in preheated oven for about 12 minutes, or until cheese is melted and crust begins to turn golden brown. Top with parsley and serve.

Noodle Love II: Bucatini

I’ve had a package of bucatini sitting in my pantry for a couple months now. I haven’t known what to do with it. Bucatini recipes aren’t exactly abundant, I’ve found. So I decided that what I needed was just a special sauce, because this is a special noodle. I bought a pound of it at an Italian specialty shop, and I think it was $13 or something crazy like that. It tasted—I don’t know—my inability with words in painfully obvious here, but I just can’t describe it except to say that it had a quality that was distinctly different from the pasta I normally buy at the grocery store. It was heartier, somehow. The noodles were sturdy yet tender. It was delicious, and, although I often feel that pasta plays second fiddle to its sauce, the bucatini was the star of the show here.

Which is not to say that the sauce wasn’t also delicious. It was, and I’ll definitely make it again. I made Emeril’s oreganata tomato sauce, which had originally been intended for rigatoni, which I’m definitely going to try in the future. It’s an incredibly simple sauce made with tomatoes, cream, and fresh basil and oregano. This was my first time working with fresh oregano, and I really like it. It has adorable fuzzy little leaves that remind me of a miniature African violet. That’s them nestled on top of the butter below—aren’t they cute?

I often serve garlic bread with pasta, but when I have a lot of fresh herbs around that are beginning to move past their prime, my favorite way to use them up is to make fresh herb butter. Don’t ever be afraid of buying a bundle of fresh herbs because you only need a couple tablespoons and you don’t know what to do with the rest. Herb butter is incredibly easy, adaptable, and delicious. I served about . . . oh . . . maybe 10 slices of Italian bread last night, and for that I used 4 tablespoons of unsalted butter and a tablespoon of olive oil. Let the butter come to room temperature, then add a small handful of whatever fresh herbs you have on hand, finely chopped. Drizzle in a bit of olive oil, add a small pinch of salt and a smaller pinch of pepper, and combine thoroughly. It’s delicious on warm bread. I used a few thyme sprigs, a couple of basil leaves, a bit of oregano, a pinch of rosemary, and some parsley. But I usually don’t have that much variety, and I’ve made it with just parsley and thyme or parsley and basil and it’s always delicious.

Below is the recipe for the pasta oreganta. This sauce would work with any noodle, I think, but it was especially great with the bucatini. Bucatini is a tad difficult to eat; it’s long, so you want to twirl it around your fork, but it plumps up a lot when it cooks and is really too round and thick to fit around the tines. In those situations you don’t want too much sauce, or it’ll splatter everywhere as you’re trying to slurp up the noodles. This recipe makes just enough sauce to put a thin, even, delicious coating on a pound of bucatini.

Bucatini Oreganata
adapted from Rigatoni Oreganata

2 tablespoons kosher salt
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 pound bucatini
1 small onion, diced onion
4 cloves garlic, chopped
2 tablespoons roughly chopped fresh oregano leaves
2 tablespoons roughly chopped fresh basil leaves
1 (14 1/2-ounce) can diced tomatoes
1 cup tomato sauce
2 tablespoons tomato paste
1/2 cup heavy cream
1/4 cup reserved pasta cooking water
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon fresh ground black pepper
2 tablespoons chopped parsley leaves
1/2 cup grated Parmesan

Set a large stockpot filled with water over high heat and bring to a boil. Season the water with the kosher salt and add the bucatini. While the pasta cooks, set a 14-inch sauté pan over medium-high heat and add the olive oil. Once the oil is hot, add the onions and garlic and cook, stirring occasionally, until soft and slightly caramelized, 3 to 4 minutes. Add the oregano and basil. Add the diced tomatoes, tomato sauce, and tomato paste and stir well to combine. Continue to cook the sauce until it is slightly reduced, about 4 to 5 minutes. Add the heavy cream to the pan. By this time the pasta should be almost al dente. Drain the pasta and reserve 1/4 cup of the cooking water. Add the pasta and the reserved cooking water to the sauce in the pan and season with the salt and pepper. Continue to cook, tossing the pasta, until it is well coated with the sauce. Stir in the parsley and serve with Parmesan.

Chili Tamale Pie

Yet another thing I love about chili is the possibilities for the leftovers. I usually keep it pretty simple--chili burgers, chili pot-pie, chili taco salad--but whatever it is, it's always delicious. What is it about chili that makes it taste even better a couple days later? Anyway, as much as I love my old standbys, it's always nice to try something different. So with my leftover Turkey and White Bean Chili I made Emeril's Chili Tamale Pie.

I often make something similar to this--chili casserole with cornbread topping--but the tamale topping is much softer and doesn't come together the way a bread does. It has a thick, creamy texture that doesn't really firm up unless you allow it to cool, and even then it's only slightly. The topping alone is a bit bland--I'll add extra salt and pepper next time--but, eaten together with the chili, it's very good.

I served this with a simple salad tossed in Tyler's vinaigrette (also very good, if you like your dressings a bit sweet) and lots of sour cream. There are certain things that I believe were not intended to be eaten without sour cream, and anything chili-related is one of them.

Chicken, Sausage, and White Beans

Another Emeril recipe tonight. This one I changed up a bit. I stuck close to the ingredients but used a different method. Emeril’s way required cooking dried beans, and I couldn’t be bothered with that so I just used canned. It wasn’t exactly a stew when I was done, but that’s okay. It went great with garlic mashed potatoes.

I’m posting the recipe here along with a warning: In addition to not bothering with dried beans, I also couldn’t be bothered to measure. Adjust the seasonings to your own taste, because the “amounts” I’m giving here are very rough.

Chicken, Sausage, and White Beans
adapted from Emeril’s Chicken, Sausage, and White Bean Stew

2 tablespoons olive oil
5 chicken thighs, trimmed of fat and cut into 1-inch pieces
1/2 pound andouille sausage, casings removed
1 chopped yellow onion
1 bay leaf
1 chopped green bell pepper
2 stalks chopped celery
5 cloves minced garlic
1 can white beans, drained
1/4 cup chicken stock, plus more if needed
3 sprigs fresh thyme, leaves stripped and chopped
2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley leaves

Seasonings
paprika
kosher salt
black pepper
garlic powder
onion powder
cayenne pepper
dried oregano
dried thyme

Heat olive oil in a heavy-bottomed pan over medium-high heat. Add chicken and sprinkle with seasonings. Just add a thin layer of each seasoning on top of the chicken pieces, using more or less of each depending on which flavors you like most.

After about 8 minutes, crumble sausage into pan and give everything a stir. Add onions and bay leaf. Cook until onions begin to soften and sausage is mostly done, about 10 minutes.

Add peppers and celery and cook for 5 more minutes. Add garlic and cook for an additional minute. Deglaze the pan with chicken stock (how much you need will depend on how much is stuck to your pan), scrape up any bits stuck to the pan, and add beans and fresh thyme. Stir, taste, and adjust seasonings as desired.

Reduce heat to low and cook for about more 10 minutes or until any extra stock is absorbed. Sprinkle with parsley and serve.

Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Muffins

I’ve been making a lot of Emeril recipes lately. I wish I enjoyed watching his show more, because I really like his food. Oddly, I find that there’s often an inverse relationship between the shows I most enjoy watching and the food I most enjoy making. For instance, I love watching Semi-Homemade—nothing else on the FN comes close for sheer entertainment—but I’ve never wanted to make anything Sandra Lee has heated up—I mean, cooked.

Anyway, today I made Emeril’s Pumpkin Muffins. I omitted the chocolate glaze and instead added semisweet chocolate chips to the batter. I’m sure the glaze would have been good, but I’m lazy. Plus I didn’t have enough chips for that.

Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Muffins
recipe adapted from Emeril’s Pumpkin Muffins with Chocolate Glaze

1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chips
2 cups all-purpose flour, plus an extra pinch
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/4 teaspoon grated nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 large eggs
1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
1/2 cup whole milk
1 cup pumpkin puree
4 tablespoons melted unsalted butter
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 375º. Spray a 12-muffin tin with nonstick cooking spray.

In a small bowl, combine chocolate chips with a generous pinch of flour, just enough to give chips a fine, even coating. This will help keep the chocolate from settling to the bottom of the batter as the muffins bake.

In a medium bowl, sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, and salt. In a large mixing bowl, beat together sugar, milk, pumpkin, melted butter, and vanilla. Beat in eggs one at a time. Fold the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients until just incorporated. Fold in chocolate chips, reserving some to sprinkle on top of muffins. Divide the batter evenly among the muffin cups, and drop a few chocolate chips in each cup. Bake until golden brown, about 18 minutes. Remove from oven and let cool in the tin for 10 minutes.

These were pretty tasty. I recommend eating them warm with a cold glass of milk. The pumpkin flavor is fairly subtle, so if you want to bring it out more you could use fewer chocolate chips. Or you could omit them entirely and replace them with walnuts or pecans. Emeril used dried cranberries, which would probably be good, too.

Potato Pizza

Every time I go to Pizzeria Uno, I get the same thing: Pizza Skins and a Caesar salad. I suppose “pizza skins” is a play on “potato skins,” but the name is a bit misleading. It’s really a pizza crust filled with mashed potatoes and topped with cheddar cheese, bacon, and sour cream. Delicious.

Recently, I was searching for a copycat recipe, not really expecting to find one, and was surprised to come across Emeril’s Loaded Potato Pizza. This recipe actually is from a viewer who won Emeril’s potato recipe contest, and so I guess isn’t technically Emeril’s, but whatever. I was just excited to find the recipe.

I modified it just a bit—left out the tomatoes, changed the cheese, added some chives—and it was awesome.

Loaded Potato Pizza
adapted from Emeril’s Loaded Potato Pizza

Pizza Dough
3 cups bread flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 package active dry yeast
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 cup warm water*

*I found that the proportions for the dough were a bit off. If needed, add a bit more warm water, a tablespoon at a time, just until your mixture comes together and forms a nice ball of dough.

Filling/Toppings
13 medium red skin potatoes, peeled
7 cloves of garlic, crushed and peeled
4 tablespoons butter
¾ cup of heavy whipping cream
Kosher salt
black pepper

6 strips of bacon
1 yellow onion, thinly sliced
¼ cup of shredded mozzarella cheese
¼ cup of shredded cheddar cheese
½ teaspoon onion powder
1 teaspoon dried chives

Make the dough first. Combine flour, salt, and yeast in a large bowl. Mix in water and oil until dough ball forms. Cover bowl and set aside to rise, at least 30 minutes, while preparing the rest of the ingredients.

Preheat oven to 450°.

Put potatoes and garlic in a large pot and fill pot with just enough water to cover. Bring to a boil. When water is boiling, add a generous pinch of salt and lower heat just enough so that potatoes continue cooking at a gentle boil for 20 minutes.

While potatoes are cooking, fry the bacon until just crisp (it’ll crisp up a bit more in the oven). Remove bacon, place on paper towels to drain, and add onions to the same pan while the bacon grease is still hot. Cook on medium-low heat for about 10 minutes or until onions are lightly caramelized. Remove from pan and set on a paper towel to drain off grease.

After boiling for 20 minutes, drain potatoes and garlic, return to pot, and mash. Add butter, cream, a teaspoon of salt, and freshly cracked black pepper to taste. Whip with a hand-held mixer until potatoes are smooth and creamy.

Roll out pizza dough on a generously floured surface. Work into a 12-inch round and place on a pizza pan. Don’t be afraid to man-handle the dough a bit—it can take it. Once dough is nicely shaped on the pan, sprinkle with onions and spread potatoes on top to within 1-inch of the edge of the dough. Top with onion powder, cheeses, crumbled bacon, and chives. Sprinkle with extra salt and pepper if desired.

Bake in preheated oven for 15 minutes. Serving with a side Caesar salad is optional but highly recommended.

Before making this recipe I thought I’d end up serving the pizza with sour cream dolloped on top or on the side, because, in my opinion, a loaded potato is not a loaded potato without sour cream, but this really didn’t need it. It was delicious as is. I had a hard time keeping myself from just eating the whipped potatoes straight out of the pot. This is the first time I’ve made mine with heavy cream, and I now see that I’ve been missing out.

Nachos for Dinner

Nachos and margaritas make, in my opinion, a perfect Friday night dinner. Last night I made Emeril’s shredded chicken nachos.

This was, without a doubt, the most effort I’ve ever put into making nachos. By far. The chicken alone required an hour and a half to prepare. I almost skipped Emeril’s recommended method and just roasted it in the oven for 45 minutes, Ina Garten style, but at the last minute I decided to stick to Emeril’s recipe. I’m glad I did. The smell of the chicken cooking with the chili powder, onions, and garlic was wonderful. The chicken became so moist and tender that shredding it wasn’t nearly the ordeal I feared it would be.

In short, these were pretty good nachos. The cheese sauce was great. Instead of Emeril’s pico de gallo, I served mine with sour cream and whipped avocado, which was just an avocado whipped with a bit of lime juice, salt, and pepper. Next time I make these, I think I’ll try them with beef instead or chicken, or maybe beans. Maybe both.