Friday Fascinations 4 - Everything Linky Party - Pizza Grilled Cheese

This week we are going to do an everything linky party. You can link up anything that you have been working on, thinking about, writing about, whatever. Literally any post of yours that you would like to share with my readers link it up!

I love grilled cheese sandwiches. I have heard of different types of grilled cheese sandwiches but had never tried them until this one. The staple grilled cheese sandwich in our house is with american cheese (My husband calls them cheese toasties). That is what I had always heard of. I remember the first time that I heard of another option was in The Devil Wears Prada. In that movie the girl's boyfriend makes her grilled cheese sandwiches with another type of cheese (I don't remember what kind) and I thought "You can make them with something besides american cheese?". The funny thing is I don't even like american cheese. The only thing I eat it on is grilled cheese. So when I saw this recipe for Pizza Grilled Cheese I thought I should really try that. I love homemade pizza and pizza pudgy pies so how could it go wrong? My favorite pizza toppings are pepperoni and mushroom but you can use whatever toppings you prefer.

Pizza Grilled Cheese

Ingredients:
Bread
Butter
Cheese (I happened to have slices of provolone left over from a different meal, but if I didn't then I would have used shredded parmesan cheese)
Pizza Sauce (if you want, I didn't use any, but I may next time) 
Toppings (any type that you like on regular pizza)


Directions:

Assemble your ingredients. You will want to have everything close by and prepared because if you leave in the middle of cooking to get something your sandwich will burn. I forgot to put the butter in this picture, but I did use it.

 Butter your bread. Butter all slices before you put any in the pan because like I said it will burn if you don't get it together quickly.

Put the first slice of bread in the pan butter side down. Add some toppings on top. (I was only making 1 sandwich so the little skillet on the stove worked, but if you are making several you can use an electric griddle and make more at once)

Add your cheese and more toppings (I like mine with a lot of cheese and toppings)

Place the other slice of bread on top butter side up (basically you want the butter to be facing out on both sides)

Flip over when the cheese is starting to melt and the bottom side is brown. This is actually a little browner than I like, you can cook to your ideal level of brownness. It is done when both sides are a good level of brown and the cheese is melted.

Verdict: Pure yumminess! This is the best idea since grilled cheese. And very easy. This is a must try!

Linky Party

The rules:

•  For this party you may link up anything that you have been working on - crafts, recipes, random musings, etc. I do not mind links to giveaways or parties as long as you state that it is a giveaway or party in the title. Link up whatever you want just please be honest in the title. I do some themed linky partiessometimes, but this one is a free for all!
• Please follow me in some way. If you absolutely hate my blog then of course don't follow it, but if you hate it should you really be linking up? (I leave that for you to answer :) There are several ways to follow me offered on the right sidebar.
• Link up directly to the post, not your home page.
• By linking up you are giving me permission to feature your post including but not limited to pictures and quotes from your post, and also to feature your post in my various social media outlets.
• This is a family friendly, christian blog. I reserve the right to remove a link to any content that I find offensive or not compatible with this blog, with or without notice.
• Please add a backlink or my button to your blog or post somewhere. You can find my buttons on the left sidebar.
• Please check out some of the other links and leave some love in some way (comment, pin, follow, etc.)

Easy Peasy Braided Bread

 I have to say, I love my bread machine. I never made bread before I got a bread machine (well, maybe once or twice, but not very often at all). It just wasn't worth the time to me. I mean all the time to mix up ingredients then let it rise, then punch it down and let it rise again and so on and so forth. Just way too much work. Plus, I am not an early riser so by the time I started the bread we might be eating it at Midnight. So I absolutely love my bread machine because using it means that we can have fresh bread any day we want, it only takes about 20 minutes of my time, I just have to wait a little while for it. Sometimes if I want to be fancy but not spend tons of time on bread I will make the dough in the bread machine then shape it in a fun way. One of my favorite ways to shape bread is to braid it. It comes out so fancy, but it really only took minimal work. So here it is, The Easy Peasy way to make braided bread.

First Things first, if you don't have a bread machine consider getting one. If you want to find one for a good price check your local Good Will and garage sales. If you want to make bread the old fashioned way please feel free to skip this step :)

Make your favorite bread dough recipe, whatever that happens to be. I chose to make 1 loaf of french bread and 1 loaf of honey oat bread.

Roll dough into a ball on floured surface

Form into 3 equal-ish balls

Roll each ball into a long string of dough

Press ends of each string together

Braid like hair. (The one on the left side over the middle, then the one on the right side over the middle, then left, then right, etc)

Pinch the other end together

Sometimes I just bake the braid on a flat cookie sheet. This time I put it in a loaf pan to make slicing easier. You can let it rise a little more if you want your bread more airy, or you can go ahead and bake it if you like more dense loaves.

Bake however your recipe says. I think mine says something like bake at 350 degrees for 1/2 hour. I decided to make a little roll too, just for fun :)

Here are my 2 loaves. Aren't they pretty!

The honey oat bread

Linked up to:
Tater Tots and Jello, Naptime Crafters, Frugal Girls, A Pinch of Joy, Uncommon, Addicted to Recipes,

Moist and Yummy Pumpkin Bread

I should probably be posting this in the fall. That is when most people think about and make things with pumpkins. It makes sense because they are most available then. However I am not constrained to make pumpkin dishes only in the fall because I freeze my own pumpkin mush! (If you don't freeze your own mush, it is also still available in stores year round I believe :). I will plan to blog about making and freezing pumpkin mush this fall (because I have no pictures so I can't post about it now :) so all of you can join me in gloriously bucking seasonal constraints and make pumpkin bread all year round! The funny thing is, the reason that I freeze pumpkin mush is because I don't really care for pumpkin. (I know, doesn't make sense right?) I Love roasted pumpkin seeds, and the cost to buy plain raw pumpkin seeds (roasted pumpkin seeds from the store are not nearly as good as homemade) is about the same or more than buying an actual pumpkin so I buy the pumpkins instead (What I really need to do is find a jack-o-lantern carving party and steal all their pumpkin seeds). And I can't let all of that pumpkin go to waste (because my husband does actually love pumpkin) so I end up pureeing tons of pumpkin. Last year I think I only did 2 mini (pie) pumpkins because I was large and pregnant and supposed to be on couch rest (I didn't know, oops) so I didn't do a lot but I did manage to put about 10 cups (individually packaged into ziplock bags, 1 cup per bag for easy measuring and use later) of pumpkin mush in the freezer. The year before that I think I ended up pureeing somewhere between 6 and 10 pumpkins (and not all of them mini) so I had way way too much pumpkin. Unfortunately at that time we were still at the apartment and I only had the freezer above the fridge so I had to store it in the fridge and most of it went bad, but not before I pureed it and turned half of it into pumpkin butter. (In case you were wondering, no you can't can pumpkin mush, so it must be stored in a freezer). Thankfully I have a chest freezer now so that won't happen this year.
Anyways back to the recipe, I have no idea where this recipe came from, I found it a couple of years ago and picked it because it calls for a decent amount of pumpkin mush and like I said I had an overabundance of pumpkin mush so I needed to use it up somehow. And amazingly enough I do actually like this pumpkin bread, I don't eat a lot of it (which is ok because my husband does) but it is definitely not a bad recipe. I am pretty sure that I adapted it from it original recipe (I adapt almost every recipe so that is a pretty safe bet), but since I can't find the original recipe I am not positive. Oh and I doubled the recipe when I made it so the pictures show a bigger amount than the recipe calls for.  Anyways, here is the recipe.

Moist and Yummy Pumpkin Bread
makes 2 large loaves

2-4 cups pumpkin mush (I used 5 cups for the doubled recipe)
3 1/2 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
3 cups sugar
4 eggs (my recipe says beaten, but I didn't beat them and it was fine)
1 cup vegetable oil
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
2-4 teaspoons cinnamon
1/2 cup water (if you are using store bought pumpkin mush you may want to up the water, frozen homemade pumpkin mush tends to be more watery than store bought)

You can also add in 1/2 t allspice, 2 t nutmeg, 1 c pecans, 1/2 c raisins, or 1 c chocolate chips but I find that too much spice tends to cover up the pumpkin flavor. I might try chocolate chips sometime though.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees
Stir together flour, soda, salt, cinnamon and sugar (and allspice and nutmeg if you are using them)
Add eggs, water, oil, and pumpkin
Stir until well blended
If desired add pecans, raisins, and/or chocolate chips and mix well
Grease loaf pans and pour batter into them.
Bake approximately 1 hr
Doneness - knife test - if knife comes out slightly sticky, not wet, it is done
Remove from oven, cool slightly (10 min)
Take out of pans to let cool on rack.
Slice and Enjoy!

Verdict:
According to my husband "delicious". A couple months ago he took some to a carry in at work and he said people were raving about it and it disappeared really fast. One of his coworkers said it was the best pumpkin bread he had ever had and begged me to send more. I definitely recommend making this recipe! This bread also freezes well. Since I made so much I am planning to freeze some (if I get around to it before Mr. Random eats it all) to be enjoyed at a later date.

Here are pictures from this recipe:

The batter. If you are going to double the recipe like I did then you will need a very big bowl.

Like I said in the Low Country boil post, Monday was my baking day, my oven was full!

This recipe doubled made 3 large loaves, 3 smaller loaves, and 12 small muffins

Linked up to:
Uncommon, Naptime Crafters, Frugal Girls, Tater Tots and Jello, A Pinch of Joy, Addicted to Recipes, Cornerstone Confessions,