Since I make a lot of pizza and pasta at home, these recipes are just that. I made pizza one night and had enough left-overs of the sauce and cheese to make baked ziti the next night. So, here's the pizza.
First, we have the wine-infused carmelized onions:
1 bottle of cheap-ass cabernet (there's one for $2.50 at Wal-mart)
2 large yellow onions (or if white onions are on sale, get those!)
Enough olive oil to coat the bottom of a skillet
Salt to taste
Timer
Slice onions to desired thickness. I wouldn't make them too thin or else they will just not be right. I like about 1/4" thick. Turn pan with olive oil on medium-high and wait for the oil to heat up. When the oil is shimmering, throw in all the sliced onions. It will look like a lot, but when it's done, it won't be that much. Toss the onions until all are coated with oil. Set the timer for 10 minutes. Pour yourself a glass of wine. Drink. After the timer goes off, lighty salt the onions and stir around. Turn heat down to medium. Set the timer for 10 minutes. Continue drinking wine. When the timer goes off, stir the onions. They should be turning brown by now. This is good. Set the timer for 10 minutes. Drink wine, but slow down! You will need some for cooking. When the timer goes off, stir the onions some more. Set the timer one last time for 10 minutes but drink your wine closer to the stove. You might need to stir the onions a couple of times during this 10 minutes. If the onions are a nice, dark brown color, success! If not, keep cooking until they are. Take the bottle of wine and pour about half a glass worth or so into the pan to deglaze it. Stir the onions until all the wine is cooked down. Using a slotted spoon or tongs, move the onions to a bowl and set aside.
Second, we have to make the meat:
1 package of skirt steak, tenderized if available
1-2 cups garlic marinade (we bought a bunch of marinade on sale a couple of months ago)
1 link of hot Italian sausage (freeze the other links for meatballs or other uses later)
Marinate the skirt steak for a minimum of 3 or 4 hours, preferably overnight. OK, I guess that should have been the first step, technically, but oh well. Hopefully you read all of this first before starting. Put steak and leftover marinade in glass baking dish and broil for 5 minutes on each side. Let rest on top of the oven while you prep the sausage. In the skillet you used to make the onions, still on medium heat, squeeze the sausage out of the skin. Break up into small pieces and cook until brown. Using a slotted spoon, fish out the sausage and leave the oil in the pan. Put sausage in a bowl and set aside.
Next, the homemade tomato sauce:
1 can whole tomatoes (whatever is on sale)
1 can diced tomatoes (luckily, fire-roasted was on sale...my fave!)
1 small can tomato paste (cheapest)
2T Italian seasoning
1/4t. cinnamon
2-3 cloves garlic
1 glass worth of the cheap wine
Salt and pepper to taste
Turn down the sausage fat still in your same skillet to medium-low. Chop garlic and throw into pan...be careful to not let it burn! Open the can of whole tomatoes and dump entire contents into the skillet. Using a butter knife, cut up tomatoes to desired chunkiness. Let these cook for a couple of minutes and then add the can of diced tomatoes, juice and all. Simmer for a few more minutes and then add about 1 glass worth (less if you want) of the wine and the can of tomato paste. Add the Italian seasoning and stir until the tomato paste disappears in the pan. Let everything simmer for a few more minutes. Add in the salt, pepper and cinnamon and stir one last time. Turn to low.
Turn oven onto 425 degrees. Slice steak into 3/4" slices (like you do with brisket) and then cut slices in half.
Now, for the pizza:
1 can Pillsbury pizza dough (my fave!)
Above ingredients
1/2 cup shredded mozzarella (I found the 16oz. bag on sale!)
1 handful of crumbled goronzola
1 handful of shreded romano
Spray cookie sheet with some cooking oil. Spread out dough onto cookie sheet and bake in a 425 oven for about 5 minutes. The bigger the cookie sheet, the thinner you can make the crust...and I like a thin crust. Pull dough out of oven and cover with homemade sauce. I like a lot of sauce but it only took me about 1/3 or so of the homemade sauce to cover to my liking. Then put down a thin layer of mozzarella. Again, I'm not a big cheese person, so I don't like a lot. If you do like cheese on your pizza (I'm a freak, I know), add more. Using probably just under half of the steak, spread out over mozzarella. Using about half of the sausage, spread out over mozzarella. Again, I'm not a big fan of a ton of meaty toppings, so I probably use less than the average person would. You will probably only use about 1/4 of the carmelized onions (and you'll probably snack on 1/4 of them!) and spread those out over the top of the pizza. Then top with gorgonzola and romano cheeses. Bake at 425 for about 10 minutes or until the cheese is golden and bubbly. Pull out of oven and sprinkle some Italian seasoning and a drizzle of olive oil.
This is what mine looked like before the extra Italian seasoning and olive oil was added:
I personally thought it was awesome but of course, there wasn't enough cheese or meat to satisfy Jonathan so he just thought it was OK. Since I had all of the seasonings and oil, counting only the portion of the meat and cheeses I used, this whole pizza cost about $7 or so. And we have left-overs. Normally, the two of us can polish off a large take out pizza that cost us $20, so HUGE savings!When you are cleaning up, throw all the meat into the sauce and add as much of the carmelized onions as you want (I think I added half of what was left over). Store in fridge until you are ready for the ziti or just a spaghetti night.
OK, the second recipe is so much shorter than the first! I was just playing around and had a craving when I made the pizza...and had nothing else better to do...so that's why that recipe is so long.
Onto the ziti!
1 1/2 cups (or so) of ziti noodles
Couple handfuls of bow-tie pasta (I added this at the last minute because I didn't think we'd have enough ziti...this made for an extremely noodle-y dish!)
1/2 big bag of baby spinach
Leftover sauce with meat and onions added in
Leftover cheeses (you still won't use all of it!)
Salt and pepper to taste
Put leftover sauce in a sauce pan and cook on medium-low. Bring half a pot of water to a boil. Lightly salt the water (I hate adding salt to stuff, so you'll notice that I say to "lightly" salt everything). Pour the noodles into the boiling water and boil until al dente. When draining the noodles, drain over a bowl to save that pasta water! Pour noodles into a casserole dish. Oh yeah! Preheat the oven to 375. Throw about half a bag of baby spinach into the sauce. I like a lot of spinach and I also take the time to rip off the bigger stems. Yes, the pot will be filled to the top with spinach and that's ok! Using about 1/3 a cup at a time, add in some pasta water. Every time you add in some water, stir everything around. The leftover sauce will be really thick (because I like hearty sauce for my pizza) so you want to thin it out. I think I ended up using about 1 1/2 cups of the pasta water when all was said and done. You don't want it runny, but you do want the sauce thinner than before. Also, you are just cooking it until the spinach is wilted. Nothing is worse than over-cooked spinach if you ask me! When the consistency is where you like it, add that on top of the noodle mixture. Throw in a couple of handfuls of mozzarella and mix well. Top ziti with a couple more handfuls of mozzarella, half of the leftover gorgonzola and romano. Bake for about 20-30 minutes or until the cheese on top is melted very well and the sauce is bubbling up. Pull out of the oven and sprinkle with Italian seasoning, pepper and a drizzle of olive oil.
I didn't get a pic of the ziti but Jonathan liked it much better. Probably because it had a ton of cheese in it! Or at least a ton of cheese in my opinion.
See? Living on a budget isn't that hard.
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