One of Mr Jetplane's favorite pizzas is California Pizza Kitchen BBQ Chicken. I concur it is totally delicious, we actually also enjoy the frozen option of this pizza as well.



I would love to make Pioneer Woman's BBQ Chicken Pizza. But to be honest, I'm not interested in making my own dough and sometimes I want to make dinner in under 30 minutes....don't you?



So how do I make this pizza the lazy ass way...



Well I buy the pre-made pizza crust in wheat or regular. You could also buy the premade dough if you wish, but that adds to the work/time level.



What else will you need...



small purple onion thinly sliced

pre-cooked chicken strips ( I prefer Tyson, oven roasted)

Shredded or whole mozzarella cheese sliced

BBQ sauce ( I prefer Sweet Baby Ray's)



1. Coat the pizza crust with BBQ sauce like you would pizza sauce.

2. Add a thin layer of cheese

3. Add the onions and chicken

4. Then add more cheese



Cook at the suggested heat level on the crust package till the cheese is bubbly.

Then eat and enjoy.



I also love to use pre-made pesto instead of sauce and add garden fresh tomatoes, mushrooms, and cheese.


Who said you can't have dinner on the table in 20 minutes...not this girl...

Hey its me...Mrs. Jetplane. The bad lil blogger that's been too busy to blog. Well it appears we will be going to another couple's house for Christmas Eve and I need to bring 2 dishes to their house. We're having 'heavy' appetizers.

I need suggestions...what am I talking about...I need help!

No Brie please!

Please leave me a comment or send me an email at leavingandloving@gmail.com with your suggestions and recipes!!!

Thank you in advance for your help.

Do you ever think to yourself... Wow I sure am a weirdo? I know this is a totally random post, but these are some things that have been floating around in my abnormally large head lately.

#1 I'm short! But honestly I never realize it until I see a picture of myself standing next to someone else. Here are the Jetplanes in Vegas... The crazy Vegas trip this is the only picture Mr. and I have TOGETHER! It was taken right after breakfast the day we left.

#2 I get a strange satisfaction from chopping vegetables. I have no idea why... but I enjoy peeling and cutting things... strange?

#3 I watch Hoarders just to make myself feel better about myself. I'll admit, I can be a bit messy and I hate to clean. That show makes me feel so good about myself.

#4 I secretly dream about winning the lottery, but I have NEVER bought a lottery ticket because I am SERIOUSLY the most UNLUCKY person in the world.

#5 I have an unhealthy love for maraschino cherries. I will eat 2 or 3 out of the jar every day. Also, my new favorite drink... Cherry Bomb (3 Olives Cherry Vodka, Sugar Free Red Bull, Cherry Juice, and a cherry...or 4 if you're me).

#6 I have been out of college since 2002 and still have a love for techno music...there I said it. I love to listen to it during a workout or on a long drive...or driving home from a night out... The Jetplanes might have Dance Party USA in the car on a ride home...just saying...

Well Happy Monday All! I KNOW I'm not the only weirdo out there... what makes you a freakshow?

So as I have said, Mrs. Jetplane is trying her hardest to add a new recipe to her repertoire every week. This recipe was added about 2 months ago, and we've already had it twice. And as you can see, I have added Mrs. Jetplane Cooks tab, so more recipes to come...

It is yummy and pretty darn easy.


Three Cheese Beef Pasta Shells

Ingredients
24 uncooked jumbo pasta shells
1 lb of lean ground beef (atleast 80% - I use 97% lean)
1 Jar (26oz) chunky tomato pasta sauce ( I prefer Newman's own, Classico, or Barilla)
1/2 cup of water
1 container (8oz) chive & onion cream cheese spread (I bought Kraft, I haven't use the reduced fat one yet)
1 1/2 cups shredded 6-cheese Italian Cheese Blend
1/2 cup grated Parmesan Cheese ( I use Reduced Fat kind)
1 Egg


1. Heat oven to 350 degrees. Cook and drain pasta shells.

2. Cook ground beef until thoroughly cooked, drain. Cool slightly.

3. In a large bowl, mix pasta sauce and water. Pour 1 cup of the pasta sauce mixture in bottom of an ungreased glass baking dish (13x9). In a large bowl, mix cream cheese, 1 cup of Italian Cheese, the Parmesan Cheese, Egg, and ground beef. Spoon a large tablespoon mixture into each shell. Arrange stuffed shells over sauce in baking dish. Pour remaining sauce over top, covering shells completely. Cover with foil.

4. Bake 40 - 45 minutes or until bubbly and cheese filing is set. Sprinkle the remaining 1/2 cup of Italian Cheese. Bake 10 minutes longer or until cheese is melted.

Sorry no pictures... I promise the next time I make this I will take a picture and add it to this post. We eat them up...way too fast...

Enjoy!

The Jetplanes sometime frequent a pizza chain near our house. Its quick and pretty cheap. We have had the same waitress the last 2 times we've been. She's quite an interesting young lady.

About 2 months ago the Jetplanes parked and started walking up to the restaurant. The waitress is standing outside smoking a cigarette. She asks us, "You guys aren't eating in are you?"

Mr. Jetplane "Well... that is kinda why we're here at the restaurant."

Waitress: "Sorry. I didn't mean it like that. Its just every time I try to take a smoke break someone comes to eat."

Mr. Jetplane "Oh I know... I hate it when that happens."

Waitress: "Yeah... oh well. Let me finish this. Just go in and seat yourself. Just stay near the windows on the left side of the restaurant."

So we walk in and seat ourselves and over all the meal was fine.

Fast forward several weeks and the Jetplanes visited the pizza establishment again. I notice that the same waitress is there and asks us to please seat ourselves. We do so and she comes to our table and we order. We know what we want. We pretty much always get the same thing... yeah I know... we live dangerously.

Then after ordering Mr. Jetplane says.. "Thanks Jackie" (or whatever her name tag said, for this purpose we'll call her Jackie)

We make our way up to the salad bar and Mr. Jetplane finishes before I do. He sits down right when Jackie is delivering our drinks.

She whispers to him.... "Do we know each other?"

Mr. Jetplane: "Excuse Me?"

Jackie: "Do we know each other? You called me by my name!"

Mr. Jetplane: "What you don't remember me?"

Jackie: "No I'm sorry I don't."

Mr. Jetplane: "I'm joking.... You're wearing a name tag!"

Jackie: "Oh!"

And she walked away....

FYI - if anyone is wearing a name tag... Mr. Jetplane will call you by your name no matter what. He always does and I find it so funny when people get freaked out by it.

The Jetplanes are settling down as much as we can. Yesterday, Mr. Jetplane calls me to tell me that he is going to make dinner. To that I ask... "Well what are you planning to make? We have no food in our house right now."

Mr.: "I know. I'm not sure. What do we have?"
Me: "I think we have a box of chicken nuggets, lots of frozen veggies, rice, mac and cheese, soup. But I had soup and a sandwich for lunch, so I don't want them."
Mr: sulking.... since he is all Mr. Healthy eater... "UGH... I had soup and a sandwich too...whatever..."
Me: "Well you could go to the store?"
Mr.: "I'll make what we have..."

Fast forward to my drive home from work...
Mr "Where are you? Dinner will be ready in 43 seconds."
Me "I'm driving home, I'll be home in about 5-10 minutes. What did you make?"
Mr "What you told me to make... by the way we each only get 3 chicken nuggets..."

I arrived home to a lovely meal of 3 chicken nuggets, Velveeta shells and cheese (2%), and broccoli. We drank lovely sugar free Strawberry Crystal Light.

Someone needs to go to the store... I have a feeling it will be me.

With being crazy busy at work and having 4, count em 4, projects due this week I got home late last night and was starving. I heated up a bowl of leftover pasta and popped in a piece (ok 2 pieces) of garlic bread and went to town. I love my carbs.

The rest of the night was like this:

1. Catching up on blogs and trying to comment.

2. Ate a bowl of cut strawberries, with a few mini marshmallows, and a drizzle of chocolate syrup (aka my new favorite dessert) while watching the Biggest Loser. Is it weird that I always eat when I watch this show?

3. Watched the Real Housewives of the OC and was disgusted with some of the behavior by Tamara and Vicki. Tamara stop being jealous and where can we buy your husband "amazing" tequila that has been successful during this "difficult economic times". Vicki, you are a ridiculous person. You are so involved in your kids' lives but you didn't know that she wanted to join the Army... interesting that she's not now. Also, Gretchen wants attention.... Hello? If that's not the pot calling the kettle black. And Gretchen, while your relationship has been questioned my heart does go out her and his family. If I was in her shoes, I wouldn't have left his side, but we don't know exactly what was going on?

4. Stayed up late and watched the Real Housewives of NYC. Yeah! These bitches are awesome. Its going to be an exciting year. I about fell out of my seat, when I saw the house they rented in the Hamptons.

Breakfast of Champions right? Well, this is me totally not caring this morning... Sugar Free Red Bull is my saving grace in the mornings, afternoons, or whenever. I don't drink coffee so Red Bull is my fix.

Mrs. D - your giveaway is in the mail today, sorry I'm horribly slow. Please accept my apologies.

And Finally.... As we all know tomorrow is Friday (Thank God!) and that means its Puggie Friday. Now I love posting pics of my own hunk of loving Milo, but I do happen to know several pug owners out there that read this very blog...

So I'm calling out all pug owners, if you have a cute, funny, crazy, strange, etc. picture of your pug, a friend's pug, a neighbor's pug, or even your mortal enemy's pug.... Send it in to leavingandloving@gmail.com and you'll get your own Pug Friday shout out. But more importantly from now until March 15th, I'll be accepting Puggie Pics and the picture voted best will win an awesome surprise... Shh... Its a secret.

More details to follow on Puggie Pics Contest.... Stay Tuned... But Mrs. Jetplane is accepting pics now, so get those bad boys in...

Off to eat my sleeve of donuts... mmmm... donuts.

XOXO

Well, since the Colts aren't playing and Mr. Jetplane is MIA....

1. I am making my yummy Italian Beef in the crock pot.
2. Heading to the outlet mall with a friend from work.

Quite a good, little Sunday if you ask me. We're going to get there when it opens, but with the Super Bowl today, hopefully no one will be there.

The spending fast is over for the weekend. I drop a little, okay a lot of, money at Target yesterday and now I've told myself that I can only go to BR, JCrew, Nine West, Brooks Brothers, Coach, Polo, and that's it.... wow that's alot.

I will be good.... I will be good...

Mrs. Jetplane is now going to give you one of her favorite homemade salad dressing recipes. Its a low fat Poppy Seed salad dressing. Yes, I said Poppy Seed and its really good.

I serve this salad dressing over 2 different type of salad. This does make for a sweet salad dressing.

1. Spinach, Strawberry, Pine Nuts, and cubed precooked chicken.
2. Spinach, canned Mandarin oranges, thinly sliced red onion, and pine nuts.

3/4 cup sugar (I used Splenda)
1tbsp. dry mustard
1 tbsp. salt
1/2 small red onion (chopped)
1 cup oil (I use EVOO)
1/3 c. seasoned rice vinegar (I used apple cider vinegar)
1 1/2 tbsp. poppy seeds

Combine sugar, dry mustard, salt, red onion, oil, vinegar and poppy seeds in a blender.

I'll admit I don't use this recipe to the tee. Sometimes I add a little more mustard.

FYI - got the dog painting sitting in my office as I type. It is adorable and I actually cried when she brought it in. Mama and Pops Jetplane are going to flip out when they see it. I'm going to mail it to them next week. Its an oil painting so I want to give it plenty of time to dry. Can't wait to post pics of it tonight.

Well as promised I have a great recipe that believe it or not has tofu in it. Now, let me tell you, Mrs. Jetplane is not a fan of tofu, so I was very leery of this recipe. But I trusted my dear friend Dr. W. She actually got this recipe from the nutritionist that she was seeing, it was part of the diet plan she was given.

Ingredients

1 Packet of Hidden Valley Ranch
1 14oz Tofu (recipe recommends Mori-Nu brand) UPDATE: Firm Tofu
3/4 cup canola oil
2 tbsp of vinegar (I used apple cider)
1 egg
3 packets of Splenda
Dash of Season All Salt

Blend egg and vinegar on Medium, with blender on add oil in a thin stream.
Then add seasonings and tofu.
Blend and then stir.
Refrigerate before stirring.

1/4cup = 1 serving

I love to eat this with veggies, put it on a sandwich instead of mayo, use as a dip for chicken strips, or eat with melba toast crackers.

Enjoy!

And heads up...my next healthy recipe is an awesome Poppy Seed Salad Dressing which will seriously rock your world. I make it all summer love to put it on spinach and strawberry salad or a spinach, pine nut, and mandarin orange salad.

Mrs. Jetplane is trying and I do emphasize the word "trying" to watch what she eats. So I wanted to give all the new additions to the Mrs.' kitchen.


So I love chocolate milk.... love it. But I don't like regular white milk, at all. So this is now in my fridge and I drink it while getting ready in the morning... It is so yummy...



This is my new favorite salad dressing, its not "low" fat but it is 5g of fat for 2 tbsp. I'll be honest, I put about 1 tbsp on my salads, so it isn't too bad. My salad are bagged Spring Mix, broccoli slaw (which is the best thing ever, it is cabbage, carrots, and broccoli sliced), cucumbers, sliced almonds, and cranberries. Sometimes, I'll put a light sprinkling of cheddar cheese, but it doesn't really need it.
Finally, I love Laughing Cow Light Spreadable Cheese. I love to put this on a toasted bagel or eat it on Melba toast. It comes in Swiss, Garlic Herb, and French Onion all in light. I eat this on a whole grain bagel for breakfast a lot of mornings.

Tonight I'm going to post a recipe for low cal ranch dip that is made with tofu, yes tofu. And I actually like it, so does Mr. Jetplane.

XOXO

This weekend I tried another new recipe, Spicy Orange Garlic Shrimp from Pioneer Woman. OMG I just found her website last week and I'm totally loving it. Her original recipe can be found here. I admit I did alter it a little bit because I wanted more shrimp, and Mrs. Jetplane doesn't like food that is really spicy so I tried to reduce the spice a little bit, but no worries it was still spicy.



(Frozen) Raw Shrimp I bought the peeled and deveined bag (41-50 per bag)


Good quality Orange Juice 1 1/3 cup (Simply Orange is the only OJ the Jetplanes' drink - NO pulp)

3 Cloves of Garlic - diced


3 Tablespoons Salted Butter

Ground Cayenne Pepper 1/2 tsp



Old Bay Seasoning 1 tsp


1. Defrost the shrimp - put in a strainer and run under cold water until thawed fully.

2. Then place the shrimp on a paper towel
3. Combine OJ, garlic, and spices together - stir



4. Melt 2 Tbsp in a pan on High heat, once melted pop in the shrimp.


5. Cook the shrimp, it shouldn't take too long. Use tongs to flip the shrimp its easier.


6. Remove shrimp and keep the pan on High. Allow pan to smoke slightly then all the OJ mixture to the pan and stir.


7. Add final tbsp of butter and stir, this should create a thicker sauce.


8. Combine the shrimp to the pan with the sauce and stir.




My alterations to the recipe were more shrimp and OJ. So my sauce was not thick as hers but I'm totally cool with that.


This was totally delicious and I loved it. I know Mr. Jetplane will adore it and will want it hot.

Hope you to this and enjoy it.


XOXO

NFL Playoffs start today. Yeah Baby! Mrs. Jetplane has on her game day outfit and is ready to view the game on her 55" television. Mr. Jetplane and I will be on speaker phone for most of the game. I stopped by the store picked up a pizza to make and I have a 1/2 bottle of bubbly to finish. I may be the only person watching football and drinking champagne. Oh well.

Go COLTS!

For 2009, Mrs. Jetplane will be attempting to make new recipes and have a much larger repertoire when Mr. Jetplane is back in the Jetplane household.

I found this recipe through Yahoo Recipes. Its from EatingWell.com. Its not "fat-free" by any means but it a much healthier option.

Yeah... I leave this afternoon for Illinois. I'm trying to get out of work early today to hit the road early, we'll see how that works out for me.

So I wanted to leave you all with a couple of things.

1. THANK YOU ALL so much for all the love and support you have given me the past few days. Hugs and kisses to you all.

2. Thank you to Mrs. Stilettos for the lovely award. I hope to blog about it soon.

3. Did anyone watch the reunion show for Housewives of ATL, that was ridiculous and amazing all at the same time. I also watch the premiere of the OC ones as well. I think I saw Gretchen and her hubby on an episode of some show on HGTV. They redid their backyard. I never forget a face, and since I do recall noticing the age difference, I'm pretty sure I'm right. I'm assuming its before he was diagnosed b/c he wasn't as thin.

4. The Mr. is a new lover of Black Friday. He went to Circuit City last year and got us GPS systems for our cars. This year he wants to go to Best Buy, we'll see if he wants to get up.

5. The Mr. and I are going to see Twilight on Friday afternoon. I got him to read all the books. We both don't think the movie looks all that good, so we're going in with lower expectations, hopefully those are met.

6. I am craving mini, bite size pecan pies that are bought to our house by my mom's cousin.

7. My crazy mother, is still having Thanksgiving at our house with all our family. My step dad called everyone before her surgery and said we weren't having it. My mom called and bitched everyone out and said she'd be pissed if everyone didn't come. Luckily, they are all bringing 80% of the stuff.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I'm going to have a scheduled post on Friday for all you Puggie Lovers out there.