April 5: National Deep Dish Pizza Day, Happy Easter, and Allison's Birthday

First of all, a big shout out to my friend Allison! Today is her birthday and she is 23! She was one of the people who witnessed my epic pants ripping story. And she stayed friends with me. She will be up visiting me in a few weeks so hopefully I can get her to guest blog for me! She has a degree in English and a minor in Creative Writing so she is really good at writing. I had to write a poem for my math class once. Poem for math? It was weird. She helped me, and we ended up winning 3rd prize and $25! It was one of the funniest things to happen in my life. Maybe one day I will post our poem up here for the world to admire.

Here is a picture of the birthday cake I made her last year on her birthday. It went down in the history of best birthday cakes ever. It's rainbow on the inside and it's rainbow on the outside and it only took like 12 different bowls and 3 hours, but dang was it good.

Anyways, today I made deep dish pizza but then I realized I needed to bake something to celebrate Easter. I've been seeing a lot of pictures and posts online lately about making Rice Krispy Easter eggs and hiding m&ms or other candies inside. I realized this would either be worthy of a pinterest fail, or it might actually work. It worked! But I do love looking at pictures of pinterest fails!

JazzyJ's Deep Dish Pesto Cheese Chicken Pizza Recipe (trying saying that 3 times fast!):

Ingredients:

For Dough:
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 tablespoons sugar
- 2 teaspoons yeast
- 2 cups flour
- various "green" herbs

Note: When I saw various "green" herbs, I am not taking about putting pot in your pizza dough. It's not that kind of blog and I'm not that kind of chef/baker. I wasn't really sure what type of herbs to put in my pizza dough so I added in approximately 1/4 teaspoon each of the following: rosemary, sage, cilantro, and oregano. It tasted good to me and it looked and sounded fancy.

I made my dough in the bread machine (remember I have a love of bread machines). Put the ingredients in the bread machine in the order recommended by your bread machine manufacturer and select dough cycle. When done, place on a lightly floured surface and allow to rise for about 30 minutes.

Note: Mom - I noticed you have two bread machines and I would like one when I move out. That is all. Thank you.

For Pizza:
- 1 lb. chicken - need 1 teaspoon cinnamon, 2 tablespoons garlic powder, 2 tablespoons olive oil to cook it in)

- Various "green" herbs (for a total of about 1 tablespoon)
- 3/4 cup pesto
- 1/4 olive oil
- 1/2 cup cheese (whatever type you want, I only had Parmesan, so that's what I used)

I went to defrost the chicken and the only frozen chicken I had left, weighed about 5 pounds. It was huge. I couldn't even get the wrapper off of it for the longest time. It was a struggle. The wrapper was frozen between a fold of the chicken and no matter how much I tugged and wiggled, it wouldn't budge. I did eventually get the wrapping off the chicken and after defrosting in my microwave for about 30 minutes, I was ready to cook it!

I cooked the chicken in the olive oil, cinnamon, and garlic powder until well cooked. Yes, I know, I included cinnamon in it. Do you expect anything less from me? You could only taste a slight hint of the cinnamon, but I liked it.

Mix the pesto, olive oil, and various "green" herbs together.

Roll out the pizza dough so it is a little bigger than the pan you are going to cook it in. I didn't have deep dish pizza pans so I improvised. I baked mine in a 9" by 13" casserole dish and it worked perfectly. Place the pizza dough in the dish and bunch it up the sides so it creates a type of crust. Spread the pesto-olive oil mixture on top. Cover in cheese. Place chicken on top.

Cook at 375 degrees for about 30 minutes!

Enjoy the smells while waiting.

JazzyJ's Rice Krispy Egg Treats:

Ingredients:
- 6 cups Rice Krispies
- 4 cups miniature marshmallows
- 4 tablespoons butter
- 1/2 cup m&ms or other various candies to be used for "stuffing" the eggs.
- 6 (or more) large Easter eggs, 2" x 3"

 Directions:
1. Melt the butter in a pot. Add the marshmallows until they are well melted, stirring constantly.
2. Add the butter-marshmallow mixture to the krispies and mix well.
3. Prepare the Easter eggs by washing them well (you have no idea where they have been and what they have touched). I sprayed each Easter egg with a little bit of cooking spray so they wouldn't stick.
4. Grease your hands. I wasn't sure what this meant, so I sprayed some cooking spray on my hands and it worked well. 
5. Squish the krispy treat mixture into one half of the eggs. Pack it down, and using a thumb or finger, create a little hole (which is where the candy will later go).
6. Do the same to the other half of the egg and the rest of the eggs.
7. Add about 2 or 3 m&ms in the hole you made on each half of one egg. While the krispy treats are still in the plastic eggs, fit the plastic egg together which forces both sides of the  krispy to adhere to each other. As you gently pull apart the plastic halves of the eggs, you will have a  krispy egg with the candy hidden inside.
8. Be excited!

This made about 12 krispy treat eggs. You might be able to make a few more but I ate some of the krispies.

I should probably tell you about my extreme fascination with Easter egg hunts. I participated in Easter egg hunts probably up until the age of 10. And then I stopped participating in them until my junior year of high school when I suddenly was WAY into them. I went on Easter egg hunts even when it wasn't Easter. My friend and I once had my dad hide them and we went on a hunt for them at night, using flashlights. It was great fun. Something about looking for treasure is just appealing to me.

Allison (the birthday girl!) had the privilege of going on an Easter egg hunt with me our freshman year of college. She didn't know what she was in for and she was NOT prepared. First of all, it's important you wear running shoes and (if you are a girl) a sports bra. I am super competitive (especially when Easter egg hunting) and I often gather over my fair share of eggs and then am required to re-hide some. 

Note: Funny story. First, it is important to know that my friend Allison is TERRIFIED of all bugs, but especially lady bugs. When we shared an apartment at college, we had a lady bug infestation. The people at the office didn't believe us. The weird thing was, these ladybugs only swarmed inside on nice weather days. Allison told the office lady, "They only come on nice days" and the office lady couldn't stop laughing. That was a mistake. Anyways, my mom hid special Easter eggs for Allison last year that were bug themed. As you can imagine, that went over oh so well.

Happy Easter, Happy National Deep Dish Pizza Day, and Happy Birthday Allison!