America's Most Wanted Recipes - California Pizza Kitchen

America's Most Wanted Recipes - Sage Richardson

I don't know about you guys, but one of my favorite things to get at a restaurant is pizza!!! California Pizza Kitchen's pizza is delicious, and I couldn't resist from including one of it's recipes in my blog. I chose to do a simple pizza with pepperoni and olives, "a menu item that's been on the California Pizza Kitchen menu since 1985" (Douglas, 45). The challenge of this recipe is making the dough, as well as cooking the dough on the grill. This fire-grilled pizza is the alternative to cooking pizza in a pizza oven, which is something most of us don't have. Here are the details!

Ingredients

Rolled out dough

Dough
- 1/2 cup water
- 2 teaspoons olive oil
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon yeast
- 2 teaspoons sugar
- 1 1/2 cups flour

Pizza
- Tomato sauce
- Pepperoni
- Mozzarella cheese

Adding toppings

- Cheddar cheese
- Sliced olives

(Douglas, 45)

Instructions

- Mix dough ingredients, let rise until size doubles
- Put dough out onto a floured surface
- Divide dough into 7 equal pieces
- Roll out dough into desired shape and thickness of pizza crust
- Place dough onto grill, cook until slightly crispy
- Remove dough from grill, let stand for 2 minutes
- Place desired toppings onto pizza, including tomato sauce, pepperoni, olives, and cheese
- Place pizza into oven on broil
- Cook until pizza toppings are melted 
- Cut pizza into slices

Finished product!

(Douglas, 45)

Cooked pizzas

I loved doing this recipe, because it made me feel like I was a cook in a pizza kitchen! Cooking the pizzas on the grill was definitely difficult, I had to be careful not to let any dough slip through the cracks. The second hardest part about this recipe was "making sure to not overcook the pizzas" once they were in the oven, since the toppings needed to melt but the dough had already been grilled (Douglas, 45). The fun of making different, crazy shapes of pizza made up for it though! Of all the recipes I've tried so far, this one was the most fun by far. My family even got involved and put toppings on their own pizzas. The recipe tasted very similar to the pizzas at California Pizza Kitchen, so I'd call it a success! If you were to choose, what toppings would you have on your pizza? Thanks for reading, I hope you can have as much fun with this recipe as I did!


Douglas, Ron. America's Most Wanted Recipes: Delicious Recipes from Your Family's Favorite Restaurants. 1st ed. New York N.Y.: Atria Paperback, 2009. Print.

America's Most Wanted Recipes - Cheesecake Factory Chicken Fettuccine

America's Most Wanted Recipes - Sage Richardson

I don't know about you, but one of my favorite things to order at a restaurant is chicken fettuccine. One of those restaurants being The Cheesecake Factory, I decided to attempt the copycat recipe! This dish includes "fettuccine with chicken, fresh tomato, and a garlic-parmesan sauce" (Douglas, 53). This recipe features a "lighter sauce than you'd normally find in a fettuccine dish, as well as fresh flavors from the tomato and basil" (Douglas, 53). I chose this as my third recipe because it's a step forward from the side dish I made last time. As I did for my first cooking endeavor, I wanted to make a meal that could serve my whole family.

Mincing onion

Ingredients

Chopping garlic cloves

- 8 ounces fettuccine
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 1 tablespoon chopped garlic
- 1/4 yellow onion, minced
- 6 medium mushrooms, sliced thin
- 1/4 cup white wine
- 1/4 cup chicken broth
- 1 tomato diced
- 6 fresh basil leaves, chopped
- 2 grilled boneless chicken breasts, cut into thin strips
- 2 tablespoons butter
- Parmesan cheese for garnish

(Douglas, 53)

I didn't have any mushrooms or fresh basil with me when I created this recipe, so I improvised by skipping the mushrooms and substituting stir-in basil paste for the fresh basil. I also added dried basil for a more pronounced flavor. Also, using "precooked, sliced, and frozen chicken breasts" will save time (Douglas, 53).

Instructions

Sauce before mixing with pasta

- Add pasta to boiling salted water. As the pasta cooks, heat the olive oil in a 12-inch saute pan.
- Add the garlic to the pan and saute for 30 seconds, careful not to overcook the garlic.
- Add the red onion and mushrooms and saute for 2 minutes.
- Add the white wine and reduce by half, then add the chicken broth and reduce by half.
- Add the tomato, basil, and grilled chicken.
- Saute for 1 minute, then add the butter to the sauce.
- Mix with cooked, drained pasta. 
- Top with grated Parmesan cheese.

(Douglas, 53)

Final product!

I really enjoyed this recipe, it was very flavorful! Comparing this recipe to the restaurant dish, the sauce wasn't as thick. I had to add some corn starch to the saute pan to thicken the sauce a little more, and I added some parmesan cheese for taste. Those two alterations helped the dish a lot, and I recommend doing them if you run into the same thickening problem I did. Other than that though, the recipes were more similar than I thought they'd be! What is your go-to menu item at a restaurant you've never been to? Thanks for reading!

Douglas, Ron. America's Most Wanted Recipes: Delicious Recipes from Your Family's Favorite Restaurants. 1st ed. New York N.Y.: Atria Paperback, 2009. Print.

America's Most Wanted Recipes - Olive Garden Bread Sticks

America's Most Wanted Recipes - Sage Richardson

The amount of times I've heard people say, "Man, I'm craving those Olive Garden bread sticks!" is immeasurable. I myself had never tried them until recently, and for the first time ever, I can agree with the statement above! So I grabbed my handy dandy recipe book, and voilà! There was the copycat recipe, renown for being "fast, simple, and virtually indistinguishable from the original" (Douglas, xi). Now, I'm here to share it with you!

Chopped butter

Ingredients (bread sticks)

- 1 loaf frozen bread dough
- Cooking spray
- Garlic powder (for dusting)
- Dried oregano (for sprinkling)

(Douglas, 136)

While the recipe calls for store-bought frozen bread dough, I decided to challenge myself and create the bread dough myself. Therefore I substituted the store-bought bread dough with homemade bread dough, according to my great grandma Lucille's recipe.

Mixing in butter (as for pie crust)

Ingredients (bread dough)

- 3 c. flour
- 1/3 c. sugar
- 1/2 lb. butter
- 1/4 c. warm water
- 1 package yeast
- 3/4 c. milk
- 2 eggs slightly beaten
- 1 additional cup flour

Yeast before

Instructions (bread dough)

- Mix dry ingredients, excepting the additional cup of flour.
- Add yeast to water, let sit until it's risen.
- Cut up butter, put in as you would for pie crust.
- Add wet ingredients to dry ingredients.
- Mix in mixer until a dough forms.
- Add additional cup flour, mix until dough ball forms.
- Refrigerate overnight.
- Cut dough ball into 4 equal parts.
- Cut each of those into 8 equal parts, making each chunk of dough look like a slice of pie.
-  Roll each piece from the wide end forward, forming a crescent      shape.

Yeast after

- Let stand for 2-3 hours to rise at room temperature.

(Lucille Bennett)

After I made the bread dough, I continued with the bread stick recipe.


Instructions (bread sticks)

- Heat oven to 375 degrees.
- Hold can of cooking spray about 8 inches from rolls and lightly spray the top of each one.
- Dust evenly with garlic powder.

- Sprinkle evenly with oregano.

Before bread stick topping

- Place in oven, cook for 10-15 minutes

Rolls rising

(Douglas, 136)

All in all, this variation of Olive Garden bread sticks was absolutely delicious! I served it with "alfredo and marinara dipping sauce," as recommended by the author (Douglas, 136). In comparison to the real thing, the topping wasn't as salty as the restaurant kind. But I do like the roll rather than the bread stick, because the roll is fluffier and a bit sweeter. Despite the slight differences, this recipe definitely conquered my craving! Have you had any persistent cravings lately? If so, what for? Thanks for reading, I hope you can find this recipe helpful!

Final product!

Douglas, Ron. America's Most Wanted Recipes: Delicious Recipes from Your Family's Favorite Restaurants. 1st ed. New York N.Y.: Atria Paperback, 2009. Print.

America's Most Wanted Recipes - Macaroni & Cheese

America's Most Wanted Recipes - Sage Richardson

Everyone gets a craving once in a while, whether it's for KFC's famous fried chicken, Dairy Queen's soft serve ice cream, or Starbucks' strawberry-acai refresher. Our first thought would be to go to the restaurant and order it - but did you ever consider trying to make it yourself? There are thousands of other people out there with the same cravings as you, and they're desperately trying to clone these recipes on a daily basis. "These people range from everyday hobbyists to professional chefs," and by working together they've come very close to replicating these famous restaurant dishes (Douglas, xii). In America's Most Wanted Recipes, chef Ron Douglas tested and tweaked hundreds recipes to taste just like the originals, with the help of cooking fanatics across the US. 

Today I tried the copycat recipe of Boston Market's macaroni and cheese. I chose this recipe because I recently ate there with my family, and I ordered this dish. I figured that since I ate the original recipe recently, I'd be able to compare it with this recipe easily.

Ingredients

- 1 tablespoon minced onion
- 4 tablespoons butter or margarine, melted
- 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
- 2 cups milk

Ingredients (feat. my brother)

- 4 ounces American cheese, cubed
- 1/4 cup cubed Cheddar cheese
- 1 teaspoon salt
- Pinch of pepper
- 1/4 teaspoon dry mustard
- 4 ounces elbow pasta, cooked al dente

(Douglas, 36)








Instructions

Cubed Cheeses & Sauce

1. Sauté the onion in the butter until translucent.
2. Stir in the flour and cook for two minutes.
3. Slowly stir in the milk.
4. Stir in the cheesed, salt, pepper, and mustard.
5. Continue to stir over medium heat until thickened.
6. Stir in prepared macaroni
(Optional)
7. Preheat oven to 400°F
8. Lightly butter casserole dish and pour the pasta mixture into the dish.
9. Bake for 20 minutes

(Douglas, 36)

I didn't do the optional steps, because my family doesn't like casserole-style mac and cheese.

Finished Mac & Cheese

In the end, the macaroni and cheese turned out very well, and tasted just like the one I got at Boston Market! The only difference was that the sauce I made was more rich than the one at the restaurant, but I can fix that next time by adding less flour. I was honestly very surprised, because I didn't expect the copycat recipe to be so similar to the original dish. If you were to choose a dish from your favorite restaurant to copy, what would it be? 

Douglas, Ron. America's Most Wanted Recipes: Delicious Recipes from Your Family's Favorite Restaurants. 1st ed. New York N.Y.: Atria Paperback, 2009. Print.