I have been trying to add more fruits and vegetables to my diet.  Starting my day with a serving of vegetables makes me feel better about everything that comes after.  This is my perfect breakfast.  Actually, this plus a thickly foamed, slightly sweet double cappuccino is my perfect breakfast.

An English muffin, some fresh baby greens, and an egg (or an ounce of ham, turkey breast, or salami), topped with a couple of tomato slices.  Currently I am using Fresh Express’s Wild Rocket Zest Artisanal Blend, which is a perfect mix for hot recipes.  Spicy arugula and hearty baby spinach stand up perfectly to a hot, runny egg yolk or a garlicky slice of salami.  If you can’t find the Rocket Blend, baby spinach is perfect as well. We have a toaster at work, so I bring in everything and assemble on site.  Happy Breakfast everybody!

We love this recipe.  We’ve been making this for years now and it is still wonderful every time.  It is a smoked salmon but it is a hot, moist salmon not the kind of smoked salmon you buy at the store.  It is the best salmon you’ve ever had, believe me.  I have a difficult time with salmon-it can be a little too strong for me-but this dish has so many flavors and they all play upon each other perfectly.  It is excellent without an overwhelmingly fishy taste and is great flaked into a salad or served as a fillet. Click here for the recipe »

This is such a fun way to serve pizza and salad.  It is a knife and fork dish and a fun play on the classic pizza and ranch dressing combo.  The warm, crunchy pizza crust, spicy pizza sauce, and thick cheese pair wonderful with the cool, creamy ranch drizzled greens.  You can start with any choice of pizza, the one above is a supreme style but this is also delicious on a cheese or margarita style pizza for a meatless dish, and any favorite salad dressing-obviously ranch is a classic choice but blue cheese and Italian both are very good combos.  If you aren’t up for making your own pizza the idea is the same when served over a hot delivery pie (or be like me and do this at the cafeteria to improve on both the quality of their pizza and the salad bar).

I started this pizza with my favorite dough and homemade sauce (recipe below).  I topped it thickly with mozzarella, green peppers, red onions, mushrooms, and pepperoni.  Bake the pizza until browned and crisp then let cool while you make the salad.  I used Fresh Express’s Artisanal Sierra Crisp Herb Blend because the soft leaves and bright flavor are the perfect contrast to the heaviness of the pizza.  Toss the greens in a little dressing and add any veggies you prefer raw, in this case I added sliced tomatoes to the salad.  Slice the pizza and then cover it with the salad.  Drizzle additional dressing over the top and serve.  You can serve as above when feeding a crowd, but if you are planning for pizza leftovers you may want to place the salad individually on the slices as you serve them so as not to wilt the lettuce too much.  Click here for the recipe »

One of our most popular dishes at the chaos house is Chicken Casserole.  In it’s essence it is a cheater version of King Ranch Chicken Casserole and I have made it many different ways.  My friend Nellie has a similar dish, except instead of Rotel and diced red peppers, hers uses spinach and jalapenos.  It is a delicious combination of sour cream, spinach, jalapenos, and cheese-it tastes almost like a spicy, jalapeno spinach dip.  Nellie’s recipe calls for two cans of cream of chicken soup but I subbed in flour and chicken stock, so simply omit that step if you want to use the canned soup instead.  Also, here we serve this over rice and covered in fresh pico de gallo but you can serve it straight up if you like.  Click here for the recipe »