Stuffed Crust Pizza

Make your homemade pizza into stuffed crust pizza!

Tip:
Roll your dough out a little wider and roll mozzarella cheese sticks (string cheese) into the edge of the crust. Make sure the cheese is completely covered and bake your pizza like normal.

This is a BIG hit.

Keep Cut Fruit Fresh

This tip goes back to my days in food service.

Tip:
When using cut apples and bananas, dip them in pineapple juice and they keep their color much longer.

Quickly Ripen Avocados

Here is a tip to quickly ripen avocados.
Tip:
- Place 2-3 avocados in a paper sack overnight.

Here is a tip to ripen avocados even quicker.
Tip:
- Place a tomato or an apple in the paper bag with the avocados.

Here is a tip to use in an emergency only situation which "ripens" them immediately.
Tip:
- Nuke them. Prick the avocado all over with a fork and microwave it in 30 second intervals on half power until soft.


Due to an emergency situation I found myself in, I used this last tip. I put "ripen" in quotes because this does not actually ripen the avocado. It softens it enough that you can use it for guacamole or in another mix. The avocado has a very mild taste and doesn't work well on its own if used this way.

My experience:
The avocados softened in spots but I never got the entire avocado soft. It had an unpleasant smell, but this leaves once the avocado cools. I tried using a potato masher to smooth it all out, but it wasn't enough. I ended up using a blender (I couldn't find all the parts to my food processor) and pureed it a little at a time with mayonnaise (also in the recipe I was using). I made a terrible mess and it took a lot of time since it was for five avocados, but it did work and no one was the wiser.
I would definitely recommend just buying ripe avocados, but in this emergency it did work.