Breakfast Pizza

Ingredients:

• Multigrain pizza dough
• 4 eggs
• 2 scallions, chopped
• 4 slices of organic black forest ham, crisped in a pan
• a couple hands full of fresh spinach, wilted
• 4 slices of muenster cheese

Directions:

1. Flatten the pizza dough into the shape and thickness you desire, and put in a oven heated to 400.
2. Once the dough is cooked but not browned, layer on the ingredients except for the eggs and scallions.
3. Cook the pizza for 5 minutes, so the cheese melts the ham gets even crispier.
4. Take the pizza out, crack 4 eggs on top and sprinkle the chopped scallions on the eggs.
5. Place back in the over for 5-8 minutes, until the egg whites are cooked but the eggs still have a little jiggle to them (so the yolk will be runny).

Lunch Solutions

These recipes are meant to be simple.  Just throw together ingredients, no exact measurements.  It will turn out great!

Quinoa with kale, feta, sausage and mushrooms

 Ingredients:

1. Quinoa, cooked in vegetable stock and some chopped onion.
2. A bunch of sauteed kale
3. A couple hand fulls of feta.
4. 4 links, skins removed, of sauteed italian chicken/turkey sausage.
5. Sliced cremini mushrooms.

Cous Cous with feta, garbanzo beans, zucchini and roasted red pepper.

Ingredients:

1. Middle east garlic cous cous.
2. Chopped zucchini, seared with salt and pepper.
3. Sliced roasted red pepper.
4. Rinsed, canned garbanzo beans.
5. A couple hand fulls of feta cheese.

Mexican quinoa

(no photo)

Ingredients:

1. Shredded chicken
2. Quinoa cooked in vegetable stock
3. Sliced green/red peppers and onion, sauteed
4. Canned black beans, rinsed
5. Salsa

Top with avocado and shredded cheese.

Not a lunch but great energy snack...

Date and fig nut balls

Ingredients:

1. 1 cup roasted cashews
2. 1 cup roasted whole almonds with skins on
3. 1 cup roasted walnuts
4. 15 dates
5. 6 figs
6. water

First, in a food processor, blends the figs and dates with a tbsp of water.  Once it is pureed add the nuts and blend until the mixture forms a clump, you may need to add a couple tbsp of water to get it sticky enough to clump together.  Roll into balls.

Additional comment:

I made these again and substituted roasted pumpkin seeds for walnuts, added dried apricots and chia seeds to the mixture and they turned out great.  Experiment with different ingredients!

Healthy. Brownies.

Just when I thought I was giving up on baking (because I have a difficult time adding all the butter/oil/sugar/white flour and nothing turns out decadent when you substitute the flour/oil/butter/sugar for other things) I found this recipe!  They are fudgy and decadent with no oil or flour!!  I will post the recipe below, I halved the sugar (1/2 cup of turbinado sugar) and used smucker's natural chunky PB then followed the rest of the recipe.  Enjoy!

http://sallysbakingaddiction.com/2012/06/10/skinny-peanut-butter-swirl-brownies/

No-bake Granola Balls

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup raw cashews
• 1.5 cups rolled oats
• 1/4 cup flax seeds
• 1/4 cup of wheat germ
• 1 tsp sea salt
• 1 tbsp ground cinnamon
• 1/3 cup natural chunky peanut butter (I use Smucker's brand)
• 1 4oz cup of no sugar added apple sauce
• 1-2 tbsp agave nectar
• 1 tsp pure vanilla extract
• 1/4 cup water
• Oven dried apples, chopped (recipe below)

Oven dried apples:

Slice 2, cored, granny smith apples into 1/2 inch slices.  Toss them in a bowl with 1 cup water mixed with the juice of half a lemon.  Pat dry and place on a cookie sheet in a single layer.  Bake in a 250 degree oven for about a half hour.  Check after 15 minutes to make sure they aren't browning or drying too much, you want them to be chewy at the end.

Directions:

1. In a food processor grind cashews, oats, flax, wheat germ, salt and cinnamon until mixed and fine but so that you can see some chunks of cashews still.

2. Add PB, apple sauce, vanilla and agave and blend.

3. Add a little water at a time until the mixture almost forms a dough and the mixture sticks together.

4.  Add this mixture to bowl and mix in chopped apples.

5.  Roll the desired amount into balls and store in the refrigerator. 

Baked spinach and artichoke lasagna rolls

Ingredients:

• 8 lasagna sheets
• 1 can of artichokes in water, strained, patted dry and chopped in half
• 4 cups spinach, chopped 
• 3 cloves garlic, chopped
• 1 cup part skim ricotta cheese
• 1/4 cup light sour cream
• 1/4ish cup of grated parm/asiago cheese
• 1 cup red sauce of choice
• olive oil to drizzle
• salt and pepper
• mozzarella cheese- about a half cup shredded

1.  Heat sauce pan to medium with a drizzle of olive oil

2. Add spinach and garlic to the pan and toss until the spinach is wilted

3. In a bowl add artichoke, cooked spinach/garlic, ricotta, sour cream, asiago/parm cheese and salt and pepper.  Stir together.

4. For the pasta, fill a large bowl with hot tap water.  Add the pasta sheets and let sit for 15 minutes until pliable.  

5.  Spread 1/8 of the mixture on each sheet and roll it up.

6. Spread red sauce on the bottom of a baking dish and add the rolls on top.  Top each roll with a little red sauce and mozzarella cheese.

7. Bake in a 350 degree oven for 20 minutes, until the pasta edges and cheese brown. 

Stuffed Mushrooms

Ingredients:

• 3 italian chicken sausage links with casing removed
• half of a red onion, chopped
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• 1 green bell pepper, diced
• 1/4 cup italian bread crumbs
• 1/4 cup asiago/ parm cheese, grated
• 10 button mushroom heads
• olive oil to drizzle

Directions:

• Drizzle saute pan with olive oil and heat to medium
• Add in onion, garlic, pepper and sausage.
• Break up the sausage as it cooks and browns
• Once the sausage is cooked through, add the bread crumbs and cheese and break up the sausage so there are no large chunks
• Allow to cool and heat the oven to 375 degrees.
• Form the mixture into a ball about 1 inch sized and place into each mushroom cavity.
• Bake the filled the mushrooms on a cookie sheet for 20-25 minutes until browned.

Turkey and biscuits

So instead of chicken and dumplings I used turkey (since I had it frozen from Thanksgiving) and I made scallion biscuits instead of dumplings.  Recipe after photo...

For the Biscuits
Ingredients:

• 1 c wheat flour
• 1 c unbleached white flour
• 1 8oz container light sour cream
• 4 tbsp butter, cubed
• pinch of salt
• 4 scallions, sliced
• 1/4 c milk
• 2.5 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp baking soda

Mix all the dry ingredients first then add stir in the wet ingredients.  I break up the butter a bit with my hands and bring the dough together.  Heat the over to 425 degrees and use your hand to flatten the dough on the counter.  I flattened it to about an inch and cut about 12 squares (you can cut them as small or large as you wish).  Place them on a un-greased non stick cookie sheet and bake for 15 minutes or until the top is golden brown. 

For the turkey and gravy part I used a recipe from Tyler Florence, which is amazing.  I left out the heavy cream of course! And it was still delicious.

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/tyler-florence/chicken-and-dumplings-recipe/index.html

Jambalaya Style Risotto

We had this for dinner tonight and it was so delicious I had to share it ASAP.  

Ingredients:

• 1 link of Chorizo or Andouille sausage
• 1 green bell pepper, sliced
• 1 red bell pepper, sliced
• half of a red onion, chopped
• 2 cloves of garlic, chopped
• 4 cups of vegetable stock
• 1/2 tsp garlic powder
• 1/2 tsp chile pepper powder
• 1/2 tsp paprika
• 1 pinch saffron
• 2/3 cup Arborio rice
• 1 cup shrimp, chopped into large pieces

Directions:

1. Remove the sausage from its casing and saute it in a pan heated to medium heat.  Break it up as it browns. After 5 minutes, remove some of the grease from the pan with a paper towel, then add the peppers, onion and garlic.  Saute for 5 minutes more.

2. Add the rice and saute for 2-3 minutes to brown it a bit.  Now add vegetable stock to almost cover the rice and stir in the spices and saffron.

3.  When the rice looks dry, add more liquid and stir.  Do this for 10 minutes and then toss in the shrimp.

4. The risotto should take about 25 minutes to cook, but taste along the way to make sure.  You might not use all of the 4 cups of vegetable stock.

It's simple and so good!

Asian Pork Dumplings

These taste better than a restaurant, so much so that it made me come back from hiatus!  These are for a day you have some time to cook but are easy.  This recipe made 36 dumplings.

Ingredients:

• Wonton wrappers
• 1 lb ground lean pork
• 1 cup chopped kale
• 1 cup baby spinach
• 1 rounded cup of chopped mushrooms (cremini)- about 10
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• half of a small red onion, chopped finely
• soy sauce/Tamari (I added it in dashes not measured out)
• 2 tsp ground ginger
• 1 pinch of red pepper flakes
• Glass of water (to fuse edges of wrappers)

Directions

1. Saute the mushrooms on medium heat until they release some water, add kale and spinach.  Cook until the greens wilt.  Add 3 dashes of soy sauce and garlic, cook for a minute or so until you smell the garlic.

2. In a bowl, add the ground pork and mix in ginger, red pepper flakes, 3-5 additonal dashes of soy sauce, onion and cooked mushroom mixture.  Mix well.

3.  Lay out a wonton wrapper, add a heaping tsp of the pork mixture and lightly line the edges with water (I just used my finger).  Pinch the sides together so it makes a triangle.

4.  Fill a pot with boiling water and place a colander on top so steam can get through.  Place 6 dumplings at a time in the colander and cover with a lid that will seal it.  Cook for 3-5 minutes, until the wrappers appear clear.

5.  Once all dumplings have been steamed, heat a pan on medium heat with a drizzle of olive oil and saute each side of the dumpling until they are golden brown.  It takes about 2 minutes per side.

I served them with a sweet chile dipping sauce!

Orzo with feta

Ingredients:
1/2 cup orzo
3/4 cup vegetable stock
1 zucchini, cut into 1 inch pieces
1 cup chopped red pepper
1/2 cup chopped red onion
1/2 cup feta cheese

Start by boiling the vegetable stock in a small pot, add the orzo and cover.  Cook the orzo for 10-15 minutes, until it is cooked through.  You may need to add bit more liquid (water or stock) if it gets too dry before it's finished cooking, just check it periodically.  Heat a pan to medium heat and add the vegetables.  Saute them for about 10 minutes until they are soft.  Mix the vegetables into the orzo and add the feta cheese.  I served this with bacon wrapped shrimp!

BBQ Pulled Pork

It's such an easy, delicious winter dinner.  I used a crock pot to cook the pork but you can use a pot with a lid.

Ingredients:

Pork roast (I bought a random affordable cut of pork, I think the butt, it weighed about 1.5 pounds)

3 cloves of garlic

1 red onion

2 cups vegetable stock

2 cups water

Cooking oil spray

Salt and pepper

1/4-1/2 cup of you favorite BBQ sauce (I love Bullseye original)

Start by heating a pan to medium heat sprayed with cooking oil spray.  Season the pork with salt and pepper and sear the meat on each side for about 3 minutes or until it is browned.  Set aside.  Chop the onion and garlic (It can be any size since its purpose is to flavor the cooking liquid) and add it to the crock pot.  Pour in the water and vegetable stock, then add the pork.  Set the heat/timing for 6 hours.  In a pot with a lid, cook on low for 2-3 hours, until the meat is falling apart.  When it is ready, shred the pork into chunky shreds and add to a saute pan.  Discard any fat left in the meat.  Saute the meat with the BBQ sauce on medium heat, stirring periodically, for about 10 minutes so the sauce coats the pork.  I served in a toasted bun. 

Roasted vegetables tossed with balsamic vinegar

After the hiatus due to school and now after the holidays hopefully I can cook and share some new recipes.  The other night, after a couple weeks of indulging, we just wanted vegetables for dinner.  On Christmas night, my dad made roasted brussels sprouts tossed with balsamic vinegar so I wanted to add a little more.  There is not a photo accompanying this recipe because, honestly, the roasted vegetables were not too photogenic.

Ingredients:

2 cups of halved brussels sprouts
2 zucchini chopped into 1/2-1 inch pieces
2 cups of sliced button mushrooms
3 whole cloves of garlic
1 red onion sliced 1/4 inch thick
1 tbsp olive oil
2 tbsp balsamic vinegar
salt and pepper

Heat the oven to 400 degrees.  Toss the vegetables and garlic in the olive oil, salt and pepper.  On a baking sheet, make sure they are arranged in a single layer to roast evenly.  Roast them for about 20-30 minutes, toss them after about 15 minutes to ensure even browning.  They are done cooking when they are golden brown.  In a bowl mash the roasted garlic cloves and mix with the balsamic vinegar.  Toss the vegetables in the mixture and serve.