Garbanzo Bean Pizza Crust (On a Make Your Own Grilled Pizza Night)

I recently grabbed some garbanzo bean flour to make some flat bread. I figured I would incorporate it into our crust on pizza night to up the nutrient content!

It was amazing, and the kids (we had an extra child for the week who piled her goodies on!) loved it.

The Topping choices were:
sauce
shredded mozzarella
smoked diced mozzarella
grape tomatoes
baby spinach
maple roasted butternut squash
sauteed mushrooms
caramelized onions
mini pepperoni
bacon!!!!
Canadian bacon

My version was sauce, both cheeses, tomatoes, spinach, squash, mushrooms, onions and bacon. It was seriously the best pizza I have ever put into my mouth. YUM!


Garbanzo Pizza Crust

• 1 (.25 ounce) package active dry yeast
• 1 cup warm water (110 degrees F/45 degrees C)
• 1 cup bread flour
• 1 cup garbanzo flour
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 teaspoons white sugar
• In a small bowl, dissolve yeast in warm water. Let stand until creamy, about 10 minutes.
• In a large bowl, combine 2 cups bread flour, olive oil, salt, white sugar and the yeast mixture; stir well to combine. Beat well until a stiff dough has formed. Cover and rise until doubled in volume, about 30 minutes. Meanwhile, preheat oven to 350 degrees F (or grill like we do!)
• Turn dough out onto a well floured surface. Form dough into a round and roll out into a pizza crust shape. Cover with your favorite sauce and toppings and bake in preheated oven until golden brown, about 20 minutes (or grill!) 


The Kids' Pizzas!! 

Lemon Linguine w/ Spinach, Sun-Dried Tomatoes & Pine Nuts Plus Artichoke Appetizer

Wow. Been a while, huh?
This is a recipe that was inspired by a plethora of other linguine dishes with lemon. I didn't measure anything, but I will try my best to give you an idea at least. Yum.
The dish started off because my daughter and I were grocery shopping and she really wanted to get artichokes for me to steam....and we had a ton of lemons. So it evolved from there.
Here we go!

Steamed Artichokes

 (this can be made so many ways, this is just the way I have learned to love it-other than grilled)

2 Artichokes cut (there are a ton of places on the web so see how to do this)

Enough chicken broth/water to cover artichokes (I had one box of broth and used water for the rest)

Herbs (I use rosemary stems and basil stems from garden)

Two peeled cloves of garlic

1 sliced lemon

Bring broth/water to a boil with the lemon slices, garlic and herbs

Place artichokes in liquid and simmer for about 10 minutes

Place artichokes (along with lemon and herbs) in a steaming basket over simmering liquid and let them finish cooking by steaming.  When they are soft enough for the leaves to practically fall off is when I know they are ready. Save liquid in pan for the pasta.

At this point I called the family inside and we devoured the meat on the leaves in about 5 minutes. We usually dip them in a mayo mixture, but this time we dipped in melted butter. Next time I think I will get 3 artichokes...maybe more. It is embarrassing the way my family eats these things.

 Lemon Linguine w/ Spinach, Sun-Dried Tomatoes & Pine Nuts

I winged this meal....so I am not going to use exact measurements!

Box of wheat linguine

Handful of pine nuts (toasted)

Handful of baby spinach roughly chopped

2 Garlic clove minced

A half of a jar of sun-dried tomatoes chopped(about 2-3 T oil reserved)

Juice of a large lemon plus a teaspoon of lemon zest

Parmesan Cheese (I used asiago because I have it and love it)

2T Sour Cream

Olive Oil

Basil or Rosemary for garnish

Cook the pasta according to directions in the broth mixture left from the artichokes, then drain reserving about 1/3 of a cup to keep pasta from drying out

While pasta cooks, warm a pan and drizzle with olive oil. Saute garlic for about 2 minutes then add spinach. Once spinach is wilted, toss in the sun-dried tomatoes.

Combine drained pasta with spinach mixture, lemon juice, drizzle of olive oil, reserved sun dried tomato oil (awesome flavor), and reserved broth mixture if it seems too dry (white wine would be good here too). At the end add in sour cream, pine nuts, and asiago or Parmesan.

Garnish with lemon zest and fresh herbs. Add s&p (and red pepper flakes if you like...I do!).

That was wordy but the best I can do with describing my thrown together meal. :)

Enjoy!

xoxo

Kandice

P.S. Bacon would SOOOO rock this meal, but since yesterday I promised myself I wouldn't have any, I didn't. Haha.

Making Use Of Leftovers! Crostata with Mushrooms and Pancetta

Every few weeks we do homemade pizza. We don't aways make our own dough (didn't this week), but we sometimes do. The kids made their own crazy pizzas, and my husband and I sauteed some things we had sitting in the fridge. Shallots, mushrooms, garlic. Then added on random toppings that sounded great at the time. Then we sliced up a ball of mozzarella and he grilled the pizzas. (We have a Big Green Egg). I tell you what, grilled pizzas are so much better than baked pizzas. Doing so makes DiGiorno taste like the bomb on those lazy nights! Ok....so the pizza was great. But we had left over veggies. Hmmmm...what to do? (ahem, scroll down)

After watching Food Network, I was inspired by the oh so lovely (okay....okay...smokin HOT) Giada! So I picked up some pancetta (and a couple of other things needed for the crust) and went to town on Crostata w/Mushrooms and Pancetta. Oh my. The crust was TO DIE FOR. It was awesome. Like really really good. Since my kids don't dig the mushrooms, I think next time roasted root veggies would be very nice. So if you make this, don't hold strong to the mushroom idea. Add in any roasted or sauteed veggies. But don't leave out the pancetta. It made the dish! Enjoy!

P.S. I plan on trying the other recipes from that episode. They looked yum.

Cucumber Sandwiches for Grown Ups w/ Basil Lemonade

Today's high is....106. You heard me right. NOT fun. Too hot to do anything outside.

Turning on the oven is out of the question. With me not being much of a sweet eater for breakfast I decided to try a variation of a cucumber sandwich from a recipe from a cookbook called Intracourse. Yes, that is the name of the book. A dear friend gave it to me and I am more than impressed by the recipes, stories, and photographs from the book. I will touch more on that later.

So, my variation described as simply as possible:

2 slices of white bread with crust removed (to bring back your childhood days of summer)

12 thin slices of English cucumber (patted dry with paper towel and added s&p)

In a small bowl combine the following:

1t Mayo

1t softened cream cheese

sprinkling of herbs (I used chives, chopped basil, and parsley)

dash of hot sauce

1/4 t balsamic vinegar

dash of garlic salt, pepper, salt

Add mixture to bread slices, layer cucumbers, add a basil leaf or two and cut sandwich in half.

Enjoy!

The Basil lemonade was also inspired from the book...but I didn't want to make my own lemonade this morning since I just bought some at Sprouts.

So I followed this:

http://food.realsimple.com/realsimple/recipefinder.dyn?action=displayRecipe&recipe_id=1213226

Red Chili and Pecan Slaw-spicy and healthy

I needed a side to go with a horseradish pepper pork roast I had purchased. So I headed over to the self website to get inspiration. I had packaged cabbage mix, so my salad was not as pretty as it could have been with the cabbage suggested. But either way, it was pretty darn good. Seriously.

Red Chili and Pecan Slaw courtesy of Self Magazine

Dressing

32 oz nonfat vegetable stock, divided

2 tbsp cornstarch

1 tsp cumin seeds

1 jalapeño pepper, seeded and diced

1 clove garlic

1/2 shallot, chopped

1/2 cup chopped fresh cilantro

1/4 cup sweet Thai chile sauce, such as Mae Ploy

1/4 cup apple cider (or rice wine) vinegar

1/2 tsp ground cumin

1/4 tsp freshly ground black pepper

Slaw

1/4 cup pecan pieces

1/2 tsp dark chili powder

1 tbsp olive oil

1/4 lb red cabbage, shredded

1/4 lb green cabbage, shredded

1 small green bell pepper, cored, seeded and thinly sliced

1 small red bell pepper, cored, seeded and thinly sliced

1 small yellow bell pepper, cored, seeded and thinly sliced

Stir 1/2 cup vegetable stock with cornstarch in a measuring cup until blended. Bring remaining 28 ounces stock to a boil in a medium saucepan over high heat. Reduce heat to a simmer and slowly whisk in stock-cornstarch mixture. Stir rapidly until stock is the consistency of olive oil. (It should cling to the back of a spoon.) Cool to room temperature, skim off and discard any film on top. Place cumin seeds in a dry sauté pan over medium-high heat. Stir until aroma of seeds is released, about 1 minute. Blend 1/4 cup stock in a blender with cumin seeds and remaining dressing ingredients until smooth. (Refrigerate or freeze leftover stock.) Heat oven to 350º. Combine pecans, chili powder and oil in a mixing bowl; toss to coat pecans. Place nuts on a cookie sheet and roast until the aroma of the chili powder is released, 3 to 4 minutes. Combine dressing and slaw ingredients in a bowl. Cover and refrigerate until ready to serve.
168 calories per serving, 9 g fat (1 g saturated), 21.7 g carbs, 4.4 g fiber, 3.2 g protein

Memorial Day Food

Memorial Day this year was very low key. We had some stuff to do so that we could prep for the week. Also, my 5:30 am boot camp started this week. So I really didn't want to regret my first day.

Our simple but yummy menu was perfect. Instead of typing out the recipes, I added the links so that you can save them how you like.

Beer Can Chicken w/Cola BBQ sauce courtesy of Bobby Flay. http://www.foodnetwork.com/food/recipes/recipe/0,1977,FOOD_9936_28849,00.html
Summer Squash Ribbons with Lemon and Parmesan http://food.realsimple.com/realsimple/recipefinder.dyn?action=displayRecipe&recipe_id=1737878
Grilled Potato and Onion Salad (added a T of Cajun mustard to the sauce and used rosemary from the garden in place of parsley) http://food.realsimple.com/realsimple/recipefinder.dyn?action=displayRecipe&recipe_id=1737878