Humpday Hunger Happenings

Tonight was the first night in a while that I didn't have anything scheduled, so I took advantage of the free time to make a colorful, healthy(ish), yumalicious meal.

Menu:

Roasted Red Pepper/Spinach Pizza (whole wheat crust)
Garden salad tossed with bacon bits and flax seeds (Ranch Dressing, of course)
Coconut Rice pudding

The meal may sound kinda fancy, but it's actually super simple and quick to make (40 minutes or less)

Pizza:

Preheat: 450

For the Crust:

1 tbs. dry active yeast (1 packet)
1 cup warm water (not boiling!)
1 tsp. sugar
1 tsp. salt
2 tbs. vegetable oil (I use olive oil)
2 1/2 cups flour (go half whole wheat, half all purpose if you'd like)

For some reason, people feel like good homemade pizza has to be this all-day, excessively complicated undertaking. When you use this recipe, you can actually make, from scratch, a pizza more quickly than you can cook a frozen one!

1.) Dissolve yeast in water. Add sugar, salt, and oil. Whisk until will mixed.
2.) Add flour and mix until dough pulls away from sides.
3.) Dump dough onto floured surface and knead 2-4 minutes.**
4.) Grease pan, and sprinkle the bottom lightly with cornmeal. Roll out dough until it is large enough to fit your pan. Place rolled out dough into pan.

Toppings:

About 1 cup pasta sauce
2 cups fresh spinach, roughly chopped
1/2 cup or so roasted red peppers, from a jar, drained and roughly chopped
8 oz shredded mozzarella cheese

I just use the cheapest pasta sauce I can find. Nothing fancy there, it's good and saves time. For extra kick, you can sprinkle Italian seasonings onto the crust, pre-sauce. Pour the sauce on, and spread it out. I layered the veggies and cheese, just to get everything mixed up and evenly distributed.

Bake: 10-12 minutes, or until crust is golden brown and cheese is well melted. Enjoy! Notes: ** You can let the dough rise for up to 30 minutes, if you'd like. It's a good way to give yourself some time to do other things (like make a salad) since the cooking time is so short**
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Coconut Rice Pudding

What you need:

2 cups Arborio rice (the kind usually used for risotto...it makes for a very creamy pudding! You can use regular rice, as well)
1- 14.5 oz can coconut milk (unsweetened)
1/2 cup or so sugar (to your taste)
1 1/2 cup milk (evaporated milk works great here)
1/2 cup water
1 tsp. vanilla
1 tsp. almond extract
2 egg yolks

What you do:

1.) Warm milks, water, extracts, and sugar in medium sized sauce pan until warm but not boiling.
2.) Add rice. Cook 25-35 minutes, or until the rice is done to your liking.
3.) Put egg yolks in a small bowl, and add about 1/4 cup of the rice cooking liquid to the yolks and whisk with a fork until well incorporated.
4.) Add egg mixture to rice pan and mix well. Allow to cook 5 more minutes, pudding should be somewhat set.
5.) If you have tons of liquid still in the pan, cook a bit longer and be prepared to remove the excess and cook more rice in a smaller pot with it. (Don't add more rice to the original pot or you'll end up with some crunchy rice and some gummy rice in the same spoonful).
You can serve the pudding immediately, or you can serve it chilled. If you'd like, you can also melt some chocolate or carob into the pudding for an added layer of flavor!

Depression Dinning

So I've been bitten by the need to organize my eating/cooking habits. I'm guilty of occasionally (once or twice a month by myself) eating out for convenience. I'm also bad about sometimes letting things sit too long and go bad. Anywho, I've decided to start portioning and freezing food. Portioning cuts down on defrost time and, of course, helps with portion control/over eating. Not to mention it looks neater in the freezer. My goal is to have enough food stored up, so that I won't have to do any major grocery shopping for at least two months. It may sound far fetched, but from the looks of my freezer, and my ever increasing knowledge and research on freezing foods, I think it's doable. This idea come from the fact that my income tends to fluctuate (sometimes wildly), so my ability to buy groceries also tends to fluctuate. I purposefully over spent my grocery budget to stock up on things like meat and produce to take advantage some super deals. With the way the economy is, it's a good idea to plan ahead. Things will get worse before they get better.

Over the course of last night and this morning, I've made, bagged, and frozen several batches of waffles. I came across a delish new waffle recipe, and was able to use a very brown banana I had left over from making banana bread. Woohoo! It was almost like a two for one deal! The recipe I found makes extremely light and fluffy waffles...delicate and delightful. Anywho, here's the recipe:

Whole wheat waffles
1 3/4 cups whole wheat flour
2 tbs. sugar (I used sucanat)
1 tbs. baking powder
2 eggs (or 1 egg and 1/4 cup applesauce)
1 3/4 cup milk (you can do half milk, half water as well)
1/4 cup oil
1/4 cup fruit or veggie puree (I used banana)
1 tsp vanilla (optional)

Mix wet ingredients together in a small bowl. Whisk the dry ingredients together in a medium bowl. Add wet to dry.

NOTES: I added a dash of cinnamon and nutmeg for an extra boost to the banana flavor. YUMMY!

Here's a hint on what will be making the trek to my freezer next: Idaho.

Eat well, be well.