Recipes, What I ate

Pita Pizza & a Green Monster

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Some nights I am really amped to try out a new recipe…. And some nights, I just want pizza.  Tonight was one of THOSE nights. 

I decided to use a Joseph’s Middle East Bakery Low Carb pita as my base.  I topped that off with:

  • 1/4 cup Classico Fire Roasted/Tomato Garlic spaghetti sauce
  • Sprinkling of garlic powder, onion powder, dried parsley, dried oregano, black pepper, and red pepper flakes
  • 1 ounce thinly sliced grilled chicken (leftover from the batch I grilled up sunday night)
  • 1 light babybel cheese sliced into four super thin discs
  • 1 tbsp fat free ricotta
  • thinly sliced red onion
  • a couple thinly sliced cherry tomatoes

Popped it into a 400 degree oven for 15 minutes.  Then, I topped it with some chopped basil from the back yard garden:

I served the pizza up with a side salad that consisted of romaine, cherry tomatoes, red onion, banana peppers, and 2 tbsp Ken’s Steakhouse Lite Northern Italian dressing with Basil and Romano:

The salad was delicious.  That Ken sure does know a thing or two about dressings 😉

And the pizza was..  in a word… Umm…. YUM.  Ok, that’s two words, but regardless this pizza really hit the spot:

Soooo goood!!!  Why don’t I make pizza more often?!

Check out this huge banana pepper I’ve got growing in the back yard:

He might have to go on my next salad 🙂

Stats on the pizza: 197 calories, 20g carbs, 6g fat, 20g protein, 5g fiber 

Stats on the salad:  97 calories, 13g carbs, 5g fat, 3g protein, 4g fiber

All together now:  294 calories, 33g carbs, 11g fat, 23g protein, 9g fiber

 

I’ve previously eluded to the fact that I’m a messy cook.  Given the simplicity of my dinner tonight, you’d probably assume that my kitchen would be in pretty good shape.  Whelp, you’d be wrong! 

Take a look at this monstrosity:

I wish I were kidding.  Can you imagine the disasters I could create if I had a big kitchen?

After dinner, I couldn’t wait for late-night snack time to roll around.  I decided earlier in the day that I’d make up a green monster smoothie for my snack to give me lots of energy for my run in the morning.

Threw the following into the blender:

  • 1/2 cup Almond Breeze Unsweetened Almond Milk
  • 1/4 cup Oikos plain Greek Yogurt
  • 1 packet Truvia (stevia) all natural sweetener
  • 1/2 cup fresh frozen strawberries
  • 1/4 cup fresh blueberries
  • 1 cup fresh SPINACH
  • 3 ice cubes

It’s green.  It’s delicious.

Mmmmm…

Thankfully, the green monster gave me the energy I needed to clean up that disaster kitchen:

Stats on the green monster: 105 calories, 18g carbs, 2g fat, 9g protein, 5g fiber 

Blog Updates

I recently updated my About Me page to incorporate some comments I had posted on the blog.  I also added a Foodie Q&A page where I plan to keep a running list of questions readers ask.  And as always, I am continuously linking all my recipe posts to the Recipe Page.  This page is actually getting pretty long, so I think I’ll be reformatting it in the near future.

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Recipes

Couscous Garbanzo Bean Salad

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I found a recipe for Couscous Garbanzo Bean Salad in the July 2010 issue of Cooking Light, and while I was making last night’s Southwestern Tabbouleh, I realized many of the ingredients were the same in the two recipes.  So, I was SUPER PRODUCTIVE and mixed up two servings of tonight’s dinner ahead of time.  Boo. Ya. 🙂  I was also pretty amped to use some of the Rice Select Tri-Color couscous I picked up last week (and used in my Chicken Couscous Salad).

I put the following into a bowl, then covered with a lid to steam:

  • 1/2 cup couscous
  • 1/2 cup boiling water
  • 1/4 tsp salt
  • 1/4 tsp black pepper
  • 1/16 tsp cinnamon

 Meanwhile, I mixed up the dressing:

  • 3 tablespoons lemon juice
  • 1 clove minced garlic
  • Dash sugar

Then, combined the following into a bowl:

  • 1 tbsp chopped mint
  • 1/4 cup chopped green onion
  • 1/16 paprika
  • 1/2 can chickpeas/garbanzo beans/whathaveyou 😉
  • 12 cherry tomatoes
  • 1/4 cup reduced fat feta ounces feta
  • S&P & red pepper flakes
  • 1/4 cup red onion

I combined the couscous and dressing with the other ingredients, then left in the fridge to overnight.

I was really craving roasted veggies, so I decided to only have 1/2 a serving of the couscous salad (a quarter of the recipe above) with a hodge podge of veggies that I tossed with 1 tsp olive oil and S&P and roasted in a 400 degree oven for 20 minutes.

I realized tonight that I’m really not a big fan of fresh mint 🙁

 

With every bite of couscous I thought to myself, man this would be really tasty if it weren’t for the mint… I ended up throwing some Frank’s Red Hot on there for good measure 🙂

The roasted veggies were so delicious:

If you’re a fan of mint, give this recipe a shot.  Otherwise, sub in cilantro or basil or go for the Chicken Couscous Salad instead!

Stats on 1 serving of couscous garbanzo bean salad:  317 calories, 50g carbs, 4g fat, 14g protein, 5g fiber

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Recipes

Southwestern Tabbouleh

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I don’t know about you guys, but when I’m planning for a big event or vacation I tend to over-organize.  I usually have several lists going of things to do, things to buy, etc.  Vacation is about a week away, and I have a feeling the further I get into the week, the more and more things I’ll add to these to-do lists…  I think deep down I secretly like giving myself busywork.  What a weirdo I am 🙂

Since I was so pleased with the Shrimp Tabbouleh I made last week, I was pumped to see a recipe for Spicy Southwestern Tabbouleh in the July 2010 issue of Cooking Light!  I decided to make a double batch (in anticipation of (self-inflicted) limited free time later in the week).

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Recipes, What I ate

Something old, something new x2

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Breakfast #1

For breakfast this morning I was craving one of my standards:  dippy eggs and potatoes.  So, I cooked up 1 egg over easy, heated up some of Jarrod’s special cajun oven potatoes, and a Thomas’ multi-grain english muffin. 

Served up with a dollop of ketchup, of course! 😉

Delicious as always!  Sometimes you just gotta go with the tried and true.

Stats on breakfast #1:  219 calories, 39g carbs, 6g fat, 12g protein, 9g fiber

 

Breakfast #2 = Healthified Low-Carb Waffles

I recently picked up some Bob’s Red Mill Low-Carb baking mix, so I decided to try and make some low-carb waffles this morning.

I mixed up:

  • 1/4 cup Bob’s Red Mill Low-Carb baking mix
  • 1/4 cup + 1 tsp Almond Breeze unsweetened almond milk
  • 1 egg white
  • Sprinkling of cinnamon

Poured the mix onto the waffle iron, and let it cook for about 10 minutes.

Meanwhile, I mixed up half a serving of PB2 and made it a little on the runny side (for drizzling!).  I also microwaved 1/4 of fresh frozen strawberries.  Once nice and hot, I added a sprinkling of Truvia to sweeten them up and a drizzle of Smuckers sugar free syrup.

All together:

This was a good first stab at low-carb waffles!  Next time, I think I’ll add half a packet of the truvia to the actual waffle batter and also 1/8 tsp of baking powder to help the waffles perk up a bit.  Definitely gonna play with this idea some more!

Stats on just the waffles:  126 calories, 12g carbs, 3g fat, 18g protein, 5g fiber

Stats on waffles with all the fixins:  170 calories, 21g carbs, 4g fat, 21g protein, 6g fiber

 

Larabar success!!

Yesterday, I was feeling adventurous (albeit hesitant) and decided to try the Peanut butter & Jelly Larabar that I’ve been neglecting for the past week due to Larabar Fail #1 and Fail #2. 

Every other larabar I’ve tried to date, I’ve taken 1 bite and tossed the rest.  I actually enjoyed this one!  Wow!  I’m so surprised!  And I LOVE the simple ingredients:  Dates, Peanuts, Unsweetened Cherries, and Salt.  Still keeping an eye out there for the coconut and key lime flavors…

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Recipes

Tabbouleh with Feta and Shrimp

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I don’t know why, but I always get the words bulgur and barley mixed up!  I know the difference between each of the grains, and I can easily identify them, but my brain just jumbles up the names sometimes!

Case in point:  I found this recipe for Tabbouleh with Feta and Shrimp a while back and decided over the weekend that I would make it sometime for dinner this week.  All week, I’ve been thinking to myself “why do they call it tabbouleh when it’s got bulgur in it?  Don’t they know tabbouleh is made with barley??”

After 5 days of contemplating this, it JUST NOW dawned on me that the recipe did, in fact, call for bulgur which is, in fact, what tabbouleh is made out of.  Hahahha… geesh.  Suddenly, this recipe made a lot more sense to me 🙂

First, I cooked up 1/4 cup of bulgur (AKA not barley) per the package instructions and 3 ounces of shrimp.  Then put it all in the fridge to cool off.

In a bowl, I mixed together:

  • 1 tbsp parsley, chopped (the smaller, the better)
  • 3 tbsp lemon juice
  • 1/8 tsp each salt, pepper, ground cumin

 Then I tossed the bulgur (I swear to you, I just typed BARLEY… wow) with:

For you visually challenged that is:

  • 1/2 large cucumber, diced
  • 1/4 cup parsley, chopped (the smaller, the better)
  • 1 roma tomato, diced
  • 1/4 cup chopped green onion
  • 2 tbsp  crumbled reduced fat feta

 Topped it off with the dressing, and put everything back in the fridge so the flavors could mary merry 😉

Come clooooooossssseerrrrrr:

T-A-S-T-Y.  Just like the tabbouleh I’ve had at my favorite middle eastern restaurants… well not JUST like it, but still tasty in its own right.  Next time, I wont be so lazy and I’ll chop everything into smaller pieces 🙂

Stats on the tabbouleh:  360 calories, 50g carbs, 3g fat, 28g protein, 10g fiber

 

I’m off to mow the yard!  WOOHOOOOOOO!

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