Home-made Gourmet Pizza

I’ve blogged about my love for Whole Foods Pizza and also Papa Johns veggie pizza  at one point since I started this blog, but lately they weren’t  the same. In the past weeks my family and I have tried different pizzas from various local pizza shops and they all seemed to be lackluster and blasé.  So my sister and I decided to make our own pizza for a change, and boy was it amazing! The pizza was so easy to make , yet tasted  gourmet and cost nearly half the amount it would cost delivered. I took a short cut and used a pre-package Whole Foods wheat pizza crust that comes with 2 medium to large size crusts. The taste was very similar to Whole Foods pizza crust served at their pizza station and not sour doughy like most pre-made crusts.  The ingredients added where pretty simple and basic, but we added a few simple ingredients that made the pizza taste fancier than your ordinary cheese pizza. We topped the pizza with sliced provolone cheese  in addition to the shredded mozzarella , as well as fresh spinach. We than sprinkle dried basil, red pepper flakes, cracked black pepper, garlic powder and onion powder sparingly over the pizza and voilà : Homemade Gourmet Pizza! One bite out of this, and you’ll wonder why you never made your own pizza.

Happy Baking!

 

 

Whole Foods Caprese Pizza

You ever had those days where , you are so hungry but you can’t decide what you want to eat. Well that happens to me just about everyday , Ive always been a picky eater but since transitioning I’ve gotten a little bit more pickier.  One place I love to go when I can’t make up my mind on what to eat is Whole Foods. I love their hot bar, salad bar , pizza station , bakery and just about anything in the store that you can eat on the go. One of the best hidden gem in Whole Foods though is their pizza station. I love them for the fact that their pizza is made with whole wheat flour instead of white , and they flavor the pizza with herbs along with a garlic  crust that makes  the cheese pizza such a great treat.  On this particular day I had to pass up on the cheese pizza and try this beauty of a pizza that caught my eye. Not every Whole Foods is the same in how they make their pizza but this particular Whole Foods I frequent warms up your pizza in the pizza oven , so this took this Caprese pizza to a whole another level.  Who can pass up on a pizza that is a essentially a caprese  salad on a pizza slice. Its pricey at $3.50 a slice but it was so worth it! If you’re ever in a Whole Foods , and they have this on display I urge you to try it. You wont regret it.

 

Kale and lentil tabbouleh salad

 

Tis the season to catch the flu, and boy did it catch me. With a new semester beginning I really didn’t have the time to get sick. So I upped my vitamin C intake to battle the symptoms but my body just wasn’t having it. So I raised the white flag and gave my body some rest.  For days I had no appetite and longed for my green smoothies , but soup and tea was the only thing on the menu. When I finally had some relief  and an appetite I decided to make me a big salad mixed with kale and lentil tabbouleh. This was my first time using baby kale, which in my opinion is very bitter compared to whole leaf kale but it was nutritious nonetheless. This is definitely  going to be a staple salad  for me,its nutritious and tasty and only took five minutes to make. I’ve attached the recipe below:

3 handful of Kale

2 Hass avocados diced

2 Tomatoes diced

1/2 cup of any brand Lentil tabbouleh salad

Enjoy!

My ode to Caesar (salad)

You ever had one of those days where you just wanted a salad, but not just the ordinary salad? I’m not gonna lie, I rather drink a green smoothie with kale, spinach and collard greens than actually sit there and  eat the actual leaf itself. Knowing me once the dressing hits the salad its no longer healthy, i like my salad drenched in dressing . My favorite salad is the infamous Caesar salad, always has and always will be. But seeing that lately its been  listed as one of the worst salad you can eat I’m slowly backing away from it. So i decided to try this new salad at Publix called Harvest Salad. This pretty much had everything but the kitchen sink in it. This particular salad had lettuce, apples, blue cheese, carrot slaw , candied walnuts, sunflower seeds , cherries and a vinaigrette for dressing.It was a new twist to the usual salads at the grocery store but the vinaigrette was too acidic to my liking. All i could think of while eating this salad was how great it  would be with some Caesar dressing. At that point i realized i hadn’t taken the breakup with Caesar to well. So i wrote a poem to which i call: My ode to Caesar .

My dear Caesar, you’ve truly been good to me. I enjoyed the time we had together . The days, the night we share are memorable bliss. I hope one day , we can meet again and reminisce. Till that day, you’ll forever be in my heart. You’re truly missed .

Whole Foods pizza run

The other day, i was in the mood for some pizza. So for my lunch break i decided to head over to Whole Foods to see if they offered any. Let me be the first to tell you that I love Whole foods, its literally like a new adventure every time i go there. I could spend hours looking at products and sampling new things, to me its like a library, grocery store and cafeteria all in one. I freaking love that place lol!…  I usually try keep a budget of five dollars for lunch a day, whether its fruit salad, salads, veggies , parfaits i try my best to keep it at 5 or under. Sometimes i master it sometime i don’t, usually when dealing with whole foods i don’t. On this particular day i was able to keep it under 5 with 2 slices of  cheese pizza at $1.99 a slice. But me wanting something more than cheese, i decided to try one of their specialty pizza which was a Blue Walnut Pizza.  This particular pizza had blue cheese, walnuts, caramelized onions , spinach and the usual mozzarella cheese . All in all To me  it tasted like a salad but at $3.50 a slice, its kinda of pricey. But if you fancy “fancy” pizza than this might spark your interest, but for me I’ll stick to the basics.

FYI: Not sure if it applies to all, Whole foods cheese pizza are made with Whole wheat dough. So technically their good for you , right? lol

Mediterranean style quesadillas

On my weekly stops at the farmers market, i saw that they had these huge pita breads on sale. Not knowing what i would do with it, i threw it in the basket along with some greens. I than headed over to Whole Foods for some spirulina tablets and decided to grab some cheese. I bought a mozzarella cheese ball and pre- diced goat cheddar. This was my first time trying Goat cheddar but for those who haven’t tried it before , i would say it taste like  a mixture of  goat cheese and sharp cheddar.  Its pretty good but this is coming from a person who likes goat cheese lol, but if you want to try something different this is great to try.

Any-who when i got home i just threw in anything i had in the kitchen and created this Mediterranean style quesadilla. First you spread some pesto sauce on half the pita bread and sliced the mozzarella cheese and goat cheddar. Warm it up for about a minute in the microwave until the cheese is evenly melted. Add sliced tomatoes and fresh spinach followed by a couple splashes of balsamic vinaigrette and dried basil. Fold over the pita bread and cut into 2 to 4 pieces.  🙂

Fancy Smancy Grilled Cheese sandwich

The other day Publix had a sale on the Ezekiel bread, never having tried  it before i figured why not. I ate it with almond butter and coffee one morning , and it was the driest thing i ever tasted. So I contemplated on what i should do with this, cause i wasn’t going to throw away $3.50 just like that. So i looked up sandwich recipes, and came across this Tyler Florence grilled cheese recipe. It asked for  Tomatoes, Mozzarella , Pesto and bread of course. I never had Pesto, so instead of making it the way he did. I used a store bought pesto which was pretty good. Any-who,  I defrosted the Ezekiel bread while i sliced up the tomato and mozzarella. I then proceeded to spread pesto on each slice of bread and layer the tomato and cheese  and closed it up with another slice of  pesto covered  bread. Instead of butter he suggested olive oil to grill the sandwich, i thought it was going to make the sandwich soggy but surprisingly it did not. The Ezekiel bread took the grilling great, it didn’t fall apart or stick to the pan at all .I had my family test it out for me, and they loved it. Little did they know they were eating the driest bread known to  man lol.

FYI: If you have a panini maker it would make thing easier but laying a piece of foil while putting a skillet on top worked out for me.

 

 

Welcome to Italy!

So the other night, my sis was in a “whip something up mood” , and decide to make “caprese salad” on ciabatta bread. The ingredients are so simple and go so well together. She sliced  Mozzarella Cheese, Tomato and had Fresh Organic Basil on hand, but she also did a nice little concoction for the bread. She mixed olive oil, dried basil, and crushed garlic and drizzled it on both side of the slice bread and  baked  till toasted. She than layered the cheese, and tomato with basil to top it off. In 15- 20 minutes  tops you got “caprese salad on ciabatta bread”…. Welcome to Italy!