Sometimes it just turns out right

Homemade pizza dough is a great thing to have in the freezer.

I pulled out a piece of dough out of the freezer last night so it was all thawed out and ready to go at lunch time.

The pizza dough spread with bottled tomato sauce.

I added a sprinkle of onion powder, garlic powder and oregano on top.

Then I layered on some turkey meat.

Then I finely chopped some broccoli. I took another look around the kitchen to see what else I had on hand - and ended up chopping up some fresh tomatoes.

The pizza went into a 450 degree oven for 12 minutes.

Hot out of the oven.

 This pizza turned out incredible! It is a bit hard to tell from the photos but the dough has a slightly orange color. I added garlic powder and paprika what I made this batch of dough and it really added that extra something to the pizza.

I had two pieces - 

Along with two more of the oranges.

Every have one of those days when you feel anxious for no reason? I am having one of those - but this pizza helped:-)

 

Turkey and bean taco salad

It is a beautiful day here and after lunch I think I will spend the rest of the day outside. 

For lunch I pulled a portion of frozen turkey and frozen kidney beans out of the freezer and tossed them into a skillet along with some taco seasoning blend.

While they cooked I shredded a carrot and chopped up 2 celery stalks and some fresh parsley.

Then I made a dressing of lemon juice, mirin, oregano, garlic powder, olive oil and cracked black pepper.

A few handfuls of baby greens went into the salad bowl and I tossed everything with the dressing. Then I sprinkled on about 1 Tbsp. of nutritional yeast.

 
By this time, the turkey and beans were done.

They went into the bowl along with dollops of Tofutti sour cream.

Along with a pear and some sparkling water - this was a great lunch!

I have been spending too much time typing lately. The top of my left shoulder blade is really sore - it is a spot that always starts to ache when I have spent too much time at the keyboard. For some reason I tend to hunch my left shoulder when I am typing.

It is time to start doing sun salutations in the morning so I can stretch out that muscle.

Time to head out for the rest of my day.

I hope everyone is having a good Saturday!

Old timey recipes

So, while I was enjoying my night of socializing, my friend offered to show me her family file of recipes. 

Yes, please!

I was facinated by a recipe for meatloaf. It was a recipe for 2. Unusual.

I have no idea where this recipe originated - my friend didn't either - if you know - drop me a line because I want to give them credit.

Ignore the handwriting on the bottom. I wrote out the hard drive I wanted to buy.

I was intrigued by the ingredient 'American chili sauce'. My friend told me it probably was this:

Who knew this existed? I sure didn't.

I followed the recipe almost to the letter (I substituted ground beef with ground turkey) - though I would recommend chopping the onions fine (which I did not and you will see why this is wrong in the following pictures).

I assume this should be served with mashed potatoes but I am obsessed with sweet potatoes - not the fluorescent orange yams that are called sweet potatoes but true sweet potatoes.

So I set the sweet potatoes (chopped) with some frozen spinach in the steamer.

I combined the meatloaf according to the recipe (see above) and spread 1 Tbsp. of the chili sauce on top.

It went into a 350 degree oven for 30 minutes. Mine turned out really wet at the end so I poured off the excess liquid and let it continue to cook in the oven for another 6 minutes.

The results:

Steamed spinach with nutritional yeast topping, turkey meatloaf and mashed sweet potatoes with Tofutti sour cream and chives.

See the big white chunks? Those are the onions - take my word for it - chop them fine.

And because I love all things potato - the meal was heavy on the potatoes:-)

And I won't lie, this was a great dinner. The meatloaf was moist and flavorful. 


A big show of hands for simple and unpretentious recipes that have surprising mystery ingredients that are really enjoyable.


Oh, and besides the food, I bought this:

Yes, very soon, all of my precious files will be safe as houses.

Bed and breakfast for all

One thing I really enjoy about my dogs? They always let me sleep in.

As long as they get a walk just before bed - they won't budge until I get up.

Even when I had a regular schedule during the week, on weekends they embraced endless hours of laying in with the enthusiasm of a sleep deprived teenager.

So when I eventually decided to get up (today it was 10:15am) I decided that we should all have a special brunch.

My breakfast.

The dogs breakfast.

I cooked 1 1/4 lb of ground turkey over medium heat with 1 Tbsp. of olive oil.

I pulled out 2 cups of the cook turkey for the dogs and 1 cup for mine. 

Next, I added in two generous handfuls of fresh spinach and let it cook until wilted.


I pulled out 1/3 of the spinach and put it aside with my ground turkey. 


For the dogs meal, I put 1 chopped apple back into the pan along with the spinach and added in 1/4 cup of chicken broth and a few dashes of fish sauce. I let this cook down until soft and mixed it into the dogs cooked meat.


I seasoned my meat with a dash of soy sauce and a tiny amount of chili paste. 


Then I added one egg cooked over easy to complete my meal.

Time to get some things done before I had off later today for a family birthday party.

Cinnamon rolls

I like to cook. This will not be a surprise to anyone that reads this blog.

This morning I felt like making cinnamon rolls.

I had plenty of these left in the freezer:

Puff pastry squares.

The base of the roll: one with yogurt, one with mashed banana and one with butter.

 After choosing the bases - I added on toppings.

I topped the yogurt with brown sugar and cinnamon. I sprinkled pine nuts over the mashed banana and just a simple sprinkle of cinnamon over the butter.

All rolled up.

I didn't want them to unroll too much in the oven so I put the cut pieces into a muffin tin.

They went into a 400 degree oven for 15 minutes.

The dogs enjoyed the banana and pine nut roll.

Did I eat them for breakfast? Nope. I felt like making them - I didn't necessarily feel like eating them. Yes, my sister's are perplexed by this habit too.


I had this for breakfast.

Turkey, a plum, greek yogurt and half a banana.

And coffee.

Happy Friday, oops, Thursday everyone!

Bye, bye blue cheese

My sister gave me some disturbing news today.

It seems that aged cheeses such as blue cheese (which as you all have seen I have been eating quite a bit of lately) can trigger migraines.

With one tear dramatically spilling down my cheek, I gave away the rest of my Point Reyes blue cheese to my neighbor. 

And then I recovered and went home and made this:

A simple salad with butter lettuce carrot, cucumber and almond slivers.

 
I made a simple dressing with 1 Tbsp. of Udo's oil, 2 Tbsp. of balsamic vinegar, a pinch of oregano, a pinch of dried basil and some cracked black pepper.

I like using this Tupperware container to mix the dressing.

It has a screw top which guarantees I will not fling salad dressing all over my kitchen when I mix it - which has happened before...

And then I realized I should add some protein to my salad - 

Turkey.

For dessert I enjoyed this plump beauty - 

A juicy plum.

Can you tell I have been having way too much fun with Adobe Lightroom?

The program makes it really easy to give photos that extra bit of oomph!

Oh, and I forgot to tell you what the dragon fruit tasted like. It tasted like a cross between jicama and kiwi - but I am not completely sure the fruit was actually ripe - which could account for the lack of taste.

Hiccups and weight loss

So my posts have been intermittent the lately. Why? 

One word. 

Migraines.

Not a bad headache. Not an intense headache. 

A migraine.

Those of you that have them know what I am talking about.


And, for me, the only thing to do is take medicine and essentially be asleep for hours until it goes away.

The food related aspect? I have been craving potassium.

French green beans, potatoes with chives and greek yogurt and turkey.

Why potassium? I have no idea. 


I do have a guess about why I have been having migraines. I have been trying to cut down on caffeine and I have probably been doing it too abruptly.


I had very little caffeine the last few days and then I had a big 'ol cup of joe from the convenience store yesterday which apparently was too much for my delicate blood vessels and BOOM - migraine.


Which is why I am awake at 1:30 am posting - I did one errand today (technically yesterday) and got home and the migraine hit. Then enter medicine - cue sleep - and yeah, I just woke up - at 1:30 am.


But I did get lovely pictures of my lunch even though I was not awake long enough to post them yesterday.

So, sorry for the hiccups in posting - I am off to defrost a croissant for tomorrow's breakfast.


Oh, and another update - my eating approach has resulted in weight loss - 10 pounds to be exact (since January). 


The non diet approach seems to be working :-)

The exquisite lure of negative space

I am happy to report that the de-cluttering is going well.

But, I am finding as things get more and more austere, I have the urge to go back and fill in the negative spaces.


I think this might be a version of a little kid's urge to knock over the tall stack of blocks.

Lunch was quick and easy:

Butter lettuce, turkey, apple and almonds all tossed with a fat-free raspberry balsamic dressing.

I didn't want to dirty another bowl so I just ate it in the big bowl I use to toss my salads.

For dessert, I couldn't resist these:

Lovely plump globes of sweet goodness.

Back to work for me. I hope everyone is having a great Sunday!

A weight is lifted

After a couple of hours of tossing things, I feel like a weight has been lifted.

I started with anything I hadn't used in a year that when I looked at the item I had a negative reaction. 

Example: I received a set of picture frames as a gift - but I have always hated them. Every time I would see them on the shelf I would feel guilty because I really just wanted to throw them out but I felt I couldn't because they were a gift. 

Today the frames got pitched and I can't tell you how relieved I felt.

I pulled out the crispy pizza dough round for lunch:

The crispy pizza round with a smear of pesto and low sodium turkey breast.

Baby greens.

A generous sprinkle of Parmesan.

The pizza sandwich went into the microwave for 30 seconds until the Parmesan cheese was just beginning to melt.

A side salad of baby greens, fat free balsamic dressing and slivered almonds.

 

 

A plump, juicy pear.

Have you ever kept something just because you felt guilty?