Purple and Green Tacos

My husband is the king of the crock pot.

Today, his recipe was stew beef in salsa (the salsa was from a jar, but made with real ingredients), cooked all day.

I came home from work and put the spicy, delicious meat on a whole-wheat flour tortilla with sliced red cabbage, arugula (I'm assuming my mystery leaves are arugula until someone tells me otherwise), parsley (because it's like cilantro?), feta cheese, and some fresh lime juice.

Mexican, no.  Weird, yes.

And absolutely delicious.

Butternut Squash and Arugula Pizza

I made my own pizza!  From scratch!

The recipe for the clean, whole-wheat pizza dough was from Eat Live Run.  I changed it a little, substituting whole-wheat pastry flour for the all-purpose flour, and using only 1 teaspoon of salt rather than 1.5 teaspoons.  It came out great!  My husband suggested rolling it a bit thinner next time, but it was otherwise excellent.

For the toppings, I used mashed-up butternut squash and some garlic for the sauce, and then topped it with caramelized onions and fresh mozzarella.  The onions I caramelized on the stove top by cooking them over medium heat with a bit of olive oil for almost an hour.

2 cups whole-wheat pastry flour
1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
1 tbsp olive oil
1 1/3 cup warm water
1 packet yeast
1 tsp sea salt

In a mixing bowl, combine the warm water and yeast.

Stir in the salt, flour, and olive oil and mix by hand. Knead for 8 minutes or until dough is soft and elastic.

Take the dough out of the bowl, rub with olive oil, and then place back in the bowl.

Cover with a dish towel and let rise for one hour.

After the dough has doubled in size, cut in half to make two large pizza doughs or make mini doughs.  Roll out the dough and pinch the edges to form a crust.

Cover with your toppings and bake at 425 for 10-15 minutes.

I topped mine with butternut squash and garlic as "sauce", mozzarella, carmelized onions, and cracked black pepper. Then I put it in the oven to cook.

At ten minutes, I took the pizza out and added arugula. Add more than you think you'll need; it wilts down considerably.

At fifteen minutes, the pizza was perfectly done. Crisp crust with sweet toppings!

Delicious!

Spinach, Arugula, and Kale Pizza

Sometimes everyone has a night when cooking just isn't going to happen.  In our house, we actually have a lot of them.

That's why we keep a stash of organic pizzas from Trader Joe's in our freezer.  For frozen convenience food, the ingredients aren't bad, and the nutrition information doesn't suggest that the pizza will cause an immediate coronary.

That said, it's not the best meal, and I know it.

But having a frozen pizza for dinner doesn't mean that it's impossible to include fresh produce.  Before I put our pizza in the oven, I topped it with frozen spinach, fresh kale, and fresh arugula.  The kale actually crisped up just like kale chips, which added a really welcome dimension to the pizza.  My toddler enjoyed helping me to spread the greens out over the pie, and then gladly ate an entire slice of her creation.

Now, if only Trader Joe's would make a good frozen pizza with a whole-wheat crust...