garlic breath and pizza heaven

Yup tried out making "clean" pizza.  Tony saw a recipe in one of the clean eating magazines and we tweaked it to our tastes.  The result was a very tasty dinner minus the grease and daily recommended allotment of calories in one meal.

As you can see I was focused on eating before I remembered I had picked up my blog again. In my defense I just got back from the gym and food is a must!

New title/ new cooking style.

So I had to change the title since I really cook mostly healthy food now.  I still love an occasional amazing chocolate filled creation or finding some way to incorporate smoked cheese but it is farther and fewer between.  This will also be very evident when I get to visit London and France in a few weeks.  For now though I wanted to update this with a meal I tried out that turned out to be surprisingly tasty! 

Orange-Poached Tilapia and Maple Lemon Carrots

The recipe after the jump:

Daring Cooks: Edible Container (Flax cracker bowl and a yummy salad!)

At the Daring Cooks Reneta of Testado hosted this months challenge.  The challenge was to make a savory container and fill it with something appropriate.  I made a cracker bowl with salad inside.  These would be wonderful as appetizers.  We had them for dinner with maple glazed salmon added to the salad.  Recipes included below for Maple Glazed Salmon and the Cracker Bowl.  The salad consisted of a spring mix, carrots, burdock root, strawberries and sunflower seeds.  Then for the dressing a strawberry balsamic dressing.

Cake balls with a strawberry center

Strawberries were buy one get one free so naturally I made strawberries covered in cake then wrapped in candy.  Nice and healthy...

Daring Bakers: Coffee Cake and a Pizza Log...My new favorite dough.

This dough recipe was WONDERFUL! I started out making a sweet version of this but savory sounds amazing.  Giant pizza log = best idea ever. So there are several versions below.

1. Meringue with orange zest, cocoa powder, and 70% dark chocolate chips. (Next time I am just going with Nutella)
2. Manchego cheese, pepperoni and jalepeno. (His Favorite)
3. Ham and goat gouda.
4. Ham and Manchego. (My Favorite)

  

After the jump more pictures and the recipe for this yummy dough!

Daring Cooks: Papa Rellenas

Well ALMOST Papa Rellenas... The filling was quite different from the traditional but the process remained the same!  This ended up being a little ball of thanksgiving.  Next time gravy should be made.

First time canning and Some Marmalades

I am increasingly enjoying David Lebovitz's blog.  I have also wanted to try canning for quite sometime now.  So when I saw his recipe for Bergamot Marmalade and tons of citrus was in season it was a perfect opportunity.  Bergamots were not available but Meyer Lemons and Blood Oranges were.  The best part about all of this is I have never actually tried eating a marmalade or a blood orange so this was an interesting experience.  Overall I was quite pleased with the results.  I will link to the recipe for the Lemon Marmalade here.  The only addition was that I used the meyer lemons and let three vanilla pods cut in half steep in the liquid as it boiled.  I would also listen to his advice of adding the Kirschwasser.  It is a little pricey but it really makes the whole thing come together.  In the end it really turned into something visually pleasing and I think it would taste wonderful layered into a vanilla cake if not on a biscuit.  For the Blood Orange I didn't really measure anything but it turned out tasting quite good.