Today was a beautiful, bright and sunny day here and about 75 degrees. Unfortunately, the pollen count was unbelievably high (8,024) which made being outside extremely unpleasant. We are currently under severe thunderstorm and tornado watches; so hopefully with the pounding rain, our pollen count will drop drastically. I had to run a few errands this afternoon and being outside for the few minutes from the car to the store was enough to irritate my eyes. Anyway, I decided that just in case my house blows away tonight (and I really hope it doesn't)...that I wanted to have a good dinner. So, what did I decide to make??? Pizza AND chocolate chip cookies...LOL! I had some leftover taco meat from the other night and some beautiful ripe roma tomatoes...so while out this afternoon I picked up a poblano pepper to add to my pizza as well. I sliced half of a large Poblano pepper and 1/4 of a sweet onion and sauteed them in a little olive oil until crisp-tender. I seeded and diced a fresh tomato and grated some mozzarella cheese. I then made my favorite pizza crust, my
Almond/Flax/Parmesan Herb Pizza Crust. I made the smaller "pizza for one version" in a rectangular shape and used parchment paper to flatten it out to about a 12" x 8" thin rectangle and baked it for about 18 minutes or so. It makes a nice thin and crisp HOLDABLE pizza crust...not one of those "holdable/wink-wink" crusts that I have tried before. I put a super thin layer of pizza sauce on the cooked crust, then mozzarella, taco meat, sauteed poblano peppers and onions and a tiny more cheese and put it back in the oven for about 5-6 minutes until everything was heated and melty. I ran it under the broiler for about 2 minutes to brown ever-so-lightly. When I pulled it out of the oven, I scattered the diced tomatoes on top as well as a few thinly sliced green onion tops. I only ate about 1/3 of it (2 huge pieces). I have plenty left for lunch tomorrow, and then some. I made hubby one with his favorite toppings -- pepperoni, artichokes and black Kalamata olives...of course, mine was way better! ;-)
For dessert, I made my
Chocolate Chip Cookies w/ Toasted Walnuts & Ricotta. I figured if we were going to blow away tonight then I wanted to have a "happy and content stomach" beforehand...a possible "last supper, of sorts"! I just tried one of my cookies that has cooled off and just slightly warm...it is really good. I added a touch more sweetener to it (about 2/3 cup
Swerve) and they are excellent. I usually add 1/2 cup -- and using 2/3 cup instead is really only adding a little more than another tablespoon of sweetener. For those just getting used to eating without sugar, you can make them as sweet as you want them to be, but most people find that the longer they are away from sugar, the less sweet they like things to be -- I know that is certainly the case for me. For those wondering about it...you can't taste the ricotta, it just gives a bit of "richness" to the dough -- you could add a little bit more, too, if you wanted. Below are a few pictures of my pizza and cookies. The recipes for both are embedded in the links above. Enjoy!
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| Voila! |
P.S. -- Check out our pollen count here in Atlanta!!!
April 2013 - Daily Pollen Counts
16 comments:
May I please come to eat at your house? Beautiful! I have to make the cookies!
LOL, Kathy! I have plenty of pizza and cookies left...sure! I hope you enjoy the cookies. :-)
Your pizza is a weekly special in our house now that we are wheat free, we love it even more than a regular pizza! Next to try will be those cookies :)
Wow...thanks, Nancy -- I'm so glad you like it and it makes me happy to know you are enjoying it regularly. I hope you enjoy the cookies too! :-)
I am just starting to try gluten free recipes...these two look great.
Is sucanat an option for your cookies? I use it and they turn out pretty good.
Hi Sandy -- Thanks so much! I hope you find a few things you like on the blog. I wish you well on removing the gluten -- I actually remove all grains as well. Thanks! :-)
Hi Anonymous! I assume you could use sucanat -- I have never used it before -- I don't add any sugar, and I believe that sucanat is a derivative of sugar cane. I avoid those to keep my triglycerides down as well as blood sugar. Let me know how it works. Thanks!
I happened to have some leftover homemade taco meat in the fridge and saw this post! Perfect! i made it up and the pizza was amazing. The cookies are baking now and I can't wait to try them. This is my fave friday night meal :) Almond milk latte and cookie await! Thank you :_
Hi Carol! So glad you liked the pizza...and hope you enjoy the cookies too! I actually had the leftover pizza for dinner tonight along with a cookie too! I had a glass of cold vanilla almond milk with my cookie! Thanks for letting me know you liked the pizza! :-)
Hi GG,
I wanted to tell you that I made my first batch of grain free cookies-your recipe! They look more*compact* than yours. I suppose I flattened them too much!
What I discovered GG is that they improved with age! I put them in the fridge by mistake(I was so tired) and on the 3rd day they are so improved, because they are moister now.Just great! Thank you!
I am glad that you are not in Oklahoma. I am very sad.
Do you have a safe place in your house, maybe a cellar in case a tornado is coming?
Well, be safe dear GG.
Sending you good wishes from High on a hill in San Francisco.
(earthquake country)
Hi Barbara! So glad you enjoyed the cookies. I will tell you that the last couple of times I made them, I don't flatten them, I leave them in dough balls and they bake into thicker cookies. I find most times that one of those cookies is satisfying with a cup of coffee or something as a treat -- I have on occasion had 2 though. Unfortunately we don't have a basement or cellar...so we would be in big trouble if we had a tornado here! I worry about that sometimes. I have always loved California -- but it would be hard to get used to worrying about earthquakes for me...I am such a chicken when it comes to that kind of stuff! My next house I would like to at least have a basement for protection. Hope you are doing well and thanks for letting me know you enjoyed the cookies! :-)
I finally made these today. After a walk my husband and I poured a glass of almond milk and enjoyed our first cookie and taste of these delectable treats. I wanted a second, but it would have been wrong. One was just perfect, wonderful. And they will disappear, you can be sure, but one at a delicious time!
So glad you enjoyed them Kathy! While I will admit that there has been a time or two that I have actually had 2 cookies...99% of the time I am satisfied with 1...which is unheard of. Normally there is no such thing as 1 cookie (when they have sugar)! Glad you liked them. :-)
Just made this pizza crust with my own favorite toppings! Let's just say, I ate more than I have in months!!
LOL, Lori! So glad you enjoyed it! It's nice to be able to have a healthy version of some of our old favorites, isn't it! Once I finally made a pizza crust I liked...it was awesome! :-)
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