Grilled pizza on a whole wheat crust

The way that we did this, it was really quick. We had some friends over and grilled a lot of food. After everything else was done, but while the coals were still hot, we threw on two chicken breasts that we had no intention of eating that day. If somebody had decided they were still hungry, they could have eaten them, but everyone was stuffed before the chicken was cooked. So, now we have grilled chicken and left-over grilled veggies. Stir up some quick pizza crust and - voila! - tasty, healthy pizza. The crust recipe is originally from here, I didn't change it at all. It's that good. Add spices if you like.

You can let it rise, or use it immediately; I've done it both ways, and it's always good. If you want to make it go even faster, put the crust into a pan, cook it for about 5 minutes while you finish getting the toppings ready, top with veggies/meat, cook 5-10 minutes, top with cheese, cook about 5 minutes until cheese is melted.

Whole Wheat pizza crust
Serves: 8 Prep & cook time: 20-25 min. (just the crust)

2 cups whole wheat flour
1 package active dry yeast/instant yeast
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup hot tap water (120 - 125°F)
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 tablespoon honey or granulated sugar

- Preheat oven to 425°F
- To prepare pizza dough, stir whole wheat flour; lightly spoon into a measuring cup and level flour.
- In large mixing bowl, combine whole wheat flour, yeast and salt. Blend in water, oil and honey or sugar. Stir by hand vigorously until all ingredients are well mixed; about 3 minutes. Cover with plastic wrap and let rise to desired size.
- Place dough in greased 15 x 10 x 1-inch jelly-roll pan or 12 to 14-inch pizza pan. Press dough to cover bottom of pan and up sides to form a rim.
- Add pizza sauce of your choice and your favorite pizza toppings; bake in oven 15 to 20 minutes or until crust is golden brown and toppings are done.

Nutrition: One slice of crust only provides approximately: 146 calories, 5 g protein, 27 g carbohydrates, 4 g fiber, 2 g fat (0 g saturated), 0 mg cholesterol, 37 mcg folate, 2 mg iron and 219 mg sodium.

Potato Salad

I really like potato salad. I usually put lots of mustard in mine. I really like mustard. It's pretty amazing that this one didn't have any. But the mayonnaise definitely isn't so great. Dan saw a recipe video that he thought looked good on CL (Cooking Light, I'm tired of typing it out!) . They used reduced-fat mayo and fat-free sour cream, but I don't like any mayo and fat-free tends to get weird. We went for miracle whip & plain yogurt. I am actually not going to link to it, because after looking at it again, the only things in common are potato, pepper and celery. You can see that we used red potatoes with the skin on, they hold together really well after cooking, but any kind works. I bet adding some egg would be nice if you like that. Interestingly, our version came out with lower fat & cal than the CL one, but the same amount of potato and servings.

Tater Salad
Serves: 4-5 Time: 30 min

Salad:
4 cups cubed potato (about 1 1/3 lbs)
1/2 cup chopped onion
1/4 cup chopped dill pickle
1/2 cup chopped bell pepper
1/2 cup chopped celery

Dressing:
2 Tbs salad dressing
1/2 cup plain low-fat yogurt
1/4 tsp black pepper
1/2 tsp dill
1/2 tsp parsley

- Start with the potatoes! Put a pot of water on to boil before you begin to cube them. When it comes to a boil, add potatoes. Reduce heat, simmer about 9 minutes or until fork goes in easily. After done, throw them in ice water if you want to cool them faster. If not, just drain.
- While the potatoes are cooking, chop up your vegetables.
- While potatoes cooking/cooling, mix up dressing ingredients in a large bowl. Taste it! Add more spices if you like.
- When potatoes are cool, add them and the vegetables to the bowl, toss well to coat them.

Nutrition info (1/5 of recipe): Cal: 95 Fat: 2.5g Carbs: 15.9 Protein: 2.9g

New links

I've been collecting links to other blogs for a while. You will see the result in the sidebar now. I am not trying to be exhaustive, of course, because that would be thousands. I am planning on linking to bloggers whose recipes I have actually used myself, even if they weren't featured here. Also, they have to be related to part of our goals here, preferably at least two - easy, cheap, and healthy. I know that "healthy" can sort of vary, depending on their own goal, but usually the focus of the blogs are pretty obvious. Enjoy!

Cocoa Almonds

We went to a waterpark last weekend, so we were in the grocery store looking for treats and something caught my eye: cocoa roast almonds. They looked delicious. But, they were about $8 for 11 oz, and I still had over 2 lbs of plain almonds at home. So, like any self-respecting baker girl, I left them on the shelf and went straight to the computer when I got home to figure out how to make them myself! I found a promising-looking recipe on a low-carb site here, but the portions are quite off to me. (The basic idea is what I went with.) I ended up doing it in two batches to make them not touch as much, but it would work in one batch, you'd just have to break it apart more after.

*Update 7/12*: I bought some of these today because they were like $4 at Target, and we vote that mine are better. Theirs have a thinner coating and, according to Dan, are "more crunchable" but you can taste the splenda, which isn't my favorite.

*Update 8/17*: We finally finished eating the store-bought ones. Mine were gone in a week. Theirs in over a month. Mine are definitely better.


Cocoa Almonds
Serves: 8 Time: about 25 min.

2 cups whole almonds
1 egg white
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup cocoa

- Preheat oven to 325. In a medium bowl, fluff the egg white with a fork until it is nice and frothy (like soap suds - takes 1-2 minutes)
- Mix in sugar and cocoa
- Pour in almonds, coat with egg white mixture
- Spread out on a tinfoil-covered pan (or a silicone mat, I bet that would work even better). I ended up doing it in two batches because my pan was a bit small. Bake 15 minutes, until coating is dry.
- Remove from oven, let cool until touchable and break apart any clumps. Let cool completely before storing in an air-tight container.

Nutrition info per serving: Cal: 175 Fat: 12.4g Carbs: 14.4g Protein: 6.5g

Nan's Pumpkin Cookies

Yep, another from my sister. She went to a college where one main major was naturopathic medicine and lots of people were very health-conscious and she said that everyone at school as well as the regular people at home liked these! I had never heard of the ground flax seed for egg, but I might try it some time. Since eggs are so cheap, though, I admit that it may take me a while to go look for it.

Nan's Pumpkin Cookies
Serves: How much do you like to eat? Time: Haven't tried them yet, but cookies tend to be slow.

1 3/4 cup pumpkin
1 Tblsp oil
1 egg or (1 Tblsp ground flax mixed with 3 tblsp water)
1 cup sugar
1 1/2 cups flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp total spices you would put in pumpkin pie they recommend 1/4 nutmeg & 3/4 cinnamon I use pumpkin pie spice
1 tsp salt
1 3/4 cups oats
1/4 - 1 cup chocolate chips (depends on you)

- Mix it all together and bake at 350 for 10 minutes. =) [That's how she told me - cookies should be first four, then second four, then oats, then chips.] They will not brown and have a more cake-like quality than normal cookies do. They do look different when they are done and you test them by breaking one in half and seeing if it is cooked all the way through.