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Happy Sunday! I am quickly learning there are no weekends or vacation days when you work for yourself. Which isn’t really that different than working in the corporate world, you just get to do it on your own schedule and in your pajamas.

The theme for this week is simple, healthy foods. Friday night we did a massive grocery haul at Market Basket. It was awesome to have that big task checked off before the weekend even began.

I have had a craving for homemade pizza for awhile but have had no desire to mess with dough. I just don’t have it in me to have another pizza disaster.

So I went the very easy route, Boboli whole wheat pizza crust for our lunch pizza yesterday.

Boboli pizza crust

You know what? I really liked it. Like I said, I am just in the mood for simple food these days. I don’t care that it wasn’t a hand-tossed dough or made in a pizza oven or on a special stone.

Instead of a red sauce, I decided to use my winter pesto, also known as “poor girl pesto” as the base. Winter pesto because it utilizes spinach instead of basil, and “poor girl pesto” because it uses walnuts, which are cheaper than pine nuts, and there is no parmesan cheese. To tell the truth, I love it just as much as traditional pesto.

Start by adding a bunch of baby spinach leaves to the processer.

baby spinach

Top with a handful of walnuts, 4-6 cloves of garlic, a grind of sea salt, and enough oil to cover the top. Because my pizza was cheese-less, I added a little extra oil to my pesto to make sure it was not a dry sauce.

walnuts

Voila! I always make enough pesto so that I can eat a spoonful or two right out of the bowl. It’s garlicky goodness never fails.

spinach pesto

Next up, I chopped a head of broccoli into florets. We certainly got our greens in at lunch!

broccoli florets

I didn’t get a photo of the process, but I smothered the Boboli pizza crust in pesto and a little basil oil, topped it with broccoli, and popped it into the oven at 420 degrees for about 10 minutes.

While the pizza was baking, I quickly stir fried bits of chicken breast with some olive oil and garlic.

chicken and garlic

When the pizza came out of the oven, the chicken was perfectly cooked and ready to join the rest of the ingredients.

pesto broccoli chicken pizza

Yum!

pesto broccoli chicken pizza

This was an awesome lunch that didn’t take more than 20 minutes to make. In the middle of a busy weekend, it was nice to stop for a healthy meal with all sorts of flavors.

pesto broccoli chicken pizza

This would definitely be something you could easily wrap up in foil and bring into the office for a lunch you would look forward to.

I am going to dinner at Beacon Hill Bistro tonight for a friend’s birthday. Do you have any fun Sunday plans? Do you have tomorrow off?

Tags: Boboli pizza crust, chicken, cooking, cooking at home, dinner, easy pizza, garlic, greens, health, healthy recipe, healthy recipes, Lunch, pesto, pizza, spinach, spinach pesto

Also known as a meal I magically threw together using only ingredients we already had in the house. While I spent last weekend out of town visiting my family, my husband spent the weekend working 15 hour days until he finally got to come home at 1:15 am on Monday. Needless to say, neither of us got to the grocery store this weekend, and coming up with a delicious meal became a daunting task.

Trader Joe's cappellini

Luckily, we always have some sort of random items in the cabinets and freezer. I started with a half package of Trader Joe’s cappellini. I love super thin pasta, and this one is a bargain. It really does cook in three minutes, as the package promises.

I busted out a can of black olives, also from Trader Joe’s. Canned black olives might not be the most highbrow menu item, but I really like them. I used half the can in my sauce and the other half as my snack while I patiently waited for the husband to get home Smile

black olives

I had some jarred capers left over from many months ago. They were still good!

capers

And I had the last of my gift from the Muir Glen tomato dinner, their super fancy Meridian Ruby Reserve tomatoes. I can’t wait to order some more Muir Glen products. Their tomatoes are truly superior.

Muir Glen Meridien Ruby Tomatoes

To make a nice puttanesca-style sauce, I added five chopped cloves or garlic to some olive oil and started the garlic cooking until it sizzled. I then added the chopped olives, capers, more olive oil, and the tomatoes, liquid and all.

puttanesca

I let the mixture simmer, added some garlic powder and crushed red pepper flakes, then got started steaming some lobster tails I have had in the freezer for awhile. My mom really spoils me with all sorts of food items when I go home! Smile

lobster tails

Steaming the lobsters was quick and easy, as was cutting the shells, removing the meat, and cleaning out the vein. I was left with sweet lobster meat which tasted freshly caught.

lobster meat

I boiled the pasta and at the very last minute, I added the hot pasta and the chopped lobster to the sauce. I didn’t want the lobster to cook any more as I did not want it to get tough. Mixing it with hot pasta and hot sauce made it the perfect temperature while leaving it nice and tender.

lobster puttanesca

Not too bad for someone who had NO clue what dinner was going to be at 5:00 last night!

Canned tomatoes and pasta are must-haves in my pantry. What do you always have on hand?

Tags: canned tomatoes, capers, easy recipes, Food, garlic, lobster, Meridian Ruby tomatoes, Muir Glen, olives, pasta, puttanesca, quick meals, recipe, spaghetti, tomatoes

Green Meatloaf

Happy Valentine’s Day! Do you have any fun plans for the day/evening? Due to my being away and my husband’s gazillion hours of work this weekend, our plans are still up in the air, but I am sure we will think of something!

Last night’s dinner, inspired by recent recipes on Alicia’s and Emily’s websites, looked a little more like something you would serve on St. Patrick’s Day, and with Valentine’s Day on its way out, green is where it is at.

I usually make meatloaf several times over the course of the winter; during the last Presidential primaries, meatloaf became a good luck charm when we ate it on the evening our candidate won several states. Following that, I made meatloaf on the evening of all big primaries.

I returned from visiting my family in NJ craving some comfort food as I was missing them and had a harrowing drive back that included a warning from a state trooper. I was also intensely craving greens, and thus green meatloaf was born.

spinach meatloaf ingredients

The ingredients were few: 1/4 onion, chopped, three cups of spinach chopped, a container of ground turkey, one egg, a drop of ketchup, some ground pepper, and salt.

I started with my favorite kitchen tool, these salad shears from the Foodbuzz Festival swag bag. With these my spinach was chopped into tiny pieces in no time, ready to be quickly sautéed with the onion in a bit of oil.

salad shears

chopped spinach

I cooked the spinach down just a bit, then cooled it while I mixed the ground turkey with the egg, pepper, and salt. I then folded in the spinach.

spinach meatloaf

When everything was well blended, I placed it in a loaf pan to cook at 375 until the meat was cooked through. I pondered using a muffin tin to make mini meatloafs, but I envisioned meatloaf sandwiches and went with the loaf pan instead.

spinach meatloaf

About 20 minutes in to cooking, I drained off some liquid from the meatloaf to make sure it cooked up nice and brown. Then I started on the sauce.

Muir Glen was so incredibly generous last month, and I am still reaping the rewards of attending their dinner at Garden at the Cellar.

image

I added a can of the Muir Glen organic tomato sauce to the pan that the spinach was cooked in, then added a pinch of red pepper flakes and some garlic powder.

Muir Glen tomato sauce

When the meatloaf was done, I cut it into slices, topped with tomato sauce, and served with my incredibly easy and delicious mashed potatoes.

spinach meatloaf

Just a bunch of potatoes, boiled until soft, drained and mixed with Kerrygold and skim milk, mashed until creamy.

mashed potatoes

Does it get any more comforting than meatloaf and mashed potatoes?

meatloaf and mashed potatoes

I’ll be tucking this recipe away and making it again in the very near future, maybe as part of our St. Patrick’s Day feast. Speaking of St. Patrick’s Day, my birthday falls on the same day as the Boston parade this year, what should I do?!

Tags: comfort food, dinner, Food, health, healthy healthy recipes, mashed potatoes, meatloaf, Muir Glen, recipe, recipes, spinach, tomato sauce, turkey

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