WIAW #30

Dec 192012

Can someone please explain to me how it is only Wednesday?? And why is it that the weeks that you really want to fly by always drag on forever? I might be overreacting (either because I am super excited for the holidays or because I had to work really late on Monday night, thus tricking me into thinking the week should be further along by now) but either way, I am ready for the weekend. Bring it on!

Unfortunately since it’s not the weekend yet, I might as well share a What I Ate Wednesday post with you guys! I mean, it is one of my favorite things about Wednesdays, so I may as well take advantage of it now, right?

As always, a huge thank you goes to Jenn for hosting What I Ate Wednesdays and for never missing a week. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I don’t know how she does it! (By the way, WIAW turns 100 this week, so happy 100th WIAW to Jenn!)

So without further ado, here’s what I ate yesterday!!

For breakfast I had a bowl of 365 Organic Honeynut O’s cereal (basically the Whole Foods version of Honey Nut Cheerios) that I have been loving lately. Fabio’s dad actually gave us this box last time we visited him in New York (he likes to give us free food. No complaints here!) and I have really been enjoying this cereal! It’s not quite as sweet as regular Honey Nut Cheerios, which I actually like. Anyway, I had 3/4 cup of this cereal (measured, of course) with 1 cup of skim milk and one banana. Quite a delicious and easy breakfast. Total WW Points Plus: 5

For lunch I enjoyed some leftover shepherd’s pie that I made recently. I’ll have to post the recipe for you guys soon, but it’s made with lean ground turkey, tons of veggies, and lightened-up mashed potatoes (made with skim milk and mustard for flavor). I also had a huge, juicy honey-crisp apple. Omg you guys; I forgot how much I like honey-crisp apples. They are the perfect balance of sweet and tart and I had juice running down my arm. Delicious. Total WW Points Plus: 7

For dinner Fabio grilled me a chicken breast on the George Foreman and then topped it with tomato sauce and a bit of reduced-fat mozzarella. I also had a small portion of whole-wheat spaghetti and a whole bunch of roasted broccoli and carrots. This meal was so filling and I really enjoyed it! Total WW Points Plus: 11

For dessert I had a “healthy” chocolate chip cookie. Again, this is a recipe I’ll have to share with you guys soon but it uses whole wheat flour, oat four (which I made myself in the food processor) and applesauce. And of course, chocolate chips. Can’t skip out on those! These cookies are delicious and I have been snacking on them all week Total WW Points Plus: 2

Total Points Plus for the day: 25 WW PP

Activity for the day: Ran two miles + Insanity Pure Cardio (ugh so hard!!)

I burned 512 calories from the first mile and Insanity, but didn’t bother tracking my second mile since I ran it later at night, and didn’t feel like using my heart rate monitor. This earned me 10 activity points that I can swap out for food during the week

Weight Lost since 12/4: 6.6 pounds

I’m feeling so much better about myself! Not only are my clothes fitting better, but I can feel my muscles getting stronger each day. Although I was working out before re-joining Weight Watchers, it wasn’t as often as it is now and I wasn’t doing as much Insanity, which is definitely the most intense workout I have ever tried. I’m really glad I decided to join again!

Question of the day: Do you wear a heart rate monitor? What about a GPS watch to track how far you run?

I use my heart rate monitor a lot but I’m thinking about getting a GPS watch (in fact there is one on my Christmas list…we will have to see if “Santa” brings it for me!). Since I don’t use a watch now, I just use the MapMyRun app on my iphone, which seems to be pretty accurate. What do you guys use?

WIAW #27: Resist the urge

WIAW 7 Responses »

Nov 142012

Hey guys! Happy hump day!! Work is still really crazy (I am getting to the point where I have anxiety dreams about my projects not getting done and Fabio says I was talking in my sleep the other night about work. Woops. Guess I’m a little stressed?) but luckily after this week is over things should get back to normal. Hallelujah!

Could it really be possible that I have not written a What I Ate Wednesday post since October 24?! How crazy is that?? I usually write them every week but with Halloween being on a Wednesday and then my busy schedule last week I have fallen so behind. Gah!! Forgive me? I hope so!

Anyway, since I have obviously been slacking, it’s time to step up my game over here and get a WIAW post up. Sheesh.

Thanks go to Jenn as always for hosting such a fun blogger linkup. I love being a part of something so wide-spread in the healthy blogging community!

So without further ado, here’s what I ate yesterday (in a slightly mixed up order. Oops.)

1. For breakfast I have gone back to an old favorite- cereal! I haven’t had plain cereal in a while ( <– wow that is a while!) and especially haven’t had Raisin Bran, which is what I’ve been eating all this week. I’m not sure why but Raisin Bran is one of my favorite cereals and I could eat it forever. I’ve even been known to have just a bowl of Raisin Bran for dinner on occasion when I come home late and am stressed from work. It’s just so good!

2. (Sorry this picture is all the way at the bottom haha) When I got to work yesterday my office had a table set up with free coffee and snacks. Since I already had eaten breakfast, I bypassed the bagels and muffins and made a beeline for the free coffee and pens! Haha I walked away with a small notepad, two pens, and small cup o’ joe. Win! Btw- this was just regular coffee with two creamers and splenda. Not the most flavorful coffee ever, but it did the job.

3. For lunch I had something delicious- leftover pizza from the weekend!! This pizza is from Ledo’s (my favorite!) and it tasted awesome reheated. I had four small slices of chicken and tomato pizza and it was awesomeeeee. Love. Ledo’s. I also brought an apple with me in case I was still hungry, but I was pretty full from the pizza so I’m storing it in the fridge at work for when a snack attack hits later on in the week. Which is pretty much inevitable…only a matter of time!

4. Dinner last night was pretty simple (read: I got home from work late and was tired). I simply grilled up a chicken breast and roasted some veggies. On one baking sheet I roasted 1/2 an onion, 1 small potato, and some butternut squash (yum!). The other baking sheet had broccoli with a bit of olive oil, salt, and pepper. So simple. So delicious. I also made a little dip pile of BBQ sauce for my chicken. It tasted great! I love dinners like these.

5. For dessert I had a piece of leftover Halloween candy in the form of my favorite- Reese’s. I am actually thinking I need to share this candy with my coworkers to get.it.out.of.my.kitchen! I’ve been doing a good job of limiting myself to one piece a day (for dessert only) but I’ve barely made a dent in the bag and I feel like it could be around for months haha. I think it’s time for it to go!

Anyway, those are my eats from yesterday, along with quite a few large glasses of water of course (no need to photograph those). All in all I’d say it was an okay day. Not the most nutritious by any means, but it could have been worse, especially if I had treated myself to the free breakfast at work (hello everything bagel with veggie cream cheese, please say hello to my mouth). Luckily I resisted that temptation. Phew!

Also, I wanted to give you guys a quick workout update since it’s been a while since I have discussed it. I mentioned last week that I was too busy to get any real workouts in, but luckily this week’s load has been a little lighter and I was able to squeeze in a workout on Monday (but not yesterday, wah). I’m hoping to get one in this afternoon as well. Want to know what I have in mind?

Insanity.

Again. Yes, I’m going back to my favorite workout videos after taking a long hiatus to try new things. Though I am still planning to incorporate some of my favorites into my routine (hello Body Pump and Spinning, I’m looking at you) and change it up from day to day with my weekly workout calendar, I still feel that Insanity DVDs provide me with the best workout I could possibly get in 45 minutes. I am always dripping in sweat afterwords and my muscles are always sore. It’s just such a good feeling after I complete one of the DVDs and I have been missing that lately.

I even tried to get the same fix by doing a shortened 20-minute Insanity DVD or just completing the Insanity warm-ups, but it’s not the same. I need the full 45 minutes to truly feel the burn.

(To read more about why I do Insanity, see this old post.)

So that’s what’s been going on in my world!

Question of the day: How do you get active when you’re stressed?

This is slightly embarrassing because I look like a crazy person, but sometimes I take a few laps around my office (e.g., pretend to be dropping off a paper at someone’s desk but really I’m just walking around) when I’m feeling antsy or stressed. It helps take my mind off of whatever was stressing me out and gets a little blood pumping in my muscles! Better than nothing, right?

WIAW #11

WIAW 17 Responses »

Jul 112012

Hellllooooo everyone! I am glad to see you were all as excited about my Rome announcement as I was Wheee!! I can’t wait

But anyway, today is Wednesday and you know what that means…

What I Ate Wednesday! Yay! For the month of July, Jenn over at Peas and Crayons is asking us to incorporate some fitness information into our WIAW posts. That is a-okay with me since I do that pretty regularly anyway. In fact, I thought instead of just giving you guys an update about what I’ve been doing for my workouts, I might share a little bit about why I like doing those particular workouts. So anyway, if you’re interested in the fitness portion of today’s What I Ate Wednesday post, you can read about it after I recap my eats from yesterday.

1. For breakfast I had my apple cinnamon overnight oats. They were packed with nutrients and kept me really full all morning. I didn’t wind up eating my lunch until around 1:15 which is really late for me. Plus, the oats were delicious. This is definitely a meal that is going to be seen around here a lot more often, now that I finally bought the required chia seeds. Woohoo!

2. When I finally did get hungry for lunch, I had a PB&J on a sandwich thin along with some raw almonds, pretzel twists, and yogurt-covered pretzels. Yeah I know, this lunch is incredibly lame, but I am still in the process of restocking my fridge after the power outage last week. Even though I went to Trader Joe’s over the weekend, I only picked up a few things and still need to do a full-on restocking shopping trip. Looks like lunch meat is number one on my shopping list (along with lettuce for salads. Argh!)

3. For a snack I had some fresh Rainer cherries from Trader Joe’s. They are so delicious right now and I have been snacking on them all week. Yum!

4. For dinner I had two broiled chicken breast tenders seasoned with cumin, paprika, and Mexican chili powder, topped with half an avocado. On the side I had quinoa cooked in half a packet of taco seasoning (yum!) and some fresh salsa mixed in (similar to my Mexican quinoa). I also had some roasted asparagus. This was a great dinner!

Not a bad day of eating! I am pretty embarrassed about my lunch though; how sad is that picture? I definitely need to make a trip to the food store soon so that I can get some more greens in my diet. Where are my veggies??

Workout

Instead of just posting the usual workout recap (i.e. I ran a mile with Jack today and then did half of an Insanity DVD- which is true), I wanted to talk to you guys about why I do Insanity. Why I choose to do the same workouts over and over instead of joining a gym.

[Image Source]

Insanity is a 60-day program with a set of DVDs for month 1 and month 2. The DVDs all have a similar layout; they start with a warmup circuit, then stretch, then do two more circuits, then stretch again. Each DVD is slightly different and has different moves. The month 2 DVDs have an extra circuit and are therefore longer and more intense. Here’s an example of what some of the circuits look like:

Warm-up (repeat 3 times)

Jog in place
Jumping Jacks
Heisman (jump from right to left in a crouched position)
1-2-3 (same as Heisman but with three quick steps in between)
Butt kicks
High knees
Mummy kicks (arms out straight, alternate kicking your legs)

Circuit 2 (repeat 3 times)

Suicide drills
Power squats
Mountain climbers
Ski down (jump side to side and move as if you’re skiing down a mountain)

Circuit 3 (repeat 3 times)

Basketball jumps (jump from down low and “shoot” a basketball)
Level 1 drills (get down on the floor, do 4 push ups, do 4 mountain climbers on the ground, come back up, repeat)
Side-to-side abs (stay in a plank and jump with your legs from side to side)
In-and-out abs (stay in a plank and jump with your legs forward and back)

These things are no joke! I will be hot and sweaty at the end of every single Insanity workout I do. It doesn’t matter if I’ve done it every day that week or I haven’t touched the videos in a month. They always give me a fantastic workout. Plus they are short and sweet and nothing gets my heart rate so high after a mere 45 minutes. They are also quick and intense and don’t allow me to get bored.

I have, however, been thinking about joining a gym (just because I miss being in classes) but it’s been hard to rationalize paying $30 a month (at best) for a gym membership when I already have a workout that I enjoy that is a great mix of cardio and strength workouts. I am signed up to complete Tina’s Best Body Bootcamp at the end of the month, which may be enough to push that gym membership. We will see!

Anyway, what have you guys been eating this week? Any interesting workout regimes you’d like to share? I’m all ears (er- eyes?)

No More Excuses & Diet Coke Brownies

Recipes, Workouts 6 Responses »

Jun 192012

I have a confession to make. A shameful, horrible, confession. My diet and exercise goals started slowly slipping away from me last week. You see, to keep me motivated I need a date. I need a benchmark. I need to be able to say, “Yes, I completed my goal on time!” Most recently that goal was Memorial Day Weekend, where I knew I was going to see all of my friends and would be bikini-clad for the entire weekend. Before that it was a trip to Jamaica with my family. Before that, it was other trips or events or parties. But now? There is nothing in my future.

No parties. No trips. Nothing to motivate me and keep me going. I mentioned this last week and said I was trying to keep my motivation up by planning a trip somewhere, but no one wants to actually commit to a vacation so it’s still up in the air. I needed some help. Like serious, inspiring, motivational help.

I tried looking at Pinterest. I browsed through tons of motivational quotes and pictures, but nothing was picking me up.

Source: Pinterest

Don’t get me wrong, I was doing just fine. I wasn’t putting on weight, I wasn’t eating junk, and I didn’t skip all my workouts; I just wasn’t doing as well as I could have been.

I went from doing five Insanity workouts in a week to doing maybe two. I still ran every morning with Jack, but sometimes I would take a shortcut through my neighborhood so it was only a 3/4 mile run instead of the full mile. My typically small dessert portions were growing bigger and bigger, and I didn’t even care.

I think that’s the hardest part; that I would see myself doing these things and I knew I was going down a slippery slope, but since I had no deadline and no quantifiable goals, I didn’t do anything about it.

Until yesterday. Yesterday I talked with my friend Catrina (who I’ve mentioned in my weight loss story) about this issue. She admitted that she, too, was having similar issues with her diet. She admitted to me that she had somewhat fallen off the wagon since Memorial Day. It amazes me how we are so similar even when we are hundred of miles away from each other and only catch up a few times a week.

We made a pact, right then and there, to hold each other accountable for our actions. No big trip coming up? It doesn’t matter. No event where I will see everyone I know? Not a problem. Catrina is there, in New York, and if she’s going to work hard for me then I’m going to work hard for her too. If I don’t feel like exercising all I have to do is think of her, working her tushie off for me, and I will be motivated to do the same. Sometimes all we need is someone there to support us, and that’s definitely what Catrina is for me.

Workout

Inspired by this new motivation, yesterday evening when I got home from work I busted out an Insanity DVD and did the whole thing from start to finish and you know what? It felt excellent. I loved it. I felt strong, I felt my muscles burning, and I felt proud! Proud that I got out of this slump and stopped it before it became a real problem. Sometimes, taking the first step can be the hardest.

Recipe

So while I’m getting started with this revitalized healthy lifestyle, I have to post this last bad-for-me recipe. While it’s not exactly horrible for you, it’s not the best either. I’m talking like zero nutritional value. But, sometimes you gotta indulge yourself and eat a sweet treat, especially one that is chocolatey, gooey, and low in calories. But be careful of this recipe, it can be dangerous because it is so good, and it’s lightened up so you think, ok, what’s one little bite going to do to me? Well if you keep taking little bites, before you know it the whole thing will be gone and you’ll be on a slippery slope like I was. In fact, I wound up throwing the rest of these away last night because I decided I no longer need tempting desserts sitting around. So for now, I will file this recipe away for a future day when I’ve been working really hard and deserve a little reward. But not before sharing it with you fine people

Ok so, this recipe is really, really easy. And delicious. In fact, it only involves these two ingredients:

Diet coke and brownie mix. Yes, if you browse Pinterest at all I’m sure you’ve seen this a thousand times, but last week when I was in my lazy funk I decided to try it out and let me tell you, it was great! I was skeptical at first because it sounded so weird but after reading posts from a bunch of people who had tried it, I gave it a shot. Wow! You won’t be disappointed. While they don’t taste exactly like regular brownies, they do taste great. They are very moist and just taste more like a fat-free brownie. Which is still a-okay in my book

Anyway, you can use whatever kind of brownie mix you like (I bought this one at CVS so they had a limited selection but Low Fat would have been great!) and you can either use a bottle or a can of any diet soda you want. I chose Diet Coke but Diet Cherry Vanilla Coke or Diet Root Beer would have been interesting!

First I preheated the oven to 350 degrees, which was the temperature recommended on my box. Then I dumped the brownie mix into a large bowl. Next I poured 1 cup of diet soda into the bowl. I read a bunch of different reviews online which recommended various amounts of soda (such as 12 oz. or 6 oz.) so I decided to go with 8 oz. (1 cup) just to play it safe.

Then, I used a whisk to mix everything together until there were no bubbles and everything was well incorporated. Then I poured the mixture into a greased brownie pan.

Next I baked the brownies in the oven for the recommended time (25 minutes) plus an additional 5 minutes, until a toothpick came out clean. I let the brownies cool before cutting them up and serving them with a nice cool glass of skim milk.

Yumm. They were soo good! Plus since the Diet Coke was zero calories, the brownies came out to 118 calories each.

Diet Coke Brownies

Recipe type: Dessert

Author: Chelsea @ Chelsea Eats Treats/Pinterest

Prep time: 2 mins

Cook time: 30 mins

Total time: 32 mins

Serves: 18 brownies

These two-ingredient brownies are simple to make and are only 110 calories! Plus they are moist and delicious.

Ingredients

8 oz. diet soda
1 package brownie mix

Instructions

Preheat oven according to brownie box directions.
Pour brownie mix and 8 oz. diet soda into a large bowl. Whisk until well-combined.
Pour mix into a greased brownie pan.
Bake in the oven according to package directions, but expect to add a few minutes to cook time (about 5 minutes for me) until a toothpick comes out clean.
Let the brownies cool before serving.

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So, now that that recipe is posted and out of my mind (and kitchen) I feel ready to tackle all my fitness goals again. No more snacking on dessert treats (unless I work hard for them and feel I can eat them without feeling guilty) and no more slacking. It’s time to buckle down.

How do you guys spark your motivation? Do you rely on a friend? The Internet? Yourself? I’d love to hear your tips!

Shredded Latin Chicken

Recipes 2 Responses »

Apr 302012

Good evening! I hope you all had a wonderful Monday! I know I had a really great day and felt so good getting back into my healthy habits after a really fun but indulgent weekend. Let’s get right to it shall we?

Workout

Today’s workout felt amazing! I was feeling really motivated and pushed myself hard. This morning when I woke up for my jog with Jack I was feeling quite rejuvenated and ready to go. Some mornings I just want to crawl under the covers and snooze but today was not one of them! We headed out the door and tackled our typical one-mile jog quickly.

After work I was really craving an intense cardio session to burn off all those calories I consumed over the weekend. I decided to do Insanity’s Plyometric Circuit DVD. It’s amazing how even though I have done this DVD literally 1,000 times it always gets me dripping in sweat. I thought the ab drills at the end (ski abs and in/out abs for all you Insanity fans) were particularly hard today and I know I’ll be feeling it tomorrow. The workout really works my core and I find muscles hurting that I didn’t even know I had. It’s such a great feeling!

Here are my heart rate stats from Insanity:

Not too bad! I was definitely sweaty at the end and loving it Smile

Recipe

Dinner tonight was a fun one! We have a ton of boneless, skinless, chicken breasts in the freezer that I wanted to use up so I decided to try out a new recipe.

I saw this recipe for Chicken Ropa Vieja from Gina over at SkinnyTaste and decided to try my hand at it. Now I’m about as American as they come (like my ancestors came over with Christopher Columbus, for example) so there is no way I can make something and call it chicken ropa vieja. I’ll just call my version Shredded Latin Chicken. Less exotic but hey, it works Winking smile

Anyway, first I placed 3 boneless, skinless, frozen chicken tenders in my crock pot along with some chopped carrots, a quartered onion, some halved small tomatoes, and 2 peeled garlic cloves.

I used my Slap Chop for the carrots of course. Seriously, every one should have one of these.

Next I poured enough water into the crock pot to cover the chicken and veggies and cooked it on high while I completed my workout. After about an hour and a half cooking in the water, I removed the chicken and used two forks to shred it (Note: Don’t dump out the water! You’ll need it for the sauce).

Once the chicken was shredded I sautéed some onions, garlic, and bell pepper in a large pan until tender (don’t forget to try my easy bell pepper storage trick). Then I added in the chicken, tomato sauce, white wine, and the reserved liquid that was used to cook the chicken. Next I added garlic salt, cumin, salt, and pepper to the mix.

Then I let this simmer for about 10 minutes until it started to thicken up. I started getting impatient towards the end and whisked some corn starch in to thicken it up faster. It tasted fine to me!

When the mixture was thick enough I served it up as a lettuce wrap. I enjoyed it with some sweet corn and quinoa (recipe to come tomorrow!) and yellow squash. It was delicious! I will definitely making this again.

Shredded Latin Chicken (adapted from SkinnyTaste)

Ingredients

For the crockpot:

2 boneless, skinless, chicken breasts (I used 3 small tenders but any kind will work)
1 small onion, quartered
4 small tomatoes, quartered (or 1 large tomato, I just happened to have small ones)
1/2 cup chopped carrots
2 cloves garlic, peeled

For the sauce:

1 tbsp. olive oil
1 small onion, chopped
1/4 cup bell peppers, any color, chopped
1/4 cup dry white wine
1/2 cup tomato sauce
1/2 cup reserved liquid (original recipe calls for 3/4 cup of liquid but mine was too watery so I reduced it here)
1 tsp. cumin
1/4 tsp. garlic salt
salt and pepper to taste

Instructions

Place chicken, onion, tomatoes, carrot, and 2 cloves of garlic into crock pot. Add water until chicken is covered and cook on high for at least an hour (if cooking on stove-top cook on medium-low until chicken is tender, about 30-40 minutes)
When chicken is cooked, remove from crock pot and use two forks to shred. Set the chicken aside and reserve the cooking liquid.
In a large nonstick skillet sauté onions, bell pepper, and garlic in olive oil. Cook for about 3-4 minutes until tender.
Stir in chicken, tomato sauce, white wine, and about 1/2 cup of reserved cooking liquid.
Season with garlic salt, cumin, salt, and pepper.
Let sauce simmer for about 10 minutes or until it reaches desired thickness.

Serve on lettuce wraps for a low-carb treat!

So, do you guys ever cook Latin-inspired foods? Fabio is Colombian and Bolivian so sometimes I try my hand at making his favorite dishes, but they never turn out as well as his family’s. I guess I need to practice! I also think a lot of traditional Colombian and Bolivian foods are heavy on starches and not very healthy so I am not really a fan of cooking them. They are tasty though!

Tomato Basil Pizza on a Whole Wheat Crust

Recipes 1 Response »

Apr 172012

Good morning people! Are there any people reading this blog yet? Probably not. Oh well…these things take time!

Workout

Yesterday’s workout was a good one! It began with a morning jog with Jack and Fabio. Each morning (at least on weekdays) we run 1 mile to get Jack nice and tired for the rest of the day. Someone was super excited yesterday morning.

The sun was barely up and this pup was ready to go.

“Come on mom let’s go!!”

The run itself was great! Sometimes our morning runs can be really painful but yesterday I felt well-rested and it came easily. Even the monster hill that we run up felt ok. Phew!

Part II of my workout comes later on in the day after work. We jogged with Jack up to the dog park, let him hang out for a while, then jogged home. That’s another two miles!

When I came home from the dog park I jumped right into a warm-up circuit from one of my favorite Insanity DVDs. I must tell you that Insanity is my favorite way to work out. Those DVDs will have me drenched in sweat in no time. They are quick and incredibly effective (month 1 DVDs are about 45 minutes long and month 2 DVDs are about an hour long; yesterday I just did the warm-up for 13 minutes). Since my heart rate was already high from our jog, the warm-up circuit had me sweating!

I wore my heart rate monitor during my Insanity workout (I forgot to wear it during our jog) and my maximum heart rate was 187! That’s pretty high for me. I was happy. Smile

Plus I wasn’t complaining about burning 143 calories in only 13 minutes. I’d say that’s pretty good!

The warm-up circuit includes 8 moves and you repeat the circuit 3 times. You are supposed to start out slowly and then build up your speed so that by the third repetition you are sprinting. Some of the moves in the circuit include:

Jogging in place
Jumping jacks
Jump rope
Switch Kicks
High knees, arms out

Some of the other moves are made up by the trainer, Sean T, such as the “1-2-3 Heisman” and “Hit the Floor.” I’m just guessing those are probably not commonly used workout names, right? Winking smile Anyway, Insanity is a great workout and since I had already run 3 miles throughout the day I decided the warm-up was good enough for me!

Recipe

For dinner yesterday I needed to use up a few items we had laying around. First, we had these beautiful tomatoes from Trader Joes.

So many tomatoes!

I also bought a basil plant from the Farmer’s Market near us last week. I absolutely loooove fresh basil so when I saw this plant for only $3 I had to get it.

Ok, so maybe the photo makes it look slightly bigger than it is in real life, but it is still a pretty big plant for only costing three buckaroos!

We also had some whole wheat pizza dough in the freezer and some mozzarella and pizza sauce in the fridge! Hellooooooo homemade pizza!

Ok, so this isn’t exactly a recipe, but it’s what I ate for dinner so just go with it!

First I preheated my oven to 450 degrees. Then I put a cookie sheet (or pizza stone if you have one) upside down on the top rack while the oven was preheating like so:

(Don’t mind the messy oven; I need to clean it I know!)

I let the cookie sheet get nice and hot while I prepped the pizza. To get the pizza started, a first pulled out a large wooden cutting board (just to have a big flat surface) and topped it with a piece of parchment paper. Then I sprinkled some flour onto the parchment paper and placed the whole wheat pizza dough on the floured surface. You can probably skip putting flour on your parchment paper but I’ve had issues with pizza crusts sticking before so I wasn’t taking any chances. Then I began stretching out my dough into a pizza shape.

Then I tossed the pizza in the air and spun it around on my finger to make the dough the same thickness throughout.

Ok come on, you didn’t really think I could twirl a pizza in the air did you? I didn’t think so.

Next comes the toppings! We used store-bought pizza sauce (Fabio actually prefers this to homemade- crazy I know!), mozzarella cheese, and sliced tomatoes that were all from Trader Joes (as was the whole wheat crust…I’m realizing I might have a TJ addiction).

Then I popped my pizza in the oven and let it bake for about five minutes. Once the pizza started to look ready, I pulled off some leaves from my basil plant and placed them on top of my almost-cooked pizza. I’m not a huge fan of crispy cooked basil so I chose to put it on near the end, but you can add the basil whenever you want. Once I put the basil on the pizza I put it back in the oven for a minute or two. Soon the pizza was ready to eat!

I let Fabio do the cutting while I snapped this final photo and then we dug in. I had two slices and Fabio had four! That left two more for me to take to work for lunch! Woohoooo!!

Tomato Basil Pizza with Whole Wheat Crust

(Ok so this is hardly a recipe but…)

Ingredients

Whole wheat pizza dough (you can make your own or use store-bought)
Pizza sauce
Mozzarella cheese
Fresh tomatoes
Fresh Basil

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees and place a cookie sheet or pizza stone upside down on the top rack while oven heats up.

2. Sprinkle flour onto parchment paper and place your dough on top. Begin stretching out your dough.

3. Spread a liberal amount of tomato sauce on the dough and distribute evenly.

4. Top pizza with shredded cheese and sliced tomatoes. We also sprinkled some Italian blend spice on top of our pizza, but this is optional.

5. Place parchment paper with pizza on top onto hot cookie sheet and bake for about 5 minutes. Keep a close eye on the pizza so it doesn’t burn.

6. When the pizza is almost done, remove from oven and top with basil. Place pizza back in the oven for about a minute.

7. Remove pizza from the oven, slice and enjoy!

By the way, I try to follow Meatless Monday whenever I can and this recipe is a great one if you are trying to limit the amount of meat you eat. Look for more Meatless Monday recipes to come!

Question of the day

How do you make homemade pizza? Do you buy pre-made pizza crust? What about pizza sauce? Whenever I make homemade sauce Fabio complains that I should have just used the stuff in the jar! I compromise by buying it from Trader Joes which I feel is somehow fresher than the jarred stuff at other stores.

Soon I want to use my whole grain flours that I won to experiment with a healthy home-made dough. Let me know if you have any recipe suggestions!