I Have Learned That......

Fresh from the CSA tomatoes, onions, and jalapenos make amazing salsa.

Simple Dinners are often times the best.

Breaded eggplant and summer squash really wasn't that hard to accomplish.

Kale salad is always a welcome addition to my plate.

Tomato, basil, avocado sandwiches are so delicious, I

could eat one every day.

Homemade spiced donuts are a new favorite, and hard to not

obsessively bake.

When life gives you a bit over 1/4th cup of flour left in the bag,

why not make cake.

Washing a sink full of dishes can be quite satisfying if you are

using a brand new, unstained dishcloth.

Pizza Dinner

Every now and then we get adventurous and make a whole pizza from scratch. Usually its a last minute thing, so I look up a no rise pizza dough recipe and go from there. This time, Matt suggested early that we make pizza on focaccia bread. So with enough time before dinner to let the dough rise for an hour, I whipped up our favorite recipe. That recipe happens to come out of a Cuisinart promotional cookbook that we received in a goodie bag when registering for wedding gifts about 5 years ago. I don't think I have ever used any other recipe in that book, but that one is a winner. It is a basic focaccia dough, brushed with olive oil, salt, pepper, poppy seeds, and red pepper flakes, topped with thin sliced onion and baked to perfection. So good!

This is a little bit different take on that recipe. So grab your favorite focaccia bread recipe and get started on this pizza. You will be glad you did!

After the dough is made and risen, press it out into a 1/2 inch thick circle, on a pizza stone or pan. I only made half of my recipe, so depending on how much dough you have made you can make two pizzas, or make some bread sticks out of the remaining dough.

Brush the dough with olive oil and season to your liking. For this pizza I used red pepper flakes, salt, pepper, garlic powder, and oregano. In a saute pan, slow cook onions, peppers, and mushrooms with a drizzle of olive oil so that they can caramelize a bit. Depending on your patience you can totally caramelize them, or just partially caramelize them if you are in a hurry to eat. I was :). After they are cooked to your liking, spread the vegetables evenly over the dough.

Top with some thinly sliced tomato.

Then bake it for about 12 minutes at the temperature your focaccia bread recipe suggests.

Slice and Enjoy!

Chocolate Pudding

Shocking is the day when Matt comes home with a bunch of avocados, and even more shocking is the fact that he intends to eat them. Avocados are definitely not an appealing food to him, they smell funny, they aren't pleasant tasting, etc. I on the other hand love avocados and would eat them all the time in a number of ways. The other night I made some chocolate pudding in the blender for our dessert. I knew Matt didn't like avocado, but I figured the taste would be masked enough by chocolate, and sure enough he was hooked. As a result there has been a lot of pudding consumption going on. Please note that this is the only way Matt will ever eat avocado.

Healthy Chocolate Pudding

serves 1-2

1 avocado

1 banana (2 if your bananas are small)

a couple spoonfuls to 1/8 cup cocoa powder or more or less if desired

4-5 dates, soaked in warm water for 1/2 hour or more, seeds removed

(alternatively use maple syrup to sweeten)**

non dairy milk of choice or water

Toss the avocado and banana into the blender along with the soaked dates (or maple syrup) and cocoa powder. Add just enough liquid for blending, being careful to not make the pudding to runny. Blend until smooth. Top with fresh fruit of your choice and enjoy!

**I have only used dates to sweeten the pudding once. My blending did not blend them smooth, so we had chunks of date in that pudding. Maple syrup ensures that your pudding is silky smooth.

Try pouring some pudding into popsicle molds. It makes a delicious pudding pop!

Here is a 22 week belly bump picture (I am now 24 weeks). Our little girl is growing like crazy and we are starting to be able to see her move when we look at my stomach. Tonight we were playing music for her to see if she would dance. She moved around a bit, but when we played her Feed the Birds from Mary Poppins she was totally still. Perhaps it should go on her "Go to Sleep" mix.