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This Week In Pizza And Fitness

Grain Free pepperoni pizzaThe pizza this week was super simple, pepperoni and some pickled jalapeños on top!  The crust was the same base as last week.  I still don’t have any cassava flour so it was all almond flour and tapioca flour.

For some reason, yeast is not an easy thing to purchase here.  All the stores carry only the small little packets of yeast that are on the pricey side.  I recently ordered some Bob’s Red Mill yeast off of Amazon and I love it!  So far it’s been the best yeast that I’ve used and it comes in 8oz bags which is bigger than the jars of yeast that are available.  If you’re looking for yeast, check out Bob’s Red Mill (not an ad, I really like this yeast).

Scott and I have come to a conclusion about Pizza Thursdays though.  We’ve decided that we’d rather have pizza on occasion instead of having it each week.  For me personally, I have found that I really would rather have a big plate of protein and veggies over the pizza.  The pizza is delicious, don’t get me wrong!  But it’s not as satisfying as having veggies and fish, for example.

So pizza is only going to be on occasion and not a weekly thing.  I know, just as we were getting started again with Pizza Thursday, we’re nixing it.  It won’t be gone forever!

Fitness

Fitness has been going strong this week but running hasn’t been at the top.  We’ve been getting hammered with a ton of rain lately and getting out to run hasn’t happened all that much.  I know we need the rain but I have been bummed that running has been mostly sidelined.

Monday and Tuesday I did Max 30 workouts.

Wednesday was a day off.

Thursday, Run!!  There was a break in the rain in the morning so I was able to get out for a run.  It was glorious!

Friday, either another Max 30 workout or a 21 Day Fix workout.

I did get a chance to run last Sunday as well and that’s been all for this week.  It’s supposed to rain the rest of the weekend and possibly snow on Sunday.  Yikes!

How was your fitness this week?

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This Week in Pizza and Fitness

grain free pizzaI have yeast!  Crazy thing to probably exclaim from the rooftops but it makes me so damn happy.

Yeast based pizza crusts are much more enjoyable to me over yeast-free crusts.  The yeast gives much needed airiness to the heavy almond flour base.  The dough becomes light and crunchy instead of being dense and crunchy. Using a lot of almond flour can make doughs so heavy but by adding yeast, it makes them less like a rock in your stomach.

I’m still experimenting with dough ratios and finding the one combo that works the best taste-wise and also results in a dough that is more manageable.  This week’s dough was:

  • 2.5C Almond Flour
  • 1C Tapioca Flour
  • 2 Eggs
  • 1TBSP Yeast
  • 1TBSP Sugar (Your choice, cane, coconut, or honey are all fine)
  • 1/2C Warm Water

Add the water to a stand mixer bowl, add the yeast, sugar, and combine.  Allow to sit for at least 5 minutes so the yeast can bloom.  Then add in the eggs and 1 cup of the almond flour.  Mix on low and slowly add in the remaining flours.  Mix until well combined.

This is a wet dough, do not expect it to look like a gluten pizza dough.  Cover the mixing bowl with plastic wrap leaving a small open space for gases to vent.  Let rise for at least an hour (can go longer).

Preheat oven to 450 degrees and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.  Grease the parchment paper with olive oil and dump the pizza dough on top.  With your hands and a spatula move the dough around until it fills the whole baking sheet.

This takes time! The dough is sticky and tricky to move around. It will work, you just have to be patient.  Once the dough is spread out and even, put the dough in the oven to pre-cook.  About 5-7 minutes.  Remove add, sauce, and your toppings and cook for about another 20 minutes until the cheesy is all bubbly.

Our toppings this week were red onion, roasted red pepper and spinach chicken sausage, and a few random pieces of pepperoni.

The chicken sausage is new that I picked up at Costco.  Minimal ingredients and contains no gluten.  You can actually see the large pieces of spinach and pepper in the sausage! That’s pretty impressive for a sausage.

This dough wasn’t bad and up there as one of the better ones.  Very crispy with a nice light center.  I’m hoping to get some more cassava flour so I can experiment a little more with that.  I don’t like only relying on almond and tapioca flours for all the things.

Looking for standard pizza dough?  I’ve got one right here. (You can use all-purpose, white whole wheat, or spelt. It’s a really forgiving and versatile recipe).

FITNESS

 

maxwell_trailThis week was a good one!  Well except for skipping a workout on Monday.  Shame on me!

Monday 4/27: No workout!  I got wrapped up with some work projects and time got away from me.  I worked right until I had to make dinner and then it was off to bed.

Tuesday 4/28: Run!  We had some rain over the weekend and on Monday so I should have realized that some of the trails would be closed but I didn’t check before I headed out.  I spent a too much time driving around town looking for an open spot.  Finally found one and got 2 miles done.  This was one of my better runs!  I also went out at like 10 am and found that I really enjoy that time for a run.  I’ve had breakfast but I’m not hungry for lunch just yet.  It seems like a good balance.

Wednesday 4/29: 2 mile run!  Same route that I took on Tuesday because I ended up really enjoying that run.  A much later run, around 1pm.  I was hungry and a little cranky so this run didn’t feel as solid as Tuesday’s.

Thursday 4/30: 2 mile run bright and early with my girl Jenny!  She just completed her first Whole 30 and she did an awesome job!  We’re both at about the same pace and same distance right now so it was great to have a buddy.  This wasn’t one of my better runs though.  I had to stop and walk twice for a few seconds.  I was so fatigued!  I hadn’t been sleeping well this week and that finally caught up to me.  I was spent and my legs were so tired.  I crashed hard after breakfast and ended up taking a nap.  It was much needed!

I am playing the rest of the week by ear.  There will be something done but not quite sure what just yet.

How was your exercise this week?

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Midweek Checkin

 

Pepperoni Pesto PizzaYesterday I was having A DAY.  My site was having issues connecting to the server which meant that anything I wrote wasn’t getting saved.  I couldn’t upload pictures either.

This on top of how much I’m starting to hate my iPhone and I’d had it.  I shut everything off and watched SVU until it was dinner time.  Then I made us a pizza, had a gin drink and called it a night.

The pizza was an all white flour crust (yesterday was not a day for a whole wheat crust) with a kale and sundried tomato pesto.  Topped with cheese, pepperoni (Applegate Farms) and banana peppers.

I had leftovers of the pesto and that’s what inspired me to make the pizza.

Earlier in the day for lunch we had the pesto on some noodles.

Squash noodles with pesto and chicken

Yellow squash noodles with the pesto and leftover shredded chicken.  The pesto is this recipe with some marinaded sundried tomatoes added in for extra flavor.

Last week I did awful with meal planning and prepping.  I had two events to attend and there is a definite correlation with us going out and then grabbing something to eat on the way home.

This week, while I desperately need to go to the grocery store, I have been better about planning and prepping.  I’m going to hit the grocery store today, hopefully it won’t be too slammed with people stocking up for Labor Day.

Tomorrow is going to be spent cooking and prepping for the weekend so we have plenty of stuff to see us through.

How has your week been going?  How are you doing with your meal planning and prepping?

 

Spring Clean Eats: Day 17, Experimenting

Grain free granola, blueberries, coconut creamSame old breakfast which was totally delicious and filling!

Don’t worry, I’ll be sharing my recipe for the granola and the coconut cream sauce once the challenge is over!

Yesterday was pretty exciting around here, it turned into an impromptu kitchen day full of new stuff and experimenting.

  • Made stock
  • Roasted beets, prepping them for salads
  • Boiled some eggs
  • Cooked up some collards

I didn’t have a full lunch while I was in the kitchen, I snacked.

Califia Farms Almond Coconut Milk

First I tried out a new to me product, it’s almond and coconut milk by Califia Farms.  I’m still debating the dairy in my coffee.  Do I give it up or go strictly grass-fed?  Anyway as I was looking at milk alternatives at the store I spotted this line of almond milks.

One of my biggest hesitations going to back to factory made almond/soy/coconut milks is that they contain a lot of extra ingredients.  Preservatives and thickeners and all kinds of stuff I don’t really want.  This is why milk is more appealing at the moment because it’s just milk.  Period.

I looked the ingredients over on the Califia Farms almond milks and they are amazing.  They contain nothing but almonds and water.  Score! So I bought the almond and coconut milk combo.

smoothie

It’s definitely different tasting but it’s not bad.  I decided to test it out in a smoothie.

  • 2C Almond Coconut Milk
  • 1C Frozen Blueberries
  • 1 Frozen Banana
  • 1 Large handful of spinach

Blend, makes 2 smoothies.

This was really sweet!  I probably could have used more spinach and either just blueberries or just a banana and it would have tasted just fine.  I definitely liked the milk alternative though.  I’m going to give their other flavors a try as well and experiment with it a little more.

Hardboiled eggs in water

I also snacked on a hardboiled egg (sitting in cold water after cooking) and an apple.

After doing all that it was time to start working on dinner.  Scott and I both are missing pizza and seeing commercials for it doesn’t help.   I decided to increase my cooking skills and play around with a grain-free pizza dough.

I found this recipe by The Domestic Man and used that as a base.  I made only a couple of changes (and kept my fingers crossed it would still work).

For the dough the changes I made were:

  • 1/2C milk instead of 1/4C Cream + 1/4C Water
  • 1/4tsp Garlic Powder and 1/4tsp Italian Seasoning instead of 1/4tsp dried oregano
  • 1/4C Tapioca Starch and 1/2C Almond Meal instead of 3/4C grated Parmesan

The recipe split the dough and made two pizzas.  I greased up a baking sheet with some butter and made this into one pizza.

The dough was interesting! I’ve never used tapioca starch before so I had no idea what to expect.  It’s smooth but it doesn’t really stick to your hands and you can manipulate how you like.

This wasn’t a dough I could roll out.  Instead I dumped the dough onto the baking sheet and spread it with my fingers until it filled the sheet. This took some time but it worked.  I made sure to make the dough thin but not have holes.

Grain free pizza

I followed the directions on baking and walked away with a pretty good looking pizza!

Grain Free pizza

You can see that this is a very thin crust.  It had a light chewy texture to it.  I didn’t go crazy with toppings because I had never worked with dough like this before and I didn’t know how it would turn out.  I still wouldn’t load it down with toppings but it could definitely handle more.

I would like to play around with the idea of a grain-free pizza dough, something that has a yeast base and could be rolled out and cooked on a pizza stone.  Can it be done?  I don’t know but I’d like to experiment and see!

Yesterday was a pretty good day!

 

Severe Flooding With A Side Of Pizza

PizzaIt’s been a while since I’ve done a full Pizza Thursday report.  And to be perfectly honest, I need a distraction from all the news about the crazy ass weather we’ve been having. Talking pizza sounds like a good distraction to me!

For those that are not local, Colorado is under a state of emergency and Northern Colorado has been declared a disaster area.  It’s been raining straight since Tuesday and most everywhere is flooded out.  A lot of towns have been evacuated.

We have not been.  So far.  We are just stuck at home and frankly, I am ok with that.

Since I was stuck at home, I made some chicken stock and some pizza.

I did the pizza a little differently this time and added another tablespoon of sugar to the dough along with some garlic powder and dried oregano.

The crust turned out perfectly!  It had enough heft to it that it didn’t pull apart when moving it on to the cutting board.  It was also very crisp and crunchy!

PizzaThe pizza itself wasn’t anything fancy, peppers, red onion, and Italian sausage.  I wasn’t up for much experimenting last night, just a basic comforting pizza.

Scott and I recently started watching Dr. Who, so we watched that while munching on pizza.  Just started “Season 3” and both of us are very curious how this season is going to go.

So that’s it on our end!  Pizza, beer, Dr. Who, and watching weather reports.  What’s going on in your neighborhood?

Pizza Revisted

PizzaI’m starting to get used to my new work schedule.  Which means after a 9 hour shift, I’m not nearly as exhausted at the end of the day.

Good news for us because this means I can head to the kitchen after work and whip up some dinner.

Prepping as much as possible before hand is key though.  Once I figure out what we’re having that day, I can do a little prep before I leave for work.

We haven’t had pizza in way too long.  No, let me reword that.  We haven’t had homemade pizza in way too long.

We’ve had pizza out and for the most part it’s alright but it doesn’t really hit the spot.  Not like homemade pizza does.

Last week, I made the dough and got all the ingredients ready before work so that when I got home all I had to do was heat up the pizza stone and assemble the pizza.

Pizza sliceIn 30 minutes we had homemade pizza that tasted like the most amazing thing ever.

I didn’t realize how much I missed cooking and having homemade meals at the end of the day.

Time to make sure that we always have homemade options for dinner because homemade is way more comforting than anything else.

Elevated Pizza

I’m still getting used to the lighting in our new digs which means I’m still getting used to taking pictures in the kitchen.  Please bear with me as I get adjusted to things.

This is the best pizza picture I’ve got for this week.

This week I was finally able to make pizza!  The previous weeks we’ve been running around completing errands or I didn’t have my stuff yet, so I was unable to make pizza at home.

This week I had everything; my stuff and plenty of time!

I was curious how making pizza at elevation would turn out.  I read and researched as best I could so that I would be prepared.

When dealing with yeast, it was advised to reduce the yeast amount by half and to possibly increase the liquid if need be.

So I followed my recipe for dough but decreased the yeast to 1/2 TBSP.  I did not increase the liquid though.

Everything turned out well!  Thank goodness too because I’ve been having a heck of a time with learning how to bake at elevation.

The dough rose perfectly and baked up perfectly!  I am also adjusting to the oven here as it does this weird preheat thing.  It heats up and then beeps that it’s ready but the oven’s version of “ready” is that it is warm or preheated.  It doesn’t beep to let you know it has reached the temperature you programmed in.  I just have to guess when I think that temperature is reached.

Next week I’m going to let it heat up a lot longer to see if I can get a crispier crust.

I am counting this first attempt as a success though!

 

Single Slice

 

It was pizza for one this week!  So I decided to experiment a little bit and then use all of my favorite toppings.

I made butter last week and has just enough buttermilk left to use in the dough.  I wasn’t quite sure if it would effect the flavor or not but I was going to find out!

I followed my usual recipe, cut in half, and using buttermilk instead of warm water.

The dough rose perfectly and rolled out beautifully!

I then brushed the dough with some garlic butter (chopped garlic in melted butter) and then used spinach and sun-dried tomato as a base.

Topped with cheese, red onion, and red pepper chicken sausage.

Yum!

The crust really didn’t taste much different but it was very light and crispy once baked.  The garlic butter helped the crust get to a nice golden color.

It was so very yummy! And I have enough leftover for tonight’s dinner but I’m not sure I want it.  Hrmmm decisions, decisions.

I’ve been watching Hot In Cleveland on streaming the past few evenings.  Don’t judge!  I love Betty White and she’s actually hysterical in it.  Her character is so snarky and sarcastic that it cracks me up.

Alright friends, tell me how your week has gone! Mine has been busy but good.  We’re finally making progress on getting some of the outside stuff taken care of for the house.  Painters have been scheduled and a tree-trim guy is also on the books.  Next up, landscaping and weed control then we should be set.

 

Pepperoni Pimpin’

This week while Scott and I made a quick trip to Whole Foods, I got a hankering for some pepperoni.  I knew that I wanted some for pizza later this week and decided to start looking around for something that fit the bill.

I found some Applegate Pepperoni and decided to give it a try.  Ideally, yes, I would love some pastured raised pork pepperoni.  Realistically I have yet to find that.

This is as good as it gets at this point.

I have to say that the pepperoni isn’t that bad.  There’s less fat which makes it a little bit drier than typical pepperoni but not enough that it’s inedible.

I also love that it’s sandwich size and not the wee little round slices.

I cut some up and put it on the pizza!

Pizza this week was pretty simple with just a few toppings.  My main focus was on pepperoni so I didn’t want to overshadow that with other things.

The pepperoni cooked up great!  Nice and crispy with an intense pepperoni flavor.  Winner!  I would have no problems using this again for pizza.

Brace yourselves, I have some news about Pizza Thursday.

I may move it to Friday nights.  Eeep!

I know, it’s crazy!  We’ve been having Pizza Thursdays for years now.  The reason we had it on Thursdays was because that was the end of our week and the start of our weekend.  Fridays are my days off and they were also my day off from working out.

So pizza and a little wine on Thursdays was a nice treat and a lovely way to end the week. However Scott and I started doing CrossFit and we workout M-W-F, early in the mornings.

Having pizza on Thursday when we have to turn around and get up at 5am on Friday doesn’t seem like such a treat any more.

So we’re thinking of moving pizza night to Friday nights.  Not the same I know but life happens, things change, and sometimes you just have to go with the flow.

We’re still deciding what we’re going to do but Pizza Friday so far has lots of points in its favor.

Roll With It

There was sausage! Again! Since I had been craving sausage on pizza for so long there needed to be a revisit this week.

I was a little concerned about how the dough was going to turn out though. Slight moment of panic.

I made it like I always do but you know how finicky dough can be and yesterday it was a hard little ball of flour.

After sitting for a couple of hours it had not doubled in size.  It rose but not as much as it normally does.  Typically the dough is bursting out of the bowl but this dough was content to just sit there and puff a bit.

Yikes!

Even after rolling it out, it was a thick little brick of dough.

It worked though and we had a lovely crispy crunchy pizza with several air bubbles.  Score!

Toppings were simple this week:

  • Shredded Mozzarella
  • Red Peppers
  • Red Onion
  • Italian Sausage

Yum!

We watched No Reservations Kansas City while we ate.  Loved this episode! It featured Zamir and you just cannot help be adore him.  In this episode he was in top form and it was fantastic.

Dear Travel Channel, please give Zamir his own show!  Please!

Being in Kansas City, the episode was all about BBQ.  MMMM  Kansas City is my favorite style of BBQ, smokey goodness with a thick spicy sauce.

Though I admit that I don’t have much experience with Memphis or Texas style BBQ.  North Carolina BBQ doesn’t even rank on my list. Ick.

BBQ, love it or leave it?