Chicken and Veggie TJ's Pizza

Trader Joe’s – home of the amazing fresh garlic & herb pizza dough.  I love making homemade pizzas.  I like the fact that I can put all of the toppings on the pizza that I want, make them healthier, and save A LOT of money.  Not to mention, you can eat it hot and right out of the oven when the cheese is still melty and gooey.  Ahhh…bliss! 

Trader Joe’s is featuring the “Out of this World Pizza Edition” of their Fearless Flyer right now.  When it arrived in my mailbox I had to run (not walk) to my neighborhood TJs and pick up all of my favorite pizza toppings.  For this pizza, I chose chicken, marinated artichokes, sundried tomatoes, leafy greens, and red onion.  Totally healthy (well, as healthy as pizza can get) and totally satisfying!  It was the perfect meal to a perfect day of March Madness.

Ingredients:

Garlic & herb pizza dough

Pizza sauce

Sundried tomatoes (julienne cut in olive oil), chopped

Marinated artichokes, chopped

Leafy greens, chopped

Red onion, chopped

Grilled chicken breast or rotisserie chicken, chopped

Mozzarella cheese

Black pepper

Italian seasoning

Here’s are some helpful notes about these ingredients:

1.     My favorite pizza dough at TJs is the garlic & herb.  However, you can easily substitute their plain or whole wheat pizza dough.  Yes, they’re all fresh and in the same section.

2.     TJs has cooked, grilled chicken breast ready and waiting for you to just warm up.  How awesome is that?  You can use it for anything in a pinch!

3.     Leafy greens.  I picked up a powerful organic leafy greens mixture from TJs this time to use for the pizza.  It contains baby kale, baby chard, and baby spinach.  You can use just baby spinach if you want but why not add all of the wonderful nutrients with the kale and chard???  You won’t be disappointed!

The beauty of making a homemade pizza is you can choose how much of everything you want and pile it on.  Therefore, I’m NOT going to tell you how much of each ingredient to use here.  That right – if you want more leafy greens then GO FOR IT!  If you want less onion then by all means, put as little as you like!  The whole idea behind making homemade pizza is to personalize it J.

Some things I would recommend are to squeeze out some of the oil from the sundried tomatoes before putting on the pizza.  Also, pile on the leafy greens – they shrink a lot.  Lastly, place all ingredients and then put cheese on top.  I noticed that some of the ingredients might char or dry out if you don’t put cheese over it.  For the finishing touches, sprinkle some black pepper and Italian seasoning on the cheese for a little added spice.

The Final Four is this weekend…I know what I’ll be eating!

Wonderpot - One Pot Dinner

So the weeknight dinners in our house are forever changed. Forever. This took less than 30 minutes. It was delicious. It had tons of veggies. It was SO easy! I'd seen this kind of thing floating around on the Internets, but I had yet to try it. I don't know why I was waiting. 

I changed this up quite a bit from all the recipes I found online, but the basic idea stayed the same - all components of the meal are plunked into a big pot and cooked together. It's like a super easy crockpot meal, but in less time than it takes to watch a Seinfeld rerun. Amazing.

Wonderpot: One Pot Dinner - adapted from Budget Bytes and the Internets
Serves 4+ in less than 30 minutes

1 pound of dried pasta - I used linguini
8 ounces mushrooms
2 cups cherry tomatoes
1 large onion sliced
4 cloves of garlic, chopped
1 6oz jar marinated artichoke hearts
2 tablespoons olive oil
1/8 teaspoon red pepper flakes
1/8 teaspoon dried thyme
1/4 teaspoon dried oregano
4 cups chicken broth
1/2 cup white wine
1/2 cup water
10oz fresh spinach
crumbled feta cheese
Salt and Pepper to taste

Place sliced onions, mushrooms, cherry tomatoes, garlic, marinated artichoke hearts, pasta, spices, oil, chicken broth, wine and water into a giant pot. 

With a cover on the pot, let everything boil, stirring a few times to mash everything down and rearrange the ingredients. Turn the flame down to a simmer and replace the lid. While the pot simmers, stir occasionally to keep the noodles from sticking together.

When the noodles are done - about 5 or 6 minutes after the pot boils - put all of the spinach in the pot and stir to wilt and incorporate. 

Serve in bowls and top with feta cheese, ground pepper and salt. Enjoy!!

A few things about this recipe...
I found recipes for this with fewer veggies and more limited variety. I am always looking for ways to up the veggies and up the variety and this was a great one for extra veggies.
If you don't like using wine, forget about it. Use another cup of chicken broth or more water. 5 cups of liquid worked well for the amount of veggies and pasta I used. 
I think this has potential to be a thousand different flavors - kalamata olives, sun-dried tomatoes - pretty much anything I'd want on a pizza sounds good here!
One recipe listed canned, diced tomatoes - that sounds like a great alternative to the cherry tomatoes I used. 

Things made this time last year...
Hot Chocolate Mix with Dark Chocolate Bits - a perfect gift in a jar!!

Broccoli and Cheddar Soup - a great meal for a cold night... also a pretty quick dinner.

Buffalo Chicken Meatballs and Blue Cheese Dressing

This is football food. Well, this is football-watching food. This is tailgate-in-your dining room food. And it's really good! I am a superfan of Buffalo Chicken wings. I love them. I love the sauce; I love the blue cheese dressing. I love how they just mean party! But, in an attempt to lighten things up and sneak in some veggies, I did some googling and found some recipes for meatballs. I changed things up a bit and loved the results! I mixed up a chunky blue cheese dressing and we had apps for dinner. Awesome.

 

Buffalo Chicken Wings - inspired by Shrinking Kitchen

Makes about 20, 2" meatballs 

Preheat the oven to 350 

For the Meatballs

1 pound ground chicken

1 egg

1/2 cup panko bread crumbs

1 carrot stick

1 celery stick

2 tablespoons parsley 

1 small onion - about 1/2 cup sized onion

1 medium bell pepper

1/4 teaspoon garlic powder

1/8 teaspoon salt

For the Buffalo Sauce

1/2 cup Frank's Hot Sauce

2 tablespoons butter

1/4 teaspoon garlic powder

 

In a food processor finely chop the onion, carrot, celery, parsley and the bell pepper. Add or remove veggies to get to about 2 cups of minced veggies. Add in egg, breadcrumbs and garlic.

 

Fold ground chicken into veggie mixture and start forming into 2 inch meatballs. Place formed meatballs on parchment lined baking sheets. Space them about an inch apart. 

Meanwhile, simmer hot sauce, butter and garlic over low heat to melt butter and reduce sauce slightly. Divide sauce into two containers.

Bake meatballs for 15 minutes. Remove from the oven and brush the meatballs with half the Buffalo sauce. Bake for another 10-15 minutes or until the meatballs reach an internal temperature of at least 165 degrees.

 

Top with additional Buffalo Sauce from the reserved container and serve with veggies and blue cheese dressing.

Chunky, Creamy Blue Cheese Dressing - adapted from All Recipes

Makes about a 1/2 cup of dressing

1/2 cup crumbled blue cheese

1/4 cup buttermilk

3 tablespoons sour cream

1 tablespoon mayonaise

2 teaspoons white wine vinegar

1/4 teaspoon sugar

1/8 teaspoon garlic powder

Salt and Pepper to taste (about 1/8 teaspoon salt and 1/4 teaspoon pepper)

 

Mix all ingredients together and let the dressing rest in the fridge for at least 30 minutes and hopefully longer. It gets better as the flavors blend together. 

 

A few things about this recipe... 

I left a few meatballs without Buffalo sauce and my toddler grubbed them down. Nice way to add veggies to a meal!

We tend to like dark meat chicken in our house and would like to try these with ground dark meat.

Buffalo sauce is delicious.

The blue cheese dressing is thick. Thin it down with extra buttermilk.

Things made this time last year:

 

Black Cauldron Cocktail - YUM!!! I can't wait to make these again!!

 

Pork Chops with Roasted Apples and Onions

 

Zucchini Brownies

World War Z. Not to be a spoiler, but it's about zucchinis and how they take over the world. Brad Pitt is amazing, but he's helpless against the zucchini invasion. Basically, it's an epic drama. 

So just like last year, we have a little veggie patch at home, and a little veggie patch in a community garden. You would think that I would know by now, two veggie patches with zucchinis in both means overwhelming zucchini, but when spring is drizzling it's way through the Pacific Northwest zucchinis are somehow optimistic plants to me. I heart them. So I possibly, maybe, could be, over plant them. C'est la vie. I learn to make things like Zucchini Brownies. Awesome. Brad Pitt, THIS is how you save the world.

These DO NOT taste like veggies. They only taste wonderfully of rich chocolate and they are super moist and really delicious.

Zucchini Brownies - adapted from Kitchen Treats
Preheat oven to 350
Grease a 9x13 baking dish

2 cups flour (I split mine 50/50 whole wheat and white flour)
1/2 cup cocoa
2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 1/4 cup sugar
1/2 vegetable oil
2 1/2 grated zucchini
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 cups chocolate chips (divided)

In a large bowl, combine flour, cocoa, salt, baking soda and sugar. Mix until everything is combined. Stir in vegetable oil and vanilla. The mixture will look dry and crumbly.

Then mix in the zucchini. Its kind of hard to get this going, and I used my hands a bit, but all of a sudden the zucchini releases all it's water and you finally have brownie batter! Once incorporated, stir in 1 cup of chocolate chips.

Pour mixture into the prepared baking dish and bake at 350 for 25-30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted towards the middle comes out with just a few crumbs on it.

While still piping hot, and while the oven is still hot, sprinkle the remaining cup of chocolate chips on top of the brownies. Pop the dish back in the oven for 1 minute. 

Remove the brownies from the oven. Spray a rubber spatula with cooking oil and gently spread the chocolate over the brownies. This makes and awesome and chocolate faux frosting. 

Let the brownies cool completely and enjoy!

A few things about this recipe...

Like I said, it doesn't taste veggetably. It's just good!
Since there is no egg in this recipe, if you're a fan of gooey, undercooked brownies, this recipe is for you.
These were almost truffle-like the first day, they were so moist! The second day our house liked them even more!

Made this time last year...
Peach and Raspberry Crisp

Chicken Milanese

Enjoy!!

PS - I have not seen World War Z. I don't think it's really about zucchini.