Pizza with a Caulilflower Crust

It's time again for Secret Recipe Club reveal!  My secret blog assignment this month was Dancing Veggies, a blog with a focus on healthy, simple, and quick vegetarian dishes on a budget.  Amanda started cooking in high school when her mother declined to fix special meals for her.  If she wanted to eat differently from the rest of the family, Amanda would need to cook her own food.  Smart mom!   

While we don't eat a vegetarian diet - my husband would complain loudly if he didn't get his meat! - I think adding more veggies to our diet will always be a good thing.  Amanda's blog is a wonderful resource full of interesting and tasty vegetarian recipes I will definitely be trying out in the future.   A couple that caught my eye were the Avocado Tomato Grilled Cheese and these Twice Baked Potatoes – Samosa Style.  We did make a version of the grilled cheese, which was super yummy, but when my son mentioned that he'd been wanting to try a cauliflower pizza crust, I decided to check to see if Amanda had one on her blog.  Yes, she did, so we worked together and made an amazing pizza with a cauliflower crust.  We did add chicken to our pizza, so it wasn't vegetarian, but I think it would have been just as good without it.

Cauliflower Crust Pizza
adapted from Dancing Veggies

Ingredients:

• 2 cups cauliflower florets, steamed and mashed
• 1/2 cup mozzarella cheese, shredded
• 1/4 cup Parmesan cheese, shredded
• 1 egg, beaten
• 3 cloves garlic, crushed
• 1-1/2 tsp. oregano

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 450° F
2. In a medium bowl, mix the mashed cauliflower, egg, and cheeses. Add the garlic and oregano and stir well. Pat into the bottom of a pizza pan or cookie sheet; bake for 10-15 minutes.
3. Remove the crust from the oven and top with your favorite toppings and cheese.  We used a simple homemade pizza sauce, grilled chicken, onion, red pepper, feta, spinach, and mozzarella. 
4. Brush the edges of the crust with olive oil and then bake for an additional 15 minutes (or longer), until the cheese and crust are nicely browned.

The flavor of this crust is absolutely amazing!  All that garlic!  Great call, Amanda.

 It's so good my son said he was going to marry this pizza.  We are already thinking of ways to improve it, though.  We were in a hurry, so we didn't remove enough of the moisture from the cauliflower after steaming it.  Some recipes mention squeezing it out in a dish towel.  I don't know that we'll go to that extreme, but the crust did have a little more moisture than we liked, so we'll take that extra step of draining it thoroughly, at least, next time.  Also, we cooked it on a cookie sheet with parchment paper - instead of on the pizza stone that I have right there in my oven.  So, I will be using the pizza stone next time, and maybe cooking the crust a bit longer before adding the toppings.  We're hoping those little tweaks will get the crust just a bit crisper on the bottom.
 

This is definitely a recipe I will be using again.  I'm so glad my son was wanting to try it and willing to help me.

Update:  I tweaked it a bit and we had cauliflower crust pizza you can pick up and eat!

An InLinkz Link-up

Mediterranean Tuna Noodle Skillet

I made this for dinner the other night. It's a tasty twist on a tuna noodle casserole.

Mediterranean Tuna Noodle Skillet
from Mueller's Pasta

Ingredients

• 1 T oil
• 1/2 cup chopped onion
• 8 ounces noodles, uncooked
• 1 can (14.5 oz) diced tomatoes, undrained
• 1-1/4 cups water 
• 1 tsp. Italian seasoning
• 1/4 tsp. garlic powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/8 teaspoon black pepper
• 1 can tuna (5 oz.) in water, drained
• 1 jar (7.5 oz) marinated artichoke hearts, drained, liquid reserved, chopped
• 1/3 cup crumbled feta cheese

Directions:

1. Heat oil in skillet over medium-high heat. Add onion; cook until onion starts to soften, stirring occasionally.
2. Stir in dry noodles, tomatoes, water, and seasonings. Bring to a boil. Cover, reduce heat and simmer 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.
3. Add tuna, artichokes and reserved liquid to noodles; toss together and heat until hot. Top with cheese and sprinkle with additional Italian seasoning.

I do not usually buy artichokes, but I bought a large jar a while back with the intent to try making some Spinach Artichoke Dip.  We always love it at Applebee's, and I figured it was worth trying at home.  So far I haven't tried the dip, but I decided to open the jar for this tuna skillet.  So... I'm not sure exactly on the measurements.  I measured out about a cup of artichokes, cut them up, and then added liquid to make 8 ounces.  That being said, artichokes may have to become a staple in my pantry because I really liked the flavor they added to this dish.

The leftovers heated up really well, too.  This is definitely something to make again.

Spinach and Feta Stuffed Chicken

I've made the Sun-Dried Tomato, Spinach, and Feta Stuffed Chicken Breasts several times since I first tried them. The flavor is just so good.  Unfortunately I'm out of sun-dried tomatoes, but I did want to try some different flavors in my stuffed chicken breasts.  So I went looking for a recipe to change it up a bit but still use the spinach and feta.  The addition of the lemon zest in this recipe caught my attention right away.  I also added just a touch of lemon juice, and I think the flavor turned out great.

Spinach and Feta Stuffed Chicken
inspired by this recipe

Ingredients:

• Olive oil
• 1/2 a medium onion, chopped
• 2 or 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 10 ounces fresh spinach
• 1 tsp lemon zest
• a squeeze or two of lemon juice
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1⁄2 tsp black pepper
• 1⁄4 cup feta cheese, crumbled
• 2 boneless skinless chicken breasts

Directions:

1. Heat oil in large nonstick skillet over medium high heat; add onions and garlic, and cook until onions become translucent.  Add spinach and continue cooking until spinach is wilted. Turn off heat and stir in lemon zest, lemon juice, salt & pepper, and feta.  Set aside.
2. Place a chicken breast between two sheets of plastic wrap and pound with a mallet or the bottom of a heavy pan until breast is about 1/4" thick.
3. Spread half of spinach/feta mixture on chicken breast.  Roll chicken breast up, starting with the narrowest end.  Secure with toothpicks and transfer to a baking dish.  Repeat process with second breast.
4. Drizzle the breasts with olive oil, sprinkle with salt and pepper, and bake at 350° F for 30 minutes. Let sit for 5 minutes; Remove toothpicks, slice and serve.  Spoon a little of the cooking juices over the top, if desired.

4 Servings

The recipe said to cook the chicken breasts in the skillet after rolling them up, turning them occasionally to get the chicken browned and cooked through.  I don't roll my chicken breasts up well enough to feel that I wouldn't just lose all the filling if I tried that.  There is a lot of filling!  So I just placed my chicken in a baking dish and baked it.  Super simple, which I love.

The skillet-cooked breasts might get a little browner, but you'll notice that my toothpicks came loose on at least one of the chicken breasts, so I probably would have had filling everywhere.  It probably would have tasted just as good, though.

I'll definitely be using this filling again.  (I'm kind of obsessed with spinach right now)  I'm also a dark meat chicken kinda gal, but these stuffed chicken breasts turn out really moist and flavorful.

Chicken Breasts Stuffed with Sun-Dried Tomatoes, Spinach, and Feta

I know I've seen some recipes for spinach stuffed chicken breasts, probably on Pinterest, but when I started looking, I didn't find any that were exactly what I was looking for.  So I just put some stuff together, and it really turned out good.  The flavors were amazing.

 

Sun-Dried Tomato, Spinach, and Feta Stuffed Chicken Breasts

Ingredients:

• 1/4 cup sun-dried tomatoes in olive oil
• 1/4 cup chopped onion
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 large handfuls fresh spinach
• Sea Salt
• 2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
• 2 to 4 T. crumbled feta

Directions:

1. Heat tomatoes and oil in a skillet over medium high heat; add onions and garlic, and cook until onions become translucent.  Add spinach and continue cooking until spinach is wilted.  Add a pinch of sea salt, and set aside.
2. Place a chicken breast between two sheets of plastic wrap and pound with a mallet or the bottom of a heavy pan until breast is about 1/4" thick.
3. Spread half of tomato/spinach mixture on chicken breast.  Crumble 1 to 2 T. feta on top and roll chicken breast up, starting with the narrowest end.  Secure with toothpicks and transfer to a baking dish.  Repeat process with second breast.
4. Drizzle the breasts with any oil remaining in the skillet, season with salt and pepper, and bake at 350° F for 30 minutes.
5. Let sit for 5 minutes; Remove toothpicks, slice and serve.

And that's it.  It's really simple, and has me wondering why I haven't tried this before.  There is a lot of going back and forth between handling raw chicken and spreading other ingredients or whatever, so it's really handy to have a sink full of soapy water while you do this.  Or just keep using more soap and washing your hands like I did.

Spread tomato/spinach mixture on chicken; crumble feta on top

I didn't really measure any of my ingredients, but these amounts are close, and this is one of those things where it doesn't really matter.  Throw in what you have or what looks good to you.

Roll up, secure with toothpicks, and place in baking dish

I think this is going to become a regular recipe around here.  The flavors go together so well, and the chicken is really moist and flavorful.

Of course, now that I've discovered how easy it is to make stuffed chicken breasts, I may have to find some other things to stuff them with too.  What do you think?  What would be good stuffed into a chicken breast?

Pasta Salad (w/ Feta)

I needed something to take to a potluck - some kind of side dish.  I'd seen a recipe on GMA for a pasta salad, and the only ingredient I remembered was feta -besides the pasta, of course.  I found that recipe, but I didn't have all the ingredients or it wasn't what I was wanting, so I went looking for a pasta salad with feta.  I found a whole list of them, but I decided to go with this one, kinda.

Pasta Salad w/ Feta and Olives

Ingredients:

• 16 ozs bow tie pasta (farfalle)
• 2 cups broccoli florets 
• 15 ozs kidney beans (drained)
• 4 ozs black olives (sliced, drained)
• 1 bell pepper (seeded and diced) 
• 1/2 can diced tomatoes
• 4 ozs feta cheese (crumbled)
• 1 cup Italian salad dressing

Directions:

1. Bring a large pot of lightly salted water to a boil. Add pasta, and cook until tender, about 8 minutes. Add broccoli florets to the boiling water during the last 2 minutes. Drain, and run under cold water to cool.
2. In a large serving bowl, stir together the kidney beans, black olives, bell pepper, tomatoes, feta cheese and Italian dressing. Stir in the pasta and broccoli. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
3. Chill and serve.

This would be great with fresh broccoli and tomatoes, but I didn't have any so I used frozen broccoli and canned tomatoes.  I used an orange pepper, because that's what I had, and I think it added a nice color to the salad.  I also forgot to run cold water over the pasta and broccoli, so I mixed it in hot, but I'm thinking that might help blend the flavors better - or at least that's what I'm telling myself.  I'll probably use the cold water next time, if I remember.

The salad is chilling now, so I haven't tasted it - except to sample a couple pieces of pasta, and those were great.  It smells amazing, and it will make a nice cool side-dish this weekend.