Meatless Monday

    For a month or two now, I have been giving "Meatless Monday's" a try. "Meatless Monday" is a new food movement that spans all borders and demographic groups. The idea is to cut out meat one time per week, with the overall goal of  improving health, shrinking our carbon footprint (and our waste lines) as well as helping reduce global climate change.
    After all, if you eat less meat, you consume less saturated fat. This lowers your risk of heart disease and keeps cholesterol low. As an added bonus, it helps you maintain a healthy weight, and automatically adds more vegetable variety to your diet. I have also noticed the amount I spend on grocery's drop about $20.00 per week. That's $960.00 per year (I could plan a mini vacation for my family with that money now).
    I have to be honest, at first I thought that a "certain" member of my family would struggle with this change. But as of yet, I have had no complaints. I have just been planning very carefully, what type of vegetarian meals I choose to make. I don't think a tofu salad would go over very well at all.
    Since it was just me and the little guy this week I made something that I new he would really enjoy. I already had everything I needed on hand, so with his help, we made Pizza Margherita. Mmmm Mmmmm. It was delicious. Who says vegetarian food can't be wonderful.

Pizza Margherita

Pizza Margherita

Ingredients:

1 recipe Pizza Dough
1 cup Homemade Pizza Sauce
1 ball Mozzarella di Buffala (regular  fresh mozzarella will subsitute just fine)
8-10 leaves of Fresh Basil
Handful of Kalamata Olives, optional


Directions:

(1) Preheat oven to 450 degrees. While the oven is preheating, place pizza stone in oven to preheat as well. (If you do not have a pizza stone, a regular pizza pan will work fine. But you should really get one, they're fabulous. They about $13.00 at most kitchen specialty stores).
(2) Roll out the prepared pizza dough.
(3) Once the pizza stone has been heated through (this usually takes as long as the oven does), remove it from the oven, and sprinkle with cornmeal. The cornmeal will keep the dough from sticking. (You can do this with a pizza pan as well. It will save you the calories from the oil you would otherwize have to add to the pan).
(4) Place the rolled out dough onto the pizza stone. From this point on, the dough will begin cooking.
(5) Begin assembling the pizza. First add the sauce, and then the mozzarella.
(6) Place the stone back in the oven and bake the pizza for 10 minutes, or until the cheese has fully melted and has begun to brown.
(7) Once cooked, remove from oven and garnish with the fresh basil and kalamata olives.

Tomato, Tomahto (Parte Seconda)

    Today, in my second attempt to rid myself of my giant surplus of tomatoes, I decided to make a simple Caprese Salad.
    Caprese Salad aka. Insalata Caprese consists of nothing more than three main ingredients. Mozzarella di Buffala (Mozzarella made from the milk of Water Buffalo), Tomatoes, and Basil, it is then seasoned with salt and pepper and drizzled with a really good olive oil. Words can't even describe how much I enjoy eating this. But because of the difficulty I have trying to find the Mozzarella di Buffala, I rarely get to make it. It can be made with any old regular fresh mozzarella or even bocconcini, but because of certain dietary restrictions, I don't have the luxury of making this substitute.
    This simple salad is fresh, low in calories and packed full of flavor. And if your taste buds want a little more zip, just drizzle it with a really good quality Balsamic Vinegar.

Caprese Salad:

Caprese Salad Stacks. Drizzle with a little
Olive Oil and some Balsamic Vinegar
for an amazing appetizer.

Ingredients:

1 ball of fresh mozzarella, sliced
3-4 small to medium tomatoes (an heirloom variety will work best)
6-7 fresh basil leaves
pinch of salt (a coarse or flake salt similar to fleur de sel)
coarsely ground fresh black pepper
olive oil and balsamic vinegar for drizzling

Directions:

(1) Stack one slice of the mozzarella, one slice of the tomato and then top with a fresh basil leaf.
(2) Continue until all of the food has been stacked in little bundles.
(3) Sprinkle with the salt and pepper and then drizzle with olive oil and balsamic vinegar. Do both these steps immediately before serving. The salt will release the juices from the tomatoes, and you don't want your tidy little bundles floating in a tomato soup.