Pizza Monkey Bread

I'm not sure where this recipe originated but the idea of making Pizza Monkeybread is genius! I wish I had thought of it. Monkeybread is a pull-apart bread which is generally sweet. What makes this a Pizza version is the pizza dough and the pepperoni and mozzarella cheese stuffing. Most other bloggers make their own dough and brush the stuffed pizza balls with garlic butter. I used a shortcut and made these with prepared frozen pizza dough. Also, I seasoned some light olive oil with garlic powder to make a garlic oil. I know this sounds ghetto but the garlic flavor is wonderful and I didn't see the need to make these with butter. Olive oil just seemed healthier. 

2 bags of frozen pizza dough

slices of pepperoni, cut in half

mozzarella cheese

extra light olive oil

garlic powder

marinara sauce

I could give you measurements but honestly I don't know! Just buy a ball of mozzarella cheese (not packed in water) and chop it up or buy a small bag of shredded mozzarella. Half of a regular sized bag of pre-sliced pepperoni should do. For the Marinara Sauce, I use Newman's Own. For the olive oil I used Bertolli's Extra Light Olive Oil and for every 1/2 cup of oil I did about 1 teaspoon of garlic powder. If you have garlic-infused oil, or want to infuse your own oil with fresh garlic, by all means go-ahead!

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. 

You'll need a bundt pan that's be greased with cooking spray or brushed with oil.

In a bowl, add some oil and garlic powder. Mix and set aside.

Break off pieces of the pizza dough into 1 inch chunks and roll into a ball with your hands. Create a well in the center with your thumbs and add 2 half slices of pepperoni and as much mozzarella as you can fit. Roll the ball and twist to close so you have a pizza dough ball and the filling is sealed in. 

Dip the ball in the garlic oil and roll until lightly coated. Add to the bottom of the bundt pan.

Keep repeating this over and over again until you run out of dough. Make sure each of the pizza balls are uniform in shape and in size in relation to the others. Place them evenly in the bundt pan making sure you are creating even layers of pizza balls.

Add the bundt pan to your oven and cook for 40 minutes or until golden brown. Heat up some marinara sauce and serve it with you pizza dough. You can either the monkeybread as is in the bundt ban. Or let it cool for 10-15 minutes, then carefully remove from the bundt pan and serve on a plate or platter. I'm usually too impatient for that and I like to eat the pizza monkeybread while hot.

The prep is a bit time consuming. Carlos helped me assemble this last one. He had fun with the pizza dough and it was a nice thing to do together as a couple. Hope you'll try this modified version of a food blogger favorite!

You like me, you really like me!

I am always unbelievably flattered when anyone tells me they've made one of my recipes. It makes me happy in ways that words cannot accurate describe. Here are two recent examples of friends who have tried out some Thoughtful Eating recipes!

The first is from Meghan, copy editor and world traveler extraordinaire. Meghan is a former coworker of mine who moved to the Netherlands with her husband. She makes my Portuguese Pork & Clams (Carne de Porco a Antejana) recipe on a regular basis (really?!). Meghan writes the wonderful blog Unquiet Time and recently featured pictures of her Shrimp version of the dish in her post entitled Portuguese Cooking in Holland. Thank you Meghan!

Source: Unquiet Time

Then there is Danielle from the fabulous blog There's a Book (and she also is a co-editor of Chick Lit Reviews). Danielle is a wonderful book blogger and mother of two adorable and book hungry kiddos. On Twitter, she recently asked what she should make for her Vegan friend who was coming over to dinner. I responded with a link to my Vegan Almond-Raspberry Chocolate Cupcakes. And guess what? She made them and sent me this photo of the result! Thank you Danielle!

Source: There's a Book

How To: Lighten - Caramel Apple Muffins

One of the food blogs you must follow is How To: Simplify. It's a superb site and the blogger provides lots of great tips on how to improve your cooking skills and pairs them with wonderful recipes and gorgeous food photography. My favorite recipes to make from this blog are the Corn & Zucchini Salad, Pasta Salad and the Taco Soup. Recently, she posted a recipe for Caramel Apple Muffins along with a tutorial on the best ways to get muffins out of a muffin tin. I just had to try these muffins.

So about a week ago I made these. At first I thought, wow these have a lot of sugar in them. I took down the 3/4 cup of sugar the recipe called for to 1/2 cup but made no other changes (except to switch out regular Milk for Almond Milk). The muffins were absolutely delicious but I was a little bothered by how high in sugar and fat they were. They batter contained sugar, butter and chopped caramels and the topping contained brown sugar and butter. The topping, since it was so heavy with sugar, pretty much melted right off the top which defeated the purpose. So I asked myself, could I make these with less sugar and less fat but retain all the deliciousness?

Today I tried making these again with some key adjustments:

1/4 cup butter was replaced with 1/4 cup of extra light olive oil
12 chopped caramels went down to 6 caramels
I still kept Almond Milk in place of regular milk
3/4 cup of granulated sugar went down to 1/4 cup
I removed the brown sugar and butter from the topping and used extra light olive oil instead

And here is the result...

Ingredients:

2 cups of flour
1/4 cup of sugar
1 tablespoon of baking powder
1 teaspoon of cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon of nutmeg
1 teaspoon of salt
1 egg
1 cup of Unsweetened Regular Almond Milk
1/4 cup of extra light olive oil
1-1/2 teaspoon of vanilla
1 Granny Smith apple, peeled and chopped
6 caramels chopped

1/4 cup of oats
1 tablespoon of extra light olive oil

This makes a dozen muffins.

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Mix all the dry ingredients into a bowl then add the egg, milk, olive oil and vanilla. Mix until all those ingredients are thoroughly incorporated into the batter. Fold in the chopped apple and caramels.

Take a muffin tin and spray with baking spray. Evenly distribute the batter among the 12 cups. In a small bowl, mix the oats and the tablespoon of extra light olive oil. Distribute the topping evenly over the 12 muffins.

Bake for 20-25 minutes. Let rest for a bit and remove from tin.

These muffins came out a little sturdier than the original. They have more bite and less crumble. You can taste the tart of the apple better. They hold together better too. The oatmeal topping comes off a bit so many next time I would add just a teeny bit of brown sugar to the mix to help it stick. Otherwise, delicious! Enjoy.

Vegan Coconut & Lime Cupcakes

There are no substitutes for this recipe. Every ingredient has to be exact to keep it vegan. For example, I used Duncan Hines Cream Home-Style frosting in Classic Vanilla because it's on the PETA list of Accidentally Vegan products. Also, I didn't use eggs, milk or butter in this recipe. Just Cream of Coconut and Oil. You'll notice that I don't include sugar. Cream of Coconut is super sweet and you won't need any additional sugar because of it. All these ingredients are easy to find at your local grocery store and this is a simple recipe to make!

Ingredients:

Cupcake:
3 cups of flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp coconut extract (optional)
1 can of cream of coconut
(this is basically coconut water & sugar)
Juice & zest of 2 limes
1/2 cup of light olive oil or canola oil

Frosting:
Duncan Hines Creamy Home-Style Frosting in Classic Vanilla
Juice and zest of 1 lime
1/2 cup of shredded coconut (less or more per taste)

------------
This makes 12 cupcakes.

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.

In a small bowl, add your cream of coconut and lime juice. Mix and let rest.

Mix your dry ingredients together and add the lime zest. Then add your cream of coconut/lime juice mixture, oil and coconut extract. Mix thoroughly until incorporated.

Add batter to 12 cupcake liners in a muffin tin. Bake in the oven for 15 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Because of the high sugar content, these cupcakes get brown fast so keep an eye on them. Let cool.

In a bowl, add your shredded coconut, frosting, lime juice and zest and mix thoroughly.

Spread frosting onto cooled cupcakes. You can top with a little bit of lime zest and shredded coconut if so desired. Enjoy!

I Haz Crockpot ~ Chipotle, Black Bean & Chicken Soup

I only just discovered Cookin' Canuck last night but already it's one of my favorite blogs. In fact, 4 recipes from the site are already on my list to make this week. Yesterday I made Chipotle, Black Bean & Chicken Soup from that blog but I made some alterations. Please take a look at the original recipe before making mine in case you like any of the steps I skipped or changed.


Ingredients:

1 small onion chopped
3 carrots peeled and sliced
1 large can of black beans rinsed
1 teaspoon of lime zest
3-4 garlic cloves smashed
1 teaspoon of dried oregano
1/2 can of chiptole in adobo
(with seeds and membranes removed, finely chopped and use all the sauce)
4 skinless chicken thighs (bone-in)
2 14.oz cans of whole tomatoes (or 1 28 oz. can)
2 packets of Goya Chicken Bouillion
5-1/2 cups of water
juice from half a lime
salt & pepper to taste

1/2 cup of rice
cilantro & fresh-squeezed lime juice for garnish

*You'll need a 6 quart Crockpot or Slow Cooker with the hour settings to make this.

Add chopped onion, sliced carrots, smashed garlic, rinsed black beans, grated lime zest, chipotle in adobo and dried oregano to the bottom of your Crockpot. The original recipe calls for a whole can of chipotle en adobo with all the peppers cleaned of their membranes and seeds. While this would take a considerable amount of the heat away I was still nervous that a whole can of the peppers would make my soup too spicy to eat. So I opted to use all the adobo (that's that thick smoky delicious sauce) and only half of the chipotle peppers, prepared to her instructions.

The original recipe does not call for lime juice or lime zest but I added it to bring a fresh flavor to the soup.

The original recipe called for bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs that are pan seared before added to the pot. I'm making this recipe to use up some of my frozen skinless, chicken thighs so I opted to add the frozen pieces in without thawing or searing. I just didn't have time to defrost! Oops.

I added the thighs, whole tomatoes (with juice), lime juice, salt and pepper.

Instead of using 4 cups of chicken broth and 1 1/2 cups of water, I opted for 5-1/2 cups of water and two Goya packets of Chicken Bouillion. Since I'm on a tight budget and chicken broth can get expensive, I've been using Goya Bouillion instead. It's wonderful and I don't really miss the broth (the expense, the room it takes up, dealing with the cans/boxes, etc.). 2 packets makes up to 4 cups of broth.

I drown the whole thing with the water and the bouillion and I set the crockpot for 6 hours. At 5-1/2 hours I took out the chicken thights and removed the bones and cartilage. Then I shredded the chicken and put it back into the crockpot. I also added a half cup of rice to the soup, stirred and let that cook for the last half hour.

Serve yourself up a hot bowl of soup, spritz some lime juice over the top and add some fresh cilantro and dive in! This is one spicy soup and I'm glad I cut back on the chipotle in adobo. My beau Carlos and I ate it together and we were burning up. He says it's the second best thing I've ever made for him (after Pastel de Choclo). So this soup was definitely a success. Thank you Cookin' Canuck!

Strawberry Shortcake Cookies

Strawberry season is upon us and this is the perfect time for some really delicious strawberries. On Sunday, I went to Wilson Farms (Lexington, MA) where they were having their annual Strawberry Festival. I picked up a pint of strawberries which were grown right on the farm. In hindsight, I should have gotten more strawberries because they were ripe and red all the way through and mouth-dribbling delicious.

The pint I took home (minus a couple strawberries that I snuck out and ate), I chopped up and turned into Strawberry Shortcake Cookies. The recipe I got was from We Are Not Martha. I really wanted to make something with strawberries. I had already baked a Strawberry-Peach Cobbler the week before and wanted to try something else that was unique.

So what makes these cookies "strawberry shortcake". The liquid in the batter is heavy cream, which gives you that cream flavor you get from the whipped cream in a real shortcake. Plus the cookie dough contains cold butter which melts in the oven. The cookies get slightly crispy on the outside and are soft like cake on the inside. If anything screams STRAWBERRY SHORTCAKE! it's these cookies.

Go check out the recipe: Strawberry Shortcake Cookies

I unfortunately burnt my first batch of cookies because I went for the full 19 minutes at 375 degrees. I recommend going 12-14 minutes at 350 degrees instead, or checking in on the cookies regularly so they don't burn.