Meatless Monday - Savory Apple Pizza

Good news!  Wheat Thins is well on its way to being completely HFCS free!  Read more about it at A Life Less Sweet Reviews and enter my giveaway to win free Wheat Thins!

I have a thing for pizza.  It's so easy and so good.  And while pizza can be a greasy, unhealthy mess, it doesn't have to be!  Start with a nice crust - whole wheat, preferably - add a good sauce, toppings of choice, and a little cheese (not too much!), and you've got yourself the makings of a tasty and healthy meal.  Pizza is also an easy way to enjoy a meatless meal - a meatless meal your kids won't complain about at that! 

It should come as no surprise that I like unusual pizzas (see my past pizza incarnations - Pizza with White Sauce and Peach Pizza).  Pizza doesn't always have to be tomato sauce, pepperoni, and cheese!  This week I happen to have a couple of boxes of organic Utah Fuji apples sitting in my kitchen, so I experimented with apple on pizza.

Fruit on a savory pizza?  Why not!  The thinly sliced apple added a hint of sweetness, and the apple flavor was an afterthought - not nearly as prominent as I thought it would be.  My husband and I both liked this pizza.  I made a simple goat cheese sauce, but you could use a white sauce, a tomato sauce (though that doesn't sound very appealing with apple to me), or no sauce at all!  I used fontina cheese as the topping, but I think that next time I will use feta cheese instead for a little more zip.  I also think that I'll add some roasted garlic (like on my Pizza with White Sauce), but I'm a garlic fiend. 

I should note that when I make my unconventional pizzas, the kids get a plain ole cheese pizza.  We use this tomato sauce recipe with a few minor changes.  I like to add some oregano to give it more of a pizza sauce flavor.  I also halve the red wine, and double the water.  Sometimes I use broth instead of water.  It makes a very good pizza sauce that freezes well to boot.

Savory Apple Pizza

Use crust of your choice.  If you have a breadmaker, my pizza dough recipe is at the bottom.

Goat cheese sauce:
1/4 cup soft goat cheese
1/2 cup low-fat evaporated milk
1 garlic clove, minced
1/2 tsp ground thyme (or herb of your choice)
1/4 tsp salt

Combine all ingredients in a small saucepan.  Stir while heating over medium heat until the cheese melts and the liquid simmers.  Cook for about 10 min or until sauce is the desired consistency.


Toppings:
1 small apple, thinly sliced (leave peel on)
1-2 onions, caramelized
1/2 TBSP fresh thyme leaves (or herb of your choice), optional
roasted garlic cloves (optional)
cheese - fontina, feta, or whatever suits you

Preheat oven to 425 F.  Spread a thin layer of goat cheese sauce over pizza crust.  Top with caramelized onions, a single layer of apple, thyme, garlic cloves, and cheese.  Bake at 425 F for 15 min or until crust is browned. 

A note on the crust - I like to prebake my pizza crust for about 5 min before adding the toppings.  I end up with a crispier crust that way.

Breadmaker Pizza Dough
For a 1 lb batch of dough

3/4 cup warm water
1 TBSP olive oil
1 1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp sugar
2 1/4 cups flour - can be completely all-purpose or a mix of all-purpose and whole wheat flour (I usually do about 1/2 white whole wheat)
1 tsp yeast

Combine water, oil, sugar and salt in breadmaker pan. Add in flour, and pour yeast on top of the flour. Put in breadmaker on "Pizza Dough" setting or consult your breadmaker's manual for the best setting.

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Peter Rabbit Organics fruit pouch review and giveaway!

I am really excited about the product of the day. Why? I just think it's so refreshing to find a fruit puree made of something other than apples. Not that applesauce is a bad thing, but my family is just not that crazy about it as a snack.

Read the rest of the review and enter the giveaway!

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News, links, and recipes from me to you!

A Life Less Sweet is now on Facebook! Become a fan for even more info, links, random musings, and a unique opportunity to provide input.

A Life Less Sweet has been included in the 100 Best Blogs for Healthy Parents! Lots of great blogs in this list, and more that I'm looking forward to discovering!

Next, a great blog that I came across recently - Fix Me A Snack. This blog's tagline - "A healthier approach to family friendly snacks." Scroll through this blog whether you have kids or not. There are lots of great looking snacks! Like Cheesy Sweet Potato Balls (on my to do list for today!), or Pizza Muffins, or Apple Crisp "Cookies." We're always on the search for tasty snacks that happen to be healthy too, so this blog is like a dream for me!
Last, I want to tell you about a great new site for kids that will be going live soon. PBS Kids Go is launching Fizzy's Lunch Lab, a site for elementary kids to explore food and nutrition in a fun way. Kids will join Professor Fizzy and friends as they "prepare tasty snacks, investigate the difference between good and bad food, and learn what happens once the food you eat goes into your body."

I love this concept! It sounds like Fizzy's Lunch Lab is a very comprehensive look at the foods we eat. I love that they're tying in what happens to food after it's eaten. I think that this site has great potential and can not wait until it's fully ready for my kids to explore.

You can preview Fizzy's Lunch Lab now, and then go back on November 16 when it launches. The preview has an introductory video and a yummy looking recipe (click on the "Print this recipe!" tab for the recipe - Apple Banana Chillers).

In the meantime, here are some recipes from Fizzy's Lunch Lab - a taste of things to come! All of their preview recipes are healthy, loaded with fruits and veggies, and are recipes that you can get your child to help with. The two recipes that I'm sharing (compliments of PBS Kids Go!) are two that looked especially good to me. Check out all of the Fizzy's Lunch Lab preview recipes at the PBS Parents Nutrition site.

(Click on each card to see recipe bigger.)

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Added Fructose - Trick or Treat?

Trick or Treat? You get a little of both with fructose. Fructose from natural sources - treat! Fruits and vegetables rarely have much fructose and that fructose is bundled along with vitamins, antioxidants, fiber, and good stuff we're only beginning to learn about. Fructose is present in much higher quantities in honey and maple syrup (closer to a 50/50 mix of fructose and glucose), but it also comes bundled with good stuff.

In small amounts, fructose may actually be good for you. In large amounts, the opposite is true. Too much fructose is implicated in many health issues such as high triglyceride levels and type 2 diabetes. Our bodies just aren't equipped to handle large amounts of fructose.

Obviously, we've given up HFCS (for more reasons than just free fructose these days), but what about added fructose? I wrote a post way back in the beginning that talked about how we were also avoiding products with fructose as an ingredient. If I'm concerned about the free fructose in HFCS, why would I not also be concerned about free crystalline fructose used as an ingredient? Recently I found out a bit about this ingredient.

Crystalline fructose is often marketed toward diabetics because of the low blood sugar response of fructose compared with glucose. Your liver is doing other things with fructose, however, that might negate any benefits from the blood sugar response.

What is crystalline fructose? Crystalline fructose (often simply listed as fructose on an ingredient list) is simply fructose in a pure, crystalline form. Crystalline fructose is a relatively new ingredient that has only been available since the late 1980s. Lovely images of fruit juice being concentrated and the fructose (aka fruit sugar) crystallizing out of solution pop into one's head with this ingredient, but that coudn't be farther from the truth. In America, crystalline fructose is almost always produced from...corn! Yes, crystalline fructose is a derivative of our friend high fructose corn syrup.

According to the Sugar Association, crystalline fructose is produced "by allowing the fructose to crystallize from a fructose-enriched corn syrup." The separated crystals are 98% fructose and 2% water and other trace impurities.

So...in case you missed it the first time, I'll say it again. Crystalline fructose is produced from high fructose corn syrup (aka HFCS)!

To be fair, in other countries where corn is not king, crystalline fructose may be produced from sugar. In Brazil, for example, where cane sugar rules the roost, I would expect that crystalline fructose would be produced from sugar. Being produced from sugar, however, does not make it a better ingredient.

Where is crystalline fructose found? So many places! I find fructose listed as an ingredient in lots of "health" foods that know HFCS as an ingredient would turn people away. Foods that wouldn't dare use HFCS will use crystalline fructose and then proudly declare themselves "all natural!" Hmm. That "all natural" designation really is slick marketing with no real meaning behind it.

Trick or Treat? Well, from where I sit, fructose as an ingredient is definitely a trick to be avoided. Worse yet, it's a trick that is touted as being an "all natural" treat.

Just as with HFCS, I've found that it hasn't been a big deal to rid our lives of added fructose. We avoid a lot of junk "natural" processed foods as a result. All you have to do is flip that package over and peruse the ingredient list for the ingredient "fructose" or "crystalline fructose."

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Meatless Monday - Empanadas de choclo y queso (corn and cheese empanadas)

A big thanks to Meatless Monday for featuring my pumpkin muffin recipe this week! They've got a day's worth of pumpkin recipes for you to try this week in honor of Halloween. Using their recipes, you can have pumpkin for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and dessert! I plan to put a little twist on my pumpkin muffins and turn them into pumpkin cupcakes for my son's class Halloween party by adding some vanilla frosting and a few decorations. I think that they'll love them!


I love going to our local Farmer's Market. It's always such a short-lived treat - good live music, delicious fresh produce, and fantastic food. This year there was a wonderful addition to the Farmer's Market scene - a group of Latina women serving "Authentic Latin Food." (If you're in the Jackson, WY area, they cater under the name A Fuego Lento.) I'm drooling a bit just thinking about their food - tortas, tamales (and we're usually not fans of tamales, but these were yummy), salsas, some dishes I can't quite remember, and empanadas...always empanadas. My kids and I struck up a love affair with their empanadas and bought some to munch on every week.

Our favorite empanada had a corn and cheese filling. Simple, but so good. A couple of weeks ago my stomach was growling for some of these delicious little hand pies, and I discovered thanks to Google and Google Translator that Empanadas with Corn and Cheese are actually a very traditional dish in the Latin community. And, even better, they're easy to make!

There are lots of different recipes for Empanadas de Choclo y Queso, but it seems that most have these basic components - white sauce, sweet corn (fresh preferably, but canned or frozen work in a pinch), cheese, and empanada shells. I bought my empanada shells (Goya brand in the freezer section), but the dough looks easy enough to make (see a couple of different recipes here and here). Empanadas are traditionally deep fried, but I opted to bake mine instead.

We all loved my homemade Empanades with Corn and Cheese. My son actually packed two for his school lunch today. I added some green chiles to a third of the batter for the adults, and it was a good addition, but not necessary. We served our empanadas with Mexican rice and black beans. Empanadas come in every flavor under the sun - meat filled, spinach and cheese filled, etc. - so, as always, take this recipe and make it your own!


Empanadas de Choclo y Queso (Corn and Cheese Empanadas)

packaged frozen empanada shells (find in the freezer section)
2 TBSP butter
1/2 onion, finely chopped
2 TBSP all-purpose flour
Lowfat evaporated milk (about 1/2 a can)
2 oz Monterey Jack cheese or cheese of choice
1 green onion, finely chopped
corn - 4-6 ears fresh or 1 can or 1 1/2 - 2 cups frozen (I used a bag of fresh corn that I froze last summer)
1 small can green chiles (optional)

Preheat oven to 400 F.

White Sauce - Melt butter in a saucepan over medium heat. Add the onion and saute until tender. Whisk in the flour and cook for about a minute. Slowly whisk in the evaporated milk until your sauce is the desired consistency. Cook for a couple of minutes adding more evaporated milk if necessary. (My sauce at this point was very thick but pourable.)

Add in cheese, green onions, and corn as well as any other optional ingredients. Stir to combine well.

The filling (without green chiles)

Place a tablespoon or two of corn and cheese filling in the center of an empanada shell. Wet the outer edge of the shell with a little water and press edges together to make a sealed pouch. Place empanada on an oiled baking sheet. Continue until all of your filling and/or empanada shells are used.

Bake at 400 F for 10-15 min or until empanada bottoms are browned. (You can also brush an egg wash over the top of the uncooked shells to brown the tops as well.)


My recipe doesn't quite match that of A Fuego Lento, but I'm very happy with it and will definitely make it again. Next time, I might add a little more evaporated milk to make the final filling creamier, and I might also add a little queso fresco as well. A little cilantro would be a good addition. Or...I might just make it the same again.

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A new POM Wonderul juice to try and more

But not here...head on over to A Life Less Sweet Reviews! to read my thoughts on the new POM Wonderful juice flavors. Definitely worth a try!


And then run on over to Fake Food Free to read my guest post where I wax poetically about why we gave up HFCS and what it has meant for our diet.

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Meatless Monday - Homemade toasted ravioli

For lots more info on Meatless Mondays - news, tons of great recipes, information and links galore - don't forget about the official Meatless Monday site! It's a great resource!

This week's Meatless Monday recipe gets BIG thumbs up from my kids - toasted ravioli! I got the idea from Clean Eating magazine, but this is a recipe that is so easy to make your own. Pair the ravioli with the sauce of your choice and have fun dipping!

I used a very simple goat cheese and roasted red pepper filling for my ravioli. I'm a huge goat cheese fan, so these were right up my alley. The goat cheese is rich, so I think that next time I might try cutting it with a little pureed sweet potato or (if I want to stick with a cheese ravioli) some ricotta cheese. We paired our ravioli with a simple marinara sauce from a jar. The kids had a lot of fun picking up and dipping their ravioli - another plus to the recipe.

Take this recipe and make it your own! Simply replace my filling with whatever suits you (though, I must say, my filling is pretty darn good) - Pureed vegetables, your favorite cheese, whatever! You could even do a Mexican twist by filling your ravioli with Mexican cheeses, onion, and and a little cumin and dipping in salsa or guacamole. You're only limited by your own imagination!


Toasted Ravioli with Goat Cheese and Roasted Red Pepper Filling

1 package wonton wrappers
1/2 cup goat cheese
1 green onion, thinly sliced
2 TBSP fresh basil, minced
chopped jarred roasted red pepper, water packed
grated parmesan cheese
Marinara sauce (we used Newman's Own Marinara)

Preheat oven to 400 F. In a bowl, mix the goat cheese, green onion, and basil together.

Spoon about a teaspoonful of filling in the center of the wonton wrapper. Add roasted red pepper to taste. I added just a little as the flavor of the peppers is intense. (If your wonton wrappers are too big to make a nice size ravioli, cut them to the size that works best for you.)

Dip your fingers into a little water and wet the edge of the wonton. Fold the wonton in half and seal the edges together. Place wonton ravioli on a baking sheet that has been sprayed with oil.

Spray tops of ravioli with a little oil (use a light hand with the oil) and top with grated parmesan cheese.

Bake for 8-10 min or until the ravioli are golden brown. Serve with a small bowl of marinara sauce for dipping.

And for those nights when you just don't have the time or inclination to make your own ravioli, you can also buy ravioli and serve the cooked ravioli with a dipping sauce. My kids loved picking up the ravioli to dip! Be careful when buying premade fresh pastas, though. Many have hidden trans fat (in the form of partially hydrogenated oils). We've bought and enjoyed Cucina Fresca brand pasta - trans fat free!

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