Looneyspoons veggie pizza with pesto, mozarella and feta

Hey!

Tired of too much meat in your meals and you feel like switching it up? Then this veggie pizza with yuuuummy cheeses will make your world go round! The original recipe is taken from The Looneyspoons, an all-time favourite book written by Janet and Greta Podleski. There it's called "It's a little pizza heaven" and the title doesn't lie ;) Of course, I tweaked it a bit, like I always do :))

By the way, I decided to go wild and I made my own pizza dough so I'll include the recipe for the dough too, just in case you wanna make your own.

Let's get started, shall we?

Ingredients for 2 pizzas:

Thin and flavourful dough: *recipe from chef Adrian Hădean
- 3 cups of 650 flour
- 1 1/2 cups of warm water
- 10g fresh yeast or 3g dry yeast
- 1 tbsp warm milk
- 2 pinches of sugar (used separately)
- 1 pinch of salt
- 1 tsp dry oregano
- 1 tsp dry basil
- 3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

OR 2 pizza doughs from Lidl ;)

Topping for 2 pizzas:
- 2 tsp olive or sunflower oil
- around 6 sliced mushrooms (put a variety of them if you can)
- a haldful of broccoli florets cut small
- a medium zucchini
- 1/2 red bell pepper thinly sliced
- a small red onion thinly sliced
- 1/2 jar Barilla pesto sauce
- 1/2 jar pizza sauce or any tomato based flavored sauce (I used Barilla Napoletana)
- 2 tbsp freshly grated Parm cheese
- aprox. 150g mozarella di bufala balls
- around 60g shredded feta cheese
*my addition, optional: corn (as much as possible :P)


Steps:

Making the dough:
1. Mix the flour and water.
2. Add a pinch of salt and sugar.
3. Dissolve the yeast in the milk and a pinch of sugar, then add to the flour mix.
4. Add the oregano, basil and olive oil.
5. Knead the dough for about 15 min by hand or with an electric mixer (I used the second option) until it's soft, elastic and it comes off easily. You might need to adjust the water/flour combo.
6. Let it rise for about an hour close to a source of heat.
7. Separate it into 2 doughs for your two pizzas and work it like a true Italian pizzaro until you fill your 2 trays of pizza:

Adding the topping:
1. Tomato sauce (I added too much and the pizza ended up soggy, so make sure you don't add too much)

2. Cooooorn

3. Add Parm cheese :)

4. Add the sauteed veggies coated in pesto - In a big pan or a wok over medium heat add the oil and all the cut veggies. Cook and stir for about 6 min until they are tender, then take them off the heat and add in the pesto. Mix well, then spread on top of the pizza.

5. Add the mozarella balls, yummm!

6. Final step: Add the shreded feta :)

And this is how the pizza looks before going in the oven for about 10 min if the dough is fresh or 8 min if the dough is store bought and thawed. Bake it at 230C until the crust is lightly browned and cheese is melted.

7. Final product:

Bon appetit! :D

Creamy Sun-dried Tomato Pesto Pasta

   We tried this recipe once before from Tasty (thank God for pages like that, otherwise we'd be out of ideas frequently) and we loved it! It attracted me because it had sun-dried tomatoes in it and I just adore those! :D I'd eat them every day if I could :D But then again, too much is too much...

   The original Tasty recipe had asparagus in it but this time I decided to use zucchini instead as a cheaper option. Aaaand since I wanted to be creative and make it a bit more filling I also added some chicken and some mozarella bocancini. That's the beauty of cooking! You can start from a simple recipe and then tweak it and make it your own :D The tweaked version was sooooo yummy I already can't wait to try it out again! 

Ingredients (for about 3 servings):

- A shallot, diced

- A pesto jar (again, Barilla is strongly recommended)

- 6-7 sun-dried tomatoes, julienned

- A medium zucchini, peeled*

- 200g mozarella bocancini

- 250g chicken thighs, diced

- Grill seasoning to taste

- 100g cooking cream

- About 200g pasta (we used Fettuccine)

Steps:

1. Boil the pasta with a bit of salt.

2. Chop the chicken, then season it with some grill mix.

3. Cut your shallot and sun-dried tomatoes, then peel all the zucchini lenghtwise with a peeler until you obtain a lot of very thin zucchini slices.

4. Cook the shallot and the chicken together in a pan until the chicken is about 80% cooked then add the zucchini slices and keep cooking them until the zucchini reduces and the chicken is cooked through. 

5. Add the sun-dried tomatoes, the pesto and the mozarella and stir for a bit, then add the cooking cream (to make it creamier).

6. Add the cooked pasta and keep stirring to coat the pasta in sauce. Serve immediately with cracked pepper on top. Bon appetit! :)

In case you want to try out the original Tasty recipe, here's a video: 

Oliver's Pesto Pasta

   I showed you quite a few recipes until now but I somehow seemed to have forgotten a quintessencial recipe in our household: Oliver's Pesto Pasta! Another recipe that got me hooked from the first bite, one that I would eat every week and that made me love pesto forever (I actually hadn't tried pesto before this dish). So now you know that if you like pesto, you HAVE to try this dish! :D Just sayin'... ;)

Ingredients for 3 servings:
- a jar of Barilla pesto (it HAS to be Barilla, the other brands won't do the recipe justice - It's soooo good I would eat this pesto on its own! Oh wait, I actually did:P Other girls have chocolate, I have pesto ;) )
- a pack of mozarella bocancini (we used around 150g but the more, the cheesier!!!)
- 5 medium mushrooms
- 1/2 chicken breast
- a small white onion
- 250g Fettuccine pasta (or any other pasta you prefer)
- 2 Tbsp oil
- ground pepper to taste

Steps:

1. Boil the pasta in a pot with water and salt.

2. Dice the onion, slice the mushrooms, cut the chicken into small pieces.

3. Put the oil in a pan, then add the onion and cook it for about a minute, until it is starting to caramelize.

4. Add the chicken to the pan, then season it with ground pepper. Give it about 2-3 minutes until it's cooked on one side, then turn it over.

5. Then add the mushrooms. Cook them until they're nicely caramelized.

6. Add the pesto, the mozarella and the pasta. Stir it all together and let it simmer until the cheese is melted. Bon appetit!

Baked Salmon and Vegetables

   Salmon is one of my favorite proteins! And since I want to eat healthy, I keep trying out new veggie pairings. Here's what I cooked today:

Ingredients for 3 servings:
- around 250g of fresh salmon fillet
- cooking cream
- Fish seasoning (we buy it in a pack that's labelled as such)
- around 250g of cauliflower or broccoli
- 3 medium potatoes
- a handful of frozen peas
- salt and pepper to taste
- optional: pesto

Steps:

1. Today I wanted to save space and I decided to boil all my veggies in one pot. If you want to be completely safe and avoid getting mushy potatoes (like mine ... oops!) boil all the veg separately OR chop your potatoes into big pieces so they don't get squeezed in the pot by the rest of the veg. If you choose my method put the chopped potatoes into salted boiling water until they're soft.

2. Chop the cauliflower into bite sized pieces and add it in the same pot with the potatoes (when the potatoes are almost ready) for about 5 minutes. Add the peas at the same time.

3. After your veg is ready coat it in some pesto (believe me, it's totally worth it!).

4. Sprinkle some salt and pepper on the salmon and put it in the oven for about 10-15 min at 200ºC. Check to make sure it's cooked through (it has to be light pink inside). 

5. Make the sauce: add cooking cream and the fish seasoning and bring it to a quick boil while you keep whisking. Add on top of the salmon when you serve the dish. (Alternatively you can use a hollandaise sauce that you buy or make at home). 

Bon appetit!