Pizza Party

Last week when Matt cleaned out the fridge, he made a rather startling discovery …we had a TON of mozzarella cheese. Dunno how it happened. It was prolly one of those things where we bought it, forgot we didn't use it and then bought some more. Anyhoo, so we had some family over on Fri and we made three different kinds of pizza: shrimp scampi, BBQ chicken, and italian.

The recipe for the scampi pizza is below. That was my fave. The BBQ chicken pizza had chicken, BBQ sauce, gouda cheese, mozzarella cheese, parmesean cheese, and carmelized onions on it. The italian pizza had a bitta tomato sauce, fresh chopped basil, mozzarella, parmesan, romano, onions on half, and chopped tomatoes. They were a huge hit. It's something we'll definitely have to do again.

Winter Weekend

We had quite the weekend. Most of it was very nice weather. We gave Loki a bath (as you can see from the pictures) and enjoyed time with friends and family. But as is typical of CO, no matter what the calendar says or what the weather was yeterday, early this morning a little storm rolled in. And before we knew it we were 14″ deep in snow . Cool, eh? There have been some road closures and stranded motorists, but it's not nearly as bad as the news makes it out to be…

I'll have to post some pictures of the snow soon. For now, enjoy the ones of Loki and my anagram game!!!!

Anagram Game!!

Okay kiddies, here's a new one for Jesser.org. This week is National Anagram Week and so in celebration, I'm putting up a new anagram for you to solve each and every day until Saturday in my MOTD (the funny sayings underneath the date/time up top). The answer will be posted in the MOTD on the next day.

If you have a guess, leave me a comment. First person to guess it (by time stamped comment) wins … well nothing. Except your name on my blog. So nothing. Haha. Happy anagramming!!!

Shrimp Scampi Pizza

from: Shape Magazine

Ingredients
1 c lite vanilla soy milk
1/2 c calcium OJ
1 banana (I like frozen ones), peeled, obviously

Directions
Chunk it all in a blender and smoothie it up.

from: Everyday Food #15

Ingredients
5 t olive oil
1 1/4 lb boneless leg of lamb cut into 1 inch dice
coarse salt and pepper
1 large onion, halved and sliced
4 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
1/2 t paprika
1/2 c dried apricots, halved
1/2 c pitted prunes
1 can (14.5 oz) whole peeled tomatoes, drained
1/2 cup packed fresh cilantro leaves, plus more for garnish
2 T fresh lime juice
couscous

Directions
In a 5 qt saucepan with a tight-fitting lid, heat oil over high heat. Swirl to coat bottom of pan. Season lamb with salt and pepper; cook until browned, 3-5 min.

Reduce heat to medium. Add onion and garlic; cook, stirring occasionally, until softened, 2-4 min. Add paprika, apricots, prunes, tomatoes, and 3 cups water. Bring to a boil; reduce heat. Simmer partially coverer, until tomatoes begin to break apart and sauce is thickened, about 25-30 min. While you wait on the lamb, put a pot of water to boil for your couscous. Place the couscous itself into a large bowl and add any dry seasonings you desire. Once the water has boiled, carefully pour it over the couscous until you have about an inch of water over the couscous. Wait a few minutes for the couscous to absorb the water and stir it. Wait a bit more and then taste it. It should have the same consistency as properly cooked pasta.

Return lamb and any accumulated juices to pan; cook until heated through, about 1 min. Stir in cilantro and lime juice. Serve with couscous.

Nutritional Info (1/4 recipe(
(without couscous:) 371 calories; 13.3 g fat; 31.9 g protein; 33.1 g carbs; 4.6 g fiber

from: Matt and Jess Original

Ingredients
– 60 count shrimp
– Italian salad dressing
– Teaspoon oregano
– Pizza Crust
– Mozzarella Cheese
– Parmesan Cheese

Directions
Marinate thawed shrimp Italian dressing. Take shrimp out of dressing with a slotted spoon and add to a pan over medium high heat. Cook shrimp till done, typically just a few minutes. Cut shrimp in 1/2.

Roll out pizza crust on cooking sheet. (Precook crust if required for pizza crust.) Lay down a thin layer of Italian salad dressing. Cover pizza with Mozzarella cheese to desired thickness. Add desired amount Parmesan cheese. Add cooked shrimp to top pizza. Sprinkle top of pizza with Italian salad dressing and oregano.

Cook pizza according to pizza crust instructions.

Moroccan Lamb with Couscous

The new meal this week comes from Everyday Food. It's got a lot of flavor packed into not so many calories and it's very filling. Overall, we both found the recipe to be a winner, but there are certain things we'd do differently next time. The big one is to get everything chopped a bit smaller. The dish ended up seeming sort of chunky and it was hard to get all of the flavors into one bite. So chopping up all of the ingredients (paticularly the fruits and veggies) finer would be a big help.

Moroccan Lamb with Couscous

from: Shape Magazine

Ingredients
1 c lite vanilla soy milk
1/2 c calcium OJ
1 banana (I like frozen ones), peeled, obviously

Directions
Chunk it all in a blender and smoothie it up.

from: Everyday Food #15

Ingredients
5 t olive oil
1 1/4 lb boneless leg of lamb cut into 1 inch dice
coarse salt and pepper
1 large onion, halved and sliced
4 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
1/2 t paprika
1/2 c dried apricots, halved
1/2 c pitted prunes
1 can (14.5 oz) whole peeled tomatoes, drained
1/2 cup packed fresh cilantro leaves, plus more for garnish
2 T fresh lime juice
couscous

Directions
In a 5 qt saucepan with a tight-fitting lid, heat oil over high heat. Swirl to coat bottom of pan. Season lamb with salt and pepper; cook until browned, 3-5 min.

Reduce heat to medium. Add onion and garlic; cook, stirring occasionally, until softened, 2-4 min. Add paprika, apricots, prunes, tomatoes, and 3 cups water. Bring to a boil; reduce heat. Simmer partially coverer, until tomatoes begin to break apart and sauce is thickened, about 25-30 min. While you wait on the lamb, put a pot of water to boil for your couscous. Place the couscous itself into a large bowl and add any dry seasonings you desire. Once the water has boiled, carefully pour it over the couscous until you have about an inch of water over the couscous. Wait a few minutes for the couscous to absorb the water and stir it. Wait a bit more and then taste it. It should have the same consistency as properly cooked pasta.

Return lamb and any accumulated juices to pan; cook until heated through, about 1 min. Stir in cilantro and lime juice. Serve with couscous.

Nutritional Info (1/4 recipe(
(without couscous:) 371 calories; 13.3 g fat; 31.9 g protein; 33.1 g carbs; 4.6 g fiber

Weekend!

Okay. I'm annoyed at this whole daylight savings thing. It caused me an hour less of WEEKEND. Why couldn't it cause me to have an hour less of WEEK? That somehow seems much more fair.

My weekend was kinda boring, and not even very productive. Although I did go on a 4 mi hike on Saturday with Matt and Loki. Loki is very interested in birds and such, but fortunately not so interested that he can be bothered to chase them. But then we decided to run down the trail that we'd hiked two miles up. It didn't hurt at all at the time, but my whole body ached yesterday. And on Sunday we went to my uncle's house for a little get-together since some relatives from out-of-town were here. It was nice to see people we don't often get to see.

And for the topper on the cake, I'm all stuffed up again. I don't know if it's allergies or if my cold has reared its ugly head again. In either case, I've been quite stuffed up including one ear – not both, just one. So I'm often seen these days walking around with my head tilted in hopes that it will drain. I look like I haven't had my V8.