Pizza with Ramps, Bacon & Tomato

I had never heard of Ramps until recently when reading about them on some very excited food blogs. Now I know what all the hoop-la is about.

Ramps are the Vidalia onions of leeks and they are wonderful. I ripped the idea for tonight's dinner from the Ramps-Arugula-Bacon-Goat Cheese Pizza off of What Geeks Eat.

Pizza with Ramps, Bacon & Tomato

1 pre-made pizza crust (or make your own - see above links for some instructions)
1 roma tomato, sliced (canned tomatos would work here too ... and could make this super local)
1 bunch Ramps
1 bag of shredding cheeses (I used Organic Valley's Italian cheese mix) or shred some cheese
4 slices of fresh mozzarella
handful of fresh chives
6 slices of bacon
marinara or pizza sauce (I used TJ's Tomato Basil Marinara sauce)
Olive oil

Cook the bacon how you like (Personally, I'm a bacon in the microwave kind of girl). While the bacon is cooking, cut the leaves off the ramps and coarsely chop leaves and bulbs. Then coarsely chop the chives. Put ramps and chives into a bowl and toss with a drizzle of olive oil. Slice tomatoes and fresh mozzarella. Pour and spread the sauce onto the pizza crust and sprinkle with shredded cheese. Then cover with the ramps & chives mixture. Place the mozzarella and tomato slices evenly around the crust. Crush the bacon into small pieces and sprinkle on the pizza.


Cook the pizza according to the instructions for the crust. Generally, if the cheese is melted and the crust brown, it's done. Duh.


The pizza was pretty much awesome - I highly recommend it and so does Adam (which means it was really really good).

While waiting for the pizza to cook, I threw together some left-over pizza ingredients, some of what I got at the Farmer's Market yesterday, and other things in the fridge to make a salad to take to work for lunch.

3 handfuls of baby salad mix
Grape tomatoes, cut in half
Shredded carrots
Rest of the Organic Valley shredding Italian cheese mix
Rest of the package of bacon ( ~ 6 slices), cooked and coarsely crushed into small pieces
Handful of fresh cilantro
1 Avocado, sliced (not pictured, whoops)

Combine in a bowl. I'll probably eat it with Ranch dressing because Ranch + fresh Cilantro = awesome.



Yum. I can't wait for noon tomorrow ...

*Gluten-Free: If using a gluten free pizza crust and tomato sauce then both pizza and salad are gluten-free
*Low-carb: Salad is pretty low-carb and could cut down on veggies if needed.

Hello Greens! + Burdock Leaves = Gross & Veg-tastic Chili

After a (sorta) local winter filled with squash, beets, and cabbage, I was thrilled to see greens at the farmers market today!! Greens!! Hooray!



From top left, clockwise: Baby Salad Mix, Ground Angus, Chives, Cilantro, Burdock leaves, Portobello mushrooms, Oyster mushrooms, Ramps, Eggs


I've been seeing Ramps on some food blogs I read lately so I was excited to see them. I'm even more excited to try this Ramps-Arugula-Bacon-Goat Cheese Pizza. I'll let you know how it goes.

After lounging on the couch watching Because I Said So for the 85th billionth time and then going roller blading, I was desperate for dinner and without enough energy to spend too much time. I nixed any idea that involved some of the meat I have in the freezer because it required defrosting. This left me with cans of Trader Joe's Beef Chili, tuna, or eggs for protein. I decided the chili sounded good.

I also decided I would try the Burdock leaves I picked up at the market. I had no idea what they were or what to do with them but since they looked like Chard I figured that I couldn't go wrong with a stir fry.

Yeah so not so much. Apparently, they are only good to eat if you're a goat. I took a little bite to see what they were like and it left an awful bitter taste in my mouth. Then I figured that they obviously needed a blanching. While I was waiting for the water to boil and dug around and prepped the other ingredients:


Once the water was boiled and the leaves blanched, I coarsely chopped them and begin the meal. I tasted the leaves after everything was added and had been cooked and they were still a mouthful of bitter disgustingness. They were definitley inedible so I picked all of them out and added 2 handfuls of baby spinach.

Here's the final recipe for Veg-tastic Chili:

olive oil for sauteing
1/2 an onion
3-4 cloves of garlic
2 roma tomatoes
Bunch of cremini mushrooms
1 11 oz can of corn
Bunch of fresh cilantro
Carrots - shredded or sliced into thin strips or rounds
1 can of chili (or beans)
2 big handfuls baby spinach
cheddar cheese, grated (optional)

Add oil, garlic, and onions to a large skillet and put on medium heat. When the onion begins to look translucent, add the mushrooms, cilantro, carrots, spinach, corn, and tomatoes. Once the spinach has wilted a litte, add the can of chili and turn up to medium high heat. When the chili is warm, spoon into bowls and top with grated cheese.

Despite the burdock disaster, the meal turned out quite well.

*Gluten-free: Use gluten-free chili or just use a can of beans and a can of crushed tomatoes
*Low-carb: Use low-carb chili or no beans and extra meat; don't use corn

Walnut (or Cashew) Cheese!

Since I've become obsessed with Google Reader and recently discovered the nifty "Suggestions" area, I've found a few new foodie blogs. One of them - Maybe Local Vegan? - constantly extolled their love for Cashew Cheese. It's not really cheese - more of a cross between pesto and mole sauce - but it's pretty damn good.

As an experiment - and because I didn't think plain old tomato sauce would go - I made some Walnut Cheese (half a batch) to go with my Trader Joe's Walnut Gorgonzola Ravioli.

Here's the recipe:

1 1/2 cups walnuts (or really any nuts would work I think)
2-3 cloves of garlic
1 tblsp of lemon
1 tsp of sea salt
1/2 cup of water

Then blend until it's a paste.

My only beef is that it was a bit too salty for me. The next time I make it I think I'll use half the salt. What I really love about it, though, is that it isn't too thick so it's perfect for a sauce and since we always have nuts around, it's an easy, healthy, protein-filled addition to any meal.

I have a cashew crusted chicken and stir-fryed veggies with cashew cheese meal idea in my head ...

Making Mother's Day a little greener ...

I'm not really one for Hallmark holidays but I'm feeling a lot of family love lately. We've all been going through a bit of a hard time and since I gave Dad a big birthday surprise, I thought I'd send Mom some love too.

Since I've become totally addicted to TreeHugger, I decided to check there for some interesting and earth friendly ideas. The most obviously, of course, is organic flowers but at $50+ a pop plus shipping they were a bit out of my price range. Fortunately, TreeHugger had both a Mother's Day Gift Guide as well as some other posts on the topic.

My first idea was to go with Equal Exchange Chocolate bars for my chocolate loving mother. I think she would have *loved* them but all the good gift baskets were unavailable until October and I wasn't about to spend $50 on a case of chocolate bars.

Finally, I settled on a Heirloom Tomato plant for my mom and my aunt. My mom grows conventional tomatoes in her garden so it's not too out of her league crazy and it'll introduce her to the super yummy-ness of heirloom tomatoes. And at $20 what could be better!

I'll let you know how it goes over ...