spinach

I've been having a love/hate relationship with food throughout my pregnancy. The last month or so my stomach has felt much better but food still tastes just so-so and some things like winter squash, sweet potatos, and some cooking greens are paricularly unappealing. Needless to say this means I have not been particularly creative with pizza (or really any meal) lately. But at least now I have the energy to post our pizza. (I noticed a couple pizza's from November on my camera when I uploaded last night's pics that apparently I completely forgot about.)


Last night's pizza

• homemade whole wheat crust
  
• pesto sauce (from our freezer!)
• onions and mushrooms sauteed in olive oil
  
• spinach
• green bell pepper
• and of course, we passed the nutritional yeast and hot pepper flakes at the table
  

I always love the thought of spinach on pizza and often fall for it when ordering at a pizza place. But of course, especially without any cheese on top of the spinach it always turns crispy and flavorless on a restaurant pizza. We had a pizza like this recently that was very disappointing. To keep my spinach moist and flavorful I saute it just until softened before placing it on the dough. Using frozen spinach would work as well.

This pizza was only so-so, we both rated it a 6. The spinach was great but it just needed a stronger flavor to accompany it. I'm thinking that faux feta would be good or perhaps (for a soy free option) some pickled jalapenos.

southwestern flair in green

It has been awhile since we've made pizza, mostly because it has been too hot to turn on the oven lately. This week we have been getting some thunderstorms and rain which is really cooling things off so I fired up the oven and made a pizza last night - yum!

It was a rather unusual pizza that I made, but it tasted pretty good. I made my own whole wheat pizza crust (actually half whole wheat and half white flour). The sauce was an herb & black bean puree which had cilantro, basil, garlic scapes, garlic, cumin, lime, nutritional yeast, salt, and obviously, black beans. For toppings, I sauteed some summer squash and mushrooms and I also added slices of avocado when the pizza came out of the oven. As always we passed red pepper flakes and more nutritional yeast at the table.

On the new 10 point scale we give this a 7. It looked pretty in a rather monochromatic way but some brilliant red would have enhanced the visual apeal as well as the flavor. My preference would have been some slices of fresh tomato (the tomatoes at the farm are still green so we won't be seeing them for another week or so.) K suggested roasted red peppers on his half which I agree would taste good as well. I might also throw some olives on next time.