Easy Peasy Dinner and Dessert.

While I absolutely love, love, love to cook, and plan on doing a ton of it during the summer, sometimes time is precious, and I really don't have the time to spend hours chopping, sauteing, and prepping - then cooking something in the oven for an hour.

I've slowly been weaning meat out of my meals (I've actually abstained from it entirely for over a month now) - it's just something that's working for me, but it has absolutely not been easy, since it has meant cooking all my own meals, since obviously I cannot force my family into making this change with me (hello more reasons for my own apartment!).

So when I offered to cook the other night, I wanted something that wouldn't be ridiculously time consuming, would be meat free and healthy, but also totally satisfying.

I headed over to Whole Foods and Trader Joe's, where I loaded up on seasonal fruits and veggies - and at Trader Joe's I found that they have whole-wheat pizza dough for (drumroll please)... $0.99/lb.

This pizza was seriously the easiest thing I have ever made. I slathered it with sauce (pesto on one because my mom isn't a tomato sauce fan, and organic marinara sauce on the other), sprinkled it with low-fat Mexican blend cheese, and then loaded it with vegetables.

Seriously - this summer, if you are in a food rut - try making your own pizza! This was so easy peasy and tasted AMAZING. Plus, it was great to have more than one slice with absolutely no guilt.

There really isn't a recipe, because seriously - use your imagination and do whatever you want with it! Switch the sauce from plain marinara, try different cheeses, put unique toppings - be inventive!

We also only had one pizza stone at my house, so I used a cookie sheet for the second pizza - so don't let a lack of a pizza stone hold you back from trying this either.

Whole wheat pesto pizza [with grilled asparagus, tri-colored peppers, onion, black olives, and carrot].







Whole wheat pizza [with organic marinara sauce, baby spinach, tri-color peppers, red onion, carrot, and grilled asparagus].





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For a complimentary dessert that can help you get in a serving of fruit, I have another ridiculously simple and fool proof recipe for you guys, that I actually made for the first time on Mother's Day and have made for myself probably twenty times since then!

Sometimes it can be a struggle to get your daily servings of fruits and vegetables - I love having fruit for dessert, but sometimes I need just a little bit more.

The recipe is actually for sauteed peaches, but we had over two pounds (thanks, Costco) of strawberries that were basically begging to be used, so I threw them in with the peaches. This recipe can really be tweaked for individual servings, larger servings - whatever you want, but it is delicious and ready in less than five minutes!

Sauteed Peaches (or whatever).
Tweaked from this recipe.
4 servings

Ingredients:

2 tbsp. unsalted butter
2 tbsp. sugar
4 large peaches, sliced and cut into wedges (obviously this is the part that can be tweaked)

Instructions:

1. Slice peaches, or whatever fruit you choose into wedges/slices (don't keep them whole).



2. In a large skillet, melt the butter over medium heat.



3. Stir in the sugar into the melted butter.



4. Add the peaches/fruit into the sugar butter mixture. Stir together until the sugar dissolves (you'll easily be able to tell when this happens).

(Sugar hasn't dissolved yet).


(Dissolved sugar - stops bubbling and turns almost a pinkish color because it blends with peach juice).



5. Cook until peaches/fruit are warm and coated with the sugar/butter mixture (about 2-4 minutes).

Coated and perfect.


6. Serve immediately (with a scoop of ice cream/whipped cream, if you like!).





Seriously - easy peasy and DELICIOUS (and healthy!).

If you guys have any good, low-cal, vegetarian recipes, please send them my way.


Currently listening to: MSTRKRFT ft. John Legend - Heartbreaker