I mentioned recently that I’m trying to learn a bit more about cooking, and I’m trying out a lot of new recipes. I tend toward recipes that seem at least moderately healthy and not too complicated. I thought I’d let you know how things are going and about a few recipes that we really loved – and thought you might like as well!

One thing I love making is homemade pizza. I haven’t been making it much lately because there has been some dieting going on around here, and between the fat of the cheese, the sugar in the store-bought marinara sauce I usually use, and the oil in the dough, this didn’t seem to really make the “healthy” cut. But I’ve been revising this lately and it’s been going pretty well.

First, I changed my dough recipe. I had been using the olive oil dough recipe from Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day, but switched to using the standard boule master recipe, which has no added fat. I might actually like this better for the pizza. It’s a little lighter and airier. (Incidentally, if you haven’t tried it this dough freezes nicely. I typically make a batch and divide into 3 parts. I make a pizza fresh with one part and freeze the other two parts for pizzas over the next few weeks.)

Also, the pizza above has no sauce and only a small amount of grated fresh parmesan. What I did put on it was leftover cooked chicken and some yellow pepper. I’ve taken to throwing whatever is leftover in the fridge on the pizza, and I find I’m willing to put a lot more things on it when I don’t have to worry about whether I think it will go with the tomato sauce. Last time it was roma tomatoes, blanched broccoli, and bell pepper. But it’s a tad dry sometimes. So I’m still working out the kinks here.

I also found some blueberries in my freezer from the end of last season and was looking for something healthier than muffins or scones (or sweet pancakes) to put them in. This blueberry oat quick bread recipe from The Kitchn turned out to be just the ticket. The fat comes from some buttermilk – no other oil or butter is added.

I quite like this and think it would have been even better if I had added the eggs to the sugar and milk to mix thoroughly before adding to the dry ingredients. Instead, I mixed the sugar and milk but put the eggs in the dry, so I may have mixed this batter a little too much. But I have declared it a success. We’ll see what the husband thinks when he’s up from his nap and has a taste. FYI, if you make this, it doesn’t really brown much on the top.

I’ve also been wanting to test out making something that could replace standard sandwich bread. I can’t deal with crusty bread for sandwiches. I need a softer crust for everyday sandwich eating, but would love something tastier than the usual supermarket bread. So, I’m trying the buttermilk sandwich loaf recipe from Artisan Bread. We’ll see how that goes.

Some other dishes that have gotten the thumbs up around here lately:

Coconut Curry Chicken Soup: This was a lesson in my standard neglect to taste a dish until I sit down to eat. I used homemade chicken broth that I had not added any salt to and then didn’t add any while cooking either because the recipe didn’t call for any. Needless to say, it needed salt. We skipped the hot chiles at the end (my red curry paste is quite hot). This did turn out somewhat difficult to eat. Our friend that we gave some to said, “I was sad that I had selected a spoon to eat it with,” when told that my hubby found it a little hard to eat. I went with the Asian combination of spoon with chopsticks. Breaking up the rice noodles into little pieces would make it easier, but make me feel like a 4 year old. Overall this recipe was pretty tasty, quite easy to make, and contains yummy vegetables (spinach and snow peas) that we often don’t eat enough of around here.

Prosciutto, Pear, and Blue Cheese Sandwiches: I know this doesn’t sound ridiculously healthy, but in my defense this recipe is from Cooking Light and has nutrition info listed that is not that bad. THIS WAS SCRUMPTIOUS! This required me to broil bread, which I don’t think I’ve ever done before (no, I’ve never made garlic bread. Don’t ask me why.). So, I burnt the @!#!% out of the first batch (apologies to my fellow apartment dwellers about the smoke alarm!). But it all came together deliciously in the end. And so easy. No actual cooking, which is great. We may switch to toasting the bread instead of broiling in the summer when our un-airconditioned kitchen turns into a sauna and I don’t want to generate any heat of any kind if possible.

Curly Endive Salad with Potato, Bacon and Poached Eggs: I found versions of this recipe here, here, and here. I had a ton of curly endive left from the sandwiches (even though we ate them two nights), and was looking for something easy to do. This was definitely the ticket. I did the red wine vinegar/olive oil dressing on the endive, and roasted the shallot with some small potatoes (the shallots I got were really strong and we’d kind of had our fill of them raw). Topped with a little bacon and actually two poached eggs. Like breakfast on a salad. Poaching eggs was also something I’d never done before. Totally hilarious that for the first egg I missed the instruction to TURN DOWN THE HEAT on the boiling water to a simmer before adding the egg. Right. So that egg bit the dust, but the rest of them were totally edible if not stunningly beautiful. This recipe also got two big thumbs up at my house, so it will definitely be going into the regular rotation. So simple and delicious – this is the kind of go-to meal I need to have in my aresenal!

And just so you don’t think there isn’t any sewing or knitting going on around here, I’m finally on the solid color border on my shawl (yippee! being down to one ball of yarn instead of three means I can occasionally take this with me somewhere again), and I’ve made a little progress toward making a couple of those quilts I talked about doing.

I have acquired the necessary batting to make all five quilts, and I have prepared the front pieces for the two quilts out of the huge poppy fabric (okay, that just took cutting the piece in half and trimming the edges), and pieced the backings for both of those. So, I’m ready to baste these two together whenever I get motivated. Maybe Tuesday? Once I start on a project, I hate to let it sit around forever, so there will hopefully be more progress on these quilts soon!