pizza // spicy thai

More pizza!  This time with a Thai twist.

It's no secret around here that Jordyn and I love Thai food.  We're in love with peanut sauce, honey, garlic, curries, and the spiciness that often comes along with classic Thai dishes.  This pizza was born after Clara took me (Kelsey) to Famoso Neopolitan Pizza for my birthday this winter, and I tried their Spicy Thai pizza.  It was divine.  I came home and told Jordyn that we needed to try and replicate it.

So we did!

There's so much goodness going on in this pizza.  We started with a peanut sauce base, added in some chicken, a ton of veggies, some cheese, and topped it with chopped peanuts, cilantro and lime wedges!

Oh yum.

And don't be scared of the peanut sauce!  Take a step out of your comfort zone, and your taste buds will be super happy.

---

Thai Pizza

Directions:

1)  For the pizza crust you can make your own (you can find our recipe here!), or just use a pre-made one!  Bake it, and then set aside as you get your sauce and toppings ready.

2)  In a small frying pan, gently sautee your garlic in the olive oil.  Stir and cook for several minutes, and then set aside.

3)  In a small saucepan, stir together peanut butter, honey, and soy sauce until everything is melted and combined.  

4)  Stir in your garlic, chili pepper flakes, ginger, sesame oil and water.

5)  Gently simmer, stirring constantly, until sauce has thickened slightly.

6)  Spread sauce over pizza crust.  Add toppings to your heart's desire, and cover with cheese.  

7)  Pop your pizza back into the oven on broil, and wait until the cheese is nice and melty.   **We left off the carrots and bean sprouts until after the cheese was melted!
*For the toppings, we found that adding (way) more than you think is the way to go.  It'll be a bit messy, but oh so good!

8)  Now cut your pizza, serve, and enjoy!

Ingredients:

1 cooked pizza crust (recipe here!)

Thai Peanut Sauce:

1 tsp olive oil

1 clove of garlic, minced

6 tablespoons peanut butter 

3 tablespoons honey 

3 tablespoons soy sauce (low sodium) 

1/2 teaspoons chili pepper flakes (or more) 

½ tsp ginger 

2 tsp sesame oil 

1/4 cup water

Toppings:

1 green onion, chopped

1-2 cups of cooked chicken, chopped

1/4 cup peanuts, chopped

1/4 cup cilantro, chopped

1-2 cups shredded mozzarella

1 cup bean sprouts

1 large carrot, sliced finely

---

Please go make this asap!  Your stomach/family/friends will thank you!

-kelsey & jordyn

p.p.s. here's our classic pizza recipe in case you want something a bit more tame.

pizza // the classic

This simple and tasty pizza was inspired by a very good friend of our family, Thabang.  Thabang lives in Lesotho, (a small country surrounded by South Africa) and we had the pleasure of working with him for a year while he was in Canada learning about farming through a volunteer exchange program.  Thabang became part of our family, and would often come over for family dinners.  Whenever we would ask what he wanted to eat, he would almost always request "Homemade Chicken and Mushroom Pizza".

As we continued making pizzas, we started experimenting with more ingredients, adding more veggies, and some feta cheese for an extra kick!  This pizza has something for everyone in our family, caramelized onion and peppers, sauteed chicken and mushrooms, and my personal favourite, spinach!! 

Every time I make homemade pizza I think of Thabang.  I sincerely wish that he could come over to share this pizza with us, and have another family pizza night. 

Feel free to add more or less of any ingredients, leave out the mushrooms, add olives, pile on the spinach.  Make it your own!  And try not to eat the entire thing by yourself, you have to make sure you have leftovers so you can have cold pizza for breakfast the next day!

Classic Pizza

Ingredients:

1 cooked pizza crust (

recipe here!

)

2 tbsp olive oil

1/2 cup sweet onion

1 red pepper

5 large mushrooms

2 cloves of garlic

1-2 cups of chopped cooked chicken

1-2 cups of spinach

Cheddar Cheese (approx 4 cups grated)

Feta Cheese (half a cup crumbled)

Pizza sauce

Directions:

1)  Preheat oven to 350 F (or just leave it on if you are making a homemade pizza!)

2)  Heat olive oil on medium/high heat in a large frying pan.

3)  Once hot, add sliced onions, peppers and mushrooms.

4)  After the veggies have been cooking for 5-6 minutes add minced garlic and turn the heat down to medium.  Continue cooking veggies until the onions start to caramelize, this may take about 5-7 more minutes.  

5)  Add chicken to this mixture and stir until chicken is hot.

6)  Turn the burner off, and stir in roughly chopped spinach (this will wilt the spinach, but hopefully not cook it too much.  You don't want to obliterate your spinach, just warm it up).

7)  Spread pizza sauce on your cooked pizza crust, follow with your delicious veggie and chicken mixture, and top it all off with grated cheddar cheese and a bit of crumbled feta.

8)  *Bake in 350 F oven for 8 minutes, or until the cheese has melted and starts bubbling (we like to broil our pizza so the cheese starts browns a bit/gets crunchy!)

*This is our method for baking pizza, it assumes that you just took the hot homemade crust out of the oven, and that your top ingredients (ex. chicken, sauteed veggies) are already hot for the most part.  If you are using a crust that has not just been baked, you may have to adjust the baking time.

This pizza always hits the spot!  Loaded with veggies, chicken, and tons of cheese, there is never a complaint in our house about this pizza.  It is perfect on our homemade pizza crust, but also is really tasty on pita bread if you are in a hurry, or with cauliflower pizza crust for a gluten free alternative!

p.s. 

♥

 jordyn & kelsey

chicken vegetable soup (aka: clean out the fridge soup)

My family loves soup.  In addition to our "What's new Wednesday" - the day we try out a brand new recipe, "Fish Taco Friday" - the day we have fish tacos (

recipe here!

), we also have "Soup Saturday".

Yeah we really like alliterations.  And food.

If you haven't figure it out yet, "Soup Saturday" is the day we have soup. It is also bun day, (hmmm do we need an alliteration for that? Wheat Weekend?)  so we often have soup to complement my mother's delicious home made buns.  

We made this recipe when my parents were vacationing in Arizona (with our Grandparents, no fair!), so we didn't have any fresh homemade buns to enjoy.  So, on her way home from work, Kelsey stopped by a local farmer's market and picked up a fresh baked baguette!  It was delicious, and we even added some cheese and broiled it to make some cheesy bread.  It was the best.

Chicken Vegetable Soup

by: Jordyn Siemens

Ingredients:

2 tbsp oil

1 sweet onion

3 cloves of garlic

4 carrots

4 celery stalks

3 red potatoes

1/2 zucchini

1/2 large yam

1 can of black beans

1 cup of corn

1 tsp thyme

2 tsp oregano

salt and pepper to taste

6 cups chicken broth (more or less)

2 chicken breasts (chopped and sauteed)

Directions:

1) Chop everything into bite size pieces (finely chop your garlic)

2) In a large pot on medium heat, heat one tablespoon of oil.  Add onions and saute until translucent, then add garlic and stir to incorporate.

3) Add chopped carrots, celery, potatoes, and zucchini and saute until they start to get soft, then add the chopped yam.

4) Once everything is tender, add black beans and corn.

5) Stir in spices, and add chicken broth.  Bring soup to a boil, and let simmer to fully cook the vegetables.

6) While soup is simmering, heat one tablespoon of oil in a large frying pan, and saute the chopped chicken breast until cooked all the way through.

7) Once the vegetables are fully cooked, add the cooked chicken.

8) Serve!

This soup recipe is super easy, and you can add/subtract any of the ingredients quite easily.  Add any random veggies you have in your fridge - broccoli, cauliflower, chopped brussels sprouts, or add chickpeas instead of black beans. Whatever suits your fancy!

p.s.

 ♥ jordyn &

 kelsey

skinny fettuccine alfredo

Not all food is photogenic.  That is the lesson of this week. Ha.

#foodphotographerproblems.

Did I just hashtag in a blog post?  Yep.  I do what I want.

Honestly, I'm quite enjoying this new venture into photographing actual meals instead of just sweets, and I can't believe it's taken me so long to get around to it.  Although I must say that this dish was an interesting challenge since I had no idea how to make a pile of noodles look mouthwatering.

Cupcakes or ice cream?  The camera loves them.  Pasta?  Yikes.

Now, Jordyn is the master chef (yet again), and this recipe is her baby.  Our family loves pasta, but we also love trying to make things a bit healthier.  This "skinny" version of uses greek yogurt in place of butter and cream, and it's oh so creamy and delicious!  And it's packed full of protein, so you can easily leave out the chicken if you wish.

Skinny Chicken Alfredo

serves: ~4

recipe by: jordyn

Ingredients:

2 cups broccoli

4 large carrots

1 cup brussel sprouts, halved

assorted spices (salt/seasoning salt, pepper, garlic powder)

1 tablespoon olive oil

3 chicken breasts, cut into bite sized pieces and sauteed

8 ounces fettuccine

1 tablespoon olive oil

3 garlic cloves, minced 

2 tablespoons flour

1 cup chicken broth

1/3 cup plain greek yogurt

black pepper to taste

1/2 cup Parmesan cheese (freshly grated is the best, but whatever you have works!)

Directions: 

1. Chop all the vegetables into bite size pieces and spread out on one or two greased cookie sheets (we like lots of vegetables so we did it on two)

2. Sprinkle with your choice of spices.  We did salt, pepper and garlic powder.

3. Roast at 350 for 15-20 minutes, or until a desired roasty-ness is reached.  Set aside.

4. In a medium sized saucepan, heat olive oil at medium heat.  Add minced garlic and saute, stirring often, until golden brown.  This should only take a couple of minutes, be careful not to burn the garlic!

5. Turn the garlic down to low, and measure out 2 tablespoons of flower into a bowl/measuring device.  Slowly incorporate 1 cup of chicken broth into the flour (start off with about a tablespoon of broth, or else you might get lumps! and then slowly add more).

6. Add the chicken broth mixture to the saucepan.

7. Add 1/3 cup of greek yogurt to the saucepan, bring to a boil, stir constantly.

8. Lower the heat and let it simmer for about 3 minutes, it should begin to thicken.

9. Incorporate 1/2 cup of parmesan cheese.

10. Cook fettuccine.

11. Heat 1 table spoon of olive oil in a large frying pan/wok over medium-high heat.

12. Chop chicken breasts into bite sized pieces, add them to the frying pan and saute until fully cooked (about 5-7 minutes). 

13. Once everything is ready to go, combine it in a large frying pan/wok and heat through.

14. Serve with a sprinkle of fresh parmesan!

Also, can we talk about how awesome daylight savings is?  I know it sucks "losing" an hour of sleep, but man do I think it's worth it.  I went out to feed our chickens and collect eggs at 7:30 and it was still light out!  Sweet.

p.s.

 ♥ kelsey & jordyn

superfood salad (with shrimp)

Hold up....this is a post about food, and yet there is no caramel or chocolate in sight.

Jordyn and I have really really been wanting to start sharing our favourite meals (in addition to all the desserts we love) here on the blog, not only to share with all of you, but for ourselves and friends to have easy access to our everyday recipes.  So, be prepared (hopefully) for more legitimate meals to be appearing here.

Don't worry, there will always be a healthy dose of sweets as well!

Anywho....this is superfood salad!  It actually does have superpowers....since I'm not a huge fan of pomegranates or oranges, but since eating this salad I have been converted.  There is so much protein and goodness going on in this salad, that it makes a wonderful lunch or supper, or even a great side dish.

Superfood Salad

(heavily) adapted from:

Iowa girl eats

Ingredients:

3 cups quinoa, cooked

1/2 white onion, diced finely

2 oranges, chopped into bite-sized pieces

1 to 2 avocados, chopped

1 can black beans, rinsed and drained

1 pomegranate (seeded)

1 3/4 cup frozen corn, thawed

1/2 cup cilantro, chopped

Vinaigrette:

2 limes, juiced (you can substitute lemons! whatever you have on hand)

1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil

2 garlic cloves, finely minced

salt & pepper; to taste

Optional:

12-15 Shrimp  (or grilled chicken would be great as well!)

1)  In a large bowl, combine quinoa, onion, oranges, avocados, black beans, pomegranate seeds, corn and cilantro.

2)  In a small bowl, mix together all vinaigrette ingredients.  Pour over salad, and toss.

3)  If cooking shrimp, brush a bit of vinaigrette onto them (before pouring it over the rest of the salad), then saute on high heat, just a couple minutes on each side.  Serve on top of salad!

Mmmhhh....I'm totally obsessed with this salad right now.  There are leftovers in our fridge that our calling my name right now.  Second supper anyone?

Hope you enjoyed this venture into "grown up food"!

p.s.

 ♥ kelsey (& jordyn)