I feel like a broken record. Another snow day. Another day stuck inside. Today we made the best of it and I kept my complaining to a minimum. We made Valentines, watched an episode of Sesame Street, built 100 block towers and “cooked” in Liv’s kitchen…among a lot of other things.

I like involving Liv in baking when I can, but for now that usually lasts a good 30-50 seconds. She helped me mix some ingredients and then had better things to do. This is the first snow day that I actually baked something…I don’t know what I was waiting for.

Lindsay posted this recipe for grain free chocolate coconut chia bread and it looked delicious. I went to make it and realized I had to tweak it quite a bit to fit what I had in the house and to be able to share it with Liv (because of the protein powder factor in LC’s recipe.)

I love this recipe because it has very little sugar in it. Lindsay’s has no sugar, but I decided to add 2 tbsp, which is barely anything per slice. (Makes about 15 slices, which is less than 1/2 tsp per slice from the turbinado sugar)

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Just a note: This bread isn’t overly sweet (more like mildly sweet), but with the banana and chocolate chips it doesn’t need to be. If you like your banana bread on the sweeter side, you can up the sugar to 1/4 cup. I will be enjoying this tomorrow morning with a glob of peanut butter. It goes perfectly with a cup of coffee…I had to test it out to make sure for you.

Toddler approved!

Let me know if you make this!

We have a pizza night weekly. Sometimes it’s Friday, but recently it’s been more likely to be Saturday or Sunday. I love the ease of making homemade pizza and I think it ALWAYS tastes better when it’s made at home. Don’t you agree? (Unless you’re doing something like moving or painting…then it always tastes better made at a pizza place.)

I make pizza dough in my cuisinart breadmaker that I got for my wedding shower. I use it weekly and it still works. I need a new bread pan, but I haven’t ordered it yet, but it still gets the job done!

I often play with this dough recipe, replacing upto 2 cups of the flour with some proportion of garbanzo bean flour, polenta, oats or oat flour. I like to play with the taste. I ONLY play with the recipe when I’m making the pizza in the oven. It will NOT hold up on the grill if you play with it. (All summer we’ve been making grill pizzas, so I’ve been using straight whole wheat flour.)

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A note about cooking the crust:

I use either a pizza stone or a pizza pan (like this one) to bake my crust. I like to pre-bake my crust to get it extra crispy. I bake it at 400 degrees for 10-12 minutes with no toppings. If I’m making arugula or salad pizza I’ll bake it for 12 minutes and then top it and eat.

*If you want to read more about how to make grill pizzas, check out this post. It WON’T fall through the grill!

My favorite pizzas to make are:

Margarita:

• 1 (14 oz) can of diced tomatoes (regular or with chilis to give it a kick)
• fresh mozzarella
• basil
• sea salt, pepper, oregano to taste

Salad:

• shredded mozzarella
• lettuce of your choosing
• tomatoes
• greek olives
• cucumber
• red peppers (roasted or raw)

Lay down mozzarella cheese first to melt in oven. After it melts, top with salad toppings and enjoy!

Arugula Pizza:

• goat cheese
• arugula
• roasted red peppers
• avocado

Place toppings on warm baked crust and enjoy.

Veggie:

• tomato sauce (I season a can of plain with oregano, garlic, salt & pepper)
• chopped broccoli, zucchini, peppers, mushroom
• mozzarella (fresh or shredded)

Put toppings on a pre-baked crust. Bake for an additional 10-15 minutes. (I do sauce, veggies, then cheese.)

Yum. Now I’d like some pizza for breakfast.

Any questions? What are your favorite pizza toppings?

Hi! I’m so happy that you all enjoyed my post about my road to recovery! Thank you for the supportive comments and tweets. I really appreciate it!

I’m getting into this early morning groove! I hope though that eventually 5 am becomes my workout time (5-5:30) and then I can get work done during naps 1 & 2 instead of using this time to do work. That’s the plan…but we all know what they say about those.

The weekends have been spent relaxing, straightening up my disaster of a house and having visitors. We are so lucky with all of the family and friends that want to visit Liv…and bring amazing presents. If anyone thought I was spoiled as a kid (okay, still…) then Liv takes it to a whole new level. We will be having lots of lessons in her life to teach her how to be grateful/thankful/appreciative AND giving.

With all the company we’ve been having, I finally decided to get on the ball and have something on the table when people get here. (Okay, it was just getting in the oven when my cousins got here on Saturday…but it made it out in time!) I wanted to make something super easy that was semi-healthy, tasty, chocolately AND fed a bunch of people.

Enter…Whole Wheat Chocolate Chip Banana Loaf….what a name, right?  I wish I had a picture, but I don’t. It was delicious and loved by everyone…except my sister who despises (the very subtle taste) of banana!

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I promise this will be a hit with any company you may have….or just with you!

Let me know if you try it!

Have a great day!

P.S. If you want some tasty granola…I may have left the coupon code MONDAY up still at Blissful Eats just for my readers! Use it for 15% off your organic, gluten free & kosher granola order! I’ll leave it up for the day!

Morning! How’s your day going so far?

I got up and out for a little run this morning. I’ve found that my Tuesday runs are the hardest. I seem to need to walk more and am slower than I am on Thursday and Saturday. I have no clue why, but I just truck along, taking walking breaks when I need to. Is running hard while pregnant? Well, yes and no. I’m such in the habit of exercising it’s pretty easy for me to get out of the door. Is it physically HARD? It’s challenging, but I’m running slow so it’s not like I’m huffing and puffing. Some days are better than others, that’s for sure. But the key for me is to stay flexible in my running plans, walk when I need to and just feel good.

Anyway, tangent.

I have been loving pizza in my pregnancy. Well, honestly, I’ve always loved pizza but I didn’t eat it *that* much. Maybe 1-2x a month. Now since I’m embracing my wants I’ve been eating pizza about 1 time a week. When I say pizza, I mean homemade pizza, by the way. I just prefer my homemade pizza to a pizza place’s pizza. I’ve been switching it up with toppings, making flat breads, different sauces, etc, so I don’t get bored.

I wanted to share my recipe for pizza dough today since I’ve been making it umm…a lot. I make it in my bread machine, but you could make it in a mixer or by hand as well.

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*Depending on how I’m feeling, sometimes I’ll use 1/2 spelt flour, 1/2 whole wheat. If I’m getting really creative, I’ll use some quinoa or chickpea flour (up to about 1/2 cup) just to add a different flavor to the dough. It slightly changes the texture of the dough, but it’s delicious.

One pizza I’ve been loving lately:

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For me, this pizza is amazing. I’m certainly not all about gorging while pregnant and I feel like making my own pizza is a balance between eating healthy whole grain food & indulging.

What meal have you been loving lately?