Pioneer Woman's Thai Chicken Pizza

 I went perusing through the Pioneer Woman's cook book, The Pioneer Woman Cooks and noticed a whole pizza section.  I was wanting to try something different other than our too often Supreme.  I came across this option and decided to give it a try.  I've never made Peanut sauce, but I'm a sucker for anything that calls for Peanut butter AND cilantro!  Here is the recipe but I did make some tweaks, those are in RED.

Thai Chicken Pizza

2 garlic cloves, peeled

2 Tablespoons minced fresh ginger (I made it with dry ground ginger)

¼ cup soy sauce

3 teaspoons sesame oil

½ teaspoon fish sauce

1 ½ cups smooth peanut butter

1/2 cup very warm water

2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts (Call me weird, but I actually prefer canned chicken when it comes to pizza toppings)

Salt and pepper to taste

1 recipe Pizza Dough

Olive oil, for drizzling

4 Tablespoons Thai sweet chili sauce (sold in the Asian foods aisle)

12 oz. fresh mozzarella, thinly sliced

1 cup alfalfa or bean sprouts

2 cups shredded carrots

2 cups cilantro leaves

¼ cup chopped peanuts

First, make the peanut sauce.  To the bowl of a food processor or blender, add the garlic and ginger.  Then add the Soy sauce, sesame oil, fish sauce, and the peanut butter.  And the water but blend as you are pouring in.  Check the consistency, give it a taste, and add a little more of whatever it needs! (This is something that threw me off a little because I don't think I have ever had Peanut sauce so I didn't know what it was supposed to taste like, but from what I tasted it needed more ginger and fish sauce.) Add more warm water if it needs thinning.(This was another thing that I needed to change, the recipe called for 1/2 cup of warm water, to get it to a really runny saucey consistency I ended up adding more like 1 cup of warm water if not more)  

Add chili paste to your prepared pizza crust.  (I'm sure I used WAY more than the 4 tbsp of the Thai sweet chili sauce, once I got a whiff of that stuff I knew it was going to be good, and if a little is good then a lot must be even better right?!  And heck ya, it was!)
Next, sprinkle the chicken breasts with salt and pepper, and grill them on both sides until done. Remove from the grill and slice thin.  (You can sauté in a skillet if you prefer.) (Or skip this all together and use the canned chicken)Lay on the mozzarella slices, then the chicken slices. ( I just used shredded mozzarella)
Bake for 12 to 15 minutes, or until the crust is golden and the cheese is bubbly. Throw on as many sprouts as you’d like.
Next, add the shredded carrots and cilantro leaves.
Drizzle with peanut sauce all over the top of the pizza.
End with a sprinkling of chopped peanuts.

Seriously so good!  

Snaggletooth

 Miriam was looking pretty rough!  Her top front teeth had spread W...A...Y out to make room for her adult teeth to come in.  I guess that was a good thing, but then they came back together in the middle and crossed over one another as if knowing their time was almost over and they were clinging to each other for dear life!  Finally one came out, but the other wasn't going to go so easily.  Another week later and Miriam came home from school declaring the tooth was ready! 

 And with one quick YANK! the tooth was out!  I can't help staring at her, it's so funny looking, but such an improvement than one tooth hanging sideways right smack dab in the middle.  I just hope that it doesn't take a really long time for her new teeth to come in, there is plenty O' room and I don't want those other teeth to start meandering in the front zone.

Tonight I made another discovery, pulled pork tasted delicious on pizza!  We made pulled pork sandwiches yesterday and we always end up with lots of meat left over, and usually by the 3 day of eating left overs we are so over it and it just go to waste.  Well, Theo got the idea to put it on the pizza and I thought that would work if we used the BBQ sauce in place of the pizza sauce we normally use.  Oh my, this stuff was seriously so good!  It was hard limiting myself to just one piece!

That brings me to the Accountability Project, I went to the Dietician today and what I heard wasn't as positive as I was hoping.  The good news is that I am doing everything right!  She looked over my food journals, discussed eating habits and exercising routine and everything looks good.  The bad news is I got the fat gene and therefore may never be thin.  She told me that there is lots of science that is yet to be done as to why the body does what it does when it comes to their bodies, and all bodies are different.  She printed out this article for me to read which  basically says if you have the fat gene your body works against you loosing weight.  It's not all bad, it does say that if you are working at it like I am then you just don't get super fat.  I could just throw my hands up, and say screw it and gorge, but then where would I be?  I prefer to eat right, and have the ability to run for miles.  So I'll keep up my routine and continue to try and find my way in the world of food, but from what I'm reading this is going to be a long drawn out process that is going to take years just for the upkeep.  I'm not liking the idea of keeping up with this project for the rest of my life.  So for now I'm ending my project, I was hoping for a more concrete plan, but she just assured me I'm already on the right path, so I'm just going to putter along and hopefully one day I'll be at the weight where I will be happy.

Chicken and Cabbage

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving yesterday, I ate to my hearts content, but didn't over do it.  We spent the day at a friends house eating with her family, and the kids had a blast!  It's so nice being here in NJ I immediately was welcomed here and the friendships that I have made in the few short months feel like they have been life long.  And for that I am extremely Thankful.  I hope everyone else had as good of a celebration as we did.   

I tried to be conservative in the amount of food I ate, I didn't deny myself if I wanted more.  I did go on a 4 mile run to try to off set all the extra calories I knew I was going to be consuming, that way I didn't feel too guilty for eating 2nds of anything.  Regardless of what I think I did right, I'm afraid that the scale won't reflect a negative number this week.  Hopefully it won't be hard to jump back on the diet.  Today was not that day, it was all about the leftovers!  I tried to be good, but there was just too many good leftovers that needed to be eaten.  Luckily we didn't have much left so I won't have to worry about falling off the wagon tomorrow.

This is how I did today:

Pre-Breakfast:
1 cup warm water with lemon and honey
Breakfast:
Apple
Activia
Lunch:
1/2 Sweet Potato casserole
1/2 Green bean casserole
Turkey, no skin
Slice of Cranberry sauce
Layered Pumpkin dessert
Dinner:
Chicken and Cabbage over Mashed Cauliflower
Dessert:
Pumpkin cream cheese pie, that I shared with Theo.
1/2 cup Milk

I love making up my own recipes, tonight I made my Chicken and Cabbage dish that I was influenced by when we went to Hawaii.  Here's the recipe in case you like cabbage as much as I do:

Melt a tablespoon of coconut oil in big pot, I used to use Olive oil, but I love coconut anything and now Costco sells these big tubs of the Organic kind for the same price as a small jar from Wal-Mart!  Bonus!

Tenderize chicken by pounding it out a bit with a mallet.  I used 5 chicken breasts, but I also am feeding a small army.

Chop chicken into bite size pieces and throw in the pot with the melted coconut oil.  Season with salt and pepper.

Once the chicken is cooked, remove to a bowl.

Add 2 cups water.

Add Teriyaki (I don't measure when it comes to cooking, but I would say approximately 1/2 cup - 3/4 cup), and about 1 tsp of ground ginger

I chopped up a whole head of cabbage while the chicken was cooking.

Then add it to the pot with the liquid mixture.

Wilt it down, stirring frequently to distribute the sauce all over the cabbage.

Add the chicken, stir, cover and cook for about 30 minutes.

 I've eaten this over rice usually, but since being on the diet it is awesome over Cauliflower mash.  I just steamed the cauliflower, then added some lite sour cream, salt and pepper.  Then with my hand blender I just puree it all together till it's smooth.  It's sooo good!  I hope you'll try it, and mostly that you will like it.

Halloween Treats

We LOVE Halloween around here.  Theo loves Halloween so much he came into the world on that day, and I love it so much I found a man that was born on Halloween and married him. :)  The downside is it is the beginning of the slippery slope holiday season.  There is no way around it, the candy, the parties, the food, the candy!  And it one right after another...Thanksgiving, then Christmas, then New Year's, then Valentine's, then Easter...then it's swim suit season.  Isn't it such a cruel world! 

But of course I had to contribute to it tonight at the Ward's Halloween party by making my chocolate cupcakes with cookies and cream filling and buttercream icing on top dipped in Oreo cookie crumbs to give the appearance of dirt, then a chocolate covered graham cracker on top with RIP to represent a tombstone. 

They were a big hit, and that just makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.  One lady even told me that was the best tasting cupcake she has ever had!  Now that's a true compliment.  There wasn't one cupcake left! 

This past Monday I made this stuff called Monster Munch that I found on Pinterest:

Oh my goodness...talk about good!  This stuff is freaking awesome!  Popcorn, white chocolate, peanuts, Reese's pieces, candy corn....can it get any better!

But I think I have caught on to something this year and my kids have helped me come to this solution, they loved this stuff so much they wanted to share it with all their teachers.  Tobie has 5 teachers, Miriam has 2, as well as Emma.  So I made up 9 goodie bags with some cute tags and sent off this magnificent munch off.  There was only a little left that I divided between Hannah, Charlotte, Theo and myself.  I didn't pig out, because I gave it away so I wouldn't have enough to pig out with!  I'm so smart.  Ha!  That's what I did with the cupcakes, I taste tested a plain cupcake as they came out of the oven, and then I had only one with all the icing and filling and then gave the rest away.  I feel good about it, I still need to make sure that I run at least 5 miles tomorrow, but at least I don't feel completely riddled with guilt for gorging.  And since I love to bake and cook, this is a win win.  I don't have to give that up, and I can enjoy the rewards of good food.

With this new plan I'm ready to take on this holiday season....Bring it on.

Low Carbing It

To get down in weight in preparation for my Half Marathon in January I'm trying out the Low Carb way again.  I've done it before, and have lost some, but have bounced back up when I'm not doing it. Since my run is in January I just need to get down to a lighter weight so I don't injure my foot again.  If it stays off, then YEAH!  If not, at least I have a better chance avoiding injury.  So I've been searching Pinterest for Low Carb recipes and I came by this one:

Looks yummy, right?!  It's just two ingredients, banana and 2 eggs, simple easy-peasy!  (I would link the site, but they are doing some kind of maintenance, so I can't access the site.)  I was anxious to try them out, but unfortunately mine weren't as pretty:

When I poured the batter into the skillet with my coconut oil I was hopeful that these were going to be great!  Until it came time to flip it.  As I got my spatula under the batter mixture and flipped, the wet batter on top slopped all over the place and the bottom part broke so it wasn't as sturdy and didn't hold up to the flip.  The only thing I can think of that I didn't do right was the size of the patty.  Maybe they should have been like silver dollar pancakes, instead of regular size.  They weren't too bad either.  Eggs and banana without some flour to mellow out the combination was a little odd, but I could see me eating this again.

Sugar Monster

Today has been a total blah to me, and I think I realized my body has a negative reaction to sugar.  I try not to eat very much sugar, we rarely EVER have dessert in our house.  But I have this habit of signing up for the missionaries at least once a week and we HAVE to have dessert then!  Last night was one of those nights.  After schooling our missionaries on real Southern cooking of Shrimp and Grits with a side of Collards and Bacon and a pan of cornbread, I made this:

White Texas Sheet Cake and you can find the recipe HERE.  Oh my goodness, this stuff is like crack!!  Sooo good!!!  I actually had a missionary over in AL that fought my sister for the last piece of this stuff! 

But I really paid for it today.  I felt like a sloth, all I've wanted to do all day is sleep.  I was in my pj's until noon and I still haven't showered today.  I'm still really tired, but I feel like I'm coming out of a brain fog and I seriously think it's because of this sugary piece of heaven. 

Why do things that seem so right have to be so darn bad?!?

Trix Krispies

I found this recipe on Pinterest and thought they looked so pretty I just had to make them! I don't have a picture of the batch that I made because my camera phone is messed up somehow. I guess it's fine, because my Trix Krispies didn't look as pretty. They were colorful, but I was making a lot for the Ward Memorialhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif party so I made them thinner than the picture. Also I found that even though the taste was good, the cereal got a little soggy from the butter, not too bad, just a little chewy. But it really is my fault. I saw this picture and thought it was just a regular Rice Krispies recipe, but now that I have researched the source I see that a few things are different. So even though they were really good I will make sure I use this bloggers recipe instead of trying to improvise.

I have a friend who was at this party who told me that she used to do this all the time in college! That they would actually just use whatever left over cereal there was around. That got my wheels turning! I may get a better turn out with Fruity Peebles, or what about Chocolate Krispies with the Chocolate Peebles, that's what they are called, right?

Anyway, the possibilities are endless! This may be the beginning of a Krispies phenomenon! I may just open a Krispies Boutique like how all the cupcakes got big, this just may be the next best thing! Look for me on Food Network's new show: Kara's Krispies.

Bacon Avocado Pizza

Every Monday night in the Ikner home is pizza night. A friend of mine gave me a super simple pizza dough recipe about 4 years ago and I have been making it weekly ever since. I always do the typical Turkey pepperoni pizza for the kids, but for Theo and I, I like to get a little creative!

One of our favorites has been s Shrimp and Basil, and our Supreme puts all other store bought kinds to SHAME! I noticed an Avocado pizza on another blog the other day and since I have an unnatural obsession with Avocados I just had to give it a try. And to add to the awesomeness I found a recipe for a Bacon and Avocado pizza! I promise I was in pizza heaven!

Here is the recipe in case you have a love of avocados and bacon and pizza as I do:

Pizza dough:

2 tbsp yeast
2 cups hot water
2 tsp salt
4 tsp honey
4 tbsp olive oil
5 cups flour (I like to make mine half white and half wheat)

Mix yeast and water and let sit about 5 minutes to activate the yeast. When bubbly mix other ingredients in. Transfer dough to a greased glass bowl. Cover with a towel and let rise for one hour. Divide into 2 pizzas.
Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Roll dough onto pan and bake for 5 minutes. Take out and top with sauce and whatever toppings you would like. Bake another 12 minutes.

My sauce for 2 pizzas is just 2 cans of diced tomatoes with Italian seasonings and 1 small can of tomato paste, warmed in a pot just so the paste can mix in well.

With the avocado pizza you top with cooked bacon and onion. Cover in mozzarella cheese and then bake for 12 minutes, then when it is done cooking cut up the avocado and put on top. Then sprinkle with cilantro.

DISCLAIMER: Eating this pizza may result in intense or paroxysmal excitement. I do not take responsibility for the sounds you will be making while eating this!