basil

Herbal Limeade

July 26, 2018

Herbal limeade is one of those things that you don’t really know what you are missing until you try it. It doesn’t necessarily sound all that appetizing or refreshing, but I guarantee it is both!

My love of herbal limeade started thanks to one of my favorite restaurants in Charlotte. They make this amazing limeade that is actually blended with rosemary, mint, and basil. It’s definitely more herbal than limeade, but it totally works!

It’s like a green drink that you actually WANT to drink.

Since I can’t get my hands on their herbal limeade around Atlanta, I thought I would venture into making my own! My version is more limeade than herbal, but it’s still totally delicious and extra refreshing.

Perfect for Summer!

How to Make It

Start by making your herbal simple syrup. If you have your own herb garden, raid it for a few sprigs of rosemary, mint, and a couple basil leaves. The main flavors in this limeade are rosemary and mint, so you will want more of those two.

Place the sugar, water, herbs, and the zest of one lime into a small saucepan. Let it simmer until all the sugar has dissolved. Then turn off the heat and let the simple syrup cool with the zest and herbs still in there to extract as much flavor as possible!

While that cools, squeeze the heck out of a bunch of limes (and a few lemons). Limes are stubborn little suckers and don’t give up their juice easily, so if you have a juicer NOW is the time to use it!

Strain the lime juice into a fresh container to get rid of any seeds or pulp (unless that’s your jam), then strain the simple syrup to remove the herbs and zest.

Add the syrup to the lime juice then add enough water until it suits your taste. I typically stick to 1 part lime juice to 2-3 parts water.

Stick a few more sprigs of rosemary and mint in there to keep the herbal flavor alive and well while you sip on your delicious, refreshing, and (dare I say) healthy (?) beverage!

Tools and Recipe

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Basil Pesto Hummus Recipe

March 15, 2017

Hummus is one of my favorite snacks. I pack it with my lunch along with some carrots and celery sticks for a healthy afternoon snack. Sometimes when my husband is out of town, I will just eat carrots and hummus for dinner. Don’t judge, guys. Sometimes even I don’t feel like cooking dinner! And carrots and hummus is a lot healthier than eating a carton of ice cream.

Which I have definitely never done. (She says as she looks around the room nervously.)

I buy so much hummus, sometimes I forget how easy it is to make at home. One of my favorite “flavors” to make at home is pesto hummus. I love pesto. I love hummus. Why not put the two together!?

One of the tricks I have picked up over the years of making my own hummus is microwaving the chickpeas in a little bit of the canning liquid before you blend them. It just makes the hummus so much more creamy!

Also, can someone remind me next time I am taking picture in the kitchen to not wear a pink or red shirt. Geez! That pink glare is terrible!

Once the chickpeas are nice and toasty from the microwave, add them to a food processor then in the rest of the party- chickpeas, tahini, garlic, basil, and a bit of Parmesan. Then turn on your food processor and let that bad boy do the work for you.

In seconds you will have delicious basil pesto hummus!

Of course this pesto hummus would make a great dip – pairing perfectly with pita chips and veggies! It would also be a great spread for sandwiches and wraps, or you can just put a big dollop on your salad.

But I am just happy eating this delicious basil-chickpea dip with a big bad full of carrots.

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Frittata Pizza

January 9, 2017

Do you love pizza? But are you restricted by your low-carb diet? I have the solution for you!!

I hope you read that in the most “info-mercial voice you could think of.

But seriously….I do have the solution for you!

In an effort to try to get my eating back on track after the holidays, I have been trying to cut back on some of the carbs in my diet. Other than the 4 cookies I just scarffed down, it’s been going pretty well. That’s not to say I haven’t had cravings for some of my favorite foods. I have definitely missed my peanut butter toast in the mornings. But I have also found some good alternatives, like this frittata pizza!

When my husband was out of town last week I was looking for something easy to cook for just myself with what I had available. Since we always have eggs, a frittata seemed like a good, healthy option. But pizza is actually what I had a hankering for. So I combined the two!

I started by blistering a handful of cherry tomatoes in the pan. Since I wasn’t going to use any sauce, these tomatoes gave me the same tomato flavor that I would expect on a pizza.

Then I poured in a mixture of eggs, egg whites, oregano, basil, Parmesan cheese, salt, and pepper and let the eggs start to solidify. Once a layer of cooked egg had formed on the bottom and around the edges, I used a spatula to pull in the sides so that the uncooked egg could spill over into the gap.

Once most of the egg had cooked, I sprinkled on some mozzarella cheese and then placed some pepperonis on top. Then I placed the entire frittata under the broiler so the cheese could melt and the rest of the egg could cook.

Once it was done, I topped it with some fresh basil, crushed red pepper, and some more Parmesan. I’m trying to reduce the carbs, not the cheese!

After one bite, this totally hit the spot. It definitely satisfied any craving I had for pizza! While you can’t totally replace the crunchy traditional pizza crust, somehow the egg “crust” was perfectly enjoyable. I think it’s the Parmesan mixed in with the eggs that makes the whole thing just taste like melted cheese. I mean, how could you not love it?

I would make this frittata pizza again in a heart beat! Not only is it a tad healthier (depending on which macro-nutrient you are trying to avoid), from start to finish, the whole thing took about 15 minutes or less. It was the perfect meal to for just one person. If we are being honest, it’s probably plenty of food for two. But of course I ate the whole thing myself.

It was just that good!

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Caprese Mac and Cheese

September 8, 2014

You know whats funny? Prior to this year, I probably hadn’t eaten a full portion of mac and cheese since college (I won’t tell you how long ago that was, but it was more than a few years). But maybe now that I am married and don’t have to worry about fitting in a wedding dress, I have been trying out a few different mac and cheese recipes (including a vegan one!). Even though mac and cheese isn’t super healthy, I try to balance out my guilt by packing it with lots of other vegetables. In the case of this caprese mac and cheese, I have loaded it with sun dried tomatoes and a basil-spinach pesto.

Since this is a caprese mac and cheese, I used mozzarella cheese instead of cheddar. I also tried to lighten it up by using low-fat milk and Greek yogurt instead of cream and lots of butter. Don’t worry, there is still a bit of butter in there, but not much.

I prefer whole wheat pasta normally, so that is what I used here. Sometimes whole wheat macaroni can be hard to find, so if you have trouble finding it you can use any other short and squat noddle, like penne, fusilli, or bow tie. If you are gluten-free, you can even use brown rice pasta noodles.

Once the pasta is cooked up, I mix in the drained sun dried tomatoes. I then pour the creamy cheese sauce over top and mix thoroughly until all the pasta is covered. Then I spoon in the pesto and fold in so it is sort of marbled through out the pasta.

I dump the pasta into a glass baking dish then top with bread crumbs, spices, and Parmesan cheese and bake until golden brown.

The resulting mac and cheese is extremely creamy and definitely takes on that pesto flavor. The pieces of tomato are nice to balance out the flavor of the herbs and the creaminess of the cheese.

While it is definitely not health food, its nice to still get a decent portion of veggies in this mac and cheese!

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Grilled Peach and Prosciutto Pizza

July 23, 2014

There are a few things to me that are quintessential to summer. 2 of them are grilling out and peaches.

To kick off my “summer vacation” (the week off I had between jobs), my husband combined those two things with our favorite Friday meal, pizza, to create the grilled peach and prosciutto pizza.

I have to admit, we had never grilled pizza before. So what follows are some guidelines that we should have followed, not exactly what we did do.

We started with some gorgeous and juicy peaches from the previous weekends farmers market haul, prosciutto, mozzarella, basil, and ricotta. I would also highly recommend mixing in some garlic into the ricotta and drizzling balsamic on top. While the pizza was delicious, those two things would have added some more depth of flavor.

The first thing we did was grilled off the pizza dough. We placed the dough right on the grill over in direct heat. What we should have done was heat up the grill with the cover down until the thermometer read 400 degrees. While the grill is heating up, you can prep the dough and all the other ingredients, then once its hot toss the dough on there and cook on each side for a few minutes.

Once the dough was a bit crispy and more crust like, I removed them from the grill and started layering on the ingredients, starting with the ricotta, the prosciutto, peaches, cheese, and then the basil.

We put the pizzas back on the grill over indirect heat and closed the top to let them cook for another couple minutes until the cheese got nice and bubbly.

Grilling pizza really isn’t all too different from cooking them in the oven. I really enjoyed the extra flavor that we got from the direct fire. There is something about that charred flavor from the grilling and the sweetness from the peaches that make this the perfect summer meal.

Do you grill pizzas? What are some of your favorite flavors?

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