Recipe: Pesto Pizza

Let the culinary adventures continue! A student in my July session mentioned that she prepared Greek Pizza using pesto as her pizza base, rather than using a tomato-based sauce. I love pesto, but to bring down the calories and fat while still enjoying plenty of sauce, I experimented with adding pesto to white sauce. It was a huge hit with my family: Even my meat-loving son preferred it to the other pizzas we made that night.

Cook's Note: I used lowered-fat, reduced sodium canned condensed cream of chicken soup as my "white sauce" base, but if you prefer to make your own white sauce, it's easy to do: Combine 1 cup of milk with 1 tablespoon of flour in a container with a lid, and shake well. Add the mixture to a saucepan with a teaspoon or two of butter or margarine. Cook on medium-high, stirring constantly, until sauce thickens (do not allow mixture to boil).

Pesto Pizza

Ingredients:

1 (10.5-ounce) can lowered-fat, reduced sodium canned condensed cream of chicken soup (see Cook's Note)
3 tablespoons prepared pesto
2 pizza crusts
Pizza toppings, as desired (I used chopped poached chicken, diced eggplant, and diced tomato)
1 cup shredded Mozzarella cheese

Directions:

Combine soup and pesto in small bowl. Spread half of mixture on each pizza. Layer with toppings and cheese. Cook, following pizza crust manufacturer's directions or pizza crust recipe. Buon appetito!

Recipe: Tiramisu

At the end of last school year, my daughter wrote a report titled "The Way Italians Eat," and we prepared tiramisu for her to share with her class. If you've taken my online class "Luscious," you know that desserts aren't my forte, and it won't come as a surprise to learn we used a recipe, which I'd never tried before.

I've only had tiramisu once before, but I still remembered it, and the recipe we prepared was a huge disappointment. So, I set to work developing a lighter tiramisu that stills offers the intense flavors of coffee and rum, blended with a sweet-tangy cream cheese filling.

This version satisfies, but it's much lower in fat and calories, thanks to Neufchatel cream cheese, fat-free Greek yogurt, fat-free angel food cake, and rum extract. Sugar substitute lowers calories and carbs. As an added bonus, Greek yogurt is low in carbs and high in protein, which helps maintain blood sugar levels.

Tiramisu

Ingredients:

1/2 cup hot water
2 tablespoons instant coffee
1 tablespoon sugar substitute
2 teaspoons imitation rum extract
12 ounces Neufchatel (reduced-fat) cream cheese
2 cups fat-free Greek yogurt
3/4 cup sugar substitute
8 ounces angel food cake
Cocoa powder, chocolate sprinkles, or shaved chocolate (optional)

Directions:

Combine hot water, coffee, 1 tablespoon sugar substitute, and rum extract in a small bowl. Set aside.

Using a mixer, combine cream cheese, yogurt, and 3/4 cup sugar substitute in large bowl on medium speed until smooth (about 1 minute). Increase mixer speed to high and continue mixing for 5 minutes, scraping down sides once. Set aside.

Cut cake into 1/2" slices. Quickly dip both cut sides of cake into coffee mixture (don't soak!), then layer half of the slices in an 8" x 8" baking pan to cover the bottom of the pan.

Cover cake with 1/2 of the cream cheese mixture. Repeat layers, ending with cream cheese mixture. Chill for 4 - 6 hours.

Just before serving, sprinkle with cocoa powder, chocolate sprinkles, or chocolate shavings as a garnish, if desired.

Need a Little Motivation? Try a Power Hour!

Do you sometimes feel like you're swimming upstream when it comes to living healthfully? As we move through the middle of the year, it can be easy to start drifting from those January 1st resolutions to eat healthy, move more, get enough rest, manage stress, drink more water, and self-nurture.

One of the things I do to help me stay on track with weight management is to schedule what I call a "Power Hour" into my weekend. (If things are especially crazy, I'll schedule a "Power Half Hour" instead.) I light incense I find inspiring, then break out my planner. I then spend my hour reviewing my SMART goals for the year, the month, and the week.

How does this help me maintain my weight? First and foremost, my Power Hours are a time to reconnect with my values. One of the things I value is my health, so many of my goals express my intrinsic and extrinsic motivations for managing my weight.

A Power Hour is the perfect opportunity to reflect on what goals are working for me, and bask in my successes. It's also a time to reflect on what isn't working, and consider how I can do things differently and better.

Because our culture offers up so many distractions to good health, I find my Power Hours an essential tool for weight management. (Power Hours help me stay on track with other goals, too!) If you're not already enjoying a similar ritual, I encourage you to experiment with creating a Power Hour that works for you. Come back and let us know what you do, and how it goes!

Recipe: Lowered-Sodium Onion Dip

One of my facebook Friends recently requested a vegetable dip recipe. Personally, my favorite veggie dip is hummus, but my husband is fond of onion dip, made with dehydrated soup mix. I like the flavor of onion dip, but it's a high-sodium snack option: One cup of onion dip contains about 2,400 milligrams of sodium from the soup mix alone. Before the Super Bowl earlier this year, I experimented with a lowered-sodium version of onion dip. I use fat-free Greek yogurt because it's a good source of protein, which benefits my husband's blood sugar levels, but you can use fat-free or low-fat sour cream instead.

Lowered-Sodium Onion Dip

Ingredients:

16 ounces fat-free Greek yogurt
1/4 cup dehydrated diced onion
3 tablespoons onion powder
2 tablespoons reduced-sodium Worchestershire sauce

Directions:

Combine all ingredients in medium bowl. Chill for at least 1 hour before serving.

Recipe: Cheese Ravioli with Pumpkin-Sage Sauce

Sometimes students in my online classes post the question, "How do I get from understanding how to change up a recipe to actually doing it?" In part, the answer to that question is that experience is the best teacher!

That said, there are times when I consciously make decisions about recipes. Recently I ran across a recipe for Cheese Ravioli with Pumpkin-Sage Sauce in a facebook post. I was immediately intrigued: How often, aside from making Thanksgiving stuffing, do you get to use sage? I love pumpkin, and I'm always on the lookout for new pumpkin recipes. And, as many of you know, I adore smooth-and-creamy sauces, especially when they're lowered-fat and loaded with phytochemicals.

So, I prepared the recipe, with a few alterations: I switched from one finely-chopped shallot to 1/2 white onion, halved and thinly sliced. Also, I eliminated the purchased Alfredo sauce, and replaced it with my own recipe for Tofredo sauce (Alfredo sauce made from tofu, rather than cream).

Unfortunately, I was disappointed in the final product. Although I enjoy recipes that balance sweet and savory flavors, this recipe leaned too far in the direction of sweet, even for me. The chopped walnuts suggested as a garnish were essential for helping balance the flavors. My family ate it, but didn't like it, and were reassured when I promised to change it up next time.

What to do? I made two changes that completely changed the balance of flavors. Because the recipe was too sweet, I first increased the onion to one whole onion, rather than one-half. Second, I added in even more savory flavor by including a tablespoon of garlic. (I also added in the ground sage with the onion and garlic, rather than adding it at the end, so it had both oil and time in which to release its essential oils more effectively.)

I'm happy to report that my family loved the updated version of this recipe. I'm a huge fan of it, too: It's smooth and creamy, reasonably healthy, and definitely lightning-quick and easy to prepare. As a side note, it's amazingly good with broccoli, and because the recipe makes a generous amount of sauce, we found that we really didn't need butter or oil on the broccoli. So, without further ado:

Cheese Ravioli with Pumpkin-Sage Sauce

Ingredients:

1 (24-ounce) package frozen cheese ravioli
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 medium onion, quartered and thinly sliced
2 tablespoons ground sage
1 tablespoon bottled minced garlic (or 3 large garlic cloves, minced)
12 ounces silken tofu (I prefer Mori-Nu, but House is an acceptable brand as well)
1 cup soy milk
1/2 cup fresh shredded Parmesan cheese
1/4 cup strongly-flavored fresh shredded Italian cheese, such as Asiago
1/8 teaspoon fresh-ground peppercorn mix
1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg
2 dashes ground cayenne
1 (14-ounce) can pumpkin puree
Chopped walnuts (optional)
Chopped fresh parsley (optional)

Directions:

Prepare ravioli according to manufacturer's directions. Drain, set aside, and keep warm.

Meanwhile, cook onions, garlic, and sage in olive oil over medium heat, stirring occasionally, for about 5 minutes, until onions are tender. Reduce heat to low.

Meanwhile, combine tofu, milk, cheeses, peppercorn mix, nutmeg, and cayenne in blender or food processor, and puree until smooth. Add tofu puree and pumpkin mixture to onion mixture and combine. Do not bring sauce to a boil. Add ravioli to pan and combine. Serve immediately.

Garnish with chopped walnuts and chopped fresh parsley, if desired.