BzzCampaign: Ristorante Pizza -> Spinaci & Speciale

I was invited to take part in the BzzAgent Ristorante Pizza campaign.  I was surprised this came back out as a campaign since I was invited to take part in a Ristorante campaign earlier in the year.  I knew going into I that I enjoyed Ristorante pizza so I was going to get two different pies.  I picked up one with pepperoni  (Speciale) because that’s what my boyfriend eats and the other with spinach (Spinaci) because that’s just yummy on a pizza.

Ristorante pizza is advertised at being the #1 pizza in Italy.  The pizza itself is quite good.  It’s thin-crust pizza with a fair amount of cheese and toppings to evenly distribute over the whole pizza.  Sometimes when you get frozen pizzas there’s sparse ingredients over the top (like 5 pepperoni on the whole thing).  I do like the Ristorante brand because the pizza is not only thin crust (as I mentioned) but it’s very flavorful plus it cooks up in 11 minutes.

According to the Dr. Oetker website the Pizza Spinaci, is “a unique pizza layered with sun-ripened tomatoes, savoury leaf spinach, cheese and mozzarella, perfected by a hearty garlic sauce.”  Being a garlic lover, you can definitely taste the hint of garlic in there – it’s not overpowering, but it plays off in the background.  It’s also slightly creamy in taste – this is probably one of my favorite frozen pizzas. I love it and I typically keep one in the freezer for myself.

Whereas for the Pizza Speciale, according to the Dr. Oetker website: “This unique thin crust pizza with Pepperoni and Cooked Ham make this pizza a culinary feast.  Edam, Mozzarella and spicy herbs add to the full flavor of this wonderful pizza.”  Granted, this is the only pizza sold by the brand that has pepperoni on it but it’s very flavorful.  The sauce is seasoned just right, the pepperoni has the right amount of spice and the ham gives it a new flavor.  Totally delicious!

I realize these pizzas may not be sold at all retail locations – but I happen to find these at a few of my local grocery stores.  They typically retail for $2.99 but you can sometimes get them for $2.50 or less if you have a coupon.  Some stores (like a pricier grocery store in my area) sells these for $4.99 each.

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Dinner: Chicken Ranch Tacos

I made Chicken Ranch Tacos for dinner on Friday.  I had wanted to make these for a couple months now because I saw it on Laaloosh (a Weight Watchers recipe blog)– had purchased the taco and ranch seasoning but just never got around to it.  I preplanned some of my meals for the week and decided I was going to make this since I was home on Friday.  I had my boyfriend clean the chicken for me (I have this thing about raw chicken – I can’t handle touching it (outside of just moving I from a container to a pan) or cleaning it.  So I took the trimmed and rinsed chicken and placed it in the bottom of my crock pot, then topped it with a packet of taco seasoning mix, a packet of ranch dressing mix, a tablespoon of minced garlic and 2 cups of chicken broth.  I looked into the crockpot and decided it needed a little more taco seasoning so I sprinkled some of my McCormick Taco seasoning on top of it.  I then turned the crock pot onto high and walked away for 6-hours.  When I returned I took the chicken out of the pot, shredded it and returned it back to the pot, stirring to get the juice mixture over all the meat.

The original recipe calls for 12 ounces of chicken – I used 2 pounds, added in the garlic and extra taco seasoning.

I served this with shredded lettuce and diced tomato, with a tiny bit of medium taco sauce.  My boyfriend’s tacos are on regular taco shells and I enjoyed mine on wheat flax tortilla.  I enjoyed it so much it was my lunch on Saturday and ended up being my lunch today as well.  It’s a really unique and different way to have a taco!

I had 4 ounces of shredded meat which I calculated to be 4 Weight Watchers PointsPlus.

Cravebox: Coffee Lovers (Limited Edition)

As some of you are aware, I am a member of Cravebox – which is a subscription service that provides food based and beauty/health related items to their members.  It’s geared towards being a monthly subscription – but boxes do not come monthly.  Lately, they’ve been gearing more towards limited edition special boxes for members to request to be included in the drawing for the particular boxes that are available.  I received an e-mail about a Coffee Lovers box and I immediately added myself into the drawing since I am a complete coffee fanatic.

I received my box on Friday, opened it and I have to say … I’m a little bummed.  The box, in my opinion, could have been a whole lot more spectacular, especially for the $12 paid for the box.  I will use the products I received and I am happy I got sugar-free syrup since I have a French vanilla in the cabinet that I’m using up.  The coffee is also a repeat of the Cooking Light box I received last month as well as the syrup (except this one is in a new flavor).  I feel as though when I need coffee I’m a deal seeker by heart and I’d get me some coffee for $12 – not just a bag, cookies and a syrup LOL.  So, yeah, not 100% thrilled this time around – sadly.  End tirade.

Here’s what I received in my box:

-          Tully’s French Roast Coffee

-          Torani Sugar Free French Vanilla syrup

-          Barbara’s Bakery High-Fiber Cranberry Medley

-          Biscotti Brothers Almond Biscotti

-          Biscotti Brothers Cranberry Blueberry Almond and Oats Granotti

QUESTION:

Have you ever heard of Cravebox?

Images are mine do not take or use. Thank you.

Triple Berry Crumble

I made a triple berry crumble for Thanksgiving to bring as a dessert to my boyfriend’s aunt’s house for his side of the families Thanksgiving celebration.  Secretly, this was a Weight Watchers recipe – but I’ve made it once before last summer or the summer before and I knew it was really yummy.  The only thing I switched up in this recipe was that I used a frozen triple berry mix (blueberries, blackberries and raspberries) instead of two different fresh berries (blueberries and raspberries).  I also made 1 ½ times the recipe so I could spread it a little further incase it was a hit on the dessert table.

Here’s the recipe that I used (brought back down to a single recipe, not 1 1/2):

4 cups triple mixed frozen berries
¾ cup all-purpose flour
2/3 cup unpacked light brown sugar
6 tablespoons butter, melted

Mix flour and brown sugar in a medium bowl and mix together.  Remove 3 tablespoons of the mixture.

Place berries in a medium bowl, sprinkle with the set aside 3 tablespoons of flour/sugar mixture.  Gently toss the berries to coat.

Add the melted butter into the flour/sugar mixture and stir continuously until combined.  It’ll look a little lumpy, but the more you stir, the wetter the mixture gets.  It’ll look like a very loose, raw cookie dough.

Place the berries in the bottom of a baking dish (you can spray with Pam if you wish) then crumble the topping onto the berries.

Bake in a 350 degree oven – yields 8 servings.

Homemade Beef Stew w/ Jamaican Dumplings

This is my first-ever homemade beef stew.  Growing up I used to watch my mother make beef stew so I had a general gist of what to do – so I went to the grocery store, picked up my veggies, my beef and I got a jar of beef stock (it’s like a really thick jelly consistency of flavored stock that you add to water).  I’d been craving beef stew because the weather had changed and all I wanted was something warm and something to make the kitchen smell “homey.”

One thing I will say is I like my stews thick.  I’m not really a soup person so stews are right up my alley.  I know everyone varies with thickness but thankfully my boyfriend also likes a moderately thick stew so I didn’t have to make this on the watery side.  This cooked for a fair while on the stove (a little over 3 hours) so it’s definitely not one of those meals you can just throw together in a flash – but undoubtedly it was delicious!

I used 2 tablespoons of olive oil to brown my beef, and then added 2 pounds of lean stew beef and let it brown up stirring it around in the pot.  I then added in my minced garlic.  When it was almost completely browned I threw in my large diced onion.  When done, I added in water (just eyeballing since I was making a big pot).  I added in my beef starter stock – covered and let simmer for an hour and a half.  After that I uncovered the pot, added in 2 pounds of chopped potatoes and a large bag of baby carrots.  While that came back up to simmer I made my Jamaican dumplings (flour, salt and water where you knead it into a harder rough – then rolled the pieces out in the bowl and then added them into the stew.  I covered it and let it cook for another near hour.

Ten minutes before serving I added in 1/3 cup cornstarch (mixed with cold water) and stirred it to have it thicken up to a delicious and perfect consistency.

Overall TWO thumbs up!  This was SO good!  What’s funny is my boyfriend didn’t know I was going to add Jamaican dumplings to the dish so when he was served his bowl and he spotted the dumplings he went “Awe, yeah!” HAHA.  We ate it for a few days, then frozen up the remainder into separate containers for quick dinners/lunches when we don’t have any idea as to what to eat.

Dessert: Pumpkin Pie Dip

This is one of the desserts I made for Thanksgiving this year.  I love pumpkin pie, but pumpkin pie is bogged down with a lot of unnecessary sugars.  So to have something pumpkin and to not have to deal with the points (Weight Watchers) I decided to make something that was light and a dip rather than a pie that could turn into a trigger food.

I found this recipe on Skinnytaste.com and thought it sounded so good. I had all the ingredients in my cabinet, except I did not have the fat free Greek yogurt so I picked that up on my trip to the store and off and running I went.

I will say I would serve this with graham cracker squares or cinnamon squares.  I know apples is a healthy way but the sweetness of the apple makes the dip almost ungodly sweet.  You are putting brown sugar in the dip so it increases the sweetness in it anyway – but the apple slices, in my opinion, put it over the top.  Perhaps if you do want apples I would suggest something tart, like a Granny Smith.  Nonetheless it was a pretty yummy dip.

If you want to try this recipe for yourself, you can find it here: http://www.skinnytaste.com/2010/11/pumpkin-pie-dip.html