Delicious (Almost) Homemade Pizza

Yes, I do love Trader Joe's. I served this pizza to guests with kids and everyone went nuts. They even liked it better than the pizza on the grill I make in the summer. You can make it with three ingredients, but it really shines if you add a few more. This recipe packs the goodness of whole grains, no rBST cheese, and cooked tomatoes, a great source of lycopene. Most importantly, it tastes great. I served it with an arugula salad topped with shaved Parmigano Reggiano and dressed it with Balsamic vinaigrette (all from TJ's too).

Ingredients: (double to make two pies if serving more than 4)

• 1 Trader Joe's whole wheat pizza dough
• 1 bottle Trader Joe's fat free Pizza Sauce
• 1 bag Trader Joe's shredded Quattro Formaggio (blend of Parmesan, Asiago, Fontina & Mild Provolone)
• dried oregano (optional)
• good olive oil (optional)
  

Preparation:

1. Place dough on counter to warm up 20 minutes before cooking.
2. Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Place pizza stone or heavy duty baking sheet large enough to fit a 12 inch pizza in oven. You will be placing the prepared pizza on the hot stone or baking sheet to get the crust to set.
3. Liberally flour work surface, preferably a wooden or metal pizza peel.
4. Turn dough out onto work surface by turning bag inside out and begin to flatten and widen it with your fingertips or a rolling pin, making sure to not let it stick to the work surface. Flip dough over to get flour on both sides. When you can't get it to stretch anymore using your fingertips or a rolling pin, pick it up and use the tops of your hands to rotate and stretch it, just like you see the pizza chefs doing in pizzerias. Your goal is to make a 12 inch pie.
5. Make sure peel is liberally floured under prepared dough, top with sauce leaving 1/4 inch crust, top with cheese, sprinkle with a pinch or two of dried oregano and drizzle with olive oil.
6. Transfer dough to hot pizza stone or baking sheet. This is where technique is important and you may want to ask for an assistant. If you have not liberally floured the peel it will stick like mad. Gently transfer dough using short jerky movements. Don't worry if it's not a perfect transfer.
7. Cook for 7 minutes or more, depending on your oven. You want the cheese to bubble and start to color around the edges.
8. Remove from oven and allow to cool for a minute or two, otherwise the cheese will run. Cut into slices using a pizza wheel and serve. Leave it on the stone or baking sheet to keep it hot.

Enjoy!

Chicken Mole

One of the things I like most about Trader Joe's is their authentic sauces from around the world. Their red mole sauce (which is mole rojo in Spanish) is decadent and tastes like authentic Mexican mole. I have made mole from scratch and it is quite a production, so this product is a huge time saver.

I created a complete TJ's dinner using the mole sauce, chicken breasts, brown rice and green beans (their #1 selling product I'm told). Even my four-year-old like the chicken and he usually skips the protein unless it's vegetarian. Let me know how you like it. Here are the recipes:

Ingredients:

• 1 bottle TJ's red mole sauce
• 1 package TJ's boneless, skinless chicken breasts (4)
• 1 bag TJ's brown basmati or Jasmine rice (or buy the premade pouch of brown rice)
• 1 bag TJ's frozen French green beans
• 1 bag TJ's toasted sliced almonds (optional)
• good olive oil (my favorite is TJ's Extra Virgin California Estate Olive Oil)

Preparation:

1. Prepare brown rice on stove or rice cooker (see my November post on using rice cookers). Use 1 part rice to 2 parts water. This will take 45 minutes. Rice cookers can hold the cooked rice warm indefinitely (huge convenience).
   
2. When rice is done, prepare mole according to bottle directions. Heat in a medium saucepan with a lid that will fit sauce and chicken.
3. Cut chicken breasts into large chunks, maybe 5-6 pieces per breast.
4. Poach chicken in mole sauce by placing in saucepan, covering and keeping heat low so that there is only a tiny movement in the sauce. Do not boil or you will overcook the chicken and murder the sauce.
   
5. Cook green beans by putting in a saucepan with a cover and adding a few tablespoons of water. Bring to a boil and use tongs to flip beans as they defrost to ensure more rapid and consistent cooking. These are delicate beans and they cook quickly once defrosted. Do not overcook or they will be tasteless, lose their color and shred. Remove a bean every minute or two and taste it so you can catch them at their best.
   
6. Cook until chicken is firm to the touch, about 7-10 minutes. When in doubt, take out a piece and cut into it to make sure it's done.
7. Drain beans, place in serving bowl and dress with almond slivers, olive oil, salt and pepper.
8. Serve chicken with sauce in a bowl; serve rice separately.

Que aprovechen! (Bon appetit in Spanish).

Harkin Tries Again to Reform School Lunch Via an Amendment to the Farm Bill

You gotta love Senator Tom Harkin (D Iowa, Charman of the Agricultural Committee) if you are a better school food activist. He has been trying for umpteen years to improve the nutritional profile of foods served in school cafeterias across the nation. This time around he worked with the food and beverage manufacturers and CSPI (Center for Science in the Public Interest) to address limiting unhealthy foods other than the standard school lunch and packaged it as an amendment to the farm bill. Here's the NYT article link http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/02/us/02school.html?em&ex=1196830800&en=ad6345970eafea98&ei=5087%0A. Hot lunch (reimbursable meals in food service lingo) which is governed by the Department of Agriculture, would therefore not be impacted. Too bad.

But some are not lovin' this amendment because it would preclude individual states from passing stricter legislation, although individual districts could. In a pig's eye they would! So we in Connecticut for example would see our stricter legislation superceded by the amendment. What exactly does this mean? Well our current law bans the sale of soda and sports drinks in schools but the amendment provides an exemption for flavored low-fat milk in elementary schools and diet soda and sports drinks in high schools, albeit in smaller serving sizes.

So this is a classic example of how well-intentioned efforts to make sweeping changes for the betterment of society get compromised. There are so many players, each with a finger in the pie, so the pie just can't get smaller without one crying foul. (Gosh, does this conjure an image of pigs feeding at a trough?)

I feel obligated to point out that the fat, sugar, sodium and calorie limits this amendment would impose on so-called a la carte and snack foods is a welcome relief. In Connecticut we have an optional provision to our state law which awards financial incentives to limit fat, calories and sugar in snack foods, but not all districts adopted the new standards. So you still see 300 plus calorie snacks and super-sized snacks in many districts. This would eliminate that ongoing issue, hopefully once and for all.

So, the way I see it, it boils down to a tradeoff between allowing diet soda and Gatorade in high schools and finally eliminating super-sized snacks and excessive fat, sodium, and sugar in a la carte foods across the board. And if you don't like that tradeoff, start lobbying your local board of education to set stricter guidelines. As they say in Spanish, "Cuando el chancho vuela" (When pigs fly).