Amazing Pizza

So yesterday I tried to continue with my eating healthy & fully with a salad bar lunch at Whole Foods (hot squash medley in tomato & onion sauce and a salad of spinach & field greens with Broccoli, Quinoa, shredded carrot & grilled chicken breast topped with Balsamic vinegar). Then I made a salad & pizza for dinner. It's one of my famous Trader Joe's Pizza Concoctions... I "hunt & gather my way through the store. It was amazing. Try it sometime. : )

Trader Joe's Pizza #5

• 1 ball of Garlic & Herb Pizza Crust Dough
• 2 hunks of Hearts of Palm=, sliced into circles
• 10 Pitted Kalamata Olives, sliced into quarters
• ~ 5 Marinated Artichoke Hearts, juice squeezed out & separated into different leaves
• ~10-12 large leaves of fresh Basil
• ~ 5 baby portabella mushrooms
• 1 Tbsp Coconut Oil
• ~1/4 cup of Quattro Formaggio Shredded Cheese Mix
• 2/3 jar of TJ's Vodka Sauce

Preheat oven to 425 according to crust package directions. Put 2/3 of the jar of Vodka Sauce into a sauce pan and boil over Med/Hi heat until turns into a wet paste consistency (~15-20 minutes). Either slice mushrooms or chop coarsely with a chopper. Saute mushroom pieces in Coconut Oil for ~ 5-10 minutes. Roll out crust to size of pizza pan or stone (mine's about 14-16 inch). Top Crust with Vodka Sauce Paste, basil leaves, sauteed mushroom, chopped olives, Heart of Palm & artichoke. Finish topping lightly with cheese. Bake for ~7 minutes or so. This crust never seems to get "golden", so just poke it. Cut, serve & enjoy!

If sliced into 8 pieces, this ends up being about 230 +/- calories per slice. : )

In addition to the pizza, I made a small entree salad of baby spring greens, fresh garden tomatoes, pine nuts, a medley I got at Whole Foods comprising coconut shavings, raisins & Cacao Nibs, and some sweet chicken I made by coating chicken breast pieces in a mixture of honey, agave, & Cassia Cinnamon. This was topped with Extra Virgin Olive Oil. I made the mistake of putting in the Kalamata Olives. Bad idea. Don't do that with a sweet salad. Lastly, there were Champagne grapes for dessert.

Hope you get a chance to try the Pizza & enjoy!

Another Diet Shift

I just got back from a 5 day MovNat (Natural Movement) Seminar with Erwan Le Corre and will discuss more of that at some later date... I've had a minor epiphany though concerning what I eat.

They had us on a Paleo Diet and the switch was not bad, especially since the food was prepared by a Frenchman, but I noticed no major effects. When I returned to normal everyday life, I went for a gourmet Mushroom puree pizza, some buffalo chicken croquettes & a pint or two of beer. The next day, I went on to an amusement park, got the Mahi Mahi Fish & Chips, ate only half, added an afternoon snack of fries, and topped it off with a Margarita, chips & salsa, and a half of an enchilada dish. he next day started with my normal breakfast Luna Bar, and a quickie lunch at McD's of Fillet o' Fish & apples. By mid-afternoon, I was feeling lethargic & irritated. I immediately ran off to Trader Joe's to stock up on natural Raw Almonds, unsweetened natural sun dried raisins, a couple of packages of grapes, some fresh spinach, fresh mozzarella, Bananas, blueberries, more almonds, and some coconut milk, coconut oil & agave. Last night I ate about 4 oz. of steak, seasoned & grilled, a salad of fresh spinach with some basil from the deck, copious tomatoes from the deck, raisins, almond slices, olive oil, & balsamic vinegar, then a side of grilled veggies, an ear of sweet corn, and a dessert of bananas, blueberries, almonds in coconut milk, honey, agave & coconut oil (the last 3 in small amounts). half way through the meal I started feeling alive again & was more than full, but not unpleasantly so... Further, I was not hungry this morning and only ate my breakfast bar because I needed something with my antibiotics (will explain later). Today I brought the Almonds & raisins and some dried apples with me in case I wanted a snack (didn't really) and then ate a gyro salad for lunch. I'm staying full & not feeling nearly so lethargic today. Hmmm... idea: more raw, more fresh, more veggies, add some healthy fats, avoid processed foods altogether. We'll see how this goes. : )

Public Service Announcement

Oh my holy __(fill in expletive of choice)__! It's been a longtime since I posted anything. Honestly, I've been crushed under the guilt of not being able to write up a description of our trip to Alaska since I was unable to post the photos for a long time. Ah well...



I found this CNN story today... Why? Really WHY must people demonize playing and having fun? Is fun something that is only allowed for kids? If so, then I might as well just kill myself now or revel in being a self-centered, perpetually adolescent generation Y-er. I mean, seriously... what's the purpose of posing and being staid & reserved? There's this whole social stigma about "This is what you wear at this age, this is how you act, this is what you look like and this is the way you move, this is what you like..." etc, etc, ad nauseum.... What a load of bunk.

Anyway, done with my rant and on to playing a bit of catch-up with you, my dear readers (all one of you...). : ) The alaska trip was fabulous and I'll hopefully devote an entire post to that at some point. The summer's been hell-a busy, so I've been going quite crazy, getting behind, and falling quite short on a lot of my resolutions.

At some point, I've gone crazy and decided I needed to be getting a more well-rounded exercise regimen. I found a theory called MovNat, an updated version of Methode Naturelle, which has been on my radar for about 2 years now, but I've never done anything about it. I also found an exercise concept called Exuberant Animal, which is all about full body & mental wellbeing through play-activities. Conveniently, the local Rec Center has classes by one of the only EA instructors on teh East Coast. Yay! Basically, it's a minimally structured exercise class based on being silly and whatever the Kwame decides seems fun at the moment. So far we've used such recognizable childhood favorites as Tug-of-War, Follow the Leader, Crabwalks & Wheelbarrow races among other thing. There's a lot of partnering and cooperative aspects too. It's a good silly time. I hope tonight's class is still on! At some point with all of this, I went crazy, decided to be "spontaneous" and signed up for the MovNat seminar in Summersville Lake, WV. I embark on that adventure tomorrow. Bright & early. Let's hope I come back in one piece.

This past weekend we went to the Jane Austen Ball at Gadsby's Tavern & hit a pool party downtown that ended up being a filming location for MTV's "The Real World". Interesting.

I think that's about it for now. I'll get more pics up someday and see about taking photos of the seminar. Fun.