Leeks get caramelized in honey and added to pizza topped with Gruyere cheese.
Ingredients
1 pizza crust (I use my pizza crust recipe)
1 C Gruyere cheese, grated
1/4 C Parmesan cheese, grated
1 C leeks, chopped in rounds
1-2 T honey
1/4 C walnuts, chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
1-2 T olive oil
smoked sea salt
1 C chicken, cooked and shredded (optional)
Dipping Sauce:
1 T spicy brown mustard
1/4 C plain yogurt (Greek or regular)
1/4 C reduced balsamic vinegar
Instructions
Pre-heat oven to 475F. Cook leeks in a dry pan with honey until caramelized and golden in color. In last 2-3 minutes of cooking, add garlic. While leeks cook, bring 1/2 C balsamic vinegar to a boil. Reduce to a simmer, keeping an eye on it so it doesn’t burn, until it’s thickened and syrupy.
Roll out and bake crust for 5 minutes. Remove from oven and top with: olive oil, smoked sea salt (opt.), half the cheese, chicken (opt.), leeks, walnuts and remaining cheese. Bake an additional 6-8 minutes.
Whisk together mustard, yogurt and balsamic vinegar.
Serve pizza with sauce for dipping.
Notes
Would also be good as an appetizer, perhaps without the chicken.
Would be good (with or without the chicken) alongside a pureed soup.
When planning this week’s menu, I was thinking about the wonderful pears that are in season right now, that we’ve been getting in our Abundant Harvest Organics boxes. We’ve had a lot. They’re great raw, as a snack, or alongside a sandwich. But, I was thinking that it would be fun to try something special with them. I was featured a few months ago on my friend Joanna’s blog. I posted a version of my recipe for Stuffed French Toast. She has told me how much she loved it (I made for her before posting on her blog) and that she has made it at home too. In the first version, I used peaches and blueberries (because that’s what was in season at the time). This week, I thought that since we have so many pears, I could put them not on, but in this French Toast. They’re cooked with a little bit of honey, and, well, you can watch the video to see the rest.
It’s a fun meal, that can be enjoyed for breakfast, lunch or dinner. Yes, dinner. Breakfast for dinner is a great way to change things up (and a great substitute for whatever your go-to meal is when you forgot to take the chicken out to thaw, or plan something for dinner at all). It’s quick, easy and you probably have all the ingredients you need at home already!
You could serve this meal with a fruit salad, bacon, fried potatoes/hash browns… Any or all of those would be just fine with me! AHO sells bacon (as if I could go a whole post without talking about bacon!), eggs, honey, milk, and nuts as add-ons (I’ve tried almost all of them, and have LOVED what I’ve tried). We got potatoes in this week’s box, and maybe you have some oranges and apples left from a the past two weeks to make a quick fruit salad. (No? Me neither. We ate them all. They’re just too good to last long!) Enjoy!
This week’s menu can be found on Saturday of this week’s menu! There are lots of ideas that use all the contents of this week’s box. Enjoy! (And, for those of you who don’t have access to Abundant Harvest Organics, please feel free to make use of the menu too! There are lots of ideas and if you can’t find the ingredients, substitutions can always be made. Ask if you need suggestions, please!!)
It seems like the main resolution I hear people talk about year after year is to be healthier. Am I right? Is that yours? Whether that’s eating better, exercising, eating more or less of something, doing more or less of something… I think that’s a great thing to do, any time of the year. Four years ago, we made this leap by joining Abundant Harvest Organics. Hundreds of pounds of organic produce later, we feel good about what we’re eating. It’s healthier, yet still tastes great!
If this is something that’s been on your mind lately, Abundant Harvest Organics is a great place to start being a healthier you. You can begin with a small box, and work your way up to a large one. You can set your vacation weeks so that you get a box every other week, if you think you won’t be able to use it all in 7 days. Or, you can jump right in and get a large box every week! To help you out with dinner ideas, I post a menu that features the contents from the current AHO box here on my blog. It’s free, and can be used by anyone, not just AHO subscribers. Have a look, try some of the recipes, or peruse through the contents of the blog, I’m sure you will find many ways to healthy up your eating habits. And of course, you can cook along with me as you watch This Week’s Feast!
Whether you’re a long-time subscriber like me, or you’re new to AHO, I’d love to hear how it’s going, what you’re enjoying, what recipes you’d like to see, if you’re using the menus, watching the episodes, what your favorite add-ons are…etc. If you’re not an AHO subscriber, I hope you’re still enjoying the menus and episodes! Is there anything that you would like to see on here?
I’ve got some fun ideas in store for the new year. I look forward to sharing them with you!
I hope you had a wonderful holiday season. I sure did. I had some much needed time off, and now I’m ready to cook and plan and eat!! Not that we didn’t eat a lot over the holidays. We love good food, no matter what the season.
Today’s dish is inspired by a dish I found in a cookbook that I got for Christmas called The Silver Spoon, which has over 2,000 Italian recipes for me to try. Oh boy, oh boy, oh yum!! I took the idea of mixing egg and cheese and using it to coat the pasta, and added my own twists. Like adding ground beef, bacon, butternut squash, lemon and olive oil. I got some Llano Seco Organic Pork bacon for the first time from Abundant Harvest Organics this week. Oh wow is it ever amazing! I’ve been hearing for a long time from other subscribers about how great it is. Not one word of that was a lie! As you know, bacon is one of my favorite foods. I’m quite picky about the bacon I eat, and have pretty high standards. This stuff is just too good to not gush over. I’m also trying the organic eggs (from Burroughs Family Farms), organic ground beef (from Panorama Grass-Fed Beef) (which I’ve tried before – it’s just as good as I remembered!), and organic cheese (oh how I love cheese!) (from Alexandre Family EcoDairy Farms). There are a few other things too, but I’m saving them for another week… I can’t use them all today… or can I… no, I’ll wait. Since we’re still unpacking, kinda recovering from all the delicious food we ate, and getting back into the swing of things with work, I wanted to share a quick, easy, tasty meal. I hope you enjoy it!
Last modified on 2012-05-26 01:37:43 GMT. 0 comments. Top.
Butternut Squash Pasta Carbonara
#ratingval# from #reviews# reviews
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Recipe Type: Pasta, Main
Author: Rachel Oberg – De Ma Cuisine
Prep time: 5 mins
Cook time: 20 mins
Total time: 25 mins
Serves: 2
A creamy pasta dish topped with bacon. What could be better?! It’s like a grownup, fancy version of Chili Mac.
Ingredients
1 C parmesan cheese
1/2 lb. ground beef
6 oz. (about 5 slices) thick cut bacon
1 C roasted butternut squash
1 t lemon
1 egg
1/4 C white wine
2 T olive oil
salt and pepper, to taste
2 C dried pasta
Instructions
Heat salted water for pasta. Cook the bacon. Drain on a paper towel lined plate and discard fat. Add wine to pan and deglaze, scraping the crispy bits off the bottom. Add ground beef. Add pasta to water.
Once beef is cooked, remove from pan and set aside. Remove pan from heat. Mix egg, squash and half the cheese with a fork. Add to pan and mix with cooked pasta, coating the pasta. Cook over very low heat. Add lemon juice, olive oil and remaining cheese.
There’s still a menu, it will be on the menu page. (That’s where they’ll be from now on, in an effort to keep these show posts a little shorter! :)) Have a look, click on some recipes, cook up some dinner! The planning is all done for you, all you have to do is buy the groceries and make it. And, even if you don’t subscribe to Abundant Harvest Organics, the produce is something that can be bought at your local farmers’ market or grocery store (unless you’re in California and want to subscribe to AHO… it’s a great way to start off your new year’s resolution of eating better and being healthier). This meal can be found on Friday of this week’s menu.
