Melissa's White Bean Pasta

I was intending on making bean pasta since I hadn't gone to the store yet for the week. I generally consider bean pasta to be a quick and easy meal to fall back on, since it is easy to keep a can of beans, prego and pasta stocked. However, when I noticed what items we did have in stock, I quickly put together a more intricate bean pasta which is very yummy.

The sauce is Newman's Own marinara sauce with white beans, kale, onions, garlic, green pepper, artichoke hearts (from a can), some ground flaxseeds and cheese to top it all. I am the most proud of how it was a very healthy meal while still being good tasting to us.

Tomato, green pepper, onions, black olives and pine nuts pizza

For this pizza, I put the tomatoes and onions underneath the cheese, so this is what it looked like.

As you can see, the cheese totally hides the tomatoes. I also put green peppers, pine nuts and olives on the pizza.

Garlic Breadstick Pizza

For this "pizza", I bought some garlic bread dough and basically stuffed it with pizza sauce, cheese, and onions. It was pretty good, although I think I prefer my other crust better.

Green Pepper, Olive and Pine Nuts Pizza

This pizza includes: green peppers, olives and pine nuts. As for the cheese, I put cut up pieces of mozzarella cheese and also sprinkles a mixture of yellow and white cheese (called fiesta blend form Wal-mart). The mozzarella cheese turned out really good on the pizza when melted!

Also, you might be able to notice that I did the crust right such that it sticks up around the edges. I can't always get it right, but it's fun when I do.

Green Pepper Pizza

This was a yummy pizza, and I really liked the colors. The green peppers certainly make the pizza look pretty.

Cilantro Soup Pizza

I don't remember exactly how I came up with this idea, but I really like it. Since my family loves the cilantro soup so much, they should enjoy the pizza too. It pretty much has all the same ingredients.

You chop up the green onions, white onions and green peppers.

Then in a bowl you mash the beans, and add rotell.

Then you spread the bean mixture over the pizza.


Then add the toppings on top.

I was planning on putting cheese on the pizza, but I forgot to! As it turns out, it tasted good without the cheese, but it did taste a little less pizza like because of it. I might try making it with the cheese sometime as well. I would definitely say this was a success though.

Fake Pepperoni Pizza

I finally have been in the mood for pizzas again. I was making many pizzas before I got pregnant, and then I lost all interest in pizzas until just this month (the third trimester). I have been trying to get more complex carbohydrates, so for the crust, I took the Walmart pizza crust mix and added ground flax seeds, wheat germ and vital wheat gluten. That gave it some extra nutrients, and it didn't make it taste bad or anything. I like it this way rather than using whole wheat flour since the crust is always hard when I do that.



The toppings were: fake pepperonis (made of soy I think), roma tomatoes, white onion, cheese of course and some basil for seasoning. Oh, and I usually use Prego spaghetti sauce as the sauce, but this time we tried Bertroli's marinara sauce and wow it was good!! The pizza overall was amazing.

Chicken Salad Sandwich

I really enjoy Chicken Salad Sandwiches because I love the crisp, fresh flavor of the onions and the celery and the red grapes are especially my favorite. I usually made the sandwich like this: chop celery, chop onions, mix with cream cheese and canned chicken, then stir in red grapes. Joel & I have always liked it that way.


Although recently, I tried out making it a new way, since I know that some people put mustard or mayonnaise in theirs. I also happened to be out of red grapes this time, which is disappointing because they are such a great part of the sandwich, but it tasted really good regardless. So the way I made it yesterday is basically, to take the same ingredients (celery, white onion, caned chicken and cream cheese, but no grapes this time, although I would have if I had some) and to add a little bit of honey mustard (like 2 tablespoons) and 1/4 cup miracle whip. We really liked this because unlike the previous one that I usually make, it was creamier and easier to spread. Also, I really liked the flavor that the honey mustard added to it. I would like to make this meal for lunch about once a week as well! (oh, and I usually serve it on toasted wheat bread)

BBQ Dinner

Joel has been wanting BBQ, so we bought some sauce and have made two great meals. The first meal, we had for Easter.

We got Sweet Baby Ray's BBQ sauce, which is sweet and it tasted pretty good. I wasn't crazy about it though, since a main ingredient was high fructose corn syrup and it just tasted syrupy. We also bought Stubbs Spicy BBQ Sauce, which i really liked because this sauce tastes more unique and was more tomato based or something, not so syrupy. Joel liked them both. Along with the BBQ chicken made with white onions, we had mashed potatoes with garlic and cheese, mixed vegetables with cheese and some Texas toast.

The second meal, we just had last night, it was wonderful as well! Last tiem, i cooked the chicken by cutting it up and i made two different batches, once with Sweet Baby Rays and the other with Stubbs. This time, i made the chicken with a BBQ seasoing mixture i put together that includes the following spices: Cumin, Paprika, Cayanne Pepper, Chili Powder, Garlic, Salt and Sugar. Then we put BBQ sauce on top of that while we ate, and I didn't cook the white onions this time, so they were fresh and crisp. We also had a little bit of corn on the side as well as pinto beans and potato wedges. It all tasted great and everything went well with Stubbs BBQ sauce! This time we bought the original, which isn't the spicy version, although it is still a little spicy. And of course, Texas Toast to go on the side. We have now decided to have a BBQ meal once a week.

Pregnancy Food Week!!

The main thing that makes the following foods “pregnancy” foods is basically the fact that I am pregnant and loved eating them while also feeling like they were nice and healthy for my growing baby too. But of course these are great foods for any one! The following are the meals Joel and I have enjoyed recently!!