Meatless Monday Link Up - White Pizza with Zucchini

Be sure to link up your favorite meatless meal! 

I'd love if you shared this post with other like-minded food lovers! 

Well, Christmas decorations are finally all down and put away for another year. I do keep the lights up in the front yard during the dark months though– so cheery and romantic to come home to a brightly lit front door. Every time we pull in the driveway I say, “Honey, look how pretty our house looks!” I never get tired of coming home. sigh. 

Hopefully Santa and the elves were good to you? I was fortunate to see lots of family over the holidays, my kids, my sister and her family, and even my parents from far away Florida. (Hi Mom and Dad!) We ate. We opened gifts. We sang carols around the piano. We ate some more. We laughed. And we played games….. and by ‘played games’  I mean marathon hours of Yahtzee, Dominoes, and Farkel.

My mom is trying to tell me an interesting story, but you can see I just want to play  more games. 

I got a professional knife sharpener and have already cut my fingers twice. Typical me.  I also received a lovely scarf and some books (“Chronicles of Downton Abbey” being a favorite.) My daughter gave me two copies of “Chickpea Magazine” and I must say it is a beautiful publication! This pizza comes from the Summer 2012 edition of the magazine.

Here’s what you need:

Your favorite pizza dough 

2 medium zucchini – one green, one yellow

16 oz tofu

Salt, pepper

3 T toasted pine nuts

¼ + 2 T Tofutti Cream Cheese

2-3 T olive oil

Here’s what you do:

Slice your veg super thin. Set aside. Make the cheese by blending the tofu, seasonings, pine nuts and cream cheese in a blender or food processor. Drizzle in the olive oil till smooth and beautiful. Spread the white cheese over the pizza dough in a very thin layer. Keep it thin or your dough will be soggy. I think there is plenty for three or four pizzas. Place the zucchinis in a pretty pattern over the white cheese and bake! You could sprinkle salt and pepper and herbs over the zucchini too. (450 degrees for 10 minutes….it really depends on how thick your pizza dough is.We like ours very, very thin.) EXCELLENT! 

(printable recipe)

Meatless Monday Link-Up - Spicy Black Beans with Peppers and Rice

 My first Link- Up! Please participate and be sure to tell your other food blog friends!

Anyone out there want to commit to Meatless Mondays with me? For those of you who don’t know, the Meatless Monday campaign was launched in 2003 in association with the John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and now there are 23 countries participating! Wow!

Paul McCartney introduced ‘Meat-Free Mondays’ to the United Kingdom and there are tons of other famous people on board…. you know, Oprah and so on. But we don’t have to worry about all the celebrities, let’s just commit to getting at least a tiny bit of meat out of our diets. The health benefits are indisputable and surprisingly, the effect on the environment is pretty profound also. (For example, it takes 2,500 gallons of water to produce a single pound of meat…. That’s CRAZY WASTEFUL!!!!)

Never eaten vegetarian meals before? Not sure where to begin? Well, look through the vegetarian and vegan recipes right here on my blog to start and then surf over to the Meatless Monday website which is loaded with irresistible recipes.

The best way to start a meatless meal is by embracing – and I mean EMBRACING -- the humble bean. :) 

Here’s what you need:

1 T vegetable oil

1 large onion, diced

1 C chopped green pepper

1 C chopped red pepper

3 large cloves of garlic, minced

1 T ground cumin

1 jalapeno pepper, seed and veins removed, diced

1 t dried oregano

2 x 15 ounce cans of black beans, drained and rinsed

2 C cans crushed tomatoes with added puree

¼ C orange juice

1 ½ t hot sauce (Tabasco)

1 1/3 C raw rice, cooked

(My beans were frozen and it looks like one of my peppers was orange)

Here’s what you do:

Heat the oil in a heavy bottom skillet. Add onion, green pepper, red pepper, garlic, cumin, jalapeno and oregano. Sauté veggies  until soft but not too brown. Mash about ½ cup of the beans and add them to the veggies. Also add the remaining beans, tomatoes, orange juice and hot sauce. Simmer for about 15 minutes or until the consistency is to your liking. Serve over white rice with lime, cilantro, sour cream, avocado, shredded cheddar, etc….. 

(printable recipe)