Cheesy Zucchini and Red Onion Flatbread Recipe

Yet another delicious recipe that I want to save, so I'm blogging about it. 

But before I do post the recipe I just wanted to say that I am so grateful for all those wonderful cooks out there that are willing to share recipes and cooking knowledge. 

I am not a cook, I am a recipe follower, plain and simple. I envy those creative people that can just pull items out of the fridge and pantry and whip up a masterpiece, but I know that's not me!

I do think I'm a pretty good photographer though...isn't this picture gorgeous?

Ok, to the recipe. I made this exactly as the recipe explained, the only difference is I used a different cheese spread than what they called for. I used this one and it was very good, just the perfect amount of garlic.

Recipe:
Cheesy Zucchini and Red Onion Flatbread

Ingredients:

• Nonstick Vegetable oil spray
• 1 10-ounce tube refrigerated pizza dough (mine was actually 13.9 ounces and I used Pillsbury Pizza Crust brand)
• 3/4 cup garlic and herb cheese spread (I used the whole little container pictured above 6.5 oz.)
• 3/4 cup finely grated Parmesan cheese, divided
• 3 tablespoons chopped fresh Italian parsley, divided
• 1 small red onion
• 1 7 to 8-inch long zucchini (green) cut crosswise into 1/8 inch thick rounds, divided
• Olive Oil
• Salt & Pepper to taste

Preparation:

• Preheat oven to 400 degree F. Line baking sheet with parchment paper; spray with nonstick spray. 
• Unroll dough onto parchment. 
• Spread half of the herb cheese over one long half of dough, leaving 1/2 inch plain border.
• Sprinkle with half of Parmesan and 2 tablespoons Parsley.
• Using parchment as aid, fold plain half of dough over filled half (do not seal edges.)
• Spread remaining herb cheese over top
• Sprinkle with remaining Parmesan.
• Removed enough outer layers of onion to yield 2-inch diameter core; cut into 1/8 inch thick rounds.
• Arrange 1 row of zucchini down 1 long side of dough.
• Arrange onion rounds in row alongside zucchini.
• Arrange 1 more row of zucchini alongside onion.
• Brush vegetables with olive oil, sprinkle with salt & pepper.
• Bake until puffed and deep brown at edges, about 24 minutes.
• Sprinkle with 1 tablespoon parsley

And that it is. Simple and delicious.

Recipe from the website: www.epicurious.com and you can find the recipe HERE if you want to compare it to mine above.

Oh and by the way...this one is definitely NOT low carb!

Broccoli, Ham, Mozzarella Baked with Eggs

I like to share low-carb recipes on my blog so that I have them handy when I need to make them again.

I am lucky enough to work with a great co-worker that encourages me and helps me with eating low carb...and even better, she shares her food!

The other day she shared this delicious concoction of eggs, broccoli, ham and cheese. I had to ask her for the recipe and today I made it for my mom. She liked it, but thinks I was a little heavy handed with the broccoli, which I probably was, but broccoli is so good for you!

The recipe was developed by Kalyn Denny of Kalyn's Kitchen and you can go HERE to see her original post of this recipe. 

Here's what my version looked like. I thought it was very pretty and hated to cut into it. I hurried to take the picture thinking it would deflate, but it actually stays nice and puffy like this.

But there was no way we could eat it without slicing into it, so I did and wow, wow, wow....just look at all this deliciousness!

So fluffy and cheesy and yummy and little bits of ham...mmmmm, perfect Sunday breakfast food! The great thing is it also keeps well covered in the fridge and re-heats up beautifully in the microwave so it's perfect for eating during that morning break at work.

Recipe:
Ingredients:

• 4 cups very small broccoli florets, blanched about 2 minutes, then drained well. (Next time I will probably cut this down to 2 cups and maybe dice it much more finely.)
• 1 cup diced ham
• 1 cup grated Mozzarella
• 10 eggs well beaten (I added salt & pepper to the eggs to taste)

Preheated my oven to 375F, sprayed my 9 inch round pie pan with non-stick spray.

In a small pot I brought water to boil then I blanched the broccoli florets for 3 minutes and poured them into a colander and let them sit in the sink to drain well. 

While my broccoli was cooking I diced up a small ham steak and grated the mozzarella cheese. That was probably the most labor intensive part. 

You then layer the broccoli in the bottom of your dish then sprinkle around the ham and cheese add some salt and pepper if you haven't already added it to your eggs, then pour the beaten egg over and using a fork stir everything around gently just to make sure all the ingredients are coated with egg. 

I baked mine for 35 minutes and it was perfect, as you can tell from the picture. Kalyn serves hers with sour cream, I just added a side dish of a few slices of avocado.

That's it! Easy Peasy!

Fitbit - Some Motivation Required

On January 12th, the company I work for held their annual "State of the Company" meeting in our corporate office in Fresno.

I really love this meeting, it's informative, fun and always makes me feel like a valued member of the team.

The motto for the coming year was unveiled...

Teamwork makes the Dream Work

They're big on teamwork and the best way to make the team "work" is to keep them nice and healthy. So during a certain part of the meeting they presented each and every employee a Fitbit!

We all were pretty happy, they're not cheap. So now we had the Fitbit, but with the Fitbit, you need motivation. Well they gave us that as well with a monthly contest beginning February 1st. Each person that logged in 125,000 steps for the month would be entered into a pot to win a gift card, 4 names would be drawn.

Now...I'm just a tad bit competitive, I can't help it, I was born that way! Right then and there I made up my mind that I was going to be one of the people that did 125,000 steps!

And I was! Actually I logged in 165,000 steps! Whoo hooo! I have to say that I work with a pretty competitive group of people because there were 22 others that met the challenge! And of those 22 I was one of the four that won a gift card! Michaels...here I come!

They've stepped up the challenge for March to 150,000 steps, so lets see how it goes with that. 

I don't understand the power that this little computer on my wrist has over me but I'm becoming addicted to feeding it steps! It even has these adorable little notifications, one of which says "Feed me"! I know some of my fellow co-workers don't like the notifications, but I really do. I feel like he's my little friend that is concerned with my health and is just reminding me to MOVE!

Speaking of, he just asked me "wanna step out with me?" He's such a flirt! I guess I better not keep him waiting!

The Long Ordeal - Final Ending...I Hope

If you've been following along then you know that my 2017 did not end very well and 2018 picked up the suckiness that was my life at that point and ran with it!

Here's PART ONE and PART TWO in case you want to catch up or refresh your memory.

Before I get started, I want to thank all of you that made a point of telling me it was not my fault mom fell. Thank you! I know in the back of my head it wasn't, but sometimes my head doesn't communicate well with my heart! Someday I will tell you of the ordeal that was my marriage and you will totally understand!

I'm in insurance, but I've never had a claim and I'm not an adjuster, so that doesn't make me an expert in claims. I figured the pipe had burst and damage was caused and I could understand that perhaps the insurance company would not cover the pipe but surely they would cover the resulting damage.

When I called the insurance company in the beginning to report the damage, they immediately told me to call a plumber, have him make sure there was no mold or asbestos and then let them know and they would send out an adjuster. 

I did that and called them again to report no mold, no asbestos. The lady I spoke to at the time understood it was the holiday's and that my mom was ill and just out of the hospital and she told me that the pipe would more than likely not be covered because it's the responsibility of the homeowner to make sure that maintenance is done on a regular basis, but that she was pretty sure the resulting damage would be covered. (I had no idea how important it would be to me that she said this.) So I gave the go ahead to the plumber to fix everything.

Remember I said in part one that they would have to tear down walls? Well they did. They completely gutted the bathroom and since the pipe was bad they knew they had to break walls in the kitchen and the laundry room and the second bathroom and replace all the pipe throughout the house. To make a long story short, it took forever and in the end they handed me a bill for $10,400!!!

Total shock!!! But, I was counting on the insurance company covering most of that minus my deductible of $1000 so I figured I would probably be out of pocket a couple of thousand dollars. I sent them the bill and photos and waited to hear.

The adjuster told me that because the leak was caused because of non-maintenance by the homeowner that in normal circumstances, they would have paid a big fat ZERO! But...because they had in the notes that the insurance representative I had spoken to had told me the pipe would not be covered, they were standing by that, it would not be covered. However, because she also told me the resulting damage would be covered they were obligated to pay that...whew!

You know how much they paid? $5,000 minus my deductible, so that means they sent me a whopping $4,000! I was crushed. Again...to make a long, long story (three blog posts long) short, I came up with the balance of the money and now have to eat beans for the rest of my life. 

So we've moved back in. Did 2018 get any easier? Any more disasters? Well yes and no, but I've always been a "look on the bright side of things" kinda person. I have a gorgeous brand new bathroom and brand new plumbing throughout the house. I eventually would have had to replace all that pipe anyway, I just hadn't planned on it being so soon. Mom is back in her home and no long term repercussions from her fall. 

Sure, there are still things going on in my life that aren't perfect, that will require time to fix, but at least it's not raining hell on my head all at once. You know the old saying...

Thanks for reading and commenting and we'll just have to see how the rest of 2018 goes.