If you follow me on Instagram, you may have seen the healthy pizza road test I did a few weeks back. On three different nights, I tested three different healthy pizza recipes to see if A) “healthy pizza” is even a thing that exists, and B) if it comes anywhere close to being a viable alternative to my beloved delivery pizza.

I learned a lot and came out of it with two out of three recipes that I’d actually make again, so I wanted to put together a compilation to show you how it all went down. Watch the video above to see more!

Healthy Pizza Recipe #1: Greek Yogurt Pizza Dough

On night one, I followed this recipe from Mess For Less for two ingredient pizza dough. It’s low calorie, low fat, high in protein and extremely easy.

In a nutshell, you mix up the two-ingredient dough, roll it out into a crust, bake it on its own for five minutes, take it out and add toppings, and pop it back into the oven until your cheese is the desired level of meltiness. Pretty simple as far as make-at-home pizza is concerned.

This recipe was quick, yummy, and tasted for the most part like an actual pizza (well, more like a flatbread, but still very similar). Depending what you add as toppings, you can really keep this pizza on the healthy side.

When I make it again, I’ll spend some more time rolling out the dough to get it really thin so it cooks up nice and crispy, like a thin-crust pizza.

The Verdict: Hit! Recipe here

Healthy Pizza Recipe #2: Cauliflower Crust Pizza

This recipe is what gave me the idea for this whole healthy pizza experiment in the first place. I’ve been wanting to try making a cauliflower crust forever, but I had heard it’s very labor intensive, so I felt like I needed to document the experience.

There are tons of cauliflower crust pizza recipes out there; I followed this one from iFoodReal. While it wasn’t necessarily a difficult recipe, it was a process.

First you rice the cauliflower (which is the point in my life when I first learned “cauliflower rice” is just finely chopped cauliflower). Then you bake the cauliflower. Then you strain the cauliflower, then strain it some more, mix it with other ingredients, form it into a pie shape, bake it again, and FINALLY get something resembling a crust that you can add toppings to—then bake it some more once the toppings are on.

For all the steps involved, I will say this pizza turned out very yummy. I heard from a lot of people who said their homemade cauliflower crust fell apart or was too floppy to hold toppings, and mine had neither of those problems, so the recipe is obviously a good one. It just takes a while to make.

The Verdict: Hit! Recipe here

Healthy Pizza Recipe #3: Gluten Free Pizza Dough

Gluten free pizza seems to be something of a unicorn. Sure, you can eliminate eggs or cheese or meat from your pizza recipe, but making one without any of those things? I mean, can you even call what’s left a pizza? After trying this recipe, my vote is no.

I’m not gluten sensitive myself, so this was something I tried just for the heck of it, but it was a major bust. I used this recipe from the Simple Vegan Blog. Maybe it was my execution rather than the recipe that was off, but the result was a doughy, dirt-y, chalky mess that was hardly edible.

By the time I saw what the “crust” looked like, I didn’t even bother trying to use vegan cheese on it.

The Verdict: Miss

Two out of three isn’t bad as far as new recipes go, so I’m glad I decided to try this experiment and can fully endorse the first two healthy pizza options. I have to admit, though, on the last night of the week we ordered Dominos.

Do you have a healthy pizza recipe you swear by? I would LOVE to hear it.

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The post Healthy Pizza Recipe Road Test appeared first on Cabana State Of Mind.

This week I decided to mix it up with a citrusy cocktail I found on Pinteres: a champagne grapefruit mojito (credit to Kelli Flores for this pin!).

I hate when fruity drinks are super sweet; this one’s not. The bitterness of the grapefruit keeps it from feeling overly sugary, and I used a brut champagne, which is one of the driest (not sweet) kinds.

Champagne Grapefruit Mojito Recipe

Without further ado, here’s the recipe. Measurements are approximate–I just threw in what I thought would taste good. I’m a blogger, not a mixologist!

Ingredients

• ¼ cup mint leaves, torn
• 2 ounces light rum (I used Bacardi)
• Juice from ½ a lime
• Juice from ¼ grapefruit (I used the ruby red kind)
• 1 tsp simple syrup (there are fancy ways of making this but I just mix equal parts sugar and hot water)
• Champagne of your choice

Instructions

1. Muddle the mint leaves in a tall glass or cocktail shaker. You can do it, put your back into it.

2. Over the mint, combine the rum, lime juice, grapefruit juice, and simple syrup.

3. Shake it up good and pour over ice to fill half of your cocktail glass.

4. Fill the rest of the glass with champagne.

5. Mix, garnish with a grapefruit slice and raise that glass like you’re sitting on a yacht and not in the middle of your un-mowed backyard. Cheers!

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The post Refreshing Summer Cocktail: Champagne Grapefruit Mojito appeared first on Cabana State Of Mind.

I feel like I make the same ten dishes over and over again.

For one thing, I know what I like, and if I’m going to spend an hour in the kitchen I’m going to make something I like.

For another thing, New York groceries are expensive. The thought of buying a haul of ingredients to try something new and have it turn out badly isn’t too appealing.

So most of the time, I make the same few standbys over and over. One of them is stuffed shells.

Cheese. Pasta. Cheese. Red sauce. CHEESE. And there’s spinach thrown in there too because I’m healthy like that. What’s not to love?

This recipe will make enough for at least four people, or two people with tons of leftovers, which I live for. It’s pretty heavy (hi, cheese), so serve it with a Caesar salad on the side so you don’t feel like a balloon full of jello when you’re done eating.

Ingredients

• 1 box jumbo shells
• 2 cloves garlic
• A hearty helping of spinach (I do a jumbo frying pan full)
• 1 large container (approx. 14 oz) ricotta cheese
• 1 8 oz. bag shredded mozzarella cheese, separated
• ½ cup grated parmesan cheese
• 1 large egg
• 1 tsp salt
• ½ tsp pepper
• 2 tsp basil or Italian seasoning
• 2 small jars or one large jar of your favorite pasta sauce

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 350. Bring a large pot of water to a boil and dump your jumbo shells in. Cook to your liking (I think that’s what they call al dente?)

2. While the pasta is boiling, heat a teaspoon or two of olive oil in a pan. Mince the garlic and heat it in the oil for a minute. Toss the spinach in the oil and cook until it’s wilted (about 4 or 5 minutes).

3. In a large bowl, combine the ricotta cheese, half the mozzarella cheese, parmesan cheese, egg, salt, pepper and basil or Italian seasoning. Mix well with a wooden spoon. When the spinach is wilted, add it to the bowl.

4. When the pasta is cooked, drain it and run cool water over it. I heard somewhere that doing this allegedly ruins the pasta, but you’re about to pick these shells up with your bare hands and if you don’t run them in cool water you’ll get scalded, so take your pick.

5. Set out two baking dishes (this usually makes way more than one dish worth). Coat the bottom of each dish with a little pasta sauce.

6. Get ready to get your hands dirty. Fill each shell with a generous portion of the cheese mixture and layer them in the dish.

7. Top with the pasta sauce and another layer of mozzarella cheese. Pop those bad boys in the oven for about 30 minutes, or until the sauce around the edges is bubbling.

Enjoy!

What are your go-to recipes? I’d love a few new ideas to work into my rotation.

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The post Easy Dinner Recipe: Stuffed Shells appeared first on Cabana State Of Mind.

If I made stew in Florida, it was with full acceptance that I was going to be enjoying it with the A/C running on full blast. Now that it’s cooling down up here, though, I’m whipping out all of the chilis and stews and hot apple ciders that got no love down in West Palm Beach.

This stew is incredibly simple, incredibly easy and pretty much impossible to mess up. I made it once off a recipe (this was the one I followed the first time I made it), but now I don’t even measure anything. I just eyeball it based on what I like and what looks like the right proportions, throw it all in the crockpot and turn that baby on high.

I’ll give you the approximate measurements for how I made this batch, but again feel free to crank the amounts up or down depending on your taste. I use more veggies and less meat and potatoes than the original recipe linked above calls for. The broth and seasoning are yummy enough that I figure why not save on some carbs and sneak in some more veggies while I can, right?

I use an older version of this crockpot from Hamilton Beach and I love it. It’s big enough to make a meal for John and me and still have leftovers but small enough not to take up a huge amount of space in our non-existent kitchen storage.

Without further ado…

Ingredients

• 1 pound beef stew meat, cubed
• ¼ cup flour
• ½ teaspoon salt (AT LEAST)
• ½ teaspoon pepper
• 1 onion
• 2 stalks celery
• 4 large carrots
• 1 ½ potato
• 2 cloves garlic (AT LEAST)
• 1 bay leaf
• 1 teaspoon paprika
• 2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce
• 1 ½ cups beef broth
• Water as needed

Recipe

1. Chop up your stew meat and dump it in the bottom of the crockpot. If you can, look for a cut of meat that has lots of marbling (read: fat), like chuck shoulder or chuck roast. When in doubt, the meat section usually has pre-packaged “stew meat” that’ll work just fine.

2. Combine the flour, salt and pepper and dump it on top of the meat. Use a wooden spoon to mix it around so it coats the meat.

3. Chop your produce. This recipe takes a little while to prep but it’s only because you’re doing so much dang chopping. I can’t stress how much of a difference a good knife makes! It doesn’t have to be some fancy $100 knife, just a good quality one that’s SHARP. I have a Farberware chef knife and use it on pretty much everything.

Also I’ve never properly learned to chop white onions, but I know there has to be a better way than my current technique of ‘stab at them through squinted eyes that burn as if someone threw acid in them.’ If you’ve got the secret for chopping onions without crying, I’d love to hear it.

4. Mince your garlic. I’m a garlic junkie so for me, the more the better.

Fun fact about garlic that I didn’t know until recently: if it has a green spot in the middle or even if it’s starting to sprout, it doesn’t mean the garlic is bad. It just means it’s at prime ripeness and will be stronger than usual. To get rid of the green shoot (it has a bitter taste), just slice the clove of garlic in half and pull it out. Magic!

5. Dump all of the ingredients that aren’t yet in the crockpot in the crockpot. You’ll want liquid coming up about ¾ of the way to the top of your pile of ingredients. Depending on the size of your crockpot, you may need to add a little water. I added about half a cup more of water to mine.

6. Crank on your crockpot and go about your day. You’ll want 10-12 hours on low or 4-6 hours on high. If you’ve got the time to cook it on low all day long, it does make a difference in the tenderness of the meat (i.e. that caramel-y ‘falling apart’ effect that only happens when the meat has had enough time to break down). But if you don’t have that long, AKA me every time I’m rushing to throw this together, it’ll be just fine cooked on high, too, the meat will just be a little more chewy.

Serve with sliced french bread and enjoy! What are your favorite recipes to make when fall arrives?

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The post Fool-Proof Beef Stew appeared first on Cabana State Of Mind.

Even if you think the SEC is just some government agency that regulates the stock market, I know you can get behind football season food. So today I’m sharing my go-to tailgate contribution, buffalo chicken dip.

It’s the perfect thing to bring to a party or potluck because it’s not really a traditional dip, nor is it buffalo chicken wings. It’s the best of both worlds combined in a gooey, cheesy, goes-with-anything side dish. Also, it’s five ingredients.

Without further ado, here’s the recipe (I pretty much follow this one from All Recipes).

Ingredients

2 cans shredded chicken. If you’re fancy you can prepare chicken breasts and shred them, but the canned stuff works fine and nobody will know the difference
2 sticks Philadelphia cream cheese
1.5 cups shredded cheddar cheese. Yes I know it’s a lot of cheese, did you think this was a health food blog?
1 cup ranch dressing
¾ cup of hot sauce. I use Crystal because it’s liquid gold

Drain the chicken. Add everything to a crockpot, mix it up, and turn that baby on high. Check back and stir every 15 minutes or so until you’ve got a well-blended, creamy consistency (usually takes about an hour). Serve with tortilla chips, sliced celery, or whatever else your little heart desires. Rake in the compliments.

Have a great Labor Day weekend, and GO GATORS!

The post The Perfect Dip For Parties, Potlucks and Tailgates appeared first on Cabana State Of Mind.

As you might imagine, being in a relationship with a Latvian named John is very exciting when this holiday rolls around.

Technically the holiday is called Jāņi, and it celebrates the summer solstice. The traditional celebration involves wearing flower crowns, singing songs, staying up all night and jumping over bonfires. I suppose there’s a bit of alcohol involved, too. All in all, a pretty sweet holiday.

Jani celebration, via SpiritualSun.com

And there’s one more major Jāņi tradition: Jāņu siers. Or, literally translated, John cheese.

My fiancé has been talking about John cheese since we first started dating, telling me how a woman is supposed to make her Latvian man this special cheese from scratch on John Day.

At first I laughed it off thinking it was mostly just a folktale sort of thing. But then I met more and more of Johnny’s Latvian friends and family who asked me if I’d made John cheese for him yet. They were serious, I realized. Making cheese on John Day was a thing.

Last year, after failing yet again to make the cheese (I mean hello, this is not like picking up a Betty Crocker cake mix and popping it in the oven), I promised him this would be the year.

Welp, I lied. John Day 2017 came and went, sans cheese. I could tell Johnny was legitimately disappointed, and I felt terrible!

I knew I had to finally take the John cheese plunge, and I couldn’t let another full calendar year pass before doing it.

On a random Tuesday I gathered the ingredients. I’d ordered cheesecloth, caraway seeds and a sieve—all required for this endeavor—ahead of time on Amazon. I had the recipe (there are many, but this is the one I selected) pulled up on my phone. I was ready.

There was one major problem. Though I’d been to many Latvian events and family gatherings, I had still never tasted or even seen John cheese. Aside from the photos online, which ranged from chunky bright yellow blocks to whitish, soft looking wheels, I had no idea what it was even supposed to look like.

But off I went.

Because I knew it could either turn out really amazing or completely disastrous, I documented the whole thing (you may have seen it unfolding live on Instagram stories).

Here’s a look.

The process involves boiling a milk and cheese mixture until it starts to curdle, which the recipe says should take around 15 minutes. After 25 minutes with no sign of curdling, I started to get impatient.

It seemed like this was a lot of milk and cheese for my normal-sized pan to handle, so I cranked up the heat and promptly did what any good chef would do—walked away from the stove and started scrolling through Facebook.

Not two minutes had gone by when I heard a loud hissing sound coming from the kitchen. The mixture had finally gotten hot and was boiling over, all over the stove and the floor.

At least we were finally making progress!

I cleaned up from the minor milk explosion and got the recipe back on track. Everything else went, shockingly, exactly according to the recipe.

The milk and cheese separated into curds and whey, which I strained with the sieve, then mixed in the caraway seeds and other seasonings

I have to admit, I felt like quite the colonial badass as I formed the soft curds into a wheel of cheese and wrapped it tightly in cheesecloth.

Putting it into the cheesecloth

Molding it into a cheese wheel

It was kind of crazy seeing a bunch of random ingredients transform into (hopefully) a block of cheese before my eyes.

Eight hours later, just before Johnny was set to get home from work, I pulled it out of the fridge. It was the moment of truth…

I unwrapped the cheesecloth to find a solid, legitimate wheel of beautiful looking cheese.

John was pumped. I served it with honey according to what the traditional recipe suggested, and also with sliced bread and salami because America.

It was pretty darn good if I do say so myself.

Now that I’m a cheesemaking pro, I think I’ll make Jāņu siers an annual tradition. I might even venture into other varieties of the delicious dairy product. Who doesn’t love a good block of cheese, and what would be more amazing than having an on-demand supply in the fridge, 24/7?!

The post Adventures in Cheesemaking appeared first on Cabana State Of Mind.