Cheesecake, Meatballs, and Pizza

My first 3 attempted food items have been a success!! This is so fun :) 

The Mocha Chocolate Cheesecake isn't the best cheesecake I've ever had, but it's good for my first one! The recipe is on www.allrecipes.com if you want to try it out. I made coffee and used it instead of the coffee liqueur that the recipe calls for. If you do this also, you will need to put in more coffee than it calls for or you won't be able to taste the coffee flavor. I also think I should have left it in the oven a little longer than an hour for it to settle a little more because it "fell" a lot when I let it cool. Overall, it looks pretty and it tastes pretty delicious :)

Dinner on Thursday was a dish I saw on FoodNetwork on the Rachael Ray show. It's Mozzarella Stuffed Sausage Balls, Tomato-Basil Sauce, Cacio e Pepe Potatoes and Roasted Broccolini. (www.foodnetwork.com for the recipe). This meal is so easy to cook! Rachael Ray did it on her 30 minute meals show but I was hesitant to think I could do it that quickly because I'm just not as good as her. Haha. However, I started cooking and had the meal on my plate in 35 minutes! And it looked just like hers did on the show! It tasted great too! Well, our ordinary Kroger didn't have broccolini so I just went with broccoli. It was still good! I like it baked much better than steamed. I substituted the bocconcini mozzarella for Mozzarella Veggie Slices. Because of my allergy to milk, I use as many soy products as possible. They taste just the same! I cut the recipe in half and still had plenty of leftovers for lunch the next day. This is a well-balanced meal and it's so easy to make!

Today while watching the Hogs game (we're doing so much better today!) my stomach was growling. I was going to go to the kitchen and just heat up leftovers. But, "football" food sounded so much better! I looked through my fridge and pantry to see what I could put together. I decided to make a Pesto Pizza! I had some pesto leftover from Thursday's dinner (it was in the tomato-basil sauce) so I spread that on a whole-grain tortilla. I spread a little bit of olive oil on top of that. Then I added some veggies I had in the fridge - mushrooms and bell peppers. I ran out of shredded Mozzarella so I just cut my veggie slices into slivers and laid those on top. I cooked it for about 9 minutes on 350* and it turned out so good! It was a healthy, delicious alternative to normally greasy pizza you order for football games. Loved it!

I am loving this creative new food venture I'm going on :) Tonight I'm cooking an Indian dish - Tandoori Chicken. I will let you know how that one turns out too. If you have any recipes you love, I'd love to hear about them and try them out! If you have any questions about these recipes, feel free to ask! 

Enjoy your Saturday! I'm going to watch the rest of the Hogs game! We better not blow it in the second half like we have ALL of our other games.