I’m back from Vegas (I will try to write stuff up about the trip at some point, promise), and other than a couple bowls of oatmeal, I actually cooked something for the first time in over a week tonight. And it felt kinda good to be back in the kitchen.

I haven’t made it to the grocery store yet, so had to work with what I had on hand. I was sorta jonesing for some pizza, but wanted something a lil different… so the pizza-dilla was born.

The pizza-dilla is part pizza, part quesadilla, and in this case it’s pepperoni and jalapeno… with a home-made pizza sauce (that’s today’s recipe btw).

I used two, low-carb, fajita size tortilla, bout an ounce and a half of pepperoni, and an once of cheese, and some chopped up jalapeño pepper, so I got about 22g of protein here. You can fill these with anything you like, have on hand, you basically set it up like a pizza, but top it with another tortilla before cooking. And instead of baking you can use either a George Foreman grill or panani press cooked for about 2-3 minutes, or if you don’t have one a griddle or hot skillet for about 2 minutes each side. Even with making the sauce, this whole thing took me bout 10 minutes.

I don’t buy jarred or canned pizza sauce any more, I just keep canned tomato sauce on hand and make it up in to what I need at the time. In this case, pizza sauce… and it’s super easy… here’s what you need:

1 – 8oz can tomato sauce
2 teaspoons granulated garlic
2 teaspoons dried parsley
2 teaspoons dried oregano
1 teaspoon dried basil
1 teaspoon granular Splenda

Puree this all together, I typically use my Magic Bullet, but you can get buy with just stirring in a pinch. Like most of my recipes, you can mix this up a bit to your own tastes, like tonight I used 4 cloves of roasted garlic instead of the granulated, and added a teaspoon of red pepper flake for a lil zing.

You can also use this for a spaghetti type sauce… I only used about a tablespoon so I have some left, I might try some sort of lasagne dish tomorrow I think. I’ll let you know if it turns out!

Since I’ve been promoting quinoa on Twitter and such so much lately, people have been asking me for recipes using it… here’s a good one… turkey meatballs that have quinoa and veges in them, making them pretty much a complete meal all on their own.

This is tweeked from a recipe I got from someone in one of my support groups. And by the way, I fully admit they tasted a heck of a lot better than this picture looks. Trust me.

1 pound ground turkey (or beef if you really want)
3/4 cup cooked quinoa
1/4 cup finely chopped onions
1/4 cup grated carrots
1/4 cup grated zucchini (I actually used chayote squash)
2 tablespoons tomato sauce
1 tablespoons chopped garlic
1 tablespoon worcestershire sauce
1/2 teaspoon fresh ground pepper
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon dried oregano
1/4 teaspoon dried thyme
1 egg

Preheat your oven to 500F, line a large baking sheet with foil then great with cooking spray; set aside. You could also use a broiler pan or some sort of rack that lets the meatballs cook while letting any fat drip away.

In a large bowl, mix together meat, quinoa, onions, carrots, zucchini/chayote, tomato sauce, garlic, worcestershire, seasonings and egg until well combined. If you have them (and you really should!), wear a pair of latex gloves. Keeps your hands from getting all goopy. And yes, that is a technical term. And no, it’s not really about keeping your hands clean, it’s really about keeping the food safe, even if you’ve washed your hands you should use protection!

Shape in to 12 meatballs and transfer to prepared baking sheet. Roast until cooked through and golden brown, about 20 minutes, turn over once about 15 minutes in so they brown evenly. These will be about raquet ball sized. You could do smaller ones and cut the cooking time down by about 5 minutes.

Oh yea, make sure your meat is cold before mixing this up or the meat gets hard to deal with. If it does get too bad, toss it in the fridge for 10-20 minutes before trying to portion out the meatballs.

Serving is 3 meatballs, you’ll get about 20g of protein, 10g carbs.

I had mine with a bit of doctored up tomato sauce. You can open a small can (8oz) of tomato sauce, use a couple tablespoons in the meatballs and then mix the rest with about a couple teaspoons each of dried parsley, oregano and garlic powder, and maybe a teaspoon of the dried thyme. Add in maybe a teaspoon of Splenda to cut some of the bitterness. Mix this up in a glass dish like a 1-cup measuring cup and microwave for about a minute to make a pretty decent sauce. I use this sauce when making my own pizzas too by the way.