Baked Pizza Dip

I LOVE pizza. But I can't eat it. There are a few SCD pizza crust recipes I've been wanting to play around with. Maybe I'll get to that one day. But for now, I used what's in my fridge/cabinets to help satisfy my pizza cravings!

Here's what I started with:

1 cup dry white beans (I had soaked and cooked them a couple days before for another recipe so these were left overs)

1-2 Tbsp garlic

1-2 Tbsp diced hot peppers

Italian/Pizza seasoning- enough for desired taste (not pictured)
1 16 oz can diced stewed tomatoes, drained**
1 green pepper
1/4 red onion
**You could replace with sun dried tomatoes to give it a drier, more 'pizza' taste

First, I chopped up the green pepper and onion into relatively small pieces.

Next, I pureed the beans, garlic, diced hot peppers and Italian seasoning in the food processor, adding a little olive oil to help smooth it out.
Once you have a smooth creamy consistency, add the diced green pepper, onion and tomatoes. (If you're using sun dried tomatoes I would recommend dicing them with the green pepper and onions.) I wanted to keep the veggies a little 'chunky' in the dip so I added them after I blended the beans to the consistency I wanted.

Once everything is mixed together, pour the dip into a baking dish. Since I only baked a part of the dip, so I used a small loaf pan and topped it with just a little bit of cheese. The remaining part I stored in the fridge until I was ready to bake it.

Bake at 350 for about 30 minutes until slightly hardened.

I dipped almond-flour 'pita' chips in this and it was really good. A nice hearty warm dip. You could even layer pepperoni on top the bean mixed before baking it, then top with cheese, to make it even more 'pizza-like' (if you're looking for SCD/carb&sugar-free, beware that a lot of pepperoni isn't legal on those diets- you could use cooked ground beef crumbles instead!)

What could be better than a healthy pizza dip?!
Happy eating! :)

Starting off the New Year and my Blog!

After starting this blog a few months ago, I figured I should start actually posting things. And what better time than the start of 2012! I'm clearly not any good at this blog thing yet but we'll get there! Add that to my ever-growing list of New Years Resolutions...

I have the best groups of friends and was lucky enough to end 2011 and start 2012 with them all. It was the perfect start to a new year!

As for me... I live and love Baltimore. When I'm not out and about in my neighborhood, I'm usually coming up with all sorts of 'interesting' recipes. I develop or modify recipes to be carb/sugar free to fit my dietary/health needs. Good thing I love to cook too! My sewing machine has been a bit lonely over the last couple of years but I plan to change that this year so hopefully there will be a lots of fun sewing and DIY projects too! Who knows what else is coming... But stay tuned- it's going to be a great year! :)