Rise and Puff Healthy Tortilla

Recently, I had the opportunity to try one of the most amazing tortilla products* from Rise and Puff. Besides Organic Tortilla and Original Tortilla which I tried, Rise and Puff also has other offerings e.g.  Gluten-Free Tortilla and Everything Tortilla.


What makes Rise and Puff unique and stand out among other competitor tortilla products is the simple and clean ingredient list. Just four clean ingredients in this award winning Original Tortilla: Unbleached Wheat Flour, Water, Avocado Oil, Sea Salt.

I am sold!

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Tofu Pizza 豆腐披萨

What would you say if I said I am going to serve you pizza on top of pasta? What?? That's carbs overload!!!

Don't worry. This pizza is actually more protein than carbs. Best of all, plant-based proteins - making it a perfect vegetarian meal.


This Tofu Pizza is inspired and adapted from Just One Cookbook. I skipped the pan-frying step though, and made the assembled tofu pizza entirely in the oven.

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Watermelon Feta-Cheese Pizza-Salad 西瓜披萨沙拉

It is the first day of Summer, and so extremely hot!

This appetizer or dessert (whatever you think it should be, or want it to be) Watermelon Feta-Cheese Pizza is the perfect summer thirst-quencher and palate-refresher.


I absolutely love the idea of using watermelon wedge(s) as the base, making this one of the most interesting (and pretty) appetizers - sweet juicy watermelon, topped with briny crumbly feta cheese, mild red onion and cooling crisp cucumber. It is also super easy to put together and so ready for the "Wow!" factor.


I am usually not a huge fan of watermelon because I find it one-dimensional too sweet. However, with this combination of complementary flavors and textures, this fruit pizza has become irresistibly delicious.

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Kale, Heirloom Tomato Pesto-Sauce Pizza 羽衣甘蓝蕃茄青酱比萨饼

Now I can have this pizza every time when heirloom tomatoes are in summer peak, also assuming there is fresh basil in the garden every summer to make pesto.

There seems quite some conditions to satisfy so until then, why not enjoy the moment right here, right now?


Trader Joes Pita Bread (also used in these Pesto Pita Bites) is perfect for this pizza. This pita bread is thin yet not as thin as lavash bread that typically turn out too crispy and not able to hold too many pizza toppings.

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Pesto Pita Bites 青酱脆饼

Finger-friendly snack bites that will definitely please a crowd and even better, make a crowd envious of this homemade pesto. These pesto pita bites are one of the easiest hors d’oeuvres to make, and they are delectable.


This Italian oil-and-herb sauce with basil's flavonoids and volatile oils - eugenol and rosmarinic acid, boost brain production of dopamine and serotonin therefore lifting up your mood. Basil is also a good source of vitamin K and manganese.


The other healthy ingredient in this pesto is walnuts. This pesto sauce is packed with Omega-3 good fats. Walnuts is a terrific source of protein, but it may not be easy to unlock the energy from the nuts as they are covered in phytates. Phytates is an indigestible plant compound that inhibits our enzymes from fully digesting nuts. By soaking the nuts in purified water overnight, you will rinse away phytates and make the nuts, including the key energy-booster nutrients, more digestible.

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Artichoke, Broccoli, Cheese Pizza ABC 洋蓟西兰花起司比萨饼

Ever since I got the hang of making lavash bread pizza/ flatbread pizza, I have been switching up ingredients to create a variety of vegetarian pizzas.


The creation for today is ABC pizza: Artichoke, Broccoli and Cheese Pizza.

As the oven is doing the "cooking", this is an absolutely an easy dish to prepare if you are entertaining at home. I have been serving these pizzas to impress, especially when there are guests at home. Best of all, I don't break a sweat doing it.

Artichoke, Broccoli and Cheese Pizza 洋蓟西兰花起司比萨饼
First, blanch broccoli florets and thaw frozen aritchoke hearts, set aside. Sprinkle bottom layer with grated mild cheddar cheese, then top with veggies and top with more cheese.

Bake in preheated (385-390F) oven for about 10 minutes till the cheese melts.

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Tomatoes, Zucchini, Cheese, Arugula Pizza 小蕃茄西葫芦比萨饼

Easy to prepare and fun to customize, pizza is definitely a brilliant menu item when you are expecting a small party or big crowd of guests over for a meal. You just need to load up on fresh ingredients (your pizza toppings!) and get your pizza "base" ready - either store-bought pizza dough or "bread" bases e.g. lavash breads, pita breads. Then everything is just oven-minutes away.

With all the lavash craze, I still make my pita bread pizza. Both are "thin-crust" but pita bread being a little thicker than lavash bread also means there is a tendency to "overload" the former!


This Pizza Pita Overload includes ingredients such as zucchini, a variety of tomatoes (e.g Campari, Cherry), cheese and arugula.


If space is running tight and you do not have a stove oven to start with, you can always "invest" on a Table-Top Oven!

Tag: pita bread, pita bread pizza

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Maitake Mushroom Flatbread Pizza 舞菇比萨饼

The series of flatbread pizza continues...


After an earlier trial with artichoke hearts, pea and corn lavash bread pizza, today's version plays on something more "exotic" - how does Maitake Mushroom Pizza sound? Maitake mushroom is known for its cancer-fighting properties like many other mushrooms. Besides being rich in potassium, Vitamin D, Vitamin B2 and amino acid, it is also a good source of protein and imparts umami flavors to many dishes.

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Artichoke Lavash Flatbread Pizza 洋蓟比萨饼

Not all frozen food are bad. There are some frozen ingredients/food such as frozen peas and corns that are time-savers in the kitchen. Frozen vegetables such as peas and corns are frozen at source, to lock the nutrients loss that fresh vegetables usually suffer during packing and shipping (transportation).


Another frozen food/ingredient that I have discovered recently is frozen artichoke hearts. That really save me a lot of prep. time for artichokes. I stay away from bottled artichoke hearts as they are usually marinated, overpowering the taste of the actual artichoke hearts most of the times.

"Why not fresh whole artichokes instead?" you asked. Well, I decided that it was too much work getting to the core -heart of the artichoke. Thus, frozen artichoke became my intermediate solution between whole fresh artichoke and bottled marinated artichoke hearts.

With this new discovery, making this Artichoke, Pea and Corn Lavash Flatbread Pizza was so easy.

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Lavash Bread Pizza 香脆薄皮比萨

See that flatbread pizza lurking out there with Asparagus Soup? Other than whole wheat pita bread, the other bread that I buy often, more so recently, is lavash bread which also happens to be my recent new favorite from Trader Joes. Lavash bread is a thin, soft flatbread popular in Middle East. I use lavash bread like any other bread - slather peanut butter and jelly then roll it up, or as flatbread for pizza. I am for thin-crust pizza anytime, anyway.


As lavash bread is thin, a short baking time is recommended in the oven as baking them too long under high heat will dry them out and burn the bread. It is also advisable to keep the sauces (if any) very light so that the sauce does not make the flatbread soggy.

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Sausage Stir-Fry, Sausage Pizza - Sausage Two-Ways

Natural (without preservatives, and without nitrates) sausages make a healthier hot dogs.

Other than hot dogs, how do you use store-bought sausages? Add them to soups, stir-fries, stews etc. In other words, sausages are versatile ingredients! Well, that's not new.

Here are two recent creations - are they new or not new?

Sausage-Onions-Tomatoes-Cheese Pita-Bread Pizza
This is a pita-bread based pizza created using sausages-onions-tomatoes mix (sausages that I have cooked in advance, with onions and tomatoes) and melted cheese as the toppings. Spread the sausages-onions-tomatoes sauce on the pita bread, bake in 350-375F oven for about 10 mins to crisp up the pita-bread, then add the cheese and bake about another 5 mins till the cheese melts.



Instead of Western-inspired, these sausages can be  ood for a Chinese stir-fry too! This Trio of Veggies and Sausages Stir-Fry was done with celery, cabbage, cauliflower and...sausages! The saltiness of sausages enhances the mild-tasting sweet flavors of fresh vegetables.


It is not hard to detect that this stir-fry was created in a spur of the moment, making use of whatever vegetables available in the fridge.

Tag: sausage stir-fry, sausage pizza

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Roasted Cauliflower Naan Pizza

I have been re-visiting some of my older recipes and giving them a fresh new spin. So today, I am making Oven-Roasted Cauliflower, which goes as the topping for my Indian Naan-bread pizza base. Decided to do away with pita bread as the pizza base this time and try another kind of bread-base.

Roasted Cauliflower Indian-Style Naan Pizza! It works!


Oh boy, am I stagnating right now? I seem to be toying with my comfort-zone ingredients. I need new ingredients! More! More! To excite me, to inspire me.

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Thin-crust hawaiian pita pizza - you would not need frozen and delivery pizza anymore!

I've said here that Hawaiian pizza (ham, pineapple, cheese toppings) is my favorite pizza choice. I decided to make my own and shout out "Waiter, there's something in my...bread" to Spittoon Extra.

It's easier than starting with and using a pizza dough (knead-it-yourself or even store-bought). Yes, easier than store-bough pizza dough...and you can have your toasty and crispy thin-crust pizza like this! And that's in my bread!




Find out how...

Thin-Crust Hawaiian Pizza (serves 2-3)
Ingredients: Whole wheat pita bread, sun-dried tomato & basil chicken sausage, pineapples (cubed), tomato paste (Note: this is actually the leftover paste or puree of a can of whole tomatoes; you can use any of your convenient choice of tomato-based paste or sauce); and mozzarella cheese (or any cheese that melts lusciously in mooey-ness and gooey-ness at high temperature. I had some Pepper Jack Cheese and it worked too!)

How-to:

In less than 25 mins (almost equivalent to heating up a frozen pizza or you waiting for pizza delivery at your door step), a freshly-baked, oven-warm and toasty crispy homemade pizza is already at your dinner table waiting for you!


Well, I'll leave it to critics to verify the authencity of this non-pizza-dough-based crust pizza. But it has certainly satisfied me as a Hawaiian pizza. You can do it too! Can even use bread if you don't have round pita bread (...just that the pizza will be squarish. Watch the slide show as I made some with multi-grain bread too).

Tag: pizza, hawaiian pizza, easy pizza, pita bread