Pizza and carrot salad

For Valentine's Day, I cooked dinner for my b/f. This happens about once a week anyway, but this week I splurged a little on organic vegetables and fancy cheese from Whole Foods.

First I made a carrot salad, based on a recipe in my Martha Stewart Living Cookbook. I washed, peeled, then chopped up about a pound of carrots in a food processor. I then mixed the carrots with lemon juice, red wine vinegar, soy sauce, and salt to taste. It usually ends up pretty sweet once the carrots soak for a while, but I wanted a bit of savory which is why I used soy sauce, and also added some sesame seeds. I then mixed in about 2/3 cup of sliced mint leaves and about 1/3 cup dried currants (raisins work too). This is an easy, vegan side dish!

I love pizza, and I especially love fresh mozzarella and tomatoes. So I started with a standard pizza crust (with white flour). After stretching it out on the pan, I crushed a clove of garlic and smeared it around the entire crust. On top of that, I spread on some basil-in-a-tube, which I hadn't tried before but turned out great. Since cheese isn't the healthiest thing, I really tried to cut back on my usual smearing olive oil over everything, and using fresh basil paste instead of pesto was a good, healthy option.

Once the sauce layer was finished, I sliced about 4 oz. of mozzarella (seriously, this stuff was amazing) into about 1/2 inch slices, as well as 2 small tomatoes, and laid them out on the pizza. Then I sprinkled on some capers, which are so good on pizza!

I baked the pizza for about 20 minutes at 400F, although next time I might broil it for a minute at the end. While it was still hot, I shredded on some Pecorina Romano (which adds a bit of saltiness too). I would say it turned out pretty wonderfully.

Finally for dessert I made this favorite pie of mine, except that instead of plums I used a peach and blackberries. The pie did not make it to the pictures, but it did make a delicious breakfast.