spring cleaning and busy-food.

Whew.

Our house has been a vacuuming, drilling (that would be the husband), teapot-whistling, scrubbing, choo-choo train-chugging (and that would be Hayden), coffee-pot-gurgling chorus. We're purging A LOT of stuff at the moment, not to make room for more, but just to make room for room. In between doing all I can--which I'll admit has been hard for me lately; I'm having several health issues--I've been in my studio/office, slowly organizing and pulling out long-forgotten treasures, and even fashioning a bare corner into an altar and meditation spot for my yoga. It's all turning out quite nicely.

Here's a truth: cleaning makes you ravenously hungry. It also makes you bone-tired. Which is why I've been making what I like to call "busy food"--good, wholesome food, done with short-cuts and downsized in scale. Which is where my Mini English Muffin Pizza's come in.

I make mine with some very expensive ham and ricotta cheese, but you can obviously alter the toppings to suite every person you're serving (an excellent bonus if you have children). And because they're tiny, they're fun. Why is everything more fun in miniature?

Mini English Muffin Pizza's



Ingredients:

- 4 whole-grain english muffins ( I actually really like Fiber One's )
- homemade pizza sauce ( I usually have some on hand in the freezer ) OR your favorite brand of organic marinara sauce
- 1 cup ricotta cheese ( fat content of your choosing )
- 3 spring onions, chopped
- one garlic clove, peeled and sliced in half
- about 3-4 slices of very high-quality ham
- olive oil, for brushing
- sea salt and black pepper

Preheat your oven to 275 F. Separate your english muffins and lay out. Brush with olive oil, rub with the halved garlic, then sprinkle with sea salt and pepper. Place on a non-stick baking sheet and place in the oven for 7-10 minutes. Watch them closely--you're just looking to lightly toast them.
Remove from oven, and leave heat on. Chop the ham slices into strips. Top each muffin half with as much pizza sauce as you like, a dab of ricotta, a few strips of ham, and a scattering of spring onion. Place the pizza's back into the oven and cook for about 10 minutes, until the cheese is gooey, and the edges of the muffin and ham are browning. Remove and serve.
Serves 4 people two mini-pizza's each. (You can obviously up the amounts very easily, if needed.)



Nosh-nosh. :) Enjoy!