In The Bag: May is Broccoli and Blue Cheese

ITB: MAY hosted this month by Scott at Real Epicurean.  Check out the site to see what is going on in his neck of the woods.  He has chosen Broccoli and Blue Cheese as our key ingredients for May. 

Nothing else came to mind except Broccoli Blue Cheese Bread.  It works as a great appetizer for cocktail parties, picnics, you name it.  It’s easy and full of flavor. 

Don’t let the “bread” part fool you.  The dough is Pizza dough.  A very easy recipe for which a bread machine was used to do all the hard labor.

The blue cheese should be a milder tasting blue cheese otherwise it will overwhelm the broccoli.  The broccoli and cheese should share in the “staring roll” and one should not drown out the other. 

PIZZA DOUGH (using a bread machine).  Add the following to your machine and set to “Dough” cycle.

• 3/4 cup water
• 1 TBS olive oil
• 1 TBS sugar
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 TBS Dry Milk Powder
• 2 1/4 cup Bread Flour
• 1 tsp yeast

BROCCOLI BLUE CHEESE BREAD

• 1 lb of Pizza Dough (recipe above)
• 2 crowns of broccoli, chopped
• 1/4 lb Mild Blue Cheese
• 2 TBS chopped Sun Dried Tomatoes packed in oil
• 1 TBS Italian Spices (such as basil, oregano….)
• 2 egg whites
• garlic powder

Preheat oven to 350 F.

Place washed broccoli in salted water and boil until softened.  Drain and pat dry completely.

Flour a baking sheet and spread out the pizza dough to cover the sheet. Make sure there are no holes.  Drizzle a little olive oil on top of dough.  Leaving about 1 inch from the edge of dough, spread your cooked broccoli.  Crumble your blue cheese on top of the broccoli, followed by your chopped sun dried tomatoes.  Sprinkle on a tablespoon of your Italian spices. 

On the long side, begin rolling up and at about 1/2 way, fold the ends in and continue rolling.  Flip the roll over so the seam is on the bottom.  Brush egg white on top and sprinkle on garlic powder.

Bake for 30 – 35 minutes until nice and brown.

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A Hump Day Workout

Wednesday’s work out was back and triceps.  Getting up wasn’t a chore since I was able to relax earlier than usual last night. I hit the massage chair at 7:45 pm and that really eliminated a lot of tension.  I went for a walk with Ted and Shane at 9pm. By 9:20pm, I was already under the covers. Zzzzzz.

Back to today’s exercise:   4 sets of each exercise.  I’ll refer to each “set” as the back exercise immediately followed by the tricep exercise.  The first “set” was done for 20 reps. The second “set”, 18 reps. Third “set”, 15 reps. and finally, the last “set”, 12 reps.

• Close grip pulley rows + Two hand overhead tri-extensions.
• Wide grip pulley rows + One hand overhead extensions.
• Close grip pull downs + Bent over tricep extensions.
• Wide grip pull downs + Tricep presses using the cable machine.

The warm up was 30 minutes of ET.  Shane and I ran 3 1/2 miles.  He picked up a tennis ball at the top of the street and carried it the entire length of our run.  At least he was more controllable this morning.

Breakfast:  There was a really over ripe banana that I was eyeballing for my shake this morning. Ted beat me to it. You gotta be quick in this house.

• Bob’s Red Mill Steel Cut oats with cinnamon, 2 English Toffee Tea Bags, 1TBS powdered chocolate peanut butter.
• Jay Robb Chocolate shake with 1 TBS powdered pb.
• 1/2 a grapefruit and 1 strawberry

Now it’s off to work. 

Have a happy hump day!

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