Pizza Gourmet Express

Gary lives just a block or so East of the adorable heart of University Heights in San Diego, which leads to us trying lots of pedestrian friendly restaurants and bars in the vicinity. One such place is our new favorite "neighborhood pizza joint", Pizza Gourmet Express which hails itself as just that.

I walked over to get a pizza last night, and as I snapped a few pictures I heard, "Oh! Another Yelper!" to which I explained that I wasn't a Yelper, and I had my own food blog, not that being a Yelper is a bad thing, I just already have too much on my plate, ya know?

Pizza Gourmet Express

4615 Park Boulevard
San Diego California 92116
(61...

PEG is kinda like the "Subway" of pizza restaurants, an assembly line of fresh ingredients made fresh to order right in front of your eyes and either taken home to cook yourself, or flash baked in their high speed pizza ovens. Gary and I met the owner, James, who is super nice, awesome and informative. He said he'd stop by and see what I had to say, so... HI JAMES!


We got our old standard, the Vegetarian Pizza, which comes with 4 veggie toppings of your choice. We opted for tomatoes, garlic, artichoke hearts and fresh asparagus, on their thin whole wheat crust, then topped with fresh basil and spices. A lot of times I'll forgo the "whole wheat" options, cuz I don't like eating cardboard, but PGE's 51% whole wheat crust is thin, nutty and still soft which makes it a great camouflaged "healthy" option for those of you trying to watch what you eat without giving up taste. Plus their dough is made and delivered fresh! DELISH!

I also love that they have glass bottled sodas, wines and beers, and even Virgil's Root Beer ON TAP!


Pizza Gourmet Express is also doing their part in the Green Movement and deliver their neighborhood pizzas on a cute red bike! I got mine delivered by a cute bearded man.


We got the pizza home and I immediately began snapping pictures of the deliciousness that was our dinner. A large vegetarian pizza has 8 slices and feeds 2 hungry people with enough left over, for well, left overs and runs you just under $16.



Gary got to eat the rest for dinner the next night.


The month of September has affectionately been dubbed, "Nostalgia Movie Month" so we accompanied our pizza with The Dark Crystal on DVD. GELFLING!?!?

(source.)

Feel free to join us by watching movies from at least 15 years ago that make you say things like, "OH yeahhh!! I forgot that part!"

Up next in our queue is; "The Never Ending Story"

Trader Joe's really got it going on.

The other day, I braved the Southern California rain and drove to Trader Joe's in La Mesa. I wish there was one a bit closer to my house, but oh well.

If you've never been to Trader Joe's, it's really a treat. I personally LOVE the grocery store. I love going up and down all the aisles and checking out all the cool stuff they have. I even make a very OCD list when I go. It's super therapeutic for me.

If you aren't sure whether or not you have a Trader Joe's near you, you can check their locations here.

Honestly when I moved to Georgia, knowing that they had both Whole Foods AND Trader Joe's in Atlanta was a HUGE selling point for me.

Yesterday consisted of at least one Trader Joe's item per meal.

I started off by having their Chicken Apple sausage; cut length wise and grilled.



I also had one egg; scrambled, and half a bagel, toasted with Better'n Peanut Butter for breakfast. You know how much I love me some Better'n Peanut Butter.



Breakfast; roughly 400 calories.

For lunch I took the Trader Joe's reduced fat Greek Salad, removed half of the feta cheese, diced up the cucumbers and tomatoes and doctored up the dressing. I dumped out about half of the dressing and to the remainder, added lemon juice, red wine vinegar, and some olive oil and oregano. It was much lighter and tasted a lot better.

On the side I had 1 tbsp each of the Garlic and Spicy Hummus from the Trader Joe's Hummus Quad. To dip I had 3 of their Corn crackers, and 1/2 of their flat bread, broken into pieces.



Lunch; roughly 330 calories.

For dinner, I tried the Trader Joe's Asparagus Risotto.  1 cup is 200 calories, and it comes frozen in the bag, ready to heat and serve. I just cooked one cup, seeing as I was the only one eating and put the rest back in the freezer.

To doctor it up, I added some more asparagus, picked fresh from the garden earlier in the day, cut it up and tossed it in.

Keeping asparagus stalks trimmed, and resting in a glass of water in the fridge helps keep them fresher longer. As they go unused, trim the stalks down and replace the water.



For my protein I grilled 2 chicken breasts with lemon and cracked pepper, drizzled lemon juice on top, added a bit of water, before putting a lid on it to cook. One for dinner, and one breast for lunch the next day. (I spread some hummus on a flat bread, and added half the second breast, shredded and folded it in half and made a mini sammie and it was so yummers.)

I also treated myself to 4oz (about 1/2 a cup) of red wine with dinner. "They" say that 4 oz's a day is a good heart healthy amount of wine and antioxidants, plus it makes you feel warm inside, and when it's raining and cold, anything warm is welcomed in with open arms.

Here's what dinner looked like.

Dinner; roughly 450 calories

The "sauce" on the chicken, is the lemon juice, water and yummy stuck to the pan bits, simmered and reduced. It had a nice tang to it, which went very well with the creme fraiche and onion in the asparagus risotto.