Mediterranean Lamb Pizza with Roasted Red Pepper Sauce

If pizza had originated in Morocco rather than Italy, I have a sneaking suspicion that lamb would have been the meat of choice, not pepperoni. (Or perhaps pepperoni made with lamb. Hint, hint… I can only hope the American Lamb Board is reading this!) And perhaps the sauce would have been been made the way I made this one — with roasted red peppers instead of tomatoes. It’s a fun twist on the traditional marinara staple, plus it’s a handy way to go tomato-free if tomatoes aren’t on your dinner guest’s list of favorite foods. You could, of course, go with a combo sauce if you’d like. If you’re feeling particularly brave and happen to have some spicy Moroccan harissa on hand, you can include that, too.

I opted to maintain the Mediterranean attitude by topping the pie with goat’s-milk feta and rosemary-scented asiago cheese. (Sartori produces a sublime version of the latter, made with grass-fed milk and copious amounts of dried rosemary.) You could stick with the tried-and-true mozzarella, but if you’re going to go with generous amounts of herbed sauce and flavorful ground lamb, you might as well enjoy a cheese that makes it presence known.

Mediterranean Lamb Pizza with Roasted Red Pepper Sauce

1 pizza crust (store-bought or this easy whole-grain and gluten-free crust recipe)

For the sauce:
1 medium onion, chopped (1/2 of the onion reserved for the lamb topping)
4 cloves garlic, chopped
16 oz. (1 pound) of roasted peppers, either jarred (drained weight, not the total contents weight — just be sure to DRAIN THE PEPPERS BEFORE USING!) or home-roasted, run through a food processor until fairly smooth
2 tsp. dried oregano
1 tsp. dried parsley
1 tsp. dried mint
Sprinkling of crushed red pepper flakes

For the lamb topping:
1 lb. ground lamb, preferably pastured
The reserved onion from the sauce
4 cloves garlic, chopped
1 tsp. dried oregano
1 tsp. dried parsley
1 tsp. dried mint

Cheeses: about 1 cup of grated/crumbled goat’s- or sheep’s-milk feta AND/OR asiago (I used Sartori’s rosemary-scented asiago)

Prepare crust according to recipe (or package directions if store-bought). To make the sauce, heat a drizzle of extra-virgin olive oil over medium heat for 1 minute and then add onions. Sautée, stirring occasionally, for 5 minutes or until onions are starting to turn translucent. Add garlic and reduce heat to medium-low. Continue to cook for another 2 minutes or until garlic is fragrant. Add remaining sauce ingredients and allow sauce to simmer gently for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally. Reduce heat to low if the sauce starts to boil.

Meanwhile, heat the lamb over medium heat in a different pan. Cook for 2 minutes, stirring often to break apart meat, until lamb is starting to brown slightly. Add onions and cook for another 3 minutes or until the lamb is mostly no longer pink. Stir in garlic and herbs and reduce heat to low. Cook for another 2 minutes or until lamb is browned. Drain.

By now, the pizza crust should be ready to top and the sauce should be simmered. Make sure the oven is at 375F. Spoon sauce onto the pre-baked crust and spread evenly out to the edges. Add meat, spooning it on evenly, and then scatter cheese on top of the meat.

Bake for 15 to 20 minutes or until sauce is bubbling and cheese is melting and starting to turn golden brown. Use a pizza wheel or the tip of a sharp knife to cut the pizza into 8 slices. Serve and enjoy!

Baked Pasta (with Homemade Marinara)

This is a tale of two culinary possibilities: turning a classic pasta dish into a pizza of sorts and how to save your summer tomato surplus without having to resort to canning. I’m all for canning, mind you, but it’s a lot easier to throw something into a bag than can it. The fact that you can combine these two possibilities is the…um…cheese on the pasta. (The savory version of “icing on the cake.”)

Freezing tomatoes and then making sauce with them months later — or, as in my case, 18 months later because I’d forgotten that I’d stuck my 2010 batch in my mom’s cavernous downstairs freezer — is ridiculously easy. First, wash and thoroughly dry the tomatoes, then trim off the stems and plop them into a gallon freezer bag. Freeze them.

When you want to use them,  put the frozen tomatoes in a large stockpot, fill the pot with enough water to cover the tomatoes, and bring to a boil. Let the tomatoes boil for about 3 minutes or until the skins start to look wrinkly. Poke one of them with a knife tip to see if the skin will easily jostle away. (This might take up to 5 minutes of boiling.) Use a slotted spoon to carefully lift the tomatoes one by one into a large bowl. Give them a few minutes to cool, then grab each one with your fingertips and let the inner flesh slip out, leaving the skin behind. Spill the peeled tomatoes — and any juice/water that dripped out of them — back into the stockpot. Mash the tomatoes with a potato masher. Bring to a simmer over medium heat and let them gently simmer on medium-low heat for at least 20 minutes to concentrate their flavor and get rid of some of the water that will inevitably be in them as a result of the freezing process.

Voila! You have a lush, garden-fresh tomato sauce that you can use however you’d like. Note: if you want a chunky sauce, wield your masher with discretion. If you want a velvet-smooth sauce, run the sauce through a food processor to get all the lumps out. You’ll never have to curse a summertime tomato excess again! (I realize this is a tad out of season, but I thought I’d mention it now so that it sticks in the back of your mind for the next six months and prompts you to look forward to an overabundant garden. Now that I know how easy it is to transform frozen tomatoes into a rich sauce, I’ll get a few extra plants this summer!)

Baked Pasta (with Homemade Marinara)

If you’re making homemade marinara:
1 large onion, chopped
5 cloves garlic, chopped
1 T. balsamic vinegar
Several pounds of fresh or frozen tomatoes OR at least 1 lb. of canned tomato sauce; if you use fresh or frozen tomatoes, follow the steps above to remove the skins and make your own sauce
At least 1 T. dried Italian seasoning OR 1 T. total of any/all of the following: thyme, oregano, rosemary, basil, parsley, marjoram, sage
Sea salt

With the marinara (homemade or store-bought), include:
Whole-grain pasta of your choice (I used corn spaghetti in mine)
Hard Italian cheese such as Parmesan or Asiago, grated

Preheat oven to 350F. If you’re making your own marinara, heat a drizzle of extra-virgin olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat for 1 minute, then add onion. Cook for 5 minutes or until onion is soft and starting to turn golden brown. Stir in garlic and balsamic vinegar and continue to cook for another 2 minutes or until garlic is fragrant. Add tomatoes, spices, and a pinch of salt. (If you’ve made your own tomato sauce, you’ll need to use more salt; store-bought sauce has a fair amount already.) Gently simmer sauce over medium-low for at least 20 minutes to let the flavors marry. This is one you can walk away from: assuming you have a nice low simmer and not a furious boil, the sauce can chug merrily along without your supervision.

Cook pasta according to package directions. Toss pasta with sauce and place on an oven-safe plate. Top with grated cheese. Bake for 15 minutes or until cheese is melting and turning golden brown.

Leftover marinara can be refrigerated (in glass containers, please — plastic ones can leach when subjected to acidic tomatoes) for a week, or freeze in a suitable container for a year. I like to use my leftover marinara as a dip for everything from crackers to shrimp. Or put it on scrambled eggs. Or serve with chicken, or even stir into chili. Homemade marinara has endless uses…including as pizza sauce, which was also put to good use in the previous post about Tuna Fish & Spinach Pizza.

Enjoy!

Tuna & Spinach Pizza

Happy New Year, everybody! I thought I’d start off 2012 by breaking an established culinary tradition: pizza toppings. Don’t get me wrong — I love mushroom and (pastured) pepperoni as much as the next guy — but I also enjoy venturing into off-the-spun-dough territory. I first had Thunfisch (tuna fish) pizza in Germany and have been making in my own kitchen ever since.

Before you start thinking that’s just too weird (“Tuna fish on pizza?”), let me remind you about the hallowed American lunch known as the tuna fish melt. This is essentially the same thing, except you’re adding a zesty tomato sauce and are eating the tuna on triangular wedges of crust rather than squared-off toast. And you’re including spinach. All in all, putting tuna fish on pizza makes for a heartier, more satisfying meal. For pizza lovers, it’s a chance to try something new; for folks wanting to upgrade the health quotient of their meals, this is a great way to add natural omega-3s to your dinner in the form of tuna + spinach. (On a whole-grain crust, of course.) I’m a member of both camps — upgraded meals always involve better flavor, too.

Tuna & Spinach Pizza
Makes one 12″ round pizza; feel free to double the recipe to make two pizzas if you have two pans.

For the crust:
1 heaping teaspoon yeast
1/2 cup + 1 T. fairly warm water (not scorching hot, but pretty hot from the tap)
1 1/2 tsp. sea salt
1/2 cup corn flour* (not starch!)
1/2 cup brown rice flour*
1/2 cup chickpea flour*
1/2 cup potato flour* (not starch!)
Up to 1/2 cup whole milk, preferably from grass-fed cows

For the toppings:
Pizza or spaghetti sauce, homemade or store-bought (if using store-bought, try to find one that contains extra-virgin olive oil rather than soybean or canola or any other type of oil; the latter will almost certainly be highly refined and probably also GMO)
Canned tuna fish
Baby spinach leaves
Onion, sliced thin
Shredded cheese of your choice (think of what you like with a tuna melt; I prefer Gruyere, Parmesan, or any other hard, aged cheeses)

Preheat oven to 425F. Combine yeast and water in a large mixing bowl and let sit for 5 minutes. The yeast should bubble and create a light foam on top of the water as it comes to life. In another bowl, whisk together the salt and the flours. Use extra-virgin olive oil to thoroughly grease a 12″ round pizza pan. I like to use the type that’s aerated — i.e., has little holes in the bottom. That seems to create a thin, crisp crust. (European pizzas have very thin, crisp crusts, especially compared to doughy American crusts.)

Stir the flours into the yeast. Add the milk, starting with 1/4 cup and adding a bit more if the dough is too dry and crumbly. I find that 1/2 cup works out perfectly if I use the four specific flours I listed. You’ll probably need to mix the dough with your hands towards the end to wind up with a not-too-dry, not-too-wet ball. No need to let your dough rise since you’re going for a thin crust; you’ll still get a pleasantly yeasty taste without the rising time.

Press the dough evenly into the greased pan and bake for 15 minutes or until the edges are golden brown. Pull out of the oven, let cool for 5 minutes, and top with your toppings. Begin with the sauce, add everything except the cheese, and end by covering everything in a good layer of cheese. Reduce heat to 375F and bake for 10 minutes or until the cheese is melting and turning golden brown.

Enjoy!

* These are gluten-free flours. If you don’t have all four of them, just be sure to use a total of 2 cups of flour. The potato flour is highly absorbent, so if you don’t use any potato flour, only use 1/2 cup of water (omit the tablespoon). If you would prefer to make a wheat-based version, use a total of 2 cups of spelt, kamut, or whole-wheat flour.

Tortilla Pizzas

Here’s a truth that’s inconvenient for the dinner-in-a-sack industry but is great for the rest of us: fast food doesn’t have to be junk food. You’ve probably already got a lot of tasty quick meals loitering about in your kitchen, from canned beans that can be made into hearty salads to canned squash or pumpkin that can be fried into patties to an assortment of cheese, nuts, and fruits that can easily comprise a meal.

Or if you have some corn tortillas and some salsa and cheese, you can pop it all into the toaster oven to make savory Mexican-style pizzas. After I took this picture, I decided to make the pizzas into calzones by carefully turning one of the pizzas over and pressing it onto the other one. Crusty outsides, gooey insides…so much tastier than a $5 pizza that’s more like cardboard than food. And you’ll be enjoying your mini pizzas in a lot less time than it takes to drive up to the nearest dinner-in-a-sack outlet, too.

Tortilla Pizzas

Corn tortillas
Fresh salsa, either homemade or store-bought (I adore Garden Fresh salsas, although I added extra chopped cilantro to the one I used since I think you can pretty much never have too much cilantro)
Cheddar, Monterey Jack, or Colby cheese, preferably made with grass-fed milk (I opted for Farm Country White Cheddar), grated

If you’re using crisp tortillas, there’s no need to heat them first, but if you’re using frozen or not-so-crisp tortillas, you’ll need to dry-toast them in skillets over medium heat for 4 minutes — flipping halfway through — or until they start to turn golden-brown around the edges. I stash my Whole Life whole-grain corn tortillas in the freezer and heat them individually as needed.

Place the crisp tortillas on a foil- or parchment-lined baking sheet or toaster oven tray. Spoon some salsa onto each tortilla and sprinkle on some grated cheese. If you’re using a toaster oven, bake for about 10 minutes at 300F or until the cheese bubbles; if you’re using a conventional oven, go with 10 minutes at 350F. (The smaller interior of the toaster oven means it’ll heat much more quickly.)

Enjoy!

Pizza with Green Tomatoes, Roasted Chicken & Roasted Eggplant

Got some green tomatoes still clinging to the vine? Or maybe you’re like me and you’ve got a bag of them sitting in your kitchen. Now that we’re firmly in fall, we can only pluck the last of what’s in our gardens and hope that whatever still needs to ripen ripens indoors. In my case, that’s mostly tomatoes.

But the good news is that you can use tomatoes when they’re still green. At that point, they’re more like a mild green apple — think a not-so-tart Granny Smith — and can be used in any setting suited to green apples: in pies, in cobblers, or sautéed and spiced. Or you can get away with using green tomatoes in circumstances when you’d normally go for ripe tomatoes, like in a salsa or on a pizza.

When I wanted to throw together a quick pizza last night, I used a few end-of-the-season ingredients from my garden (green tomatoes and the lone remaining eggplant) and some leftover roasted free-range Amish chicken my mother had sent me home with. (When she roasts those Amish chickens, they are UNbelievably good. Rich, flavorful, tender…all the things that chicken usually is not, because usually people cook skinless boneless fatless flavorless might-as-well-be-cardboard conventional breasts instead of a whole bird — skin and all! — that got to run around outside pecking at bugs and living the way a healthy chicken should/does. But I digress…)

You can top your pizza any which way you want, of course, although I would stick with the idea of using green tomatoes if you have a backstock you’re trying to use before they get too soft and start to spoil. If you really want to rip through your green tomatoes, you could roast a batch of them along with the eggplant and then purée them into a chunky sauce that you could also include in your pizza toppings.

Pizza with Green Tomatoes, Roasted Chicken & Roasted Eggplant
Makes a 12″ pizza

1 recipe whole-grain pizza crust, either the gluten-free one described here or one of your own devising
1 medium eggplant, cut into 1/2″ slices
At least 4 green tomatoes, sliced thin (I used 8 since they were smallish)
About 8 oz. roasted chicken, cut into bite-size pieces, preferably from a free-range bird
Roasted garlic chips (optional)
Red pepper flakes (optional)
At least 1 cup grated hard cheese (I used sheep’s-milk Gouda, but any hard aged cheese will do)

To make the pizza crust, follow the directions from the cross-referenced post (or use your own recipe). If you like, you can pre-bake the crust while you roast the eggplant: just spread the eggplant slices out on baking sheets covered with parchment paper and slide into the 425F oven along with the crust. By the time the crust is golden brown (15-20 minutes), the eggplant should be shriveled and golden brown.

Lay the roasted eggplant slices on the pre-baked crust, then add the roasted chicken and the green tomato slices. Sprinkle on some roasted garlic chips and red pepper flakes if desired. Top with cheese. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until cheese is melting and golden brown. Serve immediately. Leftover pizza can be refrigerated for up to 4 days.

Enjoy!

Pizza with Roasted Vegetables & Feta

The best part about roasted vegetables isn’t the fact that they’re ridiculously easy to make.  It isn’t even the fact that they taste so good that avowed vegetable haters have just as much of a penchant for roasted vegetables as vegetarians do.  No, the best thing about roasted vegetables is that leftover roasted veggies can be used in a thousand different ways, from tossing them with cheese and pasta and serving them as a main-course dish to puréeing them and then using them as a basis for dips and sauces.  Roasted vegetables are the ultimate inexpensive savory staple.  I once had a gentleman friend scoff when he saw me slide a tray of cut-up veggies into the oven and call them dinner…and then an hour later, he abandoned his steak in favor of my veggies-and-Feta meal.  So much for having leftovers that time!

The next time you have a hankering for pizza, try making your own with whatever veggies you have on hand. (If you already have leftover roasted veggies waiting to be eaten, you’ll have a fresh, personalized pizza in 30 minutes.  Guarantee it’ll taste better than Domino’s!)  Most cheeses work on pizza, too — no need to confine yourself to mozzarella.  And while this dish includes a recipe for homemade gluten-free pizza dough, if you don’t have time to make your own, many markets now stock whole-wheat pizza dough that has a minimum of ingredients.  Trader Joe’s in particular has a few nice take-it-and-bake-it doughs.

Homemade Pizza with Roasted Vegetables & Feta (gluten-free)

This makes enough for an 8″ pizza.

For the vegetables:
Any vegetable you like, particularly bell peppers, onions, cherry/grape tomatoes, eggplants, green beans, squash, beets, sweet potatoes, mushrooms, corn kernels, etc.
Extra-virgin olive oil
Sea salt
Freshly ground black pepper

For the crust:
2/3 cup hot tap water
1 heaping teaspoon active dry yeast
1/2 cup chickpea flour
1/2 cup brown rice flour
1/2 cup potato flour (NOT potato starch!)
1/2 cup corn flour (NOT corn starch!)
1 1/2 teaspoons sea salt
About 1/2 cup milk (dairy, grain, coconut, whichever you prefer)

For the remainder of the toppings:
Spaghetti/pizza sauce such as marinara
A full-flavored cheese like Feta or goat cheese

To make the roasted vegetables, first preheat oven to 375F.

Prep the veggies by rinsing them and peeling them if necessary. (Peel the beets and onions, but don’t peel the beans or tomatoes…) Cut veggies into uniform sizes: the potato slices should be fairly even, for example, as should the eggplant and onion slices. Smaller veggies like green beans and corn kernels are fine just the way they are. Cover one or two large baking trays with parchment paper and place the veggies on the trays. Drizzle lightly with the oil, sprinkle with salt and pepper, and use your fingers to flip and push the veggies around a bit to make sure they’re evenly coated.

Baking time will depend greatly on which veggies you use — green beans roast more quickly than beets — but start checking the oven at about 25 minutes and pull out the veggies as needed, leaving the thicker/larger ones in the oven until they’re also turning brown around the edges.

To make the crust, increase oven heat to 425.

Combine the water and yeast and let sit for 5 minutes. You’ll know the yeast is active if you see little bubbles gathering on the water’s surface. While the yeast is bubbling away, rub butter or oil across an 8″ aerated pizza pan (the round kind with holes in it) and set it aside.

Stir flours, salt, and milk into the yeast, kneading with your hands if necessary. Mixture should be fairly dry, but it should be capable of sticking together — if it isn’t, add another tablespoon of milk and work it in. Press the dough into the pan, starting in the center and gently press-rolling it out to the sides. Try to keep the dough level fairly even.

Bake untopped crust at 425F for 15 minutes. Remove crust from oven and top with tomato sauce (optional), cheese of your choice, and the roasted veggies. Return to the oven and bake for 10 minutes or until the cheese is melting.

Enjoy!

Lebanese Pizza

The concept of stacking various foods and seasonings atop a flat, fairly resilient piece of bread is such a good idea that most culinary traditions do it.  Some breads are flatter and rounder than others, and some are more flexible than others — burritos are tidy, bread-bound packages, too — but if you’re willing to let die-hard definitions slide a bit, you can find “pizza” nearly anywhere.  Playing with your pies is just too much fun to resist!

Although this recipe features middle Eastern ingredients, you could just as easily use guacamole as your pizza sauce and queso fresco as the cheese.  (Yes, you can bake avocadoes.)  Or try coconut-curry sauce with paneer for an Indian pizza.  Once you break the traditional pizza boundaries, your options are endless.

Lebanese Pizza (you can use your own pizza dough recipe or the gluten-free one given here; the gluten-free version is easier because it doesn’t require multiple rising times)

1 recipe pizza dough
1 recipe roasted red pepper hummus
Roasted beets
Sun-dried tomatoes
Soft goat cheese
Black olives, slivered (optional)
Za’atar

Preheat oven to 300 degrees F.  Pour enough boiling water over your tomatoes to cover them, then let them sit for 15 minutes.  Drain and slice softened tomatoes into ribbons.

Build the foundation for your pizza by topping the dough with roasted red pepper hummus. Sprinkle with za’atar, beets, tomatoes, onions, and olives, then crumble on goat cheese. Bake for 10 minutes or until goat cheese just begins to soften and melt. Serve immediately.

To make roasted red pepper hummus:  In a food processor, blend 1 (15-oz.) can drained chickpeas with 3 cloves garlic that have been slivered and lightly sautéed (cook with 2 T. extra-virgin olive oil over low heat for 2 minutes, then add both garlic and oil to the chickpeas).  Add juice from one lemon, a dash of sea salt, and 2 T. tahini.  Add one roasted pepper and blend until smooth.  To roast a red pepper, place a whole pepper on the middle oven rack for about 20 minutes in a 425 degree F oven.  (You may wish to line the rack underneath the pepper with foil in case any liquid drips out.)  When the pepper is starting to blacken, pull it out, carefully drop it into a large ziploc bag, and let it sit until it’s cool enough to handle.  At that point, the skin, stem, and seeds will pull right off.

To make roasted beets: Peel raw beets with a vegetable peeler, then slice into 1/2″-thick slices and place in a glass pan.  Coat with peanut oil, sea salt, and pepper.  Roast in a 375 degree F oven for about 20-30 minutes.  (Beets will start to crinkle at the edges and shrink inwards when done.)

To make za’atar: In a spice jar, mix together 1 T. sesame seeds, 1 1/2 tsp. oregano, 1 1/2 tsp. thyme, 1/2 tsp. salt and 1 T. ground sumac. Store unused portion in a cool, dark place for future use.

To make gluten-free pizza dough (this is enough for two 8″ crusts and therefore two pizzas):

Grease an 8″ round pizza pan with butter.  It’s best to use an “aerated” pizza pan — that is, the kind with holes in the bottom.  This allows the crust to cook more evenly.

Stir 1 package (2 1/4 tsp.) of active dry yeast into 1 1/3 cups hot water.  The water must be between 105 and 115 degrees F to activate the yeast without overheating it and killing it. Let yeast stand for about 5 minutes.  You’ll see tiny bubbles forming on the surface.

In a large bowl, whisk together 1 T. sea salt and 1 cup of EACH of the following flours:  brown rice, potato flour (not potato starch), chickpea/garbanzo, and corn flour (not corn starch).  Stir yeast and water mixture into the flours.  Dough will still be very dry, so you’ll have to add up to 1 cup of whole milk to get a nice consistency — dough should be fairly squishable and easy to mold, but not so watery that it’ll run out of the holes in the pizza pan.  It’s best to mix in the milk with your hands so you can feel what the dough is becoming.

With the pizza pan firmly on the counter to prevent the dough from leaking out through the holes, firmly pat dough into pan.  The dough will be sticky, so the best way to do this is to occasionally dust the surface of the dough with additional flour (any of the 4 is fine) while patting dough into place.  Cover dough with plastic wrap and a damp kitchen towel and let sit in a warm, draft-free place for 30-45 minutes while the oven is preheating to 425 degrees F.

Bake untopped crust for 15 minutes or until the edges are golden brown.  Remove from oven, add toppings (or refrigerate pre-baked crust and use within a day), and follow above instructions for finishing pizza(s).

Enjoy!

Egg "Pizza" Caprese

It isn’t quite a pizza, although it has the toppings of one.  It isn’t quite a fritatta, although it has the eggy-ness of one.  Maybe it’s best to just think of an egg-based “pizza” as a whole different dish…and if you don’t feel like making dough, don’t have any on hand, or are looking for a gluten-free crust, an egg pizza is a very quick and easy meal to fix.  Just slice, grate, chop or otherwise prepare your toppings before cooking the eggs — you’ll be amazed at how fast your pizza will be ready to go into the oven!

Egg Crust Pizza

Step 1:   crack as many eggs as you’d like (I figure on 1-2 per person) into a bowl and use a fork to scramble them

Step 2:  pour eggs into an oven-proof skillet with a melted pat of butter in it

Step 3:  cook for about 2 minutes on medium heat or until top is fairly firm (you may have to tilt the pan back and forth to help the last of the runny egg flow over the sides and onto the bottom where it can cook)

Step 4:  remove from heat and add your toppings (veggies, fresh or dried herbs, cheese, meat, etc.)

Step 5:  bake at 350 for about 10 minutes

Use a spatula or other soft utensil to “slice” your pizza into wedges.  Serve immediately.

Enjoy!

Moroccan Pizza

One day a pot of simmered and marinated vegetables, the next day a cold gazpacho soup, then finally a luscious pizza topping…it’s just a few days in the life of a leftover.  It’s like kitchen magic!

Remember the Moroccan caponata?  I’d made such a big batch that I wound up freezing a bowl of it.  When I defrosted it, I threw it into the blender and turned it into bright, fresh gazpacho.  When I served it to the same person who’d sampled it as caponata, she absolutely loved it–and couldn’t believe it when I told her its secret origins.  “But it tastes totally different now!” she said.  Isn’t it amazing what texture can do for the tastebuds?

But that wasn’t the end of the caponata–two days after the cross-cuisine gazpacho, I topped a half a pita with the remaining gazpacho, added some blue cheese, and stuck it in my toaster oven for five minutes.  Voilá!  I had yet another dish:  caponata-gazpacho Moroccan-French pizza.

In other words, a leftover with a makeover.  What creative dishes do you have hanging out in your refrigerator?

Onion, Spinach & Cheddar Pizza

Others may disagree, but to me, pizza has three basic components:  a base, toppings (including sauce), and cheese.  This leaves a lot of room for creative interpretation…and also means that you always have pizza makings in your fridge!  The next time you get the urge for something hot and stringy, why not try inventing a new variation on the classic theme?  In the time it would take to have a grease-laden, thick-crusted, belly-bomb pie delivered to your front door, you could already have a light and toothsome version on your plate.

In this case, a thin slice of oat-wheat served as a base.  The onions were only sauteéd for 3 minutes (to give them a smoother taste yet allow them to stay crunchy) before I added the spinach and cooked the mixture, covered, for another minute.  I added the cooked vegetables to the bread, poured tomato sauce over that, and topped the pizza with Herbed Cotswold English Cheddar.  Other great combinations would be broccoli, ham, and Swiss…or corn, jicama, peppers, and Monterey Jack…or carrots, zucchini, and Gruyere…basically, whatever you’ve got on hand.

Bake at 350 degrees for 10 minutes or until the cheese is bubbly, then enjoy!

Artichoke Pizza with Tomato & Spinach

In honor of Valentine’s Day, I thought I’d write about hearts.  Specifically, artichoke hearts.

From a visual standpoint, no other vegetable is as intriguing and layered as a fresh artichoke–not even onions have more layers.  Artichokes also possess an unusual, almost-sweet taste, one that hovers at the edge of your tongue and challenges you to define it.

Steaming and cleaning an artichoke, however, takes almost an hour.  (This includes a cooling period–trust me, you don’t want to burn your fingers on a still-steaming heart.)  Thus, for the sake of easy prep, I often use canned artichokes in dishes that call for them to play a complementary rather than a starring role.

One of the few ways you’ll see artichoke on a menu is within the context of a spinach-artichoke dip.  But why stop there?  Try blending the hearts with avocado, chickpeas, or white beans.  (Just be sure to rinse them well if they came packaged in a heavy oil/marinade–you don’t want that taste to interfere with your creation.)  Or quarter the hearts and use them to accent home-made pizzas.  Greek salads, too, pair well with artichoke hearts.  So do baked chicken casseroles and chicken simmered with herbs and potatoes.

So embrace your new-found hearts!  They’ll add unexpected dimensions to many of your favorite dishes…and with the continuous availability of canned artichoke hearts, you can have them any day of the year!

You might just want to try this for lunch some time soon:

Cut a whole-wheat pita in half so that you have two rounds. Top with:

Diced tomatoes (can be fresh or canned) or tomato sauce
Baby spinach leaves
Grated Parmesan
Freshly-ground black pepper

Bake at 350 for 15 minutes to get a nice crispy brown pita and a bit of a golden hue on the cheese.

Enjoy!

Whole-wheat pitas, large enough to stuff (about 8″ across)
Cheese: cheddar, gruyére, Swiss–any combination of hard or semi-hard cheeses is fine
Tomatoes, sliced thin
Roasted red bell peppers
Fresh basil leaves
Honey
Dijon mustard
Olive oil for sauteéing

Slice the cheese and cut the pepper into manageable strips. The easiest way to assemble the pitas is to spread the mustard and drizzle the honey into the pita, then load in the veggies and cheese, and finally press the basil leaves onto the top of everything. (Depending on how hungry you are, you may want only half of or an entire pita. How much of each item you add also depends on your tastebuds, though I would caution not to go overboard on the honey and mustard–a little goes a long way.) Sauteé the pita in a non-stick pan over medium heat until the cheese is melted and the pita is a golden brown. Flip carefully!

Meatball variation:

Same principle here, but try using leftover meatballs as a stuffing. I used Greek-style lamb meatballs for mine, and the result tasted almost exactly like an original Olga from Olga’s restaurant!!!! (I have finally cracked the code!)

Stuffing:
Meatballs, cut in half (or smaller, depending on size)
Tomatoes, sliced thin
Onion, sliced thin

For serving:
Greek-style plain yogurt

Reheat the meatballs by sauteéing them in a non-stick pan over medium heat. (There’s probably enough fat in the meat to keep the pan greased, but if they start to stick, add some oil.) Add onions. When the onions are translucent and the meatballs are heated through, stuff the pitas with the meatballs, onions, and tomatoes. Sauteé pita as described above, using the already-greased pan. Serve with Greek-style yogurt.

Enjoy!

Approx. 3 portabello mushrooms, stems cut flush with the gills
1 small red bell pepper, diced
1 small onion, diced
3 cloves of garlic, diced fine
2 Roma tomatoes, diced
Olive oil for sauteéing and drizzling
1/2 cup fresh bread crumbs (make your own by throwing some stale bread–preferably whole wheat–into a blender)
Fresh basil, rolled tightly and then cut into thin strips (this is called chiffonade)
Cayenne pepper (optional)
Parmesan cheese

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Wipe the portabellos clean with a damp paper towel and set aside. Make a sofrito by sauteéing the pepper, onion, garlic, and tomatoes over medium heat for 3-5 minutes or until the onion is almost translucent. Remove from heat and spoon into a medium bowl. Add fresh bread crumbs, basil, and a pinch of cayenne (or as much as you think your tongue will tolerate). Put the portabellos on a cookie sheet gill-side-up and mound them with the sofrito mixture. Top with Parmesan cheese. (This amount also depends on your tastebuds.) Spray/drizzle with a little bit of oil and then bake for about 15 minutes or until the Parmesan is beginning to turn golden.

Enjoy!

Note: be sure to make your own bread crumbs rather than using the commercial variety–just take a look at the list of ingredients on the pre-made kind and you’ll see why. (The only way to keep it from spoiling on the grocery shelves is to add a LOT of preservatives and chemicals.) Besides, you can keep your own in the freezer for up to six months, so the next time you have bread that’s going stale, don’t throw it out! Make your own bread crumbs instead. Another bonus is that you can control the final texture–for some recipes, you may want the crumbs to play a more central role, one that would be more suitable for coarser, larger crumbs.