vegetarian

“Deep Dish” #4: Even when it fails…

The last time I posted about deep dish, I shared a trick for knowing whether or not your dough is rising like it’s supposed to. But what about when the dough just doesn’t rise? If this happens, don’t despair! It still makes a tasty regular pizza crust. That’s what we did this night (photo taken August 17, 2013), when we were too tired and hungry and impatient to try a second round of dough-making, and it was delicious.

I think we had dough-rising issues the first time we made deep dish, too, and ended up smushing the failed dough-blobs into a pizza that looked like a double egg yolk, and we somehow happened to have extra sauce and mozzarella to top it. The moral of the story? Things don’t always go according to plan in the kitchen, but it’s harder to completely ruin things than you think.

Tofu-Kale-Sweet Potato Scramble

I used this recipe (Popsugar.com, Jenny Sugar) with the following minor edits:

  • Spinach instead of kale (just because it’s cheaper), and a lot more than the recipe says, since it shrivels down so much.
  • One large sweet potato, not small.
  • No onions (BFs request. Sad for me but love is love.)
  • Cook the sweet potatoes a bit longer and hotter, pre-tofu-adding, than the recipe says; I think it’s good for them to be a little crisper because they’ll go back to being soft-ish when you add the tofu, and steam the spinach.
  • I quadrupled the spice amounts (except salt; I kept that the same mostly). Why? Because this makes a BIG pan of food and there is no way that a mere quarter of a little teaspoon of garlic (etc.) is going to suffice, in my opinion. I admit that sweet potatoes taste great just on their own (or with only a little salt and black pepper), but that tofu needs some flavors to suck up, so I made sure I spiced enough.

This tasted delicious and looked lovely on the plate, too, all bright and yellow and “Good Morning!”-looking.

TSC’s Curry Eggs


Today I am proud to present an invention of my own: Curry eggs. (It was new idea to me, anyway. Does anyone else do this?) I added between ¼ and ½ a teaspoon of vindaloo curry paste (Patak’s brand, cumin & chile) to two eggs, mixed thoroughly, and scrambled as usual. This was VERY tasty! That stuff’s concentrated paste meant for sauces, so the amount I’m saying to put in will make for a LOT of flavor. It doesn’t even taste much like eggs, but, instead, almost meaty. The other Patak’s curry pastes (like madras) work well for this too.

Pesto Pasta Salad

The food-snobbery factor is high on this one: It’s pasta salad with homemade sun/oven-dried tomatoes, homemade pesto, homemade vinaigrette, and a freshly roasted red bell pepper. I made the vinaigrette more dijon-y than usual, and added ground pine nuts and walnuts as a topping. Now, FORTUNATELY, you can also just buy pesto and sun-dried tomatoes at the store, and the nuts are totally optional. (I *do* recommend making your own vinaigrette though, since it’s easy and most people have the ingredients.) Either way, it’s great. (more…)

Feta/Mozzarella Tomato Kebabs
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The bacon + yellow bell pepper on toast meal was so tasty that I made it again the next day, that time accompanied by tomato-mozzarella kebabs. These are a simple yet fancy-feeling and very tasty appetizer, side dish, accompaniment to drinks, etc. You can also make them with feta (like Gordon Ramsay does in Fast Food; he also has the great idea of drizzling balsamic vinegar over them just before serving). (more…)

Deep Dish #3: Is the dough rising?

A not-pleasant part of making deep dish pizza is the part where you’re not sure if the dough is rising or not. You keep asking “Did it get bigger?” “Doesn’t it sort of look like it’s the same size?” “Is it going to be a failure?” and so on. Well, the third time we made deep dish, I came up with this cute solution: When the dough blob is bigger than the original smiley face tracing of it, you know it’s getting bigger!

Below is what the (leftovers) of the final product (spinoccoli) looked like. (more…)

Pad See Ew

By the time The BF met me, he already spent years trying to perfect his pad see ew (pad si u, phat si-o, ผัดซีอิ๊ว, etc.) recipe. Lucky me! Well, actually, it’s evolved into something more like pad kee mao (“drunken noodles”), since we add basil and bell pepper. Whatever it is, it’s delicious! The way we make it, it’s also vegetarian (and vegan). (more…)