Spinach, Onion, and Mushroom Whole Wheat Pizza

 So I was trying to decide what to do with my leftover caramelized onions, and I realized that with all the bread books I've checked out from the library, I cold combine the onions with baking and make a pizza. Of course I had this brainstorm at work on Friday, when I wouldn't have time to throw together a crust for dinner that night. But on Saturday I got up first thing and threw one together--I selected the recipe from the Cooks Illustrated Baking Illustrated book, because it had an option for whole wheat and had instructions for kneading by hand.

Dough Ingredients:

1/2 c warm water (110 degrees)
1 envelope instant yeast
1 1/4 c room temperature water
2 tbs olive oil
11 oz bread flour
11 oz whole wheat flour
1 1/2 tsp salt

The warm water and yeast is combined in a large measuring cup and left to sit for 5 minutes until it had foamed and activated. Then the rest of the water and oil are added in to combine. Add half of the flour and salt to a large bowl and all of the liquid ingredients and using a large spoon combine. Then add the rest and mix until all the flour is absorbed, then dump the dough onto a lightly floured work surface. Then knead the dough until smooth, about 7 minutes.


 The dough goes into an oiled bowl and rises for about 2 hours, or until doubled. At this point it can be divided into three portions and refrigerated or frozen or baked into a pizza! I froze two portions, and put one into the fridge for pizza!

Before I got to making my pizza, I put my pizza stone in the oven and cranked the temperature to 500 degrees. It needs time to preheat so the stone will have the heat to get a crispy crust. The dough also needs to come out of the fridge and come to room temperature.

Toppings:

1 1/2 c chopped frozen spinach thawed and drained
8 oz  brown mushrooms chopped
1 c caramelized onions
3 cloves garlic finely diced
red pepper
thyme and rosemary
salt and pepper
1/4 c lowfat ricotta
1/3 c 2% Italian cheese blend

The minced garlic, red pepper, and mushrooms go in a frying pan and are cooked until fragrant and the mushrooms start to brown. Then the onions and spinach are added, with the rosemary, thyme, and salt and pepper to taste. This cooks for a bit to get the flavors into the onions and mushrooms.

While that is cooking, the dough which has to be brought to room temperature before being used, can be spread. I put some flour on the counter and used my hands to spread it--the Baking Illustrated has a really nice illustration of how to do this.

It goes on a cornmeal dusted surface--I don't have a pizza peal, so I used the back of a sheet pan.It didn't work well for transferring to the oven. Once the dough is spread the spinach mixture is added to the top of the dough, leaving an edge around. I dotted the top with ricotta and transferred the pie to the stone, which is easier said than done, and let it cook for 12 minutes. My nicely shaped pie got all distorted, but it still tasted good! Once it was out of the oven, I sprinkled on the mixed Italian Cheeses.

The Verdict: This is a delicious pizza, with a nice crispy crust, and a good balance of toppings. When I make the next one I think I'll add some olives to give it a bit of a salty kick. It is nice to have the two balls of dough in the freezer, so I can pull them out and have pizza that evening.

Two Moroccan Side Salads

Since I didn't want to go with couscous for my tagine, I decided to make a couple of salads to go with my chicken. One is a traditional cucumber yogurt dish made all over the Mediterranean; the other is a spinach and preserved lemon delight from the chapter on Morocco in my cookbook.

Cucumber Salad:

Ingredients:
2 large cucumbers
Greek Yogurt
garlic
dried mint

Peel and chop the cucumber into half moon shapes, then lightly salt them and let some of the liquid drain. Then mix about 2/3 c of yogurt with 3/4 tsp mint, two cloves of garlic grated, and a dash of lemon zest.

Dry off the cucumbers, and add them to the yogurt mixture. Refrigerate if not serving right away. You may want to add a little salt.

Verdict: A good accompaniment to any hearty or spicy dish. Can be made with dill as well for a more Greek flavor.





Spinach Salad with Preserved Lemon and Olives

Ingredients:
2 lbs fresh Spinach
3 cloves of garlic
1/4 c chopped olives
preserved lemon chopped

The recipe calls for the fresh stuff, but I want to try with frozen because it is cheaper and doesn't take so long! Anyway--the spinach is wilted in a giant pot, then it is well drained and dried. Then in the same pot, I sauteed the garlic with cooking spray. Once that had some color, the spinach is returned to the pan with the garlic, the chopped olives and preserved lemons. That is cooked for about a minute or so. It can be served hot or cold.

 The Verdict: This is unbelievably good--I would eat it alone all day. In fact the original recipe says this serves 8, but in realty this one pot could serve just me on one plate. It goes really well with the chicken tagine.

Spinach Feta Meatloaf Muffins

For my third flavor profile, I went with what I think of as Greek flavors, though really it is more of just a lemony herby combo with some cheese, some spinach, and a little spice. I had bought some marked down spinach and forgotten it, so I cooked it down and threw it in.

Ingredients:

8 oz ground turkey/ground beef mix
1/3 cup oat bran
1/4 cup egg substitute
2/3 cup steamed drained spinach
1 1/2 tbs crumbled feta
1/2 cup mushrooms and onions
1 tbs roasted red pepper
salt and pepper
red pepper flakes
nutmeg

Lemon Caper Sauce:
greek yogurt
capers
dill
marjoram
lemon zest
roasted garlic








Recently I hit up the bulk bins at Winco--which I've recently come to love, and picked up not only oat bran, panko bread crumbs, but a wide variety of dried herbs and spices. It is amazing how much cheaper it is, but it is also nice to be able to try a little before you invest 5 dollars on a bottle. I got dill, marjoram, rosemary and lots more. I used the marjoram and dill to throw together this sauce--a couple spoonfuls of capers, lemon zest, roasted garlic, the herbs, some yogurt to bind it, and some spice and salt and pepper. Very flavorful and fresh.

That went in with all of the meat and other ingredients--I finished with a grate of nutmeg, and mashed it all together. The bran was much finer than all the other binders I used, so this formed a very nice tight mixture. It went in the muffin tin and baked at 350 for 25 minutes.

The Verdict: Lemony and delicious! I might go heavier with the herbs next time, and more feta as well. The oatbran was an excellent binder--this muffin held together very well, and stayed moist and didn't have a strong flavor. I'm thinking I'll serve the leftovers like a pita sandwich with some cucumber and yogurt sauce--yum! Alice said she might try some when she was a grown up lady, if she likes meat, but her parents don't know how to make it. Fortunately, she can enjoy her own invention--rice and feta!

Colorful Cauliflower 2 Ways

The first thing I ever made with cauliflower was a quick and simple soup--healthy and delicious. This is a variation of that first soup I made, a little more fancy, with a lot of flavor. I found colored cauliflower on sale at Winco and couldn't decide between the purple or the orange, so I bought both! I didn't want to put them both in the soup, because that sounded like a grey gross disaster, so I cooked them in two ways and combined at the end. This recipe is my invention, though I've taken inspiration from a few places.

Ingredients:

2 medium heads cauliflower
8 oz brown mushrooms
1 yellow onion
1 thai chili
10 oz chopped spinach defrosted
5 cups homemade chicken stock
Chinese 5 spice powder
1 head garlic
1 tsp olive oil
2 chicken breasts, 2 chicken thighs
12 oz plain greek yogurt
rice wine vinegar




I added about 1 tablespoon of the five spice powder to the yogurt and a few splashes of the vinegar to thin it out. That was poured over the chicken and half of the mushrooms, and the purple cauliflower that I sliced into thick slices. That marinated for a while to work the flavors in. I saw this technique on an Alton Brown Good Eats episode, though I didn't follow his specific recipe or even the full technique, which used a cooling rack and water under it to steam the cauliflower.

After that marinated, I placed the purple cauliflower and half of the mushrooms and the chicken thighs on a cookie sheet greased and lined with tinfoil. I covered the pan and placed it in a preheated 375 degree oven for 10 minutes and then removed the foil to continue cooking. I also roasted a head of garlic

While that was cooking, I chopped up the onion , pepper, and mushrooms and sautéed them in a pan to soften and then added the chicken breast to the pan to cook. At the same time I heated up the chicken stock in a large pan with some of the Chinese 5 spice and once it came to a boil I added the orange cauliflower roughly chopped into somewhat even pieces. It will be pureed so it doesn't matter really how it looks, just so it cooks evenly. That cooked for about 8 minutes, or until tender but not mushy.

Once the cauliflower was cooked, I drained the broth into a container to keep for thinning the soup. Then I added in the chicken mixture, and the drained spinach and the head of roasted garlic. Then I used the immersion blender to puree it, adding in the broth a bit at a time so it was fully incorporated. It was pretty thick, so I ended up adding more water to get a good consistency and then letting it simmer for a while.



The purple cauliflower came out of the oven once it was soft with some crispy browning (I did turn them all over about midway in the process) The chicken took quite a bit longer, which I wasn't prepared for, but I've not a lot of experience cooking chicken thighs on the bone. The cauliflower and mushrooms were very good and I snacked on quite a bit!

I served the soup on the bottom, topped with some of the cauliflower, mushrooms, and chicken thighs.

The Verdict: Spicy and delicious, with a rich and hearty taste and enough texture and heft to really fill you up. This is a cauliflower soup that I don't mind eating all week long. I have made this before many times, using squash instead of spinach or roasted red pepper or kale. But this is the first time I did the roasted cauliflower and homemade stock, it really elevated the dish to a new level of deliciousness. Either way this is my go to cauliflower soup recipe.

Many Mini Quiches

Making Quiche, Julia's way!

So even though the cheesecake cupcakes turned out delicious, my older sister vetoed all of my cooking ideas for our bridal shower except one. Mini quiches! I already had fillo shells that I'd bought intending to make something for work, so I wanted to use them up to free space in my freezer. Plus they are best for occasions where they are served right away, instead of needing to be made in advance.

I am using a method explained in a nifty Julia Child cookbook I bought--Julia Child's Kitchen Wisdom. The book has some specific recipes for quiche, but it also has the ratios for making your own recipes. Really, that is my style--a general guideline that lets me innovate!

Ingredients: 

fillo shells
Eggs
Half and Half, Milk, light cream
salt and pepper, nutmeg
spinach
mushrooms
garlic
green onion
red bell pepper
sharp cheddar cheese

So Julia explains that the ratio for the custard of liquid to egg--whether milk, cream, or half and half--is determined by cracking the eggs in a measuring cup and adding liquid to get to the right amount. So for one egg you add up to the half cup measure for two eggs you fill up to the one cup measure. My liquid measuring cup only goes up to one cup, so I did 2 eggs twice. I'm not sure how much mixture I'll need for the amount of shells I have, but I figured better more mix than less.

The book has a list of different filling options, but helpfully lists other possibilities as well as encouraging experimentation. For a 9 inch pie it says one cup of filling--that is a 3 egg mixture. So that is the amount of filling I aimed for.

I first put a head of garlic in the oven to roast, along with a red pepper. Then I sauteed the white part of some green onions and a few mushrooms--both diced really fine. While that was cooking, I defrosted some frozen chopped spinach, and drained it really well before adding it to the mushrooms and onions once they'd both softened, sauteing it all together with a good dose of salt and pepper. Since this is going into pretty small shells I chopped the mix really fine after it had cooled a bit. Once the garlic and pepper had roasted, I chopped four cloves of the garlic and half of the pepper and added that to the spinach and mushrooms mixture. After that had cooled completely, I added it to the egg custard and whisked it well.

Since I was making these for a party, I made the filling the night before and cooked them at my sister's house right before the party started. I did make two before to test the seasoning and decide what kind of cheese to use. In one I added some feta and cheddar and the other just the sharp cheddar, but the feta didn't really stand out to me, so I didn't add it in the final batch. 

These were actually quite quick to throw together at the party--I sprayed two cookie sheets with cooking spray, laid out the shells, put a pinch of cheese in each, and then using a liquid measuring cup poured a little of the mixture in each shell. They go in a preheated 375 degree oven for 12-15 minutes and can be served warm or room temperature. I finished them off with a shake of salt over the top to give a nice finishing touch.

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The Verdict: The tray was empty at the end of the party and there were none left half eaten, so I suspect that people liked them. My older sister said that she liked the filling, and my younger sister said I was creative (I'm not sure if that is a complement!) I thought the combination of flavors was just right--the sweet garlic and pepper, the sharp cheese, the mushrooms, onions, and fresh spinach, and the crunchy shells added a nice texture. I've never made quiche before, and this was a pretty successful first attempt! I like the idea of trying different fillings and flavors, and it was a nice party dish!

Turkey Cutlets--take two

So this week our theme is second chances. We start the year with high hopes, plans, and ambitions to conquer our demons, and get our lives in order. But sometimes we fall off--things get busy, someone offers you cheesecake and a brownie (who can choose one!), and we find our plans pushed aside. Recently, I was talking to my Mom, who has recently started a healthy eating plan using Loseit--the same website I used to track my eating. She said she didn't think she could stick to it as long as I had--which I think misses the point. It isn't how long you stay on the path, but how good you are at getting back to it when you get off course. Eating healthy, or anything, isn't an all or nothing--if I spend all day eating cheetos and cheesecake, that doesn't mean I'm doomed to eat unhealthy forever.

In the spirit of giving ourselves a second chance, I'm going to give some recipes and foods another chance. I figure that just because the first time or last time I ate something it wasn't great, doesn't mean that it is always gross, or all ways to cook it are equally as gross. With food it is easy to say, after trying once, that you don't like something--though it takes many times of exposure sometimes to really explore an item.

My first effort is trying a Turkey cutlet recipe--well it is chicken in the recipe, but I had bought two packages of thin cutlets. One of which I destroyed by trying to pan fry, turning them dry and stringy. I hope that this new recipe will produce better results with the half I froze.

Ingredients:

1/2 medium onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/4 cup chopped scallions
2/3 cup of mushrooms, chopped
10 oz package frozen chopped spinach, thawed and juice squeezed out
2 tbsp Italian seasoning
1/2 cup (2.5 oz) crumbled Feta cheese
1/3 cup low fat ricotta
1/4 tsp kosher salt and pepper, plus more to taste
Skinless turkey breast cutlets (1.5 lbs total)
1/4 cup egg substitute
1 tbsp water
1/2 cup seasoned breadcrumbs



I sprayed a saute pan with cooking spray and sauteed the chopped onions, scallion, garlic, and mushrooms. While that cooked, I defrosted and drained the spinach. I added the spinach, the Italian seasonings, and cooked that for a while as I was chatting with my parents. It is hard to cook and Skype without being distracted, so sorry about that Dad!

Then I added the feta and the ricotta--along with some red pepper flakes and nutmeg. That mixed together and was set aside while I worked on the cutlets.

This is the tricky part of the recipe--preparing and wrapping the turkey to go in the oven. I had bought pre-sliced cutlets, so I merely added salt and pepper and put it between two pieces of wax paper. I then used my container of salt to roll it a little thinner so it was big enough to wrap around the stuffing. Once it was prepared, I placed 1/4 of a cup of the spinach mix in the middle and rolled the cutlet up, placing it open side down.


Once that was done the rest of the recipe was less daunting. I've never really breaded anything, but I watch a lot of Good Eats, and Alton Brown covers the breading station in more than one show! So I set it up--the rolls on one side, the egg mixture (egg, water, salt and pepper), then the crumbs, and finally the prepared pan (which I had covered with foil and sprayed with cooking spray.) So the rolls go into the egg, where they are covered, then placed in the crumbs and rolled to coat, before finishing up on the sheet pan. I finished them off with a dash of cayenne pepper and a quick spritz of cooking spray to crisp the top of the rolls.

The finished rolls bake in an oven pre-heated to 350 degrees for about 25 minutes, or until cooked through. The turkey is thin so it cooks fast--check it often!

 The Verdict:

It tastes and looks like something I'd buy at the store or get at a restaurant--though it cooked maybe 2 minutes too long. If I'd pulled them out a little earlier, they may not have been quite so dry, but this was WAY better than the last time I made it--it was more tender and the stuffing kept it from really drying out. The flavor was really good--spicy, with the richness of the cheese, the freshness of the spinach, and the crunch of the outside covering. The rolls held together very well in the oven, and now that I've got the hang of the rolling I'll be making this again! I also want to explore Skinnytaste's other rolled chicken/turkey recipes! I'm very glad I gave these cutlets another try, and I served them with parsnips and carrots--my second chance for parsnips as well. I'll post about them on Wednesday.