Easy Veg Pizza

Phyllo dough has been living in my freezer for way too long, so after many defrostings and refreezings, it finally made its inaugural appearance. I found a simple recipe for veggie pizza using phyllo dough, so I thought I'd try my hand at it. The recipe I used as a guideline is from Good Housekeeping. (Don't judge me. ;)) Instead of pizza, tomatoes, red onion, mozzarella, and parmesan, I topped it with black beans, black olives, tuna, artichoke hearts, and parmesan. I also didn't cut it into rectangles, choosing instead to kept the full sheet intact.

Phyllo dough coated with olive oil

First you have to prepare the phyllo dough by stacking layers of it and oiling the layers in between. Most of the time, people use butter, but I picked the healthier olive oil. (Don't get me wrong. Mama loves her butter, but it's generally reserved for topping popcorn.) You need to bake the shell for about five minutes before adding the toppings, and I cooked the entire pizza for longer than the allotted 3-4 minutes.

Curried Vegetable + Chickpea Stew

Another soup? Yes, I am an inveterate soup eater, and I'm not ashamed to admit it. I've even been known to eat soup in the heat of summer. You can ask my friends. But especially during the winter months, I crave the comfort of warm soup. The Kitchn (adapted from Cooking Light) is responsible for this crockpot recipe for curried vegetable and chickpea soup, and I absolutely love it. (Thanks to the Daleys again for giving me their old crockpot. It's well-used and well-loved.)

I've been eating this all week, and I'm still not sick of it. I left out the coconut milk and substituted kale for spinach because I have a ginormous bag of it in the freezer from Costco. What else? I didn't have any fresh ginger on hand, but if I had, I definitely would've added it.

Indian Dinner

Saag paneer

I used the saag paneer recipe from Madhur Jaffrey's World of the East Vegetarian Cooking. Since I ran out of spinach from the garden, I substituted kale, which was surprisingly good. I might use it instead in the future. Also, I omitted the heavy cream because it didn't seem necessary.

Saag Paneer
serves: 4-6

Ingredients
1-in. cube of ginger (peeled and coarsely chopped)
3-6 garlic cloves
1/2 to 1 hot green chili, sliced roughly
paneer
salt
1/4 tsp. garam masala
1/8 tsp. cayenne
6 Tbsp. vegetable oil
1.5 lbs. spinach
3 Tbsp. heavy cream

Cauliflower Soup

This is my friend Tamara's amazing cauliflower soup. It was part of a quick post about leftovers and 2011's film festival, but I neglected to provide the recipe. 

Seed Madness

Several weeks ago, I raided Farm and Fleet's seeds aisle. In a frenzy of greed, I picked out seeds for flowers, herbs, and veggies, despite the knowledge that a friend was diligently growing seedlings for me. In my defense, the ones I chose were not being grown by my pal. Spring time just made me itchy to grow stuff.

Lina Sisco's bird egg bean seeds

I've managed to start and plant a handful of these, but it's definitely a work in progress. All of my garden bounty will be confined to pots and containers in deference to my batshit crazy neighbor. (That's another story.)

Flowers

Only some sunflowers and dianthus in the flower group have made it into the front bed, but I hope to do more this weekend.

More bean seeds

Herbies + greens

Cioppino to Seafood Chowder

This culinary adventure started as cioppino, a seafood stew developed in the 1800s by Portuguese and Italian fishermen who had settled in San Francisco's North Beach region. It consists of seafood, tomatoes, white wine, and toasted bread (sourdough or baguette).

The word is derived from cuippin, which means to chop or chopped in the Ligurian dialect of Genoa, and refers to the tradition of chopping up leftovers from the day's catch to make the stew.

It shares a common history with other dishes from the region, including cacciucco or brodetto from Italy; bouillabaisse, burrida, and bourride from French Provencal; and suquet de peix from Catalan-speaking Spain.

Unfortunately, I used a fish blend from Trader Joe's. I like most things from T.J.'s, but this fish was low-end because the cioppino was contaminated by an over-the-top fishy taste.

So we return to the drawing board to transform a dish into something delicioso. As is the case with most things, adding butter and cream to it salvaged the fishy cioppino. I made a simple roux and kicked up the vegetable contingent.

Ta da! The end result was a gorgeous, rich seafood chowder.

Rata-tat-touille

Glossy veggies all oiled up and ready for roasting

So I'm very proud of this ratatouille. I had scads of eggplant, peppers, tomatoes, and zucchini, and this dish is a go-to in that situation. In the past, the vegetables became too mushy when I cooked them on the stovetop, so roasting them was a revelation. My dinner guests didn't dig eggplant, so I pureed it and added it as a thickener. I also added chicken and grated parmesan to spice up the leftovers.

Finished product