Thanksgiving Pizza?

Another one of my odd pizza creations.  My first Thanksgiving pizza! Why not?  Since I'm a vegetarian, I don't eat turkey and the same o' Thanksgiving sides do seem kinda boring... Hence, pizza with Thanksgiving toppings is awesome!  They are awesome in general. ^_^

Squash, feta, caramelized onions, chive pizza?

Or... Squash, feta, caramelized onions, chive, and dried cranberries pizza?

I like the first one better!  Without cranberries!  The squash was good in its own way, but I think cranberries would be better with  a sweet potato pizza for Thanksgiving.  Sweet potatoes are sweeter, so they can contrast better to the sour taste of cranberries.

This will be what I'm making this upcoming Thanksgiving!

2 dinners, 1 night.

Both dinners, all homemade.  

I think I'm very indecisive sometimes, and very gluttonous always.  Or vice versa...?  Hehehe

So, the first dinner that night was a baigan bharta, which is one of my favorite indian dishes.  It is comprised of roasted eggplant, tomatoes, peppers, and lots of spices.   This was a lot of fun to make, but took a bit of a long time.  

The second dinner that we also made simultaneously was... pizza!  Having indian eggplant with a side of fragrant saffron rice and cheesey roasted tomato pizza.  It was delicious! ^-^  There was a lot of leftovers from both dinners  for the next day.

Grilled vegetables... It looks like a flower, doesn't it? (Pic Above)

I was the grill master- keeping an eye on my veggies!  I don't know why I did the criss-cross grilled marks, when the veggies will all be blended up anyway!  But it looked cool!  

It was strange, because a few nights later, we unconsciously made italian food with a side of indian, drinking chai... and eating with chopsticks.

I've been very undecided lately...

Chickpea and Black Beans Wrap

 Homemade chickpea patties, black beans, rice, and hummus wrap.  This was suprisingly very good, especially with a bit of hot sauce and pickled jalapenos.

Pan-fried chickpeaa patties, with garam masala, garlic, onions, cumin, and lots of parsley!

Congee and pot sticker dumplings

Warm congee on a chilly day.  Here, this congee is accompanied with homemade veggie pot stickers and sauteed cabbage and carrots.  I actually enjoyed making pot stickers, and it might be something that I'll play around with on a rainy day.

So some additional add-ins that I used and you may also like in your congee too: sesame oil, scallions, fried tofu puffs, hot sauce, parsley, thousand year old eggs, quail eggs, chicken eggs (yolk only), etc.

I used the Shanghai Style dumpling wrapper, because it's the right thickness and the right texture too.  They're crispy and chewy at the same time.

Aloo Tikki Burger!

Aloo tikki burger with lots of Indian spices and encrusted with poppy seeds before cooking.

In the picture, I topped it with tomato and black bean salsa, but I had another tikki burger the next day, and I topped that with horseradish hummus, a fried egg, and a drizzle of sesame oil. Both versions were good.

What I liked about this burger are the spices. It is one of those food that gets better with time, because the burger I had the next day was so awesomely spicy. To make it, I think you should mix the aloo with spices the night before, or at least a few hours ahead. That would give time for the spices do its thing- the garam masala to release its flavor, the chilies to mingle with the cumin and potatoes, etc.

Lunch: Spicy rice, sauteed spinach, and soupy soup

Spicy basmati-saffron rice and sauteed spinach with tofu curds.

Kabocha soup with soft tofu.

If I am to choose between a kobocha squash or a butternut squash, I'd definitely go for the former. The texture and the taste is far better than a butternut in my opinion. It is sweeter and has a 'toothy' bite to it, like a drunken noodle would have more of a 'toothy' bite than a pad thai noodle.

You can cook a kobocha squash into a savory soup, or make into a sweet dessert like Asians do. Leaving the skin on is also better, because it has lots of nutritional content. If you make a savory soup out of it, then make sure to watch it when you're cooking it. It tends to fall apart and dissolve into the broth if you cook it too long, to death.

When shopping for one, be sure to look for one that is small or medium size, but dense and heavy in feel. The ones that feel light doesn't really have a good smooth sweet taste to it, maybe because it hasn't ripen fully.

Eggplant noodles!

Spicy Indo-Chinese noodles with marsala spiced eggplant!

What's in the noodle itself: onions, scrambled tofu, lotsa garlic, turmeric, hot spices, carrots and noodles.
Eggplant: Mix of different indian spices encrusted on the eggplant, and then pan-fried.

Masala Chickpea Burger

What should I cook? What should I cook?? I want to make chana masala, but I'm also in the mood for a veggie burger too!

Let's combine the two together, and make a very spicy masala chickpea burger! I used all the spices that'd go into a chana masala- coriander, ginger, turmeric, chillies, chili flakes, garam masala, cumin, garlic, paprika, and amchoor powder! Wow! That is a lot of spice. You can make this if you have the spices available already in your/your friend's cabinet. ^-^

Spicy Chickpeas Masala Burger

1 (15 oz) can of chickpeas (TJ's brand or any kind)
1/2 cup of chopped flat-leaf parsley
1/2 cup small diced celery
1 egg
1/2 red onion, diced
1 inch of ginger- minced/small diced
1 or 2 toasted bread slices (whole wheat) OR 3/4 cup toasted bread crumbs

Spices: salt, pepper, chili flakes chopped green chilies a splash of olive oil 2 tsp garlic powder a little coriander, 2-3 tsp of cumin 1 tsp turmeric 1 1/2 amchoor powder 2 tsp paprika garam masala- to taste- i put a lot, and didn't measure.

poppy seeds
buns/bread slices

Topping ideas: Roma tomatoes, thinly sliced onions, Sriracha, hummus

1. Put the following in a blender/food processor: chickpeas, bread crumbs, egg, splash of olive oil and all the spices. Blend together until it is a chunky hummus. (Be careful not to over blend, like I did.)*

2. Scoop out chickpea mixture into a big bowl and stir in chopped parsley, celery, ginger, and onion.

3. Heat oil in a large pan over medium-high heat and also put some poppy seeds out on a large plate. Then divide the chickpea mixture into burger-size portions and form into patties. Put the patties on the poppy seeds and encrust both sides with the seeds before frying in a pan.

4. Cook for about 6-8 minutes on each side, until the chickpea burgers brown. Check occasionally. Slide out on a plate. Toast up buns and spread them with a tangy hummus. Add the chickpea burger and top each with sliced onions and tomatoes, or anything you like.

5. Enjoy immediately :D

Braised Bitter Melon, Tofu, and Plantains(!)

I love bitter melon, I love tofu, and I love plantains! So, why not the three together in a pot?

It's actually very good, with the right seasonings, by yours truly. :D The key is to choose a slightly ripe, but not too ripe, plantain. This way, it'll not be mushy in the pot.

Soft Pretzels

(＞＊Pretzels!＊＜)

I love pretzels! Yes, these may look like some weird twisted buns, but this was my first attempt at making pretzels! Yay! I'll have to practice my rolling skills. The ones above are scallion-ginger pretzels (in the dough, as well as on top of the dough itself.) I topped some with chili flakes, hoping for a spicy kick, but I guess I need to dip them in mustard or Sriracha to taste something spicy.I also made some miniature normal pretzels too, below. These have an egg wash and then topped with sea salt. I think I may have sprinkled on the salt too much, because I scrapped off some on top when eating. These are good chewy soft pretzels- definitely a recipe keeper. What I would change is using less baking soda in the poaching water.

Since I also tested a few pretzels with cinnamon sugar on top, I learned a very important matter... that is to put the cinnamon-sugar after the baking, after brushing on yummy melted butter. Because my sugar was almost burnt. (￣〜￣) Hehe
So if you have a free afternoon, make some pretzels! I made the dough a night ahead, and kept refrigerated. One thing you need to remember is to use less yeast. Because the yeast would eat up all the food and wouldn't make your dough rise the next day. I'd say, use 1/2 of the yeast called for, and stick the dough in the fridge. The long fermentation would actually make the dough taste better.

I wish I have some pretzels now, but I gave them all away. (` - _ -` )

Too Cheesy??

The Spicy 'Chi Heart Pizza- Kimchi Pizza!

Heart shaped is kinda cheesy, but I liked it! I've read a lot on the internet, and apparently, a great combination is pepperoni and kimchi on pizza. Pork goes with everything! :-(

Instead of kimchi alone, I put some crispy veggie ham and sauteed onions to give the pizza more flavor. The sauce is mixture of several different HOT hot sauces and some tomato sauce. However, thinking it over the next day, I thought it might be good to have some pickles on it. Weird, but it needs a sour or salty taste to go along with the spiciness. And some more herbs too. A kimchi pizza do over is in order, I guess!

Breakfast Egg Pizza

Second pizza that night- runny eggs, red bell peppers, chile flakes, corn, cheese, and green onions.

This is my favorite out of the two! Maybe it could use some more eggs. Maybe the kimchi pizza could have used an egg or two, too.^o^

Spicy Scrambled Eggs w/ Roti

Recently, I came across a blog that mentioned a recipe by Nigella Lawson. It was a recipe about spicy scrambled eggs with fried corn tortilla strips.

I thought that is a great idea to get some textural contrast and bring something new to scrambled eggs or an omelette. You can make it more of a meal with some beans or something too. Well, I like the idea, but would never have tortillas on hand around the house.

What I do happened to have, is some homemade spicy spinach roti. Rotis... tortillas... they're kind of similar. After frying up some strips of roti (until they're crunchy), simply add them into some eggs, onions, and chilies.

And these are some good eggs! I had them with whole wheat sourdough toasts, but you can make a sandwich of any kind. Maybe wrap them up in some roti- and have a fried roti in eggs, in a roti wrap? Mmm hehe ^-^

Sweet potato (X-calzones-X) pasties!

If you've ever had sweet potato pizzas at Emma's pizza, then you know that they're absolutely yummy. That is, unless you're a person that hates potatoes or non-traditional toppings.

Well, "inspired" by their sweet potato pizza, I decided to make my own too! But I'm stuffing all the tasty toppings- feta, caramelized onions, spinach, sweet potatoes, and sauce, all in calzones!

One batch of dough was whole wheat, and one batch was regular. I prefer the whole wheat ones much more...

At first I was planning to make mini-calzones, but they seemed too time consuming for that day. I decided to make smaller calzones instead, well smaller than the ones you'd get in a pizza shop or the giant tasteless ones I remember from my high school cafeteria.

I know these don't look like calzones, but they're my hybrid of potstickers/calzones. :D

Whatever the shape, they tasted good, but were missing some rosemary and other herbs to make them even tastier. I'd have to try making them again sometime, with herbs, and less filling.

[Edit: My good friend informed me these are pasties, not calzones. Scratch that! ^-^)

Tofu and Penne

Fusion: Fried tofu with penne pasta and Vietnamese herbs.

Okay, so it's not 'fusion'. I ran out of rice noodles, and penne was all I have.

(Too lazy to cut up tofu!) I tore it up after, with the herbs too.

A light lemony-spicy sauce went along with it. Everything tastes better with a little spice.