Corn and Tomato Pizza

I love great tasting homemade pizza and this one is no exception. For the pizza dough, I defrosted some frozen wheat pizza dough I had previously made following this recipe. Otherwise you can use pre-made pizza dough to save you time. As for the topping, I got the inspiration from this Vegetarian Times recipe, with a little bit of my own variation. For the base sauce, I made some basil and cashew pesto, and left out the cheese altogether. It still tasted great.



Corn and Tomato Pizza

makes 2 medium pizzas

Pesto:
3/4 cup of cashew nuts (or almonds)
1 cup of packed basil
1 garlic, peeled
1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lemon juice
1/3 cup of olive oil
salt

In a food processor, grind the cashew nuts.
Add the basil, garlic, and lemon juice until pureed.
Next add in the olive oil until thoroughly mixed.
Season with some salt to taste.

Topping:
1 cup of chopped tomatoes
3 cups of sweet corn
3-4 tablespoons of fresh basil, torn
1 cup of spinach, cooked in boiled water for just a few minutes (optional)

1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.
2. Shape the dough to approx 12 inches large.
3. Spread on the pesto sauce, then top with corn, tomatoes, and spinach. Place on a pizza stone or baking pan. Bake for 10-12 minutes or until crust is crispy. Approximately 1-2 minutes before the pizza is done, sprinkle on the basil and continue to bake until crust is just about done!

Pad Kee Mao

One of my favorite thai dishes is pad kee mao. This is one of those dishes I like to make at home without having the need to go to a thai restaurant. You can buy the fresh rice noodles from asian markets. You an get them precut, but I prefer to get them uncut so I have the luxury to slice them however thick I want. Of course, it's a bit more work, but worth the effort if you want wider noodles.

Makes approx 4 servings

1 lb of fresh rice noodles, precut, or uncut (cut to your liking)
2 tablespoons of vegetable oil
1 egg

Chopped ingredients:
4 cloves of garlic, chopped
1 small onion, chopped
3 tomatoes, chopped with seeded and juices squeezed
1/2 cup of basil (red basil preferred but I used sweet since I had that on hand)
2-3 cups of greens (spinach or swiss chard)
1 bell pepper, sliced (optional)
14 oz cubed firm tofu, drained

Sauce:
2 tablespoon light soy sauce
1 tablespoon dark soy sauce
1 teaspoon oyster or mushroom sauce
1 tablespoon sugar

1. Separate the rice noodles - rinse under hot water for about a minute to help separate out the strands. If they are uncut, unfold them and cut into 1-2 inch widths. Place in a large bowl.
2. In a small bowl, combine all the sauce ingredients.
3. In a large wok or pan, add the 1 tablespoon of oil over high heat.
4. Add in the tofu and cook for 1 minute.
5. Add the remaining oil. Add the egg and cook until slightly done.
6. Add in the onions, garlic, bell peppers, tomatoes, and greens adn cook for 1 minute.
7. Next, add the rice noodles and sauce mixture.
8. Add the basil. Stir fry for about 3 minutes. Serve!

Wild Salmon Lasagna

After experimenting making lasagna with salmon with different types of fillings (tomato sauce, tofu), I finally settled on the below version as my favorite lasagna recipe. It uses tofu and absolutely no cheese. Yep, that's right, no cheese! Though you don't get much of that creamy and gooiness from cheese, this is definitely healthier for you while not compromising on taste. It's actually quite tasty with the salmon sauce. You an probably make more of the salmon sauce if you want a bit more sauce in your lasagna. Hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

Makes 9 servings

Salmon & salmon sauce:
1/2 lb of salmon fillet (I used wild caught Alaskan salmon)
1/4 cup of dill or fennel, freshly chopped
some lemon juice, freshly squeezed
1 1/4 - 2 Cups of milk or soymilk
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon butter
2 cloves of garlic
2-3 tablespoon all-purpose white or whole wheat flour

1. In a pot over medium heat, melt the butter.
2. Add garlic, cook for 1 minute.
3. Stir in the milk. Stir in the flour, and mix thoroughly. Simmer until thickened.
4. Stir in the salmon fillet. Break apart the salmon into bite size pieces.
5. Add the remaining ingredients - dill/fennel, salt, and lemon juice
6. Cook for a few minutes until you're able to break apart the salmon fillet where the outside is just cooked, so it is half cooked. Baking it will further cook the salmon.

Filling
1 box (14-16 oz) of firm tofu
about 1 lb of spinach, swiss chard, or any greens, cooked and drained
1 tsp salt
1 1/2 teaspoon oregano
1 teaspoon basil
1/2 teaspoon rosemary
1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper

1. Be sure to lightly cook the greens.
2. Rinse the tofu, crumble it into a bowl.
3. Add the greens, and remaining seasoning.

• Next, cook the 9 pieces of lasagna in a pot according to the box instructions. Drain and let it cool for a few minutes.
• In a 9x12" casserole pan, place a layer of 3 lasagna noodles. Next, add 1/3 of the tofu mixture, along with 1/2 of the salmon and salmon sauce.
• Repeat and place a second layer of lasagna noodles. Add 1/3 of the tofu mixure and the remaining salmon and salmon sauce.
• Place the final 3rd layer of lasagna noodles, then top with the remaining tofu mixture.
• Place in oven at 375 degrees for 20-25 minutes.

Spinach Rice Gratin

I open my fridge and it is full of fresh veggies from my csa. It also reminded me of the fresh eggs I purchased from the Redmond farmers markets this past weekend. The eggs came from Sky Valley Farm in Startup, WA, just 40 miles from Seattle. They are truly farm-fresh eggs where the chickens are raised on pastures and are not treated with any antibiotics. Thank you chickens for rounding out my meal!

I typically have some ideas of what I want to cook with the veggies I choose. So tonight, the dish I set out to make is a spinach rice gratin based on this recipe from the 101cookbooks site, using those farm-fresh eggs. It will be enough for dinner as well as leftovers for work the next day. I didn't have any olives on hand, so I added some soy sauce and salt for additional seasoning to the dish before baking it. I used the spinach from my CSA, eggs, organic brown rice, and some cashew cheese.

You can follow the recipe here.

A Tale of Two Pizzas

It's been a while since I made pizza at home. Having a craving for homemade pizza, I decided to take a little adventure in making my own pizza dough and topping. After scouring the internet for pizza dough recipes, I finally settled on this recipe from The Fresh Loaf. I was able to make 4 - 12 inch pizza crusts from this recipe. I ended up freezing two and baking two of them that day. The crust was just perfect - gives you just the right amount of crunch. Instead of the 5 cups of all purpose flour the recipe tells you to use, I substituted one of the cups with whole wheat flour.

I also didn't want a typical pizza with cheese and tomato sauce so I found two great recipes to try. They are both healthy, nutritious and quite filling (no cheese). I used the spinach and spring onions from my CSA box, but feel free to top it off with any of your favorite vegetables. Yum!

Tuscan White Bean Pizza
So as you can see below, the entire pizza isn't tuscan white bean. Since I ran out of the cannellini bean mixture, I had to improvise and whipped up some onions and spinach for the remaining 25% of the pizza! :P

Carmelized Onion & Spinach Pizza