Super Crispy Tortilla Pizza

Pita bread doesn't like me: when I try to make it poof up, it just sits there; when I try to make the tortillas crispy by baking them at 450 for a few minutes before adding pizza-y toppings, the tortillas fill up their lungs to sing. Molto strano.

They got what they were asking for: a violent and crunchy punching down. Then they got a liberal covering with tomato slices, basil leaves, cheese, lots and lots of dried basil and dried oregano on top, and a spoon-controlled drizzling of olive oil.

Back in at 450 for 10-15 minutes, and devoured. Delicious!

P.S. I also roasted the tomatoes before hand, which I think helped. The cookie sheet wasn't too happy though...

The Hunt Continues...

The hunt continues for the perfect super basil-y tomato sauce. Breakspear made a huge donation, but it was ultimately somewhat disappointing, though beautiful.

This was store-bought tomato sauce heated on the stove with a small mountain of fresh basil leaves (torn, I think). I need a way to blenderize the basil better; I think liquid nitrogen would help. :)

Impromptu Banana Bread

The secret to banana bread is to measure the amount of mashed banana you have. Since this interesting fellow

somehow magically refused to freeze during his night in the freezer, and then squirted out of its sausage case-like peel the consistency of baby food, I had no choice but to make banana bread immediately. Poor me.

This is why you always keep the recipe handy, with the half and quarter recipes already written out. Or you just memorize it. :)

Moosewood Mediterranean Cannellini Patties

Another recipe-following success! Not so much a pattie-sticking-together success, but they were yummy!!!

First you saute 2 c minced onion and minced garlic in warm olive oil with a tsp of salt, then after 5-10 minutes you add 1 c chopped bell peppers and 2 tsp cumin, and cook for 5 more minutes. Turn off the heat. In a mixing bowl, mash 4 c cooked canellini (or other white beans) by hand. It got messy!

You then stir in 1 c minced fresh parsley, 1 tbsp fresh lemon juice, 2 c cooked brown rice, and black pepper to taste. Introduce sauteed veggies, and mix well. Shape into patties (the recipe says you get 18 but it depends on the size) and cook on medium heat 5-10 minutes a side, until golden brown. If you're lucky, they'll stick together (I wasn't, but they were super yummy nonetheless!).

You can eat them straight up, with yogurt tahini dressing, or as part of a pita sandwich. I imagine you could also make them with lots of other spice and veggie combinations, and maybe garbanzos instead of white beans.

Roasted Tomato Sauce!

Here's one good reason to be crazy about taking pictures of the food you're cooking: when you forget what time something went in the oven, the camera can tell you. Thanks, Giovanni!

So the cool thing about this sauce, with helpful hints from teh interwebs, is that the entire sauce is roasted (meaning you don't roast just the tomatoes, but everything). Normal tomato sauce involves sauteing garlic and onion then adding tomatoes and spices. Normal tomato sauce with roasted tomatoes involves using roasted tomatoes instead of fresh or canned ones. When the whole sauce is roasted, magic happens.

Spread halved tomatoes (romas are best) cut side up in a pan with fairly high sides and cover with a generous sprinkling of minced fresh garlic, dried basil and oregano, salt and pepper to taste, and a drizzle of olive oil (the easiest way not to spill is to pour a bit of olive oil in a spoon and use that to drizzle; even if you dump the whole thing out on accident it's still less than a slip of the bottle).

Roast at 450 for 30-45 minutes (take them out before you see signs of burnage). Blend, either in the blender or in a pot with the imersion blender. Boil some water off it's too thick (mine ended up the perfect sauce consistency).

Mix pasta into sauce over low to medium heat to warm; garnish with fresh basil to serve.

Granola Bars

Like (almost) everything else, this was an experiment. It was partially successful.

Like experiments, there were multiple conditions--two different methods of trying to make the granola bars stick together. One worked better than the other, but neither worked well. The mix was: 2 c rolled oats, 1/3 c wheat germ, 1/3 c wheat bran, 2 tbsp sunflower seeds, 2 tbsp sliced almonds, 3 tbsp brown sugar, 1.5 tbsp ground flaxseed, 2 tbsp melted butter, 1 tsp vanilla. A trick I learned from the KAF blog is to everything in a different place as a visual check of what you've added so you don't forget anything.

I mixed all this good stuff up and then split the batch in half. One half got a beaten egg white, the other 3 tbsp mashed banana. (This was based on a lack of critical thinking, as usual: I somehow managed to reason that since egg holds stuff together and is also something that adds moisture, something else that holds moisture should also hold things together. Don't ask.) Each half got pressed into a loaf pan. (Below, I think the egg version was the full one.)

After 25? minutes at 350 and 7 minutes to cool in the pan, I turned each out on the cutting board. The egg pan stuck together better than the banana pan, but neither stuck particularly well. I also realized that sunflower seeds don't really belong in granola bars. It's too bad but I've become quite a fan of the processed "food", sugar, oats, and chocolate chip version.

So, who has a granola bar recipe to share that doesn't have loads of sugar for holding everything together?

Moosewood Tomato Wine Sauce with Fennel

Tonight's experiment was another miracle in actually following recipes. I couldn't taste the wine at all, though I might not have recognized it anyway. The fennel makes it slightly interesting, but otherwise it's a gentle tomato sauce.

The Moosewood cookbook says to saute 1 c chopped onion, 2 minced garlic cloves, and a sprinkle of salt in warm olive oil for 5-7 minutes, then add 2 tsp ground fennel, 1 tsp dried oregano, and 1 tsp dried basil and cook for another minute. Then you add 1/3 c red wine and boil everything. Add a 28 oz. can of tomatoes pureed (you can buy tomato puree or buy whole tomatoes and dirty your blender) and simmer the sauce for about 20 minutes, seasoning with salt and pepper to taste.