Corn, avocado, and tomato salsa with lime-honey dressing

Corn, avocado, and tomato salsa with lime-honey dressing
Adapted from For the Love of Cooking

Ingredients:
2 ears corn, husked with silk removed
1 pint grape tomatoes
1 avocado

Dressing:
2 T cilantro, minced
3 T olive oil
1.5 T lime juice
1 T honey
1 clove garlic, minced
salt and pepper to taste

Instructions:
1. Put 2 inches of water into a steamer pan, cover with lid, and set on medium-high heat.
2. While waiting for steamer to boil, combine all ingredients for dressing into a medium-sized mixing bowl, whisk, and set aside.
3. When steamer is ready, put corn in to steam for 10 minutes with lid on.
4. Dice avocado, place into dressing bowl, and coat immediately.
5. Half all of the tomatoes (quarter if particularly large), and place in the mixing bowl.
6. Once corn has finished cooking, set aside until cool enough to handle, and then cut corn of cob with sharp knife, rotating the husk as you go along. Be sure not to cut too close to the husk.
7. Combine corn with rest of mix, mix gently with hands (so to not squish the avocado more than it must be).
Optional: Let flavors combine for 30 mins. before serving.

Autumn vegetable melody

Today was a nice, cold, autumn day. Thus, I was inspired to make a blend of my local seasonal produce! I bought a HUGE squash at the Columbia, MO farmers market, and still have some of the hand-picked apples my friend gave me. So, those went perfectly with my onions and potatoes I need to use up.





Autumn vegetable melody

Ingredients:
2 medium white potatoes
1/4 white onion
2 small red cooking apples
1 1/2 cup diced butternut squash
2 T. butter
1/2 t. salt
2 T. medium-packed chopped parsley

Instructions:
1. Core and dice apple, onion, and potatoes, leaving the skin on both potatoes and apples.
2. Heat skillet to medium-low heat, and add butter. While waiting for pan to heat, chop parsley.
3. Add potatoes, onion, apples, and squash to pan, sprinkle salt on top. Cook and caramelize for 35 minutes or so, stirring every 5.
4. Take off heat, add parsley, and serve.

Pizza: zucchini, onion, apple, pesto, feta

Okay, this is THE LAST TIME I'll post anything even remotely pizza related for an entire month. That's right. But... for now.... Pizza! Mmm this was quite possibly the tastiest pizza I have yet to make. Quite seriously. Deliciousness.


So, one of my buds Connie (featured in the grilling pizza post), graciously donated a bag of local, hand picked apples! (shown in back of ingredients picture) So, during my Artificial Intelligence class... I had a vision, of a most delicious pizza! And it came to be realized for my late lunch today.



Pizza: zucchini, onion, apple, pesto, feta

Ingredients:
1/8 white onion
1/3 cup zucchini
1 small apple
5 T Pesto
3 T feta cheese
pizza dough mix
1 cup pizza cheese (mix)
1 T butter

Instructions:
1. Preheat oven according to pizza instructions. Set frying pan to medium heat, and place butter in pan.
2. Peel and core, apple, and dice finely zucchini, onion, and apple. Place into frying pan, and saute for 10-15 mins, stirring and turning occasionally.
3. Mix pizza dough according to package directions.
4. Finely chop feta cheese (if not already crumbled)
5. After waiting the correct rise time for pizza dough, spread out onto greased pizza pan.
6. Then spread evenly pesto sauce, sprinkle evenly pizza cheese, layer on sauted mix, and sprinkle top with feta cheese.
7. Bake according to pizza dough package directions.

Hummus

Hummus is such a great food. I really came to appreciate it this summer, when forced to eat dining hall food for two and a half months straight. It can help you with that 'I'm starving because they don't server any vegetarian entrees' feeling, while being healthy.

My favorite hummus recipe is called Turbo Hummus, from the great Alton Brown. My favorite part about this recipe is that it calls for peanut butter in place of tahini, a tasty but very expensive item that goes bad quickly.


Hummus
Adapted from Alton Brown's Turbo Hummus

Ingredients:
3 cloves garlic
1 can garbanzo beans
2 1/2 T creamy peanut butter
2 T lemon juice
1/4 t ground pepper
1/4 t ground sea salt
1/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil

Instructions:
1. Mince garlic.
2. Drain garbanzo beans into a liquid measuring cup.
3. Add garlic, garbanzo beans, peanut butter, lemon juice, pepper, and salt to a blender. Blend until mostly creamy, but with some visible chunks left.
4. Slowly add evoo as blending the hummus, until reaching desired consistency (you may not use all the oil. I didn't, as I prefer my hummus more sticky, less runny)

Option: In the future, I would love to do this recipe with almond butter instead of peanut butter. I think it would be a great result, as I feel almonds are more like sesame seeds, and thus more similar to tahini.

Grilled Pizzas: Regular and Zucchini

I've now noticed that just about half of my posts have been about pizza. I really don't eat just pizza, it's just the only note-worthy thing that I've made as of late.
This is Connie, my grilling buddy! (eating ice cream as part of our pizza-cookout. We had pizzas, ice cream, and iced tea. Delicious! Ice cream + iced tea.... try it sometime. : ))

Anyhow, grilling pizza's! Such a great concept. I'm still getting my style down. First time through, we put the pizza's on too early, when the flames were still sprouting up every once in a while. (and we didn't close the lid)
Second time turned out way successful!

Grilled Pizza
Ingredients:
Pizza Dough
1 cup pizza sauce
2 cup shredded cheese of choice (mozzarella)
1 cup toppings of choice (sauted mushrooms, sauted onions, diced tomato, hot and mild peppers, diced)

Instructions:
1. Readying the grill: We used a one-time-use charcoal bag. In this case, light the bag in all 8 corners, leave the grill top open, and wait until all the coals have turned a dusty gray color, there is no more bag left, and there are no flames left (about 20 minutes).
2. While waiting for the coals to get ready, assemble the pizzas. The dough linked to should make 3 balls, which will each create 3-6" pizza's. Place 1/3 cup sauce on all the pizzas, spread evenly (but leave a crust area so when you transfer the pizzas to the grill it doesn't spill). To each pizza, add 2/3 cup cheese. On top of that, put 1/3 cup toppings on each pizza.
2. Spread coals evenly on bottom of the grill (using a stick). Very important, if you want the pizzas to cook evenly. Also, try to get the coals a low as possible in the grill.
3. Carefully pick up 4 sides of each pizza, and lay carefully on the grill. Once all the pizzas have been placed on the grill, close the grill lid and let cook for about 10 minutes.
4. Take pizza's off grill (we used a spatula like you'd use when making scrambled eggs). Enjoy!


Not only did we make regular grilled pizzas, we made zucchini grilled pizzas!
Grilled Zucchini Pizza
Adapted from a Kalyn's Kitchen recipe
Ingredients:
A very fat zucchini (the fatter the better)
Pizza sauce
Cheese
Toppings

Instructions:
1. Readying the grill: We used a one-time-use charcoal bag. In this case, light the bag in all 8 corners, leave the grill top open, and wait until all the coals have turned a dusty gray color, there is no more bag left, and there are no flames left (about 20 minutes).
2. While the coals heat, slice the zucchini into disks about 1/4" thick. Slice as many as you want mini-zucchini pizzas.
2. Spread coals evenly on bottom of the grill (using a stick). Important for getting the pizzas to cook evenly. Try to get the coals a low as possible in the grill.
3. Place your zucchini slices on the grill, close the lid, and grill for about 7 mins.
4. After 7 mins, take the zucchini slices off the grill onto a pizza-assembly platter. Place about 2 T. of sauce onto the grilled side of the pizza. Then put 3 T. Cheese on the sauce, and about 1-2 T of toppings on top of the cheese.
5. Carefully place the pizzas back onto the grill, close the lid, and cook for another 7 minutes.
6. Remove the pizzas from the grills (we used a spatula like you'd use when making scrambled eggs), eat, and enjoy!

Pizza Dough

This is the first time I've made pizza dough. Usually, I use the 5-minute rise dough from a mix. Quite convenient and time (and cost) saving, but ultimately not the premium. This recipe is out of The Bread Baker's Apprentice, a classic in bread literature.

I used an abridged version, since I was short on time and did not prepare well. It turned out pretty tasty, but I would still suggest in the future to use the full version.

(An action shot!)


Note: I also halved the recipe.

Pizza Crust (abridged)
adapted from The Bread Baker's Apprentice, by Peter Reinhart

Ingredients:
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 + 1/8 t salt
1/2 t yeast
1/8 cup olive oil
3/4 + 1/8 cup cold water

Instructions:
1. Combine flour, salt, and yeast.
2. Add oil and water, and mix as if using a dough hook (or use one, if you have), for 5 minutes.
3. Sprinkle flour on a counter, place dough on, and cut into 3 pieces of equal size. Shape all into a sphere.
4. From sphere, use fists to shape into 6 inch rounds. Dust rounds with flour, place onto wax paper, cover with saran wrap, and let rise for 2 hours.
5. For cooking instructions (specifically grilling... stay tuned!)

Chick'n and Rice Casserole

I have this thing, where if it's harder to find a vegetarian version of (such as the classic chicken and rice casserole), then I like it more. Alas! Well, here I've created a vegetarian version of the classic, that uses only the most basic of basic ingredients, and is absolutely delicious!




Chick'n and Rice Casserole

Ingredients:
1 T. butter
1/2 white onion
2 cloves garlic
1 medium brown potato
2 cups milk
1/2 cup dill dip (or sour cream + 1 t. dill)
1 egg
1 cup uncooked rice
2 chick'n patties
1/2 cup shredded cheese (sharp cheddar)
salt and pepper to taste

Instructions:
1. Pre-heat oven to 375 F.
2. Heat a skillet on medium heat, and add butter. While skillet is heating, mince garlic, dice onion, and shred potato. Add to skillet. Let saute for about 10 minutes, until everything is soft and fragrant.
3. Whisk egg, milk, dill dip (or sour cream), salt and pepper, and rice together.
4. Microwave heat chick'n patties according to box directions. Then, dice or cut into strips according to preference.
5. Add sauted onion mixture to egg mixture. Add the chick'n patties. Mix evenly, and then pour into a small casserole dish. Sprinkle all cheese on top, and put on lid. Place in oven.
6. Cook with lid for 30 minutes, then remove lid and cook for another 20 minutes. Remove from oven, let cool, and enjoy!