brussel sprouts

Whenever I read about the experiences of others with CSA's, one of the things they are most excited about is that they are exposed to new vegetables. But I've been participating in a CSA for 5 years now and ate a lot of different vegetables before that as well. So I always sigh and think that unfortunately that aspect of the CSA is no longer available to me, my vegetable world can no longer expand. But I realized recently that I was sorely mistaken. Not only does my farmer occasionally introduce new vegetables to her repertoire (this year the daikon radish) and thus our share, but also there are plenty of vegetables that we get that I don't truly appreciate. The brussel sprout is one such vegetable.

We generally have brussel sprouts in at least one share each fall. Despite being right there in my refrigerator, I have never really taken the time to properly prepare and explore them. In fact I am sure there has been more than one year where I have found the bag of brussel sprouts still in the fridge months later all ready for the compost pile. This year I was determined to learn to love the brussel sprout, or well, at least give it a fair shake!

I started with a simple steamed brussel sprout, carrot, and leek dish with a horseradish sauce. We thought the strong sauce would disguise the taste of the brussel sprouts well. To our surprise, when steamed up fresh (this was only a day after they were picked), brussel sprouts don't need a strong sauce -- they tasted great! So the next time around I made a rice steam pot with the last of my basil in a pesto sauce. Again yummy yummy brussel sprouts. So I decided to let them be the core of a dish and made this pizza...

In addition to all those lovely brussel sprouts it has a nutritional yeast cheese-like sauce, caramelized onions, sun-dried tomatos, and capers. K said it was "yummylicious" which sounded like a complement to me. In fact we were filling out the farm survey after eating this and he considered putting brussel sprouts in his top 3 vegetables. Now that is one serious hat tip.

So I'd say we were extremely successful in learning to love the brussel sprout, now next year maybe I can figure out how to love those lovely chicories or maybe that odd-looking kohlrabi. But first I have just one more handful of brussel sprouts left. These will not go to waste this year!! But alas I must decide how to cook them. What is the best way? As I am just learning about this vegetable I need some more ideas.

grilled pizza

The last few days have been miserably hot and humid again. Yesterday I made K whisk the little guy and I off to a restaurant as soon as he got home from work. I wasn't craving any particular food, but was eagerly seeking a blast of cold AC. My seat in the restaurant was directly over a vent. Had I spent the entire day in an air conditioned office I would not have liked this but as I had spent most the day in our hot house I loved that my legs were turning numbingly cold.

Although the rains today did help cool things off I still was not eager to turn on the stove let alone the oven in order to cook dinner tonight. And we have too much delicious farm fresh produce to splurge with a restaurant meal again tonight. So we fired up the grill for a delicious seasonal flatbread.

• fresh basil pesto
• grilled zucchini and yellow summer squash
  
• grilled onions
• and as always passed the hot pepper flakes at the table

Despite my indifference towards zucchini and summer squash this was a tasty pizza. I'll give it an 8.

BBQ pizza

It was a cold and dreary spring day yesterday but that didn't stop us from tasting a hint of summertime thanks to modern transportation which brings us all sorts of produce off-season! We didn't venture out to the grill for this one though if the weather had cooperated grilling the toppings and the pizza on this one would have been superb.

Toppings:

• BBQ sauce
• tempeh (pan-fried in a splash of soy sauce and then tossed with BBQ sauce)
  
• Eggplant (sauteed until soft)
• onions (sauteed until almost crispy)
• bell pepper (this was grilled - leftover from a grilled meal a few days ago)
• slices of fresh tomato
• and, of course, we passed the nutritional yeast and hot pepper flakes at the table

This was a schweeeeet pizza. It was tasty but I'll only give it a 7 because I thought the BBQ sauce was too sweet. We used a jarred sauce that K got as a holiday gift from work. It had good flavor but was just too sweet - I prefer a BBQ sauce that tends towards zippy and away from sweet.

The pizza....

• A homemade whole wheat herb crust brushed with olive oil
• Chopped farm greens from the freezer (I think they were a mix of beet and turnip greens)
• faux feta (a tofu based feta recipe that I originally got from "How it All Vegan" but have altered a bit over time.)
  
• steamed asparagus
• slices of red pepper
• &, as always, passed the nutriotional yeast and hot pepper flakes at the table
  

I love faux feta on pizza. It has good flavor and just makes a great pizza topping. And as an added bonus it provides protein w/o having to fight with rolling chickpeas. Since I hadn't made it in quite awhile I really enjoyed it today. But even with that tasty flavor this pizza only gets a 6. The aspargus just didn't do too much for me. I didn't salt it b/c the feta had so much salt and maybe that was a mistake but really I think I should have chopped it up in smaller pieces or maybe even pureed it up with some roasted garlic. And I forgot that I actually did have some artichoke hearts on hand - those would have been delicious on this! and olives too!!

drab in color but not in flavor

Here are the details:

• A homemade herb crust
• Tahini based white sauce spiked with diced fresh jalapeno
• Thinly sliced potato
• Sauteed (I was hungry they didn't quite get carmelized) sweet onion and garlic
• For protein I threw some chick peas which I had in the fridge in with the onions and garlic
• Passed hot pepper flakes at the table (nutritional yeast was already in the sauce)

The chick peas were a little annoying because they rolled off the pizza and flavor-wise they didn't add much. I think I'd just do the taters and onions and skip the chick peas next time. The tahini-sauce wasn't what I was looking for either but I was getting hungry and it was quick to make. I wanted a white suace that is a little less tangy but still zippy - does that make any sense?

Even with those couple of edits the pizza was still quite good. I give it a 7. The jalapeno was a great addition to the sauce - the spicyness really made the pizza work.

saucy spinach & pepper pizza

For some reason that I can't recall there was a half sized pizza dough in the freezer. Since it is the weekend tomorrow, and we don't need leftovers to take to work for lunch, I decided this was as good a time as any to use up that small bit of dough. Oh how unfortunate, b/c this was a really tasty pizza, and I'd like to eat it again tomorrow for lunch...

Here is what we had on this pizza...

• a faux cheesy sauce
• steamed spinach
• green onions
• roasted red peppers
• capers
• passed the hot pepper flakes at the table, the sauce had nutritional yeast in it so didn't need to pass that...

A delicious combination of flavors. The roasted red peppers were especially delicious. These were from a huge bag of red bells that I bought recently on sale. I roasted a couple for soup the other night and luckily had some leftover to use on tonights pizza. Although I do still have some roasted peppers in the freezer from the farm this summer. I think I"ll be breaking those out for another roasted pepper pizza again soon... We rated this pizza an 8.5.

Spicy Red

Oooooo, spicy!!! I had planned to do pizza one night this week and I had pondered a few different ideas but then when it came time to actually make the pizza we were starved and hadn't prepared any sauces or anything yet so it ended up being a quick turn on the oven and toss whatever we have on the dough kind of pizza. And well, it turned out pretty darn good, we just felt it was a little too spicy. And when K admits that something is too spicy you know it has got to be HOT!

Here is what I put on the store-bought whole wheat pizza dough...

• a little bit of salsa
• chipolte seasoned kidney beans (this is where our heat came from - we used a little too much chipolte, oops!)
• onion
• tomato
• red bell pepper
• avocado (put on the pizza as it came out of the oven)
• No need to pass the hot pepper at the table but we did pass the nutritional yeast

We both rated this an 8. It had great flavor, just a bit too hot. We also felt that more tomato would be good (I only had a rather small tomato to slice up). , I'm not sure which would be better - either more fresh slices or some extra tomato sauce mixed in with the salsa on the base. I also might try this on a different kind of dough next time. With just a scaled down spiciness and more tomato this pizza would be pushing the 9 or even 10 rating (could we really eat it every day? )

spinach

I've been having a love/hate relationship with food throughout my pregnancy. The last month or so my stomach has felt much better but food still tastes just so-so and some things like winter squash, sweet potatos, and some cooking greens are paricularly unappealing. Needless to say this means I have not been particularly creative with pizza (or really any meal) lately. But at least now I have the energy to post our pizza. (I noticed a couple pizza's from November on my camera when I uploaded last night's pics that apparently I completely forgot about.)


Last night's pizza

• homemade whole wheat crust
  
• pesto sauce (from our freezer!)
• onions and mushrooms sauteed in olive oil
  
• spinach
• green bell pepper
• and of course, we passed the nutritional yeast and hot pepper flakes at the table
  

I always love the thought of spinach on pizza and often fall for it when ordering at a pizza place. But of course, especially without any cheese on top of the spinach it always turns crispy and flavorless on a restaurant pizza. We had a pizza like this recently that was very disappointing. To keep my spinach moist and flavorful I saute it just until softened before placing it on the dough. Using frozen spinach would work as well.

This pizza was only so-so, we both rated it a 6. The spinach was great but it just needed a stronger flavor to accompany it. I'm thinking that faux feta would be good or perhaps (for a soy free option) some pickled jalapenos.

'mater overload!

K couldn't resist the pile of beautiful tomatoes from the farm that have been adorning our kitchen counter. So he decided to try taking quercetin, eat 'maters. I wanted to make gazpacho but instead he wanted a pizza with tomatoes. So here is what we had on an herb and garlic crust...

• homemade tomato sauce (with onion, garlic and fresh farm tomatoes)
• eggplant (sliced and browned in a saute pan)
• purple bell pepper sliced in rings
• thick slices of fresh tomatoes
• and of course we passed the nutritional yeast and hot pepper flakes at the table

I rate this one a 9, mostly because the tomatoes tasted so delicious!!! Some arugula and faux feta would have made it the perfect relatively traditional vegan pizza. K doesn't think he can rate it fairly since he gets to eat tomato so rarely and they tasted so good to him.

"tomorrow is farm day so use up any leftover produce" grilled pizza

Tomorrow is our CSA pick-up at the farm so I'll be coming home with a bunch of fresh produce and I needed to make room in the fridge. Besides I don't need to accumulate produce from week to week or it will just end up lost in the bottom of the crisper until it eventually gets thrown in the compost. So the pizza today was a hodge podge of any leftover produce. A scrumptious hodge podge!

Although the heat wave is officially over my body is still feeling the unbelievable heat and stuffiness from yesterday so I couldn't stand the idea of turning on the oven. Instead I decided to make a grilled pizza, something I hadn't done in quite awhile. The toppings I had were perfect for a grilled pizza b/c they all needed to be precooked anyway. On a grilled pizza the toppings don't get cooked on the pizza so if they need more than a simple warming they need to be pre-cooked.

On the pizza:

• Root Vegetable Marinara (a favorite in our household b/c it tastes surprisingly like tomato)
  
• 2 small fennel bulbs - thinly sliced
  
• whites and greens of 2 leeks - thinly sliced
• half a dozen chard leaves - sliced in thin strips
• 1 medium zucchini
• As always we passed the nutritional yeast and red pepper flakes at the table.
  

Note: The only items not from the farm were some of the seasonings in the marinara, the olive oil, the crust, the nutritional yeast, and the red pepper flakes. This is truely a seasonal pizza!

The fennel and leeks were sauteed in olive oil until soft and slightly brown. I stirred in the chard as the leeks and fennel finished cooking and turned off the burner.

The zucchini was brushed with olive oil and grilled for a few minutes on each side.

The overall pizza was delicious!! The grilled crust was crispy and flavorful and all the toppings went really well together. I gave it an 8 and really only because zucchini just isn't my favorite vegetable (although I must admit prepared this way it was better than normal). K on the other hand loves zucchini so he gave it a 9 -- I think he is holding out rating anything a 10. Of course, "I could eat this every day" is a pretty high standard to achieve.

southwestern flair in green

It has been awhile since we've made pizza, mostly because it has been too hot to turn on the oven lately. This week we have been getting some thunderstorms and rain which is really cooling things off so I fired up the oven and made a pizza last night - yum!

It was a rather unusual pizza that I made, but it tasted pretty good. I made my own whole wheat pizza crust (actually half whole wheat and half white flour). The sauce was an herb & black bean puree which had cilantro, basil, garlic scapes, garlic, cumin, lime, nutritional yeast, salt, and obviously, black beans. For toppings, I sauteed some summer squash and mushrooms and I also added slices of avocado when the pizza came out of the oven. As always we passed red pepper flakes and more nutritional yeast at the table.

On the new 10 point scale we give this a 7. It looked pretty in a rather monochromatic way but some brilliant red would have enhanced the visual apeal as well as the flavor. My preference would have been some slices of fresh tomato (the tomatoes at the farm are still green so we won't be seeing them for another week or so.) K suggested roasted red peppers on his half which I agree would taste good as well. I might also throw some olives on next time.

Sweet & Spicy Hawaiian Seitan Pizza

As is standard lately, I started with a whole wheat crust - maybe next time I'll make a different crust. The Sweet & Spicy Seitan sauce had most the toppings directly in it. That included onion, bell pepper, seitan, and kale. I topped that sauce with some chunks of pineapple. And as always passed the red pepper flakes (did skip the nutritional yeast this time although it probably would have tasted fine.)

We decided to start rating our pizza on a 10 point scale. 10 being "Wow, I could eat this every day" and 1 being "Yuck, I couldn't even finish eating this one piece." This one gets a 7.5. The sauce was a little juicy (I should have thickened it) but the flavor was delish. Tempeh would be a great texture on this one in place of the seitan if only K could eat tempeh again . sigh...

Peanutty Pizza

I topped a basic wheat dough with a quick and easy homemade Zippy Peanut Sauce, rings of red onion, broccoli florets and slivers of orange bell pepper. It was really tasty! And yes, even with this stir-fry inspired pizza pass the red pepper flakes and nutritional yeast at the table.

Creamy Spinach Flatbread

My last two pizza's had both arugula and potato. K and I fell in love with arugula on pizza when we were biking through Italy. We always saw rucola on the menus and didn't know what it was as the English translation was always "rocket" a term I had never heard. When we finally ordered a pizza with rucola we were thrilled by the nutty taste of the slightly wilted green that I knew as arugula. Now we use it on our own homemade pizza whenever we have some on hand. We were also introduced to potato as a pizza topping on that Italy vacation and have found that we really enjoy that too although not quite as often as arugula. However, as proof that I don't always use these 2 toppings here is an earlier pizza that we really enjoyed.

I started with a homemade creamy spinach sauce on a whole wheat dough and topped that with rings of red pepper and frozen artichoke hearts. And, as always, we passed the hot pepper flakes and nutritional yeast at the table.

garlic scape pesto pizza

The pizza I made for dinner today had a garlic scape, basil, and parsley pesto sauce, the last bag of pesto from the freezer. Good thing it is spring and we can soon be expecting fresh herbs and scapes from the farm. Garlic scapes aren't quite in season yet (at least not in New England) but they will be soon and they make a tasty pesto so if you see them in a farmers market be sure to grab some.

The pesto was complimented by thinly sliced red skin potatoes, marinated artichoke hearts, greek olives, and fresh arugula from my garden. Very tasty!

As always, be sure to pass the hot pepper flakes and nutritional yeast.

Roasted Red Pepper & Taters

About this blog... My husband and I eat homemade vegan pizza at least a couple times a month and decided that it would be nice to keep a log of what we do so we could repeat some of the better combinations (and avoid the less than stellar ones). I haven't decided yet if this will only be a blog of those pizza creations or other vegan culinary adventures. For now, here is today's pizza creation.

Delicious!! A roasted red pepper spread made our pizza even look like a somwhat normal pizza. With K. allergic to tomatoes we can't do the standard pizza sauce. But the roasted red pepper sauce both looked and tasted great on the pizza. We added thinly sliced potatoes, carmelized onions, and, of course, our favorite topping, fresh arugula.