pizza and pasta night

We were having some buds over for dinner on Wednesday, and wanted to make something fun, tasty, and easy to clean up so we could spend time hanging out. We had a lot of greens to use. We had basil, spinach, swiss chard, and some beet greens that I saved from the beets I made popsicles with. (A side note: if you don't save your beet greens when you get them, you totally should. They are delcious and packed with nutrients. It saddens me when I see people at the farmers market or grocery store rip them off and throw them away. I think I will start asking them if I can have them...) The pesto we made for the pizza has spinach in it. Have kids who don't like green veggies? Throw them in pesto, you can't even tell they are there!

Since we had just finished unpacking some of our amazing wedding presents we decided to use a few of them; namely the amazing Vitamix, and a cast iron pizza stone. So here is what we made. It was quick, easy, a breeze to clean up, and it tasted awesome!

Party Time Pasta Ingredients:
1 lb. Pasta, we used Orechiette
1/4 cup Extra Virgin Olive Oil
1 package Veggie Italian Sausage (or real sausage if you like), sliced into bite sized pieces
1/2 Onion, diced
2 cloves Garlic, minced
1/2 Yellow and 1/2 Red Pepper, diced
4 cups assorted Greens, we used Beet and Swiss Chard, roughly chopped
1/2 cup Pecorino Romano cheese, grated (optional)
salt, pepper, and pepper flakes to taste

Cook pasta according to package directions. While pasta is cooking, heat oil in a large saute' pan over medium high heat. Add the sausage into the pan, and cooked until both sides are browned, about 10 minutes. Remove sausage and set to the side. Turn the heat down to medium and add the onion, garlic, and peppers. Cook until onions are translucent, about 6-7 minutes. Turn off heat and stir in the greens handful by handful. Combine pasta, sausage, and veggies in a large bowl and sprinkle with Pecorino.


Pesto Pepper Pizza:
1 Fresh or Frozen Pizza Dough (we like the whole wheat one from Whole Foods)
1 bunch Basil
1 bunch Spinach
3 cloves Garlic
1/2 cup Extra Virgin Olive Oil
juice of 1 Lemon
1/2 lb. shredded low moisture part-skim Mozzarella Cheese
1/2 Red and 1/2 Yellow Pepper, sliced into rings
grated Pecorino Romano for topping (optional)
salt and pepper to taste

Preheat your oven to 450 degrees with the pizza stone inside. Roll out your dough and place it on a well floured pizza peel (hopefully you have one if you have a stone, if not a large serving platter can work.) Put the spinach, basil, oil, garlic, and lemon juice into your blender (or food processor) and blend until smooth. (This recipe makes about 1.5 cups, so you will have some leftover pesto, but that's a good thing right?) Top pizza dough with pesto, cheese, and peppers (and whatever else you would like to throw on there), and place it carefully on the pizza stone. Bake for 7-9 minutes (yep, that's it), and remove from the oven. Give it a minute or two to cool down once you remove it from the stone, it's like lava hot at this point.

There you have it, an easy, vegetable centered dinner for 4-8 people in under an hour with only 3 or 4 big dishes to clean. Not too shabby for a weekday, eh?

saag tofu

We love Indian Food. Living in the Lower Haight we were surrounded by a ton of amazing Indian restaurants. However, in NYC we haven't really found one close to our house that we love just yet, so when we got the craving for some saag paneer, we just decided to make it. But we made it vegan, because well, we did. It turned out ridiculously delicious, and made plenty for leftovers. It was also pretty easy, so I imagine this might become a staple around our house. Let's get down to business.

Ingredients:
2 pounds Frozen Spinach
1 medium Onion, diced
2 cups Unsweetened Soy Milk
1 pound Extra Firm Tofu, cut into 1/2 inch cubes
1 Tomato, chopped
4 cloves of Garlic, chopped
1 Tbsp. minced Ginger
2 Tbsp. Garam Masala
1 Tbsp. Chili Powder
1/2 tsp. Tumeric
2 Tbsp. lemon juice
2 Jalapenos, small dice
2 Tbsp. Safflower Oil (or your favorite cooking oil)
Salt and Pepper to taste
Cooking Spray

Preheat your oven to 375 degrees. Spray a baking sheet with cooking spray and place your tofu in a single layer on it. Sprinkle the tofu with one of the tablespoons of garam masala and some salt. Spray it again with the cooking spray and place in the oven to bake for 20 minutes.

While the tofu is cooking, place a large pot over medium heat. Add your oil, onions, garlic, ginger, tomato, and jalapenos and saute' for 4-5 minutes. Add the spinach and cover. Stir every few minutes until the spinach is defrosted. (If you defrosted your spinach ahead of time, or if you are using fresh spinach, just continue on.) Once the spinach is ready add the soymilk, and all of the spices, and season with salt.

Right about now your tofu should be ready to go. Here is where you have to make an important decision: Do I want to blend the spinach so that I have a uniform consistency, or do I want texture and chunks? We chose texture, if you want it smooth, go ahead and get your immersion blender. We can wait.

Done? OK. Add the tofu into the pot and simmer for just a few minutes so that everything is at a consistent temperature. Season again with salt and pepper, and serve with rice, naan, or both.

vegan spinach lasagna

Let me start off by saying two things:

Numero Uno: I like lasagna with a few layers. Not just two really thick layers that collapse and fall apart all over the spatula, and then your plate. It should hold up and be pretty, kind of like a layered cake. Something that takes this much time to prepare shouldn't look like a Rorschach sketch once it is served. All it takes is using a more shallow dish; buying some extra noodz and making the filling a little thinner between the layers.

Dos: Someone needs to make the perfect vegan ricotta. I am so sick of trying to do it, and I think everyone else is as well. Oh shit. This is by far my best incarnation by far. At least as far as pasta goes. Damn, I want to just eat this on crostini. It happens to be thick and slightly difficult to work with (especially with lasagna), but trust me; it will not make your lasagna soggy. Actually, its kinda way better than actual ricotta.

Ok, let's get down to business. Please note we are using a large Pyrex baking dish, not the 9x9 square one, so if you are, well; ummmm, do the same thing we did. I had leftover noodles anyway. I just ate them while cooking.


Ingredients:
2 10 oz. packages of whole grain Lasagna Noodles
1 pound frozen Spinach
1 medium Onion, diced
1 Tbsp. Lemon Juice
1 Tbsp. Garlic, minced
2 Tbsp. Safflower Oil
1/2 tsp. Red Chili Flakes
1 jar of Pasta Sauce (we used a jar of amazing sauce canned last Summer by my main man Sean Ulrich). Or you can make your own. We have a lot of recipes for that down the blog...

Cheeze!
1 pound Extra Firm Tofu
1 pound Soft Tofu
2 Tbsp. Extra Virgin Olive Oil
2 Tbsp. Lemon Juice
1 Tbsp. Dried Oregano
2 cloves Garlic, minced
1/4 cup Nutritional Yeast
Salt and Pepper to taste

Start your pasta water to boil. It is best to use 2 pots if you can. Lasagna noodles are so big and cumbersome. If you don't have two big pots, then do it in shifts.

Heat a saute' pan on medium heat. Add the safflower oil, and onion. Saute' until translucent. (You know the drill). Add the garlic, chili flakes and lemon juice. Toss the spinach in there and cover with a lid. Turn the heat to low.

In your food processor put all off the cheeze ingredients. Pulse a couple of times to the beat of whatever music you are listening to, and then just pop it on low and let it ride until smooth. Think "hummus" for the texture you are looking for. If you need more liquid you can add pasta water, just do it 1/4 cup at a time.

Stir your spinach every few minutes so that it gets evenly cooked, and keep an eye on your pasta.

Once the spinach is cooked and the pasta is done it is time to assemble. Preheat your oven to 350 and get ready to rock! I always start with a little sauce on the bottom so the noodles don't stick to the pan. Then I layer noodles, and then... I am sure you have done this before, so go for it. If you haven't, look at the close up picture below for details. When you have finished building your masterpiece, cover the pan with foil, making sure that the foil is not resting on the top of the lasagna. Make a little tent with the foil. Now bake it in the oven for 40-45 minutes. As tempting as it will be to eat it as soon as it comes out of the oven, wait about 7-10 minutes for it to set before serving, it will make it far less messy and lead to less clean up later.

thanksgiving

Here are the recipes I made for our annual Thanksgiving potluck this year:

A salad of roasted butternut squash, walnuts, pomegranate seeds and arugula with orange vinaigrette from Bon Appetit. Here's a helpful step-by-step guide on How to de-seed a pomegranate, with photos.

No-cream creamed spinach from the White House via the NY Times.

some screwed up combination of these two carrot soup recipes: Carrot soup from 101 Cookbooks, and Carrot and red lentil soup from What For Lunch, Honey? (Btw, just found that blog and it's beautiful!). It's my family's tradition to serve a first course of soup at Thanksgiving. So for the last three years that I've been out in SF, I've made soup to bring to our annual potluck. And every year I manage to screw up the soup and need to scramble to save it. This year involved too much salt in the broth and a last minute run to the corner store for a bottle of Odwalla pressed carrot juice and a bag of baby carrots. Next year... I might just skip the soup.

All of these recipes are of course seasonal, using ingredients from the CSA box and they all happen to be vegan and (I believe) gluten-free, though I'm not super familiar with what's allow or not allowed in the gluten-free diet so I could be wrong on that one.

No photos because I suck. Seriously, I don't even have an excuse for our lack of blogging lately- we just really suck.

So, how was your Thanksgiving? What did you make? Any awesome seasonal recipes we should check out?

eggs florentine... sort of

Annnnnd eggs. I love eggs. Katie loves eggs. We especially love poached eggs. This year for Xmas Katie bought me poach pods so I can make them whenever I want, which is always. Tonight we only had 4 eggs and were really hungry so instead of making a hollandaise I added fontina cheese to give an extra layer of richness. You could use any greens for this, and considering we both finished it in .095969 seconds and were screaming "MOAAAR!", this is probably going to become how we use some greens at least once a week. Enough babbling, on to the show:


Ingredients:
4 eggs
2 English muffins
1 bunch kale, roughly chopped
1 bunch spinach roughly chopped
salt, pepper to taste
1/4 cup shredded fontina cheese
1/2 an avocado

Get a sauce pan of water on the stove and get it boiling. Toast English muffins. Sprinkle with cheese and return to toaster oven, or oven to get all melty and delicious. Saute your kale and spinach in a pan over medium low heat with a little bit of cooking spray (don't forget to season these). Spray your poach pods, add your eggs, and get them into the boiling water. Cover and cook for about 7 minutes and WHOA, perfectly poached eggs. Layer them up as we did in the picture, or any way you want. Heck, make a sandwich! (Come to think of it, that's a damn good idea!) Eat, and begin craving for more.

saturday brunch

I apologize for the lack of updates this week. Between Halloween, Election Day & Katie's birthday, we have been real busy. We have lots of produce to use up so expect many more updates this week!

Here is what Kenny made for brunch today:


Roasted red potatoes:
Ingredients:
5 red potatoes, quartered
3 Tbsp paprika
1 Tbsp sea salt
1/2 Tbsp white pepper
2 Tbsp canola oil

Toss potatoes with all ingredients, and put on an oiled or sprayed sheet pan. Bake in a preheated 350 degree oven for 45 minutes.


Scrambled egg whites with spinach, roasted red peppers and emmentaler:
Ingredients:
2 1/2 cups egg whites
1 bunch fresh spinach, washed and chopped
3 bulbs garlic, chopped finely
4 roasted red peppers, julienned
3/4 cup shredded emmentaler
salt & pepper to taste

Saute spinach and garlic until tender in a skillet set to medium until tender (4-5 minutes). Add red peppers and seasoning, stirring until almost cooked (5-7 minutes). Add egg whites and cook until 165 degrees (7-8 minutes). Top with the emmentaler cheese. Turn off heat and add a lid, allow to sit for 3-4 minutes or until cheese is melted.

Serve it up with some toast. (and some ketchup -Kenny)