Flatbread Pizza with Spaghetti Squash, Pear, Brussel Sprouts and Balsamic Drizzle

Okay that's a very long name for a food, but no real easy to shorten it so there you go.

Though I took a short sabbatical from posting, food is never far from my mind and I'm looking forward to bringing you some new fall dishes and dessert treats as we go into the holiday season.

But to start, brussel sprouts...they really are the most adorable little mini cabbages!  Teeny and delicious and very fun to cook with.  So the inspiration for this pizza came from the flatbread appetizer I'd mentioned last time. Made one or two K2 alterations and voila! Something new and exciting.

Flatbread Pizza with Spaghetti Squash, Pears, Brussel Sprouts and Balsamic Drizzle
Since this is a pizza recipe, I don't have exact measurements for everything, just adjust the amounts to what you like and go from there.

Flatbread rounds
Olive oil
Spaghetti squash, roasted and "spaghetti'd"
Brussel sprouts, quartered
Pear, sliced thin
White cheddar cheese, shredded
1/4 cup balsamic vinegar, reduced

PRE-PREP

Spaghetti Squash -- cut the squash in half, scoop out the guts, bake at 350 degrees (face up) for 30-40 minutes.  Take a fork and scrape the insides out to spaghetti it.

Brussel Sprouts -- quarter the sprouts and dry fry them (no oil or coating) in a non-stick pan for 4-5 minutes or until fork tender (and not zombified).

Pear -- slice the pear very thin (1/8") and dry fry them in a non-stick pan for 2-3 minutes or until almost translucent.

Balsamic Vinegar -- in a small saucepan, bring 1/4 cup balsamic to a boil, allow to boil for 3-4 minutes, until it starts to reduce.  Set aside and let it continue to reduce in the pan away from the heat. You can use whatever type of balsamic you'd like, I actually had a sample bottle of Cranberry Pear Balsamic that really did the trick.

LAYERING

I brushed my flatbread with olive oil to give it a minimum coating and add some moisture.

Then I laid my pear slices down, sprinkled them with the shredded white cheddar.

Next I added the brussel sprouts and covered it all with a thin layer of the spaghetti squash.

Finally, I drizzled a moderate amount of the balsamic reduction across the top of the pizza.

Baked at 350 degrees for about 10 minutes, though you can do less time or more time depending on how done you like your pizza.

All that's left is to slice and enjoy.

Little shout out here to my friend Bethany who served as guinea pig on this my latest culinary experiment.  It got a two thumbs up so I think you're going to like it too.

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Penne al Greco

 

With the weather getting cooler, I keep getting cravings for pasta so in keeping with my latest exploration of "exotic" flavors, I bring you a tasty Greek-inspired pasta dish.

Penne al Greco

1 lb. box penne pasta
1/3 cup chopped onion
1 tbsp. minced garlic
1 tbsp. olive oil
1 (28 oz.) can diced tomatoes
2 tbsp. Kalamata olives, minced
4 oz. feta cheese, crumbled
1 tbsp. fresh dill, chopped
1 tbsp. fresh oregano, chopped

Prepare noodles according to box directions.  While those are boiling, prep the sauce.

In a large skillet over medium-high heat, cook onion and garlic in olive oil until onions are translucent.  Mix in tomatoes and Kalamata olives, drop temperature to medium-low.

When the noodles are done, rinse with hot water and allow to drain.

Meanwhile, add feta cheese, fresh chopped dill and fresh chopped oregano to the sauce and mix well. 

Serve sauce over the prepared noodles, or blend them all together and enjoy! 

Asian Cabbage Salad

 

I met some friends for lunch the other day at The Nasher Museum Cafe in Durham and enjoyed a delicious salad that was so crispy and light and filling I decided that I wanted to try it at home.

I'm very happy with my final product and as an added bonus I now have a recipe for the same miso-ginger dressing that you get on your salad at a Japanese steak house. Num! All around good stuff.

Asian Cabbage Salad

2 cups shredded white cabbage
1 cup shredded red cabbage
1 cup grated carrot
1/2 cup cooked edamame
1/3 cup toasted cashew halves
1 orange, peeled, de-pithed and segmented
3-4 tbsp. miso-ginger dressing

Toss everything together in a large bowl. Serves 4.

miso-ginger dressing
1/4 cup white miso
3 tbsp. rice wine vinegar
1 tbsp. white wine vinegar
1 tbsp. water
1 tbsp. minced ginger
1-1/2 tsp. sugar
3 tbsp. sesame oil

Blend together all but the sesame oil in a food processor.  Slowly add the oil in as you pulse the mixture on low.  Leftovers will keep up to a week in the fridge.

NOTES

You can find pre-made ginger dressings in the grocery store.  To make the dressing, I went to a local Asian market to get the miso.  Heads up, found it in the refrigerated section of the store and it was not inexpensive, but worth it.  I'll be seeing what other recipes I can come up with to use it.

Fuselli with Slow-Roasted Tomato Sauce and Edamame

 

When I first envisioned this post, I had an image in my head of a sexy pasta dish with photo appeal worthy of Bon Appetit or the like.  What I ended up with looks like it would be more at home on the cover of a Dr. Seuss book, but...

I thought this pasta tasted great
As I ate it off my plate.
Red and green and twisty too,
I enjoyed it, so will you!  

Fuselli with Slow-Roasted Tomato Sauce and Edamame

10 Roma tomatoes, quartered lengthwise
Olive oil
Sea salt
1/8 cup red wine (optional)
1/4 tsp. fresh-cracked black pepper
1/4 tsp. garlic powder
8 oz. (half box) fuselli pasta
3/4 cup edamame, pre-cooked
1/2 cup fresh basil

Rinse and dry your tomatoes before quartering.

Cover a cookie sheet with foil and place the tomato quarters on it in a single layer.

Drizzle the quarters with olive oil and roast at 300 degrees for 30 minutes. 

After those 30 minutes, sprinkle with sea salt and continue to roast for an additional 45-60 minutes.

Once done, place the roasted tomatoes in a blender or food processor with the red wine, black pepper, and garlic powder.  Blend until smooth.

In a large pot, prepare fuselli according to box directions.  Drain and rinse with hot water.

Place the cooked fuselli back in the pot.  Add in the tomato sauce, edamame, and fresh basil.  Mix together well.

Cook dish over low until heated through.

Sprinkle with your favorite parmesan and enjoy.

NOTES

The longer you cook the tomatoes, and more shriveled they become, the more intense the flavor will be.

The first time I had slow-roasted tomatoes, they were served on crackers with spreadable cheese, like brie or goat cheese.  They are a great ingredient for creative appetizers.

Kale Corn Risotto

 

Okay, it's not exactly like the cheesy rice-corn-kale dish that my caterer friend makes, but it runs a close second.  Very tasty and filling.

Kale Corn Risotto

1 cup uncooked Arborio rice
2 tbsp. olive oil
2 tbsp. butter
4 cups vegetable (or chicken broth)
1 cup water
1 cup chopped green kale
1 cup canned corn
1/2 to 3/4 cup fresh grated parmesan cheese

Melt butter in a large deep-sided skillet.  Add in olive oil, toss in uncooked rice and stir until rice is well-coated.  Continue stirring and cook for 2 minutes.

Add in 1 cup of broth.  Stirring occasionally, cook rice until the broth is absorbed.

Repeat this process 3 times, adding 1 cup of broth at a time, cooking until it is absorbed.

Stir in your corn and chopped kale.  Add in 1 cup of water and cover.  Let the rice dish cook until the rice is cooked through.

Once the rice is cooked, turn off the heat and stir in the parmesan.  Cover once more and let sit for 2-3 minutes.

And then your dish is done!   

Kale Smoothies

I know, sounds weird, right?  Kale in a smoothie?  That's just crazy talk, but here at TCC we are crazy talkers.  I was skeptical going into this but in the name of culinary science, I had to give it a whirl and you know what I discovered?  Crazy good!

When I went to buy my kale, I saw that they had both green AND purple which inspired my second smoothie.  Be brave and try these, I promise you won't be sorry.

Green Kale-Pear Smoothie

3/4 cup green kale, chopped
3/4 cup pear, peeled and chopped
1 (6 oz.) container lowfat French vanilla yogurt, cold
3/4 cup almond milk, cold

In a blender, puree the kale, pear and yogurt together until the kale is in even smaller bits and the mixture is semi-smooth.

Add in the almond milk and blend until well mixed.  Pour and enjoy.

Purple Kale-Blueberry Smoothie

1/2 cup purple kale, chopped
1/2 cup fresh blueberries
1 (6 oz.) container lowfat French vanilla yogurt, cold
1 cup almond milk, cold

In a blender, puree the kale, blueberries, and yogurt together until the kale is in even smaller bits and the mixture is semi-smooth.

Add in the almond milk and blend until well mixed.  Pour and enjoy even more. This was my favorite of the two.

NOTES

I keep all my ingredients in the fridge to make sure my beverage is cold.  You could always add crushed ice to chill it down, or use some frozen yogurt to make it chilly too.

If you want to add some protein to the mix to make it more of a meal, you can add a dab of almond butter.

Blueberry Pineapple Salsa (with Grilled Pork)

 

Haven't gotten around to braving the Orange Pie experiment again so have something new and different for you.  Still fruit-based but inspired by what was on the shelves in the fridge when I was sightseeing in there the other day.

Again, its spring, time to dust off the grills and start some outdoor cooking.  One of my favorite things is grilled pork and since pork is a great vehicle for fruited condiments here is a light and refreshing salsa to accompany it.

Blueberry Pineapple Salsa

2 cups chopped vine ripe tomatoes
1 cup fresh blueberries, divided
1 cup chopped pineapple
2 tbsp. minced green onions
2 tbsp. pineapple juice
1 tbsp. jalapeno, deseeded and minced
1 tsp. salt

In a deep bowl, muddle half of the blueberries.  Then add in the rest of the ingredients.

Cover and refrigerate for at least an hour.  Very important because the flavors need time to blend.

Grill up some thick chops or pork loin slices.  When done, top with a generous helping of salsa.

NOTE

As with everything, depending on what your flavor preference feel free to modify amounts to suit your own taste.  If you like it with a bit more bite, add more jalapeno.  If you like it with a bit more zing, add more onion.  For a softer taste, add more bluebs or p'napple.

We did thick cut boneless pork chops and to prepare them I did a really simple rub with ground sage, salt, and cracked black pepper.  Tasty!

Avocado Mousse Tartlets with Honeyed Walnuts

 

Avocado and mousse are probably two words you would never think to put together, but here we are.  As I was slurping down my avocado-strawberry smoothie the other day, I was finding myself still a little taken with the notion of avocados as a sweet treat and wanting to explore that further.  That's when the idea for the tartlets popped into my head.  So here you go, a K2 original, parental tested, parental approved.

Avocado Mousse Tartlets with Honeyed Walnuts 
makes 4 (4-1/2") tarts

1 Pillsbury pre-made pie crust rolled sheet
1/2 cup finely chopped walnuts
4 tsp. honey
1 avocado, peeled, pitted
4 tsp. fresh orange juice
1 tbsp. sugar
1 cup whipped cream
orange zest, for garnish

Roll out sheet of pie crust.  Place tartlet pans on sheet and cut out a circle 1/2" wider than the pan.  Should be able to get two from original roll, then two more by re-rolling the dough.

 

Press the crust into each tartlet pan and press off the excess around the edges.  Set aside.

In a small bowl, mix together the finely chopped walnuts and honey.  Will have a thick paste-like consistency.

Divide the mixture equally between the four tartlet pans and spread out along bottom.

Place the tartlet pans on a cookie sheet and bake at 450 degrees for 9-11 minutes or until lightly golden brown along the edges. 

Remove from oven and let cool to room temperature.  If the centers are poofy, poke with a fork to de-poof.  The crusts made from the re-roll will be a bit puffier since they are technically made of layers of crust.  Just poke them too.

In a food processor, cream together the avocado, orange juice, and sugar until smooth.  Or at least very, very smoothish.

Put avocado cream in a medium bowl and fold in the whipped cream (I used cool whip) until fully incorporated.

 

Spoon the mousse onto the crusts, dividing equally.  Garnish with orange zest and/or an additional dollop of plain whipped cream.

You can either serve up immediately or put in the fridge to cool until ready to serve, can't go wrong either way.

NOTES

A special shout out to Dad for some fabulous mousse brainstorming.  He helped toss around some ideas while Mom was whipping up a new taste sensation (to be featured in a future post) for dinner.  It good to have foodies for folks. :)

Post-Note about smoothies from the last post -- discovered that, unlike banana-based smoothies, if you have to store leftover avocado smoothie in the fridge, it does not separate overnight.  The avocado acts like an emulsifier and keeps the mix together even when refrigerated. So FYI on that.

Citrus Muffin-Cupcakes

 

Hola and Happy New Year!  I hope that everyone enjoyed a great holiday season.  It's 2014, holy moly, how did that happen?

I'm really excited to share these next couple of posts with you.  For my holiday break, I spend an amazing two weeks in Guatemala with a dear friend of mine, Sofia, and her wonderful family.  Her mother and sister are fabulous cooks and as it turns out, her young daughter Belen is a budding baker.  So to start out my good eats from Guatemala posts, I'm going to begin with the muffin-cupcakes that Belen and I made while I was there.

If you're wondering about the "muffin-cupcakes" thing, it's because they fall somewhere in between.  I was going to shorten it to muffcakes or cupfins but neither of those names sounded particularly appealing.  No matter what you call them they're going to be pretty delicious.  The recipe makes 12 muffin-cupcakes but we made two batches since we were expecting guests that night.

Now the process we used in Guatemala to make these may be a little different from what I usually do, but you can certainly adapt to your own way of getting them done. :)

Citrus Muffin-Cupcakes
Magdalenas de Citricos

Step 1:  Go to the garden and pull an orange, a lemon, and 2 limes from their respective trees.

Step 2:  Make sure you have fresh eggs.

Step 3:  Translate the recipe.

Step 4:  Begin.

If you need to, you can skip Steps 1-3 and go straight to Step 4.  If you can, it's best to use a kitchen scale for your measurements, but should work with standard measuring cups as well.  We converted the recipe from grams and MLs as best we could.  Good luck!

batter (la masa de pastel)
12 oz. (1-1/2 cups) flour, sifted
1 tsp. powdered yeast
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/8 tsp. salt
4 oz. (1/2 cup) sugar
2 medium eggs
9 oz. (1 cup + 1 tbsp.) plain yogurt
6 tbsp. sunflower oil
2 tsp. orange zest
2 tsp. lemon zest
2 tsp. lime zest

glaze (glace)
6 oz. (3/4 cup) powdered sugar may need to add more, but this is the measure to start out with
3 tsp. hot water
1 tsp. fresh lime juice
1/8 tsp. lemon extract can substitute fresh lemon juice instead

For the batter, in a large bowl, mix together the flour, yeast, baking soda, and salt.  Add in the sugar and set aside.

In a smaller bowl, lightly beat together the eggs, yogurt, and oil.

Make a well in the middle of the dry ingredients and pour in the egg mixture.  Combine the two until the batter is just moistened.  Fold in 1 tsp. each of the citrus zests. The rest of the zest will be used for garnish.

Line a muffin-cupcake tin with paper baking cups.  Divide the batter evenly between the 12 cups.

Bake at 400 degrees (F) for 20 minutes or until the muffin-cupcakes are golden brown and firm to the touch.  Remove from oven.

Remove muffin-cupcakes from the tins and allow to cool completely to room temperature.  Otherwise they will be too warm and make your glaze run.

For the glaze, blend together the powder sugar, hot water, lime juice and extract.  Adjust ingredients as needed to suit your taste and to reach the desired consistency.  You want the glaze to be thick enough to spread easily with a butter knife, but not so runny that it will immediately drip down the side of your muffin-cupcakes.

Frost each muffin-cupcake with a nice hearty coating of the glaze and garnish them with the citrus zest mix.  Belen added an extra little dollop of the glaze on each to capture the zest because the glaze had already firmed up by the time it came to garnishing them.

 

Display beautifully for your guests to enjoy and serve with your midday coffee and/or favorite tea.

NOTES

I realize that not everyone (including me stateside) will not have the luxury of popping out to the backyard for fresh fruit and fresh-from-the-hen eggs, but market-bought ingredients will work just fine, I promise.

For those who read Spanish and are wondering how we managed to translate the glaze recipe so poorly, we actually used a glaze from another recipe to complete our treats so it's not what's listed on the page in the photo above.

At Sofia's house, everyone wears hair nets or chef hats while they cook or bake as not to be adding any "extra" ingredients to the mix.  While not necessarily flattering, they are effective.