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The Kitchen Recessionista

So, here we are, in a recession. Let's eat!

Lazybones Cooking for All Occasions!

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district-taco

It’s true. For the last two days, I’ve been a bit of a lazybones in the kitchen! Last night, LeeLee was away at a meeting (where he ate dinner) and so I decided to treat myself to a feast from my friends at District Taco, which has a branch within walking distance from my house. (Too close for comfort, I say!) That’s the taco you see above – a vegan black-bean and rice concoction that comes in a set of three. Glorious!

I include this here even though it’s not my own cooking to keep it real, you know? As much as I love to roll up my sleeves and get into the kitchen, sometimes life gets in the way and we decide to treat ourselves. These little sidetracks to get carryout or delivery during the workweek illustrate the living portion of the living below our means credo that we try to abide by most of the time. Because we take our lunch to work, brew our own coffee, make dinner nearly every night, and so forth, we can afford – literally! – to deviate from the menu plan once in awhile. And last night was definitely one of those nights. I sure embraced it, that’s for certain!

Tonight’s story is slightly different. I volunteered at our local animal shelter before attending a meeting at said shelter, and then said meeting ran over, and then my planned dinner drifted further and further out of my grasp. But no matter. A Kashi frozen pizza and a bag of Southwest salad mix soon set things right:

kashi-pizza

And while it was not the homemade meal I was planning on, it certainly hit the spot! Neither LeeLee nor I were at all dismayed to feast on pizza and salad (to say nothing of the Moscato we served alongside), and the meal I was planning on making tonight will keep until next week. No harm done!

Now, speaking of the animal shelter, my good friend Cheesecake is waiting for a home:

cheesecake

So if you’ve been looking for a sweetie-pie, be sure to march right down and visit her straightaway!

:)

Daiya Margherita Pizza With Salad.

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daiya-margherita-pizza

Well, friends, things are calming down again somewhat this week. Easter has been celebrated and the feast has been enjoyed. Our relatives have returned home after a joyful, bustling week in the D.C. area. Work is, well, maybe not settling down, but at least steadily plugging right along. And as of tonight, the curtain is closing on March Madness and all its excitement.

It’s enough to make a girl sleep in such that she’s forced to squeeze in an extra-speedy run before work, thereby missing the opportunity to cobble together something in the slow cooker for Crock-Pot Monday!

Thank goodness for frozen pizzas is all I have to say. We generally keep an emergency pizza in the freezer for just such an occasion, and tonight we called it into service. We hadn’t tried Daiya’s margherita pizza before, and I was super-excited to do so; their pizzas only seem to be getting better and better over time, and this one looked like one of their best yet. (Obligatory disclosure: I have not been compensated by Daiya in any way, nor do they know who I am.) So, in a rush as usual between work and tai chi class, I tossed the pizza into the oven and, while it baked, tossed a salad to go alongside.

Now, in fairness, I didn’t preheat the oven – who has the time? – so the bake time went about 20 minutes rather than the 10-15 minutes recommended on the box. But when it was ready, we sliced it into eight pieces, placed a couple each on our plates, and dug in!

Our judgment: Fantastic! We both loved the blend of cheese styles, from a mozzarella shred to some little provolone-like rounds that sat atop the crust. The sauce was flavorful, the crust was crunchy, and the diced tomatoes added a great texture. In the end, we both enjoyed three slices – and could’ve easily gone back for more. Paired with a simple salad of lettuce, cherry tomatoes, and Daiya mozzarella, it was a filling meal that definitely left us wanting an encore.

And as for that Crock-Pot meal? We’ll enjoy that later on this week, when time is of the essence yet again!

:)

Super Bowl Sunday: Vegan “Beef” Pizza With Orzo Salad (and a Special Dessert!).

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vegan-pizza-with-orzo-salad

It’s that time again, friends! Time for the second biggest football game of the year (the biggest? Why, the college football title game, of course!), the good old Super Bowl. Some years, we attend friends’ gatherings; some years, we host our own. But this year, LeeLee and I are content to have an exclusive private party for two (well, three, when you count the Wonder-Cat). It’s not a bad way to celebrate, all told!

And what goes better with the Super Bowl than pizza? Not a single thing. And so it came to pass that yesterday I prepared my trusty dough and let it rest in the fridge overnight until we needed it today. As the game was nearing its kickoff, I spread the dough out on one of my pizza pans, heated it for 10 minutes or so at 450, and then topped it with pizza sauce, Daiya mozzarella shreds, mushroom slices, and diced veggie burgers. Then I baked the pizza again for about 15 minutes until the cheese had melted and the crust was browning nicely. I pulled the pizza out of the oven to rest for a moment (which makes cutting it much easier), and then turned my attention to the orzo salad, which I pulled from The Pioneer Woman’s blog.

True confessions: I actually made this salad yesterday for a dinner party we attended last night, but it made so much that we had plenty to take back home after the fact! So it’s been resting in the fridge all day, which allowed the flavors to mingle even more. And it’s a wonderful substitution for the normal tossed salad I like to make! It certainly added an air of festivity to the evening.

Speaking of festive foodstuffs, I decided to take some liberties and make a dessert for tonight’s meal as well – a rarity in our household, because I do love sweets and I’ll eat every last morsel if it’s in my house. But I enjoyed these vegan Rice Krispie treats so much when my friend Jill hosted her Super Bowl party last year that I just had to make them for myself this time around! They were a cinch to make, and they look (and taste) just like the original recipe. Love!

vegan-rice-krispie-treats

And with that, our dinner was complete! Paired with a lovely appetizer of chips and salsa, as well as a frosty beverage from our friends over at Port City Brewing, it’s been a perfectly wonderful evening, no matter how the final score ends up!

:)

Vegan Pizzadillas.

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veg-pizzadillas

Tonight, after a long day at work and a stop-off at the animal shelter to snuggle some cats, the last thing I wanted to do was spend an hour in the kitchen getting dinner together. Pizzadillas proved to be just the ticket! Fast, easy, and delicious, they saved the day – as they always do!

I haven’t actually made pizzadillas in awhile, and I sure have missed them. What better way to use up a whole passel of ingredients and have five separate meals’ worth of food to enjoy?

Well, actually, tonight, we had only three pizzadillas in the end. As I was removing the first batch from the oven, my hand tilted – I know not how nor why – and both of the first tortillas fell smack-dab onto the floor, sauce spilling out one way, vegan pepperoni sliding out the other, the floor coated with Trader Joe’s vegan mozzarella cheese. I raced the cat to the scene of the accident and hurriedly worked to clean up before she could get a taste, but still she managed to sneak a bite (and beg for more!).

So alas, tonight we had only three pizzadillas to speak of, which means that we have only one for tomorrow’s lunch. This is OK – we’ve still got some leftover peanut soup to work our way through! So neither of us will go hungry. Paired with our leftover salad – of which there is a little after tonight’s meal – we’ll each have a glorious meal, no matter which leftover we choose!

:)

Daiya Mushroom-Garlic Pizza With Salad.

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daiya-pizza

Some nights, when your day has been lengthy and filled with fires to fight, and your spouse is at an evening meeting and the cat won’t leave her spot by the basement furnace, it is all you can do to pour a glass of wine, pull out a box of Daiya mushroom-garlic pizza from the freezer, and toss a salad while it bakes in the oven. Some nights, I can think of no better combination.

Tonight, friends, is one of those nights.

(As an aside, we hadn’t tried the Daiya brand of pizzas before. We’re sold on them now!)

:)

Sunday Cook-In: “Pepperoni” Pizza With Salad.

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Instead of my usual grilled mini-pizzas, tonight I wanted to try to bake a full-sized pie over the coals, but Ma Nature gave us a head-fake.  As soon as the dough had finished rising, here came the rain, little drizzles and showers sprinkling down in the back yard.
I gave it a few minutes to sort itself out.  No dice.  So after much deliberation, LeeLee and I decided to simply bake the pizza in the oven.  And AS SOON AS I PUT THE PAN IN THE OVEN, the sky cleared and the sun came out.
Oh, Ma Nature.  You can be so fickle.
On the plus side, the pizza was great – we used the dough recipe I’ve blogged about before, and topped it with sauce, whole basil and Cuban oregano leaves, mozzarella cheese, veggie pepperoni, and chopped bell pepper.  We paired it with a side salad teeming with great veggies, including a cucumber from last week’s Great Country Farms box, and in tandem they made a great meal!
So maybe we didn’t have the cookout of our dreams, and maybe I didn’t get a chance to give my new grilled-pizza concept a try.  Oh, well.  The end result was great!

:)

New Recipe: Grilled Pizza.

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What a wonderful weekend this has been!  From strawberry-picking yesterday (more on that in an upcoming post!) to a preserve-canning session today, it’s been a fresh-foods sort of time.  The weather has been in the 70s, the cat willingly went into the backyard on her leash and harness setup for the first time in nearly a decade (!) – and alongside all of that, it was Cookout Sunday!  What could be better?
Tonight, we made one of my very favorite grillable meals: Grilled pizza!  We laid out a plethora of toppings from which to choose – pizza sauce, olive oil, mozzarella, Daiya cheddar, vegetarian pepperoni, black olives, diced bell pepper, sliced mushrooms, and plenty of herbs from the garden.  Then LeeLee and I set to work in crafting our own individual pizzas, trying to top the other’s creations and win bragging rights.
We each brought the heat with some killer red-sauce pies: pepperoni and herbs, a take on a Supreme, and a mozzarella-and-mushroom duo, just to name a few.  Then we each tried our hand at some olive-oil-based pies with equally good results.  I’ll have to call tonight’s cookout a draw, which is A-OK – every pie was a winner, and we’ve got plenty more where that came from!
Here’s how we did it.
GRILLED PIZZA
Serves four
What you’ll need:
For the dough:
1 cup water
1 packet of yeast
3-3 ½ cups flour
¼ cup olive oil
½ tsp. salt
½ tsp. pepper
½ tsp. garlic powder
½ tsp. onion powder
½ tsp. dried basil
½ tsp. cumin seed, optional
For the toppings:
1 jar pizza sauce
1 container sliced white mushrooms
1 bell pepper
1 can sliced olives
1 container vegetarian pepperoni
1 bottle olive oil
1 ball mozzarella cheese (or vegan cheese that melts, like Daiya)
Salt and pepper, to taste
Various herbs (think parsley, basil, oregano, chives, dill, etc.), to taste
First, you’ll want to allow enough time to make the dough, let it rise for an hour, and, ideally, let it cool in the refrigerator for another hour or so minimum.  (Cooling the dough makes it more pliable when the time comes to shape your pizza crusts.)  So, backing up, allow at least two and a half hours – up to 24 hours if you want! – to get your dough together.
To make the dough, add 1 cup of warm water to a large bowl (or stand mixer bowl) and sprinkle the yeast in, mixing gently with a wooden spoon.  Next, add one cup of flour and all of the olive oil and seasonings.  (And by all means, substitute out seasonings as you see fit!  This is an easy mix-in recipe and you’ll hone your personal favorite dough over time, believe me.)
Blend your mixture with the spoon or a stand mixer’s dough hook and continue adding the flour, half a cup at a time, until the dough pulls away from the side of the bowl and forms a cohesive ball. 
If you’re using a stand mixer, hooray for you – just let the dough hook do its job and knead your dough in the mixer bowl until the dough is no longer sticky.  Next, drop down past the next paragraph and join up with me there.
If you’re doing this by hand, turn out the dough onto a floured work surface and flour your hands well.  Then put a little elbow grease into the job and knead your dough until it’s no longer sticky – this usually takes me about five minutes, with the occasional distraction.
(Stand mixer users, please join me again here!  And by-handers, stick with me too.)  Spray a bowl – I usually use the one I’ve just been mixing in, and let me be honest, I don’t even clean the leftover flour and dough out – with cooking spray and place the balled-up dough in, sealing up with plastic wrap.  Let rise for an hour; your dough will nearly double in size.
Next, spray a zip-top bag with cooking spray (on the inside, people!) and put the dough in, sealing it up nice and tight and doing your best to remove any leftover air.  Place your bag in the fridge for at least an hour, up to 24, and let cool.  If you’re going to be longer than 24 hours, just put it in the freezer and place it in the refrigerator the morning you’re planning on using it.
Once your dough is ready, fire up the grill!  You want your grill nice and hot (as is customary with all my recipes!) for this one.  Full speed ahead, baby!
Bring all of your supplies outside to your backyard table (or what-have-you) and clean your hands up well.  You might want to keep a clean dishtowel nearby because this can get a little bit messy.
Next, grab a hunk (that’s the scientific term) of dough, enough to fit in a fist, and begin to shape it into a small, personal-pizza-sized disc.  Experiment with the thickness to determine what style you like best.  Once it’s ready, just throw it onto the grill – and by all means please do not try to shape it and/or push it around once it’s on the grates!  Your dough will fall through the cracks and it’ll make a big mess.  Plus, you’ll burn yourself, which is hardly the way to kick off an evening al fresco.
Our grill can usually handle up to about four of these discs at once, so get all your guests and/or relatives involved in the pizza-making!  That’s half the fun.
After about five minutes on a super-hot grill, start checking your dough for doneness (on the bottom, at least – the top will still be pretty soft).  Once it’s browned (or blackened, as are some of our creations) to your liking, use a spatula to scoop it off the grill and bring it over to a plate or work surface.  Decorate it however you see fit – with any of the ingredients above, or with some of your own, we won’t judge you! – and place it soft-side down back on the grill for another five to seven minutes, or until the cheese is melted and the bottom is browned.
Next, scoop it up again, place it on a cookie sheet (we actually use a pizza pan), slice it up with a pizza cutter, and voila!  Personal pizzas for all, cut up into sizes suitable for sharing.
:)

New Recipe! English Muffin Pizzas.

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Why, pray tell, haven’t I made these earlier?
When you want all the taste and flavor of pizza without dealing with making your own dough, these English muffin pizzas hit the spot.  Dress them up however you would a regular pizza and feel your cares melt away.
OK, I may be overselling that last part – I still have a care or two, even after dinner.  But I can’t express enough my love for these mini-pizzas.  They’re quick, easy, and of course tasty!
Tonight, LeeLee got home a little later than planned, and before he arrived I had occupied myself in our great spring decluttering spree and lost all track of the time.  When he called to say he was on his way, I sprung into action – and dinner was ready almost as soon as he walked in the door!  This recipe is THAT easy.
We served the pizzas with a side salad – but a side salad with extra flair!  All of the lettuce came from our backyard garden, and we topped it with tomatoes, mushrooms, and Daiya cheddar.  The dressing was a homegrown affair, as well – Vegenaise, olive oil, salt, pepper, and backyard dill and lime juice (from a backyard lime tree!) blended together into a creamy, wonderful topping.
Give the English muffin pizzas a try and let me know how you like them!
ENGLISH MUFFIN PIZZAS
Serves two
What you’ll need:
4 English muffins, sliced in half
1 jar pizza sauce
1 package Daiya mozzarella (or the cheese of your choice)
1 package veggie pepperoni
1 container of sliced button mushrooms
Preheat oven to 450 degrees.
Arrange each muffin half on a large baking sheet.  Top each muffin with pizza sauce to taste (we like ours pretty saucy!).  Next, top each muffin with mozzarella (don’t skimp!).  Finally, add pepperoni onto half of the muffins and mushrooms onto the other half – or in any other combination you prefer.  Or with any other toppings you prefer.  The opportunities are limitless!
Next, place the baking sheet into the oven for 10 minutes, checking after 7 or 8 minutes just to be safe.  Once the cheese is melted and the muffins are crispy, they’re done!  Serve and enjoy.

:)

Chorizo Pizza With Salad.

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Pizza in the pan (and halfway gone).

This time yesterday, I was sure that tonight would be our first cookout of the spring!  But today, we witnessed snow falling all afternoon (our final snowfall of the year? Who knows?), and the thermometer mercury dropped to the 30s once more.  So it looks like we’ll plan for a cookout nextweekend.  I’ll be ready!

In the meantime, we had all the fixins for pizza at the ready, and Pizza Sunday is almost as fun as Cookout Sunday, so our hearts went on with dignity and grace.  Last night, upon surveying the forecast for today, I pulled a bag of homemade pizza dough out of the freezer and let it thaw in the fridge overnight (and all day).  This afternoon, we swung by the office to pick up the two packages of Daiya cheese I’d purchased but forgotten to bring home last week.  And tonight, I shaped said dough into a pizza crust, prebaked it for 12 minutes, then added some pizza sauce, Daiya mozzarella, and Lightlife chorizo slices, and continued baking the pizza for another 15 minutes or so.
As the pie baked, I threw together a quick salad – lettuce, cherry tomatoes, green olives, croutons, and a little leftover mozzarella from the pizza.  By the time the pizza was ready, the salad was on the table and waiting.  All that was left was to pop open a beer and bask in the glory of a snowy Sunday, with basketball on TV!
And bask we did.  The pizza turned out great (if I do say so), and the salad supplemented our veggie intake.  And the beer?  Well, it was just the cherry on top.

:)