Jiaozi

Gnochi con Funghi, Asparagus, and Mushrom Crostini with Herbed Goat Cheese

I had a lot of fun creating this dinner, inspired by a meal I had at Gruppo Di Amici the other night.

For starters I served a Flame Roasted Red Bell Pepper and Tomato Soup. I started with four red bell peppers, which I halved, removing the stems and seeds. I roasted these in the broiler. Meanwhile I chopped up some onion and started sweating it in my soup pot, to which i added some sliced up garlic, and a potato, which i cut into small cubes.

When the Peppers where done, i removed the skins, chopped them up a bit and through it in the pot with the rest of the soup things. Next I added a few chopped up tomatoes (frozen from the garden last summer), and after everything was nice and happy in there I added enough veggie broth to more than cover everything, and I added some julienned Basil and other spices. I continued it all sizzling until it the potatoes were soft then took it off the heat.

After it cooled down a bit, I ran it all through the blender. This made for a nice smooth, thin soup. Light enough that it made a good starter for a big meal.

The Gnocchi con Funghi was by far the most time consuming part of this meal. I used several recipes, but mostly tried to follow the advice of Mario Batali in his Gnocchi recipe.

I began by boiling four large potatoes whole, 3 Russets and one large Red Potato. It took about forty five minutes for the Russet potatoes to cook through, and about fifty for the Red Potato. As soon as I took them out of the boiling water, i peeled them and mashed them.

Here's a fun trick for handling ridiculously hot things: Have a small bowl of ice water sitting on your counter and dip your hand in it for a while. I used this method to peel the hot potatoes. after a few seconds in the ice water, i could handle the potatoes for ten seconds or so, then back in the ice water.

To the bowl of mashed up boiled potato, i added a couple of cups of flour, and a couple of small eggs and a big pinch of salt. I first mixed the egg and flour together, and then mixed it in with the potato. I'm not quite sure how much flour I ended up using, it seems to matter a lot on the amount of moisture in the potatoes, so a recipe can never get it quite right, you've just got to learn to feel it.

After lightly kneading the gnocchi dough together, I rolled small baseball sized balls of dough into big long snakes about 3/4 inch in diameter, and cut those into about 1 inch little pieces. There are several different ideas on the internet about how gnocchi is supposed to look. I just made these little pillow shaped pieces, it's a little lacking in flair, but when you make home made gnocchi, that's pretty much already enough flair.

These little gnocchi guys only take about a minute to boil. Just throw a handful or so into a big pot of boiling water, and wait for them to float to the top. Once they float to the top, they're done. I removed mine to a big bowl and coated with some olive oil, then stuck them into the fridge to wait until I was ready for them.

I eventually heated up the gnocchi right before dinner in a skillet with some olive oil, and served them in a typical marinara sauce, with sliced mushrooms and sliced black olives, and chunks of Goat Cheese. The Goat Cheese and Mushrooms really went well with the flavor of the Gnocchi.

The other benefit of using the Goat Cheese and sliced Mushrooms in the Gnocchi is it helped bring the whole meal together, because on the side I served Mushroom Crostini with Goat Cheese.For the topping of this Crostini I chopped up and sauteed some Portabella Mushrooms with garlic in Olive Oil and Balsamic Vinegar. For the bread I used a normal french Baguette, sliced diagonally, with a little olive oil on it and toasted in the broiler. I topped each piece with a big spoonful of the mushroom mixture, and a couple slices of herbed goat cheese, and just before serving, i put it back in the broiler for a minute, which just started to bake the goat cheese.

The asparagus was served as whole spears. I cooked it in olive oil on high heat for about a minute, then put some salt and pepper on it and splashed some balsamic vinegar on there. Another minute later and it was nice and happy. I like Asparagus cooked at high heat, so it gets tender, but not limp. Also the kitchen just smells amazing when the balsamic vinegar hits the hot pan.

Finally, to end the meal I made a very basic, but quite tasty cake. I have no idea what to call this guy, so if anyone has any ideas, feel free to comment. The cake part of this was a very bland, basic cake recipe, which I cooked a little extra long to dry out a little. I made it about an inch and a half high, in a ten inch spring-form pan. After the cake had cooled, I spooned some strong coffee over the top, to let that soak into the cake (that's why i let the cake get a little dry).

The second layer that you see there is about an inch of whipped cream. When I made the whipped cream, I added Aromatic Bitters to it, so it had a great alcoholic flavor. And finally, I pitted and halved a bunch of cherries to put on the top. Voila. Cake.

Soups for 60

Here's a couple of soup recipes for larger groups.

Vegan White Chile for 60

8 pounds dry great white northern beans

1 jar better than bullion

Water

16 ounces Earth Balance

5-6 large onions

4 pounds tomatillos

8 cups chopped grean chiles (canned is fine)

3 bricks of extra firm tofu

8 tablespoons ground cumin

8 tablespoons dried oregano

3 tablespoons black pepper

red pepper flakes

3 bunches of cilantro

I started by boiling a few gallons of water in a 6 gallon pot. The Great White Northerns took a little less than 2 hours to get to the amount of softness i wanted. When they did, I put in the salt to slow down the cooking of the beans, and I added the BTB as well. Next dice up the Onions and Chiles and Tomatillos, and put these into your pot with the rest of the seasonings. These all need to cook for at least half an hour, but letting the flavors meld together for longer only seems to help. Just a little while before serving this chile, I added the cilantro (chopped up), and the tofu, which i cut into little cubes. The tofu was probably very unnecessary, but if you like tofu, mmm. . .

Vegan Mushroom Bisque for 60

2.5 gallons water mixed with Better than Bullion

8-10 pounds of assorted mushrooms (I used white mushrooms, crimini mushrooms, portabellas, and oyster mushrooms)

5 large onions, cut into thin strips 1/2 - 1 inch long

16 cloves of garlic, sliced

3 3/4 cups of earth balance

3 3/4 cups flour

10 cans coconut milk

3 1/3 teaspoons salt

sriracha

Vegan Worcestershire sauce

Sherry

When I was in highschool I worked at a Panera Bread Company, and they had a soup called a Parisian Mushroom bisque, which was super good. This is my own attempt to clone that recipe, however, I think what made that soup really special, was it had Brie cheese in it (hence the Parisian part of the name). Since this is a vegan version of the soup, this soup is missing that element. Still, when i made it, though i felt it was missing that brie taste, no one else seemed to have that complaint.

I started by cutting all of my mushrooms into small soup sized pieces, as well as cutting up the onions and garlic. Meanwhile i had the water and better than bullion warming up in another 6 gallon pot. I put all of the mushrooms into the pot, along with the onions and garlic. I also added in the salt and coconut milk.

Then I made a Roux from the earth balance and flour. I cooked that together in a skillet until it started to brown, and then added it to the big pot. Bring that all to a boil to get it to thicken, then reduce the heat to a simmer, and use the Vegan Worcestershire sauce, the sriracha and the sherry to even out the flavors. I didn't measure at all how much I used, so you'll just have to play with it until it gets a good even flavor.

Fall Vegetable Bisque

Some people were asking about a recipe for a bisque that was served at our church's potluck meal this Sunday. This is very similar to another bisque that I posted here, except this time i used sweet potatoes instead of butternut squash. So I've decided to call this "Fall Vegetable Bisque", because you can easily use sweet potatoes, yams, butternut squash, acorn squash, or even pumpkin, whatever has grown well that year, in your area.

This recipe is going to be fore 25 to 30 people. If you'd like a smaller recipe, use the butternut squash bisque recipe, or just divide this one.

I used:
10 medium to large sweet potatoes
4 large onions (yellow, red, white, whatever)
4 red bell peppers (red are the best flavor for this, but yellow or orange work, not green)
1 head of garlic
1 gallon of vegetable broth (i used water and vegetable BTB)
4 cans of coconut milk
cooking oil
salt
pepper
cumin
chili powder
Sriracha
apple cider vinegar

Start off by heating the vegetable broth in a large pot. That takes a while to get up to boiling.

Then I took out all of my sweet potatoes, washed and peeled them (though you don't have to peel them, i suppose. Do what your heart tells you). Then I cut them into 1 inch cubes (doesn't need to be pretty, just get them into smaller pieces).

As soon as the broth is up to temperature, I put in the sweet potatoes. Meanwhile, chop up the onions and garlic and peppers. I like to caramelize the onions before adding them to the soup, and also brown the garlic, but that doesn't have to happen. If you do fry the onions first, i like to add some sriracha to the oil while they're cooking. I don't really know what this does for the soup, but it makes the kitchen smell really good. If you don't want to do that, just put a little sriracha in the soup at any other point.

To cook the onions and garlic in the same oil, at the same time, put the onions in first. Wait until they just start to brown along the edges, and then add the garlic. They'll both be ready at about the same time.

Once your onions and garlic are ready, throw that into your broth with the sweet potatoes. Also add in your red peppers now. That will all want to cook together for 10 - 15 minutes (you'll notice the sweet potatoes starting to fall apart as you stir it, this is a good sign that it's ready to be blended). While you're waiting for everything, add your salt and pepper, and spices. I like to put in chili powder, cumin, sriracha and apple cider vinegar. But feel free to experiment with what you like. Perhaps some red curry paste; or maybe go the Italian route with some basil and oregano (what the heck, throw in some more garlic too); or for a little Cajun flair, add some chili powder, cayenne pepper, a jalapeno and a healthy amount of thyme.

Once everything is soft enough, take it off the heat, and get out your blender. It takes a while if you only have a regular blender (like i do), if you've got one of those fancy hand blenders, or wand blenders, that must be nice. However you do it, get it to a nice smooth consistency.

After it's blended, i mix in the coconut milk, you can use other types of cream if you want. I love coconut milk. But use whatever you feel like.

That's it. Perhaps serve it with a nice grilled cheese sandwich (or if you want to be fancier, i served it with a grilled tomato basil and mozzarella sandwich).

Soft Poached Eggs in Tomato Sauce

This make a super fancy meal, and has very little work involved.

I started about three hours before hand, with a couple quart jars of tomatoes we canned last year. Put those in a large sauce pan and started it boiling down. I mixed in some basil and oregano, some minced garlic, and some salt in pepper.

Two and a half hours later (and some occasional stirring), there was magically a pot of tomato sauce sitting on my stove.

Meanwhile we washed and cut up some lettuce and strawberries for a nice summer salad.

About ten minutes before supper time, drop in your eggs (we did one dozen, for seven people). They don't cook as fast as if you're poaching them in regular water, so after about ten minutes the yolks are still tasty. If you like you're eggs overcooked, go ahead and wait fifteen minutes and the yolks will be all solid.

That's basically all there is too it. We served it over garlic toast we made out of some tomato ciabatta we had lying around, and plated it with the strawberry salad.

fancy fancy.

We came across some hotdog buns, here at the house, so that sort of inspired me to try a little variation on these veggie fritters i've been making. Pictured above, i made some broccoli/yellow bell pepper dogs.

To do so, beat one egg, and a few tablespoons of flour. Steam broccoli for about five minutes, then cut into small chunks. Saute some yellow bell peppers in butter or olive oil, and again, chop into fairly small chunks. Then mix it all together.

I fried these in butter, in long hotdog shaped strips. To round them out, flip it before it's quite browned (you can come back and brown that side later). The side facing up will be flat, as it spread out against the pan. So using a spatula bend the sides down into a rounder shape.

Since we're in chicago, i had to do this dog up all fancy with tomatoes, lettuce, cheese, pickled jalepenos, mayo and mustard.

And since it's strawberry season, instead of chips or fries, i threw a pile of strawberries up in there.

strawberry banana rum smoothies

A couple bananas, strawberries, yogurt, ice, a few shots of rum, and a blender. Add in a crazy straw and it's officially summer. even if it's only 60 degrees outside.

Strawberry Rhubarb

Made my first jam of this growing season. We got both in our CSA (community supported agriculture) box last wednesday, and it looked like more strawberries than we would eat.

So, we canned 'em. Haven't gone out to buy pectin for this year yet, so i just made preserves.

To do so:

I mixed about five cups of chopped up strawberries, and four stalks worth of chopped up rhubarb with about 4 or 5 cups of sugar. I let that sit for a few minutes till it started getting nice and juicy, and then put it over heat. After about ten minutes of boiling this sugary strawberry rhubarb mixture the smell begins to loft through the air, penetrating the entire house. Your housemates or perhaps neighbors will start wandering in, wondering what sweet confectioneries are being confected.

I think i boiled it for about 45 minutes. Then to can it, i just used a trick my mom showed me long ago, i ladled the hot jam into jars, put the lid and ring on them and then turned them upside down (so the hot jam is against the lid and helps seal it). No pressure cooker or water bath necessary (there's so much sugar in this stuff, it's pretty well preserved, hence the name, preserves).

This amount made what you see next to this text, a little over four and a half pints.

broccoli burger

The other day we had some broccoli on the verge of going limp, so i was trying to think of something good to do with it. Well, somehow i got in my head that a broccoli burger might be a good idea.

So here it is, crazy, and not really burger-like, but actually tasty. It's really sort of like a korean vegetable pancake, just, you know, on a bun. Here's the break-down:

I steamed my broccoli for eight minutes-ish. then cut it into tiny little bits. This broccoli i mixed with one egg and enough flour to make the egg not runny, but battery (batter-like, that is, not a duracell). I added some salt and pepper to the batter too.

Then i just heated up some oil in my frying pan and put in a couple burgers worth of broccoli stuff. Then end product was tasty, and very filling. Lots of nutrition from the broccoli, and some protein from the egg. I made a spicy mayo (mayo, sour cream, chili powder, sriracha, salt) to put on my toasted bun, and through some dark green leaf on there (i don't really know what it was, not spinach, maybe some sort of lettuce). I wish we had tomatoes.

You know what the problem with the world is? Tomatoes and lettuce don't come at the same time. I've got all these greens right now, but by the time the tomatoes are ripe, it'll be too hot for my greens to grow. Someday i'll find a magical variety of tomatoes that will grow when it's colder.

potato soup

This is just a basic creamy potato soup i put together.

Cut up your potatoes into small chunks, and cut up your carrots and celery into even smaller chunks. Then boil those in some veggie broth until tender. I usually like to add in some extra flavors here, maybe some basil or oregano. Thyme, sage, whatever is sounding good.

Meanwhile brown some onions and garlic in butter or olive oil.

Mix the onions and garlic in with your the boiling soup, add seasonings and some milk/soy milk. If you want it thicker, mix some flour or cornstarch in a quarter cup of hot water, then mix that into the boiling soup, it'll thicken on up. While you're at it, throw in some more seasonings, for good measure, no one likes bland potatoes.

I topped mine with some shredded cheddar cheese and a little parsley, just to make it look fancy schmancy.

chocolate pocket pies

I got the idea for these from an alton brown show, and thought i'd try it out.

Basically, it's a slightly sweet biscuit dough, rolled out then in little 10" diameter circles. Then i put a a bit of chocolate filling (see below) on one side, folded it in half to form the pocket, and that's basically it. I crimped the sides with a fork, and poked a few slots for steam to get out in the top, then baked. Oh, i suppose i also sprinkled some sugar over it.

The filling could be any pie type filling. I creamed some butter with sugar and cocoa powder.

Pretty easy, and fun. Eat 'em hot.

Broccoli and Bean Curd in Ginger Garlic Sauce

I love calling tofu bean curd,  it makes everyone cringe.  That's what the Chinese word tofu (or doufu, in Chinese pinyin) literally translates into:  "Bean Curd".  Sounds appetizing, eh?

The inspiration for this dish came from northern china, where Russian, Mongolian and Chinese cultures all intermingle a little bit.  

I started by wok-frying some tofu,  i actually just took the bricks, and cut them into three slices, for easy cooking.  I brushed them with soy sauce, sriracha and some salt and spices, on each side, and let them cook in some oil till they got a little crispy.  Then I cut them into the size strip which you see in the picture.  

For the broccoli i just cut it into the little florets and steamed it.  

I also sauteed some onions and red peppers.  The bright red of the peppers really helped make the dish look good, I think.  

For the sauce i melted butter, and some sesame oil, and mixed that with a little veggie broth.  I added minced ginger and minced garlic, and let that sit on the stove for a while.   Then right before time to serve, i got my pan good and hot, and tossed everything in there together.  

Since I'm claiming this is a northern china dish, i should have made steamed buns or something like that to go with it,  but i got lazy, and just made some rice.   Regardless, it was a nice comfort dish.  

Butternut Squash Soup

For sunday dinner (lunch), I opted for a smooth, creamy butternut squash soup, with fresh baked garlic cheddar biscuits.

And Anali, (one of my housemates) made this little garlic friend from a garlic which had sprouted in our cupboard.

For the butternut squash soup, i actually started way too late to make it properly, so i was scrambling to get things done. Here's how i made butternut squash soup and garlic cheddar biscuits in just a little over an hour.

I started by preparing three butternut squash (squashes? squashi?). Cut them in half longways, and remove the seeds. Then i microwaved them (one squash at a time) for about seven minutes each. This got the squash mostly cooked, and made it pretty easy to remove the skins. I cut them into about 1" cubes, and put them in a large pot with boiling veggie broth, to finish them cooking.

While the butternut boiled, I chopped up a large yellow onion, and cooked it in some olive oil until it began to caramelize. By this time the kitchen was filled with the sweet, rich scents of the butternut squash, and that wonderful smell of caramelizing onions. And like clockwork, all of the sudden people begin to show up in the kitchen.

With both of those items cooking on the stove, I started on a basic biscuit recipe. After turning the oven on to about 435 degrees to warm up, I mixed the shortening with the dry ingredients. Here i added two cloves of minced garlic, as well as some oregano and some basil. I mixed in some milk and mixed it all up.

Back to the soup, I added the onions into the pot, and seasoned everything with salt, thyme, and a little chili powder. Then I began to mix everything together, using a potato masher to break up the chunks of squash.

Here's where it came in handy to have extra people loitering in the kitchen. Anali had found a clove of garlic which i had set aside because it had sprouted, and made him into the fun little guy you see up in the top corner there. When she finished, i put her to work blending the soup. Just poured it into a blender, about two or three cups at a time, to get it to a nice smooth consistency.

This freed me up to finish up the biscuits. I took some shredded cheddar and just sort of kneaded it into the biscuit dough, then separated the dough into biscuit sized portions, placed it on a baking sheet fairly close together, and tossed it in the hot oven.

Now Anali had finished with the blending of the soup, so I poured it all back into my pot on the stove, and added the final few touches. To make the soup creamier, i added one can of coconut milk (regular milk, or cream would have been fine, but I just can't get enough coconut milk).

Follow that up with some red wine vinegar and just a touch of sriracha to take a little of the sweet edge off of it. Then salt and pepper to taste. I even had some time to relax as the biscuits finished up, before 12:30 rolled around and we all sat down to lunch.

It's a nice warming soup for cold snowy chicago days. And a good use of seasonal vegetables.

Vegetable soup

Well, this soup started out as just an attempt to use up a ton of vegetables, and ended up being one of my favorite soups i've made in a while.

I started with about 8 cups of veggie broth, and added to that maybe 4 or 5 teaspoons of oregano, and 3 or 4 teaspoons of thyme. Then i chopped up a few stocks of celery, and a few carrots into small soup sized pieces, and added those to the boiling broth.
I let that simmer for a while, while i worked on other things, and came back about an hour before dinner, and added a couple cups of (already boiled) black beans and kidney beans. Then i chunked up some sweet potatoes and put that in, and added some frozen corn.

Then i realized that it was missing some key tasty ingredients. So i chopped up some onions and sweated them in a pan with some olive oil. meanwhile i minced up a couple cloves of garlic, added that to the soup, and added the onions. I also chopped up a green bell pepper and put that in too.

After maybe a half hour of cooking it all together, I seasoned it with some salt and pepper, and called that a soup. The thyme and oregano gave all the veggies a sort of theme to rally around, and i liked it quite a lot. I served it with sweet potato black bean quesadillas. I had originally thought i would turn the soup into something southwestern-ish, with corn and beans and whatever, but that never happened. The pairing worked fine anyhow, though.

Lo Mein with Peanut Sauce

For lunch yesterday, I was craving some Pad Thai, but i didn't really have any ingredients to do it justice, so i decided to go for lo mein instead.

This used whole wheat noodles (because that's what was in the pantry), which i boiled for about 8 minutes. While that boiled, i cut up a couple yellow onions and orange bell peppers into thin strips, and caramelized them in a skillet with sesame oil. Then I cut up a couple cloves of garlic, and put that in with the onions and peppers.

When the noodles were done, i drained them and let them cool a bit. Then I fried a couple of eggs in the pan with the peppers and onions, and then tossed the noodles on top of that, stirring it up and letting the noodles soak up all that flavor.

For the sauce, I used about a cup of broth, and a couple tablespoons of peanut butter. Let that simmer together, and added spices and fun flavorings. I used soy sauce, some worcestershire sauce (because i didn't have any tamarind), and sriracha, and maybe some ginger. Whisked it all together and let it reduce just a bit, (while i was cooking the other stuff).

Then i just poured the sauce over the noodles and dished it up. I sprinkled some chopped cilantro and chopped peanuts over the top, and it wasn't too bad.

Would've been good with tofu, but i was running short on time, and forgot about adding in the tofu. Next time, though.

Canning and Pepper Soup Options

I was really happy with the way the Roasted Red Pepper Bisque turned out the other day, and we still had tons and tons of peppers, so yesterday i made up some more (about three times the amount) for canning. I just left out the coconut milk, and did everything else the same, then canned it into 6 quart jars in the pressure cooker.

However, I did have some left over that wouldn't make an entire jar full, so I used that as the base of another soup which turned out great, too.

All I did was saute some diced peppers, and then add that and some cooked black beans and some frozen corn. Also, I spiced it up with some Sriracha.

The soup was served with tortilla chips and some homemade salsa my friends had canned last summer. A nice southwestern-ish meal, on a very cold, snowy December night.

Mmmm. . . Pizza

After this weekend's cold weather camping trip, I was ready for some simple, comforting food.  So what better than an american-style pizza dinner with some friends?  This is just your normal, hand tossed pizza.  This pizza featured both red and yellow bell peppers, and sliced mushrooms.  the cheese was an Amish made yogurt cheese that our local food co-op gets, and the sauce was just a basic tomato pizza sauce.  

However, what really makes a pizza, if you ask me, is the crust.  I used the same dough for both pizzas and the bread sticks, which made for a lot less work.  

For 3 large pizzas (or two large pizzas and 12 bread sticks, as was the case here), I start with two and a quarter cups of warm water: I just use the hottest water my tap will produce.  My general rule, for the thickness i like pizzas (a normal hand-tossed pizza) is 3/4 cup of water per pizza, and then i base all other measurements off of that.  I proofed about a tablespoon of yeast in with the warm water, with maybe two teaspoons of sugar.  

When the yeast looks to be fairly alive, I add in several cups of flour, which I've mixed with a bit less than a tablespoon of salt, and stir it up.  Generally I start by only adding a few cups of flour, so I get a very wet dough, or batter even,  then I add in some stuff to jazz it up.  This time I put in maybe three or four cloves of garlic, which I had crushed and minced, along with a couple tablespoons of dry crushed oregano and about a tablespoon of basil (I didn't really measure that at all, but if i had to guess, I'd guess about that amount).  And finally I put in a healthy dose of Olive Oil.  

From here I put in more flour until it's the consistency I want for kneading, and knead for about ten minutes, (or until the dough has developed a good amount of elasticity or resilience) adding flour as needed to keep it from sticking too bad.   I then coat it with more olive oil, and let it rise till doubled, about an hour.  

After the dough has risen, I punch it down and knead it a few times to get out any large bubbles, and separate it into three equal size balls, two of which I'll use for pizzas, and one for the bread sticks.  

For the pizzas, I flatten them with my hand a bit, and then I actually do toss them.  To do so, drape the pizza dough over both hands, so it's resting on your knuckles (not with your hand in a fist, use the middle segment of fingers), and just gently toss the dough up and with a slight rotation, catching the dough on your knuckles too.  I've seen an Italian chef doing this, and he claimed that in reality, this is more to get excess flour off of the dough, tha

n it is to make the dough expand to the right size.  But it does expand some, and it makes the dough thicker on the outside than in the middle (one thing i never do, is get out a rolling pin when making pizza).  Honestly though, mostly the dough tossing is just to impress your friends who are always hanging out in your kitchen, yet for some reason never helping to prepare the meal.  After tossing i still have to resize the dough when it's laid out on the pan, to make it fit.  I take the dough and pinch it up a little bit around the edge, making a nice ring,  it makes a nice crust when it rises and helps me keep an even edge for the toppings and sauce.  

And that's it.  Add your toppings and throw it in an oven between 400 and 450 degrees, (depending on the style of pizza and the toppings) and you've got an amazing pizza.  For the bread sticks I just divided them into 12 equal (more or less) pieces and rolled them with my hands into "sticks", let it rise while you're preparing the pizzas, I sprinkled a little cheese over the bread sticks after they had risen.  Then put it in the oven at the same time as your pizza, the bread sticks will be done just a bit before the pizzas, so pull them out and serve them with your left over pizza sauce (I always make too much pizza sauce).  

And there you have it.  It tastes a lot better than calling domino's or papa john's, and costs a lot less too.  

Roasted Red Pepper Bisque

One of my housemates brought home a huge crate of red and yellow bell peppers yesterday afternoon, right as i was getting ready to prepare dinner.  So given the current weather conditions, the first thing that came to my mind was roasted red bell pepper bisque.  This creamy, full-flavored soup was great for a cold winter night, and roasting the peppers gave the whole house a nice sweet pepper smell.  

Here's how it worked, for about 11 servings:

I quartered and removed the stems from 6 med-large red bell peppers, and laid them out (skin side up) on a cookie sheet.  And then placed them in the oven (which I had conveniently already heated to about 450 degrees).

While those were roasting,  I cut up two decent sized yellow onions,  and three med sized carrots, and cooked those in a skillet with some olive oil, until the onions started to caramelize.  

Meanwhile, I took a large pot, and made up about 5 1/2 or 6 cups of veggie broth.  We were out of Better Than Bouillon,  so I just used some powdered vegetable bouillon, and it worked fine.

After the peppers had been roasting for around 30 minutes (i don't really know how long, i just checked on them periodically, I'd guess about 30 minutes), I removed them from the oven.  And when the onions and carrots were done, I added those to the broth (which was already simmering).  I then cut up the peppers into smaller chunks, and put those in the broth, and let it all simmer for another half hour or so while I worked on other things.  

After that had a chance to cook together for a while,  I got out the old blender, and blended it all together till it was nice and smooth.  I've seen several recipes for bisque that want you to then strain the soup so it's completely smooth,  but I like the textures and such, so I did no straining.  

I returned all of that to my pot and left it on low heat,  then, maybe 15 or 20 minutes before dinner time, I added to that the most magical of all ingredients: coconut milk.  I'd like to think that this soup tasted so good because I did such a good job of making it,  but let's be honest here,  anything with enough coconut milk tastes good.  

Instead of coconut milk, if you aren't worried about being vegan friendly, you could use sour cream, heavey cream, Crème fraîche, yogurt, milk, soy milk.  Some of the thinner creamy things you might want to thicken a bit with cornstartch, however.  Coconut millk, in my opinion, will give it the best flavor.  After adding the cream, I added some more seasonings, to taste, and voila.

I served this meal with a romaine lettuce, baby spinach and apple salad, and made french baguettes to go with it all (if you ask me, it's not really soup, unless you have fresh baked bread to go with it).

Spicy Bean Curd and Spinach

For lunch today, I pan fried some tofu in olive oil, with Sriracha, hoisin sauce, soy sauce and various other tasty spices.  Then I paired that with a fresh baby spinach salad, as shown above.  After plating, but before I walked into the dining room to eat, I looked outside at the several inches of snow, and tons more falling (it's still falling, in fact), so salad just didn't sound. . . warm enough.  

So I whipped up a little peanut sauce, let the spinach steam with that for just a minute, and then cut up the tofu into bite size pieces and tossed them all together.  The end result wasn't nearly as pretty,  but it tasted great, and was much more similar to an authentic dish I would've eaten in China.  For the most part, they just don't do raw vegetables in China.