Cruciferous Tiella

I saw a post a while back by "What the hell does a Vegan eat?" for a Vegan Tiella. It was so beautiful that I had to try it. I wasn't particularly interested in the filling that they posted as I am not a fan of olives, capers, or mushrooms so I made my own filling up out of what I had in the fridge. I used kale, broccoli, and cauliflower. Psuedo recipe for filling follows. A Tiella is like a pizza shaped into a pot pie. It's really yummy and you have to try it!





I've recently found that the brand of yeast I use really affects the flavor of dough and I've become addicted to Rapunzel Rize. I get it at Whole Foods.

The dough recipe copied from What the Hell... my corrections are in italics (and was originally from a book called Lydia's Italy):

Tiella
2 tsp yeast
1/4 cup water
1.5 cups AP flour
1.5 cups Semolina
1 tsp kosher salt
1.5 tsp sugar
5 Tbsp olive oil, divided
3/4 cup water

The dough is 2 tsp. yeast dissolved in 1/4 cup warm water and left to sit for a few minutes. In a food processor, add 1 1/2 cups of all-purpose flour and 1 1/2 cups of semolina flour along with 1 tsp. of kosher salt and 1 1/2 tsp. of sugar. Run the machine to blend.

Stir in 3 tbs. of olive oil to the yeast along with 3/4 cup water , run the food processor and drizzle the mixture in, processing until dough comes together. You can add additional flour if the dough seems a little loose, or water if it seems stiff.

Remove the dough and knead by hand into a smooth round, place it in an oiled bowl, cover it with plastic wrap and let sit for an hour until doubled. Punch down, shape it again, let rise a second time and stick it in the fridge (sealed airtight) if you want wait until later to use it.

While waiting for the second rise, make the filling.

Punch it down again when ready to use. Let it relax if you've taken it out of the fridge. Brush the bottom and sides of the baking dish with olive oil. Cut off 2/3 of the dough for the base, roll it into a 14" round and transfer to the baking dish and trim to fit.

Add your filling and slightly compress.

Roll the smaller piece of dough into a 12" round and place on top, pinch to seal, trim the excess. Pierce about 12 holes on the top and brush the top completely with olive oil and then bake at 375F for 45 minutes. Remove from the oven, and let the tiella cool on a rack for about 15-30 min. You can invert the tiella and remove it to serve, or leave it in for serving. Serve slightly warm or at room temp.

Filling recipe
1 sm onion, sliced
1 clove garlic, minced
1 bunch kale, cleaned, stems removed, sliced
1 bunch broccoli, cut into small flowerets
1 head cauliflower, cut into small flowerets
1/2 cup instant cheese sauce mix
1 cup water
1/2-3/4 14oz can diced tomatoes, drained
olive oil
salt
pepper
water

Preheat oven to 425. Place broccoli on one cookie sheet and cauliflower on another sheet (they cook for different lengths of time). Toss them with olive oil, salt, and pepper. Place in the oven and roast until browned and cooked. Stir every 10 minutes or so. The broccoli will take 15-20 min, and the cauliflower will take 20-30 minutes. Remove from oven and set aside.

Meanwhile, heat 1/2 tablespoon of olive oil in a large pot over medium heat. Add onions and cook till softened and brown. Add garlic and cook for another 30 seconds, until fragrant. Add kale and a couple of tablespoons of water. Cover and cook/steam for 5-10 minutes until tender. Set aside.

In a small pot, mix 1/2 cup cheesy sauce mix with 1 cup water, bring to a boil, stirring constantly with a wisk. Remove from heat when thickened.

Mix roasted broccoli, cauliflower, cheesy sauce, and diced tomatoes into the kale mixture.

Set aside till ready to fill Tiella.

It's been sooo long - Here is some food!

Man, it has been a long time since I have blogged anything. I've been taking pictures of food and then not finding the time to even get them off the camera. I finally uploaded the pics this morning and thought that I should post a montage to make up for lost time.

Tempeh Meatless balls with Garlicky Spaghetti


I love love love these meatless balls from Dan at Happyface Vegan. Here is the recipe. I have made them once before and didn't particularly like the green rice that the original recipe called for so I tried putting them on some spaghetti tossed with olive oil and roasted garlic. That was a little better. I still need to work on what I should serve them over. I think I need to make a garlicky cream sauce next time. Stay tuned for that in the future.

Buddha Bowl with Soy Ginger Sauce


This is another take on Buddha bowls. I used thriftyliving.net/?p=191">Thrifty Living's sauce with the full 2 Tbsp of soy sauce and still added more. I really like salt. :) I think I also added some crushed red pepper to the sauce to spice it up a little. We also used pan fried tempeh this time instead of tofu. I think I like the tofu in it better.

Peanutty Noodles with Kale and Butternut Squash


This is a recent recipe from Bryanna Clark Grogan. You can't quite tell from the picture, but there is a spaghetti (I used capallini) tossed with a yummy yummy peanut sauce and topped with roasted butternut and kale. The recipe called for broiling the butternut and kale, but that felt risky to me. So, I roasted the butternut at 400 for about 40-45 minutes. In the last 15 minutes, I added the kale on top of the butternut and roasted that too.

Corn Dog Bites


Corn dog bites (recipe) and the Chick Cheeze below were part of Superbowl Junk Food day. We didn't actually care about the superbowl, but liked the excuse to make junk food. I used Tofu Pups for the dogs and I cut the cayenne back to about 1/4 tsp. We also made Vegan Dad's seitan hot wings, but those didn't turn out for us.

Chick Cheeze


The recipe for Chick Cheeze is in the Uncheese Cookbook. We liked this ok, but prefer the Crock Cheeze from the same book.

Autumn Harvest Stew


Lastly, we made Autumn Harvest Stew from Nava Atlas's new cookbook 'Vegan Soups and Hearty Stews for All Seasons'. This is kind of a 3 sisters stew - pinto beans, corn, and squash. This was pretty good, but next time I would add 1 cup less of corn, and 1 can more of pinto beans.

Baked Potato and Broccoli Soup with Potato Croutons

Ok, so in addition to the copious amounts of pumpkin, I am also surrounded by russet potatoes. A perfect time to try Isa's recipe for baked potato soup in Veganomicon. I substituted broccoli for the Kale because I was really wanting broccoli soup (not because i don't love Kale.. cause I do).



Served with the Potato Crouton (in the recipe), fakin' bacon, and scallions.

Butternut Squash and Roasted garlic pizza

Last night I made the best vegan pizza ever. It had roasted butternut squash, roasted garlic, carmelized onions, Field Roast Apple Sage vegan sausage, and a tofu ricotta. I'm really sorry I didn't take a picture of this one. It was really good. I'll be making this again and again and again so I see a picture coming in the future. This recipe looks like a lot of work, but you can do it in parts and place various components in the fridge for later use and it comes together nicely.

A recipe of sorts:

Butternut Squash and Roasted garlic pizza

pizza dough (I like the recipes from Vegan with a Vengeance and The Vegan Lunchbox). Or you can use this one.
olive oil
1/2 butternut squash, cut into 1/2 in. cubes
1 head garlic
1 Field Roast Apple Sage Sausage, halved lengthwise and sliced
1 1/2 onion, sliced thinly
Tofu Ricotta (recipe from Vegan with a Vengeance - but I used 1 tsp dried basil instead of fresh)
salt
pepper
sugar

Make tofu ricotta and set in refrigerator for flavors to meld.

Remove papery outside from the head of garlic and slice off the top of the garlic to expose the tops of the garlic cloves (See Lolo's pic from Vegan Yum Yum). Place on a piece of foil. Drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Wrap the foil tightly around the garlic with the ends meeting at the top of the garlic.

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Place the butternut squash on a foil (or nonstick foil) lined cookie sheet. Drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Stir to coat. Place the foiled garlic head on the cookie sheet too. Cook for about 20 minutes, stir squash,, cook for another 20 minutes or until tender. Remove the squash from the oven and place the garlic back in the oven for about another 10-15 minutes. Remove from oven and open foil to cool.

Meanwhile, add about a tablespoon of olive oil to a skillet and heat over med-high heat. Add onions to the pan and add some salt and pepper. Add about a 1/2 tsp of sugar to help with the carmelization. Turn heat down to medium. Stir occasionally (every 4 minutes or so). Cook until light brown and carmelized. This will take about 25 minutes or more.

When garlic is cool, squish out the garlic from the garlic head into a small bowl.

Place a pizza stone in the oven and preheat oven to 500 degrees for about an hour before placing the pizza in the oven.

Once the stone is hot, we can assemble the pizza. Roll out the dough till thin. Place on a pizza peel that has been sprinkled with semolina or corn meal. Drizzle with olive oil and spread the oil around with your fingers or a brush. Sprinkle with salt. Rub ALL of the roasted garlic onto the crust. You can leave a few larger pieces for a nice garlicky bite occasionally. Add the caramelized onions. Add the butternut squash. Add the sausage. Then add some tofu ricotta to the top. You can either add it in 2 Tbs sized dollops or, as my husband likes it, just sprinkled over the top (You will have a good bit of the tofu ricotta leftover for some other recipe). Drizzle with olive oil.

Move the pizza to the pizza stone and cook for 8-10 minutes.

Note - you can get Field Roast sausage at some Whole Foods locations (not mine!) or you can order it here. It is really worth ordering it.

Pesto Kale Pizza

Someone on a forum I read wanted to know if they could put kale on a pizza which got me thinking about it. Then Animal Friendly Eric told me about a pizza that he had in LA from Native Foods that had greens and pesto on it. I looked it up on the web and it says "Creamy pesto, grilled veggies, steamed greens, roasted pumpkin seeds, and a balsamic drizzle". Well, I had to try that! So here it goes. This was more time consuming than expected because I forgot to take the frozen pizza dough out of the freezer and had to make a fresh batch, and because I also had to make some pesto. It was really good and we plan to make it again and again and again, esp once the zucchini from the CSA starts pouring in.



Breadmaker Pizza Crust (makes 2)
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
3/4 cup warm water (plus more as needed)
2 tsp active dry yeast
3/4 tsp kosher salt

Place ingredients in breadmaker according to manufacturer instructions and set it to Pizza Dough. Meanwhile preheat the pizza stone to 500 degrees. Pull out the dough, punch it down, cut it in half. Place half in an oiled ziploc bag and throw it in the freezer for another day. Roll out the dough some, let it rest for 10 minutes, and then roll it out some more.

I used Peter Berley's Almond Pesto recipe as a base but used all the CSA green garlic, garlic scapes, and added one clove of garlic. The original recipe called for 2 cloves of garlic instead of the mixture below.

Garlic Scape Green Garlic Almond Pesto
1 1/2 cups toasted blanched almonds
3 garlic scapes
4 green garlic bulbs and stems
1 clove garlic
2 cups packed basil leaves (or more)
3/4 to 1 cup olive oil
1 Tbsp water
3 Tbsp fresh squeezed lemon juice
1 tsp lemon zest
salt to taste

Grind the almonds in a food processor. Add the various forms of garlic, lemon juice, water, lemon zest, basil and puree. Add the olive oil gradually. Add salt to taste. Place in a container and cover with a light film of olive oil. Store in the refrigerator.


Pesto Kale Pizza
1 bunch of kale, middle ribs removed, cut, steamed and salted
pesto
2 small zucchini, sliced in 1/4" slices, tossed with olive oil, salt and pepper, and grilled in a grill basket
1/4 cup toasted salted pumkin seeds
balsamic vinegar
olive oil
semolina

Preheat pizza stone in a 500 degree oven for about an hour. Roll out the pizza dough and place in on a peel with semolina to prevent sticking. Drizzle with olive oil and brush to coat. Sprinkle with salt. Add some pesto as a base layer. Mix the greens with some pesto and add it to the pizza. Top with zucchini slices and pumkin seeds. Drizzle on some balsamic vinegar. Cook for about 10 minutes.

Roasted Vegetable with Kale and Quinoa

This is one of my favorite recipes and it is pretty easy once you have chopped up all the vegetables (psst - this is a great thing to do with all of those CSA root vegetables). In the extended entry are full instructions along with preparation pictures.

Dinner in a pinch - Lentil stew

Tonight we were SUPPOSED to have baked tofu coated with herbs, nutritional yeast and cornflakes served with mashed potatoes and steamed kale. We got ready to press the tofu and realized the neither of us picked it up at the grocery yesterday. And, since we were standing in the kitchen in our pajamas, neither of us wanted to go to the store. So, we improvised. We made a lentil stew with kale and served it over mashed potatoes. I always have bags of lentils in the pantry. It came out really well. I didn't measure anything, but it would be hard to screw it up, so here you go:

2 Tbs Olive oil
1.5 - 2 Yukon Gold potatoes, diced (or 1 russet)
2 carrots, sliced (You can also add celery with the carrots if you have it)
1 onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic
1/4-1/2 cup white wine, or red wine
1 tsp dried thyme
1/2 tsp dried basil
1/4 - 1/2 tsp dried oregano
1/2 lb Lentils du Puy, brown lentils, or green lentils (NOT red lentils), sorted, rinsed
2 cups vegetable broth
~2 cups water
1 bunch kale, chopped
2 Tbs shoyu, or soy sauce
pepper to taste
salt to taste

Heat olive oil in a large pot over med-high heat. Add potatoes, carrots, garlic, onion to the pot and cook for about 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. It will probably stick a little bit. After about 5 minutes, deglaze the pot with wine. Add stock, lentils, and enough water to cover, plus about another 1/2 inch. Add the dried herbs, crumbling the thyme between your fingers as you add it to the pot. Bring to a boil and then lower the heat and simmer about 25-30 minutes, partially covered. Stir occasionally and check to ensure there is enough water. When the lentils taste like the are almost done (tender), add the chopped kale. Cook for about 15 minutes. Add shoyu, and pepper. Add salt if necessary. Serve over brown rice or mashed potatoes.

Note that the time will vary slightly depending on which type of lentils you use (check the cooking times on the package). I used the lentils du puy.