Zucchini Pasta with Pesto Sauce

Zucchini made into "pasta" = the best. It is water rich, alkaline and nutrient rich. I have been on a serious pesto kick lately, pureeing just about any leafy green and nut that I can get my hands on. 

Based off of Pesto Pasta in Raw: The Uncook Book. This is a much more allaborate recipe than my typical one

For Pasta:

1 zucchini, cut lengthwise into pasta-like strips

1/4 of a red pepper, thinly sliced

1/4 c of marinated onions*

1/2 tomato, diced

5 basil leaves, chopped

leaves from 1 sprig of oregano

leaves from 1 sprig of rosemary, chopped

8 sun-dried tomatoes, soaked in warm water for at least 10 minutes, chopped

1/4 jalapeno, chopped

1 garlic clove, chopped

juice from 1/2 lemon

Pre sauce

Mix together and set aside.

*1 onion thinly sliced and marinated in 2/3 c tamari for 10 minutes - 8 hrs

For Sauce: (This makes more than you need for the pasta so add as much as you desire!)

3 cloves garlic, chopped

2 handfuls of walnuts

1/4 c basil leaves

2 handfuls of baby spinach (MI spinach is finally in season!!)

1 heaping T miso

2 T olive oil

1 t salt

8 sun-dried tomatoes, soaked in warm water for at least 10 minutes

Blend sauce ingredients in a food processor or blender until smooth.

Add water to reach desired consistency (I used 1/2 c).

Pour as much as you want onto the pasta and refrigerate the rest.

Remember how I actually eat my food? Pasta curled up on my couch with my laptop ;)

This is not an all local recipe but all ingredients can be bought trash free. For Ann Arbor residents:

-Herbs can be bought unpackaged at Sparrow Market.
-All vegetables can be purchased packaging free.
-Tamari, sun-dried tomatoes, walnuts, miso, salt, olive oil can all be bought in bulk at the People's Food Co-op.

Spicy Roasted Tomato Pizza with Kale-Almond Pesto

This pizza is AMAZING. So flavorful and spicy and delicious. I will definitely be making this again, and I'm looking very forward to it!

Ingredients:
1 prepared whole wheat pizza dough
Kale-Almond Pesto (or other pesto of choice), enough to liberally coat crust

2 medium sized tomatoes, chopped
1/2 large red onion, chopped
1/2 small white/yellow onion, chopped

3 T oil
½ T balsamic vinegar
salt
1-2 basil leaves, chopped
2 garlic cloves, minced

3-4 basil leaves, chopped finely

"Parmesan Cheese"

Directions:

Preheat oven to 375F

In a small bowl, mix together the oil, salt, vinegar, 1-2 chopped basil leaves, and minced garlic.

In a medium sized bowl, mix together the chopped veggies and oil mixture.

Pour into a greased or lined baking sheet and bake for 35-40 minutes.

Remove roasted veggies from oven until ready to assemble the pizza.

Raise oven heat to 400F
Pre-bake rolled out pizza dough for 5 minutes, take out and set aside.

Generously spread pesto onto pre-baked pizza crust.

Dump roasted veggies evenly onto pesto.
Sprinkle finely chopped basil leaves and "parmesan cheese" (go nuts with this step- this cheeZe is really really really really amazing).
Bake for 10-15 minutes, until crust is golden brown.

Kale-Almond Pesto

Traditional pesto is made with basil and pine nuts but boy, is that expensive! The day that I learned that just about any leafy green and just about any nut can be combined to make a stellar pesto was a pretty life changing one indeed.

Ingredients:
1 bunch kale (or other leafy green)
1/3 c almonds (or other nut)
3 cloves roasted garlic (directions below!)*
1/2 t salt
2 T lemon juice (juice of 1 lemon)
1 T olive oil
1 pinch red pepper flakes

Directions:

Steam kale for a few minutes until bright green.

Toast almonds in a dry skillet until fragrant BUT NOT BURNT, about 10 minutes.

Pulse kale in a food processor until finely chopped.

Add in almonds and roasted garlic and do the same.

Add in the rest of the ingredients and process until desired consistency is reached.

*How to quickly roast garlic:

Roasted garlic is the best. You can roast whole heads in the oven (shown here) but if you are faced with a time crunch, a skillet works just as well!

Directions:

Separate cloves from head and remove papery skin, leaving the immediate layer of skin as a protective barrier between the clove and the skillet.

Drop garlic into skillet over medium heat and allow to roast for about 10-15 minutes.

Move the cloves around every so often as to prevent burning.

Remove from heat when the innards feel mushy inside their skins.

Squish out the garlicky goodness and use to your heart's content!

<3

This is in preparation for a cooking demonstration that the Michigan Sustainable Foods Initiative is having on Wednesday! I was asked to be the "demonstrator" and, needless to say, I am more than excited.

The menu I have concocted is as follows:
Sweet Potato and Caramelized Onion Pizza with Garlic and Fresh Thyme
Spicy Roasted Tomato Pizza with Kale-Almond Pesto
Cinnamon Apple Dessert Pizza

I have never made any of these before so Wednesday will be quite the experimentation. Wish me luck!

Spelt Baguette for Winter Bruschetta

So my first attempt at sourdough starter was a major fail. In order to console my bread-baking ego I decided to bake bread with commercially-bought yeast (ergghh). But hey you can buy it in bulk at the People's Food Co-op! That makes me feel a little better...

I based this off of a recipe that was in all grams in millileters and apparently in my conversions I screwed something up big time. Therefore, I added in 2 c wheat flour to make the dough drier. This definitely was the bread baking attempt of an ultimate novice. There's only growth from here!

Spelt Baguette
Yeast-y bread Take 1

1T + 2t yeast*
5 T warm water
2 T spelt flour*
2 c water
3 c spelt flour*
2 c whole wheat flour*

In large bowl, mix yeast and warm water until smooth.
Mix in 2 T flour, cover in a rag and allow to do what it do for 20 minutes.
Preheat oven to 400F
Stir in water, and then stir in the flours.
Cover in a rag and allow to rise for an 1.5 hours (I got distracted and let it go for 3.5 hours...)
Separate into 3 baguette-ish shapes and slice notches into the top.
Cook for 20-30 minutes.

*You can buy this in bulk! Do itttt. It's cheaper AND saves packaging waste ;)

What else you can do...

Winter Bruschetta
Death by amazing salty, savory, sweet, stay-inside-and-stuff-your-face-until-you-add-a-healthy-layer-of-fat-and-are-able-to-withstand-the-0-degree-Michigan-winter goodness.

I didn't measure but here are my attempts to quantify my experimentation:

Ingredients:

1 T oil

2 cloves garlic, minced)

1/2 large onion, chopped

pumpkin puree (about 1.5 c)

frozen cranberries (about 1 c)

ginger (1 T perhaps)

nutmeg (1/4 t -ish)

pesto

spelt baguette, but into 1-2" pieces

Directions:

Heat oil in saute pan over medium-low heat.

Add onions and saute until softened.

Add garlic, pumpkin and bring to a simmer.

Add in cranberries.

Cook until cranberries burst and start oozing into pumpkin mixture.

Spice up yo life!

Remove from heat.

Smear pesto and pumpkin-cranberry goo onto baguette slices.

Devour.

Pizza: The easiest way to please

I had two events this week that I had to (okay, I chose to...) make food for: the Student Sustainability Initiative Food Issues meeting and my Graham Undergraduate Sustainability Scholars seminar biodiversity presentation. I needed something that was easy to make and that would please a crowd. So I turned to the pizza recipe I made a couple weeks ago and just altered it based on the ingredients that I had this week.

Eggplant Pizza with Roasted Tomato Sauce

Ingredients:
1 whole wheat pizza dough
1 eggplant, sliced into 1/4 inch rounds
2 small onions, chopped
1 c Roasted Tomato Sauce (recipe below)

Directions:
Roll out pizza dough onto a lightly oiled baking pan.
Cook at 425F for 8-10 minutes.
Saute onions until soft.
Saute eggplant, covered with a little bit of water, until soft.
Spread sauce evenly over the crust.
Arrange eggplant on crust and sprinkle onions on top.
Bake for an additional 8-10 minutes.

Pesto-Onion Pizza

Ingredients:
1 whole wheat pizza dough
1 c pesto (about 4 cubes if you froze them in an ice cube tray)
2 onions, sliced

Directions:

Roll out pizza dough onto a lightly oiled baking pan.

Cook at 425F for 8-10 minutes.

Saute onions until soft and starting to brown.

Spread pesto evenly over the crust and sprinkle onions on top.

Bake for an additional 8-10 minutes.

Roasted Tomato Sauce

I made this recipe a few weeks ago because I was afraid my tomatoes were going to go bad.

Ingredients:

6 tomatoes, cut into quarters
olive oil
Salt and pepper
5-6 cloves garlic, minced
2 medium onions, chopped

Directions:
Preheat the oven to 475 degrees.
Arrange tomatoes on an oiled baking pan and sprinkle with salt and pepper.

Bake until tomatoes start falling into themselves.Using a slotted spoon, scoop the tomatoes out of the pan, leaving excess liquid behind.

Puree tomatoes in a food processor.
Heat 1 T oil over medium-high heat in a large pot. Add the garlic and onions and saute for 2-3 minutes.

Pour pureed tomatoes into the pot and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer until the sauce is reduced to the desired consistency.

A morning of pizzas

Yesterday I made another journey to the Farmer's Market and thanks to Poonam's access to a car, I was a little overzealous with my purchases. Having not even gotten through the produce from the week before, I still bought a bushel of tomatoes (which I blanched, pureed, and froze for use later in the year in the wee hours of the night). Needless to say, it's time for me to cook. Or as I did this morning, bake!

I made an heirloom tomato pizza and a pesto-arugula pizza, however since they don't have cheese on them, they may be deemed flatbread.

Whole Wheat Pizza Dough

Serving Size: 1 large pizza, about the size of a large baking pan

Ingredients:
2.5 c whole-wheat flour (local, bought in bulk from PFC)
0.25 t baking powder
0.5 t salt
1 c water
0.5 c oil (I used olive oil)
garlic granules (optional)
rosemary or any other herbs that you like (optional)

Directions:
Whisk together dry ingredients and wet ingredients separately. Combine in a large bowl and mix until dough forms.
On a floured surface, knead dough for 5 minutes. Cover and let rest for 30 minutes.
Sprinkle corn meal (or flour) onto a large baking pan. Roll out dough until about the size of the pan and transfer over to pan. Poke holes into the dough with a fork.

Heirloom Tomato Pizza

Ingredients:
whole wheat pizza dough
oil (I used canola oil)
0.25 large red onion, sliced into half moons
5 cloves of garlic, sliced
2-3 heirloom tomatoes, thinly sliced
olive oil
salt
pepper
rosemary or any other herbs that you like

Directions:
Bake pizza dough in oven at 400 degrees for 10-12 minutes, or until it starts becoming golden brown.
Remove from oven and increase temperature to 425 degrees.
Drizzle dough with oil and spread so that the surface is covered. Sprinkle garlic and onion onto the dough. Bake for 10 minutes.
Remove from oven and arrange slices of heirloom tomatoes onto the crust so that it makes a complete layer. Return to oven for 5 more minutes.
Remove from oven. Drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle salt, pepper, and rosemary to taste.
Cut into slices and serve!

Green Pizza

Ingredients:
whole wheat pizza dough
0.5 c pesto (recipe below)
1 T canola oil
1 bunch arugula, chopped and stems removes
olive oil
salt
pepper

Directions:

Bake pizza dough at 450 degrees for 10-12 minutes on the lowest rack of your oven.

While the dough is baking, heat canola oil in a skillet over medium heat and add arugula. Sautee for about 2 minutes, stirring constantly until the arugula is wilted.

Remove crust from oven and spread pesto onto the crust. Distribute arugula onto the pizza.

Bake pizza for 10 more minutes.

Remove from oven. Drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle salt and pepper to taste.

Cut into slices and serve!

*This recipe would be good with any sort of grilled/sauteed veggies. Get creative!

Basil-Almond Pesto

Ingredients:

2 bunches of fresh basil (about 3-4 packed cups)*

1/3 c almonds, sliced**

2 heaping T white miso

1/3 c olive oil

Juice of 1/2 lemon or 1 lime

3-4 cloves of garlic, minced

Directions:

Toast almonds in a saute pan over medium heat until golden brown and fragrant.

Food process (is that a verb?) almonds and garlic until chopped. Add miso and pulse until incorporated. Add basil and process until chopped and even consistency. Add oil and lime juice and process until smooth.

This makes a solid amount of pesto which can sometimes be dangerous since it becomes discolored if you do not use it quickly. A method that I got a kick out of is freezing the leftover pesto in an ice cube tray and then transferring the frozen pesto cubes to a ziplock bag. This way you freeze small serving sizes and don't have to thaw a big block of pesto every time a recipe calls for a tablespoon or two. Pretty cool!

*Basil can be replaced with cilantro, parsley, spinach, etc. depending on what you have/what you like.

**Pesto is traditionally made with pine nuts but those are pretty expensive (and I can't find them in bulk). Any sort of nut (walnuts, pecans, cashews...) can be subbed in for the same feel.