On one of my last weeks in Massachusetts I had dinner at a French Bistro on Newburry Street with my good friend, and apprentice, Marcelo. The Bistro had all of the normal French classics that you would expect but this French pizza, or pissaladière, caught my eye. Normally when you think pizza the first thing that comes to mind is Italy, or at least red sauce and mozzarella cheese. This Pissaladière did not have either.

The French pie was thin and crisp, topped with thinly sliced beef, a stinky blue cheese, and dressed baby arugula. It was nothing like the pizza you would expect from Boston’s North End, this pizza was light and crisp and packed with flavor. With the geeks changing coasts again I knew that I would have to come up with something of my own to taste this again.

I set out to recreate the thin, crispy, cracker-like crust using a basic pizza dough recipe. The proportions of several ingredients were changed and I added rice flour to try to cut back the gluten count; pastry flour could have been used instead, but there was none in the house. The dough was rolled as thin as I could get it and cooked in a very hot oven. The crust was very light, crisp, yet not overly chewy. The dough could take a bit more cooking, but overall it was almost a match.

For my pizza, I decided to change the toppings up a bit: apples, caramelized onions, spinach, and brie. Everything almost worked out perfectly except for the part where I put the spinach on BEFORE cooking the pizza; it pretty much wilted into nothing. Hindsight tells me I should have waited until the cooking was completed, and, taking a play from the bistro, place the dressed spinach on the pie prior to serving. When I make one of these again, this knowledge will come in handy.

Please don’t be too afraid to make this dough yourself. The dough comes together fairly quickly and isn’t all that hard to put together. I used my kitchenaid to mix the dough but you could very well do it by hand if you so desired.

Pissaladière

1 cup water, room temperature
3/4 teaspoon yeast
1 teaspoon sugar
2 cups all purpose flour
1 cup rice flour
1 teaspoon sugar
1 teaspoon olive oil

Combine water, sugar, and yeast in a the bowl of a mixer and stir to dissolve.

Mix the two flours and salt together in a separate bowl.

Turn the mixer on low and slowly add the flour until a dough forms. Continue to mix until the dough pulls away from the side of the bowl. Add more flour if the dough feels a little sticky. Stop mixing when the dough is slightly tacky and soft-to-firm.

Remove the dough from a mixer and place in a lightly oiled bowl covered with a towel. Let the dough rise for about an hour.

Preheat oven to highest temperature (mine is 550F).

Roll out dough into oval shape, top with your favorite toppings, and cook until golden brown.

A little background on what’s been happening. I’ve once again changed coasts and moved back to San Diego. With all the excitement of moving, blogging has taken a backseat to life for a bit. To add a little bit of excitement, I’m finishing off my job in Boston while living in San Diego. This means weekly trips coast-to-coast. My green-cred is seriously taking a hit here but I’d like to do the right thing with my job for once.

Back to the Daring Cooks…This month we got to make something I’ve been wanting to try out ever since I picked up the awesome cookbook 660 Curries, Indian Dosa. Dosas are like thin, crisp pancakes that are either filled with a yummy curry or used much like naan to pick up yummy bites of curries.

We were posed with an additional challenge this month, 100% vegan. No animal products were allowed in this at all; no milk, cheese, meat, or anything from an animal. Luckily there were a few curries to go along with the dosas that were veggie friendly and quite tasty. I didn’t really have all that much time to experiment and just went with what we were given this time around.

The dosas were a breeze to make, much like making crepes. It was a nice thin batter than quickly cooked in my crepe pan and wasn’t all that hard to remove. Like making crepes, the first one is always ruined, but I was expecting it. The cooked up very quickly and, once I got in a groove, probably could have made 20-30 of them in no time at all. Once the dosas were done, I served them up with the two curries, both which offered no real surprises in preparation.

Everything turned out great. Maybe next time, if I make these curries again, I’ll spice them up with some more heat and some added veggies or maybe some paneer…

Indian Dosas
This recipe comes in 3 parts, the dosas, the filling and the sauce. It does take awhile to make, but the filling and sauce can be made ahead and frozen if need be. You can serve them as a main course with rice and veggies, or as an appetizer. This does take a little planning ahead, so make sure you read the recipe through before starting (I forgot & didn’t start making the rice until everything was ready, oops).

Serves 4

Equipment needed:
large bowl
whisk
griddle or skillet
ladle (or large spoon)
spatula
vegetable peeler &/or knife
large saucepan
food processor or bean masher

Dosa Pancakes
1 cup (120gm/8oz) spelt flour (or all-purpose, gluten free flour)
½ tsp (2½ gm) salt
½ tsp (2½ gm) baking powder
½ tsp (2½ gm) curry powder
½ cup (125ml/4oz) almond milk (or soy, or rice, etc.)
¾ cup (175ml/6oz) water
cooking spray, if needed

Dosa Filling
1 batch Curried Garbanzo Filling (see below), heated

Dosa Toppings
1 batch Coconut Curry Sauce (see below), heated
¼ cup (125gm) grated coconut
¼ cucumber, sliced

Dosa Pancakes
1.Combine the dry ingredients in a bowl, slowly adding the almond milk and water, whisking until smooth.
2.Heat a nonstick skillet over medium heat. Spray your pan with a thin layer of cooking spray, if needed.
3.Ladle 2 tablespoons of batter into the center of your pan in a circular motion until it is a thin, round pancake. When bubbles appear on the surface and it no longer looks wet, flip it over and cook for a few seconds. Remove from heat and repeat with remaining batter. Makes 8 pancakes.

Curried Garbanzo Filling
This filling works great as a rice bowl topping or as a wrap too, so don’t be afraid to make a full batch.

5 cloves garlic
1 onion, peeled and finely diced
1 carrot, peeled and finely diced
1 green pepper, finely diced (red, yellow or orange are fine too)
2 medium hot banana chilies, minced
2 TBSP (16gm) cumin, ground
1 TBSP (8gm) oregano
1 TBSP (8gm) sea salt (coarse)
1 TBSP (8gm) turmeric
4 cups (850gm/30oz) cooked or canned chick peas (about 2 cans)
½ cup (125gm/4oz) tomato paste

1.Heat a large saucepan over medium to low heat. Add the garlic, veggies, and spices, cooking until soft, stirring occasionally.
2.Mash the chickpeas by hand, or in a food processor. Add the chickpeas and tomato paste to the saucepan, stirring until heated through.

Coconut Curry Sauce
This makes a great sauce to just pour over rice as well. This does freeze well, but the texture will be a little different. The flavor is still the same though. My picture of this sauce is one that I had made, had to freeze, then thaw to use. It tastes great, but the texture is a little runnier, not quite as thick as it was before freezing.

1 onion, peeled and chopped
2 cloves garlic
½ (2½ gm) tsp cumin, ground
¾ (3¾ gm) tsp sea salt (coarse)
3 TBSP (30gm) curry powder
3 TBSP (30gm) spelt flour (or all-purpose GF flour)
3 cups (750ml/24oz) vegetable broth
2 cups (500ml/24oz) coconut milk
3 large tomatoes, diced

1.Heat a saucepan over medium heat, add the onion and garlic, cooking for 5 minutes, or until soft.
2.Add the spices, cooking for 1 minutes more. Add the flour and cook for 1 additional minute.
3.Gradually stir in the vegetable broth to prevent lumps. Once the flour has been incorporated, add the coconut milk and tomatoes, stirring occasionally.
4.Let it simmer for half an hour.

We started off with a few books the eater purchased: Fresh-Ultimate-Live-Food and Complete-Idiots-Guide-Eating-Raw.

I know it may seem a bit passe to buy an idiots book, but this one is really good. The book goes into all of the basics of raw foodism while leaving out all of the quack health claims. The book goes into good detail on how to cook raw and what sort of tools you need; everything from basic kitchen implements to my new favorite toy, the Excalibur 5 tray Dehydrator. The book concludes with loads of recipes and a few tips if you actually want to go raw. I’m pretty sure I’d never make the jump, but I’ll probably add some raw elements to my diet because I’m intrigued.

For my first set of raw recipes I decided to make raw tacos and a few raw pizzas. I grabbed a few recipes out of the Idiot’s book and went at them. The first thing I noticed was that all of these recipes were easy. You can pretty much put whatever you want in the tortillas and the pizza; if you can get the mixture to stay together, it will work. I was surprised how easy it was to make substitutions for ingredients I either ran out of or didn’t have on hand. With the food science removed, cooking was a snap!

The tacos consisted of a corn, tomato, and flax seed mixture that was ground up in the food processor and dehydrated until almost crisp. They were then formed into the familiar taco shape and dehydrated until crisp. The tacos were filled with all the fixings: lettuce, pico de gallo, and a raw meat that was made of sunflower seeds, tomatos, jalapenos, and a whole bunch of spices that I forgot — all dehydrated until crisp. I really didn’t miss much of anything in these tacos and probably could have ate about TEN of them; they were really good. I served up a side of chilled avocado soup that I improvised on the spot. Key ingredients included avocados, jalapenos, and coconut water; it, too, was a hit.

The pizzas were a different story. I tried a pizza dough recipe from the Fresh cookbook and also tried something of my own creation. While neither of the pizzas were all that bad, I don’t really think I’d mislead someone and call them pizza again. They really were more like an open-faced sandwich on a very dense bread. My Mexican inspired creation, for my money, was the better of the two. Both of these creations could really use some fine-tuning in the future.

Overall I’d do it again. The new-fangled Excalibur Dehydrator has sparked my curiosity enough to dive into at least some raw-inspired dishes. I’m working on some raw breads and some sandwich wrappers that should go good with both raw and un-raw foods!

Please, if you’re following a raw diet and it’s working wonders for you, curing cancer, the blind, or just making you feel good, that’s awesome. I’m not trying to attack or offend anyone here, it’s all in good fun.

Last night we tried a sort of local raw restaurant, Organic Garden Cafe in Beverly, Ma. This was my first experience with a raw food restaurant and raw food in general. This isn’t to say I’ve never had raw veggies, fish, or meats before, just that this is the first restaurant I’ve went to that specialized in raw food.

Let me be the first to say that I don’t buy into the science of the raw food diet but I am always interested in new (un)cooking techniques. Raw foodies make liberal use of food dehydrators to create a myriad of foodstuffs; raw crackers, rollups, tortillas, and burgers all come out of this raw oven! These things alone were enough to spark my interest and try to deconstruct the dishes I was served.

Since this was my first experience with raw dining, we ordered all sorts of dishes. We started out with some tacos. The shells were made from some sort of dehydrated wonder that almost hit the mark for a tortilla, albeit a bit too thick. The tacos had a falafel-like filling and all necessary taco sundries. Overall the tacos did not disappoint.

We then had a sampler plate of several small dishes: an assortment of savory items that included a Thai Dumpling, Falafel, Hummus, Mini-Sunburger and, and a sprouted wild rice salad. The hummus was pure sesame paste with several dehydrated crackers that I was sure were cooked in an oven (they weren’t). The falafel was pretty standard and the sun burger wasn’t all that special and overall pretty bland. The winner on this plate was the Thai dumpling. I’m not sure what went into it but it was very gingery, had a cashew cream sauce, and came with some very flavorful candied cashews; I could have eaten four or five of them.

Next up we tried their Mauna Loa Maki Roll. Think maki sushi, but replace the rice with something they claimed to be sea veggies. Macadamia Miso Paste, Avocado, Mung Bean, Bell Peppers, and Cucumber rounded out the roll which ended up being really good. The sea veggies gave the maki roll a nice texture and I didn’t miss the rice one bit. I’m going to have to find some of these sea veggies and do some experimenting of my own!

After what seemed to be a mountain of food, we couldn’t resist ordering the onion rings. This is another wonder dish that came straight out of the dehydrator. The rings were thinly sliced and coated with a sweet and nutty batter. The rings come out room temperature but you won’t miss the burning hot onions that always seem to sear the roof of your mouth. This may have been the first time I’ve ever had cold, crispy rings and loved every minute of it.

I couldn’t leave without checking the drink menu to see what sort of exciting juices, smoothies, or shooters they had available. To my surprise I saw something that claimed to be a ginger shooter. Pure ginger, juiced: pretty simple, right? Boy was I shocked when I took a REAL big drink of this tiny little shooter. It was like drinking ginger flavored hot-sauce, something I really should have expected but didn’t even think of in the moment. It was shocking how much flavor was packed into this tiny little glass. I managed to persevere and drink the entire shooter but I may pass on this one in favor of the, much safer, wheat grass next time.

Overall I liked this place. The dishes were creative yet not pretentious and the atmosphere was nice: a small restaurant where I could eat the food and not get harassed by all the raw-food hype that seems to be out there on the interweb. If you’re in the neighborhood of Beverly, MA, stop by this place; I recommend it.

This soup is such a hit at my house, words can’t really describe it. This is one of the eater’s favorite dishes and it gets requested quite often. It’s easy to make, it doesn’t take long, and it tastes real good.

There isn’t much else to say, other than:

EAT.THIS.SOUP.

Pasta Fagioli
1/2 box of orzo (8oz)
2 14oz cans diced tomotoes
2 14oz cans of white beans (like great northern or cannellini) – drained & rinsed
1 onion – diced small
4-6 cloves of garlic – sliced
3-5 slices of hard cheese like romano or parmesan, preferably the
end of a block w/rind
1-2 stalks of celery – diced (optional)
olive oil
crushed red pepper
oregano
salt & pepper

In a med-large pot saute onions and celery(if using) over medium heat in olive oil until onions are soft and translucent.

Combine garlic, oregano, crushed red pepper, and salt & pepper with the onions and cook until fragrant.

Incorporate the tomatoes, white beans, and the whole piece of cheese with the onion mixture and cook a few minutes to combine flavors.

Add 4-5 cups of hot water to the pot and bring soup to a gentle boil.

Pour orzo into the soup and cook for ~10 minutes. Stir the soup every few minutes as the orzo tends to stick to the bottom of the pot. Let stand for a few minutes until the orzo thickens up.

This recipe is one of the most popular FoodGeek posts I’ve ever made, and with good reason, these burgers are excellent. It always surprises me that a simple veggie burger can trump such things as macarons and the multitude of pastries on this website. For all the fans of the original recipe, here’s another look at the best.veggie.burgers.ever.

The first time I made these burgers I wasn’t sure what to expect. Oats and nuts with a little bit of spice and some eggs just doesn’t sound like much of a burger to me. Believe me when I say this, I was very wrong. The combination of oats and nuts, first fried, and then boiled, make one of the meatiest, non-meaty burger you will ever have.

There were many questions last time around, hopefully this post will answer all the questions. First off, here’s the recipe.

Walnut Oatmeal Burgers
Adapted from The New Laurel’s Kitchen: A Handbook for Vegetarian Cookery and Nutrition

burger mixture:
2 cups walnut pieces
2 cups rolled oats
4 eggs
1 large onion, chopped fine
2 cloves garlic, minced
salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

for cooking burgers:
oil to brown patties
3 cups vegetable stock or water

Grind walnuts in blender and combine with the rest of the burger mixture ingredients.

Let the mixture rest in refrigerator for about an hour to let the flavors meld together.

Form the mixture into patties. The entire mixture will make 8-12 burgers depending on the size patty formed. It is recommended to use half of the mixture now, and reserve the rest for use in another recipe or for more burgers later.

Brown patties on both sides in a lightly oiled skillet, then pour the stock into the skillet and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer, covered, for 15 minutes.

Compared to the old recipe, I’ve made a few changes and was able to get the same results. This time around I skipped the breadcrumbs and the milk; I didn’t realize it until after I cooked them, but they came out great as well. I also settled on two cups of walnuts instead of a “cook’s choice” sort of recipe. I left out the sage, too, since you can take it or leave it. I left it out and they were still fantastic. I figure if there’s a spice you want in your burgers, you’re going to add it in anyways. Feel free to add whatever you’d like here; I think I used oregano this time and it worked nicely.

The recipe suggests first browning the patties on both sides and then simmering in veggie stock for another fifteen minutes. This is not a mistake and really does work. The burgers will hold shape and do not get soggy, wet, or fall apart. A few readers mentioned they just fried them and it worked well, too. I fried a bit by itself without steaming and I can confirm it works; the texture is slightly less meaty, but in a pinch it works like a charm.

I’ve yet to try a vegan version of this recipe but I believe you can substitue silken tofu for the eggs. It should work as a binder and have the added bonus of extra protein in the burger. You’ll have to change the name to Super-protein Walnut Oatmeal burgers though.

Has anyone else made these burgers? Have any suggestions? I’d love to see what everyone is doing with these burgers. Maybe we should have a veggie burger cook-off?

The eater always tells me I make the best sandwiches. My formula for a good sandwich starts with good bread. Leave the Wonder bread for toast and find something good – something with a good crust, something with an unusal flavor, or something with a nice airy texture. I then try to match the ingredients in the sandwich with the bread. You can never say too much about good, fresh vegetables or top-quality deli-meats, don’t skimp here! Finally, to hold everything together, you need a good spread. Dry sandwiches just aren’t any good so find something to bind it all together and marry the flavors. To top everything off, garnish the sandwich with something fun, like olives, and pile on the potato chips…mmmmm, potato chips.

Here’s one I almost deleted and didn’t show everyone.

• Whole Foods focaccia bread
• Fresh mozzarella
• Homegrown sprouts
• Red leaf lettuce
• Ripe, hydroponic tomato (hey, it’s still winter in New England)
• Olive tapenade /mayo mix

It was a damn good sandwich, I can’t lie.

In an attempt to get some more cooking inspiration, I signed up for Taste and Create VII. The idea of Taste and Create is you are randomly paired up with another food blog, find a recipe listed on their site, make the recipe, and blog about it. I thought it would be a great way to try something new and get a little more involved in the community. For my first T&C I was paired up with Food and Laughter.

Food and Laughter is a blog mostly about Indian food. I find this fascinating because Indian food is something that I don’t usually cook but often eat out at restaurants. My lack of experience with this cooking style made this event even more exciting. The Eater and I checked out the site and decided to make a dish called Toovar Dal.

My first reading of this recipe I was a little bit overwhelmed with all the ingredients that weren’t familiar to me. I was worried that I was going to have to special order these ingredients and wouldn’t be able to finish the dish in time. After a little bit of research I found out that many of these ingredients just have different names in different parts of the world. Here’s some examples and what I did with the ones I couldn’t find:

toovar dal – Pigeon Peas
chana dal – Chick Peas
jaggery – a type of Palm sugar. I substituted regular light brown sugar here.
jeera - cumin

I didn’t have any real sources for these two:

kokum – this is similar to tamarind so I substituted chopped raisins
asafoetida ( heeng) – I had no ideas for this one, so I omitted it.

Cooking this dish was pretty exciting. The sights and sounds of the popping mustard seeds was something I was not expecting; they really pop and go everywhere. The dish came together quickly and quite nicely, there were no surprises after the mustard seeds. I opted for both dals but skipped the yams because I felt like it. I also decreased the spice level a bit because I was afraid it may be too spicy for the eater.

While I’ve never had this dish before, I don’t feel like my substitutions adversely affected the dish. In my mind, a large part of cooking is being able to adapt recipes to ingredients that you have on hand without sacrificing results. I’m sure I broke some sort of rules, but both the eater and I thought the dish was a keeper, as-is.

The pigeon peas really are the star in this dish lending a nice, subtle sweetness. The peanuts added a bit of a surprise crunch that I was not expecting even after cooking this dish myself. This really is a good dish, sweet, tangy, spicy, and a little sour, pretty much everything I wanted in a dish. I served up the dal with some long grain rice. I opted for a little extra spice on mine in the form of red pepper which worked out nicely.

On Tuesday, I usually scan the refrigerator and try and use up whatever is leftover from last week’s CSA delivery. I’ve been slacking off a bit on my duties lately and have a whole bunch of carrots, cabbage, and lettuce. I figured I could use up at least two of these in a tasty stir-fry and I’d only need to supplement a few things here and there to round out the dish. Tonight I decided on Kung Pao Tofu. I love to eat this stuff when I go out for Chinese food and I’ve finally started to get it close to authentic Chinese take-out Kung Pao. I think the missing ingredient that manages to bring the dish to the next level is Szechuan peppercorns.

For many years these little peppercorns were ILLEGAL! I mean really, what kind of crazy person would declare these tongue numbing jewels illegal? Only the most connected Chinese person was able to work back-room deals to get these little numbers in their hands. Alas they were taken off of the FDA’s banned food lists just a few years back and now we can all enjoy them once again.

There’s not too much to stir-fry. Gather some fresh, crisp vegetables, your protein of choice, some aromatics, and a sauce. For the most part, it takes more time gathering the ingredients than actually cooking them. My stir fry sauce is almost always soy sauce, vinegar, mirin, and water; I then thicken up the works with a cornstarch slurry until it coats everything nicely. There’s nothing easier than stir-fry!