Cheddar and Veggie Pinwheels

Tim and I had some trouble with our propane range today- we were sitting around watching the Olympics and suddenly smelled gas (and I realized why I had such a bad headache).  The tank seemed to be leaking- we think maybe rubber ring that seals the tank to the tubing was worn.  We'll be looking into that tomorrow, for certain, but in the meantime we just turned it off and opened all the windows (thus letting in mosquitoes since we don't have any screens...sigh).

In the interim, I tried to figure out something for dinner that didn't require the stovetop... I settled on a recipe loosely based on these broccoli and cheddar pinwheels.  I had pizza dough in the freezer and a ton of veggies and cheddar in the fridge, but I wanted to add more flavor to the recipe by roasting the veggies with garlic and red pepper flakes instead of steaming it.  

Here's what I did:

- Mince 2 cloves of garlic 

- Finely chop about 3 cups of veggies (in my case I used broccoli, cauliflower and carrot)

- Mix veggies and garlic with a couple tablespoons of olive oil, some salt and pepper, and a couple shakes of red pepper flakes.

- Spread it out onto a baking sheet and bake for 10 minutes or so at high heat (about 400F), until starting to brown on the edges; cool

- Shred 1.5-2 cups of cheddar cheese

- Mix cheddar, veggies, 1 tablespoon of dijon mustard and 1 tablespoon of mayonnaise

- Roll out 1 lb of pizza dough (I used this recipe from Martha Stewart) into a large thin rectangle

- Spread veggie and cheese mixture onto 3/4 of the dough, then tightly roll into a long tube

- Cut the tube into pinwheels

- Put the pinwheels on a parchment covered baking sheet and bake at 425F for 15-20 minutes

Pretty tasty!  

Pesto Pizza

Easy weeknight dinner:
pesto (basil, garlic, Parmesan, nuts, olive oil, salt, pepper)
mozzarella
fresh tomato slices
whole wheat pizza doughLoad up pizza dough with toppings, cook on super high heat for 10 minutes, devour, done.

Warm Butternut and Chickpea Salad with Tahini Dressing, Take Two

Remember this tasty salad that I made a couple years back? Yeah, it's still tasty, still easy, still pretty healthy. Try it.This time I served the salad lettuce-wrap style with some Bibb lettuce alongside some rosemary focaccia made from leftover pizza dough. Yum.

Pepperoni Rolls for Tim

Tim has been talking about "pepperoni rolls" for months- apparently they're a childhood delight of his. I think he's secretly trying to find a suitable substitute for the pepperoni Hot Pockets he treasures so when he is three sheets to the wind.Conveniently, I made pizza earlier this week and had a bunch of dough leftover... so we gave pepperoni rolls a try. The internets are rife with pepperoni roll recipes, but they all differ- some leave out the sauce, some the cheese. I decided to base mine on a reliable source- yum! Good choice! I think the only change I would make is to add more pepperoni than called for in the recipe, to make the little guys more befitting of the name "pepperoni rolls." Other than that, I think these rolls are ready for center stage on Superbowl Sunday!!Served with a sassy lemon, Parmesan and arugula salad.

Curried Squash, Cauliflower and Apple Soup with Pizza Dough Breadsticks

With 3 days to go before braving I-95 and heading home for the holidays, I found myself trying to find uses for the random assortment of veggies crowding my fridge and counter. Cue curried winter squash/cauliflower/apple soup, served with apple/walnut/goat cheese/pomegranate salad and pizza dough breadsticks.

Loosely based on a couple of recipes, the soup came out pretty well! I took the veggie cues from this one (although I used one kabocha squash, a whole head of cauliflower, and 2 apples) and the spices from this one (plus a couple teaspoons of garam masala). Swirled in some sour cream when I served it.

Then, for the breadsticks, I used leftover pizza dough from the other night, and generally followed these instructions for turning them into twisty breadsticks. I brushed mine with olive oil and sprinkled them with garlic salt. Mine didn't poof up as much as hers did, but that's probably because I was using dough that was several days old. They were tasty anyway!

White Pizza with Kale and Pepperoni

I had some leftover pizza dough after making some broccoli and mozzarella stromboli the other night (which were good, but messy and difficult to roll up!), so we decided to make a white pizza with crispy kale. Tim insisted that we also put pepperoni on it, because he's a man and men apparently need meat. The pepperoni was good, so I shouldn't complain. We also added some red pepper flakes in with the garlic oil that was spread on the dough. The goat cheese was a tasty and unexpected addition... the tang complemented the earthy flavor of the kale and the salty pepperoni.

I broke my baking stone a while back, so I decided to try a different method for getting a crispy pizza crust: I placed the rolled out dough on an upside-down baking sheet covered in a layer of cornmeal. I think using the baking sheet upside down let the air circulate around the crust a little more- I'd definitely use this method again!