Pizza Fail

This evening, a fantastic epic pizza failure took place in my kitchen. My food wreckage included a cocoa crust, an unrecognizable sauce, and classic mozzarella. I am still assessing the situation to determine what all went wrong . . .

It all started with me attempting to make a nice gourmet pizza with a savory cocoa crust, and a specialty wine type sauce. I was planning to put black mustard seeds in my cocoa crust. I planned to use frozen grapes, chopped onion, water, olive oil, and balsamic vinegar for my sauce. Things went off course when I forgot to put the black mustard seeds in my crust, though my crust turned out fine otherwise (to my liking, not Anthony's). Overcompensating, I put the black mustard seeds in my sauce instead of my crust. As I was cooking, I caught a whiff of the aroma of my sauce, it was all grape, almost like grape soda. Yuck. At that point I was thinking we didn't want it to be too sweet, and spices are sometimes helpful . . . I added some red chili powder and cumin which conversely further derailed my experiment. It is difficult to describe the distinct hot pungent flavor of my bad combination. I might add that the pizza actually ate a little better for a late night snack pulled straight from the refrigerator where it had chilled for a few hours after dinner,  than when it came straight out of the oven for supper.

Will I ever make an attempt at a chocolate crusted savory pizza again? You better believe I will. I'm thinking maybe a honey Dijon mustard sauce would be a more complementary sauce for the cocoa crust, or a white sauce. Perhaps bacon would make a good topping in addition to cheese. I like chocolate and bacon together. Let me know your thoughts.

Sunday Burritos

I made burritos for lunch because they are fast. Anthony often made them for Sunday lunch after church when we were dating. We just used canned beans then. This time I used pre-soaked and cooked dried beans. After pre-soaking the beans for 6-8 hours, and cooking them, they were still not soft the way we like them. Anthony said something about that you have to cook them for 6-8 hours after soaking them 6-8 hours. Wow. Until I do all that, given the electric bill after such an extensive process, I wonder if it would be cheaper to just buy canned beans . . . Or, I suppose I could get a pressure cooker . . . 

Freezer Burned Flavored Burritos

eh, presentation was better than taste on these. i think the whole-wheat tortillas had been in the freezer too long. lol. freezer-burn . . . cough, cough.

pizza tonight?

When we got home from church, Anthony and I were both hungry. We fed the baby. Then I made pizza. We didn't have tomatoes, tomato sauce or anything like that on hand. What we did have were some herbs and nuts. I googled "parsley pesto recipe" and found Food Network's Parsley Pesto. I thought I could work with that . . .

I threw/dumped the typical pizza crust ingredients into the bread machine. I got all my ingredients and equipment out for the pesto. I even had my mini food processor plugged in the wall. Then I remembered how much food processors terrify baby Shastya. She had just been painstakingly rocked to precious sleep by my dear husband Anthony. I was not about to wake her by turning the food processor on. Instead, I turned on a little plan B: knife and cutting board. My pesto did not exactly become sauce.

After finishing my pesto project I proceeded to add a couple secret ingredients to our dinner: ghee and hing. I added hing to the pesto, and I greased my pie plate with ghee. I didn't put mozzarella on top because I hadn't set the mozzarella out to thaw. I just went with the parmesan from the sabotaged pesto for my cheese.

My dough did not rise. We had a very dense herb pie. Surprisingly, I liked it. I'm looking forward to having some of the leftovers for lunches. Food stories . . . that all really happened . . .

world clash sandwich

Bitter and heated, hardcore . . . this sandwich almost tastes similar to a reuben, but it is not that. Made up of two thick pancakes, thin sliced roast beef, monterey jack cheese with jalapenos, and ginger paste, this pungent sandwich will wake you up! You won't know if you'll want another one. But then there you'll go, you'll make another one. Some day.

peppers, curds, and dumplings

Anthony asked if I could make noodles tonight. I looked for a good recipe, but didn't find one right away, so I just winged it since it was time to make supper. I used flour and water for my noodles that were actually more like dumplings. We are thinking about getting a KitchenAid Pasta Roller so we can actually make noodles instead of dumplings!

I also created a sauce to go with the noodles. I was careful to cook my peppers and tomatoes before adding yogurt hoping that the yogurt would not curdle. I was so pleased that the yogurt did not curdle when I added it to my sauce. I kept my sauce on low heat once I added the yogurt. Before I could serve up dinner, the yogurt curdled. I was disappointed. I'm wondering what made the yogurt curdle. I added black pepper and nutmeg near the end. Not sure if possibly the nutmeg could have caused some reaction. I know in Indian curries, spices are cooked first, onion and tomatoes are then added, finally yogurt is added (probably to prevent it from curdling). I will have to do some research. Dinner was still good, and Anthony even got seconds.

Corncakes Take 2

So unlike "Take 1" where I made scrambled cornbread, I figured out this time that corncakes must have sugar and oil in them: sugar, so they won't taste like sandpaper, and oil, so the batter doesn't separate. But other than that, this endeavor was not a waste of time or resources. I'll save all these fixings for later. Maybe I can recycle them to create a kitchen masterpiece! I'm thinking I can crumble them and use them as bread crumbs in meatballs, or breaded/fried something or other. The possibilities are endless. I'm also contemplating checking out a corncakes recipe, or calling my Gramma and asking for the specifics for her amazing recipe! Or maybe I'll keep working on my own secret cornbread recipe.

Garam Masala Waffles With Red Lentils Curry Sauce & Raita

This is a meal of interest to say the least. Who makes waffles with lentils on top? The idea came to me this afternoon. By dinner time we had already eaten garam masala waffles with red curry sauce and raita. I got my recipe for red lentils from allrecipes. I got my recipe for raita from My Indian Recipes. I used Publix Buttermilk Pancake & Waffle Mix for my waffles, and then added 1 teaspoon of garam masala to my two cups of batter. The result was unusual and good. My husband prefers the red lentils over sticky rice instead of red lentils over waffles or basmati rice. He thought his waffles became slightly soggy. I said syrup would have made them the same way. He agreed the meal was not bad.

Upon surfing the web to see if anyone else had made garam masala waffles I saw a couple recipes that looked good: Garam Masala Spiced Chicken & Waffle, and Garam Masala Waffles With Chocolate Chips.