Turkey-pepperoni pizza party!

Mmm... I was quite pleased with the results of this last pizza! One thing that I love is that I found turkey pepperoni here!!! I LOVE that as a pizza topping....
In any case this time I also got the crust really close to how I like it, still with using a higher-protein fuller-grain blend of flours. The dough had a mix of whole-wheat flour and here what is called "Ruchmehl" which is a darker high-protein flour, which I think helped also with some extra kneading to get a good stretchy dough that can get thin and crispier. Did a bit extra yeast in it than normal, a drizzle of olive oil, some sugar&salt, and for the liquids did half milk and half water. I pre-baked it for a couple min at 300 C go relaly develop the crispier bottom.. And then with a thin bit of sauce, chopped artichoke hearts, onions, bell peppers, quarter-fat mozzarella (salted, then it tastes more normal :P) , a sprinkling of a sharper cheese I had(i find that just a little bit of somehting sharp and flavorful really compensats for a lower-flavor low-fat mozzarella), and the beloved pepperoni... Finally resulted in a pizza near to my ideal home-pizza preference...Next time will definitely get mushrooms too which are another fav topping! .. and it was a lovely balcony meal in the sunset --->

Smooth veggie soup with a side of Wasabi-garlic Broccoli!

This may not look quite as inspiring just as an orange soup, but I promis it was surprisingly delicous! Inspired by which veggies happened to have escaped consumption during the day...
ie:
cauliflower
some sweet red peppers (bell peppers, or the long-pointy sweet red ones)
remains of a clump of celery
onions
(the second time I also added in a big fat white zucchini)

Cooking it:
heat a few tbsp extra virgin olive oil in a big pot (don't worry, it's the only fats goign into this soup, so be generous enough with 4-5Tbsp to coat the bottom), and toss in 2-3 onions diced, and about 4-5 stalks of celery also diced small. Over medium heat let them cook till tender, stirring to ensure none burn. Then trim the base of the head of cauliflower, and chop slice the whole head up, giving fairly thin pieces of the veggie. Toss into the pot and mix that up. Season with a tidbit of salt, (later will add boullion-water or chicken broth, which is salty, so not too much). Then still over medium heat, I poured in 1 c white wine over this, and let the alcohol steam off, and it cooked down until barely any liquid visible at the bottom. Then toss over the chopped sweet red peppers (3 in my case). Then pour in a good 2 cups of chicken broth over it-- enough to reach the top of the veggies. And about 1-2 tsp of dried thyme, 1 tsp ground pepper, and 1tsp garlic powder. I let that stew covered over medium-low heat for about 30 min-- or to the point that the cauliflower is very soft, so that if you stab it with a fork it'll break apart rathe than stay on the fork. Pour the whole soup slop into a blender and puree on high speed until very smooth--a few minutes. Really when you leave it in a bit longer, the cauliflower clumpy texture goes away and blends it into a really smooth soft soup.

I think the highly-blended cauliflower makes the soup a bit creamy, or as though there were a potato puree in it, except, cauliflower is wayy less caloric than potato to get the same effect ( 23 Calories per 100 g cauliflower, versus 87 Calories per 100 g in potatos which is prettymuch all more starches)

The whole meal... (nicely outlined by my knives on the wall ! )

Both times i've done this soup, i've happene dto serve this on the side, too--
Wasabi-garlic broccoli (or cauliflower like tonight's version)

super easy--> steam the broccoli or cauliflower chunks, and in somehting you can vigorously mix/shake mix a few spoons of olive oil, a hefty dollop of wasabi paste, and some smashed roasted garlic cloves, salt and pepper, then when the broccoli's done, just toss in the sauce... just enough sauce to make a very light coating and that classic wasaib flare in the nostrils when enjoying it :)

Whole Wheat apricot Coffee Cake with almond crumble

Instructions:

Clean and cut out the pits of about 300-400g fresh apricots. Leaving the skins on, slice into small bite-size chunks and toss together in a bowl with 1 tablespoon of sugar

Using an electric mixer, add 2/3 c flour, 1/2 c ground almonds, 2/3 c sugar, and then beat in a mixture of oil and butter (all of either would really work, but I try to use more of the oil, preferrably a non-flavored olive oil to get some good fats in it rather than just saturated fat-butter---> so I put in 2 Tbsp butter and drizzled in just enough oil to bring it together to make the crumble topping) Then set this aside, and use the mixer to make the batter:

1/3-1/2 c oil, into a mixer (stand mixer is best!) and beat with 3/4 cup sugar, beat for several minutes on high, and should turn light and creamy-looking. Add 3 teaspoons of lemon juice. Sequentially add in four eggs, letting each fully beat in before adding the next. Then beat in one tablespoon of vanilla extract, and just a pinch of salt.
Sift together 2/3-3/4 c whole wheat flour and 1.5 tsp baking powder in another bowl, then beat it into the egg mixture quickly.

Pour half of mixture into a pan of about this size--> ( I used a 10" / 25cm diameter springform pan), preferrably non-stick :)

then distribute half of the chopped apricots over this 1-2cm thickness of batter, then pour over the rest of the batter covering the first layer of apricots. Then sprinkle over the second layer of apricots, and the crumble topping over on top of that.

Bake at 350 F/ 175 C for about 45-60 min...depends on your pan size/oven so use a toothpick in the middle to test when done (and the crumble on top around teh outside will maybe start to look like it's browning some. Mine took 50 min, and in the last few min I turned up the oven temp a bit more and it got the crumble topping just lightly golden-looking which I like..

The apricots get all nice and soft inside and have a really great tartness to balance out the sweet crumble... quite pleasantly surprised with the results on this one!

Bi-color Bell Pepper Soup

Soup fetish recently!
Among my recent soup dinners was this one:
The orange-side was 3 red bell peppers and one onion, finely chopped and cooked in 1Tbsp olive oil until soft, then a dash of hot red chili pepper powder, salt, pepper, and in this case a small dash of curry for an interesting twist on the flavor, and one clove of garlic crushed. Then add in 10-20mL white wine, cook off the alcohol (ie, when it sizzles down a bit, and no longer smell alcohol in the steam from it), then a good cup or two of chicken broth, and into the blender, pureed till smooth.

The green side was 2 green bell peppers, one onion, and 100 g of ocra, cooked the same, then with salt, pepper, one clove garlic crushed, and the 10-20 ml white wine again, and ~1c broth, also blended.

Pouring them smoothly and evenly into the bowl from either side at the same rate gets the nice clean divide down the middle.

And I found a nice basil cream very complementary to the soup (ie the swirl decor on top, using a good pouring-ladle) Made from heating a small amount of cream till steaming hot, then mixing in finely chopped basil and a pinch of salt, and lightly cooking to infuse with the basil flavor.

I'll have to do this one again soon... I'm getting hungry for it again writing about it now, after eating dinner and dessert ;)

Apple--Pecan Pie Trial!

Apple-Pecan Pie!
.... and a second mini one!
I need to do this one again and remember to standardize a recipe for it-- was one of those complete random spur-of-the-moment invention ones.... BUT here's the jest of it-- kind of a mix of a pecan pie and an apple pie :) Whole wheat crust, then layer in some thin-sliced apples (with the nutritious skins left on--it doesn't disturb the texture) and then a sprinkling of chopped pecans, then pour over just enough of an egg mix to cover the layer. For the egg mix, I blended 1/3-1/2 a pack of cream cheese with some brown sugar and a pinch of salt, vanilla, and 2-3 eggs, and a spoon of oil. Then repeat the layering till it reaches the top. Then I baked it at 170 C / 350 F for around 30 min till it started to golden-carmelize on top (and should have puffed up through to the middle due to the egg rising a bit) Then raised the temp to 200C to further golden the top, just for 5ish min...

With the right amount of egg-filling (analogous to pecan pie filling), it made just the right texture of holding together but moist/juicy, too... next time I make it i'll actually write down the portions of things that worked out right for it :) (Hopefully soon! Yum!)

Vanilla chai latte... the fast&easy way!

One quick post for tonight! I've gotten sadly out of habit of posting my bazillions of pics, so time to catch up soon!

...I always really liked getting vanilla chai lattes at cafes in the US... and here found a way to make them which tastes good and is very easy w/o a milk-steamer! Just microwave a cup of milk until steaming hot, brew the chai tea directly in the milk until you can tell it's gotten darkened/lightly tan with the tea, and then some flavorful raw sugar and a splash of vanilla extract, and to me it tastes like I had just paid 3 bucks for it at the cafe like the good ol days... :) this tends to be my pre-workout breakfast each morning!! With skim milk and not excessive sugar it's just enough to not feel heavy but enough energy to do my workout... and a delicious start to the day sipping my latte with a view of the lake on the train.... darn i'm spoiled!!