MEXI BOWLS
Cool, right?
I got to thinking that as much as I love corn, and corn tacos, and whole wheat tortillas and all that jazz, there was an element missing.
Okay, I’ll be honest, I was in the mood for pizza and mexican, and didn’t know what to do about it. I couldn’t make tacos AND pizza, could I?
Insert Mexi Bowls.
I took a simple dough recipe, and made cute little bowls.
Alright. I lied. I folded the edges of my pizza dough up and it kinda resembled a bowl. Same thing.
Anyway, I took all of my fav taco toppings, made a quick chipotle/tomato sauce, and baked these giant mexi bowls for the perfect combination of deliciousness and gluttony. And no regrets.
While this recipe can easily take on any ingredients, based on your own preferences, I will share with you what I made, and let you decide what creation you’re going to whip up.
Ingredients:
1/2 pack, Ground Round (Yves)
1/2 Cup, Corn
1/2 Green pepper, chopped
1/4 small onion, chopped
1 Avocado
1/2 small jar, Artichokes
Shredded Cheese
1/2 glass jar, strained tomatoes
2 heaping T, tomato paste
1-2 T, Chipotle (depending on your heat tolerance)
Paprika & Oil
Dough:
4 cups of white sifted flour
1 1/2 cups, plus 2 tbsp of water
2 tsp of salt
1/2 tsp of dry active yeast
1t honey
Mix all ingredients by hand until dough forms.
Leave for 1.5 hours, covered. Once done, make into smaller balls (one one large one if you want a giant pizza) and let rest for another 30.
Directions:
Make the dough above.
Heat the ground round with onion, green pepper and corn, on medium heat unitl cooked, maybe 6-8 minutes.
Mix together Tomato and Chipotle (this will be your sauce).
Chop remaining ingredients (again, you can use whatever you’d like)
Mix together about 1/2T of paprika and 2T of Olive oil, to spread along the outside of your bowl.
Roll out your dough into small singe serving pizza doughs (about a med) and add your sauce, 1/2 the cheese, ground round mix, the toppings, saving some cheese for later.
Leave about 1n inch of dough around the edges and fold it up, around your mix.
Remember, this is a giant bowl of delicious food, so don’t skimp out.
When the edges are folded up, press them tightly against the toppings so it doesn’t move.
Brush the outside with your oil and paprika and toss in the oven at 400 for 20-30 minutes. Add the remaining cheese during the last few minutes.
I’m so thankful I made these. You will be too.
Comfort Pizza
Sometimes you want must have comfort food.
So today I made my famous homemade crust but included garlic & rosemary in the recipe, which ended up yielding an amazing dough.
I then whipped up a steamed seitan and added it to my za along with artichokes, green pepper, and cheese.
Also, instead of stuffing my crust with cheese, I just rolled it over onto sauce, which added extra flavour at the end of each slice. It was also brushed with oil so it was kinda the best.
It’s Perfect for this Sunday.
Pizza Rolls
I’ve discussed this recipe with quite a few people and from what I’ve heard so far, my childhood was very unique (for those of you who know me, this comes as no surprise).
Allow me to explain…
When I was growing up, we used to frequent the snack bar at the local Rec Centre.
Whether we were swimming, skating, playing pick-up soccer, or just hanging out; we always hit up the tiny hole-in-the-wall for candies, drinks and finger foods.
One of the best snacks they offered was Pizza Rolls. Think about an egg roll, but with a Pizza stuffing. They were my fav snack. This is, until they mysteriously stopped selling them. And I never would have thought that it would be upwards of 15 years before I remembered they even existed.
I have this blog post to thank for sparking my memory - and I immediately started to write a new recipe for these delicious appetizers/snacks.
Now, most people I’ve talked to have never even heard of these things.
And to you I say, “you’re missing out.”
Maybe your snack bar only served french fries or pretzels, but until you have these - you haven’t lived.
Spend a couple minutes putting these bad-ass apps together. You need hardly any ingredients, and they’re much better than those pizza pops you buy at the grocery store.
Side note: I can’t believe i’m posting ANOTHER pizza recipe. I might have a problem.
Ingredients:
Whip up the sauce from this recipe.
One package of Wonton/Egg Roll wrappers
Grated cheese
2 cloves, Garlic, minced
One package, no-meat-balls, from Yves
1/2 of one Red pepper, chopped
1-2 tbls, cornmeal
olive oil
water
Directions:
Prepare sauce. Set aside.
Heat oil in skillet.
Add garlic, Yves no-meat-balls, and pepper
Once cooked, add sauce and stir together. Set aside.
Spoon mix on to middle on wrapper. Sprinkle with cheese.
Add 1-2 tbls, cornmeal to bowl, add water.
Brush edges of wrapper with water/cornmeal.
Wrap using these directions.
Place on non-stick baking tray (or spray tray), and bake for 20 mins at 375º.
Friends. When you need a quick snack, a Sunday afternoon platter, or an easy dish for your next pot-luck, perhaps you should try these. You really can’t go wrong. And people love them. Just like they will love you for bringing them. Trust.
Dave.
CHARCOAL + MAPLE-WOOD SMOKED PIZZA
Yes. I get it. Every second post has something to do with pizza.
I should have called my blog “Pizza Love Affair” - but I didn’t. So you get to deal with all of the different ways I try and create my fav food.
Luckily, I’m at a cottage and have a sweet charcoal bbq at my disposal, meaning I’m cooking pizza on that bad boy. Fire FTW!
I know you’ll be near a BBQ sooner or later, so bookmark this one for later. Your friends will thank you.
Oh, and if you don’t want to bbq it, just use this recipe to make dough and sauce from scratch. Easy peasy.
Dough:
4 cups of white sifted flour
1 1/2 cups, plus 2 tbsp of water
2 tsp of salt
1/2 tsp of dry active yeast
Mix all ingredients by hand until dough forms.
Leave for 1.5 hours, covered. Once done, make into smaller balls (one one large one if you want a giant pizza) and let rest for another 30.
While this is going on…
Sauce:
6 Roma tomatoes, diced
1/2 cup of tomato puree
1/2 white onion, diced
2 cloves of garlic
2 bay leaves
1 tbsp of smoked paprika
1 tbsp of ground pepper
1 tsp of salt
2 tsp of chilli flakes
1 tsp of marjoram
1 tsp of sage
2 tbsp of italian blend herb paste (contains basil, oregano, rosemary, and thyme)
Sauté onions and garlic until soft. Add the tomatoes and tomato puree and cook until soft. Add all the spices and stir. Use a hand blender or standard blender to mix all ingredients. Then heat on medium low to allow sauce to thicken (the key difference between pizza and pasta sauce is that pizza sauce is much thicker).
Once the dough has risen, roll out into whatever size you’d like your pizza to be, remembering to use a little bit of flour on the bottom so it doesn’t stick. Also, make sure you toss it in the air at least once, or else. I know you want to do it, and anyone that tells you not to, should be kicked out of your kitchen. Immediately.
Now for the fun part.
Toppings:
We used spinach, onion, sundered tomato, mushrooms, smoked tofu and red peppers. But you can obviously use whatever you’d like.
On our bbq, we warmed the charcoals and added small pieces of maple to really get a smokey flavour. This is unlike any pizza you will ever have in your life. The smokiness really punctuates all of the different toppings we chose and gave our crust a nice finish.
Some tips, if you do use a bbq:
- Wrap your pizza sheet in tinfoil, and expect that you may have to throw it away after this experiment. We definitely ruined our pan.
- Do not build a normal fire. Build a very small, modest flame. We also burnt our first pie because of this.
- Do not put the lid on until the end. If you do, the top will cook much faster than the bottom, and nobody like an uncooked crust (or burnt toppings).
- Try not to consume too much alcohol while doing this. It does make it much more entertaining but you get sloppy. See the points above.
Next up, we’re making breakfast burritos with some quinoa.
Heck ya, Cottage Life.
Oh, and Jer (the dude who came up with this great idea), finally started his blog.
Dave
To The Cottage we go!
I’m getting out of Toronto for the weekend.
My iPod is full, my onesie is packed, and my grocery list has been written. First stop, the Beer Store.
Over the next 2 days, I’m going to be in the great white North (errrr, Northeast), cooking up a storm. You can expect some great recipes and pics.
I’ll be doing some live tweeting (follow me here) and of course, updating this tumblr as I go. Oh, and if you’re on Instagram (or want to see my picks), you can follow me at DAVELOCKAB, or just click here.
Feel free to pop in at any time - or wait until I get back and get it all first hand.
Rough Outline of the Recipes for this weekend:
Quinoa Breakfast Wraps
BBQ Charcoal Pizza
Kale Chips
other…..?
Have a great weekend, y’all.
PIZZA POPS (FOR THE WIN)!
So, I admit it.
One of my many guilty pleasures is Pizza (shock).
But when I’m really lazy and nobody is watching, I sometimes indulge in Pizza Pops.
What’s it to ya?
Of course, I can’t eat them alllllll the time, so I had to get creative and make them at home. From scratch? No. But you could, if you wanted.
Make this. Freeze this. Eat this when the time is right.
Ingredients:
One store bought pizza dough
One can Pizza Sauce
Cheese
Avocado
Spinach
Oil
Flour
Directions:
Break dough into 4 small balls, roll out on counter with a touch of flour.
Slightly oil the outside inch of dough.
Spoon out a heap of sauce and spread out, leaving a small area around the edges.
Add ingredients to one half (you want to pack it, but not too much). I suggest using a ton of cheese, but place it closer to the middle.
Fold over dough. Press together with a fork.
Bake at 375 in oven until crispy. Likely 10-15 minutes or so.
Use remaining sauce as a dip.
I made 8 of these suckers and froze 6 of them. They didn’t last a week.
Also, if you ever have friends over and need to feed them at 3am, this is a fun, healthy (sorta) snack that science says creates smiles.
Dave
Spinach Pesto!
This perfect pesto is great on everything! Pizza, sandwiches, mixed into pasta sauces, on crackers and anything else you can think of. This also takes no time at all.
Ingredients:
2 cloves of garlic
1 cup fresh basil
2 cups fresh spinach
1/4 cup pine nuts
1/2 cup olive oil
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
splash of lemon juice (optional)
Directions:
Add all ingredients to a blender or food processor until smooth and refrigerate in a tightly sealed container. I use le Magic Bullet which is the best for sauces and spreads, plus the lids have a great seal for the attachment cups.
Note:
For the pizza above, we simply warmed flat bread in the oven with
olive oil and spices, added the pesto, topped with ground TVP,
daiya cheese and grn pepper. Voila.
Dave.
