Squash and fresh thyme pizza: just like Totino's!

No matter how committed you may be to a vegetarian, vegan, seasonal, organic, macro, you-name-it diet, you've got at least one guilty pleasure. And don't tell me it's brown rice. For me, it's mac and cheese. Not homemade. Not whole wheat. Not organic. The radioactive-orange/ made-with-twenty-ingredients-I-can't-pronounce Kraft kind. There's something oddly comforting about squeezing that orange goo all over those noodles, however revolting that might sound. Although I'm pretty successful at not eating anything straight from a box these days, I just love the stuff.

For my boyfriend, Andy, it's Totino's pizza. When he's had a rough day/night of work, he's wont to pick it up at the Snappy Mart up the street from his house. Although I've never tasted it myself, from what I hear, it's pure greasy gas station goodness. Totino's wikipedia page provides further enlightenment: in 2006, Totino's phased out the use of 100% real cheese on its pizzas, replacing it with a "combination of real and imitation cheeses," which led to criticism by the FDA over the new, doubled amount of saturated fat. We sure do love our processed cheese!
One Saturday a few weeks ago, I picked up whatever looked good at the farmer's market with the intention of figuring it out later: some baby yellow squashes, some fresh thyme, and some brussels sprouts. What I figured out was pizza: sauteed squash with a fresh thyme/lemon pesto and oozy, pungent Italian robiola cheese. I'm a bad blogger: I don't remember exactly what went in to the thyme pesto. I will tell you, though, that the lemon was key. It really brightened up the flavor.And, somehow, I made a pizza that Andy swore tasted uncannily like Totino's (except with real cheese.) Becuase Robiola is such a flavorful cheese, a little really went a long way. Apparently, thyme is the secret ingredient in their recipe and satisfied (at least for now) the gas station pizza craving. Success! We served it with some of Andy's seared brussels sprouts and some nice Spanish white wine. The minerality of this Velarde Blanco really complemented the herbal flavor of the thyme and brought out a nuttiness in the Robiola cheese that wasn't immediately apparent.

Your weeds are my salad

Spring is finally here in Austin, in all its rainy glory, and I ventured down to the market in shorts (!) and a T-shirt (!) this Saturday to pick up ingredients for a late Saturday night dinner. Fresh bunches of cilantro cropped up in nearly every stall, so I picked up a few to make a cilantro-almond pesto. It's the same basic proportions as the mint-pecan pesto I made a few weeks back. I love playing around with different herbs/greens/nuts to make totally different dishes.

Cilantro almond pesto:
2 cups packed cilantro
3/4 cup slivered almonds
3/4 cup olive oil
2 tbsp minced garlic
1 1/2 tbsp lime juice
parmesan cheese to taste (or leave it out for a vegan dish)

Whirl it around in your food processor (or use a mortar and pestle if you really rock) and there you go... fresh pesto to serve over...


Broiled tofu!
This is a work in process. Don't you just love the crispy deep-fried tofu they serve in restaurants? Yeah, me too. But I just can't bring myself to deep fry at home since, you know, I'm trying to be healthy (puts down ice cream spoon.) So broiling, if I can get it right, will produce that crispy, browned outer skin without all the excess oil.
I brushed the tofu with a mix of olive oil, lime juice, salt, and pepper and put it in for about 10 minutes on each side. It could have been a little moister, but it was still great. The experiments will continue!

My favorite part of the meal was the salad I served alongside the tofu steaks. I'd eaten ricotta and dandelion green ravioli at Mozza in L.A., and I liked their slightly bitter taste. And here they were at the market! Although most people consider them weeds, dandelion greens are very detoxifying and have similar nutrition to other leafy greens (lots of A, C, and iron.) I turned to this recipe to make a lovely salad with dried figs and pine nuts. Beware, though! Dandelion greens are prickly... wear gloves when you de-stem and chop them! As a vegetarian, I need all the leafy greens I can get in my diet, and these were great.