Cauliflower Crust Pizza

When the internet told me that you can make a pizza crust using solely cauliflower, an egg, and some cheese, I was skeptical. But I am trying gluten-free cooking, so why not! The recipe I used comes from The Lucky Penny and claims to be the BEST cauliflower crust ever. 

The hardest part was chopping up the cauliflower and putting it in the food processor. It wasn't really that hard, just messy. And I was excited to learn that I have a food processor in my new house! 

You basically grind up the cauliflower, microwave it, then squeeze it in a towel to get the extra liquid out. Seems complicated, but it's not. 

I actually followed her recipe exactly and it came out great! 

You pre-bake the crust for like 10 minutes, then put your toppings on.

It was a little chewy and held together great. The dried herbs in the crust really made it amazing. I have been requested to make it once a week from now on! We even agreed that it was better than the regular flour crust we bought from Trader Joe's.

CAULIFLOWER! Who knew? 

June Day BBQ

It's that time again...PARTY!

This time the weather was nice so we decided to have a BBQ, vegetarian of course!  The (facebook) invitations were set, the calendars marked and the planning began.  S. really wanted veggie kabobs and I wanted corn.  We also decided to get some veggie burgers and iced tea!  Luckily our boss took us to Costco the week before so we stocked up on Boca Burgers, cheese, contact solution and other necessities.

The day of the party S. and I got started on making the veggie kabobs.

It was a long process but we did manage to throw our porch table down into the yard and V. helped us take the silk out of the corn.

Soon guests were arriving, beer and watermelon in hand.

Right as we were about to try and light the grill D. walked in and, since he is evidently some sort of West Coast BBQ god, took over the cooking.  S. and I played sous chef for a while grabbing foil, matches and spices but all of the cooking was kindly taken over by D. and J.  

Iced tea was drank out of jars and we even made s'mores, treating M. to his FIRST EVER S'MORE in the process.  

 

After eating most of the group moved towards playing wiffle ball, frisbee or trying to learn to skateboard.

Some of us still have wounds healing from the latter.  Towards the end of the night a guitar emerged and I could feel the JP hipster-ness oozing from our yard.

Party complete!

-N.

My Thai Vegan Cafe

 We have always wanted to go to this vegan place in Chinatown and we finally did! It was about a month ago, but blogging is hard to do.

Everything is vegan, and the menu is huge. They have a lot of fake meat stuff, which is not really our thing but I guess it would be good for some people.

We went after work and it was deserted.

G. ordered a giant slice of chocolate cake. The waiter brought 3 forks, as if he were going to share with us. Nope. 

 I got crispy triangles and bubble tea. They were ok, but I wish there were more vegetables inside.

N. got some sort of curried noodles. She says they were good but she doesn't really remember.

The bubble tea was the best part! Not sure if I would go again since most normal Chinese restaurants have enough vegetarian stuff already.

Orange Marmalade Ice Cream

No words necessary.

-N.

Restaurant Review: The Real Deal

I bought a Living Social to The Real Deal a while ago!  It was $15 for $30 worth of food, a fact I had forgotten when P. and I decided to go try it out.  When we arrived I actually looked at the deal and we began compiling what we were going to order.

The menu at The Real Deal is extensive.  SO MANY OPTIONS.  P. and I had to go sit down to formulate our plan:

• The Zombie Burger (P.)
• Carmela Soprano (Me)
• Spicy Curly Fries
• Mozzarella Sticks

We placed our order and asked what our total was.  $26!  In a pinch we added on two cupcakes, chocolate cake with white icing for me and chocolate on chocolate for P.!

When our food was ready we brought it back to the table and stared at it in amazement.

S. insists that the curly fries here are the best, and since the grease was already soaking through the bag it seemed promising.

This shot shows almost all of the food, you can see the cupcakes in the plastic container.

P. and I focused our energy on the fried foods as they tend to not heat up well.  We polished off the mozzarella sticks with only a little trouble and ate a decent amount of fries although both of us only took about two bites of our paninis/burgers.

We then walked the leftovers home and ate the cupcakes.  They were GOOD!  Like really good, surprisingly tasty!

The next morning I used S.'s cast iron panini press to warm up my sandwich and stuck the remaining curly fries in the toaster oven topped with BBQ sauce.  I would say that the food was even better left over.  Initially I hadn't been too taken with my Carmela Soprano but reheated it was delicious!

Overall I would definitely return to The Real Deal.  I'd love to try their pizza and would definitely reorder the Carmela Soprano if only to let it sit in the fridge for a day before eating.  If I saw another Living Social I'd buy it but then bring maybe 5 people versus only P. so that we don't have to look like such pigs!

-N.

S.'s Birthday!

That's right I finally turned 23 18. So young! 

Friday night we had a ragin' party at our house. We made cupcakes with Bailey's frosting and a chocolate trifle. 

N. made me a brownie peanut butter cake! Which I ended up baking 2 days after the batter was made because our oven was broken for a while, then N. had to work. But she did this awesome frosting job when she got home!

Our friends also brought candy, more cupcakes, and a whole lot of liquor. There was also a cantaloupe filled with vodka and a bowl of jello. We have great friends. I think roughly 20 people showed up throughout the night.

The next morning, N., G., Z. and I went to Sorella's for breakfast. They have the best pancakes. N. never orders pancakes and then she is disappointed. When will she learn? Mine had chocolate chips, granola, and nuts.

After breakfast we watched Extreme Couponing then took a nap.

Later that night we went to the new Harpoon beer hall. It was larger and more crowded than expected, but they had the best pretzels EVER.

The night ended at New York Pizza, as all good nights should. We got there 5 minutes before closing and the place was a madhouse! When we left, one of the employees was physically blocking the door to keep people from coming in, and some girls outside were begging him for pizza. 

I certainly did not fall off my bike on the way home or do anything embarrassing...

Banana Bread

For some reason I decided Thursday was the perfect day to make a ton of banana bread.  Don't ask me why, maybe it was because it'd been a frustrating day at work and S. was out of town and I love banana bread, but either way I soon found 8 disgustingly soggy defrosting ripe bananas on my kitchen table.

So I had to move quick.  We were out of eggs but from my search on egg replacers a day earlier I knew my plain yogurt should be a good replacement so I searched for some recipes and came across this!  My mom also gave me her delicious Banana Snack Cake recipe so I decided to try and make an egg-less version of that as well.  Finally my plan was to make these because I had a weird idea that I needed to use up all the bananas RIGHT NOW!

I put P!NK on repeat, started singing and began baking.  It was actually one of my cleaner baking experiences.  I used two bowls, one for the dry ingredients and one for melting the butter and for the wet ingredients and then reused them from recipe to recipe!  I think I'm finally learning.  I did forget to take pictures though, so that's a slow process.

First I made the Eggless Banana Bread subbing out plain non-fat yogurt for the applesauce, doubling the vanilla extract and with dried cranberries!  Into the oven that went.

Next up was my mom's Banana Snack Cake (see below).  Yogurt for eggs and with chocolate chips and crushed walnuts.  I failed to read that I should press the nuts on top and instead mixed them in with everything.

I then realized that I didn't have enough oats for Sally's Peanut Butter Banana Oat Bars.  Let's be honest, it's a good thing.  I put the remaining 2 bananas back in the freezer.

Unfortunately I think our oven might be broken because both recipes took forever to bake and I ended up turning it up to 400 since it didn't feel hot.

After a while a toothpick came out clean and I went to bed!  Who wants banana bread?

Banana Snack Cake

Eggless Banana Bread with Cranberries

---

Banana Snack Cake

(Mom’s Recipe)

Ingredients

            1 cup softened margarine or butter

            1 cup sugar

            2 eggs

            1 cup buttermilk (or 1 cup milk with 1 Tbs vinegar)

            4 mashed medium bananas

            1 tsp vanilla extract

            2 cups flour

            1 cup quick-rolled oats

            1 1/2 tsp baking soda

            1/2 tsp salt

            6 oz. chocolate chips

            1/2 cups chopped pecans (or a different type of nut)

Directions

            1. Preheat oven to 350⁰F

            2. In a large mixing bowl cream butter and sugar together with a mixer until fluffy.

            3. Mix in eggs

            4. Stir in buttermilk and vanilla, mixing well

            5. In a separate bowl, stir flour, oats, soda and salt to mix

            6. Gradually stir flour mixture into butter mixture; mix well

            7. Stir in bananas

            8. Spread in a greased 9” x 13” baking pan

            9. Sprinkle nuts on top and press lightly

            10. Bake for 30-35 minutes

Mini Quiche!

Day off!  Today I decided to go to the annual meeting of the Boston Area Gleaners, an AWESOME organization I interned for in 2011-2012.  They were having a potluck so I spent some time thinking about what I should bring.  Originally I was planning on making Peanut Rice, this rice/peanut butter/veggies/hoisin sauce thing I made for our last potluck but I didn't make it to the store to get the necessary veggies.  I'm also running low on peanut butter.

Then I thought I'd just beef up the chickpea salad I have in the fridge.  But I thought that was kinda weird, giving people something I'd made a while ago and just dumped another can of chickpeas into.

Then I thought a baked good.  And then I decided a quiche!  I do have plenty of eggs after all.  But I realized I'm biking there, how will I carry a pie pan without putting it vertically?  Luckily the internet exists and I soon learned about these.

The above describes basically how my mind works.

Alas, no crescent rolls in the house and no time to make a crust!  Luckily we are 5 minutes away from a grocery store so I picked up a refrigerated crust and got to work.

Unfortunately my roommate and her boyfriend we're having a romantic omelet breakfast in the kitchen so I had to cook on the stove.  In the process I slightly melted my egg container from the heat of the oven.  But life goes on.

I made one muffin pan and 4 mini pie pans of quiche!  But I don't know how to tell if quiche is done so I had to get S. out of bed to help me.  She was not happy.  I gave her a quiche.

Overall I thought they were pretty tasty although I failed to follow the recipe (I was only half following it anyway) and didn't put any cheese on top, and omitted the mushrooms, and no feta...

3/13 De Facto Roommate Day

Another Wednesday off for me and S.!  We agreed to go for a lovely walk to Franklin Park rather than go to yoga.  Save $10 and get Vitamin D?  Sign me up.

From our studies of Google Maps we knew that Franklin Park was not far from our house, yet despite this knowledge we'd never gone there!  Today was a day of change.

On the walk we saw two abandoned shoes and a cool looking tree covered with crocheted mushrooms.  Once in the park we randomly chose a path, started walking and ended up stumbling upon a seemingly abandoned stone building.  Here we practiced our Parkour, did some sun salutations, talked about life and climbed a boulder.

We also 'muploaded' a few pics.  A new term that S. learned from her friend, supposedly it is short-hand for 'mobile upload.'  I have my doubts that it will catch on but nevertheless instagramed the following of S.

After we returned home S. made some of the best waffles ever and we headed off to Harvard Square.  There we visited a shoe store and Follow the Honey, a cute honey store on Mass Ave!  The kind lady there gave us samples from all over the world including a white honey from Hawaii that was amazing.  If I wanted to spend $32 on a small jar of honey that would be my choice.

A beautiful bike ride across the Mass Ave. bridge back into Boston completed our wonderful day!

Apple Turnovers

I went home to NH this weekend to do some good ole fashioned apple picking. I was going to make a pie but decided that turnovers would be more portable. Which is key, because I like to bring dessert with me everywhere.

I used the first recipe I found online, here. It was fairly straightforward, and the only thing I had to buy was the frozen puff pastry.

I somehow tricked N. into cutting up the apples for me. We used 4 large apples. I think they were Red Rome (I didn't pay much attention when I was picking because I was too busy shivering and eating other apples).

They made some funny noise while cooking. N. bravely investigated.

The fire alarm only went off once during cooking, which I would declare a success. I think it was actually just low on battery, so not my fault at all!

I glazed the tops with confectioners sugar mixed with vanilla almond milk. The glaze was delicious. I may have eaten 3 spoonfuls of it straight. Only feel a little sick now. N. and I split a turnover.

Lesson learned: Puff pastry is magical. I honestly think you could put anything in it and it would be good.


-S.

Ghazal Review

Groupon time!  $12 for $25?  Sign me up.

S and I walked over to Ghazal Indian Cuisine on Centre St. for a lovely Monday night dinner today.  I was very hungry and looking forward to some tasty food.

We were seated in the small restaurant with only 4 or so other tables, and promptly served water and those thin lentil cracker things.  I quickly began eating in hopes of filling up on the free stuff so I could take home more of the actual entree.  Unfortunately it didn't work.

Indecision struck again and we sent the waiter away a few times before actually having made our food choices.  We got Aloo Samosas for an appetizer, and ordered Shahi Aloo Gobhi and Aloo Chhole to share.  Have I mentioned we are both vegetarian?

The waiter tried to persuade us to get some naan,

"Have you had naan before?"

"Yes"

"And you don't want any?" 

I probably would have caved (I do love naan), but together we stayed strong and resisted.  There are cheaper sources of carbs than $3 for 2 pieces after all.

The food was good, but not excellent I'd say.  S's Shahi Aloo Gobhi had great spices with the cauliflower and potatoes, but both of wished it had been more saucy.  My Aloo Chhole was saucy and tasty but just didn't amaze us.  The Samosas were very good, but served on a weird bed of slightly dressed lettuce.

At the end I attempted to tell the waiter I'd brought one tupperware but we needed a few more.  But he insisted that he'd wrap it up nicely so that it would stay hot (??) so I stopped fussing and let him box our leftovers.  Not really sure what that was about, but our food made it home safely. (S: I think the waiter was just confused by the weird girl with tupperware in her purse)

Here are the boxed up 'hot' leftovers.

Overall, decent, but I probably wouldn't return unless another Groupon comes out, here's hoping!  On another note I have had their lunch buffet before and recall that it was quite a good deal and very tasty although the Mango Lassi seemed a little off.  But that was two years ago.

-N

La Summa

N and I got off work at the same time the other night, so we decided to go for a romantic dinner in the North End.

Although we had all day to think about it, we still hadn't decided where we wanted to go by the end of the day. We were both starving, and I really just wanted a cannoli. We ended up going to La Summa on Fleet Street, which had a much shorter line than all the restaurants on Hanover. We only had to wait about 15 minutes, and there was a bench to sit on! The hostess was very nice and gave us updates on the wait time as well.

The restaurant was pretty small, there was appropriate Italian music playing, white tablecloths, and candles. It was not too fancy though, there was a family near us with children and we ourselves were wearing dirty jeans [N: my jeans were NOT dirty!] and matching bike shops t-shirts.

The bread they gave us to start was ok. Nothing special, but we were hungry. Sadly, it was not warm. I ordered some sort of pasta in a cream sauce with sundried tomatoes. It was good, but I had hoped for more tomatoes. N got fettucchine alfredo with peas. She said it needed more peas (she is also oddly obsessed with peas). Price was reasonable for the area - we paid about $21 each.

Overall, it was a good experience. I would definitely recommend it. Would I go there again myself? Probably not, just because there are so many restaurants to try in the North End, and I really wish the bread had been warm...But the short wait and nice staff were a plus! And there were leftovers, which N added more peas to [N: Thanks for bringing them S!].

After dinner we swung by the shop and the crew was outside, just having closed. So we joined them and biked to the Sevens for a drink! My boss did not allow us to ride the tandem bicycle. We will have to work on convincing him to lend us one.

-S