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? 

What we're reading...Eating Animals

Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer

And it was great.

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.

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...

2 Ingredient Cookies!

I found this recipe, on Pinterest or something random, and it just seemed too good to be true. 

There are really only 2 ingredients!!!!

2 ripe bananas, and 1 cup of oats. Mash them together. Form cookies and bake at 350 degrees for about 15 minutes. 

 The best part was that I got to use up these oats that I got from the bulk bins at the grocery store. There was nothing wrong with them, but I realized that we use the exact same plastic containers at work, also filled with oats, to store the mealworms that we feed to the diving beetles and other insects. So that kind of ruined my appetite for them.

I also added chocolate chips to some, so technically 3 ingredients. 

And it WORKED! I liked the ones with the chocolate chips better than plain, but both kinds reminded me of banana bread. I even made another batch for a potluck and they all got eaten!

The easiest recipe ever. You should totally try it.

Friendsgiving!

We decided to have a Friendsgiving.  Thanksgiving is probably my favorite holiday, and what could be better than tons of food AND a ton of friends??  That's right, it was a success.

We invited about 15 people, and since we are amazing hosts, S. and I were soon counting our plates and getting a bit nervous.  As you can see above, we also had to employ some creative furniture in order to seat everyone together.  That is 2 tables, a couch and 14 chairs you see!

The process started with a little bit of cooking.  I made some pumpkin bread (while watching some tv of course) which was decent but I severely undercooked it, so only the first few pieces were edible.  In the future I will definitely not be basing my cooking time for loaves by a few measly muffins.  Beginners mistake.

I also made some baked sweet potatoes, which went nicely with S.'s baked squash!  We might be some sort of hidden orange household.

We opened a few bottles of wine...dug deep into our extensive mug collection, and even had a few freshly made waffles show up on our doorstop!

 Our tabletop was filled to the brim!  Let's see if I can recall it all...homemade bread, pasta with vodka sauce, cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, cranberry salsa, stuffing, green bean casserole, sweet potatoes, pumpkin pie, enchiladas, butternut squash, sweet potato bread, gluten free cupcakes, gingerbread cookies, eggnog waffles, pecan pie, chocolate chip cookies....is that it?  Best I can do.  AND, everything was DELICIOUS!

 S. really liked the pumpkin pie!

At the end of the night we were left with a sink full of dishes!

Party success #2.

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