Well, we all know about leftovers. But my leftover were pretty bizarre this year. So here’s a Pizza Recipe you can do any day of the week, leftovers or not!
This is a variation of a brilliant pizza I ate at Whole Foods in La Jolla last week. If it suits you feel free to pass and and all of the blogs from the last week regarding recipes and concepts for holiday food! You can ‘like’ me, if you like. lol
The day before Thanksgiving, I stopped by Whole Foods. I asked for a small container of a special holiday crumble topping: pizza crust, granola, and a crumble sort of texture, making it similar but healthier than the normal crumble that goes onto of apple pie. I took that home and waited days, before I had a chance to use it. Today, I created a cheese pizza. I layered on leftovers…. the cranberry dressing that has a kick of red hot chili pepper, and the crumble on top.
Want to see what I got?
YES CHEF!
Voila.
Now this is a good idea for turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce and whatever veggies are left. You can also do a vegan pie… no cheese and just the veggie leftovers.
So I cooked Tofurkey for my daughter and future son-in-law for Thanksgiving. There were incredible dishes created: First, and the most amazing, a vegetable broth which I used to cook EVERYTHING in. It was like: “Everyone into the pool”! lol Broccoli, cauliflower, onions and finally the quinoa. So, when I needed to puree potatoes, I added some of the liquid from that. When I needed to steam anything? I used that same liquid. And the end game of that dish, the Quinoa grabbed up what little liquid was left, it also came out as a good side dish.
Here’s some other recipe concepts: organic sweet potatoes (cooked fresh then I used a ricer to squeeze the cooked potato out) with cinnamon, nutmeg, salt and pepper topped with vegan marshmallows; roasted pumpkin (simply made with salt, pepper, cinnamon and nutmeg), pumpkin seeds seasoned with oil and adobo spice, organic potato smashed with roasted garlic, rosemary, sage, salt, pepper; this cranberry compote that has orange zest and red chili in it; tofurkey, stuffing and gravy, pureed and solid Cauliflower – I took both white and orange and cooked them separately, pureed them separately, then in small ramekins or individual portioned totally round bowls, I layered first the white cauliflower and then on the top, so that you can still see white on the bottom, piped some orange cauliflower to top it. And it was important to add some of that vegetable broth that vegetables had actually been cooked in, to the white cauliflower, because the bottom was thinner, and you got different textures. I also had left over ‘in tact’ orange cauliflower, which actually turned yellow after being cooked, to serve as well.
Normally, I don’t like cauliflower, but I think when you steam it in ‘doctored’ vegetable broth, and use salt and pepper, nothing gets in the way of that roasted flavor that comes out of the oven, 20 minutes later. I also did three different kinds of mushrooms (bottom of picture) sautéed with onion and deglazed with balsamic vinegar. Oh yes, we also roasted some root vegetables too.
WHAT ABOUT DESSERT CHEF?
I knew I couldn’t get past you without talking about dessert. ha! Well, I picked up a Vegan Apple Pie from Whole Foods – delish! Some Maca Balls (also very good) and I made the Rice Krispie Treat I talked about a couple of blogs ago. The vegan marshmallows (sweet) balances the savory tamari pumpkin seeds, plus everything in between (4 different kinds of cereals plus raw flax crackers with currants crunched up) made it the dessert of the evening! YUM!
Hope you and yours had a good one.
Happy Eating,
Chef Marian