Pomegranate pizza

 

This is pomegranate pizza, based on a recipe from Classic Vegetarian Cooking from the Middle East and North Africa by Habeeb Salloum. (Hey, you can look inside this book on Amazon and find the recipe by searching for -- you guessed it -- pomegranate pizza.)

I cheated by spreading the topping on pita breads and throwing them under the grill (=broiler) -- you would too if you were making this on a day that was close to 40 C in a house without air conditioning. Also I didn't have any green onions, and used grated Cheezly mozzarella rather than feta. I like the way that the cheese is mixed into the sauce in this recipe -- it kind of sneaks up on you.

Pomegranate seeds are still something of a 'what the hell do I do with these?' ingredient for me. That this recipe worked out so well was a pleasant surprise.

Salt

Recently I found myself wondering why the vegan margarine here tastes like nothing. I miss Earth Balance so much! Turns out it's probably the salt: Earth Balance has 2.5 times the salt of the Australian margarine (per 100g, EB has 857mg salt. The margarine we get here has 340mg).

Then I realised that this could be the reason that peanut butter here is also terrible. Yep: the Aussie version has about half the salt of the American one (650mg per 100g, vs 1250 mg*).

This is how I came to be sprinkling salt on my peanut butter sandwich. It was delicious!

photo from:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/selva/ / CC BY-NC 2.0

--------------------------------
* UPDATE: This can't be right. These numbers look much too high and the American one in particular is unbelievable. According to this link, the American PB we ate has only 281mg per 100g, and our current Australian brand has 375mg. So maybe Australian PB is terrible for some other reason. Probably part of the problem is that I haven't been able to find a PB here that just contains peanuts and salt. All the regular brands have additional oil and sugar, and the hippie brands contain peanuts only, no salt.

Croissants

I don't know what possessed me, but I decided that it is totally unfair that vegans miss out on croissants, and that this injustice needed to be rectified, at least for the resident vegan.

I used this recipe, except I used atta flour (only because we have completely run out of white flour). Oh, and my folding technique was a little idiosyncratic (I consulted a few different recipes on this, and it turns out that understanding written instructions on how to make laminated pastry is not my strong suit. I wish they would draw pictures instead!).

The croissants smelled spot on, and they tasted pretty good but they didn't turn out flaky. The texture inside was more like an airy brioche. I guess I didn't chill the dough enough between foldings. Oh well.

The most important part: they conveyed this stuff to our mouths perfectly.

We do eat things other than pizza sometimes

Here you see two pizzas: the first is potato with rosemary and garlic infused oil, and the second is topped with sauteed mushrooms and onions cooked in oatly cream. These were terrific.

 

Brownies

Apparently I make brownies once a year, in February. This year's brownie recipe is a new one to me: the best vegan brownies via mostly foodstuffs. The gimmick here is that these contain melted vegan ice cream. Specifically you want a vegan ice cream that has added food gums and things to help with the texture.

I was a bit worried that the ice cream we had (So Good Vanilla Bliss) might not work because it's quite low fat, but these were really great brownies: chewy and candylike on the edges, and fudgy in the middle. Waiting an hour for them to cool down was quite an achievement. I think it might be less than a year before I make these again.

More pizza

Despite looking kind of scary, this pizza was really good: Brussels sprouts, smoked paprika, garlic, and mozzarella Cheezly. (Inspired by the Brussels sprouts pizza at Motorino.) I tore the sprouts' leaves off and briefly steamed them before putting them on the pizza. Although they look overdone, they tasted good (quite like kale chips).

And this abomination was especially for R: a Hawaiian pizza with caramelized onions. I wouldn't put pineapple on a pizza for anyone else.

Okra curry and pizza

Exhibit A: A Goan style okra curry from 660 Curries -- the okra is cooked in a cashew sauce with vinegar. This kind of tangy curry was new to me, and I liked it. (The cashews could have done with being ground a bit finer, but that was the best my stupid mini-food processor could do. Once I find a coffee grinder that costs less than $50, I'm making this again. And yes, about $50 is the going price for a bottom of the range coffee grinder in Australia, if you can believe it.) (Also shown here: chana masala.)

 

Exhibit B: Pizza topped with leftover okra curry, caramelized onions, and mozzarella style Cheezly. I hesitated briefly before putting the cheese on top of this pizza, but it worked.