Frazzled

What can't a dinner of pizza and ice cream fix?

Three small clean-out-the-fridge pizzas (dough is whole wheat from the freezer at Whole Foods; cheese is Follow Your Heart mozzarella):

1. Sauerkraut, caramelized onions, ajvar. (This was my first time trying sauerkraut on a pizza and it won't be the last. This particular pizza could've done with a little something extra, though.)

2. Salsa, caramelized onions, cilantro.

3. Kalamatas, basil (from the freezer -- I threw in a bunch and it held up surprisingly well), caramelized onions.

Then almond and pecan ice cream (just so-so by itself, but much better with chocolate and peanut butter ganache and plantains).

Sympathy for the chef-testants

A while back, on Top Chef, there was a challenge involving nopales (cactus). A lot of the chefs seemed bewildered by this ingredient, which I thought was inexcusable. I mean, it's not that obscure. I'd never cooked with it myself, but still...

Today I finally understood. Cleaning nopales is tricky. It takes a while to scrape off all the needles and the little nodules, plus the whole time in the back of your mind there's this voice saying "I really really don't want to eat a cactus spine".

Apparently cactus is often boiled, but I used a technique from Rick Bayless's Mexican Kitchen: you roast the cactus at 375 F for about 20 minutes. Cactus is like okra: it gets slimy when wet, but this roasting technique eliminates the slime. Here's the cooked cactus:

I roughly followed the recipe in Bayless's book for roasted cactus salad (basically the roasted cactus is added to a tomato-chile-onion-cilantro salsa).

I think if you like okra, there's a good chance you might like cactus. It has a tart, citrus-like flavour, but it also resembles okra or maybe green pepper. (Hey, you should try it. Our lovely host here on LI, who has never even tried avocado or pumpkin (and has no plans to!), got up the nerve to try a piece and declared it quite delicious.)