Kale & Leek Pizza with Carmelized Onions over Cannelini Bean Spread

I have recently been on a kale kick, and saw this recipe for Braised Greens and Cannellini Bean Paninis. It reminded me of a Caramelized Onion & White Bean Flatbread recipe we tried a couple years ago and really enjoyed. On a whim, we tried combining them with awesome results.

Note that this can be made vegan by leaving out the cheese, or substituting with nutritional yeast or other vegan cheese options.

One of the best parts of this recipe is the slow cooked caramelized onions. Definitely take the time to do this right. Here is a tutorial!

Ingredients

Store bought pizza crust (we used Rustic Crust Organic Origniale)..or make your own...
1 cup Italian blend cheese (we used Whole foods brand)

Caramelized Onions

     1 large yellow onion diced
     1/2 tsp course sea salt
     1 tsp olive oil

Greens

     1 bunch (1 lb) kale, separate stalks and leaves
     1.5 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
     3 large leeks, julienned, white and light green parts only
     1/4 teaspoon salt
     1/4 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
     1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper
     1 cup vegetable broth

White Bean Spread

     1 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
     3 shallots, minced
     2 cloves garlic, minced
     1/2 cup dry white wine
     1 15-ounce can cannellini beans, rinsed
     1/8 teaspoon salt
     1/8 teaspoon freshly ground pepper

Instructions

Generally, the kale and caramelized onions will take the longest to cook, and so these should be cooking simultaneously. Get those started and then work on the bean spread. Just remember to occasionally pause bean prep to stir the greens and onions!

Onions: Following the recipe, heat oil in large flat bottomed pan (medium-medium low), add onions. Stir occasionally and adjust heat if necessary to prevent the onions from burning. After ~10 minutes, sprinkle salt over onions. Cook another 20-40 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Greens, Step 1: Chop the stalks of the kale and combine with the julienned leeks in a colander. Wash under cool water to removed any remaining dirt. Heat olive oil over medium heat in a large saute pan or wok with lid. Add in the leeks and stalks, and saute until softened (~5 minutes). Meanwhile chop the kale leaves. Add salt and peppers to the sauteing greens, stir to evenly coat. Continue cooking additional 1 minute. Add in the kale leaves and vegetable broth, reduce heat to low, stir, and cover. Cook for ~25 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Bean Spread, Step 1: Heat olive oil in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Add shallots and garlic, stirring occasionally ~ 3 minutes. Add wine and continue cooking until most liquid is evaporated, ~5 minutes. Stir in beans. Add salt and pepper; cook additional 2 minutes. Taste and adjust spices if necessary.

Pre-heat oven to 400. Take out pizza stone.

Greens, Step 2: The leeks and kale should be fairly soft, and most of the broth should remain. Uncover and turn the heat up to medium high. Boil off some of the broth for ~5-10 minutes. Then using a spoon, collect as much of the remaining broth as possible into a cup (I collected about 1/2 cup). Boil off the remaining liquid, stirring occasionally, and set aside.

Bean Spread, Step 2: Add bean mixture to a blender. Puree. Slowly add the collected vegetable broth from above to adjust bean mix consistency (it should be a thick hummus type consistency).

Pizza: brush olive oil over store bought crust. Spread bean mixture over the crust. Evenly spread greens on top of the beans. Add cheese blend if desired. Top with caramelized onions. Bake 12-14 minutes, or until the cheese/crust starts to brown.

Enjoy.

Pumpkin Peanut Butter Dog Treats

This is a work in progress recipe, but for a first attempt I think they turned out alright. Getty seems to agree. :-) Though, he is biased as he will go out of his way to eat anything with pumpkin or peanut butter in them.

Most of the recipes I have found online for vegan dog treats have contained wheat flour, which we tend to avoid with our dog's diet. While we do not keep our dog on a vegan/vegetarian diet, I am primarily making these vegan because we just don't keep other ingredients in the house. The base is oat and garbanzo flour, but you could make these with other types of flour as well.

1 1/2 cups quick oats
1/4 cup chickpea flour (+ extra for rolling out)
4 tbsp flax seed (ground, if possible in a coffee grinder)
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 cup parsley
1 cup pumpkin puree
4 tbsp peanut butter (I used organic and it was a little dry. You may need to add more flour depending on consistency)

Pre-heat oven to 350.

Run the quick oats and flax seeds (if not ground) through a food processor. The idea is to get ground flax seed and oat flour. It won't be perfect, unless you have an amazing food processor, which we don't. Add in the garbanzo flour and cinnamon (and ground flax seed if pre-processed), and run just to homogenize the dry ingredients. Add in the parsley, the food processor should effectively chop the parsley for you. At this point, I switched out the blades for a dough blade. Mix the olive oil, peanut butter and pumpkin puree, and add to the food processor. The dough should clump together into a ball as you run the food processor. You may need to add more flour or more olive oil depending on the consistency. Mine was sticky but held together on its own without spreading.

I added a bit of olive oil to my hands and the pressed out the dough on a piece of aluminum foil (1/4 inch thick) dusted with chickpea flour. Using a pizza cutter, I sliced the dough into ~squares. Then transferred each square to a baking sheet leaving a bit of room in between each treat (they won't spread when they cook). Bake 18-20 minutes. Makes a plate-full. :-) From other recipes, these should be good for ~3 weeks at room temp, or ~6 weeks refrigerated.

Vegan Fall Quiche

A Fall quiche derived largely from this recipe.

Pie crust (I used my Pumpkin-flavored pie crust)

Veggie part

1/6 recipe (not including crust)

1 tsp olive oil
1/2 large yellow onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 small head broccoli, diced
1 red bell pepper, diced
1 large carrot ( I used purple variety), sliced
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp red pepper flakes
1 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp ginger
Thyme, rosemary to taste
1/4 cup water or vegetable broth

Quiche part
1 package silken tofu
2 tbsp lemon juice
1 tbsp tahini
1 tbsp rice vinegar
1/4 cup nutritional yeast
1 ounce vegan cheese (I used daiya mozzarella)
chives

Pre-heat oven to 350.

Make the pie crust, and set in the freezer while you prep veggies.

Veggies: Heat oil over medium. Saute garlic and onions until translucent. Add cumin, red pepper flakes, salt, spices. Saute 2-3 additional minutes. add rest of veggies and water. Cover and steam until broccoli turns bright green and the peppers and carrots soften (~7-10 minutes). Uncover and allow the water to boil off. Taste and adjust! Then set aside to cool a bit.

Quiche: Meanwhile, combine tofu, tahini, lemon juice, vinegar, and nutritional yeast and blend until smooth. Taste and add salt/pepper if desired.



Prep the pie/tart dishes. Sprinkle vegan cheese onto the pie crust. Combine tofu and saute'd veggies and mix until even. Add appropriate amount of quiche mix to pie tin. I topped mine with chives for color.

Bake 45-55 minutes, or until lightly browned and set. I made 6 mini quiches with this recipe. However, should be enough to make a full sized pie.

Enjoy!

Pumpkin (flavored) Pie Crust

Not to be confused for a crust made for pumpkin pie (though it could be used for such), this is a pumpkin-flavored pie crust! 

Time- 10 minute prep, 20 minutes inactive
I am enjoying fall flavors this week and had leftover pumpkin puree from this weekend's pumpkin oatmeal pancake experiments. I decided to make a vegan quiche with a pumpkin crust for dinner tonight.

The recipe is very simple.

1 cup white flour
1/2 cup chickpea flour
1/2 tsp salt (or to taste)
3/4 cup pumpkin puree
~1/4 cup earth balance
Dried/fresh herbs to taste

Keep pumpkin and margarine as cold as possible. In a food processor, blend flours, salt, herbs (if desired). Add in pumpkin puree. The flour shouldn't be clumping too much, but should turn a nice orange-ish hue.  Then add in margarine. This is where the dough should become doughy.  Let cool in freezer ~20-30 minutes, or fridge overnight.

Lightly oil pie pans/tart dishes. Using your fingers, or if you are more patient than me roll out the dough, press into the bottom of your pie dish.

If you want to pre-bake, 425 for 10-12 minutes. Or I just went ahead and filled the crust with quiche mix.

1/6 of the recipe

Easy Blueberry Spice Pancakes

1 cup Flour
1 tbsp Sugar
2 tbsp Baking Powder
1/2 tsp Cardamom
1 tsp Cinnamon
1/8 tsp Salt

1 1/2 cup Soy Milk
1tbsp Vanilla Extract 

3-4 oz Blueberries


Mix Dry ingredients together. Whisk in soy milk and vanilla. Add blueberries and mix well. (You can also add after adding batter to pan, if you want more equal blueberries per pancake.) Cook over med/low heat adding vegan margarine as needed. Top with syrup, powdered sugar, etc.

Garlic Herb Gnocchi

~ 4 servings

1.5 lbs red potatoes (~6 small/medium sized potatos)
3 tbs olive oil
1 1/2 cups flour
1 tbsp garlic powder
1 tbsp italian seasoning (mix of majoram, thyme, rosemary, sage, savory, oregano, and basil)
1 tsp salt (or to taste)
1/2 tsp pepper (or to taste)

Preheat oven to 400°. Wash potatoes and puncture a couple times with a fork. Bake on a cookie sheet for 1 hour, or until a fork/knife easily cut through the potato. Let cool completely (30-40 minutes).

Scoop out the potato flesh into a large mixing bowl, discarding the skins. Add olive oil and mash until smooth and free of clumps.

Mix together dry ingredients. Slowly knead in flour mixture until a nice dough forms. It shouldn't be super sticky--add more/less flour as needed. On a clean floured surface, roll out dough cylinders to 1 in diameter. Cut 1/2 in sections and smooth edges. Place on wax paper (don't let gnocchi stick to each other). Using the tines of a fork, place a small indentation in the center of each gnocchi.

At this point you can either store gnocchi by wrapping in wax paper (to avoid gnocchi sticking to one another) and freezing, or cook.

To cook, bring a pot of water to a boil. Add 1 tsp olive oil and a little salt to water. Drop in gnocchi. They should sink to the bottom. The gnocchi will float to the top when done (5-10 minutes).

Top with pasta sauce or try this sage "butter" sauce. We previously tried the gnocchi recipe, and while our gnocchi were a little off the sauce was delicious.

Sweet Curry "Crock-Pot Pie"

This was technically inspired by this recipe. Instead of the traditional pot pie, this recipe is sweet and spicy. The soup is curry based, but has the traditional pot pie veggies making it both familiar and exotic. 

Soup:

yellow onion

2 stalks celery

can sweet corn

1 stalk green onions

1/2 cup edamame

1/2 cup peas

4  carrots

1-2 garlic cloves

2 cups vegetable broth
6-7 whole cloves*

1-2 sprigs fresh sage (remove from stem)

1-2 sprigs fresh rosemary (remove from stem)

1-2 sprigs fresh thyme (remove from stem)
Optional: fennel fronds (I used one ice cube's worth of frozen, stored from a fall CSA share)

Rue:

1/2 tsp cumin*

~ 1/4 tsp cinnamon*

~ 1/4 tsp ground coriander*

1/2 tsp tumeric*

pinch paprika*

pinch cayenne pepper*

salt 

pepper

1/2 cup flour

1 1/4 cup water

1/2 cup vanilla almond milk (or any non-dairy milk)

* If you don't have these ingredients, use maybe 1 tbs of curry powder --it will have the same spices and close to the same flavor.

Bread Top:

2 1/4 cups bisquik/ biscuit mix

2/3 non-dairy milk (I used plain soy)

Chop onions, slice carrots and celery, mince garlic. Combine vegetables, broth and fresh herbs in crock pot. Combine rue ingredients and stir until smooth. Stir into the soup. Cook on high for 1-2 hours.

Mix bread top ingredients and spread/drop evenly over the top. We took spoonfuls and dropped them like dumplings across the top, but it worked out fine in the end--It may sink at first, but will puff up and float to the top. Reduce heat to low and cook for ~2 hours until the dough is cooked all the way through.

It was sweet and spicy treat, very delicious!!!!