Veggie Ciabatta Pizza with Spicy Basil-Mint Pesto

This dish came about as a way to use up some of the large bunch of basil that I picked up at the farmers' market.  But we wanted to do something a little different.  So I decided to throw in some mint.  And then I saw a Mario Batali pesto recipe online that used a serrano chili, so I threw that in as well.  We also got the idea to throw in fennel seeds from the Batali recipe.  We were out of pine nuts and I wasn't feeling like pistachios or walnuts, so we used blanched almonds instead.  Alex wanted to use the pesto for sandwiches, but I thought that pizza sounded like a better idea.  I just wasn't feeling sandwich-y.  And then I started thinking that if we were going to make a pizza, we should make it a vegetable pizza with lots of produce from the farmer's market.  I love the farmers' market.  So we defrosted a ball of pizza dough.  And then I started thinking that a ciabatta pizza would be even better than a typical pizza.  So we picked up a loaf of ciabatta at the farmers' market.  And we will use that ball of pizza dough to make another pizza later in the week - I'm thinking pizza with zucchini and speck.  When I told Alex my idea for the zucchini and speck pizza his response was "don't you ever eat normal pizza?!?!"  Whatever.  I have tried that combination at a restaurant near my office called Pizzarte (where the zucchini and speck pizza is their signature pizza) and it's delicious.

The thing I loved about this pizza is how easy it was to put together and how tasty it was.  The veggies were fresh and flavorful and made me feel virtuous, even though I was eating pizza.  And I really liked how the ciabatta got nice and crusty and crispy.  The dish was also mildly nostalgic - it reminded me of the french bread pizzas I used to eat.  Alex's favorite thing about the pizza was the pesto.  It was very flavorful - a little spicy, a little salty, and nicely herbaceous.  I think the pesto worked wonderfully here, but it would work really nicely on sandwiches and on pasta too.  I always find pasta with just pesto to be a little boring, but this pesto is a little kickier than most, so it might work. 

Recipe after the jump!

Stir-Fried Lettuce with Seared Tofu and Red Pepper

This recipe is one that I found a few weeks ago when looking for new tofu recipes.  It sounded a little weird, but intriguing.  I have never used lettuce in a stir-fry before.  And we don't use a ton of red bell peppers in our cooking because I often don't think they add much of anything to a dish.  But this dish was the exception - I thought the red pepper peppers were totally crucial here.  They add a nice sweetness and a crunch that would otherwise be lacking.  I really liked them.  As for the lettuce, Alex said that he would have preferred cabbage to lettuce in the stir-fry, but I liked the lettuce.  Napa cabbage would have been a little sweeter, but similarly crunchy.  So I guess it's a matter of preference.  I really liked this dish.  I think I liked it more than Alex did, but I generally like tofu dishes more than Alex (at least I think I do, although he might like ma po tofu more than I do).  But I thought this dish was light and healthy, but very flavorful.  Given the small amount of jalapeno in there I didn't know if you would get any heat, but the heat was definitely there.  I wouldn't call it a spicy dish, but you could taste the heat of the chili in every bite.  You could also taste the garlic and the ginger in every bite.  I really liked it.  And I felt very... virtuous and healthy eating it, which was a plus.

Recipe after the jump!

Ginger Catfish (Trey Cha K'nyei)

Somehow we are on a Cambodian kick, which is a little strange considering I don't think we have ever cooked Cambodian before and I went on this whole tangent in my last post about how Cambodian food didn't make an impression on me while I was there.  And here we are, making two Cambodian dishes in a row.  Random, huh?  Anyway, I know I have said this before but catfish and/or basa are not among my favorite fish options.  I tend to find catfish/basa to be bordering on fishy with a strange mushy texture and a muddy flavor.  But every once in awhile I have a catfish dish that surprises me by how tasty it is.  This was one of them.  Another is the Crispy Basa (Catfish) with Onions and Coriander.  I guess I only like Asian catfish dishes?  Anyway, I was surprised by how tasty this dish was.  I actually liked it better than the Quick Khmer Pork with Green Beans, which also surprised me.  The onions were delicious and the fish was really tasty.  The crispy ginger is really nice too, but I could see how some people would be turned off by that amount of ginger.  This quantity of ginger is powerfully warm and spicy.  If you want to cut it back a little so that the ginger perfumes the dish, rather than permeating the dish, go right ahead.  We used slightly less than the recipe called for (mostly because we got lazy with the julienning).  For what it was, I can't think of anything I would change in this dish.  And Alex agrees.  This isn't one of those dishes that you will dream about for years to come because it was so amazing, but it is exactly what it is meant to be - a simple, flavorful stir-fry.  And I really appreciate that from time to time.

Recipe after the jump!

Chinese New Year Meal #6 - Stir-Fried Squid with Black Bean Sauce

I wanted to do something entirely new for our second to last Chinese New Year meal - no more Sichuan or Hunan dishes from Fuchsia Dunlop for at least the next few days.  And I have picked out a traditional Shanghai dish for our last Chinese New Year meal so I think we have done a pretty good job mixing things up this time.  I looked around for awhile before deciding that this dish fit my goal of trying a new dish really well.  We rarely made squid and when we do, we tend to make Mario Batali's Two-Minute Calamari Sicilian Lifeguard Style or some form of calamari salad.  We also rarely make anything with a black bean sauce.  We buy fermented black beans and use them for a number of dishes, but they are usually only one of many flavoring components.  And black bean sauce is such a classic Chinese sauce that I find it hard to believe that we have made so many dishes without ever making black bean sauce.  So this was an interesting alternative.

Let's see.  What were my thoughts on the meal?  I thought the squid was really tender and the dish had a very different flavor from everything else we made for Chinese New Year.  I was really happy with both of those things.  However, I didn't think the flavors were that amazing.  I would say they were...pretty good.  I'm still going to consider this dish a win because it was a new technique (poor Alex was in charge of scoring the calamari so that it curled up all nice and pretty), a new sauce, and a new flavor that we threw into the mix.

Recipe after the jump!

Chipotle Turkey Cutlets with Charred Corn Salsa

While Alex and I have hundreds of chicken recipes, we have very few turkey recipes.  Just looking at the blog, we have 50+ chicken recipes and only 9 turkey recipes.  And I would say that is a fair representation of our overall repertoire.  And out of the 9 turkey recipes, only 1 other recipe uses anything but ground turkey or turkey sausage.  All of our other recipes are for turkey meatballs, turkey burgers, turkey meatloaf and various other applications using ground turkey.  But I guess that isn't very surprising considering that the only time you can reliably find turkey breasts or cutlets in your average grocery store is around Thanksgiving.  Otherwise you might find turkey breasts or you might not.  The same goes for whole turkeys.  But our farmers' market has a great turkey farm called DiPaolo Turkeys that I love.  I typically buy their spicy turkey sausage (which I know I have referenced several times on the blog before), but I have been thinking about buying turkey breasts from them for a long time now.  I was initially looking for bone-in, skin-on turkey breasts for a recipe called Turkey with Mint and Hot Chilis from Hot, Sour, Salty, Sweet, but ended up with boneless turkey breasts instead.  Boneless turkey breasts happened to be all they had that day.  But it was surprisingly easy to come up with other recipes that I was interested in making with the turkey breasts I picked up.  This was one of them.  I was initially interested in the recipe because it looked easy and sounded tasty.  It's also a different flavor profile and set of ingredients than we typically use.

I thought the dish was delicious and very successful when you ate all of the components of this dish together with a healthy squeeze of fresh lime juice.  It was bright from the lime juice, slightly spicy and smokey from the chipotle chili powder, and sweet from the corn.  The recipe said that the turkey and salsa should be served with tortillas and steamed, buttered summer squash.  We served it with brown rice instead (and omitted the summer squash), which I thought was very successful.  I liked the dish more than Alex did.  He said it was good.  I thought it was really good - something that I will definitely add to our limited repertoire of turkey recipes.  And since this recipe turned out so well, I am heading back to DiPaolo for more turkey breasts and to the internet for some inspiration for more recipes.

Recipe after the jump!