Tomato Pie(non-vegan)

Good morning, and welcome back. How has your week been going? Mine has been ok, nothing out of the ordinary, which, altho boring, is also nice, because it means I'm not in any kind of a crisis, and THAT is wonderful, lol.

One of my favorites, on the left of the page, is "thesimpledollar.com," and I get a daily newsletter from there. Two times lately, the author has posted recipes from an NPR(National Public Radio?)contest called "How Low Can You Go?" Folks have sent in all kinds of recipes, all supposed to be under $10 to prepare, for a family of, I think, four. Anyway. I followed a couple links from one of the recipes in his newsletter, and one of them took me to the NPR contest site, which is where I found this Tomato Pie recipe, from Kathy Lloyd, of Pittsfield, Massachusetts. If you're interested, the link to NPR is www.npr.org, but you'll have to do a search for the contest itself.

Kathy Lloyd's Tomato Pie

Make one biscuit recipe from a boxed biscuit mix. Use it as a pie crust and bake it. Place either ceramic baking beads or another pie plate on top of it to keep it from rising out of control.

Layer in the pie crust sweet onions[such as Vidalias]piled high and sliced thin, generally one big one. Then use fresh tomatoes, not too thinly sliced, about two pounds. Season each layer of tomatoes with salt, fresh cracked pepper, and fresh basil.

Make a top crust with two cups shredded cheddar cheese and one cup mayo. Mix the cheese and mayo with your hands and squish it all over the pie like a top crust. Bake at 350ºF for 45-60 minutes. On the crust, I used half goat cheese, half mayo, but you have to have the mayo to make the crust.

Now, I don't know about you, but to me, those directions are a little confusing in places. "Each layer" of tomatoes? How many layers? And what temperature should the biscuit crust bake at, for how long? Are the directions on the box? I'm sure the end product is good, but I'm NOT sure about how to get there.

So. Here's what I did, instead of Ms. Lloyd's pie: tarts...sort of, lol. A couple years ago, one of my customer's kids was selling stuff for his school, so I ordered a dozen of the silicone muffin cups from him, and have been so glad that I did, many time. These babies are wonderful: you can bake them up to 500ºF, they sit on a baking sheet all by themselves and don't need liners or to be greased, and they wash easily, too. So I used those instead of an actual tart pan, which I odn't have anyway, and instead of regular muffin tins...which I do have, but prefer not to use.

My crust recipe comes off the box of Kroger brand biscuit mix, and is actually for a pizza. I think I've posted it here before, but I'm not going to take the time to hunt for it. Just know that it's a very, very acceptable substitution for a real pizza crust, but no yeast, and very easy.

1 1/2 C biscuit mix
1/4 C HOT water
1 Tbs. oil

Mix all together to form a soft dough, and then mix well for about 20 strokes. Then let the dough rest for about 8 minutes. Then, after the 8 minutes, I put the dough on a floured cutting board, greased my hands well with olive oil and slid them up and down my rolling pin, so it wouldn't stick to the dough, and rolled it out until it was about 1/4 inch thick, close to a six by six inch square. I used a drinking glass to cut six rounds from the dough, and pushed the six rounds down into six of the silicone muffin cups(if you don't have the silicone cups, just grease six regular muffin tins, and after you've got the dough in the muffin tins, weigh it down with the ceramic thingies or even dried beans), and set the other six cups inside these, to keep the crust from rising too high. I had already preheated the oven to 450ºF...and btw, the cups were sitting on a small metal cookie sheet...and so I put the cookie sheet in the oven. Ok, even tho the cups are good to 500ºF, I didn't like the smell coming from the oven, so I turned it down to 450ºF, and that took care of the smell. After about eight minutes I checked on the little crusts, but the were too soft. Ultimately it took about 12 minutes to brown them a little bit, but they didn't get crisp, which was fine with me.

Ok, now. You'll need one large tomato, and about half of a large onion, some oregano, about 3/4 of a cup of mayo, and as much cheese as you like. We're working with a smaller amount than the pie would be, so you won't need the full two cups of cheese, or the full two pounds of tomatoes.

First, I lowered the oven temperature again, down to 350ºF. Then I diced the onion finely, and put about two teaspoonsful into each little pastry cup, and sprinkled them well with oregano. On top of the onion and oregano, I laid a good slice of tomato, sort of folding it if necessary to keep it inside the cup. I sprinkled the tomato slices with black pepper. Now for the fun part, lol. I can't use dairy cheddar, even tho I love it, and I do NOT like the vegetarian cheddar, so I totally used goat cheese, probably about a cup in all. Use whatever cheese you have and like, crumbled up to mix well with the 3/4 cup mayo. After you've mixed them together, spoon the resulting glop(good stuff, tho)on top of each cup, put the whole shebang in the oven, and wait about, oh, 30 minutes, I think. The whole thing should be hot, and the mayo and cheese should be oozing and lightly browned.

Ok, are these good? OH HELL YEAH! LOL! I ate three of them, one right after the other, and I've eaten another one, cold out of the 'fridge, this morning. If you and your family like pizza, you will like these, I assure you. And you can experiment with them until the cows come home, too. Don't like oregano? The original recipe calls for basil...try thyme...try tarragon...add some minced garlic...use different cheeses...whatever you think you'll like. I don't think you can screw these up. And I also think that instead of the biscuit dough crusts, you could use...ohhhhhhh, no, senior moment, sigh...you know, it's the flaky crust on Napoleons, on Baklava, I can't think of it, sigh. And I love it. Anyway, if you figured out what I mean, I think it would be good, too, lol. HAH! Phyllo! Got it, lol. It's rough getting old...you'll find out for yourself one of these days, lol.

Now, will I make these again? I honestly don't know. They were fairly labor intensive, but not all that bad, so yes, I think someday I'll make them again, and I think that I will do it as a pie next time. These would make good appetizers for a party, I think, whereas the pie could be sliced and served at dinner as a side dish.

Until next time, Happy Eating!!!

TVP Taco Recipe; Summer Sammich Ideas

This has been a pretty good week. I found $50 that I thought I had lost, one of my cyber-sisters sent me a Terry Blackwell book in the mail: "True Light," the Imaging Center where I had the ultrasound and the CT scan sent me a cute little "thank you" card, AND a check for $10(evidently I overpaid my c0-pay for the ultrasound!), went to the library yesterday which is always a joy, and best of all, Wednesday afternoon at work, I had the time to sit and snuggle with my nine-week old great-grandson!!! He was trying so hard to tell me about the nasty doctor that had stuck the nasty and painful needles in his little legs, bless his heart. So, I told him I understoon how he felt, and that I don't like needles being stuck in me, either. I'm sure he understood me, too. LOL!!!

I've spent the last five hours browsing three new-to-me websites, which mostly don't have much to do with food or cooking. The three of them have been added to my list of favorite websites, on the left of the page, and as of this moment I haven't checked them to see if the links work, but I will, and if they don't, I'll fix them. One is EasyEarth, and that one does have a section about food, and a few vegetarian, not vegan, recipes. The main reason I went there, tho, was to find some recipes for homemade, and "green," cleaning supplies, which I did find. Another site is TheSimpleDollar, and is one man's blog about being frugal, which another subject near and dear to my heart. The third one is Yes!magazine, and it's, well, it's about all sorts of things. I linked to it from the SimpleDollar, I think, to check out an article called "Sustainable Happiness," lol. And have signed up for the newsletter...as well as the newsletter from TheSimpleDollar, too. EarthEasy has one, but for reasons of my own, I chose not to subscribe to theirs.

About three weeks ago, I went into this little town's only...as far as I know...health food store, and altho I was extremely disappointed in it, I did fine some TVP, and some, um, wakame, I think...maybe it was dulse, but I don't think so. Anyway. So, I've been looking around for recipes using TVP, and while I've found several, this one really seemed like a good one, so I made it last night. Yup, it's a good one, and it comes from about.com, thanks to Jolinda Hackett, the vegetarian pages blogger. She does a fantastic job, and if you've never checked the vegetarian pages out over there, do yourself a favor, and do so. Sometime today. Anyway....

Ten Minute TVP Taco Recipe
2 cups each TVP and water
2 Tbs. each soy sauce and olive oil or vegetable oil
1 package taco seasoning
1 red or yellow bell pepper, cut into strips
1/4 cup salsa
flour tortillas or hard taco shells

In large skillet, heat water, over medium heat and add the TVP, stirring well. Allow the TVP to reconstitute for 2-3 minutes.

Add oil, soy sauce, peppers, and seasoning, stirring well. Allow to cook another 3-5 minutes.

Serve wrapped in tortillas or hard taco shell. Eat as is, vegan, or add tomatoes, lettuce, refried beans, sour cream, cheese.

I made some refried beans with diced onions in them. Spread a tortilla with a goodly amount of plain chevre goat cheese, plopped on some of the beans, and covered it all with a good bit of the TVP taco mix. Rolled it all up, heated the tortilla until lightly browned on two sides, and ate. I will most definitely do this again. In fact, there's a fully made and rolled up tortilla in the freezer right now, as well as a fair amount of the taco mix still in the refrigerator. I think I'm going to top a couple small baked potatoes with it and some cheese for supper tonight, along with some kind of vegetable. I can also tell you that the taco mix and a couple slices of the vegetarian smoked provolone cheese make on helluva great grilled sammich, too!!!!

Yesterday at the library, I checked out another cookbook: "The Vegetarian Mother's Cookbook," by Cathe Olson, and while I no longer have little kids at home, the book is definitely a winner, seriously. One of these days I'm going to try to find it, and add it to my home collection of cookbooks. One section of her book is called "Sandwiches and Quick Lunch Ideas," and some of these sammich ideas sound really, really good. Now, for the most part, you know I won't post a recipe here unless I've tried it and can vouch for it, but this is one of those times I'm going to break my own rule(hey, at my age, that's subject to happen a LOT!!), and give you three or four sammich recipes that I think look like they would be awfully good. It would take me quite a while to get around to trying all of them myself, so, I decided to post them. And, here goes:

Spinach-Hummus Wrap...vegan

1 large whole grain tortilla or slice flatbread(lavash)
1/4 to 1/3 cup Hummus
1/2 cup chopped spinach
2 to 3 Tbs. each diced cucumbers, tomatoes, and/or shredded carrots(all optional)

Liberally spread tortilla or flatbread with hummus. Layer vegetables over hummus and roll up. Wrap tightly with wax paper, foil, or plastic wrap until ready to eat. It will keep for couple of days wrapped and refrigerated. Makes 1 serving.

Veggie-Apple Melt...can be made vegan

2 slices whole grain bread.
2 tsp. EACH Dijon mustard and mayonnaise(regular OR vegan)
4 apple slices
2 Tbs. shredded carrots
2 to 4 cucumber rounds
2 Tbs. alfalfa sprouts
2 thin slices cheddar cheese(dairy OR non-dairy)

Preheat toaster or conventional oven to 375ºF. Spread one slice of bread with mustard, the other with mayonnaise. On mustard side, place apple slices and carrots. On mayo slice, place cucumber slices and sprouts. Cover each with a slice of cheese. Place on baking sheet and bake 5 minutes, or until cheese is melted.

My apologies, because that's only two sammiches instead of three or four. I had forgotten that it was necessary to go to other pages in her book for more recipes for a couple of those sammiches, such as Beanballs for the Beanball Sub I was going to post, sigh. I'm just too darned lazy to look it up, so, again, my apologies. If you do try either of these sammiches, tho, I'd appreciate it if you'd leave me a comment. Until next time, Happy Eating!