Quick-n-Easy Stuffed Pizza Croissant

Tonight for dinner I decided to try something new! I love coming up with new things on the fly, and just throwing in whatever I have on hand. It very rarely turns out poorly. 

I decided to try out some sort of a stuffed-pizza-dough thing, so I quickly mixed up a batch of pizza dough (see my earlier blog post - I made half a batch, but added Italian spices to give the dough more flavor). Then, I scrounged around in my fridge to see what I had. 

Turns out I had onion, apple, radishes, tomato, and cilantro! While the dough was rising, I diced these up and threw them in a pot with a touch of oil, salt/pepper, paprika, and some other Italian spices.

I rolled the dough out into a rough-rectangle, spread this mix in the middle, topped it with some Daiya mozzarella, and folded it over. Pro-tip: put more filling in there than you might want to at first--the dough will rise and get thicker in the oven, but the filling won't. Pinch it shut to help seal it.

I spread cornmeal on my baking pan to give the crust a nice crisp, and plopped the folded over dough thing on top (okay, okay, so I actually put the dough on the pan when it was a rectangle, and added the insides while it was on the pan!). It was kind of a weird poo-like shape, so I turned the corners inwards and VOILA, a stuffed pizza croisant was born! 

I brushed the top with olive oil, sprinkled some more fake cheese and cornmeal on top, and added some more Italian spices (heavy on the paprika and rosemary) on top. 

Then, I stuck that sucker into my oven (preheated to 350), and checked on it incessantly until it looked about done. 

The prep took me about an hour, including making dough, but I was also messing around on the internet and sitting around waiting for dough to rise...so maybe it was around half an hour of actual work or something? I forgot to look at the clock when I stuck it in the oven...time doesn't really exist, anyway, right?? But! I call this recipe "easy" because all I did was roughly measure, dice, and stir. Anyone can do this! Go forth and cook and bake hearty vegan food! Don't be afraid to put apples in EVERYTHING!

(As I'm typing this, I'm waiting for it to finish baking. This is truly the hardest part.)

So it ended up baking for about 25 minutes!

Finished product:

It looks small, but it's actually sitting on a large dinner plate! It smells amazing! It tastes EVEN BETTER!

Here's a close up:

Now I am going to go eat THIS ENTIRE THING (probably only a third of it, but still...)!

Patty and 'Cado Duet!

Hi all!

I finally buckled down and decided to create a food blog! I make deliciously healthy vegetarian and vegan food for the modern Queer with a busy life! Do you have any favorite foods or ingredients you want to see me use? Let me know! 

To kick things off, I am sharing the recipe for my Lentil Patty and Avocado Duet I made last night for dinner. This is a pretty light meal, and the avocado alone is a great snack!

**This avocado recipe has been tested and approved by someone who doesn't like to eat avocados!**

First, the avocado. Slick an avocado in half. Using a chef's knife, swirl it around the pit inside. Separate the halves, then firmly stick (or, thwack) the long part of the blade into the pit. Twist, and it should pop out. If you need a better description of this process, click here! Squirt some lime juice all over the exposed avocado at this point, to prevent it from browning (oxidization and science are cool!)

Add a squirt of agave nectar or date paste to the hole the pit left behind, then sprinkle with your desired amount of salt, pepper, and a spice blend. I use Mrs. Dash's Caribbean Citrus blend. Top with green onion. Voila! Though the avocado is first in this blog post, you should prepare this while your lentil patty is in the frying pan.

The lentil patty is a bit trickier, but it's easy to make lentils in large batches and just eat them throughout the week! This mixture can also be used as a dip with some homemade tortilla chips (rip up a tortilla and stick the pieces in the oven until they start to brown), yam chips, or corn chips. (If you don't own a dehydrator, buy one!)

First, you'll start some lentils cookin'. In a colander, rinse some red lentils in cold water to remove the starch (that foamy white crap that comes off of them. Ew.) Then, stick them in a pot of filtered water on medium heat, and simmer until they turn to mush. You'll probably need to add a bit of water throughout, but do so sparingly - we want these to be pretty thick. Also add a couple tablespoons of olive oil to this.

While that's simmering (and you are stirring it every once in a while!), get out your food processor or blender. If you don't have either of these, you can also mash this mixture with a fork! Throw in some firm tofu (I used about 1.5 cups of lentils and half a block of tofu), a quartered onion, a few cloves of garlic, and puree that shit up. (If you are mashing with a  fork, mince or dice the onion and garlic first.)

Then, add some spices and olive oil. Have fun with this and use your favorite spices! I used cumin, coriander, sat, pepper, chili, turmeric, paprika, and some others that I'm forgetting.  Give the processor, blender, or fork another spin. If you like, you can add in some carrot at this point. I julienned a couple of carrots, then chopped that up a bit finer. You probably wont' taste this in the final product, but it's healthy and adds color!

Once your lentils are a big pile of mush, add the tofu mixture, stir a bunch, and cook through until it's hot. If you want this mix to be slightly easier to handle, you can refrigerate it at this point.

Now for the fun part! Take a tablespoon or so of the lentil mix, and coat it in Panko. I use the fancy-schmancy Asian Sesame Seed kind. To make this part easier, I fill a teacup with Panko and throw the tablespoon of lentil mix right on in there. Next, slap this tablespoon into a very lightly oiled frying pan on medium heat. Let it cook up and start to slightly brown, then flip it over and let the other side start to brown.

Throw this on a plate, add your avocado, and garnish the lentil patty with julienned carrots and some green onion if you like.

Stick the rest of your lentil mix in the fridge, and use it for patties, burritos, and dip for the rest of the week! To make this gluten free, just don't use Panko!

If you make this "recipe", let me know how it goes and any changes you made to it!


For avocado:

Nutrition Facts

Serving Size 127 g

Amount Per Serving

Calories 197 Calories from Fat 133

% Daily Value*

Total Fat 14.8g 23%

Saturated Fat 2.1g 11%

Cholesterol 0mg 0%

Sodium 337mg 14%

Total Carbohydrates 18.2g 6%

Dietary Fiber 7.4g 29%

Sugars 8.4g

Protein 2.1g

Vitamin A 3% • Vitamin C 25% Calcium 2% • Iron 4%

Nutrition Grade B

* Based on a 2000 calorie diet

Good points

• No cholesterol
• High in dietary fiber
• High in vitamin C

For lentils:

Nutrition Facts

Serving Size 56 g

Amount Per Serving

Calories 126 Calories from Fat 31

% Daily Value*

Total Fat 3.4g 5%

Saturated Fat 0.6g 3%

Trans Fat 0.0g

Cholesterol 0mg 0%

Sodium 162mg 7%

Total Carbohydrates 17.1g 6%

Dietary Fiber 6.6g 26%

Sugars 1.2g

Protein 7.4g

Vitamin A 14% • Vitamin C 3% Calcium 6% • Iron 12%

Nutrition Grade A

* Based on a 2000 calorie diet

Good points

• Low in saturated fat
• No cholesterol
• Very high in dietary fiber
• High in manganese
• High in thiamin
• High in vitamin A