Pickling Vegetables

I've always wanted to pickle vegetables but just never followed through. Spear-headed by the suggestion from Bree, we pickled some cucumbers (pickles!), grean beans (dilly beans!) and red onion with cauliflower. the whole event was filled with awe, excitement (mostly me), and lots of preemptive congratulatory statements.

Here is the only photo I took of the entire process:

This is a picture of the cucumbers and green beans awaiting the water/vinager/salt solution. Inside, each jar has fresh dill sprigs, garlic, and pickling spices that include black pepper, mustardseed, and dried hot red pepper.

In the future I would love to pickle beets, peppers and maybe even carrots or something...

Because everything needed a change...

I have made bagels before. Mostly of the everything variety (poppy seed, garlic, onion, salt, etc). Nothing else seemed like a good idea until now. Introducing, the jalapeño cheddar mini bagel!

Guilty pleasure chili

Mostly, I don't consider chili to be a junk food. I use beans, fresh produce and spices and slow-cooked in my Crock Pot.

The chili below was no different... But then I added Daiya shredded cheddar cheese.

Pizza dough on the quick.

"Lately" my food craving has been pizza. This is largely due to the addition of the vegan wonder cheese, Daiya, to many of the local food stores. But with or without cheese, pizza is a still a versatile meal made simpler by this quick dough recipe I used last night.

2 1/2 Cup flour
1/4 ounce dry active yeast
1 cup warm water
1 Tbps oil
a dash of salt

Mix water and yeast together and let sit for 5 minutes until it's all bubbly and thick. Add this mixture to the flour and salt, add oil. I stirred with a wooden spoon until the dough was mostly together and then kneaded it by hand on a lightly floured surface for a couple minutes adding a little flour when it got sticky. The dough should be soft, moist and a little shiny but won't stick to your hand or the kneading surface.

Put in a oiled bowl to rise for 15 minutes (oiled so the dough won't stick when rising!). Then turn it out onto a flat surface and shape into your ideal pizza. Sauce, toppings, oven. I cooked it at 375 for maybe 20 minutes. I just made sure the crust was looking golden brown before I took it out of the oven.

Note: It might be beneficial to pre-bake the dough for 5 minutes before adding toppings too. That would just cut down on the amount of time the pizza needs to cook in the oven with the toppings on it. Some toppings can be time sensitive in the oven, like spinach.