Vegetable Paella

To me, paella always seemed like such a fancy dish to make. I have eaten it occasionally, but have been hesitant to make it at home. Until I saw Martha Rose Shulman's recipe in the New York Times for Simple Vegetable Paella.

Reading through the recipe, I thought "Hey, I can do this. I can make paella this week." What a revelation!

I started by chopping all the vegetables. It can be so relaxing to just put some tunes on and chop vegetables. I have red and green peppers, diced white onion, chopped garlic, and halved green beans.

This isn't just regular tomato sauce. It's freshly grated tomatoes! 

Once the vegetables are chopped, I started simmering the vegetable broth while sautéing the onions, garlic, and peppers. And got the rice all ready to go. I decided to use short grain brown rice because it's my favorite. But it's probably not the traditional paella rice. Oh well, it has more fiber. But, it did take a bit of extra liquid and time to cook. So, make sure you factor that in.

Once the vegetables are sauteed, I added the rice and veggie broth and left to simmer until the rice was cooked. So easy!

And, the surprising part? I realized this was a very common food my mom used to make when I was growing up! And her mom used to make it! She always called it Spanish Rice. And now that I think of it, paella is a type of Spanish Rice. Eating this for dinner brought back memories of eating a dish very similar as a child. 

There were a few differences, of course (like using Ketchup instead of freshly grated tomatoes), but who has time to grate tomatoes when you've got small children to feed?

I will definitely be making this again. I might halve the recipe next time, though. Because my husband and I were eating Paella left overs for a really long time! And, that's no fun!



Vegetable Paella
Adapted from Martha Rose Shulman's Simple Vegetable Paella


1 qt vegetable stock (plus a bit more water if using brown rice)
Large pinch saffron threads (about 1/2 tsp)
2 TBSP olive oli
1 medium onion, diced
4 garlic cloves, minced
1 red pepper, cut into strips
1 green pepper, cut into strips
2 cups short grain brown rice
1 TBSP tomato paste
1 tsp sweet paprika
1 lb ripe tomatoes, grated on the large holes (or use canned chopped tomatoes for a shortcut)
1/4 lb green beans, trimmed and cut in half
2 or 3 baby artichokes, trimmed and sliced
1 can chickpeas, rinsed and drained
1 c cooked edamame
salt and pepper

Bring the stock to simmer in a medium saucepan.  Crush saffron threads with your fingers and place in a small bowl. Add 1 TBSP warm water and set aside.

Heat oil over medium heat. Add onion and cook, stirring until tender. Add garlic, peppers, and a bit of salt. (I always go easy on the salt. There will be salt in the vegetable stock too, so you don't want to over do it.) Cook until the peppers begin to soften. Add the tomato paste, paprika and rice. Cook, stirring until the grains begin to crackle (about 1 minute).

Add the grated tomatoes and cook, stirring until they cook down slightly and smell fragrant, about 5 minutes. Stir in the saffron with its soaking water, scraping in every last bit with a rubber spatula.

Add the stock, green beans, artichokes and chickpeas. Bring to a boil. Stir once, reduce heat to medium-low and simmer without stirring until the liquid has just about evaporated, about 10-15 minutes. Add the edamame. Continue to simmer until the rice is dry, another 5-10 minutes. If the rice is not cooked, add a bit more water and continue to simmer until the rice is soft.

Taste and adjust seasonings. Remove from heat and serve.

Margherita Pizza From Scratch

That's right, from scratch. Even the crust. No mixes, no frozen or prepared crust here. Just flour, water, yeast, salt and a bit of sugar.

Ever since reading the book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, by Barbara Kingsolver, my husband and I (ok, well I) decided to have pizza Friday. Just like she did in the book. Well, in the book, she also makes her mozzarella cheese from scratch. I haven't gone that far...yet.

Anyway, we've been having pizza Friday for quite some time now. And we've learned a few things about making pizza from scratch:

1. Preheat the oven first. (It takes a long time to get to 500 degrees, and we're hungry here).

2. Using a pizza stone is key. (And, as I learned this week, preheating the pizza stone is even better!)

3. Don't use too much sauce.

4. Put the cheese on the bottom

5. Put fresh basil on immediately after taking the pizza out of the oven (not while it is still in the oven).

6. Alternate weeks on who gets to pick the toppings (that way, every week isn't bbq chicken pizza).

Clearly, it was my week to pick the pizza toppings. And I wanted a classic margherita pizza. No sauce, just fresh tomatoes, cheese, and basil on a chewy crust.

There's a bit of a process to making pizza. First, you get the crust mixed together, kneaded, and left to rest. While the crust is resting, chop up and prepare all you other ingredients.

When your ingredients are all ready, the crust should be too. My newest pizza trick is to preheat the pizza stone in the oven while the oven is preheating. It adds a bit of a tricky step, because you have to assemble your pizza and then transfer it onto the hot pizza stone while the oven is open.

I assembled my pizza on a cookie sheet with no edges (or you could turn one upside down). First the cheese.

Then the tomatoes.

Use a TON of flour and cornmeal on the bottom, so the pizza can slide around when you shake the pan. Then, just gently shake the cookie sheet as you guide your pizza onto the stone. It's kind of tricky, but, the crust was awesome! It's crispier this way, and can hold it's own, if you know what I mean. 

Then bake (usually about 12 minutes) and let sit just for a few minutes before slicing. I think this helps the pizza to solidify a bit, so the cheese isn't quite so melty when you try to slice it. Here is my pizza, resting right after it came out of the oven.  Looks pretty awesome, right? Check out all the different kinds of tomatoes I have on there! The green ones are called "green giants."

Then, all you have to do is enjoy your pizza! We haven't ordered take out pizza since we started making our own. It tastes so much better!

Margherita Pizza

For the crust:

3/4 c warm water (think bathwater temperature)

1 pkt yeast

1/4 tsp sugar

1 3/4 c flour

pinch of salt

For the toppings:

1 1/2 c shredded mozzarella cheese

3 large tomatoes, sliced about 1/4 inch thick

Fresh basil

First, place your pizza stone in the oven on the middle rack and preheat the oven to 500 degrees. 

Mix the warm water, yeast and sugar together until yeast is dissolved. Let this sit for about 8 minutes to "activate" the yeast.

While yeast is "activating," mix the flour and salt in a medium sized mixing bowl.

After the 8 minutes, pour the yeast mixture over the flour and stir until a ball of dough forms. Dump the dough out onto a floured surface and knead, adding flour as needed for about 2 minutes. Then leave the dough where it is to rest for about 10 minutes.

Meanwhile, slice the tomatoes and shred the cheese. Cut the basil into thin strips.

On flat baking sheet with no edges, dust with flour and cornmeal and spread dough out onto the sheet in a rough circle. It doesn't have to be perfect here, I think a misshaped circle looks more rustic.

Make sure the dough is free to slide easily off the baking sheet. Then, spread the mozzarella cheese over the crust, leaving about 1/2 inch space around the edge. Next lay the tomatoes on the cheese, without overlapping too much. You can make a pretty design if you have a few tomatoes of different colors.

Then, the tricky part. Carefully slide the pizza onto the heated stone in the oven. Don't get burned!

Bake for 12 minutes, or until crust is golden and has a hollow sound when tapped. The cheese should be slightly browned and bubbly.

As soon as the pizza is done, pull it out of the oven and scatter the basil on top. Let sit for about 5-10 minutes. Slice and enjoy!