Pizza and Pasta - An Italian Post

Well, here I am in the midst of what would be midterms if I had any. Instead, I've got more than my fair share of papers to write before Thanksgiving. But that doesn't mean I'm not more than happy to distract myself by cooking something interesting for dinner and then blogging about it. So come on. Enable my procrastination and read on.

On Monday I announced on Facebook that I had made pasta with a "creamy pumpkin sauce." I also mentioned that I hadn't perfected the recipe and wouldn't blog about it until I had. Here's the problem with that. I'm unlikely to remember to perfect it later on if I don't blog about it now. So here goes: I wanted to make pasta, but I didn't want to make boring ol' pasta with cheese. I wanted something quick and easy, but interesting and tasty. Well, let's say I got 3/4 of it right. It was quick and easy and definitely interesting, but it was definitely bland. In the following recipe, I'm going to write what I did and share what I would change in these {} brackets. All measurements are approximated, so feel free to take your liberties with them.

Pasta with Creamy Pumpkin Sauce

Ingredients

• Pasta (Penne, fettuccine, rotini - something with more surface area to hold onto the sauce.)
  
• 1/2 cup of pureed canned pumpkin
• 1/4 cup soy milk (or cream or any milk other than skim)
• 1 tablespoon margarine {it's what I had, but butter would be better}
• garlic powder {I don't think I used enough of any of the following seasonings. Particularly, I think I should have added some ground red pepper to give the sauce a sharper taste.}
  
• black pepper
• salt
• hot sauce
• grated parmesan cheese
• a little shredded cheddar
• {1/2 small onion, diced}
• {1 teaspoon minced garlic}
• {1 teaspoon or more of sugar}

Instructions

1. {melt the butter in a small saucepan over medium heat. Add in onions and garlic and saute until "translucent."}
2. Add in pumpkin and soy milk, mixing until thoroughly incorporated.
3. Add in seasonings and cheese, mixing them in


4. While doing all of the above, start the pasta cooking (according to package directions)
5. Drain pasta and toss with the sauce. Serve quickly with more parmesan cheese for garnish.

Let me know how that sauce comes out for you guys if you make it. I think the little changes I made will result in a much tastier sauce.

Now on to part II of this post. Pizza.



Some of you may recall that I recently posted about my accidental cheeseless pizza. Well, since then, it's become a little bit of a favorite for us. The dough is quick and easy, and the toppings are whatever we want, without all the extra fat and calories of cheese. The main problem is that we were getting a lot of carbohydrates and only a very limited number of veggies with little to no protein.

So tonight I decided to try something a little more interesting, and maybe a little more nutritious.

Veggie Veggie Chicken Pizza

Ingredients

• Pizza dough, rolled out to preferred size and shape (My recipe can be found here.)
• Pizza sauce
• 1 zucchini, sliced thin
  
• 1 yellow squash, sliced thin
  
• 1/2 8 ounce package of mushrooms, sliced
• 1 head of broccoli, checked for insects, washed and steamed or par boiled.
• 1/2 of a medium onion, sliced thin
• 1 package vegetarian soy chicken food substance
• dried basil and oregano to taste

Instructions

1. spread on sauce.
2. Place slices of zucchini and squash in a spiral from the outside of the pizza towards the center, alternating between zucchini and squash as you go.
3. Sprinkle on mushrooms and onions to cover pizza
4. Break up and sprinkle on broccoli.
5. Add chicken-like food substance
6. Season with basil and oregano to taste
7. Bake in the oven at 450 for 15 minutes (if using my pizza dough recipe. If not, bake it as long as your pizza dough calls for.)
   

We really liked this pizza. I hope you do too. Here's an unappetizing picture I took of a slice of said pizza:



That concludes tonight's post. Hope you enjoyed it. :)