Recipe: Grilled Summer Squash Pizza with Goat Cheese

Persian bread pizza

Recently, I came across this post from a dear fellow Hannah with whom I went to college. It won me over instantly, as I love... pizza... and all forms of cheese... and squash. And, as I had just bought a ton of summer squashes, it seemed the perfect timing. 


So, my own variation, determined by my own tastes and available ingredients. I made 3 variations total, one grilled, and two in the oven since our grill was not large enough. Ingredients listed below should make between 2-3 pizzas. I used yogurt with the sauce as well as the cheese to reduce the caloric content, and to make it easier to spread on the bread. 


Grilled/Baked Citrus Summer Squash and Goat Cheese Pizza


-pizza dough, or in my variation; I used Persian bread and then 2 large pieces of Indian naann. 
-8oz of goat cheese
-2 cups of Greek yogurt, nonfat
-juice and zest of 1/2 lime, 1/2 lemon
-fresh basil leaves

-2-3 medium sized yellow squash and zuchini mix
-salt, pepper, ground coriander, paprika, lemon pepper
-olive oil




1- If you are using something that is already baked, like I did, then you will want to cook your squash ahead of time. I sliced the squash quickly using my food processor, and then roasted them in the oven using a non-stick cookie sheet for about 25 minutes at 450 degrees. I put them all in a single layer, drizzled olive oil on them, and then spiced them with salt, lemon pepper, coriander, thyme, and paprika. 


2- Pizza sauce: Again, using my food processor, I mixed the Greek yogurt and goat cheese together until nice and creamy, and easily spreadable. I added a bit of citrus juice and zest to taste. Add in a little lemon pepper and salt. 

My dear friend Angela

3- Heat your grill or oven- prepare it for the pizza! 


4-Spread the cheese/yogurt sauce on the pizza base, and then arrange the basil leaves intermittently. Place the squash circles on concentric, overlapping circles. I believe in doing multiple layers, since food processors get squash quite thin. 


5- Grill/bake until the edges of the squash look a bit crispy, and until it has heated. Enjoy!

I made other variations as well; one with fresh tomato, feta, and avocado. This seemed to be a hit, but in retrospect, put the tomato and avocado on after baking- the nice fresh flavor is diluted with the heat. 


What are some of your summer favorites? 

Recipe: Homemade Hummus from fresh Chickpeas

I love hummus.
There's two really important components to hummus: flavor, and texture. One is immensely easy, the other... that's where the effort comes in.

The main ingredients in hummus are chickpeas, olive oil, and tahini. Variations that I think also are essential include lemon juice, salt, lemon pepper, paprika, cumin, and usually a little ground coriander.

I've made hummus before just using a can of cooked chick peas, and food processing it with the other ingredients. The flavor is good- the texture... not so much.
 Without a high powered blender, it comes out grainy, and very unlike the smooth and delicious hummus that I can buy very, very cheaply around Evanston/Skokie.
I bought uncooked, but shelled garbanzo beans at my local market (favorite place ever)... and proceeded to hull them.

This process was so annoying. It took a very long time.

What I did was to soak them in hot water for about 20 minutes, and then individually take the little hull off of every bean. It was a miserable experience. In hindsight, this would have been much easier after they were cooked. Silly Hannah. 
However, it was key. My hummus turned out excellent. It's not quite perfected, but as that I don't have an immersion blender (yet) it's definitely the best I can get with my amazing food processor.

Step one: Cook the beans, until very tender. Then cool them (or wear heat resistent gloves) and hull them. Place in food processor, and give a good blending.

Step two: Ingredient adding time! I add to taste largely. The olive oil and tahini, as well as lemon juice will also highly influence the consistency of the hummus.
 For olive oil, I use a special, fresh pressed kind of olive oil that I can buy from my other favorite market. They make it themselves, and it tastes amazing. Also very cheap, which sounds incredulous, I know.

The tahini I also get there, it comes with  great recipes on the back of the bottle for hummus and tahini dressing as well.  Here's a picture of my typical hummus spicing.

Lemmon Pepper
Granulated Garlic
Salt
Cumin
Ground Coriander
Paprika
Thyme

The result was a creamy textured, smooth hummus that tasted fantastic. Served to my middle eastern friends it even got the ok! It took a while to get it down, but it's the little tricks to cooking that make all the difference.

Recipe: Espresso Chili Rub Chicken

Great recipe for so many reasons: it's fast, it's healthy, it's full of flavor, it's easy to modify. 

This is a wonderful seasoning rub that you can create ahead of time and use at your convenience as well, goes really well with chicken, beef or seafood. I think it would do pretty well on a pork tenderloin as well. 

Ingredients: 

2 tbsp dark brown sugar 

1 tbsp ground espresso coffee

1 tbps ground coriander

2 tsp ground cumin

1 tsp ground ginger

1-2 tsp red chile flakes or chili powder

salt and pepper

For my recipe, I used two boneless, skinless, chicken breasts that I cut into slices, so I could have strips for making wraps or setting on top of rice, etc. I also modified the recipe to include less sugar, and instead of chile flakes I used a fresh ground red  (bright red!) pepper that I found in the Mexican section of our market. All the packaging was in Spanish, but I can tell you it added a ton of heat. Leaves me wondering what kind of peppers they used! 

After tossing the chicken in the rub and coating it evenly, I put it in a skillet, poured two tbsp of white wine over and cooked it on high heat. The wine helped all the ingredients to stick to the chicken nice and evenly. Very tasty. 

I decided to make a wrap with mine; using a garden spinach tortilla, greek yogurt, and red leaf lettuce to cool down some of the spice. Jason used hummus and cucumber to do the same.