Rolled Pizza

Here is another rolled pizza recipe. This one is the real one though. I can finally admit publicly that the Python Pizza was supposed to look like this, but since the dough was rolled too thin and we put way too many toppings, it looked like a fat python instead, hence the name.

Ingredients:

Pizza dough:
1 cup water
1 tbsp olive oil
2 1/2 cups bread flour
1 tbsp sugar
1 tsp salt
1 tsp active dry yeast

Toppings:

1 can of tomato paste mixed with the same amount of water

5-6 large olives, sliced

5-6 mushrooms, sliced or chopped

4-5 cups shredded mozzarella cheese

1 Tbsp oregano

oil or margarine for greasing the pan

The pizza dough is again make in my little bread maker. This measure it enough for about 4 people.

Stretch the dough with a rolling pin to about 1/4 in thick.

Mix tomato paste with about the same quantity of water. Spread 1/2 of this mixture on the pizza dough. Then add mushrooms and olives.

Cover with mozzarella.

Now here is the main part- roll the pizza.

Carefully cut slices.

Arrange rolled pizza slices in the greased pan.

Add the rest of the tomato paste water mix and more mozzarella on top. Bake at 450F for about 15 minutes or until the cheese starts turning brown.

Credits:

Thank you Felipe for the awesome photos and Filip for eating :)

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Fried Green Tomatoes

It's December in California, and I still have some green tomatoes in my garden. They have a hard time turning red as the days are shorter and the weather is cooler. These are not going to be a salad quality tomatoes. But there is still a chance for them to be a part of a delicious meal.

Ingredients:

4-5 green tomatoes

salt and pepper to taste

1/2 cup flour

2 eggs

2 tbsp milk

1/2 cup corn meal

4 tbsp olive oil

Cut the tomatoes into about 1/2 inch slices. Cut the ends off, so that both sides are flat. Salt these slices on both sides and allow them to rest for about 10 minutes.

In the meantime, set up your flour, egg and milk batter, and corn meal dipping bowls.

Dip the tomato slices into the flour first, coating it completely on both sides, then in eggs, and at the end in corm meal.

Heat the oil in a frying pan over medium heat and fry the battered tomato slices on both sides until golden brown.

Serve with fresh bread. Fried green tomatoes are also really good with cheese.

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My Sunday Breakfast

I came back in CA this weekend and I was scavenging around my kitchen for some food. Since I am home only 1.5-2 days per week, I don't cook much anymore, and don't store perishable food. So, I found this box of baby food I brought from Serbia last year. What a pleasant surprise! And that was my Sunday breakfast. Heh. I bet you were expecting a better story. Sorry, that's all I have for now.

Simple Fried Rice

INGREDIENTS:

2 cups rice

2 carrots

1/2 yellow onion

2 cloves garlic

4 Tbsp olive oil

1 Tbsp sesame oil

salt to taste

a pinch of chili powder

a pinch of cumin

1 Tbsp vinegar

1 Tbsp soy sauce

Cook the rice in the rice cooker. Heat up the olive oil in the wok or a frying pan. Cut up the carrots, onion and garlic in the food processor. Fry them in hot oil stirring continuously. Add spices (cumin, chili powder and salt). Add cooked white rice and stir again. Then add vinegar, sesame oil and soy sauce; and stir everything to evenly distribute all the spices and sauces.

Serve as a side dish with fish or meat.

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Let's do some music today. Why not. Maybe this would make a good listening music while cooking:

Braised Greens

Hello there,

I landed just a couple of hours ago, and I already prepared my first meal. I have 3 roommates this weekend, and we had a quiet Friday evening with some wine, cheese and my braised greens. This is the first time I made braised greens. Actually, the idea came from the tapas place in Portland where I went to eat just for their kale salad, which they did not have. Then I decided to order braised greens, it sounded good at the time. But they didn't have that either. 2 days later, at home in California, I saw some random greens in the fridge and realized I am still up for braised greens. So, I made some. It was not bad! I will definitely make more.

INGREDIENTS:

Summer greens

olive oil

Sesame oil

salt or seasoning salt

paprika

Wash and cut up the greens. Heat the oil and fry the greens. Salt to taste and add other spices. Fry for a couple of minutes. Serve as a side dish. Braised greens are also good with cheese and crackers.

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Happy 1st Birthday Tasty Makes Happy!

It’s hard to believe it’s already been one whole year since I started Tasty Makes Happy. Time flies. During this exciting year, I added over 100 recipes. Some of those recipes were sent to me by my dear friends. Svetlana, Natasa and Sasha- thank you for your contributions!

When I created Tasty Makes Happy, I didn’t know much about blogging. Actually, I knew nothing at all. But with the lack of other sense of accomplishment, I thought I’d give it a try. I started reading about blogging, blog promotions, online advertizing & associate programs, buzz words, and a bunch of other stuff I never knew existed. Then I realized- blogging is a whole science by itself. One year later, after putting many, many hours into writing posts, doing research, fixing photos, and battling blogger, Tasty Makes Happy has come a long way- it is making me whole $0.60/ month. Now I have to figure out how to spend all that money!

During this exciting first year of blogging about food, I have checked the statistics of the visits many, many times per day. I might even say that I am a little obsessed with looking up the stats of my blog. But hey! It’s exciting to know that 50 people read it every day. I like to see what recipes are more popular, and what countries the visits come from. Sometimes, I even get comments and messages from the readers, and that is a special treat.

For all of you who follow my blog, you have probably noticed that new recipes are becoming more seldom. I have not lost the passion for cooking! It’s just that my job requires me to spend more and more time in Portland, and I do not have the time for cooking or blogging. Currently I spend the whole work week in Portland, and I get to go home only on weekends. While in Portland, I stay at the hotel, and needless to say, I do not cook at all. When I go home on weekends, I am pretty busy and during the day and a half I get to spend there, I do not do much cooking and even if I do, I don’t take photos or blog about it.

Sadly, I have no new recipes to post for Tasty make Happy’s 1^st Birthday. Instead, I will share some of the exciting foods that I’ve been eating in Portland. Being on the expense report, I tried some cool places on town that normally never would if I had to pay for them myself.

Here is one pasta dish I had at an Italian restaurant- it was a special, a spicy special they said. I decided to try it anyways, even thought I don’t do spicy. Well, it was not spicy at all. Anyways, I chose to post this photo because it looked cool. Two weeks later, I visited the same restaurant and they presented the same special. Then I realized it was not so special anymore.

Next photo was taken at a small Hawaiian place where I like to eat because they have pulled pork. It is not as good as the BBQ place I often go to, but this picture made it in just because it is funny. It has 2 grammatical mistakes in one sentence: “All are meals are slowed cooked”.

Oh, this one was actually good food. It was a sea food place a bunch of us went to one evening. It was good food and fun times. I like going places with my coworkers; they are all exciting people to be with. I did not order this dish, my coworker Dallas did. It looked so exotic and cool; I couldn’t help but put this little crawfish on the photo shoot.

Hmmm, this one you can’t even tell what it is. But I assure you it was tasty! It was some kind of fish in orange sauce.

I bet you can all recognize the blooming onion. That thing disappeared in seconds. Then some stakes disappeared. Then a couple of 22oz beers disappeared as well. That evening, I was passed out at 10:30PM.

Let’s not forget my favorite food of all times- sushi! This one is some volcano roll, it was on fire!

This is not an ordinary pasta dish. I ordered this dish because it was made of wild boar, and I’ve never had a wild boar before. It was tasty but nothing too exotic. As you can see, I had no problem finishing the last bit of this dish.

And the last one is fish tacos. Nothing Special, but colorful.

Make your own sun dried tomatoes

I recently purchased a new toy- a food dehydrator. Too many tomatoes in my garden were ripening all at the same time, and I couldn't eat them fast enough. They were rotting. So, I thought I'd give this a try. I picked all of the ripe tomatoes, sliced them, arranged them on the trays and about 12 hours later I had awesome tasting dried tomatoes. It was so easy.

This is a great way to preserve veggies and herbs that you grow in your garden over the summer.

In general, you can dry any tomatoes. I like to pick more meaty varieties such as Roma or Japanese black trifele heirloom tomato.

Slice the tomatoes into about 1/2 inch slices. The end pieces take longer to because the skin prevents the evaporation, so I just peel off the skin on the end pieces only. It is not necessary to peel off the skin on the slices.

You can pack the slices closely, as they will shrink when they dry. Use as many trays as you like.

Check your tomatoes occasionally. Smaller or thinner slices will be done faster.

Store them in a jar and keep refrigerated until ready to use. You can also store them in olive oil.

You can use these dried tomatoes in sauces, meats, and pretty much any dishes. They rehydrate well, but keep the dry flavor.

Here is the food dehydrator I got. It really cool. You can also get trays for small seeds and sauces. I can't wait to try those out. You can dry fruits, other veggies, herbs, seeds, meet, etc.

Sun Dried Tomato Pesto

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup packed basil leaves
• 4 garlic cloves
• 1 tsp balsamic vinegar
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 packed cup sun-dried tomatoes in oil, drained
• 1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
• 1 cup olive oil

The easiest instructions ever: put all the ingredients in the food processor and blend together.

Serve over pasta. This pesto sauce is also good on sandwiches, even in crackers.

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Here is the food processor I use. I don't know what I did before it. I love it!

Couscous Salad

Couscous salad takes 15 minutes to make, and its easy. All you need to know is how to boil water and use a knife.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup couscous
• 1 cup water
• 4 Tbsp olive oil
• salt to taste
• 1/2 bell pepper
• 1 cup cut tomatoes
• 1/8 cup onions, chopped
• 1 avocado
• 2 Tbsp balsamic vinegar

Cook couscous according to the instruction on the package.

Let it cool while you chop up the veggies. Mix well. Add salt to taste. Serve cold as a side dish or salad.

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Chicken Kebabs

Ingredients:

• 2-3 chicken breasts cut in 1in cubes
• 1 lemon
• 1/8 onion
• 1 garlic clove
• 1 tsp paprika
• 1tsp chili powder
• 1 tsp salt
• black pepper
• herbs: basil, thyme and rosemary
• 2 tbps oil

Blend all the marinate ingredients in the food processor.

Transfer to a dish or a bowl where you will be marinating the chicken.

Cut the chicken into 1in cubes and add them to the marinade. Allow it to marinade for several hours.

Then thread it on the skewers with some veggies and grill until the chicken is cooked.

Fresh Salad

Eat fresh! There is more nutritions in fresh food than cooked, especially processed. Alfalfa is especially nutritions. It is rich in calcium, folic acid, magnesium, manganese, molybdenum, phosphorus, potassium, silicon, sodium, zinc vitamins A to K.

Ingredients:

• 2 Persian cucumbers
• 2-3 tomatoes (or more if they are small like mine)
• green onions
• 1 avocado
• alfalfa sprouts
• 1 lime
• salt and pepper to taste
• olive oil

Slice the tomatoes and cucumbers and cut up the onion and avocado. Squeeze the lime and add oil, salt and pepper to taste.

Summer Moussaka

Hello! Here is another messy looking meal for you. How about that? This recipe is vegetarian and the best thing about it is- you can add any veggies you like.

Ingredients:

• 1 onion
• 1 eggplant
• 3 zucchinis (yellow and/or green)
• 1 potato
• 1 cauliflower
• 4 tomatoes
• 1 carrot
• 1 bell pepper
• 1 garlic, minced
• basil
• 1 cup sour cream
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 cup rice
• salt and pepper to taste

Slice the veggies and break up the cauliflower.

Sauté the onions in oil for a couple of minutes.

Grease the baking dish. Arrange eggplant slices on the bottom of your baking dish as the first layer. Lay the potato slices over eggplant.

Then squash slices.

Arrange cauliflower evenly over squash.

Cover with green zucchinis.

Then add the rest of the veggies over the top.

Mix eggs and sour cream together and poor over the veggies. Bake at 450F for until the top layer becomes crispy and all the layers of veggies are cooked all throughout.

Serve hot with fresh bread.