Novelties: Veggie Pizza with Portobello Mushroom Crust

This was one of my more inventive ideas - along with Venergy Drinks, coming soon. I still think it is theoretically possible to pull this off, but I'm not convinced the effort is worth it, since you can cut the stem off a portobello to make a mini-pizza anyway.

The basic idea, though, was to make a pizza crust without using dough. I've played around with roasted portobello mushroom dishes and decided that if I threw some mushrooms in my food processor and added some oil, I could make a crust. I threw in a few cloves of garlic, because why not get that in the "crust" directly if you can?

Ingredients:
2-3 portobello mushrooms
2-3 cloves of garlic
1/2 cup (maybe? Eyeball it) olive oil
1/2 cup tomato sauce, or canned diced tomatoes with basil and oregano
diced veggies/toppings of your choice
cheese of choice - enough to cover

Then the toppings are just like a basic pizza. You could theoretically do whatever you want.

I baked it for over an hour at 350 degrees. The "crust" never cohered, and burned a little around the edges. Although you couldn't eat it like a pizza, which was my main goal, it still tasted pretty good.

I'm thinking an egg or something else with emulsifiers might work better to bind it if I try it again. I may try to make the crust thinner, too. Pre-cooking or drying the crust may help as well.

Thai Curry Chicken with Fresh Veggies

Much like Brett's love interest in episode 2 of Flight of the Conchords, this dish is flippin' hot, like a curry. In fact, it is a curry - a Thai curry, which is my favorite kind. The main difference I see between Indian and Thai curries, aside from the spelling, is the presence of coconut milk (bwdik?).


It's important to make sure your meat is fresh, which is why I always bite off a giant mouthful of raw chicken before cooking. If you don't need to go to the hospital the next day, your chicken may not be fresh, and you should get rid of it so as not to run any health risks.

The basic ingredients (all quantities approximate):
2-3 boneless, skinless chicken breasts (I buy the family size packages and freeze the rest)
1 can of coconut milk (you can go with light if you want)
2-3 tomatoes, cored and seeded, diced
1/2 a white onion, chopped
3 white mushrooms, diced
2+ cloves of minced garlic (I love garlic so I used 4-5)
1 lime (or lime juice)
1/4 tsp turmeric (just a dab'll do ya)
1 tbsp ground cumin
1 tsp ground ginger or garam masala
1 tsp paprika (or to taste)
2 tbsp fresh basil
salt and pepper to taste

In a ziploc bag, combine coconut milk, spices, and lime juice for marinade. Trim fat from chicken and slice into small pieces. Marinate overnight.

Empty contents into a large sauce pan or pot on high heat (the wider the pan, the quicker it'll cook). Add the vegetables. Bring to a boil, then reduce down to thicken the sauce. The chicken will gradually turn white as it cooks - when it's cooked all the way through, you can begin the editing process.

Most dishes I make go through some significant revisions before I serve it, although that may be because I'm making so much stuff up as I go along. I tried adding some allspice, cayenne pepper, and celery salt, which didn't seem to hurt, and cloves, which did.

You can add other veggies, too. One of the great things about curries is you can put in whatever healthy stuff you want and you'll primarily end up tasting the curry. That and the salmonella.