Deep Dish Pizza

If you're looking for a simple dish for busy weeknight dinners, this is it. You can make it more complicated by making your own crust, but there's no need. I buy cornmeal pizza crusts in the frozen section at the grocery store, add spaghetti sauce and whatever toppings and seasonings I'm in the mood for. 

Ingredients:

Frozen cornmeal pizza crusts (or any other type of pizza crust)

Spaghetti sauce 

Combination Suggestion #1: mushrooms, frozen (or not so frozen) peas, onions (or quartered pearl onions), smoked salt, and dried ground rosemary.

Combination Suggestion #2: zucchini, bell peppers, onions, fresh basil, and fennel seeds (optional, but adds amazing flavor if you have them on hand). 

Preheat oven to the temperature suggested for your pizza crust. Add spaghetti sauce to the pizza crust shell (be generous; the sauce will keep the veggies from drying as the pizza is baking). Add any toppings and seasonings you'd like; my combinations are just suggestions (albeit very wonderful suggestions). Bake for about 20 minutes or until the crust is perfectly toasted and the veggies are mostly cooked.  

Mushrooms, onions, and peas combination.

Zucchini, peppers, onions, and basil combination.

Lazy Persian Kotlet

So, last year I attempted to make a vegetarian kotlet recipe from My Persian Kitchen and I left too much liquid in the mixture, so I had no kotlets but some very tasty mashed potatoes. I had some advieh left (which is a very delicious spice blend for Persian cooking) and I wanted to try a version where I didn't blend the ingredients together but kept them whole. I often do this with soup recipes so that I can keep some texture in my food. It turned out very well. (And so much easier too!) 

Go to My Persian Kitchen's recipe for Vegetarian Kotlet and just don't blend the ingredients. If you actually want to make them kotlet-style and keep it plant-based, use a flax egg instead of a regular egg.  

Fancy taters.

Advieh, turmeric, and salt on the mash from my previous attempt. It's so pretty!