We might as well have an Italian

On occasion, we like to embark on a cooking adventure clearly out of our reach, one that will take an absurd amount of effort and will be a claim of willpower and sheer determination, that will feed us for days and make us feel like kings.

We totally had no intention of this next recipe being anything like that.

It was supposed to be small and cute and we didn't want it to last 4.5 hours in preparation. Instead it turned into a delicious monstrosity that I regret for even imagining, and yet, it was wonderful. And you, too, will have the pleasure of comprehending it.

Dismally Large Deep Dish Pizza

We will enjoy this masterpiece in two steps! Because we refused to half ass this, we made the delicious dough, letting it rise, and only then creating the abomination. Any by me, I mean Lovely Assistant. Skilled artist hands and such.


Seen here staring down the dough, lest it misbehave.






Ingredients:
3 cups unbleached, all purpose flour
1 package active dry yeast, fast rising
3/4 tsp salt
1 1/4 c water, hot
2 tsp honey
Deep dish pizza pan

The trick to making bread is, um, something I don't actually know, because I truthfully don't have much experience. But I will offer a general guide. Just don't be surprised if the yeast decides it hates you because I don't give you the secret to taming wild fungi.

Mix around 2 cups flour and the yeast and salt and such in a large bowl with whatever materials you have. I mean, it's three dry ingredients, so hands or a fork isn't too drastic a step. Then pour in the water and honey (make the honey hot so it blends well) and mix like a champ with whatever you have on hand (wooden spoon)? And throw in the rest of the flour like a boss to get it to a nice consistency. Take the doughball and put it on a cutting board or covered counter, dusted with flour.




Now roll it LIKE. A PRINCE. Knead the dough repeatedly, for 8 to 10 minutes, until it is smooth and uniform. Add flour as necessary to prevent the dough from being hella sticky and coating your fingers.


Throw the doughball into a large bowl that has been sprayed with PAM and cover with Saran wrap and a towel. Throw somewhere pleasantly warm permit to rise for 30 or 40 minutes, until doubled in size. (Like outside, if it's the middle of the summer and you live in the South. It's warm and moist and nasty outside wherever you go! Easy!) When it's risen, punch that sucker down like it's taking your wallet, cover again and let rest for 10 minutes. Take that guy and roll him into a deep dish pan that you sprayed with PAM, because surely you sprayed it and surely it's coated in PAM. It should cover the bottom of the pan AND cover the sides. If you aren't ready to pour everything in, keep punching it down from time to time, because it gets excited and doesn't know when to stop.

STEP TWO IS AWESOME

Ingredients:
EVERYTHING YOU WANT IN A PIZZA
Like fat free cheeses, because feta and cheddar are pretty awesome
Also, 2 cans tomato sauce
And maybe some mushrooms and pineapple and spinach and tomato and onion and chicken

You fill that monstrosity up with your toppings so it likes it. Chicago style says you put the sauce on top, so we suggest a layer of cheese, and then a layer of meats and vegetables, and then the sauce, and then a topping of cheese and finely chopped tomatoes.


NOW put it in the oven at 500 degrees and get ready for AWESOME. By which I mean wait like an hour and thirty minutes. Also put some aluminum foil under it because it's gonna bubble up. Wait for it to be relatively solid when you take it out and then cut that beast and eat it with a fork and knife.

We don't have any pictures of the finished product. We were too busy EATING IT.

Next on the list of corruptions:
Lasagna
Crab Cakes
Tiramisu
Noodle Kugel

Dips are pretty awesome

Some of the best cooking takes planning, time, preparation, lots of involved work, and triumphant relaxing afterwards while waiting on the product to come out of the oven a casual victory at best. On the other hand, some of the best cooking begins as an 'Oh shit what did I just do this is horrible' moment and it turns out wonderful, and you can flip the double bird to all the complicated recipes.


Lovely Assistant was making hummus when she remarked, "God damnit we weren't supposed to put garlic salt in this," followed by a determined, "I'm putting the goddamn pinto beans in this, whatever." It turned out that the profanity and the pinto beans were rather remarkable additions to the mixture and turned out insanely well. And then we pretended that we had meant for that to happen all along, and called it bean dip.

Sometimes you can take preparation and shove it.

Bean Dip

I hope you've bought that food processor by now.

Ingredients:
2 15 oz can chickpeas
1 15 oz can black beans
1 15 oz can pinto beans
4 tbsp Greek yogurt (YES STILL)
1/2 cup red onion
1 1/2 cup pineapple (DON'T QUESTION IT WE'RE CRAZY OVER HERE)
2 tsp garlic salt
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp coriander
4 tsp water
lime to taste

Do you know where the blend button is on the food processor? Good. Drain beans, chop up pineapple and onion, throw everything into the food processor and spinchop everything all things ever. And eat it with tortilla chips or pretzels or cucumber or whatever, man.



Mistakes can be DELICIOUS if you just add some pineapple.

Next on the list of corruptions:
Lasagna
Crab Cakes
Tiramisu
Pizza
Noodle Kugel

We like our burgers

So we're going to offer you another burger, because we like burgers, and burgers are American, and burgers burgers burgers.


No but seriously, burgers and sandwiches are seriously a staple of American food, and internationally everyone knows it. Just like we imagine the Brits eating fish and chips with their tea (not at the same time. necessarily.) and the Japanese eating rice with their tentacles and the Mexicans all over their beans and cheap tequila, people look to America for hamburgers, and we sure as hell respond like a former colony turned a nation through cooking right*! Yeah USA!

So we're giving you another chance just in time for the holiday: the return to school. What? You don't celebrate that?

Spicy Black Bean Sliders

If you're a pansy like me, these will be spicy. If you aren't a pansy like me, you may want to spice this up by dropping in some minced and seeded japaleno peppers. I prefer my taste buds intact. Delicate inside dweller and such.

Ingredients:
2 15 oz cans black beans
1/2 cup white onion, finely chopped
1/2 cup fresh cilantro (we really like cilantro, k?)
1/3 cup flour
1/3 cup bread crumbs (low fat. duh. we enjoyed using panko for this, actually)
4 garlic cloves, minced
1.5 tsp coriander
1.5 tsp cumin
1.5 tsp cayenne pepper
1 egg white
1 loaf french bread

You remember when we made falafel? We're doing the same thing here, so pull up your suspenders and be awesome about it.

So the first step we do is fairly straightforward: drain the beans and throw everything all nice and neat and chopped and dead into your food processor. If you're anything like me, you have a lot of ingredients, so you're allowed to blend in steps. I won't judge too much.



You'll want to ensure the mix is essentially a thick paste, because that's how we roll here. Use the pulse button, or turn it rapidly on and off like an ADHD-addled toddler, whatever gets it there.

Shape the guys into patties and dust with flour. We're making sliders here, so we made ours kinda smallish, but normal sized is fine too, because burgers are just as legit. We just wanted to be classy about ours. Then throw these guys in your skillet with (as per the usual) PAM and grill until done on both sides.



You'll want to cut your French bread into slices and throw them into the oven to crisp. Or maybe you don't like them crisp. You can do whatevs, really. We're sort of passive about what you choose to do, because we already ate the hell out of these with fine mustard, and they were wonderful. But spicy.



My pansy tongue cried for a moment and then reveled in the glory. And the beer helped drown my spicy agony. My delicious, delicious agony.



* "cooking right" includes help from the French, many years of unnecessary bloodshed, overbearing influences from capitalism and religion, and a society hinging on materialism and atherosclerosis. And also frying everything with a name and nutrition facts.

Next on the list of corruptions:
Lasagna
Crab Cakes
Tiramisu
Pizza
Noodle Kugel

A word about Japan

We here at Gallbladderfree can't particularly enjoy eating around town, because "around town" in the Southern USA means "we deep fried it and combined it with mayonnaise." So the key to getting through this condition and still enjoying the city you live in consists of finding some central eating establishments that carry foods that aren't meant to shatter arteries.

That said, you'll find Japanese an appealing addition to your palate. Vegetarian sushi can often be an appetizing addition to your meal structure because it is a deviation from a normal salad and sandwich routine. For those of you with an aversion to raw fish, you don't really have an excuse; vegetarian sushi is not animal derived. That said, not all ingredients in normal sushi are fatty either. Most fish will be, but look into crab, shrimp, and octopus or squid to supplement your meal.

Alternatively, you can make your own, though that particular skill will not be covered here, because I can't make a maki roll worth a damn. My girlfriend is much better than I. Plenty guides online, though.

Also, Japanese beers are delicious.

Variation on a theme

Sorry about the pause. I wasn't around to treat you to new and delicious things, but that is okay. We will pick up with delicious and new.

Remember that wonderful hummus? Of course you do. It was awesome. I know I enjoyed it much, and we ended up devouring it fairly rapidly. So I'm going to offer unto you a different hummus, in case you want the variety spice and you have a lot of black beans sitting around.

Black Bean Hummus

I would like to remind you that hummus is "garbanzo beans" and "food processor," so you really can be creative with the concept of hummus. We just wanted to try a shift that would utilize yogurt, because we're getting into a Greek yogurt kick (0% fat, baby!) and we enjoy using it in everything. Because yes.

Ingredients:
1/2 15 oz can chickpeas
1/2 15 oz can black beans
2 Tbsp Greek yogurt
1 garlic clove, chopped
1/2 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp coriander
2 tsp water
juice from 1 lemon

We got a little bit fancy with the spices this time. We also like to call this "lemon zinger" hummus, so if you don't like getting all your Vitamin C, you can lower the amount of lemon juice in this.

So the instructions are pretty fun and basic, by which I mean throw all of this in the food processor and blend the living hell out of it. And scoop it out and eat it.


It's pretty awesome.

Mediterranean series part 3: the focus

Now, there are two very typical foods that come to mind when I think of Mediterranean food. Besides tabouli. I mean, yeah tabouli, but that's like having a garden on your plate. I mean substantial food. Stuff that will fill your stomac- what, tabouli still? Shut up. I mean gyros and falafel.

Gyro (pronounced YI-roh, Southern speak be damned. Not JAI-roh or HE-roh) is that delicious little pita stuffed with lamb and beef that will destroy your cholesterol rating for 2 straight weeks. Falafel is it's vegetarian cousin, which, unsurprisingly for something from the Middle East, doesn't mean more healthy, because it's delicious and fried and therefore delicious. Pre-cholecystectomy. Gyros we'll corrupt at a later date, because there's a tragic lack of falafel and a fortuitous accumulation of garbanzo beans in my pantry right now, and also I'll do what I want to, thank you.


If you don't know what falafel is, you can inquire of Wikipedia, which will inform you that it is, in fact, a "deep fried (oof) ball or patty made from ground chickpeas and/or fava beans." (Cited as of July 21 2011 at 11:14 am CST, since it could change in the next 15 minutes. Goddamn Wikipedia). We here at Cooking With Bile like the sounds of that except for the deep fried part, since deep frying imparts a delightful portion of pure artery-clogging, liver-seizuring goodness to anything. So let's corrupt this and make it as healthy as possible, shall we?

Baked Falafel with Tsatsiki

An important consideration to any Mediterranean dish is the inclusion of the tsatsiki sauce, which is stupid delicious and I don't care what you say otherwise. It necessitates being made correctly to fully compliment the dish, but the bright side is it's difficult to not make correctly.

For yon delicious tsatsiki, we suggest the following approach:

1 pint fat free Greek yogurt (we like Fage, but let's be serious, you can use sour cream here too)
1/2 medium cucumber
2 tablespoons basalmic vinegar
1 tablespoon garlic salt

The key to tsatsiki sauce is bringing out the taste of cucumber, so you first take your handy dandy grater and grate the everliving hell out of that medium cucumber. Shred it finely and discard all the juice you have. Or drink it. (I didn't know you could even have cucumber juice.) Then you, um, basically throw everything into the yogurt (cucumber shreds, vinegar, salt) and mix it up. Put it in the refrigerator overnight. This is important, because the yogurt magically absorbs the cucumber taste or something. You'll have a lot of tsatsiki, but that's okay because it tastes damn delicious on everything.

On to the main event: falafel!

Ingredients:

(We're reducing this recipe a good deal from how we found it)

1 can chickpeas, drained
1/4 cup onion, chopped
1/4 cup fresh cilantro, chopped
1 tablespoon all purpose flour
1 tablespoon lime juice
1 teaspoon garlic salt
1 teaspoon ground cumin
3/4 teaspoon baking powder

pita pockets, or whole pitas (as low fat as possible)(pretty easy)
lettuce
tomato
yon tsatsiki sauce

So to make these delicious creatures, you preheat the oven to 400 degrees. And then you do some other stuff.

Throw the entire first list up there (chickpeas to baking powder) into your food processor (which you surely have) and blend it on the Chop setting. You want your stuff to be chunky, with bits of chickpeas and such still in there. Then shape the glutinous mixture into small patties (say, around 2 inches in diameter) and throw those into a hot skillet lined with that delicious Olive Oil PAM you have from before. They'll need around 2-5 minutes to brown on each side. You can throw them in the oven for around 10 minutes when you finish browning them.

Fish the falafel out of the oven, shove in a pita with lettuce, tomato, and tsatsiki, and you're practically Middle Eastern!



Overreaching redneck stereotypes about Middle Easterners notwithstanding.



Look at my lovely assistant about to enjoy a delicious and relatively nutritious meal!

Next on the list of corruptions:
Lasagna
Black Bean Burgers
Tiramisu
Pizza
Noodle Kugel

Tastes like rice... (Mediterranean series part 2)

For those of you who aren't familiar with Whole Foods, they stock this particularly delicious form of starch called Cilantro Lime Quinoa. It is delicious. Oddly enough, we could never find a recipe online for it, though Whole Foods is usually pretty persistent about lending out their delicious, delicious recipes.

So we made our own. Damnit.

It actually turned out really well, for not knowing what the hell we were doing.

Cilantro Lime Quinoa

This makes use of the principle of TAKE A STARCH and THROW THINGS IN IT. So relatively basic, and very nom.

Ingredients:

1 cup uncooked quinoa
1 bell pepper, chopped (not green)(gross)
4 green onions, chopped
1/4 cup cilantro, chopped
2 Tbsp sliced almonds (optional)
4 Tbsp lime juice

By the way, if you need this to be even lower in fat content, which you don't, because this is pretty awesome already, and whatever, you can use cous cous. Cous cous has 0 grams of fat and blah blah.

Cook the quinoa according to the package; it should give you about 3 cups of cooked delicious starchiness. You need to a) rinse it before using it, and b) add about 2 tablespoons of your lime juice to the cooking quinoa suspension. Gives it kick.

Once it comes out, shove it in the refrigerator for a little while to cool down. Once chilled somewhat (30 minutes is not bad at all), remove and throw everything else in there, mixing thoroughly. And then eat it. Straight up delicious.



We suspect it'll be even better after a day sitting in the refrigerator, when the almonds have softened and the lime is more pervasive. Though it's not bad soon off the stove. And low in fat!

Lovely for your figure.

Next on the list of corruptions:
Falafel
Lasagna
Black Bean Burgers
Tiramisu
Pizza