Kitchen Adventures

Stretching the Definition of "Home-Made"

I recently made pizza using a store-bought crust and store-bought pesto along with my usual non-dairy cheese substitute.

Pesto-based pizza is a new experiment. I usually use a tomato sauce base, but experimenting at home means I can try whatever crazy ideas I want. The Mama Mary's crusts are dairy-free, and I have tried them before. They're tolerable, although nowhere near as good as when I make my own dough from scratch. But it's a lot faster and easier to open a package.

I spread the pesto in a thin layer on one of these crusts as shown below.

I used only part of the "cheese," sprinkled as evenly as I could manage over the pesto.

The closes I came to proper home-made work was slicing some Roma tomatoes to add on top of the cheese. It takes a very sharp knife to do this well. I did not have a sharp-enough knife. I managed nonetheless.

I also tried adding some pickled jalapeños to a small portion.

I think I will try the jalapeños on a heartier tomato sauce and meat pizza in the future. The flavor isn't quite right for this, but at least they didn't add too much moisture and make the crust soggy. I like the pesto, cheese, and tomatoes flavor combo though, and the olive oil helped keep the store-bought crust from getting too dry. Next time, I should brush on a little oil on the exposed crust edge, too. I was concerned that oiling the crust as directed would be overkill thanks to the olive oil in the pesto sauce, but I was wrong.

Elk Tacos

A friend offered me some ground elk meat. How could I say no? So elk tacos were on the menu the day after the pizza experiment. I diced tomatoes, shredded lettuce, shredded some real cheese for family members who can eat it, and got out some store-bought taco sauce and my cheese alternative.

Elk tastes different from domesticated meat sources. I haven't tried it unseasoned, so I don't know how gamey it would taste otherwise. It's just a bit different from the usual taco fare. The meat is darker and leaner than beef. I suspect the texture would be improved if it were blended with ground pork. But tough meat is not bad when ground up and seasoned vigorously.

Alas, I blinked, and my avocado suddenly went over-ripe. Life is cruel, and the fickle avocado is proof.

Drawn from two posts on my Steemit account