Quick Summery Sautee

Just wanted to fire off a quick post about one of my favorite quick meals-- sauteeing a heap of vegetables, and throwing them over pasta. You don't need to spend time on a pasta sauce to make a nice, quick meal. Just grab some fresh vegetables, some olive oil, and within 10 minutes you'll be eating a hearty, summery dish that's both healthy and filling.

As it happens, I already had everything I needed in my pantry... and I wanted to get rid of it. I had a case of organic heirloom tomatoes from my local white person depot, Trader Joe's. I also had an onion and a bell pepper. Considering the only thing you pretty much ever need to make something taste amazing is onions, I had this on lock.

There is only one thing you need to know when sauteeing a medley of vegetables: cook them in order from longest cooking time, to shortest. (It's a good golden rule for sauteeing vegetables, but if you're going to make something like ratatouille, different orders need to be used, in order to blend the vegetables juices in the right order.)

After a cursory Google search, I found this handy list posted by TLC, the Schadenfreude Channel. No pictures of limbless hoarding midgets, but it does have a fairly thorough list of common household vegetables. The table doesn't have a column specifically for sauteeing, but it's fairly easy to compare the columns and items and extrapolate between the two.

In my case, I heated up a healthy wallop of olive oil to medium heat over the stove top then threw in my onions. Once they were starting to soften, I threw in the quartered tomatoes (whose juices really helped to soften everything else), followed by the sliced pepper. Season to taste. I threw in some fresh oregano and basil for an added kick. You don't want to overcook things, otherwise they'll turn into an unappetizing, brown gloop. But once it's soft, you're ready to spoon the mix over a bed of pasta, and top with parmesan. There should be plenty of liquid at the bottom of the saucepan, both from the tomato innards and the juices from the other veggies, which makes it a perfect pasta topper.

It's a fast, easy way to get rid of vegetables you've got lying around, and it's extremely filling. And it's good. Everybody wins.

Pizza p. 191 Part Two

Alright, so a couple weeks ago, I promised that I'd write a secondary post about pizza dough a couple days later. To my credit, I actually did make that second pizza, and I had every intention of writing about it in a timely manner. But I'll be honest with you, I totally dropped the ball because I got stuck in an obsessive videogame spiral. I tried so hard to tear myself out of this black hole, but there were a lot of bad guys that needed a good strong whooping. Plus, I was saving the world from violent hooligans, which I'd argue is more or less about as important as blogging about pizza.

Anyway, I dropped the word "magic" when describing how using olive oil can prevent your dough from turning into a sad, soggy mess, but it's really just common sense. Water and oil don't mix. So if you're going to heap ingredients on a sog-susceptible dough, what do you do? Put oil on it. That's your barrier against all your ingredients, so you'll get a nice, firm dough that's crispy on the bottom. If you don't want to bother with brushing, you can just drizzle the top with olive oil and spread it with your hands.


It helps to push a few dents into the dough with your fingertips as well, so the crust doesn't puff up into a giant bubble. You see, when the pizza is heated in the oven, the air bubbles in the dough expand, forming bubbles that can get out of control. To counteract this, a lot of people "dock" the dough, meaning they prick holes in the dough with a fork or other pointy object. (You can also buy this absurd contraption, but seriously just use a fork.) But just pushing dents into the crust should deter any large bubbles from forming, since you're essentially blocking the spread of air bubbles.

This time, I followed the recommendation of The Joy of Cooking and made a prosciutto, artichoke, and olive pizza. Tip: if you're going to use canned artichoke hearts (which mostly likely you will be using), don't forget to squeeze the juice out first! Or else you're going to end up with a soppy pile of mush.

Pizza is so freaking delicious.