Migraine Meals

We got a cauliflower at the Ballard Farmers Market over the weekend. This was no ordinary cauliflower. It was massive, bright-stalked, with ecstatic purple-tinged florets. I wish I had taken a photo before I broke it down. I know that “ecstatic cauliflower” might require a little stretch of the imagination. It was like each little floret had shown up for the party and they were so excited they just couldn’t stand it. I almost felt bad roasting its feisty freshness down to something mellow and sultry – completely transformed. Here are the before and after photos:

Roasted cauliflower is pretty amazing. The easiest thing in the world to cook, but such a deep and complex result. Z always asks me, “What’s in the cauliflower?” and I always reply, “Cauliflower.” Though there actually are a couple more ingredients: butter, olive oil, salt, pepper. Pour a few tablespoons of olive oil over it, add a few dots of butter, and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Then roast at 425 degrees until it’s nice and golden. Stir it from time to time.

This cauliflower was turned into bisque and also used as a pizza topping (it’s also perfect as a side dish). Pizza is on our menu pretty much weekly. While pizza in a restaurant is pretty much guaranteed to cause a migraine if you have food triggers (the fresh yeasted dough, the cheese), if you make it at home you can avoid all that. Z said the other day that my pizza is better than Tutta Bella’s. Ha! It’s not even certified, super official, authentic. He did later add the caveat that my toppings are better, but not my crust. I can live with that – I don’t have a wood-fired pizza oven.

I wasn’t quite sure what to do about the crust when I first learned that I couldn’t eat fresh baked bread products. But after playing with the proportions a bit I’ve worked out a yeast-free pizza dough recipe that I’m pretty happy with. I’ve come to prefer it to the yeasted dough I used to make, both because it’s so much more convenient and expedient, and also because it has a nice cracker-like flavor and texture. Here’s the recipe – I’m sure that it can still be improved upon, so feel free to offer suggestions.

Yeast-free Pizza Dough

• 1 cup white flour
• 1/2 cup whole wheat flour
• 1/2 cup medium grind cornmeal
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 3/4 – 1 cup water

Put the dry ingredients in the food processor and pulse to mix. Pour in the olive oil. Turn the food processor on and very slowly pour in the water. When the dough comes together, you’ve added enough water (usually a little too much). Knead 3 or 4 times on a floured surface, adding in a little extra flour if necessary so that the dough is not sticky. Then roll it out thin with a rolling pin. This makes a little more dough than will fit on my pizza peel or stone.

This week, in addition to the roasted cauliflower, our pizza included caramelized onions, yukon gold potatoes, morels, asparagus, fresh mozzarella, parsley and sage.

Roasted Cauliflower and Yukon Gold Potato Pizza

(These quantities are all very approximate)

• several tablespoons olive oil
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 6 very small yukon gold potatoes (or fewer, if you don’t have teeny little potato nuggets)
• 1/2 an onion, thinly sliced
• 6 asparagus spears, trimmed and cut into 1 inch lengths
• 6 medium – large morels, roughly chopped
• 2 balls fresh mozzarella, sliced thin
• 1 tablespoon chopped fresh parsley and sage
• Kosher or sea salt
• pizza dough

Place pizza stone in oven and preheat to 500 degrees. Mince the garlic and mix it into the olive oil. Set aside. Place the potatoes in a pot and cover with cold water, 1 inch above the potatoes. Boil until soft. Meanwhile, saute the onion in a little butter and olive oil. Cook it any way you want. This time I cooked it pretty slowly, over low heat, with salt and pepper. After it softened up I added a pinch of sugar and a little fresh thyme and continued to cook it until it caramelized. Any way you cook them, the onions will be yummy. Blanch the asparagus for a minute. Saute the morels in a little olive oil and butter, add salt and pepper, and sprinkle with fresh herbs (like sage or thyme) if you have some on hand. When the potatoes are soft, remove them from the heat and, when cool, slice thinly.

I usually prepare the toppings first, and then make the dough. After you’ve rolled out your dough, pour a small handful of cornmeal onto your pizza peel. The cornmeal acts as ball bearings, allowing your pizza to slide soothly off of the peel, onto the stone (I buy the cheap kind of cornmeal for this purpose). Put the dough on the peel and brush it with the garlic and olive oil that you set aside earlier. Then sprinkle liberally with salt. You definitely need to use a tasty salt here, kosher or some variety of sea salt. Make sure you brush olive oil all the way to the edges and salt the edges too. This will be your “crust” and probably won’t have many toppings; the garlic oil and salt are what transform it from just dough into delish. Scatter your mozzarella slices evenly around the dough; then add all of your toppings except the fresh herbs and pop it in the oven for about 10 minutes or until the crust is crisp and golden. After removing from the oven, sprinkle with the fresh herbs. (On this occasion I managed to overcook all my toppings, so I actually put just the cheese and the potatoes on at first, and then added the remaining ingredients after about four minutes.)