rants & recipes

I'm not really sure where I got this recipe - it's based, partly, on a mushroom pie recipe that's an old stand-by here (copied from a cookbook whose title has been forgotten). I kind of hate to post savory pie recipes here because Evin's in charge of the crust and for that, I don't really have a recipe. So I have to say "use your favorite pizza dough recipe, enough to make a double crust" while knowing that most people don't have a "favorite pizza dough recipe" ... oh well. To cover this amount of filling, a little over 3 cups of flour was used in the crust. If the filling was halved, this would probably fit nicely in a normal-sized, deep-dish pie plate.

Ingredients:

• 16 ounces spinach, chopped
• 16 ounces mushrooms, sliced
• 6 cloves garlic, diced
• 2 onions, sliced
• ~ 10 sun-dried tomato halves, diced
• 6 ounces tomato paste
• 1 1/3 cup liquid (unsweetened, unflavored soymilk is nice)
• 2 tsp marmite
• 2 vegetable cubes
• 1 cup fine bread crumbs
• 1 cup chopped walnuts
• 2 tsp basil
• 1 tsp ground fennel
• 1/2 tsp cumin
• 1/4 tsp curry
• 2 tsp dried parsley
• 1/4 tsp red pepper flakes
• dash nutritional yeast
• salt, pepper to taste
• pizza dough for double crust, use a recipe that calls for about 3.5 cups flour
• One block extra-firm tofu, prepared (see notes).

Instructions:

1. Prepare pizza dough. Roll out into two circles. Line plate with one circle. Keep other for top.
2. Sautee garlic, onions, sun-dried tomatoes in olive oil. After a few minutes, add mushrooms.
3. Warm water or soymilk and dissolve marmite, tomato paste and finely chopped vegetable cubes.
4. Mix together bread crumbs, walnuts and remaining spice ingredients. Set aside.
5. Add tomato/'milk mix to mushrooms.
6. Add spinach and heat until wilted.
7. Stir in bread crumbs/spices.
8. Mix in tofu.
9. Pour filling into prepared crust.
10. Bake in preheated 450 degree oven for 15-20 minutes.

Notes:

• I usually prepare tofu by cutting it into about half-inch cubes and cooking it, dry, in a non-stick pan until all its water has cooked out and it is beginning to stick to the pan. Then I add some oil and soy sauce. After the liquid heats up, I throw in some nutritional yeast, garlic and onion powder and some black pepper. Stir to coat and heat through for a minute or so.