Red Wine Roasted Brussel Sprouts

Taken from a book I received for Christmas:

The Vegan Holiday Kitchen

Below is our take on the recipe, which we followed pretty well, all things considered. Makes 8 servings (seriously, a LOT of food). Ingredients below:

1 and a half to 2 pounds of  brussel sprouts (we used a packaged bag of 2lbs from Wegmans)
1 red bell pepper
1 cup of carrots (recipe calls for baby carrots, but we just sliced normal ones)
2-3 cloves of garlic
2/3 cup of Red Splash - a blended dry red wine (instead of 1/3)
3 tablespoons of maple syrup (or agave nectar, for a lighter/healthier feel)
1 and 1/2 tablespoons of soy sauce (sodium reduced as a the recipe suggested)
1/2 tablespoon of dried tarragon
1/4 teaspoon of dried thyme (or, fresh, since they're not that hard to come by)
and salt and pepper to taste

The pictures are pretty self explanatory- and the recipe is super easy! Prep and cook time took about an hour for us in execution, and we also reheated up some creamy wild rice soup we made the day before (pictured below).

Wash the brussel sprouts, take off the stems, and cut them in half.

Add brussel sprouts to carrots and peppers in a large mixing bowl.

Drizzle delicious maple syrup over the bowl of veggies.

Kikkoman is the only type of soy sauce that should be used.

We doubled the red wine because we could. Good choice.

Everything from the mixing bowl goes into a baking pan, we used a clay one.

The red wine made for an interesting color with a great rustic taste.

A match made in heaven (the salt in the soup balanced out the meal).

Pizza Extravaganza!!

and now, for a change of pace:

Usually Friday is take-out night, but last Friday I was able to get out of work a half an hour early and Chris and I decided we should actually make something since we've been doing very little cooking as of late. We decided to make pizzas, and below outlines our ingredients - all of which were purchased at Wegmans for approximately $45. The following makes FOUR LARGE PIZZAS, with a week's left of leftovers.

Toppings:
Onion (white), large -  sliced as desired, uncooked
Shitake mushrooms - tops only, lightly washed/dried in a paper towel, sauteed with truffle and olive oil 
Italian sausage - taken out of casing, broken into bite-sized pieces, and browned in a frying pan
Broccoli - sliced into bite-sized, crowns only, blanched 
Basil/Pesto mix (comes in an easy to squeeze tube!)

Sauce:
Cento Whole Tomatoes (large)
Cento tomato paste (small)

Sauce was started first and left to simmer over low heat while the rest of the ingredients were being prepared. Whole tomatoes were sliced up (so that they still retained a tomato flavor). The spices were added (see list below) with a heavy emphasis on depth of flavor. Hence, lots of middle of the road flavor (garlic/onion/pepper) and some salt to balance the natural sweetness from the paste. It was important to create a sauce that would go well with both meat-heavy pizzas and vegetarian ones. 


Cheeses:
Gouda (aged 18 months)
Mozzarella
Wegman's "pizza" mix (still not sure what's in it or what makes it a pizza mix)
Cheddar
Blue Cheese - (Note: we bought this, but no one ended up using it. Hence, it's not in the pictures.) 

Spices:
Garlic Powder
Minced Garlic
Onion Powder
Cumin
Black Pepper
Salt

Oven was preheated to 425 degrees. Each pizza varied slightly in baking times, depending on the ingredients, but overall super quick at a reasonable 10-15 minutes.  And the result? Whimsical, personalized, pizzas at a great value.  $45/ 4 people = $11.25 per person for a Friday night meal. See how gorgeous they came out below! 

Italian Sausage, Broccoli, Mixed Cheeses 

Sausage, Onion, topped with a layer of Mixed Cheese (heavy Mozzarella)

ANGRY PIZZA, is angry (Sausage, Mixed Cheese, Sausage, and Two Broccoli Florets)   

Shiitake Mushrooms, Broccoli, Mozzarella/Gouda, Truffle, Pesto