Amy's Knock-Off

I made the filling tonight for another round of pirozhki. As I said before, I was going for a knock-off version of the Amy's Roasted Vegetable Pizza topping. I think it was pretty successful!

"Amy's" Roasted Vegetable Pizza Topping

Ingredients:

8 small onions (I did 7 yellow, 1 red)
2-3 T oil (I used sunflower)
1/4 c nice balsamic vinegar
Salt to taste
2 roasted red peppers (make your own if you like, I used jarred ones)
About 4 artichoke hearts (frozen, canned, bottled, fresh cooked)*
1 1/2 cups of shiitake or oyster mushrooms (I used oyster)

*I didn't read the can on mine that carefully, turns out I actually bought artichoke bottoms. Also tasty, and much less expensive.

Method:

Caramelize the onions. When done caramelizing, deglaze the pan/pot with balsamic vinegar. Remove from heat. Chop the mushrooms, stir them into the onions. At this point: if you're going to use this for pizza, I suggest spreading this mix over your pizza crust, and then topping with strips of pepper and whole artichoke hearts (you may want to use more of them in this case). If you're going to use it to stuff a sandwich/pirozhki, or even to mix with pasta: chop the artichokes and the peppers slightly larger than the mushrooms and stir it all together. It's ready to go!

Serving Suggestion and Notes: I think this would be really nice on a pizza, or stuffed into a baguette for a quick sandwich. You could also easily use it as a dip at a party. It was tasty and easy! The most time consuming thing is slicing so many onions (and I sliced them pretty fine), and taking the time to caramelize them nicely. But, it is a great thing to make ahead and have around. You could even put it into small containers and freeze for fast use. As far as whether or not this tastes like Amy's version, well, I think it is very similar, but I think hers uses less red pepper. In my version, the red pepper over-dominated a bit. This may also be because her version uses tomatoes and a little lemon juice ... maybe the acidity balances out the pepper and the sweetness of the onions and balsamic vinegar.