No Face Plate

Masala Mushroom Loaf. Yowza.

2012-01-21T19:46:00.000-08:00

Tired of the same ol' same ol' mushroom loaves? Thyme for something new? In need of some sage advice?

Try this spicy sweet number on: mushrooms, yes, and some tofu - but minced chilis, sweet peas, curry leaves, and good, toasty Garam Masala kill the Fall Flavor Set and make room for Spring. In the middle of February. Yes plz.

I LOOOOVE the parchment paper trick when making vegetable loaves - the lovely browned crust the oven's worked so hard to make comes out in one piece, every time. Just cool for 20 minutes, invert over a platter, and there it is, ready for slicing.

Its the perfect opportunity to play with inclusions, but remember - greenery roasts to brown, so use vegetation with color. Small red pepper flowers work well. Green peas, carrots, and beets work too. Enoki mushrooms keep a light brown shade, so you can laminate your own little 70's Forest Scene on top of your next loaf, if you'd like, as long as you lightly coat your parchment with oil - otherwise, your lovely lamination might stick. And we can't have that!

Masala Mushroom Loaf
serves 4-6

1 tablespoon olive oil
12 small or 8 medium crimini mushrooms, minced
1/2 small red onion, minced
1/2 red pepper, minced
1 bird's eye chili, minced

1.5 tablespoons garam masala

7 ozs extra firm tofu, well drained, crumbled
8 dried curry leaves, crushed
2 tsp brown sugar
2/3 cup raw cashew pieces

2 tablespoons melted EB
1 tablespoon nutritional yeast
1 tablespoon flax meal
1 medium white potato, baked until soft, mashed (or 2/3 cup mashed potato)
1/2 tsp turmeric
1/2 tsp asofoetida

1 tsp fennel seeds
1 tablespoon sea salt

Loaf pan
1 sheet parchment paper
Canola oil, to coat

Preheat the oven to 350f. Cut a piece of parchment paper to fit the loaf pan, sides included. Cut slits in the corner so it will fold flat to the pan's form. Spray a little oil on the bare metal before fitting the parchment inside - it'll help it stay in place.

Reserve a few pieces of red pepper for garnish. In a dry skillet or saute pan, toast the garam masala for 2-3 minutes, until very fragrant. Set aside.

Heat the olive oil in the same skillet and add pepper and onion. Cook 5 minutes, until pepper softens and onion is translucent. Add mushrooms and cook, stirring often, for 6-8 minutes, until mushrooms have released their liquid and almost all of it, but not quite, has steamed off.

Remove sauteed veggies to a heatproof bowl.

In a food processor, pulse cashews until they're the texture of large polenta - not powdery, with some chunks still there. Add to warm vegetables. Mix in remaining ingredients and taste for salt - add a teeny bit if need be. The mixture should be relatively dry, but not crumbly - add a little more Earth Balance or even a titch of water if it needs it.

Cut small triangles out of two or three sides of a piece of red pepper with a paring knife. Repeat for as many "flowers" as you'd like.

Arrange red peppers and a stem or two of cilantro on the bottom of the loaf pan, and press 1/2 a cup of the mushroom masala mixture over top, pressing down to keep things stuck in place. Add remaining loaf mixture, pressing down firmly, and flattening top with wet hands once the mix is used up.

Bake for 50 minutes covered, then another 15-20 uncovered, until loaf is browned on top and firm-ish to the touch. Let rest 20 minutes, invert onto a platter, and serve. I'll share the apple-lentil gravy we noshed ours with next week - it was pretty killer.

Cheers!

Like I said. Partying. Is awesome.

2012-01-10T17:40:00.000-08:00

Few things set my creative cooking brain afire more than a food loving pal's birthday party. I get to make them a prezzie that they eat, is yummy, and they don't have to worry about reading it, or wearing it around me, or mentioning how much they're enjoying it. It just quietly digests and becomes part of them. And we all need more Big Mac Steamed Buns lurking in our cellular structures.

I fully realize how innocent this sucker looks from the outside. It could almost be healthy. What could possibly be in there other than chives, mushrooms, maybe some tempeh, and ginger?

And then wham, you hit Special Sauce, shredded cabbage, and cheese, and a miniature burger, beneath the tomato and pickle. And then you know this ain't your average steamed bun.

Ah, the Lettuce Dilemma: there was no way I was sticking any true lettuce, even Romaine, in there - I figured the tomato would wilt enough for gross factor - so I went with a small head of the youngest, tenderest, sweetest cabbage I could find, sliced very, very thin. Worked decently.

Big Mac Steam-Baked Buns
makes 12

Basic Steamed Bun Dough, a la this recipe (I 2/3rded this recipe, as these buns are larger than average)
1/2 cup sesame seeds

12 miniature burger patties (either cut them from Boca Vegans or try this insanely good mix), brushed with a mustard/EB mix
3 slices of vegan "American" cheese, quartered
3 small half-ripe Roma tomatoes, sliced thin
2 large dill pickles, sliced
3 scallions, white parts only, chopped
3 cups finely shredded young green cabbage (you're going to have leftover slaw- which is AWESOME - as it is deeeeelish on everything)
1 cup Veganaise
3 tablespoons ketchup
3 tablespoons sweet relish
Squirt o' mustard

Some assembly required.

Preheat your oven to 350f.

Prep your patties by basting them with the EB/mustard mixture and baking them until they're close, but not quite, finished. Top with vegan cheese. Set aside.

Toss your shredded cabbage with the Veganaise, ketchup, mustard and relish. Mix well. Set aside.

Set a pan of simmering water on the bottom rack of your oven.

Cut your dough into 12 equal pieces. Keep the other pieces covered while you roll a chunk out on a lightly floured surface to a 6 inch diameter. Place first a patty, then a pickle, then tomato, then scallions, then the cabbage mix (about a tablespoon's worth) in the center of the dough. Wet the edges, and pinch it together in 4 places, then gently grab the gather and twist, creating a slightly swirled closure. Dust with sesame seeds (you might need to wet the top slightly to get them to adhere) and set aside on a lightly-oiled baking sheet.

Repeat until you've created all of your monsters.

Bake for 13-15 minutes, until they turn golden-brown. Under bake them slightly - you want a soft and chewy interior once you bite through the outer crust.

If you're prepping these an hour or two ahead of time, cover them with a towel and let them sit on the counter until it's party time.

Cheers, Dears!

Baby, it's cold outside.

2011-12-23T07:13:00.000-08:00

Not really. High today in N Cakalaka - 65.

That doesn't mean that a huge bowl of salty-sweet, birds-eye-chili laden curry isn't going down my gullet, tho.

Used to be, Cheese Fondue was the holiday indulgence of choice in my casa around Xmas-time. And I'd inevitably feel like crap, after eating 2 pounds of cheese and a ton of toasty bread.

This year, we're going lighter - getting out the woks - searing some bok choy, frying some 'fu. Grabbing chopsticks instead of fondue forks. Eating more healthfully.

The coolest (read:cheesiest) part? It's red and green bonanza in this here curry, because nothing shows off the insanely gorgeous color palette de Ma Nature quite so nicely as a big bowl of stir fry.

Christmas Curry

1 red pepper, julienned
1/2 pound baby bok choy, cleaned, bottoms removed
1/2 can baby corn, rinsed
Green beans, large handful, trimmed
1 red onion, chopped
1 block tofu, drained
4 tablespoons sesame oil
1/2 small can red curry paste
1 can coconut milk (full fat please)
4 cloves garlic, minced
2 bird's eye chilis, minced (honestly? I used 6. But I like my mouth to be on FIYAH)
1 1-inch piece of galanga
1/2 stalk lemon grass
4-6 kaffir lime leaves
8 fresh thai basil leaves
1 tablespoon sea salt
1.5 tablespoons palm sugar

Get the big wok out. No, not that one - the BIG ONE.

Drain your tofu and squeeze gently. Chop into 1 inch x 1 inch cubes.

Heat 2 tablespoons sesame oil over medium-high heat and stir fry your tofu until a crust forms, flipping often. If it gets sticky, add a little more oil. Drain on paper towels.

Add remaining 2 tablespoons oil to wok and turn heat to high. Add onion, garlic, curry paste, bird's eyes, pepper and green beans, and toss to coat with oil/curry paste. Cover to let steam for a minute. Stir again. Cover again. Add baby corn and bok choy, stir to coat. Cover for 2 minutes. Add remaining ingredients, stir, and simmer 5 minutes. Taste for salt.

Ah, the old bowl o' rice trick. Make a batch of jasmine rice, using a teeny bit more water than usual (helps to keep the rice sticky). Oil a small bowl, and press your freshly-cooked rice into it, packing it down. Invert bowl over your serving plate, tap gently, and remove.

Ladle curry around rice mountain, garnish with fried scallions and cilantro, and serve.

Happy Holidays, my dearies.

Falachos

2011-12-13T12:13:00.000-08:00

Falalalala, Fa-Laaaaaaaa-Chos!

So if everything's either nachos or a sandwich, then this is the ideal, perfectly rounded, eternal food - because it's both. At once. It's like an edible ying-yang. Taste the rainbow.

You won't miss the cheese. That yellow stuff? Red pepper hummus spiked with turmeric, just a pinch, for color's sake more than flavor's. Ladled over the pile like you would refried beans - warm and thin.

For me, falafel is like this: bite through the chewy pita, hit garlicy hummus, tahini starts running, then lettuce, tomato, onion, maybe - ah, there's the hot sauce - then warm, soft falafel, and crunchy pickles. Chew. Grin like your tongue just won the lottery.

They're all there, those textures, but here, you experience them differently. A little tahini, pickle, falafel this bite, crunchy pita, hot sauce, lettuce, another. Sometimes you get lucky and get it all on one chip. The better you build your pile, the easier that happens.

When I make nachos, here's how I do it:

Chips, first layer - toasted in the broiler
Beans
Cheese
Tiny bit of protein (soy chorizo, mushroom mole, whateva you're using)
More chips
Broil
Beans
Cheese
Protein
Salsa
Guac
Jalapeno
Drizzle of cashew sour cream
Shredded Lettuce
nom.

Falachos, pretty similar:

Pita Chips (cut pita or lavash into triangular chips, toss with a tblspoon of olive oil, tsp cumin, tsp salt, bake at 400 for 12 minutes)
Hummus
Tahini
Crumbled Falafel
More Chips
Hummus
Falafel
Tahini
Tabbouleh Salsa (basically, all the veggies in tabbouleh minus the bulgar)
Pickle dice (Israeli pickles and pickled turnips, used here)
Hot sauce
more Tahini
Shredded Lettuce
nom.

You guys, I'm sure, have a fav hummus recipe, and although I've done fresh chickpea falafel in the past, this time I used the Fantastic Foods mix, which worked fine. But for ideal Falacho creation, I have two pieces of advice:

Get yee two reusable squeeze bottles - one for hot sauce, the other, tahini. Control your thinner sauces and paint with them, getting a bit of flavor on every chip.

Top your pile with something pretty and delicioso, like a well-aged Kalamata olive. The old "cherry-on-top" trick. Get's 'em every time.

Now, go make your own. And don't you dare pick up a fork.

Creamy Fall Vegetable Risotto

2011-12-01T16:34:00.001-08:00

Arborio. Arboreal. Something creamy, warm and smoked, for my belly today (and yours?).

What have we there? Broccoli, fennel, mushroom, orange pepper, and onion, surrounded by perfectly al dente little bites of rice. Onion grass from the back yard (aka, foraged chives). And some decadently creamy cashew stock, with smoked black pepper and roasted garlic.

I was concerned the creaminess of the stock would interfere with the rice performing its magic, but no worries. Perfecto. And easy.

Creamy Fall Vegetable Risotto
serves 6 (or 3 hungry me's)

2.5 cups arborio rice
3 tablespoons canola or olive oil

5 cups water
2 tablespoons mushroom stock concentrate, or another strongly flavored vegetable stock
6 cloves roasted garlic
2/3 cup raw cashews
Smoked black peppercorns, to taste
2 tablespoons nutritional yeast

2 cups mushrooms, sliced
Small fistful of fresh onion grass, minced
Fresh thyme, 1 1/2 teaspoons
Fresh sage, 3 leaves, minced (optional)
1 small head broccoli, tough stems removed, cut to florets
1 onion, diced
1 orange bell pepper, diced
1 small head fennel, sliced to rings

Salt, at the end, only if it needs it.

Roast your mushrooms, fennel, garlic (wrapped in foil, with a tsp of oil) and broccoli in the oven at 430f. Use the same roasting pan, toss them with a little oil, and remove them to a plate as they finish cooking (broccoli at 8 minutes or so, mushrooms at 10, fennel then or at 12, garlic at 18-20).

Throw the first 6 ingredients into your blender and puree until very smooth. Remove to a small saucepan and heat over medium low, keeping it warm.

In a large risotto or saute pan, heat your oil over medium-high heat. Add your onion and pepper, and cook 4 minutes, until the onion is translucent. Lower heat to medium-low.

Add your rice and stir to coat with the oil. Toss for 4-5 minutes, until each granule has a translucent "halo" around its edges. Now it is time to add the stock.

2/3 of a cup at a time, dears - stirring constantly. Cashews contain protein, so beware of rice trying to become one with the bottom of your pan. 20-22 minutes ought to get you through most if not all of your stock and see your rice to near perfection - if you need a little more water at the end, don't hesitate to use it.

Add a little more thyme or sage, if you'd like. Taste for salt.

Go at it while its still warm. Cheers!

Sweet Potato Avocado Rolls with Maple Tamari Reduction

2011-11-28T14:14:00.001-08:00

Yeeeeeeeehaw, let's go ahead and just put the sesame seeds away. It's ok. I've got something different for you to try.

Bit of a disclosure: this roll was supposed to be pumpkin and avocado, but by time I got to chopping and roasting the huge pumpkin I'd had lying around for a while, and discovering its sinewy reluctance to be delicious at all, well, the cute little sweet tater hanging in my produce basket was looking mighty fine. And so it got roasted. And cut into cubey strips. And wrapped in nori with a good friend (avocado) and coconut rice.

And rolled in toasted, salted pumpkin seeds. So good.

Earthy, nutty little suckers. A lovely coating - even when lying next to fellow rolls, being squished and leaned on, no one got stuck to each other. Uber easy to cut, even with my (gasp) non-recently sharpened knife. Higher protein, these seeds, perhaps? Who knows, but for taste alone, I'd do it again. Maybe with some tempeh bacon next time, oh yeah.

And let's not forget - a small saucepan, half maple syrup, half tamari, healthy dash of smoked habanero poweder, simmered down to the consistency of balsamic reduction, drizzled over top with a fork. This isn't salty sushi. This is Prelude to Pumpkin Pie sushi.

Sweet Potato Avocado Sushi with Pepitas and Maple-Tamari Reduction
makes 6 rolls

Let's do this.

2 cups sushi rice, washed until water runs clean
1 can coconut milk + half a cup of water

1 medium sweet potato, roasted, sliced to 1/2 inch strips
1 avocado, sliced to strips
6 sheets nori
2 cups roasted, salted pumpkin seeds, crushed

1 cup maple syrup
1 cup tamari soy sauce
1/2 tsp smoked habanero powder

sushi mat
sharp knife

Easy peasy.

Prep your rice as you would normal sushi rice, but leave out the rice vinegar. Cool to room temperature.

Meanwhile, combine your tamari, maple syrup, and habanero powder in a small saucepan. Simmer over medium-low heat 12-14 minutes, until reduced by half. Set aside.

Have your fillings at hand. Set up a separate plate for rolling your sushi in the crushed pumpkin seeds (ie, a spare cutting board). Be near a sink, for rinsing your knife in between cuts.

Cover your mat in plastic wrap, folding it around itself at the edges.

Press 2/3 cup sushi rice onto the plastic, about covering the area of one of your nori sheets. Press a sheet of nori in place over your square of rice. Place 3-4 potato strips and 5-6 slices of avocado at roll bottom, then bring the bottom edge up and using the mat, roll your sushi tightly, following through at the end, so that the riced nori sticks to itself.

Dust your spare cutting board with 1/2 cup pepitas and roll your sushi in the delish powder. Set roll aside.

Complete the rest of your rolls. If you have leftover rice/nori, try your hand at ....

Starting with a sharp knife that has been run under the faucet, slice your sushi into 8-10 pieces. Plate as you go, and drizzle your lovely rolls with tamari-maple reduction, when done.

Taking those babies to a party? Skewer each piece with a toothpick. Enjoy!

Latest obession: dumplings.

2011-11-16T18:51:00.001-08:00

Is it the chill breezes and slow, drifting orange shower of leaves that make me want my bread cooked right in the pot with whatever stew I'm concocting?

Guess so.

Remember these, from last year? 'Member? MEMBER? Well, I've gone and lightened them, FREED them, if you will, from their cheesy shackles, but instead - a little pureed almond, some lemon, nutritional yeast (ye holiest of holy flavorings), a slow bake in a warm oven, and we're still tasting salty, stinky parm. In the dumplings, and on top, deeeeelish. Go ahead. Sprinkle it onna pizza.

Minestrone Stew with "Parm" Dumplings

You'll need:

A batch of delish minestrone stew a la this recipe

And for the dumplings:

1.5 cups flour (GF flour works fine - just add a tsp of xantham gum and up the liquid a couple of tablespoons, dearies)
4 tablespoons vegan margarine, very cold
2 tsp baking soda
Pepper
Finely minced parsley and scallion
1/3 cup rice or almond milk, unsweetened
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tablespoon salt
1/2 cup vegan parmesian - recipe follows

Flour in a bowl, of course - add baking soda and salt - then all spices, sans cheeze. Mix well. Get a pastry cutter out and go at the margarine, just long enough for it to disperse and look breadcrumby. Add your parm. Add milk, a little at a time, and test dough by gathering it - you want it soft, almost sticky. If you need a few more drops of milk to reach the right consistency, go right ahead. Divide dough into 10 balls, about 2/3 the size of a golf ball. Dust them, and your bowl, with flour as you go, until the dough is gone. Set aside.

Bring your delicious stew to a boil, drop your dumplings in, one at a time, then reduce heat to medium-low and simmer 8-9 minutes.

No toast needed. Ladle soup, then a dumpling or two or three in a bowl, then another ladle of soup on top. Dust with another generous pinch of Parm, and you're golden.

Vegan Parm

1/2 cup almonds, blanched
juice of 1 lemon
1/4 cup nutritional yeast
Dash toasted sesame oil
1 tablespoon salt
Soaking water, 1/3 cup or less

Soak your almonds in just-boiled water for 30 minutes to an hour. Drain, reserving some liquid.

Get out your big blender, and pour the soaked almonds in. Add your lemon juice and salt, and start that motor running.

Add some liquid - you want the almonds to be pureeing, with the least amount of liquid added. Scrape down the sides, if they need some help. Add a little more soaking water, if you need to.

When a smooth consistency is reached, add the remaining ingredients, and whirr a few more times to combine.

Lightly oil a baking sheet. Preheat the oven to 250f.

Scrape the pre-cheese out and spread it 1/2 inch thick in a corner of the baking sheet. Stick her in the oven.

Check and stir every 15 minutes or so to prevent browning. Eventually, it'll start to crumble. Keep going until the granules form naturally into small, parmesan-esque textures.

Enjoy :)

On Gratins and Gratitude

2011-11-08T17:39:00.000-08:00

And this time, no kidding, NO FOOLING, I'm back. With a new do, an even more effluent love of cashews, and lots of pretty pictures.

'Tis the season for gratin, aminotrite? Gorgeous, golden gratins. The above decadent slice is not only vegan, but gluten free, and sans refined sugar. Whole, healthy food, and local to boot. Lucky me, living above and near fields teeming with tubers. Ah, fall.

You might be looking around and noticing a couple of things. More white space, for one. Some ridiculously bright colors, could be another. Yup, it's finally happened - NoFacePlate has grown out of her angry, teenage years into something a little more... elegant? Easier to navigate, at least. But with a bright pink streak in her choppy hair. Hope ya dig.

I've got lots and lots of new flavors and techniques to share with you, my lovelies. There's still cheese to be found here and there in NFP land, but we're quietly heading towards a more plant based diet, day by day. It feels good to be chock full o' veggies. I'm sure you agree.

Well, veggies and vegan red velvet cake. Gotta have balance!

Pardon our mess!

2011-11-08T10:18:00.001-08:00

Changes are afoot in NFP-land - stay tuned for an updated format!

Vegan, Gluten Free, Refined Sugar Free Dinner Party - take 2

2011-08-04T15:34:00.000-07:00

Let's just go ahead and abbreviate that madness, shall we? VGF. Phew.

I know I've been a little lax in the posting department - do forgive, my dears. Let me ply you with peektures, and hopefully you'll forgive my lazy arse.

What the hell is that salmon-lox-where's-the-bagels-and-capers looking thing there, you ask? Why, its pate - smoked pepper and cashew cheese, set with agar. It seriously tasted like bacon. Seriously. Amazing.

Before I continue, here's the full spread -

I'd had, the week before, a somewhat freakish dream - about a large ship, presumably a Galleon, and a strange trip I took to find an ancient spice that tasted like smoked black pepper.

Yeah wow, food nerd dreams. I'm new to them.

But it ended up inspiring a pretty delish menu - so I'm down for another, if the food muse gods are listening. We ate well that night.

Mmmmm, Paella, I do love thee. It's hard to see what's going on in that pile, so I'll elucidate - red rice, some farro I'd picked up on an NYC trip, local purple peppers (more brown and orange than purple, but the mottling was lovely), tons of shrooms, and one, awesome, secret ingredient - Wakame. Totally a Milennium trick, sneaking seaweed into risotto. I love those guys.

In the long and arduous debate of whether vegan cuisine should mirror meat-loving nosh and recipes, I'm pretty much on the side of "whatever tastes awesome, is awesome". Paellas seem like seranades to the sea - so there needed to be something briny, sea tasting in there - and wakame fit that bill perfectly. Paired with some capers, the result was mineral, salty - behind the mushroom smokiness and paprika, it was a lovely, deep note.

Plus, seaweed is friggin' AWESOME for you. Magnesium abounds, and there's a little bit of almost every vitamin - so yep, let's just sneak that stuff into anything we can, shall we?

Topped by red pepper puree and some ancho chili cashew cream, this was a crowded plate. Next time, I'd omit the greens completely - they ended up being a side note, even odd.

We did start with some yellow tomato gazpacho that was good, but not stellar -

Just not as much bite in yellow maters as I'm used to in their angry red cousins. Still - pretty as hell, amirite?

I know it doesn't look like much, but the dessert was surprisingly decadent. Kind of a pineapple upside down cake, ala Babycake's recipe - but with a bunch of orange zest and some preserved orange peel, and shredded apples - moist and decadent. Coconut dream on the side, maple sugar and cinammon glaze, it was really, really good.

3 hours, 12 settings, and 4 courses later - everyone was stuffed to the point of napping, full of Espanola-inspired nosh.

Fiesta Rice Salad - it's so nowtro!

2011-07-19T15:54:00.000-07:00

Rice salads - the collection of aged, yellowing 4-H lady's club spiral bound cookbooks I have are full of "salads" made of starch and bean. And jello. And pudding. Good god.

But I'm on a mission with a couple of tots I know, a client's sweeties - to get them to eat more raw veggies - and as you know, it works best when disguised. Since these ladies are even more obsessed with the Mexican flavor set than I am, I figured, why not surround them greens with yellow rice and beans? Maybe they won't even notice the vitamins and fiber going down.

Fiesta Rice Salad
serves 6

3 cups goldenrod rice (aka yellow brown rice) (homemade is best! Check this technique and sub brown rice for oats - chill the rice for 15 minutes in the freezer after making)
1 large or two small cans black beans, drained
1 calabaza squash, diced
1 cup mushrooms, diced
1 carrot, diced small
1/2 red onion, diced
1/2 red pepper, diced
12 -1 4 green beans, chopped
1 handful cilantro, chopped
4 scallions, chopped
1 avocado, very firm, chopped
1 tomato, chopped

marinade:
2 tablespoons soy sauce
1 clove garlic, minced
dash sugar
dash cumin

dressing:
Juice of 2 limes
1 tablespoon olive oil
Dash cumin
4 cloves garlic, minced
Salt, to taste
1 tablespoon sugar or maple syrup
Freshly ground black pepper

Easy peasy.

Marinate your mushrooms, zucchini, carrots and green beans in the marinade for 20-30 minutes. Drain and discard marinade.

Combine the remaining ingredients in a large bowl and add dressing. Toss very well, cover, and chill for at least an hour. Like curry, this dish is best served the next day, as the flavors meld and soak each other up.

Complete meal in a bowl - shred some romaine or spinach, dollop of salad, hot sauce, perfect. Although maybe not for baby tongues - leave off the 'sauce for the little 'uns!

So you say chocolate is your favorite?

2011-07-19T15:24:00.000-07:00

Are you sure? Super sure? 100% on that?

A couple of days ago was my cuz's birthday, and while she's a devout fan of all things choco (and waaay across the country for me, which proved disastrous for my intestines, wait for it) I decided to make her a cake.

You know how I'm obsessed with taking foods that are normally presented in a portable manner and cakifying them. Well maybe not quite obsessed yet but I'm getting close. This one was killer - iced with hot sauce and hummus, delicious and messy.

And since I'm ALL ABOUT a day old, been in the fridge for a bit falafel, all squishy, mushy, flavors blended, you know this thang was right up my alley.

Ok so maybe it's not for everyone - as Erk reminded me. Meaning, I had enough falafel cake for a party of 10 to get through all by myself.

I ate falafel for 2 out of three meals daily for 3 days. It was not a wise choice. My belly's still a little pissed. Was it the copious amounts of salt? Legume overload? Just...density fail? Who knows, dear readers - but I advise against creating this monster unless you have brave pals around to help you consume it.

Those hot pink bits? Pickled turnips. Get yee some from yee local middle-eastern grocer - they're amazing.

Busy busy...

2011-07-13T10:50:00.000-07:00

And slowly, surely, things are falling into place.

I have a spot for my coffee grinder. Lazy susans for the RIDIC amount of spices I keep. A fridge that has a friggin' ice dispenser (oh ya, movin' on up!!). Basically, I'm warning you - a flood of kitchen porn is about to hit NFP, so avert your eyes, if you're sensitive to such utterly domestic stuffs.

Meanwhile, at a gorgeous house just off Providence, my first vegan/gluten free (well, almost) dinner party was thrown with success, nervousness, and finally, relief.

Challenging, cooking, warming, plating and serving 12 people all at once, all by my lonesome, good LORDY. And I didn't, even - one of the sweet girls attending helped me bus between 1st and 2nd course - because I was slinging polenta and ragu in the kitchen and totally forgot that salad plates, once divested of greens, want to get to the sink.

Still, people seemed happy. Even the elbow I almost landed on someone's nose while pouring water - no biggie.

3 courses and an app, here's what we noshed:

If I could only do these, every day, in perpetuity, I think I'd have found my true calling. We'll see.

The dessert wasn't quite as GF as I'd originally intended - and since this was the end of a 3 week program that involved abstaining from all alcohol, refined sugar, caffiene, animal products, and wheat, and people were in the mood to indulge, I snuck some refined sugar and flour in there. Tsk tsk. Note to self - coconut whipped cream must stay chilled until the last possible moment, or it loses it's integrity. I'd have preferred mine a bit fluffier.

Salads are salads, and this group had been eating tons of greens for weeks. Pistachios were nice, soft, slightly sweet. Contrasted with the mustard rather well.

You guys have seen me pull ye old ragu trick many times before - but not quite as healthfully as this night. Ground mushrooms and fava beans formed the base of the sauce -

- along with lots of roasted cherry tomatoes -

- broth, spices, and a cup of bourbon, and we've got some happy vegans. Collarded kale shreds on the side. Pattypans overfilled with rich cashew cheese mixed with herbs and farro. They were good, but as they usually are, a bit tough. It's not often the veggies get to grab a steak knife - but they did, that night.

Got two more planned this upcoming month. Stay tuned! Cheers!

Out of Hand Sick Delicious Corn Chowder

2011-06-26T18:38:00.000-07:00

You know that saying, Party in the Mouth? Welcome to the corn crammed, summer infused, super creamy awesome division of PITM central.

It's vegan, which makes it even better. And it has delicious cashew puree in it, like (srsly) half the stuff I've made over the last month. I'm really lucky I'm not allergic to that most delicate of tree nut. Who knows, tho - I keep eating 'em at this rate and I might be soon! When I fall in love, I fall hard.

You guys know the drill - you want to creamify a soup without dumping 1k worth of butterfat calories in the pot, you have several options:

Immersion blender - make sure your potato content is high for this technique
1 block silken tofu
Almond/Soy/Rice Milk

Done them all, multiple times in triplicate - and I wanted something new.

Of course, there was a huge pile of cashew puree waiting to become cheeze sitting in the fridge. And so, the creamiest chowder I've ever made vegan-style came about.

Pay close attention to the multiple blender steps for maximum smoothness!

Cream of Corn Chowder
makes 1 medium pot - or 4-6 bowls.

1 bag frozen corn OR 6 ears worth of freshly-boiled corn
4 tbl EarthBalance
1/2 red pepper
1/2 green pepper
1/2 poblano pepper
2 fresh jalapenos, minced
4 small white potatoes, diced medium-small (peels on for vitamin content!!)
1 red onion, chopped
10 cloves garlic, minced
2 ribs celery, diced
1 small calabaza squash or zucchini, triangled (halved, then sliced lengthwise into three triangle-shaped strips, then chopped)
4 small carrots, diced
6 cups vegetable or faux-chicken stock
1 cup cashew butter (or cheese a la this recipe - adding cashew cheese will lend a more sour-cream flavor - regular pureed cashews, just a sweet, nutty note)
1.5 tsp black pepper, freshly ground
Dash agave

To serve:

1 fresh tomato, diced fine
Minced cilantro and scallion
Chipotle hot sauce, to taste

Right. So.

Melt your EB in a large soup pot. Add your onion, carrot, celery, peppers including jalapeno, and garlic. Saute over medium heat for 5-6 minutes, until onions are translucent.

Add your squash and potatoes. Add your corn now, if using fresh - hold off till the end, if using frozen. Cook 4 minutes or so, until squash has softened just a bit.

Add your stock and a little water if need to just reach the top of your veggies. Add pepper and agave. Cover and simmer 20 minutes, until potatoes are soft at center.

Grab your blender. With a ladle, spoon off as much liquid as possible from the soup. No biggie if you get some veggies in there - you're going to puree some of them next! Add your cashew butter, making sure the total volume in your blender does not exceed your maximum line. Blend for 6-8 minutes, adding a teeny bit of water if needed, until the soup is super super smooth. Pour back into the pot.

Now, ladle more of the soup back into your blender, paying careful attention to getting as many potatoes as possible (leave a few tho, yum!). Puree again until super smooth. Add the puree back to the pot. Taste for salt and adjust as needed.

If you're using frozen corn, add it to the stew now, and heat until cooked through.

Ladle, garnish, and serve! Perfect with toasty french bread and a simple salad with lemon dressing.

Bon Appetite!

Vegan Ranch Deja Vu

2011-06-22T16:26:00.000-07:00

Ranch dressing sans the mayo, the buttermilk, the sour cream, the moooo. It's been done before. It'll be done again. And since meals when the kitchen's in boxes come mainly from the fridge, I'll be eating it alot over the next few weeks.

Last time we went down this long Southern-bound path, it was with our pal Tofu. Tofu is good. Tofu is light. But if you want something a tad more decadent, you might want to try this cashew-based puree instead. You should try it regardless - it's seriously delish.

Cashew Ranch Dressin'

makes 2 cups. Dip the radish, the lettuce, the carrot, your finger, et all in it.

1.5 cup raw cashew pieces + 1/2 cup of cashew soaking water
Juice of 1 lemon
4-5 tablespoons pickle juice
4 cloves garlic, minced
Miso, small pinch
Ground mustard, pinch
1 tablespoon nutritional yeast (optional)
Handful each : fresh parsley, dill, scallion
Tons of freshly ground black pepper

Throw the first 6 ingredients in the blender, except for the water - just add 1/4 cup at first. Whizz away for a long while - the longer, the smoother the dressing, and thus mine went for 6-7 minutes - adding water as needed to keep the motor running sufficiently to smooth the puree out. You'll probably need most of the 1/2 cup to acheive this.

Add your yeast (if using) minced herbs, and black pepper, and pulse to just mix.

Chill for an hour or so before serving, to let the flavors mellow and blend.

AWESOME on a tomato/greens/mustard sammich. Yeah, I eat that alllll the time. Simple and tart. Best when tomatoes are just coming in - as they are now. Say hello to bulbous, beautiful heirlooms, my darlings! They're coming!

I'm such a salad nerd I spent some bucks on vintage Scandi-design salad plates that come preprinted with salad.

*chomp*

Gettin' Jiggy Like That

2011-06-15T07:38:00.000-07:00

I dunno if I've told you guys this, but I bought a house. It is awesome. It was built in 1952. It has lots of brick as well as asbestos. A kitchen window. A fireplace. It has a shed in the back yard, covered in ivy, that I will make paintings in.

I've been sanding floors, staining things, painting all the weird beige-colored walls white. I found sawdust in my underwear yesterday. I'm not kidding.

So basically, I'm qualifying my week of silence - los siento, mi hombres y mujeres. My brain is frying from all the nesting instinct hormone its producing. Do forgive.

Buuuuut anyway - I'd love to get you lovelies to check out this pile of awesome, vegan delish over at my pal Ensley's blog - The Preppy Vegan - where I'll be doing a post a week of simpler (but still delish) meals while she's doing her Teach for America thang.

Vegan Migas are my new obsession. Come and see how many toppings you can fit on there before you can't see the tortillas any more. It's fewer than ya think!

For the Love of Injera

2011-06-08T07:57:00.000-07:00

You know the stuff - floppy, covered in moon-scape mini-craters, tart, pancakey, delish. Awesomely and coincedentally - gluten-free!

You can get it fresh in Crown Town in piles of 8. 8 is a LOT of injera to get through, if it's only the two of you. We do our best.

I'm working on my Ethiop cooking skills - done the basics a few times now, and I think I'm improving. I don't feel any pressing need since we have some seriously awesome joints in town that are super veg friendly, but still, I tinker.

The only thing missing here are the tarty, stinky collards you find in a standard veggie combo. Because I still can't get Erk to dig on them greens. Sigh.

I also cheated and added braised tempeh to the regular Yetakelt W'et recipe I've made a number of times for a client - it was deeeelish and substantial. Being Indonesian in origin, I dunno if tempeh's made it over to Africa, so this is a non-traditional alteration. But hey, all in the name of sick deliciousness so it's aiiight.

Yetakelt W'et aka Ethiopian Vegetable Stew with Braised Tempeh

1/4 cup coconut oil
1 cake tempeh, cubed
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 medium carrot, chunked
1 handful green beans
2 red potatoes, diced
1 cup chopped mushrooms
1 large red onion, chopped
6 cloves garlic, minced
1.5 tablespoon berbere spices (Cedarland carries a 7 spice mix I like, consult your local Middle Eastern grocery store for this delicious stuff or buy it here)
1 tablespoon smoked paprika
1 large tomato, chopped
1/4 cup tomato paste
1.5 - 2 cups vegetable stock or water
salt to taste
minced parsley and scallion, 2 tablespoons each

I start by roasting all my veggies. You can braise your tempeh simultaneously.

Heat oven to 450f. Toss all your veggies, sans tomato, with the olive oil, some salt, and 2 cloves worth of your garlic. Spread on a pizza or baking pan, put a rack at oven bottom, and stick those suckers in there for 15 minutes or so, tossing every 5. Add a little water after the first and second tosses, to steam the taters a bit.

Toss your tempeh with a little sesame or coconut oil, some salt or bragg's, black pepper and 1 clove of the garlic. Feeling fiesty? Dust with berbere.

Set the tempeh in a baking dish in a single layer, add enough water (or veggie stock, if you've got some laying around) to just barely cover the tempeh, and stick it in the oven with the veggies. You want to give it at least 15 minutes to steam/braise, to get rid of the bitter taste tempeh often has. Ideally, all your liquid'll be gone - but it isn't necessary.

So, onto the stewing. Heat your coco oil in a deep pot and add onion and garlic. Saute 2 minutes. Add berbere and paprika, toss and toast a bit. Add your tomatoes and paste - stir and cook 4-5 minutes, until the fresh maters have softened. Now just scrape the entire baking pan of veggies into your pot, and add a cup of stock. Add your tempeh. You want a thick stew, but some sauce to sop with that amazing injera - add stock until the consistancy is reached.

Stir in your salt, parsley and scallion.

Deeeelish. Try this recipe for lentils - and a simple salad of tomato, cuke, lettuce, garlic, parsley and lemon - and feast like a king.

My first attempt at Buticha was kinda fail.

Too heavy handed with the berbere, not a long enough chilling time, the texture was weird. Flavor, too salty, too spicy (YUP I said it).

What am I talking about? This scrambled-egg like dish (sometimes referred to as "fasting eggs" ha!) I always scarf tons of when it's out on buffet. Made with chickpea or fava flour, some chili, mysterious mysterious, usually it's let sit overnight to solidify and then "scrambled" to a light, fluffy texture in the morning.

There was no fluffy in my buticha. I will not be discouraged! I will try again!

Cheers, dears :)

Plate of raw, Mexi goodness

2011-06-03T07:28:00.000-07:00

Lordy lordy, it has been insanely, scorchingly, ozone-ladenly hot in CLT for about a week now.

Blech.

There will be no ovens turned on. There will be no burners and frying pans. There will be the raucous sound of blenders blending and food processors processing, the fake-warming in a barely-toasty oven, however.

I've been reading about and toying with the idea of eating more raw stuff lately, inspired by my natural instinct to gravitate towards the raw section of any salad bar - I don't go for the predressed stuff, it's always everything, jicama, beets, brocolli, cabbage, celery, zucchini, whatever's on there and fresh, get ye on my plate. Now. Results in a teetering tower almost every time, and some well-mannered Biddy's always giving me the "you're a pig" eye. Whatever, girl.

So I found this recipe for cauliflower rice - and it sounded texturally rad, but I didn't like the idear of fresh tomatoes - so I changed it up a bit. Maybe you like.

Raw Mexican Rice
serves 4

1 medium head cauliflower, leaves and stem removed
4 cloves garlic, minced
11/2 tsp turmeric
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp ground ancho chili
1 tablespoon cold-pressed olive oil
Dash Coco Aminos or Himalayan Sea Salt
Dash sea salt
2 tablespoons sun-dried tomatoes in oil, minced
Safflower threads, a pinch
2 tablespoons each finely minced cilantro and scallions

Easy peasy. In tow batches, process your cauliflower with the "s" blade until it resembles coarse breadcrumbs. Remove to a large bowl.

Toss remaining ingredients and let marinate on the counter for 30 mins - 1 hour, to let flavors blend.

There's a lot going on up there, so let me tell ya how I put ours together.

From bottom to top:

Lettuce, chopped
1 cup cauli rice
1 cup marinated veggies (zucchini, mushroom, asparagus, some coco aminos, some garlic, some lime juice, little raw agave)
minced tomato
Cashew Sour Cream (below)
Avocado-Lime puree (basically guacamole without the 'maters)
Raw Hot Sauce (also below)
and more minced cilantro.

Filling and super yum, I felt all KINDS of energized after eating this.

Cashew sour cream is simple - I cultured mine, since I already had a batch of cashew cheese going -

1 cup cashews, soaked for 6-8 hours
2 cloves garlic
Juice of 1/2 lemon
Water
Himalayan Sea Salt (this stuff is awesome, and pink, to boot! Beware, tho - a lot of raw foodists consider pure salts un-raw, but as for me, I gotta have it)

In a blender, puree all your ingredients for a few minutes until smooth. You'll probably add anywhere between 1/2 cup and 1 full cup of water to get a creamy, pourable texture.

You guys KNOW I had to have me some hot sauce.

Raw Hot Sauce

1-11/2 jalapeno (sniff your peppers - you'll get a bit of a burn in the nostril if your jalapenos are hot hot hot, in which case you'll only need one)
1/4 cup water
Dash cold-pressed olive oil
2 garlic cloves, minced
Juice of 1/2 lime
2-3 springs cilantro
Dash Coco Aminos or awesomepinksalt

Blend away. Make sure you warsh your paws afterwards - this stuff is potent.

Enjoy darlings!

Sushi Napolean, for kicks

2011-05-28T13:01:00.000-07:00

I'm not an accomplished sushi roller - avocado squishes out on me, the middles of my rolls have gaps and so, whoops, there goes the cuke. I'll get better at it, methinks. But I wanted to try something different.

This stratified sushi works with most anything - roasted veggies, greens, whole cloves of roasted garlic, cream cheese, fresh stuffs like cukes, blanched asparagus, avocado. Remember to keep your toughest veggies at the bottom, however, so the slicing of the rest of the layers doesn't flatten your avocado/soft fillings.

Kind of birthday-cakey. Awesome.

EDIT - my lovely pal Nick let me in on a little secret this morning - this is technically Oshizushi, and they even have equipment you can buy to make slicing your "cake" less gut-wrenching. So if anyone out there's wondering what to get me for my birthday....

It's asparagus season over in these here parts, so I went with your standard ACA + C - Asparagus, Cucumber, Avocado and Carrot. Feel free to change stuffs up, however.

Sushi Napolean

1.5 cups sushi rice, washed
2.5 cups water

1 tablespoon rice vinegar
1 tsp sugar

4 sheets nori

15-20 think asparagus spears
1/3 cuke
1 whole avocado
Shredded carrots, small handful

Dipping ideas:

Avocado/Wasabi Sauce
Teriyaki Sauce
Sriracha/Nayo Sauce
Sesame Seeds
etcetcetc

Let's do this.

Cook your sushi rice for 20 minutes on medium low until all the water is absorbed (or use your awesome rice cooker, either way). Let steam 5 minutes, remove to bowl, and stick that sucker in the freezer for 15 while you assemble your fillings.

Slice your cukes thin, 1/8 inch or so, salt lightly, and set aside.

Scoop your avocado and slice thin, about the same as the cukes, salt lightly, and set aside.

Set some water to boil and blanch your asparagus for 3-4 minutes, until bright green and a little softened. Chill in icewater. Remove woody ends and set aside.

Take your rice out and toss with your vinegar and sugar. I rarely heat my vinegar and dissolve my sugar in it first - I'm so scandalous. If you'd prefer, feel free.

Lay out a sheet of nori and press about 2/3 cup rice into the nori, leaving a 2 cm border around the rice. Press your thinly sliced cuke into the rice (or whatever thick, hard veggie you're using).

This works best if you have two sushi rolling mats, but if not, grab a plate, lay out another sheet of nori, and repeat the rice spreading step above. Turn over and press the riced nori onto the cukes, aligning the nori.

Gently press another 2/3 cup rice onto the 2nd layer of nori. You'll feel things squish around a bit underneath - just be gentle and don't worry too much about making it perfectly even. Lay your asparagus out in a flat layer. Press your carrots in and around them. On your other mat or plate, rice another sheet of nori with another 2/3 cup rice, then turn it over and press it onto the asparagus and carrot layer.

Another 2/3 cup of rice, gently pressed onto the nori, then add your avocado in an even layer. Once more, rice the last sheet of nori with 2/3 cup rice on the other rolling mat, turn it over, and lay it over the avocado layer.

Cover with a sheet of wax paper and a wide, heavy plate. Press the sushi for 10-15 minutes, using extra weight, if ya need:

(That, my friends, is a gallon-sized bottle of Frank's Hot Sauce. No, I'm not joking.)

Here comes the tricky part.

Sharpen your chef's knife. Trust me - this sucker is tough to slice.

Remove the weights and plate, careful - you might need to be gentle when removing the wax paper.

Wet your knife. Leave your water running a little tiny bit and grab a piece of paper towel.

Trim the edges of your napolean so that the border of plain nori you left on each sheet is gone, and the edges are clean.

Run water over your knife and clean the sushi remnants off with the paper towel.

Slice the napolean 4 times the wide way, drawing the knife through the cake and pushing gently down with eat cut. Wet and clean your knife after every cut. Make sure you feel your bamboo mat at the bottom at the end of each cut. Tough stuff, I know, getting through that last layer of nori can be tricky!

Slice 3 times the shorter way. Toothpick the pieces before moving them - you don't want to leave anything behind.

Really good as is, or dipped in sauce, soy, teriyaki, wasabi, et all. The sharper your knife, the smaller the squares can be - but don't go any bigger than I've described or there's no way you're fitting that sucker in your mouth.

I really dug on the geometry of this little dish. All lines, color, cross sections.

Enjoy!

Strung out on Strawberries

2011-05-24T16:37:00.000-07:00

I've been having a blast hanging with some rad local-to-CLT foodbloggers over the past month. For lots of reasons.

One, it's a myriad of walks - teachers, photographers, personal chefs, fitness-minded-ers, food writers, well...maybe we're not all THAT different, but diverse enough that the conversation's pretty awesome. I like to pick brains, and everyone's been AOK with that.

Two, I have no pals, save a couple, that do their own bloggy thang, so I can make nerdy, trite blogger jokes about basements and pajamas and get at LEAST an annoyed eye-roll.

Three, the potlucks we've had so far have been AMAZING, because everyone knows what they're doing in the kitchen x infiniti. And even more awesomely - they're cool with the couple of us that don't eats the meats, and have been schleping vegan and near vegan nosh to the park so that we can all partake.

And since I know that several of the CLTFBs are pretty into bacon and bar-b-que, it's pretty sweet of 'em. At this particular shindig, there were 7 of us and neon-nikon Crosby.

Strawberry Salsa. Hulllll-ooooo. This simple, fresh treatment was my fav of the day (and there were some serious contenders, believe you me). Brought to my mouth via Allison aka WishUponAChef. So good - lime, cilantro, jalapenos and sweet, sweet strawberries. Fantastic.

Check this mother out:

Yes. That's a sicknasty, huge, strawberry cream pie. And yes, I eschewed my summer veganism and had a messy, awesome slice. Thanks Julie!

VEGAN ARTICHOKE DIP ALERT - this was a close second to my stoked tongue. Cheezy, gooey, awesome. Maybe if you're stupendously sweet to Ensley, she'll share the recipe. Maybe she already has! We're talking about doing some super awesome guest posting this summer. Stay tuned, daaahlings.

And then of course Mr. Mathis (sounds like a spy name, amirite?) brought something awesome - sweet potato salad. Hulllll-oooo again, delicious.

(and seriously, I ate the weight of my arm in fresh cherries, thanks to Crosby)

Friggin awesome fignewtonbrownies - yup -

(Katie, you're a goddess)

And let's not forget the lovely Diana, rockin' some cous cous tabbouleh. Yes. I ate lots.

So why all the 'berries, you ask? A couple of Sundays back was National Strawberry Picking Day - and to commemorate that Holy Day by staining our hands and straining our backs (I know I sound like a cranky old lady here, which I secretly am) we all converged on Miller Farm just over the state line in SC. Place was a bit picked over, but who cares.

6 years? 7? since I last PYO threwdown on some berries. Tomatoes are more my jam, and they're on their way in now. I'll be back.

Still, we got a friggin' gallon of the little, misshapen, tumorous, leftover suckers:

(alright not ALL of them were tumorous, there were a few primo specimens that we'd pick, get all excited over, and show off to each other)

Here's awesomefignewtonbrownie Katie with her haul:

And Julie, rockin' the smaller box and some shade:

Random sky panorama, was a lovely day:

There was no way those little red orbuses were going to last until I cookeried them on Saturday, so I saved a few for fresh noshing and froze the rest. Sunday morning rolls around and I, bright-eyed, bushy-tailed, strawberry crazed, went to town on the gallon or so frosty in the freezer. Two things happened:

Strawberry Balsamic Sorbet. Simple, tart, a little watery, but interesting. I basically followed this recipe and tripled the balsamic - next time, I might just double it, as the tartness was almost overwhelming.

More excitingly - check this tart out. She's a looker.

The idea was to do a caprese tart, only with 'berries rather than 'maters. It was pretty awesome. Maybe even very.

Topped with balsamic reduction and some arugula, the feeling was that you we're noshing on your old pals mozz, tomato, basil, garlic, vinegar, greens - and then the strawberry would pop through and surprise!

Neat.

Strawberry Caprese Tart

sliced, serves 6-8

1 batch garlic-basil pastry for crust (I used this recipe to a T, gotta love Ezra!)
8 ozs fresh mozz, sliced thin
8 fresh or 12 frozen strawberries, sliced thin
1/2 cup balsamic vinegar
Large handful fresh arugula

Easy peasy. Set your vinegar assimering in a non-reactive saucepan while you make your pastry - 10 minutes on medium heat should get it nice and syrupy.

Make your pastry - Mr. Poundcake did his in the food processor (GASP) so I did too. Doing it by hand will yield a flakier crust - it's up to you.

Butter a tart pan and roll out your (chilled! an hour! trust me!) dough thin - 1/8 inch or thereabouts. Carefully lift the dough onto the pan, press down, and let the pan cut the edge nicely (mine is sharp enough to do this, and reminds me of that fact every time my fingers get too fiesty with pastry-edge-pressing).

Lay your sliced mozz over your pastry, then your sliced strawberries. The correct term is scattering, I'm told. Bake for about 30 minutes in a 375f oven, until your cheese is a little browned.

Cool your tart for about 20 minutes before attempting to remove it from your pan. Run a butter knife, gently, around any problem spots, and invert over a large, flat plate. Should loosen easily.

Drizzle that sucker with balsamic and plop a big ol' handful of fresh arugula in the center, and serve.

See you next year, Strawberry Mania! See you next month, HUGE PIG AWWWWWR.

oink.

Tamales, Cont'd

2011-05-18T10:11:00.000-07:00

I was an undercover tamale cart last weekend - hauling a huge, gleaming pot full of cornhusk-wrapped masa + delicious fillings all over town.

Well, to two parties. But I'm trying to sound important.

So we've done soy chorizo - we've done mole seitan - and this time, there were three: Mole Tofu + Bean (vegan+gluten free, hooraaay!), Jalapeno Popper and Kimchi-Cheddar. Once you've got the masa situation handled, it's easy to do multiple fillings - especially simple ones, like kimchi/cheddar and pepper/cheese. Mole, as I'm sure you know, takes a whole lot longer.

A small, shameful hiatus was taken from my summertime veganism in the name of the Holy Combo. And Hail Mary, was that sucker good. But my favorito tamalito, to be sure, was the Jalapeno Popper.

I know it doesn't look like much but TRUST A SISTA that thing was killer. The peppers infused the masa with spicy aromatics - I used a combo of pickled jalapenos and charred poblanos, all fiery and delicious - and the cheese, while steaming halfway out of a few of the tamales and making the pot a bit messy, saturated the masa with tartly salty awesomeness.

I'll be trying this vegan-style with cashew cheese in the near future. I think they could be the bad-assest, healthiest tamales ever known to man. Remains to be seen.

Jalapeno Popper Tamales

makes 20-25 tamales

for the filling:

12 ozs sharp cheddar cheese, shredded
2 poblano peppers
4-6 pickled jalapenos, seeded and stemmed
2/3 brick cream cheese, room temperature
1 tsp salt
minced cilantro and scallion, 1 tablespoon each

for the masa:

3 cups masa harina
3 cups vegetable or faux-chicken stock, lukewarm
1 tsp baking powder
1 cup canned corn kernels (or frozen + charred, a la Trader Joe's frozen)
1 head garlic, roasted
1/4 cup non-hydrogenated vegetable shortening, whipped

30 corn husks, plus 5 torn apart to tie

A steamer or fake-steamer set up like this

Onwards! Into the Abyss!

Char your poblanos over a gas flame or under the broiler until their skin blackens. Toss into a paper bag to steam.

Shred your cheddar into another bowl. Chop your jalapenos and herbs and add - then add minced poblanos and cream cheese. The heat from the roasted peppers will thin your cream cheese a bit - mix everything well and taste for salt, add if needed. Stick in the fridge to chill while you prepare the masa.

Mix your masa, salt, baking powder in a large bowl. In a food processor, pulse your broth, corn and roasted garlic until nice and pulverized - add to the masa and mix well.

Whip your shortening in a small bowl and fold into the masa.

Soak your corn husks in warm water for about ten minutes. Choose 5 of the wimpiest ones to tear into strips for tying.

My steamer set up is kinda strange, but this is how I do it - I place a small quiche pan, face down, in the bottom of a large pot and boil 3 cups of water, which I pour into the pot, reaching almost to the top of the quiche pan, which I then sit a large strainer on top of to hold the tamales. The water cools a bit as I make the tamales, but it prevents mess later, as you'd have to try and pour hot water around the huge pile of tamales waiting to be steamed in your pot.

Take about a half cup of masa and press it into a husk, going for a rectangle shape, at the top of the husk, center. With a spoon, lay about 1.5 tablespoons of filling in the center of the masa. Pick the husk up and peel one side of the masa away from the husk, letting it curl around the filling, then wrap the husk in a cylinder and fold the bottom up, forming a package open at top.

Tie in the middle with a torn piece of masa. Sit in your strainer/steamer, open end up.

Repeat until your masa is adios. Tuck remaining soaked husks around the tamales, saving three to drape over the top of the pile, edges tucked in. This'll help retain steam.

Cover your pot with a lid and a towel, turn heat to high, and as soon as you hear boiling activity, reduce heat to medium-low and simmer for an hour.

Probably one of the best beer-accompaniers EVAR, fresh, warm tamales.

The tofu mole ones were a hit as well, so don't let their lack of cheese scare ya. Just make a half batch of this sauce, toss with a can of kidney beans and some pan-fried tofu, and use the masa recipe above - but increase your filling to 2 tablespoons per, to account for tofu and bean content.

Ah, summer.

Just because you can, definitely means that you should.

2011-05-14T06:31:00.000-07:00

Here in crown town, and in other 'tropolisis that tend to show up on obesity stat-maps as uncommonly overweight, we have these things. And they are called Fried Pickles.

They are on my top-5 things that made me move to Charlotte list. No, I'm not kidding. Good god, are they good, in a sick-to-your-stomach kind of way - similar to the sinking, queasy feeling you'd get when eating the entire can of cake frosting with a spoon as a kid. Or, you know, last week.

I had a mature batch of kimchi. I had some cake flour. Batch of vegan ranch. And the desire for tempura. And so, this monstrosity happened:

Greasy, salty, stinky. AWESOME.

Batter was simple - flour, water, dash of oil, some korean pepper paste and salt. Dash baking soda. Vamanos.

But wait, what's this?

Is that the afore-mentioned pickley tempura wrapped in rice and nori, with avocado and daiya, topped by sesame nayo? Is it? WHY YES, YES IT IS.

Before you guys all tell me I'm not the first, well, hey, I know that. But it's 100% vegan. And ain't nowhere in this city to get it that way, 'cept my kitchen.

Tempura Kimchi Kim Bap with Avocado, Daiya, and Sesame Nayo
makes 3-4 rolls

For the tempura kimchi:

1 handful squeezed kimchi

1/2 cup cold water
1/2 cup cake flour
1 tsp egg replacer
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt

1/4 cup cake flour
1/4 cup korean red pepper, ground

Vegetable oil for frying

for the sushi:

1.5 cups sushi rice
2 cups water
Dash vinegar + 1 tsp sugar
3-4 sheets nori
1 avocado, sliced thin
Small handful daiya cheeze shreds

4 tablespoons nayonaise
1 tablespoon sesame oil

Black sesame seeds, for topping

Break out that sushi mat, ladies and gents, and lesdothis.

Combine your sushi rice and water in a saucepan or rice cooker, bring to a boil, cover, and cook 20 minutes - until the water is absorbed. Remove rice to a large bowl and stick the stuff in the freezer to cool quickly.

Toss your red pepper and flour together. Spread on a plate.

Mix the batter ingredients together and whisk till smooth.

Heat your vegetable oil in a fryer or wok till hot hot hot, and make your tempura - roll each piece of kimchi seperately in the flour/red pepper mix, then dip in the batter, then gently lay in the oil bath. Do only 3 at a time - they cook quickly. Scoop out and lay on paper towels to drain. Repeat until your kimchi is all gone.

Mix your sugar and vinegar together and add to the rice. It's ok if it's still a little warm - just not hot.

Chop your kimchi into 1/2 inch wide pieces (if they don't need chopping, more power to ya - mine did!) and set them out on a plate with your other fillings (avocado, daiya).

Lay out your sushi mat and place a piece of nori rough side up. Grab about a cup of rice from your bowl and press it into the sushi, until it forms a rectangle that stretches to both sides horizontally but leaves a little space at both top and bottom. Press 1/4 of the avocado, then kimchi, then daiya into the rice, and roll away. An awesome how-to video can be found here. Repeat until fillings and rice are gone.

Mix your nayo and sesame oil in a small bowl and thin with just a teeeny bit of water. Slice your sushi with a wet knife, plate, and drizzle sesame nayo over the roll. Top with black sesame seeds, if you'd like.

Mine got a little coneheady BUT that didn't mean they weren't superdelish. A little indulgent, fat wise - tempura + avocado + nayo. But hey, that's what the gym's for *cough*.

Cheers!

Spanikopita - cashew cheese edition.

2011-05-06T09:30:00.000-07:00

I've done the vegan, tofu-mash Spanikopita countless times, and enjoyed each permutation (with capers and roasted garlic rather than dill/mint/parsley, sundried tomatoes and smoked eggplant in addition, just the regs, you name it). Very light, soft, juicy. Not too shabby.

But methinks I've ruined that recipe for myself. Because veeg spanikopita is sooooo much better with cashew cheese.

There's a richness in this recipe that satisfies in a way that tofu cannot - it's heavy, decadent, creamy. If it's been a while since you've had Feta in your 'Opita, you'll love this. If it hasn't, you'll love it too - and be surprised at how parallel the flavors and textures are.

Now that I've made this a couple of times, in a couple of formats, my so-far-fav is the purse. In a casserole, the bottom layers of phyllo get a tad tough - making it a little annoying to cut and serve. This could be the lack of heated butterfat soaking through - hmmm.

Pursifying the spinach/herb/cheese mix makes for gorgeous presentation and gives your peeps options - filling alone, filling with pastry, or both, with a smidge of sauce. I love this sauce with "classic" 'Opita. It's a sweet, aromatic stew, and off-sets the tang of the cheese nicely.

One more tip - when constructing your purses, let your unwrapped dough sit out under two moistened paper towels for 10 minutes or so before beginning. The dough needs to be pretty soft to scrunch into a purse closure without breaking. The top sheet closest to the paper towels might get a tad soggy - toss it, if so.

Classic Spanikopita with Cashew Cheese
makes 8-10 purses, 2 purses a serving

1/2 package thawed phyllo pastry
1.5 cups cashew cheese (the same mixture used in this recipe)
1 large back baby spinach
6 cloves garlic, minced
4 scallions, green parts only, minced
Additional lemon juice, a squeeze or two (optional)
2 tablespoons each - fresh parsley and dill, minced, plus 1 tsp freshly minced mint
Olive oil
Lots of freshly ground black pepper
8-10 chive shoots, the longest/sturdiest of the bunch

You'll need a large cutting board and a pastry brush.

First, blanch your spinach and rinse with cold water. Squeeze thoroughly and chop fine, scrape into a large bowl. Add all of the other ingredients sans pastry and toss well. Add a little olive oil and lemon juice until the texture is that of thick ricotta - you want some moisture, but not too much.

Preheat oven to 350f.

Lay out one sheet of phyllo on a large cutting board and brush generously with olive oil. Lay another sheet on top. Brush again with olive oil. Lay one more sheet on top.

Use a plate that will fit twice on each pastry sheet and cut it's diameter twice with a sharp knife, discarding scraps. Pile 2-3 tablespoons of filling in the center of the phyllo circle, gently lift the flat pastry into your palm, and using your hand as a mold, scrunch the phyllo into a purse shaped package, twisting the top gently to get it to close.

Place on an oiled baking sheet. Repeat until you've used up your filling and bake pastries for 15 minutes or so, until they're golden brown.

That supercute flower above is actually a chive flower, awesome right? I NEVER let my chives go long enough to flower so this sneaky little bud was a rad surprise. Anyway - grab a chive and carefully tie it in a loose knot around your purses' neck. Serve on top of a ladle of sauce.

Classy, spring-timey, and most importantly - DEELISH.

Whaddaya mean, you want vinaigrette?

2011-05-03T11:47:00.000-07:00

With my move to Charlotte a couple years back came a few new things.

A certain twangy affectation, usually when I'm drinking around the natives
A heretofore unknown, fiery passion for gardening
8 pounds, which I attribute totally to Ranch Dressing.

Fried zucchini? Comes with ranch. Fries? Ranch. Burger? Ranch on there. Ya, everywhere's got bottles of mustard and ketchup out, but they're just for show - EVERYONE dips EVERYTHING in the "house sauce".

During the summer, Erk and I tend to go semi-vegan, and this summer'll be no different. So what's a girl with a ranch-obsessed SO to do? Whip some tofu and lemon juice together, maybe some pickle juice, mince some herbs and garlic, and proclaim the results Vegan Ranch, that's what.

(And if you think this is good, wait till you see Vegan Blue Cheese - that'll be next week, and there's a killer secret ingredient to be revealed)

Vegan Ranch Dressin'

1 tub medium-firm tofu
Juice of 1 lemon
4 tablespoons chive oil
3 tablespoons dill pickle juice
4 cloves garlic, minced fine
1 tsp mustard, spicy
1.5 tablespoons each - minced parsley, chives and dill, fresh
20-30 twists of your pepper grinder (yup, I like mine punchy)

In a blender, blend the first 4 ingredients until super-smooth (you can add a little more oil if you need to, and remember to scrape down the sides as you go). Scrape the white sauce into a bowl and add remaining ingredients.

Taste for salt and add a little more if you need, but usually the pickle juice + mustard is enough for moi. Resist the temptation to add nutritional yeast - this is just tangy enough as it is.

Keeps for a week or two in the fridgedero. Killer with dippables - carrots, cukes, etc - or thinned with a tiny bit of water and poured over your favorite delicious salad.

Oh ya.

Mad, Tasty Science

2011-04-25T15:12:00.000-07:00

Have I ever told you guys? How I've never owned a non-stick pan?

Well, this weekend, that long streak of teflon-free cookery was broken. And it's all because of this crepe recipe. Which, of course, I had to de-glutenize - so instead of flour, I used Bob's AP and Tapioca Starch, plus a tsp of xantham gum, and subbed vegetable oil for EB - but coconut oil would rule too (anyone noticed the love Coco oil's getting these days? so awesome).

So it's a different recipe. But the results are just as nom.

Oh yes, I tried with my trusty cast iron skillet. The one I've always, gleefully, laughingly made super-thin, delicate crepes with. But alas - things stuck, caramelized, adhered. And so I caved to the gods of Modern Cookware and bought me a pan.

They're just like regular crepes - except they're vegan, gluten free, and contain no refined sugars.

Nom.

Between the layers of crepey goodness, there's tons of strawberry agave jam and hazelnut carob sauce (a take on faux Nutella sans Chocolate via Veganland). Flavors were different, but enjoyable just the same. Abstinant but decadent. Awesome.

V,GF,NRS Crepes
makes 8-10 - double if making a crepe cake
de-glutenized from this recipe by VeganNumNum, amounts adjusted

2/3 cup Bob's All Purpose GF Flour
1/3 cup Tapioca starch
1/3 cup agave syrup (omit if using these for a savory dish)
Dash salt
1 tsp xantham gum
1 cup soy or almond milk
1/2 cup water
1/3 cup vegetable oil, melted EB, or coconut oil, warmed
1/2 tsp sugar-free vanilla essence (optional - this stuff can be hard to find)

Coco oil, for the pan (yes, use a little even on your non-stick, these things are CRANKY)

We're doing this in a blender, dears, so grab yours!

Dump it all in there and blend for 5 minutes, until everything is super incorporated. Check consistency - you're hoping for melted milkshake thickness. A good way to check - dip your finger in the batter, it should be coated to near-opaqueness with a thin, bubbly coat.

Chill your batter, covered, for at least 4 hours or overnight.

Warm your non-stick pan over medium heat and throw a 1/2 tsp of coconut oil in there, swish around. Grab a 1/3 cup measuring cup, fill it, grab the pan with your left hand, and pour at the top of the pan, swirling quickly, until the batter has circled and coated the entire bottom of your pan. If you didn't quite make it around, you might need to thin the batter just a little bit with more water/soymilk. You can also pour just a little more batter in, quickly, to repair the crepe.

It can be tricky getting the batter to coat the pan when using oil - but trust me, it'll prevent disaster. You'll get the hang of it after a couple, and any misshapen crepes can be hind in the midst of the cake!

Cook these guys at medium heat for 4-5 minutes on side one, another 2 minutes on side two. They will be browned on the first side - which is tasty and fine. They don't become chewy or crispy, as there's no gluten. Stack them on a plate as you go - no worries, they'll be fine.

I used about 1 1/2 cups of strawberry agave jam (2 large containers strawberries, juice of one lemon, 1/2 cup agave, simmered) and 1 cup agave-sweetened hazelnut spread. I dusted each layer with carob as I went, as well as over the top. And spooned the leftover, thickened strawberry syrup all over the place too.

Good. Can make healthy claims. Do try. Happy Late Easter!

Fawaffles

2011-04-20T09:05:00.000-07:00

The age old question - How to Grill Falafel - has been answered.

I sound kind of stuck up saying it like that, I know. Forgive. I am excited.

Cookout season is upon us and you guys know I like to stick everything ever on ze grill. Luckily, a pal and my's craving for falafel coincided with her monthly weekend grillfest and I had to get creative - and fawaffles were born.

Now, that doesn't mean you HAVE to grill them - they're super-awesome straight out of the waffle press, drizzle with tahini + hotsauce, pickles a-sprinkled - but if you want a little char on 'em, form the patties, wafflize them, and throw them over some hot coals. I do love a char on my falafel and that's the perfect way to accomplish it.

Plus, no frying! Healthy! Yay!

Fawaffles
makes 9-10 burgers

2 cups falafel mix (OR get industrious and go at this from scratch)
2 eggs or 2 eggs worth of egg replacer
1/3 cup olive oil
1 1/2 cup water
2 tablespoons freshly minced parsley
Super finely minced red onion - I used about 1/2 of 1
2 tablespoons freshly crushed garlic
Dash cumin
1 tablespoon minced sundried tomatoes
Salt and pepper to taste

Canola spray for the press

Tahini sauce, hot sauce, minced pickles and turnips for serving

Vegan Note - if using egg replacer, make your batter a little dryer - try 1 1/4 cup water, let the batter sit, and check consistency.

General Note - You want a slightly thinner batter than if you were frying the falafel - not crumbly, pretty mushy and wet. If using a mix, remember to let the batter sit for 10-20 minutes after combining everything to allow for rehydration.

Beat your eggs (or mix egg replacer) with water and oil in a separate bowl. Mix all other ingredients in a large bowl, add water, and stir thoroughly. Let sit 10 minutes and stir again - again, you're looking for mushy, not crumbly.

Heat up your iron and spray liberally with canola. Put a ball the size of a large lemon in the middle of your grill and close. Let the waffle cook for about 5 minutes, until it browns just a teeny bit. Remove to a plate to cool. Using a smaller amount of batter makes for a circular patty - if you'd prefer square, use a tad more batter.

Finish off your batter.

We made these ahead of time and once they were grilled, stuck them in (grilled, of course) pita with all the fixings. Lordy lordy, this might be my new party trick this summer -they were LOVELY.

For the sake of preserving Falafel as an awesome vegan protein source, I'm planning on reworking the eggless recipe over the next couple of weeks (not a huge Ener-G fan over here, sad to say). Stay tuned, my vegan darlings!

The many uses of Cashew Cheese

2011-04-14T08:08:00.000-07:00

You guys know I've been playing around with ground cashew cheese. You could also call it fermented cashew butter. Or cultured nut puree. Starting with this recipe, and being inspired by HHL's techniques and experiments, I've added lemon, tons of roasted garlic, a little agave, and a bit more nutritional yeast. No nutmeg for moi, as well.

And since I can't handle Daiya (just tooooo weird and processed tasting, don't hate me!) I've been looking around for cheese alternatives (that don't make me want to hurl) as a way to eat less big-business dairy. And so far, this fermented cashew cheese is at the top of my list.

What do I do with things at the top of my list? Put them on pizza.

Cashew cheese is traditionally a raw foodist trick, so I feel a teeny, tiny bit of guilt sticking it in a 500 degree oven. Ah well.

Look at those tiny, awesome brown peaks of crispy goodness.

But what else could you do with a pound of stinky, tangy, ricotta-like cashew cheese?

Hmm.

HMMMM.

Oooh, I know. Quiche!

My girl Elle's weekly cleanse potluck really brings out the vegan, gluten-free baker in me, apparently. And let me say, Darlings - these were pretty killer. Did a Roasted Tomato/Cashew Cheese combo and a Caramelized Onion, Roasted Mushroom and Spinach combo. The cheesy pie was tangy, sharp, lovely, while the Spinach was much milder (still nom).

Vegan quiche can be tricky. You don't want to use a ton of egg replacer - add too much and the stuff tastes horrible, like someone mistakenly dumped half a tin of baking powder in the mix by accident, very metallic, odd. Plain tofu can be boring, soggy, not quite as textural as you want. Too much cornstarch as a thickener gives a dusty texture to the filling. What's a girl to do?

Use a little tahini and cornstarch mixed together, that's what! Masked by all the herby, flavorful additions to the tofu filling, you can't taste 'em, and you end up with a sliceable quichie pie (as long as you let it cool first, that is. Ah, mad vegan science).

I've got to warn you all - this recipe was pretty seat-of-the-pantsy. Meaning, amounts could be off by a little bit. Ah, disclaimers. Let's proceed.

Edit: I've made these three times in the past two weeks, and think I've got it down pretty pat. Adding a vegan/GF pastry recipe, as well!

Vegan, Gluten Free Quiche (basic recipe - filling suggestions below)

1 10 inch GF, vegan crust (recipe below)
either: 1 12 oz box firm tofu + 1/2 small juice-box of silken tofu OR 1 box medium firm tofu + 1/2 box soft tofu (the former will give you a chunkier, more scrambled-egg-like quiche - the latter, a softer, more custard-like quiche)
1.5 tablespoons nutritional yeast
1 tsp turmeric
4 cloves garlic, minced
Salt, 1.5 tsp (or more to taste)
Tons of freshly ground white pepper
1 tsp miso
Dry mustard, pinch

to thicken:
1 tablespoon tahini, mixed with 3 tablespoons soymilk or water
1 tbsp cornstarch

for crust:
1 cup GF all purpose flour mix
1/2 cup tapioca starch
1 tsp xantham gum
3 tablespoons non-hydrogenated shortening
2 tablespoons EarthBalance or other vegan margarine
1 tsp salt
Garlic + onion powder, dash each
1 tsp sesame seeds (optional)
1 tablespoon cold soymilk or water (or a little more)

Drain your tofu in a colander over the sink for 10 minutes.

Make your crust - Mix your dry ingredients together, then chunk the "butter" and shortening into the flour. Use a pastry cutter to cut the shortening and butter into tiny breadcrumb sized pieces. Add liquid a tablespoon at a time until the dough balls up easily and is moist enough to incorporate all the flour without being slimy. Cover and chill while you prep the rest of your tofu.

In a large bowl, combine tofu and flavoring agents, using your paws to squish and smash until scrambled-egg consistency is reached. Preheat your oven to 325f.

Whisk last 3 ingredients together thoroughly in a separate bowl, add to tofu mixture, mix very well.

Add your filling of choice, but remember - the less liquid, the better. This recipe depends completely on keeping liquid content to a minimum, so roast your veggies first - and if using spinach, blanch and squeeze.

Bake for 1 hour and 15 minutes, until the center puffs a tiny bit and the pastry is golden. Yup, I said an hour and 15. You're almost just dehydrating the pie - low, long heat is the way to go. A crust will form atop the tofu, giving your pie structure.

Pretty deeeelish and almost eggy enough to fool your picky eaters. I've tried tons of combos, filling-wise -
Smokey Tempeh, Roasted Tomato, Spinach, Mushrooms
Spinach, Dill, Mint, Parsley
Fresh Tomato + Cashew Mozz, Basil
Roasted Tomato, Cashew Cheese, Chives
Mushroom and Shallot
Tempeh Sausage, Parsley, Mushroom and Spinach

And on and on. It's all been lovely.

Look closely at the below pic - you can see dollops of delish cashew cheese:

The way I add the cheese to the tofu is by using a small spoon to make 10-12 divits all over the pie, then spoon about a tsp of cheese into each divit. Uses about 3/4 of a cup of cashew cheese per quiche. Then I smooth the top of the quiche gently, blending the cheese into the tofu just a tiny bit.

Luxe and vegan. Serve with salad. And hot sauce.

Cheers!

Vegan Quickie

2011-04-08T08:28:00.000-07:00

I gotta do it - I gotta brag.

I feel like the better you are at cooking, the more you really get to know process, flavor, and nutrition, the harder it is to make something that you think is really over-the-top badass. I mean, I remember, waaaay back, stealing my first few recipes off of Epicurious, successfully making them, and giving myself biiig props. I got all excited. I bought a copyright '63 printing of MtAoFC and felt cool. It's been a long and rad journey since then, and I've become much much much more of a snob.

So when I tried a different idea on cashew cheese a couple days back for a gluten-free, vegan potluck - a cleanse group run by a pal - I wasn't all that excited, I'd done this before, kind of a sad, me too me too recipe (but decent in stuffed shells) thinks I. Well, let me tell you. I put too much lemon in this time. Added a ton of roasted garlic and doubled the nutritional yeast. Forgot it was sitting on the back of the stove, so it fermented a full 18 hours. Baked it to dry it out a bit at the end and GOOD GOD was this cheese sick, stinky, tart, salty, round in flavor, all the things I'd always wanted cashew cheese to be, but had never witnessed.

Put it on a couple of pizzas. And they were really, really good. And I'm not just saying that.

Gives me hope that one day, one dayyyy, I'll be able to transition away from my biggest addiction (sans smoking, that is...): cheese.

Once I figure out exactly what I finally did right this time, I'll share. 'Till then, pizza porn for you. Oh and happy Friday!

Sneaky Monkey Sauce

2011-04-07T08:39:00.000-07:00

For the kids, for the picky eaters, for the "eeewww, carrots" kind of people, grown up and child alike - here is the sauce. Put it on a pizza. In a lasag. Over basketti. In ze calzone. Anywhere regular tomato sauce would make an appearance.

Tomatoes are such an acidic (and delicious!) veggie. They have special powers of conversion - seeping into other, more base substances, turning them red, softening them. Disguising them. Making it possible to get "I only eat chicken nuggets!" child (a client's) to unknowingly scarf 2 servings of veggies in one plate of lasagna.

Awesome.

And so, here it is, a personal-cheffing classic - Sneaky Monkey Sauce.

1 28-oz can diced/chopped tomatoes
1 can tomato paste
3 tablespoons garlic
1 small onion, diced
3 cups vegetables of your choice - I used mushrooms, zucchini, broccoli shreds, carrots, and celery, chopped roughly
Basil and oregano, 1 tsp each
2 tablespoons olive oil
Dash red wine
Salt to taste
Dash sugar

First, we're going to mince those veggies to a pulp. Pulsing is the way to go - you want them small and uniform.

At start:

And, finished:

This is actually the first step to my Mushroom Bolognese as well - mincey mc mincerson. Anyways.

Start the sauce as you would normally - heat oil, saute garlic and onion, 3-4 minutes, until onion softens. Add your veggies and turn up the heat - medium-high or so. Stir to coat with oil, cover, and let those suckers go for 3-4 minutes - I like to brown them a bit. Stir. Cover. Repeat.

Deglaze with wine and add all your tomatoes. Fill up your large tomato can half way with water and add that as well. Turn the heat to medium and simmer the sauce 40 or so minutes, until the tomatoes have fallen apart a bit. You'll have to stir pretty regularly, more often that you would normal mater sauce.

Taste for salt, add a little sugar or molasses. If things aren't simmering to indistinguishable-ville as quickly as you'd like, don't be afraid to get the potato masher out and have ats half way through the simmering.

Lookit that thing! Not even a HINT of the veggie power hidden inside. And remember, this sauce doesn't quite have the congealing power regular stewed tomato sauce does - so if you plan on putting this on a pizza, maybe add another 1/2 can of tomato paste, and simmer just a teeny bit longer.

Stupid Cheese.

2011-04-05T14:17:00.000-07:00

Oh cheese... you are the reason.

I have thunderthighs.

I'm not vegan.

I look enviously upon those that can attempt this monstrously unhealthy, incredibly delicious feat.

It is only right that during this sacred month, I pay homage. But not all of us have panini grills.

For all the thrifting I've done, you'd think I'd have picked one up, but no. I do however have an AWESOME old waffle maker. And it makes killer GC's.

This one, as I'm sure you could guess, had kimchi in it, which is so not original. But I first slathered the sourdough with hot mustard:

Made for a nasal, aromatic experience. Straight up the nostrils, the cheddar/pickle/mustard bouquet went. Lovely. Maybe, just maybe, I'd cut the mustard (HA) down to one tablespoon next time, scraped thinly across both slices.

Kimchi Grilled Cheese

two slices sourdough bread
1-2 tablespoons prepared oriental mustard
1/4 pound sharp cheddar cheese, sli ced thin
1/2 cup homemade kimchi, chopped
cilantro, minced (optional)

oil spray
waffle iron

Easiest recipe ever to appear on NFP, this one: spray your iron and let it warm (mine has a little light that shines "ready!" when it's hot to trot). Spread mustard over both slices of bread. Layer cheese on one slice, scatter kimchi over the top, scatter cilantro over kimchi, place the other slice of mustarded bread atop. Press down to seal the fillings in place, then put carefully in the middle of the waffle iron. Close it as far as it will go, and use something heavy and non-flammable to keep the pressure on.

2 minutes, my darlings, that's all it takes. Pull it out, slice it, and go to town.

This kind of screams for syrup of some sort, but I had none at hand. What would you use atop this wafflewhich? Maple? A combination of Maple and something else for kicks? Hmm....

Mac 'n 'Chi

2011-04-01T07:49:00.000-07:00

This one's for all my hot sauce + mac n cheese loving homies out there.

You know who you are. Frank's, Marie's, Tapatio, Tabasco, something red and fiery has to be sprinkled over the top for that pile of cheese and pasta to really sing for ya. Not like you wouldn't eat it if it weren't there. But you're the one waiting for Texas Pete when your pals are already shoveling.

The beauty of a batch of kimchi is that it's a long term investment - the longer it sits, the stinkier it gets. Its personality changes. It becomes sharper and more pungent with each passing day - textures dull, flavors blend. For some reason, I still eat it quickly, like it's about to go bad, whenever I make a batch. Seldom does a 2 pound kimchi'd napa sit around this house for longer than a week. Good for the guts (I hope).

I've done a ton of pastry baking this week, exploring whether or not I have the chops to start selling the stuff out of an awesome local coffee joint (the long, arduous tale of finding a legal kitchen to cook it in, we'll leave for another time). I think I'm getting there. The reason I tell you this is that I tried the holy cheddar/kimchi combo in a poptart-shaped pastry this week, and found it to be as near perfect a trio of flav as I'd tried in a long while (pasta/bread, cheddar, stinky, spicy pickle). Had to try it with my go-to macaroni cheese recipe, and, well, holy cannoli. Kinda made my week.

Yeah, I used my two-serving corningware. Having any more than that around would have proved quite dangerous, methinks. If you need more, just double/triple the ingredients as needed.

Mac 'n Chi
2 servings

1/3 pound sharp cheddar cheese, shredded
1 tablespoon whole grain mustard
1 tablespoon yellow mustard
1 1/2 tablespoon butter
1 tablespoon flour
2/3 cup milk

1/3 - 1/2 cup kimchi
1 cup cooked elbow macaroni

Butter, for greasing the casserole

Chopped cilantro for garnish, sliced apple for serving

Make the bechamel (boil the noodles while this happens, if you don't have cooked noodles at hand) - melt your butter over medium heat in a small saucepan, add flour, whisk until flour cooks and turns slightly golden. Whisk in mustard, then milk, whisking constantly as the sauce thickens (should take about 2 minutes). Add your cheese and discard your whisk - use a fork to incorporate it completely. Taste for salt.

In your casserole, combine your pasta and kimchi. Add sauce and fold it all together GENTLY. Sprinkle any remaining cheese over the top (or some buttered bread crumbs, hmm yes).

Bake for 20 minutes in a 350f oven, until sides are bubbly. Broil for 2-3 until the top browns a little bit.

Serve with a lightly dressed lemon-arugula salad or sliced green apple. You could be like moi and eat it for breakfast, and get cheese-spaced early in the day, or save it for dinner. Reheats beeeeeautifully! Enjoy!

I like to party.

2011-03-26T07:18:00.000-07:00

And I love bringing food to parties.

It started out when I did a lot of hanging with a particularly non-soy-friendly crowd in NYC - I knew there'd be bacon in everything people brought to whatever potluck/shindig was getting crammed into someone's incredibly tiny apt, so I'd play it like I was going to anyway - you know, I just had this vegan lasagna in the fridge and it needed to get eaten.

Over time, I've developed preferences for party-friendly food. It can't look confusing - ingredients should be evident. Small is good - one hand probably has a drink in it. Slimy, gooey textures scare people off (I learned this after making a crock pot full of Swedish Meatballs for a cocktail party that people would stare at suspectfully as they walked by, like some meatball amoeba was about to pour forth and consume them). Basically, it stands to reason that if you can get everything you want people to taste in a single bite (maybe two), that's the best way to go.

That's not to say I'm above standing at the wedding buffet, scooping pounds of spinach/artichoke dip onto a plate waaaay to small to hold the steaming mass, but if I'm the one at the wheel, things usually get tiny and complicated. Anyway.

Hello, burrito sushi.

Fiesta time, mi mujeres y hombres. You might think nori + salsa = weird, and you'd be right. But goodweird.

This is a pretty straightforward recipe - just make a batch of sushi rice but treat it like this recipe for yellow oats - some faux-chicken (or real, if you're so inclined) stock, saffron, garlic, a dash of turmeric for color.

Then, for the filling -

Queso Fresco (vegan darlings - try some Daiya OR crumble a teeny bit of firm tofu, toss with lemon juice, nutritional yeast, salt and garlic powder)
Refried Black Beans
Salsa (mine's simple - handful cilantro, one large tomato diced fine, 2 cloves garlic, minced, 1/3 medium red onion diced fine as well, half a lime's juice, 1 fresh jalapeno, again, fine dice, salt and pepper to taste)
Sour cream (again, darlings - I love this recipe for Soy Sour Cream, give it a whirl or just leave it out!)
Shredded Lettuce
Avocado

- being as conservative as possible. I used about 3/4 - 1 tablespoon of each filling, and still ended up with jumbo rolls.

As long as you don't add any oil or fat to the rice, it'll maintain its stickiness enough so that you don't have to add vinegar/sugar.

Just a piece of advice - if you're making these for 5-6 hours in the future (and especially if they're sitting overnight) double wrap these rolls with nori.

Burrito Sushi Rice

makes enough for 6 rolls

2 cups short grained white rice ("sushi" rice) washed
3 1/2 cups water mixed with 2 cubes faux-chicken boillion
1 tablespoon garlic, minced
1 tablespoon safflower
1 1/2 teaspoon turmeric powder

Boil the broth and seasonings and add rice, stir, and cover. Simmer over low heat for 20 minutes. Let sit 10, uncover and stir, and cool (either on the stove, or if you're anxious to get burrito-sushi makin, in the freezer).

I totally made a batch a couple weeks ago (because I had a ton of fajita making leftovers and wanted to do something weird with them, you know how it is) with standard sushi rice and they were decent. Flavoring the rice really makes this shine, however.

Slice, drizzle with hot sauce, skewer with festive toothpicks, and serve.

Seitan with Coriander Peppercorn Crust

2011-03-21T12:44:00.000-07:00

This is totally a "Me Too! Meee Tooooooo!!!" dish.

Veggies get left outta some really delish holiday cooking traditions - Ham at Xmas, Turkey at Thanksgiving, Lamb on Easter, and let's not forget Corned Beef 'n Cabbage on St. Frat-er-Patty's Day. Are there myriad delish, less carnagey things to eat on those hallowed days? Yes. But sometimes, it's killer to slice into a roast - carving knife in hand, two-pronged fork carefully distributing pieces of (in this case) a savory, peppery loaf of wheat protein. Retro in a 70s cookbook kinda way.

For moi, this is also a memory meal - 9 years old, at my girl Heather's house (the same year I learned that trespassing in a tree nursery guarded by a 90 pound Rottweiler is a good way to end up with a hole in the bottom of yer pants), her wiry/red haired Ma pulling tons of cabbage and beef out of their seemingly hot-tub-sized crock pot. Beef was not something we ate much of at my house, so it was a pretty exotic meal, and this year, I decided to try it veg-style.

And thus we have Crock Pot Cabbage and Corned Seitan
serves 4, easily

for the seitan:
Dry mix:
2 1/2 cups vital wheat gluten
1/2 cup tapioca flour
1/4 cup soy flour
1/4 cup nutritional yeast
3 tablespoons veggie beef boullion powder (like dees)
Tons of freshly ground black pepper

Wet mix:
1/2 cup water blended with 10 cloves roasted garlic until the garlic completely dissolves
4 tablespoons earthbalance, melted
2 tablespoons flavorful olive oil
2 tablespoons tamari
1 tablespoon molasses

Crust:
1/4 cup black peppercorns
1/4 cup whole coriander seeds
1/2 cup all purpose flour
Oil - aerosol form preferred, but you can gently brush the roast with a basting brush if you need to.

to accompany:
1 large head green cabbage, cut into 6ths
4 large carrots
4 medium potatoes, pricked all over with a fork

for the crock pot:
1/2 cup dark beer
4 cups water mixed with 4 tablespoons veggie beef boullion or tamari (or more water - depends on the size of your pot. If you increase, stick with the 1 tablespoon tamari or stock to each cup water ratio)
4 sprigs parsley
2 bouquet garni made from 1 tablespoon black peppercorns, 1 tablespoon coriander seeds, 1 tsp celery seeds, and a couple whole cloves each - either wrap them in cheesecloth or use a tea bag

Phew. Looks far more complicated than it is, trust me! Let's go.

Mix your dry seitan ingredients in a medium mixing bowl and blend your wet ingredients together in your blender. As you massage with your left hand, slowly pour the wet into the dry and, using both hands now, knead the seitan until it is uniformly blended and comes together into a loaf.

Put your carrots in the bottom of your pot and sit the seitan on top of them. Add your bouquets, potatoes, parsley and cabbage, nestling them in around the seitan.

Pour your tamari or stock/water mix over everything, and your beer. You want to start with cold water so the seitan has a chance to brine a little bit. Make sure that the top of the loaf is covered.

Check for salt levels - the surrounding broth should have a slightly salty taste. Cover and cook on low for 4 hours.

Preheat your oven to 375f.

Pull the seitan out of the pot carefully and let dry just a little bit on a cutting board over the sink. Whiz your peppercorns and coriander in a blender or spice grinder until it's pretty fine, but not powdery. Dust the seitan with the flour and rub it in just a little, then press your peppercorn/coriander into the crust. Spray lightly with your aerosol oil, put the loaf into a oiled baking pan, and bake for 45 minutes, occasionally spraying it with more oil.

Looks a bit like an asteroid... a delicious asteroid.

Slice thin and serve with the taters, cabbage and carrots. The EarthBalance gives this a slightly more tender, softer texture than using purely oil. Very tasty. Don't be afraid to reduce a bit of the cooking liquid with a little cornstarch for a simple gravy, if you'd like.

Crunchy, savory, lovely. Enjoy my darlings!

Burrito Algebra and Veggie Powdery

2011-03-17T17:17:00.000-07:00

Oh, burrito season is upon us. It is perennial in my brain, but somehow, when it warms up a bit, those suckers taste even better.

Sarah + Co. (aka Tastespotting Brain) did this whole savory oat thing last month - risottos, pilafs, yowza - and since the only abnormality that showed up when we got our blood test results back last week (because, wow, now you have to give blood to get health insurance, hifive big brutha) was Erk's bad cholesterol - a teeny bit high. And so, I've gone and jumped on the salty oat wagon.

Three times now, we've gone with steel-cut oats rather than rice in our brekkie/dinner burritos, and three times, have been all "Damn, that was tasty". Lighter, somehow. Pleasantly piecey texture, like grits. Amenable to color and flavor sponginess, like rice. Totally a non-annoying substitution.

Of course, Egg + Cheese + Sour Cream + Fakon - Rice + Oats ≠ Healthy Cholesterol-free Burrito, but maybe just a teeny tiny bit of its badboyness is canceled out. Most importantly - supa delicious.

Yellow Oats
makes 2 grande burritos

1 cup steel cut oats (the quick-cooking kind, don't give me that face)
3 cups water
1 cube Chik'n boullion
Dash safflower strands
1/2 tsp crushed garlic
Dash sesame oil
1 tsp butter or earth balance
Pinch turmeric
1/2 cup frozen peas and corn

Easy peasy - bring your water to a boil, add all ingredients, cover, and simmer 8 minutes. Uncover and stir and continue simmering 1-2 minutes more, until the oats have thickened to a thick, almost sushi-rice consistency. Add frozen peas and corn. Mix well and plop down as layer one of a slightly classy, yet bad boy burrito.

Eaten with a pile of black beans - also lovely. Turmeric and safflower (a cheaper sister of saffron and available here if you'd like to play) are colorants, so you can consider them optional.

You know I'm all about a properly assembled burrito, so I started by steaming the tortilla (12 or 14 inch plz, fellow crown-towners can find them here) like so:

Just fold it up a bit and gently lay it into the colander, set over a pan of simmering water, cover, and cook 1-2 minutes. Flip and do the other side too - just one minute'll do.

Start with oats, then beans, then eggs, then fakon, then cheese (keeping all the warmness in the southern hemisphere) moving onto salsa, sliced avocado or guac, sour cream or yogurt, then greens (julienned lettuce, sprouts, chopped cilantro). Quickly roll that sucker up and wrap in foil, if you aren't eating immediately. If you are, go at it with napkins at hand.

yes plz

And yay, I get to announce the winner of my little giveaway! Thanks for caring, lovelies! I didn't really know what I was doing, so I wrote everyone's name on a piece of paper, cut it into 4 even pieces, put them in some kid's punk rock fedora that's randomly been in my car for two weeks, and pulled one out.

Hooray Pretend Chef! You'll be getting some super-cool Spinach and Tomato powder in your mailbox sometime next week. If you guys want to pick some up for yourselves, check out this link!

Thanks for playing my darlings! That was fun. We'll have to do it again soon. Until then, eat lots of burritos and think of moi!

Indian Riff, plus a giveaway

2011-03-15T07:40:00.000-07:00

I'm a devout Indian food fiend, and I know I'm not the only one. I blame being broke while in school in NYC - there were so many delicious, cheeeeap places within walking distance of my studio that most dinners were samosas, mulligatawny soup, and naan. For 4 bucks. Oh, Panna II. I miss you.

There's a bit of a fable that Indian food is difficult to pair wines with, so a sommelier bud of mine (also a worshipper at the throne of Curry, and also an AMAZING photographer - all the shots below are hers) and I set out last weekend to dispel that falsity. Did we? Well, we'll just consider this one installment in a series (since we didn't even make it through three courses, how wimpy is that).

What we did make it through were an hors devours course and a soup course - Pakora-style marinated cauliflower and, for lack of a better descriptive, Indian Mozzarella Sticks, plus a rasam. Which might be my favorite food of all, that thin, picturesque, chili-laced stew. Like the big, sophisticated brother of mulligatawny, acidic, tomato, spicy, just the right amount of stink.

Rasams come in many forms, but share one quality - they're thickened by cooked and mashed dal (mung beans, typically, although I've used red lentils). The one we ate was a pollution of this recipe, which I've been making for a long time. In order to pump the flavors (we went with an aged, super-rosy Reisling as our 2nd course wine, there had to be some serious Ooomph to cut through the flower) I did a lot of roasting - the tomatoes, some garlic, some shallot. Fried curry leaves, crumbled. About three times the asofoetida called for. Many more chilis.

You know by know that I'm a big dumpling fan - I wanted to bring that combination of textures to this stew as well, so I floated some Khaman dumplings in the soup, tender, sour clouds, delectable. A keeper. With killer wine, or without. This was the first time I'd ever made any of the steamed legume cakes so popular in south Indian cuisine and it was fascinating - a totally new preparation of the Holy Pairing of rice and legume, to me - soak them, dry them, grind them, mix with liquid, ferment, and steam. Feisty and time consuming. But such a soft, buttery texture - and an awesome flavor, earthy, cheese, super beany, lovely.

And of course, I couldn't resist dusting them with the last of the tomato powder. Adios, Mars Rock. Which brings me to - my first giveaway!

I want to send you some of these awesome vegetable powders I've been bragging about for months - and all you have to do to enter is leave me a comment below declaring your favorite Indian dish. Masala to Malai Kofta, Curry to Rasam - I want to know. And no, I won't be mad if it's a non-vegetarian dish. In a couple days, I'll randomly pick a name and send that lucky person two pouches of powder, both tomato and spinach. Yay!

Roasted Tomato Rasam with Khaman Dumplings
serves 4

for the soup:

1/2 cup split mung dal
5 cups water
1 1/2 tablespoons ghee
1 tablespoon salt, or to taste
1 1/2 teaspoons brown or black mustard seeds
3 fresh bird's eye chilis, split lengthwise
4 shallots, minced
1 1/2 pounds tomatoes
10 cloves garlic, peeled
2 tablespoons grated ginger
2 teaspoons ground coriander
1 1/2 teaspoon tamarind concentrate
Pinch palm sugar
1 tablespoon teaspoon turmeric
1 tablespoon teaspoon ground cumin
1 1/2 teaspoon asafetida powder
4 fresh bird's eye chilis, chopped, deseeded
Handful of fresh cherry or grape tomatoes, small, halved lengthwise
10 fresh curry leaves
Fresh cilantro, minced

for the Khaman dumplings:

3 cups plain Kefir
1/2 cup split yellow peas or mung dal
1/2 cup white basmati rice
2 teaspoons salt
Pinch asafetida powder
Chopped cilantro
1/2 cup peas, frozen
Minced chilis, bird's eye, 2 or 1/2 teaspoon cayenne chili powder
2 teaspoons vegetable oil
1 1/2 teaspoon baking soda

Let's do this.

Wash your rice and mung dal and set out on towels to dry. With a fan, shouldn't take more than an hour. Put them into your food processor and run until their texture has been reduced to powdered-corn meal. Add buttermilk and set aside in a warm area for 2-3 hours.

Add your remaining ingredients, sans peas, and pour into a greased non-stick quiche or baking pan (mine was an 8x8 square, fit it all perfectly). Add peas, letting them sink to the bottom. Steam over medium-low heat, adding boiling water as needed - easily done using this method or in a wok with a steamer stand. As your rasam is finishing, your dumplings should be solid.

Heat your oven to 450f. Halve your tomatoes and scoop most of the seeds out - toss them with a little olive oil and salt and roast, cut side down, for 20 minutes, or until browned on the edges.

Roast your garlic simultaneously by wrapping the cloves in foil with a little olive oil. Should be done right when your tomatoes are. Chop your tomatoes, reserving as much liquid as possible. Set aside.

As your oven is a-roasting, simmer your mung dal in about 2 cups of water, covered, stirring often, until they completely dissolve. At the end, add your roasted garlic and mash well. You want them super-soft - no structure left whatsoever - so add water and time as needed to achieve this.

In a small skillet, toast your cumin powder over medium heat until fragrant. Set aside to cool.

In the same skillet, heat some vegetable oil to medium hot and fry your curry leaves quickly, until crisp. Drain on paper towels and set aside.

Heat your ghee in a soup pot and add mustard seeds. Fry until they pop, then add chilis. Add remaining ingredients (don't forget the cumin!) sans the 4 fresh chilis, tomatoes, and cilantro (we're reserving these for garnish). Simmer 20 minutes, until tomatoes have liquified. Add lentils and gently simmer, until they're completely dissolved.

Using a cookie or biscuit cutter, cut rounds of your Khaman dumplings and carefully set them aside. Ladle a generous spoonful or two of rasam into a shallow soup bowl, dust your dumplings with tomato powder (optional) and set them gently in the center of the bowl. Scatter tomatoes, fresh chilis (also optional - for the spice-minded) and cilantro over the soup. Crush and scatter curry leaves as well.

Serve. And, of course, enjoy.

Weekly Eat - Chicken-Fried Tofu

2011-03-09T10:18:00.000-08:00

This recipe is so flexible, you can make it a ton of different ways:

Vegan, replacing egg with egg replacer (redundancy dept. of redundancy)
Gluten free, by dredging in GF all-purpose flour first, using GF breadcrumbs second (I make it this way most often because the crust holds up superbly, even between slices of tomato and lettuce!)
Healthy, by drizzling with olive oil and baking rather than frying (directions below)
Parmesan, by mixing some cheese into the breading mix and stuffing with a little more, plus herbs
Sesame, by adding seeds to the breading mix and drizzling with sesame oil when baking

Last night, I made it just veg - the recipe's below. Check out that golden, crispy crust:

This either ends up next to a pile of roasted garlic mashed potatoes and collards, or in a big ol' club sammich, like so:

Pretty killer. And, honestly, best right out of the pan. I've been known to go through a third of a block of tofu just standing at the fry station! With fakon, onions, tomato, lettuce, plus mustard and mayo, you've got something between a BLT and a Club Sandwich - yeah, you might pull a muscle opening wide enough to get that whole thing in your mouth BUT it'll be well worth it.

Classic Chicken Fried Tofu
serves 3-4

1 block extra firm tofu
1 cup hot water mixed with dash garlic powder, 1/2 tsp salt, dash sesame oil, dash Bragg's
2/3 cup flour
1 tsp salt
Fresh black pepper
1/2 cup nutritional yeast
1/2 cup panko
1 tsp onion powder
1 tsp garlic powder
2 eggs mixed with 1 tablespoon water, beaten

Corn or Vegetable oil, for frying

Slice your tofu shortways into 8 pieces and marinate in the water+garlic+salt+Bragg's for 30 mins.

On a plate, mix your flour, salt and pepper. On another, mix your yeast, panko, onion and garlic powders.

Scramble your eggs in a bowl big enough to fit a piece of tofu.

Straight from the marinade (let a tad drip off) dredge the tofu first in flour, then egg, then breadcrumbs, being careful not to rub the coating off as you go (wash your fingertips between tofu slices - accumulated egg/flour will mess with your coating). Set aside on a dry plate or cutting board. Repeat until all slices have been dredged.

Heat your oil to medium-high and put out a plate lined with paper toweling. Three at a time is what fits best in my 10 inch skillet, but break up your batches as you see fit! They'll need less than a minute a side, then carefully flip, another minute, remove to toweling to drain.

The only bummer about frying these babies is that the oil collects a fair amount of refuse, which you then have to skim off/strain out. Baking them in the oven is cleaner, but makes for a drier slice (if you decide to go this route, bake them in a preheated 375f oven for 20 minutes each side, until the crust nicely golden and firm to the touch).

Try this on your "I don't like Tofu" pals and convert them. Or make it for your inaugural spring picnic this weekend, perhaps?

I love yooo, Soondobuuuu.

2011-03-06T10:08:00.000-08:00

I'm going to tell you guys a secret.

I drink pickle juice.

I know, I know. Not healthy. And only occasionally. And I'm even snobby about it - my fav is the water that surrounds properly fermented sour dill pickles. Nerdy, yup.

So when a pal o' mine described to me one of her "I miss Cali" dishes, and how it was kinda pickle soup, I knew I had to either find it somewhere in town or make it myself. And since we're only just starting to see Korean joints pop up in CLT, the latter had to do. She linked me this place - and I went to town.

OMG, baby kimchoy!! Or Bokchi? Hmm. Anyways - a week of fermenting baby bok choy in a shrimp-free Chi recipe produced stinky, wilty, and dare I say, cute results. Little pockets of pickly, spicy awesomeness. They're kind of a mouthful - if you prefer your kimchi more dispersed throughout the brew, chop them a bit before adding.

Traditionally, this stew is made over an open flame in a clay pot, with everything going in fresh and cooking in stages, ending up as one big bowl of tofu, veggies, kimchi, pepper powder or paste, broth, and a big ol' egg cracked in at the very end. Insane. Spicy. Textural. Awesome. I was a tad dubious about my Japanese porcelain holding up to the heat, so I cheated and made the stew in a pot and ladled it into by bowl of choice. I love this dish, and will have to hunt down a proper Ttukbaegi. I'll bet Super G has one hidden somewhere in that vast, stinky space.

Soondubu jjigae with Kimchi
(aka KimChoy stew with Tofu, Veggies, and eggs)
serves 2.

For the broth:
3 cups - use either homemade veggie stock or, like me, faux-beef boullion + water (mushroom would be awesome too)
1 piece kombu
2 bird's eye chilis, split down the middle
Dash sesame oil
3 shitakes, chopped
1/2 onion, chopped

For the rest:
1 cup kimchi
1 tube soondubu
Green onions, chopped
Cilantro, chopped (optional)
1 large egg
3 tablespoons (or more to taste - you know me and tongue-searing, I used more like 5) Korean red pepper paste (like this)

Easy peasy. Heat your oil over medium heat either in your Ttukbaegi or small soup pot and saute onion and mushrooms for 3-4 minutes, until softened. Add remaining ingredients and simmer 10 minutes, until flavors have melded. Remove kombu.

Now, add your pepper paste, herbs, and kimchi, and stir well. Carefully break your tofu into the pot, piecing it up a tad bit, but leaving some large chunks. While soup is still simmering, crack the egg in. Now, you can either stir it in and enrich your stew or let it poach a bit. I chose the former.

One of the rad things about the afore-mention Super G mart we've just recently been blessed with is that they have TONS of banchan. I love lotus root, so I picked up some sesame-soy marinated root to float in my bowl amidst all the salty, spicy awesome.

Serve with banchan and rice. Soooo goooood.

This is how I like it, anyway.

2011-03-02T08:30:00.000-08:00

Isn't that the translation? Okonomiyake = "as you like it" in Japanese?

I immediately considered putting tater tots in mine, but settled for slightly-less-evil Bacos instead. Yeah.

I'd wanted to try my hand at this since seeing Closet Cooking's Shitake Okono take the cake for a Tastespotting recipe contest. Plus, my wok is the perfect size for personal-Japanese-pizzas. AND! Little Sis let it be known that this is her fav food, so I had to practice for some future birthday surprise.

Kevin has another recipe on his site that uses whole wheat flour - which worked out swimmingly and added an oaty, grainy flavor.

The traditional recipe calls for Dashi - made most often with fish, so I went with an imported mushroom broth. Steeped with a little kombu, it had a briney, hint of the sea taste. Perfecto. And since I'm a hot toddie about spicy, I mixed some prepared wasabi with the Mayo before spider-webbing our 'cakes. And covered them with toasted sesame chili oil. So many flavors. So lovely.

Baco Okonomiyaki
adapted from Closet Cooking's awesome recipe
makes two pancakes

2 eggs, well beaten
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 small head of cabbage, sliced thin
1/2 cup bacos
1/2 cup broth steeped with one small piece of kombu - for the broth, I used a Japanese mushroom-flavored
Handful of fresh bean sprouts
Handful of frozen edamame
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 pound shitake mushrooms, stems removed
1 tablespoon soy sauce, or more to taste (whole wheat flour has a sweet undertone - you might want to add a tad more sauce if you likey the salty)
Oil to coat your skillet or wok

To top:

Fried shallots (find these at your Viet/Thai grocery)
Pea shoots (lurv ya TJS!!!)
Chili oil
1/2 cup Katsu sauce
1/2 cup Mayonnaise, preferably Japanese, mixed with 1 tsp wasabi powder

Let's do this.

First, you'll need to saute your cabbage and mushrooms. Heat a tablespoon of sesame oil in a wok, and add your cabbage. Sear them on one side till a tad brown, about 5 minutes. Add 1 tablespoon of soy sauce and a little water and cover your wok, letting the cabbage steam - let it cook 3-4 minutes, until soft. Set aside.

Slice your mushrooms into strips and heat another tablespoon of sesame oil in your wok. Add shrooms and cook over medium heat, until they soften. Shitakes are little sponges, so I couldn't resist adding a little leftover mushroom broth to them just as they were finished cooking - to pump that awesome, earthy flavor. Set aside.

In a large bowl, mix your eggs and broth. Add flour and whisk. You want a thin pancake-batter like consistency - adjust if needed. Add all of your veggies, garlic, bacos, soy sauce, edamame, and mix well.

Heat a tablespoon and a half of sesame, olive or veggie oil in your wok until it shimmers. Quickly spoon a large ladleful of batter into the wok's bottom, using the back of the ladle to spread the batter into an evenly-flat circle. Let it cook 4-5 minutes a side - it'll brown nicely. Grab the biggest spatula you have and carefully flip the pancake. Cook another 3-4 minutes, until firmly set. Repeat with pancake 2.

You know I just put the mayo mix and the katsu sauce in a ziplock and cut a little hole to get that tubing action. You might have actual bottles. If so, cheers! Either way, carefully draw a spiral with katsu, then mayo, around the pancake. Use a chopstick to drag lines through the pattern. Preeeeeety. Top with chili oil, shallots, anything you'd like. Thinly sliced nori would have been awesome but Erk's a seaweed hater, so we left it as-is.

Cut into 6 slices and serve. Awesome.

I'm getting back into peanut-butter love, so we ate a simple peanut/sesame/udon salad as a side. It was almost as good as the 'cake - seriously, I love this stuff. For my gluten-free homies out there - try it with brown rice spaghetti. Works perfectly.

Peanut Butter/Sesame Udon Salad
makes 3-4 servings

1/2 cup creamy peanut butter
1/2 cup warm water
1/4 cup soy sauce
1 tablespoon minced ginger
4 garlic cloves
1 tablespoon agave nectar
Dash rice vinegar

8 ozs Udon or Soba noodles, prepared al dente

1 cup sliced fresh veggies - I used a small roma tomato and 1/3 of an english cuke
Small handful sprouts
1 tablespoon each black and white sesame seeds, to top
Thin sliced red onion, to top
Crushed red pepper to top - if you like the spicy.

Prepare your noodles according to package directions, rinse with cold water, and set in the fridge or freezer to chill.

Puree all the sauce ingredients in your blender for a minute or two, till totally uniform.

Toss your sliced veggies and sprouts with your noodles, add sauce, and wrastle that dressing into every nook and cranny. I admit - I gave up on my tongs and used my paws. It's a heavy salad.

Put a handful onto a small plate, top with sesame seeds, thinly sliced onion, and crushed pepper.

Eat and be merry. Love!

Good Luck Brekkie

2011-02-25T16:32:00.000-08:00

Remember how I said, long ago, that brunch was my favorite meal of the day?

It still kinda is, but we've been trying to eat fewer eggs lately. I dunno why. Just have been.

And with this meal, eggs are optional. Not needed, but one crispy-fried on top of the bean pile makes for a lovely little detail. Since the rest of the meal is vegan, this is an easy one to convert - so please do.

This began as a meal for a client and turned into dinner for us as well - the next night. Brekkie for dinnie is a big deal around here, but with a crunchy piece of chicken-fried tofu on top, this little ditty will transition seamlessly to nighttime. It's even awesome by its lonesome, as the leftovers I ate for lunch can attest to.

There's a little foraging-magic in my batch, thanks to a favorite springtime heralder - Onion Grass.

Very closely related to Chives, I use this stuff all the time. Our lawn's never been treated with any chemical, so I don't stress. Not quite as aromatic as chives and a little tougher, I tend to use this grass in stews, instead of raw. In the summer, once the lawn is cut, you can smell onion for hours. Hilarious.

Hoppin' John, as ya'll know, is an inexpensive dish - black eyed or crowder peas, a ham hock, an herb or two, spoon over white rice, finito. I fancied this up a bit since I can't help myself. If you're looking for a more basic version, the Tubes have many, many recipes for you to peruse.

Good Luck Brekkie (aka - Veggie Hoppin' John over Soysage Fried Rice with a Fried Egg on Top)

makes 2-3 servings

For the beans:

12 ozs fresh or frozen black eyed peas - look in your store's frozen veggie section
2 tablespoons olive oil
Handful mushrooms, chopped
1 medium white onion, diced
1/2 red pepper, chopped
2 stalks celery, diced
2 carrots, diced
Chives or onion grass, handful, chopped
Thyme, dried, 1/2 tablespoon
Ton of black pepper
4 cups vegetable stock or water (if using water - add salt to taste)
Smoked salt, 1 tsp
Dash sesame oil
Pinch cayenne

Heat your oil in a medium soup pot. Add carrot, onion, pepper, and celery. Saute until onion starts to turn translucent - about 5 minutes. Add mushrooms, herbs fresh and dried. Saute another 3 minutes. Pour in your stock or water, and add remaining ingredients, including beans.

Bring to a boil then lower heat to medium-low - simmer, stirring frequently, for an hour, until beans have softened and some have broken down, making a killer potlicker.

Meanwhile, the rice:

2 cups day-old rice, brown or white, cooked, chilled (the key to fluffy fried rice - chilling it!)
3 soy sausage patties or a 1/2 fist sized chunk of seitan, diced small
3 scallions, chopped
1 tablespoons sesame oil + 1 tablespoon olive oil
1/2 cup mushroom or faux-chicken broth, warmed

Heat your oil in a wok over medium-high heat and add sausage - cook until browned on a side or two, about 6-7 minutes. Add scallions, rice, and toss, mixing well. Add stock and quickly stir rice continually, until all stock has been absorbed. Cover and set aside.

If you're preparing another protein to accompany your John, go right ahead. If not, serve your stew atop a spoonful of fried rice. Garnish with parsley and if you're super-hungry, eat with boiled cabbage and sliced tomatoes.

Your gramma'd be so proud!

Ode to Asiadog

2011-02-22T09:12:00.000-08:00

It all started with this dude.

And two days after reading that rad little tidbit, we were chowing down on some of the awesomest dogs ever (veg/pork alike) at a pal's cookout. Which was random, since we'd never been to her casa before, and I show up with like, 20 vials of assorted kimchees, relishes, pates, etc, cover her kitchen table, and go to work on Ode to Asiadogfest '11.

Crowd fav was the Sidney - "Thai style" dog with mango relish, jalapeno (optional - nerds), cuke, cilantro, peanuts, onions, umm... yeah there was a ton of stuff on that there weiner. It's the one in the middle.

Mine, however, had to be the Vinh - Bahn Mi dog. Hullllloooooo.

Best part, tho - I still have multiple kinds of stinky, glorious Kimchi aging in random places around my kitchen. Saurkraut ain't got nothing on this, it's spicier, hotter, prettier Cousin.

I know I'm running the risk of more angryangry putting a Kimchi recipe up - but this recipe is what I used (as a base) adding stuff as I saw fit - a little sesame oil, twice the pepper paste, more garlic, celery, etc. I had a half-head of red cabbage to use up, so one pickle was bright maroon - gorgeous. We did standard Napa:

And, a new one to me - Apple Kimchi, in a further attempt to replicate the Asiadog experience. Ain't the Tubes wonderful? I've never had a dog from that cart IRL but there were enough pics, convos, menus, etc available that we could do the Stinky Dog Stand justice.

The Apple went atop a simple dog - the Ito - slathered with a paste made from S+B's boxed Golden Curry (watch out MSG haters- it's full of it). This was a close second for me - partly because I could take my time eating this dog (the Thai fell apart instantly, yay mango slaw).

I also ate two with nothing but Kimchi. They were fantastic. New fav topping for dogs this summer.

Anyways. NYCers, you're lucky. The rest of us have to make do.

Beyond Butterdome - Twice Baked Potato Pie

2011-02-19T09:06:00.000-08:00

Ya'll know I love me the healthy eats, but sometimes, you gotta put some butter in there. And sometimes Some is The Entire Stick.

I've had my share of twice baked 'taters - as a kid, I ate tons of the frozen ones (were they Ore Ida? Don't remember). I've had the casserole once or twice - and thought it so un-textural that it was kinda weird. Like eating sauce with nothing under it. Not in a good way.

So instead of wasting all of those fibrous, tasty, browned skins, I chopped 'em fine, seasoned 'em, and turned them into a crust, sort of. There aren't a lot of things going for 'taters nutritionally, but whatever they have is in them skins, so eating them's a good idea, especially if you're eating a half-stick of butter in addition. And cheese. And cream. Oh boy.

Twice Baked Potato Pie

4 pounds Yukon Gold potatoes, washed, pricked all over with a fork
1 stick butter
1 cup sharp cheddar, smoked gouda, whatever cheese you prefer, grated
1 cup sour cream
1 egg, beaten
1/2 cup whole milk or cream
Salt and white pepper to taste
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tsp each dried parsley, chives
Dash onion and garlic powder
Butter, for the casserole

a 13 x 9 baking pan, or 9 x 9 x 4 deep baking dish

Just looking at that list of ingredients makes me wince, but let's do this.

Preheat the oven to 350f. Depending on the size of your taters, bake for 1:15 - 1:30, until they're soft when poked. Cool 15 minutes.

Slice them in half, and using a spoon, scoop the flesh into a bowl. Add butter, sour cream, cheese, milk, salt and pepper and garlic, and mash well. You want them soft, airy, so don't over mash, and add a little water if you feel they're too thick. Using an electric beater, whip them for a couple minutes to aerate. Fold in your egg and set aside.

Butter your casserole dish.

Mince the potato skins well, and add the dried herbs and onion and garlic powders. Salt them a teeny bit and press them into the bottom of the casserole, making a crust.

Spoon the mashed potato mix over the potato skins, smoothing the top with a spatula. Bake for an hour, or until the middle has puffed and there's brown in spots.

Serve with sauteed Bok Choy or another light side. If you make the 'role ahead, you can slice it into squares and reheat gently for an Hors d'œuvre. Delish.

Cookbook Porn

2011-02-17T14:47:00.000-08:00

Someone gave me something really rad last weekend.

A first edition of the Fireside Cookbook, by the illustrious James Beard. You can get reprints that are probably less yellow than the copy I have, but let me show you why you should grab the original:

HOW has someone on Etsy not ripped this off and printed it poster-sized yet? Or this:

Feathers tomorrow. Yeesh. Another:

I love how a coddled egg is a little baby egg with wispy hairs. So awesome.

The entire book is filled with tattoo/frame worthy pre-atomic art - no page goes unembellished. The recipes, while pretty odd, are interesting, in that "OMG people ate like that?!" way. Some, like the Cheese Croquettes recipe, or the Rarebit, or the several potato salad recipes (I II and III) are pretty unchanged, as are the homemade Mayo instructions (with variations - green, red, russian, tartar). But there are Molded Salad recipes. Multiple Pheasant recipes. And this little half-page:

People used to do such odd/awesome things to cukes. Since putting them on a pizza last summer, I've seen the warm cucumber light - try them sauteed, or in a calzone - I swear, it's awesome.

But yeah, me, some tomatoes, this bag of agar agar I bought last week, and a funky-as-hell thrifted Jell-O mold have an appointment, and soon. Stay tuned.

If you love 'em, feed 'em.

2011-02-16T07:20:00.000-08:00

A repetitive theme in my life - feeding people I like. They don't even have to be friends. If there's pal potential, I'm bringing a plate of deviled eggs. Or making something ridic with seitan. Or putting the Cocktail Kit in the car.

I think this all started with Food Not Bombs, back in the day - 5 or 6 of us piling into some tiny kitchen, making a huge pot of veggie chili out of donated materials, taking it to a park to feed the Anonymous Hungry. Did we eat more of it than they did? Probably. But still, that desire to feed whoever was around and cool, this is perhaps where it started for me.

So surely, on V day, I had a plan - we were gonna eat something a little more complex than the meh SFLA fare we'd been noshing all weekend (oh nachos with Cheez Whiz, I'm still remembering you with disgust). I wanted some gnocchi, some sharp garlic tang, some tofu. And so we ate all three - Stuffed Tofu Parmesan, Ricotta Gnocchi, and this simple ditty I call Bruschetta Sauce - tomatoes, tons tons tons of garlic, spinach, agua. Vamanos.

Opulence, in food, for moi, often comes down to bounty - how many different vegetables are involved with the dish? The more the better, so says I. And the more disparate the preps, the more fun the consumption becomes.

So there's at least 5, 6 if you count the half-bushel of Parsley involved in this mess. Glorious veggies, will you be my Valentines?

The tofu was a take off on this recipe - the dirty-fi-cation of Soy Cake - only I added lots of parm to the breading mix, and dredged the stuffed cakes in flour, then egg first. I'd used a paring knife to slice pockets, carefully stuffing them with soy sausage, chopped, dried mushrooms, and asiago cheese, after marinating the 'Fu in a teeny bit of smoked salt, water, and sesame oil. You can bake these or fry them - frying is quicker by about 20 minutes, so that's what I did, keeping them warm in the oven while the Gnocchi came together.

This recipe is good, but basic - add herbs, truffle oil, garlic, stinky cheese, whatever you need to pump the flavors a bit. Nutmeg is optional IMHO - such a bright flavor, it pairs oddly with garlic, so I left it out this time. I had a hunk of gradually-hydrating Tomato Powder (even though it's been kept in a sealed ziploc, the stuff is still a Mars-looking red rock at this point) that I grated a bit over each ricotta cloud before plating. Looked cool.

But let's be honest. Mostly, this meal was an excuse to make Garlic Monkey Bread.

Erik's Ma pulls out this King Arthur kit on Saturday and goes to town with a mixer and a bundt pan and out comes the best thing we ate all weekend - Pecan and Brown Sugar Monkey Bread. Awesome, gooey, sugarbomb, butterbomb, memorable. And my little cheese-obsessed brain immediately says, "Ooooooh, I've got to try this with garlic and Parm".

So we did, and it was awesome. Better than your fav garlic rolls. Better than MY fav garlic rolls. Warm, crusty, chewy, messy, good-god-I-could-eat-this-whole-thingy.

(You're probably wondering how I kept my hands off for 10 minutes to take these shots, amirite? Well let me tell you. It tried the very depths of my soul's patience. And I popped it back in the oven for 5 before noshing)

Garlic, Parsley and Parmesan Monkey Bread

1 pkg active dry yeast
1 tsp sugar
2 cups bread flour
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon salt

2/3 cup parmesan cheese, grated
3 tablespoons freshly minced parsley
Black pepper, tons
Scallions, 4, minced (optional)
10 cloves garlic, crushed, minced

1/4 cup butter (oh ya.)

A bundt pan - mine was 2.8 liters (which I ran out and randomly purchased from this awesome little store), but this recipe is a little flexible - a smaller pan will produce a taller loaf.

Let's do this.

In your stand mixer bowl, pour one cup warm water. Add your yeast and mix. After a minute or two, add your sugar and mix well - let stand 5 minutes.

Add salt, then while mixing, gradually add your flours. Use a scraper to push the mass into the bread hooks and let it run 5-6 minutes, until a firmish dough has formed. Let the dough stand for 15 minutes, then knead another 2-3 minutes, until the dough's "skin" is slightly shiny. Remove to an oiled bowl, cover, and let your dough rise for an hour.

Mix cheese, herbs, salt and pepper in a small bowl. Melt your butter in a small saucepan and set aside.

Preheat the oven to 400f.

Turn out your dough onto a very lightly floured board and cut into 1 1/2 inch squares using a sharp knife. I ended up with about 25 pieces. Roll them in your palm, dip into the butter, then dip into the cheese mix, rubbing the mix around the entire piece. Place in your buttered bundt pan. Continue until your dough has been used up, filling the pan evenly and flatly.

Let the dough rise another 15-20 minutes, until about doubled. Bake for 30-35 minutes, until the top of the bread is browning.

Now, I had to carefully use a spoon to separate some of the bread from the pan before turning out - the cheese stuck a teeny bit. Do so if you aren't using non stick. Then grab a large plate, put it over your pan, and flip the whole mess over, tapping the bundt pan to release.

Great googly mooglies, was this good. Dipping sauce (which for us was leftover bruschetta sauce, but standard red would be awesome as well) is essential. Enjoy!

Dunno how I feel about White Chili, but here we go.

2011-02-09T08:40:00.000-08:00

Hey, I like creamy, saturated-befatted foods as much as the next, but for chili... it seems odd. Which is hilarious, since I've been known to spoon copious amounts of sour cream atop a bowl of steaming red.

But since I cook for the lovely ladies of Huntersville, and someone had a craving, I did the deed - White Chili with Tofu and Pinto Beans, and it was pretty interesting.

Since this was such a brothy, creamy bowl, I'd thrown together some faux-Pusas to balance it out a bit - kind of like a South of the Border Biscuits n Gravy plate. It was much improved - the soft corn and bite of tomato balanced the jack-cheese-creaminess. Were I to do this chili again, I'd totally try a Mex-themed spoonbread, perhaps, as well.

White Chili with Tofu and Pintos

1 large onion, chopped
10 cloves garlic, minced
1 green pepper, diced
1 calabaza squash, cut to triangles
1 carrot, peeled and diced
2 stalks celery, diced
Handful of mushrooms
1/2 stick unsalted butter
3 tablespoons corn starch
1/2 pound Pepper Jack cheese, grated
6 cups water mixed
1/3 cup nutritional yeast
1 tablespoon scallion, chopped
1 small handful cilantro, chopped
2 cans pinto beans, drained and rinsed
1/2 block firm tofu, torn to bite sized pieces
1 cup TVP
1 cup frozen corn
1 cup half n half
Salt and pepper to taste
Dash cumin
1 tsp habanero powder or cayenne (for ze spice!), more to taste
Dash sugar
1 small can hatch chilis (TJ's has this covered - look in the spice section)
1 small container sour cream

Melt the butter in a stock pot and add onion, garlic, pepper, carrot and celery. Saute until onion is translucent, 4 minutes. Add zucchini and mushrooms, toss, and cook another 3 minutes.

Add water, nutritional yeast, beans, cumin and habanero, herbs, chilis, TVP, salt, and sugar - stir well and simmer 20 minutes, until all veggies have softened. At this point, add your tofu - I fried mine in a little vegetable oil and drained it before tossing it in the pot for texture, but either way works just fine.

Remove the pot from the heat. Add the frozen corn. Toss your cheese with the cornstarch. Add in handfuls at a time and stir to melt. Ladle a small bit of broth into a measuring cup and mix your sour cream into it until well-blended, then pour into the pot. Add half and half a little at a time until the chili is the right consistency and taste for salt and heat.

Garnish with cilantro and chopped jalapeno, or with fresh salsa. Serve with papusas or corn bread, if you'd like.

Chilaquile Pie - awesome with Mole Tofu.

2011-02-04T08:22:00.000-08:00

A cross between Tortilla Pie and Quiche, this combination of corn tortillas, eggs, queso fresco and assorted veggies is soft, make-aheadable, and delicately tasty. I had a serious Mole craving this week and this was the perfecto side to all that rich, chocolately sauce. Try it as a brunch side with scrambled eggs! Or even go nuts and stick a fried egg on top (or in between layers, ooooooh)!

Chilaquile Pie

20 corn tortillas, soft taco size
4 eggs
1/2 cup sour cream
1/4 cup milk
Salt and pepper
1/2 pound queso fresco, sliced thin
1 poblano pepper, roasted, peeled, sliced
1 zucchini, slced to rounds
2 cloves garlic
6 leaves epazote, minced
Parsley and chives, 1 tablespoon each, minced

Preheat oven to 375f.

In a skillet, saute your garlic, epazote, parsley and chives in 2 tablespoons olive oil and lay the zucchini in the pan in a single layer. Press them down with a spatula, cover, and sear over high heat 2 minutes. Flip and get the other side. Remove to plate to cool.

Grease a 9 x 4 inch loaf pan or baking pan. Tear your tortillas into triangles. On the bottom, layer 12-14 pieces of tortilla in a complete layer - scatter poblano pepper over. Layer more tortilla pieces, then the queso fresco in a single layer. More tortilla pieces, then the zucchini. Use up your tortillas for the top layer.

Whisk or blend eggs, sour cream, salt, milk, and pepper in a bowl and carefully, slowly pour over the casserole, letting the mix trickle through the layers. Let sit 20 minutes to absorb a tad bit.

Bake for 30-40 minutes, until center has puffed. Cool.

We noshed our CP with Tofu Mole - fried blocks of marinated tofu stuffed with roasted Pepitas, a little queso, and diced mushrooms, atop a ladleful of this well-loved mole recipe. A little sour cream on top of the Chilaquile Pie was the finishing touch - a filling, delicious meal.

Retro recipe - Baked Cheddar Olives

2011-01-31T07:29:00.000-08:00

I used to hate themed parties - but the cocktail party I went to this weekend was fabulous. Everyone looked stunning, in early-to-mid-60s garb and three piece black suits, carefully popping bits of olive and cheese into their mouths, holding a cocktail with their free hand. And even though I've seen maybe one episode in totality, I could appreciate the style and grace of a Mad Men themed gathering.

Being what I predicted would be the only two vegetarians amongst the bunch (not true - there was a third!) I figured we should bring some nosh. So I perused my thrifted cookbook collection and settled on three - Baked Chedar Olives, Swedish Meatballs, and Mushroom Stroganoff in Puff Pastry.

The second two are simple - for the Swedish Balls, I used TJ's frozen Meatless Meatballs, a bottle of grape jelly, and a bottle of Heinz Chili Sauce. Mix, put it in a crock pot or electric fondue pot, toothpicks on the side, finito. For the Stroganoff, I made a thick version of this dish with finely minced rehydrated mushrooms and plopped 1.5 tsp of the stew onto the middle of squares of TJ's puff pastry. Bake on a greased sheet at 400f for 15 minutes. Oila!

The olives were a little more fiesty, but totally worth it - little green salt bombs surrounded by, basically, a Cheez It. Lovely and awesome with beer. Give 'em a whirl next time you're going for salt overload.

Baked Cheddar Olives

2 cups shredded mild cheddar
1 cup flour
Garlic powder, onion powder, and cayenne to taste - about 1 tsp of each
4 tablespoons butter, softened

1 jar pimento stuffed olives - about 36 should do it, drained and dried on paper towels

In a bowl, massage the butter into the cheese until well mixed, then add flour, and continue working the dough with your hands until it is blended and soft.

Take about a tablespoon of dough and press it flat into the center of your palm, somewhat thinly. Put an olive in the center of the dough and cup your palm, and thus the dough, around the olive. Carefully blend the edges together, covering the olive completely. Repeat until the olives are gone.

Chill wrapped olives in the freezer for 15 minutes while your oven heats.

Bake the olives in the top of the oven for 12-14 minutes until the dough has crisped and is somewhat golden. They'll pool a little bit around the olives but should retain a circular shape.

Cool and serve!

Whaaaaaaa.

2011-01-26T11:39:00.000-08:00

Not all that unreasonable, says I.

Pizza Eggs and Red Sauce

2011-01-26T08:55:00.000-08:00

I make at least one batch of tomato sauce each week - I'm like a little red sauce machine.

I keep it simple and affordable, especially during the winter when fresh tomatoes are a joke - but have been known to peel and seed 10 pounds of 'maters in the summer for the same recipe (and as you can imagine, it's super delish, but time consuming).

I digress.

So, red sauce obviously has a place in a gazillion dishes - lasagna, pizza, pasta and (lentil, soy, reg) meatballs, stuffed shells...

I love making those little stuffed pockets of amazingness. I only do the one layer of sauce, a lot of it at casserole bottom, and float the shells atop it, all covered in cheese, islands of gooey, cheesy awesome. But the thing I'm eating most often with ze Red Sauce lately is pizza eggs. Because breadcrumbs + eggs are a really neat textural trick, and I can't get enough.

So for the Sauce, here we go: (makes 3.5-4 cups)

2 large cans crushed tomatoes
1 small can tomato paste
1 small red onion, diced
1/2 handful fresh or frozen basil leaves, chopped
1 tsp dried Oregano
1/2 cup bitey red wine
10 garlic cloves, crushed and minced
1.5 tsp sugar
1.5 tablespoons sea salt (varies based on what brand of tomato you're using - I use only the no-added-salt variety
2 tablespoons olive oil

Heat the olive oil over medium heat and saute onion and garlic 4 minutes, until onion is translucent. Add wine and boil a bit, to release alcohol - then add remaining ingredients MINUS tomato paste, stir, cover and simmer 40-50 minutes, until tomatoes have liquified, or are close. Stir often.

I keep the paste out of the pot until the end because it thickens the sauce enough to make it cook more slowly - the wetter the liquid around your crushed maters, the quicker they'll turn to mush, which is what we want.

Add your paste and thoroughly mix. Taste for sweet/salt and adjust as needed. For pizza and pizza eggs, you want a thick sauce, but for pasta and lasagna, slightly thinner - so don't be afraid to add a teeny bit of water if you're making the latter.

The eggs are fairly easy - you'll need:

1/2 cup red sauce
1/4 cup breadcrumbs, mixed with 1 tsp garlic powder, 1/2 tsp salt and 1 tsp crushed red pepper
1/2 cup freshly grated mozz
1 tablespoon parmesan cheese
1/2-1 tablespoon butter, depending on how well-seasoned your skillet is
2 eggs

In a cast-iron skillet, melt your butter over medium-high heat. Turn your broiler on High.

Crack the eggs into the skillet, letting them collect into palm-sized pools (I do this by tipping the skillet ever so slightly, the wall helps). After the bottoms have turned to white, break the yolks, once, with the edge of your spatula. Spoon sauce over the middles of the eggs, spreading gently, and cover with mozz and parm, leaving a small edge of egg between the sauce, cheese, and pan, so you don't get spill over. Quickly dust with breadcrumbs and stick the skillet under the broiler for 45-60 seconds, until the mozz has melted a bit and just started to brown.

Carefully slide them onto a plate and serve with more garlic powder and red pepper, as needed. Hella awesome breakfast and super quick! If you kept the yolks runny enough, these babies would be heavenly over pasta, methinks.

Sick Hubby Soup

2011-01-22T07:24:00.000-08:00

More soup? More soup.

This is one of the first things I "came up with", not that it's a particularly adventurous recipe, but anyways - probably in January or February, when it got cold and damp in the city and either one or both of us caught something nasty. I've since gotten a tad bored of it, but this is what Erk wants whenever he's sniffly, which he was this past week. With toast and EarthBalance, he goes through quarts of it!

I also used to drop 3 bucks worth of faux-chicken bouillon cubes into an 8-serving pot, which frustrated me, so the recipe below contains my approximation of this brand. Tastes very similar and is much, much cheaper. Yay!

Sick Hubby Soup
makes 8 - 10 servings, or enough to fill a small dutch oven

3 medium carrots, peeled and diced
3 medium stalks of celery, diced
4 scallions, minced, white and green parts
1/2 handful fresh parsley, minced, or 1 tablespoon, dried
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tsp white pepper
1/2 block extra firm tofu, diced (you could instead stir 2 eggs in during the last 5 minutes of simmering if you'd rather not eat ze soy)
1 1/2 cup small noodles like ABCs, Crushed Fideos, Ditalini
8 cups water
3 tablespoons nutritional yeast
1 tsp brown sugar or palm sugar (something with a deep flavor)
2 tablespoons sea salt, or to taste
2 tablespoons olive oil
1/2 cup frozen peas

Easy peasy. Heat your oil in a soup pot or dutch oven and saute carrots and celery until carrots soften a bit, about 6 minutes. Add scallions and garlic, cook two minutes more. Add water, salt, garlic, herbs, nutritional yeast, sugar and pepper - simmer 4 minutes until the yeast has completely dissolved and mellowed. Add your tofu and noodles and cook 4-6 minutes if eating immediately, 2 if making ahead (let the noodles finish cooking in the pot on the stove on their own - it's easy to turn them to mush if you aren't careful!). Add the peas at the end.

Serve with toast and orange juice. Good for what ails ya!

Single Serve

2011-01-20T17:03:00.000-08:00

I don't usually post pics of what gets delivered/stored for my clients to nosh later because blech, tupperware, but I totally enjoyed this little ditty:

Fennel and Tomato Risotto, Cheese and Spinach Stuffed Porto, awesome sprouts, awesomer olive.

Amazingly, this meal comes in at about 1200 calories. Looks more expensive than that to me!

Minestrone with Parmesan Dumplings

2011-01-19T09:17:00.000-08:00

Another belly warmer, this. I'm moving from wonton obsession to dumpling obsession, thanks to a meal at Zum Schneider whilst up in NYC last weekend, and by meal, I mean single bite - that's all it took to get me dumpling crazed.

I've omitted pasta from this soup recipe because of the floating bread balls - but you could forgo dumplingville and stick some elbows, orzos, rotini, anything you'd like in there instead. Or even have both. Oh my.

NOTE: In honor of Ye Olde Top 9, I'm adding a Gluten Free dumpling recipe to this! Find it below the standard dumplings. They're very similar!

Winter Minestrone with Parmesan Dumplings

For the delicious stew: (makes 8-10 single servings)

1 large can chopped/crushed tomatoes
2 small cans tomato paste
2 zucchini, chopped
1 large red onion, chopped
10 cloves garlic, minced
2 tablespoons freshly minced parsley
3 tablespoons freshly minced chives
Tons of black pepper
1 large bunch kale, sliced to ribbons
6-8 baby carrots, chopped
2 large ribs celery, chopped
1/2 cup good quality olive oil
1/2 cup bitey red wine
2 cans cannelini beans, well drained and rinsed (I dump them into a colander and rinse under the faucet)
1 can garbanzo beans, see above
1 red pepper, chopped
8 ozs mushrooms, chopped
Handful frozen green beans, chopped
1 tablespoon + more sea salt, to taste
10 cups water

For the (regular) dumplings:

1 cup high-gluten flour, like bread flour
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 scant tsp baking soda
1 tablespoon dried parsley
1 tablespoon dried chives or chervil
Freshly ground black pepper
1/3 cup finely grated Parmesan
1 egg
2 tablespoons butter, melted, mixed with 1/2 cup milk or water

I usually make my dumpling mix first, and chill it, giving it time to glue together a bit. So go ahead and mix your dry ingredients in a medium bowl, wet ingredients in another smaller bowl, make a well in the center of your flour mix, and while stirring if possible, add your wets to your dry, mixing until un-lumpy. Cover and set in the fridge.

If you're making GF dumplings:

1 cup GF all purpose flour
1 scant tsp xantham gum
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 scant tsp baking soda
1 tablespoon dried parsley
1 tablespoon dried chives or chervil
Freshly ground black pepper
1/3 cup finely grated Parmesan
1 egg
2 tablespoons butter, melted, mixed with 1/2 cup milk or water

Follow the directions above and proceed with the directions below. They'll be slightly more dense, but deeeelicious!

In a large soup pot, add your olive oil. Over medium high heat, saute your garlic, onion, peppers, carrots and celery for 5 minutes, until onions are translucent. Add zucchini and mushroom - cook another 3 minutes, until mushrooms begin to soften. Add kale, stir, cook one minute more. Add your wine and turn heat to high for 2 minutes, until it has reduced a bit, then add water, tomatoes, tomato paste, beans including green, herbs, pepper, and salt, stir well, and bring to a simmer. Cover and cook 20 minutes, until all your lovely veggies have softened. (If adding pasta, add 15 minutes into your simmer). Taste. You'll probably need to add a little salt at this point - and maybe a dash of sugar to bring the sweetness of the green beans out - but it's totally up to you.

Now, I'm going to say it - it's almost always best to cook dumplings in the soup you're eating them with. They absorb all the awesome flavors you've been stewing up, and the only trade off is a little cloudiness/ spare floaters in your brew. Some dislike this and would rather cook them separately, in their own little pot of boiling water, and if you'd prefer, go right ahead.

Meanwhile in Julialand, it's time to dump those suckers on top of your stew, so grab your batter from the fridge, get a large, round spoon, moisten one hand, and while the soup is gently simmering, drop one spoonful of batter at a time onto the top of the soup, using your moist finger to push it off of the spoon. Quickly form the rest of the dumplings in this same way and cover your pot. Simmer 8-10 minutes, or until dumplings have just solidified in their middles.

To serve, ladle a chunk of dumpling into the middle of a bowl and spoon soup all around. A little extra grated cheese on top should do the trick. Ah yes, that feels lovely in the belly, doesn't it?

Cheers!

Wanton Wontons - take two

2011-01-12T11:36:00.000-08:00

As awesome as the mini samosas were, I think I like this recipe better.

Mostly because it's a hearty soup and hell if Charlotte hasn't been completely laminated by snow and ice this week - also, because it's relatively healthy and has a full range of vitamins in every bowl - but mostly, because it contains cabbage, and I have the Cabbagewinter gene - when it's cold out, I want to eat copious amounts of it.

But where the samosas were cute - this stew most def is not. Erk commented while finishing his bowl - "Dude, it looks like we're eating tiny brains. Gross."

The man still managed to power through and inhale his rather large serving, so it can't look too bad, eh?

A couple of short comments on prep - because I really want you guys to give this one a whirl, but there were several frustrating moments for me:

Wonton construction: like the samosas, we're going to fold these over corner to corner, but then take the extra step of folding the two corners of the long edge together, making a nurse's hat. This makes these denser, more dumpling-like, instead of floppy-ravioli-ish.

Burp the wontons of air as you construct, or you'll end up with little soup mines that'll explode as the air inside them heats. Yowza.

Make these RIGHT BEFORE cooking them. Wonton wrappers are super sticky. They don't do well on a plate in the fridge overnight.

Cook them all at once in the pot with the soup, stirring gently but constantly to keep them separated. They might clump up a little bit with the cabbage et all, but trust me, if you cook them by themselves in boiling water, they're like little magnets, and find each other, clump up, forming one large mass of dumpling. Delish, but individual pockets of yum are waaay more fun. And easier to serve.

Ok. Hope I didn't scare anyone with that description of cooking fail. There's lots of it in my kitchen ;) Also, you guys know by now there's no real sausage in this recipe - but you could totally use pork to great success if that's how you roll!

Sausage Wontons with Cabbage, Carrot, and Pea Stew

20 wonton wrappers
10 ozs vegetarian sausage, cooked, minced

2 tablespoons butter
1 small head cabbage, peeled of its first layer, then sliced thin
1 medium onion, minced
4 medium carrots, peeled, chopped
Tons of black pepper, at the beginning and end of stewing
Parsley, 1 tblspoon, minced plus 1 tsp reserved
Vegetable broth, 10 cups or:
1/2 cup tamari soy sauce, 2 tablespoons nutritional yeast, 1 tablespoon miso mixed with 9 cups water (taste and salt/add more miso if needed)
1 cup frozen peas

In a large soup pot, melt your butter. Add onion and carrot and cook 10 minutes, cover on, until carrot softens a bit.

Add cabbage, stir, cook 2 minutes. Add broth, parsley, black pepper. Bring to a simmer, cover, and cook, stirring occasionally, until cabbage is almost tender, about 45 minutes.

Meanwhile! Make your 'Tons. Like I described last time, I like to do this over the sink with a cutting board, wetting my fingers as needed to seal each wonton. So lay a wrapper out on your board and carefully wet around the edges. Pile about a tsp or tsp + 1/2 in the center of each wrapper and fold the corners together to make a triangle, making sure to work any air out as you go. Pick the wonton up and pull the two corners of the wonton's bottom together, pressing the edges together firmly, one on top of the other, to create a lopsided donut shape. Place on a dry plate and repeat until your filling is finished (I made it to 20-22).

Once your cabbage is fork-tender, it's about time to toss in the dumplings. Make sure there's a fair amount of liquid around the carrots and cabbage - add a little more water if needed and taste for salt. Carefully drop the dumplings in, stirring to make room for more, and cook, covered, 3 minutes. Remove from heat, uncover, add peas, and let coo1 5 minutes.

Ladle 4 dumplings into a bowl and cover with soup. I thoroughly enjoyed mine - I hope it gets your tummy all warm and cozy too. The next day, the dumplings had fallen apart a bit - but this was just fine, as it distributed the chewy pasta and faux-sausage throughout. Yum.

Wanton Wontons - take one

2011-01-10T08:14:00.000-08:00

I friggin' LOVE wonton wrappers. They make anything special - got some tasty black berry jam? Stuff 'em, fry 'em, dust 'em with sugar, hello tasty desert. How about some pimento cheese? Stick it in there, boil 'em, you got yerself some some pseudo-perogies.

Or you could do this - potatoes, mashed, coconut milk, curry powder, diced carrot/pepper, and some peas. And bring awesome vegan samosa-esque popovers to your next party.

Mini Malaysian Samosas

30 wonton wrappers, Cantonese style
5 small yukon gold potatoes
1/4 red pepper, minced
1 small carrot, peeled, minced
1/2 cup sweet peas, frozen or fresh
1 cup unsweetened coconut milk
1-2 tablespoons Malaysian Curry Powder Mix (I used the stuff I made this curry with)
1 1/2 tsp sugar
1 tsp salt
Dash ground red pepper for heat, to taste

Vegetable oil for frying

The making of a good wonton takes a bit of practice - you need to use just enough water to get the edges of the dough to adhere, but no so much that the rest of the dough weakens from dampness. I set up over the sink on a cutting board with the faucet drizzling just a little and wet two fingers each time I made one samosa.

For the mix: Boil and mash your potatoes. While they're boiling, use a strainer to steam the carrot and pepper quickly, 3 minutes should do, then mix your peas in (if frozen). To your potatoes, add your coconut milk, mash to smoothness, then curry powder, salt, and sugar. Taste and adjust - you want savory, a little heat, and a little sweet. Add red pepper if needed, or more curry powder, if you want more of a punch.

Chill the filling for 30 mins in the fridge or freezer. You want it pretty solid.

To make the wontons: Wet just the edges of the wonton and spoon 1 1/2 tsp of filling into the center. Fold the far edge over diagonally and press to seal - work your way around the entire wonton, applying pressure, until its completely closed. Place on a dry cutting board. Continue until your filling is used up - I made it to 25 or so before it ran out.

Heat oil in a fryer or wok and add no more than 6 at a time, turning with a slotted spoon or other tool to fry both sides. They're quick - 30 seconds max on each side should do fine. Drain well on paper towels.

The day I made these, I ate 15 of them. They're really good, and a little unpredictable - they look like baby samosas but the flavors are slightly skewed. Dip them into this, for a little extra tart/sweet:

Tamarind Tomato Chutney

3 tablespoons tamarind concentrate liquid
3 garlic cloves, minced
2 tablespoons tomato paste, or 1 medium tomato, chopped
1 tsp salt
Water, to thin

Put the tamarind, tomato or tomato paste and garlic into a blender and whirrrr until well blended. If you used a tomato, you won't need to add water - if you used paste, add a little at a time until the sauce has the consistency of thin ketchup. Taste and add salt if need.

Yay vegan finger food. Stay tuned for more wonton shenanigans! I'm totally obsessed!

A little retro, a little weirdo - Waldorf Salad Quesadilla

2011-01-06T07:40:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year my dears!

This is totally one of those things I'd never make for myself, but that my clients LOVE. Sweet, tart, slightly creamy. Desert for lunch, a little.

Of course, my ability to love Waldorf Salad goes up exponentially when it's sammiched in between two quesadillas and a bunch of sharp cheddar. Mmmmm hmmmm. If you'd prefer to preserve the illusion of healthy lunch, however, eat it atop lettuce or in a wrap. The addition of tofu makes it a super-complete meal.

Tofu Waldorf Salad

1 block firm tofu, diced to 1/2 inch sized pieces
Vegetable oil, to fry

1 granny smith apple, cored, diced
1 small bunch grapes, destemmed, cut in half
2 ribs celery, diced
1/2 red pepper, diced
2/3 cup candied pecans, cut in fourths
Parsley, chives, scallions - about 1/4 cup fresh herbs, minced
Black pepper, lots
1/3 cup dried cherries or cranberries, rehydrated a bit with boiling water for 10 minutes
1/2 cup mayonaisse
1/4 cup sour cream
Dash lemon juice

Heat vegetable oil to fry in a a large pot or wok - fry tofu in batches to golden-crust land. Drain well on paper towels and chill in the freezer for 20 minutes or so.

The rest is easy peasy. Mix everything but the mayo, sour cream, and lemon juice in a large salad bowl. Mix the remaining three ingredients in a small bowl and using a scraper, add to salad, toss, and serve. Best made the day before to let the flavors meld a bit.

This is kind of like the Club Sammich Quesadilla I posted last month - a weird quesadillafication of a classic salad sandwich. I figured it'd be hella delicious since apples and sharp cheddar are soooo tasty together, and it was. This is a thick quesadilla, so we're going to do this with an oven broiler instead of the skillet, so you don't lost filling when you flip.

Waldorf Quesadilla

2 10-inch burrito tortillas
1 cup Tofu Waldorf Salad
2/3 cup shredded sharp cheddar

Lay one tortilla out on a pizza pan and sprinkle half the cheddar over. Spoon the salad over the cheese, spreading, until it uniformly covers the tortilla. Sprinkle the remaining cheddar over the salad and press the second tortilla onto the stack firmly.

Use the top rack position in your oven and broil the quesadilla on high for 2-3 minutes, until the tortilla starts to brown in spots. Using a plate to flip, cover the quesadilla with a plate, flip the whole thing over, and carefully slide the quesadilla back onto the pizza pan. Return to the oven to broil the over side.

Let cool 5 minutes and slice. Deeeeelicious!

Decadent Broccoli Cheese Chowder

2010-12-30T16:24:00.000-08:00

I loved Broccoli and Cheese so much that as a kid, I dressed up as it for Halloween. I'm serious.

Over the years my passion has mellowed a bit, but I'm still the one nibbling at the last couple of florets on Fondue Night and I just about lost it when I found out Gramma had made Broccoli Cheese Casserole (in all its mayonnaise-drenched, condensed soup goodness) for Christmas Dinner. Yeah, I ate some of what I cooked - but at least as much BCC went down the hatch.

Since I cook for a couple of gluten-free women, I wanted to try different thickeners, instead of flour - cornstarch seemed an obvious choice, but maybe I could minimize the starch by using goat cheese and extra potato?

Yes I can, and did, and I gotta say - best B+C Chowder ever made by Moi.

Broccoli Cheese Chowder

1 small head brocolli
2 medium yukon gold potatoes, peeled and diced largishly (my pieces were all about 1/2 inch wide)
1 small onion
2 carrots
2 stalks celery
4 cloves garlic, minced
3 scallions, minced
Small handful parsley, minced
1 cup milk or cream
2 tablespoons butter
4 ozs fresh goat cheese
A rather large amount of freshly grated black pepper
Salt to taste
6 cups vegetable stock or water and boullion equivalent
3/4 pound sharp cheddar cheese, grated, tossed with 1 tablespoon cornstarch
1 tsp mustard
1 tsp lemon juice
Scallions, shredded cheddar, hot sauce or Jalapeno Oil to garnish (recipe for Jalapeno Oil at page bottom!)

Let's do this.

Melt your butter in a medium stock pot and add onion, celery, carrot, garlic. Over medium high heat, stir veggies every 2 minutes while keeping pot covered until they soften, about 6 minutes. Covering the pot in between stirs helps to steam the veggies, thus quickening their cooking time.

Add your brocc, stir, cover once more and cook 2 minutes, until it has turned bright green. Add stock, potatoes, scallions, parsley, pepper, mustard and lemon juice, and simmer soup for 10-12 minutes, until potatoes are very soft. Remove from heat.

Use an immersion blender to carefully blend your soup to the desired consistency - I went for pretty well-blended with some large chunks for kicks. Return to the heat and add your cream, cheddar, and goat cheese. Stir well and let it all melt and blend. Taste for salt and add, if needed.

Sprinkle any remaining cheddar over the top along with parsley or scallions, and serve. If you want a little heat, try the Jalapeno Oil described below. Nom.

Jalapeno Oil

1 large jalapeno
1/2 cup flavorful olive oil
Parsley, scallions, garlic, whatever herb strikes your fancy

Put it all in a blender and whizzzzzz until everything's emulsified. Strain through cheesecloth or a fine-mesh sieve. Serve.

...and a Partridge in a Pear Tree.

2010-12-28T14:52:00.000-08:00

It's funny how entwined food is in my family's holiday traditions. Sometimes, I think it's all my fault.

We aren't Thanksgiving people. We aren't even Christmas people. We're remarkably a-religious - whatever it is we're celebrating when we get together around my ma's big, wooden dining table, it's totally secular. Maybe that's why Fondue Christmas Eve is such a big deal. And it's definitely why I take cooking on Christmas Day so seriously. Like, unwrap the prezzies, have a nibble, and get to work seriously. Part of it is that I have some reluctantly vegetarian relatives, and converting them, even for one night, is a challenge.

This year was made awesomer by Sous Chef Erk playing such a big role. First meal we've conquered together, start to finish. I love that guy.

So, some hot pics:

My ma set up a table in the "studio" complete with multiple light sources and cute, formerly-Guatemalan-wall-hanging placemats for a quick shot before we dug in. Awesomemom.

Yeah, we partied like it was 1974. This was fo sho' an anti-minimalist spread - 7 separately prepared items on one plate, swimming in Bourbon-Fennel Ragu. Tasty, but intense. Counter-clockwise: Lemon-Thyme Roasted Fingerlings, Garlic Braised Baby Bok Choy and Pea Shoots, Pickled Green Tomatoes, Bourbon Ragu, Smoked Cheese Grits, Whipped Honey-Butter. We did some biscuits, too, to go with the extra butter.

The base was kind of a combination of these two meals - savory, cheesy, buttery grits topped by a thin, brothy sauce with a lot of oomph. Those were two of my favorite meals from this year, so I wanted to show it off to the fam. And anything is improved by spooning it over a pillow of hot grits. Of course, in the grit cake recipe, you chill the grits so that you can shape them - but they're just as amazing fresh out of the pot.

And then there was the Maple-Pecan Crusted Tempeh on top.

1 cake tempeh (enough to feed 2)
2 tablespoons maple syrup
2 tablespoons butter
1 tsp mushroom stock concentrate or 2 tsp soy sauce
Lots of freshly ground black pepper
Dash smoked salt (or regular)
1 clove garlic, crushed, then minced
2 tablespoons crushed Pecans

Toast your pecans in a dry skillet for 2 minutes, tossing, until nicely browned and fragrant. Set aside.

Mix syrup, stock or soy sauce, salt, garlic, and pepper in a measuring cup.

Boil water in a large, wide stock pot. Set a colander over the pot and place your tempeh, sliced to fit, if necessary, in the colander. Cover with a lid and towel and steam for 10 minutes, flipping once.

Melt butter in a iron skillet and press tempeh into butter. Sear for 2 minutes on each side over medium-high heat. Add your syrup mixture and cook 1-1.5 minutes, then flip the cake, coating the other side with the syrup as well, and continue to cook, flipping, until both sides have a nicely browned crust.

Press your pecans onto the seared tempeh, using enough pressure to get them to adhere. Slice and serve.

The leathery, deeply smokey ragu complimented the maple and pecan flavors nicely, methinks. Give it a whirl, and let me know how it goes!

ALSO! If you'd like to brag about the delicious nosh you and yours ete over the Holidays, you know I'd love to hear all about it.

Retro time! Mexican Lasanga

2010-12-22T06:38:00.000-08:00

I've been collecting old spiral-bound cookbooks for the last year or two while on my thrifting adventures - I have something like 15 now. Most of them are church fundraisers, and all of them have at least one Jell-O salad recipe.

We won't be making Ham in Aspic here at NFP, don't worry.

It is fun to trace recipes that are still standards now back to the 60s and 70s, tho - watching the spellings change in the non-English words (I found a recipe for Buf Borgonion, I kid you not), seeing margarine replace butter then shortening replace margarine then back to butter, it's all very entertaining. Obviously, there are huge expanses of each volume devoted entirely to Casseroles. And one that makes an appearance in one of my earliest books (1962, the publish date on that one) is Mexican Lasagna.

I have plans to sift through some of the stranger recipes and veggie-fy them in the coming months, but for now, that recipe serves as merely inspiration. Keep your eyes peeled for retro veggie dishes in 2011!

Mexican Lasagna

For the sauce:
1 28oz can tomatoes, diced or crushed
3 tablespoons butter
6 garlic cloves, minced
1 red onion, chopped
1 tablespoon cumin, toasted
1 jalapeno, seeded, minced
Dash sugar
1 tablespoon faux-chicken or vegetable broth concentrate
1 stick cinnamon, whole
Salt to taste

For the rest:
1 box no-boil lasagna noodles
1 package TJ's soy chorizo or 10 ozs faux-hamburger crumbles
10ozs shredded Monterrey Jack cheese
2 Poblano peppers
1 package Requeson cheese or Ricotta
2 garlic cloves, minced
Dash Mexican Oregano
2 eggs, beaten
1 can black beans, drained

Roast your poblanos either over a gas burner, turning until charred, or under your broiler, until the skins bubble and turn black. Place them in a paper bag to steam for 15-30 minutes.

Melt your butter in a saucepan and add garlic, onion, jalapeno. Saute until onion has softened, about 5 minutes. Add remaining ingredients and stir well to mix. Bring to a simmer and cook for 20 minutes, until tomatoes have softened and flavors blend. Remove from heat.

Preheat oven to 375f.

De-seed and peel your poblanos. I do this under running water to make the skins slide off more easily. Mince the peppers and put them in a small bowl - add your Requeson (a Mexican ricotta-style cheese) or Ricotta. Add garlic, oregano, and taste - if you've used Requeson, you won't need to salt this. Add eggs and mix well.

Remove cinnamon stick from sauce and puree with an immersion blender or puree in batches in your food processor.

Oil a 9 x 9 or 11 x 6 baking dish and layer as follows: 1 ladle of sauce, noodles, beans, chorizo, requeson, Jack cheese. Repeat twice, reserving most of the Jack cheese for the top layer. Top with remaining sauce and Jack cheese. Cover with foil and bake for 1 hour. Remove foil and broil top of lasagna until brown in places.

Serve with hot sauce and minced jalapenos.

Happy Holidays, my dears! If you're anything like me, you'll be cooking up a storm for family and friends. Which is awesome for vegetarian me - it feels like missionary work AND I can eat everything on the table! If I can manage to grab some shots of the grub, I'll put them up here for showing-offs sake. Cheers and happiness to you and yours!

7 spice roasted Tofu, for more Banh Mi

2010-12-14T06:57:00.000-08:00

Still on this obsessive little Banh Mi kick (doesn't run as deeply as my torta obsession, but hey) so when I needed some party food for a little bonfire get-together this weekend, I figured I'd give the tofu treatment another go.

This time, I sliced the tofu thinly, to make the mess a tad easier to eat. People were going to be standing and noshing and fire-gazing, so ease of consumption was key - and as delicious as the last banhs were, they were a chore to get through.

Long marinating and baking times added a deepness of flavor that I found very attractive. Quick frying them gives the tofu some crunch, a crust - also a step in the right direction. This is bacon-tofu, kind of. Nom.

7 spice Roasted Tofu, for Banh Mi

1 block extra firm tofu, sliced shortways into 8 pieces (enough for 2 sammiches)

2 garlic cloves, minced

orange peel from one orange, chopped

1 teaspoon ground Szechwan pepper

1 teaspoon ground star anise

1 teaspoon ground fennel seeds

1/2 teaspoon ground cloves

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

3 tablespoons soy sauce

Canola oil, for frying

Mix it all in a measuring cup except for the peel, lay your tofu flat in a baking pan or on a pizza pan, and pour the marinade over. Nestle the orange peel in between tofu pieces and bake for 30 minutes at 300f.

Heat oil in a deep-fryer or sturdy skillet for frying. Add tofu and fry until deep brown, about 5 minutes. You might need to do this in batches - never overload a fryer!

Drain on paper towels. Proceed to make sammiches. This time I subbed avocado for mayo, since we wanted vegan mi's. It was different, but delicious.

You can cut these into somewhat-tiny pieces if you use party toothpicks to hold things together. Yay mini-mi's!

15 minute dinner - Club Sammich Quesadilla

2010-12-10T18:18:00.000-08:00

This is a pretty evil one, for lots of reasons: faux-meat heavy, and super cheesy. But. I. Am. Obsessed. Plus it's the perfect pocket/picnic food, since it's so structurally sound. For any meaters out there - just replace the Facon and Tofurkey with the real thing - you'll dig, promise.

Club Sammich Quesadilla

First you must forage for and gather your ingredients. And by foraging, I mean hit TJ's.

For each 2 tortillas, you'll need:

1 small roma tomato
2 scallions
2/3 cup shredded cheese, TJ's Smoked Blend, preferred
4 slices Tofurkey, sliced to strips
2 pieces Facon, crumbled
Mayo
Mustard
Black pepper
1/2 avocado, sliced
Couple dashes hot sauce (hey, you knew I'd stick it in there)

As your cast-iron's a-heating over a medium-high burner, thinly slice and salt your tomato, chop your scallion, and thinly slice your avocado. Then spread about 2/3 tablespoon mayo on one tortilla, 1/2 tablespoon mustard on the other.

Lay the mayo tortilla in the hot skillet and quickly layer as follows:

Cheese
Tomato
Tofurkey
Hot Sauce
Bacon
Avocado
Scallion
More Cheese

And then press the mustard tortilla on top, with the palm of your hand. Don't be afraid to squish pretty hard, you want it all to stick.Check frequently by sliding your spatula under and lifting the edges - spots of brown are good, lots of brown is bad. Flip carefully, as stuff will make attempts at escaping.

Let cool 2 minutes and either cut with scissors or slice with a knife. Killer party-finger-food, trust me! Bon Appetite!