Vegan Ranch Deja Vu

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*

Weekend Nosh

We've been trying to make a tradition out of grilling something, at someone's house, every Sunday this summer. Praying to the Church of Charcoal, if you will. I had a bag of Vadouvan spices staring at me from the shelf, so "tandoori" kebabs were on the menu.

It's kinda misleading to use the word Tandoori in describing these, since a Tandoor is a type of clay oven, and obviously these were getting charred over a pile of briquettes. Although not an impossible stretch since tandoors typically use charcoal as a heat source. But anyway.

The previously mentioned Stuart had played Garden Produce Fairy again and graced us with about 2 pounds of green tomatoes. Those needed to get eaten, so we had some fried green 'maters too, using a secret technique whose how-to I'd pried out of a friendly waitress at the Penguin some weeks back (who shall remain names, lest she lose her job). Bad news for my vegan CLT homies: the fried pickles are NOT vegan.

And then we had this delicious lucky pot:

Bean salad, courtesy of MT. Kid has this uncanny knack for making the mundane surprising - his pasta salad, which I've since tried to replicate, holds a sweet memory in my foodbrain. The kicker here was pickled green beans. Awesome.

Onto the recipes!


Tandoori Kebabs

As with any kebab, use a mix of your favorite veggies, remembering that the marinade will stick best to wrinkly things (cauliflower and broccoli, ungilled mushrooms, scored zucchini).

Makes 15 skewers.

1 pound mushrooms
1/2 head cauliflower
1 block tofu, frozen, defrosted, squeezed to drain
2 bell peppers
2 medium squash or eggplant

2 cups yogurt
1/4 cup vadouvan or Tandoori spice mix (for a make-it-yourself mix, see here, can't go wrong with eCurry)
Dash sugar
Juice of 1/2 lemon
Salt, 1 tablespoon

Mix your marinade and taste. You want a little heat, a fair amount of salt, and a bit of sweet. Add more sugar, red pepper, and salt until it tastes balanced and strong.

In several large plastic bags, separate your veggies. Pour a third of the mixture into each bag, seal well, and squish, gently, to coat your veggies. Put the bags aside at room temperature and let marinate for at least 3 hours (we went to 5 on ours).

As your briquettes are briquette-ing, skewer a piece of each of your veggies on either bamboo or metal skewers, starting and ending with a hearty vegetable (like cauliflower or squash, saving your tofu and peppers for the middle). Careful! The marinade makes things slippery. I punched a couple of tiny holes in my thumb with the sharp end. D'oh. 

As soon as you see mostly gray on your charcoal, it's time to grill. Highest heat possible is ideal. If you have concerns about the tofu sticking (which it likes to do) wipe your grill down with olive oil ahead of time. Put your kebabs on and close the grill, letting them cook for 2-3 minutes per side. Keeping the grill covered helps to steam the veggies, so they cook all the way through. Using tongs or a spatula, flip the kebabs, and cook about 3 minutes. Edges should be charred, colors bright.

Serve with a tamarind chutney (recipe below) or another sweet dipping sauce. Yum.

Tamarind dipping sauce:

1/2 cup tamarind puree
2 tablespoons brown sugar
1 tsp Sriracha (hey, nobody said this was authentic!)
Freshly ground black pepper
Salt to taste

Mix it all together and heat, either in a non-reactive pan or the microwave, until warm enough to melt the sugar. Taste and adjust salt. Chill.

Fried green tomatoes

I have an irrational desire to capitalize the letters of green and tomatoes. Thanks a lot, Jessica Tandy.

The secret is soaking the freshly sliced 'maters in, basically, Ranch Dressing for a good hour before coating/frying. Buttermilk base, little mayo, herbs and salt (my recipe is here).

1 cup ranch dressing

5 medium or 10 small green tomatoes

1/2 cup fine white cornmeal
1/2 all purpose flour
Dash each: cayenne pepper, black pepper, onion and garlic powder
1 tablespoon freshly minced chives

Vegetable oil, for frying

After your tomatoes have soaked in their ranch batch for a good hour, mix your flours, powders and chives in a large plate pan or plate.

Heat your oil in an iron skillet to medium-high.

As you fry, you're going to lose cornmeal to the oil. Since you'll be doing 4-5 batches, every batch or two, wipe the cornmeal out of you skillet and replace the oil. Otherwise, you'll end up with very burnt taste tomatoes and a kitchen full of smoke.

Shake a little dressing off your tomato round and plunge it into the flour. Press gently to coat one side, then flip and press again. I like to let the tomato sit there until I have a panful ready to fry - so you can cook them all at once.

Gently place each tomato into the oil and fry until golden on one side, about 2 minutes. Do not move the tomato, as you'll loose your crust, if you do. Carefully flip by getting all the way under the tomato with your spatula, scraping the crust off the pan if needed. Fry the other side another 2 minutes. Drain on paper towels.

Serve with more Ranch, for dipping. Mmmmm.

Doing sacreligious things to pizza again...

So, one of the biggest differences I've noticed since moving south, eating-out wise, lies in the condiment category. Tabasco isn't really around - you're going to be eating Texas Pete's or Frank's (if yer lucky). Mustard is yellow and something you always have to request. Salt and pepper on every table, even in Vietnamese joints. And Ranch. On everything. And I mean everything.

Not that I mind, I love the stuff. You think dipping fries in Mayo us uber-delish? Ranch is so much more fun. Crappy pizza is greatly improved by a dunk in the ranchpool. And fried pickles...well...there's just nothing else that will do.

With that in mind, I made something nasty last night. The opposite of healthy. The eat-a-slice-and-immediately-break-into-sweat pie.

White pizza, southern style.

But really, this pie was an excuse to show my newly-discovered, fav pizza topping off. Cucumbers!

Try it before you scrunch up your face in disgust. What happens when cukes are baked with cheese and sauce is pretty magic - they soften just a bit and soak up flavors like you wouldn't believe. Now I know watery veggies spell disaster for pies - but since I'm a devotee of fresh 'mater pizza, I've developed a relatively foolproof method of de-moisturizing veggies before using them as toppings. The almighty paper towel method.

First, peel and core your cukes with a spoon (seeds hold water!) then slice into 1/4 inch slices. Salt very lightly, and lay on a paper towel for about 20 minutes. Put another towel on top to increase moisture absorption.

This works just as well on tomatoes, for the rekkid.

For the rest of the pie, you'll need:

1 batch of pizza dough (this recipe is my fav)
1 - 1.5 cups Ranch Dressing (I put my recipe at the bottom, but in a pinch a refrigerated brand will do)
1 medium cuke, sliced, cored, and drained
1 medium mater, sliced thin and drained
2 cups mild Jack cheese, shredded
Sliced BBQ or Buffalo "wings" - I used morningstar farms', making sure to douse them in more sauce before baking. Let them cool and slice them very thin.
Flour, for dusting.

Preheat yer oven to 500f.

Prepare your crust. I'm attempting to learn how to properly throw dough: this video is muy helpful. Use your pizza stone or pizza pan to plate the pie, and move on to the next step.

Using a ladle, spoon dressing onto the pie, spreading to the edge, just as you would pizza sauce. You can use a little bit more than you would red sauce, since there's less water in Ranch than tomato sauce.

Lay a thin layer (maybe 1/2 cup) of cheese over the ranch. This is your liquid barrier.

In a single layer, scatter your cukes, then on top of them, tomatoes, then on the tippy top, sliced "wings", keeping things as flat as possible. Sprinkle the rest of the cheese over top. Slide that mother into the oven and bake until the bottom crust is almost burnt - you need a tough crust to stand up to the liquid in this pizza. This usually takes about 15 minutes. I also broil for 2-3 minutes once the crust is almost to where I like it, just to get
brown on top.

Let this thing sit for about 10 minutes, maybe longer, before even trying to slice it. In fact, I enjoyed the slice I had the next day (after it cooled, and I reheated it) a little more than the slice I had fresh outta the oven. If you're feeling arty and cool, top your slice with a little lettuce chiffonade! So yum.

Your Momma's Ranch Dressin':

1 quart mayonnaise (either homemade or Duke's, please)
1 pint sour cream (Breakstone's or another, equally firm, sour cream)
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 teaspoon celery salt
1 pint buttermilk

4 tablespoons freshly minced dill, parsley, and chives, equal proportions
1.5 teaspoons freshly ground black pepper

Mix it all very well, and let sit in a jar in the fridge overnight.