Deb's Night: Stations of the Place

One of Deb's seven stations!

Any time you go to a cooking night, and Deb says "here are the seven phases of this meal" and she's written each one out by hand on a separate piece of paper, you expect it's going to be good.  It's like there are different stations...stations of the [mise en] place.  Yesssss punnnsszzz.

Uncooked bread with onions.

Rosemary Onion Focacia!

We're using the recipe from Artisan Bread in 20 minutes a Day or Less.  The trick is that you don't have to knead the dough, and that you have to fill the oven with steam as you bake the bread.  Deb read that we cook the bread for five minutes, which seemed incredibly surprising to me, but Deb baked us delicious focacia before.  Well, it was 25 minutes.  But it was pretty good!

The Baked Focaccia! 

Jim with unbaked cookies.

Polenta Almond Cherry Cookies! 
With maple syrup as the sweetener and coconut oil as the fat.  Gotta love the vegans.  Quick-cooking polenta, rice flour and almond meal.  Take that, gluten.  Jim made them, and was shocked by the dryness of the dough - the only liquid came from the coconut oil, which is solid at room temperature.  Yum, saturated fat.

Cookies, in their cooked glory.

Sauteeing was great for the fake meat.

Steak Sandwiches! 
A foreman grill plus fake meat and horseradish dressing.  Not to mention fresh watercress to go on top.  Nothing says manly steak sandwich like fresh baby watercress.  I feel bad for dissing the gluten, earlier, since we're relying on it for our protein...and...uh...the bread.  We're still trying to figure out how to make it not taste like a gummy mess, but I think that might just be gluten getting back at us for being so snarky in the above paragraph.  :-(  We grilled it on the foreman, but that didn't quite cut it, so we're trying to sautee it and see if we can induce a more delicious texture.

We also made a mayonnaise horseradish sauce, with a little agave and some salt and pepper.  Simple, but pretty effective...


Tapioca pudding! 
Tapioca, coconut milk and agave nectar for sweetness.  He's making it on the stovetop, and it's looking dangerously bubble-over-y.  As it turns out, Bri did the whole 'accidentally add twice as much tapioca to liquid' trick!  We attempted a rescue by adding more liquid to the pudding, and that liquid was pineapple juice.  A food chemist might know if there is some sort of acid in the pineapple that would prevent tapioca strands forming, but we're much more in favor of just throwing caution to the wind.  But that's what our backup dessert is for anyway, right?  Speaking of which, hey, we have leftover cherries.  Into the pudding they go!  We used pearled tapioca, which gives it a pretty groovy "thing from outer space" look once it's cooked.

Attack of the killer tapioca.  Watch yourself, Internet.

Don't forget the taters.

Corn Chowder! 
 Deb is making corn chowder, vegan style.  Her current cookbook guru says that you should head up the pan, then add salt, then add oil, which is pretty much the opposite of how we normally roll.  We added some mirepoix, and a chipotle pepper which came in a can of adobo sauce.  Meanwhile, we're broiling some corn in the toaster oven to give it that toasty browned goodness.  We made cashew cream, which was soaked cashews that were food processed.  It was a little grainy, so we strained out the gritty bits, but aside from the oil, that's the only fat in this one.

Deb's vegan meal, ruined by the "I can't believe it IS chicken" moment.

Salad 
This salad is mostly a delivery vehicle for a Caesar Dressing, which is a blend of capers, garlic, nutritional yeast, miso, fake mayonnaise, water, olive oil and agave.  Those vegans, they just put the agave in everything!

All together.  We spread the horseradish sauce on the focaccia first, then the
'meat' and the veggies.  Watercress, red onions and red peppers.

	Alex	Brian	Deb	Jim
Soup	C+  I’ve had way better corn chowder.  The corn could have been fresher, and the flavor was just OK.	C+  It was too hot for me and it stuck on and the corn we used could have been better.  Fresh corn would have made it go up.	“I’m really full now...”  A solid B.  You could serve it to your mama.	B  I really liked the spice from the chipotle.
Salad	B  Fun dressing, but nothing else distinguishing.	B  It’s an eh salad with a great dressing.	A-  I loved the dressing...but it wasn’t very healthy.	The dressing was awesome (A).  The salad was just a delivery vehicle.
Sandwich	B+  The bread could have risen a little more - it wasn’t perfect for a sandwich.  The sauce was great, but the innards didn’t blow me away.	A  It’s only the rookie mistakes with the seitan and focacia cooking time that keeps it from an A+.	Oh my God, A fucking plus.  I looooved that sandwich.	I give it a solid A.  Shocked at how good it was!  Awesome focaccia, sauce was amazing, and the stuff was just fine.  Red onions!  Zing!
Cookies	B+  I think the coconut oil was amazing.  It was rich and had an interesting texture, and the cherries were lovely.  Gluten would have been great, though...	C+  The coconut oil reminded me of a girl scout cookie (in a good way).  The grainy cornmeal texture reminded me of cream of wheat in a bad way.	I really wasn’t in the mood to eat them...they didn’t strike me as being perfect.  I got a weird aftertaste...?  I have to wait until I’m hungry again.	B+  I like the texture, I could live without the crunchiness that persists after you’ve eaten it, and I thought the taste was pretty darn good.  And no liquid at all!  (Bri:  It was the greatest cracker I’ve ever eaten...)
Pudding	D-  Pineapples and cherries alone would have been better.  Poor, unloved tapioca.	The pudding curse continues.  Rarely has there been such a dessert...in a bowl...in front of me.  D	Full Deb is full.	F.  The consistency was horrible.  I like pineapple and cherries, but otherwise.  The taste wasn’t very good for the pudding itself.