Jim's Night: Breakfast and Artifically Injaminated Doughnuts

Tonight's menu is all about breakfast. We walked in to Jim's house at 6pm to find a fruit salad with Kefir sauce already made for us as an appetizer. Very first-thing-in-the-morning, right? It was surprising.  Next, we're told that we're going to be making our own homemade English Muffins and Eggs Benedict with Vegetarian Bacon. And THEN, Jim tells us the best news: we're going to make doughnuts for dessert. Yes!

Alex here is making biscuits in addition to the English Muffins. Apparently, Jim is afraid the muffins will be crap, so he's got a backup plan, leading SOME people to have a paranoid suspicion that we are actually doing his cooking for the week. But as it turned out... he kind of called that one.

TIL, you don't bake English Muffins, you fry them.

We're deep frying portabella mushrooms for some reason, too. This nighttime breakfast is getting weirder and weirder. Ah, to make the bacon, Jim says. Huh. Well, don't judge. It's not like real bacon is healthy either, right? So yeah, to make some vegetarian bacon, you can just deep fry some portabellas. Weird. Pretty tasty, though. They get all leathery like bacon, and the taste is kinda similar.

My best bud

Jim comes back from walking Rommie, astonished by how cold it is outside right now. It was -18 F in Boston the other day (with wind chill). Bri tops that by mentioning that on top of Mt Washington (New Hampshire) it was -85 recently. We wondered if the park rangers have to patrol the mountain when it gets that cold. My guess is hell no, not unless there is some life or death reason.

While Jim is separating eggs, Alex tells us about a new method he learned of doing just that; he learned about it on Lifehacker. It involves using a plastic bottle to "slurp" the yolk away from the white part of the egg. Fascinating. I mean, it sounds completely disgusting, don't get me wrong, but it's fascinating, too. I quietly resolve to save the next plastic bottle I  come across to test this out.

Musical Interlude
Alex mercifully changes tonight's playlist from non-stop Elliott Smith to non-stop The National. Score for me! Then he proceeds to make me ragingly jealous by telling me that his mom once had a conversation with The National on a plane. [All I got was "She said they were very nice."]

Hello folks, it's Brian leaping on while Deb is taking pictures of the english muffin fork-splitting event, which is apparently a Thing.  Note, folks, that all are grades are going to be a letter grade higher just because the food we're going to eat will be hot. No lie. It's damn cold out there.  You could microwave a brick of meat and even Deb would probably give it a C+ tonight.

I'm back. To Bri, I say: Ha, you're so wrong. While I've been taking pictures and generally getting in the way, Bri's been telling the room about his criminal justice class which is being taught by a Boston mob lawyer who thinks "curves are for losers" and that, to his mind, everyone is an A student until proven otherwise. Nice, huh?

Segue to the future. So far, we have biscuits and English Muffins ready, the Hollandaise sauce has been painstakenly stirred for what seemed like an hour, the "bacon" is being kept warm in the oven, the Gimme Lean sausages have...

"What is THAT? What is that black stuff [all over our food]?" - overheard from the kitchen. Scary, but it turns out the black stuff is just fried mushroom parts. We think. Moving on...

...been fried and are in the oven keeping warm. All in all, we're just waiting on the eggs to poach and Alex is dry sauteing some spinach.

Dinner is served!

A vegetarian breakfast: poached eggs , topped with spinach, fake bacon and real Hollendaise, plus some fake sausage on the side.

After watching another crazy episode of True Blood (Sookie disguised as a bad ass werewolf with a big butterfly tattoo on her back? Huh.), we begin making the best part of the meal, the part we've all been waiting for impatiently: the doughnuts! Our first attempts were total failures because the doughnuts didn't cook thoroughly inside. They turned out like this=>

So we resort to conducting a scientific experiment: should we make the dough thinner, or put a hole in the middle? It turned out that making the dough thinner worked out perfectly, so we abandoned the other branch of that science experiment . We have some delicious raspberry jam in the house, so Jim is now artificially injaminating the doughnuts.

They might look like bloodthirsty aliens here, but these babies were one of the best things we've ever made.

Our scores:

	Deb	Jim	Alex	Brian
fruit salad	B. Very tasty. It was a good idea -to use Kefir as the sauce-and I will probably use it again.	A. Simple, really liked the Kefir	B+ Kefir was good, the fruit wasn’t quite at the right ripeness level. It wasn’t in season, nothing we could have done differently	A- I would eat it again. I would rather have a smoothie or juice.
biscuits	B. Very nice biscuits	B. We’ve done better, but they were good.	A- pretty fine biscuits	B+ We’ve done better, still tasty though
english muffins	C- It’s the recipe’s fault, but those just weren’t good.	C. We should try them again. Either we screwed up the flour or something else when wrong.	C- Still edible, but something went wrong.	C+They looked good. By themselves they would been ok, but they were too tough for the Eggs Benedict
eggs benedict in general	C The Hollendaise was great. Everything else was just edible.	B+ Delicicous. If the English Muffins had been good it would be an A	B The eggs were overcooked, the spinach and the mushroom together was SO good. The Hollendaise was ok, but I think we struggled with timing. Everything was done at different times	B. Hollendaise sauce was really good, egg was good. Portabella bacon sort of tough. English Muffin really tough.
doughnuts	A. My absolute favorite kind of doughnut: not too sweet, filled with delicious jam	Aaaaaaaaaaa. [on a sugar high] God bless the Market Basket for having prices so low that we could afford the fancy raspberry jam.	A- The jam was really good. The doughnuts were just ok, I’ve had better ones. [Note: he’s eaten, like, 7 of them.]	A. These made me happy

Deb's Night: Mysterious Meal of Mystery, or "It'll be great! Shut up!"

Hello, dear friends, and welcome to another cooking club post!  Happy Groundhog Day!  This is Brian, claiming journaling duties tonight because I'm SICK with the DEATH FLU and I should not touch food for fear of spreading my HORRIBLE CONTAGION (which, granted, has only manifested so far with a sore throat and grogginess, and it might even be argued that I'm acting like a baby and milking this for all it is worth, but I know the symptoms of horrible plague when I feel it).

Anyhow.

Tonight's menu:

Appetizer: ???
Main Course: ????
Side Dish: ?????
Dessert: ??????

It's Deb's night to plan our menu, and after contemplating and rejecting the idea of a meal of nothing but finger food we are instead going for....well, it's a surprise. As in, she hasn't informed any of us, and has even hand-written out the recipes and fragmented them up so that folks will only know what the dishes are when everything comes together at the end.  Based on what she brought back from the store I see sweet potatoes, coconut, a big bag of what looks like kale, an unopened bottle of wine...

Oh!  Buns!  I know that buns are involved, which implies some sort of sandwich, because already I've caused a kitchen breakdown by missing the alarm and letting the dough rise too long.  (Blame the death flu!)  They're rising again, having been divided into eight little lumps of whole wheat goodness.

Jim and Alex arrive! Deb points out that it's bad for my liver to mix wine and Nyquil, and that there's nothing that *necessarily* says I have to wait until bed to drink Nyquil. Which...is beautiful, golden outside-the-box thinking.  This post is going to go askew quite quickly, I think.

Deb passes out 'recipes', and shows people their 'stations', at least 7 or 8, with ingredients and cooking times. Alex suspects this is all a clever plot to prevent him from changing anything or even critiquing tonight's plans.  Deb laughs!  For it is to laugh!  And calls him paranoid! Ho HO!  How about that sports team! And quickly changes the subject.

One might even suspect Deb's choice of note paper contains a hidden message...

Jim, at Station 1&2, is chopping cabbage; Alex is at Station 4A.  (These are apparently not numbered in order of priority. Of course.)

Deb is sifting flour; Alex is still trying to guess.  Sloppy joes?  No. Whatever it is will have vital wheat gluten, for she is pulling out all the vegan stops.  Veggie burgers, he finally figures out by reading ahead...but wait, another revelation: Deb has CHANGED the RECIPE.  DOWN IS UP ALL GUIDEPOSTS ARE LOST.

The conversation rolls around to Valentine's Day, and what is and isn't expected for that day.   Deb falls along the line of "you get a cell phone call if you're lucky, but a text is more likely". As for me, I too have very moderate needs:

(Each of these people are delivering chocolate.)

We gather around the recipe for the barbecue sauce (we think), which Deb has modified because she refuses to use agave nectar, because environment.  Being the cooking geniuses we are, we roll with this new challenge of agave substitution.

Alex deviates from his recipe; his called for him to measure out an amount of pepper, but we just have a peppercorn grinder and the thought of  measuring using that?  FEH.

Jim has completed Station 1!  He questions the terms--why 'station' instead of 'step'?  Is it a Catholic thing?  Because each station contains multiple steps, is the answer.  We contemplate using 'module' instead.  While we do that, Jim begins chopping the sweet potatoes into french fry wedges.

It only looks like Jim is healing this bowl with magic, but actually he...um...okay, maybe it IS magic

"It'll be great!  Shut up!"  There's a strong advocacy that this be the title of the episode.  Or for the full title: "I won't tell you what we're cooking, and it'll be great! So shut up!"

We have fresh pineapple juice; Alex, spotting this, proposes that it go in the slaw.  Which is how I discover we're having slaw tonight.

Alex is preparing the veggie patties and is actually done, and beginning to heat up the oven to bake them.    The bread also bakes for 30 minutes, but Alex points out that bread traditionally bakes at a much higher temperature...we scurry to find the recipe.

We ponder how many fries are *enough* fries...Deb maintains that she's never found that platonic ideal.  So while it might look like 4 sweet potatoes are an excessive amount (and it does, dear readers, it does, from here it looks like that scene from Close Encounters where he sculpted the scale model of Devil Mountain, only out of sweet potato fries), if it means that she for once in her life gets her fair share then it'll be worth it.

Either my leg is falling asleep or the Nyquil's really just now kicked in.  Maybe both.   Station 4 is done; we ponder coordination of the meal, and Deb double-checks the recipe to reveal that the buns actually DO bake at 350.  So put them in at the same time as the patties at 350 or put them earlier so they have a little time to cool in the air afterwards?  Deb's a same time-advocate, Alex feels they should go in earlier, and carries the day with his logic. 

Deb reveals that she hates cookie butter, because "it's like eating liquid sugar".  "Like honey?"  That leads to a discussion of whether honey's antiseptic properties are because of something unique to honey or whether any sugar would work...in other words, if we're missing something by not putting jam or nutella on our wounds.

Jim, having been worked like a dog (one who works, that is, like a sled dog; I on the other hand am working like an overweight puggle who's just flopped over on his favorite warm cushion) takes a little break while Alex turns out the patties--instead of the 8 the recipe calls for we have 4 plus a little more....for a loaf!

Deb reveals her dessert plan: CARROT WALNUT COCONUT CAKE.  Alex jumps to get some greens going; collard greens and spinach will be sauteed for a quick vitamin hit.

Deb is about to put the coconut-walnut vegan cake in the cake pans.  Frosting gets mentioned, which, hmmm.  On the spot she whips up an appropriate frosting which she describes as "your usual vegan frosting"--coconut milk, vanilla and confectioners sugar, pretty much.  She's adding flakes, for a very chunky look and feel.

The line between cake and peanut brittle can be deceptive

"The idea was to have a light dinner so I could have a giant dessert"--Deb, being very honest.

"Do you still have cashews?  I was thinking about making a little fake cheese to put on top of this thing"--not a normal sentence heard when talking about a 'meat'loaf.

We find cheese!  Which would ruin the 'vegan' nature of the meal...but, Alex points out, the loaf wasn't a planned part of the meal anyhow so ALL RULES ARE GONE.  Aaaaaaaanaarchy!

The scent of baking sweet potato fries begins to fill the room; they're examined and folks try to decide whether they need more time or are ready.

Remember the mystery menu?  The pieces have fallen together!

Appetizer: Chips (very very spicy chips!) and hummus
Main Course: Veggie burgers in homemade buns, with optional coleslaw topping
Side Dish: Greens; also, sweet potato fries
Dessert: Coconut-walnut vegan cake


At this point the Nyquil really kicks in, and I somehow find myself in the living room with a plate of food in one hand and True Blood on.  I think the main character's having a dream about elves?  Who are doing that thing elves in tv and film backgrounds always seem to be doing, which is swanning about doing vague modern dance moves?  YOU'RE IMMORTAL, PEOPLE, GET A HOBBY. Where's the Elf who's, like, "I decided to spend 30 years learning how to be the world's best balloon sculptor, cuz why not? IMMORTAL"  Oh wait we've actually been talking about the food while I typed this.

RATINGS

Veggie Burger and Bun:
Deb: I loved the veggie burger! B+!  Well....maybe A-.  But the bun, I never want to see again.  So.  Maybe that brings it back down to a B+.
Alex: C.  As far as veggie burgers go, this is not good.  The issue is the TVP, which is terrible.  TVP tastes like TVP, this bizarro processed thing, and then this got mixed with wheat gluten, which also has its own distinct taste and flavor.  In order to overcome that, you have to push pretty hard.  The delicious parts of this burger were the garlic and oil, and a LOT of ketchup.  The texture was good, though.
Jim:  C+--it definitely needed more flavor.  Whether that's herbs and spices, more stuff, maybe blended things mixed in, but it wasn't that bad to me.  It had the best texture of a fake hamburger.
Me: B-...for a veggie burger, it was normal.


Greens:
Deb: Soft, very well-cooked, not bitter at all.  B+.
Alex: I'm with Deb on this one--they turned out surprisingly well.  Given that I mixed two things with radically different cooking times, especially.  The liquid smoke was a nice touch. B+.
Jim: B--I didn't taste a lot of the liquid smoke, so they were nice greens.  Nothing that exciting about them.
Me: B+ --they sort of melted in my mouth. 


Coleslaw:
Deb: C-, too barbecuey.
Alex: Not very good at all.  I would say it was bad.  C.
Jim: I give it a B+.  I don't like coleslaw.  I don't usually even like cabbage.  But I liked this, and got seconds even.


Fries:

Lost due to Nyquil fugue.  Very thin fries, which were baked and managed to slowly, barely become a little crispy.  Deb prefers her fries thicker, which can take us to a slippery slope question of "when does a fry stop becoming a fry and simply become a potato wedge?  When does a potato wedge stop becoming a wedge and just become 1/4 of a potato and, more importantly, can you still dunk it in ketchup?"

Cake:
Even more lost due to Nyquil fugure, ohmigosh.  I *can* say that it came out less of a cake and more of a crumble.  Which some people really enjoyed.  Especially the one who figured out she could dump spoonfuls of crumble in the frosting mixing bowl and stir it all up together.