SAT FUN QUIZ!
tacos::gingerbread as
1)career advice::crunch
2)Dopey::Bashful
3)Babylon::Zion
4)elephant::nugget
Alex announces he's bought the first season of China Illinois (the Babycakes Show)! First, though, he makes the huge mistake of asking us to guess what he bought, and then puts up with us trying to guess for five minutes, then listens to us go off on a tangent about how buying a baby over the internet is never a good idea, and that leads to ANOTHER tangent about how bad we are as babysitters. Alex is mad patient, yo.
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| What he actually got |
Alex is making salsa while Jim makes guac; both of these, it should be noted, are to snack on while we cook the REAL meal. (At some point we should start rating the snacks.) Deb, meanwhile, is whipping up the veggie chorizo before getting started on the frybread.
Deb went to a yoga class last night with a pregnant instructor who sang in Irish to the class during their meditation period! This is Cambridge for you, folks. In the advanced classes the instructor does all that while weaving a dreamcatcher with her feet.
The team pauses to do a search for apple cider vinegar, which HAS to be in the room because, Deb says, what sort of self-respecting vegan wouldn't have apple cider vinegar? THIS VEGAN RIGHT HERE, is the answer. We substitute rice vinegar and roll with it.
We're going to make chia eggs tonight! Sadly, these are not hard-boiled eggs with green sprouts growing out of them, but instead chia seeds ground up to use as an egg substitute.
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| What everyone pictures when they hear 'chia egg' |
| Sadly, NOT where chia eggs come from |
We ponder regional cuisine; Alex hasn't ever been to a French restaurant that's made him feel "Ohhh yeah! FRENCH FOOD!" and wonders if the rest of us have. Alas, no...but we don't really eat at them too often. (Also, vegetarians.)
Guac has been achieved!! Salsa too...but then Alex sees our jalapenos and decides to tweak them a wee bit more (read: SPICY)
Jim's on fry bread, and we decide to tag team it so that everyone works on it and gets it done quickly before moving on to all do the dessert. We're like a locust horde that cooks!
SAT FUN QUIZ!
Locust horde::cooking night as
1) heffalumps::woozles
2) Mass Effect::SimCity
3) Lawrence Welk::Skrillex
4) Miley Cyrus::Sacco & Vanzetti
We contemplate the humble avocado, "a fruit made out of saturated fat". Guacamole, you so beautiful.
Next hiccup: the frybread recipe, we note midway through making it and noticing how small it looks, makes a total of four tacos! Dismay!
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| Servings: 8 |
Last week we took supper club off because Deb had to work midnight to four AM doing very special server work at her building. She says that there was a team of four strangers there (in a room with corpses in the basement!), and every hour one thing would go wrong that made them all panic. So basically it was "Insidious" but with better special effects.
We pause to ponder vegan chorizo, which is basically chickpeas sauteed in oil and spices. "Maybe as they absorb the liquid they'll turn into leather?" Deb says hopefully.
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| What everyone pictures when they think of chorizo |
Techno-nerds that we are, we now have to pause for five minutes as we try to open up Deb's Tablet where the gingerbread recipe is stored. But success! And now we revise and shift our kitchen counters over to Dessert/Baking Mode, which is much like a Transformer switching from a robot to a jet plane, but with slightly less wokk-wokk-wokk sound effects (sadly).
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| Not gonna lie, that reference was really just an excuse so I could go look at homemade Transformer costumes on the internet. And this one wins!! |
Deb is sous chefing as Alex calls out the directions, and barely 30 seconds in we go a bit haywire as Deb's version of "three tablespoons of maple syrup" becomes more like "three tablespoons plus a couple glugs because pouring maple syrup is fun". We do not judge.
We go on to have a brief debate about making the chia egg: grind it and then add water, or dump the seeds together with the water and then grind? With a three to one vote, the "not wanting chia seeds on the ceiling" party wins the day.
Deb feels a twinge of nerves about the small size of the meal and begins making a salad. Hooray?
Jim's flattening the fry bread (or trying to), but the recipe's unclear about how to spread it out big enough that it's useable. We go to youtube and watch Kathryn Little's technique, partaking of her wisdom.
While we're watching this, there's a minor spice mishap with the gingerbread--it called for 1/8th tablespoon of cloves, and 1/2 tablespoon went in. It could be worse. The chia egg goes in, looking pretty foul. (Egg! Fowl! Wokka-wokka!) Alex is concerned that it'll wind up overwhelmingly spicy; we ponder tossing in a tablespoon o'cocoa just to mute the spices a bit. And to give me a chance to say "o'cocoa" repeatedly, because it's so damn fun.
Knowing I'm the least nut-friendly eater here, Alex asks if I'd prefer big chunks of walnuts or tiny little bitty ground up bits. I go with the fine walnut powder.
The oil's on and making sinister "hot! hot! I'll burn your skin off!" noises over in the frying pan. The oven's heating up for the gingerbread. And the Boston mayoral race is...no, still no heat at all. Jim's concerned about the oil's heat and keeping a close eye on the thermometer. The gingerbread's gone in the oven, and Deb & Alex are moving on to making the frosting.
SAT Fun Quiz!
Boston Mayoral Race::excitement as
1) sad clown::trombone
2) dog vomit::new suit
3) zombie bite::longterm plans of a happy future
4) cliff::your hope of catching that roadrunner
We turn the fan up high to keep the frying from triggering our hyper-sensitive smoke alarm. I'm sitting right next to it. Suddenly I'm deaf. Not just me: Alex and Deb have to consult the recipe twice to see if the frosting recipe gets a tablespoon or a teaspoon of pumpkin spice mix. Or pemmican fly tricks. ITS VERY HARD TO HEAR.
Each piece of flatbread takes 6-8 minutes to fry, we note, partly because the oil takes so long to heat up. THIS IS SLOWING OUR PRODUCTION DOWN UNACCEPTABLY. We ponder ways to fix this, or at least keep the early pieces of bread warm while we wait for the last ones. Toaster oven?
Deb steps in to replace the plastic spatula we've been using for a metal one. Yay! We try toaster ovenning a piece of fry bread, and it turns hard and crunchy, more like funnel cake than a soft taco. Less yay? We're trying other burners to see if they heat up faster. And the back one seem successful!
The salad is five by five, looking like a charming blend of lettuce and cucumbers.
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| What everyone pictures when they think of a salad.....I mean, yes, that's actually the case here for a change |
GRADING!
FLATBREAD TACOS WITH VEGAN "CHORIZO"
JIM: A! I thought the chickpeas by themselves were too bitter and peppery, but when you combine them with everything else they're delicious.
DEB: A! It was much more interesting than your average taco. There's a lot we could improve but very satisfying.
BRIAN: B! The frybread was okay for our first time, the chickpeas were zippy, and the corn salsa was tasty. Trying to bite into it caused little explosions of corn and chickpeas all over my plate.
ALEX: A-. The frybread tasted like a tortilla chip that's in one of those tortilla bowls that they put the salad in. And the filling tasted like the filling that's in one of those bowls, but a really good version of them.
WALNUT GINGERBREAD WITH SPICY FROSTING
DEB: A. I think I loved it except for the nuts, which should not be in a cake. And now we know. It was cooked perfectly, though.
JIM: I give it an A! I was surprised by how good this frosting was, especially for being vegan. I will say that if Alex had put in all the spice that the recipe called for, it would have been too much.
ALEX: A-. I think the cake has a wonderful texture, I think the frosting has a surprisingly good texture. Spice thing was...okay...spice is not my favorite type of dessert. The pumpkin in the cake gave it a nice moistness.
BRIAN: C+. The veganness made it a little dry to me, and the big marble-sized chunks of walnut were not my friend.
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