Brian's Night: Just Keep Truckin' On (Cooking Club, June 30, 2012)

Greetings, earth people Susan*!

Deb here, live blogging Brian's Chef night. I've decided tonight's blog theme has to have something to do with this parody of Dora the Explorer, because it is awesome and I need to work it in somehow. Sister Susan: I know you will enjoy this, but don't show the kids, 'cause it will blow their little heads.

Brian here, being not-at-all-defensive as I explain my TRUE inspiration:  my last theme night was dedicated to having us attempt to re-create another menu from an amazing local Boston food truck, Mei Mei's Street Kitchen.  To top that, tonight we're attempting to create a meal using one more food from Mei Mei's...but we're ALSO doing foods from a local cupcake food truck, Kick**s Cupcakes, and an empanada food truck from Austin, Texas!  That's right, folks, we're going national!

And now, back to Deb...

Trucking, exploring...you can see the mood we're in tonight. 

Before we begin cooking, we hold a taste challenge. 

Jim was kind enough to bring over his last medallion of homemade goat cheese for Brian to use in his empanada, which led to a taste test where we challenged Jim to see if he could recognize his own goat cheese compared to a store bought variety we had in the fridge. The verdict: he could. Man knows his cheese, and his tastes better.

True fact: did you know paprika is made entirely out of peppers, which have been dried and ground?

 

 

 

The Appetizer

We begin tonight by foraging for appetizers to fortify ourselves for another night of slooow cooking. I leave out 4 carrots in hopes that I can convince someone to try my white bean dip ...wow that whole sentence sounds a lot racier than I intended. It's like one of those jazz songs where you think they're talking about carrots and bean dip, but then you realize years later that you were so, so wrong. Know the feeling? But in relationship to This Dip, I'm really just talking about the dip and anyway, it was quickly decided that maybe I should have not thrown in everything but the kitchen sink in an effort to make it taste like anything exotic, especially not that pickle juice, that was really just too desperate. I mean, really.

You don't want that recipe.

The Making of the Real Menu

In keeping with tonight's theme, we've been doing a lot of exploring. Namely to Trader Joe's TWICE to pick up ingredients we forgot.

Our menu tonight involves the following challenges:

 1. Somehow recreate the cold noodle dish on Mei Mei's menu board, having never tasted the dish and using nothing but our imaginations...well, and some food, of course.

2. Make mmmpanadas using this page as an inspiration, keeping in mind we've got to keep it vegetarian.

3.  Kick*ss Cupcakes occasionally sells a cupcake made with espresso and marshmallow fluff and Brian wantssss it. He's going to make it tonight, again Having Never Tasted The Real Thing! Booyeah!

The Nitty Gritty

Cold Sesame Noodles with Tofu

"Was the egg really supposed to go IN the sauce, someone asked dubiously."
"Hey, there is no 'supposed to' in Brian's homage to food trucks style of cooking," is the reply.

So the egg is going in the sauce and the sauce is going on the noodles and the whole thing takes a ridiculously short amount of time to make and it's in the fridge before we realize Alex has hidden it away. We note that he skipped the pickles because he hates them with a Colorado-is-burning kind of emotion. Basically the dread can be felt from miles away. Similarly, the arugula was "accidentally" not purchased by our head Chef, who we've heard complain about arugula in the past. Head Chef Bri is also allergic to peanuts, so we had to jettison every delicious sounding recipe that involved luscious, tasty peanut butter. Not that we were bitter or anything. To pare this recipe down to its absolute bare essentials even further, I think perhaps somebody forgot to actually show Alex the Mei Mei sandwich board...because I don't remember any sesame seeds or 5 spice powder in that dish, either...

Yeah, so basically this was our recipe for Cold Sesame Noodles: we took cooked rice noodles, added sauce (ginger, garlic, sesame oil, soy sauce, agave) and added SCRAMBLED EGG. It was pointed out to Brian that this dish is normally made with udon, but he claimed he couldn't find any.

Recipe for Marinated Tofu: We marinated extra firm tofu in the sauce above. Nope, we didn't bother to press it first and you know, it all ended up ok.

Mmmpanadas!

Brian put together the Empanada dough using a recipe he found on this page. Empanada dough (3 cups flour, 1/4 tsp salt, 6 oz butter, 1 egg, 4-5 tbs water, mix, roll into ball. fridge for 1/2 hour, roll out).

Empanada innards: Alex sauteed some onions, mushrooms and spinach. Then he made a roux, then very slowly added the juices cooked out from the mushroom mixture. To make it tastier, he added ketchup, agave, lemon juice and garlic.

You know, if it wasn't over 90 degrees in Boston today, I was thinking that we could recreate the stop-motion meme. Have you heard of it? Check this out:

We could have done this. If only it weren't so hot.

"Oh, man, the heat. That wok frying......"  and those were the last words of Deb before she wandered away from the laptop and then got distracted figuring out whether forest rangers, in fact, fight forest fires. What *was* Smokey the Bear's exact role, anyhow?  HI FOLKS!  Brian here, taking over the blog [stealing the cushy job, he means-Deb].

"It's my job to CREATE drama!"--Deb.

Let's see, where are we...the cupcakes are in the oven, the empanada dough is ready, and we're now guesstimating how much goat cheese should go in the filling.  Hungry Deb is helping Jim cook by describing a delicious mushroom sandwich she ate the other day.  And Alex is checking the "tofu jerky" that's drying out and getting tasty in the toaster oven.

How much goat cheese? Too much goat cheese!

  

We take this relatively quiet moment to check in with Alex about his housing co-op; there are so many people living under his roof and there's so much moving in and out that it's as hard to keep track of who's living with him as who's currently in Menudo.  (Wow, that joke dates me...for those of you born after 1990 just substitute "Backstreet Boys" in there...but that dates me too, doesn't it.  "Smashing Pumpkins"?  Agh).

We taste the empanada filling.  "Oh man, it's so much better than I expected!", says Deb.  I preen, very proud of how well my idea is going despite the fact that I really just gave Jim and Alex a six word description and set them loose.  

As a Texan, Jim has been imposed upon all evening to be the empanada Expert.  (I dread the turnabout supper club when they assume that as a Mainer I'll know how to do a clambake, or when Deb as a Northern Virginian makes...um...makes a large glass of gin?  I got nothing, folks). [Hey! We're known for ...stuff.]  Jim's risen to the occasion, as you can see.

 

Chocolate Cupcakes with Fluff

Oh dear...the cupcakes have come out of the oven and the little chilled balls of Fluff, which I'd hoped would stay in the middle and be tasty surprises, have instead risen to the top of the cupcake and...let's just say they don't look pretty.

"The fluff's ejaculated!"--Alex

Deb declares that she doesn't have an artistic temperament because artists need to work quietly on their own and she's too much of a people person.  Alex, to his credit, does not drop the pan he's holding.

In figuring out how to fry the empanadas I refer to Jim as "Houston", and that sends us into a brief frenzy of figuring out nicknames for each other.  Deb tries out "Virgina" and decides it's too virginal and uncool. So she wants "The Jew."  She asks Alex whether he wants Tampa or "California Boy", but Alex doesn't want either. Since he's the only real Jew in the room, he wants "The Jew." Deb has to gracefully concede that having Jewish ancestors in the 13th century on her father's side, PROBABLY doesn't qualify her for that nickname. She settles for "The Sicilian". [Bri, of course, is and has always been, "The Mainer".]

"As long as they're frying it's good, and as long as they're smoking it's bad--we want it somewhere in the middle."--Alex, dropping empanada-frying knowledge. "How do you say 'they're burning' in Spanish?"--Deb, trying to bring us back to her Dora-themed idea.  [Estan quemando!]

 We have an injury!  Deb's finger got hit by some oil during the frying process, and now she's hanging back and giving it ice cube treatment.  Here she presents her advanced first aid technique.

Deb ices while everything burns...

Goat Cheese/Nutella/Cookie Butter Frosting

In place of cream cheese for the frosting, we're going to try some of Jim's homemade goat cheese!  Adventure!  We're going to be mixing it with Nutella, Fluff, and Trader Joe's "cookie butter" spread (which you really need to try, if you have a TJ's near you--it's like sunshine in a jar, really). We do....and it's AWESOME.

"I'm not a hands-on leader.  I'm more like, 'Fly, my hawks! Bring me back a fat duck!' "--Brian, using a falconry metaphor to describe his leadership skills tonight AND demonstrate what a big nerd he is.

She's in Aruba?!

We field a call from Deb's mom (Hi, Mom!) checking in and expressing worry about Deb's siblings who were in the big storm that hit the MD/VA/DC area yesterday and may or may not be without power.  We do NOT express any worry about Deb's sister who's in Aruba, which may not be fair because when you think about it, drinking rum from a coconut while you're climbing into a hot tub can be tricky.  Hrmph.

 The empanadas are fried, the noodles come out of the fridge, and it's time to plate the food up and eat. Call it: Time of Food, 8:57pm.

From top, clockwise: empanadas, cold sesame noodles, marinated tofu, extra spinach empanada filling.

*Every week we dedicate our blog to a listener who leaves us a comment, either here, Facebook, Google+, at work, on the street, via telephone....

The scores:

	Brian	Jim	Alex	Deb
Empanada	A meat empanadas would have gotten an A+ crust was ok, if I do say so myself, construction was awesome. Alex’s dipping sauce was a great die.	A. crust was awesome. filling delicious. dipping sauce was better on noodles	A-.  Crust was flaky and wonderful, filling was rich and flavorful, it was well executed, but not very adventurous.	A-/B+ crust was amazing. spinach was a little stringy and the cheese was overwhelming. i wanted more of a mushroom taste, less cheese. But they were damn good.
Noodles and marinated tofu.	A. Marinated tofu was delicious. Noodles were just the right consistency	B+ I think we needed a little more vinegar.	B- They were ok, It tasted like a pad thai that we didn’t fry, where it would have been better if we fried it. It may be that I don’t like any cold noodles. I REALLY like using agave in these recipes. It’s such a light sweetness and it’s not gloppy like honey.	A What Brian said. I thought they were perfect. I like that they were light. Could have been a touch less oily. Just a bit.
Chocolate Fluff cupcakes with Nutella Cookie Butter frosting.	It is a little bit drier than I was hoping for, but considering how we were just winging it from start to finish, I’m pretty pleased with how it turned out.	Mine is a little overcooked, and the frosting is a bit goat cheesy-but the combination of the frosting and the cake is really good. I can taste the cinammon! The taste was delicious	I think this might be the best cupcake we’ve ever made. Some of the chocolate bits are hard and not well integrated into the cake	There’s goat cheese in the frosting. :(

 

Jim's Night: Revenge of the Meme

Our official menu tonight:
Roasted Butternut Squash Risotto with Mushrooms
Chickpea Cutlets (from the Veganomicon)
Blueberry Pie (crust from Alton Brown)

Hi Enee!  As a follower of our blog, you have earned yourself top billing, so the other two readers of our blog will be insanely jealous of your fame and stardom.  Tonight is Jim's night, and Alex (me) is blogging, which means that instead of playing my normal game where I hover over the range and get cranky because someone is chopping where I want to put hot pans, I can now relax and chuckle at the misfortune of my compadres.  Until I have to eat burnt risotto, at which point I will probably abandon the blog, and try to save the day.

¡Vive le cabecou! - Homemade goat cheese marinated in olive oil.

Jim, being an organized dude, has planned a menu, printed out the recipes, and let his tomato sauce simmer for several hours already, not to mention starting the crust and cooking some dried chickpeas.  Of course, after Brian's Terrorizing Tofu Tower, he feels compelled to share his homemade goat cheese.  It's the recipe for cabecou out of this artisan cheese making book which he's been working on now for a few weeks.  Right now it's in the stage where it sits happily in peppercorns, herbs de provence and extra virgin olive oil, but we're going to rescue it from its impending boredom to visit the party in our tummies.

Anyway, Brian and Deb have arrived and are incredibly delighted by Jim's conditioned air, which I'm also pretty freaking pleased by!  The cabecou has been revealed, and Deb (née Hungry) proceeded to make noises about the...uh...petiteness of the cheese.  Nevertheless, we are all extremely impressed.  Deb sings the nummy song, and then informs Jim that he really made Goat Cheese!  Not some 'oh, I'm being polite because you made it and at I'm at your house thing', but real Goad Cheese!  He wins!  Party in my tummy!  So say we all.

Must...make...smoothie...

So, we begin on the pie.  Jim and I went blueberry picking approximately 11 months ago, and for 10 of these months, Jim has been talking about how I can't smoothify his blueberries because he needs to make a pie.  The moment for pie is nigh!

Deb: "It's such a bummer I'm not Jewish!" 10 minutes later... "If they heard me, they would probably crucify me..."

Apparently, Deb discovered some Jewish heritage recently (on her Father's side) and as a result has been pining after vegan gefilte fish and...Bat Mitzvahs?  It's kind of unclear.

Chickpea cutlet dough.

Meanwhile, Brian is adding the vital wheat gluten to the chickpea cutlets.  So, if you're not vegan or a baker, you're probably thinking "what is vital wheat gluten?"  It's the protein in wheat that you suspect you might be allergic to but most likely aren't.  It is super freaking dense, and makes bread stick to itself and have that wonderful crumb.  You can make 'wheat meat' with it, or these amazing chickpea cutlets.  You basically blend chickpeas, breadcrumbs and soy sauce with vital wheat gluten, and end up with a cutlet that looks like what you get in a sub.  Jim's idea is to then take these cutlets, cover them in his sauce and cheese, and bake them.

Brian is silent for a moment, as Deb foretells his future of either living in a Trader Joe's parking lot or becoming a 'basement dweller'. Deb is super enthusiastic.  Brian is REALLY INTO THAT GARLIC.  Actually, he was just trying to microplane zest it with his mind, because Jim doesn't have one.  (Brian's super powers are not yet fully developed, it seems.)

Deb has taken the mantle of cranky Alex, and is upset that Brian puts stuff on her side of the table.  Little does she know that she wants to...uh...live in a tiny house.  Mmmhmm....

The blogger's view of cooking club: Deb rolls a
pie crust, Brian zests and Jim chops mushrooms.
Mise en place is so key! 

Deb: "Apparently the Kindle has been a big boon for erotic fiction."  She's so quotable!  In an effort to convince us that she doesn't think about sex all the time, she describes her work bowling event, which results in a lot of childish giggling about small balls, and fingers that don't fit in holes.  Uh.  Ding dong!

A flower of genus
 panem saccharo

It turns out that we're way behind on the risotto.  Jim has chopped a shallot, very, very well, but we haven't done anything more than that.  Brian is destroying an onion, and we're talking about seeing Brave tomorrow. Actually, I just bought tickets!  Being the blogger is great!  Anyway, although the recipe on top suggests that we are going to make butternut squash risotto, we are in fact making mushroom and spinach risotto instead.

Jim's started cooking the shallot and onion for the risotto, and poor Deb is trying to carve a flower to make her pie more beautiful.  Poor, gentile Deb.

In the meantime, there are noises made that I somehow am not doing enough as the blogger (I just bought movie tickets?!??!) and therefore need to research memes.  20 minutes later...

Deb: "We've hardly messed up anything!"  The very practical key to cooking club successes: low standards.

Quick!  Find a Sicilian Jew to make us some garlic bread and grate some Parmesan!  Amazingly, Jim has decided that we need to have cheese for a starter, cheese in our risotto, and cheese on our cutlets.  Imagine that!

Garlic bread a la Deb.

Deb: "Oh....there was supposed to be butter in the pie?"  See above statement.

Jim adds broth to the risotto.  And adds broth to the risotto.  And adds broth to the risotto.  Meanwhile, Deb invokes her Italian heritage (whatever) to make some truly spectacular looking garlic bread.  It involves cheese and oil on every slice.  Yum.  We're now waiting on the timing of the bread before cooking it, but we're all ready for some carbolicious lipidacious wonderfulness.

Oh, man, that was a close call.  As we have risotto going, and broth boiling, we now have to fry our cutlets!  I almost swept in to the rescue!  Must restrain myself!  My commitment is to the blog, to the written word!  To looking for memes and planning tomorrow afternoon!  Yes.  Especially when Jim has the heat on burning...and...argh!  I did it again!  Noooo!

Here's a pig falling down some stairs into a bowl of oatmeal:

Chickpea cutlets being fried.

If that doesn't take your mind off of potentially on the verge of burning risotto, I don't know what will!  Anyway, the risotto is fine, the cutlets are cooking, and Jim's tomato sauce is being ladled on top of the cooked cutlets.  Next, a layer of sauce and cheese, and a final baking along with the garlic bread.  Everything is smelling wonderful, and all of us I think are in the Hungry Zone.  Out comes the provolone!  Hoo boy!

Chickpea cutlets being
covered in sauce and cheese.

Everything is smelling wonderful, and all of us I think are in the Hungry Zone.  Out comes the provolone!  Hoo boy!

Finally, it's time to arrange things on the plate and take the last glorious photograph (this always takes a million years), and then to watch the stand and rate our accomplishments.  And how was it, you ask...?

Mushroom spinach risotto, chickpea cutlets parmesan and garlic bread.

Blueberry pie, with flour flower.

	Deb	Jim	Bri	Alex
Risotto	Pretty good, salty.  I give it a B-.  Really salty.  Reeeeeealy salty!	B.  It was really salty!	B+.  It was delightfully salty!  I thought the spinach added a good touch, and the white wine was tasty.	B.  Rice was well cooked, mushrooms were tasty, flavors were unbalanced, I thought!
Garlic Bread	Horrible and it’s my fault!  I wonder what went wrong...	I didn’t taste any garlic!	C-.  If we’d baked it longer, it might have been cheesy toast...	It was basically just toast.  Hey!  I like toast!
Cutlets	I’m not giving them an A...they were...uh...ok?  I don’t know why I didn’t like them.	B-.  The cutlets we’ve made before were so much better.  The consistency was off, but the taste was ok!	B-.  The cheese obscured the taste of the cutlets.	C.  Texture was off.  I thought the flavor was a little off, too - it could be panko...
Pie	That’s an A.  I’d make it again.	A+.  I thought that was an excellent pie.	A-.  It just didn’t look as good as it tasted.	B+.  It was good, but lacked a little something...

Until next time, three readers!  Until next time.

Street Food Challenge: Mei Mei Street Kitchen

MEA CULPA.  MEA MAXIMA CULPA  Jim here.  This blog is about 2 weeks late.  It's all my fault and I feel bad.  Of course, one of the reasons I feel bad is that I have to follow Bri's hi-larious post about Deb's Towers of Tofu Terror (which were delicious, by the way.)  I guess I have to just accept that some of us are witty and some of us are...late?  slow? procrastinators? horrible people?

Thus endeth the self flagellation.


Thus beginneth the blog

Street food is a major part of Bri's life and Mei Mei Street Kitchen is at the top of his list.  He still waxes rhapsodic about the fiddlehead fern tempura and we wish he'd stop as it's making us all jealous!

Today Bri decided to take the menu posted on Mei Mei's tumblr account and make several of the dishes based on nothing more than the descriptions on the menu.  Challenge accepted!  Look out Mei Mei, we're coming for you.

Here's the menu:

Deb returns from her first Qigong class.  Qigong Deb is breathing fire, as one does after all that Qigonging.  (Honestly, I have no idea what they do besides pissing off the Chinese government.)

  I tell her about my dream from my afternoon nap.  I dreamed that we came to supper club and it was her turn to plan the meal and she decided to cook "Qigong food", which in my dream isn't food at all.  In my dream[Nightmare]world, Qigong practioners don't need food, so they only smell things.  Dinner consisted of fresh herbs, a slice of lemon in a tupperware container and for dessert, a vanilla bean.  I think my subconscious confused them with the Breatharians.

Sichuan Asparagus with slow poached egg

http://www.food.com/recipe/szechuan-asparagus-334740

• 2 bunches fresh asparagus
• 3 ounces oyster sauce
• 1 white onion, thinly sliced
• 1/4 ounce ginger root, freshly grated
• 3 garlic cloves, minced
• 1/4 ounce chili paste
• 1/4 teaspoon cornstarch
• 1/2 teaspoon sesame oil
• 1/2 teaspoon olive oil
•  
• 1 poached egg per person

Directions:

1. In a wok or large skillet, flash fry asparagus and onion in olive oil for about 2 minutes.
2. Add garlic, ginger, chili paste, pickled veggies and saute for 1 minute.
3. Add oyster sauce and corn starch and saute for 1 minute.
4. Add sesame oil and saute for 30 seconds to one minute.

Is where we started.  However, there was discussion about whether to do the traditional version or modify it by adding the seasonings and such to a breadcrumb batter type thing.  Since we couldn't decide, we used Bri's dice app to decide for us.  Even = traditional, odd = nouvelle.  Nouvelle it is.  However, we tried one with rolled in panko breadcrumbs and it just wasn't working so back to the traditional method for us. 

Cheddar Scallion Bread Pudding

Seasoned with salt, garlic and lemon.  The cheese is  a smoky cheddar made in Maine. This was a "get punched in your face" cheese.

We used vanilla almond milk and eggs as the binder (because we had no regular milk.)  The scallions were sauteed in butter with a little lemon juice.

[UPDATE]  Bri went to Mei Mei when they did their Cheddar Scallion Bread Pudding and while theirs was delicious, he said that ours was better.  YAY Us!!!!



"Delishus" Kale Salad

Kale, chopped
1 lemon juiced
4 cloves garlic, pressed
salt & pepper
Feta
Bread crumbs, sauteed in butter
 

Rhubarb Cheesecake Custard

It should be noted that 75% of us, including the menu planner, despise rhubarb.  Nasty, vile stuff.

I won't bring more ugliness into the world by giving the recipe out.

	Alex	Brian	Deb	Sarah	Jim
"Delishush" Kale Salad	B  I liked the feta and wouldn't have expected the kale and feta to go together.  I would have appreciated other things to make it more special.  Raisins, roasted red peppers, etc	B+  But you have to bear in mind that I don't much care for kale and don't like feta.  So a B+ is a pretty high grade	B+  An elegant delicious side salad that I wouldn't bother to make again.		B+  If the kale had more of a chance to marinate in the lemon juice and got more soft and delicious, it would have been an A
Sichuan Asparagus with Slow Poached Egg	B+  Major novelty points for the poached egg.  Never would have thought of that.  Sauce was good.	A-  Sauce was a lot of fun and a pleasant surprise and combined well with the poached egg.  I would happily eat it again.	A-  Definitely eat it again.  Love the sauce!		B+  I don't care for asparagus and this was a very pleasant surprise.  I think if the asparagus had been roasted the one true way it would have gotten an A
Cheddar Scallion Bread Pudding	B  Thought that most of the flavor I got came from the cheese and I'm not a fan of smoked cheese.  I wonder about the consistency.  It comes apart in chunks and maybe that detracts from it's "pudding-itude"	A+  I never had bread pudding growing up and this is the archetypal Northern New England food. Not so nutritious, cheesey goodness.	A-  The cheese was the dominant flavor.  Maybe a whole wheat bread would have made it more toothe-some		A  This would have been an A+ if we had cut the smokey cheese in half with regular cheddar.  Damn fine.
Rhubarb Cheesecake Custard	C-  The texture was a litttle cottage-cheesey and the flavor was off.  The rhubarb was the best part.  (alex hates rhubarb	C-  I'm wondering how it will taste after another 6 hours chilling.	D  It failed as a cheesecake and it failed as tasting like rhubarb.    I want to make a red cheesecake.		F+  (the + is due to peer pressure)  It was better than the blueberry tapioca pudding, but only barely.  It wasn't sweet enough.  It tasted cream cheesy not cheese cakey.  Add in the rhubarb and it's a total blech.

Deb's Night: Tower of Tofu Terror!

This night is dedicated to Stass, loyal reader that she is.  Happy birthday, Stass!  We hope you're enjoying the west coast.  

Tonight's Deb's night, and she has come up with recipes for

BALSAMIC-AGAVE TOFU WITH BEET INFUSED COUSCOUS
(which can be found at www.olivesfordinner.com/2011/01/balsamic-agave-tofu-with-beet-infused.html)

MUSHROOM WELLINGTON
(recipe at www.theveganversion.com/2012/01/mushroom-wellington.html)

and for dessert, HOMEMADE DIVA DING DONGS
(http://thediva-dish.com/uncategorized/homemade-diva-ding-dongs/ --scroll down past the opening paragraphs about her butt; there's a recipe on the page, honest)

Alex and Jim aren't even here yet and we've already steered slightly off-recipe by getting golden beets for the infusion, but this is a teeny deviation and fresh farmers market beets naturally trump Whole Foods Argentinian Flash-Frozen Cargo Hold Beets (tm), our other choice.  Hold onto your hats, there are bound to be bigger deviations to come.

Deb has hit the ground running, experimenting with appetizers and getting the tofu marinated.  We have a lot of smoked cheddar, which A & J don't like, so naturally we're going to offer it to them with hot pepper jelly!  To my own surprise, the jelly and the smokey taste of the cheese blend together really well.  We also have chocolate-covered almonds, a.k.a. Deb's UP!-All-Night pills, and dangerously addictive salt & pepper potato chips from Trader Joes.

First complication: for the vegan ding-dong filling, the recipe called for "One can full fat coconut milk, top open and covered with plastic wrap, that has been sitting in the fridge over night".  Um...one out of three isn't bad?  We have a can, it's been sitting in the fridge for a couple hours, we've just now opened it...how wrong could things go?

The recipe, you'll note, also calls for melted coconut oil.  Deb sets to work chiselling it out of the jar so we can melt it.  It smells awesome; it looks like you could stick a wick in it and sell it for $7.99 at Yankee Candle.  For all we know, they do.

The potato part of the mushroom wellington calls for them to be dusted with salt, pepper and olive oil before getting roasted for 20 minutes.  Deb is a saltophobe.  Guess how she goes off-recipe now?  Go on, guess.

ALSO also, in place of puff pastry for the wellington we're using phyllo dough, spelled "fillo" on the box.  Which will affect cooking time, thickness, taste, and the evening's soundtrack.  (Well, not that last part.)

Pre-baked 'fillo wellington' or very bad origami project?

"Why did I stop cooking the beets?"--Deb

In other news, Deb's playlist reminds us that we miss Amy Winehouse.  *sigh*

As a history major, I sort of feel compelled to drop some knowledge-bombs about the origin of the name Wellington, which everyone assumes was named after the famous Napoleonic hero but which apparently didn't exist until 1966....in other words, it's either named after Wellington, New Zealand, or it was named by a chef with very odd priorities.

"Oh god, at some point I took every single oven mitt and put them all in the laundry"--Deb

Jim and Alex arrive!  Deb tells Alex she's going to force him to eat beets!  Snackage and greetings ensue!

Stass, if you're still reading at this point we need to tell you about a YouTube series called "Cooking With Dog" (http://www.youtube.com/user/cookingwithdog) which our friend Andrea hipped us to.  DOG NARRATING A COOKING VIDEO.  If that doesn't get your artistic juices flowing, I'm a cabbage.

While I was distracted looking at a poodle wearing aviator goggles, something Happened--there seems to be confusion about how the layers of the tofu-beet "tower" are supposed to go.  It's supposedly layered like a lasagna, but three layers or two?  We decide to forge ahead.

There's further confusion about the coconut milk which we're supposed to use for the ding dong filling; for something that's supposed to be the consistency of whipped cream, it's looking a lot like flow-y splashy water.  Alex decides to turn it into pudding.

At this point the beets are about five minutes from done, the couscous is about twelve minutes away, and we've JUST remembered to take the phyllo dough for the wellingtons out of the freezer.  Eep!  We place it near the stove and cross our fingers.

As part of the ding dong recipe Deb's faced with the recipe demand that we blend up 1/2 cup of dates into a paste.  To Deb this sounds like way too much sweetness, but we cross our fingers and follow the instructions.

At this point Jim begins the sauteeing of the filling for the wellington...or, at last, the prepping of the filling to be sauteed.  Deb's dates have turned into sort of a chunky jelly, not the paste we were promised.  The dough is still warming up.  And we talk about the meaning of the word 'elope'--if you live together for years and wander over to the justice of the peace one day, can it be called eloping?  It seems like you have to at least climb out a window and slip off to get married without telling a housemate, at the very least, before you can use the term.

"There will be no mention about MY butt in the blog!"--Jim

The shiitake stems seem very hard, and we ponder whether or not to cook them up with the rest of the wellington filling. We decide, no.

Deb is STILL wrestling with the consistency of the dates, and the blender is struggling.  She's doing all the loud chores tonight!  The liquid part of the cake recipe finally blends well, and we add it to the dry ingredients and pose for an incredibly artful picture before we pop it in the oven.

Chef pensif avec le dough des ding-dongs

There's a war going on about the proper way to sautee--Alex wants to put the oil in the pan before turning the heat on, but Deb feels that the pan needs to be very hot before the oil's poured in.  "You know, the Chinese way!"  Deb's night, Deb's rules.  (I look around for our smoke alarm...for no reason...)

On a side note, the "Mexicane Cola" which Whole Foods sells a) claims to have caffeine but really really doesn't FEEL like it does, b) was brewed in Maine and is about as Mexican as a reindeer, and c) misspelled "protien" on the ingredient label.  For this I promised to not drink any diet coke?  FML.

We pause for a few seconds to watch the beginning of cookingwithdog's Omurice episode (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bcJlmhoYNfI&list=UUpprBWvibvmOlI8yJOEAAjA&index=9&feature=plcp).  That's right, even while cooking food we're educating ourselves about totally DIFFERENT food!!

The tofu-ganza kicks into high gear, as we get out the Big Pan and start cooking them all.  Deb is unwrapping the fillo sheets.  Alex, meanwhile, is straining out the mushroom juice from the solid bits.  We note that it's hard to tell the difference between couscous cooked with beet juice and couscous that's burnt. :( 

"One more joke about how I need to follow recipes and you're in trouble!"--Deb
"They're not jokes!"--Alex

We pause, noting that at this point we have a "shit ton" of kale and phyllo left over, and ponder whether we want to create a kale-spanakopita, a kaleakopita, as ANOTHER course.  We're mixed--Hungry Deb likes the idea, while Cautious Jim points out all the extra tofu we're already going to have.  Deb remembers we have feta, and that tips the scales.

At this point, we note that the two mise en place stations have gone the way of the dodo and we're pretty much improvising with the wellington fillings, sizes and shapes. 

wellington innards

We're at the dessert assembly stage now where the filling of the ding dong becomes an issue.  Unlike the recipe, we have no pastry bag or nozzle; also unlike, we still don't have a firm filling.  The semi-liquid filling goes into the freezer to chill; meanwhile, we decide that in lieu of nozzling the filling into the middle we'll be slicing the dings open and adding the filling as a middle layer....a sort of ding doreo, if you will.

Or, if you prefer, "d'oreos"

We NOW begin thinking about another dessert using fillo dough and various fillings--strawberries, honey, cookie butter!  Little individual sachets with one, or both, or all three!  While we wait for the wellingtons to get done, we're apparently JUST GOING TO KEEP COOKING.

The coating for the ding doreos raises eyebrows...the recipe calls for a blend of 1/8th cup of coconut oil to 3.5 ounces of chocolate.  Hungry Deb having thrown in a random amount of chocolate, we try to guesstimate the right amount of oil in the double boiler.  Yee to the haw.  Since we used Taza 85% dark chocolate, we decide we need to add some agave to get it up to snuff.  It's a very coconutty-tasting dessert, overall.

"Oops! This one's mine!"--Deb, trying to put together a ding dong and having it crumble.
"Oh crap...this one's mine too!"--Deb, five seconds later.

Sad update: the couscous is a total fail, having burnt on and become "couscous brittle".  Which Alex takes to mean no beets!  He's dancing!  We're going to flash-fry some kale to make sure we have enough of a main course.

The pouring of the chocolate over the diva ding doreo-a-lings is tricky, as the melted chocolate & coconut oil seems to have separated into liquid top and solid lower layers.

The d'ousing of the d'oreo

With enough stirring it's accomplished, though, and they go into the fridge just in time for Deb to suddenly remember the wellingtons in the oven!  We rescue them and get ready to see how they wound up while the kale and 'kopita cooks and Jim begins to build the tofu towers.

(If this was Cake Boss I'd be sculpting out tiny little King Kongs to be scaling the towers.  Have you noticed how little they talk about how the stuff on that show actually tastes, though?  Suspicious.)
Oven off at 9:27.  Woo!

Post-eating scores....actually, FUNNY STORY HERE, but it turns out trying to record the scoring on an iPad while watching 'The Stand' is actually pretty difficult and they...um...weren't 100% saved.

In summary, though:

The tofu towers were viewed as fairly tasty, even with the couscous debacle.  A bit insubstantial.

The mushroom 'wellington' had a tasty filling surrounded by a pretty useless crust.  Tinier chunks of mushroom might have helped.

The dessert score stands out the most, because for the first time ever Alex gave something a whole letter grade higher than anyone else, yo.  In defending himself he said "they tasted stale and overprocessed, just like real ding dongs!"  So caveat emptor, recipe followers.  In particular, it was felt that the dates left a bad aftertaste, warped the consistency and were just generally a Bad Idea.

Was trying to eat while watching 90 minutes of people dying of super-plague also a bad idea?  Could this have affected our grading?  Mmmmmmaybe...

Next week: Jim's night!  Homemade goat cheese!  Four people and one dog urgently praying that our heat wave ends before cooking starts!  And Deb has a startling revelation about her heritage!

Alex's Night: Under the Milky Way Tonight

Hi, Jenny Jo!*  Deb here. Guess what? Our menu is in Flux. We're watching the creative process as it happens inside Alex's head right now. Things that don't exist yet are evolving in [virtual] spaaaaace....

Head Chef Alex is gazing off into the distance while Jim and Brian natter on about local politics and eye him expectantly. So far, we have been informed that the menu will somehow encompass Jim's homemade ricotta; we've even been given a taste, it is delicious. Even without any sugar added, it tastes like dessert to me..it's so thick and fresh tasting...it would be a perfect cannoli filling.  Not tonight, though. It turns out that Alex has his sights on incorporating it into a dumpling recipe. He's found one in  How to Cook Everything Vegetarian (his Bible) that looks pretty good. It's fun to see the creative process in action. We are throwing out ideas, but he's agonizing over how to find a "visually attractive" way to present dumplings. Finally, in a sudden gust of motion, he decides we'll just "hash out" something with zucchini later. We have to get started - the dessert needs to chill for 2 hours!

Here is Alex wrestling with garlic scapes, thinking hard.  The responsibilities of the Head Chef are weighty.

Bri: "Something about that pose reminds me of Prometheus."

In contrast, here is Brian illustrating what it is like to be a lowly Sous Chef...

We have to pause these proceedings to go buy sour cream (Strawberry Shortcake requires sour cream, say whaaat?) and to walk Rommy.  You remember Rommy, right? 

He's the shark under the table.

Sour cream quickly acquired, Bri adds it to the liquid ingredients and then adds those to the dry ingredients of the shortcake and all along he's dancing as he stirs batter to the beat of the retro sounds of The Church.  (This might have something to do with the Great Shortcake Disaster of 2012 which at this point we are unknowingly hurtling toward.)

Meanwhile, Alex and Jim are hard at work on the main course. They add sundried tomatoes, panko bread crumbs and some Romano cheese to the ricotta and then they dredge the cheese in egg and flour to fry it.  The ricotta is actually thick enough to allow this. It almost resembles tofu in texture. Hmm, well, not that you would agree with that idea from seeing this picture. I'm going to ask Alex to chime in in the comments with how exactly he managed to fry that soupy looking cheese...

"This Shea Pottery batter bowl is both beautiful and immensely helpful in the kitchen!" says Alex.

It turns out, Alex really is going to hash something together. Vegetable Hash is actually a real food, so say we all! Here's how you make it: Shred a bunch of vegetables. (We used zucchini, onion and carrots and we blended some garlic scapes in, too.) Then fry it up! Don't you love our recipes?

By the way, Jenny Jo, like you, we got very frustrated with Farscape.  I think we forgot to mention in the last two Cooking Club posts that we have put Farscape on the "way back burner" for now. We are all huge fans of Sherlock, and tonight we will be watching the last episode in the second season. We've been savoring these episodes so hard, only watching one per night- and they are deliciously complicated and so unpredictable that we have to frequently call time-outs to excitedly discuss what we think is going on. It's awesome.

Meanwhile, back in the kitchen, there's a debate going on about the best way to fry these dumplings. To coat in bread crumbs or not? In true scientific fashion, we experimented both ways, then we group-opinion-vacillated around the topic a few times like drunks at a dance hall until we finally landed on the decision that the bread crumbs would overpower the delicate cheese taste of the dumplings. Science! So we abandon our earlier plans to dredge them.  This means we're rebelling against a Bittman recipe. Blasphemy!

Speaking of chaos, we're all Deeply Concerned about the state of the shortcakes. For some reason, they are swimming in liquid in the oven. Could the butter be leaking out? Does the new silicone mat we are using for the first time have some sort of liquid leaching ability? It was made in France, how can it be evil?

See?

In the process of brainstorming that anomaly, we uncover a terrible crime:  oh, man, even whilst sitting 12 feet away and minding my own business, I managed to kill the dessert. See, while reading off the recipe for Brian, I apparently managed to skip the part about the 4 tsp of baking powder. I'm not sure what effect this will have ....wait a second, hold the phone, I just tested one...and oh, they are FINE. Why is everyone so upset? They taste very dessert-y. Maybe they're a little flatter than usual, sure, but they taste great. I'm sure they will be wonderful. Move along, now, there's nothing more to see here...

The asparagus is done first. Alex's One True Way to make asparagus is to roast it for 15 minutes with some olive oil and salt.  Honestly, that's it. We've tried asparagus in lots of other ways, but we all agree this way is our favorite.  We also stir fried some collard greens, kale and arugula in some garlic and olive oil.

Jim made a tasty salad, too, which we all dressed in our own way.

A salad that gets the job done.

So, our official menu tonight coalesced into:

Bittman's Pan Fried Ricotta Dumplings, made with Karlin's Homemade Ricotta and enhanced by
Alex's Invisible Lemon Butter Sauce
Vegetable Hash with Minced Garlic Scape Sauce
Roasted Asparagus made in the One True Way
A Trio of Greens
Jim's impromptu CSA salad
Dessert: Strawberry Shortcakes

Dinner is served!

(*Each week, we've decided to address our blog to one of our loyal readers. Don't worry, Stass, we'll get to you next. Everyone else, if you want a blog post written to you, leave us a comment.)

Now the best part, the scores:

	Jim	Brian	Alex	Deb
Salad	B. Serviceable salad	B. Serviceable salad	B. Serviceable salad	B. Serviceable salad
Ricotta Dumplings	A. Nummy! Highlighted the ricotta.	A. One can only wonder what it would have been like with store bought ricotta, but fortunately we didn’t have to face that.	B+ Good, but didn’t knock my socks off. Lemon saucy thing could have been better.	A. I thought they were surprisingly delicious.
Vegetable Hash	B+ Could have been crispier	A- Zucchini is not my favorite vegetable, but I would happily eaten a whole bowl of it	B+ There were some texture issues. I would have nice to have it paired with the dumplings in a way where they weren’t both kind of mushy.	A- Neat and unusual way to eat vegetables.
Stir Fried Greens	B. They were tough.	B+. Tasty	A. In the context of the whole menu, they really added a lot. The bitterness and pungency added a great contrast to the “safeness” of the dumplings.	A. I can never make them taste that good. Considering how bitter they should be, I’m always amazed they are edible.
Asparagus	A. I have trust issues with asparagus (Mom pulled a fast one on him once.) but I still love asparagus made in the One True Way.	A. Delicious, as always!	A. Even thought we had to eat them cold, I was still happy to eat it. Love the One True Way.	C. Way, way way, way WAY way way too salty.Of course, I forgot to eat it during the meal so the one I tried was cold and slimy, too. Also I was full.
Strawberry Shortcake	A-  Strawberries and cream, how can that go wrong?  Gets an A- in spite of the baking powder free biscuits.	B+  If the biscuit were better it would be perfect.  It needs chocolate.	B+  My comments mirror Jim’s.  If the biscuits were flaky and perfect, it would have been sublime.	B  It was really quite tasty, the biscuit was terrible.

You're leaving?

The End