Bri's Night - If it ain't homemade...

Greetings, internet.  It is I, Alex, blogging from My Little Pony Headquarters, aka Brian's kitchen.  Tonight find me learning a whole host of new things.  First off, I learned that My Little Pony, in an effort to reach out beyond fans of Ponies, has jumped the shark, and turned the ponies into humans.

Uh...yeah.  It's kind of irrelevant, but hey, maybe I can use it as a metaphor to describe tonight's meal?  Yeah, sure, welcome to...

My Little Homemade Vegan Hot Dog
Vital Wheat Gluten is Magic!

Oh yes, reader(s), this is a real anthropomorphic giant lizard hot dog logo from a food truck in Seattle, Tokyo Dog.  We're honoring this Dogzilla today by making the "Shinjuku Dog", an apple sage sausage with butter teriyaki onions, wasabi mayo and nori.  We're going to to use some tips from one of Deb's favorite blogs, Vegan Dad to create the sausages, mostly relying on the power of vital wheat gluten to proteinize.

Buttah.

Brian also found this ingenious technique for infusing potatoes with as much butter as possible.  It requires slicing the potatoes so that they stay together, but leave little gulches for the butter to flow through.  This also, by the way, has me imagining a sweet fucking cookbook called "butter gulch".  Anyway!

Jim, in creating the hot dogs, made rather a big snafu.  Vital wheat gluten, when blended, goes from having, like, a little holding power, to OH MY GOD, NEVER LET GO!  So...we kind of had to start over.  Nevertheless, we had enough to start from scratch, and use a fork to mix things rather than a mixer.  What's crazy is that after we mix this dough, we are going to put it into "sausage casings", which in this case are aluminum foil sheets.  We're going to wrap it in the sheets, and then steam them.
 

Homemade buns!

Brian is also taking this homemade everything opportunity to make homemade buns (yesss) as well.  These will hold our vegan hot dogs, and thus give us triple points for phallic foods.  To complete our sophomoric trifecta, we're also making NUTella.  Heh heh heh.  No, seriously, homemade nutella.  I am so pleased by this.  It requires toasting hazelnuts, peeling them, then pulverizing them into a kind of nut butter.  Then, sugar, vanilla, salt and chocolate, and...voila?  We shall see.

Proto-nutella, pre-blender.

In the meantime, back in butter gulch, Deb is putting cheese on each halfway baked potato so that we can melt them into the delightful crevices.

"Do you want to stuff the cheese in the cracks?"

Heh heh heh.

Jim is on to making the teriyaki buttery onions, and I'm trying to help the nutella along.  Fortunately, Deb has a vitamix, which I think might be necessary to translate the nut powder to a creamy paste.  It's kind of crumbly and not spreadable, but hey, what do you want?  It's still delicious, so I'm pretty happy.

And finally, the steaming and baking are complete, and it's time to whip some wasabi into the mayo and make our beautiful photograph...

Hot Dogs

Jim
B-.  If we had taken the steamed hot dogs and fried them to give them some crispy texture, then the good taste would have been helped a lot.  I think we overdid it on sides...as one does.
Deb
C-.  I didn't like the taste or the texture.  And yet, I ate the whole thing, so it doesn't get an F!
Bri
B-.  I'm proud of the fact that we did it and it worked out at all.  It's not something I'd go back to on my own with any sense of joy.  The onions were good.
Alex
B-.  The more sauce, the better!  It was really very gluteny, though, and the bun was so big! 

Potatoes

Jim
B-.  Only because my potato wasn't baked all the way.  The taste and idea were really good, but it was a little undercooked.  Also, it was HUGE!
Deb
B+.  I thought it was great, could have used a bit more cheese in the middle.  And could have been cooked a little more - brilliant idea, though, I love it!
Bri
B.  We could have cooked it longer and if we'd had some ranch dressing to pump up the calorie load...
Alex
I agree with Jim on this one.  Great idea, needed more cooking, and more sauce as it was a little dry.

Nutella Sandwichy Thingy

Jim
B-.  It would have been good with something else inside and maybe some egg to soften the bread.  Has potential!


Deb
C-.  If it had been Brioche...and French Toast....

Bri
B-.  It did have potential!  With a different bread...and a hungrier group of people...and a spreadier nutella...it could have been pretty good!

Alex
C+.  Sourdough bread does not really go with chocolate.  Nevertheless, chocolate!  I even like the weird powder nutella.  But I think I mostly just like chocolate.

Soujourn to Portugal

Evenin' readers. Deb here, blogging our Deep Space Cooking Club tonight. This cooking club adventure is going to be a loving ode to Portugal, a place that Alex and Jim just came back from after spending a couple of weeks there, hanging out at surf camp and doing touristy stuff with Alex's parents.  Hi, parents!

We're listening to Portuguese country music (Fadu) which may or may not mean that it's a type of music that people listen to in the sticks in Portugal (no, not Styx, Brian). It is "pandemic", Jim says, like country music here, but more popular. (Ouch.)

For appetizers tonight, Jim fed us bread, olives and stinky cheese. And fish pate that came in cute quarter sized containers and which A&J apparently smuggled into the country.

Brian's having a good time quizzing A&J about the world events that they missed when they were away: royal baby, crazy Hollywood stars who set things on fire and ...as an aside, Brian's new tattoo! Yep, after 4 years of thinking about it and planning it carefully, Brian wandered out one day, found an artist he liked, emailed back and forth with her for a bit and then trusted her with marking up his skin forever.

The Edo period Shinto monkey of Bri's dreams.

Jim's back from a brief foray on the computer to look up Piri Piri recipes. Now he's all business and he's putting Brian to work:

Brian is putting together this sauce.
http://leitesculinaria.com/7745/recipes-portuguese-piri-piri-hot-sauce.html

Jim would like to apologize to the entire country of Portugal for using a Spanish cheese (Machego). He is aware that they are two different countries, but the two cheeses he bought in Portugal, albeit delicious, are not right for putting in the mashed potatoes.  Actually, the mashed potatoes Jim is making is also an illicit variation on the ubiquitous boiled potatoes that you'd find in almost every restaurant meal there.

For this meal, we are using Gardein Chicken that The Conscious Cook recommends so highly that we're all sure he has stock in the company, but whatever. That dude's recipes have (almost) never done us wrong. (There was that one blackberry shortbread dessert that we all thought was atrocious, but other than that, he's aces with us.)

Bri: "With the biri biri under my belty belty, what would you like me to do now?"

Alex: Could you save that scalding milk on the stove?. Then start whisking it?

Bri is whisking the milk into a flour mixture  to make a slurry and after mixing the hell out of it with some fancy hip actions,  he added sugar.  It turns out that he is making the dessert, which is called Pasteis de Nata

http://leitesculinaria.com/7759/recipes-portuguese-custard-tarts-pasteis-de-nata.html

These custards were created in Belim, they say, by the monastery there because the monks had so many leftover egg yolks. Why you ask? Because the egg whites were used to starch their habits, of course.

Portuguese Spices ...for the "Balls".
Alex: The balls?!
Jim: Yeah, the croquettes... whatever we're calling them!

Paprika, oregano, garlic...  all  of these are going into the mashed potatoes, while meanwhile the onion/corn etc mixture is done frying and Jim is adding it all together.

Deb: You put corn in the mashed potatoes
Jim: Yes. I don't know why. I just thought it would be delicious.
Deb: Good reason. When you think croquettes, you think corn, right? Makes sense.
Alex: Portuguese people like corn...

Jim thinks the potatoes taste too bland and after a bit of tossing around ideas A&J decide to add an old cooking club thing to this new cooking club thing: they're adding the pepper sour cream sauce from the Taco night fame to the potatoes.

Brian is quizzing Alex about the progress of his flash mob preparation. Any day now a group of people is going to descend on Copley Square and do a funny dance, but you didn't hear that from me. If you want to know what day, leave a comment and I'll let you know how you can be one of those lucky people in the right place at the right time.

The perennial potato problem continues. It's still bland. Alex suggests garlic but turns down the cilantro idea.  The three guys love the biri biri sauce, which tastes like a brighter, fresher Sriracha to me. They're all amazed that I don't think it's too salty, because they all do. ( Geez, I've lost my salt-o-meter, maybe. Too many Trader Joe's Salt and Pepper Potato Chips, I bet. I'm all messed up.)

The pastries are out and Alex is disappointed that the tops are not deliciously brown like they were in the restaurants. I point out that we don't have a fire gun (some people call them...) and Jim says that all the pictures of the homemade versions on the internet look worse than ours (or just as bad).

The croquettes are giving us trouble now. The first batch has been pronounced a failure. The second batch seems to be holding together better, after we added some more flour and reduced the amount of
oil.

Progress has slowed down as it turns out that everything this evening is getting fried except the salad. As usual, poor Alex is on fry duty and the rest of us are all hanging out having a good time while he painstakingly fries 4 croquettes at a time. Once he is done with all that, he can then start frying us our tofu.  After that we'll fry our dessert...  Ha, just kidding. Nah, we're eating that. Well, "testing" it. Jim pronounces it as POSSIBLY as good as the one he had in Portugal. POSSIBLY.

Meanwhile, still waiting for dinner...

Time to time travel...

Yay, we've jumped ahead 30 minutes. Brian and I have been out walking the mutt, while the frying has been proceeding. Now the croquettes and tofu are done, the salad is mixed and Brian is taking the pretty pictures since my phone is dead:

The scores:

The Biri Biri Tofu/Gardein chicken

Brian: A The Portuguese know their sauces. The Gardein was not all that great.
Alex : B I was not in love with the sauce. The tofu was surprisingly good and the Gardein tasted like fake meat.
Jim: A for the tofu, B+ for the Gardein chicken. It was a little salty, but I was shocked by how tasty it was.
Deb: B. Agree that the Gardein was rubbery and not very flavorful. The tofu was pretty good but not mind-blowing.


The potato croquettes:

Brian A, maybe A+. The onions and corn went really well. I liked the Manchego taste.
Alex: A-. When they were hot, it's really hard to not like a crispy texture. The flavor was nice, but not OMG.
Jim: A, because I put the poblano creme (from Taco Night). Without that sauce, I would give it an A-.
Deb: B+ Loved the texture. The corn made for really nice chunky bits. Could have used some bright flavor, some herb or jalapeno.

Dessert:

Brian B+ without cinnamon sugar, A- with it. The puff pastry is a bit too puffy. The ratio of pastry to custard is a bit skewed. The pastry was a tiny bit too chewy. A crisper pastry would have been better.
Alex: Brian is totally right about the pastry. The custard is tasty, but the pastry is too big. When we ate them in Portugal, they were hot , and the pastry was crispy, they were transcendent.
Jim: B+. The filling is so good. The pastry needs some work.
Deb: A. Really tasty. Kind of like the egg custards you get in Chinatown, but not so eggy tasting. Sprinkled with powdered sugar and cinammon on top, they were really lovely. Kind of a light dessert. I didn't think the puff pastry was too chewy. Loved the whole thing.

I think we ate them all.

Deb's Night - Vegan with a Conscience

Welcome to summer!  Here in the land of summer, we have fans, sweaty bodies, and produce.  It's also Deb's birthday, and also her night, so she is making her favoritest meal ever.  Of course, for Deb, this distinction depends entirely on her mood, but tonight it means turning to the Conscious Cook for luscious vegan food.

We've used it before and found some of the recipes a bit hit or miss.  Tal Ronnen intersperses his cookbook with paeans to celebrity vegan chefs, like the inventor of Gardein, his favorite fake meat.  Unfortunately, most of the purchasers of fake meats for supermarkets don't carry it, so we have some non-Gardein fake meats.  Hopefully it will do!

Deb <3 fake meat

Fortunately, tonight's fake meat involves searing it with pine-nuts and basil, and then making a mushroom beurre blanc and serving with braised kale and roasted fingerling potatoes.  I guess it's not the summery-est meal, given that kale and potatoes are kind of in season all the time.  Nevertheless, I took a detour early to Russo's and now I'm munching on these baby heirloom tomatoes which are blowing my mind, so, it's summer in my tummy!

Also a summery treat, we're making peach pie!  We're probably going to have a few adventures here (who doesn't love adventure?) because we've made a vegan crust and we're making mini-pies, so the baking times will be a bit mysterious.  Nevertheless, onwards and upwards!  This recipe comes with a video, which Brian and I both watched and then promptly forgot all of the details of, so...yeah, we're still pretty much on our own.

Brian peels peaches!

So, Jim is mincing mushrooms, Deb is cutting kale, and Brian is peeling peaches and I'm touch typing.  Oh yes, it's swell.  Some vegan lady told Deb that we need to use parchment paper on the bottom of our mini-pies, which may prevent the pies from sticking.  After all, we have no butter.

Flattening fake meat.

For our pine nut crusted "chicken", Deb puts some pine nuts in the toaster oven.  This, of course, makes us all terrified that we will burn the kitchen down (this is not unsubstantiated) but we will be VERY VIGILANT and be aware of burning smells and smokey kitchens and toasters being on.

Those toasted pine nuts get mixed with basil and flour and food processed until they make a fine powder.  Then, we're going to coat our 'chicken' with it and...fry it?  Bake it?  From the blogger's view, I'm not actually sure yet!  The recipe calls for flattening the chicken, which definitely isn't happening with the Quorn, as it basically just falls apart.  We also get these 'smart cutlets' which also don't seem to look favorably upon being smooshed.

Deb:  "This dude knows what he's talking about!  He's a vegan!"

Deb dredges cutlets.

Jim has sauteed the mushrooms and added cashew cream (yum) and white wine, and it looks really delicious!

Now, we have to roll out the pie crust, which Brian made ahead of time.  This pie crust uses coconut oil instead of butter, so...who knows what will happen!  I mean, it will be delicious, but will it have the right texture?  We will see!

Apparently, the goal is not just to have pie, but to have...hand held pies!  I should note here that since our dinner is very nearly done, and we have prepped zero pies, this may be...uh...challenging...in terms of time.

So, as Brian boldly reconstitutes our accidentally frozen dough into malleable, rollable dough,

Jim adds oil to mushrooms.

Deb is going to fry the dredged 'chicken cutlets'.  When cooking from the conscious cook, you must always make a nonstick surface in your pan by first adding salt to the pan, and heating it in for 60 seconds.  Then, add your oil, and let it heat for 30 seconds.  Do this, quoth the book, and no sticking will ever happen!

Deb:  We're going to break all the rules.  We're doing vegan science, here!  You've gotta trust these people!

After a search for nutmeg (it was NOT in the spice shelf) we mixed the floury sugary stuff into the peaches, and now we're filling the pie crusts with the mix.  Hungry Deb dashes over to the pies chanting "Overfill! Overfill!" trying to get as many of those peaches into her hand-held pie as possible.  I'm also getting "YOU ARE GOING TOO SLOW" vibes from Deb, as she evicted Bri from the rolling of pie crust to do it herself.  I am doing my best to make things go as not-slow as possible by trying to not be in the way, but I eventually got pulled in to help somehow...

Chicken Cutlets with Pine-nut Basil Breading, Braised Kale, Mushroom Beurre Blanc and Roasted Potatoes

Bri - A- for one and B for the other.  One was amazingly salty, and I don't think I've ever had something oversalted before!  The sauce was fabulous!  The kale was...meh, kale.  I would give it a B.  Kale is kale.  The potatoes and sauce, on the other hand - great!

Deb - A.  I really liked them a lot!  I don't think they could be much  more improved, although I'd like to try the Gardein.  The sauce was the main thing.  The potatoes were a little bland by themselves, but almost perfectly cooked.  The sauce made this whole meal.

Jim - Overall, I'd give the meal an A.  I preferred the smart cutlets to the quorn.  The sauce was awesome - I thought the kale was nice, simple kale.

Alex - Overall, I give the meal a B.  I don't think either fake meat was able to be the focal point of the meal, and I didn't like the flavor of the burnt pine nuts.  I thought the kale was just ok, and the potatoes weren't quite crispy and fresh enough - I think they suffered from the time under the heat lamp (e.g., toaster oven).  The sauce was awfully tasty, though!

Peach Pies

 

Deb - B+  The crust was the only thing lacking, but it was delicious!

Jim - A.  I thought the peach filling was delicious, and the crust was good.  It wasn't perfect, but it was good!

Bri - I give it a C+.  The peaches should have been chopped finer.  The crust was problematic.  And...it was a fruit pie (editor's note - Bri ate approximately two bites of his pie)

Alex - A-.  I really liked it!  It wasn't BOLD and AMAZING, but I thought it was really solid and delicious!

Television

So, we watched another ridiculous episode of True Blood, which is ridiculous, because it's about fairies and witches and vampires and werewolves and sex, and we've tried to find a few things to cut it with.  Here are our possibilities:

A future cop gets sucked back in time to stop terrorists.

The X-Files meets Monk meets Dawson's Creek.

Sexy Succubus Fights Crime by Having Sex

We started with Lost Girl, which in addition to being monster of the week, is a little bit...kind of not very good.  Deb and Bri enjoyed the episodes they watched the first time, but since Jim and I had to catch up, they came to realize that it was actually really tedious.  I'm a bit more critical, so I concurred.

We watched the long pilot of Continuum, which, although it had its moments, wasn't exactly gripping.  So this time, we tried Fringe.  While I initially thought it was a vehicle for a strong female lead, it later turned out to be a vehicle for Pacey from Dawson's Creek (and those Mighty Ducks movies).  It also has "science" in it, which is groantastic for anyone that has problems with suspension of disbelief.  It was ok.  We'll see if we continue!

As for me, I am holding out hope that we will just end up watching the most important television show ever made.

“Ay-yi-yi-yi-yi-yi-yi!”

Supper Club for 6/22: Taco Taco Taco!

Happy Solstice, most excellent of people!  Down on Coney Island they're celebrating it with the Mermaid Parade.  Over in Fremont they're celebrating by wearing paint and not much else while they ride their bikes through Seattle.  And not to be outdone, we are following the ancient pagan ritual of MAKING TACOS.  Yes, just like in the deleted scene from "The Wicker Man".  We're hardcore like that.

THE BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEanS!!!

This is Brian chronicling our experience cooking in the bright, sweet sunlight.  Deb and I arrive and leap into action--Alex has finished roasting a poblano pepper and places it in a big bowl that I immediately cover with plastic.  Exhausting!  Time to retreat to the laptop.  Meanwhile Deb is cubing watermelon.

This is the smile she gets whenever she's given a big sharp knife.  I find it's best not to think about it too much.

Tonight is inspired by The Grange in Providence, a place apparently more full of hipsters than an 'American Idol' casting call is full of delusions and broken dreams, but (unlike American Idol) full of fantastic vegetarian entrees.

(Was that too little too late?  Is one more potential sponsor gone?)

WE LOVE YOU AND YOUR HIPSTERS

Jim is chopping tomatoes, preparatory to making salsa.  Those watermelon cubes?  We're pickling them!

In the blender are chickpeas and flour and other special ingredients, the filling for our BBQ tacos.

  On the stove are charring tomatoes which will be processed into a vinaigrette and then chilled

, and the BBQ sauce (Alex suspects there's too much cinnamon in it, so we add some Liquid Smoke flavoring)

.  Deb is beginning to make coleslaw!

Were you wondering where we've been the last few weeks?  No?  Just pretend you were, it'll make things easier.   While Deb and I were on the west coast making an epic road trip from Denver (high altitude!) through desert and windy canyons to Seattle (low altitude!), Alex and Jim were having adventures across New England (medium altitude!).  They did the Cliff Walk down in Newport, broke into Salve Regina to use the bathroom, and went to Wolf Hollow to meet wolves and learn about them!

Sorry, wrong wolves

Sadly, they were unable to roll around in shed wolf fur and get their scent and freak out all the local dogs when they got back to Boston, but we all need goals that are a tiny bit out of reach so we can keep on striving.   They also went to Art in a Barn, a fundraiser for an eco-preserve, (Art ON the Barn was a lot trickier, due to the steep roofs),

Sorry, wrong Art Barn

 experienced tasty tasty seafood (clam chowder and clamcakes), and got into CraftBoston's December show.  That last one might just be Jim, though it's possible Alex is going to have a performance art booth where rich people pay him to talk about neuroscience.

We talk about how this is the time of year when, if you have a good New England work ethic, we should be focusing on putting food away for the winter.  Do any of us HAVE a good New England work ethic?   ....................in some ways yes, but when it comes to canning and preserving, apparently not so much.  And I'm okay with that.

We test Deb's pablano ranch dressing; she is dubious about the afterburn, while Alex and Jim approve.  I give cautious approval but notice as I type this, four minutes later, that there's STILL some heat on the roof of my mouth.  Interesting!

Such an innocent-looking dressing...

...to cause this much dubiousness

The vinaigrette is made.  We're going to prepare the avocado for frying (!!!), prepping the slaw, and tell Paula Deen stories BECAUSE HOW CAN ANYONE RESIST ZOMG.  Wow, folks.

Speaking of white, unhealthy things that have a very public fall and cause a great deal of uproar and dismay,the mayo slips off the table, and Deb gets about 1/4 pound of it on her foot.  But at least it was wintertime so she was wearing heavy boots instead of sandalsOH WAIT

In lieu of a picture of the blob (which was pretty grody), we provide you with a picture of Deb's reaction to it

"We still have to grill the watermelon," Alex says, "so I'll make the watermelon marinade."  File THAT one under 'sentences you won't hear on "Duck Dynasty" '.  The marinade involves olive oil and honey! 

Meanwhile we test Jim's dressing for the coleslaw, and like it but agree it needs more salt and/or pepper.

It has now been 30 minutes since food last fell on Deb's foot.  We mark this event with a little shower of pepper.

Alex takes me aside and explains the extra-special dessert plans: dessert tacos!  With fried and mushed plaintains and a chocolate sauce made with condensed milk blended with dark chocolate and a little cinnamon and some powdered sugar!

<3 !!

The watermelon is being grilled and the avocado fried by Alex (Deb, btw, has been responsible for the breading of the avocados, and has excelled).   Deb is asked to prep some lettuce, and also snags some arugula for our side salad--the watermelon recipe apparently called for "petite greens", and arugula fills the bill.  For of course there's a side salad.  Jim is about to grate some monterey jack.  For of course we need shredded cheese, its taco night!

Jim and Alex team up to tear the gluten into tiny little bits and toss the bits into two frying pans.  Epic! 

Deb feels she hasn't made enough salad.  But she points out the recipe calls for "PETITE greens", not "grosse greens" or "greens du grande".  So that's fine.

These Petite Greens would have made the meal more interesting, amiright?

It's almost time to start the tortilla warming!  We're moving into endgame!  With the corn tortillas, the most important thing is the spreading of the refried beans, apparently.
GRADING

Avocado Tacos:

BRIAN  B+.  Texturally, the squishiness of both the refried beans AND the avocado was a wee bit much.  More crunch...maybe more breading?
ALEX:  A!  The thing was fucking good, man.  The textures were really lovely, the creme was soo good; I wish it was a little bit hotter when we ate it, but it was great.
JIM: A+!  I thought even though it would have been nice if it was hotter, it was amazing.
DEB:  I wasn't a fan of that one. I would give that a B...all I tasted was cold corn tortilla.  Maybe if I'd heated it.

BBQ Seitan Tacos:

BRIAN  A+.  This might have been the best taco I've ever had.  (Since I've had maybe 20 in my life, and most of them were from Taco Bell...but still.  STILL.)
ALEX: A.  That thing was so good.  Maybe even A+.  The fake meat thing that we made was a *major* win--that was some of the best fake meat I've ever had.  (The recipe was for 'crispy seitan bacon', adapted and covered in sauce by us).
JIM: A++!  That was the best taco I've ever had. Maybe because we made almost everything ourselves?
DEB: A!  Those tastes went together really well; it was extremely satisfying.  We need to spread this recipe far and wide, cuz people need to know this shit.

Grilled Watermelon Salad:

BRIAN  C.  It challenged me. I'm not a fan of cherry tomatoes, and I don't think I was ready for hot watermelon chunks with salad dressing.  I'm sorry, everybody.
ALEX: I give it a B.  There were things about it that I liked, but it didn't come together that well for me.  There was a lot going on in it, and it was hard to get the right blend of flavors.
JIM:  B+!  When I got the right forkful of watermelon, tomato, pickled watermelon and charred tomato vinaigrette it was delicious.  I don't know that it really needed the tomatoes; they just added volume.
DEB: I give it a B or B-.  The watermelon parts were really great, the tomato parts weren't bad.

Chocolate Plantain Dessert Tacos:

DEB: A!  What do I have to say about it?  I'd eat it all the time, if it weren't deep-fried.  Sad. :(
JIM: A-.  The only thing missing was some sort of crema.  Whipped cream?  Raspberry coulis?
ALEX:  A!  I kept tasting the chocolate as I was making it, and I was nervous that it wouldn't end up complimenting the plaintains and I wouldn't be able to spice it enough, and those concerns were completely unfounded.
BRIAN:  A-...I'm pretty neutral on plantains, so they just got in the way of my enjoyment of the chocolate taco.  Which was awesome.

We're on (Season 4 Disc 4) of True Blood, "Spellbound" and "Let's Get Out of Here".  Elements of note about these episodes:  creative use of a wolf pelt's tail to cover up someone's genitals,

NO, SERIOUSLY

 and another moment of genitalia blurring that *must* have been CGI.  Oh, and also a 'secret meeting' between two people that, within three or four hours, got talked about more and drew more passersby than Woodstock. 

@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@

Normally this is where I'd meander to a stop, folks, but this time I actually have recipes.  ALL the recipes!  But like a game of telephone, these were written down on scraps of paper which were then photographed and THEN transcribed, so...be careful, is all I'm saying.

 Just to make sure everyone's keeping track, we review: corn tortilla + refried beans + fried breaded avocado = Taco 1.   Flour tortilla + bbq sauce + coleslaw + homemade seitan = Taco 2.  And flour tortilla + chocolate ganache + fried plantains = Taco 3.  Grilled watermelon + pickled watermelon + grilled tomatoes + Pizo de Gallo = our salad.

COLESLAW
Whisk 3/4 cup mayo, 1/4 cup sour cream, 1T vinegar, lemon juice from 1/2 lemon, a little mustard, sugar, and some evoo.   Add to bag of slaw.  (In other words, chop up cabbage and other solids until you feel you have a decent amount, then add this dressing).

BBQ SEITAN
Put 1/2 cup chickpeas, 1/4 cup gluten, 1/4 cup bread crumbs, 2T nutritional yeast, 2T maple syrup, 1T (?) sundried tomatoes and 1 big garlic clove in a food processor.  Process until one big ball of dough.  Break up into little bite-sized chunks. Sautee; eventually add BBQ sauce.

BBQ SAUCE
1/3 cup ketchup, 1/3 cup tomato sauce, 3T brown sugar, 3T red wine vinegar, 1tsp butter, 1tsp "bacon" bits, a pinch of cinnamon, "Tony's to taste".  Mix, simmer on low heat until gently bubbling, add to the aforementioned Seitan.

GRILLED WATERMELON
1) Make the marinade by combining 1/2 cup evoo, 1/6th cup vinegar, 1/2 T honey and a pinch of salt.
2) Cube red watermelon and grill to mark sides.
3) Chop cherry tomatoes in half.  Dress with marinade.
4)  Add tomatoes, watermelon, some greens and pickles.  Spread charred tomato on the plate.

PICKLED WATERMELON
1) Boil 1 cup water, 1 cup (? word looks like "cheap") vinegar, 1/2 cup sugar, 1T salt.
2) Halve the watermelon.  Save the red part for grilling.  Cut the white part into strips and boil until translucent and soft.

GRILLED TOMATOES
1) Cover 2 tomatoes in salt and Evoo.
2) Cook on hot grill until "charred and soft".
3) Put 1/2 cup vinegar, 1 cup evoo, 2T honey and 1 shallot in blender with tomatoes.
4) Salt to taste and cool in fridge.

FRIED AVOCADO
1) Slice avocado into 8 pieces
2) Salt avocado
3) Prepare three bowls: 1/2 cup flour, 2 beaten eggs, 1 cup panko.
4) Dredge slices in flour, shaking off excess
5) Coat with egg
6) Press into panko
7) Fry at 350 for ~3 minutes

POBLANO RANCH DRESSING  (a dipping sauce for either of the savory tacos)
Grill chile on grill until skin is blackened.
Put in a bowl and cover with plastic wrap for 15 minutes.
Seed the chile and then chop.
Whisk into 1/2 cup buttermilk, 1/4 cup sour cream and 2T fresh lemon juice.  Add 2 chopped scallions.  Add salt and pepper to taste.

PIZO DE GALLO
Seed four tomatoes, roughly chop.
Roughly chop 1 small onion, 1/2 cup cilantro, and 1 jalapeno.
Pulse in food processor with 1T fresh lime juice.
Add salt and refrigerate.

DESSERT TACO
Mix cinnamon and cayenne and melted chocolate and sweetened condensed milk. Amounts?  We dunno, just eyeball it!
Dredge chopped plantains in flour, then beaten egg, then coconut milk, and fry.
Spread chocolate sauce on a flour tortilla, add plantains, combine into a makeshift taco.  Sprinkle powdered sugar all over the top of it because why not!

Happy Solstice Weekend, everyone!  We'll see you when the days grow shorter.

Flash! Bam! Alacazam! Orange on EVERYTHING!

Hello, beloved readers! Alex had a moment of bliss this week involving a strong desire for perfect abs, a stringent diet and the most delightful orange of his life, so his theme for our Supper Club tonight is something along the lines of PUT  ORANGE ON EVERYTHING!

(There are a lot of songs out there that feature oranges, by the way. I know because I just spent an hour looking for a good one that would lend its lyrics to our title. Jim suggested "Orange is the color of my true love's hair..." but as far as I can tell orange is exactly NOT the color of that songwriter's true love's hair and he made quite a big point of it. So the search continues. There are lots of sad orange songs out there: soldier songs, agent orange, bitter oranges...that Bon Iver song is my favorite of the milieu, but it seems a bit sad for a cooking post celebrating the gorgeous flavor of a perfect orange. Also, with lyrics like "you can gaze out the window get mad and get madder," my cooking club buddies will start assuming I have unresolved issues I need to discuss and geez... awkward. There are quite a few ambient/trance orange songs out there, too, but there all spacy and slow and crap. Hmm, well, I'll keep listening to songs while I'm writing this post. )

Prepping 

The guys are busy zesting oranges and preparing asparagus. Tonight's menu includes Tofu Marinated in Orange Sauce. The marinade is made out of ...you guessed it...orange juice, soy sauce, lemon juice and red wine vinegar. The tofu is going to get fried and put on a bed of asparagus and covered with another orange sauce.

Bri has already finished a simple crust for the Orange Bars (Alex's reinterpretation of Lemon Bars.) The crust smells delicious. I ask what's it in, and Alex says dryly, "Flour and fat." Um, yum?

(Sheesh, you wouldn't think you could make a song with a title like Sweet Orange Sunshine into a dirge, but they did... )

The particularly weird thing we're making tonight is Orange Crackers. Alex found a general Bittman recipe for crackers (1 cup flour, 1/2 tsp salt, 2 tbsp sesame oil, 1/2 c orange pulp. Roll it out, sprinkle with sesame seeds and hot sesame oil. )


This is how we got the pulp.

Once we mixed the dry ingredients in, then rolled it out and baked it, the crackers looked like this:

Funky looking, but tasty.

Jim is dazed from slaving away for the last few days in front of a pottery wheel. He was admitted into CraftBoston and now he's ramping up production to have enough pottery to sell there. (You can find examples of his work here.)


Cooking Club Pun Battle: Brian and Jim are trading puns about oranges.

Brian: Alex had an epithany.
Jim: I pled the pith

As Jim makes the crackers, Alex tells us that he's only recently been able to eat oranges. It's one of those flavors like coffee that he despised before, but can now mysteriously tolerate. Some sort of bodily chemical change? A brain alteration? Metamorphosis?

Meanwhile, Alex is frying tofu and Brian is putting together the Orange Salad Dressing. The dressing included: silken tofu, orange, balsamic vinegar, salt, lemon juice and olive oil, and as you can see from the reviews below, I loved it.

I think I've found the musical theme for this cooking blog. It's a surprising song, perfectly conveying the surprising tastes we experienced tonight. Listen to 30 seconds of this at least. I like how they yell: This is it! This is it. I.T. it!  I want to get that on a t-shirt and wear it to work (where I do IT stuff).

Tonight's TV entertainment includes one episode of True Blood (Season 4) and one episode of Lost Girl (Season 1). The latter is because we got tired of the plot of the former. Between you and me, I'm not sure if we're going to make it to True Blood Season 7. Not if I have anything to say about it...

 Rilke said: 
... *..In order for a Thing to speak to you, you must regard it for a certain time as the only one that exists, as the one and only phenomenon which your laborious and exclusive love is now placed at the center of the universe, and which, in that incomparable place, is on that day attended by angels.

And that's how we feel about oranges tonight!  It also happens to be related to what Jim has on his t-shirt.Can you guess why?

Our Orange Salad included arugula, tomatoes, cucumbers, cashews, orange slices, avocado slices. Sadly, no picture of it seems to exist.


Tofu with Orange Sauce:
Jim: A- little more hot sauce would improve things. It was a tiny bit too sweet
Deb: A I loved it and it amazing in the salad. Delicious.
Bri: A-. The goal of being citrusy was achieved, but it would be nice if there wan another flavor note. Alex: A. Thought the sauce was so citrusy and flavorful. The tofu texture could have been a little bit better.

Orange Crackers: 
Brian: A+ Perfect. If you put a plate of crackers in front of me and told me that was all I get, I would eat all them and be happy.
Jim: Taste an A+, Texture gets a B-. Overall, it was an A. Texture-wise it was a little off, not crispy.
Alex: A- I liked the taste. I enjoyed eating it. The texture could have been better, but I REALLY liked it. It was a splendid delivery vehicle for the sauce.
Deb: A. There was nothing wrong with these crackers.

Asparagus: it was the same roasted asparagus that we always eat, but IT WAS SO GOOD WITH THE SAUCE. The crunchy tips of the spears were an extra bonus.

Orange Salad: 
Deb: A. I loved that salad! OMG, it was the best salad ever. I want to recreate it immediately.
Jim: A-. It needed more tartness or sharpness. The dressing was good by itself, but the oranges with the dressing was a little too sweet for me. Every dish tonight was delicious, but they were all a little sweet. Alex: A-. I love oranges and avocado together. It's such a lovely combination. Some elements didn't work together, and there are other things that could go into it that would make it more exciting, so there's room for improvement.
Brian: B-, Meh, a salad is a salad.

Orange Bars: 
Bri: C+ The crust was horrible. It was less a crust than a crumble. The filling still didn't feel solid. Maybe it needed a couple of hours in the fridge. It had the consistency of jello. I never had to eat a lemon bar with a spoon before, but this came close.
Alex: B+ While the crust did not stick together well, I found the flavor very nice and ...maybe I'm biased, I haven't been eating very many sweets lately...I loved this thing. But I agree with Brian that it was a very problematic arrangement. The top didn't settle enough. We should retroactively call them Orange Tart Squares. Or Citrus Tarts, since they have lemon in them.
Jim: C. I get a weird aftertaste. 
Deb: B I liked it a lot, but it needs to be tarter, but maybe I am just trying to turn in to a lemon bar in my mind.