Red Velvet Bake-Off

I find it amazing how the holidays manage to still have me off my game. Here it is, February and I'm just now posting a new episode. Episode 8. Good times. This sucker is a bit different from the others. For one, it's baking. I am not a baker. Sure I enjoy making a tart but that is usually using store bought filo. The only real baking I am good, and quite possibly obsessed with is, banana bread. But banana bread is a quick bread. That is to say, it's a bread that does not use yeast as leavening. I decided to try and tackle that immensely popular pastry, the red velvet cupcake.

I'm not going to go into the history of the danged things since it seems like the web is full of theories. But, in my research I did come across a tid bit that spoke to me, little miss hippie-pants. Back in the depression and WWII bakers couldn't get their hands on artificial food dye and resorted to using beets to color the cakes. Did someone say beets? So, you can guess right now that I jumped at the opportunity to use beets in cake.



The first part of this mega episode includes my friend Miguel, an avid baker, and my best friend Brooke, a Georgia girl who loves red velvet so much that she had an armadillo groom's cake at her rehearsal dinner. For those of you who don't know about armadillo cake, it was featured in Steel Magnolias.

Part 2: Tristan, Brooke's husband, and I get down to the business of beet red velvet and Miguel and Brooke return to make cream cheese frosting. The beet cupcakes were very surprising. Dense and moist with a bit of the earthy beet flavors. Like a cross between a red velvet and carrot cake. I brought in a batch to work and they were a big hit. People didn't seem to mind that they weren't the traditional red velvet. Many commented on how moist and not overly sweet they were. So, I'd say it was a success. After we shot the show I took all of our creations down to the Cookies Without Borders Bake Sale for Haiti. Which I found out raised over $5400 for the Doctors without Borders Emergency Relief Fund.

Part 2: Tristan, Brooke's husband, and I get down to the business of beet red velvet and Miguel and Brooke return to make cream cheese frosting. The beet cupcakes were very surprising. Dense and moist with a bit of the earthy beet flavors. Like a cross between a red velvet and carrot cake. I brought in a batch to work and they were a big hit. People didn't seem to mind that they weren't the traditional red velvet. Many commented on how moist and not overly sweet they were. So, I'd say it was a success. After we shot the show I took all of our creations down to the Cookies Without Borders Bake Sale for Haiti. Which I found out raised over $5400 for the Doctors without Borders Emergency Relief Fund.

Now for the recipes

Brooke's Red Velvet was from
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/sara-moulton/southern-red-velvet-cake-recipe/index.html

and Miguel's was Mrs. Paula Deen
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/paula-deen/red-velvet-sandwich-cookies-recipe/index.html

But mine..... oy....

I took some inspiration from this Miami newspaper recipe from 1967 and added beets and changed some of the ingredients.

The result? Well, I'm still working on it but so far it is this.

Andy's Beet Velvet Cupcakes

2 cups of organic flour
1 tsp Salt
3 Tbs cocoa powder (natural)
1 3/4 cups of sugar
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 cup of earthbound butter or 2/3 cup of crisco
1 cup of sour milk (aka 1 cup milk with 1tbs of vinegar or lemon added)
3 eggs
2 tsp vanilla
2 Tbs red wine vinegar
1 cup of pureed boiled beets

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

In a bowl sift flour, salt, baking powder, baking soda, cocoa, and sugar.

Then in another bowl mix the eggs, milk, vanilla, beets, butter and vinegar. It's going to look pretty gross but don't worry it will all mix together in the end.

In three batches add the dry ingredients to the wet, mixing well but not over doing it. If you mix for too long it will start the baking soda too early and also will mess with the gluten chains in your flour.

Unlike most cupcakes, where you fill to 3/4 full, these cupcakes can be filled to almost the top.
Bake them for about 20 min or until a toothpick test is clean.



These little gems have some more testing and adjusting for sure. I'd love to hear any changes you may make and the results.

Vegan French Onion Soup with Mediterranean Baked Tofu Sandwiches

I love French Onion Soup, I mean really really love it. As I slowly work my way into the depths of becoming a vegg, I think that figuring out this dish will be key to my survival. I invited my David, newly vegetarian, to come over and watch me fuddle my way through creating a robust beefy broth without the bovine. To add a bit o' protein to the dinner, I decided to make a baked tofu sandwich. Wow. I mean WOW. The sandwich was one of the best things I've ever made, almost as good as the French Onion soup.

THE SOUP

After searching the internet, extensively, looking for ways to create beefy flavor with common ingredients I found my solution. Vegemite. So for the stock I went with my good ol' standby Better Than Bouillon Vegetable and added to it 2 teaspoons of Vegemite.

Ingredients:

6 large yellow onions thinly sliced

(I cried a ton slicing onions. Seriously how to the pros do it? I had to take several breaks. My poor roommate was gassed out of the living room it was soo bad. Ahhh but worth every tear.)

2 cloves of garlic chopped

6 cups of veg stock

1/2 cup of wine (I went with $3CabSav)

2 teaspoons of Vegemite (dissolved in stock)

1 bay leaf

The leaves of 3 twigs of thyme

1/4 tsp sugar

Olive oil

Salt and Pepper

(optional: sliced french bread and swiss cheese slices or vegan swiss)

1. Saute the sliced onions over medium high heat in a bit of olive oil. This is going to take some time. Just plug in the iPod and jam out as you stir. I used some of this time to prep the marinade for the tofu.

2. After about 10 min add the sugar and continue sauteing until the onions turn brown. Patience folks. Wash some dishes. Slice your bread. Preheat the oven for the tofu.

3. Once the onions are golden brown add the garlic and saute for a minute.

4. Add the wine, broth, bay leaf, and thyme. Deglaze the pan a bit to get the golden flavor into your soup.

5. Cover and simmer for 30min.

6. Uncover. Smell that!!!! Remove the bay leaf and serve the soup. Here is where I added the classic slice of french bread and a slice of swiss cheese. I put the bowls in the oven for a few minutes until the cheese had melted. Careful removing them from the oven, as they get wicked hot. Thankfully, my brother and sister-in-law bought me the OveGlove for Christmas.

7. Eat!

The Sandwich

These sandwiches were easy, healthy and completely delicious. I had baked tofu for the Satay a few weeks ago and wanted to try making a Mediterranean version to use in sandwiches or to replace chicken.

Ingredients:

1/4 cup balsamic

1/4 cup red wine vinegar

1/4 cup olive oil

1/4 cup red wine

2 cloves of garlic

handful of Italian parsley

2 tsp of thyme

Salt and pepper

1 Tbs Dijon

1 pkg firm tofu

1 tsp sugar

handful of baby greens

tapenade

Preheat ya' oven at 350

1. Add the vinegars, oil, wine, garlic, parsley, thyme, salt and pepper to your food processor and give it a whirrr. Transfer the mixture to a bowl

2. Cut the tofu into 1/2" slices of the small side. Add the slices to the marinade and let sit for 30 min or longer.

3. Place the tofu slices on a baking sheet and bake until each side is golden.

4. Take the marinade and transfer to a small saucepan. Add mustard and sugar.

5. Simmer until the sauce has thickened and reduced in half. Transfer to bowl and stick in the freezer to cool.

6. On slices of french bread, spread a thin layer of vegenaise, then a thin layer of tapenade. Add a layer of baby greens and place the tofu steaks on top. Drizzle the sauce over the tofu and serve.

Episode 7 is here! Finally..

Well this episode will be a bit of a two parter. This first one is the vegan sweet potato samosas. They ended up tasting delicious, what else did I expect? wink wink.

So, I had wanted to do an Indian themed night since it is one of my favorite ethic cuisines. I spent ages online looking up dozens of recipes for the filling and the crust. The recipes varied a great deal. I compiled what I thought was the best from each recipe. Of course, as my roommate likes to point out, I can't possibly just follow a recipe for samosas and call it a day. Nope, I had to switch it up and try to make it a bit more healthy.

For the filling, I switched out the usual potatoes for sweet potatoes and turnips since turnips are lower in carbs and higher in fiber than your usual tuber. (potato- 29gm carb 3gm fiber v. turnip-7gm carb 5gm fiber and sweet potato- 50gm carb 8gm fiber.) The sweet potatoes have all of those great B vitamins, beta carotene and vitamin C.

Then, I switched the usual flour in the crust to whole wheat and baked them instead of frying. The only down side to the baking is that you really need to keep an eye on them or you risk drying them out. I think next time I would coat them in either some melted Earthbound or olive oil to seal them a bit.

The dough

Ingredients:

2 cup whole wheat flour

1 tsp salt

2 tbs Earthbound margarine

1 cup water

In a bowl mix flour, salt and butter until it is a sand-like mixture, I used my fingers after getting frustrated. Then add the water until the ingredients bind together creating a dough. On a floured surface kneed the dough a few times. Then create a ball and set aside to rest for 30min.

The filling

Ingredients:

1 cup thawed frozen peas or canned

2 cooked turnips chopped

2 cups of chopped cooked sweet potato

1 white onion chopped

1 small green chili (serrano)

1/2 cup chopped fresh cilantro

2 cloves garlic chopped

2 inches grated ginger (about 2 tbs)

1 tsp coriander

1 tsp cumin

2 tsp garam masala (I found this at my ethic store, you may have to order online)

1/2 tsp tumeric

1/4 tsp cardamom

about 1tsp salt or to taste

In a bowl combine all of the ingredients and mix well.

Note: if you have extra filling you can make latke-style pancakes and pan fry. Sooooo good! Maybe for breakfast?

Assemble

Take your ball of dough and form into smaller balls about the size of a lemon. On your floured surface, roll the balls out to about 1/8" thickness in an oblong shape. Then cut the oval in half.

Take the straight edge of the dough and fold in half, pinching together along the seam. You should now have a cone shaped pocket. Fill this with some filling, leaving enough of an edge to seal. Now pinch together the edges to seal in the filling.

Place on a cookie sheet and bake in an oven that has been preheated at 400. Bake for 15 min, keep a close eye on them. Depending on the oven they may need more or less time. I would also brush the samosas with a bit of veg or olive oil so that they come out golden and shiny.

I too some of these to work the next day and they were a huge hit. You can also modify the recipe to use any filling. Try cooking some "meat" crumbles and mix with peas, carrots, and potato for a Shepherd's Pie version.

Coming Soon...Saag Tofu "Paneer"

Beef: It's What's For Dinner (Unfortunately)

I have to repost Tristan Mullis' rant, from his blog "I Wish I Could Quit You Tom Brady,"on corporate beef and the need to switch to grass-fed. This is his first food politics essay and I can't wait for the next.


"I was inspired by a brief but interesting article in Time this week (thanks, btw, to the postal worker who mistakenly delivered a neighbor's Time to us) to look more deeply into the potential for major benefits in switching from beef raised on silage corn to pasture grass. This is serious business, since there are more greenhouse gases coming from livestock production than human transportation. How 'bout that? Let me insert a plug here that I'm not opposed to eating beef, even though I actually eat about 10% of what I used to growing up. Turns out turkey is the shizz.


OK, I get that it seems like a small change, but think about what happens when we eat beef that's raised on a major beef production plant, in, say Texas, the top beef producer in the country. Well, that cow on a giant plant in Texas needs to eat--a lot. But we're not growing the corn in Texas, we're growing it in Nebraska.


So we have to first grow corn on our happy little corn farm (well, 3,500 acres--more on this later), which creates its own production costs, dumps a shitload of chemicals all over the land, and uses a ton of fuel. Then we have to process all this corn into a mix that can be easily be digested and turned into beef fat ASAP. Then we have to truck all this corn mix 800 miles to the plant where we're finishing up cows. At this point, the cows are munching on their grub--I'd imagine it tastes like Fritos--but because they're way too close together, you have to give them a shit ton of cow drugs to keep them from getting sick. The other problem, well, it's the poop.


Turns out manure (and everything else coming out a cow's butt) is chock full of methane, the same stuff that comes out of your car. This is sort of bad. Back in the day, it was no sweat because it all just went on the grass, fertilized new grass, and the cows or whatever ate that later on. Circle of life, baby, circle of life. But when you have 8,000 cows all pooping around each other, it's more crap than a Tea Party rally (sorry, I couldn't resist). So beside the point of "hey wait, do I want to eat this cow that's been hanging around poop all day? Is there a hyphen in E. Coli" (No, and No), you have to haul this mountain of poop somewhere, which takes more fuel. Then there's the whole problem of having to truck all this meat to it's final destination, which is likely hundreds, maybe thousands of miles away, since I want my Big Mac in Maryland.


On the other hand, if you have cattle and let them just graze on a big field somewhere, you're pretty much just skipping a ton of these steps. The cow eats grass, he walks around, poops all over the field, the poop makes healthy grass, and in the end, things take a turn for the worse for him. I'm not talking anything crazy like making everyone raise their own cow and eat him. Sounds pretty good, right?



Two Problems (But ones we can fix!):


1) It's more expensive to do it the grass-fed way.

2) The people in the grain-fed chain of production don't want anything to change. Ever.


The solutions really overlap on this whole mess, which helps simplify somewhat, but also means you need to really bring the wood if you're going to fix this clusterfuck.

Right now, it's probably going to cost you about twice as much to go get grass-fed beef at the store (We'll call it $6 per pound for grass to $3 per pound for corn), but those costs aren't actually reflective of, you know, reality. Here's the issue: it doesn't really cost $3 to get that pound of beef. It's more than that. But all along the chain, the Federal Government is paying the producers straight cash money to keep doing what they're doing. Here's how this works, in essence: The government guarantees a certain price for corn, say $10 per bushel. In our hypo, the price of corn on the open market works out to be about $7 per bushel, because the producers grew way more corn than ever was needed, and because they know they get paid even if the price drops low due to an over-saturated market. The government pays the extra $3 per bushel to the producer, probably a big corporation like Arthur Daniels Midland (ADM). Repeat this for each of ADM's 50 million bushels of corn every year. Repeat this process for the company responsible for the beef as well. Literally, the Federal government spends Billions every year doing this crap. And you're paying for it.

So the first thing is to really blow up this process and start over. A 2007 study noted that agribusiness spent over $135 million in 2006 on lobbying and campaign donations, about 2/3 to Republicans. Every time it comes up, we all see ads showing a small farmer wistfully looking at his scraggly crop and aging house, and that's what they want. The problem is that that guy's probably an actor, and 75% of the money spent goes to 10% of the recipients. The bottom 80% get about $700 on average, so forget about about the happy little storyline.

We all need to be waaaaay more proactive about this funding issue, because we're getting completely screwed on this, and as it turns out, we as the public are the only ones. ADM, Cargill, and Tyson are pretty much wiping their ass with Franklins that we're throwing at them, and we're responding to all of this by sending more bills. We need to get on this ASAP, and not let it slide when people like Saxby Chambliss (R-GA), John Cornyn (R-TX), and Blanche Lincoln (D-AR) get a ton of money from these guys and then use their seats on the Senate Agriculture Committee to keep this sham moving. This is why ADM has a 7-foot bronze statue of Ronald Reagan outside their corporate headquarters, not because he was a flashy dresser.

Ultimately, we can do a hell of a lot of good by just eating less beef, and focusing on the grass-fed stuff when we partake. If you ever see an ad claiming that beef farmer Jones is going under because we're not eating beef ,think to yourself, "Wait, Farmer Jones can afford to be on a national TV ad, but not to eat on a regular basis? Hmmmmm." Because it's as fake as the day is long. Also, by choosing locally raised meat that doesn't involve the mega-industrial elements, we'll push the market towards more desirable stuff, who actually are small farmers, increasing the demand and then subsequently the supply, and the price goes...? Down, that's right!

Guess what else? We can save loads of fuel by eating locally, and eat way less of the bacteria and drugs that they have to put into the system to make it sustainable. And I'm not even getting into the issues of how they treat the animals. Jesus, it's a rough, rough, business (and another blog entry, but not for today). Moreover, Lord knows it's clear that red meat is a nutritional disaster, regardless of what McDonalds and Kroger say. Try that turkey, because like I said, it's the shizz.

Hope this all makes some sense, and maybe down the road we can be a little better about what we're eating. Like I said before, I'm not anti-meat or anti-beef. I love meat, and I love beef. But just handing over money to these giant corporations so they can tell us to look the other way while they screw us seems a little unnecessary, no? "



Thanks Tristan and keep up the good work!

Spicy Quick Corn Chowder

It's raining out there and I figured it was the perfect opportunity to make chowder. After perusing the aisles of Trader Joe's after the gym, I looked positively frightening with my red face and sweaty tank top, I found fire-roasted frozen corn. Corn chowder indeed! I went home and checked the veggie bin, found some rather sad celery, carrots and a half of an onion. Gave the little suckers a chop and I was ready to go.

Ingredients

One bag of roasted corn nibblets
one bag of white corn nibblets
two carrots
one half white onion
2 celery stalks
4 cups of vegetable stock
1 Tsp Cayenne
1-3 TBS of chipotle hot sauce to taste.
1 TBS sun-dried tomatoes
2 cloves of garlic, smashed
2 Bay leaves


Saute your vegetables in a bit of olive oil and pepper until the onions are translucent.

Add 4 cups of vegetable stock, corn, sun-dried tomato, garlic and bay leaves.

Cook until vegetables are tender. Then, in batches, puree in blender until smooth.

Return to the pot and simmer. Add a dollop of Greek yogurt or soy creamer to give the soup a creamy flavor.

Then add cayenne, chipotle and salt to taste.

Serve and drizzle with a touch of chipotle. Enjoy!

Almost Vegan Lasagna

This recipe is almost vegan because it only uses a smidge of goat cheese mozzarella. You vegans out there can sub out vegan mozzarella. Easy and quick to assemble, this is great for a group of friends or to pack up for your lunches for the week. I originally made this for Episode 4 but it had eggplant parm in it. Last night I decided to give it another go.

Ingredients:
No Boil Pasta Sheets
2 cans of marinara
1 bunch of basil
3 cloves of garlic chopped
1 package of soft tofu (I only had firm in my fridge and it turned out fine)
1 package of soy crumble
1/4 cup chopped marinated sun-dried tomatoes
2 TBS of olive tapenade
1 white onion chopped
1 package of soy or goat cheese mozzarella
1 lemon

Start out making your "meat." Saute the onion in olive oil, salt and pepper.

When the onions are translucent, add the garlic and soy crumble. Cook for 3 minutes. Then add the sun-dried tomatoes and tapenade. Turn off the heat and set aside.

To make the "ricotta," crumble the package of tofu in your hands or mixer. Add the juice of one lemon and finely chopped basil. To chiffonade your basil: stack the leaves and roll into a cigar, then slice the cigar finely.

Mix the basil, tofu and lemon, adding a pinch of salt.

You are now ready to stack this sucker. In your pan, spread a bit of the tomato sauce to ensure the lasagna doesn't stick. (note: I would use more than you see here. Mine stuck a tad. Maybe use a bit of olive oil as well.)

Cover the bottom with a single layer of pasta sheet, breaking up large sheets to fill gaps when necessary.

Spread sauce over the pasta sheets. Add a 1/3 of the meat, sprinkled evenly. Then add 1/3 of the "ricotta," and sprinkle shredded mozzarella.

Over the mixture add some more sauce and then start the next layer of pasta sheets. Repeat two more times. The key to this is to make sure it's "saucy." Yes that's right, I got to use the word "saucy" with a straight face. Ok, it's not exactly straight.

When you have reached the top layer of pasta sheets, pour over the last of your sauce and finish off with some mozzarella. You may need to add more sauce as mine came out slightly dry.

Bake at 350 for about an hour. Check the cheese for a golden color.

New Year Recovery Eggs

The roommate and I were in a rough way after this weekend after our debauchery on New Year's Eve. Sunday we decided to take down the beautiful tinsel tree and the rest of our holiday decor. There was no way that I was going to do anything not involving my butt and the couch without a bit of sustenance. So, I sauntered into the kitchen and surveyed the damage. We had some sad sad red chard that needed cooking, a wrinkled leek, a ripe tomato, two non-moldy slices of "smoked chicken" vegan slices, and 3 eggs. Yes my friends it was frightening.

Gave the leek a chop, picked through the chard for the leaves that seemed the least depressing and limp, and chopped up the vegan slices into tiny cubes. Gave the tomato a good chop with my new knife, a Christmas gift.

I then found some frozen artichoke hearts, cooked them up in the micro and chopped 'em up.

Sauteed the leeks in some olive oil and pepper. Then added the chard, artichokes, and "meat."

In a small bowl I whipped up the eggs with a tad of soy milk, season salt, and some shaved Parmesan. Threw in the egg mix and gave it a good scramble.

Ended up with a fantastic, fresh, and carb-free egg scramble.

I was ready to pull that tree down and de-holiday the tree without cryin' or drinkin'

Happy January Y'all!!