A little while ago, Howard talked more about his connection that he’s starting to make between animals and food. Robin has been a vegan for about 2 years now, and Howard comments quite a bit on it. Usually he will tease her, but ends up coming full circle at the end, where he shows some interest.
I thought I would start this recipe off with an old story my white suburban mother would tell me growing up.
When the Romans entered Germany early in the 1980’s, each soldier only had a nickel to their name. Legend has it there were over 65,000 soldiers, they were all extremely malnourished, and starving. Being that none of them could eat on only a nickel, they decided to combine their fortunes, and feed everyone. They all made a circle formation in downtown Germany, and threw their nickels into the middle of the circle. The consensus was to take the nickels in bags to the closest butcher, and provide a great feast that’s tale would swim through the hills and valleys for all of time. The nickels only added up to feed about 40,000 of the troops, and the rest had to eat vegetables they found in the ground. Unfortunately, after the great feast (of all meat of course), all of their belly’s hurt, then they died. The 20,000 troops left, went onto win the war against the Germans, and became known as The Vegetarians. Now Vegan Mofo carries on the tradition, thousands of blogs, from all over the world, tossing in their….nickl….blogs and such. All in a belief that if we combine our powers, we can defeat the meat-eaters, and maybe one day stop explaining where we get protein from.
Throughout the day I was trying to think of what I wanted to make for Vegan MoFo day 1. I was really in the mood for Mexican, so I started there. I really like shapes, and pieces fitting in with other pieces. These pictures didn’t end up doing great justice, and the concept kind of got hidden and underexposed. None the less, it worked, and that was my main concern.
My idea was to take a lot of elements of mexican food that I love, and put them in a ball. Kinda like the Katamari game. Then to lay that ball in a layer of grilled tofu, and top it with a sauce.
For the Tofu :
First I carved half moons into the tofu with a melon scooper. Next I tossed the tofu in a container with some olive oil and apple cider vinegar. I blended Smoked paprika (a lot), garlic powder, onion powder, cumin, chili powder, salt and pepper in a mortar, and used it as a rub on the tofu. It sticks pretty well with the olive oil. They were placed on the grill for about 7 minutes on each side (spray the grill first with some grill oil spray), and laidon a bed of red lettuce.
For the Balls :
In a pretty big pan, pour in some olive oil, and some diced onions and corn. I let that cook for a while, brown it a little. In a separate pot, I made some Mexican rice (takes about 20 minutes for the rice, so maybe do that early on). After the rice, and the corn are cooked, pour the rice into the pan with the corn, and add a couple of cans of re-fried beans, and a can of finely diced black olives. Let everything cook for a little while, and add some garlic, salt and pepper too. Add some bread crumbs to thicken everything up, they will stay together better in the fryer. After its done, take it out, and put it in the fridge (or the freezer if you’re in a rush). Next make up the breading for the balls. To stick with the Mexican theme, I ground some tortilla chips in the mortar, very fine. After every things cooled off, roll the (corn, beans, rice etc.) concoction into balls the size of the half moons in the tofu. Next roll the balls around in the tortilla crumbs. Toss them in a deep fryer for about 2 minutes. I then placed them in the tofu, added some of my dads home made pico, (roma tomatoes, onions, garlic, jalepeno, cilantro, and salt) smashed avocado, and diced chili’s. I topped it with a Chili dill sour cream. Which consisted of tofuti sour cream, ancho chili powder, garlic powder, soy sauce, tons of fresh dill, salt and pepper. Yummy success! These balls were divine! (no homo)
Well, here I am, just another blogger with a blog that he never updates. I swore that wouldn’t be me, but here I am. Embarrassed? YES. Sad? YES.
I recently helped waiting tables at a really fancy restaurant where they had all kinds of cool appetizers. Of course they were all meat based, but the idea was really neat. Basically you take something that everyone likes, and you make it really small. When I was a youngster, I liked little things a lot. Like micro machines, trolls, power wheels etc. I came up with the idea to make mini Reuben’s, and sliders (mini hamburgers)
The mini reubans were made with the exact same recipe that I made the big person ones with. The bread was this tiny little party bread stuff I found. The mini burgers were made with this stuff, which is GREAT for mixing. Its unlike other packaged burgers, cause this stuff you can put in a bowl just like the rest of your friends do, and add all kinds of cool shit. This burger in particular is called the “Stan-burger”.
In the burger
On the burger
Put in as much as you can handle of all of the ingredients, I just eyeballed it. Also its nice to toast the buns.
As I was laying in bed, I heard a drum beat. That beat was from Karate Kid 2, the sticks they spin in between their hands, and make old hip hop drums. I looked over at my lover, and she lay asleep. Listening to tranquil sound of Daniel son getting his ass kicked. I was hungry. I knew she would share the sensation. It was 11am, and I wanted to make her breakfast. I hate breakfast food. I love her though. But I wanted her to experience a breakfast. Lord why have you laid such a burden on me! Why do you toy with me?! Then it hit me. I must make the first McMuffin with my new cookie cutters. The plan is dangerous, but I believe I will be the first. I’m too fragile to google it, so I decided to assume I am the first. I will cut tofu with a large circle, and cut a smaller circle inside. I will cook them separate, and the middle shall be cooked in turmeric. It will look amazing. I could only find faux sausage. My heart was set on some fake ham, but I was not so fortunate. I cooked the fake sausage in garlic powder, onion powder, salt & pepper, and veg Worcestershire. I then laid some toffuti cheddar cheese squares over them. The English muffins were toasted and buttered, and the creation was complete with some hash browns. *Que “you’re the best around”
Kind of hard to see the “yolk” effect, but the lighting was a little bad.
Boy oh boy, having a real job really makes life dull. Although my job is probably the only one that exists in the nine to five world that I could ever imagine going to bed at midnight for. Everythings felt very scattered and fast for the past month, and I’m just now starting to feel like myself again. Well not the old self that could stay up drinking until 5am, and get on the post punk kitchen to post drunk naked pictures of myself, but familiar none the less. We haven’t really made anything that amazing, but Sarah made these incredible cupcakes. This was her first successful vegan baking, and it turned a lot of heads at the party.
Here’s our three legged dog tofu, playing xbox while were cooking.
This is a dinner we made one night that was simple but good. Fake bacon, lettuce, tomatoes, smoked tofu (not the dog), and veganaise.
This is a lil thing i threw together that involves filo, vegan cream cheese, a basil leaf (next time ill use a spinach leaf), smoked tofu, and sriracha.
and last, we had a bunch of people over the other night and made a ton of vegan sliders. The recipe for the burger is from Vegan dad. Everyone ate the shit out of these.
Stay tuned, I’ve got some contests coming up where you guys can win things! I plan on starting a weekly thing starting in march, where I will be giving away very cool stuff for free!
The power is still out all over Louisville, and we’ve still got guest lurching around the house. Spaghetti is probably one of the best things to make for a bunch of people. I’ve always had a hang up with people that live in America and pull the Italian card. You know the type. Their parent, or Grand parents, are Italian descendants, so instantly they’re more proud to be Italian, than Italians. They are impossible to cook for, and always more annoying than Ryan Adams fans. You’re as Italian, as I am Indian. Please stop. We all know that DNA and genes don’t pass down taste buds, stop pretending like they do.
I stopped by Amazing Grace, and got some polenta and tvp. The tvp was a beef flavored one, that I haven’t tried yet. We hydrated it, seared it in some olive oil with some onions, roasted garlic and poured basil garlic tomato sauce into it. The polenta was sliced into 1/4 inch slices and pan seared in some canola oil. After a little crispy, i seasoned it with garlic powder, salt, crushed red peppers, and smoked paprika. Again, I suggest a Heileman’s Old Style with this dish.
I have this funny story, but it’s not funny at all, and not very believable. It really happened though. It’s really a little what I like to call, veggie humor. I went to this little vegan/organic grocery called amazing grace here in Louisville, which is a place we frequently visit. They’ve always had this section with vegan food, that’s a little bland, and basic. I don’t mean to belittle it, but its just really basic vegan blt’s, vegan chicken sandwiches, etc. Good food, but nothing that really gave me “chills”. I went in there one day and they had gotten a new cook that was handling the dinners to go section, and wow things had changed. There was a lot of very creative things in the case. One of the things was country fried seitan. I bought it, cause it looked awesome, and took it home. While I was heating it up in the microwave I was talking to Sarah on the phone (most likely an argument about reality television). During the phone call, I took the stuff out of the microwave, took a bite of the country fried seitan, and spit it into the garbage going *baaauu, ptttuee, baauuu, pffftthhh!! Not because it tasted bad, but I really thought I had just bitten into meat. I got off the phone in a flurry, and called amazing grace. I was 110% sure that they had screwed up, but after yelling at the lady on the other side of the phone, and making her cry, she swore to me that it was vegan. I took another bite. After examining it very closely, I determined it was not meat. This stuff was incredible, I bought it about 12 more times, before the cook quit, and moved to a restaurant down the street. I tried to make it a few time, and it just never turned out right. Tonight, I decided to give it another go. Let me first start by saying, day 5 has turned out to be the best night so far, by very far. I made this for a bunch of people tonight, and everyone was was very complimentary of it. When you cook for people a lot, you start to get a gauge of when they don’t like it (but are saying they do), like it, really like it, and really really like it. This one they really really liked. I cannot explain how incredible this turned out. I don’t mean to over sell this recipe, but you will never eat anything better, so just stop trying.
makes 4 chunky filets or 6 thinner cutlets
DO NOT BOIL, IT WILL MAKE THEM RUBBERY, SIMMMMMER!!!
1 1/3 cups vital wheat gluten
2 Tbsp tapioca flour
1 Tbsp nutritional yeast
1 Tbsp garbanzo flour
1 tsp dried porcini mushroom powder** (yeah, nice and earthy!)2 Tbsp tamari
2 Tbsp soymilk
1/2 Tbsp marmite
1 Tbsp olive oil
1 Tbsp ketchup
2 Tbsp red wine
1/2 to 3/4 cup broth* (cold)
1 Tbsp oil for panfrying6 – 8 cups simmering broth (cold)
Mix the dry ingredients in a mixing bowl. Mix the wet ingredients in a measuring cup in the order listed. After adding the red wine, *add only enough broth to bring the liquids up to 1 cup. Reserve the oil for panfrying.
Add the wet ingredients to the dry and knead for 5 minutes. Shape into a log, then cut into 4 or 6 pieces, as desired. Flatten them into cutlets. Panfry on each side until golden.
Simmer in the simmering broth for 1 hour 15 minutes. Let cool in broth and use as desired.
For Breading:
1 cup bread crumbs
1 tsp dried basil
1 tsp dried oregano
pinch of salt
dash of pepper½ cup plain soymilk (do not use low fat version)
1 cup unbleached flour
Directions:
Heat oil to 375 deg F. Use a thermometer!
Put bread crumbs, herbs, salt and pepper in one bowl, soymilk in a second bowl, and flour in a third bowl. This is your 3-step process for breading the steaks. Take each steak, and press it into the FLOUR FIRST, both sides. Make sure to really coat them. Then, quickly dip into the SOYMILK SECOND, and then finally press into the BREAD CRUMBS THIRD.
Now transfer to the frying pan heated to 375 F. Use a good pair of tongs to make it easy. Do this for each seitan steak, until golden brown as desired on each side. Then transfer to a plate lined with a paper towel to soak up the oil.
I took a recipe for seitan from Vegan Appetite, and a recipe for the batter from Bengarland. The mashed potatoes were Yukon gold w/dill, mayonnaise <—-surprisingly amazing, garlic powder, earth balance, soy milk, salt and pepper. The corn just had earth balance, with salt and pepper. Make sure and follow the instructions on cooking the seitan, it turns out a really great texture. The gravy my brother had to help me out on, because I’ve never made a successfully gravy. Basically was just some earth balance, sage, not beef cubes broth, water and flower. Seriously check this out.
Yo yo, it’s day 4, get your ass on the floor, and…..dry hump…the girl next to you…Sorry, my freestyles these days are a bit exhausted. Were completely snowed in, power is out in 200,000 houses, we’ve got guests sleeping over, and thank Jesus we still have power. We decided to make stir-fry tonight, with some mock duck I got for Christmas from my mom. We laid out a bunch of vegetables, and sauces, noodles, and rice. Sarah took everyone’s orders like we were in a restaurant. It was quite endearing. (quick side note, today’s picture for the vegan amateur porn is the best one I’ve found. Check out the dudes faces, they look like they all work the prize counter at a 1986 roller rink.) All together we had :
Everything was tossed in a Wok, and cooked together with sesame and canola oil. I used extra black bean sauce, and boiled the mock duck first to get the canned taste out of it. The tofu and mock duck was pan seared first. This stir-fry was so good, I wouldn’t even wear a condom with it. The entire apartment was filled with an amazing smell, and life tonight was good.
The edamame dip was very much like hummus. I took the recipe from food networks website. We then dipped carrots in it all night, singing “Kentucky rose” by Michael W. Smith.
Place everything in your food processor, and blend until smooth. Garnish with smoked paprika and cilantro.
Why Peta? Please stop. You make us all look like shit heads. You’re the Al Sharpton/Jesse Jackson/God hates fags of vegetarians. All you do is reinforce hate, and stereotypes. Every time Peta is on the news, its “negative”, or “controversial”. Peta is a corporate representative/spokesman for vegetarians/vegans. As if the world doesn’t think that were all condescending, self righteous assholes, here we go again being portrayed doing what we do best. Although, this commercial is pretty good, and I know the angle they’re going on about vegetarians having better sex. They’re most likely referring to articles from Dr. Neal Barnard, who is an awesome speaker,author, clinical researcher and nutritionist. Others have commented on this as well, but Neal was one of the first, and the guy tours the country and gives free lectures on going vegan. Bless his little heart. Here’s an excerpt from something he has written, regarding the “vegetarians have better sex”
“Studies have shown that impotence is often a sign of blocked arteries, and artery blockages are commonly caused by the consumption of meat, eggs, and dairy products, which are high in cholesterol and saturated fat,” says Dr. Neal Barnard of the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine. “Animal products increase the amount of cholesterol in the blood. This cholesterol enters the blood vessels and creates plaque on the interior walls, which narrows the passageway for blood flow,” Barnard says.
But seriously, fuck you Peta.
It’s day three, and being really broke never tasted so good. It’s snowing outside, 18 degrees, and my girlfriend had “roomie” night tonight. Which basically means I have to go away for a few hours to hang out with my male friends, and let them get wasted on wine. Tonight was chili night, so it worked out well for everyone. I’ve made 26 chili’s in the past year, and they’ve all just been O.K. Nothing really grabbed me. In fact I came in last place at a chili cook off for a friend of mine’s birthday. This chili, is in fact, the one. My dad always had a delicious chili growing up, and I’m now proud to say I have my own chili. All of my previous recipes have come from recipes, so I decided to go rogue with this one, and just do my thing. It’s a little smokey, delicious, and of course cheap.
Cook the onions, green peppers and garlic first in the olive oil until transparent. Slowly add the beans. Let it simmer for a few minutes, and add all of the spices. Go ahead and pull out your glass with two dudes wrestling on it, and serve hot.
