The best pressure is peer pressure. Even if friends use their powers of peer pressure to get you to update your blog. I'm not completely sure which is worse though, alcohol, drugs or the internet. They all can keep you up strange hours and leave you feeling disgusted with yourself. Though alcohol and drugs don't have cute animal videos involving cats and treadmills.
One thing that I've noticed that I've been doing in the kitchen lately is trying to find music to inspire/motivate me to cook dinner with Keri after a day of working in a kitchen for six hours. I feel a bit embarrassed about admitting this but I got this idea from the TeaNY cookbook by Moby and Kelly Tisdale. Their idea was about what music they enjoy playing in the store and suggest the readers to listen to when they make or enjoy the recipes. So like them I came up a list (as in I looked at my stack of cds in the kitchen and figured that I share them). But unlike them I don't want anyone to enjoy anything. So here is my list of music that can be heard when I'm in the kitchen:
Slingshot Dakota - The Golden Ghost
Propagandhi - Less Talk, More Rock
Jawbreaker - Etc.
Armalite - S/T
Dead Unicorn - Yellowstone Supervolcano
Bomb the Music Industry/ O Pioneers!!! - Split
SuperBobby - Without Bug Spray, Bugs Stay (though after awhile I have found that with this album on I dont really cook as much as I dance.)
Delay - Don't Laugh
Fake Problems - How Far Our Bodies Go
Thee Headcoats - Elementary
A band that should a honorable mention is Tin Armor. I made this list three days ago and since then Ive only listened to A Better Place Than I Have Been. Yesterday alone I listened to it twice just while making an on the spot pasta dinner. It reminded me of the night that they and boys from Annabel spent the night here and were spread out from one side of the living room all the way to the counter top in the kitchen. Another mention should go out to my friend Rachel. She made me a mix cd last winter that is also always playing when I'm in the kitchen or if I'm just bumming around. Two tracks that get a lot of play on that are songs Paul Baribeau - Ten things and Sour Grapes - I want to set you on fire. Dope Jams.
I hope my list lives up to Mobys'. I mean his had Nina Simone, Bjork and I think even one of his own albums. I feel like the only thing to could help me beat Moby would be listening to nothing just DragonForce or Anton Maiden. And I don't know if I'm willing to take that step yet. Notice that I said yet. But maybe with time I'll come up with a list that will get people all razzle dazzled.
Sunday, July 13, 2008
Wednesday, June 4, 2008
"the ride was so rough i almost threw down"
Im back! Since the last time I wrote Ive suffered a busted finger and computer crashes but I think that i have enough time write now to knock out a few things.
First:
About two months ago I picked up an awesome marble mortar and pestle for $10. Since then Ive enjoyed wonderful self-pride of grinding cumin, pepper and countless other spices. Its the kind of pride I imagine a parent has seeing their children achieve greatness. Except without the horrors of giving birth and raising a child. Maybe it more like the process of making a child, without having the child. You know what Im saying...
Anyway with the mortar and pestle Ive started to combine different spices together including:
Glazed Tempeh Sammichs
1T cumin seed
4 T sugar
2 t rosemary
2 t basil
1/2 t oregano
1 block of tempeh ( I think that it equals to about 1/4 if you get it in bulk)
Standard sandwich supplies. Keri and I used kaiser rolls, alfalfa sprouts, red lettuce, cucumbers, garlic hummus and most important thing in a vegan sandwich...veganaise.
The first step combine all the spices. If you are lucky enough to be able to grind your spices with mortar and pestel do it. Or if you have to use some sort of electronic grinder, do it. Do it like a chump I guess. Grind so that everything is as fine as the sugar.
Then slice the tempeh into three smaller blocks and then slice those threw the middle so that there are now six thin pieces of tempeh.
Next dump the spice mix onto a plate and heat some vegetable or canola oil. Then moisten the tempeh with a little water (or if you want to add a little more flavor try a vegan egg replacer) before placing the tempeh pieces into the the spice mix so that they are covered and popping them into the oil. Each side should take about three minute depending on the oil and when done should be set aside to cool and drip off any extra oil. After cooling the piece should have a light glazed look to them, this will let you know if they cooked right. If they arent glazed try adding more sugar or turning down the heat on the stove the next time.
But once all the pieces are done you can reheat them or just eat them how they are on your sandwich!
The spice mix also works great on fries/potatoes.
Thats all for now because my computer has already crashed twice. But the future does hold updates now that I have two hands to type with updates like:
lemon poppy dressing
raw (hard) cider and a bicycle powered apple crusher!
more spices
my special sauce
First:
About two months ago I picked up an awesome marble mortar and pestle for $10. Since then Ive enjoyed wonderful self-pride of grinding cumin, pepper and countless other spices. Its the kind of pride I imagine a parent has seeing their children achieve greatness. Except without the horrors of giving birth and raising a child. Maybe it more like the process of making a child, without having the child. You know what Im saying...
Anyway with the mortar and pestle Ive started to combine different spices together including:
Glazed Tempeh Sammichs
1T cumin seed
4 T sugar
2 t rosemary
2 t basil
1/2 t oregano
1 block of tempeh ( I think that it equals to about 1/4 if you get it in bulk)
Standard sandwich supplies. Keri and I used kaiser rolls, alfalfa sprouts, red lettuce, cucumbers, garlic hummus and most important thing in a vegan sandwich...veganaise.
The first step combine all the spices. If you are lucky enough to be able to grind your spices with mortar and pestel do it. Or if you have to use some sort of electronic grinder, do it. Do it like a chump I guess. Grind so that everything is as fine as the sugar.
Then slice the tempeh into three smaller blocks and then slice those threw the middle so that there are now six thin pieces of tempeh.
Next dump the spice mix onto a plate and heat some vegetable or canola oil. Then moisten the tempeh with a little water (or if you want to add a little more flavor try a vegan egg replacer) before placing the tempeh pieces into the the spice mix so that they are covered and popping them into the oil. Each side should take about three minute depending on the oil and when done should be set aside to cool and drip off any extra oil. After cooling the piece should have a light glazed look to them, this will let you know if they cooked right. If they arent glazed try adding more sugar or turning down the heat on the stove the next time.
But once all the pieces are done you can reheat them or just eat them how they are on your sandwich!
The spice mix also works great on fries/potatoes.
Thats all for now because my computer has already crashed twice. But the future does hold updates now that I have two hands to type with updates like:
lemon poppy dressing
raw (hard) cider and a bicycle powered apple crusher!
more spices
my special sauce
Monday, March 31, 2008
we're so hawt
ok its taken me awhile to get this together.... BUT
Hawt and Sour Stir Fry with noodles.
being the chump that I am I dont have a picture of this dish for two reason:
1)I got drunk tonight
2)months ago I got drunk and fucked up the screen of my camera.
So now that you knpw how I win everyday at life(google sarcasm), here is the recipe....
the Sauce:
1/4 cup vinegar. Apple cider or brown rice preferably. But any light vinegar will do. (If you think balsalmic vinegar would be ok, chance are you have no idea about the different types of vinegars and the process and history of them. I envy you.)
2 Tbl. Tomato paste
1Tbl. Lime or Lemon juice
4 Tbl. any hot sauce ( you know what tastes good to you. Though if you use minor threat hot sauce I give you the credit that my once straightedge heart could give)
2 Tbl. Bragg's or soy sauce
6Tbl. sugar
a few dashes of crushed red pepper
the stir-fry:
whatever tastes good to you. I suggest tofu, broc., red pepper, carrots and buttload of onions, garlic and ginger. + tofu
noodle:
rice or wheat noodles
First Step, boil water and cook noodles. I trust you. YOU CAN DO IT!
This is probably the simplest recipe I'll ever post because beyond what I just wrote everything is up to you. Well in the end everything is up to you because I totally support the idea of modifying any recipe I post to fit your taste and eating habits. But for this recipe just add all of the ingredient of the sauce together stir together until the sugar dissolves. Cook your stir-fry like normal. Cooking the veggie for the right time(if anyone needs to know when the right time is for a veggie let me know and ill help you.) And when you are getting that golden point add the mixture and let the sauce and veggies+ cook together for just about five minutes.
After that serve the stir-fry over the noodles and enjoy.
NOTE: depending on how you enjoy oriental food you can add a bit of corn starch to thicken the sauce. I personly like my sauce to be watery when served over noodles so its more soup like. Like all my recipes, you should modify things based off of your taste because in the end that the only thing that matters in a kitchen.
/end drunk post
What the future holds; things I hate when cooking, things I love, stories of working in the restaurant world and how I can be pumped but finallt getting a rolling pin.
Alan!Face
Hawt and Sour Stir Fry with noodles.
being the chump that I am I dont have a picture of this dish for two reason:
1)I got drunk tonight
2)months ago I got drunk and fucked up the screen of my camera.
So now that you knpw how I win everyday at life(google sarcasm), here is the recipe....
the Sauce:
1/4 cup vinegar. Apple cider or brown rice preferably. But any light vinegar will do. (If you think balsalmic vinegar would be ok, chance are you have no idea about the different types of vinegars and the process and history of them. I envy you.)
2 Tbl. Tomato paste
1Tbl. Lime or Lemon juice
4 Tbl. any hot sauce ( you know what tastes good to you. Though if you use minor threat hot sauce I give you the credit that my once straightedge heart could give)
2 Tbl. Bragg's or soy sauce
6Tbl. sugar
a few dashes of crushed red pepper
the stir-fry:
whatever tastes good to you. I suggest tofu, broc., red pepper, carrots and buttload of onions, garlic and ginger. + tofu
noodle:
rice or wheat noodles
First Step, boil water and cook noodles. I trust you. YOU CAN DO IT!
This is probably the simplest recipe I'll ever post because beyond what I just wrote everything is up to you. Well in the end everything is up to you because I totally support the idea of modifying any recipe I post to fit your taste and eating habits. But for this recipe just add all of the ingredient of the sauce together stir together until the sugar dissolves. Cook your stir-fry like normal. Cooking the veggie for the right time(if anyone needs to know when the right time is for a veggie let me know and ill help you.) And when you are getting that golden point add the mixture and let the sauce and veggies+ cook together for just about five minutes.
After that serve the stir-fry over the noodles and enjoy.
NOTE: depending on how you enjoy oriental food you can add a bit of corn starch to thicken the sauce. I personly like my sauce to be watery when served over noodles so its more soup like. Like all my recipes, you should modify things based off of your taste because in the end that the only thing that matters in a kitchen.
/end drunk post
What the future holds; things I hate when cooking, things I love, stories of working in the restaurant world and how I can be pumped but finallt getting a rolling pin.
Alan!Face
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Art Shmart.
Last week was the 1st Friday art opening for the two of the bestest people on the planet: Knitty Digital and liber(A)tion pleas(E). He's too cool for blogs. But for the opening I decided to bust out some num-nums.
first up: Roti.
Roti is an amazing flat bread that can be prepared and cooked in just about fifteen minutes. Working in an Indian restaurant and being an all around nerdball when it comes to Indian food in general I've come to realize that there are countless recipes for roti and other Indian breads. But this one seems to be the easiest, cheapest and tastiest.
Ingredients:
1 Cup Flour
1/2 tsp. Salt
1/2 tsp. Oil
3 Tbl. Soymilk
(optional spices depending on your taste. In this batch I used used garam masala, tumeric, fennel seeds and freshly minced garlic that I added right before cooking.)
Start off by adding and mixing together all the dry ingredients together in a bowl. Next slowly add the soymilk and mixing every together by hand until the ball of dough if moist but dry enough to work with. A good test for this is when all of the flour is saturated by the soymilk you can grab the the dough and it doesn't stick to your hand you are good. After getting it together in the bowl, work the dough a bit just to get any extra air out of the bread on a cutting board. Next tear of a piece of the dough and roll it into a ball somewhere between the size of a golf ball and a large jawbreaker. Like the kind used by Rose McGowan to kill her high school friend in that movie, the name escapes me right now. Or maybe the size of a Blake Schwarzenbach's heart. Once you get the ball rolled smush it down on to a flat surface with a bit of flour on it and roll it out until it's about as thick as a nickle. Then on either a nonstick skillet or frying pan begin to cook the roti on a middle heat, flipping it over often so it wont burn. Cook the roti until it begins to become a nice golden brown color and starts to bubble. The bubbling just means that the roti will be light and to a degree fluffy which is prefect.
If you wish you can rub some earthbalance on it to give a buttered flavor. Then cut it and serve with your favorite curry dish or sauces.
Now just repeat everything until the dough is gone. This recipe should make about three rotis.
and the dessert to end all desserts:
MINI GREEN AND BLACK PIES!
Green and Black Pies are probably the only reason why people have stayed my friend for as long as they have. I'm okay with that. First conceived in the kitchen of the Knitter and Butcher, has taken over most of the eastern half of this counry.
Ingredients:
the crust
a pack of Graham Cracker(or nine whole crackers.)
6 Tbl. canola oil or melted earth balance
the filling
3 avocados
2 cups semi-sweet vegan chocolate chips
1/8 cup of brown sugar
1/8 cup soymilk
1 Tbl. orange juice
a fruit topping of your choice.
cupcake wrappers.
First off to make the crust is simple just toss the crackers into a food processor and grind them up on their own. Then add the oil and blend it with the crackers until they have become a good mush. Depending on the type of crackers used you may need to add or reduce the amount of oil. Once they are blended together, spoon bit of the crust mush into the cupcake wrappers. Just enough to cover bottom of the wrapper when pressed down to flatten the oily mush. Hungry yet? Now you have two options: bake or dont bake. Baking makes the crust crispy. Not baking means that the crust will stay moist and wont crumble apart when you eat it.
Now the filling. Start by smashing up the avocados so that they are real smooth. Next melt the chocolate. You can be fancy and melt it with a double boiler OR you can be a lazy good for nothing like me you can microwave melt the chocolate! I hate microwaving things and reheating in general but its the fastest way to get the chocolate melted. So if you want to be lazy just toss the chocolate into a microwave safe bowl with just about a cup of water for three minutes and then stir it up, and nuke it again if needed, until its nice and smooth. Then add the chocolate to the avocados and then add the rest of the ingredients to the mixture while stirring well. Then spoon the filling onto the crust and add the fruit topping before putting the mini cakes in the frig or freezer so that the filling will set.
This should make about 30 mini pies. If you aren't into the whole mini thing you can use this recipe to make one whole normal pie. But normal is way lame compared to mini.
Next update: Hot and Sour Stir fry with noodles!
alan!face
first up: Roti.
Roti is an amazing flat bread that can be prepared and cooked in just about fifteen minutes. Working in an Indian restaurant and being an all around nerdball when it comes to Indian food in general I've come to realize that there are countless recipes for roti and other Indian breads. But this one seems to be the easiest, cheapest and tastiest.
Ingredients:
1 Cup Flour
1/2 tsp. Salt
1/2 tsp. Oil
3 Tbl. Soymilk
(optional spices depending on your taste. In this batch I used used garam masala, tumeric, fennel seeds and freshly minced garlic that I added right before cooking.)
Start off by adding and mixing together all the dry ingredients together in a bowl. Next slowly add the soymilk and mixing every together by hand until the ball of dough if moist but dry enough to work with. A good test for this is when all of the flour is saturated by the soymilk you can grab the the dough and it doesn't stick to your hand you are good. After getting it together in the bowl, work the dough a bit just to get any extra air out of the bread on a cutting board. Next tear of a piece of the dough and roll it into a ball somewhere between the size of a golf ball and a large jawbreaker. Like the kind used by Rose McGowan to kill her high school friend in that movie, the name escapes me right now. Or maybe the size of a Blake Schwarzenbach's heart. Once you get the ball rolled smush it down on to a flat surface with a bit of flour on it and roll it out until it's about as thick as a nickle. Then on either a nonstick skillet or frying pan begin to cook the roti on a middle heat, flipping it over often so it wont burn. Cook the roti until it begins to become a nice golden brown color and starts to bubble. The bubbling just means that the roti will be light and to a degree fluffy which is prefect.
If you wish you can rub some earthbalance on it to give a buttered flavor. Then cut it and serve with your favorite curry dish or sauces.
Now just repeat everything until the dough is gone. This recipe should make about three rotis.
and the dessert to end all desserts:
MINI GREEN AND BLACK PIES!
Green and Black Pies are probably the only reason why people have stayed my friend for as long as they have. I'm okay with that. First conceived in the kitchen of the Knitter and Butcher, has taken over most of the eastern half of this counry.
Ingredients:
the crust
a pack of Graham Cracker(or nine whole crackers.)
6 Tbl. canola oil or melted earth balance
the filling
3 avocados
2 cups semi-sweet vegan chocolate chips
1/8 cup of brown sugar
1/8 cup soymilk
1 Tbl. orange juice
a fruit topping of your choice.
cupcake wrappers.
First off to make the crust is simple just toss the crackers into a food processor and grind them up on their own. Then add the oil and blend it with the crackers until they have become a good mush. Depending on the type of crackers used you may need to add or reduce the amount of oil. Once they are blended together, spoon bit of the crust mush into the cupcake wrappers. Just enough to cover bottom of the wrapper when pressed down to flatten the oily mush. Hungry yet? Now you have two options: bake or dont bake. Baking makes the crust crispy. Not baking means that the crust will stay moist and wont crumble apart when you eat it.
Now the filling. Start by smashing up the avocados so that they are real smooth. Next melt the chocolate. You can be fancy and melt it with a double boiler OR you can be a lazy good for nothing like me you can microwave melt the chocolate! I hate microwaving things and reheating in general but its the fastest way to get the chocolate melted. So if you want to be lazy just toss the chocolate into a microwave safe bowl with just about a cup of water for three minutes and then stir it up, and nuke it again if needed, until its nice and smooth. Then add the chocolate to the avocados and then add the rest of the ingredients to the mixture while stirring well. Then spoon the filling onto the crust and add the fruit topping before putting the mini cakes in the frig or freezer so that the filling will set.
This should make about 30 mini pies. If you aren't into the whole mini thing you can use this recipe to make one whole normal pie. But normal is way lame compared to mini.
Next update: Hot and Sour Stir fry with noodles!
alan!face
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
