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