Daily food for thought + other stuff 01/15/2010
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Daily food for thought + other stuff 01/06/2010
Ceramic mug masterpieces and… rubber baby spoons??
One of the best things about living with a clay nerd is the wide variety of ceramic pieces that have found their way into our house – bowls, plates, soup tureens and… mugs. Glorious lovely whimsical mugs.
This works well especially during the cold-ish winter months (Houston gets chilly, but never quite frigid as in other cities I’ve endured winter in) where we consume hot… well, everything… in mass quantities.
The cool thing about collecting beautiful cups is that you don’t have to be an artist (or live with one) to have a nice collection – head to your nearest art school ceramic department sale or local craft center market (or, if you’re a hermit head over to Etsy). This basic vessel is guaranteed to be there and will set you back FAR less than buying a larger piece from even a more established artist.
You’ll walk away with a functional piece of art having supported a starving artist and looking pretty cool at your next after-dinner coffee time.
One side effect of having mugs and cups that we ADORE is the pain of hearing the ‘clink-clink-CLINK’ of swirling spoon on ceramic. Adam’s ingenious solution: soft tip baby spoons!
Pure genius, although we probably do look a bit silly to guests whipping out the multi-colored infant feeding devices when serving our delicious French pressed almond amaretto coffee. Whatever…. 
What do you eat to kick a new year off?
Happy 2010, hungry readers!
Come New Year’s Day, many of us find ourselves preparing ‘lucky’ food and traditional dishes you may never even think of the remaining 364 days. Even the least superstitious Texan won’t go past January 1st without some black eyed peas and maybe some ham shank (a phenomena not limited to this fair state, of course).
But to be honest, I could give a diddle about black eyed peas. They taste like dirt to me and I am in a serious state of denial that chewing those beasties could possibly help pave a fantastic year ahead. Blech.
Instead, let’s talk about my annual all-white feast (no racial implications here, folks, just the literal color of the food) also known as ‘New Year’s Day Katie Eats 6 Bowls of Mashed Potatoes Dinner’: pork chops (or roast pork loin if you prefer), mashed potatoes of some variety, sauerkraut and apple sauce. My parents hail from Pittsburgh, PA and this is pretty standard Northern US new year’s fare (what with the massive German populations and all).
Of course, we keep things pretty vegan-y around here so this year I wanted to get to eat my faves but not gross any other family members out. Here’s what I came up with instead:
Chickpea patties (baked and a bit crunchy) from Veganomicon
I realized I wouldn’t be able to come up with a believable pork substitute so took it in a more chicken fried steak-y direction. It worked. Oh man, it really worked. Next time, I’ll make smaller patties and smash them a bit flatter / thinner to even better emulate my beloved gigantor ‘bigger than your whole damn plate’ Texan chicken fried steak.
Horseradish mashed potatoes
I’m a bit of a potato freak… I’m Irish, what do you want? So mashed potatoes are really important to me, but are also one of the easiest sides I whip up.
I don’t peel my potatoes (too much work and darnit, I love the extra texture and extra vitamins), instead just do a good rinse and boil them in salted water.
Once they are super easy to pierce with a fork, I drain them (saving a bit of the potato water), put them back in the pot with reserve potato water, throw in a moderate amount of Earth Balance buttery spread, some vegan Tofutti sour cream or cream cheese (if we have any and if I feel like it) and then top it off with around 3/4 of a jar of horseradish (not the sauce, just plain horseradish), some finely minced garlic and a bit of sea salt. Voila. Potato-y perfection.
Glorious brown gravy (vegan and gluten free)
Let me preface this by saying that I’m not a huge gravy girl. In Texas, everything seems to be smothered in that gray, black pepper flaked cream gravy that sits in your belly like a 5 pound boulder. I’ll go for a splash of brown gravy any day over that stuff (although having said that, I did have a raving breakfast success with vegan biscuits and gravy a few months back).
I based my gravy on this brown gravy recipe, which uses chickpea flour instead of white flour to make a beautiful roux (which is always fun because I like getting into that constant stirring zone and think about life, cupcakes and what’s going to happen next in Season 5 of Lost on Netflix). Words cannot describe how heartily we enjoyed this gravy. It’s like we could’ve left the rest of the meal out and just eaten it with a spoon and been just as satiated.
Cheater sauerkraut and apple sauce (don’t judge)
I took the easy route and bought jarred sauerkraut and apple sauce this year. I must say that I dig REALLY pungent sauerkraut and wasn’t satisfied with the grocery store offerings, so I added quite a bit of apple cider vinegar to the ‘kraut as I was heating it on the stove. I was nervous that it would be too sweet, but try to use white vinegar for cleaning only these days. My fears were unfounded, it was delish.
So what are your new year’s food observances? PB+J at the stroke of 12:01am? Pizza with anchovies? A bowl full of Life cereal?
Daily food for thought + other stuff 12/24/2009
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Another Challenge for Ethical Eating – Plants Want to Live, Too – NYTimes.com
Just because we humans can’t hear them doesn’t mean plants don’t howl. Some of the compounds that plants generate in response to insect mastication — their feedback, you might say — are volatile chemicals that serve as cries for help. Such airborne alarm calls have been shown to attract both large predatory insects like dragon flies, which delight in caterpillar meat, and tiny parasitic insects, which can infect a caterpillar and destroy it from within.
Enemies of the plant’s enemies are not the only ones to tune into the emergency broadcast. “Some of these cues, some of these volatiles that are released when a focal plant is damaged,” said Richard Karban of the University of California, Davis, “cause other plants of the same species, or even of another species, to likewise become more resistant to herbivores.”
Yes, it’s best to nip trouble in the bud.
Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.
Across the table: Bananas Foster in NOLA, baby
Bananas Foster as prepared by a master at Emeril’s Delmonico from happykatie on Vimeo.
More posts to come on a foodie blogger experience in New Orleans with Harrah’s NOLA – but I wanted to share a bit of ‘at the table cooking fun’ at Emeril’s Delmonico restaurant.
Have you tried making Banana’s Foster before? It’s really not hard at all (in fact, here is the Brennan’s Restaurant recipe – the creators of the dish – and… Alton Brown’s recipe too if you must have a variation) – but the tableside prep with FIRE is fun and .
But then again, I get excited having servers make Caesar salad and guacamole at the table (just as I love being in the kitchen watching chefs do their thing) so there’s that. Easily amused much? Yes. Particularly amused by setting food on fire indoors just feet away from customers? Double yes.
Daily food for thought + other stuff 12/12/2009
Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.
Daily food for thought + other stuff 12/09/2009
Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.
Foodie on the Internet: Foodgawker
An essential part of my love and devotion to all things edible is more on a visual level than any other sensory experience. Fresh produce is gorgeous. Cooked dishes and baked goods are lovely. I am FAR more likely to attempt a tricky recipe if there’s a photo accompanying it just on the fact that I like the visual throwdown (see my ‘how to create food porn’ post here).
So this recipe / photo food collective site is PERFECT in this respect – skip obsessing over the cuisine, calorie count and ingredients — sometimes you just plain want to stimulate your belly through your eyeballs.
Foodie site: Foodgawker (www.foodgawker.com)
Good for: Scrolling through thousands of scrumptious food photos with links to the source
Daily food for thought + other stuff 11/29/2009
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Recipe – Roasted Sweet Potato Salad With Black Beans and Chili Dressing – NYTimes.com
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The Pioneer Woman Cooks: hot crash potatoes
We’ve been making our own variations of these, calling them hot smashed potatoes. Funny that others have a similar name – or maybe not and I’m just that easily amused
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Bizcochitos? Biscochitos? – The Santa Fe New Mexican
A favorite kind of cookie in our family, here is a recipe akin to Adam’s New Mexican grandmother’s recipe.
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Artichoke and Spinach Dip Recipe : Emeril Lagasse
I based my Thanksgiving appetizer spinach and artichoke dip on this one – my version turned out beautifully with way more spinach, onions and marinated artichokes. Delicious.
Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.
