Tempeh!

My post on Friday alluded to our dinner Friday night, Tempeh au Vin. Well, the outcome was excellent. Granted I can't compare it to Coq a Vin since I doubt I've ever had it (although The Pedant can address it; his comments about the time he had it in France always include the words "so tasty," "really great," "amazing") but this was good. I mean, how could it not be?! The recipe was pretty simple:

Saute 3 leeks and 2 onions chunked in some EVOO. Let them get brown and delicious looking. Add in 1 lb. mushrooms halved, let them get tasty looking. Add in carrot slices, some flour, 4 smokey tempeh strips (we used Light Life Bacon which didn't add as much as it could have - next time we may just use liquid smoke) and 8 oz cubed tempeh. Then pour in some water and a bottle of beaujolais (good thing we can get some for under $10 at costco!) and let it cook for a while getting yummy. The recipe calls for spelt berries (since it's a hippie mag) but we substituted egg noodles. It was just wonderful. Also, I felt justified using our (expensive, but worth it) french oven.

Yet another winner from the Vegetarian Times!

Do You Drink the Muffin Drink?

Since the news today is filled with cows attacking bears and the McCain campaign's baseless slurs against Dungeons and Dragons, I thought it would be a good idea for a similarly frivolous post, based on a prior conversation I had with the Sherbs.

How do you make a mixed drink that tastes like a muffin?

We have some cheap blackberry wine (as mentioned before, purchased at a sale at the Teet), and I think with Cointreau, vodka, and a butterscotch schnapps in the right quantities, it can approach muffin-tasting (I think it would be better with blueberries, but the Sherbs doesn't like blueberries).

With bourbon and blackcurrant liquor, you might be able to approach "raisin bran." Or create something vomitrocious (a neologism that I find not as good, but more useful, than my new favorite non-word "baconostalgia"; furthermore, it turns out that I didn't invent it; "vomitrocious" has been used in such cultural touchstones as an episode of Arthur, the PBS cartoon about an aardvark that does not look at all like an aardvark).

"Chocolate muffins" are actually cupcakes, and so those suggesting Godiva liqueur recipes should take note. Vermeer is better for most mixed drinks, anyway; it's like the Cocio of chocolate booze.

Man, I wish I knew of a place that sold Cocio around here. It's not only better than Nesquick and Yoo-hoo (not hard, especially since Yoo-hoo is one step removed from the weird marsupial-equivalent-in-evolution beverage that is Ovaltine), but from the stuff you make at home with chocolate syrup. It is tasty-riffic.

Brunch 2: The Brunchening

Yesterday the Sherbs and I made brunch for about ten people. Our menu, revealed now that the guests are no longer surprised by our cooking ability:

1) Mini Fritatta from our super-difficult vegetarian cookbook. This recipe puts sauteed leeks and cubed sweet potato into an egg/feta mixture, then bakes them in muffin tins. They were crumbly, but delicious.

2) Shakshouka from the Sherbs's personal recipe.

3) Egg salad with caramelized onions, also from the Sherbs.

4) The corn, snap peas, pepper, and dill salad from the diet blog that had done so well for us in the past.

5) Home-made pita chips (whole wheat pita) coated with a little bit of olive oil and zatar, then baked. Served with store bought hummus and babaganouj, and home-made lima bean dip.

6) Fruity couscous from a Weight Watcher's cookbook. You can put in three times as much orange juice as the recipe requires and it will turn out OK.

7) Fruit salad.

Other people brought desserts, including some delectable lemon squares, and delicious fun was had by all. Today the Sherbs and I had Brunch 2, where we ate the leftovers; the mini fritatta went quite well with two strips of Morningstar fake bacon and slices of toasted blueberry breakfast bread spread with Smart Balance "spread."

Pumpkin Failures

Last night the Sherbs and I were at Aroma in Shirlington again, sort of with regards to my birthday (my parents were there and gifted us with a cordless variable-speed drill). I strongly recommend the crispy okra and the malai kofta for vegetarians, and the vindaloo is amazing for the non-vegetarians.

In food failure news, blog The Bacon Show provides a recipe claiming to be "silverbeet with bacon, pumpkin, and feta." You will have to convince me that bacon, pumpkin, and feta are complementary flavors. Bacon/feta sounds like failure. Pumpkin/feta sounds like failure. Just serve beet salad with feta as one dish, and then have a separate bacon/pumpkin dish like bacon pumpkin pie or a bacon-riffic pumpkin soup.

Most Delicious Treif Cocktail Ever!

The bacon-infused Old Fashioned.

For more mixed-drink variety, you can always make bacon-infused vodka.

Bacon-laced Film Review

First things first - this man makes his bacon-burger (with cheese and extra bacon, not to mention bacon-infused mustard) all wrong. He should add an egg and possibly breadcrumbs to the bacon patty to bind it together; that's why he's getting bacon hash. Also, if he used a George Foreman grill, he'd probably be able to make a thicker patty while still sufficiently cooking the inside (it goes without saying that the author likely does not have access to a salamander).

Next, I will briefly review the movies I saw over the Christmas break:

SUPERBAD: Michael Cera and Jonah Hill have great "odd couple" chemistry. They and Christopher Mintz-Platz could be in basically any movie and I would see it. Even an Olsen Twins film...although I hesitate to think what the plot of that would be.

JUNO: Michael Cera is on his way to being typecast. As is Jason Bateman, playing the same part as in Smoking Aces but without the herpes sores (at least he doesn't play Michael Cera's dad again). Regardless, this is a beautiful film about tough choices and how the leader of the white supremacist gang in Oz makes a good father.

CHARLIE WILSON'S WAR: If you can understand how a political deal is structured merely by hearing that someone is a member of a certain Congressional committee, Aaron Sorkin's charming political film is for you. I was hoping to learn some real political skills from this film, but all I gathered was that Rep. Wilson was in the right place at the right time, and was brilliant despite drinking all the time. Still, Philip Seymour Hoffman steals the show as a cantankerous spy.

MEAN GIRLS: Fun and smart, but a little too didactic for me. Cruel Intentions, which had less of a real-world dynamic but was based on a fabulous piece of French literature, was more viscerally satisfying, but Tina Fey seemed not to want to really push anyone in front of a bus; instead everything works out for the best for all.

Better or worse than Dr. Pepper foods? You be the judge.

I saw in the Washington Post's free newspaper, the Express, that a company called Vosges is selling a milk chocolate and bacon candy bar.

There are two people whom this candy bar brings to mind:

1. Rachael Ray, who puts applewood-smoked bacon in everything, and
2. a friend of mine who likes to tweak people with restricted diets. In front of me, he tries to pile up the various kinds of treif (although he doesn't like shellfish), and in front of another friend with a peanut allergy, he eats Reese's Pieces and other peanut products.

I'm not sure whether this will be tasty or not. I do know I'd probably prefer it with dark chocolate.

More on Krispy Kremeburgers

So, after last night's post about the amazing wheat doughnut, and its possibilities as a bun for hamburgers, I lay in bed thinking about how to try to make the whole concept palatable to the Sherbs, who is right now ill and not thinking very much about food, but even on the best of days does not appreciate a food for pure decadence.

Or foods involving suet, for that matter. (Thank you Emeril for having an example of something the Sherbs would never, ever eat).

Anyway, I was thinking about the bacon-cheeseburger on a whole wheat Krispy Kreme, and I thought - maybe I can make it a veggie bacon cheeseburger! I know Morningstar Farms has a tasty veggie burger (and, in fact, they have one in cheddar flavor if you don't want to add cheese) and also makes veggie bacon.

If you don't use the cheddar-flavored burger, you'd need to use American cheese, as real cheese will fight with the flavor of the doughnut glaze.

As for other toppings, I'm wrought. I like my burgers with onion, tomato, and condiments, but I don't know how they'd go with wheat doughnuts. Maybe Heinz 57 sauce would work - it's like ketchup, but with garlic powder and more raisins.

Well, now I'm hungry.

Starch n' Mayo - The Possibilities

Sherbs and I had a party today, and included in the prefab party platters we got (we were kinda lazy, unlike the last time, where we ended up baking for a half hour after the guests came and I was burning my fingers on mini pizza bagels - such delicious pain) were bowls of macaroni salad.

"Macaroni salad," in this instance, meaning elbow macaroni, shredded carrots, and mayonnaise. It was fair; a better than industrial mayo would have put it into the "almost good" category.

Still, at its best, it was British food bland. I initially suggested to improve it to add red onions and olives, but the Sherbs, she does not love the olives.

So, instead, I think we should start from scratch with the macaroni salad, and make it more like a German potato salad. Not the Oscar Meyer kind, which is all vinegar and bacon (although Bobby Flay's version of the same, with a smoky meat substitute instead of the bacon, added at the end, might be okay), but the sauce in the version I found on Chow.com, which has mustard, is more what I'm looking for.

Evidently, all German potato salad recipes on the 'net have bacon. I buy mine from the supermarket, and they don't put it in there, possibly so that Jews and Muslims can share in the Teutonic salady goodness.

So, anyway, other than the bacon, that's what I'd mix with the macaroni - a mustard/vinegar mixture with red onions and green onions. If we needed texture, I'd also add sweet bell pepper bits, I think.