Will you still love me? Chocolate Pancakes and Chocolate & Strawberry Tamales.
http://www.manifestvegan.com/2011/02/triple-chocolate-pancakes/ If I tell you that our chocolate pancakes are an adaptation of Manifest Vegans Triple Chocolate Pancakes recipe, will you still love us? Well it’s true. In fact Manifest Vegan is about the most awesome gluten-free vegan sight going, especially when it comes to gluten free vegan baked goods. I’m looking forward to baking some gluten-free vegan scones in March (blueberries might be in season by then) and now Allyson Kramer has a cook book. I want it. I want it. I want it. Go get on the waiting list now. The link is on the bottom right of her homepage. http://www.manifestvegan.com/ Some tips about this recipe: a. It may need more sorghum flour and/or chocolate from time to time. b. We use almond milk only, we have had problems with soy. c. Curdle the milk with the vinegar. Give it time and look for a change in the texture. d. A dash of Xanthan Gum can help them stick together. e. Since Jade started praying over the pancakes they have come out perfectly without xanthan gum. I’m just saying. f.It should taste like chocolate cake batter. Belated Tamales D”Amour recipe: At any rate an original recipe is here required. I can’t just repost Manifest Vegan. You work too hard for that. You deserve better. One Chocolate and one Strawberry Tamale Chocolate Tamales 1 8-ounce package dried corn husks 3 1/2 cups dried masa harina for tamales 2 1/4 cups hot water ½ cup hot coffee 2 T. Mexican Vanilla 9 ounces Mexican chocolate, chopped 1 1/3 cups Canola Oil 1/3 cup sugar 1 teaspoon salt 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder 1 cup coconut milk or water 2/3 cup semisweet chocolate chunks Preparation Soak the Corn Husks in Water for at least an hour Put water on to boil. As it boils start assembling the other ingredients. Grind the Mexican Chocolate into a powder. Use a food processor or a big knife but don’t cut yourself. When the water is boiling put the dry masa into a mixing bowl and turn it on medium speed. Slowly pour the hot water into the spinning dry masa. Hot liquids help to make the tamales fluffy. Add the coffee and the vanilla as well. Mix this together until it is completely dissolved and there is no dry masa. You may have to stop and scrape the bowl. Once all of this is integrated add all of the other ingredients except the chocolate chips and mix very thoroughly. this may take five minutes or so and you may have to scrape the bowl. The masa should be fluffy and sweet. If it tastes good before it’s cooked it will taste good after its cooked! If not add more chocolate or coconut milk or sugar as needed. Fold in the chocolate chips after you have taken the Masa out of the mixer. Strawberry Tamales 1 3/4 cups hot water 3 cup white corn masa harina 1 cup vegan sugar 1 1/2 cups Pureed fresh organic local strawberries 3/4 cup Canola Oil 1 T. fresh lemon juice 1 T. Vanilla 1 t. sea salt 1/2 t. Baking Powder Prepare the masa just as you would with the chocolate tamales, starting with the dry masa in the mixer, mixing. Pour the hot water slowly into the masa and mix until total integration occurs. Then you can add everything else and mix some again until total integration ( about 5 minutes) Rolling and Steaming Tamales If you have a big enough table lay out all of your soaked corn husks at once. If not, lay out as many Corn husks as you have room. Place a dollop of chocolate masa batter in each corn husk. Now is the part where you can get creative. First shape the masa into big tootsie rolls. Next press nuts, peppers, candy or fruit onto the masa to decorate it. Leave a ½ inch gap between the straight edge of the corn husk and the tamale. Give yourself enough room at the pointier end of the corn husk for the end to fold over and secure the tamale. Roll the tamale in the corn husk to form a tube. Flap the smaller end of the husk over to form a bottom. Lay the tamale down so it lies on the flap and does not unravel. Wrap several tamales in foil packs or just set them in a tamale pot or a steamer with plenty of water in the bottom, coming up to the perforations in the steaming plate. Try to arrange the tamales in the pot so that there is plenty of room in between them for steam to circulate. Place a towel or two on top of the tamales. Cover the tamales and steam for 30 to 45 minutes. The Sauce A balsamic reduction is an old catering trick, which is chef code for fast and easy solution. 1/4 Cup Sugar or Agave Nectar 1/4 -1/2 Cup Balsamic Vinegar Melt together in a sauce pan on low heat until the sugar disolves completely and you have a glaze. For thick glaze add less vinegar. 1 cup Strawberries I like to marinate large chunks of strawberries in glaze for about an hour if I can. Viola, Glaze!
Spinach and Corn Tamale Recipe
I can’t tell you how many people have asked me for this recipe. These tamales freeze very well and can be microwaved or steamed back to life. Maybe one day I’ll show you how to make a genuine Barrio steamer, but thats a whole ‘nother blog. You asked for it. You got it: Green Tamales These tamales are vegan and gluten free. Minutes to Prepare: 30 Minutes to Cook: 45 Number of Servings: 13 Ingredients: Masa 2 Cups Masa 1/3 cup chopped Zucchini, Spinach and Jalapeno 2 Cups piping hot Vegetable Stock 1/2 Cup Oil 3/4 tsp. Baking Powder 1 tsp Sea Salt Filling 2 Cups Frozen Corn 1/8 Cup Raw Onion 2 Tbls. Red Bell Pepper 2 Tbls. Masa 13-15 Corn husks soaking in water Directions 1. Blend all of your “green” ingredients (zucchini, spinach and pepper) in a high speed mixer. Blend less if you like more speckles. Set this aside. You will be in my belly 2. Now Blend about three quarters of your corn with the onion and bell pepper in the blender or food processor. When it looks like a thick paste throw into a bowl and add the rest of the corn to it. If you don’t want whole kernals of corn then grind it all up. Add your Tablespoons of masa to firm it up. Set that aside. 3. Put all of your masa to a mixer and start it to mixing on the slowest setting. Add piping hot vegetable stock. Mix until all is integrated. You may also do this by hand. Add the green vegetable mixture with the salt and baking powder. Integrate completely then add the oil. Mix for 3 minutes. Now that your Masa and your filling are done, you are ready to make your tamales Flatten the masa with your wet hand 4. Place about a third of a cup of masa on each leaf. Choose nice big leafs for easier handling. Shape the corn filling into a horizontal line following the grain of the corn leaf 5. Spoon about two heaping tablespoons worth of the corn mixture on to the masa rectangle and make a large “rope” going down the middle of the tamale lenthwise. Wrap the leaves around the corn filling to where the masa meets itself and fully encloses the filling 6. Pull the cornhusks together so that the masa meets itself and covers up the corn. Roll the husk around and fold it on the bottom end to keep the stuff in as it steams. 7. Place all of your tamales in a steamer, preferable with their open ends up. Steam on high for at least 45 minutes. That’s it.
Yes Prep helps Radical Eats with our garden
We’d like to thank all the kids from Yes Prep for helping us with our garden building. It’s a lot of work painting, watering and getting dirty.
Now hiring a radical line chef – we want YOU!
Are you passionate about tasty noms? Love serving awesome people Mexican, vegetarian and pass-out-with-amazingness food? Think cooking local is the best thing ever? Have an amazing sense of humor and like impromptu James Brown dance parties? We want you!!! Radical Eats is hiring a line chef to help rock out our growing Houston restaurant dinner service. Our fare is vegetarian Mexican food made from local produce and a lotta’ love — and boy is it bad ass. At least that’s what folks tell us What are we looking for? The most important things we look for in a new kitchen addition: great attitude, reliability and passion for food. We love what we do and want to work with people that feel the same way. Our community, customers and employees rock!!! Never cooked vegetarian / vegan before? Have experience bartending, but never spent much time in a professional in a kitchen? If you’ve got the heart and passion, we just might have a job for you. How to apply to work at Radical Eats Stop by in-person at our Radical Eats restaurant (3903 Fulton) between 3-5pm Wednesdays – Fridays to chat with head radical Staci. She’s cool, you’ll dig her and maybe she’ll dig you too!!! Have questions before then? Call us at (713) 697-8719! Can’t wait to meet you. >>> Rockin’ chef tattoo photo thanks to Flickr user micmol
Support our Kickstarter project, help us blossom
We’ve been open over a month and a half now – and BOY what a ride it’s been. Our inaugural vegan brunch went down last Sunday (check out Joel’s wrap up post on CultureMap – you are too good to us, sir) and our fantastic crowd of brunch-ers cleaned out our kitchen. Woo! We made some changes in our hours, our garden is blossoming and we see more and more new faces everyday. Life is good. Support our vegan restaurant Kickstarter project! But you know what makes life even better? Your love, support and help promoting our Radical Eats Beer and Wine Garden project on Kickstarter. Our goal is to raise $8000 to help make our little restaurant even better for you by building a covered patio amidst our blooming garden, buying a beer and wine license and getting a water filtration system. And Kickstarter makes it fun to donate, giving us the opportunity to offer cool prizes for each donation level – from a handwritten thank you card to limited edition t-shirts to hand thrown stoneware Radical Eats mugs to having a dish named after you. We even have a ‘Radical Eater Club’ for pledges of $100 or more that gives you $10 off a meal every month for an entire year – it’s like we’re paying you! Support us on Kickstarter and pick out your own goodies! Why raise money through Kickstarter? So this funding method isn’t exactly the norm in the restaurant industry, but then again neither are we. We’ve built this restaurant with the help of our friends and neighbors and will continue to grow it for them too – we’re changing the way people eat and supporting local farmers in the process. And that takes a community. Kickstarter is all about funding creative projects that improve the community by gathering the energy and support of a large group of like-minded people. (from their website) We believe that: • A good idea, communicated well, can spread fast and wide. • A large group of people can be a tremendous source of money and encouragement. We felt like it was a perfect fit – help us raise the money we need for improvements, be a true part of the process and have fun doing it. Your support, encouragement and hungry bellies have been an absolute blessing to us – we wouldn’t be here without you. Let’s toast your awesomeness over mimosas next Sunday at brunch!
Radical new hours and Sunday vegan brunch!!!!
We’ve had an absolutely breathtakingly awesome handful of weeks at our new location on 3903 Fulton St. – and it’s all thanks to YOU!!! No really – you rock. Your feedback is super important to us, so we’ve taken some of your suggestions and are switching up our business hours AND!!!! <drum roll please> launching our Sunday Vegan Brunch on Sunday, August 14th from 11am to 3pm. Brunch is $13, all you can eat . The awesomeness of this brunch experience simply cannot be overstated – you’ll leave full, happy and loving life even more. So without further ado, our brand new Radical Eats restaurant hours (effective next week): Monday : CLOSED Tuesday - Saturday: 11am – 9:30pm Sunday Sunday Sunday!!: Brunch buffet 11am – 3pm Questions? Want to host an event with us? Dying to re-stock your freezer full of hurricane emergency tamales? Call us at: (713) 697-8719, fill out a contact form and fan us on Facebook!
Radical Eats is obsessed with Cucumbers and Squash
What we are doing is perfectly legal. Take a Sugarland farmer with a bumpercrop of cucumbers and an industrious vegan kitchen and what do you get? A pickle business! There are two kinds of pickles you see, the kind you put up and the kind you refrigerate. Put up pickles can be put in the pantry where refrigerator pickles have to stay cold. There are advantages to both say I. Put up pickles will last through the apocolypse and the canabalistic zomboid take-over that will inevitably follow, and refrigerator pickles will only be good for about a week after the power goes out. (The Revolution will not be Frionized) However, refrigerator pickles are crisper and taste fresher hands down. But Pickling isn’t just about cucumbers; it’s about bumper crops. What to do when you have too much of something beautiful that’s about to go bad. Like the brain of a mad scientist or a beloved pet you would want to preserve it in a jar. Think cauliflower, beets, okra, squash. The possibilities are mind-boggling. I once had some eggplant caponata that was put up in Sardenia. It was heaven. I want to take you there. Texas Style. Pictures to follow
Radical Eats restaurant grand opening July 3rd!
Join your favorite new Houston vegetarian restaurant, Radical Eats, at our new location in the Heights: 3903 Fulton St We’re celebrating our grand opening on July 3rd with a seed planting in our garden from 3-7pm, then our Cafe Opening party from 7-10pm with free tamales, chili relleno and aguas frescas! We’ll start rocking our regular Radical Eats Cafe hours on Tuseday July 5th from 10am to 9pm. Follow us on Twitter and Facebook for up-to-the-minute details!
Black Irish white bean soup
Soup made with: Onion, Carrot, Celery, Navy Beans, Good Homemade Stock, Potatoes, Kale, Bell Peppers, Silk Soy Creamer, Garlic, Garden Herbs, Sea Salt, Pepper, Paprika.
