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!
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.
Vegan pozole rojo – fun with hominy
Pozole is like chili with hominy. Although it’s made throughout Mexico, I think of it as a Native American (Indian) dish. We opt to make it with the most exotic sounding ingredients we can like avocado leaves and such. It makes us feel very fancy and we get to talk to the nice ladies at the Latino produce market who have given me lot’s of tips and recipes over the years. Pozole is traditionally made around Christmas time. It requires a ton of different chilis pulverized into a paste using a morter and pestle, chilis like guajillo, ancho and chili de arbol. Pozole can be made white (blanco), green (verde), red (rojo) with beans (de frijole) or with corn and squash (elopozole). Hominy is made by a process called nixtamalization. Traditionally this meant soaking corn in lye until the hull is gone and the germ is left. Nowadays limewater is used (calcium hydroxide). This is the same process used to make tamale masa so now you know that tamales are essentially made with dried ground hominy. I’ll tell you another little tidbit. Achiote is a strange little tree/shrub that grows like a weed all over the southwest straight through to South America. I first encountered it in the Ecuadorean rainforest (I know that sounds exotic doesn’t it) where the natives use it to dye their hair.It wasn’t til I returned to the states that I realized it’s culinary uses. Achiote is the same thing as annato which is the dye used to make cheddar cheese orange. I use this to to give the Pozole a rich color. This is a good tip for a vibrant chili as well. Another thing we do with the Pozole is a little pork substitution using Shitake mushroom stems. We shred the stems so that they look like shredded pork and then we soak them in a little liquid smoke (which is actually a natural thing. They basically just condense water in a smoker and viola, liquid smoke). This is a labor intensive ordeal but we think it’s worth it. I first got the idea to make Pozole from a cookbook I bought at the American Indian museum in DC where I also puchased some dried blue hominy which really ups the fancy factor. I think next time I’ll make a Pozole blanco — and so should you! Recipe: Vegan pozole blanco Summary: Embrace your inner pozole lover with this hearty, vegan meal Ingredients 4 Guajillo Chillis, rehydrated 5 Chilis de Arbol, rehydrated 2 Ancho Chilis, rehydrated 1 lb dried hominy, soaking in water 2 onions, diced 1 head of Garlic, cleaned 2 Avocado Leaves 2 T. dried Oregano 1 T. Achiote 1 T. Cumin 1 cup shredded mushroom stems soaking in a little soy sauce and a dash of liquid smoke Sea Salt and Black Pepper Vegetable Stock Instructions Start by cooking the hominy in a big pot with the onions, salt, oregano, avocado leaf and cumin. Cover the hominy with just enough veggie stock to cover it. It may take at least 30 minutes for them to start getting soft. You can add small amounts of stock as needed but I like my pozole thick. In the mean time grind up all of your chilis in a chop chop with the garlic. When the pozole is soft, add the chili mix and continue to cook. It should take about an hour from start to finish. When the hominy is done it will split and crack. Add the mushroom stems and a little achiote for color. Cook for another 10 minutes and your done. Garnish with radish, avocado and shredded cabbage. Preparation time: 15 minute(s) Cooking time: 45 minute(s)
Vegan shepherd’s pie
Our Shepherd’s pie is a vegetable rich mix of Local Mushrooms, Local Carrots, Celery, Local Parsnips and Local Beets and the greens that they came with. The whole thing is topped with Local Leek Mashed Potatos We would like to make a casserole a day.
Raw + Tacos = Rawcos
This is our Raw Taco, now named Rawco by popular demand. The filling is local ‘Shrooms (mixed with onion, jalapeno, local pecans and seasonings), Local Greens act as a taco shell and we top it with a baggie of cashew cheese, yum. It comes with a salad on the side. A salad for which there is not yet a name, Help me with a good name. I’m thinking of calling it Farmer Hash, or Reaper Pickle, or Hillbilly Slaw. Clearly I am fresh out of ideas. I ask only for inspiation. Something tells me I should put it to a vote before I commit. Your ideas will be listened to. Now soliciting names for a raw local seasonal carpacio.
Andouille Tempeh Dirty Rice
This is the first step towards Dirty Rice Tamales. We copied the spice combination of an authentic Andouille sausage recipe and marinated the tempeh in that solution overnight. Tomorrow we will add whole mixture and marinade to a pot with 2 cups of rice and 3 cups of water and some onion, celery and bell pepper. You’ll have most of the ingredients ready to go in your kitchen already. First we crumble the tempeh until it’s crumbly. Then we add all of the herbs and spices. 1 teaspoon each of Oregano, Thyme, Paprika, Sage, Sea Salt, Thyme and File Gumbo (ground Sassafrass) - then add 1/2 teaspoon each of cracked red pepper and black pepper Finish by adding enough water to cover and 2 tablespoons Canola oil and mix well. Refrigerate overnight and enjoy your fantastic dirty rice tomorrow!
Casserole love with butternut, blue cheese and apples
Casseroles are hearty and satifying. They are great for both families and singles . Make one a little bigger than you need and later when someone needs a quick bite they can heat up one serving at a time instead of getting the whole kitchen dirty. Singles can make this in a loaf pan and use only 1/2 a sqaush. I’ll show you what to do with the other half in my next post. This great butternut, (vegan) blue cheese and apple casserole recipe is very nice and easy to make and will be even better when we tweak it. I will slice the apples with a mandoline and use less fake blue cheese. I’ve also thought about adding rosemary and cherries or grapes. The old man can’t get enough of this one. Everytime I open the fridge he’s swiped another piece.
Touchdown vegan Superbowl
So happy to report that my cajun empanadas were just the good luck charm that the Saints needed to win the Superbowl yesterday. My (non-vegan)friends and I have a superbowl party each year. They know they can count on me for a few vegan options and this is this years fare. Above are the Geaux Saints Sweet Potato Maque Choux Empanadas (which came with a mango Chimmichuri). Check out the recipe links to make them at home! Next is the Annual Stadium cake made from My Sweet Vegan’s Lemon Lime Sunshine Bundt recipe and my stadium mold. And this is the grid of guac. It’s a whole bunch of big beautiful Haas Avocados, mixed with pico de gallo, lime, salt and pepper and the yardlines measured out in Vegan Cream Cheese. Watch as Matt takes the delicious empanadas home from the party.
Vegan chocolate cherry cake
I remember looking at someones blog, I can’t remember who’s. They were complaining that they needed to get their cake layers more even and I was thinking to myself, Blogger dude, you’re way too OCD. It looks good to me! Now here I am in the same boat. I want beautiful even layers too. While chocolate ganache covers a lot of mistakes we can improve with a tweek here and there. I followed Paku Paku’s strawberry Kake recipe here with a few exceptions. I didn’t have any black currant liqueur so I used Acai juice from Bosa Nova (wont’ do that again, don’t like the color) and I used a heaping cup of frozen blended strawberries instead of jam. I used a charming cherry butter from the Wabash Feed Store for the layers and I put some in the ganache frosting as well. The frosting is one package of vegan choco-chips with 1/4 cup canola oil, 1/3 cup soy milk, warmed with 1/4 cup cherry butter, and a tablespoon vanilla. Warm up that milk, pour it over the chips, wait a minute and then stir it all together with the oil. When it is at a spreadable temp (slightly above room temp), and the cake is nice and cool you can spread it with a hot dry knife. Here’s the movable feast I took to my chief tester. He said it better be low-fat cause it’s going to take him one day to eat it. I think that’s a compliment.
