In today's installment of Regular Ordinary Vegan Mealtime, I'll be taking you though the events of my day, through the course of a meal (with dessert, of course), and round and round the inside of my thought processes. For dinner tonight, we'll be serving delicious (though slightly chewy) barbecue seitan cutlets, rosemary roasted potatoes, and a salad of a strange mixture of broccoli and tomatoes served with a raspberry chipotle sauce (it sounded like a good idea at the time). Also, I bought myself a new chef's knife, and need to cut something with it. (Spoilers: I cut myself)
Showing posts with label vegan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label vegan. Show all posts
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
R.O.V.M - Barbecue Seitan with Potatoes and Experimental Salad
...in which I get a new knife and really need to show it off...
In today's installment of Regular Ordinary Vegan Mealtime, I'll be taking you though the events of my day, through the course of a meal (with dessert, of course), and round and round the inside of my thought processes. For dinner tonight, we'll be serving delicious (though slightly chewy) barbecue seitan cutlets, rosemary roasted potatoes, and a salad of a strange mixture of broccoli and tomatoes served with a raspberry chipotle sauce (it sounded like a good idea at the time). Also, I bought myself a new chef's knife, and need to cut something with it. (Spoilers: I cut myself)
In today's installment of Regular Ordinary Vegan Mealtime, I'll be taking you though the events of my day, through the course of a meal (with dessert, of course), and round and round the inside of my thought processes. For dinner tonight, we'll be serving delicious (though slightly chewy) barbecue seitan cutlets, rosemary roasted potatoes, and a salad of a strange mixture of broccoli and tomatoes served with a raspberry chipotle sauce (it sounded like a good idea at the time). Also, I bought myself a new chef's knife, and need to cut something with it. (Spoilers: I cut myself)
Friday, March 4, 2011
Ordinary Vegan Meal Time: Drunken Riz avec Pain Brulée
...at least, that's what the online translator called it...
I'm going to do this Ordinary Vegan Meal Time a bit differently. It's based on the impromptu preparation of dish I concocted last night after watching too much Anthony Bourdain and drinking too many beers. The post will take you through my production process, step by step. It's not going to taste good to the sober, and today I can't quite recall what it tasted like last night. Getting excited yet? Good.
In order to properly prepare this dish you're going to need a few things:
Ingredients
Beer - at least a six-pack, doesn't need to be fancy, a decent domestic will do
Wine - in case you run out of beer
Rice - 1 cup
TVP - Textured Vegetable Protein, it usually comes in dried flakes, 1/2 cup
Spices - whatever you happen to have on hand
Bread - one slice
Onion - about 1/2 cup
Garlic - one clove
Preparation
1. Drink at least three of your beers. You're going to need a good, pre-cooking buzz for this to taste right.
2. Measure out the rice, TVP, and spices into a rice cooker or pot. I used a rice cooker, mostly for the "set it and forget it" ease of operation. I seasoned the rice and TVP with salt, pepper, chili powder, paprika, garlic powder, and a few more things...I think. Pretty much, if it's in your spice rack, it belongs in this dish. Most of the ingredients I used are incredibly bland, and require ridiculous amounts of spice to taste of anything.
[Note: Remember that you've been drinking a bit by this point. So, when adding the spices, feel free to add a bit of a flourish to your technique. Do some heel spins, yell, "BAM!" as you add the paprika, try to throw pinches of salt from across the room, etc.]
3. Turn on the cooker and drink another beer.
4. Next, we're going to start on the garnish. If you're motor skills are becoming impaired, don't worry, only basic knife work is required from this point on. Dice the onion, slice up the garlic, and throw both into a hot pan with a bit of olive oil or butter.
5. Once the onion and garlic are cooking through and becoming fragrant, tear a piece of bread into tiny pieces and throw them into the pan. Add more butter and continue to cook on high heat. Now don't worry, this is going to be the crunchy counterpoint to our soft and fluffy rice/TVP mixture, so feel free to burn the shit out of it. I certainly did.
6. At this point, the rice should be about done, the fake pangrattato is about to catch on fire, and you should be pouring another beer. Preferably do this last one into a nice pint glass (you're about to sit down to a fine dinner, why not treat yourself with glassware?).
[Note: You'll notice that there are no accompanying photos for this blog entry. While I was trying to fix my camera's tricky battery configuration, my bread was burning behind me. The result was a burnt mess, a broken camera, and a lackluster blog post.]
7. You're almost done. Serve the rice mixture in a bowl with the garnish sprinkled on top. I served mine with some Sriracha and it was fantastic...I think.
In Conclusion
So that's it. I strongly suggest that you do not try this at home. If you can, imagine for a moment the situation in which I found myself last night: delusions of grandeur from hours of watching cooking shows, belly full of barely alcoholic grain-water, and a soul filled to the brim with sadness. I sat, hunched over my coffee table, drinking my last beer in a vain attempt to wash down the crunchy nonsense detailed above. I really don't expect any of you to go through with this recipe. That's okay. I meant to write this out as a penance, or maybe a cautionary tale, warning all of you to never put yourself in the sad position I did.
bon appétit
I'm going to do this Ordinary Vegan Meal Time a bit differently. It's based on the impromptu preparation of dish I concocted last night after watching too much Anthony Bourdain and drinking too many beers. The post will take you through my production process, step by step. It's not going to taste good to the sober, and today I can't quite recall what it tasted like last night. Getting excited yet? Good.
In order to properly prepare this dish you're going to need a few things:
Ingredients
Beer - at least a six-pack, doesn't need to be fancy, a decent domestic will do
Wine - in case you run out of beer
Rice - 1 cup
TVP - Textured Vegetable Protein, it usually comes in dried flakes, 1/2 cup
Spices - whatever you happen to have on hand
Bread - one slice
Onion - about 1/2 cup
Garlic - one clove
Preparation
1. Drink at least three of your beers. You're going to need a good, pre-cooking buzz for this to taste right.
2. Measure out the rice, TVP, and spices into a rice cooker or pot. I used a rice cooker, mostly for the "set it and forget it" ease of operation. I seasoned the rice and TVP with salt, pepper, chili powder, paprika, garlic powder, and a few more things...I think. Pretty much, if it's in your spice rack, it belongs in this dish. Most of the ingredients I used are incredibly bland, and require ridiculous amounts of spice to taste of anything.
[Note: Remember that you've been drinking a bit by this point. So, when adding the spices, feel free to add a bit of a flourish to your technique. Do some heel spins, yell, "BAM!" as you add the paprika, try to throw pinches of salt from across the room, etc.]
3. Turn on the cooker and drink another beer.
4. Next, we're going to start on the garnish. If you're motor skills are becoming impaired, don't worry, only basic knife work is required from this point on. Dice the onion, slice up the garlic, and throw both into a hot pan with a bit of olive oil or butter.
5. Once the onion and garlic are cooking through and becoming fragrant, tear a piece of bread into tiny pieces and throw them into the pan. Add more butter and continue to cook on high heat. Now don't worry, this is going to be the crunchy counterpoint to our soft and fluffy rice/TVP mixture, so feel free to burn the shit out of it. I certainly did.
6. At this point, the rice should be about done, the fake pangrattato is about to catch on fire, and you should be pouring another beer. Preferably do this last one into a nice pint glass (you're about to sit down to a fine dinner, why not treat yourself with glassware?).
[Note: You'll notice that there are no accompanying photos for this blog entry. While I was trying to fix my camera's tricky battery configuration, my bread was burning behind me. The result was a burnt mess, a broken camera, and a lackluster blog post.]
7. You're almost done. Serve the rice mixture in a bowl with the garnish sprinkled on top. I served mine with some Sriracha and it was fantastic...I think.
In Conclusion
So that's it. I strongly suggest that you do not try this at home. If you can, imagine for a moment the situation in which I found myself last night: delusions of grandeur from hours of watching cooking shows, belly full of barely alcoholic grain-water, and a soul filled to the brim with sadness. I sat, hunched over my coffee table, drinking my last beer in a vain attempt to wash down the crunchy nonsense detailed above. I really don't expect any of you to go through with this recipe. That's okay. I meant to write this out as a penance, or maybe a cautionary tale, warning all of you to never put yourself in the sad position I did.
bon appétit
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
Nerdy Valentine's Day
...or why, if I didn't already have a girlfriend, I'd be forever alone...
We had a fun time yesterday, despite celebrating Valentine's day one day late (due to our pesky Monday schedules). Surprisingly enough, the night turned out to be a Battlestar Galactica themed event (maybe not so surprising, we finished the series on netflix yesterday). The show inspired this eight-sided card.
I know. It's great. I love puns too. The dinner duties were delegated (forced) to (on) me, and so I whipped up a very fancy vegan mushroom and tofurkey pizza.
After that, we watched the incredibly long finale, discussed how much we hated the ending, and I was able to settle down to wine and katamari.
Perfection.
We had a fun time yesterday, despite celebrating Valentine's day one day late (due to our pesky Monday schedules). Surprisingly enough, the night turned out to be a Battlestar Galactica themed event (maybe not so surprising, we finished the series on netflix yesterday). The show inspired this eight-sided card.
 |
| I was going to use a scantily clad Tricia Helfer card, but felt that it might not be appropriate. |
I know. It's great. I love puns too. The dinner duties were delegated (forced) to (on) me, and so I whipped up a very fancy vegan mushroom and tofurkey pizza.
 |
| Not BSG-related, but delicious, nonetheless. |
Perfection.
Sunday, January 30, 2011
Regular Ordinary Vegan Mealtime!
...in which I create some swedish cuisine...
Hold on. Before you go any further, watch this video.
Needless to say, I too was impressed. I enjoyed the spectacle so much that I decided to craft a vegan version of a meal which is originally anything but. Here's how it goes:
Regular Ordinary Ingredients
Unsweetened Rice Milk
Parkay Squeezy Butter
Salt (ordinary)
Nutmeg (regular)
Nutritional Yeast (optional)
2/3 lbs. Macaroni
Vegan Sliced Deli "Ham"
[A note on measurements: in keeping with the video, I won't be using exact, or even approximate, measurements. This dish is best when eyeballed, anyway.]
Pour the rice milk into your pasta pot, add to this a bunch of squeezy butter, and generous pinches of nutmeg and salt, and bring the mixture to a low boil. Add the macaroni, and prepare to prepare the "sidepork."
Rub down a baking sheet with more squeezy butter and salt and lay down slices of the deli ham in a single layer. Wait until the macaroni is almost done to throw this in the oven; if it's kept in too long, the ham bits will dry out and harden.
Speaking of which, the mac is probably still boiling at this point. Let the batch simmer down, there's no draining here, we're cooking it directly in the eventual sauce. Nutritional yeast, at this point, can add some great umami to the dish, but if you don't have any, it can do without.
Cook the macaroni down until it's thick enough for your liking and serve it with the crispy ham bits on top. Done.
Hold on. Before you go any further, watch this video.
Needless to say, I too was impressed. I enjoyed the spectacle so much that I decided to craft a vegan version of a meal which is originally anything but. Here's how it goes:
Regular Ordinary Ingredients
Unsweetened Rice Milk
Parkay Squeezy Butter
Salt (ordinary)
Nutmeg (regular)
Nutritional Yeast (optional)
2/3 lbs. Macaroni
Vegan Sliced Deli "Ham"
[A note on measurements: in keeping with the video, I won't be using exact, or even approximate, measurements. This dish is best when eyeballed, anyway.]
Pour the rice milk into your pasta pot, add to this a bunch of squeezy butter, and generous pinches of nutmeg and salt, and bring the mixture to a low boil. Add the macaroni, and prepare to prepare the "sidepork."
Rub down a baking sheet with more squeezy butter and salt and lay down slices of the deli ham in a single layer. Wait until the macaroni is almost done to throw this in the oven; if it's kept in too long, the ham bits will dry out and harden.
Speaking of which, the mac is probably still boiling at this point. Let the batch simmer down, there's no draining here, we're cooking it directly in the eventual sauce. Nutritional yeast, at this point, can add some great umami to the dish, but if you don't have any, it can do without.
Cook the macaroni down until it's thick enough for your liking and serve it with the crispy ham bits on top. Done.
 |
| Bonus! A blurry photo of the finished product. |
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