Veggie Sausage!

Tonight we launched our first full-scale veggie sausage attempt. Breakfast for dinner is one of my favorite meals (especially when I take naps after work until dinner) and we spend about $6/package for vegetarian sausage (esp. Field Roast's apple-smoked sage, yum). So tonight, we endeavored to transform Joe's famous "Hot Morning Jumble" from mashed beans in a clump, to beautiful little sausages, using our new meat grinder!

Veggie Sausage went something like 2 cans of black beans, 2 cups TVP (soaked) and 3/4 cup of cooked brown rice. We added a pinch of cornstarch, and a bunch of sage, salt and pepper. It went through the grinder once, and then again on the smallest setting and with the sausage stuffing attachment. It was actually pretty painless and quick, despite employing a hand-crank machine, because nothing has to cook (except the rice obviously, and it's great to use leftovers here since the process calls for so little).

It cooked up really nicely, and had a fair amount of flavor (though we might add vegetables or something next time to give it umph). I think maybe they were too heavy on the black beans though, because the mixture was very gummy. We might add a different type of thickener next time, and more of it, because they were sort of easily broken, and didn't hold shape that well under heat.

almond-ella and nectarines

Tonight I made a crazy dinner. As I was throwing together some red curry and rice, I came across some unsweetened baking chocolate powder. I almost wanted to throw some in the curry, that's how much I was craving chocolate in the moment when it caught my eye. But I restrained myself, remembering that I had gotten Joe a nectarine from the public market as a present. It would make a great desert somehow. And because the nectarine was battered and bruised by a couple novels in the tote bag I carried it in, I knew I wanted to cook them up a little. I never measure when I start throwing something together for the first time, so basically every ingredient should be added to taste, and with desired end consistency in mind.

Nutty Chocolatey Sauce

1/2 c soy milk
3 tbsp unsweetened baking chocolate
a bunch of brown sugar (2 tbsp? 3?)
1/4- 1/2 c almond butter
dash o salt

Put the soy milk in a saucepan and turn the heat to low.

Add the baking chocolate. Taste here because most soy milk has some sweetener in it, and soy milk is naturally a little sweet. Then add as much brown sugar as you want. I added some sea salt here because of a recent episode of Modern Family which featured chocolate milk (I think that show is kind of hilarious, but I'm not sure if I should), and it really brought out the rich chocolatey flavor.

Add the almond butter. The sauce should thicken up as the almond butter melts, and it will thicken more after you take it off the heat, so keep a close eye on consistency.


Meanwhile chop some nectarines, and put a frying pan on low heat. I sauteed my nectarines in butter (starting when the almond butter begins melting in the sauce) with ginger powder and nutmeg. I think nectarines are juicy enough you could just fry them in their own juice, esp. on a non-stick pan.

I also toasted a piece of French bread while the fruit cooked. I put the bread on the bottom of a bowl, added the nectarines, and drizzled sauce over. It was reminiscent of a cobbler or a waffle-style set-up. The chocolate sauce was a million times better than nutella, and made with stuff I always have lying around.

Take this Urban Hot Dog Stand!

We recently moved to Seattle. It's changed the way we eat forever (more on that in posts to come). One thing that I know I've always wanted (but have never enjoyed because I've never lived in a big enough city) is a Hot Dog Stand hot dog.

Seattle is no New York. There are not stands just any place. But the ones we do have are "surf party USA" as Tracy Jordan would say. Off the hook! We really like to stand outside of places like Cha-Cha Lounge and The Unicorn smoking, and dancing to music that is happening inside, but which our claustrophobia prevents us from listening to up close. When we've worked up a serious appetite dancing and watching strangers decked in plastic pants and costume jewelry, we head down to Comet Dog and get a vegetarian dog with cream cheese, thin-cut onions, and all the fixins: ketchup, relish, kraut, mustard. Well, Joey and I have been working on a DIY version of this late-night classic. And we managed to make it with (almost exclusively) locally sourced ingredients. Check it out:

Field Roast Apple-smoked Sage "Sausage" (Seattle)
Buns from Essential Bakery in Fremont
"Olives of Love" from PCC
Local Heirloom Cherry Tomatoes, Onion, Garlic
Some crazy-rind French Goat Cheese
Grace Harbor Farms Cream-top yogurt from Custer, WA
Blackberry Honey from High Country Honey, Burlington, WA

Cayenne Powder, Cumin, salt
First I caramelized some onions in butter. Drizzled a little honey on them (just a touch!) lots of salt, and a little cayenne and cumin. When they were golden with burn-y edges (that's how I like them, although I think the Capitol Hill style is more of an unseasoned, non-crispy thing, and it is also very good).


Then I got started chopping up these olives earl tiny. I put some raw garlic on because the late-night hot dogs are spicy. I chopped the tomatoes up small and put them with the olives. It's a little unconventional as a relish, I can see you right now scratching your chin. But it was actually very good: salty and spicy, exactly what you need to counteract the cream cheese (rather than the cream cheese cutting down the spicy, obvs cream cheese is not negotiable, where spicy certainly is). I see this as a replacement for ketchup (gross) and relish (not gross but difficult to make in 20 minutes before dindin).
Ok so Field Roast Apple Smoke Links are my favorite vegetable-gluten protein of the mo. They are savory like sausage, and a little bit sweet, with a very heady, hearty texture. But there is no meat in them! I think this recipe would also go very well with the other varieties of Links, Chipotle and Italian (although I am not a huge fan of the Italian--too much eggplant).

Then I got some buns toasting.

Then I mixed about a quarter ounce of goat cheese with a half ounce of yogurt until they were fully creamed together. It actually created a dairy product almost the consistency of cream cheese. Maybe you are wondering why we didn't just get cream cheese. Well, the only grocery store we are within walking distance of (at 8 pm when we finally decide to make dinner) is PCC where all the food is super expensive because it's a pretend co-op. Cream cheese costs like $5 there, and I just can't justify that for one meal. Whereas we eat yogurt and goat's cheese separately almost every day. I would say this mixture would be worth trying with Greek yogurt because it is so thick. Cream top yogurt is good, but it is still too thin. Also, because the Grace Harbor Yogurt is made from Guernsey cow's milk, it's a little too sweet to pass as cream cheese. Definitely sour enough and salty enough, though.


Topped all that shit with my salsa-nade and we were ready to eat. It's such a quick meal! If you are fast at chopping olives and cherry tomatoes, which, I am not, because they are very slippery, and as you know, I'm very afraid of sharp objects.

summertime sammies

New Seattle favorite: Golden Gardens at sunset on a summer day. People playing beach volleyball, juggling in striped shirts and cutoffs, or drinking Rainier in red plastic cups. You know, just like a fucking Renoir.
This sammy consists of Essential Bakery Hoagie, mustardmayo, thinly sliced organic heirloom tomat, english cukes, fucking goat brie, and thai basil that i grew in my windowsill. And avocado. And sliced red onion. All that shit. And a view of the Cascades behind the Sound to boot.

cRAzy PAstA

Ah Summer! The arrival of Shark Week, Sunshine, and fucking SQUASH at the Wallingford Farmer's Market.

This is some crazy fucking pasta I made on a lazy summer afternoon:

1/2 Package of linguine (I hate linguine, no wonder 1/2 a package has been in the pantry for ages)
2 lil tomatoes (cut into sections)
Yellow summer squash (cut thin on a bias)
couple carrots (in half and then in half)
1/2 red onion (long, thin slices)
fresh thyme and basil
hard romano/pecorino cheese
garlic (2 cloves)

Chop all those veggies up and make sure the garlic is finely grated because there's no SAUCE on this pasta.

Get the pasta going.

Caramelize the onions in olive oil with a dash of salt. Add the carrots and the squash and cook only until they still have some crunch, making sure you add the garlic and herbs about 2-3 minutes before you've finished.

Pile the veggies on top of the linguine, add the fresh tomatoes and finely grated cheese.

Watch shark week and think about how nice it is not to have warm blood in a cold sea.

Buffalo haven't got wings!

Ok so, since we aspire to be from Western New York, and some of us have grown up on Anchor Bar/authentic Buffalo Wings, we secretly love hot hot orange sticky finger foods.  But we hate animal cruelty and ecological ravagement.  So we thought, there will never be any trashy bar food in our futures.  BOY WERE WE WRONG!

Review: Morning Star

If there's anything we can't stand it's imitation meat.  Or so we say.  Somehow, after a few too many sub-zero nights and a few too many Labatt Blues/Genny Cream Ales, our favorite thing to do is to dance around a toaster oven full of steaming TVP. Morningstar Farms veggie Buffalo wings inspire a veritable ballet from freezer to plate.  They are spicy as all hell, a spice that not even cheap beer can overcome.  They have a bite--it's the sort of spring-back between the jaws that perhaps you thought only animal flesh could deliver.  But there it is--springy! full of protein! unnaturally orange!  And suddenly it's like ordering Mr. Shoes on a blistering summer day in Seabreeze!  Our complaints are few: 1. is that these wings aren't wet.  Alas, at Morningstar science has unlocked the secret to soy-based chicken wings, but not to the frozen-yet-wet food. 2. We don't know how to make TVP do that at home.  We can make fucking killer black bean burgers, breakfast "sausages" or basically whatever, but shreddy, fibrous, chickeny wings remain a mystery.

Japanese Salad Dressing

I just made this salad dressing in order to use up some fresh lime that was about to be not so fresh, and because I'm tired of my old standby, honey mustard.  It goes something like:

a cm of fresh ginger
the juice of 1/2 a lime
a  tbsp daikon, shredded
1 heaping tbsp miso paste
1 1/2 heaping tsb mayo
tsp soy sauce
dash of rice vinegar

Mix that shit together in a jar.

I blanched the ginger for about 3 minutes, but it was still so spicy and strong that I ended up using maybe as much as a mechanical pencil eraser.  I smashed and ground it.  Perhaps dried ginger freshly ground would be better, but certainly not ginger powder.  I also thought of using pickled ginger but was afraid it would be too cloying.  The daikon doesn't add much flavor but it adds a certain coolness and a nice weight and texture to the mixture.  My salad consisted of romaine, roma tomato, shaved carrots, red onion, red pepper, and an avocado that actually sent me to the emergency room (two stitches where my pinkie meets my palm, and thats why me da always told me to cut away).  Three hours after I started to make the salad (most of it spent in the waiting room), I finally got to try it and it was out of this world! My roommate Malcolm called it, "fucking delicious and I'm not just saying that" if I remember correctly.  If Joey brings any wasabi paste back from Mitsuwa in Chicago, then I would really like to try spicing this recipe up!