Vegan "Cheese" and Broccoli Soup

Marin is the outlier of the house. By that I mean they're vegan, gluten-intolerant, and allergic to corn and soy, but the rest of us are omnivores. Marin and I are both really into communal meals, which is way more of a challenge on my part than theirs when we decide to cook.
I fucking love soup, so I decided to try to make a cream-of-broccoli soup everyone in the house can eat. This isn't as thick as a normal cream soup is, but it's still pretty great.


-1/4 c Soy-free EarthBalance
-1/2 c rice flour
-1 c vegetable stock
-2 medium broccoli crowns, stalk included, cut into reasonably bite-sized pieces
-1 medium onion, diced
-1 c sliced mushrooms
-4 c vegetable stock
-1 c nutritional yeast

Melt EarthBalance in a 3-qt saucepan over medium heat. Add rice flour. Stir with a whisk or spatula constantly until rice flour turns golden-brown, then add 1 c veggie stock. Stir until there are no chunks, and the EarthBalance/rice flour roux is mixed thoroughly into the stock.
Add broccoli, onion, and mushrooms. Cook until onion becomes clear and slightly tender. Add 4 c vegetable stock and 1 c nutritional yeast. Bring to a simmer, then remove from heat and serve. The nutritional yeast has a tendency to settle, so the soup may need to be stirred every once in a while.

Notes: White or crimini mushrooms are great, but I lucked out and chanterelles were on sale, so I got fancy mushrooms.
Also delicious with bacon bits, but Marin isn't into that, so I didn't include it in the original recipe.
Nutritional yeast is fucking expensive. I got mine ridiculously cheap by going in the bulk section and labeling it with the # for cornmeal. I feel totally justified doing this because the grocery store I bought it from refuses to carry Plan B and their pharmacist judges you if you ask for it. If I wasn't so poor and filled with feminist rage (RAGE!) I'd buy it from the local co-op.

Today I craved ginger ale, and didn't want to wait the two days to ferment it. I had a 5-inch ginger root laying around, so I decided to make a syrup.
I peeled the ginger and cut it into approximately 3/4" chunks, threw it in 2c water and 2c sugar, and followed the previously linked process for flavored syrups. Afterward I cut the sugary ginger chunks into thin strips, and mixed them with lemon sorbet.

My new roommate Marin (house of 4 now) put some ginger chunks into mashed potatoes with broccoli and it's pretty great too.

2 oz ginger syrup to 6 oz soda water makes a great soda.

Updates?

What are those?

I have a house with no internet, which should be fixed some time Monday. In this house are two roommates, Cate and Carley, both lovely women from Omaha who share my love of booze and bacon. We have a little garden from the previous tenants that currently has lots of green tomatoes, some green leafy things, sunflowers, unidentified squash, and some herbs. Expect some ridiculousness in the future.
We might set up a still and make some booze in the garage. Corn liquor is first on the list, if this ends up happening.
Side note: our neighbors have chickens. I want to steal them.

Flavored Syrups

Flavored syrups are surprisingly easy to make. Here are two I've made recently, and a few serving suggestions.

Lavender Syrup
4 sprigs of lavender, preferably including flowers
1 c sugar
1 c water

Combine sugar and water in small pan, cook over medium heat until sugar dissolves. Add sprigs of lavender and cook over low heat for 10 minutes. Remove lavender sprigs, put syrup in separate container and chill.
Goes very well with lemonade.


Rosemary Syrup
2 sprigs rosemary
1 c sugar
1 c water

Do everything you did with the lavender syrup, but with rosemary instead. I haven't tried this with anything but lemon vodka, which is great.

Simple, delicious little details.

sweet tea liqueur and limoncello

Update: Both the rum and the ginger beer turned out fantastic. The rum is pretty lightly flavored. I steeped one bottle with vanilla, allspice, clove, and cardamom. The other bottle was flavored with the same, plus peppercorn and orange zest.

This summer has been more about experimenting with booze flavors than food flavors. I decided to try my hand at infusing some stuff. I can't get everclear, or anything of that proof, here in Washington so I use 100-proof vodka. Here are recipes for limoncello and sweet tea liqueur.

Sweet Tea Liqueur
750 ml vodka or neutral grain spirit
3 T loose black tea
38 oz sugar
38 oz water

Steep tea in alcohol for 3-4 hours. Filter out tea leaves, discard. Combine sugar and water in small pot over medium-low heat until sugar dissolves to make simple syrup. Allow simple syrup to cool to room temperature. Combine simple syrup and tea vodka. Allow to chill at least 2 hours before serving.

Limoncello
750 ml vodka or neutral grain spirit
10-12 lemons, depending on size
38 oz sugar
38 oz water

Zest lemons using a sharp knife or vegetable peeler, being very careful to get little to no pith (the white part beneath the thin yellow outer layer). Place lemon zest in alcohol, and let steep for 1-2 weeks. Make some simple syrup, as detailed in the sweet tea liqueur recipe. Combine simple syrup and lemon vodka. Allow to chill at least 2 hours before serving.

I plan on adding the sweet tea liqueur to whiskey, and either drinking the limoncello straight or combining it with gin and maybe a bit of rosemary syrup.

Dark and stormy

A friend and I are making rum. We made the molasses and yeast mixture a few days ago, and now my kitchen smells like fermentation and sugar. It'll be clear when we distill it, but we're going to put it in smaller jars and spice each one individually. Mostly they'll have clove, allspice, cinnamon, maybe some cardamom and I'm going to try one with cayenne.

Speaking of things that are delicious and spicy, I've recently fallen in love with ginger beer and want to try my hand at making some. We have everything necessary except ginger root.

I will definitely combine the two for an entirely home-made dark and stormy. Mmm.

Brunch Recipes

Served 6 people, with some leftovers. Pretty much I went to my local library, checked out cookbooks that came up when I searched "brunch," and ran with it.

BASICS
1) 8 hard-boiled eggs

2) Assorted fruit bowl

BEVERAGES
1) Coffee
Black, drip. I miss my French press. Milk, soy milk, and sugar available. The coffee I have right now is a French roast, which I should learn not to buy cheap because it's usually burnt.

2) Mimosas:
-1 part champagne
-1 part orange juice
Serve in champagne flutes

3) The Best Bloody Marys... Ever:
-2 1/2 cups Bakon vodka (possibly the only way this is delicious)
-7 cups tomato juice
-1 T Worcestershire sauce
-1 T Tabasco (or other brand) hot sauce
-Salt and pepper to taste
Throw them into a pitcher and stir. If making less, can be shaken in a cocktail shaker with plenty of ice. Serve over ice in a tall glass and garnish with
-Random pickled foods (mine included string beans, olives, pearl onions, and red peppers my stepbrother and his girlfriend made)
-Lime wedges
-Celery stick

FOOD
1) Donuts my other stepbrother was kind enough to bring over, including maple bacon. Not as good as the original Voodoo Doughnuts maple bacon, but still unexpectedly fabulous.

2) Caraway and Sour Cream Soup (from Cinnamon Mornings by Pamela Lanier)
-4 c chicken stock
-1/4 c butter
-2 c medium-dice onions
-1 c medium-dice celery
-1 c medium-dice carrots
-salt and pepper to taste
-1 T caraway seeds
-1/2 c all-purpose flour
-1 c sour cream
-1/2 c milk
Heat the chicken stock. In a separate 3-qt saucepan, melt butter. Saute onions, celery and carrots. Season lightly with salt and pepper. Add caraway seeds. Saute until onion is transparent. Reduce heat and add flour, stirring constantly so as not to scorch. Cook for 5 to 8 minutes to bind flour and fat. Gradually add hot chicken stock, stirring to dissolve the flour mixture. Bring soup to a boil, then reduce heat and let simmer.
In a separate bowl, mix sour cream with one cup of hot soup and stir vigorously to prevent curdling. Pour this mixture back into the soup and heat, taking care not to allow soup to boil. Finally, add milk and season with salt and pepper to taste. Serve hot.
Fancy culinary words in this recipe: roux, mirepoix.

2) Shrimp-Shirred Eggs (from same)
-3 T clarified butter
-8 eggs
-1 large shallot, chopped
-1 c brut champagne
-1 1/2 lbs frozen or fresh shrimp, peeled and deveined
-3 c heavy cream
-1/4 lb (1 stick) unsalted butter
-8 olive rounds
-salt and pepper to taste
Preheat oven to 350. Butter a shallow, oven-proof casserole dish large enough to hold 8 eggs in a single layer.
Crack eggs into the casserole, being careful not to break the yolks. Dot yolks with 1 T clarified butter and bake uncovered in oven until the yolks are set.
Heat remaining 2 T clarified butter in a large skillet. Saute the chopped shallots lightly in the butter. Add champagne and reduce by half. Add the shrimp and cook gently for 2-3 minutes. Remove shrimp with a slotted spoon and keep warm. Increase heat under skillet and reduce juices to a thin glaze. Blend in cream and simmer until mixture thickens, about 20-30 minutes. Remove from head and whisk in 1/4 lb (1 stick) butter, a Tablespoon at a time. Stir in the reserved shrimp, season to taste and pour over the shirred eggs. Garnish with olive slices.

I prepared the mirepoix, other chopped veggies, hard boiled eggs, fruit bowl, and bloody mary pitcher the night before. I also made corn muffins, but they turned out incredibly dry so I don't want to inflict that recipe on anyone else.

I'm not dead.

I moved and have been getting settled.

Last Monday I made brunch for a few friends and my stepbrothers. I'll post recipes (no pictures, unfortunately) in the next couple of days, and then maybe a meaty review of The Vegetarian Myth (that pun was unintentional and now I hate myself a little.)

I might start posting stuff about homebrew and local microbreweries, as I'm maybe going to make a honey-blonde ale with my stepbrother. The Pacific Northwest is the perfect place to be a beer-lover. My older stepbrother just bought a house with his girlfriend and plans to grow hops around his back porch. Hell yeah.

Quick Link (Food Politics, Race, Privilege)

I'm having a Lazy Intellectual Sunday where I just read intelligent blog posts and sit on the couch. I've been Reading New Model Minority, and she has a great post called Race, Class, Food, and the Future of the City: A Manifesto. She also has a fantastic article on Global Gated Communities that started out talking about vegetables. Check it.

Sorry this blog has been so inactive. I'll get back on it once I get my laptop up and running. I'm borrowing my roommate's for now.

Feminism, Domesticity, and Self-Reliance

My computer has decided to be nice today. I hope this lasts.

This train of thought began, strangely enough, in a linguistics blog. Language Log featured a brief entry about the word "femivore" as one of the extensions of the suffix "-vore" as created in a New York Times article. A good portion of the comments are devoted to discussion of the prefix "femi-" and the suffix "-vore", but a few strayed into the political implications of this small but noticeable movement in food politics.

This is something I've been considering for a long time. Starting a garden, keeping chickens, and generally being fairly self-sufficient with what I consume is incredibly appealing. The feminist implications are still a little iffy for me, as a woman still coming to terms with the possibility of domesticity as a form of feminism. I've been told both that I am "the most domestic of [a friend's] friends but the least likely to be a domestic" and that "whether [I] marry a man or a woman [I'll] be the one in the apron." Coming to terms with being a feminist domestic scares me.

This is because "difference feminism" (as I've heard it called) has often sounded like keeping the traditional place of women in the private sphere and men in the public sphere, with too little emphasis on the work that goes into maintaining a domestic space and almost no discussion about the possibility of a "house-husband" or "male domestic"*. I've seen a number of my moderate-to-radical friends in relationships act out the "men make houses, women make homes" (or even traditional gender roles being assigned to partners in same-sex relationships) model way too often for my taste.

Is "femivore" more related to the prefix "femi-" or the suffix "-vore"? Is this movement focused more on gender or food politics? I see it as a wonderful food politics movement with strong influence on gender politics, but the article is more focused on the feminist aspect of this movement in an almost condescending manner. The last paragraph seems like the author is trying to justify how negatively she views this aberrant lifestyle, but instead of encouraging men to participate more in domestic matters, ends up sounding dismissive of the whole thing. I would love to have garden and own chickens in a sustainable, eco-friendly way, but whoever I was living with (roommate, partner, whatever) would have to give equal effort to domestic affairs. Instead of talking about the negatives, about how this movement can be interpreted as both feminist and anti-feminist, we should talk about how to make them equal. More direct symbiosis, less parasitism.**


On a considerably less academic note, the word "femivorism" is one of the ugliest I've encountered in a good while. I hope it doesn't catch on.

The Femivore's Dilemma (via New York Times)
Vaguely related, Why Making Healthful Foods Cheaper Isn't Enough (via NPR)

*note the marked gender of these phrases
**related to The Vegetarian Myth, which will probably be the focus of my next entry, provided my computer stays on long enough for me to compose a coherent entry

Computer Asplosion/Large Quantities of Cupcakes and Shellfish

Lack of updates due to computer only occasionally wanting to start up, and the fan getting extremely angry after an hour to an hour and a half of being alive.

This week, I have baked 8 batches of cupcakes, with recipes from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World (which is the best cupcake book you could ever buy.) 4 of them were tiramisu, one batch of carrot cupcakes, one batch of pineapple upside down, one batch of blueberry lemon creme, and one batch of chocolate stout. Most of these were given away or for a bake sale. I may make one more batch of blueberry lemon creme cupcakes, as I have extra lemon frosting and blueberry filling.

Last night the upstairs neighbors had a crawfish boil in the back yard. It sounds like it went pretty okay, but they started around 9 and didn't prepare as well as they could have. Not that I know shit about having a crawfish boil, mind you. They left a huge bag of them out all night, but miraculously quite a few are still alive. The still-living leftovers have been gifted to the 4 of us living downstairs, as 2 out of 3 of the upstairs neighbors keep kosher and there are only so many crawfish one man can eat.


I also got a new friend. His name is Klaus the Crawfish. We will probably eat him, too.

I fucking love avocados.

Taking a page from my friend Max's book, I'm gonna preface this with "Oh man you guys, I had the best sandwich for lunch."

Toasted whole wheat bread. Sliced avocado. Tomatoes. Mozarella cheese. Vegenaise (vegan mayo, which was cheaper than real mayo). Swedish-style mustard. Romaine lettuce. Yellow onions. If I still ate meat or had bacon, this would be the perfect BLT+. I ate it too fast to take a picture.

Vegetable Soup Stock

AKA "throw a bunch of vegetable scraps in a pot and boil the hell out of it." Also, look everyone I got batteries for my camera! Here's the "before" picture.

I keep the odds and ends of veggies used in other recipes in a freezer bag to use for soup stock. This one's made of bits of green onions, red onions, yellow onions, one small potato, maybe 3 celery stalks, part of a tomato (which I'm finding makes stocks slightly bitter), 2 small carrots, and a heap of pre-chopped garlic. The house buys pre-chopped garlic in bulk, so I don't use fresh-chopped as much as I'd like. There are some spices in there, like salt, pepper, and a bay leaf. I don't remember everything I smelled in the cupboard and thought "this'll be nice," then threw in. I'm precise in my cooking, I know.

As a basic veggie soup stock recipe, you can gather
1 onion
2 carrots
3 celery stalks
1 head garlic (which is what gives it more flavor)
1 bay leaf
and as much salt and pepper as you like

Quarter onion. Peel garlic. Cut carrots and celery into... chunks about 1-2 inches long. Throw all ingredients in the largest pot you own. Add enough water to fill your large pot. Bring water to a boil, then let simmer for 1-2 hours. Strain veggie bits out, wait for the stock to cool, and refrigerate or freeze for later deliciousness.

Here we have the "after."

I spent a decade exoticising the otter

I find that the webcomic Cat and Girl too often describes my life or my thoughts.

A Few Good Links

GOOD gets in on the food politics posts. This one's about disposable dinnerware.

Avocado salad I could probably eat for a week straight (PGEW)


Happy Mardi Gras everyone. I'm gonna go try to find some delicious paczki.

Coffee

Luxirare does coffee food porn. Picture in this post taken from her blog.

For those of you not familiar with the term, "food porn" is a picture (usually a detailed close-up shot) of food to make it look incredibly aesthetically appealing and less like the mess that's usually on your plate. I'm a sucker for it. Luxirare is my favorite at it.

Also, how much of your favorite caffeinated beverage would it take to kill you? It would take 110.8 macchiatos (labeled on the website as espresso shots) or 181.52 cups of black tea to kill me.

Valentine's Day

I'm going to make 2 dozen crimson velvet cupcakes on Valentine's Day, and all 3 of my readers are invited to partake. There will probably be some left over on Monday, which means the two readers from out of state have time to get to New Orleans.




note: this image is not a cupcake i made

Moar Food Politics

I've just heard of a book called Against the Grain by Richard Manning. From what I've read about it, it sounds like a case for feeding cattle grass instead of grain to help fix the environmental destruction caused by certain forms of farming. I might (with my meager funds and book store gift certificate) buy this and Omnivore's Dilemma, then contrast their arguments. There's also the option of The Vegetarian Myth by Lierre Kieth, which sounds like it's along the same lines as Against the Grain.

Some day I'll get to posting more about delicious things and less about my conflicted thoughts on said delicious things.


Note: I couldn't find Against the Grain on the website for the book store where I wouldn't have to pay my own money, so I purchased The Vegetarian Myth and The Omnivore's Dilemma. They should be here in the next week, so I can start reviewing and analyzing with a little more background than I already have. In the mean time, I'll post a recipe or two and buy some batteries for my mediocre camera to post some food-porn.

Dietary Restriction

I'm pretty into trying to cut meat out from my diet. I'll try not to rehash every tired argument about being vegetarian or vegan everyone's heard before. I've never been a fan of PETA. Well, in middle school I was into them, but fuck middle school. I'm not particularly offended at what some have called the subjugation of animals. I'm more concerned with the environmental impact of and having some form of relationship with the meals I eat. My love of food and love of over-analyzing everything means that I think about what's on my plate and going into my body a hell of a lot.

I feel like the worst foodie* who is into politics ever, because I haven't read Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma yet. I'm really feeling the need to read it right now, and maybe blog about some of the products I'm cooking with and their origins and impact on the environment and my body (bio, nutrition, etc.) I think I have a little bit of what Pollan writes about buzzing around my head, just from looking into the locavore and freegan movements. This project could encourage me to buy more local and simpler ingredients. What I don't want to happen is that I learn about this, think long and hard about it, and then continue to buy what I consider to be "bad" foods while feeling guilty but somehow secure because of my knowledge of how horrible it is. The Liberal's Dilemma, if you will.

I think a lot about what I put in my body. I think about how what I put into my body effects the world around me, with its path starting in a strangely global way but leading into my tummy. So much goes into things we consider simple, particularly convenience foods, with things like ramen, frozen meals, and the ever talked about fast food having an incredibly complex path into our mouths. This isn't just about how going veggie (or vegan, maybe possibly some day) could effect my health. Currently I rarely eat meat, maybe once or twice a week, with the goal of complete vegetarianism in mind. Going vegan is a maybe, some day. These decisions are based more on the environmental impact of feeding our meat when it's still alive and growing, giving it range land, slaughtering the animal, storage, and then transporting the dead meat in freezer trucks. That's a hell of a process, and a time commitment, for a burger or sausage.

I'd also love to do a deconstruction of some of the vegan and vegetarian recipes I find all over, too, for their overall environmental impact. Soy-based meat and dairy replacements involve a huge amount of processing. Some ingredients that seem to be staples for some vegan meals involve shipping from far away, which I'm not entirely comfortable with. But, I have to remember to stick to one project at a time.

There is so much involved in one meal, it blows my mind. My next project will probably be an analysis of each meal I eat, maybe just for a day or two, and trying to find viable replacements that are both better for the environment and for my body.

Unfortunately, I'm dirt poor right now. That could put a damper on my plans for more involved projects. If only I could get a grant for eating...




*what does this word even mean

Why isn't it summer yet?

I want to make tea-tinis.

Pasta Primavera

Tonight I made my own twist on the Poor Girl Eats Well recipe for penne primavera. Absolutely delicious, fairly quick, and I got to feed my roommates before they dashed off to do important scholarly things.

All the cooking steps are the same as the PGEW recipe, but here are my altered ingredients based on what was in the house:
A fistfull of uncooked spaghetti (I'm scientific, I know), then cooked and set aside
3/4 c broccoli florets (cooked in a separate pan, as one of the housemates has an allergy)
1/2 c green peas
1 medium carrot, thinly sliced
8-10 medium white mushrooms, sliced
2 small yellow onions, thinly sliced
2 tomatoes, diced
1/3 c white wine
1 T heavy cream
1/2 t salt
Plenty of freshly ground black pepper
1/2 t dried tarragon
1/2 t dried fennel
1/2 t dried oregano
Grated parmesan cheese, for garnish

OH MAN

I forgot to link my absolute favorite food blog. All the ingredients she uses are insanely expensive, and her food and fashion posts are essentially the same, but it's all incredibly beautiful. This is Luxirare.

oh shit!

I'm back! As a food blog this time. Nothing yet, as I have a cold and don't really feel like cooking, but I'll post recipes and photos soon.
For now, here are some links to my favorite food blogs:
Poor Girl Eats Well
Broke-Ass Gourmet
(notice a theme?)
FoodGawker (more focused on aesthetics than delicious, but does have some good recipes)
A Hungry Bear Won't Dance