June, 2009 - - Page 3

by gansie

Meatless Mondays Mantra

I’m a fairly lazy person. I hate working out. I’m never on-the-go. I sometimes even like to sit while I cook. Well, there’s one challenge that I’m up for: Eating Down the Fridge.

WaPo food blogger Kim O’Donnel is forcing us to face our massive pantries and ice boxes and actually eat what’s already in our kitchen. She rounded up foodies from across the country to take part in not buying any food for a week, making do with what’s on hand. It’s an exercise in economic and culinary restraint. Actually, in culinary creativity – you can’t run out and buy that avocado, you have to figure out what to use instead.

She asked me to guest blog in her virtual space, A Mighty Appetite. Here’s my contribution to Eating Down the Fridge.

Emptying the Fridge on Meatless Monday [WaPo, A Mighty Appetite]

Oh, and the Meatless Monday reference – KOD advocates for one meatless day of the week. I’m in agreement.

by BS

The Last Word on the Last Supper

Thanks to everyone who entered The Endless Simmer/Top Chef Last Supper contest. I’m sure you’ve all been tossing and turning at night waiting for the results, and that time has finally come. Drum roll, please…

Our third place winner will soon be getting his quickfire and elimination challenge dishes judged by Pamda and Tom avatars, because he’s the proud owner of Top Chef the Video Game. Congrats to Peter Justason. Here’s his last supper lineup:

Start with a classic cocktail – Manhattan with Crown Royal Rye, sweet Vermouth and a maraschino cherry. For the appetizer course – a Seafood Combo -Shrimp Cocktail, Smoked Salmon and Bacon-wrapped Scallops paired with chilled Sauvignon Blanc. For the salad, the classic Caesar paired with a buttery Chardonnay. The main course has to be a Peter Lugar Porterhouse with Twice-Baked Potato and Asparagus with Hollandaise Sauce paired with cool Cabernet Sauvignon. For the cheese course I would go with an aged Stilton Cheese with grapes, almonds and crackers paired with an aged Port. To finish, a light Lemon soufflé & Brut Champaign.

You had me at Manhattan.

In second place, and winner of Top Chef the Cookbook, is Justin:

I’m from Maine, so the meal is obvious, but delicious. Steamers with melted butter on the side to start. Twin steamed lobsters as the main course – keep it simple, none of that stuffing junk that dumbs it down by removing too much meat and replacing it with filler. No having the meat removed either, doing it yourself is an essential part of the experience. Two side dishes to round it out – corn on the cob and my mother’s homemade potato salad. To drink, a summer ale and a glass of French chardonnay. Why choose at your last meal?

top-chef-knife

But the winner, and recipient of an awesome Top Chef knife set that I’m actually quite jealous of, is Steve CTMQ:

How Do You Take Your Hummus?

A while back, BS posted on the deliciousness that is Sabra Hummus. Before discovering Sabra, I had sworn off store-bought hummus, but now I’ve been reconnected with my long lost chickpea love.

Growing up in an Armenian family, the only thing I ate hummus with was pita or a spoon (sorry for partying). However, my favorite restaurant at college serves their hummus plate with pita and a large assortment of vegetables (including onions and tomatoes??? What the fuck). My boyfriend frequently enjoys hummus with carrot chips (seen above) or green peppers.

I don’t understand this. I love the taste of hummus blended with warm, carb-packed pita. I can’t stand the taste of hummus+vegetables=too much moisture. Not enough hummus. Hummus slides off carrots. Watery mess.

Comments on my kid’s food post revealed that hummus is becoming mainstream, even for babies. How are the kids these days consuming this delicious wonder? Is it being disguised by watery vegetables or eaten on a spoon?

Enlighten me.

in Rants & Raves 12 comments

by BS

Feed Us Back: Comments of the Week

If you haven’t already, check out the dozens of great after school snack memories ESers are sharing. Anyone else surprised that the majority of them involve peanut butter? I guess PB is the real kid-tested, mother-approved snack. Although Hugging the Coast clearly places first in weirdest snack category:

Mayonnaise sandwiches! I used to eat Hellman’s mayo on Arnold’s white bread after school before my mother came home.

– AK thinks DC’s rising star chef has a shot at winning the Next Food Network Star:

I think Teddy will end up surprising people on NFNS. It’s unfortunate that they’ve made him look like a cartoon but the guy is seriously talented. His food is fantastic and he’s a natural teacher which makes him perfectly suited for doing a cooking show. Hopefully we’ll get to see a little more as the show goes on that his goofy behavior isn’t “acting”, he’s just a naturally outgoing, ebullient goofball who loves food and loves to teach people to cook.

– La Morgan is ready to follow Paul and Yoko’s lead:

I’m a fan of meatless Monday too – I also really like Mark Bittman’s approach (The Minimalist) where every meal is veggie or vegan until dinner. Not that it means I follow this, but managing meat consumption by abstaining within one day or meal is a good way for carnivores like me to learn to design meals without meat, without having to be as careful as a vegetarian about my meal balance/protein consumption. Definitely nay on Yoko’s hat, btw. Yikes.

But ladygoat disagrees on both counts:

Most Catholics can’t even manage meat-free Fridays during Lent, so I don’t think meatless Mondays is going to make anyone vegetarian. But, it’s a fine idea – at least it gets people thinking about other food options. And YAY on her hat. Awesome.

(Photo: RachelBruce1)

in Celebs / TV / Veggie 1 comments

by tvff

Screw You, New York Food Scene

I have serious issues with the New York food scene.

Maybe you’re thinking that New York is the epicenter of American food culture. Maybe you believe that the variety of offerings — from haute cuisine to pushcart street food — is the best thing since sliced bread. Perhaps you really can’t get enough of all the quirky, fun little culinary trends. That’s one way of looking at it.

Another way to look at it would be that, for all the great things about NYC food, the whole accompanying “scene” is insufferably self-important. Being only an hour away, I’m close enough to be subjected to the new-hot-now attitude that permeates the city, but I’m far enough away to have some perspective. Trust me…you don’t need to be a suspicious mid-westerner to think that New York is impossibly self-indulgent and obnoxiously trendy.

I feel quite strongly about this and I know that I have logic on my side, so I present to you a five-point argument explaining why Gotham’s insufferable food culture needs to be taken down a peg:

Artsy Photo of the Day

It’s really alive! You may or may not remember the previous artsy photo that depicted our fledgling basil. Well, now it’s been about 4 weeks, and things seem to be going reasonably well. I have no idea how long this is supposed to take to transform into mature basil plants, but I assume nature works deliberately.

in Photos 2 comments

by C. Christy Concrete

Cupcake Rampage: Trashy Cupcakes

_{Keep eating those clown cupcakes, and you’ll turn into a clown.}

We’re a pretty loose group here at Endless Simmer. Although I’ve yet to visit the corporate headquarters in New York, I hear it’s pretty swanky. Hot and cold running microbrews from the bathroom faucets, life-size voodoo dolls of dozens of celebrity chefs skewered with huge Renaissance Fair lances, and a giant chocolate fountain that rises up three stories into the atrium above the lobby. I wonder why they haven’t invited me to see it yet.

Oh well, it’ll keep. It’s just a thrill and an honor to be a member of the team and do my part for the ball club.

Anyway, for the most part I think I’ve managed to maintain the Cupcake Rampage gold standards so far: didactic journalism, spotlighting mature flavors for sophisticated palates, and trying to explain as much why something happens as how it’s supposed to happen. After last week, however, I may have hit the wall. It wasn’t the new directions I was taking my writing, or the tangle of coming up with something pretty and practical every week, or even the dilemma of what do to with all those goddamn cupcakes.

No, gentle readers; I was done in by frosting.

Last week’s Aztec xocolatl cupcakes were a byproduct of another five dozen cupcakes I baked as a favor to a friend and her party for the neighborhood kids. (My first paid gig!) Now, even though it might sound nightmarish, making fifty-plus cupcakes really isn’t that big a deal, even if they’re different styles and flavors; you just get into assembly-line mode and crank them out. Making a different kind of frosting to go with each kind of cupcake, however, now that’s a pain in the ass. The worst kind of crash is a sugar crash, and nothing has more sugar than homemade frosting.

So you see, I needed something simple this week. Nothing terribly fancy or high-maintenance or with too many ingredients, but still something that encapsulated the essence of Endless Simmer: a little class, a little flash, a little trash. Since going vegan I’ve kind of left my trashy food tendencies behind, but just because something is vegan doesn’t mean it’s good for you. (Hel-lo, vegan cupcakes? It’s still a cupcake!) So, what’s classier than a vegan cupcake, flashier than a new cupcake tree, (thanks, Diana!) and trashier than the tops of said cupcakes adorned with the unnatural accouterments of American breakfast cereal? Nothing, I says! Nothing!

Just whip up a batch of your favorite cupcake batter (I made gluten-free vanilla, because I’m still working on my GF skillz) and sprinkle on your favorite brand of sugarbombs before chucking them in the oven. I used Cocoa Puffs, Trix, (gluten-free!) and Cinnamon Toast Crunch. Airy, crunchy cereal works best because they don’t sink; marshmallows tend to melt and make the cupcake all gross. (Extra trash points!) Once they’re baked, the cereal is also going to be in direct contact with the cupcake itself, so the topping will start to get soft after a few hours.

What’s that you say? Oh, you don’t think breakfast cereal is trashy enough, do you? No matter how much high fructose corn syrup it’s been soaked in, how nutritionally deficient it may be, how laden with GMOs, artificial colorings, and hidden sodium it is? Well then, let’s just go back downstairs into the lab and see if we can’t find something a little more…disturbing for you, shall we?

Stare into the face of horror after the jump, if you dare…

June 2009