Endless Simmer - A Food Blog

Last week’s Who Cooked It Better aroused quite the display of passion in you folks, finally giving America’s pissed-off vegans a chance to vent their frustrations against that scourge of vegans everywhere, Anthony Bourdain. This was Endless Simmer’s most popular poll to date, and with 800 of you weighing in, Hezbollah Tofu crushed Anthony Bourdain, 83 to 17 percent. Many congrats to HT on a truly winning original recipe.

In a shameless ploy to hold on to our newly expanded vegan readership base, we’re continuing with the “hold the bacon” theme for this week’s Who Cooked It Better, a search for the ultimate veggie burger. But before you meat-lovers tune out, let’s remember that grillin’ season is just around the corner, and if you expect to keep your veggie friends around for the summer, you better have a good faux-burger recipe. And don’t say, “Oh, I already know about Boca Burgers,” because when your vegan friends respond “that’s so considerate of you to think of me,” what they really mean is “Great. I can’t wait to eat this same store-bought patty every weekend for the rest of the summer. By the way, I’m a vegan and this has cheese in it.”

Seeing as how veggie burgers are kind of an anti-establishment thing anyway, we decided to go all-blogger for this challenge. Our first cheftestant is Swell Vegan, whose tasty-looking seitan burger (top left) is accented with chopped sesame seeds, red pepper and carrots. In a twist that could have you choosing this over steak at your next BBQ, Swell Vegan mixes chimichurri sauce into the veggie patty, and tops it off with more of this savory green stuff, along with tomato, onion, and tofutti cheese. SV says the recipe is still a work in progress, but this one already looks like a winner.

Moving to the top right, Eat Air is hoping to take down yet another meat-worshiping TV star with their veganized version of Paula Deen’s Big Mike Burger. The Big V replaces Paula’s butter burger/pecan burger double patty with an amped up seitan burger that includes shittake mushrooms and vegan cheese, along with a tempeh-pecan patty complete with maple syrup and liquid smoke (!) Complete directions here.

On the bottom right corner is a beautiful pic from 101 Cookbooks, whose use of eggs may turn off you vegan voters, but these garbanzo bean-cilantro-sprout burgers are so tasty looking we had to include them. Most originally, 101 C loses the bread buns altogether and uses her two patties as the buns, filling the inside with avocado slices, cipollini onions, and more. Full recipe over at 101 Cookbooks.

In the bottom-left corner is a great-looking burger from The Accidental Vegetarian, which looks most like a real burger of anything we could find, even though instead of fake meat, the AV goes for a mix of eggplant, zucchini, onion and garlic, kicked up a notch with an inventive almond paste concoction. Full recipe here.

Your votes and thoughts please…

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ps - did we miss any of the best? Let us know!

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I first discovered halloumi cheese in South Africa last year. A trendy SA chain called News Cafe serves an avocado salad with fried halloumi, grilled brinjal and peppadews. Since I didn’t know what any of those things were, I had to try it. I ended up making several return trips for this amazing fried cheese.

For the record, brinjal is just eggplant, and peppadew is a spicy red pepper native to South Africa. But that’s beside the point, because halloumi was the real discovery. This super-salty, extra-firm-but-slimy goat/sheep’s milk cheese is actually from Cyprus, and if you try to say otherwise, the Halloumi Police will get you.

I’m not sure why it’s so prevalent in South Africa, but I have never noticed it stateside before, so when I spied it at the co-op last week, I jumped for it.

In taste, it’s probably most similar to a queso blanco, and like that Mexican cheese, it’s most exciting because it can be fried or grilled. A few recipes around the web recommend dipping it in flour, but I just tried it straight up and got this nice golden brown after frying thin slices for about a minute each side in extra virgin. The outside is a crisp golden brown and the inside is just a tad melty.

Since I didn’t have any peppadews lying around, I made my own version of the salad, with roasted red peppers, cucumbers, and of course, pine nuts.

*This post is tagged both Greek and Middle Eastern for redundancy’s sake, not as an attempt to fuel any cheese-related territorial conflicts.

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Gansie is, for once, embarrassed about promoting herself. So in this edition of Hott Links, we bring you her latest contributions to the Express paper, as published last Thursday:

The Language of Food: Napoleon

Taste the Tropics: Cafe Trope

Bargain Mediterranean: Cafe 8

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Somehow, this avocado hasn’t been eaten yet.

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My first job post-college helped elect Annise Parker to her first term as Houston City Controller. During this period - the first time in my life where I didn’t have homework and I couldn’t get wasted and skip class - I forced myself to be semi-responsible. Thus, instead of going to happy hour every night, or going out to eat, I tried to cook dinner myself. If really only a means to waste time between getting home from work and getting to bed. But I’ll get more into those first cooking atrocities another time.

I remember how much I hated getting up for work. Not that being “Volunteer Coordinator” was all that awful, but I just thought - wow, do I really have to sit in front of a computer for 7 hours a day, 5 days a week (campaign - 7 days/week and 10 hours/day) for the next 45 years?!?! I hated being an “adult.”

Then, one of my coworkers brought in cheese and crackers for lunch. I stared at her in awe. I was so jealous. Here I was, eating my awful frozen veggie Cajun-seasoned stir fry enhanced with I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter spray (thanks, Mariah!), and she had the brilliant idea to bring in cheese and crackers.

As a kid, no one would ever allow you to eat just cheese and crackers for lunch. But as an adult, and as an adult making an embarrassing $750/month, the absolute genius of a cheese and crackers lunch made me thankful for finally being able to make my own decisions, be it lunch or a host of any other adult situations.

That being said, I now make lots of dinners that don’t necessarily pass as full fledged meals.

Are those “gasps” I hear from my ES readers? Yes, I know, I’m sure you think that every meal I create deserves its own Hollywood Star, but sometimes I keep it low-key. Shocking, I know.

The other night for dinner I made my own little plate where I could mix-and-match the items to create bite-sized pita canapes.

Read on for my sample platter.

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I’ve never been as much of an avocado obsessive as this girl. I mean, I like ‘em and all, I’ve just always wished they could be, I don’t know, a little creamier? And maybe with a tad bit more blood. Yeah. A medium-rare avocado. Is that so much to ask, nature?

Thank god for Alton Brown. When Gansie shared this recipe for avocado compound butter, I knew it had to be tried on a nice steak.

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*Breaking News*

Food Network now comes in HD! And the first show 80P taped for me - an Alton Brown “Good Eats” special on **avocados** !!!

So, there I am, working on a blog post and thinking to myself, “I’m the avocado queen, I can surely show Big A a thing or two…”

Yea, um, what he did with the “alligator pear” is way beyond my capabilities. Although, this has forced me to think about my dedication to the lovely fruit, and I’m in. Alton - it’s a challenge. I will think of something so crazy, so out there, so fucking delicious, you’ll just beg me to guest star on your next avocado themed show.

Mr. Brown’s avocado creations:

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First, thank you to all of the ES readers for helping me formulate my 2nd catering gig menu. According to the librarians, the food was a hit!

80P’s mom intro’d me as the “caterer” and it totally cracked me up. Of course, she also slid in the fact that I date her son, but her colleagues actually thought I was a real caterer. And once she divulged the fact that I’m a “published food critic” her guests were all over me, asking me for restaurant reviews of places all across the District. I’d been to some, but luckily, I read enough of Tom to know a general sense of a place I hadn’t dined at yet. But when they asked me the name of my “catering company” I surely told them that I do this just for fun (although Endless Simmer Catering sounds very nice.) Being known as a food professional (even opening up wine bottles, taking empty glasses and discarding used napkins) felt very exciting, I still think I want to stick to blogging for now. Although - I *may* be up for another gig (email me at gansie@endlesssimmer.com)

The food…

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Fine. This post is a bit overdue, as you will notice by the fresh corn usage. But it went over so well, I expect everyone to remember this recipe for next summer.

I actually made this groundbreaking dish for Yom Kippur dinner, pairing nicely with SAG’s Tomato Salat.

Okay, so groundbreaking may be a bit of a stretch. As you can see by the picture, it’s a corn and black bean salad. But, what makes this groundbreaking is that it’s the first time we’ve brought in a Tex-Mex dish to the holiest of Jewish dinners. Watch out Ann Coulter - the Jews are “changing.”

Grilled Corn and Black Bean Salad

Grill 4 ears of corn until it starts to blacken on all sides, scrape the kernels into a bowl. Add half of a diced red onion, 4 snipped scallion stalks and 4 cloves of chopped garlic. Season with extra virgin, and kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper. Drain and wash black beans and add them in. Squirt salad with half a lemon and half a lime. Just before serving, toss in one head of chopped red leaf lettuce with one diced avocado and roughly chopped parsley. You may want to add a touch more extra virgin and S&P.

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