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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As we have learned from the current administration, scare tactics work. Apparently there have been some concerns brought up about eating too much soy. So of course people are starting to freak:

Tofu bad?: Is it true that tofu can cause breast cancer? I am worried about that, and also when I am pregnant, should I avoid tofu? As a vegetarian, I eat a fair amount of tofu and am wondering if I should limit my intake of tofu. Thanks!

Kim O’Donnel: the jury is still out on soy. Here’s a link to an article on the controversy. I think everything in moderation is the key. I would also buy organic or locally produced tofu, eliminates the GMO factor. Don’t avoid tofu, but a diverse diet, yes, do that.

But as Ms. KOD confirms from her WaPo chat, soy (just like chocolate and weed**) should be enjoyed in moderation. Americans, of course, over use everything they get their hands on. The article notes that in Japan, soy is consumed in limited amounts, not like the gigantic soy burgers eaten in the U.S. So before all of our veggie friends freak out, keep eating your fake cheese, just do so in a conservative fashion.

**Chocolate and weed were used for emphasis purposes, and not the idea of KOD.

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I know, lame title. Total cop-out. My bad.

Like Evo Diva has ranted before, I like to vary my meals between bloody steaks and salad greens laced with whole grains and vegetables. 80, my normal dining partner however, still likes to see a cut of meat on his dinner plate. So it took all of my debate team skills to convince him to eat a totally vegetarian dinner.

Oh, and I’m totally lying. I just think it would sound cool if I actually knew how to win an argument by debate skills. I actually spent my after school hours playing field hockey in the fall, lacrosse in the spring and watching my then-boyfriend play video games in the winter.

Anyway, as I pride myself in keeping a well-stocked pantry, on my walk home from work (with 80) I tried to piece together a meal without having to go to the store for anything. And I almost made it. After I decided to make a lasagna, but with eggplant strips instead of noodles (thanks, Vi), the only way I could sell 80 on the idea was to stop by the store so we could cover the whole thing with mozzarella cheese.

Real quick on the eggplant, so I bought it to use for this DC food bloggers potluck. But I was too hung over and just couldn’t get it together, especially after belmontmedina was bailing. Luckily, though, Mr. So Good filled me in on some of the details. I promise to be a better part of the community and attend the next one - headache and all.

Read on for what I guess I could have made if I wasn’t playing flip cup like a 20 year old the night before.

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Editors Note: This is going to be a long Editors Note, way too long for all italics.

Hi, it’s gansie. So I really do hate when a blogger starts getting, um, well new gigs and writes incessantly about the new gigs and stops writing about what you originally came to the blog for. Here’s an example. This is all to say, of course, that I am going to talk about myself and my new gig as a famous person.

Last weekend I was asked to be a JUDGE for a contest. Yes, me, a judge. ES’s good friend, Britannia, passed my name along to be the food judge for the third annual Progressive Dinner. (Full Dis - In order to make this contest fair, Brit decided to stop commenting and posting for the duration of the contest planning.)

But this night was way more than just a dinner. It’s 120 gay men, spending close to 10 thousand dollars, enjoying a night of: eating, drinking, dancing, lip syncing, decorating, and wearing itty bitty underwear-as-outwear. It was fucking amazing. Luckily my sister was in town to be my “assistant” as I ate my way through the night.

Continue to read about the actual food.

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I feel like Gansie would call these, “personpeas”.

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My girlfriend makes a pretty cool roommate. So after we moved in together last Spring, I came to realize that the most difficult adjustment I’d have to make to our new digs had nothing to do with co-habitation. Because we chose an apartment, I’d have to learn to live without a grill. Even typing that out makes me want to punch and curse. I HATE not having a grill. In my previous life with grills, I had exalted them to the highest status. They’re like slutty angels on Earth. Easy, social, fun, delicious, smoky, drippy, dynamic, versatile, outdoor goodness.

Since I began cooking, the grill has always been my favorite medium. When I was in High School, my friends ruthless gang and I would grill all of the time - every week, sometimes every day. We cooked hot dogs, burgers, steak, brats, kielbasa, italian sausage, pork roasts, chicken, ham, bread, tricked out civics, books, virgins, christians, everything. For a while I used to carry one of those cheap gas Coleman hibachis in my trunk, just in case. We grilled in the summer, the winter, at midnight (Midnight Steak Team Represent), in the snow, in the rain, at the beach, at the pool, at Burke Lake, damn; everywhere that Sam’s buddy, that furry goose looking thing, wouldn’t eat Green eggs, we grilled. That was about 10 years ago, and I never lost it. Since then, I’ve always lived with people that shared the love. In college we got stoned to the bejesus belt and grilled pizzas in donuts in the front yard. And they were f*n good. I love grills.

So yeah, enough fecking background. All of that rant for one simple reason - the other night, I decided to grill Christmas in July, or whatever. Click below to keep reading, sucka.

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BS’s famous presidential unendorsements inspired 80 and I to make some down-home chili and watch the caucus last Tuesday. Chili’s great for a TV night. Prep work is minimal and once all the ingredients are simmering away in the pot, there’s barely any work to be done, except for the occasional stir. So while it’s ridiculously warm out in the Nation’s capital, think about all those poor New Hamshireites (sp) that are braving the cold to pledge their allegiance to the candidate of choice - and eat some chili for them. (And, if we have any NH-ers in the building - click here for the latest ES undersorsements.)

And yes, pictured above are actual caucus go-ers. 80 is so obsessed with his new camera that he’s started taking photos of the television. Swear!

Also, and this may be controversial, but I tagged chili as “soup.” Now, I know you’re probably thinking: “You ES-ers have sooo many categories already that no one will even notice if you if you add in ‘chili.’ ” But I do try to fit things in to our pre-existing tags if possible. So I think I’m going to stick with chili as a soup on this one. Leave it in the comments if you think it’s an absolute atrocity that must be stopped immediately.

Recipes (for chili and accompanying corn bread products) and many pics, post-jump.

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Picking a book for my book club tends to be a slightly contentious undertaking each meeting. Although we are a small group, our different tastes in literature can provide us with a challenge in deciding what to undertake next. While a book club is a great excuse to read and catch up with friends, I also see it as an opportunity to test my culinary skills.

The hostess of each meeting is charged with providing the entire meal for the group. Personally, I love tying my meal to the book as closely as possible. Sometimes this is a daunting undertaking – A Million Little Pieces proved too much for my culinary creativity. Luckily, last month I had Reading Lolita in Tehran as my inspiration. The internets came to my rescue and provided me with an easy, scrumptious stew to serve my book club: Khoresh-E Bademjan.

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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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