Deep Blue Sort of-Chana Masala

I'm tired. This one had to be quick because I was in class until 6:20, had to go to the grocery store, and my friend's art installation is opening like right now.

Deep Blue defeated Garry Kasparov in chess 15 years ago. Go computers!

makes approx. 2-3 servings

INGREDIENTS

1 c. rice

2 1/2 c. cooked chick peas

1 15-oz. can fire roasted crushed tomatoes

1/2 medium yellow onion, diced

3 cloves garlic, minced

2 red chilies, partially de-seeded and crushed

1 1/2 tsp. fenugreek

1 tsp. curry powder

1/2 tsp. garam masala

1/2 tsp. coriander

1/2 tsp. chile powder

1/2 tsp. salt

1 c. water

DIRECTIONS:

1. Cook rice.

2. Fry onion in oil in a medium pot over medium heat. When translucent, add garlic and cook for another couple minutes. Add chick peas and cook for a minute or so.

3. Add in everything else. Cover the pot, bring to a boil, then lower to a simmer. Cook until the rice is done, or until desired consistency.

My review of The Woodmans got published yesterday or today.

Farm to Fridge

I'm not cooking tonight because I've got leftovers and I'm going to Cable Car Cinema for the Magic Lantern: Memory of Decay show.

But I wanted to post Mercy for Animals' "Farm to Fridge". It's really fucking upsetting; I only got through the first minute and a half. It makes me tear up, and it also makes me really angry. Because people pretend like this shit doesn't happen, when the evidence is everywhere. And I ignored it myself until I was 21. We need to change, but information isn't enough. We need emotional and ethical contact.

Devil's Footprints Edamame Salad Over Noodles

Exactly 156 years ago, the Devil's Footprints appeared in Devon, England. No, seriously, cloven hoof prints continued for over 100 miles, crossing bodies of water and traversing rooftops and whatnot. SATAN. Or wood mice, or good old mass hysteria. Good thing we don't succumb to that anymore...

This dish I cooked up real quick after helping my roommate with an art installation that needs to be ready for Thursday, when all the wealthy donors come to the new Creative Arts Council building to ooh and ahh. I gotta be at work in half an hour! I maybe went a little overboard with the seasoning — my love of soy sauce and cumin.

makes approx. 2-3 servings

INGREDIENTS:

12 oz. frozen edamame, thawed

9 oz. frozen sweet corn, thawed

1 medium yellow onion, diced

2 handfuls pea greens

5 grape tomatoes, quartered, forgotten in the fridge by my roommate, who will never notice they're gone

5 sun-dried tomatoes, sliced

1/3 pack rice bran Pad Thai fettuccine

1/4 c. shoyu soy sauce

1/4 c. yeast flakes

1 tsp. cumin

1 tsp. crushed red pepper

1/2 tsp. curry powder

1/2 tsp. turmeric

DIRECTIONS:

1. Put the noodles in a large pot over high heat to get the water boiling. Once boiling, cook for additional 8-10 min.
2. Fry onion in oil in a large pan over medium heat. Once translucent, add  edamame, sweet corn, and pea greens. Cook for several minutes, until the greens start to wilt.
3. Add soy sauce, yeast flakes, and spices. Turn heat up to medium-high and cook for several minutes.
4. Add both kinds of tomatoes, cook for a couple minutes. Combine with noodles.

From Hyun Höchsmann's and Yang Guorong's translation of Zhuangzi, "The Great and Honored Teacher" (123):

Another day Yan Hui saw Confucius again and said, "I have made progress."
"What do you mean?" asked Confucius.
"I sit and forget everything."

Potluck Hummus with Pita and Carrots

My super nice friend and partner-in-Really Really Free Marketeering invited me to a potluck at her place last night. I was late because the pita bread took longer than I thought it would. I had to really mess with the hummus recipe I used (from Veganomicon), perhaps because I used a blender instead of a food processor. Also, I had no lemon! (Whoops.) I'm not going to post the recipe for the pita bread, because I used this one (using sugar not honey, duh), which worked really well except that I don't have a rolling pin or a bread tablet thing, so my pitas didn't rise.

makes approx. 6 servings

INGREDIENTS:

30 oz. cooked chick peas (soak overnight, then simmer 90 min.)

5 Tbsp. tahini

1/2 c. olive oil

2 cloves garlic

3/4 c. water

cumin

dried parsley

salt

ground black pepper

paprika

DIRECTIONS:

1. Pour half the chickpeas into blender and attempt to puree. Fail to puree. Regret that you didn't mash beforehand with a wooden spoon.

2. Add tahini, olive oil, and water in batches, blending until the hummus is relatively smooth. Add in the remaining chick peas, a little bit of cumin and parsley, salt and pepper to taste, and maybe something like 2 tsp. paprika.

3. Stir with a spatula and try to blend until satisfactory. Pour into a container, chop some carrots, bake some pita, and eat.

After dinner I had a long food-centric conversation with my new friend Leah, who has some bad news, y'all. The US of A is colonizing the world with corn, and other disasters.

Really Really Free Market Chocolate Chip Cookies

I baked these this morning to bring to the Really Really Free Market, which was a phenomenal success and the most fun I've had in a long time. Lots of cool people hanging out and giving stuff away and finding beautiful things to take home. The cookies got eaten real quick, and the weird cake I baked a couple nights ago got all eaten up as well!

The recipe is jacked from Isa. I made a few tweaks, one of which is that I doubled the bake time because I don't have magic powers like Isa. Also, I forgot to soak nuts last night so in order to make mylk this morning I blanched the almonds, which resulted in a smoother, more subtle mylk and is something I'm going to take the time to do in the future. Peeling the nuts is annoying, though.

makes approx. 24

INGREDIENTS:

1/2 c. light brown sugar

1/4 c. white sugar

1/3 c. canola oil

1/4 c. almond milk

1 Tbsp. cornstarch

2 tsp. vanilla extract

1 1/4 c. flour

1/4 c. almond pulp

1/2 tsp. baking soda

1/2 tsp. salt

1 Tbsp. canola oil

1/2 c. chocolate chips

DIRECTIONS:

1. Preheat oven to 350F.

2. Combine sugars, oil, mylk, cornstarch, and vanilla in a mixing bowl. Whisk with a fork until incorporated and thick (like caramel, says Isa).

3. Mix in 1 c. flour, baking soda, and salt. Stir in the almond pulp and oil, then mix in the remaining 1/4 c. flour. Add chips and you're done!

4. Scoop dough onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper using the Tbsp. It should be lightly coated in canola oil from last use, making it easy to shake the dough out. Close pack 10-12 blobs on the sheet and bake for 12 min.

5. Remove the parchment paper to a table, cool for a minute, then transfer the cookies to a rack or cutting board to finish cooling. Place the parchment paper back on the baking sheet and fill up with remaining dough. Repeat process.

Yum! I'll have to bake something special for my roommate because she was super nice and let us use her car for the whole afternoon to bring stuff to/from AS220 downtown.

 

This girl didn't get to take the wheel home, but I think she might have gotten a cute red hat.

Ignorance Cake Challenge

Last night I decided to bake a cake instead of read for class. This is the second cake I've ever baked, and I did it without a recipe. I had a vague notion that tofu could be used for the "cream cheeze" frosting. Needless to say, this cake is not as good as something you could make from a tested recipe, so I'm not going to bother posting a recipe. Not that I could remember it anyway. There's flour, oil, a batch of chocolate soup, cocoa, sugar, tofu, cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, salt, baking powder, cornstarch, almond milk, confectioner's sugar. It's a goddamn mess. It's super dense but not super chocolate-y or super sweet. That's probably a bad thing. But I had a lot of fun! I advocate messing around in the kitchen if you're procrastinating and have a little bit of disposable income.

First layer:

Chinese New Year Stuffed Cabage with Strawberry Carrot Sauce

Happy Chinese New Year! Instead of crashing my roommates' 2.5-year anniversary dinner, I made these monstrosities. This was a new and exciting kind of failure, though. Instead of having an idea for a meal and not being able to pull it off, I totally pulled it off, the conception just turned out to be flawed. So the stuffed cabbage is good, and the sauce is good, but they're not great together. Reason: the sauce is a smoothie. Also, I learned that tarragon should be used sparingly.

makes approx. 4-6 servings

INGREDIENTS:

1 c. red lentils

3/4 c. short grain brown rice

1 medium eggplant, peeled and cubed

6 red potatoes, cubed

1 medium yellow onion, diced

3 cloves garlic, minced

1/2 cabbage, pulled apart

red wine vinegar

sage

tarragon

oregano

paprika

salt

1/2 lb. frozen strawberries

1 parsnip, peeled and chopped

3 small carrots, peeled and chopped

juice of 1/2 lemon

ground black pepper

oil

DIRECTIONS:

1. Cook rice and lentils in two pots.

2. Cut stuff up. Once lentils are done, drain and refill the pot with hot water. Toss in eggplant and potato, cook on high for a while.

3. Fry the onion with oil in a large pan over medium heat. Once eggplant and potato is somewhat tender, drain and add to the pan. Refill the pot again and bring to a boil. Toss in carrots, parsnip, and all cabbage leaves that didn't make the cut as bowls.

4. Drizzle red wine vinegar into the pan and add a couple shakes of all the seasonings. Get it going on medium-high.

5. Preheat oven to 350F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and line with cabbage leaves.

6. Once rice is done, mix with lentils and contents of pan. Dole out into the cabbage leaves and stick in the oven for 15 min.

7. Drain the remaining pot and add parsnip, carrot, and cabbage pieces to blender with thawed strawberries. Squeeze in lemon juice, grind black pepper on top, and blend until smooth.

Once it's all set, take a taste of the sauce. It's too sweet for application on the stuffed cabbages, so fill up a glass as dessert. Fold the cabbage leaves in half and eat like cute little sandwiches.