Vegetarian Banh Mi

In celebration of my mentor's glorious return to the blogosphere I decided to cook whatever he did, but vegetarian style. This sandwich is absolutely delicious with so many different tastes coming through: the strong meaty flavors of the tofu and marinade, the sour of the slaw, the creaminess of the mayonnaise, the spice of the Sriracha sauce, texture of the fried egg, and chewiness of the bread. All of these in every bite, it is really an incredible sandwich. So good that Ms. gorgeous and I cooked it again two nights ago. It took a while to make all the separate pieces but it was well worth it.

The basic set-up for the sandwich is the following; bread, protein (meat/tofu), pickled vegetable, spice, mustard/mayonnaise (optional), herbs (optional), plus much more. Below are the different parts that I cooked to create my sandwich.

For the tofu portion, I found a recipe here. Seems like the entire site is focused on the Banh Mi so you can really research the different possibilities. Letting the tofu marinade was great because it absorbed a lot of the flavor in the marinade and it cooked very easily due to the oil it has soaked up.

For the pickled portion, I made a simple vinegar slaw with radishes and carrots. I boiled about a cup of vinegar, 1/2 a cup of sugar, some onions, and a mixture of spices (Turmeric, salt, mustard seed). After the onion softened I poured it over the carrots and radish mixture. Very good.

I was going to make my own mayonnaise but I did not get to it, but I had made my own bread earlier that day. The yeast was a little dead but they still had a little metabolism left.

Finally, I added a fried egg to the sandwich. Fried eggs fit into the category of "never a bad idea to add to a ________". It held true for this meal.
Assembly was fun. Squirt some mayonnaise and Sriracha sauce on the different sides of bread. Add the tofu slices and some slaw. Finally top with the fried egg, some chopped cilantro, and a little pepper. It is ready to enjoy.

Flan - Noxrox Returns

I can't end it. Guest Blogging though I do have a recipe that I have been cooking for the past couple of months that is absolutely amazing. I will be cooking it again tonight and will post it later this week. Here is NoxRox back with another delicious dish.

For this recipe, the oven needs to be at 325. The Flan starts with making caramel and putting that in the bottom of a baking dish or several ramekins. To make the caramel, mix 1 cup sugar with 1/4 cup water. Slowly bring the mixture to a boil and stir occasionally. Eventually, a sweet chemical reaction will occur and the sugar will melt and turn brown and look like caramel. Have the dish or ramekins ready. Remove the caramel from heat and quickly pour into the desired container(s). It hardens pretty quickly.


Then begin to prepare the custard. The whole concept reminds me of scrambled eggs with a lot of milk in them. The milk needs to be heated in a pot until in boils, about two cups. While the milk is boiling, crack open 5 eggs or so (you can also use extra yolks) and beat them with a whisk.

Add the hot milk and some sugar, about 1/2 cup. Vanilla, salt, nutmeg, cinnamon can be added or omitted to your desired taste. I would definitely include the vanilla. Once the egg mixture is all whisked together, pour it over the hardened caramel in the prepared pan(s). For the custard to cook evenly, it needs to be placed in a water bath. Put this whole apparatus in the oven.


The flan will be done when it looks set. It will shake a little bit but sort of looks like the way jello should. This will take longer if it is all in one dish, about an hour and 15 minutes, or shorter if you use ramekins, about 50 minutes.
After it is done, you should let it chill in the fridge for a couple of hours. I couldn't resist trying it before it chilled. What happens is all of the caramel goes to the hole that you poked in the custard. It still tastes great though. This happened after it chilled anyway, so I say that if you want to try it hot, go for it!

Mr. RstataSas - Vegetarian Sushi

Wait, why is guest month still going on? Wasn't it supposed to end a few weeks ago? Yes, it was but life is busy and I still have delicious food to post. This meal comes from Mr. RstataSas, king of statistics and figuring out why the poor are always getting screwed with health-care. I was lucky enough to take part in eating and making this meal. It was my first time making Sushi. Best thing about Sushi is you can wing it, add whatever you want, and it will be delicious. The post and pictures are by Mr. RstataSas.

Think of this setting as five meals:
breakfast, brunch, lunch, dinner, and dessert.
Or Tex-Mex, Italian, vegetarian, Japanese, and Wisconsinite.

So the appetizer / breakfast / Tex-Mex was a breakfast burrito sushi roll. Basically you take avocados and wrap them up with egg and melted cheese. The egg only serves as the burrito/seaweed component and also adds that great egg flavor that most cheeses lack on their own.


The 1st course, a.k.a. brunch e.g. Italian platter was a sushi roll filled with brown rice, mozzarella cheese, and roasted peppers. This is a particularly difficult dish, because not everyone enjoys fire-roasted peppers drizzled with olive oil. You've been warned.



Next, the pan-veg-asian-fusion requires the hand-grinding of veggieburger patties and your favorite mango salsa. Anyone wishing to replicate this dish can purchase a bathtub of mango salsa at costco. After combining these two ingredients in your favorite sizzling frying pan, wrap them up in brown rice & seaweed & avocado, and eat them before anyone else has a chance
.
Finally, the main course: avocado, cucumber, brown rice, wasabi, and seaweed. Kind of boring, but you won't have leftovers unless you make a ton and have no friends. Even then, these five ingredients will probably make you friends, but I'm sure you don't need them.

Rolling technique is important.

The final spread!!!!

For dessert, frozen blackberries, rasberries, blueberries, bananas, and some skim milk go into a blender. A tablespoon of vanilla extract should follow; this little gem will make your diners believe you when report that you've used whole milk and not skim.

NoxRox - Butternut Squash Soup

Guest month continues with NoxRox, a follower and master cook. I have one more guest lined up then I am on my own again. As an aside, I am really enjoying using fall vegetables in my cooking these days. Lots of squash, brussel sprouts, and pears. All delicious.

Nox Rox -

So easy, and so good! Cut the butternut squash in half. Put some oil on a baking sheet and put the squash face down in the oil. Bake for about an hour and a half at anywhere between 425-450. The squash should be nice and soft when you it is done.


Chop up some garlic, onions, shallots, or whatever else might taste good and brown a little bit in a pot with some butter or oil.
Scoop out the squash into the same pot with the onions along with some vegetable stock. I used a cup and a half, but use more or less depending on the amount of squash and your desired consistency. Let the whole mixture come to a boil. Turn off the burner and put the whole thing in a blender.
Puree the soup until the desired consistency - about thirty seconds. Put it back in the pot to keep it warm.
Serve as is or add spice to taste. I like mine with a little Greek yogurt in it - Delicious!

Acorn squash and apple

Guest blogger month is almost over. I have one more guess blogger lined up, and one more recipe from Mr. Boy.

Mr. Boy again, this time with a side dish/dessert. It's an acorn squash and apple salad.

Ingredients:

Acorn Squash
2 Apples
Walnuts
Cinnamon
Brown Sugar/Maple Syrup
Dash of salt
Butter

Peeling the acorn squash can be a pain, but if you boil it for about 15 minutes then you can just peel the skin right off with your fingers (cool it first). Then cut it in half, scoop out the seeds, and then cut it into one inch chunks. Core and cut the apple into one inch chunks as well. Roughly chop the walnuts and throw them into the mix, then sprinkle on cinnamon, and brown sugar. If you don't have brown sugar, maple syrup works just as well. Don't go overboard on the cinnamon because it's so strong, but a liberal dose of brown sugar/maple syrup will make it nice and sweet. Sprinkle on salt to taste and add a few small dollops of butter to melt in when you cook it.

You can either bake it in the oven 350 degrees for about an hour, or put it in the microwave for 7 minutes, stir it, and cook it for seven minutes more. Serve hot.

Mr. Boy - Eggplant Parm

I found a guest blogger more from my heart. If Mr. Solo was the white collar, Mr. Boy is definitely the blue collar chef. The bottom line is he gets it done. Enjoy his first meal, cooked from vegetables that he picked with his own hands.

Mr. Boy's eggplant parm:

I like to keep recipes short and sweet. It shouldn't take much longer to cook it than it does to eat it.
Ingredients:

Eggplant
Mozzarella/Parmesan cheese
Tomato sauce
Eggs
Bread crumbs
Seasoning (Garlic powder, onion powder, oregano, etc.)
Olive oil

This is pretty much an eggplant casserole. Working as a sharecropper on a CSA farm, I have to find ways to make otherwise inedible food palatable, and voila! Turns out you can eat eggplant after all.

Preheat oven to 300 degrees.
Beat the eggs together in a bowl, and on a plate mix the bread crumbs with your seasonings. Cut the eggplant into thin slices and dip them in the egg batter, then coat each side with the seasoned bread crumbs. You'll want to bake the eggplant first to make it nice and crispy, so lay the slices out on cookie sheets and drizzle olive oil over them. Then put them in the oven and bake them on each side for about five minutes.

Once both sides are baked, turn the oven up to 400 degrees and make the casserole while the oven is heating up. This is simply layering the eggplant, tomato sauce, and cheese. Start by covering the bottom of the dish with the breaded eggplant, then cover that thinly with tomato sauce, then cover that with cheese, then cover that with eggplant, that with tomato sauce, that with cheese, etc. until all your eggplant is used up. It can be two layers, three layers, really it just depends on how much eggplant you have and how deep your dish is. Bake that for 20 minutes or until the cheese is nice and melted.

Mr. Solo Part 2 - Grilled Cheese and Tomato Soup

The main man, Mr. Solo, is back for round two. Exciting news, I have two more guest bloggers lined up maybe more. And here he is....

Mr. Solo -

The idea for the second dish has actually been kicking around in my head for about a month for no better reason than hunger and the fact that my roommate and I seem to share a love of pan-fried bread. It's a grilled cheese sandwich with cream of tomato soup. Take some Challah bread, some dried oregano or other herb, and heat up some oil in a non-stick frypan. Throw the bread on there until it's soaked up most of the oil and is starting to brown. In the meantime baste some swiss cheese in truffle oil (you've essentially ended any effort to make this dish taste less than awesome once the truffle oil makes a showing). Flip your bread, throw the cheese on to melt for a few more seconds. For style points, add caramelized onions and chopped chives to the finished sandwich.

The tomato soup is actually pretty involved, but well worth the effort. You need to roast roma tomatoes with olive oil/herb of your choice (thyme works well) at 400°F for an hour. You also need to throw some standard tomatoes through a food processor, and then throw the pulp on a strainer with some salt in the fridge overnight. All the liquid drips out (incidentally, you've just made tomato water which has about a hundred amazing uses) but what remains is your very own homemade tomato paste. Fire up some onions on the stove with some butter, let them rock until they're translucent, throw in some rough chopped normal tomatoes, then the roasted tomatoes, thyme, bay leaf, and water to cover, and let that simmer down. When you're finding that the water is coming out of the tomatoes and things are trending more liquid than creamy, throw in your homemade tomato paste. It soaks up all the excess liquid like a friggin' sponge. When everything's softened down, throw your concoction through a fine-mesh strainer. Add a junkload of butter, a touch of heavy cream, salt to taste, back in the pot and crank the heat until the whole thing comes to a boil, then immediately turn off your heat. D for done.

Mr. Solo - Tomato Tatare and Green Beans

The next guest is the one and only Mr. Solo. If you don't know who I am talking about, trust me.... you know!!!! Good thing setdinnerhereveg has a executive board of only ONE, because if we put this to a vote, I might lose my head chef/blogger status... replaced by Mr. Solo.

He contributed two courses of a fantastic meal that he cooked for fellow friends and forwarded the pictures and description. Here is part one.

I guess [Mr. gorgeous] wasn't kidding about having a guest month on his blog! SO without further ado...a little bit of background on this I'm a pretty voracious meat eater, but with an increasing cadre of vegetarian friends. In the interests of being able to have people over for dinner every once in a while without thrusting steaks on unwilling palettes I've been forced to explore their strange and unfamiliar world. Fennelwhatnow?

Being a meat eater at heart, the first dish is actually a riff off of raw steak tartare, the idea being that you could use tomatoes instead and approximate the same color and texture as uncooked beef. I've been referencing the French Laundry cookbook, a recent Bible of mine, so I definitely can't take credit for the concept. There's two main techniques you need for this dish, quick blanching and slow roasting. Basically you take some vine-on tomatoes, dunk them in boiling water for about a minute, and then immediately shock them in ice cold water. What this lets you do is remove the skins really easily. Then you quarter the skinned tomatoes, remove and discard the pulp, add some olive oil, salt, and thyme, and slow roast the remaining tomato pieces in the oven at 250°F for about 2 hours. What you get is super concentrated tomato with a somewhat more solid texture, that you can rough chop, add chopped shallots and toss in a ring mold. Tartare: done. The salad on top is green beans in a mixture of heavy cream and red wine vinegar (with a pinch of salt), and then the sauce is the oil drippings from the roasted tomatoes.

More Plum Pictures

Plums by Ms. Pumpkin

Greetings readers! Ms. Pumpkin here, blogging from the great state of Missouri. Recently I had the joy of spending a weekend in our nation's capital with Mr. and Mrs. gorgeous. We had a fabulous weekend of cooking, eating, drinking and other drinking related activities. Such fun!

A Sunday trip to the Dupont farmers' market left us with an abundance of over-ripe plums that had to be used immediately. We decided to finish that night's dinner with a couple of plum-based desserts: kuchen and sorbet.

Kuchen, German for “cake” can come in many forms. As the state dessert of South Dakota (http://www.state.sd.us/state/sdsym.htm), it's made with a yeasty crust and a custard filling that is enjoyed while wearing olde-tyme German garb. In contrast, our plum kuchen was based on a dense cake flavored with ample amounts of lemon zest and white sugar. We topped it with halved, pitted plums covered in more sugar and some cinnamon. After nearly quarter of an hour baking in the hot oven, the tiny kitchen was filled with the aroma of lemons, plums and cinnamon. The golden cake had plumped up around the fruit, which had softened under the melting sugar and cinnamon. Once it was cooled, the cake easily slipped out of the Gorgeous's nifty spring form pan. Thank God for wedding registries.

We planned to serve a plum sorbet along side our kuchen. The ingredients were simple: plums, water and sugar. The recipe had me blanch and peel the plums before blending them. After scalding my delicate fingers a few times, I gave up on these two steps and just tossed the pitted plums into the Magic Bullet. You can leave the peel on without affecting the taste, but don't leave in the pits. I don't think the Magic Bullet would be very happy. Alone, the sorbet was nothing spectacular, but it paired nicely with the heavy kuchen.

All in all, the dessert was a sweet finish to a wonderful weekend. Happy cooking!

GUEST MONTH!!!!!

October is guest month. Get ready for delicious vegetarian recipes prepared by friends and readers of Mr. gorgeous. The first guest is the one and only Ms. Pumpkin.

Baked Orzo

Made this dish last night from a recipe in the NYT. When I began cooking it, the recipe seemed like it was going to be a breeze. Cut up the vegetables and throw them with the orzo, bake and you have the meal. Well it was a little bit more complicated than that because most of the vegetables needed to be cooked beforehand. So the prep took quite a while, about forty minutes. I think we then shortchanged the baking a little bit because it was getting late and Mrs. gorgeous and I were hungry.

The orzo had a lot of flavor especially with all the cooked vegetables, which is a necessary though lengthy process. Frying the vegetables in a small amount of oil beforehand softens them up and brings out there flavor that mixes in with the orzo well. I also think that baking it slightly longer would have been good. The orzo was cooked beforehand in water, and I thought baking would have added a little crunch but I do not think we had quite gotten there yet.

Another note: I think if I were to cook it again I would double the recipe so that there were more leftovers. Only going to get about four plates total out of the recipe (though NYT says serves six) and it would be nice for the effort put in to get a little more return. Mr. and Ms. duke/environmental science, check out that baking pan.

Leftover Mash-up and Fry Dough

I had a lot of leftover vegetables and decided to make a sort of mash-up dish. I cut up all the remaining vegetables (potatoes, broccoli, leeks, carrots, can't remember what else but it was a clearing the refrigerator job). I stir fried the vegetables and then added in coconut milk, turmeric, and cumin (No curry powder). The sauce was sweet and delicious and the vegetables mixed in really well.

The fry bread was from a packet that my dad purchased in North Carolina. You mix up the dough with water and then fry them in a small amount of oil. They puff up like the you can see above.

Overall food was great. Easy, fast, and used up all the various vegetables that remained in the fridge before they went bad.

Sorry for the long absence, trying to get back into this writing thing.

Pizza

Every once in a while Ms. gorgeous and I make pizza at the house. With our wedding coming up, we have gotten some sweet gear to cook the pizza on (pizza stone, pizza board, rolling pin, and pizza cutter). We have yet to make our own dough out of laziness, timing issues, and we have a great spot down the street to buy dough (Vace - as Supertaster says, best pizza in DC), plus having a food processor will make life much easier.

We also bought the different sauces for the Pizza (Pesto and Tomato), but can easily make these in the future when we have a better garden. The nice part of Pizza is the community and creativity aspects. Everybody can customize their own (so everyone is happy) and you get inspirations and taste ideas from those around you that are making their pizza. If you are lucky you they will give you a slice of their creation.

A topping that I really enjoy is butternut squash that has been peeled and fried in olive oil and salt and pepper. Though the season for squash has ended, make sure you try it when the time becomes right again.

The Main Course - Onion and Mushroom Quiche

This was the main course for Mr. and Mrs. Prison. A full-fledged quiche. Now, of all foods quiche is one of the few that I remember growing up and disliking while my sister enjoyed it. She was usually the picky eater. For some reason the whole eggs, ham, and cheese thing grossed me out.

I have finally grown out of that dislike, so I decided to make one for the main course of the meal. It seemed like it would go well with Kale and Sweet Potatoes. The recipe was from the Vegetarian Cookbook linked to before. It was really good. The hardest part was making the crust by hand. They recommend using a blender or a food processor, which I don't own. Made it by hand and it turned out well. The rest was easy. Fry up the onions and mushrooms, pour in the eggs. It was good. Better with the company.

Kale and Sweet Potatoes

A quick little post since it has been so long. I made this dish a while ago when two friends came over for dinner. It was Mr. Prison and Mrs. Prison who came over. This was the vegetable portion of the meal and the next post will be the main course. Very easy to make these dishes and a lot of good tastes.

For the Kale just cut out the stems if the leaves are big or just leave them in. Then put some oil in a pan with some garlic and salt and fry for a few minutes to loosen up the stalks. Add water and let the leaves braise in the covered pan. The leaves should become slightly greener when they are cooked. Nice easy and healthy. In the past I threw away the leftover water if there was any but you could save it for a broth or drink it for the nutrition.

Sweet potato recipe is from my man Bittman. He actually had this on a video post from the fall (article/video). Peel the sweet potatoes and then grate (use a food processor if you got it) them so they are in long threads. Add oil to a frying pan or a big pot (whatever will fit all the potatoes) and then fry for 5-10 minutes until they are softened. While this is going on, bust up some garlic so the flavors are released, and add garlic, 3 tablespoons of butter, and fresh sage to a sauce pan. Put the pan on medium and brown the butter (takes about 5 minutes - at some point the yellowish butter will turn brown and a great nutty flavor begins to spread throughout the kitchen). Pour the butter over the sweet potatoes and serve. A quick and easy way to prepare sweet potatoes that often take a long time to boil and soften.

Beet and Squash Faux Tomato Sauce

I experimented with a dish like this a few months ago when Ms. gorgeous and I had leftover beets and squash, and it turned out pretty well. On vacation with my parents I tried it again with the principle goal being to make the sauce and it turned out great. The flavor of the beets and the squash together make a wonderful combination and go incredibly well with pasta just like normal tomato sauce. A nice end of winter coming into spring sort of dish.

First you can see the pasta on the left above. It is sort of a funky circular pasta. Unique and delicious. My parents brought that with them.

The sauce is incredibly easy to make only requiring beets, squash (I think we used winter), oranges, and salt and pepper. It will take as long as the beets and squash take to cook plus about 10 - 20 minutes to prepare the sauce (Pasta should be made at the same time).

Prepare the beets and squash. For the beets boil in water until they are tender when pricked with a fork - about 45 minutes and you may need to refill the water to keep the beets covered. For the squash, slice in half and brush a small amount of olive oil on each end. Place face down on a baking sheet and cook for about 30-45 minutes at 400 degrees until tender.

Once the ingredients are cooked, peel the skin off the beets and put into a blender saving one on the side. Scoop out the squash and put the flesh in the blender as well. Blend until smooth (Ms. gorgeous one complaint was it was too smooth so maybe pulsate and not puree). While blending, dice the saved beet into small pieces and put to the side. Ms. gorgeous had the great idea to put oranges on top to add a little zing to the sauce. It turned out wonderfully so additionally peel and cut an orange into small pieces.

Taste the sauce and season with salt and pepper. It is ready to be eaten.

Put it on top of your favorite pasta, add some of the beets chunks to give it some additional texture and then the orange to offer a contrast in color and flavors. The sauce looks like pure beets but the winter squash offers significant flavor and background to the beet taste. Oranges are a little funky but give a sweet kick, definitely a plus.

Enjoy, I will definitely be making it again.

Guacamole

A month or so ago, Ms. gorgeous and I went to a restaurant, Rosa Mexicano in Gallery Place. One of their specialties is to wheel around a cart of avocado's and make guacamole right there for you. It is pretty sweet. On this particular day though the avocado's were not ripe, which is not surprising having watched them cart around hundreds of avocado's, but it made me disappointing.

What was a man to do? Gorgeous decided to make his own Guacamole = delicious.

Concept again was easy as pie. I think variations could really make this great, but I went for the standard.

All you need are the following ingredients. 2 ripe avocado's (the skin should give way when you press in), 1 tomato, 1/2 an onion, 1/2 jalapeno, cilantro, and salt. Cut everything really finely except for the avocado. This releases the flavors and lets the tastes blend together really well.

Cut the avocado in half as shown in the top picture. I think this looks awesome. Take your knife and hit it against the seed so it sinks in a little bit. Twist and out pops the seed. Next scoop out the avocado into a bowl. Add all the previously chopped ingredients and some salt. Crush with a fork or spoon, or if you are really sweet a Molcajete (mortal and pestle - shout out to Papa gorgeous and the Mow-Ka-Je-Te). Serve with chips and bamn you just one upped Rosa Mexicano.

I would be interested to hear other chef's variation or different flavors that you add in.

Hummus

This is another dish that I have been making a crazy amount of lately, and comes from the book of add the basics and the rest is for the flourish. It is simple, cheap, and has highly variable flavor depending on the flourish that you choose. Just today I made it on vacation with my parents and Ms. gorgeous.

The game plan for the basics is chickpeas, olive oil, and tahina. From there you can go wild... Sometimes I put in pepper flakes or lemon juice and definitely garlic.

Add all of these ingredients into a blender and blend until you get the consistency desired. I usually do not dump out the chickpea liquid because it has some flavor and you need some liquid to keep the humus moist. Also, I add some water to get the humus looking right. Our blender broke the other day so now we depend on the infomercial contraption to the right (the magic bullet). It works ok, but I am looking forward to getting a blender soon.

Once created I put the hummus into a bowl and add Paprika to the top which makes it looks more sophisticated (as shown above). The next step is eating it. I generally use pita, celery, or carrots to eat with my hummus. Sometimes Ms. gorgeous or myself create pita chips by cutting the pita into slices and pouring olive oil and herbs on top and then toasting. Recently I have been making some great sandwiches by stuffing a pita with hummus and lots of mixed vegetables. Very tasty!!!

French Onion Soup

Finally we get to the final dish. I have been very busy with school so cooking and posting has been a challenge, but I will try and do better now that spring break is coming up. My posts will probably always come in spurts.

French Onion Soup..... I love French Onion Soup, but do not order it enough at restaurants. It is perfect for me because it is salty, cheesy, and messy. It is one of those dishes that I almost switch my order at the last second because it sounds so great.

For this dish I was able to use the last of the vegetable broth that I had made a couple of weeks before. The broth was reddish but once it was cooked with onions for a long time the color turned to what you see above. I don't remember the other ingredients that well but obviously a lot of onions and maybe some thyme or other spices. It was a basic recipe but took a little while for the broth and the flavors to come out of the onions.

The best part for me is the last step when you cover it with cheese and bread and then broil it until the top melts. This is great because it looks awesome and I can't wait to dig my spoon and get that long stretch of cheese from the bowl to my mouth.

The dish was good, just like the restaurant. A highlight of cooking for me is cooking dishes that I enjoy at restaurants and having them taste as good or better. I can check it off my list so that I do not need to order it any more because I know I can do it on my own at home.