My Picnic Date With Galadriel: Strawberry Soup, Mango Shrimp Salad, Focaccia and Galettes

feature image courtesy of Nikki Smaga

We met at the library. She was in line at the checkout desk, her luminous porcelain skin and ethereal golden locks practically glowing under the harsh fluorescent light. Although she had no sign of age upon her, I could tell by her stately presence that she was an older woman. Much older. Our eyes locked across the room, and we formed an immediate, almost telepathic connection. I approached.

Striking up conversation, I learned that her name was Galadriel. Age: several thousand years old. Work: some sort of government job, co-ruling Lothlórien. Interests: ancient rings, political debates regarding the fate of humanity, me.

After a brief, flirtatious exchange, I gave her my number and we made plans to meet the following day for a picnic lunch at Prospect Park. (Galadriel is very into nature.) But that evening, the Lady of Light texted me: Sry, won’t be able to make it. I diminish and go into the West tomorrow. Family stuff. :/

I replied: Hope everything’s okay! Let me know when you’re back in town and we’ll reschedule!

My date with Galadriel: a vision that has not yet come to pass.

She never got back to me.

Although I reached out a couple times after that, my calls went straight to voicemail — apparently they don’t have great T-Mobile coverage in the Undying Lands. Yet I will not let my heart be troubled. As a wise friend once said: where there’s life, there’s hope, and need of vittles.

In that spirit, I present to you the menu I’ve planned for my eventual date with Galadriel. It includes:

• Strawberry Soup – A dish that sounds kind of fancy but is actually super easy to make. Very cool for the summer.
• Shrimp Mango Salad – A crisp and fresh citrus salad that’s as tasty as Galadriel is formidable. (Meaning: very.) Easily adaptable for a vegan option.
• Rosemary Focaccia Bread – This is what I’ve always imagined Elvish bread to taste like. Unlike lembas, however, one small bite is not enough to fill the stomach of a grown [wo]man. It’s light enough to serve as a snacky side dish.
• Blackberry Blueberry Peach Galette – Rustic! Portable! Perfect for the human-elf couple on the go.

Pair with a cheap peach champagne, or diet peach Snapple ice tea.

If you feel so moved, I’ve included the recipes so that you can make a version of this picnic for a human date, romantic or otherwise. Or! You can make said delicious picnic and eat it all by your damn self. I won’t judge you in the slightest, because you’re wonderful and deserve all of the good things in life. May the stars shine upon the end of your road.

Strawberry Soup

adapted from The New Book of Soups

I love this soup! It’s refreshing, light and sweet; perfectly suited for leisurely late summer/early fall picnicking. Note, however, that unless your date has a powerful mastery of elven magic, you need to bring this soup to the park in a cooler with a couple of ice packs. This is both for food safety reasons (dairy + warm temperatures = ick) and taste reasons (it’s best enjoyed chilled).

The recipe below yields about a dozen servings. I’m really into this soup, so I think that’s fine — but if you’re wary of heavy cream or a commitment to eat strawberry soup for multiple days in a row, you may want to cut the recipe in half.

Ingredients

• 1 quart strawberries
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup amaretto
• 3 cups of heavy cream
• 3 cups of apple juice
• 1/2 cup honey
• 1 tsp lemon juice

Instructions

1. Hull the strawberries by cutting off the green parts. Cut into quarters.
2. Combine the quartered strawberries, sugar and liquor and refrigerate for at least 2 and up to 24 hours.
3. Puree the berries with their juices until smooth. Add the heavy cream, apple juice, honey, and lemon juice to the puree. Chill the soup for at least 4 and up to 24 hours.
4. Serve chilled and garnished with a slice of strawberry.

Mango Shrimp Salad

adapted from Honest Cooking

This is another recipe for your picnic’s cooler, thanks to the shrimp. I use a julienne slicer to make quick work of the mangos, but if you don’t have one, a box grater would also get the job done efficiently.

Substitute agave for honey and use a different protein to make this dish vegan. I don’t know whether Galadriel has any dietary restrictions, but I do know that she’s originally from Valinor, a tropical land encircled by the sea of Ekkaia. So shrimp seem like a reasonably safe bet to me. You may want to check in with your date before making a similar assumption.

Note that I listed lime wedges and cayenne pepper as optional garnishes, but I highly recommend them. They really tie the flavors of the dish together, and I always think it’s fun when there’s an interactive element (like squeezing limes, sprinkling pepper, or setting things on fire) during serving.

Ingredients

• 2 green (unripe) mangos
• 3 Tbsp oil
• 1 Tbsp white vinegar or rice vinegar
• 1 Tbsp fresh lime juice
• 1/2 tsp honey
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 cup shrimp
• 1 cup roasted cashews
• 1 ripe avocado
• optional: cayenne pepper, for serving
• optional: lime wedges, for serving

Instructions

1. Peel and devein the shrimp. Bring salted water to a boil on the stovetop and drop the shrimp in, cooking 2-3 minutes until the shrimp are done and a pretty pink color. I like to put the shells in the water while boiling for extra flavor.
   
2. Peel and julienne mangos into long, skinny matchstick pieces.
3. In a small bowl, whisk together oil, vinegar, lime juice, honey and salt to make a dressing.
4. Toss mangos in dressing just until lightly coated.
5. Add shrimp and crumble in cashews, stirring gently to combine.
   
6. Just before serving, top with avocado slices. Serve at room temperature or slightly chilled. Optional: garnish with lime slices and sprinkle with cayenne pepper.

Rosemary Focaccia Bread

adapted from The New Book of Soups

This recipe makes two sheet pans worth of focaccia, about 16 generous slices. I like to make the full amount of dough,  but only put rosemary in half. The other half remains unbaked and goes in the fridge for use as pizza dough later on.

Feel free to play with flavored olive oils for the coating. I used a blood orange infusion on this batch and it was awesome. (Don’t play with anything else, though! The ratios are important, and your sprightly sense of cooking whimsy will wreak havoc if applied here. Perilous to us all are the devices of an art deeper than we possess ourselves, you know?)

Ingredients

• 1 cup milk
• 1 tsp sugar
• 1 envelope active dry yeast
• 3.5 cups all-purpose flour
• 3/4 cup warm tap water plus 1 Tbsp for topping
• 1/2 cup olive oil
• 3 tsp kosher salt
• chopped rosemary, about 1/2 cup

Instructions

1. Warm the milk to around 100F over very low heat. (Note: do not let it boil!) Remove from heat and add the sugar and yeast. Stir until dissolved. Let the mixture rest for 15 minutes. When you come back, you should see a thick foam on the surface.
2. Combine the flour, yeast mixture, water, 2 Tbsp olive oil, and 2 tsp salt in a large bowl. Mix until a smooth elastic dough is formed, about 10-15 minutes. Dust the surface of the dough with a sprinkling of flour and cover the bowl tightly with plastic. Leave the dough to rise at room temperature until it doubles in bulk, about 1 hour.
3. Transfer the dough to a floured work surface. Roughly chop about the rosemary and knead it into the dough. Make a ball and let the dough rest until it has relaxed, about 30 minutes.
   
4. Put foil down over your baking pan and brush liberally with olive oil (about 2 Tbsp). Uncover the dough and spread and pull it into a rectangle on top of the oiled pan. Brush the surface of the dough with 2 Tbsp of olive oil. Drape the plastic wrap over the surface and let the dough rise again until it has nearly doubled in volume, about 30 minutes.
5. Preheat the oven to 475F. Position a rack in the bottom third of the oven. Before the dough goes into the oven, whisk together the remaining 2 tbsp of olive oil, 1 tbsp water, and 1 tsp salt; it should thicken.
6. Remove the plastic wrap and, using your fingertips, poke dimples into the dough in a random pattern. Pour the oil mixture over the dough.
7. Bake until the focaccia edges are slightly golden in color, about 10-12 minutes. Remove from the oven and cool on a rack for about 10 minutes. Cut into squares and serve.

Blackberry Blueberry Peach Galette

recipe triangulated using references from The New York Times and Wicked Goodies

Galadriel is a complicated woman, but that doesn’t mean our dessert needs to be. Have you ever had a galette before? It’s basically pie for modern, independent women who like to freeball in the kitchen/chaos muppets who are in the process of moving and can’t remember which box they they put their pie pan in. In a word: everything.

Ingredients

For the dough:

• 1 1/3 cups all purpose flour
• 1 Tbsp sugar
• 1/2 tsp fine sea salt
• 1 large egg
• heavy cream as needed (<1/3 cup)
• 1 stick unsalted butter
• 2 tsp lemon juice
• optional: 1/2 tsp grated lemon zest

For the filling:

• peaches (3 large or 4 small)
• blackberries (1 container)
• blueberries (about half a pint)
• lemon juice as needed
• sugar as needed
• cornstarch as needed

Instructions

Make the crust:

1. Mix together the flour, sugar and salt.
2. In a measuring cup, lightly beat an egg, then add just enough cream to get to 1/3 cup. Lightly whisk the egg and cream together.
3. Add butter to flour mixture and use your fingers to break up the butter. It’s okay if you don’t break it all up; just try to get chickpea-size chunks of butter by the end.
4. Start drizzling the egg and cream mixture over the dough, stirring until it just starts to come together but is still mostly large crumbs. You can use up to 1/4 cup of the egg and cream mixture for this part, then put the rest in the fridge so you can use it later. Mix in lemon juice and zest if using.
5. Put dough on lightly floured counter and pat it together to make one uniform piece. Flatten into a disk, wrap in plastic and chill for 2 hours, or up to 3 days.
6. Heat the oven to 400 degrees. Roll the dough out to a 12-inch round (it can be ragged). Transfer to a rimmed baking sheet lined with parchment paper and chill while preparing the filling.

Make the filling:

1. Wash all of the fruit. Skin the peaches and cut into bite size chunks.
2. Mix the fruit together and taste it. Do you like the way it tastes? If yes, do nothing. If no, mix with sugar and/or lemon juice until you get a balance of sweetness/acidity that you like.
3. Sprinkle with cornstarch as needed, until the filling isn’t dripping with juices when you lift a spoonful up. The purpose is to prevent your crust from getting soggy.

Combine:

1. Heat the oven to 400F. Lightly grease a baking pan.
2. Divide the dough into two halves (or more, if you want smaller galettes) and flatten it on the baking pan using your fingers or a rolling pin.
3. Pile the fruit into the center of the dough. Using your fingers, fold up the edges of the dough to make a little open-faced pocket to contain the fruit. Try to have at least 1/2 inch of folded dough around sides.
4. Brush the remaining egg and cream mixture all over the galettes. (Did you forget to save it earlier? Do not cast all hope away; tomorrow is unknown. Also you can just whip up some more real quick right now.) Concentrate on the folded over edges, because this glaze is what will give it that golden brown sheen with baking.
5. Sprinkle a little bit of sugar over the glazed galettes and stick them in the oven. Bake until golden brown, about 35 minutes. (Note, however, that it could take up to an hour depending on how much fruit you used and how big you made each galette. So just keep an eye on it and pull it out when it looks like something you think an elven queen would repin to her Pinterest cooking board.)
6. Cool for 20 minutes and serve warm.

P.S. Galadriel – I do not deny that my heart has greatly desired this. You have your own choice to make, girl, but if any of this looks good to you, you have my cell. I like to cook, and I would be thrilled to discuss the corrupting influence of technology and power at any time. CALL ME.

love,
Laura

33 Ways to Eat Avocados Every Which Way

Hello and welcome to this new thing we’re trying out where we help you figure out what you’re gonna put in your mouth this week. Some of these are recipes we’ve tried, some of these are recipes we’re looking forward to trying, all of them are fucking delicious. Tell us what you want to put in your piehole or suggest your own recipes, and next week we’ll check in and talk about which things we made, which things we loved, and which things have changed us irreversibly as people. Last week, we ate greens. 

Let’s have a chat about the best food in the entire world: avocados. I can’t even tell you how many avocados I’ve eaten in my lifetime. Five bazillion? Close enough. My mother is a hippie from Southern California, and instead of getting candy or junk food as a kid, I’d get sliced avocado as a snack. You better believe this turned me into an avocado fiend. I average about two or three avocados a week (I’d eat one every day if I thought it was healthy for a person to consume that much creamy green deliciousness). Dare I say avocados are the perfect food? First, they’re cheap (my grocery store lists them at 10/$10 or 5/$4 like every other week). They mix into other recipes, they’re delicious in desserts and they add the perfect amount of richness to any bite.

It seems that my love of avocados is a shared love here at Autostraddle. Turns out we’ve posted a million recipes featuring avocado, have featured them in Ode to My Pantry and hoard many others from the corners of the world wide web. Here are some of our favorite avocado recipes, but you won’t see any guacamole here. Come on, that’s predictable. Branch out!

EVERY SINGLE AVO EVER YES BRING IT TO ME

1. Avocado Pie

via Get Baked with Autostraddle

2. Chocolate Avocado Pudding

via Get Baked with Autostraddle

3. Daydream Poke

via Get Baked with Autostraddle

4. Ovo-Cados

via Once Upon A Cutting Board

Hansen: This is one of my favorite recipes ever. It combines the two loves of my life: runny yolks and avocados. I love Marika’s version of it from Eggs In Exciting Holes, maybe the best title for a post we’ve ever come up with here at Autostraddle. The avocado is smooth and adds a bit of needed tang to the rich, creamy yolk. Oh yum.

5. Chococado Cake

via Wilder Hungers

6. Garlicky Avocado Grilled Cheese with Tomato Pesto

via FoodieCrush

7. Creamy Avocado Pasta

via The Comfort of Cooking

8. Avocado Bacon Egg Rolls

via Lil’ Luna

9. Avocado Banana Bread

via Crazy For Crust

10. Chicken Avocado Burgers

via Laughing Spatula

11. Cucumber Rolls with Creamy Avocado

via Pure Ella

12. Avocado Hummus

via Four Seasons Recipes

13. Southwestern Avocado Salad Dressing

via Buns In My Oven

14. Sweet Potato and Avocado Burgers

via What’s Gaby Cooking

15. Cilantro Lime Cauliflower with Avocado

via ifoodreal

16. Fudgy Dark Chocolate Avocado Cookies

via Apple Of My Eye

17. Spicy Watermelon and Avocado Salad

via Love and Lemons

18. Smashed Chickpea and Avocado Salad

via Two Peas And Their Pod

19. Avocado Pesto

via Detoxinista

20. Green Goddess Grilled Cheese Sandwich

via exPress-O

21. Chicken Avocado Soup

via Mama Miss

22. Chicken and Avocado Enchiladas

via Gimme Some Oven

23. Avocado Fries

via HGTV

Hansen: I had tried making these before with a baked-version recipe and they were so sub-par, I had almost given up on the idea all together. But here’s the trick: don’t bake them. These are FRIES. If you want avocado coated in panko that gets a little soggy and not crispy, go ahead and bake them, but if you want something so delicious you swear you’ll never eat anything for the rest of your life, throw caution to the wind and toss some oil in the skillet (but also please be careful, I don’t need you getting burned).

24. Avocado Mac and Cheese

via Two Peas And Their Pod

25. Spinach, Mushroom and Avocado Quesadillas

via Five Heart Home

26. Avocado, Cream Cheese and Salsa Pockets

via Easy Snacks To Make

Rachel: HAHA WAIT WHAT ARE YOU SERIOUS? I’m mad that there was anyone on earth who knew that these existed and didn’t tell me about them before now. WHAT IF YOU ALSO PUT BLACK BEANS IN THEM. WHAT THEN.

27. Bacon Wrapped Avocado Fries

via Chef Recipes

28. Chilled Avocado Soup

via Love, Sugar and Spices

29. BLT Stuffed Avocado

via Farm Girl Gourmet

30. Grilled Salmon with Avocado Salsa

via The Cookie Rookie

31. Avocado and Greek Yogurt Chicken Salad Sandwich

via I Wash, You Dry

32. Carnitas Avocado Pizza

via Damn Delicious

33. Brussels Sprout Salad with Avocado and Pumpkin Seeds

via {Whole Living}

What are your favorite avocado recipes? Share them in the comments!

Wilder Hungers: Welcome to the Toast Post

Happy spring straddlers, and welcome to the toast post! Since yesterday was the first day of Spring, I almost felt obligated to make this one of those posts where I only talk about seasonally appropriate things and what spring activities I’m looking forward to. BUT it’s still cold and the Northeastern US has not yet gotten the memo about the season change so…. toast! Toast is, in my opinion, the perfect meal and more than worthy of an entire blog post devoted to its glory. So versatile. So portable (not to mention an ideal condiment vehicle). So delicious. The inspiration for this ode to toast was a perfect loaf of bread. Last week my work sent me to Coney Island on a mission to procure some sour cherries from the Russian Bazaar. Alas, sour cherries were not in season. Shoulda known. Instead I ate pierogies, and maybe some pickled herring, from the buffet and marveled at all the pretty grainy breads displayed before my hungry eyes. I saw something called a Lithuanian loaf. It was nearly black, heavier than rocks and packed with sunflower seeds. I knew then what I had to do. I purchased the black beauty and took it home for toast experimentation. When it comes to the toast itself, I like my breads dense and grainy. When it comes to the toppings, I like em’ weird. Here are a few glorified toast non-recipes that will surely make you reach for something other than cream cheese or butter (but those are good too).

Sriracha Almond Butter Toast

This is my absolute favorite toast situation and flavor combination and I have mentioned it before. Simply slather some almond butter (any nut butter really) on a good piece of toast. Drizzle with hot sauce of your choice (I have since experimented with gochujang and piri piri – both good). Sprinkle with chopped scallions, cilantro and coconut flakes.

A Non Pretentious Avocado Toast

Avocado toast is like a thing now. It’s couture toast and cafes in New York like to charge 10 bucks for it. Don’t buy theirs. Make your own. Mash avocado on some toast, top with a soft boiled egg and quick pickled onions (sliced thin and soaked in red wine vinegar for like 15 minutes). Sprinkle with red pepper flakes and sea salt.

Cannoli Toast

I call this cannoli toast because the topping tastes like a cannoli filing and it’s oh so yummy. Weirdly I don’t like cannolis but love this toast. I mix 1/2 cup ricotta with 1 teaspoon almond extract and some orange zest and spread on toast. Top with chopped pistachios, honey, and sea salt.

Other things I like to put on toast:

• bananas + almond butter + honey + sea salt
• ricotta + honey + thyme + maldón salt
• mashed avocado + squeeze o’ lime + sesame seeds/hemp seeds
• butter + white miso + avocado slices
• vegemite + melted cheese + sliced cucumber

MORE LINKS FOR TOAST!

Kaya Toast (BEST THING EVER)
Boiled Egg, Seared Asparagus, and Pickled Onion Sandwich (technically not toast but it could be and it’s pretty!)
Scandi Toast (aka chic toast)
Maple Cinnamon Toast (simple toast, revolutionary idea)
Avocado Coconut Oil Tartine (aka – aloha toast)

Wanna make your own bread? HERE YA GO!

Sally Lunn Bread
Big Sur Bakery Hide Bread
Tahini Beetroot Black Bread
Crusty No-Knead Bread with Toasted Grains

Happy toasting!
xx

Header by Rory Midhani

Get Baked: Beet-ing Hearts & Citrus Quinoa Salad for Your Most Colorful Valentine’s Day Ever

What says “I love you” or any other variation of it, more than “I carved these beets into hearts for you”? That’s what you’re going to do for your honey boo boo on Valentine’s Day. You’re going to make this heart-y salad as an awesome vegetarian dinner or as a side. This recipe calls for blood oranges and kumquats which are currently in season, but if you can’t find them, substitute with another type of citrus.

I heart Trader Joe’s.

Ingredients

For dressing:
1/4 cup finely chopped green onions
2 teaspoons grated blood orange rind
1 teaspoon grated lemon rind
2 tablespoons blood orange juice
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
2 teaspoons finely chopped cilantro
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground coriander (or not, I didn’t have any)
1/4 teaspoon ground cumin
1/4 teaspoon paprika
3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

Salad:
1 cup uncooked quinoa
1/2 teaspoon salt, divided
1 cup blood orange sections, chopped (about 4 medium blood oranges)
1 cup diced peeled avocado
6 whole kumquats, seeded and sliced
2 medium beets (buy pre-packaged ones, it’ll make your life easier!)

Eyeball how much you want to chop.

So basically the dressing exists to add FLAVA to your quinoa. I didn’t have coriander so I didn’t add that and I backed off on the cumin because for me, it has this overpowering taste/smell. Just so you know, I never measure anything. I just eyeball it and go with my gut/tastebuds. So, You Do You.

To make the dressing, chop up your cilantro and green onions and add in a bowl. Then zest the citrus right on top. I would recommend using a microplane grater, but if you don’t have one, just use a plane ol’ grater. After you seed the citrus, squeeze blood orange and lemon juice into the bowl. (I used more than what the recipe called for because my blood oranges were small.) Next, add all the spices. Then gradually add the oil, stirring with a whisk constantly. Set aside.

To make the salad, rinse and drain quinoa. (This sounds easy, but it wasn’t for me. I spilled quinoa all over the counter. Sad face.) Then follow directions on the quinoa package to make it. Usually it goes like this: place one cup of uncooked quinoa and two cups water in a saucepan and bring to a boil. Then let it simmer for 10-15 minutes until all water is absorbed.

While that is happening, chop your blood oranges into sections. Honestly, I didn’t know how to do this so I just followed my heart. I’m sure there is a way to seed the blood oranges that makes this prettier or easier but this is how I did it: I cut the blood orange in half and then into quarters and then used my thumb to remove the citrus peel.

Warning: After you do this, your kitchen will look like a scene from the zombie apocalypse. Blood… orange juice everrrywhere.

After you think you chopped up enough blood oranges, slice your kumquats. Say it with me, kuuummmquuuaaatsss. The recipe calls for you to seed and slice the kumquats but I didn’t do that because I was lazy. So I just cut the ends off and sliced it in half. I would recommend slicing them though for easier consumption. (You don’t need to peel them! You’re supposed to eat the peels! I know, what a world.)

Finally comes your shiny moment! Carving hearts out of beets. It’s super easy! I bought the “ready to use” beets from Trader Joe’s so I didn’t have to mess with preparing some beets. So to carve a heart: I sliced the beet in half and then used the tip of my knife to carve out a V at the top of the beet and then kinda rounded out the top of it to resemble a heart. Then I cut the sides to make the point at the bottom. Don’t discard the little slivers of beet, just add them in your salad. Next, slice an avocado.

My heart beets for only you.

After your quinoa is ready, serve some in a bowl. Drizzle your dressing on top of the quinoa and mix it around. Add your blood orange sections and kumquats. Add avocado slices and finally top with your beet-ing hearts. Enjoy with your SOS or by yourself — or pretend you’re a blood-thirsty zombie eating your ex’s heart, doesn’t matter really.

Now you have a beautiful meal or side dish full of flavor, texture, vibrant colors and love!

Wilder Hungers: Chinese New Year and Chococado Cake

Happy February Straddlers!

I spent the better part of this week getting addicted to House of Cards (because it’s still freezing and I need another reason to stay in bed) and digesting my epic meal from Chinese New Year, my new favorite holiday. I have never really celebrated Chinese holidays before before, but having a Chinese girlfriend means frequent trips to Chinatown, which means excessive scallion pancake consumption which is A OK with me. So we had a little dinner party with pancakes, buns and mooncakes galore. (Do you know what a mooncake is? You need to know. Google it!) Turns out it’s the year of the horse, which is my Chinese zodiac, so it was basically like my birthday party. Confetti was blasted on the roof.

Breakfast in Chinatown comprised of various doughy items to dip in congee

Strolling down the streets of Chinatown in search of ingredients for our feast. Confetti everywhere.

I mean everywhere.

Pilgrimage to the mooncake bakery.

I REALLY enjoy a good mooncake, can’t you tell?

Jealous of all the confetti blasters, so we bought our own.

Us – post confetti blast.

You may or may not remember that my very first post on Autostraddle was a recipe for scallion pancakes. I look back on that post now and weep. I weep because they are NOWHERE as good as the ones my girlfriend makes. She stuffs them with Chinese chives and they get all soft when the pancakes cook in the pan. MMM. I am working on getting this recipe for you guys soon. She also makes some sick dumplings. Are you guys ok with this turning into a Chinese food column? Written by a Puerto Rican? That could happen.

For now, in totally unrelated news, I made a chococado cake. It’s exactly what you think it is. Chocolate and avocados. In a cake. The frosting is also comprised of avocados. It’s not scary I promise. However, It IS kind of healthy and ALMOST vegan.

Chococado Cake with Pistachios and Coconut

Whatcha Need:

Cake:
2 cups flour – I used spelt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 cup cacao powder (or just unsweetened cocoa powder)
1/2 cup boiling water
2 eggs
1 cup coconut palm sugar (or whatever sweetener you prefer)
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 ripe avocados, mashed ( about ¾ cups)
½ cup pistachios, chopped
½ cup unsweetened shredded coconut

Frosting:
1 ripe avocado
½ cup cacao powder
½ cup maple syrup

For the frosting:

MIX: everything together in a food processor until smooth, scraping down the sides.
PLACE: in the fridge until needed.

For the cake:

HEAT: your oven to 350 F and grease a medium size spring form cake pan
POUR: boiling water over the cocoa powder and stir until smooth; let cool.
COMBINE: flour and baking soda in a large bowl.
IN ANOTHER BOWL: use an electric mixer to cream together the eggs and sugar
ADD: vanilla, avocado, and cacao mixture to the egg/butter mixture and mix.
NOW ADD: the wet ingredients to the dry ingredient and blend until just combined.
POUR: into your greased pan and bake 35 to 40 minutes; let cool.
FROST: the top of the cake with your chococado frosting and garnish with pistachios and coconut!

Get Baked: Chocolate Avocado Pudding

The avocado is a versatile fruit. It does well in a lot of forms – guacamole, sliced on a sandwich, cut up in an omelette, mashed up and exfoliating your face. I generally use avocados as a crisis meal if I have no time for anything else, cutting one in half and mashing it up in its skin with salt and pepper and maybe some shredded cheddar cheese. But today I am branching out, and I am going to take these avocados that are quickly ripening in my kitchen and turn them into chocolate pudding.

I made this once before, when only a year ago I lived in the least crunchy co-op ever, which was called Meat House. This is not a lie. It still exists. I loved my housemates there, but they just did not fully grasp the excellence that is this pudding. I feel like it will receive appropriate love here, though, so let’s get going.

Things you need

Ingredients
3 ripe avocados (or however many avocados. I had three, but if you have more/fewer, adjust the rest accordingly.)
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
3/4 cup honey (except I used less because I am always terrified of making things sweeter than I like them)
3/4 cup unsweetened almond milk
1 tbsp vanilla
3/4 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp cayenne
a pinch of salt (I know, I know, a “pinch” is the least exact, but I added an arbitrary amount because I decided it needed some at the end. Maybe this is the exact reason why so many recipes call for a “pinch” – the pros don’t know either, but they cover it up by using a super vague word that makes you feel inadequate.)

You can also use virtually any other kind of milk or sweetener here, so if you’re a vegan who doesn’t eat honey, feel free to whip out the agave or maple syrup.

Gear
You also need something to mix it all together. I used a food processor. You could also use a blender, hand mixer, stand mixer, or probably a fork if you really needed to.

Putting it all together

Mix it up

Assemble your food processor/mixing situation.

Add your avocados. Don’t worry about any brown spots – it’s all fine to eat and it’s all getting mixed with chocolate in about twelve seconds.

Add your almond milk and honey. (Turns out I actually only had half a cup of honey, so I put in a quarter cup of maple syrup.)

Add the vanilla, the spices, and the salt – for the record, these are not COMPLETELY essential, but they really help take this recipe from, “Cool, you mixed a bunch of chocolate into avocados,” to, “This is the most delicious chocolate pudding you ever ate and it’s not even made with whole milk.” I also feel like the brilliance of chocolate with cinnamon and cayenne isn’t recognized nearly enough.

Before…

After!

Blend it all together until it looks like pudding. Taste it. Does it need anything? Add it, and mix it some more. This is how the salt got involved for me. Watch out for overblending, though!

Plating

I scooped it into a ramekin and wiped the edges clean and gave it a little peak in the middle for this photo shoot, which made me feel like I was on Iron Chef. I dusted the top with cinnamon, sprinkled it with crushed sea salt and garnished it with some cilantro leaves. The cilantro accents the lingering avocado in the pudding, and also goes really nicely with the chocolate.

Step 3: Eat it!

This pudding is actually healthy for you. I will be eating it for dessert tonight and also probably breakfast tomorrow.

Ode to My Pantry SPECIAL EDITION: Sandwich Seduction

This special edition of Ode to My Pantry is part of Take Back the Sandwich day on Autostraddle! Because our sandwiches aren’t about pleasing men or getting bitches back into the kitchen, they’re about sandwiches. We’re fucking the patriarchy and celebrating the sandwich, purely and without political context.

Some people say romance is dead, but those people obviously haven’t read 300 Sandwiches yet. What do you do if you’re a successful lady person with a boyfriend that hasn’t asked you to walk down the aisle? Passive aggressive sticky notes?  A successful magazine column and a compulsion for shoes? Choreographed proposals?  Nope, it’s so much easier than that! Stephanie Smith decided to take her love life into her own hand and finally put a ring on it. Not by proposing to her beau (Eeew! What are we in, the 21st century?), but by seducing him the only way she knows how.

Honey, you’re 300 sandwiches away from an engagement ring.

Could more seductive words ever be slurred through dribbles of djion? Smith’s generous lover made that exclamation when she dared to wed meat and bread in holy sandwichmony, possibly hinting that she might be marriage material! Like, with a white dress and everything! Worthy of making his meals well into old age! Fixing up a sandwich is just one small meal for Smith, but one giant leap for woman and sandwich kind! If your beau beckons to you with a sweet, “You’ve been up for 15 minutes and you haven’t made me a sandwich?” you know that doing it 299 more times will be worth it in twenty years. Oh let’s be honest, it already is.

We could all take a lesson in both domesticity and romance from Smith. But unfortunately, the same rules don’t apply when it comes to seducing your love. Not because, “Bitch make me a sandwich” isn’t a universal term of endearment (of course it is), but because we queer lady folk happen to have a few more culinary hangups than Smith’s boo (I’ll just go out on a limb and assume she calls him that). No my future Shanes, you need to incorporate some thought and attention into your Cupid’s Bow of Carbs. You’re not just making a cold cut delivery device, you’re making a love delivery device.

This is what happened when I googled Mustard Love. I don’t even know what to say.

Back in the day, John Montagu had a bit of an addiction. Had he been playing cribbage or backgammon, he might have given up his game. But thanks to our little friend Gambling, something great happened when he demanded his valet make him some food! His servant slipped a few slices of cold meat between two slices of bread so Montagu wouldn’t have to put down his cards and suddenly everyone else wanted the same as (the Earl of) Sandwich! By being too lazy to tend to his own needs, Montagu started the tradition of yelling at people to prep your food. And hopefully will help you claim some lucky lady’s hand in civil unionmony!

But before we start making our own sourdough or burning our delicate fingers caramelizing onions (We’re silly ladies! How are we supposed to understand how fire works?) we should start with the basics. You can’t run down the aisle without learning how to crawl first! So really, what goes into a panty-peeling sandwich?

The Bread

While Montagu just relied on bread, we have a huge smorgasboard of romantic carb type offerings that earn the monniker. Smith herself says she even resorted to shoving ice cream between two cookies to appease her loving husband captor soon-to-be fiancé! (How resourceful! She’ll be fantastic at popping out babies!) So what makes a sandwich a sandwich? I’d like to borrow the Neuhaus rule from NPR’s Sandwich Monday and include any protein that’s secured by a carbohydrate delivery device. This might lead to a debate on burrito wooing practices, but if you want to keep it simple, let’s just start with bread. Just be sure to choose wisely, as different breads have properties that might help or hinder your ability to stack it up.

This is where the love goes

Sandwich Style Loaves. Your typical chemical-laden loaf comes loaded with added vitamins, tenderizers and preservatives to keep your bread Wonderful well into next week. Even though this bread seems like it might be more suitable for ducks, the supple nature means it’ll easily succumb to your lover’s bite much you’ll succumb to your lover’s bite. If you were planning on making something soft and submissive (BDSMPB&J anyone?) this’ll be the bread for you! But if you wanted something with a bit heartier, you’ll have to step up your bread game.

Artisanal Loaves. Containing little more than flour, water, salt and yeast, these chewy breads have a bit more character and tend to hold up to a bit of mishandling. Often relying on wild yeasts, they’ll create bubbles and holes of varying sizes. Every bite is a little bit different and surprising (just like your relationship!)  If you roasted a chicken, pulled your own pork or smoked a brisket for your love, this bread will hold up a bit better to the textural irregularities. Plus it’ll sop up some of the liquids without losing its integrity.

Buns or Baguettes. If you’re in a pinch and need to get Sandwich #208 on the table ASAP, you might want to look at your buns. You don’t have to create finnicky slices or any of that. The outer crust is great at containing all of your sandwich toppings but will also stay fresh on the counter longer than its pre-sliced cousins! Just in case you’re too busy tilling the fields to make #48.

Bagels. Chewy, delicious and dense, I love me some bagel. But keep in mind the added hole will provide some problems where slippage is concerned. It might be a bit too complex for your lady brain to cope with for her first foray into sandwich seduction.

But really now, if this sandwich is the first step into your food-based relationship, go for a gluten-free loaf. Bitches love gluten-free.

The Spread

There’s nothing worse than a soggy sandwich. Make sure to waterproof your bread before you serve your boo their hard-earned treat! (Have you ever had to tell your girlfriend to stop massaging your feet and get back into the kitchen because they fucked up your Bánh mì? Absolutely excruciating!) Make a bread barrier to keep dry things dry and moist things moist. There’s only supposed to be one thing that gets wet when you’re making sammiches.

I feel like butter and hearts don’t exactly go together, but fuckit this is about romance not health

Butter, margarine, Earth Balance and any number of mayo based offerings can keep the wet at bay. Even mustard’s emulsive nature means it’ll police your bread barrier, making sure everything stays happy! If you really want to lock her in, use the lesbian mating call and line your bread with hummus. Even though it seems like overkill, spread an ultrathin layer on both pieces of bread to extend your sandwich’s lifespan. That way it’ll still stay fresh while you’re vacuuming the house.

The Cred

The real message lies between your slices. Generations of lady-folks have been slaving away in the kitchen, paving the way so you too can embrace your true calling. A truly seductive sandwich should be harmonious with contrasting yet complementary textures, flavours and temperatures. Play each note carefully and maybe you can finally grab an engagement ring when you give up on the brass one!

So which notes will you use to serenade your lover?

• Avocados. We’ve gone over this, everyone loves avocadoes.
• Homemade brisket, pulled pork or any number of meats. Be sure to slice against the grain so your lover doesn’t have to tire their jaw chewing.
• Tomatoes. They better be flavourful. Anything post-tomato season is practically an insult.
• Spicy Things. Whether its pickled peppers or hot sauce, add something to put them in the mood.
• Greens. Even though leaves seem like a waste of space, the textural difference can lighten up an otherwise heavy sandwich. Romaine and iceberg for a juicy crunch or spinach, arugula and mesclun for a bit of peppery heat.
• Cheese. Your relationship will just get better with age! Really, any cheese will do.
• Pickles. The crunch will add an acidic counterpoint to anything you make. Plus marinated vegetables like mushrooms or cauliflower will make it seem like you slaved in the kitchen for days when it was really just hours!
• Eggs. I wasn’t kidding when I said I loved to put eggs in interesting holes. If you’re just a junior varsity sammich maker, you might want to hold off on embedding an egg within your bread and just fry one up instead.

If you’ve stacked your sandwich with as much love as it can handle, be clever with your serving options. Either stab it with a toothpick or wrap it tightly with clingfilm to hold in all of the love. Or just take a panini maker and squish your sandwich into submission to marry all the flavours. Just be sure to serve up your sandwich with a number. Otherwise all of that love and hard work would have been for nothing!

Get Baked: Citrus Lobster Salad

This lobster, avocado and grapefruit salad situation is perfect when you want to feel fancy and still eat salad.

The salad is best right away, but you can also make it in advance (or have leftovers) if you keep it undressed and store the ingredients separately. Leave the pit in the avocado and wrap it tightly in saran wrap so it doesn’t get too brown. The dressing keeps for ages.

The best type of lobster to use is the quick-frozen vacuum-packed kind, though you can also use fresh cooked or canned chunks of lobster from a fishmonger. King crab legs, or maybe even shrimp, are also an option.

Citrus Lobster Salad

Recipe adapted from Gourmet

Ingredients

1 package (about 1 lb) of frozen broken meat lobster or 1 live lobster
1 large shallot, finely chopped
2 tbsp. fresh lemon juice
1/4 tsp. salt
4 tbsp. olive oil
1 pink grapefruit
1 ripe but firm avocado
several handfuls of arugula per intended serving

Directions

1. Thaw the lobster. If you have a live one and cook it fresh, remove the tomalley, roe and shells and chill it, covered, for about an hour.

2. In a small bowl, combine the shallot, lemon juice and salt and let sit at room temperature for about half an hour. Then slowly add the olive oil, whisking it in.

3. Peel the grapefruit and remove the membrane and white bits. Sit the segments on some paper towel to dry a little. Halve the avocado and cut it lengthwise into thin slices. Cut the lobster into smallish chunks.

4. Make up each plate with a bed of arugula, and then arrange the grapefruit, avocado and lobster. Drizzle with dressing and serve.

Get Baked: Daydream Poke

This is a recipe for poke! Also known as the thing I like to eat when I want to pretend I’m a surfer babe who lives in a beach shack with my girlfriend in Hawaii. Have I been to Hawaii? No. Can I pretend? Yes. The best part about this recipe is that it’s hardly a recipe. It’s everything into a bowl, into the fridge, then into your mouth. That’s how I roll.

First a quick lesson on poke (pronounced po-kay). Poke is a raw seafood salad (similar to ceviche) consumed by pretty much everyone in Hawaii. Many varieties of seafood are used to make poke, but from what I’ve learned Ahi tuna is the most common. This is my variation on the traditional recipes!

Whatcha Need:
(Serves 2)

+ 1 sashimi grade Ahi (yellowfin) tuna steak, cubed (about 1/2 inch cubes)
+ 1 avocado, cubed (I used a Haas avocado)
+ 1 small yellow onion, diced
+ a small bunch of scallions, chopped (I used both the white and green parts)
+ a couple sheets of crumpled seaweed (nori)
+ handful of chopped macademia nuts
+ 1/4 cup soy sauce
+ 1 tsp. sesame oil
+ 1 tsp. sriracha (or more or less depending on your spice tolerance)
+ 1/2 T sesame seeds

Get down to business:

1. All the ingredients into a bowl
2. Bowl in the fridge for 30 minutes
3. Eat!

Special thanks to my friend Crystal, who was born and raised in Hawaii, for coming over and assuring me that my poke recipe was legit!

Gabi enjoys some executive Hawaiian realness

About the author: Gabi is a Florida girl living in NYC for culinary school. She worships condiments and eats a lot of things. Mostly tacos. She blogs about food and life at The Pedigree of Honey.

Ode to My Pantry: Avocados

Learning to feed yourself can be one of the most terrifying things. Am I about to give myself food poisoning? If I eat this too often will I end up with scurvy? How can I get the most nutritional bang for my buck? Why does this still taste like ass?

With Ode to My Pantry, learn to navigate a grocery store without having a meltdown in aisle three. Give a man a fish and feed him for a day, teach a queer to cook and stave off malnutrition for another semester.

Avocados are the L Word of my pantry. I say this because although my heart has a section reserved solely for them, my mind explodes if I think about them too much. They contain as much fat as a steak? They don’t ripen on the tree? They’re a fruit? How the fuck does that make sense? It doesn’t! But much like anything by Ilene Chaiken, I just blindly love them anyways.

I try to eat fruits and vegetables seasonally, but even then it’s a gamble. If you live far from the growing region, you’re either paying an arm and a leg for proper transport or resigning yourself to eat bruised mush. Luckily, avocados are my trump card over seasonality and shipability. Avocados have the odd little habit of refusing to ripen on the tree, so growers just store them on the branch until they’re ready to ship. This means that every season is avocado season, so their prices will stay more or less stable throughout the year. But more importantly, those growers can ship out the fruit when they as hard and hardy as rocks.

You can accelerate the trip to guacamole town by letting your underripe specimens feed off the life-force from other fruits. Avocados, bananas, apples and other climacteric fruits naturally produce ethylene as a ripening agent. This gas causes cell walls to soften, colours to morph, flavours to develop and starches to convert to sugar. Magic comes into play because climacteric fruits don’t need to produce ethylene themselves, they can actually get ripe just from exposure! This chemical trickery is used to ensure that green-harvested tomatoes are bright red when they hit your supermarket’s shelves in February. But unlike those styrofoam flavoured tomatoes, avocados will taste great whether they’re ripened by you or the farmer.

Simply pop an avocado into a brown paper bag (or other breathable material) with a ripe banana and behold. After a few days it’ll transform from an egg-shaped rock into a melting mass. Once it’s edible, throw it into your crisper drawer and you’ll have perfectly ripe avocados for the rest of the week. Just be wary of squirreling away your avocados too early. Since they come from a warm climate, any frosty temperatures will irreparably damage their internal machinery. So even if you valiantly rescue your avocado from its frigid crypt, it’ll remain a green rock until the end of time.

So how do you know if you have a ripe avocado or an avocado-shaped ball of mold? With its slow softening habits, propensity to brown and sensitivity to cold, choosing a fruit and cutting it open quickly escalates into Produce Roulette. If you compromise its armor too early you’re fucked. Do you leave it on the counter, praying it doesn’t become a solid brick of brown or refrigerate it, knowing it’ll never fulfill it’s guacamole destiny? When you play the game right, you can still walk away a winner without blowing all of your chips on packages of Already Ripe avocados.

Step 1. The Squeeze.
The shift from hard to delicious happens in the blink of an eye. For an avocado to fully ripen, the cell walls’ pectin needs to degrade and swell with water. Unlike armor-covered melons that leave you guessing, you can monitor the fruit’s textural evolution with gently squeezing. Ripening will start at the round end and move towards the narrow tip. So if the tip and the end give to gentle pressure, you’re almost there.

Step 2. The Peek.
If your fruit has passed step one, time to make sure you haven’t overshot your target. See that stem? Pop it off to gaze deep into your avocado’s belly button. This way you can look directly under the hood without compromising the entire fruit. Light green? You’re good to go! Olive green with brown speckles? It’s going to be mushy. Brown or fuzzy? Sorry, you lost this bet. Just note that this porthole trick only works once. After a day, polyphenol oxidase will kick in and you’ll be seeing brown no matter what.

If you played peekaboo properly you’ll be left with a suitably squishy specimen. You can go the typical guacamole, sandwich or salad route, but you might want to think outside the bowl. With their high fiber content, they’re perfect for thickening soups or mimicking cream sauces. Avocados typically aren’t cooked since heat supposedly brings out a sulfury, eggy quality, but a quick dip in the deep fryer shouldn’t bring up too many sinister flavours. Given that avocados are already delicious lumps of lard, it seems like culinary overkill to deep fry them. But if Paula Deen has no qualms deep frying butter, you can follow suit while pretending you’re getting your dose of potassium, vitamin K, folate, B vitamins and vitamin C.

When you’ve grown up categorizing a certain food as savory, it’s hard to imagine reaching for the sugar instead of the salt. So every time my mom would eat sweetened avocados as dessert, I simply cocked my eyebrow, wrinkled my nose and continued reaching for the seasoning salt. As it turns out, she and most of Asia and Brazil were ahead of the curve.

Simply blend your avocado, condensed milk, ice and milk into a shake and you’ll never notice the missing ice cream. (Bonus points if you throw in some tapioca pearls.) With its high fat content and delicate flavour, you can sub avocados in for high-fat dairy in brownies, cake frosting and cream pies too!

What ways have you unlocked avocados’ mysteries?

You Can Take It With You: Chickpea Pesto Salad and Strawberries

Lunchtime: unequivocally the best part of the day. But could it be better? Yes sir, it can. You don’t have to spend gobs of money going out, but you also shouldn’t be packing the same peanut butter sandwich year in and year out; there is a middle way. The path to becoming a lunch box buddha isn’t so hard. All you need is a good balance of inspiration and  improvisation. Every week, we’ll make one or two packable recipes so that you have something new to fill your lunch box and your stomach. 

So maybe I’ve been a little hard on Spain and their food. We’re three weeks into making our own lunch and I haven’t done much but complain about the alimentary offerings of my temporary home. I do it from a place of love, ¡te lo juro!

There are so, SO many things they do right. Like making good things last, for example. Yes, lunch here can go on for hours and going for a walk can easily turn into an afternoon of coffee and window shopping, but right now I’m talking about shoes. If I were a hoarder, I’d have a graveyard of all the worn out pairs of shoes that I’ve once loved. I can fix a ripped pair of pants or a stained t-shirt, but holey soles require special knowledge that I just don’t have. But here, you don’t have to be intr DIY to make your shoes last; they’ve got cobblers around every corner and getting your shoes re-soled is as normal as buying olive oil. And that’s really normal.

After being handed down a pair of too-small and worn-down boots by one of my coworkers last week, I headed to the cobbler to see what they could do with them but got distracted on my way there by these babies that were hanging out in the window of a frutería.

It’s strawberry season

Feeling like nature had pretty much done my job for me this week, I bought seven huge berries and decided to make something just as fresh to go along with them. The resulting salad is definitely not one of the prettiest things I’ve ever made, but the taste more than makes up for it.

Pesto

Ingredients:
Fresh Basil
Parmesan Cheese
Nuts (Pine or Walnut)
1 clove of Garlic
Olive Oil
Salt
Pepper

Instructions:

Yeah, I know I didn’t give you amounts. That’s because the best pesto is made according to your own taste buds and also whatever you have laying around.

1. Pick all the basil leaves off the stems. A handful is about enough. Throw it into the mixing device of your choice, i.e. food processor, mortar and pestle, whatever.

2. Shred the parmesan cheese and toss it on top of the basil.

3. If you’re using pine nuts, add them to the mixer. If you live somewhere where pine nuts are obscenely expensive (I do!), take your walnuts and break them into somewhat smaller pieces and add them too.

4. Chop the clove of garlic up into 4 or 6 smaller pieces. You’re going to crush it more when you mix everything together, so don’t feel like you have to go crazy here.

5. Add about a tablespoon of olive oil and a dash of salt and pepper and then start blending. When everything starts to look more like a paste, taste it to see how it’s going. Add anything you think it needs more of and then blend until it’s all liquid-y and delicious.

Chickpea Salad

Inspired by Avocado Pesto

Ingredients:
1 jar of Chickpeas
Cherry Tomatoes
Pesto
Avocado
Spinach

Instructions:
1. Rinse the chickpeas well (chickpeas out of a jar smell awful but they taste really good!) and pour them into a bowl. Chop the tomatoes and add them.

2. Scoop a generous spoonful of pesto into the bowl and start stirring.

+Storage and eating: The chickpea/tomato/pesto situation will stay good in the fridge all week, it’s the spinach and the avocado we have to worry about.

First, the avocado. Forget all the stuff you’ve ever heard about lime juice and keeping the pit attached to keep the avocado from turning brown. The only way to keep browning form happening is by keeping it away from air. I do this by chopping off a section to take to work with me the night before and wrapping it  (along with the rest of the avocado) tightly in saran wrap. Sustainable? Not so much. But highly effective!

Now the spinach. I wrap the spinach in a bandana and take it to work separately so that it doesn’t wilt. When I get there, I put the spinach on a plate (our school has plates so it’s not like I’m fancy and bring one with me), pour the chickpea mix over it and then slice the avocado on top.

You Can Take It With You: Raisin Bread and Sushi

Lunchtime: unequivocally the best part of the day. But could it be better? Yes sir, it can. You don’t have to spend gobs of money going out, but you also shouldn’t be packing the same peanut butter sandwich year in and year out; there is a middle way. The path to becoming a lunch box buddha isn’t so hard. All you need is a good balance of inspiration and  improvisation. Every week, we’ll make one or two packable recipes so that you have something new to fill your lunch box and your stomach. 

Spain has lots of things going for it. It’s got every kind of beach you could ever want, siesta, and gobs of beautiful women. One thing I’m not so crazy about: the food. I spent the first few weeks at my job politely try to rearrange the food on my plate using everything my mom had every taught me about eating dinner at other people’s houses. When my first paycheck came, though, and I discovered I’d been paying €3.21 every day I’d “eaten,” I decided to take matters into my own hands.

After getting permission (and being assured that he hated American food just as much as I couldn’t tolerate Spanish food) from a co-worker to bring my own lunch, I started realizing it wasn’t going to be as easy as I thought to feed myself. Working at a place with no microwave or kitchen, having to get up early and working in a town whose only grocery had no fresh produce meant I was going to have to start planning. So I did. I’m four weeks into bringing my own food every day and things are finally how they should be: Lunch is my favorite time of the work day again.

Since I’ll be making new recipes every week, I thought we could do this together. I made a list of six things that keep me happy while I’m making the food and when I’m eating it. Think about what you aim for in terms of a lunch and decide if there’s anything special you need to maximize your lunching pleasure.

My rules and/or goals for lunch
+ The food has to be able to be eaten cold
+ It must be able to last a week (both in terms of life-span and in tolerability)
+ My lunch and/or breakfast has to contain some form of protein (I aim for general all-around healthiness, but protein gets extra attention because I don’t like to take meat for lunch.)
+ The total cost of lunch and breakfast for the week has to be less than €20
+ I have to be able to make my lunch in less than 2 active hours, including cleaning up. That means something can rise, boil, or cook for 48 hours, as long as I don’t have to be there watching it.
+ The food doesn’t necessarily have to go together. It’s just lunch. I can eat tabbouleh and pumpkin muffins if I want to.

This week’s menu:

Raisin and Walnut Boule

Having never made bread before, I was a little daunted by this recipe. Actually, recipes plural, since I couldn’t find one that was exactly what I was looking for. Some of them called for starters (where am I supposed to get one of those?), others wanted me to add gluten (huh?), another had nothing sweet for the yeast to eat and the last involved a complex baking process that required a dutch oven and a spray bottle. So using everything I know about bread (absolutely nothing, except that I like eating it), I created my own recipe. And you know what? It turned out beautifully.

Ingredients
3 cups of flour
1 1/4 t of table salt
1/4 t of instant yeast (or normal yeast if you can’t find it)
3/4 cup of crasins or raisins
3/4 cup of chopped walnuts
1 1/2 cups of very warm but not hot water
2 T of honey

Instructions

1. Mix all the dry ingredients together, including the yeast if it’s instant.

2. Mix the water and the honey together.

2a. If the yeast isn’t instant, add it to the honey and water mixture and wait 10 minutes for it to grow.

3. Add the water mixture to the dry mixture and combine everything until you have a shaggy dough.

4. Let it rise twice for at least an hour each time and up to 9 hours each time (2-18 hours total). The recipe I adapted this from suggested 12 hours at the very least but I only let it rise for 3 and my bread was amazing.

5. Punch the dough down and form it into a ball. Cover the ball in flour and then place it on parchment paper or aluminum foil on a pan. Bake for 30-40 minutes in a 450° oven. It’s going to get dark and that’s okay; take it out when it’s completely cooked through.

Sushi

Despite living 30 minutes away from the world’s second largest port (Tokyo takes the gold in that department), sushi here is hard to come by and expensive. After going out for dinner with a few of my friends the other night, I decided that sushi was going to be next on my list of things to try making for lunch. I’m absolutely not an expert in this department so I’m open to any and all tips that y’all might have.

Ingredients
Nori (sheets of seaweed)
Sushi rice (or whatever short grain white rice you can get your hands on)
5 T of Rice vinegar (or 3 T of white wine vinegar + 2 T of water if you can’t find rice vinegar)
5 t of Sugar
1 1/4 t of Salt
Fillings (we used red pepper, green pepper, fried tofu, zucchini and avocado but stayed away from fish since we’re not eating it right away)

Instructions

1. Cook the rice. You’ll need 2 1/2 cups of water and 2 1/2 cups of rice. Ideally you should rinse your rice and sing to it and take it out to dinner, but I am not a sushi chef (who, by the way, spend 3 out of 7 years learning how to make rice the right way. Thanks Wikipedia!) so I just cooked it. I let it come to a boil over high heat and then put on a lid and turned the heat down to very very low. After about 15 minutes, it was sticky but not mushy, so I turned the heat of and let it sit with the lid on for 10 more minutes while we finished…

2. …Chopping the vegetables. You want these puppies to be matchstick-sized.

3. Make your vinegar dressing by mixing the vinegar, sugar and salt together. If, like me, you couldn’t find rice vinegar, using the white wine and water mixture will work just fine. Rice vinegar is less acidic than white wine vinegar, so water cuts down on the acidity. It won’t taste exactly the same, but it’s a good substitute if you’re just cooking for yourself. When the rice is cool, stir it in, being careful not to overdo it.

4. We didn’t have bamboo mats so we used pieces of magazine as our rolling mats. To make a regular Makizushi roll, cut a piece of nori in half and place one half on your mat. Dip to fingers in water to keep the rice from sticking to your hands, and then scoop some rice onto the nori. You want to keep this layer pretty thin or it’ll be hard to close. Place your fillings along one side and then, using the mat, roll the sushi into a strip, wetting the end of the nori to make it stay shut. Since you’re not eating it right away, wrap the long cylinder tightly in saran wrap. You’ll cut it the morning before you eat it with scissors or a knife if you’re lucky enough to have a good set of knives.

To make an inside-out Uramaki roll, start the same way. After covering the nori with rice, flip the sheet over and place your fillings on the nori. Roll so that the rice ends on on the outside and then wrap it in saran wrap.

5. I found little dipping containers at a dollar store that fit inside a bigger piece of tupperware. I put soy sauce in the dipping container, smear a dab of (fake) wasabi on the inside of the lid so that I can mix it in later, and then put my sliced up sushi rolls in the big tupperware. Ta da! You have lunch for the whole week.

Get Baked: The Rice and Beans Extravaganza

Rice and beans have the kind of relationship most of us can only hope for. They’re so stable and complimentary to each other. They provide comfort to countless people and inspire love poems. If you wanna get sciency about it, rice and beans are the perfect couple because together, they have the right proportions of the 9 essential amino acids that make up a complete protein. They might not be terribly sexy, but there’s no denying that their relationship is rock solid. In honor of the happy couple, we got together and wrote our of ode of sorts to rice and beans. (Also sometimes other members of the grain and legume families. Life is short, etc.)

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Rice and Black Bean Succotash

By Laura

Ingredients
1 can of black beans
1 ear of corn
2 tomatoes
1/4 red onion
1/4 cup of olive oil
1/4 cup of balsamic vinegar
salt and pepper
rice
cilantro
lime

Instructions

1. Put the biggest pasta strainer you own (what do you mean you only have one?) in the sink and pour the black beans into it.

2. Shuck the corn and then slice the kernels off the cob using a serrated knife. I think the easiest way to do this is to lay the cob flat and cut horizontally so that the kernels don’t go flying everywhere. I say this having found corn kernels in tiny crevices in my kitchen (hello, toaster) weeks after making this stuff.

3. Bring an inch or so of water to a boil and blanch the corn for 1 minute. (You may think that Blanche is just the name of the woman on the Golden Girls, but it’s not. It’s really a fancy word for “cook for just a hot second.”) Pour it into the strainer along with the beans and then immediately run ice cold water over it to stop it from cooking.

4. Slice the tomatoes and onion into small pieces and throw them in with the corn and beans.

5. Transfer everything from the strainer into a bowl, pour on the oil and vinegar and then season everything with salt and pepper.

6. Make rice and add cilantro a squeeze the lime over it. Alternatively, you can do what I did and go to Chipotle and order a side of rice for 90¢. I do this a lot when I bring this to work because I can keep the bean fandango cold in the fridge during the morning and then get fresh, hot rice from Chipotle at lunch. If you’re as lucky as I am, the people at Chipotle will think you’re cute and funny and not crazy for ordering a side of rice every day for 2 weeks. I’m not kidding, you guys; a girl who worked there proposed to me on day 7 of rice and beans.

Chipotle rice: it’s not lazy, it’s smart

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A Variety of Things

by Rachel

Chickpeas and Couscous

Ingredients:

chickpeas, either dried soaked and cooked or from a can
boxed couscous
dried mint
dried oregano
roasted red peppers and/or tomatoes and/or spinach

Instructions:

1. I am a big fan of the soak-boil-eat method of consuming legumes, but canned is also fine here. If you are making your chickpeas from scratch, you need to have soaked them for like 12-24 hours, then boiled them on the stove for like 25 minutes. Or open a can, whichever.

2. Couscous is like the easiest thing in the world to make. Boil some water (the amount specified on the box) and stir the couscous into it. Lower the heat and keep stirring until the water is absorbed. You can also stir in some dried herbs; I like mint and oregano.

3. Chop up some vegetables of your choice — I like tomatoes or roasted red peppers, but some wilted spinach or sauteed zucchini would also be nice — and stir everything together in a big bowl. Put some tahini on it if that’s your jam.

Fava Beans and Quinoa

Ingredients:

fava beans (see above re: canned vs. dried)
1 cup quinoa
tomatoes
extras — spinach, olives, slivered almonds, whatever works for you
some sort of dressing situation — I like tahini+lemon juice, but you do you

Instructions:

1. Fava beans are sort of weird and look like huge lima beans, but I think they’re delicious and taste particularly beany out of all of the beans. They do take forever to cook though if you’re making them from scratch, just fyi. Regardless, get some beans one way or another, and make sure they are cooked, by your hand or by the people who afterward put them in a can.

2. Quinoa! Quinoa is so fun you guys. Make sure you rinse it off first, because sometimes quinoa comes with a bitter coating that can taste bad when it’s cooked. Then combine your quinoa with a roughly equal amount of water (I usually use slightly less water because I like my quinoa fluffy) (I tried to make a “like I like my women” joke there but it didn’t work) and put it on medium-high heat on the stovetop. After it comes to a boil, turn the heat to low and cover for 12-15 minutes, or until when you take the lid off your grains of quinoa have unfurled a little and there’s no more visible water in the pot.

3. Cut up your tomatoes, olive, spinach, whatever you have and throw everything in a bowl together. Put some dressing type stuff on top, and maybe some harissa or sriracha if you have it. Mazel tov, it’s delicious.

Red Beans And Rice

Ingredients:

red/kidney beans
an amount of rice? A cup?
jarred pickled jalapeño slices
onion
canned diced tomatoes (trust me, you want canned, not fresh.) (I mean fresh ones are nice too though. Generally speaking.)

Instructions:

1. This is the real deal when it comes to rice and beans. Like if we had a picture dictionary for food, this would be the entry. The bad news, though, is that for some reason I have never figured out an actual recipe for it. Like one that involves a lot of measuring? I apologize in advance. This is going to turn out to be more of a “meditation on how to make rice and beans” than a “recipe.”

2. First of all, if you soak your beans from dried, you want to be extra extra sure to soak them well and also rinse them and drain the soaking water, because red beans can have weird toxins in them that get soaked out.

3. Chop up an onion (and maybe some garlic and/or jalapeño if you’re fancy) and sauté them in some olive oil for five minutes. Then add your soaked beans and cover them with about an inch of water and then bring to a boil. After the water is boiling, turn the heat to low and let simmer for 15-20 minutes.

4. After roughly that amount of time, add your cup of rice (rinse it first) into the water with the beans. Now this part is tricky — we’re trying to estimate the amount of water required to cook the rice and finish cooking the half-cooked beans, but not too much, or else it will be watery and like stew. Somehow I have managed to do this with the power of prayer every time. Probably someone else is smart enough to work it out with actual math, but since I never measure the dried beans, I really just have no idea. SORRY GUYS. If you use canned beans, you can avoid this problem and just cook the rice separately. Regardless of whether you’re cooking the rice with or without the beans though, and important note on the cooking liquid — cooking your rice in just water is some basic shit. Use a little water, but also a little of the liquid from your jar of jalapeños, and like half the can of diced tomatoes with liquid included. I would say I usually ballpark it around a cup of liquid total, but the tomatoes make it hard to be sure, so. Sorry! Good luck!

5. Bring the water to a boil again, then simmer for 15 more minutes, or until the rice is cooked through. Ideally this shouldn’t be stirred, but it’s possible that your grains of rice on the top aren’t cooking as well as the ones on the bottom, so you may need to give it a stir like, once.

6. After 15 minutes, taste to make sure that the beans and rice are both cooked through, and voila! Eat with liberal amounts of avocado and Cholula.

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Rice and Beans w/ Veggie Chorizo All Wrapped in a Tortilla*

by Carmen

*Is this a burrito? It is now.

Ingredients for 4 Servings
2 cups white rice
1 can Refried Black Beans from Trader Joe’s
1 package of soy chorizo (“soyrizo”)
1 onion
2 avocados
6 tortillas, I used soft shell

Instructions

1. Boil your rice in a pot, cook your beans in a pan and simmer chorizo with chopped onion in olive oil another pan.

2. When everything is almost done, put the tortillas one-by-one in a small pan with butter and/or oil until they are warm and crispy to your desired level. Slice the avocado. You can also add some diced tomato here and you’ll just die.

3. Do not eat it though because THEN YOU WRAP IT UP.

4. Now you can eat it.

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Rice and Beans with Kale

By Lizz

This is a recipe for your first week of med school when you feel like you need to cook something to take your mind of studying but actually have not yet optimized your time management skills for normal food cooking times.

INGREDIENTS! THIS PICTURE SHOWS REGULAR TOMATOES BUT CHERRY TOMATOES ARE BETTER. I’M NOT JUDGING EITHER WAY.

Ingredients
one box of Near East Spanish Rice Pilaf
butter
one can of pinto beans
one can of black beans
kale
tomatoes (cherry or otherwise)
cheddar cheese

Instructions

1. Cook your rice according to the packaging. This should probably include boiling 2 cups of water, some butter and the spice sack that came with the rice. We are so fancy.

2. While the rice is cooking. Chop your kale and slice your tomatoes. If you choose cherry tomatoes slice them in half. Alternatively dice a full sized tomato. Ensure that your kale pieces are bite sized. Big pieces of kale can be overwhelming.

3. Fill a large pot with about an inch of water and turn the heat on medium. Add the kale and tomatoes.

NOTHING SAYS FANCY LIKE TWO CUPS OF WATER, 2TBS OF BUTTER AND A SPICE SACK.

4. Cover the kale and tomatoes and steam for about 10 minutes or until the kale looks bright green and delicious. The tomatoes will probably fall to the bottom but you can kind of scoop them up and stir them back in evenly.

5. While the kale is steaming, open up the two cans of beans. Some people will tell you to leave all the juices in the cans, but I drain it off or else things can get too liquidy.

6. Once the kale looks all bright and delicious, add both cans of beans to the pot. Cook this all on medium until the beans are warm.

THIS IS STARTING TO LOOK DELICIOUS.

7.  At this point your rice should be done. (If not, keep the large pot on low until it is.) Add the rice to the large pot and mix well.

8. Serve a small bowl of the dish with cheddar cheese on top (or not if you’re a vegan).

I’M GONNA EAT THIS FOREVER

Get Baked: Let’s Go On A Picnic, Part II

Summer is simultaneously the best and worst time for being outside. Sprinklers! But also sunburn. Beach days! But also mosquito bites and heat stroke. But a picnic is always a good idea. Sit in the shade! Bring a blanket! Cancel all your other plans! See, don’t you feel better just thinking about it? It’s not the first time we’ve suggested you go on a picnic, but hey, it also might not be the last. So grab your best gal and a blanket and also don’t forget some stones to weight down the corners of your blanket, and you’re ready to be made in the shade with some delicious picnic snacks from now til sunset.

Lemonade

by Carolyn

Having something to drink isn’t the most important part of a picnic, but it can be the most delicious. Much like this lemonade.

Ingredients

Simple syrup or maple syrup (or one cup of water and one cup of sugar)
2 cups freshly squeezed lemon juice (from eight lemons with a real juicer; from 12+ with a hand juicer and willpower)
5 cups cold water
Handful of fresh mint leaves, whole, washed
Ice
Vodka (to taste)

Directions

1. Simple syrup is two parts sugar to one part water and it takes five minutes to make. Boil the water, and slowly add the sugar, stirring constantly. As soon as all of the sugar dissolves, turn off the stove and remove the pot from the heat (if you boil it longer, the syrup will thicken). When the syrup cools, you can put it in a jar and keep it in the fridge for about six months. For clear syrup, use white sugar; for better tasting but darker-coloured syrup, use raw sugar.

2. Juice the lemons. I was using a wooden hand juicer instead of an electric one, so I went through more lemons, but the results were about the same. (If you don’t have any juicer whatsoever, you can use a fork. It will just take a little longer.)

3. Pour the lemon juice into a pitcher or something transportable. Add five cups of water and 1/2 cup of simple syrup (more or less to taste). Stir in the mint leaves and add a few pieces of thinly sliced non-juiced lemon. Stir to mix.

4. Ideally, you would serve this over ice, but at a picnic, that’s not always possible. Nevertheless, fill a glass (plastic cup, water bottle, etc.) with ice. If you want vodka, now’s the time to add it. (If you prefer bourbon, use maple syrup instead of simple syrup, scrap the mint, and add 1 to 2 shots, to taste.) Fill the rest of the glass up with lemonade, garnish with mint if you’re feeling fancy, and serve.

Avocado Cucumber Sandwich

by Jamie

Avocados are basically just the best thing ever, no? This is a super simple yet wholly satisfying sandwich you can make in about ten minutes flat. The recipe calls for half of most of these veggies so maybe just go ahead and make two. Also, you can toss a tomato or some sprouts on the thing if you want and it would probably be pretty dang good. And it’s vegan!

via melinawithlove.blogspot.com

Ingredients

½ sliced avocado
½ thinly small red onion
1/2 thinly sliced small cucumber
2 slices of whole grain bread
hummus (I prefer chipotle, but you could also make Croce’s Basil hummus recipe. Mmm!)
hot sauce (Sriracha is my personal fave)

Directions

1. Slice all the veggies.

2. Spread hummus on your slices of bread.

3. Add avocado and mash lightly onto bread with a fork.

4. Add cucumber slices, then the onion to taste.

5. Drizzle hot sauce over the veggies.

AVOCADO POTATO SALAD

by Rachel, via Isa Chandra Moskowitz and the Post-Punk Kitchen

Potato salad that’s still creamy and delicious but doesn’t use mayonnaise (or weird fake mayonnaise)? Yes please. Also, if I had to design my perfect-world menu, it would be all avocado everything, so this potato salad is 100% a winner.

Ingredients

2 lbs fingerling potatoes, cut into 3/4 inch chunks
2 avocados
2 tablespoons lime juice, from a lime or two
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 teaspoon ground cayenne pepper (optional)
1 plum tomato, chopped
1 small red onion, diced small
1 smallish cucumber, diced very small

Directions

1. Put your potatoes in a pot of water and bring to a boil. Lower it to a… smaller boil? for 15-20 minutes, checking to see if they’re done by looking to see if you can poke a fork into one easily. You don’t want to overcook them, because overcooked potato salad is essentially just mashed potatoes. (I boiled my potatoes in veggie broth as opposed to water because I feel like it makes them more flavorful, but maybe I’m a crazy person!)

2. In the meantime, get out your food processor, and blend together the avocados, lime juice, salt and cayenne until they’re creamy and blended. (The original recipe suggests that you also add the tomatoes and onions but make sure that they don’t get too blended, but that sounds hard, so I just put them in chopped up by hand.)

3. Once your potatoes have cooled, mix them in a bowl with your avocado dressing and chopped tomatoes, onions, and cucumbers. Voila! Taste for salt, but probs you’re done. This will get a little watery if you eat it more than 24 hours later, but for the most part, you’re good! Put it in the fridge for a few hours to chill, and then take it to your picnic and get all up in it.

Quinoa Tabbouleh

by Carolyn

Tabbouleh is basically always tabbouleh no matter what you do to it, which is why I swapped in quinoa. This also keeps for three to four days in the fridge if you store most of the dressing separately, making it excellent for bringing a lunch for non-picnic occasions.

Ingredients

1 cup of quinoa, rinsed
1/2 tsp kosher salt
1/3 cup lemon juice, freshly squeezed
2 garlic cloves, minced
1/3 olive oil
fresh black pepper (lots)
2 cucumbers, cut into smallish pieces
1 container cherry tomatoes or 3 regular tomatoes, halved or sliced into smallish pieces
2/3 cup parsley, chopped
1/2 cup mint, finely chopped
2 green onions, thinly sliced

Directions

1. Bring 1 1/4 cups of salted water to a boil, add the quinoa, reduce the heat to medium low, cover, and simmer until the quinoa is tender, which will take about 10 minutes. Remove from the heat and let it stand for a few more minutes before fluffing it. Spread it out on a baking sheet to let it cool, or alternatively, forget about it on the counter for a while.

2. In a glass measuring cup or bowl, whisk the oil, lemon juice, and garlic together. Season with salt and pepper.

3. Transfer the cooled quinoa to a large bowl and add 1/4 cup of the dressing. Toss. If you are making this ahead of time, leave the rest of the dressing separate and add it just before serving. If you are making this for the really near future, leave the rest of the dressing aside for just a minute.

4. Add the cucumber, tomatoes, parsley, mint, and green onions to the quinoa, and toss. Season with salt and pepper, and drizzle with the rest of the dressing. Serve.

Featured image via Fig and Fauna.

Get Baked: Peanut Noodles

When I was growing up and we ate a lot of Working Single Mom fare, which as I remember was mostly frozen fish sticks, my mom had a regular dinner dish that I cannot recall in specific but which I loved. I think it was mostly peanut butter on ziti? Probably there were other things involved? Sometimes my mother reads these articles, so maybe she’ll enlighten me. Anyways, it was delicious, but by the time I grew up I knew it was not a food Real People ate. EXCEPT, AND THEN, I found out that you could totally still eat peanut noodles as a real thing! Glory be. I have been doing this now every day for like a week, because it is a lunch that is delicious, can integrate many vegetables without being a salad, and also has a ton of protein, thereby keeping me full until like 8 PM. Way to be, peanut butter!

This is less of a “recipe” than a collection of ingredients which I think are good, and suggested amounts of each of them. Do not feel compelled to follow them closely! I have an unhealthy relationship with rice vinegar, so maybe I put in more than you would. Feel free to ramp up the sriracha if that’s your thing. This probably makes two normal-person servings; I eat the whole thing myself in one sitting because I’m a boss/#YOLO.

PEANUT NOODLES

Ingredients:

Soba noodles (this is what I use! Udon noodles would probs be ok. I won’t tell anyone if you use, like, spaghetti.)

1/4 cup smooth peanut butter (I like the hippie natural kind, unsurprisingly)
1/4 cup warm water
1/8 cup soy sauce
1/8 cup rice vinegar
2 tsp ginger garlic paste
1 tsp sesame oil (or more! you know, depending on your peanut butter consistency.)
An Amount of sriracha

Preferred Noodle Accessories. I like:
peas
firm tofu
broccoli
red bell pepper
avocado if I’m feeling fancy

1. Put a pot of water on to boil. Once it does boil, add in your soba noodles. (If using other noodles, you will have to make your own way in the world w/r/t cooking them.) If you are dealing with noodle accessories that are frozen (like my peas and broccoli usually are), then maybe also add them to the water when you add the noodles.

2. While you are waiting for the water to boil, chop up the rest of your noodle accessories into bite-sized pieces.

3. Also mix your sauce! It is pretty self-explanatory. The key is finding the best cooking utensil to mix the relatively solid peanut butter with relatively liquid other ingredients. I recommend a whisk. (Also, I think of peanut butter as being relatively solid, but I’m not allowed to have it on planes? Except one time I did bring a jar of peanut butter through security, but then my gate was changed, and I had to go through a different gate, and the second time they took it away. That seems unfair? Anyway.) You can mix it in a separate bowl and then add it to your noodles; if you are feeling bold and sassy, you may also mix it in the same bowl you plan to eat out of, add your noodles on top of the sauce and toss vigorously.

4. Depending on what kind of noodles you use and how thin they are, they probably only need to cook for a few minutes. Like three. After that amount of time, strain whatever’s in the pot. If you’re okay with eating warm peanut noodles (delicious!) then mix in a bowl with your Noodle Accessories and sauce, and you’re good to go. If you want cold noodles (delicious!), run the strainer under cold water in the sink for a couple minutes, and then mix with your Noodle Accessories and sauce. Hurray, you’re good to go! If you are interested in garnishing, scallions, sesame seeds, or crushed peanut would all be appropriate.

pre-sauce and post-sauce, for your viewing pleasure

Seven Things You Can Grill That Aren’t Hamburgers

I always forget that Memorial Day Weekend exists, which, as has been pointed out to me, is very ironic! I always remember, though, because there comes a weekend when everyone I interact with inquires earnestly about what I plan to grill. To be honest, most days, I don’t plan to grill anything. I don’t have a grill. I don’t even have a grill pan. I don’t even have a gas stove, or a stove that isn’t a child’s size because I live in a tiny apartment made for someone to die alone in. But I guess it’s possible that at some point in my life I will be invited to partake in the social event which is “Memorial Day grilling,” and if that ever happens, I’d like to avoid what happened the last time I went to a grilling event, which was eight people standing around politely waiting to start eating ribs until my lone black bean burger slowly thawed and was actually still mostly frozen in the middle but I ate it anyway because I just wanted it to be over. Anyways, if you also don’t want to eat hamburgers or ribs or elks or whatever it is people eat today, here’s some other stuff you can grill.

Pizza/Flatbreads

Let’s be real: pizza is already your favorite food. The only thing that can make it better is finding new ways to cook it. Laura already helpfully explained to you about grilled pizza, and if you’re not super committed to the specific combination of marinara and cheese, you can open your mind to the more expansive categories of “flatbreads.” Any and all toppings are available to you! Hummus! Barbecue sauce! Ranch dressing, if you hate good food! Isa Chandra Moskowitz put up a really delicious-sounding recipe for flatbreads with creamy red pepper scallion spread that I would probably kill a man for. Or maybe just a cyborg who looks like a man. Let’s not get crazy here.

Raddichio

I know virtually nothing about raddichio besides how fun it is to say. Ra-DEECH-ee-oh! Go on, say it again. Anyways, I believe firmly that anything grilled and drizzled with balsamic vinegar can’t be that bad. Like that Sheryl Crow song. Apparently all you need to do is marinate it for 15 minutes or so (this recipe recommends olive oil, balsamic vinegar, garlic, rosemary, orange peel, and crushed red pepper, but probably something less complicated would be okay too!) and then pop it on the grill for 5 or 6 minutes each side. After you take it off the grill, drizzle with balsamic vinegar and some parmesan or pecorino cheese if that’s your thing. Bam! I think you can also grill endive, but I’m not 100% sure what that is, so.

Watermelon

I know, we just met, and this sounds crazy. Watermelon is literally 90% water; how can you grill it??? That’s like battling a water Pokemon with a fire Pokemon! Bear with me. This recipe recommends brushing the watermelon with honey first, and then throwing it on the grill for a few minutes on each side. I haven’t tried this, but I imagine that ice cream tastes good with this.

Portabella Mushrooms

If you are a vegetarian, maybe you have already eaten enough portabella mushroom burgers to build a house out of, and then a side garage for that house, and also possibly a gazebo for the yard. Still, though, this is a tried and true Burger Substitute, and you will probably end up eating it at your Uncle Phil’s. Try marinating them in something interesting! Lime juice! Baby Ray’s barbecue sauce! Milkshakes! Just kidding, don’t do that part. Grilling some onions and peppers to put on top might help take this next level.

how exciting

Corn

This is a delicious thing to eat at all times. Make sure you have some stick thingys to eat them with, and you’re good to go! You’re in a really good place as long as you have some butter and salt and pepper; you can just put the cobs on the grill as are until they’re cooked through and a little charred and then brush butter on them. Or, alternately, wrap them in foil with some butter and they’ll sort of steam. If I may make a polite suggestion, maybe try eating some of your corn on the cob with lime juice squeezed over it and chili powder on top. You won’t be sorry.

Avocado

Avocados are the best food. This is not up for debate. As with many things grilled, they are delicious with lime juice! Also would probably make the platonic ideal of taco ingredients. This recipe has a salsa you can make to put on top of it! What a good idea you guys!

Haloumi

Once upon a time, my friend Batia told me in hushed tones about “haloumi: the cheese you can grill!” We found some in a specialty grocery — it’s from Cyprus, I think? — and indeed, the packaging said “the cheese you can grill.” It’s a pretty solid cheese that you can just cut into thick slices and then throw on a grill, and it will be salty and a little crispy and a little melty (and also weirdly squeaky? I don’t know how else to explain it. You can hear a little squeaking noise when you bite into it). It’s a great kebab ingredient, but also I’ve eaten it on its own, with my hands, and I’m not ashamed.

THE CHEESE YOU CAN GRILL

Get Baked: Avocado Pie

There are so many foods in life (Beer, milk, pancakes, eggs, mashed potatoes, ketchup) that shouldn’t be but are green on St. Patrick’s day. This pie is not one of those things. You’ve just got to trust me when I tell you that it’s not gross to put avocados in a dessert. In a blind taste test performed in my kitchen, every respondent said that it tasted “like key lime pie and avocados…but in a good way” which means that it wins all pies. If you’ve got 15 minutes and a blender, you can surprise all your drunk friends tonight with this festive dessert.

AVOCADO PIE

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Ingredients:

3 tablespoons of Butter
2 tablespoons of Sugar
1 cup of Crushed Graham Cracked Crumbs
2 Avocados
1 14 ounce can of Sweetened Condensed Milk
1/2 cup of Lemon of Lime Juice
Zest of Lemon or Limes

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Instructions:

Mix up the butter, sugar and graham cracker crumbs, press it into a 9 inch pie pan, and bake for 10 minutes on 325. While you’re waiting for it to cool, throw the avocados, sweetened condensed milk, juice and zest into a blender and mix it until everything’s smooth like butta. At this point, you could just drink it like a milkshake, but we’re going to scoop it into the pie shell instead and refrigerate it all for an hour. That’s all folks! Grab a beer and go eat some pie.

Get Baked: Bean Salad Dip

I promise that this is an excellent thing to a) bring to parties or b) make when you are having people over or c) eat when you are having a TV and wine night all on your own. It is easy and fast and yummy and people like it. Also it uses a lot of cilantro!

Bean Salad Dip

Ingredients

1 can pinto beans (pink beans work well, too)
1/2 can corn (you can use the whole thing, but it’s better with just half)
2 tomatoes, chopped into small chunks
3-4 green onions, depending on how onion-y you like things and how big they are – chopped into thin rounds
1-2 medium cloves of garlic, minced
1 avocado
1 bunch cilantro (to taste, possibly 1-2 handfulls, chopped into bitty bits)
1 lime
salt (to taste)
cumin (1 tsp or to taste)
cayenne pepper (to taste)

Directions

1. Dump the corn and the beans into a bowl after you’ve rinsed them off. Add the minced garlic, chopped tomatoes, chopped green onions, and really finely chopped cilantro.

2. Cut the lime in half and squeeze the juice out of half into the bowl. Save the other half for later — you may taste it at the end and decide it needs more lime juice. Mix everything around. Sprinkle your salt and cumin and cayenne pepper on top and mix together. Less is more, because you can always add more. Taste! Is it yummy? Does it need more lime juice/cumin/cayenne/salt? If so, add them!

3. Right before serving, cut up the avocado into chunks and add it. Mix it around. If you are only serving part of it for some reason/will not be eating it immediately, the avocado will go brown and mushy and gross, even with the lime juice, so maybe factor that into your prep time/leftover storage plans.

4. Serve with scoops corn chips. Or normal tortilla chips and lots of napkins.

Get Baked with Autostraddle: Breakfast Edition

My number one breakfast feeling is that I want someone else to cook it while I drink coffee / loll around in the bed, which is a totally valid feeling and not selfish or lazy at all.

make me some breakfast plz

The cutest and possibly overall best thing about breakfast is that when you eat it at an odd time of day, you get to call it something super special, like brunch or brinner. Also you can cover everything in maple syrup if you want to, and no one can really say anything about it. Maple syrup is the ketchup of breakfast. I mean, and so is ketchup.

Other great breakfast things:

+ bed and breakfasts
+ Breakfast at Tiffany’s
+ breakfast beer
+ The Breakfast Club
+ breakfast in bed

You’re going to have a really fabulous time making all of these things! Also we get to imagine everyone cooking in their pajamas, which is really fucking adorable / sexy. Ok anyway! Waffles!

1. Bloody Mary: Laura L.
2. Vegan Ranchero Situation: Stef
3. Vegan Biscuits and Gravy: Stef
4. Choose Your Own Adventure McEggin: Sarah C.
5.Vegan English Muffins: Rachel K.
6. Pumpkin Rolls: Intern Laura
7. Bacon (or Blueberry or Chocolate Chip) Waffles: Laneia

1. Bloody Mary

by Laura L.

My old roommates and I spent many many weekends perfecting the Bloody Mary. When we were too lazy/hungover/poor to go out to brunch, we made it into a meal.

Ingredients
Vodka
Tomato juice (spicy V8 or whatever brand your supermarket has)
Worcestershire Sauce
Horseradish (I couldn’t find a non-creamed version in the UK, so I did without)
Hot Sauce
Lemon wedges
Celery Salt
Pepper
Celery Stick
lots of ice

Optional
Green bell peppers (a good shape for drinking)
Olives
Pickles/cornichons

Fill your glass with lots of ice. Season the ice directly with lemon juice, pepper, celery salt, worchestershire sauce and hot sauce. Pour in your COLD vodka until you can see it just about at the top of the ice, then fill to the top with COLD tomato juice. Poke around at it with your celery stalk, mixing as much as possible (if you are fancy you can shake it); taste it and re-season as needed.

For a tasty edible glass, cut the top off a bell pepper and season the rim with celery salt. Drop in a bunch of olives and pickles, depending on how hungry you are, and pour in your Bloody Mary. This works best when made from a pitcher and you can refill as many times as you want until you get hungry and eat your vodka soaked pepper.

2. Vegan Ranchero Situation

by Stef

OK, there’s one thing you should know. I’m not any kind of expert in the art of Mexican food, but I am an expert when it comes to making a lot of delicious things and then eating them. I’m usually drunk at brunch, but I’m pretty sure “ranchero” is Spanish for “hey, here’s some beans with your eggs,” so I put a lot of things I like on top of a tortilla and made them for you.

As far as I can tell, the ability to put together a delicious breakfast is only going to make you more appealing to your overnight guest, who will probably stick around to see what you’re going to make for dinner.

for potatoes:
2 medium potatoes (I used a sweet potato just to mix it up)
olive oil
salt, pepper to taste

for tofu scramble:
olive oil
3 cloves garlic, diced
1/4 cup onion, diced
2 small mushrooms, diced
1 block extra firm tofu
turmeric

for the base:
3-4 cloves garlic, diced
dried chilis, to taste (optional)
1 large onion, diced
4-6 mushrooms, chopped
1/2 cup grape tomatoes (or dice some tomatoes, or whatever)
1 can black beans, drained
1 red bell pepper, chopped
1 yellow bell pepper, chopped
2 cups baby spinach

for garnish:
1 avocado, diced
cilantro (optional)

POTATOES

1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Wash your potatoes thoroughly and dice into pieces abound 1″ around. Throw ’em into a pan lined with aluminum foil.

2. Sprinkle with olive oil, salt, pepper, maybe some rosemary or something if you’re feeling fancy. Bake those babies to your desired level of crispiness (check and stir them every ten minutes or so). While the potatoes are cooking, you can do all this other stuff on your stovetop, but make sure to leave the oven on when you remove the potatoes so you can heat up tortillas (see below).

finished product!

TOFU SCRAMBLE

3. Pour about 2 tbsp of oil and fry over medium heat. Add 3 cloves diced garlic. I usually put a ton of vegetables in my tofu scramble (tomatoes, bell peppers, kale, swiss chard or spinach, mushrooms), but most of that stuff is going in with the beans so for our purposes we’re only going to use a sparing amount for flavor. Tofu tends to pick up the flavor of whatever you cook it with, so you need a little something. Throw in a small amount of onion and maybe a diced mushroom or two.

4. When the onions are translucent, crumble your tofu into the pan, stirring frequently. Let the tofu cook thoroughly.

5. Add turmeric for that supernatural eggy colour and a bit of flavor. Remove from heat and set aside.

BEANS

6. In another pan, pour some oil and fry over medium heat. Add the rest of your diced garlic and dried chilis (if you’re into that). Once that’s going, add your chopped onion and mushrooms and stir until the onions are starting to get soft.

7. Add tomatoes, bell peppers and beans, still stirring. When everything is heated up properly and starting to smell delicious, feel free to add spinach or whatever leafy green thing you’re into. Cook until your greens are cooked all the way through, then remove from heat and get ready to assemble some BREAKFAST.

8. Hey did you take your potatoes out of the oven? Those guys are probs totally done and smelling awesome. OK, time to throw a tortilla in the oven and brown it for about a minute.

9. Remove your tortilla from the oven and lay that sucker on a plate. Spread your bean and vegetable mixture generously over the surface of the tortilla. Next, add a layer of tofu scramble. Top the whole thing off with potatoes, and garnish with cilantro and diced avocado.

10. Enjoy with hot sauce (to taste). Here, I made you this fruit bowl. What was your name again?

3. Vegan Biscuits and Gravy

by Stef

Biscuits
2 1/4 cup Bisquick
2/3 cup soy milk

Gravy
olive oil
3 cloves garlic, minced
3 pieces yellow onion, diced
2 small mushrooms, diced
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
4 tbsp nutritional yeast
4 tbsp soy sauce
2 cups low sodium vegetable stock
1/2 tsp sage
1/2 tsp thyme
salt + pepper to taste

1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees Fahrenheit.

2. Mix ingredients in a big bowl and knead thoroughly.

3. Form into biscuit-esque globs of deliciousness on a sprayed or nonstick pan and bake for 8-10 minutes or until brown on top.

4. In a saucepan, heat olive oil, garlic, onion and mushroom over medium heat.

5. When the onions are transparent, lower the heat and 1/2 cup vegetable stock, as well as the flour, nutritional yeast and soy sauce. Mix thoroughly. Add the rest of the vegetable stock gradually, stirring constantly.

6. Raise the heat to medium high and bring gravy to a boil, stirring all the while. The gravy should thicken as it cooks. Add sage, thyme, and salt and pepper to your preferred level. If your gravy is too thick, add a little water; if it’s too runny, you can add a little bit of flour. Once it starts to bubble, you’re pretty much done. Serve hot!

This gravy is also ideal for Thanksgiving, when the rest of your family will eat gravy made from a dead bird and will shake their heads and cluck sadly at your weird vegetable sauce. It is delicious, thankyouverymuch.

4. Choose Your Own Adventure McEggin

by Sarah C.

Really whatever you and your guest want. That’s the glory of these little eggers. You can pretty much throw in anything that suits your fancy.

McEggins
1 of each Bell Peppers (red and yellow)
1 bunch Chives
1 container, appx 12 Baby Portobello Mushrooms
4 Leafs Kale
1 medium white Onion
4 cloves Garlic
1/2 cup Shredded Cheddar Cheese
12 Eggs
Olive Oil
Cooking Spray
dash Salt
dash Pepper
1/2 tsp Chili Powder
3 TB Dijon Mustard

Sweet Potato Patties
4-5 Medium Sweet Potatos
1/2 a stick of Butter
Salt to taste
Pepper to taste
2 TB Olive Oil
2 cloves Garlic
Chili Powder to taste

Choose Your Own Eggins

Preheat Oven to 350

The other glorious thing about this dish is that you can pre-prepare the ingredients a day ahead of time if you’re planning on partying all night and know you’re going to want a scrumptious brunch for you and your bed mate and your roommates and their bed mates and the puppies everyone brought over.

With veggies like mushrooms and onions it’s smart to pre-sautee them. So in a sautee pan with garlic and olive oil sautee the chopped mushrooms and onions until just before they’re fully cooked (they’ll cook in the egg a little too). Do the same with the chopped Kale and garlic.

Dice the peppers and chives up and toss them with the other cooked veggies. Spray the muffin tin then throw handfulls of the veggies in the muffin tins no more than half way high. Put all the veggies in if you’d like, or some, or be a really nice host and tailor it to each guest. Your choice. CHOOSE YOUR OWN ADVENTURE.

Meanwhile, have your roommate (ALEX VEGA) whisk the eggs together with the salt, pepper, mustard, and chili powder. When that’s all whipped up you should pour it RIGHT OVER the scoop of veggies until its about 2/3 full. Feel free to top those adorable little muffin egg creations with cheese and then refrigerate for 10 minutes (I skipped the refrigeration one round and the world didn’t explode, so that might just be a pointless time consuming step) pop that baby in the oven for 15 to 25 minutes or until a toothpick comes out cleanly. Do this until all the eggs and all the veggies have had their turn in the oven.

Sweet Potato Patties

In a food processor use the shredding disk to shred the potatoes into hash. Heat up the olive oil and butter on the stove top and toss the potatoes in flipping it over when one side browns. Toss it with salt pepper diced garlic and chili powder. Remove from heat and let cool and form into small flat patties which you then pan fry until each side is brown.

5. English Muffins

by Rachel
from Vegan Brunch by Isa Chandra Moskowitz

Ingredients
1 tsp yeast
1 tbsp sugar
1 c lukewarm water
2 1/4 c flour (the recipe calls for all-purpose, I used like half whole wheat b/c I’m a hippie, whatever)
1 1/4 tsp salt
3 tbsp butter or margarine at room temperature
Some cornmeal for dusting

1. Put the water in a small bowl and mix in the sugar and yeast, and leave for five minutes or so until the yeast has dissolved. Meanwhile, combine the flour and salt in a large bowl.

2. After five minutes, make a well in the center of the flour mixture and add the yeastwater and also the margarine. Mix together and knead, either via your hands or via a stand mixer/kneading machine, until the dough feels smooth and good.

3. Leave the dough in the bowl someplace kind of warm, covered in a towel, until it’s more or less doubled. This should in theory take about an hour but always takes me two to eight for some reason. I don’t know what to tell you.

4. Preheat the oven to 350, and put a cookie sheet right in there to preheat along with it. Take your dough and dump it out onto a floured surface. Knead it for a minute, then roll it out to about 1/2 inch thickness. Find a cookie cutter and/or drinking glass and/or Mason jar and cut out 3 inch rounds, patting both sides into the cornmeal, which you have possibly poured out onto some small plate situation.

5. Heat a large skillet, preferably cast iron, over medium heat and melt some butter or margarine in it. Toss the muffin cutouts in there and cook for a minute or two on each side, or until it’s golden brown and looks like the bottom of an English muffin. Once both sides are browned, open your oven and put these directly onto the hot cookie sheet, and let them bake for 6-10 minutes. Note: this is not complicated, but you do kind of need to think about your timing. You’ll need to be doing these in batches, and you really do have to put them in the oven right from the skillet, so don’t start browning the next batch until the one before it is about to come out of the oven. The first time I tried this I had all these cute little browned discs that just sat there and waited for like ten minutes, and then they stayed little brown discs in the oven because they didn’t rise. (Still tasted good, though.)

6. Take out of the oven and cool before eating. (Try to do this, at least.) This recipe makes kind of a lot, and the possibilities are endless! Jam and butter? Mini pizzas? Some sort of eggs benedict situation? (I vote for this one!) They also freeze well, so no need to panic about eating a dozen English muffins in two days. (Although that would be okay too.)

6. Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls

by Intern Laura

Pumpkin is the best flavor in the history of flavors. It transcends season (unless your close-minded grocery store insists that it doesn’t and refuses to carry it between December and September) which is why I’m making these guys even though Spring is poking it’s sweet head around the corner. There’s also A LOT of butter in this recipe which means you know it’s going to be good.

for the dough
1/4 cup of water
1 package of yeast
1 cup of milk
1/2 cup [1stick] of butter
1/2 cup of sugar
1 15-ounce can of pumpkin puree [or make your own]
1 1/2 teaspoons of kosher salt
5 1/2 cups of flour

for the filling
1/2 cup [1 stick] of butter
1 cup of packed brown sugar
2 teaspoons of cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon of ginger
1/2 teaspoon of nutmeg

for the icing
4 ounces of cream cheese
1/4 cup [1/2 stick] of butter
1/2 teaspoons of vanilla
1 cup of powdered sugar

First take care of the yeast. Just as a reminder in case you forget how to work with it, your water should be a little warmer than your skin and you should dissolve a pinch or two of sugar before adding the yeast so that it has something to eat so it can grow. Wait about 10 minutes and you should be good to go.

Warm the milk and butter on the stove until the butter melts. Pour it into a really big bowl and stir in the sugar until it dissolves. Once it cools down — not before! you will kill your yeast — you can add the yeast/water mixture and the pumpkin.

Add the salt and all the flour at once. Yeah, you read that right, 5 1/2 cups. I would advise abandoning spoons and just going for it with your hands. It’s going to take a while to get all the flour incorporated, but once it’s all together, stop! Don’t mix it anymore than you have to.

Cover the dough and let it rise for 1-2 hours. If you’ve got time to let it rise for two hours, punch it down at the 1 hour mark.

Flour your workspace and plop half the dough down onto it. Form it into a vaguely rectangular shape and roll it out until it’s about 1/2 an inch thick. Don’t have a rolling pin? I bet you have a whine bottle. It’s a pretty sticky dough so you can flour your hands, the rolling pin, or the surface again whenever you need to.

To make the filling, melt the butter and stir in the brown sugar and spices. Spread half of this onto your dough. Roll the dough up unto a log and then slice it. Instead of using a knife, grab some thread/dental floss/sliced up bits of grocery bag (I did this) and loop it under your dough. Pull it up and around and tightly so it slices right through. Lather, rinse, repeat with the other half of the dough.

At this point, you’ve got two choices, you can refrigerate your rolls a la Pillsbury (and refrigerate your icing in a little container. This would probably be a really cute present for somebody.) and bake them later or you cook them now. When you’re cooking them, butter the pan, plop them in pretty close but with enough room to rise and wait 30 minutes (1 hour if they were refrigerated). Bake for 20-25 minutes on 375°F and rotate the pans halfway through cooking.

For the icing, cream the butter and cream cheese before adding the powdered sugar and vanilla. If you’re having trouble mixing it, set the bowl on the surface of your oven so that it heats up the butter and cream cheese. Resist the temptation to add milk, that’ll make it too runny when you go to put it on the rolls. Wait five minutes after they come out of the oven before icing them.

7. Bacon Waffles

by Laneia

Here’s the deal: waffles are better than pancakes because they let you know when they’re done and there’s no flipping or anything. To make waffles even better, you should add bacon. Let’s talk about that.

Bacon
8+ slices of bacon (I like applewood smoked)
brown sugar

Preheat oven to 375 and spray a cookie sheet with that weird spray stuff that may be made of actual Teflon, who knows. Maybe you should just use parchment paper. So! Lay the bacon on the sheet and sprinkle brown sugar on top like it’s your job. Just cover the bacon in brown sugar. Cook for 10-15 mins or until the bacon is crispay. Don’t put it on paper towels to drain — use a cooling rack.

Crumble the bacon and add it to the waffle batter. Use any waffle recipe you like. Seriously, it’s not even a big deal which waffle recipe you use. Oh my god this is so good.

Tips
+ I always substitute half of the flour for whole wheat flour and make the other half unbleached all-purpose, so I think you should do that, too.
+ If you want buttermilk waffles, add an extra egg white (or two) so they aren’t as dense.
+ Waffle bars are fun: Get a lot of mix-ins ready and give everyone a small bowl of batter to add their favorites to. Banana + chocolate / white chocolate chip was a success, as well as bacon + chocolate chip.
+ Because you can only make one or two waffles at a time, put them in a 200 degree oven when they’re done. This will keep them warm and also make them extra crispy.

Hello I am starving! Please talk to me about breakfast.

Get Baked with Autostraddle: Bitchin’ Soup Edition

We have so many feelings about soup. I’ve made a list of our favorite soup feelings:

+ You can make a million pounds of soup at once and freeze the leftovers, which Future You will really appreciate.

+ Soup is incredibly easy to put together. You just like, put things in a pot and make them hot.

+ Soup is versatile! Do you want to add zucchini instead of corn? Okay no problem!

+ There is usually only one large pot to wash when you are finished making soup.

+ Soup is so inexpensive it’s stupid.

+ Bowls are nice.

I think this might be our largest collection of recipes in one edition of Get Baked. You guys, you could make a new soup every day for two weeks or something. Some of the soups even have animals in them! Also if you need some naan to go with your soup, Laura has you covered. And then you’ll probably want dessert, like Lemon Granitas or Triple Chocolate Brownies! I’m referencing articles within an article, do you like it? Is my hair shiny? Can we get a puppy?

1. French Onion Soup: Abby
2. White Bean and Kale Soup: Rachel
3. Rustic Tomato Lentil Soup: Stef
4. Potato Leek Soup: Taylor
5. Pumpkin Tortilla Soup: Rachel
6. Vegan Matzoball Soup: Stef
7. Miso Soup: Stef
8. Sweet Potato Black Bean Stew: Laneia

French Onion Soup

by Abby

I typically eat vegetarian when I can – but shhh – I cheat for this recipe! This is my most favorite soup recipe from culinary school.

Ingredients:
1/2 stick of butter (go on, make Paula proud)
4 large onions, sliced
¼ cup dry white wine
*are you under 21 and don’t have a wine-o for a parent? or you just can’t acquire the wine? use stock or broth its place, procedure stays the same
8 cups beef stock or broth
1 tsp peppercorns, crushed
1 medium bay leaf
½ tsp dried thyme
1 garlic clove, broken
6 sprigs fresh thyme (this presents a good opportunity for time/thyme jokes with your local grocer)
6 sprigs fresh parsley
Kosher salt
A baguette (sourdough, FTW)
Gruyere cheese (any hard-rind white cheese will work), grated
1 oz brandy (optional)
Extra virgin olive oil

Do you like lots of meat? Like, can’t go a meal without it? I’d suggest you add ground beef, cubed sirloin, or cubed steak when the onions are beginning to brown. Cook the meat all the way through prior to adding your stock.

Equipment:
Large stockpot
Large saucepan
Sauté pan
Sheet pan, if your sauté pan isn’t oven-friendly

Acquire all the herbs, peppercorn through parsley. The traditional way is to tie all of this up in a bundle with semi-porous cloth. If you happen to have cheesecloth on hand, you get brownie points. If not, you can just use string to tie up the fresh thyme and parsley and add the rest of the herbs to the soup, mkay? Mkay!

Use those killer knife skills and slice the onions. Ever wondered how to properly slice an onion? Watch. Are you crying? Put a piece of bread in your mouth or sharpen your knives, yo. For the best results, the onions should be as thin as you can consistently slice them (shoot for ¼-½”). Put the beef stock/broth in a saucepan on the back burner and let it get hot, but don’t let it boil rapidly.

Heat your stockpot on medium and add the butter. When the butter has melted, add the onions. Do you like to stir ALL the things? Cease that shit. The best french onion soup flavor comes from the caramelizing (technically Maillard browning, but whatevs) of the onions. This happens when you leave them alone. Wait until the onions acquire a light brown color, and then stir. (*Add beef here) Walk away, come back in like 3 minutes, and stir again. Stir – only occasionally – until the onions are deeply and evenly colored. Preheat your oven to 350°F.

Salt the onions. I’d recommend about 1 tablespoon. Add the white wine to the pan to deglaze, stir, and then continue to cook until the wine has reduced by half, but isn’t gone. Remember that stock/broth you put on the back burner and those herbs you tied up? You’re going to use these next. Get ready! Add all the stock at once and hang the bundle of herbs down the side of the stockpot, tying the loose end to the handle. Throw in the rest of the herbs, bring your soup to a boil and stir, and then lower the heat to a simmer for 15 minutes. While this cooks, we’re going to make croutons!

With some sort of serrated knife, slice the baguette on a bias, about ¼ to ½ an inch thick. Add enough olive oil to very lightly coat the bottom of your sauté pan. Heat your pan on medium and then add enough slices of bread to just cover the bottom of the pan. Once the bottoms have gotten lightly toasted, flip each piece over and turn off the heat. Transfer the sliced bread to a sheet pan (unless you have an oven-safe sauté pan), toasted side up, and pile them high with cheese, salt, and pepper. Repeat with your remaining bread, if necessary. Throw these in the oven for about 5 minutes, or until the underside of each piece has toasted and the cheese is melted.

Time to serve. Turn off the heat on your soup, remove your bundle of herbs, bay leaf, and garlic clove (if you can find it!). Adjust the seasoning, if needed, and stir in the brandy. Do you like to be entertained while you eat? How about you put some extra cheese in the bottom of the bowl. Serve, but wait to drop your crouton(s) into your soup bowl until you are ready to devour. Cheers!

RE: pic #5 – oops, someone had a few too many day brews and forgot her bread was toasting

*credit to my autobros Elyse and Kirsten for the pics and assistance in the kitchen

WHITE BEAN AND KALE SOUP WITH QUINOA

by Rachel

I have no recipe for this. I just had a bunch of kale I needed to use up. But this turned out delicious, so, LUCKY ME.

Ingredients:
2 carrots
1 large onion
2 tbsp olive oil
4-5 cups vegetable stock
1 bunch kale
1.5 cups uncooked quinoa
1.5 cups cooked white beans
2 tsp cumin
2 tsp coriander
1 tsp dill
1 tsp smoked paprika (regular if you don’t have it, but Jesus Christ smoked paprika is good)
1 tbsp red wine vinegar

1. Chop up the onion and carrots into small pieces. I used baby carrots because that’s what was in the fridge. You don’t have to use baby carrots. Heat the oil over medium heat in a soup pot, and when it’s hot throw them in there. Stir them every once in a while.

2. While they soften, chop up the kale. You probably don’t want to use too much of the stems because they’re kind of hard and woody, but using some is fine. I don’t know, mostly I just don’t have the patience to devein every piece of kale.

3. When the carrots and onion are soft, after 6-8 minutes, add your vegetable stock. You can use water if you want but vegetable stock will make it taste better. Turn up the heat a little at this point if you like. Stir this until it’s heated through, and then add your pieces of kale.

4. While that stuff cooks, get out your quinoa. Quinoa is delicious and also like a nutritionally perfect food BUT you have to rinse it. It’s covered in weird bitter stuff that will make it taste bad if you don’t rinse it first. So, you know, do that.

5. Once the quinoa is rinsed, add it to the pot. I added another cup or so of water to make up for the liquid that the quinoa will soak up as it cooks. Now you have a few minutes to doodle around, but keep an eye to make sure the quinoa isn’t overcooking. You want the soup to come to a boil, and then turn it down to a simmer.

6. Get out your white beans and spices; you can stir them in when everything else is basically done. Another school of thought re: spices says that you should have stirred them in at the beginning, with the onions and oil; normally I am of this school of thought, I think I just forgot that seasonings were a thing until it was almost done.

7. You’re done pretty much! Taste it and see if it needs salt or pepper. It probably does. Also, I’m not gonna pressure you, but stirring in some red wine vinegar just before serving is a fucking fantastic idea.

OTHER IDEAS:
1. Some sourdough croutons or a nice slice of multigrain bread would be pretty great with this, I think.
2. This soup could also be kicked up a notch into more of a dinner and less of a lunch with the addition of some vegan sausage; I recommend Field Roast or Soyrizo. (You can also use real meat if you’re gross.)
3. Another potential non-vegan riff: some Parmesan grated into the bottom of the bowl before serving, or a Parmesan rind added into the broth while it cooks.

Rustic Tomato Lentil Soup

by Stef

In wintertime it’s really difficult to convince me to leave my nest, which is easy because I work less in the winter, and also tough because I am constantly hungry. The secret is SOUP, my wintertime favourite being this Rustic Tomato Lentil Soup from a great cookbook called How It All Vegan (Arsenal Pulp Press). It’s super cheap/easy to make, as well as hearty with a little kick to warm you up. I am never leaving my house again.

Ingredients:
as much garlic as you can stand, minced
1 medium onion, diced
3 medium carrots, sliced
2 tbsp olive oil
2 stalks celery, chopped
6 cups vegetable stock
1 28-oz can diced tomatoes (including juice) or 5-8 diced fresh tomatoes + 1/4 cup water
2 cups cooked lentils
cayenne pepper (to taste)
1 cup dry pasta (any short kind)

1. OK first of all I’m really poor so I bought the $1 package of not-too-sad-looking carrots, store brand elbow macaroni and dry Goya lentils. Do you know how to cook lentils? It’s a lot like cooking rice, really, and doesn’t take long. First, put your dry lentils in a strainer and rinse ’em off, cos usually there’s a lot of weird stuff in the package. Next, pour them into a pot with just enough water to generously cover them (maybe 2 cups of water per 1 cup of lentils?). Bring to a boil, then simmer until the water’s gone. I usually make/use way too much, which is totally fine.

2. Pour olive oil into your soup pot, and sautee your garlic, onions and carrots over medium heat until the onions are translucent.

3. Add your celery, veggie stock, tomatoes, lentils and cayenne pepper. Turn the heat up and bring the soup to a boil, then simmer on low for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally.

4. Add your pasta, and simmer another 10 minutes or until the pasta is cooked through and the carrots are soft. Serve hot.

Potato Leek Soup

by Taylor

I was going to contribute this Poblano Corn Chowder I made this summer that is the best thing I’ve ever eaten, but since I didn’t alter the recipe at all really, that might be plagiarism, I don’t know, I don’t make the rules. Anyway, that corn chowder is so good it kind of makes you cringe thinking back on it, like Ecstasy. Also it’s a huge pain in the ass to shuck all that corn and fuck around with a food processor, but by god it’s delicious, so try it some time. Instead I will contribute a Potato Leek Soup recipe that Kelsey and I have already made two times this week alone, because we are sick and leeks are awfully pretty when you cut them and we found some at the farmer’s market. We featured this soup on Things to Cook Later, which is a Tumblr cooking collective in theory, but really just a Tumblr with maybe 10 posts in practice. This is adapted from a Creamy Potato Leek Soup recipe on Allrecipes.com.

Ingredients:
8 potatoes, peeled and cubed
4 cups faux chicken broth
3 leeks, sliced
olive oil, some
garlic, a clove probs
1/2 cup low fat milk
1/2 cup heavy cream

In a large pot, bring potatoes and (faux) chicken broth to a boil. Cook until potatoes are tender if you fork at them. Sautee the leeks in the frying pan with olive oil and garlic.

When the potatoes are tender, stir in the fried leeks, heavy cream and milk. Stir to blend and remove from heat. Serve hot.

Top with shredded cheddar cheese and fresh cut chives or just serve plain. Yom!

Pumpkin Tortilla Soup (Vegan!)

by Rachel

originally featured at the kitchn

HEY are you guys tired of pumpkin yet? Too bad, because I’m not. Actually though don’t be alarmed either way, because this is not a pumpkiny soup at all; I wouldn’t have guessed it was there at all based on flavor. Really it just serves to make a really thick, dinner-serving soup instead of something that’s traditionally more brothy. And if you happen to have like ~20 inches of snow on the sidewalk outside that you need to shovel within the next 4 hours or else get fined by the city (AHEM) then that sounds pretty good, no?

Ingredients:
12 (6-inch) corn tortillas (I used like 8.)
4 tablespoons olive oil
1 medium white onion, finely chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 cup finely chopped cilantro, plus more sprigs for garnish
1 teaspoon ground cumin
Chile pequins, other dried hot peppers, or cayenne pepper to taste (I used aleppo chiles? It’s what I had?)
1 1/2 cups pumpkin puree or canned pumpkin
1 (28-ounce) can diced tomatoes, undrained
5 cups unsalted vegetable stock
1/2 teaspoon salt
Vegetable oil for deep-frying
1-2 ripe avocados, peeled, pitted, and cubed

Cut 6 of the tortillas into 1/2-inch squares, or just kind of tortilla confetti. Heat 4 tablespoons olive oil in a large saucepan over medium-low heat and add the onion, garlic, cilantro, and chopped tortillas and cook, stirring frequently, until onion is soft. The tortilla will fry a little and get crispy and delicious. You will be tempted to just eat what’s in the pot now, and no one can judge you for that.

Add cumin and crushed peppers or cayenne and sauté for another minute. Then add pumpkin, tomatoes, vegetable stock, and salt and stir to combine. Bring to a boil. Cover, reduce heat, and simmer. The original recipe says one hour, but that sounds like crazy talk to me. I simmered it for maybe half that long and it was still super thick and hearty. Really, it’s about what your heart tells you. You do you. You do your soup.

While the soup is simmering, cut the remaining tortillas in half and then into 1/4-inch-wide strips. Heat a thin layer of vegetable oil in a medium skillet over medium-high heat until very hot but not smoking. Fry tortilla strips in two batches until crisp and light golden (about a minute). Using a slotted spoon, transfer tortilla strips to towels to drain.

To serve, ladle soup into bowls and garnish with tortilla strips, avocado, and cilantro. Stop and savor the fact that this soup is so thick your tortilla and avocado can easily rest on top of it like a delicious caloric raft. Refrigerate or freeze the rest, but maybe think about keeping some more stock handy to add when you reheat, as I think it will thicken even more the next day.

Vegan Matzoball Soup

by Stef

My friends and I are huge proponents of having our own veganized versions of holidays, and because most of us have been chastised so much by our Jewish grandmothers for our veganism (“You can’t drink milk, it makes you sick, I understand, but a piece of BRISKET?!?!?!”), we go especially hard on the Jewish holidays. We made this matzoball soup on a whim one afternoon about two years ago and have been dreaming of it ever since.

Matzoballs
2 tablespoons oil
1 tbsp ener-g egg replacer
4 tbsp water
1/2 cup Manischewitz® Matzo Meal
1 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons soup stock or water

Stock
4-6 cloves garlic, diced
1 red onion, diced
3 large carrots, peeled and diced
2 stalks celery, diced
8 cups vegetable stock
salt + pepper to taste
whatever spice you’re into

1. In a large bowl, mix egg replacer and water until they are of a vaguely egg-like consistency. Add matzo meal and salt. When well blended, add veggie stock/water.

2. Here is where the vegan matzoball recipe differs from your general Manischewitz fare – while the recipe on the matzo meal box tells you to refrigerate your mixture for twenty minutes, egg replacer doesn’t really work that way; it’s time to boil those bad boys NOW.

3. Using a two or three quart size pot, bring walted water to a brisk boil. Reduce the flame, and start dropping in balls of your mixture. You’ll know they’re just about done when they float up to the surface. You want to make sure they’re cooked all the way through, but if you cook ’em too much they’ll fall apart. Set matzoballs aside; they can be refrigerated or frozen if you’re not making your soup right away.

4. As for the soup part, this is pretty open to discussion. We decided to start by cutting up a lot of garlic, red onion and carrots and sauteeing that in the bottom of my dearly departed great aunt’s HUGE industrial soup pot, because making giant pots of soup in that thing makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. So you know, if you have one of those, use that.

5. When the onions are translucent, add your veggie stock, celery, salt and pepper. Now’s the part where you can get crazy with spices. We decided to heavily flavor our stock with rosemary, because rosemary is delicious, but you can use anything! You can use thyme! You can use sage! You can probably use the mysterious spice in my spice rack simply labeled “savory!” T.I. told me you can use whatever you like. Just taste it while you go, and don’t be too heavy handed; you can always add more flavor, but it’s tough to remove it.

6. Bring your soup to a boil, then lower heat and simmer for about 20-30 minutes. When you’re ready to serve, put the matzo balls directly into your soup bowl so they stay fresher longer. Enjoy at your grandma’s seder.

Miso Soup

by Stef

Miso soup is super easy to make for one person or large groups, really fast and really easy, JUST LIKE ME.

Ingredients:
1 pkg wakame or other/comparible dried seaweed
1 pkg miso paste
1/4 block tofu, cut into small cubes
diced scallions? mushrooms? get creative

1. Fill your saucepan with as much water as you plan on making. Miso, you’re so versatile! Heat your water over a medium flame, but make sure it never boils.

2. As your water heats up, gently sift miso paste into the water with two spoons until you have the desired consistency. You’re gonna keep tasting the soup until you’ve gotten just enough miso.

3. Add your tofu, wakame and whatever else you feel like adding. Stir gently.

4. Serve. No, really, that’s it.

Sweet Potato and Black Bean Stew

by Laneia

originally published in Dec/Jan issue of ReadyMade magazine

This issue of ReadyMade has four different soup recipes, so if this post isn’t enough for you, get your hands on a copy. You’ll be like, “BITCHIN’ SOUP. BITCHIN’ SOUP” And all of your friends will love you and you’ll win the lottery and never get another hangnail.

Ingredients:
1 T canola oil
2 sweet potatoes, peeled and chopped into 1-inch cubes
1 onion, diced (I usually get bored about 3/4 of the way through an onion and just stop cutting, so 3/4 of an onion is fine, too.)
1 red pepper, chopped into 1/2-inch pieces
1 jalepeno, diced
1 clove garlic, minced
1 T chili powder
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp cayenne pepper
3 c vegetable broth
1 can black beans, rinsed and drained
1 can diced tomatoes, not drained
1 c (or more) frozen / fresh corn
1/4 c chopped cilantro
1/4 c lime juice that you squeezed from an actual lime
shredded cheddar
cooked brown rice (if you want to serve this over brown rice)

Did you decide about the rice? If you want it under your stew, you should start cooking that now. Heat the oil in a large stockpot over medium-high heat and add sweet potatoes, onion, red pepper and jalepeno. Sautee this for about 5 minutes, adding the garlic after 2 or 3 minutes. I get nervous about burning garlic.

When the onions and peppers are a little soft, add the chili powder, cumin and cayenne. I misread the measurements and added a tablespoon of cumin instead of a teaspoon. If this happens to you, apparently nutmeg is the answer. Stir everything up. Lower the heat just a little bit and cover so the sweet potatoes can cook. This will take around 7 or 8 minutes. Obviously you need to stir it a few times while this is going on.

Now it’s time to add the broth, beans and tomatoes. You’re very excited about this step because now this looks like soup. When everything is stirred up and boiling again, add the corn. Put the lid back on that mother and simmer it on low for about 15 minutes or until you can’t take it anymore.

Before serving, stir in the lime juice and cilantro oh my god it looks so good right I KNOW. Now put it in a bowl and top it with cheese and a little bit of cilantro. There are variations on this recipe in the magazine but I’m not going to share them with you because I want you to buy your own copy.

Now you can stay in and cook soup until spring! Which is only a few weeks away really. What’s your best toppiest most favorite soup recipe? Share in the comments!