Edible Chicago

Veggie music

hopefully this link stays good for a while

hilarious! awesome! tasty?

posted by Christa @ 12:37 PM 1 comments

It's a super tofu day!

Well, the foodies favorite holiday is over, and dan's just sad the party ended. We hit the Chatty's Nut Brown pretty hard, and the champagne, and the spiced cider with rum, and the wine....yikes, my head was hurtin' this AM. Here's Lenyr, Dan and Alex hittin' the buffet to kick off the day of gluttony, followed shortly by a day of sloth.


Me, i'm sorry there weren't more leftovers...'cause this year, we decided not to support the tofu-turkey hegemony by diggin into a mediocre, nay, some would say disgusting Tofurky loaf. This year, we made our own tofu roast! We made some key modifications of a VegWeb.com recipe, whipped up some Alton Brown Cranberry Sauce, and slathered on some Grit Sage and Onion Gravy...delicious! Here's the full recipe:


Dan and Christa's Thanksgiving Tofu Roast

5 (14 oz.) Packages of Tofu
1/2 cup nutritional yeast
2 Tbs. sage
1 Tbs. marjoram
1 Tbs. garlic powder
1 Tbs. salt
1/4 tsp Gravy Master or Kitchen Bouquet

Blend together well, working out chunks of tofu and forming a uniform paste (ok to add a few splashes of water to make it easier to mix, we used stand mixer)

Pour into large colander, cover with cheesecloth or parchment paper, cover with a flat object (book, plate, etc.) and a few pounds of weight. Place colander on a pan to collect water, press from 4 hours to overnight (refrigerate overnight,)

When done pressing, prep stuffing:
1 large diced onion
4-5 stalks diced celery
1 Tbs. toasted sesame oil (optional)

sauté in oil until onion is translucent, add:

4-5 diced cloves garlic
1/4 cup sage
2 tsp marjoram
2 tsp thyme
1 tsp rosemary
1/4 cup soy sauce

sauté spices for a minute or so, add:

3 cups stuffing mix
water until bread is spongy (probably 1/4 cup at the most!)

uncover pressed tofu and carve out the middle of the roast so that 1 inch of tofu remains on each of the 5 sides (save what you take out!)
fill with as much stuffing as you can, but only up to the sides of the roast, try not to overflow the cavity you cut out and fill over the stuffing with the roast you removed.
place roasting pan that is very close in size to colander on top and flip over quickly!

Baste with half of the following mixture:

1/2 cup canola/vegetable oil
2 Tbs. toasted sesame oil (optional)
1/4 cup soy sauce
2 Tbs. Miso paste
2 Tbs. orange juice
1 tsp honey mustard

cover with foil and bake at 350 for 1.5 hours
set aside a few Tbs. of basting liquid for basting when served. After 1.5 hrs remove foil and baste with 2nd half of liquid
Bake another 1.5 hours uncovered to brown top of roast
Remove, baste with reserve, slice and serve!

Good luck, and hope your holiday was delicious!

posted by Christa @ 10:26 PM 0 comments

Tomato, 16th day. Beer, drink it all-th day!

Ok, it's been 19 days. the papa of the garden is getting huge!





you should see the crazy roots floating in the water. it's really cool to watch....






And the runt of the garden:



awww shucks, ain't he a cutie? she?










Ok, and the beer is done! I was worried some "volunteers" (i.e. microbes other than happy beering yeast) had surmounted my sanitizing efforts to sour the beer...my first trepidatious swig....will it taste as good as it smells? (which is awesome, BTW)


the verdict? delicious! a hoppier Newcastle, a fresh, tasty homebrew. Next? Honey Porter. Oh, and drinking 48 bottles of Chatty's Nut Brown.
If you're anywhere near me, you should come over and try some!

posted by Christa @ 10:24 PM 1 comments

Aerogarden day 12, Chatty's Nut Brown Ale day 9

Hey, so the tomatoes are taking off recently! Well, at least this one is...the other two are smaller, but still super cute! i can't wait for tasty sweet tomatoes....yumm!

The first fermentation on the Nut Brown Ale went fairly fast, so, for better or for worse, we spent Tuesday night bottling. It was a smelly process, mostly good smells, and of course we spilled beer everywhere. Yet, in the end, we have 48 bottles of beer down in the basement, getting good and carbonated (the second fermentation adds the dissolved CO2).

It was a two person job, and Dan got good at capping the beers after i filled them. It doesn't really take that much force...what a goof!
Note the Aerogarden blazing away in the background. Go Tomatoes! Go Beer!

posted by Christa @ 8:50 PM 2 comments

Taste of Lebanon

Must...get...blog...back...to...being...about...food! I know, I know-- I have no right to complain, what with the "not blogging at all in the last year" thing. Hey. You shut up. I was busy.

I did however, have time to eat at Taste of Lebanon, a great little spot 3 blocks from our apartment that is about 50% of the reason we moved to Andersonville. No, 10%. Okay, 25.

We love this place. Aside from serving the second best baba ghanoush in Chicago, T.O.L. knocks our socks off because you can get a full dinner here for 5-6 dollars, even if you are a flesh-eater. Flesh-eater! Check out the homemade dolma!

Here is Christa taking a bite out of a falafel sandwich-- I'd say she orders one of these about 3 out of every 5 times we go out for Mediterranean. I can't blame her-- I've never had bad falafel anywhere. Thinking of taking a trip to D.C.? Ask Justin about a place he took me to-- I don't know what it's called, but it's dingy and dark, and J.C., do they have good falafel there.


And finally, another picture from our wedding (sigh)-- but this one's of food! Ha ha! Good save! The baklava we served is also the baklava they serve at T.O.L. They gave us the tip on where to buy it in bulk, those classy, classy sons-of-bitches. If you have no idea why I am raving over this baklava, you either didn't taste it, or haven't eaten much baklava. Either way, I feel bad for you.

My next post will be exclusively about the wedding food. Be prepared.

posted by Dan Boucher @ 7:09 PM 2 comments

Big Sur, CA, shaaa, fur shure!

Ok folks, here's the deet's on our honeymoon. After flying into San Jose, we hopped in our rental and went straight south on California 1 till we hit the sleepy, easy to miss metropolis of Big Sur. We stayed in a really cute cabin (number 9) at the Ripplewood Resort, which was in an old stand of redwood trees (that smelled like heaven) and was right next to a serene babbling brook/river. Such quiet! The stars came out at night, and we saw the Milky Way! Here we are on the porch of our temporary home.


One of the first things we saw was Point Lobos State Park. It's named for the sea lions, which the Spaniards called sea wolves A.K.A., lobos. We saw a good number of sea lions (and heard them too, what a racket! they just bark all day long) and a few harbor seals. No sea otters (bummer) just lots of "kelp otters" (our guide used this term to describe bull kelp bobbing in the waves that, at a distance, is easily mistaken for a sea otter). There were lots of hummingbirds too, i saw more that one flock of them buzzing about.

There are some really old cypress out on the point, around 100 years old, though they can live up to 300 years. crazy! There is also a peninsula that is believed to have inspired Robert Louis Stevenson's "Treasure Island" (Carmel, the town just a few miles from the park, was a big pirate town for a while, and Stevenson used to hang about in this part of CA).

Finally, i want to point out that the curves and hills of CA state highway 1 provide an excited framework to this amazing scenery. I was always amazed at what vista would open up around every turn! here's just one example....


Cheers!

posted by Christa @ 10:04 PM 2 comments