I may vant to be alone…

…but I don’t like to drink alone, daaaahling. So it is a good thing I didn’t like this drink so I didn’t feel bad tossing it, one way or the other. I made it from a little guide a friend who had attended one of those bartending schools gave me. This drink was way too vodka-y. In a “is this rubbing alcohol or a cocktail?” sort of way. Or maybe my cheap vodka sucks. Entirely possible. Anyone got a brand to recommend?
If I liked drinking alone and I’d have doubled the amaretto and cream. Ok, so the drink:
God Child(Daughter) from Bartender’s Companion-no author listed
Build on the rocks:
1 1/2 oz. vodka
1/2 oz. amaretto
1/2 oz. cream
Incidentally a God father is scotch and amaretto and a God mother is vodka and amaretto. Apparently the God son is MIA. Or drunk and passed out after trying his sister’s drink.

Laissez les bon temps…remoulade

Ok, that was the best play on words I could come up with. But “laissez les bon temps rouler” is a New Orleans expression, and remoulade seems like a southern-ish thing…right? Anyone out there know what remoulade means? Anyway, I got a bunch of celery in my CSA delivery and decided I would make Mark Bittman’s Celery Remoulade recipe from How to Cook Everything Vegetarian. This recipe is ideally made with celery root, but Mark says celery is a permissable sub, so yay that. Ideally, I also would make my own mayonaise for the remoulade, and while Mark does not say pre-made jarred vegan lowfat mayonaise is permissable as a substitute, if he ever wants to eat at my place he’s gonna have to get over that. And surely he would love to come cook dinner with me, dontcha think? I’d make a very non-lowfat and non-vegan(i.e. butter-filled) dessert! Alas. I imagine I would be low on his list of dining companions but someday…
Ok, enough blahblah, here is what I ended up making,, based on How to Cook Everything Vegetarian’s recipe:
Celery Remoulade, Ellen’s Way
Mix up:
1/2 cup vegan mayo
2 Tbsp. chopped scallions
2 Tbsp. chopped parsley(using my kitchen scissors is my new favorite way to chop herbs)
1 1/2 Tbsp. Dijon mustard
1 Tbsp. ketchup(I used the sugarfree type)
A dollop of horseradish and a pinch of cayenne
Add to this a pound of celery stalks, trimmed, strings peeled, and very thinly sliced, a sqeeze of lemon and some salt and freshly ground black pepper. If you wanna get fancy garnish with some parsley. You should get something like this:

Patty Cake, Patty…egg?

I still have soy bacon to use up, as well as cheese so I decided to make another recipe from “The Big Book of Breakfast” by Maryana Vollstedt. I must say I’ve had that book for several years and everything I’ve ever made from it has been fantastic, including these Egg Patties. My changes to the recipe were halving the recipe, using egg beaters for a couple of the eggs, swiss cheese instead of parmesan, and soy bacon instead of real. Also, you are supposed to cook the bacon and then crumble it before mixing it in, but with the soy bacon I’ve found pre-cooking it turns it into very un-tasty dried up soy nublets. So I just chopped it up raw. Unlike real bacon you don’t really have to cook it at all and its safe. If you use real bacon though I assume you should cook it first to avoid getting sick from it. But what do I know? I haven’t touched meat in the last 18 years and I was too young to actually cook when I gave it up, so I am, and forever shall be a meat-cooking virgin. And a prolific run-on sentence writer.
Anywho, here’s MY recipe, adapted from Vollstedt’s:
Egg Patties
1 egg whisked with 1/2 cup egg substitute
1 ounce grated swiss cheese
2 chopped green onions
1/2 slice of toasted whole wheat bread, crumbled
1/4 cup chopped parsley
1 slice of soy bacon, chopped
pink fleur de sel to sprinkle on before serving
There was supposed to be pepper to taste but I forgot this and it still turned out great.
Mix it up and cook by heaping tablespoonfuls over medium heat. Sprinkle with the salt. Nummy. Quick. Pretty darned ideal supper. I ate the whole thing-approximately ten little patties.

I vant to be alone. Dahhhling!

That was my sentiment this Friday. It was an exhausting week due to work and social duties and I wanted a night in. Plus I had not made anything new in a while. So! Hot date with myself, my oven and “The Big Book of Breakfast” by Maryana Vollstedt. I love breakfast foods, though definitely not in the morning. The idea of any food, let alone hot, sweet, and heavy food(my, but that sounds pornographic) first thing in the morning turns my tummy. But late at night? Bring it on.
I have hash brown potatoes in my freezer as well as soy bacon in my fridge that needed using so I decided upon the Hash Brown Potato Pie. I had to make a few adjustments: using hash brown patties instead of loose measurable hash browns, egg beaters instead of eggs, swiss cheese instead of monterey jack and of course soy instead of real bacon. So my recipe:
1 cup egg substitute
1/4 cup milk
1/2 teaspoon salt
pepper to taste
3 hash brown patties, thawed and chopped
3 Tbsp. chopped green onion
4 slices of soy bacon, chopped
1/2 cup cheddar
1/2 cup swiss
Mix everything but the swiss, spray a 9 inch pie tin with nonstick spray and pour in. Top with swiss. Cook at 350 for around a half hour.
The results:

I am now off to eat this pan of deliciousness. Well maybe not the whole thing…

So goth my rice is black

Actually I am no longer a goth. Just cause my clothes are black and I’m listening to Joy Division doesn’t mean I need a label. But food with equally dark sensibilities is fun:

Oh to be in Sebastopol

I have not made anything more complicated than protein shakes augmented by peanut butter recently but am feeling the need to post so here is something foodie from my recent roadtrip to northern California: the Tasting Room IN THE MIDDLE of the Sebastopol Whole Foods. Being able to drink while shopping at Whole Foods, you really can’t beat that.