Just wanted to do a couple quick posts here. Nothing too fancy, but all very yummy. Mostly.

This one was yummy.

Grand Central Peasant Loaf (sliced)
Trader Joes Olive Hummus
Garden Tomatoes
Basil
Deli sliced Roast beef
Chips

The quality ingredients make this the best. And mixing the basil with the tomato and the olive hummus will knock your socks off.

This is my first attempt at Ethiopian cuisine. I found a nice little Ethiopian market about 1/2 a mile from my house. If you are in Portland, head up N MLK and you will pass quite a few Ethiopian restaurants. I went in the market looking for the spice blend, berbere, and some ground teff flour. Nothing in the market was labeled so I had to ask the lady behind to counter to direct me to the berbere and teff flour. They had both, but I decided to get some freshly made on site injera instead of using the teff to make it myself. After getting those two ingredients, I was able to pick up everything else at the farmers market or grocery store.

1lbs, red potatoes
4 carrots
1 large red onion
4 cloves garlic
1 small chunk of ginger
2 summer squash
1 zucchini
1 large bunch kale
1 lemon
olive oil
berbere spice
water
salt
1 package injera

Start by chopping the onions. Coarse is good for all of this. In a large pot with hot oil, sautee the onions until soft. Then toss in the chopped garlic, and peeled and chopped ginger. Chop the carrots and potatoes into bite size chunks and put them in the pot. At this point, I put in two Tablespoons of the berbere spice and about 1/2 a cup of water. I let this cook on low heat, stirring every 15 minutes or so for about 2 hours, adding water when it started to cook down. Once the starchy veggies cooked down and began to thicken the sauce, I added the chopped squash, zucchini and kale. I then added about 2 more Tablespoons of berbere and juiced the lemon and salt. After another 15 minutes, it was all cooked. I was looking for a nice thick, chili consistency, without much drippage. I put a few spoonfulls onto the injera laid over the plate, and had another injera to help scoop. Note: two injera is too much injera to eat in one sitting. And that's coming from ME.

The flavors weren't as strong as they could have been. I think I will need to try this again (mostly because I have a lot of berbere left). Next time, I will probably go with a misir wat, or red lentil stew. I'm going to try my hand at making the injera myself (by the way, the flavor of the injera is what really makes this dish unique, don't skip it). Also, I will probably save the garlic, ginger, some of the berbere and some oil and saute those up separately right at the end and then mix it in. I think the way I did it cause the flavor of the garlic and ginger to cook off and not contribute too much in the end profile.

Okay, what this actually is, is a red wine tomato sauce with garlic, shallots, asparagus and Crimini mushrooms, over pasta. Here's the scoop:

-garlic
-2 shallots
-1 28oz can of stewed, whole, San Marzano tomatoes
-1 6oz can of tomato paste
-a small bunch of asparagus
-Crimini mushrooms
-roughly 1 cup red wine (I used a Merlot)
-basil
-parsley
-salt
-black pepper
-nutmeg
-olive oil
-butter
-noodles of choice

So in one big ol' sauce pan, I got the sauce going. I started with 8 cloves of minced garlic sauteing in olive oil, then I added in the asparagus cut into roughly 2 inch pieces (from the top not the stem). When they got going a little bit, and became fragrant, I added in the can of tomatoes, the tomato paste, and the red wine. This went for a little longer, and then I added some salt, pepper, nutmeg (be sparing, but make sure you can taste it), basil, and parsley. Then I set this to simmering for half an hour.

Pretty shortly after the sauce had been simmering, I diced two shallots and threw them into a separate skillet of olive oil and butter with two good-sized handfuls of mushrooms. When the shallots just began to sweat, and the mushrooms just began to get darker, I added them to the sauce, and let it all simmer for another half an hour.

Then I got my noodles boiling, waited for them to become al dente, mixed everything together, and bada bing, bada boom, you have yourself another fine plate of pasta.

This one was pretty good, and I'd recommend you give it a go should you have the ingredients available.

Alright, so the picture is a little blurry because it was taken with a camera phone, but this was some pretty damn fine pasta.

Here's the gist:
-your favorite noodles
-2 handfuls of Chanterelle mushrooms
-1 and a half handfuls of Shiitake mushrooms
-Unsweetened soy milk
-lots and lots of vegan butter
-olive oil
-white wine
-shallots
-garlic
-parsley
-salt and pepper

So I started by sauteing 1 big shallot (about the size of 2 normal shallots) and 2 cloves of garlic in both olive oil and butter. When the shallots get a little translucent, add close to a cup of soy milk, more butter, and probably 3/4 cup of white wine.

In a separate pan, saute both the shiitake's and chanterelle's in butter and olive oil, but not too much. When they look like they're starting to sweat out and change to a darker color, throw them into the sauce.

Now you should start boiling your noodles.

At this point its a waiting/balancing act. You need to watch your sauce (adding more butter or milk as you go along to maintain a really creamy consistency). When you are pretty sure the noodles are about done, throw a handful of fresh parsley into the sauce, along with some salt and black pepper (to taste, of course.)

Drain the pasta, toss it all together, top with a little more fresh parsley and nutritional yeast (or parmesan cheese) and bing, cherry vanilla, you've made yourself some damn fine pasta too. The sauce should be creamy, but also packed full of mushrooms. You want a super earthy, creamy, and buttery flavor.

After first arriving with Jeremy and Grizz here in Portland, we went to a food cart called the Homegrown Smoker. They do smoked southern and barbecue food but all vegan. From there I had a macnocheeto burrito. Smoked soy curls, baked beans, mac and cheese, with barbecue sauce. It inspired me to try making this.

1 cup rice
1 large can baked beans
2 chicken breast
1 red onion, diced
1 bell pepper, diced
1 ear corn
1/2 cup barbeque sauce
1/4 cup water
oil
salt
pepper
cayenne
chilli powder
paprika
brown sugar
tortillas

I started the rice cooking in a pot, with nothing fancy, as well as the baked beans warming in another pot. In a cast iron skillet with a little oil, I put the chicken breasts, seasoned with salt, pepper, cayenne, chilli powder, paprika, and brown sugar. I put this on medium high heat, with a cover to catch the oil splatter. I let this get real dark and crispy on the outside, knowing I would chop it up and the blackened bits would add to the overall flavor while not over powering. In another skillet with oil, I started sauteing the onion, bell pepper, and corn shaved from the cob. Once this was pretty soft, I added the barbeque sauce with a little water. I added some cayenne pepper to this to increase the heat, knowing the rice and beans would cool it down. I let the veggies cook down in the sauce for about 5 minutes. Once the chicken was blackened on each side, I chopped it and added it to the veggies. I then mixed the cooked rice and beans. On a warm tortilla and spooned a bit of each, topped with more BBQ sauce, and wrapped. For as much as I love making burritos, I should really learn a better way to wrap them.

This is a cake from Jim's mom-often requested-never any leftovers:

oven 350-50 minutes

1 stick of butter
brown sugar
1 can of pineapple rings (save juice)
maraschino cherries

3 eggs
1 1/2 c sugar
1 1/2 c flour
1/2 c pineapple juice
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp baking powder
pinch of salt


I've only ever made this using a cast iron skillet (just noticed it says no. 5. 10 5/8 in on the bottom)

Melt the butter in the skillet- add brown sugar -I probably use about a cup maybe a little more- caramelize the brown sugar. Place the pineapple rings all around with one in the middle. Put a maraschino cherry in the center of each ring. You will probably have a few pineapple rings left over. I cut them up and fill in any extra space :) Let it bubble away for a while.

The cake- mix remaining ingredients and carefully pour into the skillet. Put the skillet in a 350 oven for 50 minutes. When done- remove from oven let cool for no more than 5 minutes.

The trickey part (for me at least). Place the platter you are going to serve the cake on over the skillet and (while holding the platter on the top with one hand and the skillet with the other hand-careful-the handle will be hot) in one graceful, fluid motion, flip the skillet over thus transferring the cake with pineapple now on top onto the platter.

I almost don't consider this a recipe, but it was a killer pancake and therefore I want to record it.

3/4 cups pancake mix
1/2 cup water
1 4in diameter chocolate cookie with Chocolate chips
1 Tbsp butter
Syrup

I mixed the pancake mix and water together until it just came together (maybe 10 turns of the fork). On a cast iron skillet, I dropped and melted a pad of butter over medium heat. When that was melted and had good coverage (don't skimp on the butter), I crumbled in my hands the cookie and briefly stirred it into the mix. I poured it onto the skillet, and let it just form bubbles before flipping and cooking on the other side. I covered it in syrup and ate it up.

Recently making pancakes, I have really like to use an ample amount of butter to sort of pan fry the pancake in. It makes the outside edges perfectly crispy while the insides stay fluffy and moist as they absorb some of the butter.