In a brief
departure from pulling our blog titles from Beatle songs (we ran out of movie
titles), we want to offer The Elf’s spin on the phrase DO EPIC©, the
copyrighted phrase from the marvelous book Brightside by Kim Holden.
BECAUSE, we’ve had a truly EFLF-IC week in the Kinkey Elfery Kitchen. And what
better week to do that than the week before Christmas when everyone’s heads,
hearts, hands and nerves are spinning in a million different directions. So,
let’s get on with it and re-live this week of “Doin’ ELF-IC”.
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This week’s
The Expert (that would be Susan Voisin) and The Elf’s recipe selection from the
FatFree Vegan Kitchen was Dreena’s No-Fu Love Loaf. An odd title but we thought
we’d give it a whirl.
Well, it was
delicious and not labor intensive at all. We are firmly committed to the ‘mis
en place’ concept of getting all your stuffs together before commencing to
cook. First we got all the dry ingredients together
We had already
cooked the lentils and, in our case, the steel cut oats.
So next we
took our wet ingredients, combined them with lentils and remaining dry ingredients. We then squished it
all up til it was ready to go into a loaf pan that we were careful to line with
parchment paper (too many experiences with stuck loaves to disregard that
instruction!)
And then our
loaf was oven ready. This picture does not show a topping of ketchup and
ho’made vegan Worcestershire sauce that we spooned over the top of the loaf
before putting in the oven.
Alas, we
were on another planet when it came time to take a picture of the final
version, which we served with cauliflower mashed potatoes and Cole slaw. We
actually polished the loaf off last night as an adjunct to our ELF-IC FAIL that
we will share with you momentarily. It’s a terrific recipe!
Our FatFree
Vegan recipe for this week of Christmas is going to get a workout as we have
more than one opportunity to prepare it. And, given Susan’s most recent post to
her FFVK site, it’s a no-brainer. The Pear Spice Upside Down Cake looks
wonderful and doesn’t contain a lot of fat to weigh us down. Can’t wait to try
this one!
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Last Sunday,
we gathered at Kevin and Gigi Carter’s for our THIRD FINAL vegan gathering and
we ended like we started…the original FOUR. We each brought crowd favorite
dishes to celebrate our time together and wish Kevin and Gigi the best as they
being new lives in Dallas (maybe). So, we had Gigi’s awesome black bean and sweet potato
enchiladas.
Leslie’s
awesome stuffed mushrooms
Misty’s balls
(well, that’s what they are!) and her yummy pinwheels
The Elf’s
Ethiopian Cabbage
And her
signature crème filled cookies, this time including mocha filling
The evening
was lovely, if not nostalgic and we closed it out with our final (maybe) group
shot. From left to right, Misty, Gigi (our hostess with the mostess always),
The Elf, and Leslie.
****************************
Two things we
prepared this week that we wanted to share. We were so impressed with the
Black Bean and Sweet Potato Enchiladas at Gigi’s, we decided to make them for
ourownselves. So, we did. The recipe comes from an awesome cookbook called Oh
She Glows
We combined
our sweet potatoes, small red beans (as Big Solid doesn’t tolerate Black
Beans), and coarsely chopped spinach for our filling.
Got all that
all nice and cooked down.
And baked in
whole wheat tortillas. They were AWESOME!!
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Having a Daddy
who was from New Orleans, we naturally grew up eating great food, not the least
of which was/is gumbo. The Elf’s preference was a good hearty duck and
Andouille Sausage gumbo with a rich dark roux. We have been trying to veganized
that for a while now with the main issue NOT being the meat alternatives but
the actual roux itself. It’s an epic process of slowly turning flour and oil
into a deeply colored base WITHOUT burning the flour first. And those of you
who have toiled over an iron skillet with a wooden spoon (and ultimately
expression), KNOW that the tipping point between just the right depth of color
and BURNED is a millisecond. So, we opted to try a store-bought roux to see if
it would work. Well, the answer is clearly NOT! That being said, we thankfully
only made half a recipe and are now tinkering with ways to address the
bitterness of the roux. Thanks to many of y’all for making some good
suggestions that we will try. But the bottom line is that we will not use a
store-bought roux again…our best elf-fort will be to strap on that apron, grab
that spoon and skillet, put a book in our ears and commence to stirrin’. We
used The Gentle Chef’s Chikun Shreds and Andouille Sausage recipes for our meat
analogues and must say that they are worthy of making a first class vegan
gumbo.
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Next up, we
made vegan cottage cheese for use in a recipe that we will long remember as a
complete catastrophe (coming up next). This is from The Gentle Chef’s cookbook
titled The Non-Dairy Formulary. I don’t have his permission to share the recipe
at this point but will ask him. In the meantime, here’s the link to his site.
He has an amazing talent for making plant-based alternatives for dairy and
meats. You’d never imagine!
In any event,
here’s what the final version looked like. It tasted darn good on its own.
******************************
And, at last,
the ELF-IC FAIL of the week! A few weeks back, we saw an amazing looking recipe
for Vidalia Onion Upsides Down Broccoli Cornbread.
Several vegans
online also saw it and between everyone, figured out a way to veganized it
(hence the vegan cottage cheese). Others tried and made it look great. The Elf,
however, was NOT one of those. We did what we thought was the right things,
see? We got our dry ingredients together...
We prepared
the onions in the iron skillet with the vegan butter...
We combine our
dry with our cottage cheese and broccoli...
And that’s
when things began to fall apart. When we combined the dry/wet ingredients, the
wet wasn’t NEARLY enough and there was an abundance of cornmeal/flour that just
could not be incorporated into any kind of batter. So we whipped out the
non-dairy milk and tried to add just enough to get a batter that we could spoon
into the now nice and hot skillet. And we did.
It LOOKED good
but in the back of the wee Elf’s wee mind was a little nagging concern. This
ain’t gonna cook right. It baked and it baked the suggested time but we KNEW
that wasn’t enough. So we baked a bit longer and let it sit the suggested time.
When we turned it over, it was quite lovely.
And then, we
sliced it only to find NO CRUMB at all but a mushy mess. Interestingly enough,
we had some extra ‘batter’ that we spooned into a prepared iron corn stick
thingie. Those were really good although the crumb was still not, well, a good
crumb. It’s a sad time to have to toss such an elf-fort away but alas, we had
to. It was, frankly, awful. So, we are re-grouping and gonna do it OUR WAY next
time…’cause it’s a really great concept. In fact, we may even do it TONIGHT!!
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So there you have our DOIN’ ELF-IC week! We are
looking forward to a big week ahead…my goodness, it’s THE WEEK of Christmas and
we have much to anticipate. Dinner with the kids and grand kids on Wednesday,
Christmas morning vegan breakfast and mimosas at Santa’s house, our traditional
Pajama Christmas dinner with the Dees and one other event that I’m sure will be
a blast. So, while ‘Cluck You’ wanted to say a few words this week, he’s been
shelved for a bit. We at the Kinky Elfery Kitchen wish you and yours the very
best of holidays and we also remember our military who are not able to be home.
Think of them and wish them out of harm’s way.
Until next
week, our last week of 2015, we share our hope that your will DO EPIC©
every day and bring joy to your universe.
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