We have NO idea where this week has gone!! It seems like yesterday was Monday and here it is SUNDAY!! Let’s see…we did try a new recipe that was posted on Facebook, made up a pasta recipe out of our own little Elf head, prepared some food to share with friends, and generally flew by the seat of our Elf pants all week.
Last Sunday, OH!! YES!! We had Cuban-Style Pulled Porq, Black Beans Beans with Brown Rice and steamed Broccoli. We’ve had this before and, goodness, is it GOOD. We had prepared the Pork via the recipe found in The Gentle Chef’s fabulous cookbook for meat analogs called Seitan and Beyond. More about that later, BUT, after the Porq had rested in the frig overnight, we ‘pulled it’ and prepared the recipe. We got our ‘mise en place’ with all the ingredients. We did not take a picture and so wish we had…it’s such an interesting dish. Anyway, our ingredients were: onion, orange zest, lime zest, orange juice, lime juice, minced garlic, fresh oregano from the yard and salt/pepper to taste. Everything was sautéed in a certain order with the fruit juices drizzled at the end. LOOK!! LOOK how delicious this appears…and you know what, it IS!!
This is one of the meals we shared with some friends; even they said, this tastes just like pork! As for the Black Beans, we let them soak for 36 hours before throwing them in the slow cooker until they were nice and done. We took about a cup and mashed the beans up a bit and returned them to the pot. Our seasoning was ground cumin and a very spare amount of cayenne. We had cooked the beans in the Chicken Bouillon (The Gentle Chef) with about a half teaspoon of Hickory Liquid Smoke. We also cooked the brown rice in the Chicken Bouillon and a small amount of Liquid Smoke. The end result was delightful. You can see from Big Solid’s plate that he added a bit of Daiya shredded cheese (not the pre-shredded but the hand shredded from the Daiya block cheese). We’ll give you the heads-up on the bread (with the bite already taken) next up.
But first, we need to digress a bit about the proper cooking of meat analogs…thanks to Chef Skye Michael. We have a love/hate relationship that is slowly migrating to just the plain ole love relationship. Many of the meat analogues (plant-based meats) consist of a dough that is kneaded, wrapped and baked. Sounds easy…well, it takes a bit of practice. The most recent revelation has come in the form of how to knead the dough for the Porq and the Chicken Shreds we make at least once a week. Chef Skye has been remindin’ us for a long time now that the dough REALLY needs a thorough kneading to develop the gluten and provide the texture for shreds or pulled porq. His suggestion and guidance has been to put the dough in a food processor with the dough blade and process it for 2 minutes. Well, we tried that a while back and damn near had the rather substantial Cusinart dance off the counter…scared us porqless. So we (pardon the pun) chickened out and used a mixer with a dough hook and added several minutes of kneading instead of just 2. Well, we STILL got a product that came out of the oven more like bread than shred. FINALLY, we saw a post from a person who had divied the dough up into thirds and processed it with a lot less grief and jumpin’ around. So, that’s what we tried. and behold, it worked beautifully! SEE!
What you wind up with looks like and has the consistency of taffy. The first time we did this, we almost threw it away, thinking we’d way screwed up. But, NOT. That’s the consistency that works best.
NOW, the next part is JUST as important as the kneadin’ and that’s the wrappin’. We have learned the HARD way that the use of Heavy Aluminum Foil is an absolute must AND wrapping technique is also critical. Once the ‘taffy’ dough is place on the foil, you fold it, seal the edges about a bit to give the dough room to expand, fold it again, crimp and keep doing that until the foil is used up. then you really twist the edges of the foil tightly to seal and repeat with a second (and some even a third) layer of foil. Here’s a link to a video from Chef Skye to show you.
He’s using a seitan roast but the basic wrapping technique applies. We here in the Kinky Elfery Kitchen can testify to the terror that goes through your body when you here your inappropriately wrapped dough EXPLODE in the oven…and that’s happened at least twice since we started processing the dough. BUT, when we wrap like Chef Skye instructs, the product that comes out is amazing. We really didn’t mean to get off on such a tangent BUT for many of us who enjoy the plant-based meats or the meat analogues, it offers a bit of information on how to make the REEALLY GOOD STUFF. Here’s a link to The Gentle Chef’s site
and he also has a Facebook page as well as groups. The final discussion before we move on (and we will) has to do with the usual debate of ‘why do you want to eat fake meat’ or ‘how can you call yourself vegan if you eat anything that is like meat’ or ‘why not just eat the real thing?’ The Elf’s answer for the Elf and Big Solid is that we chose to go vegan/plant-based for ethical reasons as well as health reasons. A plant-based meat analogue is a way to enjoy the flavor/texture of meat without the cruelty of factory farming or the health implications of eating and drinking animal products.
Remember way back when we mentioned the bread that was on Big Solid’s plate? Well, that’s another recipe we tried this week…Sweet Potato Flatbread. It’s a very easy dough to make
Remember way back when we mentioned the bread that was on Big Solid’s plate? Well, that’s another recipe we tried this week…Sweet Potato Flatbread. It’s a very easy dough to make
and just as much fun to cook.
The result is a rather nice flatbread that you can use for curries, beans, soups, dips, and hummus.
However, we did find that it did not toast particularly well, so if you are looking for something crunchy, this isn’t it. Here is the link to the recipe if you want to play with it.
The next recipe is one we have made before and is quite healthy, delicious and fairly easy to make. It’s from Susan Voisin’s FatFree Vegan Kitchen—Pasta with Chard and Chickpeas.
We found some beautiful Rainbow Chard at Kroger,
sautéed a LOT of mushrooms,
cooked some Red Lentil and Vegetable Pasta,
and put it all together with a wee bit of tomato paste and orange juice.
It was yummy!! Thursday night we had another sweet potato recipe we’d been wanting to try…Sweet Potato and Black Bean Burgers.
These were a little on the labor intensive side since there are quite a few ingredients but were quite tasty. Shown after being made into patties.
Our main issue with these burgers was not the flavor or taste; it was the consistency and texture. As we said on our Facebook page, The Elf in the Kitchen, a more palatable burger would need to have more substance and resistance to the bite. However, we intend to make them again and use them as patties with a sauce and vegetable accompaniment. Here’s a close up of the burgers/patties…you can see the rich color combo of the beans and sweet potato PLUS the little quinoa squiggly part.
We love quinoa, so this burger is way healthy!! If you try it, let us know how it turned out for you.Well, gosh, another week of cookin’ and laughin’ and stirrin’ and playin’ in the Kinky Elfery Kitchen. Who knows what we’ll encounter this week…but we DO have a couple of cool things in mind! Til then, you know the drill ‘remember to Look for the GOOD, be an EXAMPLE of the GOOD, and ACT for the GOOD as HARD as you can, in as MANY WAYS as you can, EVERY DAY that you can.’
Your Elf
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