Jon Vs. Cupcakes

I was pretty shocked that in searching for studies of competitive eating, I was only able to find a single one. Naturally, as a scientist, I am intrigued by the concept. Nonetheless, I decided that it would be better to volunteer all day at the DC Veg Fest than to enter a vegan cupcake eating contest and likely end up feeling sorry for myself all day. As it turned out, I did both. A last minute no-show for the cupcake contest left an empty chair, so I decided to fill it. My stomach was already in knots from a very busy morning of volunteering, and I'd just had too much, but hey: there's always room for five cupcakes.

The basic premise was simple: whoever could eat 5 cupcakes the fastest (with no hands and no water) would be the victor. This was harder than I thought it would be. I basically bit the first two cupcakes in half and swallowed them without chewing, thinking this would both be faster and avoid wasting valuable saliva. Sadly, it turns out that swallowing things whole makes me want to puke really bad, so after that I had to slow down and chew lots and focus on pretending all was well with my stomach.

Shortly after this picture was taken (while I was eating the third cupcake), Doron Petersan (owner of Sticky Fingers bakery) grabbed my shoulders, started shaking the hell out of me, and telling me to chew faster. This required heavy concentration to prevent urgent vomiting:

Once she let go of me and I could calm things down a bit, I was able to take stock of my competition. I was hoping someone else would be winning so I could slow down more, but no luck. I was clearly still in the running. I decided to step up my game.

Meanwhile, the other competitors were doing the same.

You can see a wide shot of the end of the contest here (note my very clean plate and not very clean face:

Being an honest lad, I wanted to follow the rules which meant a totally clean plate, and a totally empty mouth before I could declare victory. But in the end, even though I still had a bit of chewing to do, I was declared the Regretful Cupcake King. My face pretty much says it all:

My prize? A mug and three more cupcakes, including this lovely gold-dust one:



Afterwards I still had anther 3-4 hours of volunteering to go, so it made for a rough afternoon, but perhaps it was worth it for the glory and the learning experience.

I won at bowling

I have been super busy with school, three graduate courses are keeping me on my toes!  But I did have time to go bowling on Saturday.

Vegans can levitate.  Have I mentioned this?

This joyful dance was after my one and only strike.  Nonetheless, I still got the highest score of....100.  So we're not bowling experts!  I think that only serves to confirm our coolness.

Given my busy schedule, I don't have loads of time to labor away in the kitchen.  I've been making things that are quick, and this dish qualifies as super quick, and super yum.

It comes out slightly crispy (hence the brown parts) from being under the broiler - delicious!

1 Trader Joe's Bag of Organic Broccoli (which they have kindly chopped and cleaned for you)
1 TBS chopped garlic - preferably farmers market garlic which is a different variety of garlic than supermarkets generally sell
1 TBS Olive Oil
1/4 tsp fine salt

Chop 1 TBS of awesome farmers market garlic and place in 1 TBS of Oil to marinate for at least 1 hour.  I left mine overnight.  Mix in 1/4 tsp fine salt into the oil/garlic.  In a big bowl with a lid, combine the garlic/salt/oil mix with the broccoli, and shake it all around a lot to ensure even coating.

I broke up the really big chunks of broccoli from the bag so they would cook evenly, and placed the teeny ones in the center all crowded, and the big fatties at the edge spaced out to further even out the size/cooking time discrepancies.

Broil on high for 5 minutes, then flip each piece, then broil 3-5 more minutes (depends on how intense your broiler is, keep a close watch, broilers can burn things up super quick). Enjoy.

Homemade Dog Treats

I will be brief. We tried to make homemade dog treats for our dog's 4th adoption anniversary (aka 6thish birthday), and they sucked. They didn't ever get crispy, even when we overbaked them. Our dog likes them (but then again, she considers a kale stem a treat, to be gnawed on slowly like a bome), but one of her friends spat it right out when we gave him one. They are cute, at least, due to an eternity spent cutting out little fall shapes (oak leaves, maple leaves, normal leaves, acorns, apples, and pumpkins, plus one dog):



We used the recipe from http://the-dairy-free-diva-recipe-exchange.yumsugar.com/All-Natural-Vegan-Dog-Treats-14252489 although to be fair we didn't have quite enough peanut butter so we topped it off with tahini and a bit of almond meal. Alas.

Chard Week at the Fishbands

We received a warning note from the Condo Board this week about our 'guerrilla garden', indicating that we had a month to remove the plants (including our very good-looking chard, which could practically be considered a decorative plant), or they would be pulled up for us.  Jon had already pulled up the tomato plants at my urging, because they were hardly producing anything and an eyesore anyhow.

This inspired a week long chard-centric menu in the Fishband household (a combination of our two last names, in case you were wondering).  First up was Color Me Vegan's Swiss Chard Tart.  Jon kindly made this solo while I recovered from filming the Rosslyn Jazz Fest a little too soon after surviving a killer cold.  He made two modifications.  The first was he didn't add any oil to the cashew cheese portion of the recipe.  He didn't replace it with anything - just omitted it.  The second was he didn't add as much salt as the recipe called for and it was still plenty salty.


          Doesn't this look like quiche made with eggs?

It turned out really well.  The texture is much more like a fluffy eggy-style quiche than my favorite vegan quiche recipe from Voluptuous Vegan (dang, that is a good quiche though!).  It wasn't overly chardy, which is helpful because we have to eat it every meal this week - best not to get sick of it too soon.  We'll also be eating Vegan Yum-Yum's Cheezy Chard toast points (so incredibly good, you should make those), and some chickpea crepes from VegNews that we'll sneak some chard into.  So no recipes anytime soon.

I did "invent" a soup recipe last week to help with my cold, which was 4 cloves garlic, 1 onion, 3 small sweet potatoes, a bunch of collards, and about 2-3 cups okra, plus 3-4 TBS of berbere spice mix, but the problem  is that, while tasty, the okra unfortunately gives it the look of goopy boogers when you scoop it into your bowl, so I can't wholeheartedly endorse that recipe due to its visually disturbing nature.

I am now a full time graduate student which I naively thought would give me loads of time to experiment in the kitchen.  However, so far I've been spending a lot of time reading textbooks and course materials, working on homework, and attending class.  Hopefully once I get my routine down I can spend more time having fun with new recipes.  I'm especially excited about making Miyoko Schinner's vegan cheeses.  I'm not sure if anyone else fell of their chair when they noticed, but Lauren Ulm of Vegan Yum Yum fame is back blogging again!  I was really pleased, her blog is such a pleasure to read and to look at.

Easy Ethiopian at Home

I made this last week while Jon was out of town.  I read a lot about people not wanting to cook for "just themselves" or why make such a fuss when its "just me".  Just you?!?!  That always blows my mind.  Did you have some sort of early childhood toungue injury so that the vicarious pleasure you get from others enjoying your food actually better than eating the food itself?  I like eating!  And I'm worth all sorts of crazy effort in the kitchen!  And so are you!  However, while you're working through your self-confidence issues, here's an easy recipe you can make:

Easy Ethiopian:

1 package Uptons Seitan Traditional Flavor, Chopped
1 package fresh green beans (about 2 1/2 cups) chopped
3 medium red skinned potatos, scrubbed, quartered, & sliced 1/4 inch thick
1/4 cup berbere spice mix (already contained salt) (more berbere to taste as needed)
1/4 cup water
1 onion, chopped
2 tsp oil

I sauteed the onion in the oil in the electric pressure cooker on the brown setting for about 10 mins, adding the garlic and berbere at the end and sauteeing for about 2 mins  Then I added the water, green beans,  potatoes, and seitan and set the pressure cooker to 2 minutes.  It was incredibly easy, and quite tasty.

When culinary judgment fails: franks n' waffles

There are times when the intersection of hunger and a lack of time lead to culinary malfeasance. This is the story of such a time. I'm working at home today, don't have time to go out for lunch, and supplies are critically low here. But we do have Field Roast frankfurters (which I love and rarely have), which got me craving a proper veggie dog. Sadly, we don't have buns, or bread, or even crackers. What we do have is frozen waffles. Frozen blueberry waffles.

But I'm that hungry, and so I press on. I'm not proud of this: it isn't a creative culinary breakthrough, nor a whimsical nod to carnival fare. This is what happens when you want something, realize you can't have it, come up with an awful solution, overrule that solution, then get curious.



In the end, it wasn't actually that bad. The flavor of the frankfurters - assisted by the tomatoes from my garden, sriracha, and celery seed - pretty much dominated the flavor of the waffles. "Operation: not be hungry" can be considered a success.

Blueberry Salad

I had some blueberries that lasted longer than expected (that means I didn't wolf them down within 2 hours of purchase), so I decided to make a salad dressing with them, and some ground cashews. It was a mighty purty salad if I do say so myself. I ground up about 2-3 TBS of cashews, threw in 1/4 cup of blueberries, 2 TBS balsalmic vinegar, 1 TBS rice vinegar, and 1 TBS oil, and blended up with an immersion blender. It was a thick dressing that solidified in the fridge, so I loosened it up with some hot water to get a pourable consistency. This is over baby arugula, which wasn't as peppery as the adult arugula I'm accustomed to.




Another green snack I've been into lately is Trader Joe's organic brocolli heads dipped into Trader Joe's Goddess dressing. Its a tahini-garlic dressing I could probably easily make myself but am too lazy. It's so savory-licious. Its a very strong, very addictive flavor. I like that kind of funky raw broccoli taste. Tragically, I just googled the calcium absorption from raw vs. cooked brocolli, and it nearly doubles when cooked. Bummer! I thought I was onto something, calcium-wise. Well, tahini is still my friend, at 128 mg per 2 TBS. Why the sudden obsession with calcium? Well, I have to take a medicine to control stomach acid*, which interferes with calcium absorption. I'm not sure if that only counts for calcium carbonate, which you need stomach acid to break down, and you can still absorb calcium citrate, or if by some mysterious means it prevents absorption of both types.

Some people have the misconception that all vegans eat is salad.  Or, almost more annoyingly, that everything we eat is healthy.  Seriously, I can bring in a stir fry dish loaded with oil, sugar and salt, and people will comment on how "healthy" my lunch is because it has vegetables and no meat in it.  If you suffer from this reputation despite your best efforts to explain that 1/4 cup of oil in a dish is not healthy, you can eat salad in secret and pretend like you never eat salad when people ask.

*note to all people who will be thinking "you don't need medicine from 'the man', have my shaman exile the evil stomach spirit for you", I've tried the aloe juice, and the marshmallow, and enzymatic supplements and pro-biotic supplements, etc., etc.