celebrity cooking

to attract more traffic to my blog and exploit my friends for my own internet notoriety and eventual fame, the ever attractive and popular liam p wilson, bassist for the dillinger escape plan, is making a guest appearance today. this afternoon, we made a delicious thai-inspired coconut curry.

i was gonna post a picture of liam "shredding" on bass, as they call it, but i don't feel like googling for one, so here he is tasting the delicious curry and looking like a creep.


ingredients:
-2 cans of coconut milk
-small can of bamboo shoots
-2-3 heapings tsps of green curry paste (to taste)
-half a bunch fresh spinach, washed and chopped
-1 sweet potato, peeled and cubed
-one red pepper, sliced
-one vidalia onion, chopped
-6-8 leaves of fresh basil, chopped
-3 cloves of garlic, minced
-shiitake mushrooms, sliced
-salt to taste
-rice or noodles

in a skillet or saucepan, bring the coconut milk to a boil add the sweet potatoes and cook them until soft in the coconut milk. add the curry paste, chopped spinach, and basil. in a separate skillet, sautee the onion in some oil, turn down the heat and add the garlic, then add the mushrooms and the red peppers. sautee them for a few minutes, and then dump them in the other saucepan where, by now, the potato should be about cooked. add salt to taste and serve over rice or noodles-- i like the soba buckwheat and wild yam noodles.

Vegan Chicken and Dumplings

I'm all about midwestern comfort food and I'm so psyched to try these. The recipe looks similar to my mom's... which is an awesome recipe...

http://www.vegfamily.com/vegan-recipes/entrees/vegan-chicken-and-dumplings.htm

IT IS MY BIRTHDAY

Well, next week is my birthday. But I'm going to NYC for the weekend, so my family celebrated it today. The cake was so good!



http://www.thedailygreen.com/healthy-eating/recipes/vegan-red-velvet-cake-with-buttercream-frosting

for the batter:
3.5 c unbleached all-purpose
1.5 c granulated sugar
2 t baking soda
1 t salt
2 t cocoa powder
2 c milk (i used plain soy)
2/3 c oil
3 T red food coloring (red #40, not the "E" one cuz that = beetles)
2 t white vinegar
2 t vanilla extract

frosting:
1/2 c Earth Balance, at room temperature
3 c powdered sugar
1 1/2 t vanilla extract
2 T milk

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F; (180 degrees C, or gas mark 4). Lightly oil two 8-inch (20 cm) round cake pans.

To make the batter, in a large bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking soda, salt and cocoa powder. Create a well in the center, and add milk, oil, food coloring, vinegar and vanilla, and mix until thoroughly combined.

Divide cake batter evenly between prepared cake pans. Place pans in the oven spaced evenly apart. Bake for about 35 minutes, rotating 45 degrees halfway through. When the cakes pull away from the side of the pans and a toothpick inserted into the center of each comes out clean, they are ready.

Let cakes cool for 10 minutes in the pans, then run a knife around the edges to loosen them from the sides. One at a time, invert cakes onto a plate and then reinvert onto a cooling rack, rounded-sides up. Let cool completely.

To make the frosting, with an electric hand or stand mixer, cream butter until it is smooth and begins to fluff. With the mixer on low speed, add confectioners' sugar and fluff for another few minutes. Add vanilla, milk and food coloring (if using).

Once all ingredients are well-combined, beat on high until frosting is light and fluffy, 3 to 4 minutes. Add 1 or 2 tablespoons more milk to achieve the right consistency. Cover the icing with plastic wrap to prevent it from drying out until ready to use. Rewhip before using.

Here is a picture of my big brother eating his second piece:

Pineapple Basil Sorbet

I'm obsessed with the pineapple-basil combination for spring and summer because it makes me feel alive.

-2 cans of pineapple
-fresh basil
-3 tablespoons coconut milk

Open the cans and dump EVERYTHING into a freezer bag or tupperware and freeze overnight. Throw it in a food processor with as much basil as you like (or as much that needs to be picked from your mom's basil plant when you are still living at home even though you are employed) along with about 3 tablespoons (give or take) or coconut milk or any other creamy dairy alternative you have laying around... something sweetened, in my book. Food process it until its homogenously creamy and the basil bits are chomped up.

Yumsville.

Enchiladas

I swear I posted this before, but I can't find it, so I'm posting it again. This is one of my favorite things because it's easy, well balanced, full of fiber, not full of fat, and you can eat this for dinner and lunch for like a week. They reheat well, but if you're a gynecologist like me, people might get weirded out if your cuticles are stained with orange enchilada sauce, so be careful with that.

-1 pkg large flour tortillas
-1 can of black beans (I use spicy), rinsed
-1/2 can corn, rinsed
-frozen chopped spinach
-frozen tri-color peppers, I suppose you can use fresh.
-really any vegetables you have laying around, I often use up the almost-empty bags of everything I have in the freezer
-2 cans enchilada sauce
-oil to coat baking dish
-one box spanish rice, prepared according to the directions on the box
-optional: a fake meat: tofu, crumbles, tempeh, whatever.

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. I like to wrap the tortillas in a wet towel and put them in the oven while it's heating up in order to soften up the tortillas. Prepare the rice. Thaw all the vegetables, they don't have to be thoroughly warmed, just not in icy chunks. I use a handful of frozen spinach, and a generous amount of the frozen peppers. Mix them in a bowl with the beans and corn and half of one can of the enchilada sauce. Add some salt, pepper, cayenne, fajita seasoning, whatever you have. Fill the tortillas with 2 spoonfuls of rice, and several spoonfuls of the filling. Roll up the tortilla and place it on the oiled baking dish, seam side down (so they stay closed). Repeat with all the tortillas. Cover with foil and cook for 20 minutes, removing the foil for the last five minutes.