[This photograph will be in the city-wide art show tonight. I know it's extremely minimal, and I don't think it really belongs on display, but my teacher seemed to like it. Or, need more submissions than she could find.]
Flat Brownies…
As usual, I had a whole butt load of over-ripe bananas waiting around in my freezer, so I wanted to try cleaning them out with a new recipe, and not just another banana bread. Flipping through the pages of my beloved Vegan with a Vengance, I found the prize I was seeking: Banana Split Pudding Brownies.
Melting the chocolate and mashing copious amounts of bananas, the smells emanating from my the kitchen were devine. Into the pan the brownie base went to begin assembly! … Wait, this is all the batter there is? I’m positive I didn’t grab a bigger pan…
What went wrong this time?! It was a struggle to get the brownie to coat the entire bottom of my 13 x 9 baking dish, as if I had made half the recipe or something! And no, I swear I followed it to the letter this time. The banana topping didn’t seem nearly thick enough, either, so I added much more cornstarch to the mix. (Okay, maybe I changed the arrow root to corn starch, but that was the only substitution, just because we didn’t have any in the house!)
Trying to stay optimistic, the pudding topping went over the sparse base, and I simply thought it would look nicer with a little more… Pizzaz, for lack of a better word. The book suggested garnishing with fresh slices of banana, but lacking any remaining in a solid form, I reached into the depths of my fridge and pulled out some left over chocolate ganash. Just a few generous stripes across would do the trick.
As you can see, they are rather… vertically challenged, to put it gently. Nonetheless, as long as it’s not burnt, I figured how bad can chocolate be?
If I had been aiming to make cookie bars, I would have been overjoyed. They had a very chewy, almost crisp texture. And like always, the flavor was still spot on, wonderfully banana-y and sweet. Handing them out to friends, I decided to call them “banana split fudge bars” instead, and they seemed to go over pretty well. One girl that I served them to commented that she doesn’t usually like banana, but thought that these were rather tasty! Kinda shocking, considering that the recipe uses 4 bananas, and tries in no way to hide them! I only wish that they had risen or something… Maybe if I make these again, I’ll just try using a smaller pan, or doubling the brownie base.
Weekend Brunch
Finally, a calm handful of days in which I could actually cook a real meal or two! As my schedule may soon become much more relaxed, hopefully you’ll be seeing more posts with actual food coming soon, as opposed to just millions of recipes for sweets and things. Not that I think there would anything wrong with that, either.
I’ve made plenty of tofu scrambles and things before, but I have to admit – They never really tasted great. I was fine making and eating them by myself, but I would have been embarrassed to serve them to anyone else. Beginning to loose hope in what seemed to be a lost cause to begin with, I turned to my cookbooks, the web, anything that might direct me onto the right path. Immediately it was clear that I had relied to heavily on spices in the past, and handled my tofu poorly, causing a grainy and unpalatable texture. Combining my newfound knowledge, I set out on my task: Create a faux-eggs dish that could please my omnivorous family, and me. My end result was a very tasty tofu spinach frittata.
The only thing that I might do differently next time is cook it longer. I was in a bit of a hurry, so I could only allow 20 minutes before the others started threating canibalisim. It was a little watery when cut, but the flavor when combined with the veggies more than made up for the texture.
With this, I decided to experment with a new product that I had heard good things about, LightLife’s “Smart Bacon.” Unfortunately, I really wasn’t sure how to tell if it was done, so I panicked when the suggested time had elapsed and the strips still seemed very wiggly. To make up for that, I cooked them in the toaster oven to varrying degrees of burnt. Hmm… Had they been cooked properly, I would say they were surprisingly good. I generally stay away from fake meats, but my dad absolutely loves bacon, so I wanted to see if I could maybe wean him off of it a little… We’ll see. I don’t remember what bacon should taste like, so I can’t vouch for its accuracy, but certainly not a bad side.
Tofu Spinach Frittata
1 16-Ounce Package Silken Tofu
1 Tablespoon Soy Sauce
1 Teaspoon Spicy Mustard
1 Tablespoon Nutritional Yeast
1/2 Teaspoon Dried Thyme
1/4 Teaspoon Tumeric
1 Teaspoon Lemon Juice
1 1/2 Cups Cooked or Frozen Spinach
1/2 Medium Onion
3 Cloves Garlic, Minced
Preheat your oven to 400 degrees, grease an 8 inch cake pan and set aside.
Get out your food processor and toss in your tofu, along with all the spices. Puree so well that it makes you nervous. (I honestly thought I had overdone it and made frittata mousse, but that’s actually kind of what you’re aiming for.)
In a small skillet, saute your onions until translucent and deliciously fragrant. Throw in the garlic, and cook for another minute or two. Remove from heat and combine with your [thawed, if originally frozen] spinach. Add to tofu mixture, and make sure all the veggie bits are evenly distributed in the tofu. Pour into the cake pan and slide into the oven for 25 – 30 minutes. Perhaps to would help to set it under the broiler for a bit to brown the top further.
Cut into fourths, it makes 4 relatively small portions. I might suggest making a sizable side to go with it, or at least cooking up more “Smart Bacon” than I did!
Funky Mushrooms
On friday at school, I attempted to decifer more of my amigurumi book and brought it in to ask sensei what a few kanji were – It turns out that one of these little toys has a squeeker inside! Can you get any cuter? Anyway, it caused somewhat of a pandemonium among the girls. After glimsing inside at the unbearably adorable pictures, almost everyone wanted their own. Seeing as this could help to alieviate my weekend boredom, I decided to take down their requests and give it a shot. 24 hours later, the very first amigurumi was born; A kinda funky looking mushroom.
When I first scanned through the patterns, I hadn't even considered making it. Why? I don't know… It just seemed a little… Weird. But it shouldn't be written off like that; Some of the best things [and people] in life are more than just a little weird. So I plunged in.
Thankfully, you can't really see it, but when I had almost finished the mushroom cap… I ran out of yarn! Normally not a cause for panic, but you see, this was "vintage" yarn, from my mother's old stash. So I had to search for the next best match, which was still slightly off, but I suppose I ran out in exactly the right place. The new yarn starts on the underside of the cap, so you really can't tell. I hope. (Humor me?)
Once completed, my little mushroom got so excited upon looking out the window, he demanded to be let out to enjoy the day. I was weary, but thought it could do no harm anyway…
He seemed so happy and contented out there! Mushrooms generally prefer shade over sunshine, but like I said, this was a slightly funky mushroom. After watching carefully for a few minutes, he appear to be fine, and so I turned back inside and began preparing for the next amigurumi. That's when I heard his cries, and my heart sunk.
"Help me, there's some monster out here!!" The frightened mushroom whimpered. I quickly dropped my crochet hook and ran to his aid, depressingly and impossibly knotting my yarn in the process.
Luckily, it turned out there was no monster, only Isis. And seeing as she doesn't like to eat mushrooms (One of the great mysteries of the world, seeing as she would eat slugs if given the chance), there was no real danger. This did not placate the mushroom, though. For hours after his "close encounter," he complained of pain and needed constant attention and pampering to heal his "wounds."
Poor baby.
Somewhat Froggy
This is my first attempt at amigurumi, so with that in mind, it's not so bad. Still… I don't really know why the body came out so plumply rotund!
My mother just loves frogs; There's a massive frog collection in our living room that takes up the enter side table top. I really don't know when it all began, but she's been searching high and low for interesting frogs – carved from wood or stone, blown from glass, molded from plastic, anything – for years. I've helped her quest in the past with a knit frog, but now she's got it all; A crocheted frog.
I used the pattern in a thin little book I bought while doing a day-trip to New York, called the Amigurumi Collection 4. I was so excited that my Japanese has improved enough to read some of the text, and my crochet has improved enough that I can read the diagrams! Now I'm just itching to get my hands on the other volumes in print… Sadly, they are ridiculously expensive in the US. Printed right on the back of the cover reads a label pricing it at 1200 yen. This bookstore, however, thought that a price closer to $18 would be more appropriate, for some torturous reason. It's no better online, either. You may end up paying around $25 per book, and then you still need to add in shipping and handling fees. There's just no winning!
A handful of classmates will be leaving for Japan within two weeks now… I would have been one of them, but my health isn't yet stable enough. I've got to quickly find some way to bribe these kids to bring me back every amigurumi book they can find.
It’s a Dog’s Life
Wait a minute, what’s this? You say it’s your birthday again? But… You’re still my little puppy, chewing through my most expensive skeins of yarn, playfully destroying the contents of my bathroom closet like always. Nothing has changed since the day we brought you back from Virginia… Except, maybe, now your ears are slightly more proportionate to the rest of your head.
Oh Isis, how silly you are! As you can see, it’s simply not possible for this day to mark the passage of 9 years since you were brought into this world.
Nonetheless, it is still a very special day, and after all we’ve been through together, you deserve something to celebrate. A new toy? No, you just finished shredding a plastic hair-dye applicator from my toiletries. A play date? No, you don’t seem to enjoy playing with the other dogs on our street, and I don’t believe the fox in our backyard is avaliable right now. A treat? Yes, of course, there’s never a wrong time for a treat!
This year, I went all out. A mouth-watering cake, wonderfully suited for your tastes and nutritional needs. But who cares what’s in it, you know perfectly well that your food is meant to be consumed the minute it enters your bowl, so I’ll let you at it!
As you can see, Isis went into such a frenzy when she got her birthday cake, I couldn’t even get a clear picture of her eating it! I’m not even sure she took the time to chew!
Now, while some people may think that this is a bit excessive, I believe that it is only fair. Honestly, how many cakes and treats do I make for everyone else? And for her? Close to none. All that dry kibble… I feel horrible that I don’t have enough time to cook her meals from real food, because trust me, I’d love to if I had the proper means. I only wish I could have done more. For all of the times she’s sat at my bedside while I was sick, listened when no one else would, and destroyed my personal belongings, no one on this earth could compare. She deserves only best.
So why not treat you beloved companion animal on their birthdays, too? It hardly take any effort, and the recipe even makes two little cakes, so you can enjoy it along with them should you wish!
Happy Birthday, Isis! You’ll always be my little puppy.