Motherf***ing Amazing Enchiladas

Quick props to my friend Maddie Oatman (contributor to Mother Jones), who hosted me in her family's house in Keystone and served up some f***ing incredible homemade enchiladas.

Click here to see her incredibly creative and extremely tasty recipe.

She has the same sensibilities about enchiladas as I do about sandwiches (see my previous post about how sandwiches are like feminism). These enchiladas prove that if you think this particular category of rolled up pocket of goodness must include some kind of animal flesh, you're nothing more than a close-minded piece of sh** who hasn't tried these enchiladas yet....

I mean, look how f***ing happy we all are to eat these things.


I'm going to make them tonight. Hopefully I won't f*** them up!

Motherf***ing Meatloaf

In the beginning…

The genesis of this blog post, like the majority of my blog posts, starts with virus-induced delirium.

In this particular case, two-days of vomiting and a severe electrolyte imbalance, despite the best efforts of well-meaning roommates and the BRAT diet, allowed me to explore new horizons of madness, previously unavailable to my brain, satiated as it previously was with the perfect balance of nutrients.

However, now that I was half-starved and feverish, I was able to wrap my head around new concepts, the first of which was a problem that I’ve wrestled with for a long time:

Meatloaf – What the f***?

Compound word consisting of meat and loaf.

The first word presents a problem for me: How could I make something that has, in its very name, the object of avoidance for me and the rest of my fellow vegetarians?

The only saving grace of meatloaf, I supposed, was that the latter half of the compound word consists of “loaf,” implying bread, which I could consume guilt-free.

Hooray!

After a google search, however, I discovered that meatloaf doesn’t even have any f***ing bread in it. I was beyond livid, but determined to break the lexical chains that have bound generations of meatloaf lovers who love neither meat nor loaf, but only the beautiful combination of their metamorphosed flavors.

Why now?

I guess I should explain why I was so focused on this particular dish:

1. My sister had recently passed along a recipe for “Meatless Loaf,” as a homely substitute for Turkey during Thanksgiving. I wanted to try that sh** out. If she could do it, I could certainly do it and I would do it better than her because she's always trying to upstage me and do things better so this was my chance to show her who's boss. Who's boss? Me, that's who's boss, why would you even ask that?

2. My roommate, who had recently undergone dental surgery, could only eat things with a certain squidgy consistency. Meatloaf’s squishy texture would be the perfect dish to appease her.

3. It has a similar color to certain kinds of vomit, which gave me a feeling of nostalgia for my previous status as a puking invalid unable even to complete the most elementary of tasks.

Tangent: I hate being f***ing sick so f***ing much it makes me want to puke

The last reason that I was so focused on making this dish is an overt desire to overcome the limitations of sickness in general.

Sickness f***ing blows. It’s the most inconvenient thing ever created, especially for Type-A motherf***ers like me. I have a constant need to maximize my productive capacity and efficiency at all times.

In fact, when I read this Postsecret post, I practically sh** all over the place with self-recognition. You know you do this sh**:

As you can imagine, for a sick f*** like me and 80% of this work-slave society, being sick is like being in the Ninth circle of Hell.

Motherf***ing theories of production

You are presented with incredible amounts of free-time, which for our overworked society is a f***ing hot commodity, to say the least.

With that free time, you can do all sorts of productive things. You are presented with this incredible opportunity to have actually PRODUCED something by the end of the day. I’m not the only person who thinks that producing things makes people, happy, ok?

Check out these two dudes’ theories. One’s about sh** and the others’ is about making sh**.

With those PRODUCED things, you can either look at them, heave a self-satisfied sigh, and say, “Well, I’m officially a badass motherf***er. Look at all this sh** I just made!”

Or, you can tell your friends about it, which is like saying the previous sentence to yourself, except better, because then your friends feel worse, which should make you feel better (Do you ever catch yourself in the middle of an act, thinking about how your going to tell your friends about doing that act and relishing in the fictitious created future even more than the actual doing of the act? That’s so f***ed up! I do it all the time!)

But instead, you’re in pain, exhausted, delirious, and a million other uncomfortable feelings, which allow you simply to EXIST, and not produce…Thus inducing a sharp feeling of inadequacy and squalor. F***ing hate that sh**….

So I decided to produce, and produce this recipe I did.

WHAT ABOUT THE F***ING RECIPE ASSHOLE!

My disclaimer for this recipe is that it A REALLY LONG TIME and is a bit elitist because you have to have a f***ing food processor. If you don’t, you might as well not make this recipe because it would take for-f***ing EVER.

It involves three basic processes:

1. Prepare ingredients

2. Combine ingredients

3. Squish ingredients into a funny-looking paste

You do this probably a dozen times. Kind of like your stomach does. So in a way, it actually saves your stomach some time by imitating the first stage of digestion. So maybe the net time taken to prepare, make, eat, and digest this recipe is the same as any other. Just in this recipe, the digestion happens up front. Weird.

Ok, anyway, here’s the recipe. It does make a f***ing tasty meatloaf, so get ready:

Alright, so this is copied from this website, but I changed some shit, so it’s not exactly the same.

1 medium sweet potato

1 medium onion

1 medium carrot

ANY OTHER VEGETABLES YOU WANT

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 15-ounce can cannellini beans (or other white beans), drained and rinsed

14 ounces extra-firm tofu (one 14 to 16-ounce package)

2 tablespoons soy sauce

2 tablespoons tomato paste

1 tablespoon GOOD mustard

1 egg (optional. If you’re vegan, obviously don’t use the egg. Just don’t put it in the f***ing recipe and voila it’s vegan!)

1/4 cup fresh parsley, chopped

1/2 tablespoon rubbed sage

1 tablespoon thyme leaf

1/2 tablespoon dried rosemary, crushed

1 1/2 teaspoon salt (or to taste)

1/2 teaspoon black pepper

1 teaspoon paprika

2 tablespoons nutritional yeast

1/2 cup chopped almonds (optional)

3/4 cup quinoa flakes (I know, I had to look this shit up. If you can’t find them/afford them, buy some f***ing corn flakes)

Steam up a swot perderder and get it nice and soft and supple. Choose a method. I have a rice maker that steams that sh** up nicely.

Mince the onion, carrot, and “ANY OTHER VEGETABLES YOU WANT.”

Heat a large, non-stick skillet. Add the minced vegetables, including garlic, and cook, stirring regularly, until they become tender, about 6-10 minutes. Add more oil by the teaspoon if necessary to keep the vegetables from sticking or becoming dry. Once they’re softened, add the drained beans and mash them lightly with a slotted spoon or spatula.

Place the peeled sweet potato into the food processor along with the tofu, soy sauce, and all seasonings, including nutritional yeast. Process until fairly smooth. Add the walnuts and pulse a few more times. Scrape the tofu mixture into a large mixing bowl and add the quinoa flakes and the cooked vegetables. Stir well.

Preheat oven to 375F.

Put the mush into a container or on a baking sheet and make it into a fun meatless sculpture work of art. Like this sh**

Bake for 25 minutes or until the top is evenly browned. Loosely cover with aluminum foil and cook for 20 more minutes. Check to make sure that the center is firm; if not, give it a little extra time. (You can also remove the foil and cook for 5 more minutes for a crunchier crust.) Remove from oven and allow to stand for 10 minutes before slicing and serving.

The best macaroni and cheese

Before I start writing up this recipe, I'd just like to take a moment to tell you a bit about it. This is a macaroni and cheese recipe, obviously. That doesn't really convey its glory though. Let's put it this way instead: the recipe you're about to read contains 4 1/2 cups of cheese, has white pasta sauce poured over it, and has cornflakes crunched on top. You heard me, cornflakes.

I'm assuming that at this point you're sufficiently tantalized by the thought of this food that you would agree to give me, at minimum, a controlling ownership stake in your first two or three children to be able to taste it. Instead of that, however, you're about to get it for free on some internet page with a profanity-and-bean-based title. This is called the Miracle of User-Generated Content, and incredibly serious people devote military-grade brain cells to writing pompous essays about it.

In other words, this isn't just a macaroni and cheese recipe. It's a shining embodiment of a 21st century cultural phenomenon. Damn.

Macaroni and Cheese: The Right Way
Ingredients:

• ~3 cups of elbow macaroni (9-10 oz. dry, if you have a scale)
• 3 tbsp. grated onion
• 1.5 tsp salt
• 3/8 tsp black pepper
• 1/4 tsp white pepper
• 1/4 tsp thyme
• 4.5 cups shredded cheese (I use a mix of mozzerella, swiss, and cheddar, with a little asiago thrown in for zest. You can mix it up if you want.)
• 3 cups thin white sauce (see below)
• 1.5 tbsp. butter

Steps:

1. Preheat oven to 375
2. Cook mac according to package. Drain.
3. Prepare thin white sauce according to directions below.
4. Mix the onions, salt, pepper, and cheese together into what will henceforth be referred to as the "cheese muck of deliciousness" (CMOD).
5. Place 1/2 the mac in an ungreased 3 qt. casserole dish.
6. Cover with 1/2 the cheese muck of deliciousness.
7. Add second half of the mac.
8. Cover with remaining half of the CMOD.
9. Pour the white sauce over the whole thing. Distribute somewhat evenly.
10. Dot with butter.
11. Crunch cornflakes on top. Realize that crushing a handful of cornflakes is possibly the most satisfying sensation there is, and that we could probably end war if we could somehow get every major world leader to do this when they wake up in the morning.
12. Cover (with the top of the dish if you have that, with aluminum foil otherwise). Bake for 30 min. covered, then uncover and bake for an additional 15 min.
13. Cool and serve. Swear undying vengeance against the false macaroni and cheese prophets who convinced America that orange goo in any way resembles the real item. Realize that these people are almost certainly the leading candidates for "what's wrong with America" and are almost solely responsible for the moral decline of our culture.*

Thin White Sauce"Like a white sauce, but thinner!" --Wm. Shakespeare

Makes 3 cups, the amount required above.

Ingredients:

• 3 cups milk
• 3 tbsp. butter
• ~2 tbsp. flour
• 3/4 tsp salt
• 3/8 tsp pepper

Steps:

1. Melt butter over low heat
2. Blend in dry ingredients
3. Cook until smooth
4. Stir in milk, turn up heat
5. Heat to boiling, stirring, boil and stir for 1 min.

There you have it--the best macaroni and cheese (I don't make this boast idly). There's nothing I can say that will top that, so I'll just leave you with a link to a cartoon of a bear who is not able to understand cheese as well as he might wish.

*"But Glenn Beck!" you exclaim. Do you think I hadn't thought of this, people? Don't you realize that there wouldn't be a Glenn Beck if we all ate this macaroni and cheese regularly?!

Split pea soup w/ sweet potatoes and extra veggies.

History's greatest minds have faltered, over and over again throughout time, when faced with one vital question. What if I want to make split pea soup, as frequently served with ham, but I don't have a pig? Or, even worse, what if I don't want to eat a pig at all? (This variation of the puzzle eliminates the "go find a pig" out used by Aristotle.)

Today, we at Motherf**cking Black Beans pronounce this puzzle solved through the power of vegetable stock, sweet potatoes, and parsnips. Beyond being a massive contribution to human intellectual advancement, the recipe below is perfect winter dinner food.

(The idea here is that you're replacing the juices from the ham with the veggie stock; sweet potatoes are the most satisfying meat replacement I could think of, but if you overdo it the soup gets too sweet, so I turned to the parsnips to make up the remainder of the additional chewy bits.)

Ingredients:

• 2 tbsp. vegetable oil
• 1 white turnip, peeled and chopped
• 2 carrots, chopped
  
• 1 medium onion, chopped fine
• 1 package of split peas
• 1 sweet potato, peeled and chopped
• 2 parsnips, chopped
• 2 cups veggie stock
• 6 cups water
• 2 bay leafs
• ~1 tsp. salt.
• Other spices. I think we went with some pepper and oregano, or something. Do what you feel is right.
  

Steps:

1. First chop everything up. Be creative with the veggie selection if you want--I think you want a mix of flavors--some sweeter, some more earthy--and a mix of chopped sizes. I'm thinking about throwing in some radishes next time.
2. Get a big pot. Cook all the veggies except the sweet potatoes in the oil over medium heat for about five minutes; stir a lot.
   
3. Add veggie stock, water, split peas, sweet potatoes, and bay leaves. Cook for 45-50 minutes, until desired degree of aggressive thickness is achieved. Do the spice thing as desired.
4. Eat. I recommend some cheesy bread to go with it, since that's a nice change of pace. As you can see from the photo at right, this is legitimate Company Food*, and will also bring you dangerously near to overdosing on seasonality. I intend to eat absolutely staggering amounts of this dish this winter.

As you may have noticed, I found my camera. (It was in a plastic crate of my belongings in Bennett's apartment for a year--who knew?) Be warned, John--if you want to contend for the sought-after distinction of having the most aesthetically pleasing posts on this blog, you're going to have to step up your game.

*Company Food (n): Food that can be served to guests without shaming your parents by giving the impression that you were raised in a dog kennel. Definition varies by occasion and setting, but experts generally agree that the term excludes leftovers, stale bread, and anything eaten directly out of a can.

New Motherf***ing Sandwich on the Block

I got this idea from this amazing sandwich I had at Trident Booksellers and I’m basically stealing their idea. I’m not sure that this is the exact recipe and I changed it so if you work at Trident and you’re pissed, f*** you because it’s not the same recipe and I don’t even care that you’re mad because I really like your bookstore and would probably like you so let’s just make up, ok?

So here’s the basic formula for the sandwich:

Goo + cheese = goocheese, or tasty f***ing sandwich filling.

Check out this goo:

1. some super-tasty mustard, like horseradish mustard or Dijon mustard. The kind of mustard where you can see the mustard seeds because that’s why they call it mustard. It’s because of the mustard seeds. So why does everybody eat that French’s bulls**t that doesn’t even taste like real mustard and actually tastes like someone is squirting spoiled vinegar down my throat!

2. Avocado. Squished. You may choose your preferred squishing method. Perhaps with a mortar and pestle (though this method is very messy and completely unnecessary but could be cool to try).

3. Hummus (see homemade hummus recipe below).

Alright, so now that you’ve got your goo, spread that sheezy on some bread. How much? As much as it takes for you to goo the bread up...duh

Now cover that breadgoo with some cheese. I like Havarti dill for this particular sandwich, but choose whatever kind of cheese you like. Could be cheddar for all I care. Actually, I really don’t give a f*** so I don’t know why I’m choosing to spend a whole paragraph on this bullsh**

Alright, not that you’ve covered the breadgoo with cheese, pop it into a toaster oven. Don’t have a toaster oven? Well, then you’re screwed because if you put this cheesy breadgoo vertical, you’ll have a hot mess on your hands…Actually mostly on your toaster.

So that’s it. Goo, bread, and cheese. But damn that’s some good cheesybreadgoo. Enjoy b**ches.

Best F***ing Sandwich You'll Ever Eat

I say this phrase almost every day:

"When it comes to sandwiches, I don't f***ing mess around, ok?"

Sometimes I say it loudly. You know, when I get excited or I feel like yelling. Sometimes I say it softer. Eyes down, in a kind of a menacing, barely perceptible whisper, until the "ok," when I lift my head and look straight into their soul...

People choose either to be offended or intrigued by this, but I don't let it faze me. I just continue to make f***ing amazing sandwiches, mostly to spite the people who believe that a sandwich is a creation solely for carnivores.

Allow me to explain:

Many feminists have decided to take back words like c**t or p****y or b****h (If you don't know what the *'s stand for, ask your older brother, or maybe it's time to leave your cave). I think in a society in which almost all institutions, societal and linguistic structures, and social norms have been crafted by white males, this is a legitimate undertaking in order to subvert some of these oppressive linguistic structures.

In the same way, I think the creators of the sandwich were most definitely carnivores, and as a vegetarian, goddamnit, sometimes I feel f***ing oppressed!

It's ok, I tell myself. Calm down. A sandwich is just a rubric...a structure within which you can place almost any f***ing thing you want. A sandwich is a man-made creation, not a historical imperative. Hah!

So why not take back the sandwich?

If you're someone who's demanding an alternative to meat that's almost surely come from animals who've been bathed in their own shit, been systematically tortured, and been shot up with antibiotics by transnational agribusiness corporations...the residual effects of which ultimately end up polluting our countrysides and waterways...then this sandwich is for you.

If you're someone who is tired of mediocre attempts at a vegetarian option at a sandwich shop (thing dry, flaky veggie burgers), then this sandwich is for you.

If you want to stop systematic racial, ethnic, and economic discrimination; if you want to stop industry from polluting our bodies and our earth; if you want to close the income gap, stop global warming, create healthy, supportive communities, and save the whales, THEN THIS F***ING SANDWICH IS FOR YOU!!!!

Ingredients:

Homemade pesto:
poo-load of basil (2 cups, chopped and packed)
1/2 c. parmesan
1/3 c. almonds (normally, pine nuts should go here, but pine nuts are way too expensive. Why are they so f***ing expensive? That makes pesto into this elistist yuppie, inaccessible spread, and that's unfair. So use almonds or even peanuts because you're an equitable human)
1/2 c. olive oil
poo-load of garlic (3 gloves, or 4 if you f***ing love garlic)
salt and pepper to taste

Bread (2 slices. duh, it's a f***ing sandwich!)
Cheese (brie or goat)
Sliced green pepper
Sliced tomato

A note about this recipe. Don't skimp on the ingredients. Get fresh basil for the pesto, and get fresh bread. For example, I have a bakery next to my house called Canto 6 that has the most amazing 7-grain bread of all-time. I also recommend "When Pigs Fly" Bakery's bread in Somerville. For those of you outside of Boston, I'm sure you have some awesome bakery close to you. Go there and buy the bread. This sandwich is worth it.

Ok, so here's what you do:

1. Make the pesto by putting everything in a blender and blending
2. Smear that shit all over two slices of your tasty bread
3. Put on the cheese and the sliced veggies
4. TOAST or put in a Panini press
5. Enjoy the best sandwich you'll ever eat
6. Enjoy even more the fact that you just made a sandwich that challenges the very fabric of the universe of sandwich-dom and you've just stuck it hard to our carnivorous sandwich-making forefathers who sought to undermine universal access and enjoyment of sandwiches by all people.

Apple-Butternut Squash Soup

Some days you wake up in the morning and want to rock the "it's fall in New England" thing so hard it hurts. On those days, you may want to eat this for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

Ingredients:
1-2 butternut squash
2 apples
1 can veggie broth
2 tbsp vegetable oil
1 onion
1 1/2 cups water
1/4 tsp thyme
1 tsp salt
1/8 teaspoon black pepper
1 cup light cream

1. So the first thing, actually, is to figure out how much squash you have. The recipe I was working from called for about 3.5 lbs of squash, so I've been guesstimating their weight using a set of hand dumbells for comparison. I made a full recipe with a ~3 lb squash, and a 3/4 recipe with a slightly greater than 2 lb squash, and those were both good. When I made the smaller recipe, I still used the full can of veggie broth and decreased the water.

2. Cut onions (small), peel and cut apples (small slices), peel, cut, and de-seed squash (1/4 inch pieces). Butternut squash, incidentally, are Not Fucking Around as a vegetable--that's some seriously laborious chopping.

3. In the bottom of a 4 qt saucepan, sautee onions in vegetable oil for 10 mins.

4. Add everything else. Cook for 30+ minutes.

5. If you have a blender, you could pull out some of the mix and blend it, but who has a blender really? I used a strainer and a fork to mash up some of the bigger squash bits. It will be pretty textury soup, but that feels right to me.

6. Eat. Serves 8 if you made a full recipe. I recommend eating it with other summery tropical dishes like potatoes and brussel sprouts.

I've realized that I write recipes tailored to people who have the exact same stuff in their kitchen that I do (strainer but no blender, hand dumbells but no scale). (Technically the hand dumbells aren't usually in the kitchen.) I'm okay with this.

Apple-Cinnamon Pancakes with ZUCCHINI!?: Are you f***ing crazy!?

The subtitle for this post ("Are you f***ing crazy!?") is geared towards people like my roommate, who, this morning awoke to the sweet, sweet smell of fall (cinnamon, nutmeg, apples) creeping into his room. He entered the kitchen, leaned over the pan where I was flipping my flapjacks, and remarked about how incredibly delicious my f***ing pancakes looked. He then inquired as to the ingredients of said flapjacks.

When I told him that zucchini was one of the main flavors of the dish, he wrinkled his nose and exclaimed boldly (I thought, since I was cooking him breakfast, goddammit!) that the pancakes were ruined and that I shouldn't have ruined good pancakes with zucchini and that I was an idiot and possibly a jerk.

Despite the rudeness (I excused him because he looked tired and maybe a bit disoriented), I served him four of these pancakes, and I'm proud to say that he f***ing loved them. Maybe because I'm a really f***ing good cook, and he should thank his lucky stars that he has such a cool roommate who spends an hour making him brunch and then doesn't bat an eye when he openly insults his painstaking efforts to deliver nutritious, scrumptious food every Sunday almost precisely at noon, which is obviously the best f***ing time to eat brunch.

Anyway, here's to zucchini, and here's the recipe. Enjoy, and don't let the naysayers bring you down!

Apple-Zucchini Pancakes

Wet ingredients:

1 c. milk
1 egg
2 tbsp maple syrup

Dry Ingredients:

1 c. all-purpose flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 tsp. nutmeg
1 zucchini, grated
2 apples, peeled, cored, and chopped

Combine all dry ingredients in a bowl, then fold in wet ingredients. Mix until smooth, but as a general rule, pancakes are better if not overmixed. Let mixture sit until you see bubbles on the top. This means that the baking powder is doing its thing and the pancakes will be fluffier.

Heat up a skillet or griddle and coat with vegetable oil. Get it good and hot, then add 1/4 c. of the mixture for each pancake. As per usual with pancakes, the first couple will be shittier than the last. This mix should make about 12 solid-sized pancakes.

One thing to note about this recipe is that it's CHUNKY and MOIST, which is great but can pose some difficulties for the novice pancake maker. I would just follow the rule of waiting until the edges of the pancakes start getting hard and testing the bottom of the pancake with your spatula to make sure they're fully-cooked before flipping.

Serve with maple syrup and butter, or just straight-up. They're incredibly delicious either way...

P.S. (Do you have to P.S. in a blog post, or can you just keep typing?), my friend Joost from the Netherlands told me an interesting story last night about nutmeg. Nutmeg is indigenous to Indonesia, which used to be a Dutch colony. Thus, old Dutch people put nutmeg on f***ing everything! Another interesting tidbit is that, if used in excessive quantities, nutmeg can be a powerful hallucinogen, lasting up to 72 hours...If used in even more excessive quantities, nutmeg can be downright DEADLY.

Anywho, recently, an old Dutch couple accidentally spilled an entire jar of nutmeg onto their mashed potatoes. Nutmeg is a standard way to spice up mashed potatoes in the Netherlands, apparently. Instead of scooping out the excess spice, or scrapping the entire dish, as most people would do, according to Joost, "because they were old," they decided to go ahead and chow down.

And, you guessed it, they croaked.

If you're as interested in nutmeg as I became after this story, read on.

Cornbread: The Shot Glass Way

How many times have you said to yourself, “Self, what would I do if my only cooking implements were a shot glass, a bowl, and a cast iron skillet, and I really wanted to make some cornbread? Would I be fucked, or what?”

Thanks to the revolutionary method of cooking cornbread you are about to learn, the answer will now be “or what,” although to be honest life is probably not so good for reasons having nothing to do with cornbread if you find yourself in this situation. The way this revolutionary method works is, you measure things with a shot glass instead of with a measuring cup. Note that when I say a shot in the recipe, I mean a big shot class filled to the brim—one of those 2 fluid ounce ones, which is a quarter cup.*

Ingredients:

• 5 shots flour
• 3 shots cornmeal
• 1 shot sugar
• 2 tsp baking powder**
• Hefty dash of salt
• 4 shots buttermilk
• 1 shot vegetable oil
• 1 egg
• Butter

If you’re going to be drinking while you cook this, you should probably use a different shot glass for that, or wait until you finish using the main shot glass for measurements. I don’t know what whiskey does to cornbread.

1. Preheat your oven to 400 degrees. Or so. Why are gas ovens always so hard to calibrate?
2. Mix all the dry ingredients in a bowl.
3. Beat the egg. Add the buttermilk and vegetable oil.
4. Grease the living shit out of your skillet (or pan, if you prefer) with butter. I’m talking like three coats of butter all over that sumbitch. This is how the goodness gets in the crust.
5. Mix the dry ingredients and the wet ingredients. SPECIAL BONUS TIP: Don’t do this until you’re ready to put it in the oven. Once you mix them the baking powder starts doing its thing, and if you let it sit around for a while it’ll go flat. I used to have this happen when I would pre-mix a second batch while the first cooked, until my old landlady Laura set me straight.
6. Put the goop in the skillet, put the skillet in the oven.
7. This nominally takes 20-25 minutes to cook. If your oven sucks as much as mine, you just gotta be on your toes. Check it starting at 15 minutes or so—you’re going for that point where a fork comes out clean from the middle. Err on the side of caution.
8. De-oven, de-heat, de-skillet. Breakfast for a week!

Also, just in case you wanted them, here are the results of some of my experiments with this recipe.

• The half-flour/half-cornmeal variant: This is the one with four shots apiece of flour and cornmeal. Some recipes recommend it, and I used to do it a bunch cause it kind of seems more authentic (corn bread oughta really be about corn, you know?), but I just don’t think it’s as good. Kind of grittier, and tastes less sweet.
• The milk/buttermilk decision: Your standard cornbread recipe is going to call for milk instead of buttermilk. Why you would ever use milk when you could use buttermilk totally escapes me. Plus I used to make it that way, and it is definitely better with buttermilk.
• The vegan edition: You can substitute some banana for the egg. I did this once, and nothing disastrous happened.
• The maximum butter option: In general, if you want to make things better, add more butter. In this case, you can replace the vegetable oil with melted butter. Personally I don’t do this much because it’s a pain in the ass to melt the butter, and also I’m worried about getting addicted.
• The forgot-to-add-salt mistake: Why is salt so forgettable? I know, most recipes say it’s optional. But cornbread just ain’t the same without it. I throw salt onto the cornbread when I eat it if I forget about this.
• The more baking powder way: imagine if your cornbread was carbonated. That’s basically what happens, texture-wise, if you go with the three tsp of baking soda that some recipes recommend. You might be into that.
• There are ways to make sweeter cornbread. Personally I’m a bit fearful about mucking with the sugar : grains ratio, but other bolder souls might want to try some experiments.
*For those who prefer non-shot measurements:

• 1 ¼ cups flour
• ¾ cup cornmeal
• ¼ cup sugar
• 2 tsp baking powder
• Hefty dash of salt
• 1 cup buttermilk
• ¼ cup vegetable oil
• 1 egg
• Butter

**I know, I didn’t mention any teaspoon. That’s because it sounds less cool. It is a non-canonical teaspoon.

Also, I broke the fonts and they won't get un-broke. Oh well.

Rob's Mother f**king Bean Salad

My buddy Rob is in Philly this summer and has absolutely no time to post this fabulous recipe on our blog, so I'm doing it for him.

Rob, during our brief foray as roommates, survived on a simple diet of this bean salad and cornbread. He claims that when the black beans are combined with cornmeal, it makes a perfect protein. Sounds like a bunch of pseudoscience bullsh*t to me, but Rob's a smart guy, so I trust him.

I'll make Rob post the cornbread recipe when he gets back.

Anyway, I've made this recipe about twenty times this summer and I never get tired of it. Try it. You'll like it.

If you don't like it, please don't post stupid comments saying you don't like it because you probably just f**ed up the recipe and you should probably just blame yourself for f**ing up such an easy recipe.

Ingredients

15 oz black beans
2 ears of corn (boiled or roasted, kernels cut off the cob)
2 avocados
2 whole diced tomatoes (or 15-20 cherry/grape/sungold tomatoes)
2/3 cup fresh cilantro, chopped
2/3 cup red onions
Feta cheese (optional)

Dressing

1/4 cup olive oil
1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
1 tsp dijon mustard
2 cloves garlic, chopped
salt to taste
1 tbsp ground cumin


Combine ingredients in a large mixing bowl. Whisk together the dressing separately and pour in. I like mixing it so that the avocado blends to become part of the dressing, but if you like the avocado pieces whole, just toss the salad together lightly instead of mashing everything.

This salad is so freaking tasty. I serve it with toasted bread that comes from the bakery next to my house, Canto 6, but you can serve it with rice, quinoa, couscous, or any other kind of grain. Makes a great main course, but certainly could be a side-dish for a BBQ.

Best part, if you refrigerate it, the herbs/spices have more time to soak in and it makes the salad even tastier.

Enjoy that sheezy!

John's Motherf**ing Gazpacho

So I got really into gardening this summer, and it just so happens that the vegetables that I'm growing in my garden coincide almost precisely with the essential ingredients of a good gazpacho (Spanish cold tomato soup).

I was first introduced to gazpacho when I was 17 and spent a summer in La Coruna, Spain, which is in the northwest corner in the province of Galicia. The mother of the family I stayed with, "Loli," an adorable woman who my mother still keeps in touch with, was, typical of most Spanish families, also an amazing cook.

To my credit, I was an amazing guest, and was open to any and all new Spanish foods that she could serve me, including a dish called "Chipirones en su tinta," or mini-squids in their own ink (I remember it being delicious, but it sounds pretty raunch).

Gazpacho, ironically, was the only thing that Loli didn't make from scratch. In Spain, it came in a carton like milk or orange juice (Don Simon was the brand), and you would just pour it out and add a garnish. However, I liked it so much that I asked Loli to teach me the recipe. It was way better fresh.

In any case, during that summer, and during all summers since, I love a cold gazpacho on a hot day. Nothing more refreshing, and it's full of delicious, fresh ingredients that typically grow during the summer. I feel like it was probably invented when a Spanish farmer threw a bunch of his summer vegetables into a pot, and just added some vinegar and olive oil to make it tastier because that's all this recipe is.

So here goes:

Ingredients

4 fresh tomatoes (I used the ones in my garden - Roma and Heirloom)
1/2 large bell pepper
1 cucumber
1/3 cup olive oil
1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
3 cloves garlic
herbs/salt/pepper to taste

Garnish:

Any of the ingredients above, diced
Corn
Bread crumbs
Goat cheese

All you do to make gazpacho is put all of the above ingredients into a food processor and liquefy. Pretty simple. If you want it more liquid-y, then you can add V8 or tomato juice, but I prefer mine thick. You can also add more of any of the ingredients or change the proportions to alter the flavor. For example, I like it with more tomatoes and vinegar, but a lot of gazpachos have a lot more cucumbers than the one I've outlined above.

When I was in spain, we would always serve it with fresh bread, and we would have little dishes with diced ingredients (peppers, tomatoes, corn, bread crumbs, cheese, etc.), and you would take a little of each and put it on top of your bowl of gazpacho. Then, when you were done, you would grab a slice of bread and wipe your bowl clean. Damn that shit was incredible....

Homemade Vegetable Stock

For those of us who cringe at food waste, this is a great way to clear your conscience and clear your fridge of those squishy, sponge-like vegetables that are pleading to be thrown away.

When you find that it's make or break time with the vegetables in your fridge, it's time to make a vegetable stock. This recipe is adapted from many different veggie stock recipes, but the most basic one I found was on Allrecipes.com here.

You can also use all of the vegetable waste that you don't use during the week when cooking. Usually, I'll just compost all that sheezy, but if I know I'm making a veggie stock at the end of the week, I'll keep all those stems, leaves, tops, bottoms, cores, etc. that I would normally toss out.

So here's my basic recipe:

Ingredients:

1 Onion
8 cloves garlic
Squishy leftover veggies
Tasty herbs (I recommend fresh parsley, thyme, rosemary, and basil if you've got it. Otherwise, dried herbs are fine)
Leftover veggie stems, assorted parts
2 quarts water (or just eyeball it)
3 tsp salt (or to taste)

So first you want to create a roasty-toasty flavor in the vegetables, so you start sauteeing or roasting whatever vegetables you have + the herbs. You can do this over a stovetop, or you can slice and dice everything and put it in the oven. Doesn't matter.

You should sautee/roast for about 10 minutes. The important thing to remember is that the more surface area that's exposed, the more flavor can come out of the vegetables, so slice and dice as finely as you can. You can even just plop everything into a food processor.

After you sautee/roast, throw in the water and the salt and bring to a boil. Then simmer for a couple of hours. During this time, you can do your laundry, read a book (I'm reading "Eating Animals," by Jonathan Safran Foer right now). During this time, you'll smell an enchanting aroma wafting from your kitchen. This is a good thing and means that your broth/stock will be really freaking tasty.

Once it's simmered for a couple of hours, take it off the stovetop and strain it. Voila! Veggie broth.

So freaking simple and a great building block ingredient for many many recipes. My next post I'll dedicate to doing a recipe that requires this broth.

Motherf**king Black bean Brownies

I got the idea for this recipe this weekend after I visited Plato's Harvest Farms where our intern Sasha and her husband David own and operate an organic farm. We got there at 10am, planted potatoes, spring onions, and leeks and enjoyed a delicious pot-luck lunch, the crowning feature of which was one of the farm hands' incredible black bean brownies. I immediately asked her what she put in them, she gave me the basic run-down and when I came home I did some research into recipes.

I took a recipe off of 101 Cookbooks.com and modified it to include all that tasty shit that the farm hand said was in hers. This is the result:

Amazing Black Bean Brownie Recipe

4 ounces semisweet chocolate
1 cup unsalted butter (I put in a vegan butter subsitute)
1 can of black beans, well drained
1 cup walnuts, chopped
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
¼ cup ground coffee or espresso
¼ teaspoon sea salt
4 large eggs
1 cup maple syrup

Preheat the oven to 325°F. Line a 9x9 inch greased pan.

Melt the chocolate and butter in a glass bowl in the microwave for 1 1/2 to 2 minutes on high. Stir with a spoon to melt the chocolate completely. Place the beans, 1/2 cup of the walnuts, the vanilla extract, and a couple of spoonfuls of the melted chocolate mixture into the bowl of a food processor. Blend about 2 minutes, or until smooth. The batter should be thick and the beans smooth. Set aside.

In a large bowl, mix together the remaining 1/2 cup walnuts, remaining melted chocolate mixture, coffee substitute, and salt. Mix well and set aside.

In a separate bowl, with an electric mixer beat the eggs until light and creamy, about 1 minute. Add the agave nectar and beat well. Set aside.

Add the bean/chocolate mixture to the coffee/chocolate mixture. Stir until blended well.

Add the egg mixture, reserving about 1/2 cup. Mix well. Pour the batter into the prepared pan. Using an electric mixer, beat the remaining 1/2 cup egg mixture until light and fluffy. Drizzle over the brownie batter. Use a wooden toothpick to pull the egg mixture through the batter, creating a marbled effect. Bake for 40-50 minutes, until the brownies are set. Let cool in the pan completely before cutting into squares. (They will be soft until refrigerated.)

Makes 45 (2-inch) brownies.

Banana Walnut Pancakey Goodness

This is a simple home-made pancake recipe modified with some tasty things I had in the house...

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 3 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 tablespoon white sugar
• 1 1/4 cups milk
• 1 egg
• 3 tablespoons butter, melted
• 1 or 2 bananas, mashed
  
• two handfuls of chopped walnuts
• 1 tbsp cinnamon
  

Directions

1. In a large bowl, put all dry ingredients and the banana together. Make a well in the center and pour in the milk, egg and melted butter (I've substituted olive oil for this recipe and it works great); mix until smooth.
2. Heat a lightly oiled griddle or frying pan over medium high heat. Pour or scoop the batter onto the griddle, using approximately 1/4 cup for each pancake. Brown on both sides and serve hot.

Vegan Veggie Burgers

Making veggie burgers without eggs can be a challenge but I found this sweet recipe for vegan veggie burgers on a highschooler's blog.

• 2-3 tortillas, toasted (depending on size)
• 15 oz can lentils (or 3/4 c. lentils, cooked)
• 15 oz can black beans
• 1 tbsp chia seeds
• 1 tbsp Dijon mustard
• 3 cloves minced garlic
• 1/2 tsp organic vegetable bouillon base
• 1/2 tsp liquid smoke
• 2 cups broccoli florets*
• 1 red bell pepper, roasted*
• 1 tsp xanthen gum (optional)
• Salt, pepper and paprika
• 1/3- 1/2 c. bread crumbs

The list below is what I made it with, topped with kale, and with squash and sweet potato soup and homemade bread on the side. I think the burgers would definitely be better with bell peppers and a little mustard though.

• 3/4 c. lentils, cooked
• a jalepeno and another tiny spicy pepper
• 1.5 cans black beans
• 1 can garbanzos
  
• 3 cloves minced garlic
• minced onions
  
• 1/2 tsp organic vegetable bouillon base
• 1/2 tsp liquid smoke
• Salt, pepper
• 1/3- 1/2 c. bread crumbs

After packing it all together, I rolled each burger in breadcrumbs again which gave them a nice crispy outside. Cooked 'em at 375 for about 30 min.

Tahini Dressing (the ambrosia of the working class)

People familiar with "Annie's Goddess Dressing" will recognize the taste of this recipe because it's almost exactly the same...except not $6 a bottle.

You should think of this as hummus without the garbanzo beans. Very versatile sauce that, once made, you can use with almost anything you want. I've used it as a massage oil various times and each time I get compliments on its viscosity and garlicky smell.

The comments are usually something to the effect of "why is this massage oil so thick and smelly!?" Then I get slapped.

I also use it as a "green and bean" salad dressing.

Check it out...

1 garlic clove (mashed and chopped)
1/4 c. tahini
1/4 c. lemon juice
2 tbsp olive oil
2 tbsp hot water
salt
lemon zest (optional)

put all ingredients into a bowl except for the hot water. Put the hot water in last, mix around with a whisk or fork and watch as the magic of chemistry makes everything combine into a beautiful puke-colored sauce.

That's it.

Hummus you will kill for...literally

Alright, so we're all feeling the sharp sting of the recession, but hey, let's look at the bright side, ok?...OK!?

Great. So this is a time when a plethora of opportunities to start anew arise. For example, you can:

1. Intern at a non-profit until you decide what to do with your life (CAI internships available here)!
2. Travel to Africa, Latin America, Eastern Europe or many other 3rd world countries to "find yourself" by doing "development" projects. Those stupid underdeveloped people will gladly help find you...
3. Go back to grad school and get that masters in social anthropology with a focus on gender studies concentrating on ecological imperialism so that you can emerge two years later with a greater understanding of the problems you already knew about!
4. Cook things for yourself by buying (shudder) ingredients and (shiver) putting them together into a (gasp) recipe.

Here's an excellent hummus recipe for those of you who wish to avoid throwing away thousands of dollars at Trader Joe's for their expensive (though delicious) hummus.

You'll need:

A food processor (or strong forearms)
2 tbsp tahini (it's like peanut butter except with sesame seeds. Look it up)
2 tbsp olive oil
2 cloves mashed/chopped garlic
2 tbsp lemon juice
1 8 oz. can garbanzo beans
Sprinkle of paprika or parsley as a garnish
salt and pepper to taste

Cool. This is possibly the easiest recipe of all time.

Put everything except for the garbanzo beans into the food processor. Open the can of garbanzo beans and empty all but 1/4 of that yummy bean juice. Now dump the beans and remaining juice into the food processor. Process, and voila! Hummus!

Note: the consistency of the hummus is going to depend on the combination of oil, tahini, and water, so for a thick hummus, add more oil and tahini, and for a thinner hummus, add more bean juice.

As for the garnish, some experiments we've done to spice this recipe up are:

1. Adding cumin and honey for a sweet and spicy hummus
2. Adding tomato paste and/or sundried tomato spread
3. Adding rando herbage like Italian Herbs, basil, parsley, or rosemary

All are tasty. Enjoy the hummus and that delicious sense of accomplishment!

Black Bean and Sweet Potato Tacos

Alright, I promised I would put this recipe out by internet means. Here we go.

The basic idea here is that you want to make a paste that tastes good, put it in a tortilla with some cheese, and then eat it. I'm pretty sure this is a fundamental human desire.

Ingredients:

• Two sweet potatoes.
• One yellow onion or sweet onion. Either works.
• One of the big cans of black beans. Not the sixteen ounce ones, the jumbo cheap goya ones.
• 3 or so cloves of garlic.
• A substantial amount of olive oil.
• Salt, cumin, maybe some chili powder, figure it out yourself why don't you?

Also:

• Cheddar cheese
• Tortillas

So this is real easy. In fact, you can probably tell what's going to happen just by looking at the ingredients list.

1. Chop everything up. Mince the garlic, chop the onion into strips, sweet potatoes into little cubes (centimeter and a half?). Fryable size.
2. Fry it in olive oil. Garlic first, till brown, then add the onions, till soft. Then the sweet potatoes, till they get tender but not mushy. Keep adding olive oil throughout, preferably an excessive amount.
3. Pour in the black beans, juice and all. Bring it to a simmer. Heat down, just enough to keep it simmering.
4. Go grate some cheese. Come back and stir the bean thing with a spatula occasionally. You want to hit the point where the beans start breaking open and letting their goop out. It'll turn into a nice blobby mass, which if you've put in enough olive oil will basically not stick to the walls of the pan at all. Like I said, a lot of olive oil.
5. Somewhere during that last step, spice it. Add cumin. Add salt. Add whatever else you're into.
6. You thought that was enough cumin and salt, but you were wrong. Add more.
7. Have I mentioned that cumin has been scientifically proven to cure depression, gonorrhea, and amputation? More.
8. Take it off, let it cool. Eat it in a tortilla with cheese.
9. Put the rest in the fridge, clean up.
10. Wait twelve hours.
11. Fart copiously and joyously.

You're welcome.