SoyRizo Surpise

The wisdom and inspiration for this next dish was bestowed upon me by my dear friend Kristin, a good soul who’s extremely dedicated to her work in social change and extremely organized when it comes to taking on the man.

However, it seems that in terms of prioritizing doing guest posts on incredibly hip, insightful, and irreverent blogs, she’s kind of a lazy jerk.

Thus, I post on her behalf a concoction she calls “SoyRizo Surprise.”

I highly recommend this dish to anyone and everyone affected by the current political tumult in the Middle East. The best part about its comforting flavors is that it will calm down oppressor and oppressed alike and allow each to wallow in its home-cooked goodness.

For example, imagine the following scene:

You’ve just come home from a day full of giving tax breaks, incentives, and cash giveaways to your people who you’ve surreptitiously stolen from for decades. You just can't understand why the plebes won't let bygones be bygones and continue to love you like they've done for the entirety of your tyrannical rule! At this point, all you want is to sit back, relax, forget about the barrage of police brutality you’ve unleashed upon the opposition movement, and put some tantalizing food in your mouth. SoyRizo surprise would be the perfect dish to order your seventeen servants to prepare for your sophisticated palette.

On the other hand: Imagine you’ve been selling dates at the local market for as long as the aforementioned dictator has been in the business of siphoning wealth to the tippy top. Finally, you, your friends, family, and neighbors are taking to the streets in an organic movement to overthrow monarchical madness and no amount of money they throw at you can stop it. The perfect thing to feed your popular inspiration: That’s right: SoryRizo Surpise.

Check it out…

SoyRizo Surprise

(serves six, though sometimes it’s more like three because it’s so f***ing tasty that you eat more than you normally do but it’s ok because it’s good for you so why not eat a bit more, right?)

Ingredients:

2 tbsp olive oil

1 large yellow onion (diced)

2-3 cloves garlic (chopped)

1 bunch green onions (diced)

1 zucchini (sliced)

1 summer squash (sliced)

1 green bell pepper (diced)

2 cans diced tomatoes

1 bunch kale or spinach (chopped)

1 package fake chorizo or sausage

1 package of feta cheese

1 tsp oregano

1 tsp basil

1 tsp paprika

1 tsp red pepper flakes

In a large saucepan (the bigger the better because there are a shit-load of veggies in this dish). First, you have to make the base nice and flavorful, so chop up your garlic, yellow and green onions, heat up the olive oil, and then simmer all of that deliciousness on low heat for around 10 minutes, or until translucent.

Then start adding vegetables according to how long they cook. I’ve put them in the ingredient list in the relative order of how they should go in: Zucchini and squash first, then bell pepper. At this point, you can add in whatever other veggies you have in the fridge. The best part about soyrizo surprise is that it’s different every time I make it. Last time I made it, I didn’t have any squash, so I replaced it with broccoli, carrots, and red peppers. The time before, it had eggplant. The point is, just don’t be so f***ing anal about it. This is another recipe that you basically can’t f*** up.

It’s going to be tasty, and there are so many other things you can stress out about in life. Just trust in Motherf***ing Black Beans’ ability to deliver! If you really can’t figure it out, and this blog is adding heaping spoonfuls of anxiety to your life, first, get a f***ing grip, and second, send an e-mail to getagripyouf***ingweenie@idontcare.com with your concerns, and the moderators will be sure not to respond to your silly inquiry.

Back to the recipe: Once you’ve got all the veggies in minus the canned tomatoes and the kale, start spilling in the spices: basil, oregano, paprika, and red pepper flakes are what I’ve recommended. Gives it a nice, flavorful, spicy kick.

Cook the veggies for a couple of minutes. You want them to be pretty cooked, but it’s ok if they’re not fully done because the next step is to dump in the canned tomatoes, cover, and simmer for 20 minutes.

At minute 20, throw in the kale and cover again.

So while the veggies are simmering, whip out the faux kielbasas, cut ‘em up into ¼ inch put some oil on a skillet, and cook ‘em until they’re done. This usually takes around 5-8 minutes, but you’ll know they’re done when they start browning. If the need to try one in order to verify it’s consistency overtakes you, then listen to that need and chomp into that chorizo. It’s all processed bullsh** anyway (the food chemistry wizards have outdone themselves with the kind of faux sausage I get), so don’t worry about ebola, ecoli, SARS, or Anthrax poisoning if you don’t think it’s quite done yet.

Alright, so you’re veggies are simmered, the kale is a nice dark green color swimming around in a tantalizing pool of tastiness, the sausage is set aside, and the drool is seeping out the side of your mouth because you can’t wait to eat that sh**. But it’s not done yet, so suck in your mouth water and grab the feta.

Crumble the feta up in your hand and put it in the stewy goodness, stirring until it’s almost completely melted into the sauce.

Now turn off the heat, toss the chorizo into the stew, and serve it up.

I recommend serving it over couscous, orzo, or some other base that will soak up the surprise.

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.