“Healthy” Mexican Cake

I put “healthy” in quotes, because let’s be honest, cake will never be healthy. It may be low-fat or vegan or sugar-free, but it will never be healthy.  It’s cake.  It’s meant to be an indulgent treat, an unearned reward for finishing your meal, or having a birthday.  It’s no fun if it’s healthy.  It goes against the cake-code.

This recipe, taken from Serious Eats, removed some of the fat that comes from using oil.  As they mention, it was luck the entire project still worked. I’m one of the people who tends to believe sweet and savory need to stay segregated as far as dessert goes, spiciness is just enough to be noticed but not enough to ruin the idea of dessert

And at 196 calories per slice, at least it’s “healthier” than a usual piece of cake full of shortening, and covered in frosting.  I still think it would still be best served warm with some vanilla bean ice cream, which sadly would take the “healthy” completely of the name.

Mexican Chocolate Cake

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 cups sugar
• 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 2 teaspoons cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper or chili powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
• 1 cup cold water
• 2/3 cup powdered sugar
• 1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 2 or 3 tablespoons water

Preheat oven to 350°F.  In a large mixing bowl, whisk together first seven ingredients (flour through salt). Make two small wells in the mixture. In one, pour in the vinegar. In the other, pour in the vanilla extract. Pour cold water over everything. Stir until moistened and a only a little lumpy.

Pour batter into an 8-inch round cake pan. Bake for 30 or 35 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean. Cool for 10 minutes in the pan, then carefully pry out and finish cooling on a wire rack.

While cake is baking, whisk together 2/3 cup powdered sugar and 1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder in small bowl. Add water. Stir to make a thick glaze. When cake is completely cooled, drizzle over cake.

Serves 10.

Breakfast Cereal Muffins

Photo borrowed from AlmightyDad.com

Breakfast is the greatest meal on earth.  You sit me down in front of a perfectly made 3 egg omelet stuffed with cheese and I will be a happy man.  Toss in a side of hash browns and pancakes, and I’ll thank you after my nap.

Of course, those were special occasion breakfasts when I was a kid.  Usually it was some Rice Krispies covered in sugar or some other delicious breakfast cereal that was about as good for you as rubbing sugar directly on to your teeth.  Even now I cannot resist the allure of a box of Golden Grahams or Fruit Loops when I see a sale price on the supermarket shelf.  The power of Post and Kelloggs is too, too strong.

One day a few weeks back, Katie asked me to make some healthier snacks, which resulted in these Oatmeal Bran Muffins.  Sure, you can make them healthy like I did, but isn’t the allure of swapping out the bran and oatmeal with something like Golden Grahams and Cocoa Krispies calling out your name?

Breakfast Cereal Muffins

• 1 cup bran cereal
• 1 cup dry oatmeal
• 1 1/4 cup skim milk
• 1 cup bread flour
• 1/3 cup packed dark brown sugar
• 2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 cup unsalted butter
• 1 egg
• 1/2-3/4  cup Craisins (or chocolate chips if you want them slightly less healthy)

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Combine bran, oatmeal and milk.  Let stand 5 minutes, or until nice and mushy.  Mix the flour, brown sugar, baking powder and baking soda together, and set aside.  Melt the butter.  Add the melted butter and egg into bran mixture.  Stir in the dry ingredients until blended.  Fold the Craisins (or chocolate chips) into the batter.

Spoon into 12 lightly oiled  2 1/2 inch muffin pan cups. Bake for 18 minutes or until done.

Vegetarian “Beef” Sukiyaki

Sukiyaki, although not mine. This one's prettier.

It’s been a Swank diet week here in the Two Bites kitchens. We’re attempting to eat healthier, and for the most part we’re succeeding.  We just need to stop eating out on the weekends, and stick to the menu we keep during the week.  Of course that doesn’t always work when you have a stack of “Buy One Get One” brunch coupons and gift cards for LEYE (Lettuce Entertain You) stacking up on your breakfast bar.  We love eating healthy, but we love a cheap meal out even more.

I spent the morning yesterday making another recipe from the Multiple Sclerosis Diet Cookbook I mentioned yesterday.  Again, you can use real beef as the original recipe calls for, but I swapped out the proteins with some Trader Joe’s Beef-less strips.  For a recipe that doesn’t require any herbs or spices, it’s a pretty tasty dish.

Vegetarian “Beef” Sukiyaki

Ingredients

• 2 Tbsp oil
• 1 1/2 lbs (3 packages) Trader Joe’s Beef-less strips, cut into slices
• 4 oz sliced Shiitake mushrooms
• 4 oz (1 can) sliced bamboo shoots
• 2 medium onions, sliced
• 1/2 cup dry white wine
• 1/2 cup soy sauce
• 1/2 pound extra firm tofu, pressed of water and cut into cubes
• 1/2 cup green onion, cut into 1-inch pieces
• 2 cups cooked brown rice

Heat the large skillet or wok on high heat.  Add oil.  When oil begins to sizzle drop in the “beef” and brown, cooking 2-3 minutes.  Add mushrooms, bamboo shoots, and onion.  Stir-fry for 5 minutes, turning vegetables frequently.  When onions begin to soften add the wine and soy sauce.  Add the tofu and green onion cooking for 1 minute.  Serve over the rice.  Serves 6.

Vegetarian Cream of “Chicken” & Mushroom Soup

As is usually the case, summer has disappeared a little too quickly here in Chicago.  Normally I don’t mind the lack of 90 degree temperatures, but they were in even shorter supply than normal this year, leaving it feeling more like a prolonged spring easing its way into a, hopefully, prolonged fall.

Needless to say, I do not like winter.  It is the devil’s season.  By the time February rolls around, there’s a vague sense that everyone is looking forward to punching everyone else in the face.  But perhaps being trapped inside looking at the same 4 walls all winter will do that to a person.  Or in this case, an entire city.

Luckily, it’s not here yet, but fall has most definitely set in which makes it the perfect weather some soup.  This cream of chicken and mushroom recipe was adapted from the Swank Multiple Sclerosis Diet Cookbook.  It’s a great book for people dealing with Multiple Sclerosis and are looking for other ways beside medicine to boost their health.  Just be forewarned that it’s not an easy diet.  It’s a strict low-fat regime that I wasn’t even able to stick to.  But that could be love of carbs talking.

You can easily replace the veggie chicken with real chicken to give yourself that meat fill you’re craving.

Vegetarian Cream of “Chicken” & Mushroom Soup

Ingredients

• 2 Tbsp oil
• 1/4 cup finely chopped onion
• 1 lb sliced mushrooms
• 1/3 cup AP flour
• 4 cups vegetable broth
• 1 1/2 cups skim milk
• 1/2 cup nonfat dry milk powder
• 1/2 cup dry white wine
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp hot pepper sauce
• 2 packages Trader Joe’s Chickenless Strips, diced
• 1/4 tsp thyme
• chopped parsley
• paprika

Pour oil into a large saucepan and saute onion over medium heat until tender.  Add mushrooms and cook 10 minutes.  Blend in flour.  Gradually stir in chicken broth, skim milk that has been mixed with the nonfat dry milk powder, and the wine.  Stir over medium heat until mixture thickens and comes to a boil.  Add remaining ingredients except parsley and paprika.  Reduce heat and simmer, uncovered, for 20 minutes.  Garnish with parsley and paprika.  Serves 6.

Recipe – Black Bean Sloppy Joes

Black Bean Sloppy Joes

I love me some sloppy joes.  It’s one of those dishes that fills my childhood memory.  American comfort food was the name of the cooking game when I was growing; nothing different from most other families really.  But a few things still stand out in my mind.  Sloppy Joes are one of them.  The others are fried bologna and onions (which I don’t think is reproducible as a vegetarian meal), hot dogs and cottage cheese, lasagna, fish sticks, tuna salad and meatloaf.  Looking back, I’m shocked that my arteries work at all.

Sloppy joes were perfect kid food though.  They were not only a simple dish to make, they were messy as hell; and what kid didn’t love being messy (except for Niles and Frasier).

This recipe is a nice healthy variant on the childhood favorite.  Another recipe from the McDougall Quick and Easy Cookbook, the meat is replaced with black beans and oats.  While a serving may not appear that big in a cup or bowl, placed on top of a whole wheat bun, you’ll be hard pressed to need more than one burger.

Black Bean Sloppy Joes

1 onion, chopped
1 green bell pepper, diced
1/3 cup water
1 15-ounce can black beans, drained and rinsed
1 8-ounce can tomato sauce
1/4 cup quick-cooking oatmeal
1 Tbsp soy sauce
1/2 Tbsp prepared mustard
1 tsp honey
1 tsp chili powder
6 whole wheat buns

Place the onion and bell pepper in a saucepan with the water. Cook, stirring frequently, until the vegetables soften, about 5 minutes.

Meanwhile, mash the beans with a bean or potato masher (do not use a food processor). Add the beans and remaining ingredients, except the buns. Cook over low heat until heated through, about 5 minutes.

Serve on the buns with your choice of accompaniments, such as onions, tomatoes, lettuce, pickles, mustard & ketchup.

Recipe – Meaty Mushroom Stroganoff

Meaty Mushroom Stroganoff

Ooooh, Mike’s actually posting a recipe.  I know, wonder of wonders.  I could give you a list of excuses, but really, there’s no point.  The only reason I haven’t been baking is because it was TOO DAMN HOT OUT to heat up my kitchen.  But eventually I did run out of prepared dinners, so I had no choice but to drag myself into the kitchen and make some work time grub.

The recipes over the next couple days come from The McDougall Quick & Easy Cookbook, one of the cookbooks that I keep handy to at least try and follow a healthy lifestyle (please ignore all posts involving junk food for this sentence to be true).  Occasionally, the McDougall recipes need a little extra seasoning, but I found this stroganoff to be incredibly tasty, and even better, incredibly easy to make.

They call for a package of Beyond Roast Beef for the protein, but unless you live near a natural or health food store, you can easily replace it with some Morningstar Farms Meal Starter Steak Strips.

Meaty Mushroom Stroganoff

1 lb. uncooked Barilla whole grain pasta
1/3 cup water
1 large onion, chopped
1 lb. sliced fresh mushrooms
1 12 oz. package Morningstar Farms Meal Starter Steak Strips
dash of cayenne pepper
2 Tbsp white wine
2 Tbsp soy sauce
1 cup soy or rice milk
1 cup vegetable broth
2 Tbsp cornstarch mixed in 1/4 cup cold water

Put a large pot of water on boil.  Drop the fettuccine into boiling water and cook according to the package directions.  Drain and rinse.

Meanwhile, place the water and onion in a large nonstick frying pan and cook for 2-3 minutes.  Add the mushrooms and cook until they are slightly limp.  Add the remaining ingredients, except for the cornstarch mixture.  Mix.  Cover and cook over low heat for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally.  Add the cornstarch mixture to the pan, cook, and stir until thickened.

Serve over the fettuccine.

Serves 6.

Honey – Glen Ellyn, IL

I haven’t been to Glen Ellyn often.  It’s one of those cities that just never really hits my radar.  I can even tell you the last time I was there.  It was the summer of 2000.  I was but a young lad, new to the world of art house films.  My friends asked if I wanted to go see this movie, “Requiem for a Dream” they called it.  It was by the guy who directed Pi, they said.  It was about the evils of heroin they said.  It was a movie starring Marlon Wayons and Jennifer Connelly they said. Hey!  I had a disturbing crush on Jennifer Connelly!  I was totally in!

That day scarred me.  I couldn’t tell you if it was the old 1970′s theater we saw it in that made me wonder if I was reliving the grindhouse experience of the olden days of Times Square; or if it was the evil, moving fridge.  Or maybe it was the words that haunt me to this day, “Ass to ass!” that really just solidified that moment in my filmgoing history as the day I REALLY needed to get home and take several showers.

(On an aside, I actually quite liked the movie, but I still feel dirty every time I watch it.)

So, it’s been 8 years since my last visit to Glen Ellyn; and this visit was decidedly more pleasant.  The owner of Honey Cafe left a message on the blog that we had to come check out her food.  We had been planning to make our way up there ever since we were interviewed for the Naperville Sun, because the reporter mentioned how tasty their grilled cheese sandwiches were.  But with the invitation, it was hard to keep putting it off, so a couple weeks ago, we busted out the trusty Google Maps and made our way to downtown Glen Ellyn.

And am I glad we did.

For full disclosure, the owner/manager DID give us some free cupcakes, but this happened after we already ate the breakfast and were heading up to pay our bill.  But by then, we were already in love with the food.  The cupcakes were a nice addition, but they paled in comparison to the actual meal.

Caprese Benedict @ Honey Cafe

This is easily my favorite breakfast place.  While I enjoy Crispy Waffles, I’m actually surprisingly picky when it comes to breakfasts.  I usually just opt for the cereal because nothing ever comes close to what I’m looking for.  The caprese benedict at Honey changed that, however.  My good gods people, it was delicious.  Words can’t do the flavors justice.  Consisting of a 1-2 inch-thick slab of tomato foccacia bread and topped with fresh mozzarella, tomatoes, two poached eggs and a supremely satisfying hollandaise sauce, I think this was the first breakfast I had that made me happy to spend money on breakfast meal.

Katie tried the Eggs on a Motorcycle, a childhood favorite of both of ours.  A thick slice of artisanal bread baked with two eggs inside, seating over a pool of roasted garlic and rosemary cream sauce and garnished with fresh rosemary; everyone has had a variation on this at least once in their lives.  Whether it’s known as Eggs in a Nest or any one of a dozen different names, it was a homey dish elevated to a higher standard.

The servings were, I was going to say immense, but that’s a lie.  The servings were just enough to make you regret eating that much in one sitting, especially once you add in the healthy helping of home potatoes that were served with each dish.

And speaking of potatoes, make sure to try the sweet potato fries with the harissa dipping sauce.  She has opened up our eyes to the glory of harissa.  Lords do we hate mayonaisse, but if all mayonaisse tasted THAT good, I’d be applying it to everything.

What I loved about the food was the simplicity of  the tastes.  As intricate as some of the dishes may have sounded on paper, the finished products were absolutely, deliciously simple.

Open for breakfast, lunch, and dinner I have to say you’d be a mad fool not to check out Honey the next time you’re in Glen Ellyn.  I know we’ll be going back at least once before we move to Chicago.

Honey Cafe
499 N Main St, Glen Ellyn, IL
(630) 469-0000

Eggs on a Motorcycle @ Honey

Sure…As Natural As Joan Rivers’ Face

Slashfood wrote earlier today:

Recently, the Corn Refiners Association announced that they are launching a $30 million advertising campaign that is aimed at convincing consumers that HFCS is a natural compound, fundamentally the same as honey. Of course, unlike honey, HFCS is the product of a complex, chemical-intensive refining process that takes place in an industrial setting, but why quibble? Strangely, the FDA has agreed with them. Unfortunately, rather than convince me that HFCS is all-natural, the FDA’s stance has made me seriously question the integrity of the federal government when it comes to food purity.

I’m not sure exactly how highly processed vegetable byproduct equals “natural,” but I do know that between this and the FDA’s apparent loosening of the very definition of chocolate purely for the sake of letting the big companies make cheaper product really emphasizes the fact that no, the government isn’t looking out for our best interests.  They are in fact just trying to let the rich people stay rich.

High Fructose Corn Syrup is as natural as most of Pamela Anderson, folks.  If it’s the first ingredient in your food?  Drop it.  No one needs that in their system.

Episode 6: MRIs, Encased Meats & Margaritos

Twobitme & Katie return from their 2 week hiatus to discuss Hot Doug’s, Red Mango, Genghis Grill, along with a plethora of other edible fun. They also discuss an update on Mike’s health.

The least researched, most opinionated podcast about Chicago and its suburbs returns!

Intro

• National MS Society

Segment 1

• Red Mango
• Berry Chill
• Starfruit

Segment 2

• Genghis Grill

Segment 3

• Chocolate Covered Pretzel Bread Pudding (Just added!)

Segment 4

• Doritos: The Quest
• Mike’s Review

Segment 5

• Hot Doug’s

Outro

• Fritz Pastry
• Nacional 27

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Offtopic: Mike K.O.’s MS

I went to my neurologist yesterday to have my first MRI in 3 years.  I treat the MS as sort of an “out of sight, out of mind” disorder, so since it wasn’t bothering me, why pay for tests I don’t need.

Turns out, I was right.  They actually thought the MRI machine was malfunctioning, because there were absolutely no new or active lesions, and the ones I did have were also gone.  The only thing they could find was the scar tissue from one of the lesions that sent me to the hospital in 2003.

The conversation with my doctor was hilarious.  He looked at me and said, “I feel bad, because I feel like I’m not doing my job.  I could tell you that you should be on interferon, but obviously with your lifestyle changes you’re doing as good, if not better than someone who is on treatment.”

How effin’ cool is THAT?

We decided that we’ll just keep tabs once a year.  Get an MRI, talk about new treatments, stuff like that.  If anything comes up, I should definitely call, but he doesn’t feel there’s a need to waste my time with tons of appointments.

I ain’t complaining.

Between this, and the physical therapy I’m in to retrain my muscles to end my back pain and make everything fire properly again, it’s all looking pretty good.

Who knew that eating right, soft exercise and lack of stress actually CAN make a difference.  What a shock.

I cannot stress enough how changing the small things changed the big things.  Whole grains.  Fruit.  More vegetables.  Less crap for the system to ingest.  It actually does work.

But no one’s blaming you if you drink that milk shake.  We’re all allowed to spoil ourselves time and again.

I also cannot tell you how important living a stress free life is.  I know the world is pretty much against the idea that stress-free can exist, but it is possible.  My old job literally seemed to be killing me with stress.  The stress of fighting a constantly losing bureaucratic battle.  The stress of watching things happen around me that I knew were bad for the business.  I finally had to leave it.  And you know what?  Yeah, my new job causes the odd bits of stress, but since I left the library in 2004, I HAVEN’T RELAPSED once.  Barely even a symptom.

Medicines are good.  I truly believe in them if they help.  But for those of you out there who want something more, check out books by John McDougall, or check out the MS Diet Cookbook by Roy Swank.  Even if they just provide you a couple new things to add to your diet.

We’re totally celebrating this weekend.