Vegetarian French Cassoulet

I know the very idea of a vegetarian French cassoulet is an idea of contradictions. French love a few things: butter, pastry, slapstick comedy, pencil-thin mustaches and meat. Also, from what I told they also love hating on Americans, but I’ve never been there so I can’t say firsthand. Part of me feels that the stereotype has been given the mythic proportions treatment, but the other part of me feels like, “Well can’t really blame them. We’re pretty gross.”

But this IS a vegetarian French cassoulet. Meat substitutions and vegetable stock replace the typical meaty ingredients. Just go generous with the salt. I was a bit conservative and I think it needs more than “to taste.”

I’m also skipping the bread crumbs because it gave the texture a more mealy grit to it and unless you’re talking about grits, it’s never a good thing for food to be described as mealy or gritty.

Vegetarian French Cassoulet (adapted from The Mediterranean Cookbook)

• 1/2 pound Trader Joe’s “Beef-less” Strips cut into a dice
• 1/2 pound Tofurkey Italian sausage cut into 1/2-inch slices
• 1 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil
• 1 large yellow onion, peeled and chopped
• 1 large red bell pepper, chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 4 15-oz cans navy beans, drained and rinsed
• 1 14 1/2-oz can diced tomatoes
• 1 tsp dried thyme
• 1 cup vegetable broth
• Salt and pepper to taste

This recipe can either be cooked in the oven or using a crockpot

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees if using the oven.

Place “beef” and sausage in a large casserole or crockpot. Set aside. Heat oil in a skillet over medium heat and then add the onion, red pepper and garlic. Saute until onions and pepper are soft, about 10 minutes. Add to the casserole or crockpot. Add beans, tomatoes, thyme and vegetable broth to casserole or crockpot and stir all ingredients to combine.

If using a casserole, bake, uncovered for 90 minutes. Or cook in a crockpot on low for 6-7 hours.

Serves 8

Cheetos Cheezy Salsa Mix Cheetos

I fully support and approve this new delicious surprise from Cheetos. I look forward to trying their Super Cheezy Mix as well. Good luck finding them though. It took me going to a Downer’s Grove suburb to find them at the Jewel there. I haven’t seen them anywhere in Chicago.

*Update* Just found them at a local CVS, so they do exist within the city proper.

The One Where I Hate On Milwaukee But Not Really

Now I don’t blame Milwaukee itself for the miserable trip we took up there, but man what a waste of a couple days. I was desperate to get away from the gray of Chicago, so what better thing to do than replace it with the gray of Milwaukee? It’s only a couple hour drive and it’s something different to do. I Priceline’d a 4-star hotel and we headed out on a 2-day adventure north.

What we ended up with was a trip where we curled into fetal positions, sick from the bar nuts we ate and the alcohol drank at the hotel bar, and watched Blades of Glory before ultimately being woken up by a goddamned seagull tapping on our window. Did I mention the walls were so thin we could hear water running constantly?

Breakfast wasn’t much better. We ate the buffet, which was surprisingly decent for a hotel buffet, but we never had a server. Apparently we could have ordered pancakes, waffles, and omelets as part of our buffet experience, but we didn’t find that out until some random server came up and asked if we’d even been helped. Too bad we were already finished with our meal.

4-star hotel.

But that’s not Milwaukee’s fault. That’s Priceline’s fault for saying the Hyatt Regency was a 4-star hotel when it felt more like a 2-star affair at best.

It also didn’t help that my back went out 2 hours after we got there. All of the plans we had, which mostly involved food and museums, were pretty much scrapped as we headed back to Illinois, defeated and not nearly as full of beer and cheese as one could hope.

I do blame Milwaukee for their drivers though. I’ve never had so many people tailgate me in a city before. What kind of bumper car logic is taught up there? All I’m saying is stay off my ass.

We’ll probably go back to Milwaukee so we can go on the brewery tours and check out the art museums, but it will be a bit before we do.

But that’s not to say it was all bad. We were able to go Palomino Bar &fried goodness, which of course means LOTS OF DEEP FRIED FOOD. And this is why I wanted to go to Palomino. Not because they were known for a decent selection of vegetarian options, although that is a plus, but because they had an appetizer called the Aw-Fuck-It Bucket.

Let that roll around in your mind lobes for a while. It’s an appetizer that in and of itself gives up on the argument that you shouldn’t order it. And why shouldn’t you order it? It’s a platter of deep fried awesome: cheese curds, corn dogs, corn fritter, tater tots, jalapeño poppers. The main disappointing thing about this dish is that it didn’t come in one of those buckets you see normally reserved for casinos. I wanted it to come in a pail with Aw-Fuck-It etched on the side. It sounds like a mistake, and I wanted it to look like a mistake.

Deep fried cheese curds are a midwestern thing. I don’t care if they’re served somewhere else, but only midwesterners can invent such an idea. And I thank them for it. I love cheese and deep frying it only makes it better. Cheese curds are part of my childhood. My grandparents used to bring back bags of them from their trips to Wisconsin, I’m assuming from Mars Cheese Castle, and to this day I love those little clumps of cheese.

But if you happen to find yourself at Palomino, a place from the outside that looks like a typical neighborhood bar, please to avoid the corn fritters. More like hushpuppies and dry beyond belief, they were the second big disappointment of the appetizer. Possibly even more disappointing than it not coming in an actual bucket.

The rest of the food? Delicious. I had the seitan Faux Boy and Katie had the chicken and waffles, which came with three giant pieces of chicken and one large waffles. I’m glad I didn’t go with more deep fried though, because that bucket expanded in our stomachs, even though that Vegan Fried “Steak” sure was tempting.

How’s my weight loss going? Not well. Not well.

Revenge Gone Wrong: Salted Brown Butter, Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

Pinterest. Facebook. Instagram. Friendster. If they’re not made for flame wars and trolls, they’re made for posting photos of food. Turns out there’s a Food Porn Daily website made just for people to Creme Fraiche all over themselves (South Park. NSFW). This website isn’t much different. I talk about food. My meals today have been supplemented by cookies I made purely to get back at a friend for posting a photo of delicious sounding cookies. Guess what? The joke’s on me.

The cookies are delicious. I’ve had 9 in the past 24 hours. That’s not healthy. I’ll tell you why. There’s nothing healthy about these cookies. The amount of butter, sugar and chocolate chips in these is something to behold. But adding salt to them? That was my downfall. Salty and sweet mingled together in cookie form? It’s all I can do to not go back to the plate and have another one. I can feel the stomach ache surfacing that only sugar can create.

So, much like The Ring, I’m passing this on to the next person. It’s on your head now. The original recipe came from The Cooking Actress. I didn’t have plain Greek yogurt, so I used honey-flavored Greek yogurt instead. There’s no noticeable difference, but I’m guessing a cherry-flavored Greek yogurt would make these cookies even more insane.

Salted Brown Butter, Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

• 1 1/3 cup all purpose flour
• 3/4 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp kosher salt plus more for sprinkling
• 1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/2 cup (one whole stick) unsalted butter
• 3/4 cup peanut butter, room temperature
• 3/4 cup dark brown sugar
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 tbsp. plain Greek yogurt
• 1 1/2 cups chocolate chips

In a medium bowl combine flour, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt. In a small saucepan melt the butter over medium heat and whisk constantly as it foams and browns (3 minutes). Immediately remove from heat and pour into a large bowl. Allow to cool for a few minutes. Using a mixer beat the butter and peanut butter together. Beat the sugars into the butters until fully incorporated. Beat in the egg, vanilla, and yogurt. On low speed, add the dry ingredients into the liquid ingredients. Gently stir in the chocolate chips. Allow to chill for at least 30 minutes. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Using a cookie scoop, scoop cookies onto ungreased cookie sheets (or ones lined with a silpat). Leave space in between as the cookies will spread. Using a fork, lightly press onto the top of each cookie in a criss-cross pattern and sprinkle the tops the remaining kosher salt. Bake 8-9 minutes, until the cookies have spread and the edges begin to crisp. They will still look underdone. Remove from the oven and cool on the sheet for 5 minutes, then move to a cooling rack.

The size of the cookie scoop I used made 2 dozen cookies.

Good Enough To Give You Diabetes: Nutella Swirl Pound Cake

I don’t have much to say about this recipe other than it’s delicious. Katie has a particular weakness for Nutella, so when I see an interesting recipe I bookmark it and eventually treat her to a bit of baking.

The recipe originally came from Food & Wine, but I found it on the Chicago Foodies website.

If you want to make it extra sugary to guarantee your own health downfall, and possible stomach ache, just do what I did and accidentally boost the 1 1/4 cups of sugar up to 1 1/2. It makes the crust extra crispy and your teeth extra tingly.

Nutella Swirl Pound Cake

• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 4 large eggs, room temperature
• 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
• 3/4 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 sticks unsalted butter, softened
• 1 1/4 cups granulated sugar
• One 13-ounce jar Nutella

1. Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F. Grease a 9″x5″ loaf pan. In a medium sized bowl, combine flour, baking powder and salt.

2. In a separate large bowl, beat together butter and sugar until light and fluffy using a mixer. Make sure your eggs are at room temperature to ensure your cake rises properly. Gradually add in each egg, and then the vanilla, until fully incorporated.
3. With your mixer on low, add in the dry ingredients to the wet little by little.
4. Spray or butter your pan. Pour in 1/3 of your batter. Spread with 1/2 of the jar of Nutella. Now, pour over 1/3 more of the batter. Top with the rest of the Nutella. Finish off with the rest of your batter.
5. Before baking, lightly swirl through the pan with a butter knife once or twice. Bake for about an hour and ten minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean from the center.

Allow the cake to cool thoroughly before serving. I know it’s tempting to dig into warm Nutella, but you will have a runny mess if you cut into the cake immediately. Serve for dessert with ice cream or enjoy with a cup of coffee for breakfast. Nutella is a healthy breakfast food, right?

Cheeseburgers in Pasadena

Since we moved back to Illinois, people don’t ask me much how I feel about the whole thing. Burbank wasn’t the right place for us, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t deeply miss the ocean and walking the beach, or being able to drive to a place like Disneyland or Universal Studios.

It’s hard to go through winter in Chicago but think what this time of the year would be like if we were still in Burbank (hopefully not 100 degrees). I still wistfully think we’ll make it back out there at least once under our own terms. We’ll find the right city to live. We’ll find the right place to call home. But for now, that’s not the case.

One of the biggest things I miss is our friends out there and the new places they took us. Whether it was Rocket Fizz, a shop dedicated to soda, or Yamashiro, being able to explore with friends was one of the biggest highlights.

So this morning when our friend Nikki messaged me with a plea to come back to California because next week was “Pasadena Burger Week,” I got a bit sad. I WANT to be back there, not just to see our friends, but to also take part in Pasadena’s Restaurant Week’s Cheeseburger Week.

It’s a week dedicated to the cheeseburger in the town where the cheeseburger was invented. I don’t even eat beef and I want to go to some of those restaurants. Of course, that would mean convincing Katie to try some of the stuff, but I think I could convince her to try Crepe Studio’s Estonian Burger, a crepe filled with beef and cheese.

It would probably be harder to convince her to try Slater’s 50/50′s FRITOS CRUNCH BURGER: A chili cheeseburger with a crunch! A Sterling Silver ground beef patty topped with melted cheddar cheese, signature chili, Fritos^® and 1000 island dressing on white brioche. I want to make a vegetarian version of that now. Stat. Now stat.

So, while I can’t visit Pasadena for what sounds like a great week of food, maybe those in California can eat a side of fries for me. Or maybe our friend Steve can try the Fritos Crunch Burger and get back to me on how awesome it is.

 

Drinking The Weekend Away

Katie and I planned to do the cute couple thing this weekend and take a trip to Long Grove, IL to see what all the old-person hub bub was about, but the weather cut that short. What we did see of Long Grove is exactly as one would think. Although based on how many times I’ve had to explain what Long Grove is to people, there doesn’t seem to be too many people thinking about it at all. It’s full of small stores (two Irish-based!), small boutiques and old-school ice cream stores. The sidewalks are cobblestone and horrible uneven, and under any other circumstances we would have stuck around, but the snow made the cobblestone nice and slippery. We decided that a guy with balance problems was not the target audience for Long Grove that day.

What we did get to try before we left was the Long Grove Confectionary, a chocolate lover’s wet dream. Free samples of their dark chocolate peppermint bark greeted us, and after some hemming and hawing we decided we couldn’t leave without trying the thing for which the city is known. We tried their jalapeño and sea salt chocolate, the peanut butter, and the fudge cup. Being a PB & Chocolate whore the cup won hands down as far as I’m concerned, but the salted caramel with a jalapeño kick was a close runner up. You didn’t get the heat until you swallowed and it hit the back of your throat.

Instead we had lunch at The Ram, which I wrote about the other day. The second trip was fairly similar to the first trip. The service was slightly slow, but the food was good. I tried their fish and chips for this second visit. You only get one piece of fish, but it’s a large piece. It was nice to not be disgustingly full as some fish and chips dishes can do to you. It’s a heavy, hearty meal and when a 

restaurant tosses three pieces of battered goodness at you, you don’t always walk away feeling good about yourself.

I tried their beer sampler as well. I didn’t feel as bad ordering my own, since the first trip I was sipping off my sister-in-law’s 3 oz pints. I think I’ve discussed my complete naivety when it comes to beer. I know nothing about hops and malts and wheats and ryes. I go in with a “if it tastes good, awesome” mentality. Through the very scientific process of “Try Everything” I’ve learned I like lighter, crisper beer, with stouts being the one exception. My favorite seems to be European drafts, especially something like an Italian Rye. So, I said bring on the sampler!

Turns out that my initial beer instincts stayed true. The Big Horn Blonde, Hefeweizen and the Buttface Amber Ale were the clear favorites, with Buttface probably being favorite. It went well with the fish and chips and never had a bitter taste to it. The blonde was a great before food drink, but didn’t necessarily pair up with the food very well. And the Hefeweizen was nice, if a bit too tangy (is that a beer term) for me.

The rest of the beers were sampled but just sat there. Sorry Big Red Ale and Total Disorder Porter.

Sunday we tried going to Little Goat since three of our friends got in with no wait. Of course we got there to find out there was over an hour wait. So we went to Haymarket Pub & Brewery instead. We weren’t disappointed.

The vegan burger was surprisingly good, especially since one of the main ingredients was beets. I do no like beets, so kudos to them making a delicious beet burger. The mac and cheese was awesomely smoky. And Katie loved her “Morning Riot” burger, which was italian sausage, mozzarella, BBQ pulled pork and an egg for good measure. She ate it as a personal dare to herself. She seldom eats the unhealthiest thing on the menu but the “Morning Riot” called to her. It didn’t last long.

We tried a couple of their beers, since you know, that’s what they’re about and stuff. I went with the White Chapel Wit, a Belgian white ale. It was exactly the kind of thing I like: light, crisp, and went well with my food. Katie tried the Nothing Rhymes With Purple Spiced Belgian Oatmeal Stout. Having just had a New Holland The Poet Oatmeal Stout a few days ago, I thought Haymarket’s was a much smoother stout, but still not something I’d order off the menu if I had a choice.

Readers of this blog will notice we actually avoided dessert at both of these restaurants. Sure, we replaced the calories with beer, but we almost felt like we were eating healthier, if you can count Italian sausage smothered in BBQ Pork and an egg healthier. But you have to start somewhere. Maybe next time we won’t order drinks, and be REALLY good.

But probably not.

Why cut out all the fun?

The Ram Restaurant & Brewery

I was asked to pick out a restaurant near Allstate Arena in Rosemont this past weekend. The in-laws were taking the family to a Chicago Wolves game, and while I opted out of joining them (because sitting in the Allstate Arena is near impossible for me), they wanted me to join them for dinner. The only problem was Rosemont is basically expensive hotel restaurants and subpar fast food. Well, that’s the only Rosemont I’ve seen. It’s O’Hare Airport’s city, so it almost comes across as a transient place to live. So many people travel THROUGH there you almost forget people live there, too. Needless to say I didn’t know where to take them.

On a good day, it’s a tough call to randomly pick a place. When you’re trying to not let down an entire clan, there’s even more pressure you put upon yourself. While they’re far more adventurous in dining than my family is, I wouldn’t want to take them to an unknown foreign food restaurant and hope for the best.  You don’t want to hope for the best in some circumstances.

What I found was The Ram Restaurant and Brewery. It’s not a local place, but a chain found in 5 states, getting its start in Washington. What surprised me was it’s a restaurant founded by the same group of people who founded Shakey’s, a fond restaurant memory of my youth. I used to love going to Shakey’s with my family. It’s where I learned such a thing as a pizza buffet existed. It’s where I learned the upper limits of how much pizza a human body could handle.

It turns out that for a chain restaurant, the food is far above average, although I can’t necessarily say the same for the beer. Nothing much struck my fancy, with their seasonal Big Horn S’No Angel Winter Weizenbock being my favorite of the ones sampled. It was a bit darker than I prefer, but the spice went well with the food.

The appetizer we went for was almost a dare. I mean, they were called Armadillo Eggs. Made with chicken, fresh chopped jalapeños, pepperjack cheese, “secret sauce” and seasonings, they tasted mostly like deep-fried cream cheese. You couldn’t much taste the chicken (oh yeah, I eat chicken now). But for a cheese lover, I wasn’t complaining. I love jalapeno poppers and these were a tasty distant cousin to those.

Like a lot of chain restaurants, their menu is massive. They have an ample selection of burgers, sandwiches, salads and more. My choice was the Chicken Amber Ale, a chicken breast marinated in an amber ale marinade, Porter BBQ sauce, slaw, tomato, onion crisps, roasted tomato-chipotle mayonnaise and a pretzel bun. They had me at onion crisps and sold me at pretzel bun. The chicken was tender and well marinated, and the sandwich itself was a sloppy mess with all those sauces. It ended up being a fork and knife situation by the end.

While the food was tasty and received accolades all around, there was one big problem. Most, if not all, of the burgers came out under prepared. Medium Well came out mostly pink in at least 3 situations. Luckily, the people who received the mis-cooked burgers didn’t mind the extra bit of pink, but it seems like something they should pay a little more attention to something like that.

Most of us agreed we’d still go back, and with the comic con coming up in August, I now have a place to direct my friends when we need something to eat. It’s a much better alternative to walking down to McDonald’s or ordering a $7 pizza from the convention center.  I’d most likely steer them away from the burgers, just to be safe, but otherwise it’s a nice place to have a meal.

Plus you get to tell people you ate Armadillo Eggs, and that’s always worth the price of admission.

Consumer Reports: “Why Your Favorite Fast Food Sucks/Rules”

The newly released Consumer Reports article isn’t going to shock anyone in terms of what they discovered when rating the fast food world of burgers, pizzas, tacos and chicken. It may shock you to learn that they think (insert your favorite restaurant here) in fact does not have good food, and why the hell are you eating there anyways?

In n’ Out ranks highest, which even I, a non-meat eater, would tell you. The burgers just look better than other chains. Not to mention their fries and shakes are outstanding. I would also tell you that Burger King ranks the lowest purely because of how awful the (late and not missed) BK Veggie tasted.

But go on! See for yourself! What’s your favorite fast food restaurant?

For the record, I can’t disagree with CR’s toppers. Although I do enjoy Baja Fresh if I can get it over Chipotle. So take THAT Consumer Reports.

Why I Can’t Be Vegan – Soy Cheese

In my early days of going vegetarian, I briefly flirted with the idea of just dropping all animal products and trying out veganism. I figured I was able to cut out red meat, chicken and fish pretty much (I realize now I just painted myself into a painful pun corner) cold turkey. Here is what I’ve learned: I can never be a vegan. Maybe it’s because I don’t have the animal rights fire burning within, or maybe I realized it just wasn’t cost effective for me to, at the time, make nearly everything by hand. I lived in an age before vegan options regularly appeared on menus. I was a broke student. It just wasn’t going to happen.

flickr.com / via boojee

But now I realize, at my age where I COULD afford it, I don’t want to be a vegan because I would miss cheese too damn much. And no, soy cheese is not a good substitution. Soy cheese is like getting some cheap knockoff shoes while your friends have the real brands, and your parents keep trying to convince you that your shoes are just as good. No mom and dad, Pro-Wings are not as good as Reebok and Nike, and the fact I was ostracized by my 4th grade class proved this.

And before anyone makes a snide remark that maybe it was my personality, of COURSE it was my personality. But we all had defective personalities, we were honors students. I’m surprised we knew how to interact with each other.

I’ve given soy cheese a chance several times over the years. But I bring it up now because we’ve come a long way from the early days of veggie substitutes. Ian’s Pizza in Wrigleyville (of the mac ‘n cheese pizza fame) now offers a vegan night every Thursday.  It’s a great idea, and really shows just how far some restaurants have come to make sure their customers are happy. We rushed over there the first Thursday it was available even though I remembered well my disdain of the fake cheese. What can I say, I’m either an optimist or a glutton for punishment. The veggie pepperoni on the slice I got was delicious; not really pepperoni, but just as spicy. Their crust was light, fluffy and crispy as usual. But the cheese sat there barely melted, looking at it’s fat-filled, perfectly melted cousin. Katie’s slice, the cheese wasn’t melted at all.

This week I stopped at Whole Foods (preparing for Chicago’s #SNOMG) to see Tofurky has released their own vegan pizzas. I bought one, naturally, my experience with soy cheese at Ian’s already forgotten. Too lazy to cook I heated it up last night and ran into the same results. Not only was there not enough soy-cheese on it, but again, it sat under the pepperoni only slightly melted.

Also for 8 bucks? That is a ridiculously small pizza. Shame on Tofurky, or Whole Foods, or both of you.

And that’s why soy cheese will never replace the real thing. You don’t get the visceral joy of cheese forming strings from the pizza to your mouth. You’ll never have a stuffed soy cheese pizza because there’s no way you’d get that sight of cheese oozing out the sides. And we all know the cheese oozing out the sides is the best part of stuffed pizza. It’s why we steal it from other slices.

I’m glad that vegans have an option for a pizza replacement, but until they get a fake cheese to mimic the beautiful, stringy, melty, creamy deliciousness that is real cheese, I can never, ever be vegan.

P.S. This argument also applies to butter.