Recipes: February 2007 Archives

Following a radical dinner with a low matainenence dessert that doesn't bore your friends or destroy your kitchen is damn near impossible. Usually we just crank out a cheese course, serve some whiskey, and look all doe eyed until someone else owns up to doing the dishes.

This "cheesecake" is really quick to whip up and won't stress you out. We stuck to our guns by making a slightly sweeter than savory little napoleon with fresh goat cheese, strawberries, and basil that will totally stand out at the end of any meal.

5 shallots, peeled and sliced
10 strawberries
3 Tbs. vegan butter
3 Tbs. brown sugar
1/3 cup cream sherry
4 3/4" slices of prefab polenta
1 Tbs. golden balsamic vinegar
4 3/4" slices of fresh goat cheese
6 large basil leaves

Heat a small sauté pan on medium heat for three minutes. Add the shallots and toast for two minutes. While the shallots toast, stem and slice 8 of the 10 strawberries, then add them to the pan with 2 Tbs. of the vegan butter and cook for an additional 2 minutes before adding the sugar. Sauté for 5-7 minutes; the strawberries should be dark and wilting, the shallots should be soft. Now, crank the heat to high and add the sherry and cook until the mixture has congealed into a thick syrup. Remove from heat.

In a medium sauté pan, heat the remaining vegan butter until it is bubbling. Cook the polenta slices until golden brown, about three minutes on each side. Add the vinegar and cook until it disappears, and remove the pan from the heat.

Make a basil chiffonade by stacking the basil leaves on top of each other and rolling into a tight joint-looking-thing. Slice as thinly as you can. Stem the remaining two strawberries and slice 'em super thin from tip to base.

Plate the polenta cake and top with goat cheese, strawberry shallot compote, and basil chiffonade. Place the sliced strawberry on top, fanning it out to make a pretty red mohawk.

Beverage: Stone Brewery's 2007 Old Guardian Barley Wine
Soundtrack: Jesus and Mary Chain, Just Like Honey

When it comes to dates (or any human interaction really), we're pretty partial to food, obviously. And if forced to choose between a wallet-burning rampage of dining out or a night spent at home slaving in cute matching aprons, well, we choose love-ins every time. If you've already conquered our stuffed sausage Blood Lust Roulade accompanied by a wintery Ginger, Beer and Scallion Cranberry Sauce and you're still looking for something vegan and blood-red red worth squirting all over each others' aprons.... here's a new video recipe for a Tater Pot Pie decorated with a V-day surprise.

1 cup dry Borlotti beans (soaked overnight in 4 cups water)
2 large russet potatoes
2 tsp olive oil
2 Tbs. vegan butter
1 onion diced
1 leek cleaned and diced
2 medium carrots chopped
8 crimini mushrooms quartered
6 cloves of garlic diced
1⁄2 cup American style amber ale
4 cups vegetable stock
2 bay leaves
1⁄4 cup brewers yeast
2 Tsp. Salt
2 Tsp. Pepper
1 cup frozen peas
1 sheet pre-fab puff pastry, or 8 sheets filo dough
4 tsp smoked paprika1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.

2. Rinse and scrub the potatoes, then dry them. Rub them with olive oil and sprinkle with salt. Now wrap each potato tightly with aluminum foil and bake in the oven for approximately 40 minutes, or until you can stick a fork in them with ease.

3. Heat a medium pot n high heat. Add the veeg butter and let it melt and bubble for about 45 seconds before adding the carrots, onion and leek. Sauté the first three ingredients for around five minute, or until the leeks start to turn tender. Now, add the mushrooms and the garlic and sauté until the shrooms have started to wilt, about three more minutes. Now add the beans and sauté for one more minute.

4. Add the beer and reduce to nearly nothing. Now add the stock and bay leaves and bring to a boil. Reduce the to medium and cover the pot. Simmer for 25 minutes and check the beans. If they are still very dry inside add an extra cup of stock and return to a boil.

5. When the beans are cooked through, remove the bay leaves then add the brewers yeast, salt and pepper. Add the frozen peas, and return to a simmer. Turn off the heat, but keep the pot covered.

6. Check the potatoes. If they are easily stabbed with a fork, remove them from their aluminum sarcophagi and slice them in half: lengthwise. Using a spoon, a grapefruit spoon works a thousand times better, carefully hollow out the potato as best you can. The goal is to not pierce through the skin, so leave as much of a potato barrier as you need.

7. Whisk in 1 cup of cooked potato center into your soup. Watch it turn to stew.

8. Remove the puff pastry from the freezer to let is come to temperature, which will take about two minutes. Place the hollowed potato halves face down on the dough and carve around the perimeter of each potato.

9. Fill each potato with as much stew as it will hold and cover with each potato with its pre-determined pastry lid. Pinch down the corners of the pastry around the lip of each potato with a fork.

10. Return to the oven and bake until the pastry is a golden brown hue.

11. Serve each potato on top of an extra scoop of stew. Garnish with smoked paprika.

Beverage: Westmalle Tripel
Soundtrack: My Bloody Valentine, "What You Want"