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There are two kinds of weekend breakfasts: the kind where you’re either up late enough, or hungover enough, that garlicky guacamole sounds A-OK, and the kind where you have to make do with a slice of avocado and a couple twists of black pepper. This past weekend we fell somewhere in between. We wanted morning guac that didn’t taste like lunch exactly. We settled on a fusion sauce that ended up making one of the squishier breakfast tacos ever: a fennel infused avocado whip, slightly sweet from being braised in liquor. You can spice-poach a couple cage-free farmers market eggs for an ovarian indulgence, but frankly the potatoes, favas and green whip make a fest on their own.
A.M. Tacos
(Serves 2)
3 Tbs. olive oil
4 cloves garlic, peeled
1 shallot, peeled
4 small potatoes
1/4 cup parsley, chopped
1/4 cup fresh fava beans
2 organic, cage-free eggs (optional)
4 corn tortillas
tomatoes for garnish
salt and pepper to taste
1. Start by cooking up some potatoes as a base for your tacos. Either bring a small pot of salted water to boil and add taters for 8 mins, or nuke ‘em in the microwave for about 2:35. Then heat olive oil in a skillet and add chopped garlic, shallot and potato. Stir and let cook for about 15 minutes or until crisping and browning. Add parsley and keep warm while the rest cooks.
2. Peel fava beans from their pod. Bring a small pot of salted water to boil. Add favas for about 4-5 minutes, or until tender enough to remove the second skin. Peel by holding between thumb and forefinger and gently tugging at outer shell. Set aside.
Avo Whip
1 fennel bulb
4 Tbs. vermouth
2 avocados
2 Tbs. olive oil
1 lemon
2 Tbs. parsley, chopped
3. Whip morning guacamole starting with roasting a fennel bulb. Heat oven to 375 degrees. In a shallow pan place fennel bulb, sliced in half, with open folds face down. Top with vermouth (white wine or sherry works too) and braise for 15-20 minutes or until all liquid evaporates and face down gets slightly crisped black. Remove. In a mixing bowl combine fennel bulb and excess juices, avocado, olive oil, zest the lemon and juice half of it into bowl as well. Add chopped parsley and mix with a handheld mixer or else use a food processor. Blend until thoroughly whipped.
4. If doing it non-vegan, prepare a bath for poaching your egg: 3 cups of water, 1 bay leaf, salt and pepper, 1 Tbs. of cider vinegar. Bring to a rolling boil, crack egg and let poach for about 5 or 6 minutes. Using a slotted spoon, bring egg to surface and inspect for cooked yolkage.
5. Serve with heated corn tortillas on bottom, potatoes, whipped avo, poached egg and finally fava beans on top.
Beverage: Cooper’s Sparkling Ale
Soundtrack: Lloyd & Michael’s “When the Morning Comes”
On the eve of Super Bowl Sunday, we threw a Hot Knives dinner party. Jokes were made about making “nachos” out of Portuguese thistle rennet cheese and Egyptian fava beans, or terriyaki tofu burrito bites (shudder, barf). But without thinking about it, we really did stumble upon our own kind of couch-potato small plates menu of wintery finger foods. Football worthy, even Oscars material!
First up, a cold platter of thinly sliced “watermelon radishes” (named for their starbust pink coloration) topped with a dollop of turnip-horseradish mash and a small square of French butter and sea salt. Best of all, both this dish (below) and the second one (which is on the way) require next to no cooking, mostly just prep time and decoration geekiness. So you can spend quality time with your guests. Maybe even just turn the TV off.
Watermelon Radish Bites
1 turnip
1 small potato (a purple Peruvian would work awesomely)
3 Tbs. butter (or olive oil)
1 clove garlic, minced
1 tsp. horseradish (fresh, grated or even horseradish mustard works)
1/4 cup heavy cream
1/4 cup vegetable stock
salt and white pepper to taste
1 watermelon radish
2 Tbs. French butter (optional)
1. Bring a small saucepan to a rolling boil. De-stem your fugly turnip and and toss it in your water. Add potato and let both cook until just tender to a knife blade, about 7-8 minutes. Remove, rinse with cool water and set aside.
2. In the same saucepan, heat your butter or oil. Add garlic and horseradish for a quick sauté on medium heat. Add the potato and turnip and cook for five minutes while attempting to mash with a wooden spoon. Finish the job with a handheld mixer (seriously, buy one!).
3. Slice the radish into paper thin spheres or semi-circles and arrange on a platter to serve. Top with a dollop, about 1 tsp. of turnip mash, and a small chunk of fresh butter. Sprinkle each piece with a couple coarse grains of sea salt.
Beverage: Dogfish Head’s 120 Minute IPA
Soundtrack: Miles’ Davis, Sketches of Spain
In preparation for the morning after New Year's Eve, we've been scouring our brains and books for something new and different. What we came up with was a newfangled application for an 80-year-old organism: Madam Yellott's heirloom sourdough start. Meagan’s used this sourdough start to make some of the best cinnamon rolls we've ever gorged upon...so we thought of making something a little more savory.
Once you get your hands on a solid sourdough start, this recipe is a snap and infinitely variable. Stuff the dough with whatever you like: Kale and Garlic, Chard and Roquefort, anything will be awesome.
Happy New Year!
Dough
1 cup wet sourdough start
1 egg (optional, but somewhat essential)
1 Tsp. salt
1 Tsp. baking powder
1 Tsp. baking soda
1 cup all purpose flour
1/3 cup canola oil
1 Tbs. Brewers yeast
1. Combine all ingredients in a bowl and mix thoroughly with your hands.
2. On a (very) well floured surface, knead the dough with vigor for about five minutes.
3. Roll out the dough with a rolling pin (or a pint glass if you haven't one) to form a large rectangle, with the dough approximately 1/16th of an inch thick.
Filling
3 Tbs. butter (or vegan margarine)
5 shallots, peeled and sliced thin
1/4 cup cream sherry
2 Tbs. Sherry wine vinegar
1 cup of picked and chopped dill
1 cup shredded aged cheese (we used Roncal)
Salt and Pepper
4. Brown those shallots! Toast them dry in a nonstick pan or a cast iron on medium high heat, and then add the butter. When the butter is bubbling and just starting to brown, crank the heat to high and add the sherry and the vinegar. Cook until most of the liquid has evaporated, about five minutes.
5. Spread the sherry butter shallot goo all over the giant dough square on your counter. Make sure to spread evenly all the way to the edges.
6. Apply the dill and the cheese in a similar fashion; evenly distribute all the way tot he corners of your dough sheet.
7. Sprinkle salt, grind pepper all over the thing. and pre-heat your oven to 350.
8. As if it were, that’s right, a joint: carefully roll the rectangle into itself. start at the bottom and curl inwards until you have a bulging log. Use a sharp knife and slice your rolls off of the left side of the log. You can make them as thick as you'd like, ours were about 1.5" thick.
9. Gingerly place the rolls side by each in a greased (with butter) baking pan and bake for approximately 15 minutes. You want the edges of the rolls to brown.
Beverage: Black Flag Imperial Stout
Soundtrack: Inca Ore's Birds in the Bushes
We like to file this recipe adaptation under the ‘My-kid-just-went-vegetarian-what-do-we-make-for-Christmas-dinner?’ category. Because that’s exactly how we started making it. After all, back in the ’90s, before Food Network and Google booted the Joy of Cooking, the conundrum of cooking for a vegetarian at holidays usually meant dusting off the Moosewood Cookbook. In our case, mom seized on some god awfully named recipe for “Nut Cheese Balls.”
But ever since, a loose adaptation of that recipe has stuck with us. It’s basically a dish of nut and cheese patties twice baked and topped with a béchamel sauce. It’s fatty and far from vegan, but for those who eat dairy, or make exceptions for the holidays, it’s one more great anti-Tofurkey entrée — like a stuffing, fake meat cutlets and eggnog all baked into one… Stuffing Cutlets… Stufflets.
Nut-Cheese Balls
1 1/2 cups walnuts, ground
1 cup cheddar cheese, shredded
1 cup breadcrumbs
1/2 cup parsley, chopped
1 Tbs. dried sage
1 Tbs. dried thyme
1 tsp kosher salt
1 tsp. fresh ground black pepper
1 cup organic whole milk
2 cage-free, veg-fed eggs
1. Pre-heat your oven to 370 degrees while you prepare your nut-cheese mixture.
2. Using a food processor or blender, grind your walnuts to a fine powder and place mixture in a large mixing bowl. Next, shred the cheddar and combine with breadcrumbs to the mixing bowl. Wash and chop parsley, add it too. Season mixture with sage, thyme, salt and pepper. Mix well with your hands.
3. Now add a cup of milk and the two eggs, mixing thoroughly.
4. Grease a deep baking pan with olive oil or cooking spray. Spoon out large balls or medium-sized patties of the nut-cheese mixture. Place them in the baking pan like you would do cookie dough.
5. Cover pan with aluminum foil and bake for approximately 30 minutes, or until crisping at the edges but still gooey to the touch. Set aside, still covered, until béchamel sauce is prepared.
Bechamel Sauce
4 Tbs. butter
4 cloves garlic, minced
4 Tbs. flour
2 1/2 cups organic whole milk (warm)
1/2 white onion
6 whole cloves
1 tsp. ground nutmeg
1 tsp. kosher salt
1 tsp. thyme
1 tsp. cayenne pepper
6. In a medium saucepan, put the butter on medium heat and add minced garlic. Saute for about five minutes.
7. Once butter bubbles have subsided and garlic is smelling nutty, make a roux by adding a tablespoon of flour at a time, whisking thoroughly to keep from over-clumping. Once all flour is added, slowly whisk in warm milk about half a cup at a time.
8. Cut a white onion in half so that the petals stay intact as one piece. Take the cloves and punch them through the outer layer of onion so they stick embedded in it. Add your onion half, complete with cloves, into the liquid. Season with nutmeg, thyme, salt and cayenne pepper. Bring liquid up to a slow boil and turn down heat, simmering for at least 15 more minutes.
9. When ready to finish dish, pour béchamel sauce over top the baking pan of nut-cheese patties. Sauce should almost cover them, but try to save about a half cup of warm béchamel for added garnish. Bake for another 20 minutes or just until sauce is bubbling. Serve with a squirt of fresh béchamel on the plate.
Beverage: Great Divide’s Old Ruffian Barleywine-style ale
Soundtrack: Fiery Furnaces’ “Slavin’ Away”
There are few perceivable pillars of French cooking that are as widely and voraciously loved as scalding hot onion soup cloaked in a blistering layer of melted gruyere. Like many of the epic French dishes that cannonnize the cuisine of rural folk vegetarians usually remain wholly uninvited. How does one mitigate that beef stock in every single recipe of the gooest of soups?
Simple: Beer.
After trying small batches of all three colors fo the French tricolore, we settled on Chimay Blue; a dubbel style beer thats a houshold name for boozers. We also went too far in trying an earlier version of this plot...it was bad. But the Grade Reserve, or any other basic Dubbel, can become a super substitute for reduced animal gore. The malts and sugars eaak out a strikingly similar flavor when combined with all the wonderful juices of way to many onions.
Soup
2 Tbs. of butter
2 Tbs. of extra virgin olive oil
3 large onions halved and sliced thin
6 cloves of garlic
4 shallots
2 cups of Chimay Grande Reserve
4 cups of vegetable stock
4 bay leaves
6 sprigs of thyme
½ tsp ground white pepper
1. Heat a medium sized pot on medium heat. Add the butter and let it blister.
2. Add the onion and cook uncovered. Let them sit for about four minute and then stir. Repeat until the onions have all begun to brown.
3. Add the olive oil, garlic and shallots and stir in the same fashion as before, one every five minutes, until the garlic an shallots have caramelized.
4. Add the beer, crank the heat to just shy of high. Let the beer boil off until there is ½ as much beer volume as onion volume.
5. Add the stock, bay leaves, thyme, and white pepper. Cook until the liquid has reduced by about two finger-widths. Taste the soup and add salt to adjust. Cook for at least an addidional 20 minutes before garnishing (below). In an ideal world, you should let the soup sit a day before serving it.
To Serve
4-6 slices of a crusty bread
2 cups shredded gruyere cheese
Keeping it Vegan
The same crusty bread
1 Tbs. of brewers yeast for each slice of bread
1 Tbs. of extra virgin olive oil for each slice of bread
1. Ladle your soup into oven safe receptacles, being mindful to leave one finger-width for your cheesy or cheese-free toasts.
2. Float the toast in the center of each bowl and cover with cheese. If you wanna do it vegan; douse toast with the olive oil.
3. Pop the bowls under the broiler either in your oven or your toaster oven, and broil until the cheese is bubbly and brown, or the olive oil slicked bread turns golden. Garnish with pinches of salt, and brewers yeast if appropriate.
4. Don’t burn your tongue.
Beverage: De Proef's Flemish Primative Ale
Soundtrack: Metal Urbain’s Hysterie Connective
When we’re super strapped for cash, the first luxury product we cut from our pantry is canned items. Sure a can of garbanzo beans sets you back, oh, 69 cents. But buying industrial-sized sacks of dry beans for $3/10 pounds feels thrifty. When it comes to putting one of those sacks of beanies to good use, consider this generic-but-yummerz recipe for spicy chickpeas.
Serve ‘em hot, with their bean juice like gravy, and topped with Greek yogurt and potent harissa (the heady North African hot pepper paste that we are usually too lazy to whip up. The spices for the harissa are best if fresh, or as seeds and then ground using a mortar and pestle. If you ain’t got one, sub in the less fresh powder stuff, but know that you’re eating inferior sauce. Your choice.
Hot Chicks
(Serves 6)
2 cups dried garbanzo beans
3 Tbs. olive oil
1/2 red onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic
1 tsp. turmeric
1 tsp. cumin
4 cups vegetable stock
1. Place dry beans in a large bowl and cover with cool water. Let sit overnight.
2. When ready to cook beans, start with a large pot. Add oil and bring to medium heat, adding onion and garlic and spices. Saute for about 5 minutes before adding beans. Cook another 5 minutes and then add stock. Bring to a boil and put on simmer for at least 2 hours. You want a soft chick.
Harissa
1 cup dried red chiles
1 cup hot water
5 cloves garlic, peeled
1 tsp. cumin
1 tsp. coriander
1 tsp. fennel seeds
3 Tbs. olive oil
1 tsp. sea salt
1. Place the chiles in a deep bowl and cover with boiling water. Let sit for 30-40 minutes or until peppers are soft.
2. Once ready, remove a couple peppers at a time and slice each lengthwise to remove seeds. Careful using your fingers, the seeds are hot, you can run water over the peppers while doing it or even dump sliced pepper halves back in the bowl of water to stir around until seeds come loose. Shake dry and drop in a food processor with garlic. Pulse.
3. Add spices and oil and pulse thoroughly. Remove and top again with another dash of oil for storage (up to 4 week!)
Beverage: Stone 11th anniversary IPA
Soundtrack: Cornershop’s “Heavy Soup”
If you think we're turning on the fucking oven in July, you're nuts. However, a man cannot throw a pizza party on macaroni salad alone, so we did this. And it worked! Thanx to Lesley, Michael and Greg "Summer Babe" Buss for making this happen. Tips on how to actually do it below. In the meantime, familiarize yourselves with "Chelado-style."
Smoked Pizza
Serves 4-5
1 serving of pre-made dough
1 Tbs. corn meal
1cup fontina and parmesan cheese (optional)
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
1 head garlic, peeled only
1 lbs. asparagus spears
1 lbs. crimini mushrooms
3/4 cup marinara
6 - 8 1-inch rounds of fresh mozzarella (optional)
1/4 cup mixture of fresh rosemary and lemon thyme
Sea salt and black pepper to taste
Equipment:
Grill, tin foil, spatula, swimming pool
1. Since you're going to be placing this pizza on a hot-ass grill for no more than 5 or 6 minutes, the dough needs to be pre-baked. Pre-heat oven to 400 degrees. Pound it out (or buy it store-made) and stretch it onto a large pan or pizza stone that you've oiled and tossed with a pinch of cornmeal. If lactose is cool, throw on 1/4 cup of the shredded fontina and parmesan for that "it's not delivery, it's Digourna" look. Bake for 15 minutes.
2. Peel your garlic, but don't chop, and sauté cloves on low in a sauce pot with olive oil. At the same time, bisect your asparagus spears, splitting in half lengthwise, so they're super skinny. Bring a pot of heavily salted water to boil and toss in asparagus for 2 minutes, so just barely tender. Strain and remove.
3. Cool your pizza crust and garlic (save the oil for something else) and cut your mushrooms, herbs and optional mozzarella. (If you're not using cheese, throw on artichoke hearts, raddiocchio or hearts of palm or other extra toppings that will go well with the smokiness of a barbecue).
4. Heat your grill. Take a dip in the pool and a hit of the bottle. Dry off. Put something more substantial than flip-flops on. Make sure coals have cooked off initial flames.
5. Prepare your pizza by covering with sauce, shredded cheese, veggies, mozzarella and herbs. Cover the grill with tin foil (do not grease!) and then transfer pizza carefully. Cover the grill and cook for about 6-8 minutes, checking often. Once dough starts to blacken in places on the bottom, you gotta move quick. Transfer back to a flat surface, cut and serve.
Beverage: Miller Chill (it's not good!)
Soundtrack: Boyd Rice's Music for Pussycats
The old-school Romans made the simple pasta dish, carbonara, with three main ingredients: freshly milled black pepper, un-smoked baby pig's cheek and raw egg. We love black pepper, but thought we'd do without the baby pig. We also forewent the standard cheese and raw egg for this recipe, so we're using the term "carbonara" loosely. Think of this more as an easy-fix, Italian-scented pile-up of good-for-you comfort food.
Carbonara de Polenta
(Serves two)
2 carrots
2 zucchinis
1 Tbs. sea salt
1/2 tube of polenta
2 Tbs. canola oil
4 strips fake bacon
Sauce
4 strips roasted red pepper
1/4 cup vegan mayonnaise
4 cloves garlic
1 Tbs. fresh black pepper
1 Tbs. sea salt
2 Tbs. extra virgin olive oil
2 Tbs water
1. Prepare sauce by combining all sauce ingredients and pulsing in a food processor or whisking well. Set aside.
2. Bring a large pot of salted water to boil. Peel the carrots and zucchinis into long noodley strands using a vegetable peeler. Once water is boiling, dunk the strands for 30 seconds, so still crunchy but noticeably blanched. Place in ice bath or under cold water. Set aside.
3. Cut polenta into 1/2-inch round slabs and toss in a non-stick skillet, on high heat with canola oil. Saute for 5 minutes or until slightly mushy. Season to taste, remove and set aside. Then crisp the fake bacon in same pan.
4. In a deep plate, position the veggie noodles and top with a layer of polenta, then bacon, polenta and more bacon. Top with pink sauce.
Beverage: Port Brewing's Sharkbite Red
Soundtrack: Billy Joel's The Stranger
We’re big fan of soy chorizo, or soyrizo, for two reasons: it’s malleable and it already reeks of cumin and other chili spices we would be spiking it with otherwise. The appeal of even meat chorizo, after all, is less the shit-quality butcher guts and more the spiced fat it releases when cooked.
Here we use that fat, albeit vegetable fat, as a base for frying potatoes. It turns them red, doses them with a smokiness that’s hard to beat and significantly shortens the number of seasoning steps required. We couldn’t resist crumbling some left over smoked Oregon Blue cheese to up the ante. Most fine dining kitchens on the West Coast will serve chorizo fingerlings below a slice of seared tuna or poached halibut. Since we’d already broke the vegan vibe, we went ahead and slow poached an egg to plop on top.
Chorizo & Blue Cheese Potatoes with Poached Egg
Makes 2 servings1 Tbs. extra virgin olive oil
1 3-inch slice of Soyrizo
1 3-inch slice of leek, chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced
6 small fingerling potatoes
1 small hunk of smoked blue cheese
2 cage free eggs
Parsley flower for garnish
1. Bring a large pot to boil with salted water, toss in fingerlings and let cook for 5 minutes. (Or nuke in microwave for 2 minutes.)
2. Heat a large skillet on high and add olive oil. Once hot toss in soyrizo. Mush with a wooden spoon and sauté until dissolves into oil. Add leek and garlic and let cook another 5 minutes or until leek is transparent.
3. Drain the potatoes. Cut them into a medium dice and add to pan. Stir often to keep from sticking. Let cook for 10-15 minutes or until browning slightly. Fold in crumbled blue cheese. Set on simmer or cover.
4. Bring a small saucepan to a boil. Crack eggs and drop into rolling water, then immediately turn down to medium. Let poach for 8 minutes for a slightly gooey yolk.
5. For plating: Pack potatoes into a small bowl. Turn bowl over onto plate and remove bowl, leaving potatoes in a mound shape. Fish out egg with a slotted spoon and place on top. Season with salt and pepper. Dash of smoked paprika if desired and garnish with a parsley flower or sprig of flat-leaf parsley.
Beverage: Craftsman Smoked Lager
Soundtrack: Goliath Bird Eater’s Blood Venus
Some recipes take longer than others; this one lingered so long we started referring to it as "the beast." The goal was to deconstruct the Irish car bomb — that lovably irresponsible drink special that says "I throw caution to the wind like a Mick throws a Molotov cocktail in a bobby's face — and make it food. The gimmick was simple: take the three booze components of an Irish car bomb (whiskey, Guinness and Bailey's Irish cream) and put them all on one plate.
Our first attempt, brazen and cocky as it was, turned out god awful. We made a dessert grilled cheese sandwich of Irish aged cheddar topped with whiskey onion jam, Bailey's whipped Mascarpone cheese and Guinness reduction syrup. It was confusing and bitter and it rivaled our other top flop: the Double Bastard French onion soup.
But last weekend we gathered our confidence and tried again. We're proud to bring you our Irish Car Bomb Cakes: Guinness flapjacks served with a shot glass of Bailey's whipped cream and whisky maple syrup.
Whiskey Syrup
4 shots bourbon whiskey
2 cups Grade B maple syrup
1. In a small saucepan, bring the whiskey to high heat and let it reduce for about 2 minutes, then add maple syrup, stir and continue to heat until bubbly. Set aside.
Bailey's Whipped Cream
1 pint heavy whipping cream
4 oz. Bailey's Irish cream
1. In a large mixing bowl, add Bailey's slowly to cream and whip the shit out of them with a whisk for 10-15 minutes or until thoroughly airy.
Guinness Flapjacks
2 envelopes dry yeast
2 cups flour
1/2 cup, plus 1 tsp white sugar
1.5 teaspoon baking powder
1 tsp. salt
2 cups Guinness, room temp.
3 Tbs. warm vegan butter
1. Activate the yeast by mixing 1/8 cup warm water, a splash of beer, and one Tsp. of sugar in a small bowl. Stir, cover, and set aside for ten minutes.
2. Combine all dry ingredients in a large mixing bowl. Gently whisk in the Guinness and vegan butter.
3. Check your yeast. If it looks like a blob out of control, whisk it into the batter. Let the batter sit for ten minutes. Then heat a greased skillet and drop batter in 5-inch diameter portions. Flip once bubbles appear or side is dark brown, about 2-3 minutes.
Beverage: Harp
Soundtrack: The Pogues' Peace and Love
