Homemade Vegan Chipotle®

If you’re following any of my albums over on Facebook, you know that during June -- with an aim of losing weight, getting healthier, and rebooting our food habits -- Husband and I are endeavoring to eat a 100% whole grain, low fat, low salt, low added sugar, vegan "diet.”  I put the word diet in quotes because this isn’t some quick fix that we will use only until we get to our goals and then go right back to the way we were eating before.  The word diet, for us, means a maintainable lifelong eating plan, not something temporary.  And while we won’t stay 100% vegan forever, this is meant to be the catalyst that lands us on the path to what will be our permanent practice: Dr. Fuhrman’s Nutritarian Diet.

All of the parameters that we have set for ourselves (including ending up on the Nutritarian plan in the end) come from listening to Penn’s Sunday School and following Penn Jillette, Michael Goudeau, and Matt Donnelly’s weight loss journeys as close as possible (there's plenty of mainstream media on Penn's weight loss if you want to Google it).  They haven’t given away all the information that Ray Cronise taught them, but after listening very carefully to every podcast I could find where the guys talked about the “cult” diet, using my wits, knowledge, and experience to piece all the concepts and methods together as best I could, and reading every research paper, website, article, and other writing they mentioned – I am pretty sure I’ve got it mostly figured out; certainly enough to be doing the trick and not feeling any negative effects.  I tested it out on myself for one week, and lost 5.6 pounds in only 6 days, as I said, without being hungry or feeling deprived.  So now we are doing it for real.

Anyways, over to the right, you will see a link to my Facebook album (“One Month of Veganism”) where we are documenting our dinners (as well as some breakfasts and lunches).  Please note that I said “endeavoring” in that album description – there have already been, and probably will be a couple more, “slip ups” where we break the rules.  ;)  But still, it’s working….really well.  And the food is a.m.a.z.i.n.g!  Just look at all those pretty colors - seriously!!  I for one haven't yet missed what we're avoiding.  I feel very satisfied and perfectly happy.  In any case, results are being kept track of and will be announced when the month is through.  So stay tuned.

Finally, the reason I started to write this post today was to publish what we did over the weekend to create at home a meal from Husband’s favorite fast food restaurant, Chipotle.  Some people at work asked for the “recipe,” too, and it was so good, that I figured I should share it with anyone who might still be following this recently sadly sparse blog.  So here goes....

I thought I would be very cute and on Facebook described it as: 

"Chifauxtle" 

noun chi•fot•le \chə-ˈfōt-lā, chē-, -ˈfȯt-, -lē\

: all of the components needed to make a vegan Chipotle® rice bowl, except here they are homemade. 

;)

 

Clockwise from top right: cilantro lime brown rice,
black beans, tomato salsa, corn salsa, fajita veggies, and hot salsa.

Yes, it’s a lot of separate components, but the only part that individually took more than about 5-10 minutes was the hot salsa.  The other salsas were quick, as was the fajita veg.  It looks like a lot more work than it is – and that’s what Chipotle the restaurant relies on people thinking, so they’ll just go in and buy it instead of making it at home.  In the end, we easily had enough food for 3 or 4 meals.

Unfortunately, I don’t have exact measurement for everything (except the hot salsa recipe which Husband got from the comments in this website post).  Here is the best we could recollect after the fact not having written anything down as we went along:

Brown Rice

Cooked as normal but with a little lime juice and some cilantro.

Black beans

Straight out of a can, rinsed.

Tomato Salsa

Chopped up tomato, tomatillo, and red onion, plus a little lime juice, cilantro, salt and pepper.  This salsa is not cooked – just mix it all up.

Corn Salsa

Corn, red onion (chopped), and poblano pepper (seeded, veined, and chopped), sautéed in a pan with a teeny bit of vegetable oil, then add some cilantro, salt, pepper, and lime juice.

Fajita Veggies

Red peppers, green peppers, and yellow onion, all cut into strips, then sautéed in a teeny bit of vegetable oil with cayenne pepper, cumin, salt, black pepper, and cilantro (mix of spices concocted by Hubby - and it turned out great!).

Hot Salsa (made by Hubby)

• 4 Tomatillos
• dried Arbol peppers (I think we used about a 1/2 ounce – use more of less depending how hot you want it.)
• Cumin
• 3 cloves garlic
• Water
• Salt
• Pepper
• Tabasco® sauce (we didn’t have Tabasco® on hand, so we just used the closest hot sauce already in the fridge) 

Boil the tomatillos until they are soft.  Put them in the blender with the stemmed and seeded chiles (Hubby didn't soak the chiles like the linked recipe says to - it wasn't necessary).  Add some of the water you used to boil the tomatillos.  Add garlic cloves.  Blend that mess up.  Add some dried cumin, salt, and pepper (guesstimated amounts).  Add a couple dashes of Tabasco and stir it up.

Obviously, because we are eating Vegan for now, there is no sour cream, cheese, or meat.  We also didn't bother with any vegan protein other than the beans, because when we do go to Chipotle, we don't ever get the Sofritas (even when avoiding animal products).

Here is what it looked like in our work lunch containers, and after mixing it up (granted, in the mix-up photo, I had already eaten a bunch of it, so it looks a little light on the veggies - it wasn't):

 

 

The only thing I forgot?  To make guacamole!!   Next time....

....because, as Hubby will attest, my guac rules (and chips made with my Homemade Corn Tortillas are awesome).  =)

Miscellaneous Chicken Dinner

Tonight I decided to concoct a totally random meal employing my fun and much-loved method of "what's around and needs to be used up or is leftover from other recipes?"  Having no idea what to call it, because I am guessing it's pretty unique, we'll just go with: Miscellaneous Chicken Dinner.

This will be a quick and dirty post, listing my steps as pictures, with what I was doing in the photo captions.  It was pretty straightforward and took about a half hour total.  Here we go....

First I minced 4 cloves of garlic, sliced a half of a large onion, and chopped about 6
or 7 dates.  I put it all in a pan with probably a tablespoon of safflower oil,
and some salt and pepper.  Then I started to cook it down over a medium flame.

Next, I tossed in a mostly full container of pre-sliced baby bella mushrooms,
and let it continue to cook down.

Then I took out the veggies, added another half tablespoon or so of oil,
and put in 6 chicken thighs.

I browned the thighs on both sides.

Now comes the wine, which had been sitting around in the fridge for a bit.

As you can see, by now the pan could use some serious deglazing.....

....which I accomplished by bringing the wine to a boil
and scraping the bottom of the pan with a whisk.

Once the pan was deglazed, I put the chicken back in....

....and dumped the previously cooked veggie right on top of the chicken.

Finally, I decided, why not throw in a sliced apple?

I stirred it in and let the whole thing simmer for somewhere around
10-15 minutes, until the chicken was cooked through,
at which point I uncovered the pan and let the sauce thicken a tad.

This is what it looked like all plated up on a bed of white rice.

It was pretty gosh darn yummy, although, I do think I could have used a bit more salt and pepper.  I will probably add that when I eat the leftovers for lunch later this week.

Sayonara, February -- Dominican style!

February really kind of sucked for us.  Due to the insane amounts of snow we got (we are currently sitting just 3-4" away from the all-time tally, with February in particular being the snowiest on record ever), we weren't able to attend our weekly potluck dinner for four weeks in a row.  In addition to that, on February 18th, one of our cats died after a very long battle with cancer.  =(

RIP, you big goof.  <3

Fortunately, however, we finished off the month by taking an amazing trip, with awesome people, to the Dominican Republic.  Therefore, today's blog is dedicated to two Dominican specialties that we prepared for tonight's much-anticipated and long-awaited return to the weekly potluck -- Chivo Guisado (a traditional braised goat dish) and Mangú (mashed plantains).  Mangú is usually served as a breakfast food, but I say we can eat it anytime.

The original recipes that we worked from can be found by clicking on the links above, but really, we only strayed slightly from them.  We altered the Chivo Guisado recipe for crock pot cooking due to us not having as much time for meat marinating as we would have liked, plus we had to make one ingredient substitution.  We also doubled everything so there would be enough to go around at dinner.  The Mangú recipe we stuck to exactly, except again, for doubling it up.  Here they are....

Chivo Guisado

INGREDIENTS:

• 4 lbs of cubed goat meat, bone-in
• The juice of 2 large (or 6 small) sour oranges - we couldn't find these, so thanks to some research at The Cook's Thesaurus, we substituted in 2 large regular oranges plus 2 limes.
• 4 Tbs of Worcestershire sauce
• 4 bay leaves, cut in half
• 2 large white onions
• a bunch of fresh cilantro
• 2 bunches of green onions
• 4 garlic cloves
• 1 tsp salt
• 6 Tbs of dried oregano 
• 4 Tbs of oil
• 2 Tbs of light brown sugar
• 4 Tbs of tomato paste

DIRECTIONS:

1.  Chop up the green onions, cilantro and white onions.

2.  Ground the garlic, oregano and salt into a paste-like state (we used the food processor for this, but you can also use a mortar and pestle).

3.  Mix together the citrus juice, green onions, cilantro, white onions, bay leaves, Worcestershire sauce, oregano/salt/garlic paste plus an extra teaspoon of salt.

4.  Add the goat meat pieces, cover and let it rest for a few hours to overnight.  (We only had about three hours to let this sit, so here is where the recipe will veer into Crock Pot territory for flavor maximization.)

5.  After the meat is marinated, in a heavy skillet, heat up the oil and cook the sugar until it turns a caramel color but not burnt.

6.  Sear the goat pieces, reserving any marinate that falls off in the process.

7.  While you are searing the meat cubes, add the tomato paste to the remaining marinade and stir to combine.

8.  Add the seared meat and the entirety of the marinade/tomato paste mixture to your Crock Pot.  Stir to combine.

9.  Pour in a pint of water, and cook on low for about 6 hours (we let ours cook overnight while we slept).

10.  Remove the meat chunks, then pour everything else left in the Crock Pot (liquid, leftover marinade) back into the same pan you used to sear the meat chunks before.  Bring it to a boil and reduce it down until it starts to look like a paste.

Reducing the sauce - start.

Reducing the sauce -middle.

Reducing the sauce -finished.

 11.  Pour the paste over the meat and stir gently to coat.

Cooked meat chunks - before adding the reduced sauce.

Cooked meat chunks - after stirring in the reduced sauce.

That's it.  It's done.  And it's delicious!!!

Mangú

INGREDIENTS:

• 8 plantains
• 1 Tbs Salt
• 10 Tbs olive oil
• 1 cup of room temperature water (this isn't the water for boiling, but for mixing into the mash later)
• 1 large yellow onion, sliced fairly thinly
• 2 Tbs fruit vinegar (we found Raspberry Wine Vinegar at Wegmans, so that's what we used)

DIRECTIONS:

1.  Cut the plantains lengthwise, remove the seeds, peel, and cut the flesh into chunks.

2.  Boil the plantains in water (with the 1 Tbs of salt added) until they are very tender.

3.  Remove from the water and mash them (we used a regular old potato masher).  Add 8 Tbs of the olive oil and mix.  Then add the 1 cup of room temperature water and keep mashing until it's all a pretty smooth puree.

4.  Move the plantain mash into a serving bowl.

5.  Heat the remaining 2 Tbs of olive oil in a pan.  Add the onions and cook on low-to-medium heat until they become transparent.  Then add the vinegar and a little salt to taste, and cook a few minutes more until the onions absorb the vinegar.

6.  Spoon the cooked onions on top of the plantains in the serving bowl, and you're done!

Ready to eat.

We hope you will enjoy trying out these recipes.  We certainly have loved just the few test tastes we've had so far, and can't wait until potluck tonight to really dig in.  And I'll tell ya -- sleeping all night with those wonderful smells permeating the house was a challenge.  =)

German Chocolate Cake with Ooey-Gooey Caramely Coconut Frosting

I know, I know -- I haven’t posted here in f.o.r.e.v.e.r.  But I want to get back to it, at least once in a while; if not to share recipes and adventures with others, but also to have a record of things that I want to do again (i.e. a place to easily find them).

And away we go….

This week, on Monday night in fact, I made a German Chocolate Cake for an awesome friend’s birthday on Tuesday night.  It was only the second or third time I’d ever made a cake from scratch at home.  I had hesitated to make scratch cakes because they just aren’t the same as boxed ones, and we (the collective we of society) have become so accustomed to what comes out of those boxes that the texture, and even the color, of homemade cakes can seem….odd.  Right?  But Jason reminded me that this is what cakes are *supposed* to be like, and being a food purist/snob/=P, I realize that this is the way I should have been making cakes all along, and it’s also how I *will* make cakes from now on.  From scratch.

The recipe looks complicated at first, but it really wasn’t.  A little time-consuming?  Yes.  But totally worth it.  And like I said to the group before we cut into this thing: “It isn’t the prettiest cake, but hell if it ain’t gonna taste good; between the cake and frosting it contains almost a full pound of butter!"

I Googled as I usually do to find a recipe that I thought looked good, and settled on this one because it calls for buttermilk, which we just happened to have some leftover from making pancakes with no real ideas in sight as to how else to use it up.

The very few inconsequential changes that I made to the recipe I have marked in red.

INGREDIENTS:

• 1 pkg.  (4 oz.) BAKER'S GERMAN'S Sweet Chocolate
• ½ cup  water
• 4 eggs, separated
• 2 cups  flour
• 1 tsp.  baking soda
• ¼ tsp.  salt
• 1 cup  butter, softened
• 2 cups  sugar
• 1 tsp.  vanilla
• 1 cup  buttermilk

DIRECTIONS:

HEAT oven to 350°F.

COVER bottoms of 3 (9-inch) -- I only used two -- round pans with waxed paper; spray sides with cooking spray. Microwave chocolate and water in large microwaveable bowl on HIGH 1-1/2 to 2 min. or until chocolate is almost melted, stirring after 1 min. Stir until chocolate is completely melted.

BEAT egg whites in small bowl with mixer on high speed until stiff peaks form; set aside. Mix flour, baking soda and salt. Beat butter and sugar in large bowl with mixer until light and fluffy. Add egg yolks, 1 at a time, beating well after each. Blend in melted chocolate and vanilla. Add flour mixture alternately with buttermilk, beating until well blended after each addition.

ADD egg whites; stir gently until well blended. Pour into prepared pans.

BAKE 30 min -- I had to bake mine longer because I was using fewer pans -- or until toothpick inserted in centers comes out clean. Immediately run small spatula around cakes in pans. Cool cakes in pans 15 min.; remove from pans to wire racks. Cool completely.

While the cakes are baking, prepare the frosting….

INGREDIENTS:

• 4 egg yolks
• 1 can  (12 oz.) evaporated milk
• 1½   tsp.  vanilla
• 1½  cups  sugar
• ¾ cup  butter or margarine
• 1 pkg.  (7 oz.) BAKER'S ANGEL FLAKE Coconut (2-2/3 cups)
• 1-1/2 cups  chopped PLANTERS Pecans (I omitted the nuts due to a guest's allergy)

DIRECTIONS:

BEAT egg yolks, milk and vanilla in large saucepan with whisk until well blended. Add sugar and butter; cook on medium heat 12 min. or until thickened and golden brown, stirring constantly. (I found that I had to cook it for a lot longer than 12 minutes to get a good, thick consistency suitable for spreading as a frosting that wouldn't run off the cake.  I probably hit 25 minutes.  I also didn't stir it constantly, and alternated down to low heat during the times I wasn't actively stirring it.  But beware, it will build up hidden bubbles if you don't stir constantly, and then explode/splash very hot caramel sugar onto you when you being stirring again.)  Remove from heat.

ADD coconut and nuts; mix well. Cool to desired spreading consistency.

Finally, spread the frosting between the cake layers and onto top of cake.

This was a very heavy cake.  I was actually surprised at how literally heavy it came out, given that it seemed very fluffy (whipped egg whites) when it went into the oven.  I suppose a lot of the weight comes from the frosting.  Just beware when cutting slices -- go thin.  It's quite a substantial dessert.

Chocapocalypse Cookies, and Our Goose is Cooked

So yeah, I apparently haven't been here since October 2013.  That's what....about 4 months?  Oops.  ;)

Aaaanyways, first up is a quick update on the goose endeavor.  In October, we were planning a goose adventure.  Of course, we weren't able to cook the goose when we wanted to, but did end up doing it for Thanksgiving with a great group of friends.  We decided to go truly traditional and old fashioned, so that our Thanksgiving dinner last year consisted of roasted goose, venison stew, various veggies, and....some turkey for back up.

The review of the goose goes thusly:

• Not as gamey as one might expect, especially considering the one we had was free-range farm raised (i.e. pretty much wild caught).
• Basically all dark meat.
• Not a ton of meat on it; good thing we had other proteins ready for the meal.
• Texture-wise, it was more like veal or steak than poultry.
• And (I think) the best thing of all -- we were able to render about 3 full cups of fat from it during the roasting process.  Which we have since been using for various purposes such as frying breakfast potatoes, roasting brussels sprouts, etc., and that's a damn yummy proposition!

AND NOW, on to the cookies!

Last night, we went to Alton Brown's Edible Inevitable Tour, which btw was awesome.  So very, very spectacularly awesome.  Hehe.  In honor of the occasion, we decided to bake one of AB's final Good Eats recipes, which in my opinion, might also be one of his most complicated (but it's worth it!):  It's called Chocapocalypse Cookies.

We followed the recipe to the letter, but I will re-post it here anyways.

INGREDIENTS

• 6 ounces of 54-percent bittersweet chocolate, coarsely chopped
• 2 ounces of unsweetened chocolate, coarsely chopped
• 1 3/4 ounces all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
• 4 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 6 ounces light brown sugar
• 2 large eggs, at room temperature
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 3 ounces of 70-percent bittersweet chocolate, coarsely chopped
• 3 ounces of 40-percent milk chocolate, coarsely chopped
• 2 ounces of cocoa nibs

DIRECTIONS

1. Place the 54-percent bittersweet chocolate and unsweetened chocolate in a medium glass mixing bowl and microwave on high for two 30-second intervals, stirring after each interval. If still not smooth heat for 10 additional seconds at a time and stir until smooth. Set aside to cool to 90 degrees F, approximately 15 minutes.
2. Whisk the flour, baking powder and salt together, and set aside.
3. Put the butter and sugar in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Beat on medium speed until combined and looks like wet sand, about 2 minutes.
4. Whisk the eggs and vanilla together in a small bowl. Turn the mixer on low speed and slowly add the egg mixture until fully incorporated. Pour in the melted chocolate and mix to combine. Stop and scrape down the sides of the bowl.
5. With the mixer on low speed, add the flour mixture and mix until integrated. Add the 70-percent bittersweet chocolate, 40-percent milk chocolate and the cocoa nibs and mix until combined.
6. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 45 minutes.
7. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
8. Scoop the dough using a 1 1/4-inch-diameter disher or ice cream scoop onto parchment-lined half-sheet pans, placing 2 inches apart, 12 cookies per pan. Bake for 8 to 9 minutes, rotating after 5 minutes. Do not over-bake; the cookies may look wet and doughy.
9. Cool the cookies on the pan for 2 minutes, then transfer on the parchment paper to a cooling rack to cool completely.

THE REVIEW

First of all, this was obviously a bit of an involved process, with all the different very specific kinds of chocolate that needed to be obtained.  But like with all recipes, as long as you do your mise en place ahead of time, it all comes together pretty smoothly.  And I did get a blister from chopping up all the big chunks of chocolate.  Lol.

Number two -- At first, we weren't sure we really liked these cookies because when they came out of the oven all hot and gooey (when cookies are usually at their very best), the cocoa nibs were still really firm and crunchy, which was kind of weird.  Other than that, they are delicious.  But after sitting for a few hours, the nibs seemed to soften up while the rest of the cookie retained it's nice cake/brownie-like texture.  Even the next day, the cookies themselves remain soft with still non-distractingly crunchy nibs.

Will we make these again?  Sure, why not.  But I might switch out the nibs for regular chocolate chips.  Another thing to consider is the cost....the four different kinds of chocolate that are needed can get a little pricey, but once in a while we have to splurge, right?  =)

I love A.B.

UPDATE, February 18 -- a full three days after making these cookies and they are still mostly soft....certainly not nearly as crunchified as you'd expect homemade cookies to be this long after being baked.  Woohoo.

SECOND UPDATE, February 19 -- I made a few more of these cookies this morning, using a small portion of the dough that I had kept in the fridge with plans of baking them for my boss.  The nibs weren't crunchy immediately upon coming out of the oven, like in the original batch.  I guess they were able to soften up just by being in the raw dough in the fridge....not necessarily needing to be baked for that softening to happen.  Neat.

Duck, duck....GOOSE!

I don't have a lot to write today.  I am just aiming to get back to cooking more and blogging about it.

Because it's been far, far, far too long.

To the title above....we've cooked duck before, and quite successfully if I do say so myself.  But I didn't blog about it because life got in the way....too busy, too focused on other things, insert excuse here, blah blah, etc.

Now, today, I am looking for ideas for cooking a whole goose because, well, we have one in the freezer and, sooner or later we'll be getting another delivery from our poultry CSA and will need to make room.  We should have time to do this goose adventure next weekend.

So what say you?  How have/would you cook a whole goose?

Muchos grassyass in advance!