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I daydream about food. Sometimes what I dream about works, sometimes it doesn’t. I’m not quite sure about this one yet. It was tasty, but it didn’t turn out how I had envisioned. Don’t you just hate that?
The July 2010 Daring Cooks’ Challenge was hosted by Margie of More Please and Natashya of Living in the Kitchen with Puppies. They chose to challenge Daring Cooks to make their own nut butter from scratch, and use the nut butter in a recipe. Their sources include Better with Nut Butter by Cooking Light Magazine, Asian Noodles by Nina Simonds, and Food Network online.
I chose to make a cashew butter into a spicy sauce and drizzle it on steak tacos. But, my butter wouldn’t grind down as thin as I would like, and the motor on my food processor was starting to smell a little like exploding, so I had to make do with thick cashew paste. In a saucepan I sauteed some chopped jalapeno, then added about 1/2 cup of the paste and some oil to thin it out. Then I mixed in a splash of soy sauce, and a dollop of Greek yogurt to even out the flavors.
Once it was all mixed I set it aside and sauteed up some onions and summer squash, then pan-grilled a grass-fed sirloin steak from our freezer stash. Have I mentioned we got part of a cow months ago? Well, we did. I wish it had come with more sirloin and fewer T-bones, because the sirloin is so versatile.
We piled the sliced steak, vegetables, cheese, and sauce into tortillas and stuffed our faces. This one might not be going into the recipe book, but sometimes, experimentation pays off.
“Alternative” diets are getting more popular, but it’s often hard to make the switch if you’re used to cooking based on the standard American diet. The Natural Epicurean is here to help!
The Natural Epicurean Academy of Culinary Arts is one of the only plant-based professional chef training programs in the United States. The program focuses on such culinary styles as vegetarian, vegan, raw, and macrobiotic. One of the cool things is that even if you’re not interested in enrolling in the 900-hour training program, you can try one of their public classes. There are introductory classes offered as well as 4-week sessions that meet once a week.
I attended their opening celebration in June, and I’m excited about taking some of the classes in the future. Booths were set up for us to learn about their chef training program and other classes, and we also were able to sample a few school recipes and watch a cooking demo with the incredibly entertaining Chef Marco.
Chef Marco told us it is important to make vegan food exciting – it doesn’t always have to be bland tofu and rice. He certainly had fun singing as he cooked up some curried tofu, tossing limes into the crowd. Once the tofu was seared, he added some yellow beet and a few spices, then mixed it all together with three kinds of onion. This mixture was then stuffed into half a fig and topped with onion sprouts. Despite the multiple onions, it didn’t taste overly of onion, and all the flavors were well-balanced. The tofu was surprisingly meaty, and makes me want to reconsider cooking with tofu!
A few recipe cards were available, but only one of them was for a dish we tasted: quinoa salad with pecans and cranberries. It was really good, and as soon as I can locate some umeboshi vinegar I’ll be re-creating it at home. I’m always on the lookout for yummy recipes with quinoa, and this cold salad is perfect for summer.
We also sampled some mango gazpacho, which was also fresh and clean. All the food reminded me of how I felt when I went on my 21-day vegan and gluten-free cleanse. Nothing was heavy, and it reminded me that I need to eat that way more often. NadaMoo was also there with their vegan ice cream, and Natural Epicurean gifted everyone with either granola cookies or a rosemary sprig for the garden. (Hopefully I won’t kill this one.)
What are the public courses? Well, to start there is Conscious Cooking, Ayurvedic Cooking, Macrobiotics, Sugar FREEdom, Healthy Foods Your Kids Will Love, and the one I’m most interested in taking next year: Happy, Healthy Pregnancy. The courses range from $45-$75 for single classes, and $125-$225 for multi-class courses.
For more info check out their website, www.naturalepicurean.com
Natural Epicurean
www.naturalepicurean.com
1701 S. Lamar
512-476-2276
 In just two short weeks, cooks all over the country will be gathering their friends and family for food, fun, and raising money to support breast cancer research. KitchenAid and Komen for the Cure have been working together to organize this event. Their goal? To have 1,000 Cook for the Cure parties across America during the weekend of July 16-18.
1,000 Cooks for the Cure is a new event this year, giving home cooks the opportunity to pair their passion for cooking with the important cause of finding a cure for breast cancer. One in eight women born today will be diagnosed with breast cancer, making it very likely you have already had your life affected by a breast cancer diagnosis.
So far the Cook for the Cure program, which KitchenAid sells special pink versions of their appliances for, has raised $7 million to help with breast cancer research. We can help raise that number.
I’ll be hosting a Cook for the Cure brunch at my house on July 18. The amazing folks at Kohana Coffee will be providing hot and cold brew coffees, and my friends at Retro Bizzaro will be providing some yummy pastries. There will also be a selection of other brunch treats, made by yours truly.
If you would like to attend, please leave a comment and I’ll contact you with the details.
You might be saying, “No one close to me has had breast cancer.” To that I say, so what? No one close to me has either. But someday, I might. Someday, I might get it myself. Someday, you could too. (Yes, even if you are a man.) So consider your mother, wife, daughter, and yourself when you think about breast cancer. Forego next week’s latte and doughnut and open your wallet!
Last week I attended an event at Cover3 for the release of Tequila Ambhar, a new tequila now available in Austin. This being the land of patio dining, tequila is probably the most popular spirit here, and of course it won’t hurt to have a new brand available!
Ambhar is made in Jalisco, Mexico, and imported by Santos Spirits, which is based in Austin. It’s made from blue agave, which is also one of the varieties of agave used for making the agave nectar sweetener that is becoming more and more popular.
Sadly I don’t know much about alcohol aside from what I like and what I don’t like, but that made this event all the more a learning opportunity. For instance, tequila has three different grades, based on how long it is aged in wooden casks. Clear tequila is the youngest (and cheapest), and is called either Silver or Platinum. The middle grade, Reposado, is golden, and the top grade, Anejo, has a color similar to iced tea.
We were able to have tastes of the tequilas, although only one was available at a time. I had the Reposado, which was a lot smoother than I remembered tequila as, leading me to realize most drinks in bars are probably served with Silver unless you say otherwise.
We were treated to yummy appetizers from Cover3 (their chophouse burger is number 12 on the Texas Monthly 50 Best Burgers in Texas list) and an array of cocktails featuring the different varieties of Ambhar. To start, I went with the Ambhar Cucumber Press. This was Reposado with cucumber, lime, lemongrass, club soda, and Sprite. It was really fresh and was a great way to transition from work mode to social mode. My friend Sara tried the Ambhar Mint Mojito, which we were also impressed with. I just recently had had a very terrible mojito, so it was good to taste something that had actual flavor and not just sugar. The mojito was made with Platinum, with apple juice, mint, lemon, and Sprite.
The other guests were saying good things about the margarita (something that needs to be right in Austin) so we both tried that next. It definitely had more of a kick than the other drinks! This was made with Ambhar Anejo, Grand Marnier, orange liqueur, and lime juice. I hadn’t thought of adding orange to margaritas before, but I’m definitely going to try it next time I’m mixing at home. The only drink we didn’t try was the Ambhar Cosmo, containing Platinum, orange liqueur, sweet and sour, and cranberry juice. It sounded too sweet to me, and considering we had to drive home and work the next day, we decided two drinks had to be our limit.
Included in our bag of goodies at the end of the night was a recipe book for about two dozen cocktails. Since it’s berry season, I thought I’d share with you the recipe for a seasonal margarita!
Blackberry Tyme Margarita
1 ½ oz tequila Ambhar Platinum
½ oz Cointreau
1 oz fresh squeezed lime juice
½ oz agave nectar
4 fresh blackberries
1 sprig of thyme
In a glass shaker, muddle blackberries and thyme with lime juice. Add tequila, Cointreau, and agave and shake. Strain into a glass with ice. Garnish with a sprig of thyme, additional blackberries, or a wedge of lime.
Thanks to Tequila Ambhar and Cover3 for inviting me to the event!
Trying to keep local makes certain things happen to me. A couple weeks ago, this included freaking out over the sight of fresh figs at the market.
You see, I never ate a fig until last fall. My taste memory of figs were, of course, Fig Newtons. Ugh. (I was an Apple Newton girl.) But then I visited the Blue Dahlia, had a sandwich with fig, and was sold.
I also had a tub of lovely mascarpone that I had grabbed at Antonelli’s, so for a birthday party I whipped up some fig onion tart.
Fig Onion Tart
1 red onion, sliced into thin slivers
Balsamic vinegar
1 sheet puff pastry, thawed
4 oz mascarpone cheese
3 or 4 fresh figs
1 egg, beaten
In a small saucepan, cook down the onion with a few splashes of balsamic until soft and caramelized. (This will take a while.) Preheat oven to 400. Unfold puff pastry and roll out, if desired – but you can just use it as is. Prick all over with a fork. Spread the mascarpone cheese on, leaving about a half inch border all around. Scatter the onions across the tart, and top with slices of fig. Using a pastry brush, apply the beaten egg to the border.
Cook for about 30 minutes, until the edges are puffed and brown.
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