Even the Little Kids.

I love baking for a good themed party, so when we were invited to an undead birthday celebration, I clicked my heels in the air and threw myself into a zombie tizzy cupcake fest.

Cue Theme Music:



Here's the best, first. Money shot!

1. I made 24 chocolate cupcakes with espresso.
2. Then holes were poked in each one and stuffed with blackberry fluffy cream (powdered sugar was whipped with non-hydrogenated shortening, a little extract and a few tablespoons of homemade blackberry freezer jam).
3. Then they were topped with chocolate mousse (half were also filled with this instead of the blackberry fluff). Y'know the recipe: blend a box of firm aseptic tofu with a bag of melted chocolate chips, some sort of extract and maple syrup or agave nectar to taste. Chill to set.
4. I chilled them good and prepared a poured fondant.*
5. I also decorated a bunch of choco roll out cookies. You can make the cookies stand up by using some fondant to glue a cookie to a little flat cookie base. I made a royal icing by blending a tiny bit of agave nectar with powdered sugar and then added water to get a spreading consistency. Once the cookies were fancied, I jammed a few on top of the cupcakes.

*Notes about the fondant:
1. I followed these instructions, but in these proportions (for 24 cupcakes):

• 3 3/4 cups unbleached granulated sugar
• 3/4 cup water
• 6 tablespoons agave nectar

I am very happy to report that agave nectar makes a perfect substitution for gross corn syrup, and nothing pleases me more, as I hope to never purchase that shit again. Agave also works great as fake blood, just dye it red and add the tiniest amount of water to thin.

The fondant was a dream to work with. Seriously, it's magic stuff. You can seal almost anything under it, and the process is extremely fun and rewarding. The trick is to keep it warm over a double boiler so it stays in a liquid state, then once you dip, the fondant immediately sets at room temperature. So just to explain clearly, once you beat the fondant in your food processor (with coloring if you want), it will turn into a thick paste. Scrape the paste into a heat proof bowl and warm over a double boiler, stirring all the while until it's smooth and loose. Keep it fairly hot until you've dipped everything (or double dipped if you're like me). You can store leftovers in the fridge, just reheat when you want to use it.

Fakin' it since these weren't XgfX.

For the record, there are two groups of creatures featured in the photos below. Group A are poor animal victims, their little brains have been ravaged by hungry undead men. Group B are the scary and starving zombie men. They have their arms out in front of them the way zombies are always shown walking in movies (who knew groom cookie cutters could come in so handy?). I have been unfairly accused in real life and on the internet of making pornographic undead cookies. I refute this accusation, they have bloody hands from ripping out the sheep brains.

Behold:

Poor de-brained sheep.


The zombie guys were spreading some weird version of swine flu.


I swear my thoughts were pure.

Pixiepine is getting Primal Strip#2. Comment if you want one, I have about 16 more!

xo
kittee

Ball.

You may have heard about Vegetarian Times' April nut cheeze article? Vegans were abuzz! I even blogged about it, I actually made a recipe from it, which I don't do often. It caused a real internet stir. My general feeling about the cashew cheeze recipe was that it was a pain to make and in the ended tasted like a log o' hummus. I think I've mentioned, I don't always have the best attitude.

Pretty logs, yes. But the flavor wasn't worth the effort.

Then recently, I was cooking for a picnic. A picnic full of fusion: Vietnamese bun (with caramel tofu), sangria (I have the best recipe) and XgfX crackers with a cheeze ball. I thought it all sounded perfect for an evening of swift watching, yes? The plans put me on a new quest for a new ball, a tasty good ball. So off to the PPK I went skipping with my hair puffs poofing, and my hard work and exertion were rewarded with ANOTHER VT cheese ball. The ingredients even looked suspiciously similar, but this ball called for brazil nuts instead of cashews.

Since Brazil nuts are quite good for the prostate, and I had two grown prostates to feed, I jumped in. Verdict: Brazil nuts make a good ball.

A good ball.

A mighty good ball indeed. This was easy to make, easy to form and the texture was great. I even brought the remaining ball camping with me, and it stayed together. The ball stayed together. My only change: I added a bunch of roasted garlic instead of raw, which I thought would be too harsh and hurt my head to think about.

Dazee's parents are coming this weekend, and I think I shall make this again, but with some roasted red pepper blended within--maybe in a sorta marbled style, like a port cheeze ball.

Oh no you're not. Yes, I am.

Also, if you want a primal strip, let me know. Since Dazee's not home form work yet, I'm picking from yesterday's comments. Since Mary's comment made me sad, she's getting the first XgfX chewy stick, y'all.

xo
kittee

Chewy Crunchy

The other mornin' as I was strolling through Food Fight on one of my regular jaunts with good ol' Vee, I noticed Primal Strips has two flavors that have recently been reformulated to be XgfX (they switched out a wheaty soy sauce, for one without). I was really glad to chomp one, since the chewy is something that I greatly enjoy and don't find often these day (soy curls are yummy, but not super chewy the way seitan can be).

Top Row L-R: hot & spicy shiitake, xgfx hickory smoked soy and teriyaki seitan.
Bottom Row L-R: mesquite lime seitan, XgfX Texas BBQ soy and Thai peanut seitan.

When I got home, I picked a few strands of jerky from my front molar, then wrote to thank the company for being so awesome. I also asked them to please send me a free box of Primals to give away during The MoFo. They happily obliged me with a package filled up with six different kinds: XgfX, seitan, and mushroom varieties! My sharing plan is to give one away everyday I post, until the party runs dry. If you want one, lemme know in a comment, and dazee'll be my daily random generator (please make sure your comment contains a link or an email so I can track you down). Also, I want to save the gluten-free varieties for the gluten-free'rs, so please make yourself known when you comment--unless you are just dying for a gluten free flavor--no unhappy vegans during MoFo!

In other successful Monday news containing no wheat. I was recently loaned a galley copy of Flying Apron's Gluten-Free & Vegan Baking Book (soon to be released). I didn't have much hope for the book, since 1. I have a bad attitude about baking without wheat, and 2. I have a bad attitude about baking with xanthan gum, and 3. I have a bad attitude in general and 4. I felt personally burned by Babycakes.

Raspberry Cinnamon Scones, made with brown rice and garbanzo bean flours.

Scrounging through with wrinkled brow, I found a recipe for Blueberry Cinnamon Scones, which looked slightly promising. Since I had all the ingredients at hand and because the recipe calls for zero evil powder, I risked it. I swapped the blueberries for some really gorgeous and super-tasty-delicious golden raspberries we had stowed in the freezer, and the results were surprisingly good. Not exclamation point great, but still quite enjoyable. I know you can't see the berries in the picture, but their raspberry flavor is really bright.

xo
kittee

Interview Leftovers

Not the sunniest of afternoons, but I did my best.

Clockwise from top left:
Saag
I usually whip saag outta whatever mild greens are at hand. This was made from local beet greens and rainbow chard. I generally throw clean greens into a pot with a clove or two of garlic, a jalapeno pepper and a chunk of ginger. Then I steam it until the ginger and garlic are soft and puree it in the food processor with some olive oil and fresh cilantro. Then in the same pan, fry a bit of cumin seeds, ground cumin and ground coriander. Add the puree, mix, season to taste with salt and heat through.

Roasted Beets
Coarsely chopped peeled beets wrapped in tin foil with a bit of salt and a tiny bit of olive oil and baked till soft (@400F).

Mango Pickle
Care of Michelle, from World Vegetarian. I consider myself very lucky, indeed. This shit is excellent, and not too spicy really. Don't be afraid, it is very, very delicious.

Dal and Brown Rice
The dal was made from red lentils (masoor dal), boiled 'till soft in water with grated ginger and turmeric. When it softened, I threw in a peeled and chopped yellow tomato and a pinch of cayenne pepper. In a separate pan, I fried in a little oil: cumin seeds, ground cumin, ground coriander and curry leaves. I scraped the spices into the soft dal and added salt to taste.

xo
kittee

Kittee: A Portrait of Her Stoves

Kittee: A Portrait of Her Stoves
Part I of a Multi-Part Series

By Dazee
MoFo Legal Affairs Correspondent

For years, MoFo has wanted to sit down with Cake Maker to the Stars' Kittee and talk with her about the important things in life – the love and the laughter. Well, that didn't exactly happen when we spoke earlier today. She was cooking a huge dinner of chard- and beet-green saag, brown rice, roasted beets, roasted garlic, and masur dal, and that's it. This involved sorting through a half-rotten bunch of cilantro and putting the stems in the saag. Instead, we took a fascinating journey through her past as she talked about her stoves.

Kittee's childhood home, on Martingale Drive in McLean, VA, was the home of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, that ineffectual government entity so reviled by every president from Ike to Barack. Kittee had an idyllic childhood, romping across the lawns with her dog, Rosie, and the children of Reagan Attorney General Ed Meese and Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.

MoFo: Kittee, thank you so much for speaking with us.

Kittee: (Laughs.) It's my pleasure.

MoFo: Let's talk about your parents' Martingale Drive stove.

Kittee: I don't really remember much about it except it was electric. It had an oven on top and bottom. Each burner had a set of 5 buttons you'd push, from warm to high. All the houses on my street had the same set-up.

There was this stuff from the '80s, Hollywood Popcorn, that came in a packet with hydrogenated yellow fat on one side and the kernels on the other. You'd squeeze the hard fat into the pan, then dump the kernels in. It's like old-fashioned popcorn, with disgusting oil. It was kind of a lot of popcorn.

MoFo: Did the Scalias have the same 5-button heat control on their stove?

Kittee: The Scalias were not in my neighborhood. Sorry to burst your bubble. They didn't live in Greenway Heights.

MoFo: But the Scalias lived in McLean, right?

Kittee: I don't know. They went to my high school. They might have lived in Great Falls.

MoFo was embarrassed by this glaring historical error. So we moved on. Kittee once lived at a house without a front doorknob.

MoFo: How about the stove in the house without a front doorknob?

Kittee: Oh my god. Shit, I don't remember anything about that. I'm sorry. I lived in that house shortly after I went vegan. I remember I made stuffed cabbage with nooch gravy. I made it out of The Cookbook for People who Love Animals. That's a really old-school cookbook. I might have wung it a little bit.

I can tell you about the fridge. The house housed a million people. The produce drawer was mine. There was some nasty stuff in that fridge. I ended up moving out of that house after this couple who got food stamps moved in and brought meat in. The food stamps was what made them bring food into the house. I would come home from work and the place would just stink like meat.

The guy who owned the house used to wear a unitard and sell tuna sandwiches at the Grateful Dead. Then that house ended up going into foreclosure, a little while after I moved out.

Xantham Gum is More Devilish than Bill Clinton by kittee

I was pondering Vegan MoFo subject matter in a public arena last night, when I was reminded of an important post I had begun a few weeks ago. I began writing it in a hot fit of hate and rage, and then when my boiling blood cooled a little, I was distracted by zombie cupcakes and poured fondant.

Here's what I wanted you to know:

XANTHAM GUM IS THE DEVIL STRAIGHT FROM THE BOWELS OF HELL. Some people in the elevator may tell you it's Bill Clinton, but they are wrong. Unless they have solid literature, do not listen to them.

Now I've known for some time that xantham gum is irritating stuff. It alone has caused me to avoid XgfX baking, for eleven months now. It has an unpleasant name. It makes me feel nervous and uncomfortable around flour. Also, it's wickedly expensive--what's to like? In New Orleans I could only find it in small bags for $15 bucks or so, too much to spend on a tenuous kitchen experiment. But here in Portland, I can find it in the bulk bins, which is besides the point, since I was recently given a hand-me-down bag of it (more proof that it's rotten stuff, people are trying to pass it off to the innocent). Anyway, I'd finally gotten to the point in my "journey" where I was becoming open to trying a XgfX mix. I thought experimenting with something within my comfort zone like Indian flatbreads--specifically simple chapathis and aloo paratha, would be a good idea.

So you know how slimy and gummy ground flax gets when it's been moistened? Have you ever dealt with psyllium husk slush? Do you know about mixing Gremlins and water? Xanthan Gum becomes a horrid plague when moistened with liquid--like a zillion billion trillion times worse than anything you could ever imagine. I seriously can't believe it was left out of the bible story. I know this to be true because I unknowingly threw some into the sink and then tried to wash it down the drain with running water.

Here's my warning--do not do this. You will be sorry, and you will never get it out of your sink, off your sponges, or away from your skin unless you use coarse gritty sand paper. Even then, you will still know it's there.

Instead, stick to recipes that do not require this evil nightmare, like Isa and Terry's gluten-free cupcakes from VCToTW.

The end.

P.S. I wrote a round roundup for Vegan MoFo International today.
xo
kittee

Power to the Pickle

I've always enjoyed a good glass receptacle, but since moving to New Portleans, I've noticed the quality of jars in my life have improved. First off, even though glass is recyclable here, people seem to save 'em--horde 'em even, depending on the variety.


Score Example #1

In the bulk department of our food co-op, there's a special dedicated drawer full of free, clean jars. On my last visit, I peered inside and snagged a nice amber colored one (good for spices) and a large Vegenaise jar. After sniffing to make sure they weren't funked, I stuffed 'em with hazelnuts and brought them home to turn them into honest women.

Jars are great for all kinds of things.

You can make spice blends and give them away as gifts, or keep them for yourself.

If you can find 'em, Adam's peanut butter come in superb glass specimens. I found a few in Vancouver, B.C. a long while back and just re-discovered them while makin' groceries in town. It must be a West Coast brand, and boy did I want to buy a jar, not for the peanut butter, but simply for the glass quality. Solid!

Here's my Adam's jar posing on the left, please pretend it's full of XgfX oat flour starter for injera. That's the plan, which will be materialized in due course.

There are a lot of BIG jars here, too. Apparently, the larger the jar, the more pickle power you get out of it. See, besides being a jar-centric city, the people of New Portleans are really into fermentation, preserving, and putting food "up." Michelle lent me one of her coveted gallon bottles, which is currently resting on top of the fridge holding some brewing bancha tea kombucha. During a recent kombucha workshop I attended, I learned that kombucha scobies are most accurately described as "biological mats." Tasty, yes?

When we first moved here from the South with no jars to call our own, it hurt Michelle terribly. So before I coaxed that gigantic jar out of her myriad collection, she donated a few to start me off right--mini versions of Bob's Red Hot with flip up tops. Serious 'biz! Last weekend, I filled one of those puppies with tasty vegan nuoc cham and brought it camping to eat with soft noodle-y rice paper rolls.


Favorite Jar #1, circa 1996. Scored while interning at the Women's Studio Workshop in NY.

I lied a little. We did move with a few jars, but small ones, the ones that dazee could not pry from my firm, fast grip. My favorite jar, has a pink and red spiral top and is full of chipotle peppers.

xo
kittee