Road-Trip Noshes

So as I mentioned, I was in VA Beach this past weekend, which meant no cooking. However, I did manage to whip up a few goodies for the car-ride down. I had some pesto, cilantro, celery, and a jalapeno that were near the end of their lives, so I decided to utilize them so they didn't rot in the fridge over the weekend and made the following.

Pesto Pasta Salad

Macaroni Noodles
Pesto (preferably homemade)
Vegenaise (or some other vegan mayo)
Walnuts
Diced celery
Dried cranberries

Coat the noodles in a mix of pesto and mayo to taste. (If you make the pesto yourself, you may wanna just cut back on the amount of oil you use so your mouth doesn't feel like an oil-slick after you finish chowing down.) Then toss in the remaining ingredients, also to taste, and EAT IT ALL WHILE SITTING NEAR PORT-A-POTTIES AT A REST STOP WHILE A BIRD LANDS ON YOUR TABLE JUST INCHES AWAY AND TRIES TO STEAL SOME OF YOUR FOOD!

Black Bean Dip



1 small can black beans, drained (liquid reserved)
1/2 of remaining liquid
2 cloves of garlic, minced
1 large handful of cilantro
Juice from 1/2 of a lime
1 jalapeno, deseeded and diced

Throw all of the above into a food processor and BLEND THAT SHIT UP! This was a yummy recipe, but not nearly as spicy as I would've liked it to be (despite it being a fairly large jalapeno), so I'd recommend throwing in some cayenne pepper as well. Unless you're a wuss. You're not a wuss, are you? Huh, wuss?

Eat while driving through Pennsylvania or Maryland with a nice bag of Fritos Scoops. Well, not the BAG itself, but the Fritos inside. Otherwise that would probably taste like crap.

Mexican Martinis

I was out of town this weekend, so I didn't manage to cook tons. Which means I'll be posting some back-logged recipes this week. However, I *do* have some road-trip recipes, as I whipped up a few things to gnosh on for the car-ride. *AND* I have some brief restaurant write-ups that I'm gonna post here for VA Beach vegan-friendly restaurants that have been sadly over-looked by all the vegan restaurant databases out there. So stay tuned for those. But until then...

I guess this isn't really a recipe so much as it is some random tips and suggestions. On Sunday, my intent had been to try making some sort of mexican sushi (a black bean mixture wrapped in spanish rice and cilantro and cut up into little sushi chunks), but alas, my worst fears were realized when the rice wouldn't stick. I know that certain rices are stickier than others (like sushi rice, for example), but I'd been hoping I'd luck out and somehow my mixture of ingredients would be sticky enough. But no such luck. The rice rolled, stuck together for a few seconds, and then when I went to cut or pick it up, rice all over the place. MEH! Stupid rice!

So instead, to soothe my soul, I just decided to at least take the ingredients and make them look pretty somehow--so voila, mexican martinis.

Things always taste prettier if they look prettier. That's my tip of the day.

I could've just thrown my rice and beans and cilantro and salsa into a bowl and chowed down, but instead, I thought, what the hell--I'll layer them in a martini glass and then I won't feel quite so bad about f-ing up the mexican sushi. And its prettiness did make me smile.

I think this would be a nice alternative to the standard 7-layerish party dip that folks make, if you're having a small gathering. Layer those ingredients into a martini glass and let folks feel all hipstery and cool as they walk around and chow on mexican goods out of a pretty glass.

My other tip is one regarding black beans. I eat a TON of black beans--usually a can or two a week. I love them. I usually just toss some tvp and seasoning in with them and then top 'em with salsa and maybe some fritos for crunch. But for this recipe, I fiddled with them a bit and came up with the most zingy and fantastic (and fricking simple) black bean recipe ever.

Basically you just need a can of drained black beans, a deseeded and diced jalapeno, some diced canned tomatoes, and some spices. And that's fricking it! Toss the jalapeno and about 2/3 C. of diced canned tomatoes (1/2 actual tomatoes, 1/2 some of that reserved liquid stuff floating around in the can) into a pot and let simmer for a bit. Once they start to sizzle, toss in your black beans and a bit of garlic powder (I would've just used minced garlic, but I was out) and a tad bit of season salt. And holy mother of god, is it flavorful. You wouldn't expect it to be, given that it's so simply. But num num nummbly num.

Oh, and if you were just dying to know what exactly was *in* the mexican martini, here's the ingredients. And yes, that is a damn hair in the picture. But here be the source of the hair, so you can understand why I can't possibly be TOO angry about it:

Franny



&

Zooey



And here be the Mexican Martini components:

A layer of pureed Fritos
A layer of homemade Mexican rice (invent your own recipe)
A layer of the black beans I mentioned above
A layer of cilantro
Repeat

Top with a fat glob of salsa and/or guacamole and/or any other fantastical stuff that might be tasty.

Chocolate Mousse Parfaits

This was mmm mmm good and surely chockfull of trazillions of calories. Mmmmm. Calories. Arghlghlghlghl.

Steps:

1. Get some sort of vegan Oreos* and throw a bunch of them into your food processer and hit that button until they're smashed to bits. Empty into a bowl.

2. Throw a cube of firm silken tofu into your food processer. Blend it until it's sufficiently whipped. Add 1 T. of maple syrup. Melt 1 & 1/4 C. of semi-sweet chocolate chips on your stove (or fancy shmancy double-boiler). Add the melted chocolate to the food processer along with 1/3 C. soy milk and blend until everything's mixed together really well.

3. Throw ANOTHER cube of tofu (this time silken soft) into your food processer. Blend. Add the following ingredients for Tofu Whipped Cream. Blend some more. Taste. Try not to hork when you realize it tastes pungently tofu-esque and has a consistency that is absolutely nothing like whipped cream. Try to combat that by adding some Oreos. Realize it now just tastes like Oreo tofu. Add a T. of cocoa powder and find it tasting at least SOMEwhat edible for a dessert recipe, despite looking not even as attractive as the mutated, genetic defect, one-eyed, incestuous cousin of whipped cream. Remind yourself that perhaps you should recommend that your readers just skip this step as it adds nothing really to the dessert. Skip this step, readers, skip this step.

4. Get out two wine glasses. Throw some Oreo cookie crumbles into the bottom of each. Top with Hershey's chocolate syrup (also vegan). Top *that* with your chocolate mousse from Step 2. More Oreo crumbles. (The muck from Step 3 which, while not turning out to taste too badly didn't add anything to the recipe, so feel free to skip.) More chocolate mousse. More Oreo crumbles. More chocolate syrup. And a little poof of the very last bit of the mousse prettily on top. Garnish with a single Oreo.

Makes enough for 2 large servings.

We ate these for breakfast Sunday morning--yes, we are gross, but we were too stuffed to eat them the night before, so it was our only opportunity--and E said that they were definitely one of his top 2 favorite dessert recipes I've made. So there.


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*Sidenote: I did some vegan Oreos research, of course, before going out and purchasing any. Seems there's a lot of discrepancy on the 'net about whether or not the original Oreos are vegan (there are some original oreos that have whey in them--I ran into a vending machine pack that did--and there's some that don't). Nabisco was not much more help:

Hi L____,


Thank you for visiting http://www.nabiscoworld.com.

We make changes to our product formulas on a regular basis. Ingredient lists can become outdated very quickly, so, we don't maintain them.

We do have an online tool that lists the label information on some of our products. Just visit www.kraftfoods.com and then click on the product information tab.

Please remember that the best source of information for you is the ingredient statement on the product that you have purchased.

If you haven't done so already, please add our site to your favorites and visit us again soon!

Kim McMiller
Assoc Director, GCR Consumer Services

However, using my masterful skills of deduction, and comparing the ingredients on the packages of both the Nabisco Chocolate Creme Oreos (which Peta and VegCooking have listed as vegan: HERE), I realized that there were no differences between the two. Logical deduction: if the Nabisco Chocolate Creme Oreos are vegan and the Nabisco Original Oreos (at *my* grocery store at least) share the same ingredients, then the Nabisco Original Oreos at *my* grocery store must be vegan. So that's what I used. But do keep your eye on the ingredient list on *your* Oreo packages because they *do* slip whey in there on occasion for some reason, which makes me wonder what else they might slip in unbeknownst to the rest of us if you don't keep your eye out. And as far as I know, none of this is applicable in England (and/or just generally overseas perhaps) because their Oreos--from everything I've read on the 'net--more often than not are *not* vegan. Crazy Brits! =)