Stuff to do with baked potatoes

Potatoes are rad. They are easy to prepare, cheap, taste good and aren't inherently bad for you. Okay, about that last part... you know I'm about to suggest some bad-for-you stuff here. That's my shtick I guess, and I like to think I'm pretty good at it.

Baking a potato is super easy. All you have to really do is nuke it. Sure you could wrap it in foil and bake it for like 40 minutes (or longer), but why bother when you can stick it in the microwave for a few minutes and have a well baked potato? What I do is poke a large potato with a fork several times (after washing it), and stick it in the microwave for five minutes. Then I flip it over and put three more minutes on it. If you prefer the oven method more power to you, but this is more in line with my philosophy of general laziness and doing shit fast.

A lot of people have a favorite topping they like on baked potatoes, but I thought I would suggest a couple that might seem a little unusual, but really good. The first is margarine and and Italian vinaigrette. It sounds weird, but trust me, Italian dressing is an amazing baked potato topping.

The other thing I like to do with my baked potatoes is after cutting it open and laying it out, put a Moningstar Farms Riblet on it. Be sure to get all the sauce out of that packet and put it on the potato; that stuff is really good and it's a shame to waste any of it.

Speaking of not wasting anything: [*vrrrrooooOOOOOOMMMMM* redneck powers engaged!]

Okay, now that you've eaten your potato, you're left with a lot of potential deliciousness that most people just throw away. Yeah, I'm talking about the peels. Here's what I like to do with my left over baked potato peels: wrap them up or put them in a container in the fridge, and when the mood strikes you, throw them in a hot skillet with some oil, maybe some diced onion, and fry those bad boys up. I like to dump ketchup on top and eat this for a snack, though if you save them up you can make a nice little hashbrown-esque breakfast. Other stuff you can add are bell peppers, copped garlic, tomatoes, or pretty much anything else. Hell, I bet some fake sausage stuff would work well, though I've never tried it. Cracked black pepper is also good on it, though honestly if you just fry the potato peels up and add ketchup that's really good on its own.

RAEG!!!11!1 Self-righteous vegan stupidity

If there's one thing that pisses me off about fellow vegans (or anyone, really), it's when they seemingly go around looking for things to get pissed off about. I often say that if you look for something to be offended about then you will invariably be successful. Usually when self-righteous vegans go the "OMFGZ this is SO offensive" route it's in the form of criticizing something an omnivore wrote or said about the vegan diet. Often times this involves simple ignorance or bad logic being misinterpreted (often willfully) for maliciousness and deceit.

I'm not a guy that goes around being angry all the time. I'm like this in my everyday life, and I take that with me in my animal rights stances. I like to think I take things in stride. Sometimes though, I come across something that legitimately makes me rage, and this often comes in the form of vegans criticizing other, "inferior" vegans. There are two common types of sniping attacks vegans make against other vegans. The first is healthier vegans are better than vegans that eat bad-for-you food. Obviously I don't buy into this "philosophy" at all. I'm vegan for the critters, not for myself. The second type of vegan on vegan crime is a self righteous anti-fake meat position.

Now if you want to eat your super healthy hippy shit I'm cool with that. Just because I'm willing to put stuff that's less than good for me in my body, and believe that exercise is for women doesn't mean that I expect you to agree, much less live by this ethos. Similarly, while I love fake meat, I realize that the very thought of meat grosses some people out, so if they don't happen to share my personal tastes I try not to take it personally. I mean, that's just more seitan for the rest of us.

But I refuse to feel guilty because of my tastes, and when some self-righteous asshole tries to put me in my proper "place" I'm gonna call him on his shit! Case in point: this bullshit.

Yeah, well I know maybe I should expect this kind of nonsense from a mushy-headed liberal outfit like alternet, but unfortunately this kind of sentiment has a lot of currency within the vegan community at large. There are a lot of high-horse vegans that look down on people like me, that love seitan, Boca nuggets and chik patties, and those awesome Morningstar Riblets.

This is the thing: I LOVED meat. I didn't give up meat because I didn't like it, but rather because I didn't think it was right to eat it. Giving it up was not easy for me. It was damn hard. Frankly, it would be much harder to be vegan if it weren't for fake meat. So when someone writes something like this, I have to shake my head.

...the next time you go shopping, imagine what a kid gleans from veggie burgers, veggie bacon, veggie sausage patties, veggie hot dogs, Tofurky and all the other similar fare that defines a modern plant-based diet. While none of it contains meat, it is all marketed as emulating meat. In advertising terms, that’s the “unique selling proposition” -- to give you the epicurean benefits of meat without any of meat’s downsides.

...

[This is] the vegetarian industry selling itself to meat eaters by suggesting that its products aren’t actually all that different from meat. The problem is how that message, like so many others in American culture, reinforces the wrongheaded notion that our diet should be fundamentally based on meat.

For those who have chosen to be vegetarians, this message is merely annoying. But for those like [the author's young son] who are being raised as vegetarians, the message is downright subversive. It teaches them that as tasty as vegetarian food may be, it can never compete with the “real thing.”

Raising your kid vegetarian is great -- if I have kids I plan to do that myself. But if you have trouble coming to terms of how to explain to your kid that seitan, Tofurkey, and fake nuggets are different from meat, well no offense, but maybe you should not have had kids in the first place. Call me crazy, but stuff like sex, drugs and the like are the thing I know that I would worry about, not concern of explaining to my kid why these horrible things called Gardenburgers exist.

Make no mistake -- this kind of bullshit it NOT about concern for animals. This is about aesthetics. This is about people have an ideological problem with even the idea of consuming animals, and finding animal products undesirable for stylistic reasons rather than ethical ones. Ultimately this kind of all-or-nothing stance is not only detrimental to veganism and animal rights in general, but it's downright cult-like, imposing limitations on not only what we consume but imposing criteria on how we are supposed to think about what we consume. And we wonder why some people associate vegans with being cultist! It's dumbass garbage like this -- some of us unfortunately ARE cultists! (And hiding behind your child to justify your Orwellian views is not only lame, it's fucking pathetic.)

Like it or not, humans evolved eating meat. Many of us crave it (I know I do), probably for evolutionary reasons. This does not justify it from a moral perspective; just because something is "natural" doesn't make it moral or ethical. We don't need to consume animals to live, or even to live comfortably. Thankfully, thanks to some really great meat substitutes I don't need to kill an animal to get my meat fix. And I know I'm not alone. I honestly don't know if I could be vegan if I could not satiate my meat tooth -- I like to think that I could (I am pretty serious about being vegan), but there would be a lot of people that gave up being vegetarian if you get rid of the fake meat products. 

So you keep brainwashing your child Mr. David Sirota, instilling him with the evils tempeh BLTs and Tofu Pups. I'll keep making my vegan Alfredo sauce, my awesome seitan, barbecue sandwiches, tacos, and the like. And if you think I'm hurting the movement, then you may kindly kiss my chubby vegan ass.

Garlicky Alfredo sauce and Friday night nothingness

I'm insanely bored and restless feeling -- I'm stuck in my home state of Mississippi tonight, alone, listening to Fugazi, and for some reason not getting drunk. So this is as good of a time as any to share something I made last night with the masses (and by masses I mean the three people that will actually read this).

I'm visiting my grandfather -- a true Mississippi good ol' boy -- and decided that while I'm here running various errands, I will also use his thoroughly unsophisticated pallet to experiment. I take this as a challenge; if I can make this man, who thinks pork is its own food group, love something that I made then I've accomplished something. I've done this with chili, a dish I've pretty much mastered (I contend that I make the world's best vegetarian chili. No, your's is not better, nor is Isa Moskowitz's or Jesus Christ's -- mine is the best. Game. Set. Match.)

So, I had a recipe for vegan Alfredo sauce in my head that needed to get out. I made it, and it was a success. He said, he LOVED it. He was amazed that it had no meat or dairy at all in it, which is pretty much what I'm going for. The sacrifice is, of course, health. This is not a healthy dish, but holy Christ Jesus Hisself it's pretty damn good if I do say so myself.

Ingredients:

• One regular size can of coconut milk
• Several (4-5) tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil
• Half a cup (no more) of all purpose flour
• Several cloves of garlic, finely minced
• Fresh cracked black pepper
• Generic dried Italian seasoning mix
• A glass of water (or veggie broth)
• Salt
• Pasta of your choice (16 oz.)

(You will do this while simultaneously preparing your pasta.)

Start off by heating the oil in a pan or small pot on medium high heat with your garlic in there. When it starts to fry a little stir it around so it doesn't stick or burn. Then you want to add your flour to make a roux. Add it slowly, a little at a time. You don't want to add too much; ideally you want the same amount of flour and oil. You will stir it for a couple of minutes. You don't want to cook the roux too long because you want a light one for this dish. Also, be sure to keep stirring! A burned roux is not a good thing.

Add the can of coconut milk and stir it well. The roux will be stuck to the bottom, so make good and sure you get it all. While that heats up add a good bit of fresh cracked black pepper and your Italian seasoning. Stir it in and notice that the consistency of the sauce is like a gravy. (In fact, your sauce should look a lot like white sausage gravy.) You will add water or broth a little bit at a time, stirring it in until it's a proper consistency. Add salt to taste.

Pour is over your prepared pasta in a large pot or some other appropriate serving receptacle. This can feed three hungry people. It's good.

Tacos

It's been too long. Well I will try to do better. This blog doesn't have a huge following anyway, but that certainly won't change if I insist on going awol for months at a time.

For this you will need to make my seitan. (Other, inferior seitan might also work.) You need about 2 cups or so. I like them sliced into strips. It gives them a steak-like feel. If that freaks you out, well sorry, but some of us vegans miss meat and liked it. So deal.

Ingredients:

• 2 cups of sliced seitan
• 1/2 medium onion, diced
• Extra virgin olive oil
• Shredded lettuce or greens
• 8 hard taco shells
• 2 tablespoons taco seasoning (you can sub chili powder in a pinch)
• A small glass of water
• Whatever extras you want (salsa, pico de gallo, guacamole, taco sauce, sour cream, whatever)

First, prepare your taco shells. Try to time it where they are warm when ready to eat.

Saute the diced onion on medium-high heat for a couple on minutes until it starts to get a little translucent. Add the seitan and cook for several minutes until good and hot, and starting to brown a little.

Add the taco seasoning and stir it in. It will be dry, which is where the water comes in. Pour a little in, and savor that cool hissing sound. You will add it until the bottom is good and watery. (Add a little at a time so you don't add too much.) You shouldn't be adding more than a few tablespoons. The goal is to make the tacos really good and tender, not to make fajita soup. If you do add a little much you can boil it out. Otherwise cover it for a couple of minutes.

It should be really tender and ready to put into your prepared taco shells. Add the shredded lettuce and whatever else you want.

This is a pretty simple and very good meal. It's easy to make -- the hardest part is the cleaning. But that's what women are for, right?

Louisiana style red beans and rice

Living (currently) as a southern boy transplanted to the midwest, one thing that I see constantly done wrong here is red beans and rice. Most people around here have no clue what real, Louisiana style red beans and rice is like. When I first moved to Saint Louis almost five years ago I was really stoked about all the vegetarian and vegan options there are for eating out. (Many of the local veggies here bitch, which I marvel at; Saint Louis is likely the most underrated vegan friendly city in the country -- and I've been to the supposed vegan meccas of Portland and San Francisco.) So imagine my horror when I order "red beans and rice"as a vegan selection on a local bar's menu and get basically whole kidney beans with a thin soupy broth served over rice.

First of all red beans and rice are NOT made with kidney beans. Understand that. True red beans and rice use the small red beans. Furthermore, the finished product is not simply whole beans in a broth, but creamy and thick, and not soupy at all.

Ingredients:

• One pound (regular 16 oz. package) of small red beans
• 4 stalks celery, chopped
• 1 green bell pepper, diced
• 1 medium onion, diced
• 1 head of garlic (yes, a whole head), minced
• 4 decent sized sprigs rosemary, finely chopped
• 5 bayleaves
• 1/2 tablespoon red pepper flakes
• One regular (32 oz.) carton of vegetable broth
• Extra virgin olive oil
• Salt

The first thing you do is soak your beans overnight in plenty of water. The alternative to this is the quick soak method. The quick soak method is basically boiling the ever living shit out of dry beans for a few minutes, then taking them off the heat and letting them sit for an hour. It works, but I recommend an overnight soak, as the beans end up a better, more evenly cooked finished product.

After your beans are soaked the next step is to cook them. Throw out the soaking water and replace it with until the beans are well covered with water. Boil them for an hour with your bayleaves. After they are done drain them set them to the side.

Saute your onions, bell pepper, and celery on high heat until the onions start to caramelize. Turn your heat down to medium and add the garlic and the red pepper flakes. (If you think you are bad ass you can add a whole tablespoon, but any more than that and I think the heat starts to take away from the flavor of the red beans.) Stir this for a few minutes making sure it doesn't burn, then add half of your veggie broth.

Bring everything up to a vigorous boil and add half of your rosemary. Let it boil for a three or so minutes, then add your drained, cooked red beans (with the bayleaves) and the rest of your veggie broth. Bring it up to a boil then turn the heat down a little to medium-high. You want a good simmer going on here -- you don't want a full boil but you also don't want a light simmer either. These need to cook about an hour and a half. You need to be sure to stir regularly to make sure the beans don't stick to the bottom and burn. You will also need to add some water a couple of times (a cup or so at a time) as it cooks down. About 45 minutes or so into this process add the rest of the rosemary. Also, take a little taste and add salt accordingly.

Another thing that I like to do toward the end, but is optional, is to take a potato masher and mash the beans up a bit. This gets them a little creamier, which I like.

Serve over rice. Choose your own beans to rice ratio. You can add some hot sauce if you want. Also, this is one of those dishes that's better the next day, so don't eat it all up immediately.

Side dish: roasted cauliflower

I'm a true food nerd. Often times I have a recipe in my head that I just have to try out. These ideas for dished just pop into my head form time to time. A couple of months ago I had dinner with some friends who made a simple and delicious roasted cauliflower dish that was styled on Indian cuisine. They just took various spices and coated cauliflower florets with and roasted it. Cauliflower already has a pretty good natural taste to it in my opinion, and the spice combination did a decent job of complimenting this natural flavor.

Ever since then, and after tweaking and "perfecting"* my marinade, I've been thinking of how to take the great interaction that exists between chili powder and brown sugar and add it to other dishes. For some reasons combining those two ingredients seems to give rise to a new flavor that is better than the sum of their parts. So I decided that instead of using Indian spices I would experiment and alter my marinade to work as a spice mixture with which to roast cauliflower.

So here's what I did -- and it was good.

Ingredients:

• One head of cauliflower
• 1/2 cup of soy sauce
• 1/8 cup white vinegar
• 2.5 tablespoons of chili powder
• 3 tablespoons of brown sugar

Chop the head of cauliflower into florets and set it aside. Add all the other ingredients in a mixing bowl and stir well until well mixed. Add the florets a few at a time and stir into the spice mixture, making sure each piece is coated, after which you will add it to a roasting pan or casserole dish. Keep doing this until all the cauliflower is covered. Put it in preheated oven at 425F uncovered for 10 minutes. Then take it out and stir it, and put it back in for another 10 minutes.

That should do it. If you don't think there is enough of the spice mixture (some cauliflower heads are bigger than others) then add more of each ingredient. This dish goes really well with my meatloaf. I had it the other night.

Guacamole -- K.I.S.S.

I had a bit of a get-together yesterday. I'm not allowed to drink alone any more, so I have to invite people over when I want to get drunk. And while I was at it I figured I should set things on fire in my backyard have a barbecue. Anyway, this isn't another grilling post. I just got a request for the recipe for my guacamole, which by my own admission is pretty damn good. Avocados were on sale at Whole Paycheck for a buck each, so I grabbed seven and decided to make a nice big bowl. I'm going to keep this recipe smaller though.

The trick to making good guacamole is, in my opinion, keeping it pretty simple. You don't need to add a lot of ingredients. This goes along with my general opinion on cooking and food prep in general, which is that you want to use as few ingredients as possible when making anything. This is a constant topic of debate between me and my friend Anna, which is fine. She's a sweet girl and completely entitled to her wrong-ass opinion.

Ingredients:

• 2 avocados
• 1/2 medium red onion, diced
• 3-4 cloves of garlic, minced
• 6 grape tomatoes, quartered
• 1 small lime wedge
• 1/4 teaspoon of salt

Mix this up however you see fit. If your avocados are not that ripe then you can put the lime juice and the tomatoes in first, as the acidity will break the avocados down a bit. Also, this is one of the things I like to just mix using my (usually washed) hands; you can squish it around pretty good and mix it fairly easily.

You can of course, as with pretty much anything else I put on this blog, adjust this as you see fit. If you have regular or roma or cherry tomatoes those will work. You can add a little cayenne pepper if you want a kick, or cilantro if you want to make it disgusting. (Sorry, I know this sounds insane to some people, but I do not like cilantro -- I think it tastes like soap.)