Category: Food

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Wanted: good, mostly vegetarian, freezable make-ahead meal menus

I would pay good money for this: a website or cookbook with good, mostly vegetarian make-ahead meal menus (eg., dinners for an entire week that you could prep on your day[s] off, freeze, and then reheat day-of). Bonus if many of them were “throw and go” (that is, freezable uncooked but then thawed and finished on the day of eating). The few websites I’ve been exploring so far have the structure I like, but the majority of recipes seem too meat-heavy and aren’t very progressive.

I posted the above grousing on Facebook, and the thread that sprang up around it had some great suggestions. I’m posting them here for posterity. (Facebook search leaves a lot to be desired.) Normally I’d give props/credit via links, but I’m omitting names for privacy’s sake. Continue reading “Wanted: good, mostly vegetarian, freezable make-ahead meal menus”

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How difficult and/or crazy would it be to re-create McDonald’s beef tallow–cooked fries?

First things first: you HAVE to read Jeb Boniakowski’s post on The Awl about building a giant Epcot-like “McWorld” in Times Square, which would serve all the special international McDonald’s dishes. It made the rounds the other day. And deservedly so. It’s brilliant. Besides offering the Chicken Maharaja Mac or the Croque McDo, he also … Continue reading How difficult and/or crazy would it be to re-create McDonald’s beef tallow–cooked fries?

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We’ll be eating Robicelli’s for dessert this Thanksgiving. You should, too. Here’s why

Robicelli's baked goods
Robicelli’s sells brownies and loaf cake via mail-order, as well as hot cocoa mix. (Their famous cupcakes, alas, are not available for shipping. But that should not stop you from buying.)

The short version of this post: If you want to help someone who is in turn selflessly helping the hardest hit by Sandy, all you have to do is order some of these delicious brownies or loaf cakes for Thanksgiving and/or the holidays.

The longer version: Continue reading “We’ll be eating Robicelli’s for dessert this Thanksgiving. You should, too. Here’s why”

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‘College town pizza,’ Lawrence, Kansas, 1992

To me, “college town pizza” (University of Kansas — Rock Chalk Jayhawk!) will always be Pizza Shuttle, Gumby’s (since closed), Papa Keno’s, and Rudy’s. (Pyramid was for folks in the Greek system.)

Rudy’s was as close to what J. Kenji Lopez-Alt, writing on Slice, describes as “college town pizza,” which he defines as pizza being over-topped and over-cheesed. Except that kids at KU tended to not overtop it — at least not those who I knew. Not because we were enlightened pizza purists looking to avoid a “garbage pie” but because it cost more. We were cheap bastards. Like most college kids. Hell, we’d rather spend our money on beer. (In my case, beer and pinball.)

Pizza Shuttle and Gumby’s were delivery and take-out only. I don’t know anyone who ever went to pick it up. If you owned a car, by the time you were in a state to actually crave Pizza Shuttle or Gumby’s, you had no business behind the wheel. Continue reading “‘College town pizza,’ Lawrence, Kansas, 1992”

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Tartine Bread … because I haven’t updated this in a while

My first loaf of Tartine Bread's "basic country loaf."

Haven’t updated on Tartine bread because, well, it was pretty damn successful the first time I made it. Figured, hell, what do I need to say besides, “It works!”

But you know with gambling — and this is what I’ve only heard — is that if during your first time gambling you win big, you just assume you’re always gonna win big. Similar thing here.

My first batch of bread was pretty damn good. Seriously, better than anything I’ve had from the bakeries in my neighborhood. But … Continue reading “Tartine Bread … because I haven’t updated this in a while”

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Tartine Bread, Day 11: Need to formalize starter proportions for Cavanagh

For the Tartine Bread starter (which I’ve named Francis*), I’ve been roughly following the original amounts and proportions that Chad Robertson lays out in his book Tartine Bread. As I’ve said in earlier notes, for daily feedings he has you discard all but 20% of the starter and then add to the remaining blorb an equal mixture of flour and water. I believe he says something like “amount doesn’t matter.” But I’ve been adding back the same weight of stuff I’ve discarded. Which, yes, as my friend John Wozniak points out, is pretty wasteful of flour. (In fact, I’m now more than halfway through my two 5-pound bags of white and whole-wheat flours just on growing the starter alone). Flour is relatively inexpensive, and I anticipate I’ll modify the feeding once I make the recipe exactly according to the book. Continue reading “Tartine Bread, Day 11: Need to formalize starter proportions for Cavanagh”

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Tartine Bread, Day 10: Video malfunction

Same as yesterday for both starters, though today when I got home I noticed that Cavanagh must be easily doubling in bulk, since I saw crusty evidence of that on the sides of the glass bowl I’m using to grow it in. This morning I tried using a timelapse video app to capture the activity while I was at work. Unfortunately, the app seems to have crashed about 15 minutes into the day. Going to try to set that up again this weekend or Monday. Continue reading Tartine Bread, Day 10: Video malfunction

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Tartine Bread, Day 8: Do you like watching paint dry? Grass grow?

Because that’s what it’s like waiting for this starter to take off. I know it’ll get there, just getting impatient. And not much to report otherwise. Instead, I’ll just show you this: That’s Il Cornicione’s Basic Country Bread. He and I (and Caleb Schiff) have been talking on Twitter about this recipe, and Il Cornicione … Continue reading Tartine Bread, Day 8: Do you like watching paint dry? Grass grow?

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Tartine Bread, Day 7: Bringing in the designated hitter, Cavanagh

I’ve brought Cavanagh up from off the bench (i.e., the refrigerator) and have revived it after months of neglect. Which is first-hand proof for me that you really can resuscitate a starter you’ve all but left for dead. What I’m going to do is keep feeding the TB starter and see if I can get it to take, but if not, I’ll use Cavanagh next weekend to make my first loaf of the Basic Country Bread. Continue reading Tartine Bread, Day 7: Bringing in the designated hitter, Cavanagh

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Starting a journey with ‘Tartine Bread’

I picked up Tartine Bread over the weekend after seeing my buddy John Wozniak rave about it on Twitter. I’ve been meaning to find a great book on naturally leavened bread, and this seemed a good candidate. After reading the first chapter and coming to an understanding of the recipe, I felt I could justifiably start the “Basic Country Bread.” To make it, you’ve first got to grow a starter. Continue reading Starting a journey with ‘Tartine Bread’