Vegetarian Lamb Loaf

This idea started when I found this lovely lamb shaped cake mould at a resale shop.

Now, I know this is was intended to be used for cake, specifically Easter/Spring celebration cakes, but since I was raised in a house where lamb was served regularly, I thought it would be interesting to do a meat loaf in the shape of a lamb. I used Textured Vegetable Protein as the meat substitute, but Smart Ground would probably be more suitable if you'd like your lamb loaf to resemble meat.

When I suggested creating the lamb loaf, I had to enlist the help of a few friends who have actually consumed meat loaf. Depending on your feelings towards meatloaf, I was either lucky enough to enjoy a childhood free of the torturous meatloaf, or deprived of one of the great staples of American cuisine.

In the process of collaborating on a recipe, it was decided that this would be as much of a spectacle to consume as it is a meal. So behold the LAMB LOAF SLAUGHTER:

First, you'll need the following for the lamb:

1 lamb or other animal shaped cake mould
3 cups of uncooked TVP or 2 packages of Smart Ground
1 yellow onion finely chopped
3 cloves of garlic pressed or minced finely
2 tablespoons of prepared horseradish
2 tablespoons of olive oil
1/2 cup of water in addition to the water needed to rehydrate the TVP (see package for instructions)
1 cup of shredded carrots
2/3 cup of shredded Parmesan cheese (of Italian Blend is also good)
2 tablespoons of Italian seasoning
1 can of tomato sauce
Salt and Pepper to taste
1 cup of breadcrumbs
2 eggs beaten
Butter to grease mould
approx. 1/2 cup of ketchup

This recipe is large because the mould was rather large and I wanted to be sure to have enough to fill the lamb. You can always reduce the amounts to accommodate a smaller mould or regular loaf pan.

Pre-heat your oven to 375 degrees. In a large saucepan, heat the olive oil, add the garlic, onions, horseradish and carrots. Saute until soft and fragrant. In a separate bowl, combine dry TVP with seasoning and rehydrate according to instructions. Add the re-hydrated TVP to the saucepan and cook for 10 minutes. If you're using smart ground, you can skip this step and just add the smart ground and seasoning directly to the pan. 

Add the tomato sauce,  cheese, salt and pepper and breadcrumbs. Blend well and taste to make sure it doesn't need additional seasoning. Add almost the full amount of two beaten eggs. You should have a little left over so you can use it as an egg wash for the surface once the loaf is cooked.  The excess egg should be in the fridge while you prepare the rest of the meal.

Grease your pan well. This lamb mould is detailed and I didn't want it to get stuck, so I buttered it heavily. Spoon your meat mixture in the pan until it is almost full. Smooth it out so the top is flat. Bake for 35 minutes at 375. I have an old stove, so cooking time may vary based on your oven.

While the loaf is cooking, prepare mashed potatoes and green beans as you would normally. I'd suggest reducing the milk in your mashed potato recipe and adding 1/2 cup of cream cheese. This will make for a much stiffer and creamier potato. This will be your lamb fleece and the green beans, the grassy hillside for the lamb.

Once the lamb is cooked, remove from the oven and turn over on a cutting board, so the loaf comes loose from the pan. Let cool and remove the mould. At this point you may have a bit of filling stuck in the mould.  You should scoop it out and reform the lamb appropriately. Place the lamb loaves flat on a greased baking sheet. You'll likely need two sheets. Take the remaining egg, add a little water and brush the surface of the lamb. Put back in the oven for another 20 minutes until a crisp crust forms.

My understanding of meatloaf before this consisted of two facts: 1. it was the most dreaded of all loafs, 2. it was only made tolerable with lots of ketchup.Thus, I incorporated 1/2 cup of ketchup in the recipe.

When your loaf has cooled, hollow out two paths in the interior of the loaves and fill with ketchup. These will be the main ketchup arteries. The loaf was too heavy to stand upright, so it was leaned on the bed of green beans at a slight angle.

Take a pastry bag and fill with warm-ish mashed potatoes. Pipe the potatoes thickly on the surface and sides of the lamb to create a mashed potato fleece.

Be sure to assemble the parts on a oven safe surface such as a cookie sheet, so you can stick it back in the oven to get hot. Heat for 10-15 minutes before serving.

Voila!

...and for those who were waiting for the slaughter shot:

look at that ketchup gush out.

This was served to a eager book club while we discussed Difficult Loves by Italo Calvino

Comments

This blog originally started as a way for Daria and I to share recipes with each other regularly since we no longer lived in the same city. Due to several suggestions given to me by regular readers, I will be enabling comments.

All comments will be monitored before posting because we are control freaks.

Love,
The ISP Team

Thanksgiving Pizza

Pizza is one of the most perfect foods ever created. My roommate has opened my eyes to this. In our recent cross country road trip/13-state-pizzathon, the boundaries of what is and is not pizza was challenged. At one point, I wondered if I’d ever enjoy Pizza again. However, this recipe proves that pizza is a fighter. You think it’s down for the count and then it comes roaring back, like a vicious pizza tiger. I was ready to give up on pizza, but pizza wasn’t ready to give up on me!

I think we came up with this idea somewhere after our stop in Bozeman Montana. Thanksgiving Pizza. It’s everything we love about fall and thanksgiving in one our favorite formats: Pizza. I suppose you can make this with Thanksgiving leftovers, but since it’s September, waiting didn’t make much sense.

You'll need:

1 1/2 cups of mashed potatoes

1 cup of green beans

6 oz fresh mozzarella

1 cup of sliced mushrooms

1/2 a purple onion, chopped

4 cloves of garlic, minced (feel free to adjust if you like less garlic)

1/4 cup of cornmeal
1 package of frozen/refrigerated pizza crust at room temperature

1/2 package of tofurkey slices, or sliced quorn roast (you can use real turkey if you're not of the veggie persuasion)

1/2 cup of cooked, sweetened cranberries

2 tablespoons of flour

2 tablespoons of olive oil

1/2 cup of warm water

Pre-heat your oven to 375.  Take your dough, I bough mine from Trader Joe’s, but I’m sure you can make it from scratch if you feel so inclined, and roll it out on a lightly cornmealed surface. You can use flour, but cornmeal adds an extra crunch that worked really well with this recipe. 

Once the dough is the desired shape and thickness, take a fork and poke holes in the dough to break any air bubbles that may form while cooking. Coat the pizza sheet or other baking pan you plan on using with more cornmeal. Place dough on pan and bake for 10-12 minutes. 

The first layer was garlic mashed potatoes. These were made from scratch. 2lbs of unpeeled redskin potatoes, mashed with butter and cream cheese and a little soy milk to thin them out. Garlic, salt and pepper to taste. Once the crust is partially cooked, spread a thick layer of potatoes.  Place the potato layered crust back in the oven for another 5-7 minutes. 

Slice your quorn or tofurkey roast thinly. It’s not yet tofurkey,quorn roast season, so I got the Tofurkey deli slices instead.

Take the pizza out and add the tofurkey, fresh or frozen (thawed) green beans, fresh mozzarella, and cooked sweetened cranberries (again I got the frozen Trader Joe’s kind). Put back in the oven for 15-20 minutes.

While it’s cooking, heat 2 tablespoons of olive oil in a large saucepan. Sauté chopped purple onions, garlic, and mushrooms. Add ½ a cup of water. Let simmer. Slowly stir in 2 tablespoons of flour until the sauce is thick. Continue to stir until sauce is thoroughly heated.

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Once the pizza is ready, drizzle a layer of mushroom sauce on top. This pizza is best served with a pumpkin ale, or nut brown ale. I'd suggest Fat Squirrel, brewed by New Glarus Brewing Company. 

Avocado Monster

This is not food related, but oh my god this is the biggest thing I've ever grown! I've got another one sprouting and it should be ready to plant in another couple of weeks.

I'm going to try my hand at a mulberry tree next. There are a few baby trees near a mulberry down the street from my old apartment. It's growing in the alley, so I'm pretty sure it doesn't belong to anyone and will likely be pulled next time the city repaves.

Pretty soon our apartment will be a jungle. rawrrrrrrrrr!

Picnic Dinner in the Park!

Even though we've been having an ridiculous heatwave, I wanted to spend some time outside on Friday. I get out of work early on Fridays in the summer, so I get to enjoy an early start to the weekend and there's no better way to start the weekend than a dinner picnic in the park.

Chicago has no shortage of beautiful outdoor spaces and I'm lucky enough to live equidistant from two great parks.

The picnic menu featured a few favorites and some new creations:

• Curried Chickpea Salad
• Salted Garlic Kale Chips
• Hard Boiled Eggs
• Tomato and Olive Bruschetta w/ toasted Rye Bread
  
• Couscous Stuffed Mushrooms
• Mackinac Island Fudge

I guess this is a mega post since I'm featuring the recipes for curried chickpea salad, tomato & olive bruschetta and the couscous stuffed mushrooms.

Curried Chickpea Salad:
1 can of chickpeas drained and rinsed
2 tablespoons of curry powder
1 teaspoon of ginger
1/2 teaspoon of mustard powder
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper 
1 clove of garlic, pressed or minced finely
1/2 teaspoon of turmeric
1/2 teaspoon of salt
2/3 -1/2 cup of water (it depends on how thick you want your curry sauce)
1 teaspoon of olive oil
1 small- medium yellow onion, chopped
1 1/2 cups of mustard greens
1/2 a green apple, chopped
1/4 cup of dried cranberries

In a saucepan, heat the olive oil, add chopped onions and cook until slightly browned. Add chickpeas and cook for about 5 minutes. Add half of your water and let simmer. Mix in garlic, curry powder, salt, turmeric, cayenne pepper, ginger and mustard powder. Blend well. Add the remaining water and stir. Let simmer for 6-10 minutes on low heat. Allow to cool to room temperature.

After the chickpeas are at room temp, combine greens and apples in a bowl and stir in chickpea mixture. Top with dried cranberries and serve with a baguette or other crusty bread.

Tomato & Olive Bruschetta 
3 medium size Roma tomatoes, chopped
3 cloves of garlic pressed or finely minced
1 tablespoon of olive oil
1 14oz can of black olives, chopped
1 handful of fresh basil (approx 1/3 cup), chopped
1/2 tablespoon of balsamic vinegar
salt and pepper to taste

Mix all ingredients in a large bowl and let sit for 20 minutes to allow the flavors to marinate. Serve over toasted bread.

Couscous Stuffed Mushrooms
10-12 medium size mushrooms (baby bella or button mushrooms are good)
1/2 cup of cooked couscous
1/2 medium onion, chopped
2 cloves of garlic, minced
1 roma tomato, sliced thinly
1 tablespoon of olive oil.
a wedge of lemon for each serving

Wash mushrooms well and peel the outer layer of skin. This isn't necessary if you wash them really well, but I do it because that's the way my mom always made stuffed mushrooms and I figure she has good reason. Using a small parring knife, cut the stem as close to the head as possible, so you have a little mushroom bowl. Chop the stems coarsely, these will be used in the filling. At this point, pre-heat the oven to 325.

Cook the couscous according to the instructions on the package. In a large saucepan, heat oil and saute onions, garlic and mushroom stems until thoroughly browned. Mix in the cooked couscous and stir until well blended. Remove from heat and let cool.

Use a small spoon to fill the mushrooms with the filling. The filling should be densely packed in the mushroom cap. Top with a slice of Roma tomato and set in a shallow, lightly greased baking tray and bake for 12-15 minutes. Serve with a wedge of lemon for those who like a more tart mushroom.

This meal was lovingly topped off with some iced green tea, served in my new favorite mug. I found this gem in an thrift store in East Lansing, MI last weekend.

On another note, I'm currently making some Sun Pickles! This is the first time I've made them, but they were a staple of my childhood. My mom would make huge jars of them every summer. They won't be ready until Sunday, since they have to sit in the sun for a few days and finish fermenting. The jar with the darker water has dried sage instead of dill for flavor.


Sun pickles are much like sun tea, so some people are reluctant to try them since there's a healthy amount of bacteria that forms in the fermenting process, which can look gross.  However, I assure you these are the most flavorful pickles in the world.

I'm so excited to taste these. If they turn out good, I may stock up on jars and pickle cukes to make a supply for the winter.

Quinoa Salad

Quinoa is quite versatile and with so many quinoa salad recipes available, there's no shortage of new and interesting things you can do with it.  However, most of the quinoa recipes I've come across call for quinoa to be served cold when in a salad. This recipe is different because the quinoa and the dressing are both served hot.

Salad
1 1/2 cups of cooked quinoa
1 1/2 cup of mustard greens cut into approx 1 inch strips
1 shredded carrot
1 coarsely chopped roma tomato
1 coarsely chopped green apple
1 coarsely chopped red apple
1 head of broccoli (steamed or raw)
 
Dressing
3 tablespoons of almond butter
1/2 cup warm water
2 medium cloves of garlic, finely minced
1 tablespoon of ginger
salt to taste

The garlic, ginger and almond in the dressing provide a warm  and sweet flavor contrasted by the tartness of the apples and complemented by the spiciness of the greens.

Cook the quinoa according to the instructions on the package while you chop the veggies and fruits (and steam the broccoli if you so choose). In a small saucepan at low heat add the almond butter. Stir until it is soft and creamy. Slowly add half the water and stir. Add ginger and garlic (also add salt if you desire). Continue stirring and add the remaining water until the dressing is well blended and hot.

This recipe makes 2 servings, maybe 2 1/2 depending on how big you like your salad. On two plates spread the greens evenly, add the cooked quinoa, cover with tomatoes, apples, and carrots. Drizzle with hot dressing.

Gombóc!

Made a huge batch of these little guys yesterday and now I'll be set on sweets for the next month. For those not in the know, gombóc are Hungarian plum dumplings. The batch I made are plum and apricot since I had a crap ton of fruit that needed using.

These look intimidating, but are actually pretty easy to make. The only drawback is they take quite a bit of prep. So here's what you'll need:

5 medium potatoes, boiled in their skin
3 medium eggs
3-4 cups of flour, plus some for when you roll out the dough
1 teaspoon salt
8 small-medium ripe plums, halved or quartered depending on the size
6 ripe apricots
1 tablespoon of olive oil
1/2 cup - 1 cup of farina
6 cups of water

Boil the potatoes, peel the skin off by hand while submerging them in cold water. I find the dough is of better consistency it the potatoes are warm when you mash them, but if you don't like touching hot potatoes, you can just let them cool and then peel.

Mash the potatoes with a fork, add 1/2 teaspoon of salt and eggs. Mix together thoroughly. Slowly add the flour until your dough pulls away from the edges of the bowl and is not too sticky. Be careful to not add too much flour, or the dough will be too chewy and thick.  Let the dough rest while you rinse, and cut the plums and apricots.

Add salt to the 6 cups of water and bring to a boil. Roll out the dough on a floured surface and cut into approx. 3x3 squares. Put one fruit piece in each square, and wrap the dough around the fruit. Make sure you seal the edges since you don't want any leaking when you boil them.  If your dough won't stick, use a little warm water to seal the edges.

Drop a batch of gombóc (5-6 depending on the size of your pot) into the boiling water. Adjust them periodically so they don't stick to the bottom. When they float, they're done. Remove them from the water and set them in a strainer. If you're good at multi-tasking in the kitchen or are a master of the gombóc, you can do the boil and fry steps simultaneously. If not, boil all the dumplings and then coat/fry them.

In a frying pan or wok (I find the wok works really well for coating), heat the olive oil and add 1/4 cup of farina. Brown the farina and then roll the gombóc in the farina until they're well coated. Add more farina as needed.
I usually take the excess brown farina and add cinnamon and brown sugar and use it as an ice cream topping.
 
You can top them with white sugar as I have above, or brown sugar, or you can eat them plain if you don't have a big sweet tooth. Occasionally, I like to serve them with a little vanilla ice cream with the cinnamon brown sugar topping.

Prep Time: 45 minutes
Total Cook Time: 20-25 minutes
Yields: 42 gombóc

   

Oatmeal with Blueberries and Floral Honey

I don't normally hock products since I think a big part of cooking is using what is available in your area. Often, looking for a specific product can get costly and be quite time consuming. However, I recently discovered this line of New Zealand Floral Honeys: Airborne Floral Honey So far I've tried the Rata, Kamahi and the Beech Forest Honeydew. I already love honey, so now I have an excuse to experiment with it more often.


I've started getting in the habit of eating breakfast at breakfast time instead of at 3:00am after the bars close, so this is the first of hopefully, several breakfast related posts. Although, this isn't really a recipe as much as it is a pairing of 3 simple ingredients. Oatmeal, Blueberries and Beech Forest Honeydew Honey.

There's something about the tartness of the blueberries mixing with the rich malty, yet very floral flavor of this honey that make it a great combination when added to oatmeal.

In other news, I have been trying to shed my black thumb and grow SOMETHING! I got this How To Grow Indoor Avocado Trees book at the thrift store a few months back and decided to try my hand at some indoor plant growing. My recently purchased basil plant died and so did my attempt to keep bamboo. However, I'm having amazing luck with the avocado seeds!!!!

Just look at this beast! The stalk has grown another two inches since this photo was taken and I got another three root stalks coming from the bottom.  The book says I have to prune the top stalk or it will grow tall and skinny, instead of outward and full. I guess I don't want a sparse looking house tree so I'm going to follow the instructions, but I'm just so excited that I was able to make something other than mold grow.

I have three other seeds going, so if I can make them all sprout, everyone is getting avocado plants for x-mas. Oh also, I used organic avocado seeds since I've heard that the other kind are sterilized. The tree will likely never produce fruit and if it does it won't be for at least five to seven years, so lets see if I can keep it alive long enough to find out.

The Name's Salad, Potato Salad

It has been quite some time since either of us have updated. Our non-internet lives have prevented us from updating regularly. I'd like to say it's because we were snowed in atop mount doom or playing with kittens on the moon, but no, we were traveling across the globe, distributing glitter to needy families. Hopefully, we'll be able to update more now that the world has been sufficiently glittered.

In other news, my refrigerator broke last week, so I had to use as many of my perishable items as possible. Thus, I present my mouthwatering potato salad:

This is always a hit at BBQ's and other summertime events since it goes well with most picnic/BBQ fare and it keeps well. Mayonnaise grosses me out, so I try to avoid it or at least reduce the amount normally used in such dishes.  For this you'll need:


3 Eggs, Hard Boiled (peeled and chopped)
8 Medium Red-Skin/New Potatoes
1 Medium Yellow Onion (chopped)
3 medium Green Onions (chopped)
1 Tablespoon Garlic (minced)
1 Medium Green Pepper
1 Can of Black Olives (chopped)
2 Teaspoons of black pepper
1 Teaspoon of salt
1 Teaspoon of Cayenne Pepper
1 Teaspoon of Sweet Hungarian Paprika
1 Tablespoon of Honey Mustard
2 Tablespoons of mayonnaise
1/2 Teaspoon of Sriracha Sauce (optional)
1 tablespoon of water
The Juice of 1/2 a lemon

Boil the potatoes whole until you can easily insert a fork in them. Rinse really well, and quarter. DO NOT PEEL.  Set them aside in a separate bowl to cool while you prepare the other ingredients. You should add the salt to the potatoes while they're cooling.

In a large bowl, combine eggs,green pepper, olives, yellow and green onions, and garlic. Mix well. Add the cooled, salted potatoes and mix. Add the black pepper, cayenne pepper, and paprika. Mix. Add Honey Mustard, Sriracha, mayo, lemon juice. If the salad looks to dry, you can add a tablespoon of water or an extra tablespoon of mayo. 

I usually dust the top with a little extra salt and paprika. It adds to the layers of flavor in this potato salad.

The picture above features some vegan southern style jalapeno cornbread on the side.  I shall post that recipe at a later date.