Wednesday Food Blogging

Corn Soup with Fried Shallots

Corn Soup with Fried Shallots: Very much like the first Thanksgiving?

I guess you could call it Thanksgivingy. Corn, after all, is was what the Pilgrams ate. Maybe. The Old World accepted it, grudgingly, from the New World, a fact for which I'm grateful this Thanksgiving.

When I opened my freezer bin (freezers consist of drawers in British refrigerators) this afternoon, I discovered three bags of frozen corn. Why I've been hoarding sweetcorn I don't remember. Probably in case of, you know, nuclear winter. Or a financial crisis. Or maybe just plain old winter.

Anyway, I decided to try a corn soup, with a bit of Southwestern edge in the form of red chiles. And the fried shallots I'd seen in a recipe photo looked promising. My shelves are also stocked with soya cream from France, where, although they're inhospitable to vegans, they're surprisingly adept with soy products.

Anyway, it made for a divine Thanksgiving meal in a non-Thanksgiving celebrating country. With a Pinot Gris, also courtesy of the French, we were more than satisfied.

Here's how:

Food News, T-day edition

Losing your appetite for turkey? The NY Times seems to sympathize.

Here's a list of Gourmet magazine's vegetarian Thanksgiving menus. Just in case you suddenly realized tomorrow is Thanksgiving.

Top Ten Reasons to pardon a turkey this Thanksgiving.

A short history of the bagel. From Krakow to Kansas.

Something to gross you out: Melon Mousse. From the Weight Watchers Recipe Cards, circa 1974. (Via SusanV)

And more gross food.

There; I've done my job. Happy Thanksgiving for those of you celebrating. I'm not doing anything until Saturday, when I'm bringing the veggie main dish to a friend's gathering.

Quinoa "Risotto" with Mushrooms and Spinach

From George Bush's White House to yours: Quinoa "Risotto"

The other day I posted a menu from the dinner at the White House for the G20. I noted the odd naming of "Quinoa Risotto", a misnomer, since risotto is rice and quinoa is an entirely different grain.

What they most likely did, I speculated, not having been invited to the G20 dinner, was give the risotto treatment to quinoa. Except you wouldn't want to insult the quinoa grains with the classic stirring involved in risotto. You'd end up with mush.

Eager to experiment, and with a bag of spinach, mushrooms, and English shallots at hand, I chopped and simmered and created my own version of Quinoa "Risotto". I insist on putting scare quotes around the name, however, since I wouldn't want to mislead anyone.

That Bush administration—misleading to the very end.

If you want to make your own G20 White House side dish, directions are below. You might want to ask one of your guests from the olive growing countries to bring along some nice fruity olive oil. (And if you're a liberal, you might want to experiment with arugula instead of spinach.)

Food News you can believe in

Now that the political season is over, it's time to re-focus on food news here at WFB.

What I've been saying for two years now: It's not food miles! (via)

We can't afford factory farms: The effect of factory farms on the environment.

That burger you're eating? Mostly corn.

We need more research on cancer-fighting beer.

The NY Times tells us to counter food shortages with potatoes. Lovely idea.

More news from the NY Times, this time not-so-lovely: Europe relaxes rules on sale of ugly vegetables. Good; maybe now I can find kohlrabi.

Among Prevention's 14 Surprising Signs You'll Live Longer are: You eat purple food, you avoid diet soda, you're a tea lover, and you don't like burgers. You should also walk a lot.

You probably also shouldn't eat a lot of these: Trader Joe's Lumpy Bumpy Bars. They look like the roads around here after a good rain.

But we can't forget about politics completely, can we? Here's what they're eating at the G20 summit. "Quinoa risotto"? Is that anything like "Bush's intelligence"?

And speaking of intelligence, here's Matthew Yglesias on The United States of Arugula. Because if Republicans are afraid of arugula, how can they govern our country?

That's all I've got. Give it another week to sink in.

Dark and White Chocolate Chunk Cookies with Hazelnuts

Gooey, rich, melt-in-your-mouth chocolate chunks embedded in batter.

I had to row for 25 minutes on the rowing machine today in order to afford one of these yummy cookies. But it was worth it. With large dark chocolate chunks, white chocolate nuggets, and flavorful hazelnuts embedded inside the batter, these cookies are like a little chunk of heaven.

I adapted the recipe from a British recipe, which used weight instead of volume measurements, and I used an egg substitute. The article recommended leaving the batter in the refrigerator overnight, or even longer, so I patiently waited a whole day to bake them. I tried really hard to forget about them, though a nibble of the batter gave me a taste of what was in store.

Letting the batter sit means the flavors—the chocolates, the hazelnuts—infuse throughout the cookies. While you could bake them after 2 hours, try to wait longer. Next time I'll wait two days, which make these a perfect make-ahead cookie.

So if you're coming to visit, give me a couple of days notice. And a few hours at the gym.

For easy directions, keep reading.

Thanksgiving: What's a vegan to do?

Before you decide what to eat on Thanksgiving, give some thought to the birds that, fortunately, won't make it to anyone's dinner table this Thanksgiving. And then give them some cash. Turkey feed ain't chicken feed, you know.

For $25 you can adopt a turkey from Farm Sanctuary. The birds stay there—don't worry, you don't even need a back yard, just a credit card. You can even choose which turkey you'd like to adopt. They're all adorable, though, so it's a hard decision!

Next, try a turkey substitute. Here's my pre-Thanksgiving post from last year. It has several links to vegan non-turkey recipes suitable for Thanksgiving. And here's another meatless loaf that just came across my wire, from the Meatout Mondays email list I subscribe to.

You can also check out Gentle Thanksgiving for more. That mushroom gravy may very well make its way to my Thanksgiving table this year.

(By the way, we usually celebrate Thanksgiving, even though it's not a holiday in Britain. Most Americans here celebrate on the Saturday after, since they don't get the day off work.)

Don't let cruelty mar a day that's especially for giving thanks. It's really easy, and delicious, to avoid eating turkeys these days.