Vegan Cupcakes

Over Thanksgiving, I had to plan for a vegan guest, which led to find this vegan cupcake recipe. They’re pretty damn good, and for having never made cupcakes before, I thought they turned out pretty well! The one thing to note is that you should definitely find some cupcake/muffin tin liners so that the delicate cake comes out of the tin easily. You can also use parchment paper to line each of the cupcakes which not only will help you get the cake out of the muffin tin easier, but also serve as a nice little way to keep a ton of frosting on top of these things like Baked & Wired does.

Cupcakes:

• 1 cup soy milk
• 1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
• 3/4 cup granulated sugar
• 1/3 cup canola oil
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/2 teaspoon almond extract or more vanilla extract
• 1 cup all-purpose flour, I prefer King Arthur brand
• 1/3 cup cocoa powder, Dutch-processed or regular
• 3/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon sea salt

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350°F and line a muffin pan with paper or parchment paper liners.
2. Whisk together the soy milk and vinegar in a large bowl, and set aside for a few minutes to curdle. You won't see it curdle, but give it about 5 minutes to let it work itself out. Add the rest of the wet ingredients – sugar, oil, vanilla extract, and other extract, to the soy milk mixture and beat until foamy.
3. In a separate bowl, sift together all the dry ingredients – the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder, and sea salt. Add in two batches to wet ingredients and beat until no large lumps remain.
4. Pour into liners, filling 3/4 of the way. Bake 18 to 20 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Transfer to a cooling rack and let cool completely.

This is where using the parchment paper can come in handy. Initially I tried halving the amount of frosting, but it wouldn't be enough to cover all 12 cupcakes. So just be forewarned that you’ll have a little bit of frosting leftover with this (oh right, as if that’s a bad thing).

Frosting:

• 1/2 cup non-hydrogenated shortening
• 1/2 cup non-hydrogenated margarine like Smart Balance
• 3 1/2 cups powdered sugar
• 1/4 cup soy milk

Directions:

1. Beat the shortening and margarine together until well combined and fluffy. Add the sugar and beat for about 3 more minutes.
2. Add the vanilla and soy milk, and beat for another 5 to 7 minutes until fluffy.

There you have it! Cupcake goodness, right at home. Be careful and make sure you hide these the day after you've made them, or someone in your home might be having a few of them first thing in the morning for breakfast…

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Happy Thanksgiving, folks! Hope your day is as enjoyable and relaxing as can be.

-Norm & Jen

Taylor Gourmet Deli is a hoagie shop with two locations in DC, one on the up and coming H street corridor in NorthEast, and one just a few blocks away from Chinatown in NorthWest. The first thing you’ll notice is the innovative use of materials all throughout the shop. Wood pallet planks adorn the walls. Paint buckets dangle from the ceiling, given a new life as lighting fixtures.

Nice.

Taylor Deli's Ceiling Lamps

The menu also boasts a wide selection of sammiches on classic, Philly style hoagie rolls, with each sammich named after the various streets of Philadelphia, even with a decent selection of Vegetarian options.

Jen ordered the Christian Street: Marinated Portabello Mushrooms, Arugula, Roasted Red Peppers, and Goat Cheese, with enough for her to have leftovers the next day.

Christian Street

I had a little bit of a harder time deliberating between the choices, but finally settled on the Penn Square: A Chicken Cutlet sammich with Proscuitto and Provolone cheese.

Penn Square

These sammiches at Taylor Deli are massive, but that doesn’t mean they can’t be accompanied by some sides. In my opinion, the sides here are some of the best things on the menu. Jen and I split an order of the Ridge Ave Raviolis and Rocky’s Risotto Balls. Both are deep fried until a crispy golden brown, and served piping hot with a side of marinara sauce.

Ridge Ave Raviolis

Rocky's Balls. Rocky's Risotto Balls, that is.

I wasn’t too big on the giant hoagie rolls themselves, but apparently that's how they serve 'em in Philly, so it's just my personal tastes. In retrospect, I should have taken up the offer to have a side of pesto with my sammich, because there’s a lot of bread to take down with these sammiches, but that’s just my fault in not listening to the suggestion of the guy working the counter. Jen loved her sammich, and we both agreed that the Risotto balls were outstanding.

Taylor Deli also offers a raft of other products on the shelves, ice cream by the pint, and several flavors of Boyle's soda on tap. Prices are very reasonable, and service is friendly and fast. If you’ve passed by either of the Taylor Delis without running in to try one of their sammiches, you're doing your gullet a disservice and should be reported to the authorities post haste.

Check out Taylor Deli on a map here, or Taylor Deli II on a map here.

Recommended for:

• Vegetarians
• Phanatics
• The inventor of Kitten Mittons
• Sammich lovers
• Paul Giamatti
• Paul Rudd

Not recommended for:

• Yankees fans
• Deep fried goodness haters
• Paleo Dieters
• Paul Simon
• Paul McCartney
• Mark-Paul Gosselaar

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Rose Restaurant isn’t one of those places you pass by and keep an entry on that mental list of restaurants to try out, next to that mental list of birthdates, the mental list of anniversaries, and mental list of things to things of substances to cover yourself in and run naked through the street so that you’d be almost impossible to…

Oh, right. The restaurant.

Like I was saying, the place isn’t the easiest to pick out when you’re driving down Maple Ave (Route 123) . The parking is in the back of the strip mall in the heart of Vienna, and to me, seems to be more of a word of mouth establishment to be in the know of this little neighborhood restaurant. But that being said, it’s well worth a visit. The walls are adorned with beautiful photographs from Iran, with various tidbits of culture history and reference telling you about Iranian culture.

Flatbread with cucumber yogurt dip

The flatbread that comes to your table is warm, soft, fresh, and accompanied by a giant bowl of yogurt cucumber dip. Don’t let that dissuade you from asking for an order of the kashk bademjan, an eggplant dip that doesn’t shy away from packing your mouth full of flavor. Like the time you tried to stuff 50 cheez-puff balls into your mouth to win that two dollar bet and couldn’t taste anything but dehydrodgenated cheese on the inside of your mouth for days after. I mean, who hasn’t had that rite of passage in their formative years?

Kashk Dademjan

The meats here are outstanding. My pants were applauding loudly and vigorously at the succulent kebabs. I ordered the Rose's Special Combo, three giant skewers of lamb, chicken, and kubbideh, or spiced ground beef, which are brought to you after having been taken off the skewers and served with a family sized portion of saffron rice, tomato, and onions.

Rose's Special Combo

I mean really, the meat really is phenomenal. Not a single chunk of dry chicken, flavorless beef, or chewy lamb. This dish might seem a bit expensive, if not better suited for a range more often found within the confines of DC's city limits, but it’s well worth the price, and likely enough to give you a second meal as leftovers.

Service is good and attentive, with very little ambient noise, making conversation easy. I'd highly recommend a stop by if you' in the area, or even after a long day scouring through Vienna's weekend Farmer' Market.

Recommended for:

• Carnivores
• Kebab Aficionados
• Suburbanites
• Designers

Not recommended for:

• People who see peanut butter as adequate public attire
• Robots
• Colonel Mustard

See Rose Restaurant on a map here.

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When in Dallas, one doesn’t think to rush to Las Colinas for dinner. The concrete jungle is home to more office space than Reston, the mustang statues and Trevi’s at the Omni Mandalay. For business travelers who prefer to walk to an amazing meal, Trevi’s is the answer.

At first glance, Trevi’s is not for vegetarians. My server, however, was delighted to offer several vegetarian options. I opted for the gnocchi with a tomato sauce with vegetables.  A beautiful basket of bread arrived before my meal. The garlic was a nice surprise as I always avoid the butter. If you look closely, you will see the butter was too cute to eat anyway.

Flower Shaped Butter...so cute!

I was very surprised by the gnocchi. The gnocchi tasted more like dumplings. I liked them so much I asked my server about the preparation. He said they are pan seared a bit when all of the ingredients are mixed together immediately before they hit the plate. They were so soft on the inside and just a bit firm on the outside. They were also HUGE!  The tomato sauce was light and the dish included a nice variety of perfectly prepared vegetables…not too crisp…not mushy.

Huge Gnocchi

Trevi’s is located in a hotel. Sometimes hotel restaurants are a bit lacking. Not Trevi’s. If you find yourself in Las Colinas, step into the beautiful Omni Mandalay, visit with the exceptional staff, and wander downstairs into Trevi’s. Their Italian fare won’t disappoint.

Bonus: On the 1000 Point Open Table list

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Lilette: A Garden District Gem

I recently had the good fortune to try an amazing restaurant in the Garden District of New Orleans. My colleague asked me what I liked. I said I’m not picky other choosing not to eat meat.  His response was Lilette. I immediately scanned the menu online and was excited by all of the prospects.

We started with a bottle of Barbera D’Alba. The wine came highly recommended and paired very well with our food choices (as promised). One of my dinner guests also goes light on meats, so the 3 of us went veg for all of the appetizers. We selected the Grilled beets with goat cheese and walnuts, Potato gnocchi with sage brown butter and parmigiano cream, and the Eggplant crisps with Skordalia, oven dried roma tomatoes, basil, and oil cured olives. The gnocchi takes home the gold. The beet salad was excellent. The eggplant crisps were fine, but not memorable.

The salad options looked so divine that we could not resist. We chose the Raw salad of brussel sprout, beet, onion, fennel, carrot, arugula, hazelnut and Banyuls vinaigrette and the Shaved Hawaiian hearts of palm with lemon, Parmigiano Reggiano and olive oil. I only tried one bite of the Raw salad, but it was fabulous and I would definitely order the salad at my next visit. My Hearts of Palm salad couldn’t have been more perfect. It was light and just the perfect size. 

We were ravenous, so we moved on to entrees that included The Hanger Steak, Snapper, and another round of Gnocchi. You guessed it-I was the one who opted for more gnocchi. It was superb. My guests cleaned their plates and we were content…well…until our server delivered the dessert list.

I typically pass on dessert. I explained to my guests that I had a 2 Buck Bar from Walgreens waiting for me in my hotel room. I told them how I really enjoy shopping the seasonal candy aisle looking only at the top and bottom shelves for the unusual items. On this occasion I found a $2 gem. It’s a ginormous Andes Mint that could easily last me 2 weeks.  Upon mentioning my love of seasonal candy, one dinner guest mentioned that the dessert list contained many seasonal items. We couldn’t resist.  We opted for the Nutella custard with fleur de sel, caramel cream and chocolate-hazelnut brittle and the Chocolate brioche bread pudding with Earl Grey ice cream and orange caramel. They were both divine. We were especially curious about the Earl Grey ice cream. It sounds odd, but was quite yummy.

Needless to say, I will return to Lilette the next time I am in New Orleans. The ambience was wonderful, the wine list extensive, and the prices were very fair. The service was also excellent. When you are in New Orleans, put Lilette on the top of your to-do list (after buying beads, of course).

Lilette
3637 Magazine Street
New Orleans, LA
504-895-1636
www.liletterestaurant.com

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What is a GastroPub? It’s the idea that a bar (or a pub, as they’d call it in Ye Olde England) can actually serve up some really good food, and still have a great selection of beer. So with that in mind, anytime you have dinner at a GastroPub, you’d get a range of people there, from freshly minted college grads looking for a Romper Room to groups that a little more tame and mature, but still looking for a pint and a meal that doesn’t leave you crawling commando to the Tums you have stashed underneath the bathroom sink the next day.

CommonWealth is one of the several GastroPubs that have popped up all over DC. The retail space has been fully decorated to look like a British pub, with the only thing that’s missing is the smell of warm beer.

Thankfully, they passed over that olfactory detail, but I’m sure you could always get the Yankee Candle scent for it. I think it’s called "The Queen's Knickers".

CommonWealth offers a great selection of beers, wines, and mixed drinks, so those looking to imbibe will not be disappointed. The restaurant also offers daily specials in addition to their normal menu, and the special selection is top-notch. That being said, CommonWealth does a great job balancing the line of offering up a slew of classic British dishes.

You can’t go into a GastroPub without trying their chips. Well, in England they call it chips, but here, you’d call them fries, home fries, or fried potato wedges. Near perfection when doused liberally with some vinegar, and even better when sided with a small dish of cheese and a small dish of gravy.

The entree selection is pretty diverse, and it’s nice to see that CommonWealth offers a decent array of vegan dishes for Jen. She ordered the Tofu Tikka Masala, which came with the biggest Pringles chip we’d ever seen. Well, at least, it tasted like a giant Pringles chip, but the chef claims it to be a lentil cracker. I’d take his word over mine on this one. Savory and delicious, Jen was satisfied with her choice, although finding the mystery prize of some UFO (unidentifiable food object…is it bone? is it a root vegetable) the size of a dime wasn’t exactly expected.

Tofu Tikka Masala

I ordered the Chicken and Dumplings which, to my slight dismay, actually turned out to be Chicken and Biscuits. The chicken was perfectly cooked, but the ricotta biscuits were a bit dry, and the dish could have either used more gravy to offset the biscuits, or perhaps more butter in the biscuits to give them a softer, spongier texture, that would have definitely won me over. We talked to the sous chef a bit and he seemed very receptive to the critiques, which is always a good sign.

Chicken and Dumplings

And now we get to dessert. This is where the magic happens. We sampled a triplet of desserts, starting with the Bread Pudding with Banana Ice Cream on the daily specials menu.

Bread Pudding

The Bread Pudding here is spot on. Not too much, not too little, and for a normal couple, a perfect way to end the meal. Jen and I are both Bread Pudding junkies, but we couldn’t leave it at that.

Next up, the Sticky Toffee Pudding. Again, another instance where I might have had the misconception of a dish, but this was two ubersweet cakes drowning in a lake of toffee, with a scoop of ice cream bridging the gap. This dessert is superubersweet, and damn good.

Sticky Toffee Pudding

On the more tame side, the restaurant also offers a light cheesecake in a tiny mason jar as one of their daily specials. Perfect for when you want just a little bit to top off a meal, or in our case, a meal and two other previous desserts.

Cheesecake

Service here is super friendly, and the food came out quicker than expected. The general atmosphere of most patrons are pretty easy going, but just keep in mind that you’re still in a pub, so you’ll get some tables of pretty rowdy drinkers.

Like the ones that sat next to us.

But really, CommonWealth is a great place to eat up in Columbia Heights, and we left so stuffed. So stuffed that we had to stop by the Target so Jen could throw my ass in a wheelbarrow and get me home. If you’re looking for a good bar to hang out with some friends, get some drinks, and not have to leave to find some decent food in between, this would be it, but keep in mind that it’s still a bar.

Recommended for:

• British ex-pats
• Comfort food lovers
• Vegans
• Dandies

Not recommended for:

• Yankees fans
• Woolly Mammoths
• Romantic Candlelit Dinners
• Low talkers

See CommonWealth on a map here.

This recipe isn’t terribly difficult, but it does require a little bit of planning. You need to marinate the lamb for at least 24 hours before getting it ready to cook. I went a different direction with this one, being a little bit more liberal with the ingredients, so this might be more paleo than it ends up being Zone. With that in mind, let’s get going!

You’ll need:

Ingredients:

• 4 lamb chops
• 2 cups of cauliflower

For the marinade:

• 1 lemon
• 2 cloves of garlic
• 1/4 cup of olive oil
• 1 teaspoon of thyme
• 1 teaspoon of rosemary
• 1/2 teaspoon of salt
• Fresh ground pepper

Directions to prepare the lamb chops:

1. Take the thyme and rosemary off of the stems, and give them a rough chop. This’ll ensure that the flavors get released from the leaves. Place them into a large bowl.
2. Chop the garlic and add to the bowl, and juice the lemon into the bowl. Add the remainder of the marinade ingredients to the bowl.
3. Add the lamb chops to the bowl, and ensure to coat all sides.
4. Cover and refrigerate overnight.

Awesome. Now you’re ready to actually start cooking!

Directions to cook:

1. Preheat the oven to 450 degrees Farenheit. Place an oven safe skillet, preferrably cast-iron, into the oven while it’s preheating.
2. Take 2 cups of raw cauliflower, place it into a microwave safe container. My go-to is always a nice Pyrex glass measuring cup. That way, you can measure it and leave it in the cup. Fill the cup with water, and heat it up in the oven for four minutes, or until cooked.
3. While the cauliflower is making loops on the nuclear merry go-round, take out the now significantly warmer, possibly even scalding hot skillet, and place it on the stove over medium-high heat. Place the lamb chops into the skillet, and let it sear on both sides, approximately two minutes per side.
4. Once the lamb has been seared on both sides, stick it in the oven for about 10-15 minutes, depending on thickness. My lamb chops were about an inch and a half thick, so I went with 15.
5. While Li'l Bo Peep's best friend is in the sauna, take out the cauliflower and drain thoroughly. You can use a hairdryer, but I like to just put it into a colander and let the water pass through until it stops dripping.
6. Put the now dry-ish cauliflower back into the Pyrex cup, and start running a fairly sharp knife through it to dice it. If you have a food processor, that works even better! I really don’t have the space for one, so I’ll use the trashy hobo method. Keep running the knife through the cauliflower, and eventually you’ll start getting some small chunks out of it. Once you’ve got a size you’re happy with, set it aside.


 



7. Once the lamb is done, and obviously no longer bleating from inside the hotbox, take it out of the oven and place the lamb chops aside on a plate where it can continue to cook in it’s own juices. Place a separate pan on a stove burner, and set it to medium-high heat. Pour in a little bit of the oil from the cast iron skillet that had the lamb into the new pan. Try eyeballing out about two tablespoons or so.

8. Now add the chopped cauliflower to your pan that you put the oil into. Add a few turns of fresh ground pepper, and a few pinches of sea salt.

9. Keep tossing the cauliflower in the oil for about five minutes.
10. Place the cauliflower on the plate with the lamb chops, and serve! I like to have a little bit of kim-chee to go with this for the pro-biotics, as well.


This recipe is a little bit hefty on the fat, but don’t be scurred! That’s perfectly fine for being Paleo.

You didn’t toss out the remainder of that oil from the cast-iron skillet, did you? That stuff is gold. Put it in the refrigerator once it’s cooled down a bit, and we’ll re-use it next week.



 

 

Tuck in!

 

 

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OM NOM NOM NOM’s OG, the Cookie Monster, and Ella Morton, of Rocket Boom. Check out the video below.

Image and link credit: Serious Eats

RocketBoom's Cookie Monster Interview

Don Churro Café is, admittedly, a little bit out of the usual territory I hunt for my food. And by hunting, I mean by flailing about at my table until my server sees me, and then ambushing them with a cavalcade of things I want to devour. I could never figure out why so many people from my gym love going to this place. It’s fairly deep out in the IT-laden suburbs of Chantilly, and it’s readily obvious. Normal street names like Flaming Pigeon Lane or Frozen Willow Place are instead, replaced by Motherboard Circle and Metrotech Drive.

But don’t let these things dissuade you.

This little restaurant boasts over 50 different South American and Spanish dishes on their menu, to the point where it’s almost overwhelming. Everything including ceviches, empanadas, tapas, soups, salads, entrees, and even a solid dessert menu. So how well can a restaurant with such a vast number of offerings do with their dishes?

Saltena Bolivia

The Saltena Bolivia, an empanada filled with marinated skirt steak and mixed potatoes, was excellent. Deep fried, but not greasy, and very hearty, and a great way to start off sating some pretty hungry customers.

Arepas con Queso

The Arepas de Queso, corn cakes stuffed with cheese, were well made, but fell a little flat on the taste. A pretty reasonable filler, but if it weren’t for the accompanying salsa verde that came with every dish, I don’t think these cakes would have been that great.

Bandeja Paisa

My entree, the Bandeja Paisa, was a ENORMOUS mixed plate of grilled steak, pork belly, chorizo, plantains, a corn cake, a fried egg, rice, beans, and avocado. I think this would fit under the degustation phrase perfectly. A good variety of foods that covered the gamut of Latin foods, and actually pretty good.

And to wrap up the meal? You have to see how a restaurant handles a classic. Churros it is. It’s also some crap advertising if you call your establishment Don Churros and you fall flat on your face with the dish with your name in it.

Churros Rellenos with Ice Cream

But Don Churros definitely gets this simple dish right. Two piping hot churros, overfilled with a thick, syrupy hot caramel, and accompanied by two giant scoops of ice cream. A perfect way to end any meal, even if your meal consisted of five other orders of churros with a side of a triple bypass. Mmmm. Cheat meal.

Auuughghghghgh...

Conversation is easy, but the place is by no means quiet. Service here could use a lot of improvement, as we were constantly flagging down our server for more water, but I couldn’t honestly say whether it was because they were understaffed or if our server was a bit inept, but the restaurant WAS completely filled on a Saturday night, with the occasional group waiting for a table at the front door. There weren’t any exotic paired flavors or textures here, so you’re not going for the culinary experience. Rather, what Don Churros does is simple South American and Spanish dishes, but simple done to perfection. It speaks volumes when your Latino friends rave about the food here, and I’m sure it’s just a little bit like going back home for dinner for them. You don’t get a complimentary basket of chips and dip here, so be sure to get your fill of tapas while you wait for your entree to arrive, but don’t forget to save room for dessert.

Recommended for:

• Shirley
• Latin home cooking fantatics
• Flamingos
• Bargain Diners
• Suburbanites

Not Recommended for:

• Laverne
• Bar Mitzvahs
• Carless Urbanites
• Impatient Diners
• Calorie Counters

View Don Churro Café on a map here.

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