superbowl dip

We had a superbowl party, and in its honor I made a big casserole dish full of many-layer dip. This is pretty infinitely modifiable.

Preheat the oven to about 350 degrees F.

in a casserole dish of some kind:

spread one can of vegetarian refried beans across the bottom

spread a jar of salsa over the beans

tear two corn tortillas into pieces and spread evenly over the salsa

spread a large container of premade guacamole over the salsa

sprinkle a bag of shredded cheese (sharp cheddar is good) over the guac

spread a can of black beans over the cheese

tear two more corn torillas and spread them over the beans

spread a container of sour cream over the tortillas

chop one large tomato and spread over the sour cream

spread another layer of refried beans over the tomatoes

sprinkle another bag of shredded cheese over the top

put it in the oven for about 45 minutes.

take it out and let it stand for about 5-10 minutes so that it solidifies either dip chips right into the dip or use a spatula/cake server to but hunks of dip on plates for mobile chip dipping


This recipe is infinitely modifiable. I think this version could use more cheese maybe more salsa, maybe less sour cream. more black beans and a layer of mango salsa would change it up completely.

Another option is to add the guacamole and sour cream after it has cooked or put them in separate containers. I like them in it though.

Vegan Blueberry Buckle

On Saturday I had a vegan potluck on my list of things to do, and I had promised to make a dessert. This was maybe not the best idea since I am no vegan baking expert, but I turned to the internet, which is always my friend in times of baking crisis. On the Post-Punk Kitchen website (created by the same vegan chef extraordinaire referred to in sarah emily's last post) I found a user-submitted recipe for blueberry buckle.

I have never made a buckle before, and certainly not a blueberry one, but it seemed like a good adventure. My roommate was using the cake pan to make Jello (she offered it up to me, but I decided I would just be crazy) so I decided to make it in a casserole pan. Why not?!

Here's what I did (lightly adapted from this recipe:http://www.theppk.com/recipes/dbrecipes/index.php?RecipeID=278):

I used my hands to rub earth balance around the inside of my casserole pan.

In a big silver mixing bowl I mixed:
1/4 cup corn oil
1/2 cup sugar (so maybe some vegans won't eat that. so sue me. I'm not about to waste by buying sucanat when I have white sugar sitting in my kitchen!)
1/4 cup soy yogurt (plain plain plain unsweetened)
1 pinch of salt

I mixed these with my very incompetent whisk-that-is-missing-a-handle. It worked ok though, this was not hard to mix. It smelled good too. Like yogurt.

Then I added 1 cup of whole wheat flour and beat that in with the special whisk.
then I beat in 1 teaspoon of baking soda and an additional 1/3 cup of soy yogurt (who knew soy yogurt was useful for anything??)

I spread my dough in the greased casserole with a spoon
then I dumped a little more than 2 cups of frozen blueberries on top and tried to even them out with my hands and not have frozen blueberries all over my floor for stepping on.

Finally I had to make the topping. the vegan topping presents some challenge - vegan fake-butter melts so easily that it is hard to make it crumble. I tried, and failed, but it came out ok anyways:

I scooped 1/4 cup of Earth Balance out of its tub with a measuring spoon and put it in my measuring cup since that was already dirty anyways.
Then I dumped in 1/3 cup of whole wheat flour, and a 1/2 teaspoon each of ground cinnamon, ground coriander, and ground ginger. This smelled really good.
Then I mushed it around with my (clean) fingers and tried to make it crumbly, but then I realized that the more I worked it, the more my fingers warmed it up, so I gave up and just sort of tried to crumble it evenly over the top of the buckle.

Then I put the casserole in the preheated 350 degree oven and left it there for just under an hour (but for a bit more than the 50-minute recommended baking time because I was worried that since my pan was deeper but not as big that it might not cook ok in the middle.)

Finally I took it out, put a lid on it, and put it in a bag and took it on the T to porter square, where it was eventually consumed :).

Here are some pictures (thanks Hilary!):














me eating the buckle because I wanted to try it before I had to go:

with vegan condoms:



also, fyi, a buckle seems to be something with a cake-y bottom, a pie/cobbler middle/ and a crisp/crumble top. Make sense? In theory this was supposed to be cut into bars, but since I made it in a round casserole, that was not happening. Plus then it would cool too fast. but the point is, the bottom is solid and thick and full of soy yogurt-fortified cake, so you could cut it into bars.

Get ready for more posts soon. this was a hard-cookin' weekend.

let's talk about vegan cheese

I have only ever had one vegan cheese product that I liked. I like the "Grated Vegan Topping" in the purple salt-shaker sized container. the other few I have tried are all real gross or weird or just not worth it.

I stopped eating most dairy products because they made me congested and I think my body has to work too hard to process them. Cutting down on cheese has been good for my congestion, weight fluctuation, amount of energy, and avoiding processed foods (lots of dairy products, weirdly). I really miss cheese though.

Ironically, parm is probably one of the more innocuous cheese products - hard cheese are usually minimally problematic for the lactose intolerant, you don't eat as much of it as, oh, cream cheese on a bagel, or giant blocks of cheddar in the woods, and it has a lot of bacterial breakdown goodness. It's weird then that it is the only thing that I have found an acceptable (I wouldn't make risotto with it) substitute for.

Does anyone have any recommendations for cheese substitutes? or suggestions for what I should eat when I'm splurging? (I've been eating a lot of mint chocolate chip ice cream. oops.)