Abused Cows Again in the News

Our local NBC station just ran another report on the meat recall and that undercover video the Humane Society shot at that Westland/Hallmark Meat Packing Co. Even though it’s still kind of dinner time, they showed 4 highly disturbing clips from the footage Oh, and some burgers on a grill just in case you didn’t make the connection. Keep showing it, I say.

“Butter” Tofu

Someone blogged a while back about the fact that you can pick up Butter Chicken seasoning and the spice packet itself is vegan. So last time I was at the Indian market I picked one up with the intention of trying out a “Butter” Tofu. I finally got around to that this week.Here’s the mix I used, the tomatoes I added and the tofu. I’m not sure why the pappadums jumped in the picture…I loosely used the recipe on the back of the box. Here’s what I did: “Butter” TofuIngredients1 pound firm or extra firm tofu, drained and pressed2 tablespoons lemon juice1/2 packet Shan Butter Chicken Mix2 tablespoons oil 1 14oz. can whole cherry tomatoes or diced (smash them if you use whole ones)1/2 cup soy milk2 tablespoons Earth Balance Mix lemon juice, 1/4 cup of water and the 1/2 packet of seasoning mix. Pour over drained, pressed tofu and marinate 30 minutes. Heat oil in a non-stick frying pan. Add marinated tofu reserving the marinade. Fry up until browned. Add tomatoes, soy milk, and reserved marinade. Cover, reduce heat to low, and cook 15 minutes. Add Earth Balance, stir in until melted.Eat.We ate it over basmati rice with Dino’s Collards. Nummy. 

A tale of two muffins

What’s better than baking a batch of muffins? Baking two! For the first batch, I modified the Zucchini Muffin recipe from Yellow Rose Recipes to make it carrot and zucchini. Not much of a modification…just reduced the zucchini and added grated carrot. I also skipped the raisins and opted to toast the pecans in a pan before chopping and adding. We’ll call these the healthy muffins. They have a really small amount of oil and are light on the sugar but they’re still sweat enough and don’t at all taste like hippie food. Plus I got to break in the whole nutmeg I picked up at the Indian market. Wow, does that make a difference! I even cut back the amount a bit so it wouldn’t overpower.

carrot zucchini muffins 

And these Hearty Spiced Cocoa Muffins we’ll refer to as pure evil. This might be my first try at a recipe from The Joy of Vegan Baking.  The heavy reliance on Ener-G Egg Replacer in the book made me a bit nervous as I don’t like it in everything. In this case I had nothing to worry about. They came out perfect and kick much ass. The cinnamon, cloves and cayenne pepper go so well with the chocolate and the higher than usual amount of salt really makes the chocolate flavor pop. I just stuck with the chocolate chips and did not add any nuts. 

Hearty Spiced Cocoa Muffins 

I think it’s kind of funny that I chose to photograph the “evil” muffins against black and the “good” ones against white. Hmmm… Oh, and my helpful tip of the day, well, and probably of the year because I don’t really hand them out, now do I? How often does a muffin recipe make exactly 12 muffins? Not often, right? I have these little muffin cup sized ceramic ramekins  that I use for mise en place, salsa, etc. They’re also perfect for overflow muffin batter. See above. No wasted batter!

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