okay, i'm sick of being afraid of agar. sick of it! what's agar-agar? for the omni set, it's a clear seaweed that makes stuff into jello. to some it's known as kosher gelatin, but you'll find it at your local health food store, co-op, or asian market listed as agar-agar. i took the plunge because i wanted to make the black bottom peanut butter silk pie from
vegan with a vengeance in the worst way.
here are some tips to get over your fear of this silly little flake:
1) figure out which form the recipe calls for-powder or flake. in this recipe she doesn't specify, but it is flake.
2) soak the flake in water for about a half hour BEFORE BOILING it. it won't really look like it has changed much, but i read somewhere to do this prior to boiling it because it softens it.
3) as it cooks in the water-(and you'll want to get a nice slow boil going before simmering low) it will look like shredded soap flakes. keep a stirrin', even though you're not sure how it will turn out. have some faith.
4) here it is in all its boily glory. note: in this case it is possible to burn water, so watch yo' self! turn the heat down and keep stirring. you want your liquid to reduce to about a 1/3 of a cup-(mine was slightly more for the recipe). it will develop a bit of a skin on top, but don't freak out. keep stirring the mixture. once your time is up-(um, about 10 minutes give or take from the time you start cooking to finish) pour the mixture in the blender-(careful not to burn yourself) with the rest of the pre-blended pie filling ingredients and WATCH the thickening magic happen. it's pretty cool!
here's a shot of the final product. the pie cooled overnight in the fridge. it was awesome.
find a dish you've been wanting to make, and get over this silly fear!
yeah, so that whole 'i'm-gonna-blog-at-least-three-times-a-week' thing ain't going so well. i'm hoping to change that soon. pshaw. this is my last week working full-time, and i'm looking forward to my return to part-time status so i don't have to feel so rushed when putting dinner together for everyone. point in case: the sandwich hanging out above this paragraph. that's a fridgey feng shui sort of thing i threw together that gave me a couple hours of heartburn. i took some spinach, onions, and peppers--sauteed them all and threw it with some yves vegan peperoni slices and rice vegan cheese on a toasted bun, sort of a vegan ode to quizno's. would i do this again? sure, it wasn't a bad sammie; however, i would skip the rice vegan slices. most vegan cheeses suck and i have just learned to go without most of them, but i thought i'd give that brand a whirl because i got it on clearance once. it doesn't melt. it just bubbles up and toughens a bit. one could very easily end up with a pseudo rawhide chew if they weren't careful.
now here's a fast meal i could eat 5 times a week: snobby joes from veganomicon paired with some fast oven fries. to make the fries, just sliced a baked potato about 1/4 thick, massage with a teeny bit of olive oil, salt, pepper them, and bake at 350 for 10 minutes, then flip and bake for another 7-8 minutes. not a potato chip, not a french fry. something in between those two worlds. snobby joes are awesome, the recipe makes quite a bit, it freezes well, thaws well, and makes my daughter deliriously happy. here she is in a post snobby joe stupor:
kind of reminds me of nick nolte's mug shot, only happier.
