August 1, 2010 – 10:21 pm
Summer is here. Kiddie pools and swimsuits. BBQ’s and cold beer. Isn’t this just the best? Are you having fun? I hope you are. I am. What a month. What a blue sky. What a 10pm sunset. I wish August could last forever. And ever. And then it could last a little bit more.
Hey, do you remember no-bake cookies? Cocoa, oats, peanut butter. Being shoo’d away while they’d cool? They are part candy, part cookie. They set up instead of bake and their chewy texture comes from boiling sugar until it turns into science. They never crumble or dry out. To share one you more pull it apart than break it in half. This got me thinking about what may be their highest calling: a starring role in an ice cream sandwich.
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Nut burgers. Nut. Burgers. Nutburgers.
Hee hee.
Aside from their name, there’s nothing unappetizing about these little guys. They’re more like an Americanized falafel than a hamburger, better with fresh vegetables than ketchup. But delicious with cheese. Monterey Jack perhaps? Or cheddar? Both sound tasty. They whip up fast and the only cooking required is a quick pan fry at the very end, making them perfect for those 85º days when your kitchen is flooded with sunlight and captures only the rarest of breeze.
This recipe is a take on a veggie burger that I was fond of in Minneapolis. When everyone else was devouring giant, size of your head size hamburgers, I’d settle in with an equally large, fresh vegetable-tastic one of these. Cucumber, tomato and a handful of sprouts on top of the melted cheese, served up on an almost chewy bun with a side of perfectly done french fries. And a Coke. I never once felt like I was missing out on anything. Well, other than heart burn.
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I’ve been in Austin, TX exactly once, for exactly one week. The number of times I had migas: zero. I had gingerbread pancakes. I drank my body weight in margaritas. But no migas. At the time, I hadn’t really heard of migas. When suggested by a kindly stranger or hotel concierge, they seemed to stop being suggested when I’d confess my vegetarian-ways. Migas seemed a dish for the meat-eater; pancakes and hard alcohol seemed like the breakfast of the vegetarian.
I gathered what migas were from their many fans. The sausage, tortilla and egg combo that made the teller’s eyes roll back in their heads, a bit of drool emerging from the corners of their mouths as they recounted their many migas breakfasts and the best places to partake. “I want to go to there.” I thought, “I want to go to there real bad.”
And when I finally did manage to try them I was a fan, too. Soy chorizo, farm fresh eggs, ripe tomatoes, avocado, a squeeze of lime. Did I just drool a little? Probably.
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We live in the age of the large muffin. The size of your head muffin. The it-can-take-a-whole-day-to-eat-it muffin. While they definitely offer bulk, they usually don’t offer much else. These mass produced behemoths lack flavor and texture — wholly unsatisfying which is a little surprising since it took two hands to lift.
But not all muffins are like that. Some are made with love. And real fruit.
Like these. These are the good kind. They’re a wee bit denser than your typical run of the mill muffin with a flavor that is purely delightful. It’s almond with that sour cream/yogurt tang and the raspberries are fresh and bright. So good. They truly taste much better than my description reads. My empty muffin pan can attest to that.
Making these reminded me that I really enjoy baking. I’ve read a lot about how it’s more science than cooking and you need to be careful since each ingredient and its exact quantity is there for a Very Good Reason but after hundreds of preheats to 350º, I feel kind of invincible. Like nothing can go wrong that you can’t fix. Like, say, you forget to cream the butter with the almond paste, you can blend the almond paste in with the yogurt later on when you realize that you’ve been following the wrong recipe. The muffins will come out fine. I know this from experience. Maybe even this actual experience. OK, yeah, that happened.
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Po-tay-to. Po-tot-o. Either way, twice baked and stuffed with cheese is something we can all get excited about. Right? Right. It’s the queen of comfort food. The high priestess of starch. The secretary of ‘tater.
This recipe got me thinking about the mashed potato and its place in our collective hearts. For instance, a Google search of “I love mashed potatoes” returns 2.6 million results including t-shirts, a Facebook group and some guy who has that screen name on MySpace and who, you know, graduated from the London School of Business with a Master’s Degree. For comparison, “I love turnips” yields a measly 1.3 million results, the top one being a guide on how to learn to love them. Poor turnips.
A quick poll of my friends was all good news for the mashed potato. Not a-one wasn’t a fan. Clean sweep. Favorite way to eat them? Smooth. A little lumpy. Skin on. Skin off. Loads of butter. Sour cream + chives. In a boat, with a goat. Etc. And mine? I like them simple. Salt, butter. Maybe a bit of vegetarian gravy. But when I have potatoes on the brain, it’s this recipe — cheesy, fluffy, spinachy perfection — that I turn to.
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