Frozen Margaritas Your Way

We love frozen margaritas. They're just the thing to take the edge off a hot Saturday night in Houston. They don't just go with Tex-Mex or Mexican food, either. Try a Margarita with Thai food - you'll love it!

Margaritas are typically made from silver tequila, lime juice and an orange liqueur, such as triple sec, Cointreau or Grand Marnier. But you can substitute just about any fruity liqueur for the orange liqueur. A couple of years ago, I got in the habit of trying different liqueurs in each batch of frozen Margaritas I whipped up. One night, I asked Jim which flavor he wanted most. He felt like Margaritas with Midori, a bright green melon liqueur. As soon as he said that, I was disappointed. I realized that I was craving Hpnotic Margaritas (Hpnotic is a cognac-passion fruit blend.) So, I figured out a way that we could both have what we wanted.

Frozen Margaritas Your Way

6 ounces (3/4 cup) frozen limeade concentrate
6 ounces (3/4 cup) silver tequila
juice of 1 lime (optional)
ice (about 3 trays worth)
as assortment of fruity liqueurs, including, but not limited to:
    triple sec
    Cointreau
    Curaçao
    Grand Marnier
    Midori melon liqueur
    Hpnotic
    Alize cranberry or passion fruit liqueur
    lemoncello

Add limeade concentrate, tequila, and lime juice to a blender jar. Add ice to the top. Puree (you may need to let the blender run for 5 minutes or more for smooth Margaritas.)

Divide Margaritas into 4 glasses. Add 1 tablespoon of liqueur to each glass and stir gently. Add a straw.

Classic Frozen Margaritas

6 ounces (3/4 cup) frozen limeade concentrate
6 ounces (3/4 cup) silver tequila
2 ounces (1/4 cup) Grand Marnier
juice of 1 lime (optional)
ice (about 3 trays worth)

Add limeade concentrate, tequila, Grand Marnier, and lime juice to a blender jar. Add ice to the top. Puree.

Serves 4. Don't forget the straw.

Gobi Manchurian

I will never make this recipe again.

It was tasty enough. It was extremely delicious, in fact. But dinner was an hour late, and you should have seen my kitchen when I was through - it was a disaster! Pots and bowls and spoons, drips of batter and splatters of oil were everywhere. This is why I don't like to batter and fry things.

However, I liked the recipe enough that I'm thinking of how I can make it without such a big mess. The sauce was fantastic. I could use it on all sorts of vegetables. Or I could oven-roast a head of cauliflower and try the sauce that way. It might not be Gobi Manchurian anymore, but it would be less messy (and healthier). Whatever I come up with, I promise to report back when I have a success!

Veganomicon Revisited: Mocha-Chocolate Chip Ice Cream and paying for someone else's salt

The last time I made ice-cream was twelve years ago. My son was in kindergarten and having his first "real" spring break. I tried to think of fun, inexpensive things we could do to make the week special, and thought it would be fun to make homemade ice cream together.

I added the ingredients for mint-chocolate chip ice cream, his favorite, to our grocery list, and headed to the store for our weekly shopping. I came home, put the groceries away, started to make the ice cream, and discovered that I had forgotten to buy salt. Since I have a small, electric ice cream maker that uses regular ice cubes and table salt, and I had plenty of ice on hand, buying more salt completely escaped my mind.

Off we went, back to the grocery store. As we were standing in the express lane with our carton of store-brand salt, I could tell Tyler was feeling a little put out. I don't blame him - what five-year-old wants to go the grocery store twice in one day? So I chattered with him, telling him, "I promise this is the last time we have to go the store for a while. Once we buy the salt, we'll have everything we need. We'll have ice cream after supper tonight, and you can say you helped make it!" While I was chattering away, I opened my wallet and...nothing. Not a single dollar. I checked my pockets. More nothing. And I was pretty sure that I didn't have any change in the car, either.

Okay, so I'm officially having a bad day now. I'll have to write a check for 27 cents for the salt. At least I have my checkbook. Feeling grumpy and annoyed with myself, I continue talking to Tyler, "Guess what? I don't have any money! I'll have to write a check for 27 cents! How silly. I hope the store doesn't mind!" The woman ahead of me pays for her things and moves off, I hand my carton of salt to the cashier and say apologetically, "Uh, I this is all I have but I have to write a check. I hope you don't mind?" He points to the woman ahead of me and tells me she paid for it. She paid for my salt!

I laugh, call a thank-you to her, and say, "I promise to pay for someone else's salt some day." My bad day is a good day, as suddenly as that.

Since then, I've looked for opportunities to pay for other people's salt. While I haven't yet had the chance to purchase sodium chloride for a stressed-out stranger, I have managed to make someone's day a little easier, plenty of times. Sometimes it's as small an effort as letting someone go ahead of me in line, or holding a door open for a few extra seconds, but I think it all adds up. Also, I have a tendency to be impatient (just ask anyone who has ridden the car with me), so looking for these opportunites every day has been a great way to slow down and avoid being a jerk to someone I perceive to be in my way. I'm more likely to look people in the eye and smile as we meet up while going about our day.

Twelve years later, it's spring break again, and I've decided it's been too long since we've had homemade ice cream. This time the recipe comes from Veganomicon.

After I posted a mini-review of Veganomicon recently, my friend Melissa of The Papaya Chronicles asked me if I would do a full length review for VegPeople, the site where we met and now both help to moderate. I felt like I hadn't made enough from it to do such an epic cookbook justice, so I asked her if she would join me. We emailed back and forth, writing our review as a conversation, Siskel and Ebert style. It was a bit of work, a lot of fun, and I think the resulting review was greater than the sum of its parts (the parts being me and Melissa!). We didn't exactly agree about the cookbook, either, which was unexpectedly cool. (She also mentions the review on her blog.)

As we emailed back and forth, we talked each other into making things we hadn't tried yet. I talked her into making the Cheater Baked Beans, and she talked me into making ice cream.

This ice cream is amazing. It tastes better than any homemade ice cream I've made from dairy ingredients. I think it's easier, too, since you just whiz everything together in a blender and go.

Mocha-Chocolate Chip Ice Cream

This is not one of the variations in Veganomicon, nor is it made exactly like the original recipe. For that, you'll need the book.

Before beginning this recipe, refrigerate all ingredients overnight, and freeze the can of your ice-cream maker for at least an hour. Make sure you have plenty of ice and salt on hand!

The recipe calls for 1/2 cup of cream of coconut. This is just the coconut cream that you can scoop from the top of a can of full-fat coconut milk when you don't shake the can. It's even easier to scoop up when the can has been refrigerated. I used Thai Kitchen organic (not lite) and got a cup of coconut cream, enough for a double recipe.

1/2 cup cream of coconut

1 cup Very Vanilla Silk soymilk

2/3 cup granulated sugar

6 ounces silken tofu (1/2 of a box)

2 tablespoons decaf instant coffee granules

2 tablespoons cocoa powder

1/2 cup dairy-free chocolate chips

Puree all the ingredients except the chocolate chips in a food processor or blender. Add to chilled ice cream maker can and add the chocolate chips. Follow the instructions that came with your ice cream maker. Makes almost 4 cups.

Whole-grain Blueberry Muffins

I was digging around in the freezer and found a bag of blueberries that I didn't know I had. Bonus! I actually have no idea what I bought them for. Since I had baking mix on hand, it was easy to use them in muffins.

I like the fluffy texture that coconut oil gives to these. It seems to help baked goods keep longer, too, not that these muffins are going to last long around here.

Whole-grain Blueberry Muffins

1 cup blueberries

2 cups whole-grain baking mix

1/2 cup sugar

1 cup soy milk

3 tablespoons coconut oil, melted

Preheat oven to 400 F.

Rinse blueberries and spread on a paper towel to drain slightly. This will keep your muffin batter from turning blue.

In a medium bowl, combine baking mix and sugar with a fork. Add soy milk and coconut oil and mix until just combined. Don't over do it. Gently fold in blueberries with a large spoon.

Spoon into oiled muffin cups. Bake for about 20 minutes, or until tops are golden and spring back when touched.

If you fill your muffin cups 2/3 full, the recommended way, you'll get 12 muffins. I like to live dangerously and fill the cups to the top, so I got 9.

Asparagus Risotto

Tender, thin spears of asparagus are just hitting our stores now. We like to gorge on asparagus all spring when it's at its best. My favorite way to prepare it is steamed with a little bit of garlic and served with a squirt of fresh lemon juice and a pinch of sea salt. When I'm tired of plain asparagus, I like to make this risotto. A teaspoon of mild, white miso stands in for each 1/2 cup of Parmesan cheese that was in the original recipe.

Next time I make this, I plan to make it in the oven, like the last risotto recipe I posted.

Asparagus Risotto

4 cups salty vegetable broth
1/2 pound asparagus
2 tablespoons olive oil
1/2 cup minced white onion
1 cup Arborio rice
1/4 cup white wine, such as Pinot Grigio
1 small yellow squash
2 tablespoons Earth Balance margarine
1-1/2 teaspoons mild white miso

Heat vegetable broth in a medium saucepan, and then turn down heat to lowest setting that will keep broth hot. Snap woody ends from asparagus and discard. Cut asparagus spears into short pieces. Add to hot broth. Cut squash into short, thin pieces and set aside.

Heat olive oil in a large, deep, sauté pan. Sauté onion until tender, 3 to 4 minutes. Stir in rice and cook about a minute. Add wine and cook, stirring constantly, until most of the wine is absorbed.

Add about 1/2 cup of broth (without asparagus) and cook, stirring frequently, until most of broth is absorbed. Repeat with another 1/2 cup broth. After adding about 2 cups of broth to the rice, add the squash to the asparagus in the pot. Continue stirring broth into rice 1/2 cup at a time. When most of the broth has been added, start adding the vegetables to the rice, along with each 1/2 cup of broth. Stir rice until it reaches desired creaminess.

Remove from heat and stir in Earth Balance margarine and miso.

Serves 3-4.

Three-grain Crispy Tacos with homemade taco seasoning and lime crema

When the going gets tough, the tough make tacos!

My life has been going great lately, actually, at least outside of the kitchen. In the kitchen, though, things haven't been so smooth. Last week, for example, I tried to make marshmallows. They were a complete failure. After looking at my thrashed kitchen with nothing to show for it, all I had the heart for making for dinner was tacos.

A couple of days later, I was planning on testing a recipe from a new cookbook, and an ingredient I thought would be readily available wasn't at any of three large supermarkets. It's frustrating enough to go shopping twice in one week. While at the last store, I had to think of something else to have for dinner, and it needed to be something I knew I wouldn't forget an ingredient for. I was not going to the store a fourth time, no way. This called for, you guessed it, more tacos!

Actually, this taco recipe originated with a kitchen failure. One of the first recipes I made when we quit eating meat was a buckwheat and hominy casserole. I was attracted to it because it was something that could be doubled and frozen for later. However, when we tasted it, we both thought it was bland. Since I was going to freeze some of it, there was going to be a lot of bland leftovers, and since it had a bit of cumin and chili powder in it, there wasn't much I could do with it. So, I bought an envelope of taco seasoning, added it to the bland casserole, and turned the leftovers into tacos. They were a huge hit.

Since we had just had guacamole, I came up with something different to top them with, lime crema. I was careful not to eche mucha crema a mi tacos.

Three-grain Crispy Tacos

1/2 cup quinoa (I used red quinoa this time)

1/4 cup buckwheat

1-1/2 cups water

1 cup corn, canned, fresh or frozen

taco seasoning (recipe below)

1/2 cup water

18 taco shells

shredded lettuce

lime crema (recipe below)

salsa

In a medium saucepan with a tight-fitting lid, combine quinoa, buckwheat and 1-1/2 cups water. Bring to a low boil, reduce heat to a simmer, cover and cook 15 minutes.

When the water is absorbed, uncover and stir in corn, taco seasoning, and 1/2 cup water. Cook over medium heat, carefully stirring, until water is absorbed, 3 or 4 minutes.

Crisp taco shells according to package instructions.

Serve with lettuce, lime crema and salsa. Serves 4-6.

Leftover filling will freeze and makes a nice burrito filling.

Taco Seasoning

This substitutes for an envelope of store-bought taco seasoning. It's fairly hot - you'll end up with two-alarm tacos. Double the cayenne for four-alarm tacos (I dare ya!), or leave it out for false-alarm tacos.

1 tablespoon corn meal

1 tablespoon chili powder

2 teaspoons cumin

2 teaspoons vegetarian chicken or beef broth powder

1-1/2 teaspoons smoked paprika

1 teaspoon onion powder

1 teaspoon oregano

3/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon garlic powder

1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper

Lime crema

2/3 cup sour cream (such as Tofutti Sour Supreme)

juice of 1 lime

1 clove garlic, minced

1/2 teaspoon salt

Whisk all ingredients together.

Yellow Rice with Saffron

When I was a beginner cook, I often bought boxed mixes to speed things up in the kitchen. One of the mixes I expecially liked was the yellow rice that comes in a long package. I got enthusiastic about cooking from scratch and quit buying most of the prepared food I had at one time. A few years went by and I had a craving for the yellow rice, so I bought some once more. This time, though, it was almost too salty to eat! It's amazing how our tastes change over time.

I still wanted yellow rice, though, so I came up with this one. We had this tonight with enchiladas.

Yellow Rice with Saffron

If you want to use long-grain rice instead of basmati, increase the water to 1-1/2 cups. The best tomato paste for this is the double-concentrated kind that comes in a tube, packaged like a tube of toothpaste.

1/2 teaspoon olive oil
3/4 cups white basmati rice
1 tablespoon tomato paste
1/4 teaspoon saffron threads
1/4 teaspoon oregano
1/4 teaspoon paprika
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons water

In a 2-quart saucepan with a lid, stir together the olive oil and rice. Add remaining ingredients and bring to a low boil. Reduce heat to low, cover, and simmer for 15 minutes. Uncover, fluff with a fork, and allow to stand for a minute or two to before serving.

Serves 3-4.

Chorizo-potato Tacos

This is one of those recipes that came about when we were tired, hungry and late for a grocery store run. I had a couple of avocados to use up and found some Soyrizo (meatless chorizo) in the freezer and potatoes in the pantry. This has been a house favorite ever since.

Chorizo-potato Tacos

Leftover baked potatoes are great in this, and speed it up even more.

a generous tablespoon olive oil
2 medium potatoes (about 3/4 of a pound)
1/2 package soy chorizo (6 ounces)
10 flour tortillas

To serve:
guacamole
shredded lettuce
salsa

Heat olive oil in a large skillet. Dice potatoes into 1-inch cubes. Sauté until crisp and tender, turning once or twice. Add soy chorizo to potatoes, stir well, and heat through.

Heat another skillet, preferably non-stick, over low heat. Add a tortilla and heat for a few seconds. Drop a second tortilla on top, flip the stack and heat for a few seconds. Drop the next tortilla on the stack, flip, and heat. Continue with remaining tortillas.

Serve with guacamole, shredded lettuce and salsa. Serves 3.