Trying to stay on my digital toes here...
In keeping with Nakenjen's eggless cakey goodness (that's not to say that you, NJ, are cakey. Let's be clear. Yes. Ahem). What was she saying? Oooh, yes - cake.
First, an ovoid question: is it a Bakerina testament that there shall be no cracking of the orbs? I figured we cannot fully appreciate their goodness (in the global sense of 'allness') if they are not completely explored. Outside and in. But um, I frequently miss important lessons when I don't show up for class and might need a crack against the noggin (I dare you...use an egg. Go on. You know you want to).
Cakey goodness. Alas, the cake up yonder has no praline nor raspberry sauce. But c'mon, there is only so much moaning a gal can put out in one serving. Cut me some slack? It was the birthday cake served to me last year by a beloved friend in Arlington, VA. Marbled mousse torte. MmmmMMmm.
I was all set to post a couple of little paintings of eggs. Then I read nakedjen's post, and I couldn't do it. You see, the paintings in question - paintings that I think are quite lovely - are of broken eggs. As nakedjen noted, Jen loves eggs. However, these eggs will certainly keep until another day.
Our Bakerina also loves bread. While I can't promise that the bread in this painting is vegan (although it doesn't look like an egg bread to me), the water certainly is.
(Painter Duane Keiser has a blog, A Painting a Day, on which he posts his small still life paintings.)
An orgasm of another kind. Absolutely no eggs required. Not that eggs are required for the types of orgasms our dear ‘mouse has offered up, but our dear sweet Bakerina is one who is rather enamored with eggs. I can even say that I think she finds them, ahem, orgasmic! I, however, am not quite so fond. So for those of you who want to venture to a land where even eggs are safe from being cracked, I offer up a Chocolate-Almond Midnight cake. From Millennium restaurant in San Francisco. I can more than vouch for its goodness. It really and truly has no match.
Let the eggs become chickens. Give this recipe a whirl. Cross my NakedHeart and hope to, well, hmm, uh, strip! You won’t be at all disappointed.
Chocolate Almond Midnight
Makes one 8-inch cake; Serves 12 (or perhaps just 2 if you’re living at our house. I have no idea how an 8-inch cake could ever truly serve 12. Certainly not if they love chocolate, could possibly want seconds and must have more for tomorrow during tea).
Cashew Crust
1/3 cup unsalted cashew nuts
3 tablespoons sucanat
3 tablespoons canola oil
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
1/8 teaspoon sea salt
Chocolate Mousse
2 cups (16 ounces) malt-sweetened, non dairy chocolate chips
24.6 ounces extra firm low-fat silken tofu
3/4 cup sucanat
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/8 teaspoon sea salt
Maple Almond Praline
1/4 cup maple syrup
1 cup slivered almonds
Raspberry Sauce
2 cups fresh or 10 ounces unsweetened frozen raspberries, thawed
1/4 cup sucanat or fructose
To make the cashew crust:
Preheat the oven to 350. Lightly oil an 8-inch round springform or false bottom pan. In a food processor, grind the cashews until they resemble fine meal. Add the sucanat, oil and vanilla. Process again until well combined. In a small bowl, stir the flour and salt together. Add the cashew mixture and mix into the flour, beginning with a spatula and ending with your hands. Press the crust into the prepared pan. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, or until light brown and dry.
To make the chocolate mousse:
In a double boiler over barely simmering water, melt the chocolate chips. In a blender or food processor, combine the silken tofu, sucanat, vanilla and salt. Process, then add the melted chocolate and blend for 2 minutes or until very smooth and completely combined.
Preheat the oven to 350. Lightly oil the sides of the cake pan above the prebaked crust. Pour the mousse mixture into the pan and bake for 35 minutes. Let cool for 10 minutes, then run a paring knife around the inside of the pan. Let the cake cool to the touch, refrigerate for at least 2 hours before serving. Unmold just before serving.
To make the praline: In a heavy-bottomed saucepan, bring the maple syrup to a boil. Boil for 1 minute. Add the almonds and stir constantly until the maple syrup has completely crystallized on the almonds and the almonds appear dry.
Pour the almonds onto a baking sheet and let cool. Store in an airtight container for up to five weeks.
To make the raspberry sauce: In a blender, combine the raspberries and sucanat, then blend to a smooth sauce. Strain the sauce through a fine-meshed sieve. Store in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 1 week.
To serve: Cut a big slice of cake and ignore the fact that this is supposed to serve 12. For each serving, pool raspberry sauce on a place and top with a slice of cake. Top with lots of the maple almond praline and garnish with fresh fruit, cocoa powder and mint.
You can make a wheat free version of this by replacing the all-purpose flour in the crust with rice, barley or spelt flour.
[as far as i know, jonathan franzen has the last word on revenge cooking , in his terrifically amusing chronicle of the crazed y2k era, The Corrections.]
my wife sometimes is a miserable ogre, god love her, it's all part of the sugar&spice female mystique, they'll bite your head off one moment and then give you orchid soft head the next, there's no way to explain these platypussian factory-seconds of the great evolutionary toyota factory, sometime you just gotta live with em because you'd shrivel up and die if you couldn't.
that said, however, when their inner menstrual-monster has grabbed the subcortical control room, approach that dinner table with the same sort of trepidation exhibited by bomb squad rookies. you will eat what is put in front of you: like an execution, there are a few certainties. you will eat all of it: otherwise it wb hysterically flung to floor accompanied by shrill recitation of the time you made a play for that trailer trash bimbo who was here to care for the baby, your own son, how could you do such a thing? don't try saying, honey, honey, that was six weeks ago, it's all in the past: no, get down on the floor like the craven dog you are and lick up that meal pottery shards and all.
how to make a revenge meal
-----------------
liver and onions, of course, are staples, but why not branch out to moosewood territory?
3 cups each bulghar, kasha, lentils, yentils, yak genitals
one onion the size of a basketball
fish emulsion juice, no pulp
2 cups crushed gallstones from a non-genetically modified elk
2 lbs bad bad sashimi off the al's seafood reduced rack
goy sauce to taste
flounce up the grains, whee, all around the bowl, put em in a blazingly hot pot with like 1/32 teaspoon of some low quality cooking oil. beat down the yentils, sploof up the gentials.
throw in the onion. yes, you could mince it within an inch of its life, but who the fuck cares, this is a revenge meal. your family needs to know who runs the joint. while you're at it, throw in everything, mash it with a mallet, sprinkle on some more goy sauce and perhaps some calicium chloride walkway deicer.
you could stir it around; you could turn the heat down to low: but what has anyone ever done for you? take a break, go watch springer. you'll know it's ready when the whole house fills with smoke.
shrilly call out the word 'dinner' as if you were announcing an air-raid. run around the house grabbing people by the ear and drag them to their slop. now for the grace:
in the name of the father, the son and the holy spirit, bless this food which some of us cut burn and ruin our health preparing for ungrateful swine who should just all be taken outside and butchered right now, amen.
slop it all around, giving the most to those who eat the least. give a real time blow-by-blow account of what a miserable fucking day you had. ask children if they been brushing teeth and what about proper ass-wiping, sheesh, you're all gonna be in college someday still wiping from the front.
if husband dares speak, immediately breakdown in tears. not the trailer trash bimbo issue again: oh yes, buster, and don't think i won't brain you with the frying pan again, so far i haven't seen an improvement.
little pip cries out, mommy, i'm going to vomit. that's okay, you say kindly, just lean over your plate, mommy's gonna make you eat it all back again.
suddenly, a ray of sunshine shafts through your dark mood: kids, dad, if you're members of the clean plate club, there's ben & jerry's ice cream for dessert. like prizefighters given new life by having swollen eyes lanced, your family makes a game attempt to consume pre- and post-vomit revenge meal sustenance.
halleluja, the clean plate club is triumphant! however, seems the ben & jerries fell behind a radiator when the babysitting bimbo was defending her honor: she may have been a no-good homewrecking floozie, but she sure knew how to hurt an insanely jealous harridan like you. yes, it's true, ben & jerries is nothing but moldy glue.
so, umm, kids, daddy, who's cleaning up this mess? mommy's got a migraine coming on, i simply must go lie down. i hope someday you all appreciate how i suffer for your happiness. a woman's work is never done, oh, isn't it the truth. if anyone should happen to check, if you see i'm not breathing why don't you just give a phone call the valium overdoes hotline.
