Filed under: Vegetarian , Vegan , Books , Cookbook of the Day Vegan cooking may sound intimidating - or possibly unappetizing - at first, but I assure you that it's not. After all, there are lots of things that even omnivores eat on a regular basis that are vegan, like salads, pasta sauces and even cakes , that happen to be vegan and don't get the name attached to them. Vegan with a Vengeance is a book with over 150 excellent recipes that can certainly stand on their own without having to qualify a "yum!" with an excuse about it being vegan. The recipes are, for the most part, inexpensive and easy. One of the things that is great about it is that, unlike some other vegan cookbooks, there are quite a few recipes for cookies and other baked goods. Check out the ginger cookies and the stunning "fauxstess" cupcakes  at Rae's blog, bunnyfoot , where she sampled a few of the recipes from the cookbook with excellent results. It is a fantastic book to get if you want to have a vegetarian meal once in a while to give your diet (and your family's) some variety, not just if you're vegan. It is also a very useful book to have if you are dealing with allergies to dairy or eggs. If you actually are vegan, however, this is a "must have" in your cookbook collection.

Filed under: Chocolate , Books , Cookbook of the Day Alice Medrich must be one of the most talented pastry chefs to have ever published a cookbook. "Pastry chef" seems like a better description than "baker" because, though she bakes, she specializes in chocolate. Bittersweet: Recipes and Tales from a Life in Chocolate is an exceptional work from her and won the IACP awards for Best Single Subject Cookbook and Cookbook of the Year in 2004, after the book was released. The book covers different types of chocolate, detailing levels of sweetness and types of cocoas, and provides a wealth of information on how to work with it, including troubleshooting common problems. Not only does it cover the topics, but Medrich explains the difficult nature of chocolate in an extremely eloquent way, something which not all writers who have tackled the topic can claim. While her prose is detailed, it pales in comparison to the level of specificity that Medrich applies in her recipes. While it may seem intimidating at first glance, the recipes are still very readable and can walk the cook through from start to finish of some of the most mouthwatering chocolate creations you can imagine. The book is also full of stunning illustrations, should you need any encouragement to attempt the recipes.

Filed under: Television I obviously misunderstood the commercials that Bravo was running to promote the "two hour Las Vegas finale" for the show,  Top Chef . You see, I assumed that the two hours would be run consecutively. I was wrong. This week only featured the first half of the finale and was based around one very long challenge.

Filed under: Vegetarian , Vegan , Vegetables , Steaming , How To Sarah posted that she was surprised to see such large globe artichokes when she was out shopping, but as an artichoke fan, I have been enjoying these for some time. They are significantly larger than your average 'choke - that is my chef's knife in the photo below for a size comparison - and they are so satisfying that they can actually serve as a light meal. The only downside is that you have to dedicate a whole, large pot to steaming one, so it's best to either only prepare one at a time as an appetizer for a group or a snack for yourself.

Filed under: Television Last night, instead of airing the Top Chef finale, Bravo decided to air their Top Chef reunion show. This meant that all 12 of the contestants were called into the studio where they answered questions about their experiences of the show. By taking questions from the message boards on their site, this format is a lot more interesting than simply revisiting favorite moments from the season.

Filed under: Breakfast , Vegetarian , Dairy , Culinary Kids , Recipes , Fruit , How To

Filed under: Books , Trends , How To , Italy The chef of a Michelin-starred restaurant near Verona has recently released a book of gourmet recipes intended for dogs. Bruno Barbieri says that while the 51 recipes in Mangiare da Cani (Eat Like a Dog) can work as people food, they are tailored for dogs. Recipes are low on spices, salt and fat, which may not agree with dogs' digestive systems. A recent article in The Times featured a recipe for quail eggs, polenta and marinated beef on wild salad leaves. An Italian website for the book is available here . Some of you may also recall New Yorker writer Susan Orlean's Throw Me A Bone , a dog cookbook written from the perspective of her Welsh springer spaniel. Food writer Jeffrey Steingarten also wrote about cooking for his dog in It Must Have Been Something I Ate . Permalink     Email this     Linking Blogs     Comments

Filed under: Beef , Culinary Kids , Comfort Food , Slow cooking As a full-time college student, I rarely had the time to devote a whole day to a meal. When I successfully defended my thesis a month before graduation, I decided that it was time to make dinner. Throughout my four years at a small liberal arts school in Florida, I tried not to let the restrictions of dorm life hinder my ability to cook well. When I was getting ready to start school, I called the residence life office to see if my dorm would have any cooking facilities. They told me that the rooms had no facilities, but that there were communal kitchens in each of the dorm complexes. Whomever I spoke with assured me that I would be put in a room near one of these kitchens. Not totally satisfied with the prospect of leaving my room to make a grilled cheese sandwich, I e-mailed residence life and asked what their policy was on students using cooking equipment-hot plates, toasters, microwaves-in their rooms. The reply told me that microwaves were just fine, but that other electric cooking equipment, such as toaster ovens, fell under the category of "Oh, god no!" [Photo: Nick Vagnoni] For my first few months at school, I schlepped my groceries and a meager set of pots and pans from my room-which was in the only dorm complex without cooking facilities-to one of the filthy communal kitchens. The residence life staff at my school was, shall I say, pleasantly non-invasive. As such, it occurred to me that I could probably sneak an electric buffet range into my room without anyone noticing, or even caring. For a few dollars, I found a two-burner electric range that fit perfectly on top of my mini-fridge. With this, my microwave and my cheap pots and pans, I now had a pretty wide range of cooking options. In my very own room, I could make scrambled eggs and bacon for breakfast or soups and pasta sauces for lunch and dinner. My desk doubled as a kitchen counter and the bookshelf that I shared with my roommate became our cupboard. Despite having to do dishes in my bathroom sink, I was overjoyed to be able to cook 'at home.' My makeshift dorm kitchen came together nicely, especially with the toaster-oven I won in game of spades (I had wagered a new bottle of laundry detergent). The room was no doubt a fire hazard. A Bob Marley tapestry flapped above the buffet range, which was balanced on top of my mini-fridge. The toaster sat atop the microwave, which sat atop my dresser. I was pleased. The following year, not having nearly enough seniority to get into one of the dorms with real kitchens, I found myself in a slightly nicer version of my old room. I bought a card table and some wire shelves, and with that I consolidated all my kitchen equipment into one little station. For Christmas, my parents sent me a small convection oven to replace my ill-gotten toaster. I could now roast meats and vegetables and even do a little baking. I was limited only by what I could fit in the oven. To the joy of my roommate and everyone else in the dorm, I began roasting whole chickens dressed with fresh rosemary grown on my small balcony. At the end of the year, my current roommate and I organized with two other students to draw for an apartment-style dorm. Aside from my own bedroom, I would now have a full-sized refrigerator, a sink other than the one in which I shaved and brushed my teeth and-gasp-a dishwasher. I probably could have done without the latter, especially when I realized that the kitchens in these dorms had dishwashers instead of ovens. The electric range, while still only having two burners, was an improvement over my smaller model-it got much hotter and was surrounded by ample counter space. I still had to walk to a lounge if I wanted to bake something big, but I didn't really care. At that point I was excited simply by the prospects of having a room with something that could be called a kitchen. The day for room draw came and my friends and I secured one of the apartments. My convection oven continued to serve me well, and, with a length of chain and some s-hooks, I outfitted my new kitchen with a fine pot rack. That year I cooked everything from pot roast to pad Thai. Finally, there I was: thesis done, baccalaureate exam complete and osso buco bubbling away in the oven. Unfortunately that oven was in one of the lounges-three flights down and in another dorm.   Fortunately, I was able to do most of the preparation in my room. Working from Marcella Hazan's Essentials of Italian Cooking , I sautéed onion, carrot, celery, garlic and lemon peel, then spread the mixture across the bottom of my red Le Crueset Dutch oven (a summer paycheck well spent). Next, I trussed, floured and browned the veal shanks until they took on a deep, walnut-colored crust. I removed them to the oval Dutch oven and deglazed the pan with white wine and then beef broth. I then poured that over the shanks. Finally, I crushed up roughly half a dozen canned tomatoes, sprinkled them over the veal and tucked sprigs of parsley, thyme and bay leaves around the meat. The final step before placing the pot in the oven was to bring all of the contents to a simmer. Rather than carrying a bubbling pot of meat down three flights of stairs, I opted to do this step on the stovetop of the lounge oven. With one of my roommates to help open doors on the way down, I carried the roughly twenty pounds of cast iron, veal and sauce to the oven, which I had already preheated. Every time I baked something in one of the communal kitchens, I made sure to leave a note saying that the oven was preheating. I often feared that some well-meaning soul would walk by, notice a hot oven with nothing in it, and turn it off. Still worse were the times I'd gone down to preheat an oven only to find it already in use-an anonymous tray of brownies or a frozen pizza staring out at me. Apparently I wasn't alone in this frustration. At one point, someone posted a sign-up sheet for the oven; not to monopolize, the sign said, but simply to help curb oven timing conflicts. Fortunately, no one else needed to use the oven on this occasion. Just in case, I put my name on the sheet. I brought the veal and sauce to a simmer and then slid the pot gently onto the oven rack, which quivered under the pot's weight. In roughly two hours, I would have osso buco; I needed only to turn and baste the shanks now and then. Initially, I decided that since I was going to take the time to prepare this dish, I should do it justice by serving it in the traditional manner: atop a bed of saffron-flecked risotto Milanese. Risotto wasn't something I often made in the dorms, mainly because controlling the heat on the cheap and often-abused electric ranges was nearly impossible. When I could dial the heat in correctly, my risotto was great. Other times, what I had after half an hour of stirring was something more like sandy oatmeal. The fact that my meat was in one building and my starch was in another meant that I'd have to figure out some sort of timing compromise. I decided to wait until the osso buco was complete before I started the risotto, which wouldn't take more than a half an hour. The cast iron pot would stay warm for a while anyway. After two hours of basting, the veal was indeed ready to fall off the bone, and, had it not been for the butcher's twine, it would have. I brought the covered pot back to my room and let it rest while I set about making the risotto. I usually don't ask for help when I cook, but risotto is one of those things where I won't hesitate to tell anyone around to "stir this for a while."  Finally, it was done. Words can rarely do justice to the flavors of osso buco. There is a harmony that occurs among certain ingredients that cannot be fully described. Everything melds together to create a flavor both gentle and consuming, which is then distilled into the small caverns of quivering marrow. The sauce from the veal thins the risotto a bit; the meat falls apart at the slightest nudge of the fork. I brought the entire pot to the table and arranged the shanks on a platter. I handed out plates and forks for my friends and roommates to serve themselves. Knives were not necessary. Permalink     Email this     Linking Blogs     Comments

Filed under: Books , Trends , Newspapers , Comfort Food Despite all the hype about celebrity chefs - whether they're on TV or simply known because they're good at what they do - and their cookbooks, the best selling ones are still the same type of cookbooks that have always been popular: basic, all-around cookbooks with tried-and-true recipes. But how could books from Phyllis Pellman Good's Fix it and Forget it series outsell books from the likes of Rachael Ray, whose name alone is definitely a household word?

Filed under: New Products The Nintendo DS Lite is a redesign of a new Nintendo gaming system that is scheduled to have a US release date of June 11th, though it is already available in Japan. Speaking of already available in Japan, there is a game called " Cooking Mama " that has some appeal to us at Slashfood. Unlike Diner Dash , which is a computer game set in a diner, Cooking Mama actually involves cooking. A cute anime-type girl monitors your progress as you slice, dice and prepare over 70 different recipes - all virtually, of course. The recipes can be saved and shared wirelessly with other DS owners. One of the coolest features, though? The game isn't controlled solely with the keypad. When "Mama" asks you to cool something down, you have to blow into the DS's microphone to do it! The game will be released this fall and is expected to retail for under $20. Read     Permalink     Email this     Linking Blogs     Comments