Em oi! #187 & 188

Compared to next week's comics, #188 is not so exciting. I'm fond of #187 though.

Em oi! #185 & #186

Got a bit hung up on other stuff this weekend and these, consequently, were not posted.



I suppose I have no additional commentary on them, except that the longer I look at 186, the less satisfied with the art I am.

Random Vegetable Curry

Does that sound like kind of an apathetic title? Because this is kind of an apathetic recipe. Luckily it was delicious.

Ingredients

• 1/2 eggplant, chopped
• 1/2 sweet potato, chopped
• 1 large zucchini
• 1 1/4 blocks baked tofu, chopped
• 1 tin chickpeas
• 1 tin nuoc cot dua (coconut cream or coconut milk)
• 1 T. red Thai curry paste
• 1 T. brown sugar
• 1-2 T. soy sauce
• 1 handful spinach
  

Methodology

1. Put veg in pot with a little oil. Add coconut milk and let it simmer.

2. Add curry paste and brown sugar. After a while, add in the tofu and the chickpeas. Cover and let everything boil until the sweet potato is tender.

3. Add the soy sauce (to taste). Throw in a handful of spinach at the end and let it wilt.

4. That's it.

Notes

*This came out well. Good with toasted pita.

*About 250 calories if serving 6, if 8 about 192.

*Needs more curry paste.

Oatmeal Cranberry Chocolate Chip Cookies

From here, with some changes.

Ingredients

• 1 1/4 c. white whole wheat flour
• 1 c. quick oats
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 tsp. cinnamon
  
• 1 c. brown sugar
• 1/4 c. margarine
• 1/2 c. + 2 T (6 oz) low fat plain yoghurt
• 1 tsp. vanilla
  
• 1 large egg
• 1/2 c. + 1 T. dried cranberries
• 1/2 c. + 1 T. chocolate chips

Methodology

1. Preheat oven to 350*.

2. Mix flour, oats, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon in a bowl.

3. Mix brown sugar, margarine, yoghurt, vanilla, and the egg in another bowl. Stir the wet into the dry until all combined, adding a little extra flour if necessary.

4. Add the chips and cranberries. Drop in heaping teaspoons two inches apart on a greased cookie sheet and bake for about 10 minutes, or until brown.

Notes

*Makes about 30. I forgot to count before I got into them, but I think it's about 30. With my changes, it works out to about 104.5 calories/cookie.

*Very fluffy and cake-like. I was worried that they weren't good, but then my taste-testers ate about 8 of them between the two of them, so I figure they're okay. Next time maybe I'll use actual butter and just leave out the yoghurt, see if that makes them a little crisper. Also regular oats instead of quick oats.

Em oi! #184

I'm pretty sure this is exactly what Vung Tau was like. Amirite, Ly?

Another script found while moving.

Em oi! #183

This raises the question of "Should I ask?", which I guess I'm not entirely comfortable with.

This was a panel from a script I found while moving. It was never drawn, since it had too many people in the panels to look clean.

The Remarkable Ice Cream Cake

So I have this idea that major life changes should be rewarded with cake. It seems like a good way to let people know that you approve of their choices - in this case, quitting an awful job.
This recipe has a lot of parts and takes a while to put together, but it's not actually very difficult. It's vegan because the friend I baked it for is vegan, but it doesn't have to be.

Ingredients

Cake:
1 1/3 c. flour (I use white-whole wheat)
3/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp ginger (or a bit more)
1/4 tsp cloves
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp pumpkin pie spice
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 c. brown sugar
1/4 c. pureed pumpkin
2 T. oil (like vegetable oil or canola oil)
1/2 c. molasses
1/2 c. hot water.

Ice cream:
1 quart vanilla soy ice cream (I used "It's So Delicious" brand because it was on sale)
1 package candied ginger (you can get this at an Asian food store, esp. around Chinese New Year)

Compote:
1/2 c. frozen berries
2 T. orange marmalade
2 T. grand marnier
1 T. brown sugar

Crust:
4 sheets cinnamon graham crackers
1 T. oil
1-2 T. brown sugar

Methodology

1. Cake: Preheat oven to 350*. Combine wet ingredients (pumpkin, sugar, molasses, oil, water) and dry ingredients (everything else) in seperate bowls. Mix dry into wet. Put in an oiled bread pan and bake ~35-40 minutes (I recommend checking after about 25).

2. Ice Cream: take the ice cream out of the fridge and let it sit on the counter. Open the package of ginger and chop it up in the food processor (or cut it by hand) into bite-sized pieces (think small, like raisins). By the time you finish, the ice cream should be softening but not soupy. Scoop it out into a large bowl, then add in the ginger and mix. This may take a bit of muscle to combine it well, but it shouldn't take too long. If it's really difficult, wait a few minutes until the ice cream is softer. When combined, scoop the ice cream back into the carton, cover, and return to freezer.

3. Compote: In a small sauce pan over low heat, put the berries, the marmalade, the grand marnier, and the brown sugar. You may want to add a little water, but not more than a tablespoon or two. Keep an eye on this, stirring occasionally, until the berries are melted, then turn up the heat to medium and let it simmer until you have something a bit less stiff than jam but more stiff than, oh, strawberry soup or something. This is called a reduction, incidentally. If you have corn startch, you can add that as a thickening agent (maybe a teaspoon?) when you turn the heat up, but I'd go slowly with that. When the berries are reduced, turn off the burner, put them in a container, and stick it in the fridge to cool. Incidentally, you may want to use your spoon to break up some of the larger berries to create a more uniform sauce.

4. When the cake is done, turn it out of the pan to cool. After about 30 minutes, wrap it in foil and stick it in the fridge for a couple of hours. Wash the pan.

5. So everything is cool. Line the pan with cling film, leaving the pieces long so plenty hangs over (later on, you will wrap these pieces across the top of the cake). Take the ice cream out of the freezer and (when it is soft enough) spread a layer about an inch thick on the bottom of the pan and a little ways up the sides.

6. The cake is sort of wedge shaped, since the bread pan is a flat-bottomed, gradually widening V-shap (like this: \____/). Cut the cake in half and put the bottom half in the pan (by this I mean the same part which was touching the bottom of the pan when the cake was baking.

7. Drizzle a teaspoon or two of grand marnier on the cake, then spread the layer with berries. You should have just enough to go across. You could also use raspberry jam or something here.

8. Put another thin layer of ice cream over the berries.

9. Put the last piece of cake on. I had to cut mine somewhat thinner to make everything fit in the pan. You can drizzle this with liquor if you want, then cover with ice cream. Put the whole thing in the freezer.

10. In a dish, crush up the graham crackers. Add the oil and sugar, mixing until you get something like a graham cracker crust. Spread this across the bottom of the cake. Cover the whole pan with cling film and return to freezer for about an hour.

11. To serve, unwrap the cling film. Put a plate on the bottom of the pan and invert, then remove the pan and cling film. You can add frosting on top now, if you wish.


Notes

*If you are not vegan, you can use regular ice cream, change the flavours around, etc. This was ginger + gingerbread because my friend really likes gingerbread. If I were making it for myself, it would probably be coffee+chocolate+rum with orange/raspberry in the middle, something like that.

*0/7. There were no problems at all, and I've been asked for the recipe a number of times already.

Em oi! #182

I love cookies.

I love boys who bring me cookies.

I know that's not really very deep, but that's the sum total of my thoughts on this.

Em oi! #181

As promised, the comic. (This one is Saturday's).

So I was going to write a formal review of Brideshead, Revisited, but this pretty much covers it.