NAH5: Kohlrabi Salad with Pickled Mushrooms

Inspired by a trip to the farmer's market.  This was a quick and easy one.  I kind of lucked out with all of the ingredients.  The Kohlrabi was on sale for a really good price.  So were the mushrooms and I can't ever really see myself passing up a good deal on some shiitake mushrooms.  I also got really lucky as the herbs were on manager's special half off.  I sort of got the idea for the dish by combining the good experience I had with a kohlrabi salad at Girl and the Goat with the pickled mushrooms I enjoyed with carpaccio while in London.

Ingredients:
1 Bunch of Kohlrabi
1 Pint of Shitake Mushrooms
1/2 Clove of Garlic (I actually ended up mincing thee cloves and then once I came to my senses about having raw garlic I only used about 1/6th of it)
1/4 Cup Vinegar (For this I used a coconut white balsamic from Twisted olive, and it has a lot of sweetness to it.  If using say white wine vinegar, you might want to mix in a teaspoon or so of sugar)
1 Teaspoon Crushed Red Pepper
1/4 Cup Vegan Mayo
1 Tablespoon Chopped Fresh Tarragon
Zest of one Lemon
Juice of 1/2 Lemon
Salt and Pepper to taste

1. Remove the stems from the mushrooms and thinly slice them
2. Add them to a bowl with the vinegar, red pepper and very finely minced garlic Allow to marinate for at least two hours.
3. Peel and chop the kohlrabi.  Any cut will work here, I just chose to julienne because my mandoline makes pretty quick work of it.
4. Whisk the lemon juice into the mayo and toss everything together.

No Animals Harmed 4:Vegan Fettuccine Bolongese

After a trip to the farmers market, I was pretty set on what I wanted to end up cooking it was one of those times where I already had the dish mapped out in my head.  I wanted pasta.  At the market there were these great crememi mushrooms on sale for $2.50 a pint.  I had to take advantage of them for this recipe and they provide the meatiness for my meatless Bolongese sauce.  If you prefer a more classic carnivorous version, my friend Phenix has an excellent version on his blog.

Ingredients:
1/2 Large Sweet Onion Diced

3 Celery Stalks Diced

3 Medium Carrots Diced

2 Bay Leaves

3 Cloves Garlic Minced

4 oz Tomato Paste

1/4 Bottle Dry White Wine

1- 15 oz can San Marzano Tomatoes

1 Pint Cremini Mushrooms Finely Diced

1/8 cup Extra Virgin Olive Oil

1 Tablespoon Fresh Oregano

3 Tablespoons Fresh Basil

1. Season the onion, celery, garlic, bay leaves and carrots and sweat over medium low heat in the extra virgin olive oil until the onions are translucent and the veggies are soft. Stir frequently so the veggies don't caramelize.
2. Add in the tomato paste and stir until it coats the veggies and is fragrant.  Add in the finely diced mushrooms
3. Deglaze the pan using the white wine, and allow to reduce until you have a thick sauce.
4. Add in the tomatoes and mash them into the sauce and mash them a bit using a potato masher.
5. Add In diced fresh herbs.  If using dried herbs you want to use a third of the amount and add them in during the sweat.
6. Serve over pasta.

Lollapalooza: Saturday Recap

NOTE: I lost my camera on Sunday... So if all of my pictures look like they are the drawings of a six year old kid then I will have you know that that six year old kid is me.   You know what they say when life gives you Lemons:

You throw those lemons at a douche.

I'm no artist and I definitely couldn't do something as cool as this:

I woke up early enough in the morning to brace the continental breakfast offered since my room was on the Executive level of the Palmer House Hilton.  It was pretty much a circus but I still escaped with a cup of coffee, some pancakes and a banana.  Shortly thereafter, I was headed down for day two.  I was there well before the first band even started playing.  For the second time I was way early.

Completely Accurate Interpretation of Bright Light Social Hour

I got there early because from listening online I kind of fell in love with The Bright Light Social Hour.  They sound a lot like The Black Keys.  To tell the truth It has been a long time since I've heard Guitar and especially bass playing that good.  They were really fun to listen to, but they could have easily called themselves, The Beards and Excessively Long Hair Band.  Pretty easy to remember when you consider their appearance.  Jokes aside I love the bluesy melodies on songs like "Detroit".   My favorite song on their debut album has absolutely no lyrics and is called "Rhubarb Jam".


After they went off I had plenty of time before the next band that I wanted to see.   All of the bands on Saturday's Groove Stage got pushed back because of Azelia Banks not preforming.  We decided it would be a good time to get some food.  Of course the Triple Truffle Fries from Frank's 'N' Dawgs were involved again.  This time I also had a sampling of cheeseburgers from both M Burger and Edzo's.  Putting the burgers head to head I would have to give the clear advantage to M Burger.  Their burgers were made a lot closer to when they were served and the burger's from Edzo's sat in a hot box for a bit.

The cheeseburger from the M Burger follows a simple recipe, cheese, lettuce, pickles and sauce.  The sauce is sort of one of those mayo based sauces that kind of a weird (in a good way) cross between McDonald's special sauce and Thousand Island.  The burger itself, is one that most closely resembles In N Out's burger, Damn tasty and without a trip southwest.  As for Edzo's burger, the cheese on that burger tasted better, but my burger was sligthly dry and the patty was coming apart a little.  There was also a little bit of overwhelming amount of pepperonchini on the burger.

The next band  we saw was Family of the Year.  I couldn't be more indifferent about this band at all.  They were just incredibly mediocre.  So much so that I still can't decide whether that experience of listening to them was good or bad.  It was simply forgettable.  The only reason why I even remember seeing them is because we really wanted to see St. Lucia.  Had I realized the timing, we probably would have gotten


St. Lucia has a really mellow electronic sound going on.  I love the strong bass line on "September", and I;m totally not being partial to that song because I was born in September.  There music really is interestingly stays very cool and mellow despite being uptempo on many tracks. It's like Coldplay and Afrojack got together and made this amazing sublime and sexy dubstep free baby. You can't help but sing along and get involved with the incredibly catchy chorus on "We Got It Wrong".


Next we had a pretty brisk walk to the other side of Grant Park to see Local Natives.  I like this band despite being wildly unfamiliar with their music.  Funny enough they played the only two songs I really know soon after they arrived to start watching them.  I think that their song "Airplanes" I think suffered from that classic problem of me hearing it on the radio and not being able to get my phone out to shazaam it fast enough.  That catchy chorus sounds so good against the folk melody.  The song that followed was "Heavy Feet", which probably has one of the weirdest and seemingly unrelated video I've seen in a long time.  They are a a great band that has mastered those three part harmonies.
 
Continuing with the trend of walking a ton, we headed over to catch a little bit of Unknown Mortal Orchestra while catching a bite to eat. Puffs of Doom, offered something interesting that I had to try by this point.  I was a little saddened by it overall because the basic premise of the place is to create a basic choux pastry and fill it with something.  I didn't know what to expect when I ordered the bacon macaroni and cheese puff, but I also don't know why you would take a something as starchy as macaroni and stuff it inside of a choux pastry.  Other than that Unknown Mortal Orchestra was a pretty mellow band and I can't really judge them since I only heard about 15 minutes of their set.  They did get added to a long list of bands that I want to explore later and I do actually like their song "So Good At Being In Trouble" quite a bit.



Next up was The National.  While I am only vaguely familar with the band, I think by this point I have had almost enough of the the very mellow somber bands.  The funny part is that every band worth seeing was pretty mellow and somber.  I mean it's still kind of shocking to me to look at their wikipedia page and see that they've been around for fourteen years.  Their sound is incredibly relaxing and borderline melancholy.


Next up I had to catch a little bit of Blondfire.  I love Erica's voice.  It's high pitched in a way that you think would be annoying but is totally not.  Those nasally tones brightened up my day quite a bit.  I only got to see half of their set because I wanted to catch the Lumineers, but hearing her play Waves was enough to satisfy my day.  Still I wish I would have gotten to hear them play Where The Kids Are which is probably my favorite song by them.


Once again we were rushing across the park to catch The Lumineers.  I have no idea why music is trending towards a folk sound and a dubstep sound.  When I first heard the song "Ho Hey", I was suckered in to listening to their music.  You can't help but like that song because the tune is incredibly catchy.  You know a song has a good chorus when you're ready to sing along with it along the first time you hear the song.  They have a good happy energy about them and even came out into the crowd to play a couple of songs.  I only heard the echoes of sad yet very encouraging breakup song "Stubborn Love" because I wanted to beat the crowd and grab food before running across the park for The Postal Service.


This was kind of historic.  The second to last performance ever by The Postal Service.  I had been looking forward to this for a while.  The Postal Service is kind of like the McRib of music.  It's awesome and made up of mostly artificial sounds but the overall popularity of it is based somewhat on the fact that it's so incredibly rare.  Like making an album and disappearing for a decade rare.  I was impressed.  Very impressed, as soon as you heard them start to play "The District Sleeps Alone Tonight" you are transported to a place of musical bliss.

Laura Burhenn of The Postal Service

In hindsight it does seem like a little dickish to start a show saying "It's been a long time Chicago" yeah a decade is pretty long time.  It seemed like he was kind of rubbing the crowd's nose in the fact that this was one of their last performances.  That doesn't matter because "Tattered Line of String" makes up for that.

Then came the after show.  I had to battle traffic relentlessly, via the backseat of a taxi cab.  I couldn't wait because I really wanted to see Robert Delong.  I've been addicted to his music since the first time I heard his first single "Global Concepts".   It's incredible to watch him preform, and you think there would be more than just him but no it's just one dude being awesome.  He played a couple of new songs in his set, but I was slightly disappointed that I didn't hear him do "Change" which is one of my favorite songs on the album.  It starts out with him just singing the word change and the beat and words get more complex as the song goes on.  Very clever.


I got to meet Robert Delong and take a picture with him and he was a cool dude which is one of the main reasons I'm mad I lost my camera.

Then there was the Matt and Kim performance   I've got to say I was completely caught off guard by how good they were.  Let me say, it would likely be impossible to recreate the absolute fun these guys have on stage.  From the moment they start you're like yeah I want to drink and party with these guys. They are the literal life of the party.  I must say that up until I saw them live, many of the songs that I've heard from them on the radio I would instantly switch the channel the moment I heard it.  I recognized a few of the songs like "Let's Go" and "Daylight".

Me and Robert Delong
I'm really good at drawing myself

What's crazy is it takes seeing them live to truly do their music justice.  I just don't think it translates well over the radio. Their overly happy music and simple choruses seems like it's a bit of a shtick, but once you see them you're like oh that's really them, and that's really cool.  They have an amazing energy and with one performance they transformed me into a pretty dedicated fan of their music.

I mean you have to appreciate a band so fun that they will do this:

But seriously.... Even that video doesn't do the band justice.  You just have to go out and see them.  They are pretty much a band for everybody (or at least everyone that enjoys some really popular music) as they integrate lots of popular hip hop songs throughout their performance.  

Lollapalooza 2013: Friday Recap

Lollapalooza is my favorite summer music festival.   Not only from a music standpoint, but the food is awesome every time I’ve been there.  You can attribute this to Master Chef Judge and winner of two Michelin stars Graham Elliott being the culinary director for the event.  He is a really nice guy as well and offered everybody free popcorn last year after the festival got rained out for a little bit.  It was one of the few moments of my life of where I was truly star struck.

The Neighbourhood

Before the gates opened, I used Parkwhiz in order to get parking downtown for the entire weekend for just $33.  When you consider that the hotel charges upwards of $70 per night, that savings is tremendous.    The parking was a little bit of a walk though, just a quarter of a mile.   After parking though I would have breakfast at Harold’s Chicken.  It had been a long time since I had Harold’s and I had been longing for a quarter dark with mild sauce.  This location took a while to get the food ready, but it was worth the wait in order to get that crispy fried chicken with that sweet tangy sauce on top.

This was the first year I’ve ever made it when the gates were opening.  The traffic on the way to Chicago was much less than I expected, and the drive there which I expected to take like an hour and a half only took like thirty minutes.  This was fine though and it gave me a chance to exchange my wristband since the one I had wouldn’t scan as well as do some walking around.

Triple Truffle Fries

The first band I saw was The Neighbourhood.  I honestly thought this band was British for the longest time.  Yeah I know they don’t sound British at all, but they spell “Neighbourhood” with a “u” so I thought has to be a British band.  Not true though.  This was also a very hard choice to end up seeing them as I really wanted to see Robert Delong, but I have tickets to the after show featuring Robert Delong on Saturday night, so it was more prudent choice to see The Neighbourhood.

They definitely didn’t disappoint at all, getting the festival off to a great start, as lead vocalist Jesse Rutherford swooned his way through verse after verse.  My appreciation for the band only grew more after seeing them live.  They are a pretty mellow alternative rock band that often uses mellowed out beats the likes of which you could easily see being used in a song like Ice Cube's Today "Was a Good Day".  It is a welcomed backdrop to lyrics that range from the romantic and mellow “Sweater Weather” to the darker and more introspective tracks like “Afraid” and “W.D.Y.W.F.M.?”

Atlas Genius

A note on drinking at Lollapalooza.  The cheapest legitimate way to drink there is to buy bottles of wine for $25.  The next stop was to pick up a bottle of a Chardonnay, which was just slightly oaky and buttery, but not too much.  Thorny Rose does all of the wine for Lollapalooza.  If you have a pocket flask though and you were to fill that with spiced rum, it is the perfect combination with Sweet Leaf's Citrus Tea.  By perfection combination I do mean perfect as you get the vanilla notes of the rum blending in and playing off of the citrus notes of the tea.

Next up was San Cisco.  They’re a cool Australian band and you’ve gotta appreciate any band that has a female drummer.  Female drummers are awesome.  They were clearly in that band that has that one song you know category when I saw them.  Their song “Awkward” is so bright and cheeky and has this irresistibly light and bright pop vibe.   You can’t help but indulge yourself in that a little bit.  The band in general is kind of dorky and super hipster, which is fine with me.  The performance was pretty good and I will be checking out more of their music later on though.

The best French Fries I’ve ever had in my entire life.  Yes they were here at Lollapalooza.  I get them multiple times every year at least once or twice a day.  The Triple Truffle Fries from Franks ‘N’ Dawgs are absolutely so good out of this world incredibly freaking awesome worth killing and dying for.  Undeniably the undisputed king of Fries.  They are light a crisp waffle fries that are airy and perfectly salted and the truffle makes everything slightly earthy and delicious.

Then we quickly headed over to see Icona Pop.  Of course I went to indulge in the amazing guilty pleasure of their summer anthem “I Don’t Care”.  What I don’t understand about this song is that I should hate it, but it just works.  As soon as you hear that beat with that Swedish duo aggressively singing those lyrics at you, you can’t help but get excited.  The crowd went absolutely crazy as soon as they started that song, ending their set more impressively than a well-executed Ultra combo in Killer Instinct.

Atlas Genius is one of those sneaky good bands.  When looking through the schedule I was like man that band sounds familiar.  Then I went online to listen to some of their songs and it was like man I know all of those songs.  Their most popular song has to be "If So".  I love the upbeat melodies of this band that is in many of their songs like "Trojans".  Keith Jeffery balances out those higher pitched upbeat chords with his intriguing mellow and somewhat raspy voice.  Really a great band with an album well worth buying.

Crystal Castles

Next up in the bands that your friend drags you to category was Crystal Castles.  They have a very interesting electronic type of sound that isn’t too upbeat and plays off of the high pitched vocals of the female lead singer.  It was a very intriguing performance to say the least, but by that time we had shared three bottles of wine already so I wasn’t the most coherent.

Along the way, Samsung had this promotion to switch out your battery on my phone for a fresh one.  I have a lot of spares off of Amazon for events as such, but it was still convenient to use the one they were giving away.  As an extra bonus they gave meal coupons to Grahamwhich.  I’ve got to say I was a little bit disappointed with my lobster corn dog this year as it tasted as though it had been sitting under a heat lamp for a while and the lobster was definitely overcooked.  I would have asked for my money back on it if I paid anything more than free.

Next up was one of my favorites of the day Imagine Dragons.  I first started listening to Imagine Dragons with the release of their upbeat and poppy ballad “It’s Time”.  Though I first saw the song when it was performed on Glee, I quickly became a fan of the band more for their musical diversity more than anything.  The band goes from that folky twang of the banjo on “It’s Time”, to a little bit of Dubstep on “Radioactive”.

Soooo Many people....

So I have to be honest I’ve never heard of New Order.  To be honest I could have done without hearing about them.  Another one in that bands you’re dragged to category, New Order, just reminds me of everything that was wrong with music in the 80’s.   It’s just music which is so in between that it ends up being unpleasant.  Musically they are like one of those movies that tried to use a special effect that is a bit before their time.  Nothing bad about that, it’s just the nostalgia effect is lost on me since I am unfamiliar with their music.

The day finished up with Nine Inch Nails.  This is the band I had honestly been looking the most forward too.  It got off to a bad start for me simply because the more drunk I get the more I tend to use my watch over my phone for time.  My watch was set an hour slow.  So I missed the first 15 minutes of NIN.  There were two problems I had with this show, one was that they performed too many songs of their new material.  It made their set seem like more of a reflective art project than the hard rock they are known for.  The experienced was also worsened by the fact that the screens weren’t working and you could barely see anything.  It was still a good performance by them especially hearing songs like “Hurt” and “Head Like a Hole” but I think I had unattainably high expectations for that performance.

No Animals Harmed 3: Zucchini "Bacon" Cheeseburgers and Ginger Sesame Ice Cream

So I was celebrating a Birthday.  Nothing screams out birthday food to me more than a bacon cheeseburger.  Kind of hard to do that for your vegetarian friend’s birthday though.  This proved to be not as big of a challenge that I originally thought as I found pretty good alternatives to the real deal.  For the burger I went with Gardien's Beefless Burger patty.  As far as veggie burger patties go, I pass on Morningstar use Monsanto products.   There is probably no corporation on

earth I hate more than Monsanto but I digress.  This Gardien burger isn’t my favorite veggie burger though, that title would have to go to Light Life’s burger, but vegans should steer clear of that one.

For the bacon I’m a big fan of Tepeh bacon.  I actually think that tempeh bacon rivals the taste of regular bacon.  OK I take it back, it doesn’t rival, but offers a satisfying alternative to regular bacon that seems to be the more justifiable choice to eat when you consider the calorie savings.  This time I wanted to try out Light Life's Smart Bacon.  The method is so simple I’m going to abandon that typical format of ingredients and such and just go straight to the burger making.

One of the guy’s at work is growing way too much zucchini in his garden to eat.  They made the perfect compliment for this burger.  For it I cut the massively overlarge zucchini into large round, that ended up being as big as my burger patty.  I brushed them with a mushroom sage infused olive oil and seasoned each side with kosher salt and fresh ground black pepper.   I’m lucky to have a specialty olive oil shop that is not too far from me.  Twisted Olive carries tons of good ones, and this one went well for the burger.  Then I just threw everything on the grill.  Yeah I know it is summer so I should be grilling outside… but the city of Romeoville has this stupid rule that says you can only have a gas grill in an apartment.  Some genius thinks that coals are much more dangerous than propane tanks.  Anyhow my grill of choice is Cuisinart GR-4N 5-in-1 Griddler.  Vegan cheese is hard to melt, so I make a little dome using a metal bowl and some hot water,  to let the steam melt the cheese.

In about ten minutes I was taking everything off of the grill and brushing my freshly toasted buns with a little bit of vegan mayo.  While we’re on the subject of mayo, I just want to throw this out there.  Fresh made mayo > Vegan Mayo > Store bought Mayo > Miracle Whip.  Yeah, personal opinion but vegan store bought mayo tastes much better to me than store bought brands made with real eggs.

For the ice cream I decided to get a little creative.  I had been wanting to try this for a while.  A long time ago, I had some Haagen Dazs Coconut Sesame Brittle Ice Cream which is now discontinued sadly.  I wanted to do an ice cream that lived up to that.  I made a pretty good vegan version that used coconut milk, and had the spice of candied ginger throughout. 

Ingredients:

• ½ Gallon Unsweetened Coconut Milk
• ½ Cup Candied Ginger
• 1 Teaspoon freshly grated ginger
• ¼ Cup Coconut Oil
• 2 Tablespoons Sesame Oil
• ½ Cup Brown sugar (As a warning though, I’m not a huge sweets fan so this ice cream is just barely sweet, if you like sweet desserts, you should go for a whole cup)
• 3 Tablespoons Arrowroot Powder.

 

1. Combine all the ingredients in a stock pot reserving 1 cup of the Coconut milk, the arrowroot powder and the candied ginger.  Simmer over medium heat for 20 minutes
2. Whisk together the arrowroot powder with the reserved coconut milk.
3. Stir the two mixtures together and let thicken.
4. Strain and chill the ice cream base until fully chilled in the refrigerator.
5. Throw it in your ice cream maker using manufacturer’s instructions, adding the candied ginger halfway through.  My ice cream maker is Cuisinart ICE-30BC Pure Indulgence 2-Quart Ice Cream Maker.

A note on the arrowroot powder,  I could have gotten it at Whole Foods, but I totally didn't feel like driving so I just ordered off of Amazon.  It is versatile and can be used to thicken pretty much anything and used like cornstarch.