CrankyCakes

My delightful and amazing friend showed up a few weeks ago with a duck and a goose for our freezer.  I had last met the birds as cute little fuzzywumps who were making a temporary stop in her condo on their way to the farm where they were to be raised.

Better, more interesting, and more thoughtful writers have written about the contradiction of loving specific animals and eating them.  But not all of them have a 7- and 4- year old to stage impassioned debates on the issue.

The boys asked what I was bringing down to the basement freezer and I told them.  Z. blanched and said, “But that’s TERRIBLE!”  And he started crying and telling me he wouldn’t eat them.   E. said, “Oh, I want to eat them, Mommy.  I’ll eat their … HEADS!”  So while his brother sobbed, I explained that birds usually don’t have heads by the time they get to someone’s freezer, and we trooped downstairs to peer inside the plastic bag at the birds.  E. nodded.   Z. announced that he was going to be vegetarian.

As the boys continued to loudly process their quest for ethical eating, I wanted to plan a meal around the birds.  Then, before I knew it, Valentine’s Day and Chinese New Year’s were about to coincide and we turned it into a little party.  I started thinking about traditional good luck New Year dishes and Valentine’s fun.

I planned on a sort of mock Peking duck, with the overnight approach of steaming the bird and then roasting it with a glaze on the skin.  But when I went to start them: NO SKIN!  I gasped and started scratching my head, saying something that rhymed with, “duck,” over and over.  What was I going to do?  What possible substitute for skin could there be?   Duck, duck, duck, f …

Then there it was: bacon.

So it was on to plan B.  and making a sort of frosting with palm (unhydrogenated, organic, non-saturated) shortening, molasses and sambal oelek, and rubbing it all over the birds before draping them with lots of thick-cut bacon.  Then I roasted them in a clay-pot cooker to keep as much moisture in as possible.

I cooked them for about 1 3/4 hours at 475, which was when faces began to appear from all directions, asking to snitch a piece or two of bacon.  We then carved the meat and served it with:

• Bacon, since there was no crispy skin
• Wheat tortillas brushed with sesame oil and warmed
• Hoi sin sauce
• Julienned scallion greens
• Scallion brushes (If you make this, don’t skip these!  They look great and will make your guests giggly-happy.)

There were tea eggs.  Here are Sara and her lovely daughter peeling them (and Kim laughing at my silly picture-taking ways):

And General Tso’s Seitan with broccoli, with homemade seitan made with Post Punk Kitchen’s excellent and reliable recipe.

My mom brought the unpictured but delicious Beets with Star Anise from Deborah Madison’s Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone, and made sauce for Sesame-Peanut Noodles (long noodles are a traditional celebration food because they’re associated with long life).

Dessert was truffles, plus Sweet Rice Cake. I love this dish, but I adore sticky gooey things made with glutinous rice.   Besides being a really endearing texture, it’s auspicious for New Year’s because it’s round, signifying family union, and sweet for a sweet new year, and its name in Chinese is a sound-alike for a sort of good wishes expression.

But there were children to consider, so a Western-style dessert was in order.  In the morning, I had thrown together a vegan orange batter for cupcakes, then realized I had left out the baking soda, which I hurried in right before baking.   That was when I had a first-hand experience with what happens when you over-activate your leavening agent.

So I baked the rest as a cake, which worked better for some reason.  Then after dinner, while the children were acting completely insane and were all past their bedtime, a 10-year old guest and I made our silly piece de resistance, which involved the cake, neon-colored 7-minute frosting, black icing gel, and heart sprinkles.  It was a Tiger’s Valentine’s Cake (about which my assistant made sure to remind guests, “No actual tigers were harmed in the making of this dessert”).

And then we sent guests home with cupcakes and collapsed in a fit of sugar and food and good conversation.

So I wanted to make fun and cute Valentine’s food for the monkeys.  And I’ll admit it: I was also thinking that making fun and cute food that they’d absolutely hate was good blog-fodder.  When my friend sent me a link to fine furious life’s Meatloaf Cupcakes, I knew I’d found something irresistible.  And when my popsicle-shaped baking pan peeked out at me from a corner of the basement, that seemed to fit my weird little theme too.

I’m sure FFL’s cupcakes are exquisitely delicious.  My approach to meatloaf is a little more shortcut-ish, and it worked well in this shape.  If I’d been inclined (or more like:  If I’d thought of it), I might have varied the amount of beet juice in the mashed-potato icing for a range of pinkish hues.  But I liked the pale pink that I ended up with.

For dessert, I kept looking at and thinking about recipes for Red Velvet Cake, which – whatever your stance on red food coloring – is one of the world’s all-time beautiful confections.  But I wanted to do it naturally, and that’s what I tried.

Meatloaf Cupcakes
(about 10)

1.3 pounds ground turkey (not lean)
2 eggs
1/2 c. oats
3/4 c. salsa (not super chunky – and if you’re attempting to stealth vegetables into your children you can puree it with the spinach)
1/2 t. salt
1/2 c. frozen spinach, thawed, drained, pureed

Preheat oven to 350.  Line muffin pan wells with cupcake liners.  Mix everything together with your hands until very well combined.  Fill each liner about 3/4 full with mix, smoothing out the top as you go.  Bake for about 1/2 an hour, until lightly browned on top.

While the meatloaf is baking, make the:

Mashed Potato Frosting

1 c. water
1/4 t. salt
2 T. butter
1/3 c. + 2 T. milk
1 c. dehydrated (instant mashed) potato flakes

Optional:
1/4 c. or less very pureed sweet potato or winter squash
2 T. juice from canned or boiled beets

Heat water, salt, and butter just to boiling in a small sauce pan.  Remove from heat, then stir in milk.  Stir in the potato flakes until moistened.  Let stand until liquid is absorbed, then fluff with a fork.  If using the colored options, divide potato and stir in additions until you get the colors you like.

Pipe the potato mixture onto the (still warm) meatloaf, then serve.

Red Velvet Cake
adapted from Penzey’s One magazine

If it’s okay, I’m going to just post this recipe the way I should have made it.  If you find yourself with a morbid curiosity about how to use cooked beets to turn your baked goods a strange, mottled pink, just leave a comment and I’ll let you know.

Following my faux food theme, I made a couple of batches of these in popsicle-shaped baking pan, and the rest as mini-muffins.  If you want to just go ahead and make a normal cake, use an 8″ pan.  And of course you can double the recipe if you want two layers.

• 1/4 c. butter
• 2/3 c. sugar
  
• 1 egg
• 1 T. cocoa powder
• 1 T. natural red food coloring
• 1/2 t. salt
• 1/2 t. vanilla extract
• 1 c. buttermilk (I substituted yogurt)
• 1 1/4 c. flour
• 3/4 t. baking soda
• 1 1/2 t. vinegar

Preheat oven to 350.  Grease your pan(s) – if you’re using an 8″ pan, also line the bottom with parchment.  Cream together the butter and sugar until fluffy.  Add egg and beat well.  In a small bowl mix the cocoa and food color together to make a paste.  Add to the butter mixture and beat well.  In another bowl, mix the salt, vanilla and buttermilk.  Add to the butter mixture, alternating with the flour and mix well after each addition.  When well combined, mix the baking soda and vinegar together in a bowl.  The mixture will foam and fizz, and then subside.  Fold gently in until liquid is absorbed, but do not beat or stir.  Pour or spoon mixture into pan.  Bake smaller sizes for 16 – 19 minutes, or an 8″ cake for 30.  (Don’t open the oven door while cooking or else the cake may fall, says the Penzey’s recipe.)  Let cool in the pan for 10 minutes, then cool completely on a rack.

When cool, you can frost with your favorite white fluffy icing.  I had some white chocolate-cream cheese frosting in the fridge, which is what’s under the pink sugar in the picture.  It was pretty good.  As were the muffins/cupcakes/popsicakes themselves … once you got past the taste of beets.