Category:  Blog

I promised you a recap of “The Taste” each week, and here are my thoughts for Tuesday nights episode. I apologize it is a couple days late, but as the saying goes…better late than never!

The Taste sharpens the contestants’ taste buds with its wine pairings episode. One may whip up a superb dish but a bad wine choice can make it dismal. After last week’s first official group and solo challenges, the remaining fourteen contestants are in no position to take their mentors’ opinions lightly.

The group challenge or what we now know as “the immunity-plus- mentorship” test is designed to pit the teams against each other. Now when you factor in opinionated and extremely confident team members, the group somehow turns into an individual race. Naturally, this happens when the ultimate goal is to choose the best from each individually-crafted dish. The pressure intensifies knowing that the guest judges/mentors are Chef David Kinch (Manresa restaurant) and sommelier Andre Mack.

Anthony Bourdaine makes his point: Chef David is one of the best in the world and wine knowledge is crucial. Each team member needs to create a dish based on five ingredients selected by Anthony, Nigella Lawson, Ludo Lefebvre (who has become my favorite mentor btw) and Brian Malarkey. Each creation needs to match the full bodied flavor of the Argentinean wine Alamas Malbec .

Both Nigella and Malarkey lost a member in their respective teams last week; they’re hoping that their choice of ingredients will give them a great comeback. Bourdaine’s choices are meaty and advices his team to work along the Argentinian flavor. Among Bourdaine’s members, Diane is openly the least thrilled; her mocking banter with Bourdain reflects her disdain. Over to Ludo’s kitchen, Sarah (food blogger) receives the most mentoring time (most likely due to her relatively limited technical experience).

Nigella’s team opts to serve Erika’s lamb chops while Malarkey oddly makes the final decision by going with Adam’s dish. Ludo decides to send Gregg’s dish if only to “shut up his mouth”. Gregg is apparently an extremely assertive individual as noted by his own mentor and a number of contestants. Fortunately for Ludo, David and Andre go for Gregg’s creation. As such, Gregg is safe from the solo challenge and earns his team the guests’ mentoring time for the solo challenge.

The elimination challenge entails four wine selections and a freehand choice of ingredients, something that brings back cheer to Diane. From Ludo’s winning team, Paul’s cooking decisions are put to test by Chef David’s suggestions. Although annoyed at what he feels is an intrusion to his skills, Paul goes along with Chef David’s idea. If not, he would have been up for an elimination vote.

Once more, Khristianne’s dish prevails for the second week in a row along with Ninamarie. During the taste test, Ludo’s least favorite dish forced him to say “if this is someone from my team, I will send him home”. Malarkey diligently writes down this statement and reminds Ludo about it after learning that the dish belongs to Shawn (from Ludo’s team). Ludo’s vote creates a unanimous decision to eliminate Shawn along with Erika. This will be Nigella’s second loss in two consecutive weeks.

The Chef’s are really starting to step up their game. Let’s see next week what’s stronger…their food or their personality? Stay tuned…

modified from Eileen Rillera

“You are not here merely to make a living. You are here in order to enable the world to live more amply, with greater vision, with a finer spirit of hope and achievement. You are here to enrich the world, and you impoverish yourself if you forget the errand”.

-Woodrow Wilson

Some days, life as a Chef can be so difficult and draining. But then there are days when I wake up and am so pumped that I picked this profession. Moments like these make my job SO worth it! People ask me all the time what it’s like to cook for a A list celebrity? Truthfully…it is fun and exciting. Not to mention it is a big ego boost. But at the end of the day, it’s just not what makes me tick.

This Friday I will be judging a cooking competition for a program called C-CAP. Careers through Culinary Arts Program’s mission is to promote and provide career opportunities in the foodservice industry for underserved youth through culinary arts education and employment.

C-CAP is a curriculum enrichment program linking public high school culinary teachers and their students to the foodservice industry. CCAP’s materials and services help prepare students for college and careers in the restaurant and hospitality industry.

Students who compete in annual C-CAP cooking contests win college scholarships as part of the largest independent culinary scholarship program in the country.

Competitors and their dishes are based on the following criteria:

Knife skills

Technique

Taste and appearance

Safety and sanitation

Organization

Speed

Professionalism

I can’t wait to see these kids put their heart and soul in their dish this weekend. This is going to be a great experience not only for them, but for me to! Good luck Chefs!

Kudos to LAWeekly for publishing a fun and thought provoking article about me. Take a look here…

The auditions are over, and sadly I wasn’t chosen to move on to the next round. The support from my family and friends has been unbelievable! The truth of the matter is this whole experience has been amazing for me. This was an incredible opportunity to not only show America that I could cook, but more importantly a chance to show my daughter that’s is ok to do something that scares the hell out of you. Ok, getting rejected is never a fun thing, but getting rejected in front of millions of people is flat out terrifying.

But at the end of the day, I’m pretty proud of myself to be chosen for the top 60 finalists out of over 8,000 who auditioned. That’s pretty freaking awesome! Seriously!

I don’t t take it personally at all. I know I can cook, and I do a damn good job at it. Quite honestly prime-time television is not ever going to pick a vegan to represent their show. I’m not trying to go all conspiracy theory here, but lets just point out the obvious here. Television shows make their money from selling advertising and from sponsorship. Most of the commercials on a show are promoting food that has some sort of animal products. Just sayin…

Anyways….I have decided to give you my thoughts about each weeks episode of “The Taste”. Knowing each of these contestants on a personal level, it’s very interesting to watch what the producers have decided to showcase about each of them.

In the first challenge each team has to impress Gabriella Hamilton with a comfort food. Both Ludo’s team and Malarky’s team ended up showcasing Mac and Cheese. Ludo put up Sarah’s dish, and Malarky put up Jeff’s. Nigella chose Lauren’s chicken stew. Bourdain chose to put Ninamarie’s Israeli Couscous forward. Kudos to Ninamarie. Your couscous was an easy pick for me. It looked delicious. Gabriella’s favorite was team Nigella. Lauren was now safe from elimination. This was the only thing that saved her in the end, as she bombed the individual challenge. She made a bad decision and picked a dish she had never cooked before. Truthfully that was an amateur mistake. A cooking competition is not the time to try something you have never made before.

The individual challenge was also to showcase comfort food. Sarah was a hot mess catching everything on fire. Shawn said the funniest line of the night asking her if she was the Statue of Liberty with her torch? Diane’s trucker mouth came out in record speed (a girl after my own heart!). Greg got arrogant instantly with his team and started telling everyone what was wrong with their dish. Adam was confident and walked the walk showing off his professional skills. Huda was disappointed with her end result, being a bit too hard on herself. Chefs have the natural ability to be serious perfectionist. Unfortunately I’m notorious for this.

The mentors chose Diane, Sarah and Khristianne as the best of the night. But it was time for 2 chefs to go home. The bottom four were Shawn, Lauren, Renatta and Micah. Lauren had immunity and dodged a bullet. Nigella chose her own team member Renatta and showed genuine remorse. Renatta has a beautiful soul and a contagious laugh. I loved watching her leave with grace. Micah was also chosen to go home. I give Micah so much credit! He left his job to pursue his dream. That took serious courage and he should be so proud of his achievements. I have personally seen what gorgeous food he makes, and he is a talented man.

Stay tuned for next weeks recap…

For the first time ever! A Vegan Chef (me) will participate on a major network prime time cooking competition show. Tune in tonight at 8pm on “ABC” for “The Taste”
This is a huge step for a major network to have a vegan chef in a cooking competition!  Please Support the Vegan community by sharing with your facebook and tweeter friends .

Wish me luck… Will Anthony Bourdain finally like the taste of vegan food…

Do you think I will I make the cut?!

Check out my facebook page  A Vegan Chef

the-taste-preview

Ok when I saw this recipe, it was just too good not to share. I mean what could be better to get us through these hot summer nights? I find it so amusing when people say to me, “You drink? But you’re vegan?”. Ummmm…DUH! I’m vegan, I’m not dead! Come on people, think for just one second before these ridiculous words come out of your mouth. REALLY???

Now that I have gotten that off my chest, let’s move on to the task at hand!

Makes 12 2.5 oz Popsicles

· 8oz. watermelon juice (2 ½ cups chopped watermelon)

. 2 oz fresh lime juice

· 1 oz. simple mint syrup (recipe follows)

· 8 oz. light rum

· 14 oz. club soda

Instructions:

1. Place chopped watermelon in a food processor or blender and process until watermelon is juiced (will be slightly pulpy)

2. Combine watermelon juice, lime juice, mint syrup and rum in a shaker and shake well. Fill popsicle mold 3/4 of the way up with mixture. Fill remaining popsicle mold with club soda and stir to combine

3. Freeze for about 2 hours or until mixture starts to solidify enough to hold a popsicle stick upright. Insert popsicle sticks and finish freezing popsicles overnight. To release popsicles run hot water on the outside of popsicle molds for a 2-3 seconds.
Mint Syrup(You will have more syrup than you need. Save for other cocktail uses)· 1/2 cup water· 1/2 cups sugar· 1 cup mint leaves, loosely packed

Instructions:
1. Place sugar and water in a pot over heat until sugar dissolves. Allow mixture to cool to room temperature and place mint leaves in mixture and muddle. Allow mint leaves to steep for 20 minutes. Strain and discard leaves. (Depending on the fine-ness of the sieve tiny pieces may remain).

Hey Everyone,

Just wanted to let you know that I had one of my recipes featured on www.Ecorazzi.com today. It was for my “Asian Noodle Bowl” dish. Check out their site it’s an Eco-site about healthy living. They feature articles on subjects such as entertainment, lifestyle, causes, eats and celebrities. It’s a great site for anyone who is looking for some inspiration to adopt a healthier lifestyle and try some great vegan recipes.

Check it out and stay tuned as I hope to have another vegan recipe featured on their blog soon.

Asian Noodle Bowls with Crispy Tofu

Ingredients:

16 oz extra firm tofu, drained and pressed, sliced into small triangles
2 tbsp Mirin
2 tbsp cornstarch
2 tbsp canola oil
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp black pepper
1 box rice noodles
1/2 yellow onion, 1/4 inch dice
1/2 cup shiitake mushrooms, thinly sliced
2 garlic cloves minced
1/2 cup zucchini, 1/4 inch dice
1 cup of broccoli, cut into small florets
1 red bell pepper, 1/4 inch dice
1 green pepper, 1/4 inch dice
handful of roasted peanuts, roughly chopped
fresh cilantro, minced
bean sprouts (about a handful per bowl)

for sauce—

1/2 cup soy sauce
1 tbsp vegan oyster sauce (available at most Asian markets and on Amazon)
1/4 cup warm water
2 tsp sesame oil
2 tbsp fresh minced ginger
1 tsp hot chili sauce (sriracha)
2 tbsp maple syrup

Whisk the cornstarch and Mirin into a shallow bowl. Add the tofu and let marinate for 20
minutes.

Next, make the sauce by mixing all of the sauce ingredients together into a small bowl.
Set aside.

Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Once boiling, add the rice noodles and turn
off the heat. Let noodles sit in hot water for about five minutes, then drain and rinse
thoroughly with water. Squeeze excess water from the noodles and set aside until
serving.

Heat 1 tbsp of the oil in a large skillet or wok over medium heat until hot (but not
smoking). Place the tofu in the hot wok and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Sauté for
about 4 minutes per side, or until golden brown. Remove from oil, and drain on a paper
towel. Place another paper towel on top of the tofu to keep warm and set aside.

Now heat the remaining tbsp of oil over medium heat. Sauté the onions and mushrooms
for 5 minutes or until the onions are translucent. Stir in the garlic and sauté for an
additional minute. Add in the zucchini, broccoli and peppers to the walk. Sauté until
vegetables are al dente. Pour 1/4 of the sauce over the vegetables and stir for an
additional minute. Add in noodles and tofu, and pour the remaining sauce over the
mixture. Toss to combine. Heat for an additional two minutes or until everything is
heated through. Be careful not to over cook, as the noodles will stick to the pan.

To assemble the Asian noodle bowls, place a handful of bean sprouts in the bottom
of each bowl. Top with noodles, veggies and tofu. Garnish with cilantro and chopped
peanuts.