Grilled Peaches for DIY Tartlettes

Sweet fillings: Balsamic reduction, vegan pastry cream, grilled peaches, cherries, strawberries


Tarts are for filling

Jupiter has a sweet tooth

Grilled Peaches

Grilled Peaches

1. slice fresh peaches in half, remove the pit, then slice into wedges (6ths or 8ths).
2. grill on each side, turning once, in a hot skillet, with a tiny amount of oil. sprinkle with a tiny bit of salt or sugar as desired. you could also throw in some lavender or rosemary for added dimension.
3. remove gently and let cool flat on a plate. serve in a single layer so the cooked peaches don't break.
4. eat with vanilla pastry cream, coconut milk, cashew cream, etc. or dust with crunchy raw sugar and eat with berries.

"Can I eat now?"

Sweet Treat

More photos here and here

Recipes: Custard for Savory Tart

savory tarts: sweet potato "custard",
asparagus or baked beets fillings

For Dirtstar, an event spotlighting Queers in the sustainability movement, we set up a tiny booth and invited people to make their own locavore DIY tartlettes. By inviting people to participate in a choose-your-own adventure tartlette assembly project, we hoped people would discover new ways to relate their food- namely that it can be participatory, cruelty-free, delicious, joyful, and support local economies.

We baked about 100 empty tart shells (get recipe here) and prepared sweet and savory fillings and toppings, which people would combine according to personal preference.

"Salées, sucrées: j'aime les tartes"

Sweet or Savory? Tough choice...

Michelle Tea goes for savory

Here is the recipe for the savory custard.

Sweet potato "custard"

Spread at the bottom of your shell and cover it with the savory toppings of your choice.

1. Peel and cube sweet potatoes into 1-inch pieces
2. Blanche in salted, boiling water for 5-10 minutes until it just breaks apart with a fork. Do not overboil.
3. Drain. Add a knob of Earth Balance and a small amount of unsweetened soy milk to start.
4. Puree with a hand blender, if possible. Gradually add more soy milk and Earth Balance, a little at a time, until sweet potatoes whip up light and fluffy to your liking.
5. Taste. Add more sea salt if necessary, and finish by stirring in some freshly ground black pepper.
6. Use to fill tart shells or just eat off the spoon. Delicious.

Hard to bite into such pretty things...

More photos on our flickr and on Yasmin's flickr.

Queer Food For Love recommends: Yasmin's Wild Foods and Medicinal Herbs Dinner

Join Queer Food For Love chef Yasmin for an organic four-course meal made from medicinal plants and wild foods local to Northern California. Made by hand from seasonal plants that nourish, cleanse, and heal the body, this dinner uses food as a way to balance our bodies and reconnect with the earth and each other.

When? Thursday June 25 at a.Muse Gallery, 614 Alabama St, San Francisco, 94110.

Come dine with women, enjoy the bounty of summer, and enjoy an expertly prepared meal that utilizes medicinal plants and wild foods for pleasure and well-being at one of our community tables.

For more info, click here.

Tart Photobooth

Here are pictures from the Dirtstar event on Queer Sustainabilty, taken at our very cute Tart Photobooth. Participants were invited to make their own tartelettes* using pastry shells and delicious fillings made of organic and (mostly) local ingredients.

Instructions

For bigger images, go to our Flickr Dirtstar page!

Recipe: Vegan Tart Crust

empty shells waiting to be filled!

Here's the recipe for the pie crust we used to make tartelettes* for the Dirtstar Queer Sustainability event. This type of crust is called "Pâte Brisée". We used the same recipe to make our very special savory hamantaschen at the Spring Dinner. It's delicious, the texture is very pleasant (crispy!) and it's easy to make. It has never failed us...

Pâte Brisée

equipment:
food processor
muffin tins, or small tart pans
fork

ingredients:
2 1/2 Cups Flour (we used half whole wheat and half all purpose)
1 Cup Vegan Butter, cubed and chilled
1 tsp Salt (skip it if you are using salty Earth Balance)
1/4 - 1/2 Cup Ice Water

process:
In the bowl of the food processor, combine flours and, if needed, salt. Add vegan butter and mix (using pulses) until the mixture looks like sand. Then add iced water -you might not need the whole 1/2 cup. The dough should not quite stick together. Take the dough out of the bowl and knead for a short time (2 minutes max).
Let cool in the refridgerator for an hour. (Or until the day after).

Preheat oven to 350º.

When you are ready to bake the dough, take it out of the fridge. Oil the molds and sprinkle a tiny bit of flour (so the tarts don't stick). Make small flat disks (not too thick, not too thin -1/4 inch) and fill in your molds. (If it breaks too much while you make disks, put cold water on your hands, and if your dough is too elastic, sprinkle a tiny bit of flour).
With a fork, poke holes at the bottom of the crust.
(You can bake it with weights or beans at the bottom of the shells so they stay flat, but we didn't and they turned out perfect.)

Bake for 20/ 25 minutes (until brown at the bottom). Let cool.

You can then stuff your shells with the fillings of your choice.



NB: Our inspiration for this recipe came from the amazing blog Vegan Yum Yum. Check it out!

*"little tarts", in French.

Saturday, June 13th

Come check us out on Saturday, June 13th, where we will be representing as part of the Queer Arts Festival from 7-8 pm at SOMArts Center.

Swing by, get dirty making a tasty DIY vegan, local, organic snack with us and find out what Queer Food For Love is all about.

Stay for the films and performances to follow. Click here to read more about this Dirtstar event.

Hope to see you there!

-Your friends at Queer Food For Love

Vegan Carrot Cake

carrot cakes and candied weed

Another one of our off-the-hook desserts. Thanks for sharing, Ella!


Vegan Carrot Cake

Ingredients
2/3 cup all purpose flour
½ cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon baking soda
¾ teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
¼ teaspoon ground cloves
¼ teaspoon grated nutmeg
¼ teaspoon ground allspice
¼ teaspoon salt
1/3 cup vegetable oil
¾ cup unsweetened applesauce
1 tablespoon cornstarch
2 tablespoons warm water
1 cup chopped walnuts
1 cup grated carrot (about 1 large carrot)
(I prefer to use freshly ground spices whenever possible, because they give a stronger, fresher flavor.)

Procedure
1. Preheat oven to 350 F.
2. Grease and flour a 9” round cake pan.
3. In a bowl, combine the flour, sugar, baking soda, baking powder, spices, and salt. Sift all together.
4. In a small bowl, combine the cornstarch and warm water. Stir until dissolved.
5. Mix the oil and applesauce into the cornstarch mixture.
6. Stir the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients until combined making sure not to over stir.
7. Using a rubber spatula, fold the carrots and walnuts into the mixture.
8. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and spread evenly.
9. Bake for 50 minute until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.
10. Cool in the pan for about 10-15 minutes then turn out onto a cooling rack.
11. When cool, slice and enjoy!

Photos: Yasmin

Recipe: Vegan Challah

raw braided challah

Here's the Vegan Challah Recipe Ella made for the Spring Dinner. For vegan Challah fanatics like me, what a treat!
Ella adapted the recipe from the Post Punk Kitchen. She tried other vegan challah recipes and this one was the best one that she came across.

the baker and her baby

Ingredients
1 1/2 Tbsp dry active yeast
1/4 cup warm water ("wrist" temperature)
1 3/4 cups bread flour
1 1/4 cups whole wheat bread flour
1/2 cup soy flour
1/2 Tbsp salt
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup unsalted Earth Balance
1 overripe (mostly black) bananas
1/2 cup boiling water
1/4 cup cold water
sesame seeds, poppy seeds, or sea salt to top

Directions
1. In one small bowl, dissolve yeast in the warm water, put to the side to stand for 5-10 minutes. The yeast should start to bubble and smell “yeasty.”
2. Mash bananas in other small bowl.
3. In large bowl mix: Earth Balance, sugar, salt, and boiling water, stirring so it's all mostly dissolved and the Earth Balance is melted.
4. Add the cold water to the large bowl (the mix should be warmish now but not hot). Stir in yeast mix. Do not stir the hot water directly into the yeast mixture, because the heat will kill some of the yeast.
5. Add bananas.
6. Add flour, one cup at a time.
7. Turn out onto lightly floured surface. Knead for 5-10 min, dough should be smooth, not too stiff or too runny.
8. Lightly coat the large mixing bowl in oil, turn the dough in it to just coat it with oil, place a towel over the dough in the bowl and let it rise for about 1 hr, till double in volume.
9. Punch dough down, turn out and knead again 2-3 min. Divide dough into 3 sections, roll each section into long ropes and make a braid. Preheat the oven to 350.
10. Let the braid rise 45 min. Just before putting braids in the oven, brush them with a small amount of oil, then sprinkle with sesame seeds, poppy seeds, or sea salt.

Bake 30 min. You'll know they're done when you tap them on the bottom and they sound hollow. Let cool on a drying rack for 10 min before slicing. Enjoy!

photos by Yasmin

Cooking for the Garage

Donation for fundraising at The Garage, an arts space in SOMA.

Thimbles of Nettle Soup
Za'atar Spiced Chickpea Hummus
Pickled Golden and Chioggia Beets
Fresh Mandarins and Strawberries
Lemon Meyer Cupcakes With Pink Frosting and Candied Lavender

Queer cupcakes made with love

Collaboration and Love in Action

Picking Lavender Flowers

Testing the frosting

More pics on Flickr.

more photos of our Spring Dinner!

3 places wher you can find more pics:
Yasmin's Flickr, Leonore's Flickr, Jason's blog.
Thank you for immortalizing beautiful moments.

Our Spring Intentions

candied weeds: the "homos of the plant kingdom"

Spring is marked by the vernal equinox -- one of two days during the year when days and nights are of equal length, and the sun is perpendicular to the equator. In simpler terms, chickens that shopped laying eggs in the darkness of winter resume laying eggs as days get longer, which is why the egg is such a significant and widely celebrated symbol of the Spring. For our Spring Dinner, we made an edible nest on your plate. We presented you with greens, symbolizing the return of plants to the soil; eggs- a possibility of new life; and a nest, a place to put and grow your intentions for the coming year.

Nowruz, the Persian New Year, falls on March 21 and celebrates the first day of the Spring, marking the "rebirth of nature". Nowruz is the time to clean the house, pay visit to the home of your friends, and picnic outdoors. Some people believe that whatever a person does on Nowruz will affect the rest of the year. So, if you are warm and kind to your relatives, friends and neighbours on Nowruz, then the new year will be a good one. Nowruz is a time to disrupt of the normal order of things with boisterous parties and forgive yourself and your enemies for deeds of the past. According to Nowruz tradition, noodles represent the impossible knot that life presents us with, and many paths life can take us on. By eating noodles, we hope to untangle the knot and find our path. Nowruz traditions usually include a live goldfish in a bowl of water, which is supposed to bring us good luck. Since we celebrate traditions in a cruelty-free manner at Queer Food, we have chosen to present you with chocolate goldfish on your dessert plate instead.

In March it is customary to give Hamantashen to people you know to celebrate the Jewish holiday of Purim. Hamantashen are triangular cookies, usually filled with sweet poppyseeds or jam, given to family, friends, and neighbors. Normally sweet, we have filled our hamantashen with Easter Lamb instead, making a twist on Spring traditions by mixing a little Easter with our Purim.

A Jewish tradition after the Spring holiday of Passover holds that the woman who bakes bread for the home should impress the key of the house into the bread. This loaf is called the "shlissel challah," and by impressing the key, we are asking that the gates of livelihood and sustenance be properly placed and turned for us. So on Sunday, we impressed the key of this queer home, where we are feasting together, into your loaves of challah, to open the gates of livelihood and sustenance for us all.

In Spring, weeds sprout up - in cement cracks, at the edges of parking lots, in abandoned landfills, on rural hillsides, and besides freeways. Normally bitter, weeds survive by their own determination in the marginal spaces normally overlooked or forgotten by people looking for quick fixes and synthetic pleasures. So too have queers traditionally made homes for themselves in the margins of society, creating relationships and community in spite of heterosexism and homophobia. Whether or not gays can legally marry, or agree that marriage is even a good thing, we will continue, as we always have, to find love, make friends, welcome strangers into our midst, build families of our choosing, and love each other, in spite of what society thinks of us. On Sunday, we offered you candied weeds on your dessert plates- to remind us that what is bitter can also be sweet, to honor the fierceness by which wild things survive through their own determination, and to suggest that weeds might find a rightful place in the queer cosmos, as the "homos" of the plant kingdom.

text by Yasmin

Spring Dinner Photos

plating dessert

extravangant Spring decorations

Please go to Leonore's Flickr page to find more images from our spring Dinner
Thanks Leonore!

Spring Dinner: the menu

(click to see it bigger)

Music
Turntables by DJ Etc.

Koto by Kyle and Eddie

Cello and songs by Bonfire Madigan

Bonfire Madigan Birthday Bash & EP Release Party!
Sunday March 29 featuring Bonfire Madigan full band set with performances by all female indie rock ensemble Excuses for Skipping, DJ Tomas, Shelley Doty & special
guests. Café Du Nord, 2170 Market Street at Sanchez, San Francisco, 94114. 8 p.m., 21 w/ID $12, http://www.cafedunord.com/

Spring Dinner

We're hosting a Spring dinner for Queer folks to celebrate renewal and we will be serving foods inspired by the season and traditions.

As always we will be serving an organic 3-course meal for 15$, made with love by Queer hands.

(bring extra cash for drinks by donation!)

If you are interested in trading your labor for food, email us! queerfoodforlovesf AT gmail DOT com

Next dinner: March 22nd. Mark your calendars!

Nikki's 4-bean chili

Feeding the queer masses

Chili was an authentic part of the Depression experience. "During the Great Depression chili parlors supplied an inexpensive and nourishing meal for millions of Americans. A newspaper man at the time was quoted as saying that during those hard times chili saved more lives than the Red Cross."

We always serve a casual, family-style meal prepared by one of our organizers to our team of volunteers while we prepare dinner.

The day of our last dinner, the team ate Nikki's delicious 4 bean chili.