Queer Community Valentine's

Queer Food For Love

Community Valentine's Dinner

2010

We have just entered our fourth year of organizing Queer Food For Love.

For the past three years, we have been bringing together queers for the express purpose of building community through the acts of preparing and sharing food as a community.

And today, we celebrate Valentine's Day.

As many of you know, Valentine's is sort of a weird holiday where society celebrates Romantic Love to the exclusion of all other forms of love.

And while being "in love" is great, we've all been disappointed and had our hearts broken.

Truly, it is Community and Friendship that heals us and sustains us through hard times.

So tonight, at Queer Food, we are cooking for the most radical, expansive, and inclusive definition of Love possible.

We toast you to heal our broken hearts, and renew our ties to eachother as a community.

Happy Valentine's Day, from your friend at Queer Food For Love.

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