Birth of a junk food
I am not a Foodie. The very word, if that's even a word, sends shivers down my spine. Just like the old song. This is to say that ordinarily I don't mess around with food in any high-concept manner. At the same time I cook for myself and have neither starved nor grown corpuscular. I keep things simple. My greatest food fear is the thought of not being to cook well enough or creatively - open mindedly - enough to make another happy. "Fish, Vegetables," that sort of thing.
About a month ago a couple of different lines of thought came together - a notion of a food instantation which didn't yet seem to exist to my knowledge. The particulars tumbled out of the idea and rattled around on my kitchen counter as potential ingredients. In this moment: the birth of a junk food.
After working through a number of varying batches the concoction, which I'm leaning towards calling X-presso Spread has these final ingredients put together in the following order: - Coffee: double expresso shot or two to three tablespoons of Folgers crystals (a little easier to work with in practice).
- Beef bouillon cubes (two or three) or a base such as 'Better than Bouillon' These first two ingredients should have approx. 1/8 cup of water apiece to mix in.
- Nutritional Yeast (two tablespoons).
- Onion powder (roughly one teaspoon).
- Two well-rounded tablespoons of peanut butter.
- A teaspoon of Agar Agar.
The coffee/bouillon portion is a hot thick liquid as prepared, the other ingredients are stirred into this. Then the whole is stirred until it develops a creamy consistency and cools. The Agar Agar should stiffen the mixture to a firm paste at this point. The peanut butter should remain in the background as a flavor. Its main work lies elsewhere.
I enjoy this immensely. It is a full frontal assault of beefy coffee goodness, and it definitely wakes you up. As far as serving suggestions go it strikes me that it is supposed to go on toast, or perhaps on certain types of crackers. I imagine I'm not the only one this appeals to, saving the choice between coffee and a snack, but I'm not positive. I went over this with Trân; it seemed to me she actually wrinkled her nose at the mere thought. You hear about things like that, and so rarely see it.
I still believe I could be onto something here. If I needed to come up with a catch phrase for it I would call it I think I would call it a Plumpy'nut for Generation X.
11:54:39 PM  ;;
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