Yet another example of the magical powers of I&T to transform a bunch of unsuspecting ingredients into a whole new thing. With a little help from oil and vinegar, a block of tofu becomes mayo! Amazing!
Now, if you haven't already figured out by looking at my name (or the name of this blog), I'm Jewish, and therefore I'm mayo-resistant. It must be a cultural thing. The only times I've ever used mayo are to make chicken salad or tuna salad, or maybe to add a teeny tiny amount to cole slaw or to stir into a much larger amount of mustard on a turkey sandwich. So unfortunately, the wonders of this recipe are wasted on me. I now have 2.5 cups* of mayo and nothing I want to put it on. I forced myself to eat a salad dressed with it, so it wouldn't have been for naught. I would NEVER have put mayo on a green salad, but this was actually okay.
If I were comparing this recipe to commercial mayo, I'd say that it's almost identical in texture (a little more pourable) and color, and it skews sweet, something I've never liked in a mayo. Next time I make this, I think I'll ease up on the agave nectar.
But here's the thing: the caloric difference between this and commercial mayo is crazy! My math may be off, but I think 2.5 cups of Hellmann's mayo is about 3600 calories, and 2.5 cups of Silken Mayo Dressing is 700 calories! And a lot of them are protein! I mean... come on! Give it up for I&T!!
(For those of you out there who are not vegan and have never experienced homemade mayo, you need to try it asap. It bears no resemblance to Hellmann's. It's deluxe and delicious and tastes like France, and even this mayo-hater was entranced. I should mention, 2.5 cups of it are 4920 calories, but they're worth it.)
SFO: 7
(Close enough to mayo and far enough from tofu to convince a meat-eater, but not quite a slam dunk.)
*Typo alert: Opposite of yesterday's overstated Marinara Sauce yield, this dressing makes almost twice as much as the 1.5 cups I&T says it yields.
Applesauce-Oat Bran Muffins
My cousin Stacey is in town this weekend, visiting from Washington DC, and I'm having her and her clan over for lunch on Monday. Since there are three chilluns on the guest list, I thought Mac Daddy, i.e. Mac and "Cheese," would be in order, but Stacey suggested that a better idea might be to serve Mac with the "cheese" on the side. Uh oh! Sounds like a challenge! Perfect SFO judges, right??
Always one to tempt fate, I'm going to make the Mac Daddy anyway, but I'll have a safety stash of plain macaroni ready to go, in case the Daddy doesn't go down. And just to be sure they don't go hungry, I made a batch of these muffins!
Here's another easy-to-assemble, lightened-up baked goods recipe, very light on the oil, heavy on the good-for-you (oat bran, applesauce, and whole-wheat pastry flour). Really, this recipe comes together so quickly, there's no reason not to whip up a batch of muffins anytime you think of it!
The result is moist and delicious. The only caveat is that there's a hefty dose of ground cardamom in this recipe: it's an unusual spice, and if you're not familiar with it, I could understand if you were put off by that unfamiliar taste in an otherwise familiarly-flavored muffin. Personally, I prefer cardamom in savory applications, but even so, it doesn't ruin these muffins for me. I'm just going to take off a point or two when it comes to the SFO.For the record, I baked these with the convection setting on, and they were done a little earlier than I&T's 28-30 minutes. As my friend Barbara taught me, when they start to smell, they're probably done, or almost done.
SFO: 9
(One point off for the big cardamom presence.)
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