Naughty or Nice?

Posted on by Mackensy Lunsford and Melody Grace Miller

Feeling naughty?

Don't give a flying fig about your waistline or cholesterol level over the holidays? Would you rather chew the fat than gnaw on a carrot stick?

If holidays are about happily overindulging now and worrying about the bulge later, welcome to the club. And really, what screams overdoing it more than three pounds of bacon? Who wants to tie ribbons on packages when you can weave strips of bacon together, then wrap it around several more pounds of sausage and barbecue?

Shane Heavener of 12 Bones Smokehouse seems to work his magic with the naughty in mind. For those of you that have heard about the Bacon Explosion, a cult hit circulating through the interwebs and clogging the arteries of pork fans everywhere, you'll recognize this recipe.

Nice

Whole Grain & Vegetable Pilaf
Serves 8 to 10 as a side

Ingredients
2 sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into ¼-inch pieces
2 parsnips, peeled and cut into ¼-inch pieces
2 rutabagas, peeled and cut into ¼-inch pieces
2 butternut squash, peeled, seeded and cut into ¼-inch pieces
1 large beet, peeled and cut into ¼-inch pieces
extra virgin olive oil or virgin coconut oil to coat lightly

2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
¾ cup raw pumpkin seeds
1 teaspoon paprika
pinch salt
1 small or medium red onion, small dice
1 small bunch cilantro, washed, dried and minced

2 cups dry whole grain (like quinoa, wild rice, short grain brown rice, or millet), cooked
salt and pepper
(optional)
¼ cup dried cherries, roughly chopped
¼ cup mixed pitted olives, thinly sliced

Procedure
Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Toss potatoes, parsnips, rutabagas, squash and beets in just enough olive oil to coat, season with salt and pepper, and roast on a sheet pan in the oven until fork tender. For best results, cook each vegetable separately.  Transfer roasted vegetables to a larger mixing bowl. Heat 2 tablespoons olive oil in a sauté pan or frying pan over medium low heat and fry pumpkin seeds until they pop. Add paprika and salt, toss and remove from heat. Add pumpkin seeds, red onion and cilantro to mixing bowl with roasted vegetables, toss and adjust seasonings.

For a sweeter emphasis, add dried cherries. For a more savory note, add olives. Also, experiment with smoked paprika in place of regular.

Nut Roast
1 cup cooked rice
1 cup vegan or regular cheese, shredded
2 carrots, diced
Half an onion, diced
2 celery sticks, diced
1 cup crushed nuts
2 tbsp tamari or soy sauce
¼ cup bread crumbs
2 tbsp spelt flour (or flour of your choice)

Sautée the carrots, onions and celery. Purée all ingredients and form into loaf on a baking sheet or in bread-loaf pan.
Mix 3 tbsp ketchup with 1 tbsp olive oil and brush on top as a glaze.
Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes or until golden.

Vegan Cream Cheese Cupcakes
1 ½ cups flour
1 cup raw sugar
½ cup cocoa powder
1 tsp salt
1/3 cup butter or oil
1 cup water
1 tsp vanilla

Method:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Sift together dry ingredients. Mix together wet ingredients in a large bowl. Slowly mix in dry ingredients and stir until combined well.
Fill muffin tins ¾ of the way full with batter and bake for 20-25 minutes.

For topping:
Mix together:
8 oz vegan or regular cream cheese
1/3 cup sugar
1/8 tsp salt
12 oz chocolate chips

Top cupcakes with cream cheese mixture.

Heavener rolls sausage and duck in bacon lattice, the smokes the whole shebang. He calls it the “turducken smoked fatty.” Xpress had a chance to taste it, and we call it delicious. Heavener's lightened his up a touch with turkey sausage and pulled bird, but feel free to experiment using his recipe as a guideline.

For more information about 12 Bones, visit 12bones.com.

Feeling nice?

After a full month of sumptuous eating, some folks might be left wondering how they’re going to keep that dreaded spare tire away. Who wants to miss out on grandma’s cheesy potato-bacon gratin or mom’s four-stick-of-butter chocolate cake (a la Paula Deen)? Then there’s all of the holiday parties with their platters of cookies, mini-quiches and candy, all washed down with a glass of spiked eggnog or three.

Come January, many of us are going to wonder how we’ll take off those 10 pounds by bathing suit season. There is at least one tasty solution for the holiday flab problem, should you have the willpower: Don’t put the pounds on to begin with. As they say, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, right? Plenty of Asheville’s restaurants have menus full of options for both delicious and healthy eating — and you thought the two were mutually exclusive.

“Don’t overeat, just eat until you’re full,” advises Shanon Blair, co-owner of the all-vegetarian Green Light Café on Lexington Avenue; a simple but great reminder when you start reaching for seconds.

Whether you are a vegan, vegetarian or just looking for nourishing alternatives, Xpress provides you with a few ideas to leave you feeling light and satisfied this holiday season.

Chef Jason Sellers of the Laughing Seed Café shares his recipe for whole grain and vegetable pilaf. Cherries, beets and other root vegetables jazz up this colorful dish to make a great accompaniment to holiday meals.

Over at the Green Light Café, Blair shared her recipe for nut roast and vegan cream-cheese cupcakes. “It was holiday time,” Blair explained, “and we were all burnt out on tofurkey, so we thought: fix some kind of roast that was rich in your protein and your vegetables and so it’s not just all grain, you know, it’s a nice balance of grains, nuts and vegetables.”

For more information about Laughing Seed, visit laughingseed.com. For more information about Green Light, visit greenlightcafe.com

— Send your food news to food@mountainx.com

 

Naughty

Turducken Smoked Fatty
Ingredients:
1 pound of BBQ pulled chicken (fully cooked)
1 pound duck confit or smoked pulled duck meat
3 pounds of sliced bacon
5 pounds of turkey sausage, mild or hot (loose, uncooked)
1 red bell pepper, diced medium
3 poblano pepper, diced medium
10 cloves roasted garlic, mashed
1 pound red potatoes, boiled or roasted soft

To make filling:
In a large mixing bowl, lightly crush potatoes with a fork.
Add peppers, roasted garlic, pulled chicken, and duck confit.
season with salt and pepper, then fold all together. Store refrigerated.

To make the outer layers:
On a clean surface or cookie sheet, weave the bacon slices to form a rectangle.
Sprinkle the turkey sausage over the bacon lattice. Then press the sausage to form an even layer across the lattice. The sausage should cover the bacon in one uniform sheet, but stop 2 inches from the edge of the lattice all around.

To assemble:
Spread the filling over the sausage layer as evenly as possible. Carefully separate the front edge of the sausage layer from the bacon weave and begin rolling backwards. You want to include all layers except for the bacon weave in your roll. Keep the sausage as tight as possible. Once the sausage is fully rolled up, pinch together the seams and ends to seal all of the bacon goodness inside.

To cook:
Smoke over indirect heat at 275 degrees with heavy smoke (or roast in oven at 300 degrees). Cook until internal temperature reads 165 degrees on an instant read thermometer, at least an hour and thirty minutes. Slice into rounds and serve.

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