MAUI- COOKING SEGMENT VEGETARIAN

Today May 1, 2012 HST, I did another cooking video session with Peter King my co-producer at his condo in Kihei, it was a nice day, a May Day on Maui, looking out into that ocean, man this place is too cool to be doing a cooking gig, we should cook on the ocean, but... this is business, serious foodie biz. 

Thanks to Down To Earth Natural Foods in Kahului, Marketing Manager and Vegetarian Chef Jessica Oshier got me some food to work with, and thanks to my friend Sara Hoppe Manager of Down To Earth for setting me up, big mahaloz!

So today was interesting, I decided to do some crepes for a breakfast, and a Tofu Dynamite. So let's get to the task of the crepes. Most cooks will tell you, the crepes need to be thin, after all it is a thin pancake really... and most crepes are made with all purpose flour, but I decided to use spelt flour which doesn't hold up like all purpose flour, but I just love the flavor of spelt, and to be honest, when I was done with cooking the spelt crepe, it was difficult to roll, but, though it didn't roll smoothly, it folded alright, and I topped it off with sliced organic bananas, and organic chocolate syrup. Okay, boo boo, but it was workable.

And the Tofu Dynamite came out rich the way I wanted it to, it had zero cholesterol because it was made with all vegetarian products, no saturated animal fats, very healthy. Instead of real mayonnaise, I used Original Vegenaise from Follow Your Heart, if you love mayonnaise like I do, and don't want any GMO, or eggs, or fats from animals, this product is as close as you can get to real mayonnaise without the harmful stuff. Other ingredients for the Tofu Dynamite was some red curry paste, Bragg Liquid Amino (instead of shoyu), garlic powder, cayenne pepper, salt, pepper, lime juice for the Dynamite mixture. For the tofu.. I used a 14 oz. block of organic firm tofu, sliced into cubes, and dredged in spelt flour, and salt and pepper, then deep fried in some organic vegetable oil until a crust was formed, then the cooked tofu was coated in the rich Dynamite mixture, served on two separate saucers, garnished with sliced Thai Basil.


When it was all said and done, mission accomplished, remember, we are on a shoe string budget, we don't have the resources that the chefs on the Food Network have, those shows are big productions, when we make a mistake, we can't chuck it out and do a retake, many times, we have to run with the mistakes, so with that, we are content with what we got, now, if we had a backing, where hundreds of thousands of dollars were brought to the table, it would be a different animal, we'd have a staff, writers, chefs to help make back up dishes, and cleaners, maintenance crews, grips, camera operators, and a set built. But we do the best we can with what we love to do, and that's produce a cooking show on Maui.

Bonnie and Co-Producer/Camera/Post Production man Peter King enjoy some Dynamite and share the Spelt Crepe, Bonnie looks at the Dynamite which was alien to her, but she did eat, and saved the sauce that was left behind in the kitchen, most Dynamite is made with seafood, so whenever I do a tofu dish, people think the tofu is dull, well it is, but when spiced up, it makes a great meat substitute.

CREDITS


PRODUCERS
Ron Sambrano
Peter King


TALENT
Ron Sambrano


CAMERA/POST
Peter King


SAMPLER
Bonnie


DOWN TO EARTH NATURAL FOODS
Jessica Oshier
Sara Hoppe


AKAKU TV


Copyright 2012