Northern Liberties Night Market

I had the pleasure of kicking off my summer with the Philadelphia Night Market! One Thursday a month, May through October, food trucks, bands and beer stands colonize a Philadelphia neighborhood for the ultimate summertime experience. This month the market was held in Northern Liberties at 2nd and Market. When my friends and I arrived we were overwhelmed with all the people and activities (not to mention long lines!) because the Night Market draws quite a large crowd.


While we were walking, we got to sample some Frobana. As we were all trying to figure out what flavor of ice cream we were tasting, the lady handing it out shocked us all by informing us that it was not ice cream but was actually frozen banana with nothing else added! Indeed, they were putting frozen bananas through a machine on the spot and offering it with chocolate and other toppings.

The only complaint that I have about the whole experience was that the lines were excruciatingly long. There were so many choices of food trucks - from kabobs to tacos to wood oven pizza - all with long lines of people waiting to grab a bite.

Because two of my friends had recently lived in Chile, we decided to wait for over half an hour in line for the Delicias food truck (normally located at 34^th and Market) which makes Chilean and Venezuelan fare. We ordered a chorpian and a sweet plantain arepa. The choripan was basically a sausage sandwich with spicy chorizo, caramelized onions and some pico de gallo.  The sandwich had just the amount of spice and the pico de gallo was a nice and refreshing addition. The arepas were little sandwiches made from corn patties and different fillings. Ours was filled with sweet plantains and a cheese that tasted like a crumbled queso blanco. I thought the arepa was more interesting than the choripan – sweet, a tiny bit salty, and extremely satisfying. Even now, a few days later, we've been scheming to get back to the food truck and have such tasty treats again. The combination of having the spicy and then the sweeter sandwich while sitting on a stoop was a perfect pair for a surreal summer night.

Don't miss the next Night Market on June 28^th at 9^th and Washington!

- Leyla Mocan

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Philly Kitchen: Jenn Tian

Every other week Penn Appétit profiles a student who cooks on a college budget and in a college-sized kitchen.

This week I got to do something a little different and bake instead of cook with our featured chef. For Jenn Tian, baking is easier (and maybe more fun!) than cooking. She deserves a special place in the hearts of anyone who has ever tried to bake at Penn for her no-nonsense approach. She finds a way to bake with ingredients that are easy for a college student to access and makes baking a piece of cake. If you’re anything like me, the thought of making a cobbler -let alone in a dorm room -stresses you out, but luckily Jenn finds a way to make it super simple.

Penn Appétit: How did you learn to bake?
Jenn Tian: When I was little I always thought baking was the easiest thing, so whenever it was potluck day for school I would bake something, that’s how I started - I was lazy and I didn’t want to cook. My mom is a big baker, the first thing that she taught me how to make were these Chinese rice cakes (Traditional Chinese dessert). That sparked really learning how to bake.

PA: What’s your favorite thing to bake?
JT: Cupcakes, which is so lame because everyone does it, but they’re so easy and so convenient. The best ones ever are chocolate espresso: I add a bit of coffee to brownie mix and then make a peanut butter filling, dip an knife in the filling and then swirl it in to the cupcakes.

PA: What’s your favorite baked good to eat?
JT: I’m a big fan of red velvet brownies. See that’s the thing with baking you get to just make stuff up. My friend made them and instead of making a red velvet cake, it was like red velvet flavor with brownie consistency. That with vanilla ice cream was a winner.

PA: What’s the most difficult thing about cooking in a college sized kitchen?
JT: Space. Counter space. I feel really awkward having to do things at the kitchen table. But it’s really easy with this recipe.

PA: What’s your advice for people who want to start baking in college?
JT: I would say stop trying to be ambitious, which is what this recipe is all about. It’s so much easier if you cut corners and buy things that will help you out like the peaches from the can. You don’t have to add sugar and figure it out. Unless you’re really good it’s hard to start from scratch and you have to be quite precise.

PA: What’s your baking philosophy?
JT: I think that people shouldn’t stick to traditional ideas. So when you think about pie you don’t have to think normal things like peach or apple. If you think red velvet you don’t have to think cake or cupcake you can think brownie or milkshake… I think after you get past the basics of how to measure and cook things, the fun about baking is that you can be really creative.


Jenn’s Peach cobbler
(Recipe adapted from Jenn’s host mom over the summer)

Ingredients

2 cans of Dole canned peaches
Betty Crocker Golden Vanilla Cake Mix
One premade pie crust
Premade pie dough
¼ stick of butter
Cinnamon
Optional: include fresh raspberries with the peach filling

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees
Put peaches into a bowl. Add ½ cup cake mix.
Mix well until the syrup from the peach cans is well mixed with the cake mix.
Spoon filling into a store bought pie shell. Fill up until peaches are almost to the top, you might not use up all of them.
Take store bought pie dough and cut into strips about 1 inch wide. Lay them across the top of the pie in a crisscross (lattice) pattern. Take ¼ stick of butter and cut into small chunks. Insert butter chunks into the pie between the crust lattices.
Sprinkle a bit more of the cake mix as well as some cinnamon on the top of the pie.
Bake for 25-30 minutes or until the top is golden brown. Serve while warm.

-Leyla Mocan

Do you or someone you know cook in your college sized kitchen? Want to be profiled on our next post? Send an email to pennappetit.blog@gmail.com and we’ll contact you to be featured

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Philly Kitchen: Sarah Riblet and Jake Gutman

Every other week Penn Appétit profiles a student who cooks on a college budget and in a college sized kitchen

This week I got to catch up with the cutest cooking couple in town, Sarah Riblet and Jake Gutman. Eating the delicious vegan meal they made was almost as much fun as getting to watch them cook together. Sarah has been a vegan for the past six years so for dinner we had tacos made with seitan. Seitan is a meat substitute made from wheat gluten and I was personally surprised and how much it actually tastes like meat (as I exclaimed several times over the course of dinner). They told me about their adventures trying to eat vegan while abroad and proved that cooking is much more fun with two people together!

Penn Appétit: Who is the better cook?
Jake Gutman: Probably Sarah, she has more experience.
Sarah Riblet: Jake brings a spirit of… exploration.
JG: My expertise is taking something that other people don’t like and trying to make something out of it, it’s like Chopped!
SR: You had to talk about Chopped, didn’t you?



PA: Would you eat garlic on a first date?
SR: I’m pretty sure that we did eat garlic on our first date.
JG: It’s bad; I like garlic and onion too much. If Sarah didn’t happen to be a garlic and onion person this relationship wouldn’t have worked out.

PA: How did you learn to cook?
JG: My mom cooked every single meal of my life essentially, so I learned a lot of recipes from her. But I also experimented a lot, I’d just find things in the fridge, I never followed recipes and that still shows in my cooking.
SR: My mom also cooked a lot but I first cooked on my own in this community where I lived in Ireland on a service project. As a volunteer you had to help them run the house so I was responsible for cooking meals for 12 people with all natural ingredients from the farm. I wasn’t a confident cook back then but it helped a lot.




PA: What’s your favorite dish to cook?
SR: I know what you’re going to say.
JG: What do you think I’m going to say, pasta?... probably. It’s my favorite thing to eat.
SR: It’s his favorite thing for me to make for him.
JG: Not true, she’s obscuring the truth! You can do anything with pasta; you can make it so many ways. We tend to cook it with a thick tomato meat sauce.
PA: Fake meat sauce right?
SR: Yeah, we have this super good sausage (Field Roast Grain Meat Sausage) made with wheat gluten, it’s so good it tastes like real sausage. We take the casing off and then crumble it into the sauce, once we even made cheese steaks with it.
(Note: I got to try a bit of the sausage and it actually did taste just like meat!)

PA: Do you have a cooking philosophy, other than to not eat animals?
JG: I don’t, I just go by the seat of my pants.
SR: Yeah, I do that too. But you [Jake] put all this weird food together that I never would. For you it’s like “If I have peanuts I’m making food with peanuts in it!” I do what makes sense; you do what’s there.
JG: True, I’m a scavenger.

PA: What’s your advice for people who want to start cooking?
JG: Just go for it, you have nothing to lose and you can always experiment, that’s how I started.
SR: I would say that cooking is always more fun if you’re doing it with someone else or for someone else. If you can get your friends together it will be a lot more fun.

Sarah and Jake’s Seitan tacos
Time: 45 minutes Serves: 4
Ingredients
• One red and one yellow onion
• One whole green pepper, cut into strips
• One package seitan (local if possible)
• ½ cup corn (fresh, canned or frozen)
• 2 tomatoes (Or kumatos, which look like a brown tomatoes, available at Whole Foods) + 3 grape tomatoes
• 4-5 cloves of garlic
• 2 tbsp limejuice
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 2 avocados
• One bunch of cilantro
• 1 tbsp tomato paste
• Chili powder, southwest seasoning, salt, pepper
• Jalapeno pepper (optional)
• Hard or soft taco shells

For the Seitan:
Rinse the seitan in a strainer. In a large pan, add 2 tbsp olive oil and 2 cloves of crushed garlic. Bring to medium heat. Add the seitan and cook for about ten minutes until it starts to brown. Add the southwest spice blend and ½ - ¾ cups of water; this will help the seitan absorb the spices. Chop your yellow onion into long strips and add to the seitan. Let cook until all the water has evaporated. Then add as much frozen corn as you like (we used about ½ cup). Once seitan has browned to your liking add it to the taco shells.




For the Salsa:
Chop up your tomatoes and place into your serving bowl. Take about ¼ red onion and dice, add to the tomatoes. Crush and add one clove of garlic. Add a dash of salt and pepper and about one spoonful of limejuice. If you like, chop up and add a few springs of cilantro. To finish, add about a tbsp of tomato paste to thicken it up. Add on top of the tacos.





For the Guacamole:
Take your avocados, scoop out the insides and add to a bowl. Coarsely chop a few springs of cilantro and add. Crush and add one clove of garlic. Very finely chop up ¼ of a red onion and add. Add 2-3 shakes of chili powder, a dash of salt and pepper and about a spoonful of limejuice. Cut up three grape tomatoes as small as you can. If you like, you can very finely chop a bit of jalapeno pepper and add it. Mix until you get your desired amount of chunkiness. Add to the tacos or serve on the side with chips (or both!)


-Leyla Mocan

Do you or someone you know cook in your college sized kitchen? Want to be profiled on our next post? Send an email to pennappetit.blog@gmail.com and we’ll contact you to be featured

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Philly Kitchen: Penny Jennewein

Every other week Penn Appétit profiles a student who cooks on a college budget and in a college sized kitchen.

This week we catch up with Penny Jennewein, a proud member and founder of Penn’s first ever co-op. When she’s not engaging in the “science experiment” of vegan baking, Penny is part of a system of shared cooking at the co-op. The members of the co-op put in money for a mutually agreed upon grocery list and then take turns cooking strictly vegan for everyone throughout the week. I got to enjoy a lively discussion about the power of food to bring people together and promote social justice over a delicious plate of homemade green coconut curry (recipe below!). I hope you’ll come away as inspired as I was to grab a group of friends and start cooking together similar to how the co-op does.

Penn Appétit: How did you learn to cook?
Penny Jenewein: My mom was a caterer for a while and a baker, she’s a really good cook. She would always teach us how to bake so me and my sister would make soufflés and things like that, but I didn’t really learn to cook until high school, I just felt like I should learn domestic things.

PA: Why did the co-op decide to make communal meals vegan?
PJ: Not a majority but a lot of members are vegan. Originally when we started out we decided that we all have a shared commitment to social justice and a lot of people, even if they aren’t vegan, agree that food is a source of social justice. I think that veganism is a way to be socially just and functionally the system wouldn’t work well if we were doing communal food and people had to pay for things they wouldn’t be able to eat.

PA: What’s the hardest thing about cooking in a college sized kitchen?
PJ: There’s not enough time for it, I rarely have blocks of time to do anything…I get around this because other people at the co-op cook and I can still have a healthy and good tasting meal but not have to put the time in every night.

PA: What’s the best thing?
PJ: I think it’s a relaxer. I look forward to cooking food and it’s something that I do with other people. Food is such a social justice thing, you know, if you plan your life in a way that you can cook food and enjoy food with other people that can be something that brings people together. I think it really does in the co-op when people sit together, eat and laugh.

(The co-ops cooking schedule, left)

PA: What’s your advice for people who want to start cooking?
PJ: I would say try to cook something that you really like first. But also, it’s not a science; you should just throw things in a pot, see what tastes good and add more or less depending.

PA: What’s your cooking philosophy?
PJ: I usually don’t follow the recipe that much.
PA: Why is that?
PJ: Usually I always do something wrong so I have to make up for that. Especially with cooking vegan I have to shift things so I will try to find a substitute or I wont add things and I’ll just see what happens.


Thai Green Curry – serves 9 people in a co-op
(Adapted from Oh Kitchen, June 20 2011)

Ingredients
• 3 Tbs green curry paste
• 2 14oz can of coconut milk
• 2 large cloves garlic
• 1 1-inch knob of ginger, peeled and grated
• 1 full onion
• 4 large red (or other thin-skinned type) potato
• 5-6 carrots
• 1 Tbs brown sugar
• ½ 14 oz package tofu
• 2 cups brown rice

WITHOUT SHAKING, open the can of coconut milk. Take the coconut "cream" layer off the top and put into a sauce pan along with red curry paste. Heat over medium heat and stir to combine.

Let coconut cream and curry paste come together till they thicken up and become more paste-like. Lower heat some and then add garlic, ginger and onion.

When garlic and ginger become fragrant, add rest of coconut milk, along with 1 cup of water. Add diced potatoes carrots, and tofu to the pot.

Turn up the heat till pot boils and then reduce to a simmer. Put the lid on, but leave partially open. Let simmer for 30-40 minutes or until potatoes are soft.

Add brown sugar and squeeze of a lime or a splash of rice vinegar. Taste and adjust to your liking.

Serve with brown rice.

-Leyla Mocan

Do you or someone you know cook in your college sized kitchen? Want to be profiled on our next post? Send an email to pennappetit.blog@gmail.com and we’ll contact you to be featured!

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Philly Kitchen: Dayo Adewole

Every other week Penn Appétit profiles a student who cooks on a college budget and in a college sized kitchen.

If anyone ever said that it takes having your own kitchen to be able to cook in college, Dayo Adewole is here to prove them wrong. Apparently all one needs is a desire to make your own food and a few generous friends who are willing to share a kitchen. Though he eats partially on a meal plan he still finds time to frequently cook in his friends’ kitchen and maybe even share an inventive recipe or two.

Penn Appétit: How did you learn to cook?
Dayo Adewole: My dad always encouraged me to follow him around the kitchen and to help out, that’s where I learned some basics and different styles of cooking. I started to cook for myself when I was 12. At first I just made food for myself but then I started to get better. When my parents tasted it and realized that it was good I started making bigger portions for the whole family.

PA: What’s the most difficult thing about cooking in a college-sized kitchen?
DA: Maybe the actual lack of a kitchen. But actually, getting ingredients can be a bit expensive. It’s still less expensive than eating in a dining hall, but you still have to plan and budget.

PA: What’s the best thing about cooking in a college-sized kitchen?
DA: You get to show off to your friends.

PA: What do you like most about cooking?
DA: I like the fact that you can create anything. I think it’s about the chance to experiment and try out new things and new flavors.
PA: On that note, what’s the most inventive thing you’ve ever cooked?
DA: Probably honey glazed shrimp. I had honey and shrimp, two things that I like, so I thought I’d put them together. It was better than expected but maybe needed a bit of tweaking for next time because honey doesn’t really go well in the fryer.

PA: What’s your favorite tool to cook with?
DA: I love the spatula, maybe because as a kid I watched a lot of SpongeBob.

Jollof Rice and Chicken

Ingredients:
• chicken
• 3 tbsp oil
• one onion
• tomato purée
• one chicken stock cube
• one red and one yellow pepper
• rice
• garlic
• ginger
• one whole tomato

Instructions:
• Fry the chicken in 2 tbsp of oil for about 10 minutes.
• Add onions and tomato purée to the chicken.
• While that's frying, separately mix the garlic, tomato, onion, and ginger to make a base.
• Add 1 tbsp of oil, the garlic tomato mixture, and the stock cube to the chicken. Add 2 cups of water as well and bring it to a boil for another 10 minutes.
• Meanwhile, wash the rice and add it to the chicken (if necessary, pour enough water to reach the level of the rice). Let simmer for 20 minutes
• Chop the peppers and add to the pot. Let cook for another 10-15 minutes. Serve and enjoy!

Do you or someone you know cook in your college sized kitchen? Want to be profiled on our next post? Send an email to pennappetit.blog@gmail.com and we’ll contact you to be featured!

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Philly Kitchen: Celia Lewis

Every other week Penn Appétit profiles a student who cooks on a college budget and in a college sized kitchen.

Call her the queen of spices, Celia Lewis stays true to her cooking philosophy of “keeping it simple,” regardless of how big her spice collection might be. Though she’s famous in some circles for her baked treats, it turns out that she’s an accomplished cook as well. I had the pleasure of cooking with her one sunny afternoon in her high-rise kitchen and learning more about her journey from being dependent on restaurants around campus to cooking her own food. While I was there she made a full and delicious meal of pan seared salmon, roasted asparagus and rice. See the recipe below to make this easy but satisfying dinner yourself!

Penn Appétit: When did you start cooking and how did you learn to cook?
Celia Lewis: Before this year I didn’t cook, and I was kind of intimidated to start. I didn't have a meal plan, so I was supplementing eating out once or twice a day with yogurt, granola bars, deli meat, and other no-prep items I picked up from the grocery store. Not only was this costly, but I also realized I wasn't particularly satisfied from the eating the same thing from the same places all the time. After I came back to Penn from Thanksgiving, I decided that I needed to start cooking. I started with a lot of easy dishes, like omelets and pasta, and then started expanding to full meals with rice, a protein and basic vegetables… I taught myself [how to cook]. I never really helped my mom when she cooked but I used to always sit in the kitchen with her so I guess that helped… most of what I cook is really simple so it made it easy for me to do. Sometimes I’ll use Google if there’s a specific thing I need to look up.

PA: What’s your favorite dish to cook?
CL: Any kind of roasted vegetable, which is funny because I didn’t really eat so many vegetables before [I started cooking]. The prep is very easy but I like them really smoky and charred so it takes a while, but you can throw them in the oven and do your homework or something else while you wait. Plus once they’re cooked they take up much less space in the fridge.

PA: What’s your cooking philosophy?
CL: Keep it simple and use lots of spices. I really like spicy food so I will get dried chilies, break them apart by hand and then stick them in an omelet or eat them with vegetables. My three favorite spices are Herbs de Provence, Kansas City Classic Rub and Mozambique Peri Peri (a combination of red pepper flakes, paprika and other spices) [all available at Whole Foods]. As a college student, using a lot of spices means that I can have things that are really flavorful but don’t need a lot of ingredients.

PA: What’s your advice to someone who wants to start cooking for themselves?
CL: One thing that people find intimidating about cooking is that you need to plan ahead and figure out what to get at the grocery store. Even though you end up spending a lot of money upfront you save money in the long run. Start simple, figure out what your favorite spices are and buy those. Get frozen versions of your favorite proteins, like frozen chicken breasts or salmon burgers. You can also order staples, like oatmeal and rice, on amazon.com and if you have a prime account you can get free shipping. That helps a lot because one problem can be carrying heavy groceries from the store. Stock up your pantry because then you get over the hurdle of getting to the grocery store and you just have to find the time.

Celia’s Pan Roasted Salmon with Spicy Grilled Asparagus
Serves: 2 Time: 1 hour

Ingredients
• Olive Oil
• 1 bunch of asparagus
• 1 frozen salmon filet
• Salt, pepper, paprika, and Mozambique Peri Peri
• White rice

Start with the asparagus about an hour before you want to eat:
• Preheat oven to 400 degrees
• Wash your asparagus, cut about an inch off the ends. Place them in a bowl and toss with about a tablespoon of olive oil. Add pepper, paprika and Peri Peri spice to taste (several shakes should suffice)
• Place on a baking sheet with aluminum foil. Put into oven.
• After about 30 minutes, turn the asparagus over
• Let cook for another 20 – 30 minutes or until asparagus are well charred

For the Salmon,
• Thaw one packaged filet (between 0.5-1 lb) of salmon, you can get good frozen ones at Trader Joe’s. These filets come packaged in plastic bags already, so to thaw properly put them in the fridge the night before or place into a bowl of warm water that day.
• When you’re ready to cook, place salmon into a pan on the stove.
• Drizzle about 1-2 tbsp of olive oil over the salmon. Turn the heat to medium low.
• Sprinkle paprika, Peri Peri, and black pepper onto the filet.
• Cover the pan with a lid.
• Let cook for 10-15 minutes. You can cut it in half to check and make sure it’s done. You’ll be able to tell when the salmon changes from the red pink to a light pink, you want it to be thoroughly cooked and all the same color.

Serve with white rice. If you have a rice cooker like Celia set the timer for when you’re ready to eat. Otherwise cook on the stovetop (will take about 15 minutes for white rice).

-Leyla Mocan

Do you or someone you know cook in your college sized kitchen? Want to be profiled on our next post? Send an email to pennappetit.blog@gmail.com and we’ll contact you to be featured!

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