Chad, Jessica, Jet and Aijiahlyn

Thursday, September 25, 2008

Cafe Yumm is knocked off!

I'm a stud....well to put it more humbly, I'm proud of myself right now. : ) That's better. I didn't rob Cafe Yumm....literally.....just sorta......I was just being proactive about my situation.....someone else started it. A total stranger, ripped off their Yumm Sauce recipe, posted it on their blog, I found it, and have since used it to my advantage. That's all. : )

Recently, I finally convinced Chad to go to Cafe Yumm with me. It was quite a feat considering it's vegetarian food and he's a complete guy's guy. But Cafe Yumm is very mainstream for vegesaurus food, which is probably why they are popping up everywhere like the spiders near my front door. Don't ask me how many spiderwebs Chad has run into while walking from the garage to our front door.....tehe....at least I think it's funny. Anyway, back to the Yumm story. For him, vegetarian food = hippie food, or weird chic food. I once tried to get him into Laughing Planet Cafe, yeah right! Once he saw there was no meat on the menu and half the customers had dreadlocks and exposed, hairy armpits, he begged to leave. So, you can now understand why it has taken me a few years to get Chad into Cafe Yumm.

For any who don't know, Cafe Yumm specializes in "Yumm bowls" which feature, rice, beans, and Yummy sauce, with toppings (diced tomato, avocado slices, olives, shredded cheese, and sour cream), all served warm. Yumm+MMmmmmmmmm. And Chad concurred!!!! Ha! When we were done, we wanted more. Chad said, "I bet we could make this at home." I said, "I know....we just need the recipe for the sauce and the rest would be as easy as falling asleep in Sacrement Meeting on High Council Sunday....JK......my dad-in-law just got called to the High Council so I had to put a wise-crack in.

Well, I did it. I can make a Yumm bowl from scratch, and I mean, SCRATCH scratch. The best part is that the main ingredients are rice and beans.....hello....perfect for food storage and super cheap, and tasty, and easy, and the list goes on.

First I found the sauce knock-off recipe online. It had some funky stuff in it, but it turned out great. Among the ingredients were garbonzo beans, and soybeans. The first time I used canned garbonzos and silken tofu....but I knew I could get the recipe to be much cheaper by using dry beans, and cooking them myself.

Armed with the internet and my cooking skills I bought dry beans in bulk from WinCo, dirt cheap man. I had NO IDEA how to make my black beans go from dry, to the kind in the can. I knew they had to be soaked, and I thought that was it. So I soaked them overnight. When I sampled them in the morning, they were chewable, but not like normal beans....eeek. So I soaked them another night....lol....how embarrassing. (oh yeah, one of the tubs overfilled onto the counter because I didn't know how much the beans expanded) The next day, they tasted exactly the same. But luckily the internet rescued me, and taught me that I have to cook them.....oh dear.....that should have been obvious. I cooked them in some water for an hour on the stove, and my beans were like canned beans, but cheaper! So now, I can make Yumm bowls with my beans from food storage.

So, Cafe Yumm, I regret to inform you that I will no longer be your customer, but I will always admire your modern dining areas, and your ability to make "hippie-food" popular among the masses.

10 comments:

Sean and Steph said...

I love Yumm!! I'm proud of you for making it on your own, I buy my Yumm sauce at the store. And in case you ever get the urge to not make it yourself, you can let Chad know that they make EXCELLENT Panini's, with meat! I love it!

E and J said...

Ummm so I'll need the recipe for Yumm sauce becuase I've tried to taste out the flavors and haven't been able to get it quite right...and I can't afford to make it to the resturant to taste and try again! LOL Congrats on all your learning during that process.

Matt and Christy said...

My sister-in-law got me hooked on Yumm bowls- and I've never been inside one of their restaurants. My in-law's purchased the sauce at the store, and they make it all the time! I love it, but Matt still needs convincing...

AMY AND MIKEY said...

Where to begin- I love Cafe Yumm! And so does Mike. That is really funny about Chad, because Mike is the same way- he's so too good for hippies, and has to have his meat, and he's always calling me a hippie, sometimes do you wonder how we married these men? Mike like - he doesn't hate Hippies, but he kind of does, like he's really rude about it, he's just like too good for them. BUT, I came home one day with a cafe bowl and he tasted it and is obessed with yum sauce:) Anyway- that is so funny about the beans. SO FUNNY. OK school: that thought totally went through my mind,- I'm dead serious, "I could just see if Jessica has her old Essays and remembers the quizes or exams, or better yet- she could just be me, nobody would know!!!! She would just go by Amy!" how bad is that?! It makes me feel good that those thoughts would cross your mind, because I never thought they would, I just feel like you're really righteous, not in an annoying way but like- I really respect you. I just feel like yo'uve always had a really strong testimony. AND I feel like you do really well in school, and school is such a trial for me! I'd love to ask you questions but I'm afraid you'd think I were so stupid, and be like, "Amy why the heck are you an English Major, you don't get anything!!" Uhhhh. That's really cool that you have such a love for education. It did make me think when you wrote that you wished you'd enjoyed it more. I will try. How long are you sticking around Oregon? What's the plan for you guys? Does Chad want to teach here? or move? do you want to get your masters? love you.

Karen K. said...

So are you going to share the blog where the yumm sauce recipe is? This is a great post! You are very, very funny. I remember watching you and Sarah once at a youth conference. You guys never stopped laughing! It was fun watching the two of you. :)

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Anonymous said...

I too have found various versions of the Yumm Sauce Recipe on the internet. I've tried making it about a dozen times but it NEVER comes out tasting like the real thing from Cafe Yumm. What is the secret?! My sauce is not nearly as tangy (or dare I say cheesy) as the real thing. I can't figure out what I'm doing wrong. Any insight would be greatly appreciated! :)

Unknown said...

I haven't tried them but these are what I have found so far. Both fairly similar but I think the first is probably going to work out best.

http://www.recipezaar.com/297251
http://mpchickchat.blogspot.com/2005/11/recipe-rip-off-edited.html

Unknown said...

Hey Jess,
So you can imagine my surprise when I'm googling around for cafe yumm info and see your smiling face. ;)
Looks like life is going great. Great to see ya!

Trish Lewis

Unknown said...

Any chance you'd share the recipie? Or the blog it was on? I'm also trying to puzzle out their awesome baked tofu. So good!