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@charm city cupcake I'm using "chili powder" to mean the spice mix. That's how it's usually sold in stores in the U.S. Thanks for clarifying! That would've been some pretty hot cauliflower otherwise.

Hi everyone, looks like I've hit a nerve here, so please let me expand on why I called soy milk a junk food. It isn't because I didn't think about it, or because I haven't done the research, or because I caught my husband in a sordid affair with it (although thanks both for that and for your username, @LizLemon, they really made my day). I doubt many of us would be here if that's the kind of place this were.

First, if you are truly making your own soy milk in the traditional method by pressing your own whole, non-pesticide-treated, non-genetically-modified soybeans, then hats off to you. That is not the kind of soy milk I'm talking about. I do think that even soybeans prepared in in the traditional fashion have historically been used more often than not to make fermented foods, which seems to increase the availability of soy's nutrients to our bodies and minimize some of the possible health concerns that I'll talk about in a moment. But still, if you're making your own soy milk, you're officially more into this than I am. Feel free to stop reading.

The kind of soy milk I'm thinking of is the commercially produced kind. There are several varieties of commercial soy milk, some much closer to whole foods than others, but increasingly, you need to know an awful lot to tell them apart.

One key question is whether your soy milk is made from organic soybeans. Even if you don't consider certified organic status all that important in the grand scheme these days, it's important where soy is concerned. The vast majority of soy grown in the U.S. is both heavily pesticide-treated and seriously genetically modified. One of the modifications has been to increase the level of isoflavones in strains of soy grown in the U.S. That modification increases the plant's resistance to pests by making the pests infertile.

Some brands of soy milk are clearly labeled certified organic, which means, among other things, that the soy used to make it hasn't been sprayed with pesticides or genetically modified. Certified organic is a good start, but you'd better check your labels every time you buy. One major brand spent years using all organic soybeans but very recently, and very quietly, started sourcing from non-organic suppliers.

A second important question is whether your soy milk is actually pressed from whole beans, or whether it is made from soy isolates. From what I can tell, it's about 50/50, and sometimes the same brand can use both methods. The difference in production process is pretty dramatic. Pressing whole soybeans seems like cooking. It's something you could do at home. Creating a beverage from soy isolates goes vaguely as follows: Soybeans are broken down into thin flakes. The flakes are treated with a petroleum product called hexane to remove the oil. What's left after the oil is extracted is ground into a meal, which is bleached, de-gummed and deodorized, among other things, to produce about the farthest thing from a whole food I can imagine. Then the isolate is mixed with water and other ingredients and placed in a package virtually indistinguishable from the stuff pressed from whole beans.

In addition to some soy milks, soy isolates and the by-products of their production (such as the emulsifier soy lecithin, familiar to anyone who's ever read a food label) are added to a huge percentage of the packaged foods sold in the U.S. these days. So, many people who drink certain soy milks and eat other packaged foods are getting a tremendous amount of isolated soy protein in their diets.

So what?

Like any other industrially processed substance we've started put into our bodies in the past handful of decades, the health effects of soy isolates are not completely understood. I'm the first to acknowledge that fact, and that's one of the main reasons I've been a lifelong proponent of whole foods. There's a lot of big money in soy on all sides of the issue, so the increasing numbers of studies out there on the various pros and cons of eating a diet high in soy isolates are pretty hard to parse.

It does seem to be fairly well established that unfermented soy has both estrogenic effects (where it mimics estrogen in the body) and antinutrient effects (where it blocks the body from absorbing several important minerals). And there is increasing, although not undisputed, evidence that these effects may contribute to some pretty profound developmental changes in young children and increased risks and progression of certain cancers in adults.

I hope that none of that turns out to be true. But for now, for me and my family, it's enough to make us think of a lot of commercial soy milk as junk food.

A tremendous amount of money has gone into the marketing of manufactured soy products as health foods. Probably many of us here care enough about food to have looked through the marketing and drawn our own conclusions. But lots of people—including lots of smart, educated people—lead lives without the time and space to investigate all of this. As is probably clear from the fact that I just posted a recipe with some sweetened, flavored, commercial soy milk in it, I am totally not opposed to people enjoying their junk food in moderation. But being led to believe that a product of this nature is a pure virtue to consume is another matter altogether.

HOW did I miss the homemade Choco Taco the first time around? I feel like I've been waiting for this my whole life.

Also, for anyone with plans to go to the Jersey shore, Surf Taco has the commercial ones on their dessert menu.

Hmm, I'm not sure I approve of the impression I make in this comment. But, like, whatevs I guess.

@Laguna I'd say about 4 to 5 ounces would do it.

Oh yay, I'm so happy about all the stem love. I totally agree that they don't need to be cooked long, or at all for that matter. But I do really love this recipe.

@pcsanwald I think this would work well in a slow cooker, though I haven't tried it. Just be sure not to take the meat past 145° F, or it will dry out. Tenderloin is not one of those cuts that gets more tender with hours of braising.

Tablescape! I think I need to start using that word more often. In the meantime, I've been scraping the glitter off the sugar pumpkins that we decorated for my kid's birthday party at the beginning of October and roasting those. That's totally fine, right?

@gwenkern I like the potatoes small, but I also really like to use my knife. I think it's more important to keep them small if you're adding beans. But, of course, it's potato salad, so cut them whatever size you like and just roast longer if need be.

@arindaadam I would like to officially endorse the yogurt option. Wish I'd thought of that.

@Nickiter You must've gotten a bad one. When they're good, they are extremely crisp and full of subtle flavors. Hope you'll try again!

Oh MY. I only know Faicco's from the amazing ingredients that make their way to my Grandma's house. That sunset sandwich might necessitate a separate trip.

@njscrapdiva If you have a food mill, you can definitely use the disc with the medium or large holes to make a chunky sauce from this recipe.

Thanks for all the thoughtful replies. I'm definitely going to continue preheating for baking but may play around with roasting from a cold oven.

On a related note, since we get a lot of our meat frozen from a CSA, I've been learning about roasting and braising directly from the freezer. It really does work. This impressively scientific eGullet thread clued me in, and I've done it a few times now with good results. Environmentalists, try to refrain from murdering me in my sleep, please.

I think the preheating conversation is more complicated than yes or no and deserves more space, so I've moved it over to a Talk thread here. Chime in!