m e g a t a r i a n

I can't believe I just veganized that...

2011-10-20T17:50:00.000-07:00

Hey MoFo'ers! I hope this is a better late than never game. 'Round Megatarian land this has been Megan Month of Stress. ENOUGH WITH THE STRESS!! More with the food. I'll catch up, really, I took a bunch of pics and made a bunch of food. What better way to start in the end of the month than with a food that probably should not have been veganized, but as I type, the boy is sitting in the recliner beside me making yummy sounds.

Here's how it started.

KFC started running commercials for their NEW KFC Famous Bowl... with Bacon. The boy and I were watching TV and this commercial aired. I admit it, I married an omni with a junk-food-tooth. I think he may have started drooling. I told him he better not get that because he'd probably die on the spot. He pouted. I looked up nutritional info - the original bowl has almost 700 calories and over 2000 mg sodium. That's WITHOUT bacon!! NO!! I said. More pouting. OK OK I THINK I CAN VEGANIZE IT JUST DON'T BUY IT! He perked up. And so... tonight I veganized the KFC Famous Bowl with Bacon.

And here's how...

This was actually more complicated than I had expected, and I didn't exactly have everything I wanted to use. A KFC bowl is mashed potatoes, corn, fried chicken bits, gravy, cheese, and bacon.

Step 1: Make mashed potatoes (I used a half dozen organic red skin potatoes, skins on, mashed with earth balance, unsweetened original almond milk, a splash of apple cider vinegar, salt and pepper)

Step 2: Heat corn (Frozen corn + boiling water)

Step 3: Prepare Gardein Chick'n Tenders according to package directions

Step 4: Make Gravy (broth + poultry seasoning + nooch + tamari + cornstarch/almond milk slurry)

For cheese I used melted We Can't Say It's Cheese spread, and for bacon I used fake bacon bits.

Now here's the trick with these steps. You actually have to have everything ready at the same moment. Once it's all ready, layer and enjoy! This was where my fatal flaw came in -- I put gravy on top of everything, and the gravy is SUPPOSED to go over the potatoes with everything on top. This apparently did not ruin the integrity of the dish. The boy's only complaint was that the cheese texture was wrong. I hadn't planned on making this tonight; if I had I would have bought some Daiya shreds, but all in all yummy noises prevail*.

(* I'm not included in the taste test because I hate mashed potatoes!!! This actually looks really gross to me. Anything mashed potatoes based does. BLEH! But it's apparently quite good. The boy licked the bowl)

CSA Share Week 4

2011-07-23T06:35:00.001-07:00

Our shares are starting to get bigger! Still plenty of lettuce and cabbage, and I have to admit, at time of posting I have 2 1/2 heads of cabbage in my refrigerator. In my own defense, I also went out of town for a few days following the pick up of this week's share, so I didn't cook for a few days. I've begun sharing some of my share with my good buddy Erica, as our garden is also starting to produce and I've already got squash coming out my ears. I think squash pickles are going to be in our future!!

This week was lemon balm, lettuce, yellow squash and zucchini, swiss chard, garlic scapes, a broccoli crown, and some cabbage.

Not pictured -- I made a big pitcher of iced tea with the lemon balm. It isn't pictured because it tasted like cough drops and I ended up dumping it. It was worth a shot. haha.

I gave one yellow squash to Erica and she can tell you what she did with it! The other I sauteed with some olive oil, garlic, parsley and some shell peas from the garden. This was served with Tuscan Baked Beans made in the crock pot (great to keep the kitchen cool!) and a Kalamata roll from the co-op.

Lettuce and broccoli were both used in my tofu lettuce wraps and sauteed broccoli. I simmered tofu in some broth infused with sesame oil, ginger, garlic, soy sauce, and cilantro from the garden. I then sauteed up some bell peppers, celery and carrots and crumbled in the tofu and added some black sesame seeds. It was served in lettuce leaves alongside some broccoli sauteed in the rest of the tofu simmering liquid.

So neat and tidy!

I then had a "cleaning up the veggie drawer" night where I made EPIC VEGETABLE PASTA!!! It has mushrooms, corn, zucchini, garlic scapes, broccoli, eggplant, chard, spinach, garlic, fresh parsley and basil from the garden. Basically every veg drawer scrap there was!

I didn't get to the cabbage this week... hence the reason they're building up. I think one will go home with Erica this weekend. Maybe I'll make her contribute to this project too!!

CSA Share Week 3

2011-07-23T06:02:00.000-07:00

Now the problems come in. Now I actually have to remember what 3 weeks ago looked like. Oof, got all caught up in life and things. I did get results from said medical tests back - my digestive system is permanently screwed up from some infections I had, I have cyclical nausea and vomiting syndrome, and have gastritis. At this point it's just a battle to manage symptoms. I think the moral of this story is don't let your appendix burst.

Onto happier things... CSA SHARE!

This week we got some more nappa cabage, cilantro, spinach, squash, garlic scapes, and red leaf lettuce.

The squash, along with some other veggie friends, got seasoned and quick roasted under the broiler.
Took them, along with some of the fresh spinach and hummus and made some lovely vegetable wraps, which we enjoyed with some sweet corn on the cob.
The cabbage got turned into Asian cole slaw with jicama, carrots, apples, and a peanutty dressing. Shown here with a Southwestern Tofu Burger and some of Kali's awesome tofu.

The lettuce was turned into a giant taco salad, with black beans seasoned with cumin and chili powder and tomato paste and some of the fresh cilantro. The rest of the cilantro and some garlic scapes went into the zesty cilantro lime dressing.

CSA Share Week 2

2011-07-07T14:50:00.001-07:00

I actually just picked up CSA Share Week 4... so I'm a few weeks behind, as usual. I had busy things, and sick things, and medical procedure things, and vegan potluck BBQ things, so BUSY!

Week 2's share contained Easter Egg Radishes, Nappa Cabbage, Lettuce, Spinach, and Garlic Scapes.

Garlic Scapes met up with Broccoli this week in a Broccoli Pesto stirred into whole wheat elbow macaroni, served along side carrots sauteed in Earth Balance and Dill and Gardein Crispy Tenders.

I sauteed the cabbage and spinach with red bell pepper, carrots, more garlic scapes, and what was supposed to be thin sliced 5 spice seitan, but my food processor mostly turned into ground seitan.

The lettuce and radishes went into a salad with a homemade vinaigrette and topped with a modified version of Chickpea Hijiki Salad from VwaV (no carrots; diced celery, dill). The boy looked at me like I was insane when I put this on his plate.... then ate two massive plates full of salad.

Now, with any luck, I'll get week 3 posted before week 5!

Homegrown Veggies

2011-06-23T16:00:00.001-07:00

This summer we are going to be overflowing with home grown veggies! First, we expanded our garden. It is now approximately... gigantic! 25 ft long by 25 ft wide surrounded by chicken-wire bunny fencing! It is so awesome. I planted stuff we haven't planted before, and all the usual things like tomatoes and peas and eggplants. I've also planted herbs in the garden this year, whereas in the past they've all been in pots. We have herbs in pots too! I love fresh herbs.

In addition to the garden, we joined a CSA! The joining of the CSA occurred before we finished expanding the garden. For those perhaps not in the know, CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture. You buy a share of a farm, and in exchange you get locally grown yummy veggies every week for the growing season! We joined the Otter Hook Farms CSA, which conveniently offers a half-share, for those of us with crazy gardens. I pick up at the co-op after work on Thursdays, which is also convenient because it's on my way home! (for the most part.)

This is what we got in our box last week:
Left to Right you've got mixed salad greens, scallions, radishes, rapini and a pile of garlic scapes!

Here's what they all turned into!
The scapes made friends with some basil and made this super yummy pesto! It was 1 large bunch of basil, 1 handful of scapes, 1/4 cup olive oil, 1/4 cup pine nuts, a few tbsp nutritional yeast, the juice of a lemon, and salt and pepper to taste. A little spin around the food processor and you've got delicious zesty pesto!

The rapini (aka broccoli rabe) was sauteed in olive oil with garlic, red pepper flakes, and lemon zest, topped with a few pine nuts.

The radishes and mixed greens went into a roasted portabello mushroom salad. This is based on the recipe in Veganomicon, though I marinated the mushroom in equal parts balsamic vinegar, tamari and water with oregano, basil, and rosemary. I roasted them off in the oven, and they're sitting on a bed of salad greens with chickpeas, avocado, radishes, and cherry tomatoes. (The boy's salad also included onions)

Not pictured, the boy ate the scallions in his eggs in the morning.

Meanwhile, in the Kaleyard... (pretend there aren't tons of weeds, ok? It's been downpouring and the weeds are VERY happy. So are the veggies, so I guess it's only fair. Also pretend there isn't a damned basketball hoop pole there :| We're still addressing that issue)

Overview

Peppers! Basil! Squash of many varieties! Beans! Peas!
The shell peas are flowering!

Tomatoes on really, really, really big stakes.
The kale is growing like mad, but it's hard to tell with all the weeds. The cauliflower and cabbage and things are getting really bushy!!

Orangeade

2011-05-28T13:47:00.000-07:00

Summer tiiiiime and the livin' is easy!!

I was working at the co-op this afternoon and a woman was buying a huge bag of lemons. She commented that she and her daughter are hooked on homemade lemonade. I thought "mmm.. lemonade" then I thought "MMMM... ORANGEADE!!"

My grandma used to make Orangeade, and when my Mom was a kid one of her jobs was making the orangeade. My mom used to make it for us when we were kids, maybe once or twice a summer because honestly, squeezing all that fruit is a bit of a hassle! She had an old fashioned metal citrus press and you'd have to put all your weight on it (we were kids, remember?) to press the juice out. Sure, mixing storebought orange juice with lemon juice would be faster, but it wouldn't be the same!

I don't really know my grandma's recipe. If I asked my Mom, she might have an idea of the proportions, but my Mom is in Italy right now, and incommunicado, so I winged it. The end result is delicious, though much lighter and more refreshing than my Grandma (and Mom's) Orangeade. The reason being that my Grandma's secret ingredient, we joke, was sugar. It's only sort of a joke, she put sugar in everything. The reason I'd only ever eat my Grandma's potatoes and carrots as a kid? She cooked them in sugar, not even kidding. So I think that if you doubled the amount of sugar I used, you'd get about what my grandma made... except Grandma didn't make simple syrup, your Orangeade was just gritty until the sugar dissolved. Try it with one cup of sugar -- or double it if you like things really sweet!!

This recipe is 2 weight watchers points plus per 8 oz cup. (For comparison, for those of you not playing this game, 8oz of plain old orange juice is 3 points)

Orangeade
1 cup fresh squeezed lemon juice (about 6 lemons)
2 cups fresh squeezed orange juice (about 6 oranges)
1 cup of sugar, mixed with 1 cup of water and heated in a small pot until dissolved ("simple syrup")
10 cups water

1. Mix everything together.

2. Pour over ice. Drink.

3. Wow this is an easy recipe!

Jicama Slaw

2011-04-15T11:32:00.000-07:00

*Yawn* <----STRETCH----> Spring already is it?

Hmm.. seedlings... must be spring!

It was a long snowy winter during which I started a new job THANK GOD! My life is so much better now, what without having to drive all over the county (with gas at $4/gallon, tyvm) and not coming home reeking of cigarettes and cat urine. Yes, my new research job is paradise in comparison. But alas, the blog did fall to the wayside. I'm going to try to do better!

Big change in our house as of late -- the boy joined weight watchers. As such, I am now calculating the points value of everything I make. This is a bit tedious at times, but I figured since I've already done the work, I'll include the points value for anyone else who may be weight watching. And, for the record, the boy has lost 5% of his body weight in the past month! (I've also lost 3 lbs, though I'm not even doing weight watchers!)

One change I've made is that I'm just making a metric ton more vegetables for dinner every night. Instead of having a starchy side and a veggie side, we have 2 veggie sides. Instead of having pasta for an entree, we have pasta with a side of extra protein or vegetables. This recipe I invented randomly thinking about how much I enjoy jicama. I thought "Now wouldn't that make a lovely slaw?" and damn it does! I combined Jicama, Apples, Carrots and Cabbage for a delicious side dish that I've been eating every day since I made it! (I'm glad it's good, because this recipe made a LOT of slaw!)

The other big change in my house, kitchen in particular, is my CUISINART FOOD PROCESSOR!! The boy bought it for me for Christmas! That made prepping this about a million times easier since it shreds veggies like a dream! Certainly could be done on a box grater too, but watch your knuckles!

So pretty and purple!

Jicama Slaw
1 medium jicama (mine weight approx 1 lbs)
1 small head of purple cabbage (about softball sized)
2 large carrots
1 large granny smith apple
1/4 cup fresh squeezed orange juice
2 tbsp white wine vinegar
2 tbsp sesame oil
Salt & Pepper to taste

1. Shred all the veggies and mix them up together.

2. In a small bowl, whisk together the dressing ingredients.

3. Combine the dressing and the veggies and mix well. Add salt & pepper to taste. Allow to sit for a bit to let the flavors mingle.

I found that the flavors got even better the next day! The sesame oil really mellowed out and the vinegar tanged up some! It yielded approx 7.5 cups of slaw! Hence my eating it daily.

WEIGHT WATCHERS POINTS PLUS: 1 point per cup of slaw

Vegan MoFo Day 30: Comfort Food

2010-11-30T15:32:00.000-08:00

I made it! I made it I made it I made it! 30 days of blogging! Sort of on a holiday theme the entire time. A few diversions anyway, but hey, I posted every day and that's what counts. I decided to end November with a typical easy cleaning-out-the-fridge comfort dinner we enjoy at Casa Megatarian. It can best be described as Pasta Primavera, as it is veggies and noodles, though we just go with the simple "vegetable pasta." It's quick, it's easy, it's delicious, and it will take whatever you've got around the house to toss in! I'll write up what I tossed in tonight, but it's just a suggestion. The important part is to have at least as many veggies as you've got pasta!

Vegetable Pasta
12 oz wholegrain pasta
1 large broccoli crown
1/4 head of cauliflower
1 15oz can fire roasted diced tomatoes
2 cups frozen peas
2 cups frozen spinach
3 cloves garlic
2 tbsp olive oil
Handful of fresh flat leaf parsley, chopped
salt and pepper to taste

1. Prepare the pasta according to package directions.

2. Meanwhile... cut the veggies into bite sized pieces and dice the garlic. Heat the oil in a large skillet (I use a wok) and sautee the garlic until it is fragrant but don't let it brown. Add the veggies and sautee the whole lot until they've reached desired tenderness. Add bits of water here and there if the pan is getting too dry.

3. Drain the pasta, toss with the veggies, fresh parsley, and season to taste with salt and pepper. Serve with your Parmesan cheese substitute of choice!

And now, since I may not blog again for Blog knows how long, I leave you with a cruddy picture of my Christmas tree, and Laser Cats.

Vegan MoFo Day 29: Cookbook Review!

2010-11-29T17:19:00.001-08:00

I've been wanting to write up a review for Vegan on the Cheap by Robin Robertson for a while now, and just haven't gotten around to it. I got this cookbook last summer and have been using it like crazy ever since. I have been a huge fan of Robertson's cookbooks for a while. They're just full of really practical, delicious, recipes that you actually want to make! I'm not going to name names, but I've bought a few that sounded good and flipped through them and gone "Damn, I wish I hadn't ordered this. I wouldn't make a thing in here!" Not so with Robertson's books. I think I own at least 5 of them now, and they're all well stained with cooking love.

Vegan on the Cheap is great, not only because the recipes are cheap, but they're also EASY, and they contain normal ingredients you can easily find, and most of them come together pretty quickly! What more could a busy girl ask for? Some of my favorite recipes so far are....

Wheatballs!

The page for the Wheatball recipe is really easy to find in my book because it's stuck to the next page. I've made them that often. The recipe contains chickpeas and VWG and thus is similar to a Chickpea Cutlet, which I made into meatballs in some earlier blog entry, except unlike chickpea cutlets, it also contains MUSHROOMS!! This addition lends an additional meaty flavor to the balls. Above they are featured in Spaghetti O's. They also work well in Spaghetti and Wheatballs, Italian Wedding Soup, and Swedish Wheatballs.

Another favorite recipe of mine is Roasted Sweet Potato Salad with Cashews and Kidney Beans.
Now I am not one to go for salads for meals. This one drew me in, however, because sweet potatoes and I are best friends (recently I saw some research indicating that women who consume sweet potatoes around the time they conceive are more likely to conceive twins. This terrifies me. I love sweet potatoes, and do not want twins!). On top of the lovely roasted sweet potatoes, this recipe contains MORE of my favorite things -- cashews, peas, and kidney beans! What could be bad? Nothing, that's what. In this picture there's also some fresh corn in the salad because I had an ear of corn I needed to use up in the fridge. A very welcome addition! My only recommendation for this particular recipe is to double the amount of romaine (and thus dressing) the recipe calls for, because the first time we made it there didn't seem to be enough lettuce to "other stuff."

The Thai-Style Pineapple Rice Salad is also great, either hot or cold. I love the addition of fruit to a savory dish! I've made the Penne-Wise Peanutty Pasta for guests and it was a hit all around! Even having accidentally added (unsweetened) vanilla almond milk instead of original flavor, it was still delicious! Looking for an interesting way to use garden veggies? Try the Vegetable Crisp. I made this over the summer when I had an abundance of Zucchini, Tomatoes, and Eggplants. Anything with a crisp top goes over well around here!!

Penne-Wise Peanutty Pasta

One dish I made recently that went over VERY well in our house was the Walnut Crusted Tofu with Spinach and Orange. I got a big scowl the night I said I was serving this for dinner... until the boy took a bite. He was sold. He ate two giant plates of tofu topped with Spinach and Oranges with a side of roasted sweet potato slices. It really is delicious. The walnuts and panko make a crispy and rich crust covering a creamy and tangy mustard sauce, which makes the crust stick. The oranges and spinach went very well together and really lightened up the tofu. One change I made was using a full pound of fresh baby spinach leaves instead of 8 oz, and I'm glad I did because maybe I just like piling on my spinach, but we went through the entire pound and probably could have eaten more. Of course Spinach does cook down to nearly nothing.

Are you sold yet? Order it off of Amazon! Only $11.13 -- it's a Vegan COOKBOOK on the Cheap too!!

Vegan MoFo Day 28: Green Bean Casserole

2010-11-28T15:45:00.001-08:00

Green Bean Casserole is one of those quintessential Thanksgiving foods that I had never eaten in my life until last year's Pre-Thanksgiving Vegan Thanksgiving Potluck. In my family, you didn't cover vegetables in "sauces" or ever use cream of anything soup for anything. The exception to this, somehow, was creamed spinach... but I'm just going to chalk that up to an anomaly. Sure we ate green beans, sauteed, with butter or green beans with slivered almonds, but never, never, with a cream sauce and fried onions in a can. Which leads to the second reason I'd never eaten this -- the onion thing. I think it's well known by now that I don't *do* onions. It's not that I dislike them, but they have a burning searing hatred for my guts... literally, so I don't eat them. Third -- Green Bean Casserole always seems to be made with canned green beans. I don't do canned vegetables either, with the exception of corn, and tomatoes, and legume type beans (i.e. chickpeas, kidney beans). I don't like squishy veggies. After two years of potlucks eating green beans with yummy mushroom sauce I decided I'd give it a go myself this year. After perusing lots of omni recipes, I decided I'd just wing it, and here's what I came up with, in all its delicious glory!

Green Bean Casserole
1 1/2 lbs FRESH green beans, ends snapped off, cut into 1" pieces
1/4 cup diced shallots
10 oz crimini (baby bella) mushrooms, sliced
1 tbsp olive oil
2 tbsp all purpose flour
2 cups Creamy Portabello Mushroom Soup
1/2 cup non-dairy cream cheese (I used Follow Your Heart brand because I can't find Tofutti Nonhydrogenated here anymore!)
Salt & Pepper to taste
1 can French Fried Onions

1. In a large skillet, heat the olive oil over medium high heat and add the shallots and mushrooms. Sautee until the mushrooms are all shrunk down and the shallots are soft and translucent.

2. Add the green beans to the skillet and continue to sautee until they are just fork tender. Keep in mind they will also be baked and you don't want soggy beans! Add a little of the mushroom soup if the pan needs some moisture.

3. Add the 2 tbsp of flour and sautee for a minute to get rid of the raw flour taste.

4. Add the soup and cream cheese and salt and pepper to taste. Bring to a boil and stir often to dissolve all the cream cheese. Allow it to thicken slightly (just needs a few minutes) and remove from heat.

5. Pour your green bean gravy mixture into your baking pan of choice. Top with French Fried Onions, and bake for 30 minutes at 350 degrees.

So now you may be wondering "But what about the onions?!? You don't eat ONIONS!!" This is true. I portioned out a small amount for myself in a single serve baking dish and topped it with Panko. Problem solved :)

Vegan MoFo Day 27: Cranberry Remix

2010-11-27T18:48:00.001-08:00

I have mentioned before, I am a big fan of cranberry sauce. Earlier in the month I posted the cranberry sauce recipe I make every year for Thanksgiving. That would have been my go-to for Thanksgiving this year as well, but then I got an email from the good people at Pom Wonderful offering me a case of their juice to try and play with. I'm a big fan of Pomegranite juice. Heck, I love pomegranites, I just can't get past how difficult they are to eat. I'm not good at swallowing bunches of seeds so eating a fresh pomegranite is a messy, spitty experience. Pom Wonderful takes all the great sweet-tart taste of fresh pomegranites and gets rid of those pesky seeds, leaving you with, really, a wonderful beverage. No false advertising there! The juice is a little pricy, but for drinking, a little goes a long way. You can add a splash to water and it gives it a bright color and good flavor. It's actually a bit strong for drinking straight (for me anyway, but I'm primarily a water drinker!).

Anyway, my juice arrived on Monday, just in time for Thanksgiving application. I thought the juice would lend itself well to cranberry sauce, and I wasn't wrong!! I put together a Cran-Pomegranite sauce with ginger and cinnamon and it was so delicious! The Pomegranite gave it a depth of flavor but blended seamlessly with the cranberries. I would definitely make this again and again!!

Cran-Pomegranite Sauce
1 12 oz bag of fresh cranberries
8 oz Pom Wonderful pomegranite juice
1 cup sugar
1 cinnamon stick
5 slices fresh ginger

Put everything in a medium saucepan and bring to a boil. Lower the heat to medium-low and simmer for 20 minutes, stirring regularly, until all the berries pop and the sauce begins to thicken. Allow to cool to room temperature, then fish out the cinnamon stick and ginger slices. Put in an air tight container and refrigerate overnight to allow it to thicken more and set.

Vegan MoFo Day 26: Mimicreme Healthy Top Review

2010-11-26T21:20:00.000-08:00

Whippable vegan cream has long been an elusive find. There's the mysterious "Rich's Whip," who actually sent me a coupon for a free container to try, but none of the stores here ever actually have anything but Rich's Coffee Stuff, whatever it's called. Then there was Soyatoo, and the whippable soyatoo actually is much better than the canned stuff, but really needs some vanilla and extra sugar added. Then there is the homemade whipped coconut cream, where you take a can of coconut milk with lots of fat, refrigerate it, and whip the thick creamy stuff with sugar and vanilla. It's definitely tasty, but has a coconut flavor to it, and stays very soft. Recently I discovered Mimicreme "Healthy Top" whippable nut cream at the co-op.
I love regular Mimicreme for recipes requiring heavy cream, so I was very excited to see the Healthy Top. Also, Mimicreme is a local product, and yay for supporting local business. I bought a box for our Thanksgiving potluck earlier this month but we were all too stuffed for dessert, so it waited in my fridge until last night when we whipped it up for dessert.

This stuff whips beautifully!! In just a few minutes in the Kitchenaid we had stiff whipped peaks of creamy goodness! It was impressive how well it held its shape. The flavor right off the bat was better than Soyatoo. For one thing, being soy-free, it didn't have the beany aftertaste that Soyatoo has. Second, without adding any extra sugar or flavoring, the whip was sweet and had a nice vanilla flavor. It did have some downsides. It has a slightly odd after-texture, leaving a sort of strange feeling on your tongue. This is more evident if you're eating it by the spoonful -- uhh not that we were doing this or anything. Also, for being named "Healthy Whip" it has 50 calories per tablespoon, 6% of your daily value of fat, and 12% of your daily value of saturated fat per tbsp. Granted, there's no cholesterol, and the fat is from nuts and coconut, but I really wouldn't call it "healthy" otherwise.

In the end, I would absolutely buy it again to top a pie or other dessert. I would also love to try to fold some chocolate into it for a mousse. It is VERY rich and a little goes a long way, but I think it's really easy to overdo it on whipped cream, and you do have to keep in mind that box or no, it's not all that healthy! For a treat every now and again, however, go for it!

Vegan MoFo Day 25: Thanksgiving

2010-11-25T19:25:00.000-08:00

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!!

I did it. I finished the marathon cooking! I ate many delicious Thanksgiving foods! I am stuffed and exhausted and also freezing cold because the oven has been off for hours and our house has no insulation. I had planned on a recipe tonight, but on the verge of passing out and trying so hard to get my daily post in, I will instead barrage you, gentle reader, with a bunch of pictures of the delicious food before I go collapse in my cozy warm bed.

Before we get to the food, however, I would like to invite any reader living in the Capital District in NY to come down to Crossgates Mall tomorrow, Saturday, and Sunday and donate a toy to needy kids! I don't delve into my personal life much here, but I am a social worker in foster care prevention. I work with a bunch of really great kids (and their families) who deserve a happy holiday and without us, it probably won't happen. So if you're local and you're out and about, stop by and donate a toy or a few bucks to make Christmas great for a kid in need! If you're not local, or avoiding the mall like the plague, and want to help, send me an email at megatarian(at)gmail.com and we'll work something out! :) Now onto the food pics!

The Spread! With my new tablecloth and "fancy plates" I got for my wedding.

Here we have sweet potato cornbread, stuffed mushrooms, cranberry sauce, gravy, sweet potatoes with apples, and my mini green bean casserole with panko instead of onions.

In this corner we have green bean casserole, stuffing, more cranbery sauce, more gravy, and scalloped broccoli and cauliflower.This angle shows the sweet potato and apple bake in the front, a bunch of repeats, and the seitan loaf all sliced up.
My plate! Clockwise from top right -- Seitan & Gravy, stuffed mushroom, sweet potato cornbread, sweet potatoes and apples, green bean casserole, broccoli and cauliflower, cranberry sauce, and stuffing in the middle. (No mashed potatoes because they're gross -- not these mashed potatoes in particular -- all mashed potatoes. I hate mashed potatoes.)

DESSERT!!!
Pumpkin Cheesecake from blog.fatfreevegan.com

Apple Pie

Mmm.. Apple Pie and Mimicreme. The Pumpkin cheesecake is hiding behind it. We also had the pecan bars that I posted about yesterday. It was a great Thanksgiving!

Vegan MoFo Day 24: Pecan Bars

2010-11-24T20:12:00.000-08:00

Thanksgiving cooking is in full swing! For the past six hours I've been working my butt off in the kitchen prepping as much stuff as I can for tomorrow's feast. Tonight I accomplished the following:
Pomegranate Cranberry Sauce (recipe when I get a good picture!)
Chex Mix
Pumpkin Cheesecake
Apple Pie
Pecan Bars
Green bean casserole
Sweet potato and apple bake (minus the apples -- I'll put those on tomorrow before baking so they don't oxidize)

I'm pooped! But I only have four things (I think? Stuffing, gravy, veggies, heat the seitan... hmm.. I think that's it) that I have to get done before dinner tomorrow, so HOPEFULLY I can spend most of the day relaxing and enjoying the holiday. The stuffing is simple, gravy is pretty simple, seitan in oven is easy peasy, so the scalloped veggies will take the longest.

I tried that recipe from the food network for the pecan bars, and I tweaked it just a hair, and added an extremely valuable instruction to the cooking process. I think if I was going to make them again, I'd use a different crust. Something more like a shortbread like you'd find on the bottom of lemon bars (dammit, now I wish I had also made lemon bars... they sound really good right now!) cause this crust didn't set up as well as I would have liked, however, I think with my instructional tweaking it would resolve at least some of this problem. I also only made half a recipe which yielded 16 bars, which is more than enough considering how rich they are and the fact that we have two pies as well for only 6 people.

The original recipe is here. My changes are as follows:

Ingredients:
Crust --
3/4 cup margarine
3/4 cup all purpose flour
1/3 cup brown sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
Pinch of salt
1 tbsp water

Filling --
1/4 cup margarine, softened
1/2 cup brown sugar
3 tbsp corn syrup
2 tbsp all purpose flour
1 1/2 cups roughly chopped pecans
1 tsp vanilla extract
pinch of salt

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease an 8X8 pan, line with parchment, grease the parchment.

2. In a food processor or with a mixer, blend the dry crust ingredients and the margarine together until it looks like coarse crumbs. Add the vanilla and water and mix just until it begins to form a dough ball.

3. Dump the crust mixture into the prepared pan. With well floured hands, press the crust into the bottom of the pan.

4. Bake the crust for 20-25 minutes or until the edges are golden brown.

5. Meanwhile... cream the margarine and brown sugar. Add the rest of the ingredients and mix until everything is well combined.

6. Now here's the important part that I think was needed that the original recipe didn't mention -- ALLOW THE CRUST TO COOL for 15-20 minutes or until mostly solid before going anywhere NEAR it with the filling. I tried just dumping the filling on and spreading it out and it started to tear the crust and it was a mess. Don't do this.

7. Once the crust has cooled and set, GENTLY spread the filling over the crust, being sure to cover it edge to edge.

8. Bake for 30-35 minutes until golden brown. Allow to cool completely before removing from the pan.

Here's what I like about this recipe:
1. It tastes very much like bites of pecan pie, only without the pesky egg substituting and iffy thickeners.
2. It lends itself to having a small bite, which is good for a pie with the caloric hit that pecan packs.
3. It came together quickly and easily.

Vegan MoFo Day 23: Thanksliving Game Plan

2010-11-23T16:48:00.001-08:00

Hosting a Thanksgiving dinner is sort of like running a marathon. At least I'd think so, but since I've never run a marathon, I can't say for sure. It is definitely a long process with a short reward. I start the serious planning about a week before, figuring out what I need to buy where. Prior to that I try to plan out my menu and figure out who is coming over. This year, we'll be having the parents-in-law, beeps, and DR for dinner, though beeps isn't really a guest since she and I have excellent kitchen dynamics and will be co-cooking a lot of the meal.

This may be a little late to be posting for people who are hosting dinner this week for the first time, but for people considering it for the future, perhaps this will be helpful.

The Menu:
Appetizers --
Hummus (store bought)
Guacamole (homemade - got cheap avos!)
Corn chips
Crackers
Chex Mix (homemade, I'm hooked right now)

Dinner:
Seitan turkey
Gravy
Mashed Potatoes
Sweet potatoes with apples
Cranberry sauce
Scalloped Broccoli and Cauliflower
Green Bean Casserole
Sweet potato corn bread

Dessert:
Pumpkin Cheesecake
Apple Pie
Pecan Bars
Mimicreme Whip

Saturday before:
Plan shopping lists for Supermarket & Food Co-op. Shop. Put stuff away.

Sunday before:
Bake seitan loaves.

Monday and Tuesday before:
Pop into Supermarket and Co-op for the things I forgot on Saturday.

Wednesday after work:
Make cranberry sauce. Make desserts. Make Chex Mix.
If I'm awake enough and motivated enough -- Make Cornbread & Prep green bean casserole to be baked tomorrow.

Thursday morning:
Prep stuffing and veggies.
Do delicate oven timing dance

Thursday afternoon:
Baste Seitan loaf and bake, rebasting regularly.

Right before food is served:
Make Gravy
Put Mimicreme in the freezer

After dinner:
Whip Mimicreme

Later after dinner:
Do a million dishes, pass out.

In general, the game plan is to do as much as can be done ahead of time ahead of time so that there is plenty of time for relaxing and enjoying the holiday. If I wasn't working from 9-6 tomorrow, and I had a larger fridge, I would definitely be getting more done tomorrow night. The most important things to have done the night before are the cranberries and the pumpkin cheesecake, since they both need time to set up.

What's on your menu this year? Do you have a gameplan?

Vegan MoFo Day 22: Creative Mix Ins

2010-11-22T17:37:00.000-08:00

Creative cookie baking doesn't always have to involve coming up with new innovative recipes every time. Sometimes taking a base recipe and adding different mix ins can make an old cookie recipe seem entirely new! Here are some suggestions for variations on some classic cookies: sugar cookies, chocolate chip, and oatmeal.

Sugar cookies, at least in my house, are usually made with vanilla extract. They really are equally delicious when you substitute other extracts like Lemon, Coconut or Almond (sprinkle on some slivered almonds before baking, or on the icing before hardening to really up the almond ante) produce an entirely different cookie experience with only a very minor change. Check out Asian markets for inexpensive extracts to experiment with in your cookies. I've had my eye on some Jasmine extract for a while. I'll have to post after some testing with that!

Chocolate chip cookie dough is a great blank slate for all sorts of ingredients. You can keep it super simple and add in a few handfuls of rainbow sprinkles to make rainbow cookies. Like your rainbows bigger? Try some Chocolate Lentils or Whizzers Chocolate Beans in place of or in addition to the chips. Check out your local Kosher market for white chocolate chips or chocolate coffee chips. Walnuts are traditional, but have you tried chocolate chip cookies with hazelnut extract and chopped hazelnuts? It's Nutella-tastic! Some of my other favorite combinations are chocolate chip cookies with dried cherries and blanched slivered almonds, and chocolate chip cookies with peanuts and raisins. Remember Chunky bars? It's Chunky cookies!

Oatmeal cookies are also begging for creative add ins. Who needs raisins when you can have currents or dried cranberries? A handful of coconut really gives a kick to ordinary oatmeal cookies. There are lots of fruit and nut combos that are stellar in the oatmeal base. Try cashews and dried strawberries, pecans and dried peaches or apricots (cut into smaller bits, naturally), or pistachios and dried pears. Going tropical? How about dried mango and macadamia nuts. You don't have to pick just one either. Divide your dough in half or quarters, and mix a little something different into each batch.

What are some of your favorite cookie mix ins?

Vegan MoFo Day 21: Pumpkin Bread

2010-11-21T14:43:00.000-08:00

I think I'm moving back into Thanksgiving, or at least, into autumn fare and away from Christmas cookies. I've been meaning to make pumpkin bread since I bought two little sugar pumpkins this fall, but then just didn't get to it. Then when I did get to it, the pumpkins weren't good. One was like, squishy when I cut into it. The second I roasted in the oven with intent to puree and make bread, and it was bitter. I finally just resigned myself to using canned pumpkin and I'm so glad I did, because it's delicious.

This recipe calls for a ton of sugar which really makes it more of a "cake" than a "bread" even moreso than like, banana bread is more cakey than bready. It is very moist and delicious though! The boy ate a piece tonight, declared that he didn't like pumpkin bread, but that he loved my pumpkin bread!! I think that's a pretty good endorsement! I have no idea where this recipe came from. I've been making it for over a decade and have veganized it. It makes either 3 small loaves or 2 big loaves or like 2 dozen muffins, so I guess maybe the sugar thing isn't TOO bad.

Pumpkin Bread
2 cups pureed pumpkins
1 cup vegetable oil
2 2/3 cups white sugar
1/2 cup applesauce
1/2 cup non dairy yogurt
3 cups + 2 tbsp all purpose or white whole wheat flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1/2 tsp ground cloves

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour 2 large or 3 small loaf pans.

2. In a large bowl, mix together pumpkin, vegetable oil, sugar, applesauce, and yogurt.

3. Stir in the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and spices.

4. Divide the batter between the loaf pans and bake for 45-55 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.

Vegan MoFo Day 20: Peanut Butter Kisses

2010-11-20T13:31:00.000-08:00

Peanut butter cookies with a Hershey's Kiss stuck in the middle are a holiday classic. Hershey's has come out with tons of different varieties of kisses in recent years, but unfortunately, none of them are vegan! This creates a bit of a conundrum. How can you have peanut butter kisses without the kisses?? I experimented with a bunch of different chocolates from pieces of dark chocolate bars to chocolate chips to round pieces of dark chocolate and it was a Goldilocks type problem -- this one was too hard, this one was too soft, this one was too small, that one just looked weird. Problem was solved with really cheap generic supermarket chocolate! In the candy isle, as well as in "candy they keep in produce near nuts" section of my grocery store ("Price Chopper") they have Dark Chocolate Nonpareils, what are basically gigantic Snow Caps chocolates. Not only are they accidentally vegan, they're also quite decorative as it looks like it snowed on your cookie! Sometimes they have seasonal varieties with little red white and green sprinkles for Christmas, or pastel colors for Easter. Regardless of color, they're the right size, right shape, and right thickness to make these cookies live again! Check out your local grocery store, you might be surprised! Cheap peanut butter is good in this recipe because it gives it the junky feel of the original recipe!

I made these for a party I had, hence the cute label

Peanut Butter "Kisses"
About 4 dozen Dark Chocolate Nonpareils
3/4 cup peanut butter (crunchy or creamy, your choice)
1/2 cup margarine, softened
1/3 cup dark brown sugar, packed
2 tbsp almond milk
1/4 cup nondairy yogurt, plain or vanilla flavored
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.

2. In a mixing bowl, cream together the margarine, peanut butter, and sugar.

3. Add the milk, yogurt, and vanilla and mix until combined.

4. Stir in the dry ingredients.

5. Roll 1 inch balls of dough and place them on a cookie sheet.

6. Bake for 8-10 minutes or until the edges are golden brown. Jam a piece of chocolate into the center of each cookie immediately after removing from the oven. Allow to cool before removing from the cookie sheet so that the chocolate can set up again.

Vegan MoFo Day 19: Pumpkin Cookies

2010-11-19T07:17:00.000-08:00

This recipe really walks the line of "Christmas Cookie" and "Thanksgiving Food." With pumpkin, you generally think of Halloween and Thanksgiving. With cookie, you generally think "mmm cookie." There isn't a bad time for cookies, and since my themes so far have been thanksgiving and cookies, it has a place one way or the other.

The one thing that you need to remember when you make a fruit or vegetable cookie is that they stay cakey. Like if you replace eggs with banana your cookie will stay cakey and not get crunchy or chewy. It isn't a bad thing if you like cakey cookies, but if you dislike them, then it's a good idea to avoid recipes with pureed produce. To me, these cookies remind me of little bites of spicy pumpkin bread. I love pumpkin bread, so that isn't a criticism. Take care in how you store them, however. Due to their soft nature, they tend to stick to each other and you get clumps of one cookie on another cookie. A sheet of waxed paper or parchment in between layers will help to prevent that.

Also, this is another "random icing" related recipe. I made a maple icing by taking about 2 cups of powdered sugar, a splash of maple extract, then drizzling maple syrup into it until the proper consistency was reached. It is a nice compliment to the pumpkin and spice.

Pumpkin Cookies
2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp cloves
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup margarine, softened
3/4 cup brown sugar
3/4 cup white sugar
1 cup pureed pumpkin
1/4 cup nondairy yogurt
1 tsp vanilla extract

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

2. Cream together the margarine and sugars.

3. Beat in the pumpkin, yogurt, and vanilla until smooth.

4. Sift in the dry ingredients and stir to combine

5. Drop tbsps of dough onto ungreased cookie sheets and flatten slightly.

6. Bake for 15-20 minutes until the edges/bottom start to get golden brown. Allow to cool completely before you ice.

Vegan MoFo Day 18: Gingerbread Men

2010-11-18T07:07:00.000-08:00

Gingerbread men are, to me, the classic Christmas Cookie. I like them very dark and spicy with blackstrap molasses. There are a lot of Gingerbread imitators out there. Cookies that are basically sugar cookies with some brown sugar and cinnamon and a touch of ginger added in. That is NOT gingerbread. Admittedly, some people like that and like to pretend that that is gingerbread and if you are one of those people, you'll probably not want to make these cookies. If, however, you want your house to be filled with the aroma of ginger, cinnamon, and cloves, these are for you. They are great on a cold night with a warm mug of tea or hot chocolate. For whatever reason, they come out of the oven soft, get crunchy, then, left a day in a cookie tin, turn soft and chewy again. I ice them with my basic powdered sugar-milk-corn syrup-vanilla icing and stick on some candies for good measure.

Gingerbread Men
3 cups flour
3/4 cups firmly packed brown sugar
1 tbsp ground cinnamon
1 tbsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp ground cloves
1/2 tsp salt
3/4 tsp baking soda
12 tbsp (1 1/2 sticks) margarine, slightly soft, cut into 12 pieces
3/4 cup blackstrap molasses
2 tbsp ~milk

Combine the dry ingredients. Add the margarine and mix/process until it resembles a fine meal (like a pie crust looks before you add the water). Gradually add in the molasses and milk, and mix until thoroughly combined. Split the dough into two pieces and refrigerate 2 hrs or overnight.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Roll the dough out to 1/4" thickness and cut out desired shapes with cookie cutters. Bake for 8-11 minutes until set in center and cookie barely retains imprint with gently touched with fingertip. Let them cool on the cookies sheets for a few minutes before moving them to a wire rack.

Allow the cookies to cool completely before you ice them.

Vegan MoFo Day 17: Snickerdoodles!

2010-11-17T16:22:00.001-08:00

Can you believe I was a full blown grown up before I ever had a snickerdoodle?? They weren't part of my Mom's cookie repertoire. We mostly made chocolate chip, chocolate with peanut butter chips, spritz, peanut butter and sugar cookies. I missed a lot of good years when I could have been eating sugar cookies! I love vanilla cookies, and I love cinnamon, so what could be bad? These cookies come out delicious. Very tender and chewy with a crackled cinnamon sugar outside. Never again will I go a holiday season without making a batch of Snickerdoodles!! This recipe is adapted from Betty Crocker's. I wish Betty would come out with a vegan cookbook. Maybe some day...

Snickerdoodles
1 1/2 cups white sugar
1/2 cup margarine, soft
1/2 cup shortening, soft
1/2 cup vanilla soy yogurt
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 3/4 cups all purpose flour
2 tsp cream of tartar
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt

For rolling:
1/4 cup granulated sugar
2 tsp ground cinnamon

1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

2. Cream together the margarine, shortening, and 1 1/2 cups sugar. Add the soy yogurt and vanilla and mix until well combined.

3. Mix in the dry ingredients.

4. In a small bowl, mix together the 1/4 cup sugar and 2 tsp cinnamon.

5. Roll about 1 1/2 tbsp of dough into a ball, and roll the ball into the cinnamon sugar. Place the balls on an uncreased cookie sheet.

6. Bake for 8-10 minutes or until spread, cracked, and very lightly golden. Allow to cool until set, then transfer to a cooling rack.

REQUEST TIME!
Does anyone have a favorite cookie he or she would like to see veganized? Or does anyone have an idea for a cookie that doesn't have a recipe? Let me know and I'll see what I can do.

Vegan MoFo Day 16: Sesame Delights

2010-11-16T17:59:00.001-08:00

Shifting gears a little... I think I'm out of ideas for Thanksgiving posts, at least for right now. Therefore, I'm going to take the logical next step into CHRISTMAS COOKIES!! Really, any cookies can be Christmas Cookies as long as you make them around Christmas time. I usually make a combination of old favorites, like the aforementioned Spritz and Sugar Cookies, and toss in a few new recipes that I've come across during the year. I read a lot of magazines in waiting rooms, and get handed some down from my mother-in-law and make notes of cookie recipes that sound interesting and veganize them. This first recipe is from a 1997 issue of Country Living. No, seriously. This recipe didn't actually call for any eggs, which put it in the "super easy to veganize" category. They are basically shortbread cookies with sesame seeds, coconut, and almonds. Wow are they rich, but really tasty with a nice toasty coconut/sesame flavor. A little drizzle of chocolate on top finishes them off nicely, both in flavor and appearance!

Sesame Delights

1/2 cup margarine, softened
1/2 cup shortening, softened
3/4 cups granulated sugar
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 cup shredded coconut
1/4 cup sesame seeds, whole
1/4 cup sesame seeds, ground *
1/4 cup almonds, ground *
1 tsp vanilla extract

1. Cream together the margarine, shortening, vanilla, and sugar.

2. Beat in the flour until combined.

3. Fold in the coconut, seeds, and almonds.

4. Split the dough in half and roll each half into a log about 6 inches wide and 2 inches in diameter. Wrap the logs in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 3 hrs.

5. Preheat the oven to 300 degrees.

6. Unwrap the dough and slice the log into 1/4 inch slices. It is a little crumbly but should easily stick back together again if you reshape the slices with your hands.

7. Place the slices on an ungreased cookie sheet and bake for 15-20 minutes or until golden brown. Allow to cool on the cookie sheet for a few minutes before transferring to a cooling rack.

For the chocolate...
Melt about 1 cup of semi sweet chocolate chips in the microwave or a double boiler and drizzle over the top of the cookies. Sprinkle with sesame seeds for decoration.

* I grind my seeds and nuts in a coffee grinder dedicated to this purpose (I don't drink coffee! Bleh!). A small food processor will also work, or perhaps a blender. If you have none of these things, just try to chop them up really small! Starting with slivered or sliced almonds will make the job easier.

Vegan MoFo Day 15: Stuffing

2010-11-15T17:57:00.000-08:00

I love stuffing. I'm pretty sure I could eat it every single day and not get bored of it. Despite this, I tend to reserve it for the holidays and special occasions. Other people love my stuffing too, and want to know how I make it, and really, it's no big secret.

Yep. Pepperidge Farm. Accidentally vegan. I don't believe all the varieties are, however, so you should of course double check the bag before you buy it. I don't have a bag in front of me to write the exact directions, but basically, you follow the instructions on the back of the bag, except with the following changes and substitutions:

1. Use Earth Balance/Margarine instead of butter BUT
1b. Use half as much as the bag says otherwise the stuffing will get greasy
2. Sautee 2 cups of diced celery in the margarine and add that to the stuffing.
3. Use unchicken broth in place of chicken broth (or vegetable broth if that's what you've got)
3b. Use a little extra to make up for the margarine you didn't use
4. Add 1 handful of chopped parsley when you toss it all together.

Then just bake it in the oven in a baking dish. People go absolutely mad for this, and it's so easy my husband can do it!! (Possibly also cavemen)

Vegan MoFo Day 14: Sweet Potato Pie

2010-11-14T15:45:00.000-08:00

My parents have some story about how they used to eat sweet potato pie in some diner in San Francisco back when they lived in Berkley... or something along those lines. For years and years they wanted sweet potato pie and they never had a recipe because the internet didn't exist. The details are hazy, but sometime back in the 90's the NY Times Magazine had a recipe for Sweet Potato Pie with Orange Crust and my mom demanded I make it (I was already the family baker at that point). It was good, and sweet potato pie is NOT like pumpkin pie. Ok, it's SORT OF like pumpkin pie in that it's orange and creamy. The flavor is not like pumpkin pie, however, and it is worth making, even in conjunction with what might be the more traditional pumpkin pie.

Years of making this pie later, I, of course, had to veganize it to make it once again a part of my Thanksgiving menu. The pie calls for three eggs, which I've replaced with a combination of tofu and Ener-G, something I rarely use but it does help firm up the filling. The pie crust is nowhere near as easy or workable as the pie crust recipe I posted earlier, and the pie is very good in just a plain pie crust as well, but I'll include the Orange Crust recipe anyway, in case you're feeling ambitious.

Sweet Potato Pie with Orange Crust
The Crust:
1 1/4 cups all purpose flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 cup cold margarine, cut into cubes
1/2 cup cold vegetable shortening, cut into cubes
1/2 tsp orange zest
3-4 tbsp cold orange juice
1 tsp sugar
1 pinch fresh ground nutmeg

1. Sift together the flour and salt.

2. Cut in the margarine and shortening using a pastry cutter.

3. Combine the orange juice, zest, sugar and nutmeg in a small bowl, then mix it into the flour to form a dough.

4. Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for an hour.

The Filling:
3/4 cup pureed silken tofu
1 tbsp Ener-G Egg Replacer
1 cup white sugar
2 cups cooked and well mashed sweet potatoes (about 2 large taters)
1/3 cup unflavored milk of choice
1/3 cup Mimicreme (or nondairy creamer of choice)
1/4 cup melted margarine
1 tbsp orange juice
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 tsp lemon extract
pinch salt
large pinch fresh ground nutmeg

1. Beat the tofu, Ener-G, sugar, and sweet potatoes together.

2. Add the milk and Mimicreme and stir until combined.

3. Add the melted margarine, orange juice, extracts, salt and nutmeg and stir until well distributed.

4. Roll out the pie crust and press into a 9" pie plate, crimping the edges.

5. Pour the sweet potato pixture into the pie shell and bake for 40-45 minutes, or until a knife inserted into the center comes out clean.

And of course if you want to get REALLY bizarre, you could use Ube, or purple sweet potatoes, in place of the regular sweet potatoes. It is some seriously purple pie!!

(Well he prefers the purple sweet potatoes, anyway.)

Vegan MoFo Day 13: "Turkey" & Cranberries Sandwich

2010-11-13T19:24:00.001-08:00

I believe this to be my all time favorite sandwich. It even trumps Avocado and Marmite and Earth Balance, and that's tough to beat! This sandwich is particular to Thanksgiving time, because originally it contained turkey, or roast chicken, which was something my parents made around the holidays as well. When I first went vegetarian, this was something I actually lamented not being able to eat anymore. Of course, back then, turkey-style veggie lunch slices were unheard of, tofurkey didn't exist, field roast wasn't born yet, and Seitan wasn't a household name. Now that all these things are a part of my life, my sandwich was reborn and is as delicious as I remember as a kid, if not more so! It is simple, yet delicious, and one of the only places, if not THE only place, I actually LIKE mayonnaise (or, y'know, Vegenaise). This can be made with your turkey substitute of choice, but I find the most important parts are having good quality bread and homemade cranberry sauce. Maybe I'm just spoiled, but the stuff in a can just yields an inferior sandwich.

This isn't really a recipe, more a suggestion for an awesome sandwich.

* Take two pieces of bread at room temperature and spread them with Vegenaise.
* Heat up your turkey style meat alternative slices just to get the fridge-chill off of them and lay them on your bread.
* Top the turkey-ish with a generous helping of Cranberry sauce.
* Cover with second piece of bread. Slice in half if desired. Enjoy.

I've had this for dinner twice this week and my mouth couldn't be happier!! I think I like it more than actually eating a Thanksgiving-style dinner!!

Vegan MoFo Day 12: Turkey Cookies

2010-11-12T16:28:00.001-08:00

That isn't as bad as it sounds, I swear.

Here's the scene -- you, the kind hearted vegan, plan a lovely vegan Thanksgiving feast for your family. At first they all say "That sounds nice" and then as the date approaches it turns into "There really won't be turkey?" I solved that problem by making sure everyone at my Thanksgiving got their Very Own Personal Turkey!! (sugar cookie)

Turkey Cookie cutters are readily available on the internet. With some clever decoration, you can give everyone a humane turkey treat for Thanksgiving! This is the same sugar cookie recipe I use at Christmas, so when it's time to Deck The Halls with Yummy Goodies, just roll out a batch and use your favorite Christmas Cutters! I don't really have an icing recipe, honestly. What I do is put a bunch of powdered sugar in a large bowl. Then I add a good squirt of corn syrup, a bit of flavor extract (vanilla, usually), and then add milk a tablespoon at a time, stirring well in between each addition, until it reaches the consistency I want. Then add some food dye and you're good to go!

These are wrapped up all cute as a place marker!

Sugar Cookies
3/4 cup Earth Balance Margarine, softened
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup pureed silken tofu or nondairy yogurt
1 tsp vanilla extract (or lemon, almond, whatever flavor you enjoy)
2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt

1. Cream together margarine and sugar. Add tofu or yogurt and extract and mix well to combine.

2. Add in the dry ingredients and mix until a dough ball is formed.

3. Wrap the dough ball in plastic wrap and refrigerate for about an hour

4. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Roll the dough about 1/8" thick. Cut into shapes using cookie cutters. Bake for 6-8 minutes, or until golden brown.

Vegan MoFo Day 11: Pumpkin Soup

2010-11-11T17:59:00.000-08:00

That last recipe was my favorite Mom recipe for Thanksgiving. This recipe is my Mom's favorite Thanksgiving recipe that I make. I scoured my hard drive for a picture of this Pumpkin Soup, but I couldn't find one anywhere. I found something that might have been pumpkin soup, but the quality was terrible, so instead, I leave you with this artist's rendition of Pumpkin Soup.

This soup takes a little while to put together and cook, but the end results are worth it. It's really rich and creamy and delicious. This is a recipe I actually use onions in because they're cooked down pretty well. A little extra Mimicreme to swirl into the soup at the end is a perfect touch to a beautiful orange soup. Prepare this soup a day in advance and then heat on Thanksgiving. Not only does it make it easier day of, the flavors really develop if you let them sit overnight.

Pumpkin Soup
2 lbs pumpkin
1 lbs sweet potato
2 tbsp earth balance
1 onion, sliced
1" piece of ginger, peeled and chopped
1 tsp caraway seeds
1 liter (4 cups) vegetable stock
1 tsp agave
1/4 tbsp cinnamon

1. Peel the sweet potato and pumpkin and cut them into roughly equally sized cubes. Set aside.

2. In a large soup pot, melt the earth balance over medium heat. Add the onions and cook for 5 minutes.

3. Add the pumpkin, sweet potatoes, ginger, caraway seed and vegetable stock.

4. Cover and simmer until the pumpkin and sweet potatoes are tender. This could take anywhere from 20 minutes to an hour depending on how big you left the potatoes and pumpkin.

5. Remove from heat and puree with an immersion blender, or puree in batches in a regular blender.

6. Return the soup to the pot, add the cinnamon and agave, adjust salt and pepper to taste. Serve hot, with a swirl of mimicreme if desired.

Vegan Mofo Day 10: Sweet Potato and Apple Bake

2010-11-10T16:48:00.000-08:00

Before I begin this post...

I MADE IT TO DAY TEN!!! One third of the month complete!! I'm so proud of me for keeping up with my blog for the past ten days!! I've even kept with the Thanksgiving theme for this long. Still not sure how much longer it will last. I don't think much longer, but I'll come up with something else, I'm sure.

Phew, ok.

A lot of people grew up eating the sweet potatoes baked with marshmallows on top for Thanksgiving. I have never in my life had such a concoction. I'm pretty sure my parents would have never permitted Marshmallows to be part of dinner, and my father would not have allowed Marshmallows to be part of food he was eating, and really, the thought of eating it kind of makes my teeth hurt. Instead, we had a conceptually similar, but infinitely healthier (albeit not completely healthy, cause it's got heaps of sugar), Sweet Potato and Apple Bake, which is a recipe my non-cooking mother bastardized from a recipe in a really old edition of Betty Crocker. I LOVED this more than anything. It's sweet potatoes with brown sugar and cinnamon topped with apple slices and baked. All I needed on Thanksgiving was this and stuffing and I was a happy girl.

Sweet Potato and Apple Bake
2 lbs of sweet potatoes, peeled and sliced into 1/4 inch slices
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup melted margarine
1 tbsp all purpose flour
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon (plus extra for sprinkling on the apples, if desired)
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
2 apples, peeled, cored, and sliced into 1/4 inch slices

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees

2. In a small bowl, stir together the sugar, margarine, flour, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg. Toss with the sweet potatoes until they are coated, then arrange them in a baking dish.

3. Top with apples, sprinkle with cinnamon, if you like that sort of thing

4. Bake for 50-60 minutes or until the sweet potatoes and apples are tender.

Vegan MoFo Day 9: Spicy Spritz Cookies

2010-11-09T16:56:00.001-08:00

Ahh Spritz Cookies. Nothing brings back warm holiday memories of Christmas as a child like Spritz Cookies. These memories specifically involve my brother, sister, and I decorating trays of Spritz cookies in the dining room, while my father cursed up a blue streak in the kitchen about the ineffective Spritz gun, and the *&(%ing dough is too cold or the $%(& gun trigger won't go. Epic, I'm telling you. As we got older, my sister and I just did all the spritzing ourselves. Saved everyone some trauma. For that matter, we also started putting up the tree, putting lights on the tree, and putting lights on the house ourselves too. Again, reduced the cursing and yelling around the holidays. That's not to say my dad is a crazy man, or abusive, or bad in any way, really. He's maybe just not so good at holidays.

He did have one thing right. Spritz guns can be a bitch. It's very difficult to find a good Spritz gun. Last Christmas, beeps and I tried to make Spritz cookies with a Pampered Chef Spritz Gun she inherited. Here's a tip: Don't buy a Pampered Chef Spritz Gun. It is completely useless. I registered for the Cookie Pro Ultra II Cookie Press for my wedding, and got it, and it is FABULOUS!! You DO need some hand strength, for sure, but man does it spritz nice. They have a bunch of different models, and I've tried some of them like their cordless battery operated cookie press, and that one was TERRIBLE. It just couldn't produce the force necessary to spritz out a cookie. The Cookie Pro Ultra II, however? The Cadillac of Cookie Presses. Buy one. Or two.

I have ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA where this recipe came from. No joke. I wrote it down years ago in my recipe notebook, and later veganised it. It is a Spicy Spritz Cookie and is lighter and tastier than the buttery mess I remember eating as a kid. (Honestly, I didn't like Spritz cookies -- they tasted like a stick of butter rolled in flour. I was a sugar cookie kid all the way. I just liked decorating and traditions.) For this batch, I stuck dried cranberries in some of the cookies and it really made a nice contrast of sweet and tart against rich and spicy. You can also use sprinkles or chocolate lentils or just leave 'em plain if you like 'em that way!

Spicy Spritz Cookies
3/4 cup margarine, softened
1/2 cup brown sugar, packed
1/4 cup nondairy yogurt (plain or vanilla)
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 3/4 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/8 tsp ground allspice
1/8 tsp ground cloves
1/4 tsp salt

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

2. Cream together margarine and sugar. Mix in the yogurt and stir to combine.

3. Sift in the flour, spices and salt and mix to combine.

4. Follow your Spritz Gun Manufacturer instructions for loading the dough into your gun, and spritzing.

5. Add sprinkles/candies/etc... as desired, then bake for 10 minutes or until the edges begin to get golden. Allow to cool on the cookie sheet for a few minutes, then transfer to a cooling rack to finish cooling.

Vegan MoFo Day 8: Harvest Fritters

2010-11-08T07:43:00.000-08:00

We are a fritter lovin' household. Over the summer when I had an obnoxious overabundance of zucchini, we ate a lot of zucchini fritters with fresh corn. In the winter potato fritters are a great side dish. I love the Vegetable Fritters recipe out of 500 Vegan Recipes by Celine Steen and Joni Marie Newman, and this recipe is extremely loosely based on that (in that I've changed nearly every ingredient and quantity). I guess it can better be described as "inspired by" the Vegetable Fritters recipe. The beets in this recipe give the fritter batter a delightful magenta hue. Keep the oven on warm while you fry these up so you can serve them all fresh and hot when you're done frying!

Harvest Fritters
1 1/4 cup grated, peeled sweet potato
1 1/4 cup grated, peeled beet
1/2 cup apple, cut into small dice
2 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
1/8 tsp ground nutmeg
1/4 tsp salt
pinch ground cayenne
1 1/2 cups unsweetened almond milk
1 6oz cup plain soy yogurt
1/4 cup canola oil + oil for frying

1. In a large bowl, mix the flour, baking powder, spices and salt.

2. Stir in the wet ingredients to make a batter. It should sort of resemble pancake batter.

3. Fold in the sweet potato, beets, and apples

4. In a large cast iron skillet, heat 1/4 inch of canola oil over medium/high until it bubbles around the bottom end of a wooden spoon when placed in the oil (scientific, right?).

5. Place batter into pan, about 2 heaping tbsp at a time, spreading a bit so it isn't too thick. When the edges start to look dry, and the bottom is golden brown, flip over. Fry the second side until it is golden. Drain on brown paper or paper towels and sprinkle with salt. Repeat with the rest of the batter until you've used it all up!

Vegan MoFo Day 7: Thanksliving Potluck!!

2010-11-07T16:56:00.000-08:00

Today was our big Third Annual Pre-Thanksgiving Vegan Thanksgiving Potluck! It is one of our most anticipated yearly potlucks with awesome traditional Thanksgiving food, all made vegan! Not only does it show that Thanksgiving can be delicious and satisfying without the Turkey, it's also a great early treat for vegans who will be home in front of a carcass in a few weeks. I feel like I'm missing a bunch of pictures that I could have sworn I'd taken, but this is a good sampling of our delicious feast!

Appetizers/Munchies

Homemade Chex Mix - Multigrain squares, rice Chex, Pretzels, Breadsticks, mixed nuts, and bagel chips all toasted with EB and spices and veg Worcestershire sauce!

Super omni-fied Spinach and Artichoke Dip in a Bread Bowl

Crock Cheese Trifecta!! Smokey, with facon bits, Original, and Herb

Seitan Turkey Loaf

Mashed Potatoes with Caramelized Onions

Stuffing with Veggies and Gardein "Beef" Tips

Mac & Cheese

Pumpkin Saag

Roasted Brussels Sprouts, Parsnips, and Carrots

Cranberry Sauce

Harvest Fritters. I pretty much invented this. They are really delicious. I'm hoping to post the recipe tomorrow.

Cranberry-Pomegranate Agar Mold with Raspberries and Black Grapes.
This really needs a PSA. Pretty, right? Rubber. Absolute Rubber. Inedible. The instructions on the Agar powder said "2 tbsp to 1 pint of liquid - heat for 5 minutes, then refrigerate to set." This yields a rubber ball. But isn't it pretty? Just don't try to eat it.

Oh man, one full counter of food. Some I don't have individual pics of because I feel like it was taken out when I was frying fritters or something. Anyway, the top row is fritters, mashed potatoes, mashed sweet potatoes, pumpkin saag. The second row is Mac & Cheese, Roasted Veg, Stuffing with Veggies, Green bean Casserole, Seitan. The bottom row is Cranberry sauce, plain stuffing, and maple-mustard potatoes. Not featured (STILL!) is the multiple boats of delicious, delicious gravy.

I also managed not to get pictures of dessert, except for the apple pie I made (and posted the recipe for yesterday), and the Spicy Spritz Cookies I made, which I think I may blog about later in the week... so maybe I'll hold the picture until then!! I am so full. We also had mulled cider. And crackers. And Soyatoo whip. And Chocolate Chip Cookies. And great friends, good conversation, and we all ended with full bellies. I also have lots of dishes to do.

Vegan MoFo Day 6: Apple Pie

2010-11-06T16:46:00.000-07:00

So you've made your pie crusts, now what? The fillings for pies are truly limitless. From a breakfast quiche to a savory pot pie to a sweet dessert, you can't go wrong with pie. Since I'm milking this Thanksgiving theme for all its worth, I thought I'd go with the fall classic, apple pie. When I make fruit pies, I don't use a recipe... or measure. I just throw a bunch of fruit together and call it a pie. This time, I actually measured how much I put in and made a (mental) note of it so I could share it. It's a damn good pie. It's not too sweet, not too tart, with tender apples and nice spicy cinnamon. When the filling is all nestled inside a light and flaky crust, you can't ask for anything more!

There's a lot of difference of opinion on what the "right" apples are for apple pie. I used to always use granny smith apples, but my co-op rarely has local grannies, so I branched out into other things. Now I use a combination of whichever crisp, tart, apples they have in stock when I'm going to make pie. This week I believe I had at least one gala, one spy, a mutsu, and another bright green one whose name escapes me, and a few more that looked food. The combination of a few sweet and a few tart really gives a great depth of flavor to the pie.

Apple Pie
6 Medium/Large apples, peeled, cored, and thinly sliced
1/2 cup dark brown sugar, packed
1 tbsp lemon juice
2 tbsp all purpose flour
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp fresh ground nutmeg

1. Preheat the oven to 425

2. Toss the apples with all the other ingredients until well coated.

3. Put into pie pan lined with pie crust.

4. Top with other pie crust. Crimp the edges to seal. Slice vent holes in the top.

5. Bake for 45 minutes or until apples stabbed through the knife hole are fork tender.

Allow to cool and re-set up. This is very important. Serving it warm is great, but right out of the oven there's no way you'll get a decent looking slice. If that doesn't bother you, then grab a form! The smell is irresistible!

Vegan MoFo Day 5: Pie Crust!

2010-11-05T17:58:00.000-07:00

There are two truths in life:
1. There is nothing better than a homemade pie crust.
2. Pillsbury pie crusts contain lard.

I didn't realize that second one until recently. Someone told me and I was like "No way!" and they were like "Way!" and I looked the next time I was in the supermarket, and damn if they didn't contain lard! Didn't matter much anyway since I've been making my own pie crusts for years. The recipe is ridiculously simple. It yields two 9-10 inch pie crusts. "But I have an eight inch pie pan!" you say. Aha, yes, but how often do you roll out a PERFECT pie crust? I'm good, and I still like a little extra dough to work with. Plus, extra dough is great for making little jam tarts (roll out the dough, cut it with a cookie cutter, put a dollop of jam in the middle, put another piece on top, seal it, bake!). The margarine and shortening combination makes it rich and tasty, but also light and flaky. The vodka also helps with the flaky layers, because alcohol doesn't activate gluten like water does, and we all know from seitan making what a brainy ball of goo gluten is! Not flaky at all! You can also add a pinch of salt to this, but I find the EB tends to be salty enough. Sometimes I do replace out some flour for powdered sugar, and add some cinnamon, and swap out some vanilla extract for some vodka... so it is a bit flexible!

Pie Crust (2 crusts! half the recipe if you only need a bottom crust)
1/2 cup (one stick) Non-Hydrogenated Margarine (Earth Balance!), Cold
1/2 cup (one stick) Non-Hydrogenated Shortening (Earth Balance!), Cold
2 cups all purpose flour (I've tried half and all whole wheat, white whole wheat, whole wheat pastry, it doesn't work as well)
Up to 1/2 cup vodka*, from the freezer

1. Cut the margarine and shortening into small cubes.

2. Put the flour in a medium bowl. Toss the cubes to coat them in the flour, then cut them into the flour using a pastry blade until it sort of resembles coarse cornmeal (or there aren't huge lumps of shortening/margarine. a few smaller ones are fine)

3. Add the vodka, a few tbsp at a time, until the dough forms together into a ball. I use my hands for this.

4. Roll the dough into a ball, split it into two balls, wrap each in plastic wrap, flatten into a disc, and refrigerate for a bit (this helps the flour rehydrate and the dough become more elastic. I don't have an exact time. I've made it the night before, and then it usually needs to sit on the counter for a bit. I usually just have it chilling until my filling is ready).

5. Roll out, put in pie pan, do what you're doin' with it!

Peach Pie with Lattice Crust

Ube (purple sweet potato) pie from last Thanksgiving

Blueberry-Cherry-Sugar Plum Pie from this summer's Pie Potluck. Complete with Pie Bird!!

* Most of the alcohol cooks off in the oven. Whatever's left isn't enough to get anyone even slightly buzzed. If you're still not comfortable with it, just use ice cold water! It still works, its just less flaky.

Vegan MoFo Day 4: Tofurky?

2010-11-04T19:23:00.000-07:00

I guess Tofurky isn't really a recipe, but it does go along with the current Thankgiving theme. This is actually a really old blog post - from 2007 - from my Livejournal, which often featured food porn and cat pictures and other stuff that I've delegated to other sources (i.e. this food blog). I still think my commentary and pictorial adventures in preparing a Tofurky are useful if not downright entertaining. I thought about editing it, but instead, I'm going to present it to you in it's original form. (Note my old pink rental kitchen and groddy oven that didn't maintain temperature!)

Megatarian Presents:
Tofurkey Dinner
aka "It's A Boob!"

One question I get a lot as a vegetarian is whether or not I've eaten Tofurky, and up until today, the answer has been no. The frozen Tofurkys made me sort of nervous, and they're insanely expensive. I've eaten the deli slices, but never did I venture to eat a full blown Tofurky roast. This past holiday season, however, they were on sale at the coop, and there was a coupon and I got a 26% discount, so I bought a tofurky for about $5 and stuck it in my freezer until I was brave enough to try it. I'm on vacation this week, and there seemed to be no better time to break it out. And so, faithful readers, here is my pictorial journey through Tofurky Land.

Tofurky, eh? Seems harmless enough, has already assured me that it is both vegetarian AND delicious... but what is inside?

AHH! It's a boob! It's a fetus!! It's some mysterious extruded gluten and soy mixture wrapped in plastic with thick metal ties at the end.

Thaw and remove plastic coating prior to cooking. Sounds like good enough advice. I couldn't get those damned metal handcuffs off of it though, so I decided to just stab through the plastic. Totally not as easy as I thought. They make body bags thinner than this stuff. But I made it in...
AHH!! It's a boob! It's a fetus!! It's a football! Wait no, it's a naked tofurkey roast. Okay... the ends look like a dog butt, but otherwise it seems benign enough. Doesn't smell too weird. Isn't slimy. I whip up the prescribed "basting broth" which is really just oil, soy sauce and dried sage. I used olive oil, sesame oil, tamari, and poultry seasoning. Gotta use what you've got kids. Next step is to wrap it in foil and pop it in the oven.

Ooo shiny. And all ready for baking! If you're making one of these, definitely put the cookie sheet under. It oozes.

For the last ten minutes of baking, you unwrap your mottled football boob and baste it with more "basting broth" and put it back in the oven, uncovered, and let it do.. whatever it is it does for ten more minutes.

This is my tofurky in the oven with its friends "scalloped broccoli and cauliflower" and "bread stuffing." These are my standbys in case the tofurky tastes like dog butt. We could make a meal out of scalloped broccoli and cauliflower and bread stuffing alone.

AHH! Okay, wait, don't panic.. it's done now. Hello, little tofurky. How was the oven? It's got a nice tan now and is ready for carving! I actually used a carving fork to carve this, probably the first time in my life I've wielded one.

Ooo slicetastic! The "stuffing" inside looks nothing like the stuffing in the box, and there's a lot less of it. It mostly looks like rice. I'm glad I made bread stuffing on the side.

And there is our tofurkey dinner, complete with sides, gravy, and Brett's arm.

Aaaand the end!
As a sidebar, the scalloped broccoli and cauliflower recipe is from The Vegetarian Family Cookbook by Nava Atlas and it's fantastic.

Vegan MoFo Day 3: Cashew Gravy

2010-11-03T18:28:00.000-07:00

I made it to day 3!! This is 3X as much blogging as I've done in the past 6 months! Continuing with the Thanksgiving theme, at least for one more day, I bring you a gem from one of my less mainstream cookbooks "Fast Cooking in a Slow Cooker Every Day of the Year" by Joann Rachor. I've never actually made this recipe in the slow cooker. It takes about 5 minutes on the stovetop, with only a few minutes of prep time, so I've never really seen a need to actually slow cook it. That darn slow cooker insert is so unwieldy to wash. Cashew Gravy has only a few simple ingredients but makes a rich, full flavored, silky gravy that goes well on just about anything! It's also great to use in pot pies. And for drinking with a straw. (Maybe not that last one. )

Cashew Gravy
2 1/4 cups water
1/4 cup + 2 tbsp raw cashews
1/4 cup rolled oats (quick or slow cook - not steelcut!)
3 tbsp tamari or soy sauce
1 tbsp nutritional yeast
1 1/2 tsp onion powder
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/8 tsp salt

1. Put all the ingredients in the blender, EXCEPT, don't add all the water at once. Use about half the water to make the mixture go around. Blend until smooth. Pour into a pot.

2. Put the rest of the water in the blender. Blend again to make sure you got all the yummy bits. Add that to the pot.

3. Heat over medium heat, whisking intermittently, until desired thickness is reached. This generally takes about 5 minutes.

Really? That's it??
Yes.
Yes it is.
Go make some.

Vegan MoFo Day 2: Cranberry Sauce

2010-11-02T16:40:00.000-07:00

What goes better with Seitan Turkey than Cranberry sauce? Ok, gravy. I'll do gravy another day. But Cranberry Sauce?? Mmmm. I almost like it better the next day on bread with Vegenaise and Seitan. Just like Mama used to make! Except without the dead bird. And whipped egg yolks with oil. Ew.

Cranberry sauce is really easy to make. I've never seen a canned cranberry sauce that wasn't vegan, but it's still worth it to make your own! This is a fancy version that I think I stole from Alton Brown with citrus juice and zest and little bits of apple. It is worth the extra effort for the depth of flavor!

You Need:
1 12oz bag cranberries
1 cup water
1 3/4 cup sugar
1 apple, peeled, cored and diced small (cranberry sized)
1 orange, juiced and zested (zest first! It's hard to zest once you've juiced)
1 lemon, juiced and zested (see above)

1. In a large pot, cook the cranberries, water, and sugar together until the berries pop
2. Add the apples, zest and juices and cook for another 15 minutes
3. Allow to cool - refrigerate for a day to let it set up. (Cranberries have tons of pectin, so do apples, so it gels up well!)

See? Easy. The hardest part about that was not zesting your fingers. If you want it even fancier, toss in a cinnamon stick and sub out some juice (or wine? champagne?) for all or part of the water.

Vegan MoFo Day 1: Seitan Turkey

2010-11-01T16:16:00.000-07:00

I'm slightly late on this bandwagon. I really miss blogging though and VEGAN MOFO seemed like a good time to get back into it! Plus, so many yummy food holidays this time of year! Thanksgiving! Christmas! I'll be gettin' my bake on and keeping busy in the kitchen for the next TWO MONTHS! Might as well take pics and post about it!

Every November as Thanksgiving nears I get the same question, "What do you eat for Thanksgiving?" and I answer "Food!" and they say (as though I'm ignorant) "But you don't eat TURKEY!!! What do you eat for Turkey? Do you get a *giggle* tofurkey??" Don't get me wrong, I do actually like Tofurkey. Can you think of any other edible football-boob hybrid? Me neither. But, it's not economical at all. What I do make every year is SEITAN TURKEY!! This is a lengthy process involving a lot of kneading (Thank you Kitchenaid) and a lot of resting, and a lot of oven time. The outcome is a really tender seitan that tastes mild and good with gravy. This weekend I made 2 batches for the
THIRD ANNUAL PRE-THANKSGIVING VEGAN THANKSGIVING POTLUCK!!
which is coming up this Sunday (let me know if you are in the NY Capital Region, or willing to travel, and want in).

This recipe is from Bryanna Clark Grogan's website, which currently has no recipes listed, or I'd just link to her recipe.

Stuffed Mushrooms

2010-08-23T17:13:00.000-07:00

Oh man two months off.

So, I'm married now. There is now a Mr. Megatarian. He is, however, an omni, but we'll forgive him that due to his love of vegan food. We had a beautiful vegan wedding, with kilts and bagpipers and monkey cake.

This is what a megatarian getting married looks like

This was us and our very tall piper

And finally, a vegan sock monkey cake. Almond cake with marzipan and dark chocolate between the cake layers, and vanilla buttercream

Then yesterday was my birthday! I made myself a whole complicated birthday dinner, and I wanted to post about the stuffed mushrooms before I forgot what we threw into them. It was all sort of slapdash. I couldn't find a recipe I liked, so I just threw everything together that I thought I wanted in them. It came out great! I highly suggest this method. Even Mr. Megatarian, former mushroom hater, ate two.

Stuffed Portabella Mushrooms
8 Medium sized portabella caps, cleaned with the woody stalk removed
3 cups fresh bread crumbs *
1 cup frozen chopped spinach, thawed
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 celery stalk, diced
1 shallot, diced
1/3 cup walnuts, ground
3 tbsp sesame seeds, ground
1/4 cup nutritional yeast
1 tsp dried thyme
1.5 cups vegetable broth
1/4 cup flat leaf parsley, chopped
salt & pepper to taste
Olive oil
Garlic powder

1. Preheat the oven to 375.

2. Drizzle the mushrooms, cup side up, with some olive oil and sprinkle with salt, pepper, and garlic powder. Put on a cookie sheet and set aside.

3. In a large skillet, sautee the shallots, celery and garlic until translucent. Add the spinach, nuts and seeds, nutritional yeast, and thyme and mix until well distributed.

4. Add the bread crumbs and mix well. Add the vegetable broth and stir until a slightly pasty consistency is reached (you may want to add the broth gradually, because the bread crumbs will soak up more or less depending on how dry they are).

5. Add salt and pepper to taste. Fold in parsley.

6. Fill the mushrooms with the stuffing.

7. Bake for 30-45 minutes or until the mushrooms caps are soft and let off a bunch of liquid.

Here they are featured with batter fried eggplant and heirloom tomato salad.

Tropical Oatmeal Cookies

2010-06-23T15:12:00.000-07:00

I don't know where my brain got this idea from. I've always like coconut in oatmeal cookies. It adds a little extra something in there. Coconut and raisins though? Ehhh, I don't know. The genius struck when I saw the dried pineapple in my pantry. TROPICAL OATMEAL COOKIES!! With coconut! And dried pineapple!! These came out quite yummy. I altered my Nana's original oatmeal cookie recipe and they're nice and crisp on the outside and chewy on the inside. I changed 1 cup of butter to 2/3 cup of canola oil (because it's cheaper than Earth Balance), but go ahead and use 2 sticks of EB if you are feeling generous with your buttery spread.

Another ingredient note -- I used a full tsp of fresh ground nutmeg in this. Actually, this is several notes on the nutmeg topic. One is that if you don't like nutmeg, you aren't going to want to use a full teaspoon because you can definitely taste it. It has an interesting little kick that pairs well with the coconut, but if you don't like it, leave it out or sub with cinnamon. Second, CAN YOU BELIEVE I DIDN'T USE CINNAMON IN THIS RECIPE?!? I put cinnamon in everything. Third, really, use fresh ground nutmeg. Grind it yourself. If you don't have a microplane, definitely get one. I love that thing, despite it chunking off pieces of multiple fingers (totally my fault, I'm sure). Fresh ground nutmeg tastes like an almost completely different spice than ground nutmeg you buy at the store. I don't know how to explain it. It's not like dried basil and fresh basil where both are good, but they're different flavors. Compared to fresh ground nutmeg, pre-ground nutmeg isn't good. Being a NutMeg(atarian), I consider myself an expert in this field. That said, if you're not using nutmeg because you think you don't like it but you've never had fresh ground then do yourself a favor and try fresh ground before you make a final decision. If nothing else, the nuts have a really cool swirly pattern inside when you grate them. Do watch your knuckles though!

Tropical Oatmeal Cookies
2/3 cup canola oil
1 cup brown sugar, packed
1/2 cup white sugar
2 tbsp of flax seeds soaked in 6 tbsp water (that is, two flax eggs)
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp coconut extract
1 1/2 cups white whole wheat flour (or all purpose)
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp fresh ground nutmeg
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 cups quick cooking oats
1 1/2 cups old fashioned oats (or 3 cups of either)
3/4 cups unsweetened coconut
1 cup dried pineapple, chopped.

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Lightly grease a couple baking sheets (optional, though you can shove one down your gob faster if you don't have to wait for them to cool and release from the cookie sheet :) )

2. Cream together the sugars and oil. Add the flax eggs, vanilla, and coconut extracts and mix until well combined.

3. Add the flour, soda, nutmeg, and salt and stir until just mixed in.

4. Fold in the oatmeal, coconut, and pineapple.

5. Place walnut sized balls of dough on the cookie sheet and flatten with your hand (they won't spread, but they're also yummy golf balls if that's how you roll).

6. Bake for 10-12 minutes or until golden brown around the edges. Allow to cool for a few minutes before removing from the cookie sheets.

Two Tomato Soup

2010-06-21T18:15:00.000-07:00

Ah, the first day of summer, that can only mean one thing....

Soup?

Ok, maybe not. This might not be the most seasonally appropriate recipe, but I wanted to make grilled cheese sandwiches with Hickory Cheddar We Can't Say It's Cheese * and I wanted something to dip it in, so I made tomato soup. The other benefit was that it just hung out in the crockpot all day and when I got home from work I just had to puree and enjoy. This is my favorite tomato soup recipe because it gets a bunch of other veggies in there, and sundried tomatoes, which are a nice touch.

And, unrelated vanity, CHECK OUT MY NEW PLATES!! I had a bridal shower, and everyone was very generous, and we got some of the plates we asked for. This is one design, you'll have to stay in suspense for the other one.

Two-Tomato Soup
Adapted from 1001 Low-Fat Vegetarian Recipes by Sue Spitler
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 shallots, diced
2 stalks celery, sliced
2 carrots, chopped
2 cloves of garlic, minced
2 cups vegetable broth
28 oz can diced tomatoes
1 potato, diced
1/2 cup sundried tomatoes (dry, not oil packed)
1 tsp dried basil
1/2 cup plain milk of choice
salt and pepper to taste

1. In a large sautee pan/soup pot (depending on whether you're making it on the stove or in the slow cooker), heat the oil and sautee the shallots, garlic, celery and carrots until tender, about 5 minutes.

2a. If you're using a crock pot, put the veggies and everything else except for the milk into it and cook on low for 8 hrs... or until veggies are tender (8 hrs covers the work day for me so in it goes)

2b. Add the tomatoes, potato, stock and basil and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and cover; simmer for 15 minutes or until veggies are soft.

3. Puree soup until smooth in batches in a blender or with an immersion blender. Stir in the milk. Adjust seasoning to taste.

* Have you tried this stuff?? Ohhh man it's good. Hickory Smoked is the favorite in this house. We hope it soon is available in industrial sized tubs.

Cookbook Review & A Bastardized Recipe

2010-04-09T06:19:00.000-07:00

When I was making up my amazon wishlist for Christmas, I came across this book:

Sweet Utopia: Simply Stunning Vegan Desserts by Sharon Valencik. Somehow in all my veg forum reading, I had never come across it. My vegan dessert book collection is pretty hit or miss. Joy of Vegan Baking? Hit. My Sweet Vegan? Miss. (And by miss I mean I got it as a gift probably 2 years ago and haven't made a single thing out of it, though I've read through it on multiple occasions) But it looked interesting, and I thought I'd give it a go. This book does NOT disappoint! There are pictures of every recipe and there isn't a single one in the book that I'm not interested in making! I'd like to work my way through cover to cover, gaining pound upon vegan pound in the process. What sets this apart from the Joy of Vegan Baking (which is a fantastic book as well, but I think everyone knows about it already) is that it is ALL DESSERTS!! Here's what I've made thus far...

Peanut Butter Mini Cheesecakes

These were the boy's pick for his Birthday, Round 1. It was like eating a gigantic Reese's cup. Totally rich and decadent, it's a good thing they're mini because it would be easy to eat way too much of this and make yourself sick if it wasn't already portion controlled. These were very popular with our dinner party guests, and we didn't suffer at all having to finish the leftover ones!

Ultimate Peanut Butter Cup Cake

I don't actually need to tell you who this was for, do I? Birthday, Round 2. This time with his parents. I only made a half recipe of this cake because there were only 4 of us eating it, and I didn't think we'd need a layer cake. It was fantastic. The frosting was so rich and creamy and the cake itself was incredibly moist with a really good crumb. I think we all ended up having two pieces, even though we were all already stuffed full of Chinese food.

Orange Burst Cookies N Cream

They're the ones on the right. That is the cookie tray I brought to Easter this year. On the left are Raspberry Oat bars from JOVB. I was skeptical about these cookies, but gave them a go and I'm really glad I did. The cookies are orangey but not too sweet, which is compensated by the filling which is super sweet, being cream filling and all. I cut them into egg shapes to make them festive for Easter. The cookies look like they'd be crunchy, but they actually stayed tender, which was great because the filling wasn't super hard, but it didn't squish out the sides. The only complaint (ish?) I had about this recipe was the cream filling recipe made at least twice as much cream filling as I actually needed for the cookies. Turned out Ok though. I made a chocolate cake later in the week and frosted it with the leftover cream. (Haven't uploaded the pic of that yet...)

Banana-Cranberry-Cashew Cookies

Ok, that picture is not actually of the banana cranberry cashew cookies. I somehow failed to take a picture of those. That is a picture of my Banana Split Cookies, which is today's featured bastardized recipe, which I altered the original Banana cranberry cookie recipe to become. I was really excited to see another use for black bananas, because I usually have tons of them since as soon as bananas get spotty I don't like them anymore. The original cookie was really good, very cakelike and moist. I decided to play with the ingredients a bit though, and that's where the Banana Split Cookies were born.... they go something like this...

Banana Split Cookies
2 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup pureed ripe banana
3/4 cup brown sugar
1/3 cup canola oil
1/3 cup white sugar
1/4 cup peanut butter
1 tbsp almond milk
1 tsp vanilla extract
heaping 1/2 cup shelled peanuts
heaping 1/2 cup dried cherries
heaping 1/2 cup chocolate chips

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

2. Cream together the oil, peanut butter, and sugars.

3. Add the almond milk, bananas, and vanilla extract and stir until well combined. (Doing all this with an electric mixer really speeds things along)

4. Sift in the dry ingredients and stir until just combined. Fold in the chips, nuts, and cherries.

5. Drop 1 tbsp of dough per cookie onto a greased baking sheet and bake for 13-15 minutes or until the edges begin to brown. These cookies do not spread, so if you don't want them in ball form (which is a legitimately delicious option), flatten them out a bit with your palm before baking.

Crispy Nori Tofu

2010-04-08T08:04:00.000-07:00

I made up this meal weeks ago and have desperately wanted to try it, but things like "time" and "head colds that won't die" got in the way of me realizing my dream. Last week I got so far as buying, and marinating the tofu, then ended up on the couch in a sea of tissues after work, leaving the boy to just bake it in the oven. The marinade was apparently good -- he ate the entire pound himself. This week, a pinched nerve caused near failure again. I marinated the tofu, but then couldn't deal with cooking. I left it in the fridge an extra day, however, and last night, it happened.. CRISPY NORI TOFU!!

Ok so what is crispy nori tofu? It's marinated tofu dredged in rice flour, ground nori, and ground sesame seeds. It is then pan fried to a crispy shell and enjoyed (with or without wasabi). I served it with sauteed snap peas and left over grilled red pepper strips, and some sesame ginger rice. This time, I probably could have eaten the entire pound myself... but I shared.

Crispy Nori Tofu
You need..
1 lbs tofu, cut into slices, thickness as desired
Canola oil (or whatever you like to fry in)

Marinade:
1/4 cup tamari
2 tbsp rice wine vinegar
1 tsp mirin
1/2 tsp sugar
1/2 tsp ginger powder
1 tsp sesame oil

Crust:
1/3 cup rice flour
2 sheets nori
3 tbsp sesame seeds

1. Combine all the ingredients for the marinade and marinate the sliced tofu for at least 8 hours.

2. In a food processor or blender, combine the crust ingredients and pulverize so it all resembles a fine flour with some sesame seeds here and there.

3. Take the tofu out of the marinade and press it, wet, into the flour mixture to coat.

4. In a cast iron skillet over high heat, heat 1/4 inch of oil. Add the tofu slices and fry 3-4 minutes on each side or until golden brown. Drain on paper towels or brown paper bag for a few minutes to remove extra oil before serving.

3 Accidentally and 1 Intentionally Vegan Finds

2010-04-02T12:54:00.001-07:00

I have been sick since I posted last. I wish I were kidding. Working with people, and especially people of the children variety, is actually really gross. But this should be about food, not about gross, so I thought I'd share some of my RANDOM VEGAN FINDS from today!

Today is my first day off since, well I took a sick day Monday, but before that, President's Day. I had a cat rescue mission this morning, then lunch with the boy (veggie wrap at Mr. Subb. Actually not so bad. Lots of mustard and pickles and olives), then to the Subaru dealer to have them change the oil and listen to the ticking noise, but actually their computers were down, I waited 30 minutes and they hadn't even taken my keys, and I said screw it, I'm not sitting here all day and told them I'd reschedule... so while I was out that way anyway, I stopped at the Price Chopper that has the Kosher grocery department. The Kosher Grocery is great for all sorts of random accidentally vegan things. It being Passover right now means even MORE random stuff. Awesome. Here were my finds today:

Clockwise from top left...
This one is intentionally vegan. In fact, it says right on it "Vegan Moroccan Chicken." I have never seen these before! They also had vegan sesame chicken, and vegan beefless stir fry. I have yet to try it, but it will make me a happy megatarian on some lazy night where I'm hungry but don't feel like cooking.

Chocolate covered marzipan.
My favorite chocolate bar is Ritter Sport Marzipan. I thought I'd see how these compare. In a head to head taste test, Ritter Sport would win hands down. These lack the balance of the not so sweet chocolate with the super sweet Marzipan. In fact, the chocolate is so sweet you can't detect the almond flavor... or at least I can't right now but admittedly my sense of smell and taste is still severely diminished due to this cold. It's definitely a nice, sweet, creamy bite, but for true marzipan flavor, I'd stick with Ritter.

Dame Blanche
The white lady. Holy crow this are good. It is two tea biscuit type cookies with a vanilla cream filling covered in sweet chocolate. It really encompasses a lot of my favorite things into one treat. I love a nice plain faintly sweet vanilla cookie, I love cream filling, I love chocolate, what could be bad? Fortunately these are all individually wrapped or I'd probably find myself sneaking back into the box for another one. I'm still debating whether or not I should share with the boy.

Alprose Deluxe Dark Chocolate with Hazelnut Praline.
Nothing in that description is bad. Another really super sweet chocolate. Maybe I'm just so used to a slightly bitter dark chocolate that these seem extraordinarily sweet. The hazelnut flavor definitely comes through though, and the chocolate is nice and silky smooth. I am not disappointed.

Believe it or not, I came home, tried my treats, then ate a bowl of fruit... which I guess is sort of just more sweets when you get right down to it. The moral of this story is always explore the Kosher and International sections of your supermarket. You never know what random things you might encounter.

A Birthday Dinner

2010-03-14T17:09:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was the boy's birthday. In lieu of a big party this year, he decided a small dinner party would be preferred. We invited two couples we're friends with, and I planned a lovely vegetarian* menu which I neglected to fully photograph. I like to try to make something fancy for dinner parties. Casseroles and stir fries are great for week nights, but if we're having people over and I actually put down a table cloth, I want something a little dressier. Last night's menu was as follows:
First Course: French Onion soup with Gruyere Croistini*
Dinner: Balsamic and herb marinated grilled portabella mushrooms and baked tofu, coconut and nutmeg mashed sweet potatoes, homemade chunky cinnamon apple sauce, rapini with red pepper flakes, garlic, lemon and pine nuts.
Dessert: Peanut butter mini cheesecakes

I didn't photograph the soup or the cheesecakes, though I have cheesecakes left over so I'm going to try to get a photo before they all end up in our bellies. Dinner was very well received and enjoyed by all :)

* ZOMG WHY NOT VEGAN!? It wasn't my birthday. I don't eat French Onion soup to begin with because of my onion sensitivity, it's the boy's favorite soup and he asked me to make it for him. Considering the rest of the guests, as well as the boy, were omnis, and the rest of the meal, including the dessert, were vegan, I had no problem making him french onion soup with cheese as a rare treat.

And unrelated to all this -- I had to turn comment moderation on due to the high influx of spam I was getting in my comments. I LOVE the comments and support so keep 'em coming, and I'll try to approve them as fast as possible! As long as you're not trying to sell me porn.

Lemon Dill Tofu

2010-03-09T06:56:00.000-08:00

Has it really been 3 months!?

Actually, the last blog post coincided with when I started my new job. Now on top of the whole "PhD thing" I have a full time job, a part time job, and 3 hrs/wk at the co-op. Cooking has gotten interesting since I don't get home until 8pm 3 nights a week, and at that point, I don't really feel like cooking much. I've been experimenting a bunch with the crock pot and making casseroles ahead of time that the boy can put in the oven when he gets home. I need to find where I jotted down the recipes to a bunch of stuff I made up... but I did find the scrap of paper for this one, which is Lemon Dill Tofu. It is SERIOUSLY lemony, but in a good way. I served this with vegetable fritters from 500 Vegan Recipes. It's a good recipe, but instead of making 6 that all fit in one pan, like the recipe said -- it yielded more like 15 and took over an hour to cook them all. I wonder how big of a pan the author was using... Anyway, this is the recipe for my lemon dill tofu marinade. I marinated my tofu overnight, then baked it, and it was good.

Lemon Dill Tofu Marinade
1 tsp lemon zest
1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
1 tbsp apple cider vinegar
2 tbsp tamari
1 clove garlic, grated or pressed
1/2 tsp black pepper
2 tbsp chopped fresh dill
1 tbsp olive oil.

Mix all the ingredients together and use to marinate 1 lbs of tofu.

Carrot Ginger Soup

2009-12-07T13:04:00.000-08:00

The first time I made carrot ginger soup was a few years back and I had a dreadful head cold, and for whatever reason, C-G soup sounded fantastic. I'd never had it before, but something about a creamy soup with a lot of ginger just seemed the right thing, and it totally was, and was absolutely delicious. Then I moved in with The Boy who was decidedly anti-ginger and I didn't make it again, but the thought was creeping more and more into my head as the weather got cooler here. Last month I was invited to a potluck and I thought that would be the perfect chance to make it again, without subjecting The Boy to the soup. Well turns out he loved it. He tasted it when I was done making it and wanted more. I had some leftover after the potluck and he ate it all. The carrot ginger floodgates are now open and I can make it as often as I please!!

Most recently, I made it for my mom and sister when they came up to visit. This is a soup I didn't have a recipe for that I liked, so I just sort of winged it, and wrote it down as best I could as I went along. Everyone who's eaten it so far has loved it. It's great plain or with a little bit of chopped fresh dill sprinkled on the top. I recommend using organic carrots for this recipe because carrots are really excellent at soaking up toxins in soil. It's one of the few veggies I spend the extra money on and buy organic, though they really still aren't a horrible financial burden. Another new thing for me -- freshly grated nutmeg. For years I went "yea yea sure fine" and used the preground. Recently I bought a few whole nutmegs to try, figuring I had the microplane now, might as well since I like seeing what that'll grate up and WOW what a difference! It's almost like a different spice. Definitely give it a go if you can.

Carrot Ginger Soup
2 ribs of celery, roughly chopped
2 small shallots, roughly chopped
2 tbsp vegan margarine
2 lbs carrots, peeled and cut into coins (or! Shortcut! 2 lbs of baby cut carrots)
5 cups vegetable broth (or, 4 cups + 1 cup of water if you buy it by the quart)
3 inch piece of ginger, peeled and roughly chopped
1/4 tsp fresh ground nutmeg
1/4 tsp ground cumin
1/8 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tbsp maple syrup
1 cup mimicreme (vegan nut-based heavy cream - though an unsweetened plain soy, rice, almond, whatevermilk would also work fine)

1. Melt the margarine in a large soup pot and sautee the shallots and celery until it begins to get tender.

2. Add the carrots, broth, ginger, and spices and bring to a boil. Lower the heat to a simmer, cover, and cook for about 30 minutes or until the carrots are super soft (this will depend on how small you cut them).

3. Take the soup off the heat and either puree it in the pot with an immersion blender (easier choice) or puree it in batches in a blender (making sure to allow for steam to escape or your blender top with blow off) until it's perfectly smooth.

4. Return the soup to the pot if you took it out, and add the maple syrup and milk. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Serve with fresh dill, if desired.

Shown with a sprinkling of Dill

Pretzels! or Let's Get Twisted!!

2009-11-30T14:39:00.000-08:00

Recently I got struck with this insane craving for a fresh hot soft pretzel with mustard. I couldn't get the idea out of my head so clearly I had only one choice!

Drive to the mall?!
No. Those are dipped in butter aren't they?

Buy some frozen?!
No! They get dry and stale and freezer-burned so fast.

Make my own?!
Of course, where did you think this was going? It's a food blog.

Fortunately pretzels are both easy and fun to make, and pretzel recipes don't require much veganization as they don't have a lot of animal bits in them. I used Alton Brown's recipe off the Food Network website. The only changes I had to make were subbing Earth Balance for butter, and omitting the eggwash, which is supposed to give them a nice golden brown color. Seems if you just sprinkle salt onto the wet pretzel and put them into a hot oven, they do actually turn golden brown on their own. Go figure!! These were so delicious the boy and I ate way too many pretzels in one go, but you really have to enjoy them while they're hot and fresh since they get stale so quickly. Like bagels, hot pretzels are boiled and then baked to give them a chewy interior and a crisp exterior.

Soft Pretzels
1 1/2 cups warm water (110-115 degrees F - should feel just barely uncomfortable)
1 tbsp sugar
2 tsp salt
2 1/4 tsp (one packet for those of you who don't buy bulk yeast) active dry yeast
22 oz (about 4.5 cups) all purpose flour
2 tbsp margarine, melted
10 cups water
2/3 cup baking soda
Vegetable oil to non-stick up your bowl and cookie sheet
Parchment paper if you've got it
Rock salt/Pretzel salt

1. "Proof" your yeast (test to make sure it's active) by adding it and the sugar to the warm water and allow it to sit for about 10 minutes. If it gets all bubbley and foamy looking, it's ready to go! If nothing happens, it may be time for new yeast.

2. Stir your flour and salt together in the bowl of your mixer (or in a large bowl if you're going to knead by hand). Add the water/yeast mixture and the melted margarine and mix until it is combined well, then knead the dough for about 5 minutes until it's smooth and elastic.

3. Lightly coat your bowl with vegetable oil and place the dough ball back into the bowl. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and leave in a warmish spot for an hour, or until the dough about doubles in size.

4. When it's getting towards the end of the rising time, you can start prepping the rest of your things. Line the cookie sheets with parchment (or foil, or silpat, or nothing) and lightly brush with vegetable oil. In a large pot, bring the 10 cups of water and 2/3 cups baking soda to a boil. Preheat the oven to 450 degrees.

5. Back to the dough! Punch it down and divide it into 8 balls of dough. Roll each ball into a rope, and twist each rope into a pretzel. (Make a U shape, then cross the ends, then stick the bottoms onto the original U shape.) One at a time, gently place the pretzels into the boiling water for 30 seconds, then remove them with a slotted spoon and sit them on your prepared baking sheet and sprinkle with salt.

6. Bake your pretzels for 12-14 minutes or until they're all golden. Allow them to cool a few minutes on a cooling rack before you eat them.

Individual Baked Apple Crisps

2009-11-01T09:35:00.000-08:00

Another chapter in the 1001 things you can do with apples! But first...

Next weekend is the SECOND ANNUAL PRE-THANKSGIVING VEGAN THANKSGIVING POTLUCK here in the Albany, NY area. More specifically, in my house. If you are in or around or willing to travel to the NY State Capital Region, and are free on Saturday, November 7th from 2pm until we can't move anymore, and want to share some awesome vegan food, let me know and I'll send you further details!

Onto the apples!

I was a whiny mess last week when I was sick, so I wanted to make a nice treat for the boy because he put up with me. With just the two of us, making an entire apple crisp or an entire apple pie is just a bit much, and while I love baked apples, the boy typically would prefer a dessert with a bit more pizazz. These turned great. They were super simple to make, and really delicious! I didn't have a recipe, I just winged it based on the size of the apples and the proportion of stuff I wanted to put inside of them. Dried fruit or chopped nuts would also make great additions to the filling if you've got them around.

Individual Baked Apple Crisps

2 large apples
1 tbsp vegan margarine, melted
2 tbsp dark brown sugar
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
Heaping 1/4 cup rolled oats

1. Peel a band of skin off of the outside of each apple. Cut a hole into the top of the apple as though you were cutting a pumpkin for carving. Scoop out the seeds and core, leaving just a little bit of apple at the bottom to help hold the filling in. Snack on the extra apple bits that came out.

2. In a small bowl, mix the brown sugar and cinnamon into the melted butter to dissolve the sugar, then add the oats and stir to coat in the sugar/margarine mixture.

3. Fill the empty apples with the filling and bake at 350 degrees for about 45 min to 1 hr or until the apples are tender when poked with a fork. (This will depend on the size of your apple!) Serve warm for optimal deliciousness.

Recipe Mix & Match

2009-10-27T09:12:00.000-07:00

I have been delinquent. I haven't actually cooked at all since the last day I posted because I've been sick. I'm still not feeling 100% but I'm certainly doing better than I was last week. I was going to post my method for crispy tofu, but it seems those pics are still on my camera, and the battery is charging right now, so I thought instead I'd show you my creative recipe combining to make a new recipe.

My wonderful friends came and watched my cats for us while we went downstate for Nana's bday last weekend, and so I paid them like you pay any good friend pet-sitters -- in baked goods. The request this time was for chocolate brownies with chocolate chips and peanut butter frosting. I looked through my different cookbooks to find recipes that would fulfill this need and ended up choosing the Chocolate Brownie recipe from The Joy of Vegan Baking and to top it, I made the Peanut Butter Caramel from the apple bars in Veganomicon. The results??

Delicious! I didn't realized until I'd mixed up the ingredients for the brownie batter that it was, essentially, a fat free brownie recipe. Not that that makes it healthy... but I was worried that they wouldn't be rich enough. I was wrong, they were definitely rich enough!! The recipes says that they'll be fudgy if cooked for the instructed time, but I had to bake them for an extra 10 minutes because the middle of the pan was absolute liquid when the timer went off. They weren't totally fudgy, they definitely had a cakey feel to them, but they were definitely a brownie and not a cake! The peanut butter caramel frosting paired very well with them. It made them nice and gooey and sticky and delicious.

The moral of this story is don't be afraid to just take parts of recipes that you like and put them together to make new recipes! The results could just be delicious!

Crispy Tofu

2009-10-27T09:04:00.000-07:00

And so, this is the last meal I cooked last Tuesday before I got sick. This isn't really a recipe as much as it is a method for getting some nice crispy tofu!

One step that I'm leaving out of this is the draining/pressing step, which should happen before you marinate your tofu. The tofu I use is made by The Bridge (http://bridgetofu.com/). If you can get your hands on this stuff, definitely do. It is so creamy and firm it doesn't need to be pressed. People who eat my tofu think I've done something magical to it, but really, I've just used that awesome tofu.

Anyway, the reason behind this meal was the boy was "mmmm"ing over the thought of mashed potatoes and gravy, so I had to figure out a meal around them. I especially do not like mashed potatoes, so it had to be something where I could enjoy an alternate side. And so, I marinated the tofu in a "gravy marinade" ( strongly concentrated unchicken broth, tamari, nutritional yeast, poultry seasoning) which I later thinned with some more water (so the taste wasn't so strong) and then thickened with a roux (so that we weren't pouring broth over our food!) and it multitasked as a really excellent gravy. I had my crispy tofu with cider roasted brussels sprouts and baby carrots and a baked sweet potato. The boy, of course, had mashed potatoes in lieu of the sweet tater. It was really yummy and had a very chicken-nugget esque feel to it. I think next time I'll cut the tofu thinner/smaller, but otherwise this was the best crispy tofu to date.

The method for this was as follows:

Cut the tofu in whatever size you like and marinate it in whatever you like. Put about a cup of rice flour into a large bowl. Season in generously with salt, pepper, and whatever else you like (I used poultry seasoning). Toss the tofu in the rice flour a few at a time to coat, then dip them in the marinade again, then toss them around in the rice flour again until they are thoroughly coated. Heat about a centimeter of oil in a cast iron skillet over medium-high heat and place the tofu in to the pan. Cook the tofu until it's golden brown, then rotate it to another side. Keep browning sides and rotating until all sides are cook. Take out and allow to train a bit on brown paper or paper towels. Enjoy while hot and crispy.

Many Cakes

2009-10-20T08:39:00.000-07:00

As predicted, I did not get a chance to post all weekend. The boy and I went downstate Friday and came back Monday, only to have to rush and prep dinner for seven, as his extended family was visiting his parents and they wanted to come see the house. I was cooking the entire time I was away pretty much though, so I do have a few pictures to share.

My Nana turned 90 over the weekend, and wanted a big party, hence my trip downstate. I helped cook a bunch of stuff including two cakes. I used Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World recipes and made 9 inch round cakes. Each one recipe of cupcakes makes one layer of an 8 or 9 inch round cake, if you ever want to convert them. It tends to take an extra 10 minutes or so in the oven, but they bake up just fine!

This first cake is a hazelnut cake with raspberry filling, vanilla butter cream, and chocolate ganache. The raspberry filling is from the Raspberry chocolate chip blondie recipe out of Vegan with a Vengeance. This cake had a major structural problem and the entire back end pulled out from under it when I tried to remove the wax paper (to protect the serving platter) after I decorated the cake, hence the downward slope in the back.

The second cake was a Vanilla Agave cake with Lemon Buttercream decorated with pomegranate seeds, blueberries, strawberries and kiwis.

And, while many guests commented on how beautiful they were, the cakes mostly went untouched in favor of this bakery monstrosity: (And it's not even because it was "ew vegan cake" or anything since no one knew it but my immediate family)

My dad did say my vanilla agave cake with lemon frosting was the best tasting of all 3 of them :P

Ahem, moving right along...

Last night for dessert I made a pumpkin chocolate chip cake with cinnamon cream cheese frosting. It was super yummy and really moist, despite the cake having been made a solid week ago and frozen (made the frosting fresh last night). The decorating left a bit to be desired, but after the other two this weekend, I was about fancied out, so it's just drizzled with chocolate and sprinkled with fall themed sprinkles.

Here's a graphic inside shot for you folks who are into that sort of thing:

And so, that is my tale of three cakes. I think I'm just about caked out for a while now!!

Not-Quite Zucchini Bread

2009-10-15T19:21:00.000-07:00

HEY MEGATARIAN!! What's with all the breads??

I dunno, it's cold out, I'm baking again.

My last run of squash this summer were pattypans. I ended up with more than I knew what to do with, and despite giving a bunch away, I still had a bunch of pattypans in my fridge. I'm down to the last couple now, and instead of throwing one into a stir fry like I normally would, I thought it might be nice to bake a loaf of zucchini bread.

Only without zucchini.

Pattypan is just another type of summer squash. They look sort of like scalloped flying saucers. They're in the top right of this picture of one of my garden hauls taken in August:

Back on topic: I mutated this recipe from vegweb for zucchini bread into pattypan squash bread with blueberries, but certainly you could use zucchini, or any other summer squash you have handy.

"Before"
"After"

Summer Squash Bread with Blueberries
1 tbsp ground flax seeds
3 tbsp water
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup vegetable oil
3/4 cup ~milk (soy/rice/almond/whatever's open in your fridge)
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 3/4 cups white whole wheat flour/whole wheat pastry flour
3/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 + 1/8 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp salt
1 tsp ground cinnamon
large pinch ground nutmeg
large pinch ground cloves
1 1/2 cups grated summer squash
1 cup fresh or frozen blueberries

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Lightly grease a loaf pan.

2. Combine the flax and water and let it sit for about 10 minutes to get goopy. (This is a good time to grate your squash)

3. Combine the flax goo, sugar, oil, ~milk, and vanilla in a large bowl. Stir in the dry ingredients until just mixed. Fold in the squash and blueberries, then pour into the pan.

4. Bake for one hour or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.

And on an unrelated note, I'll be gone tomorrow through Monday visiting my parents downstate, and helping with/attending my Nana's 90th birthday party. I will be cooking a bunch, but I don't know how much time I'll have to blog. I'll try my best! Don't be too sad if I'm gone a few days ;) I'm just surprised I got through half the month so far!!

Irish Soda Bread

2009-10-14T08:29:00.000-07:00

Getting back to the Scottish stew I never got to eat this week, I also baked some Irish Soda Bread to go with it, which I did get to eat. It was a sort of disjointed tribute to the UK or something. I love homemade bread in any form. The benefit of doing soda bread is, of course, you don't have to knead it for more than a minute and you don't have to wait for it to rise. You can have the whole shebang in the oven in about five minutes.

I had a lot of issues to consider when making this bread... raisins or no raisins? Half raisins? All whole wheat, half whole wheat, no whole what? One recipe? A half recipe? Which recipe? In the end I made a half recipe of the Soda Bread from The Joy of Vegan Baking, all whole wheat, no raisins. My only mistake with the half recipe part. I saw 4 cups of flour and 2 cups of milk and thought it would make much too much bread for the two of us, and it totally would have, half was plenty for two with some left over... but mmm homemade bread?! I should have made more. But of course, it's so fast and easy I could just throw another loaf in the oven and bake it up anytime I like :) I didn't make too many changes to the original recipe other than halving it, and using white whole wheat flour instead of all purpose flour, and I used apple cider vinegar instead of white vinegar (I really feel like that's more for cleaning than eating! ACV is so much milder. Plus I only have white vinegar in a gallon jug and I thought pouring a tsp out of that would be a mess). Also I used soymilk when you can use "any milk" but soymilk curdles so much better than rice or almond. And so, here's a recipe for a small loaf of soda bread adapted from JOVB.

Irish Soda Bread
1 cup soymilk
1 tsp apple cider vinegar
2 cups white whole wheat flour + a little extra if the dough is too sticky
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
2 tbsp melted earth balance or other margarine of your choice

1. Preheat the oven to 425 degrees and lightly grease a round cake pan (it can be way bigger than your final loaf, it's just a place for it to bake)

2. In a small bowl, combine the soymilk and vinegar and leave it to curdle for a few minutes.

3. In a large mixing bowl, combine the dry ingredients.

4. Mix the wet ingredients (margarine, milk mixture) with the dry and stir until you have a sticky dough.

... This is the point where I deviate from the recipe some more. The dough was WAY sticky for me. Like a thick cake batter sticky. I needed to add about 1/4 cup more flour to get it sticky, but into a ballable dough. Baker beware!

5. Knead the dough about a dozen times, form it into a ball, put it in the pan, and cut an X into the top with a serrated knife.

6. Bake for 40-45 minutes until the crust is golden and it sounds hollow inside if you knock on it.

7. Eat a slice as soon as it's cool enough to handle!! The fresh crust is so delicious!

Black Bean Burgers and Oven Fries

2009-10-13T19:28:00.000-07:00

This week is actually a slow week for cooking dinners. I thought Sunday and Monday night's dinners would carry us with leftovers for more of the week, Sunday being the Ziti and last night I made Scottish Broth (stew) out of The Vegan Table, though the boy ate the entire batch of it so I can't even say how it tasted because I didn't get a bowl. Ahem. So that's all gone. We're going away for the weekend on Friday, and the boy is out Wednesday nights so I don't make a proper dinner, so this is about it for me cooking this week. We have about a million hamburger buns in the freezer from our labor day BBQ, so I decided to put some to use and I made black bean burgers with sweet potato oven fries for dinner. Black beans and sweet potatoes go so well together. I'm going to avoid once again professing my love for the humble sweet potato, and just say damn it's a match made in heaven.

I used the Black Bean Burger recipe out of Veganomicon with only one real change -- I used red bell pepper instead of onion. It's about the same, right? Well anyway, it looks pretty and keeps with the southwestern theme. They came out a little underdone in the pan, though they were browning up nicely, but I found baking them a little extra in a 350 degree oven finished them up nicely so you didn't get a chewy gluten blob. Since I so just barely altered this recipe, I'll leave it to everyone to go grab their copy of V'con, turn to page 98, and make it themselves!

Burger! Ketchup! Avocado! Fries!

And to make up for a recipe-free post, here's a picture of two of my cats making out.

Atticus in Black, Sir Didymus in Orange Tabby

Apple Sauce? Easysauce!

2009-10-12T18:09:00.000-07:00

I live in apple country.

I guess there are several parts of the US that constitute "apple country" -- I live in the "capital region" of NY (which apparently is not upstate, and is also not central, and is also not downstate.. though to me it IS upstate because I grew up outside of the city and this is well north of that), and so that means I've been wolfing down LOTS of local apples. It kills me that you can't buy local apples in the regular supermarkets. I mean, you can drive like 20 minutes to an apple orchard and pick your own, but the supermarket apples are from Washington State (Not that there's anything wrong with Washington state apples, but CARBON FOOTPRINT FOLKS) and other countries, oddly. I buy mine from the co-op. They aren't coated in wax and gross and overly shiny, and they're always super fresh. In addition to the "nice" apples, they also sell "utility grade" apples for $.49/lbs (which is more like $.36/lbs when my discount is factored in). These are my favorites for making apple sauce. They're perfectly fine, especially once peeled, and make absolutely delicious apple sauce. Apple sauce is among the easiest things to make (even easier than tomato sauce!), and nothing compares to homemade! I mix and match different apple varieties, so use whatever you like!

Before

After

Apple Sauce
8 Apples, peeled, cored, and rough cut into pieces
1/2 cup water
1 tsp lemon juice
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

1. Put the apples and water in a 3 qt sauce pan and turn the heat to medium, and cover. Cook for about 45 minutes to an hour depending on the size of your apples and how chunky you like your sauce. Check on it regularly and stir, especially for the first 15 minutes, and make sure it isn't bubbling up over the top of the pot or anything. Keep turning the heat down if it's bubbling too high!

2. Turn off the heat and stir in the cinnamon and lemon juice. The more you stir the smoother the sauce will be.

(Yea, that's it. Easysauce!)

Tomato Sauce and What it Became

2009-10-11T16:49:00.000-07:00

I grew up in an omni household, but not one that ate the Standard American Diet (SAD). My father rejected all things convenience food (though my mom was able to sneak in Rice-a-Roni type things) and insisted on having at least one fresh (not canned, not frozen) lightly cooked vegetable at dinner every night. We also ate tofu on a regular basis, only we called it "bean curd" and even my brother's guy friends got all excited if they were over for dinner on bean curd night. It was certainly not your average household, but it set me up well for vegetarianism. One thing that we made at home probably at least once a week was a big vat of Tomato Sauce. I knew how to make the sauce before I was a teenager and would often be assigned the task. We never measured anything, just dumped it what looked right. Now as an adult I'm like "pfft whatever" most of the time. If I'm making spaghetti in tomato sauce, then it's because I'm feeling lazy and would rather just open a jar of sauce than make it from scratch. Tonight's dinner, however, was rather convenience-foody for us, so I decided to make the sauce from scratch. It's really pretty simple, and I tried to measure as I go so this could be replicated by other people who want to make really easy tomato sauce at home. My favorite canned tomatoes for the task are Muir Glen Organics. They are really delicious and fresh tasting. They aren't cheap though, so I try to stock up when they're on sale. (They also make jarred tomato sauces, but I don't really like them, oddly)

"Oh hey Megan, don't you think you should have taken the picture before you started using the sauce?"

Tomato Sauce
2 tbsp olive oil
3 cloves of garlic, minced
1 28-oz can of crushed tomatoes
1 28-oz can diced tomatoes
1 tsp dried oregano
1 tsp dried basil
1/2 tsp dried parsley
1/2 tsp sugar
Salt & Pepper to taste

1. In a 3 quart saucepan, heat the oil and garlic over medium-low heat until the garlic starts to sizzle and becomes fragrant. (DO NOT let the garlic brown! It will be bitter and you'll have to wash your pan and start over)

2. Add everything else. (Didn't I say easy?) Simmer over medium heat for about 45 minutes to an hour. Use, however you want to use it. If you like a smoother sauce, either use 2 cans of crushed tomatoes or puree it a bit with your immersion blender.

I used it in this:
Pizza baked ziti!! It's a pound of pasta, the tomato sauce, a batch of tofu-ricotta, a block of Follow Your Heart Mozzarella, and a package of Veggie-Pepperoni. It was also supposed to have roasted red peppers but I couldn't get the jar open. Now if I were making this for JUST ME and not the boy as well, it would also have mushrooms, olives, and artichoke hearts. Mmm pizza toppings in ziti.

Mini Pumpkin Pies with Brown Sugar-Walnut Topping

2009-10-10T19:25:00.000-07:00

Two Christmases ago I ordered some kitchen related gifts from amazon.com for my sister, and they had a deal where if you ordered kitchen stuff you got a free subscription to either Gourmet Magazine or Bon Appetit Magazine. I ordered free Gourmet Magazine and it was a megatarian hell. They did have ONE vegetarian dish per issue but it was always very cheese or egg laden. A few other things were coincidentally vegetarian, but nothing really interesting. This past Christmas, same deal, only this time I chose Bon Appetit. Honestly, it's not much better. I've given away most of my issues from this year thus far, though I did photocopy a section about bar cookies that I thought I might veganize. This months issue was the Thanksgiving issue and surprisingly, it has several accidentally vegan or easily veganized side dishes and desserts! One in particular that caught my eye was Pumpkin Pie with Brown Sugar-Walnut Topping. Since the boy is off playing D&D all weekend, I had some friends over and we turned this recipe into Mini Pies using Keebler graham cracker mini crusts, which are accidentally vegan, but do contain trans fats (boo). I had them leftover from something and sitting around my pantry forever so I thought I'd use them up. We veganized the recipe, and only made a half batch of filling and topping, and it made six perfect mini pies. The filling was nice and creamy and well spiced and the sweet nut topping complimented it well. While the original recipe called for just a normal pie crust, the graham crust worked out just fine. If you wanted to make this into a whole pie, just double the recipe!

Mini Pumpkin Pies with Brown Sugar-Walnut Topping
Crust:
One 6 pack of mini graham cracker pie crusts
Topping:
1/4 cup walnuts
2 tbsp brown sugar
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
Filling:
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup plain or vanilla soy yogurt
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground ginger
1/8 tsp ground cloves
1/2 cup canned pumpkin (not pumpkin pie filling!)
1/2 cup soy creamer
2 tbsp cornstarch

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

2. In a blender or food processor, process the nuts, brown sugar and cinnamon together until the nuts are ground into fine crumbs.

3. In a large bowl, whisk together all the filling ingredients until smooth.

4. Divide the filling evenly between the 6 cups (place them on a baking sheet to make transfers in and out of the oven easier!) and bake for 30 minutes.

5. Lower the oven temperature to 325, remove the pies and sprinkle with the topping them put them back into the oven to bake for about another 15 minutes, until the middle is puffy and they're set.

6. Allow the pies to rest at room temperature at least an hour before serving. (If you're making a big pie, it might need to rest/chill longer to be able to slice in neat slices... all the more reason to make mini pies!)

Inside the Megatarian Fridge

2009-10-09T19:14:00.000-07:00

I realized after I captioned these pictures that I really should have, oh, I don't know, cleaned out my fridge before I photographed it?? I swear it's on my to-do list, as it is in a bit of a state of chaos right now, but I thought it might be interesting for people to see how I stock my fridge. I always like looking in other people's fridges. It's interesting stuff! On the other hand, my second mistake was that this is the end of the grocery week as I'll go shopping tomorrow so... I may have to do this again some other time.

You should be able to click these images and check them out much bigger.

This is the outside:
Unfortunately the ice/water dispenser on the door doesn't work. It may or may not need a new water pump. Other bits on the fridge include instructions on how to clean the kitchen (*sigh* living with a boy), my congratulations letter from being accepted into candidacy, the info on where we have to take my ring to get it appraised, some receipts, a tai kwon do schedule, and a garbage/recycling schedule.

Then this is the inside...
As you can see there are some non-vegan bits in there that belong to the boy. In this case, there's a carton of milk and several types of mayo. There's also a couple cans of cat food. I tried to label some of the more ambiguous stuff. The freezer has a bunch of veggies, some stock, some ice creams, pestos, ice pops, nuts, and a large bag of stuff I need to take out to the compost pile.

On the fridge side we have a ridiculous number of condiments. There's leftover chili, salad, and soup, almond milk, tofu, some more nuts, some veggie cheese and tofutti cream cheese that really has been hiding in there forever and should probably go. I've got both Earth Balance and Smart Balance light, though SB-l is seriously inferior. I just thought I'd try it cause it was cheaper. Bleh. One of my new buys this week was a few quarts of GoodBelly juice because, as everyone who knows me knows, I do not have a good belly. It's a probiotic juice drink and they guarantee you'll feel uber in 12 days or your money back!! So far, I'm on day 2. It's not bad stuff, a little thick and slightly gritty from the oat fiber, but definitely drinkable. TAKE THAT ACTIVIA with your MILK and your GELATIN! I may end up making a GoodBelly review post at some point, maybe at day 12 at which time I'll know whether or not I need my money back. It has neither helped nor hurt me yet, so I might as well press on with it. Ahem, back on topic. The veggie drawers contain veggies, though at this juncture it's mostly carrots and celery and some herbs and still more damn squash from the garden! Fruit is all on the counter this week - apples, pears and bananas.

Perhaps for my next tour I'll take you to *dum dumm* The PANTRY!!! :D

Sweet & Sour Tofu

2009-10-08T19:30:00.000-07:00

My latest cookbook acquisition was The Vegan Table by Colleen Patrick-Goudreau, author of The Joy of Vegan Baking. It's a really nice book with lots of color pictures of the dishes. It took me a while to get used to the format, which organizes the dishes according to what sort of dinner party you'll be having and not necessarily by course, but I got over that and have been enjoying it for the past few months. My most recent recipe trial was for the Sweet & Sour Tempeh, only tempeh and I don't get along. I don't like it, and it makes me sick. We've decided to call a truce and tempeh is no longer part of my life. The recipe suggested tofu if one isn't a tempeh fan, so I went that route. The other change I made to the recipe was leaving out the red pepper flakes because spicy doesn't agree with me either, though I can see how they would go well in the sauce. I also used more green beans than the recipe called for because I have them coming out my ears from the garden... and I left out the onion and used a small pattypan squash instead. That's pretty much the same thing, right? I tossed the tofu around in some rice flour and pan fried it to give it a nice crispy crust before mixing it with the veggies and sauce. Overall, I was very happy with this dish! The apricot sweet and sour sauce was very yummy and it went well with the tofu and vegetables. I thought it was going to be too much sauce, but it worked out well over rice. I think my main criticism would be the number of pots and dishes it took to make this!! But I just hate doing dishes.

Sweet & Sour Tofu
1 lbs tofu, cubed
1/2 cup rice flour
Canola oil for pan frying
1 cup + 3 tbsp of water
1 inch piece of ginger, grated
1 red bell pepper, diced
2 cups of green beans, cut into 1 inch pieces
1 small summer squash cut into bite sized pieces
7 oz of apricot preserves
2 tbsp cornstarch dissolved in a little cold water
5 tbsp tamari
3 tbsp apple cider vinegar
1 tbsp light miso
Black sesame seeds for garnish

1. Toss the tofu cubes around in a large bowl with the rice flour until the cubes are well coated.

2. Heat enough oil to cover the bottom of a large cast iron skillet. Brown the tofu cubes on all sides, then take out of the pan and drain on brown paper/paper towels.

3. In a small pot, combine the preserves and water and simmer for 10 minutes.

4. While that's going on, heat the remaining 3 tbsp of water in a skillet (I just wiped out the one I made the tofu in and used that again) and sautee the veggies and ginger until they are tender-crisp.

5. Add the cornstarch dissolved in water to the apricot mixture and stir until the mixture begins to thicken. Add the vinegar, tamari, and miso, and continue to cook until the miso is dissolved and the sauce is thick.

6. Toss the tofu in with the veggies, pour the sauce over the whole lot and turn over gently to coat, then sprinkle with black sesame seeds for garnish. Serve over rice.

Ode to the Online Veg Community

2009-10-07T14:20:00.000-07:00

I must say, the online veg*n community is absolutely fantastic. I sometimes wonder if outsiders think I'm crazy when I ramble on about things that happened on message boards and people I meet up with from the internet. In the "real world," veg*ns are often few and far between, and we're often so desperately happy to meet another veg that we are truly heartbroken when we find them eating a tuna sandwich (PESCATARIAN! the word is PESCATARIAN!). Online, we're a force to be reckoned with. Blog about something anti-veg or dis one of our favorite cookbook authors, and expect a torrent of comments from veg*ns like you've never experienced before. Write a "vegetarian" cookbook with omni convictions and you'd best bet no one's going to buy it (and don't even THINK about having sketchy ethics and expect to be on a best sellers list).

I was fortunate to have a family that accepted my vegetarianism from the get go, and to have a father that proudly explains to people that his daughter is vegan, even before I admitted it to myself. I am blessed to have a family and future in-laws who are supportive of my plans for a vegan wedding, and have said outright that if anyone doesn't it like it then screw 'em, they don't need to come. I am thankful every day to be with a wonderful omni man who gobbles down vegan food at home every day and has never even asked to bring raw animal flesh into our home. He even defends my choice to other people, and tells them how lucky HE is to have a delicious homecooked meal waiting for him every night. Not everyone is this fortunate, however, and for many, the online veg*n community has provided a sanctuary from the daily conflicts encountered from living in an omni world. They can find a place where their views aren't only respected, but embraced, supported, and applauded. These screen names and user icons become the friends and family many wish they had.

One of my favorite parts of being involved in online veg*n communities is participating in swaps. The rules vary from board to board, but the basics are the same - you make a box full of things you think your partner would like to try, and some of your favorite things, regional specialities, and hard to find treats, and in exchange you get a box of the same. Today I got a huge and wonderful swap-box from Veggieboarder Sallyomally that is going to be put to fantastic use as I experiment with all the interesting bits and bobs in my cooking.

This is a pic of my box contents from the last Post Punk Kitchen swap where I was paired with erin32mc.

This super selection was sent to me by PPKer ilovelabs

Much love to you all out there in Veg-on-the-Web land and thanks to all who have followed me through Week 1 of VeganMoFo!

Gnocchi and Greens Soup

2009-10-06T19:29:00.000-07:00

Tonight's dinner was mostly brought to you by "things I had in my fridge/freezer." Sometimes if I'm going for cheap eats, I brainstorm with what I've got around the house and what sort of a meal it would make. When it gets cold out, I usually plan a soup or stew for dinner at least once a week. I keep quarts of homemade vegetable broth in the freezer and thaw them out as needed. I also had sweet potato gnocchi in the freezer that I made over the summer. So I thought "Hmmm Gnocchi soup." I already had the carrots and celery, and thought peas and greens might be nice. Peas I had in the freezer, greens I had to buy (and to that guy in the supermarket who bought ALL the Kale while I stood there with an open plastic bag waiting to get some kale, you suck. You could have left me one. Ornamental Kale is not the same). All this ended up costing me out of pocket was about $1.50 for the collards that I used in the soup. Good deal since it made a TON and it was VERY filling! (I should have known it would be considering how dense gnocchi is.) This recipe is just really the stuff I threw together in a pot. It was super easy to make. I'd suggest making half as much, however, if you don't care to eat it for a week.

Gnocchi and Greens Soup
1 rib of celery, diced
1 carrot, peeled and diced
1 tbsp olive oil
2 quarts of vegetable broth (I used 1 quart homemade + 1 quart water + bouillon)
1 bunch collards, torn off the stalks and cut into thin ribbons
1 cup frozen green peas
1 lbs gnocchi of your choice (isn't the sweet potato pretty though?!)

1. Heat the oil in a large pot over medium high heat and sautee the celery and carrot until it begins to soften some, about 3-5 minutes.

2. Add the broth and bring to a boil.

3. Add the collards, and turn the heat down to a simmer. Simmer about 5 minutes, stirring occasionally.

4. Add the peas and gnocchi and simmer for another 15 minutes until everything is heated through and the greens are as soft as you like 'em.

Cornbread

2009-10-05T18:10:00.000-07:00

Cornbread is one of those foods I'm consistently obsessed with. There's rarely a time that cornbread doesn't sound good. Now that the weather is turning cold, however, cornbread is sounding ESPECIALLY good! It's great with chili or soup or as a side dish, or for breakfast... or with lunch... I'm not sure there's a bad time for cornbread! This is a Thanksgiving staple as well, but do test it out before the big day... if for no other reason because it means you get to eat more cornbread!!

When I was a kid my parents always bought those Jiffy Corn Muffin Mixes. I believe it was the first Thanksgiving I was a vegetarian that I was making the stuff and happened to look on the side of the box to find it contained LARD! I was HORRIFIED! And so upset, I mean come on, my cornbread was ruined by pig fat. It was a sad, sad day. I always figured if things came in a box mix, it meant that they were difficult to make, and thought my cornbread eating days were over. I couldn't've been more wrong. Cornbread is silly easy to make, and everyone LOVES my recipe! It's mutated from a recipe I found online, and really makes a nice moist loaf. I use whole wheat pastry flour, but if you're looking to be less healthy about it, white flour will do. Use blue cornmeal for an extra colorful version!

Cornbread
3/4 cup cornmeal
1 1/4 cup unsweetened milk of your choice
1 cup whole wheat pastry flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/3 cup sugar
1 tbsp ground flax seeds mixed with 3 tbsp water and left to sit until gooey
1/4 cup vegetable oil

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Grease a 8X8 square baking pan.

2. In a small bowl, combine the cornmeal and the milk and let it sit for about 5 minutes (This will help the cornmeal start to absorb the liquid to make a nice moist bread!).

3. In a larger bowl, mix together the dry ingredients, then stir in everything else until the batter is smooth.

4. Pour the batter into the baking pan and bake for 30-35 minutes or until a toothpick stuck into the middle comes out clean. The top will also look a little cracked.

Dr. Cow Cheese

2009-10-04T18:31:00.000-07:00

Another one of my pursuits while in NYC was finding some Dr. Cow Nut Cheese. I'd heard that this stuff is the closest to actual cheese as you can get, and actually edible sliced and on crackers and things. This is hard to believe considering the quality of vegan cheeses in general. Granted I've not gotten my hands on any Sheese or Cheezly or Teese or Daiya (yet), but from what I have tried, it's really only suitable for mixing into casseroles or putting on pizza with a bunch of other things to sort of hide the flavor a bit.

I bought two pieces of Dr. Cow Cheese, one Aged Cashew and one Aged Cashew and Brazilnut Cheese. They were $6.99 and $8.99 respectively for a little over 2 oz of cheese. I was cringing at that when I bought it, but it was my birthday dammit, and I was going to treat myself.

Was it worth it?
Yes.

Man this stuff is good. I don't know if it would melt but really it doesn't matter because it isn't the kind of cheese you'd be buying for melting. It's nice and creamy with a good tang to it. It definitely has a nut undertone, but not in a bothersome way (unless of course you don't like nuts). I liked the Aged Cashew better than the Cashew/Brazilnut. The Boy thought it was as good as "real" cheese and perhaps ate more than his share of my precious bits of cheesy goodness. I also shared them with some of my local vegan crew and they all enjoyed it as well.

Other than the price, and the lack of local availability, the only criticism I have of this product is that it looks like fancy soap you'd put in your guest bathroom but you aren't ever actually supposed to use. But who cares really, it's for eating, not for looking at!

Cashew on the left, Cashew/Brazilnut on the right

Creamy Butternut Squash Soup

2009-10-03T06:34:00.000-07:00

As soon as the air got crisp and autumnal I began craving winter squash. I usually have to be pretty stealth in my efforts to incorporate winter squash into our diet since the boy doesn't care for it too much. On this occasion, however, I was desperately wanting a nice creamy butternut squash soup and I decided boy-be-damned I'm making it and if he doesn't like it... there's peanut butter in the pantry! He loved it though, and ate three bowls, remarking the whole time about how surprised he was that he loved it. The homemade croutons probably didn't hurt anything either... he's a sucker for that sort of thing.

The creaminess in this soup comes from two elements - white beans and almond milk. The beans are a nice extra stealth way to sneak in more protein as well, so they serve a dual purpose. I served this with some wild rice on the side and the aforementioned croutons as optional add ins. It looked extra halloweenie with the black wild rice flecks in the bright orange soup, though having eaten it both ways, I think just enjoying the simple creamy slightly sweet soup on it's own is yummy enough! This is another one I just made up based on what I thought would be good. An immersion blender is a wonderful tool for pureeing this soup, but if you don't have one, you can puree it in batches in the blender. I recommend taking the little cap off the top of the blender (not the lid, just the little cap thing made so you can pour additional stuff in while you blend) and instead placing a folded kitchen towel over the hole. This makes it so some steam can escape and the top won't explode off, while still protecting you from splatters!

Creamy Butternut Squash Soup
2 ribs of celery, sliced
2 carrots, peeled and sliced
1 small onion, diced
2 tbsp olive oil
1 quart (4 cups) vegetable broth
1 medium butternut squash, roasted* (Mine weighed 2.5 lbs at time of purchase)
1.5 cups cooked white beans, or one 15 oz can of white beans
1/2 tsp tarragon
1/2 tsp thyme
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
1/8 tsp ground ginger
Pinch nutmeg
2 tbsp agave nectar
1 cup almond milk (or unflavored whatever milk you keep around)

* To roast the butternut squash, cut it in half lengthwise, scoop out the seeds and guts, lightly brush/spray with a neutral flavored cooking oil (i.e. canola, grapeseed) and bake, sliced side down, on a baking sheet in a 400 degree oven for about an hour -- though the time will vary considerably depending on the size of your squash. Just poke it with a sharp knife or fork every now and then and see if it's tender yet.

1. In a large soup pot, heat the oil over medium-high heat and toss in the celery, carrots, and onion. Sautee until they are beginning to get tender.

2. Add the broth, beans, butternut, and spices. Turn the heat to high and bring to a boil, then lower and simmer for about 30 minutes until the vegetables are all very tender.

3. Puree the soup together until smooth with an immersion blender, or transfer into a blender and puree in there.

4. Stir in the milk and agave, taste, adjust seasonings, and serve.

Eggplant Bacon!

2009-10-02T06:46:00.000-07:00

This summer I lost most of my tomatoes to Blight. By most I mean I got like 5 good tomatoes out of 16 plants. This is apparently the fault of all the people who buy their vegetable plants at Walmart and the crappy suppliers they use that quickly spread this fungal infection all over the North East to innocents such as myself who buy organic heirloom seeds from a local company. The loss of my tomatoes was really incredibly sad, but I did end up with tons of squash, yellow, zucchini, and pattypans, heaps and heaps of beans, and lots of eggplants. For a while every meal was eggplants, squash and beans. I had to get pretty creative with some of it because the boy does not care for eggplant when it isn't breaded, fried, and drenched in tomato sauce. I had heard of Eggplant Bacon before, but all the recipes I could find online were for raw, dehydrated eggplant bacon. That wasn't what I was going for because I don't have a dehydrator, and in my opinion, anything "bacon" needs to be fried in fat. I thought then I'd just use the marinade that was used for the dehydrated eggplant bacon, but that was mostly just tamari. Then I said screw this, I'll figure it out myself, and made some really delicious Eggplant Bacon that I used in BLTs. The boy adored it and was upset I hadn't made more! WIN!

For this recipe, I used the long, thin Asian eggplants. They're less seedy and the skin is tender, but I suppose you could use a big fat Italian eggplant too if you peeled it and cut the slices in half to make them long and thing.

"Cats don't know it's not bacon!"

Eggplant Bacon
2 Asian eggplants, sliced thin on a mandolin
1/4 cup tamari
1 tbsp fake bacon bits
1 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp veg worcestershire sauce
1 tsp liquid smoke
Canola Oil (or another high smoke point oil of your choice) for frying

1. In a blender or food processor, mix together the tamari, facon bits, olive oil, worcestershire sauce, and liquid smoke until relatively smooth.

2. Paint both sides of each slice of eggplant with the mixture, and lay in a dish to marinate. Pour the extra liquid over the top.

3. Marinate for up to 12 hrs. I did about 8.

4. Pour enough oil in the bottom of a cast iron pan to coat. Heat the oil on high, then add the slices of eggplant. Fry on both sides until browned, then lay on paper towels/brown paper to drain the excess oil.

The bacon doesn't get super crispy, except the skin, though the browner it is the better the texture (stop before it burns!) and the flavor is fantastic!

VEGAN MOFO!!

2009-10-01T06:27:00.000-07:00

It's that time of the year again... VEGAN MONTH OF FOOD TIME! (aka Vegan MoFo) It couldn't come at a better time for me because I completely slacked on the blogging through September, but I've been saving up pictures and recipes waiting for this day to come!! I'm going to try to post as much as possible in October, even if I don't have a new recipe every day.

I'm gonna kick this one off with a picture of my favorite part of my NYC trip this summer (okay, second favorite part -- first favorite was getting engaged!) -- A trip to Lulas! I'd been looking forward to it for months. One of my all time favorite treats is a vanilla soft serve ice cream cone with rainbow sprinkles. I haven't had one in years, and when I found out Lulas served soft ice cream, I couldn't wait to go. The soft serve flavors that night were Cake Batter and Chocolate, so barring vanilla, I had a swirl cone with both. It was so yummy. The boy had a rocky road cone that was also delicious. We ate a bunch of other vegetarian places while we were in the city, some better than others, and yet these were the only food pics I took.

Me looking quite crazed about my ice cream.

The Boy, looking much less crazed, but still happy.

Veggie-full Pasta Salad

2009-08-18T07:38:00.000-07:00

This pasta salad has been a while in the making. I picked up the really cute tri-color ABC pasta at Trader Joe's last time I was visiting my parents and it's been lying in wait in the pantry for a pasta salad occasion. The occasion came about when we were invited to an omni BBQ and Bonfire! For occasions such as these, I try to make a side that could work as a light meal, but doesn't seem like I'm bringing an entree. This salad has a lot of nice bright veggies in an olive oil and tahini dressing, as I'm not a fan of mayo salads. If you wanted to make it even hardier, you could add in a can of drained and rinsed beans of your choice.

I'm realizing more and more what crappy macro shots my camera takes. My old camera did a much better job. This new one can't deal with light, no matter if it's natural, artificial, or flash and everything just comes out looking not nearly as good as it does in person.

Veggie-Full Pasta Salad
8 oz pasta, cooked and rinsed in cool water
1/2 cup frozen peas, thawed
1 ear of fresh corn, kernels cut off the cob (or 1/2 cup canned or frozen/thawed)
1 carrot, peeled and finely diced
1/2 bell pepper, finely diced
1 cup cherry tomatoes, quartered
2 tbsp parsley, chopped
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
1/4 cup tahini
Juice of 1 lemon
Salt and pepper to taste

1. In a large bowl, mix together the pasta and all the cut up veggies and parsley.

2. In a small bowl, whisk together the oil, tahini, lemon juice, and salt and pepper. Depending on the size of your lemon you may want to start with half, taste, and then add more for extra zing.

3. Fold the dressing into the pasta and veggie mixture. Chill until you're ready to serve.

Cold Sesame Noodles

2009-08-17T16:43:00.000-07:00

This entry started as a part of the potstickers entry... but that one just went on and on so I thought I'd give it it's own post so one doesn't have to endlessly scroll to get to information on sesame noodles!

I paired the potstickers with cold sesame noodles because have I mentioned the heat thing? Somehow I underestimated the fact that to make cold noodles, you still have to boil water, but now they're in the fridge and I can munch on them chilled as needed. I got the recipe for the noodles off of cooks.com, but then altered it to my liking. I topped it with some julienned cucumber from the garden, and toasted sesame seeds. Scallions also go really well if you've got them around.

For a veggie with this meal (only a veg*n would not consider a meal with cucumbers in noodles and carrots, celery, and mushrooms in potstickers a meal without vegetables!) I made green (and purple and striped) beans sauteed in sesame oil and soy sauce with some toasted sesame seeds. I only sauteed them for a few minutes so they were still crisp and the purple ones held their color a bit. No real recipe there though, just beans sauteed in about 1 tsp each of canola and sesame oil, a clove of minced garlic, a few tbsp of toasted sesame seeds, and a few splashes of soy sauce!

Cold Sesame Noodles
8 oz of Soba or thin whole grain spaghetti noodles
1/4 cup + 1 tbsp brewed black tea
2 tbsp tahini
2 tbsp creamy peanut butter
1 tbsp + 2 tsp soy sauce
2 tsp toasted sesame oil
2 tsp rice wine vinegar
2 tsp sweetener of your choice
1/8 tsp garlic powder
Optional:
2 tbsp toasted sesame seeds
1 small cucumber, julienned (cut into thin strips)
Scallions, sliced

1. Cook the noodles according to the package directions.

2. While the noodles cook, mix together everything but the optional ingredients. I used my immersion blender, but a whisk and a bowl would work just as well.

3. When the noodles are done cooking, rinse them well under cool water, then toss them with the sauce and any optional ingredients you've chosen. Enjoy chilled!

Potstickers!!

2009-08-17T16:23:00.000-07:00

Someone on the Post Punk Kitchen forums recently was talking about making potstickers, and I just couldn't get the idea out of my head. They are a little labor intensive so it's not something I make all that often, but the payoff is definitely there. I didn't make a crazy complicated filling this time around since it's HOT AS ALL GET OUT here on the East Coast (I guess the summer is trying to make up for July's constant rain and cold?) and I didn't want to stand in the kitchen forever either folding them, or frying them, so these are pretty basic. They are also delicious! You could certainly add in any other veggie you like as long as it's finely grated or diced small. I use my microplane when I grate the carrot so that I don't have to cook it ahead of time. It makes nice mounds of fluffy carrot shavings! The celery I just dice up into mini cubes and they stay crunchy after they're cooked, but in a nice and refreshing way. This recipe yields about 30-40 potstickers depending on the size of your dumpling wrapper and how much filling you jammed into them.

I'm going to make cold sesame noodles their own entry, because this bit is rather picture intensive!

Seitan & Veggie Potstickers
4 oz mild flavored seitan
6 shiitake mushroom caps
1 carrot, peeled and grated
1 rib of celery, finely diced
1 clove of garlic, pressed or grated
1/2 inch piece of ginger, peeled and grated
2 tbsp soy sauce
Dumpling wrappers (check your local Asian market for the egg free variety!)
Canola oil
Water

Dipping Sauce
3 tbsp soy sauce
1 tsp hoisin sauce
1/2 tsp sesame oil
1/2 tsp rice wine vinegar

1. Sautee the mushrooms briefy in a little oil until just cooked.

2. In a food processor, grind together the seitan (it helps if you dice it small) and the mushrooms.

3. Transfer the mushroom and seitan mixture to a bowl and fold in the rest of the veggies, the garlic, ginger, and soy sauce.

4. Fill your dumpling wrappers! Brush half of the dumpling wrapper lightly with water. Place about 1 heaping tsp of filling in the center of the wrapper

Fold the edges up to meet each other in the middle and press to make them stick (keep in mind you're not making a ravioli here! You want them to stand up in the pan)

You could call it a day there, or crimp the edges by folding them back on each other a few times along the edge.

To Cook -- Heat about 1 tbsp of oil in a large skillet over high heat. Get the pan nice and hot, then add the potstickers one at a time, bottom down, so they're all standing up around the pan

Let them cook that way for about 2 minutes or until the bottoms are brown and (wait for it) STUCK to the POT! (well pan... why aren't they called pan stickers?) Once they're all browned and adhered, add about 1/4 cup of water and put a lid on the pan and let them steam for about another 3 minutes or until the water is mostly cooked away. You still want the pan on high for this!! When you turn off the heat and open the pan, they should pop right out again, and have a lovely browned bottom and a nicely steamed top!

For the dipping sauce, just stir all the ingredients together. You probably figured that out on your own though didn't you? :)

Ice Cream Sandwiches!!

2009-08-11T09:42:00.000-07:00

Imagine, if you will, sweet-and-spicy brown sugar cinnamon ice cream sandwiched between two molasses cookies, ice cold and fresh from the freezer on a warm summer day. Sound good? Then read on...

Last summer for our first potluck I decided to make ice cream sandwiches, and the brown sugar cinnamon ice cream was easily the crowd favorite! For this year's big giant BBQ, I decided to make them again, only this time with the softer, more easily bit when frozen Molasses Cookie than with the oatmeal cookie I used last year. I'm not sure why people don't make cinnamon ice cream more often. Maybe I'm just a cinnamon freak, but I think it's a fantastic combination! The ice cream recipe is based off of the one in Veganomicon. I choose coconut milk for the recipe by which one has the most fat in it, since you'll need to put the can in the fridge so the fat separates and rises to the top, then just scoop the fat off and use that for the recipe. Mmm.. coconut fat!

I realize now I should have taken a close up, but at the time I just wanted an ice cream sandwich!!

Molasses Cookies
2/3 cup canola oil
1 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup plain or vanilla soy yogurt
1/2 cup blackstrap molasses
2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp baking soda
2 tbsp cocoa powder
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp ground ginger
1/4 tsp nutmeg

1. Using an electric mixer, cream the oil and sugar together well. Add the yogurt and molasses and mix until incorporated.

2. Sift together the dry ingredients, and stir them into the wet.

3. Cover the dough and refrigerate it for at least an hour until it firms up a bit.

4. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Roll dough into balls and place on cookie sheet -- for smaller "snack sized" ice cream sandwiches, about 2 tsp will do, for more "ice cream man" sized sandwiches, go for about 2 tbsp.

5. Bake in the oven for about 10 minutes (more or less depending on size) until the tops are cracked and the cookie is just set. Overdone cookies will be harder to bite when frozen!!

Brown Sugar Cinnamon Ice Cream
1/2 cup cream from the top of a can of coconut milk
1 cup soymilk
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
6 oz silken tofu, pureed
1 tbsp vanilla extract
2 tbsp maple syrup
1 tsp ground cinnamon.

1. Mix all the ingredients together well. Chill in the fridge until very cold. Freeze it in your ice cream maker according to manufacturer's directions.

ASSEMBLY!!
(do you really need instructions here?)
Put a scoop of the ice cream on the bottom of one cookie, and top it with another cookie (bottom side down). Allow them to rest in the fridge a while for the ice cream to harden some.

Summer Vegetable Risotto & Garden Loot

2009-07-28T08:09:00.001-07:00

Check out the recent loot from my garden!!

A gentry squash (yellow), an eight ball zucchini, Cascade Beans (thanks KimberlyNE!), and some mysterious purple beans... sadly these all go green when you cook them.

Two more gentry squash looking rather like they're birds enjoying a conversation.

Not featured, snap peas! While the humid, rainy weather and otherwise cool temperatures are not doing my tomatoes well (I've got late blight. :( ), the squash plants and beans and peas are doing very well!! Now starts the process of trying to creatively use tons of beans, peas, and squash from the garden! I still had a quart of homemade vegetable broth left in the freezer from my last huge batch this winter, so I decided to use it to make a nice summer vegetable risotto. I used a yellow squash, beans, snap peas, and a half of a yellow bell pepper I had in the fridge. I also sauteed up a handful of shiitake and oyster mushrooms and added it to my portion. At the very end I stirred in a generous handful of fresh basil chiffonade (leaves rolled up like a cigar and cut into thin strips), sprinkled it with faux Parmesan sprinkles from the Ultimate Uncheese Cookbook (I make mine with half pine nuts and half sesame seeds. SO GOOD!) and it was divine!!

This recipe is really more of a technique. You can use any veggies you have in the house and as many of them as you've got. You can use less arborio rice if you want less risotto as long as you keep the 4:1 liquid to rice ratio.

Summer Vegetable Risotto
1.5 cups Arborio Rice
6 cups vegetable stock, simmering on the stove
1 tbsp olive oil + more for sauteeing vegetables
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 summer squash, diced
3/4 cups each green beans and snap peas, cut into small pieces
1/2 bell pepper, diced
1/2 cup fresh basil leaves, cut into thin strips
salt and pepper to taste

1. In a sautee pan, heat a little oil and sautee the veggies (minus garlic) until they are tender-crisp, about 5 minutes

2. In a large pot (3 quarts at least), heat the tbsp of oil and sautee the garlic for a minute until it starts to sizzle, then add the rice and stir it around so it get coated in oil. Once coated, add a few ladles full of the hot broth. Stir.

3. When the liquid is mostly absorbed into the rice, add a couple more ladles full of broth. Stir. Stir it every few minutes at least, and keep adding more liquid until all the liquid is absorbed and the rice is tender. It will get very creamy! This process should take around 20 minutes.

4. Fold the veggies and basil into the rice. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Serve, sprinkled with your Parma sprinkles.

Blueberry-Lemon Muffins

2009-07-28T08:01:00.001-07:00

I am so happy it's summer again because that means I can eat tons and tons of fresh fruit, including one of my personal favorites, blueberries. Often times they're buy one pint get one pint free, and that means I get to BOTH eat them AND bake with time! Double win! Lately it's been blueberry lemon muffins. They are really delicious. They're very moist and tender with a nice citrus zing without being tart. I've given them away to several friends with rave reviews! I've also swapped out the blueberries for peaches, and cut out the lemon zest and juice and make peach muffins, which were equally delicious, so if you have another fruit you'd prefer, stick them in instead!

Blueberry-Lemon Muffins
Makes 24 Muffins
3 cups white whole wheat flour
3/4 cups brown sugar
3/4 cups white sugar
1 tsp salt
4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1/3 cup apple sauce
1/2 cup plain or vanilla soy yogurt
2/3 cup rice milk
Zest and juice of one lemon (not mixed together)
2 cups fresh blueberries

1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees and put cupcake papers in 24 muffin cups.

2. In a large bowl, mix together the flour, sugars, salt, baking powder, cinnamon and lemon zest.

3. In a small bowl, mix the oil, applesauce, milk, yogurt, and lemon juice.

4. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and stir until just mixed. Fold in the blueberries.

5. Bake for 20-23 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center of a muffin comes out clean

Tortellini with Pesto

2009-07-23T16:07:00.000-07:00

It's BASIL SEASON! I bought a massive bunch of basil at the coop two weekends ago, as my own efforts to grow massive bunches of basil have been thwarted by the cool weather and excessive rain. I needed a wee bit to make the Quinoa, Pineapple, and Cashew stir fry from Veganomicon, and then I used the rest to make a batch of pesto. Being the genius that I am, I didn't write down what I put in the pesto... It was basically a massive bunch of basil pureed with some olive oil, garlic powder, lemon juice, toasted pine nuts, and salt.

Once pesto was achieved, it raised the more important question... what do I DO with all this pesto? I suddenly got a mad craving for tortellini -- but I've never actually seen vegan tortellini before! Rising Moon Organics and Soyboy both make vegan ravioli, but it's just not the same thing! You know what came next right? I broke out the pasta maker, a round cookie cutter and made my own. I made a whole wheat and semolina dough and filled it with cashew ricotta from Veganomicon. Tonight I had them for dinner with the pesto I'd frozen and it was delicious! I served it with some snap peas and beans from the garden and a zucchini I had in the fridge sauteed in some olive oil with garlic and rosemary from the garden. It was really incredably delicious.

So barring the things I winged (pesto, veggies) and the recipe I stole (cashew ricotta), here is the recipe I used for pasta dough, and a pictoral on how to make your own tortellini!

Pasta Dough
1 cup white whole wheat flour
2/3 cup semolina flour
1/2 cup chickpea flour
1/2 tsp salt
1 tbsp olive oil
2/3 cup water

** I do all of this in my Kitchenaid. It certainly could be done by hand as well.

1. Mix together the flours and salt in a large mixing bowl.

2. Mix the water and oil together in a measuring cup (i.e. a pyrex), then add it to the dry ingredients.

3. Stir the wet and dry ingredients together until it forms a ball. If the dough is too sticky, add a little more flour, if it's too dry, add a little more water. Pastas pretty forgiving and you can go back and forth with this for a while.

4. Knead the dough, by hand or machine, for about 10 minutes until it is a nice smooth ball. Leave the dough to rest, covered with plastic, for at least 15 minutes (though if it'll be a long while, stick it in the fridge).

5. After it rests you can use according to your pasta machine's instructions.... or grab a rolling pin and roll it out really, really thin.

Folding Tortellini

I used about a 2.5 or 3 inch round cookie cutter for the circles.

Place about 1/2 tsp of filling just below the middle of your pasta circle in a line

Dampen the edges with water using your finger, then fold over, pressing around the sides of the filling out to get rid of the air

Roll the pasta into a little cigar shape from the bigger side to the smaller side

Now you can either press the two ends together like hands praying
Or fold on end in on the other, like the tortellini is hugging itself.

Once you've made your tortellini either cook them immediately (boil water, then reduce the heat to a high simmer, carefully add the tortellini and simmer until they float -- about 2-3 minutes) place them on a cookie sheet on some waxed paper sprinkled with corn meal and put them in the freezer. Once they are frozen, you can put them in another container or bag together and they won't (* shouldn't) stick together. To cook them from frozen, do the exact same thing as from fresh, only it'll probably take another minute.

Banana Fudgesicles & Garden Bounty

2009-07-18T08:03:00.000-07:00

I don't like bananas once they've got brown on them. I can take a wee bit, but as soon as they start to get spotty I declare them overripe and have to find other things to do with them. I'm not much of a smoothie drinkers, so though I freeze them sometimes I forget about them. I make banana bread and banana muffins but it seems like more of a winter thing to me. In order to remedy my banana problem I did the only logical thing... I invented BANANA FUDGESICLES!! This frozen treat is remarkably healthy for a fudgesicle. It is mostly sweetened by the ripe bananas, and a little bit of agave. They only take a few minutes to put together, then however long it takes for them to freeze. My one warning about this recipe, however, is that the measures will vary for you depending on how big your bananas are, and how big your ice pop molds are. For me, this makes 4 ice pops, sometimes a little more full and sometimes a little less (again, banana size). So use this as a guideline and then adjust as necessary.

I know, lame picture right? I heard the boy going into the freezer for the last one last night and I said "WAAAIT I NEED A PICTURE FOR MY BLOG!!" so he came into my office and let me take a picture before he ate... much.

Banana Fudgesicles
2 very ripe bananas
1/3-1/2 cup rice milk
2 heaping tbsp cocoa powder
1-2 tbsp agave nectar (depending on how brown your bananas are! more ripe = less agave)
1/4 tsp vanilla extract

Puree all the ingredients together. I use my immersion blender and the cup it came with. It's the perfect size and has a pour spout. Pour the mixture into ice pop molds. Freeze for at least 4 hours or until solid. Run the mold under warm water to release to fudgesicle.

Varation: Add 2-3 tbsp of peanut butter to the mix to make PEANUT BUTTER BANANA FUDGESICLES!

Onto my second topic: Check out what I picked in my garden this morning! A couple handfuls of sugar snap peas and some interesting purple striped beans. If anyone can identify them, I'd be most grateful!

Sweet Potato Muffins and Mutant Corn

2009-07-13T16:16:00.001-07:00

Have I mentioned my obsession with sweet potatoes yet?

I'm obsessed with sweet potatoes.

I see no good reason why roasted sweet potatoes aren't a meal in and of themselves. In fact, they often are a meal for me, especially when I've had late lunch and aren't terribly hungry for dinner but know I should eat something.

Once I baked one too many sweet potatoes, though I forget why, and had to find a use for the remaining sweet potato, and sweet potato muffins were born. If you can have pumpkin muffins, why not sweet potato muffins too? No reason, that's why. I altered the Pumpkin Muffin recipe from Vegan with a Vengeance... then altered it some more... then some more... (people keep requesting I make these, so I do), and now I have a version that I pretty much use every time. One thing to note about these muffins is the sugar thing -- I cut the sugar way back from the original pumpkin muffin recipe. I think they're perfect like this, the boy would prefer them a bit sweeter -- but I'm the baker so guess who wins? You may want to play around with the sugar too if it isn't sweet enough for your taste. They are so moist and fluffy and sweet potatoey I don't think you'll be disappointed.

I think baked sweet potatoes work best for this recipe because the baking concentrates the flavor and sugars in the potato. Boiled would probably be too watery. Microwaved would work if you're going for the quick route to mashable sweet potato.

Sweet Potato Muffins
1 3/4 cup white whole wheat or whole wheat pastry flour
3/4 cup sugar
1 tbsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp ginger
1/4 tsp cloves
1 cup well mashed or pureed sweet potato
1/2 cup rice milk
1/4 cup applesauce
1/4 cup canola oil
2 tbsp molasses
1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees and line your 12 muffin tin with cupcake papers (Why don't they make muffin papers? What's with all the haters? But I digress..)

2. Mix the wet ingredients well together in one bowl. Dry ingredients (including sugar) in another. Add the wet to the dry, and stir until just mixed.

3. Fill the muffin papers (ha!) 2/3 to 3/4 full of batter -- whatever makes it divided evenly into 12 spaces. Bake for 18-20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean

Which brings me to my next order of business...
MUTANT CORN!

I found this little beauty at the supermarket this weekend
It's a CORN ON THE COB WITH TWO PARASITIC TWINS!!! Isn't it fantastic?? (Does that make it parasitic triplets? I'm not sure.) I bought it because I knew no one would love it like I do. I have this thing for mutant fruits and veggies, and produce with faces, that sort of thing (one day I'll have to post my collection of photos of eggplants with noses).

Husked, it turns out that they were TWO ALBINO MUTANT PARASITIC CORNS!!

I steamed the big guy lightly and had him for dinner with my lentils, and I tossed the other two (plus husks from these and other corns I made for the boy for dinner) in the compost pile. I'm sure there are going to be some happy squirrels tonight. They love this sort of thing too.

How does your garden grow?

2009-07-12T14:30:00.000-07:00

These recent posts seem to be straying from cooking to food in general.

Lately we've been getting rain nearly every day. We've only had a handful of days above 80 this summer so far. I would absolutely love the mild weather if it wasn't for my garden! Finally, I have my own house with a big yard and the freedom to do with it what I please, and the weather has not been cooperating. I had an early mishap when the tomatoes went on a bender and turned purple and droopy, but they have since recovered. I planted my peas in full sun -- only to find that when the trees filled in a few weeks later they were shaded. With all the rain and little sun and even less heat, it's been a slow start overall, but it finally seems to be picking up some! Hopefully I'll start being able to prepare home grown meals soon!!

And so.. here are a few pictures of the garden...

Snap peas, beets in the front of the box, kale in the back

Assorted tomatoes and eggplant

More snap peas to make up for the ones that got shaded

Pole beans, a tomato, some eggplants, broccoli, and four varieties of squash in the front

The Garden :)

Baby Snap Pea

Baby Pole Beans with neat Purple Stripes
Baby Tomatoes
Baby Eight Ball Zucchini

Baby Gentry Squash

Weird fruit: Gooseberries

2009-07-11T16:01:00.000-07:00

A few weeks back, a woman in my line at the co-op was RAVING about dried gooseberries. She said they were SO wonderful and refreshing and just cleansed your palate and had the best flavor. She tried to give me some that she had just bought, but I said no thanks (money hands + taking a stranger's food + I'm not allowed to eat at my register) and that I'd get my own. I bought about a dozen of them (for about $.75) and tried one. HOLY YOW. First you chew and it's kind of seedy... and sort of chewy... and rather neutral. Then, suddenly, BAM! SOUR! SOURSOURSOUR! Gets you right in the corners of your jaw! SURPRISE! Gooseberry!! It was interesting. I had to have another one just to see if it was always like that. It is.

Fast forward to this week. The co-op has fresh gooseberries, and fresh currents, neither of which I've eaten fresh. I looked them both up online, which told me that gooseberries are only good eaten out of hand (that is, not cooked with heaps of sugar) when they're purpley, and currents taste weird. So... I figured if they had purpley ones, I'd try them, if not, I'd go with currents. Well, they were purpley.

They're a really interesting looking fruit. Grape-sized, with stripes kind of like a mini beach ball. Biting into it, the outside is firm with a grape-like skin, and the inside is soft and seedy, almost like raspberry flesh without the thin skin holding the juice in. The fruit itself is very floral and citrusy, with a tang reminiscent of a lemon or an orange, with a definite berry like flavor. It is very very tart, but not necessarily in an unpleasant way.

Overall, definitely worth trying. I don't think that it is the kind of thing I'm going to snack on like a bowl of cherries or blueberries or grapes, but the flavor is intruiging and pleasant, if you don't mind tart things. I looked it up and you only need one bush to produce fruit, and they produce a lot of fruit, and do well in extreme temperatures and partial shade, so I think I'm going to stick one in the yard next year. I think they'd make fantastic jam.

Super Peanut Butter Cookies

2009-07-11T15:45:00.001-07:00

The boy asked me this week if I would make him "super peanut butter" cookies. I asked him what that meant, and he just said really peanut buttery peanut butter cookies. Sure, why not. These couldn't be your ordinary run-of-the-mill peanut butter crosshatch cookies though. Instead I created a crisp peanut butter cookie filled with a chewy, crunchy, slightly chocolately peanut butter filling. I mostly stole the filling from Peanut Butter Chocolate Pillows from the ppk blog, only I added in some chocolate to the filling since the "crust" was also peanut butter. Needless to say, these went over VERY well in my household. I believe he ate about 8 of them last night when I mdae them. Very yum. This recipe yields about 30 cookies... which will probably all be gone by the end of the weekend.

Super Peanut Butter Cookies

Cookie:
1 1/4 cups unbleached all purpose flour
2 tbsp cornstarch
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1 pinch salt
1/2 cup (1 stick) softened margarine
1/2 cup creamy peanut butter
1/2 cup brown sugar, packed
1/4 cup white sugar
1 tbsp molasses
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 cup soy yogurt, plain or vanilla

Filling:
3/4 cup crunchy peanut butter
2/3 cup powdered sugar
2-3 tbsp rice milk
1/4 tsp vanilla extract
1.5 oz dark or ricemilk chocolate, chopped fine or grated

1. Cream together the margarine, peanut butter, and sugars. When it's light and fluffy, add the molasses, vanilla, and yogurt. Mix until combined.

2. Sift togther the dry ingredients, and then gradually add them to the wet until just mixed.

3. Cover and Refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.

4. Make the filling by mixing together all the filling ingredients. Start with 2 tbsp of milk, adding more if the mixture is too dry and crumbly.

5. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.

6. (I used a 1.5 tbsp cookie scoop and 2 tsp cookie scoop for the dough and filling respectively) Scoop the dough into ping-pong ball sized balls. Flatten the ball into a disc with your hand, then add a heaping tsp of the filling, and wrap the dough around it so it's sealed. Reroll into a ball and flatten slightly with your hand. Repeat for the rest of the dough.

7. Bake for 12-13 minutes or until the cookies are just slightly golden. Allow to cool for about 10 minutes on the cookie sheet, then transfer to a cooking rack.

Crockpot Baked Beans

2009-07-02T15:49:00.000-07:00

Do I need to explain every time I don't post in a month and a half that my life is insane and I'm always going in 20 different directions??

Good, cause that would get boring.

After 15 years as a vegetarian, I sometimes still find myself stuck in an omni mindset about certain foods. Baked beans, for example, are a side dish -- right? .... Why? I use beans as a protein source in a million other things, why can't baked beans take center stage for dinner? Because I'm prejudiced, that's why. In an effort to expand my horizons (and damn do I love baked beans) I decided I was going to make some for dinner one night, with some fabulous other sides. That night was tonight. I had planned them with collard greens and roasted sweet potatoes, but then I was thinking biscuits would be great to sop up the baked bean juice (sauce? gravy? liquid?) so I made whole wheat biscuits instead.

My quest to find the perfect baked bean recipe took a few weeks, and even still the one I made I altered. I was finding that most baked bean recipes were baked onion recipes with beans mixed in. Alright, forgive my use of hyperbole, but I don't see why one would need 2 onions in baked beans. Other recipes were basically beans in premade BBQ sauce or ketchup with some spices. BLEH. What I ended up with does have some onion powder, which I'm fine with, and some ketchup, also ok, but I think beans are really the star. The sauce is sweet, but not TOO sweet, and mildly smokey. Some fake bacon bits round out the dish in the way only odd smokey salty bits of facon can.

This also is also part of my continued quest to learn to cook legumes from dry, instead of from a can. A can will probably always be my favorite for convenience, but man is dry cheaper, and for something like this I think they really absorb a lot of the sauce. If you want to use canned beans instead, go for it. You'd need about 4 cans of beans, drained and rinsed, to equal the dry, and you'd want to cook it much shorter or on a lower temperature since they're already soft.

Crockpot Baked Beans

1 lbs bag of navy beans (dry)
Water for soaking
2 cups vegetable broth
2 cups water
2 tbsp facon bits (You can usually find these at the supermarket labelled something like "Bac'n" -- read the ingredients, you'll be surprised)
1.5 tsp salt
1 6 oz can tomato paste
1/2 cup ketchup
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup blackstrap molasses (or whatever molasses you keep on hand)
1 tbsp mustard powder
1 tbsp onion powder
1 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp liquid smoke

1. Soak the navy beans overnight in the fridge (about 12 hrs) in about 4X as much water as you've got beans.

2. Drain and rinse the beans and put them in a medium pot with about 3X as much water as beans. Bring the beans to a boil and boil for about two minutes, then drain ... again.

3. In the crock pot, add all the other ingredients and whisk together into a smooth sauce. Stir in the beans. Cover and set the crock pot to high, and cook for 8 hrs or until the beans are soft (this could vary depending on how fresh the beans are, how hard your water is, how long they soaked, etc... Mine were perfectly tender after 8 hrs, and may have been sooner, but I wasn't home).

Strawberry-Rhubarb Muffins

2009-05-12T08:32:00.000-07:00

I often have weeks where I buy food that for one reason or another ends up not getting eaten and I have to creatively work it into something that won't be affected by produce that's past its prime. Last week was strawberries, though I love them, my stomach was hating me and so my plans to have them with cereal and oatmeal were foiled. By the weekend something needed to be done with them. They were getting overripe and would soon mold. I decided to make strawberry-rhubarb muffins out of them since it's beginning to warm up, and rhubarb is one of the first bits of "summer" produce. Not actually having a recipe for strawberry-rhubarb muffins, I turned to google and ended up using a conglomeration of recipes, which turned out great! I had enough strawberries and rhubarb for 24 muffins (with a bit to spare!), so this recipe makes 24 muffins. If you only want a dozen, cut it in half.

I was too busy eating yummy muffins to take a picture just after I baked them, so when I actually went to write this blog entry, I only had two left and not the prettiest two! Though in my own defense, my boyfriend ate a bunch and I gave a dozen away.

Strawberry-Rhubarb Muffins
2 cups whole wheat pastry flour or white whole wheat flour
1 1/2 cups unbleached white flour
1/2 cup brown sugar, packed
1/2 cup white sugar
4 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cinnamon
One 6 oz container soy yogurt, plain or vanilla
1 1/2 cups rice milk
1/3 cup apple sauce
1/3 cup canola oil
1 1/2 cups diced strawberries
1 1/2 cups diced rhubarb
zest of one orange

1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees and line 24 muffin cups with papers.

2. In a large bowl, sift together the flours, baking powder, salt and cinnamon.

3. In another bowl, mix together the sugars, yogurt, milk, applesauce, oil, and zest.

4. Stir the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients until just mixed.

5. Fold in the strawberries and rhubarb

6. Fill the cup nearly full with batter (it will be thick). Bake for 20-25 minutes until the tops of the muffins bounce back when gently pressed. (Or a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean, whichever you like)

Crunchy Marinated Mexican Tofu and Corn Fritters

2009-05-04T16:32:00.001-07:00

Here's how this meal evolved -- we had friends over for dinner Saturday night and at the end of dinner, I had 3 cooked ears of corn on the cob that no one ate. I rarely actually eat leftover corn on the cob unless I cook it into something else, but what? Not enough for soup, wasn't really in the mood for salad... then genius struck. CORN FRITTERS!! My mom used to make corn fritters when I was a kid out of a can of corn niblets and flour and eggs and things, and we loved them. I set out to find a vegan corn fritter recipe and found a bunch, but some just had too many ingredients, and a lot called for a bunch of other veggies, and I JUST wanted corn fritters.. so after reading a bunch of recipes from various sources to get an idea of what goes in 'em, I made one up. It turned out FANTASTIC!

... of course you can't just eat corn fritters for dinner. (ok ok, you can, but you SHOULDN'T because they aren't a balanced meal) I thought maybe tofu of some sort would go well, and decided to make up some sort of Mexican-ish marinade for the tofu, and then bread it and bake it. It also turned out absolutely delicious. I thickened the leftover marinade into a sauce that I drizzled over the top (and dipped my fritters in). I served sauteed broccoli and carrots on the side, and it was a complete, and completely yummy dinner.

Crunchy Marinated Mexican Tofu
1 cup vegetable broth
3 tbsp tomato paste
1 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp lime juice
1 tsp agave nectar
1 tsp liquid smoke
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1/2 tsp onion powder
1 tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp black pepper
1 tbsp fresh cilantro, diced
1 lbs tofu, drained and sliced into 1/2 inch slices
1 1/2 cups panko bread crumbs
1 tsp salt
1 tbsp cornstarch

1. In a small bowl whisk together everything but the tofu, bread crumbs, salt and cornstarch. Place the tofu slices in a lidded container, pour the marinade over it, and refridgerate overnight (or until you become impatient and want to cook your damn tofu already).

2. Oh hey tomorrow! How's it going? Preheat the oven to 425. Remove the tofu from the fridge, and pour the marinade off of it into a small pot. Set aside.

3. Mix together the panko and salt on a plate. Retrieve a baking sheet and either spray with nonstick spray, or use a silpat sheet. Press each piece of wet tofu in the bread crumbs, flip, press the other side in (you're trying to stick the breadcrumbs to the tofu) and place on baking sheet. Once they're all ready to go, lightly spray each piece with oil (helps it brown and crisp!). Bake for about 45 minutes, or until firm, golden brown, and crispy.

4. Meanwhile, during the last 15 minutes of cooking, bring the remaining marinade to a boil. In a small bowl, mix the cornstarch with just enough water to dissolve it, then whisk it into the boiling marinade. Simmer for about 5 minutes, whisking often, until the sauce gets a ketchup-like consistency.

5. Apply sauce to tofu. Eat.

Corn Fritters
3 ears of corn, de-eared (about 1 1/2 cups of corn niblets if you're going frozen or canned)
1 1/2 cups whole wheat pastry flour
1/4 cup chickpea flour
1 1/2 tbsp cornstarch
1 tsp baking powder
1 tbsp ground flax seeds
1 1/4 cup rice milk
Oil for frying

1. In a small bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients.

2. Add the rice milk and whisk until the big lumps are gone.

3. Fold in the corn. Allow the batter to sit for at least 5 minutes before frying.

4. To fry, in a cast iron or heavy bottomed skillet, heat enough oil to cover the bottom of the pan (about 1 cm of oil). It's ready when it looks "wavy," or if you put the bottom of a wooden spoon into the oil it bubbles around the wood. Scoop 1/4 cup of batter per fritter and pour into the pan, spreading it a little as you pour. Cook until the edges look bubbly and brown, then flip, and cook until that side is golden brown. Drain on paper towels or bags, and sprinkle with salt immediately after removing from the oil.

Cinnamon Swirl Cookies

2009-04-23T09:38:00.001-07:00

I was leafing through a Martha Stewart magazine in the copy room at work and on the last page was the Cookie of the Month: Cinnamon Swirl. They looked so enticing, with nuts and cinnamon and brown sugar swirled with an orange butter cookie, that I tore out the page and stuck it in my pocket. It looked easy enough to veganize, and they're just so cute! I've been biding my time waiting for an opportunity to spring these beauties on the world, but with the price of Earth Balance these days I didn't want to waste them on just any old day. Thus, I made them for the Easter Potluck.

Honestly, they weren't what I was expecting. For one thing, I got about 4 dozen cookies out of half of a recipe that was supposed to make 5 1/2 dozen. I'm very glad I halved it. Second, I was expecting a more tender cookie, where these were actually very crisp and crunchy. Despite that, they grew on me, and I was sad when we ran out. They're definitely a great dipping cooking for tea or cocoa. One change I would make in the original recipe is that I'd add 1/2-1 tsp of vanilla extract to the dough. It only called for orange zest, and I think it really needed the vanilla. A little almond extract might be good too. Ooo.. or hazelnut and use hazelnuts in the filling... Now the wheels are turning. Needless to say, there are many possible variations to the cookie, but the original was pretty good too.

I forgot to actually take a picture of these... so I stole someone else's picture that they took all nestled in next to their white chocolate macadamia friends.

Cinnamon Swirl Cookies
(this is the halved recipe!! I mean, do you really want 8 dozen cookies??)
Dough:
1 1/4 cup all purpose flour, plus extra for dusting
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 cup (1 stick) margarine, softened
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 tsp orange zest
1/4 cup plain soy yogurt

Filling:
2 tbsp canola oil
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup chopped walnuts
1/4 tsp cinnamon

1. Cream together the margarine, sugar and orange zest. Add the yogurt (and vanilla here if you're using some) and mix until thoroughly combined.

2. Sift the dry ingredients into the wet, and mix until a dough ball is formed.

3. Wrap the dough ball in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 1 hour or overnight.

** Time passes **

4. In a small bowl (or as I used, your food processor) combine the canola oil, nuts, sugar, and cinnamon.

5. Roll out the cookie dough into a 10 by 12 inch rectangle. Sprinkle the sugar mixture over the dough, and roll the dough up, starting with the long side (jelly roll style. you want a long thin log, not a short fat one).

6. Wrap the dough log in plastic wrap again, then put it in the fridge for at least one hour to firm it back up again.

7. Preheat the oven to 350. Slice the log into 1/4 inch slices and gently place the cookies on a cookie sheet. (The roll doesn't need to be stuck together exceptionally well as they will get bigger and the sugar will glue it all together once it's baked) Bake for 15-19 minutes, or until golden brown. Allow to cool on the sheets until you're able to handle them.

White Chocolate Chip Macadamia Nut Cookies

2009-04-22T10:51:00.000-07:00

Vegan white chocolate is not easy to find. It seems that white = milk to chocolate makers, so white chocolate, which is actually considered chocolate since it doesn't have the cocoa solids just the cocoa butter, generally has dairy in it. Fortunately our Kosher friends have resolved this problem by making dairy free white chocolate chips! I really like the Kosher section of the grocery store for a lot of things that are hard to find dairy-free, like bread crumbs, and things that are gelatin free, like jello-style fruit flavored gelatin-esque "food" (is that food really?). Buyer beware, however... not all "white chocolate" chips are created alike. Some white chips are just "decorator chips" and do not include any cocoa butter at all!!

Tangent aside... we found vegan white chocolate chips, with some pretty pastel white chocolate chips mixed in, at the kosher section of the grocery store and had to make white chocolate macadamia nuts. This is a super special treat both because of the dairy free white chocolate, and the fact that 1 cup of macadamia nuts cost nearly $4 on sale. That said, it is a fantastic, rich, decadent treat, and oh so delicious! This recipe is a mutant form of Betty Crocker's white chocolate macadamia cookie recipe.

White Chocolate Chip Macadamia Nut Cookies
1 cup brown sugar, packed
1/2 cup white sugar
1/2 cup margarine, softened
1/2 cup shortening, softened
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 cup plain or vanilla soy yogurt
2 1/4 cup all purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1 bag white chocolate chips
1 cup macadamia nuts, chopped

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees

2. With an electric mixer, cream together the margarine and shortening with the sugars. Add the yogurt and vanilla and mix until fluffy.

3. Sift together the flour, baking soda and salt and then gradually add to the wet mix.

4. Stir in white chocolate chips and nuts.

5. Drop dough by tbsp 2 inches apart onto an ungreased cookie sheet. Bake for 10-12 minutes or until light brown.

Pineapple Miso Marinade

2009-04-22T10:25:00.000-07:00

Let me begin this entry by saying I don't have a pretty picture of this. You can barely even see any tofu for all the veggies, but it was delicious.

I invented this tofu marinade out of things I had around, and my desire to eat tofu in some sort of marinated fashion. This pineapple-miso marinade has some nice sweet and sour action going on. I marinated tofu cubes in it for 24 hrs, then I baked them in about a 400 degree oven for 40 minutes or so until they were firm and chewy and golden, then I tossed them in a stir fry made with the leftover marinade, thickened with some cornstarch. Of course you could do whatever you like with the tofu... I won't stop you!

Pineapple Miso Marinade

1 cup hot water
2 tsp miso
1/4 cup tamari
1/2 cup pineapple juice
2 tsp fresh ginger, grated
2 gloves of garlic, pressed or grated
2 tsp sesame oil

Add the miso to the water and stir until dissolved. Add everything else, and mix it well, then add about 1 lbs of tofu to marinate. The longer the better!

I made 'em extra sloppy

2009-04-21T16:25:00.000-07:00

And really, I'm an extra sloppy blogger, aren't I? Well, at least it won't be hard for me to improve.

This past weekend was the Vegan Post-Easter No-Egg-Straviganza Potluck at my house. The food and company were both fantastic. I should have taken more food pics, but I was so busy getting food ready on Saturday that I just didn't. I took off from cooking yesterday, and we had plenty of leftovers anyway, but now I'm back, chained to the stove.

Tonight for dinner I made a slightly altered version of Snobby Joes from Veganomicon, and sweet potato oven fries, and had leftover barley with grilled veggies that I made too much of on Saturday. Now that I've realized that it wasn't the lentils that made me sick when I used to eat lentils, but the fact that people always cook them with ONIONS and onions just don't work for me, I actually really like them. They're quick and easy to cook and make a good ground meat replacer among other things. Of course this recipe also called for onions, hence the alterations I made. I still think it's quite delicious in the end!

Lentil "Snobby" Joes - Megatarian Style
1 cup uncooked/dry green lentils
4 cups water
1 tbsp olive oil
1 rib of celery, finely diced
1 carrot, peeled and grated
1 green bell pepper, finely diced
2 cloves of garlic, finely minced
1 1/2 tbsp chili powder
2 tsp dried oregano
1 tsp of salt, or to taste
8 oz can tomato sauce
1/4 cup tomato paste
2 tbsp maple syrup
1 tbsp prepared brown mustard
4-6 rolls -- I use whole wheat

1. Combine the lentils and 4 cups water in a medium saucepan and bring to a boil over high heat. Reduce the heat to low, cover and cook for 20 minutes or until the lentils are soft. Drain off any excess water, set aside.

2. In a large skillet, heat the olive oil and add the peppers, carrots, and celery and cook until they're soft; about 10 minutes.

3. Add the garlic, spices, lentils, and tomato things and stir to combine. I also add about 1 cup of water here if it seems too thick because I like my Joes saucy, not pasty, but you can make that decision for yourself.

4. Cook for another 10 minutes, then turn off the heat, add the syrup and mustard and mix well, then allow to sit for 10 minutes or so to let the flavors combine. Serve on rolls.

Sweet Potato Oven Fries

... this is really more of a method than a recipe. I allow 1 potato per person. Wash, peel, and cut the sweet potato into chunky french fry size. Toss with a bit of olive oil and salt, lay on a greased baking sheet (or ungreased silpat) in one layer, and bake in a preheated 425 oven for about 30 minutes or until the potatoes are soft inside and starting to brown outside. (Time will depend on how big you cut them)

Florentine Lace Cookies

2009-02-24T05:49:00.000-08:00

Florentine Lace were always one of my favorite cookies from the Italian bakeries. I never knew what they were made of, other than that they had chocolate in the middle, they were just this mystery cookie that one could never make at home.

Turns out they're oatmeal and sugar, basically. And really quite easy to make. I've seen a bunch of variations on this cookie including ones that include nuts and candied citrus, but I like the simple oats-suspended-in-sugar cookie. You can eat them as is, or sandwich two together with some melted chocolate in the middle. For these, I used half white and half semi sweet chocolate (not in the same cookie! Though that would be kind of cool). The white chocolate was from http://www.veganstore.com/ -- which, if you've not ordered from them before but you need some speciality items, I'd highly recommend them. They ship fast and they've got great customer service. One of my bags of white chips I'd ordered had done some sort of mail-splosion sprinkling little white bits among my other items, and they offered a refund, a store credit, or a replacement. Nice people. Definitely buy from them.

Florentine Lace Cookies

6 tbsp of margarine, melted

2 cups quick oats (must be quick!!)

1 cup white sugar

2/3 cup flour

1/4 cup corn syrup (probably could use any sort of sugar syrup here, but I've only tried with corn)

1/4 cup rice milk (soy milk, oat milk, whatever)

1 tsp vanilla extract

1/4 tsp of salt

2 cups chocolate chips

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.

2. In a large bowl, mix the oats, sugar, flour, and salt together. Make a well in the center and add the liquid ingredients. Fold together until everything is a big sticky mess.

3. Line your baking trays with aluminum foil or silpat sheets. Roll heaping 1 teaspoonfulls of dough into balls, then flatten into discs with damp fingers. These will spread a LOT! Leave at least 3 inches between cookies (I get 6 to a sheet).

4. Bake for 5-8 minutes or until the edges are golden brown. Remove from oven and let cool completely on the baking sheet, then carefully peel off.

5. Melt chocolate chips in the microwave or over a double boiler. Spread melted chocolate on the smooth side of the cookie, and stick another cookie (smooth side down) on top to make a sandwich. Squish them together a little so the chocolate oozes out the side and holes. Wait for them to set up, then eat!

Burritochiladas

2009-01-30T17:31:00.000-08:00

Sometimes I invent recipes based on "things that have been in my pantry a while and I want to get rid of" and "ingredients in the supermarket that are cheap and healthy." Sometimes these recipes fail, but other times they're delicious. Fortunately, this one fit into the latter category.

Burritochiladas are a combination burrito-and-enchilada. They're tortillas filled with rice and beans, burrito style, then covered in tomato and cheeze sauce and baked, enchilada style. This did turn out being rather "step intensive" to prepare all the different stuff, and in the end I had WAAAY too much filling so I'm going to write this out using half as much rice as I used which should solve that problem.

Now these are a mild Mexican flavored food because you're probably aware of my onion and spicy things issue by now.. but one could definitely kick it up by sauteeing a diced onion and some jalapenos (or hot peppers of your liking) and adding them in with the other veggies.

Burritochiladas
8 whole wheat tortillas (NOT the huge burrito/wrap sized ones!)
1 can vegetarian refried beans
1 28 oz can tomato sauce
1 1/4 cup instant brown rice
1 bell pepper, color of your choosing, diced
1 1/2 cups frozen corn niblets
6 cups chopped kale
1 tbsp olive oil
1/2 tsp onion powder
1 1/2 tsp ground cumin
1 1/2 tsp ground paprika
1 1/2 tsp dried oregano
1/2 tsp chili powder
2 clove garlic, pressed or grated
water
[URL="http://megatarian.blogspot.com/2008/10/vegnews-mac-cheese.html"]1/2 recipe of Cheeze sauce from Veg News Mac & Cheeze recipe[/URL] (optional -- you could get away with some grated vegan cheddar, or nothing at all)

1. For the rice -- prepare according to liquid:rice ratio on the box, substituting 1/2 of the water with tomato sauce. Add 1/2 tsp each onion powder, cumin powder, paprika and oregano to the cooking liquid.

2. Meanwhile... sautee the bell pepper and the kale in the olive oil until the kale is wilted. Add the frozen corn and cook until the corn is defrosted. If you find the veggies sticking to the pan, add a little water to sautee in. Stir the veggies into the rice when the rice is finished cooking.

3. Add the garlic and the rest of the spices to the tomato sauce.

4. Now start assembly. Spread a thin layer of tomato sauce in the bottom of a 9X13 inch baking dish. Take a tortilla and spread it with refried beans. Add a few heaping scoops of the rice mixture, and roll it up. Place the tortilla seam side down in the bottom of the baking dish, and repeat with the other 7. You should end up with 2 rows of 4 burritochiladas.

5. Top the tortilla rolls with the rest of the tomato sauce. Top that with the cheeze sauce. Bake uncovered at 375 for about 30 minutes until the sauce is bubbly.

Spaghetti and Lentil Ballz

2009-01-26T17:02:00.000-08:00

I've loved the Chickpea Cutlets recipe from Veganomicon since I got the book. They're a great protein for nights when I feel like eating side dishes. I've since altered them to make chickpea-balls, like I used in the Italian Wedding Soup, which were ok, but the texture wasn't quite right.

Before we moved, I was trying to eat our way through the pantry so we'd move with as little as possible. One thing I had was 1/4 cup of lentils and really, what do you do with 1/4 cup of lentils!? I decided to try and make chickpea-cutlet-balls but with lentils instead of chickpeas. I cooked the chickpeas until they were tender, and pureed them and made lentil balls out of them and they were AWESOME! A little more fiddling with the recipe, and I think I've finally made the perfect veggie-meat-ball to eat with spaghetti! They taste great, and the best part is they HOLD TOGETHER when tossed with the sauce and put on the spaghetti! So dinner tonight (can you guess) was 7 grain Spaghetti and Lentil Balls with organic tomato sauce and a sprinkling of parma "cheez" from the Ultimate Uncheese Cookbook. Since I figure most people can manage spaghetti from a box and sauce from a jar, here is the recipe for...

LENTIL BALLS!
1 cup cooked lentils
2 tbsp olive oil, plus more for spraying/brushing on lentil-balls
2 tbsp soy sauce
1/4 cup vegetable broth
1/2 cup vital wheat gluten
1/2 cup seasoned bread crumbs *
1 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp dried oregano
1/2 tsp dried basil
1/2 tsp dried parsley

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.

2. In a blender or food processor or using an immersion blender, puree the lentils with the olive oil, soy sauce, and vegetable broth.

3. In a bowl, mix together the dry ingredients and the spices.

4. Add the lentil puree to the dry ingredients and stir until a ball is formed. Knead the ball for a few minutes until the gluten is stringy. The ball will also "pull together" a little at this point. If it seems really wet and isn't coming together, add extra gluten 1 tbsp at a time until you reach the desired consistency.

5. Roll out about 2 tbsp of dough into balls and put them on a cookie sheet lined with a silicone sheet, or sprayed with nonstick cooking spray. Spray or brush the balls lightly with olive oil, then flip them over and get the bottom oiled too.

6. Bake for 20 minutes, then turn them over, and bake for another 15 minutes. They will firm up more once they're out of the oven. Use as desired!

* Can't find vegan bread crumbs and don't feel like making your own? Check the Kosher section of your grocery store! In Kosher dining, one can't mix meat and dairy, so breadcrumbs for coating meat can't have milk in them!