The End

Today is the last day of VeganMoFo. I only missed two days all month (of blogging, not veganning) and I think that's pretty respectable since I'm so new to it. I was going to make my last VeganMoFo post all about the things I've learned and how I've changed in the past month, but I'm no good at being poignant and shit (and really, the only change that will happen now that VeganMoFo is over is I won't post as frequently - especially on weekends - and probably won't include posts that aren't about food I've cooked, unless I eat someplace historically good or my friends cook), so instead I'll just follow up on my Misc. list.

1. I left the tofu to soak for four days before moving it to the dehydrator. I tasted one piece after it'd been drying for about a day. The outside had really firmed up and darkened in color, but inside was still softer and whiter, so I left it on. Will check it again when I get home. It's REALLY tasty, but the spicy pickle flavor comes out more the longer you chew it.

2. Got my groceries from peapod.com. Everything was...adequate. For produce, I had ordered Fuji apples, lemons, garlic, carrots, green grapes and Brussels sprouts. They were out of the apples (which was just as well since I just bought them to push my order over $50. Since it was their fault, I got away with placing a $47.50 order). The lemons, garlic and carrots look good. The Brussels sprouts are in those little cardboard containers, so it's possible that all the sprouts under the first layer are spoiled, but the tops look fine. The grapes aren't as pretty as the ones I try to pick myself, but I've seen and eaten worse. Overall, I'd give them 4/5 for produce.

Also, my mother was supposed to be home to take delivery of the groceries. My father's car broke down, so she had to go get him, so naturally the delivery came while she was away. The driver was very nice and came back to our house as his last stop of the evening, after my mother came home, without charging the extra delivery fee. Rock.

Misc.

1. Flipped and rotated the tofu for the jerky again last night. Allowed myself a taste and it was still very firm and pickled and spicy, but not overly so. If I get home at a reasonable hour, I'll but it on the dehydrator tonight (2 AM just didn't seem like the right time).

2. When I was in school, I used to order my groceries (except produce) from peapod.com all the time. I've decided it's time to give them another shot. I don't know if I trust them since they don't carry peanut oil, but I'm attempting to do my shopping through them this week. Even produce. Will let you know how it goes.

3. Advice: If you've eaten beets, keep in mind that you've eaten beets. That way, you don't have a panic attack when you go to the restroom.

4. I just found a recipe I really want to make on a vegetarian-friendly omni site, but when I read the description, it said "I threw this together the other night when my wine club came over and liked it enough to make it again as a side dish / vegetarian main dish on Thanksgiving." I beg your pardon, but a side dish is a side dish and a main dish is a main dish. An extra large side dish serving is NOT a main dish for a vegetarian! We're allowed real food, with courses and sides too, honest! That really roasts my chestnuts.

Another thing that grinds my grits: went for Japanese with my family on Sunday and ordered a dish called "Vegetable Bi...something" I don't even remember what the third word was. It was BLAND. And didn't have any vegetables in it except scallions, pea pods and bak choy. It was very clear that this was just a meat dish with the meat omitted, not a vegetable dish. How can they call it "Vegetable...." without any real vegetables in it?! The mind boggles.

Sorry this post is so ranty, I've just been having that kinds of day. And it is vegan-related.

In a Pickle

I love pickles.

When I saw McClure's Spicy Garlic Dills at The Brooklyn Kitchen a few weeks ago, I had to have them. So I did. Those are damn good pickles. Spicy! They're almost a bit too spicy for me, but that's good because it prevents me from eating the whole jar at once (which I've been known to do).

When I got home, I looked at my receipt and saw the jar of pickles cost $12. $12! For pickles! I vowed at that moment that I'd use every single thing in that jar in some way. Hell, I'm even going to use the jar for storage and the label as a bandage.

Not long after I finished the pickles, I made something that called for one pound of extra-firm tofu. The tofu came in 14-ounce packages, leaving me with 12 ounces of extra-firm tofu to play with. I also have a dehydrator.

Brine + tofu + dehydrator = JERKY?!?!?!



I pressed the tofu for over an hour, then cut it into halfish-inch wide/thick, twoish inch long strips and threw it in a container with the brine, dill, garlic and some cayenne peppers (I still have a few untouched peppers). I flipped and rotated it after 24 hours (mostly to make sure it didn't get crumbly or something from sitting in the liquid) and will try to remember to do so again when I get home tonight. So far, they've been soaking for about three days. I think I'm going to take it out tomorrow night and attempt to dehydrate it. I will, of course, keep you updated on the status of my possible pickly jerky.

I Do Cool Shit With a Little Help From My Friends

This is not at all vegan-related, but I saw Clap Your Hands Say Yeah at Studio B Wednesday night. "Satan Said Dance" was the second song they played, which gave my friends and I joy.

Anyway! It's been about a week since I last mentioned my dehydrator, so let's discuss that a bit more, shall we?

Since then, I put up another batch of cucumbers, left them on too long, then did a small batch of carrot and parsnip slices. The absolutely coolest thing of all is that my carrots and parsnips are now CRINKLE CUT because my friends bought me the coolest wavy chopper thing I've ever seen in my life (and an ass-kicking serrated peeler). Not only does it make my vegetables look all fancy, but the edge is really sharp. It was actually easier to cut the carrots and parsnips with the chopper than a real knife.



Just so you know, if you leave cucumbers dehydrating too long, they get really thin and taste funny. By funny, I mean borderline gross. Most were OK, but I almost spit a few out. Next time, I'll dry the cucumbers on the weekend so I can be around to observe them.





A few days ago, I actually read the little book that came with my dehydrator instead of skimming it and noticed something important that I hadn't read before: in order to properly dehydrate carrots and parsnips, you're supposed to steam them first. Oops. I'm not a raw foodist, so that's no BFD for me, but I wonder if they dry carrots and parsnips. If so, maybe they soak them in something instead of steaming before drying (I don't actually know if that'd help since it's, you know, drying).

This was an excellent opportunity for me to use the steamer basket I'd bought a couple of weeks ago, making this a two-new-tool night. I'd never used a steamer basket before, so I didn't really know how to use it and therefore got it all wrong. My first mistake was I thought the basket was supposed to sit in the mouth of the pot, not on the little legs (they seemed to short to me to hold enough water, since it evaporates during steaming). Since the basket obviously didn't just suspend itself in mid-air at the top of the pot, I improvised:



That, of course, lead to my second mistake: steaming the vegetables uncovered. This took eons and the larger pieces never really got tender. I waited until they got rubbery and threw them in the dehydrator for a little over 24 hours.

When I took them out, a few pieces were OK, but most were hard as rocks. However, even they weren't a total loss since I could just suck on them to soften them up, yielding long-term parsnippy goodness.

A friend and I stopped at The Brooklyn Kitchen on our way to see Clap Your Hands Say Yeah on Wednesday, and they explained what I was doing wrong with the steamer. Armed with that knowledge, I will go forth, steam and dehydrate more carrots and parsnips. Stay tuned to see who will reign supreme, in the me vs. parsnip dehydration event of the year.*






* I have no idea why I wrote that, but I laughed while reading it over, so I'm not deleting it!

Dehydrated is the New Black

Back when I was on the Master Cleanse, I started researching healthier alternatives to my vegetarian lifestyle and got very interested in raw veganism. On the message boards I read, it seemed like everyone and their grandmother had dropped about $57889205 on a fancy dehydrator and it felt like I just couldn't be healthy without one (I'm impressionable!) so I got one similar to this on eBay for $30 including shipping. I wasn't going to drop $200 on a machine I might use twice and get bored of!

Well, I've been using it for about a month and I'm not bored yet.



So far, I've used the dehydrator for fruit, vegetables and even to make crackers with varying degrees of success. Apples, plums and other fruits all came out fine. The crackers stuck to the drying racks and were a total mess, so I think I'll spray them with a bit of oil next time. Vegetables have been far more difficult than fruit.

Many moons ago, I was stuck in Penn Station, waiting for a train at some stupid time of night and absolutely starving. I found a place that sold celery chips and bought them out of curiosity while completely expecting them to suck. They were awesome. I loved them. And haven't been able to find them since.

So, of course, when I got my dehydrator, my first thought was "OMG I'M GOING TO MAKE CELERY CHIPS AND IT WILL BE THE BEST EVER! HOORAY!!" (this was closely followed by "OMG! I can BBQ tofu (or maybe gluten), stick it in there and make my own pseudo-Jerquee!)

So I dried some celery (among other things) and it kind of came out looking like potpourri. Tasted all right, but didn't look or feel particularly appetizing. So I checked the original celery chips' website and noticed the other ingredients in the chips were canola oil and sea salt, two things I happened to have on hand! So next time I loaded up the dehydrator with celery (and carrots and cucumbers) I brushed half of them with oil and sprinkled with salt and kept half of them plain.

The celery still turned into potpourri, but now it was REALLY salty potpourri. The carrots got very hard and chewy, which I liked since I've been off gum for a while, but again, the salt + oil didn't really benefit them much. The cucumbers were by far my favorites. They got sort of leathery but very tasty, but the salted ones were still too salty. One day soon, I definitely want to load the whole thing up with just cucumbers and let it go.

All of the vegetables finished drying at different times, depending on what they were and how I cut them (I'm not very consistent), so I couldn't get a picture of all the dried stuff together (I kind of ate quite a bit of it straight from the dehydrator instead of putting it away). If I just do cucumber next time, that should be more uniform and I'll get a photo then.

The Joy of Not Cooking

I'm starting this blog with entries about what led up to me wanting to keep it. This post is backdated to approximately the date it happened.

The two fabulous people my friends and I threw that shower for got married. It was lovely and I had no idea what to give them. I wanted it to be something special that showed I truly care. Something that was both very "them" and very "me", not just another set of cutlery.

Neither of them are vegetarians or vegans, but they recently decided to explore the raw food lifestyle. They left for their honeymoon right after the wedding and I was pretty sure that after being abroad for two weeks, the last thing they'd want to do when they got home would be prepare food. The only thing that might have sucked as much would be going out to eat again. So I decided to make a raw vegan dinner and some snacks, load it all up in a superhero cooler and leave it on their doorstep for when they got home.

I wasn't sure what to make, but Italian seemed like a pretty safe bet (who doesn't love Italian?), so I ended up with Dole Italian Salad with Pine Nut Basil Dressing (scroll down to last recipe), Italian Wild Rice Pilaf, and Raw Lasagna for dinner, Raw Apple Pie for dessert and Buckwheat Crackers with Veggie Mac Cheese Spread (second recipe) and freshly dried fruits and vegetables to snack on.



Most of what I made had at least one element that needed to be soaked in advance. Some for one half hour, some for five days. I started dehydrating the fruits and vegetables about a week before they needed to be ready so I could make enough. My family absolutely loved having the dehydrator and soak bowls sitting around for a week...only not really. Despite all the advance prep, I ended up staying up all night making the food to take them (I blame my sleeplessness for forgetting to photograph some of the food). I know that sounds awful, but it was actually fun; the time flew by, but I certainly felt it at work after dropping off the cooler! And, of course, the irony was I still wasn't eating and had to go by scent to decide whether or not it seemed palatable enough to give people.

Basil Pine Nut Dressing: Could not have been easier to make, smelled fabulous (though I have a weakness for basil) and made quite a bit. It made enough to fill the dressing bottle I bought them and leave some over for my family to try. It's very similar to pesto sauce (which I love), but smoother and milder. It also stores well. Definitely something I'd make again.

Italian Wild Rice Pilaf: The rice had to soak for five days to soften and the water had to be changed twice per day, which isn't that big of a deal, but between that and making the lemonade for the Master Cleanse, I felt like I was moving in to the kitchen. I didn't use the flax oil, but did everything else according to the recipe. Again, I don't know how it tasted, but it looked beautiful. I loved the colors and hope to make it again for myself.





Raw Lasagna: The recipe says it makes 1-2 servings of lasagna and four of marinara sauce, but that's nonsense. I used 3/4 zucchini instead of 1/2, all the marinara and the whole avocado and still kind of felt like I was skimping, but I didn't have enough ingredients (or time) to make more. Beyond that, I really don't think I could have messed it up, aside from not being very good at the thin slices yet. I'm working on it!

Raw Apple Pie: This was significant because I goofed and I improvised, but one was not relevant to the other. I remembered to soak the (poorly sliced) apples in the lemon juice/cinnamon solution, adding it to the growing collection on the soak table, but didn't realize I was supposed to make and refrigerate the crust the night before too. Not only did I make it that night, but it was also one of the last things I made. I made it, filled it and only got to refrigerate it for a couple of hours before moving it to the cooler. However, as far as I know, that was all right. No one has told me the pie fell apart or anything. My big improvisation was adding some of the golden raisins I had left over from the stew to the pie. I saved the best apple slices for the top and arranged them as a pretty feeble flower, then drizzled the excess lemon juice/cinnamon sauce over them. The pie still looked kind of plain so I tossed some raisins around it and arranged a few in the center of the "flower". I can't speak for anyone else, but I know I like the whole apple/cinnamon/raisin combination. Don't you?





Buckwheat Crackers: This was another recipe that required two days of soaking, for the buckwheat groats. Then the crackers themselves spent about a day in the dehydrator. I went according to the recipe, but I omitted the carrot pulp. The recipe says to coat the dehydrator tray with a small amount of olive oil, but the instructions for my dehydrator specifically say not to, so I didn't. I regret that now. The crackers stuck both when I tried to flip them and when they were done, so they came out in all sorts of crazy shapes. I hope they tasted better than they looked. The batter was about the consistency of babaganoush and had a lovely, garlic scent that made me want to dive right into it without even drying it out. I definitely want to make these again, but I think I'll double the recipe: I'll dehydrate half on oiled trays and use the other half as a dip with carrots (it'd be way to carb-heavy to put in pita like real babaganoush).





Veggie Mac Cheese Spread: I did everything according to the recipe, using sea salt instead of vinegar. It was more nights blending and draining, but well worth it. I used two pint containers of macadamia nuts and it made enough cheese to give my friends a container of it and keep a container for my family, who LOVED it. It has a nice bite to it from the garlic and onions without being too overpowering. My other family members are all omnis, so they're kind of freaked out by the idea of cheese made out of nuts, but they adore the cheese. My mother (who initially didn't even want to taste it) craves it. Victory for the veggies!





Dried Fruits and Vegetables: I included sweet potatoes, carrots, green beans, pluots, celery, apples, pears, peaches and kiwis. I tried skinning the kiwis before drying them, but the ones I bought were stubborn, so I decided to wait until after they were dehydrated, hoping the fruit would pull away from the skin as it shrank. No such luck. The skin ended up totally stuck to the fruit, so I gave it to them with the skin on. I wonder how that turned out for them.



Overall, it was quite a bit of work, but very much worth it. The bride called me when they got home and she seemed very excited because they hadn't eaten and neither of them wanted to cook. The crackers, rice and pie were all successes but eating lasagna cold seemed kind of weird. I can't say I blame them.