Happy New Year!

I know I've already posted this year, but this is my first entry about something I actually cooked in 2008, so I thought I'd wish everyone well here.

Personally, I'm not doing so great. I almost died on New Year's Eve, botched both things I prepared yesterday and have a cold. The worst thing about this cold is that my friends and I are finally having our holiday gathering this coming weekend and about half the gifts I plan on giving are baked. So unless I can shake this thing by Saturday night, I'll be baking in gloves and a face mask. Tips (like advice, not money) greatly appreciated.

I attempted to make Fat Free Vegan's Garden Vegetable and Bean Soup and the Buttermilk Biscuits from Yellow Rose Recipes. Fail.



Please look at the recipe on fatfreevegan.com. Could that be any easier to make? No. Is it impossible to fuck up? Yes. Unless you're me. I was supremely lazy and decided to use the food processor for everything, so instead of pieces of onion, my soup's base was a sort of onion puree. I also used red cabbage instead of green. And too small of a pot, so it nearly boiled over. See?



Please look at the picture on fatfreevegan.com. Now look at this:



Do they look anything alike? No. And the disparity is getting greater with time, as the broth darkens and the zucchini and beans turn purple.

That said, it's still tasty. It's not the sort of thing where I flip out with the tasty goodness at every spoonful, but it's satisfying.

The biscuits should have been a cinch, since I just made them, but no. See the picture at the top of this post? I call it breadscuit.

I doubled the biscuit recipe, so I needed five teaspoons of baking powder. I put in five tablespoons. Of course, I realized what I'd done right when I finished dumping the last one in, so I tried to scrape off as much baking powder as I could and leave in approximately five teaspoons. Perhaps that's why the dough was incredibly sticky, no matter how much flour I added to it. The dough was so stuck to my hands that I had to call my brother in to add the flour while I kneaded it. After adding what felt like ten cups of flour, I gave up, scraped as much of the dough off my hands as I could and threw it in the oven. A few minutes later, I remembered I had poppy seeds, so I pulled it out, dumped them on and put it back in (in retrospect, I also have flax seeds, which have been a way better idea. Pity I forgot).

Oddly enough, my mother and brother liked the breadscuit. I didn't think it was half bad either. Then again, maybe it's not so odd. Baked dough is almost always a good thing.

Chili Wili

It currently feels like 7 degrees in NYC. I'm fucking cold. Obviously, the only things to be eaten in this weather are soups, stews and (now) chilis. My copy of Yellow Rose Recipes came a couple of weeks ago and the first recipes I tried were the Better Than Basic Chili and Buttermilk Biscuits.



I know the proper accompaniment for chili is cornbread, but biscuits are like gold in my house, so as soon as I saw the recipe, I knew I had to try it.

Before this, I don't think I'd ever really had chili. I stopped eating meat when I was around 13 and was a fan of neither beans nor spicy food before then. I wasn't even much of a fan of them after I stopped eating meat. I didn't really get into beans until a few years ago, and even then, if they looked funny, I wouldn't go near them. I made this chili because my mother asked me too. Yes, my omni mother asked me to make vegan chili.

This recipe couldn't be easier to make. It has a jalapeño pepper in it, so I thought it was going to be too spicy and I was going to cry, but it had just enough bite for me to call it "hot", without actually being uncomfortable. The onions are added in two parts: one in the beginning, to flavor everything, and one at the end to add crunch. The crunchy onions rule.

Yellow Rose Recipes has two chili recipes in it. This one, and one that calls for TVP. I was out in the suburbs when I decided to make the chili, so TVP was out of the question, hence I went with this chili. But I know my mother likes her chili meaty and "gets a kick out of" the meat substitutes, so I kind of cheated and pinched in a package of Gimme Lean Ground Beef Style. And I really did feel like a cheater. I had to tell every person that tasted it that the "meat" was store bought and ask if it seemed too "fake", like it was trying too hard because of the meat. What have I become?!

I LOVED the chili, but here's the big test: What did the omnis think?

Dad: Took one bite (was going out to dinner), grinned and exclaimed "Meat is overrated. This is damn good chili!"
Mom: Took one bite (was going out to dinner). "This is damn good chili!"
Brother: Ate a giant bowl of it. "I don't need Dougies anymore! If you learn to make Fire Slammers, I'll pay you!"
Three friends: All ate hearty portions and said it was good. One thought it should be spicier, but I made it and I'm a wuss.

There you have it. Not a single complaint about the lack of meat.

The biscuits went over really well too. I think I like them even better than the Baking Powder Biscuits from VWAV. These are butterier, more flavorful and also a bit more moist, I think. But that's kind of to be expected when they're called "Buttermilk," not "Baking Powder." Right? Right.

Soup, Moroccan Style

The most recent issue of Vegetarian Times had two awesome things in it:

1. A positive review of Veganomicon.

2. A soup feature.

I love soup. Could probably live on it, given half a chance. Hell, I'd marry it. I made the Moroccan Harira and pretty much fell in love with it. Expect a June wedding.



(unfortunately, all the photos I took of this soup are pretty grody-looking because I couldn't get the noodles in the bowl without them smearing the sides. Whoops!)

The soups in the feature were all from different countries and were supposed to be healthy and somewhat medicinal. VT provided a bit of cultural background for each soup, which was quite interesting. Harira sometimes has a bit of lamb or other meat and egg in it and is usually eaten to break the fast during Ramadan. This particular recipe obviously didn't have any meat or eggs in it, but it did have chick peas, cilantro, green lentils and a cinnamon stick.

This was my first time cooking lentils. I was worried I'd keep them on too long and they'd turn to mush, but they were nice and firm, even in the last portion of the soup. The cinnamon stick gave the soup a nice bite and really complimented the cilantro (which I think is one of my new favorite herbs - the idea that I have favorite (legal) herbs blows my mind. Four months ago, I didn't even know what cilantro was!). I stored the soup in two containers and left the stick in one of them. I ate that one first, then transferred the stick to the other.

With a bit of whole wheat pasta thrown in, this soup totally qualifies as a meal. It's packed with protein and other nutrients and it's low fat. And did I mention it's delicious? The only bad thing about this recipe is that I didn't double it.

Victory!

Kinda.

I completely ruined the matzo ball recipe from VWAV last month. Last week, it was finally time for a rematch.

I took the advice of Jewish Vegan and Isa and made smaller balls over lower heat. I also used a food processor instead of a blender this time. It worked! They stayed solid! The masses rejoiced!

They still weren't as firm as my family likes them, but it's a start. Next time, I'll add an extra dash of matzo meal.

Before and after (not that you can really tell much of a difference at this resolution. Higher res at my Flickr):

All You Need is Smlove

Smlove is all you need.

Happy holidays!

I'm Jewish, so I didn't have plans for Christmas beyond spending 4.5 days knitting and cooking with the music up really loud while everyone else was at work. Then a friend invited me over for the holiday. Friends from out of town were going to come by for a while, then we'd go visiting with her assorted family in the area. And we'd get to play in the kitchen. How could I say no?

We made the Smlove Pie from Veganomicon to bring to her aunts and made some Vegan Bailey's (recipe in post #22 and below) for ourselves. Guh!



I'm so proud of that pie. It looks...like a PIE. Like a real pie you can get in a store. If you've read more of this blog than this post, you know that while my food may taste good, I haven't really been able to get presentation down yet. Obviously, making a pie with someone with a degree in art helps there.

The pie is delicious, but very rich. You can easily be satisfied with a super-small slice, making the fact that we brought one pie for roughly 30 people not so much of a problem.

The most fun part of making this pie is drizzling the chocolate over top. The most impressive part, to me, is that we candied our own pecans. Who the hell candies pecans?! We do! And we had about half of them left over, so we got to eat them plain as well, which was a real treat. We also had plenty of chocolate drizzle left. Candied pecan/chocolate drizzle sandwiches with a side of homemade gingerbread men (I made those the day before, but didn't take any pictures because it was just practice for later) is the breakfast of champions.

This is a great pie to bring to a gathering, vegan or omni. It looks so much like a real pie that people will be impressed just by looking at it. Add the taste, and they'll worship you. I don't know which they'll have more trouble believing: that it's homemade or that it's vegan.

The Bailey's was a little strong for me (I don't really drink), but we cut it with some of the Frangelico we bought for the pie and then it was nice and tasty. And there's something inherently funny about whisking whiskey. Bring it to a holiday party and you won't feel bad at all about not being able to partake of the nog.

Naked pie:



With peanut butter caramel and candied pecans:



Macro!



Sliced:



The slice:



Showing off:



Bailey's, in an appropriately festive cup:



Vegan Bailey's

1 can coconut milk
2 tbs brown sugar
2 tbs chocolate syrup
2 tsp vanilla extract
3/4 cup whisky

Whisk it all together with a whisk. That's it.

Ratatouille: Not for Rats

No, I didn't see the movie, but I made fatfreevegan.com's Roasted Ratatouille a couple of weeks ago and it was quite good.



I doubled the recipe and ended up with a metric assload of roasted vegetables. Seriously. I still have some left and have no idea what to do with it because no one wants to eat it anymore. We all have it coming out of our ears.

I liked this because it wasn't vegetablescookedinsauce, where everything tastes the same. It was nice to be able to taste the flavor of each vegetable and the grape tomatoes really made the whole thing pop (I'm not a fan of cooked tomatoes, but I actually looked forward to getting a forkful with tomato in it from this dish). I also used yellow and orange peppers, so the dish had a lot of color going on.

Raw:



Cooked:

Waste Not, Want Not

I hate waste when I cook and try to put every little bit of every little thing to use. I eat all the vegetables after I make veggie broth (even the greens!) and have boiled potatoes in pickle juice, so I obviously needed to find some use for all of my leftover seitan broth. The first thing I did was go back to my old standbys: jerky and mashed potatoes. This time, the jerky was a more meat-like color but was pretty bland. The potatoes tasted like they were unseasoned but had been sitting on a plate next to meat for a while.

So that wasn't very impressive, but then I remembered that I'd bought mochi and there was a recipe on the package.



The recipe called for onions, carrots, cabbage, soy sauce and mochi. I used onions, parsnips, spinach, seitan broth and mochi. It was actually quite nice, but then again, I'd marry a parsnip if you let me, so I may not be the best judge of the quality of this recipe.

Jerky before and after:

Mini Cranberry Apple Crumb Pie

I'm skipping ahead to my submission for The Mini Pie Revolution because the deadline is nearly upon us.

For this, I borrowed my mother's "Cranapple Crunch" recipe and adapted it until it was pretty much unrecognizable. I made a dozen pies and when my mother told me she'd eaten three in one day, I knew it was time to get them out of the house and distribute them among my friends and coworkers.



When I made this, I prepared WAY too much filling, a bit too much topping and not enough crust, so I adjusted the measurements but haven't gotten to re-test it. If you decide to follow this recipe, expect it to be tasty but messy. Or just use your judgement and change things accordingly, since if you're reading this, you're probably a food blogger too and have far more experience than I (this is my first original recipe).

Mini Cranberry Apple Crumb Pies

1/2 cup water
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 bag fresh cranberries
2 cups flour (divided)
2 tsp cinnamon (divided)
1 cup margarine (divided)*
4 Tablespoons
3 apples (my mother uses Granny Smiths, I used organic Braeburns. Both tasted quite nice)
1 cup quick oats
2/3 cup brown sugar

1. Pre-heat oven to 350 and grease your muffin pan.

2. Bring water and sugar to boil in medium, non-porous saucepan. Add cranberries and return to boil. Reduce heat and boil gently for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Refrigerate until cool. If you do not have a non-porous saucepan, you definitely want to transfer the cranberries to a bowl before refrigerating. As the berries cool, a film will form over the top. Stir occasionally to break up the film and allow the heat to escape or your berries will never cool.

3. Mix 1 1/3 cup flour, and 1 tsp cinnamon in medium bowl. Cut in 5.5 tablespoons margarine, using pastry blender, 2 knives or your fingers, until particles are size of small peas. Sprinkle with cold water, 1/2 tablespoon at a time, tossing with fork until all flour is moistened and pastry almost leaves side of bowl.

5. Gather pastry into a ball. Shape into flattened round on lightly floured surface. Wrap flattened round of pastry in plastic wrap and refrigerate about 45 minutes or until dough is firm and cold, yet pliable.

6. While waiting for your cranberries and crust dough to cool, wash, peel and chop your apples.

7. Melt remaining margarine. To it, add 2/3 cup brown sugar, 1 cup quick oats, 2/3 cup flour and 1 tsp cinnamon. Mix well with fork, until crumbs form.

8. When your dough is ready, roll it into an log and cut it into 12 even pieces. Roll those pieces into balls and flatten them into thin rounds that will fit your muffin tins. Since they're so small, a rolling pin isn't really necessary but you're welcome to use one if you're really particular. Press each crust into a greased cup of the muffin tin and prick it a few times with a fork.

9. Mix your cranberries with your chopped apples. Fill each crust about 2/3 full with the fruit filling.

10. Finish each pie off with crumb topping.

11. Bake for 20-25 minutes, or until crumbs brown slightly.

12. Allow pies to cool before attempting to remove them from their tins.

This is why I specified the use of non-porous pots and bowls:



Bottom crusts:



Filled:



Topped:



Baked:



The mini pie stands alone:



I still can't believe it didn't fall apart as soon as it was removed from the pan:



The crumb didn't hold up to cutting too well. This pie is meant to be eaten with the hands:



I may have snuck one while they were still hot...and it may have been bliss:



I don't know what this is or where it came from but I found it in the silverware drawer and it's a perfect Mini Pie Popper Outer. If you're going to make a habit of mini pie making, invest in one:




* I tried to cut back on the amount of margarine used, so I didn't get much of a crumb going. For a bigger, crumbier, crumb, add a couple of extra tablespoons of margarine to the crust dough.



I still have so much food to blog about, and I need to fix up this layout sooner or later. I never realized this would be so time consuming!

Birthday Baking

Last Sunday, we threw a bit of a birthday celebration for one of my friends and I was entrusted with the cake detail. This was a real challenge because the birthday girl is allergic to most nuts, most fruits (except citrus fruits), soy, whole grains, beer and wine. And she loves pumpkin. I thought the Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Cupcakes with Cinnamon Icing from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World would be good, but I didn't really want to bring cupcakes to a party again. Causing friends to be bored of cupcakes is a cardinal sin. So I brought my task to The PPK and with some suggestions from them and some idea stealing from other Internets, I ended up with this:



(I can't believe I forgot to get a picture from the side!)

I stole the pumpkin cake shaped like a pumpkin idea from BitterSweetBlog. It's a great idea that would have been absolutely adorable in more skilled hands (and in a bundt pan that didn't have points). I don't think my version is too terrible, though.

All I did was make a double recipe for the Chocolate Chip Pumpkin cupcake batter substituting the soy milk for rice, dump it in the bundt pan and bake it for about an hour. Then I made another half-recipe for six cupcakes. I also made one batch of the Cinnamon Icing, colored with Moss Green paste and colored some marzipan.

I stuffed the hole in the center of the cake with two cupcakes (unwrapped), then chopped off part of a block of fancy, frou frou artisanal chocolate I bought at Whole Foods (not because I'm a chocolate snob but because it was the only chocolate I could find that was close to the right size/shape, vegan and kosher) and stuck it in the cupcakes to make the stem. I shaped the green marzipan into a leaf. The green icing was supposed to do double duty as the birthday greeting and a vine with smaller leaves, but the vine looks more like a line made by someone with seriously shaky hands.

It's unfortunate that the bundt cake came out so much darker than the cupcakes. Of course, my family didn't care since they got to eat the leftover cupcakes.

The cake went over quite well and even the birthday girl's family was able to have some leftovers. I think I can consider my first birthday cake a success.

The raw cake:



The raw cupcakes:



Cake and cupcakes. Two tastes that taste great together (especially when they're the same damn thing):



Left over cupcakes:



With candles:



Blow it out!

The Merry Vegan

Last Thursday, I attended The Merry Vegan Holiday Survival Workshop with Jasmin Singer and Marisa Miller Wolfson. It was great. Entertaining and informative. And I got to eat good food. Isa taught us how to roll our eyes and sneer at people who offer us turkey on the holidays just to be rude. Good times.

The workshop was at Bonobo's and I thought my dinner was both tasty and hilarious because I'm incredibly mature:



Here are some of the helpful links we dicussed:

Cruelty-free/ More Eco-friendly/ Fair-trade Retailers
MooShoes.com
Gaiam.com
OrganicAvenue.com
Kaightnyc.com
Downbound.com

Cool Product Ideas
Vegan cookbooks like those from The PPK ladies
Solio charger
faeriesdance.com
Reusable shopping bags
For kids: veg-friendly children’s books & computer game

Experience/Services Gifts
Yoga or dance classes, cooking class at Natural Gourmet Cookery School
Gift certificate to fave vegan restaurant or an eco-spa
Membership to an arts or theater organization (the ballet, symphony,
etc.)
Subscription to Netflix or Fandango Bucks
Subscription to VegNews magazine
41pounds.org
Personal services: cooking, massage, sexual favors, etc.

Charitable Gifts
Trees from Arbor Day Foundation
Adopt a turkey or sponsor a farm animal
Food for Life Global
Trees for Life Global
Sponsor a cat or dog through Best Friends
Adopt a Creature through Oceana and get a cookie cutter of creature.
Globalgiving.com

We also discussed how to keep the commercialism and environmental impact down during the holiday season:

Shop thrift stores (and donate too!)
Used items from your own home and/or re-gifted items
Homemade recipe books, bath salts, baked goods & knit items
Send e-cards
Go through your junk drawer of old cards and spruce them up
Write a note instead of a card
Cut last year’s cards in half and send the top page as a postcard to
someone else
Reuse paper and gift bags from past years
Use old calendars, books, magazines, comics pages as gift wrap
Hemp wrap & biodegradable soy-ink-ribbon
Recycled wrapping paper
craigslist.org
freecycle.org
vivaterra.com

I'd never heard of quite a few of those before, so it was nice to come across some new resources. I hope they do another workshop like this at some point. It was quite enjoyable and I'd recommend any vegans in the area to attend. You might even like to attend if you're not a vegan, but close with someone who is. Or just want to lessen your impact on the environment. Just realize that you will probably hear some comments made about meat-eaters.