Andrea's easy vegan cooking

I'm the winner ... I feel so random / winter fruit salad with pomegranate

2009-12-15T06:30:00.000-08:00

"We are happy to let you know that your blog was randomly selected as the winner for this week's Foodie Blogroll "POM Wonderful Comment to Win Giveaway" giveaway!
You will receive a receive a package containing: 1 bottle of each flavor of POM Juice (100%, Blueberry, Mango, Cherry, Kiwi, Nectarine) 1 POMx Tea, 1 POMx Iced Coffee, a POM branded journal, a POM pen and a POM branded tote bag made from recycled goods!"

This is the email I recently received with the good news that I won a gift package from Pom. I've been feeling kind of unlucky lately with my back and all, and this certainly cheered me up. The package came, and I'm excited to be sampling all these Pom flavors. (The iced coffee and the bars contain dairy so I won't be sampling them. And there wasn't a tote bag.)

First I tried the blueberry-pomegranate juice and it was delicious, though I thought the blueberry flavor was overpowered by the pomegranate. My son thought the opposite so I guess you'll have to taste that one for yourself. The cherry flavor, on the other hand, came through loud and strong. Mostly I just drink the juice rather than use it for cooking, but I did use some of the cherry-pomegranate juice for a fruit salad I was concocting for dessert.

Winter fruit salad with pomegranate
For the salad I used one large org. honey crisp apple, one large org. red bartlett pear, one large org. navel orange, two small org. bananas and one pomegranate. The apple and pear were cut into small cubes, the orange was peeled and each segment cut into thirds, the bananas were sliced. The pomegranate seeds were mixed into the salad except for about 1/3 cup which was held back and placed on top.

Before peeling the orange I zested about a teaspoon of the peel to use in the dressing. First, as the fruit was added to the bowl, it was mixed with the juice of half a small lemon to keep it from browning. When all the fruit was cut and mixed together, I made a simple sauce of about 1/4 cup of cherry POM juice with a small splash of vanilla, and the orange zest. This was mixed with the salad before it was topped with the extra seeds. The juice gave the fruit a mellow, rosy glow and a gentle, undertone of mysterious flavor. Along with small baked goods, it was a very pleasant way to end a casual company dinner.

Now I'm off to sample another POM flavor!

Bake sale this weekend

2009-12-11T18:09:00.000-08:00

I'm still not "back" to normal so this post will be short. Even though my back is still hurting, I was able to bake all afternoon for a bake sale, test recipes for Celine and Joni's new cookbook, and bake tomorrow night's dessert. Here's some of the results.

I tested Oreo Cookie Cookies (top photo) for the cookbook, and just like the title implies, they have actual pieces of Oreos (well, Newman O's). Some of these will go to the bake sale because they're much too dangerous to have around the house!

I also made Cinn-ful Sweet Potato Cookies from Go Dairy Free. I made them with pumpkin purée, and they're great. I added raisins and dried cranberries. (Thanks, Alicia, for making the recipe available.)

And even though I recently said I would try other recipes from Sweet Freedom, I compulsively made butterscotch blondies, yet again. Sheesh.

If you're in the Seattle area this weekend, stop by Sidecar For Pig's Peace and buy some vegan baked goods. You'll be helping to support the Pigs Peace Animal Sanctuary.

Say what?

2009-12-05T13:15:00.000-08:00

Taking it easy ...

(I've done something stupid and thrown out my back so no cooking for me for a while. And I can't work at my computer. I'm typing this on my husband's laptop while lying in bed, and it sucks. I just happened to have this "filler post" sitting around in case I ever needed it, and this seems like a pretty good time to cash it in. Hope to be blogging again soon. Until then, I'll keep reading your blogs though I may not be doing much commenting.)

I first heard the expression "say what?" when I moved to the Midwest. Now that I'm in the Pacific Northwest, not so much. I guess it's better than, "huh?" It means, "what did you say?" Anyway, here's what I say to a poll I found during vegan mofo. It's shorter than a similar poll that was also going around, and thus more appropriate to my short attention span. I never used it during vegan mofo, so here it is now.

1. What single thing most inspired you to take the leap from being an omnivore/vegetarian to being a vegan?

I recently posted about this - it was a health thing that triggered the conversion, but it was built on the triumvirate of ethical, planetary and health issues.

2. Are you 100% vegan (food wise at least) or do you sometimes eat non-vegan food, and if do so, under what circumstances does it usually happen?

I never knowingly eat non-vegan food.* I also buy vegan toiletries and household products. I buy vegan shoes and accessories. I don't buy wool or down. But, although I've donated most of my leather shoes, I still have some old leather shoes that I intend to wear out. *I don't buy honey and prefer not to eat it but I can't say I never do. I buy vegan vitamins but medication is a gray area. And my dog isn't vegan. :o(

3. Where do you stand on the whole B12 thing? Do you take supplements, eat fortified foods, do you even care? (not to preach but you really should!)

I take supplements.

4. Which rocks – Tofu, seitan, or that other stuff, what do you call it, Tempeh?

I love tempeh - it's my favorite. But I also love tofu and seitan.

5. What are your top 5 vegan meals?

This is hard. Baked polenta with braised greens and tofu, spicy winter squash soup, chickpea salad, pasta with artichoke hearts and olives, anything with kale

6. Are you vegan and proud, get used to it! Or do you sometimes keep it quiet? You know what I mean!

I'm kind of a live and let live vegan. I'm happy to oblige if asked about veganism, and can be quite persuasive (obnoxious, if you will), but I don't like to force my opinions about food choices on others.

7. What is your all-time favorite vegan cookbook?

I'm very bad at picking favorites. It's probably because I'm a Libra and can't make decisions. I have so many cookbooks, I don't know the answer to this question. Lorna Sass' books are very reliable. Crescent Dragonwagon uses big flavors. Madhur Jaffrey's world Vegetarian is cool.

8. What is your favorite vegan food blog?

Favorite. Favorite. I have lots of favorites - I read so many - but I can't pick just one. See answer number 7.

9. What is the most annoying thing about being vegan? Come on, you can have a good rant if you want, you’re amongst friends!

1. Going to restaurants and having to verify which things are vegan. (As in, "what about the soup stock? So, the vegetable soup is made with chicken broth? Can I get the potatoes without milk and butter?") 2. Having salad be the only vegan choice when it doesn't even include such simple add-ins as chickpeas, sunflower seeds or nuts. 3. Enduring the smug attitudes of so-called "foodies" who think they are somehow more sophisticated than vegans because they eat octopus and foie gras.

10. What food do you really hate (vegan food that is)?

I really HATE the flavor of anise. I HATE it in black licorice - ugh - and in fennel. Strangely enough, when fennel is baked, it tastes good! I dislike slimy okra. I don't like nuts in baked goods or ice cream but will eat them in salads.

Thanksgiving has come and gone

2009-11-28T15:40:00.000-08:00

My plate from bottom left: stuffed, roasted seitan with mushroom gravy, salad, potato kugel, roasted veggies and figs, herbed orange-cranberry relish

Thanksgiving has come and gone, and most people have moved on, but I'm still dragging my feet about my Thanksgiving post. Please indulge me while I do a little blurb about our feast so I can move on, too. We had the whole family at our home this year which was a unique treat for us since we've not lived in the same city with all our kids in a long time. The guests brought contributions to the meal so the work was spread around a little. I got so caught up in the celebrating that I forgot to photograph some parts of the feast, like the delicious potato kugel brought by our oldest son and daughter-in-law. This is an old family recipe that came to the U.S. with my Russian great-grandmother, and appears at nearly every family holiday event. It just wouldn't be a holiday without it. I forgot to photograph the Thai coconut corn soup based on a recipe in "Vegan Express" by Nava Atlas. I love this soup, and have served it to a LOT of people. (My adapted recipe appears at the end of this post.) And I didn't photograph the mushroom gravy.

The main dish for Thanksgiving at our house is always stuffed seitan. Here you see it (uncooked) in the baking dish with the stuffing. My husband's fingers are keeping the very elastic seitan from shrinking down into the pan while I do a photo shoot. The stuffing is brown rice, wild rice, home-made-bread cubes, mushrooms, celery, shredded carrots, onions, dried cranberries, herbs and spices, and maybe other things, too.

The seitan is first rolled out and then transferred to the dish, where it's filled, and the top folded over and sealed. It's always a stressful and comical process to roll out the stretchy seitan and get it into the dish before it shrinks up, but this year I made a brilliant discovery. I rolled the seitan onto a large sheet of parchment paper, and it seemed to stick in place. My husband and I then lifted the whole thing up and placed it, paper and all, into the dish, to be stuffed. (I also added chickpea flour to the seitan mix which may have made it more pliable.)

After the stuffed seitan was baked, we lifted it out of the baking dish and onto the serving platter using the paper. It was so much easier then trying to un-stick it from the pan! I raised the seitan up a little with a spatula and slid the paper out.

In the photo above you see the vegetables — Brussels sprouts, turnips, carrots and potatoes — before they went into the oven to roast. When they were nearly done, dried figs were mixed in. I forgot to photograph the veggies after they were roasted to perfection with olive oil and herbs.

For starters, we had various raw veggies, olives, pickles, crackers, hummus and Tings. (Yes, that's right, Tings.) We also had bowls of Thai coconut corn soup. This soup takes only minutes to make but tastes like it took hours.

Here's the herbed cranberry-orange relish I blogged about recently. This time I remembered to decorate it.

This is the fabulous salad brought by our middle son and his girlfriend. It was delicious.

We had two desserts. We had almond twiles filled with pumpkin mousse. (Our mini-guest was particularly taken by the mousse and wanted more, more, more...)

And we had a pumpkin chocolate spice cake from this recipe, minus the anise (I HATE anise. Ugh.) and with only 1/4 teaspoon of cayenne. (note: The ganache from the recipe didn't work for me — there was way too much liquid and it turned into chocolate milk. Luckily I had extra chocolate on hand and made my own version of ganache using only 1/4 cup of non-dairy milk, 1 tablespoon of coconut oil and 1 tablespoon of Earth Balance.)

Because I've made several alterations to the coconut corn soup recipe, and because the original appears in several places on the Web, I'm going to share my version, here. This is the perfect soup to make when you want something that doesn't take much time or effort but tastes great.

Thai coconut corn soup (adapted from a recipe by Nava Atlas)

1 tablespoon light olive oil
3 cloves garlic, minced
4 to 5 scallions, white and green parts, thinly sliced
1 medium red bell pepper, cut into short, narrow strips
One 15-ounce can light coconut milk
2 cups low-sodium vegetable broth
1½ cups rice milk
One 16-ounce bag frozen corn
2 teaspoons good quality curry powder
1/2 teaspoon Thai red curry paste, more or less to taste
1/2 to 1 teaspoon salt, or to taste
juice from 1/2 small lime or lemon
½ cup minced fresh cilantro or Italian parsley

Heat the oil in a small soup pot. Add the garlic, the white parts of the scallions, and the bell pepper. Sauté over medium-low heat until softened and golden, about 2 to 3 minutes.
Add the coconut milk, rice milk, broth, corn, curry powder, the green parts of the scallions. If using the curry paste, dissolve it in a small amount of hot soup before adding to the pot.
Bring to a rapid simmer, then lower the heat. Cover and simmer gently for 5 minutes. Season with salt and citrus juice, and remove from the heat.
Serve, with cilantro or parsley and fresh ground black pepper.

Yield: 6 servings of spicy soup.

You can substitute two cups of rice milk for the vegetable broth if desired. I've done it both ways and I like the broth version best, but both are good.

Cookies and stew

2009-11-23T13:30:00.000-08:00

I've been collecting recipes like crazy — actually printing them out instead of just bookmarking them — but have been cooking very little. We've been eating out much more than usual, and that always seems to dampen my cooking urges. Unfortunately, we haven't been very happy with the restaurant food we've been sampling except for one place. We really enjoyed our brunch at Wayward Café, and tried to go there two other times without checking their hours, only to find it closed. You'd think all these unpleasant restaurant experiences would inspire me to cook more, but it's not happening. Maybe I'm saving my food-cooking energy for Thanksgiving, or maybe I'm just in a rut.

Last night there was nothing planned for dinner when our son and daughter-in-law extended a last minute invitation to come to their house.

Our d-i-l was making Buckwheat Stew With Tofu and Kale from Mark Bittman's "How to Cook Everything Vegetarian," which they had just borrowed from the library along with "Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar," by Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romaro. She didn't have the right kind of buckwheat so she made the stew with farrow, instead, and it was absolutely delicious — rich and satisfying. The white things that look like potato pieces are actually whole cloves of stewed garlic — soft, fragrant, and tasting like it was roasted in the oven. Kale is one of my favorite vegetables, and this recipe really showcased its winning qualities. I wish I had some right now.

For dessert we had Peanut butter oatmeal cookies from the above mentioned cookie-invasion cookbook. These were some of the best peanut butter cookies I've tasted, with excellent texture and crunch. I think I ate four. Tsk.

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Animal, Vegetable, Miserable by Gary Steiner

Have you seen this Op-Ed piece in the Sunday NY Times? It's pretty unusual to see such a blatantly unapologetic essay on the moral wrongness of killing animals for human needs, in the mainstream press. Take a look.

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Have a HAPPY and HEALTHY THANKSGIVING!

Bean and corn fritters

2009-11-19T05:37:00.000-08:00

My son thinks it's amazing and stupid (amazingly stupid?) that I've never made microwave popcorn; it seems perfectly reasonable to me since I've never owned a microwave. This has come up because lately I've been thinking about, and wanting popcorn, and our hot air popper was left at our house in Wisconsin when we came to Seattle. I assume the renters are using it, and we don't have a popper here, nor do we have an appropriate pot to use for popping corn on the stove. I don't think I can use a pot belonging to the people who own the house we're renting as it could get wrecked by popping corn in it. At least that's been my experience. After half-heartedly looking for a used air popper at Goodwill (though truthfully, we don't really want to accumulate more "stuff" since we have to move again in July), my son pointed out we have a microwave, and could make microwave popcorn. But that stuff is expensive and usually has flavorings and chemicals I don't want to eat. After doing a little Internet research, I've learned you can make your own microwave popcorn in a paper bag. I'm curious to try this to see if it works for me. Obviously it works for others but ya never know until you try it yourself. Has anyone tried this?

So I've learned a new trick this week. Actually it was the second new trick. The first was learned by my husband this past weekend — he learned to bake a squash whole. That's right, no grunting, groaning, teeth gnashing or cursing while trying to cut open a winter squash that seems to be made of steel. He just put the whole thing into the oven and took it out an hour later all soft and easy to open. It happened to be a spaghetti squash which we served with artichoke spaghetti sauce and steamed kale. (I think my husband would eat artichoke spaghetti sauce every day, whereas I prefer a little variety.) You can find more complete instructions here. I found this post after my husband had learned the trick elsewhere, and it's a good description of what to do.

Rambling on, I saw a recipe in Vegetarian Times for chickpea croquettes. I was particularly interested in making this recipe because it contained a whole cup of chickpea flour, and I'd just recently purchased a bag. Once in the kitchen, of course, I realized that yes, I had the chickpea flour, but almost none of the remaining ingredients. Since I changed the recipe so much, I think it will be OK to print it.

I didn't love the croquettes the first night I made them — the taste was good but the texture was weird — almost sandy. I cooked a bunch and served them with the leftover artichoke sauce (not a good idea), a wok-full of a bok choy-related green with garlic, and steamed rice. I wasn't planning to blog about them because they just weren't up to the standard I adhere to for blog posts. I put the leftover, uncooked mix into the refrigerator.

The next day I took the leftover mix, added frozen corn, and fried the fritters in a small amount of oil in the wok. I don't know if it was the overnight rest in the refrigerator or the addition of the corn, but they were FANTASTIC. Perhaps the steam from the frozen corn changed the texture, or maybe the batter just needed more solids in there with all that garbanzo flour. The corn definitely improved the taste and texture. If you make these, eat them hot off the griddle, when they're at their prime. I ate mine unadorned, and they tasted great, but I can see them topped with a sauce of Veganaise and salsa. I'm posting the recipe with the corn included. I know I'll be making these again.

Bean and corn fritters

1 cup chickpea flour
1 teaspoon chipotle powder
1 tablespoon dehydrated onion
1 teaspoon chili powder
1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon salt (I tend to use less salt)
3/4 cup hot water
1 15-ounce can canellini beans, rinsed, drained and partially mashed
4 to 6 green onions, chopped (about 1 cup)
a large carrot, grated (about 1 cup)
1/2 cup chopped cilantro (or parsley)
1 cup frozen corn kernels

Whisk together the chickpea flour, chili powder, salt, chipotle powder and dehydrated onion. Whisk in the hot water.
Stir in the green onions, carrots, cilantro, corn and beans.
Form into fritters and cook in a small amount of cooking oil on a medium-hot, non-stick pan or griddle. You could also use well-seasoned cast iron. You can use a 1/4-cup measuring cup to mold the fritters, if desired. Fill the measuring cup about halfway. (You don't want them to be too thick.)
Cook until the bottom is brown, about 4 to 5 minutes, then flip and cook until the fritters feel firm and done, about 3 to 4 minutes. I like to press them down a bit as they cook.

I ate mine plain for breakfast but I can see them rolled into tortillas with lettuce and salsa, or even stuffed into pita for lunch or dinner.

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WIN A COOKBOOK
Head over to One Frugal Foodie to enter a one-day only giveaway for "1000 Vegan Recipes" by Robin Robertson. This contest ends at midnight, Nov. 20, 2009.

Stuffed squash / squash muffins

2009-11-15T12:03:00.000-08:00

Those gorgeous winter squashes are just so hard to resist, sitting there all colorful and shapely in bins and boxes at farmers markets and coops. There's a growing collection of squash at our house that we know we should use, but no one wants to cut up. Cursing to myself is not uncommon whenever I try to open a winter squash, and knives have been known to break in the process. I think the cook's friendliest squash is delicata - it's not only sweet and delicious, it opens without a fight. Delicata doesn't store well, though, and the time had come to use ours. The squashes were all split, cleaned and baked until tender, and several were stuffed with the filling for Harvest-Stuffed Acorn Squash from "The Vegan Table" by Colleen Patrick-Goudreau. (I got the cookbook for my birthday.) This dish was just as tasty as the other recipes we've tried from "Vegan Table," but really, this post isn't about stuffed squash. It's about finding a delicious use for leftover squash ...

It's about MUFFINS — soft, spicy, sweet, yummy, warm, fragrant muffins. I hate to brag about my own muffin recipe — it's so unattractive — but these were really irresistible. I've had three, so I should know.

I wanted to base the muffins on a gingerbread recipe I used to make, but when I realized my favorite gingerbread recipe hadn't made it to Seattle and was back in the Midwest, and I wouldn't be able to use it as a guide, I started looking for a replacement. But I couldn't find just what I was looking for. I wanted to make muffins with leftover squash, and spice them with fresh ginger. I also wanted to try the coconut oil I just bought (to make tuilles), but wanted to keep the fat to 1/4 cup. I also wanted to keep the amount of sugar fairly low. I worked out the proportion of liquid to dry and here's the result:

Gingery spice muffins

2 tablespoons ground flax seeds
6 tablespoons water
3 tablespoons frozen orange juice concentrate
1/4 cup water

1-1/2 cups white whole wheat flour (stir well before measuring, spoon into measuring cup and level with knife)
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon allspice
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder (non-aluminum)

1/4 cup organic virgin coconut oil
1/4 cup evaporated cane juice
1/4 cup agave nectar
1 tablespoon fresh, finely grated ginger (I used a microplane), don't skimp
1/2 cup mashed leftover squash or canned pumpkin

Preheat oven to 350˚F • lightly oil 12-cup muffin pan

In a small bowl, mix together the flaxseed and 6 tablespoons water. Set aside for 10 minutes. After 10 minutes, whisk in (or use a wooden spoon) the orange juice concentrate and additional 1/4 cup water.
In a medium bowl, mix together flour, salt, cinnamon, allspice, nutmeg, baking soda and baking powder.
In a large bowl, with a wooden spoon, beat together the coconut oil, sugar and agave until combined and kind of fluffy. (takes about a minute) Mix in the grated ginger. Add the flax mixture and thoroughly combine.
Add the dry ingredients to the wet. Gently stir and fold until well-combined. Do not over-mix.
Divide the batter among 12 muffin cups and bake for 20 minutes or until done. Turn out onto a rack to cool. Enjoy warm or cool.

Holiday foods cooking class / herb-infused spiced cranberry-orange relish

2009-11-11T10:30:00.000-08:00

Almond tuiles with pumpkin mousse

When I was very young, my family had a habit of going out to dinner on Sunday night — and I don't use the word 'habit' lightly. We went to a Chinese restaurant in Philadelphia's Chinatown, and then to my cousin's house in West Philly. When I say we went to a Chinese restaurant every Sunday, I mean we went to the SAME restaurant every single week - the exact same one in a neighborhood of hundreds of choices. Not only did we go to the same restaurant each week, we ordered the same food. We didn't need to see a menu because my father ordered won-ton soup, egg rolls, chicken chow mein, pork fried rice, spare ribs, and either egg fu yung or lo mein. When I started going to Chinese restaurants as an adult, before I became a vegetarian, I was overwhelmed to see page after page of food choices. There were an overwhelming number of dishes that had no resemblance to chow mein. Where had I been? I started trying different things. (Now that I'm a vegan, one of the things that bugs me about going out to dinner is the limited choice vegans have at so many restaurants! At normal (as opposed to vegan) Chinese restaurants there are usually about five things.)

Holidays can be kind of like my family's Chinese restaurant habit, when we get locked into a pattern of serving the same favorite foods over and over. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, as the holiday menu becomes a family tradition that we look forward to. But sometimes it's nice to shake things up a little and try something different — maybe add one new dish to the menu.

This was what my husband and I had in mind when we recently attended another cooking class at PCC Natural Markets. The class was called Vegetarian Holiday Feast and was taught by Birgitte Atonsen N.T.P., nutritional therapy practitioner, professional whole foods chef and culinary instructor. Birgitte, owner of Nature's Way Food, has been developing and refining her recipes since she became a vegetarian at the age of 12.

This was the menu: roasted vegetable nut loaf with mushroom béchamel sauce, mashed yams with rosemary, herb-infused spiced cranberry-orange relish, and the spectacular dessert combo of almond tuilles with pumpkin mousse. This was seriously delicious food, and I wish I could give you all the recipes, but Birgitte is working on a cookbook at the moment. The cookbook is not vegetarian, but rather it will be a cookbook filled with recipes that can be altered to accommodate any dietary need. Birgitte wants to provide people with a way to cook for friends with special diets without having to go out and buy different sets of cookbooks. Need those cookies to be GF? She will tell you how. Are you an omni with veggie friends coming to dinner? Brigitte will offer alternatives in the recipes to make them vegetarian or vegan.

This Thanksgiving I plan to incorporate two of the dishes from the class into my menu. I'm going to serve the cranberry-orange relish instead of my traditional cranberry-apple sauce, and the almond tuiles with pumpkin mousse instead of pumpkin pie. I admit I just can't break my 'holiday habits' enough to change my favorite dishes, and I'm looking forward to seitan stuffed with wild rice, and potato kugel. This will be the first Thanksgiving in a very long time that our entire immediate family will be together, and the first Thanksgiving my husband and I will spend with our little granddaughter, so it should be exciting, fun and delicious.

Herb-infused, spiced cranberry-orange relish
Makes about three cups.
Preparation time: 10 minutes
Cooking time: 30 minutes

1/2 organic orange with skin on, cut up for ease of blending
1/2 cup orange juice concentrate
1 cinnamon stick (2-1/2 inches)
3 whole cloves
1 sprig fresh rosemary or 3 sprigs fresh thyme
1 cup Rapidura sugar (or other evaporated cane juice-type sugar)
1/2 cup filtered water
1/3 cup port (optional but recommended)
2 (approx. 10-ounce) bags fresh cranberries - mine had 12 ounces each

In a food processor or blender blend orange and orange juice concentrate until smooth.
Pour the mixture into a medium pot and add cinnamon, cloves, rosemary or thyme, sugar, water and port (if using).
Bring mixture to a boil, then turn down the heat and simmer for five minutes.
Add the cranberries and simmer until the cranberries burst and mixture starts to thicken, about 20 to 30 minutes. Stir often to keep from burning.
Place relish into a container and refrigerate.
When chilled, remove the cinnamon stick and rosemary or thyme.

I also added 1/2 teaspoon of pure vanilla extract after the sauce was removed from the heat, although it wasn't in the recipe. When I make the cranberries for Thanksgiving, I'm going to slice the leftover half orange, cut the slices into half-moons and make a pinwheel garnish in the center of the dish. Sorry to say I ate the orange before thinking of the garnish when I made the dish for this post.
(recipe © Birgitte Antonsen. Please do not reproduce.)

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Try something new
If you'd like to add something new to your holiday celebrations this year, you might consider purchasing the e-cookbook, In a Vegetarian Kitchen: A Bountiful Vegan Thanksgiving by cookbook author and artist, Nava Atlas. It's filled with recipes, cooking information and tips for holiday meals by the author, and also includes recipes from other well-known cookbook authors and bloggers. It's only $8.95, and profits from this project will be donated to humanitarian charities concerned with hunger, micro-financing for women in developing countries and the alleviation of human trafficking.

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Vegetarian alert - What's in that jar of Planter's Dry Roasted Peanuts?
Peanuts, Salt, Sugar, Cornstarch, Monosodium Glutamate (Flavor Enhancer) Gelatin, Corn Syrup Solids, Dried Yeast, Paprika, Onion and Garlic Powders, Spices, Natural Flavor.

Gelatin is an animal-derived product so look elsewhere for your peanuts if you're a vegetarian or inviting vegetarians to your home. You can find other varieties of Planter's peanuts and mixed nuts that are gelatin-free, so READ THE LABEL to know what you're getting!

Uwajimaya / tamarind-tofu-cabbage-bowl

2009-11-07T03:00:00.000-08:00

My cousin is an only child, and I am one of three siblings - not that any of us are children anymore, but we were. He had a LOT of toys, and he didn't like to share. My cousin lived in a large four bedroom row-house with his parents and our grandparents. That house was a source of seemingly endless entertainment for my brothers and me. For one thing, it had one of those magical double staircases — you could go to the second floor from the living room, travel through the upstairs hallway to the rear of the house, and descend a second staircase into the back pantry. The second-floor area with the second staircase was dark, cluttered and spooky, making it very alluring for games of hide-and-seek or "disappearing cousin." Technically, we weren't allowed to use the rear staircase because it was "too dark," "too dangerous," "too cluttered." All the more reason why we were unstoppable in its use. But, as enticing as this physical aspect of the house was, nothing was as alluring as the toy room.

There was one bedroom in the house dedicated solely to toy storage. The room was stacked, floor to ceiling along all four walls, with every game, puzzle, science kit and general toy that could be imagined. My memory has the stuff stacked three-deep so that there wasn't a lot of walking space left, but that could be time embellishing memory. Or not. My cousin was the ruler of this cache, and it was up to him to decide which toys we could play with. Now, I'm not saying he was selfish, or a tyrant, but he was a little arbitrary about which things we could use. I knew he'd never let us use the chemistry set, but there were certain other things I gravitated towards, and was often frustrated by his iron grip. His parents encouraged him (sort of) to share, but didn't make him.

He'd usually let us play Clue, but not always. Sometimes he'd allow the Lincoln Logs, which was good since I was the only one who liked them. The boys would tire of them quickly and go off to run up and down the staircases while I built farms and housing developments. But the real object of my desire, the Legos, were usually off limits. I'd plead and beg for those Legos, and only rarely would he concede. The cuz had a most remarkable collection of tiny little Legos, including little white window frames and shutters. He had zillions of intricate pieces, and playing with them was heaven. My brothers would soon get bored, and I'd have them all to myself until my cousin required them back in their storage location.

I'd love to go back in time and have a glimpse at that room again to see if it really contained every toy made, or just seemed like it. It was a little daunting to be in the presence of so much stuff I wanted. Kind of like last weekend, actually, when I found myself in the grown-up food equivalent of the toy room.

Part of our stash from Umajiwaya

When we walked into Uwajimaya Inc in Seattle's International District, I literally burst out laughing. Uwajimaya is an Asian supermarket that has everything you could possibly want, from fresh vegetables to the most obscure seasoning AND an entire gift and kitchen tool department. I didn't know which way to turn. You can get one hour of free parking if you spend six dollars, and the minute we walked into the store, it was pretty clear that wouldn't be a problem. We didn't buy any veggies, though they were sorely tempting, having just been to the farmers market the day before, but headed toward the aisles of Asian foods. I had a shopping list that magically expanded as I spied more and more ingredients I suddenly remembered "I just had to have." We found all the expected things like dried mushrooms, brown rice vinegar, rice noodles and yuba, but also unexpected things like an organic mix of brown jasmine-red-black rice from Thailand. We were able to find locally made tofu and tempeh, as well as Shark brand sriracha (without preservatives) in a giant bottle for just $2.99, less than we'd previously paid for a small bottle.

The first things we used from our shopping expedition were the tofu and rice in a recipe from our "Vegan Yum Yum" cookbook. Though not an Asian dish per se, the tamarind tofu cabbage bowl was satisfyingly delicious. It was a simple and tasty last minute dinner solution.

Everything we've made from the cookbook so far has been easy and delectable, and this was no exception.

The rice reminded me of a delicious Thai rice we'd been given as a gift some time ago. When this rice is gone, I think I might make my own three-rice blend from the rice available at the coop. I'll use a jasmine brown rice for the bulk of the mix, a red rice and a black rice.

Bread, pizza - fast and delicious / kale salad

2009-11-03T15:30:00.004-08:00

Last night I attended a book talk by Zoë François who is on tour promoting her book, "Healthy Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day, which she co-wrote with Jeff Hertzberg. I'm not such a big bread eater but I do love to bake bread. I like to experiment with different flours and methods to create beautiful breads with great texture and flavor. I've made naturally fermented breads (no yeast or starter) as well as made my own sourdough starter to create deli-style rye breads. I've made bagels, pita, tortillas, soft pretzels and naan. I usually make my own pizza dough, and sometimes I make crackers. I've made bread that took days to make from start to finish, and I once even hand-built a large ceramic bowl to mix large batches of dough in because I couldn't find one I liked.

Now I'm having fun making bread that takes almost no effort or time, á la Zoë and Jeff's technique. As I 've mentioned in a previous post, a fairly wet dough is mixed up right in a storage container, and left two hours to rest. A hunk of it is quickly shaped, rested and baked on a stone, and the remaining dough is stored in the refrigerator for up to two weeks so it's ready to use anytime. As the dough ages, it develops more character and sourdough flavor. When the dough is used up, a new batch can be made in the container without washing it first, to jump start the sourdough qualities that give the bread its character.

I've got a bread (pictured above) on the counter, and dough for one remaining loaf stored in the refrigerator. A few days before the loaf above was baked, dough from the same batch was used for pizza. I made these things using the master recipe from the book mentioned above. I've been making whole grain breads using this method for quite a while but I had been treating dough meant for pizza a little differently - using more flour in the mix for a firmer dough. It's a lot easier to get the pizza from the peel to the stone when it's got some body. I used the wetter dough for the pizza (shown below), and had some difficulties which I meant to ask Zoë about last night but completely forgot. I sprinkled extra flour when I formed the crust, and lots of cornmeal on the peel so the pizza would slide onto the stone, but when I tried to transfer the pizza to the hot stone in my oven, it wouldn't go without leaving the toppings behind! I finally gave up and cajoled it into a pan.

It seemed to me the extra moisture in the dough steamed the crust in the pan, making the texture a bit more spongy than the crispy, chewy effect I look for in my crust. It was still good, but not perfect. I thought about next time putting the sauce and cheese on the crust, sliding it onto the stone, then quickly adding the bulkier toppings while the pizza is in the oven. I don't like this idea because for one thing, it sounds dangerous, and for another, the oven heat will escape, and the oven should be hot when the pizza first goes in. I've got some more experimenting to do or questions to ask. Or maybe I should just wait for Zoë and Jeff's next book to come out. They're working on one about pizza and flatbread!

The pizza, by the way, had a very thin layer of Follow Your Heart mozzarella topped by a sprinkle of Daiya mozzarella. This combination produced the best tasting pizza I've had in quite a while. The real stars of the topping, though, were broccoli slices and mushrooms. To go with the pizza we had a salad of massaged lacinato kale, shredded carrot, baby salad greens and edamame. The kale was very thinly sliced (roll into a thick wad and slice crosswise) and rubbed with olive oil and a little salt. The edamame was sprinkled with umeboshi vinegar and left at room temperature for a half hour to marinate. The salad was dressed with olive oil and lemon.

You can visit artisanbreadinfive.com to get more information about making artisan no-knead breads. It really does take about five minutes to mix it up — but there's still the resting and rising that any bread must go through. The big difference is the dough waiting in the refrigerator to be baked into the next great loaf.

note: The seeds on this loaf are black mustard, caraway, dill, and crushed red pepper. The mustard seed was surprisingly delicious in this combination!

It's November / veganmofo wrap

2009-11-01T10:52:00.011-08:00

I meant to do my Vegan Mofo wrap-up before October ended but here it is only one day late. This was my first mofo, and the most I've ever blogged in one month. The part that was most exciting for me was finding and reading so many blogs I'd never seen before. It was thrilling to discover so many vegan blogs with wonderful recipes and gorgeous photos. I had no idea there were so many. My reading list is now stuffed with even more great blogs than before. As others have mentioned, it was hard keeping up with reading and commenting on so many posts; sometimes the comment would be in my head but I was just too tired to type it. I want to thank those responsible for organizing the event and posting the recaps. I followed many of those recap links to find new blogs. I especially want to thank all the vegan bloggers for sharing so much creative energy. Now all those intriguing recipes await!

Speculoos smoothie, veganmofo 2009

2009-10-30T20:00:00.000-07:00

When I was a child, once a year my mother used to buy ginger snap cookies in an rustle-y orange paper sack. These cookies were only available in October. They were large and flat and crackled on top.

They seemed very hard and crunchy on the outside but when I started chewing them, they got tacky, and stuck to my teeth. My mother and I loved these spicy cookies, looked forward to them every year and lamented the fact that we couldn't buy them whenever we wanted.

I would open the bag and inhale their spiciness. The fragrance was so strong I could almost taste the cookies before they touched my lips.

Today I added speculoos spice blend and a small amount of agave nectar to my almond milk-banana-mango smoothie, and when I took my first mouthful, I heard the rustle of that orange paper sack, smelled the gingersnaps, and saw my mother's smile.

Breads and speculoos / veganmofo 2009

2009-10-29T23:15:00.004-07:00

I want to say upfront that I haven't been sent a review copy of the cookbook I'm about to mention (darn - I'd love to review it). It's just that the authors have developed a bread baking style that fits perfectly with the theme of this blog. Following their method couldn't be easier, and I've been playing with their recipes since their first cookbook, "Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day" was published. I used their technique, but made the recipes healthier by using whole grains, less salt, etc. Now they've come up with a new book called, "Healthy Artisan Bread in Five Minutes A Day," and of course I watched their video, and made bread. I haven't actually seen the new book yet, but I know it has recipes using whole grains, fruits and veggies, plus a chapter on gluten-free baking. It's not a vegan cookbook, but probably easy for a vegan cook to adapt the recipes.

The bread pictured above was made from the basic recipe. I didn't have any unbleached flour on hand so I subbed semolina flour. For the topping I used a mix of sesame seeds, caraway seeds, dill seeds and crushed red pepper. The bread was delicious with the kind of springy texture I love, and it looked very pretty.

The dough - a rather wet dough - is mixed and stored in a container in the refrigerator, and taken out in blobs whenever a bread is needed.

Tonight I needed to make a bread with the speculoos spice mix I got from Mihl's blog. (Are you reading this, Mihl?) I grabbed a blob of dough and rolled it into a rectangle. I mixed one tablespoon of speculoos spice mix, one tablespoon of cocoa, three tablespoons of evaporated cane juice and about 1/2 cup of raisins, and spread it onto the dough. The dough was then rolled up and the edges sealed. You can see from the photo I didn't do a very even job - perhaps I was rushing - but the taste is delicious.

The authors will be in Seattle Monday night to do a reading and book signing and I hope to be there. I doubt they'll be talking about speculoos!

Buffy / random food / veganmofo 2009

2009-10-28T23:45:00.003-07:00

Buffy got groomed today and she looked so cute I had to give her some blog space. Buffy is at least 16 years old and holding her own quite well. She's still sweet and playful. I found her at the Humane Society when she was three, and she's been with us ever since. She was adopted to be our beloved Starr's sister so he would have company during the day, and they had a lot of good years together. Now Buffy lives only with humans but she doesn't seem to mind. In fact, at this stage of her life she's not that into other dogs anymore, though she still gets excited to see a cat. Lucky for her, two of her human brothers have cats, and sometimes she gets to visit them.

Buffy reclining regally (and hoping I'll go away and stop taking her picture).

At the secondhand store yesterday I found two really nice little white CorningWare dishes. They're rounded rectangles about 5 inches by 7 inches, and the perfect size for heating up and serving a single portion of lunch. I was envisioning them as handy little serving dishes for spreads or olives at a party. They were only fifty cents! Here you see one filled with leftover quinoa pasta (my favorite) and stir-fry from the previous night's dinner.

My son has been making himself humongous burritos with different fillings. I wanted today's potato-carrot-pea-chipotle-tofu filling but not the tortilla so I made a salad and put the filling on top for a burrito salad. It was great. Below you can see one of the burritos.

A Vegan Table / win $25,000 / veganmofo 2009

2009-10-27T15:51:00.002-07:00

I got a new cookbook for my birthday — "The Vegan Table" by Colleen Patrick-Goudreau — and we've started giving it a try. My husband found the can of artichoke hearts I bought to make a Turkish dish, and he made red lentil artichoke stew from Colleen's cookbook, instead. It wasn't the Middle Eastern dish I had intended, but it was delicious. I'm sure we'll want to make this again. I have a real weakness for artichoke hearts.

To go with the lentils he made cauliflower with spicy vinaigrette. This was an extremely easy dish of steamed cauliflower with a piquant dressing, proving once again that a dish doesn't have to be complicated or take hours, to be terrific. This dish might end up on our Thanksgiving table.

.........................................................................

Cooking contest
Are you feeling creative and in the mood to enter a cooking contest with a $25,000 grand prize? I received an email from French's Mustard representative Danielle Nuxxo who wrote:

"I came across your Easy Vegan Cooking blog...and wanted to send you some info on a new cooking contest from French’s Food, where you can win a trip to NYC for a cook-off and get a chance at the $25,000 grand prize. Since mustard is naturally low in sugar, fat and calories, I thought your vegan readers would enjoy the challenge of coming up with a naturally delicious recipe that fits well into the gluten-free and vegan lifestyle.

Here are the details on how to enter the contest. Time is running out, since all entries need to be entered by Saturday, Oct. 31. Each recipe must:

• Be original, unpublished, and created by you

• Include at least one French's product

• Include no more than 8 ingredients (with the exception of salt, pepper and water…those are freebies)

• Be prepared and ready to serve in under 60 minutes (Parents are busy, we all know that!)

• For recipe inspiration and giveaways, check out the French’s Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/pages/Frenchs/129122660682?ref=ts

Recipes will be evaluated on appearance, creativity and overall deliciousness and must be submitted by Saturday, October 31, 2009 online at: http://frenchs.com/Login.php?redirect=/Contest/SubmitRecipe.php. Five finalists, determined by online voting and a judging panel, will compete in a LIVE Cook-Off event to be held in New York City for a chance to win the Grand Prize of $25,000!"

I know it's a tight deadline but my fellow bloggers are so creative!

Bottoms up / veganmofo 2009

2009-10-26T13:50:00.004-07:00

Oooo. Edemame, corn and spicy potatoes - my fave.

Only one more week of vegan mofo, and I really haven't exploited the cute baby pix opportunities at all. So here we go. Babycakes (a.k.a. my granddaughter) was at our house all day Saturday, and in addition to puzzles, books, ball throwing, singing, dog petting, walk taking and discovering rotten apples in the dirt, etc., I got to try out my "microwave cake-in-a-cup making activity for those with short attention spans" (no age requirements). Apparently, even five minutes start to finish is too long for some.

Bottoms up! Cheers and all. Sure do love this almond milk.

I shared all the ingredients and told her what the final product would be but she just wanted to put her hands into everything and toss it around. Cool. Once the batter was on her fingers she didn't put them into her mouth as I thought she would, and I just managed to wipe them off before she ran out of the room to join her Uncle Jordan. The one ingredient she was most excited about (it wasn't the coconut) was the almond milk. When I was putting the almond milk into the measuring cup, she wanted some, so I gave her a little in a cup. She loved it, and drank quite a bit before spilling it onto the floor. She had some with her lunch, too. She's still too young to make the leap from ingredients to final product, but I can assure you she was quite pleased with that final product when she consumed it with her lunch. "Kek," she said. Cake, indeed.

On Friday night I found myself alone for dinner. My husband was traveling home from a meeting in D.C., and my son was working. When I cook for myself the food choices tend to be based on availability and convenience. That usually means: what's in the fridge and can it be cooked in a wok? There was lacinato kale, a small slab of tofu, leftover brown rice and some red pepper. Fried rice with good seasonings and a dab of cashew cheese made my perfect dinner. And maybe a little leftover kek.

note: How to cut lacinato (dinosaur) kale for a stir-fry or salad: Remove the center stems from the leaves with a scissors or by "stripping" the leaves with your fingers. Gather all the kale into a wad and roll up into a tight roll. Slice thinly across the roll with a santoku or other sharp knife.

It's Friday it's late / Veganmofo 2009

2009-10-23T22:00:00.003-07:00

I've got quite an unrelated variety of foods here representing everything from serious and healthy to ridiculous but healthyish. First the ridiculous. Some time ago Diann posted a five-minute microwave chocolate cake-in-a-mug on Eat'n Veg'n. A similar recipe was also in a cookbook I reviewed. I was mildly interested in trying it just to see if it would work, but we didn't have a microwave at the time so I forgot about it. I don't know what triggered the memory in my brain, but I was about to watch Mad Men one night and suddenly I wanted chocolate cake, and remembered Diann's post. WE HAVE A MICROWAVE in this house was all I could think of. Now, I'm not sweet obsessed, and rarely ever have dessert unless we have company. My husband usually has an apple for dessert. But suddenly I was obsessed with microwave cake. I don't even like microwaves, but I had to do it. This led to a series (I'm too embarrassed to say how many cakes were in the series) of microwaved cakes, all of which got eaten before they could be photographed. Me and the apple-eater gobbled 'em up. Not that they were photogenic, understand, as they didn't necessarily come out of their mugs, bowls, dishes, etc. in one piece.

One of the reasons I've been trying so hard to get this right (one of the reasons, uh huh) is I want to make this cake with my tiny granddaughter, and the speed and ease of assembly and nearly instant gratification fits well with her attention span. This cake is basically done about 5 minutes after you start. I had to make a non-chocolate version because her mom doesn't like her to eat chocolate, and I think I'm ready for our play date tomorrow!

As Diann said, this won't replace a carefully made "real" cake, but it works great for a sudden dessert craving. The taste and texture are really good, especially served still warm. It's kind of like a big, soft muffin. Add some jam, ice cream or whatever, or just eat it plain.
Instant microwave cake - chocolate version (easily serves two)

4 tablespoons whole spelt flour
2 tablespoons cocoa
3 tablespoons evaporated cane juice
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 tablespoon chocolate chips
2 teaspoons canola oil
5 tablespoons soymilk (or other milk)
1 teaspoon cider vinegar
splash of pure vanilla extract

In a small bowl, combine flour, cocoa, sugar and baking soda. Mix well.
Stir in the chocolate chips to coat with flour.
In a glass measuring cup, place the soymilk, then vinegar. Stir in the oil and vanilla.
Add liquid to dry and mix thoroughly but gently.
Lightly grease a mug or small bowl. Add cake mix.
Microwave for 3 minutes.
Carefully remove from microwave (it will be hot) and allow to cool for several minutes. Loosen edges and turn onto a plate. Let cool a little.
Serve while warm.

Instant microwave cake - coconut version (easily serves two)

5 tablespoons whole spelt flour
2 tablespoons unsweetened dried shredded coconut
3 tablespoons evaporated cane juice
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 tablespoon chocolate chips (optional)
2 teaspoons canola oil
4 tablespoons almond milk (or other milk)
1 teaspoon cider vinegar
splash of pure vanilla extract
apricot jam

In a small bowl, combine flour, coconut, sugar and baking soda. Mix well.
Stir in the chocolate chips (if using) to coat with flour.
In a glass measuring cup, place the almond milk, then vinegar. Stir in the oil and vanilla.
Add liquid to dry and mix thoroughly but gently.
Lightly grease a mug or small bowl. Add cake mix.
Microwave for 3 minutes.
Carefully remove from microwave (it will be hot) and allow to cool for several minutes. Loosen edges and turn onto a plate. Let cool a little.
Serve while warm, with jam on top

Notes: I know almost nothing about microwaves but they seem to vary a bit so cooking times may be different. I think the one here is 850 watts, if that means anything to you. Err on the side of too little cooking so the cake isn't dry. You can always put it back in for another minute. It may appear to be moist at the edge but if the rest seems springy and done, it's OK.

Cashew cheese with toasted sesame oil

Now for something a little more serious. I've been eyeing recipes for cashew cheese for a while but can never remember to soak the cashews, and then we end up eating them before I get around to making the cheese. Well, I finally soaked some, and made an uncooked cashew cheese. I was pretty surprised to find that after five hours of soaking, some of the cashews had actually started to sprout! You can find endless variations for this delicious cheese online so it seemed pretty safe to deviate from the recipes and make this stuff based on the ingredients I happened to have. I didn't add any herbs, choosing instead to flavor the cheese with a fruity vinegar and toasted sesame oil - two additions I didn't come across in my recipe search. This stuff is sublime and I can't wait to make some as a starter next time we have company. It would be a perfect dip with crisp raw veggies.

Cashew cheese

2 cups raw cashews plus water to cover
3 tablespoons lemon juice (or more to taste)
very small clove of garlic, chopped
1 tablespoon unpasteurized mellow white miso
1 to 2 teaspoons fruity vinegar (I used balsam cherry)
a few drops of toasted sesame oil (more to taste)
water as needed to process
fresh ground black pepper to taste
paprika

Soak the cashews 4 to 6 hours. Drain and rinse.
Place cashews, garlic, and lemon juice in the bowl of a food processor. Process until very creamy and smooth, adding water as necessary for processing, keeping mixture as thick as possible. Scrape down sides of bowl as necessary.
Add miso, pepper, vinegar and oil. Process to mix well.
Place in a bowl and cover with plastic wrap. Leave out for 2 to 4 hours until preferred level of sharpness has developed. Then refrigerate.
Before serving, sprinkle with paprika and more black pepper.

Here's a link to another cashew cheese recipe you might want to try. It's baked. And here's another. More ideas here.

update: I added jalapeño hot sauce to the cashew cheese on Saturday, and also recommend adding chopped parsley and/or chopped green onions. The cheese got very firm and spreadable in the refrigerator overnight. Next time I make it I plan to use umeboshi paste and tahini instead of the miso.

No-knead whole-grain bread with barley flour and sesame seeds

Today I made a no-knead bread using white whole wheat, barley flour and sesame seeds. It was baked on a stone and had a wonderful taste and texture - nutty from the barley and rich from the sesame seeds. I used one cup of barley flour to four cups of white whole wheat. I originally needed the barley flour to make blondies from Sweet Freedom. My husband does the shopping, and he bought a large bag of the stuff. Even though I've made the blondies three times, I still have a ton of the flour left so I've been adding it to my baked goods with good results.

Oatmeal with a side of news

I'll leave you with my healthy breakfast (from Wednesday) just to show that I am occasionally responsible and sensible. I need to counteract the completely silly things I've been doing with the microwave. (FOOD things!) The picture above shows a wonderful bowl of oatmeal with coconut, raisins, cashews and rice milk. The only thing that could make a breakfast like this more perfect would be to come downstairs and find it already made. I seem to be the only one in the house who wants oatmeal in the morning but I love it.

Eggplant this and eggplant that / veganmofo 2009

2009-10-22T19:21:00.007-07:00

Roasted eggplant and garbanzo bean soup

We managed to accumulate a lot of eggplants this week - good deals at the market that we couldn't refuse. Since I seem to have a soup thing going, I decided to combine the eggplant with the soupathon and make roasted eggplant and garbanzo bean soup. I'd been wanting to make this ever since I first got my hands on Love Soup. I also wanted to try roasting an eggplant on the stove top (gas stove) like our cooking class teacher did. I mean, I've roasted peppers on the burner, but an eggplant is so much bigger.

I roasted one eggplant in the oven and one on the stove burner. And I made quite a mess on the burner. But now that I've roasted another eggplant (story below) I know what I did wrong the first time. I kind of ignored my roasting eggplant a little too long on a flame that was a little too high, and by the end I was certain I was going to set off the smoke alarm. By the time I remembered to turn the eggplant there was goo oozing out and turning to charcoal all over the burner. I got the eggplant cooked, but yuck, what a mess. I used a scrubber to VERY CAREFULLY clean the burner while it was still hot and everything came off in a snap so it turned out not to be so bad, but it can be better.

We combined the two eggplants for the soup because I was hoping to give the soup an edge of smokiness, but the soup just tasted like regular oven-roasted eggplant to me. The soup was delicious, but I could have saved myself some trouble by just using the oven.

For eggplant roasting experience number two, I played smarter. I turned the eggplant often so it would char evenly rather than get too cooked on one side and burst. The whole thing only takes about 15 minutes so there's no excuse for not sticking close by and doing it right. The flame was on the lowest simmer. The hardest part is cooking the thicker bottom but setting the eggplant upright for a couple of minutes did the trick. There was still a small spill but nothing like the first one. When the eggplant was soft, I set it in a bowl for a while to drain out the bitter fluids, and cool a bit.

The next part involved cutting it in half and scooping out the flesh, carefully retrieving all of the eggplant that was clinging to the charred skin. This was easy, easy. Next I used my chef knife to chop the eggplant into a purée, which I mixed with tahini, lemon juice, sea salt and finely minced garlic to end up with baba ghannouj - smoky and fabulous, just like it should be. I think this is the only way I want to have baba ghannouj from now on.

Baba ghannouj

Creamy broccoli mushroom bake / veganmofo 2009

2009-10-21T17:29:00.011-07:00

Bear with me here. I'm going to start with one thing and end with another but it really will all tie together in the end, you'll see. And all of it involves food. It all started with an email from my son asking if I knew about AmazonFresh. Well, no, I didn't, but soon after the email arrived I was on my way to placing my first-ever delivered-grocery order. Said son had a coupon code for 25% off the first order and we both decided to try it out of curiosity. Naturally, I was overcome with guilt about ordering from a subsidiary of giant Amazon instead of shopping at the local coop, but I used weird logic to calm my nerves. The delivery service is associated with Amazon but separate from it and operates only in Seattle - not even the whole of Seattle. The organic veggies I was looking at were from Washington and Oregon. Still. Is this OK? We went to the farmers market AND the coop in addition to the order, but still.

So I went online and made up a shopping list. I chose a pre-dawn delivery time for Sunday morning and waited in suspense. The next morning there was a stack of plastic bins on the porch, filled with our food. All we had to do was put it away. We felt very strange about this but kind of liked it too.

In addition to food and other items usually found at a grocery store, you can add certain other things usually found at Amazon - need a CD with your groceries? A pedometer, maybe? A cookbook? A cookbook. Well, actually, Vegan Yum Yum had been in my Amazon cart for quite a while, and it just happened to be available at AmazonFresh. So I added it to the list. And that brings me to the next part of the post. When the food was delivered, so was the cookbook. It's a gorgeous cookbook filled with wonderful food pictures, and tonight we tried one of the recipes. My husband made creamy broccoli mushroom bake. All I can say is, "yum yum."

Another day another soup / veganmofo 2009

2009-10-20T17:18:00.009-07:00

As veganmofo continues, I find my posts are getting out later and later in the day. At first it was fun to post every weekday, and I had a post up by 6:30 a.m.. It's still fun, but now it's getting harder, and here it is almost 5:30 p.m., and the post is just getting started. I've been so focused on getting a post out every day I completely missed celebrating (or at least mentioning) my 200th post. (Of course, I also missed my 100th post, and that had nothing to do with veganmofo.) So, hooray, this is my 207th post. And it's going to be about soup. Because we can't seem to stop eating the stuff. And it's going to be short.

If you've been reading along, you've probably noticed all the soups we've been making from Love Soup. And why not make them? When you find a good thing, it makes sense to take advantage of it. So, we made another, and this time it was red lentil and squash soup, made not with butternut squash as per the recipe, but with delicata squash that we purchased at the farmers market. We also had steamed brussels sprouts, and I just added mine to my bowl. Then we garnished the bowls with a little grated Daiya cheese that we bought to try, and can't seem to use up. Another fabulous soup.

And I made some flatbread to go with it. The dough was refrigerated leftover Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day-type bread that had been constructed with white whole wheat and barley flour. I got the idea for the bread shape from the mezze cooking class we'd just recently taken. I would have topped it with sesame seeds if we'd had any, but had to settle for pumpkin seeds instead.

My son also got his hand in the soup-making frenzy around here but he didn't use "the book." I saw him looking at a recipe on the PPK but he said we were missing most of the ingredients so he used whatever he could find in addition to the potatoes and beans I'd asked him to build his soup around. The soup was excellent but he was not able to provide a recipe. Sorry.

Chestnuts exploding over an open fire / veganmofo 2009

2009-10-19T13:41:00.002-07:00

My mother was a pretty straightforward cook, and our dinners were usually meat, potato, salad when my father was home, and chicken, potato, salad when he wasn't. There was an occasional foray into frozen green beans or canned peas, but she didn't experiment much. For every holiday, we knew the menu. I can remember the few times she experimented with new recipes; for example, there was the flounder baked in sour cream, the schnecken, and the roasted chestnuts...

I was about 14 the first time my mother made roasted chestnuts. She made them in a covered pan on the stove. We were pretty excited as this was something we'd never had before. There was a nice toasty smell, and then suddenly there was the sound of gunfire, or firecrackers. The lid flew off the pot, and sharp, hot objects began catapulting around the room. We started shrieking and ducking for cover under the kitchen table. We soon realized the chestnuts were exploding, and stopped yelling, but all hell was breaking loose, and we were powerless to leave our shelter. The shrieks turned to gales of laughter as we waited for the disaster to end. All of the chestnuts had exploded into a zillion pieces and the kitchen was covered with debris. We were practically paralyzed with hysterical laughter as we tried to undo the damage. My mother checked the recipe and found she'd skipped the part about cutting an x into each chestnut to allow the steam to escape. Oh well.

Before we moved here and rented the house we're living in, I don't think I'd ever seen a chestnut tree. Here, I noticed trees with odd, prickly green fruit and wondered what they were — some kind of nut tree? All of a sudden, the tree at our house dropped its fruits, and chestnuts were lying all over the sidewalk and street. The minute I saw this nutty display, I ran for bowls and started collecting. But wait a minute ... are these really chestnuts? After a bit of Internet research I've learned that what we have covering the street and sidewalk are HORSE CHESTNUTS, and they are POISONOUS. Figures. The question here is why do people plant poisonous horse chestnut trees when they can have sweet, edible chestnuts instead? Why, why, why?

Here's what a sweet chestnut pod looks like.

This is a horse chestnut pod.

Sweet chestnut pods are covered in long spines that go every which way. The spines are so thick the pod skin can't be seen. Horse chestnut pods have much fewer, shorter spines. I collected the sweet chestnut pod on a walk. If I could just remember where...

Horse chestnuts

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Today is my birthday and we plan to try out a new (to us) restaurant tonight. The restaurant I really want to go to is closed on Mondays. Sometimes we get caught in a restaurant rut and go back to the same places again and again, so I'm willing myself to try someplace different tonight. With so many options available to us, it's the fun and adventurous thing to do. Right?

Middle Eastern mezze cooking class / veganmofo 2009 / cookbook winner

2009-10-16T13:56:00.004-07:00

Spiced olives

On Tuesday night my husband and I took another cooking class at PCC Natural Markets, and I can't say enough good things about it. Please excuse me if I blabber on and on about how wonderful the food was. The class was taught by Sureyya Gokeri, originally from Turkey, who taught us the Turkish versions of several well-known dishes. Sureyya teaches classes at PCC as well as at her family's business, Istanbul Imports, and if you live in the Seattle area I highly recommend taking one of her classes. Although the class syllabus (baba ghannouj, taboulleh salad, spiced olives, Turkish artichokes, flatbread from Jordan, stuffed dates from Iraq, and tahini sauce with bean salad) sounded very familiar, Sureyya's versions of these dishes were a revelation.

Mezze refers to food that comes to the table before the main course — Middle Eastern hors d'oeuvre. The main meal usually contains meat, but mezze consists of fresh vegetables, bread and olive oil. We started with zaytun musabbeh — spiced olives from Lebanon. In my mind you can hardly go wrong with olives - I always gravitate to the olive tray at parties — and this salad was an olive-lovers dream. Sureyya used marinated olives bought from the olive bar at PCC. The recipe contains pomegranate juice, and Sureyya also added fresh pomegranate arils. She showed us how to open the pomegranate by removing both ends and peeling carefully like an apple.

Taboulleh

We learned a few cooking tricks to make the food more flavorful. For example, Sureyya always adds each dried herb to a small amount of olive oil to more thoroughly release its flavor. She then adds the oil and herb to the dish. She also told us her mother stored fresh herbs wrapped in tissue paper rather than in plastic. She said this keeps the herbs fresher longer.

When she made the taboulleh, she added paprika to color it, as well as ground cumin and crushed red pepper. It was served Turkish style in crisp leaves of romaine lettuce. (Do you see the pomegranate seeds in there?)

Bean salad with tahini sauce

Our teacher made a simple bean salad with lemon juice, olive oil, cumin and Italian parsley, to go on top of a thick and creamy tahini dressing. It was so good, just thinking about it makes me hungry.

baba ghannouj and khoubiz

I was most impressed with the baba ghannouj. Traditionally, eggplant for this dish is grilled over charcoal, imparting a smoky flavor. Sureyya roasted one eggplant in the oven, and grilled the other eggplant on the gas stove burner over very low heat until it was black and completely soft. She peeled off the blackened skin and chopped the eggplants by hand. The result was a smoky and fabulous dip. To go with the dip she made Khoubiz, flatbread from Jordan. The bread was very simple to make, and tasted amazing.

The enginar, or Turkish artichokes, was something I've never eaten before, but am sure to eat again now that I know how to make it. I've never seen a better use for peas and carrots!

I'm sorry to say the photos of our dessert, holwah tamar or stuffed date sweetmeats from Iraq, were too blurry to use. This was simply dates pureed in a food processor, mixed with chopped blanched almonds, rolled into balls and rolled in either toasted sesame seeds or shredded coconut. Very simple and delicious.

Sureyya has graciously allowed me to share her recipe for olive salad.

Zaytun Musabbeh (Spiced olives from Lebanon) serves 6 to 8

1 lb. pitted green olives or marinated olives
1 teaspoon sea salt
1 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon dried thyme
1/2 cup finely chopped red onion
3/4 cup chopped Italian parsley
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons pomegranate juice (or more to taste)
1/4 to 1/2 cup fresh squeezed lemon juice
2 cloves garlic, finely minced
2 firm tomatoes, diced
1/2 cup fresh red or green pepper, chopped

Place olives in a bowl (rinsing the brine is optional) and chop into small pieces.
Add the dried spices to olive oil and then rub into the olives by hand.
Add the rest of the ingredients except for the tomatoes and peppers.
Add the tomatoes and peppers just before serving.

Variations

Instead of olives you can use one of the following: potatoes, cucumbers, roasted eggplant, beans such as chickpeas or kidney beans, or mushrooms.
Add chopped walnuts to the salad.
Add fresh pomegranate arils.
If tomatoes are out of season, use 1 tablespoon of tomato paste or red pepper paste.

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The winner of the cookbook giveaway is Courtney. Courtney, please send me your address and I'll send the book to you. Congrats!

Chipotle vegetable soup / veganmofo 2009

2009-10-15T13:50:00.003-07:00

I should call this post "Pantry Soup" because I made use of stuff from the refrigerator and pantry in an effort to move older stuff out and use up leftovers, including a container of leftover pasta sauce and the end of a bag of frozen corn. I started out wanting a simple cauliflower soup but one thing led to another, and before I was done, it was a full-blown vegetable bean soup. I quick-soaked a cup of kidney beans in eight cups of water by bringing the water to a boil then turning off the stove and letting the beans sit for an hour in the covered pot. I then cooked the beans until they were tender, adding more water as necessary. When they were soft, I added the leftover tomato sauce. I made a flavoring mix of peanut butter, miso, chipotle powder and dried crushed red pepper, and added it to the beans. The onions were caramelized by cooking slowly in a wok for about 30 minutes. After making three soups from "Love Soup" that required caramelized onions, I've become very fond of the added flavor caramelizing brings out. The veggies (except corn) were cut, and simmered with water in a separate pot (to preserve color) to tenderize them and make broth. When cooked, they were added to the beans.

The corn was added last so it wouldn't get over-cooked. I intended to add parsley at the end, but our bag of parsley was gross and unusable. So what's in your refrigerator? Maybe it's time to make soup.

I'm providing a list of ingredients but all quantities are approximate, as they should be. Remember, a tasting spoon is your most valuable piece of cooking equipment!

Vegetable and kidney bean soup
kidney beans (cup dry)
water (8+ cups for the beans, more for the veggies)
leftover tomato sauce (cup) or a can of tomatoes
onion, chopped - caramelized
cauliflower, cut up (head)
celeriac, sliced thin (chunk)
potato, large dice (1)
carrot, sliced (2 large)
frozen corn (cup)
salt to taste
peanut butter (Tbsp.)
mellow white miso (Tbsp.)
chipotle powder (tsp.)
dried crushed red pepper

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Vegetarian spiders found

Just in time for Halloween comes a nice but slightly creepy spider story. The spiders in question are (almost) vegetarian so I thought you'd want to know about them. Except for an occasional treat of ant larvae, these tropical spiders eat plant buds. Check it out. This is real - not a joke.

Surprise box

2009-10-14T11:30:00.002-07:00

It was a gray and gloomy day. There was wind. There was rain. It was damp and chilly. "Bleh. Is this what I have to look forward to?," was the thought in my mind as I arrived home. Five more months of weather forecasts that predict, "rain at times, chance of showers, rain and then showers, rain with sun breaks." Sun breaks? Might as well check the mail, I thought, a bunch of junk mail will make the day complete. But in addition to the junk mail, sitting on the landing was a box addressed to me from Lindsay from Cooking for a Vegan Lover. My mystery box had arrived, and suddenly the day seemed a lot better. (Not sunnier or drier, mind you, but better.) Lindsay had held a giveaway contest a few weeks ago and I was the lucky winner. I love surprises almost as much as I love sunshine.

Here's what was in the box: There was a one pound bag of crunchy veggie chips, and

a piney bar of shea butter soap that smelled just like the North Woods (of Wisconsin, even though it was made in N.Y.).

There was a bottle of vegan Worcestershire sauce.

There was a spicy jar of peanut butter with several kinds of hot peppers.

The box also contained two gnu bars, rosemary and sea salt flatbread, parma, hummus, Heart Thrive energy bars and green tea. Thank you so much Lindsay for all these special vegan treats.

Lindsay is doing a care-package swap. Click here for more information on how to participate.

Anniversary dinner / vegan mofo 2009

2009-10-13T04:09:00.000-07:00

On Sunday we walked to the vegan bake sale (that I baked for last Friday) at Sidecar for Pigs Peace vegan store to buy a bunch of treats for dinner. Sunday was our Anniversary and two of our sons (the third had to work) were cooking us an Anniversary dinner. We wanted to support the sale, and bring dessert to the dinner. Above you can see some of the brownies, pumpkin cookies, blondies, peanut butter cookies, oatmeal chocolate chip cookies and more that we snagged at the sale. It was fun to have so much variety for dessert. (I really loved the pumpkin cookies so if you made them and are reading this, please share the recipe!)

If you read this blog you know that our sons and their partners are all great cooks, and we always eat well at their homes. Sunday was no exception. One son made an enormous pot of three-bean chili that was incredible, and the other made a great cornbread, and a fabulous vegetable stir-fry filled with leafy greens from his garden plus broccoli. It was the perfect meal for a chilly fall evening. I took bad photos so I can't post pictures of the yummy food, except for a not-so-great photo of the chili pot.

However, I got a cute shot of Erica, (from "dinner with Aaron and Erica"), and another of Erica and her most dedicated fan club member, goofing around. Behind Erica's back (photo below) you can see the unpredictable and not-always-nice, Lola, resentfully sharing her chair.

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Jonathan Safran Foer on eating meat

There's an essay in last Sunday's New York Times Magazine you might appreciate. Written by Jonathan Safran Foer, the essay, entitled "Against Meat," follows the author's struggles with the cultural and ethical concept of meat-eating from the age of 10 to the present. Well -written and heart-felt, many vegetarians and vegans will identify with and appreciate Foer's struggles and decisions. Jonathan Safran Foer is the author of "Everything is Illuminated" and "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close." His new book of non-fiction, "Eating Animals" will be published in November.

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There are still three more days to enter the cookbook giveaway! Get your copy of "Love Soup" by Anna Thomas just in time for winter soup weather.