Sekrets revealed
So a while back I made a comment about some Sooper Sekret Projekts I had underway. These were for Valentine’s Day (no real ’sekret’ there), and since all have finally been delivered I can now post about them. Besides, this way I get in one last free entry before disappearing on vacation for a week. 
So, the projects. I wanted to send a Valentines-y surprise parcel, but filled with what? I figured it should be something sweet (Valentines seems a very saccharine festival). Also there should probably be hearts of some sort. Finally, I wanted something a bit more involved than my normal baking, just to show I cared. (Egads, I’m devolving into Hallmark-speak just thinking about it. Enough!)
For prototype projects I chose two things — “Perfect Vegan Sugar Cookies” and the peppermint pucks from Squirrel’s Vegan Kitchen.
The sugar cookies proved fairly easy to make, despite the two-stage process of baking and glazing. I found that the cookies weren’t sweet enough on their own, though, but with the icing they seemed a bit too sweet. (Even if they were pretty!) Admittedly they grew on me as I slowly ate my way through the test batch. *g*
The peppermint pucks (or in my case minty hearts and other assorted shapes) were a pain to make — literally since I singed all my fingertips dipping the mint innards into hot, dark, melty chocolate. But omg, mmmmmm, so good! Peppermint Patties for vegans, woot! (Only better.)
In the end I decided against the peppermint treats as the final winner, though, because they really did need refrigeration to stay nice and firm. (Oh no, that means I still have a dozen of the test batch in the freezer. How will I survive?!?) I just couldn’t be sure they’d survive even a single day in the mail. That meant going with the cookies. But wait, I could borrow from both prototypes! And thus were born chocolate-glazed sugar cookies. The glaze I made from approximately 1 oz unsweetened chocolate, 1 oz good dark chocolate, 1 T corn syrup, and a healthy splash of vanilla. These all melted down in a double boiler, into rich, dark decadence. It was too thick a mixture to dip the cookies, so I had to ‘ice’ them with the molten mixture — quickly, because the chocolate started to set almost as soon as I scooped it up. Overall those cookies were tasty, but I think the dark chocolate glaze actually needed a bit more sweet to it. Next time! I’m told they were very good with peanut butter.
So those were the Sooper Sekret Valentines Projekts. Strangely, I somehow missed taking any shots of the final dark hearts. Fie.
Around the world in 80 meals
This week I’ve made Thai, Chinese, Irish, and Italian dishes. What’s next?
Actually what’s next is Cuban food, but not of my own making. I’m heading to Cuba for a week on Friday, so I’ve been trying to eat everything in the fridge that I figure my housemate won’t use. That effort’s been going well…so well that yesterday I peeked into the crispers and found only a few bits of kale, three beets, two scallions, a couple mushrooms, some basil, and half a turnip. A scan of the rest of the kitchen turned up a container of cherry tomatoes that were just a little bit soft. The beets would last a week. The kale I had other plans for. That left turnip, scallions, basil, mushrooms, and tomatoes. Don’t ask me how I connected those dots to form this picture, but I did:
That’s fresh turnip gnocchi with a roasted tomato sauce. No, I’d never made gnocchi before, let alone turnip gnocchi. It was a grand experiment. I basically followed these helpful instructions for regular gnocchi. In place of potato, I took my half turnip (roughly a pound) and roasted it (because boiling would have made it too moist), then mashed it. From that point I approached it like regular potato gnocchi, though adding salt and pepper and parsley for extra tastiness. (I subbed egg replacer for the egg.) I did find that the mixture needed much more flour than the potato gnocchi recipe called for — around double! I’m not sure whether that was because I was using something other than potatoes, or whether there was a flaw in the original potato gnocchi recipe, or if I just don’t grok what gnocchi dough is supposed to feel like. The resulting cooked gnocchi were subtle and tasty, but a little chewy. I think this was due to overkneading, though, as I frantically added more and more flour to make my sticky experimental mess turn into dough. I’ll know to use more flour and knead less next time. It may be a while, though — this probably made enough for 6 or so servings, and 2/3rds now happily occupy my freezer. Yay, gnocchi on demand!
The sauce was divine. Have you ever roasted cherry tomatoes? They’re exquisite. Roast’em, then sautee briefly with fresh basil, scallions, garlic, and a few mushrooms. Voila, one very simple, very tasty sauce.
Irish mash
Some dishes just don’t look appetizing, no matter how tasty they are. Colcannon’s one of those. It’s an Irish dish consisting of mashed potatoes with kale or cabbage, much like the Bubble and Squeak I remember my parents making when I was a kid.
As mush-like as it looks, Colcannon’s both tasty and a great way to use up kale or cabbage. Kale, in my case. I swear I purchased a bunch of Miracle Kale, because no matter how much of it I use, there’s always some left. This was my third major dish using the same bunch, and there’s plenty left to stuff potstickers with (but I’m getting ahead of myself — that’s dinner!).
As well as my lunchtime Colcannon turned out, I can’t help thinking it would make fabulous potato pancakes for breakfast. And come to think of it, there are leftovers…
Thai delights
Tonight I’m having a belated Valentine’s dinner with someone, and so spent part of this morning preparing this:
It’s a Thai dish calld Laab Nuea, and it’s soooooo tasty. It’s one of the only dishes I make using prepared ‘veggie ground’, and in this case combines that with lime juice, shallots, coriander, basil, and mint. Oh, and galangal, which is a lovely relation to ginger, with a hint of sweet mustard. It’ s hard to describe, but fortunately not that hard to find.
The man who passed this recipe on to me served it with jasmine rice, which was divine. I’ve also enjoyed it immensely in wraps. Tonight we’ll have it with Basmati, and a Thai mango salad. [Edit: The mango salad was divine!]
Stealth cookies
I engaged in a few Sooper Sekret projects for Valentine’s Day, including these peanut butter cookies for my housemate:
Y’know, I don’t think I’d ever baked vegan cookies before last week. Fortunately the PB cookies turned out perfectly. They’re dense and peanut buttery and juuuuuust sweet enough.
A hot cuppa
It’s been a cold week here — -29C with windchill on Monday, a mere -15C today, and a mini-blizzard in between. Half the people I know are sick, and that’s hardly surprising. I offered to make one of said friends some spice sachets for ginger tea and she took me up on it, so this morning I put a couple of these together:
And for myself, I’m thinking it’s time for some Firefighters tea. For years I’ve been a dedicated coffee girl — I loooooved my latte. These days I’m avoiding caffeine, though, and Firefighters makes that pleasant rather than a hardship. It’s a special blend made for a small local museum, which they sell to raise funds. Everyone I’ve introduced to it has fallen in love. It’s a rooibos, with cranberries, honeybush, cherries, and rose petals. It smells divine, just a little bit fruity.
Vaguely raw sushi
What do you make when you have a little jar of horseradish and a handful of wee parsnips, but not a lot of anything else left for lunch?
Why, sushi of course. Raw(ish) sushi. Ish, because I toasted the sesame seeds, I’m not sure whether canned water chestnuts are truly raw, and roasted rice powder can’t be raw. But still, there’s no rice, so it’s kinda raw, right? 
Simple things
Simple dinners are still good dinners. Tonight’s was a joint effort, producing sundried tomato fettucine with oregano pesto, topped with garlic mushrooms, chard, and red peppers. On the side, the horseradish garlic bread I’ve been plotting, on a freshly baked whole-wheat baguette.
Milk without the cow
I keep forgetting to post this link, which I think might interest at least a couple friends. Do you go through a lot of soy milk (or almond milk, rice milk, or other)? The stuff’s pricey, but the Gluten-Free Vegan points out that with a dedicated milk (‘mylk’?) machine you can make your own for around $0.12 to $0.25/week, instead of the usual $4.50 to $10/week the stuff costs around here (depending how much you go through, and how fast). You can also add your own vitamins to fortify it as needed, add oil to make it foam better if you use it to make lattes, add vanilla for flavour, etc etc etc. Seems easy enough.
I’m not sure I go through enough to make it worthwhile for me (I use soy/rice/almond milk almost exclusively in baking), but this sounds perfect for some others I know.
[Edit: Famous last words. I looked up soy milk makers on eBay out of curiosity, found this one available from Canada, and thus discovered you can also make your own tofu as a by-product of making soy milk. Soy yogurt too, apparently. *gasp* *gadget lust* That might well be worthwhile.]
Sekrets
I spent this evening working on two sooper sekret projekts, on the theory that at least one of them should work out. And truthfully, they did…more or less. But I learned a couple important things about cooking when I’m tired:
- I can’t read. Or rather, I don’t read — I skim. And thus I miss important points like “refrigerate for a couple hours.” Oops.
- I can’t do math. Or rather, I can…but sometimes I forget to do it. Thus some ingredients get halved…but others don’t. Oops2.
- Mint extract != almond extract, although the bottles do look very similar. Oops3.
- Molten chocolate really is molten. Mmmm, hot chocolatey lava. Mmmmm, unprotected fingertips. Oops4, and ouch.
It’s a miracle these things worked out as well as they did. But hey, this is why I beta test recipes.
Photos and details of the sooper sekret projects still to come…eventually.
