The Lustful Vegan

I have a fridge full of veggies, and no time to cook^*. The weekend saw me skivving off to Stratford (the Canadian spin-off, not the UK original) with one of m’darlings for a couple days of pre-birthday fun. It was nicely uncrowded and even fairly un-touristy at this time of year, particularly considering that it was Mother’s Day weekend. We stayed at the lovely Glenwood B&B, saw  The Music Man at the Stratford Festival, and had a wonderful time browsing some of the interesting shops around town. If you ever make it there, check out Quark Soup and the amazing toy store, Family & Company! They’re well worth a romp or two, and it doesn’t matter how old you are.

The chocolate shops proved a tasty diversion too. The first (Rheo Thompson) was not terribly vegan-friendly, but the second (Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory) offered one of those happy vegan experiences that make time away special. We showed up, made our usual “do you have anything without eggs or dairy” request, and promptly got a personal, friendly tour of the half dozen options available to us. The Power Hounds (dark chocolate coconut clusters) were soooooo good. I’m not sure it’s a good thing that I just discovered they have a shop in nearby Kitchener, and another in downtown Toronto, and yet another in the very airport I’ll be passing through on Wednesday…

But really, the culinary highlight of Stratford? VegOut. It’s a little vegan cafe just off the main strip. Great location, even better food. If we’d been Good And Responsible Food Critics^TM, we’d have ordered a few different dishes to share, so that we could report back on the full range of offerings. We didn’t. In place of long excuses, I’ll give you three words:

Fish. And. Chips.

Okay, let’s make that four: Vegan. Fish. And. Chips.

Yes, you read that right. They offered battered fake fish, complete with vegan tartar sauce. It mimicked real fish and chips well enough to suit my rusty memory. In fact I liked these far better than I ever liked the real thing — most F&C always seemed to be made with either low-quality fish, or come over-battered or over-greasy. These were crispy, well-filled, fried but not greasy, and very tasty. The fries were equally good. We both ordered the same thing without even hesitating. Then we went back later for dessert. The apple-raspberry pie was wonderful — nice tart apples, a good crust, and I even got to enjoy that crust since it was heated in an oven rather than a microwave, and thus wasn’t soggy and gross. The soy hot chocolate was the most chocolatey I’ve had outside my own kitchen. M’darling found his chocolate-peanut butter ‘cheesecake’ less rich than the versions we’ve had at Vegetarian Haven in Toronto, but enjoyed the couple bites he managed to steal of my pie.

I took no camera and thus took no photos. Just take my word for it — the food was fabulous and you too should go there if you ever have the chance. We found the place through HappyCow. Travelling? Need to find a vegan or vegetarian restaurant? You should check out HappyCow, and add reviews of any new places you find too!

So those were the highlights of the weekend. Tomorrow I’m off to Toronto, and Wednesday I’m off to Boston. At this point I’m not even sure when I’m back, but certainly by this time next week. Cookery, photos, and assorted blathering to resume then, or sometime near then. =)

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^* Which is killing me, because our eagerly-awaited grill just arrived. Literally. It’s still in a big box in front of me, and all I want to do now is grill and eat everything in the house. *g*

Pea soup is proof that I’ve grown up. As a kid I hated the stuff — it tasted just awful to me. (Well, except for canned Habitant pea soup, which was really nothing more than lard and salt. ***shudder***) Fortunately my taste buds matured along with the rest of me, and now it’s a Good Thing. Especially since it’s easy to make in a slow cooker, and I love my slow cooker. It asks for virtually no attention from me while it does its thing, and fills the house with mouth-watering smells. Though I eventually learned not to put things on to cook late at night — those mouth-watering smells literally woke me up in the wee hours, starving!

The secret to this recipe is the broth. Soaking sundried tomatoes and smoked chipotle peppers together with the bouillon creates a wonderfully rich liquid. (Can you say ‘umami‘?) I don’t find much heat from the peppers either, as long as you don’t break them up.

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Today was a blast. I got up too early (any morning hour is too early on a weekend), grabbed a quick shower, and headed downtown to the Kitchener market to meet K. We found each other, and then spent a pleasant hour or so wandering around, restocking on fruits and veggies. Eventually we headed to her place to drop off our things and say hi to their adorable dog Sammy, and then it was off around the corner for our raw food workshop.

The workshop was two hours of numminess, with a side helping of good company. We were joined by around eight others, plus our instructor. She started us off with edamame hummous dip, which was quite fresh tasting. Then we each received a plate of several samples:

Clockwise from the bottom, you’re looking at bean-free refried beans, mango salsa, dairy-free sour cream, corn tortillas, and guacamole.

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For some strange reason there’s a conspiracy of lentils this week. I certainly didn’t set out to make an all-lentil dinner, but that’s what I ended up with. How can you go wrong with lentils, though?

First there was lentil soup. Lemony lentil soup. I had a small heap of lemons in the crisper, and a shiny new bag of beluga lentils (which at 24% apparently boast the highest amount of protein of all the lentils). I figured these had to go together. The results? Zingy! Fabulously zingy. I won’t be getting scurvy anytime soon. Served with sweet potato fries, it was very hearty. This might be my new favourite soup; the recipe’s below.

And after dinner? Lentil cookies. As soon as I knew such a thing existed, I had to make them. And omg, yum! Fresh from the oven they were light and crispy on the outside, and full of cranberry-cherry tastiness. Instant love. The original recipe is easily veganized (sub Earth Balance for butter, egg replacer for the egg). For extra flavour I simmered my lentils in light coconut milk with a goodly pinch of nutmeg and maybe a half teaspoon of mace. (Vanilla rice milk would probably be equally good.) I also toasted my oats in the toaster oven while doing other things. (325F, stirred twice, maybe 6 minutes?) For some reason my cookies took an extra couple minutes to bake, but that might just be an oven variation. Regardless, these are fabulous, particularly when toasted for a few minutes to crisp them up. I suspect they’ll make my top-3 list of cookies long before I finish eating them all. Besides, they have protein and fruit in them, so they’re healthy, right?

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Happy Pi Day! Those crazy mathematicians may claim they need pi to do complicated things to circles, but I know it’s just an excuse for a day filled with the other pie.

In honour of the day we’re just starting a round-themed dinner. Two pizzas (topped among other things with round little roasted cherry tomatoes and rounds of veggie sausage), a cherry pie, and a couple dozen wee little lemon tarts. Everything round!

The lemon tarts are an adaptation of the lemon squares in the Veganomicon. Square didn’t fit with the day, so I adapted the recipe to make tarts instead. If you have the book, I highly recommend the recipe — they make perfect little lemon meringueless pies, utterly divine. Just a note: If making tarts, bake the crusts for only 12 to 15 minutes, not the full time in the original recipe. Also, I followed a long-ago tip and filled each tart with about a tablespoon of dry beans to keep the tart crusts from shrinking and ‘puffing’ when I baked them. (But do remember to take all the beans out before filling the tarts with lemony goo.) Yum!

Back from Cuba, but why, oh why did I come back? It’s -11C with windchill today, and we got enough snow and freezing rain overnight that I can’t see the walkways between houses anymore. And to think that a week ago I was frolicking in the ocean.

More on Cuba later. It wasn’t all sun and beach and rum — we spent most of our time in Havana, exploring and learning and experiencing culture shock. I’ll write something up later this week, when my thoughts have settled a bit.

In the meantime, yay for being home! Yay for running amok in my own kitchen again! For some reason I got hit with a massive craving for chocolate cake yesterday, and after lusting for the stuff for several hours I finally got off my *@@ and looked up how to make one. (No, I’d never made chocolate cake from scratch before — behold my shame.) Based on some googling I settled on a PPK recipe, but then another search led me to a most fascinating article. It turns out that a few years ago Cook’s Illustrated took on the challenge to create the perfect vegan chocolate cake. *gasp!* I really wanted to try it, but didn’t have everything I needed. In the end I created a hybrid of the two recipes, and thus was born Devil Ducky Cake…

(Devil Ducky is actually functional — it keeps the saran wrap off the icing.

It’s very, very dense. Sweet chocolate, you are my density. Also, my breakfast.

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.

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.

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A friend of mine made cinnamon buns on the weekend, and the mere thought drove me mad with desire. But it’s not like I could just run out and buy a vegan sticky bun. Not around here anyway. So I spent a little time looking at her recipe, and eventually crafted a vegan version. They’re not as complicated as they look.

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