A weekend of vegetables
It was a long weekend here, and I spent much of it trying to use up the countless veggies in the fridge. There was a lot of spinach and a lot of basil, so poof! then there was pesto. This made for a lovely pasta dish topped with steamed chard. And since I still had pesto left over after that, and also a whole bunch of root veggies, I made a warm salad of roasted potatoes, turnips, and radishes, all tossed with green onions and pesto and vegan parmesan. Yum! Now I can at least fit things into the crispers, but I still have cauliflower and beets and corn and zucchini and carrots and beans and yet more potatoes to work my way through.
Zucchini cherry bread
To make a dent in the zucchini I tried making a zucchini cherry bread today. It’s really just a veganized version of this recipe, but with dried cherries in place of walnuts (I was all out). The bread turned out quite well, if a bit sweet. Next time I’ll add walnuts (but keep the cherries!), reduce the oil a titch, and reduce the sugar by a quarter or third. Cranberries might work nicely in this too — their tartness would help balance the sweetness of the bread.
Zucchini cherry bread
- 1 cup sugar
- 1/2 cup vegetable oil
- 1 cup grated zucchini
- 3 T soy milk or other liquid
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 1/2 tsp egg replacer powder
- 1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1/4 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/4 cup dried cherries
To make:
- Preheat oven to 325F. Lightly oil a bread pan.
- ‘Cream’ the oil and sugar together until a little fluffy.
- Stir in the zucchini, vanilla, and soy milk.
- In another bowl, mix together the flour, cinnamon, soda, baking powder, salt, and egg replacer powder. Stir into the wet mixture.
- Quickly fold in the cherries.
- Pour batter into the loaf pan, and bake 60 to 70 minutes.
* If using a flax egg or other egg substitute, just replace the egg replacer powder and soy milk in the above recipe.
Brownie doom
It needs to be said: Not everything I cook works out. In fact, sometimes things fail rather spectacularly.
Last night, for instance, I suddenly found myself craving brownies. Brownies seem particularly fraught for me. I used to have a no-fail recipe that I loved, but then suddenly it started failing for no obvious reason. Failure in that case just meant “super crumbly”, but still tasty and edible. Nevertheless, I decided not to use it last night, because I wanted not-crumbly. A bit of googling offered up a new recipe to try, and off I went. It was a simple recipe, and over two thousand commenters raved about it. How could I go wrong?
I’m not sure, but I found a way. I made the substitutions for the non-vegan ingredients, found the batter yummy and tasty, put it in a pan, and started counting down to yummy brownies.
Fifteen minutes later I noticed a distinct snapping, bubbling sound from the oven. A peek showed that the top of my ‘brownies’ was now in fact a layer of bubbling oil. The Earth Balance somehow separated, and was in the process of deep-frying my brownies. Eek!
This is roughly when I remembered that I try to avoid subbing equal parts Earth Balance for butter. For some reason recipes seem to require less EB. Fie. I tried pouring off the layer of bubbly oil (a full 1/4 cup of it, ew!) and baking a little longer to see if the brownies would set. But when I eventually pulled them out…neutronium brownies. Seriously, they’re so dense and stuck to the pan that I’m not sure the pan is salvageable. 
Even so, failures are tasty. I scraped a bit of doomed neutronium brownie from the pan, put it on the last of my frozen [soy] yogurt, and topped it with the last of my market strawberries. Voila, one Doomed Sunday. Mmmmm, tasty doom.
Sweet & sour cupcakes
It’s been a week for experimentation. The tempeh chowder didn’t work out too well, but the peppercorn stroganoff surprised me and did. Then I realized just how much rhubarb I had kicking around, and decided it was time to make a stab at…rhubarb cupcakes.
A quick google search (why reinvent the wheel?) turned up this recipe, and for a while I thought I was good to go — I could just veganize it. But after writing out a vegan version using the ingredients I had available, I had second thoughts — it just didn’t look like it would produce the nice, light cupcake I was hoping for. (Not enough liquid, and egads, there were almost 3 tsp of baking powder once I substituted for the self-raising flour!) So I went back to our trusty old VCTOTW, adjusting the seasonings for a plain jane vanilla cupcake. I added some lemon extract, 1 1/2 tsp of powdered ginger, 1 tsp cinnamon, and maybe 1/4 tsp ground cloves. Voila, fluffy, slightly gingery cupcakes. For the filling I followed that original recipe’s instructions, chopping up around 2 cups of rhubarb and adding just a touch of pomegranate juice (yum), an inch of minced fresh ginger, probably 1/3 cup sugar, and reducing the lot to a thick rhubarb-y goo. (The only catch was I made too little — enough to fill 9 cupcakes instead of all 12.)
To assemble I just scooped out the centres, iced the edges (plain buttercream), filled the middles with rhubarb, iced the ‘caps’ and popped them on top. So. Very. Yummy. The sweet of the cupcake and icing complement the sour of the rhubarb perfectly. I took most to class and left some for the housemate’s date, and today there are none left. 
Pie!
A rare alignment of the culinary planets brought me fruit, lots and lots of fruit. I had a huge bunch of rhubarb, two plump mangoes, and maybe 24 hours in which to use them up. Hmmmm, I thought, wonder what they’d taste like together?
The answer? Tasty. The sweetness of the mangoes nicely balances the tartness of the rhubarb. (Well, the mangoes plus a cup of sugar, but I digress.) I think the combination might actually work even better in a crisp, but won’t know until a similar culinary alignment brings me those ingredients again. And next time I’d make it tarter, because I like my rhubarb treats mouth-puckeringly tart…but my housemate declared this version perfect for the rest of the world. 
Rhubarb mango pie
- Pie dough for two crusts (I made a full batch of this, used half, and froze the rest for some future pie-making. There were enough trimmings to make an extra tart after making the pie.)
- 1/4 cup ground almonds
- 1 tablespoon unbleached flour
- 2 cups mango, peeled and chopped small
- 2 cups rhubarb, chopped small
- 1 cup sugar*
- 1/3 cup flour
- 1/2 T cinnamon**
To assemble:
- Preheat oven to 350F.
- Prepare your pie dough. When ready, roll out half and fill a pie pan, trimming the edges.
- Line the shell with a sheet of parchment paper, and pour in enough dry beans to cover the bottom. (These will keep your crust from shrinking as it bakes.)
- Put the pie pan on a cookie sheet in case of drips, and bake until golden brown (app. 15 minutes). Remove the parchment paper and beans. Sprinkle it with the mixture of ground almonds and flour. Bake another 5 minutes.
- Let cool.
- Mix the rhubarb and mango with the remaining flour, sugar, and cinnamon.
- Pour into the cooled pie crust.
- Roll out the other half of the pie dough until big enough to cover the pie. Press the edges and cut steam vents on top.
- Bake (again on a baking sheet for drips) for 45 minutes to 1 hour…basically until golden brown on top and bubbly in the middle. I started with 30 minutes and then checked every 5 to 10, but lost count. )
* Next time I would cut the sugar to 2/3 cup, because I like my pie tart rather than sweet, but my housemate thought it was fine as is (and proved it by snagging two pieces).
** Cinnamon was okay, but mango demands something a little more exotic. Next time I’m thinking allspice.
Wandering Stratford
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 CriticsTM, 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. =)
* 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*
Giving peas a chance
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.
Raw!
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.
Lentil lurv
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?
Pi Day!
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!
Devil Ducky Cake
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.
