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*

The awesome folks over at What the hell does a vegan eat anyway? got me lusting last week, when they posted pics of a rib recipe (veganized, bien sur) from Gourmet magazine. Mmmmmm. But lacking the key ingredients (black vinegar, seitan, and the ability to deep fry things), I figured I’d take a stab at a baked tempeh version.

OMG. I bet the original version is even better, but these are yummy. The sauce reduces to a rich, savoury-sweet glaze full of ginger and caramelized shallots and garlic. I served them with steamed dandelion greens and garlic-celeriac mashed potatoes the first night, and balsamic mushrooms, cornmeal potato cakes, and a spinach/kale mixture the next. My omnivore housemate liked them a lot — he felt they really did have a certain ‘ribness’ going for them.

Damn, I’ve gone and made myself hungry.

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Know what I never look at in bookstores? Cooking magazines. At best there are maybe two veg-focused magazines on display, and they rarely excite me. The others…the others are full of things I don’t eat, so why bother?

Or so I thought. Um. I’m an idiot. Yes they’re full of things I don’t eat, but I kinda get a kick out of ‘veganizing’ recipes, so why should that prove an obstacle? And besides, they’re not just full of things I don’t eat…they’re also full of information. *swoon*

I like learning. Nah, I love learning, and cooking is one area where I certainly have a lot to learn. Imagine my delight, then, when yesterday for the first time in many ages I wandered into my local bookstore and checked out the cooking mags. I left with two. The one that got me all excited? Cook’s Illustrated. If you haven’t seen it before, it’s kind of a cross between a normal cooking magazine and Consumer Reports. The people who create it run a test kitchen, and they take a methodical, scientific approach to cooking. They tackle culinary questions like “what’s the best way to cook baby spinach” or “what’s the best chocolate cake recipe,” and try every variation imaginable until they find the answers. (It’s almost exhausting to read the descriptions of their labours.) Then they publish the results, complete with recipes. And yes, a lot of those results apply to vegan cookery just as much as to non-vegan cookery.

A five minute read-through of my copy felt like a three-hour cooking lesson, minus dinner at the end. But lunch…lunch I could do. The best way to learn is to apply lessons while they’re still fresh, right? And I can see myself trying and adapting a lot of the things in this issue.

But back to lunch. There was an article on making the best oven fries, and there were a couple of articles involving baked chicken. I went with those, because yum, fries! And also because I’ve tried making crispy faux chicken a few times in the past few months and haven’t been happy with any of the results — the coating always turns out a bit soggy, and I don’t care how tasty it is — soggy just isn’t acceptable.

Here’s the gist of the oven fries article: For the absolute best results, [1] Cut russet potatoes into wedges, [2] soak the wedges in hot water for 10 minutes and then drain and dry them, [3] in a baking pan season 4T of oil with salt and pepper, [4] spread potatoes evenly, [5] bake covered tightly with foil at 475F for 5 minutes, [6] remove the foil and continue baking 20 to 30 minutes, turning once.

Honestly? I burned mine. My bad — I cut my potato into too many wedges, so that they were too thin and cooked super-fast. Also my baking sheet is thin and crappy and doesn’t heat evenly, so that some fries did okay while others burned. C’est la vie. (Besides, I have thirteen more potatoes to play with!) The soaking and steaming did create a noticably better texture than I’ve managed with my usual oven fries recipe though; there were no ‘hollow’ fries. And seasoning the oil rather than the cut potatoes? Sheer genius. I was skeptical, but it worked perfectly.

Now for the chik’n. I used a PC meatless chik’n breast. It occurred to me that maybe past attempts hadn’t done as well because I hadn’t thawed the faux meat fully before prepping the meal, so this time I let the cut thaw overnight and made sure it was dry to the touch before starting. I think fake meats tend to hold more moisture than real meat, which may add to the challenge of creating a crispy coat. Anyway, I sliced mine in half to create two thinner cutlets, and then I breaded them. To do this I prepared one flax egg (1 T ground flax whisked into 1/4 cup hot water), and dipped both sides of each cutlet. Then I pressed these into panko (japanese breadcrumbs) seasoned with 1 T of nutritional yeast, salt, and pepper. The two tricks I picked up from Cook’s Illustrated were these: [1] Cook the chik’n on a rack set over a baking pan, and [2] spray the breaded cutlets lightly with oil before baking.

The results? Best breaded chik’n so far — crispy and lightly browned. The rack made a big difference in ensuring that both sides crisped up. My only excuse for not thinking this up myself is that my normal baking pans don’t have racks. Fortunately my housemate pointed out that my wee toaster oven pan does have such an insert, so I used that and it worked perfectly. I did forget two things while making these — I didn’t dredge the cutlets with flour before breading them, and I didn’t spray the baking rack. Neither proved major issues, and the finished product tasted wonderful topped with a raw tomato sauce (half a tomato, diced; a few basil leaves, minced; one garlic clove and one teaspoon capers, squeezed through a garlic press; salt and pepper to taste).

As lunches go, yum. As learning experiences go, likewise yum. And I still have a bunch more recipes and techniques eyemarked for trying. Is it dinner time yet?

It’s confession time again — in my pre-vegan days I never liked quiche. The sheer egginess of it always appalled me, even before we discovered that I was allergic to the damned eggy things.

But y’know, virtually everyone I know loves quiche, so I thought maybe it was time to give it another whirl. A vegan whirl. SusanV at FatFree Vegan Kitchen gets all the credit for this. Her crustless quiches looked good enough to tempt even me. How can you go wrong with tofu?

I wanted mine to have crusts, though, so I used the last of a large batch of whole wheat Never Fail Pie Crust to line eight mini tart pans and two pot pie pans. These I filled with the quiche mixture. My own was a leek and mushroom version — I used 2/3rds of a leek, finely chopped, in place of bell pepper. The mushrooms were sliced very thin. I used almond butter in place of tahini, thyme in place of rosemary, a bit of extra oil. Realistically these were all fairly minor alterations. The one change that I think made a real difference was using regular firm tofu instead of silken. A couple commenters mentioned that their mini quiche didn’t firm up completely, so I figured a firmer tofu might be the answer.

The results? Everybody who ate them liked them. Even my omnivore roommate declared them ‘quiche-y.’ The larger quiches (in the pot pie pans) proved to have a better, moister consistency when reheated. The little ones were a nice size for lunches. While tasty to start with, they were all noticeably tastier a couple days later. Mmmmmm. My only problem with them was that the leek greens ‘bled’ a little of their colour, so that the quiches weren’t the soft, buttery yellow I would have liked. Next time I’ll know to use only the whites, or maybe try shallots instead.

I keep meaning to start a table listing easy substitutions for when you’re trying to ‘veganize’ a recipe. I’ve made notes in a half dozen places, but can I ever find them when I want them? Nooooo. Anyway, here’s a first take, and I’ll keep revisiting this as I think of new things to add.

Ingredient:	Substitute:
Milk	Easy — try an equal amount of soy milk, almond milk, rice milk, oat milk, potato milk, coconut milk, raw mylk, etc.Bear in mind that different milks have different qualities. For example, rice and almond milk tend to be quite sweet, so might not do the trick in a savoury dish. Soy milk is roughly the same ‘thickness’ as regular milk, but rice milk is very thin — more like a skim milk. Most soy milks are sweetened — you may want to hunt for an unsweetened version (particularly if you have something like mashed potatoes on the menu). All versions have their own benefits, and you can even make some of them yourself, from scratch.
Cream	There are commercial soy-based ‘creams,’ but I haven’t tried any yet. When I need to replace cream, I tend to use: Powdered soy milk — mix with water to reconstitute, but keep whisking in extra powder until you reach the right consistency for the type of cream you’re replacing. One caveat — I find that the powdered soy milks I’ve tried tend to have a strong bean flavour that really stands out when you make a soy cream, so this works best when used in small amounts or in highly-flavoured dishes. Thick coconut milk — it’s not as thick as a whipping cream, but just fine for replacing half-and-half. It’s wonderful in curries and soups. Cashew cream — this works very well for creamy sauces, soups, desserts…pretty much anything. Blend approximately 1 part raw cashews with 3 parts liquid until well blended, then add more liquid or cashews as necessary to get the right consistency.
Buttermilk	Add 1T lemon juice or white/cider vinegar to a cup of soy milk. I find this does wonders in many baked treats.
Eggs	Pureed or mashed fruit. Apples, prunes, and banana all work. To replace one egg, try half a banana, or a quarter cup of apple or prune sauce. Best for baked goods, or anywhere the added sweetness and fruit flavour will prove tasty. I use pureed prunes in baked chocolate goods, though generally to replace oil rather than eggs. The flavour compliments the chocolate taste very nicely. Tofu. (1/4 cup silken tofu = 1 egg.) This is fairly neutral, taste-wise. Puree it with other wet ingredients before adding to the rest of the dish. Egg replacer. This is a commercial product — a cornstarch-like powder. There are a few varieties; the one I use is Kingsway, and calls for 1 tsp mixed with 2 T liquid to replace one egg. Others may vary. I’ve had excellent luck with the stuff in baking — it’s very convenient. I do tend to add a bit extra. This is also a neutral taste addition. Cornstarch. Another neutral taste. To replace one egg, mix 2 T of cornstarch with an equal amount of water. Flax. “Flax eggs” seem to be one of the most common egg replacers out there. To replace one egg, grind some flax seed (coffee grinders are great for this, but clean them well before and after!). Beat 1 T into 1/4 cup of water, until the mixture thickens a bit. Flax eggs add a slight nutty flavour to dishes.
Butter	I find I can use oil in place of butter in many cases; my oil of choice is grapeseed, because it’s fairly neutral taste-wise and handles high heat very well.If you really want a buttery flavour, try Earth Balance — a very tasty vegan margarine. (And no, most margarines aren’t vegan — the majority contain whey powder or casein, which are milk products.) I’ve found that in baked recipes I can cut back a bit on the amount of fat required when using Earth Balance; substituting 1:1 makes things a bit oily.
Lard	Use vegetable shortening.
Yogurt	Try soy yogurt — there are at least two varieties available out there. If you don’t have soy yogurt, you still have a couple options: Silken tofu, pureed with lemon juice or white/cider vinegar. I’ve done this, but can’t remember the exact proportions I used — I think it was 1T of the lemon/vinegar to 1 cup of tofu. Thickened soy buttermilk. I haven’t tried this myself yet, but bookmarked celineyum’s formula for the next time I’m out: Combine 6 oz soy milk with 1.5 T cornstarch. Microwave for 30 seconds, stir, microwave for another 15-20 seconds. Add a squeeze of lemon juice or splash of vinegar, let sit 3 minutes.
Cream cheese	Definitely try Tofutti Better Than Cream Cheese, which I’ve found in most health food stores and seen in some grocery stores. I always loved bagels and cream cheese, and no longer miss them. The stuff really is as good as they claim…and it makes heavenly cheesecake.
Sour cream	There are a couple commercial faux sour creams. I’ve tried the Tofutti one, but remain fairly unenthusiastic about it. Personally I prefer the raw sour cream I learned to make last month:Soak 1 ½ cups cashews for a few hours or overnight. In a blender, combine the cashews with ½ teaspoon salt, 2+ T lemon juice, and ¾ cup water. Blend until smooth, then taste. Adjust the seasonings as necessary (you will probably need more lemon juice), and then add water a bit at a time until you reach the right consistency.

Saturday morning saw me awake at around 5am, and up by 5:30. Ug. Have I mentioned that I’m so not a morning person? But there are advantages to seeing the sun come up — like realizing there’s time to make fresh muffins for everyone, to start a crazy-busy day. And lo, there were fresh, warm blueberry muffins for breakfast, and they disappeared so fast I didn’t get a single picture. But that’s okay, that just gave me an excuse to make more today.

Today’s version was, if anything, even better than Saturday’s. These muffins are surprisingly light and fluffy — so much so that my gf thought I’d adapted a cupcake recipe!

I love the fruitiness of these, particularly with today’s cranberry-blueberry mix. They’re not nearly as full of fat as everyone thinks either. For Saturday’s version I used Earth Balance, and they had a definite buttery taste. For today’s version I switched to oil, which gives a more neutral flavour that lets the fruit really come through. Mmmmm, fruit. Can’t wait for berry season!

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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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Lately I’ve become a fiend for hot chocolate. More on that later. In the meantime, though, I decided it was time to make up some chocolate ‘mylk’ to give me a slightly healthier version of the drink. As far as I can tell, “mylk” is a term coined by raw foodies, referring specifically to milks created from nuts or seeds. I like it — both the term and the drink.

My favourite mylk comes from an Ani Phyo recipe (from the book Ani’s raw food kitchen), and contains almonds, dates, cocoa powder, vanilla extract, and sometimes a titch of caramel extract. Yum! I find almost all store-bought chocolate milk (whether soy, rice, or almond-based) far too sweet for me, but with this mylk it’s always exactly right, because it’s so easy to tweak the recipe to my tastes. Less sweet, more chocolate! And while it does have yummy sweetness, the sugar all comes from whole dates and thus I don’t feel guilty. (Not that I’d feel guilty anyway.)

Mylk does have a bit of graininess when you drink it — this comes from the ground up almonds. You could probably filter it through cheesecloth or a coffee filter if that bothered you, though you’d lose some of the almond goodness. I notice the graininess less after it’s chilled in the fridge for a day or two though.

If you wanted to try some of your own, this recipe is fairly simple. You could use all water instead of the coconut milk, replace the vanilla bean with extract (1T = 1 bean), and even use almonds. These recipes are great to experiment with.

Going beyond the raw, I’ve used various mylks in baking and they work just fine. The most interesting was Ani’s pumpkin mylk, made from fresh pumpkin seeds. I drank half and used the rest in cupcakes. Tasty! And also handy, since mylk is easy to whip up from scratch when you run out of soy/rice/almond milk during a late-night baking spree. Not that that happened to me…noooooo…

…there can still be food, and photos of food.

I just finished constructing my first ghetto light tent. It cost me a whole dollar to make, because the only thing I needed to buy was a sheet of white posterboard. It’s a cardboard box with most of the sides cut out, and papered over with rice paper (I’ve had a huge roll of the stuff kicking around for years). Parchment paper probably would have worked too. Objects go inside the box/tent, placed on a backdrop that curves from the top-back to bottom-front — curved so that you get no lines in the shot, and the background looks continuous. (Apparently this is called a ’sweep’.) That fancy backdrop is the aforementioned sheet of posterboard, cut to fit the interior width of the box, and held in place by two big magnets stolen from the fridge. For light I’m using a clamp-on full-spectrum light stolen from my painting easel. I can aim it through any of the three papered-over sides of the box to create different lighting. See how the shadows and highlights shift?…

I could even add more lights to cover different sides if I wanted to, but naaaaah. This is good enough for late-night shots of tomatoes, and just the thing for even yummier foods. Ta da!

Apple-sprout-pecan salad
with a maple vinaigrette

Home again after an eventful weekend. (Though not as eventful as planned, thanks to a decidedly unplanned migraine .) I love Toronto, and miss living there. There’s always so much going on. And the food — yum! Anyway, since I haven’t cooked for myself in a few days I thought I’d post a few reviews of some old and new favourite haunts in TO. Places like…

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