Loveliness from Last Year

Life? Eh. School? Yuck. Housing? Oh boy. Relationships? Don’t go there. But I can say at least that last year, food was good. Actually, all those other things were good in their own ways. And for that I am blessed. Now to share the blessing with recipe links to my favorites, all the lovely treats I failed to share. Great timing, huh? It’s March, for heaven’s sake…

A pizza with pesto, nut “cheese”, asparagus, and green olives in the shape of a three-leaf clover for St. Patrick’s Day. Drinking a lot of beer just isn’t enough to celebrate; I do that all the time.

Layered individual lemon cheesecakes with blueberry cake and syrup, plus a dab of coconut cream. They were quite all right, with some sparkling wine, for my sweetie’s 21st birthday.

A cold salad of vegetables and kelp noodles. I decided I don’t like kelp noodles. They are expensive and have a cartilaginous bite I find not at all appealing.

Chickpea tagine from Vegetarian Times and Egyptian Cauliflower Salad from The Royal Kitchen. Of course, substituting agave nectar and soy yogurt makes the tagine vegan.

Corn, Anaheim Chile, and Eggplant Pizza with Cilantro Pesto from The Millennium Cookbook. I think you need to double the water in that book’s pizza dough recipe.

Sunny Raw Nori Rolls from Vegetarian Times. I love this idea! It’s like what you need if you can’t decide between sushi and a salad.

I made regular sushi rice rolls too: Maki Garden Rolls from Vegetarian Times, stuffed with seasoned green beans, carrots and shiitakes.

Some of the most delectable sandwiches I’ve ever munched, made with some rather flat homemade bread (I fell in love with this bread recipe with semolina for sandwiches). Deborah Madison’s Pan Bagnat with Saffron-Basil Vinaigrette from Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone tosses chopped vegetables, olives, and pine nuts in a saffron vinaigrette and puts it into a sandwich with mozzarella. I used a vegan cheesy spread on that and the Mediterranean Pressed Picnic Sandwich from Vegetarian Times.

I made VeganDad’s Perfect Tempeh Burgers and served them on ill-fitting-but-tasty homemade buns and bread-and-butter pickles. Could you use some more friends? Make people those pickles.

Seitan “wings”, or pieces of shallow-fried wheat gluten meat. I like saying “wings.”

I made this pomegranate-chile sauce from Bon Appétit with homemade seitan instead of duck breasts. It was awe-inspiring and got me all fired up about coriander for the first time in my life.

I made this green tea milk bread using the “tangzhong” method described here on Kirbie’s Cravings. It produced a pillowy fluff of goodness.

I want to improve upon my vegan version of Rasa Malaysia’s Hokkaido Milk Loaf.

Robin Robertson’s Fresh Strawberry Pie from VegNews. I forget sometimes how simple things can be surprisingly good (with a dab of coconut cream, mmm?).

The Daily Raw Café has a raw apple pie recipe. I’m sure you could make it into something prettier than my funny little tarts. And serve it with raw vanilla ice cream.

I go head-over-heels for Café Gratitude’s raw key lime pie. Actually, I think other people literally would too, if I asked it of them. It would be a small feat to earn some of this marvelous rich dessert. I almost can’t believe they don’t guard the recipe under lock and key. In fact, they provide it in their Sweet Gratitude cookbook.

Café Gratitude’s lemon cheesecake is pretty ridiculously tasty, too. It’s desserts like this that remind me why insouciant descriptors like “divine” and “orgasmic” are sometimes used for food.

I made pumpkin seed brittle from Gourmet magazine and got more people to fall in love with me.

I made Apple Pie, Patis, & Pâté’s Radish Herb Butter with Earth Balance margarine.

Strawberry & Balsamic Basil Soda, from Surfas Los Angeles. A complex, adult-y drink yet still sweet and summery. Alchohol-free too, but still great.

Okay, I admit it, I just wanted to share the pretty food photos I liked.

And now that I’m getting this blog rolling again, there are many much more wonderful things in the works. Oh yes.

Summertime Fruit Cocktails

Here are some cures for the summertime blues.

Strawberry mojito from A cup of Mai. I blended the ingredients with ice for a slushy refresher. Find a vegan rum on barnivore.com’s list of vegan liquors.

To make a simple syrup for cocktails, stir together equal parts water and sugar, and heat over medium-high until sugar is completely dissolved. Let it boil a minute and then cool completely. Keep it stored in the refrigerator.

Agave nectar is also a great (albeit more expensive) sweetener with a summery personality that I love with fruit.

Now for my own recipe, a fruity and fizzy summer punch. You can make it with juice squeezed from the remnants of watermelon you might have after using a melon baller. I call it Watermelon Candy (because I’m sweet on candy).

Watermelon Candy

Serves 2

• 1/2 cup (4 oz) watermelon juice (squeezed & strained from fresh watermelon)
• 1/4 cup (2 oz) vodka
• 1/4 cup (2 oz) fresh-squeezed lemon juice
• 1/4 cup (2 oz) pomegranate juice
• 1 Tbsp (1/2 oz) triple sec
• ice cubes
• grapefruit or lemon-lime soda

Shake the watermelon juice, vodka, lemon juice, triple sec, and pomegranate juice in a jar or cocktail shaker. Serve in two glasses over plenty of ice cubes, and top off with soda (nearly as much soda as other liquids for a friendly, sweet drink).

Nuts for Vegan Baklava

Substitute Earth Balance margarine for the butter in this baklava recipe from flagrantedelicia.com, and you have a vegan pastry full of spiced nuts and hubristic feelings of superiority.

I made rolls, layered triangles, and mini-cups. I’m sure the easiest way to do baklava would be layering your margarine-brushed phyllo sheets spread with nuts in a baking pan. After the pastry bakes up all golden-crisp, cut pieces are drenched in a flavored sugar syrup to sit. Your patience is rewarded after several hours. It’s a process, but not difficult as long as you work quickly with the phyllo. Have the oven on and all the other ingredients ready.

Sometimes I am in awe at how much I dedicate to cooking to make up for my failures as a human being. Oh… well. With these sticky-sweet, golden phyllo pastries, I may still have the world eating out of my hands, literally.

So Happy Chocolate Chili

Chocolate Chili from VegNews (click the link for a much more scrumptious-looking photo) with homemade cornbread biscuits and pepitas. Smile, and the world smiles with you.

What Didn’t Make the Cut: Rice Meatballs & Vegan Month of Food

I suck at blogging. My perfectionist nature means that the imperfect photos, the underdeveloped recipes, and the just not-too-interesting don’t make it to the blog. And all this means that 90% of my cool food discoveries are not represented here. What a shame, because this past year has been awesome. This blog is supposed to support my idea that life as a vegan can be as fun and crazy as anything.

It’s Vegan MoFo time! This month, hundreds of bloggers will be churning out vegan food posts like there’s no December. Each day of November, I’m going to join them by sharing something I’ve done or eaten this past year. I don’t have time for new ideas and recipes, of course.

My favorite source of recipes is… other blogs. They’re free, unique, modern, and usually accompanied by pretty photos. In August I tried out this Steamed Sweet Rice Meatball from Kitchen M.

When a recipe calls for some kind of ground meat, I usually mix up TVP with wine or beer, broth, soy sauce, onions, garlic, pepper, and other spices, herbs, or vegetable juices. Sometime I’ll form an actual recipe.

I left out the eggs and cooked the “meatballs” inattentively, so they were crumbly and ugly, like my mind on a Friday afternoon. But sweet grains from heaven, they were tasty.

5 Smashing Pumpkin Recipes from Whole Foods Market

Lover that I am of food and pumpkins, I cannot resist any recipes featuring my favorite cucurbit. While Whole Foods Market’s website has a trove of vegan recipes stressing natural/organic/healthful ingredients, the following do not specifically sport the “vegan” tag. But why let that limit your culinary progress? Here’s how I did these:

• Turkey Pumpkin Chili—Substitute the turkey with mushrooms, tempeh, or your own choice of vegan “meat substitute.”
• Pumpkin Bread Pudding—I used Ener-G Egg Replacer for the eggs, coconut milk for the half-and-half, and coconut cream for the cream. I also tossed in two handfuls of golden and dark raisins. Serve warm with love.
• Pumpkin Chocolate Cake—Just forget the eggs. Sweet and moist and not too high in fat, this cake is a great snack for a fall afternoon.
• Creamy Pumpkin Brown Rice—The aroma of pumpkin cooking into a creamy, risotto-like supper for a drizzly autumn night drives me wild with happiness.
• Pumpkin Streusel Bread—I actually used crushed Cheerios in the topping since I had no walnuts or chestnuts, doubled the apples, and substituted canola oil and Ener-G Egg Replacer for the butter and eggs. Results were irresistible.

But there are even more pumpkin recipes to explore! I haven’t had the time or money to try them yet, so it’s up to you to make these vegan and delicious:

• Pumpkin and Mushroom Pie
• Pumpkin-Cream Cheese Truffles
• Roasted Pumpkin Bisque
• Date and Pecan Pumpkin Squares
• Easy Spiced Pumpkin Cheesecake
• Pumpkin and Millet Muffins
• Pumpkin Apple Pie
• Vegan Pumpkin Pecan Pie is already vegan, how about that.

Vegan Superburger

From top:

• Homemade burger bun (recipe from vegweb.com)
• Follow Your Heart Vegenaise
• Chopped cornichons
• Sliced tomato
• Sliced red onion
• Yellow mustard
• Ketchup
• Vegan burger patty (from my own recipe)
• Wild arugula
• Black pepper
• Melty White Cheez ( recipe from The Ultimate Uncheese Cookbook by Joanne Stepaniak)

Pineapple-vanilla floats

• 1/2 cup vanilla soymilk
• 1 cup soda (I used mango-flavored)
• Pineapple Sorbet (recipe from Great Chefs Cook Vegan by Linda Long)

Spring Green

To celebrate St. Patrick’s Day, the advent of spring, or just the natural vibrant verdure of fresh foods, here are a few emerald-hued recipes:

• Kiwi Sorbet from The Delicious Life. This is the recipe where kiwis really come into their own. I was smitten with this sorbet as the first bit of frozen goodness melted on my tongue—so good, and so beautifully green.
• Creamy Herb Dressing from Food & Wine made with plenty of fresh green herbs, plus two tablespoons of expeller-pressed grapeseed oil. You can make it as the recipe is, oil-free and fat-free, but I like the tastiness and pretty greenness the oil adds.
• Honeydew Sherbet, pictured at top. Make a simple syrup by stirring 3/4 cup sugar with 1 cup water and heating until sugar is completely dissolved. Allow to cool, then blend with 2 cups honeydew melon, 2 Tbsp lime juice, 2 Tbsp coconut milk, and ¼ tsp salt. Freeze in an ice cream maker according to the manufacturer’s directions.
• Spicy Chickpea Purée from Deborah Madison’s Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone. Serve with chilled cucumbers and a sauce of blended jalapeño, cilantro, and lime juice for a tasty sandwich filling.
• Green Frosting from Bittersweet. Cookies and cakes topped with this avocado frosting become green, sweet, delicious desserts to lure all the little leprechauns to your kitchen.

Lemon Curd Tart with Olive Oil

One of four tiny lemon tarts baked this weekend using a recipe from Gourmet. I omitted the eggs and added 5 Tbsp glutinous rice flour to the curd mixture. Butter was replaced by Earth Balance margarine, and I used an Italian extra virgin olive oil.

Rich fruity oil and tart lemon, creamy gooey curd and crisp crust—this recipe is a beautiful indulgence. I baked four smaller rather than one larger tart, and topped each with a quarter lemon slice to mimic the ones I used to get from a local bakery as a child.

These were far better. They would be perfectly elegant enough for a fancy Easter brunch, but so easy to make just for a Friday breakfast in bed.

Halloween Dinner of Orange & Black

My Halloween dinner: Orange-Chipotle Glazed Tofu from Vegetarian Times, black quinoa cooked with scallions in dashi broth, roasted orange cauliflower with pepper and black sea salt, and dabs of black fermented garlic puréed with soy sauce, olive oil, and rice vinegar.

Dessert: several candy bars and a showing of American Psycho.

I picked up this fermented ‘black’ garlic at the local Whole Foods. It’s rather expensive, but has a really strong fermented flavor (like miso) and a little should go a long way. The cloves have a weird, almost jelly-like texture that purées to a pudding-like consistency. I think it would go best with Asian cooking, although the package recommended it on pizza, burgers, or anywhere you’d like.