Brunching, making chutney, crispy cookies, and fudge-hearts!

I've been raw for 5 days now!!  I'll save writing about that for the next post, but in the meantime here's a whole bunch of photos from the past few weeks I never got around to posting but are kinda making me hungry right now...

Allright, we've got up there... chili cashew dosas (my favourite recipe so far from Vegan Brunch), with a notably amazing chutney I made from the back of Indian Cookery, ie: this book ------>

Which is basically my favourite indian cookbook ever, even for the chutney chapter alone, which covers pretty much anything you'd want to stew and preserve in a super authentic, full of interesting tidbits kind of way.  Like, that peach chutney I ate with the dosas had paprika, poppy seeds, cloves, green chiles and cashews, oh my!  Totally easy to make, too.

Another perk of making chutney is that you get to re-use little jars and give them away after they've sat for a month on the shelf looking very pretty.  On the right is the peach, and in the middle is a pineapple chutney with about a ton of ginger and garlic in it, yay!

Okay, what else - this was astoundingly good.  It looks kind of grey, I'll admit, but so so so good.  Velvety corn creamy chinese wedding soup, or something like that, with bits of savoury tofu floating in it and fresh peas.  It's Bryanna's recipe, and incidentally my introduction to creamed corn (I'm a fan, it turns out).

Oh, and Singapore green beans from Tropical Vegan Kitchen in the background.  Once that stuff marinates it's addictive!

East Coast Coffeecake for an omni BBQ!  Plus adorable sign. :)

I loved how I could even make this in my dad's kitchen - it's the sign of a perfectly adaptable baked good.  (flour, sugar, oil, check!)

My favourite PB cookies ever, are the Crispy PB Cookies from Extraveganza with the cereal flakes inside.  They crackle like pop rocks and have that perfect dense chew, and are so easy to make.  I usually quarter the recipe and make them into the size of quarters, and have them as little pick me ups throughout the day.

Polenta Rancheros from V.Brunch, with noticeable flecks of toasted coriander that perfume the whole thing, it's really nice, especially when made with fresh tomatoes cause that's all I had.  Surprisingly light for a bean dish!

White bean, mango and rosemary tacos!!!  My surprising invention that worked, plus some leftover Tempeh Wingz made with tofu, cold and chewy out of the fridge.  (That red sauce is illegally finger-licking.... wow.)

Fresh organic vegetable pasta spirals with a sauce made from tomatoes, raisin-sage sausages, capers, zucchini & basil, NOM.

 

Banana Rabanada!!!  Not only is this delicious but no refined sugar, either, so it's perfectly viable to eat for lunch!  Isa was spot on about the syrup & cinnamon-mopping, too.

(Heart-shaped) Fudge-pops from How It All Vegan, since I found my ancient copy in my mom's garage a few months ago and figured I'd give it a whirl again.  These were sooooo good, and almost exactly like fudgesicles, which is no mean feat!

Sausage and eggplant quiche from V.Brunch with a homemade crust I put too much EB in but was still okay.   And I think that's about it for cooked stuff!  Phew, sorry for the cursory writing about it all, too.  Somehow I think the pictures speak loud enough that it's okay I don't remember the details, plus this raw food thing is making me spacey... zomg.  It's great, but I'll be glad to bring it down to maybe 60% raw after the next few days.  Can't wait to show you what that's been like, though! 

Chocolate being a subtle theme...

Liz Holding Food Gallery: entry #27 - BROWNIE-STYLE

I tried T'ai Chi today for the first time!  That's got nothing to do with chocolate, sure, but I feel really good right now!  Like a natural chocolate high.  Or a, uh... non-sugar induced high, yes.  Seriously though, I feel like a dancer, I bounced all the way home in my high tops, and then  threw together the roasted vegetables I'd made that morning into some whole wheat penne and home-soaked chickpeas for a really attractive dinner.  It needed something parmesan-y, but I have leftovers to subject to ground almond & lemon zest, there is always tomorrow.

So back to cupcakes!

I made the Brooklyn Brownie cupcakes for a friend's 25th birthday in the park.  We played duck duck goose, Stella Ella Ola, a fun game called Sheep... I love being a nonkid, it's so natural to be.  And the cuppers were a big hit!  These are dense dark weighty cakes with a huge woodsy whiskeyness that probably needs refreshing milk around for maximum enjoyment, but definitely brownie-ish and definitely good.  Super moist, too.  I think I like the regular chocolate VCtotW recipe better, but hey, I got to bake with whiskey, and I've been wanting to do that for, like, ever!  

Then something a little more virtuous... I made the Mole Roasted Cauliflower from the Swell cookzine that involved - of course! - cocoa powder.  REALLY good preparation for cauliflower, I had to resist buying another whole head and roasting it up the exact same way, which says something, that I would repeat a recipe so soon.  Not that it was hard to eat a whole giant head of this, it's pretty addictive like better than popcorn good.  It was the star of the plate next to the mango slices, and some creamy mint & basil polenta I made, but actually the whole combo worked really well and I recommend it - mango with dinner I mean.  (what?  mango with everything!!  of course!)

Oh yes yes, I made some luncheon meat, via Vegan Dad's recipe.  It is a bit dry as he says, but the flavour and texture is eerily spot on and I made some really satisfying sandwiches and I froze most of it into little single-servings for later.  Next time I thaw out a packet I'll be sure to have some cheap yellow mustard around, because it would just work with this stuff, mmmm yeah.

What else?  Tofu nuggets!  I saw the Tofu Skewers with Espresso BBQ Sauce on Vegan Appetite and knew exactly what to do with the half pound of tofu I had in the fridge.  I'd not skewered food before, and you know, it actually does make a difference to the flavour!  The leftover tofu-bobs I cooked sans-impalement were less succulent and fun.  Like, you couldn't gnaw on them at all, boo, I like skewers now.  Oh, and the sauce was great!  I added cayenne cause I can't leave well enough alone and insist on mouth burning when it comes to anything BBQ.

Right, and finally, this is definitely the result of my new love affair with my wonderful freezer.  Never could have concocted something so specific without being able to freeze tiny bits of things throughout my cooking.  The whole door is filled with single cookies, 1/4 cups of icing, cake shavings, and other fun detritous I collect, mwahaha.  For this little cake that I made for a dinner on friday, I started with a disc of leftover Brooklyn Brownie cupcake (the recipe really does make a LOT of extra batter).  Then I made a base cheesecake cream in the blender, divided that into two and stuffed one with melted chocolate and the other with peanut butter.  I layered and baked that at 350 for 45 minutes, then I made a quick chocolate agar-gel for the top and was really really pleased with myself for rocking agar finally.  And then!  Crushed-up peanut butter cookies for the sides.  You know the awesome kind that are essentially just peanut butter and sugar?  Yeah, those kind.  And I almost forgot - star dollops of leftover chocolate cupcake frosting!  PIMPED.  OUT.  

Now I just need to get myself a cheesecake tin that's bigger than 5" across. ^_^;

tester brownies and pb crinkles

Soooo, I made some Rum Raisin Fudge Brownies, a tester recipe for Hannah's new book, and they are fabulous. The raisins make them gorgeous chewy, and the flavour could rock socks off! I haven't made many brownies in my day, but I do know that I'm on the fudgey end of preference, and also these have rum in them! They are dangerously good, I'm telling you.... :o~~~~~

Not too far behind are the peanut butter cookies from More Great Good Desserts. They're a daintier recipe than the dense blocks of my youth, but low oil, high flavour and sooooo pretty and easy to make. So not my ultimate PB cookie recipe, but an excellent one nonetheless. Oh, and dynamite in coffee.

Yay sugar!

grrr. I regress. I am five.

My tastes have been running along very childlike lines these days. Probably midterm stress coupled with the sudden news that Pomme - ie: the best, most esoteric, kitchen-wizardy, art-star, witty, gentle amazing roommate ever in existence - is moving back to Toronto in a few days... ;____;
(serious weepage. but I'm being stoic)

So I'm eating mac and cheese. Because, well... yay. Slurpy noodles. Susan V-style. Comforting yes... although next time I will leave the vegetables out of my comfort food, no matter how much I seem to have been in a "red & green cube" kinda mood that day (check out the tomato, cuke and basil salad behind the pasta - like eating christmas-y legos!)

Then I scratched this itch I had for loads of sweet beans and ZOMG I ACTUALLY BUY A FAKE MEATS. See hot dog? Delicious. Specially with V-con cheater baked beans, sauteed smoky mystery greens I found in the fridge, and scrambled tofu from Aux Vivres. (btw, it tasted more like egg than any scramble I've ever had, but I couldn't really finish it... I've been spoiled on Vwav scramble I think).

And that up there is a gorgeous slice of procrastination. Essay-writing, smehn - Vcon apple peanut butter caramel bars instead! I used oat flake cereal instead of graham crackers, cause the crackers I thought I had in the pantry smelled intensely of 20-year-old warehouse, gross. But crushed cereal plus a bit of sugar worked great! I kinda wish they were apple-yer. But nonetheless they are coated in peanut butter caramel, and that stuff could make rocks taste good, sooo...... I now have a pan full of PB-love to pick at while I attempt to stuff 10 hours of meticulous drawing into... exactly 10 hours until class. WEE. I <3 LIFE. :)

a berry-copia, a watercolour garden, and yuba, OH yuba

So it's been 10 days, and I was all going to post this picture and be like, "well, dinners like this are pretty much the reason I haven't had anything blogworthy to mention all week. Simple and summery and involving a lot of corn, nothing terribly new." But then I realized I was sitting on a whole bunch of pretty photos! (It's funny, I also swear I've been living off of miso soup, but it's so perfect for end-of-term eating - quick and cheap and energy-giving for late-night drawing sessions).

Okay, okay... so at the beginning of last week I thought I'd recreate that magically fermenting sesame slaw I made before, to much success. And I managed to get a photo of it before all the colours bled and muted out, too! (and like my new bowls? I so do!)

They also came with an awesome rectangle plate that I fell in LURVE with and had to buy (so frivolous, and SO matching my grey spiral plate, it had to be done! :P)

And Pomme surprised me with freaking spring rolls! It was in thanks for her birthday dinner, and they're pretty much my favourite food ever, I ated so many of these it's a wonder I didn't roll around myself afterwards, but they were sooooo good, with mango and red pepper inside and peanut dipping sauce, egads. I even bought a thing of brown rice vermicelli to make them even healthier the next time I make them (and thus even more like a perfect food).

I love summer and farmers' markets! A big basket of random sumptuous berry-things! Plus ground cherries, teeny grapes, figs, flowers and tart little red dots-on-the-vine, all for $5. I made the oatmeal of kings from this basket.

I also made pretty awesome vanilla-vanilla cupcakes for my drawing group, 'cause waking up early on saturday to go downtown and muck around with pencils is just that much more enjoyable with frosting. :)

I love how R on the left spontaneously drew a garden, with a mole in it and everything, and a Mr. Potato head! He couldn't remember what radish leaves looked like, and I so knew exactly, having just eaten a salad of them the night before... so houray for the new kids knowing about their foodstuffs (there were discussions on the relative frumpiness of potato leaves and how appropriate that is to their taste, hehe).

And uh... I ran out of li hing mui yesterday, so I went to chinatown and picked some up for 85 cents..... and then totally couldn't resist buying a wack more goodies, cause that place is pretty much like my idea of culinary disneyland. This was all under $20, too! Clockwise from the left is some wakame, black rice, abalone flavoured wheat gluten in a can (can't wait to try that one!), yuba/dried tofu skin, cornstarch, brown rice vermicelli, regular rice vermicelli, mangoes, a mysterious package of some sort of pickled vegetable for 10 cents, wonton wrappers, assorted sesame/peanut/cashew brittles, sweet pickled radish, really cheap tofu, bean sprouts, and (of course!) the li hing mui that started this whole debacle.

I had to HAD TO experiment with that yuba, so stir fry it was, and WOW is all I can say - I love this stuff! It's so chewy and soaks up sauce like a chewy soyfood of long-pantry life and pure awesome! And for the record... pickled turnips are delicious but pretty much 92% salt, so serve with caution (or at least a lot of water).

And is this related? Oh, I dunno. Girls and bugs living in symbiotic vegan harmony sounds okay to mention! And plus one-shot zines are super cute and everyone should try their hand at making one, be it full of manifestos, sketches, goth poetry, bread recipes, or like... everything in your apartment listed alphabetically.

That, plus walking around across the city and back all day today made me totally and completely go into SANDWICH MODE. Gallery-hopping is fun but hunger-inducing, and I even took some extra detours to get the perfect soft baguette-bread to make the Vcon cornmeal-crusted tofu Po'boy and it was SO worth it. What a perfect damn sandwich, I mean seriously. Dude. DUUUUUUDE. Anything involving chipotle mayo has to be good, but this was a major synthesis of happy components making perfect lunch science in my mouth. Making this again! With even more mayo! Bwahahahahaha. So evil, yet so delicious...

I also hope next week is similarly uneventful so I'll have nothing to post about again.
/sarcasm.

I'm thinking of making bread with sprouted wheat berries soon!

fermented... wet... delicious

This stuff is weird city, but I've pretty much fallen in love with "wet bean curd" now. I thought it was going to be spicy tofu in a jar, and for $1 I had to give it a try, but I got it home and it's not tofu... exactly. It smells like briney blue cheese and the cubes inside are almost like... melted brie in consistency. So it's kind of like cheese, but also a heck of a lot saltier and pungent-ier and I had absolutely no idea what to do with it (besides get kinda hooked on eating small bits of it with a spoon).

See? Weird! Yet compelling. There's mysterious stuff floating in that brine, too, I'm convinced it's either chiles or globules of pure yumminess, from the magical yumminess forest.

Luckily I did manage to find something real to make with it - fu yu ong choy! (aka: ridiculously more-ish stir-fried water spinach). Here's what I did, if I remember correctly...

oil for frying
1 tsp grated ginger
1 tsp minced garlic
1 bunch of ong choy/chinese water spinach, rinsed and cut into long sticks (separate the leaves and stems)
2-3 cubes fermented tofu

* Heat the oil in a heavy skillet or a wok on high heat. Add the ginger/garlic and cook for about a minute.
* Add the spinach stems and cook for maybe 2-3 minutes, then add the leaves, and cook until they're just barely wilted.
* Make a bare spot in the middle of the pan and mash in the bean cubes, then toss to coat everything. Serve whilst hot and juicy!

And if it's just you... well then eat the whole pan with chopsticks and a big grin, and then have peanut-brittly-rice-caked-bottom-y candy things for dessert and revel in the not having to impress dinner guests and/or represent all major food groups in one sitting. woo!

sweet teeth, mexican sammies and salty things

Eek, I have a bunch of photos and the memories are fading by the second, I should get right into my ovening activities for my last few days in Ottawa --

I was actually sick of baking when I threw this together, but can you possibly guess why one would make a batch of ppk graham crackers if not for something spectacular in the future? Those with an eye for pie will like the final destination of these cookies! (also these ARE in my top ten favourite cookies ever and might have made them anyway, even if I did have zero luck finding honey-less graham crackers in the store).

And a dinner at my dad's is not complete without a tray of mysterious cupcakes carefully towered on a pretty tray and ready for omni appraisal (usually, "oooh, something frosted!!"). I wanted to make the orange pudding cupcakes from VCtotW, but I didn't have orange juice, so I decided to be intrigued by the apparent roll of the dice that is the V-con Jelly Donut Cupcakes.

Turned out well! Only 2 craters and I kinda thought they were cute. Tastewise they were nutmeg-y and very sweet, maybe heavier than I like normally, but definitely donut-esque. Sis liked them enough to eat 3 and tell me to make ones with frosting next time. :P

Oh yeah, she also requested a cake. In the middle of a jigsaw puzzling session, I offer (as I do) to make her something to eat, and she says cake. SUCH A GOOD REQUEST. And I refuse to use a recipe, and throw flour and oft-used ingredients around in such a way as to come out with.... a damned good teeny tiny cake thing. That I eyeballed. So cool. (that's peanut butter swirl on top and a tasty carob-chip dome in the middle. We all agreed it would rock the universe with a fudge layer, too bad I can't recreate it, haha)

My last morning we hit the Wild Oat bakery for breakfast and I shoot this terrible photo of the mmmnummy El Oxuaca sandwich. Yes, I pronounced the X when I ordered it. No, I haven't been to Me-hee-co. For absolute certain I melted for the combination of sundried tomato tapenade + black bean spread + avocado, tomato, cilantro and greens on nutty multigrain bread that had travelled about five or six metres from the oven to hit my table. Good stuff.

Having filled our bellies with sound food and zinging with health, it stood to reason that a trip to Sugar Mountain might be just the thing to ruin all that sprout-eating. Yay! I got aniseed balls (my favourite) and salted licorice. But I couldn't eat the licorice! Yes, I checked at home and there's our old friend beeswax stuck on the outside of that lovely salty sweet like a microscopic force-field of candy denial. It's a very good thing I discovered that the chinese salted licorice-y plums I bought the other day (called Li Hing Mui apparently) are infinitely superior to regular salted licorice, so I don't mind so much now and I just suck on dried fruit. :)

Also, I made the Smlove. (graham cracker speculation can be laid to rest now).

I didn't like it as much as I thought I would... It was kinda like chewing on a big wad of baking chocolate... but I AM weird and have been known to dislike fantastic things. Am I kicked out of veganism now? :D

happy... Family Day! (no really, it's today)

Okay, first off -- I LOVE going home and I LOVE finally being in a house that practically inhales food faster than I can make it! It's so gratifying, and I can cook up a storm like I could never do for just myself. And there's a big 'ol feast I'm making tonight, so I have to throw up all the other pictures first so I can post about the dinner later. Anyway...

Peanut butter banana ice cream (based on ED&BV's Cashew Banana Ice Cream). This was the last meal I had before I got on the bus. Nice meal, eh? Ooh, I want to let *every* banana in the world go overripe and then freeze them all and make creamy nutty soft serve. ALL the TIME.

And this is the leftovers I brought with me on the bus -- the cauliflower curry and saffron garlic rice (both from the Veganomicon). The rice would be better with the chickpeas romesco I think, but it's still the best rice I've ever made, so I shovelled it all up anyway. Does anyone else feel like they're totally indulging by using white rice instead of brown?

I also brought a big container of tofu salad with me, because I make a really mean tofu salad, and I feel better travelling with a huge amount of no-brainer protein. It basically incorporates half my fridge door -- braggs, lemon juice, nayonnaise, dijon, bbq sauce, garlic, paprika, turmeric, thyme, oregano, pepper, nooch, diced pickles and red onion. Oh, and a niiiiiice loooooooong squirt of sriracha, 'cause I roll like that. It's so good. I had to fight my mom away from this sandwich.

So then my sister says "I'm hungry.... lizbeth, go make me something." and I'm like "YES. This is called the V-con. What does your heart desire?" and she goes "Chocolate Chip Brownie Waffles" and I'm like "You rule so hard I can't fathom your rulingness. Where's the cocoa?". These are basically the best thing to ever come off of a panini press, which we had to use instead of a waffle iron but that hardly matters because you could fry this on the sidewalk and it would still be good. They're all fudgey... but not too fudgey. Pleasantly mid-fudgey. *drool*

I can't believe I'm closing with vegetables. But I'm really proud of myself! I made a squash soup worthy of rivalling those little expensive pseudo-gourmet boxed soups. Nothing out of the ordinary, regular squash soup stuff like apple vinegar, almond milk, nutmeg, pepper, cinnamon, salt. A *tiny* bit of soup powder (but this kind was organic and actually tasted really nice). And a bit of maple syrup, and a bit of coconut milk. I didn't even warm it up, I just blended the roasted squash with everything and put it in the fridge to reheat when I need it, and it's, dare I say it, lovely.

...

So that's the spread, but there's a whole wack of goodies happening tonight, I spent all yesterday blending spices and prep-cooking pastes and making chutne---- oh, I shouldn't say anything else. (I made a cake!)

Okay, I'm done. :)


(oh, and my sister actually DOES rule the universe, and keeps bringing me home treats from her job at the health food store -- Belsoy puddings (chocolate and vanilla), asafoetida, gluten flour, thai ginger kettle chips, organic sesame-spelt bread, organic millet and red quinoa, vitasoy soynog (which is amazing, btw), carob chips, a jar of raw cashews about as big as a cat, lots of produce. Most of it free/about to expire. Quelle yay! I wuv her.)