Thistle and Yellow Rose

Catching up to finish the year

2011-12-31T14:05:00.000-08:00

I took pictures of things that I made and then didn't bother to blog about them. That's because I'm lazy. But here they are. First up, I finally made Mo's kolaches!

As you can probably tell from the picture, I did mine a bit differently from hers. I actually remembered having kolaches when I was younger, and this is pretty much what I always got - sausage in bread. These were good but, because I didn't have enough filling, they were way too bread-y. I'll almost certainly make these again, but I'll probably use different sausage (and more of it) and make them smaller.

Next up is Xmas dinner!

I made porkless pie with Granose sausage mix and the buttery double crust (vodka variation, no sugar) from Vegan Pie in the Sky by Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero. It wasn't exactly traditional, but it was probably the best porkless pie I've ever eaten. I served it with leftover rice (I think I was ill and couldn't be bothered) and roasted broccoli. Nom!

Dessert was yule log! It was better than the last one I made, but that's not saying much. Well, both were tasty, but this one was better looking, if only because it didn't fall apart as completely as the last one. I used the chocolate cupcake and chocolate buttercream recipes from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World for this. I'll probably try my hand at the log again, but I'll make a few changes - a) different filling (shocking as this is, I thought it was too much chocolate) and 2) use a bit of black cocoa powder for the buttercream to give it a darker, more log-like appearance.

And finally, our last meal of 2011!

This is the new Redwood's haggis with noochy Smash and steamed broccoli. REDWOOD'S HAGGIS?! It's really, really good - meatier texture than any other veg haggis I've ever had (it uses vwg), spicy, moist. I haven't had f'real haggis for ... 8 years, and I think this might be the best fake I've ever had. It's not just a bunch of kidney beans! It could maybe be a little oatier, but otherwise it's excellent (as far as I can remember to compare).

I just had a look on the Redwood's site, and they don't even have it on there. I think this might be a super secret Scotland-only product! First time ever! It kinda makes me feel special. I hope no one is able to burst my bubble and tell me they have it in London or Brighton or something.

Anyway, last post of 2011! I don't have much to say about 2011 - it was a mixed bag of mediocrity for me (including buying the flat, considering the work we have ahead of us), and I've heard a lot of people didn't have a great year. So, here's to hoping that 2012 far exceeds 2011 in awesomeness!

PPK package swap!

2011-12-05T15:30:00.001-08:00

It's the most wonderful time of the year ... that's right - PPK package swap time! The swap always seems to happen around November/December, which is both good (treats are always good) and bad (let's just say I'm glad I already bought a party dress that's a bit too big).

The pic at the top is a bit small, so I'll just say what I got. From left to right - soy curls, candy cane Joe-Joe's, TJ's maple cream cookies, dark chocolate bar, sea salt chocolate bar, Taza drinking chocolate, Clif spiced pumpkin pie and peppermint stick bars, two each of Go Max Twilight and Buccaneer bars, Sugar Plum Spice tea, agave sticks, and honey-flavoured agave nectar. And everything is sitting atop an adorable Oregon tea towel! We've already eaten a few Joe-Joe's and maple cookies, Mike had the peppermint stick Clif bar, and I made hot chocolate with the Taza chocolate.

It's such an amazing package, and I'm once again overwhelmed by the awesomeness and generosity of PPKers. I also kinda feel like a dick because the package I sent was nowhere near as awesome. I left out some stuff because postage was starting to cost more than the items themselves. But then I got this, and she clearly spent more on shipping than on the stuff inside. So I think Imma buy some more stuff and send her a second package (though maybe after Xmas so it doesn't get stuck in a warehouse for 2 weeks).

Oh, and bonus picture of the Taza drinking chocolate in action:

Lookit the foam on that bastard! This was the first time I'd done proper Mexican hot chocolate (with the foaming, though I used my electric mixer with a whisk attachment instead of a molinillo). It was pretty good, though it was kinda bitty. Oh well. The point to make here is that is a giant-ass mug, and it's half full of foam. Mmm...foam.

I can't wait to see everyone else's swap packages!

Catch-up on testing and cookbook challenging

2011-11-29T14:48:00.000-08:00

I'm so far behind blogging about tester recipes. It's pretty bad.

A couple of weeks ago (seriously), I had 2/3 of the Ethnocrew to dinner for for Nigel Tufnel Day and, incongruously, Eastern European food. Well, it wasn't all Eastern European - dessert was well American. But here's how we got on.

We started with the Roasted Beet Salad with Apples and Dill Vinaigrette. This was a project, and salad shouldn't be a project. It took over an hour to make, mostly because I had to first peel and then roast the beets. I wasn't terribly keen on it, but the girls liked it. I think it might have been better if the beets had been a little saltier (and roastier) and if we'd left out the lettuce. At least it was pretty.

Our main was Shchi (Sauerkraut and Mushroom Soup) with Sour Dilly Cream. This was really nice, and the cream really brought the flavours together. I was pleasantly surprised by how much the cream tasted like sour cream without actually containing vegan sour cream (i.e., Tofutti). The soup was lovely as well. It was just the right amount of healthy, salty, and comforting.

Dessert that night was two cookbook challenge recipes - Chocolate Chip Skillet Cake and Very Vanilla Ice Cream from Vegan Diner. Let's not pretend that this is anything other than a giant chocolate chip cookie. It was really good, though I would've liked it to be a bit moister. The ice cream did what it says on the tin - it was very vanilla. It worked really well with the ~~cookie~~ cake. I quite liked both, but I think, if I made the ice cream again, I'd use a bit more soy cream so it was a little fattier/creamier.

I also made a couple of tester recipes this week:

Sunday night, I made Pumpkin Black Bean Posole (but with butternut squash instead of pumpkin). I love posole. This was lovely, light and comforting. It was also easy and quick to throw together. The only thing I'd change about it is that it needs more cumin. I'd definitely make this again (but with more cumin). I might like it with cornbread instead of corn chips, though the corn chips make a lovely presentation. (NB - I didn't use most of the suggested toppings because I'm either allergic, don't like them, or couldn't be bothered. It didn't detract from the deliciousness.)

This was tonight's dinner - Gnocchi with Roasted Tomato Caper Sauce and Braised Greens with Lemon and Olive Oil. The gnocchi was good but salty: olives + capers + added salt in the sauce and pasta = way too much salt. I like the concept, so I'd probably do this again with tinned tomatoes (for the laziness/sauciness factor) and no added salt. The greens (spinach, to be precise) were delicious, quick, and easy. Seriously, about 15 minutes from washing to eating (or possibly less if I had been focused on one recipe at a time). I'd definitely make this again. It's kinda like a Mediterranean version of the chard recipe from Viva Vegan!, which is one of my favourite ways to eat chard. Also, that doesn't look like much, but we ate an entire bag of spinach between the two of us. I think Mike got more than I did though. I was too generous.

Hopefully I'll keep up better with testing (and posting about testing) over the next couple of months, though we'll see what happens when we start moving flats and everything. All being well, we get the keys next Friday (OMG!!!)!

Thanksgiving in Scotland

2011-11-25T13:22:00.001-08:00

I think everyone is aware that yesterday was Thanksgiving in the US. Thanksgiving is one of those sketchy holidays that you almost think you should stop celebrating because of all the dodgy history behind it. I wish I could find that awesome video of the children's Thanksgiving play where they talk about giving the natives smallpox blankets to illustrate my point. That said, a lot of people, myself included, have decided that Thanksgiving is really about the food. And when you boil it down to its essence, that's really what it is - we survived a year in a hostile land and we now have a crap ton of food, so let's gorge ourselves on it. Basically, Thanksgiving is a holiday all about gluttony, and I'm totally down with that.

This year was pretty good. Unfortunately, my bff couldn't make it like she did last year (oh man, I wish I had some tamales), so I only took Thanksgiving day off. I decided on the spur of the moment last Friday night to invite people over, so 2/3 of my Ethnology Crew came round, and then I invited a couple of Mike's gaming friends (who've been to dinner here before). I was a genius and didn't decide on a menu until Wednesday night, but you know what? It's the UK, and no one gives a crap, so I didn't have to worry about the shops all being sold out of everything I'd need.

And it turned out to be a good thing anyway, because Isa posted her new Seitan Roast Stuffed with Shiitakes and Leeks on Tuesday. The laziness took over and urged me to buy Smash and stuffing from a box and then cover both with Sage Gravy from Quick and Easy Vegan Celebrations. I also made roasted broccoli to balance out the white and brown. (I had intended on making Q&EVC green bean casserole, but to my dismay, the only shop I ever saw fried onions in no longer sells them. *sadface*)

Sorry about the darkness - the living room has even less light than the kitchen.

I know the roast is what everyone is here for. First of all, it was actually pretty easy to make, and it was absolutely delicious. It also reheated well in a microwave. My problem with it was that I used UK vital wheat gluten and followed the recipe, so it was a bit moist. I think it took nearly twice as long to cook as it was supposed to (I stopped keeping track after about an hour and 10 because I was trying to cook everything else). But I'd definitely make this again - it looks good, it tastes amazing, and I went from decision to dinner (including shopping) in a few hours. Oh, and it fed 6 people plus leftovers! Next time, I'll use more vwg.

Rather than head right into dessert, we discussed our options and decided on nog. No one but Mike had ever tried nog (even the non-vegan stuff), so everyone was intrigued. I made my stand-by, absolute favourite vegan nog, Bryanna Clark Grogan's Pumpkin Nog. Everyone thought it was good, and there was even discussion about making it into a custard (someone had mentioned having warm nog, and I said it would probably turn into custard if heated).

After sitting and chatting for a while to make a bit of space for more food, we moved on to dessert. Naturally, I made pumpkin pie. My go-to pie is usually the one I made last year, the Impossible Pumpkin Pie from the Fat Free Vegan blog. But there was a pumpkin pie thread on the PPK, and Phoenix posted her Jack (the Pumpkin King) Pie. A pie referencing The Nightmare Before Christmas and made with Speculoos cookie crust? Hell yeah I'm making that pie.

It wasn't as burnt as it looks.

I served it with some Soyatoo Soy Whip (in a can - in my defense, the non-canned stuff is no longer being sold, and my only other option was Rice Whip).

Immediately after I took this picture, I covered the rest of the top with whipped cream.

I really liked this pie, but that's because I love a cookie crust. The only thing I didn't like was that the crust didn't want to come up until day 2 (well, the last 2 slices). But other than that, it was good. The filling was pretty standard pumpkin pie filling. But it was really easy to make and came out great. We were all happy with it.

Along with the food, we also managed to polish off 2 1/2 bottles of wine between the 6 of us. I usually don't drink much, but the Beaujolais Nouveau was released this week (I think), so I bought a bottle of that and had an astounding 2 glasses. But with all the food, it barely made me sleepy.

And that was our Thanksgiving. We're hoping to get to the US for T'giving next year, but we'll see how things go. We'll be sinking a lot of money into the new flat, so we might not have it for traveling.

How was your Thanksgiving? Did you celebrate even though you aren't American?

I completely forgot to post some tester stuff (I got lazy), so I'll try to write that up soon!

Irn Bru cookies!

2011-11-08T14:05:00.000-08:00

Remember this post about Irn Bru cupcakes? They were good, but not quite right, and I thought further experimentation was warranted.

Well, some time last week, an ex-pat friend of ours (Brit in Canada) posted on Facebook that he missed Irn Bru. What better excuse could I have come up with? I know from homesickness (even if one wouldn't refer to that particular instance as homesickness), and he seemed to be having a crap week on top of that, so I offered to make him some Irn Bru cookies. He seemed pleased by the idea, so I was like, YEAH LET'S DO THIS!

I did some research into using soda as a flavouring for baked goods and came across this post on grape soda cupcakes from Kelly of The Vegan Cookie Connoisseur. I also looked for the right cookie recipe. I finally settled on Kelly's recipe for Amazingly Soft Sugar Cookies. I basically made an Irn Bru reduction and replaced most of the liquid with the reduction. Kelly very kindly agreed to let me post her recipe with my minor changes, so here it is.

sorry about the crap pic - I was running late for work

Irn Bru Cookies
(recipe adapted from Amazingly Soft Sugar Cookies in The Vegan Cookie Connoisseur by Kelly Peloza)

Ingredients:

4 c Irn Bru

Pour the soda into a pan and bring to a boil. Reduce to a simmer and cook until it reduces to about 3/4 of a cup. Set aside to cool.

3/4 c margarine
1 1/4 c sugar
1/2 c soy yogurt
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 c Irn Bru reduction (plus more if needed)
4 c flour
1 tbsp baking powder
1/8 tsp salt

In a large bowl, cream the margarine and sugar. Add the yogurt and vanilla and mix to combine, then add 1/4 c Irn Bru reduction and mix until well combined. Sift in the dry ingredients a little at a time, mixing as you go. Add more reduction if the dough is dry. Refrigerate for an hour or more (or freeze for 15 minutes).

Preheat the oven to 350F/175C. Roll the dough into walnut-sized balls in your hand and then smoosh them down (alternatively, you can roll and cut them). Place on a greased or parchment-lined baking sheet and bake for 7-10 minutes or until slightly golden at the edges. Remove from the oven and let cool completely before icing.

For the icing: Dump a good amount of icing sugar into a bowl and add about 3 tbsp Irn Bru reduction. Beat with a fork until smooth. It should be pretty thick - if it isn't, add more icing sugar. Dip the tops of the cooled cookies into the icing and place on cookie sheets to firm up. If you're awesome like me, make another batch of glaze and double dip those bad boys once the first round of icing is set.

The whole process takes a few hours, but it'll probably be easier and faster the second time around since I know what I'm doing (and hopefully won't be having an allergy attack like I did this time).

After all that, I never got my friend's address! But his loss was everyone else's gain - I gave the cookies I took in for shipping to my co-workers, and Mike ate the rest (about a dozen in one night - he really liked them).

I imagine this would work for other types of soda-based cookies, so I might give it a try with something else. And I might also try to reduce the Irn Bru even further for a stronger flavour - even with the reduction instead of the straight soda, the flavour was still pretty mild. Any ideas what I should try next?

Cookbook Challenge - Cheating with testers

2011-11-05T14:14:00.000-07:00

Thinking about testing always makes me think of one of Tom Hanks's many SNL appearances, the one in which he played Wayne's cousin Barry, who was a roadie for Aerosmith, and gave a demonstration of his job by doing a mic check ("check, check, sibilance, sibilance"). I digress.

This week's cookbook challenge is another Isa and Terry week. I spent all of my new-recipe-making energy on Terry testing, so I'm cheating and saying I did them for the challenge. Let's be honest, the only Isa/Terry book I haven't already made loads from is the cookie book (well, and the pie book, but that just came out), and I really don't need to make a bunch of different cookies (especially after my week-long cookie-fest in which I made 3 types of chocolate chip cookies).

I ended up making five testers this week:

The first was Toasted Lentils, Onions, and Rice. Yeah, it's not all that pretty, but it's tasty. It's loaded with caramelized onions, which are one of my cooking nemeses. It took me about an hour (probably longer) to caramelize those bloody onions. Next time, they're going in the slow cooker. This would actually be a pretty quick-ish recipe if one were to use frozen caramelized onions. It's got a bit of a sausage-y flavour with the addition of whole fennel seeds. I tasted this shortly after it finished cooking and didn't really care for it, but the flavour improves immensely after sitting or a few days, so I'm glad I reserved judgment. The recipe also makes a ton, so I had lunches all week and a few dinners.

After a most of a week of frozen food and leftovers, I knocked out three more testers on Thursday (well, four, but I made another tester with tester seitan). Pictured are Gyro Roasted Seitan (made with Lemon & Olive Seitan), Lemon Garlic Roasted Potatoes, and Roasted Broccoli with Lemon and Sage. The reviews were mixed on this meal. We both loved the broccoli - roasted broccoli is really a thing of beauty. I really liked the potatoes, but Mike thought they were just OK. I only kinda liked the seitan (the flavours were good but the texture was off due to my seitan being underdone, as you can probably see from the pic), but Mike didn't like it because he thought it was too "different". Honestly, I'd make it again because I knew it was just a user error, but Mike probably wouldn't eat it (or would eat it but complain about it, more accurately). Together, it was actually an excellent meal.

We went to Glasgow today to get Mike's passport sorted and had lunch at Heavenly. Be warned - you don't wanna rock up at 1 on the Saturday they do the craft fair, because you might not get seated. We actually had to get a snack at Holland & Barrett and do some shopping, then go back after we'd picked up his passport. Anyway, I finally got the breakfast, and I was not disappointed. On the plate are tofu scramble (made with smoked tofu), mushrooms, tempeh rashers, toast, beans, tomatoes, sausage, and a potato scone. This was the best vegan breakfast I've ever had at a restaurant, and the two things that made it were the scramble and the scone (which was actually more like a mushy hashbrown or giant latke). It was so, so good.

Bonus picture of Mike eating his brunch.

For dessert, we both got caramel hot chocolate, which was delicious, and I got the gingerbread. I was really excited to eat it based on my previous experience, but they've already changed it. This one came out floating in a puddle of really thin custard with no chocolate sauce. It was still good, but not mouthgasmic like the last time (and the presentation, which I usually don't care about, was sub-par). The custard wasn't as flavourful, the cake was flatter and seemed less fresh (which isn't surprising since the last time I know they'd just baked it), and it didn't come together as well without the chocolate. I'll maybe skip this if we're not having it as a post-dinner dessert - I'm hoping that they just didn't try as hard because it was a lunchtime thing.

I'll be doing more testing next week, and I'll also be attempting Irn Bru cookies. Let's hope they work better than the cupcakes.

Perfect chocolate chip cookies

2011-11-01T17:09:00.000-07:00

I thought I would take a break from blogging for one day, but then I decided not to. It's World Vegan Day! And because of that, I had to make something. I decided to dig out my old favourite chocolate chip cookie recipe and see how it compared to the ones I'd made the past few days.

Many years ago, I was not really a cookie fan. I don't know why - maybe because people thought putting things like oats and raisins and nuts in cookies was acceptable practice. I pretty much only ever ate chocolate chip cookies, and my favourites were Keebler Soft Batch cookies.

Then this dude started coming out with books for making home versions - nearly exact replicas - of packaged and restaurant foods. One of them had Keebler Soft Batch cookies in it. Score! I bought the book and made the cookies, and they ended up being my sister's favourite as well as mine. I think about her every time I make these, if only because of the time she insisted I make them at her tiny little apartment when, not being a cook/baker herself (she preferred things from cans and boxes in those days) and not having much equipment, we had to try to cream the first ingredients by hand with a spoon (or maybe it was one of those hand-cranked egg beaters). I think we gave up after about 15 minutes (but we still made the cookies).

One of the first recipes I veganized was that cookie recipe. Instead of posting the recipe here and running afoul of copyright law or something, I'll just direct you to the link above and make the following suggestions:

Only make half a batch unless you're taking them to a potluck or something (otherwise you'll be in the kitchen for hours)
Replace the butter with vegan margarine
Replace the egg with either a flax egg or commercial egg replacer
If you live near sea level/in a moist climate, increase the flour a bit (you should be able to shape them by hand)

I love how these cookies are still soft a day or two later (if they last more than 2 days). I don't know if it's the molasses or the method, but whatever it is, they're amazing both right out of the oven and the next day. They're the only chocolate chip cookie I've ever had that stayed soft, which is how I like them. Oh, and if you mess up and take them out too early (like I did tonight), you can still eat them and they'll still be delicious! I actually kinda love gooey, undercooked cookies. I think I ate about 5 tonight, and now I feel a bit sick.

I tested a recipe for Terry last night, but since this post is already kinda lengthy, I'll post that tomorrow.

Vegan MoFo - Another copycat and a wrap-up

2011-10-31T16:38:00.000-07:00

It's the last day of MoFo 2011! I'm sad it's ending, though a part of me is glad to be getting a break! I actually managed to blog every single day of October! I did that the first year I participated, but that's because I wasn't working, so I'm really impressed with myself that I was able to do it this year.

There were, let's face it, quite a few things that I wanted to do that I didn't get around to. I didn't make stovies, skirlie, or tablet. I didn't make poutine. I didn't make nearly enough recipes from the Cookbook Challenge books, and I could've done better at testing. But I made a lot of stuff, so that's something.

Anyway, my last MoFo post is another copycat from the I-40 Kitchen - Potato Chip Chocolate Chip Cookies!

FYI - I used 3 25g packets of Tesco's ready-salted crisps to make up the cup called for in the recipe. Once again, I did the roll-and-squish method. The dough for these was a little thinner than the other ones I made, so they spread a bit more, but they still needed a bit of smooshing.

These were soft and delicious right out of the oven. The chips just gave it a little bit of extra texture and a pleasant saltiness (though they were thirsty-making!). They were pretty crispy after sitting overnight. One of my co-workers said they were exactly the kind of chocolate chip cookies she likes, and they didn't last long with the rest of the office. I liked them, but they still weren't my favourite cookies. My quest for the perfect chocolate chip cookie continues.

So, even though it's the end of MoFo, I'll still be blogging. I'll continue testing for Terry's next book, and I have a few more projects that I'll probably cover. So this blog won't go silent until next October!

I hope everyone else enjoyed this MoFo as much as I did. It went by so fast! I can't wait for next year, though hopefully I'll have more time to prepare!

Vegan MoFo - Copycats and crap shops

2011-10-30T11:37:00.000-07:00

One of the things I wanted to do was a whole week of copycats - recipes that other MoFo'ers posted this month. I didn't get around to that, but since I'd bought all the ingredients to make The I-40 Kitchen's Sausage Balls, I decided that those, at the very least, I had to have.

I only made a half batch because I didn't want to use up the entire box of Bisquick on one recipe. I used Cheezly mature red cheddar for the cheese and Fry's sliceable sausage log thing for the sausage. I tried one almost right out of the oven, and they were amazing, but they were also kinda crying out for gravy, so I whipped some up. This was probably the trashiest and most delicious meal I've ever eaten! I kinda wish I'd made a whole batch because we ate them all, but at the same time, I would probably already have eaten the rest if I had done.

After breakfast, we had to go get Mike's passport photos done, and then I headed up to Cameron Toll shopping centre. They have a new American store called Amerikandy (I guess using a k when neither America or candy is spelled with a k gives it that added whimsy so crucial to a store that sells nothing but junk food). When I walked by the other day and saw a tower of root beer, I promised myself I'd go back and check it out.

I had a comprehensive look around, and this is the impression I came away with - the person running the shop has probably never been to the US and possibly was accidentally sent a bunch of crap that s/he then marked up ridiculously to try to offload it to dupes. They have boxes of Cocoa Pebbles for £8, and cans of soda (Mug and A&W root beers, Wild Cherry Pepsi, vanilla Coke, grape Fanta, and a few flavours of Mountain Dew) for £1.50 each or £16.50 for a 12-pack. They also have Pop Tarts. The rest of the shop, which, as you may recall, is called Amerikandy, is full of candy and junk food from the UK, some of it even made in Edinburgh. I promise you that no child in the US will have ever consumed an Iron Brew (their spelling) lollipop.

Growing up only buying brand-name sodas when they were on sale for 2/$5 (because the generics were half as much and tasted the same), I'm reluctant to part with what amounts to about $25 for a box of soda. When you then consider that Lupe Pinto's has most of the same sodas for £1.10 each, and also has other products I'd actually want to buy, I'm unlikely to shop here again. However, I did grab a few things out of a combination of desperation (for root beer) and curiosity/shock value.

Mountain Dew, Wild Cherry Pepsi (which I've loved since my childhood taking the Greyhound from TX to NY, stopping at Withville, VA, for driver changes on almost every trip), A&W root beer, and Mug root beer. Let's get a closer look at that Mountain Dew, shall we?

What the honest fork, Mountain Dew?! Yes, that is a mountain man (called Hillbilly Willy) with a moonshine bottle cork blasting a hole through his hat, and it's called "throwback". Well, at least he doesn't have a wild look in his eyes and isn't brandishing a shotgun. The gimmick with this is that it's made with sugar (like the original Mountain Dew) instead of HFCS (like current Mtn Dew). Soda companies' attempts to be down with the kids by doing some stupid promotion or changing their products to be more "xtreme" are annoying but usually not offensive, so could we please not use stereotypes in our marketing campaigns?

I'm hoping to get some more tester recipes done tonight and tomorrow, so I'll blog about those then.

Vegan MoFo - Cookbook Challenge: The Best Veggie Burgers on the Planet (pt 2)

2011-10-29T16:37:00.000-07:00

Sorry this is so late - we're just back from seeing the cinema re-release of Ghostbusters! I love that flick - I've probably seen it 100 times (no exaggeration) - and it's even better on the big screen. I wish more of my favourite films would get re-released (or that the Cameo cinema would bring back the Breakfast Club, the once-a-month weekend morning show of an 80s classic). I know this re-release is just a lead-up to Ghostbusters 3 (which I'm not sure about), but whatever. Anyway, on to the foods.

I made another recipe from The Best Veggie Burgers on the Planet by Joni-Marie Newman. Tonight was the Bacon Cheeseburger.

I would like to draw your attention to the bread substance containing the burger. That is regular-sized sliced bread from the store. The burger is overflowing the bread. It is a giant-ass burger. The recipe said it makes 4, but when I made the first two, they were humongous, so I made 4 more patties out of the rest of the dough. Those went in the freezer because I knew neither of us would want more than one.

These were pretty easy to make and didn't take too long. I think I cooked them longer than the recipe suggested because they were so huge (I didn't think they'd cook through with only 3-5 minutes of frying). If I'd had more time, I probably would've baked them, but that would've made us late for the movie. I might bake the other ones whenever I decide to eat them.

As far as taste, I thought they were a bit too sweet. They have barbecue sauce and maple syrup in them, and I feel like I could've had less of one of those (probably the syrup). I would've liked a little more smoky flavour as well. Despite the 1/2 cup of nooch, I didn't think they tasted particularly cheesy - the sweetness kinda overwhelmed that flavour.

I used beef-style broth for the TVP. The only thing I subbed was tahini for the peanut butter, since the Freenut butter is too sweet to sub in savoury dishes.

I don't know if I'd make these again. I prefer a more basic burger that I can add things to, and I prefer my cheeseburgers to be cheesy. I'll try out one of the basic burgers and see how that works out.

We set our clocks back tonight, so if you're in the UK, don't forget - 3am becomes 2am! But only once!

Vegan MoFo - Simple things are often best

2011-10-28T13:02:00.000-07:00

I was initially gonna review the Linda McCartney mini sausages that I bought last weekend. But then I ate them and realised that they really are just smaller versions of the regular-size LM sausages, so I figured there was no point. But I didn't just eat the mini sausages.

The side here is microwave-steamed rice mixed with microwave-steamed veg (cooked separately - they're two different products). After I served Mike's rice, I threw my veg into the rice, then shook some liquid aminos and nooch over them and gave them a stir. It's amazingly delicious, and actually kinda reminds me of fried rice!

It specifically reminds me of my pregan days when I hardly ate any veg and would only ever get chicken fried rice when we got Chinese take-out. Of all the things on the menu, it had the least veg in it, so I figured it was safe. I'm glad I've expanded my palate since then. I can't wait to get back to Dallas and go to Veggie Garden for some awesome vegan Chinese food.

In other news, the soy milk powder available in the UK is so far inferior to that in the US that I could almost cry. I don't know why this is, but the proof is in the fact that my instant hot chocolate mix is now nearly undrinkable. I'm most displeased and will definitely be buying some US soy milk powder for my Xmas present from my sister (my present is that she pays to ship stuff I buy from the US). So if anyone has a coupon code for Pangea or Cosmo's or any other US online vegan shop, it would be awesome if you shared.

Vegan MoFo - Quick dessert, quick post

2011-10-27T15:50:00.000-07:00

Mike took me to dinner tonight. We went to Bonsai. I love Bonsai - so much that I've already done a MoFo post about it! So I had to figure out something else to blog about for tonight.

On my way home, I decided to make cookies, since I figured they were something I could knock out between getting home and leaving for dinner. I've never made anything from Kelly Pelosa's The Vegan Cookie Connoisseur, even though I've owned it for a year, so I decided to make something from that. I already knew I wanted to make chocolate chip, so I flipped to that section of the book. I picked a recipe that I liked the look of, only to discover that my applesauce had gone off (I really need to start freezing it in portions). Then I chose another recipe but couldn't decide if I could go ahead and use actual soy yogurt instead of making the fake soy yogurt concoction the recipe calls for (a mixture of soy milk and cornstarch warmed up). By the time I decided I could probably just use soy yogurt, it was too late to make the cookies.

And this is why I'm posting at 11.30pm - I've just finished making the cookies. We got home from dinner, I sat around for a bit trying to decide if I'd rather just make blondies, and then I sucked it up and made the cookies. I finally decided on Kelly's Chocolate Chip Cookies.

These won't replace my favourite chocolate chip cookies, but they were really tasty and pretty easy to make. The recipe didn't say anything about flattening them, so my first batch was pretty puffy. It also says it makes 16, but I managed to get 25 decent-sized cookies out of the dough. This seems like one that would make decent sammich cookies, since the dough feels stiff enough to roll into a log and slice uniformly, but I just did the roll-and-squish method of dough shaping.

The book is packed with recipes I'd like to try, so I'm looking forward to having more time with it. I've already decided to make another recipe for my office Xmas party.

Do you have the book? What's your favourite recipe from it?

Vegan MoFo - Nooch makes everything better

2011-10-26T14:22:00.000-07:00

A couple of days ago, I made the Bacon and Egg Burgers from The Best Veggie Burgers on the Planet by Joni-Marie Newman for the cookbook challenge. I didn't love them, but I really wanted to. Despite not being great, they made an excellent breakfast - I eat breakfast between 8 and 8.15am, and when I ate these, I wasn't hungry until about 12.30 or 1pm. So I was determined to make them more than just edible, and I think I've accomplished that!

One thing I realised is that the imitation bacon bits available here are far less salty than the ones available in the US. You see, in the UK/Europe, the government actually regulates the food industry in a meaningful way, so they have limits on, for example, how much salt can be in food. So my burgers were a little bland because I didn't account for the lower salt level. The other thing I realised is that these are basically tofu scramble burgers. As far as I'm concerned, it's not scramble if it doesn't contain nooch, and there's no nooch in these.

So I made the burgers again, this time adding about a teaspoon of liquid aminos (for the saltiness) and 1/4 cup of nooch. I managed to get away using slightly less flour this time as well (and I only used 1/2 cup of flour last time, which is the low end of the range for the recipe). They turned out great! I actually want to eat another one right now, but having just calculated the calories (roughly 186 each), I can't really afford to after all those Manner wafers I ate this afternoon.

I'm really glad I gave these another try, because I can see them becoming a breakfast staple. They're really easy to make and take relatively little time, and, as I said above, are filling enough to get you through to lunch. They're a little more calorific than my usual breakfast (cereal and soymilk), but I think I'll make that up by not feeling the need to snack between meals (I hope - abundant Manner wafers notwithstanding). Oh, and they freeze well, so you could make a couple of batches (I managed to fry the whole of one batch in one go) and pop a bunch in the freezer.

Mike's taking me out to dinner tomorrow, but I need to check that I haven't already reviewed this restaurant (I have a feeling I have). If I have, I might make something between getting home and going back out so I have something to blog about!

Vegan MoFo - Sick again

2011-10-25T14:31:00.000-07:00

I'm going for a cop-out survey post tonight. I'm either having another allergy attack or have caught a cold for real this time, so dinner was a Freenut butter and jam sammich, hot chocolate and some allergy pills (and Mike just ate ice cream).

1.Favorite non-dairy milk? AlproSoya sweetened, in the blue carton

2.What are the top 3 dishes/recipes you are planning to cook? Sausageballs from the I-40 Kitchen, Mo's Texas-sizedkolaches, and Isa'sApplePie Pancakes

3.Topping of choice for popcorn? noochand seasoned salt

4.Most disastrous recipe/meal failure? A couple of months ago, I was trying to be good and make lunch for Mike the night before so I didn't have to get up early to do it. I put the pasta on, then promptly forgot about it. About 45 minutes later, Mike said "what's that smell" and I remembered his pasta. It ruined the pan and made the flat smell like smoke for days. But I got a really good new pan out of it, and now we know our smoke detectors don't work.

5.Favorite pickled item? Idon't really like anything pickled!

6.How do you organize your recipes? Iused to have them organised by category on my computer, but then myhard drive crashed. Now I just have a few things on my hard drive andeverything else in my bookmarks. And I pretty much never lookat them.

7.Compost, trash, or garbage disposal? Unfortunately,we can't compost and don't have a garbage disposal, so we have totrash our food waste.

8.If you were stranded on an island and could only bring 3 foods…whatwould they be (don’t worry about how you’ll cook them)? Tofu,nooch, chard

9.Fondest food memory from your childhood? BigSouthern-style breakfasts at my grandparents' house – scrambledeggs, biscuits and gravy (or jam or sorghum), bacon, cereal, juice –I've made a vegan version many times

10.Favorite vegan ice cream? OneI made myself – PB Speculoos cookies and cream: a base made withFreenut butter and homemade Speculoos spread (using the PB variationof the ice cream recipe in ***Veganomicon*)with crushed Oreos added in at the end**

12.Spice/herb you would die without? cumin

13.Cookbook you have owned for the longest time? SinceI moved to another country, I can really only count the books I'vegotten since I came to Edinburgh, so that would have to be Veganwith a Vengeance.

14.Favorite flavor of jam/jelly? Seedlessraspberry

15.Favorite vegan recipe to serve to an omni friend? ProbablyTheBest Pumpkin Muffins Ever from VwaV, made with less sugar andadded chocolate chips

17.Favorite meal to cook (or time of day to cook)? Brinner!It's not just because it's eating breakfast any time you want –it's eating breakfast without having to get up early to make it andwithout having to do anything afterwards, like get on with your day.

18.What is sitting on top of your refrigerator? Nothing– it's an under-counter

19.Name 3 items in your freezer without looking. MrRak's mini-latkes (closest thing to tots I can get here), frozen veg,Linda McCartney mini-sausages

20.What’s on your grocery list? Nothingright now – I just went shopping the other day. Oh, Iactually need some soy milk powder because I ran out when I made thelast batch of hot chocolate mix, and we're almost out of hotchocolate mix.

21.Favorite grocery store? RealFoods for specialty/vegan stuff, Sainsbury's for everyday stuff,Lupe Pinto's for Latiningredients or American convenience foods (like Hershey's syrup)

22.Name a recipe you’d love to veganize, but haven’t yet. Poutine– it seems like the best idea ever – fries, gravy, and cheese. Ijust haven't had the chance, though it shouldn't be that difficult.

23.Food blog you read the most (besides Isa’s because I know you checkit everyday). Or maybe the top 3? MoBetta Vegan, Don'tEat Off the Sidewalk, and CupcakeKitteh

24.Favorite vegan candy/chocolate? GoMax Go Twilight or TheChocolate Tree sea salt and caramel dark chocolate bar or Marmitetruffle

25.Most extravagant food item purchased lately? It'sreally only extravagant when you convert the currency, but I spent £4(about $6.40) on a small box of Bisquick which probably would've costabout $2.50 in the US. I really don't often splash out on food. Ifind it difficult to justify spending £2.60 on a 2-pack of Redwoodquarterpound burgers (though they're really good).

Vegan MoFo - Testering

2011-10-24T15:40:00.000-07:00

I mentioned that I'm testing for Terry Hope Romero's newest book (working title might be World of Vegancraft). I wanted to have done more by now, but once again, the flat situation got in the way - we had a second viewing at 7pm, so I wasn't really interested in cooking when we got home.

So, the recipe I started with was the White Lima Bean Soup with Tomatoes and Thyme.

I have to admit, I didn't love it. I didn't hate it - there's definite potential there. I like all the individual ingredients, and they should work together.

To be honest, I think the fault might have been mine. I accidentally added an extra teaspoon of thyme, and then the pot boiled over. I'll probably make this again and actually get the quantities right and not let the pot boil over. I kinda feel like, even though I managed to get a lot of the extra thyme out after it boiled over, I owe it to Terry to make sure it wasn't my fault that I didn't like it.

Hopefully I'll be able to crack on with another tester recipe tomorrow.

Vegan MoFo - Cookbook Challenge: The Best Veggie Burgers on the Planet (pt 1)

2011-10-23T15:34:00.000-07:00

Holy crap am I tired. It's 11.30pm and I've only recently finished cooking for the evening. I made soup, bagels, burgers, and cake, and I'm exhausted.

Today starts week...something (I can't be bothered to check) of the Cookbook Challenge. This week's book is The Best Veggie Burgers on the Planet by Joni-Marie Newman. I've chosen a lot from this book, but I'm already pretty sure I won't be able to get through it. We'll see - I've also started testing for Terry's new book, so I might not have time for everything. I actually made a tester recipe today, but it's one of those "tastes better the next day" deals so I'll reserve judgment until tomorrow.

I started off with the Bacon and Egg Burgers and the Bagel Buns.

The buns are what you'd expect - taste and texture of a bagel, but without the hole. They were a bit time-consuming, but no more than any other yeast bread. Actually, they were pretty easy. I used a bit of wholemeal flour to make them a little healthier.

The burgers were kinda meh. They were a little flavourless, which is odd considering how much stuff goes into them - garlic powder, onion powder, bacon bits. I'm hoping that the flavours will develop overnight and they'll taste better tomorrow.

I also made the Espresso Chocolate Chip Cake. I didn't take a picture because it kinda fell apart and didn't look great. But it tasted amazing! It's very chocolaty - I barely detected the coffee, despite it having as much espresso powder as cocoa powder and 1/4 c of coffee liqueur. I honestly wasn't sure about it when I tasted the batter, but it really works. It's fluffy and moist and slightly gooey from the chocolate chips. It's kinda everything I want in an unadorned chocolate cake. OK, I'd be happy if it did the same thing with half the fat, but what can you do? Oh, word to the wise - eat this with a glass of your non-dairy milk of choice at hand, because you'll need it. In fact, maybe keep the carton out.

I'm feeling better about this book than the last, especially with a success right out of the gate. Hopefully today's burgers were a fluke and everything else will be comparable to the cake and buns.

Are you participating in the cookbook challenge? What are you planning from this one?

Vegan MoFo - Giveaway winner!

2011-10-23T04:13:00.000-07:00

The winner of the giveaway for a bottle of Hollow's Alcoholic Ginger Beer is ...

xherbivorex!!!

If you see this before you see the post on the PPK, PM me your details. If you get back to me by 1pm tomorrow, I'll be able to send it out tomorrow.

Also, apologies for not being able to prove the winner. I used a random number generator for 1-7 and got 4 (and xherbivorex was the 4th official entry), but I couldn't figure out how to get the number generator onto here. You'll just have to trust that I didn't fix the competition or anything.

Congratulations, xherbivorex!!

Vegan MoFo - Cookbook Challenge: 500 Vegan Recipes (pt 4)

2011-10-22T15:03:00.000-07:00

Tonight I tried to make the Kahlua ice cream from 500 Vegan Recipes. Here's how it failed:

First, I didn't have quite enough Kahlua. I solved that with throwing in some vanilla, which also made up for the fact that I can't get vanilla soy creamer in the UK. But that shouldn't have made much difference.

Then, when it was simmering, I stirred in the arrowroot slurry. It cooked, and I stirred. It cooked, and I stirred. And it never. got. thick. This may have been the fault of my arrowroot powder, though I didn't have a problem when I used it a couple of weeks ago. So, I made a bit more slurry, this time with some Bird's Custard Powder (which I just bought recently). It didn't quite dissolve, so when I poured it in, it left some chunks. But at least the mixture got slightly thicker.

I poured it into my container, let it cool on the counter, and then put it in the fridge to cool for several hours. When I thought it was sufficiently cool, I set up my ice cream maker and poured it in. About 1/4 of it went on the counter. But that was kinda OK because there was too much for my ice cream maker anyway.

I went back to check on it after about 20 minutes, and it was still completely liquid. So I left it in for another 20 minutes or so. Still mostly liquid, though it seemed to be forming some crystals. After over an hour of churning, it still only had some crystals, but it wasn't anywhere near ice cream. (Bear in mind, I've used this machine before with great success.)

I ended up just bunging the mixture back into the container and putting it in the freezer. I refuse to give up when alcohol is involved. We'll see if it comes anywhere near ice cream.

Overall, I have to say I've been pretty disappointed with this book. I've only made one recipe from it that I loved and made multiple times (the yeasted pumpkin bread). Everything else has been mediocre at best. I won't give up on it entirely because I've barely cracked it (even if I made 50 recipes from it, I'd only be 1/10th of the way through), but I don't ever see it being in heavy rotation. At the same time, I won't warn people away from it entirely because there are obviously loads of people who love it.

Next week's cookbook challenge book is The Best Veggie Burgers on the Planet, also by Joni Marie Newman. I've dog-eared a lot of pages, and I have to start testing, so I'll be busy next week!

Vegan MoFo - Cookbook Challenge: 500 Vegan Recipes (pt 3)

2011-10-21T14:15:00.000-07:00

I was thisclose to not bothering again today, but then I decided that I had to do something better than review more convenience foods. I decided to make another recipe from 500 Vegan Recipes for the Cookbook Challenge.

I made the Cast Iron Skillet Frittata, a combination of the Lorraine and Mexican variations. I could've used my bac'n bits to do the Lorraine straight up, but I'm not sure if I can get any more, so I didn't want to take the chance (since I plan on using them for something else later). So I used some chorizo that I made during testing for Alicia's next book, Quick and Easy Low-Cal Vegan Comfort Food (which, btw, will be amazing, I promise). I served it with Mac & ~~Trees~~ Peas from Appetite for Reduction.

I have to be honest - I didn't love this. The texture was weird to me - I'm used to frittatas just being mashed up tofu pressed into the pan, so the blending of the ingredients here made for a texture that was disappointing. It also wasn't terribly flavourful, despite the amount of garlic and onion powders chucked into it. And despite containing soy creamer and 1/4 c of oil, it was mouth-parchingly dry. So, needless to say, I won't be making this again. It pales in comparison to the Papa Chorizo Frittata in Q&E Vegan Celebrations, which is my absolute favourite frittata recipe of all time.

Speaking of testing, I got an email yesterday telling me that I get to be in the tester pool for Terry's next book! I'm super excited, but also a little bit anxious because she already has so many recipes up. It's a little different from what I'm used to. I'm looking forward to starting soon (just need to go through everything and figure out what I'm doing!).

Don't forget, for those of you in the UK, you can still win a bottle of Hollow's Alcoholic Ginger Beer. Just leave a comment about your favourite ginger and/or beer recipe in the giveaway post before 12pm Sunday!

Vegan MoFo - More convenience food and a GIVEAWAY!

2011-10-20T12:59:00.000-07:00

More flat stuff and being a bit unwell (sinusy holdover from the other day, I hope) equals another review of convenience food!

This is pretty similar to last night's dinner, with just a few changes. Tonight is Sainsbury's Love Soya sausages (which actually are labeled vegan), noochy Smash, and microwave-steamed veg.

I realised what I don't like about these sausages that I noticed in last night's sausage rolls - too much pepper. They're really, really peppery, and it kinda overwhelms the rest of the flavours. The texture is great - very nearly the same as the Linda McCartney sausages - but they're just that little bit different. And I think that's the difference between a vegetarian company and a company trying to cash in on a trend.

So, remember last week when I posted about Hollow's Ginger Beer? Well, they sent me free stuff! And since they sent two bottles, I'm giving one away!

I'm terribly un-clever, so I guess tell me your favourite recipe with ginger and/or beer, and I'll choose a winner randomly! Since this is only available in the UK, and I'm not sure about shipping alcohol to other countries, this is open to UK residents only.

I promise I'll make some real food soon. We're extremely focused on getting this flat, but we may have reached another waiting period. Also, I can't get IKEA's kitchen planner to work on my computer, so I don't have that to play with. So tomorrow, I'll actually make something from scratch!

Aaahh, sorry, I forgot to put a date on this! Giveaway entries accepted through this Sunday at 12pm BST. I'll pick a winner and get your details so I can (hopefully) send it out on Monday.

Vegan MoFo - Cookbook Challenge: 500 Vegan Recipes (pt 2)

2011-10-19T15:50:00.000-07:00

Seems like yesterday's ailment was just run-of-the-mill allergies. Back on form today, but I still ate convenience food, but here's why:

We found out that the flat we want is being offered to us at 75% of the original list price. That is freaking amazing.

Anyway, I came home from work and shopping to this news, then waited for Mike to get home to share with him. By the time we finished talking about it with each other, talking to his dad about it, and looking at furniture on the IKEA website, it was nearly 8pm. And I just so happened to buy a bunch of new frozen convenience foods, so I decided to cook that instead of fresh food.

Mmm...beige.

We have here another plate of nothing but convenience foods. The small things are in Sainsbury's newly revamped frozen free-from line called Love Soya - mini sausage rolls (btw, the whole range is on sale, but check the ingredients - not everything is vegan). The large one just behind those is a Linda McCartney sausage roll (I had 2 left and wanted to get rid of them). The pile of beige to the right is noochy Smash, and the veg is frozen broccoli and cauliflower.

I'll be honest - I prefer the Linda McCartney sausage rolls. But maybe if I'd cooked the Sainsbury's ones a little less, I'd like them more. As always, noochy Smash is a winner, but the veg was kinda meh. I think I'll stick with the steam bags (which I love).

But I still managed to do something for the Cookbook Challenge. I made the Chocolate Breakfast Cake from 500 Vegan Recipes.

Oh dear lord, you must eat this with something on it. To give you an idea of how not sweet this is, it has more cocoa than sugar. Right out of the pan, it's dry and kinda icky (though I have to admit, the banana flavour isn't very strong at all). However, spread with a bit of raspberry jam, it's actually pretty good. Since I had to make a point of buying a banana, I don't think I'd make this again, but it was nice to try something different.

In other fabulous news, it looks like another American import shop is opening up in the 'burgh. It's in the same shopping centre as my preferred Sainsbury's, which is slightly more convenient than Lupe Pinto's. Unfortunately, it looks like it's mostly candy and junk food (most of which I'm sure I can't eat). However, I saw 12-packs of Mug root beer and Wild Cherry Pepsi. Hell. Yes. Hopefully since it looks like they're more exclusively American, they'll be importing more of everything and therefore have it available for less than LP's (which would be awesome - £1.10 for a can of A&W is a bit ridiculous).

Vegan MoFo - In which I fail due to sickness

2011-10-18T15:16:00.000-07:00

This will be a short post. I had to come home early because I'm ill. It's probably just allergies, or at least I hope it is. So I didn't really do anything today. I couldn't be bothered cooking, so I ate convenience foods that I've already talked about, and I drank a lot of hot chocolate that I already talked about*. So, apologies to those who are actually checking my blog for new content. Hopefully I'll be back on form tomorrow and able to post some actual food-related content.

*OK, so I can kinda talk about the hot chocolate mix again. The recipe calls for 1/4 c mix to 1 c hot water. I think that's way too much. I use a giant mug that's easily 1 1/2+ cups, and I use 1/4 c in that. So I would say it's maybe 2 heaped tablespoons per cup of hot water. Also, I think the mix itself needs at least another tablespoon of cocoa powder. So, there's your food-related content. Oh, and we went through that mix so quickly that I already had to make another double batch, and now I'm out of soy milk powder. *sadface*

Vegan MoFo - Restaurant Review: Phuket Pavilion

2011-10-17T13:08:00.000-07:00

I'm gonna be a bit lazy today as I slept badly and had a crazy busy day, and then we went out to dinner. Also, I forgot my camera. Sorry.

We went to Phuket Pavilion, which is an amazing Thai restaurant up the road from our flat. We could've walked there if it hadn't been raining. We probably go there every couple of months because the food is delicious and filling, and it's really convenient.

Mike always gets the spring rolls as a starter. I usually get the sweet potato fritters to start, but the last time I had them, they were just too greasy, so this time, I got the Soup Pak (veg in clear broth). It was really lovely - not spicy, not too heavy, and very few bits to avoid (unlike the Tom Kah Hed Nang Fah, which, while delicious, has bits of lemongrass and such that aren't very appetizing to me).

For mains, we shared a Panang Tao Hu (bean curd in red curry sauce) and a Chu Chi Hed Nang Fah (oyster mushrooms in red curry sauce), and we got a coconut rice each (which comes out in a hollowed out coconut!). I wanted bean curd but also something veg-like. We usually only get a starter each and one curry and rice to share, but I thought I'd still be hungry enough for my own curry tonight. I was wrong. Even though I only ate about 2/3 of my soup, I still only managed half of my curry and rice. That said, it was, as usual, delicious. And we have leftovers!

We'd probably go more often, but it's a bit pricey, and I usually need to be in the mood for Thai. But I'd definitely recommend it. Also, it's not a veggie restaurant, so it would be good for groups full of omnis. And they always seem to be a bit empty, so we worry about them staying open. Go there!

Vegan MoFo - Cookbook Challenge: 500 Vegan Recipes (pt 1)

2011-10-16T15:02:00.000-07:00

We're now into the third week of Vegan MoFo! Time is flying! We're also in week 5 of the Cookbook Challenge, and this week is 500 Vegan Recipes by Celine Steen and Joni-Marie Newman.

This ~~morning~~ afternoon I made the Peanut Butter Pancakes (with Freenut Butter, of course). I made the first half of the batch as per the recipe and the second half with chocolate chips.

Apologies for the pic - I forgot to take one before I started eating.

As suggested, I ate these with some raspberry jam. The plain ones were a bit meh, but the chocolate chip ones were really good. Mike quite liked both, though he had the plain with chocolate spread. But he usually doesn't like PB stuff, so they must have been good. That said, I find that a lot of stuff that has cooked PB (apart from cookies) almost seems like the PB flavour is baked out (like when you cook with alcohol). Things that have a strong PB flavour tend to be uncooked (ice cream, buttercream, etc.) - I'm not quite sure why that is - which is why it kinda annoys me when I make something with a cup of PB and don't taste any PB, especially since the stuff I use isn't cheap. But what can you do?

Oh, I should also say that the batter for these was crazy thick. I could've made waffles with it. Those up there didn't just fluff up - that's how thick the batter was. They also took a while to cook, so these took me over an hour all told. They also created a bit of a mess with mixing in the PB. I don't know that I'd make these again just for us because they're a bit of a time-consuming hassle. But they were tasty. Oh, and as Mike pointed out, they turned green on the inside.

I made the Chili and Cornbread Pie for dinner (sorry, too lazy/tired to take a pic). Let me start off by saying this - the instructions are wrong. There's no way in hell all those ingredients can fit in an 8" square pan. The chili alone came up to the top of my 10" cast iron skillet (which is the proper vessel in which to cook cornbread). I ended up putting everything in my cast iron Dutch oven.

The chili was a bit odd - despite all the spices, it still felt a little bland, though that could be sorted with a bit of salt. It also wasn't as saucy as I'm used to. The cornbread was some kind of Yankee concoction - more flour than cornmeal, which felt a little wrong (as did the suggestion that it would be cooked in a glass pan - honestly). Other than that, it was pretty good. I'd make it again, but I'd change it a bit (like more liquid in the chili and more cornmeal in the cornbread).

We're going out for dinner tomorrow, so it'll be another restaurant review, but I might also make something else from 500VR.

Vegan MoFo - Another lazy dinner

2011-10-15T12:20:00.000-07:00

I had another convenience food dinner tonight. Cooking was involved, but not a single thing actually eaten was hand-made by me. I didn't even bother taking a picture because it was so simple and full of packaged goodness - a Redwood's quarterpound burger with a bit of smoked cheddar Sheese (made in Scotland!) between two pieces of store-bought bread (Alinson's batch baked wholemeal, in case you're interested) with mustard, Infinity Foods' smoked garlic mayo, and ketchup, with a side of microwave-steamed veggies (frozen 4-pack from Sainsbury's). Simple, but quick and delicious, though I feel a bit guilty writing about it. But it is Saturday, and I technically don't have to do an entry today, so whevs.

OK, so the guilt got to me and I did something. It's not much, but it'll serve me well in coming months - homemade hot chocolate mix.

I used the Go Dairy Free recipe, which has always been decent. Another quick and easy thing that will come in handy when Mike wants hot chocolate but I can't be bothered standing over the stove to make it from scratch. I went with the plain recipe because I like to be able to customise my hot chocolate each time and don't want to be tied to a particular flavour.

I did end up putting a bit of cinnamon in this, and topped it off with vanilla soy milk to cool it faster and make up for using less-than-vanilla-y vanilla sugar.

BTW, do us a favour and check out PPKer Jen's blog, That Pain in the Ass Vegan, a couple of times a day. She's trying to get a million hits during MoFo so she can donate the money generated to her local food bank and animal shelters. Unfortunately I can't help (other than trying to get the word out) because only US hits count. Boo-urns. So click it, share it with your friends, and then just keep refreshing the page all day. That would be swell.

Vegan MoFo - Restaurant Review: Heavenly

2011-10-14T15:55:00.000-07:00

I took today off from work and took myself to Glasgow for a day of eating and museum-ing. Usually when we go to Glasgow, we don't stay long or do much because Mike's a bit of a homebody and doesn't like to stay out long. Also, when we go to museums, he has a tendency to get bored quickly (because he reads faster and finishes sooner), so I end up getting rushed and not seeing everything I want to see. So this time, I was by myself and could go at my own pace, and it was great.

I started off with lunch at Heavenly. They're a fairly new all-vegan restaurant - they've only been open since May. Heavenly became my favourite restaurant after my first meal there, and it remains firmly in first place after today. It doesn't hurt that they don't have much competition, but they easily quash the few other contenders with a varied menu that doesn't seem to be based around vegan stereotypes (elaborate salads and every other dish full of nuts).

They just debuted their winter menu today, so the lunch service was a bit off due to having just received the ingredients. There were a few things on the menu that I liked the look of but weren't available, but even with that I had some tough decisions to make. I started out with a new item, garlic mushroom crostini (picture below). It was gorgeous - so much so that I got it again at dinner.

Luckily for me, the one thing on the old menu that I'd not been able to try made it to the new menu, and they had that ready to go, so that was my main - bangers and mash with red onion gravy.

As you can see, the gravy was nice and thick. The sausages were a bit overcooked, but it didn't detract from the taste (neither did the fact that they're clearly Redwood's or similar). The whole dish was tasty and comforting.

The only dessert I fancied wasn't ready yet, so I moved on to my next destination.

I went to the Kelvingrove for the AC/DC exhibition. It was really good. It not only contained your standard photos, ticket stubs, backstage passes, clothing, and other memorabilia, but interactive bits like a guitar with tabs for some of the more famous songs, and a couple of screens showing concert footage and interviews. And it was only £2! I'm glad I went - I still have "For Those About to Rock" in my head.

After that, I did a bit of shopping. I went to Roots and Fruits, which seems to have reorganised and shifted half of the shop to the new (2nd) location on Argyle Street. However, I did manage to get some Tofutti Sour Supreme, so hopefully I'll get it in gear and make the Deli Reubenettes from American Vegan Kitchen. After that I went to Lupe Pinto's and bought Bisquick. I will make the I-40 Blog's sausage balls.

Then it was time for me to meet PPKer Debbie for dinner, again at Heavenly! I was going to get the polenta cakes, but then I realised they had pesto, which was made with pine nuts (allergen), so I had the crostini again.

Sorry for the green-ness - we sat at The Smiths booth, which has a green-shaded light overhead. This was even better than earlier - loaded with creamy, garlicky mushrooms and slightly crispy - I could eat it daily.

Debbie had the soup and sandwich combo. The soup was leek and tattie, and the sandwich was the New York Doll. I don't recall what she thought of the soup, but she said the sandwich was good but messy, and the seitan was a little less firm than she would've liked but still tasty.

My main was the roast vegetable pie with mash and gravy (which they inexplicably call sauce here, but that there is white gravy, I don't care what they say). The pie was a little odd - really large cuts of veg, including leek, piled on top of each other and sandwiched between two rounds of puff pastry. It was tasty, but kinda weird. But the mash and gravy were good, though I prefer brown gravy on my mash. But dessert made up for it.

I got the gingerbread with cinnamon custard - the chocolate sauce was a pleasant surprise. This is hands-down one of the best - if not THE best - desserts I've ever had at a vegan restaurant. I always bemoan the fact that no one seems to be able to make a simple damn cake with no crap in it - no nuts, no dates, no raisins, just cake and icing. Though not exactly "just cake and icing", this was brilliant. The gingerbread was very cakey, and the custard was a perfect complement, and the chocolate sauce tied it all together nicely. If I hadn't been so full, I might have gotten a second serving. It was delightful, and I'll be sad if they don't have it next time I'm there.

So, in case you hadn't worked it out, I would absolutely recommend Heavenly. We've been a couple of times when it wasn't very full, so we worry a bit that they'll stay open. But with the new menu moving away from, as Debbie put it, everything looking like the one vegan option in most non-vegan places, to truly unique and creative dishes, I hope it's soon regularly packed and in no danger of closing, because every other restaurant now pales in comparison.

Vegan MoFo - Alcoholic Ginger Beer (Bread)

2011-10-13T16:15:00.000-07:00

Someone from Cake Liberation Front posted in the giveaway thread about a giveaway they're doing, so I checked out the blog. They had a recipe for Alcoholic Ginger Beer Bread - a cake-like quick bread with ginger, ginger beer, and chocolate - so I decided that I needed to give it a try.

The first step here was finding Hollows Alcoholic Ginger Beer as Crabbie's is, apparently, not vegan. I'd never seen it before, so I contacted customer service, who sent me a list of retailers the next day. The contact person also said they'd send me some free samples if I found it in a shop that wasn't on their list. Well, after I bought it from Earthy Foods & Goods (on my first visit; I also bought my favourite rooibos chai and my favourite dark chocolate - The Chocolate Tree's sea salt and caramel dark chocolate), I happened to spy a bottle in Real Foods (which is kinda funny because I didn't even think of looking there, even though it's exactly the kind of thing they'd sell and I'm there a couple times a week). And, true to her word, the contact person asked me for my address to send me some samples! I eagerly await them - it'll brighten my work day, since that's where they'll be delivered.

Anyway, I digress. So, I made the bread, and I had some ginger beer left over. I don't think I've ever had straight alcoholic ginger beer, but I've had the non-alcoholic stuff. I like it enough, but only sparingly, as I find it has a bit of an ohgoditburns! quality to it. This, however, did not taste like burning. It has a mild, pleasant flavour, definitely ginger but not so strong that it hurts, but it also doesn't taste like alcohol. I would definitely order this in a pub - it's more refreshing than cider and less vile than beer. Unfortunately, I only had about 1/4 of a bottle left, and Mike drank most of it, so I couldn't judge the level of buzz one might get from it.

On to the bread:

I like it a lot, though I wish it had come out a little more cake-like. As you can see, it's loaded with chocolate chips (which I used in place of chunks because I'm lazy and had about a kilo of chips vs no bars/chunks), and the chocolate flavour almost overwhelms the ginger. Despite having 2 tsp of ginger and 12 oz of ginger beer, the ginger flavour is actually pretty subtle. I'm hoping that will change with a bit of a sit.

BTW, the company that makes the alcoholic ginger beer is owned by Fentimans, who bring us Curiosity Cola and Victorian Lemonade. They make good stuff.

I'm super excited about tomorrow - I'm going to Glasgow for eating, meeting up for cake and beverages, and going to museums. Two things - new menu at Heavenly, and AC/DC exhibition at the Kelvingrove! More about that when I get home tomorrow evening!

Vegan MoFo - Cookbook Challenge: Appetite for Reduction (pt 2)

2011-10-12T14:36:00.000-07:00

I did a couple more recipes from Appetite for Reduction for the Cookbook Challenge. Today was Broiled Blackened Tofu and Mac & Trees.

I think you can tell by the picture which of these recipes I preferred. I loved the Mac & Trees. I'm pretty sure I've made the pea version before, but never the original broccoli version. It was really good - it tasted like comforting, creamy, cheesy mac and cheese, but the broccoli and the fact that it's low-cal made it feel OK to eat (which I did, repeatedly, one spoonful at a time every time I went to the kitchen). Even Mike liked it, and he hates cooked cheese-type foods. He liked it enough to want to eat it again! So this is a definite winner.

Also, I just love that cheese sauce. It takes all of 15 minutes to make all told, and it's really really good. And no added fat! That's what you want in a cheese sauce. And the best thing about vegan cheese sauces - easy clean-up. You can let a vegan cheese sauce cool and still be able to rinse out most of it. +1 for veganism.

The tofu, however, was not my favourite. The flavour was OK, but I didn't dig the texture. I think, once again, it was my nemesis thyme. I love/hate that bastard substance. I almost didn't put it in, but then I decided to go with the original recipe. I kinda wish I hadn't. I kept getting jabbed in the gums by it, and at one point, I had a hard time getting a piece out of my gum. It was uncomfortable, which is the exact opposite of how I want to feel when I eat. Also, I don't really have a broiler, so I had to just bake the tofu on high heat close to the element. It didn't blacken, though I think that was the least of its problems.

So, yeah, I'll make the hell out of the Mac & Trees, but if I try the tofu again, I'll leave out the thyme.

In other, non-food/veganism related news, we were approved for a mortgage! We're hoping to put in an offer on a flat soon. We're super excited. For me anyway, it's mostly because I get a cat after the majority of the work has been done on it. So keep your fingers crossed for us that everything goes smoothly and I'll be cuddling a kitteh soon!

Vegan MoFo - PPKlassics: Pandacookie's Butterscotch rum cake

2011-10-11T15:30:00.000-07:00

I think this might be my saddest post ever, because it's a post about failure.

I'll be honest, I'm not used to baking failures that are my own fault. I mean, I can handle something like the Irn Bru cupcakes that didn't come out the first time because it was an experiment and I couldn't have known what would happen. But when I fail at something that has been tested and approved by others, I feel kinda crappy.

There's a thread in the Kitchen about PPKlassics - recipes that made the rounds on the old boards or early days on the new boards. One of the recipes mentioned was Pandacookie's Butterscotch Rum Bundt Cake - a yellow cake made with rum and butterscotch chips. I know, it sounds amazing. I didn't actually have anything to write about today because Mike came home tired and didn't want anything elaborate for dinner, so we just had sammiches. Then I remembered I had been gazing longingly at that recipe, checked that I had the ingredients, and went for it.

Well, in the interim, I got upset about something (I won't talk about it here), and I didn't tend to the cake as I should have. I tested it, but I must have tested the wrong bit, because, after cooling, I discovered that it was still gooey on the inside. I ate a bit, hoping it would be at least acceptable for home consumption, but it was really bad. I actually think I may have gotten buzzed off the rum that didn't bake out.

So, yeah, my cake was a failure, so my previous upset was compounded by failcake (that I can't even make in to cakeballs). Not only did I waste the time, I also wasted almost all of the rest of my stash of imported butterscotch chips and most of a bottle of Morgan's Spiced Rum. But since it's my own failure and not that of the recipe, I'll post it here.

Pandacookie’s Rum Butterscotch Bundt Cake

2 1/2 c all purpose flour
3/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
3/4 c sugar
3/4 c rum
1/2 c canola oil (I used 1/4 c oil and 1/4 c applesauce)
1/2 c soy milk
equivalent of 2 eggs (I used ener-g)
2 tsp vanilla
1 c vegan sour cream (I used soy yogurt)
2 tbsp apple cider vinegar
1 c butterscotch chips

Preheat oven to 350 F. Grease and flour a bundt pan.
Sift flour, baking soda, salt and sugar into a large bowl. In another bowl combine rum, oil, milk, egg replacer, and vanilla. Add the liquid mixture to the dry ingredients and mix. Fold in the butterscotch chips, then fold in the sour cream. Add the vinegar and stir briefly (the vinegar will, react making pale swirls in the batter). Quickly pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake 35-45 minutes. Cool 10 minutes before turning out of the pan.

If you try this, let me know if it works out for you. Maybe it was the subs, or maybe it was taking it out too early, or maybe it was the pan being too small. All I know is, I am sad that I have no cake, because that one is going in the bin.

Vegan MoFo - Cookbook Challenge: Appetite for Reduction (pt 1)

2011-10-10T14:52:00.000-07:00

So, we're doing the Cookbook Challenge again. It seems to always coincide with MoFo, which actually works out great for me. It not only gets me to use my cookbooks, but it also gives me something to blog about!

This week is actually supposed to be Vegan Soul Kitchen by Bryant Terry, but I don't have that book, so I'm going back to week 1, Isa and Terry Week. I still haven't cooked much out of Appetite for Reduction (in my defense, I've been testing for Alicia for several months now), so I decided to focus on that. I have the rest of the books after that, and there's a 2nd Isa/Terry week, and I'm really looking forward to using a few books I haven't had for long.

It's kinda late and I'm pretty tired, so I'm just posting the recipe I tried last night, which was the Smoky Split Pea Soup.

Split pea soup is another one of those things that I didn't try for a very long time because my mom always made it seem like something vile. Pea soup was the stuff of nightmares, and this was before I saw The Exorcist (or did my Linda Blair impression at that Halloween party a few years ago). I've since learned to love split pea soup. How could you not? It's creamy and savoury and comforting. It's like a bowl of liquid hugs for your insides.

Isa's smoky, low-cal version is great. It mimics that bit of ham you'd get in an omni split pea soup without the fat or cruelty. The only thing I didn't like about it was the thyme. I wish there was a way to have the flavour of thyme without the texture. Those little bastards always stick in my teeth.

To be honest, I tested another low-cal split pea soup recipe for Alicia that I like better, so I'll probably stick with that. But until the rest of you mortals have access to that one, I would recommend this one.

Vegan MoFo - Ruby Rose's Macarena Muffin Pie

2011-10-09T12:09:00.000-07:00

This summer, I went PPKamping in Dorset with MessyVeggie, holylopez, baps, hana, and jojo. We met up with Ruby Rose at Monkey World (!), and naturally the conversation turned to odd foods. It turns out that Ruby Rose (aka Amy) had a dream about making a pie with a shortcrust base, apple filling, and cinnamon muffin topping. She then sold it at a bake sale while doing the Macarena. I think that was how the dream went.

Well, as soon as she said this, I thought, I must make that pie. Then someone else mentioned using Lotus biscuits (out of which Speculoos spread is made) to make a cookie crust (completely unrelated to the previously mentioned pie). My thoughts then turned to, I must make that pie with Speculoos crust!

I finally got around to making it today. One thing I have to say - I forgot just how much I dislike making apple pie. The coring, the peeling, the slicing - it takes SO. LONG. But I soldiered on for the good of humanity (or so I assumed).

The crust recipe is a variation on this cookie crust. The apple filling is a variation on the filling for the Gingerbread Apple Pie in Vegan with a Vengeance by Isa Chandra Moskowitz*. And the muffin top is my own cinnamon muffin recipe (minus the chocolate chips). I now give you...

Macarena Muffin Pie

Crust:

about 20 Lotus/Biscoff biscuits
3 tbsp sugar
6 tbsp margarine, melted

Preheat the oven to 350F/175C.

Crush the biscuits into small pieces (or whiz them in a food processor). Add all ingredients to a bowl and mix until combined. Press into a pie plate and bake for 5-7 minutes. Remove from the oven and let cool as you make the other elements of the pie, but leave the oven on.

Apple Filling:

1 pound apples (I used Pink Lady), peeled, cored, and thinly sliced
1/4 c brown sugar
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground ginger
1/8 tsp ground nutmeg
1/8 tsp ground allspice
1 tbsp arrowroot

Combine everything but the arrowroot in a large bowl. Sprinkle the arrowroot over the mixture and stir until the starch is dissolved.

Assemble:

Have ready one recipe of cinnamon muffins without chocolate chips. Pour the apple mixture into the prepared crust, then top with the muffin batter**. Smooth the batter over the apples so that they're completely covered. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until the muffin top is brown and slightly cracked and a toothpick inserted in the middle (but not too far down!) comes out clean.

The Verdict - OMG it's so good! I have to say, though, that the crust as written isn't perfect. It doesn't actually stay together, so it's more like one of those cakes with a pudding bottom. Still, it's freaking delicious. And I'm glad I left the 1/4 c of maple syrup out of the apple filling because it would've been way too much sugar, as it's a bit of sugar overload as is. In fact, I forgot to take pictures of the first piece and had to have a second, and I think I might go into a diabetic coma soon. I might try it again with the shortcrust (or shortbread crust, which was another variation I thought of trying before the mention of Speculoos crust). I might also just put cinnamon in the apple filling as it felt a little overwhelmed with spices.

And in case you didn't notice, I got a new camera. Naturally, the first photos I post from it are brown and messy. Awesome.

*Many thanks to Isa for letting me print my variation.
**You won't use all the batter, so throw some chocolate chips into the remainder and bake in muffin cups after you've baked this.

Vegan MoFo - Restaurant Review: Bonsai

2011-10-08T16:57:00.000-07:00

I'm late writing this because I had a horrible allergy attack this afternoon and had to take some pills (and then a 5-hour nap).

We went to Bonsai Bar Bistro (caution: non-vegan stuff on the home page, and it plays music!) for lunch this afternoon. We've been going to Bonsai for a few years now. We're pretty sure it's the first place we ever had a meal out. We were with the uni sci-fi society, which actually had some vegans in it, so it was pretty easy to learn what was OK for us to eat (though Mike wasn't yet vegan at the time). We've been going somewhat regularly ever since.

I'm the type of person who is very set in her ways. I like to establish patterns and stick to them. Yeah, we'll check out a new place, and we'll try a few things if we decide we like it. But once I've tried all the vegan stuff on the menu, I pretty much stick to ordering the same thing every time. So, every time we go to Bonsai, I order the same things - yakisoba (fried noodles with veg), inari (sushi rice wrapped in fried bean curd sheets), and agedashi tofu (breaded tofu in a soupy sauce). Mike tends to order miso soup, takuan maki (pickled radish), and either plain or seasoned rice. And it's not necessarily for a lack of options - we just prefer those things.

So, as per usual, I got what I always get. I tend to eat the agedashi tofu with the yakisoba. Both were good, but there was something not quite right about the tofu. I couldn't really put my finger on it - it was still good, but not as good as usual. The yakisoba was still great, though. I tend to eat my inari last because it has a bit of sweetness from the sushi rice. I love the combination of sweet and salty, so I always dip my inari in a bit of soy sauce. It's like a relatively healthy dessert (if fried bean curd sheets count as healthy). I can't really comment on Mike's food because I didn't try it, but he liked it.

As I said, those aren't the only vegan options. They actually have quite a few, but mine are limited because they use avocado in most of the sushi. They also serve French fries, which seems incongruous for a Japanese restaurant, but they're actually really good. They're sprinkled with coarse sea salt and served with a sauce that definitely has soy sauce in it, but other than that I can't place the flavours. It's amazingly good, though.

Oh, I should also mention that they do a reward scheme - a stamp for every £10 spent, and after 5 stamps you get 20% off. The prices are pretty good, so we usually manage to eat pretty well for around £20, and then we get 2 stamps, so we get 20% off about every 3 meals, which is a damn good deal. It's obviously a place I'd recommend. The only person we've taken there who hasn't liked it was my grandpa. There's something there for everyone ... except my grandpa.

I apologise once again for the lack of photos. I hope to go camera shopping tomorrow (would've done it today if not for the bloody allergies) and be back in the photo-taking game soon.

Vegan MoFo - Homesick

2011-10-07T11:47:00.000-07:00

As you know, I'm American, and I live in Edinburgh. I love Edinburgh, I love living here, and I have no intention of ever leaving. But I haven't been back to the US since 2008, and I haven't been back to Texas since 2006. I have friends, family, and cats that I haven't seen in 5 or more years. Overall, I don't like Texas, and I never want to live there again, but sometimes I get homesick. I miss my friends, I miss my family, I REALLY miss my cat, and I miss the food.

This afternoon I was reheating my lunch when I realised that I'd bought one of those new fridge packs of baked beans (which really are quite genius) and forgot about it after eating one serving. It says to use within 5 days, and it's been 7. But I smelled them and they seemed fine, so I brought them home.

So, what does the one have to do with the other? When I first started experimenting with veganism, my friend Joy let me borrow a copy of How It All Vegan by Sarah Kramer and Tanya Barnard. Being a shitty vegetarian (I pretty much just replaced meats with mock meats and still didn't eat any veg), I gravitated towards the recipes that most closely resembled my regular diet. I think the Bean and Cheese Casserole was the first recipe I made from that book.

It turned out that my mom really liked it. I mean, what's not to like - beans, potatoes, and cheese layered in a casserole. But my mom liked it enough to request it multiple times and even make it herself (though with hot dogs and dairy cheese, completely defeating the purpose) when she visited family in New York. I haven't made this recipe in years. I honestly can't even remember the last time I made it. But it always reminds me of my mom. So, tonight, I'll be using up my beans and potatoes in this casserole, and maybe I'll call my mom.

Since this recipe was first written (over 10 years ago!), we've come on leaps and bounds in vegan cheese. You can now get vegan cheese that melts, which I'm sure would make this recipe even better. I'll be using smoked cheddar Sheese tonight, but those of you in the US could use Teese or Daiya, and it would probably be amazing.

BTW, this recipe is already online and has been for ages (here), but the direct link is a bit dodgy. I'd cut and paste, but the formatting is all jacked up. And I think I can maybe make the directions make a little more sense, so I'll just rewrite that bit.

Bean and Cheese Casserole
How It All Vegan

Ingredients:

5-6 small potatoes, sliced
1 can baked beans
1 tbsp Dijon mustard
2 tsp pepper
2 c grated vegan cheese

Directions:

Boil or steam the potatoes until soft enough to pierce with a fork. While the potatoes are cooking, mix the beans, mustard, and pepper.

Preheat the oven to 400F/200C and lightly grease a casserole dish. Place half the potatoes in the bottom of the casserole, then layer half the bean mixture, half the cheese, then another layer of each, topping with cheese. Cover and bake for 35-40 minutes.

For those far away from home, what recipes remind you of home?

Vegan MoFo - Review: David Bann

2011-10-06T15:43:00.000-07:00

My friend Mary had a birthday today, so a large group of her friends went to David Bann, Edinburgh's schmancy vegetarian restaurant. I've been to David Bann before and wasn't terribly impressed. I almost didn't go because of it, but then they suddenly changed their menu. They now actually have more than two vegan options, so I didn't have to have Asian spaghetti this time!

We went with the three-course menu, since I could actually get something from all three courses. I started with the Thai fritters - smoked tofu, broccoli, peas, ginger, herbs and spices. They were served with a banana chutney and plum dressing. The fritters and plum dressing were pretty good. I didn't try the banana chutney because I'm not fond of bananas. I washed it and my main down with Sam Smith's organic cider.

My main was the chilli crepe (vegan option, natch). I liked it - the chocolate sauce was interesting, but not bad. It just gave it a little bit of sweetness and depth. The printed menu had the wrong description, so I was expecting potato in there somewhere, so the lack of it was a little disappointing (since I decided on it because of the potato). Overall, though, I liked it.

Dessert, however, was another story. I don't know what it is about vegan desserts that most restaurants seem to not be able to get right. There was only one vegan dessert option - raspberries in jelly, orange drizzle cake, and coconut rum sorbet. The jelly was atop the cake, which was about the size of a hockey puck, and they honestly put about 1/2 tablespoon of sorbet on top of the jelly. I took a bite of the jelly and thought, oh sweet Jesus, what did I do to deserve this? I don't know what they made it from, but it wasn't the stuff that mimics gelatin. I can't really describe it, but it was wrong, and this was verified by someone else. The cake was nice, but insubstantial, as was the sorbet. I would've preferred twice as much of those and none of the jelly, but what can you do?

Everyone else loved their food, though the person who got the risotto said it wasn't enough. It's a good place to take people you want to impress, especially if they're vegetarian. Now that they have the new menu, I would probably go back to David Bann, but I sure as hell won't get dessert again if they only have that option.

Vegan MoFo - On freezers and freezing

2011-10-05T15:20:00.000-07:00

I was about to have to miss a day out because we were both too hungry to wait for me to cook, so I had a Freenut Butter and jam sammich and Mike had cereal for dinner. I couldn't think of anything to talk about until, about 30 minutes ago, I realised that I was still pretty hungry and needed a snack. And that's when I realised, I haven't talked about my freezer!

When we moved into this flat, it had a TV but no freezer. We asked them to get rid of the TV (we didn't want to pay for the license) and put in a freezer. They did neither. So I lived with a dusty TV and no freezer for over 2 years. If we ever got frozen food, we had to eat it all within the day (or 2 days, depending on what it was), so we were eating entire tubs of ice cream between the two of us in one go.

I finally decided I couldn't stand for it any longer. In all seriousness, not having a freezer was contributing to my weight gain, and we were wasting food (and therefore money) on food we could've frozen before it went off. So, for my birthday this year, I ~~demanded~~ gratefully received a freezer.

I love having a freezer. It's actually helped me eat better because we now have veg on demand without having to buy it the same day. I can eat a small amount of ice cream and put the rest back. And I can eat an actual portion size of tots rather than half a bag one day and the other half the next (though I never actually had a problem with that). I can now make things one night and save them for a meal weeks later (in fact, I made some beans a few days after I got the freezer and still haven't used them). I MADE MY OWN JELL-O PUDDING POPS!!!

And then, during the PPKamping trip, someone told me about Fry's Vegetarian chicken-style burgers. I bought them pretty much immediately after I got back. They are truly delightful. I ate one tonight, pan-fried with just a spray of oil, between two pieces of wholemeal bread with the cheesy mustard mayo from American Vegan Kitchen. It was one of the nicest things I've ever eaten - quick, easy, delicious, a little greasy. So good.

BTW, when I looked for the link to the burgers, I discovered that Fry's are coming out with new products, including "Louisiana Tenders" - vegan chicken strips! And popcorn "chicken"! I can't wait for those.

So, talk to me about frozen convenience foods - what's your favourite?

N.B. - Apologies for any possible typos. I'm super tired and can't be bothered proofreading right now.

Vegan MoFo - Irn Bru Cupcakes

2011-10-04T13:17:00.000-07:00

Another in my irregular series on Scottish-ish foods, I have made Irn Bru Cupcakes. And what a bloody saga! But more of that coming up. I should say right at the top that, when I went to document said saga, I discovered that my camera was dead (I put in brand new batteries and it told me to change the batteries and then went black), so I apologise for the lack of pictures pretty much for the rest of MoFo (unless I manage to replace the camera).

Photo from the Barr site

For those who don't know, Irn Bru (pronounced like iron brew) is an orange soda that isn't orange flavoured (though Wikipedia claims it's vaguely citrus). I think it kinda tastes like Big Red, the cream soda that doesn't taste like cream soda, except a little milder - maybe because it's orange instead of red. It's native to Scotland, and in fact is the best-selling soda in Scotland, ahead even of Coke. Though it's difficult to verify and there are a lot of differing views, Googling every listed ingredient has made me 99% sure it's vegan.

I was inspired to make Irn Bru cupcakes by Panda With Cookie's delicious Cheerwine cookies (unfortunately currently unavailable since she's recently moved and hasn't set up her baking again yet). I thought about sending her some Irn Bru cookies that were similar to her Cheerwine cookies, but I decided to experiment with cupcakes first because they're easier (I'm really not much of a cookie baker).

I started out trying to combine concepts from the Golden Vanilla Cupcakes in Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World and this non-vegan recipe for Irn Bru cupcakes from London Baking. I basically tried to veganize the second recipe based on the first. I replaced the margarine with oil and the buttermilk with soy milk curdled with apple cider vinegar. It didn't work. At. All. The batter was WAY too runny, but I baked it anyway, and my cupcakes came out concave and gooey. I gave it another try, decreasing the liquid and increasing the dry ingredients, and the cakes worked fine.

Then I moved on to the frosting. My idea was to reduce the remaining soda to syrup and make a buttercream a la the raspberry buttercream in VCTOTW. I cooked it down for a good hour or more, and it didn't seem to get any thicker, so I bunged in some sugar. It still didn't look thick enough, so I bunged in some more sugar. Then it started to really thicken. I took it off the heat to let it cool, and within 5 minutes, I had Irn Bru candy. It was not gonna become frosting.

In the end, I poured some soda in a bowl and left it out overnight to flatten and just replaced the milk in the Vegan Fluffy Buttercream recipe. But that recipe doesn't really require a lot of milk, so the flavour was really subtle. Overall, the cupcakes didn't have a very strong Irn Bru flavour, but they were good, and you could tell they weren't plain vanilla.

Irn Bru Cupcakes

Ingredients:

3/4 c milk
1/2 tsp apple cider vinegar
2/3 c sugar
1/2 c oil
1/2 tsp vanilla
1 1/4 c plain flour
2 tbsp corn starch
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/3 c Irn Bru

Preheat the oven to 350F/175C and line a muffin tin with liners.

In a large bowl, combine the milk and acv and let sit for about 5 minutes to curdle. Add in the sugar, oil, and vanilla and mix well. Combine all dry ingredients and sift into the wet ingredients, then mix to combine. Add in the Irn Bru (it'll get really fizzy!) and mix to combine.

Pour the batter evenly into the muffin cups and bake for 18-20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the centre comes out clean.

When the muffins are completely cool, frost with Vegan Fluffy Buttercream with the milk replaced by Irn Bru.

If I try this (or the cookies) again and manage to get the frosting right, I'll write it up in another post.

Vegan MoFo - Summer's Last Hurrah

2011-10-03T10:09:00.000-07:00

This was meant to be yesterday's post, but I changed it up a bit.

The past couple of summers have been excessively, unbearably hot, but this one was actually pretty mild. We had a couple of weeks where it was relatively hot, but the majority of the summer was what feels like spring in Texas. As September crawled to a close, each passing day felt nearer to autumn. The leaves turned into glorious reds, oranges and yellows, fell from the trees to blanket the streets like snow, and the temperature got lower by the day.

Then, suddenly, during the last week of September, seemingly the whole of the UK felt as if it had been engulfed in flames. It was as hot as it had been during the warmest part of summer. Even when it rained, it was still sticky and warm. It didn't get cool again until Sunday.

And, of course, the only thing to do when it's unbearably hot is make ice cream. Personally, I can eat ice cream in the depths of winter, but I understand most people only like it when it's warm out.

I usually make a variation of the recipe in Veganomicon, but this time, since we're doing the cookbook challenge again, I used the recipe from American Vegan Kitchen (linked in my last post) for Mocha Vegan Ice Cream (no pics because, really, it's just a pile of brown).

Pros: It was tasty, especially with some butterscotch syrup, and it makes a lot more than most other recipes.

Cons: It took a long time - it has to be cooked, then chilled for at least 4 hours. I'm used to the V'con recipe, which takes about 5-10 minutes to make, then about an hour to chill before putting it in the ice cream maker.

I may or may not use this again. I don't know how adaptable it would be, and, as mentioned, it takes a long time. But at least there's more of it, so I don't have to make ice cream for a while.

Vegan MoFo - Me and Sammiches

2011-10-02T13:19:00.000-07:00

I was gonna write about ice cream, pancakes for dinner, and things of that nature today, but a friend was in a pickle (pun intended) about sammiches, so I offered to help.

Ruth, who blogs at dorkymum, posted about Perfect Sandwiches (caution: not vegan!) a few months ago. Today, a reader commented that she doesn't eat sandwiches because she's dairy-free and (presumably) can't find a dairy-free spread. Rather than simply comment about dairy-free spreads, I offered to write up a little something for her to pass along.

I wrote a whole bunch of superfluous stuff, and then I wrote what follows, which frankly is enough on its own. So let's just go with this - a few ideas for spreads and sandwiches that will get you back in the sammich-making game. FYI - most of this is aimed at the UK reader (e.g., the bits about where to buy), but there are a couple of things that will be helpful to anyone.

Margarine - Pure do a variety of non-dairy spreads, made from soya, olive oil, and sunflower oil. These can be found at the vast majority of big box stores. Some of the big boxes also carry Vitalite, which is my personal favourite. It's more spreadable and just has a nicer flavour. You might also be able to find Suma spreads at health food shops like Holland & Barrett, Real Foods (Edinburgh), Roots and Fruits (Glasgow), and Whole Foods (London).

Mayo - Mayo shouldn't actually have any dairy in it - its creaminess comes from an emulsion of egg and oil. Regardless, there are a few good vegan mayos. You can get Tiger Tiger plain or garlic mayo at larger Sainsbury's stores. There's another brand found at most big box stores whose name escapes me. Some health food shops will also carry Plamil mayo, which comes in a variety of flavours (garlic, chili, tarragon and chive, etc.). My current favourite, which I bought at Real Foods in Edinburgh but which should also be available in Brighton and probably London, is Infinity Foods' organic vegan smoked garlic mayo. I want to eat it with everything! OK, everything savoury. It's much thicker than standard mayo, but it's crazy good.

Mustard - I admit that I rarely eat mustard without something else, but it can be good on wholemeal bread encasing a plain old (homemade) seitan cutlet. You can make them beefy or chickeny (or even hammy), but they'll all be good with a swirl of mustard. In fact, mustard is pretty much the only thing Mike will eat on his sammiches.

Dressings - Some salad dressings would make a great sandwich spread, especially if you can make them yourself and cut out some of the liquid to make them more spreadable. For a few ideas, click on the look inside thing on the Amazon page for Appetite for Reduction by Isa Chandra Moskowitz. The salad section usually comes up first, so you could try a few of those out before you buy the book (which I would recommend because it's amazing).

Sandwich ideas - Check out the (small) selection of sandwiches in the PPK Recipe section. This is another place where Amazon's look inside feature is helpful - you can preview The Best Veggie Burgers on the Planet by Joni Newman (FYI - if you log in, you can see more). And if you can wait a while, Tamisin Noyes, author of American Vegan Kitchen (which, incidentally, has a section on sandwiches, though unfortunately has no look inside option) and Celine Stein (co-author of 500 Vegan Recipes and a couple others) are writing a cookbook all about sandwiches! Tami has 43 sandwich-related posts on her blog!

I hope Ruth and her reader(s) find this helpful. Or maybe you're new to veganism and didn't realise just how little you actually have to give up in the sammich department! Either way, hopefully this wasn't just an exercise in remembering where I've bought or seen certain products.

What's your favourite sandwich or sandwich spread?

Vegan MoFo - Quick and Dirty Vegan Mince and Tatties

2011-10-01T13:47:00.000-07:00

Vegan MoFo's here! Vegan MoFo's here!

I'm woefully unprepared because I'm super lazy. Actually, true story - I had to come home while running errands because I really needed to pee. I ended up not going back out for another 6 hours (give or take). And when I did go back out, I just went to the wee Tesco, and all I could get of what I needed was tinned potatoes. So, the decision about what to make for my first MoFo post was pretty much made for me.

My first Vegan MoFo post will be one in a series of veganized Scottish(ish) recipes. The British get a lot of crap for having bland food, but some of it is actually pretty damn good (once you take the slaughter out of it). The first time I had mince and tatties was at my friend Maureen's house when I was at uni. I must have been over doing work - interviewing someone for some project - because, despite living in Scotland, Maureen was pretty much my only source of interviewable Scots of most age ranges. I'm pretty sure we ended up being over there longer than expected, and the only thing she could think to cook for me was mince and tatties (since she could get vegan mince). And she made it pretty much the way I'll describe here and thought it was alright, so I'm gonna say it's as close to authentic as you'll get without butchering a cow.

I based my recipe on this recipe, which I just found through Google. As you'll see, mine takes way less time and is probably way healthier. I call this quick and dirty because of the processed mince (rather than, say, ground seitan or TVP) and the tinned tatties. Frankly, I think these ingredients are key.

Quick and Dirty Vegan Mince and Tatties

Ingredients:

1 tbsp olive oil
1 medium onion, diced
1 large carrot, sliced
1 tsp mixed herbs
1 3/4c beef-style stock or vegetable stock
1 1/2 tsp Worcestershire sauce*
1 tsp liquid aminos or light soy sauce
1/4 tsp salt (or to taste)
about 300g vegan mince
1 small tin new potatoes, cut evenly if necessary
nooch (optional)

Directions:

In a large (at least 2 quart) sauce pan or Dutch oven, heat the oil over medium. Add the onion and carrots and cook to your desired texture (3-10 minutes, from still crunchy to soft). Add the herbs and cook another minute. Add the stock, Worcestershire sauce, liquid aminos, and salt, then add the mince. If cooking from frozen, cook until thawed, then add the potatoes. Cook until the potatoes and mince are hot. Adjust seasonings to taste (you might need more salt since the tatties will soak it up) and serve sprinkled with nooch (if you like it). Serve with steamed veg to make it feel healthy, and eat it before you write a blog post or else it'll get cold.

*I used Tiger Tiger, but you should be able to find vegan Worcestershire sauce in the free from section of most mid- to large-sized stores (Tesco, Sainsbury's, etc.) and health food shops.

ETA - I just (28/12/2011) realised that I missed out the measurement for the stock! If anyone actually tried this before, hopefully you realised it was meant to be 1 3/4 cups! Sorry about that!

In praise of soggy bread

2011-09-26T14:08:00.000-07:00

I made my first dumplings tonight. I know - shocking - I'm Southern and I've never made dumplings (to the best of my knowledge). My grandma is spinning in her grave. Or maybe now she's stopped spinning. But there's a reason why I never made dumplings.

When I was young, I never ate anything even remotely like soggy bread (with the exception of biscuits and gravy). You see, my mom hates (HATES!) soggy bread, so I just assumed that I also hated soggy bread. But then there were the biscuits and gravy (but even my mom likes biscuits and gravy).

I'm not exactly sure what made me realise I actually love soggy bread. (I should clarify, I'm not talking about a piece of bread that's been sitting in water, and I've never had bread in milk.) I don't know if it was realising that biscuits are bread and gravy makes them soggy. I don't know if it coincided with my soup revelation (i.e., I like soup), the day I had a delicious soup at my friend Julie's house with a piece of bread to dip in it. All I know is, I like soggy bread - biscuit-topped cassoulet, the lump of cheese-covered deliciousness atop French onion soup, sammiches moistened by condiments, and dumplings.

Incidentally, the recipe I made was Seitan and Dumplings from American Vegan Kitchen as part of week 2 of the cookbook challenge. I have to say, it took a long damn time to make. If you were to make it from start to finish (from the seitan to the bowl), it would take about 4 hours. Luckily, I at least made the seitan ahead of time. That said, it's totally worth it. So delicious. I might see if I can figure out a way to make it take less time. I don't know how, but there must be a way. Anyway, even taking as long as it does, I would definitely recommend it.

Mini-post - MoFo plans

2011-09-22T15:46:00.000-07:00

Considering that I get a couple of hits per day even when I don't post, I figured I should give my fan something to read.

I know a few people are really planning for MoFo - setting out a schedule, theme days, things like that. I am far too lazy for all that noise. I'm just gonna cook, hopefully take some dodgy pictures with my crappy old camera and my shaky hands, go to some restaurants, and then write about it. But I do have a few things I'm aiming for, so here's a glimpse of what I hope to accomplish.

Veganized Scottish recipes - Haggis has been done commercially with excellent results, but I'll try to tackle tablet (which I'm told is difficult with the original ingredients), stovies (basically roast leftovers mashed together), skirlie (Scottish stuffing - made with oats, natch), and if I end up deep frying something, I might try to get a Twilight bar and deep fry that at the same time for a vegan deep-fried Mars bar.

Macarena Muffin Pie - During the PPKamping trip, Amy mentioned a dream about a pie. A pie with apples and a muffin batter top "crust". I'll probably make changes to her dream pie, but the apple/muffin pie will happen.

Poutine - French fries, cheese, and gravy - what more could you want in a meal? One of our friends has talked about it enough that I want to try it. Even if I don't get the taste exactly right, a) I won't know and 2) I'll still be eating cheese fries covered in gravy, so it's win-win.

I mentioned some other stuff that's happening in my last post, so I'll keep this brief. But I'm well excited about MoFo.

Vegan MoFo V is almost upon us!

2011-09-10T09:00:00.000-07:00

Holy shit! I only found out yesterday that Vegan MoFo V is in October! That's less than a month away! And is this really the fifth year of Vegan MoFo?!

For those who don't know, Vegan MoFo is the Vegan Month of Food, when vegan bloggers from all over the world, well, blog about vegan food for a month. Last year, I think we had something like 600+ participants, so maybe we'll have over 1000 this year!

The goal is to blog every weekday, but some people blog every damn day. I did that my first year, but last year MoFo was in November, so I couldn't blog daily. I'm not making any commitments this year beyond the weekdays, but we'll see how it comes out.

Most people try to have some sort of theme, but I don't think I can confine myself to a single theme. Last year I did a couple of different things, like Mix v. Scratch, but nothing to tie everything together. This year, I think one of the things I'll try is vegan versions of Scottish foods/vegan foods made with iconic Scottish products (like mince and tatties and Irn Bru cookies/cupcakes). I'd like to try to veganize some of my grandmother's recipes, which I'd wanted to do last year, but I'm still waiting on getting the recipes from my family. But we're also doing another cookbook challenge on the PPK, so I'll be posting reviews from that.

I'm open to suggestion - Any Scottish recipes you'd like to see veganized? Any recipes from the books in the cookbook challenge you want to see (bearing in mind, I don't have Vegan Soul Kitchen or either of the Colleen Patrick Godreau books and will probably do another week of Isa/Terry)? I have 20 days to come up with some stuff, so if you have ideas, let me have them!

An ode to Ms Cupcake

2011-07-07T12:04:00.000-07:00

This post is pretty much a wall of text, so here's a picture of my gorgeous husband, reading a book instead of talking to me when we're waiting for our food at Infinity in Brighton:

(BTW, he's wearing the shirt he was wearing when we met. Aww.)

I'm sitting here hungry, waiting for my dinner to cook, with an open package of Oreos within easy reach. So what better activity to occupy my time than writing about cupcakes?

As mentioned in my post about the last two days of our holiday, we went to Ms Cupcake when we were in London. Holy hell. Let me put it this way - if Ms Cupcake were in Edinburgh, I would be fat and poor. If I'm ever in London again, I'll be hitting up Ms Cupcake on the daily, no matter what part of the city I'm staying in. I will get a day pass for the tube and take 3 trains if I have to. Lemme tell you why.

First of all, we got off the Victoria line at Brixton. I stupidly didn't print out directions because I looked at the map before I left Edinburgh and thought, that's right around the corner, I'll be able to find that. Well, we had no idea where to go. But I had their number, and I called them up, and they told me the way. Good customer service - that's what it's all about.

Then we got there. I wouldn't say the cases were overflowing, but there were so. many. cupcakes. And cookies. All vegan, all the time. And other things as well - Plamil chocolate spread, candy bars, cake baking and decorating ingredients and equipment, and multiple copies of every cookbook written by Isa and Terry (together and solo). I think there was even some variety of vegan jerky.

We decided to get a half-dozen cupcakes (3 each), a cookie sandwich with chocolate frosting (they were out of vanilla), and some Plamil milk chocolate spread (which I talked about in my chocolate post). Mike got a triple chocolate, a chocolate raspberry, and a banoffee cupcake, and I got triple chocolate, red velvet, and gingersnap. Later that day, while at Vx, I also got another cookie sammich (vanilla this time) and sausage rolls (since we'd be on the train for 5 hours and would need something savoury to eat).

We ate the sammich cookie - two large chocolate chip cookies with a thick layer of chocolate frosting in between - while we were still at the shop. I normally prefer vanilla frosting, but I hadn't had a proper sammich cookie in a dog's age, so I took what I could get. I'm so glad I did. It was exactly what a sammich cookie should be - slightly crunchy around the edges, but nice and soft in the middle. The frosting didn't overwhelm despite being chocolate. It was like the ones I used to get at the mall, except nearly twice as big and 10 times better. When I saw the vanilla one at Vx, I thought, surely this will be the perfect sammich cookie. AND IT WAS! I hesitated a bit with the first one because we were getting all those cupcakes, but when I saw the vanilla cookies, I almost bought 2. I kinda wish I had. It might actually have been the best thing we ate on the entire trip (well, the best sweet thing for sure), and it was a day old!

Then came the cupcakes. I think Mike finished all three of his before we even got on the train, while I managed to save two of mine until the day after we got back (probably because I ate most of both of the sammich cookies). We both started out with the triple chocolate - chocolate cake, a layer of chocolate ganache, and thick*, fudgy chocolate frosting, topped with a chunk of dark chocolate and two white chocolate buttons. I usually don't go for something so chocolaty - I like chocolate, but not in such heavy doses. But when I saw it, I just thought, I'll have that. And it wasn't nearly as overwhelmingly chocolaty as I expected. It was quite good, though I kinda expected more white chocolate than just the buttons. I guess we're programmed to see "triple chocolate" and think "three varieties of chocolate" rather than "chocolate three times". Meh.

I can't say much about Mike's other cupcakes. I barely had a glance at the banoffee because I'm not a fan and didn't really care. He said it was good, not great, but you'd probably love it if you like banoffee (he didn't know if he actually did). I did have a bite of the chocolate raspberry - chocolate cake topped with (I think) a thin layer of raspberry jam and then a thick* layer of raspberry buttercream. One bite isn't much to judge by (especially since I prefer the middle and I had to have an outside bite), but it had a good flavour - you could definitely taste the raspberry. I think I might have liked a more pronounced raspberry flavour, but that might just be because of the one-bite thing.

I loved my other two cupcakes less than the cookies, but they were still great. I think the red velvet was the only one that didn't have a layer of something between the cake and the frosting. It was just red velvet cake with thick* cream cheese frosting. What can I say - it tasted the way red velvet cake is supposed to taste. The gingersnap was golden cake (I'm pretty sure the cake itself didn't have any flavouring) with a layer of ginger preserves (I assume) and thick* gingery buttercream. I liked it a lot, but I would've preferred it to be a little more gingery. Or maybe to actually have bits of gingersnap in the cake and/or frosting (a la cookies and cream cupcakes) - that would've been awesome!

We did eventually eat the sausage rolls. Sausage rolls are something I prefer hot, but I usually end up eating them at room temperature because I'm usually eating them on the go. I'm used to dry, slightly stale-tasting, not very full sausage rolls from Holland and Barrett. But these were actually really good. They had a decent amount of sausage wrapped in gorgeous flaky pastry. They were lovely.

So, in case you couldn't tell, I'm now a huge fan of Ms Cupcake. If you're in London, even if you're not vegan, hit them up. You won't be disappointed.

I think I'm gonna experiment with those gingersnap cupcakes this weekend! That sounds like a good use of my time. I'll probably blog about that on Sunday.

*I keep talking about the frosting being thick. Here's why - the frosting on every cupcake was nearly as thick as the cakes themselves. It was at least an inch and a half to two inches thick. I had to bite from the top so I could sink my teeth into the frosting before getting the cake in order to not have a nose full of frosting. It was some thick damn frosting.

Mmm...chocolate

2011-07-04T13:53:00.000-07:00

I might try to make this a regular feature, because I do eat a lot of chocolate. But I had a lot of different chocolate while I was on holiday, so I figured I'd give a bit of a review for everything I tried.

First up:

Plamil milk chocolate spread - I did this one first because it's short and sweet (no pun intended). Simply put, this stuff has the taste and texture of a melted candy bar. I don't know if it's the heat or just this stuff, but you could pour it, it's so thin. I could drink it from the jar (and would if I didn't have any self-control). Oh, and it's organic! So it's all kinds of awesome. You can purchase this directly from Plamil, from a number of other online shops, or at Ms Cupcake or Vx if you're in London.

Next:

Montezuma's Sea Dog - dark chocolate with lime oil and sea salt. I love sea salt and chocolate. I think it's one of the best combinations anyone ever came up with. But this - this, I do not like. I find the chocolate too dark/bitter and the lime too overpowering. The lime overwhelmed the salt, which I thought needed to be much more prominent. I got it cheaper in Brighton than I would've gotten it here, so at least I wasted less money on it. Slightly loved bar of chocolate - free to good home. As far as I know, you can buy these directly from Montezuma or at any number of health food shops (I know Real Foods carries it).

Moving on:

Isis Luxury Belgian Pralinoir - This is the stuff of dreams. I had to exercise some serious restraint to keep from eating it all in one go. It's like a melty Crunch or Krackle bar, except slightly thinner and with a more "adult" taste due to the hazelnut praline. It's so soft (straight from the package, right off the shelf) that you can bend it. It's got some nice biscuity bits in it for texture and deliciousness. I'm almost glad we found this stuff on our last full day in Brighton, or I might have gone back to the store and bought a case. To the best of my knowledge, these can only be bought in Waitrose, though I haven't found it at either Edinburgh Waitrose yet. Hopefully that will change soon. It's so good!

And last but not least:

Go Max Go vegan candy bars - Let me preface by saying that I've only had the Twilight and the Buccaneer. I'm not a fan of dessicated coconut and can't eat the Jokerz for obvious death-inducing reasons. Buccaneer is what those of you in the US would call a Three Musketeers (not sure if there's a UK equivalent), and Twilight is a Milky Way (US)/Mars bar (UK). From the best of my recollection, these taste just like the non-vegan originals. And even if my memory is tainted, they're close enough that I don't care. They're just so good. Go Max has come out with something like Reese's Peanut Butter Cups (Cleo's) and Krackle/Crunch (Snap), neither of which I've had but the latter of which I'd love to try. Unfortunately, unless you live in Brighton (or possibly London), you'll be hard pressed to find these in a shop. Hopefully that'll change soon. I got my stash at Loving Hut in Brighton, but for those of us who don't actually live there, you can also buy them from Veganstore. And of course people in the US will have easier access, though I think there are still few stores that carry them (but do feel free to correct me if I'm wrong - no one should miss out on these). Now all they need to do is make vegan versions of Twix and Kit Kat. Mmm.

All this chocolate talk is making my want to eat my last two Go Max bars, so I'll stop there. I'll hopefully post my review of Ms Cupcake tomorrow.

Adventure, excitement - a Jedi craves not these things.

2011-07-03T06:49:00.000-07:00

I decided to cover the last two days of our holiday in Brighton in this post because there was so much to cover. I hope you're still awake by the end.

Day 4 (Thursday):

We started off with brunch at Wai Kika Moo Kau. We both had the vegan full breakfast, minus the tomato because the pesto was made with something I'm allergic to. I had a lovely chai latte with my brunch. The food was average - I'm pretty sure the beans and shrooms (at least) came from a can, and the sausage was probably Linda McCartney (though I can't really remember). They subbed baked tofu for the fried egg - unseasoned, unmarinated baked tofu, which was kinda weird.

Then we went to the Brighton Museum and Art Gallery. It was, again, a bit of a hodge-podge - everything related to Brighton, but stuff like the Ancient Egypt exhibit felt a bit incongruous next to the "life in Brighton"-type exhibits (which most of the rest of the museum was). But it was good. We were gonna go to the Royal Pavilion, but Mike was bored/tired, so we skipped it and instead did a bit more shopping. We checked out Taj, which was like a cross between Real Foods and Maqbool (the shop across from the AI building on Potterow). Then we got Mike a new t-shirt - a gray shirt with Clyde, the orange ghost from Pacman, on the front. We then got some snacks at Waitrose, including the elusive Isis Luxury Belgian Pralinoir - I've looked at both Edinburgh Waitrose locations for this stuff multiple times and never found it. It's amazing - more on it in a later post.

Mike decided that he was too tired for dinner, so I went to Loving Hut (again) by myself and got the burger and fries (and also grabbed a few more Go Max bars). Honestly, this was one of the best meals I'd eaten the whole trip - it was exactly what I wanted in a burger and fries. I also got a piece of the cheesecake. I stupidly forgot to ask what was in it - I even thought about it but decided not to ask (mostly because I'd already paid for it). Mistake!

About 2 bites in, I started to feel tingly in my mouth/throat (I assumed it was made from cashews). I calmly took my plate inside (I was eating outside because there were too many people inside when I got there) and took 2 Benadryl, which usually does the trick. I got something for Mike to eat and went back to the hotel. At this point, my eyes and pallet started to swell, I couldn't breathe through my nose, and I broke out in hives. We ended up having to go to A&E (in a taxi - the NHS Direct nurse said, since I was still breathing, she couldn't justify an ambulance). They gave me more meds, kept me there to see I got better, checked me out again and sent me home. They wanted to give me a scrip for an epipen, but I would've had to get it filled at their pharmacy (which was closed at the time), and we were leaving the next day, so they strongly suggested I speak to my dr about getting one. And I will - promise! They also sent us to an all-night pharmacy to get some OTC stuff, and the pharmacy turned out to be closed. And then it turned out that the taxi driver didn't take cards, so we had to be taken to a cash machine so we could pay him. We eventually got sorted and got back to the room and crashed for the night.

Day 5 (Friday):

Last day in Brighton! We started off with a trip to Infinity (the shop) to pick up some stuff I don't have access to here - Pepperjack, Bacon, and Bleu Cheezly and Tofutti sour cream (which seems to be available everywhere but Edinburgh). We then went to the Infinity Cafe for brunch. We both had the vegan full breakfast, which was so much better than the one at Wai Kika Moo Kau. First of all, it contained veg! The sausage was the same as the sammich I'd had a couple of days earlier, and they just threw the beans on top of the toast. But the mushroom (a big-ass portobello) was delicious - garlicky, meaty, a little salty - and I got two since Mike doesn't like shrooms! It was incredibly filling - shrooms, spinach, potato wedges, beans, toast, rashers and sausage. Some evil bastard bought the last piece of mocha cake, and the only other option that would've been appealing the day before was the cheesecake, of which, by that point, I was terrified, so we didn't get dessert. Then we walked to the train and went back to London.

Our first stop in London was Ms Cupcake. We got a half-dozen cupcakes (3 each), a sandwich cookie with chocolate frosting (they were out of vanilla), and some Plamil milk chocolate spread (I buy the plain almost exclusively, so we wanted to try this other option that we don't otherwise have). I'll talk more about Ms Cupcake in another post, but know this - if you're vegan and in London, it's worth the trip no matter what part of town you're in.

Despite the fact that we'd just eaten a giant-ass sammich cookie, we decided to go to lunch first, then find a place for Mike to sit at the station while I went to my next destination. Lunch was at Mestizo - their vegan menu isn't online, but they do have a separate one that you can ask for.

We split an order of panuchos

and an order of the enchiladas with salsa roja.

The panuchos - corn pastries filled with refried beans and topped with a red sauce and marinated onions - were incredibly delicious. The enchiladas - potato with probably the same red sauce, served with black beans and rice - were perfect. The whole experience was excellent - perfectly seasoned beans, fluffy rice, red sauce wasn't too spicy, potatoes were cooked properly. I wish I didn't have to go to London to get that again, but if we ever do have to go to London again, we'll definitely be hitting Mestizo for a proper meal (because I could eat the hell out of a couple of orders of panuchos).

After Mestizo, we got back on the Victoria line and headed for King's Cross. Mike found a convenient place to sit, and I headed up the road to Vx. It's a small shop that manages to pack in a ton of stuff - mostly vegan junk food, but also fresh-baked sweet and savoury goods from Ms Cupcake, shirts, shoes, accessories and a few cosmetics. I got 2 packages of fake Oreos, some chocolate-covered vanilla sandwich cookies (prepackaged), another Ms Cupcake sandwich cookie (this one with vanilla frosting, which I prefer), some Ms Cupcake sausage rolls, a donut stick, and a tube of chai spice lip balm. Then I went back to the train station - this whole trip took all of 30 minutes, so we still had about 2 hours to kill before our train at 7.30 (last one out until the sleeper).

About an hour before our train, we discovered that there had been a fatality at Alexandra Palace (I think), so all the trains were delayed. We thought we'd be sitting in the station for a few hours, but luckily Mike checked on our train and found that we'd been assigned a platform. When we got on the train, we realised that we were sharing with the 7pm train, so there were no seat reservations. Luckily, we found two seats together. Of course, it being first class, there were bound to be some privileged, entitled middle-class white folks who got their knickers in a twist because people were sitting in "their seats". We explained to them that there were no reservations because the trains were combined, and they continued to bitch and moan - but as they walked through the door, so I didn't have to pay any more attention to them. We left near 8pm, and then we were further delayed for some other reason, so we ended up being about an hour behind schedule. We finally got in to Edinburgh around 1.15am, and then we had to wait for a taxi. The taxi rank was full of people but empty of taxis because, of course, it was well past the time for the last train. But some kind soul at the station called one of the companies, so the taxis started arriving, and we managed to get home just before 2am.

Overall, it was a decent trip, though I have to say that I preferred Nottingham. I guess I just had my expectations too high, so I was disappointed on a lot of fronts. But I'm super picky about my food, so others who are less so would probably love it. I also had to contend with someone who, let's face it, doesn't really like to do stuff, so actually doing anything other than eating was a bit of a chore. Maybe next time, we'll agree a couple of things to do together but otherwise explore separately (or, more accurately, I'll explore while he reads in the hotel room). I'd still recommend Brighton to anyone, especially if you're more able to explore or are more inclined to Brighton's other amenities, like the pier or beach.

Holiday in the sun

2011-07-02T14:12:00.000-07:00

We just got back from Brighton early this morning (nearly 2am - more on that later). We had a really good time, met some awesome folks, and ate a ton of junk (candy bars for breakfast more than once). I felt that giving a more detailed account than I would've given on the Facebook would be a good way to get me back into the blogging habit outside of Vegan MoFo (and give me more license to ramble), so expect a couple of posts in the next few days. Not only do I have a couple of posts about the holiday lined up, I'm also gonna do a couple reviews - specifically on chocolate and Ms Cupcake. So, on to the holiday review!

Day 1 (Monday):

We traveled from Edinburgh to London first class. Having gone to London on our honeymoon, Mike decided that 4.5 hours in standard was just no good on his legs. I didn't think first class was all that different to having a table seat in standard, but I guess it was better for him. We started off the trip with a mini-adventure - we had a last-minute change of platform and none of the catering stuff got onto the train. Apparently you get a bunch of free stuff in first class, but we mostly didn't bother (though we did on the way back).

We had planned on stopping for lunch in London, but we'd both eaten enough on the train that we weren't that hungry and just wanted to get to our final destination, so we skipped it. We got to Brighton around 2.30 and made our way to the hotel. We got a bit lost on the way there because Google's directions were a bit crap. When we finally got there and checked in, we were given the wrong room and ended up walking in on some people (who thankfully were fully clothed). We did eventually get a key for an empty room (which we later discovered had a nasty kettle with junk all over the inside (possibly limescale) that they didn't change after we asked - avoid Travelodge Brighton if you can).

It was balls hot in Brighton that day, and we hadn't had much to drink since we were on the train, so we made our way to Shakeaway. We'd had a good experience with them in Nottingham, so we were really looking forward to it. Mike got the coffee shake and I got a Bourbon biscuit shake (both of which we'd had last year). I have to say, neither of us was impressed. It tasted like they used Tofutti ice cream, which frankly isn't that great. (If you've ever had ice milk (not vegan), that gives you some idea of what Tofutti ice cream tastes like. It's nothing like it is in the Cuties.) After that we hit up Lush (we needed shampoo) and Waterstones (Mike had already finished all of his books), then went to dinner at Loving Hut after an insane taxi driver made me fear for my life. Mike had the veggie chow mein, and I had the stir-fry vermicelli. They were both really tasty, but I preferred mine. For dessert, I had a Tofutti Cutie and Mike had a Tofutti Rock 'n' Roll cone, and we bought a few Go Max candy bars (2 each of Twilight and Buccaneer).

Day 2 (Tuesday):

We had another mini-adventure on the second day. The plan was to do lunch at VBites, so we got on the bus to go most of the way and then walk the rest of the way. There was a march that held up the bus for about 15 minutes (we later guessed, from their "Psychiatry - an Industry of Death" banner, that they were Scientologists). We weren't sure where to get off the bus, so we ended up getting off way too early and had to walk about 20 minutes before we got there. Mike got a burger, chips and a mocha, and I got a bacon cheeseburger, chips and a chai latte. They screwed up 2 of the 3 elements of my order - no bacon on my burger and coffee with chai syrup for my chai latte. They fixed the chai, but I couldn't be bothered with the burger. Oh, and the chips were overcooked. Then, worst of all, the main reason I was there was for a soft-serve ice cream cone, and their machine was broken. Boo-urns. After that, we went to the Hove Gallery and Museum. It was a bit strange - there was no theme other than stuff that may have happened or is tangentially related to Hove. This part of the day was punctuated by a couple of pretty hefty thunderstorms that we just managed to miss the worst of - we saw some lightning at VBites and heard some thunder at the museum but were inside for most of the rain.

That evening, we were privileged to have dinner at Pho with a few PPKers - jojo and her mr, messyveggie and her mr, baps, and Ruby Rose. We had a great time, and the food was fantastic. I had some fried noodles (can't remember the Vietnamese name) and Mike had the tofu pho and veggie spring rolls. I really wish they'd open a location in Edinburgh. We then moved on to Terre a Terre for dessert, where most of us had the famed (and one of only 2 vegan options) churros with chocolate sauce and vodka cherries. They were delicious, though not really churros (not the way I remember churros) - they were thicker and doughier and not quite as crispy. I wouldn't say no to them if offered, though. Meeting everyone was really great - everyone was so nice and funny and just completely awesome, and I'm really looking forward to the PPKamping trip in August!

Day 3 (Wednesday):

This was a lazy day - we didn't even get up until about noon. We had lunch at Infinity. Mike had the sausage and puy lentil stew (special),

I had the hot sausage sandwich (which was cold by the time I ate it),

and we shared some garlic bread. The food was average at best - my sammich had a single piece of (probably Taifun) sausage, split down the middle, and Mike didn't eat most of his. We both had mocha cake for dessert, which tasted really good but was a bit dense.

We kinda had our early anniversary dinner on the Wednesday night at Terre a Terre. We started with the garlic foccacia and hoisin tofu, both of which were really nice. Mike had the Rosti Raj and I had the Rosti Revisited. Mike didn't seem super keen on his - I think he thought the mango was a bit weird. Mine, on the other hand, was one of the nicest things I've ever eaten. It was basically just a giant hash brown with spinach and a bit of tofu with some green sauce, but it was incredibly delicious. I wish I could've eaten it again, and the memory of it is making my mouth water. Nom. The choice of sorbets didn't strike our fancy, and we'd had the churros the night before, so we just had the boozy rum truffles for dessert. They were great - just enough rum to taste without having an overpowering feeling of alcohol, and the chocolate wasn't overwhelming (not too dense or bitter). Overall, it was a really good meal, and I didn't expect to be so full when it was finished considering the usual inverse correlation of price to amount of food (i.e., the more you pay, the less you get).

I'll leave this for now and do the last two days in another post, since we did a bit more in those two days. I apologise for the lack of pictures - I kept forgetting and didn't take very many.

MoFo Survey II

2010-11-30T15:18:00.001-08:00

As I mentioned yesterday, the survey that Mo did was slightly different than the one I filled out yesterday. And since I like to talk about myself, I'll crap out on my last MoFo 2010 post and fill out the one Mo has on her blog. I've removed a few questions that are repeats from yesterday.

EPIC VEGAN MOFO 2010 SURVEY II

What is one food you thought you’d miss when you went vegan, but don’t?
I'm gonna be a stereotype and say cheese, since I thought I'd miss brie a lot. I do a bit, but I'mma try this macadamia brie and see if it hits the spot.

What is a food or dish you wouldn’t touch as a child, but enjoy now?
Vegetables of most stripes - like I said yesterday, I almost never ate veg as a child (except, bizarrely, spinach for a while).

What beverage do you consume the most of on any given day?
I'd have to say tea on most days, especially now that it's cold. We consume a lot of tea in my office. I've been bad and have started drinking tea with milk and sugar again. I need to not buy anymore soymilk for the office so I only drink my unsweetened tea.

What dish are you “famous” for making or bringing to gatherings?
It used to be chocolate chip scones (veganized Food Network recipe) or chocolate chip cookie bars (from, I think, How It All Vegan). Now it's just cup/cakes in general, I think.

Do you have any self-imposed food rules (like no food touching on the plate or no nuts in sweets)?
I'm a freak about my food. I usually eat a bit of everything in every bite, unless I really want to savour a specific dish. I also start chewing on the left and always finish on the right - it's all about the symmetry (and, even before I studied it, the archaic cosmology of the inherent badness of the left and goodness of the right, which is why the "better" bites go to the right side). I also typically don't like sweet things in savoury dishes (like fruit in curry) or whole / dried fruit in desserts. I'm sure there are more - I could probably write an essay about my food habits. Ooh, that's a topic ripe for ethnological investigation!

What’s one food or dish you tend to eat too much of when you have it in your home?
Oreos. We can have loads of other sweets in the house for ages, but we really have to struggle to make a packet of Oreos (or similar) last more than a day. I have to ration them or they'd be gone in within 30 minutes. I'm sure if we had ready access to them, we wouldn't think twice about inhaling the package.

What ingredient or food do you prefer to make yourself despite it being widely available prepackaged?
Probably seitan. It's not as widely available here as it is in the US, but there's enough that I could just buy it most times that I need it. But it's so expensive, so why bother? On the flip side - something that's super easy to make at home but I always buy - hummus. We just don't like homemade hummus as much as store bought.

What ingredient or food is worth spending the extra money to get “the good stuff”?
Nooch - the stuff with B12 is 40-50p more expensive than the stuff without, but I'll pay it. Also, Plamil chocolate spread - it's £2.25 for, I think, 200g, whereas Whole Earth (I think that's the brand) is nearly a pound cheaper. But even though Plamil isn't consistent, it's still pretty much always better than any other brand.

Are you much of a snacker? What are your favorite snacks?
Not exactly. I have to really think about snacking, and I try to only eat when I'm hungry. I usually snack on noochy toast or bread with chocolate spread, or if I'm being really good, organic Pink Lady apples with smooth white almond butter. I'm usually not good.

What are your favorite vegan pizza toppings?
Chick'n or fauxsage and cheeze. More importantly, my favourite pizza dough is the Chicago-style deep dish in American Vegan Kitchen by Tamasin Noyes - if you liked Pizza Hut pan pizza pregan, this will be your pizza dough. It's the closest you'll ever get to that.

What is your favorite vegetable? Fruit?
Favourite veg is probably chard. Fruit - definitely organic Pink Lady apples.

What is the best salad dressing?
Goddess dressing - Annie's from a bottle, or Susan V's low-fat recipe if I have to make it myself.

What is your favorite thing to put on toasted bread?
Fluffy bread - margarine and nooch; dense bread - chocolate spread and raspberry jam.

What kind of soup do you most often turn to on a chilly day or when you aren’t feeling your best?
French lentil soup with tarragon and thyme from V'con - it's so easy for something so full of flavour

What is your favorite cupcake flavor? Frosting flavor?
I love me some cupcakes. I might have to go with the mint chocolate cupcakes from VCTOTW.

What is your favorite kind of cookie?
Snickerdoodle (no particular recipe) or the veganised version of Top Secret Recipes Keebler Soft Batch chocolate chip cookies

What is your most-loved “weeknight meal”?
Tofu scramble or pasta with tamari, oil, lemon, and nooch.

What is one dish or food you enjoy, but can’t get anyone else in your household to eat?
Shrooms. Mike's a hater. I had to eat an entire 250g package of them by myself tonight because I knew he wouldn't eat them, and if I tried to save them for another night, they would've sat in the fridge until I forgot about them and went off.

How long, in total, do you spend in the kitchen on an average day?
Minimum (including breakfast- and dinner-making time) is probably an hour, but up to 3 hours, maybe, depending on what I make. I think it averages out to about an hour and a half.

I was gonna do a post about tonight's dinner, but it's after midnight and I'm exhausted, so I'll try to not suck at blogging and actually continue to post now that MoFo is over (*sadface*).

Vegan MoFo Survey 2010

2010-11-29T15:08:00.001-08:00

I kinda forgot about this, and now I look at it and it's 10 pages long! OK, not really.

The weather right now is horrendous. I've heard lots of people say they've never seen it this bad (though I thought last winter was about the same, but, to be fair, that happened in December, not November). Anyway, I had to drop my boss's dinner jacket at the hire place (he couldn't get there safely, and I live nearby). I thought I'd get a taxi, but it turned out that I would've had to have booked it about 3 hours in advance, so I ended up walking. Then I got the bus to Real Foods and did a bit of grocery shopping. I then walked home when it was hailing. The point of this story is that I got home cold and tired and ended up making pasta for dinner (and enough for both of our lunches tomorrow). Therefore, I have no pictures and nothing particularly interesting to talk about, so I decided to do the epic survey. So here we go:

EPIC VEGAN MOFO SURVEY 2010

1) What's your favorite spice or spice blend?
Hands down, without a doubt, cinnamon for sweet and cumin for savoury.

2) You have £20 to spend on fresh groceries and produce for the whole week (with a fairly well stocked pantry of dry goods, legumes, grains, and spices). What do you buy?
Broccoli, cauliflower, organic Pink Lady apples, chard, kale, tofu, green beans, onions, garlic, carrots, potatoes, orange juice

3) What's your favorite way to make tofu?
I think I have to go with scramble. Nine times out of 10, my tofu will end up as a scramble. I love it.

4) Vegan guilty pleasure?
Co-op donuts, Plamil chocolate spread

5) If you could make anyone vegan, who would it be?
My best friend Eva, just because it would be awesome.

6) If you could only read one other vegan blog, what would it be?
Mo Betta Vegan, without a doubt.

7) Were you always interested in cooking, or did veganism change the way you saw and interacted with food?
I'm a Southern woman, and so was my grandmother (as I've mentioned), so I grew up cooking. My mom was never much of a cook - she dumped things out of a can or a box and heated them up - apart from her famous lasagna, and my dad didn't cook anything but chili (until recently). So I learned from my grandma (dad's mom) from a very early age. My mom started working nights when I was about 10, and that's when I started cooking for my family. But I really cooked the way my mom did unless I was baking. That's when I made things from scratch with recipes. I mastered my grandmother's fudge and cherry pie pregan.
But veganism has changed the way I interact with food, in that I now actually cook fresh veg and can't even think of an animal carcass as something I'd want to put in my mouth. I think it's made me a better cook.

8) Excluding analogues, what new things have you tried that you probably wouldn't have as an omni?
Fruits and vegetables. Seriously - I almost never ate fruit and veg as an omni, and now I feel weird not eating something green with every meal. I even drink green smoothies (when commercially available - my immersion blender isn't up to that task).

9) What is the one vegan staple that everyone seems to love, but you can't get behind?
The only things that come to mind are things like quinoa, cashews, dates, etc., not because I don't like them, but because I'm sensitive to severely allergic to all of them. My cheese analogue recipe selection is severely limited, lemme tell ya.

10) What was your first "wow, I'm such a stereotypical vegan" moment?
Not my first (I can't remember that), but I definitely had one two weeks ago when I busted out my stash of nooch at work in an emergency "what will I eat for lunch" moment.

11) First recipe you veganized?
Chocolate chip scones. I think it was originally a Tyler Florence / Food Network recipe. They were the thing I was known for in my circle (and I still have a friend who'll message me to say she misses my scones!). When I first went vegan, people fretted over never getting another one of my scones, so I had to veganize them straight away to prove that I (and they) wouldn't be deprived.

12) What would you like to veganize, but haven't yet?
My grandmother's fudge. Now that we have access to vegan marshmallows and condensed milk, fantasy is starting to look like reality.

13) Favorite kitchen utensil/appliance?
Cast iron pans, immersion blender, and chef's knife

14) Most disastrous kitchen failure?
I'll be honest, I don't have a lot of kitchen failures. There aren't a lot of flaming pans and "ohgodI'mgonnadie!" moments in my kitchen. I think the worst thing that tends to happen is that my muffins come out gummy. I could be repressing some memories, though.

15) First vegan cookbook?
I think the first one I owned (rather than borrowed) was, funnily enough, a book by a UK author from which I never cooked because it was before I lived in the UK, knew from cooking with weight rather than volume, or ate vegetables. It was Easy Vegan Cooking by Leah Leneman, who I later discovered was a lecturer at my uni (I think in sociology or history - I think her academic work had something to do with women's studies) in addition to being a vegan cookbook author. The first vegan cookbook I owned and actually cooked from was probably Vegan with a Vengeance by Isa Chandra Moskowitz.

16) What question about being vegan do you HATE answering?
Pretty much anything from Defensive Omnivore Bingo:

I just have to mention this, because it's hilarious. When I told my sister that I made gravy for Thanksgiving, she asked me what I substituted for the fat. I was like, um...fat. She thought gravy only worked with animal fat. At least now she knows - fat from oil works the same way.

17) If you could tell the world one thing about vegans, what would it be?
Vegan =/= healthy - just because my cupcakes are vegan doesn't mean you can eat four. They do still contain fat and sugar.

18) Funniest vegetable?
The peen carrot:

19) What is a family recipe you have veganized?
I don't know that I have. I want to veganize some of my grandmother's recipes, but I don't have copies of them yet.

20) Weirdest food combination?
chocolate and Marmite - It was the best truffle I've ever eaten in my life.

21) Is there something you wish you could veganize, but can't/couldn't?
As mentioned above, up until recently, I really wanted to veganize my grandmother's fudge recipe, but it's made with marshmallows. Now we have the technology, it might be possible.

22) Favorite ways to prepare tofu, seitan, tempeh, any other vegan proteins?
I don't do it often, but just about anything beer battered is freaking awesome.

23) Are your pets vegan? if so, what do you feed them?
My cat lives with my parents and isn't vegan. Mike and I have decided that, if we get a pet in future, we'll be getting a herbivore.

24) Favorite non-dairy milk?
Alpro Soya unsweetened with vitamins, or Kara coconut milk / Alpro Soya vanilla for coffee and tea

25) What’s one “vegan myth” you’d like to squash?
Vegans are a bunch of skinny, malnourished, smelly, dirty hippies. Have you seen the number of vegan cookbooks devoted to baked goods?! And the most readily available vegan products tend to be junk food (it's easier to find vegan junk food than pre-made vegan meals or even meat analogues). There's a reason why Isa's just released Appetite for Reduction - a diet-friendly vegan cookbook. There's just far too much delicious vegan food to be had (which is another myth I'd like debunked - vegan food is bland and unappealing). And even the vegans who don't shower daily tend to take pretty good care of their hygiene. Honestly, as many vegan celebrities as there are, you'd think people would realise that the stereotype no longer has a basis in reality.

So, that's that. It took longer than cooking and photographing a decent meal. Oh well. I really liked the survey Mo did, so I might double post tomorrow and do that one, along with something of actual interest (like food, with pictures).

Also, I've just ordered Appetite for Reduction and The Vegan Cookie Connoisseur by Kelly Peloza as part of my plan to buy things for myself from the US and have my sister send them to me as my Xmas present (i.e., my present from her is that she's sending me my stuff). I'm super excited to get them both. Hopefully the one will balance out the other. Heh.

Tamales! Tamales!

2010-11-28T13:55:00.000-08:00

I finally ate a tamale!

My best friend was visiting from Newcastle this week. We decided to make tamales. The plan was to make them Friday since we knew we'd have the most time that day. Also, since I don't have a freezer, I wanted to make them as close to the time Eva was leaving as possible since she'd be taking some of them home. As it turned out, we didn't need to worry about freezing them.

We made the Sweet Potato and Black Bean Tamales in Viva Vegan! They were delicious. They were so delicious that, despite the fact that Mike only ate one, between the two of us, Eva and I managed to eat all of them by this afternoon. They wouldn't have lasted that long if I'd been home on Saturday to eat them!

That was our meal Friday night - tamales, leftover green bean casserole (from our T'giving meal), and leftover Yellow Rice with Garlic. The beans were perfectly seasoned, a bit spicy, and the sweet potatoes were almost creamy. I could eat these daily. I've told Eva that the next time we make tamales, we're making at least twice as many as this time. I think I need to make them with seitan next time.

Vegan MoFo - Mix v. Scratch: Battle Lemon Drizzle

2010-11-27T18:46:00.000-08:00

I know I said I was gonna blog about tamales, and I will. But here's the thing - I was too full of tamales and busy trying to catch up on "Glee" while my best friend was here and didn't have time to blog yesterday, and today I've been up since 4.45 AM for a work thing (for which I didn't get home until 7 PM). I'm super exhausted and can't be bothered sorting through my pictures (I took about 100 for the work thing), so I'll talk about tamales tomorrow and instead talk about the final Mix v. Scratch Battle.

Battle Lemon Drizzle

Let me first say that I've never strictly had a lemon drizzle cake before Monday. I'd never heard of the lemon drizzle cake as such until I moved to Edinburgh, by which time I was already vegan. For some reason it seems to be more than just a lemon cake with icing, though I'm not sure why. But, meh. I should also mention that I didn't bother to make sure I had margarine before I started, and it turned out I needed it. So I ended up not making the filling and only making icing, but it worked out fine.

How I made it vegan: The mix I used was just the Sainsbury's own-brand stuff. I had some soy yogurt left over from my baking spree the week before, so I subbed 1/2 c soy yogurt for the 2 eggs called for in the recipe. The only other thing it would've needed was margarine subbing for the butter for the filling (which I didn't make).

Time: This was another one of those "beat for some ridiculous amount of time" mixes. I was terrified that I was gonna overstimulate the gluten (or whatever happens when you mix too much), but it worked out. Aside from that, it didn't take that long.

Initial results: I thought the cakes were awfully thin, but at least they cooked quickly. I thought it tasted alright, but it was a little more moist than I would've liked.

For the scratch, I made the lemony version of the golden cupcake recipe (oil rather than margarine) in VCTOTW.

Time: I've made this recipe a billion times, so it was pretty damn easy (even with doing a different version). This is the first recipe in the book, super basic but wicked versatile, and incredibly easy to make. It really didn't take much longer than the mix.

Initial results: This was a denser, less moist cake, and it tasted less like chemicals. I thought my icing was better than the packaged icing. I preferred this one.

Verdict: Unfortunately, I seemed to be the only one who preferred the scratch cake. Everyone else basically said it should've been a combination of the two - the moistness of the mix with the fluffiness and icing of the scratch.

Happy Thanksgiving, MoFo's!

2010-11-25T16:08:00.001-08:00

First of all, I suck. I didn't post for two days. In my defense, I was prepping the house for a guest and then didn't have time to post either that day or the next. But I figured I should put in the effort tonight, and I might do two posts tomorrow.

Anyway, I'll make this short since it's already late here. My best good friend is visiting from Newcastle. Since we're both American, we decided to do Thanksgiving dinner. The original menu was gonna be Tourkey Cutlets with Sage Gravy and Green Bean Casserole, all from Quick and Easy Vegan Celebrations, a tester recipe for cranberry sauce, roasted potatoes, roasted cauliflower, and Impossible Pumpkin Pie from Fat Free Vegan Kitchen. But here's what happened:

We went shopping around 11.30 or 12. We went to The Chocolate Tree and had hot chocolate, truffles, and cake (well, I had torte). Then we hit Lupe Pintos, then a couple of other places before we finally made it to the store to get the stuff we needed for tonight's dinner. We got more junk food to eat while we watched TV, but what we didn't get was the cranberries for the sauce, so that was out. We came back and made the pie, intending to make the junk food immediately after that. I had already started making the pie when I read further down the recipe and realised it takes an hour to bake. Oops. So we ended up eating the junk food so close to when we were gonna have dinner that we decided not to make the potatoes or cauliflower. We did make the cutlets, gravy, and casserole. Here's our Thanksgiving meal in all its glory:

And here's the delicious, amazing pie:

It was a good-ass meal. Everyone loved the cutlets, including Eva, who's omni. The gravy was really nice, just the right amount of sage. I tested the green bean casserole before the book came out, and I've loved it ever since. It was the first green bean casserole I've ever liked, and I'd make it more often if Mike would actually eat it. And the pie was, as always, fantastic. Eva's already said that there won't be any pie left by the end of the day tomorrow.

Speaking of tomorrow, we're making tamales! Wish us luck!

So, how was your Thanksgiving? Did you make anything new to you?

My first stuffed peppers - Latin style.

2010-11-22T15:58:00.000-08:00

I can't remember if I mentioned this, and I can't be bothered to look it up. Every time there's a thread on the PPK along the lines of "What will I be served at this omni event?", someone always suggests stuffed peppers. It seems to be a thing for some people that they're always served stuffed peppers. Well, I have never been served a stuffed pepper. Even when I was omni, I never ate a stuffed pepper, not even chiles rellenos.

Truth be told, I didn't like bell peppers for a long damn time, so it's kinda understandable. But I've liked bell peppers long enough, and have been vegan long enough, to have been served this supposedly omnipresent omni stand-by. But no, no omni (or vegetarian, or vegan, for that matter) has ever offered me a stuffed pepper.

Curiosity got the better of me, and I decided to take matters into my own hands. But having never been served a stuffed pepper, I didn't know what I should stuff in my peppers. So I asked the PPK. I ended up not using any of their suggestions, mostly because they were suggesting quinoa (I have a sensitivity) and Daiya (not available in the UK). But they did give me ideas.

There were two things that I felt my stuffed peppers needed. First, I had a block of tempeh that I bought on a whim and then didn't know what to do with, so I wanted to use that. Second, I knew I wanted to use brown rice as a grain. For some reason, I decided that I would use recipes from Viva Vegan!. This is what I came up with:

Latin Stuffed Peppers

Ingredients:

one recipe Yellow Rice with Garlic made with brown rice
one recipe Tempeh Asado (see below)
one recipe Simple Latin Tomato Sauce
4 bell peppers (green or red, however you roll), cleaned, halved, and de-seeded
mozzarella-style cheeze

Method:

The best way to do this is to make the tempeh ahead of time so it can marinate for a while. I suggest making it the night before (which I didn't do), though you can probably make it no less than 30 minutes before assembly. Follow the recipe for Tempeh Asado, with the exception that you chop your tempeh roughly into crumbles to put in the marinade, then let sit for 30 minutes or more.

For the rice, you could also make that the night before. You can do brown or white rice - use about 2 1/3 c water if you do brown (rather than the 1 2/3 c called for in the recipe).

Make the tomato sauce while your oven pre-heats to 375F / 190C, after the rice is relatively cool (if you made it the same night). While the sauce simmers, you can clean et al your peppers and make the stuffing. Combine the tempeh with about 2 cups of rice (I just eyeballed it, but I didn't use all the rice I made), then add in about a cup of shredded mozzarella (or whatever cheeze you prefer). At this point, you should also line a lasagna pan with foil.

When your sauce is done, coat the bottom of your pan with a thin layer of sauce. Put the peppers cut side up in the sauce. Scoop about 1/4 c (more or less, depending on the size of your pepper) into each halved pepper. Spoon the rest of the sauce over the stuffed peppers. Bake uncovered for 15-20 minutes, until the peppers are relatively soft. Sprinkle additional cheeze over the peppers and bake for another 5 minutes or until melty.

You might want to serve these with something green like the Swiss Chard with Capers or the Brazilian Shredded Kale, but you've basically got everything you need - veg, protein, whole grains, and deliciousness (that's a vital nutrient, right?).

In case you couldn't guess, I loved my first stuffed pepper. I don't know how often I'll make them, though, because Mike didn't. Oh well, I can always invite friends over.

Vegan MoFo - Mix v. Scratch: Battle GF Chocolate Chip Cookies

2010-11-21T14:25:00.000-08:00

It's time once again for a Mix v. Scratch battle. And yet again, I have no pictures. I did this earlier in the week, and I forgot to take pictures. Sorry.

I should say from the start that gluten-free baking, for those who are unaware, can be temperamental. Also, it's one of the few times when tasting the batter or dough doesn't necessarily give you an idea of how the finished product will taste. So I kinda feel like you have a higher risk of failure, since it's harder to correct before you bake. You pretty much have to take it all the way to the end before you know whether or not you've done it right.

Battle Gluten-Free Chocolate Chip Cookies

The mix was from The Gluten Free Pantry:

How I made it vegan: I used Ener-G egg replacer for the egg and Pure sunflower margarine for the butter. I felt OK using the egg replacer this time because it only calls for one.

Time: Apart from having to stand there mixing for 3 minutes (and, of course, scooping out the cookies), this mix was pretty damn quick. It also didn't make very many servings, so I only had to bake two batches.

Initial results: The chips were a bit small, and they were thinner than I like. They were also quite sticky - they didn't even want to come off the parchment paper.

My taste test: These were actually quite nice. They had a good flavour and, despite being thin, were still pretty soft.

I made the basic chocolate chip cookie from Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar, subbing Dove's Farm GF plain flour for the a-p flour. I could've sworn I'd made them GF successfully before, so I thought I was safe.

Time: It seems like chocolate chip cookies from scratch always take about 3 times longer to make than you feel they should. These took quite a while - first you have to cream the margarine and sugars together, and then you have to actually do all the scooping and baking of the cookies themselves. And since the recipe made about twice as much as the mix, the baking itself took a lot longer.

Initial results: Like I said, I thought I'd made these GF before, but I must have been wrong. The first batch was so oily - they spread really thin in the oven, and the rest of the dough was literally floating in oil. I ended up adding more flour to absorb the oil, which actually made it a little worse. I should've just left them alone and mixed the oil back in for each new batch.

My taste test: Despite that seeming failure, they were still quite good. I think I preferred the second batch - they weren't as oily and didn't flatten out, but they were less dry than the rest. Because they didn't flatten, they were a little doughy on the inside, which I actually really like.

The Verdict: I hate to say it, but most people preferred the mix. One other person (besides me) preferred the scratch ones, mostly because they had more and bigger chocolate chips. But everyone else thought the mix ones were better.

The best part, though, was when I asked if anyone could tell they were gluten-free, and everyone was in complete shock and said they never would've known the difference (for either cookie). That made me pretty happy - I can't hide the fact that my stuff is vegan since everyone knows I'm vegan, but I like to be able to surprise people with just what can be done when you have a restricted diet. So even though my scratch cookies didn't win, I was happy with the overall result.

Busy day of veganness

2010-11-20T14:44:00.000-08:00

This will once again be short because I'm exhausted again, and I also forgot to take pictures (forgot my camera, then when Mike brought it to me, I forgot I had it!).

I had such a crazy busy day! I started out at the coffee morning. I was supposed to be on the tea/coffee stall, but since I was setting up the bake stall, I ended up staying there (which was fine by me). We sold quite a lot, and the people who bought my stuff in the 1.5 hours I was there seemed to really like it.

Then I met Mike at the Edinburgh Voice for Animals' Compassionate Living Fayre. It was quite a small venue, so it didn't take long to get around. But we managed to buy some mint chocolate truffles, several cupcakes and pieces of cake, and a Twilight bar. We had a few free things as well. And it was packed! I was so happy. We actually spoke to other vegans. It was really nice. And for anyone in the Dundee area, there's a couple who do vegan baking and are looking for a place to sell it. I'll update with the name when I can be bothered to get the card out of my wallet. One of the stalls had gingerbread cupcakes which I suspect were from VCTOTW, since they tasted like the ones described in there. They were gorgeous! Now I want to make that recipe (except put more frosting on mine). We also had some delicious mocha cupcakes and mint chocolate cupcakes (mine, i.e. the ones from VCTOTW, are better). The cake slice was a lush chocolate sponge with coffee buttercream filling - I definitely need to make something like that!

After that I went to a roller derby bout to shill more cakes. It was madness! There were so many people there that they were lined up out the door and around the corner (in the rain). And because everyone waited so long to get in, they bought up tons of baking, so we sold more than half of what we had before the bout even started. Before the end of halftime, we'd sold out, so we got to count up and watch the rest of the bout! The best part was that, at this one, there were loads of people who specifically asked for vegan stuff!

Apart from one weak thing that happened at the coffee morning, it was a good day for vegan food!

Bakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo

2010-11-19T15:32:00.000-08:00

Yes, I used that title yesterday just so I could use this title today.

I'm exhausted. After a full day at work, I came home to bake. As I mentioned yesterday, I have 2 bake sales tomorrow, so I started yesterday and finished today. I still have to frost a cake, but I'm done baking. I think I finally turned off the oven some time just before 10 PM (and turned it on around 5.45).

Tonight I made two batches of GF pumpkin muffins from VwaV, one with and one without chocolate chips, chocolate raspberry cake (which was a double batch of Basic Chocolate Cupcakes from VCTOTW which will eventually be covered with Raspberry Buttercream from the same), and a double batch of the French Toast Muffins from 100 Best Vegan Baking Recipes (which ended up giving me nearly 3 dozen).

The pumpkin muffins came out great as per usual, and I haven't had any problems with the cake yet. But the French Toast muffins were a massive fail. I don't know if it was my fault or the recipe's fault, but this was just terrible. I mean, they tasted OK, but not nearly as maple-y as I had hoped. The big problem was with the texture - they were underdone and gummy. Like I said, it could've been (and probably was) my fault, and I might try these again. But it was super disappointing when I spent so much damn time making them.

I haven't taken any pictures of the stuff I made tonight because I was just trying to clear it away and get other stuff done. But I'll take my camera with me tomorrow and get a few snaps. And they might not suck because it'll be in the daytime!

One other thing - I made the Garlic Green Beans from Quick & Easy Vegan Celebrations. They were fantastic, and best of all, they were in my mouth within 10 minutes of starting. I had the idea to make them, pulled out the recipe, prepped and cooked everything in less time than it took to bake a batch of fail muffins. And they were lovely. Next time you need a quick side and have green beans on hand, make these!

Bakin'

2010-11-18T14:32:00.000-08:00

First of all, I can't believe I forgot to blog yesterday. I didn't even think about it until I was in bed and the computer was off. I wasn't about to get back up and switch my computer back on just to talk about having oatmeal for dinner (and not even give you a picture of it), so I just went to sleep. That means I've broken my awesome MoFo streak of blogging every day. Oh well.

Anyway, as I mentioned earlier this month, I have things to bake for. They both happen to be this Saturday. I don't know how I managed to do this, but I've baked for two bake sales in one day before (during the Worldwide Vegan Bakesale for Haiti, I held 3 sales in one week, two on the same day in different places) so it shouldn't be a problem.

I have a bake sale for a work event (coffee morning) and one at the roller derby bout. Since there are people at work who are baking but not going to the coffee morning and therefore bringing stuff in to the office tomorrow, I worked out to bring stuff in as well so I could get a head start. Tonight, I managed to make the Coffee Chip Muffins from Vegan Brunch:

and these low-fat Snickerdoodle Blondies, combining my favourite bar with my favourite cookie:

I love making the Coffee Chip Muffins because they're just so super easy. It probably takes less time to mix them than for the oven to pre-heat. I find the coffee flavour a bit lacking, so I always use instant espresso instead of regular instant coffee. I have some coffee extract, so maybe next time I make them I'll throw that in as well.

The Snickerdoodle Blondies were amazing. The only thing I might change is to make them like regular blondies (with chocolate chips - it's really the only way) in addition to the cinnamon-sugar topping. In fact, I might make another batch tomorrow and do just that.

The plan for tomorrow night (since that's all the time I have left) is to make some gluten-free The Best Pumpkin Muffins Ever from VwaV (double batch so I can cover both events), French Toast Muffins from The 100 Best Vegan Baking Recipes (since I was sent maple extract in my PPKare package last month), and possibly the Green Tea Cupcakes from VCTOTW. Oh yeah, I also have to make the chocolate raspberry cake - I almost forgot about that. I'll upset at least two people if I don't make it since it was specifically requested.

So I'll be busy tomorrow night. I probably should've made at least one more thing tonight, but I'm dangerously low on cinnamon and don't have all the ingredients for the other stuff I'm making. But I'll get it done.

Trying more new things

2010-11-16T14:59:00.000-08:00

We're on the last half of Vegan MoFo 2010! I can't believe it's already the middle of November. I already have a sense of failure for not getting to things I wanted to do. At least this year I have the excuse of being in work.

The Chickpea Cutlets from Veganomicon have been getting a lot of MoFo action this year. First, Isa gave us the double recipe, so we not only no longer have to do the math to double it, but we can also just chuck in the entire can of chickpeas. Then Katie at Don't Eat Off The Sidewalk decided to stuff her cutlets. Then I saw a link to Vegetalion's Vegan Cordon Bleu, though I can't remember where. This was actually before the other two by about a month, but it's the first time I've seen it.

So, with all this cutlet love all over the internets again, I decided to make some again. I haven't made any in ages, and the last time I did, I used my hummus method. I was shopping at Real Foods after work today and decided to buy some chickpeas and "cheatin' rashers" and try out the cordon bleu. I already had the other ingredients at home.

I figured this would be a pretty easy recipe to make, seeing as how chickpea cutlets are pretty easy to make. I was so wrong! I ended up having to basically use Katie's method of stacking one on top of the other, but since I didn't use her replacing some of the gluten with regular flour method, I didn't make them thin enough (which is also why I had to resort to that method in the first place). They also didn't stick together all that well, so the cheese oozed out a bit.

I served these with another first, roasted broccoli. I burned about 1/4 of the florets, so my dinner was laced with failure. The rice was just the stuff in the microwave packet, but I threw in a bit of soy sauce and nooch, so that was about the only thing that I didn't screw up. Mike said it was lovely, but he left most of his cutlet.

Mike says: It was an awesome meal cooked by my wonderful wife. xx

Aww. (He really did type that.)

I'm hoping to make the Seitan Parmesan from Vegan Celebrations tomorrow. I'll need to have another look at the recipe to be sure I have everything. Hopefully it'll be better than tonight's dinner.

Pumpkin cinnamon rolls - like a dream come true

2010-11-15T19:09:00.000-08:00

As I mentioned in Saturday's post, I've been wanting to make the pumpkin cinnamon rolls from Don't Eat Off the Sidewalk for over a year. I think the only thing keeping me from doing so was the amount of time and space it takes to make a roll-out yeast-raised bread-type product. It's a bit daunting. But other PPKers have talked about how great they are, and the PPK is always right.

Another factor spurred my decision to make these. I have a tendency to bookmark recipes online and then never look at them again. I really want to break that habit, though one of the reasons I do it for things like this is that, for instance, I'll see a pumpkin recipe in the middle of summer, when there's no pumpkin to be had. I realised the other day that I actually have so many pumpkin recipes bookmarked that it justified an entire folder for them.

So I was determined to make these, and I'm so glad I did:

As expected, these were amazingly delicious - warm, gooey, soft, sweet, and just a little spicy. I actually ended up with a few extra (I may have rolled my dough too thin), so I had one big pan and one small pan and had to double the icing to cover them all. It took a long damn time - I started some time after 11, and we weren't eating them until after 2, at the earliest (I can't actually remember). But they were worth it. It's not something I'll make frequently (especially since they were so good that Mike and I ate all of them before the end of the day), but I will probably make these again (either when there are more people here or when it's been long enough that I've forgotten how long they take).

What are some recipes you've been meaning to make for ages but still haven't gotten around to?

Papa Chorizo Frittata

2010-11-14T12:41:00.000-08:00

I finally got around to making a recipe from Quick and Easy Vegan Celebrations that I didn't make during testing. And let me tell you, Alicia didn't give all the best recipes to the testers!

I kinda feel like a jerk because I had intended to make this days ago. In fact, I had intended to spend most of last week making recipes from this book that I hadn't made during testing. I ended up falling behind when I couldn't think of anything to make, and then I pretty much just gave up on the idea. I looked through it again last night, and I really don't know why I felt uninspired. There's so much I want to make from this book!

Tonight I made the Papa Chorizo Frittata, served with Swiss Chard with Capers (no raisins) from Viva Vegan! and just some regular old roasted red potatoes.

Sorry about the shadow - pictures taken any time after 3 PM during winter in Northern Europe requires unnatural lighting.

First, I should say that I've made the Swiss chard dish so many times since I got VV. This and the Swiss chard frittata from Vegan Brunch are my favourite ways to use Swiss chard.

Anyway, the chorizo frittata was delicious. The only change I made (apart from not using the specific type of chorizo suggested) was to leave out the potatoes. I'm not a fan of potatoes in frittata - I find they draw out too much of the flavour. So I just put my potatoes on the side, and it worded fine! I also cooked this in a silicon round because everything sticks to my springform pan. I just flipped it over onto a plate and it came right out!

I definitely recommend this frittata and this book!

ETA - Last night while waiting for the leftovers to cool off for storage, I kept cutting off slices of frittata. I seriously almost couldn't stop eating. If it hadn't been for the fact that I needed the leftovers for my lunches, I would've eaten the entire thing. I wanted to eat the frittata more than I wanted to drink the hot cocoa I'd just made. Seriously. It was very difficult to pull myself away from it.

I love soy curls.

2010-11-13T13:42:00.001-08:00

One of the great things about the PPK is that there are people from all over the world on the boards. Every once in a while, we do a swap, where PPKers exchange food and other items with people in other states or countries. I love the swaps because I can get stuff I miss from the US, as well as things I've never tried.

This year I swapped with Luciana, aka designedtobekind, and this is what she sent me:

We've already finished off most of the junk food (natch), and still have most of the non-junk! I have to say, though, I am in love with the soy curls!

So far, I've only used them in pastas. Yesterday I used one of the chicken-style bouillon cubes to add them to Get It Ripe sesame kale soba (in place of the smoked tofu I usually use). Tonight I made my standard quick pasta and threw in some soy curls soaked in the beef-style bouillon. So good!

What I really want to do, and will hopefully do soon, is make General Desdemona's Sesame Orange Soy Curls. Desdemona is one of my favourite PPKers and also one of my favourite bloggers (seriously, check out the rest of her blog). I've had my eye on this one for ages. It looks like something I might have gotten at Veggie Garden in Dallas (well, Richardson). I can't wait to try it.

Speaking of recipes from other MoFo'ers / PPKers, I am totally making the pumpkin cinnamon rolls from Katie at Don't Eat Off the Sidewalk. I've been wanting to stuff my face with these since the first time I heard of them. This is my plan for tomorrow - I hope I see it through, because I want them in my belleh.

Vegan MoFo - Mix v. Scratch: Battle Chocolate Sponge

2010-11-12T18:36:00.001-08:00

I've got the next Mix v. Scratch battle tonight! It was all about the cake this time - I used the exact same frosting (same batch of Raspberry Buttercream from VCTOTW) for both cakes. So, here we go. (I'll add pictures tomorrow because it's late and I'm exhausted.)

Battle Chocolate Sponge

The Mix version is the Asda Chocolate Sponge Mix.

How I made it vegan: This one was pretty easy. It only required one egg and water. I replaced the egg with Ener-G egg replacer.

Time: This was super quick - one egg replacer and about 1/3 c water, then throw it in the pan. I don't even think the oven was pre-heated before I finished making it. The mix only just made one 8" round cake (and it was pretty thin), so it only took about 18 minutes to bake.

Initial results: Well, there was no milk or oil in the cake, so draw your own conclusions. To be honest, the mix didn't even taste that great, so I knew the cake itself wouldn't be wonderful.

My taste test: This was pretty dry and flavourless, even with the frosting. I was unimpressed.

I used this recipe for the scratch cake. I was thinking along two lines - 1) I want to make something new, and 2) I want to make a "sponge" cake, assuming that the label "sponge" makes it different than regular chocolate cake (I don't know if this is true). I don't think I've ever made a recipe by weight rather than volume, so it was different.

Time: Like I said, it was a new-to-me method, so that took time to get used to. Other than that, it didn't take long - less time than last week's swirl cake. It made a much larger cake than the mix - I used my 9" round silicon pan, which is almost twice as deep as the 8" metal rounds.

Initial results: I wasn't keen on the amount of cocoa in this. I like my cakes chocolaty, not CHOCOLATE. It still came out a lot better than the mix - much moister, and a better flavour overall.

My taste test: Like I said, this had a much better flavour than the mix. I definitely liked it more.

The Verdict: Fewer people tried these, but they preferred the scratch cake by far! I'm vindicated! I just wish the winning cake had tasted better. Oh well.

Starbucks (or, I feel kinda dirty)

2010-11-11T09:59:00.000-08:00

I'm not a big coffee drinker. I go back and forth with it - sometimes I love it, sometimes I can't stand it. When I do drink it, it has to have almost as much sugar (or syrup of some flavour) and milk as it has coffee. I do like tea, but I'm pretty particular about it. I either have something like rooibos or chai with (again) loads of sugar and milk, or I drink Celestial Seasonings Bengal Spice or Cinnamon Apple straight up. I rarely drink herbal or fruit teas, and I never buy them at a coffee shop. This is why, when people suggest going out for coffee, I'm usually not best pleased.

I've had my ups and downs with coffee shops in Edinburgh. I do have a favourite - Kilimanjaro on Nicholson Street - that very rarely lets me down in the chai department, and another - Artisan Roast on Broughton Street - that has quite a few amazing vegan hot chocolates (they make them with flaked chocolate and soy milk). On the whole, though, people tend to want to go to places with which I'm unfamiliar, or they want to go to Starbucks.

Ah, yes, Starbucks - the evil empire. There are probably more Starbucks coffee shops in Edinburgh (and most cities, I would imagine) than all the independent coffee shops combined. Well, rather than argue the merits of their existence, I'll just help out those UK vegans who have friends who don't know any better and insist they go there.

Out of curiosity, I decided to email Starbucks to find out what they had on offer for my people. I received the following email today:

Thank you for taking the time to contact Starbucks Coffee Company regarding the nutritional details of our current product range. The products which are suitable for Vegans are as follows.

Drinks:
Tazo Tea
Filter Coffee
Café Misto with Soy
Steamed Soy with or without syrups
Espresso
Espresso Macchiato with Soy
Café Americano black or with Soy
Soy Lattes with or without syrups
Soy Cappuccinos with or without syrups
Mocha with Soy
Classic Hot chocolate with Soy
Tea based Frappuccinos

Food:
Perfect Porridge with Soy Milk and Dried Fruit
Fresh Fruit Salad
Fruit Salad
Seasonal Apple
Fairtrade Banana
Falafel Panini
Hoummous with Vegetable sticks
Roasted Almonds
Nut Mix
Fairtrade Chocolate bar - dark
Sea Salt Potato Chips
Sea Salt and Cider Vinegar Potato Chips

We appreciate you contacting us and look forward to welcoming you back to your local Starbucks soon.

Seasonal apple! Fairtrade banana! I had no idea those were vegan! /sarcasm

It's a pretty decent list, to be fair, though I feel the need to point out that when they refer to Tazo tea, they're talking bags, not the chai mix (which contains honey). But we can get hot chocolate at Starbucks! Yes! So next time you're forced into a Starbucks (or go of your own free will - I'm not judging), you know that you'll have something to drink other than the bagged tea that you could make at home yourself for a fraction of the cost.

Quick dinners

2010-11-10T16:00:00.000-08:00

We went to the cinema tonight (saw Red - it was great). Mike usually doesn't get home until either 7.20 or 7.40 (depending on when he leaves work), so we always have to see a late-ish movie. Tonight's movie was at 8.15, and he got home around 7.20, so we didn't have much time for dinner. In a case like this - short of time, nothing else to cook, or zero inspiration - I almost always fall back on pasta.

Years ago, I never would've eaten pasta without either a cream sauce or a tomato sauce. These days, I almost always make it sauceless. I don't know when I started eating pasta without sauce, but I'm sure I was influenced by my old flatmate.

Mike likes his pasta different than I like mine. He'll eat it with nothing but pepper, but I usually throw on some seasoned salt and tamari. Once I give him his portion, I like to throw in a teaspoon or two of olive oil, about a teaspoon (more or less, I never measure) of lemon juice, and a couple tablespoons of nooch. It's like having cheesy pasta without all the work. It's not the healthiest thing in the world (mostly carbs, some fat, little protein and no veg), but it's quick and easy.

How do you like your pasta? Do you only eat it with sauce, or do you go sauceless? And what are some other things that you like to make when you have less than an hour to cook, eat, and get out the door?

A note about links

2010-11-09T16:08:00.000-08:00

I realised the other day that my linking may be confusing to some. Here's the thing - yes, I live in Scotland, but I assume that most people who might read my blog are in the US. So when I link to a book, whenever possible, I'll give the link to Herbivore Clothing Co. Herbivore is, as you might guess, a vegan-owned company based in Portland, OR. They sell their own awesome clothing, stickers, and buttons, as well as accessories and books. They might cost a bit more, but buying from them puts more money directly back into the vegan community rather than some nasty corporation.

If you live outside the US, I would recommend checking out The Book Depository to satisfy your cookbook habit (or any reading habit, really). Not only are they less sketchy than Amazon, but they ship free anywhere in the world (even if you only spend £1), and they tend to be cheaper than Amazon (usually only by 1p, but still).

As far as UK foods go, I'll obviously try my best to link to reputable UK suppliers. Real Foods, which I linked in my last post, ships for free to the UK mainland. They're based in Edinburgh (with two actual stores), and the shops seem to have more than the website. You can also get a lot of vegan junk food, cruelty free shoes and accessories, and vegan household products and cosmetics from Vegan Store.

I'll try to mix up the links as much as possible, but I like linking to the companies that directly benefit other vegans. If you know of any, pop 'em in the comments.

Leftovers and makeshift desserts

2010-11-09T14:12:00.000-08:00

I went to the gym today, then did the dishes when I got home. By the time that was done, I just wanted to sit down. Also, I had no idea what to make for dinner. But we had a ton of beans left over from last night, so I just made more Yellow Garlic Rice and we had leftovers.

That's that out of the way. Now let's talk about makeshift desserts. We here in the UK have a pretty wide variety of chocolate spreads (or at least those of us in big enough cities do). I have about 4 plain chocolate spreads, a couple of chocolate and hazelnut spreads, and a few carob (sometimes with hazelnut) spreads to choose from. I've even seen raw hemp and chocolate spread. My favourite is Plamil Organic Chocolate Spread.

The first time I bought chocolate spread, I had no idea what to do with it. It sounded like a great idea, but then I got it home and realised that I had nothing on which to spread chocolate. My then-flatmate pointed out that it's totally normal to put it on bread. I never would have thought to do that, even though it now makes perfect sense.

I usually keep a jar of chocolate spread on hand for quick desserts, for those days when Mike wants something sweet but I can't be bothered to either make something or go out and find something. We had chocolaty bread tonight. I had mine with a bit of Ricemellow Creme, which I would show you if my camera batteries hadn't all decided to die.

There's also the obvious makeshift dessert - vegan mug cake. I've also seen mug cobbler, but I can't seem to find the link. What are some desserts you've pulled out of your ass (figuratively, that is - please)?

Viva Vegan mini review

2010-11-08T15:29:00.000-08:00

Let me just get this out of the way - I know I was gonna do recipes from Quick and Easy Vegan Comfort Food this week. But I didn't spend enough time looking at it and ended up feeling overwhelmed and couldn't think of anything to make other than what I'd already made during testing, so I'll maybe look at it later in the week. There are, of course, recipes I want to make, but they're mostly cakes.

So, rather than try to dig up the tester forum and copy and paste my reviews from there, I decided to make something from Viva Vegan!

A word about VV - this is one of the best cookbooks I've ever owned. I've probably cooked as many recipes from VV in the 6ish months that it's been out as most of my other cookbooks that I've had for years. It's comparable to how much I made from Vegan Brunch including the cookbook challenge last year. I even bought copies for my sister and my best good friend. If you like Latin food, even if you aren't vegan, you should pick up this book.

Tonight I made the Drunken Beans with Seitan Chorizo and the Yellow Garlic Rice:

The Yellow Garlic Rice is my favourite rice dish ever. Of. All. Time. Seriously - it's amazing. I can't even bring myself to make the other types of rice because I just know they can't compare. And it's so easy! It has about 7 ingredients and takes less than 30 minutes.

This is the second time I've made the drunken beans. I kinda screwed up - I couldn't get my hands on Mexican cerveza, so I bought what I assumed to be a close enough approximation. Turns out, not so much. My beans were super bitter. Mike liked them, but I had a hard time eating them, and they made me sad. It is in no way the fault of the recipe - I loved them the first time I ate them. If I hadn't already had the beans on the stove cooking, I would have waited to make these when I realised I couldn't get the right kind of beer. I'm gonna try to doctor them and see if I can decrease the bitterness. Wish me luck!

Revisiting a classic - Tofu Scramble

2010-11-07T16:18:00.001-08:00

Huge surprise - Mike didn't make bread today! He says he'll do it tomorrow when he gets home from work, but that's unlikely. We'll see.

Since I didn't have a guest blogger, I decided to revisit one of my favourite topics. I've written at length about tofu scramble. I believe it to be an essential dish in any vegan's repertoire (unless you're soy-free, though there are some interesting soy-free tofus being made by enterprising individuals). In fact, you should probably know how to make tofu scramble even if you just live with a vegan for whom you might end up cooking. I'm actually a little surprised I haven't forced Mike to learn how to make it without my help (though it is one of the 2 dishes he's ever cooked for me).

It seems like it's also a really personal dish - there are probably as many ways to make tofu scramble as there are vegans who eat it. My favourite way to scramble is similar to the recipe in the PPK recipe archive and Vegan with a Vengeance. I usually leave out the thyme (being jabbed in the gum by a dried sprig of thyme once too often put me off it in scramble) and double the nooch, and I use whatever veg I like (most often onion, red pepper if I have it, and broccoli).

But that's the great thing about tofu scramble - you can put pretty much anything in it, and it's great.

If you look back at some of my older post (from last year's MoFo and earlier, mostly), you'll see that I've blogged about scramble a lot. I love a lot of the various scramble recipes from Vegan Brunch, but the VwaV recipe is my go-to, never-fail, don't even need the recipe scramble.

So, how do you scramble? I'd love to hear from soy-free people about making scramble without (soy-based) tofu. I'm also curious to hear your take on 'tofu scramble' v 'scrambled tofu' - which do you prefer? (I think my preference is obvious.)

Shopping deals

2010-11-06T15:16:00.000-07:00

A lot of people seem to be blogging about veganism on the cheap, so I thought I'd throw in for the UK people. I hadn't planned this, but I ended up going to Asda today, then read Mo's post about checking out the dollar store, so I decided to share my wisdom.

Before I get into it, I'll say right now - I almost never shop at Asda. I know they're owned by Wal-Mart, and Wal-Mart is the enemy, etc. But every once in a while, you hear about a product they have or you just need to save some damn money, and you have to decide for yourself what to prioritise. Maybe this makes me a hypocrite, but I never said I wasn't (at least not in this aspect of my life).

That said, I'll explain what led me on this journey of discovery. I'm a "fan" of the Vegan Society on Facebook, and they posted some info about the Ethical Voice for Animals' Compassionate Living Fayre (which, of course, is the same day as both my work's coffee morning and an ARRG bout). While poking around their site, I found that they'd posted the vegan food items lists from most of the big box stores (their Co-op list links to the Sainsbury's list). I had a look at the other three and noticed that Asda seemed to have a ton of vegan junk food, so I decided to take a trip there.

Part of the reason I decided on this is because the Asda list is seriously outdated; I wanted to see how accurate the list was. But I also kinda like going to Asda because it's a really long bus ride away, and I like long bus rides (it gives me lots of time to read), especially when the last stop is my destination (so I don't have to keep looking up to make sure I haven't gone past where I'm going).

My mission was to score the following items on the vegan list - garlic bread, chocolate sponge mix, potato croquettes, battered onion rings, fruit jellies, and chicken-style fillets (and a few other things that I needed anyway). I had mixed success with this list. The potato croquettes were most definitely not vegan. I didn't find any fruit jellies, and most of the similar type of sweeties had pork gelatine (barf). The chicken-style fillets had egg in them (as do most of their frozen meat analogues). I did manage to get the cake mix, bread, and onion rings, along with a few other things:

Pictured in no particular order: tahini sauce, dark chocolate spread (more on that another day), garlic bread, vegetable pâté, soba noodles, chargrilled red pepper hummus, roasted red peppers, maple syrup, and chocolate sponge mix (more on that another day as well). Not pictured: onion rings, Linda McCartney sausage rolls (eaten), "Footballs" (like round potato croquettes), seedless raspberry jam, and some clothes (including some cozy-as-hell pajama bottoms).

The most expensive of the food items was the maple syrup at £2.99. Seriously - £2.99 for a bottle of maple syrup. Score! The chocolate spread, pâté, noodles, sausage rolls, and jarred peppers were also cheaper than anywhere else I've bought them. There were other deals to be had, such as Vitalite margarine (my favourite for most of my marg needs) for 80p, that I couldn't take advantage of because I didn't have space for them.

So if you have no problems with shopping there, hit up Asda for their surprising abundance of vegan items. Just be sure to check the ingredients if you're using the list they provided.

Tomorrow, if everything goes to plan, Mike will be guest blogging about his bread-making experience! This all depends on his actually making the bread, so we'll see what happens.

My first recipe (no actual recipe included)

2010-11-05T16:59:00.000-07:00

I was lazy tonight and didn't cook. Well, I did, but it was just pasta with nothing special. And then we had mint Oreos for dessert. Awl-raight*! But since I didn't do anything particularly exciting food-wise today, I borrowed some ideas from Isa's inspiration thread and decided I'd talk about my first recipe.

OK, in fairness, I think this is just the first thing I very specifically recall making. And it's just the story of it.

I'm sure I've mentioned this before, but my grandmother pretty much taught me how to cook from about the time when I could physically be put to work helping. She was one of those 50s housewives who grew up poor on a farm in the South but got just far enough into the middle class to get into that weird semi-homemade / heavily branded thing. Looking through some of her recipe books, and recipes she wrote herself, almost every recipe had either an ingredient that would normally have been an entire recipe on its own (e.g. pudding mix) or demanded the use of a particular brand (e.g. Crisco shortening). So she had her well-seasoned cast iron pans that probably belonged to another woman in the family before her sitting next to her various molds for the shaping of Jell-O (OK, I'm not actually 100% sure she made Jell-O molds, but it's a reasonable assumption). She was also a Navy wife, and her travels took her to places and introduced her to cuisines that most of the people back home wouldn't have heard of until the 90s or later (like couscous).

The point I'm trying to make is that the woman knew how to cook at the best of times and the worst of times, with both the best and worst ingredients. And by getting me in the kitchen from a young age, she fostered a love of cooking in me.

I can't really remember when I started baking. I have vague recollections of making biscuits and gravy from a very young age. But I remember when I started to realise I was good at it. When I was in 4th grade (age 9), I was in 4H. We had a baking contest, and my entry was my favourite dessert made even more sickeningly sweet and thus perfect for a 9-year-old. I made chocolate chip blondies with an entire jar of marshmallow cream swirled into the batter. I wasn't the only person who thought these things were a party in one's mouth. I ended up tied for first place with the boy I had a crush on. He made peanut butter cookies (this was well before the days of banning peanut butter in schools so allergic kids wouldn't be exposed to it), so I was unable to judge for myself who had the best baked good.

When I was 9, it was the best thing I'd ever put in my mouth. At 31, it would probably make me vomit as soon as I woke up from the sugar coma (or vomit then sugar coma). But the great thing about progress is that I could actually make a vegan version of this, since we (people of the world, not necessarily those of us in the UK) now have access to delicious Ricemellow Creme. So hey, if someone out there wants to make the Call Me Blondies from Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar and swirl or fold in a tub of Ricemellow Creme, you should totally let me know how it turns out. Actually, if I hadn't already eaten most of my tub, I might do it myself.

*That should be pronounced as heard in this video.

Associations

2010-11-04T17:43:00.000-07:00

Quick one tonight since I'm just back from a party and it's almost 1 AM here. I might come back and add a picture later, but we'll see.

As I said, I've just been to a party. The person who was head of the department when I was at uni has retired. It was a good time - basically a traditional ceilidh, with songs and tunes and poems, and a bit of dancing at the end (Canadian Barn Dance, since the honoree is Canadian). Food was served; I ate unadorned bread.

But the thing that struck me about it was interacting with others. The first person I spoke to, a friend and the department librarian, told me she'd had red velvet cake and thought of me because it was rubbish (I'd made her red velvet cake for an event and everyone loved it). The next person I talked to didn't remember my name, but she remembered the amazing cake I made for a picnic 2 1/2 years ago. And another person told me that her nephews still talk about the chocolate chip cookies I made when I met them.

The point is this - I am obviously associated, at least in that circle, with making delicious vegan baked goods. I suppose there are worse things for people to think of when they think of you.

Vegan MoFo - Mix v. Scratch: Battle Swirl Cake

2010-11-03T19:05:00.000-07:00

This is the first in my "Mix v. Scratch" project, wherein I make both a boxed mix and a homemade-from-scratch version. Challengers will be graded on the time taken to make them, the initial results, and side-by-side taste testing by me, my husband, and my co-workers and/or friends. Today's challenge:

Battle Swirl Cake

The box version is a Betty Crocker Chocolate Swirl Cake with Betty Crocker Chocolate Fudge Frosting:

How I made it vegan: The box calls for 3 eggs, water and oil. To make up for the binding power of 3 eggs, I used three egg replacer eggs and used milk/acv instead of water.

Time: The box says it takes 10 minutes. If you take into account prepping the pans, preheating the oven, mixing it, and doing the swirl, it's a lot closer to 30 minutes.

Initial results: The cakes baked in the amount of time suggested. I cooled them until they were below room temperature. When I went to frost them, they started falling apart. I barely managed to get the second layer on top of the first before it completely crumbled in my hands. I was mostly able to patch it together with frosting, but it didn't look great.

My taste test: The cake was incredibly moist. It was also incredibly sweet. I could tell from the batter that it would be sweeter than the cakes I've been making. The frosting was also sweeter than what I'm used to. I think the combination of sugar in the two actually gave me a headache, and I still feel a little sick an hour after eating it.

The scratch version is the Marble Cupcakes with Thick Fudgey Frosting from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World.

Time: Admittedly, this took about twice as long as the mix. There are a lot more steps, and you have to actually get all the ingredients together yourself. Another thing that added time was that I did a recipe and a half to have enough batter for two 8" layers, which meant doing the mental math for the half while I measured!

Initial results: I think I overmixed the batter and/or overcooked the cakes! They seemed to bake a lot faster than I'd expected, so after 30 minutes (the cupcakes take 24-26 - it seemed a reasonable amount of time) the layers were already overdone. I could tell just by looking, and from taking the cakes out of the pans, that they would be dry.

My taste test: As suspected, the cakes were pretty dry. I also didn't think the frosting was particularly fudgey. It was much less sweet than the other cake, which was good, but the texture and dryness actually made me like the mix cake more (I'm ashamed to say). But I put this all down to my failure to properly mix or pay attention to my scratch cake.

The Verdict: A few of my co-workers had a bit of each cake. While one person preferred the scratch cake because the mix cake was too sweet, the others preferred the mix because the scratch was too dry. One of those preferred my scratch frosting to the tub stuff. Overall, I think the mix was preferred.

THE WINNER (yes, this was the best shot I got):

Vegan MoFo - Trying something new

2010-11-02T16:24:00.001-07:00

It's day 2 of Vegan MoFo - I hope no one is burnt out from trying to read all 700 of the participating blogs! (Full disclosure - I'm not reading all 700-odd blogs.)

As I mentioned in my last post, I made an assload of chickpeas on Sunday. Part of my plan was to make falafel, but the other part of the plan was to only use things that I had on hand. Unfortunately, I used the last of my breadcrumbs making Chickpea Broccoli Casserole (nom!) last night and therefore had none to put in the falafel. So, I needed to come up with something else to make for dinner.

Someone suggested yesterday that I use my abundance of chickpeas to make Chickpeas Romesco from Veganomicon. For some reason, I barely even glanced at this recipe before. Maybe it was because I just can't be bothered roasting peppers, and it would've taken a lot of forward planning. Well, as luck would have it, I bought jarred roasted peppers for a tester recipe I made a while back, and I had exactly enough left for this recipe. Not only that, but I also had every other ingredient apart from the serrano pepper (which I probably wouldn't have bothered with anyway).

This came together really easily, though it was a bit time consuming. I sped up the process by using pre-ground almonds instead of grinding them myself. It would've taken me less time if my dishwasher would actually wash all the dishes and therefore my garlic press had been clean.

I served it over couscous, since I could throw that together during the 10-minute sitting phase of cooking the chickpeas. (Sorry, it's not the best picture, and none of them will be because it's winter in northern Europe and therefore dark by 3.30.)

I can't believe I waited so long to make this! It's amazingly delicious. Mike loved it too. Apart from the absence of the serrano, I didn't make any significant changes. Since the recipe suggests fire-roasted tomatoes, which are unavailable here, I added a few drops of liquid smoke for the smokiness those might provide (a tip I got from Liz at Cooking the Vegan Books).

If you've never made Chickpeas Romesco, bust out your copy of V'con and get cookin'!

Vegan MoFo - Failure to prep

2010-11-01T14:56:00.000-07:00

Happy World Vegan Day! And happy first day of MoFo!

Sunday was meant to be spent prepping for the week to come so I could be sure to have time to do everything I wanted to do and still have time to blog about it. Unfortunately, it ended up being an extremely lazy day - I was up by 11, but I managed to not even get breakfast made until about 4 and did very little else.

One thing I did manage was to cook a giant pot of beans. And 'giant pot' is no lie. I measured out 4ish cups for VwaV Chickpea Broccoli Casserole and 2 cups for VwaV Falafel, and I still had about 3 cups left. Since we're not keen on homemade hummus (not smooth enough - I'm not making it again until I get a VitaMix), I need to think of something to do with 3 damn cups of chickpeas. If anyone has any non-hummus ideas, let me know.

I also made one of the cakes for my first "Mix v. Scratch" challenge - Battle Swirl Cake. I'll share the results of that later in the week.

I had to do my shopping tonight, but I (hopefully) got all of the fresh ingredients I need for the rest of the week. Later in the week, I hope to be able to make VwaV falafel (which I've never made before!), VwaV BBQ Pomegranate Tofu, and V'con French Lentil Soup with Tarragon and Thyme.

I hope all you other MoFo's have a great month!

MoFo plans

2010-10-30T13:27:00.000-07:00

ARE YOU READY TO ROCK?!

Vegan MoFo IV, the Vegan Month of Food, will be upon us in 2 days! For a run-down on what's happening and who's participating, go to Vegan MoFo International Headquarters. There are [EDIT] over 500 MoFo'ers right now. If you're interested in participating, you have until 2 November to sign up.

I've got some very loose plans for this year's MoFo. Some people have every day planned out, others are just gonna wing it, but I've basically got a weekly idea and a couple of things that I'll stick in for each themed week.

My first week is basically "cleaning out the pantry". I'm experimenting with getting a huge order of bulky/heavy groceries in every month and only buying fresh fruit and veg from the store, as well as things I can only get in person (e.g., nooch or cheeze). To make this feasible, I need to sort out my storage. I also need to actually use the stuff I buy in. So for week one, I'll focus on cooking things that I already have on hand and only shopping for fresh ingredients.

Earlier this year, I tested for Alicia Simpson's new book, Quick and Easy Vegan Celebrations, and I just received my tester copy today. I loved so much of what I tested (as did those I fed everything to), but I didn't even see most of the recipes in the book. So in week two, I'll be making recipes from Q&EVC that I didn't get to test. I've only just had a quick look, but I've already seen plenty I want to make.

Week three isn't set in stone, but I might do something like "allergen week". If you know me at all or have even skimmed my blog, you'll know that I have loads of food allergies and sensitivities - several types of nut, melon, avocado, and the newest, quinoa. I know loads of people who are gluten- and soy-free. I'm thinking, for this week, I'll focus on foods that are allergen-free.

In week four, my best good friend Eva is visiting from Newcastle. We're taking the opportunity to sit around and do nothing for three days. However, we will be making tamales, and that happens to also be Thanksgiving week. As a couple of Americans in the UK, we're often forced to come home from work and have sad little T'giving celebrations with our husbands (or alone) while we listen to our friends and family back home talk about getting the day off and gorging on massive feasts with everyone else they know. This will be the first time we've celebrated T'giving together. So the theme for that week will be "PARTY TIEMS".

Throughout the month, I'll also have a couple of other things going on not necessarily connected to the theme of the week. One of my projects will be "Mix v. Scratch". I'll make both a boxed mix and a homemade-from-scratch version of four things - swirl cake with fudgy frosting, lemon drizzle cake, gf chocolate chip cookies, and gf muffins. I'll ask co-workers, friends, and Mike to compare the two on taste and texture, and I'll weigh in on the time it takes to make each.

In addition to that, I'll have a couple of events on - a retirement party, a roller derby bout (volunteering, not skating), and possibly a birthday party, I dunno. I'll do my best to document how I get on with those.

I'll probably post about MoFo prep tomorrow. It's gonna be a busy-ass month. And unlike last year, I'm also working! We'll see if I can even keep up with blogging, let alone themes and projects.

Mug cake revisited - the mother of all mug cakes

2010-09-25T13:51:00.000-07:00

I posted about mug cake ages ago, saying that I had perfected the recipe. Well, I've been tinkering a lot lately because we've been eating a lot of mug cake. While it is a lot easier to make than a whole cake in the oven, I started getting tired of busting out the egg replacer every time, and I was constantly annoyed about those dry bits at the bottom and sides of the mug that I always missed.

Taking a cue from this post on the PPK, I first decided to start making my mug cake in a bowl. This made the process (and the clean-up) far easier. I also changed up the method. But the stroke of genius (that I really should've worked out ages ago) was to stop using egg replacer and make it like normal cake with curdled soy milk. I now present -

The Definitive Vegan Microwave Cake

Ingredients:
1/4 c soy milk (for these experiments, I used vanilla, but plain should be fine)
1/4 tsp apple cider vinegar
3 tbsp oil (canola, sunflower, etc.)
1/4 c sugar
splash of vanilla
1/4 c plain flour
1-2 tbsp cocoa (depending on how chocolaty you want yours)
1/8 tsp baking powder
1/8 tsp baking soda
1/8 tsp salt

Directions:

1) Combine soy milk and vinegar in a small, microwaveable bowl (I use a ceramic cereal bowl) and allow to sit for a few minutes to curdle.
2) Add oil, sugar, and vanilla and mix thoroughly with a fork.
3) Add dry ingredients (sift if you have a small enough device to do so without getting stuff all over the counter) and mix to combine.
4) Microwave on high for 3-5 minutes (it takes mine 4 minutes in a 700ish watt microwave).
5) Eat straight from the bowl, or turn out on a plate and top with raspberry jam (or whatever you like)!

I think this is even easier than the original mug cake, and the flavour is slightly better (it is still cake made in a microwave).

As before, if you have applesauce on hand, you can probably replace some of the oil with it to make this lower in fat. You could also use wholewheat pastry flour for part or all of the flour, if you really wanted to. But if you're so desperate for cake that you're making it in the microwave, I think you deserve that little indulgence.

It's almost October, and Mike and I will be going sugar free for the month. I did this back in June, and it was pretty good (I lost 6 pounds!). It took some thinking to sort out what to eat (toast and scramble instead of cereal for breakfast, hummus and pita instead of cereal bars or muffins for snacks, etc.), and I did miss sugar a couple of times. I don't see myself having many problems this time, since I worked out the kinks in June. I thought I'd really miss coffee, which I've recently started drinking because Mike suddenly insisted on having it, but I've suddenly gone off it again. We'll see how Mike does with it, though - he has cereal for breakfast, biscuits and/or chocolate for snacks most days, and coffee and some kind of dessert every night after dinner. Hopefully it'll be OK.

Gearing up for this year's MoFo and a challenge.

2010-08-01T09:07:00.000-07:00

VeganMoFo is just around the corner. I know October seems a long way off, but it's really only 2 months away. Woah! It's a little scary. This year I have a job, so I don't know if I'll be able to keep up like I did last year, but I'll do my best. Hopefully we'll have some other challenges on the PPK like we did last year. I found that really helpful in giving me something to talk about.

So, here's the challenge part. This year is my 5th veganniversary. I went vegan sometime around June of 2005, but I backslid a bit when I moved to Scotland because I was still uneasy with my veganism (OK, I didn't like vegetables), and I didn't know where to buy the things I liked for a while. But I went back to veganism around October - which is the month of VeganMoFo! This year, I'd like to challenge 5 (or more!) of my non-vegan friends and family to try veganism for one week in October and keep me updated on how they do. It would be even more awesome if anyone could pledge to go vegan for the month!

Obviously, if anyone does take up the challenge, I can offer advice (where to shop, unintentionally vegan products, vegan on the cheap, etc.) and recipes as and when they're needed. And if bribery is more your style, I'll bake you some cookies at the end of the week! (Even if you're in the US, they should be OK to ship since it'll be cooler.) So why not help me celebrate the anniversary of one of the best decisions I've ever made and go vegan for a week in October!

Update on the jam tart crust

2010-05-10T13:49:00.000-07:00

A couple of days ago, I wrote this post about jam tart. I wasn't terribly keen on the crust, and I decided to try a few things to make it better. Today, I made an apple tart with the same crust recipe. For a half recipe, I used GF flour (1/2 c GF mix, 2 tbsp soy flour, and 2 tbsp buckwheat flour - so double these amounts for a full recipe), and I used finely ground corn flour, rather than a medium grind.

From this, I learned two things - 1) Definitely use the finer grind, or it's just too gritty, and 2) it works with GF flour.

Also, my apple tart is awesome. I just sliced some Pink Lady apples, threw them in a bowl with about 2 tbsp of almond butter and maybe 3 tbsp of Monin caramel syrup (from my awesome coffee syrup purchase - £33 for 6 750ml bottles, shipping included), and layered them in the crust, then put the leftover crust on top and baked for about 20 minutes at 350F/175C. Unfortunately, I had too many apples and not enough crust dough, but it still worked out. I wish I'd had some vanilla Swedish Glace, but what can you do?

Fauxsage Pizza

2010-05-08T14:46:00.000-07:00

I wanted to accomplish a few things with tonight's dinner:
1) Use up some stuff in the fridge.
2) Use a recipe from my new cookbook (500 Vegan Reicpes by Celine Steen and Joni Marie Newman).
3) Make something that will get eaten in its entirety tonight - no leftovers.
4) Experiment with trying to recreate Pizza Hut Pan Pizza.

And I accomplished all four with Fauxsage Pizza. I used the recipe from 5VR for Cast-Iron Deep Dish Pizza Dough and Bread Bowls for the crust, which I cooked in my cast-iron pan (a la the pan pizza). I used the Basic Seitan Crumbles recipe from 5VR as a template and combined it with a vague replica of the spice combination for Tempeh Sausage Crumbles in Vegan with a Vengeance to make seitan sausage crumbles, which used up the rest of my ketchup (catsup?). I topped it with Cheezly mozzarella left over from the lasagna I made earlier in the week. And it was small enough (and delicious enough) for us to eat the whole thing in one go.

So, I know that baking in the cast-iron is part of the way to getting Pizza Hut Pan Pizza crust, because they used to serve the personal pan pizzas still in the little cast iron pans. But it didn't quite work out. I think part of it might be to bake the crust a bit on its own, and also oil the hell out of the pan before putting the crust in. Because that shit is greasy. And I think I might need to go with a higher oven temp, because it definitely didn't get as crusty as the Pizza Hut stuff.

Also, I'll attempt to recreate the fauxsage crumbles below. I need to tweak the recipe a bit - I didn't use enough fennel, and I used too much ketchup (catsup?) (following the guidelines in the recipe). It was good, but not perfect.

Seitan Fauxsage Crumbles

1/2 c vital wheat gluten
1/4 c nutritional yeast
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp ground fennel seed
1/4 tsp garlic powder
1/4 tsp basil
1/4 tsp oregano
1 tsp liquid smoke
1 tsp vegan Worcestershire sauce
1 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp ketchup
2 tbsp water

Place dry ingredients in a bowl and stir to thoroughly combine. Add the rest of the ingredients and stir to combine. When all of the dry bits are incorporated, break into crumbles with your hands. Fry for about 8-10 minutes in a large skillet or saucepan.

Unfortunately, I didn't get a picture of the deliciousness. We were hungry. And, you know, it just looked like pizza. But it was kickass good vegan pizza. And Mike is finally getting over his aversion to cooked fake cheese. Yay!

Plum brandy conserve and raspberry jam tart

2010-04-30T16:01:00.000-07:00

A few days ago, I saw this post in my blog feed thingy, and I thought, that looks good. You see, I like the concept of pies et al (crust and sweetness, possibly topped with ice cream or whipped cream - hell yeah!), but I don't like the texture of bits of fruit that is inevitable in such items (well, of the fruit variety). This seemed like the perfect solution. Also, I've had a jar of plum brandy conserve in my cupboard that I got at the Farmers' Market months ago but could never bring myself to open it for some reason. However, as you can see from the thread, it doesn't actually have a recipe. It links to two other blogs that do have recipes, but neither of those is vegan. As you can see from the original post, it calls for one whole egg and one egg yolk, and I wasn't exactly sure what to do there. I mean, I know how to sub eggs in cake, but since I've only ever made eggless pie crusts in recent memory, I wasn't sure what I should sub for the egg (well, the yolk more accurately). So, after some PPKonsultation, I settled on soy yogurt. I give you ...

Plum Brandy Conserve and Raspberry Jam Tart

9 tablespoons (110g) margarine, at room temperature
1/2 c sugar
1/4 c plain soy yogurt
1/8 tsp almond extract
1 1/2 c plain flour
1/2 c stone-ground cornmeal or polenta
pinch sea salt
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 c plum and brandy conserve
1/4 c raspberry jam
turbinado or demerara sugar, for sprinkling

1. Cream together margarine and sugar. Mix in the soy yogurt and almond extract.

2. In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, cornmeal, salt, and baking powder. Gradually add the dry ingredients, just until the mixture just comes together.

3. Measure out about 2/3rd of the dough, wrap it in cling film, and chill it. Take the remaining dough, wrap it and chill it, too. (I chilled for about 2 hours, but only because I was distracted.)

4. Preheat the oven to 350F/175C. Remove the dough from the refrigerator and allow to come to room temperature. Press the dough into the bottom and sides of an ungreased removable bottom 9-10"/24cm tart pan or springform pan, patting it evenly.

5. Spread the conserves and jam evenly over the dough (they'll mix together as you spread - no need to combine them ahead of time if you can't be bothered).

6. Form the extra dough into disks, then lay them over the jam. Top very generously with coarse sugar (as much or as little as you feel like).

7. Bake until the pastry is golden brown, about 20-25 minutes. Let cool before serving, and serve at room temperature.

The Verdict: I'm not gonna lie, it's kinda like a giant fancy pop tart - a crusty icing sugar glaze wouldn't have felt out of place here. And I wasn't keen on the texture of the crust, to be honest. But overall, the taste was great, and it was even better the next day (as was the texture).

I'll make this again, but I might experiment with a finer grind of cornmeal. It was pretty close to a shortbread crust, so that's another possibility. Also, as the original recipe suggests, you can use pretty much any jam, preserve, etc., in place of what I used - this is just what I had on hand. I might try again with raspberry jam and chocolate chips, since it's always been a winning combination. I might also try to do a GF crust, just to see if it works and to do something for the GF peeps.

I've uploaded all of my pictures from the past, oh, 8 or so months, and I've managed to get them into my Food Porn album on FB. I have to say, trying to label everything (thank jeebus for AllyChristine's cookbook/blog challenge compilation post) reminded me about a lot of good food I haven't made in ages. And it made me hungry. Part of me wants to do a post (or 10) to catch up, so I might do later. But I have meal planning and grocery shopping to do, so it'll have to wait.

Bonus: Perfectly perfect cinnamon chocolate chip muffins

2010-04-18T08:25:00.000-07:00

A few weeks (months?) ago, I wrote this post about old-school cinnamon chocolate chip muffins like mom used to ... let me buy a packet mix for and turn into a cake-sized muffin that I hated to share. So, I've been making these like crazy (seriously, a couple times a week, hence my most recent post). When I made them last week, they came out absolutely perfect. It was the best muffin I've ever made in my life, including the much-raved about Best Pumpkin Muffins Ever from VwaV. The changes are slight but crucial. If you want the absolute most perfect cinnamon chocolate chip muffins in the world*, follow the recipe below exactly.

*YMMV

The Best Cinnamon Chocolate Chip Muffins Ever

3/4 c plain flour
3/4 c wholemeal pastry flour
3/4 c sugar
2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 c non-dairy milk
1/4 c + 2 tbsp oil
2 tbsp applesauce
1/3 c plain soy yogurt
1/2 c chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 375F/190C. Line a muffin tin with paper liners.

In a large bowl, stir dry ingredients together. Make a well in the centre and add liquid ingredients. Stir to combine. Fold in chocolate chips. Fill muffin liners about 1/2-2/3 full. Bake 18-20 minutes or until a toothpick through the centre comes out clean.

That said, when I next make these, I'll probably have to reverse the proportion of oil and applesauce to make them as low fat as possible. But at least I've shared my discovery with others.

Weight gain 4000

2010-04-18T05:58:00.000-07:00

Mike and I went to his dad's wedding this week. I decided to wear my Joan (from Mad Men) dress, which I hadn't worn in a few months. It was snug when I last wore it. This time, I barely managed to get it zipped, and it was almost skin tight. Obviously, I've put on a couple of pounds.

Well, I've decided to do something about it. I've already started watching what I eat. It's insanely difficult to not eat whatever I want. I obviously didn't get that ingrained sense of portion control that was assured when I started SparkPeople before I got married. That programme worked really well, but I don't really want to put that much effort in to it this time. Last time, I had a specific goal and a specific time to reach it, but now I just need to knock off the weight I gained when I let myself eat whatever I wanted.

However, there are a few things that I've recently discovered that I think will help me in my efforts. First of all, I've really begun to enjoy almonds. Now, I know they aren't super low fat, but they contain good fats that I probably don't get enough of, and a little goes a long way. I feel as satisfied with half a pack of almonds as I do with two muffins, probably because it takes a lot longer to eat half a pack of almonds one at a time. Also, a Pink Lady apple with a tablespoon of almond butter is so amazing. I wish I'd discovered these things sooner. And it's a good thing I'm now employed, because a small jar of almond butter costs nearly £5.

I've also forced myself to like stir-fry. I didn't really like it before, but now I guess I'm used to the textures (from eating a lot of Japanese food). And eating it with shrooms and smoked tofu and cooking in a bit of toasted sesame oil makes it amazing. It's also super cheap. I got the Sainsbury's Basics stir-fry mix (which I think is about £1), and it makes 2 meals for 2 people (and supplies 2 of your 5-a-day per serving). It's super filling, too - I felt like I could barely move after dinner last night - without being particularly calorific (bean sprouts, cabbage, carrots, and onions are pretty low-cal). And it's a really fast meal, which is gonna be great for those nights when I just can't be bothered. I just hope Mike doesn't get tired of it!

Now the problem is making myself go to the gym. Considering that I barely feel like cooking most days, I'm gonna struggle with working out. I like how I feel when I get back from the gym, but it's difficult to make myself remember that when I've worked all day and still have to make dinner. I'm gonna have to keep up with making things at the weekend so I have less work to do during the week and can feel like I have time to go to the gym. And I'll also try to plan the quicker meals for the days I go to the gym. Hopefully that'll help.

I'll try to keep this updated with my progress, just because it'll make me feel accountable to something.

Full-time job = half-assed dinners

2010-04-08T11:31:00.000-07:00

I started working full time (like, proper full time, with a contract and everything, not just temp stuff that could end with only a couple days' notice) about a month ago. I love what I do, and once my contract is up, I should have no problem getting another job because I'm getting crazy-good experience (I'm like a PA and an office manager in one, and it's in the charity sector). The problem is that it's pretty demanding, and even though I've pretty much got the hang of it, little things crop up on the daily, so I'm working pretty hard. And the consequence of that is that I'm super tired, and I end up making pretty crap dinners. There have been weeks when we've basically alternated between pasta and tofu scramble every day. I also end up giving Mike some pretty substandard lunches (if I even have time to make his lunch) and often end up eating canned soup for my lunch.

This week, I attempted to break that streak by planning out my menu and being prepared for most of what I was gonna make (obviously, space constraints kept me from buying everything ahead). And what happened? I had a really demanding week and made pasta twice and tofu scramble once. OK, I made pasta thrice if you count tonight - it was a variation on Sesame Kale Soba in Get It Ripe (green beans instead of kale - pretty damn good). And as far as lunches - Mike had hummus and chips at least once this week, and I not only had canned soup one day but also ended up getting a pasty from Real Foods while running office errands and having my 'lunch' while I worked yesterday. It's been a bad ... well, month for food around here.

We're going to Aberdeen next week, so we'll have at least 2 days of eating somewhere else. Oh, and I'm sure I'll blog about it, because we're going to a non-vegan wedding and staying in a hotel with 'full Scottish breakfast'!

I think I've perfected the vegan mug cake.

2010-03-08T15:40:00.000-08:00

Mike asked me to make him a mug cake for dessert tonight. I usually make adjustments to the mug brownie recipe, but this time I looked up the mug cake recipe. I found this recipe on vegweb.com, but I still wasn't entirely pleased with it, so I made a few more adjustments. So here's the recipe with my changes. Mike really liked it, but I thought it was a bit too chocolaty, so I'm giving a range of cocoa powder.

1/4 c unbleached all-purpose flour
1/4 c sugar
1-2 tbsp cocoa
1/8 tsp baking powder
1/8 tsp baking soda
1/8 tsp salt
1 "egg" (I used 1/2 tbsp Ener-G with 2 tbsp water)
3 tbsp soymilk
3 tbsp vegetable oil
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
splash of chocolate extract (optional)

Stir the dry ingredients together in a large, microwaveable mug. Mix up egg replacer and add to dry ingredients along with other wet ingredients. Stir to combine, making sure to get the dry bits along the bottom edges of the mug. Microwave for 3-5 minutes (depending on the power level - mine is 700w and it took 4 minutes) until it looks firm and pulls away from the mug. Eat with a spoon or turn out onto a plate. It tastes pretty good topped with raspberry jam.

I might tinker with this a bit more. I thought about adding a couple drops of almond or coffee extract, since those flavours work well with chocolate.