Vegan MoFo 2014 - Newsday Tuesday: Cookin' Crunk Breakfast Lasagna

It's Newsday Tuesday!  I can't remember if I explained why I chose to do my food experimentation on Tuesdays.  It's not just because it rhymes.  Mike works late on a Tuesday, so I have more time to make stuff without someone else constantly asking me when dinner will be ready.  He's usually home at the weekend, so Tuesday is pretty much the only distraction-free day I can do stuff like this.

Today's recipe cuts two carrots with one knife as it's also part of my project, Cooking Through Cookin' Crunk.  If you're new to the joint, I'm attempting to make all of the recipes in Cookin' Crunk before I turn 40.  When you think about the time frame (I started last year and have another 5 years to go), it doesn't seem very ambitious.  But having this project has helped get me out of a cooking slump a couple of times, so it's better than letting my cookbooks moulder on the shelf while I eat 18p ramen all the time.

I almost didn't make tonight's recipe - I've been sleeping really badly lately and got home exhausted and already hungry, which is a terrible combination for cooking something with this many steps.  It has so many steps!  You have to

1. make cheese sauce
2. peel, slice, and cook the potato
3. slice and cook the sausage
4. make tofu scramble
5. layer and bake everything

But if you overlap some steps (make the sauce while the tatties cook) or make stuff ahead of time (the recipe kinda assumes you've already made the sauce), it actually comes together pretty quickly.  It's not a regular weeknight meal (OK, technically it's breakfast), but it's not a half-day project.

As you can see, we had this with some garlicky asparagus on the side.  I figured we needed something green.  Obviously this isn't really pretty, and, as per usual, it's dark and shadowy.  Sorry 'bout it.

For those of you in the UK, I used the Fry's slicing sausage/polony.  It probably affected the taste because it doesn't taste anything like US breakfast sausage, but it was still tasty.  And that was the only substitution I made!

So, yeah, this was super delicious and totally worth the effort.  I would absolutely make this again, and from the way Mike was all but licking his plate, I think he'd be OK for me to make it again.  Plus, now I have 2 days' worth of breakfast and I was able to use the leftover cheese sauce in the burritos I made for my lunches (leftovers from taco night, woo!).

Sundae Sunday - Vegan Dublin Mudslide

My favourite pregan ice cream was Ben & Jerry's Dublin Mudslide - Irish cream ice cream, chocolate chocolate chip cookie* pieces, and coffee fudge ripple.  I'm pretty sure it was the last non-vegan thing I ate intentionally while I lived in the US**.

One of the things I put on my 40 before 40 list was to veganise the Dublin Mudslide.  It doesn't seem like something that would be terribly difficult when you think of it as just veganising some ice cream.  But when you consider the various components, having to veganise those, and the amount of time it would take to make them regardless of their animal content, it's a goddamn project.  For the vegan version, not only do you have to figure out a way to make the ice cream, cookies, and fudge swirl vegan, you have to make your own Bailey's Irish cream!

I got a bug up my butt today and decided to just do it.

I started by making some Irish cream liqueur - I used the recipe in Quick and Easy Vegan Celebrations.  I then made the cookies - I used the soft baked chocolate chip cookie recipe in The Vegan Cookie Connoisseur but switched out 1/4 c of the flour for 1/4 c cocoa powder.  I used my modified V'con ice cream base for the ice cream, adding 1/4 c of the homemade Bailey's to a vanilla recipe.  I used this recipe for the fudge ripple with some instant espresso added for the coffee element - my original attempt ended in chocolate syrup, so it was the wrong consistency.***

The final product was good, but it wasn't Dublin Mudslide.  *sadface*  I'll probably make this again, but I'd make the following changes:

1. Use the homemade Bailey's instead of rather than in addition to the soy milk (so the full soy cream and 1/2 c Bailey's), and add a bit of coffee flavour to the ice cream itself.
2. Leave the chocolate chips out of the cookies (I honestly don't remember chocolate chips in the cookies in the original).
3. More coffee flavour and more sweetness in the fudge ripple.

I think these changes would make it much more like the original.  I made about a liter of Bailey's, and I still have some cookie dough (it would be pretty easy to pull out most of the chocolate chips), so I could probably make this again soon.  For science.

*The description I read said chocolate chocolate chip, but as I mentioned in my post, I don't remember the chocolate chips.
**I had a hard time adjusting to life in the UK as a vegan, so I went back to ovo-veg for a couple of weeks until I found my footing.
***My 2nd attempt almost failed too.  The original recipe calls for maple syrup, which I probably wouldn't have used even if I had it.  I tried to use light corn syrup, but to my great surprise, it wasn't sweet enough, so I added in some golden syrup.  Next time, I'd go with all golden syrup, or maybe agave.

Vegan MoFo VI, Day 12 - British Food Friday - Fish and Chips

It's British Food Friday!

I really struggled with what to make tonight.  I didn't want to make another sweet thing because we've had sweets in the office every day this week and it's reaching the point of overkill.  I was waffling between pot roast and fish and chips because that's all I could think to make.  I dug out a couple of pot roast recipes and realised that most of them were for crock pot roasts, which would take 4+ hours to cook.  I'm not spending 4+ hours on dinner on Friday night.

I finally decided to make the Fish and Chips (kinda) from Quick and Easy Vegan Celebrations by Alicia Simpson.  As you might recall, I tested for this book a couple of years ago.  Well, this recipe wasn't on the tester list, and for some reason I kept passing it over when I flipped through the book.  I honestly don't know why because fried fish is one of the few pregan things I still miss.

Of course, when I finally went to start cooking, I realised that the light above the cooker is now out - the day after we got the other light fixture replaced.  I very nearly decided to just say "fork it" and make some Fry's chicken nuggets for dinner.  But I powered through the annoyance of my hateful kitchen and made the seitan.

I was really unsure about this - you cook it in a smaller-than-usual pan in not very much broth.  But it actually turned out really well.  Unfortunately, it wasn't particularly fishy, but it was still really, really tasty.  Also, I have to say, the coating was more Southern than British (even though this is a St Patrick's Day recipe).  Again, super tasty, but not quite what I was expecting.

I couldn't be bothered making chips from scratch, so I bought the non-coated chips at the store.  Yes, most of the bags of chips I looked at were battered or otherwise coated in some way.  I just wanted straight-up chips, so I went with the bag which had an ingredients list so small (potatoes, sunflower oil) that it took me about a minute to find it.

I made a quick and dirty tartar sauce from some smoked garlic mayo, lemon juice and minced capers (I don't do vinegar on my fish).  It all worked really well together, and I'd definitely recommend it!

I will eventually do that pot roast, but maybe at a weekend.

Thanksgiving in Scotland

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!

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

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!

Happy Thanksgiving, MoFo's!

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?

Bakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo

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!

Trying more new things

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.

Papa Chorizo Frittata

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.

MoFo plans

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.