MoFo Survey II

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

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!

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

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!

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.

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

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.