Yet another try at bread & VeganMoFo wrap-up

Today is the last day of VeganMoFo, so I figured I'd try bread one more time. In deciding how to change the recipe, I felt as if I were channeling Susie or Bottle and Ball. Although I'm not as knowledgeable about baking as either of them. The conclusion I drew? I needed less liquid and more protein in order to keep the bread from falling So I lessened some of the starchier flours I was using and replaced them with higher protein flours, and I reduced the water. Well, guess what? It didn't fall this time. It just didn't rise very much. Now the trick is to find a beautiful compromise between the two and I should have perfect gluten free, soy free, vegan bread. I think that what I need is just a little more water (I should have known that when I had to spread the bread instead of just spooning it in) and that the water should be a little warmer. I'll try to keep you posted.



I've made it through a whole month of VeganMoFo. I made posts almost every day, and when I didn't I did double posts to make up for the missed one. I've looked back over the blog and thought about the month and these are some of the conclusions I've drawn.

1. There is a shocking lack of green in this blog. Granted, I eat meals that aren't on the blog, but I would have estimated that I ate a lot more green than I did for the last month. I'll need to remedy that for health reasons as well as for more photogenic meals.

2. I like pretty food. It's important for food to taste good, but it's also important that it look good. I'm not as good as that as I wish I were, but I'm working on it.

3. I'm more creative when I'm blogging. I have a lot fewer repeats. I cook when I wouldn't otherwise just so you have something to look at.

4. In an effort to be more creative, I've skipped some of the obvious. Big salads, fresh fruit, etc. I miss the obvious.

5. Just because it's vegan and fits within all of my limitations, doesn't mean it's healthy. As with any other way of eating, a pure vegetarian diet does not guarantee weightloss. My choices are still the most important thing. This was especially obvious to me tonight as I was pushing frozen vegetables out of the way to find that leftover piece of cake. Treats are great, but they should be treats - not dinner.

So what I've decided to do is this - I plan on continuing my blog, but probably not every day. After all, how many times do you want to hear that I ate a spinach salad and an apple?

It sounded like a good idea at the time...

I've done a good job using up leftovers and using things from the freezer. So good, in fact, that I didn't know what I wanted for dinner. The one thing I knew I wanted was dijon mustard. You think it's crazy to plan your whole dinner around a condiment? Call me crazy. I'm ok with it.

One of my favorite things for a long time has been sweet potato fries and I've taken a recent liking for parsnip fries. To me the natural progression was leading me to carrot fries. But who needs to eat just fries for dinner? Certainly not the same person who ate corn nuts and Jordan almonds for lunch (PMS is ugly). So in went some asparagus and walnuts. Then I tossed all of it with a little olive oil and whole grain dijon mustard. Seriously, I thought I was on the verge of creating the next new flavor sensation. Boy, was I wrong.

First thing was that carrots apparently don't cook as fast as sweet potatos and parsnips. They were still crunchy while the asparagus was already limp and most of the walnuts were nigh unto being burned. I love walnuts raw; I love walnuts baked in things; but apparently I don't like them toasted. So I ended up picking out the asparagus and eating that. Then I picked out the walnuts and threw them away. Finally I microwaved the carrots to get them more done. They still had a yucky chewy consistency.

I did the best thing this condiment-craving woman could do. I squirted some more mustard on the plate and used the carrots up as a less-than-mediocre conduit for it.

I had to go get a corn tortilla with sunflower butter and jelly to get the taste of those walnuts and half-cooked carrots out of my mouth. It's starting to come back. I think I saw some pickles in the fridge...

Survey

This survey has been making its way around the VeganMoFo blogs, so this is kind of obligatory post. Besides, everything I ate today was repeats of stuff I've posted before.

1. Favorite non-dairy milk?
almond milk

2. What are the top 3 dishes/recipes you are planning to cook?
a. Spaghetti and Beanballs,
b. if I ever get my bread right - i want an eggplant panini
c. sweet potato pear tzimmes
d. cookies!

Yep, I know that question said 3, but this is my blog and I wanted to name 4

3. Topping of choice for popcorn?
nooch and salt or kettle corn(sugar and salt)

4. Most disastrous recipe/meal failure? recently - bread that kept growing after i put it in the oven and ended up all over the oven. darn, i must have deleted the pictures.
In 4th grade, cupcakes with eggshells in it

5. Favorite pickled item?bread and butter pickles

6. How do you organize your recipes?organize?

7. Compost, trash, or garbage disposal?trash. i'd love to compost one day though

8. If you were stranded on an island and could only bring 3 foods…what would they be (don’t worry about how you’ll cook them)?
mexican rice and black beans
sweet potatos
almonds

9. Fondest food memory from your childhood?
Mom's Christmas wreath cookies

10. Favorite vegan ice cream?
Rice Dream - cocoa marble fudge.

11. Most loved kitchen appliance?
food processor, though I'm really beginning to love my immersion blender with whisk attachment

12. Spice/herb you would die without?
cumin and salt

13. Cookbook you have owned for the longest time?
That Better Homes and Gardens cookbook with the red checkerboard cover.

14. Favorite flavor of jam/jelly?
strawberry, but I can't have strawberry now, so grape.

15. Favorite vegan recipe to serve to an omni friend?
don't know this yet. so far, the lemon coconut bundt cake or the butternut squash w/coriander

16. Seitan, tofu, or tempeh?
d. none of the above. But only because I can't...I've never had seitan or tempeh, but I like tofu.

17. Favorite meal to cook (or time of day to cook)?
saturday breakfast

18. What is sitting on top of your refrigerator?containers of beans, flours, etc

19. Name 3 items in your freezer without looking.
leftover cake slices, spinach, vegetable broth cubes

20. What’s on your grocery list?
tea bags, almond extract, cocoa, inka chips (plantains), dijon mustard, cumin, rice milk, Sunshine Burgers, stevia

21. Favorite grocery store?
Whole Foods Market

22. Name a recipe you’d love to veganize, but haven’t yet.
cheese straws

23. Food blog you read the most (besides Isa’s because I know you check it everyday). Or maybe the top 3?
vegandad.blogspot.com
parsnipparsimony.wordpress.com

24. Favorite vegan candy/chocolate?
jordan almonds (at least I think they're vegan). the chocolate made from coconut oil/cocoa/stevia

25. Most extravagant food item purchased lately?
stocking up on various spices and vinegars. my most extravagant future puchase - mirin

All I want for Christmas...

Before I sit my lazy self down with a big bowl of popcorn for the annual showing of A Charlie Brown Christmas, I want to share a bit about what I will be getting for Christmas. My mom and dad got it today; I ordered it myself; they wont even let me look at it until Christmas!

I miss yogurt like crazy. And lebni (yogurt cheese). I read recipes that use yogurt or soy yogurt and long to make them. I like blueberry yogurt, plain yogurt, peach yogurt, yogurt with nuts... Pretty much anyway you can eat yogurt I like it. Except for storebought rice yogurt. I didn't like that a bit. It was filled with sugar and blueberries and I still didn't like it.

I've done the research and with the right equipment and the right starter, I should be able to make yogurt from almond milk! I already make almond milk, so it should just be a couple of steps. I can hardly wait!

Alas, there are 28 more days before I even look at the yogurt maker and yogurt cheese maker that my parents have purchased for me. I guess the pictures will have to do for now...oh, and I must order that starter.

More Leftovers...

Millet Salsa Enchiladas

I'm still living on Thanksgiving leftovers. :sigh: It's nice to have some things pretty close to ready when I want to fix dinner.

I put the remainder of the leftover grilled tomatoes and zucchini in the blender with some cilantro and a couple slices of jalepeno to make a nice little salsa.

Then I mixed the salsa with leftover millet and some cumin.

The millet salsa mixture went inside corn tortillas. Then the tortillas were topped with some thinned out leftover cheezy sauce (a nutritional yeast based sauce made from the recipe in Veganomicon) and a couple dashes of Texas Pete to make "queso".

Then I baked all in the oven at 375 for 15 minutes.

Served on a bed of mixed greens, this dish took Thanksgiving to Mexican food in less than half an hour...what a beautiful transition!



And an inside view


I've noticed I'm getting a little sensitive to something different lately. I don't know what it is. I'm afraid it's the nutritional yeast, so after these are gone, I'm going to lay off of it for a while to see :-(

Using Thanksgiving Leftovers

Just like so many other people, I have Thanksgiving leftovers. And I complain so often about having to cook everything from scratch, that I better not let them go to waste. The two things I have the most of are millet and grilled vegetables. I put some millet on a plate and then grilled vegetables next to it and was going to heat that up. But it looked so boring!

So I thought, cut up the vegetables and mix them together. That would at least be a little prettier. While that was in the microwave, I remembered my penchant for toasted seeds or nuts on top of grains. So, I spiced up some pecans and put those on the top.

The pecans were so easy, but such a great addition.

Spiced Pecans

In a small frying pan (approx measurements):
10 pecan halves
1 tsp olive oil
1 tsp maple syrup
2 dashes cayenne pepper

Coat the pecans with the oil, syrup and pepper. Stir consistently and cook on medium low heat until warm and lightly toasted.

Stuffed Carnival Squash

I was making vegetable broth today to freeze in cubes again. It was so handy on Thanksgiving to have those ready.

I don't like to throw the vegetables away, but I don't really like plain boiled carrots and parsnips. I also had a couple winter squash that needed to be used soon (1 acorn squash/1 carnival squash). So I this is what I came up with to use them both.

I cut the squash in half, cleaned the seeds out and baked them. To bake a winter squash, fill a roasting pan w/about 1" of water and put the squash cut side down in the water. Bake at 350 until tender. For the two I had it took about 40 minutes.

While the squash were baking, I made Moroccan style vegetables and prunes. The Moroccans use a unique combination of savory and sweet which I love. I took the vegetables from the broth (parsnips, carrots, parsley, celery) and put it in the cast iron skillet with a can of garbanzo beans (not drained) and about 8 prunes cut in 2-3 pieces. I seasoned them to taste with cumin, coriander, cinnamon, nutmeg, salt, pepper, and a squirt of agave. Approximately I used 1Tbsp Cumin, 1Tbsp Cinnamon, 1-1/2 tsp coriander and 1/2 tsp nutmeg. Cook all at a very low heat. If you're starting with fresh vegetables, you'll probably need to cover the pan so it will work like a tagine and get your veggies soft. But mine were soft already and I realized I don't have a lid big enough to cover my skillet! When the water from the beans cook up, it's ok to add a little more water, but just enough to keep the mixture from drying up and sticking.

When both of these were cooking, I toasted the squash seeds with some salt on a cookie sheet in the oven. I didn't know squash seeds would pop! I heard a noise and opened the oven and one popped right off the cookie sheet onto the oven floor. So if you hear a noise, they're ready. If you dont, just toast until light brown.

When the squash is tender, fill with the vegetable mixture and put back in the oven (cut side up now) for about 10 minutes. With just a couple minutes left, top with some of the squash seeds.




The sweetness of the squash was a perfect compliment to the vegetable/prune mixture. So glad I just had to use up those broth vegetables.

Prepared Food: mini-rant

I'm going to try not to get on my soapbox too long, but I am irritated by the prepared "food" industry. Actually a lot of things in our average grocery are food products and not real food.

This morning I got up and went to the park to hit a couple tennis balls at the practice wall. On my way home, I remembered that I was out of canned kidney beans and wanted some. Let me clarify how much I wanted these beans. I went into the store wearing leggings and a t-shirt - not a long cover your stomach and butt kind of t-shirt, just a regular t-shirt. Ack! I apologize to the folks in the store. When school's out, I plan on cooking the dried beans in big batches and freezing them, but for now I'm using cans just for something convenient. I usually buy my canned beans at Whole Foods Market. The 365 brand is as inexpensive as anything else and they are really good. They have two ingredients on the label: (whatever variety of) beans, water. I love that. I looked at 4 or 5 different cans of kidney beans and every one had added sugar and some kind(s) of preservatives. Yuck! I turned around and left the store sans kidney beans. I just don't understand that if it can be done without the added ingredients, why isn't it? I'm sick of everything having extra stuff it. Wah Wah Wah....now I'm done with my rant.

Let me just encourage you to read labels and find out what you're eating. Because it might not always be what you think!

Thanksgiving Dinner

With the exception of the bread disaster, I was pretty pleased with my Thanksgiving dinner. As with most people, I wasn't concerned about going for healthy, but I did stick with my dietary restrictions.

Here are pictures of the yumminess (with the exception of the corn which was SO dry after grilling it out...don't know what happened)

I had frozen some chickpea cutlets last week. Then I thawed and warmed it up on the grill. The consistency was even better. I ate it with mushroom gravy. I found out something. While I like mushrooms in stuff, I'm not so keen on mushroom gravy. It tastes too much like...mushrooms.





Also cooked on the grill,




I made millet stuffing. I've used millet flour before, but it was my first time having the actual grain and I enjoyed it. I made this with vegetable broth, sage, tarragon, saffron, thyme, turmeric, parsley, salt and pepper.





Here's a mini yam casserole.




Although the yam casserole could have been dessert, it wasn't. I made the chocolate chip cake I tested a couple weeks ago. I've decided to quit calling it zucchini cake because the mention of a vegetable in a cake freaked a couple people out.



Way better than the dinner was the day with my family.

Happy Thanksgiving. I hope you enjoy yet another year of blessings!

The Great Thanksgiving Bread Disaster

I love Thanksgiving and I am thankful for so many things. One day I hope to add a bread that meets all my specifications to the list. Today was not that day.

I was so excited. It looked beautiful going into the oven.




It came out a little less fortunate looking



Just in case you don't get the full affect of just how pitiful that loaf is, here's a slice view.



The flavor and the crust were actually pretty good, but not quite the effect I was going for.

Yeah, it's ok. Go ahead and laugh, several hours later I finally am.

Pasta Night

I love pasta. I don't eat it as much as I would like because of the effect it tends to have on my blood sugar. But when I want it, I really want it. I wanted to make spaghetti with beanballs from Veganomicon, but I didn't have any canned or soaked kidney beans. So, instead I looked for a quicker recipe in the book. I made the "cheezy sauce." So much better than any I had come up with myself.

I poured it on top of brown rice penne* cooked with sundried tomatoes and mushrooms (just throw them all in the same pot to cook). Then to finish it off - some pine nuts toasted with about 1 tsp of olive oil and some salt, pepper, and oregano.

It was so yummy!

*The best brown rice pasta I've found, especially for the price, is the Trader Joe's brand. Only thing I don't like is that they don't carry spaghetti (at least not at our somewhat-local TJ's). For spaghetti, I buy Tinkyada. It costs more but is really good. Neither the TJ's nor the Tinkyada has a weird texture. Once I add a little sauce, I can't tell the difference from "regular" pasta.

Breakfast Muffins and a lack of arrows.

I realized today that I haven't made one of my favorite muffins during the course of this blog. It was definitely time to remedy that. Although I only made one batch today, I usually like to make a couple batches of different flavors and freeze them. These muffins freeze wonderfully and are a nice hearty muffin for breakfast. Actually, I usually have two for breakfast.

Quinoa Blueberry Nut Muffins (converted from Ancient Harvest Recipe - Banana Quinoa Muffins)



1/2 cup Quinoa Flour
1/2 cup Quinoa Flakes
2 Tbsp Agave Nectar
1-1/4tsp Cream of Tartar
1-3/4 tsp Baking Soda
1/2 tsp Salt
2 very ripe bananas
1/2 cup of flax-egg substitute*

add ins:
Blueberries - I forgot to measure, it was about 1 cup
Pecan Halves broken in pieces. I used about 15.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Mix flour and flakes with dry ingredients. In separate bowl mix together bananas, flax-egg and agave, add to dry ingredients. Fold in blueberries and pecan halves. Spoon into greased muffin tins. Bake 20-25 minutes at 400 degrees. Fill muffin tins equally. Mine are usually around 2/3 - 3/4 full depending on what fruit I use.

I've also made the same muffin base with different add ins. Mango chunks and coconut. Peach. Cranberry and Walnut. Just use whatever fruit you have and add nuts or coconut if you want. I haven't tried apple yet, but I think apple-walnut with some added cinnamon and nutmeg would be fantastic.

That was pretty much all of the cooking I did today as I had a lot of math homework to do. And instead of cooking, I went to the park to take a walk. It was confusing. I know you're thinking "How can a walk be confusing?" But the trails have start markers and tell you to follow the arrows according to the color designation of the trail. I was on the red trail that was supposed to be 1.1 miles. The only red arrow I saw in the park was on the start marker! I followed some trail 3 times. I think I walked a little over three miles, but I don't know! I'm a little uptight about stuff like that, so I think I'm going to email parks and rec to find out what the deal is. Or - I could just go to the park I'm more familiar with.

*Flax-egg substitute:
1 cup whole flax seeds, ground into meal in the blender
add 4 cups of water and blend until the mixture is egg-y

1/4 cup of this mixture equals 1 egg. Will keep in the refrigerator for about 2 weeks.

Make-up Post:A quick lunch and potluck dinner

Sunday was a busy day, so while I didn't forget to take pictures, I just didn't have time to post. I had to get some things together to take to the Thanksgiving potluck. I needed to make my dish to share and then some things for myself. But I ended up only having to make one extra dish because I had 2 friends who adjusted their dishes just for me! The rice and chickpeas with fresh herbs and the fried plantains were delicious. Best of all, I didn't have to cook them :-)

For my potluck dish I made the Roasted Butternut Squash with Coriander from Veganomicon. I was a little afraid while it was cooking because the smell of coriander was so strong. But the flavor combination was perfect. It was a simple recipe but very pretty.

And I've recently discovered that quite a few people don't know what a butternut squash is. In case that's you - here's a picture so you'll know what you're looking for.

I also made myself a single serving cranberry dish. I don't have a name for it, I guess it's a cranberry-pecan salad. I just kind of threw some things together. If you want this to taste like the really sugary cranberry sauce, you would need to add more syrup or sugar. I don't like that stuff. I like cranberries: this tastes like cranberries.

Cranberry Pecan Salad for 1

• 1/2 cup cranberries (I used frozen, fresh would work - not the dried ones!)
• 1 tsp maple syrup
• 1/2 tsp lemon juice
• 1/2 tsp lemon zest
• 10 pecan halves, broken in pieces
• 2 tsp water

Cook the cranberries in a small saucepan until some of the juice starts to come out. Crush some of the cranberries as they are cooking to release more juice. Add the water to keep it from sticking as the juice cooks up. Add the maple syrup, lemon juice/zest and stir together. Stir in pecan halves. Refrigerate until cold. You don't need anything to firm up the salad (like gelatin or its vegan alternative agar). The cranberries firm up the liquid themselves. I read the other day that this was because they have pectin in them.

Sorry - the picture was dreadful. By the time I knew that the salad was long gone.

Because I wanted to get these things done and still get a little down time yesterday afternoon, I cooked a quick lunch.

Black Bean Tostadas

Brush canola oil on 2 corn tortillas and bake whole in 400 degree oven for about 10 minutes, until golden brown (the pic is a bit more than "golden"...I forgot to set the timer)

While those are baking, prepare the black bean "paste" and the "filling"

Black Bean paste: 1/2 can black beans in the blender with jalepeno pepper to taste. I had to add a little water to allow them to blend. Next time I'll save some of the liquid from the can.

Filling: In a small skillet, cook the other 1/2 can of black beans cumin, salt and pepper to taste. As any liquid in the beans cooks up and the beans start to look "thick", cut several grape tomatoes in 1/2 and add to the beans. Continue to cook until the tomatos are warm.

Spread some of the black bean paste onto the tortillas. Then add a layer of fresh greens. I used spinach. Spoon the filling on top. Add jalepenos if necessary for a little extra kick. This would have been really good with fresh salsa too, but I didn't think about that until it was too late.

I didn't finish all the black bean paste or the filling, so I added the filling into the blender with the remaining paste, added some more tomatoes and jalepenos and blended it into a yummy black bean dip.

Making Staples

The day did not go as planned. I got up early this morning and planned to go to the park for a walk, go to the grocery store and pick up flax seeds to make egg replacer, and then come home to try yet again to bake bread. Then when the bread was rising and baking, I'd do math homework.

I did get to the park and walked two miles. Considering I haven't gotten any exercise in quite some time, I was really pleased with that. Then, I went to two different stores and no flax seed. The closest one I know carries them is about 25 minutes away and I just didn't feel like going that far when I knew I'd be nearby in the next couple days. I needed the egg replacer to bake bread, so that didn't happen. And I just didn't feel like doing homework. After all , I still have 3 days before it's due and a day off was intriguing.

But I couldn't let my entire Saturday go by without at least doing a little cooking and planning for the upcoming week. So I did 3 "major" things.

First, I cut up a bunch of fresh mushrooms and put them in small bags in the freezer. These come in very handy and it keeps me from wasting mushrooms.

Then, I made vegetable broth and they are in the freezer tonight. Tomorrow I'll take them out and put them in one container. I measured and each ice cube is 2 tablespoons, so for each cup of vegetable broth needed, I'll thaw 8 cubes. I've not tried this before, but it looks like it should work fine. If it doesn't, I'll post back and let you know not to do it. I can't use prepackaged vegetable broth because of the use of onions and garlic, so I'm really hoping this is going to be a convenient option.

My final project was to make sunflower seed butter. This is one of my favorite things and I've done it several times. There's a really good store bought butter, Sunbutter, but homemade is a much less expensive option. And, after all, wouldn't your friends be impressed if you told them you make your own sunflower seed butter?

First roast sunflower seeds on a rimmed cookie sheet, no oil needed. Bake at 300 degrees for 30-40 minutes, stirring every ten minutes or so. The long roast at a lower temp is important. I once tried to roast them at 350 and they burned even at much less time. Roasted at the lower temperature, they turn out just beautifully



Then add the seeds to the food processor and process with an S blade. Use enough oil to keep the seeds moving. I usually make it just a little thinner than I think is necessary because I keep it in the refrigerator and it tends to thicken up a bit. Sweeten while processing by adding a little agave nectar.




Here are the quantities I used
2 cups sunflower seeds
3/8 cup safflower oil
1 Tbsp Agave nectar

As you can see from the picture above, one of my favorite uses for the sunflower butter is a dip for apples.

Although none of these projects was huge, they should add a little convenience.

Not quite enough convenience though...the math and the bread baking will be waiting.

Chickpea Cutlets and Cake #2

I can't believe I forgot to post yesterday, because I certainly didn't forget to cook. I'm still planning my Thanksgiving menu so I wanted to try something new. And though I said I wasn't going to bake another cake until Thanksgiving, I did. I wanted to have a piece of dessert at the Thanksgiving potluck on Sunday and I figure I can freeze some of it too.

I tried out two recipes from Veganomicon and just adjusted them to fit my needs.

I baked the cake first. It's the Coconut-Lemon Bundt cake. Because I used a gluten-free flour mixture and I'm still learning, it fell a bit and is probably a little heavier than the original. But it came out of the pan beautifully and is moist and delicious.



Then as it was approaching dinner time, I decided it was time to attempt the long-awaited Chickpea Cutlets. The original recipe calls for straight-up wheat gluten, so obviously I needed to adjust the recipe. Cherie on the ppk came up with a gluten free recipe that I used as a jumping off point, but since she used potato flour, I couldn't do that either. I used a mixture of millet flour and guar gum. I had to add more flour than Cherie did to get the mixture to not be sticky. So these may have been a little breadier than they should be. But I've never had the original and in the absence of some miracle, I never will. They were every bit as good (if not better) in consistency as the store-bought Sunshine Burgers. Cooked in my trusty cast iron skillet, they were crispy on the outside and a little soft inside. I also had to adjust the spice mixture because I can't eat garlic. I drizzled it with a maple dijon sauce and served with fresh Spinach. One of these with a little gravy is going to make a fantastic turkey substitute on Thanksgiving.

Breakfast: Quinoa flakes and more

I got up a little earlier than usual this morning. Although the day started off very springlike (in the mid 60s) I wanted a very autumn-y breakfast. I wanted something hot and hearty. So I set off to see what I had that would be filling and healthy. I did find out that just because I have time to make a hot breakfast, doesn't mean I have time to enjoy it. I was certainly not cut out for the competitive eating circuit. I'll just have to get up yet a couple minutes earlier because this sure was tasty.

My breakfast was a bowl of quinoa flakes, topped with cinnamon, cranberries, walnuts, and just a tiny squirt of agave nectar.

Not only was this a tasty breakfast, but it was so healthful!

Quinoa flakes (pronounced keen-wa) - Before cooking, quinoa flakes look kind of like oatmeal but after cooking, it looks more like the actual whole quinoa or like grits. Quinoa is a whole grain and protein-rich. It's high in antioxidants and helps to relax your blood vessels and fight against heart disease. Read more about quinoa.


Cranberries - lower LDL (bad) and raise HDL (good) cholesterol; high antioxidant level; prevention of kidney stones and urinary tract infections. Read more about cranberries.

Walnuts - have been found to aid in heart health and control high blood pressure. They've even been said to help concentration. Read more about walnuts.

Cinnamon - I like to use cinnamon because it's supposed to help with blood sugar control. But mostly I like it because it's delicious! Read more about cinnamon.

Agave nectar - I use the amber variety. The taste to me is somewhere between maple syrup and honey. It's not as sweet as maple syrup and not as bitter as honey. It is a relatively low glycemic natural sweetener. It is however, still a sugar, so I try not to use large quantities except for in the occasional treat.

General D's Mushrooms for one.

One of my favorite restaurant meals used to be General Tso's chicken. So I decided tonight to go for a flavor kind of like that. I thought about batter frying something, but then thought that I could get the taste without the extra work or the extra fat.

Cook in a small frying pan w/a tiny bit of olive oil, a portobello cap cut into chunks. The longer it cooks the more "meat-y" it gets.

Then the sauce (I used a regular flatware teaspoon, not a measuring spoon)
2 tsp balsamic vinegar
1 tsp blackstrap molasses
2 tsp agave nectar
1 dried red chile pepper cut into 4 pieces

Pour the sauce over the the mushroom and add a heaping teaspoon of arrowroot to thicken the sauce. Cook it until the sauce is thickened on the mushrooms. I put a tiny little splash of sesame oil, but it was good with out it. And it's really easy to overdo the sesame oil so be careful.

These went really great with steamed broccoli and brown rice.

Oh, by the way, if you're like me, you eat around the peppers in the restaurant. Don't forget to do that at home too. Just because it's cut in tiny pieces doesn't mean the pepper isn't still really hot...whoa!

Decisions, Decisions and other blogs to read

I'm still eating leftovers, so I have no new recipes or pictures today. I've been looking through my new cookbook, Vegonomicon, trying to decide what I'm going to make for that church-wide potluck on Sunday. I'm supposed to take a side dish and I think I've got it narrowed down to 4 dishes. What do you think I should take?

1. Rice pilaf (not from the cookbook - a premade mixture of rice and beans from Whole Foods and I just season it with whatever I feel like that day)
2. Roasted Butternut Squash with Coriander Seeds
3. Sweet Potato-pear tzimmes with pecans and raisins (sans the cooking wine)
4. Broccoli Polenta

I may make more than one as I have to eat and since I don't know what the ingredients in other dishes are, I have to eat only my own food to be safe. I'm not interested in having a repeat of those days when my hand swelled and hardly moved!

While I'm not giving you much new today, I'll give you links for two VeganMoFo blogs that I try to check every day. Neither is gluten-free or soy-free, but both are vegan. Vegan Dad's blog is basically a food diary of what his family eats each day. His pictures are gorgeous and he provides lots of good looking recipes. If you are more interested in the science of food, check out Susie's "lab notes" on veganizing recipes.

Making Leftovers into a New Meal: Spinach Hummus Cups and Grilled Vegetables

I love taking leftovers, adding something, and making a totally new meal. The other night I mixed together some sloppy lentils and that just barely adequate pasta dish, added a little more sauce and had a yummy meal.

But tonight I made one of the my best leftover creations ever.

I had a few of those leftover grilled vegetables from yesterday and certainly didn't want them to go to waste. I also had a recipe for Spinach Hummus that I wanted to try. Hmm...how could they be combined? And this is what I came up with.

First I made the hummus. Funny, I've heard several vegans say that it's the only food other people think they can eat and yet I haven't had it in 9 weeks of eating a vegan diet. In fact, I could probably count on one hand how many times I've had it in my life. But I like it and it does have that great garbanzo protein, so I figured it was about time to whip up a batch. And I think spinach makes just about anything taste better so this recipe looked great. I can't use garlic--I subbed grated horseradish for a little spice (but if you can, go for the garlic!) I also thought it needed a little extra salt and I cut back on the lemon just a little.

Next, I took a few corn tortillas (warmed in a damp towel in the microwave to make them pliable), brushed on a little olive oil and sprinkled dried parsley, cumin and fresh ground black pepper, and put them in a muffin tin. Baked in the oven at 400 for 10 minutes.

I had originally planned to put the hummus and the grilled vegetables inside the cup, but as the cups baked, they closed up more, so there wasn't a lot of room for vegetables. There was still plenty of room for hummus! So I filled them up and garnished with some chopped spinach and fireroasted tomatoes. After filling the cups, I put it back in the oven for 5 minutes to warm the tomatos and hummus. It was like a big chip with built-in dip.

To go alongside of these really cute cups, I warmed up the remainder of the fire roasted tomatos and some cut up roasted eggplant. There was just a little bit of chopped spinach left over from the hummus so I threw that in for a little extra color. Then added some pine nuts. I cooked all of that in a small frying pan (no extra oil needed because the veggies had been grilled with olive oil) until the pine nuts were golden brown and the vegetables were warm.

Leftovers? Yes, please!

I actually have to take a side dish to a Thanksgiving potluck next Sunday and would love to take those cups, but I don't think I can keep them warm. They'd taste fine cool, but I'm afraid the tortillas wont stay crispy. Darn, I guess I'll just have to make some more and find out.

Grilled Vegetables

Shockingly, I don't have much to say. Well, maybe just...don't you wish this were your lunch today?

Grilled eggplant; corn/zucchini kabobs

No, really...take a good look at that eggplant

And my first (and successful) attempt at fire-roasted tomatoes.

There were also portobello mushroom caps, but they were done before I remembered to get out the camera. And I grilled a Sunshine burger. I usually really enjoy those, but it paled in comparison to those yummy veggies.

I'm full...

Cake!

Warning: This cake is neither low sugar nor low fat. It is not a health food bar. It IS cake! It is gluten-free, soy-free, vegan cake! Can you tell I'm excited, yet? Maybe I could add a few more exclamation points!!!!!!!!!!

Thanksgiving is coming and I've been thinking about my menu. First things first...dessert! I decided since I've had so many other dietary changes in the last couple years, I was going to have a REAL dessert for Thanksgiving. Not just one that was good to me, but one my family would want to eat too. Here is my first experiment with cake. I found a recipe by Jodie on theppk.com and went to converting it into something I could eat. First I made the chocolate chips (a double batch) that I wrote about earlier this week. While these were freezing I made the cake. Any vegan chocolate chips would be ok, but many of them still have soy. If I were to use store bought chips, I'd use the Enjoy Life brand, because they are vegan and have no soy or vanilla.

I'm a recovering diabetic* and don't use much "real" sugar, so to me it was ultra sweet (my mom and dad said it wasn't too sweet), but oh so yummy.

Gluten-Free Vegan Chocolate Chip Zucchini Cake

Ingredients
2 1/2 cups grated, peeled, fresh zucchini
2 ripe bananas, mashed well
1 cup safflower oil
2/3 cup garfava flour
1/3 cup sorghum flour
1 cup arrowroot
1 cup tapioca flour
1 cup almond meal
1 Tbsp guar gum
2 cups turbinado sugar
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. cinnamon
1 double batch of chocolate chips (or 1 cup vegan chocolate chips)


Directions
In medium sized mixing bowl, combine zucchini, bananas, and oil. Stir well or beat with electric mixer. I used an immersion blender with the whisk attachment In large bowl, combine all remaining ingredients except chocolate. Add wet mixture to dry, mix well and add chocolate chips. Pour into lightly greased and floured (I used cocoa) bundt pan. Bake at 350 for 45-60 minutes, until toothpick or knife inserted comes out clean. Let cool upright 15 minutes, then invert onto cooling rack. Allow to cool 30 minutes

It was actually a little bit too moist this time although it was done. (Toothpick was almost clean - but the cake was browned just right and it was shrinking away from the sides of the pan) I think it was because I used the coconut oil chocolate chips instead of store-bought. I think next time, I'm going to cut back on the regular oil a little and see how it goes. If I change it and it works better, I'll post the change. But if you use store bought chocolate chips, I would think the recipe above would be just right. Note to self: Your blog is not a good enough excuse to make cake again before Thanksgiving.

Melanie, you said y'all would test for me in Sunday School. You were talking about pizza, but I hope cake is ok. I'll be bringing it tomorrow.

Update: Sunday 11-11-07 I'm not going to change the recipe, today after it had fully cooled, the cakes was less dough-y. And the people that tried it said not to change a thing. I even had one friend who is an awesome baker ask for the recipe so she could make it for a celiac at work. So yay! I have my Thanksgiving dessert.

*I call myself a recovering diabetic because nearly 10 years after being diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, I no longer take diabetes drugs and don't use insulin. Although all of my readings aren't perfect yet, my bloodwork at through the lab is showing just barely above normal and my doctor no longer feels the need to code my insurance as diabetic. She calls me carbohydrate sensitive. If I ever get myself back to exercising regularly and can lose some more weight, hopefully I'll be normal (well, my glucose levels would be normal).

My favorite kitchen gadgets under $5

I haven't felt all that great today, and frankly I would be a little embarrassed to tell you how ill balanced my food choices have been today. So I'm going to cover another food related topic. I'm a kitchen gadget addict. I come by it honestly...my mother is worse than I am. Here are my 3 favorite kitchen gadgets that cost under $5.

#3. My apple corer/wedger. It is probably the one of these three that I use the least, but it's so darn cute.




#2 My pastry brush. I haven't used it for pastry yet, but I have used it to brush oil on tortillas to make chips. And to brush on oil and spices on veggies for grilling. I've had others of these, but the nylon bristles are so hard to clean. My mom found this plastic bristled one for me, and my old brush went straight in the trash. Run a little water over it and all the oil is gone!


and #1...



My adjustable/multi-measurement measuring cup. When baking, this thing is amazing. Being gluten-free changes a recipe from something like "1 cup flour", to something like "1/2 cup rice flour, 1/4 cup corn starch, 1/4 cup bean flour, 1 tbsp guar gum" This cup measures up to a 1/2 cup, tablespoons, ml and ozs. And I only have one measuring instrument to wash!


What's your favorite inexpensive kitchen gadget?

Vegan Comfort Food

Growing up a couple of my favorite comfort foods were sloppy joes and my mom's baked macaroni and cheese.

I had some "sloppy lentils" in the freezer. A year ago, you couldn't get me to eat lentils and this morning I was so excited to get them out. I just fixed them like I would fix sloppy joes, but replaced the ground beef with cooked green lentils. These were even better then they were when I first made them. They aren't the prettiest thing I've ever seen, but here they are...

The experiment of the night was a baked macaroni and cheese. It tasted less than stellar. It was ok and I'll finish eating the leftovers, but I'm not gonna bother telling you how I did it, as it's really not worth replicating. I'll keep working on it. But it certainly does look pretty...

I'm trying desperately to come up with something clever about how the pretty one wasn't all it appeared to be and the tasty one would have never let on. But I'm tired and can't really come up with anything brilliant. So feel free to draw your own philosphical conclusions.

Feeding the Cravings

When I have cravings, they are typically for 3 things and usually all at once: burgers, french fries, and chocolate. Today was the day for them. My burger of choice so far is a Sunshine Burger. I'll give you further info on that in a later post on the few convenience foods that I like and can have. I also made sweet potato oven fries. Easy, easy.

Peel a sweet potato and cut into fries. Put in a ziploc bag with a little olive oil. Shake to coat. Then put on a foil lined pan and bake until lightly brown and the centers of the fries are soft. The baking time depends on the size, but mine usually take about 30 minutes and then broil for about 2 minutes to brown a little more. Sprinkle with salt and enjoy!



Look at how crispy those fries are :



While those were baking, I cut some more sweet potatoes and put them in that same ziploc bag with a little more oil. Then they went in the freezer. They freeze great...it's just like buying fries at the grocery store. I think I usually just have to add about 5 minutes cooking time.

Then there was the chocolate (made and put in the freeze while the fries were baking). I adapted it from the recipe found at http://wholeapproachforums.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/4141099073/m/653107394
I used Hershey's Special Dark cocoa, and two packets of stevia (Vitamin Shoppe brand - it's made by Sweet Leaf, but it's cheaper because it's a store brand and Vitamin Shoppe also has buy 1 - get one 1/2 off sometimes). Because of coconut oil being the ingredient that makes the chocolate hard, it melts really fast.



It was a really strong dark chocolate and had a bit of an aftertaste, but overall, tonight's experiment was a good one. I am a happy girl.




Confession time: Yes, I licked that chocolate off my fingers. And the tomato and cucumber were only on my plate because I was posting this and it looked pretty on the plate. I did eat it because it was there, but it was not a part of the craving!

Pizza Night

I finally got around to making that seed cheese last night. I found the recipe on http://www.almondessence.com/ I think the original recipe is too lemony, so I use just a tiny squirt of lemon and I skip the garlic just because I can't eat it right now. The cheese is a nice consistency kind of like ricotta cheese. I accidentally soaked double the amount of seeds, so I doubled the recipe. Besides pizza I'm going to have to figure out another thing or two to do with it in the next few days before it spoils.

Tonight I used it for pizza. I've made a few of these in the last couple months, none of them exactly the same. The cool thing about pizza is you get to use whatever you have. I use the basic recipe for a gluten-free crust from Easy Pizza Crusts (http://www.easypizzacrusts.com/Gluten-Free-Pizza-Crust-Recipe.html). I veganize the recipe by changing the milk powder to almond meal. The other substitute I make is I use guar gum instead of xanthan gum, but just because it's what I have. I mix the recipe in the food processor because it nearly burned up my mixer the first time I tried. I don't have a big stand mixer, just a little handheld. I find this recipe a little sticky, so I use a little quinoa flour to work the dough. The pizza pan I have has the little holes in it, so I use parchment paper on the pan, otherwise when I pushed out the dough it went down in all those holes and then it baked in there and my pizza broke apart and the pan was a pain to clean.

After the initial ten minutes, I brushed the crust with olive oil, and then sprinkled it with fresh chopped parsley, dried basil, dried oregano and powdered rosemary. Next I spread the seed cheese on with the back of a spoon. The veggies were fresh sliced tomato, fresh spinach (wet a little so the leaves don't dry out too much), and mushrooms sauteed in olive oil/fennel/sage/pepper to give it a little sausage-y flavor. I usually sprinkle the nutritional yeast right on the cheese because that way the colors of the veggies show better, but I forgot it at first. So this time, I sprinkled nutritional yeast and salt on top. (For those of you unfamiliar with nutritional yeast, it has a light cheesy taste and is a good vitamin B supplement. Personally I think it tastes more like cheese with some salt added to it). Other than the fact that I went a little overboard on the salt, this was the best pizza I've made yet. I'm actually getting to the point where I don't miss the old kind of pizza at all.

The salad was just mixed greens, the leftover tomato and spinach from the pizza, and an agave-dijon dressing. Then a glass of good ol' North Carolina iced tea (this one was decaf and sweetened with stevia though)

And yes, after those two tiny little slices, I did go back for seconds.