Andrea's easy vegan cooking

Stuffed squash / squash muffins

cookeasyvegan@gmail.com (Andrea) — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 20:03:00 +0000

Those gorgeous winter squashes are just so hard to resist, sitting there all colorful and shapely in bins and boxes at farmers markets and coops. There's a growing collection of squash at our house that we all know should be used, but no one wants to cut up. Cursing to myself is not uncommon whenever I try to open a winter squash, and knives have been known to break in the process. I think the cook's friendliest squash is delicata - it's not only sweet and delicious, it opens without a fight. Delicata doesn't store well, though, and the time had come to use ours. The squashes were all split, cleaned and baked until tender, and several were stuffed with the filling for Harvest-Stuffed Acorn Squash from "The Vegan Table" by Colleen Patrick-Goudreau. (I got the cookbook for my birthday.) This dish was just as tasty the other recipes we've tried from "Vegan Table," but really, this post isn't about stuffed squash. It's about finding a delicious use for leftover squash ...

It's about MUFFINS — soft, spicy, sweet, yummy, warm, fragrant muffins. I hate to brag about my own muffin recipe — it's so unattractive — but these were really irresistible. I've had three, so I should know.

I wanted to base the muffins on a gingerbread recipe I used to make, but when I realized my favorite gingerbread recipe hadn't made it to Seattle and was back in the Midwest, and I wouldn't be able to use it as a guide, I started looking for a replacement. But I couldn't find just what I was looking for. I wanted to make muffins with leftover squash, and spice them with fresh ginger. I also wanted to try the coconut oil I just bought (to make tuilles), but wanted to keep the fat to 1/4 cup. I also wanted to keep the amount of sugar fairly low. I worked out the proportion of liquid to dry and here's the result:

Gingery spice muffins

2 tablespoons ground flax seeds
6 tablespoons water
3 tablespoons frozen orange juice concentrate
1/4 cup water

1-1/2 cups white whole wheat flour (stir well before measuring, spoon into measuring cup and level with knife)
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon allspice
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder (non-aluminum)

1/4 cup organic virgin coconut oil
1/4 cup evaporated cane juice
1/4 cup agave nectar
1 tablespoon fresh, finely grated ginger (I used a microplane), don't skimp
1/2 cup mashed leftover squash or canned pumpkin

Preheat oven to 350˚F • lightly oil 12-cup muffin pan

In a small bowl, mix together the flaxseed and 6 tablespoons water. Set aside for 10 minutes. After 10 minutes, whisk in (or use a wooden spoon) the orange juice concentrate and additional 1/4 cup water.
In a medium bowl, mix together flour, salt, cinnamon, allspice, nutmeg, baking soda and baking powder.
In a large bowl, with a wooden spoon, beat together the coconut oil, sugar and agave until combined and kind of fluffy. (takes about a minute) Mix in the grated ginger. Add the flax mixture and thoroughly combine.
Add the dry ingredients to the wet. Gently stir and fold until well-combined. Do not over-mix.
Divide the batter among 12 muffin cups and bake for 20 minutes or until done. Turn out onto a rack to cool. Enjoy warm or cool.

Holiday foods cooking class / herb-infused spiced cranberry-orange relish

cookeasyvegan@gmail.com (Andrea) — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 18:30:00 +0000

Almond tuilles with pumpkin mousse

When I was very young, my family had a habit of going out to dinner on Sunday night — and I don't use the word 'habit' lightly. We went to a Chinese restaurant in Philadelphia's Chinatown, and then to my cousin's house in West Philly. When I say we went to a Chinese restaurant every Sunday, I mean we went to the SAME restaurant every single week - the exact same one in a neighborhood of hundreds of choices. Not only did we go to the same restaurant each week, we ordered the same food. We didn't need to see a menu because my father ordered won-ton soup, egg rolls, chicken chow mein, pork fried rice, spare ribs, and either egg fu yung or lo mein. When I started going to Chinese restaurants as an adult, before I became a vegetarian, I was overwhelmed to see page after page of food choices. There were an overwhelming number of dishes that had no resemblance to chow mein. Where had I been? I started trying different things. (Now that I'm a vegan, one of the things that bugs me about going out to dinner is the limited choice vegans have at so many restaurants! At normal (as opposed to vegan) Chinese restaurants there are usually about five things.)

Holidays can be kind of like my family's Chinese restaurant habit, when we get locked into a pattern of serving the same favorite foods over and over. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, as the holiday menu becomes a family tradition that we look forward to. But sometimes it's nice to shake things up a little and try something different — maybe add one new dish to the menu.

This was what my husband and I had in mind when we recently attended another cooking class at PCC Natural Markets. The class was called Vegetarian Holiday Feast and was taught by Birgitte Atonsen N.T.P., nutritional therapy practitioner, professional whole foods chef and culinary instructor. Birgitte, owner of Nature's Way Food, has been developing and refining her recipes since she became a vegetarian at the age of 12.

This was the menu: roasted vegetable nut loaf with mushroom béchamel sauce, mashed yams with rosemary, herb-infused spiced cranberry-orange relish, and the spectacular dessert combo of almond tuilles with pumpkin mousse. This was seriously delicious food, and I wish I could give you all the recipes, but Birgitte is working on a cookbook at the moment. The cookbook is not vegetarian, but rather it will be a cookbook filled with recipes that can be altered to accommodate any dietary need. Birgitte wants to provide people with a way to cook for friends with special diets without having to go out and buy different sets of cookbooks. Need those cookies to be GF? She will tell you how. Are you an omni with veggie friends coming to dinner? Brigitte will offer alternatives in the recipes to make them vegetarian or vegan.

This Thanksgiving I plan to incorporate two of the dishes from the class into my menu. I'm going to serve the cranberry-orange relish instead of my traditional cranberry-apple sauce, and the almond tuilles with pumpkin mousse instead of pumpkin pie. I admit I just can't break my 'holiday habits' enough to change my favorite dishes, and I'm looking forward to seitan stuffed with wild rice, and potato kugel. This will be the first Thanksgiving in a very long time that our entire immediate family will be together, and the first Thanksgiving my husband and I will spend with our little granddaughter, so it should be exciting, fun and delicious.

Herb-infused, spiced cranberry-orange relish
Makes about three cups.
Preparation time: 10 minutes
Cooking time: 30 minutes

1/2 organic orange with skin on, cut up for ease of blending
1/2 cup orange juice concentrate
1 cinnamon stick (2-1/2 inches)
3 whole cloves
1 sprig fresh rosemary or 3 sprigs fresh thyme
1 cup Rapidura sugar (or other evaporated cane juice-type sugar)
1/2 cup filtered water
1/3 cup port (optional but recommended)
2 (approx. 10-ounce) bags fresh cranberries - mine had 12 ounces each

In a food processor or blender blend orange and orange juice concentrate until smooth.
Pour the mixture into a medium pot and add cinnamon, cloves, rosemary or thyme, sugar, water and port (if using).
Bring mixture to a boil, then turn down the heat and simmer for five minutes.
Add the cranberries and simmer until the cranberries burst and mixture starts to thicken, about 20 to 30 minutes. Stir often to keep from burning.
Place relish into a container and refrigerate.
When chilled, remove the cinnamon stick and rosemary or thyme.

I also added 1/2 teaspoon of pure vanilla extract after the sauce was removed from the heat, although it wasn't in the recipe. When I make the cranberries for Thanksgiving, I'm going to slice the leftover half orange, cut the slices into half-moons and make a pinwheel garnish in the center of the dish. Sorry to say I ate the orange before thinking of the garnish when I made the dish for this post.
(recipe © Birgitte Antonsen. Please do not reproduce.)

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Try something new
If you'd like to add something new to your holiday celebrations this year, you might consider purchasing the e-cookbook, In a Vegetarian Kitchen: A Bountiful Vegan Thanksgiving by cookbook author and artist, Nava Atlas. It's filled with recipes, cooking information and tips for holiday meals by the author, and also includes recipes from other well-known cookbook authors and bloggers. It's only $8.95, and profits from this project will be donated to humanitarian charities concerned with hunger, micro-financing for women in developing countries and the alleviation of human trafficking.

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Vegetarian alert - What's in that jar of Planter's Dry Roasted Peanuts?
Peanuts, Salt, Sugar, Cornstarch, Monosodium Glutamate (Flavor Enhancer) Gelatin, Corn Syrup Solids, Dried Yeast, Paprika, Onion and Garlic Powders, Spices, Natural Flavor.

Gelatin is an animal-derived product so look elsewhere for your peanuts if you're a vegetarian or inviting vegetarians to your home. You can find other varieties of Planter's peanuts and mixed nuts that are gelatin-free, so READ THE LABEL to know what you're getting!

Uwajimaya / tamarind-tofu-cabbage-bowl

cookeasyvegan@gmail.com (Andrea) — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 11:00:00 +0000

My cousin is an only child, and I am one of three siblings - not that any of us are children anymore, but we were. He had a LOT of toys, and he didn't like to share. My cousin lived in a large four bedroom row-house with his parents and our grandparents. That house was a source of seemingly endless entertainment for my brothers and me. For one thing, it had one of those magical double staircases — you could go to the second floor from the living room, travel through the upstairs hallway to the rear of the house, and descend a second staircase into the back pantry. The second-floor area with the second staircase was dark, cluttered and spooky, making it very alluring for games of hide-and-seek or "disappearing cousin." Technically, we weren't allowed to use the rear staircase because it was "too dark," "too dangerous," "too cluttered." All the more reason why we were unstoppable in its use. But, as enticing as this physical aspect of the house was, nothing was as alluring as the toy room.

There was one bedroom in the house dedicated solely to toy storage. The room was stacked, floor to ceiling along all four walls, with every game, puzzle, science kit and general toy that could be imagined. My memory has the stuff stacked three-deep so that there wasn't a lot of walking space left, but that could be time embellishing memory. Or not. My cousin was the ruler of this cache, and it was up to him to decide which toys we could play with. Now, I'm not saying he was selfish, or a tyrant, but he was a little arbitrary about which things we could use. I knew he'd never let us use the chemistry set, but there were certain other things I gravitated towards, and was often frustrated by his iron grip. His parents encouraged him (sort of) to share, but didn't make him.

He'd usually let us play Clue, but not always. Sometimes he'd allow the Lincoln Logs, which was good since I was the only one who liked them. The boys would tire of them quickly and go off to run up and down the staircases while I built farms and housing developments. But the real object of my desire, the Legos, were usually off limits. I'd plead and beg for those Legos, and only rarely would he concede. The cuz had a most remarkable collection of tiny little Legos, including little white window frames and shutters. He had zillions of intricate pieces, and playing with them was heaven. My brothers would soon get bored, and I'd have them all to myself until my cousin required them back in their storage location.

I'd love to go back in time and have a glimpse at that room again to see if it really contained every toy made, or just seemed like it. It was a little daunting to be in the presence of so much stuff I wanted. Kind of like last weekend, actually, when I found myself in the grown-up food equivalent of the toy room.

Part of our stash from Umajiwaya

When we walked into Uwajimaya Inc in Seattle's International District, I literally burst out laughing. Uwajimaya is an Asian supermarket that has everything you could possibly want, from fresh vegetables to the most obscure seasoning AND an entire gift and kitchen tool department. I didn't know which way to turn. You can get one hour of free parking if you spend six dollars, and the minute we walked into the store, it was pretty clear that wouldn't be a problem. We didn't buy any veggies, though they were sorely tempting, having just been to the farmers market the day before, but headed toward the aisles of Asian foods. I had a shopping list that magically expanded as I spied more and more ingredients I suddenly remembered "I just had to have." We found all the expected things like dried mushrooms, brown rice vinegar, rice noodles and yuba, but also unexpected things like an organic mix of brown jasmine-red-black rice from Thailand. We were able to find locally made tofu and tempeh, as well as Shark brand sriracha (without preservatives) in a giant bottle for just $2.99, less than we'd previously paid for a small bottle.

The first things we used from our shopping expedition were the tofu and rice in a recipe from our "Vegan Yum Yum" cookbook. Though not an Asian dish per se, the tamarind tofu cabbage bowl was satisfyingly delicious. It was a simple and tasty last minute dinner solution.

Everything we've made from the cookbook so far has been easy and delectable, and this was no exception.

The rice reminded me of a delicious Thai rice we'd been given as a gift some time ago. When this rice is gone, I think I might make my own three-rice blend from the rice available at the coop. I'll use a jasmine brown rice for the bulk of the mix, a red rice and a black rice.

Bread, pizza - fast and delicious / kale salad

cookeasyvegan@gmail.com (Andrea) — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 23:30:00 +0000

Last night I attended a book talk by Zoë François who is on tour promoting her book, "Healthy Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day, which she co-wrote with Jeff Hertzberg. I'm not such a big bread eater but I do love to bake bread. I like to experiment with different flours and methods to create beautiful breads with great texture and flavor. I've made naturally fermented breads (no yeast or starter) as well as made my own sourdough starter to create deli-style rye breads. I've made bagels, pita, tortillas, soft pretzels and naan. I usually make my own pizza dough, and sometimes I make crackers. I've made bread that took days to make from start to finish, and I once even hand-built a large ceramic bowl to mix large batches of dough in because I couldn't find one I liked.

Now I'm having fun making bread that takes almost no effort or time, á la Zoë and Jeff's technique. As I 've mentioned in a previous post, a fairly wet dough is mixed up right in a storage container, and left two hours to rest. A hunk of it is quickly shaped, rested and baked on a stone, and the remaining dough is stored in the refrigerator for up to two weeks so it's ready to use anytime. As the dough ages, it develops more character and sourdough flavor. When the dough is used up, a new batch can be made in the container without washing it first, to jump start the sourdough qualities that give the bread its character.

I've got a bread (pictured above) on the counter, and dough for one remaining loaf stored in the refrigerator. A few days before the loaf above was baked, dough from the same batch was used for pizza. I made these things using the master recipe from the book mentioned above. I've been making whole grain breads using this method for quite a while but I had been treating dough meant for pizza a little differently - using more flour in the mix for a firmer dough. It's a lot easier to get the pizza from the peel to the stone when it's got some body. I used the wetter dough for the pizza (shown below), and had some difficulties which I meant to ask Zoë about last night but completely forgot. I sprinkled extra flour when I formed the crust, and lots of cornmeal on the peel so the pizza would slide onto the stone, but when I tried to transfer the pizza to the hot stone in my oven, it wouldn't go without leaving the toppings behind! I finally gave up and cajoled it into a pan.

It seemed to me the extra moisture in the dough steamed the crust in the pan, making the texture a bit more spongy than the crispy, chewy effect I look for in my crust. It was still good, but not perfect. I thought about next time putting the sauce and cheese on the crust, sliding it onto the stone, then quickly adding the bulkier toppings while the pizza is in the oven. I don't like this idea because for one thing, it sounds dangerous, and for another, the oven heat will escape, and the oven should be hot when the pizza first goes in. I've got some more experimenting to do or questions to ask. Or maybe I should just wait for Zoë and Jeff's next book to come out. They're working on one about pizza and flatbread!

The pizza, by the way, had a very thin layer of Follow Your Heart mozzarella topped by a sprinkle of Daiya mozzarella. This combination produced the best tasting pizza I've had in quite a while. The real stars of the topping, though, were broccoli slices and mushrooms. To go with the pizza we had a salad of massaged lacinato kale, shredded carrot, baby salad greens and edamame. The kale was very thinly sliced (roll into a thick wad and slice crosswise) and rubbed with olive oil and a little salt. The edamame was sprinkled with umeboshi vinegar and left at room temperature for a half hour to marinate. The salad was dressed with olive oil and lemon.

You can visit artisanbreadinfive.com to get more information about making artisan no-knead breads. It really does take about five minutes to mix it up — but there's still the resting and rising that any bread must go through. The big difference is the dough waiting in the refrigerator to be baked into the next great loaf.

note: The seeds on this loaf are black mustard, caraway, dill, and crushed red pepper. The mustard seed was surprisingly delicious in this combination!

It's November / veganmofo wrap

cookeasyvegan@gmail.com (Andrea) — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 18:52:00 +0000

I meant to do my Vegan Mofo wrap-up before October ended but here it is only one day late. This was my first mofo, and the most I've ever blogged in one month. The part that was most exciting for me was finding and reading so many blogs I'd never seen before. It was thrilling to discover so many vegan blogs with wonderful recipes and gorgeous photos. I had no idea there were so many. My reading list is now stuffed with even more great blogs than before. As others have mentioned, it was hard keeping up with reading and commenting on so many posts; sometimes the comment would be in my head but I was just too tired to type it. I want to thank those responsible for organizing the event and posting the recaps. I followed many of those recap links to find new blogs. I especially want to thank all the vegan bloggers for sharing so much creative energy. Now all those intriguing recipes await!

Speculoos smoothie, veganmofo 2009

cookeasyvegan@gmail.com (Andrea) — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 03:00:00 +0000

When I was a child, once a year my mother used to buy ginger snap cookies in an rustle-y orange paper sack. These cookies were only available in October. They were large and flat and crackled on top.

They seemed very hard and crunchy on the outside but when I started chewing them, they got tacky, and stuck to my teeth. My mother and I loved these spicy cookies, looked forward to them every year and lamented the fact that we couldn't buy them whenever we wanted.

I would open the bag and inhale their spiciness. The fragrance was so strong I could almost taste the cookies before they touched my lips.

Today I added speculoos spice blend and a small amount of agave nectar to my almond milk-banana-mango smoothie, and when I took my first mouthful, I heard the rustle of that orange paper sack, smelled the gingersnaps, and saw my mother's smile.

Breads and speculoos / veganmofo 2009

cookeasyvegan@gmail.com (Andrea) — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 06:15:00 +0000

I want to say upfront that I haven't been sent a review copy of the cookbook I'm about to mention (darn - I'd love to review it). It's just that the authors have developed a bread baking style that fits perfectly with the theme of this blog. Following their method couldn't be easier, and I've been playing with their recipes since their first cookbook, "Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day" was published. I used their technique, but made the recipes healthier by using whole grains, less salt, etc. Now they've come up with a new book called, "Healthy Artisan Bread in Five Minutes A Day," and of course I watched their video, and made bread. I haven't actually seen the new book yet, but I know it has recipes using whole grains, fruits and veggies, plus a chapter on gluten-free baking. It's not a vegan cookbook, but probably easy for a vegan cook to adapt the recipes.

The bread pictured above was made from the basic recipe. I didn't have any unbleached flour on hand so I subbed semolina flour. For the topping I used a mix of sesame seeds, caraway seeds, dill seeds and crushed red pepper. The bread was delicious with the kind of springy texture I love, and it looked very pretty.

The dough - a rather wet dough - is mixed and stored in a container in the refrigerator, and taken out in blobs whenever a bread is needed.

Tonight I needed to make a bread with the speculoos spice mix I got from Mihl's blog. (Are you reading this, Mihl?) I grabbed a blob of dough and rolled it into a rectangle. I mixed one tablespoon of speculoos spice mix, one tablespoon of cocoa, three tablespoons of evaporated cane juice and about 1/2 cup of raisins, and spread it onto the dough. The dough was then rolled up and the edges sealed. You can see from the photo I didn't do a very even job - perhaps I was rushing - but the taste is delicious.

The authors will be in Seattle Monday night to do a reading and book signing and I hope to be there. I doubt they'll be talking about speculoos!

Buffy / random food / veganmofo 2009

cookeasyvegan@gmail.com (Andrea) — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 06:45:00 +0000

Buffy got groomed today and she looked so cute I had to give her some blog space. Buffy is at least 16 years old and holding her own quite well. She's still sweet and playful. I found her at the Humane Society when she was three, and she's been with us ever since. She was adopted to be our beloved Starr's sister so he would have company during the day, and they had a lot of good years together. Now Buffy lives only with humans but she doesn't seem to mind. In fact, at this stage of her life she's not that into other dogs anymore, though she still gets excited to see a cat. Lucky for her, two of her human brothers have cats, and sometimes she gets to visit them.

Buffy reclining regally (and hoping I'll go away and stop taking her picture).

At the secondhand store yesterday I found two really nice little white CorningWare dishes. They're rounded rectangles about 5 inches by 7 inches, and the perfect size for heating up and serving a single portion of lunch. I was envisioning them as handy little serving dishes for spreads or olives at a party. They were only fifty cents! Here you see one filled with leftover quinoa pasta (my favorite) and stir-fry from the previous night's dinner.

My son has been making himself humongous burritos with different fillings. I wanted today's potato-carrot-pea-chipotle-tofu filling but not the tortilla so I made a salad and put the filling on top for a burrito salad. It was great. Below you can see one of the burritos.

A Vegan Table / win $25,000 / veganmofo 2009

cookeasyvegan@gmail.com (Andrea) — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 22:51:00 +0000

I got a new cookbook for my birthday — "The Vegan Table" by Colleen Patrick-Goudreau — and we've started giving it a try. My husband found the can of artichoke hearts I bought to make a Turkish dish, and he made red lentil artichoke stew from Colleen's cookbook, instead. It wasn't the Middle Eastern dish I had intended, but it was delicious. I'm sure we'll want to make this again. I have a real weakness for artichoke hearts.

To go with the lentils he made cauliflower with spicy vinaigrette. This was an extremely easy dish of steamed cauliflower with a piquant dressing, proving once again that a dish doesn't have to be complicated or take hours, to be terrific. This dish might end up on our Thanksgiving table.

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Cooking contest
Are you feeling creative and in the mood to enter a cooking contest with a $25,000 grand prize? I received an email from French's Mustard representative Danielle Nuxxo who wrote:

"I came across your Easy Vegan Cooking blog...and wanted to send you some info on a new cooking contest from French’s Food, where you can win a trip to NYC for a cook-off and get a chance at the $25,000 grand prize. Since mustard is naturally low in sugar, fat and calories, I thought your vegan readers would enjoy the challenge of coming up with a naturally delicious recipe that fits well into the gluten-free and vegan lifestyle.

Here are the details on how to enter the contest. Time is running out, since all entries need to be entered by Saturday, Oct. 31. Each recipe must:

• Be original, unpublished, and created by you

• Include at least one French's product

• Include no more than 8 ingredients (with the exception of salt, pepper and water…those are freebies)

• Be prepared and ready to serve in under 60 minutes (Parents are busy, we all know that!)

• For recipe inspiration and giveaways, check out the French’s Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/pages/Frenchs/129122660682?ref=ts

Recipes will be evaluated on appearance, creativity and overall deliciousness and must be submitted by Saturday, October 31, 2009 online at: http://frenchs.com/Login.php?redirect=/Contest/SubmitRecipe.php. Five finalists, determined by online voting and a judging panel, will compete in a LIVE Cook-Off event to be held in New York City for a chance to win the Grand Prize of $25,000!"

I know it's a tight deadline but my fellow bloggers are so creative!

Bottoms up / veganmofo 2009

cookeasyvegan@gmail.com (Andrea) — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 20:50:00 +0000

Oooo. Edemame, corn and spicy potatoes - my fave.

Only one more week of vegan mofo, and I really haven't exploited the cute baby pix opportunities at all. So here we go. Babycakes (a.k.a. my granddaughter) was at our house all day Saturday, and in addition to puzzles, books, ball throwing, singing, dog petting, walk taking and discovering rotten apples in the dirt, etc., I got to try out my "microwave cake-in-a-cup making activity for those with short attention spans" (no age requirements). Apparently, even five minutes start to finish is too long for some.

Bottoms up! Cheers and all. Sure do love this almond milk.

I shared all the ingredients and told her what the final product would be but she just wanted to put her hands into everything and toss it around. Cool. Once the batter was on her fingers she didn't put them into her mouth as I thought she would, and I just managed to wipe them off before she ran out of the room to join her Uncle Jordan. The one ingredient she was most excited about (it wasn't the coconut) was the almond milk. When I was putting the almond milk into the measuring cup, she wanted some, so I gave her a little in a cup. She loved it, and drank quite a bit before spilling it onto the floor. She had some with her lunch, too. She's still too young to make the leap from ingredients to final product, but I can assure you she was quite pleased with that final product when she consumed it with her lunch. "Kek," she said. Cake, indeed.

On Friday night I found myself alone for dinner. My husband was traveling home from a meeting in D.C., and my son was working. When I cook for myself the food choices tend to be based on availability and convenience. That usually means: what's in the fridge and can it be cooked in a wok? There was lacinato kale, a small slab of tofu, leftover brown rice and some red pepper. Fried rice with good seasonings and a dab of cashew cheese made my perfect dinner. And maybe a little leftover kek.

note: How to cut lacinato (dinosaur) kale for a stir-fry or salad: Remove the center stems from the leaves with a scissors or by "stripping" the leaves with your fingers. Gather all the kale into a wad and roll up into a tight roll. Slice thinly across the roll with a santoku or other sharp knife.

It's Friday it's late / Veganmofo 2009

cookeasyvegan@gmail.com (Andrea) — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 05:00:00 +0000

I've got quite an unrelated variety of foods here representing everything from serious and healthy to ridiculous but healthyish. First the ridiculous. Some time ago Diann posted a five-minute microwave chocolate cake-in-a-mug on Eat'n Veg'n. A similar recipe was also in a cookbook I reviewed. I was mildly interested in trying it just to see if it would work, but we didn't have a microwave at the time so I forgot about it. I don't know what triggered the memory in my brain, but I was about to watch Mad Men one night and suddenly I wanted chocolate cake, and remembered Diann's post. WE HAVE A MICROWAVE in this house was all I could think of. Now, I'm not sweet obsessed, and rarely ever have dessert unless we have company. My husband usually has an apple for dessert. But suddenly I was obsessed with microwave cake. I don't even like microwaves, but I had to do it. This led to a series (I'm too embarrassed to say how many cakes were in the series) of microwaved cakes, all of which got eaten before they could be photographed. Me and the apple-eater gobbled 'em up. Not that they were photogenic, understand, as they didn't necessarily come out of their mugs, bowls, dishes, etc. in one piece.

One of the reasons I've been trying so hard to get this right (one of the reasons, uh huh) is I want to make this cake with my tiny granddaughter, and the speed and ease of assembly and nearly instant gratification fits well with her attention span. This cake is basically done about 5 minutes after you start. I had to make a non-chocolate version because her mom doesn't like her to eat chocolate, and I think I'm ready for our play date tomorrow!

As Diann said, this won't replace a carefully made "real" cake, but it works great for a sudden dessert craving. The taste and texture are really good, especially served still warm. It's kind of like a big, soft muffin. Add some jam, ice cream or whatever, or just eat it plain.
Instant microwave cake - chocolate version (easily serves two)

4 tablespoons whole spelt flour
2 tablespoons cocoa
3 tablespoons evaporated cane juice
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 tablespoon chocolate chips
2 teaspoons canola oil
5 tablespoons soymilk (or other milk)
1 teaspoon cider vinegar
splash of pure vanilla extract

In a small bowl, combine flour, cocoa, sugar and baking soda. Mix well.
Stir in the chocolate chips to coat with flour.
In a glass measuring cup, place the soymilk, then vinegar. Stir in the oil and vanilla.
Add liquid to dry and mix thoroughly but gently.
Lightly grease a mug or small bowl. Add cake mix.
Microwave for 3 minutes.
Carefully remove from microwave (it will be hot) and allow to cool for several minutes. Loosen edges and turn onto a plate. Let cool a little.
Serve while warm.

Instant microwave cake - coconut version (easily serves two)

5 tablespoons whole spelt flour
2 tablespoons unsweetened dried shredded coconut
3 tablespoons evaporated cane juice
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 tablespoon chocolate chips (optional)
2 teaspoons canola oil
4 tablespoons almond milk (or other milk)
1 teaspoon cider vinegar
splash of pure vanilla extract
apricot jam

In a small bowl, combine flour, coconut, sugar and baking soda. Mix well.
Stir in the chocolate chips (if using) to coat with flour.
In a glass measuring cup, place the almond milk, then vinegar. Stir in the oil and vanilla.
Add liquid to dry and mix thoroughly but gently.
Lightly grease a mug or small bowl. Add cake mix.
Microwave for 3 minutes.
Carefully remove from microwave (it will be hot) and allow to cool for several minutes. Loosen edges and turn onto a plate. Let cool a little.
Serve while warm, with jam on top

Notes: I know almost nothing about microwaves but they seem to vary a bit so cooking times may be different. I think the one here is 850 watts, if that means anything to you. Err on the side of too little cooking so the cake isn't dry. You can always put it back in for another minute. It may appear to be moist at the edge but if the rest seems springy and done, it's OK.

Cashew cheese with toasted sesame oil

Now for something a little more serious. I've been eyeing recipes for cashew cheese for a while but can never remember to soak the cashews, and then we end up eating them before I get around to making the cheese. Well, I finally soaked some, and made an uncooked cashew cheese. I was pretty surprised to find that after five hours of soaking, some of the cashews had actually started to sprout! You can find endless variations for this delicious cheese online so it seemed pretty safe to deviate from the recipes and make this stuff based on the ingredients I happened to have. I didn't add any herbs, choosing instead to flavor the cheese with a fruity vinegar and toasted sesame oil - two additions I didn't come across in my recipe search. This stuff is sublime and I can't wait to make some as a starter next time we have company. It would be a perfect dip with crisp raw veggies.

Cashew cheese

2 cups raw cashews plus water to cover
3 tablespoons lemon juice (or more to taste)
very small clove of garlic, chopped
1 tablespoon unpasteurized mellow white miso
1 to 2 teaspoons fruity vinegar (I used balsam cherry)
a few drops of toasted sesame oil (more to taste)
water as needed to process
fresh ground black pepper to taste
paprika

Soak the cashews 4 to 6 hours. Drain and rinse.
Place cashews, garlic, and lemon juice in the bowl of a food processor. Process until very creamy and smooth, adding water as necessary for processing, keeping mixture as thick as possible. Scrape down sides of bowl as necessary.
Add miso, pepper, vinegar and oil. Process to mix well.
Place in a bowl and cover with plastic wrap. Leave out for 2 to 4 hours until preferred level of sharpness has developed. Then refrigerate.
Before serving, sprinkle with paprika and more black pepper.

Here's a link to another cashew cheese recipe you might want to try. It's baked. And here's another. More ideas here.

update: I added jalapeño hot sauce to the cashew cheese on Saturday, and also recommend adding chopped parsley and/or chopped green onions. The cheese got very firm and spreadable in the refrigerator overnight. Next time I make it I plan to use umeboshi paste and tahini instead of the miso.

No-knead whole-grain bread with barley flour and sesame seeds

Today I made a no-knead bread using white whole wheat, barley flour and sesame seeds. It was baked on a stone and had a wonderful taste and texture - nutty from the barley and rich from the sesame seeds. I used one cup of barley flour to four cups of white whole wheat. I originally needed the barley flour to make blondies from Sweet Freedom. My husband does the shopping, and he bought a large bag of the stuff. Even though I've made the blondies three times, I still have a ton of the flour left so I've been adding it to my baked goods with good results.

Oatmeal with a side of news

I'll leave you with my healthy breakfast (from Wednesday) just to show that I am occasionally responsible and sensible. I need to counteract the completely silly things I've been doing with the microwave. (FOOD things!) The picture above shows a wonderful bowl of oatmeal with coconut, raisins, cashews and rice milk. The only thing that could make a breakfast like this more perfect would be to come downstairs and find it already made. I seem to be the only one in the house who wants oatmeal in the morning but I love it.

Eggplant this and eggplant that / veganmofo 2009

cookeasyvegan@gmail.com (Andrea) — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 02:21:00 +0000

Roasted eggplant and garbanzo bean soup

We managed to accumulate a lot of eggplants this week - good deals at the market that we couldn't refuse. Since I seem to have a soup thing going, I decided to combine the eggplant with the soupathon and make roasted eggplant and garbanzo bean soup. I'd been wanting to make this ever since I first got my hands on Love Soup. I also wanted to try roasting an eggplant on the stove top (gas stove) like our cooking class teacher did. I mean, I've roasted peppers on the burner, but an eggplant is so much bigger.

I roasted one eggplant in the oven and one on the stove burner. And I made quite a mess on the burner. But now that I've roasted another eggplant (story below) I know what I did wrong the first time. I kind of ignored my roasting eggplant a little too long on a flame that was a little too high, and by the end I was certain I was going to set off the smoke alarm. By the time I remembered to turn the eggplant there was goo oozing out and turning to charcoal all over the burner. I got the eggplant cooked, but yuck, what a mess. I used a scrubber to VERY CAREFULLY clean the burner while it was still hot and everything came off in a snap so it turned out not to be so bad, but it can be better.

We combined the two eggplants for the soup because I was hoping to give the soup an edge of smokiness, but the soup just tasted like regular oven-roasted eggplant to me. The soup was delicious, but I could have saved myself some trouble by just using the oven.

For eggplant roasting experience number two, I played smarter. I turned the eggplant often so it would char evenly rather than get too cooked on one side and burst. The whole thing only takes about 15 minutes so there's no excuse for not sticking close by and doing it right. The flame was on the lowest simmer. The hardest part is cooking the thicker bottom but setting the eggplant upright for a couple of minutes did the trick. There was still a small spill but nothing like the first one. When the eggplant was soft, I set it in a bowl for a while to drain out the bitter fluids, and cool a bit.

The next part involved cutting it in half and scooping out the flesh, carefully retrieving all of the eggplant that was clinging to the charred skin. This was easy, easy. Next I used my chef knife to chop the eggplant into a purée, which I mixed with tahini, lemon juice, sea salt and finely minced garlic to end up with baba ghannouj - smoky and fabulous, just like it should be. I think this is the only way I want to have baba ghannouj from now on.

Baba ghannouj

Creamy broccoli mushroom bake / veganmofo 2009

cookeasyvegan@gmail.com (Andrea) — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 00:29:00 +0000

Bear with me here. I'm going to start with one thing and end with another but it really will all tie together in the end, you'll see. And all of it involves food. It all started with an email from my son asking if I knew about AmazonFresh. Well, no, I didn't, but soon after the email arrived I was on my way to placing my first-ever delivered-grocery order. Said son had a coupon code for 25% off the first order and we both decided to try it out of curiosity. Naturally, I was overcome with guilt about ordering from a subsidiary of giant Amazon instead of shopping at the local coop, but I used weird logic to calm my nerves. The delivery service is associated with Amazon but separate from it and operates only in Seattle - not even the whole of Seattle. The organic veggies I was looking at were from Washington and Oregon. Still. Is this OK? We went to the farmers market AND the coop in addition to the order, but still.

So I went online and made up a shopping list. I chose a pre-dawn delivery time for Sunday morning and waited in suspense. The next morning there was a stack of plastic bins on the porch, filled with our food. All we had to do was put it away. We felt very strange about this but kind of liked it too.

In addition to food and other items usually found at a grocery store, you can add certain other things usually found at Amazon - need a CD with your groceries? A pedometer, maybe? A cookbook? A cookbook. Well, actually, Vegan Yum Yum had been in my Amazon cart for quite a while, and it just happened to be available at AmazonFresh. So I added it to the list. And that brings me to the next part of the post. When the food was delivered, so was the cookbook. It's a gorgeous cookbook filled with wonderful food pictures, and tonight we tried one of the recipes. My husband made creamy broccoli mushroom bake. All I can say is, "yum yum."

Another day another soup / veganmofo 2009

cookeasyvegan@gmail.com (Andrea) — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 00:18:00 +0000

As veganmofo continues, I find my posts are getting out later and later in the day. At first it was fun to post every weekday, and I had a post up by 6:30 a.m.. It's still fun, but now it's getting harder, and here it is almost 5:30 p.m., and the post is just getting started. I've been so focused on getting a post out every day I completely missed celebrating (or at least mentioning) my 200th post. (Of course, I also missed my 100th post, and that had nothing to do with veganmofo.) So, hooray, this is my 207th post. And it's going to be about soup. Because we can't seem to stop eating the stuff. And it's going to be short.

If you've been reading along, you've probably noticed all the soups we've been making from Love Soup. And why not make them? When you find a good thing, it makes sense to take advantage of it. So, we made another, and this time it was red lentil and squash soup, made not with butternut squash as per the recipe, but with delicata squash that we purchased at the farmers market. We also had steamed brussels sprouts, and I just added mine to my bowl. Then we garnished the bowls with a little grated Daiya cheese that we bought to try, and can't seem to use up. Another fabulous soup.

And I made some flatbread to go with it. The dough was refrigerated leftover Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day-type bread that had been constructed with white whole wheat and barley flour. I got the idea for the bread shape from the mezze cooking class we'd just recently taken. I would have topped it with sesame seeds if we'd had any, but had to settle for pumpkin seeds instead.

My son also got his hand in the soup-making frenzy around here but he didn't use "the book." I saw him looking at a recipe on the PPK but he said we were missing most of the ingredients so he used whatever he could find in addition to the potatoes and beans I'd asked him to build his soup around. The soup was excellent but he was not able to provide a recipe. Sorry.

Chestnuts exploding over an open fire / veganmofo 2009

cookeasyvegan@gmail.com (Andrea) — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 20:41:00 +0000

My mother was a pretty straightforward cook, and our dinners were usually meat, potato, salad when my father was home, and chicken, potato, salad when he wasn't. There was an occasional foray into frozen green beans or canned peas, but she didn't experiment much. For every holiday, we knew the menu. I can remember the few times she experimented with new recipes; for example, there was the flounder baked in sour cream, the schnecken, and the roasted chestnuts...

I was about 14 the first time my mother made roasted chestnuts. She made them in a covered pan on the stove. We were pretty excited as this was something we'd never had before. There was a nice toasty smell, and then suddenly there was the sound of gunfire, or firecrackers. The lid flew off the pot, and sharp, hot objects began catapulting around the room. We started shrieking and ducking for cover under the kitchen table. We soon realized the chestnuts were exploding, and stopped yelling, but all hell was breaking loose, and we were powerless to leave our shelter. The shrieks turned to gales of laughter as we waited for the disaster to end. All of the chestnuts had exploded into a zillion pieces and the kitchen was covered with debris. We were practically paralyzed with hysterical laughter as we tried to undo the damage. My mother checked the recipe and found she'd skipped the part about cutting an x into each chestnut to allow the steam to escape. Oh well.

Before we moved here and rented the house we're living in, I don't think I'd ever seen a chestnut tree. Here, I noticed trees with odd, prickly green fruit and wondered what they were — some kind of nut tree? All of a sudden, the tree at our house dropped its fruits, and chestnuts were lying all over the sidewalk and street. The minute I saw this nutty display, I ran for bowls and started collecting. But wait a minute ... are these really chestnuts? After a bit of Internet research I've learned that what we have covering the street and sidewalk are HORSE CHESTNUTS, and they are POISONOUS. Figures. The question here is why do people plant poisonous horse chestnut trees when they can have sweet, edible chestnuts instead? Why, why, why?

Here's what a sweet chestnut pod looks like.

This is a horse chestnut pod.

Sweet chestnut pods are covered in long spines that go every which way. The spines are so thick the pod skin can't be seen. Horse chestnut pods have much fewer, shorter spines. I collected the sweet chestnut pod on a walk. If I could just remember where...

Horse chestnuts

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Today is my birthday and we plan to try out a new (to us) restaurant tonight. The restaurant I really want to go to is closed on Mondays. Sometimes we get caught in a restaurant rut and go back to the same places again and again, so I'm willing myself to try someplace different tonight. With so many options available to us, it's the fun and adventurous thing to do. Right?

Middle Eastern mezze cooking class / veganmofo 2009 / cookbook winner

cookeasyvegan@gmail.com (Andrea) — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 20:56:00 +0000

Spiced olives

On Tuesday night my husband and I took another cooking class at PCC Natural Markets, and I can't say enough good things about it. Please excuse me if I blabber on and on about how wonderful the food was. The class was taught by Sureyya Gokeri, originally from Turkey, who taught us the Turkish versions of several well-known dishes. Sureyya teaches classes at PCC as well as at her family's business, Istanbul Imports, and if you live in the Seattle area I highly recommend taking one of her classes. Although the class syllabus (baba ghannouj, taboulleh salad, spiced olives, Turkish artichokes, flatbread from Jordan, stuffed dates from Iraq, and tahini sauce with bean salad) sounded very familiar, Sureyya's versions of these dishes were a revelation.

Mezze refers to food that comes to the table before the main course — Middle Eastern hors d'oeuvre. The main meal usually contains meat, but mezze consists of fresh vegetables, bread and olive oil. We started with zaytun musabbeh — spiced olives from Lebanon. In my mind you can hardly go wrong with olives - I always gravitate to the olive tray at parties — and this salad was an olive-lovers dream. Sureyya used marinated olives bought from the olive bar at PCC. The recipe contains pomegranate juice, and Sureyya also added fresh pomegranate arils. She showed us how to open the pomegranate by removing both ends and peeling carefully like an apple.

Taboulleh

We learned a few cooking tricks to make the food more flavorful. For example, Sureyya always adds each dried herb to a small amount of olive oil to more thoroughly release its flavor. She then adds the oil and herb to the dish. She also told us her mother stored fresh herbs wrapped in tissue paper rather than in plastic. She said this keeps the herbs fresher longer.

When she made the taboulleh, she added paprika to color it, as well as ground cumin and crushed red pepper. It was served Turkish style in crisp leaves of romaine lettuce. (Do you see the pomegranate seeds in there?)

Bean salad with tahini sauce

Our teacher made a simple bean salad with lemon juice, olive oil, cumin and Italian parsley, to go on top of a thick and creamy tahini dressing. It was so good, just thinking about it makes me hungry.

baba ghannouj and khoubiz

I was most impressed with the baba ghannouj. Traditionally, eggplant for this dish is grilled over charcoal, imparting a smoky flavor. Sureyya roasted one eggplant in the oven, and grilled the other eggplant on the gas stove burner over very low heat until it was black and completely soft. She peeled off the blackened skin and chopped the eggplants by hand. The result was a smoky and fabulous dip. To go with the dip she made Khoubiz, flatbread from Jordan. The bread was very simple to make, and tasted amazing.

The enginar, or Turkish artichokes, was something I've never eaten before, but am sure to eat again now that I know how to make it. I've never seen a better use for peas and carrots!

I'm sorry to say the photos of our dessert, holwah tamar or stuffed date sweetmeats from Iraq, were too blurry to use. This was simply dates pureed in a food processor, mixed with chopped blanched almonds, rolled into balls and rolled in either toasted sesame seeds or shredded coconut. Very simple and delicious.

Sureyya has graciously allowed me to share her recipe for olive salad.

Zaytun Musabbeh (Spiced olives from Lebanon) serves 6 to 8

1 lb. pitted green olives or marinated olives
1 teaspoon sea salt
1 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon dried thyme
1/2 cup finely chopped red onion
3/4 cup chopped Italian parsley
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons pomegranate juice (or more to taste)
1/4 to 1/2 cup fresh squeezed lemon juice
2 cloves garlic, finely minced
2 firm tomatoes, diced
1/2 cup fresh red or green pepper, chopped

Place olives in a bowl (rinsing the brine is optional) and chop into small pieces.
Add the dried spices to olive oil and then rub into the olives by hand.
Add the rest of the ingredients except for the tomatoes and peppers.
Add the tomatoes and peppers just before serving.

Variations

Instead of olives you can use one of the following: potatoes, cucumbers, roasted eggplant, beans such as chickpeas or kidney beans, or mushrooms.
Add chopped walnuts to the salad.
Add fresh pomegranate arils.
If tomatoes are out of season, use 1 tablespoon of tomato paste or red pepper paste.

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The winner of the cookbook giveaway is Courtney. Courtney, please send me your address and I'll send the book to you. Congrats!

Chipotle vegetable soup / veganmofo 2009

cookeasyvegan@gmail.com (Andrea) — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 20:50:00 +0000

I should call this post "Pantry Soup" because I made use of stuff from the refrigerator and pantry in an effort to move older stuff out and use up leftovers, including a container of leftover pasta sauce and the end of a bag of frozen corn. I started out wanting a simple cauliflower soup but one thing led to another, and before I was done, it was a full-blown vegetable bean soup. I quick-soaked a cup of kidney beans in eight cups of water by bringing the water to a boil then turning off the stove and letting the beans sit for an hour in the covered pot. I then cooked the beans until they were tender, adding more water as necessary. When they were soft, I added the leftover tomato sauce. I made a flavoring mix of peanut butter, miso, chipotle powder and dried crushed red pepper, and added it to the beans. The onions were caramelized by cooking slowly in a wok for about 30 minutes. After making three soups from "Love Soup" that required caramelized onions, I've become very fond of the added flavor caramelizing brings out. The veggies (except corn) were cut, and simmered with water in a separate pot (to preserve color) to tenderize them and make broth. When cooked, they were added to the beans.

The corn was added last so it wouldn't get over-cooked. I intended to add parsley at the end, but our bag of parsley was gross and unusable. So what's in your refrigerator? Maybe it's time to make soup.

I'm providing a list of ingredients but all quantities are approximate, as they should be. Remember, a tasting spoon is your most valuable piece of cooking equipment!

Vegetable and kidney bean soup
kidney beans (cup dry)
water (8+ cups for the beans, more for the veggies)
leftover tomato sauce (cup) or a can of tomatoes
onion, chopped - caramelized
cauliflower, cut up (head)
celeriac, sliced thin (chunk)
potato, large dice (1)
carrot, sliced (2 large)
frozen corn (cup)
salt to taste
peanut butter (Tbsp.)
mellow white miso (Tbsp.)
chipotle powder (tsp.)
dried crushed red pepper

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Vegetarian spiders found

Just in time for Halloween comes a nice but slightly creepy spider story. The spiders in question are (almost) vegetarian so I thought you'd want to know about them. Except for an occasional treat of ant larvae, these tropical spiders eat plant buds. Check it out. This is real - not a joke.

Surprise box

cookeasyvegan@gmail.com (Andrea) — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 18:30:00 +0000

It was a gray and gloomy day. There was wind. There was rain. It was damp and chilly. "Bleh. Is this what I have to look forward to?," was the thought in my mind as I arrived home. Five more months of weather forecasts that predict, "rain at times, chance of showers, rain and then showers, rain with sun breaks." Sun breaks? Might as well check the mail, I thought, a bunch of junk mail will make the day complete. But in addition to the junk mail, sitting on the landing was a box addressed to me from Lindsay from Cooking for a Vegan Lover. My mystery box had arrived, and suddenly the day seemed a lot better. (Not sunnier or drier, mind you, but better.) Lindsay had held a giveaway contest a few weeks ago and I was the lucky winner. I love surprises almost as much as I love sunshine.

Here's what was in the box: There was a one pound bag of crunchy veggie chips, and

a piney bar of shea butter soap that smelled just like the North Woods (of Wisconsin, even though it was made in N.Y.).

There was a bottle of vegan Worcestershire sauce.

There was a spicy jar of peanut butter with several kinds of hot peppers.

The box also contained two gnu bars, rosemary and sea salt flatbread, parma, hummus, Heart Thrive energy bars and green tea. Thank you so much Lindsay for all these special vegan treats.

Lindsay is doing a care-package swap. Click here for more information on how to participate.

Anniversary dinner / vegan mofo 2009

cookeasyvegan@gmail.com (Andrea) — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 11:09:00 +0000

On Sunday we walked to the vegan bake sale (that I baked for last Friday) at Sidecar for Pigs Peace vegan store to buy a bunch of treats for dinner. Sunday was our Anniversary and two of our sons (the third had to work) were cooking us an Anniversary dinner. We wanted to support the sale, and bring dessert to the dinner. Above you can see some of the brownies, pumpkin cookies, blondies, peanut butter cookies, oatmeal chocolate chip cookies and more that we snagged at the sale. It was fun to have so much variety for dessert. (I really loved the pumpkin cookies so if you made them and are reading this, please share the recipe!)

If you read this blog you know that our sons and their partners are all great cooks, and we always eat well at their homes. Sunday was no exception. One son made an enormous pot of three-bean chili that was incredible, and the other made a great cornbread, and a fabulous vegetable stir-fry filled with leafy greens from his garden plus broccoli. It was the perfect meal for a chilly fall evening. I took bad photos so I can't post pictures of the yummy food, except for a not-so-great photo of the chili pot.

However, I got a cute shot of Erica, (from "dinner with Aaron and Erica"), and another of Erica and her most dedicated fan club member, goofing around. Behind Erica's back (photo below) you can see the unpredictable and not-always-nice, Lola, resentfully sharing her chair.

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Jonathan Safran Foer on eating meat

There's an essay in last Sunday's New York Times Magazine you might appreciate. Written by Jonathan Safran Foer, the essay, entitled "Against Meat," follows the author's struggles with the cultural and ethical concept of meat-eating from the age of 10 to the present. Well -written and heart-felt, many vegetarians and vegans will identify with and appreciate Foer's struggles and decisions. Jonathan Safran Foer is the author of "Everything is Illuminated" and "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close." His new book of non-fiction, "Eating Animals" will be published in November.

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There are still three more days to enter the cookbook giveaway! Get your copy of "Love Soup" by Anna Thomas just in time for winter soup weather.

Soy Curls vs. TVP / vegan mofo 2009

cookeasyvegan@gmail.com (Andrea) — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 11:04:00 +0000

Soy Curls after soaking, seasoning and sautéing.

I've gotten a couple of questions about the differences between Butler Soy Curls and TVP. As far as I can tell, the Soy Curls are made from whole soy beans, and TVP is made from de-fatted soy flour, a by product of soy oil production. There is no fat in plain TVP. The soy flour is cooked at high pressure, extruded and dried. Some manufacturers add oils, flavorings and assorted chemicals to achieve meat-like qualities, but TVP is also available plain.

According to the Butler Soy Curl Web site:

Select certified Non-GMO soybeans grown without chemical pesticides are soaked in spring water. Then the soybeans are cooked and delicately textured after which they are dried at low temperature thus ensuring the natural goodness of the whole soybean high in fiber and omega-3. Soy Curls™ are one of the most pure, healthful products on the market containing no chemicals, additives, or preservatives.

Both products are high in protein, low in salt and relatively high in fiber, and I'm not endorsing or denouncing either one. I've never been a big user of either of these soy products. In fact, when we cleaned out the kitchen before our recent move, I found a quantity of TVP that was probably at least 10 years old. I couldn't remember either buying or using it, and it went into the compost. Processed foods like this usually make me nervous, and I tend not to eat them very often, though I agree they taste good, and are satisfying and fun to eat.

Given the convenience, good taste and texture, and nutritional profile of TVP and Soy Curls, they are probably very popular food choices. Are they healthy? Are we getting too much soy in our diet? Too much protein? Should we eat "mock" foods? I don't know, but I'd love to hear your opinion. I think I'll use Soy Curls as an "occasional" food rather than as a regular part of my diet.

Fresh food from the Farmers Market.

This is part of the haul from our Saturday farmers market trip. We went to a different market this weekend, and were pleasantly surprised by the more reasonable prices and fantastic selection. It was in a parking lot, and lacking some of the quaint charm of the market we often go to, but the vegetables, nearly all organic, were gorgeous, and the prices were better. The University District Farmers Market is Seattle's oldest and largest "farmers-only" outdoor neighborhood market (more than 50 vendors) — in operation since 1993. We were delighted to learn that this market is in operation all year! Next week I'm taking the camera.

Here's what my son whipped up for lunch.

Dinner with Aaron and Erica / veganmofo 2009

cookeasyvegan@gmail.com (Andrea) — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 11:50:00 +0000

We had dinner with our son Aaron and his girl friend, Erica. Whenever we eat at their apartment, we know the food will be great, and we weren't disappointed. Aaron & Erica had eaten at The Farm Cafe in Portland, OR, and wanted to re-create the meal they had there. Lucky for us the recipe for this fabulous dinner was online, and with the link to Everyday dish TV (plant-based cuisine), you, too, can enjoy this delicious meal of Herb-Crusted Tofu with Mushrooms Marsala, and Garlic Mashed Potatoes. Yesterday I said I prefer to post recipes after I personally try making them in my kitchen, but Aaron said he followed the directions, and the recipe worked really well. He recommends watching the video because he said it differs slightly from the written instructions, particularly for making the marsala sauce. Aaron said that following the video will give you a meal that tastes just like the one at the restaurant. Our meal was accompanied by brussels sprouts and was delicious. Try it.

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Soy Curls at last
I've had Soy Curl-envy for a long time now as I've read all the rave reviews of this product and seen the photos of delicious-looking soy curl dishes. I just couldn't find them locally in Wisconsin and never got around to ordering them. I must have forgotten we moved to Seattle a few weeks ago, and all things vegan are now within my grasp. So I went to the Soy Curl Web page to discover what I already suspected - Soy Curls are sold at the Sidecar vegan grocery. My husband and I were planning a walk around Green Lake but we walked to Sidecar instead, and got some Curls, some Daiya cheese, some vegetable soup base and a lot of exercise.

My husband made Soy curls with asparagus and quinoa from Vegan Yum Yum except he used broccoli, green beans and sweet red peppers instead of asparagus. The verdict? Very tasty with a nice texture for those moments when texture is on your mind, if you know what I mean. Soy Curls are made from whole soybeans and contain no weird additives, and they're very low in salt. I see great potential here. We didn't try the Daiya, yet, but we will, soon.

FYI

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Bake sale!!!
If you're in the Seattle area this weekend and craving baked goods, stop by Sidecar for a vegan bake sale to benefit Sidecar for Pigs Peace Sanctuary. I've set aside today as a baking day for brownies, blondies and crackers, but I can't wait to buy the stuff other people make.

Where: Sidecar For Pigs Peace
5270 B University Way NE
Seattle, WA 98105

When: Saturday October 10
and Sunday October 11
1 PM to 4 PM

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Don't forget to enter the cookbook giveaway! Who wouldn't want a copy of "Love Soup" by Anna Thomas?

Raw portobello mushroom larb salad / veganmofo 2009

cookeasyvegan@gmail.com (Andrea) — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 11:29:00 +0000

© 2009 Andrea's easy vegan cooking

We took a raw cooking class recently, and I promised to post a recipe for one of the dishes. I prefer to post recipes after I've made them myself to see how they turn out in my kitchen; that's why you had to wait for this recipe. We ended up getting home last night much later than we planned, and no one felt like making dinner. I had marinated mushrooms for the salad earlier in the day, and although it was supposed to be a starter for our dinner, it ended up being the whole meal, except for some peanut butter on crackers. The recipe is supposed to serve two as an entree or four as a starter, and I'd say that's accurate.

Larb is actually a spicy Lao meat salad. In this recipe, it's been transformed by Chefs Heather and Lois of Chaco Canyon Cafe, into a raw, vegan dish.

© 2009 Andrea's easy vegan cooking (portobello mushrooms about 4" in diameter)

I started with two large (about 4" in diameter) portobello mushrooms. Chef Heather said she removes the stems when she prepares the salad at the restaurant, and uses them in other dishes. She doesn't use the stems in the salad so as to preserve the optimal visual appearance necessary at restaurants. At home, she said, she removes the stems, slices and uses them in the dish. I followed her advice, and after trimming the ends, sliced up those stems. The taste and texture of the stems was so close to the caps that I could see no reason not to do this again. The more mushroom the better.

© 2009 Andrea's easy vegan cooking

The most exotic ingredient in the marinade was kaffir lime leaves, which I have eaten before but have never personally purchased. You can find these at Asian markets or, maybe, natural foods stores. In Seattle, all the PCC Coop stores carry them in little plastic packs in the fresh herbs case. Kaffir lime leaves grow as double leaves, and you just separate the two leaves to use them. These leaves are pretty tough so cutting them small is important. You just roll 'em up and slice thinly, then continue to a small mince. (The lime perfume as you cut them is incredible.) How small you cut them depends on how powerful your blender is. If you have only VitaMix-envy and a regular blender, you might want to mince pretty small. I used a Kitchenaid blender and it blended everything perfectly even though I got tired of mincing before I should have. Only you can judge what's best for the kitchen equipment you have.

© 2009 Andrea's easy vegan cooking

The other ingredient that required mincing effort was the dulse. If you can find dulse flakes, you just have to measure, but if you use actual dulse, as I did, mince away. Half a cup of lime juice sounds like a lot but it only took two limes to get that much.

If you want the dish to be truly raw, you should use Nama Shoyu, which is organic, raw, unpasteurized soy sauce. If you want the dish to be gluten-free, you'll need to use Tamari, which is not raw but is wheat-free. I used Tamari because that's what I usually have in the house. I reduced the tamari to 1/3 cup and replaced the rest with water because I wanted the mushrooms to be a little less salty than I remembered from class. This worked well for me. Although not on the ingredient list, you can add dried ground chili if you want a spicy result.

I didn't think my mushrooms were soft enough after only an hour of marinating, and I think they ended up marinating about about four hours on the counter. You can marinate them in a shallow dish, or, as I did, in a plastic zip-close bag. I put the bag in a large dish (just in case anything should leak) and flipped it every so often. After the mushrooms were removed from the marinade, I jarred the rest of the liquid in the refrigerator to use as a marinade for something else, like tempeh. Or, you could start another batch of mushrooms.

As I was writing out the recipe I saw I made a mistake when making the marinade. The shallot was added to the blender instead of to the mushrooms. Oops. It tasted great to us but next time I'll try to do it right!

Portobello mushroom larb salad

2 portobello mushrooms, washed and sliced 1/4 inch think
1 small shallot, peeled and shaved paper thin
2 kaffir lime leaves, minced
1 teaspoon dulse flakes
1/2 cup lime juice
2 tablespoons raw agave nectar
1/2 cup Nama Shoyu (I used 1/3 cup tamari plus water to equal 1/2 cup)
1/2 cup water
2 green onions, sliced thinly on the diagonal
1/2 bunch cilantro, washed and minced
6 leaves fresh basil
1 quart mixed salad greens, washed
peeled grated carrots

Clean and prepare mushrooms and shallots. Place in a sealable container
Place kaffir lime leaves, dulse flakes, lime juice, agave nectar, Nama shoyu and water in a blender and blend until smooth. Pour over mushroom and shallot mix.
Cover and allow to marinate on the counter for one hour or in the refrigerator overnight.
Prepare the green onions, cilantro and basil. Place in a large salad bowl with the salad greens and toss. Use some of the marinade (to taste) as a dressing and toss to mix.
Place salad on plates or bowls and top with mushrooms and shallots. Garnish with a mound of shredded carrot.

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Don't forget to enter the cookbook giveaway!
© 2009 Andrea's easy vegan cooking

Roasted squash and yam soup with poblano peppers / veganmofo 2009

cookeasyvegan@gmail.com (Andrea) — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 11:30:00 +0000

© 2009 Andrea's easy vegan cooking

I recently did a review of Anna Thomas' new cookbook, "Love Soup." I know I said in my review that the next soup I planned to make was a roasted eggplant and garbanzo bean soup but when Anna Thomas herself left a comment on the post recommending her roasted squash and yam soup with poblano peppers, well, what could I do? I had to try it. Just like the other two soups, it was rich and wonderful. We made it with butternut squash instead of the kabocha or buttercup from the recipe because that's what the coop had. Other than that, and forgetting to drizzle the finished soup with olive oil, we made it "by the book."

© 2009 Andrea's easy vegan cooking

I found a Youtube video of Anna Thomas making her roasted turnip and butternut squash soup. This should give you an idea of what one of her soups is like. Because she adds a small blob of mascarpone to each bowl as a garnish - unnecessary I think - the soup as she serves it isn't vegan. You could whip a little tofu cream cheese and add it if you felt the soup needed it, or just serve it as is with the other garnishes.

As it turns out, because of a mailing issue, I just got another copy of the cook book. So, lets have a giveaway! If you leave a comment telling me you want this book, I'll randomly choose a winner and send it off. You have until midnight Oct. 15, to leave a comment.

The day I decided to be vegan / veganmofo 2009

cookeasyvegan@gmail.com (Andrea) — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 11:13:00 +0000

I showed my husband this blog post and told him I really wanted pasta for dinner and he said he'd been planning to make some anyway. When he finally said dinner was ready, I was starving. As I was eating I noted that the sauce was especially good, and asked if he'd made it himself or used a jar. "I made it," he answered, "from your blog."

Ah... I knew there was a reason I was writing this blog!

But why am I writing a vegan-centric blog? Why did I decide to be vegan? Some time ago I did a post about the day I became a vegetarian. At the end of the post was a promise to write about the day I decided to become a vegan, a slightly more personal story involving health issues. Here goes...

My husband and I had been vegetarian for several years before I became pregnant with our first child. We were asked lots of questions at the time about whether I intended to stay vegetarian during the pregnancy (yes), and whether we planned to raise our child as a vegetarian (well, duh). The pregnancy and delivery went well, and the babe was perfect and healthy - only two eyes, not three, as I think my parents expected. Everything was great until about two weeks after the birth, when I got horribly sick. My doctor told us to meet her at the emergency room - she was worried about a post-delivery infection since my fever was so high. I'll never forget the reaction of the medical staff when we entered the room with that tiny baby. It was as if they all went ridged on signal, and started moving towards us. I realized right away what they thought, and told them the baby was fine - I was sick. As quickly as they had reacted to seeing the baby, they instantly relaxed. I was a little miffed at their sudden lack of concern, since I felt so sick.

It turned out I had mastitis, a breast infection. I was given antibiotics and sent home. The infection was like a horrible case of flu with miserable aches and pains, and high fever. When I finally recovered, I tried to be really careful not to let it happen again. But I suffered a long series of these infections, prompting me to seek alternative care, as the antibiotics were exhausting me. There was a homeopathic and herbal pharmacy a block from our house, and from the owner I learned to treat the infections early with the herbs mullein and lobelia . The herbs worked better than the antibiotics, with no after effects, and although I dreaded having an infection, I managed to deal with them, and they became much less frequent as the baby got older.

When our second baby came along, I was hoping not to repeat the infection routine but that was not to be. Not only did I suffer, the baby always seemed to be congested, and he had a series of ear infections. I treated the ear infections with garlic and herbs, and it worked great, but I found the continuous cycle of infection disturbing and frustrating. One day at the herb store the owner asked if I wanted to end the infections instead of just treating them. I asked him how to do that, and he responded that I needed to give up dairy products. I saw visions of pizza floating before my eyes, and told him I already was a vegetarian, and couldn't possibly give up dairy. (Actually, my husband and I been in the "thinking stage" of giving up eggs and dairy products for health and ethical reasons, and were pretty much there with eggs, but couldn't quite make the leap over mozzarella.)

He assured me I could do it, and suggested I give it up for two, preferably three, months - one month to clear it from my body, and another one or two to see if it had an effect on my and my baby's health. Two months seemed perfectly do-able, and I gave it a try. At first I was startled to see how many food products contained some form of dairy. Avoiding it required extreme vigilance, but I was used to reading labels and being vigilant so I adapted.

The first thing I noticed, in addition to not having any infections, was that for the first time my baby's nose was clear. He didn't make snuffly noises when he breathed. After the two months were up, and everything was going well, I attended a parenting group I belonged to, and a friend in the group had baked a cake especially for me. It was made with whole wheat flour and no refined sugar - a big leap for her. I asked if it had milk in it and she said it had a little, but not wanting to hurt her feelings, I had a small piece. I really didn't think eating a small piece of cake with a little milk in it would make any difference. On the third day after the cake ingestion, I came down with mastitis, and the baby had an ear infection. "Weird," I thought. Maybe I could be neurotic enough to cause myself enough stress to bring on a breast infection, but my nursing baby was unlikely to be fretting over a piece of second-hand cake. But still...could dairy really be the culprit?

I went back to my dairy-free, infection-free life. But part of me just had to know if the cake incident was a fluke. I decided to do a little experiment and again eat something with a bit of dairy. The result was the same as the first time. Then there was a third (accidental) slip-up with the exact same result, and I was convinced. That was the day I decided to be vegan. And I've never looked back.

Chola Tikki / veganmofo 2009

cookeasyvegan@gmail.com (Andrea) — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 12:46:00 +0000

© 2009 Andrea's easy vegan cooking

Have you been to Manjula's Kitchen? I love it there. Manjula cooks up mouth-watering Indian dishes, like Chola Tikki, a crispy chickpea and potato cutlet. All of her dishes are vegetarian, though not all are vegan, but I can find just about any Indian dish I want, there. In addition to providing recipes, Manjula offers some videos of her cooking, which is where I watched her make Chola Tikki. I made chola tikki to go with the soup we were having for supper, and it made a great accompaniment.

© 2009 Andrea's easy vegan cooking

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I'd been wanting to visit Alki Beach in West Seattle because it's supposed to be so beautiful. When I saw a notice for a vegetarian, vegan and raw food festival (above), I thought it would be a great opportunity to learn more about raw foods, take in some performances, learn something new and see the beach at the same time. When we arrived there were two tables set up, one piled with copies of the Bhagavad Gita, and another at which plates, heaped with an assortment of food, were being handed out. My husband and I accepted a plate of food which we decided to share. Most of the food was Indian, but there was also a pile of tabouli and a green salad.

© 2009 Andrea's easy vegan cooking

The food was simply handed out - no demos, no discussion. There were no exhibits and no music while we were there. So, we got our plate of food to share, and set about looking for someplace to eat it. We were kind of freezing - the wind was extreme - but we really wanted to eat at the beach near the water. We'd only taken a few steps away from the table when the chapatti blew right off the plate! We got another, and wandered towards the water to sit on a low wall. As I snapped the photo of our plate, my husband had to hold onto our replacement chapatti so it wouldn't blow away; you can see his thumb in the picture! The food was incredibly delicious - maybe the best Indian food I've ever had.

© 2009 Andrea's easy vegan cooking

This was our view of the Sound while we shivered and ate. You can see how choppy the water was. We didn't hang around long but now I'm sorry I didn't try to find out more about the food and who had prepared it.

© 2009 Andrea's easy vegan cooking