Squirrel's Vegan Kitchen

Check it!

2007-03-15T11:45:00.000-07:00

Introducing the new Squirrel's Vegan Kitchen! Let me know what you think, there are going to be lots of changes and it will be growing by leaps and bounds in the next few weeks. This site will soon be directly redirecting to the new one.

Woo-hoo!

Loads of news (and some food, too)

2007-03-04T20:09:00.000-08:00

I feel bad that I haven't been posting, but I feel like a complete jerk because I haven't been commenting on everyone else's yummy creations! I'm so sorry, but things will be straightening out soon and I look forward to being less of a lurker and seeing what you all have been up to.

I haven't been around much lately because the final bits and pieces of my cookbook, The Damn Tasty Vegan Baking Guide, are coming together! It's very, very exciting but it's also very busy and stressful. We're dealing with the layout and some design issues right now, but it's going to be going to press next month and will done by the end of April or the very beginning of May! I am lucky enough to be working with some amazing friends and family that are pitching in to pull this all together, between editing, designing, layout, etc, I have so much support right now that it's very humbling and I am incredibly grateful.

With all the new stuff coming up, this blog will be getting a beautiful face-lift, which will hopefully be debuting this week, so keep a look out. I'm excited to see what you think.

Okay, so now onto the food-related news! Remember several months ago, me talking about the slow death of our fridge and oven? Well, we held out as long as we could, but we had to finally break down and buy some new appliances. Wow, did we ever feel like grown-ups, it was surreal!

Our shiny new fridge! So big! I have a considerable amount of freezer space now. And it's an energy saver!

And our oven. I pouted a little about oven buying, because we have electric and I really prefer cooking with gas, so I was able to cheer myself up a bit by getting an oven with a warming drawer. It's really nifty! And the price was good. Viva vegan appliances!

Pea soup last week, with some EB smothered wheat rolls. I was able to whip it up, from dried peas to completely-obliterated-peas in 12 minutes with the pressure cooker.

A simple spaghetti with Nate's meatballs and brown rice noodles.

Yummy veggie wraps (well, veggie tacos, really, since we couldn't wrap them). Lettuce and spinach, tomatoes, pickles, avocados and dressing.

Brunch this morning- Cinnamon raisin French ("Fronch") toast with tempeh and white bean patties from VwaV and Kate's yummy hash browns (that she actually got to brown, unlike the sad potato piles I usually make). Jim and I agreed that maple syrup wouldn't be considered sugar if it is used in moderation and if he dips, rather than pours.

And on the side, some fruit salad, made up of apples, kiwi, pineapple, bananas, and a hint of lime juice. Served with the Macadamia Cream Sauce (which has a minor amount of sugar in it, but I figured that in having a tablespoon of the whole batch, it was excusable).

This really cool pilaf that I picked up at (where else?) Trader Joe's. It has little pasta balls, red quinoa, red lentils, multiple orzo pastas and baby garbanzo beans in it. Cooked up with just water and nothing else, it is delicious. Yum!

A simple potato, sweet potato, garbanzo, carrot, kale stew served over quinoa. I made a huge batch that made lunches for us for several days.

And for our other news...

Hazel! We adopted a hamster last weekend from this great rescue that is run by the nicest husband and wife. They rescue the "cheap" animals that most people overlook the fates of, like hamsters and beta fish. They recently took on two huge groups of hamsters, Syrian and Dwarf, and Jim and I came across them and decided we wanted to step in and help another hamster in need. Little Hazel is only 4 months old and she's full of spunk. On the first day she came to live with us, she crawled in Jim's sleeve and explored the inside of his shirt. The look of panic on his face while he sat there really still was priceless. She's very sweet and likes to be touched and interacted with, so we're having a fun time getting to know each other. I'm so grateful to that shelter for the work they are doing, helping out the little guys who are so easily overlooked.

That's it for now! The no-sugar campaign is going strong, with the minor amount we had in macadamia cream we had today. I'm not even really missing it, although I can't WAIT to bake in my new oven! But good things come to those who wait, right?

Giant post from a scattered brain

2007-02-18T20:58:00.000-08:00

Oh boy, have I been a bad blogger/bloggee! I'm so sorry I haven't been around much lately. Things have been kind of nuts around here and I've been swamped, but things will be settling down in the next few weeks and I'll get back into a better blogging routine again. It seems like I have had a hard time getting back in the swing of things post-holidays, but at least I'm not the only one.

But, even thought I haven't been posting, I have been cooking and taking pictures, so here I go!

Chicken fried tempeh with mashed potatoes and mustard greens. This recipe is the one that Jess posted about a few weeks ago from Vegcooking.com. It was SO good. I would halve the recipe if you're using a regular sized brick of tempeh, because I had a lot of leftover batter.

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Valentine's Day breakfast. I got up early to make Jim his breakfast, which I don't normally do during the work week. A few weeks early we were at a kitchen gadget store and Jim spotted a cookbook called Peanut Butter Planet, by Robin Robertson. Jim could live on peanut butter alone, and I was so happy to see in actually interested in a cookbook, and actually cooking, so I made a mental note of the title and I got it for him for V-Day. At the store, he showed me a recipe for apple peanut butter pancakes that he was drooling over, so I made those along with tempeh white bean patties and some fresh kiwi. He was delighted to have pancakes AND peanut butter and I was delighted that he eagerly accepted a cookbook as a gift. I'll let you know when he finally makes something from it.

Random dinner last week when I really needed to go to the grocery store. Black bean and carrot stew, millet and mustard greens. It was "eh". But I got rid of stuff in the fridge.

A local restaurant here that normally only serves breakfast and brunch has started a series of 4 course vegan dinners that happen one Friday a month. They have become so popular they are booked well in advance, so you have to reserve your spot ahead of time. Jim and I went early this month and it was incredible. It costs a flat $15 a person and it's served family style, so you can go back for seconds if there are still some at your table. The Friday we went we were treated to roasted garlic and potato soup, fennel and beet salad, mushroom risotto stuffed chard with butternut squash sauce, sprouted wheat pasta with roasted veggies and chocolate and dried cherry cupcakes with chocolate mousse. OMG.

Our favorite item was the mushroom risotto stuffed chard, so I decided to try my hand at it this week. I made some mushroom risotto in the pressure cooker, roasted the squash and pureed it, blanched the chard leaves, then filled the leaves with risotto, rolled them up and covered them with the sauce. It was good, but not as magical as the ones we had that night. I know that March is all booked up, but if you're local, I highly recommend contacted them ASAP to try and get a slot for April.

Simple apple crisp with some vanilla Soy Dream. Soy Dream is my new friend, it kicks Soy Delicious' butt.

And our new fun treat! I've heard about people making frozen banana soft serve in the Champion juicer for some time now, but just recently decided to pull out our sadly underused juicer and give it a whirl. Oh boy, is it ever amazing! I expected it to be like banana smoothie texture, but it comes out as soft and creamy as soft serve. We've been alternating chunks of bananas with peanut butter for an amazing treat with no added sugar. I LOVE IT! I've gone bananas buying up ripe bananas and freezing them.

A close up of the nana goodness.

We had a lovely dinner party last night with a handful of friends and I made tempeh fajitas! Naturally, I forgot to take a picture, but this is part of the leftovers, sans salsa. Marinated tempeh with red and yellow bells peppers and onions, tofutti sour cream and guac. Chris and Kate made two yummy salsas, one with roasted tomatoes and olives and another with bananas(! it was really good!) and Sandy and Joe brought homemade sangria. Delicious.

And what else goes better with a Mexican-inspire feast than Isa cupcakes? Especially Isa cupcakes displayed in my new cupcake tree?

Margarita cupcakes. MAKE THESE! The lime and tequila mixture was so freaking good, with the slight crunch of the rim sugar and the creamy frosting with an occasional bit of course salt. The frosting recipes make much more than needed so Jim and I were enjoying it on it's own and man, it is incredible.

Mexican hot chocolate cupcakes, sprinkled with powdered sugar, cocoa powder and cinnamon. These have a combination of flours, all-purpose, corn flour and ground almond meal, for a really soft and delicate crumb, that was a nice compliment to the margarita ones. We love you, Isa!

And now, for our latest challenge. Maybe it was the cupcakes talking, but last night after our guests left Jim and I started talking about Lent. We're not religious and neither one of us has ever given up anything for Lent before, but our raging sweet teeth have gotten out of control. Jim is at the point where if there is nothing for dessert he will put chunks of baking chocolate in his mouth, wait for them to melt and then stuff in a teaspoon of peanut butter! So we decided, as of this Wednesday, we are giving up sugar for 40 days. Not fruit, because that's natural, but no sweets, no baking, no sugar added cereal, no maple syrup, nothing. It's going to be hard, but it will be well worth it to see how we feel 40 days from now. I'm really excited to have a goal and to have Jim in on the deal. The first thing is that in the next few days we need to clear everything out of the house that has sugar in it, which isn't much, but I have a handful of things that I need to have far, far away from reach. The Champion will be getting lots of use, so I'll have to go stock up on bananas!

To those who think vegans are deprived...

2007-02-06T08:46:00.000-08:00

Giant food post coming at ya, so I'm just going to plunge in!

Last weekend Jim and I went with Chris and Kate to the lovely city of Eugene, about 2 hours south of Portland, for a day of exploration and, in reality, excessive food consumption.

Besides being home to Soy Delicious and a vegan chocolatier, Eugene is a very vegan friendly place to eat. They not only have options, they have options that make Eugene a very desirable place to visit and heck, maybe retire one day!

Our first stop was Sweet Life Patissarie. Between the 4 of us, the table was quickly covered with 5 pieces of cake/pie and 3 pizzettas. Being a grown-up is great if for nothing else than the fact that you can eat dessert for lunch if you want to.

Raspberry Cheesecake. Heavenly. My personal favorite. Light and tofu based, but the best one I've ever had. Not bean-y tasting at all. Each couple indulged in a piece of this beauty.

A rich chocolate silk cake with a chocolate cookie crust and a whipped strawberry topping. This one was also incredible, the silk was rich and deeply cocoa-flavored and the strawberry whip was light and fruity.

Majorly rich chocolate cake, with a chocolate cream center. It was very good, but may have just been bit much chocolate (can you believe I said anything is a bit much chocolate?!)

Coconut Cream Pie. Very creamy and delicious without being too rich. I wonder if the whipped cream is that Rich's whip that Crystal blogged about recently.

Mushroom and pesto pizzettas. Last time Jim and I were there we had roasted pepper and hummus ones that were better, but it was good to get a little something substantial in our tummies.

Sweet Life really knows how to bake, nothing is overly sweet or sugary, they are truly baking artists.

After spending the afternoon walking off our sugar-induced comas, we went to the famed Pizza Research Institute. It's not really a research institute, but they are known for creative and sometimes questionable pizza combinations.

The 4 of us split 3 small pizzas so we could try more options. Here were our rankings (me and Jim, although I'm pretty sure Chris and Kate would agree).

Delicious, but just not quite able to compete with its friends, this pizza had red sauce, spinach, roasted garlic, red onion, tofu ricotta and asparagus on it.

This one was the chef's special. It was loaded with goodies and one of those questionable toppings they are known for: red sauce, spinach, tofu ricotta, snow peas, green beans, green bell pepper, broccoli, tomatoes, olives, eggplant and, the kicker, nectarines. It was very, very good and the nectarines added a subtle touch of sweetness.

The winner, oddly enough, was the one I had the most doubts about. Red sauce, spinach and tofu ricotta for the base again, but dressed up with a delightfully chunky walnut pesto, potatoes and poached pears. Pears! Most unlikely thing ever on pizza, at least for me in my little pizza bubble. Anyway, it was incredible, more perfumed and fragrant than sweet and the mixture with the crisp crust and chunky pesto, I could have eaten a whole pie myself! Now it has my mind churning with new pizza ideas...

We also had chocolate mousse with shredded coconut on top, but my pics didn't turn out. It was good, not great, but a nice creamy way to cap off an otherwise incredible dinner. The PRI isn't just vegan friendly, it's a vegan must if you're ever near Eugene. They do keep funky hours, though, so be sure to check if you're passing through.

Dinner last night was paella, inspired by Susan. I've been wanting to try this for awhile now and her recent post gave me a boost to finally do it. I really enjoyed it, although I think I used a bit much garlic (dragon breath!) but it's very good and I'm looking forward to leftovers.

I will respond to previous comments in the next day or two, so please hang in there and be patient with me! Thanks for reading!

Sniffles Suck and an Easy-Bake Disaster

2007-01-29T20:46:00.000-08:00

Sorry for the lapse in posting last week. Jim passed on his germs and I spent the week congested, sniffling and otherwise feeling sorry for myself. We ate less-than-exciting fare, at least to look at.

What's more fun when you're sick than ice cream? Not much, I'd say. This was a slap-together sundae I made when my throat was sore and it hit the spot. Vanilla soy ice cream with mango sorbet, half a banana, a sprinkling of hemp seeds, walnuts, warm up frozen raspberries and, of course, warm chocolate sauce! Yum. I could go for another right now... if I hadn't eaten all the ice cream already.

Not 2 minutes after I mentioned to Jim that I wanted to make something for dinner involving pasta, spinach and mushrooms I happened upon Ken's recently resurrected blog. His dish du jour on Friday was a lasagna recipe from Susan's blog. Perfect! I tried out brown rice lasagna noodles for this dish. They were good and tasted like regular old lasagna noodles. We enjoyed it with whole wheat bread. I love lasagna because of the leftovers. A whole dish of lasagna can last 2 people quite awhile!

Tonight I wanted to play with a new food item I recently got: black lentils. They are also called beluga lentils because they apparently look like caviar when they are cooked. Having never seen caviar, I'll have to assume that this is true. I had a hard time finding anything about them online and very few recipes, certainly nothing that jumped out at me. So I decided to make a risotto with lentils on top. But then I thought that rather than using pretty nutritionally empty arborio rice, why not use quinoa? I'm always trying to figure out good ways to get quinoa into Jim, so this seemed as good as any.

I also had a delicata squash laying around, so I used it to add a layer of flavor, provide some color and give me the creaminess needed for real risotto. With the squash roasting in the oven, I cooked the black lentils in one pot, 1 cups worth and in another large pot I sauteed a diced onion with a little olive oil. I added 3 cloves of minced garlic and toasted the rinsed quinoa (1 1/2 cups) until lightly toasted, then added 3 cups of water and a bay leaf. While the quinoa and lentils cooked, I removed the skin from the roasted delicatta and mashed it up. Then it got processed it in the food processor with a little water, to make it creamier.

Once the quinoa was done, I removed the bayleaf and added 3 tablespoons of EB to it along with the pureed squash. Adding the sqaush right at the end preserved the savory flavor of the risotto while adding a sweet layer, complimented by the earthiness of the lentils. It was really fun to make, being a new dinner idea and some new ingredients to me, and it was quite tasty. We had it with a salad and some bread.

Now, I'm just a little kid a heart. I love making crafts, playing games and collecting toys as much as the next 7-year-old. So much that when baking nostalgia kicked in, I decided to buy an Easy-Bake Oven.

The EB Oven was one of my favorite toys as a kid, especially because I didn't grow up with a mom who cooked or baked. My mom heated things up and got drive-thru. So this little oven was not only a favorite toy for me, it was a mother stand-in as well. ;)

Veganizing recipes for it was a cinch. The problem, however, was that they are manufactured so poorly that they cannot be serviced because they want you to get a new one instead. So, one small cake in, I have a brownie batter overflow. Thinking we can take it apart and fix it, Jim (a.k.a. "The Man Who Can Fix Anything") busts out his tools. Jim has worked on American, Japanese and European cars and has more tools than the average Joe. But the Easy-Bake Oven isn't meant to be taken apart and has special proprietary screws and parts, so that even my own personal handy man was stumped. We tried to clean it the best we could, but the next night, halfway through a double layer "little cake", as Jim is calling them, it died. 2 days old, a little dried brownie batter and the damn thing died!

But there is always a silver living and in this case there was a great solution: the toaster oven. We discovered that in 6 minutes we can make a double layer little cake using the little pans. This is becoming quite popular with us because the clean up is a breeze, it's fast and it makes just enough, with no tempting leftovers to pick at. Now Jim keeps going on and on about little cakes, so I guess I'll just have to keep making them. :)

Vanilla double layer little cake (they measured about 3 inches across) with a strawberry jam filling and a chocolate ganache icing.

Chocolate double layer little cake with a warm chocolate ganache filling and a drizzled glaze topping. Jim, who is not a chocolate hound like I am, gobbled this up and asked for 4 of them for his birthday. Maybe I'll try making a grown-up sized one instead.

Can I tell you how fun it is to be this big giant playing with little pans? I'm so making Bindhi a birthday cake this summer... they're cat-sized!

Snow Daze!

2007-01-20T13:28:00.000-08:00

Thanks to everyone for your thoughts in my last post. It's hard, as the human, when things don't work out because you feel a level of blame. I'm happy to say, though, that Maddie was adopted yesterday. All's well that ends well, I suppose.

We had a full-on Portland snow storm this week! Being from Minnesota, it was laughable at about 3 inches, but because it's so rare this city is not prepared for weather like this. It's so funny to me to see these people rushing around for chains for their tires. It's 3 inches of snow! All the same, people can't drive under normal circumstances here, I was not about to risk my life out there, so I stayed home. The day after the snow was probably worse, as it had time to warm up and then freeze. Eek! Jim was sick, so he was able to spend a day with me, which was nice, even if he was germ-infested. :)

Sick/snow day dinner. Aloo matar gobi, curried potatoes, peas and cauliflower. Yum! Served with brown jasmine rice and in place of naan I took a sheet of lavosh and heated it in the oven with some melted EB and crushed garlic brushed on top.

One of my favorite treats that we haven't had in a long time. I basically melt down some chocolate and then stir in enough nuts and dried fruit so that everything is nicely coated, then I plop spoonfuls down on waxed paper to set in the fridge. The fruit makes them nice and chewy. This batch was cranberry/sour cherry/pecan.

Dinner from a night last week. Baked tofu with a wild rice pilaf and some delicata squash. Oh, I'm loving the ease of delicata right now! So tasty. They were tossed with mixture of melted EB and lime juice.

I don't know how much longer I can bore you all with pizza or pancake photos, but here's another one! Pizza 2 nights ago, herbed crust with red sauce, VwaV sausage crumbles, baby bella mushrooms, kalamata olives and artichokes. I love pizza so much! It's a million times better as a vegan because you can actually TASTE it!

And while he's not happy with this pic, my sick hubster on the couch. :( At least he had plenty of company. Ravi and Linus kept him warm and, believe it or not, Bindhi is between his legs, under the afghan. This was, to date, the first time all 3 cats were on the couch at the same time. Every time Jim gets sick they flock to him, such good little kitties.

Sad news

2007-01-17T14:07:00.000-08:00

It is with a broken heart that I have to tell you all that we had to take Maddie back to the Humane Society. We had some hair-raising and frightening experiences with the cats and realized that while she is an absolutely incredible and wonderful dog for people, she is not suitable for a home with cats.

I'm sure those of you who have had experience with mixed species homes know, there is a difference between dogs who are unsure of cats and dogs who don't like cats. Sadly, Jim and I had to do what is best for the cats and take her back before there was too much of an attachment so she can find her forever home. She is a great dog and the Humane Society here does amazing work in placing dogs, so hopefully it will be a short wait.

I think the hardest part of being the person who has to make the decision is that no decision feels right, but one has to be made anyway. Jim and I really torn up about this and this is really hard to type, but thanks for listening.

Some quick food

2007-01-12T08:35:00.000-08:00

Just a quick little thing here.

I made the cauliflower sauce mentioned in Susan's recent post for some fetticcine. I didn't have any mushrooms, so we had broccoli and carrots. Jim HATES cauliflower, but wants to start incorporating more vegetables into this diet, so he was all for trying it this way.

The only chage I made was that I used a total of 1/4 cup of nutritional yeast, which was the max I thought Jim could tolerate, but it could have used some more. It was very yummy and I was happy that my blender was able to puree it, as I still haven't gone out and replaced my food processor yet.

For dessert, for me (another thing Jim doesn't like), some rice pudding.

I pressure cooked a cup of arborio rice in my pressure cooker with one cup of water and then tossed it in a pot with 2 cups of soy milk, a 1/4 cup o sugar, 1 tsp. cinnamon and some rum-soaked raisins. Yum! I love rice pudding, it's something I just don't make often enough.

Yesterday I woke up to a (temporary) winter wonderland.

This was the view from our bedroom window! I was so excited, but by 1pm it was all melted and now we are back to being just plain old cold, but now with patches of ice :P It was nice while it lasted. Bindhi was trying to stalk the falling clumps of snow from the trees. Silly cat! This was her first experience with snow. The boys are from MinneSNOWta, so it's old hat to them.

Faux no!

2007-01-09T11:12:00.000-08:00

Where has all the faux meat in my kitchen come from?! When we moved to Portland we overindulged in all the new faux wonders here, But then I worked to get them out of our kitchen. Our latest stint with veggie burgers and the nuggets from Food Fight seem to show you otherwise, though!

I know that some of you have strong feelings about faux meats. And I know that some omnivores like to view it as a sign of weakness. And they can just reinforce bad pre-veg eating habits and keep people from exploring food-world and leave them wondering what they can eat. Personally, I'm not big on them because of the whole processed-food reasoning. But, sometimes I do use veggie burgers out of convenience and with the nuggets, well, I'm passing the buck to Jim on that one! He bought 'em! :)

Leslie's Sloppy Lentils with a romaine, spinach, roma tomato salad, with Green Goddess dressing and shredded nuggets on top. The lentil look huge, but were really just a coffemug full. Delicious, if you haven't made them, give them a go. I was able to whip them up super fast and they are so flavorful. Mmm...

For a baked treat, last night I made Isa'a Fig Not-ins from VwaV. I already knew I loved these guys, but I decided to try something different. I made them lower fat and lower sugar, decreasing the dough sugar to 1/4 a cup (you can't tell!) and by using the 1/4 cup shortening, but omitting the 1/4 cup margarine and using applesauce. I also added 1/2 cup of raspberry jam to the fig filling for raspberry not-ins.

Now here's the technique I figured out for making these guys... she says to divide the dough into 2 balls and divide each rolled out ball into 3 strips. You put the filling on 3 of the strips and use the other 3 to top them with. But I found it hard to get the width and length right on the strips, so instead I divide the dough into 3 balls and roll out eachjavascript:void(0) ball, then fill one side of it and pull over the unfilled side and seal. Much easier, makes the same amount and they look nicer than my previous attempts. I made big bars this time... I love Isa.

Beige is the new yum.

2007-01-07T11:12:00.000-08:00

Well, not really and I've been eating really well lately, but all my pictures have a level of beigeness to them, partly the food itself and partly the lighting. But I do love beige things. Beige = starch = potatoes or bread or other baked goods. Drool.

Pasta we had last week. Organic brown rice penne from Trader Joe's (although, they aren't really penne, they are just long tubes, almost like giant elbow macaroni). Roasted garlic tomato sauce, red kale, artichokes, cremini mushrooms and a nice sprinkling of chopped kalamata olives on top. I'm becoming an olive junky, especially for kalamata ones. We resisted the temptation to have bread on the side and we really didn't need it. It's just so good...

Breakfast for dinner the other night. I made Isa's basic pancake recipe, but instead subbed the water for orange juice and added a teaspoon of zest and a splash of vanilla. The vanilla makes the orange less intense and makes it taste like an orange creamsicle. With chocolate chips, of course! I also made a 1/2 batch of the orange pudding (which I'm clearly addicted to!) from Vegan Cupcakes to have on top. I made it with rice milk, which I wasn't crazy about. We're trying to use different milks in things than just almond and soy all the time, but rice leaves too much of an aftertaste and the fat content just isn't there for certain things. We used hazelnut milk last week and it was good, but tasted distinctly nutty. Anyone have any experience with oat milk?

This bad boy is the latest treat we've been making. We have frozen, small sqaures of puff pastry and I just thaw them, roll them out a little and fill with 2-3 squares chopped chocolate, half of a banana chopped up and a spoonful of peanut butter. We bake them until golden and puffy and brush on some Earth Balance before cooling. YUM! I made one the other night where I omitted the peanut butter and added a sprinkling of walnuts instead. It's so simple and easy to throw together and is great because it makes just the right amount and there are no leftovers lying around (like brownies!) to graze on. This one was Jim's, I cut out a heart for it to vent from. Aw, aren't we cheezy?

After a brief flirtation with warmer days and sun, we're back to cold weather, but I can't say I don't enjoy it. I love curling up with a warm drink and a book, lighting a fire, snuggling under a blanket to watch a movie and most of all wearing sweaters/hoodies! I do miss sandals, though, as I'm one of those people who hates wearing shoes and socks. But knowing how incredible and perfect the summers are here, I'm in no rush. Good things come to those who wait.

Hope you all are having great weekends!

Holy Food Post, Batman!

2007-01-01T19:51:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year, folks! I'm ready for some serious blogging! I have a backlog of pictures, I'm listening to Sam Cooke (what better music to blog to!) and I'm just going to jump right in!

Some raspberry muffins:

These were a part of a holiday gift basket I made. I used whole wheat pastry flour to keep them light, but not as unhealthy as all-purp.

Last night we rung in the new year with Chris and Kate. We watched "The Big Lebowski". Jim and I have been living a life of shame, having not seen it, when everyone we know has. We made pizza, one with an herbed pizza dough and another with the Oatmeal Pizza Dough recipe from Diann's blog.

They were topped with red sauce, pesto, VwaV tempeh crumbles, eggplant, mushrooms, olives and artichokes. YUM!

New Year's Eve dessert:

I know I have Leslie's approval on this one: banana splits! Bananas, strawberries, chocolate and vanilla soy ice cream, chocolate sauce, Dreena's caramel sauce, almond slivers, sprinkles and Soyatoo whip. OMG, I fell in love with banana splits again. This could be dangerous.

Dinner tonight: We used up some leftovers and had soup and a sandwich .

Tomato soup that I whipped up using pantry staples. A large 28 oz can of diced tomatoes was pureed in tiny batches in my handy chop, because in continuing the demise of my appliances, my food processor died last week. This was added to one medium sauteed onion and 2 cloves of garlic. I then added 1 1/2 cups water, a healthy shake of dried oregano and basil and half of a pureed avocado. Creamy and delicious. The sandwiches were my take on a sandwich we had at Chaco Canyon Cafe in Seattle. They had a layer of avocado, some leftover pesto from the pizza and a slice of Tofutti cheese, toasted. They were great dipping sandwiches and the pesto and soup naturally complimented eachother. And I was able to use up some random odds and ends from the fridge.

Earlier this week, burgers, sweet potato fries and steamed veggies.

Dave's Killer Bread with a quick veggie patty and all the fixin's. Jim's actually on a nutrition kick and is forcing down veggies, albeit drenched in Veg-It. He wants me to buy some Spike, but I refuse to lose my husband to Spike, like so many of you have! What is it with them!?

Pumpkin Pecan Bread loaves from Susan's blog.

Two of these were in a gift basket with the raspberry muffins, also made with whole wheat pastry flour. I love these little paper loaf pans, they are cheap, very pretty and make gift-giving loaves decorative and easy.

Some "cheezy" veggie soup I made last week, with some tahini, chickpea miso, and nutritional yeast.

It was based off of a soup I used to love eating in school years ago called "California Medley". It's funny to me how anything that has veggies, avocados, sundried tomatoes or is just sans-meat is labeled "Californian" on menus. Anyhow, this was to help out Jim's lunches while he's into eating his veggies. I pureed some white beans to make this creamy and more nutritionally balanced.

Burrito bowl! Or at least, that's what we call it.

Black beans dressed up with some cumin and garlic, some salsa, Tofutti sour cream, and quick guac (mashed avocado with some sea salt and a splash of lime juice). I like this dinner because it's super satisfying and can be whipped up in 10 minutes tops.

Last Friday, breakfast for dinner.

We featured Leslie's Blueberry Grunt as a breakfast food instead of pancakes drenched in maple syrup. It was so fast and easy, Jim could have made it! We used WWPF and they were so moist and delicious. We ate them with the tempeh white bean sausage patties from VwaV. OMG. If you like the tempeh sausage crumbles, MAKE THESE! They will rock your socks. I made the grunt again the next day with raspberries. It was good, but the flavor was a little overpowering, so I think blueberries are optimal, or maybe a fruit blend.

What a long, blabbering post without a cute kitty picture? Linus was hanging out on Jim's lap during breakfast yesterday and was such a little chubber I had to take a picture!

He was sinking into Jim's legs and was happily purring his butt off while kneading the air. Linus is definitely a lover, not a fighter!

Christmas with a Vengeance

2006-12-26T17:10:00.000-08:00

Hello everyone! Regardless to what you all did last weekend, I hope you enjoyed the long weekend and ate lots of goodies! Now that things are going to be slowing down a bit, I'll be back to blogging more regularly.

I haven't been cooking or baking much lately due to being low on time and the homeowner's curse- my oven is dying! I doubt it ever had quite the workout it's had since it started living with me, but it's getting progressively worse, so we're going to have to face the inevitable and look into getting a new one soon. While we're at it, we're going to get a new fridge because our current one is on the fritz as well. It's a domino effect, I tell you! Our dishwasher hasn't worked worth anything, either, but that's not necessary so it's going to wait. We haven't had a decent dishwasher in years, so I'm used to doing it by hand anyway. At least it functions as a huge drying rack! Anyway, while I'm not looking forward to the cost, the idea of having some shiny new appliances that are energy efficient and will be vegan from "birth" is exciting.

Christmas Eve breakfast, crepes with an apple and pear compote and an almond version of Dreena's Creamy Cashew Dip on top.

Very beige, but full of flavor!

We had a lovely Christmas Eve. In keeping with making our own traditions, we decided to do Christmas on Christmas Eve. Why not?! It was just us, but we've been so busy lately it was exactly what we needed. We hung out in our pj's and ate food and watched movies and just plain relaxed. While Santa was good to both of us (check out this cute shirt Jim got me!) I think Bindhi had the best day. Her Aunt Leslie made Bindhi and her brothers some organic catnip toys that she dug out of the bag while I was at work. They are all well-slobbered on and have dozens of teeth holes in them. And we got them a set of these cubes. We used to have a set, but gave them to my sister-in-law. The ones we got have a leopard print on them, very sassy! They are great because when you need to tidy up, they fold up like those wire sun visors you have in your car and they take up no space. Bindhi's favorite activity is to get in one and push against the sides until it rolls over. She just rolls them all over the place. It's so cute to watch. The boys just like to sleep in them.

For dinner on the Eve we went to a local vegetarian Vietnamese restaurant called Van Hanh. It was our first time there and I'm not sure if we'll be back. The great thing about the place is that it's volunteer run by Buddhist nuns and the proceeds benefit the local Buddhist temple. But the food was had was all rather... greasy. Jim and I both left feeling slightly ill.

But not too ill, apparently, because we decided to make peanut butter chocolate chip cookies later that night! We munched on them while watching one of my holiday favorites, Elf.

Christmas day we slept in and had a lazy breakfast of toast and fruit smoothies. Our big dinner got simplified making the Stewed Tofu and Potatoes from VwaV.

I'd somehow never noticed this recipe before, but someone mentioned it to me recently and when I looked at it, wow, I knew I had to make it and soon! Of course, like always, I added carrots and I made 1 1/2 times the gravy amount so there would be extra (can you ever have too much gravy?). The only other change was that I only used 1 cup wine total, because that's all I had, and subbed the rest with water and I only used one medium onion and the garlic, no shallots. Served with some organic ciabatta. It made hearty portions with plenty of leftovers. Yum!

Dessert was a parfait of puddings, the orange pudding from VCTOTW and the chocolate pudding from VWAV.

I layered the puddings while warm and put a layer of chocolate chips in the middle, which melted into a creamy filling. I also sprinkled a few on top along with some fresh orange segments. Creamy and filling, but not too sweet. A nice change of pace for dessert for 2 sugar addicts.

I hope you are all doing well and I look forward to blog hopping soon to see what everyone's been up to!

Quickie Post

2006-12-18T21:30:00.001-08:00

Sorry for the gap in posts, but I've been very busy, as I know many of you have been as well. I will be back to a more regular posting schedule after the holiday buzz dies down. We went to Seattle this last weekend to see my brother-in-law and his wife and we definitely did a little eating tour of Seattle, as well as a shopping tour! And, forgetful as I am, I forgot my camera up there! Max is sending it down and I will be doing a Seattle post. We ate at a handful of delicious restaurants and picked up some cool finds, including a stack of new vinyl. Right now I'm listing to "Star Wars and Other Galactic Funk", which is Star Wars music ala disco. So freaking cool.

And now, a quick post.

Brunch a few weekends ago, Susan's fat free quiche adapted with what we had on hand, some sundried tomatoes and zucchini.

On the side we had tempeh crumbles and a throw-together fruit salad with a can of pineapple, banana, vanilla soy yogurt and some ground flaxseed. Firstly, can you say "Soy, oh soy"? The quiche were good, but too good, really. They were so egg-like I made it through half of one and I couldn't eat any more. I imagine that if you were baking a brunch for omni's this would be a hit.

A Christmas surprise last week from a great customer of ours, Diane.

Vegan truffles! Wingnut Confections are vegan, made locally and delivered to their retail outlets by bike. It doesn't get any more Portland than that! They were heavenly, literally the best vegan truffles I've ever had. Hazelnut, marionberry, peppermint and Earl Grey. Yummmmm.

We went with Chris and Kate to go see Howard Hugues' flying boat, more widely known as the "Spruce Goose" a couple of weekends ago.

It was so enormous that we couldn't take a picture of the entire plane. The museum was built to fit it and all the other planes are sheltered by its massive presence. Wow. It was a very cool museum and the Goose was great. If you're ever near McMinnville and you have any appreciation for design, aviation or just general geekery, make the stop.

Okay, more soon. I hope you're all weathering winter and the holidays well!

Where's the time going?

2006-12-07T20:35:00.000-08:00

Wow, I am behind on everything. Firstly, I'm several posts behind on responding to your comments. For that, I apologize. I will catch up.

As I'm sure many of you are experiencing, it's that crazy, busy time of year. I'm in the middle of several holiday projects that are keeping me on my toes, and I'm up to my ears at Herbivore. It's actually rather fun, between holiday shopping and several new designs we have, I've been flooded with orders, but it's really fun packing them up, because I'm like Santa Claus. Except for the elves. And the sleigh. But I have a red hoodie and I'm pretty darn jolly this time of year!

My shortbread recipe is up on my recipes page. Enjoy! They are great for planning ahead, you can make the dough even several days ahead of time, refrigerate it and then you just have to slice and bake.

A few items from this week:

Banana Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Walnut cookies from an issue of Martha Stewart Living a few months ago. They were really tasty and were ridiculously easy to veganize, one of those recipes where you look at it and wonder why it wasn't vegan to begin with. It was like banana chocolate chip bread in cookie form. Yum.

These are the Peanuttiest Blondies that Crystal posted about, that she got from Vegan Diva. I made them with chunk peanut butter and didn't add the extra peanuts. Man, they were great. I sent the cookies and the bars to work with Jim, so the guys there got a (secretly) vegan treat and then I wouldn't be tempted to eat them all.

BTW, Jim isn't secretly a vegan at work, he just works primarily with pretty average guys and he just doesn't like to be singled out as the weird guy, because in his industry you don't really want to make yourself the center of attention for being "weird". If someone asks, though, he talks openly about it and has vegan-related bumper stickers on his car, etc.

This was my mini-bulk cooking this week, a throw-together Indian stew with some a saffron jasmine and quinoa blend. The stew was basically some sauteed onion, a large can of roasted tomatoes, some diced potatoes and carrots, lentils, water and garam masala. Very fragrant and hearty and a nice change up from eating so much soup!

The week in (food) pictures

2006-12-03T23:41:00.000-08:00

It's Sunday night. It's late. I'm tired. But there are so many food pics on my camera, I had to post! These are random, sequentially, but I suppose that doesn't matter to anyone except me.

A quick waldorf salad, using what we had around.

Some Jonagold apples, raisins, walnuts, cinnamon and vanilla soy yogurt. This was great for breakfast or with lunch. It's so easy to throw together, I'm not sure why I don't do it more often.

A lasagna I made the other night.

I used those no-cook style noodles and they worked really well. It was layered with Real Food Daily ricotta, zucchini, mushrooms and black olives. Served with a veggie roll from Wild Oats (only at the Fremont one, Portland folks).

I finally found a TJ's near us that carries their meatless meatballs.

I swear they aren't Nate's brand, they taste firmer and more flavorful. Jim felt like he was coming down with a cold today, so he got to make the call on dinner tonight, so we had meatball subs, baked beans drenched in barbeque sauce and a salad.

This morning was brunch day, so I made the raspberry lime variation on Isa's basic pancake recipe in VwaV. They were lovely. Inspired by Leslie's recent post, I ran some frozen mangos and mixed berries through the food processor.

The result was more of a chutney than a puree. It was delicious and Jim even ate some! He's strickly a maple syrup boy, where as I only use maple syrup if there is no fruit whatsoever in the house. I also made the Tempeh Sausage Crumbles from VWaV for the first time and wow! Have we been missing out! I like tempeh, but I've never liked the ways I've been able to make it at home, but this was fantastic.

The other night we had calzones.

Ready to bake pizza dough from the grocery store along with artichokes, mushrooms, black olives and some slices of Tofutti mozzerella that have been living in our fridge.

Dinner a few nights ago, inspired by Jess.

I had the new, super firm tofu they've been carrying at TJ's in the fridge and when she mentioned baking it in the Soy Vay marinade I knew I'd be making it soon. I used the Soy Vay teriyaki, along with a splash of toasted sesame seed oil. We had roasted veggies on the side: potatoes, carrots, onions and our new friend, parsnips. Who knew something with such an unfortunate appearance and name would be so good? Lesson learned.

Baked for the store this weekend: Cherry Almond Shortbread.

I usually make the shortbread and press a dried cherry and some almond slices into the top of each cookie, but I was too tired to do that, so I subbed out some of the flour for almond meal and finely chopped up the cherries and added them to the mix.

From midweek, Eggnog Muffins from La Dolce Vegan. I used the Hollynog which had been living in my fridge for about a week. It is no comparison to the Chocolate Peppermint soy milk that Vitasoy is making right now.

I haven't always had the best of luck baking from Sarah's book, but these muffins were great. I topped each one with a sprinkling of cinnamon sugar. Simple, very low sugar and festive.

Check it!

2006-12-01T13:27:00.000-08:00

I'm in comic form!

www.totallynotvegan.com

Monster post: Treats, Sweets and Some Real Food, Too.

2006-11-27T22:46:00.000-08:00

I hope you all had a lovely weekend. My brother-in-law and his wife headed back up to Seattle late Friday night because Max had a lot of stuff to get done for a work project that was due today. Sadly, they missed out on weekend brunch. Now, I know this is going to be, like, the third time in the past month I've posted pumpkin pancakes using the VwaV waffle recipe, but this time there's a twist:

A new, fantastic way to use up extra cranberry sauce! Katie's cranberry sauce was dee-lish and I had to figure out a way to eat some more, since Jim won't help in that department. It was very yummy, alongside our standard rosemary potatoes.

Jim and I got to go on a little road trip on Sunday to Eugene, about 2 1/2 hours south of Portland. We finally sold a car that we've been trying to sell for a few months and the buyer, who lives in southern Oregon, asked if we could meet halfway. The weather was looking ominous, so we didn't get to do much exploring, but we did make a stop at a bakery that I'd heard much about, Sweet Life Patisserie . It is a hopping little bakery that offers quite the spread of vegan treats.

This isn't the best photo ever, but it gives you an idea of the amazing and beautiful cakes that were all vegan. All of their cakes, vegan and otherwise, were really well priced, too, with whole cakes ranging from $15-30. Not too shabby.

This is a shot of some Mexican chocolate pots and chocolate dipped cookie sandwiches, both of which are vegan.

Some muffins and some incredible looking cinnamon rolls, schmeared with a thick vegan frosting. Wowzers! Jim and I were overloaded with options!

Jim really wanted something savory. Unlike me, he can't eat sweets on an empty tank. This was a Mediterranean pizzatta:

A soft, doughy roll smeared with hummus, spinach and roasted red peppers.

I'm a full believer in dessert first, so I got a pizzatta to go and indulged in a slice of possibly the best cheesecake I've ever had:

This was a tofu-based cheesecake. I didn't really think it was possible for a tofu cheesecake to taste good, let alone unbelievable! It was truly creamy, flavorful, sweet without being too sweet and just plain heavenly. The crust had the occasional little granule of salt, making it a fantastic taste experience. Sweet Life is clearly a hot spot in Eugene, at 4 on a Sunday the place was packed and we had to sit outside in the chilly weather to get a seat.

Last night, after getting home from our trip, we started decorating our tree! This is the first year in 2 years that we've had a regular tree setup because Linus is so crappy with it, but I really, really wanted a tree. So far, so good.

It's over half decorated, minus about a foot and a half of the bottom to minimize destruction via chewing.

I gave Bindhi the aerial tour of the tree. She liked sniffing all of the ornaments.

Today I did some bulk cooking. I had a few random ingredients that I wasn't sure what to do with, so I turned to my trusted friend, Martha Stewart.

Let me take a moment to talk about my serious love for Martha. Many people criticize her and dislike her, but I genuinely respect her from the bottom of my heart and this is why: She came from a generation of women who began to shun the domesticity usually associtated with women and then the tide began to change and people looked down their nose on domestic things like cooking and crafting. Martha stepped up and showed that you can be a successful business person and still enjoy making table centerpieces. I spent a large portion of my adolescence feeling ashamed that I liked to do things like decorate cookies and make handmade gifts because I felt this societal pressure that I was supposed to be "beyond" that. Thankfully, people have hung in there and now there is a whole crafty industry thriving from what I trace back to Martha's trailblazing. You can have your cake and eat it, too, so to speak. You can be an independent woman and a feminist and you don't have to reject things that are historically "girly" to do so. Because you have the choice of whether or not to do it in the first place. So that is why I love Martha Stewart, even if she eats meat and can be a bitch. You can't be perfect, I suppose, and at least her daughter is a vegetarian and got Martha to swear off fur. It's a start.

Anyway, I had some mushrooms I really needed to do something with because they were on their way out. A quick search her website came up with this recipe for Mushroom Barley Soup.

I altered the recipe by using 2 cups of sliced, chopped fresh cremini mushrooms instead of the dried ones and instead of using some sour cream, I just whisked the flour and 1 tablespoon of cornstarch into 1 cup of soy milk and added that to thicken it. I also pureed a couple of cups of the soup to really make it hardy and thick. I cooked up some wild rice to pack it up with for a very stick-to-your ribs meal that reminds me of Minnesota winters. I can never eat wild rice without thinking of Minnesota.

Then I wanted to try cooking with millet, which is new to my cooking and this recipe also used up a stray sweet potato that was lingering in my pantry as well.

These are millet Veggie Burgers. I didn't have any parsley or peas (how did I run out of peas?!), but otherwise I stuck to the recipe. This makes 8 really big patties, so next time I will halve the recipe. We really liked them a lot. The sesame seed oil along with the spices created a truly complex flavor. They are like other typical patties, a little delicate and I recommend refrigerating them for at least an hour. We just had them on a toasted Dave's Killer Bread baguette with baby romaine lettuce, tomato and the standard fixin's and some green beans, or as Jim decided to rename them tonight, green French fries. The boy is weird.

After dinner we had to have dessert! I couldn't leave Sweet Life having tried only one treat, so we got this chocolate raspberry cake to go.

It was just as heavenly as it looks, if a tad too rich, but it was good for sharing.

Breakfast muffins: I got to use up some more homemade marmalade with these Orange Marmalade muffins from May All Be Fed, the recipe portion of a John Robbins book.
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The recipes in this book are really well-rounded and this particular muffin recipe has no added sugar, it uses the marmalade and orange juice for sweetness. They are yummy, but next time I'm going to add some vanilla to make them taste like orange creamsicles. I plan on doing more cooking from this book soon, it's been getting neglected on my book shelf.

Okay, now I've been up far too late! I need to go to bed, so I'll respond to comments on my previous post tomorrow. Night!

It's NOT Turkey Day!

2006-11-24T09:13:00.000-08:00

Or, at least, it wasn't in our house!

My brother-in-law, this wife and our friends Chris and his wife spent Thanksgiving with us yesterday and we had a very fun afternoon/evening stuffing ourselves silly, chatting and playing games. My brother-in-law, Max and his wife Katie (yes, we had 2 Chris/Kris' and a Kate/Katie combo) are getting ready this morning, so I thought I would sneak in a food post!

Sweet potatoes with caramlized apple bits on top (they didn't really carmelize that well) from Martha Stewart (links to recipe).

Kate's amazing stuffing that I'm now worshipping her for. Stuffing, to me, is the essential element of Thanksgiving and this was some very exceptional stuffing.

A garbanzo/mushroom/walnut loaf wrapped in puff pastry. The recipe was from Michelle. It was a lovely loaf that was very impressive and so easy, I whipped together the filling the night before and just had to stuff and bake them the next day.

Focaccia bread, trying to keep warm in the bread basket.

Chickpea gravy and Katie's incredible cranberry sauce. In the distance you can see the top of the banana peanut butter cake. The gravy was great as always (thank you Isa!) and Katie's cranberry sauce was the perfect mixture of fragrant, tart, sweet and spiced.

A pan holding dozens and dozens of cooked pierogi. Yum! It's always nice to have the memory of my grandma around when I can, in action. Normally this would be a Christmas treat, but it was nice to shake things up a bit. Aren't I a loose cannon, this is how I live on the wild side, forgoing mashed potatoes for pierogi. Whoo-hoo!

I didn't get pictures of dessert! We had the banana peanut butter cake I've posted about before as well as a Sweet Pea Bakery pumpkin pie, with vanilla ice cream and some Soyatoo Whipped Cream on top.

I hope you all had a lovely holiday and ate lots of goodies! I look forward to blog hopping and seeing what you are up to this weekend. While I have issues with the foundation of Thanksgiving really just being a Hallmark attempt at glossing over decades of cultural genocide, I also like to just make it my own thing because it's not going to go away and if we can turn it into something significant and meaningful now, then that's a step. And I figure when we have kids, I'll set them straight anyhow. As for me, in my book, today marks the first day of the Christmas season and I'm ready to decorate and be joyful, darnit!

Quick Pre-Thanksgiving Post

2006-11-22T08:37:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, which was 2 days before Thanksgiving, I went to the grocery store after work and they were directing traffic! It was madness, but I was able to pick up my last few items and also pop by a new location of a local pizza chain that just opened up in the same strip.

Here are some Hot Lips vegan slices. Red sauce with red bell pepper, onion, kalmata olives, basil pineapple and possibly some other things I'm forgetting. The pineapple was removed prior to eating. Not on our pizza, thanks.

Prepping some food stuff for the big day, I made some garlic potato filled pierogi.

Here they are post boiling, prior to going into the freezer for a quick freeze. They'll be served fried up with onions and Earth Balance, yum! Normally pierogi would be a Christmas dinner thing for my family, but this year I decided to change things up a bit.

There will be a turkey in the middle of our table this year and her name is Oakly.

This is the 3rd year we've participated in Farm Sanctuary's Turkey Adoption Program. Oakly caught more than just our eye, because Leslie cooincidentally adopted her too!

Our menu:
garbanzo, walnut and mushroom loaf wrapped in a puff pastry
sundried tomato foccacia
pierogi
mashed yam recipe with carmalized apples on top from Martha Stewart Living
stuffing, courtesy of Kate
cranberry sauce, courtesy of my sister-in-law Katie
roasted mini squash
chickpea gravy

pumpkin pie from Sweet Pea Bakery
banana peanut butter chocolate cake

There will be many pictures to show, I'm sure! I hope you all have a lovely, cruelty-free holiday with lots of food! Give your omni family members the greatest gift you can- a guilt trip about their eating habits! ;)

Thank you, updates and food.

2006-11-20T21:14:00.000-08:00

Thanks to everyone for your condolences and support. While I knew we were attached to her, I didn't really realize how hard it truly was going to be. Moussa passed away while we were at work on Friday. We had known that this was going to happen for awhile now, but it was still a surprise, in a way. We felt happy that she was able to live with us in our home, so that we could bury her here. A few weeks ago, when she first started acting elderly, we went out and bought a little wooden box, figuring it was best to be prepared. Friday night Jim and I both wrote her a little note to tuck into the box and Jim took care of situating her in the box with some cotton fluff. It was dark and raining, so we left it in the cage. That night I woke up to see Linus staring into her cage, waiting for her to come out and play. It was utterly heart-breaking and I went and brought him into bed with us.

We weren't able to bury her until Sunday. It's amazing how once someone is a part of your life, it can be so hard to let go of old habits. I still keeping going up to the bedroom as soon as I come home to make sure the temperature is alright. I woke up last night because of the heat vent squeaking, thinking that it was her wheel and wondering if it needed to be adjusted. The spot where her cage was is not just a gaping hole on our dressers, but in our lives. I think what makes it so hard is that it's difficult to get closure from a relationship like that. We were infatuated with her and she was barely aware of us. There was no real way to say goodbye.

The passing is hard and then having to actually deal with it is its own thing. Jim, I know, is dealing with this much harder than he'd imagined. But he has had to actually deal with it, so that makes sense. He was the bearer of bad news to me, he took care of the coffin, he dug the grave, he cleaned the cage. I don't know what I would do without his strength because I'm a blubbering mess. So thank you all. Moussa really was a loved and special part of our lives and I'm glad that I was able to share her light with all of you.

Now, for all of our sake's, let's turn to less-serious matters: food.

Saturday was the Vegan Holiday Festival here in Portland. This was the first year of it and judging by the turn out and response, there will be many more to come. Jim came to help set up and ended up staying the whole day to check out the speakers who included Brendan Brazier, a vegan triathalon winner, and the famous Howard Lyman. Jim really liked Brendan's presentation and he adored Howard Lyman.

There was food, food and more food to be found! Samples out the wa-zoo, I tell you! I am curious to know what other attendees ate, though, because I got kind of sick that night and I heard a few other people did too. Jim and I ate most of the same things, though, and he was fine. It may have just been that I ate some junk, but I really didn't eat that much. Anyway, not to put a bad spin on it, because it was a really fun day.

I was super busy working at the Herbivore tables, so naturally I forgot to take pictures. Purely Decadent was there giving out 1/2 cup mini-pints of ice cream all day long. I thought for sure they would run out, but they didn't. I had a pecan praline one that was heavenly. Toby's was there with tofu pate samples, Tofurky was there, a hemp company called Living Harvest, giving out samples of their soon-to-be-released hemp milk! It was wonderful. There were tangible, non-digestible goods as well, but there was a lot of food. The only picture I did take was a festive cupcake from Sweetpea Bakery:

I didn't eat it, I just took the picture before it was consumed. All in all, it was a good and eventful day. Plus I met Jess and Erica which was very cool.

This isn't a terribly exciting picture, but it was a departure from my normal breakfast, so I found it photoworthy.

I usually eat oatmeal with fruit or fruit with soy yogurt, but last week, as I was about to thaw some frozen berries, I thought about making a smoothie. I hadn't even unpacked my blender from move up here, so finding it was a bit of a challenge, but I was able to dig it out and I made this smoothie with some frozen berries, some peaches, almond milk, pomegranate juice and some ground flaxseeds. It was a delicious and filling treat, along with a thawed orange poppyseed muffin that I baked the week before, with a little bit of Earth Balance melting inside.

Yesterday night, the night after the festival, I woke up feeling not-so-good, so I had to call in to work on Sunday, which I spent getting pampered on the couch by Jim. I spent most of the day eating bland food and drinking ginger tea, but later that evening I wanted something more substantial, so Jim made some brown rice and thawed out some chili that was living in our freezer.

Not a terribly eventful picture, but more interesting than a stockpot of soup, like I've been doing so much of lately! Topped with a spoonful of salsa and a dollop of Toffuti sour cream.

Tonight I made a veggie burger that I got at Trader Joe's. The brand is Dr. Praegger and they were California burgers.

They are truly veggie burgers, as was evidenced by the bright green block I pulled out of the box. The ingredients read like the contents of a vegetable crisper. I cooked it in a splash of canola oil and ate it bare-bones on part of a Dave's Killer Bread Peace Bomb, along with some chips and salsa. The burger was good, if a bit flavorless. At least it's full of good stuff!

For those of you who didn't know this, I recently found out about a policy that Trader Joe's has that will most likely be of interest to you. TJ's will not carry foods that contain GMO's. This is a relief as someone who normally avoids anything that contains soy or corn ingredients unless it's organic. While I still prefer organics over anything else, it's nice to know that if I want to get something there, I at least don't need to worry about Frankenfoods.

And, in case you've never seen this, this video is a must-see for all vegans and vegetarians alike and is sure to put a smile on your face:

Rest in peace, sweet Moussa. 11/17/06

2006-11-17T23:12:00.000-08:00

Newspaper article and the kitty parade!

2006-11-16T21:33:00.000-08:00

There was an article run in the Portland Tribune this week about the vegan community here, the resources available, and the migration of vegans from all over the country. Because we moved here for the community, the writer interviewed me a few weeks ago. 1 1/2 hours of conversation yielded a quote I never actually said, but whatever, it's still a good article. You can read it here.

Okay, I decided to do a little sampling of my kitty pictures and put them up here. There are just so many of them and they are so cute! 3 years ago we bought a digital camera to "start documenting our life together". At this point that amounts to approximately 5-6 pictures of us and over 3000 of the cats. I'm not kidding. They are just so cute!

Here's a lovely picture of my sweet little Ravi. We adopted Ravi from a coworker of mine on Thanksgiving weekend 2002. He's a totally mama's boy.

Here are Ravi and Bindhi, snuggling next to our fake fireplace at an apartment we lived at in Mesa. This was the winter after we found her, so she's only about 6 months old in this pic. It's hard to tell, but she's a lot smaller than Ravi in this picture. Bindhi was found on the side of the road in AZ, in July and she was only 4 weeks old. But man, she was one tough little cat! She put us through the ringer!

This is a classic Bindhi moment, when she was a little kid. She dug out this roll of t.p. on her own, but she was so cute, I just had to capture the moment and let her play with it.

A cute picture of Linus that Jim took during an extensive photo shoot while he was figuring out all of the setting on our camera. Linus loves the camera and if you have it out, you have to take a picture of him or he will make your life hell. Every night I take pictures of my food, he hears the camera, walks into the kitchen and starts yelling, so I have to take his picture as well. Linus was from a shelter in Minnesota.

Linus and Ravi when Ravi was a wee one. My baby boys!

We hardly ever have them all in one spot. This was also when we lived in Mesa. Linus likes Bindhi's company, but he's never been very big on Bindhi touching him, so this is a big moment for them. You can see Ravi's legs sprawled in the background.

A mini-rant, soups, muffins and cat.

2006-11-14T20:26:00.000-08:00

I just wanted to clarify, because there seems to be a bit of confusion, that the drawing for the goodies was random. I don't want you guys thinking I was judging it based on how "good" your memory was. I just wanted entering to be more interactive than just submitting your name and I thought that would be a fun activity.

On a different subject, I ran to the store today. In order for us to buy a house on our limited budget, Jim and I live in very east SE Portland. We live far enough out that Portland is our mailing address but when we tell people where we live their first response is always to laugh at us. But I don't care, we have a house that is ours and that's all that matters to me. Plus, Portland is so small compared to other cities I've lived in, everyone thinks everything is so far away, when in reality I can get to downtown in 20 minutes on the side streets, 10 on the highway. That's not far away. It is, however, inconvenient when I just need to get one or two things at the grocery store and I don't want to go on a field trip. Thankfully, there is a Fred Meyer just a few blocks from us. For those who don't have Fred Meyer, it's like a cross between a Wal-mart and Target. They are very big and you can buy your groceries and get name brand clothing and shoes. The quality isn't as cheap as Wal-mart, nor as nice as Target. But the workers are always nice from my experience, leading me to believe that they are paid better and taken better care of than other places. And they have a nice natural food section, with organic bulk selections (including vegan chocolate covered raisins!) AND I have been able to buy things there that were made in the US, which you can never find. I was able to find Jim American made underwear and undershirts and I just bought some new socks that were US made as well. And we've picked up and noticed lots of other things proudly saying they are made in the USA, so that makes me feel okay that we shop there from time to time.

Today, however, I was really just observing the other people there and the store itself. Usually, I just walk in and the natural foods section is right in the front, so I get to stay in my little bubble, go get my stuff and leave. But I needed to walk across the store today and I was really struck by the food. Obviously, we all know how other people eat and I always sneak a peek at other people's grocery carts, but man is it frightening. I mean, "food" consists of Hot Pockets and Kraft cheese and white bread with 100 additives. And our society is plagued with diseases of affluence, yet people wonder how we, as Vegans, can stay healthy. My mother is so disconnected from her food that she couldn't even understand why I would ever want to make bread when you can buy a loaf of store bought bread (that won't mold for weeks, yummy) for under a dollar. The natural foods section is a little pocket within the aisle upon aisle of pre-packaged, single-serving size mush that is marketed as food. Shouldn't people be questioning why the food they eat isn't considered natural? I hear so many people complain that it's too expensive to eat well. My favorite food related retort to that is from Bob's Red Mill, "It's health insurance you can eat". But in reality, it's not expensive to eat better, you just have to relearn some things and plan differently. Those premade pizzas and frozen White Castle burgers are expensive to both your pocket book and your health.

Anyway, enough deep thoughts for now. Let's look at the all natural food I made today! No doctored photos here, ladies and gentlemen! Just real bonafide food, made by hand, from real ingredients. They still make those things, you know.

Yesterday I made Leslie's Tofu Noodle Soup. It was delicious.

I baked my tofu in a marinade of water, soy sauce, toasted sesame seed oil and crushed garlic. Jim and I both very much enjoyed it and Jim said that it reminded him of being a kid. Awww. Maybe next time I'll get some ABC noodles for him.

Today I made a recipe from a friend of mine from elsewhere in internetland. It's called "Gypsy Soup". It was a great, savory way for me to use some sweet potatoes in a way Jim will eat and it used up a bunch of odds and ends I had laying around in my fridge.

I'm not going to put the recipe on my recipes page, because it's not mine, but here is my adaptation of it. It's really amazing, the spices really give it an intoxicating smell. Plus I got to use some of my green garbanzos again!

Gypsy Soup

2 tablespoons olive oil
1 large chopped onion
1/2 cup chopped celery
2 cloves garlic, crushed
2 cups diced peeled sweet potatoes
2 teaspoons paprika
1 teaspoon ground turmeric
1 teaspoon dried basil
1 teaspoon salt
1 pinch ground cinnamon
1 pinch cayenne pepper
1 bay leaf
4 cups veg stock or water
1 tablespoon tamari
1 cup chopped fresh tomato (I used a can of diced tomatoes)
1 1/2 cups cooked garbanzo beans
3/4 cup chopped green bell pepper

DIRECTIONS:
Heat olive oil in a stock pot over medium-high heat. Saute onion, garlic, celery and sweet potatoes for about 5 minutes, or until onion is soft.

Season with paprika, turmeric, basil, salt, cinnamon, cayenne, and bay leaf. Stir to blend, then stir in veg stock and tamari. Cover, and simmer over low heat for 15 minutes.

Add tomatoes, garbanzo beans and green pepper to the soup, and simmer for another 10 minutes, or until all of the vegetables are tender. Adjust salt and pepper to taste. Remove the bay leaf.

Makes 4 large servings.

I made some muffins that are currently living in our freezer:

Dreena's Orange Poppyseed and some banana peanut butter chocolate chips. Basically I made a normal banana muffin batter, reserved a cup of batter and filled the muffin tins 2/3. Then I blended 1/4 cup peanut butter into the reserved batter and added a handful of chocolate chips. Spooned into the tins and then swirled with a toothpick. Voila!

Tonight I tried the BBQ ribs that Jess made for a recent post. They were okay. I might make them again, because they were insanely easy, but the consistency was too breadish for me. They were almost like a really big, BBQ'd dumpling or something.

Served with Green Goddess potatoes (again), mushroom gravy and some green beans and carrots.

Ravi was being so cute this morning, watching squirrels outside the windows. This is what we call his "pole cat" stance, which is also another name for a ferret.

Ravi also gets called ferret. He wasn't very happy that I was taking his picture and he pouted a little bit after this. It's his fault for being so cute!

And the winner is...

2006-11-13T21:27:00.000-08:00

... but first, a story.

Crystal asked what my favorite holiday memory is, so I thought I'd share that to contribute to this activity.

To say that I have a fair relationship with my parents is a stretch. At best we are civil for short amounts of time. I truly have no baggage about this because my belief is that you can't change it, so you must go forward. This is a reason that I love the holidays so much now as an adult, because I can make my own traditions with my new family and they can be truly joyous experiences.

Luckily for me, I had grandparents in my life as a child and because I was a major "oops" and was the only kid in my generation in my family, I got to grow up with my great-grandmothers as well. I grew up when I was young in Pennsylvania (Erie) and Christmas was always a big shindig at my great-grandmother's house in Dubois. Family would come from all over the country and it was the only time of year that I ever got to see most of these people. We would have a big Polish, Catholic holiday that was filled with decorations, paper hats, Polish carols and, most importantly, my grandmother's cooking. She would make pierogi and kielbasa and cookies! Oh my, the cookies! By the time I was in 8th grade we'd moved to Minneapolis and the last Christmas I got to spend there was my freshman year of high school. There were so many people in town that the grandkids were camped out on the living room floor. I remember sneaking down to the cellar (which was surprisingly not spooky, even though my great-grandfather died down there) to snack on my favorite cookies, taking them from the less-obvious reserves, rather than from the cookie trays upstairs. These Christmases are some of my most cherished memories of all. This sense of love and family is what helped me deal with my own, less-than-ideal family.

My great-grandmother died in the spring of '04, still living independently at the age of 96. My other great-grandmother is still alive and living independently now at the age of 99. We're tough cookies in this family. When my Grandma M died I requested 2 things that I wanted.

This ceramic squirrel that I used to play with as a kid. See, obsessions start young!

and this:

A bottle of mysterious liquid (probably some kind of liquor) that she used as the doorjam to her pantry. I played with this thing all of the time when I was a kid and you can only imagine the weird responses I got upon asking for it when she died, while everyone else fought over the grandfather clock and the roll-top desk. The bottle now lives in my kitchen, keeping me company as I cook meals for my family.

Probably too much information and a bit long-winded, but that's my story.

Thank you all so much for sharing yours, I can't say how touched I was by them all.

And now, what you've all been waiting for...

The winner is: Laura Faye!

and the runner up, getting a mini treat bag: Ruthie!

Please email me at squirrelsvegankitchen at gmail with your address and I'll have them out to you!

Thanks again to everyone, this was a lot of fun!

Vegan Cupcakes Take Over My Tummy! (and the tummies of others)

2006-11-12T20:41:00.000-08:00

Oh boy, do I have some food pics!

On Friday night we had some friends over for dinner. Our friends Chris & his wife have a fantastic online weekly vegan comic called Totally Not Vegan! It is updated every Friday and it's very fun. They like to capture those moments, as a vegan, where you are humbled or baffled by others and the vegan experience. You can see the latest ones and the archives online.

Anyhow, we had them over for dinner and I made a dinner from bloggerland. I made Dreena's Morrocan Chickpea patties (with ginger dipping sauce), as well as Don't Get Mad's Green Goddess Potatoes and an incredible Hazlenut Red Wine Stuffed Mushroom recipe that Jess wrote, which will appear in the next issue of Herbivore. I forgot to take a picture until I was half way through my plate, but this is what it looked like:

My first time cooking with fennel and kale. Not too shabby!

For dessert, I wanted to make a treat from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World, but I couldn't decide which kind to make, so I made two varieties: s'mores and chocolate orange.

You'd think, in Portland of all places, that you could find vegan graham crackers. Nope. But I used ginger snaps and they worked out deliciously. The recipe didn't have enough chocolate involved for my taste, only a sprinkling on top, so I smeared a layer of ganache on top of each cupcake before frosting them. To the left you can see the tops of the chocolate orange ones.

I never tried one of those chocolate orange candies before, so my decision to make these was out of pure curiousity. I was afraid that they were going to be too orangey- there's orange in the cake, in the pudding filling and marmalade on top- but they were perfect. It's all very subtle. An instant favorite.

These were especially fun because it was my first time piping a filling into a cupcake. I liked it so much, I don't know if I can go back to regular old unfilled ones! I also got to use some of the marmalade that I made this summer. It's spread in a super thin layer on top, under the ganache. You can't see the filling that well in the picture, but it's there.

Our lovely guests brought a treat for the hostess- fancy olives! I've just recently joined the land of grown-up olive-eaters and I'm enjoying the journey. These are so brilliantly green, they look like little apples in person. I'm not sure what kind they are (Kate, if you're reading this, little help?), but they are firm with an almost floral or fruity undertone.

I had some leftover orange pudding from the cupcakes and didn't want to waste it because it's heavenly on its own. So I used it to top some VwaV pumpkin pancakes the next morning, along side some rosemary potatoes.

I usually have thawed frozen fruit on my pancakes, I'm not really into maple syrup, so this was a nice change for me. I'm as in love with the pudding alone as I am with the cupcakes. It's incredible! Jim just stuck to dipping this dripping-with-EB-pancake-bites into a ramekin of maple syrup. Yuck.

Last night Jennifer McCann came to do a book signing of Vegan Lunch Box! She was just as sweet in person as I'd imagined. And much taller! But everyone is taller than me. No Shmoo, though. He's apparently very bored by the book and he and dad went to see the Star Wars exhibit at the science museum.

Here's an enormously dorky picture of my getting my book signed. And I have red eye. Sexy. Josh was taking the pictures, so this is best one. He's really into artistic angles. :)

After work, I called in a to-go order at Ya Hala and stopped to pick it up on my way home. Saturday nights there guarantee at least a 1-hour wait, so it's nice to stop in and just pick up your bag and eat it in the quiet oasis of home. Well, I got there and low and behold, the Shmoos were there, with some friends, patiently waiting for their table! So if that doesn't tell you something! Jennifer McCann comes to Portland and has dinner at Ya Hala, out of all the restaurants!

I have tomorrow AND Tuesday off, so some bulk cooking is guaranteed. Oh yeah, I think I have to draw a winner for the drawing too... ;)

A Blogging Milestone....

2006-11-08T23:14:00.000-08:00

Two posts in one night?! What am I doing?

Well, this post, my dear blogger friends, is my 100th. I have been waiting for this post for some time now, with great anticipation.

You see, I like the internet. I am anti-social. I'm a little awkward. I can have a hard time loosening up around people, but online there is none of that stuff to worry about. And so I've been able to carve out a little niche here and you lovely folks are nice enough to stop by, take notice and welcome me into your lives, just as I welcome you into mine. And I appreciate that. I have made some very good friends this way, learned ohsomuch, heck, I met my husband online!

And now we're coming in on my absolute favorite time of the year: the holidays, namely Christmas. I am a holiday nut, so hopefully I won't annoy you guys too much. I don't know how Jim can put up with me. Every year he has to tolerate me messing up every flat surface in our home with my projects, decorating everything to the gills, baking, baking and more baking, and insisting that we handmake a majority of our gifts. To me the holidays encompass everything that I hold dear: good food, making things for people and sweater weather. What else could I ever want?! When else could you actually go out on the street dressed in sparkily garland and some flashing LED tree lights and have people not even look at you twice? Only the most wonderful time of the year...

So, with my Christmas spirit already jump-started and on high, I wanted to celebrate my 100th post with a gift:

A Portland gift extravaganza! An organic cotton tote filled with vegan treats mostly from Food Fight. There will be a few more things in the final tote, but this is the gist of it. Vegan cookies, candy bars, rice krispy treats, cheetos, gummies, lollipops, jerky, soywhip, and other assorted goodies.

Here's how it works:

Leave a comment with your fondest holiday memory. Christmas, Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, whatever holiday you'd like. Entries will close on Sunday night and I will randomly draw a winner!

Horray! And to that, I'm going to eat another Mocha Chocolate Chip Muffin.

Calzones and muffins

2006-11-08T22:35:00.000-08:00

I'm very excited because this Saturday Jennifer McCann, who does this little blog, you may have heard of it ;), Vegan Lunch Box, is coming to the store to drop off our books (5 days early!) and to do a book signing. I was lucky enough to preview the cookbook to review it for Herbivore and it is everything we ever could have hoped for and more, so I'm really excited to meet her and get some signed copies for the holidays. And I do believe that Shmoo will be there too! I'll definitely report back this weekend with pictures.

We needed to hurry and finish up the Real Food Daily tofu ricotta cheese I made last week and we already did pasta, so I decided to make some calzones. I love pizza and adore marinara sauce in excess, so having a calzone that I can dip to my heart's content is just heavenly to me.

I used a great oatmeal pizza crust recipe from aTxVegan's blog. It was really delicious and nice change of pace from a traditional pizza crust. I added a heaping teaspoon of Italian spices to it. Inside we had black olives (olives are growing on me lately, thanks to Lebonese food), cremini mushrooms and sundried tomatoes along with a healthy smear of the ricotta cheese. I always lightly pan cook my mushrooms before adding them to pizza so they don't leech water all over the place. Nothing's worse than soggy pizza dripping with mushroom water.

After that I wanted something sweet and I was eyeing my copy of Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World, but I'm going to be doing some special recipes from that this weekend and plus I didn't want something too sugary. So I pulled out Vegan with a Vengeance (I think the spine is going to crack soon) and paged through it until I got to these guys:

These are Mocha Chocolate Chip Muffins. But I really wanted some banana and had been eyeing a lone banana on our counter this evening, so I replaced the soy yogurt with a mashed banana and decreased to oil and soy milk about a tablespoon each to make up for the extra moisture. I also only used 1/2 cup sugar and 1 cup wwfp with 1/2 all-purp. I normally always make muffins jumbo size, but for some reason these were just asking to be made regular sized. So yummy.

Comfort food, festival eats, and bulk cooking.

2006-11-06T17:39:00.000-08:00

Last Friday when I went to Food Fight Chad gave me a little treat. Locally we are blessed to have an incredible vegan bread company called Dave's Killer Bread. It is the most wonderful bread you could imagine. There are several different varieties, including wheat-free, and I love them all. Well, I guess Dave tried making some mini baguette style loaves and brought them in to Chad as a treat and he was kind enough to share the wealth with me. I knew exactly what I was going to do with it, so I picked up some chik'n nuggets while I was there.

I finally tracked down the vegan Caesar dressing I'd gotten hooked to in Phoenix! I thought it would be easy to find here, but it was not. So I used this delicious loaf of Good Seed bread to make 2 spectacular chik'n Caesar salads with it. Yes, it's faux meat, but this is a serious comfort food for me. Back in the day I would eat chik'n Caesar day in and day out and this bread! Oh, it was incredible! We had some Mexi-Snacks with them, which are kind of like vegan Doritos. Dave's brother owns the company Nature Bake, which also makes bread (not all varieties are vegan), as well as the kick-ass vegan cookies I reviewed for the latest Herbivore.

Saturday for work I went to a Give Green gift event with about 60 other vendors. It was meant as a way to get out there and buy things that are local and ethical for your holiday shopping. Portland may be a vegan mecca, but it's also full of meat-eating enviromentalists who aren't always receptive to what we're doing, so I was a little worried about how the festival would go. I was relieved, however, when I saw that Blossoming Lotus was going to be there, as well as a vegan bakery and chocolate maker. Yay! So I had plenty to eat all day.

Raw cashew hummus with raw seed crackers. Very, very good.

And this, well, it looks gross, but it was great! Cauliflower enchilada with green sauce on top. I'm not all sure what was going on in it, but it was super good and a new way to have cauliflower, for sure. Jim hates cauliflower, but loves Mexican food, so maybe I can sneak some in that way.

Yesterday Jim spent the day, while I was at work, lovingly cleaning the kitchen so it was spotless when I got home. Today, I lovingly destroyed it while doing another batch of bulk cooking. Last week I made a stew and a chili, so this week I opted for pilaf and soup.

This pilaf is a hodgepodge of an herbed basmati rice mix from Trader Joes, some quinoa, frozen peas, sauteed onion and red lentils. I had some extra firm tofu to use up, so I cut it into strips and marinated it in some toasted sesame oil, soy sauce, crushed garlic, sage and rosemary. I baked it for about 40 minutes, turning it every 10. Jim can't eat things quite as plainly as I can, so I imagine he'll be drenching these containers in teriyaki sauce, but it will be tasty all the same.

And I made some corn chowder at Jim's request and I got to use a fun new item I bought at Trader Joes last night: green garbanzos! Those green blobs that look like peas are actually garbanzo beans! I couldn't resist trying them, even though they weren't organic. They are slightly softer and more moist than a regular garbanzo, but basically taste the same. They're definitely more colorful than the usual beige, though. I wonder how gross green chickpea gravy would look...

Tonight we went on a weekday date, which is something we never do. We went to our absolute favorite restaurant, Ya Hala, for dinner. This isn't the best picture, but it gives you an idea.

Clockwise we have: falafel with tahini sharing a plate with some lightly fried cauliflower, baba ganouj, an bowl of olives, fresh, puffy pita bread, veggie kibbeh (my favorite!!!), tabouli, and hummus. Including a 25% tip this spread costs us a mere $20. The kibbeh is AMAZING! It looks kind of unappealing, in person it looks kind of like raw hamburger, but it's a tomato and bulgur pate that rawks my sawks like none other. Ya Hala is really close to our house and because it's so cheap we eat there a lot.

After dinner we walked down the block to a renovated movie theater from the 40's and saw "The US vs. John Lennon". Even if you don't like or don't care about John Lennon, the cultural and political events surrounding this movie, that time period and those issues so eerily echo what is happening today, I high recommend seeing it. If you like John Lennon, well, that's just a bonus. It's less a movie about John Lennon than it is about him being a high profile supporter of dissent and peace during an adminstration that was not too happy about free speech. Sound familiar?

Food, squirrelly food,a squirrel and Whatcha Eatin' #4!

2006-11-01T21:12:00.000-08:00

Yay for productivity! Today I got our front entry way painted, ran some errands, sewed and started up a shop at Etsy to sell my tofu pouches and some other stuff that I'm working on. If you're not familiar with Etsy, it's a really great outlet if you make stuff and it's a wonderful place to find one-of-a-kind gifts and support independant crafters.

Last night for dinner we had black bean burritos.

Simple tortillas with some black beans, lettuce, salsa, Tofutti sour cream, guac and on Jim's some shredded cashew cheese that I made last week. Simple and yummy.

For a Halloween dessert I made Dreena's carmel sauce from Vive and served it with a sliced Jonagold.

It was very good, but I used rice milk and it left a bit of an aftertaste, so next time I will use soy.

Today I wanted something slightly sweet, but not too sweet and nothing that required leaving the house for ingredients. I tend to get stuck on a cookbook and continue making things from it, so once again I turned to Vive. When I saw the title for the Squirrely Scones, how could I say no to that?

Very good. Spread a little more than they rose, but that was my fault, because I only had half of the amount of baking powder and I added some more baking soda to compensate, but I didn't have any cream of tartar to mix in, which leads me to...

Whatcha Eatin' #4: Cream of Tartar
Growing up I always thought that cream of tartar was related to tartar sauce, which repulsed me, so I would omit it from recipes. Cream of tartar is actually acidic residue that is a biproduct of wine. CoT is acid from grapes that is neutralized with potassium. CoT is the activator in many kinds of baking powder, which is why when you're in a pinch you can replace baking powder by mixing equal parts baking soda and cream of tartar.

I was able to catch Mr. Squirrel moments before crawling down, snatching a peanut and making a getaway... and then coming back in 2 minutes to steal another one.

Product review!

My brother-in-law sent us this popcorn from Seattle, but it's actually from Hawaii, but was purchased at an Asian grocery. Confused yet? It's called Hawaiian Hurricane Popcorn: Mochi Crunch and Nori. I was really pleased to see that some label reading was done to ensure that it was vegan (although it was sent to us wrapped with a bow made out of feathers on top, but hey, he's trying). First you pop the popcorn and dump it into a provided bag and then add the mochi crunch and nori bits. Then you open the "buttery sauce" which isn't very healthy (partially hydrogentated oils), but I figure for as seldom as we consume hydrogenated oils, we'll live. Jim was a little Noried out after a little bit, but I really enjoyed it. It was lightly sweet and lightly salty and a little greasy and oceany tasting. I guess oceany isn't usually a positive way to describe something, but it's seaweed, so what do you expect? I think we'll enjoy the rest of it on movie nights, with some cold cans of Blue Sky.

Daylight losing, storing food and a nocturnal friend

2006-10-30T22:38:00.000-08:00

First up, Moussa is still with us. She's going slow, but she's still doing her thing and even wanted out to roll in her ball the other night. Thanks for your well wishes and thoughts. While to some she may be just a hamster, she's part of our family, we love her very much and it's going to be hard on us when the time comes.

I haven't had to participate in daylight savings in a few years... and let me just say, it sucks! No more light after 5pm. I know that this is only fair because it stays light out until 10pm in the summer and I love it... but this is a serious change from AZ. It's a good thing I'm so busy for the next few weeks, I don't get too lazy. I have been making some time for casual reading, though, and it's been very nice. I love snuggling up in bed, with flannel sheets and good book.

Now, onto the food. I have been wanting to power cook and make a bunch of meals that we could have in freezer to use for lunches or on nights that I don't feel like cooking or get home late. So I spent Saturday holed up in the kitchen, cooking and baking up a storm.

Zucchini muffins, currently living in the freezer. Lightly sweetened with maple syrup, with some raisins and walnuts in the mix as well.

Banana walnut muffins, my favorites! I couldn't freeze all of these, so I let myself eat one that night as a treat.

Another big batch of Leslie's stew/soup. I accidentally opened a can of pinto beans instead of chick peas, but it still tastes great.

I roasted some bell peppers I got at the farmer's market on Saturday and I really wanted to make some chili, but I didn't have any cans of black beans and I hadn't planned ahead and soaked any. A quick search online and 20 minutes later my lovely pressure cooker made me a batch of them. So good... I love this thing, it really does make my life easier.

Dinner last night: stuffed shells. Again, Michelle influenced me by making some tofu ricotta cheese from the Real Food Daily cookbook. We were just muching on it with pretzel sticks, like a dip, and it was really tasty. So I had to make it. But I over did it with the garlic, to the point where it was a bit hot, so I decided to put it in something. Served with some breaded and lightly fried zucchini.

And we had to have dessert! Brownies with Mint Fudge Stripe So Delicious and some chocolate sauce on top. There is nothing better than brownies and ice cream, I don't think.

We have a new wildlife friend! I hadn't gotten a picture and as I was typing this, Bindhi let out a yelp, which meant that he was back, so I rant to the window to take this picture. I had to use my night setting, which blew out his eyes and makes him look a little creepy, but he's not all. Here's the back story: We put out some whole peanuts for the squirrels a few days ago and later that evening I noticed the cats looking through our patio doors intently. It was too late for squirrels to be out, so I flicked on the light and was startled to see the back end of what appeared to be a cat-sized rat! I called up to Jim to get down here to see, and by that time our little friend had turned around and revealed himself as a possum! This is my first run in with a possum and I had no idea they were even around here! Actually, the North American variety is called an opossum. They are marsupials and are "opportunistic omnivores", which basically means they eat meat when it's available or easy to find. I imagine that in an urban environment they are scavengers much like raccoons. I'm very excited to have another little friend to feed. I'm going to do some research on other kinds of food to see if I can leave out some fruit or veggies for him tomorrow.

Variations on other's themes

2006-10-26T22:59:00.000-07:00

A note about faux cheese:

Jim and I really enjoyed the cheese that I made the other day and we're still munching through it. But just so my previous comments weren't misleading, it's very good, but it's certainly not cow's cheese. And I don't mean that to sound like cow's cheese would taste better, because Jim is convinced that this is better than any cheese he ever ate before. So if you decide to make it, don't expect that you're going to take a bite and exclaim "Gouda!" Just think of it as a yummy thing to enjoy with crackers and accept it for what it is. Oh, and the flavor really deepens overnight, so if you're going to try it with guests, make it the day before.

Anyway... I wanted to whip up a big batch of something warm the other night that I could just put into containers for us to eat at work. I decided to try Leslie's Lentil Chickpea Soup.

Of course, I can never leave well enough alone and I tweaked it. I only had half of the amount of red lentils that were called for, so I used a mixture of red and green. I also only used 2 carrots and added a cubed potato, because I just love potato in my soups. And I didn't have any veggie stock, so I used just water. It was a very thick and hearty meal and reheating it the next day thickened it even more, much like a stew. It's very, very good and because it uses ingredients that we have around most of the time, I have a feeling this will become a cold weather staple for us. I was able to make it in about 15 minutes with my pressure cooker. Next time I'm going to make some quinoa to serve it over.

I had really been craving something super chocolatey, so I paged through Vive Le Vegan! and came across Dreena's Double Chocolate Almond Explosion Cookies.

Perfect! I subbed macadamia nuts for the almonds, replaced half of the maple syrup measurement with agave (because it's so sweet) and made up the difference with a splash of almond milk. Yum! We both loved them, but I'm normally more of the chocolate hound, so I didn't expect Jim to like them that much, but he loved them. And they made the perfect amount, 1 dozen, rather than the 2 dozen I normally would have baked, that we would have eaten ourselves sick on.

On a sad note, Moussa doesn't appear to be doing well. I've been thinking that she's getting old for a little while now, but I think we're nearing the end. She has been a wonderful little family member and is a very sweet little soul. Please send a good thought her way.

Faux Cheese, Muffins and Tofu That Will Never Go Bad

2006-10-23T20:29:00.000-07:00

Yay, it's Monday! Which means a day off for me. I had a bunch of errands to run today, so I didn't get to cook as much as I would have liked, but I got alot of other things done, so it was a constructive day.

I'm really not into faux cheese (excluding cream cheese, which I'm addicted to). I was a huge cheese hound in my pre-vegan days and I figured I'd really miss it, but it's just not something I think about. We occaisionally try a new product to see what it's like, but it's more out of curiousity than anything. A few weeks ago, Michelle made a Cashew Cheddar Cheese from The Real Food Daily cookbook and I was actually pretty impressed with it. It had a nice texture and tasted great on a salty cracker, so I decided to give it a try.

If you can get past the fact that it is molded into the shape of a Gladware container (complete with #2 plastic symbol on top of it!), it turned out well. To those who may be interested in making it, it makes a lot. I made 2 blocks, each the size of the 2 cup plastic container, so you will have plenty. I will be halving the recipe when I make it again. This was my first experience working with agar and it was fun. It sets so fast and it was actually really fun to clean up, because I was able to play with the mess. It was a bit like string cheese. Jim and I had some of it on crackers. His quote, and this is coming from the man who thinks eating faux cheese is stupid: "This is so *$%#ing good!" LOL

I made some Carrot-Raisin Muffins from VwaV today. They turned out okay, probably the first recipe that didn't really impress me. They are a little dry and don't have the strongest flavor, but they'll work for breaksfast for the next few days. I still have some leftover cream cheese frosting in the fridge from last weeks' pumpkin bars, so they'll be getting slathered with that, anyway.

And now for something not food related. I've been spending some crafting time with my sewing machine lately, which has been really fun and relaxing. I've started making these little tofu pouches and I brought 2 to the store last Sunday and they both sold within hours. Apparently I'm not the only one that thinks they're cute!

They have a zippered top and are about 6 inches long and 5 1/2 tall. I got the fabric for them at a store by me and it's one of those silky, plush fabrics that is so soft you have to keep touching it. I've been really into making pouches lately, I don't know why. Maybe it's because it's the easiest way to sew in a zipper. Anyway, I'm going to be cranking out more of these little guys because they are just so fun!

Feeling Sick, Squirrels and Whatcha Eatin' #3

2006-10-19T23:40:00.000-07:00

Well, I must have jinxed myself by teaching Jim to cook for my own selfish reasons of not wanting to eat Ramen when I'm sick, because... I'm sick! Or I'm well on my way there. So what do I do when I'm sick? Indulge in comfort food...

Mashed potatoes and Punk Chickpea Gravy. OMG, can I truly express how much I love this gravy? I think not. Just as one cannot fully express their love for a child. It is seriously that good.

Squirrel update! This morning Linus, Bindhi and I sat by the back door watching this little guy try to trash the pumpkin.

He settled for hanging out on the squirrel feeder, munching on some pumpkin seeds. When I got home tonight, the top of the pumpkin was pulled out and it was tipped over, with lots of claw marks and bite marks all over it. How cute! The cats are thoroughly enjoying the entertainment.

Whatcha Eatin' #3: Sliced Bread

So, I was researching the phrase "the best thing since sliced bread", which literally refers to the first sliced bread (Wonder bread, ick) and came across an interesting factoid: The Secretary of Agriculture banned the sale of sliced bread during WWII. There were several reasons given for this ban, all of which seem a little strange. One being that the metal from the bread slicers was needed to make guns and other war supplies. While we all have heard stories of war time rationing related to metal, the little metal that was used for bread slicers seems like a strange thing to sacrifice, and many people were skeptical of this reasoning. Another reason that was given was that the demand for sliced bread would cause the cost of bread to increase, which would be bad during times of such financial hardship. The whole thing just sounds a little strange...

But WWII rationing may have seen the beginnings of something near and dear to many of our hearts: the Trumanburger, a veggie burger made from mashed beans. Maybe meat rationing wouldn't be such a bad idea in today's world...

And, I couldn't resist this picture of Bindhi, sneaking a lick of frosting from Jim's pumpin bar. She was so cute, I couldn't help but let her have a little tasty-taste.

More Fun With Pumpkin!

2006-10-16T20:57:00.000-07:00

I have today and tomorrow off, so I've been relaxing today by working on my book, cooking and playing with my blog. Can you believe it took me 4 hours to design the banner for this layout! Time always goes fast when you're playing in Photoshop. But I like this color scheme better. I think you need to have warmer colors when you're showcasing food, and the other template was too dull.

My brother-in-law and his wife are going to be coming down from Seattle to have Thanksgiving with us in a few weeks and I'm SO excited. I love hosting big dinners and what dinner is better than Thanksgiving? My family was never really into doing anything for the holidays. My mom, who does not cook at all, would resort to making weird, processed turkey loaves and we'd eat and watch TV, so having real, family-based holidays has been a big deal for me since we've been married.

I want to make pumpkin pie, but I never have before, so I thought it would be good to do a trial run before the big day. I made this pie based off of Bryanna Clark Grogan's pumpkin pie recipe, with a few minor tweaks.

I had a little crust dough leftover, so I used a small turkey cookie cutter to decorate the edges with. You are supposed to let the pie set in the fridge overnight, so we haven't tried it yet, but I'll give a report tomorrow. It smells heavenly.

So then I had a bunch of leftover pumpkin. What to do? I did an internet search and ended up making these delicious bars from a patchwork recipe I derived out of a couple that I liked. I posted the recipe on my recipes page

They are really light and cake like, so they're almost like a sheet cake, but I think I'm still going to call them bars, because I'm stubborn like that.

But before we could have dessert, we had to eat something substantial!

Brown rice and orzo pilaf with mixed green veggies (asparagus, broccoli, spinach, green beans and edamame) on top, a drizzle of a roasted garlic sauce that I threw together with some corn starch, soy milk, minced roasted garlic and salt and some more french bread with roasted garlic butter on it.

Squirrel's Vegan Pumpkin

2006-10-15T22:20:00.000-07:00

We used to leave out birdseed when we lived in Phoenix so the cats would have something interesting to watch while we were at work all day. Since moving to Portland, we don't really want birds hanging around just in case this whole bird flu thing blows up like they think it could. But we have all of these squirrels that live in the trees behind us and I wanted a way to feed them, while not attracting any birds.

I rememeber back a few years to when we lived in Minneapolis (yes, I like to move :) ). We had a carved pumpkin in front of our house that the squirrels just destroyed by tearing it apart and munching on it.

Exhibit A: Organic white pumpkin from Trader Joe's. $2.99. Quite the deal, eh?

Exhibit B: Squirrel's vegan pumpkin, carved in Squirrel's Vegan Kitchen, for the squirrels. Say that 5 times fast!

I also carved out random chunks and shapes for them around the pumkin, so they have an easier time getting at it. The previous owners of our house acutally had a squirrel feeder on the deck, so we put some chunks of pumpkin and seeds in there, too. I hope to get some picture of them tearing it apart, so I'll post them if I get 'em!

Tonight was "Teach Jim How to Make Chili" night. When I get sick this winter I want more than bowls of cereal and Ramen, dammit! I set out everything and then walked him through it. It was a simple chili, a can of diced tomatoes, some kidney beans, pinto beans and some frozen bell pepper slices. We had it with a hunk of mini wheat baguette with garlic buttah. For dessert, we tried some of the new (I think, I just saw them recently) Soy Delicious ice cream and sorbet bars. SO good. And they're low fat. We got the raspberry ones, vanilla ice cream with a raspberry sorbet swirl in them. Yum!

Vegan Butterfingers and Whatcha Eatin'? #2

2006-10-11T08:33:00.000-07:00

Long time, no post! I've been very busy at work and when not at work, I've been working feverishly on the book. It's coming along quite nicely and I'm actually almost done, so I thought I'd treat myself with a post!

Teriyaki stirfry with brown basmati rice. For the stirfry I used broccoli, carrots and red and yellow bell peppers. I baked some extra firm tofu in the teriyaki sauce until it carmelized.

Last night was split pea soup (with potatoes and carrots) and some fresh wheat rolls. I really need to get an immersion blender, this whole "blending the soup in batches" thing is the pits. I could have sped this soup along with my pressure cooker, but I was home and had the time, so I opted to make it on the stove top normally. Basic hodgepodge, 1 1/2 cups split peas, 2 large potatoes cubes, 3 carrots, 1 cup vegetable broth, a medium chopped onion, 2 cloves of garlic, some sage and thyme and a lot of water.

Okay, so my title is a bit misleading, because there aren't any vegan butterfingers, but these tasted pretty darn great. Chick-o-stiks are vegan! I had never even tried one prior to about 3 years ago because for some strange reason, I thought they were cheese flavored. I think it's the color. Anyway, I just melted some chocolate chips with some Earth Balance and dipped each chunk of Chick-o-stik in it, then placed them on waxed paper and let them set in the fridge. It was a very easy and cheap (10 cents for each stick!) treat that I will definitely be making again.

Whatcha Eatin'? #2: Water Chestnuts

Jim always makes fun of me because I compare things to the texture of water chestnuts. He once even said "Water chestnuts are the vegan chicken, you think everything tastes like them!"

Well, maybe, maybe not. The point is, I realized that they aren't chestnuts and I needed to find out what they really were.

Turns out they are actually tubers that grow in the water! They can grow large shoots, but mostly grow in conditions that resemble bogs.

Once they are loosened and dug up, they rememble Western chesnuts. Harvesting them is very labor intensive, which is why they are hard to find fresh in the US and are costly by the can.

Water chestnuts are low fat and high in vitamin B, iron and calcium.

Let the food begin!

2006-10-03T10:05:00.000-07:00

Okay, folks, here it is. We had our official grand opening this weekend so of course there was food! I shared baking duty with Lisa from Sweet Pea Baking, so there were plenty of sweets to go around!

Lisa made the best baklava I've ever had, vegan or otherwise, and an assortment of different rugalachs. The cherry one was killer. Lisa also makes the world's best cheesecake. If you ever come to Portland, or if you live here, seek out whatever place is serving her cheesecake because it is phenomenal. Turtle cheesecake? Yes please!

This is the lemon almond torte that I made in mini form for a SHAC7 benefit awhile back. This time it was jazzed up with more raspberries and some almond slivers.

There cupcakes were fun to make with these cool star-shaped cupcake tins I found recently. I made the chocolate cake recipe from my Black Forest Cake and the same chocolate frosting as well.

I also make the Banana Peanut Butter Frosting Cake that I made for Jim's b-day recently. I didn't get a good pic of it, but it wasn't too long ago, so you all remember!

These were made for my co-worker, Jessie's, husband. He has severe food allergies and can only eat limited things. It was too sad for me to think of there being a vegan amongst vegans who couldn't eat anything there, so I made him some cookies with ingredients he could eat. They are based on raw cookies, with the outer shell being made out of dates. I mashed the dates and mixed in a 1/4 cup of unsweetened cocoa powder to make them taste fudgey. I then made a nut butter center with some cashew butter, agave nectar and ground almonds to make it set up a little more. I flattened out a round of dates, added a scoop of the cashew mixture, sealed all the balls up and rolled them in cocoa powder to keep them them from sticking together. Adam seemed pretty excited and I thought they turned out rather well. I might make them again soon for us to have around the house, since you can just keep them in the fridge.

This was a sundried tomato garbanzo bean dip from a newer vegan cookbook called ExtraVeganZa! It was really delcious, I will definitly be making it again.

And of course, would a party be a party without one of Dreena's dips? Here is the Cannellini Bean Yam Hummus. Mmmm, it was so good, people were just raving over it. It was a nice smokey and creamy counterpart to the slight more sweet and gritty garbanzo dip.

And, on a more substantial note, dinner last night. Butternut squash filled with a basmati and wild rice pilaf I got from Trader Joe's and some mashed potatoes with Earth Balance on the side. Very tasty. I think squash is growing on me, while Jim eats it "because it's good" for him. I have a spaghetti squash sitting here, any ideas? It's a bit intimidating.

Also, for those who are wondering, I got a lot of work done on the book yesterday, so I'm hoping to have the first draft done within a week! Yay!

Protein Primavera and Whatcha Eatin'? #1

2006-09-28T22:12:00.000-07:00

Recently I saw some great pasta on Megan's
blog. I've been waiting to make this all week, but I had to keep putting it off because I had one ingredient or another that I needed to cook with because it was going to go bad if I didn't... so tonight was the night! I made bowtie pasta with a roasted garlic and cannellini bean sauce and some steamed broccoli.

We also enjoyed some Ciabata bread with bruschetta and garlic buttah. For the sauce, I roasted a whole head of garlic, then reserved about 1 tablespoon for the garlic bread. I pureed the rest with a can of cannellini beans, a splash of soy milk, some oregano, a splash of lemon and some olive oil. Then I heated it on the stove top while everything else was cooking, adding soy milk as needed to thin it out. It was SO good and much more substantially filling than just plain starchy pasta with a flour based cream sauce.

Do you ever have those moments when you look at something you're eating or cooking with and think "Wow, I have no actual idea where this comes from..."? Well, I do and to help myself learn and become more aware of my food and to add a new (and hopefully engaging) feature to my blog, I'm going to start a weekly column called "Whatcha Eatin'?" where we can explore some of the things that we consume.

Up this week: cinnamon.

I was cooking with cinnamon the other night and I thought "Where does cinnamon come from"? My first thought to that was "Well, from cinnamon sticks". But where do those come from?

Cinnamon may seem like an unassuming spice on your rack, but it has a dirty little secret. It turns out that it has a related species called "cassia" and that is actually what many of us have in our spice bottles in the US. Nope, no true cinnamon for you, what you have is cinnamon's sidekick, masquerading under its name. Is that so bad though? I guess it depends. There are many kinds of cinnamon and one can only imagine what they all taste like, but cassia has a stronger flavor, so maybe it's not so bad after all. Cinnamon is lighter colored and finer when ground and has a sweeter flavor than cassia.

But where does it come from? Cinnamon, cassia, the stuff in your pumpkin pie, comes from a tree. The trees are cut to a stump, from which little shoots grow out. These shoots are stripped of their bark and dried, making cinnamon sticks.

Cinnamon was once considered more precious than gold and was used as a currency in ancient civilizations. It was used for embalming and in medicines in ancient Egypt. While it grew in Europe, spice trade opened up a world of exotic cinnamon to try. Studies done in the past few years in the US have shown that cinnamon (cassia as well, presumably) is very high in antioxidents and may be beneficial for diabetics and in lowering high blood pressure.

Pretty interesting, huh? This kind of stuff really fascinates me, so if it bores you, just let me geek out for the moment and it will pass... :)

Foody McFood Food

2006-09-26T20:19:00.000-07:00

*I mentioned Pacific soups in one of my last posts, but I actually meant Imagine soups. The Pacific soups aren't all vegan, but I believe most of the Imagine ones all are.*

I hate having to make titles when I have a random post to make. I can never think of anything witty!

Oh, I posted the recipe for the lime raspberry muffins on my recipes blog, look under my links!

For as much as I like working for Herbivore, I love being home. Now that the store is open I work most weekends so this week I had Monday and Tuesday off. That means lots of cooking.

I really like how some of you post your groceries online. I really like being able to see what everyone buys to fill their homes with yummy food all week. So, here were my groceries yesterday from a trip to Trader Joe's.

It included:
~Almond Breeze Chocolate milk. OMG, get this if you've never had it! Hands down the best!
~Unsweetened Organic soy milk (for cooking/baking)
~Unsweetened Almond milk (for cereal)
~Organic powdered and granulated sugar. I'm baking for the store's grand opening this weekend.
~Organic flax cereal
~Apple raspberry sauce
~Organic extra firm tofu twin pack. I love these packs, so convenient for cooking for two!
~Half of a par baked loaf of organic Ciabatta.
~Assorted cans of organic beans and tomatoes- restocking the pantry.
~Organic oregano
~Earth Balance
~Organic rice pasta
~Farfalle noodles
~One of my all-time favorite drinks, green tea with bergamot.
~Orange juice
~Organic mini peanut butter sandwich cookies. I just noticed these and they are vegan (obviously)!
~Garlic
~Tahitian vanilla extract
~Rice flour. I haven't used this before, but it intrigues me.
~Bruschetta. I LOVE this TJ's bruschetta. It's super cheap and incredible!

Now, while Trader Joe's is a gold mine for things like pictured above, fresh produce is not their strong suit. I get organic bagged salads from them sometimes and they are really cheap and they have great deals on organic basil, but their other produce is generally not organic and comes in plastic clamshells, which are crappy waste-wise and you can't select your produce yourself. Thankfully, attached to the TJ's I shop at is a place called Limbo. They have an incredible produce selection and their famed "Wall of Herbs". Anything you've ever needed for a recipe is there in a jar and you can just measure out a pinch of it and be on your way, without having to spend $10 on a jar of something that you need only a teaspoon of. They also have a very yummy smoothie bar. I like going there when I haven't had time to hit up a farmer's market. All the produce I buy is organic.

Red potatoes, Honeycrisp apples, avocadoes (.50 each!), broccoli, butternut squash, bananas (I'm making that cake again for the store, we don't eat that many bananas!), zucchini and summer squash, a giant sweet potato and a sweet onion.

Yesterday night we were way too stuffed from our leftover biscuits and gravy to have a formal dinner, but I was seriously craving some warm pudding. I made a vanilla version of the chocolate pudding I have posted under my recipes blog (see links section), with a hint of cinnamon. For the truffle center I used this amazing espresso candy bar I got at Food Fight the last time I was there. This brand is hands down the best vegan candy bar ever. With the temperatures dropping, making shipping chocolates easier, you should consider getting some as a treat. If you liked Caramello's try the carmel one. The raspberry one is heavenly, too.

Anyway, last time I was at Food Fight, I got an espresso bar and some wafer cookies, which went deliciously with the pudding. Placing the chocolate in the pudding while it's still warm gives you a decadent surprise in the middle. Warning- if you put it in the fridge, the chocolate will harden and it's not nearly as good.

I was inspired by Leslie's recent post for her quinoa tacos, so I made up some quinoa burritos tonight. I made a very veggie chili, using her recipe as a guide but using stuff I had laying around: onions, paprika, cumin, oregano, black beans, pinto beans, canned tomatoes, frozen corn and zucchini. It turned out delicious. Even Jim, who normally doesn't like big chunk of veggies in his burritos, loved the zucchini.

I served them on spelt tortillas with homemade guac, Toffuti Sour Supreme, and some organic salsa on top. It made so much that I made containers for us to take to work tomorrow and I froze a big container too!

Now my super busy work week starts, so my cooking fun is coming to an end. :( But I will be baking like a fool on Friday and Saturday, so be prepared for cavities!

My Weekend Alone

2006-09-24T22:01:00.000-07:00

Jim went visit his grandparents in Illinois this weekend. They were celebrating their 60th wedding anniversary and his family put together a big celebration for them. With the house and other things, I couldn't go with him, so I stayed behind with the kitties. I watched the British version of "The Office", OMG it's so freaking funny! I love it! The kitties kept me in good company, with all three of them sleeping with me both nights he was gone. This is a rarity because usually no one sleeps with us, much less all three!

Odd as it may seem, when I'm by myself I don't really cook very well. I cook to please others more than myself, because I get enjoyment out of providing for them. So this weekend, I kind of ate like crap. :)

This is a new noodle dish they started carrying at Trader Joe's. They come in these little Chinese food cartons, with vaccuum sealed noodles and a sauce packet, all you have to do is heat it up. I added some steamed pea pods to it. The kind I tried was the Kung Po. I bit spicy for my tastes, but it worked great in a pinch. Jim tried the Pad Thai, which he said was "good, for the convenience and price". They are very cheap, $1.99 each, and like a normal Chinese food carton, contain a lot of food, so we'll be buying more of these for work.

BTW, I packed a half a suit case of stuff for Jim to eat. It was going to be too chaotic for him to go to a store and they live really rural, so I gave him one of these and some boxes of ready to eat Indian food from Food Fight, crackers, cookies, Odwalla bars, fruit bars and a few other assorted snacks to fill in his diet. I should have taken a picture.

This is a quick pizza I whipped up several times this weekend. A piece of pita with some pizza sauce, sliced cremini mushrooms and some Follow Your Heart mozzerella. I haven't tried this cheese before, but I'd heard that it melts. Well, if you consider getting really soft melting than it does. I wasn't that big on it, but I guess I'm just not into trying to replace cheese because I don't miss it. We usually just eat loads of veggies and pesto on our pizzas. But, again, it worked in a pinch.

Now, while I don't really like cooking for myself, I never mind baking. I made these muffins last night for Jim to come home to, his favorite, raspberry lime. I always make jumbo sized ones, they work great for breakfast or a snack with coffee. I presented one to a very hungry Jim when he got off the plane this evening, having only eaten some Frech fries since breakfast at 5 a.m. this morning. Poor boy. FYI, the St. Louis airport, not vegan friendly.

To help make up for a crappy weekend of bad side salads, I made a big breakfast-for-dinner for us tonight. Baking powder biscuits from VwaV, along with my own random tofu scramble (tofu, red potatoes, zucchini, onions, spices) and the Chickpea Gravy that Leslie keeps making. This way my first time making it and oh my! I left out the nutritional yeast, as Jim is allergic to it, but it was still amazing! Plus there are left overs for lunch tomorrow. Yum!

Quick dinner and extreme cuteness

2006-09-19T23:20:00.000-07:00

Tonight I just threw together a quick bite because I got home late, using odds and ends from the fridge and the pantry. A box of Mac and Chreese (Cheddar style with shells) and some mixed veggies on top and a cup of tomato soup with some Ritz-style crackers I picked up at Food Fight. I'm really becoming a big lover of those Imagine brand aseptic sealed soups. So convenient and they taste really good!

Tonight was Moussa house cleaning night, so after a brief romp around the house (in her plastic ball) while I cleaned, I took some footage of her enjoying a corn cob. You'll see Ravi, who makes a cameo appearence in this film. The video is sideways, I was holding the camera the long way and I couldn't figure out how to rotate it, sorry!

I also uploaded a painfully cute picture of her to the Herbivore Blog today. It's so adorable, you can even make out her delicate little whiskers!

International Delight

2006-09-18T22:36:00.000-07:00

Last weekend Jim and I went to an amazing Lebanese restaurant that's just down the road from us called Ya Hala. It was hands down the best restaurant we've eaten at here. Of course, I forgot to take pictures. Anyhow, they have everything that's vegetarian on their menu marked with one palm tree and everthing that's vegan marked with two. How nice is that? We had the Veggie Mezza, which is a sampler plater of hummus, baba ganouj, falafel, tabouli, and a cauliflower thing that I can't remember, Veggie Kibbeh, which was a delcious bulgur pate and an olive plate. They kept us loaded with fresh-from-the-oven pita, still warm and puffed in the middle. We left with two pieces of baklava, a full doggie bag and two very full tummies, all for $19! Craziness. Anyhow, attached to Ya Hala is an international grocery that I went back to today to purchase a few specialty items that I eyed on Saturday, including pomegranate molasses, which was my missing ingredient for Isa's Pomergrante BBQ Tofu. I made with her Coconut Lime Rice and some steamed baby carrots and sugar snap peas.

I really enjoyed it, but I think my excitement at making the recipe exceeded my enjoyment of it. I was just so happy to play with that pomegranate molasses and then I couldn't taste it! I think next time I'm going to up the ante a bit. It was a delcious meal, though, and it left us with plenty of leftovers for work tomorrow, which is always a good thing.

For dessert I played some more with another recipe that I'm tweaking for quick, single size pecan pie bites. 5 minutes of work, 10 minutes of baking and 10 minutes of cooling and voila! Pecan pie! I made them in a jumbo muffin tin. I tried phyllo dough this time and Jim really liked it, but I feel like it's more of a puff pastry kind of recipe, which is how I've played with it before. So I think I'm going to stick to the puff pastry. But these were still good enough to scarf down! The only thing missing was vanilla soy ice cream. A la mode...

Bindhi threw herself at my feet while we were having dessert and she looked so cute and pitiful, what was I supposed to do but take her picture? She's our youngest and she's been really rambuncous, but she's really starting to mellow and become more affectionate. It's really nice to get kisses and to have someone waiting outside the bathroom door for you. She's a great little kid. Just don't touch that belly or you'll be sorry!

Food, food and more food!

2006-09-16T11:00:00.000-07:00

I have been having the worst time with beta Blogger and getting my pictures uploaded! I get this error page saying that the page has been reloaded. I've been having to write my posts and then save them as a draft and come back hours later to add the pictures and publish it. Is anyone else sharing in my frustration?

Lotsa cooking lately! We had brown rice pasta with a basil marinara and some fried, breaded zucchini.

Frying up zucchini in some oil sort of negates the fact that you're eating zucchini to begin with, but hey, it tasted great. I breaded it by dipping it in soy milk, then coating it in a bread crumb and Italian spices mix.

The next night we had some veggie burgers I bought at Wild Oats. They were chock full of brown rice and veggies. This is Jim's burger (I over-browned my bun), with some spinach, Vegenaise, avocado and a hint of ketchup. Sounded like a kind of gross combo to me, but he said it was one of the best veggie burgers he's ever had, so it worked. We had some yam fries on the side. I think I prefer making them with sweet potatoes, the yams just get so soft... but they were still tasty.

Last night I made muffins for the store for this weekend. They included a muffin version of my Pumpkin Cinnamon Swirl Bread:

And another fun treat, my Lemon Almond Bling muffins.

I used the leftover pumpkin from the muffins to make Isa's pumpkin waffle recipe, but I made pancakes instead. I just couldn't muster the energy to fight with my waffle maker this morning. We enjoyed them with a an apple and potato Field Roast Sausage and a sliced Honeycrisp apple.

We eat real food, I swear!

2006-09-11T22:09:00.000-07:00

Man, looking back over my last string of posts, it looks like all we eat are sweets! Granted, this hasn't been the best streak for us, lately, but we do eat substantial food, too!

Dinner last night was sammiches! Whole grain bread with hummus on one side and an olive tapenade on the other, some lettuce and a simple warm chickpea filling in the middle. I mashed up a can of chickpeas with 2 minced sundried tomatoes, some Italian spices and some sauteed onions and garlic. I lightly fried the mixture in a tablespoon or so of grapeseed oil and voila! I couldn't resist lightly toasting the assembled sandwiches to make the outside crispy. I also dropped a hint to Jim about how cool it would be to have a panini press. Our wedding anniversary is next month, so who knows. ;)

Dinner tonight was acorn squash stuffed and surrounded by a simple rice pilaf: brown jasmine rice with rubbed sage, onions, garlic powder and salt. Simple, but tasty and filling.

I've been meaning to share with you all a birthday present I bought myself recently. This necklace was made by our very own Leslie ! I'm not a big jewelry person, but I have a few necklaces that are really just chains with pendants. At Herbivore I wear t-shirts every day and I wanted something I could wear casually, but would dress up my look a little more. I really like this necklace because it a) matches everything b) has a slight retro flair, like a contempory take on the classic string of pearls and c) is just plain pretty! It's also nice because I have a sensitivty to metals and I can't normally wear a necklace more than 2 days out of the week without my neck reacting, but because this is made from stone beads, I can wear it every day. That's enough about my wear skin reactions to metals! TMI!

Here's a cute picture I took of Linus the other day. He's laying on top of this foam that we have to put over our not-so-comfortable guest bed (it's very comfortable with the foam). We havent' set up the bed yet, and Jim bungied the foam into a giant spiral that Linus has taken to nesting in. I was sitting near him the other day and it slowly started to tip over so I reached out and grabbed it quick and he looked up at me as if to say "Mom! You're bothering me!" Totally unaware! Silly cat.

My Birthday with Isa

2006-09-10T09:48:00.000-07:00

My birthday was yesterday and Jim spent an abnormal amount of time (for him) in the kitchen with Vegan with a Vengeance making me breakfast and a cake. I woke up to some delicious Fronch Toast, made with some really dense Panatta bread that I picked up at Trader Joe's.

Then, I went to work (Josh and Michelle had a wedding to go to) and Jim spent the afternoon making Isa's Chocolate Raspberry Blackout Cake.

Jim has made one cake from a box mix when we first started dating and that is literally the only experience he has with baking, so I was a little worried that he would get frustrated with it, but it turned out delicious! I was so impressed and although he won't admit it, I think he is too. And he should be!

We went out with some friends last night to see a favorite band of mine, who happened to be in town, Hem. Ollabelle opened for them, it was a really great show. Then we went and grabbed some vegan pizza at It's a Beautiful Pizza and came home for cake.

This is a pillow that the cats gave me for my birthday. It's from Global Exchange, a fair trade store in town. I love it!

And here is breakfast this morning. I need to go grocery shopping, so I didn't have much to work with in the vegetable department, so our tofu scramble only had zucchini in it, alongside some rosemary potatoes and some apple slices and tangerine juice. I love these tofu twin packs they sell at Trader Joe's, they are great for cooking for one or two people, because they are split into two servings, so you just break off half of the container and cook and the other half is still sealed. No draining/soaking/storage worries, they're perfect!

5 Foods

2006-09-05T13:25:00.000-07:00

Okay, everyone is doing this 5 foods thing, so I have to add my 2 cents.

Hmmm, this isn't the easiest thing to come up with and would probably change everyday for me, really.

I'm going to cheat a little bit, because some of my foods are compound foods, you'll see what I mean.

1.) Perfectly ripened D'Anjou pear slices with almond butter. I like it even more than apples and peanut butter. Mix up the nuts in your life and try it sometime.

2.) Pick-your-own black raspberries. I love black raspberries more than any other berry. I grew up with them along the side of my grandfather's house. They are tart like a raspberry, but sweet like a blackberry and there is nothing like crushing them on the roof of your mouth while they are still warm from the sun. Nothing.

3.) Yams. I gotta back up Dreena on this one. Give me a yam or a sweet potato, I don't care, I'll eat 'em both! Baked with the skins on until tender, cut open and topped with a small pat of EB and some sea salt. OMG.

4.) Fresh baked wheat bread. The aroma. The crust. The softness. Honestly, I could give up the sweets, but I could never become a raw foodist because of bread.

5.) Hummus. I think that there is a kind of hummus for everyone and I honestly think my quality of life would decrease if I couldn't have hummus anymore. With warmed pita bread, just smeared on there... Whew! It's getting hot in here!

Okay, now I'm seriously hungry. Gotta go!

Birthday Bash!

2006-09-04T18:37:00.000-07:00

What do you think of the new layout? Much more subdued than the green... I switched over to the new Blogger beta and decided it was time for a change.

Jim's birthday was yesterday (yay!) and boy is he lucky! He didn't get just one, but TWO birthday cakes! What can I say, when inspiration strikes, it strikes and I just had to go with it.

I'd planned on making him a carrot cake, because that's his favorite kind of cake. But then I really wanted to work on a new recipe for a banana peanut butter cake. Lest you think that a banana peanut butter cake would be gross, let me calm your fears. Firstly, it's a delicate banana cake with a creamy frosting that has just a hint of peanut butter in it. Two layers are sandwiched together with a layer of frosting and thin banana slices in the middle. Yum. So I figured I'd make both and we'd be gluttons. But we're sharing, I promise. It would be obscene to eat all of this, especially since it's my birthday next weekend and we'll have even more cake happening then.

So, the banana peanut butter cake was served with slices of banana and a warm chocolate sauce on it. Ooh, I'm still stuffed from dinner tonight, but now I want some cake! I've always loved a good peanut butter and banana sandwich, but this takes it to a whole new level.

And this is the carrot cake. I've found that it's best to let carrot cake sit overnight because the spices really deepen and it tastes better. This was frosted with a Tofutti cream cheese frosting.

Here's a picture of the duo battling it out for counter space in my still-being-unpacked kitchen. They are both the same size, even though the picture makes the banana one look huge!

And here's a picture of the birthday boy! He's ohsohappy with his cakes!

An Herby Evening!

2006-09-01T01:32:00.000-07:00

Well, tonight was the big opening of the Herbivore Store and I'm too excited to sleep! I baked last night and this morning for our big evening and it was great! For a low key opening (we're planning a big grand opening for later in September), we had a great turn out and had loads of fun.

For the big evening I made 4 treats: Chocolate shell cookies with peanut butter filling, doubel chocolate brownies, raspberry liner cookies and a cookie version of my Mocha-damia bars, but the pecans instead.

No, I don't have a cross cookie-cutter and yes I am a compulsive freak. But what a better finishing touch than to have Herbivore cookies?

It's here, it's here!

2006-08-30T00:47:00.000-07:00

Okay, I have a lot of catching up to do and I have a slew of pictures to put up, but that will have to wait for another few days. What I NEED to tell you all is that the Herbivore store is opening its doors on Thursday night! We are opening at 5 until 10 because it's Last Thursday here in Portland when the shops stay open late and people can wander around and take it all in. So come on by, eat some cookies (expect some crazy baking posts soon) and see our cool store! Everyday it's transforming more and more and it's truly going to be a fun spot to come and see!

I'll be back soon, I promise!

House pics!

2006-08-25T20:48:00.000-07:00

Thanks for all your congratulations, guys! This has been a really exciting and crazy week for us. We've been coming over the the house and painting and cleaning and other things all week. I think it's better to move in to a nice, clean place rather than shifting around all your disorganized crap to try and make it look nice and welcoming. We are going to start really moving in tomorrow. I'm so excited! I've been going to work then coming over here, working until midnight, driving to our apartment, sleeping and then getting up and doing it all over again all week and I miss my kitties and Moussa! And they miss us, so I'm glad they'll all finally be able to join us and explore our new place.

So here are a few no-so-great-but-will-have-to-do pics:

This is the front of the house. There is a covered parking spot to the left of it, so I couldn't really get it all into the frame, but you get the gist of it.

And this is the back, with patio and a little white picket fence. Awwww.

It's not quite the nature preserve we've been living on, but man are there every squirrels around here! They are everywhere! So I've been enjoying that, naturally,and the kitties are going to love it. Another bonus to this place that makes it cat friendly are the the oversized window sills for laying in... I think there will be 3 very happy cats living here soon... after they are done being freaked out.

OK, more soon, I promise!

Update!

2006-08-20T01:20:00.000-07:00

Sorry I haven't posted in awhile. I'm going to be busy for a few days because... drumroll, please... we bought our house on Friday! We have been super busy getting it situated and painting and trying to get it ready to move into without worrying about kitties. Thankfully we have our apartment until the 31st, so we can move at a more leisurely pace. Pictures of home and food to come soon, I promise!

A quick recap

2006-08-14T21:08:00.000-07:00

Okay, time to recap. It's been really hectic over here lately, but here are a few yummies I've had time to crank out.

Marionberry muffins. Remember my big flat that I made jam with? Well, that was only half of them and a bunch ended up getting frozen. I pulled a bunch out for breakfast muffins last week. I always make my muffins jumbo size, regular just aren't enough.

Tonight I threw together a quick dinner with another curry-in-a-jar from Trader Joe's. Okay, so it wasn't really in a hurry, since it took me over an hour, but I didn't have to figure out spices, so that's enough for me. We had brown jasmine rice with some potatoes, carrots and chickpeas simmered in this coconut milk and lemon grass green curry. So good, definitely my favorite of the two vegan simmer sauces they have.

This afternoon I worked on dessert. A raw pie. I'm really desperate to try and curb my sugar intake, I'm just hooked on it and working on this cookbook has not helped with that! I have yet to meet a raw dessert that I don't love so I decided to try my hand at a tart. I don't like regular pies because I hate pie crust, but raw pie crust has always had a special place in my heart, so I made a simple crust with raw pecans and dates. The filling was simply 3 bananas I tossed into the food processor, then, as it was running, I dropped in mango slices. I let it set in the fridge then sliced my kiwis and Rainier cherries for the topping right before serving. It turned out great and totally satisfied my sweet tooth. More finicky Jim also loved it, especially because I peeled the skin off the kiwi. I always eat mine with the skin on, but I wanted him to enjoy the pie as well. I know what I'm having for breakfast tomorrow! And I won't have to feel guilty!

This weekend we also ate at a newer local vegan restaurant called Proper Eats. They are a very whole foods based restaurant with a great menu, local, organic produce and live music many nights of the week. I highly recommend going there if you are a Portlandian or will be passing through town. I took pictures of our food, but they were on my food and the lighting was so low, they look like crap. I highly recommend the raw hummus, I could have eaten a bucket of it!

Why stress when you can eat?

2006-08-08T21:57:00.000-07:00

Okay, it's no lie that when I'm stressed out I like to eat to try and comfort myself. It's not always sweet things, it's savory too, so I hope that I'm at least balancing it out. Our home-buying saga is (hopefully) coming to an end on Friday of next week, the 18th, when we should be closing. Until then, I shall bake.

Oatmeal cherry cookies with an icing drizzle. I buy these tart dried cherries from Trader Joe's, they really give it a kick for flavor, instead of using raisins or cranberries. Super yum. I made Jim leave the kitchen after he ate over half a dozen. He likes to make himself sick on cookies.

And falafel! On pita, slathered with hummus, and romaine and tomatoes and drizzled with tahini. And my starchy little friends, fries, on the side with some organic ketsup. Crunchy, a little greasy, starchy, this is comfort food at its best.

Herbistore Help!

2006-08-07T21:44:00.000-07:00

Hey folks, please check out Michelle's latest post on the Herbivore blog. She's working on the buying for the upcoming store and we want your ideas of what you would want in such a store. Your opinions are SUPER DUPER appreciated!

Breaking the Brownie Code

2006-08-06T22:27:00.000-07:00

What started as a product review became an adventure.

I noticed the Truffle Brownie Mix at Trader Joe's was accidentally vegan, so I picked it up, not wanting to deal with making them from scratch. I baked them on Friday night and we enjoyed them ala mode. Very rich and chocolatey, I really recommend them.

But, as I was reading the box, I realized that there were barely any ingredients in it. Could I replicate the recipe by playing with quantities?

Well, they aren't exactly the same, but they are pretty darn close. I'm chalking up most of the difference to the fact that I didn't have Dutch press cocoa, which makes a slight flavor difference. But I was quite happy with them, they are moist, dense and chewy, what else do you want from a brownie? Plus, I will admit, I felt rather badass by making these by guessing at the quantities. I estimated that the package contained about 2 to 2 1/2 cups of mix, so I just went down the line of ingredients, greatest to smallest and I estimated pretty darn well, if I say so myself. I will be experimenting and tweaking this for the book.

Not that it was really necessary to replicate it, the mix costs $2.29, but it was a fun challenge that kind of defeated my "I don't want to bake from scratch tonight" plan, lol.

In closing, here is a picture of my crazy little snake cat, Ravi, giving me instructions on how to lay around during the weekend. He's a good teacher, he convinced me to take a nap with him and it was rather relaxing.

Yummy Food

2006-08-02T23:08:00.000-07:00

Okay, here's a catch up. I was really bad about taking food pics while my friend was in town, so there aren't quite the bounty of pictures I thought there were.

Last weekend we went to the coast to a little town called Astoria. It's a really cute place, lots of little shops and some incredible old buildings. Not much for vegan eating, but we made due at a local Thai restaurant. From there we drove up the coast to a beach that has the wreckage from a 1906 British ship. It was the Peter Iredale and this is all that remains.

This is the view looking head on at the front of it. You can literally walk (or swim, depending on the tide) right up to it, which to me screams "tetanus", but no one seemed to be bleeding or injured. It was cool to see. It's on a great beach that's in a national park. Jim and I want to get back there soon to do some camping and exploring.

If you checked out my other blog entry over at the Herbivore group blog, you read about my recent adventures with kale. This was my meal yesterday at The Blossoming Lotus. I had a yummy bowl with brown basmati rice, pinto beans, and steamed kale, covered with a spicy peanut sauce with a side Caesar salad. For dessert I indulged in some melon vegan soft serve. I was skeptical of the melon, but it was very refreshing and tasty. This is a camera phone pic, sorry.

This is my latest food obsession. I happened upon a Wild Oats the other day and saw these vegan veggie rolls in their bakery and I just had to try one. It's basically a dough blob with layers of vegan mozzerella, chives, basil, tomatoes, zucchini chunks and other assorted flavors all coming together in a yeasty explosion of goodness. I swear, these things have crack in them. And don't let the faux cheese throw you off. I hate faux cheeses, but this is really subtle and tastes great. If there is a Wild Oats near you, check them out and see if they make them. If they don't, request that they do.

Tonight Jim and I split one of those yummy rolls with a sundried tomato and artichoke risotto which I whipped up in 10 minutes in my new toy, the pressure cooker. All I did was dice my veggies, sautee my onions and garlic and throw everything in a pot, brought it to pressure for 7 minutes, used the quick release method, took the lid off and voila, fancy pants dinner in Rice-a-Roni time. It was my first time making risotto and I've had some gross experiences with it in the past, but I think I've just had the misfortune of eating undercooked risotto, because this was delish. I think next time I'll add some mushrooms to it as well.

Well, until next time, either here or on the Herbivore blog!

Bloggity Blog Blog

2006-08-02T14:03:00.000-07:00

Hey, Josh has hooked me up to start blogging on the Herbivore group blog. You can access it by going to the Herbivore Magazine site and clcking on the Blog Mashup button, but here's the direct link. I just posted my first entry there, it's fun stuff!

I will post more tonight, I have a backlog of food to put up and now that my friend has gone home I have the time to get them all up to you. See you later!

Birthday Tart

2006-07-27T22:19:00.000-07:00

Busy, busy. I was sick, then my best friend flew into town and she is staying with us for the week, so between showing her the vast coolness of Portland and schlepping her to work with me I've been all over the place lately.

Her birthday was last week, so last night we had a little belated birthday bash with a special tart I made, incorporating her favorite treat flavors, chocolate and strawberries.

I'm calling it "Lauren's Birthday Tart". Not terribly creative, I know, but it pays respect to it's inspiration, no doubt. It is a chocolate tart shell and with a creamy, jellish strawberry layer, decorated with fresh slices of strawberries and piped with chocolate frosting. It was a big hit with the birthday girl, even though I forgot to add the decorative chocolate curls I was going to make with a yummy chocolate truffle bar from Trader Joes. Oh well, looks like I'll just have to eat the chocolate bar myself. I'm really sacrificing for my art over here. :P

I will be back to posting fairly regularly again soon. We are actually in the process of buying our first home right now, very exciting, confusing and scary all at once. We are supposed to be closing on August 18th, so keep your fingers crossed that everything works out between now and then so we can move in and start tearing it up! LOL, it doesn't need to be torn up, we just have lots of ideas for the space. Jim and I both have been life-long renters, neither of our parents owned homes when we lived at home, so this is an especially big deal because neither one of us knows what it's like to be able to paint the walls or tear up the carpet or anything like that. Fingers crossed for a smooth and uneventful closing!

Too sick to scream for ice cream....

2006-07-23T20:37:00.000-07:00

Oh boy! I have been sick as a dog this week! My throat felt a little weird on Monday, but I didn't think anything of it... until I woke up on Tuesday with my glands so swollen I couldn't swallow! By Wednesday I'd lost my voice and Thursday the head cold portion of it caught up with me and I was just plain pathetic. So, I haven't been cooking. I'm feeling much better now, thankfully, because my best friend is flying in tomorrow to visit for a week and a half.

I've lived this week on a diet of soup, crackers and ice cream. In lieu of Leslie's ice cream post I'm going to do a little ice cream review of my new frozen friends.

First up:

Tofutti Kids! Remember orange creamsicles, with their crisp and tangy orange outer shell and their creamer inner layer? Imagine them with an even creamer inner layer, thanks to Tofutti Cream Cheese, and outer flavors of strawberry, lime and orange made with *gasp* real fruit! The cats and the humans are in agreement, these babies are good.

The other one we are out of and I can't find a picture of them online, not even on their own site! They are also by Tofutti and called Tofutti Rich Rewards. The basic makeup of this fine treat is a stick surrounded by creamy vanilla ice cream with strawberry/raspberry swirls through it, dipped in chocolate. I hadn't really expected much from it, I don't know why, but I was expecting waxy chocolate. OMG, they are so good. The chocolate is so creamy, it just melts like buttah and the ice cream/ fruit swirl... I'm drooling over here. If you ever see these near you, they are in a brown and cream box, buy them. The kicker is they are a nice sized bar and they are under 200 calories each! Double yum!

I just got my supercool Secret Society of Vegans shirt in the mail this week, along with some other assorted goodies, some buttons and a patch that will definitely be going on a bag soon.

I was so happy that the red and black shirts were recently printed on bigger shirts. I'm wearing a large and I typically wear an XL in women's American Apparel, for those of you who are leery of ordering shirts from the UK. Michelle at Herbivore has a small and it fits like an American Apparel M. Very fun shirt, I love it!

We be jammin'...

2006-07-17T22:34:00.000-07:00

Yes, I listened to Bob Marley while I was making jam. Can you blame me? How often does that opprotunity present itself?

So, on Saturday, I made jam and marmalade from scratch. And, refusing to settle for freezer jam, I took on the scary task of canning. I grew up with grandmothers that canned a lot of food, but it wasn't carried on by the next generation. Sadly, there's no one in my family that's living to give me any pointers, so I turned to a book on preserves I bought and, of course, Martha Stewart online.

The great thing about jam is it's a really easy way to learn the basics of canning. The high acidity in fruit kills the bacteria that can turn into botulism so no home botox for any of you! But, thankfully, that dramatically decreases your chances of accidentally poisioning your family, horray!

I made marionberry jam and a mixed citrus marmalade, consisting of grapefruit, orange, lemon and lime. Marionberries and citrus are both really high in pectin, so I didn't add any of the commercial kind. Commercial pectin is typically derived from apples and you can find easy ways online to make your own apple pectin, rather than relying on the boxed stuff.

Here is the flat of marionberries I picked up at a local farmer's market. Yummy! $17 for the flat, not too shabby! I used 8 pints for the jam, "flash" froze 2 (froze them in a flat layer, then placed them in bags) and we kept 2 for immediate consumption.

This is the stove set up. On the left is the canning pot, with jars being sterilized in it. I got a great deal on some very cool mason jars at the Goodwill near us. It's a pay-by-the-pound place and glass is .29 a pound! I found 8 really neat jelly jars and paid $1.70! On the lower right is my pot for making jam and on the top left is a little pot with water for sterilizing the lids. You can reuse jars and bands as much as you want, provided they are in safe working condition, but you should never reuse the lids because you could be compromising the security of your seal.

I got so caught up in making the jam first, that I forgot to take a lot of pictures, so here's a picture of the marmalade cooking. The difference between a jam and a marmalade is that marmalades are citrus based, with bits of sugared rind in them. Jams are fruit that is crushed up, where jelly uses just fruit juice and preserves have large chunks of the fruit in them. Clearly I learned a lot this weekend!

After cooking to the right jelling temperature (it varies by fruit), the hot, sterilized jars are then filled with the hot jam. Jim provided a helpful hand during this process. We were able to pick up a nice set of canning tools, including special tongs and such, for under $8. The cans then go into the canning pot, are submerged in water, and are brought to a boil and held there, covered, for the appropriate amount of time. After that they must be taken out and placed on a surface that will not be a temperature shock. I used cooking racks covered with newspaper for insulation and some kitchen towels. Let them cool, undisturbed, for at least 12 hours.

The marmalade, looking pretty.

And the marionberry jam.

We only had one can not seal, so we just popped it in the fridge the next day, after cooling, and are eating that one first. I was very pleased with the results of this adventure and I will definitely be canning again in the future. It was fun and so far it was made breakfast satisfying on more than one level. :)

And a totally belated picture from last week, of some Field Roast culets served with tomato-bail quinoa and some steamed (frozen) green beans. I finally got creative enough to use my cookie scoop for the quinoa and I really liked the presentation, so I think I'll be buying a bigger scoop soon. Any excuse for more gadgets!

Bread winners!

2006-07-16T22:31:00.000-07:00

Okay! I have done some serious thinking (seriously, this is important to me) and I have picked 2 bread ideas that I am working on developing. All of the suggestions were overwhelming if not instantly drool-inducing. Some of the ideas thrown out are ones that I already have in the book, either as breads or muffins so I imagine that will be a pleasent surprise ("garden" muffins with zucchini and carrots, blueberry muffins, banana bread, lemon bread...) Other people commented on disliking "debris" in their food. I run into this from time to time and although I can't fathom why someone wouldn't love a cookie swimming with nuts, I understand that this is a malady that I must cater to. :) Jim also isn't a fan of things in his food, so I'm seasoned in this department.

The first bread idea that I liked and ran with was the idea of the pumpkin bread. This idea was brought up by Mindy and Cheryl. I really liked it, but I liked it even more when I combined that idea with Laura Faye's cinnamon swirl bread idea. I got to play with that this week and here was the result:

This is a picture of the heel, so it's not the best part to have photographed, but what can I say? I'm a putz. Anyway, the first test of this deemed it delicious. Jim isn't normally very interested in pumpkin but wanted me to immediately bake another loaf.

The next kind of bread, which I will be working on soon, is the apple pie bread suggested by Caroline. I love the idea of such a homestyle smell coming from a bread and being so much more manageable, and healthier, to eat.

I thank you all, with much sincerity, for all of your help and enthusiasm. Working on a book is very difficult work and it's easy to feel overwhelmed but having such a creative and responsive community of people is very inspiring and gives me a lot of motivation. So, Caroline, Mindy, Laura Faye and Cheryl, please be sure I have your addresses to get copies of the book to you when it's done. My email is squirrelsvegankitchen@gmail.com.

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Okay, now on another note. I hope you all had a wonderful Sunday. It was beautiful here today. I'm not really sure what the temperature was (one of the downfalls of not owning a television: I never bother to find out what the weather will be like. It wasn't an issue in AZ, but I'll have to start looking into it here), but it was gorgeous. I was up late finishing a wonderful book I was reading, The Devil in the White City which is about the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago, so I slept in this morning. Then we rode down to the farmer's market with our bikes and indulged in a bounty of freshly farmed bargains. We bought 1 1/2 pounds of cherries, Bing and Rainier combined, at $1 a pound (my eyes nearly fell out of my head), some zucchini, sugar snap peas, new potatoes and onions. We then cruised over to a local coffee house and enjoyed some sorbetto. After that we came home and I have no idea where the afternoon went, but this evening we did something that was long overdue. We went to see Al Gore's movie An Inconvenient Truth.

Now, I normally try to keep this blog lighthearted, but I feel very strongly about this movie and the reaction that I've been hearing from the vegan community, so here I am, to state my opinion on the matter. The main complaints about this movie that I have been hearing are that 1.) "it's not going to make a difference anyway" and 2.) "he doesn't bring up the effects of animal agriculture on the environment". Here are my thoughts:

For the people who are saying 1.), what are you doing to help the situation? Here is a man that has politics and celebrity on his side and is using that make a film (which is an accessible media for people of many classes) about one of the biggest topics that we are facing. If you are looking for some almighty person to say and do what you think you would do, were you in his shoes, go talk to your god. He is giving bigger visibility to this topic than has ever happened before and I think that pretty damn big.

For those in the 2.) camp, well, you aren't going to like what I'm going to say. This movie was not created to point fingers are certain industries. He certainly has many opprotunites to do that and he does not. What this movie tries to do is break down and explain global warming in the most accessible way possible, discuss it and get people feeling passionate about it. He does lightly touch on energy uses, or wastes as it may be, but the movie never claims to be a guide that condemns the evil industries and praises the good. And there is a moment when our vegan utopia must be punctured to look at reality. Even if Al Gore himself was vegan, the reality of it is that if he wants to continue to be taken seriously in the political arena he cannot make that a platform or really discuss animal rights period. Clearly it doesn't make me happy to say that, but it's the truth, he would get lumped in with other "earthy hippy" hypes (and that is meant with no offense, as I'm in that catagory myself) and he would be written off by the idiots that are in power. It's easy to think that he could be the one to make a difference, but if no one is taking his global warming campaign seriously no one is going to look at the animal agriculture industry. It's one of those "sad but true" things.

I personally have been a Gore lover for years. I was very young during the first Clinton administration, so my adoration was actually my first political crush, but as I got older and understood the amazing affects of the Clinton-Gore years, the lowest unemployment rate in 30 years, paying off, not just down but off, the national debt and creating a surplus and all the good that they did towards the civil rights of our citizens, well, I couldn't help but love him. I'm sure there are other candidates out there that I would identify with even more strongly that I'm unaware of, but the fact remains that Al Gore is one of the gutsiest politians that I can actually say I admire. I think that Paul Wellstone (RIP) is looking down on him with a tired smile of an equally challenged ally.

So there is my little spiel. I hope I didn't offend anyone too badly. I am not a very tolerant person of those who feel like it's okay to knock people who are trying to make a difference. I know it's easier to complain than give someone credit. It may not be perfect in some people's eyes, but damn it, they are doing something and that's a lot more than most people.

On a lighter note, I ventured into the scary world of homemade jams and canning this weekend, which I will post about, which picture documentation, tomorrow. Yay!

Seattle Trip

2006-07-13T22:42:00.000-07:00

I went up to Seattle on Tuesday to see my favorite musician Mason Jennings. Luckily, my brother-in-law and his wife live there so I had company and a place to crash. I got there early in the day and went to Sidecar which is the vegan store in Seattle. All of the money benefits a pig sanctuary just outside of town. They have eats much like Food Fight and they have some vegan stuff, like shirts and shoes, but the selection is a little less hip than you would expect. I picked up a new pair of Blackspot Sneakers, a new vinyl wallet and some other assorted little goodies.

From there I met up with an old high school friend. We were going to a vegan restaurant called Chaco Canyon Cafe, but when we got there they said they were having "issues" that day and were only doing take-away, not regular seating. We weren't really in a position to take food anywhere, so we went above the restaurant to another place called Cedar's, where I had some amazing falafel that I forgot to take a picture of. They coated the balls in tahini, rather than just drizzling it on them and it made all the difference. Excellent.

After lunch, I went and met up with my BiL and we hung out until his wife got home. Then it was, you guessed, time for more food! We went to a vegan thai restaurant (no, sadly they aren't vegan, but they've eaten at many of the vegan restaurants in Seattle) called Araya's. It was wonderful! Sorry about the picture quality, there was low light and I used my phone.

This was Katie's dish. I honestly cannot remember what she got, but it involved lots of veggies and a brown sauce.

Max had a drunken mushroom noodle bowl. They were literally the most incredible mushrooms I've ever tasted. I will definitely be getting that if we go back there again.

Good old reliable me, with my curry and coconut milk! What can I say, I know what I like!

Max and I went to the concert that evening and had a great time. The next morning I was going to head back down here, but not before a stop at Mighty O, the vegan donut shop. So, we get our donuts (I got a chocolate glaze and a strawberry glaze) and I'm walking to get napkins and I bump into this guy. I apologize and continue on my way. Then Max and I find a table, which happens to be right by the guy I bumped into. The place is a bit cramped and it's cafe-type seating. So, we sit down and Max leans over to me and says "The guy you bumped into is right behind you. It's Dave Matthews!" Well, I glance over and sure enough, he's literally within inches of me, enjoying vegan donuts and coffee with who I guessed to be his wife and his kids. Shows how much I pay attention, given that I almost fell into him and didn't even make direct eye contact! I think it's great that people in Seattle are respectful enough that he can do normal things even though he's mega famous. So yeah, there's my literal brush with fame!

I'll leave you all with this really cute picture of Moussa eating piece of spinach. So cute!

Bread idea winners will be annouced Saturday, I do believe.

And the sticker goes to....

2006-07-13T11:19:00.000-07:00

Cheryl! Please email me at squirrelsvegankitchen@gmail.com with your address and I will get it out to you ASAP.

I will annouce the bread idea winners tomorrow. I will also blog later today, I went to Seattle for a few days for a concert and I had a delicious time. I also had a pretty huge celebrity sighting at a popular vegan spot... Pretty cool stuff!

Give It Away, GIve It Away Now!

2006-07-08T22:22:00.000-07:00

Okay, folks, I'm doing another giveaway! This time it's for a lovely sticker from The Secret Society of Vegans . They didn't have a very large pic for me to post here, so just follow the link. Super cool company.

Ok, here's what you do. Reply to this posting, just write a comment, and the winner will be randomly drawn. There will actually be 2 winners in this: to be entered you must tell me your favorite kind of quickbread (i.e banana bread... but not banana bread because I already have that). I will use your answers to develop a new quickbread recipe that I will name after the person sumbitting the idea and they will get a free copy of the book when it comes out. Sound like a plan?

So, to recap: reply in the comments with your favorite quickbread or a kind of quickbread you'd like to try (a bread that does not require yeast) and I will randomly pick a winner for the sticker and then intentionally pick a winner for the bread idea. Okay? Okay! The contest will close at midnight on Wednesday July 12th.

My quickbread section is rather lacking, so I need some inspiration. Thanks!

Nutty Weather

2006-07-06T20:53:00.000-07:00

So, it was 100 degrees last week. Sweltering. Hot. If I wasn't full of psychological hang-ups I could have slept naked. This week it's been cooler and today it was cold! We had to turn the heat on last night! Today all I wanted was some soup, so I made some after work.

Tonight we had some quick corn chowder with wraps. I made the chowder with a diced onion, some cubed potatoes, carrots and corn and a carton of Imagine brand corn chowder soup. When it's all over and done I add a little rubbed sage to the pot. It makes 4 large servings for us. Sometimes I'll add seitan as well, if it's a main course, but tonight the seitan was in our wraps. I used tomato basil tortillas with fresh romaine and spinach, some tomatoes, seitan and a new roasted garlic dressing I found at the store. Neither one of us was too crazy about the dressing, as it was rather sweet and we both prefer savory dressings, but it wasn't bad. The tortillas were delish and really tender and fresh.

Well, Ravi is down a picture, so I found this cute one of him looking up at me from the coffee table. Yes, our cats can lay on the coffee table. Our rule is anything we can sit/put our feet on they can too, so no counters or kitchen table, but otherwise they have full run of the place. No, Ravi isn't pregnant, that's just his "orange sack" as we call it. He actually isn't fat, it's more like excess skin and our vet says she isn't concerned about it. Because of this, we call him a flying squirrel. Ravi and I have an extra special relationship and we are super close. He's such a little mama's boy. Sigh.

Catch Up

2006-07-05T21:21:00.000-07:00

Whew, it's been a couple of days! So, first and foremost, the kitten is still with us (oddly, we've started calling him Seuss. I don't know why). The neighbors, obviously, care less. I'm still not sure what our game plan is with him. We shall see.

I am officially participating in the veganbodybuilding.com summer shape-up challenge, which started on the 1st. It runs for 12 weeks and is a body tranformation challenge. I'm not really in a position to be bulking up, I'm using this as a motivator to get my spare cookbook pounds off. Wish me luck! I'll keep you all posted! Now I have to satiate my sweet tooth in more productive ways.

On Saturday we went to the downtown farmer's market. In Portland you can catch a farmer's market on almost any day, but the downtown one is the real deal. We were able to satisfy my fruit tooth with some black raspberries (my favorites!), red raspberries and Rainier cherries. Not pictured are some artichokes and tomatoes.

For breakfast the next morning we had parfaits, layered with both kinds of raspberries, vanilla soy yogurt and granola. Being that we are cooincidentally virtually straightedge vegans, this is the most use our pilsner glasses will get.

We had an otter come visit us! Sorry the picture is so bad, I had to rely on my digital zoom to get a close up picture of him/her. What a cutie!

This weekend I made pierogi, for the first time in months. I will post the recipe soon (as well as the mocha-damia bar one ;) ) and Jim was delighted. I fill them with garlic mashed potatoes (the same one from the shephard's pie recipe) and to up the health factor I use mostly whole wheat pastry flour and some ground flax seed in them. Actually, who am I kidding? I put flax seed in almost everything, it's like my version of Leslie's hemp seeds. I made my pierogi perfectly uniform and in good time with my new cool tool I bought called a pierogi peepa. It basically is a mold that you put the dough onto, fill them, put the top layer of dough over the filled one and roll them out with a rolling pin, which seals the layers of dough together. I love getting new kitchen gadgets.

For the 4th we barbequed! I skewered some of the chick'n nuggets from Food Fight and marinated them in barbeque sauce. They were delicious alongside some grilled corn and steamed artichokes that I steamed in my new pressure cooker (there will be some pressure cooker adventures in the near future, I promise!). It was a delicious meal, enjoyed with a glass of iced Newman's Own limeade and ended with some crisp watermelon. After dinner we went to a local theater that was doing an anniversary showing of Raiders of the Lost Ark. This event reaffirmed 2 beliefs I hold dear:

1. Archeology is cool
and
2. Harrison Ford is one of the sexiest men to ever grace the silver screen.

After the movie we went and enjoyed some fireworks and came home to call it a night.

Tonight I tossed some sweet potato fries into the oven to go with slices of Savory Mushroom Field Roast loaf and steamed broccoli. Super yummy. I am officially in love with Field Roast. It's the best store bought seitan ever. Well, even my homemade isn't that flavorful. Very few ingredients, all from whole foods, and very healthy, it makes me cringe to think of Tofurky.

Me Cookie Monster

2006-06-27T21:12:00.000-07:00

I have a really hard assignment for the next issue of Herbivore. I am reviewing this newer line of cookies, Nature Bake for the Review section. Life is tough. They have a limited distribution area, but you can buy them on Food Fight's website.

After dinner I brought out 2 of each for Jim and I try. The flavors we got were: oatmeal raisin, oatmeal cranberry, ginger and, of course, chocolate chip. They are SO good, the absolute best premade vegan cookies I've ever had, even better than Alternative Baking Co. So chewy and delicious... I think my faves are the chocolate chip and ginger. I've never had such a good ginger cookie before... The verdict: go to Food Fight and get some of these! You'll be so happy that you did.

Wesley is currently snoozing under the coffeetable after a long play session involving a string, a ball and a cloth mouse. We're just playing the waiting game at this point... I'll keep you all updated.

The Big Salad and Kitty Update

2006-06-26T21:50:00.000-07:00

Well, we had a loooooooong night. Because we didn't know the health status of this cat we got our guest room ready and let him in. Jim spent the night with Wesley (as we've temporarily named him) in there and I slept out with the other catkids. It was a horrible night as we were never able to get the a/c unit Jim bought up because it wasn't designed for sliding windows, just up and down ones and long story short, we were hot and miserable. It was 97 yesterday and almost 100 today. Yes, 100 in the land where no one has air conditioning. Anyway, today Wesley went to the vet where we was given a clean bill of health. Yay!

But the plot thickens, as it so often does. It seems that Wesley does have "owners", our neighbors who recently got him as an outdoor only cat and literally walk by like he doesn't exist. Now, there are a ton of stray and feral cats around here and on any given night you are woken up because of a cat fight outside of our complex. So what in god's name would inspire you to get a kitten and bring him into this madness and not take care of him? The couple are, to put it nicely, losers. After much debating about what to do, Jim went and talked to the wife and just said "hey, your kitty was on our porch today and seemed overheated so we let him in. Do you want me to bring him up?" to which she slightly stepped back like he said something repulsive and said "um, whatever, we just let him roam around. you could just let him out." The ending of this? He's hanging out in here right now and Bindhi is growling at him, because she's a fussy little brat, but the boys sniffed his butt and gave him a seal of approval. And Moussa, well, she's cleaning herself like mad right now because the heat messed up her routine last night. And for the heat, well, let's just say we managed to get the a/c unit rigged up until Jim can get proper parts to set it up in the window.

Tres chic, no? I especially like the orange tape. Makes it look all official.

So it's damn hot and we're damn stressed. We're planning on keeping Wesley until this hot spell passes and then talking to his "owners" again. I really don't think they give a damn about him, but they seem like the kind of people who might view animals as property, so we'll see what happens. For now we're loving him up like crazy!

So, as a result of the heat and laziness we had salads today! Big salads with red romaine, spinach, shredded carrot, Roma tomatoes, shredded faux chicken (left over naked nuggets from this weekend) and goddess dressing. Mmmm, very filling and delicious. We also each enjoyed a juicy nectarine and indulged in a little mocha Soy Delicious for dessert.

So that about wraps up today! Pretty nutzoid and I'm quite stressed out, but we're making the most of our foster child and trying to keep everyone happy and cool. I'll leave you with a picture of the current contender for cutest kitten of the year. (the stuff in his ears is just dirty wax. I got a bunch out today, but we know how patient kitties are about that kind of thing...)

Food Fight!

2006-06-25T16:58:00.000-07:00

Today there was a big potluck at Food Fight so I made 2 cakes for the event.

This first cake I'm calling my summer cake because it's light and refreshing, but I can't actually title it "Summer Cake" because that's just boring. It is a simple white cake with mandarin oranges and a creamy coconut frosting. I was inspired to make a spiral with the coconut on top of it, which I then yammered on about to Jim until I think he wished he could turn my voice off. "Yes, Kris, your spiral was a very cute idea". I love baking, but decorating it isn't always my strong point, so I was pleased.

This second cake is, obviously, a Boston Cream Pie. I'm still not 100% happy with the cream filling yet, it's just not "wow". I think I'm going to try it with soy creamer and a vanilla bean next time... We shall see.

Jim and I piled our plates high with yummy goodness. This is the first vegan potluck I've been to, so it was a welcome change of pace. I'm still full, hours after eating. We then hung out in the heat (yes, it's actually gotten hot here. And we don't have air conditioning...), eating our food and watching painfully cute vegan babies run around and suck on watermelon wedges.

Now I'm going to lay around with some mocha soy ice cream and read while Jim goes out to buy a window unit air conditioner. Yay cold air!

ETA: How did I forget our little issue we have right now? There is a stray kitten that we found, about 2-3 months old. He's super cute and friendly (the nicest kitten I've ever met, actually, very gentle and sweet) and he needs a home! We can't possibly keep him and our neighborhood is full of mean, territorial toms. If anyone knows anyone in Portland that might be interested in a sweet kitten, we're taking him to the vet to get shots, checked for FIV and leukemia and to get his ears checked out (looks like mites) tomorrow. PLEASE let me know, this little guy has us just sick with worry!

A Truly Happy Meal

2006-06-24T19:56:00.000-07:00

Jim and I were recently taking about things we loved eating when we were kids (we both grew up omni). We both loved the chicken nuggets from a certain unnameable place because they were batter-dipped, rather than breaded. Well, inspiration struck recently at Food Fight when I found veggie nuggets that weren't breaded and a packet of accidentally vegan McCormicks Batter Dip Mix. I tried to find a website for the nuggets we used, the brand in Li Ta and they are from Canada, but I couldn't find anything on them. You could easily use tempeh or even the Morningstar strips.

And so we had our adult version of a Happy Meal, but this one is truly happy. I baked a bag of Alexia rosemary and olive oil fries to accompany our nuggets and poured some sides of barbeque sauce and dijon mustard for dipping. We shared a Blue Sky rootbeer to top off what was also a truly unhealthy meal. To make up for it we went bike riding after it all settled!

I was really happy with how the nuggets turned out. Because I didn't have to cook them as long as meat (since I didn't have to finish off killing them so they wouldn't kill us) the outside got crispy fast and I was able to pull them out before any oil was able to settle in them. I used canola oil, with it being what I had laying around. I would maybe try grapeseed next time, to see how that works.

I'll leave you all with a video of Moussa playing in the (dry) bathtub. We put down newspaper as a buffer because the tub was a bit cold. Not terribly eventful, but cute nonetheless.

Baking!

2006-06-22T22:47:00.000-07:00

I've been the late night baker lately. Not having to be at work until 11-12 is bad because I stay up until 2ish... So that means I do bad things like bake at midnight.

These are shortbread cookies. They are vanilla and chocolate sprial. Very yummy, but with an understated and delicate taste.

These were tonight's beasts: mochadamia bars. Coffee flavored bars with chocolate chips and macadamia nuts. I wish we had some soy ice cream so we could eat them ala mode...

Okay, I'm off to try to go to bed at a decent hour. Night!

A Taste of India

2006-06-20T22:34:00.000-07:00

Unintentionally, what have become the only two meals of my day where both filled with Indian spices.

For breakfast/brunch (getting up at 10:30 screws up the rest of your day, which is why you stay up until 2... not a good schedule to fall into) I made some chai oatmeal. Now, for many of you, during this terribly hot season, eating oatmeal probably sounds unbearable, but up here it's a bit chilly in the morning, so warm food is a welcome thing. I steeped a chai teabag in my oats and water, then gave it a good squeeze when the water started to absorb, added a hint of vanilla and some raisins, walnuts and a splash of maple syrup. On the side I have half a banana and couple of the strawberries pictured with last night's dinner along with some vanilla soy yogurt on top.

For dinner Jim wanted to get something ready while I was on my way home, so I talked him through making some brown basmati rice and using a jar of premade Indian food from Trader Joe's. It was just a simple veggie and lentil stew, which he thickened with some cornstarch to make it heartier. He also added a chopped and sauteed shallot, grated ginger and some chunks of potato. He also went to the grocery store and bought some accidentally vegan naan, which I then heated up and we spread a mixture of garlic and Earth Balance over.... So good...

I love Indian food, the spices make your house smell so fragrant! I wish they made garam masala incense...

Nachos!

2006-06-19T19:41:00.000-07:00

Tonight was nacho night! I'm still getting into the swing of my new schedule, so I've been trying to do some quick dinner ideas. These make a fancy looking meal, but are really simple to assemble.

I start with a layer of tortilla chips, then some canned balck beans that have been rinsed, drained and heated with some cumin, garlic and a splash of oil. I would have added cilantro as well, if I'd remembered to get some at the store. On top of that is a hearty scoop of seasoned TVP, some quick guac (mash an avocado with a splash of lime juice and a hint of salt), salsa and a few dollops of Tofutti sour cream and voila! Dinner is served. This is a meal you need to eat quickly though, or your bed of chips will get soggy.

The last member of my family to be featured is little Moussa the hamster. She has been living with us for about 7 months now. We found her living on our patio in Arizona. We assume that someone who didn't want to deal with the responsibility dumped her in the park behind our patio and she was drawn to our bird seed. She's super sweet and a great little friend. She loves fresh apple or pear (organic only, of course), sunflower seeds and chasing the cats in her plastic ball, who are rather scared of her. They like to watch, but they steer clear of her!

Baking Bonanza!

2006-06-17T17:28:00.000-07:00

This morning the ducks were hanging out below out bedroom window. So cute!

Tonight there is a movie fundraiser to raise appeals money for Josh Harper of theSHAC7. If you have not heard about the case of the SHAC I urge you to read up on it. They are a group of people who ran a website about the direct action activism against Huntington Life Sciences, the largest animal testing lab in the country. They were found guilty under the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act, which basically means they pissed off enough people at the top of the financial food chain to piss off the gov't because HLS has been on the brink of bankruptcy several times because of the SHAC and many people in the gov't have financial involvement in the animal testing industry. Whether or not you believe in direct action, it is NECESSARY that you care about this, because they were not found guilty of doing any direct action, they were found guilty of having a website that talked about it. Last time I checked, that was free speech, but apparently since the FBI has declared that animal rights activists and environmentalists are the "next great threat to National security", our free speech is limited. They are being sentenced in September and some of them face up to 11 years in prison for simply standing up for something they believe in. If you search this, be wary of the press, as much of the media had written horribly biased articles regarding the SHAC. Again, even if you are against direct action, this affects any one with a minority opinion, gays, vegans, anyone who is small but strong in their beliefs. If you would like to help raise money for their appeals Herbivore is doing a SHAC pack , which we hope to ship this week, which includes a great shirt, some buttons, postcards and a sticker. It costs $35 and after our costs $28 will go to the SHAC. We've presold a lot of these. Show your pride and help these folks out!

Anyhow, for the fundraiser tonight I offered to cook, so here is my food for the movie night! All of these recipes will be in the book.

Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies. These are the same ones that I made shortly before the move. They are a vegan version of my great-grandma's recipe and they are chewy rather than the traditional crumbly texture.

These are my chewy walnut brownies.

These are some cherry oatmeal cookies, with a light drizzle of icing. I use tart dried cherries so the flavor is more defined in the finished product.

These are a bite-sized version of a large lemon-almonde torte that I make. I just crave citrus this time of year.

These are cranberry apple butter cookies. They are a lighter texture and flavor for people who enjoy a more savory sweet treat.

That's it! I've been baking my heart out and now I need to jump in the shower to get ready for the show!

Spending even more money...

2006-06-15T23:23:00.000-07:00

Ah, Portland. You shall break my bank. We got some bikes the other day (yay!) to replace the crappy ones we had in Phoenix (we donated them, they weren't that crappy, but they weren't worth taking up precious space in our cubes). So tonight we had to run to a bike shop in the SE part of Portland before they closed at 7 to pick up some parts and I was starving! We decided to stop on Belmont, which is a great strip for vegan eating and was only about 5 blocks from the bike shop. Yay! After debating between pizza and a place called The Laughing Planet, we opted for The Laughing Planet so Jim could get a burrito fix.

I probably ordered the most trailer trash entree of them all, but it looked so good! Mashed potatoes with sweet corn, broccoli and tempeh! Mmm, it was hands down the best tempeh I've ever had, it was in this delicious marinade and slightly blackened. Next time I'm going to get it in a burrito. Jim had a grilled veggie burrito with vegan sour cream and guac. The prices at The Laughing Planet were good, ambiance was nice, and the service was very friendly and knowledgeable, I think this is going to become of our "places".

This is a picture of Bindhi that I took with my phone the other day, too cute to not share! She's such a sweetie!

A Night At The Deli

2006-06-13T20:51:00.000-07:00

We had to do some running around tonight (bike shopping), so we stopped in at one of the all-vegetarian food markets for vegan deli treats. We will definitely have to go back for lunch, they have a sprawling salad bar and they had 4 vegan soups today, but they were all put away when we got there. The pot pie looking pockets are filled with artichokes, garlic and some unidentifiable yummys. The round containers have mashed potatoes and gravy and the top containers are cupcakes, black forest on the left the peanut butter swirl on the right. This picture was also taken with my phone, so it's a little washed out.

Hopefully tomorrow I'll be able to post a picture of my new (old) bike. I have one that I might buy, depending on another one I'm looking at tomorrow morning. Old Schwinns rule!

Portland Adventures

2006-06-12T19:15:00.000-07:00

These pictures may not look the greatest because they are off of my cell phone, but you'll get the gist of it! :)

This was from our breakfast at Bob's Red Mill. So yummy! Vegan French toast on bread they make there from the flour they mill with actual maple syrup, some fried potatoes and bisquits all served with Earth Balance. The only meat and cheese they sell in the store at Bob's is soy! It's pretty neat and cheap if you're ever here, it's in the slightly southern suburb of Milwaukie.

Yesterday while wandering around we stopped by Pizza-Agogo a pizza place in North Portland that has vegan pizza by the slice. The pizza on hand yesterday was quite yummy, with a red sauce, spinach, artichoke hearts, tomatoes, kalmata olives and (strangly) blackeyed peas. It was very good and the slices were huge! We also had some breadsticks with fresh marinara.

We ate out on the patio and while we were eating I saw this crazy looking flower behind Jim's head! Very Seussical looking, I think, with it's purple feathery petals and the little whirlywig on top of it. I had to snap a picture of it!

Into the woods... for dessert!

2006-06-10T23:48:00.000-07:00

Tonight we had a friend of ours over for dinner. With it being our first dinner that we've hosted since we got here, I really wanted to go all out.

First thing on the agenda: if you have not gotten the Real Food Daily cookbook GO GET IT! It has the most insane seitan recipe I've ever seen, very unconventional, and it makes a load of it. It requires no kneading, is baked and involves beans. Intrigued? It's very good and I made it this morning for our dinner tonight.

But first a recap of dinner last night:

We had a simple salad with fresh greens from Josh and Michelle's garden. I just chopped up a tomato and sprinkled a little goddess dressing on them. The greens were only a few hours old and tasted wonderful. I cooked up two faux chicken patties from Food Fight with buns that I picked up from Bob's Red Mill bakery. Fast and simple and it hit the spot after a long day.

Now, on to tonight's feast:

Seitan cutlets and garlic mashed red potatoes. We also had steamed asparagus, mushroom gravy, more homemade strawberry lemonade and a mini baguette recipe-in-progress for the book. I've been making these cutlets for years, they are really simple. All you do is thinly slice the seitan and coat it with a thin layer of dijon mustard, roll it in bread crumbs and fry lightly in a bit of oil. Mmmm, delicious. The seitan recipe from the Real Food Daily book worked wonderfully. In the background you can sneak a peak at dessert...

Black Forest Cake. This will also be in the book. I'm not a huge cake person, but I really like this cake. I fear that I will be gaining much weight between now and the book coming out, but a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do!

Holy Updates

2006-06-08T22:56:00.000-07:00

Yowsa! It's been a long 2 weeks since I last wrote to you folks, but now I have the internets back at my fingertips, and faster than ever (we used to have DSL, but now we have cable).

So yes. I have a lot of catching up to do, so let me begin:

Bindhi was done with living in hotel and she was ready to settle into our new home. Here's the view from our back windows and our porch. There is a creek right below the trees. Very cool. :)

A beaver sighting on our first day!

Tempeh bacon BLT with mashed potatoes and corn. I used Isa's recipe from Vegan with a Vengeance for the bacon marinade. I haven't been a big fan of tempeh, but recently I have been craving it. So weird! So now I am really digging on it and it's becoming a staple item in my kitchen.

Turtle cheesecake from Sweet Pea Bakery, a local vegan bakery. I have tasted and made some decent vegan cheesecakes in my day, but this was incredible. Got it at Food Fight.

Breakfast! A cinnamon roll from the local vegetarian co-op (The Daily Grind) with half of a little honeydew from another local vegetarian co-op (People's). Mmmm...

Nachos! Inspired by our adventures in Palm Springs, I made some nachos. A layer of whole grain tortillas was buried in taco TVP crumbles, black beans, guac, salsa, Tofutti sour cream, Follow Your Heart cheddar cheese and black olives. Tasty...

Some homemade strawberry lemonade! I made it last night. I was looking at some at the store the other day and was reeling from the sticker shock of good organic lemonade and I realized "hey, this is just lemons and water!" It turned out good and I'm going to be making a lot more of it this summer to put in my nifty carafes.

Banana cream crepes! I made these when we were still unpacking and I was wading through boxes with limited foodstuffs available. Filled with a simple vanilla soy yogurt and banana filling.

More desserts from Sweet Pea, this time obtained from New Seasons. Chocolate Peanut Butter and Lemon Raspberry. The Chocolate Peanut Butter brought down the house.

Our first breakfast, the morning after we wearily rolled into town, with a box of pancake mix from Food Fight. Armed with little else then the basics in our "essentials" bin (a pot, a pan, untensils, one box of our new dishes, and some other assorted junk), we made a quick and easy breakfast.

Tonight was seriously gluttony night. We had the regular old pizza that I always make, but with a new crust I've been working on for the cookbook. For dessert we had a dessert pizza (which will also be in the book) with raisins, coated in cinnamon sugar and drizzled with icing. OMG, we were full. Oy.

Other things: life is good working at Herbivore. Issue 11 is possibly in many of your hands right now, so it's very busy at Herbie HQ. We are opening a store front full of assorted vegan non-edible treats this summer (think late July), so there are a lot of vegan, soy-based fish to fry before then. Portland is even more than I expected. Stores have vegan food in their delis and dessert cases. Restaurants have clearly marked options. Wait staff not only know what vegan means, but are eager to help. People wave you in to traffic. There are ducks and squirrels! Ooh, I even bought a squirrel cookie cutter last weekend that I will have to make some cookies with soon.

Also, Jim and I went on a field trip last weekend. We live minutes from Bob's Red Mill, which I'm sure many of you are familiar with. Well, the have a large visitor's center that serves breakfast and lunch and has a full store with over 300 of their products. They also sell other assorted kitchen gadgets and cookbooks, including a section on vegan cooking. AND, they have a completely seperate vegetarian menu with vegan options clearly marked. We had a lovely breakfast then I went nuts at the store. It was a very good thing.

So, I'm pretty tired and rambling at this point, but I wanted to give you all a little rundown. We have been enjoying some restaurants too and I just got a new phone with a camera so I'll have no more excuses to not have pictures of our food when we eat out.

Thanks for all the support and I'll talk to you soon!

Update

2006-05-30T15:15:00.000-07:00

I just wanted to let you all know that we got in on Saturday and we are safe and sound. I will be posting a whole backlog of food posts next week, when our internet is up. Right now I'm just using a computer quick, but I'm taking pictures and will post a bunch when we're up and running again.

The rest of the trip was uneventful and everything is wonderful up here. Wow, is this vegan heaven! I've been able to go buy slices of vegan cakes at the grocery stores and eat at restaurants all over town. It's great!

I'll talk to you all soon!

Vegan Travels: Take One

2006-05-25T20:13:00.000-07:00

So... we left yesterday morning bright and early at Linus' urging. At about 4am he decided that after 3 nearly sleepless nights in my sister-in-laws unsleepable guest room (hardest bed ever, and I can sleep on anything) that he was done and began yelling his head off. So we got up and got our stuff together to head out. By 11 we were well into California and were cruising along. The kitties were doing remarkably well, with Linus and Ravi riding with Jim and Bindhi and Moussa the Hamster with me. And then... Jim's car overheated.... and we had to stop and find a dealer to take it to because AAA was being enormously unhelpful. Thankfully we were only 7 miles away from a Volvo dealer in Palm Springs. We found a hotel to drop everyone off at and made our way to dealer. They said they wouldn't be able to look at it until this morning so we resigned to the hotel, praying it was nothing big.

On our way to the dealer I noticed a restaurant directly across from our hotel called Veggie and Tea House. How convenient, I thought. After dropping off the car we headed there for dinner. All vegetarian with clearly marked vegan options. An absolute god-send after 3 nights of virtually no sleep, car troubles and 115 degree heat. We both ordered a thin rice noodle dish, served with mushrooms, ginger and some other assorted yummy veggies.

Last night Jim jokingly said to me "You should find us a place to eat tomorrow, so for the heck of it I logged on to Happy Cow on a whim. Well, this whole car breaking down thing turned out to be a mini vegan vacation in the making! Low and behold, the amazing and famed Native Foods has a location literally one mile from our hotel! For those not familiar with them, they are a chain of restaurants in California. They have 4 locations and the owner has a cookbook. Well, once I found out about that, we spent the evening oogling their menu.

When we woke up today we ate lightly from our stash and got there when they opened. We started by sharing the Casear salad, which is SO good. Their dressing is great and the recipe is in their cookbook!

While this looks like a pile of lettuce, it's actually 2 tempeh fish tacos. Incredible! They were very yummy, the sauce was savory and the black beans on the side were perfectly seasoned.

While Jim enjoyed his taco (which I stole bites of, naturally) I had a chicken sandwich with 1000 Island dressing on it. That dressing is also in the book (which we bought while we were there). Wow, it was good. I was a little skeptical of the Thai slaw on the side (I have issues with anything called "slaw") but it was very tasty and refreshing.

Wow, this has been nuts so far. We got Jim's car back this afternoon and now the sun is down, so we're going to head out while it's cool, for the kitties sake and the car's. We power napped this afternoons, so we're just going to hit the road and see how far we can go. More luck and well wishes, please!!! :)

Ode to Joe's

2006-05-22T15:23:00.000-07:00

Well, we are loading our pods with our possessions (where did all this stuff come from?!) tomorrow then heading out early on Wednesday morning. Today, as we're doing the last of our packing and cleaning, I ran to the store to pick up food for the trip and some lunch.

I love Trader Joe's. For those of you who don't know how they work, TJ's finds prodcuts they like from all over the world. If they decide to carry them in their store they work an agreement with the company to put their own packaging on it. Almost all of the products in TJ's have TJ's own packaging. They don't hide the fact that most of the products aren't theirs, I think they just like to have it all uniform and not just look like another grocery store. Some people have issues with Trader Joe's because the prices are so cheap. They feel that because TJ's sells their products so inexpensively that the companies are being ripped off. I don't agree with that, as many of these products are carried by other health food stores and chains, so it's not as if they are at the mercy of TJ's alone to carry their products, they choose to make a deal with them. Anyhow, for the items I know the brands of, I will pick them up at the co-op or HFS, but for the many unique things they have, I just get them at Joe's. For someone who loves to cook, the prices can't be beat and I rely on their unique foods and ingredients to complete my kitchen.

While I was there today I saw these premade "Middle East Feasts". All our kitchen stuff is packed and I needed to pick up a bite to eat anyway, so this did the trick. Jim can never say no to anything involving hummus. Often times premade falafel has the dreaded egg-white in them, but after reading the ingredients, this whole container was animal-free! We had some pita, falafel, hummus (SO good!), tabbouli and tahini for $3 each! Not a bad deal at all and such a relief because I'm so tired of Taco del Mar.

Here's the rundown of our foods for the trip (everything except the jerky and fruit) was from Joe's): Zen Bakery cinnamon rolls, some Joe-Joe's sandwich cookies, fruit leather, Larabars (these are the best!), organic apples and bananas, some raw nuts, a small bag of trail mix (that is mostly fruit and will get mixed iwth the nuts), and some soy jerky.

Zen Bakery is a line of stuff that TJ's carries. All of their stuff is really good and healthy. They make muffins, cookies and these rolls. Everything is sweetened with fruit juice instead of sugar and uses wheat flour. They are delicious with a little bit of Earth Balance or some slightly sweet Tofutti cream cheese frosting on them, the latter of which I will be making and bringing with us in the cooler.

After some inquiry to the fine folks at TJ's, their Joe-Joe's (which are like Oreo's but better) are vegan. They looked vegan, but have "natural flavors" in them. Alas, they were declared vegan and my husband is all the fatter for it. We usually buy Newman's cookies, but these were there and I didn't want to make a bunch of stops. They use real vanilla beans in the cream and they are oh-so-good.

The fruit leather, fruit and trail mix/nuts are self explanatory, but the Larabars, well they deserve a few words. I hate energy bars, so when our co-op was giving out samples of these bars months and months ago, I was highly skeptical. I mean, a raw foods bar? OMG, they are so delicious! My favorite is the cherry pie, which literally tastes like a slice of cherry pie. Team up one of these bars with some soy yogurt and you have a killer breakfast.

Lastly, soy jerky. We tried the Stonewall's brand when we first went veg. I bit into a chunk to be greeted by a squirt of oil down my throat. Not a good way to make an impression on someone. We were scared to try any others but then saw a big display of these at the co-op and we have been hooked ever since. I have given it to several omni's and everyone was shocked that it wasn't meat. The brand is called "Tasty Eats" and, well, it is.

That's about all for now. I'm hoping the hotel we stay at has wifi so I can update this with the food we pick up along the way, but if it doesn't I'll just find a place to connect once we get to Portland and I'll give you my roadside review. Until then send well wishes my way in hopes of a safe trip and happy, quiet kitties!

India Gate

2006-05-20T22:42:00.000-07:00

Tonight we went with a friend to India Gate in Chandler. I was craving my favorite, Aloo Mutter. It was my first (and last now) visit to this restaurant. Excellent! I got my beloved Aloo Mutter, which is potatoes and peas in a seasoning, along with saffron steamed rice and some garlic chapati on the side. I'm still full, but I have a Tofutti Cutie waiting for me! Yum! Off to eat sticky goodness and pack some more!

Drumroll, please....

2006-05-18T09:32:00.000-07:00

The winner of this giveaway is: Carmen! Carmen, please email me with your address and I'll get the pin the mail straightaway!

Good-bye to Green

2006-05-17T21:35:00.000-07:00

Tonight we went to say farewell to Green, our friendly neighborhood junk-food vegan restaurant. We started with my favorite, the artichoke dip. It's really creamy and a little spicy and a lot yummy. They've finally gotten a handle on making the tortilla chips, they aren't as greasy as they were before (thank goodness!).

I got the No-Harm Chicken Parm. It's served with thyme french fries, very thin cut and yummy.

Jim got the Thai Peanut with brown rice and "chicken", which is slightly coated seitan. As always our meals were good and greasy. I'm going to miss the food, but it's probably better for us since it really is junkie food and we tend to overindulge. Just furthur proof that vegan doesn't always equal healthy, but it does equal delicious!

Breakfast Redux

2006-05-16T20:21:00.000-07:00

Mmmm, breakfast for dinner again! I had a hankering for maple syrup this evening so with Jim's okay (which is laughable, because the boy always wants "griddlecakes") I made a quick batch of apple cinnamon pancakes. On the side is my version of Waldorf salad. I chopped up a Gala apple, a Bosc pear, and some green grapes, added a healthy dose of raisins and walnuts and mixed it all up with a container of vanilla soy yogurt. No celery or Vegenaise for us. It was a light and refreshing fruit side dish on a hot Arizona day (it was 102 today!). On the side is a glass of orange tangerine juice and the ramkin contains organic Grade A maple syrup.

Another day of packing behind me a several left ahead of us. Not doing to shabby, though. The kitties are being helpful, as they always are. Here's a picture of Linus helping me today:

Such a pal!

Peanut Butter Cookies

2006-05-15T23:21:00.000-07:00

My very last baking project in AZ, Jim's favorite peanut butter cookies with chocolate chips. This recipe is based off of my great-grandmother's recipe and it chewy and soft, not crumbly. I made them this morning while he was at work, as he has a tendency to gorge himself on them when they are warm from the oven, eating a dozen in one sitting. You'd never know it, with him being so skinny. I wish my metabolism worked like that! Even after coming home to cool cookies, though, I think he still put away a dozen over the course of the evening. Bad Jim! I swear, that boy is Type II diabetes in training... Anyway, these cookies will be getting sent to work with him tomorrow so he doesn't overdo it and so I'm not picking at them while I'm packing.

We're leaving next week so there's lots to do! I'm figuring that I'll do a little feature while we're on the road of being a vegan while bare-bones traveling and how to cope with eating roadside. I'm going to pack us up with some non-persishables and fruit, but we'll still be grabbing condiment sandwiches, I'm sure. Or who knows, maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised!

Eek!

2006-05-14T21:15:00.000-07:00

Okay, I've been bad. I've been slacking. I know, I know. But we're SO busy and I promise you that once the move is over there will be food coming out of our ears and onto your screen. We leave in a week and a half and we are frantically getting our stuff together. I'm looking forward to getting up there and having this whole transitionary period over. I don't like my life in limbo.

My last day of work was Saturday. Yay! It feels so good to be done there. My job didn't completely stink, but it really wasn't fulfilling. And I worked with a group of really intolerant people, sprinkled with a handful of out-right bigots, so I'm glad to be done with that. Jim still has this week to tough it out and then he's done as well. Horray!

So, since I have been living on a steady diet of Tofutti cream cheese and bagels and Amy's frozen burritos, I thought we should have another giveaway!

Another great button from Northern Sun. I will take care of the shipping. If you want in on this fine piece of metal/paper/plastic craftsmanship please email me at squirrelsvegankitchen@gmail.com with your favorite veg product. The product is simply for my own entertainment and will not affect the drawing, which will be done at random. Entries close on Wednesday night.

Okay, now I'm off to pack some more things. My god, what stuff we have!

Donuts!

2006-05-10T23:00:00.000-07:00

A little teaser before I head to bed: devil's food cake donuts with vanilla glaze and apple cinnamon cake donuts with maple glaze. Jim's been a beggin' and while this is a tried and true recipe and I need to be working on others right now, who can say no to the world's cutest man? Certainly not me... :)

Potatoes AuGratin

2006-05-09T20:48:00.000-07:00

I've been dreaming of potatoes au gratin lately, so tonight I said "Kris, you're making potatoes". And gosh darn it, I did. I made a really simple "cheese" sauce by sauteing a medium onion, diced, with a tablespoon of crushed garlic in about 2 tablespoons of my recent oil of choice, grapeseed oil. When the onions looked clear I added about 2 tbsp of flour and mixed it to a paste. Then I added 2 cups of unsweetened soy milk and cooked it on medium heat for about 4-5 minutes, until it thickened. Then I whisked in half a cup of nutritional yeast and a teaspoon of sea salt, mixed it well and removed it from the heat. I made 4 layers out of the potatoes, with a layer of sauce between each layer, in a 9x13 pan, greased. Baked it at 400 for about 30 minutes and mmm, it smelled great. On top, to counteract the starchiness, I steamed a bag of frozen veggies. A simple mix, some cauliflower, broccoli, green beans and carrots and then added a blob of spinach on top of that, for good measure. It made a great, comfort-foody dinner. And there are leftovers!

For dessert I had to indulge in my new vice, mango vanilla soy ice cream. SO GOOD. I made a little puree of some softened frozen papaya, mango and pineapple with the ice cream on top. Very yummy. Next time I think I'll add a little agave nectar drizzle on top of it all. Ooh and a sprig of mint, wouldn't that look pretty...

Okay, I'm off to daydream of food, but I'll leave you all with a picture of Bindhi and Linus watching Moussa the hamster this afternoon. Silly kitties...

Pizza and Uncheesecake

2006-05-07T21:49:00.000-07:00

Tonight I threw together a quick pizza, thanks to a stop at Trader Joe's. They sell premade pizza dough. All you need to do is let it warm up to room temperature, stretch it, dress it, and pop it in the oven. It doesn't quite bake up like homemade, but when we don't plan ahead it's a nice safety net to have for those pizza binges. I picked up the Italian Spices one this time. We used tomato sauce, some pesto, mushrooms, and sun-dried tomatoes. On Jim's side there's a healthy sprinkling of black olives as well.

For dessert we had an uncheesecake with a chocolate cookie crust. The cake was topped off with some canned Morello cherries that I also picked up at TJ's today. This is an early incarnation of a vegan cheesecake that I'm working on. It's still missing something, good but not great. Poor me, I'll just have to keep making more cheesecakes until I perfect it!

Yay Brunch!

2006-05-06T11:34:00.000-07:00

Sorry it's been awhile, the past 2 nights I've tried to use Blogger the picture upload hasn't been working.

This morning we had Peaches n' Cream French Toast Bake. I used some homemade cinammon bread that I made last night. We also needed to use up the last of the huge bag of tangelos I got at the farmer's market last weekend, so we had some fresh juice that I made with our Champion Juicer . I love our juicer, it is very useful, easy to clean and we can make all sorts of things in it, nut butters, ice cream, I even saw a tutorial on making chocolate liquor from cocoa beans and they used this juicer! It's the best.

Last night, dinner was sprouted wheat pasta from Trader Joe's with marinara, zucchini, mushrooms and black olives. Mmmm. A fairly basic meal, but always good. I held back from getting some ciabatta and having bruschetta too (can you have too many tomatoes in a meal?) because I picked up my new vice, vanilla mango soy ice cream, for dessert. An odd pairing, but it's so great. I could eat it every day. I got a bag of frozen mango and papaya chunks to serve it over, but for last night we just had regular ice cream.

Today we're eating Chinese at my favorite local Asian food spot, Tott's Asian Diner in Tempe. If you're local and you want some very friendly, delicious veggie food that is cheap and has huge portions check this place out. A Pei Wei (boo! hiss!) just opened kiddy corner from them and they are stuggling. Mmm, Tott's. This will be a delicious afternoon.

The Great Grey Wizard

2006-05-02T19:47:00.000-07:00

We've been eating boring quick meals the past two days, take out Chinese and Caesar wraps again, nothing too interesting to report, so I thought I'd post a pic of the only cat not yet represented, Linus, the drag king kitty himself. Linus is a grey Maine Coon that we got from a shelter in Minneapolis. He's been with us for 4 years, almost, and is known as the cat ambassador. If someone thinks that they don't like cats all they need is one afternoon with Grey and they'll be singing a different tune.

On that note, I'll leave you with a pic of another creation from my upcoming vegan baking book: brownie cheesecake muffins. Mmm... warmed with a spoonful of Tofutti ice cream on top.... drool....

Also, long overdue, I just updated the recipes section with recipes for the chocolate pudding and shepherd's pie! Yay!

Blink and you'll miss it- my weekend

2006-04-30T22:11:00.000-07:00

Yikes! Our weekend has been nuts and it's gone by super fast. I gave notice on Friday. Not nearly as scary as I thought it would be, but I certainly did a good job getting myself all worked up over it. It's nice to have it out in the open now, so I don't have to be secretive about things anymore. I hate lying and I'm really bad at, so I'm glad it's all over.

I had to work yesterday and we had a potluck so I made this key lime pie. I will admit, I'm a bit squeemish when baking recipes call for tofu. I have had some nasty experiences, but this recipe has such great reviews I decided to give it a go and I'm so glad I did! It was just heavenly. Very creamy, sweet but not too sweet so you could still really enjoy the lime flavor. Oh yeah, and that "I hate lying" thing? Well, that doesn't apply when it comes to co-workers asking me "what's in this?" No way was I going to say tofu! Like they'd eat it then... hehehehe.

I also made a batch if my killer vegan brownies, which will be in my upcoming cookbook. They are chewy, slightly fudgey and have that thin little crust on top of them, just like the "classics". Mmmm.

When I got home yesterday I helped Jim make falafel. It was from a box mix (remember, he's taking baby steps). It was an okay mix (Near East) but I think I like the Fantastic mix better. I was too tired/lazy to whip up some tahini sauce, so we just used some hummus and filled up our pitas for movie night.

This morning I had a nice, leisurely morning, which I haven't had in a long time. It was great. I slathered up with some sun screen, grabbed my iPod and walked up to the farmer's market that's near my apartment. On my way there I freaked out a little, wondering if it was already done for the season, since it's getting warmer here and the growing season is coming to an end. Thankfully it was still there, albeit smaller than normal. I ended up with a grand array of yellow/orange colored fruits, some tangelos, Fuji apples, a pomello and one large navel orange. I have been on the biggest citrus kick since it started warming up, which is strange since the most citrusy I normally get is drinking lemonade. The tangelos are wonderful. I love citrus that you don't have to struggle to peel, unlike most oranges.

So yeah, busy weekend and now I'm getting ready to start my work countdown! 2 weeks and counting!

Revisiting the past

2006-04-27T21:11:00.000-07:00

For dinner tonight I threw together a simple curry using my tried and true mish-mash of a coconut curry recipe. I had some leftover coconut milk from another recipe so I made this with some potatoes, carrots, lentils, and peas. It turned out quite nice and now I've used up some more lentils and all my jasmine rice is gone, so one less thing to pack!

Every once in awhile I get a serious craving for some warm chocolate pudding and tonight was one of those nights. I made some chocolate "truffle" pudding (I stuck a square of Endangered Species mint dark chocolate in the middle while it was still warm as a treat). The recipe is from the 'zine Don't Have a Cow . Well, I added the "truffle" part, but that's because I'm a GLUTTON! The 'zine is pretty good. There are some good recipes in there and some excellent quotes, but there's this little bit of vegan resentment that seems to come up from time to time that seems a bit out of place to me. I mean, you care enough to make a vegan 'zine in the first place, what's with the bitterness?

Last night we went out to dinner with one of our friends who has recently gone veg (yay Lauren!) so we took her to Green, where I, of course, forgot to bring my camera. I had an acceptable vegan pizza (I've gotten spoiled from making them at home), Jim had the "green" burger, which is actually red (from lentils and oats) and Lauren had the Thai peanut. Mmmm...

Well, that's all for tonight, I suppose. I'm going to finish off my pudding ramekin and get myself to bed. I have a big day tomorrow: I'm giving my 2 weeks notice! Eeek! I'm quite freaked out about it, as I hate confrontation and really like my boss. Every time I think about it my stomach literally flops. Wish me luck!

Thanksgiving in April

2006-04-25T20:52:00.000-07:00

Since we're trying to use up stuff in our fridge and freezer I pulled out a seitan roast and decided to make a Thanksgiving style dinner tonight. It was a simple, throw-together meal. I tossed the roast in a roasting bag with half a sliced onion, 2 chopped potatoes with the skin on, a large handful of carrots, a pack of Lipton's "accidentally vegan" onion soup mix and a drizzle of olive oil. Jim, in his eternal quest for junk food, rode his bike up to the grocery store to get some "accidentally" (or, as I think, freakily) vegan Pillsbury crescent rolls. If they're vegan, what the hell is in those things? Dessert was a mint chocolate chip Tofutti Cutie. Mmm...

On a side note, to the person who mentioned sweet potatoes in my last entry, I made one up to take to work for lunch tomorrow. I sliced it up and then put a thin slice of pineapple between each slice and baked it, then I just tossed it in the fridge with a marichino cherry on top. I'm going to pack a little container of Ricemellow Fluff with it tomorrow. Ooh, I can't wait!

Lo Mein

2006-04-24T19:40:00.000-07:00

Late last night we finally got to having dinner. Our friend, who is trying to go veg, was over so I showed her how to make lo mein. Fast, simple and filling. I make my sauce from a simple low sodium soy sauce and sesame oil blend, with some steamed veggies and baked tofu. Mmm. Lots of leftovers so I got to indulge again for lunch today.

Yesterday morning Ravi was being too cute. I was exercising and I noticed this little couch we bought the cats awhile ago. Just as I was silently musing over how they never use it, Ravi gets up, walks over to it and gets comfy! I had just enough time to snap a few pictured of him before he got irritated and left the room.

Kabobs!

2006-04-22T21:29:00.000-07:00

Tonight our theme was kabobs. I marinated some seitan in a garlic lime marinade and broiled them on kabobs along with some cherry tomatoes and onions. I would have like to grill them, but we don't have a grill and the ones in the park (which is basically our backyard) are questionable at best and it was a crazy windy day. We also had baked potatoes, but in an unconventional way. I sliced them and stuffed slices of garlic between the potato discs. Then, I gave each potato a healthy splash of salad dressing, just a simple olive and vinegar blend. They were then sealed in their foil containers and baked. With a fresh crack of sea salt, they were melty and flavorful. For dessert, inspired by Jennifershmoo, I made fruit kabobs with pineapple and strawberries and a dipping sauce with some vanilla yogurt and a splash of orange juice.

Mmm, we were full and I am so happy to have an abundance of fresh pineapple at home!

We have a winner!

2006-04-21T06:00:00.000-07:00

Drumroll, please...

Allison! Please email me your address and the button will soon be on your doorstep.

Thanks for participating, everyone!

Wild Rice Pilaf

2006-04-19T20:38:00.000-07:00

Tonight I didn't have much time (also why I didn't post yesterday, we had leftovers) so I made a box of wild rice pilaf we had from Trader Joe's. We also had some tomatoes from the co-op that I worried were going to go bad before we used them up, so I sliced those as well as a handful of canned artichoke hearts, tossed them with some olive oil and Italian seasoning and then broiled them for about 2 minutes. It only took me about 25-30 minutes from start to finish. Yummy and light plus I managed to use up some produce and get another box out of my pantry. Yay!

I will get the Shepherd's Pie recipe up soon. I have bits and pieces of it scattered in chicken scratch on several pieces of paper and I haven't written out any kind of directions, so it will take a little bit to pull together and I've just been nutso busy when I get home from work. If only I could use Blogger at work.... Sigh.