Liz cookified, plus family feasting (Greek, Brunch)

Hey guys, check it out – ancient cookbook envelopes!  You know the kind of cookbook that has the index with the illustrated alfalfa leaf and the recipes for brown rice pudding with apricot and kale and buckwheat egg-mash?  Yeah, the kind that wouldn’t suffer much from being folded into something beautiful and useful, I think.  

I’ve been really into making envelopes the past day or two, it’s pretty easy – just take an envelope you like, unfold it flat, trace the outline onto another paper and glue it up the same way – brilliant!  I’m going to use these for my Etsy orders from now on.  

Hmm, yes, speaking of crafts, I may have mentioned an art show I had a table at last weekend?  It went pretty well for a first time at active capitalism – I made 5$ (after table cost), got some buttons, met great people, and probably most importantly of all – got A LOT of insider information on how to make laser cutters, business cards, japanese sculpture-cards, postcards, felted fabric, etc.  That and………… a custom cookie portrait on a vegan cookie no less!  Yumm-me!  haha.  The woman next to me was also friends with Jae Steele and we went on about Get it Ripe and co-ops for a while and I got to try her awesome spelted blueberry muffins and banana-chocolate breads!

Yum, corn salad!  I have no idea what made this one so special, but it’s what I brought for lunch with me to the sale.  I remember it was very acidic, with fresh dill, mayonnaise, perfect tomatoes, a bit of sugar (shhh don’t tell), cayenne, cumin maybe?…  whatever, it was creamy and really good when the ubiquitous wasps weren’t attracted by the sweet smell of it.  

I also brought these, and I can’t even tell you how much of a wasp-attractor they were, but omg were they worth it in every way.  Donuts!  Like I hadn’t tasted in years!  The chocolate-y ones I was especially pining for, and Lolo’s donuts (via Vegetarian Times) are just the texture and richness I remember.  So fudgey, so so so very good.  The apple ones had about 3 different dimensions of apple in them, too, spicy and perfect for fall!  

It was good to have a box like this to pass around to fellow crafters when the rain started coming down. 

smile and the cashew cucumber dip will smile with you ;)

In other news, my mom and brother came up for a few days last week, and we had a really lovely time, during which it became obvious to me where I learned to sup and savour food like a real hedonist.  My family gets it!  

I’d had some cabbage rolls stuffed with cinnamon-tomato-lemon-millet left over from a previous lunch, so I decided to expand on that Greek-style and with my bro’s help it was really fast and easy.  We ended up with the tomato & zucchini tofu fritters from Veganomicon, with the accompanying cashew cucumber dip, as well as some lime-broiled green beans, some artichokes, and olives.  We briefly bemoaned the lack of good thick greek pita to eat with all this, but then remembered there was a bottle of Riesling to be had (a good dry German one, haha) and anyway, that’s all *I* needed.

Hi mom!  This is my second favourite park, but my #1 choice for picnics.

In the morning with a sleepy brother!  I couldn’t really leave well enough alone when he said he wanted oatmeal.  If he really wanted oatmeal I would have made some afterwards, but I was so geared for brunch.  (I didn’t hear any complaints in the end).  Just enough food for three people, it was Isa’s basic fluffy pancakes, potato & sausage fry, steamed broccoli with cheesy sauce, and um… because I’m me, a firecracker-hot thai cucumber salad that I ended up just eating myself. I’m probably weird (no, I’m definitely weird), but I think eating a whole thai chili along with breakfast is a pretty good idea.  Kinda like coffee, but more burninating. 

Yummmmmm.  Those pancakes are so perfect.  Need I say more?

Oh, okay, just one more thing.  A quick bottomless apple pie made with the crust from Fran Costigan’s More Great Good Desserts.  Amazing!  It’s made with frozen oil and it’s the flakiest darned thing I’ve ever managed to top a pie with!  Really easy, too, and stood up to my adaptations (mostly spelt flour, some whiskey added).  Makes me think I might master pies someday.  I’m still no expert, but this one was getting close… the apples were just kissed with 5-spice powder, ooh.  We drizzled it with coconut cream and it was very good.  

My sister, meanwhile, is at Burning Man.  :O

Phun with Phyllo (and a blog makeover)

I imagine most people out there have a ever-growing mental list of recipes to try someday.  I used to bookmark every delicious thing that crossed my path while I read blogs, the collection getting to the hundreds and only barely did I look at it when it came time to actually satisfy hunger.  After a recent browser crash and wipe of everything I’d saved, I decided to keep the ideas in my head, with the reasoning that it’s those things that I really wanted to eat anyway!  So right now, that list involves things like homemade bagels, tibetan yak dumplings, mole sauce, and anything ethiopian… and until very recently – anything with phyllo pastry!  I finally tried using it, not without trepidation, in a recipe I’ve been itching to make since the moment I saw it (and did not forget it) – Jenny Wren’s fennel corn phyllo pockets of awesome!  (name-change mine)  

It took me a couple tries to get the hang of it, I will not lie.  But by the end I was folding up neat little dignified triangles with the best of them!  I ate the wonky first ones for lunch today with a tomato compote from the Artful Vegan, and felt pretty durn special, I can say that.  I’m pretty much on vacation for one whole week (wow) before I start summer classes again, so I’m up for any opportunity to get all indulgent in simple things, like tuesday’s mid-day meal.  Not that I wouldn’t anyway, but I broke out the giant white restaurant plate for this one. 

Hmm… and could not possibly resist making an apple-blackberry tart with local yellow delicious apples and BC golden syrup, nooooo…. not while the phyllo is just sitting there all defrosted and feathery and waiting for my apple-craving fingers to mash it into a crispy sugared square of fantastic with toasted walnuts on the bottom even !  It had to happen.  You know it did.  I’m glad it did.  I would have given my eye-teeth for ice cream or even soy milk alongside of this, but regardless it was light and perfect.  

Oh yeah – does anyone have experience with either/both of The Artful Vegan and Millenium cookbooks?  I’d like to get one, I think, but I’m not sure which!  

grrr. I regress. I am five.

My tastes have been running along very childlike lines these days. Probably midterm stress coupled with the sudden news that Pomme – ie: the best, most esoteric, kitchen-wizardy, art-star, witty, gentle amazing roommate ever in existence – is moving back to Toronto in a few days… ;____;
(serious weepage. but I’m being stoic)

So I’m eating mac and cheese. Because, well… yay. Slurpy noodles. Susan V-style. Comforting yes… although next time I will leave the vegetables out of my comfort food, no matter how much I seem to have been in a “red & green cube” kinda mood that day (check out the tomato, cuke and basil salad behind the pasta – like eating christmas-y legos!)

Then I scratched this itch I had for loads of sweet beans and ZOMG I ACTUALLY BUY A FAKE MEATS. See hot dog? Delicious. Specially with V-con cheater baked beans, sauteed smoky mystery greens I found in the fridge, and scrambled tofu from Aux Vivres. (btw, it tasted more like egg than any scramble I’ve ever had, but I couldn’t really finish it… I’ve been spoiled on Vwav scramble I think).

And that up there is a gorgeous slice of procrastination. Essay-writing, smehn – Vcon apple peanut butter caramel bars instead! I used oat flake cereal instead of graham crackers, cause the crackers I thought I had in the pantry smelled intensely of 20-year-old warehouse, gross. But crushed cereal plus a bit of sugar worked great! I kinda wish they were apple-yer. But nonetheless they are coated in peanut butter caramel, and that stuff could make rocks taste good, sooo…… I now have a pan full of PB-love to pick at while I attempt to stuff 10 hours of meticulous drawing into… exactly 10 hours until class. WEE. I <3 LIFE. :)

meat and potatoes for those with fey teeth

The greatest supper ever devised? At least very very close. Brown rice toast with cashew butter, sultanas, fig jam, cortland apple slices (local) and sweet grapefruit (not so local). I dunno why, it was just perfect last night, very comforting, when down like a sweet dream. And no stove required, just a mouth for nomming. I swear I do eat vegetables. :)

(I am indeed posting about toast. We are all allowed to do it once. Yes? Yes.)

thanksgiving foodfeed 2008, epic-style

It all started… with an ill-conceived attempt at a tofu loafy roulade thingy, with squash inside. I mean, it was pretty damn edible, except that it was u.g.l.y., it didn’t taste a lot like bird, and the wax paper I used to roll it up stuck like glue to the bottom and really did turn the whole first layer into an exercise in chewing crayons.

Much better cookie luck, I made freestyle coffee-chocolate chip oatmeal cookies and P made cakey ginger clouds. But enough of this playing…

Girls gotta bake. Girls gotta prep cook. (okay, I prep-cooked, P went to work)

I made almond-sesame nutty crackers from Extraveganza, with added sesame oil.

Fluffy lemony cupcakes with maple cranberries from More Great Good Desserts, with a lemon-cinnamon drizzle on top.

Caramel popcorn! Spicy-brown sugar pumpkin seeds! Oh, it’s those crackers again!

Pumpkin pie, the quality of which was indeed assured by the Satchmo-cat. I wonder if I make another pumpkin pie if I get a free tattoo or something? And I still keep loving them, making them… hiding the leftovers from everyone. Hee.

Allright, and then P’s folks showed up so we went to the Jean-talon market on the most crispest yet warm of gently-sunned fall days. Picked up some rambunctiously coloured food, asparagus by the bucket, beans, mushrooms, apples (real/perfect/nectar-of-the-heavens-sweet quebec apples), a bunch more of other wonderful things.

They had two among them who couldn’t do gluten, which was a fun challenge, even if I wish I had known sooner… I would have made more that they could eat… but anyway, did you know that brown rice bread is actually delicious and tastes like bread?

Then my posse popped up, with the usual pancake-breakfast request (this is an understanding that I think benefits all of us nicely). Maple syrup was off limits as an ingredient, so I boiled up a quick apple syrup that almost got drank up by my sister, and at least got the pancakes called “the best syrup delivery devices you’ve ever made”. Bro asked for the recipe. (Bro is becoming quite the little burdgeoning foodie – and you better believe I’m supporting that tendency! :P)

And then, and then! After finishing breakfast I was kitchen-maven all day with my sister, then we passed the invisible baton to P and her sister, and between us all we created this glittering harvest spread.

Amidst the hubub and wine-drinking and guitar-jamming and all the fake russian accents, my camera was only found halfway through the meal, hence the half-eaten shot – but I think it still looks great. Clockwise from the bottom is mushroom gravy, nutty crackers, broccoli rabe and carrots with pine nuts and herbs, brown rice pasta salad with peppers and heirloom tomatoes, fresh market beans, hungarian rye stuffing with apples, cranberries and walnuts, cranberry sauce, apple-sage seitan sausages, curry carrot dip, squash stuffed with wild and brown rice mushroom-almond-raisin stuffing, dragonfruit, smoky maple tempeh, and loads of garlicky mashed potatoes and sweet potatoes.

phew.

Nom. Shall I say nom? And nom, and wow. I think we did okay?

And then there was too much dessert, and oh yeah, did I mention I made cookies too? Oh man… I mean, I know it wasn’t “turkey dinner” or something… but maybe made up for it in sheer tapestry-tasting complexity and connection to what is actually being harvested right now? I mean, I’ve been to thanksgivings where the vegetables are given the saddest passing effort, and aren’t they really the point? Ha ha, anyway… and next year you’re all invited to my tiny tiny place. For some reason it didn’t burst, and it kinda grew to fit us all (18+ at one point??). And you can help us with the leftover apple crisp!!!!

festivus! chili and pie!

I’m so bad… I have been all but absent from the blogging world for a long time, I know… art has been taking up a lot of my creative attention these days. It’s been oatmeal/miso/salad forever (and I don’t mind, it’s just not worthy of post). I will try, though – I took down my Veganmofo banner thinking I wouldn’t have the time… but you know what? I’m gonna *make* time. I will even get around to all of your blogs, because I know you’ve been doing incredible things that I will be sorely tempted to make but won’t have time for… but isn’t that the way of inspiring food? :D

So yeah… there were actually two dinners of total note in the past few weeks. We made the most perfect chili dinner EVER, I mean, it was off the hook. The chili was spicy chipotle-chocolate with shrooms, corn, peppers, tvp and 4 kinds of beans and it did that… um… chili-thing, where the texture is kinda like… kinda thick and sticky. In the best way!
(there was even red rice and super garlicky sour cream, meaning that Liz swirled her whole plate together like one giant steaming burrito and proceeded to cry little pearly tears of “OMG vegans eat SO WELL!”).

We even fried something! Lots of somethings, meaning corn chips. In heart shapes (and moon shapes, and snowflakes and each of our names, but mostly hearts because being twee is cool again, I swear.)

All right, dinner number two… pagan thanksgiving! Or autumn equinox if you prefer. It’s the time when the day and night are the exact same length, on September 22, and some like to celebrate with wine and apple desserts, and stories and tarot readings. (hint: we are those people)

Pomme cornbread of another flavour, this time with peppers and zucchini, because cornbread is basically the best accompaniment to everything. Including ice cream! …. okay, okay….. maybe not. But yummy with ratatouille, which we did have.

There it is! From Aux Vivres, actually, so basically super fatty and tasting kinda like gold. Along with couscous, steamed chard and veggies, and the most amazing sagey roasted veggies, it was easy pants to put together this dinner after work and still covered every “festive” base, I think.

And having an ugly apple pie for dessert doesn’t hurt that cause, either. Ugly and the best thing that ever happened to apples, that is.
(a mix of cortland, granny smith, macintosh and yellow delicous)

Oh right! And I almost forgot to mention! THAT is my harvest! My weeny teeny tomato harvest. Yep. And it was alllllll worth it. For serious, for true – being able to look outside of my 4th story window to a fire escape full of fragrant vines was the real benefit to this whole endeavour. They’re just really cute, tart, perky symbols of urban defiance, woohoo!

hey, this is one of those day-in-the-life posts!

I’ll level will you guys – I am not a friday go-er out-er. I dunno, just doesn’t happen! Mind you, mondays and wednesdays and the occasional sat. will find me sloshed or at least pretending to be witty since that’s when my favourite people have their days off work. But yeah, that’s why I’m posting about beans on a friday night, for the record, no I’m not self-conscious about it!! (ha ha, maybe). I usually make a special dinner and I watch a movie or read experimental lit, drink insane amounts of tea…. post on my blog. The usual stuff. Listen to the hotspot greek restaurant next to my building entertain scads and hordes of polished, smoking merry people peruse their fish and block traffic whilst wearing crazy things like high heels and 3-piece suits. Which is legitimately entertaining, and I’ll probably miss the noise real bad when I move. I also avoid doing schoolwork and awkwardly segue into botany with no warning at all….

My tomato sprouts grewed! This is so so so revolutionary since every plant I’ve ever had has died a horrible shrivelled death, and I’ve harboured fantasies of a fire escape garden since the day I got one. A fire escape, that is. It’s gonna rule so bad! I love these guys and I’ve added them to the morning routine, getting water right after Satchmo-cat does. I know they’re a little crowded, but I’m gonna wait for some ‘true’ leaves before I try to transplant them. Whatever ‘true’ leaves are. I read that somewhere. Anyway, I love my sprouts, they’re so awesome. They’re gonna have radish, green bean, spinach, carrot and parsnip friends, too, and there are some herb seeds next to the radiator just waiting to unfurl their fineness and be all like, “hello! I’m fragrant! yay!”

Oh boy, I’m a nerd. XD

Lunchtime, and there was some crazy voodoo going on with this soup, by the way. I’ve made black bean soup before (okay, it’s been a while), and maybe it was because this time I saved every last drop of luscious bean-gravy that I could – I used half home-cooked beans that I had in the fridge already (plus liquid), and half canned stuff (plus liquid!) but the velvet awesome that this became… hoboy. I just shovelled and felt loved from the inside by thousands of thick happy beans. Does that sound weird? Oh V-con, the things you make me think….

I don’t really want to wonder why this happened. Is it natural? Is it hormones? Are a secret race of frankenberries (hey, wait a second…) gonna rise up out of their plastic boxes and start absorbing nearby fruit around to become MEGABERRIES??????

Only my generous grocer will know, I guess. He was selling these for 80 cents a lb. I know! SO making a pie, maybe kittee’s pie, which I’ve wanted for my ownsome since I saw it last summer. (either that or just buy box upon box of strawberries and eat them like it’s going out of style, which is pretty much what I’ve been doing)

And this is an old photo, but to be fair I did finish these tonight so I guess it belongs in a post about friday eatings, right? Yeah, so leftover pickle juice… if you boil cut up vegetables in it until they’re tender and then drop everything back in the jar you get badass custom pickles. Which I eat slathered in harissa, it’s like reaching in the fridge for a stick of dynamite. :D

And super healthy soup for lunch requires some balance, ne? I had apples to use up. I like crisp (actually of all desserts this IS my youth). So I made crisp for dinner. I tried to not use so much sugar, but the candied ginger really wanted to join the party, and if I was making this for company I probably would have tripled the amount it was so good in there. The apples could have been tarter, but hey, that’s what I had, and I don’t think the mushy Macs had ever received better treatment than being baked up with almonds and cinnamon and looooove, nope.

*cue the greeks shouting opa! from downstairs*

Yay friday. XD

Spelt Breakfast Bars + Tofu Patties and Apple Success!

So I woke up and the windows looked like this: ^

In an ideal world I would have had the gumption to make it to my painting theory class. But it’s a record blizzard and I’m well, a flake. Plus it’s my last class before vacation, so nertz to walking in the snow for an hour!!!

I went shopping for dried papaya instead. :DDDD

The happy-surprise portion of the morning was discovering that the old-school apple drying worked! I can’t believe it only took 1 night! They’re a little on the thin and fragile side though, so I’m trying again with thicker slices this time, and I’m leaving the peels on because A: they taste good and B: skins are punk, haha.

Due to apple-having and papaya-buying I finally got to try Cassie’s amaranth bars, which I should probably call Spelt Bars because I couldn’t find amaranth flour at all, but whatever now I have a bag of spelt flour to play with! I haven’t tried one yet cause they’re all wrapped with plastic and ready for throwing in my bag on the way out the door, but they smell great, and I lovelovelove that there’s no added sugar or oil in them. It’s basically like my usual bag of trail mix except they’re chewy and oaty and if you put foil on them they would sell for $1.49 each.
(my version is made with dates, almonds, pumpkin seeds, cranberries, apples and papaya, yum!)

Also, last night I tried the awesome tofu patties from Tofu For Two, and I had to stop myself from eating all the mash from out of the bowl, seriously! There were some structural problems, but I drained the ‘fu without being told to and I halved the recipe, so it’s definitely my fault and sprinkling some extra water and soy sauce in there fixed it pretty well. And once they were cooked the texture was good and chewy with sun-dried tomato tahini goodness all over, which nicely masked my lack of sauce-making ability for another night. hee.

PS: my oven got fixed !! ^____________^

Winter Persimmon Salad + Blueberry Corn Pancakes + Apple Pseudoscience

Fancy shmancy lunch time! My first foray into persimmon-eating and I am a full-on convert from first incredible bite. In the salad we got arugula and dates and toasted walnuts (I would have candied them but it was just me and that might have been too sweet actually – the persimmon was like honey), and a vinaigrette of balsamic, orange zest, cinnamon and hazelnut oil. I could jump around for tastiness! I actually made a salad I could serve to people while wearing posh clothes! I thought I was a lost-cause salad maker (or maybe just wasn’t interested in the whole phenomenon), but man, has my interest been piqued. This was too good!

Continuing my obsession with the Veganomicon (I really need to get another decent vegan cookbook, n’est pas?), I made the Blueberry Corn Pancakes yesterday and they were really wonderful. I think the batter tasted even better than the cakes though – it started foaming up immediately and was kind of milkshake-ish! Also, they’re good straight-up, but they’re LOADS better out of the toaster later on – the cornmeal gets all crusty and the blueberries juice up. It’s like a pop tart except nothing like a pop tart, and way better for you.

And lastly, I really want to try the Amaranth Breakfast Bars from the Veggie Meal Plan blog, but I didn’t wanna just throw raisins and cranberries in it like I do for everything else, so I got all creative with some twine and duct tape and am now attempting to dry some apples in a super-old-school-might-not-even-work sort of way. I remember my mom hanging apple slices in the pantry when I was a kid, so in theory this should work! And if not, I’ll brave the weather outside and go *buy* some dried apples, but here’s hoping the DIY deities shine down on my little experiment.