You are currently browsing the tag archive for the ‘veganomicon’ tag.
146 recipes down, only 104 left to go…
Yes I’m still on this Veganomicon quest, why do you ask?
Of course I started before that Julie & Julia movie. Way before!
(psst, the Curried Udon Stir Fry is mouth-crack, couldn’t believe it took me that long to make it)
(pssssst, of course this post was posted on the 8th. Why… do you ask? ^_^;)
Oh, I am so procrastinating right now. And isn’t that *totally* the best time to blog, when it feels like a sneaky indulgent privilege to be able to write about all this stuff? Hurray! Southeast asian art, Foucault, and russian neoromantics be damned, all of them (at least for the time it takes me to write this, and then it’s back to dandelion tea and the books. which isn’t so bad, nah….)
I didn’t plan the colour scheme at all, but there it is. Orange is a lovely colour to eat, cheery and usually sweet. I may have mentioned the acquisition of my very first copy of Vegetarian Times in a past post – well, I made more than donuts. The edamame and sweet potato collard wraps jumped WAY out at me when I saw them, basically ’cause I don’t think I’d ever put those ingredients together in quite that way before. There’s even firm-soft tofu in here, and the only spice is cayenne. In the end… they were good. I enjoyed them a lot. There was something odd about the texture I wondered about, but I think I was just getting used to edamame, which are way richer than frozen peas. (I was an edamame virgin before this recipe you see – another reason to try them out!). Ultimately I recommend it, although I liked the filling best of all over crunchy romaine leaves for added texture. It froze really well, too.
Then I saw Smitten Kitchen’s recent cornbread salad and deeply swooned over the concept of it all. I think I saw it early in the afternoon and was eating it a few hours later for dinner, I was so jazzed about the thought. So amazing this was!! The tangy dressing soaks into some of the cornbread bites to make UbertasterBomsOfWow, and the rest stay crunchy and toasty and awesomely contrasty.
Can we pause a moment to lament the atrocious photograph that I took of this salad?
** moment of silence , snicker snicker **
delicious though.
I am a bit of urban harvester. Just a bit, just here and there. Kind of like Benjamin Bunny, and I spotted a green tomato peaking out from a trendy bar’s front garden one Friday night while I was walking home and slightly drunk and I didn’t figure it so bad to pop it off and dream of frying it up for dinner. I see it as being a natural part of the city’s ecology, you know. And I plant things around. Anyway, I fried it southern style and it was delicious! Tangy and juicy and zestier than a red one. Really good with egg salad beside it, too (ppk recipe, of course. probably with extra mustard, if I was being myself that day).
Also from the Isa salad files, a very loose translation of the Prospect Park potato salad from the Vcon. Loose, as in I had about 10 baby red potatoes and no desire to do any specific divisions of a recipe, so I just looked at the ingredients list and threw all of those things into the same bowl until it tasted good. It tasted good!
These tasted okay. I mean, the chocolate filling was the most intensely luscious sticky fudge sauce in the whole world and I was scraping it out of the pot like crazy to get the last smidge – THAT was amazing. The cookies were only mehn, though. Not so surprisingly, since they’re just really fatty shortbreads that I didn’t veganize well enough I guess, but anyway – Gale Gand’s Orange Sandwich Cookies from Butter Sugar Flour Eggs if anyone’s curious. (Make that filling sauce, omg.). And they sure are pretty looking.
And I tried to recreate one of the super hippy chunky crunchy veggie restaurant style cookie recipes. You know the ones that are full of flax oil and/or spelt chunks and/or seeds and yet somehow are just incredible? I kind of succeeded, kind of… okay, not really. But I learned a lot about baking soda versus powder, and I have the beginnings of a fantastic sesame seed crust in my freezer right now… ha. If anyone knows of a recipe that makes a big crunchy, browned around the edges cookie that tastes like a cross between a sesame snap and and oatmeal chocolate chip, do DO let me know. I’ll send Peppermint Ritter Sports, I promise. :P
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
Wee! So – I’m here drinking my mint & mushroom tea with large slices of ginger dropped into it because I was a little too brave this afternoon and added some (a lot of) questionable sauerkraut to my hummous wrap. It was worth it at the time… but now I need the tea. Yeah, white stuff in a sauerkraut jar is no good…
Anyway. More old pictures (I swear I’m getting through them, I do!) I made crepes! I made buckwheat versions of Veganomicon crepes, and stuffed them full of Columbian red beans with plantain (from Terry’s Vegan Latina), some broccoli too, and an avocado-corn-cream sauce that is essentially this recipe that I’d had mentally bookmarked since I went vegan in high school. Seriously that long ago. (*oouuuuuurrrrrgh…. waveof nauseau happening……RIGHT NOWurg*) XPPP
cough. ok better.
Anyway. avocado cream sauce! I ate in on pasta first, but it’s way more economical to show it here, even if it does look a little like ralf. tee hee. I swear it was tasty.
And then I had leftover crepes with sauteed peaches, coarse raw sugar, cranberry jam, and some malted soy drink mixed with enough water to make a sweet cream. Oh, frugal AND delicious, and even maybe healthy, how ’bout that? I love dinners that revolve around fructose.
Speaking of which, I made a tiny sweet potato cashew cream pie with a lone spud, because it’s just been so damned cold it seems not very weird to make food like this. Plus, it has a pumpkin seed crust a la Extraveganza, which in my weird mind makes it kinda summery. And when you pop it in the freezer and eat slices of it cold like spiced ice cream…… *drooooolz*. Also gives me a chance to use the tiniest fork ever imaginable that I picked up at a garage sale for specific things just like this. Fairy pie technique!
From now on I make my own thai green curry paste. Has anyone tried the yellow variety? I almost did but then I chickened out and returned it for a jar of the classic green, and while it resulted in a slurpily good skillet of hyper-spice, well… I’m still curious about the other variety. Maybe next time I’ll get the yellow (which boasts coriander and white pepper, yum) and just grind up lots of green chiles into it myself. I ended up throwing like, 3-4 extra thai peppers into this one anyway, cause I kind of like my thai curries to practically send off sparks into the atmosphere. Anything less and why bother, I say!
Speaking of skillets — I made the Vcon leek & bean cassoulet finally. That’s how cold it’s been around here! It’s mid-June and I’m still checking my bag for extra gloves, just in case… ack. So on a particularly blustery and charcoal-grey day I decided snap it I’m just gonna make a big old comforting stew and I am SOOOOO glad I did. It was the perfect antidote to my standard rut of cooking with loads of citrus & spice — the cassoulet is all…. comfy like a big herbal pillow. And far too easy to pleasantly spoon down while cuddled up in a blanket reading school work things. Very very nice…
(oh, and peas/leeks/white beans were replaced with corn/extra onion/black&red beans to good effect)
Enough for now? Probably… there’s red velvet, kittee muffins, cold soba, successful souvlaki rice to come, though. *phew*
Oh, what the heck, one more — I made Scotter Muffins, yay! I don’t remember what variety at all, probably apple and banana and cinnamon swirl. Gosh, I love muffins, don’t you? They’re so balanced, like the medium spectrum between the best of all baked goods. Or maybe I’m just a fan. ^_^b
I don’t particularly feel like sorting my pictures right now, there is just TOO MANY of them. So, yes, here is the first, what a delight of puffy strawberry muffs in a basket! Hannah’s recipe is perfect for basic muffins, in fact I memorized it and freestyled a batch of chocolate-raspberry versions later while I was groggy and in my dad’s kitchen at some ungodly hour of the night after breaking in un-announced and he didn’t even know I was in town! I raided the cupboards (after cleaning the place spotless, of course) and managed to at least find enough basic baking supplies to make them, lurvly brunette muffins, which will have a photo later in this post, because (of course) as I said – completely out of order. Why not, right?
This is a banana-date scone from Veganomicon. Somehow I thought it would be more decadent, being from the Vcon, but granted the whole introduction does mention it’s healthy qualities explicitly, so I should have been duly warned. Don’t you love the background? This was to fuel some tarot play time with a teatime friend who lets me bake for her (very nice of her).
I love Nigella, it’s no secret to anyone who’s met me (or at least heard her show playing from my bedroom whenever I need some serious calming and indulgence for the soul). But strangely I’ve made .. well, none of her recipes so far. That needed to be remedied, which I did with her moroccan-ish eggplant rolls with cinnamon, capers and bulgur … YUM!! Like what I imagine most of her food to taste like, it is soft, nuanced, silky and doesn’t hit you over the head with electric or sour notes, so ultimately delicious, but I added more lemon. ;)
Pretty grill marks. :)
Ancient photo !!!!!I made nachos with no nooch in the house. I canvased the city (briefly) looking for a single serving of nacho chips just so I could have this to satisfy an immediate post-school craving. It was everything awesome and more. I made the cheese with cashews, oats, miso and hot chiles and it served the purpose mightily.
This is a pancake I made at my sister’s house, using her mystery bag of mystery organic flour (we believe it was likely spelt), as well as some honey-like natural sugar, lots of coconut, some cashews wedged in there… maple syrup. Other things. It was so very very punk, as their larder was BARE and we still managed to have a sizzling merry breakfast on the hob in time for a decent 11 am-ish kind of hour. I’d just read this book —
Which was a very anarchic ancient kind of (NON vegetarian) underground poetry/cookbook/highly vague anti-establishment montage of stuff, with many chapters waxing poetic about misty green mornings cooking rashers of bacon and potatoes and I was inspired at least to follow that part of the sentiment. Much of this book was a little too dated and silly for me, but I liked the non-political jumbo.
As promised, a chocolate-raspberry mini-muff in a cup with Hagan-Daaz raspberry sherbert I found like a special present in my dad’s deep freeze. Hurray! Went together like a dream, and though that iced stuff is sweeet, it is definitely top quality and I was definitely proud to call this lunch.
Like cocoa soldiers. Did you know it took me about 27 minutes and the help of a disgruntled 13-year old to help me find where they had counter-intuitively stashed all their muffin cups? (for the record: in the highest right invisible spot in the kitchen, behind the curry powder, above the plastic bags).
There’s more photo backlog, but this is probably browser-crashing enough with all the stuff in this post already, plus this random plate is a nice thematic end to a r-r-r-r-r-andom post. This was my favourite dinner by SO much last week. Probably the large luscious chunks of drippy tropical fruit had something to do with it, plus the arcade-style cacaphony of flavours all sharing one oddly harmonious restaurant-square plate. There’s papaya salsa, asian-dressed cabbage, an eggplant roll that didn’t fit in the container I put in the freezer, and the BEST ASPECT OF ALL — peanut butter and jam on rusks. Perfection.
ps. I swear I’m not on drugs or even feeling all that strange. I just rode a mechanical bull, though, (seriously!) and I’m mighty jazzed about that!
This is just the shot of the leftovers – stuff put into tupperware doesn’t win any beauty points. But the point of this lunch was that it was a bento-ish kind of meal that randomly came together after I poo-pooed the idea of a peanut butter sandwich and started to boil potatoes. Which I never do, and made me feel festive enough to remember the wasabi tube I had in the fridge, thus wasabi mashed potatoes. So obviously then I had to try those panko & daikon stuffed mushrooms from the Veganomicon. Except… I didn’t feel like firing up the oven for 6 mushrooms so I made them raw and used bulgur wheat instead of bread crumbs, and added some sweet peppers and Sambal Olek for fun.
Clearly the asian tofu from Vcon was the third logical step! Grill pans are great stuff.
It was special because I was taking it to an all-day drawing performance with rather zen-like properties, so it felt very appropriate (albeit not-even-slightly-traditional) to have a cute little themed lunch like this.
I even had one matcha & goji berry scone leftover from the night before! Double cute. Not to mention how it looks amazingly like an anatomical heart, which I only noticed after I uploaded the photo!
See? Awwww.
I came home to this sight the other day. It was kind of funny, actually – I’d just trudged home through a blizzard with visions of hot stew in my head and what do I find but the storm decided to join me in my kitchen!
Ha, it was okay. I managed not to step in any of the puddles and was very very thankful for the crockpot stew I had put on the night before. Yeah, I actually used my crockpot! *shock* my mom would be
proud. I had actually been so busy that I acted the great cliche and took it down off the highest shelf I have to put some veganomicon cholent-style ingredients together the night before.
I’m actually not sure if I’m sold on the tarragon + caraway thing… but it was warm and hearty and perfect at the time. (ie: full of potatoes). I added tabasco and corn, too.
Earlier than that (or later? oh I don’t remember. sometime!) I made vcon lemon & pea risotto with roasted red peppers.
I don’t know why people complain about leftover risotto! I actually thought this was tastiest cold out of the fridge, slurped up like cold lemony pudding. I’m weird, yes. I tried Risotto al Salto too, to try it (basically fried up like a fritter), which was fine. But nothing on the ice-cold stuff!
I posted about hoecakes before, so there isn’t much to say about the big yellow thing on the plate – except maybe to amend my recipe to stress than fine cornmeal should be used in a hoecake. This one was coarse which did NOT work anywhere near as well, but ah you learn. The interesting bit, at least to me, is that grayish dip-like blob in the corner. It was very tasty! It’s black bean & orange dip from ED&BV, and it’s a little sweeter than a regular b.bean dip and really great on wraps and things.
In the midst of being busy I made some muffins to take to school. I wonder why I decided to make jammy muffins to put in my bag? Ha ha, anyway, they’re hearty jam-dot muffins from Fran Costigan’s second book. They’re okay… I like that there’s lots of toasted oats and sesame in them, and my mom’s homemade plum jelly. A wee bit heavy, but I subbed some stuff so it could have been my bad.
Over christmas my dad bought me some veggie burgers for christmas eve Burger Night (woohoo!), which happened to be Amy’s California Burgers. They’re soooooo good! They don’t taste a blessed thing like fakey meatstuff, but they DO taste like toasted bulger and mushrooms and loads of other great all-natural things. I had some on buns, and some on salad with tahini dressing and both ways were awesome. I had the last one today though, and I don’t know what to do because I never buy pre-packaged food for myself but I think I’ve fallen in love!
And finally… we call this an economic birthday, or a belated one, or whatever. It’s a full moon tonight and though it’s neither of these boys’ birthdays (although it’s close), it’s definitely always a good time for a chocolate jalapeno cake with ganache topping and strawberries inside. Yeah, I know!! It’s another Extraveganza cake recipe and holy schlamoli, it’s SO tender and delicious and soft peppery perfect, I tried a whole bunch of it that stuck to the cake tin. ^_^;
Word to the wise: the recipe mentions nothing about de-panning this cake, and in fact implies that it shouldn‘t be, I think, at least when you read the icing recipe along with it. I did anyway and it was a total headache cause it was so fluffy and sticky (and criminally delicious. did I mention that?), but I think it came through the operation 97% intact. Minus the chunks I ate. (I’m starting to think that being able to fix cake disasters is as useful as baking one that tastes good… :P)
Anyone else notice how the stuff on top kinda looks like a crab? Not planned! But I like it.
Gorgeous! Floating rice in big white space! It’s the hunan fried rice from Vegan Fire & Spice, which is actually pretty fantastic. It actually has flavour, and I especially love how the tofu pellets explode with sherry goodness. I switched up the vegetables completely and can see myself pulling out this basic recipe to accomodate any old veg & rice, cause it’s really yum and takes like 2 minutes to bash up.
Equally fast and furious – the snobby joes from the Veganomicon on spaghetti squash with baked paprika yam fries from Extraveganza. I’m so officially hooked on spaghetti squash right now, it’s like noodles except refreshing. It had been so long since I’d had it that I forgot you could actually slurp the stuff, and that became so much the deciding factor in my new love for it. Veg! You can slurp! Everyone wins. :)
Persimmon blondies!! As luscious as they sound and look, they’re a tester recipe for Hannah‘s upcoming book. I am super lucky that things like this freeze well, or I’d have polished off the pan already. :p
And I picked up a cool looking bag of assorted herbs in chinatown the other day. It was only 70 cents and I kind of saw it as a taster pack of a bunch of exotic ingredients I might never get around to trying all in one spot. Like… lotus seeds, dioscorea, dried lily bulb, fox nuts, dried longan and polygonatum. And a big pouch of barley!
I assumed it was for boiling with chicken for to make extra-healthified chicken soup (at least according to my book on asian cooking) so I just skipped the chicken part and boiled it for 45 minutes or so. The funny thing is that I went for a quick grocery run in the middle – yes I am that bad and I leave the stove on while I’m gone sometimes ^^; – and when I came back the apartment smelled so nutty and sweet and… quite like chicken soup. Strange! But not bad. I strained it out because the solids were tasteless, added some tamari, green onion and tofu cube and it was strangely very satisfying. Not a taste sensation or anything, but it felt good going down the throat and I could see myself picking up a pack the next time I get a cold.
You’re also gonna think I’m weird, maybe, but this salad was a great accompaniment to barley broth. I didn’t know that endive, pear and pecan (in my case walnut) was such a classic salad! This is the veganomicon version, but I’m pretty interested in playing around with the components, maybe adding some fermented tofu as a blue cheese element, or tossing in some roasted beets like Emilie did. It’s also so pleasingly in season, I love that. So far, winter hasn’t been half bad!
There is nothing quite like chili fries. I wish I’d had some sort of cheese-like stuff to melt all over this and really do up the indulgence (not that this is really that indulgent, actually semi-healthy), but an extra splash of olive oil while making the fries pushed this to another level anyway. Plus lots of nooch and peppers for a perfect after school nosh.
(is this the reincarnation of a half-filled tin of tomato sauce sitting in my fridge? I say nothing.
Okay yes, it is. :D)
I *heart* V-con sooo much. I’ve made the saffron garlic rice before, it’s my favourite (especially when you brown the bottom just a bit to get the most tantalizing crispy garlic-y crust… *droooools*), and the chickpeas romesco might be the best pantry-staple thing I’ve ever made. SO good. And even better about both these Spanish-y dishes is that they’re free of lemon and sherry vinegar so I can go to town on the side vegetables and the whole plate tastes amazing.
Now I kinda want creamy tomato soup. Go figure. :P
Once upon a time there was an more innocent time in my life where I had no ethical qualms about eating as much Habitant pea soup as my little tummy desired. It was creamy, and dreamy, and came in gigantic tins and sometimes I ate it cold right out of the fridge, sometimes heated up to make it extra silky, and usually with loads of black pepper. It was pretty good stuff, even though it didn’t take me long to scan the ingredients list once becoming vegan and there the shocking news was that even the “vegetarian” version had a whole bunch of lard in it! Super gross!! But I love that stuff, so I’ve been trying here and there to recreate it. The trick is to think simple and this is the closest I’ve come so far, this may have even been better! :O
(Oh, and it’s certainly that time of the season. I’m not the only one to sing the peas praises!)
On the soup front we’ve still been raring to go this week. After split pea came that rich, gravy-like black bean soup from the Veganomicon that I love so much. Pretty much made identically as before, but with a bit of red pepper added this time. That veg gets itself invited to anything that needs some ruby sparkle and a bite of sweet! Definitely a welcome addition here, and it’s cheap and healthy yet luxurious soups like this that make me feel like a queen that should have made a double batch because aaaaaaaaaah it’s soooooo goooooooooooooood.
For Hallowe’en this year I could not sleep on the eve of the Hallow’s Eve, so I made pudding at three in the morning. Have I mentioned that I adore the excuse to cook at all hours of the night when I have the place to myself? Lovely fun to make a big recipe of extra almondy pudding with a layer of toasted oats and almond crust surprise hiding at the bottom! I don’t think I’ll go the “crust” route with my pudding again, somehow gritty isn’t something I enjoyed on the tongue, but if you eat the creamy first and then the almost macaroon-like cookie bottom, well, that was pretty nice. We conveniently forgot to mention to the guys that there were seven of these in the fridge, and have been diving into pud at our leisure.
I’m not totally greedy, though, and ended up releasing 11 of 12 of these VwaV perfect pumpkin muffins out into the wild to get devoured by costumed friends. It was almost funny how the conversation went every time, though:
Me: here, do want a pumpkin muffin?
Them: ehhhh. nah, is okay.
Me: they are like cake!
Them: all right then (*pause for chewing*) WOW THESE ARE GOOD.
hahaha. fools that they do not know the wonder of gourd cake! Oh, yeah, and actually I made them with a Calabaza squash, which was remarkably smooth and sweet, and just a bit floral – worked beautifully here.
Finally, I am back onto my mission to finish the Vcon. One needs a past-time challenge, right? Eased back into the crusade with a quicky little baby bok shoy with crispy shallots recipe (read: onions, we is poor), enjoyed with my new obsession, black forbidden sticky rice, pineapple pieces and some goji berries for that painterly touch on the dinner plate. Delicious!
Kamutflake Girl 
