CRAFT AFTERMATH

Vegan MoFo: Ultimate Reuben

2011-10-26T23:23:00.005-05:00

I made a serious sandwich.

You can make sandwiches that don't involve this many steps, cookbooks, and dishes, but the effort paid off. Here's what to do.

Make sauerkraut.

Make pickles.

Bake rye bread. The recipe I used is Petaluma Rye from the Laurel's Kitchen Bread Book. It's mostly whole wheat bread flour, with some rye flour, and caraway seeds.

I subbed soymilk + apple cider vinegar for the buttermilk and agave for the honey. And threw in some orange zest, because I had it and why not? I also brushed it with melted Earth Balance after it came out of the oven.

Mix chopped up pickles, a splash of brine, vegennaise, ketchup, and pepper together for your dressing.

Now, make the pastrami style seitan from Vegan Diner. Combine spices, gluten, and chickpea flour...

Knead it with the liquids and wrap loaf in tea towel...

Steam until it all plumps up...

And you've got yourself a big log o' vegan pastrami!

Slice it real thin...

And we're ready to assemble.

Spread the bread with Earth Balance, and pile everything on. I've been eating these for days, so some have had Daiya mozzarella and some haven't. Optional but tasty.

Grill in a skillet, pressing well, until everything's warm (and melty if applicable) and the bread is nice and toasty.

Serving with something fresh and crunchy, like this shredded apple and beet salad from Vegan Soul Kitchen, is advisable, but that's not to say that I didn't eat one yesterday with tater tots as a side.

Sure, a lot of effort for a sandwich, but once you've got the components made, they will last for several days and you will have quick, delicious sandwiches in a few minutes. And a good sandwich is worth it.

Cookbooks Used:

Wild Fermentation by Sandor Ellix Katz
Vegan Diner by Julie Hasson
Laurel's Kitchen Bread Book by Laurel Robertson with Carol Flinders and Bronwen Godfrey
Vegan Soul Kitchen by Bryant Terry

Vegan MoFo: I'm still here, plus breakfast

2011-10-26T22:54:00.002-05:00

Well, I took an unanticipated break, but I'm still working on cooking through all of my cookbooks! I made a mistake with this one, though, and accidentally doubled up on a cookbook! I could have sworn this curried tofu scramble with arugula was from Vegan Brunch (logical, right?) but it's actually from Appetite for Reduction, which I had already cooked from. But I already had the ingredients, so I made it anyway. Of course, this means I get to make something else from Vegan Brunch! I'm thinking pierogi.

This was great! Simple, quick, and flavorful. But what's breakfast-for-dinner without something carby?

Lemon Cornmeal Currant Waffles from 500 Vegan Recipes. I didn't have lemon extract so I put in a bunch of lemon zest instead. The flavor was good, but I am picky about waffle texture. I'll take a crisp outside yielding to a light, airy inside. I knew these wouldn't be my ideal waffles, since they have all whole wheat pastry flour and cornmeal, so they were pretty dense and bready. Still tasty, and certainly hearty and healthy. But my perfect vegan waffle: definitely the yeasted ones from Vegan Brunch. Incredible.

I don't know why I don't do breakfast-for-dinner more often, it's just so satisfying.

Cookbooks Used:

Appetite for Reduction by Isa Chandra Moskowitz
500 Vegan Recipes by Celine Steen and Joni Marie Newman

Vegan MoFo: New favorite way to freeze soups & stews

2011-10-16T22:49:00.008-05:00

And here I am yammering on about how to deal with leftovers again. That's what I get for attempting to cook 48 recipes in 31 days...scratch that. 49. Yup...I bought Vegan Pie in the Sky. I swore, no new cookbooks while taking on this project, but I've been so excited about this one! You'll be seeing something from it soon...in fact, I just made a Chocolate Olive Oil Shortbread tart crust today. How's that for a teaser?

But, my apologies, we're gonna talk about stew instead of tarts today. I made the Moroccan Chickpeas and Zucchini from Appetite for Reduction, and it's a quick, filling dinner. You can find the recipe here. I used pattypan squash, because that's what I had on hand, and omitted the baby carrots because I don't love cooked carrots.

I like freezing soups and stews, but didn't have a great method. I don't have a lot of serving-sized leftover containers, and there's not a great way to defrost those without microwaving plastic, which I try to avoid. I love my Pyrex leftover containers, but I don't want to have those stuck in the freezer for who knows how long. And if I freeze in a big container, I have to thaw it all at once. But then I found this post on The Kitchn. Muffin tins! Brilliant. Just fill muffin tins with soup or stew, and put them in the freezer until solid.

After freezing, put an inch or two of hot water in the sink, and let the muffin pan sit for a minute or so. Not too long, you don't want it to melt! The soup pellets (mmmm!) will pop out with a knife.

Put them in a bag and stash in the freezer!

To thaw, just put a few soup nuggets in the microwave for a few minutes, and serve with rice, couscous, quinoa, etc. In my muffin tins, each piece was about 1/3 cup in a regular tin, and 2/3 cup in a jumbo tin.

I froze the borscht I made using the same method, and it worked beautifully. I had a hot bowl of soup on my lunch break, and the only dishes to wash were a bowl and a spoon.

Cookbooks Used:

Appetite for Reduction by Isa Chandra Moskowitz

Vegan MoFo: Spicy Noodles and Leek Miso Soup

2011-10-15T22:45:00.003-05:00

I have backlogged food I should really be showing you, but I just had to post about tonight's dinner instead. It was SO good! One dish from China and one from Japan. Both of these cookbooks are just wonderful, in pretty different ways.

Kansha by Elizabeth Andoh is just a beautiful book. It's a big square hardcover with many large, gorgeous photos, and is extremely informative and well written. I've really enjoyed reading it, and not only have I learned a lot about Japanese cooking, but it also makes me feel really excited about and appreciative of cooking. She tries to really get at the heart of Japanese food culture and explains traditions and concepts, not just ingredients and techniques. I'm not sure how much I'll actually cook from it, because many of the recipes are fairly involved and it seems to take several different dishes to make a meal, not to mention many of the ingredients are hard to find in Iowa. But if I only bought cookbooks to cook from, I wouldn't have nearly as many as I do.

I chose the Creamy Japanese Leek Soup, which has a stock make from shiitake mushrooms and kombu, sake, miso, and leeks. That's it! It is a very simple soup, but very warming and satisfying. It's flavorful, but in a quiet way. She suggests it for breakfast, and that sounds great, especially on a cold day.

The Asian Vegan Kitchen by Hema Parekh, on the other hand, is one I'm more likely to pick up often. It is less of a coffee table book than Kansha, more of a resource for vegan recipes from many different countries in Asia. The book is organized by country, and by dish category within those countries. This makes it easy to know what goes with what, even if many of the dishes are unfamiliar. It still has ingredients that can be tricky to find, but these are dishes I am more likely to make for dinner, though since some recipes involve making sauces, stocks, etc. first, they are better suited for relaxed, leisurely cooking than for weeknight dinners.

The dish I picked for tonight, though, was fairly quick and really easy to prepare. I made it a bit more complicated because I didn't have chili oil, so first I had to make my own. Here's a good recipe.

The only modification I made to the recipe was to sub in TVP for "minced soybean gluten," which I gather can be purchased in a can, though I've never seen it. Minced seitan is also suggested as a sub. I sauteed the rehydrated TVP with ginger, sake, and soy sauce.

This was even delicious on its own! I bet it would be great with shredded veggies as a dumpling filling. Next, the chili oil is whisked with toasted, ground sesame seeds and soy sauce. To serve, you heap a serving of hot, cooked udon noodles into a bowl and top with some of the sauce, TVP mixture, and scallions. Mix it all up and eat!

I loved this dish. The sauce helped the flavorful TVP pieces stick to the noodles, so each bite was really flavorful. Very spicy, aggressively salty (if you're salt-averse, you might want to reduce it a bit, but I enjoyed it), and really hit the spot.

Cookbooks used:

Kansha by Elizabeth Andoh
The Asian Vegan Kitchen by Hema Parekh

Vegan MoFo: A Suggestion

2011-10-15T00:10:00.004-05:00

If it's getting cold where you are, but you're too stubborn to turn on your heat yet, here's what you should do. Invest in nice thick socks, put on a big sweater, and go gather up your spices.

We're making chai! The recipe is Molokai Chai from The Balanced Plate by Renee Loux, and you can find it on her website. The basic method is, you make a concentrate by simmering the spices in water and then straining it. This will keep in the fridge for at least a week.

Once you've got the concentrate made, here's how you make it into chai. For every two servings, bring one cup of concentrate to a boil in a saucepan. Turn off the heat, and steep a black or green teabag for 3-5 minutes. Remove the teabag, and add 1 cup of nondairy milk (I used soy) and 1 tablespoon of agave or maple syrup (I tried and liked both, you could probably also use sugar). I bought decaf green and regular black tea to use, so that I could have a caf and decaf option.

I lost my other pictures of the finished product, so you'll have to deal with this crappy iPhoto picture, but let me draw your attention away from the graininess and towards my adorable new mug. I just bought it on a day trip to Iowa City.

While I was there, I ate an amazing waffle with apples, sage, and from-scratch vegan mozzarella at Fair Grounds Coffeeshop, one of my favorite spots for great vegan brunch and lunch. Too bad it's a 1.5 hour drive one way. Their waffle with vegan sour cream, dill, and chunks of potato is also great. They have lots of windows and art and plants, too, it's a great place to hang out. After that, falafel at Oasis for lunch and a masala dosa for dinner at Masala, a vegetarian Indian restaurant with clearly marked vegan and gluten free options. Iowa is underrated! I capped off the day with an incredible concert by Janelle Monae, and they were giving out chocolate soymilk boxes at the show!

Cookbooks used:

The Balanced Plate by Renee Loux

Vegan MoFo: Taco Night!

2011-10-13T22:01:00.006-05:00

So, two Christmases ago I bought Mexican Everyday by Rick Bayless for my dad, along with a tortilla warmer, but it wasn't shipped in time and I ended up getting him something else. I meant to give it to him for his birthday, after all, it has lots of meat recipes, but I just couldn't part with it. I really like Rick Bayless' cookbooks, he does a great job of sticking to traditional Mexican food or at least clearly telling you when he's veering off course, and the explanations of techniques and ingredients are clear and well-written.

He does offer vegetarian options in many recipes, but he too often does things like recommending subbing cubed tofu for chicken in his Tortilla Soup recipe. The thing about chicken is that it does have a flavor, albeit a fairly mild one. Marinated, baked or grilled tofu or tempeh, or good mock meat products, will fare better. With that lesson learned, I made his Green Chile Chicken Soft Tacos with the Tempeh Asado from Viva Vegan by Terry Hope Romero as a subsitute for the chicken. This resulted in a tangy, flavorful filling of roasted poblano chiles, tender sauteed onions, and smoky, toothsome tempeh wrapped in fresh corn tortillas.

I used the corn tortilla recipe from Viva Vegan as well. I had Maseca on hand, but not corn tortillas, so I opted to make my own, but to tell you the truth, I'm not very good at it. Maybe I just need more practice. I topped the tacos with shredded lettuce, not traditional but definitely tasty, and roasted tomatillo salsa, also from Mexican Everyday. The photos of making the salsa got lost in the computer spill, but you can see it hanging out on top of the taco.

This was a really great dinner, but definitely a weekend project, look at all of those steps! For a simpler meal, I used the leftover salsa and tortillas to make Chilaquiles. This is how I like to make them:

Cut up old tortillas...

Fry them in a bit of neutral oil...

Drain on paper towels and wipe excess grease out of the skillet...

Pour in plenty of salsa, give it a stir, top with vegan cheese (I used Pepperjack Daiya), turn the heat down to medium-low, cover, and cook until the cheese melts. You may need to pop it under the broiler for a bit if you have trouble with melting. Serve! I didn't have much salsa left, so these weren't as saucy as I'd like, but still delicious. I topped mine with lots of cilantro, obviously.

There you go, tacos plus a peek into how I'm handling all these leftovers. I invited friends to eat tacos, that helped tremendously. And I don't think they minded. You can find the salsa recipe here, tacos here, and tempeh asado here. For the tempeh, I used the broth option because I was cooking for someone gluten free, but I've used the beer and it's delicious. Corn tortilla recipes are easy to find, there's usually even one on the Maseca bag.

Cookbooks used:

Mexican Everyday by Rick Bayless
Viva Vegan by Terry Hope Romero

Vegan MoFo: Miso-Curry Delicata Squash

2011-10-13T01:38:00.005-05:00

I consider myself a squash enthusiast, but I don't think I'd ever cooked with Delicata before! Man, was I missing out. Tender, sweet, and you don't have to peel it? I'm in.

This was a really flavorful, hearty meal, with several details that really made it stand out. Basically, squash, potatoes and delicata squash are tossed with a sauce containing red curry paste and miso, and then roasted.

While that's happening, you toss chopped kale with lemon juice and a bit of the paste. The kale marinates and tenderizes a bit, but the only cooking it gets was when it is tossed with the just-roasted squash mixture. That meant the dish was flecked with bright, fresh green bits, which was lovely.

Chopped cilantro and toasted pepitas finish it off. My pepitas were raw, so I just popped them in the toaster oven on a pretty low setting for a bit.

I love the texture of roasted tofu, and everything really sucked up the miso and red curry flavors.

This recipe is from Super Natural Every Day, which I love. You can find the recipe posted online, but I do recommend that you check out this cookbook! It's by Heidi Swanson, of the wonderful blog 101 Cookbooks. She really excels at heightening the flavors of veggies and grains, and my favorite dishes of hers are the big, casual platters of veggies, protein, and whole grains tossed together, perfectly complimentary and sprinkled with bits of toasted nuts, herbs, and lemon juice that really make them into something special.

Though this isn't a vegan cookbook, it's all vegetarian and much of it is vegan or easily adaptable. The flavor combinations and garnishes, as well as the gorgeous full page matte photos, inspire me even when I'm not really following one of her recipes.

I'll also direct your attention to that cookbook holder up there. I used to think these were silly, but then found myself propping open cookbooks with edges of cutting boards, which were then lopsided and tended to deliver food right onto the page, or cans and bottles that rolled off the counter at very inconvenient times. This really does make a lot of sense. If you cook from cookbooks a lot, I definitely recommend one.

Cookbooks Used:

Super Natural Every Day by Heidi Swanson

Vegan MoFo: The Neverending Dill Bunch

2011-10-12T08:00:00.001-05:00

I bought a huge bunch of dill a few weeks ago, and it will never end! This is great, because I love fresh dill. #1 Favorite Way to Use It: toast a piece of bread (baguette or something else crusty is nice, but anything will work), OR a bagel or english muffin, OR grab a crispbread like Wasa. Really, so many possibilities. Spread it with a layer of vegan cream cheese (or Earth Balance). Layer on thin slices of either radish...

tomato...

or cucumber. Sprinkle with salt and pepper, and top with lots of fresh chopped dill. You can also mix it into vegan cream cheese with a little salt, pepper and lemon juice, great on a bagel.

I love this dill cream cheese with roasted red pepper on a bagel. It's pretty reminiscent of lox, especially if you sprinkle the pepper with smoked salt or a few drops of liquid smoke + salt. So I'd used it like that several times, and made the dill tofu sour cream from Voluptuous Vegan, and still had this:

I flipped through The Complete Book of Small Batch Preserving and was relieved to see that it has many recipes for herbed vinegars and butters. Good thing, because I need to use a recipe from EVERY cookbook, and I wasn't feeling up to canning anything else this year. I opted to make dill butter. Basically, chopped dill and green onion, lemon juice and lemon zest get stirred into softened butter. I used Earth Balance.

Once everything is mixed together, you roll it into a log on parchment.

Wrap it up tight...

and put it in a plastic bag.

You're ready to freeze! To use, just slice a bit off the log and thaw at room temp or in the microwave. I plan to use it on baked potatoes, bread, and to dress up cooked veggies like carrots or peas.

And I STILL have a fair amount of dill. Hopefully it'll last in the fridge a while longer.

Let's talk herb storage. I usually store herbs wrapped in a damp paper towel in a sealed ziploc baggie in the fridge. Sometimes I put them in a jar of water instead, as if they were flowers in a vase, with a plastic bag over the top, in the fridge. That works pretty well, but relies on frequent water changing. The bag method lends itself better to laziness. But make no mistake, most of the time I can't be bothered with either of these and they wilt away in the produce drawer.

Cookbook Used:
The Complete Guide to Small Batch Preserving by Ellie Topp and Margaret Howard

Vegan MoFo: Smoothies and Granola!

2011-10-11T16:52:00.005-05:00

Since I don't actually have a schedule for working through my cookbooks, I ended up front-loading the month with big entrees and decadent treats. So I have enough leftovers for lunches and dinners, and have been wanting things like fruits and whole grains.

Enter: Sugar-Free Granola from Breakfast, Lunch, Tea by Rose Carrarini.

This is a very mild granola - sweetened with apple juice, and with no added spices (but I added a generous pinch each of cinnamon and salt). It's really crunchy and has lots of seeds and nuts, and is especially delicious with fruit and soy yogurt, though it may need a drizzle of agave or maple syrup, or a sprinkling of brown sugar, if you're using unsweetened yogurt. You can find the recipe here.

An extra note: this recipe comes from one of my very favorite cookbooks! My copy of Breakfast Lunch Tea has been with me for a while, and I love it so much. I love its eye-catchingly bold green cover, its photos of messes like wrappers and mugs in the sink and a counter strewn with flour and scone scraps, its very Parisian-feeling shots of entirely black-clad customers in the bakery, AND its straightforward, delicious recipes.

You should know that this is not a vegan cookbook, but there are many explicitly vegan recipes. The vegan pancakes come to mind, and a few cookies, as well as a chickpea soup, a carrot salad, and many more. There are also many that are easy to veganize, like the scones. The maple syrup scones are definitely my favorite. A few more non-vegetarian cookbooks will be popping up through the month, and some of them are among my favorites! They encourage me to experiment and think more about the flexibility and possibilities of vegan cooking.

Next up in Healthy Breakfastland: the Drink Your Greens smoothie from Eat, Drink and Be Vegan by Dreena Burton. I've made very few green smoothies, and usually mine end up tasty but a pretty unappetizing shade of greenish brown, so it was nice to make something both vibrant looking and delicious. There's a cup of kale in there! And half an avocado, which I was a bit skeptical of, but it works.

This was very creamy. I did wish it were a little colder/icier, but that could be remedied by adding a few ice cubes or using frozen mango or melon instead of fresh.

This recipe isn't posted online, but checkout Dreena's treatise on making green smoothies. Number 6 is very similar to this one, but with orange juice instead of an orange, and mango (what I used) as an optional sub for the honeydew. I hadn't made anything from the drinks section of this book before, though I've tried many of the other recipes and they are great. I like that this project is making me explore new sections of my cookbooks. I gravitate towards the entree recipes, but I can't only cook entrees all the time!

Cookbooks used:

Breakfast Lunch Tea by Rose Carrarini
Eat Drink and Be Vegan by Dreena Burton

Vegan MoFo: There is no baked good I love more than the scone

2011-10-07T08:00:00.001-05:00

Well...maybe an excellent fruit pie. But I like making scones way more than I like making pie. Pie crust always frustrates me. But scones? Nothing frustrating about a scone.

It turns out, as I've been plowing through my cookbooks, that I own one that's all muffins and scones, one that's all scones, and several more that I purchased mostly for the scones. These are from Simply Scones by Leslie Weiner and Barbara Albright. If you want lots of varied scone recipes, it's a great go-to book. I bought it really cheap on half.com, which is my favorite resource for buying older cookbooks cheaply. When I just looked, there was an "acceptable" condition copy for $0.75 + media mail! It's not vegan, but I've found that scone recipes are some of the easiest to veganize.

For most traditional scone recipes, which usually don't have egg, just sub Earth Balance for the butter (remember to cut/omit the salt, as most scone recipes call for unsalted butter) and soy (or your preferred non-dairy) milk or creamer and you're good to go! They do often call for an egg wash, though. I like brushing my scones with soy milk or creamer before baking and sprinkling them with coarse sugar. It makes the tops so crisp!

If they do have eggs, it's usually only one, so omitting it would probably work, maybe with an extra splash of creamer, but I like subbing soy yogurt. You could also use ener-g. This time, though, I had a little bit of silken tofu left from making dill tofu sour cream, so I pureed it and subbed in 1/4 C of blended silken tofu for each egg. I also used half whole wheat pastry flour instead of just all-purpose. Other than the vegan subs and the white whole wheat addition, I make the recipe as written. You can find the original recipe here.

These are pretty hearty, not-very-sweet scones, great with Earth Balance and jam. I froze the leftovers to heat in the toaster oven for quick breakfasts.

Cookbook used:

Simply Scones by Leslie Weiner and Barbara Albright

Vegan Mofo: A Little Lunch

2011-10-06T17:10:00.004-05:00

So some computer troubles kept me from posting yesterday...I spilled on my computer and killed it. But I'm back in action! Good thing I had some scheduled posts, it's like I only missed a day! I didn't stop cooking, though, so I'm still right on schedule. Which makes it sound like I have a schedule, and trust me, I don't. Just a list of cookbooks with X's by a few.

Here are two more to check off! I needed a light, healthy lunch after all that bread and nutella and piles of potato pancakes. Because it finished off several little bits of things I had hanging around, I made Bulgur with Savory Greens from Moosewood Restaurant Low-Fat Favorites, with the optional chickpeas. This was a nice lunch, but the bulgur dish is a little dull, and the mint, lemon and red wine vinegar garnishes are definitely necessary to liven it up. After hammering my palate with sugar and fat, though, I appreciated a simpler meal.

On the side are Maple Mustard and Tahini Glazed Carrots from Clean Start by Terry Walters. The carrots are simmered briefly in a pan and then glazed with whole grain mustard, maple syrup, and just a tiny bit of tahini. It's not enough to make it a tahini-based sauce, really, just enough to help the other stuff cling and give it some body. These were really good! I've never been the biggest cooked carrot fan, though, and when I do cook them I like them roasted. But I had a sad bunch of carrots begging to be used up. I'd maybe use the glaze on roasted carrots in the future.

The use-every-cookbook challenge has definitely been influencing my cooking style. Since I have so many to go though, I've been trying to find recipes for basically everything I make. So if I have a little bit of bulgur, some cooked chickpeas, swiss chard, and carrots that need to be used up quickly, normally I'd just saute the veggies and greens, throw in the chickpeas, and serve it over the bulgur, maybe with a quick tahini sauce. Finding recipes that use those ingredients instead definitely forces me to branch out a bit, which is the point of this little experiment, I think.

Cookbooks Used:

Moosewood Restaurant Low-Fat Favorites by Moosewood Collective
Clean Start by Terry Walters

Vegan MoFo: Breakfast, or, what am I going to do with all of this food?

2011-10-04T09:00:00.004-05:00

So it has occurred to me that if I cook 48 recipes within 31 days, I will have a lot of food. And since I'm just cooking for myself, I'm not exactly sure how I'm going to get rid of it all. Scones, cookies and such will get taken to work, but I'm not going to give my coworkers all big bowls of soup or dollops of tofu sour cream. So I'm doing some repurposing.

I got a great deal on apples at the farmers market, because it was near the end and they weren't selling very quickly. I needed to use a bunch at once, as some were a bit soft, so I made the roasted applesauce from Vegan With a Vengeance.

The apples are tossed with oil, sweetener, and spices, and then roasted in the oven.

After that, you mash the heck out of it!

It was so delicious! The only change I made was to omit the sugar, since it already had 1/4 cup of maple syrup and I like pretty tart applesauce.

In the spirit of repurposing, I saved the peels and cores and simmered them with some sugar, rosemary, and water to make a syrup. Now I wish I'd used less water and sugar, because it doesn't taste very strongly of apples or rosemary, though it does taste kind of vaguely fruity and herbal.

I might simmer it down further with a little more rosemary. Still, it made a nice cocktail shaken with some lemon juice and vodka:

Since I now had applesauce and leftover dill tofu sour cream from the borscht, the next logical step was to make potato pancakes. I used the recipe for latkes from The Vegan Family Cookbook by Brian P. McCarthy.

The latkes from Voluptuous Vegan are still my favorite, but those have you finely chop half the potatoes, grate the other half, squeeze out all of the liquid, let the starch settle to the bottom, drain off everything but the starch, and add the starch back into the potatoes. This is instead of using flour or another binder. It makes for really crisp, light latkes, but is also a lot of work and mess. Special occasions, sure. Casual breakfasts, not as much. I'd totally make the Vegan Family Cookbook recipe again when I'm shorter on time and am craving potato pancakes. I'd like to try cutting down the oil in the batter to make them a bit less heavy. The recipe is available on the publisher's website.

Served with dill tofu sour cream, applesauce, and coffee, this was a great breakfast. I froze the leftovers on a cookie sheet, and will stack them in a plastic bag, to be heated up in the toaster oven. I have a feeling when October is over, I'll have enough frozen leftovers to last me though November at least.

Cookbooks used:

The Vegan Family Cookbook by Brian P. McCarthy
Vegan With a Vengeance by Isa Chandra Moskowitz

Vegan MoFo: Borscht!

2011-10-03T09:00:00.000-05:00

Today's recipes are from the newest addition to my cookbook collection. There was a thread on the PPK forum about swapping cookbooks, and someone was seeking a copy of Yellow Rose Recipes in exchange for The Voluptuous Vegan. I jumped at the chance - I used Yellow Rose Recipes, but didn't pick it up all that often. Something about it just didn't quite mesh with what I like to cook most often. I knew that I liked Voluptuous Vegan, I checked it out from the library last year to make latkes for a holiday party. I've tried several vegan latke recipes and it remains my favorite. It's kind of a production, though, so I went with something new.

Borscht! This is Crimson Cabbage Borscht with Dill Tofu Sour Cream. In addition to beets and cabbage, it has carrot, potato, tomatoes, onions, beans, and beet greens. It was more vegetable-packed than other borscht I have had, and really rich tasting.

The sour cream is based on blended silken tofu, which I don't usually love as a topping, but it has a fair bit of oil added, which helps tremendously, along with lemon juice and brown rice vinegar, which give it a great tang. I bought a really gigantic bunch of fresh dill last weekend, and it's been making appearances in a lot of my cooking lately. You'll be seeing it again.

The soup was great with a big hunk of yesterday's bread. And I've got lunch for the week! You can find slightly modified recipes for the borscht here and the sour cream here.

Cookbook used:

The Voluptuous Vegan by Myra Kornfeld and George Minot

Vegan Mofo: It begins with bread.

2011-10-02T11:09:00.000-05:00

Since part of the motivation for me to cook one recipe from every cookbook I own is to try new things instead of just making the same favorites over and over, for the most part I'm going to try to select recipes I've never tried before. But I'm making an exception for this bread, because I was also making the Not-ella from Veganomicon, and the pull of fresh baguettes and nutella is just too strong to resist.

I used the recipe for Parisian Daily Bread from Daniel Leader's Local Breads, which is a fantastic book. I found a slight variation on the recipe posted online. I've made several other breads from it, but because they involve nurturing a starter, and beginning the bread at least a day before baking, I decided to stick with the quickest recipe in the book this time. This bread takes about 4 hours start to finish, and while the sourdough baguettes in the book are a little more complex tasting and are more riddled with pockets and holes, this recipe can't be beat for time and ease-to-deliciousness ratio. This was my first time making this recipe with a stand mixer - my mom gave me her Kitchen Aid because my parents are moving to a smaller place and she figured I'd get more use out of it. She was right! It's great, and made an already pretty simple recipe even easier. But less of an arm workout, which is both a plus and a minus, I guess.

That's my makeshift bread proofing setup. I rolled up two towels, and used them to prop up a piece of parchment, folded so that each loaf has a little flour-dusted cradle to rest in. It's smushed up against the toaster oven on one side and a flour canister on the other.

But here I am rattling on about bread when I've promised you chocolate.

So, I had a little Not-ella adventure. I tried to tinker with the recipe to make it smoother and creamier instead of dense and fudgy. I liked it when I made it as directed, but it was like a chocolatey hazelnut butter, not like nutella. At first, my tinkering efforts failed dramatically. It turned into a big lumpy blob and oozed out a whole bunch of its oil. But I had a lot of time and money invested at this point, so I took a deep breath, drained off all of the cast-off oil, dumped in a quarter cup of soymilk, closed my eyes, and let the food processor do its thing. And and and! It turned into this:

To replicate these results without quite as much panic, I suspect you could add the first 4 tablespoons of oil as directed and then sub in 1/4 cup of soymilk for the remaining four, but I'll have to test this again to be sure.

So I sat down with a cup of coffee and slathered it on some fresh baguette. Best possible afternoon snack.

Cookbooks Used:

Veganomicon by Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero
Local Breads by Daniel Leader

Two down, 46 to go!

Pre-MoFo: Every Cookbook I Own.

2011-09-30T18:54:00.000-05:00

So my ridiculous "one recipe from every cookbook I own" project is going to involve knowing which cookbooks I have in the first place. To that end, here's a list. This list includes books and zines I own that are composed primarily of recipes, but excludes things like food memoirs and food histories that include a few recipes.

Two of these are written in German, two are mostly scones, one is written for children, one is all cocktails. Many are not vegan and will involve finding the vegan recipes in them or veganizing some recipes. I'll link to recipes when possible and post the ones that I modify enough that they seem sufficiently different, otherwise I encourage you to check out some of these cookbooks!

- The Voluptuous Vegan by Myra Kornfeld and George Minot
- Kansha: Celebrating Japan's Vegan and Vegetarian Traditions by Elizabeth Andoh
- Eat, Drink & Be Vegan by Dreena Burton
- Love Soup by Anna Thomas
- Vive le Vegan! by Dreena Burton
- Vegan Diner by Julie Hasson
- Lakewinds Natural Foods Cookbook, ed. Patricia Cumbie, Denise Roseland, and Kristi Gonda
- Super Natural Every Day by Heidi Swanson
- The Complete Book of Small-Batch Preserving by Ellie Topp and Margaret Howard
- Moosewood Restaurant Low-Fat Favorites by The Moosewood Collective
- Vegetarian Suppers from Deborah Madison's Kitchen by Deborah Madison
- The Silver Spoon for Children by Amanda Grant, illustrated by Harriet Russell
- The Enchanted Broccoli Forest by Mollie Katzen
- Mexican Everyday by Rick Bayless
- Viva Vegan! by Terry Hope Romero
- The Indian Slow Cooker by Anupy Singla
- The Craft of the Cocktail by Dale Degroff
- Das Ox-Kochbuch: Vegetarische und Vegane Rezepte Nicht nur für Punks by Uschi Herzer and Joachim Hiller
- Das Ox-Kochbuch Teil II: Moderne Vegetarische Küche für Punkrocker und Andere Menschen
- Flavors of India: Recipes from the Vegetarian Hindu Cuisine by Shanta Nimbark Sacharoff
- Simply Scones by Leslie Weiner and Barbara Albright
- Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World by Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero
- The Vegan Family Cookbook by Brian P. McCarthy
- Vegan Soul Kitchen by Bryant Terry
- 500 Vegan Recipes by Celine Steen and Joni Marie Newman
- The Laurel's Kitchen Bread Book by Laurel Robertson with Carol Flinders and Bronwen Godfrey
- Local Breads by Daniel Leader with Lauren Chattman
- Breakfast Lunch Tea by Rose Carrarini
- The Indian Vegan Kitchen by Madhu Gadia
- Wild Fermentation by Sandor Ellix Katz
- The Mediterranean Vegan Kitchen by Donna Klein
- Appetite for Reduction by Isa Chandra Moskowitz
- The New Laurel's Kitchen by Laurel Robertson, Carol Flinders, and Brian Ruppenthal
- The New Moosewood Cookbook by Mollie Katzen
- The Asian Vegan Kitchen by Hema Parekh
- Clean Start by Terry Walters
- Still Life with Menu by Mollie Katzen
- Vegetarian Dishes from Across the Middle East by Aro der Haroutunian
- Vegan With a Vengeance by Isa Chandra Moskowitz
- Veganomicon by Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero
- The Balanced Plate by Renee Loux
- The Allergen Free Baker's Handbook by Cybele Pascal
- Vegan Brunch by Isa Chandra Moskowitz
- Papa Tofu Loves Ethiopian Food by Kittee Berns
- Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar by Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero
- Vegan de Guadalupe Cookzine
- Biscuits and Scones by Elizabeth Alston
- The Soup Peddler's Slow & Difficult Soups by David Ansel

Whew! Tomorrow, it begins!

Vegan MoFo 2011!

2011-09-29T21:33:00.001-05:00

After a bit of a blogging break, I'm back for Vegan Month of Food! I definitely aim to make it the whole month this year. And to help me stick with it, a theme!

I will cook at least one recipe from every cookbook I own. Which is plenty to last me the whole month, even since I got rid of a few recently when I moved to a new apartment. The most recent count: 46, including cookzines but not including food memoirs or food politics books that have recipes. So I'm going to have to double up some days. Also, not all of these cookbooks are vegan, so I'll be veganizing some recipes as well. See you Oct. 1!

crafty fonts

2010-01-02T10:16:00.000-06:00

Check out this list of 20 crafty fonts on Meet Me at Mike's!

seriously good cake

2009-12-30T17:17:00.000-06:00

I've never actually been a huge fan of cakes. But this one is something else - lemony, rich, crumbly, and not too sweet. It's from Breakfast, Lunch, Tea and the recipe can be found here. I always, always cut the recipe in half, and it still makes four mini loaf pans worth. Plus, you don't have to figure out how to come up with 5 1/2 cups of ground almonds. I'm not made of money.

To veganize this , just use Earth Balance for the butter and 1/4 cup of soy yogurt for each egg. Though I do intend to tweak the vegan version, sometimes it ends up a little fall-apart-y. Grease and flour the pans really well, and I really would use mini loaf pans. I did it in a big one once and it was really brown on the outside but still gooey in the middle. We sat on the porch and ate it directly out of the pan with forks, which is nice in its own way, but wasn't really what I was going for.

a garland duo

2009-12-29T20:19:00.000-06:00

A few weeks ago we had a big snowstorm that resulted in a snow day from work. Unable (and frankly, unwilling) to leave the apartment for any reason, Andrea and I spent the day decorating the apartment for winter. And drinking lots of tea. We ended up with many paper snowflakes and two garlands - one made of lots of paper circles all sewn together:

and one made of fabric triangles sewn along one end and then strung on a piece of yarn.

Add to these a bunch of artwork purchased on Etsy (not on the wall yet, awaiting frames), and our apartment is slowly becoming the cozy, colorful, handmade place we want it to be instead of the empty, white, hotel-room-reminiscent space it started out as.

the makings of a photo shoot

2009-12-28T15:15:00.001-06:00

I'm messy. "Craft Aftermath" was first used as a way of describing the wreckage after my roommate Andrea and I made a bunch of paper snowflakes. Making them over a garbage can would have been an option. But the sudden urge to craft must be indulged immediately. This is no time for rational decision making.

I was too absorbed in snowflake-cutting to snap some pictures. And too impatient to wait for another messy craft adventure. So I threw handfuls of fabric from my scrap bin onto my craft table (after I emptied it of socks that had been laying there to dry for at least a week). Artfully arrange a few craft supplies, and there you have it. Faux mess. Stay tuned for real messes.