Christmas Pizza

Christmas pizza. Well it's red and green, right? Sauce and oregano. I got a new camera for Christmas, so hopefully I'll be creating some more artful photos in the future. Currently I'm practicing on the pizza. Light life pepperoni, canned mushrooms (yessss, canned mushrooms, they're awesome on pizza) and the breakfast sausage browned with some Penzeys Italian sausage seasoning and follow your heart mozzarella.


And since I'm obsessed with British period pieces, I might as well watch one about cooking. I'm watching the Duchess of Duke Street from 1976 starring Gemma Jones (the mother in Bridget Jones.)

Roasted vegetables and super cool Japanese rice

Nothing warms up the house on a cold winter's day like a 400 degree oven. I roasted some beets and butternut squash. I like to peel and dice the veggies before roasting, so each piece gets coated and crispy.
Here's the rice mix. It's Kagayaki brand premium short 6 grain rice. I got it at the Japanese grocery on 41st in NYC. It's a mixture of black rice, hulless barley, red rice, purple barley, rye berries and short grain brown rice. Let me say, this rice blend will force you to chew your food! It's very hearty and filling and is quite flavorful even just plain.

Breakfast Sausage

This is my first go at the seitan-in-foil sausage technique. The recipe is from Alicia Simpson's Quick and Easy Vegan Comfort Food. You know how I love the field roast and tofurky sausages, but this is so easy I might just have to start making my own more often. Not sure these will fool the ninja, but I'll have to try it out in something. They are decidedly breakfast sausage flavored, but would go well as an appetiser with mustard sauce. This is how I ate them for actual breakfast (it's 10AM) because I didn't have any tofu to make a scramble to go with them. Anyway they were really good this way. Eating with toothpicks is so sophisticated. I sliced the steamed sausages and then pan fried them in a little oil. The mustard sauce is just some whole grain mustard and vegenaise. Here's the sausages after they have steamed in foil.

This is a great technique. The finished seitan has a nice texture that isn't the sometimes rubbery of boiled seitan or dried out of baked seitan. Because you also know I love Penzeys, I'll have to try this with one of their sausage seasonings. The Italian and breakfast sausage seasonings are great. I use them in pasta sauce and in scrambles to get sausage flavor without the meat. Sausage is one of those great vegan items that is so much more about the seasoning than the meat that it's really satisfying veganized.

There are a lot of great recipes in Alicia's book that I'll have to try as well. Spicy buffalo bites, sweet potato waffles, "egg" macguffin, tahini coffee?!?, peach cobbler and tortilla soup are the ones I'm lookin' at right now. Alicia also has a bunch of product reviews on her blog vegan guinea pig. I really need to get me a tofu xpress.

As a side note I like Deathcab for Cutie and all, but seriously Pandora, does every other song need to be DCFC or the Postal Service? Really. OK, now they're playing Lost in the Supermarket by the Clash just to make me happy. I've got the roku which plays the streaming netflix on the TV and now hooks into pandora, too. So I've got Deathcab in surround sound. Awesome.

If you're wondering what I'm doing not at work making sausage, complaining about the otherwise awesome pandora, and blogging on a Tuesday morning, my last day at my old job was yesterday and I start a new job on Monday. OK, so the office buildings are across the street from each other in downtown NYC, but still change is good. I'm excited about the new job. Can't wait to sneak some vegan treats on the unsuspecting office workers.

Snow days are for vegan waffles and British period pieces

It is indeed snowing in New York. Hiding out from work and armed with the roku remote, I have camped myself on the couch. I'm watching all the streaming netflix British period pieces that I haven't seen before.

Here are the Old-Fashioned Chelsea Waffles from Vegan Brunch. I like the bit of cornmeal in them. It adds a nice dimension. Topped with a little Earth Balance and some New York maple syrup. Yum. This is the only thing that got me off the couch all day.
Now on to the movies...

Starting with a 2009 version of Wuthering Heights that I quite enjoyed. Ah, the Bronte's. Not as light and fluffy as the Jane Austen collection. I always want to hate Heathcliff, but I never really do. I don't even hate Cathy in this one. This version retains the passion, but isn't quite as gritty as some of the other versions. I give it two thumbs up.

Next on to Under the Greenwood Tree. I've never read any Thomas Hardy and this was very cute. Love triumphs through the classes. Starring Keeley Hawes from MI-5. Actually you could do a whole period piece feature with the cast of "Spooks", but I'll save that for another day.

On to Where Angel's Fear to Tread. I've never read any E.M. Forester either, but you can bet the movie has got Helena Bonham Carter in it. So far it's good. There's always some twist though. I usually like the E.M. Forester shows better after I've seen them again. There's a newish Room with a View that I like a lot, too.

Back to the couch...Ciao!

Veggie Challenge III Cranberry Battle

This veggie challenge secret ingredient is cranberries! Cranberries are featured in a dessert dish for this challenge.
Six challengers, all with unique and delicious creations, form the backbone of night of vegan cranberry dessert awesomeness. The discerning brute Joshua Katcher expertly emcees the event. A panel of three baking experts, Fran Costigan, Mattie Hagedorn, and Sharon Valencik judge the dishes on taste, appearance, and creativity.
Up first-and third place winner-is a double cranberry cinnamon oatmeal nut bar.Then an almond crusted chocolate cranberry mousse. Then comes my cran-velvet cake with cranberry buttercream frosting and a tart cranberry sauce. The drink is a cran-tini punch of cranberry twist vodka, orange liqueur, unsweetened cranberry juice, tangerine juice, and seltzer.Up next from Michael at heebnvegan is a Swedish-style Charoset. Michael did a funny Swedish Chef impersonation with his presentation. Bork, bork, bork! Then Mike of Simply Raw Recipes wows us with a raw cranbanapple parfait with an awesome raw cranberry juice drink. This is the second place winner. The plastic cups are made from corn and he recycles them in his compost. Up last bus definitely not least is the winning dish. This is a rice crepe with a cran-ginger sauce. Sweet and savory, this is a really unique dessert. The sweet prize is a tofu Xpress!My honorable mention prizes are some Chicago Soy Dairy marshmallows and some vegan mac & cheese from Cosmo's vegan shoppe. I can't wait to try these!

The non-competitive main courses were made by the volunteers and features Match Meats the latest in faux meat. My favorite of which was a sweet & sour "pork" dish. The lasagna was also lovely. It was nice to have some savory food after snacking on cake all day and then having dessert first!

Another fun evening full of vegan superstars.

Holiday Vegan Sample bags available now

Check out the holiday sample bags! Each home made bag is stuffed with awesome handmade samples of vegan products. Order from Holistically Heather at Vegan Craft Samples. There is the normal bag for $25 and the small bag for $15. All profits go to the Peaceful Prairie Sanctuary. These make great holiday gifts!Here's my post from the first bag. I got the second one, too but didn't post. Lots of goodies including homemade soap, jewelry, play dough, cat toys (my mom's cats freaked out for them,) lip balm, magnets, buttons, and other stuff I can't remember right now.

Japanese comfort food and my awesome Halloween costume

Stewed daikon radish in a sweet miso sauce with a side of inari wrapped sushi rice. The thick daikon really needs to cook for awhile (like 1-2 hours) to get soft throughout, but it's worth the wait. The texture is strangely like pineapple, but not stringy or sweet. The sauce is miso, sake, mirin and kombu dashi.

Sushi rice stuffed into inari wrappers which are thin fried tofu pockets. They are a bit sweet and pair well with the sour vinegar of the sushi rice. I'm a vegan post punk rocker chick. I really just wanted to wear tatoo sleeves, a purple wig, and the magnetic face stud. The Praise Seitan t-shirt was just a bonus.

Happy Halloween everyone!

Health food vs. Junk food

This lovely rice bowl comes from The Pump Energy Food which has a bunch of locations in NYC. I'll post anything where you can get tofu as a regular option. The supercharged plate is brown rice with baked tofu, spinach, tomatoes, guacamole and a "cool green" sauce which is cucumber, mint, parsley, and lime sauce.Oh, yes and the Doritos. Spicy Sweet Chili Doritos are vegan and they sell them in the bodega in the basement of my building. Danger. These bad boys are really good.

Seitan buffalo fingers with blue cheese dressing

Hot wings, vegan style.

The buffalo chicken fingers are from a tester recipe. I froze them and they reheated nicely in the toaster oven. Tami's awesome book American Vegan Kitchen will be out in February, but you can pre-order it now!


The blue cheese dip is some Blue Style Scheese mixed with veganaise. The hot sauce is Frank's Red Hot which is my favorite wing sauce. The celery is just to make it feel like I'm having something healthy.

Peanut butter and jelly oatmeal

Here's another quickie...

I usually make oatmeal at work for breakfast with some rolled oats and raisins, but I ate all the raisins yesterday and forgot to bring more in. I did have some peanut butter left at the bottom of the jar and I had some Crofter's superfruit spread in the fridge. It's the Europe blend with black currants, pomegranates, morello cherries and red grapes.I tried to make the PB & jelly all in a yin and yang formation, because I thought it would look cool, but I gave up because I was hungry. I don't bother to microwave the oats. When I have it boils over into a big mess and I hate to wait around to stop and stir every 30 seconds. I don't like microwaves anyway. Even though it's not instant, just cover rolled oats in hot water and let it sit for a few minutes. By the time it's softened it's a good temperature to eat and you won't burn your tongue first thing in the morning.

Invasion of the Vegan Cookies!

Isa & Terry's new book is almost here! I preordered from Amazon and got shipping notice that it should arrive by Saturday. Woo-hoo!

Vegan Marshmallows

Vegan junk food rules. Sweet & Sara smores are awesome. This is the peanut butter flavor.I came across the sweet & sara marshmallows and smores in the grocery store near my work. Gotta support vegan companies when you see their products right? Perfect afternoon snack.

I also really like Suzanne's Specilaties ricemellow creme. You probably need to schlep to a health food store for this or grab it when you're shopping online. It's available from the usual vegan retailers, food fight, cosmos, and pangea. I'm sure ricemellow is great in frosting, fluffernutters, and rice crispy treats, but honestly, I ate most of it with a spoon. Don't worry, it wasn't all in one sitting or anything.

Green bean fries with ranch dressing

I got some giant end of the season green beans from my CSA. So I oven fried them with a good bit of olive oil and ate them with a side of ranch dressing.
I mixed some Penzeys Buttermilk Ranch Dressing mix with some tofutti sour cream for the dip. Although the name says buttermilk, the mix ingredients are all vegan: salt, bell peppers, garlic, onion, sugar, black pepper, parsley, thyme, basil.

Woo-hoo, I made the MoFo round-up!

Whew, I made the Tuesday MoFo round-up with my gnocchi and cilantro pesto. Rock on.

If you haven't been keeping up with Vegan MoFo HQ, now is the time to check in on it!

How else would you know about the vegan Doritos? Huzzah! I found them in the convenience store in my office building, but if you don't see them at a store near you, you can order them at Vegan Essentials.

or all the vegan Halloween candies?

Meatless Monday Gnocchi with cilantro pesto

This dish just sort of happened. I wanted gnocchi, but I kind of wanted something Mexican and needed to use up some cooked pinto beans and some cilantro that was threatening to wilt. Voila gnocchi with cilantro pesto.

Prepackaged gnocchi (I'll save homemade gnocchi for anther time)


1TBS olive oil

1/2 cup quick sofrito
1 cup cooked pinto beans
1 cup cooked leafy greens
1 cup canned tomatoes with juice

Quick sofrito:
2 cloves garlic
1/2 onion
1/2 green pepper
1 small bunch cilantro

Topping:
1/4 cup almonds
1/4 cup nutritional yeast

Boil water for gnocchi. Blend together almonds and nutritional yeast and set aside. Blend together sofrito ingredients. Add olive oil and 1/2 cup sofrito to pan and saute a few minutes to soften. Blend together pinto beans, greens (I used kale) and tomatoes. Add blended ingredients to saute pan with sofrito and heat thoroughly. Cook gnocchi and add to sauce pot to coat. Top with almond/nooch topping.

Slower Delaware style "chicken" and dumplings

Today's dish was inspired by two other bloggers. Matt at My Veggie Kitchen created the ultimate chicken flavored broth. Jeni at Heathen Vegan had some stew with dumplings and was discussing what the British and Americans call dumplings vs. biscuits.

Inspiration hits.

Chicken and Dumpling dinners are the annual fundraiser of many a Delaware organization. My church had one, I think the other was the Lions Club or something. So this usually is made to serve a crowd in a church basement or a school cafeteria. What makes these dumplings special is that they are slippery dumplings. Another colorful name for this dish is "yardbird and slicks." Honestly the chicken was never my favorite part anyway, so I'm just making the broth and dumplings, but this would be great with some chicken style seitan thrown in. Really the best time to make this would be after you've made some chicken style seitan by using the cooking broth. I wanted this NOW, so I took the shortcut. I had to cut my mom's secret family recipe by 1/3 or I'll be eating this until Halloween, but this can easily be multiplied for a crowd.

"Chicken" and Slippery Dumplings

4 cups chicken flavored broth

1 cup all purpose flour (plus about 1/2 cup more for keeping dough from sticking)

1 tsp salt

2 rounded TBS shortening

1/3 cup warm water

Boil broth. I heated up last weeks freegan broth with some chickpeas, celery, carrot, and 1 TBS poultry seasoning and 1 TBS Herbes de Provence, then strained it before adding the dumplings. Add salt to taste.

Mix together flour and salt in a medium bowl. Cut in shortening. Add water a little at a time to form a dough ball. Break off 1/3 cup sized pieces and roll out paper thin with lots of flour to keep from sticking. Cut into small rectangles about 2 inches long and 1 inch wide. They don't have to be perfect, in fact a few trapezoids and squares make it interesting. Make sure each dumpling is well coated in flour. This helps thicken the broth as well.

Drop the dumplings in the hot broth and simmer for 15-20 minutes.

Serve in shallow bowls. The dumplings stay rocket hot for awhile, so resist the temptation so start slurping them down right away.

Any leftovers will suck up lots of the broth so it won't be quite as gravyey, but I actually enjoy it the next day (or several days) as well. This is some serious rainy day comfort food!

Blossom NYC vegan meet up for Farm Sanctuary

I tell people I write a vegan cooking blog. Vegan eating blog would be more accurate.

Last night I went to a NYC vegan eat-up event at Blossom to support the Farm Sanctuary. Both Blossom locations were donating 10% of each bill to the sanctuary.

Thanks to all the eat-uppers for snapping shots of their food. I really didn't eat all this...

Appetizers!I had the black-eyed pea cake. Crispy cake of yukon gold potatoes and black eyed peas, served with chipotle aioli. Yum! This might have been a special, I don't know what it's called, but I had a bite and it was tasty. The base was a light pastry and it was topped with mushrooms. Potato leek soup. Wish I got that! It was a cold and stormy night... Cape Cod Cakes. A blend of hiziki seaweed, tofu, potato, herbs and spices, served with a vegan tartar sauce. These are also super yummy, I had them the last time I was here.

Ravioli with Cashew Cream. Spinach, mushroom, and pine nut filling. This is good, too. There's not a whole lot in the filling, so it's a good appetizer size.

Entrees! Seitan Scaloppini. Seitan cutlets in a white wine, lemon and caper sauce, served with mashed potatoes and sautéed kale. This is one of Blossom's signature dishes. I got the Port Wine Seitan. Seitan cutlets pan-seared in a sauce of port wine and mushrooms, accompanied by creamy mashed potatoes, tempura onion and sautéed garlic spinach. This was the perfect warming comfort meal for a fall evening that felt like winter! Vegetable Mezze Plate. Our Chef’s preparation of fresh vegetables accompanied by spiced quinoa. You really can't beat piles of perfectly roasted vegetables.
Hickory basted tempeh. Looks good! A couple people got this and really enjoyed it.

Fun evening with excellent food and great company to support the farm animals.

Cheers!

Birthday Dinner at Dirt Candy NYC

I had a lovely birthday dinner last night at Dirt Candy. It's vegetarian, but they'll make all the dishes vegan. They even ask if you're vegan when they seat you!

We started with the Jalapeno Hush Puppies with maple butter. YUM!

Kimchi Doughnuts with watermelon radishes, cilantro and wild arugula

Asparagus Paella with artichokes, morels, saffron tomato broth. The top of the rice was crispy like a rice crispies cake, and when you break it off and it goes snap crackle and pop in the broth!

The ninja had Onion Soup which had cheese, and Crispy Tofu and Broccolini with orange beurre blanc. Yes, the ninja actually chose tofu and he really liked it. The vegetables are great, but the sauces really shine.

Although the desserts at Dirt Candy looked good, there were people waiting for tables and it was super rainy and cold out, so we opted to walk down a few blocks to Lula's Sweet Apothecary.

I had the cookies & cream.

The ninja had the strawberry cheesecake on a sugar cone.

All in all a very good vegan b'day. Cheers!

Copycat gift cookies...

So I'm off to visit my 84 year old first cousin once removed* and her 92 year old husband. What to bring for the oldies but goodies...hhmmm...this is tough...cookies! Yes, everyone likes cookies, so let's go with an everything cookie adapted from the recipe from the canister of walmart oatmeal. I was too lazy to look this up before making them, but here's the original everything cookie recipe. The everything cookie II

1 1/2 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt

3/4 cup canola oil
1 cup sugar
1 cup brown sugar
3/4 cup applesauce
2 TBS soy milk (not sure this is necessary, but I used it anyway)
2 tsp vanilla

4 cups rolled oats
1 cup chocolate chips
1 cup walnuts (ground to a powder)
1 cup raisins
1 cup dried cranberries

Preheat oven to 375.

Mix together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt in a small bowl and set aside.

In a separate large bowl mix together the oil, sugars, applesauce, soymilk, and vanilla. When well blended add the flour mixture and blend together. Add the oats, and mix, add the choc chips, walnuts, raisins, and cranberries, and mix together after each addition.

Drop by tablespoonfull onto ungreased cookie sheets. They don't spread much so leave about an inch of space. Bake 13-15 min. Let cook on cookie sheet for about a minute, then transfer to a cooling rack.

I totally stole the tea box from Isa, but the ancient ones don't have the interwebs, so they'll think I'm a total genius that I invented this myself.

*Just in case anyone is wondering, my first cousin once removed is my mom's first cousin. The once removed is the generation skip. Her kids are my second cousins, etc.

Practically Freegan Vegetable Broth

Here's one version of veggie broth I make on a regular basis. No, I'm not suggesting any dumpster diving. It's mainly comprised of vegetables you've got sitting around that haven't quite gone bad, but you aren't really going to use them in anything before they do go bad. Or the parts of veggies you would otherwise throw away. My theory is that if I'm not making broth once a week, I'm probably not eating enough vegetables.

Obviously, you can use the same perfectly good veggies to make broth. Then you can use the veggies in whatever soup you're making as well. When I use the freegan version, I really do use just the broth. I drain out all the veggies and toss them.

Onions/shallots-that 1/2 onion you stuck in the fridge and forgot about, or the one at the bottom of the root vegetable bin that has one bad spot, but the rest is good. Cut off and throw away the bad part. Save the skins and the end parts from onions you are using in the freezer.

Carrots-those limp ones hanging around the vegetable drawer or the half bag of baby carrots you keep meaning to take into work for a snack, but they've been in there awhile and don't look so appetising. With fresh, save the green tops and any peelings from carrots you're using in the freezer.

Celery-same as for carrots. Also when you buy celery get the whole stalk. It's usually even cheaper than the "hearts" or the cut up ones, and you just take the bottom 3 inches and throw it in the freezer with the other broth parts. From the farmer's market celery usually has a lot of leaves on top as well. Take care not to use too much celery in the broth unless you're making celery soup. It does tend to take over.

Leeks/scallion-save for broth most of the tops, and the very bottom and the first few layers of the "good" white part at the bottom.

Potatoes/sweet potatoes/squash-save the peels in the freezer for broth.

Corn cobs-save for broth

Broccoli/Cauliflower-save the leaves and the stems you don't really want to eat (you know you just want the tops with your dinner.)

Kale, collard greens, any other leafy greens- save the chunky stems

Mushrooms - save the stems or throw in a few dried mushrooms for a stronger mushroom flavor.

Herbs- parsley, sage, rosemary, thyme, oregano, basil, cilantro. Just keep in mind what kind of soup you plan to make. If you want a basic broth, leave out the herbs until you're actually making the soup.

There are a few items I don't use. I try to keep out seeds, so I don't use the cores of things like peppers. Also I skip the skins from eggplant which can make the broth bitter. Some recipes suggest not using cabbage or asparagus, but I've used both and the broth is still fine. They're just strong flavors. You can use apple peels, but the broth will be extra sweet.

Here's the vegetables straight from the freezer. Onion, carrot peelings, celery parts, the stems from turnip greens, some summer squash and the peel from a winter squash, and the greens from some leeks.

My two favorite additions for basic broth are kombu (seaweed) and bay leaves. The kombu magically makes the broth taste good without additional salt and the bay leaves give it nice rounded out flavor. Bay leaves you can get at any grocery store (or my mom's backyard) and you can find kombu in the Asian section of a well stocked grocery store. Kombu is fairly cheap, a $3 bag from the Asian store will last quite awhile.

Cut all the veggie parts into smallish pieces. Usually about bite sized is a good rule of thumb. I break corn cobs in half. Put it all in a big pot and cover with water. Add the kombu and bay leaves and let simmer about an hour. Drain and enjoy plain or in your favorite soup recipe. Freeze any amounts you don't plan to use within a week. Obviously, to thaw broth for use in recipes, just put it in a pan and heat it up.

All the simmering veggies.