hot for food

I made an exciting new vegan recipe. First, a HUGE shout out to SusanV at FatFree Vegan Kitchen for her amazing creations… she is a huge inspiration and I’ve managed to feed all my cheesy cravings thanks to her re-inventions of classic meals. Her Eggplant Parmesan is exactly like the “real” thing. Now eggplant’s aren’t really my fave food, in fact they’re not really even on my radar. I think people assume they are a vegetarians staple – usually part of a grilled veggie medley – and while they might have health properties that I’m not aware of, in my experience they’ve just been more of a pain in the ass then they’re worth.

This was worth it though. Also the cheese sauce component of the recipe will become a staple for other things I make in future… like a vegan lasagna!

My only mod is with the Vegan Parmesan Cheese. To make a real good replicate takes no time at all. Just whirl raw cashews, nutritional yeast, and sea salt together in a food processor. Make lots so you can keep it stored in the fridge to use for any meal, like pasta, salad etc.

My recent post on Brekkie mentioned a first trial run at making vegan french toast. Some would think it’s an impossible feat, but it’s not! I figured out the tricks this time. I tried a different recipe from Fat Free Vegan Kitchen, just for curiosity sake. But this time  around I used denser bread and toasted it in the toaster slightly, before dipping it in the mixture, then pan frying it. I don’t really like soft french toast. It is called TOAST isn’t it?! I also made sure to use a non-stick pan. I guess without the use of eggs you don’t get quite the same crispy outside as what you might be used to, but the FatFree Vegan recipe adds a nice touch with the nutritional yeast,  and you could still combine this recipe with the one I tried in Brekkie using mashed banana for extra flavor.

And how much do you luuuuvvvv Maple Syrup! I wish I could drink it.

I had so many oranges lying around (2 for 1 special on bags ‘o’ oranges) and I decided to use up what I could and make candied orange peel and a flourless orange cake with orange sauce/glaze. Things I learned: both are not worth the time it takes, you can’t make a flourless AND eggless cake, and I don’t like the taste of orange unless it’s in its natural state.

The candied peels worked out. My boyfriend and roommate who are candy hounds, ate them straight up and liked them. Except I know they’re supposed to be more orange instead of this rusty orange brown color. I don’t know what to do with them either? I might garnish cupcakes next week for Easter or include some chopped candied peel in some kind of spice cookie. If you look up candied orange peel online you’ll be faced with many different ways to candy peels. I’m not sure what works best and why, but I followed Candied Orange Peel on this page. I will never be doing this again, so feel free to experiment on your own time, if you so desire!

Then there’s the cake… and I’ll tell you right away this did not work out and I had to throw it out. I hate that, it’s the WORST thing ever! The reason I’m blogging about something that didn’t work out is because I think it’s good to let you know that you can’t win ‘em all and it’s ok. Even though I did waste a lot of money on friggin almond flour and have nothing to show from my deal on oranges! Anyway, I randomly found a beautifully photographed flourless orange cake on a blog called Citrus and Candy. It was a time consuming recipe, but I thought what the hey! After some internet researching I thought I could get away with replacing the eggs in this recipe to make it vegan. I ended up using a combination of one flax egg replacement and 1/2 cup soy yogurt to equal the other two eggs. Well, after 70 minutes of baking I thought this cake is getting too brown on the outside and the toothpick came out mostly clean, so it must be done. Plus it looked great right out of the oven!

Basically I didn’t discover it’s mushy insides until I made the orange sauce topping – which I also screwed up and cooked too long, resulting in the sugar drying like a hard candy top on the cake – and when I cut it it started to fall apart. I was determined to salvage this cake, so I removed the candy coated orange top and put it back in the oven… for a long time. Obviously, that still didn’t work.

After all this, the disturbing thing is I was obsessed with still getting a good end result photo. It’s like if I never told you about any of this disaster you would look at this photo and think… wow what an awesome flourless orange cake! But in conclusion, if you like orange, have at least 4 hours on your hands and aren’t opposed to using eggs, make that cake recipe on Citrus and Candy – I bet it’s good. I so wish this worked out, but I must move on! I didn’t eat this slice, either, in case you’re wondering.

I’m not even joking about this… but because I got to talking about South Park with someone at work, I couldn’t stop thinking about my favorite moment on that show ever, Chocolate Salty Balls. Which made me think… I’ve never actually made these before and I have to pay tribute to a real Chef – Chef on South Park.

So I made Chocolate Salty Balls. It’s probably the easiest treat recipe around and typically they are only eaten at Xmas time. But why? They are delicious morsels of chocolate and peanut butter that can be eaten whenever you damn please! And since they are even better right out of the freezer, you can make a bunch, freeze ‘em and they’ll be ready, waiting for you, when the time is right.

Obviously you need to use natural peanut butter when doing this, since you’re going to be adding sugar. You might as well start with something healthy. And because mine are a vegan version I’ve used non-dairy chocolate and vegan friendly powdered sugar. But it’s not necessarily necessary!
Chocolate Salty Balls

Ingredients:
2 1/4 cup natural peanut butter
1 1/2 cup powdered sugar
2 cup rice crisp cereal
2 tsp vanilla
1 tsp fine sea salt
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
2-3 cups chocolate chips

Mix all the ingredients, except the chocolate chips, together in a bowl to form a paste/dough. It will handle better for rolling balls if you put it in the freezer for 30 minutes. Then roll 1 inch balls and put them onto a cookie sheet lined with parchment or wax paper. Freeze again to harden while you melt the chocolate in a double boiler. Then dip the balls or roll them in the melted chocolate using a fork to move them around and lift them back out on to the cookie sheet. Store in the freezer or fridge (I prefer freezer) and put ‘em in your mouth and suck ‘em whenever you want something sweet and indulgent.

This is not the recipe, as sung by Chef on South Park – which I’m sure would also work? But I still wanted to call them what they are, and that’s chocolate salty balls!

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again… I LOVE breakfast! And it hasn’t been so hard to eat a fulfilling vegan breakfast. The more I have avoided eggs, the easier it gets to not want to eat them. Except, I have to make my vegan breakfast and my boyfriend’s non-vegan breakfast. ugh. I mean I love doing it, but it makes me go crazy in my head…. “don’t taste the egg… don’t do it Lauren!” dammit. Well I didn’t this morning. Like I said, the temptation is becoming less and less. Plus, I’m pretty sure my tofu scramble tasted way better! It was made with the left over spicy peanut tofu, and I just added nutritional yeast, paprika, cumin, salt & pepper, chopped shallots and spinach. Nonetheless, I can still make a mean scrambled egg!

Let’s take a closer look at this fruit salad shall we… I think I’ll call it Berry Red Fruit Salad.

I’m a big believer in frozen fruit. It’s good because I make lots of smoothies, but it’s totally easy, less expensive when berries are not in season, and they keep well and still have nutrition. I didn’t intend it, but I love how the thawed raspberries and blueberries drenched the whole fruit salad in bloody red juice!

Another discovery, and continuing experiment, is vegan french toast! I know, right… you can make vegan french toast!? Well here it is my starvin’ Marvin’s…

Minor problem, I didn’t use a non-stick pan, which I think is an absolute necessity (as much as I don’t like it). It’s delicious! But since my batter stuck to the pan, it didn’t crust up and caramelize the way it should on the surface of the bread. So it was still a bit sogs. But I do think the picture still shows how appetizing it is. While I am going to work on this recipe – and post those updates – this is a mixture of mashed up 1-2 ripe bananas, mixed with 1/2 cup  soy milk, 1 1/2 tsp cinnamon, 1 tsp vanilla, and a drizzle of maple syrup. I used a semolina raisin bread, but you can do as you like. Coated the bread in the mixture and fried it in the pan on low-medium heat. Again, make sure to use a non-stick skillet and you can dollop some Earth Balance in the pan first too for extra flavor.

Those are just a couple breakfast ideas. My next breakfast challenge, will be trying to make a vegan omelette for the first time!

That’s right son! hot for food has 2 feature posts on food web communities. Looks like my Guacamole Salsa is making people happy and getting them into the summer spirit over at Food Network Canada’s Blog (thanks, Val). And my Carrot Cake Muffins are part of the FoodBuzz Top 9 today. Out of nearly 3300 posts on FoodBuzz people are buzzing about my luscious muffins. Radical!!

Wow, what a wonderful world the internet is. Thanks for supporting hot for food. Happy healthy eating!

What to do with a whole bag of carrots? I tried to make Carrot Cake Muffins with a Lemon Cream Cheese Frosting. They’re not quite cake, not quite muffins. I think the cake/muffin recipe needs improving, but they were still tasty and not too sweet. I will be attempting this one again, but this picture is still worth a post, I think!

Here’s the carrot cake muffin recipe I used as a starting point. I made changes to it, but me thinks the problem is too much flour? Also to make them less muffin-like I would get rid of the oats. I also used mango instead of pineapple. The frosting is vegan and also easy. Combine 1/2 cup or 1 cup (depending on how much you want to make)  Tofutti Vegan Cream Cheese, beat with vegan powdered sugar, soy milk, a bit of lemon juice or extract, and vanilla extract. Just add more sugar or liquid depending on the consistency you want. I wanted the frosting to drip slowly around the top of the cakes.

Well, I meant to post this on St. Patty’s Day … oops, it’s now 14 minutes into the day after! Anyway, if you follow hot for food you’ve noticed there’s not a whole lot of greens and salads on here. That’s because there’s no sugar or chocolate in salads. No, just kidding! I do eat my veggies and lots of salad, it’s just I eat them because I should and I haven’t put the time or effort into getting fancy or creative enough to post entries about them. So when I do, you know it’s gotta be good!

I was inspired by a bottle of mango nectar and broccolini. I had yet to try broccolini until now…move over regular old broccoli. BORING! Here’s how it all went down.

I made a Mango Vinaigrette with the mango nectar combined lime juice, dijon, vegetable oil, a drop of agave nectar, and S & P. I soaked the broccolini in it for a minute and seared it quickly on my trustee George Foreman Grill! It’s Grillin’ Time… now that the sun is out – I live in a condo, so this is as good as it gets. And with this, I created a Mango Spinach Broccolini Salad. The spinach, thinly sliced red pepper, and mango chunks were tossed in the vinaigrette, and the warm grilled broccolini was rested on top, along with some salty roasted peanuts. This accompanied by grilled spicy peanut tofu steaks was exceptionally tasty! Here’s how to make an  easy peezy spicy peanut sauce that you will want to drink… if that wasn’t so unacceptable… or put on everything you eat from here on out!

Spicy Peanut Sauce
3 tbsp smooth 100% natural peanut butter
5 tbsp hot water
2 tbsp soy sauce
2 tsp lime or lemon juice
1 tsp garlic chilli sauce

Combine all these ingredients in a bowl and nuke in the microwave for 30 seconds to soften the peanut butter and be able to stir this all together easily. I marinated my tofu steaks in it for 30 minutes and placed right on the grill. You could bake the tofu with the sauce too I guess. This sauce is also mmmmm good on veggies, pasta, etc. Experiment!

I’ve never been a fan of heavy cream sauces. But that’s because before my vegan adventure something like this would have killed me.  Today I accomplished a delicious white wine cream sauce with mushrooms that was rich, creamy, and has no dairy at all!

The secret… cashew cream! I finally did it. And it’s not as complicated as Tal Ronnen made it out to be in his cookbook The Conscious Cook. He says to soak the cashews over night. ugh why would I? That’s the whole reason I never got around to make this in the first place. So I just went for it, and it worked just fine rinsing them a bit and blending right away. Done my way, we’re looking at a time span of about 15-20 minutes to make this meal, compared to hours!

I just made enough cashew cream for this dish, but you could make more and store it in the fridge. It’s just whole raw cashews and water blended together – strained, if you don’t want little bits in it. Making dinner my way in the kitchen means I didn’t measure anything… sorry!

White Wine Mushroom Cream Sauce

Ingredients:
Whole Raw Cashews & cold water
Olive Oil
Onion
Garlic
Portobello & Cremini Mushrooms
Dry White Wine
Vegetable Stock
Fresh Basil & Parsley
Baby Spinach (optional)
Salt & Pepper

I used about 1 cup of whole cashews, and enough water in the blender so the cashews are just covered. Blend until smooth. Saute chopped onion and minced garlic in olive oil until soft. Add some salt and pepper, and mushrooms and cook uncovered until all the water is absorbed. Then add some basil, parsley, white wine and some veggie stock – about 3:1 wine to stock. Simmer until reduced. Have your pasta boiling at this point. Stir in the cashew cream and baby spinach, allowing it to wilt. The cream might start to thicken, so I just added a bit more wine to thin it out. Toss with your cooked pasta and top with more fresh basil, parsley, and fresh pepper to serve.

I decided to try to bake something sweet and chocolatey using a mystery ingredient. You would never know what it is by look or even taste, but there’s avocados in them there chocolate coconut muffins! Now don’t go scrunching your nose. These are yummy, sweet, full of chocolate, entirely healthy, soy free, vegan, and full of fibre. I ate one right out of the oven and I was a little skeptical because I thought I hinted the after taste of avocado. But after letting them set into themselves, they were much better the next day, and the next, and the next!

Chocolate Coconut Avocado Muffins

Ingredients:
1 3/4 cup whole wheat flour
1/4 cup raw cacao powder
1 tsp baking soda
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
6 tbsp ground flax seed
2/3 cup water
1/2 cup raw cane sugar
1/3 cup warmed coconut oil
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/2 mashed avocado
1/4 cup shredded unsweetened coconut
1/2 cup non-dairy chocolate chips
1/2 cup chopped walnuts (optional)

Combine dry ingredients and set aside. Mix flax seeds and water together and set aside. Combine coconut oil, sugar, vanilla and then add flax mixture and avocado combining everything together. Add dry ingredients and mix well. Fold in coconut and chocolate chips. Bake at 350 F for 25 minutes. Makes 12 regular sized muffins.

I think you could take this recipe and replace the avocado with soy yogurt, if soy free doesn’t matter, or a banana. Chocolate Coconut Banana does sound a little more appetizing! While this was a neat experiment for curiosity sake and the muffins were delicious, I think I’ll stick to tradition and use up ripe avocados for guacamole.