hot for food

After my disastrous attempts at trying to find yummy food elsewhere, I knew I had to keep it real and bring it on home. Even though I might momentarily lapse and get lazy, I would rather make my own food, and besides it always turns out better! So while my Moroccan stew at Urban Herbivore was less than appetizing, I was encouraged to do my own version. I know I don’t have a pic of that meal to show you how bland it was, but here’s what I made and it is was insanely more delicious, fresher, and had a hell of a lot more to it.

I didn’t really follow a recipe, I just started cooking! I also paired it with the Orange Scented Couscous a staple I’ve made before, and some lavish. Beats the F out of millet! So here’s the gist of this remixed Moroccan stew.

I half-cooked a sweet potato in the microwave to speed up the process. Meanwhile I sautéed some onion and garlic in olive oil, and added some red chilli flakes. Once the onion was soft, I tossed in chopped carrot, red pepper, canned and rinsed chickpeas, a can of tomato paste, half a can of coconut milk, the sweet potato chopped into smaller pieces, frozen peas, fresh cilantro, cumin, coriander, and salt and pepper. I let it cook down a bit and absorb the flavours, and topped with green onion and cilantro before serving. It was YUM! This is also the type of meal that warrants left overs.

Toronto continues to disappoint me when it comes to dining out. But I was excited to see Now Magazine’s list of Toronto’s best green/veggie resto’s. I still have to experience most of them, but I was really intrigued to try Cruda Cafe – a live, raw, organic cafe located in St. Lawrence Market. Ok, not the most ideal location. You would never come across it if you weren’t looking for it, as it’s tucked away in a far off corner of the lower level of the market. but I trekked there to give it a try. I’m not fully informed about eating raw, but since this vegan transition I’ve been reading more about it, so I get it, and I know what to expect.

At first glance nothing looked appetizing or appealing when I first walked up to this place. It was pretty plain-looking, like someone’s condo kitchen. Raw soup does not sound delicious as it has to be served cold in order to be raw. So I opted for a Rawrap. The “wrap” was made of corn, flax, and herbs, and it was filled with your basic salad bar veggies and a cashew pesto cream. It was tiny and it cost $8.48. While it was good it is not worth the money. The part that made it tasty, really, was the cashew pesto cream, which I now know I can just make at home.

Now this delicious looking raw chocolate raspberry tart was staring at me from the window so I decided to take a piece home. Unfortunately, it was a complete disappointment. The chocolate filling was a combination of raw chocolate and avocado, it had the consistency of pudding, and tasted like nothing. It wasn’t chocolatey or even sweet. The raw crust was soggy and chewy, and I have no idea what it was made out of, but it too, had no taste at all. $5.10 for the tart puts me at almost $14 for the raw meal, if you can call it that. I’m not convinced. Plus if you were a raw foodie, you probably already know how to make these things at home, and I would hope, make them taste better… or taste like something. There was also a couple of vegan cupcakes available, which were the only not raw thing, and I can’t believe how crappy they looked. The ones I made recently are way better!

This disappointing excursion to Cruda is just one of many depressing dining out experiences I have had in the last week or so. I wanted to try the gourmet vegan restaurant Fressen the other night, and while the website said it was open, and so did the hours on the window, it was not. I was totally looking forward to nourishing myself and eating a classy vegan meal and I was so bummed.  I also went to their other, more casual location in Kensington called Urban Herbivore, and had an over priced, small portioned bowl of Moroccan Stew with Millet and Black Beans. Not only was a I treated like an outsider, but what I was served was like a meal from a third world country. And finally after being shut out from eating at Fressen I decided to try the roti at Gandhi Cuisine, which everyone raves about in Toronto, and found myself overwhelmed by too much roti that was so incredibly spicy that I couldn’t eat it, plus it was soggy, and despite the spice would have been very bland… and all that after paying $11.00 for it.

There is nothing worse than paying for horrible food.

Did you get enough of those pretty pictures? Here’s the recipe for the basic chocolate cupcake, which could also be used to make a whole cake if you like. I did a little experimenting with replacing soy milk with water, and they turned out the same, but took twice as long to bake for some reason?

Chocolate Cupcake

Ingredients:
1 cup soy milk
1 tsp apple cider vinegar
3/4 cup raw cane sugar
1/3 cup coconut oil
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
1/3 cup unsweetened dutch process cocoa powder
3/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp sea salt

In a large bowl whisk apple cider vinegar and soy milk and set aside. In a separate bowl sift together the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder, sea salt. Add to the soy milk and vinegar mixture the sugar, vanilla extract, and coconut oil (make sure to melt it to liquid. You can also sub in canola or vegetable oil). Add half the dry ingredients to wet and beat together until smooth, add in the rest and combine well. There should be very little lumps in the mixture. Pour into muffin pan with liners, each about 3/4 full. Bake at 350 F for 20 minutes. Makes 12 cupcakes.

Raspberry Buttercream Frosting

Ingredients:
1 cup  Earth Balance
3-4 cups powdered sugar
1 cup frozen raspberries
1 tsp vanilla extract

Allow Earth Balance to soften to room temperature and raspberries to thaw. I just run and drain them under water. You want to push the raspberries through a sieve to get rid of the seeds and just use the juice/puree. Beat this with the Earth Balance and vanilla extract until fluffy. Add sifted powdered sugar until you get a stiff frosting. I estimated it was about 3 to 4 cups, but I just kept adding bits at a time until it was the right consistency. If you get it too stiff then just add a bit of water or soy milk and continue beating.

I topped my cupcakes with these colored vegan, gluten free sprinkles available at most health food stores. They just happened to be the right color match!

The vegan sugar cookies were good but not quite as soft as I had hoped they would be. I need to experiment with these, but here’s the recipe.

Ingredients:
3 cups flour
1 cup raw cane sugar
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup Earth Balance
3 tbsp soy milk
1 tsp vanilla or almond extract

Sift flour, baking powder, and salt together. Mix in Earth Balance with your hands until just combined, then add other ingredients. I continued to blend thoroughly with my hands. Divide the dough into two, flatten a little bit and wrap in plastic wrap. Chill in the fridge for about an hour.

Using a rolling pin, roll on dough on floured counter surface to about 1/4 inch thickness. Cut out and put on ungreased cookie sheet. Bake for approx. 8 minutes at 400 F. Remove the cookies from the oven as soon as you see them turning color at the base. Let cool completely before frosting. I just made a simple royal icing and added pink food coloring.

I have my best friend’s baby shower today, and I am so excited! I also got to provide the treats for the party, which is even more exciting for someone like me. I think its official. I am going to open a bakery… what do you think!? All I need is a name, money, and time. Should be easy enough.

Anyway I wanted to show off the pretty pink treats with you. Btw, it’s a girl obvi, and these treats are vegan. More on that later. I’ll post the recipes with an update.

I love phyllo dough. Everyone gripes about what a pain it is to handle, but the beauty of it is it doesn’t have to be perfect and no one can see your mistakes anyway! I still had about half the package left from making my cheezy spinach pies so I decided to concoct a phyllo pocket stuffed with mushroom, kale, and roasted red pepper.

I’ve never really dealt with kale before or eaten it much unless it was at a restaurant. But I found it already nicely chopped in the frozen section! And just so you know, there’s nothing wrong with frozen veggies. So long as there’s nothing else frozen with them… cheese sauce etc.

This was pretty easy. I roasted the red pepper, peeled, and chopped it up. Sauteed white mushrooms with onion and olive oil until all the liquid was gone. Tossed in the frozen kale at the last minute. Once it was removed from the heat I mixed everything together with some fresh parsley, salt and pepper, and added in some leftover alfredo sauce from my first mac and cheeze attempt. I think it’s a good creamy, cheezy sauce to have on hand! For the phyllo I just used 2 full sheets layered with olive oil and used  half of one whole sheet to make one pocket. Bake at 350 F for 25 minutes or until crispy and slightly  brown on the edges. And that is much hotter pocket then those frozen things you buy in a box!

This week I had a cookie throwdown with a co-worker of mine. It wasn’t a competition, but more of an experiment. My friend LOVES ginger molasses cookies and the like, and she wanted to make this recipe in the Toronto Star. First of all, there is no picture from the paper. And I actually don’t make anything unless there’s a picture of what I’m striving for! But the idea was she would follow the recipe which has eggs, buttermilk, and butter, and I would make a vegan friendly version. If she preferred my version, then she would start baking more often without animal ingredients. Look at that, hotforfood is making changes in peoples lives! haha

Anyway I changed the recipe to have egg replacement powder (equivalent to 1 egg), soy milk whisked with lemon juice to create the buttermilk, and Earth Balance. And here they are. They turned out to be a chewy, moist, cake-ier type cookie. Sweet with a hint of spicy molasses. They have a nice shape and texture to them too, and are very airy.

Well the night of the throwdown, my partner in baking, texted me that her cookies were not good. Actually the direct quote is “they are mediocre pucks of bleh”. I thought, they can’t be that bad?! And I’m happy to say she was wrong. I liked them. And really who would refuse homemade cookies! But they were different. Crunchy, thin ginger snap type cookies.

They had more bite to them, were not as sweet, and had a smooth outer texture. Turns out she used whole wheat pastry flour, and fancy molasses. I need to research the difference between molasses. I used unsulphured molasses, and I thought maybe that’s why they weren’t as spicy. In conclusion, my friend preferred my cookies. I enjoyed both. And I recommend she makes my vegan ginger crinkle cookies since ultimately she just wants a cookie that tastes and looks like the big Ginger Cookies at Starbucks… but I assure my version beats the Bucks any day!

Did you see my recent post about making a vegan mac & cheeze? OK, well I tried another recipe, just for fun. It’s from FatFree Vegan Kitchen. A blog I am frequenting now and highly recommend. The first recipe I tried was actually called a vegan alfredo sauce and while I originally disagreed, I take it back. This second version of mac & cheeze from FatFree Vegan Kitchen is more like real mac & cheese. It’s even yellow like KD… but WAAAAY better! It’s also a very smooth and creamy sauce. The first recipe from VeganYumYum had raw cashews in it that didn’t quite blend smooth in my meager blender. While it was still yummy and I’ll probably use that sauce again, I like how this one has no chunky bits. So definitely give it a whirl. It’s tasty and cheezy!

Granola bars are one of my favorite things to eat. But back in the day, I was deluded into thinking that a granola bar was a healthier snack option than something like a chocolate bar. It can be, but if you’re buying packaged granola bars … STOP! It’s a processed food, there’s so many other additives in them (just read the ingredients), usually an outrageous amount of salt & sugar, and even the ones that look healthy on the box or make claims that they are “natural”, are not! There was even a time where I would eat a Clif bar or Luna bar, but those even have a long strange list of ingredients and they kind of taste metallicky, no?!

But I recently discovered the Mbar (vegan bar) by Goddess Gourmet – a Toronto based company. They’re good, and really all natural, organic, vegan, and raw. There’s a variety of flavors and only 8 or so ingredients, and I know what they all are! However, if you were buying these all the time it would get rather expensive. So what you should be doing is making your own bars. I’ve been making my own for a while now and it’s been the best thing ever, plus it’s so much cheaper! These ones here have the addition of molasses and fresh ginger, since being inspired by the ingredients in my Mbar! But I think my bars are much better then Mbar… sorry Gourmet Goddess!

There’s no baking involved – so easy! All of the ingredients listed below are interchangeable. Really, just use whatever you like / want. I also don’t measure anything because you can tell by looking at the mixture that it’s done and if it has the right amount of ingredients that you’ll like.

Ingredients:
rolled oats
roughly chopped nuts & seeds (walnuts, almonds, peanuts, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds etc.)
dried fruit (cranberries, apricots, raisins, currents etc.)
flaked sweetened coconut
vegan chocolate / dark chocolate chips/chunks, or carob chips
peanut butter
honey and/or unsulphured molasses
freshly grated ginger

Nuts and seeds taste better slightly toasted in the oven first, which is what I do. But that’s only suitable if you don’t care about these remaining raw, of course. Mix together everything in a bowl until it sticks together well. Press mixture into a lightly oiled baking pan or dish and refrigerate. I usually cut them up after they are refrigerated over night and wrap them individually. Typically I make these the fastest way possible by just leaving most of the ingredients whole or roughly chopped. But today I processed the oats and nuts in a food processor into a bit of a finer mixture. This way I use less and get more. I also melted my vegan chocolate over a double boiler, stirred in some dried ginger and cinnamon and spread it over the top of the granola bars after I pressed the mixture into the dish. This way they looked just like the Mbar! These can be stored in the fridge or freezer probably for an eternity… but I bet you’ll eat them all up pretty quickly.

I seriously LOVE cake so much. Any kind, doesn’t matter. My last meal on earth would be a whole cake… all to myself. Anyway, I had so much fun making my first vegan birthday cake! It resulted in having extra cakes though, because I ended up trying different recipes. So I had even more fun using my extra cakes, concocting different icing and presentation ideas.

It was my bf’s birthday and all he wanted was a simple vanilla/white cake with chocolate icing. Looking online for vegan cake recipes I opted to try this one first at The Vegan Chef. I thought it turned out to be too heavy or dense. It has so much flour in it. And it was to puffy. Too much rise. I had to trim the tops to make them flatter, as I decided I was going to make a round 2 layered cake. It tasted good, but I was being extra picky. After some debate and anxiety I thought I should try a different recipe to get a lighter fluffier texture. I used a regular white cake recipe calling for butter, milk, and eggs, and just replaced those with Earth Balance, soy milk, and egg replacer powder. It was lighter, but it sunk in the middle. I don’t really know why it did that. And after searching online… no one else seems to know either. Some answers might be over beating the mixture, and get this, jumping around the oven? All very weird. But it still tasted good. I made an easy buttercream chocolate frosting by mixing powdered sugar, cocoa powder, earth balance, and soy milk.

See how lopsided it looks! The real fun and the following tasty photos were done using up the extra cake. What are these messy, stacked cakes like? Napoleons? I don’t know. There’s a fresh strawberry frosted one, and a peanut butter chocolate chip one. They were YUMMY!

Using fresh strawberry or raspberry puree is a good way to dye your icing (pink only) without using food coloring…plus it tastes better! I also had so much cake that I made some of these trifle-like cakes in wine glasses. They’re in the fridge waiting for a craving. I definitely have not found the perfect vegan vanilla cake recipe. There’s others out there. Some call for apple cider vinegar, which I guess reacts with the baking powder. I’m looking forward to more cake experiments in future!