hot for food

I attempted to make my first 4 layer cake. It was for my dad’s birthday. He’s a fan of chocolate on chocolate cake so I thought I’d spice it up a bit for him and make lots of it! It is vegan, by the way, and while my mom originally stuck her nose up to the idea of serving a vegan birthday cake to the family, it was a huge hit! Everything worked out for the most part. Although I still don’t know why every cake I make sinks slightly in the middle. I also have a hard time getting anything bigger than a cupcake out of a baking pan without losing some of it on the bottom. Perhaps I need better pans?

Looking good from the outside, this Raspberry Chocolate Mocha Cake with Chocolate Ganache and layers of Raspberry Preserve was scrumptious! But just one more picky criticism I have is that you can’t see the 4 layers. I used organic raspberry preserve from a jar in between the layers of cake, but it spreads out so thin and just soaks into the cake that you can’t see each beautiful slab. Aah well!

Raspberry Chocolate Mocha Cake
(make 2 batches for 4 layers)

Ingredients:
1/2 cup soy milk
1/2 tsp apple cider vinegar
3/4 cup raw cane sugar
1/3 cup canola oil
1/2 cup strong brewed coffee
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
1/3 cup raw cacao 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, cacao powder, baking soda, baking powder, sea salt. Add to the soy milk and vinegar mixture the coffee, sugar, vanilla extract, and oil. Add the dry ingredients to wet and mix together until smooth. Divide the mixture into 2 greased round cake pans and bake at 350 F for 20 minutes.

For Chocolate Ganache you need to bring soy milk to a boil, then remove from heat and stir in enough non-dairy chocolate chips so the consistency is thick-ish. So it won’t drip too much, but rather stay in its place when you ice the cake. I didn’t measure the ingredients when I did this but it was about 1 cup soy milk and 2 cups non-dairy chocolate chips.

Assemble the cake by adding a layer of raspberry preserve in between layers. And using an icing spatula cover the entire cake with chocolate ganache. You could also just use ganache throughout the layers and eliminate the raspberry preserve. Garnish with fresh raspberries. Refrigerate the cake, but allow it to come to room temperature before cutting and serving.

You don’t make friends with salad… but you should really try to! Especially being vegan. But you know, I don’t like vegetables just because I’ve gone vegan. It’s a love / hate relationship. I do, and always have, eaten a lot of salad… mostly because I have to. But the key to any great salad is to have lots of stuff in it and always add fruit. Then it’s like you’re not eating your vegetables, because you can taste sweetness! I am such a sugar fiend. I typically always use spinach because it’s more nutritious than lettuce, but this time I forced myself to try kale. I’ve eaten kale only once, when I made Hot Pockets containing mushroom, kale and roasted red pepper. Rule #1, don’t try to eat kale raw. It is disgusting, bitter, and too chewy. Does anyone out there eat it raw? I thought I could, but I ended up having to steam it quickly and blanch it to make it more palatable.

With my steamed and chopped kale I tossed in avocado, tomato, green onion, cilantro, strawberries, and apple, and lightly dressed it in olive oil, lemon juice, and salt and pepper. It’s simple and nutritious delicious. Meaning, delicious for something so nutritious. I now have a ton of kale in the fridge that I have to force myself to eat. I might try kale chips, but it seems like a lot of work to dehydrate them. If you have any other suggestions please share them with me!

An obvious pair…films and food. I always watch a movie at the theatre with popcorn in hand. It just feels right. But I do think that hot dogs and pizza and hamburgers is going a little over board though, when you’re at the movie theatre. But at home, well, feel free to devour whatever you please.

FilmsWeLike sent me a copy of their latest Mid-August Lunch (a film by Gianni Di Gregorio) to review. It’s a lovely little film about food, friends, family, and love. The food… Italian. The friends… elderly women. The family…a middle aged man and his mama. And the love… is what happens when you combine all three. So naturally, I decided I had to watch this move over an inspired homemade hearty meal of my own. Vegan lasagna! I’m sure Italians would kill me for putting vegan and lasagna in the same sentence. So be it.

Mid-August Lunch and my Vegan Lasagna made the perfect Sunday afternoon. However, I only wish I had a bottle of wine to go with them. After watching the star of the film, Gianni, casually down glass of wine after glass of wine – making alcoholism look so luxurious and appealing – I too had the urge to get wasted in the hot afternoon sun. But alas, no wine and no hot sun over here!

I love film, but I’m no critic. But what I enjoyed most about Mid-August Lunch was watching the characters really take pleasure in food and wine throughout the movie. I related even more when one of the characters in the movie couldn’t eat cheese! Well too bad she didn’t have my recipe for this Vegan Lasagna.

Ingredients:
(of course, the veggies and noodles can be changed to your liking)
brown rice lasagna
zucchini, shredded carrot, chopped spinach
vegan parmesan

For Tomato Sauce:
1 can whole tomatoes
2 tbsp tomato paste
1/2 onion, chopped
2 garlic cloves, minced
fresh basil & parsley
fresh or dried oregano
salt & pepper

Saute onion in some olive oil until soft. Add garlic and cook for a couple more minutes. Add tomato paste and herbs, then the whole tomatoes (with juice from can). I blended the whole tomatoes first, but that’s optional. Salt and pepper to taste. Simmer on low heat for 30 minutes or up to 1 hour.

For Bechamel (White Sauce):
1/2 cup silken tofu
1/2 cup unsweetened soy milk
1/2 cup vegetable broth
2 tbsp. tahini
2 tbsp nutritional yeast
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp corn starch

Put all these ingredients in a blender and combine.

For Tofu Ricotta:
1 block extra firm tofu, crumbled
1/4 cup nutritional yeast
2 garlic cloves, minced
2 tsp olive oil
2 tsp lemon juice
fresh basil
salt & pepper

Crumble the tofu into small pieces (resembling ricotta cheese) with your hands. Add in the remaining ingredients and combine.

It takes some prep time to get all 3 of these components ready so you could make both sauces and the tofu ricotta ahead of time. Saute zucchini, shredded carrot and spinach if you’re using fresh spinach in a pan with a bit of olive oil. You can use frozen spinach, just make sure you thaw and drain out the water first. You’ll need to pre-boil the brown rice lasagna according to the package or you can save time by using ready to bake white lasagna. Assemble your lasagna in a greased baking dish. Lasagna can be assembled however you want really, but here’s what I did. Pour some tomato sauce to coat the bottom of the dish first, then layer noodles, tofu ricotta, spinach, some white sauce, some more tomato sauce. Then noodles, tofu ricotta, a layer of the zucchini and carrots, remaining white sauce, some more tomato sauce, noodles, and then remaining tomato sauce. I topped it with my pre-made vegan parmesan which is always in the fridge (ground raw cashews, nutritional yeast, celtic sea salt). Bake at 400 F covered with foil for 40 minutes. Then a few minutes under the broiler to brown the top.

Thanks to Troy at FWL (www.filmswelike.com) for sending over the film and inspiring a hot for food recipe!

I have never used dates in any recipe ever before. I’ve never eaten dates either, except for this one time when I sampled a date almond roll at the grocery store. And I thought… I could make these, why would I buy these expensive things?  It literally was just pureed dates rolled in ground almonds. Well this incident stuck with me. I’ve also been reading a lot of recipes containing dates since they seem to be quite a nutritious staple to raw and vegan treats. Typically I just see recipes calling for Medjool dates. But I found some honey dates and figured they would work the same. I wanted to make something sweet but healthier and more granola bar-like than my Chocolate Salty Balls. Well these balls are amazing too!

Choconut Date Balls

1 1/2 cup pitted honey dates
2 cup raw whole almonds
2 tbsp tahini
1/2 cup raw cacao powder
1/2 cup shredded coconut
1/2 cup granola (optional)

I ran dates with tahini and cacao in the food processor than emptied it into a mixing bowl. I ground the almonds in the food processor by themselves until they were a fine crumble. Then I used my hands to mix the almonds with the date puree and added in the coconut and granola. The granola adds a nice crunch. And I had some vegan friendly pumpkin hemp seed granola lying around so I decided to use it up. Roll the mixture into 1 inch balls and refrigerate. Makes 30 balls.

They make a great snack, breakfast accompaniment, or pre-workout nosh. And I’m going to need to make more, fast, because they’re disappearing!

Am I weird if I want to stay at home and cook on my Saturday night? I don’t want to go out and drink at a bar with my friends and yell talk. And if I’m going to spend money on something to put in my mouth I would rather it be food and not alcohol. Tonight I made a yummy naturally sweet and raw snack (which I will post tomorrow). While those are refrigerating, I am prepping components for a vegan lasagna so that it’s all ready for tomorrow’s dinner, and I just tried Jennifer’s (Sweet On Veg) Blueberry Chocolate Frozen Treat. OK, this is the second time this girl has changed my life! The first time, if you recall, was with her Raw Chocolate Ice Cream. So my boyfriend is in heaven right now over it and I’m singing “yummy yummy I got love in my tummy”. I think it might have made us high… it’s not such a boring Saturday night after all!

Over a month ago I blogged about my obsession with muffin tops and made scrumptious blackberry cobbler muffins… or should I say, muffin. Because to get that awesome top requires a lot of batter! I finally made a full dozen and figured out the recipe, although I didn’t make ridiculous muffin tops. But you could make 6 ridiculous muffins or 12 nicely plumped ones. These are SOOOO good. I had to freeze them to prevent myself from eating them all.

Blackberry Cobbler Muffins

Ingredients:
3 1/2 cup spelt flour (or whole wheat)
1/2 cup raw sugar
2 tbsp ground flax seed
2 tsp baking powder
2 tsp baking soda
2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp all spice
1 tsp sea salt
1/4 cup agave nectar
1 cup almond milk
2 tsp vanilla extract
2 cups fresh blackberries

Topping:
2 1/2 tbsp Earth Balance (Cold)
1/3 cup large oats
2 tbsp brown sugar

Combine the first 8 ingredients (dry) together in a large bowl. In a separate bowl combine the agave, almond milk, and vanilla extract. Add wet ingredients to the dry and combine until just mixed. You can fold in blackberries. But my secret is placing blackberries strategically within the muffin batter as I spoon smaller amounts of it into the muffin pan. Then you don’t risk smashing the blackberries with a spoon or something while you mix them into the batter. Spray a muffin pan with non-stick spray or use liners, and spoon batter into the cups. Make the topping by crumbling the cold Earth Balance, oats and brown sugar with your hands and sprinkling on top of each muffin. Bake for approx. 30 min at 400F.

I love everything about these blackberry cobbler muffins… taste, smell, texture, color. Just check out the bursting insides. Oh man! I have no control, I have to eat one right now.

It’s not quite summer, despite what all those girls traipsing around the city in short shorts think. Don’t get me wrong, it’s nice out, but keep your pasty legs at home for now. Anyway, I celebrated this ‘nice’ weather and Easter with some Orange Creamsicle Cupcakes. I don’t celebrate Easter, per se, except the commercialized part of it that requires eating sweets. Worst part… no more Mini Eggs on a vegan diet! F my life. Just kidding… these cupcakes got me through. I didn’t eat them all to myself, only 2. The rest were shared with family after Easter dinner.

It’s a perfectly moist vanilla bean cupcake with creamy orange frosting. The sprinkling of glistening sanding sugar on top is almost reminiscent of ice crystals on a real Orange Creamsicle, isn’t it! I’m a nerd.

Vanilla Bean Cupcake (Makes 12)

1 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup almond meal
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup soy milk
1 tablespoon cider vinegar
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1/3 cup oil
1/2 vanilla bean (seeds only)
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Combine apple cider vinegar and soy milk together and set aside for 5 minutes to curdle. In another bowl sift together flour, almond meal, baking powder, soda and salt. Whisk sugar, oil (I used canola this time, but vegetable or coconut would work too), vanilla bean and extract into the curdled soy milk mixture. Add wet to dry ingredients and mix until just combined (don’t over mix). Pour into cupcake liners and bake at 350 F for 20-25 minutes.

Orange Frosting

1/2 cup Tofutti vegan cream cheese
1/4 cup Earth Balance
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 orange (juice and zest)
4-5 cups powdered sugar

I actually used an orange I had left from The Orange Experiment that had been boiled 3 times. I think this might have made the orange flavor sweeter than if you just used a fresh orange. But don’t worry too much about that. Beat together Tofutti, Earth Balance, vanilla extract, orange juice and zest until fluffy. Continue adding sifted powdered sugar and beating with a mixer until the desired consistency is achieved for frosting your cupcakes.

These seriously taste like Orange Creamsicles… and thus got me in the summer spirit without donning short shorts!