hot for food

This is what my boyfriend has decided to call MY year. As of Dec 31, 2010 I decided to give up refined sugar, caffeine, and alcohol and get serious about my vegan ways. I don’t believe it’s the year of no fun or anything that tastes good, but that’s the kind of reaction I get from my friends and family when I tell them my new goals. This isn’t a DIET. As I’ve always mentioned about my decision to go vegan, it’s not about weight. It’s purely about feeling good inside and that’s always been a constant struggle for me. I went vegan Jan 1, 2010 and I’ve noticed major changes in my mood and over all well being. How I feel after I eat has come a long way. But I felt there was still more tweaking that could be done.

I got this new motivation from reading The Kind Diet by Alicia Silverstone right after the holidays. This book is not new, but I’ve been meaning to read it for a while. I finally got around to it – I received it as a gift (THANK YOU!). My decision to transition into veganism came from reading The Omnivore’s Dilemma and watching Food Inc. And one year later, I felt no matter what I decided to read/watch I needed to reaffirm why I was doing what I was doing, when it came to food. Alicia’s book is great for anyone who is even just in the thinking stages of becoming vegan/vegetarian. And likewise, it is also good for someone who is already a vegan looking to go that extra step. She takes things to what she dubs the “Superhero” level. It’s based on a macrobiotic lifestyle/diet. Whole grains, vegetables, legumes, beans, miso, sea vegetables, and no refined foods 95% of the time. I actually learned about a wealth of ingredients that were never on my radar before. But after a few days of trying to be VERY strict with it, I almost gagged myself. For the most part, sea vegetables are not my thing. I can tolerate nori every now and then, but other than that I kind of freaked. Not to mention I found a snail on a leaf of seaweed after re-hydrating it. It suggests having miso soup in the mornings to cleanse your system and set your body up right first thing in the morning. And that I can do – not everyday – but it has replaced that warm comforting feeling I was getting from coffee. Ya coffee. I can tell you right now, I have the same if not more energy than I did when I was drinking 1 cup of coffee a day. Plus my gut is not rotting. I didn’t realize how it made me feel until I eliminated it. So it’s all ginger tea and twig tea over here now. The pain – withdrawal and headaches – only lasted a week. Can you believe it? Just from having 1 cup a day!

I spent my new years eve at a beautiful indian wedding with a bunch of friends and didn’t have one drop of alcohol, and I had the best time ever. I danced all night long!  Normally I wouldn’t step foot on the floor without a buzz going on, but I embraced my choice to not drink and it was fine. I’m not saying I’ll never have a drink again, but I need to see what it’s like not to do it. Plus I’m not one of those troopers who can deal with a hangover on a Saturday morning. I am MOST unproductive.

In less than a month I have started to reinvent my life and learn more about balance. Being vegan is constantly about balance, and trying to keep things balanced. Sometimes I go way off track and get lazy – especially with getting my new job last November. But I find with my new “rules” I am able to stay on track a lot better. I’m not adopting the macrobiotic/Superhero lifestyle 100% because I feel that it too is not balanced. There’s almost no fruit, and it’s missing great foods like nuts, avocado, raw cacao and other elements from a raw food diet. I am still figuring out what works best for me. But one thing is for sure, eating white flour, white rice, refined sugar, and other packaged foods with chemicals and additives makes me aggravated and tired. I REALLY feel it, even with the smallest amount. And a small amount is all I would ever have, once and a while. Now I have to be ultra strict and deny myself of things like movie popcorn, bottled sauces with sugar, and processed vegan foods like daiya cheese. If I can pass on ONE major thing I learned from The Kind Diet. It’s that “evaporated cane juice” is exactly like white refined sugar. It’s an ingredient us vegans see in every packaged/processed convenient vegan product and it was making me sick. I didn’t realize it. So buyer beware! Do you get a lot of headaches? Me too… and that ingredient was one major factor.

I just have to remember that my body knows best, and every day is a new day. Starting this vegan journey is the best decision I’ve ever made. I would love to hear your experiences and trials on a vegan diet. If you have any other tips for me they would be most appreciated.

A whole lot of non-food related stuff has been going on lately and I haven’t been able to blog for a while. Mainly, I started a full time job. Which is wonderful, but it means I’ve had to cut back on my leisurely cooking time. I’m all go-go-go now. At least until I adjust to this new lifestyle and figure out a balance. The whole reason I started this blog was mainly out of boredom. I was a freelancer for a couple of years. I did things on my own terms, when I wanted. And I somehow found a joyous outlet in cooking, taking photos of what I cooked and then blabbing about it to you, in my vast amounts of spare time. There was a time when I was making something inventive 3 times a day! However, everything I’ve eaten in the past 3-ish weeks has mainly been done in haste. However, this post is to show you how one vegan can still be healthy in hurry.

Luckily purchasing a Vitamix blender with my new found income has made it awesomely easy to get my fruit and veg intake in a jiffy. I’ve heard this machine is life changing, and now I know. It’s really quite incredible that it can whiz up a whole apple, 2 carrots, a 1/2 cup of berries, spinach, fresh ginger, and a shot of pure pom juice in the time it takes to sneeze. Or how about a sweet re-hydrating protein smoothie with raw almonds, rice milk, dates, banana, and coconut water.

I can also whiz up raw pesto cream in the Vitamix and store it in the fridge for the week to use as  a veggie dip, or as a tangy base for a pita pizza. I am slightly addicted to this at the moment. As a vegan I’ve missed pizza, but this is a million times better than anything I ate in my past life with cheese. The pesto is super easy: 1 cup raw sunflower seeds and almonds combined, 1/2 cup olive or sunflower oil, 2 cloves garlic, juice of one lemon, lots of basil, sea salt. I add water to make more and make it smoother, but you can also get a really dark green, chunkier pesto dip without water and run it through a food processor.

My comforting go-to is always brown rice pasta.  This is a Spicy Kung Pao Tofu dish I whipped up by just stir frying veggies and tofu and tossing with the noodles in a sauce of natural peanut butter, chilli garlic sauce, hoisin sauce, lime juice, brown rice vinegar, sunflower oil, and freshly grated ginger.

And I always have a pile of brown rice made up in the fridge so I can make stir fry and pair it with other things. If you bake up these acorn squash – I lightly coated in melted Earth Balance and a bit of maple syrup at 400 F – in advance you can stuff them with all kinds of things. In this case, it’s a simple and quick rice dish I did in a cast iron pan and just added cranberries, corn, walnuts, red pepper, and kale. I added some tahini for creaminess and a bit of cinnamon and nutmeg which gave it the perfect flavor to go with the squash.  I made this up on the spot and it’s a keeper! Also the seeds of the acorn squash were SO delish lightly seasoned and baked. I was going to put them in with the rice mixture, which would have been tasty, but I ate them all before everything was complete!

So if you want to keep eating right in more hectic times, it just takes a little bit of pre-planning and time to make sauces, grains etc.  in advance. If there’s good stuff in front of you when you open the fridge, you’ll be less compelled to resort to packaged foods. And seriously, looking at these pictures don’t you want to put in that extra effort

YAAH! Let’s celebrate the fact that a vegan food blog has made it this far in Project Food Blog 2010. Could a vegan win this entire competition? That would be pretty epic. You be the judge after feasting your eyes on this luxurious vegan dinner party menu.

Serving a vegan menu to non-vegans is easier than you might think. Not that this was an EASY challenge! But I get to work with ingredients I know very well, while my guests are impressed by the creativity, tastes, and textures of food that they rarely, if ever, eat or cook with themselves. These are everyday staples in my vegan diet but they appear exotic and experimental to the regular diner. Things like kale, miso, cashews, dates, fennel, nut flours, pomegranates, and quinoa make this menu luxurious and eliminate the panic attack I would otherwise have about wowing my friends! There’s nothing typically vegan or vegetarian about this menu and that was the one thing I wanted to avoid… tofu. It’s an easy “go to” and everyone I know thinks that’s all vegans can eat!

The key to creating a dinner party menu is to make it as easy as possible on YOU the day of the party. Plan it so that the dishes can have components prepared in advance… not a few hours before your guests arrive. You need time to look fabulous! The worst would be to have your guests arrive and there you are, hair a mess, standing frazzled in your apron in the kitchen trying to pull this all together. I was able to make the quinoa stuffing, miso gravy, cheesecakes, the dip and crostini’s, the drink, and the crisp kale for the salad all on the day prior. The rest of the warm apple fennel salad only took about 20 minutes to prepare before the dinner.

I should point out this was sort of a lunch/dinner party. I work nights and it’s impossible for me to get together with anyone after 6 pm. So this was a mid afternoon sort of thing. Kind of like how seniors eat dinner at 4pm! A food blogger can only take luxurious food photos in day light (in case you were wondering) so this worked out perfectly. Otherwise they wouldn’t look this great!

To add “luxury” to my vegan menu I concocted an aperitif (which I’ve never put much thought into before) because it seems like a rather posh thing to serve your guests. The Crushed Pomegranate Punch is made with REAL pom and cran juices, giving you a healthy dose of antioxidants. It’s sweetened slightly with agave nectar, flavored with lime and mint, and garnished with pomegranate seeds. You could serve this alcoholic or non-alcoholic. Either way it’s the perfect way to rev up your palette before eating!

Most of the dishes are from recipes I’ve been storing away on the computer to make when the time was right! I have to give credit where credit is due for these inspiring dishes. The Maple Date Cannellini Dip is from Healthy Food for Living, the Warm Apple Fennel Salad is courtesy of (never)homemaker, and the cheesecake was discovered (and adapted) via Foodbuzz.com on Tasty Eats At Home. These are dishes I’ve never made before, which some would say is a big no no when preparing for a dinner party, but I have worked with all these ingredients and methods before so I felt confident pulling it off. More importantly, I did!

If there’s one thing that will pull you away from your guests and good conversation, it’s having to plate and serve each course. No thanks! So I had the appetizer on the table to be self served, and served the salad and main on the same plate. It’s much more comforting to have a selection of foods on the plate, anyway, and this way your guests can have what they want and no one gets distracted during the meal.

The final course, dessert, was probably the most rewarding part of the meal for me and my guests. You know how everyone feels guilty eating dessert and they rrrreally want to eat a big piece or have seconds, but they don’t want to look like a pig. Well, I realized what an impact my cooking can have on people because my friend Jeffrey was going to be modest and eat half a cheesecake, but when he clued in that it wasn’t cheese and it contained healthy nuts, unrefined sugars, and “good” fats he went for the whole thing. No flavor was compromised in the least and they loved it! In fact, I don’t think my friends would even eat REAL cheesecake, but they had no problem devouring the vegan alternative.

Because the dishes are vegan I had to get creative so that they still felt familiar to people who aren’t used to eating a plant based diet.  I wanted comforting foods and textures that smell and taste the same as non vegan dishes. I wanted the meal to feel whole and each dish to compliment the other. My friends Rayanne, Ryan, and Jeffrey (all omnivores) said if I didn’t mention to them that this was a vegan menu, they wouldn’t have known the difference! They said they felt good and satisfied after eating… and the word “inspired” was even tossed around! That was the goal and I did it. Whether I make it through round 3 or not, I won. Not to sound TOO profound or anything, but Veganism won. I’m not out to change the world, but if I can impact people’s eating habits and prove that there is no sacrifice when it comes to eating this way, then that’s all I want. Well, and $10,000 would still be nice too!

I made my first vegan burger this weekend. I’ve been in a bit of a rut lately…eating the SAME things over and over again and not really wanting to cook. But cooking for friends is always the best way to get your imagination going again. I made dinner for my friend Dee last night. She’s g-free and I’m vegan, so I have to get savvy if I’m going to cook for the two of us! I’m not saying veggie burgers are the most inventive things to make, but they are versatile and you can essentially put whatever you want in them. These are lentil walnut patties. They turned out amazing… probably because I didn’t follow a recipe! You’ll notice the burger is actually used as the “bun” allowing for a plethora of filling ideas. I stole this GENIUS idea from 101cookbooks.com. Man, I so wish I thought of this myself. I mean I could of. Isn’t it great!

I’ll tell you what’s in these burgers, but I do not know the amounts. Geez, how would I ever make a recipe book? I need an archivist or a scientist or something to keep track of me while I cook.

Ingredients for the burger patty/bun:
Green lentils, toasted walnuts, carrots, green onion, nutritional yeast, cilantro, parsley, cumin, paprika.

I cooked the lentils in veggie broth, boiled and drained the carrots, toasted the walnuts, and whizzed everything together in a food processor. I ended up with the exact consistency I needed. Not too soft and mushy and not too dry and hard. I made the patties into a thick enough size, thinking I would pan fry them and then slice them in half to use them as the bun. But after a trial run of that, I decided it was better to slice the patty in half first then pan fry either side. You could also just make thinner patties first. You can make the patties in advance and refrigerate them until you’re ready to cook and assemble them. So the possibilities of what to put inside these babies are endless! I did homemade cashew pesto cream, caramelized onion, a tomato slice, avocado, and baby spinach.

After devouring 2 mini burgers each and a pile of yam fries, Dee treated me to a piano serenade of Take Five by Dave Brubeck. Best ever! And we ate ourselves into chocolate chip peanut butter cookie comas.

I swear, I could eat sweet potato and avocado exclusively, for the rest of my life! Well, perhaps that’s a stretch. But I have been eating this winning combo for breakfast, lunch, and dinner for the past few weeks. I thought I would show off the photos from my last few dates with these amazing ingredients. In most cases, the sweet potatoes have been microwaved until almost cooked through, then chopped and pan fried in a drizzle of olive oil, S&P, cayenne, paprika, cumin, and nutmeg. The possibilities for tasty additions is endless!

Here’s a simple side of potatoes for breakfast – pan fried sweet potato with onions, fresh avocado, salsa, and cilantro

This was a yummy warm lunch salad – pan fried sweet potato, with fresh avocado, green onion, red pepper, and sweet raisins all tossed in a good dose of lime juice. Next time I would add sliced or chopped almonds too!

This is a quick dinner staple. And if you want to be real quick, microwave your sweet potato or yam. Baking just takes SO long! Then slice it open and mash the insides, then top with freshly made guacamole. I always carrot ribbons for extra crunch!

Crispy sweet potato fries make a great dinner starter or mid-day snack. But instead of dipping them in a vegan spicy mayo, I’ve now resorted to my guacamole salsa for dipping.

If you have not incorporated these two ingredients, sweet potatoes and avocado, into your life yet you are truly missing out! Hopefully this gives you some ideas to start eating these vegetables together. If you have your own ideas and recipes for the marriage of sweet potato and avocado, let me know! Oh, and if anyone knows the difference between and sweet potato and a yam, please inform me?!

I attempted to make crepes for the first time in my life. What a crappy experience. Well crappy is a little harsh, but I definitely don’t have a natural talent for making crepes. I actually made 2 whole crepes out of an attempt at probably close to 15 or 16 times. These are the only 2, yet beautiful and tasty results.

Vegan Asparagus Mushroom Brown Rice Crepe with Hollandaise

Vegan PB & Apple Cinnamon Buckwheat Crepe with Maple Syrup

The recipes for the crepe batter, asparagus, and vegan hollandaise sauce are from VeganYumYum. I made some modifications, trying brown rice flour and buckwheat flour for the crepe batter. Which also make these g-free as well as vegan! These 2 lonely crepes worked out perfectly and tasted amazing. You can’t even imagine how incredibly close the vegan hollandaise sauce is to the real thing; at least from what I can remember of eating eggs benedict! The buckwheat flour crepe is quite a full bodied flavor – perhaps too nutty for some. You could use only half buckwheat flour with another type. But I thought the flavor of buckwheat was great, especially paired with peanut butter, apples, cinnamon and maple syrup.

The whole crepe creation problem is a combo of having an old non-stick pan, burners that are very sensitive and difficult to regulate temperature on, and the fact that I’ve never done it before. While I even followed the very helpful video tutorial Lolo posted, I think that I kept fiddling with the pan temperature too much. Ultimately, this recipe requires patience… hmph. I’m just glad I didn’t attempt it with a room full of starving brunchers!

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!

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’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.