Why I love Summer

Summer has never been my favorite time of year until just recently.  I school I really didn't like summer, I was an only child and I've always been easily bored.  Most of the time I would hide in my room with a bag of those big minty pastels that look like Hersey's Kisses and read.  If I was home everyone else was traveling, if I was traveling everyone else was home.  So I was BORED!!!  Now that I'm in college, I love summer.  It's an odd switch, but I'm nothing if not odd.  During the summer my course load goes down to one or two classes instead of four or five, either way I still have a full time job.  Summer is a breath of fresh air, I get to recharge, read what I want to read not the dry accounting books I relegated to during classes and I get to cook.  I love cooking, it relaxes and recharges me.  Cooking is a vent for my creativity, yes accountants are creative and not in the bad Madoff way! ;)  So this summer like all others I've been relaxing and cooking.  I did some experimenting and a few of them turned out well.  I make this bread from Annie's Eats, it uses powdered dry milk which I haven't found a substitute for.  Just this weekend I made homemade lemonade, Vegan Dad's Rhubarb Syrup (which didn't go so well and became Rhubarb Jam), homemade Ciabatta Bread and a new Salad.  The picture has the lemonade, jam and ciabatta.

Vegan Dad's Syrup Jam
Follow the link and get Vegan Dad's recipe.
The only change I made to the ingredients is that I used Raspberry Jam not Strawberry.  I think any berry jam will work with this.  The boo boo I made was while straining the syrup into a new pot I accidentally dropped in about 1 1/2 c of the pulp.  I think this was a happy accident.  This changes the cooking slightly, the jam will not foam, but keep stirring it once it starts to boil and keep stirring until it gets glossy.  Move to a jar and allow to cool.

Veg's Summer Pucker Lemonade
I love sour lemonade so I only used 3/4 cup of sugar.  I prefer brown sugar, I think refined sugar has a harsh taste, you could also use agave syrup.

7 1/2 large lemons
1/2 - 1 1/2 sugar
1 gallon water

Juice the lemons, stir in the sugar and add the water.  Chill and enjoy.

Black Bean, Corn and Quinoa Salad
This is my go to salad, you can use anything really the mainstay's are the black beans and corn.  It's easy and perfect for a quick easy summer salad.

1 can black beans
4 ears grilled corn, cut from the cob
1 c salsa, or canned diced tomatoes
2T cilantro or flat leaf parsley
2 cloves garlic, minced
1c quinoa
1/2 lemon, grate rind and use the juice
S & P to taste

Cook quinoa per package instruction, I like to use vegetable broth.  Once the quinoa is finished cooking put everything up to the the salt and pepper in a large bowl, mix well.  Add the salt and pepper if you want, but it's not really necessary.  Chill and enjoy.

Memorial Day

Memorial Day was founded to honor our soldiers that have fallen in battle.  People flock to the cemeteries to honor those brave men and women that gave their lives so that we could be free.  Me I hate cemeteries, and I hate crowds, so I stay far, far away from parks, cemeteries and national monuments.  How do I celebrate, well bar-b-ques and beer of course!  Yes I am one of those American that believe that this is the perfect way to celebrate Memorial Day, but I also know why we celebrate Memorial Day.  Far to many Americans think of Memorial Day as just some random three day weekend, hence the beer and bar-b-ques.  I celebrate Memorial Day thus because I believe the way to truly honor those that fought and died for us it to relish that we are alive, to honor the freedom's that we have, to continue to fight tyranny and bigotry.  I believe that I honor our fallen soldiers everyday, because I live and I remember them.   If it weren't for those fallen soldiers I may not be alive, and many of you can say the same thing.  I have had ancestors serve in many of America's wars, including the Revolution.  If any of them had been the one to die, I wouldn't be here and neither would my grandparents, parents, aunts, uncles and cousins.  So I ask all of you on this Memorial Day, to have a moment of silence and thank those that died so we could live, then LIVE and be free.  And take the time to thank a solider, I know it's not Veteran's Day but they really don't hear it near enough.

In memory of Patrick Pruett, loving father and friend.  We will always miss you.  1948-2009

Am I in Wonderland...

I love food, all food.  And I've found that by reading Omni Blogs and cookbooks and watching Omni shows I get really good ideas for flavor profiles that will work well in Veg food.  In other words I'm a Food Network junkie.  But I've noticed, the food network chefs are starting to have more and more vegetarian shows.  Last Sunday I dvr'd an episode of Sandra's Money Saving Meals, she has good tips and trick regaurdless of what you eat.  The WHOLE episode was vegetarian.  She was talking about how easy it was to make hearty meals with no meat and that by removing meat from just two meals a week would save you lots of money.  Wow, what did I hear that right?  Sandra Lee on Food Networks was esentially promoting Meat-out Monday with out even talking about Meat-out Monday.  And the recipies looked good.  I'm trying one this week.  Some were vegetarian, but a few were vegan.  And all could easily be changed to vegan.  The black bean burgers look awesome and just need a flax seed "egg" to replace the real egg.  I'm making the Rigatoni with Grilled Veggies for dinner this week.  It was wonderful to see, but I have to admit I starting wondering if I went down the rabbit hole this week...

Confessions of an Anglophile

Hello, my name is Anna and I'm an anglophile. I love all things England, but especially the food. Yeah I know, England is NOT known for their food, but have you ever had a perfectly made scone? Flaky, yummy and oh so hard to eat just one.




Traditional scones are made with loads of butter and heavy cream and they are most defiantly not vegan. And I miss them! Clotted cream and lemon curds, traditionally served with scones, I can live without. But not my scones! A few days ago I was checking the new posts on my favorite blogs when I came upon this at Annie's Eats. OMG, SCONES!!!! Not traditional, but they looked good. So I decided to veganize them for Sunday morning breakfast. WOW, they were flaky and yummy and a little chewy too. I had one as soon as it came out of the oven because they smelled like heaven. And here they are for you...



Vegan Raspberry Oatmeal Scones

1/3 c. applesauce

1c. buttermilk (1cup soymilk + 1 T vinegar)

1 2/3 c. all purpose flour

1 1/3 c. old fashioned oats

1/3 c. sugar

1 T. baking powder

½ t. baking soda

½ t. salt

pinch of ground cloves

10T. margarine, chilled

3/4 c. frozen raspberries

1-2 T. raw sugar



Preheat the oven to 400

Cut the margarine into very small pieces or grate chill.

Make the buttermilk; allow to sit for at least five min. Add the applesauce and mix until incorporated. Set aside.

In a large bowl add the all of the dry ingredient except for the raw sugar. Mix well.

Add the butter to the flour mixture and use either a fork or a pastry cutter to "cut in" the butter. It should look like little pebbles when the butter is fully cut in.

Add the milk mixture, gently mix until just incorporated. Be careful not to over mix or your scones will be hard.

Fold in the raspberries.

On a parchment lined baking sheet drop the scone mixture, sprinkle the raw sugar on top.

This should make 8-12 scones.

Bake for 20 min.

Or, if you're a scone whore like me, you can make 6 massive scones.

Bake for 25 min.

Bad Blogger, Bad

This is my official Mea Culpa for not posting, life kinda fell apart and I'm just getting it back together.  Plus this is my senior year in college.  In accounting!  So I have no life, and not much time to cook, blog, anything.  Poor Vore is stuck having plain salads (green leaf lettuce, carrots, fat free ranch dressing) for lunch everyday!  There is a glimmer of hope, next week is spring break, so I might actually have time to cook and take pictures!

On the to do list is trying to veganize the Irish Car Bomb cupcake. Guinness is NOT vegan from my research, and I'm a geek so research is what I do. Guinness and many other beers use isinglass, a fish, to filter their beers. So what's a girl to do when she can't make the Guinness chocolate cake?  Well accourding to this site, Breckenridge Brewery is vegan.  This makes me happy because is from my home town, Denver, and right across from Coors Field! They have awesome beer and a Vanilla Porter I think would work well as a sub for the Guinness. Or the Oatmeal Stout. Hmmm beer tasting anyone???

Until I can sucessfully veganize the Irish Car Bombs, here is some food porn provided from my fav omni blog, Annie's Eats.  I have sucsessfully veganized a few of her recipies and WOW.  I promise I'll try to post them soon!

Thanksgiving... ok it's a little late but better late then never, right?

I simply LOVE the holiday's. Not so much for the family, friends, presents and stress; but because I love to cook. To experiment in the kitchen and to feed people. Thus far Thanksgiving has been just the two of us for a few years, every year I try something new hoping that eventually we'll have IT. I spend weeks before the big day trolling the net looking for what will make the list.

This year was IT!!!! I can hear the angels singing praises of my menu, and the Vore was happy. OK so the Vore had a real turkey and a few other things I always make him and never eat, like that canned cranberry crap that comes out with the ridges. EWWW! Making the fresh cranberry sauce has been my job since I was a teenager, so I just can't make myself eat the canned stuff. So by know you're thinking something like "get on with it, what IS this amazing menu!!" Well here it is: (I veganized a lot of recipes but I'm including links to the originals)

Appetizers:

- Vegan Jalapeno Poppers

- Vegan Sweet Chili Cheese Spread with Chickpea crackers

- Vegan Corn fritters, I added two diced jalapenos and I added a little oil in place of the eggs.

- Vore's bacon wrapped lil' smokies

Sides:

- Vegan Cornbread Dressing, Just omit the egg.

- Vegan Green Bean Casserole, Silk plain creamer and homeade fried onions made this awesome

- Mashed Potatoes, Toffuti Sour Cream and Plain unsweetened soy milk.

- Potato Roll, I used flaxseed eggs (2T ground flaxseed: 3T water)

- Sweet and Smoky Cranberry Sauce (cranberry sauce with oj and chipolte peppers)

- Vore's canned cranberry crap

- Cranberry, Almond salad with Maple Mustard Vinegrette

Main:

- Seiten Roulade with Mushroom Chestnut stuffing and Mushroom Gravy

- Maple Glazed Bacon Wrapped Turkey with pan sauce

For the Roulade I used the seiten recipie from this website, but prepared it accourding to Vegan Yum-Yum's recipie since I used her recpies for the stuffing and the gravy. The stuffing calls for Trader Joe's chestnuts, but as we're in Kansas, no Trader Joes. I did find prepared chestnuts with the Haunakah food. For the gravy I used Mushroom stock instead of veggie. Spread the stuffing on the seiten and wrap, wrap in foil and cook for 90 min.

Dessert:

- Vegan Pumpkin Pie (It wasn't that great, so I'm not linking to the original)

- Chocolate Pecan Pie with Booze (I used Grand Marnier)

I made pie crust for both pies. The Better Homes and Garden's cookbook is what I've always used but I substitute 1Tof water for 1T of apple cider viegar. I could only find 70% cocoa for the pecan pie, it was a little to rich, next year I'll cut back a little.

Please Sir, may I have some more?

Crazy, that is. Life around her has been insane the last few months. So cooking has been unexciting as I haven't actually has time. We've has some tragedies, we've had some school issues, and some work issues. So I'm actually starting to get used to crazy. And the holiday's are about to start. Can't forget about that, not with the Christmas music on the local radio station for the last two weeks and decorations going up around the neighborhood.

I really do love the holidays, for me it's all about food... and the end of finals!!! I go all out for the holidays. My work had an early thanksgiving this last Thursday. The provide the Turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy and green beans and the rest is potluck. Normally vegans cringe at work meals, for good reason. And the food provided for this meal is the cherry on top, the only thing Veg friendly were the green beans... I think they were canned. EWWW. But I have the most amazing friends and some really awesome coworkers. One other coworker is vegan and she brought her version of Tofurky, it was like eating the best stuffing ever! Quite a few people brought food that two "weirdos" could eat. I brought two dishes, one that I love (and have no pictures of) and a new dish that a friends found the recipe for Tofu Chocolate Cheesecake. OMG, it's so good the vore's didn't know it was vegan!!!!

My usual standby for potlucks is a main for anyone that doesn't eat meat, or a good side for those that do. It's Balsamic glazed oven roasted Veg with Gnocci. It's always a hit and really really easy to make. The cheesecake came from the know defunct Epicurious magazine. Oh how I'm going to miss them! My friend found it when she was waiting for her hair to process at our stylists. Good things really do happen at the salon!!! Keep trying to convince the Vore of that, and know I think I have!

Balsamic-glazed Veg and Gnocci

2 med onion

1 zucchini

2 pints grape of cherry tomatoes

1 head of garlic

1/2 lb mushrooms, I use portabella

1 sprig fresh rosemary or 1t italian seasoning

3 T good Balsamic vinegar

3T oil, I have used both corn oil and olive oil

1 package Gnocci

Cut all of the vegetables ( except for the garlic, tomatoes and mushrooms depending on their size) into large chunks. Peel the garlic cloves. Put all of the veg into a large roasting pan, add the oil and vinegar, stir until everything i coated evenly, add the rosemary. Cook @ 375f for 1-1.5 hrs or until the hard vegetables are cooked through and the tomatoes start to look wrinkled.

Heat salted water on the stove top until boiling. Add the gnocci, they are done once they start floating. This will take about 5-10min. Add the gnocci to the roasted veg for the last 15 min of baking.

Salt and pepper to taste.

**I've made this many times and every time I use a different mix of vegetables, but I always include the garlic tomatoes and onion.

Here is the cheesecake recipe direct from the epicurious website. I don't know if it will be there much monger and this must be shared!!! I made one small change, mostly to do poor planning, but that made it amazing. I used 4oz of 60% cocoa and 4oz of raspberry dark chocolate swirl chips. I didn't look at the weight of the chocolate bar until after I started cooking. Luckily I had the raspberry chips leftover from another experiment. I also used Vegan chocolate cookies for the crust.

Vegan Chocolate Cheesecake

For graham cracker crust: 1 1/4 cups chocolate or regular graham cracker crumbs (from nine 5-by 2 1/2-inch graham crackers) 3 tablespoons sugar 4 tablespoons Earth Balance vegan buttery spread, melted and cooled, plus additional for greasing pan For chocolate tofu filling: 2 1/4 cups sugar, divided 1/3 cup water 8 ounces bittersweet chocolate (no more than 60% cacao), chopped 2 (1-pound packages silken tofu, drained 1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder (not Dutch-process) 2 (8-ounces) containers soy cream cheese at room temperature 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract Rounded 1/4 teaspoon salt Equipment: a 9-inch springform pan print a shopping list for this recipe Preparation Make graham cracker crust: Preheat oven to 350°F with racks in middle and lower third and put a baking sheet on lower rack. Flip bottom of springform pan so lip is facing down, then lock in place. Grease bottom and side of pan. Stir together all crust ingredients, then press onto bottom and 1 inch up side of pan. Bake until set, 10 to 12 minutes, then cool completely, about 45 minutes. Make chocolate tofu filling:Heat 1 cup sugar in a 1 1/2-to 2-quart heavy saucepan over medium heat, stirring with a fork to heat sugar evenly, until it starts to melt, then stop stirring and cook, swirling pan occasionally so sugar melts evenly, until it is dark amber. Remove from heat and carefully stir in water (mixture will bubble up and steam and caramel will harden), then cook over medium-low heat, stirring, until caramel has dissolved. Remove from heat and whisk in chopped chocolate until smooth. Cool fudge sauce slightly. Purée tofu and cocoa in a food processor until smooth. Beat soy cream cheese and remaining 1 1/4 cups sugar with an electric mixer at medium-high speed until fluffy. At low speed, beat in tofu purée, vanilla, salt, and fudge sauce until incorporated. Pour filling into crust and bake on middle rack until top of cake is shiny but center is still slightly wobbly when pan is gently shaken, about 1 hour. Turn oven off and leave cake in oven 1 hour more. Run a knife around top edge of cake to loosen, then cool completely in pan on rack (cake will continue to set as it cools). Chill cake, loosely covered, at least 6 hours. Remove side of pan and transfer cake to a plate. Bring to room temperature before serving if desired.

Cooks's note: Cheesecake can be made 3 days ahead and chilled.