Could It Be … SEITAN?

I’m back in the kitchen! Let’s all skip and sing about it!

Purple People Eater Raw Slaw

I was craving some cole slaw because it’s warm and sunny and I like pretending it’s not the middle of February. Make this stuff and you’re instantly whisked to a tropical island with purple Oompa-Loompas and birds that talk and endless streams of chilled Perrier. I’m serious. I was there last week.

Recipe

Ingredients

• 1/2 head purple cabbage
• 1 Fuji apple
• 1/4 cup walnuts
• 1/3 cup raisins
• 2 T Apple Cider Vinegar
• 1 T Nama Shoyu
• 1 T Agave nectar OR maple syrup

Directions

• In a large bowl, grate the cabbage and apple.
• Toss in the walnuts and raisins, mix.
• Just chuck all the other stuff in too - this recipe is ridiculously easy.

Ta-dah! This makes about 4 small servings.

Rosemary Olive Focaccia from Veganomicon
So for Valentine’s Day, I wanted to bake. Natch. But my boyfriend doesn’t have quite as intense (i.e. raging) sweet tooth as I do. He had mentioned before that he’d eat more of what I make if it were savory. Now, I’m not much of a mathematician but I put two and two together and made a focaccia. Maybe if my algebra class had been more baking-focused I wouldn’t have gotten that glaring C back in 11th grade. I added calamata olives because I remember the olive bread I used to flip out for at the French bakery where I used to work. Was that a run-on sentence? Dangling modifier? Apparently I’m not good at math OR English.

Pre-Bake

Post-Bake Pre-Devour

I’m sitting in bed, resting and recovering after a minor surgery and I’m OVER IT. I’m really not very good at ‘taking it easy’ so bed-rest is more challenging than it is relaxing. In any case, I figure it’s as good a time as any to fill out the standard Vegan MoFo (which I missed) survey. I stole it from Veg-Am’s page.
1. Favorite non-dairy milk?
almond milk

2. What are the top 3 dishes/recipes you are planning to cook?
Rosemary Foccacia and Cholent, both from V-Con, and this raw cabbage slaw that I keep daydreaming about.

3. Topping of choice for popcorn?
I am inhuman and do not like popcorn. It makes me angry because it gets stuck in my teeth and otherwise feels like eating air.

4. Most disastrous recipe/meal failure?

In elementary school, my friend Colleen and I were making cookies to take in to class one day, and we dropped the dough on the floor. Her cat, M&M started to lick the dough. We still baked the cookies and took them in - chuckling allllll the way. Other than that, I once dumped a bunch of baking soda into a recipe for scones, thinking it was flour. Mmmm, tastes like metal.

5. Favorite pickled item? Dill pickles

6. How do you organize your recipes? I have everything in my computer. Which really doesn’t count as ‘organized.’

7. Compost, trash, or garbage disposal? My building has no recycling, so I have to gather it all up and drive it across town once a week. It’s ridiculous. Other than that, trash. I have no room for composting. Someday!

8. If you were stranded on an island and could only bring 3 foods…what would they be (don’t worry about how you’ll cook them)?
vegan pizza with crimini mushrooms and cornmeal crust

chocolate chip peanut butter and banana cookies

‘toxic sludge’ smoothies - comprised of kale, spinach, spriulina, wheatgrass, protein powder, banana, apple, and orange

9. Fondest food memory from your childhood?
The cottage cheese man my parents made for me - he had a head of cottage cheese, arms of carrots, legs of celery, beet feet, etc. The genius of my parents hit me later - tricking a kid into eating veggies and appreciating art with one fell swoop. Nicely done guys.
10. Favorite vegan ice cream?
Rice Dream Chocolate Caramel Chai

11. Most loved kitchen appliance?
I’m all about good, sharp knives. They make a huge difference. I also just got this precious magnetized timer from Anthropologie. It’s really more for asthetic pleasure, but aww. Precious.

12. Spice/herb you would die without?
Basil. It put it in everything. My mom lived in Rome when she was pregnant with me, so I think I’m genetically MADE of it.

13. Cookbook you have owned for the longest time?
The Family Vegetarian Cookbook - I love everything about it except that the author recommends not drinking liquids with meals. What is that about??

14. Favorite flavor of jam/jelly?
Strawberry

15. Favorite vegan recipe to serve to an omni friend?
Cupcakes! Especially chocolate w/ vanilla buttercream icing because it always surprises people that vegan food can taste that good.

16. Seitan, tofu, or tempeh?
Tofu.

17. Favorite meal to cook (or time of day to cook)?
I love waking up early and making a huge brunch for people. Brunch parties FOREVER!

18. What is sitting on top of your refrigerator? Some Valentines Day chocolates, my dog’s sock monkey, and some weird cereal my mom brought over for her stay. She’s taking care of me

19. Name 3 items in your freezer without looking.
frozen blueberries, breakfast soy-sausage, frozen peaches

20. What’s on your grocery list?
I am so set up right now, but wouldn’t mind some more spelt flour.

21. Favorite grocery store?
Trader Joe’s/Bristol Farms

22. Name a recipe you’d love to veganize, but haven’t yet.
My family’s Southern corn pudding

23. Food blog you read the most (besides Isa’s because I know you check it everyday). Or maybe the top 3?
veganyumyum.com

blog.fatfreevegan.com

www.yourveganmom.com

24. Favorite vegan candy/chocolate?
The bon-bons at M Cafe.

25. Most extravagant food item purchased lately?
Hmm, probably saffron.

And that is precisely why I enjoy making them. I’ve had a cold and have been forced to sit inside for the past few days. I have a hard time staying still - even when I am knocked up with Sudaphed, Zicam, and Emergen-C. In my delirious OTC drug-haze I felt compelled to bake.

Zucchini Muffins

Well, ok let’s rewind for a second. I made these muffins while visiting my sweet precious girls, Chloe and Sarah, in Berkeley. The second day I was there Chloe got a sinus infection and the sky opened up with a brutal non-stop rain. We could do nothing but hang inside, watching episodes of Freaks and Geeks and baking with what they already had in their pantry. I wanted to make something vegan, and luckily these muffins don’t call for soy milk or margarine — two things the girls don’t have being omnivorous chicks. They DID have a few zucchini and bananas - score!

I halved this recipe from theppk.com

Combine these with this:

And any sick person is instantly cured. I’ve created a new panacea!

Jelly Donut Cupcakes

Whenever the boy goes into the studio to record, I know it’s time to start baking. His bandmates are bottomless pits for baked goods, so I can get all this good stuff out of the house before I devour an entire pan of muffins. Thank you boys, for your furnace-like metabolisms. The recipe is from Veganomicon.

Sidenote: I didn’t have enough confectionars sugar left for the top so they look a bit … gorey.

Dreena’s Homestyle Chocolate Chip Cookies

I’d like to start out by saying — this recipe slays (SLAYS) every chocolate chip cookie recipe ever. SLAYS. I used spelt flour for the first time - hooray- and everyone I gave these to freaked out, not at all believing in their vegan-ness. To quote a conversation with my boyfriend:

Boy: These can’t be healthy with all that butter

Me: No butter, holmes.

Boy: OK, all that margerine.

Me: Nope.

Boy: What the hell is in these things!? WHY ARE THEY SO GOOD!?

Recipe from Everyday Dish

1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour (see note)
1 teaspoon baking powder
1⁄2 teaspoon baking soda
1⁄4 cup unrefined sugar
1⁄4 teaspoon sea salt
1⁄3 cup pure maple syrup
1⁄4 teaspoon blackstrap molasses
1 – 1 1⁄2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
1⁄4 cup canola oil (a little generous)
1⁄3 cup non-dairy chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350°F (176°C). In a bowl, sift in the flour, baking powder, and baking soda. Add the sugar and salt, and stir until well combined. In a separate bowl, combine the maple syrup with the molasses and vanilla, then stir in the oil until well combined. Add the wet mixture to the dry, along with the chocolate chips, and stir through until just well combined (do not over-mix). Place large spoonfuls of the batter on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper and flatten a little. Bake for 11 minutes, until just golden (if you bake for much longer, they will dry out). Let cool on the sheet for no more than 1 minute (again, to prevent drying), then transfer to a cooling rack.

Note: Unbleached all-purpose flour or spelt flour produces a more classic cookie taste and texture, but you can use whole-wheat pastry flour and still get a delicious cookie. For a wheat-free version, use spelt flour, but add an extra 2-4 tablespoons of the spelt flour to the dry mix (the amount needed varies with brand of spelt flour and whether you are using a refined spelt flour versus a less processed spelt flour).

Note: If, as you are mixing together your batter it appears quite floury and thick, simply mix together a couple of teaspoons more canola and maple syrup and incorporate it into the batter. Sometimes humidity, type of flour used, and other factors can affect the density of the batter and so a touch more liquid may be needed.

Makes 9-12 large to average sized cookies

© Copyright 2005 Dreena Burton

Now that you are one step closer to e-diabetes, I should mention that I’ve been eating and making lots of actual healthy things (I promise) that I’ll post soon.

I have about five trillion (rough estimate) posts that need to happen stat, but I’m a lazy chick. What can I say? What I can say is:

Here’s a recipe for some curry when you’ve got a veggie drawer full of items threatening impending squishiness and imminent doom. Thus, “Saved by the Bell Pepper” Curry is born. Have a heart guys. Save your miscellanious veggies from the compost.

Recipe

Ingredients

1 can of coconut milk ( I use light coconut milk because that’s how I roll)

2 T yellow curry paste

1 T soy sauce

2 T brown sugar

1/3 C veggie broth

Use whichever veggies you have laying around but I used:

1 red bell pepper

1 Japanese eggplant

1/4 cup bamboo shoots

1/4 cup shiitake mushrooms

1 cup kale

4 oz. tofu cut into cubes

1/4 cup basil

Directions

• In a large saucepan, simmer the coconut milk with yellow curry paste over medium heat for 5 minutes.
• Add soy sauce, brown sugar, eggplant, bell pepper, bamboo shoots and mushrooms and simmer for 10 minutes.
• Add kale and tofu and simmer 5 more minutes.
• Finally, stir in the basil until wilted.

It’s that easy and I’m obsessed.

And Jessie Spano says “Don’t take pills?”