Could It Be … SEITAN?

The other day, I recieved a package in the mail from my mom full of chocolate and pens topped with bunnies and plastic eggs. I scratched my head, wondering what game we were playing that involved mailing one another sweets and baby animals and went out to find a raccoon to FedEx back to her. After disguising myself under piles of garbage and hiding in a dumpster for an hour or five, I decided the lasting stench wasn’t worth it and carried myself home in the early morning light. Much to my surprise, when I arrived back at my apartment, there were hoards of small people rifling through my yard. I don’t like when neighbors trample our roses, so I ran screaming into the yard - flinging banana peels and cereal boxes along the way. How dare someone enter my private property to loot flowers - and on a Sunday morning! It was then, with the dozen or so sobbing tots dispersing in a mass flee and the hoard of angry looking adults encroaching on my personal space, that I remembered what holiday it was. And I thought Easter was in April?

What better way to recover from such a jarring realization than to hold a fancy ladies’ tea party in the park!? OK, the truth is I DID forget it was Easter and planned a tea party on Saturday without that knowledge - but it became an Easter-themed party anyway!

The whole shabang complete with Green Jasmine and Peach teas.

I made currant scones from The Joy of Vegan Baking by Colleen Patrick-Goudreau. This was my first time using this cookbook, and I was not disappointed! The scones I made are really small -roughly the size of a golf ball - and the tiny currants and cinnamon made them a perfect companion to afternoon tea.

I also made my first pie from scratch! This is a Blueberry Lemon Pie based on Veganyumyum’s Cherry Lime Pie. The Sound of Music was on television, so I whipped out my apron and felt like a serious domestic goddess rolling out chilled pie dough and prancing around my kitchen table with Julie Andrews.

The only thing I changed about the pie was, well … guess. I think next time I will half the sugar, only because after eating the pie I was able to run my PR time on a 5K distance. Guess we know what I’ll be eating next time a race comes around! Just call me shakey!

Finally, I made some *presh* chocolate birds nests with marzipan eggs. These were so cutesy I nearly shed a tear. I basically melted a chocolate bar and mixed in some crumbled Weetabix, formed them into nests in a mini-muffin pan and let them chill out. I made the marzipan eggs using food coloring and marzipan. Eeeeasy, bro.

Ain’t no robins in here!

I put out some real food too, including carrots with hummus and crackers spread with Tofutti cream cheese and an olive tapenade - only to pretend that I’m an adult who doesn’t eat pie and chocolate for every meal (What, mom? I swear I don’t).

It was such a gorgeous day that we decided to document it. We have made plans to turn this into an official ladies’ club and do lovely feminine things all the time now. And some not so feminine - midnight bike rides anyone?

Tree climbing commenced shortly after tea. I’m in the hat. Jay-Z told me hats are so necessary.

More beautiful tea party ladies!

Those of you who don’t know me also do not know that I spent three months in China last summer. Those of you who do know me, know that it was CRAZY! I traveled between three cities, Kunming, Dali, and Tengchong, in the Yunnan province. The culinary experiences I had there ranged from incredible to downright horrifying. I wont go into too much detail about my travels here, because that would require pages and pages of pictures and I’m not sure how much you want to know about people eating dog. Yeah, really.

SO. Quick overview:

Kunming is a huge city with a population of 5 million and is known as “The City of Eternal Spring” because of its beautiful weather year-round. I managed to fare pretty well in Kunming because they have a strong tourist industry going and an entire street near Yunnan University dedicated to “Westerners.” Though I’m not sure what everything was cooked in, I at least experienced a lot of wonderful vegetarian food and was introduced to lotus root, spicy fried basil, Puerh tea, and a truly bizarre apple-vinegar drink. On the other hand, there was a Wal-Mart (!?!?!) that sold live turtles and frogs in the grocery section. Gotta love cultural differences!

Hm. Back to the lotus root. The other week I decided to venture down to my local huge Asian Market, Mitsuwa, to see what was cookin’. I was so happy with what I found there, and managed to bring home a huge haul (see below) including sliced lotus root! I tried to recreate a dish I had in a tiny cafe in Kunming. This time I also used black fungus, but I’m leaving it out of the recipe because I ended up throwing it out. There was something really … earthy … going on with that fungus.

Stir-Fried Lotus Root

Recipe

Ingredients

1/2 lb sliced lotus root

1 small onion cut into 1/4 in slices

2 T sesame seed oil

2 t minced ginger

2 garlic cloves, minced

1/4 t brown sugar

2 t soy sauce

Pinch of pepper

1/4 C vegetable stock

Directions

• Preheat a wok on medium-high heat, then add the oil to coat wok.
• Add salt, ginger, and garlic and sautee until fragrant.
• Add onions and stir-fry until they start to become translucent.
• Add lotus root and stir-fry for another 5 minutes.
• Sprinkle in sugar, pepper, and soy sauce and toss to coat.
• Pour in the vegetable stock and stir to de-glaze the wok. Cover wok and let simmer for 5 more minutes.

On to the next city!
Dali is truly an experience. The “Ancient City” is a walled section of the city that is full of cafes, bars, fascinating people, and lots and lots of weed.

Just sayin’. There are little old women dressed in traditional Bai, Naxi, etc., garb who come up to you in the street with postcards in hand. They point to the postcards, as though trying to show you something important, and then whisper in your ear:

“Smoke-a ganja?”

Every day in Dali is an adventure. On one side of the Ancient City are the Cangshan mountains, and on the other side is Erhai Lake - the second largest lake in China. The landscape is unbelievably gorgeous. Oh, did I mention it’s a veggie paradise?

I was able to have wonderful tofu hot-pots, huge plates of stir-fried eggplant, and I even had some vegan apple pie one day - thanks to a crew of dread-lock bearing jugglers who opened the Rainbow Cafe! My absolute favorite food, however, was Baba. I have not been able to find a recipe for this stuff, and I’m pretty sure it’s not vegan but it was wonderful. Baba is a bready street food, much like paratha, that is stuffed with either a savory or a sweet filling. Being a psycho for sugar, I would always get the sweet variety that was filled with red azuki beans. The whole thing was about the size of an open hand, and it was warm and pan fried to a crispy golden flaky gaaaaaah. Only gutteral noises could describe this pastry.

So about these azuki beans - they were everywhere! My boyfriend came to visit me and every time he tried to eat one of his beloved ice-cream-popsicle-on-a-stick things, it was full of BEANS. He was not such a fan, but I am! I bought some azuki beans at the market, and last night I got to cookin’. I have a pre-packaged red bean dessert to try out, so I wanted to make something savory. Of course, I headed straight for Veganomicon and the Acorn Squash, Pear, and Adzuki Bean Soup with Sauteed Shiitakes.

I threw a few of my own spins on the recipe because I had:

Kabocha Squash

No Pears

TONS of azuki beans

Dried shiitake (every time I type this I feel like I’m saying something dirty, thanks to the PPK Boards.)

So what I eventually got was sort of a combination of my favorite Chinese foods: hot pot and azuki beans! It was more of a stew than a soup since I tossed in so many veggies. Fond memories of this picnic our friends Ping and Mae in Dali gave us spring to mind:

I’ll spare you any discussion of the food in Tengchong because it involved a lot of soup full of bugs and going to bed with a growling stomach. Need a cleansing retreat? Tengchong would be a great place to fast!

I made this cake last week for a friend’s birthday. This time I was actually requested to bring a vegan dessert, so I jumped all over the opportunity to bake. I had leftover ganache and almond mocha mousse from my previous cupcakes so this became an almond mocha cake covered in chocolate ganache - topped with vegan cocoa truffles and marzipan letters. Say that five times fast.

Unfortunately, I didn’t get an inside shot because the party was beautifully candle-lit and my phone’s camera couldn’t quite capture the intense deliciousness of this cake (yeah, intense deliciousness). I made it a two-layer cake by baking the VCTOTW Basic Vanilla Cupcake recipe in an 8×8 pan and cutting it in half after in cooled. Between the layers is the almond mocha mousse, which is also covering the entire cake underneath the ganache. It was so rich! People were asking me all night if I was a professional baker, and lemme tell ya - flattery gets you everywhere as far my baking is concerned! I’ve even been asked for a price quote to make cupcakes for a couple parties. I have no idea how much to charge! What would you all say I should charge for each cupcake? For 100?

Here’s a little preview of what’s to come in my next few entries:

Bounty from Mitsuwa - the Asian Market in Little Tokyo

… and from the Hollywood Farmers Market.

So things ’round here are picking up again thanks to the end of the writers strike (hooray for the WGA!) When the weekend rolls around, there’s nothing I like more than to unwind with my bros and my hos(?) on a Sunday morning. And stuff myself with baked goods. And stuff them with baked goods. That and mimosas. OK, really, take everything away but the mimosas and I’m still pretty damn happy.

ANYWAY.

Mini Tofu Quiches, French Toast with Maple Syrup and Banana Slices, Almond Chocolate Chip Zucchini Muffins, Strawberries, Dates, and OJ!

I hosted our “weekly” brunch club at my place this time. I say “weekly” because we tend to forget about it for a few, um, months, and then pick back up again. This time it was completely rad because it was our first fully vegan jam and I felt really happy to share my goodiegoods with some precious people! On to the food:

Susan’s Mini Crustless Tofu Quiches

I am a huge fan of the FatFree Vegan Kitchen and this is one of Susan’s most popular recipes - for a reason! This recipe is so healthy and incredibly delicious. I want to make these all the time using different veggies and spices! This time I threw in onions, garlic, tomatoes, swiss chard, and mushrooms. Luckily, I chopped everything into small enough pieces that the tofu still held together. A word of warning though, don’t throw any huge pieces of veggies in there because thangs will get messy. A couple people were confused, thinking I was serving them EGGS! Ah, vegan trickery and her wiley ways.

French Toast

Not the prettiest picture, but french toast doesn’t require glamour shots. She’s got enough sassy spice to stand out, non?

Recipe

12 pieces of whole-wheat bread

1 cup soy milk

2 T nutritional yeast

1 t cinnamon

1 t nutmeg

1 t vanilla extract

1/2 t salt

1/4 cup AP Flour

oil as needed for the pan

Instructions

• Combine soy milk, nutritional yeast, cinnamon, nutmeg, salt, and flour in a large mixing bowl.
• Heat oil on a medium flame in a large pan/skillet - I used a wok because I’m wacky.
• Dip a slice of bread into the soy milk mixture, coating both side of slice.
• Drop bread slice onto pan or skillet.
• Fry just until bottom is browned, then flip and repeat.
• Continue until you’re out of bread and everyone is standing around you drooling and looking at you longingly.

Almond Chocolate Chip Zucchini Muffins

I’ve made these before and I’ll make them again because they rule. This time I mixed it up and used whole-wheat flour and almonds instead of walnuts. The muffins were a lot denser, and just as delicious!

This was a rad brunch and the cute couple from across the hall even brought us pancakes! So nice to just sit around and shoot the shiitake with cool people. I can’t wait for the next one.

Gigantor the Killer Strawberry!

I can’t even explain how good these are. I took them to a party and they were met with grunts of appreciation. That’s really all I need to make me happy. I should marry a caveman.  The whole process took a pretty long time since I had to make the mousse, ganache, and cupcakes separately and THEN let them all sit long enough to have everything chilled during assembly.

I took the Hazelnut Mocha recipe from VCTOTW and changed everything over to almonds because I am cheap frugal! It also helps me to not devour an entire pan of cupcakes by making them with something I’m mildly allergic to. I tricked myself out of gluttony. The inside of these are stuffed with an almond mocha mousse and covered with the rich chocolate ganache and a sprinkling of chopped almonds. I used my coffee grinder to make almond meal for part of the flour since I don’t have a food processor. It worked perfectly, considering all I needed was 1/3 cup almond meal.

They are soooo rich and have an amazing chocolate/almond/cinnamon/nutmeg explosion going on. It took me twenty minutes to eat one because my eyes kept rolling back in my head and I feared an all out food coma. I also have a bunch of leftover mousse and ganache that will either be turned into a pie or some truffles. We’ll see where the weekend takes me!

I checked out Veganomicon’s recipe for cornbread the other night for a dinner party, and I must say - as a Southern girl at heart, it wasn’t quiiiiite there. I think all it’ll take is adding a little more fat in the form of oil or margarine because the bread was just a bit dry for my taste. Next time I think I’ll add the corn kernels to add some interest. I used Bob’s Red Mill Gluten Free AP Flour simply because I have it and needed to do something with it, and everyone raved about how good it was. In fact, the comment that makes me beam with pride and just a hint of self-righteousness was exclaimed throughout the night:

“I can’t believe this is vegan!”