Friday, May 2, 2008

ottawa foods (or how I loved an oven that actually works)

I had the best time in Ottawa with the fam, having free reign of flours and sugars, and access to an oven that's probably 4 times the size of my own. Not to mention plenty of eaters of baked goods! I have a hard time justifying sweet recipes at home, as all I really need is a cookie here and there. But near the end of my stay I was just churning out sugar-soaked excellence everywhere and it was actually getting eaten (and quickly!). Kinda heavenly. I'm also considering taking a pastry course after uni or something... I'd like to take some culinary classes too but I don't know how the veganism will factor into that... are there vegetarian culinary schools (with prestige) at least? Anyway, the cookies up there are the oatmeal raisin cookies from the Veganomicon. They smelled like skinned knees and school lunches, and even replace Larabars nicely as travelling rations! (half regular thompson raisins and half organic flame raisins).

I like to think of this as clash of the transitory seasons - spring and fall duking it out! It's the 101 Cookbooks roasted butternut and farro salad making time with those strawberries. But it worked!

And then I made Vcon red and white bean seitanic jambalaya with Old Bay-spiced Julie Hasson sausages, sauteed collards and french bread --- ooooooh, if only I could eat like this every night! It's funny, cause I loathed sausages as on omni (they tasted like grease and salt and ACK, parts), but I'm a nut for the gluten kind. Everyone got sick the day I made this so I was a little aghast at the mass amount of food left over, but it made killer leftovers all week, and people kept pulling it out of the fridge as if seeing it for the first time with renewed interest in the smoky goodness.

Another perk to cooking at home - there are always random things around that need using up that I can be happily surprised by. Like a half tin of peaches! I had to make the Fatfree Vegan peach upside-down cake of course, which CAN be quartered, it can be done! I admittedly put a splash of canola in this, but that was a teaspoon maybe, and it came out like almost like a peach donut, if that makes sense. Really really good! I'd want to experiment with cornmeal I think, when I try again with real peaches.

Yummmm, Vcon curried carrot dip made my crackers sing! It should be called pâté, really, it's that good. Especially with parsley on Ryvita.

And a barbecue came up, I wanted to make margarita cupcakes, but I'm SO glad I made mini jalapeno-onion corn muffins instead. Portability-wise, much better, and much more casual. I think I described the heat of the peppers as "haunting" and I stand by that. I wasn't sure if they would work out, since I used rinsed pickled jalapenos instead of fresh (+ sugar / - salt to make up for that), but they DID work and the end result was pretty addictive.

We had zombie day dinner very late this year so here's the holiday plate! Steamed fresh asparagus, black bean and mango salad, rosemary roasted potatoes, salad with lots of fruits and toasted hazelnuts, and leftover tofu scramble, yum!

Aaaaand.... I did in fact make the cupcakes! The orange and redcurrant ones! OMG SO MOIST AND DELISH. wee! (ha ha, as my memory fades so does my ability to articulate). They were springy, poppable, juicy and tender-good, ya.


Phew, backlog of photos done, hurray! It was a bit of a week!

13 comments:

LizNoVeggieGirl said...

So glad that you had fun with your family, in Ottawa; and now I'm super-hungry after looking at all the delectable foods you've been cooking/baking! Yum!

Anonymous said...

I think you should come visit me and cook!!

Carrie said...

I'm glad you had a good time. I know what you mean about baking sweets...I hardly do that because I'm the only one to eat them and I really don't need an entire batch of cookies.

All of the food looks delish!

Ruby Red said...

oh my goodness, so much food! i am pretty much overwhelmed by all the goodness you have going on here. what adorable cupcakes - yay for pink cupcakes! what a pleasant surprise to have so many eager mouths to feed, too. i would been making desserts like crazy too if i knew other people were around to eat them...but sadly, this is not the case.

Anonymous said...

It all sounds (and looks) so wonderful, I'm glad you had such a great time. :)

Carrie™ said...

Oh geez! Where to start? All of the plates look and sound delicious! I think the peach cake takes the...well, cake!

Anonymous said...

wow...! that is a lot of fabulous food, and beautiful pictures! i am very drawn to the cupcakes. and the peach cake!

Anonymous said...

This all looks so tasty! Mmmmm. I actually recently made that curried carrot dip for a dinner party and everyone LOVED it.

Sarah P said...

I cannot get over how gorgeous the cupcakes are!

Melisser; the Urban Housewife said...

Dang, so many delicious dishes! Can I have a bite of everything?

Veggie said...

Beautiful cupcakes, I made that peach upside-down cake last year.

Anonymous said...

I'm Sophie, Key Ingredient's Chief Blogger. We would like to feature your orange and red currant cupcake recipe on our blog. Please email sophiekiblogger@gmail.com if interested. Thanks :)

Sophie
http://blog.keyingredient.com/

Adam Prowse said...

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It discuss about many tasty foods dishes. I like it a lot and get help from your this post.


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