VeMoFo#13: Muffin ESP

Do you see the riotous waft of steam 'ploding off of the succulence?

Veganomicon: Mediterranean Style Lima Beans

Ahhhh, finally!  I'd had a container of giant limas in my pantry that my sister gave me for christmas from - oh, I dunno - years ago, waiting for this recipe specifically, so at last and hurray to myself for making it.  Perfectly delicious!  Like grandma never made, but I always wanted my kitchen to smell like she did it just like this.  

Shyly not mentioned is soft braised carrots and tofu... I've been a braising queen this fall

Also, before I forget, there was some crazy synchronicity happening in the blog-air when I made these muffins!  I mentally bookmarked and triple-underlined these miso pumpkin muffins when I saw them on the Just Bento site (another of my favourite internet places) and only just got around to making them - BUT - what did I discover but that another Mofo-er Cuny Queen had the exact same idea on that exact night.  Amazing!  

Verdict?  Texture is a bit gummy but the flavour makes me want to dance like this kid.

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VeMoFo#5: An ode to picnics

I like to watch the old men slow motion martial art with eachother.  

I like big hunks of juicy hacked-at tropical fruit packed in a dish.

I like lemonade with a twist of lime.

A blanket that was once my curtain that was once my door, origins: a mystery!

2 new library books on esoteric art, published at the turn of the century, full of poetry.

Fall leaves clicking down, yellow and brown.

Lima beans!  Cooked in silky mediterranean sauce, and parsley-pesto stuffed heirloom tomatoes, with couscous inside and olives.

Kids splashing in fountains, parents in varying degrees of patience and exasperation, couples on benches, Hasidic Jewish families, hipsters, dogs, bikers, more leaves, breezes on warm-tingle-just-now-needing-gloves temperature settings.

Soundtrack to supper!

So much better than my own kitchen. ;)

~~ How to have a Romantic Picnic ~~

(don't mind the first 15 seconds of ads - afterwards it's quite funny!)

Also, also!  I bought my first Maranatha peanut butter.... it's just like Skippy!  Nobody told me that, haha.  Well, it's like Skippy if it was organic and luscious and silky, which it isn't, but this stuff is.  Aaaaaaand a Mexican hot chocolate snickerdoodle, which I burnt, but will still probably eat because I love the taste of char (really) and with a 1/2 tsp of cayenne in these, HOOOO they were designed to be my favourites.  They're not wimpy!  Go go go make them!   Pretty faboo.

Also, I got my first bike since I was fifteen years old!  This is actually related, because it means I can have way more picnics, and way way further out in the city than ever before.  

I call her Moony because there's a little moon-shaped tear in the seat.  !

Her soundtrack goes to this, but with "moony" instead of "money"

Japanese food, AVOCADO <3, and a wack of lightning fast lunchies!

Well, Liz has broken out the nerdy google-searched JPEGS of sci-fi references again - and that means of course that it's time to go back in time!   Woooo-eeeee-oooooooooh.

Back to a time way yonder... the wee beginning of August when I was just as likely to accidentally eat a blob of quinacridone pink as I was to absent-mindedly get soy sauce on my paintings.  Ie; (in simple terms) I was busy!  Meals had to be almost cute in their ease of preparation, with the notable exception of some bento experiments, but I'll get to those later on....

Avocado kinda saved my life, the patron saint of summer classes, I think.  And while these look humble, and I'm a pure sucker for anything wrapped in a warm corn tortilla (and I mean just about anything) - this was a good and special combo.  Guacamole, corn, & chicken-baked white beans, with big chunks of onion 'cause I roll like that but you could leave them off I'm sure.  Addictive but satisfying.

And then avocado with fritterFAIL (it's now hash!)

Even better than the tacos?  It has sweet potato this time.

I got a huge bag of white pitas for free because there was a big nasty fly paper stuck to the side and the store couldn't sell it, so I tasted white flatbread for the first time in forever.  Can I confess that it's kind of particularly delicious?  At least if you haven't had it in a while.  Way sweeter than whole wheat, and makes excellent sausage, pepper and onion pizzas.  With big chunks of onion.  Because I roll like that!

Believe it or not, dorayaki are a quick lunch, too!  You just have to really cheat with the anko paste.  And cheater anko paste can be way healthier, too, because you can pull the sugar WAY back.  Basically just mash up some hot cooked adzukis with just enough sugar to make them lip-smacking, and just enough salt to make them more-ish, then make two fairly rich pancakes to sandwich it with.  And put loads of vegetables on the side so you can pretend it's a sort of balanced meal.  (which okay it probably is, just sucrose heavy.   MMMMMM sucrose.  MMMM dorayaki).

MMMMM CHOCOLATE PANCAKES DORAYAKI   

I am feeling the Japanese, can you tell?  This lunch took forever.  Like, all morning to make, no joke.  Worth it in every way, though!  My first onigiri, everybody, and let nobody tell you that it's just rice in a ball shape, it is so much more than that.  Even if you've made them yourself, they still taste all full of the love it took to construct them (the reddened burned hands, the totally occupied stovetop, the swearing at nori seaweed as it refuses to cover them completely). 

The first day I made 3 -

1 triangle filled with avocado (yes again!), tiny cubed cucumber, wasabi, green onion and salt.

The 2nd triangle was filled with tiny cubes of braised sweet potato and shitake mushrooms done in kombu no tsukudani style except without sugar 'cause they're sweet already.  (SO umami)

And the 3rd piece was mixed up with red beans, sesame seeds and umeboshi vinegar.   yum yum yum yum yum yum yum yum yum yum !

(rounding out my oh-so stylish tupperware is some lightly steamed broccoli sprinkled with shoyu, an Nin Jiom herbal candy, a strawberry lollipop, and some yellow baby carrot pickles I made myself and have been eating like candy from the back of the fridge.).  

It was a terrible blustery sweater-weather day when I took this downtown to eat it before putting in a long night at the studio, but after I got my green tea and an interesting seat to watch people from, and I took the first bite of my first pointy rice-ball.... I couldn't help but smile like a tyke.  Really!  It's all worth the effort for that first nori-wrapped bite.

oh yeah, Mr. Wasp thinks rice balls are delicious too.  I have mixed feelings about this one.  Shooo off my meticulous lunch there, little guy, sheesh!

Back on the fast track - the quickest cookies to make are shortbreads, of course.  And an herbal-loving friend had a recent crisis requiring me to spend at least a bit of time baking.  Basic basic shortbread, but with rose oil and black tea leaves.  The tea didn't impart any flavour I don't think, but it added a really pleasant crispy texture!

And finally, my favourite - muffins!  Featuring (do you see this coming?).... avocado!  Yep, avocado replacing almost all the oil, date syrup replacing all the sugar, 50/50 whole wheat & oat flour, with orange juice, cloves, and a scattering of chocolate chips to seal up the deal.  100% eyeballed recipe, but it's really hard to screw up a muffin, which is why I secretly adore them more than cake maybe.   These ones were surprisingly decadent with their buttery nuggets of green dotted throughout.  Totally a win.

And then I finished my last studio class ever!  Hurray!  

No more turpentine, no more (mounting) hooks, no more security guards' dirty looks, la la la la la  :)

Brunching, making chutney, crispy cookies, and fudge-hearts!

I've been raw for 5 days now!!  I'll save writing about that for the next post, but in the meantime here's a whole bunch of photos from the past few weeks I never got around to posting but are kinda making me hungry right now...

Allright, we've got up there... chili cashew dosas (my favourite recipe so far from Vegan Brunch), with a notably amazing chutney I made from the back of Indian Cookery, ie: this book ------>

Which is basically my favourite indian cookbook ever, even for the chutney chapter alone, which covers pretty much anything you'd want to stew and preserve in a super authentic, full of interesting tidbits kind of way.  Like, that peach chutney I ate with the dosas had paprika, poppy seeds, cloves, green chiles and cashews, oh my!  Totally easy to make, too.

Another perk of making chutney is that you get to re-use little jars and give them away after they've sat for a month on the shelf looking very pretty.  On the right is the peach, and in the middle is a pineapple chutney with about a ton of ginger and garlic in it, yay!

Okay, what else - this was astoundingly good.  It looks kind of grey, I'll admit, but so so so good.  Velvety corn creamy chinese wedding soup, or something like that, with bits of savoury tofu floating in it and fresh peas.  It's Bryanna's recipe, and incidentally my introduction to creamed corn (I'm a fan, it turns out).

Oh, and Singapore green beans from Tropical Vegan Kitchen in the background.  Once that stuff marinates it's addictive!

East Coast Coffeecake for an omni BBQ!  Plus adorable sign. :)

I loved how I could even make this in my dad's kitchen - it's the sign of a perfectly adaptable baked good.  (flour, sugar, oil, check!)

My favourite PB cookies ever, are the Crispy PB Cookies from Extraveganza with the cereal flakes inside.  They crackle like pop rocks and have that perfect dense chew, and are so easy to make.  I usually quarter the recipe and make them into the size of quarters, and have them as little pick me ups throughout the day.

Polenta Rancheros from V.Brunch, with noticeable flecks of toasted coriander that perfume the whole thing, it's really nice, especially when made with fresh tomatoes cause that's all I had.  Surprisingly light for a bean dish!

White bean, mango and rosemary tacos!!!  My surprising invention that worked, plus some leftover Tempeh Wingz made with tofu, cold and chewy out of the fridge.  (That red sauce is illegally finger-licking.... wow.)

Fresh organic vegetable pasta spirals with a sauce made from tomatoes, raisin-sage sausages, capers, zucchini & basil, NOM.

 

Banana Rabanada!!!  Not only is this delicious but no refined sugar, either, so it's perfectly viable to eat for lunch!  Isa was spot on about the syrup & cinnamon-mopping, too.

(Heart-shaped) Fudge-pops from How It All Vegan, since I found my ancient copy in my mom's garage a few months ago and figured I'd give it a whirl again.  These were sooooo good, and almost exactly like fudgesicles, which is no mean feat!

Sausage and eggplant quiche from V.Brunch with a homemade crust I put too much EB in but was still okay.   And I think that's about it for cooked stuff!  Phew, sorry for the cursory writing about it all, too.  Somehow I think the pictures speak loud enough that it's okay I don't remember the details, plus this raw food thing is making me spacey... zomg.  It's great, but I'll be glad to bring it down to maybe 60% raw after the next few days.  Can't wait to show you what that's been like, though! 

Terry Testers!

Testing for Terry's latin cookbook has been loads of fun so far!  Everything is so much in line with what I like to eat anyway - whole foods, simple but interesting preparation, loads of lime and cilantro, and all the recipes mix and match very well, so every meal is a new surprise. 

Yellow Rice with Garlic ~ Columbian Style Red Beans

I had this for lunch today and it's probably my favourite thing so far!  They both take the exact same amount of time to cook, the prep is maybe 10 minutes, and ohhhhhhhhh it's good.  There's annatto and plantain in it and it manages to taste light and warm and sweet and earthy all at once.

Pickled Red Onions

These take possibly no time at all to make and they are delicious on sammies!  And burritos, tacos, the end of your fork, eaten right out of the jar, draped across the side of a heavier bean-y or fried dish... ultimately, they are good, and a welcome addition to the pickle collection my fridge has got going.  They are without doubt the prettiest member at the moment, too.

Mango Jicama Chopped Salad

I'm pretty sure that jicama is my new favourite vegetable, and this salad may be my favourite way to eat it... loads of lime, sweet mango, fresh herbage... mmmmm yes.  

So Good, So Green Dipping Sauce

See, I told you jicama was my new favourite vegetable!  I broke out my mandolin to do it up right.  I'll spill that there's lettuce in this sauce (among a myriad of other wonderful things), so it's kind of funny to think that this lettuce is dressed with itself but it works.  Oh, it works.  This sauce is pretty magical: zesty, creamy, spicy, cooling, and obviously an incredible shade of emerald.

Cilantro Lime Rice ~ Tofu Chicharrones ~ So Good, So Green Dipping Sauce

Ultra-fried smoky chewy chunks of porky tofu?  YES.  YES IT IS.  And you waaaaaant it.  Also, that rice has addictive properties.  All the rices so far have been hard to stop eating, actually.

Simple Sofrito

The basis for a few other dishes, it's super slow-cooked sweet browned onions + other things, and I am so glad I know the secret of this sofrito thing now.  It made a quick after-school meal taste like it had been cooked by experts all afternoon, just by me scooping some of this out of the container in the fridge and adding it to the pot.  Instant awesome!  Neat trick.

Next up I'll be trying some Pumpkin Soup and maybe the Mashed Potato Pancakes with Peanut Sauce (!)

january meets the colours of the rainbow

Happy Chinese new year everyone! For once I actually got to celebrate it, in a way - and on the correct day as well! At least, this was my lunch on the 26th. What tickles me more than anything is that I was able to make vegan tofu potstickers with an empty fridge boasting only carrots, cabbage and tofu. Because that's all you really need! Admittedly they were wanting for some sprightly green onion inside, but otherwise they were purrrrrrfect. Chewy gyoza can be for lunch anytime it wants at my house. Oh, and the star of the meal was actually the Hot Mustard Dipping Sauce from Vegan Fire & Spice. Two minutes to make and so flavourful!

As for the year of the Ox:

"This year will no doubt bear fruit, but the motto is: "No work, no pay!" Time waits for no man; if we are too lazy to sow then we can blame no one if we have nothing to reap. We will find a great many things requiring our attention, and the list of what needs to be done will seem endless. The Spartan influence of the Ox will be a constantly cracking whip over our heads. Better to apply oneself diligently than waste time arguing with the authorities. They will prevail, as the year of the Ox favors discipline."
- Feng Shui index

You know what? I can get behind that. I've been drawing temples and mandalas lately and I will be completely honest - it is tedious as all get-out. But I really do feel it will pay off later on. And I don't mind working hard in other areas of life too right now, perhaps with no evident reward. It's almost... liberating. I forget myself a bit.

But that's enough about life! Onto the good stuff, the foodstuff! ----------->

Okay, so I couldn't even believe I was eating this soup while I was eating it. It was lavender, and it tasted cheesy. I mean, it was magical princess soup or something. I'd made the cauliflower bisque from Vegan World Fusion before (it is SO good and easy, it's in my permanent repertoire), but never with a purple cauliflower. I also added delicious chunkies to it this time, like corn niblets and extra bits of cauliflower and ate it with a tiny little henge of caraway & raisin whole wheat soda bread.


And would you believe I didn't plan the symmetrical photo-op? Or even the symmetrical dinner? I guess it's not surprising that I was going for blended soups and little toasted starchy things though, it's been a flurried-snow january and I've been nursing a flu for a while. This one is the mellow lentil sniffle soup from Eat Drink & Be Vegan and I think it's actually my favourite lentil soup ever so far. There's something just so... right about it. It doesn't try to be anything but nicely balanced and nutritious and slurpy, and with some squash biscuits alongside I couldn't ask for a better snowy day dinner.

Oh, do you remember when I asked if anyone had any advice for non-sugary cranberry recipes? I think someone mentioned a cranberry dhal, which totally piqued my interest and that inspiration led to this creamy sweet potato & romano bean concoction, served with lemon rice cooked with a whole lemon. I was really wanting sour that day, and this was perfection.

Just the other day I made vegan*core's snickerdoodles because I'd never had one before and it was on the mental list of cookies to try someday (and also I had a tarot party to go to and cinnamon-sugar just seemed like a good idea to bring with me). The photo is terrible, but the cookies are fantastic. They're a white flour and sugar-fest (I only bake like this when I know I can give them away!), with a perfect slight-chew texture and crispy edges, and oh, they're gorgeous too. Like shimmery brown stars.... mmmm.


Another bad photo of something very yummy - I made essentially a flatbread pizza the other day on a homemade chapati with basil chipotle hummous on the bottom and tomatoes and peppers on top. But the real special part was what I managed to make out of leftover pureed squash. I only added nutritional yeast, lemon, olive oil, garlic powder, salt & pepper, but once it was baked up it tasted so much like a cheezy thing. Something gooey to sink the teeth into! I was pleasantly surprised!



Finally - possibly my favourite chinatown find of late - Hopia Baboy. It's a Filipino wintermelon pastry flavoured with green onion!! Astoundingly good. You just pop it into a very hot oven for 5 minutes or so to get toasty and flaky and then oh my goodness, it's like an instant sugar pie with sesames and a haunting bit of onion that totally works. I think some of the time they're flavoured with pork fat, which is slightly horrifying, but these ones were clean and clear. And they last forever. I bought a little blue package of them months ago and I just pull one out of the fridge and bake it whenever I want something aromatic and sticky to nosh. Sooooo good!

when the weather looks like this...

I came home to this sight the other day. It was kind of funny, actually - I'd just trudged home through a blizzard with visions of hot stew in my head and what do I find but the storm decided to join me in my kitchen!

Ha, it was okay. I managed not to step in any of the puddles and was very very thankful for the crockpot stew I had put on the night before. Yeah, I actually used my crockpot! *shock* my mom would be proud. I had actually been so busy that I acted the great cliche and took it down off the highest shelf I have to put some veganomicon cholent-style ingredients together the night before.

I'm actually not sure if I'm sold on the tarragon + caraway thing... but it was warm and hearty and perfect at the time. (ie: full of potatoes). I added tabasco and corn, too.

Earlier than that (or later? oh I don't remember. sometime!) I made vcon lemon & pea risotto with roasted red peppers.

I don't know why people complain about leftover risotto! I actually thought this was tastiest cold out of the fridge, slurped up like cold lemony pudding. I'm weird, yes. I tried Risotto al Salto too, to try it (basically fried up like a fritter), which was fine. But nothing on the ice-cold stuff!

I posted about hoecakes before, so there isn't much to say about the big yellow thing on the plate - except maybe to amend my recipe to stress than fine cornmeal should be used in a hoecake. This one was coarse which did NOT work anywhere near as well, but ah you learn. The interesting bit, at least to me, is that grayish dip-like blob in the corner. It was very tasty! It's black bean & orange dip from ED&BV, and it's a little sweeter than a regular b.bean dip and really great on wraps and things.

In the midst of being busy I made some muffins to take to school. I wonder why I decided to make jammy muffins to put in my bag? Ha ha, anyway, they're hearty jam-dot muffins from Fran Costigan's second book. They're okay... I like that there's lots of toasted oats and sesame in them, and my mom's homemade plum jelly. A wee bit heavy, but I subbed some stuff so it could have been my bad.

Over christmas my dad bought me some veggie burgers for christmas eve Burger Night (woohoo!), which happened to be Amy's California Burgers. They're soooooo good! They don't taste a blessed thing like fakey meatstuff, but they DO taste like toasted bulger and mushrooms and loads of other great all-natural things. I had some on buns, and some on salad with tahini dressing and both ways were awesome. I had the last one today though, and I don't know what to do because I never buy pre-packaged food for myself but I think I've fallen in love!


And finally... we call this an economic birthday, or a belated one, or whatever. It's a full moon tonight and though it's neither of these boys' birthdays (although it's close), it's definitely always a good time for a chocolate jalapeno cake with ganache topping and strawberries inside. Yeah, I know!! It's another Extraveganza cake recipe and holy schlamoli, it's SO tender and delicious and soft peppery perfect, I tried a whole bunch of it that stuck to the cake tin. ^_^;

Word to the wise: the recipe mentions nothing about de-panning this cake, and in fact implies that it shouldn't be, I think, at least when you read the icing recipe along with it. I did anyway and it was a total headache cause it was so fluffy and sticky (and criminally delicious. did I mention that?), but I think it came through the operation 97% intact. Minus the chunks I ate. (I'm starting to think that being able to fix cake disasters is as useful as baking one that tastes good... :P)

Anyone else notice how the stuff on top kinda looks like a crab? Not planned! But I like it.

supermodel curry and earlobe sweets

I always end up making curry on a whim. Without fail I am on my way to make something else, something usually boring and somehow between the fridge and the stovetop it turns into curry in my brain and I'm always thankful for the switch. I can always eat more red lentils... and I got to try out these unreal curry powders my friend J brought me from India when he went this summer. Why have I not used these all over the place before???? They are crazy good, more on them later. They made an acorn squash, red lentil, coconut, pea and green pepper curry absolutely golden. Actually, pistachio coloured. Who says curry is homely? And cardamom raisin quinoa underneath doesn't hurt in the pretty department, either.

Here are those spices (I couldn't be happier that there's massive quantities of both).

The south indian blend has --- white pepper, chili, mango powder, dagger fool, clove, ginger, mace, citric acid, concoun, cassia, and akarkhora. Badass.

The garam masala is black cumin, black pepper, bay leaves, piper, cinnamon, mace, nutmeg, clove, black cardamom, ginger.

These are seriously aromatic and complex, and for some reason taste different in every curry I add them to. Maybe it's like that chemical thing where the same perfume smells different on various wrists? Maybe it's the akarkhora.

Then I made some DAIIIII-FU-KUUUU, yippee! I didn't realize I was out of red dye for my envisioned green-and-red holiday colours, but I did have a beet, which worked perfectly and the subtle flavour didn't mess with the beans at all. They are bean paste (anko) filled, which has got to be my favourite stuff ever. I'm still not 100% on the mochi part, I may have found the one food I'm not super crazy for, but they are definitely fun to make. And it was much as Julie in Japan describes: truly they are weird. But I did keep eating it and then later I did really want another one. That strange earlobe jellyness kinda becomes... intriguing? In a way? I must say I can taste the difference in the supple freshness of homemade mochi versus those awful pucks I got over christmas.

Okay, this is actually making my mouth water now, so disregard any blabbing about weirdness. You can also see that I like my anko (I LOVE my anko) chunky, generous in proportion to earlobe-jelly, and only moderately sweet.

J's (half awake) response was A: "They look like the kind of thing that people eat in cartoons, Liz." (I nodded). And B: "Hmm... they taste like rice cake." Which I thought was mighty open-minded for a technicoloured blobby-dessert ambush, and indicative of an awesome generation of eaters. My parents would have certainly gone for the bugspray or something. :)
Yay Daifuku!!

EDIT:
In response to KingoftheFrogs -- what I did for the mochi:

The red and the green both had pretty different textures, since I used more water in the green, but they were both good... it takes some playing around I think.

approximately...
1 cup rice flour
1/4 cup sugar
2/3 cup water + (if needed) 2-3 tablespoons
food colouring (optional)
(1 cup of anko/red bean paste)

* stir the flour, water, sugar and colouring together in a microwave-safe bowl, adding more water so that it's smooth (but still pretty thick)

* microwave 2 minutes, then stir it like crazy

* microwave until it inflates, stir like crazy and stretch it and wack it with a wooden spoon until it's smooth and bouncy.

* turn it onto a tray covered with potato starch (or cornstarch) and roll it into a snake, then cut that snake into 12 equal pieces.

* stretch a piece into a disc, thicker in the middle than at the edges, place 1 tablespoon of anko paste in the middle and wrap it up like a parcel, pinching the seam to join the mochi together. Dust with extra cornstarch, and set it aside, repeat with remaining mochi pieces.

note 1: they freeze pretty much perfectly, so uneaten candy can be squirreled away for later.

note 2: anko is soooo easy to make, it's just red beans cooked with sugar and a touch of salt. Take cooked adzuki beans, add sugar til it's sweet enough for you, mash with a spoon and cook over medium heat stirring constantly until it's really thick, like cookie dough. Let it cool completely before using.