VeMoFo#14: Maple > Vegetables

Moving along, and making banana nut waffles a la Vcon, with no berries, but no one's ever complained about excess banana around here, nor a waffle method that involves a nicely greased grill pan and some patience (and low standards for crispiness).  This is pre-waffle iron era, which HAS been christened with Apple-waffs + raspberries + maple soy cream since, but that's a topic to be addressed under the next photo.

No, not an Applewaff here, but the mango-pear pandowdy which is all KINDS of amazing.  I'm going out on a limb here and saying it might be the best pie I've ever made, or at the very least it's in the top 5.  Which wouldn't be complete at all without a big swodge of maple Natur-a Soy Glace Dessert -- my new obsession.  I've been swirling it into coffee for an occasional treat, eating it on raisin-toast, waffles, certainly on pie, where it melts into that lovely fruity cinnamon cornstarch goo we all make pie for, or at least I know I do.

<------ this stuff!  Probably only available in Canada, but if you find it, grab it.  The strawberry flavour of the same brand is passable, but this stuff is brilliant!  It's not a super decadent thing, and the soy flavour is there, but I'm kinda old-school like that, I guess, and it's cheap and not crazy fattening, which are admittedly minor priorities if I'm being honest and everything.  A+ to my taste!

Vegan Vanilla Waffle Cones, finally in my belly

It's a thing of beauty, isn't it?  The "ice cream" is not the central player here, it is just frozen creamed banana with some almond butter.  No, no, the best part is the homemade waffle cone bowl.  Yes!  Homemade and still warm and about as thick as a crepe and snapping off into big crunchy pieces I could dip in the cold banana, dripping with bits of chocolate cherry sauce and toasted flaky almonds.... I love dinners like this (dinner indeed) and whatever inspires me to make them.  

I'm trying to remember what inspired me to make this....

Oh right!  It was watching Hubert Keller make a waffle cone something-or-other on Top Chef Masters (I think it was Keller, don't quote me on that).  And the fact that every time I pass an ice cream shop I basically just stop and drool at the buttery cone smell.  Thankfully Gale Gand had a recipe that's essentially vegan, so I whipped it up with a kind of MacGuyver-esque method of squishing the batter between a liberally lubed-up saucepan and a frypan.  'Cause I don't have a waffle iron (yet).

Check it out!  Method of champions!  Ha ha, well, its an interesting progression nonetheless.  The first one was floppy-doppy, not hard or thin enough at all.  The second was after I broke out the second pan for squishing, and it was much better, much more crisp.  Things just improved down the line... none of them were quite as thin as I'd like (I might make a slightly thinner batter next time), and they were lacking the little waffle pattern that I bet contributes to a high shatter-factor, but they were otherwise the real deal!

Leading ultimately to this glorious bowl of sweet sweet goo............ gone in 5 minutes, probably. :)

I'd like to try the others with a real ice cream, though, and I have a few cups of slightly-sweetened coconut milk in my freezer waiting for just a purpose such as this... does anyone have a favourite recipe?  It doesn't necessarily have to be coconut flavoured, but coconut-rum would be pretty cool.  

Vegan Vanilla Waffle Cones

(adapted from Gale Gand)

1 cup heavy soy cream

1 1/2 tsp vanilla

1 1/2 cups icing sugar

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1/4 tsp cinnamon

pinch of ground nutmeg

1 tbsp cornstarch

oil for the iron

In a bowl, briskly whip together the cream with the vanilla.  Sift together the dry ingredients, then add them to the wet and stir just to mix smooth the biggest lumps.  Let the batter sit for 30 minutes.

Heat up a waffle cone iron (I don't know!  Maybe waffle irons come with attachments!) and brush with a little oil.  Pour in some batter and close to lid to bake and brown.  Open the iron and remove the browned batter and shape it while it's still warm.  You can wrap it around a cone shape to make a classic cone, fold it over a ramekin to make a deep bowl, turn it into a taco - whatever possibility you like, as long as you're fast and use oven mitts to protect your hands from burning!  

Let them cool, devour with ice cream.

R-r-r-r-r-r-andom. All out of order!

I don't particularly feel like sorting my pictures right now, there is just TOO MANY of them.  So, yes, here is the first, what a delight of puffy strawberry muffs in a basket!  Hannah's recipe is perfect for basic muffins, in fact I memorized it and freestyled a batch of chocolate-raspberry versions later while I was groggy and in my dad's kitchen at some ungodly hour of the night after breaking in un-announced and he didn't even know I was in town!  I raided the cupboards (after cleaning the place spotless, of course) and managed to at least find enough basic baking supplies to make them, lurvly brunette muffins, which will have a photo later in this post, because (of course) as I said - completely out of order.  Why not, right?

This is a banana-date scone from Veganomicon.  Somehow I thought it would be more decadent, being from the Vcon, but granted the whole introduction does mention it's healthy qualities explicitly, so I should have been duly warned.  Don't you love the background?  This was to fuel some tarot play time with a teatime friend who lets me bake for her (very nice of her).

I love Nigella, it's no secret to anyone who's met me (or at least heard her show playing from my bedroom whenever I need some serious calming and indulgence for the soul).  But strangely I've made .. well, none of her recipes so far.  That needed to be remedied, which I did with her moroccan-ish eggplant rolls with cinnamon, capers and bulgur ... YUM!!  Like what I imagine most of her food to taste like, it is soft, nuanced, silky and doesn't hit you over the head with electric or sour notes, so ultimately delicious, but I added more lemon. ;)

Pretty grill marks. :)

Ancient photo !!!!!

I made nachos with no nooch in the house.  I canvased the city (briefly) looking for a single serving of nacho chips just so I could have this to satisfy an immediate post-school craving.  It was everything awesome and more.  I made the cheese with cashews, oats, miso and hot chiles and it served the purpose mightily.

This is a pancake I made at my sister's house, using her mystery bag of mystery organic flour (we believe it was likely spelt), as well as some honey-like natural sugar, lots of coconut, some cashews wedged in there... maple syrup.  Other things.  It was so very very punk, as their larder was BARE and we still managed to have a sizzling merry breakfast on the hob in time for a decent 11 am-ish kind of hour.  I'd just read this book -- 

Which was a very anarchic ancient kind of (NON vegetarian) underground poetry/cookbook/highly vague anti-establishment montage of stuff, with many chapters waxing poetic about misty green mornings cooking rashers of bacon and potatoes and I was inspired at least to follow that part of the sentiment.  Much of this book was a little too dated and silly for me, but I liked the non-political jumbo.

As promised, a chocolate-raspberry mini-muff in a cup with Hagan-Daaz raspberry sherbert I found like a special present in my dad's deep freeze.  Hurray!  Went together like a dream, and though that iced stuff is sweeet, it is definitely top quality and I was definitely proud to call this lunch.

Like cocoa soldiers.  Did you know it took me about 27 minutes and the help of a disgruntled 13-year old to help me find where they had counter-intuitively stashed all their muffin cups?  (for the record: in the highest right invisible spot in the kitchen, behind the curry powder, above the plastic bags).  

There's more photo backlog, but this is probably browser-crashing enough with all the stuff in this post already, plus this random plate is a nice thematic end to a r-r-r-r-r-andom post.  This was my favourite dinner by SO much last week.  Probably the large luscious chunks of drippy tropical fruit had something to do with it, plus the arcade-style cacaphony of flavours all sharing one oddly harmonious restaurant-square plate.  There's papaya salsa, asian-dressed cabbage, an eggplant roll that didn't fit in the container I put in the freezer, and the BEST ASPECT OF ALL --- peanut butter and jam on rusks.  Perfection.

ps. I swear I'm not on drugs or even feeling all that strange.  I just rode a mechanical bull, though, (seriously!) and I'm mighty jazzed about that!

eats of the week

Just a quick update, a couple photos that have been on the computer for a few days...

In retrospect I think this was turnip, but the mashed rutabaga recipe from Vcon was nonetheless amazing, especially with corn (lime, coconut + corn? yes!)

And I'm really not exaggerating when I say this is my favourite tofu marinade yet - it's a Swell Vegan tester recipe for maple-mustard-chili tofu, and it's awesome. The salad paled in comparison, and the second half of the batch got eaten straight up, with glee, much like a plate of chicken nuggets of yore or something. Total make-again recipe!

And more pizza! I'm pizza-obsessed! J says I'm also crust-bubble obsessed, but he's quite allowed to say that because... I am. This is only my favourite crust-bubble, and there were many, each with a photo... I am a nerd. :D

And J is still staying with us, and my new roommate is a kitchen-goddess in her own right and works at the best vegan restaurant in the city, so we've been collaborating on dinners! Her own component of a brown rice macro bowl was so delicious there wasn't a speck of leftovers to take a photo of the next day (imagine perfectly cooked rice, confetti-bright vegetables and toasted sesames everywhere), but there was a little bit of my curry around for lunch the next day, so here it is. Aloo paratha, gajar salad, lentil sprouts and a really nice katirikka rasavangi (south indian eggplant curry). I think I might explore this south indian thing a bit more, I'm adoring the heat and the coconut.

And woo! Blackberry-lemon verbena sorbet success! I don't have an ice cream maker, so I had to nurse this stuff over the course of a few days, stirring it constantly and waiting for my wonky freezer to make it scoopable (I also had to add a bunch of water to help with the freezing, but I was really happy to do that, it was a little sweet in the beginning). Anyway, I'm totally hooked on this sorbet thing! It's so refreshing, and the herbal bit was transcendant. I'm thinking of trying vegan addict's Black Hole Sorbet next - it looks sooo decadent. yum!

it's the most wonderful time of the year if you happen to be muscular

Moving day this weekend. And moving day again, and again and again... my two best guy friends J and W moving to different apartments and a new roommate for me. It's been change! And a lot of fun, actually, even though I'm pretty sure my arms have doubled in size due to a constant and unending parade of boxes and audio equipment.

There's my man J, taking a well deserved break (silly man was so excited to move that he didn't sleep the night before and became Zombie J of the Wobbly Muscles). Note the wrought iron and the heavy-ass keyboard cases that evidently weigh about as much as 13 me's. (what, 1.3 tonnes?? okay....!)

You know what eases all this pain though? Vegan ice creamables. Well, not ice cream, and I admit I gazed longingly at the green tea gelato, but opted for the best of the options available to me, which was a nice mix of mango and strawberry sorbert. I've had better sorbet (namely, stuff that has flavour beyond "sweet and vaguely fruity", but still, the treat was super nice.

And then when all was finally done (okay, when the guys were done moving at least) we felt this huge empanada craving, so we headed to La Chilenita on St. Laurent ave, which does this otherworldy good Chilean food. I got the burrito grande, which I (eloquently) described later as "melt-in-your-mouth-face-stuffy". Everything I was craving and more.

I don't remember precisely what was in here, but I think this bad picture might refresh my memory... okay, Chilean black beans, slurpy sweet onions, rice, avocado, spicy red sauce, and YES YES TOFU! Not to mention multiple hot sauces on the side for slathering, which was particularly awesome because on the way to this place I specifically wished for rice in a burrito with multiple hot sauces on the side. There must have been restaurant fairies in the air.

Not vegan, but pretty funny -- J couldn't decide which nacho was the most ultimate of nachos worthy of becoming his last bite, and the competition between the two chips got a little out of hand, becoming what I can only describe as Mount Nachos (or alternatively, they kinda look like boobs).

(the one on the left-hand side was declared the unequivocal winner, by the way)

After the dust settled J stayed with me for a few nights before his own plans got worked out, and I took the opportunity to get some real food into his system. Can I mention here that getting food on the table is a whole 'nother world compared to all-day creative culinary noodling? I thought I did okay here, though. I made Vwav braised cauliflower with 3-seed sauce, chickpea cutlets curry-style (cumin, cayenne, turmeric, lime juice and cilantro), and some peas, for the green factor.

And then a mess of vcon brooklyn macaroni salad, which disappeared over the course of today, amidst a lot of slurping and crunching and digging into tupperware containers. No radish to be had, but I think I prefer it this way with red pepper and scallion instead!

Finally, my new roommate P showed up and we helped her with her own load of boxes, and an offhand suggestion of brownies to commemorate the occasion got followed by the fastest baked good I think I've ever thrown together - a nice half-batch of Vcon blueberry brownies. And I think you can tell that patience was none of our virtues and warm gooey blue choco-cakeness was needed in our mouths, and who needs tidy edges anyway? For some crazy reason blueberries and chocolate marry like epic lovers here. I'd ask "who knew?", but obviously a lot of people did. I'm just super glad I'm in on it now.

Weeeeeeeeeeeeee! Okay, now I sleep forever, and ever and ever and always. Except not, because I'm up tomorrow at 6 for school. But shhh! There's brownies for breakfast. And that makes everything very OK. :)

happy... Family Day! (no really, it's today)

Okay, first off -- I LOVE going home and I LOVE finally being in a house that practically inhales food faster than I can make it! It's so gratifying, and I can cook up a storm like I could never do for just myself. And there's a big 'ol feast I'm making tonight, so I have to throw up all the other pictures first so I can post about the dinner later. Anyway...

Peanut butter banana ice cream (based on ED&BV's Cashew Banana Ice Cream). This was the last meal I had before I got on the bus. Nice meal, eh? Ooh, I want to let *every* banana in the world go overripe and then freeze them all and make creamy nutty soft serve. ALL the TIME.

And this is the leftovers I brought with me on the bus -- the cauliflower curry and saffron garlic rice (both from the Veganomicon). The rice would be better with the chickpeas romesco I think, but it's still the best rice I've ever made, so I shovelled it all up anyway. Does anyone else feel like they're totally indulging by using white rice instead of brown?

I also brought a big container of tofu salad with me, because I make a really mean tofu salad, and I feel better travelling with a huge amount of no-brainer protein. It basically incorporates half my fridge door -- braggs, lemon juice, nayonnaise, dijon, bbq sauce, garlic, paprika, turmeric, thyme, oregano, pepper, nooch, diced pickles and red onion. Oh, and a niiiiiice loooooooong squirt of sriracha, 'cause I roll like that. It's so good. I had to fight my mom away from this sandwich.

So then my sister says "I'm hungry.... lizbeth, go make me something." and I'm like "YES. This is called the V-con. What does your heart desire?" and she goes "Chocolate Chip Brownie Waffles" and I'm like "You rule so hard I can't fathom your rulingness. Where's the cocoa?". These are basically the best thing to ever come off of a panini press, which we had to use instead of a waffle iron but that hardly matters because you could fry this on the sidewalk and it would still be good. They're all fudgey... but not too fudgey. Pleasantly mid-fudgey. *drool*

I can't believe I'm closing with vegetables. But I'm really proud of myself! I made a squash soup worthy of rivalling those little expensive pseudo-gourmet boxed soups. Nothing out of the ordinary, regular squash soup stuff like apple vinegar, almond milk, nutmeg, pepper, cinnamon, salt. A *tiny* bit of soup powder (but this kind was organic and actually tasted really nice). And a bit of maple syrup, and a bit of coconut milk. I didn't even warm it up, I just blended the roasted squash with everything and put it in the fridge to reheat when I need it, and it's, dare I say it, lovely.

...

So that's the spread, but there's a whole wack of goodies happening tonight, I spent all yesterday blending spices and prep-cooking pastes and making chutne---- oh, I shouldn't say anything else. (I made a cake!)

Okay, I'm done. :)


(oh, and my sister actually DOES rule the universe, and keeps bringing me home treats from her job at the health food store -- Belsoy puddings (chocolate and vanilla), asafoetida, gluten flour, thai ginger kettle chips, organic sesame-spelt bread, organic millet and red quinoa, vitasoy soynog (which is amazing, btw), carob chips, a jar of raw cashews about as big as a cat, lots of produce. Most of it free/about to expire. Quelle yay! I wuv her.)