But that's life, and this is tofu

Summertime and some are slacking!  That is to say --- oh oh I'm sorry I dropped off the face of the blog-Earth!  I've been pretty busy, writing papers, painting spiders and lettuce leaves, taking t'ai chi, dating someone (yey), still cooking up a storm, and just not really feeling like there's been a good time to blog about it.  But really, it's getting ridiculous... I've lost count of how many photos I have.  Stacks.  And they're getting outdated, I'm forgetting if I used olives or capers in these stuffed tofus for example... at any rate I used Kittee's Method of the Stars to stuff them full of olive-oily spinach, red peppers, and raisins (I think).  Other good things, then breaded them in cornflakes, baked, and ate most of them all chewy-cold out of the fridge - like moment's notice hunger-killers, basically.

Sushi!  But with black rice this time, which is really more of a purple, and taste-wise isn't quite sushi bliss... but it sure is pretty.  I kinda feel like this is sushi with a silk tie on, or something.

And speaking of oceanic treats, my sister and I discovered some fantastic package of salty fried nori in her cupboards.  This stuff is gooooood.  For my money, beats the pants off of potato chips.

Sis thinks so too!

Then for a while I was all in love with med-firm tofu and it's magical ability to become some luxurious (yet low guilt) salad dressing at a moment's notice.  I played around with a few varieties - I tried the Vegan World Fusion Caesar (yum!), I made a kind of ranch, and my favourite was a curried apricot dressing that was very inspired by something from the Millenium cookbook, although I changed it entirely...  I even found the notepad file I wrote the recipe on!  So here it is ----

1/4 lb. med-firm tofu

1-2 dried apricots, soaked well and chopped

1 tsp rice vinegar

1/2 tsp curry powder

1/4 tsp garam masala

1/8 tsp cardamom

pinch of cayenne

1 tsp almond butter

1 tsp canola oil

enough water to thin

Blend!  Blend like yo salad depends on it!  

My favourite part of tofu dressings is putting on so much that you can eat the extra at the bottom with a spoon. :)

Isa's perfect chocolate chip cookies are, by the way, and if you hadn't heard - perfect.  Utterly perfect.  Me and this cookie had a bit of a moment... time stopped outside my window, cars drove softly past and I felt like all the sweet chewy vanill-y mass was just going straight into my heart (forget stomachs).  Good times.  Oh!  And this is only from batch number two.  I made them before, maybe not creaming quite enough so they spread a bit, but obviously still amazing enough to convince me to try again.

Not having ever tried a Madhur Jaffrey recipe I figured I would give it a go, finally.  Her dhal intrigued me in how it has a whole lemon sliced right into it, and it really works!  Totally makes it a different sort of creature than your regular lentil-mash.  I ate it up with --- oh oh oh oh!!  guess what!!!  I got a food processor!  Or at least, an attachment for my new stick blender that my mom got me (love moms!).  I turned veggies into confetti in like, 10 seconds, wow.  Anyway, yeah, I stuffed said veggies (sauted with garlic, mustard seeds, cider vinegar, bit of braggs, maybe a bit of tahini? possibly caraway seeds, too) into a paratha, and then ate the mountain of leftovers too, because it was pretty delicious stuff.  

I also think I'm finally getting the hang of cakes.  Getting the right ratio of textures, flavours, sizes, richnesses, bursts of things, etc.  This was so well-balanced, one of my favourites in recent memory!  It's a chocolate mint cake with minty vanilla buttercream sandwiched between, whipped ganache on top, and loads of little violets, to celebrate spring or some such twee sentiment that surprised me in actually tasting good as well as looking way pretty.  I ended up dipping the extra violet stems in the leftover ganache!  And the cake... was this joyous kind of refreshing melt-in-your-mouth confection that I had (Mwahahaha!) MOSTLY to myself.  Usually I'm the one giving away desserts too soon, but this one was totally mine.  Yum!

*ackdroolzzz*  don't you wish there was taste-o-vision?

glutenless (almost), zuke-filled and springish

So I've been busy!  I have photos going back so far I don't even remember the niceties of what went into the food!  Could be better this way, though... do a nice skim over with some sexy photoage and then I get to go RUN OUTSIDE AND PLAY!!!!  Because it's so nice out.  It's been hard to want to do anything else, besides run around the city on luscious errands ("Ummmm... I need a light bulb.  Let's go on a 3-hour sun-drenched walk!").  The markets nearby have been getting more fragrant by the day.  Mangoes are getting delicious again.  I'm listening to some pastoral Vashti Bunyan I picked up at a thrift store today and I'm having a hard time remembering the kind of cold that prompts lentil loaf, such as the one pictured above, but hey, it was needed at the time, and it WAS nostalgically yummy.  I'm not sure about the whole vegan Loaf Craze, I think it might be my second one ever, but this one turned out remarkably well.  It was even gluten-free, adapted from this recipe with some amaranth and rosemary added and some other changes I really don't remember right now.  And it's an excuse to eat ketchup, as if I wouldn't eat it off a spoon, anyway. :)

I usually feel funny posting about salads, since it's like, well, vegetables.  With oil and salt and things.  But this one was like a bomb of happy went off in my mouth, so here it is.  I think there was berries, daikon, carrot, goji, ume vinegar and mirin involved, maybe some tamari.  Good stuff!!  I think this is when I began to taste spring, a little bit.

And if I wasn't careful, Satchmo was gonna taste my peanut butter banana oat muffins!!  These are soooo perfect if you don't want anything even remotely evil in a baked good, and I really didn't at the time.  It's just every ingredient listed in the title, plus some baking powder, cinnamon, and raisins for sweetness and that's it.  I mean, admittedly I added some salt and allspice, but that's still earnest.  And they made perfect desserts for anything, since I made them mini I could celebrate putting my clothes in the dryer with a muffin if I wanted.  Oh yeah!  And gluten free, too!  Like the loaf, completely subconscious on my part, but neat.  Oh, and recipe is from aTxVegan!

Later I made some split pea soup because it's probably my favourite, this time heavy on red peppers and with quinoa in it as well, which made it a lot lighter and smoother, and better for warmer times.  With my first sundried tomato pesto on rusks beside it.

And I ought to open Vegan Fire & Spice WAY more often, because it's just crammed full of launching-pads for creative dinners.  I was way too lazy to cook up brown rice one night, so I riffed off the Persian Orange Rice with Pistachios, using couscous and walnuts instead.  Really good!!!  Totally orangey and warmly spiced and great with zataar-spiced vegetables to mix into it (especially zucchinis!)

CHOCOLATE !!

The best dark chocolate I've ever had?  Possibly... quite possibly.  My sister got it almost cheap because it broke into two pieces, thus affected the taste irrevocably and rendering it only fit for ruffians such as us to consume.  Ahhhhh broken chocolate... also calorie-free I hear!  And isn't that aztec-y wheel printed on the back gorgeous?  The coffee beans in it are roasted near to a meltaway powder, and there's tons of them, and you should go to the Chocomotive site and order some of this and maybe send some to me, or just definitely pick some up if you ever see it broken in a store near you.

Yay!  I am predictable like this, in that it's a wrap sandwich, but check it out, this one's special.  I had the stroke of genius to mix in a whole buttload of fine-chopped scallion into my usual roti and it worked.  SO.  Well.  The tofu mix wasn't half-bad besides, and maybe I've just been craving dijon really madly lately, but this was really good.  If you haven't tried green beans in a sandwich before, you're missing out, too!  Lightly steamed, rinsed cold, loaded along with zukes, sweet pickled onions, more dijon and grated carrot = win!  I even remember what I did with this one ...

French-ish Tofu Salad 

makes enough for 2 generous sammiches

1/2 lb. firm tofu - herbed is nice

1 tbsp fresh lemon juice

3-4 tbsp mayo

1 tsp coarse ground dijon mustard

1 tsp dried parsley

1/2 tsp sweet paprika

1/4 tsp tarragon

salt and fresh black pepper to taste

- in a bowl, mush up the tofu with your hands (squish squish) until it's mushy like ricotta.  Mix in the remaining ingredients, adjusting to your own taste, then stuff into breadish things and nom.

Scallion Flatbread 

makes two 10" breads

1/2 cup whole wheat flour

1/4 all-purpose flour

2 tsp hazelnut oil

a good pinch of salt

1/4 cup fine-chopped scallion

6-8 tbsp warm water (it will really depend)

- In a large bowl mix together the flours, oil, salt, and scallion.  Slowly splash in the water and mix until a dough is formed.  Knead it for a minute or two - it should be a wet dough, but if it gets too wet (and it might due to onion moisture), just add a bit more flour and keep going.  When it's slightly elastic, pop it back into the bowl and cover it with a towel.  Let that sit for a few minutes while you heat up a heavy iron skillet over medium heat.  Take out the dough and divide in two balls, dip them in flour and roll them flat (I usually get a 10" circle), then cook in the dry skillet about 2 minutes each side, until brown spots appear and it smells toasty.  Instant lunch!

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!

from sloppy to dainty and persimmon between

Gorgeous! Floating rice in big white space! It's the hunan fried rice from Vegan Fire & Spice, which is actually pretty fantastic. It actually has flavour, and I especially love how the tofu pellets explode with sherry goodness. I switched up the vegetables completely and can see myself pulling out this basic recipe to accomodate any old veg & rice, cause it's really yum and takes like 2 minutes to bash up.

Equally fast and furious - the snobby joes from the Veganomicon on spaghetti squash with baked paprika yam fries from Extraveganza. I'm so officially hooked on spaghetti squash right now, it's like noodles except refreshing. It had been so long since I'd had it that I forgot you could actually slurp the stuff, and that became so much the deciding factor in my new love for it. Veg! You can slurp! Everyone wins. :)

Persimmon blondies!! As luscious as they sound and look, they're a tester recipe for Hannah's upcoming book. I am super lucky that things like this freeze well, or I'd have polished off the pan already. :p

And I picked up a cool looking bag of assorted herbs in chinatown the other day. It was only 70 cents and I kind of saw it as a taster pack of a bunch of exotic ingredients I might never get around to trying all in one spot. Like... lotus seeds, dioscorea, dried lily bulb, fox nuts, dried longan and polygonatum. And a big pouch of barley!

I assumed it was for boiling with chicken for to make extra-healthified chicken soup (at least according to my book on asian cooking) so I just skipped the chicken part and boiled it for 45 minutes or so. The funny thing is that I went for a quick grocery run in the middle - yes I am that bad and I leave the stove on while I'm gone sometimes ^^; - and when I came back the apartment smelled so nutty and sweet and... quite like chicken soup. Strange! But not bad. I strained it out because the solids were tasteless, added some tamari, green onion and tofu cube and it was strangely very satisfying. Not a taste sensation or anything, but it felt good going down the throat and I could see myself picking up a pack the next time I get a cold.

You're also gonna think I'm weird, maybe, but this salad was a great accompaniment to barley broth. I didn't know that endive, pear and pecan (in my case walnut) was such a classic salad! This is the veganomicon version, but I'm pretty interested in playing around with the components, maybe adding some fermented tofu as a blue cheese element, or tossing in some roasted beets like Emilie did. It's also so pleasingly in season, I love that. So far, winter hasn't been half bad!

new cookbook - get it ripe!

Wowee, I actually splurged and got myself a new repository of recipeeeez, hurray. I decided on Jae Steele's book, Get It Ripe, mostly because of how healthy and easy it all looked, and it seemed perfect now that school's started to keep my time in the kitchen to a relaxed minimum.
(also, she's a local gal who runs between montreal and toronto a lot, and also - Aux Vivres restaurant recipes, like the Millet & Mushroom Tortiere? Yes, please!)

First up, and so far my fave - Baked Barbecue Tofu with mushrooms and green peppers. SO more-ish (spicy, tomato-y, nutty!), and it takes all of 3 minutes to throw together. And excellent cold the next day.

The lentil dhal was also a winner! It should be with red lentils, for the record - I only had brown. But still very very delicious. (I added a bit of EB, for that ghee kinda taste, and slathered it on rice cakes for the next few days - amazing!)

I had slightly less luck with the baked goods... the gingerbread had a wonderful flavour, but was so delicate, I had to handle it with surgeon's care to get every pillow-soft crumb into my mouth!

And the infamous flax-maple cookies were less like shortbread and more like biscuits, but once I wrapped my head around their less-sweet character, I realized they really were a lovely after-school teatime snack. And SO simple to throw together, I probably stood in front of a bowl for a minute and half, threw the pretty coins in the oven for another few minutes and cookie-baking time was over. So really, perfect for september! And also - very healthy! Win-win.

There's also a million awesome pages of baking tips, health information, cooking charts and personable advice, so there's that going for it, too. Oh, and beautiful pictures. It's a really cute book! And I definitely know where I'll be going for dinner ideas when I'm in a rush. :)

homecoming (or, "Spot the Tomato!")

So I'm writing this from the comfy green rocking recliner in my mother's living room, covered in flour and crossing recipes off of the veganomicon index faster than I can decide on the next thing I want to make, and that is to say - life (or at least my pseudo-vacation before school starts full throttle again in september) is good.

I even got to make a pie - a birthday peach and blueberry pie at my mother's request, using the vcon pastry instead of my usual. It's definitely easier to use, like those pie crusts you see on television that people just sort of toss into the pan... but I think next time I'll stick with my madness-inducing-yet-extraordinarily-tender crust I usually use. Because personally I'd rather my pie disintegrate into buttery flakes at the touch of a fork than look pretty and pert, but that's just me.... and I'm just a pie-obsesso who so rarely gets to make them... :p

Mmm... and I'm mentioning here that in an awesome and unplanned way, there is a tomato in just about everything in this post. Which makes sense! It being the season and all. But I'm mentioning it so you can play along and find them. Like in the vcon midsummer corn chowder, which is SOOO good, you have to make it! With rosemary focaccia it was perfect, and there was a big paprika'd mountain of hummus on the table, too.

My old old old old cats say hi! They're still doing their thing where they act like mirrors or parallels of eachother. Haha, cute.

Went out for dinner at Corners on Bank. Not much to say... I mean, it was crazy delicious, but it was just a Boca burger. I guess to people who never ever eat those things it's a special treat, though. And they very happily let me pick my own toppings off of the menu options, so I got chipotle salsa, caramelized onions and guacamole, and the calabrese bun was teeth-sinking yeasty and notably fresh, so really, who's complaining at all?

Okay me, for forgetting to ask for my salad sans dressing. :p

I'm in love with hoecakes now, too. So easy to make and really surprisingly good. I made mine like...

1 cup cornmeal
3/4 cup water
1/4 cup almond milk
1/2 tsp salt
2 tbsp chopped pickled jalapenos
1/4 cup sauteed onions
pinch of sugar
pepper

Fry them up, eat with salsa, say yum yum yum and think why didn't I make DOUBLE that amount because now I have to give my lunch to my sister who just came in the door with hoecake longing in her eyes. Alas, alas.....

....at least I got the vcon mexican millet all to myself! It wasn't gonna happen like that - I was making it for everybody, but everybody went to bed, and then a forkful of it went in my mouth and any plans to eat anything else went ~poof~ and I had half the pot all for me, and it was so good. I love millet! Especially when it's buttery and nutty and crisp/creamy, and eaten out of a dainty little rice bowl.

And then vcon blintzes, with dill-tahini sauce, applesauce and pickled red cabbage. A lot of work for something that tasted pretty perogi-like, but delicious nonetheless. Especially when all the toppings glooped together to form SUPER GLOOP of the potato-y sauce-y goodness.

Slice of Pie! Look at that structural integrity! ^.^

And lunch today - vcon creamy tomato soup (+ broccoli) with celine's cheezy crackers (YUM!) and vcon mushroom-walnut pate with more lentils and less walnuts because that's what I had.

(in conclusion: I love tomatoes! <------- ze obvious) :D

montreal food (before the vaycay)

So it's been a while... I feel a little overwhelmed by food photos and at least 300 unread entries on my blogroll... but hey, I'm back at school on Thursday and with school comes avoidant tendencies, boredom, and a need to gaze at other people's food successes/experiments/disasters/what-have-you with rapt attention. I think that's why I'm opening the first of my re-cap posts with that excellent tangle of stir fry up there. It's not like, blog-worthy in any classic sense of the word, it involved a lot of green thai curry paste and normal normal stuff... but it was the best stir fry I've made so far! And I got to use my mung bean flat noodles (which looked shockingly like glass and tasted like hyper-jello in a very good way). And I threw the whole thai theme in a blender by using lentil sprouts, but anyway, this was excellent. And all a-tangle, which is how I feel right now. (also, for the record I got my fall/winter marks back and I got straight As!!!). A-tangle I say! So on with the foods before my mind ties me in noodley-knots, tee hee...

I should probably just label the simple stuff -- here's some VwaV chocolate pudding with vastly reduced sugar and added pureed strawberries and banana. I err... don't recommend these adjustments so much. Still hit the chocolate craving, but it wasn't really pudding in any decadent sense, ah well.

French lentil soup from the Vcon, with a kale & maple-mustard salad. VERY good, all of it. I could eat sweetly dressed kale every day of the week and tarragon-y lentils = Win.

Sopa de Chayote! Alas, my second chayote (or Mirliton) wasn't quite enough to justify using it in a full-on cool recipe like Kittee's stuffed squash, I did manage to find a recipe for this easy soup that might beat out gazpacho as my favourite chilled hot-weather repast. Go make this! It actually showcases the oh-so subtle flavour of the chayote, which also lends it this quirky green colour. Mexican dinner party starter soup? Uhhhh.... yes.

Vcon strawberry-plum crisp -- amazingly more than the sum of it's parts. The fruit turns into what I imagine vegetarian vampires would want to nosh - gloopy, crimson, sweet and tart, and also the aniseseed in the crust made me extra happy. I always forget how much I like baked strawberries what with all my raw eating, but this reminded me of the whole "strawberry-bomb" phenomena. Like how they get all warm and explodey when they're cooked. Hee, anyway...

*drumrollllllll*

Best cookies ever. (okay, best CHOCOLATE cookies ever). Thank you Vcon, the chocolate chocolate chip walnut cookies have pretty much been renamed Supernova Desirious Nexi-Yums in my mind, which is a silly name to be sure, but almost manages to convey what a job they did on my knees when I bit one warm from the oven (those knees wobbled. a lot). I made them for my painting class, then thought better of it, and saved them for my friends and I to gush over at leisure. (oh, and I made the chocolate-orange version... mmmmmmmorange!).


More food to come! Swell Vegan tester scones and redcurrant cupcakes and lots of things in mini-form and egads, well, a lot. Next post soon!

Swell Vegan Sweet Potatoes #1

Yum! Amazing! Could I gush more? I should! I was fortunate enough to be a tester for the very talented A-K of the Swell Vegan blog, and I've just fallen in love with her Sweet Potato & Black Bean Burgers with Millet and Leeks! They're so delicious, with a sweet note of almond butter, some spicy mexi-kick, a nice meaty bite and very easy to make. I usually douse my burgers in nayo and ketchup, but not this time! Condiments like that t'would be sacrilege in this case, as they're plenty flavourful enough on their own (though her suggestion of guacamole would be verrrrry nice, I'm thinking). They firm up nice, too!

Aren't they pretty? There was much (much) finger licking going on during forming of these things. I can't wait to get on the scone recipe....

And yesterday I wanted lentil soup but also not to work very hard, so I made the vcon Ancho Lentil Soup. Which was good, but I kinda wish it were spicier, or the ancho flavour more pronounced (and I used a huge one). Or even had vegetables in it of any kind? The pineapples were a fun touch, though.

Aaaaand, I promised myself a bar of Terra Nostra Rice Milk Chocolate on Zombie Jesus Day but got sidetracked by florentine'd tofu and other foods that AREN'T CHOCOLATE (insane, I know). So I fixed that and bought a bar, and woah! This is some special milky-mouth-melt action! I think dark is still my absolute favourite, but it's an utter treat to reach into the chocolate drawer (yes, I have one of those - usually 2 or 3 bars open at any given time... for emergencies!) and pull out milk chocolate. *grin*