Pictures Galore

I would consider myself fallen off the MoFo wagon. I was doomed to happen eventually and I’m glad I made it halfway through the month. To make up for it I have pictures. Proceed:

Apple Crumble from ”The Joy Of Vegan Baking” We made it in a 9×9 so it had a nice thick crumble crust. Perfect because the crisp is wonderful in this recipe. We used walnuts since we have tons of them.

I hope I don’t sound like I’m bragging when I talk about my gentleman friend and how wonderful he is. I’m just that happy. Case in point, here’s the dinner he made last night. Just roasted vegetables with fresh herbs, salt, and pepper. Served over white rice with all the aromatic olive oil from the veggies poured on top. Sometimes the simplest things are the best.

Yeah, he went on a cooking spree yesterday and made this too – green tomato relish – with all the green cherry tomatoes and cabbage we had in the fridge. He made most of the apple crisp too.

Some beautiful chili peppers from our last CSA box.

Teese-y pizza from a local joint. The ISU Veg Club had a meeting on Sunday and the president (also vegan and host of Vegan Drinks here in Ames) brought some Teese to put on the broccoli/jalapeño/garlic pizza. Twas amazing.

And finally a much better picture of the piggies.

Making a List

I make lists to get through the day. Visits to the co-op are dangerous without one and the minutes before class starts are devoted to making a to-do list for the rest of the day. My notes are scribbled with them.

I’ve been forced to make a Christmas list recently since I’ve been home. In all actuality I started one a while ago because I knew this would happen. I started one for myself, my gentleman friend, and a few others. We are going to try to make as many gifts this year as possible (though there are always those people who you can’t think of anything for).

Not surprisingly my list has numerous cooking supplies. Silly little things like a potato masher and a big frosting spatula. Big essential things like 9′ round cake pans that don’t rust and have 2 inch sides to contain all that wonderful cake batter. In my searching of the internet I found a bunch of cookie cutters. And really, cookie cutters make me so happy with so little effort. Here are the best ones:

And I suppose I should add his state (though I could probably just mush up a rectangle).

Squirrel!

Dinosaurs!!

I love trees. A lot. Enough to sell myself (plasma) for six months to have one tattooed on my back. So this is just a given.

I also want a bicycle cookie cutter but a quick search only revealed girlie bike cutters and I would like a top tube on my sugar cookies. I also found ridiculously cute cupcake/muffins liners which only wasted another ten minutes.

Some cute liners would be handy this week since I have both my oldest niece and my sister’s birthdays. I will certainly post pictures of the end results in all their vegan frosted glory. I will once again make use of my assistant and copious amounts of powdered sugar. I have strict orders from the little birthday girl to make her cake vanilla and some of the cupcakes, but knowing some adventurous cake eaters I will make some other interesting ones too. Suggestions are always welcome. I’m thinking of things I can add to vanilla batter.

Teamwork

The results of our cookie adventure last night. We baked, we danced to the Beastie Boys, and we frosted.

In short, we had a really good time. We don’t often cook dinner together. We have different ways and methods of cooking. As well as different ideas about things like measuring and following recipes. We can cook together for events, we did at his mom’s when we were there over the fourth of July. Most certainly we will cook together once again at Thanksgiving. We make it work and produce some great food, but I think we prefer to do it solo.

Baking, on the other hand, is really fun to do with someone else. It makes me loosen up and let things fly. We probably will not be frosting a 9-inch layer cake anytime soon (I can’t loosen up that much, though maybe for my birthday) but cookies and the like are perfect. Plus, its always fun to dance with someone else and feed them cookie dough.

Curry and Cookies

Sometimes you just have productive days. I had one today. I made friends with the vacuum, cleaned the fan blades in the kitchen, and baked pigs.

Pig cookies obviously. For a friend who has the pig sick. H1N1 doesn’t have the right ring and swine flu is overused so we call it pig sick. I’ll post pictures of them when all done. But for now I have a picture of Thai curry.

Canned curry paste is one of my favorite inventions. The recipe for the following picture is whatever veggies are in the fridge and need using, a can of coconut milk, half a can of green curry paste (check for fish sauce in the ingredients), and some soy sauce or salt. Really, thats about all it is. Quite possibly my favorite meal at home.

Now I’m back to the kitchen to supervise the rest of the pig cutting and make frosting. Mostly to watch the flour fly and dance. Advice for the day, always dance in the kitchen.

Off

I didn’t cook today. I baked, but since I only had a bit of it I don’t really consider it cooking. Outside of the bagel for breakfast I didn’t have much in the way of a meal. Everything else was haphazard snacking in between homework and going to see a movie (District 9, which I highly recommend). I did accomplish some homework and I’m going to read the last bit for class tomorrow, but on the whole I feel like I didn’t get much done.

I started looking at the job opportunities in the surrounding area and its pretty daunting. I don’t feel like I have many skills to offer other than baking stuff and waxing on about how great food is. While I do that at my job in Des Moines, its in Des Moines. I want to work in Ames so I can ride my bicycle and live in one residence permanently – for the sake of bank applications.

I’m just not in a good mood. Chalk it up to anxiety and the movie tonight (which was great, but very depressing – at least when you view it as a social commentary and not a sci fi alien flick). I wish it wasn’t so late, I would have a fancy Woodchuck and try to amuse myself.

Tomorrow I will cook. I’ll make something on the board. Or something comforting. Possibly both. And maybe, just maybe, it’ll use the head of cabbage sitting in the fridge. Until coffee tomorrow morning, have a good night.

Traditions

I made it half way through the month before I missed a day of posting. And since I missed one I said what the hey and missed two. In between baby shower planning and Woodchuck drinking I plum forgot.

And I really don’t have much to report for today. Its a Monday and, as yesterday was a long bike ride for my lover and a long car ride for me, we went to the Indian buffet for lunch today. Its become a very delicious lunch tradition.

Food traditions are probably my favorite. Everyone has them, and everyone’s family has even more. My family has Swedish meatballs for every holiday. My sweetheart and I have breakfast together every morning along with mucho café. Our celebratory restaurant is always Bali Satay here in Ames, the restaurant he celebrated his graduation from college at the and the same one I will in December. My mom, sister, and I make dozens of cookies every Christmas season and tons of lefse (which my mom eagerly said would be easy to make “so you can eat it”). We eat Grimes or Adel sweet corn in the summer and freeze it to enjoy at Christmas.

Traditions make me look forward to certain events every year. Card game and soup days in the fall, home improvement grill outs in the summer, gussied up Easter dinner, and right around the corner Thanksgiving. We get together and eat quite often in my family, but Thanksgiving means we all get a fancy plate. We all sit around the table on an assortment of tables, benches, and stools while my mom tells us what she’s thankful for and then makes everyone else answer — which much eye rolling from certain members of the family. But its over quickly and eat until we’re sick. There are traditions about how to pass food, who to skip over with the stuffing and vegetables and who to just leave the mashed potatoes next to. Its a fun filled afternoon.

I might not be there this Thanksgiving. Which is interesting to think about, but exciting at the same time. I might be celebrating Thanksgiving with his family. Something different, with new stories and new traditions. Whatever ends up happening, I’ll be making green bean casserole and scratch pumpkin pie.

Comfort Food and Comfort Beverages

I was so proud of myself.  I’m at my mom’s again to aid and assist so I brought my computer, my camera, and a determination to upload the pictures of the food I’ve made the last few days. I got home and checked my school stuff and email and was all set to upload photos and…

It died. I remembered everything I needed in my flurry to get here on time, except the power cord for my macbook. So it will wait a while. Instead I’ll just have to explain what I’m eating in explicit detail.

Continuing my mofo trend, I’m having comfort food. But this is my vegan comfort food. It was one of the first recipes I made that was vegan and its still one of my favorites. Its very fast, very cheap, and very customizable.

Its beans and tomatoes. Tonight I went the quick chili route and got out a pot, dumped in one can of diced tomatoes, one can of rinsed black beans, spoonfuls of chili seasoning and bbq seasoning, and let it cook until it thickened up a little. I spent all of four minutes doing this then opened a Woodchuck and waited. I’ll get to the Woodchuck in a minute.

The first veg cookbook I used consistently was Student’s Go Vegetarian. It was perfect because most things have one or two servings. Not everything was great (I tried making vegan pancakes and they weren’t so great. I’m glad Nick cooked his recipe for me and made breakfast my favorite meal again). But the black beans and tomatoes with polenta (or whatever its called) was so perfect and filling after so many nights of ramen or salad. I mix and match beans and flavorings with diced tomatoes and my favorites are:

Black beans, Ro*Tel tomatoes, chili spices

White Northern beans, Italian seasoned tomatoes, Italian herbs

Garbanzos, diced tomatoes, Turkish seasoning or a curry

Pinto beans, Ro*Tel tomatoes, taco seasoning

I could go on, but these are my favorites. Let them cook down and serve with rice/pasta/crackers/bread/tortillas or add some vegetable broth, a few extra veggies and make soup. Its amazing how happy this simple pairing can make me. Though I do find it odd that I never make this at home. Maybe because I like to cook more involved things there or maybe its just that by the time I get to my Mom’s I’m either off work and tired or just too lazy to do anything.

Back to the Woodchuck. I do not like beer, with a few exceptions. I don’t like anything hoppy and malty is ok but only a handful of days out of the year. Cider on the other hand is welcome. At the monthly Vegan Drinks in Ames I’ll treat myself to the Strongbow they have on tap, but thats about it. That changed tonight when I tried Woodchuck’s seasonal fall cider.

If I didn’t feel its silly to use expletives when writing something so even keel such as beans and tomatoes I would string out a list of words beginning with ‘holy’ and ending with ‘this is amazing’. Its like drinking fermented apple crisp. It tastes like fall. Its appley, cinnamony, comforty, you get the picture.

Unfortunately I just checked the site and its all done at the end of this month. I, apparently, missed the start of it in August. So now I’m left to stock up on this so I can enjoy it during the holidays – wherever I happen to be for them.

New and Old Survey

I was all set to fill out the obligatory Vegan MoFo survey. Since a year has passed I had no idea that this was the same one from last year. I know this because while looking for something else I found my survey from last year. The hilarious thing is, comparing the two makes it look like I have very set in my ways. I really like the one from last year so I’m going to post it again along with the answers from this year that I filled out before this epiphany. My answer for this year is the second answer.

1. Favorite non-dairy milk?
Vanilla Soy Dream.

Organic Valley Soy (original). What I really love about this one is that even if its a national brand a lot of the soybeans are grown here in Iowa. In fact, the name of the guy on the side of the carton seemed familiar and my parents know him and his family.

2. What are the top 3 dishes/recipes you are planning to cook?
Sometime in the next few weeks, pumpkin baked ziti (VCon), hypnosis cookie testers (for my dad), and green tomato cake.

We have a dry erase board with my ideas and still on the list is cheesecake, mango lassis, and mac ‘n’ cheese.

3. Topping of choice for popcorn?
Melted EB, Turkish seasoning, and nooch

EB, salt, and maybe a little bit of Turkish seasoning.

4. Most disastrous recipe/meal failure?
As a vegan I’d say an almond meal cookie tester. Those things did not work for me. And I made a soup once with red cabbage that had waaay too much salt in it.

Look back a few posts. I think the eel sauce turned tamari caramel was the worst.

5. Favorite pickled item?
Can I cheat and say cucumber pickles? Dill, refrigerator, sweet, garlic, doesn’t matter. Oh wait no, pickled ginger. Hands down.

I have a deep seated love for ‘pickles’ as in cucumber pickles. Especially with horseradish.

6. How do you organize your recipes?
HA! Organize? I have cookbooks strewn all over along with recipes written on scraps of paper. I also have an entire folder on my computer of random recipes that will probably never get made.

On my macbook I have a folder of go-to recipes. At home I have cookbooks and a dry erase board.

7. Compost, trash, or garbage disposal?
Trash at home, compost at Nick’s. My mom won’t let me build a compost bin. It sounds like I’m 16.

Compost. (Note: I now live with Nick)

8. If you were stranded on an island and could only bring 3 foods…what would they be (don’t worry about how you’ll cook them)?
Potatoes, coffee, and tofu.

Sweet potatoes (I decided this would replace squash and potatoes), nutritional yeast, and tofu.

9. Fondest food memory from your childhood?
Making Norwegian Christmas cookies every year. Krumkake, kringla, rosette’s, and loads of lefse.

Making Christmas cookies and lefse with the ladies of my family.

10. Favorite vegan ice cream?
Rice Dream Carrot Cake.

Ciao Bella Coconut Sorbet

11. Most loved kitchen appliance?
Marta, my Kitchenaid artisan stand mixer. But my blender is closing on, it might get a name soon.

Kitchenaid stand mixer – its technically my mom’s but nothing beats it for frosting. She even has a name, Marta.

12. Spice/herb you would die without?
Salt isn’t a spice so I will go with cumin or cinnamon.

Really? I work in a spice store, I cannot pick one. Salt is out since its not a spice or an herb, thank god I don’t have to make that decision. Do I go sweet or savory? I’m going to have to say cinnamon.

13. Cookbook you have owned for the longest time?
Pregan: Betty Crocker’s Cookbook circa 1975. Vegan: Vegan Planet, which I’m just now starting to cook out of.

Betty Crocker’s Cookbook printed in the 1970’s. It was my mom’s but I commandeered it.

14. Favorite flavor of jam/jelly?
Apple butter or ginger preserves.

Cherry

15. Favorite vegan recipe to serve to an omni friend?
Cookies or VCon lasagne

Chili or lasagne

16. Seitan, tofu, or tempeh?
They all have their place but for sheer versatility I’m going with tofu.

Tofu. My beloved’s tofu scramble is one of my favorite foods.

17. Favorite meal to cook (or time of day to cook)?
Breakfast. Fo’ sho. It involves coffee and all manner of sweets. Plus it has lots of fond memories.

I like baking, but since its not a meal I’ll say dinner.

18. What is sitting on top of your refrigerator?
A basket full of receipts. And a box of coffee that appeared from my mom.

Let’s see, a bottle of roommate’s booze, the “breakfast box” which is a valentine’s container we now use for muffins and cookies, and some protein powders for my endurance racing bedmate..

19. Name 3 items in your freezer without looking.
Frozen bananas, carrot sunshine muffins, tofu.

Blueberries, corn, old sour cream containers that are filled with compost that needs to be taken to the backyard.

20. What’s on your grocery list?
Oatmeal, greens, peanut butter.

Boca soy crumbles, peanut butter, fruit, saltine crackers

21. Favorite grocery store?
New Pioneer Co-op and Oneota Co-op. But since they are both at least two hours away I’m going with Wheatsfield Co-op. And HyVee if I’m not in a college town.

Wheatsfield Coop, my favorite store in town.

22. Name a recipe you’d love to veganize, but haven’t yet.
Any and all of my families Norwegian recipes. But mostly my grandma’s meatballs.

My grandma’s recipes for lefse (easy) and krumkake (very difficult)

23. Food blog you read the most (besides Isa’s because I know you check it everyday). Or maybe the top 3?
FatFree Vegan, The Conscious Kitchen, Vegan Dad

Vegan Dad, Fat Free Vegan, Bittersweet, David Lebowitz

24. Favorite vegan candy/chocolate?
Crystallized ginger. Or anything containing crystallized ginger.

I treat marshmallows as candy so I’ll go with Sweet & Sara’s.

25. Most extravagant food item purchased lately?
Maple syrup.

I don’t make many extravagant purchases. Probably the nice mushrooms for dinner tonight. Or maple syrup.

Apparently #26 either wasn’t there last year or I cut it off. So for ingredients I’m scared to work with, until a few days ago it was jackfruit, but I’m conquered that mountain. Now I’ll try to work up the guts to try fermented tofu.

Comfort Food

I don’t know what tipped me off but this afternoon was just sort of meh. I was irritable for some reason and I’m not exactly sure why. Maybe something to do with going in more circles with the bank we’re trying to open an account with. Or the gray day. Or the aches and shooting pains in my muscles. Whatever it was, I needed something that would take my mind off everything and result in something delicious. Since it was dinner time (and I don’t need anymore sweets, I already dipped into the leftover cream cheese frosting today) I decided to make my requisite holiday meal.

Apparently other families have roasts and turkeys and stuff on holidays. We have Swedish meatballs. And lest that get too monotonous we might add a pan of ham balls too. We love ground meat I guess. The hardest meat for me to give up was my mom’s meatballs. But that is no longer, since I figured out my own recipe that is eerily like hers, only without the risk of e. coli.

In an attempt to be really Scandinavian we even had lingonberry sauce with our meal. Cranberry sauce is overrated, this stuff is where its at. I’d like to say we’ll eat it on fancy things now that we opened the jar. But I foresee a lot of saltine crackers and toast with lingonberries. Though I’m hoping to get at least a little bit on some crêpes.

Back to the meatballs. Picture, then recipe.

• Grandma’s Swedish Meatballs – Veganized
• - 3/4 cup crushed saltine crackers or panko bread crumbs (20 saltines)
• - 1 tablespoon dried minced onion
• - 1 teaspoon ground black pepper
• - 1/2 teaspoon cloves (nutmeg can be used instead)
• - 2 tablespoons nutritional yeast
• - 3 tablespoons vital wheat gluten
• - 1 (12 ounce) package soy crumbles (I like Boca)
• - 1/4 cup soy milk
• - 3 tablespoons oil

1. - In a food processor combine crackers, onion, pepper, cloves, nutritional yeast, gluten, and 3/4 the burger-style crumbles until it begins to comes together.
2. - Pour into bowl and add the remainder of the crumbles.
3. - Add all but 2 tablespoons of milk and test if your “meat” will form a ball.
4. - If needed, because the mixture is too dry, add the additional milk. Form into 1 1/2 inch balls.
5. - In a large skillet over medium heat, brown the ‘meat’ balls in oil. Let them brown well before trying to move them or they’ll fall apart.
6. - Now either cool and store meatballs until the next day or bake them with mushroom gravy at 325ºF until the gravy bubbles and meatballs are heated through.

Jackfruit Carnitas

So I’ve had this can of jackfruit in brine sitting in my cupboard for several years. And I have this jar of rojo sauce from Penzeys that has been sitting in my cupboard for probably over a year. And I finally put the two together for one of the easiest, tastiest south of the border-esque meals.

I use “esque” because I’m not sure what authentic Méxican, Guatemalan, Nicaraguan, Venezuelan, Brazilian, etc. cuisine is. I live in Iowa. We have a lot of authentic Méxicans, Guatemalans, Nicaraguans, Salvadoreans, etc. here but I’m not sure how well they’re excellent food translates to the midwest and the local tastebuds. There are some good restaurants from these immigrants but they all seem rather Americanized. The only really great authentic stuff were the pupusas made down at the farmer’s market which I miss dearly. I still try to get the curtido when I’m down there, but no pupusas for me.

So I use the “esque” as a reminder that I know nothing of authentic cuisine. The only authentic food I make is my own and that of my family, which itself is Americanized Norwegian food and recipes gleaned from years of newspaper clippings and Good Housekeeping magazines. You think your grandma’s famous jello mold/peanut butter cookies/whatever she’s famous for are original? If so, great, but its much more likely that she found it in some form of media and maybe tweaked one item if anything. Its not a bad thing, its people making good food and somehow getting the credit for it. So much of what I make is exactly that, good food based on the recipes of someone else.

So tonight I opened cans, simmered, stirred, and assembled. In the end there were burritos with what I call carnitas — mostly because its a cool word and when I got the idea from the Vegan Housewife thats what she called them.

In my famished state I didn’t take a picture of the whole shebang – carnitas, beans, Tofutti sour cream, lettuce, and salsa. But here are the carnitas on their way to the fridge. They look particularly porky.

Recipe

1 can of young jackfruit in brine (NOT syrup)

1 jar of Penzey’s rojo sauce (my bottle says soy lecithin, but maybe call and make sure since some bottles don’t say it)

Drain jackfruit and tear apart. Fry in a bit of oil until most of the moisture is gone. Season with a little salt and cumin. Pour on sauce and 1/4 c. water (I swirled the water in the empty sauce jar to get everything out of it). Simmer for at least an hour. Serve with fixins.