28 posts tagged “vwav”

One vegan cookbook is essential.  Two vegan cookbooks are fun.  Three vegan cookbooks are definitely the charm.  You've got a whole world to enjoy now.  I actually made three things out of three different cookcooks.  Well, be warned first: my sweet tooth kicked in when I was cooking.

 

Spanakopita In A Pie (VwaV, page 91).  I still didn't get any phyllo dough.  I made the pastry crusts (Veganomicon, so a 4th cookbook?) better this time and used a little less lemon juice.  My husband was very pleased with the result.  He said it was better than the first time I made it.

 

Hot Apple Turnovers (Cozy Inside, page 75).  This is the first time I have tried any recipe from this cookbook though I bought it like two months ago.  This is an excellent dessert choice after a hard day.  The turnover wasn't overly sweet or heavy.  A very gentle touch on your whole body.  I was really glad I tried it.

 

Mom's Chocolate Pudding (La Dolce Vegan!, page 207).  I didn't like this pudding as much as I thought I would.  It was very easy to make so I didn't mind it.  It's probably just not my type of chocolate pudding.  I was expecting something closer to the 75% dark chocolate, rich and velvety.  But it wasn't quite there.  A little too timid for my liking but it was still good enough to satisfy a chocolate craving.

 

What will happen if you keep thinking about one flavor without cooking it for two weeks or longer?  You might end up making everything taste like that flavor unknowingly.  This is what happened to me.  Or rather, this is what I made happen.  I kept thinking about soy sauce and Bryanna's savory dinner tofu loaf for more than two weeks.  Then I saw the glorious-looking Dill Shiitake Frittata from Isa's test kitchen (yes, Isa is writing a new brunch cookbook!) and attempted to make one.  The result is that I made a dill shiitake frittata that looked more like a savory dinner loaf and packed with a lot of flavors.  I was almost too ashamed to show the photos here but what the heck, the "frittata" tofu loaf tasted great.  A dark frittata or a dinner loaf, what's the difference?

 

The ingredients are basically similar to the Asparagus and Sun-Dried Tomato Frittata (VwaV) but I used half a tablespoon more soy sauce to resemble Bryanna's savory dinner loaf.  Well, a blunder turned into a bliss.  Not bad!

 

Spring is barely here and I'm already thinking about midsummer.  This is why I once again cracked open Veganomicon and made the Midsummer Corn Chowder with Basil, Tomato, and Fennel (Veganomicon, page 144).  Well, longing for summer is not the real reason.  I just got too excited having two innocent fennel bulbs sitting in my fridge.  I had two large fennel bulbs like two months ago and simply wasted them in the end.  This time my personal pride didn't allow that to happen.  If anyone knows some awesome recipes that involve using fennel bulbs besides roasting them, please let me know.  I'm dying to make something with fennel bulbs that will freak myself out.  Is it actually possible?  I know most of us love fennel seeds, but fennel bulbs??

 

Anyway, the corn chowder was fabulous.  The fresh basil, tomato and fennel combo really brought out some unexpected pleasant flavors.  Not like a typical corn chowder.  Oh, by the way, I added half a cup of quinoa which was a good little addition.  It's amazing how creamy a vegan corn chowder can be without using any wheat or soy product.

This is really bad.  Before I even begin, I already feel pretty bad.  I've been quite busy and I haven't cooked much.  But I have desserts to show you again.  My stepsister is moving so we have been talking about and looking at her newly-rented apartment.  Her wedding is coming up at the end of May too.  Too much family business to take care of.  The weather has been freaking cold.  Anyway, I made a whole batch of Cherry-Almond Muffins (VwaV, page 48).  Yeah, I know I said that I was going to make half a batch of everything a couple of weeks ago.  But these muffins were definitely my favorite and my best work for sure, so far.  Both my husband and I loved them.  They were very mildly sweet and the almonds gave them a little savory quality.  Boy did I mention that fresh cherries can be heavenly after being baked in the muffins?

 

I also made the Lost Coconut Custard Pie (Veganomicon, page 258) for the second time.  This pie was certainly an improvement since my naturally sugar-resistent husband was completely defenseless in front of it.

 

When you don't have the delicate phyllo dough in the freezer, does that stop you from enjoying the wonderful Spanakopita (spinach pies)?  It did, for a long while.  I love spinach, tofu and walnuts.  With all these three ingredients in a pie, I would "kill" all the vegetables in the world to make one.  However, I don't have phyllo dough.  If I had some, I might still feel a little intimidated.  Anyhow, the Spanakopita recipe in Vegan with A Vengeance (pages 91-93) has been calling out to me.  So, one day, I saw Carla of "But did they EAT it?" made a Mexican-flavored pie out of this recipe, it suddenly occurred to me that I could do the same thing, make a spanakopita pie.  Luckily, I have been really enjoying making and eating my own pastry crust from Veganomicon (page 262).  "Just make two crusts at one time then," I thought.  That's how it all started.

 

Spanakopita Pie (based on Spanakopita, VwaV, pages 91-93)
(serves 4-5)

 

2 recipes of Single Pastry Crust (Veganomicon, page 262)

1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil

2 bunches fresh spinach, rinsed very well, long stems removed

1/2 large red onion, finely chopped

3 cloves garlic, minced

2 Tbsp. dried dill

2 pounds extra-firm tofu, drained and pressed

1/3 cup fresh lemon juice

2 tsp. dried oregano

Dash of freshly grated nutmeg

3/4 cup finely ground walnuts

1 tsp. salt

Several dashes fresh ground black pepper

 

1. First prepare your two pastry crusts, because you will need to refrigerate the crusts in plastic wrap for at least an hour before using them.  Keeping all the ingredients of the crusts and the crusts cold is key to have flaky crusts later.

 

2. Preheat your oven to 350F.

 

3. In a large heavy-bottomed pot warm 2 Tbsp. of olive oil over medium-low heat for a minute, then add onions and garlic to sauté for 2 minutes.  Add spinach in batches and cook until completely wilted and some liquid has been released.  Make sure that the spinach doesn't get too overcooked.  Quickly stir in dill and remove from heat.  Set aside.

 

4. Prebake your bottom crust (at least after an hour of refrigerating) in the oven, covered, for 15 minutes.  Set aside.

 

5. Pat the tofu dry after a couple hours of pressing.  Crumble the tofu to a smooth consistency with your hands in a large mixing bowl.  Don't use your fork because we want to keep the grainy quality.  When the spinach mixture is cool enough to handle by hand, squeeze as much liquid out as humanly possible and add to the tofu in batches.  Mix in very well.  Add ground walnuts, lemon juice, oregano, nutmeg, and finally salt and pepper to taste.  Taste your pie filling to adjust the seasoning.  It should taste pleasantly salty and a little tangy.

 

6. Pour the filling onto the bottom crust.  Even out the top.  I filled my pie to the rim as much as possible, because I really love all the ingredients.  Put the top crust on.  Tuck, seal, trim, and do whatever you need to do feel good about it.

 

7. Bake in the oven for 40-45 minutes.  Let cool a little before serving, unless you are too eager.

 

We thoroughly enjoyed this pie, our favorite pie so far.  I did a lot of kneading yesterday, besides this pie, but obviously it was worth all the effort.  I would gladly do it all over again.  My first Italian crusty bread came out just fine, 50% whole wheat (unbelievable!), after 7-8 hours of work and anxious waiting.  The Italians really know how to make a heavenly bread, with no sugar and no oil.  I gotta hand it to them.  I simply followed Bryanna's recipe in Nonna's Italian Kitchen: Delicious Home-Style Vegan Cuisine.

 

So I'm going to do the first food porn in 2008.  I know the previous post is already like food porn.  You know, the more the merrier.  The first picture is the Moroccan Tagine with Spring Vegetables (VwaV, page 178).  I've wanted to make this dish since ages ago but for whatever reason, I waited a long time, and I waited until all of my green beans went bad.  So unfortunately, the beautiful green beans didn't feature in this tasty and rich tagine.  We still thoroughly enjoyed it because an extra zucchini always can make us happy.  Major ingredients include tomatoes, carrots, lentils, zucchini, spinach, raisins, cilantro, and mint.

 

I made the irresistible BBQ Pomegranate Tofu (VwaV, page 149) once again.  It's definitely one of my all-time favorite tofu dish.  I managed to whip up a much better BBQ sauce this time.  Thick and really like BBQ.  Lucky me!  Somehow the photo turned out to be very orange-colored.

 

Now the tofu smothered in the beautiful and yummy sauce.  I still don't know how Isa measured up the amount of sauce for a tofu dish so accurately.

 

And finally, the beautiful BBQ Pomegranate Tofu.  I really love these BBQ tofu pieces.  I think I can live on this dish for like a month.

 

I've been wanting to make cinnamon rolls in the last two days and I couldn't decide which recipe to follow.  Every recipe promises to yield really heavenly cinnamon rolls.  I was sitting on those recipes for a few hours and as the time went by, I just picked the Quick Cinnamon Rolls (recipe by Vivacious Vegan).  Quick and vivaciously yummy!  Now I'll definitely try all the other cinnamon roll recipes in the near future.  Below are the naked rolls.

 

Now the beautiful cinnamon rolls after icing.  I've always thought that cinnamon rolls are more for the eyes than for the taste buds.  They are just perfect as an orgasmic ending to the food porn.

 

I continued with my zucchini pizza experiment and this is the third pizza on the left.  I put 1/4-inch water in the pan and cut zucchini lengthwise into two halves and steamed for 8-10 minutes.  Then I cut zucchini into thin slices and laid three-four layers of zucchini on the base.  The white sauce worked well but I didn't exactly like the sauce.  I think I'll try a olive oil garlic base next time.  The final result was good enough as you can see, but I can surely do better than this.  I'll try to pre-bake the pizza crust for 7-8 minutes and roast the zucchini beforehand too, as RachJ kindly suggested.

 

Maybe in a few more days I will make another batch of pizzas and update with the new result.

 

Both my husband and I are on a diet but we crazily love coconut.  As long as I have shredded coconut and coconut milk/cream sitting in the pantry, I have no excuse not to make us a nice coconut cake to reward ourselves a little for our effort.  I know our effort hasn't been that noteworthy yet, but we can use a little consolation.  In fact, the coconut cake (from Eat, Drink & Be Vegan, page 190) came out so heavenly that my husband took a big slice of one layer before I could assemble and add the frosting.  He dipped the cake in the frosting too.

 

I didn't use the Coconut Dream Frosting (ED&BV, page 191) though.  Not that I didn't want to.  Who doesn't want to dream in coconut flavor?  Sadly, I didn't have several ingredients so I had to adapt.  But amazingly my own frosting came out to be very addictive too.  Maybe a little too good for my poor husband.  He's not even into sweets but the coconut flavor is just too irresistible.  So here's my macadamia frosting recipe.

 

 

2/3 package silken extra-firm tofu

1 cup & 2 Tbsp. organic powdered sugar

1/2 cup roasted macadamia nuts

1/2 cup unsweetened vanilla soymilk

1 1/2 tsp freshly squeezed lemon juice

2 tsp pure vanilla extract

1 1/2 tsp tapioca starch

 

In a blender or food processor, chop up macadamia nuts until like crumbs.  Pat tofu with paper towel to remove extra moisture.  Add tofu to the nuts and blend together until smooth.  Scrape down sides if needed.  Add powdered sugar, soymilk, lemon juice, and vanilla extract, and blend thoroughly to mix well.  Finally, add in tapioca starch and blend in thoroughly again.  Refrigerate immediately for at least a few hours before applying.  I let it sit in the fridge overnight.

 

I didn't apply too much frosting on the cake because I knew I would get too "excited".  I still managed to justify to myself how I could have two slices though.

 

Did I mention before that Dreena Burton's Eat, Drink & Be Vegan is a very practical and wonderful cookbook?  I'm totally in love with this cookbook right now.  I didn't use it until a few days ago because I never spent much time looking through everything in the book, for a good reason too - Veganomicon simply rules!  But in all fairness, ED&BV is very practical and the recipes are wholesome and easy to follow.  And you will have very tasty food without going through too much trouble.  I just tried out the Palak Soyabina Panira (ED&BV, page 137) which is a tofu version of the indian dish Palak Paneer (spinach, cheese and a blend of spices).  It was mighty tasty and it took me only 20 minutes altogether to prepare and cook.  I didn't make our own marinated tofu and used half a package of fried tofu.

 

And I had my second try on Potato-Edamame Samosas with Coconut-Mint Chutney (VwaV, pages 80-82).  I was very lucky this time to have a huge success with these delicious and satisfying samosas.  My husband always says that samosas are the ultimate "junk food" (in the sense that you really spoil yourself with the fried dough, mashed potatoes and the Indian spices) and he was surely glad to get some finally.  I had to photograph the filling because it just looked so pretty.

 

Now we can see the final samosas looking all very golden and smelling awesome, and the elegant-looking chutney.  Vegan with A Vengeance is still so awesome!

 

I started out by making those lovely-sounding Home-Style Potato Rolls (Veganomicon, page 218).  Actually, I only looked at the ingredients getting all excited without considering the time frame.  So I began boiling some Yukon potatoes.  When I was done, I noticed for the first time that I need to let potatoes cool before embarking upon the next step.  As I read on, I discovered that I had to let the dough rise twice and the first rise needs 2 hours and the second at least 30 minutes.  I suddenly had a lot of time not knowing what to do, besides the usual blogging and stuff.  Well, the cooking mania kicked in.  I picked up Vegan with A Vengeance and Glazed Orange Scones (page 44) caught my attention.  I happened to have 3 oranges and I was going to throw them out very very soon.  I love lemon-y and orange-y flavors, and scones are so easy to make.  So, instead of reading Proust, I chose baking.  Altogether 45 minutes later, I had six glazed scones sitting on the countertop waiting to be photographed.  It suddenly occurred to me that I made these scones more for photographing them.  I somehow knew they would make excellent photo objects.  Unfortunately, my photos didn't come out too good so I ended up eating those scones really fast.

 

Well, now that the scones were made, my dough was still sitting on the table rising slowly.  I could only read some food blogs to kill time.  My mind began to wander off, once again.  I was not like this before.  I used to just want to read a good book quietly or do some drawing.  A big change took place overnight and I still don't know how it all happened.  I really love cooking now.  I get so excited at night about new recipes that sometimes it is very difficult to fall asleep.  I often feel there is not enough time to cook up all different things I have planned beforehand.  I keep asking my husband why we have to sleep at night.  The invariable answer I get is "so that we can wake up in the morning".  It is a damn good answer, I have to admit.  Maybe the holiday cooking and baking fever hasn't died in me yet.  Or, it will continue into the New Year.

 

Anyway, I remember seeing someone recently made Isa's Quinoa Puttanesca the other day.  I can't remember whose blog that is and I have around 50-60 blog feeds in my Google Reader so I am sorry that I am a little too lazy to dig it out now.  In any case, thank you so very much.  This is a super fast meal to cook so you might want to check out the recipe at the PPK.

 

As you can see on the left, I added edamame in the quinoa for a little more texture.  I love these beans.  I also used a little more crushed red pepper flakes for some extra hot flavor.  Boy, this quinoa is pungent.  We really enjoyed it.  A wonderful way of eating a strong pasta sauce.

 

Not surprisingly, I am trying to lose some weight again.  I lost some weight a couple of months ago but I gained it back several weeks ago.  It was probably because of the season change.  Winter is never easy for me to be moderate in eating.  When it is cold outside, I can only think of putting food in my mouth.  But when spring comes, I will surely regret and get horrified by what I have done to myself.  So, I want to make a difference this time.  I guess that is my New Year's resolution.  I wonder how many people really make a New Year's resolution and stick to it and achieve their goal finally.  I know I have failed in many years.  But I want this year to be different.  Being mindful about what and how much we eat is ultimately paying respect to our body and healing some emotional wounds.  It is not easy to do but 'tis life and we must take up some responsibilities to make ourselves happy.

 

Finally, the potato rolls.  These Home-Style Potato Rolls (Veganomicon, page 218) were not very easy to make.  They gave me a little bit of fright in the process.  I am not sure why the dough was much wetter than I expected.  I drained the boiled potatoes pretty well and the recipe does require cool but moist mashed potatoes.  The recipe calls for 5 to 5 1/2 cups of flour.  I must have added another 2 cups in the end.  At least that is what it felt like.  I had to knead for over half an hour to incorporate more and more flour to make the dough smooth and stretchable.  Even before I put the walnut-sized dough balls into the oven, some of them turned a little too wet again.  I was rather worried but the rolls came out smelling divine.  We loved them so much that we had to stop ourselves from eating too much.  The fine potato bread smell really makes one happy.  But with all these nice foods around, one must try extremely hard to discipline oneself.

 

In conclusion, I hate Christmas.  I love christmas.  I hate Christmas because it is so commercialized and people get more stress than relaxation.  The shops and malls are too crowded and the vendors are annoyingly excited.  The relatives and acquaintances exchange greetings that they don't mean or even feel.  I love Christmas because the Lord's abundance is everywhere and we CAN make a cruelty-free and animal-friendly Christmas and we are damn proud of making that choice.  As the New Year is approaching, I wish everyone a happy and peaceful 2008.

I hope everybody had a happy Christmas.  Now I guess we can all kick back and relax a little bit.  Even though we don't do the traditional large Christmas family dinner or gift-swapping (and we didn't this year), I felt the urge of cooking and baking and making special things non-stop.  I'm still not cured.  I have a few more things to cook up in the kitchen in the next two days again.  Anyway, good vegan food is always welcome in our house.  Veganomicon strikes again.  The Asparagus Quiche with Tomatoes and Tarragon (Veganomicon, page 153) was a huge success.  It was a beautiful casserole to look at (red and green, just nice for Christmas) and it was certainly pleasing to all of our senses.  This quiche doesn't have tofu or nutritional yeast.  Instead, it has beans and nuts in the filling.  Very creamy and hearty.  Yum!

 

I had two pieces of the asparagus quiche you can see below.  I must admit that it was too good to resist.

 

Compared with this, the cashew ricotta (also from Veganomicon) was not that important any more though we really enjoyed the tofu-basil ricotta (featured in both VwaV and Veganomicon) before.  Yes, I remember eating the dairy-free ricotta alone as a snack.

 

And the cooking mania lives on...

First of all, I wish all of you in the bloggerland a Merry Christmas, or Happy Hanukkah, Happy Kwanzaa, or Happy December!

 

Now on to what we cooked.  I failed to make the crispy peanut butter cookies (from VwaV).  I don't know why the cookies didn't become crispy at all.  I will have to try some other cookies to see if my cookie dough is just not right.  The scrambled tofu I made with loads of mushrooms and some zucchini worked out really well.  We just love mushrooms and zucchini.

 

With scrambled tofu, we need some nice rice dish to serve with the tofu.  So I made the Lentils and Rice with Caramelized Onions and Spiced Pita Crisps (Veganomicon, page 177).  This deceivingly simple rice dish was so comforting and satisfying that I couldn't believe it was just made of brown Basmati rice and lentils.  Well, roasted onion rings and the remaining olive oil in the baking dish really infused the rice with a wonderful flavor.  And one thing lead to another.  Once I made the lentils and rice, I had to make the spiced pita crisps too since i had two pita breads laying around waiting to be thrown out as usual.  I made use of them this time and I was really grateful that I did.

 

I made my very first pizza!  I'm still so excited.  I got the beginner's luck since everything turned out so good and it was an easy sail.  Besides, I enjoyed the whole process of making the pizza dough and pizza sauce.  I loved every bit of it.  It was a perfect Christmas gift for myself - a rewarding learning experience.  I made the pizza dough and sauce by following Isa's recipes (her pizza dough novel) in VwaV (pages 128 - 130).  I didn't make the Isa Pizza this time though.  I was a little tired after all that kneading and cooking.  My simple topping included thinly-sliced shiitake mushrooms and button mushrooms and some zucchini pieces.  I sprinkled some chives on top before putting the pizza into the oven.  I am one lucky vegan this Christmas!