nori strips and hummus.

Ok, so this is one of my less fancy photos of food, but making a post without a photo seems silly.
I am not normally one for food with a lot of packaging, but a friend recently introduced me to these little snack packs of seasoned nori, and they are the greatest!
This weekend, I ate them like crazy. I also had made a bunch of hummus, so I ate them together, and it was even better. Woot!



Since nori is a sea vegetable, it's packed with all sorts of vitamins and minerals, as well as omega-3s (and 6s, but 3s can be harder to get).

My hummous isn't incredibly special, and recipes are abundant enough on the internets, so I won't bother posting one here. To your standard hummus mix, I added a HUGE bunch of basil, and probably about twice as much garlic as your average bear.

chocolate cake, with kick.

I don't normally agree with posting other people's recipes directly from their cookbooks, but since this was also posted on the PPK blog the other day, I don't have a problem with it.

CHOCOLATE CAKE!

1 cup almond milk (or your favorite non-dairy milk)
1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1/3 cup canola oil
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon almond extract

1 cup all-purpose flour
1/3 cup cocoa powder, Dutch-processed or regular (or a mix of both)
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt

Preheat oven to 350°F.

Whisk together the soy milk and vinegar in a large bowl, and set aside for a few minutes to curdle. Add the sugar, oil, vanilla and almond extract and mix well.

In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Add in two batches to wet ingredients and beat until no large lumps remain (a few tiny lumps are OK).

Lightly grease an 8 inch springform pan. Pour in the batter and bake for 32 to 35 minutes, until a toothpick inserted through the center comes out clean.

I didn't have a springform pan on hand, which turned out to be mildly problematic... but it turned out alright in the end.
Also, modifications!!!!
To the above recipe, I added one teaspoon each of cinnamon and cayenne, along with a handful of chopped up dried sour cherries.
Cayenne adds a bit of spicy kick, and the cherries add little sweet and sour pockets of goodness. Cinnamon is lovely in just about anything baked, as far as I am concerned.
Sadly, almond milk cost a whopping $3.50 at my local Safeway (not my usual grocery store), so I stuck with soy. Thankfully, SO NICE now makes an unsweetened version that is still fortified. Who knew?!

GANACHE:
Also modified from the PPK recipe, my chocolate ganache contained:
2/3 cup unsweetened soy milk
100g of dark chocolate (An entire large, lindt bar. The one that I used was 55% cacao)
4 tablespoons pure maple syrup
1/2 teaspoon of pure vanilla extract
1 teaspoon cinnamon

Heat the soy milk in a saucepan, then break the chocolate into bits and mix it in, until melted. Add all other ingredients and whisk everything around until it's nice and smooth. Let cool at least 15 minutes before using.

Before pouring the ganache all over the cake, allow the cake to cool. I tossed mine in the freezer for a bit, because I was impatient.

That's all great, but where are the photos!?!?!

Right here.



YUM!

simple dinner.

I like to enjoy new potatoes while their around, so this dinner had some more of those (boiled) with some more lovely, broiled yellow zucchini, fried mushrooms with red pepper and a tofurkey smokie. yum!

The mushrooms and red pepper were shopped up and then tossed in a cast iron frying pan with some garlic (how much really depends on your taste), a splash of tamari, and a generous pinch of paprika.

The potatoes were topped with tofutti sour supreme, mixed with a squeeze of lime juice, and some chilli paste (once again, the amount really depends on your taste for spice)

That's pretty much it.

salad!!

For some reason or another, salad is something that I often overlook when it comes to meal preparation. Then, I remember it, and am overjoyed by the deliciousness of fresh vegetables.

SALAD!!



I usually don't toss my salads, because I like to be able to eat bits and pieces of whatever I want. I also prefer salads if they have a few cold, fresh vegetables, and a few warm cooked ones.
This salad incorporated:
-fresh spinach and green leaf lettuce
-grated beets and carrots
-sliced cucumber
-lightly steamed yellow beans (just a few minutes, so they remain a little crispy. yellow beans are a little sweeter than the green ones, and they are DIVINE.)
-boiled new potatoes
-lightly broiled , sliced, yellow zucchini (once again, a little sweeter than green zuc. i coated the slices in olive oil, and then tossed them in the toaster oven at 350 F, for about 10-15 minutes)

WONDERFUL!

For the salad dressing, I combined:
-several tablespoons of sweet chilli sauce
-a few teaspoons of sesame oil
-a splash of apple cider vinegar
-a splash of maple syrup

The salad dressing was ok, but it was the topping for the new potatoes that was really amazing.

Potato topping:
-half a cup of tofutti fake sour cream
-6 to 10 drops of hickory liquid smoke (if you see this stuff, buy it! it's delicious.)
-between 1 and 2 teaspoons of lime juice
-between 1 and 2 teaspoons of maple syrup

The only thing that would have improved this salad, would have been the addition of some pumpkin and/or sunflower seeds, and some pea shoots or sunflower sprouts. Otherwise, it was the perfect summer dinner!!

Salad! Salad! Salad!

more tofu burgers! peanut sauce! baby bok choy!

Once again, marinated a whole whack of tofu in my go to marinade of tamari, sesame oil, sriracha, garlic and ginger.
Shredded up some carrots and beets, and sliced up some zucchini and spinach for toppings.
On the bun (errr.... multi-grain bread): dijon mustard, ketchup, and the most delicious mayo spread ever!
I bought some super amazing liquid hickory smoke the other week, and decided that it would probably taste great mixed into some vegan mayo with a bit of maple syrup. HEAVEN! I am going to start putting this on pretty much everything.





Along side the tofu burger is some lightly steamed baby bok choy slathered with a tasty peanut sauce.
In the peanut sauce:
peanut butter (obvs) about 1/2 a cup
teaspoon of chilli paste
garlic - lots of it
small can of coconut milk
a few splashes of tamari
ginger
lots of like juice
teaspoon of rice vinegar
tablespoon of maple syrup

Mix mix mix, and add water until desired thickness is reached.
It's good to play around with the proportions a bit until you find the peanut sauce that is perfect for you.

Ps. Did you know that you can buy coconut milk in tetra packs??? It's a bit cheaper, and nice to just have hanging out in the fridge, say... to add to coffee (delicious!), or to hot chocolate, or cherry flavoured soda (vegan italian sodas, whaaaaat?). I should probably just devote a whole post to coconut milk sometime soon...

3 course meal! thai-style coconut soup, asian noodle salad with spicy peanut sauce, mushroom risotto with smokey tofu and green beans.

Recently, the Grace Gallery in Vancouver held a "40 hours of food and flicks" event, where a local chef cooked for continuous two hour sittings for 40 hours. A movie was shown for each sitting. Sadly, for me and a few of my vegan friends, there was no vegan option... so we decided to make our own fancy dinner. HURRAY!

Course 1: Asian Noodle Salad with Spicy Peanut Sauce.



This recipe was taken from Vegan Planet, with a few modifications. The recipe recommends using Udon noodles, which we agreed were too thick for our liking, so we used some Soba noodles instead. To the peanut sauce in Vegan Planet, we also added a few tablespoons of maple syrup, for sweetness, and the juice from half a lemon. The recipe was also modified with the addition of peas.
This salad was SO delicious! It was also super easy to make. Peanut sauce recipes are easily found in just about any vegan cookbook, or all over the internets. Try playing around with different ones until you get the right flavour for you. You can also experiment with different types of noodles (spelt, kamut, buckwheat) or varying degrees of thickness, and you can basically add any vegetables that please you.

Course 2: Thai Style Coconut Soup.



Also from Vegan Planet, but slightly modified with the addition of fresh lemongrass and thai basil. I'm not sure what i would do differently in making this soup the next time... maybe add more coconut milk? Maybe add some sweet chilli sauce? I just don't know. It was light, and refreshing, but didn't quite have the oomph that I was looking for.

Course 3: Mushroom Risotto with Smokey Tofu and Green Beans.



SO MANY MUSHROOMS! We picked up a variety pack of organic mushrooms from the farmers' market, which included shitake, portabello, pink oyster and some other kind whose name I'm not sure of. We sauteed these for a bit before adding them into the risotto. The risotto was made with a mushroom broth and then finished off with truffle infused olive oil. YUM! We also added some swiss chard.

To marinate the tofu, we took the recipe for Smokey Grilled Tempeh, from the Veganomicon (obvs, without the tempeh). We let the tofu marinate for a few hours and then pan-fried it. Smokey deliciousness!

The green beans were blanched for three minutes, put into a cold water bath and then tossed in flax oil.

garlic scapes and a sammich.

soo... life has been a little hectic and crazy lately, thus, the lack of posts. I might not begin actually posting on a regular basis until August... we'll see.

In any case, I went to the farmers' market the other week (i have been EXTREMELY lazy about farmers' market visits this year... it's pretty shameful...)

In an attempt to try something new and exciting, i picked up these



GARLIC SCAPES!

So what are they? They're kind of like a mix between a chives and green beans (only a little tougher) and they taste (SURPRISE!) like garlic. YUM!
The first time that I tried cooking them, i fried them up in a pan with some portabello, shitake and oyster mushrooms, and a little bit of Earth Balance. It was pretty tasty.




I served these with a delicious sammich.



I forget EXACTLY what I put in the main topping, but it went something like this:
1 can of chickpeas and half a package of firm tofu mashed together, several tablespoons of grainy mustard, juice from one or two lemons, 1/4 cup of tamari, a few tablespoons of tahini, pinch of paprika, pinch of cayenne, 1 tablespoon or so of vegan mayo, and 1 tablespoon of miso paste. I then chopped up some avocado, lettuce and tomatoes, and grated some carrots, and put the whole mess on some multi-grain bread. Delicious!YUM! This topping kind of fills the tuna salad sammich craving. (i miss tuna melts... *sigh*)

A note on garlic scapes:
The second time that i cooked them, I attempted to grill them on the bbq with a little oil.... not so successful. If you see these puppies at the farmers' market and decide to pick them up, I would recommend blanching them for a few minutes before grilling. They are pretty tough, so a few minutes in boiling water (followed by a cold water bath) would really loosen them up.
Also, these are only in season for about TWO WEEKS every year!! So snap them up while you can!!