Recipe contest!

I'm so excited about this.  Better Homes & Gardens is hosting a "Mad For Plaid" recipe contest; entrants are to take a recipe from any of the 15 editions of the BH&G cookbook and put their "own spin" on it.  Of course I immediately saw this as an opportunity to veganize a new recipe, and possibly win a thousand bucks!

I think I might start with BH&G's Fresh Rosemary & Lemon Cupcakes recipe (pictured above).  I'll veganize them, then make one batch with the original lemon glaze and another batch with some decadent creamy frosting.  I just bought a rosemary plant over the weekend, so I'll have really fresh rosemary to use.  I'll make them on Friday, then take them to a dinner at a friend's house and put everyone to work tasting and critiquing them. 

Then I'll post photos on the website, and visitors to the website will get a chance to vote on it!  (HINT!)

Very excited.

Photography

I am fortunate to have my very own, very talented live-in photographer, who can be persuaded to take photos of the food he is about to consume, and then crop and edit them and make them as beautiful as possible.  Fortunate, and very happy! 

A favorite easy stirfry

I love a good stirfry that's warm and delicious and healthy. I make one at least once a week. Here's my basic procedure:

1. Heat some oil in a deep frying pan. Sesame oil is good, or peanut oil, or just olive oil. If I use olive oil I might add some finely minced garlic and/or ginger in the pan.

2. Cut extra-firm tofu into triangles about 1/3-inch thick. Arrange triangles in pan so that each triangle is touching the pan. Let them cook for 3 to 5 minutes until the underside is golden brown. Then, turn the burner off for a minute and use a fork to flip each triangle over.  Turn the burner back on and let the tofu cook for another minute.

3. Next add your hardest vegetables that will require the most cooking. For me this usually involves broccoli. I like to squirt a little lemon juice right on the broccoli - I think it really brings out the flavor.

4. Pour on your sauce, both to keep the tofu from sticking and to provide some liquid that will help steam your hard vegetables. I often use Soy Vay teriyaki or hoisin sauce, especially when time is short. Sometimes I make my own sauce from whatever I have on hand - tamari, Bragg's, lemon juice, fresh or powdered ginger, sesame oil or seeds, mustard, gomashio - I just mix things together until they taste good.  Saute a couple more minutes, tossing mixture so that everything gets coated with sauce and so that the hard vegetables get some direct contact with the hot pan.

5.  Add softer vegetables, such as the chopped up red bell peppers I use here, then saute another minute or two, again tossing mixture as in step 4.

6.  Repeat step 5 with softest vegetables, such as red chard or other greens, and water chestnuts.  You can use a lot of greens because once they cook down they will reduce greatly in size.

7.  Sometimes I use a separate pan to grill chunks of pineapple (to make sure they maintain contact with the pan and get a good sear) - then I just toss them into the finished stirfry and mix everything around. 

8.  Serve over rice, quinoa, noodles, etc.  I like Trader Joe's Harvest Grain Blend (Israeli style couscous, orzo, baby garbanzo beans and red quinoa - chewy and flavorful, even if you don't put any sauce on it).

Pasta with avocado pesto

This was fantastic - I found the recipe on the vegnews website.  I didn't have any pinenuts so I substituted walnuts, and I used fusilli instead of linguini because I like the way fusilli holds on to pesto. I also really love salted, halved grape tomatoes with pesto, so I sprinkled some on top of the finished dish.  The next time I make it I'll choose two smallish avocados instead of the medium ones I used the first time - the avocado flavor was almost overpowering. Still, this was really good and I look forward to making it again.

Vegan breakfast muffins

My own concoction! I'm trying to come up with a new name for these muffins. A friend ate one and said it made her feel physically and spiritually healthy - maybe something that reflects those ideas.

Makes 18-24 muffins. The idea here is to have a healthy, filling muffin you can grab for a quick breakfast. These muffins have flax seeds, oatmeal, applesauce, zucchini, nuts, seeds and dried fruit, among other great ingredients. They are very flavorful, and not too sugary. You can substitute different kinds of nuts, seeds and dried fruit (I would stick with fruit that adds a little extra sweetness and moisture - unsulfured apricots might be good, although they wouldn't be as pretty as the cherries).

If you skip the streusel topping, increase the brown sugar in the muffin recipe to 2 cups.
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STEP 1: Grease muffin tins (no liners needed).

STEP 2: Whisk together:
- 6 Tbsp ground flax seeds
- ½ cup + 1 Tbsp warm water

STEP 3: Add:
- ½ cup canola oil
- ½ cup applesauce
- 1-3/4 cups light brown sugar
- 1 Tbsp vanilla
- 3 medium zucchini, grated (I do mine in the food processor)

STEP 4: Combine in separate bowl:
- 1½ cups all-purpose flour
- 1½ cups whole wheat flour
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1 Tbsp baking soda
- 1 Tbsp cinnamon
- 2 tsp nutmeg

STEP 5: Add dry ingredients to wet ingredients and mix until everything is combined. Then fold in a handful or two of each of the following:
- chopped walnuts
- non-sulfured dried cherries (I got mine at Trader Joe's)
- sunflower seeds (I used raw, unsalted sunflower seeds)

STEP 6: Fill muffin tins all the way to the top.

STEP 7: In separate bowl, make streusel topping by combining the following (I mixed it with my hands until it had a good texture):
- 6 Tbsp brown sugar
- 12 Tbsp rolled oats
- 4 Tbsp unbleached all-purpose flour
- 1 tsp ground cinnamon
- 6 Tbsp cold vegan margarine (I used Earth Balance)

STEP 8: Top each muffin with enough streusel mixture to cover the top of the muffin.

STEP 9: Bake at 350 for 30-40 minutes, or until toothpick comes out clean. Let cool before eating.

Quick product reviews

Very quick. I really love these items that I have tried recently:

- Tofutti Better Than Sour Cream AND Better Than Cream Cheese. I don't know why I haven't tried these before, but they're both outrageously good. Great texture and flavor - I would never know the difference between these and the dairy versions. I served the "sour cream" with black bean-sweet potato chili burritos, and the "cream cheese" on bagels with sliced summer tomatoes - yum.

- Trader Joe's new creamy hummus - the roasted red pepper flavor. These creamy hummuses are brand new as far as I can tell - I think Trader Joe's is trying to emulate the premium hummus brands like Sabra and Tribe. I took the roasted red pepper flavor to an outdoor concert the other day and I was supposed to share it with everybody in the group but couldn't stop myself from eating almost the whole container. I make good hummus, but this is A LOT better. I can't wait to get more.

- Luna & Larry's Coconut Bliss vegan ice cream - the chocolate hazelnut fudge. Had a sample of this at Whole Foods yesterday and it was unbelievable chocolaty and rich and delicious. I didn't buy it because it was 99 degrees outside and I knew it would be a puddle by the time I got it home. But the demonstrater gave me a 50-cent coupon, so I'll be back.

- Eden Foods mirin. I keep running across mirin as an ingredient in recipes, so finally went out and got some. It's a little pricy - about 8 bucks for this bottle. But I brought it home and tasted a little bit right out of the bottle, and YUM! I have a fridge full of stir-fry ingredients, and can't wait to cook with this new find.

Welcome!

Welcome to my blog! I have been doing a lot of vegan cooking lately and sharing the recipes, photos and ideas on my facebook page. A few people have suggested I start a blog, and I loved the idea so here I am!

Why vegan? It's an ethical decision for me; maybe I'll talk about it more some time, but for now you can probably find about a million hits if you Google "ethical vegan." I have been vegetarian for over 20 years, and this is my third or fourth go at being vegan. The first few times I found it too hard to find enough vegan food to keep me fueled and going, but that was because I was relying on a lot of prepared foods and not doing much of my own cooking. Attempting a vegan diet centered around store-bought foods - even foods bought at a lot of natural foods stores - is problematic for a variety of reasons.

For one thing, a lot of natural brands are now owned by huge industrial conglomerates whose policies are far out of line with my values. See, for example, http://eatdrinkbetter.com/2009/08/29/who-owns-your-favorite-organic-or-natural-food-company. After years of reading about industrial food production, I have amassed a long list of reasons to not trust the ingredients, safety or general wholesomeness of products made by these companies. There are natural brands that I trust, but I try to used their prepared foods somewhat sparingly, because you just don't know what happens when food products are produced in large-scale factories with only periodic quality inspections, and many of these foods are packed with preservatives and questionable ingredients to make them stick together, look pretty, smell good, etc. I think Michael Pollan's advice that we should never eat anything that our great-grandmothers didn't eat is spot-on. I'm appalled every time I walk through a major grocery store and see aisle upon aisle of stuff that is sold as "food" but really isn't food at all. What a terrible state of affairs this is - I am convinced that these chemical-laden non-food food substances full of high fructose corn syrup and all kinds of horrible stuff are responsible for most of the diseases and health problems that plague Americans today. There's plenty of beautiful, good, wholesome, healthy food out there, and it's very possible to eat a healthy, vegan, plant-based diet for less than you would spend on the average shopping basket full of crap. In short, the only way you can know what's in your food is to buy ingredients - grains, fruits and vegetables, baking ingredients, spices, etc. - rather than prepared food.

I also love to cook vegan food - cooking is pretty fun in and of itself, but vegan, whole-foods-based cooking with beautiful, fresh ingredients is not only even more enjoyable, but a constant, daily revolution and protest against the shady policies of the food industry and profit-obsessed corporate American in general, and I love that. And I don't want to minimize the other good reasons for cooking this way - these foods taste really good and keep you really healthy and help you live longer, all without hurting animals or creating more cruelty in the world.

So that's it for the moment - I'm going to post some recipes and photos from my facebook page, then get on to some new vegan projects!