Chocolate cupcakes

I'm getting ready to make some vegan chocolate cupcakes for the homeless guests in the San Mateo County Home and Hope program tonight.  I'll make a big pot of yummy pasta with vegan meatballs too.
Here are some photos of my cupcakes, which were a big hit at the San Francisco Vegan Bakesale a couple of months ago.  Below the photos is the recipe.  I've made these cupcakes 5 or 6 times, and they're easy and consistently good.

CUPCAKES (makes 12 cupcakes):

1 cup soy milk + 1 tsp apple cider vinegar
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1/3 cup canola oil
1-1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/3 cup cocoa powder
3/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt

STEP 1:  Prepare cupcake pan with liners.

STEP 2:  Whisk together the soy milk and vinegar in a large bowl; let sit for a minute or two.

STEP 3:  Add sugar, oil and vanilla and beat until foamy.

STEP 4:  In a separate bowl, sift together flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Add to wet ingredients and beat until no large lumps remain.

STEP 5:  Fill cupcake liners 3/4 full. Bake 18-20 min. at 350.

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FROSTING (makes enough to VERY generously ice 12 cupcakes):

2 cups powdered sugar
¼ cup soy margarine (Earth Balance), softened
¼ cup vanilla rice milk
¾ cup unsweetened pure cocoa powder
½ t. vanilla

Using an electric hand mixer, cream the powdered sugar with the soy margarine until mixture is thick but well combined. Add the rice milk, cocoa powder and vanilla, and continue to mix until smooth.

Tofu scramble

It's good to be back in the kitchen now that my September traveling is over.  I'm looking forward to posting a blog entry about all of the amazing vegan food we found on our trip.  But for now, a little post about the tofu scramble I just made.

A tofu scramble is like a stirfry in that it there are several necessary components, and each component can be varied almost endlessly.  For a stirfry meal there's protein (tofu, tempeh, etc.), vegetables (any kind you want), sauce (the sky's the limit) and some kind of starch (rice, noodles, quinoa, etc.). 

For a tofu scramble the components are tofu (of course), liquid, seasonings, and whatever else you find in the fridge or pantry.  I started by sauteeing two cloves of crushed garlic in a little margarine.  Then I opened a package of extra-firm tofu (Whole Foods brand) and drained it by squeezing a lot of the liquid out in the sink.  Some people are really into pressing the liquid out of a block of tofu by wrapping it in towels and putting a heavy book or pan on top of it until as much liquid as possible has been squeezed out, but it's not that big a deal to me.  If I end up with too much liquid I just siphon it out of the pan with a turkey baster.

Then I crumbled the tofu in my fingers and added it to the pan with the sauteed garlic.  It's easy to over-crumble the tofu so that you end up with a very mushy scramble.  I prefer to break it up into pretty big chunks initially, then let it break up further during the cooking/stirring process.

Then I added some flavoring - splashes of tamari and pinches of salt, pepper, celery salt, onion powder and turmeric - and sauteed another minute or two to get everything integrated.  Then I added the other ingredients I had on hand - sliced mushrooms, a diced red bell pepper, and fresh chives from my kitchen garden.  A few more minutes of sauteeing, along with periodic tasting and addition of more seasonings, and I had this yummy scramble.

This dish is fast and easy, and infinitely adjustable.  You can use Italian seasonings like oregano, garlic and basil, or Mexican seasonings like adobo seasoning, chiles and lime juice, or Indian seasonings like cumin and curry powder; and you can throw in whatever vegetables and fresh herbs you want.  If you're using harder vegetables you may want to pre-sautee or steam them before you start cooking the scramble so that you don't end up overcooking your tofu while you're waiting for the veggies to soften up.

Traveling

Just a quick little update.  We're on a big roadtrip, seeing lots of beautiful scenery, meeting fantastic people, and finding all kinds of great vegan food.  I'll post details and pics when we get back.

Veganized rosemary-lemon cupcakes

Still working on my recipe to submit for the Better Homes & Gardens "Mad For Plaid" recipe contest, where entrants are to take a recipe from any of the 15 editions of the BH&G cookbook and put their "own spin" on it.  I decided to veganize BH&G's recipe for Rosemary & Lemon Cupcakes. 

I have it at the point where the cupcakes taste amazing - really lemony and melt-in-your-mouth moist. 

Unfortunately, despite my ministrations and purchase of fancy cupcake papers and little purple flowers, I'm not that happy with the way they look.  For some reason, the cupcake papers won't stay stuck to the cupcakes - I think it's because the cupcakes are so moist.  They just peel right away, leaving my cupcakes looking kind of deformed and weird. 

I'm going out of town for a little bit, and will make another batch when I get back.  I'll fill the cupcake papers a little fuller, so the finished cupcakes peek over the tops of the papers a little more; I'm hoping that will help them adhere to the cupcakes better.  I want the cupcakes to look a little more abundant and decadent; at this point I think they look a little skimpy.

Here's the recipe, in case anyone wants to try these.  Again, they taste really, really good, and they're vegan!

INGREDIENTS:

   1/2 cup soy yogurt

   1/2 cup soy milk
   1/2 cup Earth Balance margarine, softened
   1 cup granulated sugar
   1-1/2 tsp lemon extract
   1/2 tsp vanilla
   1-3/4 cups flour
   1-1/2 tsp baking powder
   1/2 tsp salt
   2 tsp finely-chopped fresh rosemary
   2 or 3 organic lemons
   1 cup powdered sugar

STEP 1:  Preheat oven to 350.  Line 15 muffin cups with paper bake cups (next time I might just do 12 and fill them fuller, then increase the baking time accordingly).

STEP 2:  Combine first 6 ingredients in large bowl.  Beat on medium speed until just combined, scraping bowl.

STEP 3:  In separate bowl, sift together flour, baking powder, salt and rosemary. 

STEP 4:  Add dry mixture to wet mixture and beat on low speed until just combined.

STEP 5:  Stir in 1 tsp finely-shredded lemon peel and 3 Tbsp lemon juice.

STEP 6:  Fill prepared cups 3/4 full.

STEP 7:  Bake 22 to 25 minutes, until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Allow cupcakes to cool completely.

STEP 8:  Prepare Lemon Glaze: combine powdered sugar and 4 or 5 tsp. lemon juice until desired consistency is reached. Stir in 1/2 teaspoon finely shredded lemon peel.

STEP 9:  Spoon glaze on to cupcakes.  If desired, garnish with a sprinkling of lemon zest.

"Kitchen sink soup" (sort of)

Made something yummy last night - it was supposed to be a soup that used up everything in the fridge, but all the broth got soaked up by the other ingredients.  It was too ugly to be photo-worthy, but it was delicious.  I'm looking forward to eating the leftovers today after they've had more time to percolate.  Here's what I did.

1.  Rounded up all vege odds and ends in the fridge - cabbage, portabellos, broccoli, some other stuff. Tossed it all in the food processor and pulsed until it was pretty small.

2.  Sauteed it all with several cloves of garlic (crushed) and some red chili sesame oil, then dumped the mixture into a big pot of vegetable broth.

3.  Diced some tofu and sauteed it for a minute or two, then tossed it into the pot.

4.  Added salt, pepper, tamari and mirin to taste; threw in a big hunk of ginger (which I later removed).

5.  Let the whole thing simmer for about half an hour.

6.  Added a big package of rice noodles and let them cook according to the package directions.  They soaked up all of the water so it ended up being kind of goulash-y.  Not beautiful, but really tasty and healthy!

Vegan pizza to Daiya for

I make THE BEST pizza, if I do say so myself, and it's really pretty easy.  I could make my own crust and sauce, but I can't imagine that they would be better or cheaper than the ones I get at Trader Joe's.  I use their whole-wheat pizza dough in a bag, and their pizza sauce that comes in a little black tub.

Here's what I did last night:

1.  Preheat the oven to 450.  Oil a pizza pan (I use a 9x13 baking sheet) and pour a little pile of whole wheat flour (maybe 1/4 cup) in the middle.

2.  Take the pizza dough out of the bag and plop it down in the pile of whole wheat flour.  Let it rest for 20 or 30 minutes.

3.  Using floured hands, stretch the pizza dough until it roughly matches the size and shape of your pan.  I pick up the dough by one edge and let it stretch itself down a little, then rotate it a little and grip it by another edge and let that part stretch itself down a little, and keep repeating until it's the right size and pretty evenly stretched.  Then I lay it down on the pan and push and prod it into place until it's pretty even in thickness all over and it covers the vertical sides of  the pan. 

4.  Spread sauce evenly over the whole crust.  I only leave about a millimeter of uncovered crust around the edge.  Then mix in some finely-chopped fresh basil if you have it.

5.  Then sprinkle on some vegan cheese.  I used Daiya mozzarella-style shreds for the first time last night, and it was DELICIOUS, and really easy because it's already shredded.  I used about 3/4 of the 8-ounce package.  It has a slightly sweet taste that I wasn't quite expecting, but I really liked it.

6.  Chop up your toppings so they're all about the same size, then spread them evenly across the pizza.  Give it a good look to make sure each slice is going to get a good distribution of toppings, and make adjustments if necessary.  I used one Tofurky Italian sausage, some pre-steamed brussels sprouts seasoned with salt, pepper and olive oil, some small portabello wedges brushed with olive oil, broccoli florets and a red bell pepper.

7.  Then bake for 8-10 minutes, allow to cool for 10 minutes, slice and eat! 

Recent misses among the hits

I've had a few misses among the hits in my kitchen this week.  I don't know which is true: when you cook a lot you're less likely to have misses because you're learning and gaining experience and expertise, OR when you cook a lot you're more likely to have misses simply because you're generating more food and you're likely to screw up at least a certain percentage of the time.  Who knows - I guess the more new recipes you try the more likely you are to have misses, especially when you're adapting or veganizing another recipe or just making it up when you go along.  In any case, here's what happened this week.

On Friday I made a really good plum crisp, similar to the apple crisp recipe in the original Moosewood Cookbook.  We got a bag of ripe plums on special for $1.00, and I needed to do something with them.  This recipe turned out really good - here's basically what I did:

1.  Peel plums (about 6 big ones), and slice into small wedges.  Sprinkle liberally with lemon juice and toss with hands.  Add a tablespoon or so of vanilla extract and toss again.  Sprinkle on 1/4 cup white sugar and toss gently.  Pour into greased 9x9 pan. 

2.  In a separate bowl, mix the following: 1 cup rolled oats * 1 cup white flour * 1/4 cup brown sugar * 1 tsp cinnamon * a dash each of nutmeg and allspice * 1/4 teaspoon salt * 1/2 cup melted butter * 1/2 cup finely-chopped walnuts.  Spread over the fruit mixture and pat into place.

3.  Bake uncovered at 375 for about 35 minutes.  Allow to cool for at least 15 minutes, then serve with vegan vanilla ice cream.

So a couple of days later I got a bag of really cute, good-smelling little apples, and decided to make the recipe again.  I chopped up the apples without removing the skins (mistake #1), then found that I had too many apples to fit in the 9x9 pan again, so used my 9x13 pan.  I used a glass pan this time, instead of a metal pan - possibly mistake #2.  Then I increased the quantities of all of the other ingredients to about 1-1/2 times what I had used for the plum crisp - mistake #3.  Then I decided to add about 1/4 cup sunflower seeds to the topping, then decided that since there was only about another 1/2 cup of chopped walnuts left in the bag I should add them too - somewhere in here was mistake #4.

So basically I now have a big pan of apple crisp with a very thick layer of topping, and the topping didn't get integrated with the apples since they were much drier than the juicy plums, so the whole thing kind of has the consistency of sawdust and the only way we can eat it is by putting it in a bowl and adding rice milk and eating it like it's cereal, plus the peel I left on the apples makes the texture kind of unpleasant.  Lessons learned! 

(Post-script: the boyfriend informed me just now that he had a big serving of the apple crisp sans rice milk last night and it was delicious - I guess I can't argue with that, but he does eat pretty much anything.  In any case, it wasn't up to my standards and I know what I'll do differently the next time.)

I also worked on version 1 of the lemon-rosemary cupcakes I'm trying to veganize, and they didn't turn out very good, but now that I've told the story of the failed apple crisp I don't want to write about another failure!  I need to get to work on version 2 of those cupcakes soon - hopefully today or tomorrow.

Happy eating, everyone!  I guess we don't get the successes without a few failures, right?

Pasta pomodoro

Made this fresh pomodoro sauce the other day, and it was so good it was almost a religious experience!  It was inspired by a dish I got at a restaurant in Manhattan about a month ago, and I think mine came out just as good as the restaurant's version.  Really packed with flavor - it could possibly have used a tiny bit more spiciness, but it was nice to be able to really taste the ingredients and not have them overpowered by spices.  The two of us ate the whole batch along with a pound of spaghetti!

I started with 6 medium tomatoes - these were the "tomato on the vine" type.  I got them along with some really nice sweet Italian basil at Dean's Produce in Millbrae, which is one of my favorite places to buy produce - it's surprisingly inexpensive, the produce is always fresh, and they have great variety.  

I removed the skin from the tomatoes by putting them in boiling water for about a minute then plunging them into a bowl of cold water - the skins then peeled right off.  Then I cut the tomatoes into wedges and removed most of the seeds, then put the wedges in the food processor and pulsed until they were barely chunky - I like a pretty smooth sauce.

Then I realized that this might not give me enough sauce, so I dumped a pint of mixed grape tomatoes (red, green and yellow - very pretty) in the food processor and pulsed them until they were about the same consistency as the larger tomatoes.  The grape tomatoes were pretty small and their skin was thin enough that I didn't need to worry about removing it.

Then I did the following:

1.  Heat about 5 Tbsp olive oil in a deep skillet.  Add 6 cloves garlic (sliced or crushed, whichever you prefer).  Saute over medium-low heat for 2 or 3 minutes, being careful not to let the garlic burn or turn brown.  Add a pinch or two of crushed red pepper flakes if you like a little heat. 

2.   Add the tomatoes, some dried oregano (I used about 3 pinches), and a pinch of black pepper.  Let the mixture simmer over medium-low heat for about an hour, stirring every few minutes.  The goal is to reduce the sauce until it is just a little more watery than you want it.  If it seems like it's not reducing fast enough, turn up the heat a little.

3.  Add white sugar and salt to taste while the mixture is cooking, tasting the sauce as you add new ingredients.

4.  At some point you will boil some pasta (in salted water).  When your sauce is almost done, reserve a quarter-cup of the pasta water and whisk it with some white flour to make a paste, then add this paste to the sauce and let it cook for another 5 minutes.  I liked what this did for the consistency, plus I'm always reading that you should use some of the pasta water because it's starchy and flavorful.     

5.  Right before you serve the sauce, mix in 1/2 cup of finely-chopped fresh basil.  The sweet Italian basil I found at Dean's Produce was really delicious.  Actually, it was mild enough that I could have used 3/4 cup or even more, but basil is often quite a bit stronger.  Next time, I'll smell it and try to gauge how strong or mild it's probably going to be.

6.  I added the pasta (spaghetti) to the sauce and mixed it up, then served it right away. 

Seriously, as good as pasta pomodoro you would get in a good restaurant.  If I were still eating dairy products I would probably have automatically sprinkled some grated parmesan on top, but I have to say I didn't miss it at all, and leaving it off allowed the flavors of the fresh tomatoes and basil and spices to shine through.  Can't wait to make it again.