Potluck Goods

I had a going-away party on saturday, in the form of a potluck. It was quite lovely and rather successful if I do say so myself! These are a few things people brought.

Tofu and herb stuffed mushrooms:



"Cheesy" scones, which were probably the tastiest vegan-cheese experience I've ever had. There were also berry scones, pictured in the background.



Lasagne:



Matt, ever the show-off, went all out with the vegan sushi. Yam tempura, deep-fried vegan shrimp and crab all found their way into the rolls, alongside the "usuals" like avocado.



A giant vat of chili:



And then there were desserts, which is where I become the show-off. There was a few things that didn't get photographed (at least by me), including a spice cake (which I didn't make) and a chocolate kahlua pudding layered with nutriwhip. Pictured here, on the other hand, is a strawberry-rhubarb pie:



Tiramisu cupcakes:



And lastly, something not related to the potluck.. I just forgot to post these last time. Kahlua almond cookies (see a theme with the kahlua here?)

I may be the laziest blogger alive.

Ok, no, that's an exaggeration. Still, it's pretty pathetic. And it may very well get worse yet - I will be departing on a 9-month volunteer-youth-service program in 2 weeks, and have no idea what this will do to my opportunity to update, but it's unlikely to improve.

Oh well. I'll flood your screen with pictures now instead...


I eat at work a lot. Mostly it's soup with couscous or tabouleh, because we have a decent variety of delicious vegan soups, or a falafel.. but not always. This particular concoction is rye toast with hummus, tomatoes, onions, banana peppers, eggplants, tahini and parsley. So good.



For some reason, anything with a bunch of veggies and some sort of potato grilled together is referred to as a "hash", though it's really more of a scramble. This is my take on the vegan breakfast "hash" we serve, which usually comes with yams, potatoes, tomato, green pepper, and onion, and to which I have here added mushrooms, eggplant and banana peppers, on grilled tabouleh. Also covered in tahini sauce, because I'm a tahini addict.



This is tomato soup from Celine's upcoming zine, and while I can't remember the exact name of the soup, it is delicious.



Another test recipe from her zine, a creamy pumpkin almond sauce, served here on whole wheat pasta with a grilled broccoli on the side.



I admit it, I am a bit of a reuben snob. I learned to make reubens as a cook in a restaurant renowned for their reubens, and even though I don't eat those ones (they aren't remotely vegan) I have high standards for any reuben that is now going to enter my mouth. I have only recently given in to the addition of avocado, because it's actually really good, if not traditional. The rest of this reuben is made on rye bread, with tofutti swiss cheese, seitan, homemade thousand island and sauerkraut, and is fully endorsed by me ;).



This is what I am referring to as "breakfast pudding", meaning it's unsweetened, aaand I ate it for breakfast. Plain vanilla pudding, delicious fresh blueberries, what more can you ask for?



This was Siobhan's birthday pie, the VwaV Black-Bottomed Peanut Butter Silk Pie (whew). I think I'd like it with less sugar next time, but it was still excellent. Even the tofu-phobic person loved it, and I do enjoy sneaking tofu on people.



Boston Cream cupcakes, for another friend's birthday. I screwed these up a bit (way too much vanilla) but the flavour mellowed out by the second day, and they ended up quite delicious in the end.



After visiting a local gelati place with an incredible vegan selection, I noticed they had bricks of green tea ice cream (not vegan) in their freezer. Naturally, I had to go home and invent my own. I froze it into star-shaped bricks because I had been.. inspired.. and served with raspberries which complimented it nicely.



the recipe:

2 cups cashews
2 cups plain almond milk (could probably sub. water, but I haven't tried it)
1/2 cup maple syrup
1/2 cup brown rice syrup (again, could probably use all maple syrup if you wanted)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon almond extract
4 teaspoons machta green tea powder

Blend cashews in a food processor until crumbs. Add liquid ingredients slowly, pulsing and scraping down the sides often, and continue to process until mixture is creamy and no longer grainy. This is important, because once the ice cream freezes any graininess will become more noticeable. Blend in green tea powder until well mixed. Chill in the freezer until cool, then make according to ice cream maker's instructions. Will probably need to set in the freezer overnight, unless you like your ice cream very soft..

It's about time...

Well.. I'm back in the kitchen. Haven't been taking pictures in the last month, really.. too busy. Too bad. Here is a green tea cupcake I made this afternoon, with some pansies from the garden for edible decoration.



This was dinner. Asparagus pancakes from Vegan. That title seems incomplete, somehow..



Mango summer rolls, attempt #2: successful. I ran out of bean sprouts and added mixed greens to some. Also, no cilantro, because Matt hates it. I think that made them a little bland, but they were still alright with a nice dipping sauce.



Barbequed mushroom burgers, grilled squash and asparagus, some kind of delicious coleslaw I made up.. hey, what is it with the asparagus? Every time I've eaten it this year it's ended up on my blog..



and I almost forgot.. Matt makes excellent vegan iced capps. I harrass him for them on hot days.

It's been exactly a month since my last post, and I've been feeling kind of guilty for not updating. It's not like I haven't been eating.. (though I haven't really been up to anything interesting, either, considering this is all I have to show for a month). One more month and I can get back in the kitchen..

I guess I'll start with breakfast food, and go from there. Orange hazelnut scones, made by Heather, adapted from ExtraVeganZa:



This my look like just a bowl of fruit to you, but it is my favourite fruit salad right now. 1 banana, 4-5 strawberries, 1 red grapefruit (with any excess juice from cutting it up poured in). The strawberry/grapefruit combo is really complementary... and I can't get enough..



Some muffins, made by Matt's mom. The back one is blueberry, the front one is "morning glory" - some delicious combination of bran, carrots, pineapple, I think sunflower seeds, raisins? and who knows what else, but they're yummy.



Vegan junk food. Grilled tofutti "cheese" with fried onions and tomatoes, and breaded seitan chicken fingers. This is a terrible picture, sorry.



Quinoa Pine Nut Pilaf. This originally started as someone else's recipe, but I've changed it so much by now that it's .. no longer even close. I love it, though.



Lentil curry, loosely based on this recipe, on brown basmati rice.



Agave nectar cupcakes (VCTOTW), for mother's day. Pretend they're not in spongebob liners.



I made the blueberry mousse and tried to get fancy with it. The mousse gave me a lot of problems, though.. it was way too runny to begin with, I added 1 1/2 t of xanthan gum to try and gel it up a bit. It got much better, but still didn't quite keep it's shape for very long, and the tops tried to run away shortly after I assembled the cupcakes.. oh well.



Mocha mousse (VCTOTW), with melted chocolate on top. I think I like this recipe more than any of the cupcake recipes in the whole book, which is saying a lot. The texture of this mousse is so good.. I make it to eat by itself, nevermind inside a cupcake.



That's all for now. I promise to return to a normal schedule in July, there's so much stuff I want to make.

Back in winnipeg, a few more pics from my trip. Mostly it's food I bought and not food I made, but oh well, it was good.

Portobello mushroom burger from The Earth:


Salad also from The Earth, with their own vegan ranch. This was the first time I'd had ranch since going vegan, and it was quite good.



Erin and I decided to celebrate our birthdays while I was there, despite the fact they're in august and december, respectively. Any excuse is a good excuse to make cupcakes, right? These are chai latte cupcakes with cream cheese frosting.



This was surprisingly good, it's the mac & chreese from the grocery haul in my last post. I don't really like nutritional yeast unless it's a background taste, and was therefore rather skeptical, but this somehow managed to pull it off. The listed ingredients were pretty simple, I am probably going to try making my own version of it..



Whoever came up with this is genius: chocolate covered ginger (crystallized) . Ohh lord.



My overpriced airport breakfast, from when I was stuck in the minneapolis airport for 30 hours. It was good, at least.

Valentines and other mishaps.

I have been absent due to the flu. Believe or not, I was too sick to even use the computer. I'm feeling a lot better now, and seem to be able to keep food down again, which is nice. This was the last thing I ate before I started projectile vomiting..



Coconut brown rice, adapted from VWAV, steamed peas, and maple-ginger tofu with zucchini, from my brain. Was really good at the time, but matt now has to eat the leftovers, because all memories of this dish bring up naseous feelings.

I am not particularily fond of valentine's day, and don't care to celebrate it with my significant other, but it was a good excuse to do some baking, and make some vegan treats for the kids I volunteer with on wednesday nights. Basic chocolate cupcakes from VCTOTW, vanilla buttercream, strawberry jam and heart candies:




These actually turned out to be a bit of a pain in the ass, because I decided to decorate them the day after I made them, knowing they're better the next day. They're also considerably more crumbly the next day. It probably didn't help that I made these 100% whole-wheat due to someone's white-flour allergy, and the didn't quite rise as well. Not that it matters too much when you cover them in frosting, anyway..

I had leftover batter and made some mini heart-shaped cakes for a few people. They were all decorated differently, partly, again, because decorating them turned out to be kind of disastrous, due to extreme crumbly-ness. I finally gave up and drizzled the icing on, which turned out to be my favourite one anyway:



Matt ate it. He was satisfied.

Favourite meal of the day, by far: breakfast
Days off means an excuse to make something special (ie not cold cereal, cream of wheat or oatmeal). Today I finished off that loaf of no-knead bread as "fronch toast", VWAV-style.



Luckily for us, a local store has no-name brand canned dairy-free "whipped topping" that's vegan. I had never actually tried it before, but caved today and sent matt out to get some. Soyatoo can suck it (I am not willing to pay $8 for a temperamental can of beany foam).


Blue came over to do some cupcake-baking last night. Flipped through VCTOTW, and settled on chocolate cherry creme cupcakes. I decided to wing the cherry sauce, as I had a bag of frozen cherries that was half-finished, unlabeled to begin with, and I had no idea how much 10 ounces was, anyway. For someone who's really good at math, conversions sure confuse the hell out of me..



We just put a saucy cherry from the leftovers on top. Blue gets credit for piping the icing on. And I don't know why there's a quarter beside the plate..

In my cupcake back-post, I forgot the orange pudding cupcakes. They were yummy. Pictured here with chocolate ganache and orange quins:

Less talk, more pictures.

The next couple days are going to be pure leftovers, my fridge is getting crowded. Posting old pictures in the meantime. If it's possible to cut on here can someone let me know how?

Cupcake-fest '06: I bought VCTOTW, and proceeded to bake everyone christmas presents from it.

Hazelnut cupcakes in the oven:


Finished cakes:


First attempt at tallcakes:


..which became tiramisu cupcakes:


Counterclockwise from left: maple walnut 'cakes, bowl of sugared walnuts, cappuchino 'cakes, pistachio rosewater and finally coconut lime cupcakes.


Coconut lime, complete:


Variety gift pack:


Gingerbread cupcakes that made my oma jealous and not believe they were vegan:



And, ok, this isn't a cupcake, it was my birthday cake. But it fits in nicely with the sugar-overload theme I have going on. Cinnamon swirl cheesecake w/ apple crumble-type thing on top, and caramel sauce. I don't remember what it's really called, Heather made it and it's from Sinfully Vegan.


It looks a little slanty because it got warm outside and we were using the garage as spare freezer space. Didn't matter, still delicious.