Hail Seitan!

So I started off all GF-y. I felt especially inspired one day and decided to make Chef Chloe's Avocado Pesto Pasta. I had my little helper, Ashley, all pumped as she held all of the ingredients. So then I went to cut into a nice soft avocado. Surprise! All rotten :( Those damn avocados are so unreliable - they either never soften, or go from unripe to rotten and skip being all nice and creamy. Anyways, I was slightly bitter but went on and subbed some tofu to add the silky texture. Then, I had some frozen basil cubes - I went to add them in and noticed they were all dried up and gross. So in went some dried basil! I didn't have pinenuts so I subbed with ground almonds. I have to say that with all of my substitutions, it wasn't the most awesome dinner. Ah well. I took this pic:




Ash, my little budding photographer 3-year-old, now takes pics of her food just like mom - we just need to work on the food styling:



I did however redeem myself with Isa's Upside Down Shepherd's Pie from Appetite for Reduction. Rather stupidly, I got all ready to bake this puppy, until I re-read the recipe about four times, then saw the title and realized that I didn't have to bake this up - I nearly did a jig since I didn't feel like baking it up and having to wait eons to eat dinner (the small things in life these days make me so happy!). I had three full portions (thereby not really serving as a real 'reduction' recipe unfortunately - I have no self control), and even Ash gobbled this up. It was so freakin' good!



Well, that was the end of the gluten free trial. Kyson will soon be seeing an allergist, so I'm hoping I'll get more clarification as to whether my avoiding gluten is doing any good or harm. For now, I'm just too hungry still nursing every two hours that I can't take it! That and I tried making a GF pizza dough that even the smell had me gagging. I caved and made my usual recipe. But the real turning point came after making Vegan Dad's Veggie Lunch Meat. Good lord - somehow I missed the whole Seitan O' Greatness craze a few years back but I'm glad I found this - I will never go back to paying $3.49 for a package of Tofurky slices again when this makes up tons! It sliced so well. Ash said it was delicious! I'm going to try making one with maple syrup next time to punch up the sweetness.

Happy St. Patty's! Low Fat and...Healthy?

Theme day! Before bed last night I cut up veggies for dinner tonight, and made the slow cooker seitan pot roast from Vegan on the Cheap. Instead of using my big crockpot and using all the veggies, I just made the seitan dough and put it in my little crockpot that I normally reserve for steel cut oats. I couldn't believe how much it puffed up today - it looked like a souffle! But I really should have added some more water to account for the water the poor roast didn't get from all of the veggies that would have otherwise surrounded it. I just had to cut off some dry bits but other than that it was perfect! Cooking it overnight worked out really well and cut down on the prep required at a busy time in the afternoon.



So what did I use the roast for? Appetite for Reduction's Irish Stew. Made with vegan beer, I can't get over how authentic this tastes! Now when I say authentic, I mean Puritan Irish Stew from a can. Tracy and I seemed to have that often when Dad was in charge of dinner. Can't say I've ever had it from a real pub. Anyways, I'm sure this tastes like what would be served in one! I included some of my oatmeal bread (see this post) as it contains Irish oats, or steel cut oats. Yummy combo!


But the real showstoppers were Chloe Coscarelli's Chocolate Beer Cupcakes with Irish Whiskey Buttercream...yummy! I do admit that I love Isa's cupcakes as they turn out so reliably (I had these ones in the oven for 10 minutes longer than specified since they wouldn't cook!), but this flavour combo was pretty cool. Anyways, for the buttercream, I wanted green, and since I'm not a fan of artificial colours, I added a scoop of my Vega Smoothie Infusion powder. Spinach anyone? It gave a pale green hue and didn't impart any weird flavouring. Healthy cupcakes? Kinda. Sweet? Omigod...I swear I developed a cavity eating these! I also made the caramel drizzle...I don't know, but cooking sugar stresses me out. Seems like there's this fine line between soft ball and hard ball (?) and I always seems to mess it up. I found her instructions a little unclear for the slight moron I can be, so to salvage a crunchy hard sugar mess, I added about 1/4 cup of soymilk and cooked over medium heat. Seemed to work! It resulted in a sticky taffy-like confection. Anyways, it looked good.

Solo:


With all her buddies:


I'm so happy for daylight savings time and the fact that spring is here! I can use natural light for pics! Hooray!

Gourmet Pizza

I came across Chloe Coscarelli’s site after reading VegNews and thought a few of her recipes looked yummy. I found a flatbread recipe, and to me it seemed like a different style of pizza.

Her crust (foccacia) recipe is perfect. No matter how hard I try, I can’t screw it up! I vary the recipe to use ½ AP flour and ½ whole wheat flour for added nutrition and it still comes out terrific. I double it (thank goodness for my Kitchenaid!) to always make two varieties of pizza that night, so Kyle has plenty of leftovers for his lunches in the coming days.

Pizza #1 follows her recipe to a 'T' – I top with ½ the recipe of bean puree, then spinach, apples, cooked butternut squash and caramelized onions.



Pizza #2 has the other ½ of the bean puree with a few dollops of tomato paste swirled in, then veggie pepperoni, mushrooms, caramelized onions and Daiya for those who like the taste of cheese (not me!). I normally add red peppers but last night I was all out.



They taste fantastic! Everytime I make these pizzas, Kyle and I fantasize about how much one would charge in a pizzeria to serve some of this good stuff.

I also make the bean puree pretty much on a daily basis. I make big batches of navy beans in my pressure cooker, and freeze in 15oz portions. I pull them out to whip up the puree which is a nice change from hummus and dip in crackers, pita or veggies. Makes me feel a little less guilty about evening snacking!