The Deceitful Vegan

In a continued effort to make healthy meals for the fam, I borrowed The Sneaky Chef and Deceptively Delicious from the library. If you didn't already know, the 'trick' behind these two books is to puree healthy fruits and veggies and add them into regular-looking meals so no one notices that they are eating 'healthy'. Now the only part of this that I think is a little silly is that often only one tablespoon of puree is in one serving but whatever...it's something I guess! Of course I had to veganize the recipes to make them truly veg-friendly.

My fave has been the Unbelieveable Chocolate Chip Cookies (link is slightly different than the recipe I used). Chock full of wheat germ, whole wheat flour and pureed white beans, these are awesome! I definitely didn't feel so bad eating them. The author noted that she couldn't make these any healthier, but by omitting the eggs and replacing with ground flaxseed, I did it!

Magic Meatballs - I used the Green Puree, tomato paste and a package of Yves Original Ground Round. Easy and simple! I followed her suggestion and added some White Puree and Orange Puree to a jar of store-bought spaghetti sauce.

Covert Quesadillas - Comprised of White Bean Puree and soy cheese. I guess if you liked the taste of cheese you would like this, but this again confirmed that I don't like the taste of cheese. Even though I said it before, I won't try soy cheese again.

Breakfast Ice Cream - banana, avocado, cocoa, agave nectar and probably something else I'm forgetting. Who cares - frozen, it was delicious and tasted like Jello Pudding Pops that I remember from being a kid.

Stuffed Potatoes - Vegan soy sour cream, white puree and veggie bacon made these pretty darn good.

Chocolate Thumbprint Cookies - I thought it was weird to have crushed cereal flakes, and I was right. Although when they came out of the oven they tasted normal, when they cooled the texture of the cereal was really odd. Maybe I didn't crush them enough? Folks were amazed to find out there was sweet potato and carrots in these.

And now for the really not so great stuff. Brainy Brownies with spinach and blueberries would have been great if I had added some baking powder when omitting the eggs. They had nothing in them to help rise!

I can't remember the exact name, but I'll guess Roasted Chickpeas. I guess they are supposed to taste like cinnamon sugar treats, they weren't great. For comparison, I made the same thing from the Vegan Lunch Box with nooch. I actually liked the quicker version of these, and just sprinkling some nooch on chickpeas right out of the can rather than roasting them. A great sub for popcorn!

The only thing I made from Deceptively Delicious was the Chocolate Pudding with avocado. Made with icing sugar, it turned out like frosting. It was supposed to serve like 6 people, but it barely made enough for Kyle and I. Unless we are complete pigs.

Boring Post Alert - Soups and Muffins

Wow, I'm scraping the bottom of the barrel to come up with a post...I made two pressure cooker soups from the Complete Vegetarian Kitchen by Lorna Sass. I wanted to use up some of the dried beans Kyle bought as part of our 'emergency' food stash. Honest to God, we have enough emergency food for the whole neighbourhood should some major catastrophe happen. Anyways, the first was White Bean with Escarole Soup. I subbed baby spinach since I don't think Loblaws carries escarole, but I never even tried looking for it. It was OK, but seemed a little bland.


Again, trying another bean soup, Adzuki Bean Soup with Corn (this is not the title, but I'm too lazy to dig out the book to check what it is). Meh - again, not alot of flavour. I was surprised at how the colour from the adzuki beans leached into the soup...interesting.



Continuing with the theme of boring, some simple Banana Blueberry Muffins. I basically mix 2 cups flour, 1 cup oats, 1/2 cup sugar, 1 tbsp baking powder, 1 tbsp ground flax with 3 mashed bananas, a little oil and soymilk to make a moist batter. I then add some frozen wild blueberries. Nothing exciting, but I changed it up making regular-sized and mini-muffins so Ash and I each had our own sized snack.

Skinny B*tch Rocks!

So I got a few new cookbooks from the library. I know it's not new or anything, but I got Skinny B*tch in the Kitch, as I never realized it is a vegan cookbook. I guess you have to be familiar with the preceding book or something, as nowhere on the cover does it suggest anything about vegan cooking! Anyways, despite it's lack of inspiring photos plus the fact that some recipes tell me I'm being a pig, I decided to give some recipes a try.

First up - Pecan-crusted French Toast. Eerily similar to Fronch Toast (which I love!), the addition of pecans is genius. And they actually stick! I'll definitely be making this one again.


I've been craving some tabouleh lately, and I found an easy recipe in here! I've never made it before, so maybe this recipe isn't so ground-breaking, but I never knew you just had to add boiling water to bulgur! I do have to say that I would have liked for the bulgur to have been more tender.

And Kyle and I have been meaning to eat more salads. The Edamame Three-Bean Salad was so easy and tasty. It only would have been more colourful had I had enough red pepper and red kidney beans (I subbed black beans). I'll be making this one again during the summer for sure!

And while it's in the appetizer section, I served up Crabby Crabcakes on top of the suggested spinach with the lemony dressing from Vcon. Now I've never had crab before, but the shredded parsnips in this tasted so darn good! I loved these! And since I made so many, I had lots of shaped cakes ready to be fried for the next night, making for a very easy dinner prep. As for the sauce, I didn't have the time nor all of the ingredients for the remoulade recipe, so I just mixed up some Nayonaise with ketchup and a dash of onion powder instead.

Still on the appetizer route, I had to make the onion rings. I can't tell you the last time I ate these, since we've never made them at home and I would worry that most restaurants would fry them up in oil used for fish, etc. These were great! I'll just be sure to use a finer grind of cornmeal (it wasn't specified in the recipe) and I'll be sure to buy a white onion next time.

Ah...dessert. We're supposed to be on a dessert strike, but I couldn't resist. And besides, this next recipe is so healthy - it's not even in the dessert section! When I saw the recipe for Homemade Granola Parfait I thought, 'meh, another boring granola recipe'. But I kept an open mind and made it anyways. This recipe is brilliant - I've never put brown rice syrup in my granola and boy, have I been missing something! It makes it so crunchy and adds a touch of sweetness - nothing like the maple syrup alone that I've been using for so many years! It was delicious with vanilla soy yogurt and yummy strawberries.

Well, since I made and served dessert one night, I had to do it again! I was also craving rice pudding, so I had to make that too. Now since there's only Kyle and I eating this, I didn't want to store the leftovers in a casserole dish so that next time we went to get a serving, we'd carve out a thickened hunk to put in a bowl. So I decided to throw the finished rice pudding in a pre-made vegan shortbread pie crust. After chilling in the fridge, it firmed up nicely enough to serve - and subsequent servings were still pretty and tasty! While it was a good healthy recipe with brown rice, I found it to be not quite 'saucy' enough, so I'll stick with my other recipe that is more creamy with soy yogurt. But I'll stick with this way of serving it from now on since it is also a 'thick' recipe versus the runnier rice pudding I had as a kid.



Finally, Dream Bars. I had scanned this recipe several times since it had so much stuff in it, and such a weird topping of coconut milk that I had a hard time envisioning how it would look and taste. While this pic doesn't do it justice, as I was supposed to let it cool a little more, it was heavenly. It made a whole 9x13 pan, so if you make this, make sure you do it when you will have lots of people around to help you out. You won't be a skinny b*tch if you eat this all by yourself, like the book suggests. Plus, you may want to mini-barf, as Kyle did when he set out to eat about 1/4 of the pan in one sitting.

All in all, a great little book! I'll definitely be buying my own copy of this one since it had so many standard and neat little recipes!

What I'm Making for St. Patrick's Day

I have no idea when I will get the time to post again, so I thought I'd be a little proactive in putting something up to share what I will be re-making for St. Patty's Day. Originally titled 'Tempeh in Hearty Mushroom-Lager Sauce', I subbed Yves Chick'n Tenders (what else?). Since it's from the March 2009 issue of VT, I can't seem to quickly find a link to the recipe :(

Anyways, it tastes like total pub fare. So darn good. I mini-hoped that the 2 1/2 cups of beer would somehow affect how Ash would sleep after nursing, but I think most of it cooked off during heating.

I'm super pumped to make this again! I just have to think of a side that's green to go with it that would be Irishy too...anyone have any ideas? I did steamed green beans last time I made this but I'd rather do something a little more exciting.

Treats for Kyle

Nothing says I love you like a bad leftover cake stored in the freezer, topped with leftover icing and chocolate mousse from making cuppies for a recent b-day party.

But I did well for Kyle's b-day. We started off with homemade Pumpkin Cinnamon Buns from MrsBadMouth's zine. I used canned pumpkin since we were all out of home-roasted and despite the brighter orange colour (almost neon!), I think canned pumpkin is waaayyy easier. Why have I been wasting so much time roasting my own? It's always too runny!

That night, I served up his other b-day request, for a cake that was like a Canadian Maple donut from the other major coffee shop in Canada. So here it is, based on an old Veggie Life recipe:

M"eh"ple Cream Cake

Cake
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup white potato, baked, with flesh scooped out
2 tablespoons Earth Balance
1 cup sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla
1/2 teaspoon lemon extract
1 cup soymilk

Filling
1/4 cup raw cashews
3/4 cup cold water
3 ounces firm silken tofu (in asceptic package)
1/2 cup sugar
4 teaspoons cornstarch
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon canola oil
1 teaspoon vanilla

Glaze
1 tablespoon Earth Balance

1 tablespoon maple extract
2 1/2 cups icing sugar
2 tablespoons boiling water, or more as needed

1. Preheat oven to 350°F. Spray and line two 8 inch round pan with parchment paper on the bottom.

2. In a medium bowl, sift flour, baking powder and salt together.
3. In a separate large bowl, cream potato and Earth Balance. Add the sugar and beat until fully blended and mix is fluffy.
4. Add the vanilla and lemon extracts to the sugar mix and continue to beat.
5. Slowly add soy milk, beating until fully blended. Then add flour mixture, 1 cup at a time, and beat until batter is smooth.
6. Pour into pans and bake for 25 to 30 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Remove from oven and let cool in the pan for 20 minutes. Remove from pan and let cool on a rack for at least 1 hour.

7. To make filling, in a blender, grind cashews with 1/4 cup water until smooth, about 1 minute. Add remaining water, washing down sides of blender while doing so and then blend on high for 2 minutes. Add tofu, sugar, cornstarch, and salt. Blend on high until mixture is completely smooth.
8. Pour mixture into a medium saucepan and bring to a simmer over medium heat, stirring constantly. Continue cooking and stirring until mixture is very thick, about 2 minutes.
9. Remove from heat then stir in oil and vanilla. Allow to cool, stir occasionally. At room temperature, cover and refrigerate until chilled, at least 1 hour.

10. To make glaze, stir together maple extract and Earth Balance, then add in icing sugar. Add 1 tablespoon at a time of boiling water until glaze is thick but still pourable.

11. To assemble cake, place one layer on serving surface, dump out filling in centre, then place other cake layer on top, gently pressing down, ensuring filling stays about 1/2 from the edge. Pour on a little glaze to test the consistency, allowing some to fall down the sides. If glaze is too liquidy, add a little icing sugar until right consistency is achieved, then try to pour on cake again.

Now I had doubled the filling since I love it so much and thought I could put it to good use. And I did! I made Boston Cream Cuppies using the same cake recipe, but using Isa's chocolate ganache topping from VCTOTW.

With still even more filling left over in my pastry bag, I decided to pipe it onto some tofu chocolate mousse that was hanging around in the fridge! I even had a little ganache leftover that I did a little decorative touch.

So with all of these sweets, Kyle suggested that we cut down a little. Probably a good idea. Despite our dessert strike, I did negotiate making Dream Bars from Skinny B*tch in the Kitch since they sound so heavenly. I hope to make those this week to cheer us up from our dessert drought!

Square Root Day

So Kyle calls me this morning to inform me that today is a very unique day requiring a unique meal - apparently it's Square Root Day. Believe me, I wasn't thrilled about cooking something up for a number of reasons. First, Ash is still nowhere close to sleeping through the night. I haven't seen a four-hour stretch of sleep in weeks, never mind a full night of sleep in more than a year. And last night was awful so I was completely groggy today. Second, I had made enough spaghetti and bland tomato sauce to unfortunately last us til next month. Third, my mind was so cloudy there was no way that I could even figure out why today was Square Root Day, never mind come up with something creative.

But alas, I surprised myself by coming up with the following recipe that was quite delectable:

Squared Root Gnocchi

1 package gnocchi
1 large sweet potato, cut into 1 cm squares (the shape is important!)
1 large parsnip, cut into 1 cm squares (optional)
2 tablespoons olive oil
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
1/2 teaspoon dried rosemary
2 tablespoons Earth Balance, divided
1/2 large onion, cut into thin slices
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 package Yves Chick'n Tenders, diced
1/2 teaspoon Spike seasoning, optional
1/2 package fresh baby spinach


Creamy Square Sauce:
2 1/2 cups soymilk
2 1/2 tablespoons flour
1 teaspoon tamari
1 tablespoon nutritional yeast
2 teaspoons onion powder
2 teaspoons garlic powder
2 tablespoons Earth Balance

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment. Add sweet potatoes, parsnips (if using), oil, thyme and rosemary and toss to coat. Roast for 40 minutes, and set aside.
2. Meanwhile, heat a skillet over medium heat. Add 1 tbsp Earth Balance, onion and garlic and saute until golden, about 5 minutes.
3. While the onion and garlic cooks, be a true multitasker and boil a pot of salted water for the gnocchi. In yet another saucepan, whisk together all of the sauce ingredients (except for the Earth Balance) and bring to a simmer, stirring often. Once simmering, add the Earth Balance and cook the sauce for another 10 minutes, again, stirring often.
4. While the sauce simmers, add the gnocchi to the boiling water and cook until gnocchi rise to the top of the pot, about 4 minutes.
5. When you've added the gnocchi to the boiling water, add the chick'n tenders and Spike (if using) to the onion and garlic mixture and cook for 3 minutes. Add the spinach and cook until wilted, about 1 minutes.
6. By this time, your gnocchi should be ready! Spoon it out of the boiling water and add it to the onion mixture. Add remaining 1 tbsp of Earth Balance and stir to combine. Toss in roasted veggies and stir gently.
7. Spoon gnocchi into a serving bowl and top with several spoonfuls of Creamy Square Sauce.


Confusing? Somewhat! Just like math can be! But actually rather easy!

New Vegetarian Restaurant in Ottawa!

We heard the news and had to check it out. Last night we dined at the new Green Earth Vegetarian Cuisine restaurant on Preston. We especially wanted to scope it out before taking the girls there since on one of our recent excursions downtown to the organic pizza place rumoured to have vegan cheese, we walked down Kent in the freezing cold only to learn that it had recently gone belly-up.

Green Earth is a refreshing place - bright in a happy way, with two dining levels. There are no curtains on the front window, so we instinctively wanted to eat near the back. I noticed that most people that came in after us felt the same way. There are two flat screen TVs tuned into SupremeMaster TV, which was an interesting channel piping continuous world peace and vegetarian messages subtitled in at least six languages.

The menu is puzzling. It is mostly Chinese/Asian, but with a section of six different veggie burgers, and burritos, fajitas and tacos, and another section of spaghetti and fettuccine alfredo. "Brushetta" is an appetizer alongside spring rolls and crispy wontons, and if you are so inspired you can order "fresh fries". There are only a couple of items that are not vegan and they are marked on the menu. The word "aulacese" is used several times. Not sure what that means. Internet searches imply that it is a synonym for Vietnamese.

The staff was very friendly and we were promptly served a pot of hot tea. We decided on an appetizer of Crispy Wontons, followed by soup - for me, Hot & Sour Soup and Petey ordered Rainbow Soup. The wontons were tasty, but there wasn't much filling, so we'll pass on those next time. Both of the soups were very good. This is now my go-to place for Hot & Sour Soup - loved it! We ordered dishes called "Three Flavours" and "Asparagus with Crescent" as our entrees. They were served as individual plates with a small pile of brown rice on each plate, so we had to kind of divvy up the plate in order to share both dishes. The "Three Flavours" - pumpkin, eggplant, tofu, onions and sweet basil was reminiscent of a Thai dish and very tasty. "Crescents" was asparagus and vegan prawn made from yam which was garlicky, salty and tasty. The asparagus was fresh and cooked perfectly and I think the prawn are funny. It was supposed to be served with chili sauce but I never saw any of that.

I thought we would be full by the end but we decided to try the vegan cheesecake. It was to die for. Slightly lemony and creamy on a graham cracker crust. Again, a repeat order next time we go there, and we may not be sharing.

It took a while to get our bill and we ended up having to ask for it. I wonder if it is a cultural thing, because I have noticed this at the Barrhaven Vietnamese Restaurant and a few reviews of that restaurant have alluded to this. If you are in a hurry, just ask politely for it or head to the cash.

Ottawa veggies, check it out! Let's keep our local vegetarian restaurants in business.

Green Earth Vegetarian Cuisine
354A Preston St
Ottawa, ON
(613) 56-EARTH
Mon-Sat 11am-9pm
Sun 12pm-8pm

Shrove Tuesday

Kyle wanted to celebrate Fat Tuesday with some pancakes. Oddly enough, I was just thinking of trying out pancakes with the little one in an effort to try and introduce her to different, yet healthy foods. Here's a recipe that is both adult and baby/kid-friendly. I used baby cereal to boost the fortified iron content, but you could certainly just use flour instead. You can certainly make this without the sweet potatoes and the pancakes are great, but the potatoes make a deliciously dense pancake. This recipe makes a few extras, so I have them stashed in freezer in between a few layers of wax paper in a Ziploc bag.

Sweet Potato Pancakes

1 cup whole wheat flour
3/4 cup unbleached white flour
1/4 cup baby cereal
2 tablespoons sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup cold Earth Balance
3 cups clabbered soymilk (soymilk mixed with 2 teaspoons cider vinegar)
1 1/2 cups cooked and pureed sweet potatoes

Combine dry ingredients in a large bowl. Cut in margarine and use a pastry blender to achieve a coarse consistency. Add clabbered soymilk and stir to combine. Add sweet potatoes and stir until well mixed.

Heat a griddle over medium heat. Spray with oil. Pour out batter onto griddle and cook until bubbles appear and edges are a little dry. Flip and cook for another minute or two. Repeat until batter is gone.

Serve with maple syrup (adults) or fruit (babies).

Clearing Out the Archives

I was checking out my pics, and realized that I hadn't posted a few gems. Because it's been so long, I can't really remember the exact titles and where things were from, but I'll do my best.

First up, Cardamom Rice Pudding from an issue of Vegetarian Times. I love rice pudding, but I didn't love this one. Maybe it was all of the almonds plus dried cranberries and strong cardamom flavour, but this was a little much. I'll stick to my usual recipe.

I had some baby cereal that tasted way too iron-fortified for Ash to like, so I used it up in my banana muffins recipe! I tossed some in with some oats and added a little extra soymilk. They were my best muffins ever!

Mystery salad alert! I have NO idea what this was, but I think it was from a recent VT issue. I don't think I'll make it again, whatever it was, probably because I wouldn't even know what issue to look in!

Now for all the good stuff - delicious Vegan Lasagna from the latest VT. A little bit of effort, but pretty fast. Instead of cooking onions and garlic separately for each of the Speedy Red Sauce and Spinach Filling, I cooked them together and split them up. Cut down on alot of the time. I have to say that this recipe did confirm that I really don't like vegan cheese. I never liked regular cheese, so I'm not sure why I thought I'd like soy cheese, but I gave it another shot with this recipe and will omit it in the future.

Triple Nut Torte from a holiday issue of VT. Very easy, and super good! Instead of using a double boiler for melting the chocolate, I just stuck chocolate chips in a bowl and put the bowl on the hot cookie sheet (used to toast the nuts). Melted like a charm! Why don't the authors put these tips in? I'm sure it's not just new moms that don't need extra effort nor to wash extra dishes!

Finally, the most delicious Pan Pizza ever. I used the crust recipe from the most recent VT, but filled it with Isa Pizza toppings instead. Way better than the Hut, even for obvious reasons that it isn't laden with pepperoni! I can't wait to make this again. I'm going to try a pile of different mushrooms and onions. I'm so glad that I have a cast iron pan just for this recipe alone!

Ashley Turns One!

More cupcakes! I baked these up during the week and froze them, made the frostings the day before and iced the day of - it was super easy...especially with a little ankle biter yanking on my pants to be picked up all the time! And I know the photo is not totally stylized...we had to hurry to grab a pic since we had 20+ hungry onlookers and a little girl that needed to be served!


For Ash's 1st b-day bash, I made S'mores Cupcakes from VCTOTW that my dad really enjoyed (although he kept calling them Smurf Cupcakes...I guess he never heard of a s'more before?).


Looking for something with more natural sugar for the b-day girl to eat, I made the Vanilla Agave Nectar Cupcakes (half frosted with Vanilla Buttercream and the other half with Not-Too-Sweet Blueberry Mousse...all from VCTOTW too). I was a little scared to use agar, but it seemed to turn out! When I tried the mousse on its own I was worried, since like the title says, it's really not too sweet. But teamed with a cuppie, it was super tasty! For some reason, I also expected a pale blue colour. After the final mixing, I felt relieved to re-read the description that went along with the recipes as it says it's bright purple! I'm going to make these ones again this weekend for the big b-day bash for all the babies in our playgroup. Ash really liked it.




I also made those avocado cuppies I blogged about before, but instead topped with the chocolate tofu mousse from VCTOTW. OMG. My new fave cuppie. The mousse was so thick and really creamy. Yummy!

Vegetables...They're Not Just for Dinner Anymore

They're for dessert too!


I made up VCTOTW Cookies n' Cream Cupcakes, but used this recipe instead. Nothing against the original recipe or anything, but I loved how these turned out when I made them before. Something about the avocado in them that just did something wonderful to the texture. And I had tried freezing them before, with great results. It's my new thing to do - bake up cupcakes a week in advance, make the icing the day before, and ice them the day of the big event. Easy.



For our mom's b-day, I made Boston Cream Cake again. The secret veggie ingredient in this one? Potato! It makes the layer cake so fluffy. Who knew?



Kyle has requested a twist on the BC cake for his upcoming b-day. Same cake, same filling, but with a maple-y glaze similar to a Canadian Maple donut from Tim Horton's. He's also requesting this pie too. I have no idea why I need to make two things, but whatever...can't argue with the birthday boy!

Happy B-day to Me!

I make my own cake for my b-day. I was going to order more cupcakes for my big day this year (after having tried 5 different kinds from Ash's baptism), but I would only order a dozen this time and they were all so good that I couldn't pick just one kind. So I thought I would try and make a ginger cake with lemon icing based on one of the varieties of those cupcakes.


So I doubled the Gingerbread Cupcakes from VCTOTW, and made 2 layer cakes. Similar to other carrot cake disasters, the damn center caved in.



I posted my issue to the PPK and later figured that the batter must have been too moist and there wasn't enough dry ingredients to soak it all up. I wasn't able to serve that up, especially once iced, since I'm sure it would have turned into a sogfest. So after doubling the recipe, I decided to try the recipe again and use 3/4 cup oil instead of 1 cup, omitted the maple syrup, used 3/4 cup sucanat and used about 1 cup of soymilk, while keeping all of the other ingredients and quantities the same. It turned out great! A tasty cake makes being 30-something not so bad :)




PS - I still haven't forgotten about posting the Turtles recipe...I'm lucky that the baby has stayed asleep this long to allow me to create this post ;)

Merry Christmas!!!

Here's my cookie tray for this year:

Vegan Turtles - Turtles, turtles...rah rah rah! I will post this recipe shortly...yummy!

Gingerbread Bears - Same recipe Tracy uses, except my icing didn't turn out as crunchy.

Chocolate Coconut Clusters - Did I blog about these before? Good! I made them vegan (obviously) and only boiled the mixture for a couple of minutes.

Cranberry Crumble Bars - Not too sweet!

Incredibly Non-Butter Shortbread Cookies - Delish! I added a little lemon juice to my icing and it tasted really good! Recipe is below!

1 cup Earth Balance, softened
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup icing sugar
2 tsp Kingsmill egg replacer

2 tbsp water
1 tsp vanilla
2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
3/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt

1. With electric mixer, beat Earth Balance until light and fluffy. Gradually beat in granulated and icing sugars and then beat in egg replacer, water and vanilla.
2. Combine flour, baking powder and salt; gradually stir into buttery mixture. Transfer dough to work surface; kneed lightly until it forms a ball.
3. Divide dough in half; shape each into disc. Wrap in plastic wrap; refrigerate for at least 1 hour or for up to 2 days. Once disc at a time, roll out dough on lightly floured surface to 1/4 inch thickness. Using cookie cutters, cut out shapes and place them on parchment paper lined baking sheets.
4. Bake in centre of preheated 375 F oven for 10 - 12 minutes or until light golden on bottom and edges. Let cool for 3 minutes on baking sheets; transfer to wire racks to cool. Makes 3 dozen cookies. Ice as desired.

Merry Christmas from Ashley! Happy New Year Everyone!

Sarah: 1, Soggy Carrot Cake: 0

I never thought that this day would come. I, Sarah the Vegan, have conquered my inability to make a serveable carrot cake.


I have owned VwaV for a couple years, and passed by the Ginger-Macadamia-Coconut-Carrot Cake recipe several times. But visions of carrot cake past kept haunting me. I even wrote back then that PPKers reassured me to try this recipe. But fear held me back.


Finally, I got the gumption to give it a go. And wow. Amazing. So good that I'm making it again this weekend for the stepdad's b-day. This time, I'm so bold to try and make it a layer cake! And this recipe must be foolproof since I used walnuts instead of the maca nuts and omitted the crystallized ginger. I will likely make it blindfolded since I'm now a carrot cake expert ;)




Even though I've tackled the fear of soggy carrot cakes, there's no way I'm going to face my fear of spiders.

Coldbusters

Princess came home from school complaining that she wasn't feeling well. Wanting to stop her cold in its tracks, I figured soup was in order. A small head of savoy cabbage had caught Pete's eye at the grocery store earlier in the day, so it became the main ingredient in the soup. Here's a vegan nod to the infamous Chicken Soup remedy.




Ch-egan Cabbage Soup

1 onion, chopped
1 tblsp olive oil
1 large carrot, chopped into small pieces
1 new potato, cut into small cubes
5 cups of water, divided
3 tblsp vegan no-chicken broth powder
2 tomatoes, chopped
1 tsp salt
1 tsp thyme
1 bay leaf
3 cups savoy cabbage, chopped finely
2 Gardein vegan “chicken breasts”, cut into small strips or Yves Chick'n Tenders, chopped
2 tsp sugar

Saute onion in olive oil until translucent. Add carrot and potato, broth powder and 1 cup of water. Braise for 5 mins. Add tomatoes, remaining water, salt, thyme and bay leaf. Simmer for 20 mins. Add cabbage, "chick'n" strips and sugar and cook until cabbage is soft. Remove bay leaf and serve.

And guess what? After a small bowl of soup, she was bouncing off the couch again.

Moo-Wah-Ha-Ha-Ha (Evil Sound)

It's coming up on that spooky time of year! Trick or treat...these look like scary, dismembered fingers, but are instead tasty Bloody Finger Cookies courtesy of Yeah, That "Vegan" Sh*t. I meant to make these last year, but I think I only remembered them on November 1st :(

I whipped up the dough while the little one played with a toy - briefly. I stuck the dough in the fridge, as per the instructions and waited for my opportunity to shape them into creepy fingers. The stars must have been aligned, because Ash decided to take a much-needed nap and actually remained sleeping in her crib for a half hour. In that time, I did some creative shaping - I thought they were going to look like crap but they actually came out looking alot like fingers!

I couldn't decide which pics to post so I have a shot right out of the oven, then a few with blood dripping out. I'm taking some to my mom's group Halloween get-together tomorrow, then Kyle is going to take some to work. Nothing like spreading some vegan cheer!

Soup n' Such

So much to blog about, but truly, so little time...


As Tracy mentioned in her post, it's gotten so cold that soup is an ideal meal. I pulled out Nava Atlas' Vegetarian Soups for All Seasons and made a Creamy Golden Potato Squash Soup. It was so silky and smooth! One thing this recipe made me realize is to not use the crumbled bay leaves that came with my spice set - there's a reason why recipes always say to remove the whole bay leaf before serving (obviously not possible with the bits I have)...those things do not soften up and result in little irritating pieces with every bite.



Another delicious soup was courtesy of one of Sarah Kramer's books - Auntie Bonnie's Black Bean Soup. Delicious! The addition of vinegar was genius! It offered the perfect amount of tang! I was also impressed with how easy it was to put this together.



And still on the whole fall theme...time for pumpkin scones! Some pie pumpkins grew on their own in our garden thanks to our compost pile (I guess some of last year`s pie pumpkins' seeds germinated!), so I roasted them up and made Pumpkin Scones!



Fall also means Thanksgiving. I'm so late in posting my feast, and the pic is of my plate of leftovers! I'm terrible! But I was more concerned with eating my meal than taking a pic of it while the little girl was happy! I made Dreena Burton's Rosemary Tofu Balls into cutlets (I thought they were too spicy but everyone seemed to like them!), and served them with maple-ginger winter squash, mashed potatoes, stuffing and veggies.



And finally, it was little Ash's baptism. We had a big shindig at my mom's after the ceremony, which initially had me a little stressed since I wanted to make lots of food (including a dessert) but would have no time. I decided to outsource the dessert and proceeded to try and find somewhere that could make some kind of vegan cake. I searched on the web for places in Ottawa, but had no luck - one bakery told me they could do vegan, but to expect it to taste 'dry and bland' (what???) and to make a small cake for the few vegans at the party and do a non-vegan cake for everyone else. I knew there had to be a better option out there! Thank goodness one of the moms in my mom's group sent me a link to Lil' Cakes. They were able to do all sorts of vegan cupcakes for me!


I was indifferent about the whole ceremony, but super excited for the five dozen cupcakes that were waiting for us! There was vanilla with buttercream, vanilla with raspberry mousse filling, chocolate with chocolate mousse, pumpkin chocolate chip and gingerbread with lemon buttercream. Best of all, they were absolutely beautiful AND delicious! I think I might need to establish a weekly standing order for cupcakes...

Putting it All Together

I had a bunch of random thoughts regarding dinner last night. One - it's fall, I'm craving soup. Two - I want to come home from swimming and have dinner immediately because all of us will be cold and hungry. Three - I have a 4 lb bag of chana dal in the cupboard. Four - It has to be something healthy because I'm trying to lose a couple of pounds to make running easier. After scouring the interwebs to find the perfect recipe, I gave up and morphed some of the better ones into one to suit the ingredients that I had and the level of blandness that was required (after making one rather surprisingly volcanic Tofu Vindaloo this week, I had to redeem myself). The results were tasty, very healthy and made enough for the whole street (or to freeze for future quick Friday night meals).

Pardon the photo, but I was halfway through my bowl before I realized I might want a pic.



Golden Crockpot Split Chickpea Soup

2 tblsp olive oil
1 onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 celery ribs, chopped
2 large carrots, chopped
1 sweet potato, peeled and diced
1 lb chana dal (split chickpeas), rinsed
4 cups veggie broth (I used a 1L asceptic package that I bought on sale for $1.99)
4 cups water
2/3 cup Thai red rice (could substitute brown rice)
sea salt and pepper to taste

THE NIGHT BEFORE
Chop the veggies

THE MORNING OF
Saute the onions in olive oil until soft. Add the other veggies and saute for a few minutes. Add to the crockpot along with the dal. Add the veggie broth and water. Turn on low and cook for around four hours.

AT LUNCH/WHENEVER YOU CAN
Add the rice. Cook for another 2-4 hours. Add more water if it looks thick. I ended up adding more 2 cups.

AT DINNER
Stir and serve. Add salt and pepper to taste.