Watermelon Mint Agua Fresca

In Massachusetts, we're on day three of a heat wave.  After picking strawberries from the garden this morning, I could already tell it would be a scorcher.  The first thought after going inside was that I must find something to drink.  This weekend I made batch of watermelon mint agua fresca and a cool glass definitely hit the spot.

I first saw the recipe in an email that linked over to the NatureBox blog. I googled a couple more recipes, but went back to this one because there was no additional sugar.

The recipe is simple:

8 cups cubed seeded watermelon
Juice of 2 limes
Mint to taste (I used 4 sprigs)
2 cups water

Juice the fruit.  Blend the mint with 1 cup of juice and strain out the pulp.  Add water and serve over ice.

We used our Breville juicer for the watermelon and limes because we figured there would be less straining needed than using a blender. The juicer doesn't do a very good job on leafy things, so I put about a cup of the watermelon lime juice in the VitaMix with 4 springs of mint).  Then poured the mixture through a strainer to catch the pulp.

The original recipe calls for 8 sprigs of mint.  In a juicer or regular blender, I suspect you wouldn't get a ton of flavor.  On the other hand the VitaMix pulverizes the leaves and extracts lots of flavor, so I halved the mint to prevent it from overpowering.  Was my plan successful? Our friend who was visiting loved the drink as did I.  My girlfriend didn't care for the mint and thought it was too strong.

To be honest this would be super refreshing without any mint, so use your own judgement.   Either way, you should make some agua fresca soon.  Get creative!  One morning, I added some fresh strawberries and blended it up.  It was also delicious.  I'm looking forward to trying some of the cucumber agua fresca recipes   I've also seen online.

Panzanella Salad

One of my favorite vegan restaurants is Eden in Bar Harbor, Maine.  The menu consists of amazing seasonal dishes.  I've got quite a backlog of photos from Eden to post for you on my vegan dining guide .  We were lucky enough to dine there twice over Memorial day weekend.  The food was spectacular, but my girlfriend always talks about a dish she got there last summer.  It was just a simple panzanella salad that left such an impression.

The first time I had a panzanella salad was many years ago when I was studying in Spain.  My professor decided to have a party. Each of the students was responsible for going to a shop and purchasing one ingredient.  Then we all met later and built the salad.  To be honest, I thought dipping bread in the tomato juice/salad dressing mix was weird.  However, I was surprised to find that it was quite delicious.  Though I occasionally order panzanella at a restaurant, I've never made it again until today!

A few weeks ago, I bookmarked a panzanella recipe from America's Test Kitchen because I thought we might enjoy it just as much.  (Unfortunately to see that recipe along with their whole collection, you may need to share your email address with them.  Test Kitchen is a great site!)

I picked up a nice loaf of French bread on the way home and cubed it.  Then tossed it with olive oil and salt.  Next I baked at a high temperature for 15 minutes or so, to develop some crunch.

The rest is mainly chopping.  Though the tomatoes need to rest after being tossed with salt.  This helps bring out the juice which is used in a simple vinaigrette dressing.   Once the vinaigrette is made, it is mixed in with the crunchy bread cubes and left to marinate for a few minutes before plating everything.

Overall we both really liked this salad.  Though to us, the shallot was a little sharp.  Instead, I recommend some red onion or perhaps a Vidalia.

Vegan Chocolate Bundt Cake

Over the holidays, my girlfriend gave me a beautiful blue bundt cake pan and I've been itching to use it. Then I happened to see that Isa posted this new recipe for a Chocolate Yogurt Bundt Cake. All I needed was an occasion for such a delicacy. Well, last weekend the in-laws came to visit and it seemed like a perfect time to try out the recipe. I'll warn you that my photo didn't do the cake justice.

As per usual, I tweaked the recipe a wee bit.  It calls for 1 cup of cocoa powder, but I used 3/4 cup and subbed in a 1/4 cup of black cocoa. Black cocoa has a deeper dark chocolate flavor which makes me happy and, of course, it adds a darker color as well.  Because I failed to read the recipe before shopping, it turned out I needed more than the lonely container of coconut yogurt I'd purchased. While you should learn a lesson here (or perhaps I should), the recipe turned out just fine because fortunately, we had some left over vegan sour cream which I used instead.

The cake itself turned out beautifully.  The pictures, however, taken with my phone on a dreary morning of a black cocoa cake on an espresso finished table didn't really seem worth posting.  You'll have to settle for a slightly less terrible picture showing just one slice of cake.


Isa sprinkled powder sugar on the top of the bundt, but my girlfriend suggested a peanut butter glaze.  After a bunch of Internet searches, I couldn't really find what we had in mind.  That meant some improvisation.

The glaze is basically powdered sugar, peanut butter, soymilk, and a dash of vanilla.  At first it wasn't quite thick enough but rather than adding more sugar, some powdered peanut butter worked quite well as far as consistency and flavor. There were a few pb powder chunks that didn't dissolve, but next time I would try mixing the powder with soymilk first or simply using more good ol' peanut butter.

Behold the best (or shall we say not worst) picture I could muster.  It is my goal to stop being lazy and actually charge my digital camera.

The cake was a hit with everyone and I'd definitely recommend the recipe!

Lettuce Wraps

I've always been a fan of lettuce wraps. It is so much fun to fill the lettuce cups with different ingredients, roll them up, and enjoy the different flavors.  When I saw the recipe for Lettuce Wraps With Hoisin-Mustard Tofu from Appetite For Reduction, it was immediately added to our list of upcoming dinner ideas.

Although the recipe suggested serving with some spiced squash and fried rice, I was thinking more along the lines of the make-your-own wraps I'd had in the past.

Since we didn't have tofu on hand, I subbed tempeh which we boiled for 10 minutes before browning up.  I've found boiling first makes the tempeh less bitter.

Then it was just a matter of chopping veggies and sauteing up mushrooms to make all the fixings.  From the picture you can see we had carrots, cucumber, scallions, baby bellas, beans sprouts, and red cabbage.  

While the suggested iceberg lettuce is crunchier, I usually prefer boston lettuce for wraps. 

Overall, this recipe did not disappoint.  I do think tofu would have absorbed the flavorings a bit better, but we enjoyed the tempeh.  This is a fun change of pace and you get to eat with your hands!


 

Rhode Island Weenies Vegan Style

My girlfriend’s family grew up in Rhode Island, enjoying Ocean State delicacies such as coffee milk and New York System Hot Wieners “all the way.” When her brother comes up from the south to visit, it is all about local memories…which entails visiting nostalgic RI hangouts and sampling all the quintessential classics.  What is traditional Rhode Island fare you ask?

I already knew about Del's Lemonade.  This is definitively my favorite frozen lemonade.  It was in the running to become the official drink of RI, but was beat out by coffee milk!

Last year, Nana introduced me to johhnycakes.  These are basically a thin cornmeal pancake. 

Stuffies are stuffed baked quahogs.  As a kid (long before the thought of being vegan entered my mind) I did try these.  The flavor is all about what is added to the stuffing and it would be pretty simple to make a vegan version of these.  The vegan crab cake recipes are good enough for me.

Next up, bakery pizza. Cold pizza strips…they don’t sound too appetizing, do they? There's something about the dough, olive oil, and fresh sauce that makes these babies work. Fortunately for us vegans, they usually don't bother with cheese.

For weeks before this year's visit, all I heard about was hot weenies or more specifically NY System Hot Wieners. These frankfurts are topped with spiced meat sauce, yellow mustard, chopped raw onion and a generous shake of celery salt. The spiced meat is not to be confused with chili. There are no tomatoes, peppers or other chili fixings involved.

My girlfriend’s mom told me there's something about the onion, it just stays with you. Someone else fondly talked about how they hit your stomach like a lead weight. “They don’t call them ‘gaggers’ or ‘belly busters’ for nothin’, ya know.” It all made me chuckle a little.

The family bought NY System sauce spice packs for her brother so he wouldn't miss these while he was back down south. Looking at the envelopes and reading the directions made us think that we could veganize this local fav.

We started with vegan burger crumbles and the spice mix. It called for significantly more oil than I was willing to add, so we cut down quite a bit and then added some vegan beef bouillon dissolved in a ½ cup of water to thin it out while adding authentic flavor. We simmered and stirred, and after about an hour we were good to go.

We topped tofu pups with the spiced crumbles, raw onion, mustard and celery salt…“all the way” as they’re ordered up in Olneyville. The verdict? I dig them! A couple of our not-so-vegan friends saw the appealing pics on facebook and couldn't wait to try them. Now we are having a vegan weenie party at their house this weekend.

If you want to try making these on your own, there are tons of recipes for the RI weenie sauce online. They are all very similar with chili powder and a mix of spices. You could always order the spice packs direct from Olneyville NY System Wieners if you want to start at the source.

This veganzied version is certainly easier on your stomach and heart.

Popeyes Biscuits

The other day I was browsing around on Pinterest and it seemed like there was an abundance of pins with a veganized version Popeyes biscuits.  As a teenager, I was a huge fan of Popeyes restaurant and one of my favorite things to order was the biscuits. 

One pin pointed me to this blog.  The recipe couldn't be more simple.  It is just 4 ingredients!  I'll warn that I found the dough rather sticky and ended up using quite a bit of flour on the bottom/top in order to cut out biscuits.  In addition we prefer a little more crunch, so I baked them for a few extra minutes to get the darker, golden toasty goodness.

We had hot tasty biscuits in less than 20 minutes including cooking time.  The worst part was the clean up (as usual).

If you are looking to make these a little healthier, you can easily cut back on the margarine.  I went with the lower amount of Earth Balance, just two ounces.  Next time, I'd likely half it again as these were rich enough. 

I googled for other copycat Popeyes biscuit recipes and the standard version is basically the same recipe.  The author just subbed margarine and vegan sour cream.  One interesting tidbit is that a lot of recipes use Sprite instead of soda water.  That doesn't sound very good to me.

In the future, I could see making these with some nutritional yeast and maybe some chives for a more sophisticated flavor. 

Anyway, behold the beautiful biscuits!

Garden Gille - Fregola Bowl

We stopped in for dinner at one of our favorite haunts, Garden Grille Cafe in Pawtucket Rhode Island.  I've written about it before on my dining guide, but failed to post pictures.  This entry should help, though I'll be better about documenting our food adventures in the future!

Garden Grille recently remodeled and changed up the menu.  The wooden tree branching out over the bar definitely impresses on your first visit to the new digs.

It is almost guaranteed that we will order the Barbeque Chipotle Seitan appetizer with the wasabi mustard dipping sauce as well as the special greens of the day.  We shared the smoked cauliflower hazelnut bisque which was delightful.  The seitan was fabulous and we especially enjoyed the extra crispy pieces.  The greens of the day were also quite nice.  There was a beautiful plate of collard greens, chickpeas and garlic.  Thursday there was a special that caught my eye, but I had no idea what fregola is!

Smartphone to the rescue.  I quickly learned that fregola or fregula is a pasta from Sardinia.  It resembles Israeli couscous.  The pasta is toasted in the oven before packaging which gives it some color.

We ordered the Fregola Bowl in addition to our standard meal.  I really enjoyed the variation in this dish. 

Cauliflower, hearts of palm, french horn mushrooms,

charred endive, with preserved lemon aioli.

Vegan Superbowl

Well, I can't say I am much of a football fan.  However, the Superbowl gives me an excuse to cook for my friends and this is perhaps the one time I look forward to commercials.

Sunday I made up a batch tempeh buffalo wingz.  It is an awesome recipe from a friend's zine. You can find a copy of it online here: http://donteatoffthesidewalk.com/the-zine/sample-recipes/ (Scroll down to the 3rd recipe!)

The wingz were a hit and we'll probably try some other variations in the future.

Awhile back, I saw some blog posts about root beer float cupcakes and couldn't wait to try them.   Root beer extract was rather elusive though and it prevented me from making up a batch.   A couple of weeks ago, I stumbled upon a jar of the stuff and Sunday seemed like the perfect day to crack it open.  You can find the recipe here: http://vegan.com/recipes/vegancom-top-10-recipes-of-2008/root-beer-float-cupcakes-vegancom-top-10-recipe-2008/

The cupcakes were good, though everyone agreed that tasting root beer out of context was a bit weird.  It is unlikely that I'll try this recipe again. 

Back on the Blog Wagon...

Lately I've been reading lots of blogs, but I've really missed posting.  What better time to start than today?

At the end of October, I headed to the Boston Vegetarian Food Festival with my girlfriend.  We had a blast.  It was especially nice because this year, they sold tickets to attend the first hour.  That means there was some time to wander around and meet with the vendors before it got too crowded. We managed a decent haul of freebies and coupons and purchased a few items to try out as well.

Uncle Eddies's Vegan Cookies were there this year.  I'm a huge fan of their chocolate chip peanut butter flavor, so it was nice to see them.  Vegan Treats Bakery was also there with an amazing spread.  They had cannolis which I couldn't wait to try.  Unfortunately, I wasn't a fan.  I'll definitely stick to their more interesting pastries like the Chocolate Peanut Butter Bomb, in the future.

We picked up a couple of items at the Cosmo's Vegan Shoppe table as well.  They actually had imitation pork rinds. Seriously! Who thinks of these things?

Pic From Cosmo's Site

I don't recall ever wanting to eat pork rinds, but I couldn't resist buying these.  Even though I normally wouldn't try something, I'm often feel compelled to try a vegan version if there is one.  Why, we'll never know.

The verdict...  Not bad.  They were just crunchy squares of thin, salty dough.

That's all for now.  I'll be posting soon about making watermelon radish pickles because there was a pound of very pretty watermelon radishes in my organic veggie box last week.

Raw Marinated Artichoke Salad

I stumbled upon the BSI (Blogger Secret Ingredient) Event and thought it sounded like fun.  This week the ingredient was artichokes.  With my recent live foods kick, I was worried about whether, this could work.

From Google, I learned that raw artichokes are commonly served in Greece and other countries.

Here's my first brush with raw artichokes:

This salad is the kind of thing you just throw together, so feel free to make substitutions or changes.  My recipe and instructions are below.

Raw Artichoke Salad Recipe

2 fresh artichokes
chopped tomatoes
marinated mushrooms (baby bella is what I used)  and onions
Kalamata olives
crumbled cheese (cashew cheese in this case)
greens (baby arugula in this case)
sliced scallions
olive oil
balsamic vinegar
lemon juice
Nama Shoyu or soy sauce
Italian spice blend

First, slice the mushrooms and onion.  Mix  a splash of Nama Shoyu, olive oil, and vinegar with a generous sprinkle of the spices.  Add the mushrooms and onions and mix to coat.  Refrigerate for a few hours or days.  The longer the better. (Shaking the bowl to mix it up occasionally is a good thing.)

Juice a lemon and mix with a bowl cold water to prevent the artichoke from browning.  Prepare the artichokes by removing tough outer leaves and the fuzzy choke as well as any purple leaves in the center.  Dip in lemon water as you work.  Slice the artichoke thinly and leave in the water while you prepare the salad.

Mix tomatoes, chopped olives, marinated mushrooms and onions in a bowl.  Add the artichoke slices and a splash of vinegar.  Stir again to combine.

To plate:  Start with greens, add the artichoke mixture.  Garnish with crumbled cheese and sliced scallions.

Hope you enjoy it!

The artichokes were a little tough at first, but the texture grew on me.  I've added my remaining artichoke slices to the mushroom marinade in the fridge and will check to see if that softens it up without destroying the color.

ETA: I'm so excited to say that this recipe actually won the contest.  It is very encouraging so see a vegan recipe beat out standard fare.  In this case raw vegan made the grade!

Raw Beet Patties

I saw a recipe for smokey beet cakes that Alicia Silverstone posted and decided they could easily be converted to a raw dish.   With a few ideas in mind, I also searched to see what others have already tried.  This recipe followed pretty closely to what I was thinking already.

Soaking walnuts takes up too much time, so I opted to use sunflower seeds and ground flax instead.  The rest was a matter of what was in the fridge.

The final product with some onion bread and crumbled cashew cheese.

There were a couple of  Twitter requests for the recipe.  It certainly wasn't exact, but here's an attempt at documenting it.  

 

Raw Smoky Beet Patty Recipe

1 cup of carrot/celery pulp leftover from the juicer (whatever you have will work)
1/2 red beet
1/2 yellow beet
1 onion

1-2 cloves of garlic

1/2 tomato

1/2 cup raw sunflower seeds

2 Tbl of ground flax seed mixed with 2 Tbl of water

1  tsp of smoked paprika

Salt or Nama Shoyu to taste

Food process to incorporate, adding water if necessary.  Basically, you just need a consistency that allows for making patties.   Form patties, then dehydrate at 105 degrees overnight.   These were best right out the dehydrator with a crispy outside.  Though they are still great the next day and keep well.

 

Enjoy!

Tal Ronnen and Gardein - Conscious Cooking

Today I was excited to know Tal Ronnen would be demonstrating recipes at Whole Foods near my office.  At lunch time I headed over there.  He was set-up in a small area speaking to an audience of about 10 people and showing them how to make recipes.

I sat down and watched while he made Gardein Chik'n Marsala.  The sample was delicious.  You can get the recipe on Gardein's site by clicking here.  Unfortunately, my seat didn't facilitate photo taking for this dish.  Tal was so friendly and down to earth and really tried to speak with everyone.   At one point he took a break to sign cookbooks.  I was bummed that my copy was on the shelf at home. 

The second recipe that Chef Ronnen prepared was Asian Gardein Beefless Stir Fry.  While he was making this dish he talked about his cookbook, The Conscious Cook: Delicious Meatless Recipes That Will Change the Way You Eat. I was surprised to learn how popular it is outside the vegan community.  The book actually made #3 on the New York Times Bestseller list.  Epicurious also named it one of the top ten cookbooks of the year!  While it is great to see a vegan book making a mainstream smash, it is disappointing that some of the other great vegan cookbooks out there don't have as much commercial support.  Hopefully, Tal's influence will make people explore some other titles.

Below is a picture of the stir fry before Chef Ronnen served it up.  This dish was also mighty good.  After that, it was back to office for me!

Raw Kale Chips

With the recent bout of warm weather, I've been experimenting with a high raw diet. So far I'm really digging it and feeling great.

Most of my meals are simple salads, fruit or smoothies. Occasionally, I've prepared a more involved entree like raw tacos. This week I'm planning on raw pizza. The crust is actually in the dehydrator right now!

Awhile back I checked out Prana Raw Cafe and really enjoyed the kale chips that came with my meal. These have been on my list to make for awhile. Google turned up some complicated recipes, so I opted to wing it.

Basically, I mixed together a little cold pressed olive oil, nama shoyu, and raw sesames seeds. Then I poured the mixture over some kale leaves that I had torn up. After mixing it up well and making sure all the pieces were coated, I tossed them in the dehydrator for about 5 hours. These came out great. Prana definitely used more oil, but I was happy with these results.

The yellow/orange you see in the picture is some nutritional yeast.  I sprinkled about 1/3 of the chips with nutritional yeast, to add some cheesy flavor.  Both varieties are great.

Many people make kale chips in the oven, so no dehydrator necessary.  Soy sauce works fine in place of the nama shoyu if you aren't trying to adhere to a raw diet.

Give these a try, kale chips will surprise you.

Puerto Rican Pink Beans

Joyfulgirl415 posted a family recipe for Puerto Rican Pink beans on a vegan forum I frequent.  The post got a lot of attention and I decided to give it a try.

The first thing I needed to figure out is what exactly pink beans are.  I originally though this was just another name for pinto beans.  That is incorrect.  Pintos and pink beans are good substitutions for the each other though.  It turns out pink beans are their own variety.  Sometimes they are also called chili beans.  They are smaller and lighter in color than kidney beans.

I bought a bag of the dry beans and used the pressure cooker for 5 min to avoid the long soak time.  Then, I followed the recipe here.  Note that Joyfulgirl415 originally forgot the green olives and listed them later on in the thread.   When I googled around to learn more about this dish, I found that it is commonly topped with slices of avocado.

The recipe is simple to make, healthy, and really delicious.  Give it a try, you won't be disappointed!

Update:  The link above doesn't work, so I googled and found the recipe on her blog.  It can be found here.

Candied Orange Peel

I've been doing some recipe testing for the upcoming Vegan Bakesale Cookbook.  When I saw Dundee loaf, it was tops on my list to try.  It is a slightly sweet bread with marmalade, fruit, and other tasty flavors.  One complication was that the recipe called for candied orange peel. 

None of the local stores around here carry it.  Online the prices were pretty crazy, so I opted to make my own.  Believe it or not, this is deceptively simple.   Here are the steps to make your candied orange peel:

1.  Use the larger side of a zesting tool to slice strips of orange peel (preferably organic as the skin is where pesticides and wax would be concentrated).   If you don't have a zester, no worries.   I didn't either, so I sliced thin pieces of peel off the orange.  Then used a small knife to cut off as much of the white bitter pith that was still visible on the pieces.  After that, cut into strips. 

2.  Mix 1 cup of sugar and 1 cup of water and bring to a slow boil to dissolve.

3. Add the orange peel and let simmer for 30-45 min until the peels start to get translucent.

4.  Put 1/2 cup of sugar on a shallow plate.   Scoop some of the peel  up with a fork and toss it in the sugar to coat.  Then put it on a tray to dry out for a few hours.  Repeat.  

Save the orange syrup for use in tea, lemonade or other flavoring!

Gluten Free Vegan Gingerbread

I've always sympathized with the gluten free folks.  Like me, they are limited at restaurants and parties.  My sister called me last week asking if I knew how to make gluten free gingerbread for one of her friends.   Making something without gluten is a fun challenge just like veganizing a recipe.  A success would work out conveniently, because my stepsister has Celiac and I had an invite to a family party later in the week.  Fortunately she likes gingerbread.

My sister stopped by and I started with a vegan recipe that I know and love: Bryanna's Low-Fat Vegan Gingerbread People.

We mixed it up using Bob's Red Mill gluten free flour.  The dough was stickier than I remembered and I knew some doctoring was necessary.  I took a quick taste and noticed that it had a very beany flavor.  I decided on some brown rice flour to counter the bean based red mill and thicken up the dough.    In addition, I added some instant coffee to cover it up and make for a richer taste.  As I added more flour and the dough continued to be sticky, I got worried that it wouldn't hold together well so I added some xantham gum.

In the end, these turned out perfectly and everyone enjoyed them including the folks that didn't have vegan or gluten free requirements.

Here's my best attempt at documenting the recipe!


Gluten Free Vegan Gingerbread Recipe
*Based on Bryanna Clark Grogran's Gingerbread People Recipe

1/4 cup of Earth Balance
1/2 cup of sugar
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp of xantham gum
1 T of maple syrup
1 T of warm water mixed with 1.5 tsp of instant coffee
1/3 apple juice
1/2 tsp of each: ginger, allspice, and cinnamon
1/2 cup + 1 T of molasses
3 1/4 cup of Bob's Red Mill gluten free mix
1/4-1/2 cup of brown rice flour

In a large bowl mix together: sugar, Earth Balance, baking soda, baking powder, salt, xantham gum, and spices until creamy. Add the juice, syrup, coffee, and molasses and thoroughly mix.  Slowly add Red Mill and 1/4 cup of rice flour and mix until it forms into a dough.  Add more brown rice flour as necessary.  This dough will be a little sticky until chilled.

Chill 2 hours or up to 4 days.  The longer it chills, the better these cookies taste.  The first batch was good, but the second batch made two days later was really incredible.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Roll out dough to 1/4 inch think and cut out cookies.  Don't be shy with the flour, this dough is stickier than standard wheat flour based dough.  I used rice flour for rolling.   Bake until lightly browned for 10-15 minutes.   Let cool 5-10 minutes on sheets and then move to a rack.

Thanksgiving

This year I was lucky to be overwhelmed with invites to various feasts.  Unfortunately, I couldn't say yes to everyone.  Since I had promised to help make  vegan Thanksgiving meal with some friends, my schedule was quite filled up with cooking. 

In the afternoon, I bowed out of further cooking responsibilities and headed over to my family's for an omni meal.  It was nice to visit with everyone and I snacked  bit on the few vegan side dishes before heading back to the vegan meal.

We had a wonderful salad that was topped with grated beets, carrot, and rutabaga.  I didn't even think to take a photo at the time. The meal consisted of colcannon, homemade cranberry sauce, braised carrots, stuffed butternut squash, roasted asparagus, shitake gravy, and Hazelnut En Croute Field Roast.

The photo of my plate was taken with my phone as I forgot a camera.  Not bad, huh?  This was the first year we tried the En Croute Field Roast.  It is incredibly flavorful.  The stuffing is made with cranberries, apples and ginger and the crunchy phyllo dough crust is great.  It is a little expensive, but certainly easier to make than the homemade unturkey roast that I normally bake.

The stuffed butternut squash is a recipe from from Joanna's new zine called Potluck Mania.  The recipe is actually for quinoa stuffed acorn squash.  The acorn squash I grabbed from my CSA stash had started to go bad, so we subbed butternut.  Also, because we had some omnis visiting,  I was worried that quinoa might be too different, so I used brown rice.  Otherwise the recipe stayed the same and to be honest, it was a hit with everyone!  Here's the stuffed squash, isn't it pretty?

A couple of the folks that joined us, brought fresh mint and rum.  We had quite a few mojitos and by dessert time rolled around, I once again forgot photos.

The original plan was sweet potato pie.  Unfortunately, the sweet potatoes had seen better days, so we were forced to use canned pumpkin.  It was still delicious.  The other hostess also made cranberry kissel.  This is a Russian dish that is basically a fruit pudding.  It is simply, pureed fruit and sugar with a thickening starch.  She served it with some vanilla soy milk drizzled on top and sliced almonds.

It was wonderful, cruelty free meal.  Hope everyone out there also had a great Thanksgiving with friends and family.

Gingerbread Sourdough Pancakes

One of my favorites restaurants in Providence serves vegan gingerbread pancakes during the fall/winter season.  Since the sourdough at my house required feeding, it seemed like a good idea to adapt the standard recipe I use for sourdough pancakes.

The recipe I started with, is from this website.  When using their recipe, I always skip the egg replacer and most of the oil.  The sourdough I am using, seems to handle the lack of egg just fine!

These gingerbread pancakes came out perfectly.  They'll likely become a holiday staple at my house.

Jody's Vegan Sourdough Gingerbread Pancake Recipe

2 Cups of sourdough starter

2 Tbs of molasses

1  tsp of baking soda

1/2 tsp of salt

a  splash of canola oil

1/2 tsp allspice

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp ginger

optional: 1/2 tsp of instant coffee mixed with a few tablespoons of warm (NOT hot) water

Mix starter with molasses, salt, and oil.  Let sit for a few minutes.  Sprinkle baking soda and fold in. (Make sure you use a big enough bowl as sourdough can expand a lot due to the baking soda.)  Mix in the coffee and spices.  Then make your pancakes!

Boston Vegetarian Food Festival

My posts have been few and far between here. Though, I have been regularly updating Vegan Cookbook Challenge. Recently, I checked out the new pizza restaurant in Allston called Peace o' Pie. The entry is on my New England Vegan Dining Guide blog.

This weekend was busy. On Saturday, I headed to the Boston Vegetarian Food Festival. This year they expanded to two days. Part of the reason was to help with overcrowding. To be honest, it was still pretty crazy. My goal was to get there early, check out the vendors, score some free samples, and leave as quickly as possible to avoid being pushed around by the mass of people.

The highlight this year for me was the Vegan Treats Bakery table. Those folks make some amazing stuff. I got two items: the Peanut Butter Bomb which I tried in NYC a few years ago and of course, I had to get a glazed doughnut too. There was so much amazing sugary goodness. It makes me wish I lived in PA, thought it is probably best that I don't!

Just a portion of the table:

There were many great vendors sharing samples of their products. I tried everything from veggie burgers to ice cream to sauerkraut to vegan chocolates. Here's a snapshot of the freebies I snagged. In addition, I picked up a bunch of coupons. The mac and cheese was a purchase as I haven't tried that brand yet.

Also this weekend, we drove down to RI to see the Jackolantern Spectacular. Here's a some of my favorite photos from that event.

Obama and the oh so scary double George Bush pumpkins

Corn, Glorious Corn!

Last weekend, I was lucky enough to attend a cooking class with Didi Emmons. She is one of the original owners of Veggie Planet in Cambridge and has authored a couple of vegetarian cookbooks. I'm a huge fan of Entertaining for a Veggie Planet.

The class was based completely around corn. There was about 30 students. Didi showed us how to make some of the recipes and then we broke into groups and cooked. After, we sat down and enjoyed dinner together. I met some great people. Here are some of the pictures I took!

Bowls and bowls of corn after removing the husks...

Corn stew with yellow tomatoes.

This is a Deborah Madison recipe from Local Flavors: Cooking and Eating from America's Farmers' Markets.

The dinner plate wasn't incredibly photogenic.

It includes: corn on the cob with a spicy dressing, tomato and basil salad, the corn stew, and Didi's own corn pudding. We also had a delicious corn soup with avocado cream to start! For dessert we had some chocolate zucchini cake.