Mission: Get Caitlin Excited To Come Visit (Day 5)

Hi all,

Caitlin’s bus arrives tomorrow evening, so today is my last day of preparatory food preparation! I went out with a bang, making three dishes today, with varying degrees of success. I’ll start with the best: Thanksgiving Stuffing!

No Thanksgiving dinner is complete without a nice serving of (vegan) stuffing! I used my favorite, go-to stuffing recipe, which has the benefit of being both super easy to prepare and super delicious. This is really putting me in the holiday spirit, and getting me excited for Friday’s belated Thanksgiving bash! Here’s a close up:

Today I also finished off my last batch of Coconut Creme Pie Vimbits, so I made a new batch right away! This time I tried a new recipe idea: Pecan Pie Vimbits! I sorta messed up the amount of nuts I meant to use, but I don’t think this will be a big problem—judging by the leftover dough, these are gonna taste great! I’m excited to see how they shape up after being in the fridge overnight (I tried using a little less coconut oil this time). Check ‘em out!

Last and most certainly least, I had quite the dessert disaster today in my attempt to make Medjool Date Pecan Pie. The crust I bought swelled up while baking, the topping mixture did not mix (partly my fault for not having/using an electric mixer, partly the recipe’s fault for not specifying that I should be using an electric mixer, as the original recipe did—I found this out too late), and ultimately I don’t think flax eggs were a good substitute for real eggs this time. All in all, it was such a disaster I couldn’t even bear to take a photo of it; it was just too embarrassing and unseemly to post on the internets. I’m not even sure if the final product will be salvageable for Friday’s dinner, but I’m waiting until it’s been in the fridge overnight to make the final call. I’m really bummed, since this was going to be the highlight of our Thanksgiving desserts, but I’m sure we’ll manage something! Right, Caitlin? Right?!

Anyhoo, there’s bound to be lots of excitement in the next few days; I’ll try to post a quick photo recap of our Thanksgiving dinner sometime this weekend, and make sure to check back for Caitlin’s summary post of her entire Toronto visit!

Until we eat again,

Willie

Mission: Get Caitlin Excited To Come Visit (Day 4)

The adventure continues…

Today’s treat was Apple Chutney (courtesy of Closet Cooking), another one of the many items that will be on the table for me and Caitlin’s belated Thanksgiving dinner this Friday! And let me know, from the few taste tests I did of this chutney, it is EX-CEL-LENT! I love all the different spices—it’s really a taste explosion (and an olfactory explosion as well, at least while I was cooking it—the whole downstairs smelled of chutney!). I’m now all the more excited for Thanksgiving.

And that’s not all, there’s more… I also picked up two new jars of nut butter today: Peanut Hazelnut Butter and Pumpkin Seed Butter! So you’ll have those to enjoy while here, as well, Caitlin! Just one more day!

Until we eat again,

Willie

Mission: Get Caitlin Excited To Come Visit (Day 3)

Another day, another treat for Caitlin! Today’s menu item was Peanut Sesame Hummus, the most excellent hummus recipe from Dreena Burton’s excellent collection of hummus recipes in Eat, Drink & Vegan. More precisely, however, this was Macadamia Cashew Hummus, as I used macadamia cashew nut butter instead of the called-for peanut variety and left out the sesame oil since I didn’t have any. I did use lime juice for the first use that I can remember, though, and I think it makes this hummus taste even more delicious, if that’s at all possible! I leave you with some more pictures to admire (sorry, I got kind of excited at having finished a recipe while there was still natural light to shoot with)…

Only two days until Caitlin gets here!

Until we eat again,

Willie

Mission: Get Caitlin Excited To Come Visit (Day 2)

Hi all,

Yesterday saw day two of my food preparations in anticipation of Caitlin’s Thursday arrival. Last night, I baked two different bread loafs, with moderate success. First up…

Jalapeño Cornbread! I made this little loaf using my favorite cornbread recipe, modifying it with a handful of diced jalapeño! I didn’t try this out yet, but judging from the leftover dough I tasted, this is going to be a spicy treat! It probably won’t be as good as Babycakes’ a-ma-zing jalapeño cornbread, but I hope Caitlin will like it nonetheless!

Second up…

Banana Bread! For this I used a recent recipe posted on the blog Another One Bites the Crust. I got a little discouraged while making this after I realized that I was probably supposed to be using an electric mixer, but I think I managed to make some palatable in the end. Again, I didn’t try this one either, so you’ll just have to come back and see what Caitlin’s verdict is after she tries it!

The anticipatory excitement continues tomorrow.

Until we eat again,

Willie

Mission: Get Caitlin Excited To Come Visit (Day 1)

Happy Sunday all!

As Caitlin’s Thanksgiving visit quickly approaches (now only four days away!), I am busy taking care of lots of schoolwork and making treats in preparation for her arrival. Yesterday I prepared two such treats, and I want to share them with you all and Caitlin now so as to get Caitlin extra excited to come visit!

First up, I made some Foolproof Granola! If you check out the recipe, you’ll see that this granola has 15 different ingredients! This looked delicious even before I put it in the oven:

So Caitlin, you’ll now have a big bag of granola waiting for you when you arrive!

The second treat I made was Vegan Moon Cakes. Unfortunately, these did not come off as well as the granola (note that they’re not “foolproof” moon cakes). I’m still not exactly sure what I did wrong, either. The recipe is fairly straightforward: you use a food processor to make one adzuki bean mixture and another almond meal mixture to coat scoops of the adzuki beans. However, when I tried to whip up the almond mixture, I ended up with a solid ball of dough—not meal-y at all! So I had to improvise, and instead of making nicely coated red bean cakes, I slapped some of the almond dough together with the adzuki beans. The result is not all that pretty, but the taste is still there.

So Caitlin, maybe these cakes don’t make you all that excited to come. But don’t worry—there will be more excitements in the following days!

Until we eat again,

Willie

Catching Up From a Hectic Week…

Hi everybody!

This week has been busy busy busy—hence my lack of posting. It also means that I haven’t been eating much blogworthy things. But I do have a few treats to share with y’all from the past week. Here are the highlights…

This little dish is sauteed broccoli rabe served over a white kidney bean puree! My mom sent me this recipe from a book she has in response to my previous request for recipes using nutritional yeast in a non-cheese-substitute-ish sort of way. In this dish, the nutritional yeast went into the puree and, thankfully, worked pretty well. This recipe also made for a lot of leftovers, which I’m still eating my way through.

I also whipped up a new batch of hummus this week! This is a slight variation on the Olive & Sun-Dried Tomato Hummus from Dreena Burton’s Eat, Drink & Be Vegan cookbook. Even though I’m not the biggest fan of olives, I decided to try this recipe because it was one of the few hummus recipes in the book I hadn’t yet tried and Dreena’s hummuses (hummi?) are all amazing. This hummus was no exception, although my lukewarm feelings toward olives make me prefer some of the book’s other recipes more.

I am also excited to report that this week, for the first time since I’ve been without my beloved rice cooker, I was able to successfully cook myself a bowl of rice! Only long time followers of this blog will appreciate what a big accomplishment this is for me.

Finally, I made some corn muffins! I used the same Recipezaar recipe I’ve used before and loved, and it was just as good in muffin form as it is as a loaf!

That’s all I have to report for now. However, as Caitlin’s Thanksgiving visit is quickly approaching, I will be making lots of exciting treats in preparation for her arrival and posting the results here! In fact, I’m going to go make some of those treats right now!

Until we eat again,

Willie

I’m blogging!

What’s up internet?

It’s been pretty crazy ’round here since my last post. Many pages have been written and powerpoints created. But don’t worry! I have been eating plenty!

Wil Wheaton tweeted about this recipe. Specifically, he wrote”OMG OMG OMG recipe for PUNKIN OATMEAL from Cooking with Trader Joe’s (@cookingwithtj).” Though I had no punkin puree, I did have a kabocha squash and a blender. Therefore: Kabocha Oats! this recipe is ridiculously good but very, very filling. When I make it again, I will definitely be making less than my usual oat portion.

NOM.

You also may have wondered about the origins of a certain soup that Willie referenced in his last post. I mean this kabocha curry soup:

(Yes. That is his picture. All of mine were s(o)uper blurry!)

The recipe comes courtesy of Peas and Thank You! I did make some modifications: more garlic (surprise, surprise), half of an onion (because that’s how I roll), mung beans instead of red lentils (because that’s what was in my pantry) and I didn’t blend it up (because I like my soup like I like my… hm… what exactly does one want to be chunky that’s not soup?).

This soup was really great and kind of reminded me of Mulligatawny soup but a lot better seeing as I don’t really like Mulligatawny soup. So, check it out! And make it! And eat it! You will like it!

I also made these cookies from The Vegetarian Cookbook. As many a vegetarian can tell you, the most popular gift for a vegetarian is a cookbook. Though I often dread it when my mother picks up some last minute Christmas gifts in the bargain section of Barnes & Noble, I am glad she found this one. I do every so often have to change some of the details of the baked goods, either to veganize or because the recipe will call for a little too much or a little too little flour, the recipes are all around very good.

These are Orange Cream Cheese Cookies! I must admit, though, that the dark chocolate with orange zest that I decided to dip them in really made these cookies fabulous.

I also made some curry over barley. I think I will post a recipe for this eventually, because it came out rather good! It needs a little tweaking though since any good curry should make your nose run a little bit and my nose didn’t run at all while I ate this!

Last but not least: Red Wheat Bran Bread with Raisins! I know it’s quite a small loaf, but really this was supposed to be muffins and, unfortunately, I do not have a muffin tin… But, fortunately, this was still delicious.

Okay kiddos, I’m pretty sleepy for some reason and should probably head off to slumberland. Good night and have a pleasant tomorrow!

Until We Eat Again,

Caitlin

New York, New York

Hello everybody,

I just got back from a weekend trip to NYC to visit Caitlin! That means: (a) I’m in a pretty good mood right now, and (b) I have lots to blog about! So let me jump right in…

Thursday

For this trip, I rode the overnight bus from Toronto to New York, arriving at around 7:30 am Thursday morning (two hours behind schedule due to engine failures!). Upon arrival, I drowsily made my way from Manhattan to Bushwick to be happily reunited with Caitlin. And then I slept for the rest of the morning.

Caitlin had a busy day on Thursday—the first day of her internship at Anthology Film Archives from noon to six and a night class from six to nine—so I was left on my own for the day. I decided to spend my day in the Upper West Side, hanging around Columbia University, doing some schoolwork, and browsing through the excellent Book Culture yet again. In the early evening, I stopped into the Hungarian Pastry Shop, a wonderful little nearby cafe that serves amazing coffee and lots of tasty pastries (I got a poppy seed cookie!).

Eventually nine o’clock rolled around and went downtown to meet Caitlin outside of her class, where I then surprised her with some surprise food adventures! The first adventure was a trip to Pommes Frites, an awesome awesome awesome (albeit not all that healthy) Belgian french fry shop. I had come there once before when I was visiting NYU last spring, and I knew someday me and Caitlin would have to come back. On this visit we got a big cone of fries with three awesome sauces: Irish Curry, Sweet Chili, and War Sauce (a mix of peanut satay, frites sauce, and raw onion). Check ‘em out!

These fries were, as expected, excellent. I think my favorite sauce was the Sweet Chili, although the Irish Curry was a dead ringer for a Japanese curry sauce and thus also quite good.

The second surprise food adventure was a trip to Stogo—the first time for both of us! This gourmet vegan ice cream shop has been all the rage across the food-blogosphere for months now, and I’ve been dying to experience it myself for ages. After sampling a few of their many varieties, we decided on a little cup for each us, me choosing Coconut Almond Joy (front) and Caitlin getting Coconut Key Lime (back):

Both were superb! (And don’t worry, we’ll come back to that chocolate off to the side later!)

Of course, french fries and ice cream don’t really make for a complete dinner, so when Caitlin and I got back to her apartment that night we roasted up some carrot fries to eat the rest of our Pommes Frites sauces with and munched on some garlic rainbow bread.

Friday

We both slept in—way in—Friday morning, both of us being quite worn out from busy weeks and Thursday’s feasting. It being a yucky afternoon, we spent the first few hours of it just lazing around and watching some of our TV shows (30 Rock & The Office). As it got to be later in the afternoon, we decided to head out for a late lunch/early dinner at another NYC location I’d been much looking forward to trying out: Sproutcraft Cafe. Unfortunately, despite their website’s claims to the contrary, they were already closed when we got there (at around 5:15). I was very disappointed—and coupled with my empty stomach, I was hangry. We wandered around the Financial District for a while, checking out the sights and keeping our eyes open for any other tasty places, and just as I suggested that we just head home and make dinner ourselves, we passed by a green and orange eatery called Just Salad. It seemed too appropriate to pass up, so we headed inside and tried our luck.

Fortunately, it turned out very good! Just Salad is just that—salads, made to order. We decided to try one of their “chef-designed” salads and to make one of our own. For the former, we choose their Hudson Valley Mix:

There was a lot in here: spinach, butternut squash, broccoli, apples, feta, beets, pumpkin seeds, croutons, and horseradish chive dressing. One of the cool things about this restaurant is that after they put all the ingredients of your salad together, they ask you if you want it tossed or chopped. I chose chopped, not really knowing what it meant, and they then chopped the salad into little bits using this specialty chopping blade thing. It’s an interesting way to prepare a salad; I especially appreciated it because it made the salad much easier to eat with a fork (I normally eat my salads exclusively with chopsticks, which is hope everyone should eat salads, too). And the salad itself was very good too; it was an excellent combination of all sorts of good things. (Side note: Part of the reason we chose this Hudson Valley Mix was because it was the only vegetarian salad option they had on their menu. Now as much as I appreciate a restaurant dedicated solely to the wonderfulness of salads, it perplexes me why they can’t embrace their veggie-friendliness to a little greater degree. But I digress…)

Our original salad combination was also a great success:

This included romaine, baby spinach, mesclun, wheatberries, artichoke hearts, toasted almonds, eggplant, and a shiitake ginger dressing. I definitely liked being able to try out some different things in salad, as my daily salads tend to be more or less the same.

After Just Salad, we headed back to Bushwick for a quiet night of television, crosswords, and Monty Python. And later in the evening, Caitlin fixed up some potato pancakes!

As I told Caitlin (much to her chagrin), I liked these a latke! They were made by mixing together grated potatoes with mashed potatoes, with some garlic and shallots thrown in there for good measure. We ate ours with nutritional yeast and jam on top.

We also munched on some of these Goya cookies, which were (much to my chagrin) not like digestive biscuits.

Even still, they were not bad to munch on, or for 75 cents.

Saturday

Saturday was another laid back and relaxed day. Foodwise, we started the day off with some of Caitlin’s leftover kabocha soup:

Boy, was this tasty! I wish there were more, or that I had some now!

Following that, Caitlin showed me one of her recent great ideas:

It’s Kashi Go Lean! Crunch served hot, with maple syrup and cinnamon on top! All you do is put some cereal and milk in a bowl and stick it in the microwave until warm. It’s really good and really simple!

Finally, Saturday afternoon we also tried the chocolate we bought at Stogo on Thursday:

Gena recently blogged (glowingly) about Fine & Raw Chocolate, and seeing it at Stogo I thought I might as well pick it up and try it for myself. One of the nice things about Fine & Raw is that they’re local, organic, and fair trade, which are always much appreciated. But their chocolate is also good, too! I first I wasn’t too impressed, but I ate through more of the bar I began to like it more and more. However, I do have to admit that this chocolate is expensive, and ultimately I think a little too expensive. There are other organic and fair trade chocolates out there that also taste good but won’t burn such a big hole in your wallet.

Saturday night I boarded the bus back to Toronto and arrived Sunday morning (for the first time in my experience) ahead of schedule (albeit only by fifteen minutes). Unfortunately, our punctuality did me no good, as Toronto subways don’t run at five in the morning on Sundays (or, as I later discovered, on weekdays). Thankfully, it was surprisingly temperate for an early mid-November morning in T.O., and I ended up just walking back. Next time, I’ll be sure to figure out the bus and streetcar system ahead of time, or just take a cab.

One interesting thing I saw on my walk, though: there was a hot dog & sausage stand already open and with two patrons standing in front of it—at 5:30 in the morning. I still can’t understand this, so I’ll leave it to you to mull over.

Until we eat again,

Willie

Cooking For One: Veggie Bowls (PLUS a fabulous sauce formula PLUS Romanesco cauliflower photos!)

To all our lovely readers,

It’s been a while since I’ve written a “Cooking For One” post, even though I’ve been spending the last several months doing precisely that—cooking for one (namely me). Part of the reason is that I’m still not that good at. But I’m learning, and today I want to share with y’all what has become one my stand-by dinners. It’s simple, nutritious, and tasty! I call it a veggie bowl.

Veggie bowls, for me, consist of three parts, or levels if you will. You’ve got your bottom level grain, your middle level veggies, and your top level sauce. There’s lots of choices within these categories—that’s why veggie bowls are so much fun! Today I’m going to share with you just one example, step by step.

Step 1: The Grain

The grain is typically the first place you should start, as it will take the longest to cook. There are lots of grains that make for good veggie bowls; some of my favorites are couscous, quinoa, and amaranth. I’m looking forward to trying some other grains like bulgar and buckwheat in the future, and you should just use whatever you like and feel comfortable making. Whichever grain you choose, I recommend using about 1/2 cup dry; this seems to make the perfect amount when cooked, at least if you’re a hungry boy like me!

So, the short story: Cook 1/2 cup grain of your choice (dry) according to grain’s cooking instructions.

Step 2: The Veggies

While your grain is cooking, you have time to cook up your vegetables. Now really any vegetable is fair game for a veggie bowl, but as far as cooking goes, I like to break my vegetables into two categories: steaming vegetables and sauteing vegetables. Steaming veggies include things like broccoli, green beans, and cauliflower; sauteing vegetables include things like onions, greens, and so on. The choice is up to you!

As for cooking your veggies, I like to start with the steaming vegetables. Here’s my super easy guide to cooking your veggies.

1. Cut your vegetables into bite sized pieces.

2. Fill a large pan with approximately 1/4″ of water and bring to a boil.

3. Toss in your veggies and cover the pan.

4. Let cook for one or two minutes, turning vegetables over once or twice if needed, until vegetables look done and can be readily pierced by a fork.

5. Empty vegetables into a strainer and run over a little bit of cold water, to stop any further cooking.

6. Return your emptied pan back to the stove, add some oil, and saute your sauteing vegetables (this time I used baby bok choy!).

And that’s all there is to cooking your vegetables! If done right, this whole process can take less than five minutes (maybe a little more depending on how long it takes you to cut up your veggies).

Step 3: The Sauce

Last but not least, a good veggie bowl needs a good sauce. There are many options here as well. I’m particularly fond of a certain Spicy Garlic Sauce in Sarah Kramer and Tanya Barnard’s How It All Vegan! (an excellent cookbook), but today I want to share with you a nut butter sauce inspired by a recipe in 3 Bowls (another, perhaps even more excellent cookbook). The great thing about this sauce is that it only involves three ingredients, requires no cooking, and thus takes all of a minute to prepare. Oh, and it’s also delicious. Now normally I would be loathe to post a recipe from a published book on this blog, but (a) I have changed the proportions and overall amount of the recipe, and (b) this is nowhere near complicated enough to count as a bona fide recipe in my opinion.

MAN (Miso-Agave-Nutbutter) Sauce

Ingredients

• 1 tbsp (white) miso
• 2 tbsp nut butter (your choice)
• 1 tsp agave nectar (or honey)
• 3 tbsp water

Instructions

1. Whisk all ingredients together in a bowl until smooth
2. That’s the only step.

So there you go! A super simple and—if you make, you’ll see—super delicious sauce!

Step 4: The Combination

You now have all you need to put together your veggie bowl. I like to take the biggest bowl I can find, put all my grain on the bottom, cover that with all my veggies, and then lather my sauce on top. Here’s my final product:

You, of course, can mix it up. That’s the beauty of veggie bowls—it’s a simple formula that’s easily adaptable to whatever is in your fridge/available at your grocer and that’s always a breeze to make, however you do it. And this makes a perfect meal for someone cooking for one—and especially for people with busy schedules like me.

One final thing to share: Today I had the pleasure of picking up a Romanesco cauliflower to use in the night’s veggie bowl. Now, I have to admit, my pleasure was mostly aesthetic—but how can you blame me when a vegetable contains so much fractal-y goodness? So in closing, I leave you with some photos to admire. (Click for larger versions.)

Ah, the simple joys of nature.

Until we eat again,

Willie

P.S. I was not very impressed by the taste of this Romanesco cauliflower, unfortunately. But I still love looking at it.

P.P.S. Did I mention that I’m leaving for NYC Wednesday night?? Expect an exciting blog post in a few days!

Hell Week has officially begun!

Hey all!

As the title suggests, this week is going to be insane. So, I will warn you that I will most likely be down and out this week when it comes to blogging. I thought I would post some cake pictures to tide you over until the next post.

Last year when a friend was leaving Pittsburgh to begin grad study in neuroscience, I thought it would only be appropriate to see him off with a brain cake!

Last Valentine’s day I baked up a heart-shaped box cake instructions courtesy of Bakerella. While my veganized version might not be quite as pretty as hers, (I blame it on the temperature and the icing not being quite thick enough…) the cake bites were a revelation. How could you go wrong with chocolate-covered mashed up cake and icing?!

Okay… So… I didn’t bake this one. But it made me laugh pretty hard when I saw it on Cake Wrecks. If you don’t get the reference, I suggest getting on netflix and acquainting yourself with some of Disney’s sci-fi forays of the 1980s.

Okay, now back to work! Have a pleasant week everybody!

Until We Eat Again,

Caitlin