I’m blowing the dust off this blog again. In the past it’s been periodically resurrected for VeganMoFo, but it’s time for introspection and rejuvenation. More to come.
VeganMoFo Day Five – Chocolate Jam Thumbprints
Monday’s neglected appliance was my stand mixer.
With the weather cooling down, I’m more inclined to bake. I had a jar of blueberry preserves to finish off, and Kelly Peloza’s Chocolate Jam Thumbprints was the ideal use. Chocolate and blueberries? Yes, please!
Chocolate Jam Thumbprints
- 1/3 cup canola oil
- 2/3 cup sugar
- 1/4 cup soy milk
- 3/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1/4 teaspoon almond extract
- 1 1/4 cups flour
- 1/2 cup cocoa powder
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/8 teaspoon salt
- 3-4 tablespoons jam, your choice
Preheat oven to 350°F.
In a medium-sized bowl, mix the oil, sugar, soy milk, and extracts.
Sift in the flour, cocoa, baking powder, and salt and stir until completely mixed. Add a bit more flour if the dough looks wet.
Shape into tablespoon-sized balls and place on a lightly oiled or parchment-lined baking sheet (do not flatten) and bake for 9 minutes.
Remove from oven and using your thumb, press into each cookie, making a thumbprint. Put about 1/2 teaspoon jam on each cookie. Return to the oven and bake for 3 more minutes.
Transfer to a wire rack to cool and enjoy!
Mine look a little funny because I was listening to some Doctor Who reviews on SF Debris and neglected to put in the baking powder I had put on the counter and subsequently hid behind the sugar jar.
Served with a tofu sandwich (vegan mayo, bacon bits, thinly sliced tofu, and lettuce).
VeganMoFo Day Four – The Looming Butternut
Today is a simple, midweek dinner. That butternut mentioned in yesterday’s post is going to end up haunting me. Apropos. I had already planned on making Miso-Butternut Squash Soup from Vegan Soups and Hearty Stews for All Seasons. I recommend the book, but this particular recipe is here on the author’s website.
I sautéed the pretty chard with a little garlic and put in some sliced kalamata olives.
Add some lentils and we’re all set for dinner. The squash used for the soup? I already had that and had deemed it too little for most dishes I was thinking of making. In the meantime, this one waits.
Why did I bring a squash into the bathroom for a very awkward self portrait?
VeganMoFo Day Three – Woman About Town
My dad dropped by and we went to the Lunch Room food cart… for lunch. It’s already one of my favorite places to go for food in Ann Arbor and today was no exception! I had the Aloo Yoop Fall Harvest Stew (coconut milk curry stew with yukon gold and sweet potatoes, chick peas, yellow onions, peas, and brown rice), which was just lovely to have outside with a little chill in the air. It has just the right amount of curry spice for me.
It’s a bit overcast today, so the warm saffron color isn’t as apparent as it was in person. My dad had the Washington Street Wrap (a hummus wrap with roasted red pepper, cucumber, baby lettuce, tomato & red onion). He had never had hummus before, nor limeade, which was the drink he chose.
I went for their Boston cooler. I just love the flavor combination of ginger ale with coconut ice cream.
Dad asked if there was anything else to do while we were downtown, so we were off to the farmers’ market in Kerrytown. He got some bread; I got kale, chard, beets, and a monster butternut squash. We joked about buckling it into the back of his car as we were packing up…
Couldn’t resist. I weighed it when I got home. It’s 9 pounds, 7¾ ounces.
VeganMoFo Day Two (Belated) – Barley Bean Salad
My pressure cookers got a real workout yesterday putting dinner together. Didn’t get the chance to post this on time.
Barley Bean Salad
- 1 cup pearl barley
- 3 cups cooked garbanzo beans (~2 cans)
- 2 carrots, grated
- 1½-2 Romaine hearts, chopped (I used a head and a heart1)
- Creamy Dijon Dressing (Vegan on the Cheap)
Soak cashews while preparing the rest of the ingredients. Prepare barley either in a pressure cooker (cooked for 20 minutes with 3 cups of water or vegetable broth) or on the stove (simmered for 40-45 minutes in 2½-3 cups of water or vegetable broth).
Combine everything but the dressing in a large bowl. Blend the dressing ingredients and then mix into salad.
Served with Polenta with Dried Mushrooms and Olives from Great Vegetarian Cooking Under Pressure.
1Great. Now I’ve got various songs by the Head and the Heart stuck in my head. If only Pandora would stop suggesting Mumford & Sons when I listen to anything indie folky…
VeganMoFo Day One – Vegetable Cleaver
Monday’s entries will highlight a neglected kitchen tool. There are currently seven knives on my rack:
Each tends to have a specific function in my kitchen; the smaller santoku knives if a recipe calls for a clove or two of garlic, chef’s knife to chiffonade greens, etc. By far the one that gets the least attention is my vegetable cleaver (AKA Chinese chef’s knife).
Autumn is when it gets to shine because there are few things as satisfying as burying it into a butternut squash or a particularly large yam. It’s also fantastic for whacking shallots or garlic any time of year. The large, flat blade comes in handy for transporting chopped food from a cutting board to a pot or for using the front or top edge to simply push things off the board. Claude ran off with one of the yams from my bag, but the cleaver made short work of it after I retrieved it and washed it off.
I made Hottie Black-Eyed Peas & Greens and Ginger Mashed Sweet Potatoes & Apples from Appetite for Reduction:
Click the image to go to Isa’s entry on the two, because I can’t photograph squishy dishes like this to save my life. I need a camera. The mashed sweet potato dish came out really well. The only apples I had in my house were Honeycrisp, so I limited the ingredients to three: apples, sweet potatoes, and ginger to take advantage of their wonderful flavor.
BBQ Jackfruit Cupcakes
I’ll be in Chicago during part of the week of Thanksgiving, which has all sorts of awesome places to go. This year, I’ll get to visit the Bleeding Heart Bakery and thanks to a groupon, be on an insane sugar rush. The establishment first came to my attention during the working title brouhaha of the cookbook associated with the bakery. Who You Callin’ Cupcake? had many interesting looking recipes, but there was one in there that I just knew I had to veganize for MoFo: BBQ Pulled Pork Cupcakes. This was going to be a piece of cake.
It started with this pulled jackfruit sandwich recipe via Chow Vegan.
Foreground: Jackfruit slathered in barbecue sauce, ready to be cooked. Background: As you can see, no Pandora this time. Yep, getting my recommended daily allowance of The Daily Show.
I cooked that for two hours, just to make sure it was nice and tender. Then the fruit got shredded and, when necessary, squished with forks:
Squish!
While I thought cornbread would make the most sense, I deferred to the original recipe and used the Basic Vanilla Cupcake recipe from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World by Isa and Terry.
Ready to go in the oven. The batter tasted disconcertingly reminiscent of marshmallow fluff.
While they were baking, I shredded the remainder of the jackfruit. The part I found most daunting looking it over was the frosting. The original called for 2 cups of butter and a stand mixer. I cut that down to about 1/3 cup butter (Earth Balance) whipped with 1 tablespoon maple syrup and just spread it over the top of the cupcakes in a thin layer. Spread the reserved jackfruit on top and ta-da:
So, how did it taste? Surprisingly good. I barely noticed the jackfruit that had been folded into the batter, but the corn complimented the sweet cupcake well. The jackfruit I did notice made for a fun, tangy contrast. Even the meager amount of butter seemed gratuitous; a drizzle of maple syrup would have been fine.
Verdict: Initially off-putting and time consuming, but tasty. I likely wouldn’t do it again unless it was for an unconventional potluck.
Day 4: Preview for Friday’s Mad Endeavor
Dinner tonight is going to be more cholent and grilled balsamic portobello. So instead of writing about those again, here is my second favorite fall fruit—after Honeycrisp apples—which should make for a lovely dessert just the way it is.
The number of blogs participating in MoFo this year is overwhelming and I find myself blown away by the creativity found in them. In that spirit, I’ll be veganizing a mystery recipe* tomorrow. Here’s a hint:
Until then!
*Not so mysterious if you follow my Twitter, but I’ll keep up the pretense anyway.
Update: I’ll be doing this Saturday, not Friday. Fridays will normally be spent visiting Ann Arbor.
Day 3: Out to Lunch, or a Rant about Sandwiches
It's more majestic when you're on the right side of the street, but my feet were tired. Stupid heels.
I’m absolutely awful at navigating the big city I live near: Detroit. I drive in, go to class, and leave. So in the spirit of MoFo, I’ll begin walking around near the WSU campus looking for places to eat or interesting things to see. On the advice of dakini on the PPK I took a stroll down Cass Ave.
I picked up a Garden Works sandwich and an apple bar from Avalon International Breads on Willis. All four café tables were occupied and it was raining outside, so I headed next door to Goodwells Natural Foods and got the mock salmon salad. Pleasant place to sit and watch the students walk by. The area vaguely reminds me of Depot Town in Ypsilanti.
It was pretty tasty: fresh carrot flavor, crunchy celery, and a hint of nori.
Forgive the poor light: it was a drizzly day. Not sure I would have this again. The pesto was a little on the oily side, even if the walnuts worked well with the sprouts and avocado. In a way it reminds me of a time R’s sister and her boyfriend came over for dinner. I had worked hard putting together a nice vegetable sauté, but it turned out what they really wanted was a tofu-mustard sandwich—which is exactly what it sounds like: plain slices of tofu with mustard and a little sea salt between two slices of bread. It’s difficult to find a substantial veg*n sandwich because of this almost apologetic desire to class things up to cover for a supposed lack of substance. The vegetarian ones substitute cheese for the meat and the vegan ones amount to little more than hummus or pesto with avocado and/or red onion. *sigh*
The baked goods from Avalon, however, have yet to disappoint. This apple bar was somewhere between a crumble and a slice of pie. It probably would have been even better warm.
Day 2: Simple Weeknight Comfort Food
It was surprisingly chilly out there and the cholent from Veganomicon was the just the comforting thing I could foresee needing while watching the election results. Tonight’s dinner was an exercise in substitution. No tomato sauce, lima beans, kidney beans, wine nor broth, garlic, tarragon, or more than a couple tablespoons of French lentils. Cooking down a can of diced tomatoes worked well for the sauce, if it was a little thin. Fortunately it was barely noticeable when served over the leftover red quinoa I had in the fridge. I marinated portobello caps in a little balsamic vinegar and olive oil while prepping the veggies and sautéing the onions. I cooked them on a Foreman grill while the stew was simmering. The kitchen was filled with the smells of caraway and balsamic vinegar. It was lovely. I sense some experimental combination for a future post!
If listening to klezmer yesterday inspired tonight’s cholent, who knows what today’s Springsteen will bring for tomorrow. Only slightly kidding. I set out to try out Jewish cuisine on Tuesdays (you have no idea the restraint it’s taking to forgo a “Jewsday” tag). Why not begin with an old favorite? If we’re very lucky, I might even attempt a beloved dish redolent with memories: Latkes. That’s what I’ve missed the most (right up there with cottage cheese with peaches), particularly when the weather gets colder. I’ve tried multiple times to recapture the wonder of late-November Chicago after dark; but every attempt leads to a sodden, burnt, falling-apart mess. It looks easy on paper. We’ll just have to see.
Vaster Than Empires 
