Seize your whisks, my vegans!

I made choclate pancakes last week. No big deal, of course, I just MODIFIED A RECIPE! Which is a big deal for me. When it comes to standard dishes I have learned to follow the recipe the first couple times I make it, then modify away. Leek and bean cassoulet (from Veganomicon, I think?) was modified from the first time I made it. I know, I'm such a vegan foodie bad-ass!
But with baked goods, I hesitate to change a thing. The first time I subbed cornstarch for tapioca flour, I googled like crazy. I see cookbook authors and adventurous friends going crazy qwith experimentation, and I feel envy. So when I made pancakes last weekend, I went crazy too. I added 2 tablespoons cocoa powder to the recipe. It was great! I added blueberry sauce too, becuase blueberry-choclate combo is music to my tongue. So I think we should experiment more. But a word of advice--start small, with single batches only, or you could be eating your mistakes for days. Seize your whisks, my vegans!

Peanut butter cups of awesome

I posted this photo on Tumblr and those Tumblr vegans loved it. Come on, I got 21 notes! I know that doesn't compare to the few thousand or so notes Animals Talking in All Caps gets. (And no, I'm not jealous, why do you ask?) But for me it's pretty good. Someone even asked for the recipe! It's not a recipe as such, but here it is, cross-posted from Tumblr:

It’s really easy! They’re just labour-intensive—it usually takes me an hour or so to make a batch. Mix some peanut butter with some maple syrup or agave—maybe 1/2 cup peanut butter to 1/4 cup agave. It’ll thicken and get hard to stir, but that’s what you want, so it won’t leak out of the chocolate cup when you bite it. Melt vegan chocolate chips or semi-sweet baking chocolate in the microwave—about a cup or one and a quarter cups. I usually nuke for a minute then stir and repeat until it’s melted and smooth. The key to getting them to look right is to use silicone muffin/cupcake cups. Smooth some melted chocolate into the cups until you’ve used up about half your chocolate. With a spoon, scoop out some of the peanut butter mixture and gently use another spoon to scoop it into a chocolate-d silicone cup. Repeat until you’re out of peanut butter mixture, or you’ve used up all your choclate-d cups. (If you have leftover melted chocolate or peanut butter mixture, you can make more of what you don’t have—until you run out of silicone cups!) Cover the peanut butter mixture scoops in the cups with more melted chocolate—just enough to cover. If the chocolate has cooled while you were scooping out the peanut butter mixture, do another nuke-and-stir to melt it again. When you’ve run out, you’re done! Just allow the peanut butter cups to cool so that the chocolate hardens, but if you’re impatient you can put them in the fridge for a few minutes instead of leaving them at room temperature. Pop them out of the silicone and if you’re not eating them the same day, you can leave them on the counter, but cover them with plastic wrap. Enjoy!

Minty chocolate presents

I was told food is always a good gift. Seasonal food is even better, in the season of course. But soemtimes making food can be time-consuming, and you start getting tempted by the simplicity of just going to a store and buying stuff. But bark is easy. Melt and pour! And for seasonal goodness, crush some candy canes and sprinkle the bits on top while it's still melted. Wrap in a pretty seasonal bag or a nice jar and pop a bow on top an you're done!

Comfort me with chocolate (for I am sick of love)

I don't know exactly why the quote is "comfort me with apples, for I am sick of love." Anyone who has ever been dumped, or perhaps had their heart a wee bit bruised, knows that chocolate is best for comforting where love is concerned. Apples are delicious, but not exactly on my top-5 list of comforting foods. (Apparently, the precise wording depends on the translation. It could also be "Refresh/fill/stay me with quinces/citrus/melons." But I digress.)

A boy is making me sad today. I can't say it's necessarily his fault, for I have not only seen He's Just Not That Into You (three times), I have also read the book (for book club, even). And yes, his signals were mixed, at best. We met through work--his, not mine--so it's possible he is interested in me, yet bound by a company rule about dating customers. A ridiculous policy, clearly--especially when this particular boy has beautiful happy-sad puppy-dog eyes that are prone to making me melt. ...Melt like, perhaps, chocolate.

However, given ample time to either express his disinterest or find a way around this hypothetical anti-fraternizing rule, I can draw only one conclusion. I am sad to think that this particular boy, in whom I had invested actual emotions, is actually Not Into Me. Accordingly, I came home today and not only was happy that I had the ingredients for a yummy, chocolate dessert, I was also--dare I say--taking comfort in it.

But I digress.

So I made chocolate-almond-cherry bark. And chocolate-sea salt bark. Because sometimes just one chocolate won't do. Luckily, President's Choice makes accidentally-vegan chocolate chips, with which one can make delicious barks of all flavours, that can be found in Loblaws and The Real Canadian Superstore.

The basic recipe came from Eating Well magazine--a subscription I almost cancelled, due to its ginormous quantity of meat recipes, but didn't because of the abnormally high proportion of yummy tofu recipes. And I'm glad I didn't. (Partly because a boy with beautiful happy-sad puppy-dog eyes helped me find the sea salt for the chocolate bark. But I digress.) ...Once you get hold of vegan chocolate chips, the recipe is a cinch. Start to finish, it was about 15 minutes, mostly due to the time it takes to melt the chips in the microwave. And it is very comforting.

Unrequited Market

I've fallen in love. Ohmigod, I've fallen in love, and I'm really, really full.

So in an effort to patch things up with my brother, we decided to voyage to the Green Barn Farmers' Market at Wychwood Barns, in the heart of Toronto. He raved it over Chirstmas, so to get in some quality time together, it seemed like a good idea to go somewhere that celebrates what we have in common: a deep and abiding love for food.

I'm always cautiously optimistic about finding vegan food, but the market blew me away. I found flatbread (which I'm not linking to because, frankly, it was a wee bit pricey), coffee and vegan chocolate, vegan muffins, samosas, kale chips (all that's left for the photo is the empty bag), and of course loads of winter produce.

I devoured 2 of the 3 samosas that I bought while still at the market, in order to further fill my belly with coffee (available without soymilk, but still very, very smooth). I ate the last samosa and the whole bag of kale chips mere minutes after getting back from the market... at which point I have realized I will have to build in bulk purchases of the stuff into my grocery budget. I am now drinking coffee made from the beans I bought at the market, and lok forward to the chili-chocolate later tonight.

Needless to say, I will be going back next week (which is good for my chip cravings and good for my relationship with my brother). Not only are kale chips and vegan chocolate calling my name, there is a cute, verbose young chocolatier who I now have a wee crush on. ...Looks like I will have to build bulk chocolate purchases into my grocery budget too!