Movie Tueday: Gauc and 'shock

I watched Bottleshock again on the weekend, because I was sick Friday night and spentmost of the long weekend recovering. Admittedly, I don't know how the rest of the world does it, but I recover by watching movies, mostly on NEtflix.
Bottleshock was in my queue/list/whatever they're calling this week because I watched it when it first came out, before the Star Trek reboot that also stars Chris Pine. Although apparently its reception wasn't as warm as my opinion of it, I enjoy this movie. This is partly because it hits upon another fandom I like, since it stars Alan Rickman, who played Severus Snape in the Happy Potter movies. (If you can find an actor in this movie who also was in Star Wars, I'll send you a bowl of guac.)
In the movie, it is the 70s, and non-Old World wines are having a tough breaking new ground (seewhatIdidthere?). The snotty British wine connoisseur who owns a wine shop in France is sampling Californian wines to take back home for a blind wine tasting. Along with a delicious New World red, one of the winemakers brings him a bowl of guacamole--one of those giant mortar-and-pestle type guacs brought out in a mortar the size of your head and twice and heavy. The snob puts down his wine, bemusedly grabs a tortilla chip, dips it in the guac and eats it, his face soon changing to grudgingly admit its flavour--just as he is eventually won over by the New World wines he tries only in the name of fairness and fully expecting to be disappointed. Another scene showed the snob sitting at a mediocre bar in California, with a good half-dozen or more open wine bottles on the table in front of him, and as he remarks that the wines are all good, you can see his carefully constructed opinions shattering around him.
these scenes particularly stuck in my memory, inspiring me to write this post, because it reminded me of many things.It reminded me to always try new things, and by golly I do my best It reminded me that some of the best foods are the simplest, and that I need to throw away my preconceived notions. It reminded that even when I think my food choices alienate me, I can find foods--guacamole, dim sum, chickpea curry--that even my most determined omnivore friends and family will devour. And most importantly, it reminded me to buy some avocados and make some goddamn guacamole.

Caeser, you creamy vegan minx

I had another inspiration today: vegan Caesar salad. I know it's not really original--that vegan cookbook default, Veganomicon, has a recipe, if I do recall--but I haven't tried it yet. Last night when I sprinkled store-bought vegan parm on my lettuce I thought, sweet Isa, why haven't I made vegan Caesar yet?
So tonight I did. I didn't even go to the grocery store first, or plan it out, which is so unlike me it makes me wonder if I'm coming down with something.
I just came home tonight and started cutting tofu into teeny tiny pieces for smokey-bacon-style tofu bits. This was also when I discovered that there are a billion vegan Caesar dressing online. Which is good, because I had no idea what to put in mine. In the end I used garlic, rice vinegar, balsamic vinegar, and vegan mayo. It was yummy, but a wee bit too garlicky--I recommend something less than a full grated clove of raw garlic for one portion, FYI. I should also have skipped the balsamic since it made the dressing brown and not that lovely creamy colour that photographs well. However the salad did give me a chance to use up some old bread for croutons--just toss bread cubes (smaller than you think they should be) in a little oil and toast in the oven. Then toss together with your fake'n bits and parm, and if you really want to replicate the full deal, slice some faux chicken and lay photogenically on top. Caesar, you must have been a delicious man.

Dumplings redux

I made edamame dumplings a few weeks ago, and was overjoyed to discover that it didn't have to be the three-hour affair that I remembered. So I when I was at the grocery store last week, I picked up more dumpling wrappers and mushrooms for another easy-peasy version. While the edamame dumplings were delightful, I think the mushroom dumplings were even better. ...Mostly because mushrooms are one of my favouritest foods. Just saute the mushrooms and whir in a food processor or with a stick blender until small enough to stuff in a wrapper. If you love mushrooms and dumplings as I do, it'll be doubly delicious for you. I recommend going to the store right now. You can have delicious dumplings made and cooked before you're even hungry.

My friend's stuffed peppers (not a euphemism)

My friend made stuffed yellow peppers for lunch last week. Don't they look delicious??

Tasting the world

One of the best things about travel is tasting foods from wherever you are: so far I've tried pasta e fagioli in Rome, and chevre chaud in Paris*.One of the things I love about Toronto is that you can eat the food from just about every place on Earth in the various restaurants around the city. And it's that way in one of other favourites places too, New York: on my last trip there, we went to a vegetarian dim sum place in Chinatown. I know, you're thinking dim sum is already one of the best things ever, but the restaurant was vegetarian too? Yes, it was, and it was awesome.
The hotel I stayed at both times I was in New York had a Moroccan-style restaurant on the main floor. It was there I first ordered the avocado on toast that has become a Rogue Avocado breakfast staple. (My mom even requests it, though oddly she never makes it for herself!) One of the things on the menu that I only finally ordered on my second trip was dukkah, a Middle Eastern dish make of ground roasted nuts and spices. When I googled it, I did find a few recipes, as well as references to it being THE trendy dish a few years ago...in Australia.
I cannot vouch for its trendiness, on this continent or any others, but it is delicious. You dip crusty bread in olive oil, and then in the ground nut mixture. IT is like savory squared, with a healthy helping of fat to take it to the next level. It's pretty easy if you have a food processor, just don't take your eyes off the nuts while you're roasting them, lest you burn the whole thing and have to start over again...hypothetically of course.







*The chevre chaud was before I was vegan. Actually, it was overdosing on cheese in France that convinced me to go vegan!

My vegan heart, part 3

There's this Middle Eastern restaurant near my office that has an amazing appetizer plate. Hummus, babaghanouj, tabbouleh salad and falafel, and I actually moan when I eat it. The first time I had it, I told my date (!) I was going to go in the kitchen and make out with the chef. And the best part? On the menu, it's clearly labelled "vegan." Be still my vegan heart! With food like that, that is so clearly and considerately marked safe for yours truly, you better believe I'll keep coming back. And maybe I'll even  threaten to make out with the chef.

Don't give up on dumplings

I had given up on dumplings. I love dumplings, so I tried to make them a couple times, but I got frustrated. You need a tablespoon each of 8 different things, but they're not things I have on hand. So I'd spend $20 bucks or something like that to get $4 worth of ingredients to make $15 worth of dumplings. And what's more, chopping all the ingredients took me an hour and then lovingly stuffing and sealing all the dumplings took much, much longer. And then I still had to cook them. No! I gave up. I realized you could order dumplings from a variety of restaurants. It was more expensive but it was well worth saving the time. It was pretty much a done deal: I'd never make dumplings again. 
Then somehow I discovered this recipe for edamame dumplings. I almost couldn't believe it at first: only a few ingredients, all of which were cheap and easy to procure, which required minimal prepping on my part? Yes, I still had to stuff and seal the little darlings, but I could live with that.
And they were easy. Cooked edamame practically puree themselves, and they were so adorably green inside that they won me over. Take it from me: it'll be the only dumpling recipe you ever make again.

Simply delicious

Sometimes we try really really hard. We re-read and edit an email to our bosses ten times, we check our hair and outfit even when the object of our affection thinks we're gorgeous, we worry our homes aren't nice enough, big enough or clean enough to host anyone except our cats. And our the interwebs, that pressure goes up. "Look, here's a pic of the pizza I made. But the toppings are from the farmer's market and the flour is heirloom and local and I ground it myself using an artisanal mortar and pestle handmade made by a vegan unicorn!"
I do that sometimes. Well, not a unicorn's mortar and pestle, but we do what we can to make our food interesting, special, and noteworthy before sharing it with the world (or our 17 followers on Tumblr). But food, as all things, is sometimes better when it's simple. Simple pleasures are there for the taking every day: a purring cat in your lap, a silly laugh with a friend, a great bike ride or a run on a beautiful autumn day. We don't have to go all-out for our food either. So when I found myself without a lunch planned for the next day at work--and determined not to spend money on a mediocre lunch--I put some chickpeas to soak, went through my fridge and cupboards, and planned to-buy items for the next day's lunch. What I didn't have on hand, I bought from the grocery store around the corner from my office. And lunch was simple and delicious: flat bread and hummus, and a satisfying salad of arugula, chickpeas, quinoa and white mushrooms with basic Italian dressing. It's not a five-course menu carried in on the wings of vegan fairies, but it was a great lunch.

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!

On-hand salad

You know those days, when you feel like you have nothing to eat, and you're really hungry? And you poke through your fridge and make whatever you can find? Well, sometimes you end up with delicious things, such as tomato-kale-chickpea salad, with the only dressing I had in the fridge (also delicious). I give you, on-hand salad: it was perfect!

Spinster buns

I bought a stand mixer last week. It was on sale for Mother's Day--$199 down from $349!--and since I'm going to be a cat-hoarding childless spinster forever, I figured I might as well buy it for myself. I finally set it up on Saturday, and this being a long weekend in Canadia, I have had two and a half days to play with it. And play with it I have! I have already made seitan, focaccia, and cinnamon buns.


I've never made cinnamon buns before. When recipes involve making dough, kneading dough, and rolling it out, my eyes start to glaze over and, zombie-like, I pull out my cupcake cookbook.


But this was delightful. The stand mixer kneaded the dough for me, twice! And then mixed the icing too. I used VegNews' recipe here; I found it less fussy than the other one I checked. And now I have cinnamon buns to share with my friends and co-workers, which is who you share baked goods with when you're a spinster.

Hot and sour soup, you are wise

We know that ordering vegan food can be challenging when we're eating with omnivores. We often have to eat at places with few vegan options, but we also don't want to cause a fuss, or make it seem like eating vegan is "difficult", but we don't just want to eat the salad either. So when I ordered delivery for dinner on New Year's Day with my family, I was expecting to have to compromise--a lot. But we agreed to get Chinese food, went online, and found a good Chinese food restaurant nearby that not only seemed authentic, it also listed all the vegetarian dishes. Bingo! My family got to order a few things for themselves, and I ordered "bean curd and vegetables" with steamed rice--and a small vegetarian hot and sour soup, for kicks. And we were all happy!
The soup was an afterthought--"Have I had hot-and-sour since I went vegan? I don't remember. I should have some!"--but I couldn't resist, since it was so clearly labelled and I knew I could eat it. It was delicious! I haven't had that many hot and sour soups, and those I have had have been very light--mostly broth with a few thinly-sliced pieces of cabbage, carrot and celery, if memory serves--but this was almost a meal. It was so packed full of veggie and tofu goodness I had to take a picture for sharing. I kinda want to go back there just for the soup.
But it reminded me of a few Things Vegans Should Remember:
--ethnic food is your friend! Since so many cuisines around the world developed with limited availability of meat, their menus often have vegetarian or even vegan options.
--try new things! It can be easy to eat the same things over and over again (when I go out for lunch I usually either eat from 1 of 2 regular lunch places) but when we try new things, we can be pleasantly surprised.
And one thing I should remember:
--I am spoiled! I live in a time when there are more and more vegan items available every day. Today I saw a posting about vegan "egg yolk". Yowza! I also live in a city with an incredible diversity of veg entrees, veg restaurants, and ethnic foods. I rarely have to eat "just the salad". I'm pretty lucky. thank you for the lessons, hot and sour soup! You are so wise.

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!

Breadmaker focaccia

I bought a breadmaker on the weekend. It was a great price, and my last one had long since given up. But we know what this means: a month of home-made bread, then intermittent neglect mixed with bouts of baking galore.
So, for my inaugural project: pizza dough. It actually tuned into three calzones and some focaccia. To keep me happy with minimal effort, I spread vegan pesto and Daiya vegan cheese on the focaccia before baking. I have yet to find a perfect whole-grain focaccia recipe, but yes, it's like sex and pizza: even if it's bad, it's still pretty good.

Un-photogenic butternut squash soup

I used to be a waitress. It coincided with my discovery of the joys of cooking, and introduced me a whole new way of looking at food. One of the recipes I gleaned from my days there for butternut squash and mushroom soup. I kept pestering the chef what was in it that made it taste so good. I even made it at home, sadly concluded that no, it didn't taste the same, and asked him again. Finally he told me: black pepper. Seriously? Seriously. Just black pepper. It made all the difference. Add fresh ground black pepper (if you don;t have a pepper mill, you should get one--they're awesome) before eating, and your taste buds will thank you. A rough recipe is below. I used it to make the soup pictured, but added a triangle of focaccia to make it photogenic because let's not kid ourselves--pureed orange soup just ain't that pretty.

Butternut squash and mushroom soup
2 teaspoons cooking oil
1 onion, chopped medium-fine

1/2 cup wine

1/2 pound mushrooms, cleaned and quartered (chef's recipe called for shiitake, I used king oyester the soup pictured)
1 butternut squash, peeled and cut into 1-inch chunks
1 can vegetable broth, plus water

Saute onions in oil until golden, about 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add mushrooms and cook until soft, 10 to 15 minutes, stirring every couple minutes. Add wine (whatever wine you have on hand, whether old or cheap, or even a full cup, no one will know unless you tell me, in which case I'll blog about how I do the same thing) and de-glaze pan, watching carefully. When wine has reduced, add broth and cut butternut squash and additional water to cover. Simmer until the squash is very soft, and mushes a little when you stir it, about an hour. Puree everything--I strongly recommend a stick blender, to avoid an accidental exploding blender incident. Add fresh ground pepper to taste, about half a teaspoon. Also tasty as leftovers.

Spicey noodle breakfast

Late breakfst today: steamed bok choy and brown rice noodles with "dipping sauce" poured over top. Spicey, and suitable for chopsticks, and even healthy--some of my favourite things!! Recipe from Vegetarian Times (and makes 'fast pho' as leftovers too).

Store-bought whole wheat gnocchi with garlic and vegan parmesan.

Easy cheesey

Cashew cheese. Sounds weird, right? It's DE-LI-CIOUS. You'll make this every day. It's creamy and satisfying, and takes about 2 minutes of hands-on work. It's also versatile--you can treat it like goat cheese and roll it in "Stuff" to boost the flavour. Cracked pepper, herbs, spices, citrus peel, sun-dried tomato, dried fruit or even nuts--nut cheese rolled in nuts? I know, it's crazy--so crazy it's nuts! (Sorry, I can't resist...) And if you want to serve it as a trayed appetizer, you can make it all fancy by pouring something over the top, like those baked-brie concoctions that were popular a few years ago--only these will be more awesome because of their vegan-ness. Try red pepper jelly, antipasto, tapenade, pesto and pine nuts, caramelized onions, sauteed mushrooms...seriously, I'm getting hungry just thinking of it!
But first, you have to make the cashew cheese. When you see the recipe, you'll realize it's basically soak, drain, puree, mold, chill. I soak overnight, which requires planning ahead a bit, but the link suggests only 2 hours. You can also add extras in before you wrap and chill --the recipe suggests lemon juice, garlic, and pepper, but you could add herbs, spices, etc. to the pureed cashews before wrapping and chilling. The recipe also suggests putting in a bowl before chilling, but if you scrape out the pured cashews into a sheet of parchment paper, you can roll it up and shape it like goat's cheese. Or line a ramekin or French onion soup bowl with plastic wrap and you can shape it like brie, for fancy pouring of stuff over top. Or you can do like I do--however it's molded, spread it over toast and then put the tapenade directly on top.
Considering how easy, delicious and versatile this is, I'm surprised everyone just doesn't serve this all the time. Easy cheesey!

Conscious cooking

As a reward for making it through the holiday season, I bought myself The Conscious Cook, by Tal Ronnen. Since I lasted six months of being vegan without buying even a single cookbook (gasp!), I have, of late, been buying myself almost every vegan cookbook I even remotely coveted. But The Conscious Cook is different-- in a very intimidating way. It bills itself as French-style vegan cooking, and it really is. A lot of the dishes involve multiple steps, with several prep-heavy items being combined on one plate. It's really complicated. You know, sauteed something on a bed of something beside something else, on top of pureed-something sauce, sprinkled with diced something. The kind of thing I would never make for myself.

So I put off buying the book. When I did buy it, I thought of it as food porn, something I could look at, and drool over, but not partake in myself. (Remember, this is food porn I'm taking about here. Get your mind out of the gutter, and stop picturing me covered in pureed something.)

But I was wrong. I have made several of the dishes. While some of them didn't turn out quite right, and some of the fake-meat ones were not as divinely-inspired as the book claims, the one I made tonight is already a staple. It has become, in my iteration, spinach pesto; and tonight I'm planning it for a weekday lunch, with kamut rotini and a bowl of butternut squash and shiitake soup. I'm sure it will be delicious, despite not being on a bed of something and sprinkled with something, diced and sauteed.