The best meal I ever ate

The best meal I ever ate wasn't a meal. It may not have been technically "the best" either, but it was by far the most surprising.
It was also recent, on my trip to Europe with my mother in June of this year. Mom and I were wandering around Munich's downtown core our first morning there, already tired and looking to sit after having wandered around the Viktualienmarkt in circles. Mom saw a little cafe just off the main market street, where they were making delicious-looking pastry right inside the large front window. We went in, mom probably delighted for a chance to rest with a coffee and a sweet; me with the knowledge I likely wouldn't be able to have anything, since coffee without soy milk is too harsh for my stomach. As expected, they did not have soy milk but the waitress was fluent in English and told me the pastry were vegan. Whaaat?? Yes, no milk or butter and eggs. She didn't even need me to prompt her--she knew what vegan meant, and what the ingredients were. Well hot damn, I'll take three! No, I had one, but it was amazing.
Even more amazing: while we watched the cook behind us pull the dough into rounds, my mother said, I think my mother made these when we were young. My mom's parents were German, and she remembered sitting around, watching her mom cook the dough in a pot full of fat, waiting with her siblings for the dough to cool down before they could eat it. So it may not have been the most nutritionally complete meal, but it was pretty sweet.

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.

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.

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.

Black bean burger from Veganomicon with cheddar-style Daiya vegan cheese.

Vegan gluten-free bookclub part 2

Another successful mostly vegan and mostly gluten-free bookclub! I made two gluten-free items for this month's event (since I was hosting): curried potato-cauliflower from Vegetarian Times. I omitted the peas listed in the recipe because I forgot to buy them, but it was yummy! I also made walnut-mushroom pate from Veganomicon--I made a ton and expected it to disappear, but there were so many delicious things there is still some left over for me. The gluten-free bookclubber brought sandwich cookies from Bunner's Bakery. There was also two kinds of hummus and delicious spinach salad with red onion, pear and avocado. And yes, in addition to eating, we did talk about the book a little. I think this month, most of preferred the food to the book!

Grilled cheese breakfast

Breakfast today: grilled cheese with cheddar-style Daiya, cooked in my panini press. An excellent way to start the day.

Of course he loved the sausage

Like cooking, dating can be messy. You try something you thought you'd like and it goes horribly. Or something you were loathe to even contemplate turns out great. Either way, the fun is as much in the process as the end result. Which brings me to sausage.
Now bear with me as I resist the urge to giggle like a 13-year-old, but I bring up sausage because of a date I had on the weekend. I was cooking dinner for a date who indicated he preferred to stay in. Well, fine. But when a vegan hosts an omnivore for the first time, the question is always what to serve that will absolutely and in one fell swoop dispel the myth that vegan food sucks. As it is to so many things, the answer is sausage. Because I only had so many things in the house--my glass of wine after work with a colleague the night before had ended at 10:00 p.m., so I didn't manage to stop at the grocery store on the way home. Which left frozen tomatoes, an onion and some red peppers to form a meal. Pasta it is! With Italian-style navy bean sausage. Mmmmmm.
But when my date appeared I was informed he did not eat carbs. They made him gain weight. Well, fine. Despite the absolute lack of notice--even after a previous conversation about what to make for dinner during which no objections to carbs were raised--I modified the menu and served sausage with the red sauce and zucchini and one very small baked potato. (Even though I suspected his food anxieties were more about the flavour of my vegan dishes than the amount of carbs.) And upon tasting the sausage for the first time--I swear to god I have a straight face right now--my date declared it was delicious. I resisted the urge to scream I told you so and insist it would taste better with some kamut pasta. But it brings me full circle--my date thought the food would be mediocre and it was fantastic, and I thought the date was going to be awesome, and...Well, fine.
Just because things don't often go the way you expect them to, here's a recipe for pinto bean sausages instead.

Brunch at Fresh

Food photo from the past: vegan brunch at Fresh in Toronto: blueberry pancakes, tofu scramble, and vegan sausage.

Vegan Ice cream; or, When in Rome

Vegan ice cream. Believe it or not, I found more of it in Italy than in my own city. I KNOW!! I dragged my mother 20 minutes out of the way  on thw way to our hotel on Rome so I could get the vegan ice cream mentioned on HappyCow.net. I was soooo worth it. They had many flavours of soy ice cream, and even...wait for it... vegan whipped cream! Yes, in case you were wondering, Rome is very much like heaven. ...If heaven has cute flirty waiters.