Blogger
Hey hey vegan foodies....now that Blogger is out of beta, they're pushing us to upgrade. If I upgrade my own blog, it will automatically upgrade the cookalong too. I don't want to do that if y'all don't want to upgrade though, because you won't be able to "create post" unless you upgrade. Also, there's a new person trying to join but it isn't working, possibly because we haven't upgraded. Are they being a bit pushy about wanting us all to upgrade?
Make sense? Thoughts? I've never typed the word "upgrade" so many times!
Nothing to do with the cookalong, or Blogger, but check out these vegan shortbreads my Mom made:
sweet potato and leek soup
I wanted to make something simple and hearty, so I opted to make the onion and leek soup posted by vegan_knitting. I decided to try using sweet potatoes instead of regular potatoes, and I also halved the recipe (roughly).
I used Zatoun fair trade olive oil, (a Christmas present) and here are the other ingredients on another Christmas present, a cutting board made by my uncle. It's his business, these days. He sells them at places like the recent One Of A Kind fair in Toronto. I think it looks really nice.
I served it with an Ace olive bun, with a generous amount of Earth Balance.
Accidental curry soup
This week I did make a soup but my internet connection was sporadic at best, so I didn't post it. I made my good old "I want something quick" stand-by,
Yoga Soup. Actually, it is the only recipe I've ever posted to
VegWeb.
But today, I started making a throw-together curry for lunch and used too much liquid, creating a tasty curry soup instead. Most of the ingredients are approximate...
2 broth cubes - 1 vegetable and 1 mushroom
about 4-6 cups of water (just filled the pot. gauging quantity is not my forte :) )
3/4 cup red lentils
1/4 cup yellow split peas
2 white potatoes, cubed
1 carrot, cubed
3 cloves of crushed garlic
frozen spinach (the stuff I buy comes frozen in single servings. so I used 2)
2 tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp ground coriander
2 tbsp of cilantro pesto
Rinse the lentils and split peas then fill the pot with cold water. Add broth cubes and bring to a boil. Chop potatoes and add to pot along with spices and garlic, reduce heat and simmer. Add carrots when potatoes are 1/2 done. When vegetables are cooked, add frozen spinach (you could thaw it first to speed up the process) and heat until warmed through. Before serving, add pesto.
Now, I go finish my Christmas plans. Happy holidays to everyone!
Soup is Love
I am writing this from my sister's house in Ann Arbor, Michigan. I'm here because 3 hours shy of a week ago, she gave birth to my lovely niece! I love being here to help out my sister and Eric and to see my niece in her first moments of life. I wanted to make them a soup stuffed to the brim with healthy things and yummy things.
So I was going to wait to post until I got home, but I was thinking of more food to make for them later, and I came across this as I flipped through
Vegan on a Shoestring, one of the cookbooks I brought with me:
Eating hot soup can warm up your belly and your toes, soothe your heart and soul. No other food can transport love so efficiently.And I wanted to share that with
you.
While I'm here, I'll tell you about the soup I made the new mommy and daddy today. It was a creamy winter squash soup with winter vegetables and herbs and spices. Here's how you make it:
Heat a couple tbs. olive oil in pot and add chopped leeks and chopped garlic. Stir and cook for a bit and then add rosemary and cumin. Cook for a bit more and then add a lot of peeled and chopped butternut squash and random winter squash (I think these are from their produce box), parsnip, and carrot. Stir and cook for a bit, and then add coconut milk, soymilk, and some water (if you need more liquid) and (this is where it always gets hazy) some more spices. I remember: coriander, ginger, nutmeg, cinammon, sweet curry, paprika, turmeric, sea salt, ground pepper, and probaby a few more. Cook till it all gets mushy and then use a potato masher to help it along.
[Picture here! I'll try to post it tomorrow.]
Enjoy your holidays, everyone!
Potato Leek Soup!
I forgot to take photos of the process, so here are two from eating the leftovers the next day.
This is from the Joy of Cooking:
6 fist-sized russet potatoes, peeled and sliced
7-8 leeks (the white part and a tiny bit of the green), sliced in rounds
1 onion
5 cups of broth
olive oil
Sautee the leeks and onion for about 15 minutes until soft and translucent. Then add the potatoes and broth. Bring to a boil and simmer, covered, for about 15 minutes. Blend and serve with salt and pepper, and some Toffutti sour cream if you like!
Black Bean Soup
I didn't use a recipe. My ingredients were: 2 onions, 3 cloves of garlic, some olive oil, 1 jalapeno pepper, hot pepper flakes, cumin seeds, cumin, maybe 2 cups of water, 1 vegetable stock cube, 1 can of diced tomatoes, 2 cans of black beans, and about 1 cup of cilantro.
I chopped up some onions, and fried them in olive oil. Then I added 3 cloves of garlic, whole, and continued to fry. I added a chopped jalapeno pepper (with seeds and all) and cumin seeds left over from pakoras way back when.
Then I added a can of diced tomatoes, which I let bring to a boil, before simmering. I added a cup or so of water, some ground cumin, a cube of vegetable stock, and two cans of rinsed black beans. I let this simmer for a while, before adding a cup of so of chopped cilantro, and continued to let simmer. Then I used my hand blender to smooth it out, before serving it with a dollop of sour supreme. It was delicious... nice and spicy and filling. I'm going to bring it into work tomorrow.
Soup it up
It's a soup free-for-all this week
chocolatah-tay
i couldn't sleep sunday night so i decided to prep the veg for the next day. what happens when i do that is that i just keep going and cook the damn thing. and when that happens, i always discover that i'm missing ingredients, namely the kidney and butter beans. um, kind of essential to have beans in a bean chili, n'est ce pas? heh. i kept going though.
here are the carrots, celery, onions and lotsa garlic being softened:
and then the steamy goodness. i added chili powder because i didn't have any chili peppers lying around, and one orange bell pepper and one yella bell pepper, two potatoes and a can of chick peas! also of note was the two squares of dark (70% cocoa), chocolate. i used a chocolate bar and it was super thin so i added two more squares:
cooked it until the potatoes were tender and took a few bites; it was surprisingly very very chocolatey for what little chocolate i'd put in. oh right, i forgot to mention that i didn't have any tomato paste either.
seeing as how i was missing myriad ingredients, i thought i'd pop over to the store the next day and pick them up. three days later, i decided that i was too lazy so i dumped it all back into a new pot:
and dumped a can of diced tomatoes in.
ta da:
it tastes much better with tomatoes and extra chili powder.
(i fixed yer text more, gwern. brenda was right. the html was fiddly. love, mishka)
Chocochili
I whipped this up quickly last night. I usually like my chili to simmer for about an hour, but this tasted so good after half and hour that I now think my one-hour rule is probably silly.
I used a few substitutions - pinto and black bean instead of butter and kidney beans, half a jalapeño instead of cayenne, chopped sundried tomatoes (about 7) instead of a paste, added lots of cumin and chili powder and 4 cloves of garlic...
... and cocoa camino fair trade cocoa instead of chocolate chunks. About 1/3 of a cup of it.
I thought I maybe used a bit too much cocoa because the colour got really dark and the liquid turned into a really cool looking gravy. But the flavour was nice and deep and not at all chocolatey.
Chocolate chili
I used tomato paste instead of sun-dried tomato paste, sweet potato instead of potato, and chilli powder and cumin instead of not chilli powder and cumin.
Also, I used black beans instead of butter beans, and some Cocoa Camino fair trade bittersweet chocolate.
EXTREME CLOSEUP!
The chocolate added a nice touch to it. I'm really glad I added it. I kind of wanted to add some cilantro, but then wondered if that might clash with the chocolate; as though the chocolate shouldn't have clashed with the other stuff.
Smells like a cookie, tastes like chili
I've been noticing a trend with my cookalong participation. Either I'm super interested in a recipe, and I get started on it right away or I don't make it at all. I'm definitely craving warm, soupy things like chili. I kinda wanted to eat one peanut butter cookie, but I didn't want a whole pan. I like to make desserts when I know I'll only have to eat one or two. Or three of them, tops!
So right away, when I saw we'd be making chili, I was on it. Even though I should completely not be cooking at all and getting ready for
Crafty Wonderland, but my justification is that I'll need something to eat tomorrow while I'm vending all day, and this should be nice and nourishing.
I went to the coop and bought a can of kidney beans (I thought I had one, but I was out), chocolate chips, celery, and bell peppers. The rest of the stuff I had, and I laid it all out and made it smile for the camera.
This picture was taken before we set it to simmer and hopped in the shower.
This is the completed chili, right after I added the chocolate. When I stirred it, it smelled like a cookie, but when I took a taste, it smelled just like chili. Chili with a hint of something, almost smokey. I added a little more salt (I had only used half of the tamari called for) and then some more spice.
I'll let you know how it tastes when I get back tomorrow!
Edited to add:8:30 this morning, running late to meet Vanessa at the bus stop, I heated up the chili (plus some added water to thin it out a bit). Poured the piping hot chili into my old school thermos, and I was off. I missed the bus, but Vanessa knew I'd be on the next one so it was all good. And worth it, cause 4 hours later when we were getting hungry, I poured us some chili and it was hot and filling and it hit the spot!
Here I am, eating chili out of my thermos at Crafty Wonderland!
Cookies!
I made the cookies tonight and followed the directions with minor additions - Decadent chocolate chips and a splash of vanilla soymilk because the mix looked too crumbly.
The results are yumlicious, except that I burned the bottoms of the first batch. Hopefully the deliciousness will mask the char :)
chili for chilly times
all that talk of chili and no one suggested
this recipe? :p
i've never made chili with potatoes in it - or bell peppers for that matter!
are y'all up for it?
p.s. i've been waaaaaay busy lately and not around much after my brief appearance way back in the whole sandwich thang, but i'll do my best to participate more often. yeehaw!
p.p.s i'm sorry if this shows up twice; for some reason it completely disappeared a moment ago (yes, i refreshed to see if it would come back and no, i don't think i'm so stupid as to delete it but ya never know. ;) )
peanut butter loves chocolate
I made the peanut butter cookies late last night and they made my apartment smell so nice! I used the recipe
Brenda posted, except I halved it and I added the pièce de résistance, chocolate chips! Isn't it great that vegan chocolate chips are available in abundance at Loblaws!
And I didn't smush them with a fork, I formed them into little discs while watching
The Hour. They're crumbly. I found that if I let them cool on the baking sheet a bit before I put them on the cookie rack, they didn't crumble apart as much.
Here are some of them on my desk waiting for
Stagflation to come by:
PB cookies
I used whole wheat all-purpose flour.
I opted not to do the sugar-brushing. This photo is a little blurry, for some reason.
As you can see, my cookies spread out a bit when cooking.
All told, I got 21 cookies out of this recipe; about the same as Brenda. They were yummy!
