Hagrid's Rock Cakes (with a few modifications)

Much as I love Hagrid, he is known for his big heart, not his expertise in the kitchen.  So when it came time to choose a yummy culinary compliment to enjoy with the HP DVD last night, we decided on a modified version of Hagrid's Rock Cakes.  You can find the recipe for Hagrid's (not horrible) Rock Cakes at the nom!nom!nom! blog, which has several other yummy looking recipes, too.

I  have to say the batter was really yummy! ;-p   I'm not so sure I loved the finished product; it was tasty enough, but wasn't sweet enough to really be a dessert and it had a bit too much baking soda flavor.  Admittedly, I cut the sugar in half which is usually plenty sweet for me but maybe in this case I should have gone the whole shebang.  Also, I completely blanked and forgot to have my sister bring over her supply of vegan chocolate chips, so we did without those and just used orange-flavored cranberries and chopped walnuts.  Not sure I'll repeat the recipe but, like a visit to Hagrid's, it was unusual, generally pleasant, and definitely fun for a change ;-) 

Vegan MoFo

October is Vegan Month of Food (Vegan MoFo) and, while I don't have the dedication to write a vegan food related post every week day as suggested, I did want to post this great link to the Vegan MoFo  site because it's really inspiring! :-)

Also, if you  haven't yet, please check out my friend Lee's gorgeous blog, Plenty Sweet Enough because she is being wonderfully faithful with the Vegan MoFo and her recipes look mouth-watering!

Finally, since I may as well post something personal that is vegan food related, I absolutely fell in love with the Spiced Chai  Soy Latte at the local coffee shop.  I think it's going to be my guilty pleasure for autumn ;-)  I'm really happy because, while I love Chai, a lot of mixes give me headaches but this one did not.  Cruelty free for the animals and for my head, woo hoo! ;-p

Mustardy Portobello Mushroom Pasta

Here's my attempt at the Mustardy Portobello Mushroom Pasta from the awesome No-Meat Athlete blog.  You can find the recipe here.

I think mine looks a bit like some sort of weird collection of sea creatures, but it tasted pretty good.  We didn't have any dry white wine, so I used marsala cooking wine instead (which I love!) and it was tasty.  We also didn't have pine nuts but otherwise I followed the recipe and, while not my favorite dish in the world, it was easy to prepare, fairly quick, and a nice change of pace from our usual tomato-based pasta recipes. 

Chocolate Zucchini Bread

One of my husband's co-workers was kind enough to send home a fat zucchini and it languished on the counter for days while I was too busy and uncreative to make anything with it.  Finally, the other night, I decided I couldn't let it go to waste and, to appease a sweet tooth, I made zucchini bread.  You will have to take my word for it because I baked it right before bed and so popped it in the fridge, then next morning divided it up for Tyler and me to take for work snacks and thus there is no photo.

Here is the recipe 

There is too much oil to be really good-for-you, but it was sure tasty.  I wanted to try a recipe that used applesauce, but we didn't have any. I did cut the sugar and omitted the chocolate chips.  The cocoa powder and cinnamon gave it a lovely flavor!  I enjoyed that "twist" on zucchini bread (which I don't think I've made since I turned vegan) and this is definitely a recipe I'll return to (and maybe modify a bit for the oil content) next time I find myself with an almost-done-for zucchini on my hands :-)

Chana Masala

Here's my attempt at the Chana Masala recipe from Isa Chandra Moskowitz's Post Punk Vegan Kitchen (which is a great blog, by the way!)

Her dish looks wayyyy better than mine, richer and more vibrant.  Granted, I was using up some less-than-stellar tomatoes and didn't have enough cilantro for garnish.  I enjoyed this dish, though the overall result was a bit more bland than I anticipated.  Probably because our Indian spices are several years (too) old.  (I really need to invest in more, they're just spendy!) I did get to use the sample of coconut oil my mom had sent over some time ago and it was very tasty in this dish and a pleasure to use.  I even got a dab on my finger and then decided to put it on as some lip balm ;-p

Anyway, do try out the recipe if you enjoy Indian food.  This really was surprisingly uncomplicated to make and yields lots of left-overs.

 


 

Vegan Butterbeer in my own Hufflepuff House ;-)

My sister and I watched the first Harry Potter movie over Labor Day weekend and wanted to celebrate the occasion by trying one of the recipes from the HP books.  Butterbeer comes up so often we couldn't resist, even though it was a bit tricky finding a vegan version. 

Ultimately, we decided to go with this recipe because it called for the least obscure / costly ingredients (I didn't want to spring for some butterscotch extract, for example!) although we looked quite foolish wandering around the beer aisle looking for a "flavorful dark beer"; we don't drink so I'm pretty clueless about that sort of thing.  Anyway, we picked one that looked promising (Fat Tire from Fort Collins, CO if anyone out there is a fan, haha!), got home, and set to boiling out the alcohol.

We halved the recipe, used almond milk instead of soy, but otherwise followed the recipe exactly.  (I don't even want to know how much fat and sugar was in that cupful!)  Anyway, the result was definitely.... interesting!  Warm, autumn-y spices, tangy, with sweet undertones and a funky kick (probably the taste of the beer we aren't used to, alcohol or not!)   On the one hand, I'm not sure I exactly liked it, but yet I found it extremely fascinating!  Ultimately, though, it was just a bit "much" so we left our glasses mostly full, scooped out the rest of the soy ice cream, and poured a bit of the butterbeer over it for flavoring ;-)  I think next time we will try one of the cream soda based recipes; this one just wasn't "butterscotchy" enough for what I always imagined butterbeer to taste like. 

Still, it was quite fun :-)  I think we might try pumpkin pasties for the next film!

Cilantro Ginger Tempeh Toss

Mmmm!  The Cilantro Ginger Tempeh Toss from How it All Vegan reminds me a bit of tasty Thai food with the creamy coconut-ginger sauce over healthy veggies and sticky rice.  The tempeh adds some good protein, too. I absolutely loved this dish!  My husband was so-so about it, but he likes his Thai food spicy and I made this without the hot red peppers (I was chicken!) so it was not very spicy.  I might try adding a bit of cayenne pepper next time to see if I can bump up the spiciness for him while still being able to tolerate it myself.  Best of all, left-overs were absolutely scruptuous the next day so, if hubby never warms up to the dish, I can just make up a batch at the beginning of the week and have it for lunch at work all week long ;-)