"Fronch Toast"

I've gotta say that really good breakfast food is probably the one thing I miss being vegan.  I used to love eating breakfast food, especially at restaurants.  Now, I have to pretty much kiss restaurant breakfast food good-bye.  And, while tofu scrambles are okay and I've found some good vegan pancake recipes to make at home, my beloved French toast has always alluded me. 

Until now!

Ooo-la-la! ;-)

This is probably the closest to "real" French toast that I've come, most other recipes yielding rather disastrous results.  Thanks to the Post Punk Vegan Kitchen, you can find the recipe online here.  I was a bit skeptical at the chickpea flour, but I've liked most of Isa's recipes and this is no exception.  It really gets that nice crunch on the outside and moist center that I love from regular French toast, and it tastes wonderful with jam. 

Smoky Southwest Sweet Potato Shepherd's Pie

As I dragged myself back into the house on Monday after a long day back at work following winter break, I was greeted with a deliciously spicy-sweet smell and my husband telling me not to look in the oven as he had made a surprise for dinner.

And what a lovely surprise it was!  This take on the traditional British dish is a long way from the flavors I come to associate with Shepherd's Pie, yet I absolutely loved it!  It has a layer of mashed sweet  potatoes to create the top crust and the filling is beans, corn, carrots, onion and a spicy salsa to add some heat.  Tyler used a chipotle salsa and green pepper instead of the hot chiles but otherwise he didn't see a need to change the recipe and I thought it was wonderful just the way he made it.  The photo doesn't do it justice but I had to snap it quick before I hungrily tucked in! ;-)

The recipe is from Vegan on the Cheap by Robin Robertson.

A few more festive dishes from Christmas 2011

Before we get too far into the new year, I wanted to post a few more of the fun and festive dishes we made over the holidays.

Yule Log Cake

My sister and I wanted to make a traditional British Christmas dessert and had hoped to make Christmas pudding, but we didn't have the proper culinary paraphernalia to steam the pudding.  So, we opted for a Yule Log cake instead.  We used the recipe found here from Veganfamily.co.uk .  The chocolate cake was delicious!!!  I loved the inclusion of the orange juice (very subtle flavor when cooked but still detectable and delectable!) and the frosting was also super yummy and indulgent.  Ours ended up looking nothing like a yule log, but oh well.  It was fun and probably one of my favorite vegan cakes yet! :->

"Egg" Nog

Usually, I love the recipes Isa comes up with on Post Punk Vegan Kitchen (and in her books) and I had high hopes for her egg nog, despite how odd the ingredients sounded to me (coconut milk and avocado!!??!!).  I am not a fan of the store-bought "veg nog" and this recipe got great reviews.  My sister and I tried it hopefully, especially since the avocado made it seem like it had a bit of redeeming value, but we were disappointed.  The taste was just really odd, not bad, exactly, but not at all like egg nog and not really something we wanted to drink much of considering the calorie load.  Oh well, we'll try something else next year!

German Red Cabbage

 This was for my husband.  He remembers his German grandmother making this and he loved it.  My friend Jeannette again came through with a helpful recipe.  Basically, you take a red cabbage head, medium yellow onion, and two apples, shred them and cook them down in a bit of water, butter (in my case, margarine), with sugar, vinegar, salt, pepper, cloves and a bay leaf.  The recipe was a bit vague on how much of the sugar, etc. to add so we just kind of guessed at it.  The result was fairly tasty (I don't know that I'm a huge red cabbage fan, myself) and my husband liked it but said it wasn't quite like his grandma's.   This is probably because we did not use butter (or, gasp!, lard as the recipe said) and the spices, etc. were so variable.  But, it was a good attempt and he quite enjoyed it!

Happy New Year with Hoppin' John (New Year's Peas)

Happy 2012!  I decided to celebrate New Year's Day by cooking up a big pot of Hoppin' John (New Year's Peas).  I'd never cooked with black eyed peas before and am not even sure our store regularly carries them since I only found one selection in a special part of the produce section and I'm suspicious they are seasonal.   I got the recipe from Nava Atlas' Vegan Holiday Kitchen, which the local library got in just in time for my December cooking and baking extravaganza! ;-)  It's a gorgeous book and I found many tempting recipes.  The photographs are wonderful and I love the selection of recipes, from Thanksgiving through 4th of July and including even recipes for Easter, Hanukkah, etc. and some great tips on things that new vegans (or non-vegans who will be including vegans in their holiday festivities) would want to know, such as how to find vegan Easter candy.

Anyway, the Hoppin' John was tasty and surprisingly easy to make.  The picture is rather dreadful, but my lighting wasn't good.  At least you can see the "black eye" of the peas.  The dish is touted as bringing good luck for the New Year. I hope so and that  your New Year is off to a great start and will be full of good health, good food, and much joy.

German Stollen (Veganized!)

My husband was lucky enough to have a wonderful German grandfather who was a professional baker.  Needless to say, it would be pretty impossible for us to recreate his magic in the kitchen, but I really wanted to make a stollen for Tyler this year (since it had been part of his Christmas tradition growing up) and one of my friends with German in-laws was kind enough to send me an authentic recipe by Dr. Oetker vthat she had (thank you, Jeannette!!!)

 

We followed the recipe, getting out one of the small scales my husband had used for his physics course, setting it to grams, and weighing the ingredients ;-)    To veganize it, we simply used Earth Balance instead of the butter.  We used soy milk. Instead of the egg, we used 1 TBSP ground flax and 3 TBSP water.  The other substitution we made was to soak the raisins in apple juice instead of rum, as we do not have rum on hand and didn't want to buy some just for this recipe.  Also, we had no candied lemon peel.

We were really delighted with how it turned out!  I thought the dough was really soft and buttery, too much so, so I added a bit of flour so that it held together better but otherwise it mixed up beautifully with the measurements given and we thought it tasted wonderful.  Tyler said it was close to what his grandfather's tasted like (wow!) and we even took up a few pieces to the in-laws when we went for a visit after Christmas and my father-in-law was very impressed and said he also thought it was close to what his dad used to make. Hooray!  I think we will try to  make this a Christmas tradition.

*~*~*Christmas Cookies*~*~*

Christmas Cookie Palooza

My sister and I made Christmas cookies over the weekend, listening to Christmas music and had a wonderful time making some sweet holiday treats we could actually eat (having to pass up all those amazing dessert tables at the work parties I've been going to had me feeling a bit Bah! Humbug and this definitely helped me feel happy and Christmas-y again!)  I was especially delighted to find this blog explaining how to "veganize" traditional Christmas cookie recipes.  It's fairly easy, such as substituting Earth Balance for butter or soy milk for cow's milk.  One suggestion for egg substitution was to use 1/4 cup of soy yogurt for one egg. I had never tried this but it worked well in our recipe.  I am not sure how to veganize certain recipes that require the eggs to be whipped, but perhaps I could find out...

Anyway, the cookie dough was surprisingly disgusting (Earth Balance doesn't taste nearly as good as butter in cookie dough!) but the finished products exceeded our expectations and truly tasted like Christmas cookies!  Woo hoo! :-D

Mexican Wedding Cakes (I have also heard these referred to as Russian Tea Cakes)

Here is a traditional recipe from Joy of Baking.  This was an easy sub. of Earth Balance for the regular butter and we used walnuts for the nuts.  These were sooo delicious.  They practically poof! apart and melt in your mouth.

Raspberry Oatmeal Squares (these were my husband's favorite!)

This is another recipe we "veganized" from the Joy of Baking.  In this case, I subbed the 1/4 cup soy yogurt for the one egg and used Earth Balance instead of the butter.  They turned out really yummy and weren't overly sweet (I cut the sugar a bit) with a gorgeous raspberry flavor.


Pecan Bars

Yummy!!!!  I've always had a fondness for pecan pie, but hadn't had it in ages.  This recipe brings back all those fond memories.  And, best of all, this recipe is already vegan!  It's from a blog I would like to follow, Megatarian.  The only thing I changed from the recipe is that I added an extra 1/4 cup flour to the base because it seemed way too gooey.  Also, I used brown rice syrup instead of corn syrup since I have kind of a "thing" against corn syrup.  They turned out sooo delicious!  The crust was a bit flaky, but they tasted great.

Annie and I hope to make more Christmas Cookies and/or other holiday desserts in the days leading up to Christmas and I'll be sure to post the results.


Happy Holidays! :->

Vegan Thanksgiving!!!

Before I get any tardier, I have to post about our awesome Vegan Thanksgiving!!!  I am so happy because this year my parents and sister are also pursuing a plant-based diet, so everything I put on the Thanksgiving table (and everything they brought for pot-luck) was vegan.  Not only was it nice knowing that we provided a cruelty-free meal, but it was fun to be able to eat everything :->

Here are some pictures from the feast.  I don't have time to collect all the recipes right now, but will try to add them later.

Tyler's amazing green beans -- delish!  A bit of spiciness with red pepper flakes.


My mom's "meatloaf", which had a wonderfully nutty and mushroomy flavor

Savory Stuffing (my favorite Thanksgiving dish!  Recipe is in my Nov 2010 blog archive)

Candied Yams with Vegan Marshmallows (mmm! I LOVED this recipe!!!)

Dessertapalooza!  :->  Chocolate pudding pie, apple cobbler, and two kinds of pumpkin pie (including one with gluten-free crust for my mom).  My recipe can be found in the November 2010 archives.