Granola of the Week #7: Vanilla Bean-Sprouted Sunflower Seed Cereal & Why Honey Isn’t Vegan

I regret to say that I’ve recently fallen off my weekly granola-crafting track, preferring the succulently sauteed breakfast greens featured in the Ayurvedic Vegan Kitchen accompanied by soy yogurt and fruit instead of my previously habitual green smoothie topped with granola. Last week, however, the insatiable urge to make granola once again gripped my being, compelling me to bake up a pan of grainy-nutty goodness that I hold so near to my heart. However, rather than producing yet another variation on my never-fail template recipe for fresh fruit-sweetened granola, I opted to experiment with a breakfast cereal more akin to crunchy squares rather than clustery bites. As my inspiration, I utilized the sprouted granola recipe that Juli Novotney highlights on her clean-eating blog, PUREmamas, to yield a pan of intensely fragrant, hearty, golden-brown cereal ideal for stirring into soy yogurt (can you tell how crazy I am about soy yogurt lately?).

Below, I’ve listed the changes I made to Juli’s original recipe:

• Substituted cardamom for cinnamon, because cardamom holds the title of Ali’s favorite sweet spice, far above the more conventionally used cinnamon.
• Substituted flaxseed meal for coconut sugar. I fully understand that these two ingredients fulfill completely different functions, but allow me to explain my choice of substitution: I prefer minimally sweet granolas, for who wants to wake up to a sugar shock (just humor me and pretend that people don’t eat Froot Loops or Cocoa Puffs for breakfast)? Instead, I like for my granolas to contain a generous amount of fiber, omega-3 fatty acids, and various superfoods. Flaxseed meal fulfills all three of my aforementioned breakfast cereal preferences while not contributing added sweetness, and harbors the same powdery texture as does coconut sugar. Thus, flaxseed meal=coconut sugar for all intents and purposes in this particular granola experiment.
• Substituted maple syrup for honey, because honey ain’t vegan, folks! Not only do bees require their own honey to provide their means of sustenance, many commercial apiaries function essentially as bee factory farms, “stacking honeybee colonies in interlocking boxes and treating them much like the dairy industry treats cows: as biological honey machines to be milked for profit,” according to the March+April 2013 issue of VegNews magazine. The article also offers this unfortunate information about large-scale honey production, which most likely serves as a contributor to the recent epidemic of colony collapse disorder:

“…bees make honey so their colony will have enough food to survive the winter. Many beekeepers sell all of that honey and replace it with nutritionally deficient sugar water or corn sytrup. Additionally, queen bees can live for five years but are routinely killed and replaced after only one or two to increase the hive’s honey production. Some industrial beekeepers destroy entire colonies after the fall honey harvest because it’s cheaper for them to simply start new hives in spring than to maintain them over winter.”

Though some vegans seem to regard honey as permissable, I personally find it equally as unacceptable to consume as dairy and animal flesh. Why shouldn’t our compassion extend to insects? Why draw the line of humane living at animals of the mammalian, avian, marine, etc. domains? Frankly, I don’t feel comfortable consuming honey for the same reason I don’t feel comfortable consuming other animal flesh and secretions: it’s not mine to take.

• Used 2 tbsp coconut oil + 1/2 small apple in place of the 4 tbsp coconut oil. I also prefer to limit the amount of oil in my granolas, simply because oil does not offer as many nutrients as the vast majority of my other staple granola ingredients, including the ever-popular and oh-so-healthy apple, which provides adequate moisture to replace oil when pureed.
• Omitted the salt, because research conveyed by the lovely Dr. Fuhrman purports that vegans and vegetarians actually must pay closer attention to their sodium intake than meat-eaters, since the arterial plaque build-up that ensues from eating animal-based saturated fat actually protects the fragile blood vessles from rupturing (but also causes coronary heart disease, so…).

What an unexpectedly interesting discussion of a range of vegan issues, and all from a simple breakfast cereal recipe! What can’t granola accomplish?

Until next time, Ali.

Sandwich Love

Ah, the sandwich. Does there exist a more soul-satisfying, deeply comforting, childhood-reminiscent food open to as many variations, interpretations, and flavor combinations as this humble, unassuming lunch staple? I learned the answer to this question through the anguishing experience of eliminating sandwiches from my life for an entire 15 months after adopting a gluten-free diet, as I failed to uncover a quality recipe for homemade yeasted gluten-free bread, and sighed in disappointment at the gluten-free bread brands available at Whole Foods and the Willy Street Coop, most of which contained eggs as well as a number of questionable ingredients such as xanthan gum. I recently described this period of suffering on the blog in my full review of Jennifer Katzinger’s new cookbook, “Gluten-Free and Vegan Bread: Artisan Recipes to Make at Home,” which, incidentally, liberated me from the sandwich-less void into which I had spiraled.

Since that post, in which I highlight the first recipe from the cookbook with which I experiemented—the Petite Buckwheat Round—I’ve recreated two more of Jennifer’s impeccable culinary masterpieces: the Raspberry-Rooibos Tea Bread (more details in this week’s upcoming What I Ate Wednesday post) and the Light Teff Sandwich Bread. Both of which yielded absolutely drool-worthy results, though I employed only the latter to fulfill any and all of my sandwich-inspired hopes and dreams.

Raspberry-Rooibos Tea Bread

Light Teff Sandwich Bread

Quite loathe to tamper too much with Jennifer’s precise recipes, crafted from oodles of experience, I allowed myself to make a flour substitution only after carefully consulting this helpful guide to gluten-free flours, which advises replacing flours with those that match their same weight; for example, since millet is considered a heavier flour, you would replace it with another heavy flour such as buckwheat. In fact, I partook in that exact substitution while making the Light Teff Sandwich Bread and concluded my baking experiement by removing a dense, moist, crusty, heartily flavored loaf of bread from my oven, immediately envisioning the many sandwiches in which I would soon revel. (To satisfy your potential curiosity, along with teff and buckwheat flours, this particular bread also contained chia seeds, arrowroot, almond meal, tapioca flour, flaxseed meal, active dry yeast, olive oil, and maple syrup).

So far, I’ve crafted four magical sandwiches based upon Jennifer Katzinger’s genious yeasty contributions to the gluten-free vegan community:

• Caprese Sandwich—two slices of my caraway-ified version of Jennifer Katzinger’s Petite Buckwheat Round, slathered with Kristy’s Oil-Free Pesto and topped with Miyoko Schinner’s vegan buffalo mozzarella along with a couple cherry tomatoes (I also highlighted this sandwich in my previous review of Jennifer’s book).

• Mediterranean Falafel and Hummus Sandwich—two slices of Jennifer’s Light Teff Sandwich Bread layered with Sweet Potato Hummus with Fennel Seeds & Smoked Salt, tender spinach leaves, marinated Mediterranean veggies, and the raw pumpkin seed-olive falafel from this wrap recipe.

• TLT (Tempeh, Lettuce, & Tomato) with Avocado (my favorite of the four sandwiches!)—two slices of Jennifer’s Light Teff Sandwich Bread spread with mashed avocado and topped with butter lettuce leaves, Kathy’s Tempeh Bacon (the best tempeh I’ve eaten in a loooong while), and a couple cherry tomatoes.

• Tempeh Tickle Sandwich with Almonnaise—having just received Dreena Burton’s “Let Them Eat Vegan!” for Christmas, I derived inspiration for this sandwich from Dreena’s recipe for Tempeh Tickle (deemed such because it will “tickle your taste buds”!). Her notes accompanying the recipe suggest serving the tempeh in a sandwich with a thick spread of Almonnaise (mayonnaise made out of almonds)—how could I not follow her persuasive instructions? The refreshingly crisp bite of alfalfa sprouts finished off this sophisticated sandwich.

Submitted to Foodtastic Fridays, Wellness Weekend, Gluten Free Fridays, and Healthy Vegan Fridays.

Needless to say, I’ve lived in sandwich ecstasy for the past couple of days and fully intend to perpetuate this joyous state with another one of Jennifer’s winning recipes as soon as this teff bread runs out—Multiple Grain Baguette, anyone? In the meantime, I’m on the lookout for yummy vegan sandwich suggestions, so if you have any, please let me know!

Until next time, Ali.

A Very Vegan Christmas

Allow me to commence this post by wishing you all a very merry Christmas, or an incredibly enjoyable Tuesday for those of you who don’t celebrate December 25th as a holiday. My family, though composed of three of the least religious people on the planet, still engages in gift-giving, Christmas-television-special-watching (It’s A Wonderful Life and How the Grinch Stole Christmas, anyone?), and holiday-treat-baking on this late December day, and this year certainly proves no different. To my extreme joy, however, I did not have to settle for partaking in these traditional activities while visiting my paternal family in Vegan Wasteland, USA (aka Alabama), like last year; instead, my father headed down south by his lonesome while my mother and I happily remained in our progressive, liberal, vegan-friendly oasis of Madison, WI.

I started off Christmas Day with a big glass of homemade green juice—a treat I’ve missed immensely while at Vassar; this one consisted of apples, lemon, carrots, cucumber, parsley, and kale—accompanied by a bowlful of Pumpkin Caramel Cereal. My mother soon joined me downstairs and bestowed upon me the go-ahead to begin tearing apart opening my presents. I didn’t request too much this year, as I consider college tuition as the ongoing and ultimate gift from my parents, and profusely thanked my mother for her lovely and quite useful presents. They include four cookbooks—Superfood Cuisine by Julie Morris, Let Them Eat Vegan! by Dreena Burton, Forks Over Knives: The Cookbook by Del Sroufe, and Gluten-Free and Vegan Bread by Jennifer Katzinger—, what I consider the two books that every animal rights proponent must read—Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs, and Wear Cows by Melanie Joy and Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer—, and donations to the organizations of three of the most inspirational women I’ve ever encountered—Our Hen House with Jasmin Singer and Mariann Sullivan, and The Compassionate Cook with Colleen Patrick-Goudreau.

   

Later this morning, I headed over to Inner Fire for a Christmas Day yoga class before retreating to the kitchen for the next five hours of the day, during which I prepared a couple more batches of Butter Pecan Rum Balls and a gorgeous, accidentally Italian-inspired holiday dinner for my mother and myself.

Our Christmas meal began with a festive green-and-red appetizer tray boasting Happy Crackers with sundried tomatoes and garlic powder from My New Roots, Oil-Free Pesto from Keepin’ it Kind, Fresh Buffalo Mozzarella from the September+October 2012 issue of VegNews magazine by Miyoko Schinner, author of Artisan Vegan Cheese (you can find the recipe online here), and a couple of cherry tomatoes to round out the array.

I’ve made the Happy Crackers before, flavoring them with caraway, to yield spectacularly crunchy, hearty, punch-you-in-the-face flavorful results, and my second encounter with the recipe turned out just as well. Sweet and deriving richness from three types of nuts and seeds—cashews, pistachios, and hemp seeds—rather than from oil, the pesto provided a mellow contrast to the bold crackers. Most excited about the buffalo mozzarella, I had dreamed of crafting the cheese since salivating over the photo of vegan caprese salad in VegNews four months ago. While the cheese did not harbor the same density of dairy-based mozzarella, it offered a deliciously creamy, tangy, and cruelty-free spread in the familiar spherical mozzarella shape.

Happy Crackers with sundried tomatoes and garlic powder.

Oil-Free Pesto.

Vegan Buffalo Mozzarella.

Though my photos don’t do even a smidge of justice to this downright astounding recipe (as per usual), Sarah’s Butternut Squash Lasagna with celeriac noodles, white bean bechamel, butternut squash sauce, and wilted baby spinach comprised the main event of our modernized Italian vegan holiday meal. Every layer of the lasagna provided a unique flavor profile to form a veritable symphony of comforting gastronomic bliss: the celeriac, with its intriguing earthy-yet-clean taste, took on a more savory flavor from a quick braise in veggie stock; the silky smooth white bean bechamel offered a warming note of fresh nutmeg; the creamy butternut squash sauce packed a sharply sweet punch of garlic; and the rainbow chard, which I used instead of baby spinach, imparted that much-loved accent of green leafiness present in nearly all of my meals.

 

Meal Checklist: Protein—soy yogurt, cashews, white beans, pistachios, hemp seeds, sesame seeds, flax seeds. Whole Grain—quinoa, brown rice. Vegetables—butternut squash, garlic, celeriac, sundried tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, basil. Leafy Green—rainbow chard.

And thus concluded my immensely enjoyable Christmas. Of course, the most valuable gifts I’ve received both during this holiday season and the rest of the year include a loving network of friends and family who support me in all my endeavors, an inspiring and ever-expanding community of (com)passionate vegan/animal rights advocates, the enormous privilege of attending my idea of the most perfect institution of higher learning in America, and the ability to nourish my mind, body, and spirit through a healthy lifestyle. Thank you, dear readers, for contributing to this list of gifts. I wish you all the same. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I must indulge in a little Grinchiness.

Much love and until next time, Ali.

Let the Holiday Cookie Extravaganza Begin! and a Recipe for Vegan Butter Pecan Rum Balls

For the past four years, I’ve abstained from purchasing holiday gifts and have instead engaged in an annual bout of extreme baking in order to provide scrumptious, lovingly crafted vegan treats to anywhere from 10-25 of my closest friends. This year proves no different, as I’ve chosen ten varied recipes for cookies, brownies, and candy from around the vegan blogosphere with which I plan to substantially dirty my kitchen over the coming week. Yesterday marked the commencement of my baking whirlwind, which consisted of Cara’s Persimmon Cookies, Jenne’s Raw Gingerbread Macaroons, Amie Sue’s Raw Red Peppermint “Sugar” Cookies, and a newly veganized version of my family’s tried-and-true Butter Pecan Rum Balls (recipe at the end of the post).

From front to back: Persimmon Cookies, Gingerbread Macaroons, Butter Pecan Rum Balls (then repeats).

Only substituting a flax “egg” for the tofu in the Persimmon Cookies, I otherwise followed Cara’s recipe exactly and obtained immensely pleasing results. While I don’t intend to sample one of them myself due to the cookies’ sugar content, their soft-in-the-middle-crispy-on-the-edges texture, heavenly spiced aroma, and inclusion of both chewy raisins and crunchy walnuts has inspired me to create a sugar/Earth Balance-free version in the near future.

For the Raw Gingerbread Macaroons, I replaced the almonds with almond pulp leftover from making almond milk, and the molasses with date syrup, to yield a hearty, sticky dough perfect for molding into dome-shaped macaroons.

Red Peppermint “Sugar” Cookies right before their second trip into the oven.

In the Raw Red Peppermint “Sugar” Cookies, I again replaced the almond meal with almond pulp, and the beet juice with frozen raspberries in the hopes that they would impart the same red coloring. Though I found that the dough proved much too sticky to facilitate the use of cookie cutters, even after freezing it, I worked around this snafu by rolling out the dough about 1/4-inch thick onto two parchment-lined baking sheets, baking for 30 minutes at 200 degrees, cutting out the desired shapes, and returning the cookies to the oven for another 35 minutes. After removing from the oven, I peeled away the excess dough from around the festive cut-outs and frosted the cookies with another of Amie Sue’s recipes for Raw Vanilla Frosting. Unfortunately, the cookies did not harbor the same red color as I suspect the beets would have caused, but boy, did they smell like somethin’ pretty.

Frosted Red Peppermint “Sugar” Cookies.

Excitingly, this year I decided to finally veganize the holiday cookie that my mother and I have made since my elementary school days, and that have gained somewhat of a cult following among my friends: Butter Pecan Rum Balls. Of course, since adopting a vegan lifestyle two years ago, I’ve experienced a level of discomfort with allowing my mother to make the animal-secretion-laden cookies for our neighbors, my teachers, and my two best friends (who comprise two of the Rum Balls’ biggest fans). However, I’ve hesitated from veganizing the recipe because it features vanilla wafer cookies and sweetened condensed milk, and the step of making homemade, vegan versions of these two staple ingredients seemed rather daunting. This year, though, my morals overwhelmingly outweighed my laziness, resulting in a new and improved recipe—in terms of taste, ethics, and health—for the famous Rum Balls.

Vegan Butter Pecan Rum Ball tower.

While this new recipe boasts a much higher content of coconut oil and date/coconut sugar than I’d prefer, I don’t want to tamper with it too much more for fear that the Rum Balls will lose their original integrity. Alternatively, you could use regular AP flour in place of the gluten-free mix, Earth Balance instead of the coconut oil, and white sugar (processed without bone char, of course) instead of the coconut/date sugar to achieve just as tasty but much less healthy results.

Homemade Vegan Vanilla Wafers for the Rum Balls.

Butter Pecan Rum Balls (Soy Free)

Makes 40-50 balls.

For the sweetened condensed coconut milk:
1 14-oz can light coconut milk
3 tbsp liquid sweetener of choice (agave, maple syrup, brown rice syrup, etc.)
Dash of salt

For the vanilla wafer cookies:
7 oz gluten-free flour mix (make your own following these instructions, or use a storebought brand such as Bob’s Red Mill)
3/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup coconut oil, softened
3 1/2 oz coconut or date sugar
1 tbsp flaxseed meal + 3 tbsp water
1 1/2 tbsp vanilla extract
1 tbsp plant-based milk

For the powdered sugar coating:
1 cup coconut or date sugar
1 tbsp arrowroot

For the balls:
8 oz raw pecans
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 cup coconut oil, melted
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 cup dark rum

To make the sweetened condensed coconut milk, pour the milk into a small saucepan and bring it to a boil. Whisk in the sweetener and salt. Lower the heat and simmer the mixture until it reduces by half, about 45-60 minutes. Turn off the heat and stir in the vanilla. Allow to cool and thicken before using.

To make the vanilla wafer cookies, preheat the oven to 350°F. Sift together the flour, arrowroot, baking powder, and salt in a small bowl and set aside. Cream together the coconut oil and sugar in the bowl of a stand mixer (or using an electric hand mixer) on medium speed for 2 minutes, stopping to scrape down the sides of the bowl after 1 minute. Add the flax “egg” and mix on medium speed for 30 seconds. Scrape down the sides of the mixer bowl. Add the vanilla extract and milk and blend on low speed for 15 seconds. Add the flour mixture in two batches, starting on low speed and working up to medium until incorporated. Chill the batter in the refrigerator for at least 10 minutes before scooping.

Scoop the batter in teaspoon-sized balls and arrange them on two parchment-lined baking sheets about an inch apart. Slightly moisten the heel of your hand and use it to slightly flatten each ball. Bake for 15-20 minutes, rotating the pans halfway through baking, until golden brown. Allow the cookies to cool completely before removing them from the pan.

To make the powdered sugar coating, add the coconut/date sugar in batches to a coffee or spice grinder, processing until the sugar becomes powdered and light brown in color, then placing in a mixing bowl and stirring in the arrowroot. Transfer to a flat-bottomed plate to coat the balls.

To make the balls, pulse the cooled vanilla wafer cookies and pecans separately in the food processor, and add each to a large mixing bowl along with the salt. Add the melted coconut oil, 1/2 cup + 2 tbsp of the sweetened condensed coconut milk, the vanilla, and the rum. Stir well until evenly moistened. Roll the mixture into walnut-sized balls, then roll in the coconut powdered sugar to coat.

Stored in an airtight container, these balls will keep for weeks in the fridge and indefinitely in the freezer. In fact, the balls definitely taste the best straight out of the freezer.

Recipe submitted to Wellness Weekend, Foodtastic Fridays, Gluten-Free Fridays, and Healthy Vegan Fridays.

Comment Provoking Questions: Are there any traditional family recipes that you have veganized or would like to? Do you prefer to make or buy gifts for loved ones? If you like to make gifts, what do you make?

Until next time, Ali.

First Day Back in Madison and a Recipe for Sweet Potato Noodles, Golden Brussels Sprouts, and Chickpeas in a Cheesy Tahini Sauce

As I mentioned on yesterday’s What I Ate Wednesday, today I returned from Vassar College to my hometown of Madison, WI for a much-needed, month-long winter break. As expected, I filled the day with oodles of cooking and reveling in delicious, non-Deece meals, studded with bouts of holiday decorating alongside my mother. After paying an eagerly anticipated visit to my second (or I suppose third, now!) home of the Willy Street Coop to replenish my home pantry, I ardently enjoyed crafting the first meal made in my Madison kitchen since August, which consisted of a delectable massaged kale salad—a treat in which I haven’t had the pleasure of partaking for far too long.

This particular kale salad consisted of lacinato kale massaged with avocado, lemon juice, and mushrooms; with alfalfa and bean sprouts, carrots, parsley, dill, sunflower sprouts, baked tofu, sprouted quinoa, dulse flakes, nutritional yeast, and flaxseed meal stirred in; topped with cortido (a Mexican version of kimchi).

Determined to knock off a good chunk of my extensive “Recipes to Try” list, I scrolled through the 32-page word document and combined three recipes that struck my fancy to create a delightful new recipe, rife with unctuous flavors, textural contrasts between creamy and crunchy, and winter veggies. The inspiration for the sweet potato noodles stems from This Rawsome Vegan Life, that for the sauce from Earthsprout, and that for the brussels sprouts from 101 Cookbooks. Though I did not think to include miso in the sauce until I had coated the noodles, I suspect that the complex sweetness of the fermented bean paste would compliment the recipe nicely.

Sweet Potato Noodles, Golden Brussels Sprouts, and Chickpeas in a Cheesy Tahini Sauce

Serves 2-4.

Ingredients:

1 large sweet potato, peeled
1 tbsp tamari
1 15-oz can chickpeas, drained and rinsed

4 tbsp nutritional yeast
1 clove garlic, minced
1 tsp freshly ground black pepper
1 medjool date
1 tbsp tamari
5 tbsp tahini
½ tsp turmeric
4-6 tbsp water

24 small brussels sprouts
1 tbsp coconut oil, melted

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees.

To make the sweet potato noodles, thinly slice the sweet potato lengthwise, then cut those strips lengthwise again into thin strips. Alternatively, if you’re lucky enough to own a spiralizer, just use that. Place in a large bowl, toss with the tamari, transfer to a baking sheet, and warm the noodles until slightly tender but still somewhat crunchy—about 20-30 minutes.

To make the sauce, combine all sauce ingredients in a blender or food processor and puree until smooth. Once the noodles have finished tenderizing, pour the sauce over them, mix well until evenly coated, and stir in the chickpeas.

To make the golden brussels sprouts, cut the stems off of the brussels sprouts and remove any yellowing outer leaves. Cut the sprouts in half lengthwise and place in a mixing bowl. Drizzle the coconut oil on top and toss well to coat the sprouts. Heat a large skillet over medium heat, taking care not to overheat it lest the outside of the sprouts cook too quickly. Place the sprouts in the pan, flat side down and in a single layer, cover, and cook for 5-10 minutes, or until the bottoms of the sprouts are only slightly browned. Once just tender, uncover the sprouts, increase the heat to high, and cook until the flat sides are dark brown and caramelized. Toss the sprouts once or twice to slightly brown the rounded side.

To serve, plate the noodles and pile the brussels sprouts on top.

Recipe submitted to Wellness Weekend, Foodtastic Friday, Gluten Free Fridays, Healthy Vegan Fridays, Allergy-Free Wednesdays, and Waste Not Want Not Wednesdays.

My final cooking adventure of the day included a bout of recipe experimentation with Amie Sue’s Pumpkin Caramel Cereal.

Tweaks to the Original Recipe:

• Used defrosted almond pulp leftover from making almond milk in place of the almond meal.
• Omitted the salt.
• Replaced the pumpkin puree with 2 ripe persimmons (I planned to use fresh sweet potato puree, but my sweet potato hadn’t finished baking by the time I was ready to add it to the recipe).
• Replaced 1/2 cup of the dates with dried apricots.
• Used buckwheat soaked for about 2 hours instead of soaked and sprouted buckwheat.
• Replaced the coconut with sunflower seeds.
• Spread the mixture thinly on two aluminum foil-lined baking sheets and baked for about 2 hours and 15 minutes at 200 degrees instead of dehydrating the cereal.

Though I won’t have a chance to sample the cereal until tomorrow morning atop my standard smoothie, the results of my experimentation look quite successful, sound incredibly crunchy, and smell absolutely dreamy due to the magical ingredient of maple extract.

Oh, how I cannot accurately express my happiness at returning to my comfortable, leisurely, culinary-experimentation-ridden home life, if only for a mere month. I can guarantee oodles of mouthwatering food porn and hopefully a substantial handful of new recipes on the blog until I depart once again to commence my spring semester as a freshman at Vassar.

Until next time, Ali.

Recipe Experimentation: Raspberry Ripple Chocolate Cakes

To celebrate the 18th birthday of my good friend, dormmate, and fellow vegan Katie, I allowed her to scroll through my 17-page “Dessert Recipes to Try” Word document and choose any sweet treat for me to recreate as my gift to her. Doing so, of course, also provided a gift to myself, seeing as the time I can devote to experimenting with tantalizing recipes amidst classes, papers, and extracurriculars here at Vassar proves quite rare. More than happy to oblige Katie’s request of my whipping up of Jo’s mouthwatering Raspberry Ripple Chocolate Torte, I contentedly whiled away in the kitchen to put a smile on Katie’s face, as well as on those of the Vassar Animal Rights Coalition, with whom Katie and I honored the conclusion of finals week and shared her birthday goodies. Thus, I bring you yet another edition of recipe experimentation!

Recipe: Raspberry Ripple Chocolate Cakes—Adapted from Including Cake.

Tweaks to the Original Recipe:

• Replaced the silken tofu with an extra 1/2 cup of black beans.
• Substituted date syrup for the agave nectar and stevia.
• Substituted vanilla extract for the almond extract.
• Replaced the spelt flour with a mix of 1/4 cup brown rice flour, 3 tbsp sorghum flour, and 1 tbsp arrowroot powder to make them gluten-free.
• Added about 1-2 tbsp homemade almond milk to moisten the batter.
• Omitted the salt and slivered almonds.
• Included 1/4 cup cacao nibs.
• Baked 12 of the cakes in a mini-muffin pan and another 4 in a regular-sized muffin pan instead of in a loaf pan.
• Reduced the baking time to 15 minutes for the mini-cakes and 18 minutes for the regular-sized cakes.

Lessons Learned:

• In addition to replacing black beans for the silken tofu, I opted not to puree the wet ingredients together out of a desire to not have to hand-wash the bowl of my food processor (oh, how I’ve come to enormously appreciate my dishwasher back in Madison while in college without such a handy appliance!). Due to both of these changes, the wet ingredients did not provide adequate moisture for all of the dry ingredients upon first mixing, though a simple addition of a tablespoon or two of almond milk ameliorated the problem.

The results of my experimentation? An incredibly happy group of VARC-ers! The cakes proved incredibly moist, dense, chewy, and oh-so-chocolatey, while providing a lovely flavor balance between the tartness of the raspberries, bitter sweetness of the cacao nibs, and deep unctuousness of the cocoa powder (fair-trade, of course). My fellow animal rights activists could hardly stop themselves from devouring the entire batch.

Comment Provoking Questions: What is your favorite blend of gluten-free flours to replace regular flour in recipes? What other ingredients do you use to replace silken tofu?

Until next time, Ali.

Vegan MoFo #22: Recipe Experimentation–Thai Green Curry with Brown Rice Balls

Ahh, can you smell it? The aroma of spending quality time with food, truly appreciating its nourishment, and giving a big ol’ kick in the pants to the industries and governmental agencies that remain terrified of consumers gaining insight into the origins of their food (that’s actually the name of a perfume line I’ve secretly been working on)? Regrettably, the hecticness of college life has not proved conducive to the leisurely, wonderfully relaxing act of carefully crafting comforting vegan meals, nor has the laughable college student budget supported the impulse purchases of intriguing new ingredients.

The absence of the two aforementioned deeds, both necessary components of recipe experimentation, have contributed immensely to the exponential growth of my “Recipes to Try” Word document, as I haven’t crossed off a single recipe in quite some time now. However, with monumental excitement and gratitude, I finally cooked a satisfying, wholesome dinner with my like-minded dormmate, and could thus partake in a bout of recipe experimentation once more, this time with Sabrina’s Thai Green Curry with Spicy Sweet Brown Rice Balls.

Recipe: Thai Green Curry with Spicy Sweet Brown Rice Balls—Adapted from The Tomato Tart.

Tweaks to Original Recipe:

• Used one medium eggplant, a butternut squash, a large sweet potato, and five sunchokes instead of the veggies called for.
• Omitted the bamboo shoots.
• Substituted lemongrass for galangal.
• Added three large leaves of curly green kale and a can of garbanzo beans.
• Did not simmer the flaxseed meal and water–simply combined them in a bowl, as per usual.

Lessons Learned:

• We thinly sliced the lemongrass and simmered it in the coconut milk along with the other spices, as the recipe instructs. However, the half-moons of the stalks proved quite tough and rather off-putting to chew in the finished dish. The next time I implement lemongrass in a recipe, I intend to halve the stalk, rather than slice it into small pieces, to infuse the dish with that mysterious citrus flavor before removing the two halves from the completed recipe, such as with a bay leaf.
• Heating the flaxseed meal and water is quite unnecessary. I’ve never before prepared flaxseed meal for use as a binder in this way and feel that it adds an ineffective extra step.

Despite these two minor setbacks, the curry turned out absolutely scrumptious, as proven by the “Mmm’s!” and “Wow’s!” of my three dormmates. The vegetables positively melted into the beautifully spiced coconut milk base while the brown rice balls formed a lovely crunchy crust to enclose their chewy interior. This recipe also served as my first experience using curry paste in a recipe, and I remain verily impressed with the results, since I’ve never before successfully recreated the distinct flavor of Thai food—curry paste seems key!

Local Ingredients: Sunchokes and kale from the Poughkeepsie Farm Project.

Comment Provoking Questions: Do you find the time to experiment with intriguing recipes? How do you feel about curry paste? What are your favorite recipes utilizing the ingredient?

Happy Vegan MoFo!

Until next time, Ali.

Vegan MoFo #21: Odds and Ends

A bit of an amalgamation of vegan-related topics, this post.

I’d first like to point you toward my latest article in the Vassar campus newspaper, the Miscellany News, in which I offer a guide to the numerous apple varieties in the Hudson Valley as well as a recipe for 5-ingredient apple pie (recently featured as the most popular submission over at Healthy Vegan Fridays, hosted by the lovely Gabby, Carrie, and Shelby!).

Second, this morning I experimented with implementing frozen cranberries in my smoothie for the first time, most likely inspired by the autumnal weather and the nearing prospect of Thanksgiving. Adding an earthy chiogga beet to the blender masked the cranberry’s tart sweetness, but my next smoothie will highlight the little red gems’ flavor, mark my words. If any of you have yummy cranberry smoothie recipes, I’d love to hear them!

Finally, I intend to engage in a healthy dose of vegan cooking madness this weekend—a pasttime I’ve sorely missed since commencing the whirlwind of college. Saturday will begin, as per usual, with a batch of fresh fruit-sweetened granola featuring Jonagold apples. Later that day, my lovely friend James and I will meet to cook a fabulous Thai dinner of The Tomato Tart’s Green Curry with Spicy Sweet Brown Rice Balls.

Photo credit to Sabrina at The Tomato Tart.

Sunday’s recipes include homemade vegan Junior Mints a la Cara of Fork and Beans to send to my recently-turned-nineteen buddy at Macalaster College, whose favorite candy has long since involved the (not usually vegan) chocolate-coated mini peppermints. I’m confident she’ll enjoy the compassionate version even more.

Photo credit to Cara at Fork and Beans.

To celebrate yet another birthday, this time for my dear across-the-hall dormmate, I look forward to recreating Amie Sue’s (get ready…) Infused Chai Pumpkin Spice Fudge Bars with Maple Pumpkin Butter Frosting. Yeah. I know.

Photo credit to Amie Sue at Nouveau Raw.

I hope you all can fill your weekends with a plethora of vegan goodies, as well! To conclude, I’ll leave you with a couple photos of a rather spooky, quite intriguing hollowed tree I discovered today after class.

 

Happy Vegan MoFo!

Until next time, Ali.

What I Ate Wednesday #24

Upon Waking: A cup of warm water mixed with 1 tbsp lemon juice to stimulate metabolism and digestion (unpictured…I’m sure you can imagine a cup of slightly hazy water).

Breakfast: A very green, very vegetable-filled, very springlike smoothie of 1 frozen banana, 1/2 cup frozen mango, 1/2 cup frozen pineapple, a large handful of watercress, 2 baby cucumbers, a handful of cilantro, a small knob of fresh ginger, another large handful of baby kale, 1 tbsp each of chia and hemp seeds, a squirt of lime juice, and 3/4 cup hazelnut kefir topped with (unpictured) 1 cup brown rice puffs, 2 tbsp toasted almonds, and a handful of sliced strawberries.

The March farmers market, unexpectedly exploding with early spring produce due to the premature warm weather, has introduced a cornucopia of lovely green produce—all of which blend perfectly into refreshing (and nutrient-dense!) smoothies. Watercress especially deserves a special mention: related to the cruciferous family of broccoli and kale, watercress contains rich amounts of iron, iodine, sulfur, zinc, potassium, and vitamins C and A, among others, and has diuretic as well as antibiotic properties.

Breakfast Checklist: Protein—hazelnut kefir, almonds. Whole Grain—brown rice puffs. Fruit—banana, mango, pineapple, strawberries. Leafy Green—kale, watercress. “Super Food”—hemp seeds, chia seeds. Added Veggie Bonus!—cilantro, ginger, cucumbers.

Local Ingredients: Watercress from Blue Valley Gardens, baby cucumbers from Canopy Gardens, baby kale and cilantro from Blue Moon Community Farm.

Morning Tea: Tazo Green Ginger tea. I normally don’t like to buy non-organic, corporation-owned (coffee giant Starbucks owns Tazo) products of any sort, but my mother brought this home one day at my request for ginger tea and I certainly couldn’t just throw the box away in anti-corporate disgust. Thus, I’ve enjoyed a couple mugs of this zingy tea (though not without mild guilt), described as having smoky, earthy notes of ginger, lemon, and peach.

Lunch Box: Tender mixed lettuces, wild mixed greens, alfalfa sprouts, farmhouse mix sprouts, 1 medium yellow carrot, and 1/2 cup sprouted mung beans tossed in Liquid Gold Dressing and topped with a hearty dollop of cortido as well as a mash of 1/2 cup red quinoa, 1/2 of a roasted sweet potato, and 1 tbsp dulse seaweed.

Meal Checklist: Protein—sprouted mung beans. Whole Grain—red quinoa. Vegetables—alfalfa sprouts, farmhouse mix sprouts, carrot, sweet potato, cortido veggies Leafy Greens—mixed greens, dulse seaweed.

Local Ingredients: Alfalfa sprouts from Troy Gardens, carrots from JenEhr Family Farm, farmhouse mix sprouts from Garden to Be (no website), cortido from Fizzeology, mixed lettuces from Blue Moon Community Garden, mixed greens from Don’s Produce.

Afternoon Snack: A glass of NessAlla Kombucha in Raspberry flavor.

Dinner: A bowl of Green Tea Sunchoke Soup with Lemon and Rosemary over a small serving of quinoa accompanied by lightly steamed broccoli.

Meal Checklist: Protein—none. Whole Grain—quinoa. Vegetables—sunchokes, fennel, carrots, leeks, parsnips, garlic. Leafy Greens—broccoli.

Local Ingredients: Sunchokes from Harmony Valley Farm, carrots and leeks from JenEhr Family Farm, garlic from Brantmeier Family Farm.

Dessert: A Raw Chocolate-Nettle Cupcake with Pistachio Crust.

Local Ingredients: Spinach from Snug Haven, nettles from Brantmeier Family Farm.

Comment Provoking Questions: What sorts of greens are you putting in your smoothies lately? How’s your local farmers market doing right now? What’s cropping up in your area?

Happy WIAW!

Until next time, Ali.

Raw Chocolate-Nettle Cupcakes and Green Tea Sunchoke Soup

The unexpected burst of spring here in Madison has unleashed a premature, though verily welcomed, bounty of stunning local produce. My last excursion to the indoor farmers market ended with a canvas tote bag full to the brim with early season vegetables including crisp thumb-sized cucumbers, peppery watercress, over-wintered spinach, super sweet yellow carrots, baby kale and collard leaves, and mild-flavored medleys of gorgeous mixed salad greens—all light, refreshing fare as compared to the hearty root vegetables of winter.

With each seasonal shift offering an exciting array of earthly edible gifts, I often find myself overwhelmed and immediately yearn to remind my tastebuds of every reappearing fruit and vegetable that they had forgotten over the past year. Thus, I often return home from the farmers market with a cornucopia of produce, but not the slightest idea of how to culinarily implement it. Indeed, this weekend I found myself holding a bunch of stinging nettles in one hand and a pound of knobbly sunchokes in the other—both rather obscure ingredients.

Stinging nettle is a green leafy herb covered in fuzzy hairs (some of which “sting” and some of which do not). Thought to reduce the amount of inflammatory chemicals in the body, doctors employ nettles to treat a wide range of ailments from joint pain to eczema to urinary tract infections. Foragers and wild herb enthusiasts, however, consider the plant a gourmet cooking ingredient. Nettle soup often appears in recipes, while the Greeks add them into spanikopita and the Italians puree them into pesto or pasta fillings. Supposedly nettles require a quick blanch in boiling water before considered edible, but the recipe with which I experimented featured them raw and chopped up fine in the food processor.

Sunchokes, aka jerusalem artichokes, resemble disfigured, striped potatoes in appearance, but do indeed taste vaguely of artichokes with a crisp crunch. From a nutritional standpoint, sunchokes contain rich amounts of inulin, promoting intestinal health, as well as ample iron, vitamin C, phosphorus, and potassium. I adore the unique flavor of sunchokes in pureed soup—exactly the recipe featured in this post.

Without further ado, I present unto you a springtime edition of recipe experimentation.

Recipe One: Raw Chocolate-Nettle Cupcakes with Pistachio Crust—Adapted from Green Kitchen Stories.

Tweaks:

• Divided the entire recipe in half to yield five cupcakes instead of one large layer cake.
• In chocolate fudge layer, used a mixture of dates and prunes.
• Substituted carob powder for cacao.
• Omitted salt.
• In nettle-mint layer, substituted 1 cup of coconut flour for the shredded coconut (the recipe calls for grinding the coconut into a flour anyway).
• Didn’t juice the spinach or powder the nettle—simply added them to a food processor in their whole leaf forms.
• Used 1/4 tsp peppermint extract for the “peppermint essence.”
• Substituted date paste for the agave.
• In frosting, omitted the coconut butter, used a whole vanilla bean instead of vanilla powder, and substituted prunes for dates.

Stalking the cupcake prey in its natural garden habitat.

Close up to highlight those gorgeous earth-toned layers.

Lessons Learned:

• Playing with different types of dried fruit imparts subtle flavor nuances and interest in any recipe. The pure sweetness of the dates mingled well with the tart prunes.
• The addition of cacao nibs to the chocolate fudge layer should certainly not be optional, as the original recipe suggests. I utterly adored the textural contrast of the crunchy nibs to the smooth fudge and would have quite missed their presence.
• I completely botched the “super-infused mint layer.” Overestimating the amount of coconut flour yielded by grinding 1 1/4 cups shredded coconut, I ended up with a light green powder rather than a cakey dough. The layer certainly still tasted good—I quite enjoyed the cool peppermint flavor playing off of the snickerdoodle-reminiscent coconut flour and the grassy greens—but the texture certainly required a vast improvement. Next time, I’ll either vastly reduce the amount of coconut flour or start with shredded coconut, as per the original recipe.
• Coconut butter is completely unnecessary in the frosting since a whole avocado offers an ample amount of fat, not to mention that a banana provides extra creaminess, to produce a silky smooth pudding-like layer with a rich mouthfeel. I fear that with coconut butter, the frosting would prove much too rich and perhaps cloying.

Local Ingredients: Spinach from Snug Haven, nettles from Brantmeier Family Farm.

Recipe Two: Green Tea Sunchoke Soup with Lemon and Rosemary—Adapted from Green Kitchen Stories.

Tweaks:

• Instead of using only sunchokes, I implemented a mixture of complementary vegetables, two pounds in total: a generous handful of sunchokes, two large carrots, a large bulb of fennel, and two medium parsnips.
• Substituted 1 tbsp dried rosemary for fresh.
• Omitted the fennel garnish.

Lessons Learned:

• What a wonderfully complex soup! The artichoke-y sunchokes, sweet carrots, bold parsnips, and anise-y fennel combine to produce a harmonious, refreshing flavor perfectly complimented by the rich matcha green tea and rosemary with a lovely dash of lemon for necessary acidity.

Local Ingredients: Sunchokes from Harmony Valley Farm, carrots and leeks from JenEhr Family Farm, garlic from Brantmeier Family Farm.

Comment Provoking Questions: Have you ever cooked with nettles or sunchokes before? If so, how did you use them? Has spring sprung early in your town as well?

Until next time, Ali.