A is for Apple B is for Blog

The first day of Lent and my adventure to eat my way through the alphabet has started strong, but ended weak because I became sick. But I have been holding strong and trying my best to eat my way through the alphabet.

Wednesday is A:

Amaranth and Apples Porage:

1 Apple, chopped

1/2 cup Apple juice

1/4 teaspoon Allspice

Sprinkle of Agar agar (I meant to go for the arrowroot, but this worked)

3/4 cup cooked Amaranth

2 Tablespoons maple syrup (I should have used Agave)

cooked the apple, allspice, and maple syrup in the apple juice for a few minutes. Add the cooked amaranth and sprinkle agar on top, then mix together and let simmer for 5-10 minutes until it reaches a porage consistency.

This has reminded me I am not a fan of amaranth. It's a tiny grain without much substance and too many bites with dirt.

Snacks: Almonds

Dinner: Rice with almond milk and home potatoes (I was sick and the husband was willing to cook!)

Thursday is B:

Breakfast: Smoothie - Blueberries, bananas, and almond milk

Snack: Brazil Nuts

Dinner: B Soup

B Soup:

(vegan) Butter

onions

Butternut squash

Black eyed peas

Barley

Basil and Bay leaf

Broth (veggie)

Saute the onions and bay leaf until caramelized. Deglaze with the broth and add the basil. Add the chopped butternut squash and the remaining broth. Add the cooked barley and black eyed peas.

Simple soup, probably not the best flavor combination, but good. The basil and black eyed peas could have been excluded for a better soup.

Day two of this experiment is interesting and it's allowing me to try new foods, as it was designed to do. And since I have been breaking the rules a bit, I am okay with it because I am still achieving my goal.

Tomorrow is C, for chocolate!

Two weeks ago Jess and I reviewed a bunch of chocolates for our Stumptown Vegans Podcast. I still have a few left over which I will be enjoying tomorrow.

Squashy Quinoa

Naming dishes is hard, so let's just call this Squashy Quinoa. This is a pretty labor intensive dish, but worth it in the end. Save this for a big holiday celebration.

Squashy Quinoa:

1 cup quinoa

2 cups veggie broth

1 onion, chopped

1 turnip, chopped

2-3 carrots, chopped

3 cloves garlic

1/2 tsp. salt

olive oil

3 large delicatta, or other favorite squash

Seeds from 3 delicattas

2 medium apples

1/4 cup pinenuts

olive oil

thyme

Chili powder

Paprika

Maple syrup

1. Peel the squash. Cut off the end and scoop out the seeds and guts. Set the seeds aside in salt water. Cut the squash into 1/4 to 1/2 inch rounds.

2. Place the squash on a baking sheet, single layer. Mist with olive oil, sprinkle with salt and bake covered at 350 F while preparing the quinoa.

3. Saute the onion in olive oil until slightly browned.

4. Peel and chop the carrot and turnip, or other root vegetables while the onion is is cooking.

5. When the onion is browning, throw in the other veggies and1/2 teaspoon thyme. Saute for 3 more minutes.

6. Add 2 cups vegetable broth and salt to the sauting root vegetables and bring to a boil. Add the quinoa and a bit of olive oil. Reduce heat and cook the quinoa and vegetables until just cooked about 20 minutes.

7. Check the baking squash. Remove from the oven when it's become soft.

8. Peel the apples and slice into 1/8 inch pieces. Coat with lemon juice to prevent browning. Set aside.

9. When the quinoa is cooked spread out into a large baking dish, 9x13. Sprinkle with pine nuts. Lay down one layer of squash rounds. Nuzzle the apples into and around the squash, sprinkle with a bit of fresh thyme leaves. Layer the rest of the squash over it. Sprinkle with oil olive, salt, and more fresh thyme.

10. Bake covered for 15 minutes. Bake uncovered until read to serve.

11. Prepare the seeds by draining them from the salt water. Coat with 1/2 teaspoon paprika and 1/4 teaspoon chili powder. Bake on the top shelf of the oven while the dish is cooking until browned, about 5-10 minutes. Watch and stir the seeds as needed.

12. When the seeds are starting to brown and have puffed up, remove from the oven. Place in a hot, heavy bottomed skillet. Sprinkle with salt and olive oil. Saute for 1 minute. Add 3 tablespoons maple syrup. Stir constantly for about 1-2 minutes until the maple syrup is reduced. Place on parchment paper until cooled.

13. Before serving, sprinkle with the caramelized seeds.

Enjoy!

Happy New Year!

Apple Spice Cake

Last month was pretty intense work-wise, that's why I am just now getting around to posting some recipes. Many people at work really helped me push a project to meet my deadline. Since I don't know any other way to say thanks, I made them a cake.

This is my kind of apple spice cake:

I will get around to posting the recipe later but it's pretty basic - white cake with cinnamon and apple juice. Thickened cider filling with cooked cinnamon apples with a simple glaze. I really should have made it three or four layers tall - my co-workers are cooler than a 2 layer cake.

1 Tablespoon apple cider vinegar
1/2 cup soy milk

2 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon (or pumpkin pie spice, or add a dash of clove and nutmeg for extra spice)

1 cup sugar
1 cup sparkling apple cider (Maybe apple juice/cider)
½ cup oil
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
½ teaspoon almond extract (optional)

2 Apples Watered down citrus juice
1 cup apple cider
2-3 Tablespoons cornstarch

- Preheat the oven to 350º.

- Place the apple cider vinegar in the bottom of a liquid measuring cup and fill the cup with soymilk to equal ½ cup. Stir well and set aside.

- In a large mixing bowl, sift the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt and spices. - In another mixing bowl whisk together the soymilk mixture, apple cider, sugar, oil and extracts.

- Peel and cut the apples into quarters. Thinly slice to about 1/8"-1/4" thick. Place in a bowl with enough citrus juice to cover the apples. This is to prevent them from browning. I used orange juice. - Add the wet to the dry ingredients and beat until smooth.

- At the bottom of your greased 9" cake pan, place a few apples in a cute pattern. Carefully pour the batter over the apples, making sure they don't move too much.

- Bake for 30 minutes, until a cake tester inserted in the middle comes out clean. Let the cake cool in the pan for 10 minutes, then remove from the pan and place on a wire rack. Let the cake cool completely before handling

- Filling: boil the remaining apples in 1 cup cider for about 5-10 minutes, until they are cooked, but still firm. Lower the heat.

- In a small bowl scoop out about 1/4 cup of the cider and let cool slightly. Add the cornstarch and whisk vigorously until the cornstarch is fully dissolved. Add more liquid if needed.

- Add the cornstarch mixture back to the pot with the apples and cider and stir constantly until the mixture thickens to the consistency of a thick pudding. Remove from heat and let cool until it's touchable, but still spreadable and use as a filling.

- Stack the cakes and drizzle with a powdered sugar and cinnamon glaze.

Harvest Moon Roast

I honestly thought life would slow down after we bought the house and after the wedding, but I guess it's not in my nature. I took on four freelance jobs which has been really exciting helping make the world's first Vegan Mini Mall come to life. It's been great working with Food Fight Grocery, Scapegoat Tattoo, Sweetpea Baking Company and Herbivore Clothing and Magazine. When your clients are fun, it makes working fun. Problem with these jobs was that I was also working my full time day job. Note to self - don't take on four freelance jobs at the same time, specially when they all have the same deadline.

When those jobs started wrapping up I ended up getting hit by a car on my bike! Nothing too major, just some major bruising and a few deep cuts. But the limping around kept me out of the kitchen, thus - me not posting.

This is a bit more personal I normally am at this blog because I was tagged by Pauline to do the name meme. It stressed me out. My name is Webly. I could think of words to describe me, but I didn't have all those letters in my name: Driven, Loyal, Trickster, Creative. See, it doesn't spell anything!

Enough with the personal, on to, the Harvest Moon. It's beautiful tonight. I celebrated by making a wonderful fall meal.

Harvest Moon Roast:

1 squash of your choice. I forget which one I used, a dark orange one.
1 medium potato
1 medium fuji apple
1 or 2 ears of corn
3-4 cloves of garlic
1-2 teaspoons rosemary
salt and pepper to taste

Preheat the oven to 425 F.
Cut the squash in half, scoop out the guts. Peal the squash with a good peeler or a sharp knife. Cut it into 1/2 to 1/4 inch cubes.
Spray a pan with olive oil spray and lay the squash out and place in the oven for about 10 minutes.
Peel and cut the potatoes into a similar size as the squash.
Add the potatoes to the squash, spray with olive oil, and roast for 10 minutes.
Chop the garlic and set side.
Peel and chop the apple into the same size pieces as the squash and potato.
Add the apples to the roasted squash and potatoes. Add half the garlic and the rosemary. Mix and roast for 10 more minutes.
De-cob the corn.
Add the corn and garlic to the roast and cook 10-20 minutes longer - depending on how you like your roast.
Add salt and pepper to taste, toss.

Bundle up, serve on bright colored plates, and eat outside under the Harvest Moon with your favorites.

Apple Pie

This was another test recipe for Julie Hasson's new pie book.
I might have cooked the topping a bit too long, but the almond crumb topping tasted wonderful with the apples.

Dessert Pizza

We had a pizza party a few night ago and I never thought it was odd for it to be an adult pizza party, but apparently some people think it's odd for adults to throw one. Who cares - it's pizza!

Dessert Pizza:
Pizza dough (below)
Cashew Sauce (below)
1-2 apples
1 Tablespoon lemon juice
1 Tablespoon coconut oil
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon clove
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg

Slice the apples, thin, about 1/4" and toss with lemon juice and melted coconut oil. Set aside.
Mix the sugar and spices and sprinkle over the apples, mix.
Spread cashew sauce on pizza and arrange apples as desired.
Bake at 500F until nicely browned on top.


Pizza Dough:
3/4 cup warm water (105°F to 115°F)
1 envelope active dry yeast

2 cups (or more) flour
1 teaspoon sugar
3/4 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons olive oil

Pour 3/4 cup warm water into small bowl; stir in yeast. Let stand until yeast dissolves, about 5 minutes.

Mix 2 cups flour, sugar, and salt in a food processor. Add yeast mixture and 3 tablespoons oil; process until dough forms a sticky ball.
Transfer to lightly floured surface. Knead dough until smooth, adding more flour by tablespoonfuls if the dough is sticky.
In a large bowl drop about 1 Tablespoon olive oil in the bottom and use the dough ball to to spread the olive oil around the bowl and the dough. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and let dough rise in warm draft-free area until doubled in volume, about 1 hour.
Punch down dough. Store in airtight container in refrigerator until use.
Roll out dough to your liking or flatten a ball of dough and start at center of dough, working outward toward edges until you have the desired shape. Pinch the edges to form a crust.

Cashew Sauce:
1 cup raw, soaked cashews
3 Tablespoons powdered sugar
3-4 Tablespoons soy milk (or as needed to make the sauce creamy)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

In a blender or food processor blend the soft cashews and 3 Tablespoons soy milk until smooth. Add the sugar and extract and more soy milk if needed to make it creamy. It should be the consistency of hummus.
Feel free to add more sugar or spice as desired.

Pesto Based Pizza in the background with Follow Your Heart cheese and Dessert Pizza in the foreground:

Cut pieces of pizza:

Tofu Apple Quesadilla

I've been enjoying the panini grill to the extreme.

Tofu Apple Quesadilla:
Marinaded and grilled tofu
Sliced Fuji Apples
Follow Your Heart cheese

Place it all together and grill.
I was trying to figure out a dipping sauce for this. I kept munching on it thinking and by the time I thought of using a Balsamic Vinaigrette, I was finished.

Tofu Marinade:
2 Tablespoons soy sauce
2 Tablespoons nutritional yeast
1 tsp. all purpose seasoning salt
1 tsp. thyme
water - enough to cover the sliced tofu.

I usually just keep a block of tofu marinading in the fridge with this mixture.

It's a very plain, and white meal. Spinach would look better in here.

Fall is in the Air!

Every year I look forward to the Apple Tasting at the Portland Nursery. This year I ropped Jess into going with me. It was a wonderful way to kick off fall. Every year I've been it's been held on beautiful, sunny days where the sun is warm and the shade is cold. Unfortuntally, Portland doesn't have many of these type of fall days that I grew up with, but yesterday was one of them.

The follow is how we celebrated.

Pumpkin Pie
1 box of silken tofu
3/4 cup sugar
1 can pumpkin
1 tsp. vanilla
pumpkin pie spices to taste

Blend in blender until smooth. Pour into premade crust and bake for about 1 hour at 400F.


Simple Maple Salad
Salad greens and other veggies of choice (I used shredded carrots, thiny sliced onions, lettuces)
1/2 pear chopped
1 Tbl. maple syrup
1 Tbl. balsamc vinegar
pepper

Mix and serve.
Toasted nuts and other fruits are also a nice touch to this dressing.


Roasted Veggies
Any random veggies you need to get rid of. Looks like I used potatoes, leeks, onions, carrots, winter squash. All mixed with olive oil, garlic and some rosemary.
The special touch to this simple dish was adding roasted kale on top. I just baked 4 leaves until crispy. Once the veggies were done I sprinkled the dry leaves on top. It added a nice depth to this dish and put some leafy greens into a roasted dish.



Apple Strudel
Totally inspired by the apple tasting.
Many sheets of phylo.
2-4 apples
powdered sugar
olive oil.

Lay a couple of phylo sheets down, spraying olive oil between each sheet. Layer on sliced apples, sprinkle with powdered sugar. Repeat a few times. Fold/roll phylo once the apples are done to make a latice across the top.
Bake about 20-30 min at 350F.
Once out of the oven coat in vanilla frosting.

A simple dessert that only looks fancy.


Lentil Soup
I wanted a brothy soup and found a quick way to use up those left over roasted veggies.

Boil left over roasted veggies for 30-60 minutes.
Strain veggies and add 1/2 to 1 cup of lentils, depending on how much liquid you added to your veggies.
Add salt and pepper to taste. let look until the lentils are tender.
Garnish with shredded carrots and chopped chives.


I've updated the cupcakes I've worked on. Check out this post for new pictures.