Baked Cauliflower

My sister gave me this vague recipe and it turned out great and is perfect for an end to an exhausting day.

Baked Cauliflower:
1 head of cauliflower
1 cup +/- marinara
1/3 to 1/2 block of vegan cheese - shredded
Chopped garlic, optional
parsley, for garnish

Steam1 head of cauliflower until tender.
Place cauliflower on tin foil (easy clean up for your lazy day), sprinkle with minced garlic (optional for non-lazy days) and smother in marinara. Sprinkle with vegan cheese (I used follow your heart)
Bake for about 10-15 minutes until hot and a little melty.
Let cool from the oven and sprinkle with chopped parsley (on non-lazy day.)
Slice into 1/4s, or however you like and serve warm.

Straight out of the oven:
Easy dish:

Scrambled Tofu

Scrambled tofu is such an easy dish: crumble some tofu and pan fry, add some spices and veggies and serve warm. I love to shred my tofu before cooking it. The small texture of it is a perfect crumble for me. This one I added shredded onions, garlic, carrots, purple cabbage, kale, tummeric and other random spices.

I was kind of bored with it though so I decided to use up the rest of my phyllo. I put the phyllo in muffin tins and filled them with tofu scramble and put them in the oven. This would be a great way to serve a breakfast food at a buffet brunch.

Pesto Fries

Why didn't I think of adding pesto to potatoes sooner?!

Pesto Fries:
2 large potatoes
Olive oil 2-3 Tablespoons pesto
Marinara for dipping

Roast th potatoes like normal at about 425 F. When the potatoes are about 5 minutes from done take out and toss with a few tablespoons of pesto to cover them. Place back in the oven for a few minutes for the pesto to cook in.
Sprinkle with salt and serve warm with a warm bowl of marinara for dipping.

SO GOOD!

Berry Picking

One of the greatest things about living in Portland is summer-time and with summer-time comes berry season!
This past weekend a few friends and I went berry picking on Sauvie Island. We gathered blueberries, raspberries, marrionberries, and strawberries!
I prefer my fruit fresh and simple.
Here a few of the ways I've been enjoying the fruit.

Fruit on skewers with a side of cashew cream and raspberries. Putting fruit in skewers just makes it more fun to eat!


Fruit layered between cashew cream.

Check out Jess' blog because you know you'll be doing something crazy with berries!

Nori Popcorn

Another Friday Popcorn Night Invention.
There's a great restaurant in Portland called Proper Eats and they have a great spice mix that's a play on a traditional Japanese mix. I forgot the name, like many Japanese dishes I try to create.

Nori Spice Mix:
2 Sheets Nori
1 Tablespoon white sesame seeds
1 Tablespoon black sesame seeds
2 teaspoons nutritional yeast
1 teaspoon white salt
1 teaspoon black salt

Blend the nori sheets in a food processor or coffee grinder under powdery or only small flakes remain.
Toast the sesame seeds.
Combine all ingredients in the food processor and blend together.

This is a great topping for rice, stir frys, salads, hummus, and of course, popcorn!

Another thing I did with this mix was use it as the base of a marinade with soy sauce and water. The results were wonderful! Mr. Bolsh called it "Sushi Tofu." The marinaded and broiled tofu was served on a bed of steamed carrots and zucchini with a sprinkling of the nori spice mix.

Pesto and Hummus Sandwich Spreads

I told you my food processor would make my life exciting again!

Pesto and Hummus sandwich:

Webly's Pesto:
3 cloves of garlic
1 Tablespoons sun dried tomatoes
1/4 cup cashews
1 cup tightly packed basil
1 teaspoon lemon juice
3 Tablespoons olive oil
salt and pepper to taste

Throw it all in the food processor and blend until smooth.
The mixture will be a bit thick, like peanut butter.
I like to keep it this consistency until I know what I will be using it for. The thick consistency is good for a sandwich spread but if you're using it with pasta you'll want to add more oil to make it more like a sauce.

I didn't write down my ways of making hummus, but it's pretty straight forward with chickpeas, lemon, thanini, garlic, paprika and olive oil. The only thing I do different is cup the normal massive amounts of olive oil with some water.

Coconut Pie

I had to scratch the idea of coconut cream pie and just go with a coconut pie for this one. I will continue to work on the coconut cream pie at a later date.
This is a wonderfully fatty, melt in your mouth pie that goes great with just a touch of chocolate and a side of fresh fruit.

Coconut Pie:
1 1/2 cup coconut cream
1/4 cup Earth Balance
3/4 cup sugar
2-3 Tablespoons Corn Starch
1 tsp. coconut essence or extract
1/2 tsp. vanilla

Heat the coconut cream in a sauce pan over medium-low heat until liquid.
Take out a few tablespoons and mix with the cornstrach in a separate bowl until fully mixed. Make sure the coconut is not too hot or else you'll get lumps in your corn starch.
Add the sugar to the warming coconut cream and stir constantly until well dissolved.
Add cornstarch mixture and earth balance and stir or wisk constantly for about 5-10 minutes until the mixture thickens.
Turn off heat and add flavors wisking as the mixture cools.
Pour into your favorite crust. I went with a chocolate cookie crust.
Let sit in the fridge for 2-8 hours until firm.

Cashew Cream:
1 cup soaked cashews
1/4 cup coconut milk or cream
1 Tablespoon maple syrup
2 Tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Soak 1 cup of cashews in some warm water for about 1-2 hours.
Blend cashews in a food processor until course. Add coconut cream and let mix until starting to smooth.
Add the remaining ingredients and process until smooth. You may need to add more liquid to get the correct thicken you want.

To assemble:
Spread a bit of coconut cream on a plate, place the piece of pie on top, drizzle with a chocolate ganche and serve. Serve again and again.

Grains

Since I haven't been to the farmers market in a few weeks the house has been lacking many vegetables. Below are some simple meals with mainly grains.

Garlic Israeli Cous Cous:
1 cup Israeli couscous
1 cup vegetable broth
4 cloves garlic
1/2 bunch garlic scapes

Cook couscous in broth until tender.
Saute 4 cloves of garlic for 1 minute before adding the small chopped garlic scapes.
Sprinkle with your favorite salt and serve warm.


Shells and Fresh Herbs:
Since visiting a great new Italian joint in my neighborhood I have been craving pasta - something I've stayed away from for years.
It also helps that my little herb garden is growing into a medium sized herb garden.
Here I used a similar mixture as I did with the popcorn, but with the special inclusion of garlic, and lots of it. Shells are easily my favorite pasta.


Roasted Corn and Rice:
1 cup rice, I used a mix of brown and black
2 cups water or vegetable broth
1 cup corn
1/2 cup frozen spinach
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 tomato

Cook rice as normal.
Saute corn on high until it looks like it's burning a bit, just give it a good char. Add garlic and spinach and stir until the spinach is hot.
Mix the cooked rice and corn mixture. Add more powdered vegetable broth, pepper and salt to taste.
Serve warm with a side of tomatoes and sprinkling of salt and chopped parsley. This mixture held together really well and were almost like burgers so it went perfectly with the tomatoes.


Raspberry Lime Fruit Salad Dressing:
Juice of 2 limes
1/8 tsp guar gum
2 Tablespoons seedless raspberry jam/jelly
1/8 round of fresh ginger root, or to taste
1 teaspoon toasted poppy seeds

Juice the lime, add the minced ginger, guar gum (it acts as a thickener, if you don't have it, don't sweat it) and raspberry jam. Blend together until well combined. Add toasted poppy seeds and toss with the fruit.
I used grapes, cantelope, cherries and apples. This dressing was wonderfully tart, and spicy and a little bit smoky with the seeds. Enjoy this salad on your deck with good friends on a warm day.


My life no longer lacks a food processor. My kitchen feels complete. For the salad. I was able to use my food processor to juice the limes, mince the ginger and blend everything together. It was so quick and simple. I can't wait until I can whip up my favorite carrot salad in just a few minutes.

POPCORN!

Since I move to my new house I have ignored my usual Friday Popcorn Dinner. Last Friday I rekindled popcorn dinners and it was a huge success!

Sun Dried Tomato Popcorn Topping:
2 Tablespoons dry sun dried tomatoes
2 tsp. vegan parmesan
1 tsp. salt, to taste

Grind the sun dried tomatoes in a clean coffee grinder or food processor. You want a powdery substance. Mix with parmesan and salt and sprinkle over popcorn.

This makes for a nice and zesty, sometimes sweet popcorn mix. If only it wasn't so wonderful I could have taken a photo before devouring it all.

Cheesiness and Sweets

Cheesiness and sweets, but not together, that would just be gross.

Cheesy Sauce and Neatballs:
As you know I've been working on the perfect cheesy sauce for Mr. Bolsh. This one had more lemon juice in it and that seems to be the way he wants to go with the recipe.
We poured it over cauliflower and Trader Joe's Meatballs.
New Farm Mac and Cheese:
Wow, this sure is a fat filled dish. 1 full cup of earth balance. Good thing it's going to an IPRC fund raiser tonight! All the fat sure does make it taste great though! I added some chili powder to give it a bit more of a kick.
Coconut Pie Pudding:
We've been enjoying dinner outside on our new covered deck.
I've been working on my coconut cream pie recipes for awhile now. Sunday morning I had a disaster where the crust ended up inside the filling. I don't know what happened, but I decided to just go with it. I lightly mixed the crust into the filling and called it a pudding. It has gone over well. Unfortunately, it's not the right consistency yet for a pie filling. But I am getting closer!
Behind the pudding is cherry limeaid - perfect for hot summer days!New Farm Brownies:
Brownies from the New Farm cookbook. It's a great chewy brownie. Emilie, from Conscious Kitchen, recently posted a brownie recently that contained yam. This seems like a great recipe to do that with. In this recipe you make a paste with hot water and flour. It's not very flavorful so I would want to replace it next time with a blended fruit.

Summer Salads!

It's been getting hot again - my favorite weather, so I've been making some salads to cool us down.

Chili Lime Salad:
Marinated tofu with lime, garlic and chilis; broiled, then chilled.
Mixed with some cold glass noodles, chopped carrots, ginger and garlic.
Garlic Bean Salad:
Briefly saute a lot of garlic with oil and a sprig of fresh chopped basil; mix with cooked beans and set aside.
Steam garlic scapes.
Mix with some shredded carrots and serve cold.
I sprinkled mine with black sea salt and pepper.

Sesame Noodle Salad:
Julieanne a large handful green beans and 1 carrot.
Saute 2 cloves of garlic, 1/4 inch of ginger in some peanut or sesame oil. When the garlic is just about clear, add 3 tablespoons of soy sauce.
Mix sauce, glass noodles and veggies. Add more oil if it needs it.
Serve cold.
Chocolate Mint Cookies and Cream Cupcakes!
Disaster struck as I was creaming the earth balance and remaining powdered sugar for the frosting and reached for the other box of powdered sugar and it wasn't there!
To make up for it I had to chop (I can't wait until I get my food processor) lots of cookies to make a nice earth balance and cookie crumb frosting.

Lunch Swap

My friend had a birthday party last Sunday with an interesting theme - a lunch swap. Half the people made lunch for two and the others just showed up. All the lunches were wrapped and placed on the table. When eating time came those who didn't come with lunch drew numbers. The first person got to pick a lunch, unwrap it and wait. The second person could steal the first person's unwrapped lunch or pick a wrapped lunch on the table and unwrap it. It goes on until everyone has picked a lunch. The chef of the lunches are then exposed and you have a little picnic with them.


The inspiration for my lunch came from my awesome, new dinosaur cookie cutters. I made Flax crackers from How it All Vegan, and a black bean "tar pit" dip. I didn't know how to continue making a meal with a dinosaur theme, so it stopped there.

The Flax crackers from How it All Vegan were great. I added some crushed, sliced almonds, and extra spices and they are great. I often skipped over this cookbook when I learned to cook, but it does have some good recipes in it. These will be made again with various spices.
For an appetizer I also included garlic stuff green olives and large capers.

Next dish was a simple potato salad. Apparently mustard and relish is not common to some peoples' experience in potato salad. Potatoes, vegenaise, mustard, chopped onions, fresh dill, fresh tarragon, vinegar, celery, salt and a tad of relish.

Tofurky Kielbasas satueed with onions and zucchini and put on skewers for easy eating. These were really easy and went over well because they can look impressive.

Fruit put on skewers. Another simple way to make fruit more fun and easy to transport by placing it in a pink glass.

Last was dessert, of course. Chocolate pear cookies with a strawberry filling.


The party was really fun but it took a lot more energy to make a full lunch/dinner for someone than making one dish I'd normally make for a potluck party. I later found out that others didn't put as much energy into their lunches.
The history from this idea came from a 50's dating and fund raising idea. Women would make lunches, men would then place auctions on the lunches. When they won the auction, they would then have lunch with the woman who made it. Very cute.

Tofu, Salad and Pie

My posts have been lacking because either my photos have not been turning out or my recipes have not been. Below are a few of the things that have turned out.
Tandoori Tofu:
My mother bought me a jar of tandoori marinade awhile ago and it's been such a treat to use with tofu. Here I marinated the tofu for two days before broiling. I also made a red bean and onion side to go with the tofu and rice.


Roasted Corn Salad:
Inspired by a Whole Foods salad I saw. This is great for picnics, which I hope to attend more of this summer.
1 bag of frozen corn
1 large handful of baby carrots, chopped
1 cup loose spinach, chopped
1 tsp. fresh chopped herbs of your choice. I used tarragon and a bit of rosemary
2 bulbs of garlic, roasted
1/4 sweet onion, chopped
Spices

Panfry the corn until browned. Turn heat to low and throw in carrots herbs and garlic. Add more oil if necessary. For a more smoky flavor, add 1/4 tsp or less of liquid smoke.
Once cooled added the chopped spinach and onion. This is a good dish to add red pepper if you're into them.
Julie's Chocolate Pie with Webly's Raspberry Topping:
At Vegfest a few weeks ago I attended some cooking sessions and was inspired by Julie's Chocolate Espresso truffle Pie. I love versatile recipes!
1 1/2 box of silken tofu
10 oz. melted chocolate
1 cup powdered sugar
1/4 cup espresso
2 tsp. vanilla
1 9" crust

Put everything but the crust in the blender, blend until smooth, poor into pie crust and let set over night in the fridge.

Alright, I like this because it's easy as pie too!
My version is similar but with raspberry. I used soy milk in place of espresso. Before the pie set I carefully folded in some bone-free (seedless) raspberry jam. I then mixed silken tofu, raspberry jam and powdered sugar to make a thin raspberry topping.


I am currently working on a coconut cream pie, which is odd because I am not sure I ever had the non-vegan version. I'm also still working on the perfect cheesy sauce.
Outside of my cooking experiments I am planning the wedding, trying to fix up the house and keeping up to date on Jess and my other website: Stumptown Vegans.

Birthday Cupcakes

Birthday Cupcakes from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World.
Vanilla cupcakes with simple buttercream frosting. The yellow frosted ones are lemon, the pink and white ones are vanilla and the ones with the blue dots have rum frosting.
Chocolate mint cupcakes are the chocolate ones with pink dinosaur sprinkles.

More Simple Meals

Meals without recipes. That's how I normally cook - just throw stuff together that tastes good on it's own and hope it tastes good together with spices.

Buckwheat Noodle Soup:
With veggie broth base, leeks, onions, garlic, miso, chickpeas, buckwheat noodles and diced tomatoes.
Diced tomatoes are one of my new favorite things to add to soups. Drain the juice from a can and throw it in. I use to put the juice in there before but it always made it too tomato-y so just putting the fruit in there helps the other flavors sand out on their own.


Saturday Market Dinner:
Roasted fiddleheads, steamed asparagus, garden salad with purple cabbage.
Fiddleheads - I knew bringing these home was going to raise some eyebrows. I was cruious as well. They look a little too much like bugs to me. I saw them once on one of my blogs I read, so I picked them up. They are very expensive. One small handful for $1.50. I really wasn't excited about the taste. They weren't bad, what roasted with garlic can be bad?! but they just weren't $1.50/handful good. Interesting look though.



Cheesy Cauliflower and Greens with Almond Pate:
We eat a lot of vegetables, can you tell? Steamed cauliflower with that special cheesy sauce I have been trying to perfect. When I perfect it I'll share the recipe.
Steamed greens with a fun almond pate. I soaked almonds for awhile, added sun dried tomatoes, paprika, chili powder, lemon juice, miso, salt and garlic powder. Mixing this into the greens reminded me of a savory cottage cheese. It was very good.

Pickled Protein

There's probably another word for this old recipe but since I heard about it on The Signal podcast I don't have much else to go by. The Signal is a Firefly/Serenity, one of my favorite tv shows/movies, podcast. Other Firefly fans, Browncoats, got together to make a cookbook based on the theme of the show: Big Damn Chefs, and gave the proceeds to charity.

The podcast has been reviewing recipes within the cook book. The directions for this one seemed simple enough:
Cover some tofu with miso paste.
Let it sit on the counter a few days with a damp cloth over it.
Serve with crackers as an ageed cheese.

The reviewer thought this was a much better alternative to the vegan cheeses of the world, so I gave it a shot.
I took 1/2 block of tofu, cut it in half and coated each one with red miso. Set it on the counter for two days with a plate under it and a damp cloth over it.
The miso is supposed to take out the water from the tofu while the tofu absorbs the miso flavor.

Here's what it looked like day two:I tasted the miso and it was flavorless. I wanted to know more about this old recipe, but since I didn't know the name I didn't know what to search for. Do you know about this recipe?

This is what it looked like at day 3:
I cut it open and it did taste like miso on the inside, a lighter miso. Maybe I should have coated it thicker with miso? I don't know. It is a bit creamy on the inside and I do eat it as a spread but it's not something I am really thrilled about. I just feel I've done something wrong. Got any ideas?

Stumptown Vegans

Jess and I would like to introduce you to our new project:


Stumptown Vegan Restaurant Reviews are two Portland food bloggers' opinions and adventures with the vegan food they have encountered while eating out around this city. We know everyones' tastes differ and things change in restaurants so visiting once, or even twice, never paints the full picture of a restaurant. We take photos to show you the food we've eaten to help you decide if you also want to visit.
Enjoy!

Birthday Cake!

It's birthday week at the Bolsh household. First is my partner's birthday on the 22nd and mine on the 26th.
Here's the first cake requested:

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Ice Cream Cake
I used the Bake and Fill pan. Chocolate Wacky Cake for the main part, filled with chocolate chip cookie dough soy cream and bottom was a big cookie. All topped with ganache!


The birthday boy was so excited he didn't want to wait the entire cake to freeze, but I think it was better this way. So great!

Simple Dinners

So we're getting settled into our new house. After a few weeks of crackers and peanut butter, or eating, I am back to cooking! Yeah!
Here are a few simple meals I've made.

Roasted potatoes with lots of garlic, sauteed chard with some liquid smoke and caramelized onions with a fresh salad with a dill ranch dressing:

More roasted potatoes with cumin and a cheesy sauce (i'm trying to perfect a recipe for my partner) and a side salad with Italian dressing:

I've been trying to buy more things are the farmers market. Here's this weeks loot. For $18 I got kale, elephant garlic, rhubarb, asparagus, lettuce, cauliflower, leek, shallots, cabbage and fiddlehead ferns:

Interview

Since we've been in the process of moving and getting the house together not much cooking has been going on. So in the meantime, I will show you an interview done by Secundra, of the Cleavland Library. Maybe you'll learn something new about me.

I also wanted to show off my friend's new food blog: The Conscious Kitchen. Emilie is an amazing cook and great photographer. Her food intimidates and inspires me.

On to the interview:

1) What drew you to a vegan diet?

Feminism.The idea, veganism, had been rattling around my brain for a few years. I was vegetarian for 5 years before and during my first year of college in 1998 a "Why Vegan" found it's way into my hands and lit the flame. I thought about the animals and was able to relate to them more being female animals, putting myself in their place. If I was pumped full of chemicals and not able to stand or move because my breasts were too large like the cows. Or, if I was frequently force ovulated similar to a chicken I would hate life and I was unwilling to support that suffering. So it was a combination of compassion and feminism that lead me to remove all animal products from my life.

2) What was the first vegan meal you made and how did it turn out?

I was lucky enough to go to a college, University of Oregon, that had decent vegan food in the cafeteria. The one time I strayed away from the normal vegan food options was a "recipe" from an omni friend: Take a slab of (cold) tofu from the salad bar and cover it with marinara sauce from the pasta station. Sure! I wasn't yet versed in the blandness of plain, uncooked tofu, but I learned quickly.

3) Was the Kitchen Calendar something that you were doing for your own use?

It was. I was trying to develop my meal planning skills to help with grocery shopping. I hope it worked for others, because it didn't help me! I am the type of person, and cook, that gets inspiration on the spot. Planning my meals a week in advance wasn't helpful. I would buy the ingredients to make tofu spinach lasagna, then use the spinach up in an chickpea dish earlier in the week.
One thing the calendar did work for was for scheduling kitchen use. I had a roommate who was working on a candy and chocolate cook book, another one was a beer brewer, and I just liked to mess around. It worked out well for each of us to set aside the whole kitchen for an afternoon without interruption.

4) When did you decide to turn the Kitchen Calendar into a zine?

I had been tossing around the idea of doing a cook zine for a long time but decided to turn it into something more useful - a meal planning calendar. I'm not sure how many people have kept the recipes contained inside because some saw it as a zine, others just as a calendar.

5) For those who have not seen the Kitchen Calendar zine, could you describe what is it?

The Kitchen Calendar is like any average wall-hanging calendar: a monthly grid layout of days on the bottom half, and text and images on the top half. The Kitchen Calendar is a bit different from a normal calendar in that instead of a monthly image you get a monthly recipe, or two and maybe some helpful kitchen tips. Then there was space for writing. A note section for how you would change the recipe to suit your own tastes. Each daily square also contained space for writing. It was broken down into breakfast, lunch, snack and dinner. The calendar owner could use it as a meal planner - writing what meals to make and when, or as a meal tracker - to know what you ate and when. If done the way I intended to do it, your calendar would be filled with writing at the end of the year.

6) How did you get the word out about the zine once it was published?

Once it was published I approached a few distros, providing a sample copy for review. I also posted information about it on vegan cooking communities I am apart of at Livejournal, The Post Punk Kitchen Forms and at Food Fight!

7) What was the response to the zine?

It was a big hit for many of the end of the year holidays. People were excited to give their parents something useful with vegan recipes in it, or start their resolutions to prepare meals. After February there wasn't much interest. It was difficult to get distros to carry it since it was a calendar and not just a food zine. And now, who would want an old 2006 calendar?

8) What motivated you to take your vegan cooking experiences and put them into a blog format?

My experiences with cooking became my craft. I was already posting images of my stained glass work, quilting and other sewing projects - why not my food creations? My friends started asking for the recipes, which means I actually had to have them! I started by taking photos and typing out the recipes as soon as I cooked them and put them on my livejournal. It didn't seem serious enough so I created a food blog: Fueled by Popcorn, after my love of the confusing grain/vegetable.

9) What challanges have you encountered creating a vegan cooking blog?

Writing recipes! It has been so difficult to remember exactly how I created a dish. Those times I am too hungry to write anything down, or measure properly always come back to haunt me when I am uploading photos.

10) Do you prefer blogging over creating a zine?

That's a tough question. I love that blogging allows for instant gratification, quality photos and easy communication with those have tried my recipes or share the same problem creating a vegan meringue. I love creating zines because it's physical, tradable and much more permanent. I think the two work out well together for me because I am able to take the best of my recipes I've created for my blog and create a cook zine out of it, which is what I am working on now. Sorry, I can't answer your question properly, maybe I like blogging better because it's free.

11) Have you communicated with other vegan cooking bloggers?

Yes, a few of my good friends are vegan food blogger. I feel that blogging has a great community surrounding it. If you have a question about a recipe you're trying to prepare from someone's blog you can always ask questions and get a reply quickly.

12) What is the future for your blog?

The future of my blog is to continue doing what I am doing while periodically turning it into a cook zine. Maybe sometime soon I'll buy the domain name fueledbypopcorn and create a real website.

Mint Pistachio Cake

I meant to make the rosewater pistachio cupcake recipe from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World, but I was in a hurry and couldn't find rosewater. Going with what I had and on an inside joke with my sister, who will receive this cake, I went with mint. I never knew there are many mint pistachio cakes out there!

The pistachio taste wasn't strong enough to really taste it. Next time I will make some pistachio-butter to blend into the batter and make a light mint frosting. Everyone loved how moist it was.

I'm not sure if it's cool to post the recipe, but you all better have the book by now. I just subbed 1/2 tsp. mint for the rosewater and added some fresh mint to the frosting. Beautifully green- just like spring.
Rice-mellow was also added to the frosting (I'm moving and just trying to use up old food) and it gave a really nice dense thickness to the butter cream frosting. It reminded me of the vegetarian marshmallow fluff in a can.

Proper Plate

I've been busy so my cooking has been minimal. When I do cook it's about eating fast and I don't have time for photos. I am planning a wedding, working on a secret project with someone you may know, fixing a house to sell and buying my first house (well we bought it today but we don't get the keys until this weekend.)

I've been craving healthy, quick meals and came up with this weird variety of foods, called the Proper Plate because it tastes like something that would come out of this great vegan restaurant in Portland called Proper Eats. It's food that makes you feel good after eating there.


Proper Plate:
Mixed baby salad greens
1 handful carrots, steamed
1 large handful cauliflower, steamed
Lemon garlic hummus (oops, I added too much lemon while making it!)
1 Roma tomato sliced and deseeded
Sprinkling of Paprika
Sesame seeds

Laydown the salad, put the cooled steamed veggies on top and around the salad (in case you feel like dipping into the hummus.) Slather in hummus, a dip and a dressing in one. Place the tomatoes. Sprinkle with paprika, salt, pepper and sesame seeds. Add some nooch if you feel like going that way.

This was a great, filling, healthy meal with a lot of flavor.

Savory Vegetables Abound!

My food from this last week all has the same theme but I can't quite figure out the theme.
Here's some random food from this past week:

Cashews Green Beans and Sprouts:
This really wasn't as good as I wanted it to be.
Pan fried brussel sprouts, green beans and cashews with a soy sauce flavoring. As I was pouring the soy sauce in I was even thinking how soy sauce and sprouts just don't seem to go together. And they don't. Don't try this one. Brussel Sprouts and Tofu:
So what does go with brussel sprouts? garlic and lots of it!
Broiled tofu, brussel sprouts, garlic, olive oil and salt! Perfect!Aspargus and a Secret Sauce:
Now I know I don't post many of the Post Punk Kitchen test recipes but I couldn't get enough of this creamy garlic sauce. I salavate just thinking of it.
Have you noticed my theme of keeping the vegetables fairly simple?
Tofu and Green Beans:
This one is a bit fancier so I'll give you some rough directions after the photo.
1. Set the oven broiler to high. Slice tofu slab into 6 pieces and cut into triangle pieces. (Triangles just taste better.) Put a little of soy sauce on each piece before putting it in the oven for 10 minutes.
2. Steam the green beans.
3. Turn the tofu over and put a little bit of tomato sauce on each one, just enough to cover the tops. Broil again for another 10 minutes or until done.
4.Arange tofu on a plate, I used 4 slices. smother with some extra maranara/tomoato sauce. Layer the green beans on top and then coat with your favorite garlic sauce. Serve warm.
If I was to make this again I would maranade the tofu before.


Fried Green Beans and Rice:
Ths was wonderful! Healthy and not to healthy at the same time. Again you see that mysterious creamy garlic sauce! I told you I couldn't get enough of it!

For the breading I roughly followed the directions in The Dirty South Cookbook. I used about 1/3 cup flour and another 1/3 cup glutten flour (I thought it was another flour. I need to label my bulk foods better!) onion powder, lots of soy sauce and enough soy milk to make it a good consitancy. I threw all the green beans in the batter and coated them until frying time.
At first I thought the batter was going to be too soy saucy but it was just enough flavor to be perfect with a bite of rice and green beans.

I'll show you some chocolate pie later, but for now I must finish painting the house. (I keep being asked how I have so much enegry and I guess it's becuase I eat so many dark green veggies!)

Sugar Cookies

P1020999
Originally uploaded by Webly.

Last weekend my partner and I enjoyed our 8th year together. He wanted sugar cookies - like those pink frosted Grandma's cookies.
This what I came up with.

Sugar Cookies:

2 1/4 cups unbleached white flour
1 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 cup non-hydrogenated vegan margarine (i used earth balance)
1 cup sugar
1 tablespoon powdered egg replacer mixed with 2 tablespoons water
2 teaspoons vanilla or 1 teaspoon almond extract

1. sift together flour and baking powder into a medium bowl; set aside.

2. in a large mixing bowl, cream together margarine and sugar. add egg replacer and vanilla and beat until smooth. add flour mixture and mix to form a stiff dough. (I added 2 tablespoons liquid at this point to get it all to stick together.)

3. preheat oven to 375 degrees.

4. lightly dust a work surface with flour or sifted powdered sugar. with a rolling pin, roll out dough disk to about 1/4 inch, or more thickness. don't roll too thin. I used a pint glass to cut out the dough.

5. Bake in top third of oven for 10 to 12 minutes, or until lightly browned. remove, put on rack, allow to cool completely.

6. Frost when the cookies are cooled with your favorite frosting. I used a fluffy buttercream with extra vanilla.

These were fantastic! Perfect! and made everyone happy.