Alaska by Sea

Two months?! I've disappeared for two months?! Good for me. Work has been intense, then I took a much needed vacation.

I went on my first trip with my family in 12 years. We went on an Alaskan Cruise. We had a wonderful time, the cruise line, Royal Caribbean was not as accommodating as our last trip on Carnival, but there was much more vegetarian food.
You may be thinking that doesn't make sense! Carnival had a menu created for all 7 days - breakfast, lunch, and dinner - all vegan. Royal Caribbean told us they accommodated vegetarians and had Indian vegetarian food on the ship. I sent three emails inquiring and did not hear back. I was unhappy and was expecting the worse. RC's approach was to veganize the vegetarian meals. It was great that there were always two vegetarian meals on the menu every night. The annoying thing was that since they were veganizing them, my diet was left to their idea of veganism. I only got sick once.

With that said, I give you the food they served us:

Chilled Roasted Peach Soup:
It didn't taste roasted. It was more like a smoothie.

Chilled Pear Soup with Cranberries:
The cranberries were too hard to enjoy.Roasted Pepper Hummus:
I like how it looked like a bug.Pasta with marinara:
We had pasta the first night and I really enjoyed the sauce. The last night we had pasta again, but because the noodles were overcooked, I didn't enjoy it as much.
Fried Tofu:
I really wish people who don't know how to cook tofu stop serving it as if they do know how to cook it. It just makes tofu look bad. I am still trying to figure out if this dish was better or worse than the tofu on the last cruise.Eggplant without cheese:
This was one of those dishes I don't think they thought it though. I am sure they dipped the eggplant in egg before breading it. ugh. The balasmic glaze was very nice.
Indonesian Peanut:

Some Indian Dish:
The nice thing about having Indian dinners on the ship is that Indian cooking contains many spices so at least we had some flavor. They told us this dish would be good for us, but really, it had paneer cheese in it. Yuk!

Vegetables:
One awesome thing they did was to bring us a big plate of steamed vegetables every evening. Some evenings when the meal wasn't that great I could just load up on veggies and secretly cover them with the nutritional yeast I brought.

Desserts:
The fresh fruit was always good. So good in fact that many people around us asked for fresh fruit with their meals!




Every dinner we ate in the main dining area. For breakfast and lunch we ate at the buffets. We learned last time and brought some of our own items:
Tofurky slices
fake cheese slices
Toffuti cream cheese
Vegenaise
Nutritional Yeast
soy milk (though they did have some available, you just had to ask)
salad dressing
cookies
Lunch at the buffet - sandwich with fake cheese and meat and toppings from the buffet. Some of the Indian food look suspicious and they didn't know if it was made with ghee, butter or something else.
Breakfast buffet: cereal and bagel with fake cream cheese. Also a big side of fruit.
There was a cafe onboard called the SeaView and they had a great vegetarian sandwich with half an avocado and lots of sprouts.
The only way the sandwich was better was with VegenaiseOverall, they were great to us and we didn't starve. I would just recommend Carnival over Royal Caribbean to assure you're eating vegan food.

As for the trip...
We saw Hubbard and Turner Glaciers. Beautiful!
We hiked a lot:
Alaska looks a lot like Oregon.

I did find vegan food in Skagway!:
At the brewry they had a dish called the Tree Hugger. It was grilled veggies with olives on top. We enjoyed it.

I found a veggie dog at a cupcake shop in Skagway! I was so surprised I had to buy it, though I wasn't hungry. I also picked up some interesting items like pickled kelp and spruce tip syrup.

Also, we did good gambling:

Soon I hope to be posting all the food we've grilled on our new grill. Also, some popcorn recipes!

Omlet and Fake Cheese

I enjoy new food products so I pick them up every once and awhile. Lately, those products have been fake cheese. Below is how I've used them.

Baked Omelet:
This is similar to SusanV's recipe, but baked.
I mixed in spinach to the batter. The inside is stuffed with steamed broccoli and Cheesely.
Cheesely seemed to be a cross between Scheese (which is my favorite for taste, though it does smell like V-Dog) in taste and Follow Your Heart in texture.

Pizza:

You can see the two cheeses here: Scheese (orange) and Cheesely white). Cheesely clearly melts better, but that's never been a requirement in my cheese needs. I know vegan cheese will never have that stringy texture of animal cheese and I am okay with that characteristic. If melty cheese is your thing - spray oil, or garlic oil over the cheese, this will help the process.

Recently I tried Teese. Maybe it's the fact that I am spoiled and have all these options and don't crave cheese, but I wasn't super impressed. It seemed similar to Cheesely and Follow Your Heart. I enjoy the flavor, though it was light. Maybe I should have had more than just a bite. Food Fight will have it soon enough.

I love that there are so many products on the market these days. Back when I first went vegan we had one option and didn't have much of a choice to enjoy it or not - it just existed! How times have changed - here I am 10 year later tasting two different type of UK fake cheeses and two American cheeses (and I don't mean flavor here) that some people don't have access to in even a speciality store!

There hasn't been much cooking lately. The doctor insists I stay off my feet so my back can heal but it's been almost 7 months since the accident and I haven't been able to sit still since. Since I love to eat and cook it's been even more difficult! Good thing I've been able to visit more Portland Restaurants to keep Stumptown Vegans going.

Stay tuned for birthday week in the near future. Three birthdays in our household in a one week span! Lots of cake!

Squash Good Bye Winter, Hello Summer

I enjoy my food simple and these two dishes are so simple but do not lack flavor.

Braised Squash with Wilted Spinach:

Pan fry summer squash in olive oil (I enjoyed using my garlic oil here) with an herb of your choosing. I went with tarragon.
With one bag of spinach, toss with a light basil balsamic vinegrette salad dressing. Spead it across a cookie sheet and broil for a few minutes, toss and continue to broil until it's all warmed, but not cooked all the way through.

Pile the spinach on your plate and place the squash over the bed. Sprinkle with salt and better and welcome summer squash back into your life.

Butternut Squash Fries with Vanilla:

I picked up a fun, new salt - vanilla salt! Where to use it? - sweet fries of course!

Here I chopped up butternut squash into fry-like pieces, tossed with olive oil and baked at 400F for awhile. I became impatient and wanted them before they became crispy fries so I took them out, sprinkled them with a wonderful new vanilla finishing salt. This was a perfect way to celebrate the savory of the squash and the sweetness of the sugars within the squash. I love this salt and will find many more uses for it I am sure.

In the oven now - a chocolate version of my glutten-free almond cookies. They smell heavenly!

Cakes

Strawberries. I love them. I saw them at the market last weekend and bought them - but they are such a tease. Early berries are never that great, let alone those sour California berries! I can't wait until Oregon's sweet berry season starts.

With that said, I was inspired by the berries and make this cake:

Vanilla cake with strawberry jam filling and strawberry frosting.
I made the strawberry frosting by mixing strawberry jam and powdered sugar with some earth balance.

I had so much fun decorating this cake I decided to make another, one of my favorite combinations - chocolate and mint!
The filling was simple - cashew cream and chocolate chips. I soaked the cashews over night, blended them with some soy milk, then blended in some melted chocolate chips. So simple and tastey!

This mint chocolate cake is by far the best cake I've made i at least a year. The pudding in the middle really made this cake rich. I can't wait to make this for my birthday.

Mr. Bolsh told me he'd eat this whole cake in a week so I didn't need to take it to work like I did with the strawberry one. Well, wednesday came and he hadn't even eaten half the cake. He complained that living with me is like living in Willy Wonka's Chocolate factory! He lives a tough life, it's true. So I took this cake to work and had rave reviews from my co-workers. I even recieved an email about it,
"Just wanted to share a testimonial of your cake. I have had a headache almost all day it seems, and I swear since I ate you cake, it’s gone. Apparently it’s not only delicious, it has healing properties!

Thanks for sharing it with us!"

Aother co-worker, after hearing of its medicinal properties said I should open shop next to St. Cupcake and start "Revival Cakes!"

Garlic Shells

For Easter I had created a wonderful garlic sauce for some scrambled tofu. We didn't use all the sauce so I got creative. There was no real recipe here but it went something like this.

Garlic Shells with Broccoli:
1 cup soaked cashews
4 cloves garlic sauted in olive oil for 1 minute
Enough soy milk to make it smooth in the blender.

Mix the shells, sauce, and broccoli and eat right away or bake for 15-20 minutes.
We had extra faux sausages left over from the Sunday brunch so I threw those in, just to use them up.

I guess this qualifies for a cassarol - a great way to use up ingredients.

Roasted Eggplant Risoto

It's been awhile since a recipe from me - time to share what I've been working on.
This is a nice, lighter tasting rissoto where the flavors really shine through in a subtle way.

Roasted Eggplant Risoto:
1/4 cup maragrin
1/2 onion, diced
3/4 teaspoon rosemary
2 cups risoto rice
7 cups vegetable broth
1 eggplant, roasted
1/2 bulb of garlic, roasted
1 teaspoon salt

Preheat oven to 450. Cut the eggplant in half, drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with salt. If you have garlic oil, all the better. Do the same with the garlic. Roast in the oven for about 15-20 minutes until tender.
Saute the onion and rosemary with the margarin. Once the onion starts to brown add the rice and stir until coated.
Add 1/2 cup of broth at a time stirring until absorbed.
Remove the eggplant from the oven and scrape out the smooshy eggplant and squeeze out the garlic. Add the eggplant and garlic with the 6th cup of broth. Continue adding broth as normal until complete.
Once complete sprinkle with chopped basil and a finishing salt, a smoked salt would be best.


Garlic Oil:
Olive Oil
Garlic, smashed

Smash the garlic and place in olive oi.
I am really looking forward infusing more oils and using them for popcorn. Now I just need some more bottles for storing these oils!

Podcasts and Dogs

I can't believe it's been so long!
Since my last post, a lot has happened.

We adopted another pup, my grandmother-in-law's long haired weinner dog, Goody:

The black haired dog is Coda, my heart and soul, and Goody is on the left. Goody is very much a special needs dog with his health issues and we are giving him as much love as possible to make his transition easy after having lost his last person and bother-dog. Coda is adjusting alright, though she prefers to be the only child.

For Lent I gave up sugar. It hasn't been as hard as it has been in the past, but testing cooking for upcoming cook books has been hard:
Terry's Lime Shortbread Cookies
Giving up sugar has been difficult because I've been trying to make popcorn that tastes like french toast or cinnamon toast. Creating a recipe without tasting it is no fun!

Other things going on in my life include recording podcasts for the new portion of Jess and my other website, Stumptown Vegans.

Head over here and listen to our first two podcasts!

Stuffed Squash

This was my 9 year vegan anniversary meal and so much more delicious than I was expecting.

Stuffed Delicata:
1 delicata squash, cut in length and cleaned
1 yellow onion, diced small
1 carrot, diced small
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 Tablespoon Mirin
1/2 tart apple, diced
1 large chard leaf, chopped
1 cup rice, cooked
Spices like thyme, salt, pepper...
1/2 cup shredded cheese

Bake the squash until it's done, usually it's about as long as it tastes to do the rest.
Saute the onion until it's caramelized. Add the diced carrots and cook until tender. Add the garlic and cook 2 minutes. Deglaze the pan with a splash of mirin. Add the rice, and thyme, or other favorite spices. Keep cooking until the rice is cooked through.
When it's complete add the cheese and mix. Fill the holes of the squash and cook for another 10 minutes. Serve warm.


Part of what makes this dish take so great is the small size of all the ingedients. It packs in the filling in the squash, which add extra flavor with the sweet onions, tart apples, and sweet squash. The cheese isn't necessary but it adds to the texture.

Soups

How many soup posts can be made? Apparently thousands during the winter months.
A couple of weeks ago I started by making soups of every color, red, orange, yellow and green. I lost the majority of the photos and wasn't able to complete my project of going after purple, brown, and blue. Without completing my project, I show you two soups.

Green Kale Soup:
This soup used boiled chard and steamed broccoli, pureed it all with lots of spices and my green soup was done, and damn tasty.

Corn Chowder:
When I created this soup I had already created my yellow corn soup, so I went for a twist to my corn chowder. Caramelized onions, carrots, corn, tarragon and potatoes in a creamy soy and vegetable broth.
It was nice to have a stew-like meal with creamy potatoes.

Crepe Cake

Today is my 9 year vegan anniversary! So today I post a cake! However, I will not be eating cake today. I am once again trying to go without processed sugars for about a month and a half.

This cake was inspired by a photo/recipe in Martha Stewart a few years ago for a chocolate crepe cake.
I just my regular crepe recipe with a bit of cocoa added. I used a cashew cream between layers until I ran out so I used a blueberry filling.

Simple Breakfast Crepes:
1 3/4 Cups Flour
1 1/4 Cups Liquid (apple juice, water, soy milk...)
4 Tablespoons Maple Syrup
1 Tablespoon Baking Powder
1 1/2 Cups Soy(/Rice/Oat/Nut) Milk
4 Tablespoons Oil
1/2 tsp. Cinnamon
Pinch of Salt

Mix all together until the bumps and lumps are gone.
Ladle a small amount into a warm frying pan, or use an electric crepe maker. Pick up the pan and rotate until the batter doesn't spread anymore and let cook on one side until the other side is done.

To make the cake, keep layering crepe with the filling of your choice until it's as tall as you want, or you run out of crepes.


This was a very intensive process! And unfortunately, I wasn't able to get my cashew cream thick/strong enough to support so many crepes. None of that matters when you taste it though - it was great, but something I'd rather have someone else make for me.

Lemon Garlic Brussle Sprouts

Normally I eat my brussle sprouts roasted with a bit of garlic, today I was looking for a different flavor and decided on lemon and garlic.

I started with a roux - soy milk, flour, earth balance and a bit of lemon juice. I added the garlic and stirred until it thickened. I poured over my broiled brussles and served with rice.

This was a simple meal that added much more flavor than normal, though I added a bit too much lemon. The sauce was a nice touch with the nutty tasting broiled vegetable.

Product Reviews

I don't normally do product reviews but after I lost all the photos from the past two weeks, why not.

First is Ricera. I was excited about a rice yogurt coming to market but it was clearly lacking - a soy, diary and glutten-free yogurt. Unfortunately, this is not the product to eat. It's thin and tastes like chemicals. I consumed about half of the package before my mouth just refused to swallow. You know that feeling when you need to take a pill and it's in your mouth but you just can't swallow it? It was the same thing - terrible. However, I needed the calories so I tossed the spoon and put my head back to get it into my system without touching my favorite taste buds along the way.

I imagine the process to decide when the product was to go to market was something along the lines of, "well it's 100 times better than our first try!"

One thing I will give this product is that the packing uses as little plastic as possible, with a cardboard wrap to make it more sturdy. But that's no reason to buy it. Stay away!


What you should eat, if you're in Portland, is the peanut sauce from Vege Thai. They have this great sweet and lightly spicey peanut sauce they sell by the bottle, which is good because I can drink this stuff by the bottle!

Here's some rice noodles I cooked up with vegetables and smothered with Vege Thai Peanut Sauce. YUM!


Another great product I've found is a smoked salt I am very happy with. I've been tasting for one that's not too heavy or too light. I found this great one at Williams-Sonoma. It's an Oak-Smoked Sea Salt. The thing that's so different about this one is that the oak is actually from old barrels that once contained Chardonnay, or so they say. I don't care if it's true or not because it's the flavor I've been looking for. It's salty, it's smoky and slightly sweet. I can't wait to make some mashed potatoes and sprinkle this on as a finishing salt.

Mr. Bolsh Cooks Again!

I updated the Apple Spice Cake recipe to include my working recipe. I think it still needs some work though. I made it again last night and it sank about 1/4 in the middle after the oven. Try it and let me know what you think.

I overheard Mr. Bolsh talking with his grandmother on the phone. She was inquiring why I wasn't washing the dishes and he was. He replied saying that I cook and he does the dishes - if he didn't do the dishes he'd be eating spaghetti every night.

That's right Mr. Bolsh's specialty is spaghetti! Pasta from a bag, sauce from a can and neat-balls from the freezer.

Pressure Soups

The past few months have no been very good for photos. I just lost all my wonderful Christmas breakfast post, and a few other awesome dinners I've made - but my photo files became corrupt and I've lost a good chunk of my recent photos. It's terrible. So I've dug up some photos from my busy December where I relied heavily on the pressure cooker for good meals.
The photos below are very simple soups.

Potatoes, corn, onions and soy curls:

Black beans, corn, soy curls, onion and spinach:
Black eye peas, yams, tomatoes, onions and probably soy curls:

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.

Sm'love Pie

This Sm'love pie is awesome. I make it when I'd like to impress non-vegans. This pie was made for a work Holiday Party last month. The awesome thing about my work is there are two other vegans and many vegetarians do I don't need to hide the face that there's tofu in this pie.
This is from Isa an Terry's new cookbook. If you don't already have it, check it.

Sm'love Pie:

Clean Cookies

November was my team at work's month to clean the office - The Clean Team, if you will. At the end of the month (yes a month ago! I've been busy with work...) we threw a clean party and gave out prizes for cleanest desk, most welcoming, and most inviting.
What other way to make awards than to make cookies?!
These are the cookies I made:


These were great large hand sized cookies, but I cannot yet share the recipe.