Eat Me.

Anything you can do we can do vegan.

Sunday, December 30, 2007

Recent Developments

A quick update on the past two weeks:

Where I have been:

Virginia
Chicagoland
Iowa

What I have been doing:

Knitting
Driving
Sniffling (Thanks Ian!)

What I have been eating:

Lots of Chinese takeout: X-mas dinner and Iowa
Rusk Buns
Apples
Takeout from the Mediterranean Market in Fredericksburg

Vegan consideration awards go to:

Evelyn (Amos' grandma) with extra potatoes and other veganized dishes on X-Mas eve.
Debbie and Diana for thinking up ordering out from the Mediterranean Market on X-Mas eve's eve.

What I have had time to cook this Christmas:

Kakie's friend Julie posted that I should DEFINITELY make the microwave caramel corn I had linked back on this blog post . So I did. I didn't have two of the ingredients so subbed maple syrup for corn syrup and evaporated cane juice for brown sugar and all turned out well. And of course vegan butter for dairy butter. But watch out for your microwave because the carmel will go EVERYWHERE if you are not careful. And it was good! Thanks Julie!

Chocolate Pumpkin Pie with walnut crust.

Grogg/Wassail. I had a breakdown in Virgina and had to make some : )

Cookbooks (!) received for X-Mas:

Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World by Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero
Lean and Lucious and Meatless by Bobbie Hinman and Millie Snyder
Veganomicon by Isa Chandra Moscowitz and Terry Hope Romero

Websites Addicted To:

LOL Cats I Can Has Cheeseburger

Craziest/Grossest Food Items Spotted in Iowa:

Shepherd's Pie casserole with TATER TOTS substituted for the mashed potatoes. OMG I have to try this.
Pistachio pudding mixed with cool whip and marshmallows.
Hydrogenated Buttery/Cheesy sandwich spread.

Cranberry-Grapefruit Scones



A crumby photo of scone dough and only slightly better picture of the finished scones.


I think this morning I created a monster - cranberry grapefruit scones. Amos and I made them for Pankakes (the weekly sunday brunch potluck) and ended up eating almost all of them ourselves (2 or 3 before we left and about 5 once we got there). This is pretty sad but I think I have only had one scone before today in my entire life. I know Diana is a scone addict as well so maybe we can trade some secret scone recipes.

These scones are modified from the Classic Currant Scones recipe originally published in The Joy of Vegan Baking by Colleen Patrick-Goudreau. Although she does offer up some variations on this basic recipe Amos and I had some fresh cranberries from our CSA box and about 35 grapefruits sent to him by his firm for X-Mas. I am sure you can use your imagination and mix it up with whatever you have fresh around the kitchen. These would also probably be pretty good with some Cranberry Orange Relish smeared on them - we ate ours way too fast to even try it!

Cranberry-Grapefruit Scones

You will need:

1-1/2 Tsp. Ener-G Egg Replacer
2 Tbsp. Water
2-1/2 C Unbleached All-Purpose Flour
1/3 C Evaporated Cane Juice (or other vegan sugar)
4 Tsp. Baking Powder
1/2 Tsp. Salt
3/4 C Non-Hydrogenated Vegan Butter (such as Earth Balance or Soy Garden)
1/2 C Vanilla Almond Milk
1 C Coarsely Chopped Fresh Cranberries
Zest of 1 Grapefruit

Method:

Preheat oven to 425 degrees F (220 degrees C). Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper or lightly grease.

Whip up the Ener-G egg replacer and water in a small bowl until frothy. Set aside.

In a large bowl combine flour, cane juice, baking powder, and salt. With a pastry cutter or fork mush the butter into the dry ingredients until little pea sized pieces of butter are formed. With a wooden spoon mix in grapefruit zest and cranberries.

Now pour the vanilla almond milk and prepared egg replacer into mixture. With your wooden spoon or fingers or whatever is at hand start stirring gently. Only stir until dry ingredients are just moistened. I had to add about a Tbsp. of almond milk to make it all stick together. (If you stir too much you will get tough funny textured scones. I only know this because I have messed up biscuits too many times by zealously over mixing and scones as far as I can tell are fancy pants biscuits. And the original recipe also tells you this.) With lightly floured fingers gather up your dough into a ball and place on a lightly floured surface. Roll or push into a 1/2" thick rectangle or circle. Figure out a way to cut your dough into wedge shapes and place 1/2" apart on your prepared cookie sheet.

Bake for 12-15 minutes or until tops are golden brown. Cool on a wire rack or eat right away.

This recipe should make 8-10 scones.

Thursday, December 20, 2007

Brown Rice Crispy Treats

I have been busily making some last minute Christmas presents the past few nights and throwing stamps onto cards but haven't been baking AT ALL!

All I can say is I wish I had a friend that would make me Brown Rice Crispy Treats to ward off the hunger and sugar cravings created by my holiday fervor.

Sunday, December 16, 2007

Bag It.

If I don't get a new bag for christmas this year I might just have to pick up the Tree and Wood Bag from Brookly Industries. I saw a girl with this shinier bag from them on the EL on Wednesday. Quite flashy. This company seems like it might be a saving grace for those of you wanting non-leather reasonably priced bags.

I also cleaned out my old recipe box the other day crossing out the meat, poultry and cheese tabs. The two catagories that have the largest tabs? Cookies and Cakes, Biscuits and Breads and Foreign Foods. The box actually came with a tab entitled Foreign Foods.

As well as purging the tabs that no longer fit our eating habits I took out the few (ok - a lot) of recipes that I can't believe I ever ate in the first place. Almost all of them have a can of condensed soup, usually cream of chicken or mushroom or bacon or something. Yeesh.

For example this is a recipe that frequently makes an appearance at family gatherings. Potato Casssarole. Sounds innocent no? Just wait.....

1-1/2 lbs. bag of hash browns
1 can cream of chicken soup
1 16 oz package sour cream
1/2 cup butter
8 oz shredded chedder cheese

I suppose since all of these ingredients require no preparation at all this might be an easy dish to make for a crowd. I looked up the fat content of all the ingredients and the grand total (excluding hash browns) is 238 grams. If this dish serves ten people that is 23 grams of fat per person. Woah.

On that note it is time to get my key lime pie out of the oven. What a hypocrite!

Saturday, December 8, 2007

Isn't this beautiful?

I saw this blog on tastespotting awhile back. Check out the photos - so beautiful.