I discovered a new kind of orange at the co-op today: Cara Cara. They are pink like grapefruit inside, and very flavorful. I don’t like most oranges, but I like these.
I also made orange agave chocolate chip cookies from Vegan Cookies Take Over Your Cookie Jar. Yummy enough, but I still prefer plain chocolate chip cookies.
Whenever my mixing bowl is sitting on the table, Teeny Sprocket has to hop inside. It is the perfect size for him.
When the weather turns cold, it always takes me a while to adjust my kombucha so that it reaches fizzy perfection. It usually ends up taking at least two days longer. Then I discovered that bottling it even if I decant it too early by accident can solve the problem. Give it a few more days and it grows another teeny mushroom in the bottle and fizzifies. The only problem then is the risk of drinking slimy globs of culture, or as Papa Miao likes to call it, “alien snot.” Also, the waiting. I don’t have my kombucha when I need it.
I keep a giant jar of raw sugar for my kombucha and general baking.
Choopers camping out on my cookbook in the midst of all the ingredients. We made the rum nog pecan cookies from Veganomicon (recipe here). It was a cooperative effort. They became an instant favorite.
Chun didn’t trust me to make the rum cookies without proper supervision
Chun was impatient for me to get started. It turned out he was the one who couldn’t be trusted with the rum.
Also, not pictured here, Choopers sampling rum buttercream frosting.
I didn’t have high hopes for my latest breakfast congee, but it turned out fairly well, and it is nice to have something warming to eat in the morning, if I give myself enough time to heat up breakfast.
CINNAMON RED BEAN CONGEE WITH FRESH GINGER
1/2 cup brown rice
1/2 cup red lentils
1 cup small red beans*, soaked overnight
1 small strip kombu
Salt to taste
1 tsp cinnamon
grated fresh ginger to taste (I used lots)
plenty of water
Sprocket was initially intrigued by the congee but upon closer inspection he found it to be offensive.
*Small red beans = chi xiao dou. Not sure if these are the same as adzuki beans.
I’m not crazy about parsley. When at all possible, I use cilantro. I don’t think the problem is with parsley, it’s just that cilantro is so much better, it makes parsley look bad by comparison. Recently, I wanted to make fresh salsa but the co-op had no cilantro, so (since I had already bought the other ingredients) I had no choice but to get parsley. It turned out okay, but I was left with a huge bunch of parsley that I didn’t want to waste. After consulting Foxy, I decided drying it in the oven would be the best way to preserve it.
First, rinse the parsley. Let it drain. Pre-heat oven to lowest possible (mine was 170 F). Spread out on baking trays. Bake until leafs are dry enough that they crumble in your fingers. I checked on it every 15 minutes and it must have taken at least 40 min, probably at least 60, but unfortunately I was distracted so I lost track. When you open the oven to check, be prepared for an overwhelming parsley scent.
I realized part way through that I should have removed the thick stems, because they take a lot longer to dry and they sort of mess up the whole process by raising the humidity in the oven. Or something.
Sprocket loved the parsley. He was chomping on the leaves and stems and making sure that everything was liberally sprinkled with floof. Lotus thought the parsley was even better than catnip. A few leaves fell on the floor and he was rolling around so happily.
Sprocket examines his parsley
I didn’t have enough baking sheets so my parsley was rather crowded. Removing the stems would have helped. and possibly drying the stems separately, because they shouldn’t be wasted either.
Kitties on the cutting board.
Tonight, I had left-overs of the zucchini chickpea pasta with rosemary from Vegan Planet. I was cheap so I used 1 teaspoon of ground rosemary instead of fresh rosemary. It’s a quick recipe because the zucchini and garlic are the only things that need to be chopped/minced. Recipe here. I really love Vegan Planet.
I just discovered that food processors can grow mold. I thought drying dishes off was overrated, but now I stand corrected.
Luckily no food was harmed.
No pictures.
I’ve had a few firsts in the last few weeks.
My first pizza crust.
Followed shortly by my first homemade vegan pizza.
The crust was lumpy. I need more practice.
This wasn’t the first time I toasted pecans, but it was the first time I toasted them so thoroughly. I swear I was following the directions to the letter, but something went wrong. Obviously.
And my first vegan French toast. Messy to cook but not bad to eat. Papa Miao enjoyed it.
I’ve been making a lot of recipes from Vegan Planet. It was the first cookbook I ever bought. I got it when I first started grad school and lived in an apartment with my own kitchen. I had grand plans for cooking delicious vegan feasts but really all I ate was oatmeal, bread from the Italian grocery on the corner, and fruit. And Clif bars. And chocolate. And… My cookbook sat sadly neglected for years, until I finally dusted it off a couple months ago and discovered that it is full of easy and delicious recipes. I have been working through the breakfast recipes for Papa Miao on the weekends, but the soups are proving delightful too.
I also started my Kombucha Experiment today. I really can’t imagine it failing, but I suppose I ought to prepare for the worst. I am growing my own mushroom from store-bought kombucha. I started it like any regular batch of kombucha (black tea sugar water), and then I added four cups of my favorite brand of original, unflavored kombucha. There were nice strands of culture in both bottles and I am hoping that they gorge themselves on the sugar and tea and grow very plump. Since the jar I used is rather large (a gallon) I am expecting it may take a while for a full mushroom to grow. Once the water level is significantly lower, I will add more sugar/tea brew to feed it. Then I will compare my two strains of kombucha. It will require quite a bit more kitchen space to maintain two separate kombucha families. If my kombucha experiment is successful, I will call it Kombucha Ex Machina and it will save the world.
So that’s my plan. My other plan is to set up my light box and take food photos.
One of my favorites from Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar. Kemi likes them too.
inspecting the carrot cake cookies
Whenever I have made these cookies in the past, I have had to spread the icing on with a knife like butter. They look messy and sad. Someone suggested I put the icing in a sandwich bag and cut away the corner. This has resulted in a slight aesthetic improvement of my iced cookies, though it is obvious my technique could use a lot of refinement.
I had so much extra icing I had to make it thicker on some cookies
Compare with the same cookies made in September of last year:
In other cookie news, I made a batch of cranberry almond cookies two nights ago and I have not had a single one! I have managed to avoid refined sugar for two days plus. yay. I’m trying to make it until I visit my brother in 17 days, but I am approaching this one day at a time.
My poor neglected food blog. I keep saying that once I get a light box I will start taking more photos and then I will post more. I have been cooking *a lot*! I even made a new curry variation.
I made some muffins today – the low-fat banana bread muffins from Veganomicon. They are made with molasses and applesauce and they are a delicious use of stinky bananas. I made them for a second time today since they are so convenient for my father to bring to school for lunches, and I omitted the sugar. By accident. Papa Miao has a sweet toof and he will certainly notice the difference, whereas I wouldn’t care if it was only for me. It seems that whenever I make a recipe while listening to an audio book, something goes awry, be it an extra cup of flour or no sugar or who knows what. Hopefully I learned my lesson this time.
But who knew that muffins are so fun! I realized that you can take any bread recipe and put it in a jumbo muffin pan instead and it cuts the baking time down to 20 minutes. Now that I finally have a muffin pan, I will be making them often.
mani floofifying the food
Omitting the sugar could also have been subconsciously deliberate, since I have been lamenting my inability to lose the 10 pounds I gained since moving home and I keep telling myself to stop eating a batch of cookies every two days. I know that would completely solve my problem. When I can go running, cookie-consumption isn’t an issue, mostly because I don’t have the time to sit around eating cookies all evening. But I keep twisting my knee whenever I go out onto the slippery sidewalks. Whatever I tore at the beginning of January keeps getting agitated by my limited activity. Since I can’t run away from cookies, I will just have to rely on what little willpower I have. Can I go for 10 days without refined sugar? I doubt it, but I will try.
Floof in my food 