Look, it’s post 100!

I have a couple of confessions.

I moved out to Los Angeles almost a year ago, and I barely told anyone. Also, the vegan wagon? I haven’t been on it so much since I right before I moved out. Why? To be honest, I’m going to keep that to myself. (It’s a delicate balance of laziness, apathy, depression and overall retardation on my part.)  The important part is that I’m back.

Not only that, but I was inspired to make this post and get the fuck back into the kitchen by quarrygirl.com Perhaps not the most exciting domain name in existence, but hover your mouse over the link in the right sidebar, and you’ll see exactly how I feel about this site.

Yay for being vegan (again) in Los Angeles (for the first time.)

I hereby welcome a blogger of awesomepants proportions to my domain: kumquat.

We’ve known each other for about a thousand years, starting back in the WBS days. She’s a relatively new aspiring-to-be-vegan (edit: she pwned me in the comments, haha!) and really excited about vegan cooking. I’m really excited about her going vegan, she was one of the few people that I thought that there wouldn’t be a virgin’s chance in Hollywood of even going vegetarian. Welcome to the awesome side.

Side note: VeganPr0n was created with the intent of hosting multiple vegan food porn blogs, so if you want one, bug me and I’ll hook a brotha up.

Pretty simple stuff, the fries and the BBQ sauce are from Vegan With A Vengeance. I just baked the tempeh in the sauce for probably 30 minutes at 350. It was very slightly crunchy when we started eating it, so steaming it a little beforehand would have been a good idea. It was a lot more moist the next day, but I should have gone with the tried and true tofu instead.

I’ve been really lazy about a) cooking and b) porning about it. My pants size reflects this, boo. Also, when I have been cooking, it’s been all in the dessert kingdom. My pants size reflects this, too.

This is the Chai Cheesecake from My Sweet Vegan, with Macadamia Creme from Vegan with a Vengeance on top. I’ve made this cheesecake probably three times since I first tried the recipe, and it’s super simple and extremely satisfying. Just remember that you have to let it sit in the fridge overnight to really let the flavor develop, because it’s worth it. My suggestion is to use the crust recipe from The Uncheese Cookbook, because I didn’t really like the flavor that brown rice syrup brought to the table in the original recipe. (It gave it sort of a burnt flavor, but I’m the only person that noticed it. You’ll probably like it.)

So, I decided that I was going to alter the recipe and make Maccha Cheesecake. I’ll post the recipe here once I’m completely satisfied with it, which should be soon. Gimmie comment feedback, it’ll make me post it that much quicker.

Yum.

Lachesis, a PPK idol, has invented quite a few famous veganville recipes, including the Seitan O’Greatness (which I have yet to attempt.) When she gets her cookbook out, I think she’ll get a million pre-orders from her legion of seitan fans.

She posted food porn on the PPK with this recipe (I omitted the marinated mushrooms and the peas, mostly because I felt lazy tonight), and the whole world persuaded to share the details. The whole world is pleased that she did. It’s easier to make than the Vegan with a Vengeance recipe, which was my mainstay until tonight. However, unlike Isa’s recipe, it’s chock full of soy and there’s not a particle of nooch in sight. When I blended up everything, I opened the blender and smelled… garlic alfredo HOLYCRAPWHAAAT?! As a vegan, when you make ‘cheese’ type dishes, you get a certain tolerance for things not exactly 1000% smelling or tasting like the original version. Cheesecake is the one, rare, exception simply because vegan cheesecake is pretty much impossible not to make to perfection.

If it smells like alfredo, does it taste like alfredo?

You bet your ass.

For future reference, I think I’d at least halve the amount of margarine in the recipe, and maybe add some roasted garlic before pureeing.  This would be great on a white pizza. Mmm.. it is really so very good. I’d feed this to omnis without a second thought.

My Sweet Vegan just came in the mail today (dude, Cosmo’s Vegan Shoppe ships their stuff out lightning fast, also buy your vegan cookbooks from vegan stores and not Amazon, ok?), and my fat pants are stretching themselves out in excitement. There’s two things that you’ll probably hear about this book (kind of like how the only thing people know about Asia Carrera is that she’s in MENSA – she’s a retired porn star, her website is obviously NSFW) in the hype and that’s that the author is very young and that she figured out how to make vegan meringue. Hannah also runs Bittersweet, which pretty much every vegan faps over anyway.

The moment I opened the book, I found a bunch of things to be excited about, and with no surprise pretty much all of the cupcakes are making me want to eat them. Go figure. One trick pony-ville over here.

Here’s a short list so far of what’s caught my eye:

Strawberry Love Muffins
Cheesecake Thumbprint Cookies
Maple Pistachio Cremes
Pfeffernusse (they look like the Russian Teacakes my mom loves during Christmas)
Strawberry Spirals
Bananas Foster Cake (though the person I had thought about making it for showed exactly no interest in it when I showed him the picture. So, I think he’s going to get a big “Fuck You” instead of a lovely cake.)
Chai Cheesecake (OHMYGODYESYESILOVEYOUHANNAH)
Decadent Almond Cake
Lychee Cupcakes with Raspberry Frosting (I don’t know about raspberry with lychee, but these look better than the lychee cupcakes in VCTOTW)
Mini Icebox Cheesecake (can you tell that I love cheesecake?)
Pomegranate Ginger Cupcakes
Root Beer Float Cupcakes
Wasabi Chocolate Cupcakes (only because they sound like something you’d trick people with and then laugh when they choked on it)
Pink Lemonade Tartlets
Flaming Hot Peanut Brittle
Green Tea Freezer Pops (I love you. I love you so much.)
Green Tea Tiramisu (Did I say I loved you? No, I want to marry you, Hannah.)

Hope you like fat chicks, Hannah, because you’re gonna chunk me up good!

Also, my cupcake carrier is getting old and too small, someone buy me a Cupcake Courier (in blue) pretty, pretty please?

I’m restructuring the organization of the site a little, and since I got a couple of new books in the mail, I figured I’d try something new and start a list of the recipes that immediately catch my eye as I flip through them.

It may not be exciting for you, but it may help me remember when I think I’ve run out of cooking ideas.

Up first is the cookzine Papa Tofu. If you want this, order it now because it’s popular and kittee probably didn’t print many of them. Many of the recipes are on her PakuPaku site, but in convenient printed form. Lots of stuff from Ethiopian fare to New Orleans cuisine (and a buttbusting load of sweets) are in here.

Since Mardi Gras is coming up, I’ve been eyeing her king cake recipe and maybe something like the red beans and rice from Veganomicon, I’m not entirely sure yet. I’ll probably not do anything because I’ll be lazy, heh. The stuffed tofu has been winning hearts all over the Inkernet, so that will probably make its way into my tummy some time before the end of the universe. Yay kittee!

Merry Giftmas, or as the Pastafarians like to say: Happy Holiday

I’m updating from the comfort of my sickbed, which I’ve been nestled in since early on Giftmas Day.

Pro Tip: If you feel too sick to go to work, you’re too sick to go to work.

I went in on the next day and left work two hours later after slumping over in my cubicle, on the verge of passing out and puking. I think I scared my boss when I called her from my cubicle, which is about four feet from hers, to tell her that I felt sick and she had to ask me if I was sitting up because she couldn’t see me. I literally couldn’t move or do anything but stay slumped over. So much for being the stoic office worker. However, since my parents were super generous and got me a brand new laptop this year (I know, I still don’t believe it), I’ve been sickbedding relatively comfortably, with the Inkernet and Team Fortress 2 (SteamID: reiliel) always within reach. Also, I’ve been reading the hell out of the Dexter novels that my guy got me for Giftmas. Nothing says love like forensics and sociopathy! <3

You’re here for the snot tales and the blood spatter, right?

Just in case you came here for the food, I was super busy before Giftmas making all kinds of food to take to my parents for Giftmas Eve, and other food just to have to stay alive. I made it all in the same evening, and you know what that means – something had to suffer. I managed to fuck up the one recipe that I’m pretty sure that no one in the history of the world has ever fucked up before: falafel from Vegan with a Vengeance.

And how does one do that? Forget to add flour to the mix. There was an interdimensional pocket on the page between breadcrumbs and onion, apparently. What didn’t fall apart and was salvageable did taste really good, but the majority got turned to oil slurry. Yaaaaay. At least I didn’t fuck up the tahini sauce to go with it. When I’m feeling better, I’ll make another batch. Also, note to self: don’t attempt this in the blender, use the Kitchen Aid grinder until you get a food processor.

The other casualty of the evening was the Sauteed Green Beans and Mushrooms, also from Vegan with a Vengeance. Since my copy is from the first printing, there’s typos in it that I wasn’t aware of, mostly because everything I’ve made out of it has turned out perfectly. That is, until this recipe. 4 teaspoons of salt is too much for any recipe, and you should know better. The proper amount is 1 teaspoon. One. It would have been really good if I had known that, and the dish did nothing to help my mom’s opinion of vegan cooking which makes it all the more painful that it’s pretty much the first recipe I’ve really fucked up. (The falafel were made after the green beans.)

But wait, there’s good news! I prepared mashed potatoes and Punk Rock Chickpea Gravy, which my mom liked but commented that it tasted like split pea soup. Whaaaat? Neither Jake or I like split pea soup, so not only did we find this comparison to be inaccurate, it was also grody. But hey, it came out well.

And for dessert?

Individual Heart-shaped Apple Galettes

I made these quite a bit smaller than the recipe calls for – mine made something like 10 or 11 while the recipe says it makes 6. The reason is that I had a larger, heart-shaped cookie cutter that proved to be a lot easier to work with than cutting out the bigger hearts by hand. As a result, my mom kept referring to them as cookies, but I think I’d like to see them as small tarts. They’re also insanely easy to make, once you get the crust out of the way (do yourself a favor and get a $3 pastry cutter from your local Mega-lo-mart.)

I had to improvise a little with the placement of the apple, with the smaller size of the hearts (the bigger sizes allow for fanning), but I think it worked well. My mom mentioned that the way I placed them was quite visually appealing; I know that if she had said something like that, she really meant it.

Serve warm with a scoop of Soy Delicious/So Decadent soy ice cream. Nom.

The jackfruit revolution is upon us, ladies and germs.

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God bless The Mighty Boosh, but fuck WordPress for not letting me embed the video.

Anyway, yes, vegan Bailey’s. I’m not a drinker, but as an omni I loved a splash in some hot cocoa or a glass of soy milk (yeah, I didn’t drink milk for a couple of years before going vegan.) Again, the PPK comes through to help a brotha out. It’s pretty good and very strong, in fact maybe a little too strong for me so I may cut down on the whiskey and up the brown sugar, chocolate syrup and vanilla on my next batch. Or, I may just be a pussy. Either way.

Fun fact: If you do a Google search for “vegan Bailey’s“, the second result is from the PPK forums, with my comment quoted: I’m glad that someone had the sense to finally made a vegan Bailey’s recipe that didn’t include some sort of coffee flavor blasphemy.

It’s hecka rad like dickmeat.