a voice for the voiceless
This final post means I’ve actually completed the minimum posts according to the rules. It’s been a stretch for me, but was perhaps a little easier than last year. Talking this much about food is not an easy task, and it’s one that definitely makes me realize (again!) that food bloggers take on a challenging task.
A fun one too, but it is no small amount of work!
Oddly one of the biggest challenges for me ended up being the earlier and earlier nights. Natural light just works so much better for photos, but this is a time of year when the light seems to leak away at an alarming rate.
I met some very nice new-to-me bloggers:
I also feel quite honored to have been included in the the official VeganMofo Headquarters roundup on two occasions!
My go-to resource in my not-very-successful attempt to keep up with the other bloggers was the VeganDojo, which I found to be an amazing resource!
There were many other new-to-me people who commented as well as many of my long-time blogging or in-person friends, and I’m always happy to have people commenting! Thanks also to the link-love from Animal Rights at Change.org, Easy Vegan and Vegan Soapbox and Liberation BC on my Blog Action Day post.
I’ve probably forgotten others who deserve to be mentioned, and I certainly have done a spectacularly awful job at visiting most of the bloggers who took the time to leave comments for me, let alone the others in the greater VeganMoFo world! I vow to correct that in the coming month as best I can, which I might just treat as my VeganMoFo catch up.
One of the disappointments (other than the fading light) was that it took so much time for me to participate that I didn’t get to do much spectating. And I think that means I missed out on quite a bit! I might just take a different tact next year, and focus entirely on all the other participants! We’ll see, next year is 11 months away. 
Thanks to everyone, and hopefully I didn’t bore everyone too much with my food blogging. More piglets to come, I promise.
In the meantime, I feel enriched to have met so many new-to-me bloggers, and seeing their creations and blogging fills me with awe and gratitude. There are some amazingly talented people out there, and hopefully it helps show the world just how awesome vegan food is.
A year ago, miranda chelala left me an interesting sounding recipe in the comments of my “If you had carob molasses” post.
Hi all you carob molasses lovers. Yes I live in Beirut so carob molasses is plentiful and used daily as a dip at breakfast or in the afternoon as a snack. You mix tahine (sesame seed paste) with the molasses in a small bowl and use pitta bread to dip and eat. Yummy. You can also make a cake with carob molasses. Here is the recipe
2cups cake flour
2 cups semolina
1 cup corn oil
11/2 cups carob molasses
21/2 teaspoons baking powderHeat oven to 300 F or 180 C . Place dry ingredients in a bowl mix togther. Add oil and molasses. Mix well. Use our hands its perfect. Prepare a round cake tin by lining with greaseproof paper and smoothing some tahina over the paper . Put the mixture into the tin smooth the top with wet hands and bake for approx. 20 mins on 300F or 180 C or until it is cooked. Cut into small squares once cooled. Absolutely wonderful and so easy to make. No sugar, no eggs, no butter. It’s good for you . Enjoy
I made it tonight, and I’m hooked. I used white spelt flour, because I didn’t remember to get All Purpose flour last time I was at the grocery store, but I don’t think it had any impact. Or maybe it did. See, the 20 minutes was a lot more like 1 hour 20 minutes for me. Maybe it was done before then – it is a very dense fudgy cake, so it’s possible that I was over cooking it. Or maybe it was actually too low of heat, but … I think that the long cook time at a relatively low (for a cake) heat worked out well. Maybe someone with more cooking / baking knowledge can weigh in here!
It is rich and dense and just as moist as you’d expect with a cup (a cup!) of oil in it, and yet it has a nice crispy top. The flavor is earthy and a little (but not overwhelmingly) carob-y. It’s nothing like the fluffy frosted cakes that we tend to have in this country. It’s not a cake that you have huge servings of. It is almost-not-sweet, and yet it is, actually, sweet. Sweet in a way that is not from sugar.
It’s hard for me to describe adequately. It’s something of an addictive surprise, much the way the Dibis Bi Tahina was. So maybe it’s the carob molasses I love most of all.
I love that it is such a simple cake, and that it is fairly fail proof. (I think I proved that!) I love that it’s not at all the typical cake, though I know it would not appeal to everyone. For instance, someone recently told me in detail how much they hated molasses. This is not a cake for that person!
However, for those with a fondness for molasses and a liking of carob, give this cake a try.
And then tell me what dishes you’d serve at a dinner that would be followed by this cake!
I asked for a vegan cookbook for xmas in my first year as a vegan. My mom didn’t trust herself to pick one, so when I was visiting them we went to the bookstore to take a look. I eventually narrowed it down to The Voluptuous Vegan.
My first few experiences with it were highly disappointing. I didn’t treat it as a menu-cookbook, I treated it the same as other cookbooks, as a collection of individual stand-alone recipes. It always seemed that everything was a lot of work for not very interesting results. Yet others would rave about it.
I finally started to understand that the recipes were not meant to be stand-alone dishes. One night I made an entire menu, and I was stunned. Individually none of the dishes thrilled me, but together on the plate it was an amazing blend of flavors, even for my lazy taste buds! Finally I could relate to what people were talking about. But I also knew that it was not a cookbook I would be using on a regular basis, because it was simply not meant to be an every day cookbook. It was meant for entertaining. This is actually made pretty clear in the cookbook, I just didn’t have a clue that recipes could exist such that they would only shine in conjunction with other dishes. (I’m typically a one-pot meal kind of cook!)
When I lived in Denver I had a friend who was interested in what vegans eat, and she was interested in it in a direct way. “Let’s make dinner together,” she told me one day, “so we can try your chili.” That began a semi-regular get together, where we’d try new vegan recipes. We used The Voluptuous Vegan several times, and it was a winner each time. She and her husband were more “foodie” than I am, which made it interesting, as they would put into words aspects of the meals that really just barely shimmered in my awareness.
I’d recommend this cookbook with enthusiasm and conditions. The majority of my experience with this cookbook was cooking with two omnis, one of whom was only cautiously open to new things. Thus, I feel confident in saying that these are recipes that appeal to all but the pickiest of eaters! There are ingredients in the book that are easy to find in most metro areas, but maybe not at the local supermarket in SmallTown, USA. This is a cookbook that pretty much requires you to make the whole menu, though there are a few recipes that work standalone, and she does a great job of pointing out which those are. She includes the order things should be prepared, including what can be done ahead of time. This was really handy when cooking with my friends, since we were chatting and drinking wine while cooking, and it was nice that someone else was organized for us! The recipes are not fast, in my experience, but they are worth it in the end. Especially if “the end” is a social evening with friends.
The Harvest Moon Soup I made recently called for white peppercorns. Through luck and a grocery list, I remembered to pick some up while at the grocery store. (Side note: I adore grocery stores that have a bulk section for spices.) Despite a rather eye-opening experience in my past when I learned that not all pepper is created equal, I was still skeptical of whether there was any real need for white peppercorns as opposed to the more common black. It was a light colored soup, and I figured that was the motivation. But it’s sort of silly to me, as far as motivations go. Personally I don’t care if my creamy yellow soup has black flecks.
The real question, to me, is whether the different types of peppercorn make a difference in the taste. The eye-opening peppercorn blend that I found so delicious in my past was a blend that had white, black, green and red, if I remember correctly.
I’m still not really convinced that the white peppercorns make a difference. I decided to do some online research.
It was interesting reading, especially about the history. And I had a little internal chuckle when I read that though Americans are the biggest consumers of pepper in the world, there’s virtually no market for high quality pepper here. It is hard to be surprised.
Spicelines said this:
Unlike black peppercorns which are harvested when the berries are still green, berries for white peppercorns are left on vine to ripen until they turn yellow or red. After the harvest, they are packed into jute bags or wooden barrels, then washed or soaked in cool water to loosen the outer shell. They are rubbed clean and washed again to reveal the pale inner core of the peppercorn, then dried in the sun or in a kiln.
White peppercorns tend to have a sharp. hot flavor and a relatively mild aroma since the outer pericarp where the fragrant compounds are located has been removed. White peppercorns that have not been properly dried and are still damp when packed develop an odor known as “dirty socks.” In the trade this refers to “a moldy, musty flavor” or a “soured aroma.”
And what did people, in general, have to say about the taste difference? Interestingly, people can’t seem to agree whether the white peppercorns are spicier or milder. It is said that there are less “citrusy” notes to the white peppercorn flavor. Citrus? I don’t remember ever tasting citrus with my black peppercorns!
Alas, this might be a question that is simply beyond my taste buds, which never function quite up to spec.
I’m not nearly organized enough, nor do specific days matter enough to me to make the effort, but for some reason I’m still fascinated by the meals that are targeted for days in the goddess tradition. This is partially what drew me to “Recipes from a Vegetarian Goddess” on that long ago day when I found myself bemused to be purchasing my first cookbook.
This weekend I made the Harvest Moon Soup. The Harvest Moon came and went 3 weeks ago, of course, but that didn’t stop me from wanting to try the recipe. Especially because it would use up the other half of the orange cauliflower from last week!
It is a soup that requires a long simmer time – over an hour, all together. Sometimes this makes it too time-costly to make, when you need to get something on the table sooner than later. Sometimes though, it works well to sautee a few things, throw it all in a pot, and ignore it for an hour while you do other things.
It is also a pureed soup. What is it about pureeing that is such magic? The creaminess tends to be delightful, of course, but something else happens to the flavors after blending. Maybe someone has written an article about it. Or will! It won’t be me writing any such article, but I’d love to read what other have to say about it.
But back to the soup. It smelled delicious cooking. And it was a delightful autumn yellow color after it was pureed. But when I finally tasted it, it was quite bland. Maybe it is supposed to be bland, since the main ingredients are potatoes and cauliflower! Maybe it is my taste buds taking a quick vacation. Maybe there is something to be done for it that would make things pop. It was definitely better after the addition of the coconut milk.
The blandness isn’t something that would stop me from making it again, though I’d definitely end up playing with it, and that generally has near disastrous results! But on a food-as-fuel day, or on a day when I’m in the mood for something bland, it is soothing both because of how creamy it is as well as how filling it is. It might be something that grows on me. I have a feeling that mostly it is just too subtle for my under-performing taste buds. Or maybe this is one of those dishes that works best with accompanying dishes. The recommendation is to serve with muffins and a salad. I will try it again with toast and see what I think. Or maybe I’ll make some corn muffins.
Three new turkeys arrived at Poplar Spring Animal Sanctuary a couple weeks ago. Saturday was the first time I’d seen them, since they’d been in quarantine at first.
Their story is an odd one. They were hanging around a man’s house, and he finally called someone to get them. The county thought they were wild turkeys. But what wild turkeys eat out of your hands?
They came to Poplar Spring, and it was really obvious that they were not wild turkeys! They are domesticated turkeys, and Terry is pretty skeptical of the story that the man just happened to notice them hanging around his house.
You see, you can buy domesticated turkeys from a catalog, just as if you were buying a bike or a shirt. They have many different varieties, they even have “heirloom” breeds. Many people buy these turkeys, raise them in their backyards, likely feeding them by hand some of the time, and then they “release” them and “hunt” them.
The DIY canned hunt?
So that’s a likely scenario for how these three turkeys ended up hanging around a man’s house.
Thanksgiving is just around the corner, and it is hard to forget that when we see the turkeys at the sanctuary. For most of us, holidays are filled with baggage. Family obligations of one kind or another. The emotional impact of a holiday where a dead animal seems to matter more to those of us around us than anything else.
For me, holidays lost any sort of meaning to me a long time ago. I’m not sure when or why, but they have become a day I’m happy to have off work, and happy to make no plans for. This bothers my mother, who has never understood her children’s happiness at being solitary so much of the time. So when she asks, I always tell her that I’m spending time with friends on these holidays.
This is always true; I go to the sanctuary to help out on Thanksgiving and Christmas!
And truthfully, especially as a vegan, I am so happy to have no family local, and no omni friends local-enough to feel slighted by my preference for mucking barns to socializing with a dead bird.
The real season’s celebration for me happens the Saturday before the official American Thanksgiving Day at Poplar Spring’s Thanksgiving for the Turkeys. It is a giant vegan potluck, more giant than I could have imagined before attending my first one. 300 people attended last year, when it was bitterly cold and windy. Tables upon tables (oh, those dreaded tables!) of vegan food that people brought…and then there were the tables of vegan desserts! It is a sight to see.
Of course before the humans eat we get the food ready for the Turkeys (and chickens and guineas!). All kinds of delicious goodies, painstakingly cut in small pieces by the kitchen elves, then spread out on a couple tables, which we put down in their yard for them. Terry gives a small speech about it all, and it’s all pretty sweet.
Last year there were people videoing. One woman asked me to tell what we were putting on the tables for the turkeys, assuring me that this was better than her taking notes. Assured that I was really just a talking scrap of paper, I listed everything on the tables. You can imagine my surprise (and horror!) when Terry said she’d found the video on YouTube, and that I’d “done a good job”!
It turns out that it was a pretty decent covering of the event, with a few interviews, and a great view of how much food there is and how long the line was.
I don’t know what this video was used for (aside from being put on YouTube!) but it is nice to see such positive coverage of events like the one held at various sanctuaries around the country. The feeling is so incredible, all these people there to brave whatever late November weather is being thrown at us, just so they can enjoy a celebration OF the turkeys, rather than the opposite.
Anyone else celebrating in this way for the upcoming (and often dreaded) November holiday? Or maybe you already have if you are Canadian or went to Woodstock’s ThanksLiving Celebration (a month early for weather reasons). I know Tristan went to Woodstock’s!
And finally, this week’s piglet video of Morty and Izzy. I had to use the thrilling Flip music to cover up the sounds of the wind in the microphone. That’s as fancy as I can get, sorry! (There is always the mute button!) They were so cute as they raced across the yard to Terry, and then Morty was happy to roll over for Belly Rubs. I’m still getting used to just how much they remind me of puppies, from their play with each other, to their interactions with people.
I love bread. I have great memories of my mom baking fresh bread when I was a kid – there is nothing quite like the smell of freshly baked bread!
I often consider getting a bread machine, but my kitchen is so small that I have a hard time justifying taking up room with an appliance dedicated to one task. My condo is so small and lacking in storage, I couldn’t store it elsewhere either. But I might someday be motivated enough to find room for it!
In the meantime, I buy bakery bread at my local organic store.
Bread is one of those amazing things that is just so good in its normal state. Flour, water, yeast, salt. That’s about it. It is beautifully simple. And then the normal packaged bread has to go and ruin it all with a million ingredients that read like a chemistry experiment, and milk (or milk proteins) and honey. So frustrating! Luckily the good bread, the stuff like my mom used to make, is vegan.
No fanfare, just normal.
You know those days when you just can’t think of what to make for dinner? Or maybe you have some great veggies purchased (or grown) with great intentions, but are giving you a mental block with what to use them for?
Well, here’s a video that might give you some ideas!
I’m fascinated. I’d never have imagined!
A couple weeks ago, The Voracious Vegan posted a recipe she’d come up with for Autumn Spice Pumpkin Cookies. I vowed to make them.
And for once I actually followed through on that kind of vow. Of course my grocery store was out of the plain canned pumpkin, so I got the pumpkin with spices already added, and guessed at how much extra to add based on her recipe. I’m not very good at figuring those things out, but the cookies came out great despite me!
This leads to my confession. Acting on some sort of weird whim, no doubt brought about by the fact that I got up at 3am this morning because I had to be at work by 5:30am and was thus home by 2:30pm, sleep-deprived and deliriously happy to be home for the gorgeous late-afternoon sunlight, I decided to make the recipe again with some substitutions.
Why change it? Her recipe calls for vegetable shortening, which meant Earth Balance Shortening for me. I have been boycotting (as best I can) palm oil for a while now, but I still have some EB (buttery spread, sticks, and shortening; I just stopped using what I had, and it must have a shelf-life of near infinity) hanging around, so I used up some of what was left. And the cookies turned out great. But if they’re to remain part of my life, the shortening needs to be subbed.
And then I started thinking about friends who try to go really low-fat for various reasons, such as helping to control RA via McDougall.
Long story short, I decided to sub applesauce for the shortening. And then half of the oil. I also decided to use white spelt flour (extravagance!) because I was running low on the All-Purpose stuff anyway. And then I ran low on brown sugar, so I used raw sugar to make up for it.
When I started making the balls of dough, it was very sticky. So I made a few of the balls, and then added more of the white spelt flour to what was left in the bowl. And it was still very sticky, so after a few of those balls, I added more.
At this point I didn’t even care that much about what I was doing to a tasty recipe, I was in experiment mode. It would have all been scientific and interesting if I’d done even a half-assed job of measuring or remembering what I was doing or trying to figure out, but I lost sight of such lofty goals! I just wanted to get the damn things in the oven so I could stop having sticky hands!
I cooked them a couple extra minutes longer; I had a feeling they’d need it.
The result? Something between a cake-cookie and a muffin. Or a cookie-ish scone. I don’t know, they’re tasty enough, but probably not something anyone would make on purpose!
And this, my friends, is why I stick to recipes that other people have made up!
After talking about my first cookbook last week, I was motivated to make something from it. Despite that it was my first, and a long favorite, there are many things I have never made from it. And though it is a vegetarian cookbook, tons of the recipes are vegan with no modification needed.
I love soups and stews, and autumn and winter are great seasons for warm bowl meals. I found a recipe I hadn’t tried yet but knew I’d love: “Coconut-Curried Vegetable Stew”. Coconut and Curry make for delicious meals, in my opinion!
The ingredient list was pretty normal. Except that in a quirk of fate, my grocery store didn’t have normal cauliflower. Nope, it was orange cauliflower or nothing! I’d had no idea that there was such a thing as orange cauliflower!
Coconut-Curried Vegetable Stew from Recipes from a Vegetarian Goddess (now sold as “Cooking By The Seasons”)
2 Tbsp Canola Oil
1 medium yellow onion, chopped
4 garlic cloves, chopped
2 Tbsp curry powder
1/2 tsp Chinese five-spice powder
4 carrots, scrubbed, sliced into chunks
1/2 head cauliflower, cored, cut into bit-sized pieces
1 1/2 cups cubed butternut squash
1 medium new potatoes (I used small red potatoes), thinly sliced
2 cups vegetable broth
1 tsp sugar
1 can light coconut milk (I didn’t use light!)
1 cup frozen green peas
1 can chickpeas, drained, rinsed
black pepper, freshly ground, to taste
salt, to taste
2.5 – 3 cups cooked basmati rice
For the rice: In a medium sized pot, bring 3 cups of water to boil. Once the water is boiling, add 1.5 cups of rice, lower heat, cover, and simmer the rice for about 40 minutes for brown rice, less for white rice.
For the stew: In a large pot, heat the oil over medium heat. Saute the onion until soft, add the garlic and spices and saute at a lower heat for 1-2 minutes. Add the carrots, butternut squash, cauliflower and potatoes. Stir. Cook for 3 minutes. Add broth and sugar, bring to simmer, and cover. Simmer for 15 minutes.
Add coconut milk and peas. Simmer for about 10 minutes. (Or until veggies are tender.) Add chickpeas and ground pepper, let heat for about 5 minutes, add salt to taste, and serve over rice.
It came together quickly and easily, and is delicious! The Vegetarian Goddess comes through for me again.
All proceeds will be donated to the sanctuary.
Coupons: http://www.lulu.com/current_specials?cid=eng_advent_specials_112210
Recent Comments