Cooking With Bracket and Friends

Day off, and I'm in the kitchen. See those yellow things in the bowl on top of the cookbooks (only a small part of the whole collection, but that is another blog for another time) - the yellow things that look like little lemons? They are not. They are Key Limes from the tree outside my door. The avocados in the bowl were also picked from right outside my back door. The avocado crop is just about done, and I've got the Guacamole Waistline to show for it. Baskets of avocadoes made their way to my co-workers who were eager to "help" me keep my weight to a reasonable spot.

It's a darn good thing I'm better at following recipes than I am at photographing food, nu?




The Maple Banana Bread shown here is from my dear friend Bracket's cookzine Recipes from the Batcave. I added walnuts. Bracket may not due to her super amazing young vegan son, Oliver, who is so outstandingly brilliant and charming, and all around adorable, that he's likely to have his own television show in the not too distant future. In the meantime, he stands beside Mom with spoon in hand, helping and giving her big thumbs up on the Chickpea Cheese that he's got me cramming into Mah Belleh all the time.

The cookbook open in front of Bracket's cookzine is Babycakes by Erin McKenna. Today I made the Meyers Lemon and bing cherry cupcakes (they are in the pink ramekins atop the cake plate, smaller ones - still not iced- on a plate behind the flowers, and also in the heart shaped ramekins because I love little cute baking dishes and individual servings. You can admire their cuteness at the top of this post.

Next up will be yet another batch of Bracket's Broccoli & Lemon Orzo Soup (because I am unable to prevent myself from consuming whole batches of it and I really do want some in the freezer for lunches.)

I hope you are enjoying VeganMoFo as much as I am because this is the very best idea I've had since going vegan, and that was a long time ago.

Poor Deprived VEGAN! All you had for dinner was: oven roasted sweet potatoes (12 to 3,) Cannellini Beans with Sautee'd Kale (3-8) and Provencal Chickpea Flour Pancake (9-11) Last 2 recipes from The Mediterranean Vegan Kitchen by Donna Klein.

Modifications include: subbed Navy beans for the Cannellini because I had some in the freezer, and added rosemary to the pancake because I'd had it that way before and LOVED it. Could NOT be an easier recipe - chickpea flour, water, oil, let sit... pop into preheated to nuclear cast iron, back into oven for about ten, and viola!

Served on plate thrown at Mark of The Potter in Georgia, atop a random crazy quilt crafted by yours truly.

Cuban Black Bean Soup

For the soup, I used the recipe from Food Network substituting some of the peppers for some I had received from my friend Linda who grows the most lovely vegetables ever.

Other modifications included pressure cooking the beans, so I had to guess how much of the bean liquid to leave in.


Just ate a boatload of bean soup over arroz amarillo! YUM!

The pressure is on!



Saturday morning and I'm thinking themes.... Halloween coming up, maybe tie in some black beans and pumpkin cooking. Spicy stews and hearty breads, party foods for Lisa's annual Halloween gala are simmering in the back of my head along with a promise to provide some tofu recipes to a new Lisa who has shown some interest in all things tofu. And how can THAT be a bad thing?

That said, I got out the trusty PC, refreshed my bean timing via the Vegan Coach website - http://www.vegancoach.com/pressure-cooker-beans.html
and popped in a batch that had been soaking since yesterday morning. Let's face it, I had grand plans to cook them last night but somehow the motivation disappeared in the parking lot at work at 8:30. One must be grateful to be employed, and I am not complaining, but the idea of cleaning up at midnight was an epic fail at glamorous things to do on Friday night.

So I played Mafia Wars instead.
And the theme came to me....
ready?

See, the way I see it, the best way to allow people to see that vegans are real, and eat real(ly good) food is to interact with them and then use a little humor, a little mutual respect, and a lot of food pron pics.

Now, since Mafia Wars has taken off into all corners of the world (with players all over the globe) I thought "wouldn't it be cool to tie in MW with VeganMoFo?" and I did. Mafia Wars has opened Cuba and so will I. So, get ready for some Sopa de Frijoles Negros con arroz amarillo, y'all. I'll be frying up those platanos later.

In the meantime, for my new Lisa, Lemon Pepper Tofu from Vegan Brunch by Isa Chandra Moskowitz, page 131

You see the tofu in my TofuXpress? Want one of your own? Of course you do! Go see it at Tofu XPress

To kick off VeganMoFo with a twist, I was skipping along the Interwebs and found this fabuloso idea at Vegan Lunch Box http://kblog.lunchboxbunch.com/2009/09/vegans-hundred-100-foods-you-should-try.html

I'd like to incorporate some of the Vegan 100 into VeganMoFo and I'd encourage my fellow foodie VeganMoFoian's (and there are legions of you, I just know it) to try with me. I'll keep posting updates as I get closer to bolding and underlining each of the hundred.

Vegan Hundred. I love the idea of challenging foodies to try as many new, classicly delicious and unusual foods as they can. So I give to you: the vegan's 100. One-hundred foods that every vegan (or any curious foodie) must try at least once. Check out the list and details on how you can participate in this foodie adventure...

The Challenge: Just as the omnivore list does, I challenge you to re-post this list and participate in the challenge! Cross out or italicize all the foods you would never eat, bold foods you have tried and update your list as you participate in trying all the foods on my Vegan's 100 list. Then if you'd like, post a link to your list in my comments section so others can see how you are doing. I tried to stay true to the original omnivore 100 by leaving on a few of the vegan food items on Andrew's list. However, since most of the foods were not vegan, there was a lot of space to fill! My criteria for food items were that they had to be either a unique whole food (like a lychee) or a notably stand-out-delicious way to prepare a common food (like scrambled tofu).

The Vegan's Hundred

Here’s what I want you to do:

1) Copy this list into your blog or social networking site profile, including these instructions.

2) Bold all the items you’ve eaten.

3) Cross out or italicize any items that you would never consider eating.

4) Optional extra: Post a comment on this post linking to your results.

I hope you will join this vegan foodie tasting adventure.

Post the link to your list in the comments-if you have any questions, leave them in the comments as well!

...lets show the omnivores that the question "what do vegans eat?" definitely has over 100 amazing answers...!

The HHL Vegan Hundred:

1. Molasses

2. Cactus/Nopales

3. Scrambled Tofu

4. Grilled Portobella Caps

5. Fresh Ground Horseradish

6. Sweet Potato Biscuits

7. Arepa

8. Vegan Cole Slaw

9. Ginger Carrot Soup

10. Fiddlehead Ferns

11. Roasted Elephant Garlic

12. Umeboshi

13. Almond Butter Toast

14. Aloe Vera

15. H and H Bagel NYC

16. Slow Roasted Butternut Squash

17. White truffle

18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes

19. Freshly ground wasabi

20. Coconut Milk Ice Cream (not store bought)

21. Heirloom tomatoes

22. Orchard-fresh pressed apple cider

23. Organic California Mango (in season Sept-Oct only)

24. Quinoa

25. Papaya Smoothie

26. Raw Scotch Bonnet (habanero) pepper (just a bite!...hot!

27. Goji Berry Tea

28. Fennel

29. Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookie

30. Radishes and Vegan Buttery Spread

31. Starfruit

32. Oven fresh Sourdough bread

33. Sangria made with premium fruit and juices

34. Sauerkraut

35. Acai Smoothie

36. Blue Foot Mushrooms

37. Vegan Cupcake from Babycakes nyc

38. Sweet Potatoes and Tempeh combo

39. Falafel

40. Spelt Crust Pizza

41. Salt and Pepper Oyster Mushrooms

42. Jicama Slaw

43. Pumpkin Edamame Ginger Dumplings

44. Hemp Milk

45. Rose Champagne

46. Fuyu

47. Raw Avocado-Coconut Soup

48. Tofu Pesto Sandwich

49. Apple-Lemon-Ginger-Cayenne fresh-pressed juice...with Extra Ginger

50. Grilled Seitan

51. Prickly pear

52. Fresh Pressed Almond Milk

53. Concord Grapes off the vine

54. Ramps

55. Coconut Water fresh from a young coconut

56. Organic Arugula

57. Vidalia Onion

58. Sampler of organic produce from Diamond Organics

59. Honeycrisp Apple

60. Poi

61. Vegan Campfire-toasted Smores

62. Grape seed Oil

63. Farm fresh-picked Peach

64. Freshly-made pita bread with freshly-made hummus

65. Chestnut Snack Packs

66. Fresh Guava

67. Mint Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies

68. Raw Mallomar from One Lucky Duck, NYC

69. Fried plantains

70. Mache

71. Golden Beets

72. Barrel-Fresh Pickles

73. Liquid Smoke

74. Meyer Lemon

75. Veggie Paella

76. Vegan Lasagna (raw optional)

77. Kombucha

78. Homemade Soy Milk

79. Lapsang souchong

80. Lychee Bellini

81. Tempeh Bacon

82. Sprouted Grain Bread

83. Lemon Pepper Tempeh

84. Vanilla Bean

85. Watercress

86. Carrot you pulled out of the ground yourself

87. Vegan In-Season Fruit Pie

88. Flowers

89. Corn Chowder

90. High Quality Vegan Raw Chocolate

91. Yellow fuzz-free Kiwi

92. White Flesh Grapefruit

93. harissa

94. Coconut Oil

95. Jackfruit

96. Homemade Risotto

97. Spirulina

98. Seedless 'Pixie' Tangerine

99. Gourmet Sorbet, not store bought

100. Fresh Plucked English Peas

Pasted from <http://kblog.lunchboxbunch.com/2009/09/vegans-hundred-100-foods-you-should-try.html>

YES! I'm in! Writing, cooking, sharing vegan food to the masses. YES, all of my favorite things.

To begin, I'm thinking of BEAN there! Done that! using black beans and every black bean recipe I happen to own in my vast repository of fabuloso vegan cookbooks and zines.

Get out your pressure cooker, your crockpot, and your spice grinder and join me in activism'ing in the mouth.

For starts you may head on over to the PostPunk Kitchen forums and to http://kitteekake.blogspot.com/ CAKE Maker to the Stars for more info on how to get your own groovy banner and how to feel included in the mass effort to feed the universe ethically.

Take the quiz to see how progressive (or not) you are. http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2009/03/progressive_quiz.html

I scored 345/400 which makes me more progressive than the average American with a score of 209.9

Goody. What does that prove?

Dear Welfarist Vegan,
When I first became vegan, I thought you - as a more "experienced" activist had the right ideas about how to forward the movement, to get the word out that using animals as food or clothing was morally reprehensible on too many levels to name. So I signed up, and I joined, and I participated in tabling events where there were PeTA brochures, stickers, DVD's, and all the other propaganda they produce. I looked into the eyes of those very people we were trying to convince to see the reality of the damage they were inflicting upon us all with the continued consumption of animal corpses. I saw them take in the PeTA connection, and shut down their very souls. They know, I know, and if you examine your heart, you'll come to know that PeTA is loathed for its blatent sexualization of the very cause they claim to promote.

Sometime later, after looking at the animal rights movement, I came to realize that the only way for the movement to succeed was by adopting an abolishionist approach. At that juncture, I stopped attending meetings and tableing events where the PeTA propaganda was present. I retracted my membership to the Yahoo! group, and I simply went about my business of quiet determination to live by example, and triage (if you will) those who asked respectful questions about my vegan life.

You wrote asking if I wanted to continue to be on the email list and I asked to be removed, and you seemed confused by my desire to be removed from the factory farming committee, a committee dedicated to “improving the welfare” of the animals. For the purpose of clarification, I offer the following:
I believe that working toward "more humane" methods of using animals for our own needs is indeed increasing demand and therefore is counterproductive. The only way we can convince anyone that the use of animals as food or for any other use is by showing them the truth, and abolishing gestation crates and battery cages just isn't enough. This page demonstrates it better, though, and I thought you might take a glimpse of some of the examples. http://www.humanemyth.org I would also like to recommend you read Making a Killing, by Bob Torres, PhD, as well as Rain without Thunder by Gary Francione. Both books are written by gentlemen who possess great powers of critical thinking as well as tremendous influential arguments for abolition over welfarism.
It is my firm belief that aligning with PeTA is a mistake. The general populace views them (and correctly so, I believe) as nutcases who use the hearts of good people such as you to generate income. I cannot in good conscience stand in front of a table with brochures from an organization who uses girl on girl action to promote a cause as important to me as animal rights. For crying out loud, PeTA can’t manage a no kill shelter! I cannot view KFC’s commitment to “happy meat” as a victory. It is not. It is clear to me that you, and the rest of the group believe you are changing things for the better, but I think in the end run, you are granting people permission to consume animal products as long as they have nice labels like “free range” eggs, which we all know is a bold faced marketing lie told to justify the egg consumption at the cost of millions of male chicks, the cost of the damage to the environment, the wholesale slaughter of millions of “spent” hens, and the inherent psychological damage to those whose jobs depend upon the slaughter and production of the “happy meat” KFC buckets at the end of the day.
I hope you know I think very highly of you, and indeed all of the members of the group for their veganism. I feel compelled to separate from the group at the crossroad of welfarism over abolition, because at its’ roots, it is little different from justifying slavery as long as the slave master treats the slaves well.
Be well and happy, and above all else, vegan.
Warm regards,
Selah

From happytrailsfarm.org
Farm NewsUpdate On Chevaz — The Horse Who Had Colic SurgeryBy Jul 2, 2008, 13:56
Chevaz, a handsome, black, Standardbred gelding residing on an approved Happy Trails foster home showed signs of colic, and after local treatment by their field service was unsuccessful, Chevaz was rushed to the Equine Specialty Hospital. He was a good candidate for colic surgery, being healthy and sound and having a good general disposition. We decided to give him every chance that we possibly could, understanding that the surgery would be between $2,600 and $5,000.
Chevaz came through his surgery with flying colors, but he took a while to recover. Additonal nutrients were needed, and under the top-notch care of the hospital, he began to recover. and was sent back home to his wonderful foster parents, Eileen and Bob Roloff. During his recovery at home, something seemed to be still not-quite-right with the dear boy. His appetite was failing, and he seemed to want to lay down a lot.
A field service vet came out and gave him a check-up, a treatment, and said to keep an eye on him. Much to Eileen and Bob's dismay, Chevaz seemed to be getting steadily worse. A trip back to the hospital was in order.
At the hospital he was stablized, tested, treated, poked and prodded like you would expect. They kept him, monitoring him constantly for the next week. Signs pointed to a variety of causes for concern, and no amount of fluids, nutrients, diet or temptations of grass seemed to prevail. After eating, he would become distressed and needed Banamine and would need tubed.
After much consulting, discussions, and trying to figure out what was most humane for htis wonderful horse, it was determined that he was not a candidate for a second surgery, and that it would be in his best interest to help him quietly and calmly cross the Rainbow Bridge. This diffuclt task was accomplished by the kind and caring staff at the hospital.
After he crossed into the next world, a mini-necropsy was done, and it was determined that an extremely large blood clot prevented proper healing, and that no amount of additional surgeries would have helped Chevaz recover.
So as we grieve for this wonderful horse, we are also now raising the funds to cover his additional hospital and emergency room expenses. Our total bill is over $9,000 — due to unexpected complications and additional emergency care after the initial surgery.
Every donation counts! If you are able to help the sanctuary with this unexpected and overwhelming expense, your kind and thoughtful donation can be made here through PayPal, or by mailing your donation to Happy Trails Farm Animal Sanctuary, 5623 New Milford Road, Ravenna, Ohio 44266.© Copyright 2004 by happytrailsfarm.org

The New England Vegan Ethic

Use it up, use it out, Make do, Do without – an ethic close to my New England roots, as well as my vegan life. If I don’t need it, why buy it? If I don’t use it, why not give it away to someone who can find use for it?
Applies to every aspect of life, nu?

Reminded today, while whipping up a few more veggie bags from scrap fabrics of how I coped with the loss of my beloved in October of 99, and how I dealt with 9/11. I was so utterly in shock, so deep in a black abyss, so dismantled by his sudden demise, and the vast amount of suffering that 9/11 wrought, words failed me, still fail me.

9/11 was a time of horror for the entire world, yet left me floundering in confusion why no one got that 10/29/99 was my 9/11. I went into rote behavior. I opened my sewing box. I began to piece together bits of fabric, with no plan, no clue what I was doing, just methodically washing, starching, cutting, and stitching together random bits of fabric. I bought dozens of yards of fabric in both yardage and “fat quarters” with no idea of how or why I’d ever use them up, in an attempt to fill an un-fillable void.

Fast forward to a time when I’ve pieced several quilts, given many away, and have still lots of fabric that may very well dry rot before I reach the bottom. Also, I’m now vegan, which translates into treading as lightly on Gaia as is conceivable.

Those first efforts at pieced nine squares taunt me. An opportunity has arisen, in the form of my offer to put together drawstring bags for my vegan friends to use for bulk beans, veggies, fruit, whatever else they see fit to stuff in them. I have encountered a cause, in the form of a horse with a surgical bill of over 8K. His name is Chavez. So, the deal became that anything over shipping cost would be donated to Chavez. The bags keep getting fancier and fancier, in the efforts to raise money for Chavez. My hope is that those receiving the bags will be wowed enough to be generous (to the degree they can.) and allow me, the woman who witnessed the second 9/11 from the other side of a sewing machine to find peace – at last.