Blueberry pancakes!

So after watching ‘Pulp Fiction’ my girlfriend found herself craving blueberry pancakes, so I got us stuff to make some. We used this recipe: Vegan Blueberry Pancakes
I got plain soy milk, though I added about a teaspoon of vanilla extract, and we used frozen blueberries and it worked out just fine.
I also got us some of the Smart Links veggie sausages to go on the side, which are, unlike the Morningstar Farms version, vegan (and, I think, tastier). They certainly satisfied my long-neglected need for breakfast sausages and syrup.

Delicious vegan pancakes and sausages!

My lemon pie and her blueberry pancakes :D

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Tags: breakfast, cooking, photos, vegan, vegetarian

Delicious socialist lemonade

So in response to this lady:

There is no ‘free’ lemonade

I am gonna make me some Limeade and share it with all my commie pinko friends. (Actually, you don’t have to be a commie pinko. You can have some delicious limeade even if you’re a Rand worshipper.)

But, no, really. Summary of that article: Conservative sees cute kids giving away lemonade, yells at them from car window. I’m not exaggerating or embellishing in the slightest. Apparently kids giving away lemonade is representative/symptomatic of all that’s wrong with our country’s economy.
I bet she’s really fun to be around at Christmastime…

Anyways, just discovered “Cooking For Engineers” today while searching for limeade recipes. I like cooking, and I love engineers, so I plan to investigate it further.

ETA: DELICIOUS COMMIE LIMEADE. (Specifically, Key Limeade, with some cherries/juice added for fun.)

Thank you Heather for taking a picture of my delicious limeade!
Also, I used a bit more syrup than the recipe called for; I wanted something a bit bitier. I mixed up a pitcher with 4 cups of water and 2 cups of syrup, and after tasting it I probably added another 1/2 or 2/3 of a cup.

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Tags: cooking, drinks, vegan, vegetarian

Cooking and mourning

So first off, some sad news… I lost one of my ratties a few days ago. My little guy Mal took ill suddenly a couple weeks ago. The vet said it was basically a lost cause, but we still treated him with antibiotics and eyedrops and hand-fed him lots of good stuff, and made him as comfortable and happy as possible till the end.

Unfortunately, I think this picture George took is the only real photo I have of him. =(

He was right around two years old. So now I’m down to one rat, Mal’s brother Wash, and I’m looking for some new companions for him.

—–

Less sad stuff… I did some more cooking last night. On the menu was Fried Cabbage, Southern Style and Vegan Cornbread.

Overall, I liked it; it was all very quick and easy to make, and the cabbage was very flavorful. Honestly, it may have been a little heavy on the salt and vinegar, but then Southern food is not known for its subtlety, I suppose. The cornbread was a little dense/dry for my taste; I might try adding more milk and baking powder next time.

River was nearby when I was taking pictures, so for no good reason here’s a picture of her with my meal. (She loves veggies, so of course she wanted a piece of cabbage, despite my warnings about the spiciness… yeah, she wasn’t too wild about it.)

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Tags: animals, baking, cats, cooking, loss, pets, rats, vegan, vegetarian

Cooking and turtles! (But not cooking turtles…)

So, first off, I skipped class last week to rescue a turtle. I was driving to school and it was in the road, so I had to scoop it up and take it home… I’m 90% sure it came out of Lake Chapin (by UCF), which is very close to a busy road with no fencing or other protection, so I didn’t feel too comfortable about just tossing it back there. Ended up taking it over to Blanchard Park, but I snapped a couple pictures first.

Ze’s in my bathtub, lol.

It’s very difficult to see the markings in the photos, and ze didn’t seem too keen on posing for me, staying firmly in hir shell when I was around, but I’m 95% sure ze was a Florida Red-Belly Turtle.

—–

Anyways. Cooking! Today I’ve got two recipes I made from the Vegetarian Epicure Book Two. In the book they are not vegan recipes, but I adapted them to make them vegan, as I’ll explain below.

First is Sweet Potato Soup.

Here’s a pic of me stirring it so you can really see all the vegetable chunk.

This soup is good (and better once it sits in the fridge overnight) but it still needs a little something. I tried adding some extra paprika, but that was insufficient. I’m thinking maybe it could use some extra lemon juice and just a little black pepper.

The recipe calls for butter and heavy cream. Instead I used Smart Balance Light for the butter (make sure you get the right one; not all varieties of Smart Balance are vegan, or even vegetarian) and this recipe for vegan heavy cream. (Scroll to the very bottom of the page; there’s a recipe that uses sunflower oil. It’s excellent.)

For dessert is Castillian Hot Chocolate.

I had a little trouble with this one, mostly because I was trying to rush it. I need to try it again when I have much more time; it really needs time to slowly come to a gentle simmer. I ended up with a bit too much cocoa residue at the bottom (not to mention a bunch that bubbled over onto my stove :P ).

This was also a non-vegan recipe; I just had to substitute soy milk for the regular milk.

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Tags: animals, cooking, dessert, soup, turtles, vegan, vegetarian, wildlife

Hail Seitan!

Another meal post, lots of good stuff from the Veganomicon! The recipes used here are Seitan Cutlets, Mustard Sauce, and Lemony Roasted Potatoes.

So tonight was my first experience making seitan. Seitan, if you’re unaware, is kind of a fake meat made from wheat gluten. I’ve never made it, and I think the only times I’ve had it have been in vegetarian Chinese food. (I should probably stop to make a couple points here: Garden Cafe – good. Canned mock duck – bad. Just… probably just avoid canned Chinese food altogether.)

It’s not too bad, definitely meaty, though it’s a little rubbery. From what I’m reading online, a lot of people have that problem when they’re first making seitan, so I’m sure I just need some practice.

The mustard sauce I’ve made before; it’s excellent on seitan or chickpea cutlets. I normally don’t dig mustard, but for some reason I really like mustard-based sauces and dressings, at least all the ones I’ve tried so far. And this one has tangy little capers in it.

Then there’s the potatoes. I can’t tell you how good these potatoes are. This is one of the most popular recipes I’ve made from the Veganomicon. I made a huge pan of them tonight (2.5 pounds of potatoes) and between me & George they’re gonna be gone by the end of the night. (He went back for thirds, which doesn’t normally happen because he has a tiny bird stomach.)

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Tags: cooking, potatoes, seitan, vegan, vegetarian

Soup, rice, and popcorn!

Okay, here’s my first cooking post. If you know me, you probably know I’ve been vegetarian for 11 years, but lately I’ve been working towards veganism. Slowly replacing non-vegan foods with vegan ones, learning to cook new things… gotta say, I’ve been loving it. Nicole got me a copy of the Veganomicon for Christmas, which has been just invaluable. (There is so much tasty in that book; you have no idea.)

I’ve learned a lot about food and cooking the last few months from other veg*n bloggers, so I figured I’d share my experiences too, and maybe people who stop by can give me their advice too. So! Here’s a meal I made a few days ago.

First is Vietnamese Tofu Pineapple Soup; this is a vegan recipe, found online: http://www.happycow.net/recipes.php?id=180

Basically I had half a fresh pineapple that I didn’t know what to do with, and I was trying to find a recipe I could make mostly with stuff I already had in the kitchen. This recipe sounds kind of weird (and looks pretty weird too; I had my doubts when I first made it), but it is DELICIOUS. And I made an important discovery: vacuum-packed tofu is much, much easier to fry than the tofu I usually find at grocery stores (the stuff that’s packed in water/brine and needs to be pressed/drained before frying). This really shouldn’t be news to me, but it is.

Next is Lentils and Rice with Caramelized Onions and Spiced Pita Crisps. This is a vegan recipe from the Veganomicon. I used Garam Masala for the pitas, though I really need to get a good brush for brushing oil onto the pitas before I bake them. Right now I can’t do much more than drizzle/rub oil onto them, and the uneven coating leads to some unpleasantly dry pita crisps. Other than that, I’m pretty pleased with this recipe. I find it difficult to get the onions to exactly the right texture (thoroughly well-done without getting burned), so keep a careful watch on them if you make this.

This one _was_ a vegan recipe (found at cheapvegan: http://community.livejournal.com/cheapvegan/870387.html) but I ended up making it slightly non-vegan… I know that George likes chocolate with his peanut butter, so I decided I wanted some chocolate to drizzle on top of the popcorn and didn’t have any vegan chocolate on hand, so the chocolate drizzle is actually a mixture of melted semi-sweet chocolate chips, cheap chocolate sauce, and a little bit of pancake syrup for texture.

(Also, George took these pictures and will probably be responsible for most of the pictures I post here… thank you babe!)

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Tags: cooking, dessert, rice, soup, tofu, vegan, vegetarian