Breakfast For Dinner

I wasn't in the mood tonight to concoct some bean/vegetable delight, and so we had pancakes, homefries and apples. And ketchup. Definitely insert comment about Ronald Reagan here.





APPLE-CINNAMON CORNMEAL PANCAKES
p. 46 HIAV
Prepared 10/29/06

"Good amount of cinnamon...perfect pancake shape...very very good with peanut butter...cooked evenly...easy to cut and eat."

The cornmeal wasn't very noticeable, but did seem to make them more dense. I chose, unsurprisingly, corn starch as my egg replacer. I was going to go with psyllium husks but the amount of clumping they did in the bowl scared me, so I jettisoned them. After all, dinner was on the line.

HEAVENLY HASHBROWNS
p. 44 HIAV
Prepared 10/29/06

Methinks the descriptor "heavenly" is overstating it a bit, but these were good, solid hash browns. The dill was a surprise ingredient and pretty delish. "Nicely browned, the peppers and onions were good...a little less greasy than traditional hash browns...a rousing success."

Dip Dip Spread, Part 2...And My First Pie!

We held a pumpkin carving party over the weekend, and I was thereby offered another opportunity to try out different dip/spread recipes. These also came out well, and I would have made others but needed to be a bit realistic about how much I could do in the kitchen whilst juggling guests, housework (our home was entirely rearranged and upheaved just prior to the party's commencement), a child, pumpkins, knives etc. So I settled upon...

ARTICHOKE & BLACK BEAN DIP
p. 129 GOV
Prepared 10/28/06

Easy peasy, and yummy! The directions call for all of the ingredients to be blended in a food processor and the artichoke hearts tossed in at the end, however, I just chucked them right in and blended them as well. It was very good, and many pumpkin carvers said so.

PUMPKIN SEED PARMESAN SPREAD??
p. ?? HIAV
Prepared 10/28/06

Two important notes: 1. The pages are falling out of my HIAV like mad and I can't find the page that has this recipe on it! I will report back with the full identifying information when the page is found. 2. I really couldn't find soy parmesan cheese at the stores, so I made this with the actual parmesan cheese we had in our fridge. This is not really in keeping with what I want to do generally with the blog, which is make things MORE vegan rather than less, but that is what I did here. I will maintain my diligent search for soy parmesan and post a new review when I can make this fully vegan.

It is super green, garlicky and delicious! Chock full of spinach, it was reminiscent of pesto in many ways because of the strong garlic flavor. Received many complements on it!

Not from the books, but also pictured are pumpkin chocolate chip cookies, made from this recipe (thanks Julia!!). I veganized the tasty morsels-- for that they were-- by using margarine instead of butter and corn starch instead of eggs. Recommend, by the way!!

And now, for the tale of the pie...

There is no major tale, actually. The whole thing was extremely simple to make and, I was told, awesome. (At the risk of sounding like someone who doesn't like a lot of things, which is not true, I don't like pie unless it is chocolate) I made a graham cracker pie crust and had optional vanilla topping. I must recommend this highly based on the major amount of positive feedback I received.




GRAHAM CRACKER CRUST
p. 141 HIAV
Prepared 10/28/06

This was fabulously effortless, much to the dismay -- I'm sure -- of the Keebler elves, whose graham cracker crusts I will no longer buy, because...why bother? I will make this again, absolutely.

PERFECT PUMPKIN PIE
p. 142 HIAV
Prepared 10/28/06

So simple, it truly is like taking candy from a baby. I used corn starch, natch, as my egg replacer. I cooked this pie for 15 minutes or so longer than the recipe suggested as my centre was quite unfirm when I checked on it at both 30 and 40 minutes, but I think we can agree that was likely due to my wonky oven.



SOY MILK WHIPPED CREAM
p. 151 HIAV
Prepared 10/28/06

This is not whipped cream, I will be honest with you. I can tell you that because I know from soy whipped cream thanks to the highly trained baristas at Java Green. However, I will tell you that this is a perfectly good dessert topping that is sweet and rich.


Go forth and make this yummy pie!

A Perfect Autumn Meal

RUSTIC TOMATO LENTIL SOUP
p. 53 HIAV
Prepared 10/25/06

A cool day called for a warm meal. This soup came out really well and was beloved by my partner and our house guest. I added israeli couscous as well as pasta. Recommend for a chilly day, its healthy and good (full disclosure: I quite like soup!) and went well with the below bread. I will next time add a bit more spice to this, perhaps some dried hot pepper. Its also fairly quick to make, which in my opinion, is always an important consideration!



Yes, its another oat bread!

OAT BREAD
p. 170 GOV
Prepared 10/25/06

Similar to the last one, though this one has maple syrup in it and is therefore a titch (hee hee) sweeter. Great for dunking into the soup as well as spreading some baba ghanoush upon, not much was left after the second day. I love these quick, easy and wholesome breads. I wish you many satisfying meals of such breads with equally lovely soups.

Desserts That Don't 100% Rock

BANANA OATMEAL COOKIES
p. 137 HIAV
Prepared 10/18/06

As long-time readers know, I don't really care for banana and so I didn't sample these myself. The reaction that I got to them was mainly lukewarm, even from my son, who until this batch was made, was generally not really allowed many sweets (these cookies were apparently the gateway baked good to him eating many more desserts) and therefore possibly had lower standards. Additionally, the recipe indicates that it makes 6 large or 12 small cookies, and I made at least double that off of the non-doubled recipe. They seem like a good and fairly healthy treat, though, for kids and others who like (er, or tolerate) banana, oats and raisins in the same cookie.


MAPLE WALNUT BROWNIES
p. 134 HIAV
Prepared 10/19/06

Undaunted by the tepid reaction my cookies had received the day before, I made these brownies with higher hopes. After all, they have chocolate in them.

They were...ok. Not bad, but I am not going to race to make them again. After the first day, the maple flavor had nearly completely dissipated, and despite my having added extra chocolate chunks (leftover semi-sweet baking chocolate), my partner characterized these brownies as "somewhat chalky." I agree. I cannot in good conscience give these a high rating.

Beany

BRILLIANT BAKED BEANS
p. 99 HIAV
Prepared 10/17/06

I wanted to make a dinner that I could quickly throw together, put into the oven, pull it out and then serve it. This recipe was simple and good. The sauce is definitely far more savory than sweet, so those of you who like the sugary side of your baked beans may want to add less onion/garlic and more molasses, and maybe even some sugar. It went very well with the leftover bread and a quinoa/kale dish! Recommend, especially for cool autumn evenings.

Lazy Cooks Rejoice!

COCONUT CURRY VEGETABLE BAKE
p. 124
GOV

SIMPLE! Delicious. Half of it was gone before we even got the camera out. I added more vegetables than the recipe called for (meaning a more diverse selection, not greater in number). Because we live in an imperfect world, our oven isn't the best and we noticed that some of our yams weren't cooked through. So personally, I would open the oven halfway through baking this and give it a quick stir. It is easy and good; we served it w/ rice and home made cranberry sauce. Another thumbs up!!

Otie...bread

OATMEAL BREAD
p. 120 HIAV
Prepared 10/15/05

Sunday seemed like a good day to bake bread, and so I did. This is an easy quick bread, and is reviewed thusly: "dense, crispy outside with a chewy inside. Awesome sandwich bread." That says it all. An easy loaf to turn out during a lazy Sunday, even if you wake up in the late afternoon.* Would also, as the recipe states, be very good to serve up with soup.

*Which I did not, nor have I in 2 years, 2 weeks and 1 day. Unless I'd been up a lot the night/morning before. Also, my Sunday was not at all lazy.

Dip, Dip, Spread

My friend recently had a baby shower, and I was in charge of dips and spread. I think you can see right away what a fantastic opportunity this was for me to dig into some of the lesser perused chapters of the cookbooks to get some party-pleasing dips onto the scene. I was happy with the way all of them came out and will make them all again.



BLACK BEAN SPREAD
p. 135 GOV
Prepared 10/14/06

A straightforward bean dip, though with an extra kick of lime which I thought was good. Appreciated by the brown bagger in the family as a most delicious sandwich spread later in the week. I admit to having forgotten to put salt in because I was making these three all at once, multi-tasking up the wazoo. It was fine without it but next time I'll finish the recipe before I move stuff out of the food processor.




OI-VEY! MOCK CHOPPED LIVER
p. 88 GOV
Prepared 10/14/06

A mushroom-based spread which was tasty and appeared to have made more than the recipe said it would. I doubled the recipe but am not sure I put enough onions in. I lurve onions so the next time, I will amp the amount of onions up a bit. I thought this was good, and the leftovers also made a great sandwich! I have never had true chopped liver, so I cannot compare the mocked to the actual. I plan to keep it that way.



DILL PICKLE CHIP DIP
p. 128 GOV
Prepared 10/14/06

This was really tasty but came out a bit runny. Its runniness didn't interfere with its yumminess but did sort of make it weird. I might add the loose/wet ingredients a little at a time next time and then make adjustments.

If You Don't Like Good Things, Don't Make This

CHOCOLATE UPSIDE DOWN PUDDING CAKE
p. 148
HIAV

The recipe queries, "is it a cake? is it a pudding?"- I come down on the side of cake. Easy to make, it is warm and gooey and delicious and everything a high-level tasty dessert should be. It creates a sauce that is not overwhelmingly sweet or rich, and the top of the cake crusts up with a sugar/cocoa mix that is the cat's meow.

When you open the oven to pull this cake out, it is all bubbly with chocolate goodness. It is not infrequently made in our household, and is fabulous by itself but even better with a frozen concoction by its side. I wouldn't substitute rice milk for soy milk, if I were you.

I highly recommend this recipe if you like gooey hot chocolately cake desserts.

Innocent Erendira

My partner in life/love/crime/parenting has a friend from college in town for a month or so, and being the kindly person that he is, the aforementioned partner invited his friend over for dinner. I am not certain how much warning the friend got about his place in the meal review process (conjecture: not much), but he rolled with it and said things like, "the soup is good!" and "I like carrots a lot!" The menu consisted of the following:

AUNTIE BONNIE'S BLACK BEAN SOUP
p. 84 GOV
Prepared 10/11/06

I'm beginning to believe Auntie Bonnie knows her way around a soup pot pretty darn well. I was a little weirded out by adding ground cloves to what seemed to be a pretty traditional black bean soup recipe, and I was even more weirded out when one of my lovely kitchen assistants accidentally added nearly double the amount of cloves called for, but the spice added a tasty and delicious twist to the soup. I couldn't believe how little soup this recipe made-- it indicates that there are four servings, but there were barely three. I will recommend it but add the condition that you should add a little more of everything to actually get the amount you think you are going to end up with. If I make this again, I will double the recipe.


JANA'S LEMON CARROTS
p. 93 HIAV
Prepared 10/11/06


I too like carrots! These were fine. The final product tasted mostly like carrots, the seasonings used produce an end product whose flavors were quite subtle...so subtle, in fact, that I am not sure if it is worth adding the extra ingredients. Carrot likers/lovers are going to be happy with plain old carrots, and those who need carroty flavor somewhat disguised aren't going to find that need met by this recipe.


EASY BISCUITS
p. 122 HIAV
Prepared 10/11/06

Very simple and basic. My son was disappointed because I baked them in muffin tins and he was expecting muffins-- one of his favorites. They were on the plain side but were a good complement to the soup and I will definitely make them again.

Busy...COOKING!

Hello there, sports fans (a phrase from my dad). I haven't foresaken you, just been doing a lot of cooking and baking and bike riding and playing with a cute boy (two, actually) and helping with a baby shower and knitting and petting some cute cats and going for walks and I even went to the hospital with a friend to make sure her baby boy was still baking in her proverbial oven in the manner babies need to be baked (he is!). Check back in the verrrrrrry near future for some major recipe reviewing! Dinner, dips, dessert...my opinions shall soon be revealed.

Delicious Bread! I'm Not In Love With The Sauce, Though.

I wanted a sauce for dinner to pimp up the veggie/rice scene so I chose SPICY GARLIC TOSS FOR NOODLES. I was underwhelmed.

SPICY GARLIC TOSS FOR NOODLES.
p. 83 HIAV
Prepared 10/10/06

There is a lot of Braggs called for in this recipe, at least relative to the amount it made. The whole thing tasted really salty and as if it was something a 10 year old who was learning to cook had made up off of the top of her head. And I don't think the problem was that I was serving it over rice instead of the recipe-mandated noodles but instead that it was simply a random conglomeration of a bunch of spices. The younger male didn't seem to care for it much either. The older one said that it was too salty and a little of it went further than he thought, though he liked how spicy it was. This is probably my least favorite recipe that I've reviewed so far.

BUT! BUT! BUT!

I wanted to make something that could easily be sent to a dear pal. I chose the APPLESAUCE RASIN SPICE LOAF-- and I am so, so happy with the way they (I doubled the recipe and made two loaves) came out.



APPLESAUCE RASIN SPICE LOAF
p. 173 GOV
Prepared 10/10/06

This recipe is really fabulous. I don't really care for raisins, but my son does and demanded that I give him some while I was measuring them out for the bread. Since there weren't enough for both the bread and the kid, I gave him the raisins and made up the difference in the bread with dried cranberries. This only added more yumminess.

I used a mess of whole wheat flour...and cornstarch as my egg replacer. And I forgot to add the vanilla (those of you who are baking with toddlers underfoot may empathize).

So to recap: despite the fact that I don't even like one of the ingredients, and the fact that I forgot to add a fairly essential element of deliciousness, this bread is really good and I recommend it as strongly as I discourage my gentle reader from ever trying the above-mentioned gross sauce.

The other adult bread reviewer found the bread to be very sweet, which he enjoys. He thought that the addition of the raisins wasn't that great-- he is selective about his raisin consumption. It was a good snack before dinner...the two-year old contingent was photographed nabbing corners off of one of the loaves as it cooled, and contendedly ate a slice while taking a diaper-disposal trip out with his father.

One last note on my loaf pans: I was definitely channeling the energy/spirit of some of my relatives tonight. My mom gave us the silicon loaf pan (in a bold mustardy orange!) and the glass one was inherited from my grandmother's stash of bakeware. In writing this, I have to laugh, because my well-educated guess is that that loaf pan saw many a meatloaf! The silicone one was dreamy to bake with but the resulting loaf was imperfect in form.

Slightly Disappointing

Tonight's meal was not all that I'd hoped it would be. I had high hopes it would be amazing, and it seemed merely adequate. Ah well.


MASHED GARLIC POTATOES WITH KALE
p. 94 GOV
Prepared 10/09/06

Straightforward enough, sounded good, tasted fine...but not as ultimately yummy as I'd hoped. I love garlic, mashed potatoes and kale, so there were some pretty heavy expectations weighing upon this recipe. Above is a before photo of the ingredients prettily assembled (except for the door of the toaster oven-- dag, that really needs some cleaning!).

It tasted good; my socks, however, weren't knocked off. The older of the two gentlemen that I live with gave it higher marks, though.

I used purple potatoes and threw in a sweet potato for extra nutrition (because um, the kale and flax oil weren't good enough I guess).

BIG BEN'S LENTIL BURGERS
p. 110 GOV
Prepared 10/09/06

I have made these a lot before, and I bake them instead of fry them. Tonight's mixture was too dry and so in the end, we were left with a lot of lentil crumbles. Tasty, though, especially when topped with condiments, the highlight of which was...

BALSAMIC ONIONS
p. 160 GOV
Prepared 10/09/06

I have also made these a number of times before, and man, are they awesome!! If you like onions and twanginess, you will really really like these. It is a very easy recipe, however, I have managed to mess it up a few times due to not paying attention and the onions have still come out amazingly. Easy peasy and delicious.

However, I didn't learn my lesson from yesterday and assumed we had a kitchen staple/important ingredient...yes, gentle readers, we appear to be out of balsamic vinegar. Sheesh. Fortunately, our neighbor had given us something that appears very similar: zinfandel vinegar. Fancy pants vinegar saved me a bike trip to the grocery store with a non-napped child strapped to the back, and the onions tasted just as yummy!

A final note: measure your oil! I often eyeball and always end up with too much oil after the onions are cooked. I mean, it isn't harmful, but you know...I'm just saying.

Do You Like Bananas? Actually, I Do Not.

Yes, it is true. I don't care for the look, smell or taste of bananas. However, they are often in our house. There were some that needed to be baked into something a banana lover (or tolerator) would like, and so yesterday I turned to GOV. Ah! DELIGHTFUL BANANA NUT MUFFINS! But alas, no sooner had I begun measuring out my dry ingredients when I learned we were out of baking soda! Horror! We had a birthday party to hit last night (Happy birthday, Buffy!!!) and so with some of the ingredients measured out, baking the muffins was put on the back burner (pun unintended) until today.

When I awoke for the day (long story), the males of the house had not only finished making and baking the muffins but had eaten about 5/12 of them. One pronounced them "really good," "dense" and "earthy" while our other reviewer said, "eh! eh!"

DELIGHTFUL BANANA NUT MUFFINS!
P. 47 GOV
Prepared 10/8/06

No substitutions or changes were made. Be sure to check your pantry/larder for the ingredients, especially if your significant other likes to use baking soda as a scouring scrub for the rare cleaning that goes on.

Of French Bread and Faux Chicken Salad

My parents were in Paris this weekend, celebrating their 35 wedding anniversary. While budgetary constraints kept us much closer to home, I decided to tap into a related culinary vein. I've had my eye on the FRENCH BAGUETTE recipe in GOV for some time, mainly because it seemed simple to make and delicious to eat. And so, I made it. I was right, it was both, especially fresh out of the oven.



FRENCH BAGUETTE
P. 167 GOV
Prepared 10/04/06

I followed the recipe exactly! If your household is on the smaller side, I'd recommend having friends or family come over when you make this, because -- as previously mentioned-- this bread is especially good right out of the oven and you can serve it up and everyone will oooh and ahhhh and make oooooh la la jokey comments.




FAUX CHICKEN SALAD
P. 67 HIAV
Prepared 10/05/06

The next day, I made the FAUX CHICKEN SALAD. Here, I hit major gastronomic paydirt. Late into my life (and all thanks to my friend Marcia, who often generously shared with me half of her lunch from the Westerly Market during the latter part of 2004), I realized I am a sucker for a goopy fake-meaty salad sandwich, but I'd never tried preparing my own.

I happened to have one of the key ingredients, tempeh, kicking around (tempeh isn't my favorite and so rarely makes an appearance in my world). Because I am not tempeh's biggest fan, I didn't have high hopes for this recipe. Please pass another slice of humble pie, because this scrumptious non-chicken salad rocks, and even more so on a big wedge of french bread!!

I didn't have parsley (for real) or celery so those items were omitted from my preparation. I initially thought that the amount of onions called for was a little much, but after the flavors all did their melding together, it was fine.

My final comment on this recipe is that the next time I make it (and yes, there will be a next time, and it will be soon!!), I will make my tempeh into much tinier cubes.

Funny Cat, Bunny Cat

Sweet Potato Corn Bread and Lentil Soup

For the boy's birthday party extravaganza, his dad and I prepared parallel meals: mine was vegan, his wasn't. The menu was chili, corn bread and salad. For those who might not have been feeling chili, I whipped up some lentil soup. For both recipes, I hit HIAV.

AUNTIE BONNIE'S LIVELY LENTIL STEW
p. 63 HIAV
Prepared 9/30/06

Easy, warm and good. I followed the recipe nearly exactly, though omitted the parsley because I had none. The toddlers liked it-- they had an early preview of it during their lunchtime on the day of the party.


SWEET POTATO CORN BREAD
p. 125 HIAV
Prepared 10/01/06

Very delicious! Its sweeter than I might have normally made it (there is added sweetener) but really was a great accompaniment to our soup/chili selection.

Instead of cooking and mashing my own sweet potato, I used the equivalent amount of organic sweet potato baby food. I only did this as a time saving device, I have no problem with baking a potato and mashing it up during times of less baking freneticness. I used cornstarch as the egg replacer.

I highly recommend these recipes!


IMPORTANT UPDATE! I was advised several days later that the parsley actually was purchased for this recipe. Due to the hustle/bustle inherent in preparing a meal for 20, I didn't see it. In the words of William, my bad.

He Chose Not To Eat Cake...

This past weekend, my son turned two. (Insert comment on time flying, etc.) His party had about 20 people in attendance and to help add to the celebratory mood, I made the VANILLA CAKE from HIAV (p. 147) and iced it with the CREAM CHEESE FROSTING (p. 199) from GOV. Many complements were recieved, which was slightly surprising because it was presented in conjunction with my favorite cake EVER (yellow, with chocolate frosting). Tough choice.

The vanilla cake is a simple and excellent recipe. I have made this cake a number of times, and am nearly always happy with it. It is very dense and...er, cakey...really unlike the cake mixes from a box. I used cornstarch as my egg replacer and doubled the recipe so that I would have two layers as the recipe only makes one layer.

I altered the cream cheese frosting recipe by adding lime zest, freshly squeezed lime juice and a little soy milk. To compensate for the extra liquid, I added some more powdered/confectioner's/10X sugar.

I also made this cake for a friend's birthday earlier this year, and, now that I am thinking about it, also for my baby's dada for his birthday as well (though with chocolate mint frosting). Pictured are all three cakes, with the wee lad's on top.

In the end, the birthday boy opted not to have cake at all. Taking advantage of the lax supervision that occasionally occurs during birthday parties, he was found with a large spoon in one hand and a large container in the other, happily scooping ice cream into his smiling maw.

Welcome! Welcome! Do You Like Chard? I Do!

Hello! I'm going to cut to the chase here. The books How It All Vegan, Garden of Vegan and La Dolce Vegan are brilliantly done vegan cookbooks and I have long been a fan. I have set myself the enviable task of preparing all of the recipes that these books contain, with a few exceptions (see Groundrules). I will report back to you, my loyal reader(s), and provide commentary on how the recipes were to prepare, and how they were recieved by those who feasted upon them (the majority of the time, this will be the males I live with, one of whom is young, the other less so). I have no particular timetable in mind so the hits will just keep coming until we are through. Got it? But wait, theres more!! It wouldn't be a totally 21st century blog if I didn't write about my thoughts and feelings as well, so you can also tune in for those as well.

Now, to the recipes!! Lets begin with the review of one I cooked last week. The first one is so exciting, yes??

CHICKPEAS & SWISS CHARD
p. 117 GOV
Prepared 9/26/06

Yummy and easy! Served for dinner with whole wheat cous cous. A few variations-- I used Trader Joes Southern Greens, not actual chard. And I threw in some pinto beans. The kid ate the beans. The adults ate the beans and the greens. I recommend this, in my opinion it is both delicious and nutritious.