White carrots

Parsnips look like white carrots.

Calling something a white carrot is HILARIOUS!

This obviously is a story that needs to be told.

Let's rewind about 12 years, Rich and are on a date at one of my favorite Chinese restaurants. While enjoying our food he says how much he likes the food especially all the white carrots in the beef with broccoli (he might have said how there weren't a lot of white carrots in his beef with broccoli, it was a long time ago and small details have escaped me, he commented somehow about the amount of white carrots).
Of course I respond with, "Excuse me what?!"
"The white carrots." I continue to stare at him blankly as he picks up one of the said white carrots to show me.
This begins my almost unstoppable laughter and I attempt to explain that those aren't white carrots they are bamboo shoots. We do not agree on this point, they ARE white carrots, his mom told him so.
After dinner we go back to his place and he asks him mom about white carrots, she says, "Oh yeah, I just told you they were white carrots when you were a kid so you would eat them. I guess I never told you the truth."
Again I start laughing A LOT.

That is the story of how I told my adorable 19 year old boyfriend that he has not been eating white carrots but bamboo shoots.

Now let's go back to this past Saturday (it might have been Sunday, I am bad with details even when they are less than a week old). We are at the grocery store and I need a parsnip for a recipe I'll be making later in the week. We are at the veggies and ask him to get broccoli and a large parsnip for me while I go get mushrooms and garlic. He says he doesn't know what a parsnip is, I respond with it looks like a white carrot and naturally start laughing a lot. He gives me a bit of a death glare and walks away as the people around us are looking at me because I am laughing in a very amused and slightly evil way. I guess most people don't find things to laugh about when shopping for veggies.

And that is the story of white carrots and why it is funny to us. So funny in fact when I told this story to my mom she took a sip of her water right when I got to the part that Rich didn't know what a parsnip was and she knew exactly where this was going and the water almost came out her nose. She had to rush over to the sink and spit her water out.

Edamame Hummus

I love edamame (soy beans). I haven't eaten much outside of sushi restaurants recently because I bought a bag of frozen shelled edamame and well they were gross. I bought 2 bags, a two for deal, the second bag has been sitting in my freezer for way too long. I saw a recipe recently for edamame hummus, YUM I thought, I read the recipe and peas were in the ingredients, YUCK. (If that is something that appeals to you here is that recipe: at Yum Sugar.) If there is one vegetable I loathe it is peas, so much so I pick every single one of them out my fried rice. I absolutely loathe peas. Instead of peas I used garbanzos, you know what your run of the mill hummus is made from. It's pretty tasty if you ask me, even though this particular edamame is sub par by itself.

Absolutely horrible and unappetizing picture, what you get is greenish hummus with a good edamame taste added.

I don't really follow a recipe when I make hummus, for this I used a cup of cooked garbanzos and a bag of frozen shelled edamame, it was a pretty big bag, at least 2 cups, I steamed them and added them, the garbanzos, some cooking liquid, and some tahini to a food processor. Blended until it was a consistency I like and added some season salt, cumin, and pepper to taste.

I ate half of it with slices of toasted garlic sourdough, my brother is coming by Saturday to try it and bringing some pita chips. (I LOVE PITA CHIPS) My brother is kinda like Mikey, he likes everything, that's why I am not waiting to post this until after I get his opinion.

If you are an edamame and hummus lover like me, make yourself some of this and enjoy it!!

Halloween and a GIVEAWAY!!

Halloween has to be my favorite holiday, possibly day, or group of days since it's really more than just that one day. So here enjoy my Halloween with me and yes the title says giveaway, details at the end, don't be a dick and just hit end, take a look at everything. Hehe.

Costumes:
I'm a Peacock (you gotta let me fly) and The Beerded Knight, who has his own twitter by the way, click it!!

 At home on Halloween night waiting for kids to come trick or treating (we got none)

 Yeah Batman let himself go a bit, you should have seen his raggedy cape, dude not looking like his old self. 

 Everyone wants to be a peacock!

BAKING!!!! WITH PUMPKIN!!!!!!!

 I've heard smaller pumpkins have better flavor but I don't think it makes that much of a difference.

 Decapitate your pumpkins. 

 Cut in half and take the guts out. (SAVE THE SEEDS TO BE ROASTED. I haven't done that yet but they will be roasted)

 Quarter or whatever size you want your pumpkin and put on baking sheet(s) and bake until fork tender. I had them in at 350F for a bit over an hour but my temp is off and I forgot so it was actually less than 350F.

 Bake until fork tender and starts to turn golden. Let cool, peel, the peel comes off REALLY easily after baking. Then throw in a food processor and process to make a puree. I didn't add any liquid but can add some if you want a more watery puree. 

Then use your fresh pumpkin puree in your favorite pumpkin recipes. 

I made Pumpkin Cookies with Pumpkin Spice Icing.

The biggest hit was the Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Bread. 

On todays to do list is make a few more loafs of this. YUM! 

(The crazy Beered Knight wants some with out chocolate chips!!)

More pumpkin fun (and the giveaway part)

 Fabric pumpkins!!! How cool are they! I love them!

 My favorite patterned one.

 Oh but you have no idea what their size is. Here for size comparison, on my hand.

 Psh! That doesn't help, how lame is that. 

Oh wait I know the perfect place to put it. 

ON MY HEAD!!! DUH!!

 I made mini-pumpkins too. Haven't finished all the mini ones yet, ran out of stuffing.

So this GIVEAWAY business. I am giving away a pumpkin. One of the three below, sorry not the more patterned ones.

To enter just leave a comment. Just say hi, or whatever you want. (Comment here, on the blog, not twitter/facebook/tumblr/wherever else you may see this post linked to.) Make sure you leave your email address in the comment form (I think it works that way, has a place to enter an address, hopefully).  I will also post a follow up notifying the winner on my blog so if you don't put your address for whatever reason make sure you check back to see if you won. I will pick a winner using a random number generator on November 8th. That's one week. Good luck my pretties. (Said creepy like evil witches do. It's just the mood I am in. Oh and I have 2 cats so if you are allergic to cats know that. The pumpkins aren't covered in fur or anything but I wouldn't want them to make someone all itchy and sneezy by chance.)

Refried Beans

Do you know how simple it is to make your own refried beans? Very. I will share with you how I do it.

I buy my dried beans in bulk, pinto beans, or any other type you may want to use. I put desired amount, I don't measure anything for this recipe, of dried beans in a container and cover with a good amount of water, they will absorb a lot so make sure you have enough water for them to absorb. I let them soak overnight. 

In the morning I drain and rinse beans and throw them in my crockpot. I add cloves of garlic, a good amount of garlic cause it is tasty, it's hard to over do it on the garlic, at least I think so. I probably had 3 cups of soaked beans and added about 10 medium sized cloves, no need to chop them up, just peel and toss the whole cloves in the crockpot. I add some cumin, a tablespoon probably and a teaspoon or two of coriander. If desired add a bit of salt and any other spices you may want to add. Cover it all with a good amount of water, cover them with an inch or two of water, mix and let them cook away for the day on low or half a day on high. I like to 'overcook' them a bit so they are already kinda mushy. 

When they are done I let them cool put the beans, garlic, and liquid in a bowl and put them in the fridge because it is late and I don't feel like cooking them right away. Whenever you are ready too cook them, or refry them, add a few tablespoons of olive oil to a pan and heat, I usually use a slotted spoon and scoop beans into the heated pan so I get some of the liquid with it. Once in the pan use a masher and mash and stir beans around while they are being heated, if needed add more of the cooking water so they aren't too dry. You can flavor with more salt or any other spices you may fancy at this point, maybe some chili powder if you like spice. I like to keep them rather simple, or plain I guess, so they can be used for anything sorts of foods and I can flavor/spice more for what I maybe using a serving for. Once beans are heated through you have yourself some refried beans. See simple and pretty cheap, especially if you buy your dried beans in bulk. The refry isn't even necessary, you can just mash the beans and heat for whatever you are using them for. 

The refrying of the beans

I like to make simple tostadas with my beans. Tostada, beans, and a bit of daiya cheese melted on top. 

(I swear they taste better than these pictures look, I am not the best of food photographer.)

Favorite vegan cook book

For dinner tonight I made a roasted garlic and tomato soup with lentils. I left the lentils out in a serving for Rich cause he doesn't like lentils much. It is rather simple and quite tasty. 

 The recipe comes from my favorite vegan cook book, The Vegan Cook's Bible by Pat Crocker.
About a third of the book is information on foods. It is very informative and nice to have an idea what all the ingredients are especially ones that you may not be familiar with. I have only tried a handful of recipes in the book but each one I have tried has become something I will make again and again. A lot of the recipes have tips in the sidebar which are helpful and/or informative. If you are interesting in vegan cooking I recommend this cookbook.

*any mention of specific products and my opinions on them are all my own and not influenced by anything other than my personal experiences

Peanut Butter Cupcakes

I don't usually blog recipes I get from cookbooks because that's kinda the point of cookbooks and I don't want to reprint the books without permission I guess you could say. However these cupcakes are in high demand so here it is.

The recipe is from the book below. If you want a good dessert book, vegan or not, I highly recommend this one. There are a lot of pretty simple and delicious recipes. It is definitely worth picking up if you like baking.

Self-Frosting Peanut Butter Cupcakes

Peanut Butter Cupcakes:

2/3 cups plain soymilk (I used rice milk)

1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1/2 cup dark brown sugar

2 tablespoons flax seeds (recipe calls for whole that you grind but I used pre-ground seeds)

1/4 cup water

1/2 cup creamy peanut butter

1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 1/2 cups flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

Chocolate Peanut Butter Frosting:

1/2 cup creamy peanut butter

1/4 cup dutch precess cocoa powder

2/3 cup confectioner's sugar (aka powdered sugar)

1/4 cup plain soymilk (again I used rice milk)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

In mixer combine non-dairy milk and vinegar and let sit for a few minutes before whisking until frothy. Mix in both sugars. Grind flax seeds into a powder with a spice grinder and whisk them together with the water. Stir flax seed mix, peanut butter, applesauce, and vanilla into your mixer and beat until thoroughly combined. In separate bowl add the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Slowly stir dry ingredients into the batter. Mix until there are no more lumps but don't mix more than necessary.

In separate bowl combine all frosting ingredients and blend until completely smooth.

Divide batter equally between prepared muffin tins. Drop a dollop of frosting into each cup of raw batter and swirl it around with a toothpick covering the entire top. Bake 20 to 25 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into a cupcake comes out clean, avoid a spot with frosting as it may cause toothpick to appear wet. Let cupcakes cool 10-15 minutes.

Recipe says it makes 12, I made 16 and I had to thin frosting a bit, it was too thick to properly swirl on my first batch. I also had A LOT of frosting left over. Now I have to find something to do with peanut butter chocolate frosting besides just eating it because I will make myself sick.

I've also made the peanut butter bomb cookies from the book, picture of them in my previous post, and the root beer float cupcakes, yes ROOT BEER FLOAT CUPCAKES!!! Seriously you will not be disappointed when you buy this book. And if you thought all vegan food was healthy, you will no longer believe that either!

*any mention of specific products and my opinions on them are all my own and not influenced by anything other than my personal experiences

One last *sweet* post for 2010

Although most everyone will be reading this in 2011, especially since it is 10:30pm PST and already 2011 most places.

This blog is about the sweets I made for the holidays.

First up my sweet potato pie for Thanksgiving. I also made two for Christmas.

Recipe for the dough here.

I had quite a bit left over and I have one non round cookie cutter so I cut out some extra pieces and added a decorative border I guess you could say to the pie.

Recipe for the pie can be found here.

Photo below is before baking but looked about the same but with more golden flaky looking crust. It was delicious although a little jiggly/runny at first. Make it the day before you want to use it and let it cool and then sit in the fridge overnight and it will stiffen and be AMAZING. I think my oven is a little off and might be why it didn't cook evenly/well.

Here is a photo of my baking ingredient corner for my Christmas baking, lot's of stuff, lot's of sweet goodness made.
My most adventurous baking endevour for the holidays was definitely the tiny gingerbread houses that perch on the edge of your mug. Directions, recipes, and much prettier pictures than mine can be found here. I adapted gingerbread recipe by using vegan margarine and using ener-g's egg replacer. I found an egg/dairy free icing recipe to use but apparently didn't bookmark it. It used 1 cup powdered/confectioners sugar, 2tsp non-dairy milk, I used rice milk, 2 tsp light corn syrup, and 1/4 tsp almond extract. If it comes out too thin add more sugar or corn syrup until it's to desired consistency. Really wish I had bookmarked the recipe I found so I could credit them.

Here are my pieces all cut out for 2 houses.
Pieces all baked and cooling. Made some extra rounds just for eating with excess dough I had.

My first attempt wasn't super successful, the icing was a bit thin and they looked a bit sloppy and had to be held together before icing dried enough for the pieces of the houses to stick together. I thickened up the icing with more sugar for subsequent houses and it worked great.

All my pretty houses all put together and nicely decorated.
Made some gingerbread turtles with the left over dough bits.

The houses are made to be put on mugs of coffee or hot chocolate or something like that but me being me, I put one on my rum and coke with Christmas dinner. Seems people really got a kick out of this!

Got this wonderful book as a early Christmas present.
Made the books delicious peanut butter bomb cookies. They are quite cakey and I could have used more peanut butter in the middle but they were still delicious.
And lastly and the easiest I made some Candy Cane hearts to wish everyone a Merry Christmas with! I probably shouldn't share how to make them because sometimes I like to feel all cool and make nifty things that others are jealous of, they are seriously so simple! But I will because I like sharing. Candy Cane Hearts instructions.
(side note, don't you just love how I am all Christmasy but with an obvious non Christmas themed shirt, seeing this picture and realizing that made me LOL, but anyone who knows me knows that's just me being me!)

New Years Eve wasn't without it's *treats*. I bought myself a bottle of Venezuelan rum on the urging of a friend who lives there, and enjoyed a drink or two, while writing this no less. ;)

Hope your holidays were fun, happy, merry, and all that good stuff.

Cheers to a new year full of more fun and excitement.

*any mention of specific products and my opinions on them are all my own and not influenced by anything other than my personal experiences

Dinner

I thought I'd share some of my favorite meals since a lot of people always have a million and one questions about vegans and food.

Tonight I made some Lentil Spinach Soup.

I'm not sure where I got this recipe from but it is simple and quite tasty.

1 tablespoon oil

1 onion chopped

5 cups water (or veggie broth if you prefer)

1/3 cup dry rice

2 cups dry lentils

2 garlic cloves minced

1 pound spinach coarsely chopped

juice of 1 lemon

cumin & allspice for garnish

Heat oil in pot add onion and saute until tender

Add water and bring to a boil

Stir in rice and lentils and bring to a boil

Cover reduce heat and simmer 45 minutes or until rice and lentil are soft (add more liquid if needed)

Add garlic, spinach, and lemon juice

Cover and cook about 5 minutes, until thoroughly heated

Garnish servings with cumin and allspice

A few of my personal tweaks to the recipe.

I up the amount of rice because I love rice and I also add sliced mushrooms (with the rice and lentils). Because I add more rice I have to add more liquid, I just check on it and make sure there is enough and it ends up more like a stew than a true liquidy soup. I personally prefer it that way. I also flavor it with some season salt (Simply Organic Season Salt is my personal favorite) and a bit of nutritional yeast (it's like adding a sprinkle of parmesan cheese).

Last night I ate just this as a late meal. If I have more time I usually make some rolls to go with it.

I love recipes like this that are simple and are made with fresh ingredients, or mostly fresh since lentils and rice aren't something I get fresh, but I do buy them both in bulk so for me there is practically zero waste associated with the meal as well.

*any mention of specific products and my opinions on them are all my own and not influenced by anything other than my personal experiences

I'm still here

For anyone who doesn't keep up with me elsewhere I'm still here and all is good enough that I can't complain much.

What have I been up to? That's a very good question.

• I got another tattoo, the week after the last one. October 1st to be specific.
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• That same day Rich got a tattoo as well. Something he kinda surprised me with, the idea that is. He said that's what he wanted to get about a week or so beforehand.
  
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• Funny story about him choosing the font. He was looking through fonts and found a Star Wars font, which would be especially funny because I was getting a Star Trek tattoo. There was Bladerunner font and other movie and things themed fonts. The next thing he said had us both almost peeing our pants we laughed so hard. "Hey I could get the Crown Royal font that way at least I am incorporating something I love." Yeah he said that about getting my name tattooed on his arm, it was perhaps the funniest thing he has ever said!!!!
• I took a long weekend trip to Disneyland. Spent 2 days at the park, had a dayhopper pass that allowed me to go to Disneyland and California Adventure. Spent most of the time at Disneyland. Rich loves Mr. Toads Wild Ride if you wondering. Went to California Adventure for a bit, didn't do a thing there. Not that it wasn't appealing but we didn't make it there until the middle of the second day and were a bit exhausted. I wasn't in the best of mindsets by then because the first thing we did on day 2 was Splash Mountain and I have never seen someone get more wet than me!!! I had a dry patch on one of my thighs and one on my calf, the rest of me SOAKED. I guess that's what happens when tiny me sits in the front of a full log!! California Adventure has a lot of stuff for younger kids from what I saw but we didn't explore it all that much really.
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• I made some yummy Halloween desserts and things. Made them for our Disney trip which was 2 weeks before Halloween and had intentions of sharing pictures and recipes for those who might wanna try them for their own Halloween fun. Obviously I never got to that. I made some pumpkin cookies, a cake, and some blood slide candies. The blood slide candies didn't make it up to Anaheim unfortunately. I also made some peanut butter frosting for the cake and it went well with the cookies as well. Peanut Butter frosting, by the way, was AMAZING!!!!! I used fresh pumpkin for everything. It is beyond simple to make your own cooked pumpkin. Get a pumpkin, cut it in half, cut the stem off, scoop out the insides, save the seeds to roast as well they make a GREAT snack. Put pumpkin halves on a baking sheet, or pan because it gets liquidy sometimes and bake until soft at 350 time will depend on size of pumpkin. Let cool a bit, peel the skin off, and mash/blend it into a consistency that works best for what you are doing. Recipe for pumpkin cookies.
• One of the most fun things I made was blood slide candies. Directions/recipe here. Here are some pictures of the fun I had with them. Boiling up water and sugary stuff.

This is what I ended up with.

It's a good thing I was just making candy blood slides because I had "evidence" left on my hand.

• Recipe for the vanilla cake I made. I haven't perfected vegan cakes yet. They always seem to be a bit gooey still, almost like they aren't quite cooked but the outsides start to burn. It could very easily be my oven or something other than the vegan issue but it really annoys me. I've never been a great baker so it's probably just me. To make the cake more festive I got my inspiration here. Here's what I ended up with.

What made the cake was the peanut butter frosting. Best idea I ever had, and thanks to Condo Blues for agreeing that it was the best idea ever on twitter, otherwise I would have went with the store bought white frosting. Frosting is beyond simple to make, here's the recipe I used. I made the frosting vegan by using vegan butter and rice milk. You would NEVER know it was vegan, probably because of all the sugar, I mean look at all the sugar!

• I still had some left over pumpkin so I made this soup.

• I made the roasted pumpkin seeds (directions for them here) from the pumpkin too. It is beyond simple and you should never throw away pumpkin seeds, they are one of my favorite snacks and they are good for you too! I still have a bit of pumpkin left and am thinking of making some pumpkin bread for Rich, probably this recipe.
• So that's pretty much what I have been up to. The past 2 weeks or so have been pretty uneventful in a just life moving on kinda way. Hopefully I won't be ignoring this blog as much in the future. I will try and make some sort of updates no matter how random. Hope to talk to you all again soon.