Blog Recipe Cooking Challenge - day 3, week 3

More from VegWeb's Blog Recipe Cooking Challenge! Fat Free Vegan is our blog for week 3 and it couldn't be a better one. I love love love so many of her recipes. I make the seitan ribz and scallopine regularly so I challenged myself to make something different.

Yesterday for Thanksgiving I made the Double-Layer Pumpkin Cheesecake.


I followed the recipe exactly and love the results. Its light, airy and so flavorful. Somehow my bottom layer of cheesecakey goodness did not mound up but flowed up the sides of the pie as the top was added. Interesting and perfect so you get some with every bite! I plan on making this pie again.

I slack!

But look, food!
Bean and Teese Nachos! Soooooo good!
Bacon Spaghetti and oven roasted garlic brussel sprouts!

Cilantro Lime Tofu with black beans!



Cranberry Pear Tart!

Ingredients:
1 (16 oz) bag fresh Cranberries
3/4 cup Sugar
1 cup Red Wine
2-3 cups sliced Pears - I used Seckle!
1/2 cup fresh squeezed Orange Juice
zest of 1 lemon
zest of 1 orange
1/2 tsp cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice and ground ginger.
1/2 cup water
2-4 teaspoons cornstarch

Directions:
Simmer everything but the water and cornstarch for 30 minutes over medium low, until the cranberries all pop and cook down some. Stir the water and cornstarch mixture together, use more starch if the pot seems thin, less if its already pretty thick. Pour into a pie crust or your favorite cookie mix. Personally I made a Lemon Tea Cake cookie crust in the tart pans and it was perfect! Bake for 20 minutes at 350 degrees.


The filling is tart, sharp and very richly bodied. The crust gives a great hint of sweet while not overshadowing the star inside it. I served mine topped with a dallop of Soya Too whip. Was perfect, though I think next time I will try to have some vanilla soy ice cream on hand!

Boston Vegetarian Food Festival 2008 - part 1

Boston Veg Fest was amazing!
Just look at those smiling VegWebers! There were four green shirts in attendance Saturday. Unfortunately I did not make some for JW501 or CeltKat. They need one though! Plus I messed up the order and put VegWeb on the back instead of the front. These things happen.



But enough shameless VW'ing. Onto the tofu of the matter!

GreenT, her fiancée M and I left my house at the horrifically early hour of 6:45 AM and headed for Boston. Our drive was super fast and we were at the Reggie Lewis Athletic Center by 9:15, so we drove past in search of camera batteries. Once back we found a great parking place and enjoyed the warm fall air on the way to the center. The crowd was pretty impressive compared to last year's trickle of people.

Once inside the swell of people grew, so much so that the whole entrance area to the exhibitors was filled up before the doors opened at 10. Soon though the door opened and people swarmed into the space, scooping up samples and chatting with fellow like minded people.

Personally, I was kind of disappointed to see that yet again some exhibitors were still in the process of setting up or not even in attendance yet, but I guess that is how these things go. Once inside the doors I hit Cafe Indigo on the right for a perfect mouthful of carrot cake and to buy one of their seitan loaves. The cake was extraordinary and I was happy the loaf was frozen. From there, after pilfering another bite of cake, I wandered down checking out the tables. I wanted to subscribe to VegNews but their table was packed to I walked on. Hannah Kaminsky was free of people so far so I slid up and shamelessly asked for her autograph on my cookbook that I had dragged with me. She was very gracious and did not seem as nervous as she claims to be! Plus those cute felt foods were darn adorable!

Moving on I tried out some Primal Strips. The mesquite lime was tasty but something about the texture just weirds me out slightly so I never buy them. I guess I am old school and still have a deep love for the insanely chewy and almost tough Tofurky Jerky. The crowds were pretty thick and I avoided the really busy tables, knowing I wanted to see the first speaker at 10:45. So when I saw Mah Wah's table was relatively sparsely populated I scrambled over. Their veggie meats are so amazing, check them out at vegieworld.com. I picked up almost $20 worth of faux meats from them, including a ham, spicy gong bao chicken, sweet & sour citrus spare ribs and more!

After this meat glut, I moved onto the Teese booth. Not only did they have adorable one pound cheezes for sale, they had nachos. Let me say that again.. NACHOS. Oh my goodness. I purchased one each of the cheddar and nacho flavor and my very own paper tray of chips to slather cheeze onto. I must say, Teese is absolutely amazing. I have enjoyed the Moz flavor at home several times, but the nacho was beyond great in my opinion. I will be ordering more of it soon!

From there I tried out some Bombay Potatoes from Tasty Bite. They were fantastic! The next booth I fought for space with was Soya Too. They had cartons of their Soy Whip as give aways. Oh my goodness! How awesome is that? I grabbed one for me and one for greenT and snatched up the coupon they had out. I cannot wait to whip up some creamy goodness. I am thinking of using it as cake frosting in a berry and chocolate layer cake.

Next I waited for the Galaxy foods guy to make a quesadillia with the vegan slices. It was good. I just wish my grocery store carried it! Onward I went to a booth selling plates of food. I bought bits of fried goodness and staggered under the weight of my backpack up to the speakers hall. Nibbling on my food I awaited the beginning of the talks. Luckily I finished up my wantons, dumplings, spring roll and drumstick before Sarah Kramer came on. Mainly because I wanted to video the whole thing. And I did. The two segments will hopefully be added or linked here soon!

As you can tell it was a jam packed day, and the time was only 10:45 am! This day went on till 11pm when we left Boston for home. But the rest of the event and post event fun is another post! Stay tuned for more.

My daughter cooked!

Last Friday I asked Angel what she wanted for dinner early in the morning, before I left for work. In her cranky, sleepy teenage drawl she replied "Spaghetti". So I picked up all the fixings after work and we cooked!

She diced onion, mushrooms, zucchini, yellow squash and tomatoes. Plus she sauted them quite well, though she stirs things a bit much for my taste, but thats all practice! We did cheat and use a jar of sauce but she added herbs of her choice, basil, oregano and lots of garlic! The pasta turned out just fine even if I insisted on being the one to drain it.

I was pretty proud of here and I could tell, she was proud of herself!

Its funny but my mom started teaching me how to cook when I was very young. And I tried to encourage Angel to learn, but this time, I think it made an impression. How often do you get to encourage a 15 year old to cook an entire dinner?! And they do so happily? That was the best part.

Earlier in the week we tossed dinner together and did some baking for a Relay for Life bake sale at my work. First we made dinner, I made Chickpea Mushroom Noodle Casserole and she made roasted cauliflower. She picked out the spices for the cauliflower and enjoyed sprinkling on salt, pepper, garlic and 1 teaspoon Spanish Smoked Paprika. At the end of 30 minutes the cauliflower was fantastic. Sharp, pungent and a perfect veggie to serve alongside the casserole. It had the lovely hint of smoke and the faint bite of heat.

After dinner we baked up mini loaves of Banana Bread, Mini Chocolate Mousse Pies and Orange Creamcicle cupcakes. Angel did make chocolate soup that was supposed to be a boxed brownie mix, but measuring seemed to elude her. Unfortunately that had to do down the drain. But everything else was lovely. The bake sale raised over $500 from everyone's contributions! Plus I got to eat some VCTOTW Cookies & Cream Cupcakes made by a coworker! YUMMY.

This week's menu is far from complete but so far we have a large salad planned for tonight, to beat the 90+ heat. Stirfry using the leftover veggies from the salad on Tuesday and Wednesday I plan on making some delish Indian food; Mushroom Curry and then my awesome Chickpea recipe. After that, who knows!

As the move draws closer and closer my condo gets more and more boxed up and I fear cooking will become challenging. Luckily its just across town and I should be able to move the kitchen as is almost without much strife and hopefully in one day.

Dressed Up Eggplant

Tonight I made a lovely eggplant recipe from VegWeb. Dressed Up Eggplant is a time and somewhat labor intensive recipe but it rewards you with a delicious dinner and hopefully lunch the next day.

Below is the VCTOTW chocolate cake with ganache and cream cheese frosting. It was rich and delish.


The Roasted Garlic Cauliflower soup. I did warn you that it was not overly photogenic. But it was yummy.


And finally. I could not resist Peach Muffins!
I used the recipe posted by VeganYumYum's very own Lolo on the first. The challenge was to see if spelt or wheat was better. Honestly, I have never used spelt flour before. But tonight I picked up a bag and used 1cup Spelt and 1cup Whole Wheat Pastry Flour. I think I did use too many peaches as I had enough batter for 12 regular muffins and 12 mini muffins.

They are slightly crumbly but taste divine. Even my hubby who dislikes peaches ate the one on the right. I found these light, delicately flavored and just slightly tangy from the peaches. Thank you so much Lolo!

Baking with fruit!

A very nice friend from work gave me an awesome thank you gift. Three pounds of fresh fruit. The blueberries were amazingly yummy and the two pounds of strawberries just as good.

First up, a recipe from the Joy of Vegan Baking! Blueberry Cobbler. Yum


Just look how it turned out. Here it is all warm, bubbly and sweet. So good. We scarfed it down before dinner on Sunday. What good is making a warm dessert if you have to eat it cold?!



Next when I got into work on Tuesday morning they were going to throw out 6 very brown bananas that has sat in the pantry all the long weekend. This just screamed for banana bread with a little bit of finely diced walnuts.



Those strawberries got eaten straight from the carton but last night I knew I needed to use the last half up. I modified the banana bread and made Strawberry Bread!



This bread is chewier than the banana version and flatter, possibly due to the smaller amount of fruit used. But it is delicious. Lightly sweet and with that delicate berry flavor permeating the dense crumb. I cannot wait to toast some and slather it with Earth Balance margarine.

These two breads I started baking after 9pm last night. Someday I will find motivation to bake before bedtime!