vital vegan

capnleela — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 01:16:36 +0000

As it is World Vegetarian Day & the start of Vegan MoFo once again, it’s also the return to posting every day about food.

I came across this today, and also

A press release I received today

Today, Thursday, follows an all-day fasting I did for Yom Kippur. Needless to say, I’ve thought a lot about food lately. But haven’t necessarily eaten a lot this week, since I was still contemplating things. I do that a lot.

Instead of worrying about all the nasty processed stuff that people are putting into their bodies, here’s some simple produce I picked up from the farmers’ market:

Enjoy.

Baking bread

capnleela — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 04:05:36 +0000

I came across a recipe a while back for nigella barley bread, and decided to try it. Of course the co-op didn’t have nigella seeds and I misplaced my barley flour when I started adding the flour to the yeast, so I kind of played the part of Dr. Frankenstein and took a little bit of a lot of things I had on hand to create a suitably edible creation.

Here were the first two results.

Sun-dried tomato pesto and cornmeal bread:

and Millet and Indian spices loaf:

I made both of these breads on a Sunday about two weeks ago. Last weekend I decided to experiment again. Since it was after the Thanksgiving holiday, but I hadn’t yet made a full festive dinner, like I usually do, I took the celery and onions I was going to use in stuffing (which would have required cubing Dave‘s rye and whole grain breads I bought for the occasion), and added it to my dough. In went more millet and some poultry-esque spices, and here’s what it looked like (after a bit of munching):

I thought the consistency of this latest batch was better (I think I may have overworked the dough in the first two attempts), and definitely want to keep trying. When I get back from California in January, I’m going to attempt a sourdough starter, and try to keep it going so I can begin to bake rolls and loafs (have you seen New Seasons’ bread prices lately?!?) and maybe have a meatless meatball sandwich party when I finally perfect it.

Oh, and for Thanksgiving, I made an apple tart, but stupidly forgot to take a picture. Oh well. I’m going to be making a pear and cranberry tart in the next few days hopefully and won’t forget to document it. Also planned (and by that I mean I thought these up and am now craving them but don’t want to be stuck eating them all by myself, so will be giving them away to friends this holiday season) is a coconut cake with fudgy chocolate frosting, a spiced apple and raisin strudel, a peach and dried cherry pie (or tart), Mexican wedding cookies, peanut butter cookie crust cheesecake with chocolate chips (vegan, of course), and something special for Jill (can you bake a salad?).

New focus

capnleela — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 06:45:37 +0000

Hmmm. Ok, have been mostly focusing on baking lately, including Mexican wedding cookies for Los Gorditos’ all-vegan location grand opening (complete with menu I designed), cake with coconut and chocolate chips, and chocolate cake with peanut butter, coconut flakes and chocolate cake. The latter was made for a newly formed artist collective’s first meeting/potluck, which included a painting party (of canvases, not walls).

So that got me interested in art and design again. I guess I’m just going to share some of my favorite sites and try to remember some of the ones I used to look at nearly every day.

Newspaper design has always been a passion of mine, from typography to graphics to artwork to unexpected headline location to the the placement of articles in relation to all of the above. I know, I’m a nerd.

A few weeks ago, I went to the art museum for the first time. I stayed for hours, really staring at pieces and getting uber close, scaring some of the guards, in fact, because, well, I guess I had realized I’d been missing something. I missed beauty and skill and talent and inspiration, motivation, time and effort that produced amazingly complicated and detailed results. I really needed that. And now am hoping to incorporate more of that into my life. I’ve been stagnant, going through the motions for months now, and I think the election was just the thing to wake me up.

More to come…

October’s over?!?

capnleela — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 21:14:50 +0000

Uh, oops. I kinda lost track of time. I still have so many things I haven’t made and wanted to. Getting out The Alliance has proven more difficult than I imagined, so haven’t made much of anything lately.

Here’s a savory sun-dried tomato and herb danish from Sweetpea, tofu pad see ew from Thai Thai II, and some soup I made with lots of vegetables (which tasted a little bland, so I added Tofurky sausage bits to it) and other healthy stuff, including onion, zucchini, green beans, potatoes, diced tomatoes, lots of herbs, and barley.

Weekend eats

capnleela — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 00:24:11 +0000

I’m too tired to write right now. Here’s some pictures.

Fresh flavors

capnleela — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 01:25:00 +0000

I was trying to use the veggies I bought yesterday in the easiest way possible, without masking their fresh taste. So I roasted some olive-oil sprinkled zucchini in the oven, then cut up the amount that wouldn’t fit on the baking sheet, adding it to shallots. I sauted them together, then added a few handfuls of cherry tomatoes and garlic. I added the “sauce” to rotini pasta. I ate most of the roasted zucchini with just a bit of salt. Simple but super flavorful. I have a weird love of zucchini, probably because I used to eat fried battered zucchini as a kid from some places my dad used to take me to.

Addition: How much do I want to veganize this? I’ll definitely post pics and invite some of you to partake if I do.

More market

capnleela — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 06:08:54 +0000

Wednesday is co-op day. More lobster and chanterelle mushrooms. Got unsolicited instructions on how to clean dirt off them before cooking (so didn’t need that explained). Bought many more pears (previous post had red bartletts) including comice and bosc. Bought giant container of baby cherry tomatoes for lots more pasta making, zucchini for roasting and/or soup ingredient. Went into the co-op for lots and lots of flour (needed for cinnamon roll recipe, if I make the full batch), spelt flour for future bread making, barley to put in soup, and polenta for more experimental cooking next week.

Another P

capnleela — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 05:07:58 +0000

I totally forgot that I had a whole lot of pears, so baked them up Tuesday. I was catching up on The Splendid Table podcasts on Monday when I heard the recipe, but decided to change it a little. I baked them a few minutes cut side down, then flipped them over and added a crumbly topping to them. Around the pears I added a little water and a sprinkling of sugar. As they baked, the pear juices added to the caramelization taking place. Pretty damn tasty.

And I love how you can tell what time of the year it is based on people’s outdoor decorations:

National Nut Day

capnleela — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 04:37:26 +0000

Wednesday was National Nut Day, which I found out a little late, but that’s OK because I had made an Asian stir fry meal with cashews late Tuesday for Wednesday’s lunch.

In talks with Jillie Bean earlier, I agreed to make cinnamon pecan rolls, so went to Trader Joe’s for some nuts. I don’t know why they seem to be cheaper there than other places, but they are. I checked the co-op, Whole Foods and Grocery Outlet first (yes, I did a lot of shopping today), but no go. Trader’s FTW. I’ll likely use Martha’s recipe and do my own wacky filling.

Oh, and finally here’s a picture of the peanut butter and chocolate chip loaf cake I made over the weekend:

I like things that start with P

capnleela — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 06:02:00 +0000

Yeah, I’m noticing weird food choices more and more lately. I had some zucchini I wanted to cook that I had put in the freezer with the cut-up eggplant from last week, so figured I’d make something. Took spelt bread, crumbled it, added salt and dried herbs to become breadcrumbs. Breaded the eggplant with it after dipping it in oil and a bit of hemp milk first. Roasted it and the zucchini.

Totally forgot to take pics of it though, because was busy making…

Slightly weird combo foods:

While the zucchini and eggplant were cooking, I tried to figure out what else to make as long as I had the oven on. Spotted polenta on the shelf in one of those tubes. De-tubed it, added hemp milk until creamier, put in rest of bread crumbs, shallots, more herbs and drizzled olive oil on it. Baked in large flat casserole dish. Made black beans, with grilled shallots and cumin and other random spices. Cut up Tofurky Italian sausage and added some (grilled first) to beans. Ate together.

And here’s some more pictures, since I seem to have forgotten to post between now and Wednesday:

Corn from the farmers’ market at PSU (seen on corn-themed veggie plate), chanterelles from the same, ditto to potatoes, and shallots in the green beans with shallots side dish. Added a bit of barbeque sauce to Tofurky sausage while heating it.