The Perfect Sunday

Today was a delightful day. I woke up at around 9am and cooked some soup for breakfast (Christmas lima beans, carrots, and celery). Sundays are my day to clean up the house a bit, so I cleaned the bathroom and swept the floors and cleaned the baseboards. Then I snuggled with the animals on the couch and worked sudoku puzzles. It was so warm (maybe 50?) and the sun was streaming in the windows.
Then I whipped up some wheat-free chocolate chip cookies for desserts this week. At around noon a friend came over and we did yoga for a couple hours. Then I did a little grocery shopping and got started cooking. I took my time and decided to cook exactly what I wanted, even if they didn't really go together.
This is Tinkyada pasta with Tofu-Walnut Balls. I remember seeing a recipe for these balls that called for baking them first and then covering them in an apricot glaze and baking them again...but I can't find the recipe for the life of me. But these were really good, too.

Tofu-Walnut Balls
In the food processor, combine:
1 1/2 cups oats
1 package of firm tofu
4 Tbsp tamari
1 cup walnuts
1/2 onion
2 cloves garlic
1 Tbsp lemon juice
1/2 tsp cumin
1 tsp sage

Then scoop up balls/blobs of the mixture and place on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Bake at 400F for about 20 minutes, flip and bake another 10 minutes.

I served these with a nice sweet & smoky tomato sauce- kind of a hybrid between a usual tomato sauce and barbecue sauce.

Sweet & Smoky Tomato Sauce
2 Tbsp olive oil
1/2 onion
1/2 tsp salt
1 16 oz. can diced tomatoes
6 drops liquid smoke
2 Tbsp. apricot preserves
a splash of tamari

Saute the onions in the olive oil until the onions begin to brown, then add remaining ingredients and simmer about 20 minutes.



I also really wanted sushi. This sushi has steamed tempeh marinated in tamari, carrots, chives, red pepper strips, and wasabi veganaise. Yum!

While everything was finishing cooking, I had time to work out on the elliptical machine. Then Mike and I ate dinner out on the deck (we had to wear jackets, but at least it was kind of warm). After dinner we played boggle- Mike won, but it was really close.

Then I took a long bath while working sudoku puzzles. And then Dirt was on TV. And throughout the day I got about 3 loads of laundry done.

Can a day get any better?

Rice CrispyCakes

I know I already posted a picture of this cupcake, but I really needed to work on the recipe before posting that up. But after sampling about 3 more tonight, I think I'm ready.

I really tried to preserve the texture of a rice crispy treat in this cupcake, but found that it's nearly impossible to keep rice crisp cereal crisp when encapsulated in cupcake batter. So I've settled for ooey gooey melted rice crispy treat centers inside of gluten free cupcakes. If you call that settling.



Unlike most cupcake baking, you have to make the frosting first, as it serves double duty.

Ricemellow Frosting

1 cup Ricemellow Creme
2 Tbsp Earth Balance margarine
2 Tbsp vegan shortening (I like Earth Balance's)
2 cups of sifted powdered sugar
2 tsp vanilla extract
dash of ground cinnamon

Cream together the Earth Balance and shortening in a mixer. Then add the Ricemellow Creme and mix until well combined (it will be gooey). Add the powdered sugar one cup at a time and mix slowly at first, then on med-high speed to fully combine. Last, mix in the vanilla and beat until smooth. Keep this frosting at room temperature until ready to frost the cupcakes.

Rice Crisp Centers

1 tsp oil (for greasing muffin tin)
1/2 cup of Ricemellow Frosting
1-1/2 cups of brown rice crisp cereal ( I like Erewhon's Organic)

Grease a mini-muffin tin. Fold rice crisp cereal into the frosting until it forms a sticky ball. Press rounded tablespoons full of the mixture into the mini muffin tin and refrigerate until firm (1-2 hours is fine). Now these are fabulous just as they are, but they make great centers for cupcakes, too.

Rice CrispyCakes

1 1/3 cups rice flour
1/4 cup potato starch (or cornstarch)
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp xanthan gum
1 cup soymilk
1/3 cup oil
2 tsp vanilla
2 Tbsp ground flax seeds

Preheat oven to 350 F. Line a muffin tin with cupcake liners. Combine dry ingredients (flour through xanthan gum) in a mixing bowl and whisk to combine. In a separate bowl or jar, combine soymilk, oil, vanilla, and flaxseeds. Stir this really well to activate the gumminess of the flax. Then add the liquid ingredients to the dry and stir until thoroughly combined. Spoon about a tablespoon of batter into the bottom of each cupcake liner. Then place one mini rice crispy treat on the batter. Then fill the liners with the remaining batter. This should make 12 cupcakes. Immediately place these in the oven and bake for 12-15 minutes*. Let cool almost completely before frosting. This is one case where the cupcakes should be ever-so-slightly warm when frosting because the gooey Ricemellow Frosting looks really pretty when slightly melted. And it gets really thick, so it doesn't hurt it to melt a bit.

*Note: It is tough to tell if they are done because the crispy treat will block a toothpick inserted into the cake. So you might want to do one cupcake without the treat inside, just to serve as a "doneness tester". Or you could just live dangerously. I can tell you from experience that children (and adults) will still love these even if they are undercooked- and there's no eggs to worry about!

This is my official Cupcake Hero entry for the month. I always seem to wait until really close to the deadline to enter, even though I knew my entry idea the moment I read the theme ingredient of marshmallows. Hmm... What does that say about me?

Unfortunately, I seem to have just missed the deadline for "Go Ahead Honey, It's Gluten Free". But I might just send it in anyways for kicks.

Miso, PB Rolls, and Tamarind Trees

Before I started this blog I chronicled my adventures in cooking on my MySpace page. In January 2007 I had just finished reading Wild Fermentation by Sandor Ellix Katz and was fermenting everything (Part One and Part Two). I've been fermenting a big crock of soy miso in my basement since then. It was supposed to be an 18 month ferment, but the miso smell in the basement is getting to be a bit much. So when we were cleaning the basement today, I decided to pack it away into jars to refrigerate.

Now I've got 4 pints of miso. That should last a while. (Don't worry, Sarah, I'm saving some for you!)

Today I tried out Bryanna Clark Grogan's version of "No Knead Bread". Except I used all whole wheat flour. And I experimented a little.

This is a free form crusty whole wheat loaf with thyme, basil, and coarse ground sea salt on top. It went perfectly with some chili marinated olives!

I wanted to make rolls with the rest of the dough, but then got an idea. Since I'd probably give the kids peanut butter on the rolls anyways, why not put peanut butter inside the rolls?
I greased the muffin tin really well and put a blob of dough in the bottom. Then I added about a teaspoon of peanut butter and topped it with a flattened disk of dough. I pressed it down all around the edges to make sure it sealed. Then I baked them for about 10 minutes at 450 degrees F. I also filled some with Tofutti cream cheeze and apricot jam.

These are just screaming to be served at a tea party. Or in my lunch box tomorrow. Or both.

This next picture is of one of my favorite things that I rarely make, even though it's insanely easy.

This is a Chocolate Soda. If you've never had this old-fashioned soda shop treat, you just have to try it. My mom used to take us to the Old Orchard Pharmacy in Garland, TX to get ice cream treats and I loved getting chocolate sodas. You just mix up a few tablespoons of chocolate syrup and soda water in the bottom of a glass. Then you add 2-3 scoops of chocolate ice cream. Top it off with more soda water to fill the glass and then stir. It gets really foamy and fizzy and chocolatey. It's like a fizzy milkshake. Except that sounds kinda gross, and this most definitely is not.

Here's a great photo of Mike and I at the Como Park Conservatory. The whole family went for my birthday. It was so great to be in the balmy tropical greenhouses while it was snowy outside! The conservatory has a whole greenhouse devoted to food-related plants. There are tamarind trees, orange trees, cinnamon trees, black pepper plants, mango trees, cacao trees, and basically every tropical food plant you can think of. Needless to say, this is my favorite room and always a treat to visit. If only I had a greenhouse like that in my backyard...

Birthday Week

I haven't posted this week, but it's not because I haven't been cooking. Here are some of the highlights:

Coconut Curry Tofu. On Sunday I taught a class on cooking leafy green vegetables and had 3/4 of a can of coconut milk and 1/2 can of diced tomatoes left over. So I mixed them together with some ginger, garlic, lime juice and red pepper flakes and marinated tofu in it overnight. The next day I baked the tofu until crispy, added the marinade to steamed potatoes, carrots, kale, and onions, and served it all over brown rice. I was so impressed that the kids liked this one. It was really rich from the coconut milk and very filling.
This is out of order, but these are the rockin' good pancakes we had on Saturday after our maple syrup tapping adventure. After seeing all that sap, we really needed some pancakes!
I baked these cupcakes for the Cupcake Hero contest. The cupcake batter contains brown rice crisp cereal and the topping is basically the marshmallowy goo that would hold together a rice crispy treat. I call them Rice Crispy TreatCakes. They're gluten-free, too! I used RiceMellow cream for the marshmallows.

And last but not least: My birthday cake.
I didn't decide what flavor I was making until half-way through my birthday. I was thinking about an Italian Cream Cake, but wanted some chocolate somewhere in the cake. Then I saw an apricot almond cake recipe that looked good. So this is kind of a combination of all three ideas.
Vanilla cake with chocolate-cream cheese filling, apricot jam filling, and vanilla-coconut cream cheese frosting.

It was everything I wanted in a birthday cake. And don't feel sorry for me because I baked my own birthday cake- Getting to bake the cake was like a birthday present.

Things I learned today:

1. Whoever said that you shouldn't lick the beaters or eat tons of batter doesn't know what they're talking about. Today I avoided a terrible crisis by licking the whisk while making brownies. If it wasn't for my impatience for chocolatey goodness, I'd be stuck with a full pan of completely unsweetened brownies right now. And that would be a travesty.

2. When you're feeling a bit sensitive and have already cried because you cut you step-son's hair crooked and accidentally cut your finger in the process, and ended up taking him to an obnoxious kids' hair salon to finish it up, the best thing you can do is camp out on the couch with 2 cats, a dog, a batch of brownies, and Netflix.

3. When your brownies are the kind without oil from the Joy of Vegan Baking, it's more than acceptable to top them with ice cream to make up for the missing fat content.

4. Making a double batch of pancakes for yourself and 2 hungry 8-year-olds doesn't mean you'll have extras to freeze for breakfasts this week. It just means that each of you will eat 6 pancakes.

5. No matter how many times you ask a kid if he needs to go to the bathroom before going on a hike, he won't go. He will wait until you are a good half-mile into the woods exploring deer tracks and maple syrup tapping before hearing the call of nature.

Meemaw's Saffron and a Chipotle Omelet

Tonight I made the Revolutionary Spanish Omelet from Vegan with a Vengeance, but with some great variations. Instead of potatoes, I used a mixture of garnet yam and sweet potato. In addition to saffron, I added a chipotle pepper with some adobo sauce. Then instead of the roasted red peppers in the almond sauce, I used chipotle peppers and a little soy yogurt. I used firm silken tofu, not soft regular tofu because that's what I had on the shelf.

Now technically these two varieties are really sweet potatoes. The "yam" variety of sweet potato isn't a yam at all, it's an orange-fleshed variety of sweet potato that is different from the true yam that is native to Africa. The USDA requires that all "yams" also bear the name sweet potato. Names aside, they're both delicious!

Now this recipe calls for saffron threads and in the past whenever a recipe calls for saffron, I omit it... but not because I don't have any.

Years ago, (perhaps 15...oh, jeez...) my meemaw gave me some spices she got in Grenada. She saw I had an interest in cooking and knew I would appreciate these fine and (then) fresh spices. I treasure these spices. I treasure them so much that I have not used them in 15 years. Instead of appreciating them by using them, I've hoarded them and carted them from Texas to Minnesota, taking them out only to look at their faded labels and imagine how my meemaw also treasured these little bags, including the valuable saffron. But today I used it! After all these years, the saffron still has a great scent, rich flavor, and beautiful color. Amazing.


I sauteed some red chard to go on the side of the omelet and dressed it with salt, pepper, and some lemon juice.The little chipotle pepper in the omelet is very mild so that the other flavors (including the saffron) can sing through. The Chipotle Almond Sauce, however, has a good spice and zing to it.

I'm baking a Mulberry Pie for dessert, but it's still in the oven. I'm trying out an oat crust, so I'll post pictures if it's any good. I've got to use up all the mulberries in the freezer before the tree starts to bloom again!

100 Posts and some Dal Balls

So I missed celebrating my 100th blog post. This is the 102nd. So I'll celebrate that instead. Yay! 102 Posts! Who'da thought I'd end up sticking with this?

Sorry my last post was such a complaining-fest. And thanks for all the great comments- It's good to know I'm not along in this big world!

Today's featured dish is a bit odd...Perhaps because it was Mike's idea? Nevertheless, it was a great idea and once tweaked a bit, will be fantabulous. He cooked red lentils and polenta separately and then mixed them together with "chicken" broth powder and sage and some quinoa flakes to make little balls (dal balls). Then he baked them on a parchment lined baking sheet for about 30 minutes at 400 degrees. They ended up crispy on the outside and tender on the inside. We served them over rice with gravy on top. They were a great texture, but a little short on flavor.



The next night I cut the leftover (very solid) dal/polenta mixture into triangles and breaded them with a nutritional yeast, garlic, crushed rice crisp cereal mixture and greased a baking sheet up real good before baking them. These reminded me of fried cheese or fried chicken or something. Again, the flavor was not very strong, but the texture was awesome. We had these with beans and rice and coleslaw. I recommend wrapping it all up in a corn tortilla with some homemade salsa!

Tonight I tried to duplicate one of my favorite soups from the Seward Co-op. While I do all my grocery shopping at my co-op, I always check out the Seward when I venture over the great divide to Minneapolis. When I was in grad school at St. Kate's campus nearby, I had this knack for randomly going to the Seward on days when they were serving their Vegan Cashew Mushroom Soup. Like every time. It's pretty much the most rich, creamy, amazingly delicious mushroom soup you've ever had. In case you live nearby, they're serving it this Friday!

Anyways, since I hold this soup on a golden, diamond-studded pedestal, my version did not live up to its namesake. But it's still really good! I think the trick is to use an insane amount of cashews in a fancy Vita-Mix blender. Unfortunately, I don't have a blender like this and was too lazy to even try my food processor. So I used cashew butter because it was on sale last month.



Cream of Cashew and Mushroom Soup
2 Tbsp. olive oil
1 yellow onion, finely chopped
4 cloves garlic, minced or crushed
1 tsp. dried thyme
1/2 lb. white button mushrooms, cut into chunky slices
1 portabello mushroom, cut into bite-sized slices
4 cups of almond milk (or other non-dairy milk), unsweetened
1/2 cup raw cashew butter
ground black pepper and salt to taste

Heat oil in a large saucepan over medium-high heat. Add onion and garlic and saute until lightly browned. Add thyme and mushroom and continue to cook for a couple of minutes, stirring frequently. Then add most of the almond milk, reserving about 3/4 cup. In a little bowl or jar, mix cashew butter with the reserved milk until smooth. I used a little whisk and it worked nicely. Then add to the soup. Add salt and pepper to taste. Simmer for about 30 minutes until soup has thickened a bit. Serve with more black pepper and some extra cashews on top!

Note: I know Rachel Ray and everyone else says that you shouldn't wash mushrooms or they'll absorb water and get tough. Yeah, yeah, just wipe them with a damp towel. I completely disregard these instructions anyways, but you certainly can for this because you're putting them in SOUP. That's liquid anyways, so a little water won't hurt anything and at least they won't have dirt on them.

For anyone that lives in the Twin Cities: I'm teaching a class on cooking leafy greens at Mississippi Market on Sunday March 16th and a class on using neti pots for relieving sinus congestion on March 19. Plus, in May we've got a couple more vegan cooking classes. Check out the website for details.