Hope Sinks

My grandma makes something she calls Baked Apple. It’s something of a misnomer, since it’s not actually a baked apple, but a thick applesauce with a sweet bread-crumb-ish topping. It’s super simple, but really flavourful and satisfying in really any season.

When my grandma makes it, she uses homemade applesauce, which is both a nicer colour (kind of pinkish - delightful!) and more flavourful and tart. When I had my craving this morning at breakfast, I only had unsweetened store-bought sauce, so I made do with that, but I highly recommend making your own applesauce if you have the time - it’s easy and so much better than the store-bought alternatives.

For my version, I put about a cup of applesauce into a small corningware dish. For the topping, I didn’t have any breadcrumbs, so I made a mixture of about 1/3 cup large flake oats, 1/4 cup brown sugar, 1.5 tbsp vegan margarine, and 1 tbsp flax seed. I mixed it all together and then crumbled it on top of the applesauce. I threw the whole thing into the oven at 400 degrees and baked it on up for about 20 minutes.

The result was a satisfying, reasonably healthy breakfast I hadn’t eaten 800 times before. I’d like to get my grandma’s recipe for this and do it up proper, and I’ll be sure to write about it when I do.

I find myself house sitting this past week (and next week) or so, and I’m really enjoying having a kitchen all to myself. The first 5 days I was pretty slack on feeding myself (I had either a burrito or nachos for pretty much every meal, which is fine with me but boring). Yesterday I had the full day off, so I decided to make the best of it by trying out a new recipe. I’m broke until payday, so I had to find something that wouldn’t require a lot of ingredients I didn’t already have. I just happened to have come across Mark Bittman’s NYT food blog for the first time yesterday, so for dinner, I decided to adapt the recipe of the day from that site: Shrimp in Moroccan-Style Tomato Sauce.

The recipe itself was super simple, so the challenge became finding a good substitute for the shrimp. Now I’ve been vegan over five years and was vegetarian for a good 8 years before that, so I’m pretty good with the cravings (that is, I don’t really get them). I don’t really miss any non-vegan foods, but if you were to grill me, you’d find that the thing I come closest to missing is seafood. I’m a prairie girl, so good seafood was awful hard to come by in my childhood, but I have some pretty fond memories of eating salmon jerky on Vancouver Island and shrimp and clams and things while camping on the coast. I don’t crave this stuff, but because I had such a taste for it when I ate meat, I think I’m pickier about subbing for seafood now that I keep vegan, so I wanted to find a tasty, nice-textured substitute for the shrimp in this recipe. What I ended up with was medium-firm tofu.

It probably sounds overly simple, but what immediately sprung to mind when thinking about the texture of shrimp was this tofu. What I ended up doing was slicing an entire medium block into cubes about 3/4″ and throwing it all in a skillet with some olive oil (maybe 3 tbsp - I didn’t want the tofu to stick and come apart) and 3 cloves of chopped up garlic and about a teaspoon of sea salt. I fried all this up over medium heat for about 15 minutes. I stirred it occasionally, but I tried to keep it so that only really one side of the tofu got browned/firmed up at all.

After the 15 minutes were up, I started on the tomato sauce, which was super easy and really only involved sauteeing the spices and ginger in oil and then adding the tomatoes to simmer for 20 minutes or so and then combining with the “shrimp.” Served over white basmati rice with a lime wedge on the side and cilantro on top, this was an amazing summer meal that I highly recommend you all try. Oh, one quick note on the recipe: Bittman writes in his intro to this recipe that basically, this is normal tomato sauce with the spices changed up. I say why stop at Moroccan? Since this is so easy and cheap, it’s a great one to try with different spice combos and maybe to use to introduce yourself to some new tastes!

So I’m back from San Francisco. To add insult to the injury of being back in my shitty old town, my husband is seeing Iron Maiden tonight (as I type, he’s in a car with 4 friends eating vegan cookies and popcorn, that bastard). Granted, I’m waiting for my sister so we can head out and see Battles (for free, even), and an old friend from university is in town and hanging out tomorrow, but I’m still sad that I’m no longer in San Francisco and will be sleeping alone for the next month at the very least.

Anyway.

Each time I’ve been to SF I’ve meant to write afterwards about the food. Here in Edmonton, vegan food can be difficult to come by, and oftentimes, if I want something either specific or specifically well made, I have to make it myself. San Francisco is a whole ‘nother ball of wax. Where I live (when I’m there) is 4 short blocks away from one of the greatest grocery stores I’ve ever known: Rainbow Grocery. Though native SFers tend to criticize Rainbow for being expensive (which, okay, it can be), the selection makes up for it. Rainbow carries Sjaak’s vegan caramel chocolate bars, more kinds of Tofurkey than I’ve ever seen, three colours of organic beets, and even cast-iron frying pans. Plus, it’s a cooperatively run place that closes not on xmas or easter but on May Day and Hugo Chavez Day, and it carries all kinds of local products (Black China Bakery, Peasant Pies, Maggie Mudd, and countless local farmers).

I didn’t eat out as much this time as I have in the past, but I did have a few meals worth mentioning (though I only got photos of one thing - apologies!). The first night in town, my husband took me to the Jasmine Tea House, which isn’t a vegan or even vegetarian restaurant but which has the greatest mock chicken I’ve ever had. Try it kung pao or sweet and sour style. Located in the heart of the Mission district, the Jasmine Tea House also has the added bonus of being a fun bus ride from my place. This time around, I sat next to a crazy drunk man who called my husband chubby and pontificated on the merits of John McCain for a whole 10 minutes.

Next meal out was breakfast at Boogaloo’s on Valencia Street. While Boogaloo’s isn’t altogether vegan oriented, there are some good items on the menu (I had the tofu scramble with ranchero salsa and mushroom, and husband had tofu scramble with ginger peanut sauce; both of us had fruit in lieu of hash and also rye toast) and great diner-style coffee, which I love.

That night, I hit up Bender’s bar on South Van Ness (a short 10-minute walk from home). Bender’s is not only a cool place to drink (with good beer on tap and a good happy hour and good music), but they serve the vegan fish and chips from Weird Fish! While I haven’t been to the flagship Weird Fish store, if what Lukas cooks up at Bender’s is any indication, it must kick ass. The vegan fish and chips at Bender’s consists of a couple pieces of battered and deep-fried seitan with a gingery sesame sauce and a big basket of home-cut fries. It’s pretty much the perfect thing to eat while drinking. Incidentally, that’s also what I ate on my wedding night, so it will always have a place in my heart.

Next up (and last but not least on the list of restaurants I visited this trip) was the brand new The Usual Suspects Cafe. I was tipped off about this place by my friend melisser, whose new baking venture, Sugar Beat Sweets, is providing the desserts for the Cafe. Now, I complained about San Franciscans who complained about the Herbivore restaurants in the Bay Area. I figured they were being unnecessarily snobby and didn’t appreciate what they had. I’ve only eaten at Herbivore one time, and it was okay, but the food was uninspired, and from what I’ve heard, the staff and management of Herbivore don’t care all that much about veganism or animals or creating really great vegan/veg*n food. This is absolutely not the case at The Usual Suspects. While there is (for the time being, anyway) cheese on the menu, the offerings at Suspects are largely vegan, with an assortment of vegan cheeses (including cashew cheese and macadamia nut cheese). In addition, the kitchen staff are vegans who interned at Millennium, and boy did they do a good job.

The fettucine with pesto, seitan, and oyster mushrooms that I had was perfect. The seitan (which was house made) was just the right consistency; the pasta was cooked perfectly; the pesto was flavorful without being an overpowering garlic paste. The salad was generous and topped with a delicious cherry balsamic dressing. The picture I took doesn’t do it justice, but trust me when I say that if you live in the Bay Area, you should be visiting this place. To top it all off, the chocolate cake with peanut butter caramel (yeah - holy shit!) that I ordered for dessert was so amazing I didn’t get a photo. The cake was moist and flavorful, certainly delicious on its own, but the caramel was perfect. Sticky, thick enough to hold a bit of shape on the cake but without it being too hard and tearing the cake. I could eat this stuff plain and in disgustingly large quantities.

UPDATE: Unfortunately, since the writing of this post, The Usual Suspects closed its doors. It came to light that the owner failed to treat the staff, particularly the kitchen staff, with any kind of professionalism or respect, and so they have walked out. From what I hear, the cafe is attempting to stay open, but I urge you not to support an establishment that abuses its staff. Besides, the real genius of the cafe, the chefs and bakers, are gone and are reportedly going to be opening up a place in Portland ASAP! Sugar Beat Sweets is still fully operational, so be sure to buy their stuff if you’re in the Bay Area!

Finally, I wanted to mention the beers of San Francisco. Not that all the stuff I drank was made in SF, but holy crap do San Franciscans ever know their beer. If you’re in the Bay Area and like to drink at all, be sure to check out City Beer!

I have to get up at 4:00 am tomorrow so I can get on a plane for San Francisco. Don’t get excited - it’s not for good. I was originally going to do job interviews/be there for my husband’s birthday, but now the focus is on the birthday and on the appointment I made to (at long last) speak to an immigration lawyer (well, a legal aid immigration lawyer - read: read a lawyer who isn’t trying to convince me to retain them).

Oh, and I’m going to eat while I’m there, too. Lots, I hope. I’ll keep you posted!

My mom is in town, so I spent the day with her and my little brother and sister. We met up at Cafe Mosaics, where I was finally able to fulfill my salad lust (see yesterday’s post) with the Mosaics Salad at Cafe Mosaics.

We had a lovely lunch and then headed out for a walk in the river valley. It was hot today (26 degrees C / 82-ish degrees F) and sunny, and after walking around for an hour or so, we were ready for something cold. We headed to Da Capo for vegan gelato.

Da Capo had that awesome kind of vegan gelato/sorbet (I never know what to call it) that is so smooth it seems creamy and always freaks me out for the first couple bites or so. I had a scoop of lemon and a scoop of raspberry to cool off, and it totally hit the spot.

We then headed back to my brother and sister’s house while my mom headed back to her sister’s place for a break before heading to Bacon for dinner. I was worried that I wouldn’t be hungry enough to do Bacon justice (it’s my favorite local restaurant, and I don’t go all that often), but I needn’t have worried. Bacon is a perfect summer restaurant. The door was propped open, and there was a warm breeze and sun streaming in the large front windows. Catherine and I both ordered the Australian Mountain Pepper Berry Ale from Edmonton’s new-ish Amber’s Brewing Company. This beer rules, and you all should try it.

For starters, we ordered a couple of the vegan Poutines (roasted sweet and regular potatoes with an amazing miso sesame gravy), which I failed to get a photo of. For my meal, I ordered my standby, the Vancouver Rice Bowl, which contains brown rice, grated raw beets and carrots, sprouts, cucumber, sauteed greens, tofu coated with a nutritional yeast and sesame seeds and then fried all up, wasabi-dill dressing, and sesame miso gravy.

Finally, I just found out that Bacon does Vegan Wednesdays. I didn’t ask what exactly that means, but I’m stoked and will report back with my findings on my next available Wednesday.

I always forget how much I love a good salad.

I know, I know. It’s the vegan cliche: rabbit food. I just can’t help myself. I especially love a mountain of crisp greens (not lettuce, generally - mixed spring greens or straight up spinach are my leaves of choice) with different combinations of textures and temperatures. One of my favorite salads of all time comes from local veggie restaurant (and former place of employment) Cafe Mosaics. Though I can’t share the recipe, it involves spring greens, onions, a whole mess of assorted fruit, balsamic vinaigrette, and (wait for it) portabello mushrooms sauteed in homemade teriyaki marinade. Yow.

Anyway, I walked home from work today (total step count for May 14: 17,873) and found myself starving by the time I made it. I didn’t want something bready or heavy, so, finding a block of Sunergia blue “cheese” my stepmom had bought, I was inspired to make a huge-ass salad. Though I didn’t have any spinach or spring greens, there was a big bag of romaine lettuce (acceptable in a pinch). I made a bed of chopped romaine and decided to go simple: red onion, tomato, mushrooms, balsamic maple dijon dressing (my old standby), and the Sunergia. My salad looked great, and I sat down to eat…

Unfortunately, folks, that Sunergia cheese was gross ass.

A couple hours after finishing my meal (which ended up with me picking out the “cheese” and putting the rest of the salad in tupperware so I can revamp it tomorrow with some fresh veggies and hopefully rescue it from the garbage), I still feel gross. I’ve tried to erase the taste of the “cheese” with a PB cup, jolly ranchers, and gum (oh, and vigorous tooth brushing), but I can’t eat or scrub the gross away.

It’s hard to say exactly what about the Sunergia I found so gross. I ate a bunch of it before deciding it was really grossing me out, so it wasn’t immediately off-putting. It tastes pretty much like tofu and has a similar texture (though smoother and with less liquid). I wouldn’t even go so far as to say that no one should buy the stuff because it’s no good. Who knows - you, dear reader, might like it. I just know I sure as hell didn’t. It’s one of the mysteries of food that sometimes things put you off for no good reason, and tonight, I got put off.

Anyone who wants to bring me some ginger tea is most welcome.

Happy Mother’s Day!

My own mother recently moved away from my town, so I’m spending this mother’s day with three surrogate mothers. First up, I made the stuffed french toast recipe from the current edition of VegNews for my vegan stepmom.

First off, the stuffed french toast concept is genius! The filling in this version is a citrus-y tofu ricotta. The original recipe uses both lemon and orange zest and the juices of both fruits as well. I was a little weary about the lemon, worrying that the flavour might overwhelm the sweeter orange flavour. I was kind of right - next time I make this, I’ll omit the lemon and add a bit more orange - but the result wasn’t too sour and didn’t taste bad. I just would have liked a sweeter citrus flavour as opposed to the lemon. The texture of the “ricotta,” however was perfect - firm tofu and cashew butter created a nice texture that got just the tiniest bit melty when the toast was cooked.

The batter was a simple soymilk and banana mixture with some ground flaxseed thrown in for good measure. I was surprised at how “eggy” the result was when cooked up on french toast. The bread didn’t fry up like grilled cheese but like old-school french toast. Plus, the banana flavour wasn’t overpowering but acted as a nice compliment to the citrus and would, I imagine, be even better with just straight up orange flavour in the ricotta filling.

Anyway, if you have the current edition of VegNews, check out this recipe. It was quick (ish - it took about 45 minutes start to finish), tasty, and actually pretty healthy (the only oil was that that I used to fry the toast in, and there was less than a 1/4 cup of sugar in the whole recipe), and delicious. I’ll certainly be experimenting with the stuffed french toast concept more and will post my findings here

Soon, my grandma will be coming over for tea with the family. I would have liked to have made some kind of tea-related thing, but I didn’t end up having time, so fruit, tea, and leftover french toast with jam will have to do.

Finally, tonight, my brother, sister, and I will be taking our maternal aunt out for dinner at Padmanadi Vegan Restaurant, and then, with any luck, skyping with our actual mother.

In addition making granola yesterday, I made a double batch of seitan (to be precise, the seitan cutlets in Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero’s Veganomicon). Seitan, to the uninitiated, is often referred to as a meat substitute. It’s made from wheat gluten, water or veggie stock, and oil, with many recipes calling for flavoring elements as well. The ingredients are mixed together and kneaded much like bread dough, and then the resulting gummy dough is then either boiled, baked (either in broth, straight up, or rolled into a log inside tight aluminum foil), or occasionally fried. Basic seitan is high in protein (more than tofu even!) and low in fat and salt.

Now, I’m usually a tofu girl. I love seitan when I can get it pre-prepared at a restaurant (or vegan cheese steak style like in San Francisco), but I often tell myself I don’t have the time to make it from scratch myself. While making a batch of my own seitan is more time consuming than opening up yet another package of tofu, seitan tastes better, has a better texture, and is probably better for me than my regular extra firm. Seitan slices thinner and works better in sandwiches and doesn’t get hard in stews, stroganoffs, and other saucy concoctions, and since I make it myself, I can customize the flavour without dropping an extra $3 for a flavour combo I don’t like anyway.

What am I saying? Seitan is my friend, and it should be yours too.

There are a bunch of great seitan recipes kicking around out there. Isa Moskowitz has posted her basic recipe. Jess over at Get Sconed is just one of the many bloggers who has posted the famous Seitan O’ Greatness recipe invented by a PPKer known (to me, anyway) only as Lachesis. Julie Hasson of Everyday Dish even made up a seitan-based sausage recipe that produces great homemade vegan sausages.

My point, I suppose is that seitan may be a bit more work than slicing into a pack of tofu, but it’s worth it, and I encourage all of you to experiment and find your own favorite uses. As for me, I’m rocking the Vietnamese seitan baguette dip sandwiches from Veganomicon, and I’m stoked.

Vegans tend to make a lot of substitutions in their cooking. Whether it’s subbing flax goop for eggs or soy for cow, vegans who cook tend to get pretty good at swapping out undesirable elements in exchange for shiny happy good ones. Though I would eventually like to write more in depth on these kinds of subs, today, I’m writing about subbing food/cooking for something else: my husband.

Everyone who reads this likely already knows, but I don’t live with my husband. I’m in the process of immigrating so we can be together, but for now, it’s just me and my basement. Some days are shittier than others, but I’ve found that the worst is when I have time to actually notice that I’m alone. When I’m working or teaching or running off getting accidentally drunk, I’m distracted enough not to get totally depressed and mopey. When I have days off (like I had yesterday - my first real, full day off in months, actually), it’s harder to keep it together. So what do I do? Well, yesterday I watched Veronica Mars, practised, went for a run, and cooked like a crazy person.

Since my last visit to San Francisco to be with the DH, I find I can’t sleep through the night, and exacerbating matters, I can’t sleep in. Yesterday started off at 7:00 am, and first thing I did was get up and make granola. Granola is one of those things that I think people forget how easy and how good it is. It takes well to all kinds of customization and keeps well to boot. My granola tends to be simple, but the recipe I use can be supplemented without really any call for monkeying around with the base mixture. Here it is, Jordan’s Simple Stupid Hippie Granola:

Ingredients
1 1/2 cup oats (NOT quick cooking!)
1/3 cup walnuts, pecans, or almonds, roughly chopped
1/4 cup shredded coconut
1/4 - 1/3 cup pure maple syrup
2 - 3 tbsp oil
1/4 cup ground flax seed
1/3 cup dried apricots, chopped

Directions
Preheat the oven to 350. In a clean, dry mixing bowl, combine the oats, nuts, and coconut. Put the mixture on a cookie sheet, spreading it out so it sits evenly on the sheet. Pop it in the oven for 10 minutes and then take it out to mix it around (the danger with this part of the process is that the stuff on top can cook faster than the stuff underneath, and you end up with burnt nuts or oats - gross!). Put the oat mixture back in the oven and bake (making sure nothing on the top layer is getting too toasted) for 15 - 20 minutes, or until you start to smell the nuts toasting and the aroma of the oats. Remove from oven.

In a large mixing bowl, combine the maple syrup, oil, flax, and dried apricots. Add the hot oat mixture, and stir well to combine. If you like your granola warm, eat it now. Otherwise, wait a bit, and it will start to get all clumpy, just like store bought. Store in an airtight container, but not for too long. Granola is easy and quick and best when fresh, so make it often!

Stay tuned for Seitanfest later today!

I know, I know. I’ve been not updating again. I’m sorry. It’s a problem.

I hope this new muffin recipe will make up for it: Chocolate Chip Raspberry! This recipe isn’t a super healthy way to start your day (what with the chocolate), but it’s not as bad for you as it tastes like it is, what with the whole wheat flour and flax and the low proportion of sugar in the recipe.

Ingredients
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
2 tbsp ground flaxseed
1/2 cup sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 1/2 cup soy milk
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp almond extract
3/4 cup fresh or frozen raspberries
1/2 - 3/4 cup chocolate chips

Combine dry ingredients (I always include sugar at this stage, even though most bakers and recipes put the sugar in with the wet ingredients). Mix well. Combine wet ingredients in medium-sized bowl and whisk well. Add the wet to the dry ingredients and also berries and chocolate chips. Be careful not to over-mix. Scoop into a greased muffin tin and bake at 375 for 20 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the middle of the muffin comes out clean.