Friends

We're having a get together soon, and new people will be attending. These new people are not vegan, but they do dairy free, gluten free, and soy free diets. Now *my* family is most certainly vegan, so all of the food here will be vegan as well.

Main issue : The new family has several children as well. Like most children, they enjoy bland or sweet foods, nothing spicy or too challenging. I have no idea where to start! The only things I can think of are hummus and peanut butter, and things to dip into them, and maybe potato or squash soup (made with rice milk I guess?). That's fine for appetizer foods, but I need meal foods as well.

Does anyone have any ideas for kid friendly vegan soy free gluten free foods?

Hello vegan cooks!

I am getting married soon, and for my favors I am giving a jar of candied ginger and a favorite recipe of mine. The problem? My absolutely wonderful friend who is a vegan will be in attendance, and I definitely don't want to give her a recipe that she has no use for.

I did a search from the community info page and found a couple of recipes for cookies and things, but she a personal trainer and generally doesn't eat baked desserts like that. Can any of you help me with a fairly easy recipe that involves candied ginger, that isn't a baked good? I know that's kind of tricky, but I'm hoping someone will have some kind of ingenious idea.

(Oh, and yes, I checked to make sure the candied ginger was vegan.)

This afternoon I found myself in the Asian supermarket with money to burn, so I stocked up on sriracha (naturally) and bought some veggies I don't normally buy. I've eaten them, but I've never tried to cook with them.

I can figure out what to do with fresh water chestnuts and the mystery green called gai lan. (Although I was surprised to find raw water chestnuts so sweet! My favorite Chinese place uses fresh water chestnuts, and they don't seem sweet when cooked.)

But I don't know what to do with daikon besides kimchi and Asian slaw, neither of which is happening tonight, and I don't know what to do with jicama besides eat it raw, which isn't so appealing in winter.

Ideas? Suggestions? Recipes? I'm thinking of a curry with sweet basil paste and coconut milk, or a stir fry with lots of fresh ginger. Would I regret putting daikon or jicama into either of those?

Thanks all.

I just received a dutch oven and have no idea what to do with it. The only things I ever heard of making in it were meat dishes. Any ideas about what it's great for?

I finally managed to make a kugelhopf!  I bought the mould in Alsace over the summer and it then loitered in my kitchen while I tried to figure out how to temper it before use.  After much googling and failing to find anything it finally occurred to me to search in French.  Thankfully that worked and soon my precious kugelhopf mould was ready to go!  I made it yesterday in my last day of freedom before starting a new job, my first after uni, as a little celebration as I'll have less time to cook now.  I wanted to do something that would take me hours, and this filled the need nicely.

 

See more pics and the recipe over at AnnaintheKitchen.  I have big plans for this mould in the future.  I have visions of making some kind of cake with a pile of delicious ripe summer fruits in the well in the centre.  Yum!  In the meantime this kugelhopf is delicious and just about perfect for this cold weather.

I absolutely can't describe how much I missed the flavour of this.

Ingredients:
125 g sugar
125 g powdered walnuts
a half glass of coconut milk
300 g dark chocolate
1 teaspoon vanilla flavour

Mix the sugar and the coconut milk and cook it till the sugar fully disintegrated. Add the other ingredients and cook it; the chocolate has to melt. Mix everything. This spread can also be done in the microwave. It will be brushable when it is cooled off.
I know, it's odd that I used walnuts and it still tastes like Nutella; but I think you can also use hazelnuts. I also added some rum flavour.

Oh! Pink Kitchen! Your number is up.
Yes, in packing to move, the time has finally come to box up my kitchen and send (most of) it over the ocean. I'll be without the majority of my cooking stuff for... at least four months. o_O
I wanted to do one last special dinner, so I decided to go with the meal that I make Very Best.



I may not make yaki onigiri correctly, but damn, I make it delicious.

( i will show you how )

Food for thought
I find it funny that of the LJ communities I belong to, they consist of healthy living, exercise and weight loss groups, as well as food groups such as food_porn. The latter is a group of people who love to cook and love to salivate over photos of cooked food by other group members. It might seem counterproductive to be a member of both when it's early morning, I'm staring at a picture of a chunk of fudge made by a foodie while trying to remember exactly why I'm also looking at listings of how much other people have exercised today. But, I think they go hand-in-hand.
To be healthy one cannot just treat food as fuel.

Food and the consumption of it is one of the last sort of rituals that our society still partakes in. In an age when we have very few cultural roots and most people face a loss of identity, there is still something about eating, cooking, and sharing food that brings people together.

I know the whole notion of meals being celebratory has been overlooked in the age of eating on the go, and this is truly tragic. But when I am with friends or family, going out or staying in, the one mainstay of this tradition is the consumption of food. It's rare that I will meet with people and not have a chance to offer or partake in eating.

Maybe that sounds like we are gluttonous. But if it does, that would just be a testimony to how obsessive people are about weight loss; so much so that to talk about food with enjoyment is embarrassing.

I love food. I love cooking, sharing, learning new recipes, having people over for meals, bringing people meals on their bad days, and feeling connected with the world through the consumption of food. Regardless of where my food came from, I can still see the dirt the vegetables grew in when I prepare them. I can still smell the farm when I cook beef from the farmer's market. I feel my body filling with energy when I eat a homemade stir fry or a chicken caesar salad. I adore the sight of tomato plants growing in their big pots on people's decks. And nothing feels like home more than the smell of a pasta sauce bubbling on the stove all day.

Cheers to eating, because we couldn't live without it.

x-posted to my journal & food_porn

Why, yes, I did say Pumpkin Cheesecake Bread Pudding. Rethinking some resolutions?

If it's cold where you live, you neeeeed to make this delicious, simple bread pudding. It's a humble, gorgeous, comforting, easy dessert you'll love. My boyfriend is already asking when I'm going to make it again -- good sign!

This pudding isn't the only thing that's amazing; the cookbook it comes from is phenomenal as well. Heirloom Baking with the Brass Sisters is a collection of heirloom recipes from the Brass family, as well as from yard sales, used bookstores, antique cookbooks, and various family collections.




Normally I post the full recipe in my post here, but in order to only reprint the Brass Sisters' recipe once (with permission), I've only recorded it on my personal baking blog, linked below. You can also read a full review of their cookbook there.

( another photo )


To get the full recipe, see the full cookbook review, or to test your New Year's resolve with more delicious photos, please head over to my baking blog, Willow Bird Baking!

x posted to bakebakebake, food_porn, and picturing_food

Hello :)


Well I have a real trouble with sugar, I really crave it and as I have a bad immune system and my health problems I really want to cut down on my sugar consumption
However I am finding it very hard to find low sugar breakfasts and snacks as I have coeliacs disease as well, and it is soooo cold so I don't exactly fancy fruit salads, and raw veggies that I usually have in the warmer months
Thankyou for reading!
Esmae x

Two dear old friends of my boyfriend and me are from Sarajevo, Bosnia, and like three years ago we spent a week there around new years eve. It´s one of the best and most beautifull cities in the world in my opinion, the way the houses sprawl across the hills surrounding the city, the three styles that show its rich history - old town in Turkish style from the Ottoman Empire, then Austrian style posh buildings from the Habsburg empire and third the big concrete flats from Tito's socialist era. And the way of life in this cosmopolitan city is great. The pace is slow and relaxed, and people take time to sit, talk, drink coffee and EAT! And then sit, talk drink coffee and eat again:-) I loooove the food! Here's a taste. We had so much luck with the weather, although we didn't get to ski because of it, but it was plus 18 degrees celsius and sunny so we sat outside in the mountains and enjoyed the sunbeams midwinter :-)


( Read more... )

Made these for my son, for lunch.  I think they need green onions, but he no likey...

For some reason, almost all of the kosher soy cheeses in my area (Toronto) are designated "kosher dairy". This is a problem because the rest of my household eats meat and I can't serve dairy products at the same table (or heat them in the same oven).

Anyone know how to make a vegan Monterrey Jack cheese? I'm planning to use it in enchiladas, so I'm hoping for something I can shred and melt.

Also, I've heard that nutritional yeast can sub for Parmesan. Is this true, and do I need to do anything with it?

Thanks so much!

I was lazy today. Didn't want to go to the store and buy the already made squash ravioli. Had frozen squash in my freezer, spinach, tofu ricotta (thanks to the ppk) and lasagna noodles. So what did this get me? Almost ravioli???? Close enough...I was hungry....it was yummy.

( recipe )

I did look at the favorite recipes and such tagged, if I missed the correct tag, let me know.

My husband is an avowed omni and feels a meal isn't a meal unless it involves meat as the starring role. I'm not a vegetarian, either, but we both enjoy vegetables, fruits, etc.

My husband, like all the men in his family, now has heart issues. I would very much like to grow old with this man. Which means, even though I have been upping the vegetable and fruit portion of our meals, I need to make a stronger change in his eating. But i need to do it in a way that he doesn't notice, so much. If he feels something is missing, he'll sneak. Like me with snickers bites. If I know I can have them I don't want them. If I'm on a diet, I dream about them.

So I'm looking for recipes of main dishes and/or meals that you - experienced vegans that you are - have made for omnivores where they exclaimed, "OMG, give me more of that insane awesomeness!" I'm just not very experienced at this and I would really appreciate your help.

Oh...and to make it more fun, I'm gluten-free due to celiacs.

I like to cook different things and occasionally post them on my LJ and elsewhere.  And do the occasional food challenge.  I was looking for a nice food community here on LJ and this one seems very nice!  So for for my first entry I give you...

Toshikoshi Soba

That is soba noodle soup and it was very tasty!  Along with the soba noodles is a few shitake mushrooms, a little spinich, green onion, kamaboka (fish cake) and that egg.  Since it was a full moon I went with trying to cook the egg in the soup again.  It may not look it but it was well cooked.  Definitely something I will make again at the end of the year.  Toshikoshi Soba is popular to eat on the last day of the year.  It is said the long noodles represent longevity.

I usually make foreign food, Italian, Mexican, French, Thai, Japanese, Indian, Indonesian and Vietnamese, Turkish, Greek are amongst my favourites.
I love spice, herbs, and exotic tastes like rose and pistachio, cardamon, coconut, saffron, coriander, fresh foreign fruit like lychees, mango, bananas.

However, wherever I go I am amazed by how much better the native food tastes than the copies in Britain. There's little better than palak (spinach) or pumpkin sauteed in spices by an Indian mum, or a fiery vegetable jalfrezi, a home recipe for samosas and warming gajar ka halwa. Lassie has never tasted so refreshing than the one I had in Jaipur at a home kitchen restaurant. My boyfriend's parents are incredible cooks. I could never again drink english soya hot chocolate after ciocolatta calda made with ciobar, or Mama's pasta e fagioli, risotto con fungi, torta di salata.

This turned me to return to my roots to show off simple English cooking. As a vegan, it's not so tasty, most meat dishes looked bland anyway. However, I'm a big fan of English puddings, and every so often enjoy a hearty vegetable stew with dumplings. I also enjoy the food of an English afternoon tea, replacing the tea with espresso or chai please.

I aim to explore English food and it's vegan potential, and aim to create elegant sweets such as those presented to Queen Victoria, for example, this vegan adaptation of the Victoria sponge sandwich cake. There are so many other puddings and cakes I want to try to make simply however, some of which I've already had success with, sticky toffee pudding, spotted dick, jam roly poly, bakewell tart, treacle tart, crumble, bread and butter pudding, banoffee pie, egg custard tart, mincemeat strudel, and many others.






I eventually, after ages of experimenting with egg replacers and having too dense cakes, used the golden vanilla cupcake recipe from 'vegan cupcakes will take over the world, only used two victoria sandwich tins instead of muffin cases.

Ingredients
1 cup soy milk
1 tsp. apple cider vinegar
1¼ cups all-purpose flour
2 Tbsp. cornstarch
¾ tsp. baking powder
½ tsp. baking soda
¼ tsp. salt (increase salt to ½ teaspoon if you’re using oil instead of margarine)
½ cup non-hydrogenated margarine, softened, or ⅓ cup canola oil
¾ cup sugar
2 tsp. vanilla extract
¼ tsp. almond extract, caramel extract, or more vanilla extract
Steps

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease two sandwich tins.
2. Whisk the soy milk and vinegar in a measuring cup and set aside for a few minutes to get good and curdled.
3. If using margarine: Sift the flour, cornstarch, baking powder, baking soda, and salt into a large bowl and mix.
# In a separate large bowl, use a handheld mixer at medium speed to cream the margarine and sugar for about 2 minutes until light and fluffy. (Don’t beat past 2 minutes.) Beat in the vanilla and other extract, if using, then alternate beating in the soy milk mixture and dry ingredients, stopping to scrape the sides of the bowl a few times.
# If using oil: Beat together the soy milk mixture, oil, sugar, vanilla, and other extracts, if using, in a large bowl. Sift in the flour, cornstarch, baking powder, baking soda, and salt, and mix until no large lumps remain.
# Distribute mix between the two tins and bake for 20 to 22 minutes. Transfer to a cooling rack, and let cool completely before frosting.

Vegan Buttercream, I just used the normal recipe on the icing sugar packet but replaced the butter for Pure soya butter. I spread the buttercream thickly over one half of the cake. I spread 3 tbsp of bonne maman raspberry jam on the other half, and sandwiched them together. To finish, I sprinkled caster sugar on top.