Check out my farmer’s market, yo

By Monica on July 11th, 2008

So while Raleigh certainly isn’t vegan paradise, I wanted to elicit sympathy show folks why I found the NC State Farmer’s Market so exciting. Behold, this is my farmer’s market, all 5 booths of it:

The photo is from my car as I drive past because I have not bothered going so far this year. (Please ignore the dilapidated orange ghetto trains in the background, my town thinks those are “antiques”.) From my car window each week I can spot lettuce, spinach, cabbage, and more lettuce. Illinois won’t have much else for another month or two. There are 5 booths so far; there will be about 10 when sweet corn season hits. The nice older lady in the middle there sells beer mustard, and the booth on the far right is non-vegan baked goods, so technically there are 3 booths of produce. I hope this explains my fascination with REAL farmer’s markets now!

Moo-ving on, here are some smoothies made from aging berries I would not allow to go to waste. Really though, this is just an excuse to show off my new glasses. The animals all have butts on the other side, heh.

In actual food this week, I made a double batch of Jessy’s Mom’s Magnificent Tuna-Free Tuna Casserole. Rule of thumb in my house is to double any casserole recipe to save more for later. That would have worked well if we didn’t eat the entire damn thing over the course of the week. A word of advice if you double this recipe - immediately freeze half of it because self control is powerless here.

And to round things off nicely - Apricot Cranberry Nut Pie from The Garden of Vegan. It’s so pretty one can almost overlook the pre-made crust, I hope.

But wait, there’s more!  Despite being labeled a weirdo for making soup in July, we made a batch of V’con Roasted Garlic Tomato Soup with Beans and Rice.  July or not, it was delicious…

…especially when paired with Bryanna’s Focaccia Bread - a tomato basil variety, of course.  Both the soup and the focaccia recipes make enough to feed an army, so I have all these delightful leftovers to look forward to this weekend, yay!

The Postman Cometh

By Monica on May 27th, 2008

I’ve been blessed with two awesome mail deliveries recently: Bazu’s Infamous Sourdough Starter, and Amy’s Amazing Homemade Cookie Assortment.  Both of these were WAY better than the electric bill and student loan statement that I can usually thank the postman for.

I’ve been eager to play with sourdough for ages, and Bazu’s starter did not disappoint.  Within hours it was a bubbly, frothy bowl of goodness!

Thursday nights have become Pizza & Lost nights at my house, so the first thing I made with the starter was sourdough pizza crust.  I found this delightfully simple recipe that needs only 1/2 an hour to rest/rise and it works perfectly.

Up next was a sourdough rye bread that Vegan Eats & Treats made with Bazu’s starter; it looked so good I gave it a whirl myself.  The recipe made two gorgeous loaves, the only problem being that they both got eaten almost immediately!

Then I was lucky enough to win Vegan Addict Amy’s cookie contest, and this amazing package arrived a few days later, complete with an adorable whale card and cookies wrapped in biodegradable bags:

We had Oatmeal Raisin (my all time favorite cookie), Peanut Butter, Ginger, Lemon Zingers, and Snickerdoodles.

It was a very tough call, but the Lemon Zingers stole my heart.  Thankfully Amy has the recipe online here.  I strongly encourage everyone to try these out and also to encourage Amy to open a Cookie Addict store and start selling these babies!  They are absolutely of professional bakery quality and right now I’d shell out big bucks for another Lemon Zinger!

And lastly, because I need to cram rhubarb recipes into every single post for the next 3 months to catch up, here’s a basic Apple Ginger Rhubarb Crumble.  Last week Sarah Kramer mentioned such a crumble on her blog. I’m not sure if she has a recipe for it in one of her books for one or not, but she inspired this version.

Like most crumbles, there isn’t much of a recipe to follow and knowing me, I wouldn’t write it down even if there were.  I peeled and diced a 3lb bag of gala apples, and diced an equal amount of rhubarb (maybe 8 stalks?).  Into a 9×13″ pan both went, tossed with a couple tablespoons of flour, about 2 teaspoons of ground ginger, and a liberal smattering of brown sugar (~ 1 packed cup?).   Top with your favorite crumble concoction an bake at 350 degrees for about half an hour.  Drizzle with some non-dairy milk if you’re so inclined.

Again, many thanks for Bazu and Amy for their generosity!

Chicago Green Festival

By Monica on May 21st, 2008

Last weekend was the Chicago Green Festival, and since Ray and I were in the area anyway, we headed to Navy Pier to see what vegan yummies and green innovations the show had to offer.

The first ‘innovation’ we came across was this blueberry cheezecake from Totally Vegan. I’ve never heard of “Totally Vegan” before and possibly for good reason, this was the worst cheesecake I’ve ever had in my life. Each bite was different, one chalky, the next runny, like it may not have been mixed well? After 2 bites each, it went into the compost bin.

Thankfully there was no shortage of other vegan vendors with other goodies to get that taste out of my mouth, like this delicious bread pudding from Karyn’s Cooked:

After sampling for a couple hours, we made it to the food court where the Chicago Diner, Soul Veg, and Temptation were set up. After harassing the Temptation staff about not bringing Teese for me to buy, Ray and I got two massive cookie dough ice cream cones, not knowing they would weigh about 2 pounds each! So good!

VegNews was giving out these handy totes for renewing your subscription. Mine needed renewing anyway, and then I had a new tote to carry home all of our free loot!

My favorite part of the Green Festival, however, was all the elephant poop. That’s right - there was a ton of elephant poop at the fest!

We learned that many organizations are now making paper products with recycled elephant dung in an attempt to foster a healthier relationship between elephants and the people of Sri Lanka. Apparently Sri Lanka is home to 1/10 of the world’s Asian elephants and they are being killed because they interfere with agriculture. Given that an elephant leaves behind 500 pounds of dung each day, and that their veggie-based dung is almost entirely cellulose (perfect for paper making), many organizations feel that utilizing dung for income is one way humans and elephants can coexist in Sri Lanka. If the elephant is seen as an economic contributor to the region, people may be more tolerant, and may even learn to value the elephants as a part of their world.

The paper is gorgeous, acid free, environmentally and animal friendly. How cool would it be to send out wedding invitations on elephant poop?! Check out MrElliePooh for more info.

And lastly, I am including a recipe for Aunt Yvonne’s Rhubarb Bread, a recipe from Animal Times. (You should get used to seeing a lot of rhubarb posts for a while!) I don’t know who Aunt Yvonne is, but she makes one wicked loaf of rhubarb bread!

Aunt Yvonne’s Rhubarb Bread

1 1/2 cups light brown sugar
2/3 cup vegetable oil
1/4 cup silken tofu
1 cup soy milk mixed with 1 Tbsp. lemon juice (let stand 10 minutes)
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. vanilla
2 1/2 cups flour
1 1/2 cups diced rhubarb
1/2 cup chopped pecans (I used walnuts)
1/3 cup white sugar
1 Tbsp. margarine, melted

Preheat the oven to 350°F
In a large bowl, combine the brown sugar, vegetable oil and tofu and mix with an electric mixer until smooth. In another bowl, combine the soy milk, baking soda, salt and vanilla.
Alternate adding the soy milk mixture and the flour to the sugar mixture, beating well after each addition. Fold in the rhubarb and pecans.
Turn the batter into a lightly greased and floured loaf pan (8″x 4″x 3″).
Stir together the white sugar and melted margarine, then sprinkle over the top of the loaf. Bake for 50 to 60 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Rhubarb, Rhubarb Everywhere

By Monica on May 14th, 2008

…And lots of pies to make.  My mother is fairly easy to please - she asked for a Strawberry Rhubarb Pie for Mother’s Day, which is also my personal favorite so of course, I made two.

Step 1: Prepare a giant batch of organic strawberries.

Step 2: Give tasty strawberry top treats to chickens.

Step 3: Question yet again, why you planted a dozen rhubarb plants when you meander into the backyard and find a rhubarb jungle.

Step 4: Return with an armload of rhubarb, and try to keep the vegan-wannabe cat from chewing on all the stalks.

Step 5: The Crust.  Make sure not to choke your spouse during this step as he constantly asks why you are getting frustrated, why the crust keeps crumbling, and why Martha Stewart makes it look so easy.

Step 6: The filling.  Double this if using an oversized, deep pie dish.  Now you remember why you planted a dozen rhubarb plants and swear your eternal love to this hardy plant.

Step 7: Cover with more crust and bake, hoping the filling doesn’t leak over the baking sheet you smartly placed the pie onto in the oven, lest you enjoy black smoke filling your kitchen & scouring your oven.

Step 8: Let cool as long as you can tolerate and then enjoy.

Strawberry Rhubarb Pie
Crust:
2 cups flour
1t salt
1/2 cup EB “buttery sticks”, or your favorite veggie shortening, cut into small pieces
4T EB, in small hunks
4T ice water
Filling:
2 cups strawberries, halved
2 cups rhubarb, cut into 1/2″ slices
3/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup flour
1T lemon juice

To make filling - mix all filling ingredients together in a large bowl and let sit while you prepare the crust.
To make crust - Add flour, salt, shortening, and EB butter to a food processor.  Pulse until the mixture forms a coarse meal.  While pulsing, add ice water 1 tablespoon at a time until the mixture forms a dough just moist enough to hold together when pressed.
Divide dough into two, and on a sheet of plastic wrap, form each into a round flat shape.  Wrap completely in plastic and refrigerate for at least 20 minutes.
After cooling, roll out dough for the bottom crust and place in a 9″ pie pan.  Add the pie filling.
Roll out the second crust and place over filling, crimping edges.  Make 3 slits in the crust for venting.  Brush lightly with soymilk and dust with turbinado sugar if you like.
Bake at 350 degrees for approximately 60 minutes, until crust is golden and juices are boiling.