Pumpkin Pie and Ice Cream

So it’s been a while.  I got jealous of all the posts from Americans with Thanksgiving meals, so I made pumpkin pie.
Crust: The basic crust from Pies and Tarts with Heart
Filling: Pumpkin pie from Vegan Pie in the Sky
Ice Cream: Vanilla from Vegan Scoop
FINALLY, a crust recipe that doesn’t go to mush!!!!  It was really good. Next time I think I’ll go for the Toasted Cinnamon Ice Cream from Vegan A La Mode.

Hoping to do more posts soon!

Vegan Ice-cream

Hey everyone!   So it’s been a month since Mofo.  What have I been up to?  Making vegan ice-cream!

On Theresa’s suggestion I got a Red Cuisinart one from Peters of Kensington.  This thing rocks my world.

I started off with recipes from Vegan Scoop by Wheeler del Torro.  Damn good book.  Only thing is, most of the recipes call for Soy Creamer as well as Soy Milk.  I’ve been increasing the arrowroot (tapioca) powder by about 8g per batch and it seems to work well.

Here’s the only batch I’ve photographed so far.  It’s Butterscotch icecream with chopped chocolate honeycomb (purchased from Green Edge).  Damn fine icecream.

I’ve also started using the Hannah Kaminsky book Vegan A La Mode.  I’ve tried the Toasted Cinnamon ice-cream so far.  The photos are still on Cam’s camera.  Her recipes (so far) don’t seem to need Soy Creamer and use Cornflour as thickener.  I want to make a few more recipes before I do a proper comparison.

I’m planning to make a whole lot of pies, seeing as I was the lucky winner of Theresa’s giveaway, for Carl Sagan Day (from Pies and Tarts with Heart by Dynise Balcavage)!  Now to choose an ice-cream recipe that goes well with apple pie.  I may have to make two flavours, just in case

VeganMofo 2013: Post 22-Simple dinner

Cam cooked a lot this week (he had days off and I’m generally super tired after a day in court).  He definitely has really good instincts for what goes well together.  I had my doubts, but this was definitely good.
Lemongrass ‘chicken’ (Explore Asia Soybean Chicken from Green Edge) on baguette with a side salad.  The Lemongrass was a lemongrass sauce Cam got from a Thai grocer in the valley.

This was really good.  That soybean ‘chicken’ is pretty tasty.  If I’m correct, it’s the stuff they use at Green Edge for the fake bacon for breakfasts.  Yum!!!

Oh, had to add this.  It's been doing the rounds on Facebook and is freaking hilarious! I'm The Masked Hummus.  Cam's The Almighty Nooch.  Lol.

VeganMofo 2013: Post 21–Super quick post of last night’s dinner!

Photo from my phone!  From the bottom right in clockwise direction: Fry’s Schnitzel with bottled Ariabiatta sauce and notzarella, leftover tempeh “fishsticks” from the Unfishwiches and green salad.  The Schnitzel parma was pretty damn good.

The ice-cream maker arrived!  I’m waiting for the bowl to fully freeze to make the first concoction.

VeganMofo 2013: Post 20–Healthy(ish) Italian!

Howdy everyone!  I made it to 20 posts in 24 days!  Who’d thunk it?  (is that how you spell that?!?!?)

Anyway, after consuming WAY TOO MUCH peanut butter fudge on Sunday (I needed the energy while I cleaned the house (for the first time since about April – the vacuum cleaner represses me by its very existence, ok?)) I thought it would be a good idea to make something vaguely healthy for dinner.  That, and I’d bought amazing basil and tomatoes on Saturday.

So I made bruschetta which was the very first recipe that I made for Cam on our first date.  Granted the bread I used isn’t as glamorous as the loaf of white bread I bought on a Saturday night from the BP, but it still is one of our favourite things to eat and be ridiculously romantic dorks.

Bruschetta – feeds two hungry vegans for an entree

Ingredients

• 1 small red onion, chopped finely
• 3-5 cloves of garlic, minced (I use the microplane, so it’s practically pureed)
• 4 large tomatoes, chopped into 1cm or so pieces (they have to be GOOD tomatoes, I tend to get the ones on the vine in the supermarket for this)
• 1 large bunch o’ basil, finely chopped
• 2-3T of olive oil (never measured, just generally slug it in)
• 2 tsp salt (you may want less, or more – the more salt, the more liquid leaches out of the tomatoes – you want that)
• Fresh cracked black pepper

Throw it all in a large bowl – collect the juices as you go from the tomatoes.  Leave it sit for about half an hour.  You’ll end up with a soupy kind of dip.  We like it salty, but everyone has their tastes!

Serve on lightly toasted bread (preferably something fancy-ish).

The leftover dip/sauce is amazing on pasta.  Sure, your breath will stink, but you don’t want to be near any silly sparkly vampires, do you?

For mains we had Raw Vegan Alfredo Sauce with Zucchini Noodles.  I was inspired by Like a Vegan’s Raw Zucchini Pasta with Pesto, but thought that two basil heavy dishes in one night was a bit much.  Definitely on my to try list.  I love her blog! 

I’ve never been much of a fan of the raw vegan thing, but this was pretty damn good.  I want a spiralizer, but seeing as I just ordered an ice-cream maker, I think I need to wait!!!  Anyway, now that it’s getting warmer, I want to try a few more raw recipes to see what they’re like.  Any suggestions?

VeganMofo 2013: Post 19-Mac and Cheeze Monday–the Mac Daddy of the Mac and Cheezes

This is the fourth Monday we’ve had Mac and Cheeze.  I decided to go back and try something that I should have tried a long LONG time ago: the Veganomicon “Mac Daddy”.  This is a pretty damn healthy recipe – about 3T olive oil is all the fat in it (tofu has no fat, right?). 

It does use at least 4 containers though (two saucepans, whatever vessel you use for the tofu – I was lazy and used the food processor, and the final baking dish), as opposed to my normal mac and cheeze which uses a single saucepan.

My verdict?  Pretty freaking good.  The extra tofu makes me feel less guilty about eating pasta (the protein factor) and it’s got a lot less fat too.

Cam’s favourite of the month is still the mac and cheeze in the MacShroom.  But he isn’t the one who generally cooks pasta, so we know who's favourite’s going to end up being cooked more

The ugly photo (ugly because you can’t take good photos of mac and cheeze!!!):

Cam’s off for the next few days, so I’ve requested stuff from Vegan Sandwiches Save The Day.  Best find (in my bookshelf) of the mofo in my opinion!

VeganMofo 2013: Post 18-Breakfast, brought to you by the colour beige (and more info on last night’s dinner)

Last night’s dinner was delicious – I basically read the recipe and riffed off it.  I used dried seaweed strips because I didn’t have any kelp powder and I basically just put a lot of flavourings into the crumbs instead of adding it to the arrowroot powder (nooch, dried dill, oregano, dried garlic).  It just wasn’t fishy though.  I used to have a seaweed liquid thing that basically made things fishy, but I haven’t tracked it down.  The tartare sauce was freaking amazing though.  NOM!
Onto today’s food. 

On the left – Peanut Butter Fudge (this recipe).  Cheatin (Redwood) fake roast beef and rolls from Coles.  Super non-healthy breakfast.  NOM!!