Cakes and Cupcakes

Still on backlog patrol: a week and a half ago I made a red velvet cake from Papa Tofu for Scott’s birthday. I mixed a bit of icing with toasted chopped pecans for the filling.

Below we have 49 cupcakes I made for a baby shower (on the same day as the red velvet day! It was a big cake day.) I made a peach version of the strawberry cake here, using peach juice, peach extract, and apricot jam. The chocolate cupcakes are from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World.

Lima Bean Bruschetta

Here’s the lima bean bruschetta I made awhile ago (before Vegan Dad did– there must be some kind of bean bruschetta bat signal somewhere). I cooked up some frozen lima beans and partly mashed them with sauteed garlic and olive oil, fancy sea salt, and smoked paprika, and lemon juice, and smushed them onto some toasted local organic sourdough (ooh, what a deceptively fancy meal!)

Dad’s Birthday Dinners

I’m back! I’m going to clear out a bit of backlog here: here are the two dinners we made for dad’s birthday. First up was a bean stew my mom makes, with some Thai rice and a fruit salad dad made.
The next night we had a Spanish tapas theme: Patatas Bravas, paella based on this recipe (I forgot the peas at the end! This would have made the day!) marinated roasted red peppers, leftover bean stew, and spinach with raisins. Sorry about the lighting! I also have to figure out what to do about my camera– since I’ve switched cameras to this hand-me-down from my sister, closeups in anything but perfect light have been pretty subpar…

Be right back

This week I’m off with the flu. Off everything: work, school, life in general. And blogging. I will be back within the next couple of days!

Dad’s Birthday Cakes

Wow, it’s been such a long time since the last update! Would you believe I was too busy cooking to have time to update? Bad blogger. Anyway, last week I made two cakes for my dad’s birthday, because he had two parties. The first one above was a vanilla cake from here with sliced strawberries plus strawberry jam in the middle, and chocolate frosting.
The second cake was the orange variation of the above cake, printed in Kittee’s Papa Tofu zine. Basically, you replace the water with orange juice, replace the vanilla with triple sec (I used Cointreau), and add two tablespoons orange zest. For the filling I sliced up oranges and mixed them with a bit of Cointreau. The icing was just a basic frosting using Tofutti cream cheese.

Cholent

“I’m going home to make a vegan Jewish beef stew.” That’s what I said the day I helped Cathy and Scott move last week. “What about it makes it Jewish?” someone asked. “Even more intriguing: vegan beef?” said someone else. Despite all the intrigue, once I got home I was too tired and ate leftovers instead. It was really the next night I made this. Cholent. From Veganomicon. A bit thicker and more mushy than perhaps was ideal, since I overcooked it–the potatoes were more than tender–and I was out of French lentils so used the last of my red lentils. And we all know how red lentils disappear into their thickening properties. But this is far tastier than it looks.

Sauerkraut and “Cheese” Sandwich

Man, this was so good! The picture basically tells you nothing, I’m aware. I had burger fixings and a baguette, so I made this sandwich for lunch. I made the “I Can’t Believe it’s Not Cheese Sauce” from The Ultimate Uncheese Cookbook. I’d post the recipe because it’s very easy and has few ingredients, but I’m out of town and don’t have the book with me. I’ll update this in a couple of days to include the recipe. Anyways, it has tahini and nutritional yeast and miso and tastes kind of like blue cheese or something like that. So I spread that on the bread (with far less water added so it was less messy) and layered on sauerkraut and tomatoes and lettuce. And it was as good as I’d hoped it would be! Like some crazy deli sandwich from a dream.

Veggie Burgers

I tried out the veggie burger from Vegan With a Vengeance. It was flavourful, but I got the texture all wrong. I may not have cooked the mixture until it was dry enough. At any rate, it was just alright.

Cuban Black Bean Soup

Here’s a return to a great vegan cookbook I used a lot in my early vegan days: Vegan Planet. There are still so many recipes I’ve never tried, and this one was great! Tomatoes, cilantro, black beans, rum (!), cayenne, vegetables… a very tasty soup.

Soba Spring Rolls

In another bid to use up stuff from the pantry, I decided to make spring rolls with my rice paper rounds and buckwheat soba noodles. I fried up the leftover puffy tofu until it was crispy, adding a splash of tamari at the end. I blanched some kale and wax beans, shredded some carrot, and made up a simple peanut sauce for the soba noodles (peanut butter, sambal oelek, water, rice vinegar). I made a dipping sauce for the rolls out of sambal oelek, rice vinegar, and soy sauce, which turned out even better as an accompaniment than the “spring roll sauce” I ate with the first couple of rolls.