VeganMoFo: T'was the Night Before Thanksgiving...

I'm slightly embarrassed to say that when it comes to cooking in the kitchen, more often than not, I become freakishly uptight, hyperactive, volatile. I'm often slamming cupboards open and close, banging pots, pans and knives, and crudely butchering an onion at the very last minute before the oil over the stove explodes or something. Oh yes, the kitchen is my war zone for a hour or so. Even so, there's something about a little BP-raising frenzy in my day that totally has an appeal. It's kind of exciting not knowing for absolutely sure what the result will be.

Still, I making amends with my disorganized ways. Today, I reorganized my little spice nook.

It's kind of cute if I must say so myself. I know I can't tell what the spices on the pink rack (newly stolen from our bathroom) are, but I like the little labels I made for the ones in the plastic containers. Now, I just need circular stickers to label the top of those black-capped spice bottles on the rack.

And knowing that I'll be tripping over myself cooking up the big Thanksgiving spread tomorrow, I pre-baked the pie today - the Gingerbread Apple Pie from Vegan With a Vengeance. I hope I didn't kill it in the process. When I first added the apple mixture to the crust, I refrained from adding all of the liquid, because I worried that it'll make the crust too soggy. Then with ten minutes remaining in the oven, I decided the filling looked too dry and proceeded to dump the rest of the liquid into the pie. Was that wise? I tried popping the pie in a few minutes to see if the filling will "bubble" but it never did.

My mother was a little sad that I made the pie the day before, prefering a pie fresh out of the oven, but she really loved the few slices of apple that she fished out.

Also, to minimize the frantic speed cooking that I'll probably be doing, I've written a battle plan - a couple of notes on details I should remember but will forget. I'm such a crazy cook. It should be fun tomorrow!

VeganMoFo: What Thanksgiving Used to Look Like

Thanksgiving used to be fun. I guess. "Fun" five years ago is very different from "fun" today.

In my big extended family, any big public holiday essentially was equated with getting together at my aunt's place for a big noisy buffet dinner. Oh you have a birthday and you want to celebrate it with the fam? Saturday night! Easter? Saturday night! Christmas? Saturday night! (Actually, it was more like a consecutive string of buffets for the night before Christmas Eve, Christmas Eve, Christmas, and Boxing Day. It gets tiring.) Thanksgiving was no different; there was just an extra carcass on the table, next to the glob of ham and fried pork chops.
It's different now. Yes, there's still the big buffet table with the same quintessential buffet items, but there are new faces and new wrinkles on the old ones. The kids have grown up and are less likely to show. Or less willing...

Without going into the deep and personal, or spinning off into a pitiful self-examination of my psyche, I'll just say that I do not particularly connect - or feel the need to connect - with my big extended family. That is where I am, right now. The person I am right now is going on a different path. I suppose I'm lucky? It seems to me that the youth, the young generation, in trying to find themselves, are constantly striving to be not like their parents. We will not be pinned down and be easily defined by the precedents that have been set for us.

Okay, I totally digressed, when in the same breath I said I wouldn't. Ha.

Today, I bought the most of the ingredients for the awesome Thanksgiving dinner that I'm cooking Monday evening for my parents, my sister, and my mom's friend. It's going to be entirely vegan, which I'm pretty excited about. I have a lot to be thankful for.
The menu looks like it's going to be:
+ mashed potatoes with spinach
+ chickpea gravy
+ cornbread (still iffy)
+ stuffing (maybe...)
+ tofurky roast - first time! I'm hoping that it'll turn out well. I guess I should make the iffy sides just in case tofurky sucks.
+ roasted carrots, parsnip, and onions
+ gingerbread apple pie

VeganMoFo: Go-Go Bananas

Seriously. Peanut butter and banana, married with a drizzle of blueberry jam? That's, like, the good old vegan standby.

VeganMoFo: oh, Mondays

Well I open up my Google Reader and SURPRISE I have 500+ unread VeganMoFo posts! Yeah right I'm going to try to catch up with that. I've been busy these two days with studying, school, yeah, studying. I wrote a in-class essay/midterm on the Merchant of Venice today, and on Wednesday, I have another midterm - this time for my Sociology class. Studying for that should probably also leech all my time. At least I hope so.

Meanwhile, I'll just post up some pictures of food that I've taken in recent weeks, maybe months, when I remember - or have the patience - to take a picture for you foodies. Enjoy. And thanks for all the comments so far!

My Scrambled 'Fu: with Mashed Yams:
An Amy's Burritos, which I ate a few days ago only when I was pressed for time:

At Candle 79 (NYC), the appetizer - Grilled Seitan Chimichurri with a citrus-herb marinade:

My entree - Black Bean Pumpkin Seed Burger, which I wasn't too impressed with:
My sister's entree, which was a salad special that she said tasted of flowers and that she thoroughly enjoyed:

Speaking of NYC, my favourite meal during our stay was a brunch on the second last day at Cafe Blossom. I had the scrambled tofu, which was absolutely amazing. I need the recipe. My homemade scrambled tofu stinks. I prefer a mushier, softer sort of scramble, which I guess is contrary to a lot of people's preferences, so I need to change up my tofu selecting (medium-firm instead) and tofu squishing tactics. I also don't really like the typical spice/herb blend of cumin, turmeric, etc. I don't really remember what I put in the few 'fus I've made - probably they were bastardized versions of VWAV and other popular recipes. The Cafe Blossom 'Fuwas so good, but I was too much in love with it to actually think rationally, so I have no idea what was in it, though I vaguely recall spinach. That's a start.

(Besides the scramble 'fu, I ordered a Chocolate-Peanut Butter shake and a blueberry muffin to go at Blossom Cafe, and once again, amazing. The shake, obviously, but sometimes vegan muffins can really disappoint; trust me, it was far from disappointing. I need to go back to New York, like, right now.)

(I should also mention that I am not so eager to revisit Candle 79, because I got horrible stomachaches after the aforementioned meal.)

VeganMoFo: Oreos and Cream Cake

One of my oldest friends is turning 19 next week, and to celebrate, she's hosting a big BBQ party tonight - and I'm making the cake. For 30+ people. Now, I didn't offer to make the cake because I'm a terrific baker or anything. I'm definitely not - I'm inexperienced and often impatient. (Don't fret if you're reading this and going to the party tonight! It gets better.) When I decided to make the cake, I was determined to actually work hard at making the best cake I've ever made, which wouldn't be too hard, I supposed.

The recipe I decided to use was the Cookies and Cream version of the basic Chocolate Cupcake from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World. I only had a 9x13 cake pan, so I doubled one recipe twice - in other words, I made two cakes - each cake equalling two recipes of the cupcakes - and glued them together in the middle. I also decided to trim the edges to get rid of the tougher, chewier exterior. I admit though that the two cakes were not level. The first cake was a little shorter, which might have been because of the possibility of overmixing the batter. I wasn't about to get down and dirty and try to trim something like 1/8th of an inch off the top of the second cake, so I just left it at that. The next step would fix everything. Everything!

The crumb layer:The frosting! Oh how I love frosting. It really does fix everything. I doubled the recipe, which also allowed me to frost between the layers. For the exterior, I did both a crumb frosting and a normal layer of frosting to finish it off. (Yes, I have never heard of crumb frosting before researching for this cake. Damnit, I want to sound professional!)

At the end of frosting, the cake was more or less level, and I had a teeny bit of frosting to pipe something fun. That didn't turn out too well.

Looks like a little oppsies! Honestly, what does that look like to you?

Next time, I'll go the next step and make another kind of icing for the words and decorations. I was too pooped from the all-over frosting to go that extra mile, so I used leftover Oreo crumbs to sprinkle in the lettering. Not that great of a time-saving idea! The stencils took a while to make and cut out, and then the crumbs were being rebellious.

I'm still really happy with the aesthetic results of the cake. I'm a total believer in the fluffy buttercream frosting now. As for how the cake will stand the test of the BBQ party tonight, that result still awaits, as the cake is in my fridge right now and will remind there until I leave for the party in a few hours. I'm pretty sure it's going to win over all the guests though. Their sad lifeless food is going to be pale in comparison with Oreos and Cream Cake.

VeganMoFo: Green Smoothies

One of my resolutions for this month of fooding is to try something new for breakfast. I'm determined to break my hardened routine of PB&J&B sandwiches. PB&J&B has become such a habit: we share many "fond" memories together, trooping through the last of my hellish teenage years. Even so, and despite the fact - yes, it's a fact - that it may just be the best warm gooey peanut buttery sandwich that has ever seen the face of this earth, I feel that it's time I change it up a bit. It being VeganMoFo just gives my resolution that extra bit of festive sparkle. It's like the symbolic cleaning associated with Chinese New Year: sweep out the old and the monotonous, welcome in the new.

I sure did try something new today.

It's green! It's a smoothie! And it's chock full of vitamins and minerals. This sweet thing has banana, nectarine, a mix of apple and wildberry juice, big handfuls of salad mix (it needed to be cleared out of the fridge!), flaxseeds, and a dried date that I threw in at the last minute. It definitely didn't taste too "green", which I imagine wouldn't sound too palatable for many. The dried date, which I wasn't really expecting to do much, did just end up being up being chopped into chunks - it wasn't blended in, which I guess is the point of smoothies. I suppose if I wanted to add a date, I should either add a fresh date, or soak a dried one. Or was it that I shouldn't add a dried date at all and I should soak a fresh one instead? Still, I kind of enjoyed the sweet bits of date in there. It's kind of like eating an oatmeal-raisin cookie and getting to the sweet raisins parts (or even better, the chocolate chips if it's the awesome combo of oatmeal-chocolate-raisin cookie).


And a tease for what's coming up in the next (or the next) post:

VeganMoFo: Breaking Routines & Batch Cooking

As a full-time student, I find that I often don't have the time, energy, or motivation to cook a great meal. I mentioned in my last post that my parents take care of dinner. But what about lunch, or even breakfast?

Breakfast is really easy for me, because I stick primarily to eating a hearty peanut butter & jam & banana whole wheat sandwich, washed down with a chilly glass of soymilk. One thing I'm trying to do during this month of VeganMoFo is to break my regular routine, so I'm looking for different breakfast combos to try for tomorrow.

Lunch is different. Sometimes I have leftovers from yesterday's dinner to reheat; sometimes I pack a sandwich of some sorts, but I've been finding it tedious to eat another sandwich after my morning PBJB (no kidding! Yet another good reason to break up my morning routine!). Sometimes I run out of time in the morning, and I end up buying lunch at school, which varies from vegan stew at UBC's Pendulum, soup and 'wich at the Delly, a burrito in the Village, a bagel from Bernouli's, and so on. Recently, what I've been falling in love with is batch cooking. Last Saturday, for example, I cooked up a pot of chili and baked cornbread. Voila! Saturday night dinner and lunch for the next week. It's so convenient, as long as you have the individual freezing containers and the freezer space for them. I have two Lock&Locks, and several Ziplock freezables - I can divide a batch of chili, pasta, casserole, and really, most anything, between them and it's the perfect weekday lunch!

First in a weekend dinner:

The chili recipe is Joanna's Better-Than-Basic Veggie Chili, and the cornbread is from Recipezaar. Both recipes are super easy to make, with ingredients that are already in your cupboard. The only substitution I made was where Joanna's recipe called for tomato sauce, I used half the amount of tomato paste, plus equal part (to the tomato paste) water. I never have tomato sauce around, so I always use this substitution, and hey, it works!

Then as a weekday lunch: