I have been a strict vegetarian for a little of a year and a half now. I don’t eat eggs, but I do eat cheese and milk products on occasion. This time of year is my favorite becuase I have an excuse to bake. Not that I need one but the recipes are fun and the atmosphere seems to scream for time in the kitchen. My dilemna now is taking my tried and true recipes and attempting to make a tasty edible vegan version. To say the very least, this has not been easy.

My current mission is to try and make my pumpkin bread without eggs.  I thought I had a good chance but tasting the bread right now: it just does not have the right texture. I am replacing eggs with tofu and that seems to allow for a great rise but the flavor is bland and the texture is mushy. GROSS. I am not sure what to do to fix it. Other recipes that I have have found and tried make too dry of a bread and little rise.  I sure miss eggs in baking! They add so much flavor and texture; it is a shame that I do not own a crew of egg-laying hens! At least then I would know they are treated well and the males not killed. I digress

I will try and replace the water in my recipe with soy milk to see if that helps. Any ideas out there in cyberspace?

I am a foodie. I LOVE FOOD. It has been awhile now that I have been a vegetarian. I sure miss a steak and still love the smell of bacon :). It has been a test to my beliefs to not eat meat as I had done for most of my life. It has been a learning experience filled with sadness and enlightenment. I have read so much about animals and the farming industry that I have no doubt I am doing the right thing for my conscious. Early on in my journey into vegetarianism I ate eggs and milk products but avoided any meat, poultry, fish, or any animal ingredients (gelatin, lecithin, carmine, etc.) in food. I also purchase toiletries and household cleaners from companies who do not test on animals or have animal ingredients in their products (BTW, that pretty much eliminates any big name brand at the store). Being a lacto-ovo vegetarian is really easy in comparison to being a vegan.

However, the more I read the more I became conflicted with eating eggs. I think eggs are an excellent source of protein and necessary amino acids and really really wish I could eat them. After reading how chickens are treated, even in the so-called free range farming, I could no longer support eating eggs. If I had my own chickens I think I would use eggs but alas I do not have the opportunity to do so as my HOA does not allow farm animals. Did I mention I need to move? I digress :).

So now I avoid eggs (::sigh::) and I do eat some dairy: mostly sour cream, cheese, and butter. I don’t like milk so that has not been a big issue for me and soy milk works great for anything I need to use it in. I buy organic milk (from companies that make a clear statement that the cows are treated well) for Peanut and am slowly transitioning to organic butter, sour cream, and cheese products. That is expensive to do. I am not sure if I will transition from using milk products to avoiding them as well. I LOVE CHEESE :). And that would be a very difficult thing for me to give up. No cream or butter? I don’t know about that. I am only human :).

That said, it is a struggle to adapt recipes to be vegan or vegetarian. I am really into baking and eggs are so essential to baking; at least in the western world! It has been an experience trying to find egg substitutions that work and work well. My impression is often vegans say to themselves, “Well, there are no animal ingredients in this so I will sacrifice taste.”  I CANNOT agree to this! Food should taste GOOD!! I am on a quest to find good vegan recipes that taste good too :). I can have both dammit!

So far I have been able to make an excellent chocolate cake and chocolate chip walnut cookies that are delicious and vegan. I even have hard-core carnivores (such as my hubby) tell me they are da bomb. Yay! So I will keep experimenting to find good vegan baked goods and know, for me, I am doing the right thing for myself, the planet, and all living things. Slack you are right, I am a damn hippy :).

Yesterday was birthday and I made, for the first time, a vegan carrot cake! It turned out delish! It seems to be more of a quick bread texture but I think with a few more tweaks it could be perfect. I used vegan cream cheese in the frosting and toasted pecans and coconut for the sides and top- YUMMO!

Interested in the better treatment of farm animals? Click on this link to take action and sign your name to the pledge by the Humane Society of the United States. It is free. It takes less than 45 seconds to fill out the form. It is painless. It works. Do it :).

I am so frikken sick of fast food. I get the term that fast food should be fast but shouldn’t the order also be correct? How freakin hard is it to make a damn sandwich without meat? Or you know, a grilled cheese sandwich without the obvious imprint and taste of bacon you slapped on it and then removed? And, oh yeah, could it be possible to have the cheese cooked within, oh say, the last 15 minutes as opposed to it obviously sitting somewhere cooking for a very long yet undetermined amount of time? Thanx Sonic-Drive In for your suckiness. A big THANK YOU to the jackasses you hire who not only cannot get an order right but he treats you like shit while taking said order. And one more, IT IS FAST FOOD YOU MORONS. Fast = prompt.

And a big hug goes to Dominos Pizza. THANK YOU for putting pepperoni on 99% of the pizza when we ordered half without. THANK YOU SMACKTARDS. Do you feel the love? Cuz I sure don’t.

And, last and certainly not least, a big shout out to JB’s for putting a half slab of dead pig on top of my VEGGIE BURGER. Veggie, get it? No, I guess you don’t. 

So, in review, Sonic-Drive In, Dominos, and JB’s: YOU SUCK. And that is sad becuase now you are in the same leaugue as KFC and McDonald’s. Way to go you big fat losers. 

I will no longer patronize your establishments because YOU SUCK.

So I wrote awhile back about making vegan oatmeal cookies and thought it is long overdue to finally post the recipe with pictures. I am an improviser, not a visionary, and this is always apparent when I bake and cook. Thus, this is an original recipe from one of my favorite cookbooks, Better Homes and Gardens, and the recipe has been adapted to be vegan. The original recipe is very good and makes a crispy cookie on the outside and chewy on the inside. This adapted and vegan version produces a cake-like cookie and very moist. I would recommend these cookies as a snack, dessert, and even for breakfast as they are quite healthy. The next time I make these I would like to fashion them into breakfast bars. Maybe take the batter and spread it onto a jelly roll pan and cut when they are cool.

Vegan Ranger Cookies

350 degrees- Makes at least 2 dozen cookies

1/2 cup vegan margarine (**Note: most margarines are vegan; however, it is best to look for one that is heart healthy with no hydrogenated oils)

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1/2 cup packed brown sugar

1/2 tsp. baking powder

1/4 tsp. baking soda

1-1/2 tsp. EnerG Egg Replacer + 2 T warm water, mixed well

1 tsp. vanilla

3/4 cup whole wheat flour (If you do not have WW flour, use the same amount of AP flour.)

1/2 cup AP flour

2 cups rolled oats

1 cup flaked coconut

1 cup raisins

1/4 - 1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce (mix in to make batter moist, if needed)

Beat butter 30 seconds. Add sugars, baking powder and soda. Beat in egg replacer mixture and vanilla. Mix in flour. Mix in additional applesauce at this point, if needed, to make mixture moist and not crumbly. (I find 1/4 cup applesauce is plenty). Mix in oats, coconut, and raisins. Using teaspoon size amounts of dough, roll into balls and place on to ungreased cookie sheets. Bake at 350 degrees for 9 minutes. Cool on sheets 1 minute before removing and cool completely on wire rack. Store in a covered container. Freezes well.

Experimenting with egg replacer(s) in recipes has been interesting. Depending on the type of recipe, you can substitute applesauce, bananas, soy yogurt, etc. I have used bananas, applesauce, and soy milk in certain recipes with varying degrees of success. Using the above substitutions eliminate cholesterol and fat. I recently purchased Ener-G Egg Replacer. It is a powdered form egg substitute that you mix with water to get the desired results. Ener-G is fat-free and vegan made up of potato starch and a few other ingredients. I took a favorite cookie recipe from the Better Homes and Gardens cookbook and made it vegan.

The cookie turned out well, but is certainly not the exact replica of the original. Egg substitutes are just that, substitutes. They do work and often work well, but so far I can absolutely tell a difference in taste and texture. I also used vegan margarine (I prefer Earth Balance) instead of butter. Of course, this will make a difference in taste and texture as well. Vegan margarine is excellent for your health in terms of helping lower cholesterol and no bad fats. But, it is margarine so that obviously makes a difference in taste and texture as well.

I will post my version of the recipe once I get pics loaded. They did turn out quite tasty. And, quite the healthy cookie for being, well, a cookie

I have tried out a few new cooking ingredients that I thought I would share. They are certainly not new to the culinary world by any means, but they are new to my kitchen. Several vegan recipes for entrees that I have perused seem to ask for these three: tamari, tahini, and miso.

Essentially, tamari is a slightly thicker and sweeter soy sauce. It is made with more soy beans and the fermentation is apparent when I opened the bottle. It smelled like a red wine- yum. It is very good and I highly recommend it in cooking stir-fries, dipping sauces, etc. You can purchase it in a low-sodium version and a gluten-free version as well. I bought the regular tamari with the usual salt and gluten.

Miso is a soybean-based product as well. There are many different varieties of miso and in Japan they are scrutinized much like wine here. The miso paste I purchased was a mellow white miso. Miso is often used in making soups and dressings. I plan to make a salad dressing from this.
Finally, tahini is ground sesame seeds with oil. The tahini I purchased was made with toasted sesame seeds and the smokiness of the toasted seeds is apparent. I will definitely use tahini from now on when making hummus. I think tahini would be excellent added to peanut butter and spread on bread. Not only do I think the flavors would compliment each other, the protein punch from the tahini would be an added bonus.

I used all three in a recipe that said it was a “mock” macaroni and cheese made of vegan ingredients. I found the recipe online at a great vegan blog. I followed the recipe and I am certain it turned out exactly how it should have, but it was not even close to any real mac n’ cheese I have ever had. Not to say it was not delicious in its own way, but certainly not cheese-like at all. I understand now why the vegan cookbook I have does not have a recipe for mac n’ cheese. I just do not think it can truly be replicated by the vegan method of cooking. I have heard of making vegan cheese sauce using vegan cheese slices and vegetable stock. I might try this but I need to find true/actual vegan cheese slices. It seems a lot of soy cheese products out on the market have milk ingredients, such as casein, in them. POOP.

And speaking of soy products, did you know the company that makes Silk soy milk, creamers, etc. is owned by one of the biggest milk and cattle producers? You think you are doing the right thing by buying a vegan product. Smart for them. Annoying for someone who is trying to avoid giving money to any company that does not treat animals humanely.

In order to supplement the small bounty of my future garden, I was thinking that I would like to join a community supported agriculture initiative. Sounds fancy and/or complicated, but it seems to be quite simple. Basically, a person/family can opt in and buy a share from a local farm for a season. This not only supports local agriculture, but a person is also able to get fresh, pesticide-free produce. You are supporting farm workers being paid a fair wage and medical benefits as well. Once a week, I would go downtown and pick up my produce. The only negative is that you have to pay for a season up front, which is a full 12 weeks. However, it is less expensive than buying produce from the grocery stores and a whole heck of a lot more benefits to doing so.

There is a local CSA here in Tucson and I have anxiously joined the waiting list in hopes to get in on the next season.

The link is here if you are interested in this great concept : http://www.tucsoncsa.org

Has anyone ever participated in a CSA? Opinions?

Ok, so here is my very simple version of a vegan gravy that is very easy to make and quite tasty considering it is, well, vegan Basically, you are taking the standard way of making gravy and using vegan ingredients. See, I told you very simple!

Vegan Gravy:

Makes approximately 1 cup

• 2 Tablespoons vegan margarine (you could use real butter and make this vegetarian)
• 4-6 Tablespoons AP Flour
• 1 can vegetarian vegetable stock

Melt the margarine and add 2 Tablespoons of flour in a saucepan and whisk to make a roux. You may use more flour. Just keep adding small amounts of flour until it is a thick paste. Continue cooking on medium heat until light brown while whisking, being careful not to burn the roux.

While whisking, slowly add small amounts of vegetable broth. Stir and add more stock in small increments until a gravy is formed. Do not add all of the liquid at once as it may be too much and too thin for gravy. It is easier to thin a gravy than it is to thicken it. I found that I used about 3/4 of the can of stock. Add salt and pepper to taste. You can, of course, add parsley or whatever spices you would prefer. Viola! Super easy and super good