Your Vegan Mom

Sometimes that's just how it is...

You have sausages and oven fries for dinner. Not pretty I know, but I think it's important to share the dirty underbelly of veganism as well as the colorful vegetable-laden side. You can occasionally eat unhealthy too! And really, to be honest, this meal wasn't incredibly unhealthy, and I did have a salad for lunch, as did Paul, and I believe it's all about the overall balance. And you know what? Few things go better with a good beer on a Thursday night than sausages and fried potatoes. Those, by the way, are the Sundried Tomato Tofurkey Sausages that they sell at Trader Joes. With this variety I believe the best dipping sauce is a combination of vegenaise and ketchup. (Mix it together. Apparently they call it fry sauce in Utah.) If you're all fancy and are buying the Tofurkey Beer Brats from another store than you should definitely dip in a good hot mustard.

Now let's talk about the oven fries. Have we already had this discussion? We've been eating our fair share of oven roasted red potatoes tossed in a bit of olive oil, salt and pepper around here, so I've probably mentioned this before. But I must say, it bears repeating. I recently discovered the secret to reliable non-sticking oven fries: parchment paper. Which is funny, because just a few days before this discovery, I thought I had discovered the secret to reliable non-sticking oven fries: a lot of oil. I was so pleased with myself when that batch came off the pan so easily, and I proudly announced my new-found kitchen wisdom to Paul. Healthy Paul was less pleased with my discovery. So it was happiness all-around several days later when I read this post on Vive le Vegan! and discovered this much healthier secret. Alas, now oven fries are within our grasp as a regular side dish rather than the occasional treat. Please pass the fry sauce.

"Recipe" (Serves two)
3 medium-size red potatoes (If they're not organic, peel them. Apparently those nasty pesticides linger in the skin.)
About 1 Tbsp. olive oil-just a quick drizzle to somewhat coat
About a quarter to a half teaspoon of salt
Couple cranks of pepper

Heat oven to 450. Wash your potatoes really well so that you don't wind up with grit in your fries. Nobody wants that. Cut your potatoes into fry shape. Put them in a bowl. Drizzle the sliced potatoes with the oil, salt, and pepper. Shake the bowl to coat evenly. Turn out onto a parchment paper-lined roasting pan or cookie sheet. (Choose one that's big enough to get your fries in pretty much a single layer. They'll crisp up more evenly that way. And everybody wants that.) Cook for about 40-45 minutes, until they look lightly browned and fairly crispy.

Happy Birthday!

(Chocolate Cupcake with Peanut Buttercream Frosting from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World. I branched out and didn't use my nonna's genoise recipe like I usually do, and the results were good. Not to say that I'm a permanent convert, but this recipe made a fine cupcake. That said, I must now admit that I just don't like cake, and I really don't like frosting. Heresy? Maybe, but I'll take a slice of pie or a scoop of ice cream anyday over cake. It's such a festive food. It's really too bad that it's not good. Just too sweet. And yet still, I'm already planning what kind of cake I'll bake for D's first birthday. I'm thinking pumpkin since he was a Halloween baby, with maybe a cream cheese frosting. I suppose kids wouldn't be into a simple ganache glaze?

Another thing...you might notice that this cupcake is sitting atop a shoebox lid. I discovered today that a decent size shoebox is the perfect thing to wedge a pan of 6 cupcakes into, thus protecting your careful frosting job on the way to the park, at least until you turn your back to take a photo and the baby dives into the remaining mounds of frosting. Anyway, before that little mishap the cupcakes traveled well, and at least there was one nice one left for the birthday girl.)

Your Vegan Mom's Mom

My mom has retired. After 37 years in education. Along with 31 years raising kids. She is now foot-loose and fancy-free and ready to cook and garden and travel and generally whoop it up. Desmond, Terry, and I already got to enjoy her new-found freedom with the amazing dinner that she made for us last night. We had grilled vegetable napoleans composed of:

grilled polenta
eggplant
roasted red pepper
sweet onion
tomato
eggplant
polenta

served on a bed of baby romaine with a basil vinaigrette drizzled over the whole thing. Yum.

Here is Desmond enjoying his grilled eggplant:

Snickerdoodles and Tofu Tacos in Eagle Rock

My dearest friends moved into their very own beautiful house yesterday in Eagle Rock. It has fig trees, along with orange and lemon and loquat in the backyard. There's a big front porch looking out onto one of those quiet tree-lined streets with nice neighbors. All us movers were incredibly jealous. Though apart from being unspeakably happy for my friends, I am excited for me too, because it means a lot more time in this food-friendly neighborhood.

As everyone else toiled at the old apartment (sometimes it's convenient to have a baby), Desmond and I walked down to the Taco Spot. It was good. There are three different kinds of vegetarian tacos that can easily be made vegan. All the vegetarian choices, and there are many, are clearly marked on the menu. Desmond and I had the tofu tacos. (I got the okay from the Doc last week to broaden baby's diet. I'm so excited! She didn't specifically mention tacos, but he did just have little bites of soft tortilla and beans, which he enjoyed heartliy.) I agreed that lunch was delicious. The taco combo came with three soft tacos filled with marinated tofu and topped with guacamole and finely diced onions and cilantro. The beans and rice were basic, but well-executed. They were moist and flavorful, everything that you want from your side of rice and beans. And the salsa - there was love in every single one I tried, and I'm not talking about some icky kind of love that you don't want in your salsa. These sauces were made with care- that's something rare and special to find in the salsa bar at the healthy Mexican place down the street. This is an order at the counter sort of establishment with a couple of tables out front on Colorado and maybe a dozen inside. It's comfy and clean, and the food is solid. I will go again, quite possibly the next time I'm in the neighborhood, which will probably be tomorrow. (D & K - I think you need to make the guest room a priority. Oh, and I was of course kidding about the convenience of baby getting me out of work-it was a quick taco stop to give us cleaning strength.)

As everyone knows, a moving day is incomplete without a full jar of cookies, and I think that no cookie says home sweet home like the snickerdoodle. It's all that cinnamon and sugar- it's like a realtor's candle from the 99 cent store. Here's my vegan recipe (adapted fairly literally from the excellent Classic Cookies pull-out by Joanne Chang in the special holiday baking issue of Fine Cooking magazine from winter 2005):

1 2/3 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat pastry flour
1 tsp. baking soda
2 tsp. cream of tartar
2 earth balance buttery sticks, softened at room temperature
1 1/2 cups evaporated cane juice
2 replaced eggs
2 Tbsp. cinnamon

Heat oven to 350. Whisk together flour, soda, and cream of tartar. Prepare the egg replacer. Beat the butter with 1 1/4 c. sugar on medium speed until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Scrape down the sides with a rubber spatula. Add replaced egg. Beat until thoroughly combined, about 2 minutes. Scrape the bowl again. With the mixer on low speed, slowly blend in the flour until incorporated, about 30 seconds.

In a small bowl, mix the cinnamon and remaining 1/4 cup sugar. Drop the dough by rounded tablespoonfuls into the cinnamon sugar and roll around to coat and form a ball. Set the coated balls of dough about 3 inches apart on greased cookie sheets. Bake until golden brown on the edges and slightly soft in the center, about 15 minutes. Let the cookies cool on the sheet for 1 minute before transferring them to a rack to cool.

Makes about 2 1/2 dozen.

Mmm...smells like home.

plums

When Paul was eight his family lived in the Central Valley where they had a plum tree in the backyard. All summer he would bite into the tart skin of the soft dark fruit to suck the sweet flesh right off the pit.

Now, Paul's been my best pal for going on 12 years, and we both like to talk, so I've heard about the plums once or twice. I know his fondness for a really ripe plum in the summer off of a backyard tree. So last week when my mom handed me a little brown sack of dark squishy fruit, I had a feeling I was bringing home something special. I pulled two out of the bag and handed one to Paul. "mhnm," he uttered in this tiny little voice that makes me cry just trying to describe it. Questioned about his girly little utterance, Paul described his own Ratatouille-like experience that transported him back to a Lemoore summer in 1983. They were indeed good plums.

But so, so ripe we had do to something with them right then and there. And thus, we made that simplest of fruity desserts. We made a crumble.

topping:
1/2 c. flour
1/2 c. brown sugar
1/2 stick marge

After cutting together these three ingredients with my grandma's sturdy old green-handled pastry blender, I sprinkled the mixture over the cut up plums that were piled into the little blue pie dishes that Cindy brought me the other day. (Aren't they adorable? And the fruit will cook down, so really pile it in.) The little crumbles baked for half an hour until the plums had cooked down to a volcanic, tart essence of summer that was perfect with the cold, sweet comfort of homemade vanilla ice cream.

mmnhmm.