Your Vegan Mom

Kid Stuff and Pumpkin Cupcakes

Phew. October has been a busy month. A third of the way in we celebrated Paul's birthday, and then just kept on celebrating it for the rest of the month, because that's just how we do things. That same week that Paul turned 32, Desmond became a toddler. On Wednesday he started walking. On Thursday he began climbing. On Friday he held my hand as we walked down the street, and on Saturday he worked on his mini-tantrum, perfecting his devastated limp on the floor stance.

And yesterday, yesterday was Desmond's first birthday party. He had a grand time. He ran around with his cousins. Dug seeds out of a pumpkin. Ate a cupcake. Then ate my cupcake. And then his godmother's cupcake. To be fair, they were delicious. I suppose, given slightly less impulse control, I might have eaten three myself. I've mentioned the recipe before on this baby food blog over here.

I was waiting to mention that there baby food blog until it was well-established, but I'm afraid I'm only mentioning it now to tell you that it's done. I'm not going to update it because 1)Desmond's not really eating baby food anymore, and 2)I don't seem to have time to keep up with two blogs and one kid. For the time being anyway, I'm just going to leave it alone as a resource for anyone looking for baby food ideas. I know it was hard for me, as a new parent, to know what to feed my baby when. Yes, there are a million charts and books and whatnot, and I read them all. But still, as a new parent, and I imagine simply as a parent, there's a lot of self-doubt. So, anyway, if you would like to see what one baby ate during his first year, you can see a fairly incomplete picture here.

But for now, this kid has moved on. To cake

Desmond's First Birthday Cupcakes (Makes 12)
1 1/4 c. pureed pumpkin
1/3 c. oil
3/4 c. sugar
1/4 c. soymilk
1 tsp. vanilla extract
3/4 c. all-purpose flour
1/2 c. whole wheat pastry flour
1/2 t. baking powder
1/2 t. baking soda
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp. salt

Heat the oven to 350 and line a muffin pan with cupcake liners. In a large bowl stir together the pumpkin, oil, sugar, soymilk, and vanilla. Sift in the dry ingredients. Stir with a fork until combined. The batter will be fairly thick. Pour into the prepared tin and bake for 22 minutes.

Cream Cheese Frosting
1 8-oz. container tofutti cream cheese
1/4 c. margarine
1 - 4 c. sifted confectioner's sugar (I know that's an incredibly broad range, but it depends on the consistency you're going for. Keep adding until you like it.)
1/2 tsp.vanilla

With an electic mixer, cream together cream cheese and marge. Add vanilla. Beat in sugar. Refrigerate until ready to use.

(It brought me immense joy to pipe that frosting into little tiny ghosts using an 806 tip.)
(The cupcake recipe is based on a recipe from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World.)

French Toast with Sauteed Figs

I love the weekend. Paul is laying on the couch reading a book. The baby is napping. Crisp fall morning light is streaming in through the window. We're listening to the new Weakerthans CD with a bit of washing machine back-up happily humming, "I'm washing your clothes. I'm washing your clothes. I'm washing your clothes." We all have bellies full of french toast with sauteed figs picked from Kiley's tree last weekend. Thank you for sharing with us. They were delicious.

The french toast recipe came from Vegan with a Vengeance. We are new converts to this chickpea flour-based recipe. Until last week, Paul (the weekend breakfast chef) used a recipe that relied on silken tofu, but no more. This french toast recipe is so simple and delicious, and absolutely worth the price of this cookbook were it not filled with lots of other useful recipes, which it is. This is all to say that, I couldn't find the recipe online, so I won't be the one to monkey with copyright, but if you're vegan, the recipe is probably already in your repertoire.

Anyway, let's talk about those figs. I started with 5 big ripe mission figs. Sliced them and melted about a tablespoon of Earth Balance in a cast iron skillet over medium-low heat. Added the figs. Sprinkled with about a teaspoon of brown sugar. When the figs were falling apart all over the pan, had made their own gorgeous dark rusty pink syrup flecked with tiny crunchy seeds, and had some good looking carmelized bits, I added a tiny pinch of sea salt and then squeezed in a bit of lemon juice. Sigh. So good.

This made just enough for two hungry adults who grudgingly shared with one cute baby that had just eaten a huge bowl of oatmeal, but still insisted on eating this prefect fall breakfast. And really who could blame him? I would question his good taste if he hadn't have so insistently demanded bites of my breakfast. So really, you ought to use as many figs as you can get your hands on. We had grilled the rest of our bounty for a salad the night before, and while that was delicious, the next morning, as my fork slipped through the warm soft fruit that softly sang, "fig, fig, fig" to reach the custardy bread, I wished that we had saved them all for breakfast.

Much Better than Cup O' Noodles

But not a whole lot harder. This is what I'm eating for lunch. And well, I was just thinking, you should be too.

Mushroom Noodle Soup
Makes 2 hearty helpings

4 dried shitaake mushrooms
5 cups water
1 bundle soba noodles
1/2 medium onion
1 large carrot
about 1/3 block super firm tofu, diced
about 2 Tbsp. tamari
a dash of toasted sesame oil
a shake of red chili flakes
handful of baby spinach
half a lemon

Boil 1 cup water and pour over mushrooms to rehydrate while you prepare the other ingredients. Chop carrot and onion. Put remaining 4 cups of water in a medium sauce pan over high heat, add carrots and onions. When water is boiling, add noodles. Remove mushrooms from soaking liquid, slice into thin strips and add to noodles. When noodles are done, add tofu and the mushroom soaking liquid. Season to taste with tamari, sesame oil, and red chili flakes. Let simmer for about a minute. Stir in spinach; when it's wilted, but still bright green, serve with a wedge of lemon.

I Can't Eat All These Cookies Myself....

Bake Sale this morning outside of Skylight Books in Los Feliz to benefit Lucy the Cat. Starts at 11:00. Well, hurry up.

Tortillas

It's the simple things in life. That wonderful quiet moment when the baby is still sleeping and I've managed to take a shower and my clean clothes are not yet smeared with blueberry yogurt. A new season of vegan baking radio from Halifax. Sitting down with the food section and a second cup of coffee. That red netflicks envelope in the mail with the promise of a good movie. Waking up to pancakes on a Saturday morning. Clapping for wobbly baby steps. And sitting down to a stack of just made flour tortillas.

Flour Tortillas

4 c. flour
1/4 c. shortening
1 tsp. salt
1 c. warm water

In a large mixing bowl, rub the shortening into the flour and salt with your fingers until you have fine crumbs. Gradually add the warm water, stirring with a fork, until the mixture forms a soft dough. If the mixture is not coming together add more water, if it sticks to your fingers add more flour. Pat it into a ball and knead for about 2 minutes until the dough is a bit elastic. Cover with a kitchen towel and let rest for 2 hours at room temperature.

Cut your dough in half, in half again, etc. until you have 16 even pieces. Roll these pieces into balls. Then, on a lightly floured surface, roll each ball out to a thin round (as thin as you like, I prefer about 1/8 inch).

Heat a dry cast iron pan over medium heat and grill the tortilla on each side for about 30 seconds, until it's speckled with little golden brown spots.

Serve immediately with bowls of refried beans and guacamole.