Your Vegan Mom

Everyday Dessert: Cashew Date Custard

 
Have I ever mentioned that my kids have dessert every night?  Are you scandalized?  It's true that I haven't seen Fed Up yet.  But before you leave in disgust, let me explain.  Dessert is a legitimate meal in our house composed of real food as opposed to its more common components - white flour and sugar.  It comes about an hour after dinner and serves to top off little bellies before bed.  I'm totally not saying you should do this too, but it's an essential part of our day for these two reasons:

The Rice Plate, or Sharing Lunch with a Four-Year-Old

While Paul was working out of town (for 6 weeks!  Did we talk about this?), this was the go-to lunch for Felix and me.  I would make a big pot of rice at the beginning of the week, and then I could stick all this on a plate for us to share when he came home from school.  It's totally conducive to the addition of leftovers - in particular slivers of fried tofu.  You grab a piece of seaweed, spread it with some gochujang (unless you're four), pinch up some rice, top with avocado, dip the sticky rice ends in toasted sesame seeds and eat.  Or eat it any way you like.  It's finger food or fork food - the perfect sort of meal to keep a kid interested while you chat about his day at preschool.  And it's totally simple and delicious to boot.  

On the topic of rice, the insert for my beloved wedding present rice cooker is looking a bit scratched up after 10 years of constant use, so I've been employing this method of rice cooking with good results, though I prefer it cooked for 5 minutes longer here where soft and sticky is preferable to light and fluffy.

And related to nothing at all, but I want to talk about it anyway, Wheeler del Torro's new cookbook just showed up in the mail, (along with a copy to share with one of you guys) and I had to force myself to put it down so that I can savor it like a novel this weekend.  It looks really good.  We'll discuss further.  

What's for lunch at your house?  

On the Road with the Vegans

Stop and Play

We were in San Jose last weekend for the Cinequest Film Festival.  It was spectacular to see Paul and Sean and Kiley's movie on the huge screen in a beautiful theater with a crowd of people that were laughing and crying and audibly digging the movie.  It was so good.  I am so incredibly proud of them.  

It was a whirlwind weekend - I dropped the boys off with Nana and Tapa, grabbed Banh Mi and Spicy Noodle Soup from Tofoo Com Chay and picked up Paul from the San Jose airport.  La Pinata did an admirable job putting on a nice spread after the screening.   It was intensly fulfilling and emotional to spend time with some of the people who made the movie possible and who identify with the story so much.  The food was entirely beside the point, and yet still I noticed.  The margaritas were excellent, the beans were vegan, and with some coaxing they made a tray of vegetable enchiladas with green sauce.  Thumbs up, La Pinata.  

We couldn't find vegan breakfast in San Jose (What the what?  They're must be vegan breakfast in San Jose, right?), so we just grabbed a bagel with avocado and a cup of coffee and hit the road.  We had a day with the whole family in Pacific Grove, which of course, included lunch at El Cantaro, the little vegan Mexican place in Monterey, right up the hill from the aquarium.  And the next day we drove home in time to get Paul to the office in the afternoon.

We continue to practice the drive and eat - stop and play - drive and eat model for family road trips, and apart from the roadside shopping center with the enticicingly muddy field where we stopped (Juicy peaches!  Ha!  The nemesis of the backseat on this trip was two boys coated in three inches of mud.), it was a success.  I had swung by Whole Foods in Monterey for provisions.  We had crunchy apples and excellent sandwiches that consisted of:

Sumano's Sourdough + Vegenaise + Sonoma Brinery's Bread and Butter Pickles + Field Roast Lentil Sage Deli Slices

I'm still thinking about those sandwiches.  Such a good combination.  And almost completely lost on the children - the seven-year-old, my pickle-eater, preferred his without, and the four-year-old ate bread.   

What's your current favorite road food? 

 

Pancake Layer Cake

 

You guys, the broccoli we talked about?  It's not ready yet.  It cooks a long time.* 

In the meantime, let's talk about birthdays.  In our house, the special day starts with a pancake layer cake. Ideally the number of pancakes in your layer cake corresponds to your age, but this morning when we made one for Grandma, we rounded down to three.  In addition to the pancakes, you need something to hold them all together.  

In Desmond's cake from last fall (seven layers!), peanut butter syrup holds together oatmeal chocolate chip pancakes.  Excellent choice, son.

And last summer, Felix's pumpkin pancakes were held together by yogurt frosting (soy yogurt + raw cashews + maple syrup -> Blend until smooth.)

For Grandma, we made multigrain pancakes with layers of lightly sweetened yogurt and berries.  She looked like a little girl on her birthday as the teetering tower of pancakes topped with a candle came her way.  

To turn our basic pancake recipe multigrain, I used a cup of whole spelt flour, 1/4 cup of cornmeal, 1/2 cup of all purpose, and 1 cup of oats in place of the 2 cups of flour called for.  Pancakes are the perfect place to use up whatever odds and ends you have.  Leftover rice?  Throw it in the pancakes. Overestimated how many pecans you needed to toast?  You get it. 

I love birthdays and pancakes and watching my boys snuggled up against their grandma at breakfast.

It's been a good day.  Happy Birthday, Mom.

*(Also, I'm not 100% happy with the recipe yet.  It's coming.)  

Preschool Lunch

Remember this baby?  I was sitting across the lunch table from him today, and I thought maybe you'd let me just pop back in here without a lengthy explanation of where I've been for the last 6 months.  What do think?  Maybe we can just catch up slowly? 

Felix was eating a super simple lunch, but eating it with such pleasure, and lack of complaining, that it reminded me that I write a food blog.  Remember?  I grabbed my camera.  We talked about his day at preschool, about the cave he had made for the snake because the snake was poisonous and he had to protect his friends, and about the goblin that came during writers workshop.  We talked about snack.  (Sunflower seed butter, celery, apples, raisins.  He ate the raisins.  And he made ants on a log.  But the log was made of apple.)  

There were no leftovers from dinner last night which comprise his usual lunch, so I cut a smallish red potato into chunks, and put them into a bowl with a splash of water and stuck it in the microwave for 3 minutes until it was soft and warm.  I cut a few florets of broccoli into small bite size pieces and steamed them in the same way - for 2 minutes until bright green and tender.  I cut super firm tofu into sticks and squirted some ketchup onto a  plate.  And that was lunch.  Not perfect.  Some good fat would have rounded it out nicely - this should really be the part of the blog post where I give you the recipe for the simple and luxurious creamy sauce made of pureed nuts and seeds that makes steamed broccoli and potatoes and plain tofu so good, but sadly it's not.  

This is the part where I realize that I just wrote about 3 florets of steamed brocolli on a food blog, and promise you the precise opposite of that next time.  I've been making something so luxurious and decadent and perhaps even totally wrong with broccoli, that I have to tell you about it.  Next time.  Say next week?  As opposed to 6 months hence?  Let's catch up slowly.  How have you been?  What's for lunch?