Change of Pace

I am back at my old job as a teaching assistant and selling my baked goods online again. Im also doing some baking/catering gigs on the side. My awesome boss commisioned me to cater the holiday party and the Christmas Eve breakfast. So I made a nice dessert platter of mini halfmoon cookies (black and whites), chocolate chunk cookies, and brownies. I then made some lovely mini pumpkin loaves for the breakfast. Everything was a total hit...which is nice since I am the only vegan at work.
I also just made an awesome birthday cake for a mutual friends 30th birthday this past Saturday.....which was also a hit.
Check it out.......



A close-up of the awesome camp.......



I experimented with marzipan and made a cool red tent and some evergreen trees. It was great. The cake itself was a two layer cake, the bottom layer was vanilla, the top layer was chocolate and the middle layer was a nice peanut butter filling with chocolate chips. I heard it got awesome reviews and some people had thirds!!! haha.
My goal is to sell stuff online for awhile, get my finances in awesome shape, and eventually open my own bakery/cafe.
xoxo
Check out my myspace online bakery if you get a chance.
http://www.myspace.com/xs2osveganbakery

Brunch?

YUM....tofu benedict with spinach over an english muffin. I love this benedict sauce, its from How It All Vegan.



We had some stuffed seitan cutlets with mashed potatoes the night before this, so I created some potato vegetable pankcakes to re-pair with the seitan and gravy!



HAHA...more tofu benedict with my tempeh bacon and some veggie home fries.



Super close-up of some tofu frittata. I'm going to be offering this for my holiday catering. Oh yeah, as well as a seitan roast and baked goods.

xoxo

French Silk Pie!!!

I found the nonvegan recipe for this in some weird magazine and was so intrigued that I decided to try veganizing it. This is a recipe that called for 6 eggs and required absolutely no baking. Isn't that gross? At least you don't have to worry about salmonella by eating mine.
It was amazing........probably the most decadent dessert I have ever made!
Here's a close-up.
Oh yeah........... and somehow I made vegan whip cream topping. I amazed myself!




xoxo

BLACK AND WHITES!!!

ummmm.....hi, I finally perfected my black and white halfmoon cookies! Im super stoked!
xoxo

Scalloped Potatoes and seitan

I so love my mom's scalloped potato recipe. I loved it when I was little, so much in fact that I veganized it and added "ham flavored" seitan. AWESOME. Its a total favorite in this house. I served it here with some broccoli and then devoured it.




We had this for dinner last night. Some nice rotini pasta with kale, broccoli, red peppers, olives, garlic, and onions. Topped with some lovely tomato sauce and marinated italian tofu.


xoxo

Confetti Hash and Pasta........love

Brunch yesterday was great. I usually make three dishes for brunch because I'm such a pig, but I knew this was going to be filling. I created a lovely and colorful hash out of some leftover seitan, onions, peppers, peas, kale, and shredded potato. I basically let everything fry really well with some black pepper, herbs and salt and made sure to cover it to trap the moisture in. I threw a little nutritional yeast in towards the end with some soy sauce and I was left with a wonderful goopy potato hash. I made up some carrot ginger muffins to serve with it. I topped mine with salsa because we were out of ketchup. It was a nice dish for such a lazy day! I think I might sub some bran for some of the flour in the muffins next time to make them a bit healthier.




Dinner that night was a nice veg filled pasta with some canneloni and sundried tomato patties. The patties were good. I sauteed some sundried tomatoes, garlic, and green onions and then tossed them into a food processor with one can of canneloni beans, some balsamic vinegar, black pepper, basil, thyme, and nutritional yeast. I then put them into an oiled frying pan and fried until golden, semi-black. I have always found that frying any type of bean patty is difficult...you can NOT have too much oil. If you do, you end up with a mess because the patties will not stick together. Last night after I messed up a few, I tried lightly frying them in a dry pan. I think next time I will use a light coating of some cooking spray and that should do the trick.
Other than that small debacle, they came out pretty well and had a nice flavor to them because of the sundried tomatoes.
We both only ended up having one helping because it was so filling. Perfect!
xoxo

Stuffed Tofu with roasted potatoes, peas, and brown gravy!

This was AMAZING! I loved the roasted potatoes and the stuffed tofu covered in gravy. This time I managed to keep the potatoes moist when they were roasting so they didn't dry out. I mixed them with seasonings, including a small amount of oil and apple cider vinegar, and spread them out on a rimmed baking sheet with a small amount of water. I would periodically check them and flip them in the oven. I would then pour a little water, or veg stock over them if needed. They came out perfectly.
The stuffed tofu was a bit more difficult. I cut an extra firm block of Nasoya tofu in half then I turned each half over (standing it on its end) and cut out a small rectangle into the middle of it. Don't go to far in or you could poke through the tofu (I went about 1 inch down). I sauteed some red pepper and kale in a skillet, then threw that into a food processor with a handful of cashews, some nutritional yeast, soy sauce, and garlic. That was processed until it resembled a pesto consistency (without the oil). I then dipped the tofu blocks into a mixture of black pepper and paprika and sprinkled some soy sauce on them. Next, I carefully filled them up with the filling. I baked them for about 40 minutes to firm them up, and then took them out and carefully browned them in a pan with oil. It was a constant work process, carefully using a spatula and a spoon to turn them or stand them up in the pan and make sure that the filling wasn't coming out. But in the end, I was really happy. I am sure that I will make them again, since they were delicious. Next time, I will take pics of the process.
I used about 1 1/2 cups of chickenless broth, pinch parsley, large pinch of black pepper, pinch of salt, and 2 tbsp cornstarch for the gravy. I added some paprika and soy sauce when it was cooking to give it a nice brown color and more robust taste.
Here's a nice close-up of the food swimming in gravy! And yes, I paired it all with peas and an english muffin.



xoxo

Omelettes

I need some new stuff for my camera....so here's an old pic I found floating around.



Behold my vegan omelette!!!!!!! I basically adapted the Vegan With a Vengeance riccota cheese recipe to create a lovely tofu mash worthy enough to create a stable vegan omelette. What did I do? I basically just used the idea of using tofu mashed with various seasonings and some kind of acidic liquid, in this case you can use either lemon juice or apple cider vinegar. Both will give you great tasting results. As far as the seasonings go, I stick with whatever tofu scramble spices I normally use. I like to use a nice mix of turmeric, chili powder, cumin, black pepper, nutritional yeast, and ground yellow mustard. Its actually very easy to make the mix and not so easy to make the omelette. I spread the mixture out either between two pans or one large pan and push it down with my spatula and cook it over medium heat. Make sure that you watch it carefully and don't leave it for a small period of time. I cook it until the top looks a bit dry and the bottom is a nice golden yellow/brown color. I will also pat the omelette down with the spatula as it cooks every once in awhile to ensure that it is sticking together. As soon as it is cooked very well, add your ingredients.
I never fill it with vegan cheese....I actually never cook with vegan cheese myself at home because it needs to melt at a very high heat that I just haven't had great results with in a standard home oven. So that being said, I usually fill mine with a nice array of sauteed veggies.
I topped the previous omelette pic with some vegan Benedict sauce....and the omelette is totally sitting on top of an english muffin.
Here's another pic to make you drool some more. This is a very large omelette cut in half to feed two people that I topped with salsa and paired with pancakes.


YUM! Now you have no excuse to be afraid of making an omelette!
GO NOW...make one and be happy.
xoxo

Donut recipe

Here's that donut recipe I promised. I used flax seeds for an egg replacer and they turned out to be cakey donuts. They were really good.....but I'm trying to get fluffy donuts. I think I might try silken tofu and switch up the spices. I found this somewhere online and veganized it. Here it is in its original form with the appropriate vegan items!

Donuts
1 cup sugar (I use Florida Crystals)
3 1/2 tsps baking powder
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp salt
4 cups all purpose flour (I use a nice nonbleached kind)
2 egg replacers (I used flax seeds here, but am going to experiment with others) (1 tbsp ground flax + 3 tbsp water=1 egg replacer)
1 cup milk of choice ( I used soy, but almond would work well too)
3 tbsp melted earth balance
canola oil for frying

Sift together sugar, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg, salt and flour. Mix flax seed with water and add milk and margarine. Whisk well. Add wet to dry ingredients and mix well. Knead with hands for a minute then roll dough about 1/2 thick on a floured surface. Use a donut cutter. ( I used a glass to make the outside and a large frosting tip for the inside hole) Cut out as many as possible, then reknead dough and reflatten, continue until dough is gone.
Heat canola oil in frying pan until warm, you want about 1/2 inch of oil. Put donuts into oil and fry until light brown, flip and fry other side. Drain on paper towels. Let cool if you wish to use icing or sprinkle right away with cinnamon sugar or powdered sugar.
Makes about 24.

Note: I halved the recipe because I did not want that many donuts for two people (yikes!). I got about 10 donuts. I also only used 1 1/2 tsp of baking powder when I halved it and only a pinch of salt.
I liked them a lot. But I would like a very light and fluffy donut, so I am going to try silken tofu and slightly decrease the nutmeg and cinnamon.

xoxo

Mexican, and brunch........

Brunch on Sunday was fabulous. I love brunch, its my favorite meal to cook. I always come up with the weirdest and craziest brunch items. Its the best meal and I feel like it has a lot of versatility. That being said, I made some silver dollar pancake sandwiches with some leftover tofu scramble and chopped/fried seitan sausage. Then I drenched mine in earth balance and maple syrup. Its such an easy thing to assemble. A nice tip to perfect looking pancakes is to use a ladel and swoosh it in a circular motion when you drop the batter. I also tend to swirl it in the middle so it flattens the batter so it cooks evenly. But try not to smoosh it down because then you won't have fluffy pancakes. For the scramble, I like to use broccoli, onions, peppers, garlic, and kale with a mix of black pepper, sea salt, chili powder, cumin, turmeric, nutritional yeast and soy sauce.


Friday night was a nice lazy night so I made some mexican lasagna. So good, and so easy. Basically you fry up whatever veggies you want and alternate a veg mixture layer with a refried beans layer and a nutritional yeast cheese sauce layer. So to clarify you just alternate filling of your choice with a tortilla and top with cheese sauce and salsa. I bake mine in a deep dish pie pan because the medium sized tortillas just fit! Unfortunately I can't post the cheese sauce recipe because we're going to have it at the restaurant. I know, I suck......but I can tell you that its based off of a recipe from Hot Damn and Hell Yeah.




xoxo

Brownies and BBQ Seitan...oh my!

Lets start with my favorite baked good ever! Brownies! These suckers took a good 7 or 8 times of tweaking to get them just right. I experimented with many different egg replacers....applesauce, soy yogurt, flax seed, bananas, silken tofu. Finally I found that the combination of applesauce and soy yogurt created the taste/texture that I was going for.....fudgy and moist but still holds together very well. This particular batch is topped with leftover cookies n cream frosting.


My next recent favorite is this BBQ seitan strips over quinoa pilaf with a baked sweet potato. Holy crap.....this was so good. The combination of the BBQ sauce with the quinoa pilaf was awesome. Plus quinoa is so easy to make into pilaf. Just use 1/2 water 1/2 stock liquid mixture to boil it in. When its cooked add some finely shredded carrots, peas, corn, maybe some shredded kale, black pepper, and maybe some garlic. Voila.....instant pilaf...well under 15 minute pilaf.


I also really like the colors of this dish. I try to make my dishes colorful so that way I can hit as many healthy veggie combos as possible.
Thats it for now.
xoxo

Welcome!

Hello! My name is Sarah .
I've decided to create a blog dedicated to the art of cooking. I will be showing pics of food, discussing how to play around with recipes in order to create something new, and once in awhile offer some neato recipes to you. I want this blog to be more about the food and the techniques rather than me just posting recipes.
I have no formal training in the kitchen and have not attended any type of cooking school. I've learned everything I know through trial and error, tons of cookbooks, and reading about food online. I learned about baking from my wonderful grandmother who owned her own baking business. Sure, I would have loved to go to cooking school, but I love my casual kitchen and have learned so much by just getting in the kitchen and rockin it.
So enjoy and please let me know what you think. I need to upload some pics to my computer so I can make a lovely post tomorrow. Til then I leave you with a pic of one of my favorite foods.
xoxo