Somehow it’s been more than a month since my last blog post. I’ve been back and forth to Vancouver a couple of times since then (and had a chance to visit both Gorilla and The Naam for some lovely vegan fare), but really haven’t been cooking all that much. That, and I’ve got a new roommate who shares the cooking duties with me, even further minimizing my kitchen time (ooh, but I’m not complaining).

Something that I think might get me back on the ball is Jessica’s brilliant idea. Sure, it’s a New Year’s resolution, but this kind of thing can be started any time of year. She’s resolved to: first, not buy any more cookbooks; and second, to cook at least one new recipe a month from books she already owns. To make it even better, she’s rewarding herself with $5 for each recipe.

I like it. I’ve got a great collection of books that have barely been touched beyond a favourite recipe or two. I think I need to set up a reward jar in my kitchen and get cooking.

I just overheard one of the librarians ordering a cake for mine and the library director’s birthday. This should be interesting since he can’t eat gluten and I can’t eat dairy. I’d be terribly impressed if we had a bakery in the area that could handle that kind of order. Maybe I should bring in some gluten-free vegan cupcakes just in case they forgot about our dietary quirks?

Gluten Free Vegan Chocolate Maple Rum Cupcakes

One of my Christmas presents this year was the coveted cupcake cookbook by Isa and Terry. And by February I had finished my testing for the Urban Vegan, so I got to jump right into another cookbook.

My first pick were the Cardamom Cashew Cupcakes. Something a little bit different, but I had all the ingredients in the house (or so I thought) so I thought I’d give them a try. After realizing that I had ground coriander and NOT ground cardamom, I knew these would not go so smoothly as I hoped, but I would not be deterred! I had some cardamom pods from an attempt to make Chai, so I spent a good quarter of an hour opening up those suckers to get at the cardamom seeds inside. Too bad my hand blender was not up to the task of crushing them once they were out (and neither was my improvised mortar and pestle). No worries! I’ll go to the only grocery store still open and purchase an over-priced jar of the stuff. Too bad by the time I got home I learned that I was out of cupcake liners. Boo.

So, the bottoms of my cupcakes were stuck in the bottom of my muffin pans… but luckily the tops were flat enough that I just flipped them over, iced the broken bits, and called it a day. 

 

Cashew Cardamom Cupcake

The taste was quite different, combining the salty and the sweet, but I rather enjoyed them in the end.

My roommate got the next pick and chose Coconut Lim cupcakes. These ones worked out perfectly. I learned from the last experience and made sure that I truly had everything I needed before I started baking. These did not last long at all. 

 

Coconut Lime Cupcake

Any suggestions of what to try next?

I’ve been doing a lot of pantry cooking as of late, but that doesn’t mean that I haven’t been eating well. Wanting to expand beyond soups and curries (my main pantry-day fare), samosas are the perfect solution for me. For filling:  onions, garlic, potatoes and carrots, along with your favourite spices. And the dough can be made with a bit of flour and water (with maybe a few spices thrown in there for good measure) or with some simple phyllo pastry from the freezer.

Samosa Prep

Pre-Oven Samosas

I haven’t really been blogging long enough to have a top 10 of my favourite posts or photos, so I thought I’d carry over from my other side and post my top 10 albums of last year. Yes, it’s a little late for all of that, but here it is nonetheless.

Leave it to Cleaver’s Top 10 Albums of 2008
10. Kings of Leon – Only by the Night
9. Rae Spoon – superioryouareinferior
8. Mike Harloff – Sunday’s Best
7. Bon Iver - For Emma, Forever Ago
6. Bruce Peninsula – A Mountain is a Mouth
5. Fembots – Calling Out
4. Jane Vain and the Dark Matter – Love is Where the Smoke is
3. Mother Mother – O My Heart
2. Said the Whale – Howe Sounds / Taking Abalonia
1. Plants and Animals – Parc Avenue

And no worries… I’ll get back to the food thing again soon. I’m just wrapping up recipe testing for the Urban Vegan (only 4 more recipes to go!), and otherwise having a lot of pantry days.

Has anyone been able to access this site lately? I am usually an avid reader of havecakewilltravel.com. Celine’s creations are amazing (e.g. Chocolate-peanut butter cups, savory lunch muffins, cranberry ginger muffins,…) and her photography is beautiful. I love, too, that she tends to make things in small servings – like 6 muffins, or three cookies – which really helps for those of us who don’t want to eat a full-sized batch of cookies on our own (or, rather, who WOULD eat a whole batch if that’s in the kitchen… not a good thing).

I know that she’s working on a cookbook with Joni of Just the Food, but I hope that’s not enough to do away with a great blog.

 

African Spinach and Peanut Butter Stew

 

Creamy Tomato Sauce

Lemon and poppyseed are a match made in heaven. I have loved this combination for as long as I remember. I always requested a lemon-poppyseed cake for my birthday (ok, that was also because I knew my little sister would always want a cheesecake, so I was covered). 

Luckily for me the Urban Vegan likes this combo as well. Here is yet another tester recipe from the Urban Vegan: 250 Street-Smart, Animal-Free Recipes. Lucky for you, you don’t need to wait until 2009 for the book to come out since she’s already posted this recipe on her blog. Let this be another teaser to tide you over until the book is complete.

Lemon Poppyseed Tempeh w/ Quinoa

Ah, but that can’t be all. I can’t let all these spare poppyseeds go to waste. I dug up a recipe for lemon poppyseed cookies on the interweb. These are delightfully light and tasty. I would picture them as the kind of delicate thing to have with a cup of tea in the afternoon.

 

Lemon Poppyseed Cookies

Yesterday was a day of food and snow for me.

I woke up to discover that we finally got the snow that’s been hitting everywhere else in Canada. It was wonderful to be able to enjoy a cozy morning inside while looking out at the new winter wonderland of town.

I had a decadent breakfast of Pain Perdu (another tester for the Urban Vegan). I had prepared it the night before so that all I had to do was throw it in the oven once I woke up. I had never heard of this dish before (it’s basically a fancy french toast / bread pudding), but was so thrilled with it. I’m thinking I’m going to have to start my own tradition and make this every Christmas.

 

Pain Perdu

I continued warming my kitchen by trying another tester from the Urban Vegan 250. I made my first cinnamon raisin bread, entitled Finer Than Diner Cinnamon Raisin Bread. It was surprisingly easy to make, and most of the time was spent just waiting for the dough to rise. I’m quite happy with how it turned out, but so far that happiness is pretty superficial, since I haven’t even tasted it yet. It is bound for Vancouver; a present for my hostess.

 

Finer than Diner Cinnamon Raisin Bread

After all this baking (and a little present unwrapping) I headed out into the snow. Beautiful. They said that this was the first Canada-wide white Christmas (well, if you count the snow that was left on the ground after all the rain out east).

 

White Christmas

 

Winter Gardens

To properly top off this day, I made a lovely dinner of multi-coloured quinoa (red quinoa with cauliflower, broccoli, and carrots) with maple-dijon marinated tofu from Vancouver Vegan.

 

Maple Dijon Tofu

Overall, a great day.

Of course I should have spent a little bit of that time packing, since I’m supposed to fly out to Vancouver this afternoon. Oops. I guess that’s what the morning’s for :)

Merry Christmas everyone.

If you told me even a year and a half ago that I’d be making such haute cuisine – and VEGAN nonetheless – I would have had to laugh. Who knew that something like panko-crusted tofu with a raspberry-tamarind glaze would be coming out of my kitchen?

 

Panko-Crusted Tofu with a Raspberry-Tamarind Glaze

Of course this is courtesy of the Urban Vegan, whose recipes I have had the delight of testing for her upcoming cookbook: The Urban Vegan: 250 Street-Smart, Animal-Free Recipes.

In the past week I’ve made my own grenadine syrup (to go in a lovely Monaco last night), orange-poppyseed pancakes, and a curry cashew casserole. Just this morning I mixed up some Arty Farty Party Nuts, and Raw-Klava (again) to take to a potluck at work. I really don’t know what I’m going to eat between the end of testing in February and the book’s release near the end of 2009.

 

Monaco, with homemade grenadine

 

Arty Farty Party Nuts