Vegan MoFo Iron Chef Challenge

When the first Iron Chef Challenge of Vegan MoFo 2010 was announced as mashed potatoes, I immediately knew what I was going to make: Samosas! But I couldn't decide between plain white potato or sweet potato samosas.


I ended up making a half-batch of each. I made one batch of dough, and added sautéed spices, onion, garlic, sweet peas, sliced almonds and dried currants to each batch of mashed potatoes. I really love this combination, and enjoy how much character each ingredient brings to the whole dish. The spices bring the heat and flavor, but the sweet peas and currants help cut the heat, and the almonds bring a nice crunch.

I love samosas, and I like all the various ways you can customize them. You can use different spices, different dried fruit, different vegetables, and different nuts, or completely omit the fruit, vegetables or nuts based on what you like, and what you have.


I also made a small bowl of fresh apple tamarind chutney. It was basically about some tamarind paste, a bit of yellow mustard, agave to taste, salt, ginger and garlic, mixed up, then stirred together with one apple, which had been peeled and minced.


Since the challenge was mashed potatoes, I mashed these potatoes completely, although I usually like them a bit chunky for samosas. Either way is nice, it's just a personal pereference. You can probably tell from the first picture that my sweet potato samosas were a little flatter. When using sweet potatoes, you need to make sure they are very well drained, since they tend to contain more moisture than white potatoes.

Mini Poke Cakes

Day 5 of Vegan MoFo 2010! There are so many great blogs I never would have found on my own, and so many enthusiastic and creative vegans, I love this month. Ijust wish I had more time!

Do you remember poke cakes? My mother loved them with I was little. All you needed was a boxed cake mix and a box of gelatin, and you could a cake that looked like it had technicolor stalagmites. It really was kind of cool.

Yesterday, after decorating my mini Devo cakes, and realizing my concept was not working out, I thought of another way to use the raspberry syrup I had made with the lemon cupcakes. Mini vegan poke cakes!

This is a pretty simple concept, you just need a syrup or strained jam, a squeezable container like an agave nectar bottle, a chopstick, and unfrosted cupcakes and icing.

Start by using the chopstick to poke holes into your cupcake. I would recommend starting with a test cupcake, just to see how far in you should go, how much syrup or jam you can use, and how many holes you need. Basically, if you push too deep, you'll ruin it by having syrup run right out, and if you put too many holes, everything will run out in a big syrupy mess when someone bites into it.

Next, fill your squeezable bottle with the syrup or jam of your choice. Insert the tip into the cupcake, and gently squeeze some syrup into each hole. If you spill, use a clean dish towel or a paper towel to wipe away excess, because icing will slid off if the top is too slick.


Once you're done filling all of the poke, frost away!


Admire and enjoy your mini vegan poke cakes!


I know there's not much icing on these cupcakes, I like a high cake to frosting ratio.

Vegan Icing

And without a hand mixer! I have a lot of kitchen gadgets, ice cream makers, pressure cookers, grapefruit extractors, citrus reamers, zesters, pasta machines, you name it, I probably have it, with one notable exception. Hand mixers.

I've never really a seen the benefit when compared to the amount of use I would get out of them. Hand mixers just whip things really fast. I can whip things. A hand mixer would be sort nice for nostalgia, because it's what my mom had, but other than that, I don't think I'd use it much. Especially since I can already make good vegan buttercreme icing.

I don't use cane sugar much, preferring less refined sweeteners like agave nectar, rice syrup, and maple syrup for the most part. One case where liquid sweeteners just don't cut it, though? Icing. If you want peaks of pipe-able icing, you really have to use powdered sugar. I've tried tons of different things, but none really work.

I've tried tofu. Silken and firm. It's gross. Don't even bother, it taste like tofu, and retains the properties of tofu. I've made mousses and ganaches, and sometimes you can pipe them, but they either melt quickly, dry and crack, or slip and slide.

My biggest tip for incredibly smooth and creamy icing is start by mixing the fat and liquid.

Obviously, the ingredients will vary based on what flavor you want, but I made a basic Lemon Creme Icing today with the following recipe.

Lemon Cupcake with Lemon Creme

Lemon Creme Icing
by Christina Terriquez

Ingredients
1/4 cup solid oil (palm oil, coconut oil, EB, or vegetable shortening)
1 large pinch sea salt
1/4 cup unsweetened non-dairy milk, room temperature
lemon extract or edible lemon oil
juice of 1 lemon
1/2 teaspoon of organic lemon zest, minced
3--5 cups powdered sugar
turmeric, if desired for color

Directions
In a large bowl, stir oil or shortening and sea salt to smooth out any lumps. Add non-dairy milk and mix well. Mixture should be slightly emulsified at this point. Add 6 drops of lemon oil or 1 teaspoon of lemon extract, lemon juice and lemon zest and stir to combine.

Add 1 cup of powdered sugar and stir well. Mixture should be very thin, but lump free. Repeat two more times. Taste, and if needed, add more lemon oil or extract. Add turmeric if desired at this point. You should need no more than 1/2 teaspoon, since adding any more may greatly alter the flavor.

Once color and flavor are as desired, add more powdered sugar until desired consistency is achieved.

Notes
Adding less sugar will give you a glaze or a spreadable icing. Add more sugar for a pipe-able icing.

I used coconut oil for this batch of lemon icing, since the weather is cool and the icing wasn't in danger of melting, but I would not use this during summer or in a hot climate.

You can use the same technique for other flavors, for example for peanut butter frosting, use 1/4 cup peanut butter, 1 tablespoon solid oil, and omit all lemon ingredients and turmeric.

Are we not cupcakes? We are DEVO.

I had to share this last picture, of a Lemon Cupcake with Lemon Creme Icing and Raspberry Glaze, because even though it is horrible--or maybe because it is awful--I love it. It doesn't even look like something edible, it looks like Devo. Or a fake plastic cupcake. Or something kind of pornographic. There's no flash here, and I took 10 pictures, all of which had that same weird glow. But let me tell you, the raspberry glaze added a perfect contrast to all that lemony goodness.

Last night, JD and I went to see Janelle Monae and Of Montreal (one of my favorite bands), and I kept thinking about what kind of food I could make in his honor. I think this raspberry glazed cupcake with it's crazy bright inner glow and flamboyant hot red color would be fitting.

Product Review : Gardein Beefless Tips

From what I've seen, all of the Gardien products are transitional and convenience foods. They're perfect for people who want or need to cut back on their meat consumption, but would have no idea what to do with a block of tofu; for new vegetarians who aren't yet used to cooking meals where a meaty main dish isn't the focus; for long time veg people who've got a craving for something a little meatier; and for anyone who is busy, but wants a meal that's healthier than fast food.

The Beefless Tips come frozen as 1 inch cubes. To prepare them, I browned them in a cast iron frying pan with a bit of olive oil, as the directions suggested, then used some white wine to deglaze the pan, a few drops of shoyu, and crushed garlic. Next time, I would add more water, a bit of dijon mustard, and maybe some fresh thyme. I served them with mashed potatoes and fresh asparagus.


The texture was nice and light, much more tender than I expected. A bit of the grain and vegetable texture came through the beefless tips-I could see some white pieces, and feel some diced onions-which was unexpected, but I actually really enjoyed. The flavor was very mild, and the beefless tips seemed to soak up whatever flavor you put on them. They would probably be very nice in a stew during the colder winter months, on kabobs during the summer, or maybe sliced into thirds and used for a beef and broccoli-type dish.


I would buy these again, especially if I was visiting my family. My two complaints are that the package contains 2.5 servings, which is an odd amount, and I wish that they made beefless filets or beefless roasts because for me, cubes are not very versatile, and I would find it much more useful if I could cut them however I wanted. JD enjoyed the meal, and said they were okay, although "they taste like fake meat, but that's to be expected."

Halloween 2010 Recap

Halloween this year was pretty great. I didn't think I would enjoy it being on Sunday, but it was actually really awesome. Since Halloween was on the last day of the weekend, everyone basically celebrated it all weekend, having parties on Friday and Saturday. We went to a few parties, including the VRA party on Saturday, and then just had a calm Sunday. This was especially good, since I was called in to work at 8 am Sunday, and had to work at 8 am Monday, and I don't think I could have handled doing much of anything on Sunday.

I know most MoFoers did their Halloween recaps yesterday, but I couldn't wait to post my Conan's review, so I'm a day late. JD and I went as Snow White and Bigby Wolf from Bill Willingham's Fables. These costumes are, admittedly hard to identify, since both characters look human. Basically, the series is about the Fable community being real and living our mundane New York City after having to flee their homelands because of The Adversary. Snow White's origins (described in detail in 1001 Nights of Snowfall) are much darker than the original fairy tale, which is unusual and makes her a bit more interesting, and in the regular storyline, she's the deputy mayor of Fabletown, though she really runs it. Bigby Wolf is the Big Bad Wolf of all the Fables. He's now a detective and general peacekeeper in Fabletown, and looks like an average, slightly rumpled and hirsute noir detective.

While I knew it would be hard to guess what we were, I figured some of our friends were geeky enough to have at least read Fables, but I was wrong. People thought I was "a lady president", "someone from a lawyer TV show", and "Nanny 911". Total fail. We had wanted to go as Jason and Melissa from Home Movies, but thought it was a little too obscure, and were having a hard time finding all the orange pieces JD would have needed. At work, I went as Wednesday Adams, because I thought it would be less constricting and more recognizable, but somehow, everyone though I was Pocahontas, because braids always equal Pocahontas. Even when you're wearing all black, with super a high buttoned collar. Oh well.

The best costume I saw this weekend was, no doubt, Danielle from VegAustin.com as Edward Scissorhands. There were two really awesome couple costumes, Strawberry Shortcake and the Purple Pieman, and two of the characters from Kingdom Hearts (sorry, I'm not familiar with the games or characters). Some of my favorite costumes were Dr. Horrible, Codex from The Guild, Saul Tigh from BSG, one member of the Vegan Police from Scott Pilgrim and Liz Lemon and Frank from 30 Rock.

For the VRA potluck party I was planing on making something savory until I happened upon some tiny brain molds, and knew I'd have to make zombie cupcakes. I made two kinds of cake, vanilla bourbon and devil's food, and two kinds of icing, vanilla blackberry, and chocolate créme, plus raspberry syrup and cocoa raspberry custard brains. I was pretty worried about the syrup causing the brains to slide off the cakes, or everything becoming a big gloppy mess because of the syrup, so I decided to make little concave icing moats to keep the syrup all contained. Basically, instead of making a mound of icing that's taller in the middle of each cupcake, I had to make a depression by building the edges of the icing up around the edges. I also decided not to pour the syrup on until we arrived at the party. These steps seemed to work well, because the cakes arrived intact and looking nice and gruesome.

There was a tons of awesome dishes, and we couldn't even try everything because we were so full, but some of the standouts were the pizza, the chocolate chip cookies, the massive chocolate chocolate chip cookies, the gorgeous cake shaped like a vampire Barbie, and, the treat both JD and I enjoyed most, chocolate pomegranate clusters.

We weren't actually sure what they were at first, because the chocolate encapsulated everything, but we're never ones to turn down vegan chocolate. Expecting some kind of puffed grain or nut cluster, I was completely surprised by the immediate burst of tart juice that flooded my mouth! Suddenly, there was a crunch, and I realized I had just eaten some pomegranate arils, coated in a thick, hard layer of rich and perfectly sweet chocolate. This idea so simple, I don't know why it's not more popular. It's also astoundingly delicious, and, with a double whammy of antioxidants, fiber from the pomegranate seeds, and no poor quality fats from dairy, these are a perfect treat(I also found out today that Laura made them). This is definitely something I'll have to try, and soon.

As I said, I had to work at 8 on Sunday, so I was pretty tired Sunday evening and decided to watch a mini marathon of all my favorite episodes of Buffy, while giving out candy. I think I got about 20 minutes into my first episodes before I fell asleep.

All in all, we had a great weekend full of yummy food, tasty beer, good company, fantastic costumes, and adorable kids.