A Ton of Stuff!

I just realized I haven’t posted anything for days even though I have been cooking. I’ve been crazy busy with the new pup, some nice distractions,  and we had some pipe problems in my building which have resulted in scores of repairmen! So on to the food! First up I made some Rosemary Focaccia Rolls using the recipe from Veganomicon:

Rosemary Focaccia Rolls

I just love the way these turned out. My kitchen smelled wonderful as they were baking!

Rolls!

I used them for black bean burgers:

Black Bean Burger on Rosemary Focaccia

I finally was able to try a vegan donut from Dee’s Bakery, all I can say is YUM!

Vegan Donuts!

If you live in Los Angeles get your @ss up early and head over to Intelligentsia or the other various places that carry these donuts, they are definitely worth the effort!   UPDATE: DON’T PATRONIZE! PLEASE SEE THIS!

I also made a Mexican Chocolate Cake that has cayenne pepper in it. I’ve decided that I have a bottle of the world’s hottest cayenne pepper because I just put in a teeny tiny pinch and this cake is on fire! I used the recipe from here.

Mexican Chocolate Cake

It looks all nice and sweet but its on fire! I tell you! It’s actually really tasty with some vanilla vegan ice cream and berries.

Fire in your mouth!

I have also been trying out more tester recipes for Terry’s Vegan Latina book but I think I’ll save those shots for another post – til then…

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A Swell Kind of Weekend

First, I want to publicly announce my love for A-K from Swell Vegan! I’ll tell you why: I received my much anticipated copy of Swell Vegan’s  zine over the weekend and I quickly got to work on her Sweet Potato Cranberry Scones. If you’ve seen her pictures and you are a fan of scones, then you’ll understand why I was so excited. All I can say is that they definitely don’t disappoint – they are fabulous!

Sweet Potato Cranberry Scones

They are made with spelt and brown rice flours so they are good for you too. The texture is fantastic and they are a perfect balance of savory and sweet.

Scones!

I also scored some fresh green beans at the farmer’s market this weekend so I made her green beans replacing the mandarin oranges with a regular orange:

Orange Sesame Green Beans

A perfect summer snack when chilled.

 I also made her mole sauce to roast brussel sprouts with. These should be called Mole Bombs! because man, were they hot! I like heat but I think I didn’t have enough brussel sprouts for the amount of sauce I used – definitely will make again but with more veggies.

Mole Bombs!

Last but not least I made my black bean burgers  for dinner to have with the green beans:

Black Bean Burgers

All in all it was a great tasty weekend! I hope these pictures inspire you to head on over to the Swell Vegan  and order your zine today, it’s worth its price in scones!

SPC Scones

 

 

 

 

Vegan Latina Teaser and Violet!

I haven’t been cooking much this week because I’ve been a little occupied with:

Violet's 1st Bath!

Meet Violet! She’s an English Bulldog, 3 months old, and a handfull! But look at that face!!!

This is a food blog so here are some Vegan Latina tester recipe pics for your enjoyment.

Black Eyed Butternut Squash Tostadas

These tostadas are a great alternative to your standard pinto bean kind.

Tostadas!

Have a great weekend!

 

Calzone Night

Calzone

Calzones made with pizza dough from Vegan with a Vengeance, Field Roast Italian sausages, mushrooms, sundried tomatoes, Follow Your Heart mozzarella cheese, and tomato sauce – yum! Not much more to say but if you haven’t tried to make vegan calzones, give it a try, they re easy and delicious.

Here is just random food porn from the week – cupcakes of course and some puff pastry filled with leftover cupcake filling.

Pistachio Rosewater Cupcake

Pistchio Rosewater Cupcakes

If you haven’t tried these babies from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World, I highly recommend them – they’re fantastic! I made them for a friend’s birthday and they were gone in a flash.

Espresso Cream Puff Pastry

Cappuccino Cupcake

Cappuccino cupcake with espresso cream and a chocolate ganache topping, nothing more needs to be said!

Cappuccino Cupcake

This picture makes me laugh – it looks as if the cupcake is saying – eat me! Or maybe that is just my sick mind…

Have a great weekend.

Vegan Cheese!

Pepper Crusted Cashew Goat Cheese

So as my tag line says, I love cheese and that has been my biggest challenge going vegan. I know there are many vegan “cheese” alternatives but all leave much to be desired. Much to my surprise and delight,  the April issue of Vegetarian Times  has several vegan cheese recipes and I jumped at the chance to try them. The one thing I can tell you about making nut cheeses is patience. They are not labor intensive but you need to have the patience to soak the nuts overnight, let it sit for 12 hours… Well, I can assure you the patience pays off! This cheese really does have the consistency of a soft spreadable cheese and has all the qualities I always enjoyed from cheese!

Cashew Nut Cheese

I joked around with the gf and told her when she came home tonight she might find me passed out, comatose, with an empty cracker box and a butter knife on my lap, this might indeed be the case…

If you like cheese and are vegan, I highly recommend you seach out this issue of VT and make some nut cheese!

Vegetable Pakoras

Who doesn’t just love indian snack food, right? Here you have my version of vegetable pakoras based loosely on Manjula’s recipe. I used 1 cup chickpea flour, 1 teaspoon of garam masala, cumin, and chili powder, then added about 3/4 cup of water – mixed this until I  got a pancake batter-like consistency and let it rest for a few minutes. I used carrots & zuchini cut up matchstick size, sliced crimini mushrooms, cauliflower, onion, and red & orange bellpepper. After a few different attempts I realized that the best way to coat my vegetables were to dump them all into the batter and stir.  Heated some peanut oil in a wok and once the oil was ready I dropped in 1/4 cup of the mixture in at a time. Cooked for about 7-10 minutes until golden brown and set them on paper towels to drain. Pour some tomato chutney and enjoy!

Vegetable Pakoras