A meat-loving girl in a vegan world

So now that I am living in a vegan household, much of my cooking has been sans meat and dairy, which means that many of my future posts will follow suit. Although I, myself, am not vegan, I don't mind eating like one, most of the time, until I get the occasional craving for a good piece of meat or seafood or some deliciously satisfying cheese. The plus side of cooking vegan dishes is that I get to show my diversity in the kitchen, which is always a good thing.

While I have concocted several meat and dairy-free meals since I moved in, I have been so busy getting adjusted to everything that I haven't found the time to write about it. But, that is all about to change. So, on with my first VEGAN post!

I was craving something sweet and glutinous tonight so after scouring recipes of dairy-free breads, cookies and cakes I decided on a Pumpkin Crumb Cake With Pecan Streusel from Isa Chandra Moskowitz & Terry Hope Romero's Veganomicon cookbook, which I am enjoying right now with a nice tall glass of Thai tea. Although I traded in the pecans for walnuts, because that's all I had, it turned out great. And you don't have to be vegan to think so.

The recipe follows.



Pecan streusel
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
3 Tbs. brown sugar
1/4 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp. ground allspice
1 Tbs. canola oil
1 cup coarsely chopped pecans

Cake
1 15 oz can pureed pumpkin
3/4 cup soy milk
3/4 cup canola oil
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
3 Tbs. light molasses
2 tsp. pure vanilla extract
2 2/3 cups all-purpose flour
1 Tbs. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
1 1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
3/4 tsp. ground nutmeg
3/4 tsp. ground ginger
1/2 tsp. ground allspice
1/8 tsp. ground cloves

Preheat the oven to 350 F. Lightly grease a 9 x 13-inch baking pan.

Prepare the streusel
In a small bowl, mix together the flour, brown sugar and spices. Drizzle in the canola oil and mix with your fingertips until crumbs form. Add the pecans and mix.

Prepare the cake
In a large mixing bowl, combine the pumpkin, soy, milk, oil, granulated sugar, molasses and vanilla. Mix well. Add roughly half the flour, the baking powder, salt and spices, and use a fork to fold everything together. Add the remaining flour and mix gently until combined. Don't use a hand blender for this, as pumpkin can get gummy if it's mixed too aggressively. Blending with a fork helps maintain the texture.

Pour batter into the prepared baking pan and spread it out with a spatula. Scatter the streusel on top as evenly as possible. Bake for 45-50 minutes, until a knife inserted through the center comes out clean.

Remove from the oven, let cool and cut into squares.

Moving out and on

So, I have been slacking on posting but for good reason. I have been moving and getting situated in my new life! And let me tell you, moving my stuff up two days before, and actually moving up the day I started my new job was not the best idea I have ever had.

However, I have been doing a lot of cooking from Mother's Day on, so I have a lot of writing to catch up on....starting tomorrow! I hope ;)

Dream or reality?

Dreams are funny.

I think because I fell asleep thinking about my time cooking in Germany, which seems so unreal to me now, I ended up dreaming about being in the kitchen.

I had this vivid dream of being involved in a cooking competition with teams of two partners. I was paired up with another female, and for some reason we were focusing on desserts. The dream wasn't necessarily a nightmare, or a bad dream, but it definitely had a stressful element.

Apparently, my work space had already been used by someone else, and it was a HUGE mess: flour everywhere, all kinds of dirty dishes piled up and used rags laying all over the counter. And no matter how I tried to straighten things up, it seemed like the mess just kept expanding.

I somehow came over my problems, however, and came up with a brilliant idea for a dessert. You know how sometimes in your dreams things sound great, but in real life they would be ridiculous? Well this was not one of those times, and I am excited to try-out at least part of my dreamed invention.

And then the dream ended.

It was strange, how when I woke up the dream seemed more real to me than what I fell asleep thinking about.

A tribute to the late Great Uncle John

My dad's tribute to his uncle of the same name, his "Perf" martini.

30 minute meal? I am WAY too hungry for that

Alright Rachael Ray, I had to one-up you. Tonight I made a healthy and delicious dinner in 20 minutes. Actually, it may have been even less than that. After working at a wine tasting tonight, I came home with my stomach growling, and not wanting to grab fast food or stuff a sandwich into my mouth I decided I would actually cook.

This is what I threw together, and it literally took me the time it takes to boil water and cook pasta, with about as much thought as it takes to make a salad. Unfortunately, I can't give you exact measurements because I only cooked enough for myself and didn't keep track of it, but it is straightforward enough that you can figure it out or alter it depending on your taste.

I chopped up some yellow onion and garlic, sauteed it in olive oil and added some pine nuts. Once the nuts were beginning to toast I added chopped tomato and canned tuna. A few pinches of salt and pepper, some dried basil from my garden, a handful of spinach and a splash of white wine later and my sauce was ready. I added the linguine I had boiled during all of this, shredded some Parmesan on top and my dinner was complete.

Sorry Rach.

German Dinner

My mom, for some reason, rarely cooks traditional German dinners anymore, so when she does I tend to get pretty excited. Just the other day she surprised us all with a dinner of Schweinebraten, Knödel and Süß-sauer Kraut. In other words, pork roast, dumplings and sweet and sour cabbage. It was so yummy! I have convinced her that we HAVE to turn this into a trend and start making German dinners much more often.

Can't forget the beer!

Labellas Italian Piatto and Pizzeria

So usually when a restaurant that thrives off of word-of-mouth is almost completely packed on a Wednesday night, it is a good sign. So when I walked into Labellas Italian Piatto and Pizzeria the other night, and there were only one or two open tables, I was pretty excited.

For those of you who are wondering, much like I was when I sat down in the Italian eatery, what Piatto means, it is Italian for plate. As I looked around, I discovered that the dinner "Piattos" were what most of the customers in the restaurant came to indulge in. However, my boyfriend and I love to sample and critique pizza so that is exactly what we did.

After starting off with an antipasto salad, which was pretty much what you would expect and not much more, we had a pizza with mushrooms and sausage, extra crispy.

Unfortunately, I cannot say that the pizza was spectacular. It was Okay. The sauce was actually pretty bland, like no salt or seasoning had been added. That means a lot coming from me, because I have a pretty low tolerance for salt. Also, I like the spicy Italian sausage and this sausage was nothing more than mild. The best part was probably the crust, which was slightly above average quality.

Maybe pizza isn't their specialty. Maybe, judging by what the other guests were eating, I should have tried one of their dinner dishes. I think the next time I visit I will try the lasagna. You can tell a lot about an Italian restaurant by the caliber of the lasagna.

Anyways, the night ended spectacularly, with some of the best Cannoli I have had in a LONG time. These crispy, pastry tubes filled with sweet, creamy, ricotta heaven were twice the size of your average Cannoli. Needless to say, this Sicilian treat made the night for me, and helped me make the decision that I will give the restaurant another shot.

If you don't like something the first time, I feel you should always try it at least one more time, especially when it is a local restaurant maintaining in a difficult economy. And that is exactly what I intend to do.