Dessert By Candy

Slimming Down

An unexpected result of being away from home is that I am slimming down quickly. My home is typically stocked with all kinds of little bites for me to graze on throughout the day. Now that I have a few storage and cooking limitations, I think long and hard before putting an item into my shopping basket. That means meal planning is a lot more organized and I make sure to only purchase items I need for dishes I plan to make in the next few days. Just one week into my training and my clothes are already fitting a little more loosely. Imagine that!

Aside from more disciplined eating habits, I’m also craving different food in this warm weather. Salads that are ready to eat directly out of the fridge is the norm. Since the bean and butternut squash salad, I have also finished a batch of green bean fennel red onion salad and raw Tuscan kale salad. On today’s menu was roasted acorn squash stuffed with fruit & nut wild rice salad in blood orange vinaigrette. Funny how I cannot cook rice if my life depends on it yet wild rice is something I can make with reliable success.

Homesick Vegan

Since I arrived in Florida on Tuesday, I’ve been busy settling in. It’s been hectic and not at the same time. Things could get overwhelming when simple trips to the gym or the grocery store were preceded by long walk in the bright Florida sun. But once my daily chores and training were done, there were plenty of down time that I spent in solitude. I did not realize going into the office daily meant I was surrounded by human connection. Now that I work remotely, I miss that interaction.

I’m just a little homesick. Though I’m a seasoned traveler and I’ve gone on extended work trips or vacations before, this time things just feel a bit different. I’m not exactly relaxed in the vacation frame of mind because the responsibility of work and training continues to be the central focus of my life. Yet, I’m removed from the familiarity of daily life. This calls for comfort food that reminds me of home. This means vegan food that makes me feel good inside and out.

Vegan Cravings

I embrace food in all its animal and vegetarian glory but I develop intense cravings for vegan dishes over stretches of time occasionally. Such cravings are usually spurred by fatigue of cooking meat dishes for the boys. Sure it is fun to cook and eat finger-licking-good ribs, juicy roasts, and pan-seared steaks with that irresistible char. But honestly, my true love lies in a rainbow of colours and shapes from vegetable, legumes, and whole grains. Since my return from Virginia, vegan is the name of the game and I cannot be happier.

Novice vegan cooks often find it difficult or creatively restrictive to cook without animal products. I know I was. However, experience and knowledge taught me that it is merely a difference between the glass half-empty and half-full attitude. There is a lot of flavour to be coaxed out of vegetables. Conversely, whole grains and beans are perfect receptacle for flavour. Together they make a really good team for some truly satisfying dishes. Last weekend’s Heirloom Beans and Mushroom Stew was an illustration of this example.

Nutritional Powerhouse

Even by the low standard of fad diets, cabbage soup hit a pretty low point in culinary history. I totally understand if you want to run the other way once you find out that I have a cabbage soup recipe for you today. For those of you brave enough to read on, I guarantee that you’ll be rewarded with a feisty, wholesome, and hearty soup that just happens to be vegan and a nutritional powerhouse. Oh, and it has absolutely nothing to do with post-holiday cleanse because, as we all know, we did not over-indulge in cookies and eggnog the last couple of weeks.

My week-long vacation in Virginia had finally came to an end and I returned to my comfortable home last night. What welcomed me was an impeccably clean house thanks to Little Brother’s awesome effort and a fridge mostly devoid of fresh vegetable due to my own great planning. However, that did not mean I had nothing to work with. Given the right treatment, red cabbage, sweet potatoes, onion, a can of cannellini beans, and some leftover canned tomatoes quickly turned into a fragrant pot of soup with spicy kick from garam masala and ginger. The vibrant soup was joined by bits of green onion, roasted cashews, and flaxseed sesame lavash. I only meant to have a few sips before my workout but before I knew it, I gobbled down a large bowl. It was that good.

Indian Feast At Home

Indian cuisine is at once familiar and exotic to me. Familiar to my taste buds because Toronto is a multi-cultural city with large South Asian population and authentic Indian food is woven into our dining culture. Exotic in my kitchen because I rarely crave Indian food at home. The whole concept of toasting whole spices and grinding my own spice blend as building blocks for most dishes seems like a job best left to the professionals. However, there are great reasons to cook Indian food at home. The wonderful choices of vegetarian and vegan dishes fit right in to my way of eating. Besides, I can still enjoy the vibrant flavours of these dishes without the heavy greasy taste often found at restaurants with penchant for ghee.

About a week ago I received a new recipe to test for an upcoming issue of Cook’s Illustrated Magazine. The recipe for naan promises fluffy tender restaurant-style flatbread that I can make at home with a non-stick skillet. Of course I jump at the chance to cook an Indian Feast at home.

Soup Season Is Here

It’s been over a year since I started cooking with French Fridays with Dorie group and it’s amazing to see the sheer number of dishes I cooked from Around My French Table. Out of the 42 dishes in my archive, five of them are soup and all require pureeing. Good thing I invested in an immersion blender last Christmas! This week’s Spiced Squash, Fennel, & Pear Soup is no exception and my favourite small appliance got another good workout.

I make roasted squash soup on a regular basis as soon as soup season arrives. It is low in calories yet its warmth and heft feel so satisfying this time of year. I can eat bowl after bowl without guilt. However, squash soup can be a bit one-dimensional in taste. It is a welcome change to see a recipe incorporating plenty of other vegetable and spices to give this winter standby a makeover.

Vegans, Don’t Feel Left Out

Yesterday I revealed the content of Bake Sale for A2A regular cookies assortment without one single mention of the vegan cookies assortment. It’s really an oversight on my part because I’ve been so caught up with the sheer amount of baking. I churned out 70 dozens of cookies from my home kitchen within the last week in addition to catering meals to 24 people for a sporting event in Montreal. Overwhelmed is an understatement. Having said that, I had the most fun creating the vegan cookies assortment. Due to the smaller batch size, I could let my culinary creativity run free without strictly following a recipe.

For the most part, my vegan cookies follow the template Dreena Burton uses in her vegan cookbooks. The base is formed by mixing flour and leavening agents using the quickbread method with a maple syrup vegetable oil emulsion. Add-ins are folded into the batter before shaping and baking. It’s very simple and does not require any specialty ingredients. The ease of this method meant I could bake batch after different batch very quickly as well. For this weekend’s delivery, I included four recipes showcasing various tastes.

Same Dish, Vastly Different Result

I have never been interest in cooking or eating ratatouille even after the release of the highly entertaining animated movie of the same name. A medley of summer vegetable overcook to oblivion simply goes against my own sensibility never mind that this is a classic dish enjoyed by many. Oddly enough, I had the pleasure of experiencing the dish at both ends of the spectrum this week. On one end, it was a homemade version using locally-grown produce cooked long and slow to achieve a harmony of summer taste in every yielding spoonful. On the other end, it was a mass-produced buffet offering that languished at the steaming table yet the vegetable chunks were squeaky tough and tart enough to make my face all scrounged up. The massive divide between the good and the bad made me realize why some people have such strong prejudice against certain dishes if they’ve only come to know the dish by the worst of the worst interpretation.

Cinnamon Chipotle Chocolate Cookies

Being a competent home cook and baker has its perks. One of which is the ability to feed my love ones with food they enjoy, vegan or not. Last Friday I had dinner with my best friend from grade 7. We’ve been through a lot since and I feel blessed that we remain close friends to this day. She has always love animals so it’s no surprise that she’s now fully embracing the vegan lifestyle. I baked her two batches of vegan cookies as a small gesture. The cookies you see on the left are Lemon Poppy Seed Spelt Thins and the cookies on the right are Cinnamon Chipotle Chocolate Cookies.

A few years ago I experimented with vegan baking and had great success with Dreena Burton’s recipes. The basic recipe is making a dough using quickbread method with oil, maple syrup, and a bit of molasses for flavour. All ingredients are standard pantry staples yet the result is tender cookies that rival their non-vegan counterpart. The best part is the ease of the recipes. I can typically bake a whole batch within 30 minutes from the time I scale out the ingredients to cookies cooling on the rack, clean up included!

Feeling Smug? Not So Fast

I confess that I often feel a little smug when I hear about other people’s food hang ups. I pride myself on having an adventurous palate and I embrace tastiness in all its guises. Horror of horror, I realize today that I do have hang ups of my own and one of them is completely irrational. You may recall that I am not a fan of melons. I did not explain why but it is the same reason I shudder at eggplants. Don’t get me wrong, I love the taste and texture of eggplants! It is those pockets of seeds that make me go “ewww” like a little kid.

I wouldn’t foist unto you my mental association of those seed clusters. After all, I don’t want to ruin it for everyone if you’re completely okay with them. Just take my word that making eggplant caviar for this week’s French Fridays with Dorie is not exactly my idea of a good time.