Happy Halloween!

Halloween is my favorite holiday ... well, except for Christmas and my birthday. Actually, Thanksgiving is pretty cool too (yea for Tofurkey!). But I do love dressing up, slathering on the fake blood, and going out with friends on Halloween. I also love to bake for the occasion. Last night, I made these cute fall-themed Vegan Sugar Cookies:

Okay, so I didn't do the best job decorating the leaves ... sue me.

The fall cookie cutters, new cookie sheets, a wire baking rack, and parchment paper were in a bag of assorted kitchen items that I got for my birthday earlier this month ... and well, those items combined can only mean one thing — COOKIES!

I couldn't find a plain ol' sugar cookie recipe in my cookbooks, and the ones I've made from various Internet and Veg Times recipes in the past ended up hard and crunchy. I like a soft sugar cookie, and I remembered a recent cookie post by Katy at Legally Vegan. She swore this VegWeb recipe for Just Like Granny B's Sugar Cookies was the best thing ever!

And ... oh ... my ... goddess, she was right! These are the best sugar cookies I've ever had. They're soft. They're chewy. They're perfectly sweet and buttery. I will NEVER use another sugar cookie recipe again. Promise.

Eat me! I'm a tasty pumpkin cookie!

I did substitute whole wheat pastry flour for all of the white flour in the recipe, cause that's just how I roll. I made the icing with 2 cups of powdered sugar, 2 tablespoons of soymilk, and 1/4 tsp. vanilla. Then I mixed food colorings to make fall colors. Decorating them was so fun!

For Halloween, I'm going to my Me-Maw's Halloween party in the early evening. My grandma throws a family party every year and we eat hot dogs (veggie dogs for me!), chips and dip, and dessert. I'll share posts of my dessert contribution over the weekend. Until then, trick or treat!

Get Ya Grub On

A couple years ago, I had the pleasure of meeting former-Memphian-
turned-Oakland-based-vegan-chef Bryant Terry at a booksigning at the Memphis Farmer's Market. He was signing his new book Grub: Ideas for the Urban Organic Kitchen, which he co-authored with Anna Lappé (the daughter of Diet for a Small Planet author Frances Moore Lappé).

The front half of the book contains helpful information about the importance of eating organic, whole foods. The second half is made up of Terry's menus for "Grub Dinner Parties." Terry includes menus for any occasion, as well as a list of mixtape suggestions to provide the soundtrack. Not all of the recipes are vegan (a small few even include fish), but many are meat, egg, and dairy free. The others are easily veganizable.

Shortly after reading the book several years ago, I neeeded to plan my annual Samhain feast, in which in dine in memory of all my dead friends and family (not that I have many ... but I like to remember the ones that are gone). Samhain is an ancient Celtic festival that pre-dates the modern Halloween celebration. In one of Terry's Fall menus, I stumbled on a recipe for Spicy South American Seitan Stew and a tradition was born:

This is the third year I've made this stew for the occasion, and to keep it special, I only make it once a year. You can't tell from the picture, but all those chunks are seitan (which I made using gluten flour and besan flour), red potatoes, and fried plaintain slices. It's simmered in a tomato-y, chipotle broth. So, so good!

I highly recommend the book if you don't already have it. It's great for party planning, but it's also nice to pick one or two recipes from for weeknight meals. On another related note, Terry has a new cookbook due out soon called Vegan Soul Kitchen: Fresh, Healthy, and Creative African American Cuisine, based on the traditional Southern cuisine he grew up with (sans the ham hocks and bacon fat, of course).

Sufferin' Succotash

I used to hate lima beans ... probably because kids are supposed to hate them. I also hated onions, mushrooms, and hominy. I was obviously crazy, but I've since come around. Being vegan will do that to you. Since I've only known about my lima love for a few years, I'd never tried succotash ... until last night when I made Lima Bean Succotash from More Fabulous Beans by Barb Bloomfield:

I used baby limas that I hand-picked earlier this year at Windermere Farms, a small pick-your-own organic farm in Memphis' Raleigh neighborhood. I shelled the beans back in September, but didn't have time to cook them right away. So I froze the beans for later use.

The recipe is a little different than most succotash recipes I've seen. It's baked with flour, soymilk, and chopped celery and onion. I think most succotash dishes are cooked on the stovetop. But Barb is an awesome lady, so I trusted her version would be delicious. Barb lives on The Farm in Summertown, Tennessee (an intentional community of vegan hippies located about three hours from Memphis). When I visited the The Farm last summer (read about it here in the Memphis Flyer), I stayed with Barb and her husband and she cooked some WONDERFUL food!

The succotash was creamy and the tender baby limas almost felt (and tasted) like edamamme. I'm glad I have plenty of leftovers!


This weekend, my friend Sheridan gave me a copy of The Uncheese Cookbook by Joanne Stepaniak! I've been wanting that book forever, especially after seeing all of Veganifer's yummy posts about Stepaniak's creamy cheeze sauce. It also doesn't hurt that The Uncheese Cookbook was also published by the folks at The Farm.

Since I had all the ingredients on hand, I whipped up this Herb & Tomato Cheeze Spread to smother on some crusty bread as a side to my succotash:

I love how it molded to the shape of my Gladware! It's not as hard like a brick cheese, but soft and spreadable. It reminds me of Cheese Whiz, only with thyme, dill, and tomato added. I served it on whole grain bread — the perfect side dish to my tasty succotash!

Breakfast Casserole

Every year, my family gathers at my Granny's for Christmas breakfast (in lieu of the traditional Xmas dinner). There's always tofu scramble for me and Gimme Lean. I usually bring vegan biscuits and gravy with me as well. Everybody else eats omni breakfast foods, including my Granny's beloved breakfast casserole. I don't know what's it in since I can't even remember the last time I was able to eat it, but I know it contains scrambled egg, cheese, and some kind of breakfast meat.

In honor of that baked assemblage of morning foods, I threw together this Vegan Breakfast Casserole to eat for brekkie throughout the week:

Sorry for the poor picture quality but I was working with some crappy lighting last night. Here's a better shot of the individual slice I ate this morning:


Vegan Breakfast Casserole
--------------------------------
4 slices of whole grain or sprouted grain bread, torn into pieces
1 lb. tofu, scrambled (I use garlic powder, nooch, onion powder, turmeric, etc.)
1 package Gimme Lean, fried in slices and then cut into chunks
1 serving of noochy sauce (you know, the nooch, flour, water, Dijon, margarine deal) or use your favorite cheezy sauce recipe
1 large tomato, sliced

Preheat oven to 350 while you prepare tofu, sausage, and sauce. Place torn bread in bottom of a casserole dish. Top with a layer of scrambled tofu. Then add a layer of cooked vegan sausage. Pour cheezy sauce over the top and spread evenly. Top with tomato slices and bake for 15 minutes.

Vegan Mac & Cheese, Part Deux

I've been working on my recipe for vegan mac & cheese for quite a while. I need to include one in my Southern vegan cookbook, but I didn't want to go the traditional "noochy cheezy sauce with noodles" approach. Nothing against that, but that doesn't really warrant a recipe. So I developed a yummy cashew cheezy sauce. Last time I tried it, the sauce was out of this world, but I baked the pasta and it dried out ... ick.

This time, however, I stirred the boiled whole wheat shells into sauce prepared on the stovetop and voila — Super Creamy Mac & Cashew Cheeze:

I love this stuff! But I'm not gonna part with the recipe, as it will be featured in my upcoming cookbook (whenever that actually happens ... don't worry, it will come, but I am taking my time).

I created a meal out of side dishes to go along with the mac & cheese. I also made this Southern Fried Okra:

I used Japanese okra from my Granny's garden, so it's a little bigger than an average sized okra ... but still tasty. For the batter, I mixed whole wheat pastry flour, cornmeal, onion powder, salt, and pepper.

I also prepared some Baked Green Tomatoes:

I prefer them fried (in fact, I prefer everything fried), but I knew frying two veggies in one meal would be a bad idea. So I prepared these 'maters (also from my Granny) by slicing them, drizzling with olive oil, seasoning them with thyme and salt, and topping them with bread crumbs. Then I baked them at 350 for about 15 minutes.

By the way, I had every intention of making Cookies and Cream Cheesecake Cupcakes for Iron Cupcake: Earth tonight ... but my plans were thrwarted! I went shopping for something to wear to my ten-year high school reunion tonight (which makes me feel super old), and SHOPPING TAKES FOREVER! By the time I had something cute to wear, Whole Foods (the only place with vegan cream cheese) was closed. And the deadline for Iron Cupcake is tomorrow at noon ... so it looks like I'll be skipping again! Sorry!

Inside My Messy Freezer

I was tagged by Chelsea of Ramblings of a Native Vegan Mecca Girl to show the inner workings of my freezer. Now, before you look at the picture, let me warn you ... it's a little disorganized. I'm typically a very organized person (even bordering on OCD), so letting ya'll into my messy freezer is a little like having company over the house the day before cleaning day. But since you are all good friends, I'm sure you'll overlook the mess, right?

Everything is pretty much crammed in here, but it's your typical vegan freezer — Ezekiel Bread and Buns, Boca Chicken Patties (the vegan ones), Amy's Bistro Burgers, Purely Decadent Coconut Milk Chocolate Mint Ice Cream, Ciao Bella Lemon Sorbotto (THE BEST STUFF EVER!), frozen veggies and containers of frozen meals from the recent past. And of course there's the almost-empty bottle of Bacardi 151.

I also took a shot of my inside freezer door, but it was REALLY unattractive ... all frozen veggies in plastic baggies crammed this way and that. So I'm not showing that one.

Since my fridge much more organized than my freezer, I'm going to show you that too. But in exchange, I'd like to start a new meme asking any willing participants to bare their fridges as well.

Here's one shot (click on it for a closer look):

Top shelf is mostly jams, spreads, relishes, and pickles. Notice the big pink jar of pickled turnips next to the tahini jar ... I had to buy some after trying them at a local Middle Eastern restaurant. So good!

There's a couple logs of Teese (thanks Daddy!), some apples, and soy yogurt, as well as Earth Balance and probiotic powder. And lots of leftovers .... I actually even took some out for the shoot cause they were blocking the good stuff. Bottom shelf is iced green tea, cold water (I removed the filter from my Brita pitcher because Memphis has some of the cleanest water in the world ... 'bout the only thing clean in this city, but at least we got somethin'), some German white wine, whole wheat pastry flour, and soymilk. And there's a big ol' butternut squash in the crisper with celery, onions, and dill.

Now for the door (again, click to enlarge):

As you can see, about half of these condiments are hot sauces. That's because my friends who used to live in my house left them behind (Tim was a hot sauce freak!). There's also soy sauce, Liquid Smoke, lemon juice, Vegenaise, my favorite Organicsville Non-Dairy Ranch Dressing (a staple in my house), and Amy's Goddess Dressing ... the bottom shelf is mostly liquor (including Absenthe) left behind by the previous residents.

So, what's in your fridge? I wanna know. I'm tagging anyone who has any of these items in their refrigerator:

1) A log of Teese

2) More than 2 bottles of hot sauce

3) Something pickled that's not a cucumber

4) Packaged condiments from a fast food joint

5) A winter squash

If you have any of these items, take a picture of your fridge, post it, and tag some more people. Or if you don't have these items but still wanna show off your junk, go for it.

Raw Pizza!

I got tons of awesome birthday presents this year, one of which was container full of homemade raw buckwheat pizza crusts. My friend Judith, who's pretty much 100 percent raw, made them in her dehydrator.

She also included an avocado and a tomato in the gift bag so I had all the makin's of a raw pizza for dinner tonight. I used mashed, salted avocado in place of cheese and topped the crust with fresh tomatoes.

Though not pictured here, I also sprinkled the pizza with a little nooch for extra "cheesiness" and a B-12 boost.

Judith's crust was amazing. It had a bit of an Italian herb taste, like real pizza crust. But I don't know what she used in it. I'll have to get her recipe. For now though, I'm just going to enjoy eating homemade raw goodies that I didn't have to make on my own. I have enough crusts to save for the next raw food day (first Tuesday of each month), so expect more raw pizza later on.