Desserts Can Be Practical!

I had the pleasure of spending much of my free time at Vida Vegan Con in 2011 with Ms. Amber Shea Crawley and her husband Matt. This was before she was cookbook famous! Now Amber is pumping out raw cookbooks, like, every year!

Okay, well, for at least the last two years. Amber's sophomore follow-up to last year's Practically Raw is all about the sweet stuff. That's right, Practically Raw Desserts is finally here! And every page boasts a full-color, mouth-watering photo of healthy desserts (many of which look deceptively sinful!).

There are chapters for cookies, brownies and bars, cakes and cupcakes, pie, puddings and ice creams, and even candies, truffles, and fudge. But everything is totally healthy because the desserts are raw and made with wholesome ingredients. The beautifully frosted Devil's Food Cupcakes are made with applesauce, almond flour, cacao, powder, and maple syrup! And the Coco-Nana Cream Pie is made with coconut, almonds, bananas, and coconut butter!

For many recipes, Amber includes a baked version. So those recipes can be totally raw or not at all, depending on your preference. She also includes substitutions and variations for nearly every recipe. For example, if you don't have coconut nectar to make the Dark Chocolate Truffle Tart with Macaroon Crust, Amber lists other things you can use instead: maple syrup, agave nectar, or other liquid sweeteners.

While I really wanted to try some cake (the Enlightened Carrot Cake with Tangy Cream Cheese Icing was calling my name), I don't have access to coconut flour, and Amber says it cannot be substituted. In fact, most of the cakes and some brownies call for coconut flour. Rest assured: Most of the ingredients in the book are easy to come by. As far as I can tell, coconut flour is the one thing I cannot get my hands on locally. Amber actually includes instructions for making your own flours from almonds and cashews, as well as recipes for homemade nut milks. But coconut flour must be purchased.

I'm sure I can order some online, and I very well may. But since I didn't have any on-hand, I decided to try something with ingredients I can easily find in Memphis. I needed some more bars for pre-run snacks, so I picked the Goji Berry Granola Bars:

I went with the baked variation instead of making them raw in a dehydrator as the book suggests. I have an awesome dehydrator, and I love any excuse to use it. But I started these last night, and there just wasn't time for them to dehydrate for 6 to 8 hours before I would wake up to run and need to eat one.

Anyway, these baked bars were out of this world good! The perfect blend of chewy, soft, mapley sweet goodness. They're made from oats, almonds, sunflower seeds, and goji berries blended with a delicious maple-tahini sauce. After baking for about 20 minutes, these little guys were toasty and bound together. They held up wonderfully when I sliced the bars for storage.

I also tried the Cocoa Crunch Clusters, because Amber's publisher released this recipe to share with blog readers on her cookbook tour:

 

 

These are so simple! Just three ingredients — raisins, coconut, and cacao nibs. That's it. They're sweet and chocolatey. A perfect snack for a light to moderate workout.

Here's that recipe, as promised.

Cocoa Crunch Clusters

Reprinted with permission from Practically Raw Desserts

1 1/2 cups raisins

1 cup unsweetened shredded or flaked coconut

1/2 cup cacao nibs

Big pinch of sea salt

Combine all ingredients in a food processor and pulse until the mixture is sticky and well-combined. Rolls into balls of any size and refrigerate until firm.

Store in an airtight container at room temperature for up to a week, in the refrigerator for up to 3 weeks, or in the freezer for up to 3 months. If frozen, bring them to room temperature before serving.

Substitution: 

Raisins: dried cherries, golden raisins, or 1 1/4 cups pitted dates

Vegan Chicken Pesto Pizza Madness!

You know what? I completely forgot to announce the winner of the Happy Herbivore Abroad giveaway in last night's post. So congrats, Adriana, who according to her comment is a lover of the delicious tofu banh mi sandwich. Me too, Adriana, me too. Anyway, congrats!

Also, the lovely and awesome River of Wing It Vegan wrote the nicest, most food porn heavy, most comprehensive review of Cookin' Crunk to date. River and I are long-time blog buds, and she even tested for Cookin' Crunk several years ago. Check it out.

Now onto tonight's dinner. But let's back up a bit. You see, tonight's dinner started with a trip to the Memphis Farmers Market on opening day three Saturdays ago. I was meandering around the market space and trying to dodge bodies (our market was so crowded on opening day!) all while looking for something to catch my eye, when lo and behold, I spotted this:

A nice lady and man were selling all sorts of jarred goodies. They had regular dairy-based pesto and vegan pesto! Apparently, the lady's son was vegan for a time, and she learned to make a vegan version of everything! Well, I couldn't not buy this, right?

But what to do with a small jar of pesto? It was $8, so I wanted to save it for something special. And that's when it hit me. I've never had a chicken pesto pizza. But I see people eating them, and I get a little sad that I can't have any because it's not vegan. So I whipped up a pizza crust using my fave recipe in Vegan with a Vengeance, and I splurged on Morningstar Farms Chick'n Strips and Daiya Jalapeno-Garlic Havarti. And I made my own Vegan Chicken Pesto Pizza!

This was just glorious! Look how the chicken and vegan cheese got those little browned bits in the oven. Perfection. And the homemade, local pesto was the perfect complement to the chicken and super-melty Daiya havarti.

I mean, just look at that slice!

Here's the pseudo-recipe.

Vegan Chicken Pesto Pizza
1 whole wheat pizza crust (I used the recipe in Vegan with a Vengeance)
6 Tbsp. vegan pesto
12 strips of Morningstar Farms Chick'n Strips Meal Starters
1/2 wedge of Daiya Jalapeno-Garlic Havarti, grated

Preheat the oven to 500 degrees. Stretch the dough onto a pizza pan. Assemble the pizza by spreading the pesto on first, leaving a little room at the edge for the crust. Top with chicken strips and cheese. Bake for 12 to 15 minutes.

Kombucha: A Tutorial

A few months ago, I caught a deal on Vegan Cuts advertising a discounted kombucha starter kit from Oregon Kombucha. The deal is still available by the way — $11 for a kit with a starter SCOBY, a flavored tea of your choice, and detailed instructions on how to get started.

I love kombucha! P.S. This picture was taken way back in January.

I've been buying that high-priced, bottled kombucha at Whole Foods for far too long, and I'm tired of throwing money away on it. So I figured it was high-time I start brewing my own booch. I ordered that Oregon Kombucha kit, and since then, I've brewed jar after jar of the tart, fizzy fermented tea.

For my readers who aren't familiar with kombucha, it's a fermented tea that's heavy on probiotics. It has a vinegar-y twang with a carbonated fizziness. And it's most definitely an acquired taste. I thought the stuff was disgusting when I first tried a sip of the bottled stuff. But now I'm addicted to that tart flavor. To make it, you brew a batch of sweet tea with a mushroom culture called a SCOBY (symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast) for several weeks.

So how do you brew the booch? I'll walk you through step-by-step.

1) Acquire a SCOBY.
To ferment tea, you must start with a mother SCOBY. You can order your SCOBY online (see this deal on Vegan Cuts). Or if you know someone who brews kombucha, just ask them for a SCOBY. Every kombucha brewer has a fridge full of SCOBYs, because every time you brew a batch, the mother SCOBY makes a baby SCOBY. The babies can be stored in the fridge and re-used over and over again. So all you'll ever need to start a lucrative brewing hobby is one starter SCOBY.

This is a SCOBY! It looks really nasty, but it's just a mushroom. Nothing to fear.

2) Brew a gallon of tea.
I use 12 small tea bags for this, but you can use larger ones or even loose tea if you please. Flavored teas are a great way to make flavored kombucha, or you can go with a simple green tea and flavor the booch after fermentation (more on that in a few). If you are using a flavored tea, avoid teas flavored with oils (such as Earl Gray) because they can kill your SCOBY.

3) Sweeten the tea.
Pour your hot tea in a gallon jar, and add one cup of evaporated cane juice or sugar. The sugar is what the culture feeds on, so it's an important step.

4) Allow the tea to cool overnight.
The tea MUST be cool when you add your SCOBY later, so give it plenty of time to cool.

5) Add your SCOBY.
Place your mushroom into the gallon jar, and pour in one cup of kombucha liquid. If you order a kit, it will likely contain a SCOBY floating in kombucha liquid. But if you get a SCOBY from a friend, you'll need to ask them to pour you out a little liquid.

Kombucha with both a mama and a baby SCOBY

6) Place a cheesecloth or rag over the top and store in a warm, dark place for 7 to 30 days.
How long it takes to brew depends on the temperature and how tart you want the flavor to be. Kombucha ferments best when the room temp is between 70 and 80 degrees, so you'll have faster batches in the summer. The longer it sits, the tarter it gets. Since I like a very strong, tart kombucha, I brew mine for a full 30 days in the winter. I haven't brewed yet in summer, so I'm not sure how much that will affect the time. Also, if your house is very cold in the winter, you might want to place a heating pad under the jar as it brews.

7) When desired flavor is reached, remove the SCOBY and the baby and store them.
Store the SCOBYs in one cup of the kombucha you just brewed and keep it in an airtight bowl with a lid in the fridge. After your first batch, you should have a mother and baby SCOBY. Always save your SCOBYs because they can be used again and again.

8) Transfer the kombucha into glass containers.
Some folks store their booch in glass Grolsh-style beer bottles with the flip-tops. I don't have those yet, so I used two large jars with glass lids. You can also use Mason jars, but if so, get the plastic screw-on replacement lids. Do not use metal lids for your kombucha.

I store my kombucha in large glass jars with glass lids.

  
9) Allow the kombucha to go into secondary fermentation.
This step allows the kombucha to get extra fizzy. All you have to do is place the jars of finished kombucha on a countertop and leave them alone for 2 to 14 days. Also, if you're flavoring your booch with fresh fruit or fruit juice, this is the time to do it. Add those flavorings and allow them to meld as it goes into secondary fermentation.

10) Store kombucha in the fridge and enjoy!
I have a glass of kombucha every night before bed. Sometimes I flavor my batches with all-natural fruit juice. Last month, I added bottled R.W Kudsen blueberry nectar, and the kombucha was amazing! This month, I'm experimenting with adding simple syrups upon serving. I made an orange-vanilla simple syrup a couple night ago, and I've been adding 1-2 tablespoons to every 8-ounce glass.

Dress up kombucha with flavored simple syrups.

To make the syrup, I combined 2 cups evaporated cane juice with 2 cups water. I let the mixture heat in a saucepan over medium heat so the sugar could dissolve. Then I added the zest of one orange, the juice of one orange, and 2 teaspoons vanilla extract. I let that simmer for 20 minutes.

You can also make kombucha cocktails!! Vodka is an excellent addition. Right now, I'm sipping on a cocktail with 8 ounces of green tea kombucha, 2 ounces vodka, and 1 ounce of orange-vanilla simple syrup. Yum!

Once you remove the SCOBY from your first batch, brew another gallon of tea and start all over. I have kombucha brewing at all times now.

From Philly to Memphis

For my latest cookbook project, I'm veganizing trendy foods of the 20th century and organizing the recipes by decade. And that means I've been doing a ton of food research. I've run across some fascinating stuff. For example, did you know the Philly cheesesteak was invented in the 1930s?

Pat and Harry Olivieri first started selling steak sandwiches served on long rolls at their Philly hot dog stand in the 30s. The sandwiches took off, and Pat eventually opened Pat's King of Steaks, which is apparently still around.

For my 1930s chapter, I wanted to create a vegan Philly Cheesesteak. Now there are plenty of great cruelty-free cheesesteak recipes out there already, but can the world really have too many cheesy, meaty vegan sandwiches?

I opted to make my "steak" using a homemade steamed seitan, which I'm also including a recipe for in the book. The seitan is rolled into a log shape, wrapped in foil, and steamed. And that makes for a sliceable seitan that resembles deli meat.

But plain, sliced seitan is a little bland for a cheesesteak. So I chopped some mushrooms and fried 'em up with the sliced seitan. Then I made a small amount of thick beefy gravy to pour over the "meat." I let that cook until all the liquid was absorbed and the seitan and mushrooms were nice and brown.

The bread is toasted and buttered (aka Earth Balanced), and the seitan is topped with shredded Daiya cheddar. I'm sure old Pat and Harry wouldn't consider it a "real" cheesesteak. But that's okay. I'm a Memphis girl, so it'll have to do. It sure was delicious though!

Imagine Vegan Cafe's New Home! And New Menu!

A few weeks ago, I reported here that my favorite home-away-from-home, Imagine Vegan Cafe, was moving to a new location. After a much-deserved family vacation to Asheville, owners Adam and Kristie Jeffrey have re-opened Imagine Vegan Cafe in its new, way cuter location!

OMG! Don't you just want to eat that up? It's so cute it kinda hurts. Before, Imagine was located in a shopfront in a row of identical shops. The dining area was all in one big giant room. But now, Imagine is in a house! There are three small dining areas inside three rooms in the house. Another room serves as the counter area, where you order and pay. And best of all, they have a big dessert cooler at the counter, so they can now sell cold pies and cheesecakes!! Oh, and let's not forget the front porch patio dining areas.

Since I spend at least one night a week here, I'm so pleased that the place is super-adorbs. Ambiance is almost everything! Of course, the food has to be amazing too. And it's stellar as always, but there are some new menu items designed to please a wider audience.

Imagine specializes in vegan comfort food (pizzas, philly cheesesteaks, country fried steak, cheese sticks, milkshakes, etc.). But apparently, there are SOME vegans who actually prefer to eat healthier stuff, like veggies, when they dine out. Ha! I kid, I kid. But for real, they had gotten requests to add more veggie-based options to the menu and some more gluten-free items as well. Thankfully, they've kept all the faux meats that I like while adding the new stuff.

Tonight, I wanted to try one of the new healthier items. I ordered the Southern Staple (collards, brown rice, black beans, and a garlic aioli):

This was so good! That garlic aioli was just pure magic, my friends. Other new dishes include: Roasted Red Pepper Hummus with Fresh Veggies, Tony's Nachos (chips with cheese and jalapenos, named for regular customer and nacho lover, Tony), Spinach Salad (with strawberries and walnuts), Entree Salad (big version of their side garden salad), Wraps (hummus, portabella, or vegan chicken), the Big Smack (vegan Big Mac!), BLT with Avocado, Portabella Sandwich, Fajitas (steak, chicken, or portabella), Veggie Stir-fry (you can add chicken or steak if you want). Also, you can now get nooch as a pizza topping. There are also a few new sides — Grits, Garlic Toast, and Garlic Kale.

My friend Cassi was mega-excited about the kale! She ate most of this dish before I snapped the picture.

Also, since they have the dessert display cooler, Imagine is now selling cheesecakes, cold pies, and other refrigerated desserts, like lemon bars, in addition to the usual cupcakes, layer cakes, cookie sandwiches, and brownies. My friend Stephanie of Swell Baked Goods makes fresh desserts every Wednesday.

I ordered a slice of the Mocha Cheesecake. So good! A chocolate graham-style crust, a layer of rich, smooth mocha cheesecake, and a layer of solid chocolate shell.

Paul ordered a slice of the Key Lime Pie to enjoy on his birthday this coming Friday. He has to keep his hands off this for two days! Yes, it will be next to impossible:

Imagine Vegan Cafe is now located at 2299 Young Avenue. Click here for their full menu.

Happy Herbivore Abroad Giveaway!!!

Remember last week when I blogged about Lindsay Nixon's new Happy Herbivore Abroad cookbook? You know, the one loaded with simple, low-fat, vegan, international cuisine, full-color photos, and stories of Lindsay's world travels?

Well, I was supposed to also host a giveaway, thanks to her generous publisher. But I forgot! So we'll do that today.

If you'd like to read a review (and see pics of her Pasta e fagioli and her Blueberry Bundt Cake) of Happy Herbivore Abroad, check out my post from last Thursday. If you want to win a copy, all you have to do is leave a comment on this post letting me know your favorite international food. And by that, I mean, a dish from a country that you don't live in.

Despite the international theme here, the contest is only open to residents of the U.S. and Canada, per the publisher's rules.

I'll randomly select one winner on Sunday evening! Good luck!

Oh, and as always with these contests, if your comment isn't linked back to a blog with a way to contact you, please leave me your email address in the comment so I can contact you if you win.

Soak Your Nuts

Hahaha! I can't even write that blog post title without snickering like a 12-year-old boy. Raw food guru/restauranteur Karyn Calabrese has successfully come up with the very best vegan cookbook title ever with Soak Your Nuts. Yes, I'm that girl who laughs every time I say "nut cheese" or "nut bag." Those are phrases that, if you're not vegan, might actually warrant a giggle since they're probably not something you say very often — or ever.

But for vegans, soaking your nuts for cashew cheeses, raw ranch dressing, or live pie crust is a fact of life. Yet I still find the whole thing hilarious. What's even better is Karyn's lovely and very sophisticated face graces the book's cover. This woman owns five businesses and sleeps on four hours a night. She doesn't look or seem like a lady who would smirk about soaking nuts. But apparently, she has a great sense of humor, so I was immediately biased in favor of this book before ever cracking it open.

Thankfully, the awesomeness inside lives up to the title. And since the Book Publishing Company has re-released Karyn's book in a double-book format, it's even better! One side is Karyn's Raw Recipes. Then you flip it over, and the other side is Karyn's Conscious Comfort Foods (all cooked deliciousness).

Both sides are filled with mouth-watering dishes and a few color pictures. On the raw side, there's raw Nacho Chips (made with dehydrated flax, corn, bell peppers, onion, and spices), Onion Crisps (raw onion rings!), raw Falafel in raw Pita Bread, raw Bean Burros (like burritos made with cabbage wraps and soaked, food-processed raw adzuki beans), Nutty Pimiento Cheese (made with cashews), and raw Banana Pudding.

On the cooked side, there's Slab o' Tofu Ribs, Veggie-Potato Pot Pies, Curry-Cashew Pasta, Sprouted Black Bean Soup, and No-Bake Chocolate Peanut Butter Pie (made with a pretzel crust and a coconut-cashew cream topping!).

I wanted to try something from each side for last night's dinner. I chose my entree from the cooked side — Jerk Tofu Wraps:

There really aren't words to describe how amazing this was. The tofu is just pan-fried and plain, which might sound boring. But the sauces on this wrap are so ridiculously flavorful that the plain tofu totally makes sense. The jerk sauce is a combo of BBQ sauce and lots of spicy jerk seasoning. And then there's a garlic sauce that really sets this wrap over the top. It's made with raw garlic, soymilk, parsley, and sugar. And IT IS SO GOOD. I wrapped it all up in an Ezekial sprouted grain tortilla.

On the side, I chose a recipe from the book's raw side — Curried Cauliflower Salad:

This is unlike any other salad I've had before. The veggies are orange cauliflower, sliced red and orange peppers, and red onions. All are generously tossed with a cashew-based curry dressing that could make even the blandest raw veggie taste like magic.

So Soak Your Nuts completely lives up to its awesome name. You should probably pick up a copy and get to soakin' your own nuts.