CHOCOLATE CHUNK SPICE COOKIES

This is a very special recipe; it was prepared late on Christmas Eve in response to my children's incessant demands to make fresh cookies for santa.  After a hasty scan of all the cookie recipes in the EDBV book, this was the winner; it was the only one for which I had all the ingredients in my kitchen.  Though I did substitute (as author suggested in note) slightly less white flour for the barley flour I don't possess.  I did not think they would care for the cookie all that much given that its not kid-minded spice composition of cloves, allspice, and cinnamon, but they loved them.  My 4-year old went so far as to proclaim, "I do not want Santa to have any of these cookies, they are all for me and my sister!"  Upon further and sometimes rational discussion she compromised by agreeing he could have 1 cookie - 'he' consumed a half-dozen of the non-traditional-for-Santa Chocolate Chunk Spice Cookies.

POLENTA CASSEROLE

I have eaten polenta a few times previously at restaurants but never purchased or cooked with it.  It turns out that working with prepared polenta, sold in an 18-ounce tube, is ridiculously easy.  There were several flavor variations available; I went with traditional Italian.  The recipe calls for 2.5 cups of any kind of cooked beans, and rather that crack open another can, I raided the dry staples section of my pantry and came up with a bag of mini red beans.  I took 1.5 cups dry beans and performed the quick soak method (boil 2 minutes, soak for an hour, change water, boil for ~2.5 hours until tender, drain), and the result was well worth the extra effort.  The beans were mixed with tomato sauce, several spices, balsamic vinegar, and agave nectar to cut the acidity.  The bean mixture made up the lower layer in the casserole, with the polenta and vegan mozzarella (Follow Your Heart brand) mixture making up the upper crust.  The finished Polenta Casserole barely saw the light of day.  We gobbled just about all of it up for Christmas Day dinner.

LEMON-BROILED GREEN BEANS

I selected this recipe to prepare as a contribution to a local Christmas Eve dinner for the homeless.  Fresh green beans are perfect for small helping hands to help out by snapping off the ends of each bean.  The beans were broiled until blistering with olive oil sea salt, and freshly squeezed lemon.  While it is tempting to use lemon juice from a bottle, I highly recommend the fresh approach if for no other reason than the accompanying aromatherapy after grinding the lemon rind in the garbage disposal.  The finished Lemon-Broiled Green Beans product was pleasingly tasty, so much so I had to roast some brussel sprouts to send to the dinner along with the green beans that remained after the girls had more than several quality-control tastes.

THAI CHICK-UN PIZZA

Coconut milk.  Peanut-butter.  Awesome in isolation, lethally delicious when combined.  After blending up this concoction of said ingredients, fresh ginger, ketchup, minced garlic, tamari, rice vinegar, and agave nectar, I could have consumed by the spoonful.  The sauce was spread onto pizza shell, which was then decorated with cooked and lightly smashed chick-peas ('chick'-un), red pepper rings, pineapple bits, and baked.  After removing from oven I tossed on some roughly chopped peanuts and mung bean sprouts (from a can since the 'fresh' looked suspect) and enjoyed a few slices of Thai Chick-Un Pizza heaven.

MAPLE PECAN STICKY BLONDIES

This is another one of those recipes in which I utilized the recently purchased pure maple syrup.  In this dessert it was added to both the base and the topping, and wow that maple sap is tasty - I licked the thick layer left behind in the measuring spoon.  It is a far cry in quality and enjoyment from younger days when my brother and I would chug that Log Cabin right from the bottle's spout; a drizzle on french toast was clearly not satisfying our nutritional glucose requirements.  This recipe was also fun because I got to use blackstrap molassess- that stuff is tar in a bottle - sweet, iron-laden tar.  The topping consisted of lightly chopped pecans, maple syrup and oil toasted ahead of time, and then spread on blondie batter along with dark chocolate chips.  It was supposed to be assembled in an 8x8 pan lined with parchment paper and then baked, however my pan(s) of that size went AWOL on me and I do not even know what parchment paper is.  So I improvised and employed one of my seldom-used spring-form pans rubbed down with a thin smear of Smart Balance.  The Maple Pecan Sticky Blondies turned out just fine.  Divine even.

"HIDE THE LENTILS" TOMATO SAUCE

Red lentils never cease to amaze me.  They require no soaking, cook rapidly, and are able to take on virtually any shape - in this case, marinara sauce, with a leguminous-protein punch.  After some initial saute of the pungent ingredients, the lentils are added along with crushed tomatoes and cooked for about 25-30 minutes.  Following the simmer, a pleasant tangy-ness is achieved by addition of agave nectar and cider vinegar.  The final step morphs the final product from a lentil stew to a proper sauce - an immersion blender is used directly in the pot for a minute or two.  Result was fantastic over noodles as shown, and I also had a small bowl of "Hide the Lentils" Tomato Sauce the next day with toasted leftover Afghan bread.

SIMPLE SWISS CHARD

Swiss chard. I have heard of it, eaten it, but never attempted cooking with it. The recipe indicated a bunch of Rainbow, Red, or Green swiss chard would be fine. For my first time I went with traditional green. This stuff is huge. I felt slightly ridiculous trying to delicately stuff the chard into a produce bag, but managed to get it in there. I was supposed to have the chard rinsed and dried, but drying proved to be awkward - I settled for shaking the gigantic leaves in the general vicinity of the sink and then attempted to dab at them with a paper towel. I quite enjoyed rolling the stack of chard up and julienning, that was a particularly valuable tidbit from the EDBV author. After 2 minutes of sautee in sesame oil, the pile of leaves shrunk significantly, until by 4 minutes were reduced to ~ 1/5 of original size. The finished product complemented the Coconut-Lime Basmati Rice and the Orange Sesame Tofu wonderfully.

COCONUT-LIME BASMATI RICE

I scooped up the brown basmati rice out of the bin at Whole Food's. I plucked up a nice lime for zesting and juicing. And though I typically scoff at the ingredient 'light' coconut milk, I actually followed instructions this time and bought the light instead of the full-fat variety. This recipe was extremely easy and tasty, even with less fat. It is key to remember to get it started early enough in preparations to allow for the 40 minutes cooking time, which is why in the past I usually just purchased instant rice. If could swing it, the longer version is worth the wait.

ORANGE SESAME TOFU

This is the 'tofu' (in place of meat) of the 3-recipe dinner I prepared this evening. I hit Whole Foods on way home from work and picked up everything I needed. Except for garlic cloves to mince - my eyes somehow went blind on that item when re-reading the ingredients list at least 4 times to make store list. I used trusty old McCormick's garlic powder, blasphemous I know. But I did zest and squeeze the juice from organic oranges, and purchased pure maple (read: expensive) syrup rather than use the Log Cabin and Mrs Butterworth's copiously available in my pantry. I liked that I was instructed to prepare marinade in the same dish I would be adding the tofu to and baking it in, the fewer dishes the better. Thankfully my selective blindness did not keep me from noticing the 1 hour marinate step in this recipe. Knowing that ahead of time, I started there and then went on to prepare the Coconut-Lime Basmati Rice, which had to cook for ~ 40 minutes. The whole 3-recipe process reminded me that while I love my children more than I love oxygen, this is the sort of production I save for when they are elsewhere (as they were tonight) ;)

Jonathan Safran Foer

I attended an author event last night at the Historic Synagogue (6th and I): Jonathan Safran Foer discussion of newly released non-fiction book, Eating Animals. It was a tremendous experience. There was a brief reading and a talk of sorts, but mostly he took questions from the audience, as he wanted it to be a living conversation. But first, a woman welcomed us and gave background on the Synagogue, and then introduced the author. She turned out to be his mother. His grandmother was present too. It was only then I learned that he was born in DC and his family of origin still lives here. It was very sweet.

In listening to him talk about his son, and how a friend of his responded to the birth announcement with the comment "Everything is possible again," I realized the coincidence (or maybe more intentional than I thought) in how I, like the author, went firmly vegetarian months after the birth of my first child. It is all different when a child, of whom you have full responsibility, enters your world - it was one thing for me to consume filthy animal carcass with little regard or awareness, but the blinders fell off when it came time to feed/nourish my child's body and mind.

Overall I was immensely inspired by and impressed with this guy while simultaneously unimpressed with myself. He is my age and accomplishing exactly the sort of things I dreamed about as a kid - well I did not predict meatlessness in my future but I very much wanted to write unique fiction and non-fiction and be famous for it.
I highly recommend this book (yeah I know, duh).

COCOA-COCONUT CHILI

Cocoa-Coconut Chili is a perfect day-after-Thanksgiving-light-dinner recipe.  Originally I planned to make it as part of the T-day meal (easy method of wide exposure to how tasty vegan can be), but that proved illogical, what with all Black Friday research I was busy conducting.  Also, I lost momentum when the local market in North Eastern PA did not have coconut milk - check-out girl and customer-service girl responded with identical looks of bewilderment when I asked about this apparently exotic product.  But my dad was able to scrounge some up when he did a store-run elsewhere on Thanksgiving morning.  Ironically, the author notes that coconut milk does not have to be used, in which case one should add some agave nectar to supply sweetness.  That is crazy talk though, coconut milk is one of the top 3 ingredients in any kitchen and critical to this dish.  Another ingredient the local market did not have was Dutch-processed cocoa powder, so I made do with the regular kind.  Nonetheless, the result was lovely and unique.

PUMPKIN CHEESE-PIE

My book arrived on Monday!  I received it right as I came home from the market with items to make 2 PETA pumpkin cheesecake pies.  After perusing the Sugar N' Spice chapter of the cookbook, I realized that I had all the ingredients on hand to make one of the PETA pies and to make one of the EDBV pies, Pumpkin Cheese-Pie.  The main difference was that the former contained pureed tofu.  They both said to use a food processor, which I lack, but electric beaters worked just fine for the EDBV recipe, and the tofu in the other recipe required a follow-up with the hand blender to better puree tofu.  They were both quite easy and tasty, though I found the tofu recipe to be a bit creamier and therefore tastier (sorry Dreena).

Vegan Monologues

Today I attended a Veg Society DC (VSDC) book group meeting at Karma Kitchen for book The Vegan Monologues by Ben Shaberman, and Ben was present.  Very fun book.  Very good food.  Very cool dude.  Signed my copy.

Thanksgiving with the Turkeys

We took an hour+ ride out to Poplar Springs Animal Sanctuary (http://www.animalsanctuary.org) yesterday for a Thanksgiving Potluck.  Piglets and peacocks milled around while we sampled from tables containing more than 150 vegan dishes.  Then we proceeded to visit chickens, feed pumpkins to 700 lb pigs, and give apples to farm mules, Hal and Gloria.  Utopia.

Ordered

Taking advantage of the remaining 3 weeks of my Amazon Prime free-trial free 2-day shipping, I just placed an order for ED&BV.  Why did we select this particular vegan cookbook?  Recipes include Gimme Chimis, Monkey Minestrone, and Cocoa Coconut Chili - no further explanation required.

1st action item on this journey: trip to market with my monkeys - I mean princesses - for Monkey Minestrone ingredients; a good recipe to start with since page included in Amazon 'Look Inside' preview.