To Live and Eat in L.A.

Ok so I didn’t really turn into an actual pumpkin, but I did have another late night baking fit involving pumpkin… at the rate I’m going through these orange gourds, I very well might turn into one.

This time around I was set on having pumpkin cheesecake. I went through all my cookbooks looking for the perfect recipe, but everything I found was either too complicated or called for too many ingredients that I didn’t have on hand. I eventually came upon PETA’s Pumpkin Cheesecake. It seemed super easy to make and I had everything listed so I decided to give it a whirl.

Wow… it turned out so good! My first pretend-cheescake and I didn’t mess it up, yay! Really though, the recipe is so simple I would have had to have been trying on purpose to mess it up. Anyone can make this, it’s as easy as putting ingredients into a food processor or blender and then waiting for it to be ready.
Read the rest of this entry »

Earlier today I happened to catch Giada De Laurentiis on Food Network preparing a meal with kids. She made the coolest dish everyone seemed to love and it sounded like pretty much the best idea ever: Macaroni & Cheese Cupcakes. There’s no actual cupcake involved, it’s basically mac & cheese that’s been baked in a cupcake mold… voilà, mac & cheese cupcakes. Brilliant!

As soon as I saw her make these I knew that I had to eat them, and that meant of course veganizing them. Her recipe uses the full mother lode of real diary products as well as a poor, ground up turkey, but I dispensed with all of that nonsense and simply adapted my own vegan macaroni & cheese recipe and then baked it in a muffin tin.

They came out so good… outstanding! What a fun way to eat something that’s already delicious. The main change I made to this was using the Mozzarella style “Italian” flavor of Daiya cheese instead of my usual cheddar, and I also added some dried oregano and basil to the mix. I wasn’t sure if I could trust the white Daiya to be as good as the cheddar for this purpose, but I’m pleased to report that it was just lovely.

I baked them at 375 for 15 minutes. They were still very soft right out of the oven so I had to let them cool for at least 10 minutes before I could remove them without everything falling apart. Even still, they were rather eager to fall apart… they’d set but just barely. Next time I make this I’ll need to experiment with getting the mixture to thicken up more so that the ‘cupcakes’ will hold together better. Perhaps less milk for a thicker sauce, or maybe adding in some cornstarch. Also, I used small elbow macaroni, maybe next time I’ll go with something like rotini pasta that would have more knooks & crannies for the cheese to stick to. Any suggestions for what you think could help hold these little beauties together better? Remember I’m using Daiya, not real cheese, so that’s why it’s not setting as well as real cheese would.

Here’s my recipe that I used:
Vegan macaroni & cheese recipe
and
Here’s Giada’s turkefied version where I got the inspiration:
Giada’s Baked Macaroni and Cheese Cupcakes

DO try this at home! I’d love to hear about your results and possible improvements.

Tis the season and I’ve got pumpkins on the brain. My mom had asked me to make her a vegan pumpkin cheesecake, but while I was browsing through my cookbooks for a good recipe I came across another pumpkin based treat that grabbed my attention instead and wouldn’t let go. Luckily I just so happened to have all the ingredients on hand to make the Pumpkin Crumb Cake with Pecan Streusel from The Veganomicon (don’t worry mom, you’ll get your cheesecake eventually).

I made it and it was awesome. This is a big deal for two reasons:

1.) It’s the first dessert item I’ve made from The Veganomicon, I’d previously only tried making savory dishes, and
2.) This is the first cake I’ve ever made in my life.

It’s true. Insert collective shocked gasp here. You already know this whole cooking-for-real thing is pretty new for me still… there’s just never been an occasion ever which required me to make a cake. In my world cakes are things you buy or which other people who are far better at baking make for you… making one from scratch is all new territory as far as I’m concerned. Sure, I think I may have participated once or twice in some cake action that began as a powdered mix poured from a box, but a real cake, made with real ingredients from start to finish? Nope, first time!

You can imagine I was absolutely stoked that not only was this cake super easy to make, but it’s also exceptionally delicious. Cake success!

I had a tiny freak out when I realized that I didn’t have the full amount of oil the recipe calls for, but I made a last minute executive decision and substituted the amount I didn’t have with the same amount of apple sauce. This seems to have been the right thing to do because this cake was so freakin’ fantastic that I wouldn’t change a thing about it. The texture is very soft and crumbly, perhaps slightly more fall-apartish than it should have been due to the applesauce/oil switcheroo, but that’s it’s only minor flaw. If anything that made it even more tasty because the cake came out exquisitely moist. Everything about this cake was fantastic, from the full-bodied flavor of the pumpkin which really comes through, to the crunchy, sweet and sugary pecan streusel that it’s topped with… SO DAMN GOOD!

The cake is made in a 9 x 13 baking pan, which is pretty big, and it’s just me here… so, um yeah, I’ve eaten nothing but pumpkin cake for the past three days: breakfast, lunch, dinner and late night snacks included. It just gets better and better too the more it sits around. By the second day it had firmed up somewhat and it started reminding me a bit of the tasty honey cakes my grandmother used to make.

If you own The Veganomicon I implore you to give this cake a try (and if you don’t own it I implore you to buy it!). It’s a perfect treat for Halloween in this cool weather we’re enjoying in Los Angeles right now, and I’ll also suggest that it would be an excellent treat to make and share for Thanksgiving or any other sorts of gatherings you might have coming up… one cake will feed at least 16 people. Or just me if you leave me alone with it for a few days.

Happy Halloween everyone… have a spooky and delicious weekend!

My friends and I are crazy. For the past two weekends my pals Miss Alix & Studiodrome have held a horror movie watching marathon at their place, and I attended both. Last weekend I made it through at least 24 hours of gore while those guys continued on with Studiodrome finally passing out somewhere around the 36 hours mark. I told you we’re crazy.

This last weekend we pushed ourselves even further to the limits of sanity with yet another marathon (I hadn’t even fully recovered from the sleep deprivation of the last one!) and had even more fun exploring the depths of no-sleep, messed up movies and tasty snacks.

The snacks are why I’ve gathered you here today. Truth be told I’m too tired to even think clearly so writing a proper blog post at the moment is out of the question. Luckily Miss Alix liveblogged about the event as we were in the thick of it, complete with photos of her most delicious cookies and baked goodies (that’s her adorable and delicious ghost cookie up there!), and her post also features the vegan mac & cheese I made for the gang to enjoy. When a bunch of voracious zombie lovers on no sleep devour a dish you made in no time at all, you can’t help but feel a little pleased with yourself, so allow me this moment to brag :) I’m not going to brag actually, I’m just going to send you over to Alix’s Cute and Delicious blog so you can check out the yumminess with your own eyes and read a bit more about our insane marathon. Head on over to: http://cuteanddelicious.com/2009/10/25/halloween-cookies for all the gory details…

For the curious, we made it through 12 non-stop movies in 26 hours, including a glorious finale in the movie theater for a screening of Zombieland. Most appropriate because now I feel like a zombie!

I mentioned a few posts back that I’m getting really into baking. I realize that making your own food and having it turn out delicious isn’t something new for most of you, but for me it’s a whole new adventure. I’m still at the beginners level of keeping things really simple, having learned the hard way that even really simple recipes are very easy to mess up… at least they are in my kitchen.

The other night I was craving cornbread (this is not unusual) and I realized that I probably had most of the ingredients for the tasty treat on hand. I looked around online for a proper vegan cornbread recipe then consulted my all-too-often neglected shelf of cookbooks. It was then that I remembered that not only is there a great skillet cornbread recipe in The Veganomicon, but that I had also recently acquired my first cast iron skillet which I hadn’t even used yet. I had no excuse not to make cornbread.

Turns out the recipe really is super simple, as long as you can follow basic instructions you can get this thing right. I’ve looked around all over and can’t find the recipe online so I’m not going to be the one to bust anyone’s copyright and post it here, so hopefully you’ve already got the book or you will use my Amazon.com link to go & buy a copy right now. It’s a book that every vegan should own, whether you’re a seasoned chef or a newbie like me.

The recipe has a standard version as well as a Jalapeno-Onion variation and a Double-Corn version… of course I went with double-corn because you can never have too much corn as far as I’m concerned. The bread came out great, you have no idea how exciting it is for me to cook something and have it come out of the oven looking and tasting like it’s supposed to… wow, what a feeling!
Read the rest of this entry »

I found a simple bare bones recipe for molasses oatmeal cookies which I followed exactly (with the addition of crystallized ginger) but something went wrong somewhere along the way because the dough wasn’t very doughy or sticking together, it just crumbled apart. Cookie fail! Not enough liquid or fat maybe?

Rather than give up that easily I tightly press the failed cookie dough into a baking dish, topped it with brown sugar, popped it in the oven and hoped for the best. It actually came out rather tasty though still a bit too crumbly to hold together very well.

I’ve been trying to cook and bake more often. Expect more of these mini posts featuring my late night cooking adventures.

[Next Morning Update:] Wow, this got a lot interest! I didn’t originally post the recipe because it’s really not much other than a list of ingredients… and well, it didn’t exactly turn out cookies as expected, but you guys are asking for it so here you go:

Molasses Oatmeal Cookies Recipe by Vegan Wolf
Cream:
½ c shortening
½ c sugar
½ c molasses
1 ½ c oats
1 c raisins
1 c nuts (opt)
Add:
1 ¼ c flour
1 T ground flax
¾ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon baking powder
½ t salt
1 t cinn
½ t ginger
drop by Ice cream scoop
350 15 min

That’s the extent of the recipe/instructions, but I followed it exactly other than as mentioned, the addition of ginger chunks, as well as I blended the oats with the rest of the dry ingredients first, not “creamed” into the wet ingredients which seems like a mistake to me. For shortening I used Earth Balance butter. I also added in the nuts, raisins and ginger pieces at the end after everything else had been mixed together. This did not produce anything like a cookie dough, it was dry and crumbly, attempts at rolling it into balls or lumps just fell apart.

On a positive note, the loaf/cake thingy that I turned it into instead is even tastier the next morning. It has stuck together better and isn’t as eager to fall apart when you come at it with a fork. I’m eating a nice big piece of it as we speak! So maybe you can figure out what the deal is with this recipe and force some cookies out of it… or hey, how about a cookie cake? I’ve found other vegan molasses cookie recipes with thorough instructions so I’m not giving up yet. Stay tuned for round two!

Macaroni & Cheese. It’s was one of the few dishes, along with pizza, that most vegans long for nostalgically from their cheese eating days. Thankfully for us and the animals we abstain from eating, vegan cheese has come a long way in recent times and there’s literally nothing left that we can’t have anymore, even pizza is back on the menu. Vegan food has truly arrived with wonderful substitutes that rival, or even in some circumstances surpass the originals they seek to imitate.

At the top of the vegan simulated foods chain sits Daiya Cheese, a marvel of taste and ingenuity. Daiya Cheese is the sort of stuff that’s going to start a revolution. The cheese flavor is dead on and even more remarkably, Daiya melts just like real cheese. No joke, this stuff is the real deal, a true cheese substitute that melts and stretches and actually makes you want to eat it. No one can complain anymore that it’s too hard to go vegan because they’d die without pizza… because vegan pizza is out there and is as good as the “real” stuff. And now I’m here to tell you, so is Macaroni & Cheese.

I scoured the internet reading over dozens of baked mac & cheese recipes, and borrowed shamelessly from many various sources (including Veggywood and Alton Brown’s recipes) to come up with my version that seemed both easy enough to pull off as well as incredibly delicious. Guess what? It was both!

Here’s what I did:
Read the rest of this entry »

It’s no secret that I can’t cook. Well, it’s not that I can’t cook, it’s that I usually don’t. I am perpetually in awe of people who on a regular basis go to the trouble of creating amazing meals and desserts from scratch. To me, you people are like superheroes… it amazes me that in the same time that I can waste sitting around doing nothing, you kitchen folk can whip out a casserole or a cake likes it’s nothing. That’s pure magic.

Me? I generally can’t be bothered. I do enjoy cooking when I actually get around to doing it, but when I do it’s a big deal. Geez, what a production just to get vegetables cleaned and chopped! I’d much rather just enjoy the fruits of someone elses more talented labor. I’m blown away whenever someone feeds me something they’ve made, as I know that even the simplest things take so much time & effort to create. Many of you out there spend a lot of your time in the kitchen cooking up awesome dinners and incredible desserts for the people who matter to you, and for that you deserve mad respect. Cooking with care & love is just about one of the greatest (and sexiest) things you could ever do for someone, so in case no one’s thanked you for it lately, allow me: THANKS! I could not be a Foodeater without you Foodmakers.

You know where this is heading, right? You guessed it- I cooked! While it is a rare occurance that I bust out and cook up an entire feast, it does actually happen once in a blue moon. This latest cooking adventure took place because of a wonderful offer I took advantage of courtesy of Basu’s Homestyle, a new Indian food service here in Los Angeles. Basu’s make delicious traditional masala’s (sauces) that you can use to create an amazing Indian meal in very little time. As of this writing, Los Angelenos can try Basu’s yummy offerings at the Whole Foods hot bar on Santa Monica & Fairfax (and they plan to expand to more locations in the near future). Mr. Meaner over at Quarrygirl.com did an excellent write up of the prepped Indian goodies by Basu’s that you can now get at Whole Foods, including: basil vindaloo with peas and mushrooms, tofu apple masala, vegan curried beef with basil vindaloo, channa dal and peanut masala with roasted red potatoes. Oh man, it all looks so good.

While I haven’t tried the ready-made options at Whole Foods yet, I was lucky enough to take Basu’s Homestyle up on their generous free taste-test of their masalas and other goodies. At first figured I’d just serve the sauces over rice but they gave me so much great stuff (Masala Sauce, Peanut Masala Sauce, Chana Dal, Tamarind Chutney and Saffron Rice) that I was immediately inspired to cook a real meal with it.
Read the rest of this entry »