So what have I been cooking?

It was a huge undertaking, but totally worth it. Pumpkin is one of my favorite foods in the whole world, and I get so excited each fall when they come in season. I love sharing pumpkin dishes with people... so one of my dreams has always been to have a pumpkin-themed party to showcase some of the different, wonderful things you can do with this amazing fruit.

Today, I made that dream a reality! Laura's pumpkin brunch was a huge success! I cooked all day yesterday for it, and I got up early this morning and finished everything up (with the help of one friend, who graciously showed up early and made it possible for me to get everything done right on time).


This was the spread: Pumpkin muffins from VWaV (p. 52), served with the Incredible Almond Cream Cheeze from Vegan Vittles (p. 70); pumpkin pudding from Kaji's Mom; pumpkin pancakes made from adapting the Banana-Pecan Pancakes from VWaV (p. 34), served with syrup and toasted walnuts; pumpkin-filled spring rolls from Veggie Way; pumpkin seeds roasted with sea salt and nutritional yeast; and, not pictured here (it's on the stove), Pumpkin-Apple Soup from Vegetarian Soups for All Seasons (p. 32).

Here is the soup, topped with fresh parsley and a few of the toasted walnuts. I doubled this recipe; I'm glad I did because there is plenty left over for Bob and me to enjoy! I think the soup was my favorite of all the dishes--it was sweet but not too sweet, with plenty of spice. I made this yesterday and then re-heated it this morning, to give all the flavors a chance to mingle together. The recipe suggested puréeing the whole soup, but I left about half of it chunky so that it felt heartier.



Here are the spring rolls. I followed Isil's recipe generally, except instead of grating the pumpkin, I cut it up and steamed it until it was just undercooked, and then diced it very small. I also added a bit of minced fresh ginger. I searched several stores here in Athens, but could not find eggless spring roll wrappers; so, instead, I used phyllo dough like Isil did. I had never worked with the stuff before, and it was so delicate and paper-thin that I was afraid I would mess something up. But it seemed to work fine. Into the oven they went. This was my second favorite--I really like pairing pumpkin with flavors other than the typical sweet spices.



Pancakes. These were the biggest hit at the party. I basically used the VWaV recipe, substituting pumpkin purée for the mashed banana, and adding a heaping tablespoon of pumpkin pie spice and a couple tablespoons of demerara sugar. I also used walnuts in lieu of pecans (pecans are one food I've never cared for), and left them on the side in case anyone didn't want them in their food. These were very incredible, if a little on the heavy side. I doubled this recipe too, and there was only a scant amount left over.



Toasted pumpkin seeds. Just a great snack all-around. They were really good tossed in the sea salt and nutritional yeast.



Pumpkin pudding--yum! One of my favorite treats. This recipe from Kaji's Mom is a really good recipe. I just sweetened it lightly with sugar--just a spoonful or two. I wanted the pumpkin and spices to really come out. They did!




Finally, me with some of my guests. See how happy everyone is? Pumpkins make everyone smile!



Have a great weekend!

A plain-jane kind of day

It was not a very exciting day in the way of food. In fact, it was not a very exciting day in any sense. When I woke up this morning the sky was overcast, and it stayed that way until the sun went down, with occasional sunlight peeking through. The weather was still and warm, drastically unlike this week's true January chilliness. I didn't even get out of my pajamas today until about 3 PM, when Bob and I decided it was high time we went out for a walk. Talk about lazy!

From the moment that thoughts of breakfast entered my head, I started contemplating creative ways to use up the foods we had on hand. There was a portion of a can of pumpkin purée in the refrigerator, so I used it to make pumpkin pancakes:


I was so hungry when these were done that I did not even stop to take a decent picture! I made them the same way I did when I served them for an extra special brunch back in November, modifying Isa's recipe.

For lunch I knew I wanted to use up some of the millet that I made from my last post, because I made a boatload of millet. I steamed some edamame and put that on top of a scoop of reheated millet, then made a simple dressing with sesame oil, rice wine vinegar, red pepper flakes, and sesame seeds. I topped it with the dressing and a nice sprinkle of sea salt and tossed it all together.


Voilà! Edamame-millet salad. Very creative name, I know.

Bob left a couple of hours ago to practice with his band, The Debasers. Yes, he's the bassist and lead singer of a Pixies cover band. I'm not expecting him until around 10 tonight. I couldn't get in touch with any of my friends, so I'm trying to entertain myself here at home. I wasn't planning to make cupcakes today, because my planned cupcake-baking date with my friend fell through. But, what else did I have to do tonight? So, I made the Rum Raisin Cupcakes with Rum Glaze. I passed up the optional rum-flavored buttercream frosting--first, to make the cupcakes "healthier" (HAH!), and second, to let the flavor of the rum in the batter and in the glaze speak for itself, without trying to dress it up too much. What can I say? I'm a girl of simple tastes. Anyway, I don't have the cute piping and decorating tools that I would need to make these look extra fabulous. But my birthday is in a mere 35 days, so there is hope yet!


I haven't actually tried these yet. I'll wait until Bob gets home and coax him to share one with me. But the batter sure did taste delicious!

For supper, I was not very hungry (...after sampling the cupcake batter--*sheepish*) so I just made a small, plain, boring salad. Baby spinach leaves, sprouts, cucumbers, mushrooms, a sprinkle of hemp seeds, and a quick dressing made of olive oil, white wine vinegar, dijon mustard, pepper, and rosemary. That's all there is.


Now what? Well, I'm reading High Tide in Tucson by Barbara Kingsolver. It's a collection of very clever essays about nature, environmentalism, and treading lightly on the planet. One of my favorite quotations from her is, "Let me be a good animal today." I sometimes get so worked up about how I'm going to change the world--but really, it's just as simple as that.

A weekend of cooking

I'm finally back at my apartment in good old Athens, with my well-stocked kitchen. Yesterday I didn't get to blog--in fact, I really didn't even get to cook much--because a wicked thunderstorm blew through around dinnertime. The power went out for a while, and even once it came back on I didn't want to try to cook anything for fear that it might go out again. So yesterday for dinner I had a hummus sandwich on fresh whole wheat sourdough that I purchased from the farmer's market in Atlanta before I came back that morning. I just found some prepared hummus in the fridge, and I threw on some cucumber slices and a tomato slice and some mung bean sprouts. I never had mung bean sprouts before, but they were so yummy--juicy and kind of sweet.

Lunch yesterday was a little more fun. Also at the farmer's market that morning I had bought some portabella mushroom caps, and I decided to grill myself a portabella steak for lunch. I marinated it in Worcestershire sauce (veg, of course), a little liquid smoke, and some salt and pepper and garlic powder. Then I popped it on the old George Foreman and in five minutes had a grilled mushroom. I had a nice salad with it and it was a very lovely lunch. No picture--my camera was still packed up and I was too hungry to rummage around for it. But I'm going to duplicate the meal one night this week, when my husband can partake with me, and I'll share a photo then.

This morning I made French toast, but it didn't come out as well as it usually does. A little too dry, I think. I don't know why; I make French toast often and usually don't have a problem with it. Oh well, sometimes recipes flop for inexplicable reasons. Anyway, I used:
Soymilk
Flour
Nutritional yeast
Cinnamon
Sugar
Vanilla
Whole wheat sourdough bread

It still came out well enough, and I served it with sliced bananas, maple syrup, and some Soyatoo! whipped soy topping. And I can't complain!

I had a girlfriend over this afternoon, and I planned to cook lunch for us. Never decided what I would make. But we spent so much time just chatting and catching up that we completely missed lunch time, and she had to leave. But I'm going to have her over again one night this week and really cook something--I'm thinking sushi, maybe... Anyway, I just had a plain salad for lunch, and then some crackers with crunchy peanut butter.



I made some pumpkin bread from my new vegan cookbook (called Vegan Vittles), with just a couple of modifications. The recipe called for maple syrup but I replaced it with blackstrap molasses because I don't really like the flavor of maple syrup except on pancakes, French toast, etc. As a result the loaf came out pretty dark and not very beautiful. It still tastes great though. It really is like a bread--most pumpkin "bread" recipes are really pumpkin cake, but this is drier and denser, just what I was hoping for.

For dinner I made an adaptation of Leslie's sloppy lentils (which was an adaptation of JenniferShmoo's recipe!).
Here's a picture of it cooking in my lovely big soup pot! I left out the carrot because I didn't have one, and I added Worcestershire sauce and liquid smoke. I used a whole lot less cayenne pepper than I usually use when making legumes, and it had just enough spice to make it interesting enough for me but the heat didn't overwhelm the dish. I loved the kale! I just shredded mine instead of mincing it so I had some pretty big kale leaves simmering around in there, but it was so yummy! I'm hooked on kale now--maybe I'll cook it every day. I served the sloppy lentils with a slice of mine and Bob's favorite bread (from The Grit).

Oh, and I made a new friend when I was chopping the kale--there was a ladybug hanging out among the leaves. I tried to take a picture but apparently he was camera shy. Anyway, he's been chilling in my fridge ever since yesterday morning, the poor guy. I took him out and put him on the lawn, and I'm sure the August evening heat is thawing him out quite nicely.

Thanks for all your cookbook suggestions! I got the one I did because it is short and has some very basic recipes in it that I can do a lot with. I'm going to make some almond cream "cheese" to put on the pumpkin bread. I'll let you know how it comes out! The cookbook also has a lot of good information about cruelty in the egg and dairy industries. It's hard to read and hard to talk about, but I would recommend Vegan Vittles for the intro alone to anyone who is considering becoming vegan but just not sure (like I was) that these industries are really as cruel as the meat industry. 

Inspiration-swapping

As I was reading blogs this weekend, a couple of posts jumped out at me: First Diann at Eat'n Veg'n, and then over on Boo's Veg-a-Nut, I saw that bloggers had been inspired by a recipe I had posted awhile back for black bean patties, only they made it into harvest loaves (or bean loaves, or meetloaves, or whatever you'd like to call them). I thought this was very clever, so I decided to be inspired by their inspiration.


A few tweaks to the recipe made a very good loaf--a little crumbly, but I can fix that next time I make it. I served it with steamed kale and mashed potatoes, and a heavy drizzle of Dreena's Miso-Good Gravy from TEV. Very comforting food indeed. Thanks for the idea, ladies!

Also from Diann, a great big bowl of Black Bean and Pumpkin Soup. Anyone who has been reading this blog for a while probably knows that I'm crazy about pumpkin, so it was inevitable that I would try this soup as soon as I saw the recipe.


I really love the combination of spices in this soup. I highly recommend stirring some cilantro into each serving--it just adds one more layer to the already deep levels of flavor. So good. I can't wait to take my leftovers to work with me.

I made breakfast for Bob (well, and for myself too) this morning. His favorite breakfast is pancakes. For fun, I decided to try the Chocolate-Chocolate Chip Pancakes from VWaV.


Though chocolate is not exactly a critical part of a healthy, balanced breakfast, my instincts told me that Bob would still really like it. I was right--I guess I know my man. Warmed raspberry preserves are the best accompaniment I can think of to a chocolate breakfast.




I thought I would be remiss if I didn't mention that November is now, offically, Vegan Month of Food! I've noticed that many of you are participating--fun! I am excited to see an explosion in great vegan food posts this month, and hopefully I'll be able to keep up with all of your blogs a little better. As for me, well, I'll be cooking and posting just like always... but it looks like it might be a busy month for me, and I probably won't be posting every day. Nevertheless, I'm all for setting aside a month to revel in the wonderful, nutritious, and cruelty-free foods that make being vegan rock!

Until next time, peace!

(And by the way, if you're wondering what is going to be keeping me so busy this month, look here to find out...)