VeganMoFo: Pumpkin Pancake with POM-Ginger Cranberry Sauce October 7, 2009

I didn’t think these bad boys were going to happen because I wasn’t sure if cranberries were in season in my area yet.  But lo and behold while wandering through the grocery store I spotted  the fresh berries.  At that moment, I knew that I would be eating these the next morning.

As I sit here writing this entry, I am actually eating these fantastic pumpkin pancakes with POM-Ginger Cranberry Sauce.  The sauce goes perfectly with the pancakes.  It is like a celebration of fall in my mouth.  Pumpkin, spices, tart cranberries, and a hint of sweetness.  Perfect   Both of these recipes are from Vegan Brunch by Isa Chandra Moskowitz; however, I did tweak the Cranberry Sauce a little.

Since I recently received a case of Pomegranate juice from POM Wonderful, I decided to incorporate the juice into the cranberry sauce for a little bit more tartness.  I substituted half of the juice for the water and it worked out perfectly.  Also, I discovered I was out of fresh ginger so I used 1/2 tsp of ground ginger.

I never thought I was a fan of Pomegranate juice but once I tasted it it reminded me of a mixture of cranberry juice because of the tartness and grape juice because of the sweetness.  I guess I am a convert now.  An extra added bonus is that it can help lower LDL  (bad cholesterol), which I am currently trying to do at age 27.  Damn genetics and its fury little hands.

Back to the yumminess at hand.  If you don’t own Vegan Brunch, you need to get it now.  Especially since that is the only way you are going to find out how these pumpkin pancakes taste.  To give you some incentive I will provide you with my tweaked up version of the cranberry sauce.  Happy Eating

POM-Ginger Cranberry Sauce

Adapted from Ginger Cranberry Sauce in Vegan Brunch by Isa Chandra Moskowitz

2 cups fresh cranberries

3/4 cup 100% Pomegranate juice

1/2 cup water

1/3 cup sugar

1/2 tsp ground ginger

1/4 cup pure maple syrup

Mix together cranberries, juice, water, sugar, and ground ginger in a sauce pan. Cover and bring to a boil.  Lower the heat a bit and let simmer for about 10 minutes.   Uncover and let simmer until mixture is reduced by about half, 10 minutes or so.  Remove from heat and let cool for at least half an hour and stir in maple syrup.  Serve warm.

Daring Cooks: Indian Dosas September 14, 2009

This months Daring Cooks Challenge is brought to you by Deby from The Healthy Vegan Kitchen.  She chose  Indian Dosas, the only rule we had to follow was to keep the recipe vegan (no animal products whatsoever).  If you read my blog you know that I dabble in vegan cooking and baking so this wasn’t too hard, and I actually had most of the ingredients on hand.

Or so I thought…..

I purchased all my ingredients last week and kept putting off making this because I kept getting home from work and being too tired.  Cut to Monday morning when I decided that I would make them for lunch for Mike and I.  I get all my ingredients out so that I can start chopping.  Then I realize that I don’t have any curry powder.  I swear I had some.  I guess I little gnome stole it.  Mike runs out and gets me some and then I start making the sauce and realize I am out of oregano.

WHAT IS GOING ON!!!!

There must be a family of gnomes running around my apartment stealing my spices and herbs.  Mike ends up getting that for me too, my savior

The recipe didn’t call for it but for the filling I sautéed the vegetables in 2 tbsp vegetable oil, and for the sauce I used 1 tbsp of vegetable oil to sauté the onion and garlic.  For the filling I ended up substituting one jalapeño for the hot banana peppers because I couldn’t find any.  Also, the filling ended up being a little THICK, so I added 1 cup of vegetable broth to thin in out a little.   I garnished the Indian Dosas with toasted coconut and slices of cucumber.

This were so tasty and I love them.  That actually reminded me of a bean burrito and the toasted sweetened coconut on top added a slight sweetness that was nice.  I really enjoyed making and eating these.  It actually didn’t take too long for the whole recipe to come together.  At most it took one hour from start to finish, chopping and everything.

I made these for lunch today, and I loved them.  I will post more about what I did to the recipe and my full opinion but for now the picture to prove I made them

Indian Dosas

Source: reFresh: Contemporary Vegan Recipes From the Award Winning Fresh Restaurants by Ruth Tal and Jennifer Houston

Dosa Pancakes
1 cup (120gm/8oz) spelt flour (or all-purpose, gluten free flour)
½ tsp (2½ gm) salt
½ tsp (2½ gm) baking powder
½ tsp (2½ gm) curry powder
½ cup (125ml/4oz) almond milk (or soy, or rice, etc.)
¾ cup (175ml/6oz) water
cooking spray, if needed

Dosa Filling
1 batch Curried Garbanzo Filling (see below), heated

Dosa Toppings
1 batch Coconut Curry Sauce (see below), heated
¼ cup (125gm) grated coconut
¼ cucumber, sliced

Dosa Pancakes
1.Combine the dry ingredients in a bowl, slowly adding the almond milk and water, whisking until smooth.
2.Heat a nonstick skillet over medium heat. Spray your pan with a thin layer of cooking spray, if needed.
3.Ladle 2 tablespoons of batter into the center of your pan in a circular motion until it is a thin, round pancake. When bubbles appear on the surface and it no longer looks wet, flip it over and cook for a few seconds. Remove from heat and repeat with remaining batter. Makes 8 pancakes.

Curried Garbanzo Filling
This filling works great as a rice bowl topping or as a wrap too, so don’t be afraid to make a full batch.

5 cloves garlic
1 onion, peeled and finely diced
1 carrot, peeled and finely diced
1 green pepper, finely diced (red, yellow or orange are fine too)
2 medium hot banana chilies, minced
2 TBSP (16gm) cumin, ground
1 TBSP (8gm) oregano
1 TBSP (8gm) sea salt (coarse)
1 TBSP (8gm) turmeric
4 cups (850gm/30oz) cooked or canned chick peas (about 2 cans)
½ cup (125gm/4oz) tomato paste

1.Heat a large saucepan over medium to low heat. Add the garlic, veggies, and spices, cooking until soft, stirring occasionally.
2.Mash the chickpeas by hand, or in a food processor. Add the chickpeas and tomato paste to the saucepan, stirring until heated through.

Coconut Curry Sauce
This makes a great sauce to just pour over rice as well. This does freeze well, but the texture will be a little different. The flavor is still the same though. My picture of this sauce is one that I had made, had to freeze, then thaw to use. It tastes great, but the texture is a little runnier, not quite as thick as it was before freezing.

1 onion, peeled and chopped
2 cloves garlic
½ (2½ gm) tsp cumin, ground
¾ (3¾ gm) tsp sea salt (coarse)
3 TBSP (30gm) curry powder
3 TBSP (30gm) spelt flour (or all-purpose GF flour)
3 cups (750ml/24oz) vegetable broth
2 cups (500ml/24oz) coconut milk
3 large tomatoes, diced

1.Heat a saucepan over medium heat, add the onion and garlic, cooking for 5 minutes, or until soft.
2.Add the spices, cooking for 1 minutes more. Add the flour and cook for 1 additional minute.
3.Gradually stir in the vegetable broth to prevent lumps. Once the flour has been incorporated, add the coconut milk and tomatoes, stirring occasionally.
4.Let it simmer for half an hour.

The Daring Cooks’ Challenge: Gyoza aka Potstickers June 14, 2009

This months Daring Cooks’ Challenge is brought to you by Jen from use real butter.  She chose Gyoza/Chinese Dumplings/Potstickers.  The rules for this challenge were that we had to make our own dough (no store bought wonton wrappers), make a filling, and chose a cooking method.  YAY!!!

I was so excited to make these because I love gyoza or whatever you want to call it and I have never made my own dough for them before.  For the filling I decided to stick with just the plain pork filling and for the cooking method I decided to do two: steaming and pan frying.  The dough was easy to make the only thing I needed to remember was to flour each round so that they don’t stick together.  I had this problem when I would roll/cut out all the rounds and stack them and when I started filling and I was on a roll I would get to the bottom of the stack and the last 5 would be stuck to each other :/ Grrr

Tuesdays With Dorie: Four Star Chocolate Bread Pudding April 21, 2009

This weeks Tuesdays with Dorie was chosen by Lauren of Upper East Side Chronicle.  She selected Dorie’s Four Star Chocolate Bread Pudding located on pages 410-411 in Baking: From My Home to Yours. For this weeks recipe I decided that I would only make one-third of the recipe.  Of course I did this because bread pudding is my downfall, especially with raisins and a whiskey sauce

For this recipe I actually modified the recipe and the instructions a little.  I soaked the raisins in Cointreau for 30 minutes to an hour to give them a slight orange flavor and who doesn’t like oranges and chocolate together.  Also, any bread pudding that I have ever made I mixed everything together in a bowl and then let the bread soaked in it for 30 minutes.  After the thirty minutes the mixtures is then poured into a buttered casserole dish and baked without a water bath.

The final product actually turned out really good.  The bread pudding actually reminded me of the flavor of chocolate pudding.  I served it with whiskey sauce and whipped cream.

Whiskey Sauce

Source: Debra F. Weber, Your Guide to French Cuisine

8 tbsp unsalted butter

1 cup confectioners’ sugar

1 egg, beaten

1/2 cup whiskey  I used 1/4 cup

Melt the butter over low heat.  When it is hot, but not colored, add the confectioners’ sugar and whisk constantly until thick.  When it is very thick and hot, remove from the heat and whisk in the beaten egg until emulsified, about 2 minutes.  Whisk in the bourbon and serve warm.

Tuesdays With Dorie: Floating Islands February 10, 2009

This weeks Tuesdays with Dorie was chosen by Shari of Whisk: a food blog. Shari chose Dorie’s Floating Islands located on pages 401-402 in Baking: From My Home to Yours. I have always thought of Floating Islands as something that I probably would never make eventhough I have made the parts (creme anglais, meringue, caramel).

Vegan Adventure #22 and VeganMofo #7 October 15, 2008

There was a miracle somewhere and I made a full vegan dinner.  Who would have thought it was possible?  Funny thing is it was very easy.  Another weird thing has occurred.  For about 4 days or so I actually could have been considered a Vegetarian.  I ate absolutely no meat, and it was completely by accident.  Since I have been cooking a lot of vegan food, that is what I have been eating, but it didn’t stay strictly vegan since I had some sweets that happened to have dairy and eggs in them, opps.

Vegan Adventure #11 September 15, 2008

WOW!!!

After all of the cupcakes I have been making, I needed to slide in a few savory dishes. For the first one I decided to make the Fresh Mango Summer Rolls in Vegan with a Vengeance. Problem is sometimes I like mangos and other times, not so much. But I do love me some avocado, yummy. So I decided for the recipe that I would sub avocado for the mango and it turned out fantastic. Since this recipe makes 20 rolls and I wasn’t about to sit down and eat 20, I decided to make some non-vegan rolls to satisfy my omni friends too. For half of the rolls I added 1.5 sliced of shrimp. They were nice, but the vegan ones were very tasty.

Fresh Sweet and Yummy Tomato Sauce July 25, 2008

I am finally using the tomatoes that I bought at the Berry Farm Market. It has taken awhile, but the whole thing with skinning, seeding, and chopping has caused me to put it off. Every time I peel a tomato I am reminded of my childhood. Remember when you were a kid and at Halloween they would blindfold you and make you stick your hands in icky things and tell you that they were brains, eyeballs, etc. The eyeballs were always peeled grapes. Well that is what I think of every time I peel a tomato, giant eyeballs :shudder: