What Vegans Eat, Part I

It's been a while since I've checked out my favourite food blogs to see what folks have been preparing and sharing. I've been busy with work and school (I love that I can say that I'm busy with school again!) so web-gawking time has mostly been spent socializing or volunteering here and there. Plus, to be honest, I've had so little free time and tempting myself to try out new recipes would invariably have just left me with even less free time, which would have left me cranky (and the cats deserve better than a cranky can opener). A couple of hours to spare last night, however, left me digging up a few things I may try out over the weekend.

Salads!

Angela at Oh She Glows posted an adapted recipe for Cilantro Lime Spelt Berry Salad yesterday (see her photo to the right) and that post ended up being a high-protein salad pay dirt. She provided links in it for the following salads she's been posting over the past while:

Carrot Raisin Spelt Berry w/Cumin and Cilantro, Cinnamon Sweet Potato Chickpea, High Protein Lentil, Roasted Sweet Potato and Black Bean, Buckwheat Taboulleh, as well as her Back on Track Wheatberry and Bean.

Absolute Decadence

I've been spending most of the past few months focused on getting into better shape so that I can jump back into long-distance trail cycling this summer. Part of that has involved things like running "needless" errands just for an excuse to get on the bike for an extra half hour. Part of it has also involved spending a lot more time being mindful of how I fuel my body, opting for lighter fare and reaching for the bag of baby carrots rather than the bag of potato chips at the grocery store. Every once in a while, though, a little bit of indulging is fun. That being said, my eyes still widened in awe a little as I contemplated making some of the recent decadent offerings I spied, even if some of them were still quite healthy :

Kelly Garbato shared a recipe of hers a few weeks ago that made my jaw drop. (No, really. It did.) It was for Cheesy Vegan Tater Tot Pizza and to kick it up a notch, she posted the results of her partner Shane's further tinkering with the recipe and came up with a second version, which she refers to as Cheesy Vegan Tater Tot Garbage Plate Pizza. She recommended a bib when eating the second version, and I don't think she was kidding.

Ordinarily, when I think of queso dip, I think of fat; after all, the stuff is usually prepared with gobs of cheese. However, Meg over at The Snarky Chickpea shared a recipe around a week ago for a Vegan Queso Dip that looked absolutely delicious and she used almond milk and nutritional yeast to make up its "cheesy" component.

Allyson at Manifest Vegan left more than a few vegan friends and acquaintances of mine drooling after I tweeted her recipe for Besan Fries a few weeks ago (see her photo to the right). At first glance, seeing seasoned deep-fried flour left me thinking these babies would be oil-drenched. I mostly oven-roast or sauté -- deep-frying is something with which I haven't had much experience in over a decade. A couple of vegan friends assured me that the high temperature of the oil would seal the surface of each besan fry, leaving it crispy.

Manifest Vegan was the source of another oh-my-gawd-this-looks-fabulous treat: Chocolate Peanut Butter Pretzel Tartlets.

(Check back over the next few days for Part II of this post, which will at the very least focus in part on sharing links to all of the wonderful soup and stew recipes which have been posted by vegan food bloggers over the past month!)

How to Make Your Own Soy Milk

I found a number of recipes for homemade soy milk online, most with only slight variations. Many of them called for the use of a soy milk making contraption, however, which I'm guessing that most people don't have on hand. I neither have one, nor do I intend to get one--I've got too many electric kitchen gadgets as it is, and want to scale back on what I already have and use. I found a number of videos, as well, using the same. I ended up finding this one below on YouTube and really liked it. It shows how easy it is to make soy milk from scratch using nothing but the most basic kitchen tools, a blender and your stove (or other source of cooking heat).

Given the relative ease with which most people can find soy milk in stores these days, the idea of making it yourself may not seem that appealing. The cost-saving benefit is worth noting: Dried organic soy beans are cheaper to use and you will indeed save money making it yourself--up to half or more of what you'd pay for the commercial soy milk. When you make it yourself, you get to flavour it however you like it. Also, remember the energy and resources wasted during the manufacturing of commercial soy milk and of its packaging, and of where that packaging often ends up even if it may be recyclable. Another thing I've been noticing is that the availability of organic soy milk seems to declining somewhat, with brands like Silk switching from organic to beans that are almost certainly genetically modified, and then sometimes even reintroducing organic versions at higher prices.

So do indeed use organic beans and give this recipe a try. Save that soy pulp (also called "okara"), since it's incredibly nutritious and there are innumerable recipes available on the internet, particularly Asian recipes, in which you can use it. Enjoy!

What Vegans Eat

With the holidays just a few days and a nearly two-week long internet hiatus looming for me, I figured that now would be as good a time as any to take that periodic peek at what's been happening on some of my favourite vegan food blogs.

Nathan Kozuskanich shared a recipe for Green Potato Soup on his Vegan Dad blog a little less than a week ago. With heaps of leeks, chard and spinach, it looks as good as I've no doubt it tastes. It sounds like the perfect thing to ladle into a big bowl and curl up on the sofa with to watch holiday claymation specials.

Mike K at Vegan for the People posted a couple of recipes over the past few weeks that caught my attention and that I hope to try out soon. One is for Sesame Long Beans with Five Spice Tofu and the other for Somali Sambusas. The sambusas are filled with lentils , scallions and cilantro and seasoned with spices like cardamom, cumin and coriander. They sound wonderful --and I'm not just sayin' that because I'm a huge fan of filled things and finger foods.

Speaking of filled things, check out the Baked Whole Wheat Empanadas recipe Alicia shared with her readers on the Vegan Epicurean blog. This blog is relatively new to me and I'm already sold on it after looking over the dozen or so most recent recipes and their photos. I also appreciate that she includes nutritional information on the recipes she posts. I'll be lurking over there a fair bit in the New Year, I'm sure.

Just in time for holiday entertaining for those who like to cater to their guests sweet tooths, Claire at Chez Cayenne offered up a recipe last Saturday for Orange-Chocolate-Chocolate Chip cookies. She also provided a recipe for those who like to cater to those guests who like to indulge a little to engage in their holiday merrymaking: Vegan Irish Cream! (By the way, for some great info on chocolate and what is or isn't vegan, check out this 2006 blog post by cookbook author Dreena Burton!)

Cookbook author Bryanna Clark Grogan featured a recipe for a simple Rustic Apple-Almond Cake on her blog a few days ago that does indeed sound like a yummy treat to have on hand for family or friends who might come calling.

Finally, the six vegans over at Cooking from 1,000 Vegan Recipes have been busy! As of last Saturday, they'd prepared 155 out of the 1000 recipes in Robin Robertson's book. Go have a look at the gorgeous photos of the dishes they've reproduced from it. Better yet, buy the book and cook along with them, using their notes as pointers.

So there you have it--the last instalment of "What Vegans Eat" for 2009. If you think that going vegan is hard because your food options somehow become limited, or, if you're just stuck in a food rut and can't think of what to make for dinner, read the food blogs mentioned above (as well as those whose links I've listed off to the right) and let yourself be convinced otherwise.

Go vegan and stay vegan and enjoy the good healthy eats that come with it!