CSA Potluck Muffins

I've talked before about how much I love having a CSA. The CSA we had last year was incredible, but we ended up switching to a newcomer on the scene this year. This was primarily because our new CSA is right off of one of the bike trails, and we happen to live only a mile and a half a way off of  said bike trail. The charm of biking along the creek to pick up freshly picked, local, organic veggies direct from the farm was too much to deny.

Last week was the CSA kickoff pot luck. I love pot lucks, because they're such a good return on investment. I only have to make one dish, but I still get to choose from a buffet of various food. That's sound economics right there, ya'll. I decided to make an old standby, the blueberry banana muffins from How it All Vegan. As usual I cut the sugar in half and added a bit more blueberries- 1 1/2 cups instead of 1 cup. These are made with whole wheat flour, but even with half as much sugar they are still an excellent sweet bread.

 The recipe says that it makes 12 muffins, but even when I fill the tins up to the top, I always have batter left over. Since I only have 2 muffin tins and I don't want to have to wait, I just pour the leftover batter into a bread pan and bake it along with the muffins. This lets me add in random things to experiment. In the past I've added chocolate chips, nuts, or  more fruit.

This time I added in a generous portion of unsweetened/unsulphured dried coconut. It went really well with the bananas and the blueberries. We kept the bread for ourselves, and loaded up the muffins on the back of our bikes to take to the CSA.

 Biking along the trail...

 the creek...

 and one of several wooden bridges you cross.

 When we got to the farm we parked our bikes along with everyone else. Check out all the bike trailers for  hauling little nuggets. I sometimes wish someone would haul me around in a trailer. Kids. They get all the breaks!

 We picked up our share for the week. Lots of greens- kale, chard, lettuce. Mmmm, salads and smoothies.
 The  muffins were added to the communal food table and then we chowed down. Turns out our co-members are good cooks as well as interesting people. We hung out for an hour or two, and I was happy to see that the muffins were quickly polished off. I admit that is one thing that is a bit nerve wracking about pot lucks- you don't want your dish to go untouched or left out, like the last kid picked for the kickball team.

If you're interested in getting a CSA for yourself, check out Local Harvest. You might be surprised at what your local community has to offer. I can't promise you'll have a full scale farm a mile and a half from your apartment off of a bike lane, but I can bet that you'll be able to find a good network to plug into.

Sausage and Biscuits

When I made this jalapeno corn gravy, I knew there would be a lot left over. In fact, part of the reason I decided to go ahead and make it was because Gimme Lean breakfast sausage was on a great sale. I figured we'd have th gravy on some potatoes for dinner, and then I'd make some whole wheat biscuits from scratch, fry up some veggie sausage, and douse it all in the gravy. Well, that's exactly what happened, and it was excellent.

 Truth be told, Bobby is the resident baker. He's usually the one who gets up on weekends and makes biscuits from scratch, or busts out my Great Granny's 1950's waffle iron and makes banana waffles from scratch. Because of this, it's nice for me to make biscuits for him sometimes, too. He found this recipe online about a year and a half ago, and with some tweaking it has resulted in the best vegan biscuit I've ever had.

Despite being whole wheat, it's not super dense and heavy. I used coconut oil in place of the lard or butter that most biscuits call for and they tasted great. The biscuits only take about 5 minutes total to measure, mix, separate, and put on the baking sheet. They cook for 12 minutes, so while they were busy making my kitchen smell great I cooked the veggie sausage and re-heated the gravy.

The finished product

 This was very good. I liked the gravy even more the morning after, because the jalapeno had a chance to really permeate everything and it tasted a bit spicier. Some fresh cracked black pepper on top made it just about perfect. I think this might also be a good gravy over some breakfast potatoes sauteed with red and green bell peppers. Who knew I could love a creamed corn look-alike so much?

Daiya Makes an Appearance

The vegan world has been raving about Daiya since mid 2009. Bobby and I were excited to try it during our long road trip all over the Western U.S. in late 2009. We tried it for the first time at the enormous Whole Foods in Las Vegas. It was on a freshly made to order pizza, hot off the pizza stone. Bobby loved it. I found it to be a bit too sticky. However, as far as cheese replacements go, this is one of the best. I just prefer nutritional yeast and/or cashew cheese, personally, and Vegan Gourmet makes the best mozzarella substitute in my opinion. All that being said, Bobby adores Daiya, so I made some enchiladas the other night just for him. No, really, I didn't eat any of this. Bobby still has some leftovers frozen for future lunches. I did try a bite though, and it was good despite my Daiya dislike.

Fresh out of the oven

 So, I can't find the pictures of the process, or of the plates- sorry, friends! Basically I roasted up a bunch of veggies, and then pan fried white corn tortillas, rolled up some Daiya and the roasted veggies in them, and then doused the whole thing in some tomatillo and enchilada sauce. More Daiya went on top, and then it went in the oven (covered with foil) for 30 minutes. For the last 10 minutes I took off the foil so that the Daiya could brown.

On the side I made Spanish "rice", but I used cauliflower. I've talked about replacing rice with cauliflower before in this post. I just sauteed up some garlic, red onions, various bell peppers, and finely food processed cauliflower. Then I added in tomatoes, cumin, and chili powder. At the end I decided to just dump the black beans in with it, too. This was really delicious and would be excellent with some tofu scramble in a tortilla in the morning with a side of hash browns.

The Daiya cooked up really well in the enchiladas. I think it would be important to utilize the foil in any casserole style dish until the very end, just to keep it from getting dried out. A great thing about Daiya is that it isn't soy based, which is excellent for those with soy allergies, or people like me who try to steer clear of too much processed soy. You can find it in Whole Foods, and Sprouts has it as well. Plus I imagine that any quirky health food store would stock it, too.

Gravy Train

I'm going to go ahead and say it- I despise creamed corn. Well, let me back up. Corn is not my favorite of foods. Oh, sure, I'll eat it. I'll never be picky enough to turn down something simply because corn is in it. But, on the whole, corn doesn't really make me sit up and smile unless it's on a cob, roasted over a fire. Out of a can? Ehhhh, do I have to? And creamed? No. Just...no.

So, with that out of the way, I'm going to go ahead and admit that what I'm about to show you looks suspiciously like creamed corn. But, per the first paragraph, I hope you will understand that if it tasted anything like creamed corn, I would not be endorsing eating it. That being said, if you do like creamed corn, I'm sure you'll also like this recipe for Jalapeno Corn Gravy, courtesy of Veganomicon.

I followed the recipe standard style. About the only thing I would change next time is a bit more seasoning. It lacked a depth of flavor, and I think that could be corrected with some sauteed red pepper, or some cumin, or even a bit of adobo sauce.

 Ingredients, part one (see, I'm not a real cook. A REAL cook would never use canned veggie broth. They would make their own and simmer it all day with fresh picked herbs or something. Bring on the cans!)

 Ingredients, part two. Let it be known that I grated off a huge chunk of my skin with my zester during the processing of that garlic. Worth it. Garlic is delicious.

 Anytime I saute onions, I think it's the best smell ever. Then I sauteed onions with jalapenos. Somehow, that's also the best smell ever. In an ever expanding universe, these things are possible.

 Corn gets added in and tossed around the pan until it starts to brown.

 I'm always amazed at how well corn starch can thicken up anything. The only fat in this is the bit of walnut oil I sauteed the veggies in, and no flour is cooked in fat like most gravies. Once it simmers for a bit, you just food process the whole thing. I added a bit more veggie broth at this point because it was looking dangerously similar to creamed corn and my alarm bells were clang a langin' in my brain.

 The finished product, waiting to douse some mashed red skinned potatoes.

This was really good. I would definitely make it again, with the spice changes I suggested at the beginning of this little picture show. I served it with Gardein chicken tenders, a rare mock meat indulgence, and barbequed pinto beans. Oh, and this beautiful salad.

I think the corn gravy would also be excellent plopped on top of a spicy black bean soup, or poured over enchiladas. It's pretty versatile and keeps well since it has virtually no fat. A lot of gravies harden up in the fridge, and when you pull them out for leftovers they kind of make you pause and think "Wait... do I want to be eating this? It's a block of jiggly, cold fat". Of course, the answer is yes, you do want to be eating it, because we all know that jiggly cold fat gets heated up into creamy, warm fat and it's delicious. So I guess I'm not really making a point here...

Anyway, here's a new point- jalapeno corn gravy is a winner.

Avocado Continues to Be Awesome

The other night I was craving a creamy pasta sauce, but I didn't want to hassle with a cashew cheese, and I didn't have any nooch (nutritional yeast) anyway. I did, however, have an avocado. Into my food processor went: an avocado, some walnut oil, rosemary, roasted garlic, pink Himalayan sea salt, and fresh ground black pepper. Oh, and a bit of red pepper and a splash of almond milk. I think I also added a squeeze of lemon...wait, basil was in there, too. Ok, I think that's all. The end product was delicious- creamy, but still light, and the avocado/lemon/basil flavors felt like a summer happy dance in my mouth. I sauteed some zucchini, red onions, white beans, and red pepper, and boiled up some totally not health nut plain old white flour spaghetti. I tossed all of the previous together with the avocado pasta sauce, and then topped it with some fresh, sliced, baby heirloom tomatoes. Oh, heirloom tomatoes. You will be the death of me. And by that I mean, the opposite of the death of me since you are delicious and are good for me.

I continued my love affair with the baby heirlooms with a side salad full of organic red leaf lettuce, cucumbers, more white beans, red pepper, chia seeds, and my beloved vanilla fig balsamic.

And everyone was very, very happy that night. The end.

Coconut Kick

I had been meaning to try out a tofu based cheesecake recipe from How it All Vegan and I was finally motivated to do so when the graham cracker crusts I purchased on deep clearance officially passed their "Best taste by" date. There are a few variations on this cheesecake in the cookbook, with the basic bones staying the same and different ingredients being swapped out to create different flavors. I tweaked it a bit by replacing the half a cup of oil with half a cup of mashed banana, and cutting the sugar in half. I figured banana coconut cheesecake would be just as good. I also added in some more spices, as the only flavoring called for was vanilla extract. It took me a while to come around to tofu, but I still don't like that distinctive tofu-y taste in all its pure taste glory, so the spices were necessary (in my opinion). I got all Martha Stewart with a totally gratuitous sliced banana decoration on top, finished up with some coconut I sprinkled on the last 10 minutes so it could get all toasty.

The verdict, per Bobby, was that it was delicious. I have to say though, that the texture was definitely more custard than cheesecake, and even with the addition of the spices the tofu taste was definitely still lingering in the back ground, kind of photo bombing the flavor profile. It was plenty sweet, so cutting the sugar didn't affect this, I think it's just that when you put an entire block of tofu into a pie, well, there ain't no getting 'round the tofu taste. I would be interested to see what would happen if I cut the tofu in half, but honestly I'm thinking that the best dairy free cheesecakes are probably going to be raw, and made out of nuts. I mean, look at this beautiful thing. Yeah, I know, it's incredible. That's a future experiment, trust me! Check out My New Roots in general. It's a fabulous food blog. Lots of inspiration there, and beautiful pictures to boot.

Good Morning!

I'm not much of a breakfast eater. I used to skip it religiously, since I was never hungry. Now I make myself have something, usually either an apple or a banana, sliced, sprinkled with with apple pie spice and chia seeds, with a side of peanut butter. However, I'm never going to be someone who leaps out of bed and wants to chow down on biscuits and veggie sausage and a plate full of pancakes at 7 a.m. Bobby, however, is precisely that someone. So I made these guys on a random weekday morning.

Banana chai pancakes with toasted coconut + mystery sauce

The recipe came from one of my favorite cookbooks "How it All Vegan ". A lot of vegan cookbooks can be overly fussy and they seem to call for ridiculously expensive health store ingredients just to be jerks about it. This cookbook is refreshingly basic. Pretty much every recipe has less than 15 ingredients (including spices) and they don't constantly rely on tofu. These guys were made with no oil thanks to mashed bananas, and I subbed a half a cup of the almond milk for a half  a cup of chai tea. While one side was cooking, I sprinkled unsweetened coconut on the top, flipped it, and finished cooking it while toasting said coconut. Bobby ate his plain. I had mine a few hours later, and drizzled it with that mysterious brown sauce. What is it, you ask? Chocolate? Blueberry syrup? Nope. It's balsamic. Vanilla fig balsamic, to be exact.

I'm a bit obsessed with balsamic anything, and it was just the thing to cut the sweetness of the pancakes. We picked up these three little friends at the farmer's market last weekend. They are all delicious. The woman makes her own special flavor blends, and I'm grateful for every single one. That blackberry ginger is going to be so good on some vanilla coconut ice cream...