Frappe/frappuccino

Here's a recipe for a frappuccino, or frappe. Something like that. I think my ice cube tray has bigger ice cubes than most, so you may have to add more.

Make some coffee. Strong coffee. Then put it in an ice cube tray and freeze it. Once it's frozen, start making your frappe. Put this all in a blender and blend until smooth. Make's one smallish glass, about 1 1/2 cup. About 1 1/2 tablespoon Nesqick (Yes it's vegan. But always double-check!), about eight coffee ice cubes, and about half a cup of soymilk. Or other nondairy milk. Taste it and adjust it however you like. Tada!

Please excuse the the chair and other things in the background.

Salad thing

I'm not really sure what to call this, so if you have ideas, let me know.

It's just some chopped tomato, cucumber, and avocado, with a tablespoon or two of red wine vinegar. I think balsamic might be even better, but we didn't have any. Poppy seeds are also nice.

It's great for these hot days when you don't want to cook anything, or even eat warm food.

Friend's birthday party

So my friend had a birthday party. It was a lot of fun. She said I should bring my own food because there probably wouldn't be any vegan food. Which didn't bother me. I like cooking, and as the vegan it's my responsibility. It was a sleep-over, so I brought three meals. Plus I brought her some cupcakes.

I thought I might get jealous of other people's food, so I figured I'd trump them. So I made some sushi for my lunch.

 

I used up all of the seaweed, so there were a few with the soypapers. This time I sliced one of the papers, and used the strips to gently tie the handrolls closed. That worked okay. You have to be very gentle though. 

You may be thinking that this is a lot for one person, but I figured I'd share a few with other people.

But it turned out that her parents were nice enough to have vegan options for lunch. But I mostly ate the sushi, since I really like sushi.

Then for dinner, I brought two black bean and Spanish rice burritoes, with some salsa, tomatoes, and avocado. But again, they were really nice, and got some vegan hotdogs as well as regular ones.

For breakfast, I brought some strawberry soy yogurt and an Oddwala bar. But again, they made vegan waffles. It was extremely nice of them. I ate the waffles, and ate the yogurt and bar as snacks later.

A week or so before the party, I handed the birthday girl Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World, and had her pick two kinds of cupcakes for me to make her. She chose the "Sexy low-fat vanilla cupcakes with berries" and the green tea cupcakes. I asked her how many she wanted, and she said only a dozen each. I didn't think that would be enough, since with my friends, if I put two dozen cupcakes on a table, they would be gone within half an hour. Yet somehow. Even though the recipes said they would make two dozen, they only made 19. And still, somehow I had four left. It was really weird. Here are the cupcakes. 

Both kinds. Sorry, the strawberry ones didn't have the strawberries on them yet. I wanted to put them on pretty much last minute so they wouldn't be gross.

The green tea.

Vanilla. Yum.

Anyway, the party was a ton of fun, even though it was ridiculously hot. We spent a lot of time in the unheated hottub, with the hose in it to make it even cooler. 

And since it was a party, there was soda, and chips and stuff, and other things I usually would not eat, that are not very healthy. By the time I was in the car going home, I just wanted to eat some kale and quinoa. Unfortunately, food was already made, and did not include either of those foods. But it was still good, and I ate handfulls of arugula and lettuce. 

Then we went and swam in a river, lots of fun, especially in the heat.

Oh and the last post was the fiftieth post! Woo!

Sushi Hand Rolls Again

I was going to make some more handrolls, but I was almost out of seaweed, so I went to the store, and they were out of seaweed too. But right next to where the seaweed usually is, there were some "Sushi Party Soy Wrappers" (Here's their site) They're very pretty, so I was excited to try them out.

And I must say, I'm a little disappointed. They are very pretty, but that's the only thing about them that is better than nori. 

Here's a photo:

 

First off, they're very small, about the size of half a sheet of nori, so I cut those in half to make two tiny squares, and did it that way. So they're very small, as you can see. The fork is there for comparison in size.

Also, they don't hold together, as you can see. Even if you wet the edges, they won't stick to eachother, so they fall apart.

Then they don't have the nice taste of seaweed, instead they have a sort of unpleasing sweet taste that I don't think really works with the sushi.

The one redeeming quality is that they're pretty, they came in white, yellow, orange, green, and white with sesame seeds.

I don't think that makes up for it though. I'll just stick with seaweed. They aren't horrible, but seaweed is much better.

So after eating those ones, I was still hungry, so with the leftover veggies (Cucumber, avocado, and grated carrot) I made a cucumber salad thing. Just chopped up the veggies, then added some seasoned rice vinegar, lemon juice, and sesame seeds.

Sorry for the rant.

Garden goodies

Here are some goodies I got from the garden today.

There's some chard, green beans, lettuce, soybeans, and cucumber.

I put the chard in some yakisoba today, we still have the lettuce, and part of the cucumber is in the handrolls in the next post.

I was just going to eat the beans raw, but I've heard things about raw beans being poisonous, so I did some research, soybeans were said to be toxic raw from many sources, and green beans were said to be toxic by about half of the sources that came up, and half said it was fine. So I figured I'd cook them just to be sure. I boiled the beans, and just ate them like that. Very tasty.

From the looks of it, I think I'll be getting some more, lettuce, tomatoes, and squash from the garden, maybe a few other things. I've got one yellow squash getting big, I could pick it now, but I'm letting it grow big so I can stuff it.

Stuffed Zucchini

So here are some squashes from my garden. See that really big zucchini? (It's actually bigger than it looks) I'm going to stuff it! Full of brown rice, veggies and other tasty things.

First you cut it in half lengthwise. (After washing it of course) Then you take out all of the seedy parts, but don't throw it away. Put the zucchini on a foiled baking sheet. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.

Here we have some sliced mushrooms, chopped carrots, the core of the zucchini, chopped red bell pepper, diced onion, and minced garlic.

Here are the seasonings, sauces and condiments. Nutritional yeast, pasta sauce, marsala cooking wine, cayenne, Italian seasoning (there were also some fresh herbs) vegetable broth, margarine, and garlic.

Start cooking some brown rice. About 1 cup raw, maybe 1 1/4 cup raw. I purposefully made extra, so I'm not sure. Also replace about 1/2 cup of the water with vegetable broth.

Then saute the veggies in a little margarine until tender. Add a splash of marsala, until it evaporates. Then add your seasonings. (Italian seasoning, fresh herbs, cayenne, and nutritional yeast) Let it cool. 

Your rice should be done now. Put it in a bowl, add some pasta sauce. (maybe about half a cup?) It should taste tomatoey and yummy.  Then add the veggies to the bowl, and mix it up. If you think it needs more seasonings, go ahead.

Here's the bowl of stuffing.

Stuff the zucchinis, and if you have some, sprinkle on some bread crumbs. It gives it a nice crusty top. Then put it in the oven. I'd give you an estimated time on how long, but my oven is a little broken. It's got two rods that heat up the oven, one on top, and one on bottom. The bottom one no longer works. So it wouldn't be accurate for most ovens.

Here are the done zucchinis. You can tell when they're done when there are a couple burnt bits, golden breadcrumbs, and the zucchini is tender.

Serve and enjoy!

Sushi Hand Rolls

So, I wanted some sushi, but I was really hungry, so I didn't want to bother with making rice, letting it cool, and then making sushi rolls, so I decided on hand rolls. I looked for a recipe, but with very little luck, most of the recipes had nothing to do with sushi.

So I just made it up. I'm probably doing it horribly wrong, but whatever. It tastes good.

I think they're very pretty. 

First, I made some tofu. I just put some pieces of tofu in a pan with some low-sodium teriyaki sauce and some ginger and garlic. I sauteed them until they got firm and the sauce was mostly absorbed.  Baked tofu would also work.

Here's the setup. I cut some sushi nori (seaweed) in half diagonally to make two triangles.

Then I've got a bag of grated carrot, (julienne works too) The tofu, some chives (Green onions should work too) Some sliced avocado, some cucumber sticks, some red pepper strips, and some small florets of broccoli. 

Almost any veggies should work though. Get creative! Maybe some sprouts?

Start with the nori. Have one corner facing up. Place the nori so that the nori is wider than tall.

Place a piece of tofu on it, then two broccoli florets, and a couple chives. As above.

Then put on some red pepper strips, and some cucumber. As above. Pay attention to the angle, it needs to be tilted outwards  a little to make the cone work.

Then add some avocado, and some carrots. Julienne carrots also work.

Time to get rolling. Take one edge of the nori and pull it over the veggies.

Fold the excess back over.

Take the other side and fold it over. Slightly wet the edge with water.

Then tuck the edge under. One made, however many more to go.

Your first batch might look something like this.

Then maybe like this.

And then hopefully like this!

Enjoy!

Selling baked goods

So I wanted some money, so I decided that I would bake a TON of cookies, cupcakes, and chocolates. And then I would go sell them to neighbors, door-to-door.

Here are the snickerdoodles. The recipe is here. (I substituted the butter with vegetable shortening, and the eggs with 2 tablespoons water+1 tablespoon oil+2 teaspoons baking powder per egg)

Here are the chocolate-chocolate chip cookies from Veganomicon, without the walnuts.

Although these look like oatmeal-chocolate chip cookies, they're actually oatmeal-raisin. Also from Veganomicon.

All of the cookies were put in cute little boxes, all in mixes of thirteen. 

Here's a box for the cupcakes, the brown ones are chocolate, and the pink ones are vanilla (both from "Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World") this is the only box I had left, the rest of the cupcakes had to deal with paper plates and plastic wrap... There's two extra snickerdoodles in there as well.

Here are the truffles. They came in assorted flavors, also in cute little boxes. I think there was strawberry, raspberry, coffee, orange, peanut butter, mint, almond, and coconut chocolates.

I used this recipe, sort of. Be sure not to use the chocolate they call for, it isn't vegan. Instead I used their semi-sweet chocolate chips, and some unsweetened baking squares. And then for the butter I used shortening, and for the cream, light coconut milk. And instead of liqueurs, I used extracts mostly. I guess I hardly used that recipe. It was more like a basic idea.

Here are the plates of chocolates.

And I also had some individual chocolates. I used some green and red clear plastic wrapping "paper" and some ribbons.

So to make this, it took over an entire day. Then the next day I went door-to-door selling them. I was out for two hours doing this. With hardly any luck. I only sold to four people. Although two of them tipped, which was nice. Then the next day I tried again, I only did it for half an hour though, since it went so bad the day before. With no luck for that day. So after over an entire day of cooking, and two and a half hours of trying to sell them, I only got $16. At least I have a bunch of sweets I can eat?

Well, actually, a friend of mine took a large basket full of sweets and took them to his work where he put it on a table with prices on them, so that if people would like, they can buy some. Hopefully that will work out much better than door-to-door did... I'll tell you how that goes.

I don't think I'll be doing this again.

But I have another idea, slightly similar, instead of door-to-door, I'm thinking a lemonade stand sort of thing, maybe with a few cookies, and then I'd have my blender out there, so I could make smoothies and frappes. And probably some lemonade too. Sounds good to me.

Yakisoba

Yakisoba again. These are the ingredients I usually use.

The veggies. Starting from top left, going clock-wise: Onions, mushrooms, zucchini, broccoli, carrots, and tofu. Then on the side there's some garlic and ginger.

Pan-fry the tofu until lightly golden.

Add the veggies, and keep cooking.

Once the veggies are done, add the cooked noodles and sauce.

Serve and enjoy! Sprinkle with sesame seeds for garnish.

I was going to post a photo of some curry I made. But it was appallingly unphotogenic.

Sandwiches

So, I was just going to post a photo of a grilled veggie sandwich I made with the leftover grilled veggies, but then I decided that I should post more. About how vegan sandwiches can be more than just PB&Js, and fake meats.

Sure, if you like them you can still have PB&Js, and fake meat sandwiches, but I feel like if you have sandwiches often, there should be more variety. So here are some ideas:

Peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Some varieties are with bananas, with agave, with almond butter, and probably a couple others.

Fake meat sandwich, fake meat, homemade or store-bought, with some condiments and veggies of your choice. You should be able to figure that one out.

Veggie sandwich. If there are enough veggies in your sandwich, who needs the fake meat? I like tomatoes, sprouts, cucumber, avocado, hummus, grated carrot, et cetera.

Grilled or sauteed veggie sandwich. Grill or saute some veggies, such as zucchini, peppers, mushrooms, and onions. I like that with some sprouts, tomato, and onion, maybe some mustard.

Veggie burger. This could be counted as the "fake meat sandwich", but I just wanted to remind you of veggie burgers. I like homemade black bean burgers, personally.

Marinated tofu sandwich. Sometimes I like to marinate a big slice of tofu, for at least an hour, in whatever sauce I feel like at the moment, then you cook it in a pan in a little oil until it's firmer and lightly browned on the edges. Then put that on your sandwich with some condiments and veggies. I also like this idea along with some grilled or sauteed veggies in there too. 

Got any other ideas? Comment them, and I'll add them. :)

I'll probably do a post similar to this some other time with sushi, tacos/burritos, pizza, and whatever else I come up with.

Here's a nice photo of a grilled veggie sandwich. It's got grilled mushrooms, onions, peppers and zucchini, with some tomato, sprouts, cucumber, and mustard. Along with some mini watermelon slices.

Sunday barbecue

Hooray! I planned a party/barbecue, invited a bunch of friends, made a bunch of food, my this is sounding great. OH WAIT only one person showed up. Great.

Oh well, we still got to have very nice food and a fun time.

It was a barbecue, we had the black bean burgers from Veganomicon, grilled veggies, (zucchini, peppers, onions, mushrooms, and believe it or not, yams) grilled corn, and kebabs. (veggie and tofu, and unfortunately, some shrimp and veggie, I was unhappy about that part) Then there was a salad, some coleslaw, some fruit, and some other stuff.

I didn't get many pictures because I was busy barbecuing everything, but I got two, if that counts for something.

Here are the sandwich fixin's.

Cucumber, tomato, clover sprouts, and onions. Then there was some homemade ketchup, Vegannaise, pickles and mustard.

Here are the veggies before they were grilled, sorry I couldn't get any of the beautiful grilled veggies, I was too busy to take pictures.

I also made a sauce for the veggies, I mixed up some pomegranate mango chipotle sauce with some red wine vinegar, some marsala, and a TON of herb and seasonings. I think there was some basil, oregano, dill, thyme, pepper, nutritional yeast, cumin, garlic powder, fresh garlic, and probably some more.

Sorry I do posts in batches, hope it doesn't bother anyone.

4th of July cupcakes

I didn't do much for the fourth this year, I made some cupcakes, and went to a friends house to blow stuff up. It was still fun though. All of these cupcakes got devoured.

I used the "Sexy low-fat vanilla cupcake" recipe from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World. On top is some homemade strawberry jam, (made with the strawberries I picked a while ago) and some raspberries from a friends garden.  They were delicious!

A little blurry, but oh so tasty.

Yakisoba

Yum! Here's a "recipe" for yakisoba, you should be able to find the noodles at your grocery store, they're usually vegan, but you should always check! (I used the pre-cooked kind, if yours aren't pre-cooked, boil them in water until slightly al dente and drain)

Here are the veggies. I'll go clock-wise from top left. Carrots, red bell pepper, broccoli, ginger, garlic, collard greens, and zucchini. I usually have some onions, mushrooms, tofu, snow peas, or some other veggies in there, but this is what I had.

Cooking them up in the pan with a tiny bit of oil. Stir-fry in a pan or wok until slightly al dente.

Add the noodles, and some teriyaki sauce, I like this kind. (the teriyaki one)

Pretty much just cook them until the noodles are warm, if you think they need longer, cook them longer.

Then serve! Sprinkle with sesame seeds for garnish.
There's my bowl of yakisoba. Yummy!