My Sweet Vegan Review

The generous publishers of My Sweet Vegan sent a copy my way a couple months ago, and I have been gushing ever since I opened the box and saw the cover.
Upon opening it and reading the recipes and introductions, and gazing at each recipe's photo, I already felt the sugar rush coming on.

I was honestly already a fan of Hannah's, so I knew I was in for a treat, ba dum! I've been reading her Bittersweet Blog for awhile and was even more impressed with her projects upon interviewing her for the online edition of Herbivore Magazine last year (full article for subscribers here, snippet here). My dear friend Michelle (link fixed!) interviewed her regarding crafts, and I dealt with food.

An adorable, enthusiastic and attentive personality shines in Hannah's writing online, and that extends into her cookbook. Each recipe not only showcases her top-notch photography and food presentation skills, but again, her writing shines.
Every recipe has an introduction - whether it describes why Hannah created it, what to serve alongside, when to make - it's inspiring.

My Sweet Vegan features more sweets than you think you can handle, but you want to.
This book is one I'd recommend for vegan bakers with an appreciation for style - whether you're a passionate beginner or accomplished home baker. Even Hannah's more basic recipes put a neat spin on things. You'll find yourself realizing you NEED a heart shaped pan, for example, because it makes life that much cuter. There are also several gluten-free recipes, one being the tempting looking and sounding Cashew Creme Pear Tart.

I'm glad to have this book in my collection. If Hannah has written this book by age 18, imagine what decadence the future holds!

I've made four treats from the book so far, spoiling my coworkers along the way:


(Triple) Chocolate Cheesecake

My most recent creation was the Triple Chocolate Cheesecake. I did skip the chocolate crust and opted for a storebought graham cracker one. So, let's call it double chocolate. It was very easy to make, and obviously freaking delicious. I added some peanut butter caramel on top, because I can never things alone.

Sliced.

Peanut Butter Bombs

These were eaten very quickly by my coworkers, and with good reason. They are surprisingly moist, and the peanut butter filling is a excellent incentive for biting into one!

Sadly, I should have put more filling in than I did, but that my was my fault.

Black Bottomed Brownies

Crumb-topped Cranberry Muffins turned Mini Loaves

My boyfriend's favorite from the book. The cranberry flavor was SO good, and I liked how the citrus added to it. The crumb topping was more sweet coating than 'crumby' but it was still good!

And here's the cheezecake again...

I will note that if you are not a fan of soy yogurt, at least in desserts, know that I found the flavor (using different brands) to be noticeable in some of the above. I've also heard this sentiment elsewhere. I'm not saying this negatively impacts the recipes entirely, but it was there.

However, you can try upping the extract, or adding an additional flavor element to mask it.
I am a fan of the moistness soy yogurt can bring to a recipes, so I understand what's going on there.

The peanut butter and chocolate cookies were the biggest hits at my office. The muffins turned loaves were the biggest hits with my boyfriend. I could taste the yogurt, whatever, but the lemon and cranberry 'plosion came through so wonderfully.

I really liked how fantastically easy and striking the black bottomed blondies were to make, but I would consider adding another flavor element the next time I made them - like orange rind or jam. I am such a sucker for blondies.


To my readers, I ask, what's your favorite recipe so far?

Congrats, Hannah! The vegan blogging community is so proud of you!

I must admit, I was looking for bittersweet chocolate in a recipe, and did not spot it : )

"Farm Cafe" Rosemary Roasted Hazelnuts

nibble.Recently I was talking about how much I wanted to recreate the roasted hazelnuts from The Farm Cafe at home and I have! And I didn't have to do any of the work, either!

Julie Hasson pointed me in the direction of the recipe, that was featured in Bon Appetit Magazine. Because it's so easy, and makes sense with this post, I have reposted it below.

Please note that I made a half batch, and husked most of the hazelnuts ahead of time. I used fresh rosemary and a rich organic dark brown sugar I buy in bulk from People’s Coop.

Sweet and Spicy Roasted Hazelnuts (The Farm Cafe/Epicurious.com)

Servings: Makes 4 cups.

Vegetable oil (I used canola)
4 cups hazelnuts, toasted, husked
1 cup (packed) dark brown sugar
1/3 cup coarsely chopped fresh rosemary (I used organic, local)
1 tablespoon coarse kosher salt (I used sea salt)
5 dashes of hot pepper sauce*

Preheat oven to 350°F. Brush 13x9x2-inch baking pan and large rimmed baking sheet generously with oil (I used my oil mister). Mix hazelnuts, brown sugar, rosemary, salt, and hot pepper sauce in large bowl to blend. Transfer to prepared baking pan. Bake until sugar melts and coats nuts, stirring every 5 minutes, about 20 minutes. Transfer to prepared baking sheet. Cool completely. Break hazelnuts apart and store in airtight container at room temperature. (Can be made 5 days ahead.)

Test-kitchen tip: It's important to keep the hazelnuts hot during the entire baking time so the glaze doesn't clump. To prevent the hazelnuts from cooling off, don't remove them from the oven when stirring — just pull the oven rack out slightly.

*I used Frank's Red Hot the first time I made this, and Chihlua the second - definitely use a spicy one and don't be afraid to use more than 5 dashes. It wasn't quite as spicy as the restaurant's version both times I made this - they use Tabasco brand sauce on theirs. The nuts may smell hot and sour before roasting, but don't let that scare ya off.

Get Sconed! in Australia! !Tempeh!

Admittedly, I didn't travel to Australia (yet!), but I'm honored to say that Get Sconed! was featured on Aduki Online.

It's "the web-based reinvention of aduki, a food and lifestyle magazine for vegetarians, vegans and people interested in a healthier and more ethical lifestyle. aduki online delivers the latest vegan news from Australia and around the world here every week."

Thanks Aduki!

'Tempeh Steak' marinading

I've also cracked open my copy of "Tempting Tempeh" by Emily Clark, which is published by Aduki. Whether you've seen my blog 5 times or 100 times, you have probably noticed how I dig that fermented bean cake. The first recipe I made was the "Tempeh Steaks".

The sauce is an easy sesame-asian one, and the mashed potatoes are jazzed up with some wasabi paste. Now, Thomas wasn't having the wasabi addition, so I left that out and added some garlic sea salt. I marinaded the tempeh overnight to make it extra flavorful, and while I wasn't sure about the asian-mashed potatoes vibe, it pulled it off! I'm sure it would be even better with the actual wasabi. It was very 'restaurant food' and remarkably quick to make.

Tempeh Steak with Steamed Collards & Tamari and
Garlic Mashed Potates

The recipe was supposed to make extra sauce to drizzle, but I threw in some Trader Joe's Chickenless strips to soak it up for Thomas.

Thomas took one bite of a chickenless strip and warned me "You are not going to like this". It's true, they're not my thing, and I actually liked the last posts' beefless strips better. I don't see myself buying either of them again, but they are cheaper and similar (possibly just repackaged..) to the Morningstar Farms ones, if you're into that.
Speaking of Morningstar, I recently read that they're taking the egg out of several products, so be on the ingredient-reading lookout! You know, again, if you're into that.

And Portlanders! Sweetpea brunch buffet again this Sunday! I'm hoping to go, as I was unable to last week. Woo!

chomp, slurp

Caramel Corn from The Joy of Vegan Baking.

My first successful recipe from this book that I currently have out from the library.

I also made half a batch of the chocolate chip cookies, and perhaps it was my halving the recipe to blame, but they were FLAT. I haven't made cookies that sad in years. Nonetheless, Thomas enjoyed them, so I didn't find myself too frustrated.

Some quick french bread pizza for dinner.

Parbaked wheat baguette from Trader Joe's, fire roasted marianra, Italian sausage, Nomicon cashew ricotta (I wanted it globbed, not spread), spinach and red bell pepper. This was fun and easy to make.

Lunch at work - while reading Kittee's Papa Tofu Zine! I have been a big fan of
Kittee's Vegan Cookery site for years, and her Oven-fried Tofu is a personal favorite, not to mention her awesome cakes, cookies, Ethiopian and Indian recipes, etc...
I bought my sister a copy too!

Grilled Sundried Tomato Italian Sausage (ala Everyday Dish), red bell pepper, steamed spinach and fire roasted marinara..and a slice of baguette. Very reminiscent of the pizza, hmmm...

Ton of fruits and veggies I bought with a coupon at Uncle Paul's produce market in SE Portland. (pssst, the honey is not for me! really, I'm an agave fan anyhow)
This haul is about $35 worth.

Why so much juice? For eatings and drinkings!

We've been loving the juicer that Shaun from
In a Pickle and a Jam gave to us when she moved.

The juice below is lemon-apple-cucumber-melon, but my favorite combination has been ginger-garlic-beet-apple-carrot.

Entertaining...

Thomas and I ended up hosting a PPK New Year's Eve Party last week, and it was a blast. We maybe had 9 or 10 people at most, which included Susie of Parsnip Parsimony, Webly of Fueled by Popcorn, Maeve of StrawberryRock, Rory of the PPK and more.

Here are some food pics..

The full spread, featuring Susie's (and her hands and camera) Boozilicious Rummy Booze Cake, and the excellent Chestnut Pate from Nomicon that Webly brought.

Baked gyozas. I bought pre-made wrappers at fubonn, and the filling is mixture of sauteed nomicon baked seitan (with asian flavors), garlic, ginger, yellow squash, carrots, maiitake mushrooms, veg. mushroom oyster sauce, hoisin, tamari and crushed red pepper, lightly sprayed with oil and baked for 15-20 on each side at 375F.

Miso Grilled Tofu and Seitan - based on the The Artful Vegan recipe for miso broiled eggplant

Tofu Dill Sour Cream - based on the Voluptuous Vegan recipe available here
It was alright, but I added some garlic and more spices, and I still think it needed more, but I also knew I was out of touch on what sour cream should taste like
(I was aiming for more of a dip, though sour cream was appropriate for what it went on).

Baked Potato Skins - scooped, brushed with a garlic butter (obviously Earth Balance), baked for 15 minutes, plopped on some zestied nomicon cheezy sauce, smoky crumbled tempeh and black olives, baked another 15 minutes.

Coconut Red Curry Peanut Sauce

Eggplant Caviar served over fresh chard - the The Artful Vegan. I wasn't too crazy about this, but it was pretty.

Tamari Roasted Chickpeas - Eat, Drink & Be Vegan.
So easy, and at least the 4th time I've made them.

Thomas made some Hunch Punch, aka Jungle Juice, aka Booze Juice.

VWAV Chocolate Chip Cookies - with butterscotch chips and chocolate lentils.
I picked up a ton of pastel chocolate, mint and coffee lentils in NYC and Brooklyn.....
(The .... meaning more to come!)

get SCONED!

Happy 2nd Anniversary to...........Get Sconed!

Thank you one and all for reading and commenting!

I am very proud of my little bitty home in cyberspace amongst the bajillion other lovely veg blogs, and honored to share it with you.
I did a big recap of my first year last year, and to sum up this year, well it was a whole lot of learning and Veganomicon-ing with some Stumptown Vegan-ing thrown in. Being a recipe tester was ridiculously rewarding, and so was bringing SV to fruition with Webly.

2007 also had me finally writing out some recipes - eventually I'll make a handy link page, but for now here's some shots of most of them (psst, you can also click on the 'recipes' tag and wander around).
When writing my recap last year, I aimed to do this, and for a frequent recipe tester, seasonal produce lover and all around cook-as-I-go gal, I'm happy to feature them.....

Teriyaki Grilled Tofu

Italian fried zucchini blossoms

Peanut Coconut grilled tofu

Hazelnut and Red Wine stuffed mushrooms

Beer Battered Chicken style seitan

Hazelnut and Pear crisp
(so Oregon!)

Roasted Squash seeds

Herb Roasted Vegetable Sandwich

Cajun Chili Garlic yam fries

Raw Noodles, Cashew Cheez and Raw Marinara

Black Pepper, Red Wine & Lemon Sage seitan & green beans

Roasted Garlic, Wine & Veggie Sick soup

Lower fat New Farm Mac & Cheeze
I certainly didn't write this recipe, but I did lower a bit of the fat content and throw in more flavor, and it leads so many people to this blog, so enjoy!

Phew.

More PumpkinOSITY.

Major props to Julie Hasson~ I made two of her recipes on Wednesday evening, both involving pureed pumpkin, and both simply delicious.

Pumpkin cake with raisins, and chocolate chips all ooey-gooey on top. I prefer my chocolate chips on top of cake ever since making VWAV's raspberry chocolate chip blondies last year.



For spices, I only had cinnamon and nutmeg in the house (oh my), and I also cut the oil in half by simply using a little extra pumpkin. I often cut some oil with applesauce as well, but never all of it. I don't swing that way.



Julie's Smokey Pumpkin Hummus - used my homemade pureed pumpkin and the chickpeas I soaked over a week ago and had just a bit left of. Julie recommends using toasted sesame oil in this, fyi. I knew I'd like these recipes, a I sampled Julie's homemade versions of them at the Vegan Holiday Festival earlier in the month.




At the demo, Julie added candied pumpkin seeds on top, and since I had seeds myself, I toasted some in a pan with a touch of maple syrup, cayenne, sea salt and a wee bit of canola oil.



This is the dinner that used the rest of my purple cauliflower.
Maybe I'll get more cauliflower at the farmer's market tomorrow - maybe.
If I do, I'll probably be cheaper and just get white. This is a meal I made using what was in the house - simply roasted a veggie, reheated some baked yam fries and made those famous chickpea cutlets for a who-knows-how-many-nth time.
On the side is some Nomicon cheezy sauce and roasted garlic marinara.



P.S. My toes are now orange from all the pumpkin consumption.
P.P.S. This time next week, I'll be on day one of my Boston/NY trip, woo!

New Recipes for this MoFo

With only a 3 days left to MoFo, I’m trying to be on my game. What’s a blogging game? Posting daily? Sure. This post focuses on 3 new things I’ve made in the past few days. Two of the dishes are actual dinners made from actual recipes, and one is something simple I put together with my fresh pumpkin – the pumpkin smoothie from Monday evening.

I’ve made light milkshake and pumpkin ‘millk’ variations of this. This one has some Soy Delicious Vanilla, French vanilla flavoring, maple syrup, cinnamon, pumpkin puree and light vanilla soymilk. I'm calling it light because there's much, much more light soymilk than soy cream.

Pumpkin Shake


Pumpkin Seed Crusted Tofu and Spicy Baked Yam Fries

Next up is a dish that I’d eyed in Vegan with a Vengeance but never got around to making, which was silly because it featured two things that I enjoy – ‘crusted’ pumpkin seed goodness and tofu. I assume I was simply intimidated by the recipe and then forgot about it. Whatever the case, I made it on Sunday night with half of my newly scooped seeds, and took the extra step of marinating the tofu in a mixture of tamari, tomato paste, garlic and maple syrup. Not that I don’t trust Isa, but I remember wishing I had strongly marinated my roasted almond-and-herb crusted tofu way back when. I was really happy with how this came out. I wanted to work with what I had around, so I subbed some seasoning salt and random dried herbs for the fresh oregano. If anything, I had to remind myself that no, the pumpkin seed bits were not hurting my teeth. These thinly crusted tofus and the Nomicon cranberry sauce = kickass. And, after the 1-2-3 bowls breading process was completed, all I did was pan fry and bam, done. I contemplated baking, but worried the breading might not hold as well.

Fueled by Popcorn’s Baked Cauliflower Marinara

Before roasting the last of my purple cauliflower that dreams are made of last night, I used some of it in this cauliflower marinara. I was sitting around, wondering what I wanted to make with cauliflower, a pot of marinara sauce and chickpeas…and then I remembered how I never got to try this dish that Webly blogged about. I subbed Bryanna Clark Grogan’s pizza cheesy sauce for the vegan mozzarella, added some chickpeas and olives, and separated it into florets instead of one large head. I cooked mine longer than instructed, since I wanted the cheesy sauce to firm. I used the Roasted Garlic simple marinara from Veganomicon, and anything covered in that makes a fine dinner.

I’d definitely make this again. It was bold, easy, and on top of that, the colors ruled.

Pumpkin Seed Crusted tofu dinner

Maple carrots and green beans - from Pumpkin Seed tofu night.

The full spread on Pumpkin Seed tofu night - on a new table, finally. it's time for some kickass placemats..

Chickpeas EVERYWHERE.

Behold! I mentioned making two dishes on my last couple posts and they actually came to fruition! Or roasting. When does that ever happen?

Tamari Roasted Chickpeas, from Eat, Drink & Be Vegan! Easy and tangy and salty. 3 big points for that! The lemon flavor is equal to the tamari in these, and I enjoyed them in a salad today as well as warm from the oven, yesterday.



Thomas made this panini for me at his new coffeeshop in NW Portland - ciabatta roll, kalamata olives, mustard, spinach, tomato, pear, walnuts and balsamic vinegarette. Vanilla soy latte, too.


My work lunch on Friday: sliced apple with sea salt, romaine lettuce with raspberry vinagarette (TJ's) and Smokey Baked tempeh from nomicon. nom nom.



Saturday night's dinner: we relaxed, started watching Best in Show (watched Waiting for Guffman the evening before) and dined on chickpea cutlets, mushroom gravy (made with maittakes and creminis), grits, roasted purple cauliflower and yukon golds.
A lovely post-farmer's market feast~



Yesterday's lunch from Taqueria Los Gorditos Vegan Sunday: Mulita with rice and beans (minus the cilantro and onions...just saying!)



Tonight, I've got more purple caulifower and a newly soaked batch of chickpeas on the brain....what's on yours?