Hot Cereal with Raspberries

 This is Bob's Red Mill 8-Grain Wheat Free Hot Cereal with raspberries and agave nectar. A delicious way to start the day.

   

It's always nice to start the day with something hot and hearty, especially as the weather starts to turn colder. We had a huge amount of frost on the roof yesterday morning and this morning. Looks like fall is finally starting to come out full force. I'm loving the gorgeous, crisp, sunny days we've been having lately.

More Flour Than You Can Shake a Stick At

Sometimes I wonder who coined a certain phrase. Who was the first one to say that something was more *insert word here* than you can shake a stick at? Because what does shaking a stick at something have anything to do with it? Upon googling this, the internets seem to be unsure where exactly this came from, but apparently it has something to do with shaking sticks at people meaning they're worthy opponents. Ummm... okay. So how did turn into meaning there's an abundance of something? These are the things I think about.

I wish I had a stick so I could shake it at all of this awesome flour that we just picked up! Earlier in the summer I signed up for a local wheat CSA from Urban Grains and everything was harvested and packaged and ready for pickup this weekend. I found out about a potato CSA a little too late, but I'm definitely going to do that one next year, too.

Paige is inspecting the flour

Yes, apparently it meets her standards. She seems pleased with the 20kg of flour on the table.

Here's what's awesome: this flour is local, organic and ends up being cheaper than buying this same amount at the market. I like supporting local farmers and have been trying to eat as local as possible for the past few years. I'm lucky to be living in British Columbia for that. There are so many wonderful small farms in this province. The farmers markets here are pretty great and there's even a winter market so you can get local stuff year-round.

I go through quite a bit of flour so I'll have absolutely no problem using it up. I wonder if I'll even make it to the new year? There are two kinds of flour: soft white and hard red wheat.  The soft white is supposed to be especially good for pastries and cookies and that sort of thing. The hard red I'll probably use as my main bread flour.

While I was taking pictures of the flour, this is the kind of tomfoolery that was going on behind me. Now I wonder where tomfoolery came from...

My girls are always hanging out on top of the refrigerator. Phoebe especially likes to sleep next to potted plants for some reason. She really likes this one and a little pine tree we have in the bedroom. Sometimes we call her Jungle Cat because of it.

Looks like Paige is about to head up there to join the fun. More like she'll make one of them move so she can sit up there. That's my little crotchety old lady for you.

Lunch Salad in the Park

When the weather is nice, I really enjoy eating my lunch in the park. I like to read at lunch and it's quite nice to sit in the fresh air and relax for a bit in the middle of a hectic work day. I wish I remembered to bring my lunch more than I do.

We don't have anywhere to eat lunch in the building where I'm currently working so it's either bring something cold to eat in the park if it's nice weather or go out to eat somewhere. That pretty much negates bringing leftovers for lunch like I used to do. Sometimes I cheat and go to a coffee shop and order a cheap tea and eat a sandwich or something in there if it's raining. Luckily, we've had some amazing weather out here in Vancouver lately so it hasn't really been an issue.

 

 

I get tired of sandwiches after a while and I've never been a huge salad person. I like my salads full of stuff with just a bit of lettuce as an accent, not as the main ingredient. One thing that really makes salads awesome for me are those Gardein Crispy Tenders. The plain ones or the newer chipotle lime flavor are both great. I'll cook them in the morning while I'm getting ready for work or even sometimes the night before and then chop them up and put them on a salad. That really adds a bit of jazz to the salad!

These things are really great at room temperature and add some extra goodness to wraps, too. Oh yeah, that's another favorite thing to do with those, but I never remember to take a photo when I do it. I eat them too fast. These Crispy Tenders are also really great on a caesar salad if you want a little something extra.

Disclaimer: I totally took this photo over the summer and forgot about it. Vegan MoFo is great for getting me to blog about photos I keep shuffling around on Flickr.

Vancouver Food Trucks: Mom's Grilled Cheese

Thanks to Twitter, I found about this really cool food truck that just opened this week in Vancouver. This discovery has actually inspired me to try and take the next two weeks of the MoFo and discover more vegan yummies at food trucks around town. Stay tuned for more of that! It's going to be like a delicious scavenger hunt.

 

Anywho, I wandered on over to the Vancouver Art Gallery and found Mom's Grilled Cheese right there on Howe at Georgia. That's a really great location for them. It's quite pleasant to sit on the VAG steps and eat lunch. I see tons of people hanging out over there all day long. It's great to have a place to sit (or stand if you want) and eat from a food truck without feeling like you have to eat while walking or you don't really have anywhere to chill out for a minute with your food. So A+ for location, for sure.

 

Even better, though, Mom's Grilled Cheese has vegan stuff! Well, obviously they do or I wouldn't be talking about it, right? I guess that was a bit of a given. For vegans, you have two options. You can order the tomato soup, hold the marscapone or you can order a grilled cheese sandwich with Daiya. I haven't tried the soup, yet, but I was told it's made vegan, so just ask for no cheese on it. I'm going to go back and try it one day next week, I think.

As for the sandwiches, you can choose from a bunch of different types of bread, even a gluten-free one! I love that they're offering that. I know so many people with gluten intolerances, it's nice to see more places offering options like that. When I went yesterday they had pepper jack and cheddar Daiya, so you can have either one you want. I got a mix of both on my sandwich. For an extra 50 cents per extra, you can add onions, pickles or tomatoes to your sandwich as well. I added all 3 because I'm crazy like that. You'll get some chips and a pickle spear with your sandwich. They're usually served in this really cute cone of paper, but since the Daiya doesn't really stick together, they put mine in a clamshell so it didn't get too messy.

Extreme closeup of my delicious sandwich with Daiya, tomatoes, pickles and onions on marbled rye.

I had never had these before, but I've heard tales of Pop Shoppe sodas from lots of Canadians. Apparently it's something they used to have back in the day that had all but disappeared. Recently they've started resurfacing in a few places. Mom's Grilled Cheese has a ton of different Pop Shoppe flavors and even though I almost never drink sodas, I decided to try a root beer just because.

Served with chips and a pickle spear, though my pickles are hiding behind the sandwich

One note - make sure you specify that your sandwich is vegan when you order. They usually brush butter on the bread, but they won't do that if you ask them not to. Pretty awesome. They were all working so fast and were quite friendly and very nice. I pretty much liked everything about Moms Grilled Cheese and will definitely go back there again.

They were jammed when I was there yesterday so I had to wait a few minutes for my sandwich, but that's really not that big of a deal. Cindy, (the Mom of Mom's Grilled Cheese) was offering so many of us a complementary soda or ginger tea or soup as a thank you for waiting for our sandwiches. She even offered for a few of us to come back another time for a free sandwich. I'm looking forward to collecting on that in the next few days. If you're in Vancouver, check them out if you're downtown and feeling hungry, even if you just need a homemade ginger tea (I can't wait to try that, actually).

You can check out their menu here if you're curious.

Green Bean Casserole and the Rest of Thanksgiving 2011

Mostly I want to post the recipe for my green bean casserole, but I thought I'd also give the rest of Thanksgiving dinner a bit of time in the spotlight.

 

I make this homemade vegan roast every year at Thanksgiving. Even the omnivores get seconds, sometimes even thirds. It's quite good. I found the recipe online. (Edit: The recipe page isn't online anymore, but I have it written down. If anyone wants it, let me know and I'll do another post with the recipe.) (Edit: You can get the Vegan Holiday Roast recipe here.) I found that it needs about an hour longer of cooking time than it says to soak up all of the broth. Keep that in mind if you make it. It's so good and everyone will think you're a genius for making it.

I found the recipe for these Harvest Pies over at Vegan Dad's blog. I wish I had taken some photos of them without the tops on. They're full of butternut squash and potatoes and carrots and stuff. I think tempeh would be a great addition to theses as well. I'm going to try that the next time I make them. These are especially good with a bit of gravy.

 

Speaking of gravy... what Thanksgiving would be complete without it?! Stuffing and gravy are two of my favorite parts of the Thanksgiving meal. I've started making the Punk Rock Chickpea Gravy from Vegan with a Vengeance every year. The first time I made it, I was in heaven. I could probably eat this gravy with a spoon by itself and be happy. Quite a few people commented on the tastiness of the gravy this year, too. The only thing I do differently from the recipe is puree it. I like my gravy smooth so I stick my immersion blender in at the end and puree the heck out of it.

 

The mashed potatoes are almost gone! You know how to make mashed potatoes, I don't need to tell you. My secret ingredients are Earth Balance and vegetable broth. Yum!

 

And now for the green bean casserole! James was nice enough to top and tail them for me while I was doing other things... like finishing up that Sm'love Pie you see in the background there. The thing that makes my casserole special is the homemade mushroom soup. It's not hard to make and it freezes well so you can always make it in advance or make a double batch and stash some in the freezer for a rainy day. I also find it quite delicious on its own. You can make cream of pretty much anything using this recipe. Just substitute the mushrooms for whatever you like. Cream of asparagus, anyone?

Green Bean Casserole

Note: If you're making this for a crowd, double the recipe to fill a large rectangular baking dish. That's what I did for Thanksgiving. You might end up with some leftover soup, especially if you double it. I usually just freeze it and eat it later as a soup with some asparagus or something added to it.

3 cups of green beans, topped and tailed and cut in half (I'm guessing here. Use however many fill a small 8" square baking dish. When I buy them from the market they come in bags, so I usually just buy one bag for a little bit and 2 bags for double this.)
Cream of Mushroom Soup (recipe below)
1 can of fried onions

Preheat your oven to 350 F.

Mix the green beans, the soup and 3/4 of the can of friend onions and pour it all into an 8" square baking dish. Top with the remaining fried onions. Cover with foil and bake for 45 minutes. Remove the foil and bake for another 10 minutes. Remove from the oven and let cool for at least 5 minutes before eating.

Cream of Mushroom Soup

1/2 cup raw cashews, soaked for at least an hour, up to overnight
2 cups vegetable broth
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 small onion, diced
half a head of cauliflower, chopped
1 clove of garlic, chopped
1 generous handful of oyster mushrooms, chopped
1 generous handful of another kind of mushroom, your choice, chopped
2 cups water
2 bay leaves
1 teaspoon dried thyme
1/4 teaspoon white pepper, optional
1/2 teaspoon salt (you might want to leave this out if your broth is salted)

 Add the broth and cashews to a food processor or blender and blend until smooth. This will probably take from 2-5 minutes. Set aside.

Saute the mushrooms over medium heat in their own pan for about 5 minutes then turn off the heat and set them aside. You'll use them in a minute.

Add the olive oil to a large pot over medium heat. Once the oil is warm, add the onion and cauliflower. Saute for about 5 minutes. Add in the garlic and saute for another minute. Add in about 3/4 of the mushrooms, the cashew mixture, water, bay leaves, thyme, pepper and salt. Stir everything up and cover your pot. Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat and simmer for 15 minutes.

Remove the bay leaves. If you have an immersion blender, stick it in the pot and blend until everything is pretty smooth. If you're using a food processor or blender, puree the soup in batches, being careful not to burn yourself and also being careful to let the steam escape as you're doing it or you'll have a big mess on your hands. Now add in the remaining 1/4 of your mushrooms. Taste for salt and add more if you think you need it.

Lemon Cream Pie and Other Stories

I can't quite remember which year I started this, but it's a tradition for Thanksgiving to have 3 pies, now. I always make the Sm'love pie every year because everyone always asks about it and then proceeds to get this blissed look on their faces while eating it. Who am I to deprive people of their chocolatey Thanksgiving goodness? I try and shake it up a bit with the other two, though. I like to do one fruit pie of some type and the other can be whatever I feel like making at the time.

All that was left of the Lemon Cream Pie at the end of the night

How can you not love the Sm'love Pie?

I've made my award-winning Hazelnut Apple Cider Pie two years in a row because it was requested this year. That's kind of awesome, actually. I couldn't find any pink lady apples so I had to make do with Granny Smith apples instead. It was still great, I just prefer the pink ladies for my pies. They have such a great combination of sweet and tart and crisp.

 

I actually ended up having to send James to the store at the last minute to get more apples for me. I wasn't paying attention when I was simmering the apples in the cider and all of a sudden I had applesauce. Well, not all of a sudden, more like 20 minutes too long while I sat on the couch checking my email with one of the cats in my lap. What a bummer. Now I have to find things to eat applesauce with for the next few weeks to use it up. I put it all in jars and then realized that I didn't add any lemon juice so it won't be shelf-stable. Dang it.

The remnants of the Hazelnut Apple Cider Pie

For the third pie, I wanted to do a lemon cream pie. I got inspired by the Coconut Cream Topping that Vegan Dad made.  For some reason I was thinking the coconut cream would get super fluffy and it didn't really. It wasn't runny or anything, though. I think next time I might try adding a bit of arrowroot or cornstarch or something and beating it for a long time to see if I can get it any stiffer. Experimenting can be delicious! Also, I know that sometimes when you buy cans of coconut milk it's separated into milk and cream in the can, but mine wasn't like that this time so I just chucked it all at the beginning of the recipe and it seemed to turn out fine. So if you make this and have that same thing happen, don't worry, it's all good.

I used to love my Grandma's lemon meringue pie when I was a kid; though I remember loving the lemon part way more than the meringue. I'm going to have to do a bit more experimenting to get the lemon part of the pie a bit more like Grandma's was but this was still quite good. I got the recipe from the Fat Free Vegan Blog. I noticed that a few people commented that the recipe was too sweet as is and I generally like things less sweet than most people so I heeded their warning and reduced the sugar a bit. I ran some lemons through the juicer for fresh juice and I think that really made quite the difference, too. Oh, did I mention that there's no baking at all involved in making this pie? Just heating up some stuff on the stove and then refrigerating!

I only have two large pie dishes so I ended up using a springform pan for my lemon cream pie. You can use whichever you like, but the pie dish is probably best if you expect to have leftovers.

It looks so cute just out of the springform pan, but I still think a pie plate would be best.

Copied and Pasted, here is the recipe for the lemon cream pie:

Make whatever kind of pie crust you like. I just used a graham cracker crust. Just get some graham cracker crumbs (about 1 3/4 cup) and add a few tablespoons of canola or coconut oil. Mix with a fork until the graham cracker crumbs are all moist and hold together. Add more oil one tablespoon at a time, mixing after each addition if you find your crumbs are still too dry.

Lemon Pie Filling (reposted from the Fat Free Vegan Blog)

1 1/2 cups sugar (I only used 1 cup)
1/2 cup + 1 Tbsp. cornstarch
1/4 tsp salt
1 1/4 cup water
1 cup non-dairy milk
3/4 cup lemon juice
grated rind of 2 lemons (about 2 Tbsp.)

Combine sugar, cornstarch, and salt in saucepan. Stir in water and soymilk and bring to a boil over medium heat. Cook 3-4 minutes, stirring constantly. Remove from heat and slowly add the lemon juice and grated rind.

Pour into a pie crust and chill for a couple of hours until set.

Coconut Cream Topping (reposted from the Vegan Dad blog)

1 can coconut milk
1 tablespoon agar flakes or 1 teaspoon agar powder
3 tablespoons sugar (I ended up using 6 tablespoons of sugar total to get it sweet enough)
1 teaspoon vanilla

Separate coconut cream from coconut milk and add the milk (i.e. the watery stuff) to a small saucepan. Sprinkle afar flakes over and let sit for 5 mins.  Add sugar and bring to bubbling over med hi heat, whisking constantly.  Cook for 3-5 mins, or until all the agar has dissolved.

Remove from heat and whisk in cream and vanilla.  Adjust sugar to taste then pour into a bowl, cover, and place into the fridge.  Allow to fully cool.

When ready to use, whisk the cooled mixture and spread over your pie.  Place pie back into the fridge until ready to serve.

Thanksgiving Bounty

I have another Thanksgiving dinner to go to this evening and I've pretty much spent most of the day chilling out after cooking for 2 and a half days. More recipes later in the week. For now, check out what we had for Thanksgiving dinner yesterday.

Green Bean Casserole and Homemade Tofurkey

Harvest Pies, Cranberry Sauce and Stuffing

Kale, Mashed Potatoes and Chickpea Gravy

Lemon Cream Pie, Hazelnut Apple Cider Pie and Sm'love Pie