Dan's Birthday Dinner

Last week was my lovely husband Dan's birthday. But since we had just returned from our Seattle/Portland vacation (where we ate roughly 80,000 calories, I'm estimating) two days before, there wasn't much time to plan much of a celebration. On the cab ride home from the airport (at 11:30 on a Tuesday. ugh), Dan declared that he wanted cheesy mac and garlic bread for a birthday dinner. Now, due to those roughly 80,000 calories, I wasn't too stoked on this idea, as what he wanted was one of the first recipes I mastered when I was in college. I have no idea where the original recipe came from, as I think I received a stained print-out from someone along the way. It was incredibly creamy and velvety and delicious but called for loads and loads of both oil and margarine. Add super greasy garlic bread to that, and my vacation-stuffed stomach wasn't thrilled. So I decided it was finally time to de-fat (at least partially) the recipe and see how it turned out. It still needs some tweaking (I think the tempeh needs to be grated for a more "sausage" like texture, and it could maybe be a bit moister), but overall it was a (much-healthier) success. And it gets even better the next day. The tempeh sausage crumbles are straight from Vegan with a Vengeance (minus the spices I had unexpectedly run out of), but the rest is straight from my head.

Tempeh Cheesy Mac

1/2 cup nutritional yeast
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 1/2 - 1 3/4 cup water
1 Tbsp soy sauce
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/8 tsp turmeric
3 Tbsp margarine
paprika
1 1/2 cups macaroni, slightly undercooked
1 recipe tempeh sausage crumbles

Mix nutritional yeast, flour, water, soy sauce, garlice powder, and turmeric together in a small saucepan and heat over medium until thickened. Melt in margarine. In an 8x8 casserole dish, mix together sauce, macaroni, and tempeh and sprinkle with paprika. Bake at 350 for 15 minutes.

And to totally mess up the "healthiness" of the cheesy mac, Dan made his "world famous" garlic bread. Whenever he cooks something, he calls it world famous, even (or maybe especially) when it's the first time he's ever made it. I think the only time I've disputed this title was when he found a cucumber in the fridge, thought it was a zucchini (not sure how one makes that mistake), and put it in chili! Then again, maybe that is world famous, just not in a good way.

And dessert. Strawberry shortcake, with biscuits from Martha, with WAY less sugar on the berries, and whipped Soyatoo. Oh my God, Soyatoo is the best thing ever. Seriously. I whipped it up with half a vanilla bean and a few spoonfuls of sugar, and it reminded me of being a kid and eating spoonful and spoonful of Cool-Whip straight out of the package. I loved that stuff. But knowing that it's 99% chemicals, 1% whey freaks me out now. So thank you, Soyatoo, for actually resembling whipped cream (or whipped-cream-like product) without being icky. The whole thing was incredible, and such an improvement over those weird little sponge cakes at the grocery store.

Chocolate-dipped Hazelnut Biscotti

Friday was my co-worker Chris's last day, and since I was losing my vegan ally, I made biscotti. I used the recipe from Veganomicon quite a few times already, but this was a new combination (I still think the orange chocolate chip is my favorite, especially with a cup of Earl Grey tea). I used the basic recipe, subbed hazelnuts for almonds, and omitted the anise (I despise anything that tastes like licorice, and a lot of things taste like licorice. Yuck). I've tried the chocolate hazelnut biscotti recipe in the past, but they turned out too soft, so cocoa powder doesn't seem to mix with biscotti too well. I never think the cookies are going to get crispy enough when they're still warm; they always seem rather soft and gooey. But they work every time, turning out perfectly crisp. When these were baked and cooled, I melted chocolate chips with a bit of soy milk and one end of the biscotti in it. I had to put them in refrigerator for the chocolate to set, and the cold biscotti in a wamr cup of coffee was a great combination. And they were a hit at the office. Score one for veganism!

Before baking


After first baking


After second baking

Vegan Madeleines

I've been thinking about starting this blog--and taking a lot of pictures--for a long time, so it may seem a little odd that my first post is something that didn't turn out as well as I would have liked it to. But failure is often a big part of vegan cooking. So this is a learning a post. I tried to veganize something I never even tried in a non-vegan state, which is odd, and although the results weren't as pretty as those perfect little packages at the Starbucks counter, they were tasty. And who can resist those tiny little flecks of vanilla seeds?

Vegan Vanilla Bean Madeleines--first trial

2 Tbsp ground flax seed
6 Tbsp water
6 Tbsp margarine, melted
3/4 cup flour
1 tsp baking powder
pinch of salt
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 vanilla bean

Preheat oven to 400. Blend flax seed and water in blender until gelatinous. Sift flour, baking powder, and salt, then flax mixture, margarine, and vanilla and mix until combined. Grease madeleine pan and fill each mold 3/4 full. Bake for ten minutes.

I used a mini madeleine pan, because mini=cute, so maybe a larger pan would have resulted in a less crispy cookie. And if you fill the molds too much, the cookies get a strange rim around the edge. This batch came out a little oily and cupcake-like, with an odd, faint taste of popcorn, probably from the spray oil. Next time I'll definitely take the time to melt some extra marge. But the edges did come out nicely crispy. And despite the popcorny-ness, they were tasty.