3rd Attempt in Making Mooncake

I've used Lily's Wai Sek Hong's recipe for the Golden syrup since I was not able to find it in my local Asian market and I used Do What I Like's Mooncake Skin.

My first two attempt in making the mooncake skin was a failure. The consistency was crucial. It was something I could not get right due to the golden syrup. It would've been better if I had the golden syrup. The reason for all the failed attempt in making the mooncake skin was because of the golden syrup. I followed the instruction and boiled the sugar mixture until it was golden brown and when the syrup cooled down, it was really thick and hard like carmel so it made the skin way too hard and unmaleable. What I found out by the 3rd attemp was to boil it until it's slightly golden. A little lighter than vegetable oil. The texture of the mooncake skin dough is suppose to be very soft and maleable like bread dough except not gluteny. If the dough is breaking apart and crumbling, DON'T ADD MORE FLOUR!! Only add more flour if the mixture is still too sticky.



With all the failed attempts with the mooncake skin, I made them into cookies yay!! They were pretty good except for the cookies from the first failed attempt since I burnt them!!



Another unpredictable mistake that I had was the filling. I bought premade red bean paste, sesame paste and lotus paste in a can. The red bean and sesame paste were way too soft to roll the filling into balls. It just made a sticky mess on my hand. I tried freezing it, it helped but it made my mooncake skin cold and it tore easily. I mixed the sesame paste with peanut butter a 2 to 1 ratio but it was still too soft. It was much harder than the red bean paste.

The star had the lotus filling which had the correct consistency. The pig had the sesame and peanut butter paste. The cow had the red bean paste. You can tell in the pictures that as the consistency got softer, there were more breakage in the pastry skin. By the time I got to the red bean paste mooncakes the skin was blotched in red.




During the baking process the gravity pulled both the sesame & peanut butter mooncake and the red bean mooncake down so it looked as if it melted. I recommend to make your own paste if you were to make mooncake with filling other than lotus paste. If you decide to use canned red bean paste and black bean paste just reduce it on low-medium heat until it's thick enough for you to roll into a ball with your hands.

Inari

School has started...great. Summer passed by so quickly.

I made some Whole Wheat bread and I used a folding technique to knead my very very wet dough. Accord to the Fresh loaf, "the wetter the better". It's nearly impossible to knead wet bread since it'll stick all over your finger so that's where the folding method comes in. It came out very coarse so beats me. I must readjust some more. Yay!!

Mooncakee!! The mid autumn festival is coming well it's already the 2nd day. It's suppose to be on Sept 14th. Im going to make myself some vegan mooncakes. Im going to try the bing pei which is the one made with cooked glutinous rice flour (koh fun) and I'm going to try to make the traditional Cantonese baked mooncake. No salted duck eggs obviously :] If i have time I'll try to make the jelly mooncake which is made with agar agar. I'm so excited but with school and possibly observation for my secondary class, I'm quite scared I won't be able to make it on time.

Lots of salad

Long Week


Since last week of Friday my b/f and Moses has been redoing an apartment in Brooklyn. It took us four days to finish and during one of those days we went to an authentic vegan Caribbean Restaurant. It was awesome. My b/f and Moses ordered the vegan hamburger but I bought my own lunch for that day. I made mushroom rice. The employees made the burgers fresh there. It was awesome. It wasn't like those frozen patty that they heated up, it was fresh. I took a bite out of my b/f's and it has a very delicious special sauce coating it. I couldn't help myself staring at all the baked goods so I bought myself a Cassava Pone and I bought my b/f a coconut roll but it wasn't the traditional coconut roll. It was colored by beets.


We worked Friday, Saturday, Monday and Tuesday. On sunday we went to the beach with a group of friend. I bought in the Mini Crustless Tofu Quiches from the FatFreeVegan blog. I think it tasted great but I don't think my other friends really liked the taste of nutritional yeast. :/ I can't force them. It's just that I have to pick better choices of vegan food they are more fond and use to.


Yesterday I bought some food to a picnic with my b/f but it was raining so we ate it in the car. I made some macaroni and cheese from VegWeb. I thought it tasted ok but it wasn't cheesy enough for your regular maracroni and cheese but it was pretty decent. I also made some garbanzo and black bean salad.


Yields 4 Serving 194 Cal/ Serving

8 oz Garbanzo Beans, Cooked and Drained
7 oz Black Beans, Cooked and Drained
1 Handful of Spinach
1 Handful of Amaranth ( Or just another handful of Spinach)
1/3 Cup Scallions, Chopped
1/4 Cup Cilantro, Minced
1 1/2 Tbsp Basil, Minced
1 Tsp Fresh Lime Juice
1 Lemon Boy Tomato, Chopped (I used it for color since it's very yellow. You can use a regular beefsteak tomato)
10 Grape Tomatoes (Also used for color)
6 Green Olives
Salt and Pepper to taste

Green and Brown Goodness

Vegetarian Times Vegan Thumbprint cookies


My boyfriend wanted to buy some Pepperidge Farm Verona cookies which are totally not vegan but he is not a vegan yet but he trying. I know he wasn't going to buy it but nevertheless, I felt bad and I told him I'll make him some vegan thumbprint cookies since apparently this current September issue of Vegetarian Times happens to have a recipe vegan thumbprint cookies.

I found the cookie to be quite tasty but before the initial bite there was a strong aroma of soy/tofu. I think it's just from the Soy Garden Earth Balance margarine I used. I also found the cookie to be a bit softer than how I hoped it to be. I used mayhaw jam rather than the traditional raspberry jam. I only had the mayhaw one at the time.

The thumbprint cookies does not even really resemble a thumbprint cookie. It looks more like a jam filled cookie. I know my boyfriend LOVES jam, well filling in general. He over does it many of the time so I decided to over do it just for him. Rather than giving the cookie a cute little thumb indentation, it was more like a huge TOE indentation. I over filled the middle with jam and it kinda spread during the baking process. Oh wells.

Yields 36 cookies 76 Cal/Cookies
1 1/2 Cup All Purpose Flour
1/2 Cup Whole Wheat Flour
1/2 Tsp Baking Powder
1/4 Tsp Salt
3/4 Cup Sugar
1/2 Cup Margarine, Room Temperature
1/3 Cup Vanilla Soymilk
1 Tsp Vanilla Extract
1/4 Tsp Almond Extract
1 Cup Raspberry Jam [ Use any, Apricot taste good as well ]

• Sift and combine all the flour, baking powder and salt together in a big bowl.
  
• Beat the sugar and margarine together.
• Then slowly beat in the soymilk, vanilla and almond extract.
• Beat ind the flour mixture until everything is well combined
• Wrap the bowl in plastic wrap and chill it in the refrigerator for at least half an hour.
  
• Preheat the oven to 325 F.
  
• Take the dough out and roll it into 36 balls and place it onto a greased cookie sheet or parchment paper lined onto of the cookie sheet.
• Gently flatten the the ball of dough a bit and make an indentation with your thumb.
  
• Put the cookie sheet back into the refrigerator.
• Pour the jam into a bowl and break up the big chunk of jam with a fork.
• Then place pur the jam into a pastry bag or a zip lock bag with a hole slit on a corner.
• Take out your cookies and fill the indentations with the jam.
  
• Place it into the oven and bake it for 12 to 15 minutes or or until lightly browned.
• Cool the cookies on a cooling rack.
  

Fat Free Vegan Can't be Beet Chocolate Cake

I got this recipe off of FatfreeVegan. I wanted to get rid of some of the beets that I had in my fridge. These little cupcakes were really delicious but I found it to be a bit too chocolaty. This cake were moist and not dense despite the fact that it was made up of mainly whole wheat flour. I wanted to get rid of the baby food that were in my cupboard so I used that instead of the apple sauce and I also reduced the sugar from 1 Cup to 3/4 Cup. I found the cupcakes to be sweet enough but my boyfriend thought that it was very subtle and would preferred it to be sweeter. He described it as eating very dark chocolate. I made them as cupcakes since it were much easier for me to eat and I gave more than half away to my boyfriend since I'm the only one in my family who eats vegan food, chocolaty food and sweet food. I would never be able to finish it.

Avocado Amaranth CousCous for 1 Person

I don't normally post meal recipe since I'm never measure anything I just eyeball it so the measurements for this will obviously be from eyeballing. I hate it that I am the only one eating. My parents thinks that because I am vegan I don't have much to eat want so they don't eat my food even though I offer it to them. They also don't like any other type of food other than Chinese. I always end up with so much leftover and I hate that so this recipe should be enough for one person. I still think it's more than enough for one person. It's like for one and a half person. This dish is a bit Chinese and a bit Middle Eastern. I believe that's where it originated. I have never seen amaranth leaves sold anywhere else except for the Chinese market so if there aren't any amaranth leaves available, you can use spinach.

In Cantonese it's called Yeen Choy (莧菜). Amaranth is also called Chinese spinach and there are two varieties. There are the white and red. The white are just the regular green leaf but the red one has purple in the middle of the leaf and the purple branches outwards. When you blanch the red amaranth, the water turns purple like beets. Amaranth are very high Vitamin A, Vitamin C, calcium and iron. There is up to 28% Calcium and 17% iron in one cup of amaranth. That's how much I can grab with my chopstick at one time and I tend to reach for my amaranth several times cause I love it oh so much.

Yields 1 serving/ 289 Cal per Serving
1/4 Cup CousCous
1/4 Cup Vegetable Broth

2 Big Shallots, Finely Diced
1 Clove of Garlic, Minced
Handful of Amaranth, Rinsed and Roughly Chopped [You can use Spinach]
2 Tsp Thai Basil, Minced [ You can use Basil ]
2 Tsp Cilantro, Minced
2 Strand of Green Onions, Finely chopped
1/3 Stalk of Celery, Finely Diced
1/4 Avocado, Diced
5 Grape tomatoes, Quartered
1 -1 1/2 Tbsp Tomato Sauce or enough to lightly coat everything.
Salt for tasting

• Lightly spray a nonstick pan with oil and cook the shallots on medium heat for about 3 minutes.
  
• Add in the garlic and continue to cook until the shallots are transparent.
• Then add in the amaranth and cook until they are dark green. Then put it in a dish and set it aside.
  
• Cook the couscous with the vegetable broth in the same pan as the onions until all the broth is gone. Please watch carefully since there is very little couscous and moisture, it will easily burn.
• Fluff it up with a fork and mix the shallot and garlic into the couscous.
• Lightly toss in the basil, cilantro, leek, celery, tomatoes and avocado.
  
• Add in the salt and tomato sauce and lightly coat everything. I used tomato and basil flavored tomato sauce.
  

Day with lots of green and lots of orange

Green Tea Noodle with Spinach Cilantro Pesto and Artichokes


Tomorrow I have jury duty. It's my first experience and I didn't know that I would be there long enough to eat lunch so I have the option of bringing or buying my lunch. I know the neighborhood is not vegan friendly at all so I am bringing my own. I just bought some fresh spinach and cilantro so I wanted to use it while it's fresh. I was skimming through Veganomicon and found the perfect recipe, Spinach Linguine with Basil Cilantro Pesto and Artichoke. Instead of using the basil and spinach linguine, I used the spinach and green tea noodles. I also used some frozen artichoke instead and grab a handful of chopped spinach.

BBQ TVP Wrap
My boy friend and I also made some delicious BBQ TVP wraps. My boyfriend is unknown to the world of TVP so we made some today the BBQ Pomegranate Tofu recipe from Vegan with a Vengeance. We obviously didn't tofu. We followed the recipe pretty through and thought except we used onions instead of shallots and we used a bit more than the recipe suggested. We didn't reconstitute the TVP instead we let it simmer in the delicious BBQ sauce so it can absorb even more flavor. We added the TVP after all the ingredients were added and combined to make the BBQ sauce and we threw in a cup of huge TVP chunks and we cooked it for about 15 minutes. Then we let it gently simmer with the lid on for about 20 minutes so that we don't lose even more moister. Just check it occasionally to see if it is sticking or burning. Then we uncovered it and we cooked it for about 5 more minutes. We served it on a tortilla wrap with some cucumbers and tomatoes. Nothing special but the TVP tasted great! Too bad we didn't take any photos.

Home from Hyde Park

What a week! Even though I was home alone at my b/f's house all day while he went to school for 8 hours, I was very productive. I feel less bored there than I do at home. I feel so restricted at home because of my parents.

Here is what I have made during my stay upstate.

Chinese Steamed Buns
Had to try twice.
My first attempt...A tumorous kitty with sweet potato maple syrup filling.


2nd attempt back home...A normal looking kitty with some peanut butter and black sesame filling


I've learned from my mistake. DON'T OVER STUFF YOUR BUNS or they'll turn into fat tumorous buns.

Bun Recipe Yields 16 Buns 125 Cal/Bun

Yeast Mixture
60 mL || 1/4 Cup Water, 110F Warm Water
1 Tsp Sugar, Granulated
1/2 Tsp Active Yeast

Dough Mixture
150g || 1 1/4 Cup Bread Flour**
150g || 1 1/4 Cup All Purpose Flour
28g || 2 Tbsp Vegetable Oil
113mL Water, Warm
2 Tbsp Sugar
1/4 Tsp Salt

Filling

46g || 1/3 Cup Black Sesame Seed, Toasted*
32g || 2 Tbsp Peanut Butter, Creamy
25g || 2 Tbsp Sugar, Granulated
30mL || 2 Tbsp of Water

• Mix the sugar into the warm water and dissolve the yeast into the liquid.
• Let it stand for 8 minutes.
• Meanwhile mix all the flour sugar and salt together.
• Make a well in the middle and slowly add in the yeast mixture.
• Then slowly add in the oil while mixing with a spoon or spatula.
• After you add the oil slowly add in the water when all the flour are crumbly start mixing the dough with your hand.
• Continue adding the water until the dough becomes smooth and soft. (May need more or less water depending on the flour.)
• Knead the dough for 8 minutes.
• Cover the dough with a damp cloth and a plastic wrap. Let it double for 45 minutes in a warm place or until it passes the indentation test.
• While the dough is doubling make your filling by toasting your sesame seed @ 350F for 5 minutes stir it a bit and return to the oven or another 5 minutes.
• Blend the sesame seeds in a blender or processor until it becomes pasty. Then add in the water and blend until it is combined.
• Then add in the peanut butter and sugar and blend until everything forms a thick paste.
• Split the dough and filling into 16 even portion.
• Assemble by rounding one portion of the dough and flattening it. Be sure to make the edge much thinner than the middle.
• Put a dollop of the filling and pull the edge of the dough towards the middle and pinch to seal the end.
  
• Put the bun on a tiny piece of parchment paper. Continue to do that to all the portion of dough and filling.
  
• Cover it with a damp cloth and a plastic wrap to let it rest and go through it's last rise for about 30 minutes or until the dough had double.
• After it has double use a scissor to snip the dough to give it the buns point ears or spikes.
• Boil enough water in a big wok or large pot on med-high heat. When it is boiling put the buns in a dish over a steaming rack or you can put the buns in a steamer.
• Let it steam for 20 minutes and it will be throughly cooked.

Banana Mango Sherbet


I like the strawberry although it has nothing to do with the ice cream.

Spinach Broccoli Mushroom Soup


I like soup but I'm sick and tired of the creamy one. I need some soup that reminds me of my mom since I haven't had my mom's soup in so long since they're not VEGAN. My mom loves making broth soup, since he has never heard of creamy soup so I made this soup to remind myself of my mom's broth soup.

Vacation Upstate...banana brownies, asian puff pastry

I am currently on vacation at Hyde Park for a week since my b/f is currently going to CIA and he already started school while I still have several weeks left. He goes to school at 12:30 pm and comes home at 9 pm. So you can only imagine with can a girl be doing in his apartment all day. Well truthfully, I've been doing nothing...maybe some food blog reading and some baking. The apartment is pretty bad. The shower leaks so you hear water running all the time and the toilet flushes automatically and the oven dial does not have the temperature on it and sometimes the oven doesn't even heat up! With some experimentation, I figured out the oven temperature with a handy dandy oven thermometer. Alright on word with the food blogging.

Very Banana-ie Brownie with Options

Very Banana-ie brownie. More Banana-ie than chocolaty but I've made some adjustment to make it more chocolately. However the picture is of the very banana-ie brownie. Modified the recipe on Vegweb Chocolate Banana Brownie to suit the ingredients that we had.

Recipe Yields 36 1.5" x 1.5" pieces 70 Cal/ Bite size Piece
180g 1 1/2 Cups All Purpose Flour
76g 2 2/3 oz Semi Sweet Chocolate Chips or Blocks, Melted
347g 2 1/2 Large Banana, Riped and Mashed
300g 1 1/2 Cup Sugar
1/4 Tsp Salt
15mL 1 Tbsp Vanilla extract

• In a large bowl cream the sugar, mashed banana and melted chocolate together.
• Combine the vanilla extract.
• In a smaller bowl combine the dry ingredients together.
• Slowly add the dry ingredients into the wet and combine.
• Pour it into a 9" x 9" pan and bake it in the oven for 400 F for 25-30 minutes.

Option : To make it more chocolaty use 142g 5 oz Semi Sweet Chocolate Chips or Blocks instead of the 76g 2 2/3 oz and used 319g 2 1/3 Large Banana instead of the 347g 2 1/2.

Apple Raisin Chinese Puff Pastry

They are similar to the European puff pastry but not exactly. Instead of butter, lard and oil is mainly used for the fat. I got the recipe of the puff pastry from Cafe of the East. Normally when you go out to eat dimsum, they are filled with the mung bean, red bean paste, taro paste or lotus paste. Apparently being upstate, I don't have the luxury of being a walking distance from my local Asian market so I'll make a apple raisin filled ball.

I modify the puff pastry from Cafe of the East to fit the ingredients I had available.

Recipe Yields 20 Puff Pastry Ball 162 Cal/Pastry Puff Ball

Chinese Puff Pastry 122 cal/ Puff Pastry Dough
Wet Dough
200g 1 2/3 Cup All Purpose Flour
70g 1/3 Cup Shortening*
20g Sugar, Confectioner
+ - 100mL Water

Oil Dough
120g 1 Cup All Purpose Flour
60g 1/4 Cup + 2 Tsp Shortening*

* If you don't want to use the hydrogentated crap you can use expeller pressed oil like Earth Balance shortening and Spectrum shortening.

Filling
742g 3 1/2 Large Apples (I used gala)
85g 3 oz Raisins
177 3/4 Cup Cranberry Juice
1 Tbsp of Sugar, Granulated

To make the pastry dough

• First you need to make the wet dough by combining the sugar and the flour.
• Then cut in the shortening into the dough until all the crumbs are uniform in size.
• Slowly add the water as you mix the dough with your hand until it is smooth like the consistency of bread dough. Then let it rest for 30 minutes.
• Then make the oil dough by cutting in the shortening into the flour and knead it until it has the consistency of the wet dough. Add more shortening if you have to. Then let it rest for 30 minutes.

To make the filling

• Peel and core all the apples and dice them into about 1 cm cubes.
• While you are cubing the apples pour cranberry juice in a medium size pot and put in your raisins and let it simmer on medium heat.
• Then add in your apples and sugar and combine.
• Continue to simmer it until all juice reduces to nothing. Stir occasionally to make sure that the apples or raisin do not stick to your pot.

To assemble the apple raisin pastry

• please click on the picture to enlarge and see the visual aid.

• 1. Put the oil dough on a flatten wet dough.
  2. Wrap the oil dough with the wet dough and pinch the ends together
  3. Roll out the dough vertically.
  4. Roll the long dough downward into a long cylinder, resembling a cigar.
  5. Turn the horizontal cigar 90 degrees so that it is vertical.
  6. Roll out the cigar dough vertically.
  7. Roll the vertical dough downward into a cylinder again.
  8. Sit the cylinder upwards on your palm.
  9. Pinch up the ends so that it forms a ball.
  10. Situate the botto of the ball on your palm, so that the swirly pinched
  up ends are facing you and flatten the dough with your fingers. Make sure
  the edges are thinner than the middle and do not pull on the dough to
  flatten as it will pull apart the coil lamination you have just rolled out.
  11. Put the filling into the middle of the circular dough and pinch up the ends and round it into a ball.
• The dough doesn't spread so you can put it close together on a cookie sheet and bake it for 400 F for about 30 minutes.

Something Purple...

It seems like I love purple this week. I've made Jasmin agar agar tapioca jellies and taro ice cream. Who doesn't love purple? PUrple Purple Purple and lots of restaurant jumping in this entry.

Jasmin Coconut Agar Agar Jelly

This recipe is based on Baking mum's Multi-Color Sago Jelly. Despite the fact that jasmines are white, whenever I take a big whiff of jasmines, I instantly think of purple. If you are wondering where to purchase agar agar, it can be easily found in your near by health food store. I know Eden Food carries agar agar flakes and agar bar but they are rather expensive. Now Foods also carries agar agar in the 2 oz bottle and 2 lb bottle but I think the 2lb bottle is a bit extreme, no? If you are lucky to have access to some Asian supermarket, I really advise you to check there first. There are several brands of agar agar I know of, in which they are the telephone brand and the golden cup brand. They are sold in the .88 oz packets for only a dollar. Those packets are small but goes a long way! 1 gram is equal to 1/4 tsp you don't need much anyways.

The packet looks like this...


Recipe Yields 16 slices (100 Cal/Slice)

Tapioca Portion
70 g 2/5 Cup Tapioca Pearls Aka Sago
1/4 Tsp Jasmin Essence (You can use any extract or essence like orange, almond, vanilla etc. but if you are using extract use a tad bit more.)
1 drop Red Food Coloring (Any colors will do)
1 drop Blue Food Coloring

Coconut Agar Portion
12g 2 Tbsp Agar Agar Powder or 6 Tbsp Agar Flakes
200 g || 1 Cup Sugar
1/2 Tsp Salt
300 mL 1 3/8 Cup Coconut Milk, Canned
1000 mL 4 1/4 Cup Water
1/3 Tsp Jasmin Essence
1 drop Red Food Coloring
1 drop Blue Food Coloring

Tapioca Portion

• Boil some water on high heat in a pot. Pour the tapioca pearls and cook it until they turn transparent. It takes around 20 minutes.
• Pour off as much boiling water as you can and rinse it with cold water and strain it.
  
• Then divide these into to portion and for one portion mix 1 drop of red and blue food coloring and 1/4 tsp jasmine essence.
  

Coconut Agar Portion

• Combine the coconut milk, water, sugar, agar agar and salt in a pot.
  
• Mix with a whisk and simmer the mixture until the agar agar and sugar melts.
• Divide the mixture into three portion.
• Combine the food coloring and essence into one of the portion.

Molding

• First pour the coconut agar layer into a 2lb loaf pan (8 5/8" x 4 1/2" x 2 3/5" )then let it cool down in the refrigerator. (This layer will take the longest to cool so it is essential for you to be patient or else you would be like me! I messed up on the purple tapioca pearl layer >< ) Stir the other two coconut agar layer to prevent from setting while the first layer sets in the microwave.
• When the first layer has cooled, warm up the purple tapioca pearls a bit in the microwave for 10-15 sec on high so that it can be able to adhere to the previous layer nicely and for it to set. (Don't microwave too only or it might melt :X ) Spread it evenly on top of the first layer and let it set again in the microwave.
  
• When that layer has set, add another layer of the white coconut agar mixture on top, again warm this up in the microwave for about 30 seconds. Mix it with the whisk to dissolve any set agar. Then pour it on top of the purple tapioca and let it return to the refrigerator to set.
  
• Microwave the last clear tapioca pearl portion for 10-15 seconds on high and spread it over the white coconut layer and let it set again
• And for the final layer microwave the purple coconut agar layer in the microwave for about 45 sec on high and mix to dissolve any set pieces and pour it on top of the tapioca layer. Let this set for at least an hour in the refrigerator before unmolding. Don't be impatient like me!
  

Taro Ice Cream
Taro Ice Cream. I love taro they are delicious. I absolutely love the texture of the taro when it's half solid and half paste. It is naturally sweet and very aromatic. It is simply divine even if you just cook with plain ol' salt. My love for ice cream and the inspiration from A Vegan Ice Cream Paradise.

Taro Ice Cream Recipe Yields about 2 1/2 - 3 Cup Ice Cream (170 Cal/ 1/2 Cup)

Taro Paste Yields about 290 g Taro Paste
226 g Taro Root, Cubed 1"
591 mL ||2 1/2 Cup Water (Give or take some taro may require more or less)
1/3 || 66 g Sugar ** EDIT add 50g || 1/4 Cup more Sugar
1/4 Tsp Salt

(If you are using the paste as filling for steamed buns or cake)
** From what my b/f had learned from CIA, he said that when things are frozen, there are less flavor so you need to add more flavor to frozen food.

Ice Cream Mixture
All the Taro Paste
180 mL 3/4 Cup Non Dairy Creamer (You can use unsweetened non dairy milk but I highly recommend using soy creamer or you can add 1 1/2 tbsp of Vegetable Oil)
Plus 60 mL 1/4 Cup Non Dairy Creamer.
30g 1 Tbsp Tapioca Starch

For the Paste

• Mix the sugar into the water and bring it to a simmer in a sauce pan on high medium.
  
• Then put the diced taro into the simmer water. Break the taro down with a fork or spatula as you cook it. You can leave small pieces of taro to give it texture and a bite.
  
• If all the water has all be absorbed by the taro and the taro is still hard, add more water. It's okay if you add a bit too much since the taro will absorb all the water or it will all be evaporated.
• Continue to cook the taro has absorbed all the water and it is in the consistency of a paste.
• Sprinkle the salt and combine. Then take it off the heat and let it cool down. It yields about 290 g, almost 2 cup of paste. You can store it or make a bigger batch for steamed taro buns.
  

Ice cream mixture

• Take the taro paste and combine it with 3/4 cup soy creamer or nondairy milk + the oil.
• Whisk everything as you bring the mixture to a small simmer on medium heat.
  
• Dissolve the tapioca starch in the remaining 1/4 cup soy creamer.
  
• Whisk the ice mixture as you slowly pour in the tapioca and soy cream mixture.
• Continue cooking on medium heat until you feel the mixture thicken.
• Then pour it into your ice cream maker and freeze according to manufacturer instruction.

OR (if you don't have a ice cream maker like me)

• Poor it into a very wide pan (I used a 14" round pan). Any pan with a huge surface area will do.
  
• Put it into the freezer and beat it with a whisk or electric beater ever 15 minutes until the mixture is almost frozen into a solid.
  
• Put it into a container and freeze it.
  (note the quality will not be as good as the ice cream machine)
  

Dosa Hutt of Flushing NY!!
Vegan restaurant hunting!! I've been going to so many vegatarian/vegan places around NYC with my handy dandy VegOut: Vegetarian Guide to New York City. They have other VegOut books for Southern California, Seattle and Portland, Chicago and other large cities. Although I wish they had a vegan guide to NYC :[ it's alright many of the vegetarian place serve great vegan dishes as well. With in this month I went to Oneness Fountain Heart, Spice, Cafe Spice, Buddah Bodai, Wholes Food, LifeThyme, Dosa Hutt, My GOd I'm a freaking pig and I'm planning to go to Red Bamboo Soul Cafethis thursday.

I must say Dosa Hutt is AWESOME!! Spice authentic Indian food right by my house too awesome. Now i don't always have to eat at Buddah Bodai or Happy Buddah. Getting sick of Chinese food. My b/f ordered so much food cause it was extremely cheap :x Pondicherry Masala Dosa, Rava Masala Dosa, rava Mysore Masala Dosa and the Medhu Vada in Bowl. Cafe spice was nothing in comparison to Dosa Hutt. Cafe Spice was lacking in the spiciness for the tourist. For all those who live in Queens or the Tristate area please do try Dosa Hutt. everything is less than 4.75 with the exception of 2 items in which it is the Special rava masala dosa which is $5.25 and the speical low carb. dosa which is $6.00.
Everything is mostly vegan!! HOrray Hoorah!! I believe the butter masala dosa and cheese dosa are the only two that are vegetarian. Well that's what the cashier said but ask to make sure when you go there for an updated list. The desserts are not on the menu. It's located on the leftt side of the counter in plastic boxes. Too bad they aren't vegan since they contain milk though :/ but the besan ladoo didnt contain any milk. It's traditionally made with ghee but according to the cashier, it's vegan. Yayy

Chickpea, cardamom, golden raisins, cashews, almonds, LOTS OF OIL and I believe some kind of flowery essence. Probably rose or jasmin. Hm.... I must say it was very oily though. When i squeezed it, oil was gushing out. Don't as why I was squishing at it. It was rather fun.

MErry Xmas

Merry Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa and New Years. Holiday is the best LOTS OF FOOD!! weight gaining time awesome!! No more school thank goodness but the vacation is passing by so quickly!!

Spicy gingerbread cookies


Vegan cookies delicious!! I'm sick and tired mild tasting or just sugary tasting gingerbread cookies. Need the spiciness of all the herbs, so here's my recipe of these very spiced up ginger cookies.

Dry Ingredients
1 Cup All Purpose Flour
3 Tbsp Ginger, Grounded
1 Tbsp Cinnamon, Grounded
2 Tsp Allspice, Grounded
1 1/2 Tsp Clove, Grounded
1 1/2 Tsp Baking soda
1/4 Tsp Salt

Wet Ingredients
113g or 1/4 lb 1/2 Cup Butter, Soften
6 Tbsp Sugar, Dark Brown
6 Tbsp Molasses, Regular
1 Egg Replacer

• Preheat the oven to 350 F.
• Sift the dried ingredients and the dried portion of the egg replacer into a bowl.
• In a larger bowl cream together the butter and the sugar*. Add in the rest of the wet ingredients and combine well.
• Then gradually add in the dried ingredients into the wet ingredients.
  
• If you are making medium size gingerbread houses (around 4x8), bake the cookies for 18 - 20 minutes. It's better to over bake them a bit rather then under bake them like you usually would since you need a sturdy base for the gingerbread house.
  
• If you are making small tiny cookies for decoration (around 1 1/2- 2 cm) like the one in the picture bake them no longer than 5 minutes.
  
• If you are making regular cookies bake them for 10-12 minutes or until the top is slightly brown.

*Cookie Tip : Never over beat the sugar and the butter because your cookies will raise to much in the oven and deflate, resulting in a thin oily cookie because of all the extra air that is trapped in the butter.

Whole Wheat Cranberry Raisin Bread
The key to make great chewy artisan like bread is by creating a wet dough and letting time do all the work.

• Bread Tip #1: To get a better tasting bread let the bread rise slowly for a long period of time. So if you plan on eating bread tomorrow, you should make the dough and let it rise overnight in the refrigerator but the longer the dough rises, the yeastier it will taste so reduce the yeast a bit.
• Bread Tip #2: Normally flour requires a lot of water. They have bread dough with up to 75% hydration and some even higher which will result in a very sticky dough. IMPOSSIBLE TO WORK WITH, but this is where the next several tricks will come in handy!!
• Bread Tip #3: If you are preparing a wet bread dough mix all the dry and wet ingredients together. Don't knead it cause you wont be able to anyways. Just let it sit for 45 minutes. (Longer if you want but reduce the yeast, same principle as Bread Tip #1). This method is called autolysis. This allows the flour to absorb all the water and it helps develop good fibers between the gluten and starch.
  
• Bread Tip #4: Since the wet bread dough is too sticky to knead, just use the stretch and fold method. No need for kneading. After the autolysis or if you are skipping that step, put a bit of flour on your work area, stretch out the dough into a huge rectangle. Just fold the right side towards the middle, the left side towards the middle, the bottom side towards the middle and the top towards the middle. It's kinda like folding a envelope. Turn it over so that the smooth sides face you and fold it two more times. Let your dough rest for another 45 minutes or until double and fold it once more and let it rest before shaping, go through it's final rise and baking it.
• Bread Tip #5: Getting a hard crust by steaming the bread in addition to preheating the oven at the highest setting. You should steam the bread the first 5-10 minutes of baking since that is when the crust develops. To steam just preheat a metal pan in the rack below where you intend to bake the bread. When the oven finish preheating, put your bread in and pour a cup of water into the metal pan below the bread BUT newer ovens can't handle steam so it might break. If you have a cruddy oven like mine, I don't think you would mind as much but do this at your own risk. You should lower the temperature of the oven after 5-10 minutes.
  

Sponge Starter
118g 6/7 Cup Bread Flour
118 mL 1/2 Cup Water, Warm
1/4 Tsp Active Dried Yeast

Main Dough
53g 2/5 Cup Bread Flour
163g 1 1/4 Cup Whole Wheat Flour
180g 3/4 Cup Water
1 1/2 Tsp Sugar, Granulated
1/4 Tsp Salt
2 oz Cranberries, Dried
2 oz Raisins

• The night before mix the yeast into the water until all the yeast dissolves.
  
• Then mix the water with the bread flour until everything is combined.
  
• Cover it with a damp cloth and let it rise for 24 hours. My house was 63F if it's warmer let it rise for a shorter period of time.
  
• When the 24 hours is up start by soaking the dried fruits in warm water.
• Then combine the flours, sugar and salt in a bowl and mix in the water into the dried ingredients slowly. Mix with a plastic or wooden spoon.
• After the main dough is combined mix the sponge starter into the main dough. Make sure everything is well incorporated.
• Then drain and fold in the raisins and cranberries.
• Let the dough sit for at least 45 minutes for autolysis.
• Fold the dough like I have described in bread tip #4.
  
• Let it rest again for 45 minutes or until it doubles and passes the finger test.
• Punch down, fold once more and shape into your loaf.
• Preheat your oven to the highest setting.
• After your shaped bread has rised for 45 or until it passes the finger test, put it into the oven and bake it for 8 minutes.
  
• Then lower it down to 350 F and bake it for another 45 minutes or until the toothpick slides into the deepest part of the bread easily and comes out clean.

Vegan Rugelach

Wow I haven't updated in quite a long while. School was crazy! I'm so glad classes and finals are over. Now I can devote all my time into my hobbies. HOrray hoorah. It seems like there's never enough time for anything.

Mixed Fruit Rugelach
I used to work in a Jewish Bakery and I would snack on those all day. Too bad it's not vegan and that place closed down due unsatisfactory scoring in the health inspection. I would know hahaha, but thank goodness I left before that happened.

Rugelach is a very popular Jewish cookie. They normally contain nuts or some kind of jam. The most popular rugelach that we had in the Jewish bakery were the chocolate and the cinnamon raisin. This is a really simple recipe. Nothing special. No crazy drizzle or excess amount of sugar especially for the holidays.



Yields 24-32 Mini Rugelach/ 12-18 Large Rugelach (2129 cal Total)
Dough
1 Cup/ 120g All Purpose Flour
3 oz/ 85g Vegan Cream Cheese, Room Temperature
2 oz/57g Vegan Butter, Room Temperature
1/4 tsp Salt

Filling
2 oz/ 57g Raisins
2 oz/ 57 g Dried Cranberries
2 oz/ 57 g Deglet Noor Pitted Dates, Chopped
1/3 Tsp Cinnamon, Grounded
3 Tbsp Soymilk, Warm (you can use any vegan milk)

• For the dough part, sift the flour and salt together.
• Make a well in the middle of the flour mixture and cut in the cream cheese and butter.
• Let the dough chill in the refrigerator for at least 2 hours.
  
• Meanwhile mix the cinnamon with the soymilk and soak the dried fruits in the soymilk mixture. You don't want the fruits to burn while they are baking.
• After the chilling is finished.
  
• Preheat the oven to 350 F.
  
• Take the dough and roll it out to be a 8" x 16" rectangle. *
  
• Then spread the mixture evenly across the dough and tightly roll up the dough.
• Wet a knife and cut the rolled up rope of dough to however big you want the rugelach to be.
• If there is any leftover liquid from the filling, brush it ontop of the rugelach and bake it for 35-40 minutes or until the top turns into a light golden brown.
  

*If you want to make mini rugelach, you get less spirals in the cookies. Just divide the dough in half and roll each piece to a 4" x 16" rectangle.

Steamed Spring Roll
Normally the ones at YumCha is fried but it's healthier to steam but the taste is very different.
This recipe is very similar to the tofu skin wrap.


Yields 21 Spring rolls

Water
21 Spring roll Wrapper
15 Dried Shiitaki mushroom
2 Bunch of Rice Vermecille Noodle
1 10 oz Baby Corn, Canned
1 10 oz Braised Bamboo Shoot, Sliced into Matchsticks
20g Woodear Fungus
Soy Sauce
Salt

• Soak the shiitaki mushroom, rice vermecille noodles and woodear three separate bowls of warm water.
  
• Rinse the canned baby corn and bamboo shoot to get rid of the perservatives in the can.
  
• Slice the shiitaki mushroom into thin slices and cut the rice vermecille noodles into 2" and snip and hard spot in the woodear. Then roughly chop the woodear fungus.
• Cut the baby corns into quarters.
• In a saucepan cook the mushroom and woodear fungus until it's almost 3/4th done then add in the baby corn and bamboo shoot and cook it until they are warm.
• Toss in the vermecille noodles and cook for about 2 more minutes. Then flavor with soy sauce and salt.
  
• * Soak a spring roll wrapper in warm water to soften it.
  
• Place the spring roll wrapper on a flat surface and place the filling horizontally in the middle towards the bottom of the wrapper.
• Fold the left and right side of the wrapper towards the middle and then roll the wrapper tightly starting at the bottom where the filling is.
• Repeat this process 20 more times, start the steps where the * asterisk is.
• Place the spring rolls in to a steamer or a wok with some water and steam it for 15 minutes.
  

Soy Yogurt Cheese


I personally think it taste better than sour cream and cream cheese. Just follow these few simple step to make your own yogurt cheese from regular soy yogurt. You can make your own soy yogurt by going here. You can use this soy yogurt cheese for almost anything

Yogurt
Colander
Cheesecloth or Coffee Filters.

• Line your colander with a cheesecloth or enough coffee filters to fit the whole colander. (Just wet the coffee filter to make it easier to handle.)
• Pour the cheesecloth over the muslin and let it strain the refrigerator for at least 4 hours.

*note: if you want a more tangy yogurt cheese do not use commercial soy yogurt, make your own. The longer you ferment the yogurt, the tangier and sourer the yogurt becomes.

Macau Almond Cookies

They are also known as Macau Almond cake. This brand makes their almond cookie mainly out of almond, oil and mung bean starch. This company is a well known bakery in Macau famous for their almond cookies. They are absolutely delicious. I have odd cravings to make southeast Asian food. Delicious. I love kueh!

Thai food anyone?

Curry Kabocha with Yu Choy and Tofu



It's a rip off of the Epicurious shrimp curry with yu choy and kabocha

Instead of the shrimp I used some extra firm silken tofu.

As for the fish paste, I used FatFree Vegan's No Fish Fish Sauce.

Note: If you can't find kaffir leaves, even in the Asian market but you can use lime leaves, lemon leaves or 1 tablespoons for every 6 kaffir leaves.

Normally you can find lemongrass in your local Asian market but you can use a substitute of 1 zest of a whole lemon is 2 stalk of lemongrass.

I found the thai basil a bit overwhelming since Thai basil is very pungent in comparison to the regular basil you may find in the regular supermarket.

The choy sum has so many names for the Cantonese, it's called yu choy, yow choy or flowering rape.


Tofu Mushroom Side Dish


Recipe

1 Clove of Garlic, Minced
1/2 Yellow Onion, Chopped
8 oz Mushroom (Cremini or White)
6 oz Firm Silk Tofu, 1/2 Inch Cubed
1 Scallion, Finely Chopped
Oil

• Heat the oil on medium-high heat and cook the garlic to release the aroma for about 10 seconds, make sure not to burn them.
• Then add in the onions and cook it for a few minutes then add the mushrooms. Add enough salt to the vegetable to salt to your preference. This will allow the vegetable to release any water.
  
• When the onions are almost thoroughly cooked add the tofu and the scallions and cook it until the onions are soft and the mushrooms are cooked.

Chocolate Banana Muffin


It's not very banana-y tasting so I dont know whether to post this recipe or not.

Midterm week

The title describes all!! I had midterms last, this week and I believe the one after this... Great this shows how tentative I am in class. I don't even know when my midterms are. I've been so busy studying for calculus, I'm drained so I decided to treat myself by going to Six Flag for the fright fest. I'm not a picture person so there's no pictures. It wasn't what I had expected. I expected it to be more frightening but apparently not with all the rude people pushing and shoving.

Anyways onward to the food. I helped my boyfriend bake some goodies for his mother's office since she was leaving that hell hole yay!!! We had to bake 80 of each item but we didn't have enough time to bake enough of the muffins. I wished I had more influence on what was being served. We made apple cranberry muffins (ovo-vegetarian), gingerbread cookies (ovo-vegetarian) and VWAV pumpkin oatmeal cookies (vegan). Awesome. Everyone loved the baked goods. The vegan cookies came in second though :[ They liked the muffins more...but at least it's not last!!


This week's muffin, Persimmon Muffin!!
Tis is the season for persimmons!!! I love persimmons although they can cause severe heartburns if you just eat it out of the hand. They're amazingly delicious. Some how they remind me of pumpkins because they're so orange! *Note I tend not to use cups to measure ingredients as they can be quite inaccurate. I've just converted the weight to volume so please excuse all the odd measurement in volume.


Recipe Yields 6 Muffin // 165 Cal/Muffin


75g// 5/8 Cup All Purpose Flour
75g// 5/8 Cup Whole Wheat Flour
38g// 3 Tbsp Sugar, Granulated
12g// 1 Tbsp Dark Brown Sugar
1 1/2 Tsp Baking Powder
1/4 Tsp Cinnamon, Granulated
1/8 Tsp Allspice, Granulated
1/8 Tsp Nutmeg, Granulated
1/8 Tsp Salt

115g// About 1 Medium Persimmon, Pureed
12g// 1 Tbsp Maple Syrup
1/2 Cup Soy Milk
1 Tsp Vanilla

Kabocha Pie (Japanese Pumpkin Pie)
Tis is autumn!! The leaves are falling, the winds are strong, it's almost Halloween, Thanksgiving will soon follow. It's a great time for eating pumpkin pies and sweet potato pies! Normally people associate autumn with pumpkin pie and sweet potato pie but there aren't many pumpkins readily available here but there are many kabocha. Kabocha is also known as Japanese pumpkin. The taste a bit like pumpkin and a bit like sweet potato. Even better! Killing two birds with one stone. Of course I wouldn't do that I can't even kill one bird with a stone. Poor birdie. Kabocha is a popular ingredient in Asian cooking and it's avaible all year round in the Asian markets. I've seen them in both the Korean markets and the Chinese market. In the Chinese market these kabocha are actually called pumpkin in Chinese. Hey why not make so "pumpkin pie"?


Recipe Yield 1 7" pie, 8 slices// 140.25 Cal/Slice

Crust
62g// 4 2x2 Graham Crackers, Crumbled
60g// 1/2 Cup All Purpose Flour
24g// 2 Tbsp Soy Butter, Room Temp.
3 Tbsp Soy Milk
1/3 Tsp Cinnamon, Granulated

Filling
265g// Kabocha, puree
6 oz// 170g Silken Tofu, Firm (I used Mori-nu)
50g // 1/4 Cup Sugar, Granulated (You can use more, my kabocha was very sweet)
1 Tsp Vanilla Extract
1/2 Tsp Cinnamon
1/4 Tsp Nutmeg

• Preheat the oven to 350F.
  
• Crumble the graham crackers and combine it together with the all purpose flour.
• Cut in the soy butter into the flour mixture.
• Make a well in the middle and add the soy milk and knead the dough.
• Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and refrigerated it for about 20 minutes.
• Take out the dough and flour the rolling pin and your surface.
• Roll out the dough to be around 3/4 cm thick and cover your 7" pie pan.
  
• Poke many holes with the fork and back it in the oven for 15 minutes.
• Take it out and let it cool while you make the filling.

• Peel and dice the kabocha. (Make sure you measure the kabocha with out the skin and seeds.)
• Dice the kabocha to 1.5" cubes and steam it in a steamer for 15-20 minutes or until tender.
• Puree the squash in the food processor until there are no more lumps.
  
• Put the kabocha into a large bowl and puree the tofu in the food processor. (Since we're using firm tofu, make sure there are no lumps! You don't want lumpy pie!)
• Add the kabocha sugar, vanilla, cinnamon and nutmeg into the tofu mixture and puree it until all the ingredients are combined.
• Pour the filling into the crust and bake it for 20 minutes. If you bake too long, it will crack!

Cinnamon Raisin Coconut Rice Pudding


Rice pudding hmm....The coconut taste is very subtitle but with the addition of shredded coconuts, it goes quite far. Actually I've made it twice, once in my b/f house and once at home. The one that my b/f and I made was from a recipe in vegweb. It didnt turn out the way we wanted to so I've made it again.

Recipe Yields 4-6 Serving// 533-355 Cal/Serving

1 13.5 Fl Oz// 2 Cup Canned Coconut Milk
1 1/2 Cup Soy Milk (I used plain, sugarless)
185g// 1 Cup Jasmin Rice
150g// 3/4 Cup Sugar, Granulated
40g// 1/4 Cup Raisins
1 Tsp Vanilla
1 Tsp Cinnamon, Granulated
2 Tbsp Agave Nectar (Optional)
23 g// 1/4 Cup Shredded Coconut (Optional)

• Boil the coconut milk and soy milk together in a saucepan or pot while you wash and rinse your rice. (It helps a lot if your saucepan or pot are nonstick because the rice will stick!)
  
• When the milk mixture is just boiling, pour in the sugar and let the sugar melt in the milk. (If you are happening to use sweetened soy milk, reduce the amount of sugar.)
• Pour in the the rice and let it boil with a lid overing the saucepan or pot on a medium to low heat.
  
• While you are waiting for the rice to cook, soak the raisins in half a cup of warm water. If you don't soak the raisins they will absorb the moister in your rice pudding, making your pudding dry.
• When the rice is starting to cook and has already absorbed about half of the milk, lower the heat to low and let it simmer slowly with the lid on so the steam can softens the rice. If you don't use a lid, the moister will evaporate out of the saucepan or pot. It's essential that you lower the heat or else the rice will burn! No shortcuts!! It may take up to 20 minutes to 30 minutes of simmering and steaming depending on the size of the saucepan or pot.
  
• Stir the rice every few minutes to prevent burning or sticking to the saucepan or pot. If it does stick quickly scrap off any rice that is sticking to the saucepan or pot to prevent burning.
  
• When the rice is mushy and reaches your desire consistency, fold in the raisins, vanilla extract, cinnamon, shredded coconuts and agave sugar (if you are using those).
  
• Let the rice pudding simmer and steam for five more minutes. If your rice pudding happens to be drier due to moisture lost, add in some more soy milk.

Fatfree Carrot Muffin
Delicious muffin. My b/f and I got this recipe from fatfree vegan but we made our own streusel. which was not exactly fat free.



Streusel Topping

Recipe Yields enough for about 16 Cupcakes// 349 Cal total

36g// 3 Tbsp Sugar, Granulated
24g// 2 Tbsp Sugar, Dark Brown
1 Tbsp Applesauce, Sweetened
1 Tbsp Soy Butter
1 Tsp Cinnamon. Granulated
1/2 Tsp Ginger, Granulated
1/4 Tsp Clove, Granulated

• Combine the sugars and spices.
  
• Cut the applesauce and soy butter into the dry ingredients.
  
• Combine until they are the consistency of breadcrumb
• Sprinkle them onto the muffin batter after you scooped the batter into the muffin pan.
  

Tofu Pie!!

Yearly check up at the doctors. I got a call back from my doctor because there was something wrong with my check up. I had a low count of white blood cell uh oh...don't know why though. I haven't gotten sick in a long time so I didn't really use any wbc... I dont know. I also have a high level of URIC ACID. All vegans and vegetarians should be concerned because high level of uric acid is caused by beans, pea, wine, beer and nutritional yeast! If you're a vegetarian/vegan and a lover of alcohol, it's a double whammy. High level of uric acid causes gout which is also known as metabolic arthritis. Here's a little more info about uric acid. Uric acid is the product of the purine when it's broken down by your body. Some holistic ways of reducing uric acid are eating 1/2 lb of cherries per day, drinking celery tea, eating bilberries, eating hawthorns, drinking juniper berry tea and much much more. Ah this is terrible...

Lots of cooking but not a lot of recording. I find that cooking is something that is hard to measure...People have different taste. Some people love to eat salty things, some people like blander things. Some people like spicy, some people can't stand spicy. I think I'm going to focus mainly on dessert and baked goods since I love baking. Whoopdeedoo.

Despite the fact that I should be reducing my intake of beans, I made CHOCOLATE TOFU PIE "magic pie". Love it so much. My b/f went ballistic. No picture since my mom borrowed my camera. Tofu is the shit!!. Also made raspberry chocolate pie. Hm.. hm.. good.

Chocolate Raspberry tofu pie

Not much modification. Just the addition of some raspberries.

Recipe 8" pie Serves 8/ 347Cal /Slice

Crust
8 large/128g Graham Cracker, Crumbled
4 Tbsp Applesauce, Sweetened
1/2 Tsp Cinnamon, Grounded
1/4 Cup/50g Sugar, Granulated
or
You can use a prepared graham cracker shell.

Filling
16 oz/454g Silk Tofu (I used soft)
12 oz/340g Chocolate Chip, Vegan
7.35 oz/208 g Frozen Raspberries, Unsweetened
plus
2.5 oz/71g Frozen Raspberries, Unsweetened

• Start preparing the chocolate by heating up the chocolate chips in a double boiler.
  
• Preheat the oven to 350F.
• Combine the graham cracker crumb with the cinnamon powder and sugar. Then mix in the apple sauce until it reaches a consistency of brown sugar.
• Bake it for 10 minute.
• While the crust is baking, place the tofu in a blender and start blending. The chocolate chip should be melted by now so add the melted chocolate while the blender is on.
  
• Add in the 7.35 oz/208g of Frozen Raspberries into the blender while it's on.
• Shut the blender off. Try and chop the remaining 2.5 oz/71g of frozen raspberries into halves or quarters and stir it into the blended mixture.
  
• Pour it into the graham cracker crust and let it sit in your refrigerator.

*Note: This is softer than the original "magic pie" due to the addition of raspberries. The brown color of the pie is much lighter too.

Autumn = Apples

Autumn is Here

Don't you just love autumn? My family and I went to the Masker Orchard in Warwick, New York for a jolly family apple picking trip. We picked around 45 apples but the variety was not great since there were only a few variety of apples ripe at that moment. We only have a few left. We love our apples. Yes we do.

Apple Tartlet


Recipe Yields 6 Tarlets 112 Cal/ Tarlet

3 1/2 Tbsp / 49g Vegan Butter, Room Temperature
48 Sheets/26 g Phyllo Dough (Each sheet around 4.5"x 2.5')
1 Large/ 268 g Golden Delicious Apple, Finely Diced
1/2 Cup Sugar
1/4 Tsp Cinnamon
1/4 Tsp Vanilla
1/8 Tsp Nutmeg
1/8 Tsp salt

• Grease a muffin pan.
  
• Peel and dice your apples and put it into a sauce pan with the salt and a tablespoon of butter.
  
• Heat up the apples on med-high heat and wait until the apples starts to let out it's juices.
• Pour the sugar and lower the heat. Let the apples simmer and continue stirring the apples until the syrup reduce into a thick syrup similar to the consistency of rice syrup.
• Add in the vanilla, cinnamon and nutmeg and stir until it is combined.
  
• Then set the apples aside while you prepare the phyllo dough crust.
  
• Preheat the oven to 350 F and Lay the first sheet down and generously spread some butter on the phyllo dough, lay another phyllo sheet and spread the butter on it again. You should do this four more times, resulting in 6 layers of phyllo dough.
  
• Gently stuff the sheet into the muffin pan and dollop 1/6th of the apple filling into the phyllo shell.
• Do this 5 more times resulting 6 apple tartlets.
• Bake in the oven for 30 minutes.

Another day in Manhattan

Sorry I didnt bring my camera but damn!! I love Union Square. I went with my boyfriend and we went to the green market and bought a lot of those decorative guords and indian corn. There was also a street fair with many various booths. There was a couple who had a booth selling vegan soap. Awesome! The only non vegan soap they had was the Honey Oatmeal. The couple was very nice and offered some nice tips and free samples. They also have a website so maybe you can check it out. They're booth is called the Copasoaps. They're from Phila, Pennsylvania but they sell their soaps in the street fairs on N.Y. They have the locations, time and date on the website.

My boyfriend and I also went to Zen Palate. They serve mostly vegan Asian food. They do specify whether the food contain milk derived ingredients, eggs, or dairy. Although it's a bit small, I loved the atmosphere. Their dishes are also huge so we ended up sharing our food and getting some appetizer. I didn't fully enjoy my stay there because of the other customers. There were several groups of customers who went into the restaurant not knowing that it was a veggie restaurant. When they took a look at the menu, they got up and left. What bunch of pricks. Screw them.

Thank goodness we went to some place sweet to calm my nerves. We went to Whole Earth Bakery and Kitchen. FUck Yah. COMPLETELY VEGAN. I think Babycakes is overrated. Pretty website and what not. After reading an article online about Whole Earth Bakery and Kitchen, I found out that they went through a lot since early this year, they were suppose to be scheduled to closed down due to their landlord but with support from the lovely customers of the bakery, a rally was held to keep the bakery open. Hell yah! They're still open. We got a pumpkin pie. Great treat for the fall. It tasted great! The bakery does not look the best nor was it big, it fucking rocks.

Homemade Vegan Candle

No update in over a week because I'm too caught up with school and work. I haven't had the time to truely make anything worthy but I did modified the banana kiwi muffin.

Updated Banana Kiwi Muffin

I think the last Banana Kiwi Muffin didn't taste so good. Yet and I still posted it. Shouldn't do that...

Recipe Yields 8 Loaves

1 1/2 /180g Cup All Purpose Flour
1 /120g Cup Whole Wheat Flour
1 /200g Cup Sugar, Granulated
2/3 Tsp Baking Soda
3/4 Tsp Baking Powder
1/2 Tsp Salt

1 Medium/128g Banana
1 Small/95g Kiwi
4 /56g Tbsp Vegan Butter, Room Temp.
2 Rice Eggs or Ener-G
1/4 Cup /59 mL Soy Milk
1/2 Tsp Vanilla Extract
1/4 Tsp Banana Essence
1/4 Apple Cider Vinegar

• In a large bowl sift together the all purpose flour, whole wheat flour, sugar, baking soda, baking powder and salt
• Preheat the oven to 350 F and grease the loaf pan.
  
• Puree the banana and kiwi together in the food processor.
• Cream together the vegan butter and vegan egg. (If you are using flax or rice egg please let it cool to room temperature before you cream together with the butter or else the butter will melt.)
• Combine the fruit puree into the liquid mixture.
• Add in the soy milk, apple cider vinegar, vanilla extract and banana essence.
  
• Pour the liquid mixture into the flour mixture and combine until the two mixture are all mixed but do not over mix.
  
• Pour the batter into the loaf pan and bake it for 35 minutes or until the toothpick comes out clean.

Vegan Candles

For all those arts and craft people who enjoy making your own candles, there is a great site that provides vegan candle equipments. Hooray hoorah! They have very reasonable prices and a wide variety of candle base and scents. They're called Southern Scentsation. I emailed them to inquire about their product information. I didnt ask about their soap base nor do I think they are vegan.

This is the email between Beth and me.

Cookies

So damn tired. My b/f, friend and I went bike riding for more than 4 hours along bike trails. Holy Fudge!! My bum hurts like a bitch. We went down hill on a rocky, dirt rode. I hit a tree at full speed and I went flying across the path. Awesome...bruised my pelvic bone when I hit the metal rod on the bike that is between the legs. I need to go out more hahahh fudging loser :3 Anyways enough ranting.

Berry Stoned Pome Smoothie

Laced it with calcium powder and protein powder in attempt to get all the needed nutrients. It does taste more like a power shake since it's does have a slight powdery gritty texture from the soy protein. You can do without it but hey you're not getting that calcium and protein even though it's not as much as a glass of soy milk. It has more protein than a regular soy milk smoothie.

Recipe Yields 3 cups/ 144 Cal, 11.7% Dv Calcium, 6g og Protein
1 Med-Large/195g Apple
1/138g Nectarine, White
1 Cup/250g Raspberries, Unsweetened Frozen
1 Tbsp Agave Nectar
2 Tbsp Soy Powder (Now Brand)
1/2 Tsp Calcium Powder (Now Brand)
1 cup/237 mL Soy milk, plain

• Pit and chop the apple and nectarine into 1/2 inch cubes.
  
• Throw in the raspberries, apples and nectarine into the blender (hence the name of the smoothie).
• Top it off with the soy powder, calcium powder and agave nectar.
• Pour in the soy milk and blend!
  

It's really sweet from the apple yum!

Graham Cracker Raisin Cookies!!

Whoopdie doo! Need to get rid of my graham cracker. Use vegan graham cracker so watch out for em honey!! I need to perfect this cookie. My mom thinks it's sweet but I think it's fine. I think it's a bit too soft and chewy but my mom thinks it's nice soft and chewy. Hard to please so eh...

Recipe Yields 18 Cookies
1/2 Cup of Sugar
1/4 Cup Soy Butter
1 Egg Substitute (I used the rice egg)
1/3 Vanilla
1/4 Tsp Cinnamon, Grounded
8 Large/125g Graham Crackers
1 Tbsp Baking Powder
Pinch of Baking Soda
1/4 Tsp Salt

• Place the crackers into the food processor and process it until the crackers become powdered graham crackers. (Not crumb, POWDER!!)
• Cream together the sugar and the butter in a large bowl until the mixture is all nice and creamy.
• Cream the egg substitute into the creamed sugar mixture until everything is combined. (If you are using flax egg or the rice egg, let it cool down first or it will melt your creamed butter mixture)
• Put in the vanilla extract the grounded cinnamon and cream it all together.
• Preheat the oven to 350 F.
  
• Sift the graham cracker powder, baking powder baking soda and salt into the creamed mixture.
  
• Mix the dough together until everything is combined.
  
• Form into 18 balls of dough and bake it on the cookie sheets for 12 minutes @350 F.
  

Italy Grape


Can someone please tell me what exactly are they? They were labeled Italy Grapes but I googled it and there were just listing of wine grapes. The chinese name for it is also Italy Grapes so I don't know. They are about 3/4 inches in diameter. The skin is also quite thick and the flesh is a bit tart but also has a hint of grape/plum flavor. I don't know please do inform me of this odd fruit.


Tempeh mixed Veggie Sandwich


Mixed veggies...You can tell me about it. Yes that is bokchoy. I dont even know what kind of sandwich it is hahah. Fried tempeh with soy sauce, Bokchoy, pan fried tomato with sweet relish and dijon mustard on pumpernickel. Que? Asian stuff with some non Asian stuff hahah yay!! It tasted pretty good though. Muahahah oddball