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.