Why does grocery store baba ghanoush have mayo in it?

It's much better without. Not to mention more heart healthy, for those who care about that sort of thing.


Mmmm, smooooooooooth.

1) Poke an eggplant several times with a fork*, grease up a cookie sheet, and roast at 400 degrees, occasionally turning, until it gets all wrinkly.
2) Drop the eggplant in cold water, and then remove the skin.
3) Food processor magic! Blend eggplant with olive oil, tahini, a sprinkling of sesame seeds, lemon juice, salt, and pepper.
4) Nom nom nom nom nom. (best nom-ing when it's cooled down in the fridge for awhile)

*Once I forgot to poke holes in the eggplant before I roasted it, and it started making a whistling sound akin to a boiling kettle. I caught it JUST before it exploded.

Beaumark Food Processor

Finally, the moment you blog readers have been eagerly waiting for these long weeks. I will now review my food processor.
In summary: it's awesome.

In more detail:
Uh... not really sure how much detail to go in to here. I mean, it's a food processor and it does food processor-y things quite well. It makes a mean hummus, it grates veggies in seconds and it slices like a slicing machine (which it is). I enjoy that the buttons are a smooth surface and easy to wipe off. The whole thing is really quite easy to clean even sans dishwasher. I most frequently use it to chop up lots of carrot and beet early in the week for the copious amounts of salad I eat. Observe:
That is one tasty salad bowl.

The only thing I dislike is that when using the grating plate it leaves a leftover chunk at the top. But really, that is being picky. It's not a big chunk and I just eat it.

To finish off this entry:
quick 'n easy 'n delicious salad dressing. just mix 'er up with a fork.

lemon juice
temari
tahini
dijon mustard
pepper

Pie in a Pot

Speaking of feastivals, ye olde 116 Oxford decided to have a potluck last night, and it was brilliant. The menu was as follows:

Dom = pasta with pesto and tomato sauce (this has quickly become a household favourite)
Greg = garlic egg drop soup over crusty bread
Rachel = tiramisu cupcakes (recipe courtesy of Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World)
Sara = mixed green salad
Ed = veggie pot pies

The subject of this entry is the latter item, since it is, well, so awesome that I can't NOT tell you all about it. This recipe is based on Joy of Cooking's chicken or turkey potpie recipes, tweaked for us veggies/vegans. Special shout out to Greg and Ed for all the photographing.

1) Prepare the dough for pastry of your choice. We used puff pastry dough, rolled out and cut into small personal serving-friendly sized bits, and stuffed into ramekins for baking. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.
2) Prepare your chicken substitute. We've used commercial veggie chicken strips, but this time we decided to go homemade and stir fried some pressed tofu and then tossed it with jerk seasoning.
3) In large skillet over medium-high heat, melt 2 tbsp margarine and cook 1 medium onion, 3 medium carrots, and 2 small celery ribs (all chopped into oblivion by this crazy chopper thingy that Ed's parents gifted him for Christmas - thanks guys! And also, thanks for Joy of Cooking!).
4) Melt in another saucepan 4 tbsp margarine, and whisk in 1/2 cup flour. Add 2 cups veggie broth and whisk till smooth. Then add 1 1/2 cups milk substitute (we used almond) and whisk till smooth. Increase the heat and simmer, whisking constantly and cook for about 3 minutes. Season with fresh lemon juice, salt and pepper, and nutmeg.5) Stir veggies and tofu into creamy mixture, and then load up this gooey victory into your prepared pastry shell.
6) Bake for 30-40 minutes, eat, and die happy.

xmas feastival

I will write a food processor review soon, maybe after this one is done. First things first though...
I am recently returned from stuffing my face for two weeks at my parents' house. I am a few pounds heavier and a few delicious meals happier.

Oh wait... I can't get to xmas feasting until I talk about the olive potluck! Yes, an olive themed vegan potluck. I made tapenade (with my new food processor, incidentally). There were several olive containing salads, this tasty looking one contained kale, my cruciferous pal. There was a "quiche" made with olives and tofu, olive bread and olive-on-crackers appetizers. Yumz0rs!

A snow delayed, 12 hour long journey to Edmonton later I was in a different food-land all together. It is really nice that my mom is vegetarian now though. Cooking for more than just myself is really nice.

Both my brother and dad have birthdays around xmas so there were a variety of delicious feasts. Here is my Dec-25th dinner. I made tomato sauce and raw nut pesto pasta which Dom and I had made for a dinner at her place and once again it was rich, creamy, tomato-y and drool worthy. There were 3 veggies at the dinner, my mom, Shaun and myself, so we got a tofurkey and made delicious mushroom gravy. Really tofurkey isn't much iwth out the mushroom gravy. My mom also made stuffin' muffin's and made me a couple vegan versions with out the egg knowing my true, unabashed love of stuffing that hasn't been er... stuffed.

There were lots of people to fill lots of chairs. My parents were really all out on the dinner parties this year.


My final Edmonton holiday eating experience I would like to share with you was breakfast made on New Years Day in Dave's kitchen after an unsucesfull attempt to go out and have other people make breakfast for us. We bought some supplies and I whipped up a tofu scramble, Jessica made a batch of Vegan with a Vengence pancakes (sooo good!), Dave made hashbrowns with veggie sausages in maple syrup. Oh yeah, and Jamie made delicious, soft, moist, chewy vegan cinnamon buns in the upstairs kitchen. Best breakfast ever!

Emily Out!

Review: Oster Food Processor

Greetings, readers! I know that the 2 of you will be thrilled to hear that on Monday, Emily and I went to The Bay together and both bought food processors. And then we grinned all the way home because we were so excited, even though all of our respective mucous membranes were rioting since the lady sitting in front of us on the streetcar was wearing enough perfume to fill a bathtub.

I bought an Oster, and Emily bought... something else that I can't remember but we're going to use them and compare notes!

So far, I have used my food processor to make:

PESTO

recipe here

This stuff was effing delicious and everyone should effing make it because it will effing make your life. I seriously died when I ate it. Em and I made it for a pot luck dinner on Monday and everyone agreed it was great. GREAT! I can't believe how great food processors are. You drop stuff that's mostly just ok into them, and then it gets blended up, and then turns into the greatest thing you've ever made.

HUMMUS

Tonight I made hummus, because everyone who has a food processor has to make hummus. It's one of those things, right? I may have just made that up, but I know that as a person who now owns a food processor, I have to make hummus. Did I mention that I now own a food processor? This was my first time making hummus, although I have possessed the knowledge required to make hummus for many moons now. So an hour ago I decided to put that knowledge to the test and just put all the stuff that I think constitutes the ingredients for hummus and blended them together with MY NEW FOOD PROCESSOR.

-1 can of chickpeas, plus some leftover chickpeas (about half a can) I found in the fridge
-3 large glopping tablespoons of tahini which had grown extremely viscous in the fridge*
-Juice from 1.5 lemons
-a couple of cloves of garlic
-Salt, cayenne pepper and freshly cracked black pepper to taste
-1 teaspoon cumin
-Olive oil and water (to thin it out, till it looks right; more oil = more rich tasting)

It was the greatest. I did discover while engaging in hummus creation that the blade of the food processor doesn't lock into the motor axle, so that it can move through the food and chop it evenly. This sounds like a good thing, but it also means that if you don't watch it, sometimes the blade will fling off of the motor axle and get wedged between the axle and the side of the container. I don't know if this is a normal feature of food processors, so hopefully Emily will take that up in her review.

To sum up, things that are great = food processors, pesto, hummus. Tomorrow, we will try baba ghanoush, which I believe Emily has already attempted. Also in the works: apple sauce and pear sauce. Whoop!

*Big ups to my new fridge, which is also the greatest. I clearly can't decide what I think is the greatest, so I'll just say that food processors, pesto, hummus, and my new fridge are all contenders for the title. The fridge is the most energy efficient one I could find, and has a brushed metal finish that doesn't let fingerprints stick. Although for some reason Cosette has managed to leave some pawprints on the side from one of her failed attempts to jump on top of it.

More dehydrator love

This weekend I made an abundant abundance of delicious food. Two and a half batches of butternut squash soup (Dom's delicious recipe), chocolate flax crackers and raw veggie burgers. I took some photos of the veggie burgers but they are on my camera at home and I am currently wasting time at work. I will add them later.

Chocolate Flax Crackers:
I used the left overs from a full flax cracker batch with which I was experimenting was various flavours. The ones with garlic, tomato and red pepper were my favourite. The chocolate ones turned out tasty too though.
To make the basic flax cracker recipe:
http://www.living-foods.com/recipes/flaxcrackers.html

I don't use braggs though... I've substituted the soaking water from soaking the dehydrated tomatoes and peppers, or made other seasoning like liquids. Basically once you soak the flax seeds you can do anything that makes sense.

For the choclate ones I used about 3 tablespoons of honey and 1/3 cup cocoa powder for about 1/3 of the 4 cups of soaked flax seeds. Put honey in a saucepan and don't cook it, just kind of heat it gently until it melts a little and you can stir in the cocoa powder. I also added about a 1/2 tsp of allspice and 1/2 tsp of cayenne. Mix it up good then mix it in to the flax mixture quickly because it hardens fast. I didn't add anything else, though you could possibly add some fruit juice or something.
Dehydrate. Eat. Be regular.

Raw veggie patties
Frick these are super tasty.
Also they would be easier if you had a food processor, but I don't. If you had one you could just throw all the ingredients in together with an S-blade and blend a bit. For you other poor, food-processorless students out there, here is how I made 'em.

1/2 cup each sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds and sesame seeds. Soak for 6 hours.

Grate:
1 small butternut squash
1 red pepper
1 large carrot
1 medium beet

Finely chop about 1/2 medium sized red onion, or you could use green onion, whatever you like.
Garlic to taste (I crushed one giant clove of fancy "music" garlic... it was a lot)
Finely chopped cilantro

Mix all the above ingredients together in a big bowl. Then take soaked seeds and drain. Blend (I used a hand blender) with a little bit of the vegetable mixture and some lemon juice and a bit of temari (which isn't exactly raw but I don't like braggs and don't think braggs is raw either). Add this to the bowl of veggies and mix together with your hands. Form into patties about 1/2 inch thick and place on to sheets on dehydrator. They don't stay together that well when they are wet but they were nice and sturdy by the time they were done. Dehydrate about 6-7 hours on the vegetable setting then flip and dehydrate another 6-7 hours. Should still be chewy in the middle but a bit crispy on the outside.

I could probably eat the whole batch in less then a day. Nom nom nom.

Photos soon!

Dr. Freeze

No pictures yet, but I am on a freezing binge.

Curry butternut squash soup, check.
Veggie chili, check. And made with home canned tomatoes!

Next up: root vegetable soup!

In unrelated news, my winter bike is on its way to being awesome. Woo!

I love life. I also love Lemily, who is gifting me a dehydrator.

P.S. No one has died from our home canned tomatoes yet. Success!