A Recipe story in Two Parts

Part I
My friend Melissa brought this dip to a little dinner-potluck-get-together that I hosted a few weeks ago. Like chumps we all thought it was guacamole. We couldn't have been more wrong! Actually, that's not true. It is a lot like guacamole only made with edamame instead of avocado. Here's the recipe!
Another toss everything in the food processor and out comes pure deliciousness recipe, like our good friend hummus. I've made it twice already and my only advice is make sure you don't add too much onion or it gets a little sharp.Part II
A week or so ago while munching on a banana bread larabar I looked at the ingredients: almonds, dates, unsweetened bananas. It was so simple I immediately decided to start cheaping out and make some variation of them myself.

Recipe:
3 cups pitted dates
3 large ripe bananas
1 cup almonds
1 and 2/3 cups quick cook oats

You'll probably want to chop the dates before you throw them in the food processor. Even with chopping your poor appliance will probably shake violently as it battles the onslaught of gooey date chunks sticking to its blades. So toss the dates and bananas into the food processor and blend until the bananas liquify. They dates will probably still be a little chunky at this point. Add the almonds and turn on again until most of the date and almond chunks are gone. I added about a cup of the oats at this point and blended them in. Then I dumped the whole mixture in a bowl and mixed the rest of the oats in. If it's too liquidy just add more oats.
Spread the mixture on the dehydrator sheets and let the dehydrator do its thang. After about 15 hours I cut the bars up and flipped them over and let them run another 3 hours. After this they were still moist but held together well.

Fiddle dee dah, fiddle dah dee

'Tis the season for asparagus and fiddleheads! So we went to the market, acquired some, and then sauteed them with some oil, salt, garlic n' herb spices, and a dash of lime juice in OUR AWESOME NEW CERAMIC CAST IRON PAN.

Did you get that the first time? I SAID WE GOT AN AWESOME NEW CERAMIC CAST IRON PAN.

Also, I made some salsa using my mom's super-easy delicious recipe.

1. Dice a small onion, put in bowl, sprinkle with a few dashes of sea salt, and stir.
2. Dice two large or three small-medium tomatoes, add to bowl, and stir.
3. Dice a large avocado, add to bowl, and stir.
4. Add juice of one lime and stir.
5. Add cayenne pepper and/or hot sauce of choice to taste, and stir.
6. Let sit in a fridge for about an hour before serving.
7. Forget cilantro.
8. D'oh.

Still freakin' tasty though!

Mangoes! Cashews! Tempeh!

Phew, Dom's been out floggin' me good lately. I try to imagine what amazing food-heights we would reach if we lived together but it's beyond my ken. I think ken was the nerdiest way I could have ended that sentence. It's the kind of word only former players of dungeons and dragons use. Annnnyway, for your enjoyment: mango cashew tempeh.
I had some crappy mangoes bought for cheaps at the farmer's market (I never learn) so I decided to sacrifice one to a cooking experiment.
Experiment succesfull! Delicious hypothesis was supported by all lines of evidence.
Recipe! With my usual approximations of amounts.

1/2 pkg plain tempeh cut into strips
1 mango
1 large clove of garlic
1 cork-sized chunk of ginger
some oil
small dollop agave or maple syrup
2 tbsp soy sauce
1 tsp red chili sauce
cashews

First cut up the mango. I would say for a regular non-crappy farmer's market mango you would slice up half (skin removed) and juice the other half. Mix most of the juice, soy sauce, agave, chili sauce and about half hte garlic and ginger and a maybe about 4 tbsp of water together.

Heat a little oil in a pan on medium high heat along with the little bit of juice you saved. Toss in garlic and ginger and then lay out tempeh strips. When one side has been suitably seared (cast iron rocks the socks off all other pans for searing) flip the strips and while the second side is searing toss in the mango slices and cashews in. When the second side is done turn the heat down pretty low and toss your liquidy portion in. Let this all simmer nicely until you can't possibly wait any longer. Consume.

I tossed this over some soba noodles along with some very lightly stir-fried red cabbage, spinach and broccoli with soy sauce, sesami oil and sesami seeds. The juice forms a delicious sweet crust on the tempeh, the chili sauce, garlic and ginger add some kick and the mango is sweet, delicious chunks of goodness.

Sometimes I wish I had room-mates just for food-sharing purposes. EAting alone is much less fun.

Lucky Pots

To celebrate the first day of hot Spring morning followed by getting caught cycling in a thunderstorm, we had a potluck, with guest chef Tyler. I'm serious, he's a chef! Me n' Ed made some rice wraps, and Tyler made eggplant parmesan.

Today, I decided to try out a recipe for roasted chickpeas that Emily found on the internet here.


They were super delicious, but probably not as crunchy as they should have been. Will leave them in the oven for longer next time. The best thing about this is that it's a quick and delicious way to use up garbanzo beans (roll the r with me). We always use half a can of chickpeas for a curry or something, and then leave it in the fridge and forget about it long enough for a new form of intelligence to establish a colony. Problem solved!

Siobhan, why aren't you blogging yet?

P.S. I think 116 Oxford is going to join an organic farm co-op where you buy a share of the farm (for next to nothing, I might add) and get a share of the harvest every week. Local organic produce, huzzah! Details to come.

The best thing about being an adult...

Is that if I want to have 3 kinds of pie for dinner, then I can, dammit! (Thanks Greg)

The denizens of 116 Oxford recently made a pilgrimage over to Michelle and Arthur's place, where they generously plied us with Polish vegetable soup before we got down to brass tacks and started in on pie construction. Michelle worked on a classic raspberry pie, Greg made a peach pie (with our canned peaches from last summer!), Ed and I co-operated to make a lemon meringue pie, and Arthur worked on a gin and tonic.
Dough rollin'...Innard stewin'...Pie fillin'...

Pie toppin'...


Pie bakin'...
Pie admirin'...





Pie carnagin'...

And last but not least, pie bloatin'.
I love my life.

Shake shake shake...

Shake shake shake... shake your but-ter! Shake your but-ter!

And now for a decidedly non-vegan entry. Eddy decided he wanted to make butter the other day, so he bought this:
And shook it in this:
And accidentally made whipping cream. So after some cursing, he tossed it in the good ol' food processor, and came out with this:

As well as the buttermilk,
which he used to make biscuits, served with the fresh butter and black currant jam. Which were devoured too quickly to take a picture.

Urban homesteading is so punk.

Cake!

I had multiple friend-birthdays in the last couple weeks so I decided a birthday cake was in order. Siobhan was already having us ladies over for tea and cookies on Sunday so I invited myself over early to bake. Also, she has this awesome mixer that made the whole process much easier and more exciting.
I whipped up a vegan chocolate cake from Vegan with a Vengence. The recipe uses coffee to keep it moist and not too much oil or sugar. It was very nice and moist and chocolatey with out being too overwhelmingly sweet.
Look at that mixer go!
The cakes went in the oven. Meanwhile I mixed up some lemon "cream cheese" icing from the Vegan Cupcakes Take-Over the World book. I used a bit of extra cream cheese to make it a bit less sweet.
The cakes came out of the oven and went on to the balcony to cool. How classic.As usual I managed to break one of the layers. That's what icing is for though and the end result looked not too bad and tasted amazing!I would also like to take this opportunity to introduce Siobhan, the lovely lady holding the cake above. She will hopefully be blogging it up on here at some point. For tea she made a tasty leek and potato soup:And some cute shortbread:
Okay, Siobhan, you have been introduced, now blog it up!