Pumpkin Patch Part Seven: Hogwarts Pumpkin Juice

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows- Part 1 has been out now for one
week. We went and saw it opening day with all the 16-year old girls
dressed in their Gryffindor best. As big Harry Potter fans, we had a
good time and it was actually one of the first times we didn't go to
the midnight showing the night before...

But to tie up the pumpkin patch series and as an homage to Harry
Potter I made some Hogwarts Pumpkin Juice.

I've never had raw pumpkin juice and it reminded me of carrot juice in
a way. First I tried peeling the pumpkin before shoving it through my
juicer, but it didn't seem to make a difference so I just cut the stem
parts off, scooped the seeds out and pushed it through.

It is not something you can drink straight-- well, at least I cannot.
Instead I made it a juice blend. You can either juice these with it or
add them in after.



I used a smaller pumpkin or about 3-4 cups chopped raw pumpkin
1 cup of fresh apple juice or apple cider
1/2 cup fresh orange juice or 2 table spoons of orange juice concentrate

Over my Christmas break I am going to try to re-read all the books
because I nearly forgot everything that happened!

If pumpkin juice really isn't your thing, no fears I'll be working
on a butter beer recipe soon!

P.S. I hope you had a beautiful, loving, and compassionate Holiday!

sweaty summer

No recipes to post today, just a couple shots of stuff that will soon
be going up on my tester blog. I'm going to be getting up early
tomorrow to catch up on some cooking projects. We've been running
all over the place running errands etc, so I've had very little time
to do some serious experimenting.

Tomorrow I will also be going to the Lemon Lily Festival in town,
so I should be able to catch some awesome photos!

Here are my tester dishes for the book...


Van Helsing's Alfredo


Holiday Citrus Green Beans

Daiya Deluge

Monkey-man wanted me to post our recent winnings that has raked in
5lbs of Daiya and a copy of Tal Ronnen's The Conscious Cook.
I dig this cookbook. I would rank it among those best for high end
entertaining or creating a truly impressive meal for special occasions.
Not that it is all hoity toity recipes, but many are quite rich and not
for light eating. Its amazing just for the photos. His training and
experience really shine through. It is what professional cooking should
be. It separates the home-cooks and the real chefs.

I avoid most of the vegan cookbooks out there, but lots of (I'm sure
your favorite authors) the more popular vegan 'chefs'. I avoid them
for mainly two reasons... 1. anyone can think up a recipe like this
and don't need a book to tell me that or 2. the author(s) have no
training and no palate. I've gone through a lot of vegan cookbooks and
used their recipes straight off the page and cannot imagine what they
smoking that made that taste good? Ok, I better stop there or I will go
on a never ending rant! Sorry guys.


The contest we won was for our pizza photo, that you can see here.
It is also what sparked my recent Pizza Pizzaz Series.
We froze most of the cheese and I'll be taking some back with me on
my summer adventures. But we don't eat alot of cheese, so I think it
should last a good while. Imagine my excitement when a cooler arrived
from Canada filled with vegan cheese!



If you haven't had daiya, I strongly suggest you try get some.
If you had it once and didn't like it, try it again in a different form.
Honestly, (sorry daiyafoods) I didn't like it the first time I tried it.
But neither did I like the follow my heart cheese. I may have been
stuck in the dairy cheese mentality and that was all I was expecting.

I really think this holds way too many people back from being vegan.
They push away vegan products because they don't taste identical to
the cow titty based products. You have to be open minded and enjoy
everything for itself, not for what you want it to be.

I compare it to an experience I had as a kid. I was playing in my
room with a friend (probably around 10yrs old) and my Mom calls me
into the kitchen, asking if I want some candy. Hellz yes, I wants
candy. So she offers me some 'chocolate covered raisins', which in
fact turn out to be chocolate covered espresso beans. Not cool Mom.

Now I love coffee, at points in my life I've loved coffee too much.
And I may have liked it then if I had not been expecting a raisin.
Basically we set our minds up to want a specific experience, flavor
or texture and that in turn shoots us in the foot when the experience
at hand does not match our expectations. It may even be better than
what you had wanted but its not identical and that is what puts
us off.

We first had daiya at Z Pizza. It was too much. Too oily and too wet.
So we avoided it for a bit and then had it again at Purgatory Pizza.
Our minds were quickly changed. You just need to know how to use it.
Don't let one bad meal change how you feel about a food.


Quesadilla!!

On that note... I'll still be here, still posting away. But I'll
be leaving LA for about a month and going up to stay with family in
the mountains and write my cookbook. I'm already planning some
more series to focus on, as well as filling those requests that have
been sent out to me. (Shall I call them requests or challenges?)

I may come back down for a weekend to beach bum it up or hit up
some Knott's Berry Farm, but other than that... consider me exiled!

Chocolate Beans, Baked Mochi, and more

Just thought I'd drop a couple pics that I posted to my testers
blog... Give you guys a visual taste of what I'm working on for
my book this summer. Or maybe its to prove that I actually am
doing something!

I'm organizing and categorizing mostly. Planning before I launch
into all out kitchen craziness. Also, picking what stories I want
to relate, what I want to illustrate and so on and so forth.

So here is some food porn for ya'll!
Some of these will be familiar if you are already on the facebook
fan page...



"Usagi no Tsuki" (Bunny's Moon)
Baked mochi topped with a sweet red bean paste, berry-beet sauce and
fresh strawberries.


"Chocolate Bean Sliders"
A new take on 'beans on toast' or 'boston-baked beans'


"Zombie Pizza"
A violent mixture of sweet, savory, and salty for the best pizza you'll
ever taste.


"Teddy Beary Choco Mousse"
A fluffy, rich, berry mousse that will leave your non-vegan friends
weeping for more.

So... two plugs here! First, obviously if you are interested in
becoming a tester or know someone who is... please let me know and
I will be opening the tester blog soon with invitations!

Secondly, if you haven't found me on facebook yet... be sure to
become a fan of the page!
There are a lot more pictures on the fan page, as well as sneak peeks
of posts to come.

Find me on Facebook!

This weekend I finally got my booty in gear and uploaded heaps of
photos to facebook and made my fan page public. I will be posting
important links, new recipes, and cool news keeping me on track to
work more on the cookbook and illustrations.

This is also to generate some energy to get my tester site up and
running. Its nearly there! Just let me get through this week of midterms.

If you're on facebook, please become a fan!

Full Moon Celebration

It started when I got the cutest kiss ever from a funny guy I met in
class. After a movie, some fries and a milkshake, he smacks me one
under a huge Hawaiian Full Moon. He kissed me so hard I thought he
might have been dared to do it, but it still left me grinning like a
Cheshire cat.

Two years, hundreds of emails, tearful skypes, a year in separate
countries, barrels full of delicious food and books of sickeningly
sweet dialogue later... We spent the Full Moon celebrating love,
happiness, and life in nature. We don't measure our time together by
days or numbers, we know by cycles of the moon.

We drove to Bonelli Park by my house to throw ourselves a little party
for two (not counting the ducks). The park is over in Via Verde by
Puddingstone reservoir. You would never know you were surrounded by
suburbia. For the picnic I made blackberry scones and he made
some vegan brie from The Uncheese Cookbook.


Black Berry Scones






We had ourselves a quiet little picnic, so quiet he almost fell
asleep! It was pretty cold, the wind caught the moisture off the
reservoir and chilled us like popsicles.

To warm up we went on a brisk hike and got some nice views. I
found a plastic bag at the head of the trail, so we picked up
trash the whole way. Doesn't sound to fun, but it feels so rewarding
and gets strangely addicting after a while. By the time we got
back, the bag was bursting with rubbish. I can't believe how
horrible people are like that.


The park itself is quiet large with a few different sections.
There is even a sanded beach area where you can swim in the
summer and probably half a dozen different playgrounds in the
picnic area. We played around and toured the whole park, but
it was cold so we retreated home when the sun was no longer
keeping us warm.

That night we did our usual ritual of awesome dinner and a movie.
I am so blessed that we both can take such pleasure in the
simple things in life. We don't need expensive dinners or trips
to the movie theater. I don't need hothouse roses or silly
jewelry to know I'm loved. But even in this short time that I've
been with my guy, I feel like I've known him forever. We can make
the best day out of nothing at all and I can't think of a better
way to live or ever being happier with another being.

Vegan Fettucini Alfredo

The summer I spent living with two of my best friends, our
cheap college fare was extremely bizarre and fatty. Granted
we did eat our fair share of potatoes and the vegetarian ramen,
there were three main things I learned to cook during that time
span. I learned how to make crepes from my neighbor, mochi from a
classmate and alfredo from my roomie.

I wrote before how we used to eat a crap ton of crepe...
But I have no idea why we started making alfredo. It was
originally what me started back on a path to attempting to
reincorporate mushrooms into my diet. Ultimately that was
foiled by my strange gag reflex triggered by them.
However, we used porcini mushrooms nonetheless in hopes that
someday I could stomach them.

Since those days I continued making alfredo, but very rarely or
when I was desperate to make something my mom would eat.

I learned to make it with fresh parmesan and heavy cream and
since been trying to make a vegan version with nutritional
yeast and soymilk.

*Enter 'The Urban Vegan'

I really dig this cookbook. Unlike most of the vegan books that
get churned out, it doesn't contain a lot of asian dishes or
bizarre expensive ingredients. I have a very european palate I
must admit.

So finally I shoveled out the earthbalance and made Balcavage's
Vegan Alfredo. I made a couple adjustments...

First, I added garlic. Sorry, but I don't know what alfredo without
garlic would be like... Oh yeah. Boring.

Second, I cut down on the earthbalance and upped the nutritional
yeast. Theory was to make a roux out of the oil and yeast. Well,
to make a proper roux you need equal portions of the fat and X--
typically flour.

Third, having a proper roux you don't need the kudzu root that is
called for.



Vegan Fettucini Alfredo~ Adapted

Ingredients

3-4 cloves garlic, minced
1/4 cup earthbalance
1/4 cup heaping nutritional yeast
1 1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 cup soy milk
black pepper

In a medium pan over medium heat, saute garlic in melting
earthbalance. Once the garlic becomes fragrant, add the
nutritional yeast to form your roux.

Continue to cook for about for a few minutes to cook roux.
Whisk in soymilk a little at a time. Add salt and turn to
low. Allow to simmer until it thickens up.

Toss with fettucini or other desired pasta.
I made about 2/3 of a package for this much sauce and served
it with some dark leafy greens.

To add some extra protein try tossing in some vegan chic like
gardein.

Even without the mushrooms, the memories hit me and I tasted
them anyway. Amusingly enough, Monkey-man said later that if
we hadn't had it with greens he wouldn't have been able to
stomach it either because he kept 'memory-tasting' shrimp.
Go figure! So, yes. This alfredo is so authentic tasting it
will blow your mind!

Baking for Haiti: Brownies and Croissant

I waited almost too long to post this... but nearly two
weeks ago I whipped up a storm in the oven for a vegan
bake sale that was going down at Locali in LA to raise
money for Doctors Without Borders' relief efforts in
Haiti.

I haven't been posting until now because its midterms
for those of us on a quarter system. Grad midterms, ouch.
Thats all I've got to say.

But I originally signed up to make a couple versions of
brownies. I was already studying so I grabbed a couple
recipes that I knew I could depend on.

Naturally I picked Colleen Patrick-Goudreau's brownie
recipe from the Joy of Vegan Baking. All I can really
say about these is that... honestly... the are epitome
of what a brownie is.



Fudgy and packed with chocolate chips.
I also tried Alicia Silverstone's Coffee Brownies
from the Kind Diet. It calls for brown rice flour, so
it comes out like chocolate mochi cake that is really
popular in Hawaii. Its topped with a nice frosting
made with chocolate chips and earth balance. The coffee
taste is really subtle and slightly smoking. They were
good but better if you just want some mochi, not really
too brownie like to me.



I was going to make a batch of my sunbutter brownies,
but sadly I ran out of sugar. So I just stuck with the
real project that I was focusing on....



About a month ago I had a friend ask me to veganize croissants.
It took some planning and a lot of tweaking, but SHAZAM!







'Buttery', Flaky, beautiful layers!
They came out of the oven just as we were leaving,
so perfect timing. But they are horribly time consuming,
so you have to plan ahead.















From all these amazing goodies we picked a root bear
float cupcake and a green tea cupcake. Both pretty
awesome. I'm not really cake person, but they were
num. Especially for such a good cause!

Tal Ronnen Book Signing in Pasadena

A little over a week ago we headed up to the Pasadena Whole Foods
for a awesome little demo and book signing with Chef Tal Ronnen,
the author of Conscious Cook. It was mainly a demo to feature
the new faux mean product he helped design, Gardein.

I don't want to say his claim to fame is cooking for celebs,
but... He cooked for Oprah when she did the vegan 'cleanse'.
(I don't watch TV) He did Ellen's wedding-- Awesome!
And continues to cater for them both, as well as do other
celeb weddings and such... I wonder if he did Zooey and Ben Gibbard's
wedding... I should have asked. Shoot.

He made a 'steak' teriyaki stir fry and a 'chick' with mushroom
sauce. Here is a link to his site recipes, which hosts a similar recipe
to what he made- except without the udon and pea shoots.



Gardein was very good compared to other faux meat products
I've had. It wasn't spongy like some cheap meat subs tend to
be when they're heavy in gluten and it actually contains more
protein than animal flesh. So if you know a carnivore that
is eating meat 'only for the protein' (and I think we've all
heard this) definitely suggest Gardein!
So far I've seen it at Whole Foods and Fresh and Easy,
its pretty much brand spanking new, so you may need to ask
your local health food stores to look in to it.



It was pretty awesome and mellow. We got to ask him about
culinary schools and how he dealt with going through the
Natural Cookery and the whole meat side of the education.
Its really only a matter of time, I know, for a real vegan
cooking school to emerge... I just wish it had been around
when I had been training. Granted there are a few places,
but not real schools,
more just classes.

So we got a few tips, had some yummy food, made some connections,
and got my book signed! I know he's still doing demos in CA
and for sure one for Follow Your Heart, so look them up and
definitely try to catch him if he's in your area.





Tee hee!

just a thought or two

Sorry folks, I'm busy getting ready for my last day of my grad

class this evening and I can't really focus on doing a decent

food blog today, but don't worry I do still owe you all

three more days of pie!

Instead I'm gonna throw out a quote for you all.

This is from Philip K. Dick's Voices from the Street.

Dick is a foundation science fiction writer, which I keep

find myself coming back to. Most notable he penned

Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said and Do Androids Dream

of Electric Sheep (later made into the movie Bladerunner).

'He leaned close to Hadley and grated in his ear: "It's like pumping

arsenic in a child's bloodstream. Billions of corpses of dead germs.

Ground up and pumped into the child. Diabolical! Read this article."

He pushed the magazine insistently against Hadley's wrist. "They

spread disease all over the world. The only real way to health, as any

sane person knows, is through proper eating. Remember, what you

put in your stomach comes out of your soul. Isn't that right?" He raised

his voice. "Isn't that right, Betty?"

"Yes Horace," Betty answered wearily as she lugged the two bottles

to the counter and sank down on her stool. "That will be a dollar forty,

Stuart."

Wakefield caught Hadley's wrist with his thin, cold fingers.

"You know what causes cancer? Eating meat. Pork and beef fat,

especially pork. Lamb fat is the most difficult substance known to

digest. It lodges in the lower gastrointestinal tract and putrefies.

Sometimes a lump of lamb fat lodges for weeks, rotting and stinking."

His lips drew back from his gold teeth in a grimace of disgust; behind

his steel-rimmed glasses his enlarged eyes danced excitedly. "A man

turns himself into a garbage dump. Stinking mounts of filth and

rubbish, flies and worms buzzing around. There's those trichinosis

worms in pork. They burrow into your muscles, all through your body.

Big soft white worms burrowing, burrowing..." He shuddered and

returned to his tapioca pudding. "Remember, Stuart," he said quietly

as he intently spooned up the last of the pudding. "What you put in

your stomach comes out of your soul."

Striking Gold

Its a great feeling when a recipe comes out perfectly.

Tons of tweaking and tasting, twisting and tossing...

I finally got my peanut-ginger muffins ready for my book.

Huzzah, indeed. Have a look see.

Now I need to make more jelly cuz this used up the last

little bit I had. I was thinking of ginger thumbprint cookies...

Any suggestions?

a little sketching

My down time with a cup of coffee...

a sneak peek...

So I'm working on something for children... I can't really say

more than that right now, but I made a few really rough sketches

today. Here they are!