the first time i was showing a how to use the juicer, she looked at all the pulp being pushed out and asked me, “can you eat that?”  a test taste quickly proved that it was generally a more bitter version of whatever was being pushed down the chute, and i thought then that only thing you could do was compost it.  but we live in a city apartment with no outdoor space, and my attempts at hoarding food ends in a sealable plastic bucket to be taken to my garden last summer never really worked out.  due to laziness, and the nauseating prospect of having to open that tub after it had been cooking in a humid apartment.

then i stumbled across a cake recipe in ani phyo’s book (i seem a little obsessed with this book lately, don’t i?) for raw carrot cake, which used leftover pulp from juicing carrots.  and what do we have in our vegetable drawer but six pounds of carrots (due to a little miscommunication over two separate grocery trips)?  and a pint of dates?  and shredded coconut in the freezer?

so first i set about making up for abusing my stomach this morning when i drank a cold press shake at work (ouch, tummy).  i juiced a few handfuls of carrots, and threw it in the blender with a cup of blueberries and a banana:

it doesn’t look super appetizing in this photo, but it does taste good, and is really good for you (antioxidants, beta carotene, potassium, to name a few).  and then i took that prized carrot pulp and mixed a few things together, and ended up with this:

with my slice cut out:

and a magical top view (see how it glows!):

i was hesitant but hopeful, considering how much i love the breakfast cakes.  this isn’t terribly similar ingredients-wise, but the idea of the carrot cake seemed close to it.  it is sweetened with dates, spiced with cinnamon and nutmeg, and covered in a cashew “kream cheeze” frosting.  and, it is really deliciously good and cake-like.  obviously, there is a bit more crunch to the texture than a flour cake, but it holds together like a cake, has a good flavor, and is neither too sweet nor too bland.  which, if you know me, is how i like my desserts.  one thing i would probably change if i made it again would be to add lemon zest in addition to juice to the frosting, for a little more tartness to counteract the “cake” part.  i made a half batch, and i am really glad, because this made a cake too big for one person certainly, and almost too big for two.  i ate a quarter of it and am stuffed!  but happy, knowing i can’t really feel too much fear/guilt about having treating myself to cake.  (i don’t often associate guilt with food, actually, which i think is pretty healthy.  however, my body has been feeling a little tired from the onslaught of a daily cookie and bread snacking i had been doing the past couple of months.)  this really makes the possibility of once-a-week raw (or more) seem very, very appealing.

it might seem odd to make myself a birthday cake.  but it was kind of like a present to myself.  especially since i made one of the most unhealthy cakes imaginable, and i’ve got to cut down on sweets and eat some real food.  i didn’t follow a recipe per se, except for making a 1.5x batch of kittee’s non-chocolate cake recipe (my cake pans were slightly larger than what was called for) with some cardamom and lite coconut milk as the liquid.  i overestimated a little bit, so i also got to make some cupcakes.

in between the cake layers i put a thin sheet of marzipan and some vanilla pudding.  i microwaved the hunk of marzipan i had left for about 5 seconds to soften it, then rolled it out with a rolling pin as thin as i could:

it took me ages to figure out what kind of frosting i wanted.  because i really didn’t want “frosting.”  the one big drawback to vegan cakes is i haven’t come across, or had access to, a whipped cream substitute.  after a lot of searching, i discovered you could chill full-fat coconut milk and your beaters, add or not add some other ingredients, and whip it up like dairy cream.  so then i whipped some coconut cream:

it was maybe a little less structurally strong than dairy cream, but it peaked and everything!  i ended up sticking the cake in the freezer after i frosted it, for about an hour, to make sure the cream stayed intact, and that worked out really well.

since baking the cakes, i ate FOUR of the cupcakes plain.  i couldn’t justify more sugar in my body by eating a piece of cake later at night so i made a mini version with just the coconut cream and my toppings of choice - toasted almonds and coconut:

i had to take a bite!

here is the final cake:

and again:

no slice shots because it was the dark recesses of the 19 and i was busy getting drunk on cheap whiskey.  but there wasn’t a piece left to bring home!

with xmas, and a’s pre-xmas illness, i didn’t get to cook and bake as much as i’d wanted to, and documentation of what little was done was even more sparse.  so this is a bit of a backlog of some things i haven’t had the chance to post.

my love affair with extraveganza! was in high gear the other week.  i made two new recipes:

tofu baked in almond mint cilantro sauce (served over brown rice):

this was really tasty, creamy, and simple to make.  there was both plain and smoked tofu, green peas, and a mint and cilantro almond butter sauce.  so good!  i will make it again for sure.

ginger fried rice:

with leftover almond mint cilantro tofu:

though not reflected in my usage above, what i really like about this recipe was that there isn’t any tofu in it.  i love tofu fried rice, don’t get me wrong, but sometimes a big load of vegetables and some spice is all i want.  i think i ended up adding a few extra vegetables because i had some in the fridge, but the recipe has a tasty variety already.

with my usual habit of not eating breakfast, and especially now that i have to work so early in the morning three days a week, me making anything beyond toast is a pretty big deal.  inspired by oatmeal discussions on the ppk, i bough a can of mccann’s irish oatmeal and made enough for a couple of meals.  irish oatmeal, cooked up in apricot nectar, with bananas, walnuts, and cinnamon:

the first recipe i tried from yellow rose recipes, per josh’s recommendation, was the sweet potato and black bean flautas.  delightful!  i also made the tangy sour cream (yum!).  i had cilantro to use up so i also served it with chimichurri sauce, and some free avocados i got from work:

another cookbook/zine i am super excited about but hadn’t gotten a chance to use is kittee’s.  i remedied that last night by making a cake, using the non-chocolate cake recipe from papa tofu, and adding some chopped rhubarb, cinnamon, and cardamom.  i’m not much of a cake decorator, but here is the whole thing:

inside shot:

must say it smelled so good while baking that i almost didn’t decorate it!  but i resisted, whipped up some maple frosting from vctotw, and ate a piece as soon as i was done with the photos.  next time i will add more rhubarb (i wasn’t sure how tart it would be), and maybe even some raspberries or strawberries.  yay kittee!

lastly, my dinner tonight… a creamy potato-leek soup with red chard.  i was craving something like this all day at work, and also thought back to the christmas eve dinner soup that a’s brother in law made (though it involved lentils and ginger and fennel and coconut milk).  i added a little bit of anise to the soup as a nod to the rye bread i didn’t have a chance to bake today (tomorrow it will have to be!), and i really liked it that way.  i want to tweak the recipe a little bit, but this really hit the spot.  the rich creaminess of a potato soup with the tender crunch and beautiful colors of swiss chard (not to mention nutrition), with a hint of anise and white pepper:

jackie, a most lovely person i used to work with flew in from seattle (where she now lives) and we had a gathering of former coworkers at my place. her husband brought freshly made vegan donuts from mighty-o’s, where he works! maria brought vegan mint chocolate chip cupcakes. i got all domestic and made fun-time appetizers. i also wore my scandinavian chairman mao outfit.

here are some pretty vintage cocktail forks that anne gave me. there weren’t really any appetizers we could use them with, but i put them in a bowl on the table anyway:

i bought some chestnuts and roasted them. never had them before! they were pretty tasty. clothed and naked:

then i pureed them with agave, chardonnay (because i didn’t have sherry), and soymilk. chestnut pudding!

i made risotto with cremini mushrooms, grape tomatoes, and basil the night before:

then i mixed leftover risotto with fresh parsley and made butter lettuce cups!

i recently discovered that pepperidge farm makes vegan puff pastry. here is some wrapped around olive oil-, garlic-, salt- and pepper-marinated asparagus, before going into the oven:

and a baked closeup (they were delicious!):

i was going to make lussekatter/swedish saffron rolls, but i tried to cheat the baking gods and they punished me. so i made a saffron cake instead, and dusted it with some powdered sugar. sweet saffron delights!

the gathering was a great success! hardly a bit of food left.

the next night i made this out of some random things in the fridge… hummus wraps with tomato, avocado, spinach and roasted red peppers inside a chili tortilla; sesame grilled tofu; and more asparagus!

next up… glögg mastery! (hopefully)

after a long week of fridge terrors and joys (fridge death, new fridge, power outage, then joy), i finally got to cook food again.  a has been on me to bring her tasty tofu sandwiches from work but i always forget to.  so i made some homemade ones to snack on before we went to a movie last night.

first, the italian marinated tofu from vwav.  it took two hours to make with all the pressing and marinating, but damn worth it.  i grilled it, then used the grill-pan to toast the sandwich made from whole wheat bread, basil-walnut pesto, dirty girl tomatoes, spinach, grilled onions, and tofu.  i was in a hurry to catch the bus so i forgot to take a picture, but they were well received (even though a normally gets them with provolone and loves the cheese).  later on, though, i made a salad for our scrabble match, with a lot of the same ingredients:

then today, i finally got around to veganizing my great aunt betty’s oatmeal bundt cake.  the only thing i had to switch out was 4 eggs, which i did using applesauce.

i will post the recipe later, as it was dense, moist, and tasty!  here is a slice that i ate:

i don’t really bake cakes very often, which i think is why i’m not particularly pleased with this one.  let me clarify that, though.  the cake is delicious!  but the frosting is a little weird for me.  i used the vctotw not-too-sweet blueberry mousse recipe because i wanted something not too sweet, but i don’t think i’m big on tofu-frostings… it is too tofu-y for me.  the vanilla custard i made up sort of, but it worked out well and tasted yummy.

i tried to ask my swedish-coworker-baker-friend what the equivalent of sockerkaka is in english, but we just decided it was “weird swedish pastry.”  anyway, my grandma used to make this kind of cake as a base and fill it with vanilla sauce and strawberries and smother the whole thing in whipped cream and top it with more strawberries and sometimes kiwi.  it’s sweet, and almost a little grainy and crispy on the outside.  lemon zest makes it taste fresh and tangy.  so i didn’t want something to compete with those flavors too much, but still add some moisture.  i think i need to work on some sort of cashew cream, because frosting would be way way way too sweet.  we’ll see.  anyway, here is a closeup of a slice:

mmm, golden and fluffy!  maybe i should just convert these into cupcakes and work it out from there.