Tofuligans

I’m just going to start blogging again, as if I didn’t stop for several years, okay? Great.

Last night I made the tempeh tacos from Veganomicon. The tempeh was marinated for around 24 hours, which made it super tasty. I used So Delicious coconut milk yogurt for the lime crema, resulting in the best lime crema I’ve tasted. The slaw was so excellent, after I finished off the tempeh leftovers, I ate a bunch more tacos with only crema + slaw.

I done Instagrammed that shit. (Phones these days discourage me from picking up my camera)

In the interest of further pretending that people will read this blog, I’m going to branch out into other topics a little bit. Topics such as my upcoming bike tour, and this song that concurrently has me stoked for the tour, and nostalgic about hitchhiking adventures. I’ve played it no less than 30 times in the last two days, for real.

Before I’d come across the concept of food porn, and as I was transitioning towards veganism and experiencing a new interest in food and cooking, I sometimes took extremely poor, unappetizing photos of my food for some reason.  I hope it wasn’t because I thought these were memorable dishes, as the photos you are about to witness would prove otherwise.  I hereby present my first bakers dozen of horrible, improperly white balanced and just plain gross food porn photos in all their unedited glory.

The first photo of food that I have on record.  Pretty standard cheese-free pizza, could be worse.

Grilled vegetables that look like I would actually eat them.  I got off to a good start, just wait.

Hash browns that I somehow felt warranted documentation.  I would totally eat these too.

Okay, so I’m feeling pretty good about my record so far.  Let’s see how my cooking and photo skills improved as I got more adventurous.

Good God no.  What have I done?  Gravy?  Well the floor is obviously the proper place to take a photo of gravy.

That is one sad looking pot of stuffing.  I find the smeared parts all over the sides of the dish to be particularly appetizing.  I seem to recall the gravy-stuffing combo to be part of what could only have been a very homogeneous Thanksgiving dinner.  Goo slime and mush were apparantly my favourite food groups as a new vegan.

You know what would really spruce up this bowl of seemingly canned chili?  A couple of houseplants and the harshest lighting possible.

Now this was actually some very tasty General Tao’s Tofu, but why do I keep taking photos of food on the floor?

Pretty nice looking asparagus.  Could have done without the dirty utensils covering everything.

Cookie dough looks good despite the photo quality.

wtf.  Did I really look at this scene and think, “Yummy, that’s deserving of a photograph.”  The spoon really ties the whole greasy composition together.

Did you know that there is spinach in this curry?

What do you do when you forget to add sugar to cookie dough?  I figured you could just spoon it on top.

Pesto can be hard to photograph well.  I don’t think I even tried.
Well there you have it.  The first of my many stumbling blocks on the road to becoming a passable food pornographer.  Happy Vegan MoFo day 3, see you tomorrow!

Non-vegan stout got you down?  Tired of paying way too much for an item as necessary as beer?  Brew it yourself already!

No better way to start Vegan MoFo than to share the discovery of how easy and cheap it is to brew beer in your own home.  This isn’t really news to anybody, but I remember thinking that it was harder than described and required all kinds of special equipment and bottles and seemed like I would waste a bunch of time and money making undrinkable rotgut.  Not true at all, if you can make tea you can brew beer, and it’s delicious beer at that!

There’s a ridiculous amount of information around the web and in books about the subject and it can seem daunting to somebody who’s brewing for the first time.  I’m going to strip that all down and share the basics of how I do it in an attempt to make brewing more accessible.

There are a number of different ways to brew at home, the easiest of which is making what I refer to as beer Kool-Aid, but is more commonly known as extract brewing.  In this sort of brewing you simply mix a can of hopped malt extract with water, add yeast and let fermentation do it’s thing.  You will need some equipment to get started, which can either be purchased at a homebrewing store, as a kit or individually, or cobbled together using readily available items.

1. Bottles – I put this as number one because you need a lot of bottles, especially if you start getting a few batches going at the same time, so start saving them now.  The homebrew store folks will tell you not to use screw top bottles, but I use them all the time and they work fine.  It will save you time if you rinse your used bottles before storing them.
2. Primary Fermenter – A fancy word for a bucket that you ferment the extract/water mixture (wort) in.  Use a five gallon bucket, preferably food safe, or buy one of the garbage can looking things that the homebrew store sells.
3. Secondary Fermenter / Glass Carboy – One of those big glass bottles that look like the plastic water cooler bottles.
4. Siphon – You could just use a length of thin plastic tube for this, but I’d recommend buying a siphon with a clamp from the homebrew store.
5. Fermentation Lock – A rubber cork that fits into the opening in the carboy.  It will have a plastic valve on the top that allows air to leave the carboy, but keeps outside air out.
6. Bottle Capper and Caps – To seal up the brew after bottling.

Using a hopped malt extract allows you to brew beer without having to boil anything or make much of a mess.  It doesn’t make the most amazing beer possible, but it’s a perfect starting point for new brewers.  In the interest of eliminating discouragement, I’m only going to lay out the basic steps just to show how easy this brewing business is.  Truth of the matter is there a some things that can go wrong and a ton of variations on how to brew if you want to get a little bit more advanced.  If you get to that point, there are many more resources out there from much more informed people than myself to learn from.  These are the basic steps.

1. Sanitize – Everything that will touch your beer, from start to finish, must be not only cleaned well, but completely sanitized right before use.  I use the pink powder you get at the homebrew store.
2. Mix Wort – Take your can of hopped malt extract and combine it with water in the primary fermenter using the method stated in the extract’s instructions.
3. Ferment – Add yeast and cover the primary.  Leave it sit somewhere where it’s not too cool, dark is good too.  After a few days you should see the wort getting all foamy, that means it’s working!  Leave it in there for about five days total.  The extract you purchase will give you more specifics on fermentation times.
4. Secondary Fermentation – Place the primary on a table or somewhere higher than the floor.  Siphon the beer into the glass carboy leaving behind the sediment created during primary fermentation.  Place the fermentation lock, filled with water, into the carboy and put the carboy in the same place you were keeping the primary.  Wait for however long your extract instructions tell you, probably around two weeks.
5. Bottling -  Clean, sanitize and rinse your beer bottles really well.  Dissolve 1.5 cups of corn sugar into some warm water inside your primary fermenter.  The corn sugar is extra food for the remaining yeast which will result in a nicely carbonated beer when you pop a bottle in a few weeks.  Siphon the beer from the carboy into the sugary primary and mix it up a little.  Siphon the beer from the primary into the beer bottles.  Cap the bottles and store them outside of the fridge for a few weeks.
6. Chill and Drink! – I will assume anybody interested in homebrewing needs no instruction on this step.  Enjoy!

Now that you know the bare bones process hopefully your interest has been piqued, so get down to the store and get started!  I’m off to rack some Oktoberfest into the carboy; it’s been in the primary for far too long!

Hockey tough-guys are often bathed in the stereotype of being brain-dead meatheads.  However, those of us who are the least bit familiar with hockey in Edmonton already know Georges for his dedication to the community and have seen him exercise his intelligence and compassion in a number of ways.   Chalk up another point for Laraque as he’s spent the summer embarking on a vegan lifestyle.  The change came about after watching the documentary Earthlings.

“It’s unconscionable what’s happening to animals in this country and the way we treat animals we eat. … I realized I had to make some big changes. … I’ve lost some weight, but I’ve been working with a really great nutritionist and I’ve never had this much energy” – Georges Laraque

You can read the full article here, which is unusually populated by tolerable comments.

Well now, it has been some time, hasn’t it?  With a wintery drought of internet access I lost my tenuous habit of blogging with any consistency.  That’s ok, it’s summer again and I have internet access, fresh food and a whole bunch of backlogged food porn to post.  Even at my poorest and coldest this past winter I still managed to cook a few decent meals and take some pictures of them.  Let’s see what we have here.

These buns were a recipe I tested for the 10th anniversary edition of How it all Vegan.

Peppermint Patties from the 10th anniversary edition of How it all Vegan.

One of my Veganomicon favourites, The Cassoulet!

I don’t remember what recipe these ones were, but they’re made with the white chocolate chips I got at Food Fight last fall.

Chili with some corn bread.

Soy Curls (Heck yeah!) with some asparagus.

Ok, now I realize it’s the middle of July, but here’s my Christmas baking.

Rum Nog Pecan Cookies from Veganomicon.

Some chai cupcakes, snickerdoodles, double chocolate and thumbprints.

Now with 100%  more rum balls and fudge!

Maple roasted vegetables.

Ronald’s Donuts!!

Soy Curls stir fry.

Seitanic Jambalaya from Veganomicon.

Homemade Ethiopian from Kittee’s zine, papa tofu.

Raspberry Blackout Cake.

Red Flannel Hash from Vegan Brunch, with some kale, beans and salad.

Grilled tofu sandwich with avocado, hummus, tomatoes and pesto.

And that brings me up to date on the food porn front, I hope you enjoyed the pictures!  I have all manner of crazy stuff in the works, food-wise, so come on back.  I shall end this post appropriately with a photo of my kitty.

Halloween was pretty low key this year.  I had just got my house back and wanted nothing more than to spend time in it, cleaning up balls of cat hair, unpacking my stuff and hanging out with my newly mellow kitty.  It seems that being forced to live in half of a tiny house with 3 grown cats for an entire month forced her psychosis into submission.  For now.

While Halloween night was kind of lame, the rest of the weekend was awesome!  There was a party at Golden Lentils and I needed to bring snacks.  I decided that nearly a year after marking it into my notebook as “to make”, I would bake up a double batch of pumpkin cinnamon rolls.  The recipe comes from Katie of Don’t Eat Off The Sidewalk.  They take a while, what with all the rising and punching and whatnot, but they are totally worth it.  Plus, there’s nothing better to relieve stress than violent balled-fist kneading of dough.  Especially a double batch, which gives you a big enough dough ball to really beat the crap out of.  After all the punching and rolling and slicing and rising, you witness glory.

That right there is a whole lotta’ bun!  These pumpkin laced treats filled a horrible gap in my 2008 seasonal culinary experience.  I missed Thanksgiving.  It did not exist in my world in 2008.  I was in Portland when Canadian Thanksgiving dropped, and I didn’t stay long enough to try out their weird November version.  The smell of baked goods and a hint of pumpkin helped me feel all holiday like, enough to keep me going until Christmas cooking starts up.

I glazed these suckers up too, but the darkness in my evening, Northern Canadian kitchen would not allow me to capture an acceptable photograph.

The rolls made it to the gender bender party and were enjoyed by people with very realistic, painted on, drunken hobo clown beards, people dressed up as “cereal” killers who actually look like they are probably capable of murdering you in your sleep, and people with their own hair glued to their face

After nearly a week of sleeping at other peoples houses and eating other people food, I’ve finally reclaimed my house from the sublet and got back to cooking and comfort. Being in Portland for over a month I was eager to have my own space back, and to stock up on food and cook in my own kitchen again. The first thing I did to get back in the groove was stop by the Old Strathcona Farmers Market on Saturday and get some veggies!

Not my biggest haul, but pure quality. I particularily like how badass the kale looks, like he’s holding back an anxious brussels sprout while he goes to do the ass kicking himself. Kale is tough. You can almost see him balling up a fist with the other hand. Mr. Kale has been making his way into smoothies and getting sauteed since he showed up at my place. Mmmm mmm. The leeks will be finding themselves in the Legendary Cassoulet, and the brussels I bought because I promised myself the next time I saw brussels on a stalk I would buy them, so I did. They cost six fricking dollars, but look at how awesome they are! Plus, how great is it biking home with them sticking out of your backpack?

One of my return to Edmonton goals was to stick to the weekly meal planning that I’ve done off and on for the last year. It saves me so much time, frustration and money to buy all my weekly food at once rather than going to two different grocery stores every night while I’m hungry from work. Usually that ends with me being too hungry to prepare anything, and eating fried frozen pierogies instead. Not cool. So this week I made the plan, got the groceries, and cooked myself a wholesome meal. Monday nights selection was Smoky Grilled Tempeh from Veganomicon, with the aforementioned brussels sprouts roasted on the side, and some roasted blue potatoes straight out of my backyard garden! Prior to peeling, the potatoes looked like some crazy moon rock, with craters and shit. My roommate tells me they are a symtom of nutrient dense soil. I guess that means my dirt is awesome! YES!!

Once the peel is removed, you get what looks like a cartoon dinosaur egg, all purple and white spotty. Such a nice looking potato, also one of the tastiest.

I usually make my brussels Isa style, roasted with olive oil and garlic. If you think you hate brussels, give the recipe in Vegan with a Vengeance a try!

Next it was grill time for the marinated tempeh. I was really digging all the tasty tempeh I’d been having in Portland, and was eager to give it another try in my kitchen. Not that I didn’t like it before, I just wasn’t crazy about it the way I was about some of the dishes I had in PDX.

Applying grill marks is one of the most appealing things that can be done to food. Look at this effing tempeh! Lookin’ all smoky and glazey like.

I’d say this was a dang fine way to welcome myself home, and remind myself that not all the good food is in Portland.

Oh, I also got a free portable dishwasher! I sense a revolution in my cooking and baking life.

Edmonton’s idea of Mexican food is an affront to everything the cuisine stands for. Cheap, plentiful and authentically flavoured are words unknown to the purveyors of burritos and tacos in this town. Fast food chains aside, there are very few options, and the most popular of all, Julios Barrio, is such a disgrace it’s not even worth the wear on my keyboard to rant about them.

One symptom of this condition is the complete abscence of tamales. If I wanted a vegan tamale, I’d certainly have to make it myself, which I’ve always wanted to do. Unfortunately, finding the required corn husks has proven to be a challenge.

Portland, on the other hand, seemed to be filling my senses with the presence of tamales on an everyday basis. It wasn’t long before I was soaking a bag of corn husks in anticipation of making my own. I decided to use the everyday chipotle-vegetable tamale recipe from Veganomicon, which are made with a basic chipotle bean filling. I was able to get all the simple ingredients at the Alberta Co-Op Grocery, which just happens to be one of my favourite places I’ve ever purchased food. They had the masa harina flour in bulk and I loved the smell as I scooped it into the bag.

The components of tamales are really simple, basically a dough wrapped around a filling which is rolled up in a corn husk to contain it for steaming. Easy, right? I expected some trouble with the rolling part, but it took me almost to the last of the huge double batch I made to gain the required finesse to roll beautiful tamales. These are definitely the thing to get a friend with excellent manual dexterity to assist with. I found that a precise application of both fingers and teeth enabled me to tie up the tamale ends nicely without them unraveling.

After all the rolling and tying came the easy part, stuffing the tamales in a big steamer basket and letting them cook for about forty minutes. I took the time to play with the kitties, you may spend your forty minute window however you please. The absence of kitties will not affect the outcome of your tamales.

That is a heck of a lot of tamales, just as I’d dreamed. I packed them, steaming hot, into a paper bag then into my backpack for the bike ride to Susie and Maeve’s apartment. Tamales are very portable! Not like a casserole or pie, which you have to drive around on the bus. As everybody dug in, I remembered to snap an almost-too-hungry-to-bother photo of the finished product. This one broke apart a bit so you can see the filling. The dough to filling ratio was also too high, which was my mistake, but they were amazing regardless!

I love the texture the husks give the dough, so natural! Once I can find some corn husks in Edmonton, I’ll be making these all the time, probably with less effort now that I’ve figured out the finer points of rolling a tamale.

Lately I’ve been focusing on trying new foods, part of which is due to the availablitly of things here in Portland that I’ve been unble to find back home.  Collards and tamales are two things that I’ve really enjoyed, and I’ll defnitely be intensifying my search for their ingredients when I get back to Edmonton.  One inspiration for new things I’d like to try has been Hannah Kaminsky’s Vegan’s Hundred, a list of 100 foods that every vegan should experience.  I’ve tried a lot of the things on the list, but one that I was surprised to have never had was a green smoothie.  I set about correcting that as soon as I could!

I searched around the internet for a fail safe recipe, since I’ve heard that green smoothies can produce unwanted colours and textures if some of the wrong things are mixed together.  I wanted a bright green smoothie that tasted healthy but delicious.  I eventually put my smoothie fate in the trustworthy hands of Kittee, and biked off to New Seasons to procure ingredients.

The kale and spinach blended up so well, and the mango, almond milk and date had the perfect sweetness to give the smoothie great flavour while still having a wholesome taste.  I was super impressed, and have made more of them the last few days.  These smoothies will definitely be a regular for me, and I can’t wait to experiment with different ingredient combinations!

If you reside in Portland, it’s likely you are aware of the following two vegan friendly establishments.  The first is Voodoo Doughnut, where there’s always a plate of vegan doughnuts, chik o stick covered if you’re lucky!  The second is Tube, the smoky bar with the famous Professor Nanotear Muffin, an english muffin with a slice of ham tube, vegan cheese, and chipotle veganaisse, grilled up on a panini press.  Now, there’s no question that these two delicacies are delicious on their own, but, while hanging out at Someday Lounge with Jess and Maeve, inspiration struck!  In the vein of Paula Deen’s intriguingly revolting Lady’s Brunch Burger, I give to you the impromptu Ham Tube and Doughnut Sandwich!

Before we could make our sandwich dream a reality, we needed to stop by Voodoo and get our buns.  Out of the selection available for the night, it was decided that maple glazed would compliment ham in the best possible way a doughnut could.

We then headed to Tube, where we had some drinks to help us cope with the earth shattering event that was about to take place.  We also warmed up with some regular sandwiches before assembling the feature of the night.

A single doughnut on top, a mighty slab of ham tube, and half an english muffin on the bottom.  Looks amazing, right?  But how does it taste?  Believe me when I tell you that maple doughnut, chipotle veganaisse, cheese and ham go together in the most gratifying way possible!  At least for a guy who’s been drinking Hamms all night.

Some of us liked the sandwich more than others.  I chalk it up to Jen’s less refined palate.  Not everybody can appreciate cuisine of this magnitude.

Since I forgot my memory card at home, rendering my camera useless, Jess took the time to properly document our experience, even though she didn’t try the sandwich.  Thanks for the pictures Jess!

While it’s not the sandwich I would choose for a daily lunch, I appeal you Portlanders or visitors to give it a try!  Who knows, if we popularize it enough, maybe Tube will add it to the menu and we can have an authentic grilled version!  Here’s to living out our dreams!