About My Raw Adventure

Above: OLIVE-STUFFED PORTOBELLO MUSHROOMS (RAW)

I have been neglecting this blog while sending all kinds of results of my raw adventures to my Rawly Vegan blog on Wordpress - and I'm sorry. Perhaps I should publish some of the results here, but I'd now have to go back quite a way to catch up on that :( But you can click into the title of the photo above for its recipe if you like and of course I can offer you more and more raw recipes, if anyone's interested, in future. (Previous recipes are, as I say, on my Rawly Vegan blog.

The thing is, I hadn't expected to be keeping on with this rawfood lark. I thought that I'd like it for a while - as an excuse, perhaps, to eat lots and lots of lovely fresh fruit while it was in season, but that I'd quickly tire of eating raw instead of the delicious cooked meals I used to concoct each day. I do so like to cook! Well, I still 'cook' or, I should day, prepare food, and I am absolutely loving it. There are some great recipes out there, including some wonderful recipe books (I have only a handful), and I'm just not prepared to stop eating raw for a while yet!

Now I don't mean that I'm 100 per cent raw. We still choose to eat non-raw food for around 10 to 15 per cent of our daily calories on the occasional day, and my condiments, herbs and spices are not yet all raw. But the experiment, as I used to call it, has worked out find and for the time being, at least, I have no intention of going back to the way I used to eat - nor, I should add, has my husband, who delights in preparing some of our dishes himself (and this after his thinking, like myself, that it would be boring old salads all the time).

Some raw dishes are worth knowing about whether you're raw or not: Some raw soups are much better than their cooked counterparts if they even have cooked counterparts and can be served to anyone at any time that, say, a chilled soup would be appropriate. They're so very quick to make that it makes me wonder why I ever fussed with soup pots etc. And raw crackers? Fantastic. I have a (new) dehydrator, and if anyone has access to one raw Flax Crackers, Hummus Crackers, and Dulse Crackers are all easy to make and soooooo delicious. I keep a couple of containers full of them all the time now.

So prowl through my other blog, if you will, and see if there is anything there to tempt you. Not all the photos have recipes attached, but that's fairly easily remedied, since I'm developing my own variations on other people's recipes all the time now. Such fun!

And did I say how bright and alert and energized I feel since eating high raw? Fantastic pay off! Now that absolutely stunned me!

Okay, back again later with more - and some recipes. Cheers, everyone.

What Happened To Summer? Some Faves.

(Above: Bell Pepper, Mushroom and Faux Chicken 'Stir-fry')

For all kinds of reasons (don't ask!) this has been a lost summer, more or less. As a result, I've been shockingly lazy when it comes to developing new recipes or even trying other people's recipes (but see the seitan dishes below). Mostly, it has been comfort food of the kind you have seen on this blog time and again, or it has been something fast made with the help of faux meats from the local supermarket (I know, I know!). Between that and being away (see my other Blogspot blog at http://river-rambles.blogspot.com, which is where I ramble on about trips away from home, mostly, and post photos for family and friends. You're welcome to look!) . . . So you see above one of the many stir-fry (read 'stir-steamed') dishes which came in handy.


Then there were the inevitable curry-style dishes, because they are easy to make if you cheat a little and add some commercial curry paste to the array of spices to the whole and because we love all these hot and spicy dishes. Yes, even in summer.



The Thai Coconut Curry with Root Vegetables, Zucchini and Eggplant above used coconut milk in the original, but I cheated and used non-dairy milk and a little coconut extract in order to cut back on the fat calories a bit. It tasted fine - handy to remember if you run out of coconut milk.

There were the usual salads, soups (both hot and chilled), and quick pasta dishes - as I say, it was a lost kind of summer. I did however work on something else.


EXPERIMENTS WITH SEITAN

I did a little experimenting with my seitan fish recipe (see previous post) and I think I nearly have it right. I shall try again soon and give you the measurements. What I did in effect was to halve the recipe but to keep the seasonings etc. as is (or even to add a little extra, except for salt). I also put the cooking liquid (you know, seaweed, dried mushrooms, etc.) in a pan and let it simmer ahead of time and then cooled a little of it off to replace the water to be added to the gluten flour to make the seitan. (I replaced the 'stolen' cooking liquid with the same amount of water so that there's be plenty to cover the seitan on the stovetop.) That addition of cooking liquid got flavour into the seitan from the start. You might have to experiment a bit yourself, and much depends on how strong you like this kind of dish to be in 'taste of the sea'.

Having made this dish a few times, I have tried in in three or more ways:



(Above: Home-made Seitan Fish in Panko Crumbs)

I lightly sprayed the pan with canola oil and then browned the seitan on both sides. In this case I simply served with a squeeze of lemon and served with vegetables in the western manner. Lovely.

Not to be boring the next time I served it, I cut it in small pieces and made a Southeast Asian-style sauce with peanuts, soysauce, ketjap manis and sambal oelek.





(Above: Stir-'fried'Home-made Seitan Fish with Indonesian-style Peanut-Chilie Sauce.)

This was stronger in flavour and went superbly with rice and other appropriate accompaniments - your choice.

And finally, the inevitable 'finishing up what's in the fridge' dish - Rice with Vegetables, Home-made Seitan Fish and Commercial Faux Chicken Pieces. . .




. . . seasoned Asian Style with chilies thrown in for good measure. This kind of thing is one of our favourite kinds of meals ;-)

And no, we didn't eat all these in the same week! Although my dh assured me that he wouldn't mind a bit. It was good seitan.


Fortunately now that September is here I have no further excuse, and I shall be posting on a regular basis both on this blog and on my blog.

I am also starting another blog elsewhere - another food blog indeed, but that story for another time.

I hope everyone enjoyed their summer. My best to you all!

What Have These Vegans Been Cooking?

Original recipes have been in short supply around here lately (the cold weather has frozen my creative side), but that doesn't mean we've been having take-out food. We have been doing the usual salads, fresh fruit and lots of greens, but doing them simply. Soups have been important, because of the weather, and lately more stews and bakes than earlier in the year (or so it seems to me right now). Check below:



PASTA BOLOGNESE

Sometimes the simplest things are the best. This is another case of taking one's favourite recipe for home-cooked pasta sauce, adding a little crumbled tofu or tvp, simmering until blended and putting atop one's favourite kind of pasta. Have a lovely green salad first (in the North American way) or after (in the Italian way) and you've got a lovely meal, right? Yumm!

Below you have two similar ideas:

VEGETABLE STEW WITH LENTILS



LENTIL SOUP WITH VEGETABLES



They were made at quite different times, but I recall flavouring each with Indian spices and herbs. And both were what I call spicy hot! Eggplant was important to each (it blends so nicely with lentils) and apart from that and some carrot, perhaps a little sweet potato, it's more or less a free-for-all as far as the vegetables go.

The soup made a lovely light meal with a salad, and the stew was consumed as a main course with crusty homemade whole wheat bread. What a treat! Shall work on these some more and post the recipes when I'm happy with them.

More soon - I'm still having trouble with the photo thingie on this new computer :(

Kudos for a Fellow Blogger - and a link to watch it happen!

GREAT NEWS: PCRM's Food For Life TV has actually highlighted - AND done their cooking segment on - my dear cyberfriend, mentor and publisher Erin Dame's own _Vegan Done Light_ e-cookbook and in particular on his incredibly innovative recipe for Cherry Hummus (believe it or not, it's delicious!). Congratulations, Erin! That's a huge feat. Fantastic, my friend!

See the video on Erin's site at:
http://www.zenpawn.com/vegblog/2009/02/21/pcrm-food-for-life-tv/

I don't know about the rest of you, but I think something like this kind of kudos for another vegan blogger vindicates all of us for our huge efforts in trying to maintain and develop healthy recipes that are low in fat and, in Erin's Case, gluten-free as well as low-cal and full of all good things.

So have a look at the video - and while you're at it have a listen/look to all the excellent advice for vegan health from the Food For Life TV team. It echoes so much that Erin and many of the rest of us strive for in our recipes.

Oh, and write down the recipe for that cherry hummus as it's playing - it's a winner :)

Exciting!!! Way to go, Erin!!!

Mushroom Crepe, Spiced Mushrooms - and chat

[Edited because this got posted before I had finished! Slight changes to food descriptions, etc.]



It's a while since I recommended anything on this blog - other than great food - but the following article (see link below) on the vegan diet, its 'stick-to-it-edness' and its benefit for those with diabetes or at risk for the disease is very important. Published in Canada's national daily 'The Globe and Mail' 4 February. Do please have a look - it will lighten your heart, brighten your day, and give you loads of ammunition against all those omnivores and even some vegetarians who are suspicious of a vegan diet.


http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20090204.wlbeck04/BNStory/specialScienceandHealth/

And now on with the lovely safe and healthy vegan food! I love mushrooms and eat them almost daily.

MUSHROOM CREPE



This made a lovely lunch, along with a green salad. I took some mushrooms, enough for two persons (although I show only one crepe), seasoned them with a little chopped onion, two or three cloves of garlic, a tsp or so of grated ginger root, a little mirin (I was out of sherry), a dash of low-sodium soy sauce, a dash of cayenne pepper, some mixed herbs and put them all together in a skillet, adding a tsp or so of water at a time to keep them from scorching. I kept them pretty plump - dried-out mushrooms aren't my idea of fun.

The crepes I made of a mixture of wholewheat flour and cornflour (plus liquid of course) but you could use a mix of your choice. I made them very very thin and did not attempt to flip them. I gave the pan a hint of cooking spray (olive oil) and I slid each gently onto a plate when cooked to keep it warm, covered, at the lowest possible oven setting. Then I simply scooped the mushroom mixture onto the centre third of each crepe and rolled the other two sides to enclose it. Delicious.

For my next trick -

SPICED MUSHROOMS



This time I mixed cremini mushrooms with portobellos and shiitakes and added 4 cloves of garlic, a healthy pinch of crushed chilies, 1 Tbsp grated ginger root and a good shake of dried tarragon (had no fresh) to the pan before I started the steam-sautee process. I made a little mix of warm water and about half a tsp or so of dark miso (to dissolve the miso), a small amount 1/2 Tbsp low-sodium soy sauce, 2 Tbsp tomato paste and 1/4 cup of red wine and added it to the half-cooked mushroom mix.

When the mushrooms were just done (and the sauce well reduced) I stirred in a couple of chopped green onions and some chopped home-roasted peppers and used the mushroom mixture to top a heated wholewheat wrap - this was to catch what sauce remained. (I use Weight Watchers wraps, low fat and only 90 calories each, for things like this. They keep well in the freezer.)

I topped the mushrooms with a couple of strips of the roasted pepper too - and wished I'd had some nice fresh herbs to add, but perhaps that would have been painting the lily.

I was in a terrible hurry to get a meal on the table, so I had raided my emergency bin in the freezer right at the beginning and thrown some tiny potatoes, baby peas and miniature corn into a pan to steam so that I could serve them alongside the mushroom dish. Worked just fine! I think this is a major way we will have mushrooms from now on.

Althoughhhhhh, I'm still working on my mushroom paprikash/stroganoff recipe. It's good too!

Baked Eggplant & Tomato Casserole, plus some old favourites

BAKED EGGPLANT & TOMATO CASSEROLE

Around four days ago I had an eggplant that was burning a hole in my pocket, so to speak, and a yellow sweet bell pepper that was threatening to leave home. So I decided to put together a mix of compatible vegetables with some Italian-type herbs (parsley, oregano, thyme, you get the idea) and a hastily chopped chili and the usual suspects, including half a large can of tomatoes.



I heated the oven when these were cooked (in a little stock in a skillet) and made a quick cheezy sauce from a package of tofu which was soon to be past its prime. The eggplant mixture went into a round baking dish, the tofu topping (with some lovely spices in it) went on top and I popped the whole thing into the oven while I was fixing the salad.



I had one serving (Okay, it was a big one) and my dh polished off the rest (shock horror!). So I guess it was a success and yet so easy. Oh I'm too modest - It was great!



I promised myself, and probably you, that I'd post what I was eating from time to time - apart from salads and fresh fruit. The thing is, we have been going more in favour of old favourties, including one my dh adores: POTATO PEA & MUSHROOM CURRY from India. This is a good standby for us whenever we find we're in a hurry, want something comforting, and have no special ingredients in the house. Potatoes? Sure, always have a few lying around I guess (although I have been known to run out). Peas? Always in the freezer, just in case. Mushrooms? They're a staple. As for the rest of the things - garlic, ginger, onions, spices, well they're in the fridge and cupboards all the time too. So this meal can be had ready for the table in the time it takes to chop the veggies and cook the potatoes (the smaller the dice, the quicker the meal). We had this about three days ago. Lovely as always.

Another quick and reliable recipe is this soup - TOMATO CABBAGE SOUP Which is usually ready in twenty minutes from start to finish.



It's hot, it's light and it's satisfying. Eat it with cornbread, wholewheat rolls, muffins or, as here, with a simple salad (and faux hamm) wrap.



We'll be finishing off the soup this evening!

APOLOGIES

My apologies for neglecting this blog yet again! I have some new recipes and ideas for good food to post any day now AND I have just returned from New York where we had some fab dining experiences which I am going to want to try - just try - to reproduce at home.

For those curious, interested, or simply bored, try going to my other blog - River Rambles - which has a rather longish account of where we were and what we ate - photos and all for the most part :)

You can find it HERE - headed by this rather silly pic of me at the airport after waiting hours and hours for a flight out!

Best to you all.

Dithering :) - Plus Some Food Pics

STUFFED GREEN PEPPERS

Here was lunch today :) I did two of these - but we couldn't finish them at all - too much salad to start, I'm afraid. But oh my they were really good! I didn't write down all the ingredients nor do any real measuring, so I'll have to save the recipe for another time. However, there was long-grain brown rice, wild rice, mushrooms, some marinated tofu, onions and garlic and chilies, green peas, water chestnuts and I forget what else all steam-sauteed together in a pan then stuffed into the peppers with various herbs and spices (which is what made it all so very good) and put in the oven with a seasoned crumb topping.

We must have been in the mood for stuffed dishes lately, because the other day I made

CRANBERRY-STUFFED BUTTERNUT SQUASH



This was a pale imitation of a recipe from Erin Dame's Vegan Done Light e-cookbook found here. Great as a side dish with a whole lot of things, I guarantee.

Somewhere along the line lately I made a couple of versions of stroganoff - one using faux beeef strips, one using portobello mushrooms, but somehow that photo has been lost while moving things from one computer to my new one :( (The photos in this post were still on the camera, however, so that's how these came about.) Never mind - it was good (if a bit bland for me) and I will be making it again and posting photo and recipe.

Meanwhile, I have been dithering, hence the title of this post, about to Raw or Not To Raw. I had decided, with help from the dh, that it was too difficult to do it the way we would like in the winter (this part of Canada is not all that far from Michigan, but a long way from California and Florida!) and, also, we weren't ready to forego our hot meals in icy weather. As a result, when I came to the end of the cookbook recipe testing, rather than going back on raw food (well, highly raw food) as planned we continued with the cooked variety, making all sorts of things again that had not been in the cookbook, especially things with soy in them. Around this season a lot of good food is tempting!

And now? Well, we looked at each other today and decided that as much as we think we'll be making a few cooked dishes during the week - and perhaps even a hot soup in the evening - we are going to slowly revert to our attempt to go raw. So satisfying! Now how's that for an about-turn!

NOT ANOTHER STIR-FRY!



My last photo is of the kind of stir-'fry' dishes I like to make now and then - no recipe really needed, perhaps, although I sometimes do do a twist on the usual ingredients. I may not be making so many of these, although the are wonderfully quick and easy, don't you think! Asian food lends itself so well to a vegan lifestyle, and spicy vegan food makes vegan eating a delight!

Cheers, everyone. And continued good wishes for 2009. Make it a good one!

WAKE UP TO SPICE! (My new e-cookbook)

I'm so excited - I have just this afternoon received word that my e-cookbook, Wake Up To Spice, has its page up and running.

You can find it here: http://www.vegandonelight.com/spice/

And that's also the place to get a free sample recipe from the new e-book plus some other freebies when you sign up for the free newsletter my enabler put out :) Have a peek!!!!!!

Love and hugs, River (aka, as you'll see, another name)

New Things Happening

Hello to you all, and my apologies for not posting for so long! The sunflowers, photographed at a New York market in early October, are my peace offering to you :)

The thing is that events have rather overtaken me this autumn, and I have found myself planning forthcoming happenings in a big way (some of them now past, cuz that's what they become when they're done with, right?) and trying to decide just which direction I want to take.

Most of you who have been following this will know that I have been playing around with eating raw vegan. And it is true that I think it's a wonderful idea and would be very beneficial. Right now, however, hasn't seemed quite the right time to make this switch for me and my dh. Undoubtedly, were either of us having any health problems we would probably make the change overnight and receive all the wonderful benefits, but that's just not the way of it. We are both in startling (to our doctors) good health, feel terrific in ourselves, are happy, mobile, active and full of good ideas for our lives as well as enjoying an eating style that includes raw foods but also depends to some smaller degree on cooked vegan yummy dishes. We like that.

So why not new recipes? In addition to enjoying our tried and true family favourites, I have been working on a project:

Early next year will see the online publication of an e-cookbook by yours truly (under my 'real' name rather than a nickname). Thanks to the encouragement of a dear cyber friend (Erin, that's you) I have put together a series of new recipes which are - wait for it - not only low salt and low fat as usual with me but also spicy, soy-free and gluten-free. Hey, what a challenge, eh? I loved (almost) every minute of the creation of these (about) two dozen new recipes and the revamping of the three or four which had their inspiration in recipes I had made before.If I got frustrated sometimes, it was only a small indication to me of the frustration those of you must feel who cannot eat all the things that the rest of the world takes for granted even in a vegan regime.

So there you have it. Meanwhile, I do have a few dishes I have made that are newish and not included in this forthcoming e-book, and I shall be letting you know about those in the next day or two.

For those who want to know what I'm up to when I'm not blogging on BeanVegan or posting on my groups on Care2 and Yahoo!, I remind you off my other blog - River Rambles: http://river-rambles.blogspot.com/

Chat again soon! Please watch this space for any new news about the coming e-cookbook!What an adventure!!!!

Catching Up - and Spiced Tempeh-Stuffed Shells

[POST EDITED TO CORRECT OMISSIONS IN ORIGINAL, WITH APOLOGIES.]

Is it really possible to catch up after such an absence! Whew!!!!!

Well, first, let me say thank you to everyone who wrote in to say lovely words about the loss of our little beagle Made' aka Maddie, our second (though older) dog-daughter on 14 June. She is so sadly missed by us all, but your thoughtfulness and kindness has somehow made it easier to bear. Meanwhile, our younger girl, Casey, is reaping the benefits of having full-time attention of both her parents. Well, you can imagine!!!

Soooooo, you ask, what have you been cooking/eating since your last food post??? Good question. I seem to have taken some photos, wobbly ones mostly (so what's new there? LOL), but nevertheless they remind me that we have eaten a few things other than salads and wraps and fresh fruit. Not that those three things don't make for very nutritious as well as tasty eating, but they don't exactly make for an exciting food diary!

So here goes on one of the things that seem to have come across our table since arriving back from Paris a month ago.

SPICED TEMPEH-STUFFED SHELLS



These are, you guessed it, another version of my Stuffed Shells recipe, which you can see HERE in my first experiment with such a dish and HERE as the then preferred version. I still like both of those, but I decided to branch out just a tiny bit and make this lot from tempeh and add much more creative spice to the mixture. I followed the same basic method as before, but rather than basil or spinach I used handfuls of chopped cilantro (coriander leaves) and used chopped jalapeno, ground cumin seeds, lime zest and juice, miso, nutritional yeast and goodness knows what else (it was a while ago - I must make it again to get it right!) to the stuffing. The result was amazing. The tempeh was mashed to make it like ground, er, ground stuff.

Here it is at the point I'd just put it into the shells.



At this point it still needed a sauce, right? I had none ready in fridge or freezer, so I grabbed a can or tomatoes, added onions and garlic to them with some cayenne, zapped them in a blender and poured it over the dish like this:



The crumby topping, above, is a mix of wholewheat cracker crumbs zapped in a mini-processor with some cashews and nutritional yeast plus varied dried herbs and paprika.

The baked result you have already seen - somehow it never looks quite as nice as the unbaked version when I do things. But it was excellent to eat, and here you have, below, a quick snapshot of my plate before I took it to the table.



The taste was more fusion than Italian, but that's the joy of being able to please oneself in the kitchen. My husband voted for this version over the two others, so that's good enough for me :)

More later :)

Chat: Of Cabbages, Cheezes and Cats

Well I couldn't resist telling you all about the reason for the lovely green kale behind the photo of the beet, apple and seaweed salad I posted earlier! We eat a lot of kale here - any kind we can get our hands on. And this one was for the kale salad I've posted before as Raw Kale Salad, what else :) to which I added the garnish of a little crumbled/grated vegan blue cheez - or more correctly Sheese (which is the brand name) from Scotland.

I have never much cared for faux cheezes - except those individually wrapped Tofutti slices (and Tofutti is very good - esp. its cream cheeze and sour creme) in a huge sandwich which disguises the fact that they're not really the real thing. But someone on the Care2 network recommended Sheese and I found it at my local cheese shop and I had to try. Well, I dunno about you guys, but I thought it was wonderful. I always swear that I don't want to eat faux foods, but both my husband and I have made an exception for this product (and another, which is PC vegan chicken strips, but only VERY occasionally) - which I swear we could become addicted to really really quickly. It comes in many flavours, so you might want to see if it's in your shops. (And no, I don't own the company or get money from them for saying this!). Find them at: http://www.buteisland.com/ - and they have recipes there too, I see.

The next photo is an indulgence of mine. We are eating more raw (I know - am I letting you guys down? Sorry. I'll probably get over it! I do these kinds of things now and then!!) and so the top of our stove is getting used for everything but cooking lately. Yesterday we brought the groceries home and dumped them on the stovetop while we put them away. I put the last item in the refrigerator and turned around to find that my dear little cat had actually dared to jump up there and had decided that the shopping bag would make a nice little hidey hole :)

UPDATE ON MADE'

To all who have been kind enough to ask:
Made' my lovely beagle is well and happy, recovering beautifully from her adventure in the surgery ward of the veterinary
hospital a couple of weeks ago. The tests were all okay - no nasties - so she is a little lighter now, sans gallbladder, but we don't have any immediate worries about her future with regard to that particular procedure or anything they found 'while they had the hood open', as the internist liked to put it (not funny - she's not a jeep!).

She's been a brave little thing, and it has been heartbreaking seeing her so unwell. The sad thing is that the gastro problem she had which brought about the initial tests and x-rays does have a cause - a couple of thickened bits and pieces, one quite inflamed, in her tum - which has been what has been flaring up from time to time and will obviously continue to do so. Unless these occurrences increase, however, we are advised that 'benign neglect' is the best treatment. (Oh right!!!) She is, however, gradually returning to her former diet, heartily approved by our veterinarian, after being fed some (to her) delightful muck out of a can. Mama begins to cook for her as well as her adopted sister again!

Thanks, everyone, for your concern. Hugs, all.

Update - and more comfort food: breads

First an update on my little hound: Made' came home from the hospital yesterday - and oh what a pathetic little beagle she was. She cuddled and cuddled all the way back, although I am sure she would have been more comfortable not on a lumpy lap. She's doing much better today, and that little tail actually wags sometimes when it's not firmly tucked between her legs. We are waiting now on the pathology reports - the long weekend getting in the way of the usual turn-around time. Meanwhile, she is well medicated, eating well, and sleeping as hard as she can. Brave girl!

Meanwhile, while I was collecting our invalid from Toronto, my dh was cat and dog sitting and getting lunch ready. The scent of this (quickbread) loaf met me as I came through the door. Absolutely heavenly. Well, it was a loaf once, but this was all that was left after the afternoon was over. It was one of Barnard and Kramer's recipes, he tells me, one we had not tried before. It has, as you see, raisins (he skipped the nuts), cinnamon, allspice, nutmeg and I forget what else. Considering how quickly it went, I'd say it's a Must-Try-Again Recipe.

We tend to bake, make soup, and concoct stews when we are stressed, bored, or just plain hungry. Fortunately, we have a repertoir of things that will freeze well, and it's automatic with us to cut a loaf in half and freeze half (which explains my strange method of presenting bread in these photos), since there are just the two of us. Here are some other results of this week's baking:

The first is what we call cranberry bread - another Barnard and Kramer recipe, this time for soda bread. We add dried cranberries (craisins) rather than leaving it plain. Love those cranberries! The second shows two loaves - my rye bread, which you have met before here on this blog, and a yeasted raisin bread made with half barley flour. Right now I'm trying someone's recipe for a pumpernickel bread (really just a rye bread) using sourdough starter and a little yeast to speed things along. I have my doubts about it, though, but I'll reserve judgement until it has risen, risen again and come out of the oven :) If nothing else it will make the place smell wonderful. With luck it may be ready to have with our evening meal. If not, I still have that barley bread and some rye!

Tune in tomorrow in this ongoing saga of the bread! I should mention that breadmaking is to our beagles better than TV to us - smellavision, I guess. And of course they always get a taste!

Slow Week, But Lots Of 'Tries'

This is a slow week for this blog, mainly because we are caught up in something else right now. But we have been trying new recipes - just not actually created anything new to pass on.

What you might like to try, though, is a lovely soup from Barnard's La Dolce Vegan - Curried Ginger Butternut Squah Soup - which takes all the usual suspects plus potato and butternut squash, with some fresh grated ginger - a humungous two inches of it, which I loved when I saw it - to give it that certain zip and flavour. It was perfect the way it was - with maybe a little more (okay, quite a little) garam masala than called for (but I'd used my own mix not her recipe for that, so that could be the reason). Very highly recommended.


Still working at cooking fat free (not had to cheat yet), my dh tried out a Red Lentil Curry by Jennifer Raymond (again!) from Neal Barnard's Turn Off The Fat Genes. It was lovely, so much so indeed that I think we ate rather more of it than our fair share. Fortunately it is low in calories.


We also collaborated in an adaptation of a Barnard & Kramer banana bread - it's wonderful, with three bananas for ultimate banana flavour and lots of chopped dates. You can find that one in How It All Vegan. It's terribly decadent in taste, but we cheated the original recipe a bit by switching the oil for another half a banana (why not!). We couldn't see any difference from the way it had turned out when we had made it before using oil, so why add such stuff in there! It's a 'good any time of day' bread/cake or what you will! Once we even followed one of their options and added carob chips to the recipe, but it was much more of a dessert then than we had in mind. Delicious though. A bread worth cultivating, I'd say.

Meanwhile, I have today made a very nice cornbread, but that story will have to wait for another time!

River is Baaaaack!

Okay, so I have shamelessly ignored the existence of this blog for two months now. What to do? Carry on, my dears, carry on!

Recipes coming up! Hugs all round.

RETROSPECTIVE NOTE TO THIS POST: I have just realized that I forgot to note that last year's posts - 2006 - such as they were, were low-fat recipes but not fat-free. The new year 2007 found me cooking almost completely fat-free, and the recipes from this point on reflect this change.

Love, River

Vegan-friendly Places

Ever wonder how people who are vegan in the rest of the world are doing? I do so, every time I go out and get blank looks because of my food requests :) As a result, I'm always heartened by such information as is contained in the links below. Vegetarian isn't necessarily vegan, but there's a goodly chance that they'd know what we're on about! LOL

The Top 5 Vegetarian-Friendly Cities in the World (from Happy Cow Dec. 2006)

http://www.happycow.net/travel/top_five.html

North America's Most Vegetarian-friendly cities

http://vegetarian.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?site=http://www.goveg.com/f%2Dvegcities.asp

The Most Vegetarian-Friendly Universities in Canada (PETA Press Release 29 Nov. 06)

http://www.peta.org/mc/NewsItem.asp?id=9266

The most Vegetarian-Friendly Universities in the US (PETA Press Release 29 Nov. 06)

http://www.peta.org/mc/NewsItem.asp?id=9264

There we go! LOL

Small Beginnings

Herewith my first post!

If the messages which follow are mostly about food, then so be it; it's the way it's meant to be. If that happens, know that most things are going well and that our kitchen is a happy place. If from time to time other thoughts and ideas get mixed in, then take what you want from them and ignore the rest. Deal?

Thanks for listening :) And now to see what's for lunch today!!!

Affectionately,

'River'