Good Home Cookin'

Lately, for some reason, I have been craving my mom's cooking. Now, if you knew my mom's cooking, that would be a miracle. I learned how to cook for a couple of reasons and one of them was because my mom couldn't. So, I grew up cooking most of our dinners; however, there is one dish that my mom could make that was always delicious, which was corn casserole. I have been craving this recently, but I kept thinking it'd be impossible to replicate due to its buttery, cheesyness, goodness. I always hated meatloaf. In fact, I have always despised ground beef. Corn casserole seemed to always accompany meatloaf or some kind of ground beef dish. And what always goes with meatloaf? Green been casserole, of course. With these ideas, I set you to veganify this down-home, low-income, blue-collar meal. 

The corn casserole was the first thing I experimented with. It turned out perfectly! It was just a couple of ingredients and turned out delicious. A couple cans of creamed corn (which has no cream...surprise!), regular corn, vegan butter, acini di pepe pasta, and almond cheddar. It tasted just like I remembered. I didn't even have a recipe. I did it by memory as best as I could. Next was the meatloaf. I already had some vegan beef crumbles and I combined that with oatmeal, pureed silken tofu, meatloaf seasoning and diced onion. I topped it with an old family recipe for homemade bbq sauce. Again, turned out as close to the original as possible. Upon eating it, however, I realized it tasted so much like meatloaf that I can only eat this like once a year!!! Haha. I didn't want another casserole, so I did a deconstructed version of green bean casserole. Green beans, mushrooms and onions It turned out great too! They were fresh green beans and that made a world's difference with the crunchy, fresh snap!

Now, I have been allergic to chocolate (really just to caffeine) for 13 years now. So, when I get the chance I recreate 'chocolate' delights as much as possible. I just came across some ricemellow. What popped into my head?! S'mores brownies! So, I did and here is the result. It's topped with vegan praline almond ice cream! Better than I could've imagined. Some of you may be unfamiliar on how I might make a chocolaty dessert without any chocolate! Well, I use carob. Here is a like that explains what carob is. It really tastes like chocolate and coffee combined. It's really a great substitute. Some people hate it. I actually couldn't stand the taste when I first started using it 3 years ago. But I use it to this day as often as possible. I can trick a lot of people; however, if they do know it's fake, then many chocolate eaters say that there is a difference. I can't really say. I have no idea what real chocolate even tastes like. Nevertheless, this dessert was delicious! 

Overall, I had a very successful dinner and a trip down memory lane. I did realize, however, that this kind of a meal is a once in a blue moon type of thing. I might throw out all of the leftovers even. Too much food, and too much nostalgia. 

These were the recipes that pleased la lengua de un vegan.

The Best Pasta EVERR!!!

Tonight I made a Sundried-Tomato Spinach Pesto Pasta topped with Spicy Sauteed Mushrooms with a side of Roasted Asparagus and Onions. Honestly, it was probably one of my favorite pasta dishes I've ever had... I've never eaten a pasta dish from any restaurant that even compares, especially that's vegan. It was extremely delicious and I had no recipe. It was just using the things in my fridge. What makes me like this even more is that it was like a one pot wonder. I threw some spinach, pine nuts, sundried tomatoes, garlic, salt and pepper and of course drizzled the obligatory olive oil in the food processor. Then threw it in the pot of cooked pasta. So easy, so good. I went back for seconds and thirds. I literally couldn't stop. I was so surprised on how cheesy it tasted too and there was not one flake of soy parmesan cheese or nutritional yeast. The cheesy taste, something I really haven't had in years, was very appealing! Love it!

Before I start repeating myself on how delicious that dish was, I will touch on a topic that has always turned me off about veganism. I guess it's not really veganism itself, but really the product of being a vegan and the mainstream ideals on food. Every time I go to a social gathering where food is the main "theme", it seems as though, by no one's fault, I become ostracized. For example, today at lunch there was a "breaking of the bread" ceremony. I mean, it's not as serious as it sounds. Someone just brought a loaf of bread for everyone to share. The bread, however, had melted cheese on top, thus I was the only one who couldn't have any. Now, this is was not the person's fault, I blame no one for this. I blame the fact that we put so much emphasis on food as a social event and most of our food is not vegan-accommodating, therefore I am by sheer nature of our culture neglected. Moreover, we tend to go to the same spot for lunch every day. I love the place where we go and it's the most convenient since it's in the same building in which we work. But, at no fault of anyone (again, I don't want to blame anyone, this is more of a commentary of social problems of a vegan), I have to eat the same thing almost every day. The place at which we tend to eat has only 3 vegan options: a salad, a fruit salad, or a vegan wrap (only one kind). Therefore, after three days I am starting to repeat. It gets really old and so I tend not to eat. Sooo....to make things worse, not only am I not participating thing the sharing of food, I'm not even participating in the ritual of eating as a group. The ostracism is only exacerbated when I am just sitting there at an empty table. As almost a chain reaction, I see a commonplace effect of this: I am no longer included in some of the conversation, because, for some odd reason, food is like a metaphorical ticket to join in on a conversation. I'm not saying that this happens all of the time, or if you're reading this and you were there today, don't think that this is your fault. It just happens and it's very interesting that it does.

So, overall, sometimes I just feel like veganism causes a general neglect towards vegans during social events.

I hope everyone had a good day, I'm tired and no longer can think. These are the thoughts and recipes that pleasure and are engendered by la lengua de un vegan.

Past Recipes

So, I was looking through my past pictures and picked my favorites. Some of them will actually have some of the recipes that follow. Due to my penchant for desserts, there will be a theme of sweet delights punctuated with some savory dishes. I didn't want to overwhelm anyone with past recipes all in one post, so I definitely limited them. Hope you enjoy!

The first dessert that popped up was one of my more recent ones. It was an orange poppy seed muffin with a candied ginger glaze. A friend of mine gave me a huge root of ginger, more than I could ever imagine to use. So, I decided to experiment with candying ginger. So, I set out on the almost hour-long process. After I was done with the candied ginger, I wanted to use it with something. So, like how most of my recipes start out, I looked through the fridge to see what was left over. I had a couple of oranges and I saw poppy seeds and thought I'd make orange poppy seed instead of lemon poppy seed muffins. And ginger would go perfectly. Long story short, I whipped together the muffins and chopped up the candied ginger and folded them into a glaze. They were absolutely delish!! P.S. I made this two weeks ago and I still have left over candied ginger after making several other recipes using it up!!

One day I was in a really creative mood and for some reason I wanted a Mexican-style dish but something sweet. So, I thought why not combine a fajita filling and a pancake?! Sounds interesting, right? Well, I made a sweet potato veggie pancake and topped it with a soyrizo chik'n veggie slaw kind of thing. The sweet potato pancake was sweet and savory, and the topping added that extra meaty texture. But, I wanted some more contrast. So, I whipped together a grapefruit chipotle agave syrup and drizzled it on top. It made the dish. It was extremely spicy, tart, and sweet. It brought out every flavor in the symphony. It is actually one of my favorite dishes and my most original.

I'm allergic to caffeine and therefore chocolate. Carob is good, but not may favorite thing in the world, but I absolutely love nuts! I crave peanuts all the darn time! So, this next recipe was to satisfy both brownie and nut craving. These were almond blondies:

3/4 cup of almond butter
1/3 cup oil
1 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup vanilla almond milk
extra vanilla

1 cup flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
salt to taste

1/2 cup sliced almonds
1 tbsp vegan butter
1/2 cup brown sugar
2 tbsp almond milk

Mix the first set of ingredients until well combined. Then sift in the second grouping of ingredients until just barely mixed, but yet well combined. Bake in an 350 degree oven for about 22 minutes. While baking, in a saucepan melt the butter, sugar, and milk. Once at a rolling boil, pour in almonds. Let cook for 1 to 2 minutes more. Once blondies are done, pour topping on. Cool. Enjoy!!

I feel like this post is going on forever and I have two more dishes. That being said, I'm going to just do one more. I have been wanting to dabble in raw veganism more and more. Of course, as a vegan, we naturally eat raw foods, but I want to incorporate more dishes that are raw. I might make a post later about raw veganism, but as I stand now, I can't go completely raw. So, in ode to my dessert loving ways and my desire to explore raw veganism, I decided to try out a raw mango cheesecake. Basically just purred cashews and mangos with a raisin almond crust. This was extremely delicious and I felt very energized and healthful afterwards. Better than consuming all of that raw sugar and unbleached flour. I want to delve deeper into this topic some more, but without dehydrators and with the high cost of large quantities of nuts, it can be difficult.

I hope you enjoyed some of my old recipes! I have a new recipe that I'm going to try out this week. Really simple, nothing special. But I'm excited!

These things pleasure and are expressed by la lengua de un vegan!

Bienvenu

Welcome to my vegan food blog! I'm really excited! I've been keeping a picture diary of all my vegan creations over the past year and now I decided to turn it into a full blog about my vegan adventures. I will be posting pictures, links, recipes, anything that I come across in my battle to conquer veganism. These are the things that pleasure la lengua de un vegan!

I love languages so if you notice me writing in many language, please don't be discouraged, most of my posts are in English and there is always google translate!! :D

I am going to start posting old pictures with a few of them followed by my recipes. I just don't want to get too bogged down with the past and get this revved up for all my new adventures.

The one thing that I am wanting to explore right now is date sugar. My goal is to get some in the next couple of weeks. 

But, it's extremely expensive, and as a college student (as I will probably remind you often) I sometimes cannot afford everything. And date sugar is about $13 dollars. I really want to move away from refined sugars, even if they are vegan. I have been looking for it in the stores and I have yet to find it in my local co-op. So, I might have to travel up to Kansas City and visit Whole Foods to see if they have it. If not, I'll have to order it off-line. I think it sounds awesome, but I'm just worried about the price. I really like the fact that it is high in fiber and other vitamins and minerals, which is completely different from the horrible, diabetes-inducing refined cane sugar. I have a couple of recipes in my head already formulating to test out the date sugar. Jury's still out, I'll update you on it when I purchase it.

I am very weary of processed and pre-packaged foods sometimes, but I decided to try something I just stumbled upon in my local health foods store when I was looking at hummus. It is a cheddar-style spread made from oats. I was really apprehensive at first. I don't really like the idea of trying to recreate dairy products because oftentimes they are really disgusting; however, I thought that I would give this a try. The packaging and the ingredients really were the selling point. The whole non-GMO oats thing kind of sold me because lately I've been on a "I hate Monsanto!" kick, so I got it. 

I used the spread in a wrap for dinner tonight. The wrap had a chorizo plantain filling (some leftover filling from a previous night's dinner) on top of the hickory cheddar-style spread and some vegan tempeh bacon wrapped in a sprouted tortilla. The spread definitely added a cheesy flavor. I was relieved. Before assembling the wrap, I tasted the spread on its own and was on the fence about the flavor. Luckily it was a success. I don't know if I'd buy it often (it's expensive and nutritional yeast pureed with cashews is just as effective); however, it was surprisingly good.

Hope you enjoyed my first post.  I will post some old favorite recipes soon.