Happy Birthday!

This is going to be really short because I'm tired.

My friend's birthday was just last night and a group of us decided to make him birthday cupcakes instead of a cake. We made it vegan because he is a vegetarian but likes to dabble in veganism from time to time as well as some of the cooks are dairy-free (I'm vegan; Sarah is a dairy-free flexitarian).  We brainstormed with the things that we had in all of our apartments and we came up with these two ideas: Apple Spice Cupcakes with a Maple Brown Sugar Buttercream and Chocolate Pudding-filled Banana Cupcakes with a Peanut Butter Buttercream.

Here are the recipes:

Center: Banana; Sides: Apple Spice

Apple Spice Cupcakes

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/4 cup flax oil or coconut oil

3/4 cup apple butter

1/2 cup almond milk

1 egg replacer

1 tsp vanilla extract

1/4 cup flax meal

1 cup plus 2 tbsp all-purpose unbleached flour (or 50:50 AP:Whole wheat)

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

1 tsp ground cinnamon

1/4 freshly grated nutmeg

1/2 cup shredded apples (optional)

1/3 cup chopped, toasted pecans (optional)

1. Cream together sugars and oil.
2. Add the egg replacer, then almond milk. Follow with apple butter and vanilla.
3. Sift in the rest of the ingredients. 
4. If adding optional ingredients, fold in now.
5. Bake in a prepared cupcake/muffin tin and cook for 15-20 minutes at 350.

Maple Buttercream

2-2 1/2 cups powdered sugar

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup vegan margarine

1/2 cup pure maple syrup

1 tsp vanilla

dash of salt

1. Whip brown sugar and margarine in a large bowl.
2. Slowly drizzle in maple syrup and vanilla.
3. Add salt.
4. While mixing, slowly add powdered sugar until you reach the desired texture (for piping).

Since I'm being uber lazy and the banana one is basically the same, I will leave it at this. I do want you to know that the brown sugar in this icing recipe should not be substituted with more powdered sugar because it adds a slightly crunchy aspect to the icing, which sets it apart. Also the salt contrasts the sweetness and doesn't give you such a bad sugar rush. These were so good, and the birthday boy deep throated an entire cupcake in one bite. So, you know they are spectacular! Also, people at the party who did not know that these were vegan ate them right up. So, don't be afraid to bring this one to Thanksgiving or even a brunch. They tasted pretty much like a pancake cupcake!

Enjoy! This was a recipe that satisfied the la lengua de un vegan and so many others!

Behind on the Times!

I've been putting off writing this blog for a while, no reason in particular. I just wanted to include everything in one blog. I have, however, realized that means there has to be one really long post. I am going to try to make it as short as possible though.

Let's talk about late night cravings first. One night, not want to really make anything, and not really having anything in my kitchen to really cook, I was really craving something sweet and bad for you. I know that I say that part of being a vegan is being as healthy as possible. But sometimes, it's okay to splurge, especially when I run every day and eat as healthy as I do. I sometimes want something bad. So, what did I turn to? Cinnamon rolls!!! Now, I've made homemade cinnamon rolls in the past, but they are really time intensive. So, I looked through my fridge and saw a roll of crescent rolls. Now as a note, many people consider them vegan. There is a little controversy about trace ingredients that may or may not be vegan. However, it is almost impossible to know if something that is molecular is derived from veggies or animals. So, for times when you're in a pinch, they are fine. So, I made cinnamon rolls with vegan butter, cinnamon, brown sugar, chopped pecans and a touch of salt. Rolled them up. Baked them off and coated with an almond milk glaze. They were delicious and they hit the spot. Even though they were made with a prepackaged dough and a lot of vegan butter. You might call me a hypocrite, I just say that it was a worth-while indulgence.

Next, it was my friend birthday. So, she just loves to eat up my treats. I know that she loves brownies, but I thought that I would try something else out. Not only have I been wanting to make vegan cupcakes for a long time (I've never made a vegan cupcake...can you believe that?!!?), but I have also been wanting to try to do more creative things lately. So, I decided to make a vanilla cupcake with a strawberry, raspberry filling and a plain vanilla buttercream. I went out an bought piping bags and tips and everything! I was memorized in Michael's for hours! It was a fun experience and they turned out delicious. They were a little too sweet for me, but you know, that's what birthday cake is all about. Luckily they were nice and small cupcakes. Here's my recipe:

Strawberry Shortcake Cupcakes

Vegan Cupcake

1 tbsp apple cider vinegar
1 1/2 cup almond milk
2 cups all purpose flour
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup coconut oil, melted
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
salt
vanilla

1. Preheat oven to 350.
2. In a measuring cup, mix the vinegar and almond milk together. Set aside.
3. In a bowl, mix together coconut oil and sugar and whip until light and fluffy.
4. Slowly incorporate the almond milk mixture. Add vanilla.
5. Sift into the bowl the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. 
6. Mix until well-incorporated and airy.
7. Bake for 15-20 minutes in muffin tins.

The filling was just a pint of strawberries diced with agave nectar, cornstarch and raspberry preserves. Just melted it down in a sauce pan and reduced. I let it set to cool. The buttercream is a typical butter cream with vegan ingredients. Here's my recipe:

1/2 cup vegetable shortening

1/2 cup vegan butter

3 1/2 cup powdered sugar

vanilla

1/4 cup soy creamer

Basically whip all of these ingredients together until you have a fluffy white icing. Super simple.

These cupcakes turned out better than I was expecting and were good, but just really sweet.

Here comes another dessert. I had a dinner party and we were wanting something with rhubarb. So, we decided to make a strawberry, blueberry, rhubarb pie with a crumb topping. This was gluten-free again. It was beyond what I was expecting. I don't really like pie. And rhubarb scared me because I don't like celery and it looks just like it. But our pie turned out sweet, not too tart, and had a great balance between the sweet and savory. Overall, I was extremely pleased. I would make this again.

Last, but not least, is my vegan BBQ pulled "pork". I was at the grocery store the other day and they were having a huge 13-hour sale and they had certain vegetables on sale. So, I picked up some broccoli and spaghetti squash. I had no idea what I was going to do with that though. But then I thought, since summer is coming to a close, I should finally have the bbq that I have been craving for years. I knew the spaghetti squash has been used for so many different dishes, but the stringing texture reminded me of pulled pork. So, I just oven roasted the squash and shredded it. I cooked it in barbeque sauce. I topped it with sauteed red onions. I decided to oven roast the broccoli with some grilling seasoning. It really tied the dish together. It definitely satisfied my life-long craving for the best food on earth...BARBEQUE!

These were the meals and recipes that satisfied la lengua de un vegan and his amigos too. 

No Food Here!

Being vegan is not always about the food. Veganism is a philosophy the extends beyond diet and touches every aspect of life to ensure animal products are not being exploited. Lately I have been trying to complete my vegan cosmetics. This means I'm trying to make sure my shampoo, conditioner, face wash, face scrub, moisturizer, acne treatment, lip balm, toner and lotion are all vegan. So far I only need lotion and lip balm and everything will be complete.

It is an expensive and slow-moving journey to convert everything. I refuse to throw away old products just to go vegan. So as I have run out, I go out and buy vegan products. My favorite places to go are the Merc (a local co-op), Whole Foods and Lush. Lush is a cosmetic store that their products are 100% handmade, 100% vegetarian and 75% vegan.

I have purchased some pretty "hippy" smelling products in the past, but I've been trying to get more fruity smelling ones. This just adheres to my philosophy that veganism doesn't have to be bad. So, just because I have to buy vegan products doesn't mean it has to smell badly. This new stuff is smelling so good I want someone to shower with me just so they can smell it! haha

I just wanted to share a different part of veganism beyond the food. Hope that was quick and sweet enough!

No Title Needed!

My problem is that there is no consistent theme on which to name this post. It's mainly gluten-free, but the couscous ruins that all!

So the first dish that I made this weekend was to use up leftovers. Most of my creativity comes from the leftovers from a planned meal of the week. I had some aubergines (eggplants) left over from that one dish so I needed to use them up. I did a curried eggplant with a roasted pine nut couscous using all of the leftover vegetables from the previous week. This meal was super quick and easy. I cut up the eggplant and oven roasted them with some cumin, curry powder, and Moroccan spices. As the eggplant was roasting, I cooked the couscous. The trick to couscous is a one to one ratio. For this dish, it was one cup of water to one cup of couscous. As the couscous was steeping, I sauteed the veggies. I added the couscous and then the handfuls of spinach to barely wilt. Served that up with the eggplant on top. It was like a semi-African, semi-Mediterranean, semi-Indian dish. Forget the real origin of the dish, the still flavors married well. Let's call this dish: International Peace Treaty (lol).

For dessert that night I needed to use up the blueberries that I still had left over. They were on the brink of going bad, so the first thing that came to mind to use up a couple pints of blueberries was a blueberry crumb cake. The twist to this was that I had just bought a ton of gluten-free flours. So, my goal was to make a coffee cake (which I make all of the time) gluten-free and with blueberries. For the flour, I used a combination of brown rice flour, tapioca, and potato starches. That was really the only substitution. I followed my go-to recipe just like normal. Here's the recipe:


Streusel Topping:

1/3 cup gluten-free flour mix
1/3 cup organic cane sugar (vegan)
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 cup coconut butter

Cake Batter:

1 cup gluten-free flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/8 tsp salt
1/4 cup coconut butter
1/2 cup organic cane sugar
1 egg replacer (Enger-G or flaxseed 'egg')
1/2 tsp gluten-free pure vanilla extract
1/3 cup almond milk
One pin fresh blueberries


Preheat oven to 350 F. Grease a 8 x 8 inch pan

1. For streusel topping:  In a large bowl, mix together the flour, sugar, and ground cinnamon.  Cut in the coconut butter with fork until it resembles coarse crumbs.
2. In a separate bowl sift together the flour, baking powder, and salt.  Set aside.
3. In a small bowl make the "egg" according to your replacement package.
4. Whip the coconut butter until smooth in another bowl.  Add the sugar and whisk until airy.  Add the "egg" and vanilla.  Add one half of gluten-free flour mixture. Pour in the almond milk. Add the remaining half of the flour mixture until combined.  Pour into the bottom of the pan. 
5. Place the blueberries on top of the cake batter, followed by the topping.
6. Bake for 40 minutes. Let cool.

Since I had just cleaned out all of the leftovers, tonight for dinner I had to take random things in my pantry and make a healthful, filling meal. I came up with vegan nachos. It doesn't seem like a healthful meal, but it was full of protein, low in fat, and was definitely filling. I also had a small life changing moment during dinner tonight. It isn't really that big of a deal, many raw foodists do this, but I was blown away when I tasted it. So, as you all know I like to stay away from soy as much as possible. So, I wanted a ground beef substitute that wasn't those mediocre, bad-for-you soy crumbles that Morningstar makes. Instead I made ground beef out of almonds. It was LIFE CHANGING! Here is my recipe for the nachos:

Ground “beef”

1 cup almonds

salt and pepper

1 tbsp ancho chili powder

1 tsp grilling spice

1-2 tbsp olive oil

Fat-free refried black beans

1 can of black beans

salt and pepper

Cheese Sauce

1 cup oat milk

¼ cup nutritional yeast flake

2 tbsp gram (chickpea/garbanzo bean) flour

salt and pepper

Blackened Corn

1 cup of corn

Chipotle Seasoning

Cumin

Cayenne pepper

oil to sautee

Homemade salsa or store bought

Vegan sour cream (optional)

Cilantro (to garnish)

1. In a food processor, pulse almonds until a chucky texture. Add oil and spices until it resembles cooked, damp ground meat.
2. Boil the black beans until soft, then transfer to a bowl. Smash with a fork until a paste is formed. Season to taste.
3. In a small pot, heat up oat milk. Once it starts to barely boil, add the rest of the ingredient. Cook until barely thickened. Take off heat. It will keep thickening, so don’t cook for too long.
4. In a small skillet, preheat with oil. Add the corn. On top, add all spices. Allow to cook on med-high heat until the bottom is caramelized (blackened). Mix the corn to combine the spices and cook for one more minute.
5. Place corn chips on plate. Top with refried beans, corn, meat, cheese sauce, and salsa (in that order).
6. Sprinkle with chopped cilantro and vegan sour cream if desired.

This meal literally took me ten minutes to prepare. I made everything from scratch (except for the chips and salsa). So, this is really quick. You could even put all of the in a tortilla, cover with salsa and you have a burrito! Or could even turn this into a taco or enchilada. It is really versatile. I will forever use this almond meat from now on!! It was crazy! 

This meal did have nut and bean proteins as well as a complete protein from the nutritional yeast flake. It was gluten-free and soy-free. It incorporated some veggies too. Well, corn shouldn't count, but it does! And it adds great roughage. The salsa is what I'm really talking about. 

Hope you enjoyed the recipes. I actually put some up. I'm so lazy sometimes that I just like to blog and never put up recipes, so I hope you enjoy these! They sure did satisfy la lengua de un vegan. 

Eat Your Heart Out Gaga

Tonight everyone I know is at the Lady Gaga concert in Kansas City. But, this shows you what kind of person I am, I decided to stay home and hang with some great friends and eat some great food. We started out around 3 prepping and preparing the mise en place. The menu for dinner: a quinoa red bean burger with caramelized onions and mushrooms with a side of sweet potato fries. For dessert: a gluten-free vegan almond custard plum tart. 

Pressing the gluten-free almond crust in the tart pan.

We planned on going to yoga before we ate. So we really were doing all of the prep. We made the burgers and caramelized the onions and mushrooms, cut the sweet potatoes. However, I made the dessert so that it would be cooled and set by the time we got home from yoga, made dinner, ate and were ready for some dessert. 

The first thing with the dessert was the crust. It was a super easy crust and beyond delicious. Like, I will never use any other crust for pies, tarts, or cheesecakes. It was the best part of the entire dessert. It was brown rice flour, almond meal, coconut butter, and agave. It was soo simple. And no need to kneed, because there is no gluten that needs to be formed. So simple. I blind-baked it for 10 minutes before putting the custard filling in. The custard filling was silken tofu, almond meal, vanilla and some natural cane sugar. To top off the tart, I cut up the elegant plums that I purchased at the farmers market in St. Louis. I cut way too many but it provided a great snack for Sarah and I as we prepped the food. It turned out sweet, creamy, and fruity without it being heavy, too sweet, overpowering, or unhealthy-feeling. It was very picture-perfect as well. (There will be a final picture at the end of the post.)

Sarah cutting the sweet potatoes

As the tart was baking, Sarah cut the sweet potatoes and scallions as I tended to the caramelizing veggies and the boiling quinoa. The veggie burger recipe was super simple to put together. After the quinoa was cooked, we threw it in a bowl with chopped scallions, a can of red beans, some potato starch, walnuts and a grilling spice mix that I picked up at the spice shop in St. Louis. The spice mix tastes like grilled meat. Now, this might sound like a bad idea for a vegan, but really, it's a great idea! It brings those flavors that you can rarely impart any other way but to have charring protein from a grill. So, it really did help with the veggie burger believability. 

The sweet potato fries were topped with a Moroccan spice mix I also picked up at Soulards in STL. It gave the fries a smokey, spicy flavor that compliment the natural sweet, caramelly flavor of sweet potatoes. As a condiment to the burgers or the sweet potato fries, I whipped up my family's secret recipe barbeque sauce. It is super sweet and super smokey, so it went really well with all of the flavors the permeated the dish. The smokey burger with the sweet caramelized onions on top; the Moroccan spices on the sweet potato fries. It just tied it all together. 

I'm sorry the pictures are kind of crappy, but that's the nature of trying to photograph food at a party with a shitty camera. Regardless of the picture quality, the dinner was filling, but not heavy, while still being healthful and delicious. The entire meal was gluten-free, vegan, and refined sugar-free. The only fats were heart-healthy, skin-healthy fats that were not saturated. And the burgers had a complete protein (quinoa) as well as the proteins in the walnuts and beans. The mushrooms, spinach, and onions and sweet potatoes added the veggies that were well-needed. The plums added the sweet fruit that was lacking. Overall, this was a well-rounded meal and was beyond what I was expecting. 

These were the meals that satisfied la lengua de un vegan and other omnivores and pescatarians! :D 

Eggplant Glory

This is going to be a really short blog; however, tomorrow shall produce a lengthy one. I wanted to use up some of the beautiful eggplant that I got at the farmers market in St. Louis. So, my idea in my head was to make an eggplant roll-up stuffed with a wild rice mixture placed atop polenta cakes and spinach topped with a bruschetta topping and a balsamic vinaigrette. Well, the eggplant was a little to short for a roll up. Nevertheless, it kinda turned out the same anyway.

The eggplant was broiled in the oven with tomato sauce. The polenta cakes were fried in a pan with olive oil. Here is the recipe for the wild rice side.

2 cups brown rice, cooked
1 cup red quinoa, cooked
1/2 cup, each of green, yellow and red bell peppers, diced
1/2 cup mushrooms, diced
salt
pepper

Combine all of these ingredient in a bowl and TAH DAH you have a protein-rich side.

The bruschetta topping was quite simple. It was just some diced roma tomatoes, diced red onions, minced garlic, lemon juice, olive oil, and chiffonade basil with salt to taste.

The vinaigrette was just balsamic vinegar, red wine vinegar, and agave and olive oil, all mixed together to create an emulsification.

This is how I created the dish: I put a bunch of spinach on the plate, laid the corn cakes on top. Then placed the eggplant on top of the corn cakes (note: I scraped off most of the roasting tomato sauce). I topped that with the bruschetta and balsamic vinaigrette. On the side, I placed the quinoa-brown rice salad.

Everything combined was delicious. But to be honest, I would have preferred the quinoa-brown rice salad with the bruschetta topping mixed in. Then have a spinach salad on the side. Forget the eggplant and polenta cakes. Not saying that they aren't good, but they were unnecessary. And the irony of it all is that I thought of this dish because of the eggplant and I really wanted to try polenta. Eh, you win some and you lose some.

Overall, this was delicious as always. Tomorrow I am going to be cooking up a storm with a good friend. Be on the look out for that entry!

This was the meal that satisfied la lengua de un vegan.

Vacationing Vegan

Whew...I just got back from St. Louis and I don't think I've eaten that much in my entire life! I researched tons of vegan restaurants before I went and I didn't even get to half of them!

Every time I travel, I'm so worried I am going to have to eat horribly. Normally things like Sweet and Chili Doritos and bean burritos or something. They're cheap, in every town and vegan. But this time, I was set with tons of options! St. Louis not only had diners and cafes that catered to vegans, but it was full of ethnic food. As most people probably know, most ethnic cuisines are vegan. This is typically my trick to finding a delicious meal that won't break my nutritional lifestyle.

Normally I avoid Mexican and Italian food, because they typically are covered in cheese and dairy. However, I was really craving some Mexican food and so was my friend. So, I found a veggie-friendly Mexican restaurant in the Eastside. I got a bean burrito (yes, no lard in the beans) with all of the fixings. This burrito was like twice as big as Chipotle's. Not only did they have the best burrito, they had the most orgasmic chips and salsa of my life. I've never had anything as good as that. Overall, it was one of my favorite veg-friendly Mexican restaurants---not only for the food, but also for all the gay men! ;)

The next day, I had to wake up early in order to make it to my graduate school tour. We did not really have time to go and get breakfast, but I had to eat because if I don't, then I feel like I will vomit. We decided to go down and check out the free continental breakfast. You can probably assume what that means...not a large selection. I ended up having an untoasted english muffin with an apple, banana, and orange juice. It was satisfying, but not my first choice.

Later on, Washington University School of Medicine bought my lunch at the St. Louis Bread Co. (aka Panera). I did have many more options. I had a normal salad with their veggie soup and a fruit cup. It was extremely satisfying after a small breakfast.

By the time dinner rolled around, not only was I starving, but I was jonesing for something that was ethnic and filling. We went out in the rain (because our shuttle was busy) and went for some Indian. We ordered some veggie samosas and I got the baingan bharta. It was so good. Probably the best Indian food ever. For some reason, even their condiments for the samosas tasted better than other restaurants I've eaten at.

The next morning I was ready for a real breakfast. We went to Southside and found this cute little bakery that caters to vegans. It was really hippy and my kind of scene. I had some vegan buckwheat pancakes covered with a peach puree and maple syrup with breakfast potatoes and a black bean dish. Since it was an all-you-care-to-eat brunch, I got really full.

Afterwards we went exploring of St. Louis and stumbled into a bookstore in University City. This is where I fell in love with several vegan cookbooks but narrowed it down to two. One is about veggie burgers and the other is a gluten-free, vegan baking cookbook. My friend got some feministy books and then we headed to a vegan smoothie shop/cafe to read our books and drink some smoothies.

After smoothies and books, we went to a large farmers' market in the Eastside. This is where I died and came back to life. We walked in and went at it. I bought the most beautiful eggplants--no blemishes, firm, just beautiful--for only two dollars!!! And two pints of blueberries for a dollar! My mind was blown. But here is really where I lost it. They have a spice shop. I walked in and was completely overwhelmed by the amount of spices!! I just did not know what to say. She asked me what I wanted and I didn't know. She handed me a list of probably 100 spices and I stared blankly at the list, not comprehending a word on it. I ended up walking out with fenugreek, Moroccan spice mix, a vegetarian grilling mix, and ancho chili powder for 8 dollars!!! To humor me, I asked her to show me their cardamom. It was $1.20 for the same amount my friend bought me for $8.99. I wanted to live in that shop!! It gave me so much inspiration that I walked out of that store speechless. I couldn't talk. I know it sounds so lame, but as the crazy foodie, health-nut, I just was overwhelmed and had a geek-out moment. It literally changed my life.

I have always wanted to check out a Trader Joe's. So, as we were leaving St. Louis, we stopped by one. I was disappointed the moment I walked in. I walked through for maybe two minutes and left. It was so depressing. There was a huge Whole Foods across the street. We decided to go there and just explore as well as get dinner from their hot bar. It was decidedly the healthiest meal of the entire trip and the cheapest. I had vegan fajitas with broccoli and a kemut, barely, quinoa salad.

Overall, the entire trip was extremely vegan friendly and I never even made it to an Ethiopian or Mediterranean, and not even to the vegan-friendly bakery. So, I know there is much more to explore when I return. And I will.

So, tonight I made a gluten-free, vegan blueberry muffin inspired by the cookbook I bought as well as the beautiful blueberries. I used brown rice flour and garbanzo bean flour. I sweetened them with maple syrup and brown rice syrup. Basically, this muffin is as healthy as it gets. Gluten-free, vegan and no refined sugars. And I just tried them, and they are delicious! They are light and airy, not dense like normal. They are just appropriately sweet. And they don't taste like they are gluten-free either. They are kind of nutty. It's really good.


I hope you guys enjoyed this very long blog about food in Saint Louis. Hopefully the picture at the end was a great end to the entire thing.