Veganmofo: Fuck yes pumpkin! Pumpkin Pie Loaf/Muffins

This recipe is a based of Yellow Rose Recipes Aloha Bread and The PPK's Pumpkin Bread and various PPK pies with coconut milk.

I didn't write down the exact ratios so please let me know if you try this! This recipe made a double batch of muffins and fairly large loaf for me.



Pumpkin Pie Loaf or Muffins

Dry

• 2 cups white flour
• 1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
  2 tps baking soda
  1 dash of salt
• 2 cups dark brown sugar
  2/3 cup white sugar

Proximately:

• 1 1/2 TBS cinnamon
• 2 tsp nutmeg
• 1 tsp mace
• 1 tsp cloves
• 2 tsp ground ginger
• 1 tsp all spice (or Chinese five spice if your out like i was)

Wet

• 2 generous cups pureed pumpkin
• 1 cup oil
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
  1/2 can coconut milk
  1/3 cup toasted coconut (Optional any add ins like chocolate chips/nuts would be good too)
• earth balance for greasing

Preheat to 350 degrees and grease muffin or loaf tins with earth balance. If using coconut and it is not pre-toasted spread in single layer on pan and watch closely until colour changes.

Mix all your dry ingredients into a bowl in the order listed (I would advise sifting because I ran into issues with the baking soda clumping). Whisk together until evenly distributed. Add spices and stir again.

If you roasted the pumpkin previously like I did you can skip the preheating (just turn it down to 350 to cool)and go straight to pureeing pumpkin. Make sure to have all your pumpkin pureed in case the mixture is too dry, you don't want the wet baking soda to sit around long.

Add your pumpkin, oil, vanilla and stir to incorporate. Crack open the coconut milk and add roughly 1/2 can until the batter reaches a good consistency. Fold in your toasted coconut or other toppings.

Now divide the batter into greased muffin tins and loaf pans (I did a double muffin tin and large loaf, alternatively you can do more loaf pans or muffins to suit your preference).

Place trays into heated oven, as I had both double muffin tin and large Pyrex loaf pan side by side the muffins took approximately 40 mins and the loaf pan was done in 80 mins.

Set timer for 30 mins to be safe and check on muffins or set timer for 40 mins to check on loafs. You want an knife inserted to come out clean, if not return to oven for 20 min intervals. Remove and place on cooling rack these are super moist and might pull apart while they are still warm (messy but soo good). Allow to cool before storing in fridge with plastic wrap or in container.

 Closer look. Tasty

Enjoy alone or with Earthbalance or jams!

Veganmofo: Fuck yes pumpkin! Thai Pumpkin Soup

So along with spuratic posting comes my theme of spuratic themes for Vegan Mofo. Perhaps my favourite of all the various theme's I've been experimenting with is Fuck yes Pumpkin! which as the name suggests is me making pumpkin shit!

And I will never, ever, ever get tired of it.

Starting off with something simple inspired by the now closed Satisfaction Feast in halifax n.s. canada where they made some wicked soups one of which was a thick, creamy, spicy pumpkin soup called Thai Pumpkin.

Thai Pumpkin Soup

• 1/2 medium pumpkin roasted and pureered [roast for an hour at 400]
•  1 can coconut milk
• 3 tbs red thai curry paste
• 2 tbs corriander
• 3 tbs cumin
• 2 tbs paprika
• 2 tbs yellow curry powder
• 1 inch ginger minced or grated
• 3 large garlic cloves minced or grated
• 2 large onions minced
• 3 tbs olive oil or margerine
• 4 cups homemade vegetable stock
• salt and pepper

To start roast and puree pumpkin (or pull some from the freezer to defrost) and chop the onions. Preheat your oil/margarine in a large dutch oven on medium heat. Once heated add your curry paste and cook for a few minutes. Add spices and cook for 2-3 mins string/scrapping the bottom to get everything toasted and bubbling.

Now add your onions and salt continuing to stir and cook until the onions are translucence (5-8 mins). Things should be smelling pretty good and you can now grate in the ginger and garlic. You want to make sure everything cooks and the flavours develop but nothing burns so adjust heat as needed.

Once things are smelling good, add your pumpkin and stir/cook for 5 mins. You want to make sure the spices/onion are evenly throughout the pumpkin and it is heated through. Slowly pour in your stock until you reach the desired thickness cover and boil for 20-30 mins stirring occasionally. The soup should thicken up a bit and smell awesome. Turn down the heat and add the coconut milk, stir to thicken.

Here you can either eat immediately or if your patient you can let it cook for a bit more to mix up the flavours.

Eat with bread/naan or toppings:

• cajun roasted pumpkin seeds
• coarse sea salt
• earth balance swirled
• crushed chili flakes
• drizzle of siracha or hot sauce
• vegan coconut yogurt swirl

Happy Fall Mofo-ers!

Veganmofo: Squash Ribz time!

 

 Sorry about the delay in posts midterms and life has been kicking my butt. I have been eating and photographing though, so expect some food porn to appear eventually.

But enough about excuses, today is about ribz! My awesome Vegan Pal Blake was down for a week and made plans to make his famous ribz, unfortunately we got side tract with other adventures and never got around to it. This is one of those recipes someone talks about, but they don't really have a recipe for it. Here are his instructions to me and I'll give you some precise details about what I did and how.


Blake's explination: no recipe. I wish make BBQ sauce while I cook thin strips of squash to get them all crispy (coconut oil/butter works best), cover in sauce then cook some more.

So with his words of wisdom in mind I set off to slice my squash

Blake's Acorn Squash Ribz

• 1 Acorn Squash

• 2 Tbsp Olive Oil (I don't have coconut butter sadly)
• 1 clove garlic
• 1/3-1/2 BBQ Sauce (I got lazy and used some old stuff, I imagine Tequila Cherry from this post would work great though!)

• 

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Slice ribs along indents in squash, space across your baking sheet, use a basting brust to coat the squash in oil on all sides. Bake for 30 minutes, turn over and bake another 30 minutes until crispy.

While the squash bakes, sort through the guts to remove the seeds. I'd recommend popping them into a dry or lightly oiled skillet with some coarse salt and chili powder to snack on because these ribz are gonna take a while. If you don't have BBQ sauce laying around, you could also prep that and sides while the ribz cook.

This one was baked directly on the rack

Once the squash is crispy and cooked through, bast with BBQ sauce (liberally!) on both sides and bake at 450-500 for another 10 minutes, flip and re-baste and bake again until the sauce is caramelized. I feel as though continuing this process earlier on with numerous flips/bastes would produce even better results, but these came out great. Extra points for a broiler finish.

Serve with your choice of sides, I did mashed potatoes and steamed veggies!

Veganmofo: Autumn's Seed roastin

Autumn is a great time of year, brilliant colours, bounty harvest of produce and above all Squash, Pumpkin and more Squash.

Veganmofo has been going crazy for pumpkin recipes and it's only fitting. These babies are cheap and boy do they scream fall when you bite into cupcakes, pies, pastries, doughnuts, biscuits, soups, stews, roasts and anything else infused with this orange goodness.

As you will likely be gutting all kinds of these seed filled gems, I figured I do a quick post on how to prep your seeds for roasting and eating.

1. Gut your squash. Spoon all the stringy seedy mess into a light mess straigher.
2. Running warm water over the mess, squish with your hands to seperate the seeds form the orange muck.
3. Remove orange muck into compost and continue rinsing until seeds are clear and clean.
4. Allow seeds to fully dry.
5. Pre-heat a cast iron skillet with a light coating of oil.
6. Add dry seeds and toast over medium high heat 5-10 minutes or until browned. Tossing with seasoning of choice. Splatter guards are your friend!

And Voila! super tasty snack to munch while you wait on the squash/pumpkin.

Seasoning options include

• coarse sea salt
• dill and thyme (and salt)
• Coarse pink and black pepper with salt
• Chili powder, paprika and garlic salat
• Cinnamon and sugar, finely ground
• Cinnamon sugar and cayanne
• Cajun mix
• Cumin, Coriander, Salt, ground mustard seed and curry powder
• Oregano, thyme, sage, poultry spice and vegan-chicken-stock-powder
• Nooch, salt, paprika and garlic

But don't limit yourself to the list! Try all kinds of combos!

Note: these can also be baked, sans oil at 400 but watch them carefully!

Pumpkin French Toast Casserole (or banana, apple, other fruit)

This is basically my lazy, casual rendition of French toast, with less work. This recipe is about using what you have on hand or things that you may have no other use for or are about to get up and leave you.

The original Recipe is from Vegan Brunch by Isa, amazing book and worth your hard earned money.

This recipe is great for when you have some stale or dry bread that is past it's prime. Because this recipe is the my lazy vegan version, you can use any old bread or an assortment of breads. No matter how old, dry, stale, hard, broken or decrepit it is, because instead of perfect slices our bread is going to be cubed, torn and shredded. I also made sure to save and add all the bread crumbs I had laying around, so dump out those bags and scrap your cutting boards! Waste not, want not.

This recipe is all about using what you already have, so experiment and substitute to suit your needs. If you don't have pumpkin try squash, banana, fruit compote, sweet potato, apple sauce. Anything!

What you will need:
Baking Dish
Bowl
Cutting Board

Ingredients:
1 cup canned pumpkin (alternative, depending on what you have could be apple sauce, compote, mashed bananas)
1 cup almond milk (or any other vegan milk)
2 T corn starch (again, it you like potato or other starches use them)
2 t cinnamon
1 t nutmeg
two shakes of all spice
optional: Earth balance for buttering the baking dish and dotting the top
Optional add ins: Anything you have laying around, nuts (whole, broken, ground), coconut, dried fruit, chocolate chips, oats, flax seeds, this is your dish and it is about using what you have.

Add ins can either be mixed with pumpkin mixture, or tossed with the bread, or even sprinkled over top of the dish! Whatever you want.

a little liquid from jarred ginger or a little bit of grated fresh ginger (again, this is to taste so for stronger bite add more)
expired bread, I had a good 3/4 loaf but you could round this out with fresh bread, all bread crumbs or any bread like items you have around.

Dice your bread into bite sized cubes or tear into chunks if using soft bread save all end pieces, crumbs, fluffy bits and odds and ends. Set aside.

Mix everything else together in a bowl and preheat your oven to 350.

Place all your bread into a shallow rimmed baking dish (you can use a casserole dish or deep dish, this will result in a softer casserole. As the pumpkin mixture is pretty wet, and depending on how hard/dry your bread is you may want more layers to keep in moisture.) Since I like mine less-moist and a little crispy, I'm using a shallow baking dish so my bread is effectively in a single layer.

Pour pumpkin mixture over bread and let sit until oven is ready, the longer it sits the more it absorbs and the softer it gets. So depending on the tough/dryness of your bread and your preference for soft/pudding style eats you may want to let it sit longer.

Alternatively you can prepare this and place it in your fridge to dish out smaller amounts to cook on an as needed bases. Or even fish out your bread cubes to fry, traditional French toast style throughout the week. MMM

But since I'm being lazy, I'm just gonna plop the whole mess in the oven and not let it sit very long. About 12 minutes, stir let it sit another 12, then bake.

Baking time was around _____, again if you'd like a more pudding style dish you could stir/mix it as it cooks and reduce the cooking time.

Voila!

Serve alone, dusted with sugar, spices, citrus zest, berry sauce, syrup, ice cream or w/e.

Squash and Kale Pasta

I am not kidding when I say this may be the best thing I have ever made. Seriously, I was a cocking son-of-a-bitch for 3 full days after I made this, it was that impressive and good. This is so not my typical dish, flavour or style, but it is amazing! Much more sophisticated then my usual kitchen works. And look! there is even a real honest to goodness recipe!

this is the dish to go to for autumn filling.


Butter smooth squash, with a light creamy sauce coating pasta and veggies. And the crunchy, spicy kick of the roasted seeds (optional, but you'll be missing out!). A great seasonal dish! That is somehow rich and light at the same time!


Autumn Delight: Squash Pasta

1/2 lb. winter squash
1 medium onion diced
1/2 bunch baby kale
2-3 fat cloves garlic
2 Tbsp. olive oil
1 cup veggie stock
1/4 cup non-dairy milk
leftover roux based sauce (optional)
nooch (optional)
1 recipe roasted squash seeds (optional)
1/2 lb. pasta (any short pasta)

Seasoning to taste:
Cumin
Cayanne
Pepper
Paprika
sage
mustard seeds
pinch of nutmeg
salt
thyme
rosemary
serves 1 with leftovers
time 45 minutes


1 Quarter, peel and de-seed the squash. Cut the squash into small cubes (no larger than 1/2"). chop onion into similarly sized cubes
2 Heat the oil in a cast iron skillet over medium-high heat; add the squash, onion, pepper, mustard seeds and sauté, stirring from time to time. Cook until the squash is basically cooked-through, but still relatively firm (about 10ish minutes), seasoning to taste with salt,pepper and other seasonings.

3 Meanwhile, mince the garlic; wash the kale, chop stems and roughly tear up the leaves. When the squash is nearly cooked through, add the garlic and kale. Cook for another couple of minutes, until the kale is wilted and the garlic soft.
4 Add stock and bring to a boil. Lower to a simmer, and continue cooking until the squash has reached a tenderness to your liking . If the mixture starts to dry out, you can add a little bit more stock (or even water). Once the squash is cooked properly, stir in the non-dairy milk and if you have leftover white vegan sauce that is made with a roux add that in chunks. Roux based sauces tend to thicken a lot when chilled and if you add some to your pan it's kinda like a soft cheese or bits of tofu.
5 Toss squash mixture with nooch, roasted seeds and cooked pasta. Add more salt and pepper to taste. Sprinkle with grated vegan cheese if desired and top with roasted seeds if using.



1 Recipe Roasted seeds
1 squash worth of seeds
2 tbs olive oil
Seasoning:
Cayenne
salt
pepper
garlic powder

pre-heat oven to 350 and place a piece of parchment paper onto a tray. Toss the seeds with oil and spices and arranged in a single layer on sheet. Bake for 10-15 minutes stirring once or twice. Careful they don't burn!



Seriously!! I am not kidding go make this disk right now!

VeganMofo- New Autumn Favorite

Inspired by esme's post about apple cider doughnuts I figured it was about time Vegan House had some doughnuts. So I looked back to the last time I made doughnuts and decided to make my very own doughnut recipe based using the lovely Random Girl's as a jumping point.

If your anything like me you won't be spending all day crafting Doughnuts unless you'll have them for some time to come. So I usually double all recipes (sometimes triple), with that in mind the recipe yields more than your typical batch. So feel free to double and triple again if you like.


Autumn Cider Doughnuts

2 package active dry yeast
1 cup warm water
1 cup warm apple cider
1/2 cup vegetable margerine
1 cup sugar (I've used both brown and organic cane sugar, I suspect maple and other healthier sweeteners would work as well, so feel free to experiment and let me know how it goes)
2/3 cup more apple cider, warmed
Egg replacer equilivent to 4 eggs
4 cups whole wheat all-purpose flour
3-4 cups all purpose unbleached flour (again, for healthier doughnuts you could get away with all WW but they may be denser) {I say 3-4 as I keep the fourth cup to help kneed the dough and have never used the full cup but it could happen}
1 tsp salt 2 tsp Cinnamon and Nutmeg (More or less depending on taste)
Oil for frying

Glaze: 2 cups confectioners' sugar 1/2 cup hot vanilla soymilk

OR

Roll in:
1/2 cup sugar
2 TBS cinnamon
optional: vanilla

Dissolve the yeast packets in 1 cup of warm water and let the mixture stand until yeast clouds form (5-7 minutes).While your yeast is puffing up in a large saucepan, bring the first cup of cider to a boil. Add the margarine and sugar and stir until the margarine has melted and the sugar is dissolved. Remove from heat and COOL [believe me, I know you want to skip this step, but DON'T!]. In a separate measuring cup dissolve egg replacer and water (follow package directions, or use your favorite egg replacer recipe). When your mixture has cooled, add the puffy yeast and more warm cider. Stir in the egg replacer and 4 cups of WW flour. Mix the heck out of it. Add remaining all purpose flour slowly, reserving one cup for kneading and add the salt and spices. Mix some more, at this point you'll need to abandon your spoon (if you haven't all ready) and get in there with your hands. Again add the flour slowly, its for your own good. Only use enough to make a soft and manageable dough. Make sure to scrap down the sides of your bowl and get all your dough out. Now take your dough to a floured board and knead until smooth and elastic. Using your remaining flour to help prevent sticking, work as much as you need into the dough. Place the dough into a large greased bowl, cover and let it rise. It should doubled in bulk after about an hour.

Now again, if you are anything like me you now need to pee and your kitchen is trashed. So use this time to clean up (it'll save you in the long run). After the hour has elapsed and you've re-cleaned your kitchen, punch down your dough (this part is fun!).

On a lightly floured surface roll out the dough until it is about 1/2 inch in thickness. Cut out doughnuts with a a glass or roll dough into tiny dough nut holes. Place the doughnuts/dough wads a greased baking sheet space them an inch apart or so. Make holes if you want. Now let them rise again for 1 hour. Re-clean if you need to.

Now the exciting part, heat your oil to in a deep skillet or deep fryer (test with the end of a wooden spoon, if bubbles form you are ready to fry!) . Fry doughnuts in small batched (as many as will fit with outcrowding at a time), until golden on both side. Drain on paper towels or old paper bads. Prepare your glaze or your sugar coating. To make your glaze, mix everything untill smooth in a shallow bowl. While the doughnuts are hot (but not hot enough to burn you), coat them in glaze or roll in sugar. You may need to make more sugar and/or glaze as you go, the thicker the better in my books either way let your glaze dry into the delightful crunchy sweet goodness we associate with doughtnuts. Oh, and by the way if don't you dare waste any glaze or sugar mixture, if you wind up with too much once the doughnut glaze/sugar has hardened or set pour/drizzle the rest over top of you pile.


*See my last doughnut post for info on baking doughnuts, it is possible and healthier but it will change the texture/taste. If you are kosher with that, then go to town.

Enjoy! and eat some veggies for gods sake.