Veg finds at the Salcedo Market Part 1: Vegan MoFo #13

(Pop, Luisa, Martin, Michael, and Bea in front of the market's entrance;

this would've been a great picture if my dad wasn't kidding around with Luisa while posing)

The Salcedo Market is a great place to shop for organic produce, native delicacies, home-cooked meals and local kitchenware while supporting small and medium enterprises, budding entrepreneurs, and locally grown and manufactured products. It's a nice way to spend your Saturday mornings too -- you can stroll through the stalls, get free samples of food, do your grocery, and even have lunch or a snack before heading back home. Not to be mistaken with traditional Filipino markets, the Salcedo market is a clean and secure place where people from the upper crust can feel like they're at an honest to goodness market. Foreign tourists and expatriates need not worry about bag snatchers and icky slime on the floor, that's for sure. Oh and in case you were wondering, I think the ratio of Filipinos and foreigners was 60/40. And I think I saw at least 5 Louis Vuitton purses.









(a sad day for companion animals indeed)

Not like other retail places in the Philippines, it's actually accepted and "fashionable" to bring your own reusable shopping bag. If you think about it, back in the olden days our lolos and lolas (grandparents) went shopping with banig bags (bags made from woven native fibers) out of necessity. You can actually buy a banig bag at a stall for only P100 ($2). Great thing about banig bags too is that they're biodegradable! You can get other items made from woven fibers here too, such as Christmas decor, baskets, fans, and hats.

While buying produce at a grocery store feels like a chore, buying produce from this market feels therapeutic. Maybe it's because none of the items are refrigerated (and neither are you in an artificially ventilated [aka air conditioned] place), or that they are displayed in plastic crates, or that they aren't wrapped up in plastic. As a shopper, you can pick up your fruit / vegetable of choice, touch it, smell it, feel it, and select which ones you want. The grocer does not pre-select your food for you, you get to do it yourself. Nothing is pre-weighed too. There really is something charming about getting to choose your own veggies and fruits, having them weighed by a non-electronic weighing scale, and carrying them in shopping bags made from dried palm leaves with zero use of plastic.

Perhaps I'm biased, but shopping for fruits and vegetables is much more fun than shopping for animal flesh. With flesh all you'll see are brown, red, and more shades of brown. Literally every color of the rainbow is represented when you shop for produce. The selection of leafy greens just astounds me. If you want an exciting experience buying veggies, I highly recommend checking out the Salcedo market stalls. Fresh button mushrooms, large American sized eggplants, and peppers as big as your hand, oh my! Last year I remember getting worked up when I saw bunches (not a few stems, but bunches) of fresh dill displayed.







Other great finds include:

Fruit and vegetable cocktails meant to naturally cure ailments, the way God intended (remedies are free from animal testing, of course).

Freshly baked wholewheat bread, bagels, pan de sal, pita bread, foccacia, you name it, Salcedo Market has it. Ask the concessionaires about milk and egg products, of course.

Never in my wildest dreams would I have thought to find malunggay pesto! I didn't get to ask the concessionaire if it had cheese, I was just too excited to photograph it.

Chutneys and jams made from papaya, mango, tomato, and mangosteen, wine made from cashews, ketchup made from pineapple, pickled ampalaya, and organic sinamak (spiced Ilonggo vinegar).

As this has become an epic , I'll finish off my veg finds at Salcedo in a second post!

The Salcedo Market is open from 7am to 2pm on Saturdays. You can find the market in the parking lot of the Salcedo park, across the Three Salcedo apartment building in Makati.

A chocolate cake inspired by Martha + a vegan survey: Vegan MoFo #12

Nothing much to blog about here in vegan baking land, except that I made a pretty successful birthday cake for one of my clients (I feel so important using that word!). A 2 layer vanilla cake with chocolate buttercream, and I dusted in black polka dots (inspired by Martha Stewart’s craftiness) and the birthday greeting. Have to admit, cupcakes are much simpler to decorate but cakes are more fulfilling in the decorating department! It's pretty difficult to try to get the frosting smoothed out.


Anyway I found out about this survey from Food Snobbery is my Hobbery and I thought it’d be fun to answer. Here it goes!

1. Name a song that involves food in some way.
Sugar from Tick, Tick, Boom! “Sugar! She’s refined, for a small price she blows my mind. Sugar, she’s got the power to soothe my soul for half an hour…”

2. What criteria do you use when choosing a new cookbook to buy?
It should have nice food photos and easy to prepare dishes. I wish there was a vegan Filipino cookbook around! Hmmm, maybe I should pen one…

3. What did you eat today?
Breakfast: cereal with flax seeds, sunflower seeds, sliced banana, and cappuccino-flavored soymilk
Lunch: tofu scramble sautéed with garlic, onions and tomatoes; cannellini beans with pesto; and string beans

4. Name a vegan food that you know exists but you have never tried.
Fake cheese, vegan marshmallows, vegan white chocolate chips, tofurkey, fake bacon, store bought fake sausages, earth balance, soy-based whipped cream in a can, non-dairy milk and ice cream that is not soy,…

5. The Food Network just called and needs you to start your new show tomorrow. What will the title of the show be?
How to become a Vegan Domestic Goddess (of course!)

6. Favorite hot sauce or other spicy condiment?
Chiu chow chili, sili labuyo / local bird’s eye chili, spicy vinegar from Iligan City also known as “Pinakurat”

7. How old were you when you became vegetarian/vegan?
Vegetarian at 23, 3 months after that I turned vegan

8. Favorite vegan cheeze?
Never tried! So far I’ve made tofu ricotta from Veganomicon and I like that.

9. Cutest baby animal?
I don't like comparing the cuteness of baby animals, but if I had to it would be kittens and hedgehogs.









(Lucky at 4 weeks, photo taken by my cousin) (photo taken from here)

10. Favorite type of jam/jelly/marmalade/preserves?
Not a big fan of jam, but I do like mango jam and kalamansi marmalade. Oh and, coco jam. On toasted pan de sal, yum!

11. Do you take any vitamins/supplements?
Multi-vitamin which I know I should take everyday but I don't, a B-12 once a week, and vitamin C when I feel a cold coming. Spirulina when I remember.

12. What food/dish most embodies the Fall season?
There’s no fall in this part of the world, but in terms of the “winter” / holiday season, I’d have to say the various traditional desserts that make this country awesome (naturally vegan too!)! Puto bumbong (purple rice cakes cooked in bamboo tubes and slathered with coconut and palm sugar), puto (steamed white rice cakes), sapin sapin (rice cake with different colored and flavored layers eaten with latik / fried coconut milk solids), biko (rice cake with a caramelized coconut milk topping), carioca (fried caramelized rice balls), turon (caramelized banana spring rolls), you get the picture.

13. What food would you have a hard time living without?
Herbs and spices (specifically cilantro and coriander), rose water, fruit, arugula, eggplant, and cupcakes.

14. Coffee, tea, or hot chocolate?
Green tea or my new favorite herbal tea: Chanakara's Blue Ginger by The Stash Tea Company

15. It’s 10PM and you’re starving. What do you eat?
I’m sure to have cookies or cupcakes lying around… but usually I head for some fruit like mango or pineapple.

16. If you have an animal companion, what is his/her favorite food?
My cats eat kibble, but ever so often I give them tuna flakes.

17. Worst injury you’ve gotten in the kitchen?
Nothing to harp about, but I’ve been known to slice off a teeny bit of finger skin here and there, and I’ve burnt of some bits of knuckle skin too by being careless with the oven.

18. When you have a food-related question, who do you call?
Google or my cookbooks. In terms of cooking methods sometimes I go to my Betty Crocker cook book.

19. Summer is ending- What food will you miss most?
Hmmm summer is year long here. I think I’ll miss grilled veggies and fresh fruit like chico.

20. What snacks do you keep in your purse/backpack/desk at work?
I keep a stash of green tea in my desk drawer, and I don’t usually leave the house without an apple or orange in my purse. And bottled water.

21. Favorite soup to make on a rainy day?
Lentil soup with thyme and tarragon OR rosemary. Arroz caldo too, with lots of ginger.

22. What’s your favorite combination of fresh vegetable and/or fruit juices?
I like kalamansi juice or buko / coconut juice, never together. Either one + coconut rum = yum!

23. Favorite brand of root beer?
I’m boycotting all sugary beverages! I used to love Sarsi (local root beer brand).

24. Make up your own question!
Favorite bean dish? Chickpeas or black eyed peas tossed with chopped garlic, kalamansi juice, optional grated ginger, optional olive oil, and chopped cilantro.

How to get rid of excess frosting: Vegan MoFo #11

This problem was bound to happen: I bake a ton of cupcakes, a variety of flavors at that (with their own corresponding flavored frosting, of course), and once I've frosted and gotten rid of them, I'm left with small amounts of different frostings. What do you do when you're left with 5 different flavored frostings??

Bake a cake of course. Not just any cake, but a vanilla cake. A square (or rectangular) vanilla cake. Vanilla's a good flavor to bake since it's pretty neutral and goes with almost any frosting you've got lying around. In my case I had lemon, lime, vanilla, rose water, and chocolate buttercream lying around.


I find that cakes with edges (i.e. square or rectangle) are better since you can slice the cake up into even pieces (they're pick uppable too). Best to remove the edges so that each slice looks about the same as the other. You can slice them as big or as little (portion control!) as you want. I suspect these are party-friendly too: you can have a bunch of sliced cake with different frostings lying around for everyone to try. You can do vanilla cupcakes if you like, but cakes are just so much easier to make. No need to fuss with liners and ice cream scoopers.


And, keeping up with the spirit of being a vegan domestic goddess, no need to bring out your frosting bags and 10 different frosting tips. Just slather on the frosting, add some nuts if you like, and you're done. Now you have more time to do other things, such as have tea while you blog or Facebook.