Vegan activism in the workplace

The workplace is a great place for vegans to be food activists. Back when I worked in an office, my co-workers liked to bring packed lunches as did I. As long as you have fantastic tasting vegan food to share, people will listen to you harp about the health and compassionate benefits of a vegan diet. It helps when you don’t sound condescending and don’t talk about the animal cruelty part of an omnivorous diet.

Instead, focus on the positive: how you can get maximum flavour by using herbs and spices; how roasting or grilling vegetables will make a veggie lover out of a veggie hater; how tofu gets tasty from absorbing any marinade you soak it in; how beans are the most versatile ingredient there is and add heartiness to soups and main dishes.

Of course, the health benefits is a bonus too: yummy food doesn’t have to kill your arteries with cholesterol; you can solve that constipation problem without relying on psyllium husks or Fibrosine; you can easily manage your weight by eating whole food; and this isn’t a health benefit but a benefit nonetheless – plants are cheap. You can make a cheapy vegan dish and have it taste gourmet-ish.

Making your co-workers vegan should not be your #1 goal when sharing your food and discussing vegetarianism with them. People need to make the decision by themselves and on their own time. Your main goal should be to inspire your co-workers to think about the food they eat.

I think I’ve been a fairly good vegan activist in my workplace. I’ve already inspired a former co-worker friend to go vegetarian merely by sharing my lunch with her and sharing cooking tips. Two other co-workers have voluntarily tried TVP (texturized vegetable protein). In fact, I bought TVP granules for them to cook into spaghetti bolognaise, lasagne, burgers, and siomai at home.

Apart from sharing lunches with co-workers, office festivities are another tool to get vegan food in the spotlight. About a month ago, the October celebrants in my former office hosted a merienda for everyone on our floor. I think we served food for about 50-60 people. The others brought barbecue, baked macaroni and drinks; I volunteered to bring a pasta salad and brownies.

Here is a recipe for the farfalle and black bean salad I made for an office birthday celebration. The great thing about this dish is that it was so easy to make, and cheap too! The recipe feeds 8-10 people and you’ll end up spending about P25 / US $0.52 per person.

Farfalle and black bean salad
Ingredients
1 bag, 250g dried black beans / black sitaw, cooked
1 bag, 500g farfalle / bow-tie pasta, cooked
1 bag, 1kg calamansi, juiced
1 head garlic, grated or chopped finely
½ to ¾ c. vegetable oil – olive or combination of olive and canola
1 ½ kg tomatoes, seeded and chopped finely
1 large yellow bell pepper (optional), seeded and chopped finely
1 head onion, chopped finely
1 bag, 100g basil, chiffonaded
Salt and pepper
Additional calamansi juice or vinegar if needed, such as cane, balsamic, or red wine

1. Place the pasta in a large salad bowl. Combine the calamansi juice and garlic; add half of this mixture to the pasta. Drizzle in the vegetable oil – the amount is up to you. Add enough to lubricate the pasta, about ½ to ¾ cup. Toss to coat. The pasta may seem sticky because of the starch, but just be patient with it. The dressing will loosen it up.
2. Add in the black beans, tomatoes, bell pepper, and onion. Add the remaining half of the calamansi-garlic mixture as well as salt and pepper. Toss to coat.
3. Add the basil to the salad and toss. Taste and if needed, season with more salt and pepper. If the dressing seems to be lacking, add more calamansi juice or vinegar.

Suggestions

1. Serve the pasta in a large bowl and top with a basil branch.
2. This pasta is perfect for potlucks because heating it up is not an issue. This can be served cold or room temperature.
3. Play around with the ingredients:
• Pasta – aside from farfalle (bow-tie), you can use: orecchiette (litte ears), conchiglie (shells), ruote (wheels), fusilli (corkscrew), penne, or macaroni.
• Legumes – aside from black beans, you can use: kidney beans, cannelini / white beans, lima beans, chickpeas / garbanzos, lentils, even mongo.
• Vegetables – you can use: cucumber, julienned carrots, singkamas, roasted eggplant, etc.
• Herbs – aside from basil, you can use: cilantro (wansoy), rosemary, tarragon, parsley, dill.
• Acid – aside from calamansi juice, you can use: lemon, lime, or even vinegar such as cane, coconut, balsamic, or red wine.

For vegans who miss puchero: Vegan MoFo #8

Holy crapparoni, I’ve missed 2 days of MoFo’ing. I gotta get my ass into shape…

What I’d like to share today is a vegan version of another childhood favorite: puchero.

I think this dish is something every Filipino family has its own version of. Puchero actually came from Mexican and South American cuisine. It arrived in the Philippines via Spain and I guess, puchero is one good thing we can thank our colonizers / slavemasters of 300 years for.

Puchero, Spanish for “stewpot”, comes from Argentina, Uruguay, and Spain. According to Wikipedia, the preparation and ingredients of the dish vary by region. Spain particularly likes chickpeas while Argentina and Uruguay like theirs meat-based. Puchero is usually made up of a soup of meat and vegetables.

Here in the Philippines we use chicken, beef, cabbage, baguio pechay / Chinese cabbage, and potatoes. We also like having boiled saba / cooking bananas served on the side. For families who can trace their roots to Spain (fun trivia, on my paternal grandfather’s side we get our Spanish blood from a friar), we like adding chorizo / pork sausage and chickpeas. I believe puchero is usually eaten as a hearty soup but for those with Spanish influences, we like ours soup on the side, meat and veggies served separately, and with rice.












I fondly remember the Sunday puchero tradition upheld in my family. We usually chop up the meat and veggies and mix it with rice, tomato sauce, olive oil, and vinegar in a huge wooden bowl. Each of us had an assignment, whether it’s chopping the meat, or the veggies, or pouring the sauce. My dad usually added the final touch, whether it was a splash of vinegar or a dash of salt. It was a family affair and it was so satisfying to sit down and eat the fruits of our labor.

When my brother Michael and I turned vegan, we no longer joined in this tradition. We missed the family food preparation. When everyone else would enjoy the puchero, we would have some completely different vegan meal.

Last Sunday we had puchero for lunch and for the first time we were able to enjoy a vegan puchero! It felt completely familiar at once and incredibly satisfying to eat. We missed our puchero. For our version we cooked our vegetables (cabbage and baguio pechay) and saba bananas in gently boiling water until tender. Chickpeas, usually an afterthought, became one of the main stars of the dish. We cooked ours in garlic, onions, tomatoes, salt and pepper.

And I confess, I missed chorizo – or rather, the smoky saltiness it imparts. Luckily I had a stash of homemade vegan chorizo (off Isa’s Vegan Brunch cookbook) in the freezer. I threw in a couple of chorizos in a sautee pan with about 1 inch of water and simmered them until tender. I then sliced the sausages in half, and then in quarters diagonally. So as not to throw out the now flavorful cooking liquid, I sautéed some sliced onions in it with a splash of olive oil until tender. After setting the onions aside, I added another glug of olive oil in the same pan and fried up the chorizos.


Eating puchero after years of no puchero was… nothing short of amazing. We didn’t have the time to slice up the chorizo and veggies and mix it up with chickpeas, rice, tomato sauce, olive oil and vinegar like our family usually does but it was rewarding just the same. I got bits of everything and couldn’t even fit rice onto my plate.

If you come from a family that regularly eats a meat-based puchero – you can have your puchero veganified! So to summarize:

1. Cook vegetables and saba bananas separately from the meat.
2. Gussy up your chickpeas – cook them with garlic, onions, and tomatoes.
3. Fry up your favorite vegan chorizo, either store bought or homemade. Check out Julie’s Spicy Italian Sausages, they’re a good substitute.
4. The puchero seasonings – tomato sauce (cooked with garlic and onions), olive oil, and vinegar – are already naturally vegan!
5. Mix everything together and dig in!

Happy Feast Day, Vegans! + a vegan birthday dinner + bodacious birthday apple cobbler: Vegan MoFo #3

Belated Happy World Animal Day, guys!

Hey vegans, it’s our Feast Day too! Yesterday was the feast day of St. Francis of Assisi (1182-1226), the Patron Saint of animals and the environment. Since becoming vegetarian, St. Francis has become my favorite saint; so favorite, I named my third cat after him.

Bear with me for a few paragraphs! I’m lifting this straight from the Catholic Encyclopedia entry on St. Francis. He truly was an amazing person. Omnivores and vegetarians alike could all learn a thing or two from this man:

‘The very animals found in Francis a tender friend and protector; thus we find him pleading with the people of Gubbio to feed the fierce wolf that had ravished their flocks, because through hunger "Brother Wolf" had done this wrong.

‘And the early legends have left us many an idyllic picture of how beasts and birds alike susceptible to the charm of Francis's gentle ways, entered into loving companionship with him; how the hunted leveret sought to attract his notice; how the half-frozen bees crawled towards him in the winter to be fed; how the wild falcon fluttered around him; how the nightingale sang with him in sweetest content in the ilex grove at the Carceri, and how his "little brethren the birds" listened so devoutly to his sermon by the roadside near Bevagna that Francis chided himself for not having thought of preaching to them before [as pictured up there].

‘Francis's love of nature also stands out in bold relief in the world he moved in. He delighted to commune with the wild flowers, the crystal spring, and the friendly fire, and to greet the sun as it rose upon the fair Umbrian vale. In this respect, indeed, St. Francis's "gift of sympathy" seems to have been wider even than St. Paul's, for we find no evidence in the great Apostle of a love for nature or for animals.’

According to legend, on his deathbed St. Francis thanked his donkey for carrying and helping him throughout his life and his donkey wept (okay I got this from Wikipedia).

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Anyway, on to MoFo’ing. My birthday comes right after St. Francis’s feast day, I don’t know why I wasn’t named Francesca, or Frances, or Francine, or whatever derivative you can think of. I am not so big on naming my future children after Saints, but Francis I wouldn’t mind :)

I was so set on blogging about the completely vegan dinner I had last night with family in Corner Tree Café (same guys who buy my cupcakes; a vegan-friendly, vegetarian restaurant) but man, I gotta be quick on my toes with the photographing. For appetizers, we had:

This awesome starter plate of fresh vegetable sticks (cucumber, jicama, carrots) “on the rocks”, chunks of crusty wholewheat bread, white bean hummus, olive oil, and dukka – an Egyptian sesame-seed-and-spice blend.

Wholewheat breadsticks with marinated herbed olives. Not a huge olive fan, my family seemed to like it, but I thought it was way overpriced. They gave us only 2 breadsticks.

And an organic green salad with carrots, beets, and walnuts in a lemon-mustard dressing.


I’m not a big fan of sugary drinks (I wouldn’t mind fresh buko juice or calamansi juice) but I ordered this lemongrass iced tea. It was different, a good kind! Lemongrass-y and gingery.

This is where I stopped taking photos because my 18-month old nephew got hold of my camera. We were also pretty much starving and dug in right away when the servers brought out the food.

We also had the tomato and bread soup, which was nice and chunky.

Our entrees include:

1. North African vegetable stew with couscous. Flavorful, almost curry-like without the coconut milk but not heavy on the tummy at all. Corner Tree used “gentler”, less heavy spices.
2. Vegetable koftas in tomato sauce. Just like Italian meatballs except the koftas were a bit more tender.
3. Tofu-walnut burgers topped with crispy onions with a side of gravy. This was a winner for Michael, my vegan brother. Last time I was here I ordered mine in a whole-wheat bun, this time this was served platter-style, with a side of red rice.
4. Spaghettini with broccoli, pine nuts, and lemon. This dish was flavorful thanks to the lemony goodness.
5. Kare-kare na gulay. A Filipino peanut stew of vegetables (leafy greens and mushrooms). Omnivores usually eat this with bagoong or fermented shrimp paste. This was served with vegetarian bagoong made from tausi, aka fermented black beans (a typical Chinese condiment). I didn’t get to taste this dish but my dad said it was good.

Corner Tree Cafe (Vegetarian Food)
Francesca Mabanta
150 Jupiter Street Bel-Air, Makati, Metro Manila
(632) 897-0295
NB: They are closed on Mondays.

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So this was the second time in a row that I had to make my own birthday dessert, but I didn’t mind! I made a super quickie, seriously thrown-together apple cobbler from The Joy of Vegan Baking. I swear, Colleen Patrick-Goudreau is my hero! I love her piecrust-making methods, I’ll never make pies a different way again.

From start to finish including baking, it took me about an hour and fifteen minutes to make this cobbler – but I had help with the peeling and coring of apples. I was set on making a strawberry cobbler with frozen strawberries but I couldn’t find the right recipe (most needed fresh berries). Luckily I had some Fuji apples so I made an apple cobbler instead.

Er, apologies for the crap photo… someone’s little hands smudged up the camera.

Fruit-based desserts are definitely tastier than any other kind, in my book. I don’t want to brag (well it wasn’t my recipe to begin with) but everyone loved it :) Will definitely make this again, especially since it was a no-brainer. Seriously, please make this.

Colleen’s recipe is super easy to follow, it’s like the apple pie for lazy people or for people who are still iffy in the piecrust-making department. Some notes on apple cobbler-making:

1. The recipe called for an 8- or 9-inch baking pan but I chose to use an 8x10 glass pan because the cobbler had to serve 14 people.
2. If you’re doing the 8x10 glass pan, I highly recommend adding an additional half recipe of the cobbler dough just so you get enough spread on top.
3. The recipe called for 5 cups of tart apples, I used 5 sweet Fuji apples. I’m not a fan of tart fruity desserts, sorry. The apples amounted to more than 5 cups = no problem. No need to adjust the sugar mixture you combine with it.
4. I’m not a fan of white sugar either. Definitely substitute washed / raw sugar. If you don’t have that on hand, then use a 50-50 mixture of white and brown to ease up on the empty calories.
5. No margarine? No problem. Use unbleached coconut oil. Coconut oil smells amazing and lends a good round “fatty flavor” to the dough. I can’t explain it better, just that coconut oil is awesome. I bought mine from Tindahang Sakto .
6. I brought the cobbler from the oven to the restaurant. If you’re transporting a dish that came straight from the oven, I highly recommend you cover the dish with foil and place it on a wooden tray with a thick layer of newspaper for protection. Don’t use a plastic tray! I even added a dish towel between the dish and the newspaper.

Not a bad birthday so far.

Apple pie and black eyed peas and cats, oh my!

Today (Saturday) was one swelteringly humid day(probably 30 deg C or +90 deg F in the kitchen!), but that didn't stop me from baking my first vegan pie. Quite frankly I get intimidated with pies... I am not good at making crusts. The last time I made a pie was 2 years ago for my mom's birthday -- a (non vegan) apple pie. I hated rolling the dough on our kitchen counter because the dough would almost always stick on the surface.

But can you believe I haven't had pie in 8 months? And before that, about a year and a couple of months? Yeah, if I craved pie, I'd have to make it myself (ditto with cake, cookies, or cupcakes)...

So I did just that today. At first I was looking at Lauren Ulm's blueberry hand pies, but I was thinking, maybe I should stick to traditional pies (also, where the heck would you find blueberries in this country?). Then I spotted her mini apple pies, then I remembered Colleen Patrick Goudreau had an apple pie recipe in her cookbook, The Joy of Vegan Baking. That pretty much sealed the deal.


Colleen's instructions for her flaky pie crust were extremely easy to follow. I was a bit apprehensive about pie-making today because of the heat, but her tip to freeze everything -- the margarine, shortening, and flour -- helped mixing the dough a breeze. There's a 1-hr waiting period between mixing the dough and rolling it out into a crust, which was perfect because I was able to run errands and buy some apples. Her cookbook called for refrigerating the dough for 1 hour but I ended up freezing mine. If you live in a tropical country, you'll know that freezing dough makes more sense than refrigerating it.

Then came the hard part: rolling it out. I cheated and lined my kitchen counter with my Silpats, which helped immensely (I know I know, I'm a fake baker!). I suppose you can roll it out on plastic wrap or wax paper. And wow, how easy it was to transfer the rolled out dough from Silpats to pie dish! I may just make pies more frequently now.


Diced apples with lemon juice, raw sugar, cinnamon, and a pinch of salt.

Colleen's recipe was super easy to follow and before I knew it, I had a pie baking in the oven. What excitement! What joy! I was so giddy. Unfortunately I stuck the pie in the oven at around 6pm and it didn't make it in time for dessert -- the recipe recommends letting the pie cool for 3-4 hours, to let the juices thicken. Actually this waiting process was a blessing in disguise... My family is having lunch out tomorrow for my dad's birthday, and he absolutely adores apple pie. So right now I can't say for sure how good the pie tastes like, except that it looks pretty good. Nevermind that the crust looks *slightly* brown -- so I tried to healthify it by using raw sugar instead of brown, big deal. The recipe called for sprinkling the top of the crust with a cinnamon-sugar mixture (I had to cover the pie in foil half-way through baking to avoid even more burntness). Here's to hoping it tastes as awesome as it looks.

PS I never used to crimp the edges of my pie crusts, I'd always just press the tines of a fork in the edges to seal them. I truly feel like a domestic goddess with the whole crimping action :)



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So after sticking the pie in the oven, I was left with an extra peeled apple. Let me tell you that refrigerators (yes we have 2 - the vegan and the omni. Three, if you count the one sitting in my garage, unplugged and unused) in my house don't bode well for little bits of leftovers. Leftovers often get shoved into our refrigerators, never to be seen or heard of again until we go around hunting for extra food containers (because we almost always run out of food containers with all the leftovers being shoved in the fridges -- what a vicious cycle!) and unearth food with fuzz.

I ended up sticking the extra apple in a black eyed pea spiced stew my brother and I were having for dinner (before you gag, read on!). We had a leftover container of this black eyed pea-tomato sauce mixture which didn't really have much taste... It had no spices (except for chili) or herbs whatsoever, only the usual garlic and onions. I decided to throw in a teaspoon of cumin seeds in a skillet of hot oil, sautee some slivered onion and sliced apples, add a dash of smoked paprika, oregano, and cinnamon, then mix in the black eyed pea mixture along with chopped cilantro. Oh and I added in the juice of half a lemon, whose other half I used for the apple pie (I am a total leftover saver!).


An apple and black eyed pea spiced stew = yum!

What a fortunate fortunate discovery -- the apples did not weird the dish out at all! For some reason the sweetness of the apples tempered the spices, especially the cumin. I can't say for sure how long I cooked the dish, because I just winged it. The apples weren't mushy -- they were softened a bit yet crisp. So, tip: apples go well in spiced bean stews.

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Just some gratuitous pictures of the babies:


Poor poor Lucky, the little man has had fever for over a week and seems to be recovering. Last Saturday night I found a lump (!!! I thought it was a cyst!) in the left side of his throat which turned out to be an infected wound that turned into some sort of boil. The vet said he may've gotten bitten by another cat :( Unfortunately for us, the cats can't stay indoors because my mom believes that my youngest brother (who is fond of the cats himself) is allergic to them. We've built a nice cattery for them in the garden and I let them explore the garden during the day. Often times they meet stray cats, and believe me this country is brimming with stray cats. Lucky's on antibiotics for 2 weeks (now on his 2nd week) and we had to spread some ointment on his lump to speed up the healing process. He's had a fever for a week which made him pretty lethargic and sleepy most days. Today he decided to venture into the garden and disappear for the whole afternoon. As I put him back in the cattery I found out that he has another lump, this time in the right side of his throat :( Will have to consult the vet again tomorrow morning.


The little lady herself, who used to be healthier than Lucky, isn't in tip top shape either! Last Thursday night as I cuddled her, I smelled this awful sewer-like smell seeping from the top of her head. As I laid her down I felt my hands were wet and smelled like the sewer. Lo and behold, her bum leg was seriously infected. Apparently, since she doesn't use the paw on the bum leg, her thumb nail had grown so long and grew back into her paw. It caused a nasty infection, which spread onto her bum leg and her chest, causing her fur to fall out! In addition to the ingrown nail was rain getting stuck in her fur -- whenever her chest and bum leg would get wet, they wouldn't dry off properly because of the way she folds her leg over her chest. The vet was able to cut out the ingrown nail and prescribed an anti-bacterial cream to be spread on her leg and chest 2-3 times a day for a week, and antibiotics for 2 weeks. Included with the drugs is this cone she has to wear around her neck so she won't lick off the cream. Oh and, whenever it rains she's not allowed out :(


And Francis Boy over here is the healthiest of them all. This little guy hasn't experienced any sickness or complication whatsoever. Francis loves hanging out in the garden, meowing for attention and getting his ears rubbed by us. He absolutely hates being picked up. Sometimes he can be such a dear dear pet, always begging to be loved, but when he knows you want to put him back in the cattery, he runs for his life and disappears up the mango tree. I guess you can say he's the most streetsmart of 'em all because he loves climbing trees and fences and going into our neighbors' gardens, with nary a scrape or wound on him. He grooms himself quite splendidly and I'm sure he's aware he's one good looking cat.



The picture on the left is of little Francis as a baby, when we newly rescued him. This was taken in October 2008 and I'm guestimating that he's about a year old now. If you look at the pictures on the left (then) and the right (now), he still has the same dagger-eyes expression! Despite his fierce appearance, he is the sweetest, most lovable cat there is. He is almost like a dog in the sense that he doesn't look down on his human, as most cats do :)

Stuff I've been doing + a duck photo

Sorry blog, I neglected you once again. Here's what I've been up to since my last post:














Chocolate cupcake and almond rosewater cupcake.

Tinkering around with rose-inspired frosting designs. I've been spying cupcakes frosted to look like roses 'round Flickr and it's been driving me crazy. I really couldn't figure out how those bakers did it! After a few experiments I finally broke the code. I'm not sure if this is supposed to be a super baker's secret, but what the hell. You basically use a 5-point star tip, start frosting from the center and work your way out. So simple yet so stunning.


Missing old childhood food. I don't miss the dead animal flesh mind you, I just miss the familiarity of eating a burger sandwich, using an actual bun, filled with ketchup and mustard. I took this photo about 2 months ago and uploaded it in Flickr 3 weeks ago. As of this post it's received 99 views. Hmmm. I guess vegans do miss familiar food. This is a burger bun filled with 3 vegan burger patties, a couple of lettuce leaves, and a good dose of mango vinaigrette. I know, not conventional, but it went pretty well. The vinaigrette was a version of this recipe but with cane vinegar subbing for the calamansi juice and olive oil subbing for the sesame oil. The burger patties are a version of Vegan with a Vengeance's.


Promoting vegan cupcakes to mainstream media. I sent a box of these cupcakes to a well known local food magazine for a pictorial. They actually found me on Multiply! So so tickled. Anyway, the magazine edition with the cupcakes should come out sometime in the 4th quarter. This box has 6 flavors.

Top, L-R: red velvet, chai latte, lemony.
Bottom, L-R: banoffee, carrot cake, almond rosewater.

I sent the same box to a vegetarian restaurant in the Makati CBD called Corner Tree Cafe. They seem to like 'em, they've been ordering every week for their customers. If any of you readers are around Jupiter St. in Makati, hit up Corner Tree Cafe! It's near Aristocrat.

(I also sent another box of cupcakes to a lifestyle magazine targeted to Southern Manilenyos, not pictured. Well received too!)


Cupcake-catering for my lolo's / grandfather's 95th birthday party. My dad asked me to make cupcakes for giveaways for guests. In the span of 7-8 hours I was able to come up with 100+ cupcakes, packaged in these beautiful silver cardboard-plastic boxes. They looked smashing, if I do say so myself. I just cringe when I think about the amount of waste these generated. I hate using plastic...

Anyway, here are some closeups:














Red velvet cupcakes.














Banoffee cupcakes. Banana cupcakes topped with coffee buttercream and shaved dark chocolate.














Lemony cupcakes.

I can't resist some cupcake porn:


Closeup of a red velvet cupcake.

I'm really loving the foil cupcake liners. They're pretty costly but they look so professional. They go really well with the silver boxes, and they don't absorb moisture from the cake (vs. paper liners). I like that they hide cupcake batter spills too!

I also can't resist a gratuitous photo of cute animals:

I found these guys trying to cross a major road in my village as I was heading out to Sunday lunch. I quickly snapped a photo of them before herding them back to the creek from whence they came. I'm glad to report that no one got hurt! Motorists actually halted for these cuties.

That's about it, so I've been quite busy. Hopefully my next post won't be too far off.

Baking for scholarships and vegangelism

Last Saturday was the Mano Amiga Dance-a-thon (more info here and here) and I sponsored vegan cupcakes which were raffled off to lucky dancers, given as prizes to the Dancing King and Queen as well as second placers, and given to the deejays and hosts.

Just some photos to share with some commentary...

Preparation actually started the Monday before, assembling the boxes and sticking on the decor and labels by a one-woman-machine while watching the first season of Dexter. Apparently the tear-free tissue paper Hallmark peddles does not stick with mere double sided tape (don't even try regular scotch tape). Good old white glue's the only thing that could make 'em stick.

boxes ready for their minicupcakes.

I actually took a half day vacation leave from work on the Friday before the big day and spent the afternoon baking and making frosting. Started at 3pm, ended at 3am. No idea why I took so long... Oh I made these for dinner and that ate up a good 1 1/2 hrs. Then I took an 1 1/2 break watching more Dexter...

red wine break between frosting duties.
notice the salad bowl cupcake pedestal from this post.

boring old boxes are turned from these...

into these! combo of red velvet, banoffee, carrot cake, and lemon minicupcakes.


1-dozen minicupcake boxes almost ready.


box of 1 dozen minis.
from left to right: red velvet, banoffee, chai latte, lemon

me with the boxes of 4 minicupcakes, ready to hand out to winners.

The fundraiser was a success, the cupcakes were a success. I have nothing to complain about. There are always opportunities when baking for non-animal rights related fundraisers -- I got to talk to the hosts about veganism AND the cupcake recipients would've been made aware about the word "veganism" and what it means.

For those who went -- thanks for supporting!

A cookie with a twist: Chocolate, PB&J Cookies

Here are some cookies I made yesterday before heading off to a potluck get-together with my missionary girls from Rizal missions. Been hanging around the kitchen during my spare time (when do I not hang around the kitchen?) and wanted to make cookies... Not typical oatmeal / chocolate chip cookies, but something different. So I did some research in my cookbook library and found "You Got Peanut Butter in my Chocolate Cookies" from Eat, Drink, and Be Vegan by Dreena Burton.

I love that Dreena Burton's cookie recipes don't use specialty egg replacers including flax meal and tofu (I think?). Instead, she uses liquid sweeteners such as maple syrup to help with the binding. Well I don't live in maple syrup country... I'm not a honey-eating vegan and I try as much as possible not to use the fake HFCS crap. I got an AHA! moment when I was daydreaming of a PB&J sandwich and thought that perhaps jam could stand in for the syrup.

If you've got Dreena's Eat, Drink, and Be Vegan cookbook, head on over to page 215. I used all purpose flour instead of the barley / spelt and 1/4 cup + 2 tbsp strawberry jam for the maple syrup and agave nectar. As jams are usually chunky, I recommend sticking all the liquid ingredients in your trusty food processor and give it a good pulse til everything's nice and non-lumpy. After mixing the ingredients all together you may notice that the dough's a bit stiff; I added 1 tsp oil apart from the 1/4 cup called for in the recipe.

You won't notice the jam flavor much but it's in the background. The cookies were nice and chewy :)

Curious about the recipe? Let me know if you want a copy.

Who needs an indoor grill...

When you've got a cake rack and a stove?

Cake rack as indoor grill and cake rack as cake rack

I came across this nifty idea last Saturday when i had a roasted vegetable dilemma. My oven takes forever to heat up, especially when things are being cooked on the stove. The stove was being used a lot that time... And I had to bake some zucchini and bell peppers quick. I have a toaster oven but with the volume of vegetables to cook I knew it would take even longer.

As with typical Filipino kitchens, my family has 2 stoves. One of the stoves wasn't being used last Saturday. And I had a wire cake rack. I'm sure I heard about this idea from somewhere, probably from Rachel Ray. Anyway, it was a good thing I decided to grill the vegetables. Not only do "grilled vegetables" sound better than "roasted vegetables", they cook a lot faster and taste a lot better. Roasting a pepper would probably take 20 minutes with frequent turning which is quite a pain... you always have to brave the oven heat when you open the door.

Check out the fire action! Love it.

You still have to do the frequent turning thing with your DIY grill though. It's not so bad because the heat isn't as strong. And, grilling a pepper would take about 10 minutes.

If you're not in the know of how to grill a pepper, rub the pepper with oil (preferably olive), salt, and pepper. Brush the cake rack with oil as well and place it on top of your burner. My cake rack is probably about 10x10 inches and it fit perfectly. Turn on your stove to about medium heat. The heating up doesn't take too long.

Place the peppers on the rack, on top of the flames. I only had to cook 2 peppers, you could probably fit 3 with all 3 getting enough heat / fire. Turn frequently until each side is blackened. Once cooked, place the black peppers in a large bowl and cover with a plate. Let them cool until cool enough to handle. Remove the black skin with your fingers.










So, on to the zucchini. You could grill 4 slices of zucchini at one go. Slice at a diagonal, maybe 1/2 inch thick. Brush each side with oil, salt and pepper. Grill at a diagonal as well, maybe 3-5 minutes per side.

I used these vegetables for a couscous salad which I will blog about soon!