Vegan MOFO 2012

It's that time of year again!

Vegan MoFo 2012 begins today, October 1st. If you aren't familiar with the internationally acclaimed vegan blogging phenomenon that is MoFo, you can read about it here! Basically, bloggers from around the world try to cook, eat, and write about vegan food for the entire month of October. This will be my third year participating, and I'm elated by the prospect of so many people coming together over our shared interest that is vegan goodness.

The last two years that I participated, I had so much fun planning five course meals and veganizing food named after people. This year, I've decided to drift away from a month-long theme and instead have a topic for each day of the week.

• Monday Morning Breakfast Bash- Each Monday, I'll share a breakfast recipe to kick start the week. They'll range from the grab-and-go meal to more elaborate spreads (tablecloths included - maybe). Rest assured, there will be plenty of coffee.
• Booze-day (Tuesday) - I'll bring together two of my favorite establishments - the kitchen and the bar. It'll be a combination of cooking with alcohol and cocktails, and may even feature (the beginnings of) a home brewed beer!
• Cookbook Challenge Wednesday - I've participated in my fair share of cookbook challenges, and they have always successfully pushed me to explore the many cookbooks on my shelf that don't get much attention. I'll randomly select a cookbook from my collection and randomly select a page number. Whatever happens to be on that page will be cooked and featured (and eaten!) on Wednesdays.
• Thrifty Thursdays - The budget-friendliest grocery shopping tips, menu planning ideas, and recipes will be featured on Thursdays.
• Friday Pie-day - As if you didn't see that coming. I've got an underused copy of Vegan Pie in the Sky that will receive some much deserved attention on Fridays. What better way to welcome autumn than with pies (and/or tarts, turnovers, cobblers, etc.)?
• Saturday: To the Market - The Redstick Farmer's market here in Baton Rouge is usually bustling with vegetables, fruits, baked goods, and plants for sale. I'll share with you my haul and what I plan to make with it.
• Something New on Sunday - I'd like to try something new on Sunday. It can be a new ingredient, snack, restaurant or recipe, the only stipulation is that I've never eaten or cooked with it before.

I can't wait to get started!

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Get your kraut on!

During my visit to Chicago in early October, I spent a lot of time in small bookstores and infoshops, browsing for some new reading materal. Quimby's was an awesome little shop full of unqiue books, comics, zines, and general schwag. I decided to pick up a copy of Sandor Katz's Wild Fermentation, and was not disappointed. I've read that zine cover-to-cover several times, and I'm really looking forward to working through the many recipes included. Since the only thing I've ever fermented was sourdough, I thought I'd start slow with the first and most notable fermented food: Sauerkraut!

Since this was my first attempt, I made a really small batch. As per Sandorkraut's recommendation, I mixed 2 parts green cabbage with 1 part red cabbage for a purdy pink kraut. You can slice or shred the cabbage however you like, just remember that larger pieces will take longer to break down. I went with larger slices and a few thin shreds. As you chop your veggies, add them to a large food grade bucket and sprinkle with NON-iodized salt (very important to use the stuff that isn't iodized, as it will inhibit the growth of good bacteria), repeating this process each time you add a new layer.

Pack the cabbage as you add more layers; I used a potato masher but clean fists will also do the trick. Continue to add-and-pack until you used up all the cabbage. Note that the resulting kraut will shrink to more than half the size of the fresh cabbage.

Once you've added all the cabbage, liberally salted, you'll want to top your veggies with a clean plate that fits perfectly snug into your container (I used the lid of another plastic container, which fit perfectly). Top that plate with a jug filled with water, or any other heavy item you have on hand. For the next day or so, as often as you remember, push the jug into the kraut as hard as you can. This will help the salt draw moisture from the cabbage, creating the brine in which the cabbage will ferment! After the first day, cover your fermenting cabbage with a cloth to keep away flys and dust. Every couple of days, I pressed mine back down to make sure the cabbage was covered with brine. After almost two weeks, it was ready!

It'll keep fermenting for another month or so (longer in cold weather), but once it gets super soft, it might not taste so good. I moved mine into the fridge and am so pleased with my first fermentation project. It was really easy!! As you saw before, I tried my first batch on a portobello Reuben sandwich.

Vegan MoFo Straggles On

While the official end of Veganmofo was this past Monday, I'm going to try and keep blogging as frequently as I can. I fell a little short last month, completing mofo with just over half of the scheduled 31 posts. Here's one named food (from my theme) that didn't make the cut, but will always hold a place in my heart.

This Reuben strays from the many vegan Reuben's popping up on every street corner. Instead of the usual plant proteins (tempeh, tofu, seitan), I've used juicy grilled portobellos sliced and seasoned with lemon pepper and nutritional yeast. Typically covered with a melted swiss, I opted for a healthier chickpea gravy to help creamify this sammy. Ruby kraut (made in my house by my hands!!) and quick-fix version of thousand island turn the taste of this Reuben around from wow to WOWOWOW! And yes, that is pumpernickel bread.

Since this sandwich was developed on the fly (once the kraut was ready, actually), I don't have a standard recipe, so feel free to go your own way (go your own waaAaay!) and dress it how ever you like! Also, can you tell I wrote this after 1.5 beers?

Vegan MoFo - Day 31



Day 31 - Kaisers!

Oh, hi there! This past weekend I explored one my favorite pastimes, and learned a new recipe! Baking bread is such a calming and rewarding activity, but the summer heat here in Louisiana is quite a deterrent. Now that the temperature is dropping, let the dough start rising and preheat that oven! Making your own bread isn't as difficult as anyone will try and make you believe. Infact, some recipes damn-near make themselves. Take one of my favorite bread baking cookbooks, Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day; sure they take some shortcuts, but they are also redefining traditonal methods so that homemade bread can be available to households of all types and time constraints! Baking your own bread is also much cheaper than buying presliced bags at your grocery store (not to mention, far less ingredients to mull over!). For $10 you could have (fresh, warm, soft or crunchy) all kinds of loaves for months!

Seriously, kids; start baking your own bread. You'll instantly understand what all the hype is over.

Most recently and for Veganmofo, I wanted to make something I've never attempted before. Kaiser rolls just happened to fit that bill! Naturally, I seek Vegan Dad's advice and almost all things bread - he did bake his way through the Bread Baker's Apprentice, you know! He had a great video tutorial on Kaiser rolls, including the infamous pate fermentee, a pre-fermented dough used in artistanal bread baking! There wasn't anything challenging about this recipe, aside from testing my patience with all that waiting. I ended up with 12 enormous rolls, perfect for sandwiches, burgers, and soup dipping.

I dressed my Kaiser roll with creamy chicken-style seitan salad, spinach, cucumber, stoneground mustard and hot sauce!

Vegan MoFo - Day 24

Day 24 - Pizza Margherita!

Buongiorno! It's Monday morning, and I'm hoping right back on track with my next themed Veganmofo dish - Pizza Margherita!

Bit o' History: Italian pizza history dates back as early as the first-century BC, to the time of Virgil. However, the popularlity of the "picea" didn't explode until the eighteenth-century. In 1889, modern pizza history was made when Queen Margherita Teresa Giovanni, the consort of Umberto I, visited Naples - the alleged birth place of pizza. In order to prepare a special disk in honor of the Queen's visit, Don Raffaele Esposito (owner of Pietro Il Pizzaiolo) consulted his wife, and together they developed a pizza featuring tomatoes, mozzarella cheese and basil. It was named after the Queen, and she's totally the luckiest lady on the planet...

...because pizza Margherita is seriously the best. Naturally, I made the Queen's pizza vegan using a cashew-tofu ricotta in place of the mozzarella - if you haven't made cashew ricotta yet, please do so immediately. The ricotta was moist and creamy, and it even browned slightly on the top! Sliced tomatoes and the last of my basil plant roasted underneath a heavy drizzle of olive oil, all on top of homemade pizza dough.

Vegan MoFo - Day 21

Day 21 - Pie & Praise!

This year's Vegan MoFo has unleashed some pretty remarkable blogs, recipes, themes, photos/videos, etc. I've bookmarked and pinned untold amounts of vegan awesomeness, which I'll probably be going through well into the new year. Some favorites have included Fork & Beans Homemade Twix Bars, this Homemade Tofu tutuorial from Messy Vegetarian Cook, and basically the entirety of Meet the Wiko's mofo theme - street food! There are so many awesome contributions that my head is spinning, and we've still got another week of awesome.

With all this mofo marvelousness, I thought it'd be ok to take a break from my mofo theme to celebrate the arrival of one of the greatest things to ever (finally) exist.

Let's hear it for the pie! Oooh, let's give the pie a haa-aa-y-ayaannd!

Vegan Pie in the Sky completes the trilogy of dessert books by Isa Chandra Moskowitz & Terry Hope Romero. I've made two things from this book so far. First, the Pear Frangipane Tart (recipe found HERE), and second (only after receiving my physical copy), the Maple-Kissed Blueberry Pie! I had to use frozen blueberries because the only fresh ones available we out-of-season, mushy and ridiculously high-priced. This pie tasted great, but please heed Moskowitz&Romero's warnings and UP THE THICKENER when using frozen fruits. My filling was a little thin, but quickly firmed up after a night in the fridge. And by the way, that crust is 100% homemade...and it was pretty easy!

I'm so excited to bake my way through this book!!