Pancakes, Baked Goods, and Polenta Lasagna

I hope everyone is having an enjoyable weekend. I know I have been.

Yesterday, I ended up spending a bit of time in the kitchen. But probably not nearly as much as it looks from these pictures. I also listened to music, watched a film with Brett, and listened to a couple of the Compassionate Cooks podcasts.

For brunch yesterday, I made Lizzy's Raspberry Apple Pear Pancakes. I figured these would be a winner, as they are fruit stuffed pancakes and I'm a fruitaholic. These are delicious! So far the best pancakes I have had actually. I haven't made pancakes too awful much, but these are simple and delicious. It was also my first experience using agave. The flavor of the stuff is wonderful, and I can definitely see how it could be used in place of honey. So thank you so much for providing the recipe Lizzy, these are excellent!

I made a light Raspberry Sauce to go with these, as I mentioned before I'm a fruitaholic and neither Brett or I are huge fans of topping things with maple syrup.

Simple Raspberry Sauce
1-1 1/2 cups frozen raspberries

1/3 cup water

1/4 cup organic sugar

1 tsp pure vanilla extract

1-2 tsp arrowroot starch/flour

Combine all ingredients in a small sauce pan on the stove. Once fruit has began to cook down, add arrowroot and let boil, stirring frequently, until to desired thickness.

I had all sorts of peppers around so I went ahead and roasted them for meals later this week. You will probably notice one thing on top of my being a fruitaholic and that is, I really like peppers, spicy, sweet, whatever, I like 'em. During the summer, I always grow peppers on my porch, and this year, I am going to try my hand at a Community Garden plot, and dedicate all sorts of containers on my porch to different types of peppers: anaheim, serrano, thai chili, habanera, jalapeno, banana, poblano, bell, wax, caribbean, etc. I can't wait!

Anyways, this time I roasted Anaheim's, jalapenos, poblanos, bell peppers and a shallot.

I decided to bake Brett a couple of chocolaty goodies, 'cause it gives him yummy treats, which he loves, and gives me a good excuse to bake. This week I tried out Nava Atlas' Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cake and the Mocha Chip Muffins from Vegan with a Vengeance.

You can find the recipe for the Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cake here.

Brett adores chocolate and thought these were very good, I expect they won't last too long around here. Both Brett and I agreed that you probably didn't need to put in as many chocolate chips as the recipe called for though, it was very chocolaty.

Next were the Mocha Chip Muffins from Vegan with a Vengeance. I understand that Lizzy was also planning on making these this week sometime. Ha! I beat you to it! Just kidding, but do tell me what you thought of them, and anybody who reads this blog should stop by hers for what is likely to be a much better picture of the muffins, as she has a really nice camera and is good at taking pictures.

The only modifications to this recipe I made was using whole wheat pastry flour in place of the all-purpose and using applesauce instead of oil. I think these were already pretty 'cakey' muffins to begin with, and replacing the applesauce with oil resulted in their being even 'cakier'. I prefer to do the whole 'lower fat baking thing' whenever I can.

While I was in the kitchen I was thinking about my co-workers a bit. I'm an Institutional Research Analyst, which essentially means when people want data about the University of Missouri, they often come to us. Our office also does reports for the government, etc. Well we have been having some issues with our data, and as a result many of the my co-workers have been working essentially around the clock to meet a deadline. I am lucky in that I am more of an 'underling' of the office as I haven't had to take part in any of this; I'm just waiting for the data they are working on. Needless to say, they have all been working so hard, they deserve some treats, so I made some Sunny Blueberry Corn Muffins from Vegan with a Vengeance for them, and I might make up a batch of cookies today as well.

These muffins are pretty good and easy to make too. I used frozen blueberries, so my muffins ended up being a bit blue, but this doesn't really bother me too much. One thing I noticed about this recipe, and I'm not sure if this is a result of an error on my part, but the batter was much thicker than any other muffin batter I have worked with. The muffins turned out alright, but I worried due to the consistency of the batter.

And finally, for dinner I made SusanV's Polenta Lasagna with Portabellas and Kale. This was my first time working with polenta, and I purchased the premade stuff in a tube, so I had a hard time making nice uniform slices out of it. But I understand that making your own polenta isn't very hard, so I might do that next time. Brett also had an idea about how to get the premade polenta into more even slices, so we might try that as well. Suffice to say, my first experience with polenta was a good one. It was very delicious. I will definitely make it again. The 'cheese' sauce was very easy to make, and both Brett and I thought it was wonderful - though I'm not sure if it really tasted like cheese or not. Brett said it reminded him of potato soup - it was really good though, not too heavy or salty. This is a slightly more involved recipe than many of the others I blog about, so I would save it for a weekend or when you can dedicate some time to being in the kitchen.

Unfortunately, this is the only picture I got of it. Once we got it plated up, both of us just dug in, and forgot to take a picture. Another testament to the tastiness of the dish.

Well, it is 'Superbowl Sunday' here in the US, and oddly enough, I am a bit of a football fan. So I'm off to prepare brunch, a football snack and get ready to watch the game. Go Giants!

'Til next time.

Weird Weather and Roasted Veggie Enchiladas

I’m not sure how many of you have ever been to Missouri – if you haven’t been, you’re not missing much. But there is an old adage here that if you don’t like the weather in Missouri, just stay a little while, and it seems pretty true. I know many places in the US experience odd weather, but many feel that in Missouri, we experience it more often and to a more intense degree.

While I’m not sure if that adage is true or not, even though I have lived here all my life, I am still impressed by the oddity that is our weather at times. Case in point: it was a gorgeous day here yesterday, in the low 60’s (in January in the Midwest!), but windy, of course. This morning when I got up and was waiting on the bus, it was still very nice. Got to work, it was still nice. Went outside around 10:30 this morning and aside from the wind, the weather was beautiful – 62 degrees.

Flash forward an hour and a half to lunch. It had suddenly dropped to 26 degrees and began hailing and snowing. It is now in the teens with wind chills below zero. This is the kind of odd weather we here in Missouri enjoy. Looks like in the same day, we will experience temperatures in the low 60s as well as temperatures in the teens and perhaps up to an inch of snow. Hmmmm.

Moving on.

Last night, I got a nice surprise. I stoked to come home to not only the books I mentioned in the previous post that Brett so kindly picked up for me at the library, but he had purchased Vegan with a Vengeance for me from the Peace Nook, our local alternative bookstore. Wahoo!! It looks like an excellent cookbook. I have already marked a few recipes I want to try, and will be making Brett the Chocolate-Chocolate Chip Pancakes with Strawberry Sauce from it for his birthday next week, so he will definitely benefit from having gotten this for me.

For dinner last night, I made Roasted Veggie Enchiladas. It was simple and delicious and what I love about enchiladas (I love a lot of things I suppose) is that you can do your own thing when it comes to the ingredients and can make as big or small of a batch as you want, I was able to make two enchiladas without any problem, a small one for yours truly and a behemoth for the omni. Brett is not a very heavy guy, and I always overestimate his appetite and put way too much food on his plate. I am trying to get better at this, as we would rather have leftovers than him have to throw away half a plate of food, and as he has pointed out to me, he can always go back for more. However last night, I made him a huge enchilada and he ate the whole thing, so go figure.

Anyways. It’s amazing the complexity and full flavor that veggies have when they are roasted. You could really use whatever veggies you had on hand, just roast them before hand to get the best flavor. I used roasted zucchini, roasted red potatoes, roasted butternut squash, roasted red bell peppers, roasted jalapenos, and roasted shallots. I also had some chard in the fridge that was starting to look a bit sad and limp, so I sautéed it in some veggie broth until it got nice and soft and threw that in there as well. I lightly seasoned the squash with cumin and the potatoes with chili powder and cayenne (I like things spicy). Vegan cheese would make a nice addition too.

While I got the enchiladas ready to go in the oven, Brett made up a double batch of tofu sour cream. He has been making it as of late and seems to have it down much better than I do. The flavor and texture of his sour cream is much better than mine.

I preheated the oven to 350 degrees, sprayed a small baking dish with oil, put our enchiladas in the pan, smothered them with store bought enchilada sauce (you know, it actually requires a bit of label reading if you want enchilada sauce without MSG, at least that’s what I ran into here in Mid-Mo). Then I popped ‘em in the oven and baked them for about a half hour until they were nice and bubbly.

Once they were out of the oven and had cooled for a few minutes, I topped them with Brett’s fresh tofu sour cream. I ended up going back and putting a bit more enchilada sauce on the side for dipping.

I am going to leave with something non-food related, I happened upon a very interesting blog today I thought others might want to check out, if they haven’t already done so. It’s called Unpopular Vegan Essays, I found his subject material to be fascinating, and his blog is very well written, there are points I agree with him and points where our views diverge, but definitely a worthwhile site to check out.

‘Til next time!

Roasted Veggies and Homemade Pizza!

There isn’t much to report on brunch yesterday. I had some left over butternut squash (they are HUGE), so I decided to try out Vegetarian Times’ Butternut Squash (Potato) Pancakes (I had to veganize these as they called for eggs, but no biggie). But I seem to be having trouble getting potato pancakes right, so no picture this time. Every time I have tried to make potato pancakes, I end up with a fried, blackened mess of a pan and pancakes that fall apart and are not evenly cooked.

Now, as I have stated before I live in a crappy apartment and the burners on the stove are not entirely level, so this may be part of the problem. I also might have had the heat on too high, but needless to say, while they tasted pretty good, they looked nothing like the beauties on the Vegetarian Times’ website. Hopefully I will get them down eventually.

I also experimented with roasting vegetables yesterday. I love roasted veggies, but up until this point have really only been brave enough to roast asparagus or potatoes. It is so easy and roasted veggies rock my world! I prepped a nice mess of veggies (and by prepped I mean washed, removed stems and cut in half), drizzled them all with olive oil, tossed a pinch of salt on, popped them in the oven and let them do their thing – hardly an ounce of effort required on my part, the veggies and the oven do all the work for you. Thanks Vegamonicon!

Thought I'd give you a nice before and after, in case there is anyone out there who isn't roasting their own veggies, this should convince you to do so immedietly.

Before (my pan is very used, can ya tell?)















And after (our apartment smelled so good!)















On to dinner last night. I mentioned in an earlier post that I had found a vegan pizza crust recipe from VeganYumYum, and while that looked good, Bryanna Clark Grogan had what appeared to be a much simpler crust so we went with that.

This was a team effort pizza as Brett actually made the dough, vegan no less! Brett’s interest in cooking extends about as far as things like breads and pasta. He likes making dough. Nonetheless, it was a lot of fun working together in the kitchen (albeit a bit difficult since our kitchen is so small). And trust me, I realize how lucky I am to live with an omni who is not only supportive of my lifestyle and willing to eat my creations, but will also take part in the cooking sometimes and help with the other stuff like the dishes that result.

On a side note, I am lucky on many levels to have found a person like Brett. He never lets a day go by without letting me know that he appreciates me. He helps around the house, he shows interest in my interests, we share the same values and worldview, and he enjoys many of the things that I do. We can (and very often do) talk for hours and hours and have some of the most stimulating conversations that I have ever had. He impresses me with his intelligence, his kindness, his humor, and his heart. He is truly my best friend!

OK, onto something MUCH less sappy, I have to admit, I almost disgusted myself with what I just wrote, but it is the truth. I imagine Brett will probably be more embarrassed by that than me if he reads this though. :-)

Back to the pizza – Brett made the crust, and since it was the first time we had made it, we decided to cut the recipe to only make one crust in case we didn’t like it – we didn’t want to be stuck with a bunch of icky crust. This can be a challenge sometimes as you end up with very odd measurements, and it doesn’t always work out the best. The crust turned out wonderful, it was thin and crispy with excellent flavor. But Brett thought if we followed the full recipe (and he read the whole thing before starting to work with the ingredients :-) - I have that problem too), that the crust would have turned out thicker and chewier like in Bryanna’s pictures.

Regardless, it was good. While Brett was preparing the crust, I made a simple pizza sauce that turned out nice and thick, with a rich tomatoey flavor, but not overpowered with other spices, which is what we look for in a good sauce. I also got out some of the roasted red peppers and shallots I had roasted earlier in the day, as well as sliced and sautéed some button mushrooms, and sliced up some artichokes.















Now, some of you out there might be saying “Well Jennifer, this is great and all, but this sounds awfully similar to the Amy’s pizza you claimed to be getting sick of.” (Though really, probably not.) I know it is very similar, but since this is the first time I made homemade pizza, I wanted to go with a familiar flavor combination. I can now comfortably experiment with sauces and toppings now that Brett and I successfully made our first homemade pizza together.

Basic Pizza Sauce
1 clove garlic, mashed and minced
1 teaspoon salt
1-2 tbs tomato paste
1 8 ounce can tomato sauce
1/2 teaspoon sugar
1/8 teaspoon pepper
1/2 teaspoon oregano
1 tablespoon olive oil
dash red pepper, optional

PREPARATION:
Combine all ingredients in a sauce pan over low heat until well blended.

I plan on using the rest of the roasted veggies for a nice simple dinner this evening.

I’m off to enjoy a beautiful (though windy) evening in Mid-Missouri with Brett and my lovely kitties Gabby and Nermal. This more than likely entails playing basketball on the Playstation with Brett (which is a bit funny in that I don’t actually like real basketball) - Go Virtual Houston Rockets! Or I might read as John Pilger’s Freedom Next Time and Chris Hedges’ War Is A Force That Gives Us Meaning are waiting for me at home – thanks to Brett. But now I have to chose which to start with, which likely means basketball as I’m too damn indecisive!

‘Til next time!