Espresso Cupcakes

These are a-m-a-z-i-n-g especially if you love espresso and amaretto.  We used a combination of a couple of different recipes plus a few ideas of our own.  This was a joint effort in the kitchen between me and my DD. We had a lot of fun making and sampling it! If anyone is urgently requiring the recipe please e-mail me -- if not I'll be posting it later.  If you're out at Padmanadi this weekend ask for a slice of Maya's vegan Lemon-Blueberry Bundt Cake - if there is any left to be had that is!  We were there Thursday night and indulged in it and it was d-i-v-i-n-e!

Here's a website worth checking out -- the Veg Coach tells you how to eat Vegan on $4 a day! Also check out the Vegetarians of Alberta and Earth's General Store websites for a whole slew of events for the month of October!

October 1st (Saturday)
Kick-off the month of fun at Earth’s General Store (9605 82 Ave) on International World Vegetarian Day!  Join us at noon for a vegan barbecue. Stay for the musicians until 4pm.  Local vegan vendors will be showcasing their products and there will be a Used Book Sale with proceeds going to VVoA.  Donate your used books! Drop off any book at Earth’s General Store the Friday night before or when you come out to enjoy World Vegetarian Day.

Coconut Lentil Soup (Crockpot Recipe)

We put this on before we left the house and when we came home the wonderful aroma of this full-bodied soup welcomed us. What a treat to come home to. Super simple and super delicious.  Break out the crockpot and give this one a whirl. For a lower fat version use 1/2 soy milk and 1/2 coconut milk.  Coconut milk has enough flavor to allow you to cut it with the soy milk without any problem.  Do remember to wash your lentils very very well.  They seem to need it -- ours seemed very "dusty" for lack of a better word.

Ingredients

1 cup red lentils, washed very well

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 onion, diced

2 garlic cloves, minced

1 teaspoon turmeric

1 teaspoon cumin

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon pepper

14 ounce can tomatoes

2 carrots, chopped

1-1/2 teaspoon lemon juice

3 cups vegetable broth

1 cup coconut milk

Soften onion and garlic in olive oil. Wash your lentils and wash them some more! Add all the rest of the ingredients except for the coconut milk. Put into your crockpot (about 3-4 quart size) and cook on low for 4-5 hours or on high for 8-10 hours. Add your coconut milk at end of desired cooking time and let it bubble for another 15-20 minutes until heat through. Makes about 6 - 1 cup servings.

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Salted Caramel Vanilla Cupcakes

So here's what I was up to today!  Could not resist trying out the recipe that I found on the Toronto Vegetarian Association website last night whilst browsing.  I have had the pleasure to meet the fabulous Sherry Vanstone and have been lucky enough to partake of her delicious vanilla cupcakes recently (Maya's wedding May 2011) and so was quite sure these would be delectable.  And thousands agree as she entered this recipe last year and she won first place for Best Vegan Cupcake and Best in Show. Recipe can be found under the TVA website and is called The Totally Fabulous Vegan Bake-Off Booklet of Recipes.  These cupcakes are out of this world delicious.  Tasted even better the next day if that's possible (it was)!  The caramel sauce had integrated deeply into the cupcake and all I can say is "get off the computer and go and make these"!  I can see why Sherry won first place with this outstanding combo of flavors.

Veggie Prairie Girl Ramblings
My first batch of cupcakes I made exactly as per the recipe.  For the second batch I had to use 1/2 cup coconut milk and 1/2 cup soy milk because I didn't have a full cup of soy milk left in the house.  I had made a batch previous with only soy milk and for some reason the batch with coconut milk rose nicer.  Could be because coconut milk was room temp and soy milk was cold?  Or because of the coconut milk? This brand contained coconut milk, water and citric acid for ingredients.  Perhaps citric acid helped them rise a little more?  I'll have to do another comparison making two batches before I come to a conclusion on the "rising" issue. Perhaps my vinegar might have been flawed in the first batch and perhaps that was responsible for them being a little lower - there's always variables whenever things don't turn out exactly as anticipated.  I was using organic vinegar and it seemed there was a lot of sediment on the bottom -- perhaps I should have shook it before measuring out the required amount. However regardless of my "rising issues" the taste was perfection. 

Notice the indentations in top of cupcakes -- I wasn't sure how to pool the caramel nicely so instead I took the end of wooden spoon and just jabbed each cupcake. Maybe I was little over enthusiastic with the depth of the indentation. Because I would drip in the caramel and it would just keep disappearing and disappearing. Fortunatley for me the disappearing act proved to be a good thing  -- it was super delicious next day as the caramel had soaked throughout middle of cupcake.  Next time I'll do the same (because it WAS good!) then seal the top with a dab of icing and then make a little puddle.  I also need to buy some coarse salt to sprinkle on top because all I had was fine sea salt and it didn't do the trick. I baked my cupcakes for 16 minutes at 350.  Made 9 regular sized cupcakes.

Green and Gold Community Garden Produce

What does $20.00 buy? An amazing array of super fresh healthy vegetables for your family and a hand-up for African women. The Green and Gold Community Garden offers us the chance to think/act local and think/act global. After reading about it in the Edmonton Journal I headed out to the university research farm on Tuesday evening and was quite pleased to be able to avail myself of some garden fresh produce and to support the women of Rawanda.  A win-win situation all the way around. A big round of applause to all the volunteers who work the garden and allow us the opportunity to make some nutritious meals and be happy that 100% of all the monies paid for the produce are donated to the Tubahumurize Association, in Rwanda.

Tubahumurize is a not-for-profit organization that supports socially and economically marginalized women through counselling, vocational training, health education, and employment opportunities. In 2010, the garden’s second summer of operation, they raised $21,587.00 from donations for the garden produce.  The garden is open to the public on Tuesday evenings from 7-8:30 p.m. and on Saturday from 11-1 p.m.  Check the link above for further details. You can put yourself on their e-mail list and they'll update you twice a week as to what vegetables are available.

P.S. Last night there were a few bundles of various colored "marigold/mum/daisy" type flowers that were selling for $4 a bundle.  Somebody said they were called "straw" flowers (quite dry to the touch yet firm). Very cute - very prairie-style flower arrangement :O)

The Perfect Vegan Peanut Butter Cookie

The perfect vegan peanut butter cookie compliments of  Betty Crocker circa 1975 and vegan ingredients circa 2011! Paired with a glass of delicious chilled original flavor soy milk for the ultimate classic snack.  If you have never tried Muscovado brown sugar (Cuisine Camino) it's definitely worth seeking out. Bonus - this is a super duper easy recipe. No need to even dirty a mixer - a strong arm and wooden spoon will suffice.  You'll have them in the oven in 5 minutes or less!

1/2 cup Whipped Organic Earth Balance margarine
1/2 cup  Kraft Smooth Peanut Butter
1/2 cup organic white sugar
1/2 cup Muscovado Brown Sugar
1/4 cup soft tofu (sunrise blue label)

1-1/4 cup unbleached organic white flour (Western family)
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon organic baking powder
1/4 teaspoon sea salt


Mix the first 5 ingredients together. Add the 4 dry ingredients. Roll into balls (2 tbsp each). Place on ungreased cookie sheet. Crisscross with fork. Bake for 10 minutes at 375.  Let sit for a few minutes on your baking sheet and then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely. Took a dozen of these to Kinsmen Park with us yesterday and we enjoyed them very much under the beautiful blue alberta skies! The happy sounds of squeals and giggles echoed all over the park - the loudest of which I swear came from my precious grandson Nico. He finally agreed (more or less) to leave at 8 p.m. after 5  hours of pure joyful play.

Cuisine Camino Tip for using Muscovado Brown Sugar:
Caramelize it and use it as you would use icing to write on a cake: Make the caramelized mix, write your text on a parchment paper, keep it at room temperature and that´s it!

Zucchini Season

Zucchini season is in full swing on the Canadian Prairies. Lucky for me a co-worker at my husband's office bought some of her zucchini harvest to share (thank you so much Sharon!).

A little background on the zucchini taken from Wikipedia. The description presented doesn't exactly inspire --- anything that contains the words "swollen ovary" is not music to my ears or any other female on the planet earth I'd dare to hazard to guess! I'm always surprised at the produce that I think is a vegetable is actually a fruit. Here's the direct quote from Wikipedia:

"In a culinary context, the zucchini is treated as a vegetable which means it is usually cooked and presented as a savory dish or accompaniment. Botanically, however, the zucchini is an immature fruit, being the swollen ovary of the female zucchini flower." 

Anyhow don't let that put you off -- it's darn healthy: 1/2 cup provides 19% of the recommended amount of manganese. Also provides useful amounts of  folate, potassium, and vitamin A.  And  lets not forget how fortunate we are that it often grows quite easily in our prairie gardens. 

JFYI: There is a big birthday buffet coming up at Padmanadi on August 31st. Sources have revealed that there will be 1000 vegan cupcakes to celebrate Kasim's birthday.  Count me in!! Maya's vegan vanilla cupcakes are amazing - they get a 10/10 from me and that's not easy to do! I got carried away thinking about the buffet - but time to get back to the matter at hand:  here's my list of ingredients for a healthy way to enjoy beets and zucchini. Start with:

1 tbsp. olive oil
1/2 yellow onion
1 container medium-firm tofu
chili powder, cumin and garlic powder

Dice your onion and cube the tofu. Season with chili powder, cumin and garlic powder. Add a splash of paul bragg and just let it all simmer in the olive oil whilst you start chopping the veggies below.  Add water as needed to keep it from sticking.  Throw in about 2-3 teaspoons veggie broth powder.

Put a lid on it and simmer for however long you like.  I simmered it for about 2 hours.  You can serve it over rice if you leave it liquidy-like.  I didn't have any rice on hand so I stirred in about 1 cup of mashed potato to thicken and that worked out quite well. Picture of the mixture in the frying pan is how it looked before I added the mashed potato. Picture below has the mashed potato in it.

4 carrots
3 beets
1 zucchini
2 potatoes
1/2 cup diced green cabbage
2-3 teaspoons veggie broth powder
water as needed



This is a recipe that might do well with the slow cooker.  The initial softening of vegetables whilst you chop you have to do regardless  - the bonus of course would be not having to worry about it sticking whilst it is simmering for the next 2 hours. I was just reading the introduction to 125 best vegetarian recipes for a slow cooker so I'm now thinking how I can incorporate my recipes to such. I was reading it aloud at the park to my daughter whilst my grandson was playing on the slide and one part made me laugh.  I said "listen to this" -- over 25 million slow cookers are sold every year world wide.  And my daughter said "and there are only 50 actually being used"!  We continued to peruse the recipes and have plans to try some soon as they all sounded delicious and doable.  I'll post our favorites on here as we try them out.  That might take a while though so I would advise that in the meantime you beg, borrow (it is available through the Edmonton Public Library) or buy the book: 125 Best Vegetarian Slow Cooker Recipes by Judith Finlayson.  I was lucky enough to find a pristine copy (for only $2.99) at my local Goodwill Store.

Chocolate Cupcakes - take 2!

I've made these cupcakes too many times to count but I love them because they are very forgiving and still usually turn out no matter what you may or may not change. I barely had 1 1/4 cup unbleached white flour left in my cannister so I had to add 1/4 cup oat flour.  I'm thinking I just might do this on purpose next time as it seemed to make it a little bit denser and "fudgier" which I liked! I used 3 tbsp. olive oil + 2 tbsp. applesauce instead of 3 tbsp. canola oil + 3 tbsp. of pureed baby prunes and 1 cup of soy milk instead of the cold water.  I'm surprised how neutral olive oil can taste in so many recipes. I threw in an extra tablespoon of  Cuisine Camino cocoa powder (5 tablespoons instead of 4 and still included 1 tbsp. of decaff instant organic coffee).  I'm thinking that the strong flavor of cocoa possibly works well to neutralize the olive oil flavor in this case.

For the crowning glory  I whipped up a batch of quick "lemon" icing -- squeezed some fresh lemon, 3 tablespoons of earth balance (whipped organic) and of course powdered sugar.  Whipped organic margarine on it's own doesn't seem to produce a super stiff icing but firm enough that it doesn't run off the cupcake. Ideal mixture for those days you don't want to pull out the decorator and/or need an Eiffel Tower size topping!  Not that I don't love cupcakes that are top heavy - I surely do. My grandson LOVES icing and in fact loves it so much that he thought it would make a great hair gel!  I was tidying up my cupcake mess when he came running to me "Mema do you like my new hair?" Pictured below is him with his lovely icing hair gel. Needless to say count 1,2,3 and he was floating with his rubber ducky in the tub getting a new do!

He was due for a haircut anyhow but this kinda of speeded it up!  He agreed to the cut - he's used to it as we go from curls to smooth to curls quite often.  Takes him about 3-4 months to get same amount of curls back that were just shaved off!

Back to my cupcakes though -- the final touch was a mini-ginger cookie and last but not least a swirl of  Cuisine Camino chocolate (chips melted with a bit of earth balance margarine and thinned to right consistency with soy milk).  I used the trusty mini plastic bag with tip cut off  for that part. These mini ginger cookies are a real gem that I found at Giant Tiger recently.  They're made in Canada and appear to be made with only vegan ingredients.  Doesn't say vegan on the box but I can read all the ingredients clearly and they are straight forward and nothing weird! Brand name is Hollandia.  A 400 gram tub was only $2.77 the day I bought it.  I'm quite sure that Bulk Barn also carries the exact same cookies as I purchased 100 gm there and ingredients and taste are identical to Hollandia brand.  They charge 66 cents a 100 gm so works out to about same price.