Two Thumbs Way Up

by Anne

Found a few new vegan-version recipes to try out. Once the chocolate cake is gone I'm going to move on to baklava. I found that they sell blue agave nectar at Wegman's which can be used in place of honey. I'll definitely be picking some up when I decide to make the baklava, maybe next weekend.

Two new vegan foods to rate. In my quest to find vegan ice cream I decided to try:

Turtle Mountain Purely Decadent made with Coconut Milk

Vanilla Blean flavor

I opted to try this instead of an almond milk version because this line is soy free. I was hesitant because, while I like coconut, I don't LOVE coconut. Well, I can say that the coconut flavor is definitely there but is blended smoothly with the vanilla bean flavor. However, if you really dislike any hint of coconut, don't eat this ice cream.

The best part about it was the texture. Very soft and very much like real vanilla ice cream.  Many soy-based ice creams are incredibly hard and don't soften all that quickly.

I would definitely recommend this ice cream to anyone who's been in search of a satisfying non-dairy ice cream. There are some vegan replacements you can convince yourself you like, but some things just don't cut it. This definitely cuts it for the ice cream cravings.

The other product I tried today was Health is Weath Veggie Munchees.

They're small in size, each munchee is about the size of a marshmallow, and six of them, or half the package are only 130 calories. They're very tasty, especially if you've been missing the taste of egg rolls. I ate four of them and gave two to the 11 and 12 year old cousins and they were universally approved of. I recommend dipping them in a little soy sauce if you're so inclined.

I also bought a box of potstickers I'm going to open up after I finish the Munchees... which will probably be tomorrow. :)

Two thumbs way up for each of these vegan products.

Tonight for my parents I made macaroni and cheese (just regular real mac and cheese) with broccoli. It smelled SO. GOOD. But I resisted the temptation, great though it was. I ended up leaving the house to see the NHL Awards at my sister's house so I removed myself from the temptation. It's the first time I really craved cheese since I started eating vegan as strictly as possible. Instead for dinner I ate leftover spaghetti sauce with whole wheat pasta shells. Still deeeeelicious. 

Tomorrow I will probably be making some slow-cooker burrito filling with barley, corn, and black beans, among other ingredients. Definitely looking forward to those tastes and textures again.

Cake = Really tasty and Really sweet

by Anne

So the (mostly) vegan cake was deeelicious. The only downside was that I used regular sugar instead of a vegan type. Whatevs, baby steps to being totally vegan, baby steps.

It was ridiculously sweet so if you like things that are only subtly sweet, this cake is not for you. It's  mostly the frosting that makes this cake so crazy sweet. Next time I make it I'm going to try a less sugary recipe.

Here's the recipe for the cake:

3C flour

2C vegan sugar

6T Hershey's cocoa

2t baking soad

1t salt

3/4 C vegetable oil or 3/4 unsweetened applesauce (next time I make it I'm trying it w/ applesauce)

2T white vinegar

2t vanilla

2C cold water

Mix dry ingredients until they are well blended. Add wet ingredients to the dry mixture one at a time (don't blend them separately). Stir until smooth. Pour into greased and floured pan (can't emphasize enough how important it is to flour baking pans!)  the pan can be either one 13x9 pan or two 8" or 9" round cake pans.

Bake in 350 degree oven 30-40 minutes until the skewer comes out clean. Cool completely before removing from pan or frosting.

It's very moist and very tasty.  Next time I make it I'll probably just top it with a little vegan powdered sugar or maybe dust it with some cocoa powder. The only vegan vanilla frosting recipe I found got dreadful reviews. I might try a peanut butter one or maybe, if I were making it for someone else, a mint one. For the record, I hate mint. The only mint I like is wintergreen gum and wint-o-green lifesavers.

If you see the previous post, vegan sugar isn't some crazy new -angled product. It's things like Sugar in the Raw or Florida Crystals; sugar that hasn't been refined in a process that uses bone char.

In unrelated but still vegan food news: I discovered that almond milk, despite being made from a nut, is much lower in protein that soy milk and cow's milk. Oh well, I'll just have to be more conscientious about my protein intake. The more I read about soy and think about a family member who drank soy formula as a baby and all the health problems she's had and how soy might have contributed to them, I'm trying to avoid it as much as I can. It's not easy considering LOTS of things have soy protein in them. It's not AWFUL in small quantities but a lot of small quantities add up to a large quantity.

Tomorrow I'll be cleaning out the fridge and making do with leftovers for myself while I make a macaroni and (real) cheese bake for my Mom for dinner. I found a few really tasty sounding recipes to test out in the next few days.