A gradual return

I'm back to blogging, well, sort of. At least, I plan to resume in the next few days. Lots of things happened with school and I lost my passion for cooking for a bit. However, things have been on the upswing, sort of, and a two different friends who like to have cooking dates with me as well as another friend who wants me to give him cooking tips have helped me to love time in the kitchen again. Plus, with the semester winding down, I'll need to have some way to get rid of the stress of finals since most of my own TA duties are almost over. Not to mention that I just caved and bought Isa/Terry's new book as well as Celine/Joni's 500 vegan recipes. I'm pretty excited and just couldn't wait and only request them as holiday gifts...

Jumping Ship

So, I am sad to inform that I may have to give up on VeganMoFo for this year. My posts ended up being sporadic because of all sorts of stressful things cropping up with school, and, now, it looks as if the method that I use to transfer my photos to my computer is not working. (Which is quite unfortunate, as I have a week's worth of posts on my camera at the moment.) So, to soften the blow, I'm going to put up a lovely picture that I took last Sunday when I went for an afternoon walk since the weather was so nice. I am in love with the fall colors that we have here at the moment. Things are turning a lot more yellow now, but the sheer amount of trees around making everything so breathtaking.

European Eats

And by eats, I mean hazelnut spread. I was a great lover of Nutella in my pregan days, but now I've found something better: Chocoreale. I made sure to bring home the three varieties after my trip to Europe in June. Like that other brand, there is a hazelnut chocolate in addition to a dark chocolate, and a chocolate/white duo. Lately I've been a big fan of my duo, which was surprisingly tasty, as I was skeptical at first. (Plus, the jar that I brought home was my first taste of it, since I had overlooked it in favor of the other two on previous visits.) Luckily, my stash of the duo has been temporarily refilled as I received my ppk care package swap from Austria yesterday...

So, this ode to the duo Chocoreale spread will not be a farewell, but rather a renewing of acquaintances.

Vegan Food for the Masses

Last week, I signed up for a vegan cooking class at my local co-op on a whim. I'd never taken a formal cooking class, let alone a vegan one, so I was intrigued. I'm glad that I took it as Tuesday was my most stressful day last week, and it was nice to escape things for 2 hours by being in this class. Overall, it was a very interesting experience.

One of the most curious facts of the evening was that, beside the instructor, I was the only vegan in the room. Most of the other people were omni or vegetarian, and wanted ideas of how to incorporate more vegan food in their diet for health reasons. The instructor kept this health slant for the most part, except when she went on a brief tangent about how horrible factory farms were, but it was used as an example of her philosophy that you don't want to be putting bad and negative food in your body since those animals were agitated and downtrodden when they were raised and killed.

As a whole, I thought the instructor was a sweet old lady. She shared a lot of her microbiotic philosophy even though half of the food that she cooked for us didn't really follow all of her 'rules.' The meal consisted of a mushroom seitan and pasta dish, a warm vegetable salad including tofu, sauteed Italian greens, and an almond butter pudding served with maple syrup and granola. The food itself gave me a few ideas, but the flavors were a little too subdued for me, except the greens, which were perfect as they were with salt and pepper. I guess on a whole that I like a little more umpf in my food. The other people in the class seemed very receptive of most of the dishes, and I even got to give an older couple sitting in front of me some tips as they were very much wanting to move towards a vegan diet.

Impressing the Omnis

Over the weekend, two of my friends came over to my house to socialize and cook dinner with me. One friend was particularly excited because I had never had rutabaga before, and, being largely of Swedish decent, she knew her rutabaga well. Plus, she could not believe that she would be introducing a vegan to a new vegetable. Her enthusiasm was ever so cute and amusing. That would be her (or rather, her hands) preparing the rutabaga below.

All in all, a great time was had. Good friends and wine is a great way to spend a Saturday evening. (We were even more wholesome after dinner and played a modified version of Clue.) They were really impressed with how the Vegan Brunch quiche turned out. (I made the broccoli and onion one with mushrooms added.) Both of them were flipping through Isa's cookbooks and enjoying the humor as well as the variety of recipe (and photos, in the case of Vctotw). I think that I may have just created a few more Isa fans. Even better, they claimed that they need to make cooking dates with me a regular occurrence. That, and another friend proclaiming on Friday that she needs to organize a girls night in the upcoming weeks with me as the main cook, makes me blush at all the attention. At least I can show how easy vegan cooking is in the process even if I don't think that I'm that spectacular of a cook; I just enjoying cooking and sharing with others.

Produce Adventures: Watermelon Radish

Okay, so this isn't the most attractive of photos, but isn't this watermelon radish absolutely adorable? I picked up three at the market last weekend because I had never heard of a watermelon radish before. (If I had, then I'd since forgotten.) All three were bigger than your average radish, but this particular one was quite a good size and comparable to a small apple. They tasted just like a regular radish, except perhaps with not quite as much bite. All sliced up, it was a great snack to be dipped in hummus. Once I make another batch of hummus, I'll have to buy some more.

VeganMo-What?

So, I succeeded in falling off the MoFo wagon this week... whoops. I was really busy and stressed out with school things, but the week is over, and classes are going much better. A definite pick-me-up after one of my stressful days was the Vegan Brunch pumpkin pancakes with chocolate chips thrown in. A great way to cheer up and welcome fall. If you haven't tried them already, go on and do it! You won't regret it. Mine were extra special because I used a gluten free flour mix that I got from the co-op. Made me feel slightly less guilty about eating so many...