Green Mountain Vegan

Tomato Tart

2006-07-17T08:00:00.000-04:00

Yesterday Tom and I paddled down the La Platte River in Shelburne, Vermont. This was the Wil-Char-Bea's maiden voyage. The hardest part of the whole afternoon was getting the canoe on and off the car. I should have some ripped biceps by the end of canoe season.

Dinner needed to be simple because we got home later than our usual dinner time and I was pretty tired. The menu consisted of Tomato Tart and large spinach salads. Tom is a huge pizza fan, whereas I am not. If Tom were to live on his own he would have pizza for breakfast, lunch and dinner. I think pizza is evil because one serving is never enough even though that one serving is loaded with crap. The Tomato Tart is my attempt at providing Tom with a healthier version of pizza.

Tomato Tart Inspired by a recipe in Family Circle
8 Servings

Store bought Pizza Dough
3-4 TBSP Dijon Mustard
4 Medium Tomatoes
1 TBSP Fresh Thyme
1/4 tsp salt
1/8 tsp pepper
Olive Oil Pam Spray

Preheat oven to 450 degrees.

Roll out pizza dough and bake in oven for 15 minutes.

Remove partially baked pizza crust out of the oven and let cool for 10 minutes.

Spread the Dijon mustard on the pizza crust, layer the tomatoes on top (I over-lapped a bit), spray entire tart, tomatoes and all, with Olive Oil Pam, sprikle on spices, and bake at 400 degrees for 30 minutes.

Let cool before eating...there is nothing worse than a scalding hot tomato slice burning the roof of your mouth.

Tom's Review: He loved it...even though it wasn't pizza...which he reminded me continually throughout dinner. The Dijon mustard and spices complimented one another. It's a keeper!

Cook's Review: Easy to make and easy to convert into smaller portions so that you do not have tons of leftovers. I can't roll pizza dough into neat circles, but who cares, it still tastes good. It's a keeper!

Birthday Cake Vegan Style

2006-07-16T15:56:00.000-04:00

Yesterday, in honor of Mom's birthday, I baked my very first vegan cake. I followed the advice given to me by some friends on the Weight Watcher's Vegetarian Board and made the chocolate cake found in the most recent edition of The Joy of Cooking. In reviewing the recipe, I realized that it was the infamous "Wacky Cake" that uses vinegar and baking soda.

In keeping with the spirit of healthy eating, rather than bake one large cake that would need to be consumed asap, I made six little bundt cakes. Each cake serves two people. I frosted two of the cakes for Mom's birthday and put the remaining four in the freezer for later.

The cake was very easy to make and was enjoyed by all, even the vegan-wary were delighted with the end result.

Wacky Cake with Peanut Butter Frosting (The Joy of Cooking)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Sift together into a large bowl:
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup sugar
6 Tbs non-alkalized cocoa (I use Ghirardelli cocoa powder)
1 tsp baking soda
1/8 tsp salt

Combine in another bowl and add to the dry ingredients:
1 cup cold water
1/4 cup + 1 Tbs vegetable oil
1 Tbs white vinegar
2 tsp vanilla

Stir until smooth, put the batter in the pan and bake until a toothpick comes out clean, about 25 to 30 minutes. Let cool.

Peanut Butter Frosting

Combine in a food processor and pulse just until creamy:
1/2 cup smooth peanut butter
3 oz soy cream cheese
1 tsp vanilla
2 cups powdered sugar, sifted
3 Tbs soy milk (You may need to add more if the frosting is too stiff.)

For those of you on in the know...each serving came out to 8 Points. We can enjoy ourselves once in a while...Especially on a birthday!

It's July and I'm Roasting...Vegetables

2006-07-15T07:03:00.000-04:00

I had 1/2 a pound of beets left from our CSA bounty and I had two sweet potatoes from god-knows-when that were starting to look past their prime. So, yesterday morning, before the scorching heat arrived, I got out my trusty cookie sheet and roasted said vegetables.

Do you remember Phil Hartman's SNL character "The Anal-Retentive Chef?" Well, I'm not too far off from that character. I hate messing up my kitchen! I am the queen of aluminum foil. I line my pans and cookie sheets with foil whenever possible. Nothing drives me more crazy than old pans and cookie sheets with that charred left-over crap stuck to them from decades of use. The great thing is that you can remove the foil lining and your pan or cookie sheet will look like new. Thanks to aluminum foil, I haven't had to wash my pans and cookie sheets in quite a while.

Another anal thing that I can't help but do is chop and dice vegetables to an uniform size. I like my vegetables to jive size-wise. The vegetables will roast evenly and you will avoid those larger under-roasted pieces and the carcinogen-loaded charred smaller pieces.

I roast all kind of vegetables...I can't think of a single vegetable that does not stand up to roasting. I pre-heat my oven to 425 degrees, line a cookie sheet with foil, spray the pan with olive oil Pam, toss my veggies onto the cookie sheet, spray them with a little more Pam, season with salt and pepper, then pop them in the oven for 30-45 minutes. Yummy!

Friday's Menu:
*Zucchini Soup
*Pesto Pasta Salad
*Chilled Roasted Vegetables
*Salad Greens
*Chocolate Mini Tarts

Summer Comfort Food

2006-07-14T07:05:00.000-04:00

As promised earlier this week, I will share the recipe for my Mom's Zucchini Soup. Growing up, we always had a HUGE vegetable garden. Mom would always harvest the zucchini when they were little because the large zucchini are bitter. We always had a batch of Zucchini Soup in the fridge for days when it was too hot for Mom to be slaving over the stove.

I have tweaked Mom's recipe to make it vegan. Vegetable broth replaces chicken broth, soy sour cream replaces dairy sour cream, and soy bacon bits replace really bacon. Recently, I brought shared some of my soup with Mom and Dad because I had made WAY TOO MUCH...they couldn't tell the difference...and my parents are very vegan-wary.

Zucchini Soup

Ingredients:
1/4 Cup Vegan Margarine
4-5 Small Zucchini
1 Medium Onion
1 Lemon
1/4 Cup Unbleached Flour
48 oz. Vegetable Broth

Prep: Do all of the cutting before you start melting the margarine...things cook quickly.
*Chop the zucchini into 1/2 inch rounds...discarding the woody stem end.
*Slice the onion into 1/2 inch rounds.
*Slice the lemons into 1/2 inch rounds(don't peel them...after they simmer in the soup, they will be blended, peel and all, with the rest of the ingredients).

Instructions:
1. In a large stock pot, saute the zucchini and onions in the melted vegan margarine until the onions are soft.
2. Add the sliced lemon to the stock pot and saute for one minute.
3. Stir in 1/4 cup unbleached flour, make sure that everything is coated. Cook for a minute or two...be careful not to burn the flour...you just want to cook it to get rid of the flour taste.
4. Stir in 48 oz. of vegetable broth, cover, and simmer on low heat for an hour.
5. After an hour of simmering the soup is ready to be blended in batches. Nothing gets wasted...blend everything that is in the stock pot.
6. Serve warm or chilled. The soup keeps in the fridge for a week, and in the freezer...much longer.

Before serving, garnish with a dollop of soy sour cream and 1-2 TBSP of imitation bacon bits.

Hope your family enjoys this soup as much as we do.

Sinful Chocolate Pudding Mini Tarts

2006-07-12T18:45:00.000-04:00

Bill Cosby would love these...they taste like Jell-O Pudding Pops. However, Cliff Huxtable would probably shy away from the tofu. Given the small portions, these mini tarts are not sinful in a high calorie and fat way, they just taste sinful.

Recipe for The Ultimate Chocolate Pudding is from Joanne Stepaniak's Delicious Food for a Healthy Heart page 164. I've seen this recipe posted on other blogs and websites, so I will share it with peace of mind.

Ultimate Chocolate Pudding

Place the following ingredients in a blender and process until smooth, creamy and thick. Chill until ready to serve. I found that it firms up...which was great for pie/tart/mini tart filling.

1 1/2 cups lite silken tofu, crumbled
1/3 cup pure maple syrup
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder (I used Ghirardelli)
1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
A tiny pinch of salt

To assemble the mini tarts, place one teaspoon of chilled and thinkened pudding into pre-baked Phyllo Dough Shells (easy to find in the frozen food section of your local supermarket).

The Phyllo Dough Package states that one serving is two shells (Calories 40g; Fat 2g; Fiber 0). Stepaniak's Ultimate Chocolate Pudding states that 1/2 cup is a serving (Calories 146g; Fat 4g; Fiber unknown). Breakdown for each mini tart: Calories 27g; Fat 1g; Fiber 0g). Not too bad!

Tom's review: "Excellent! I can't believe this is tofu!"

Adventures in Fennel: Fronds and Bulbs

2006-07-12T18:15:00.000-04:00

Our cornucopia of vegetables from Full Moon Farms included fennel this week. I opened the fridge this morning, saw that the fennel looked droopy and not very crisp and I knew that I would have to cook it last night, or end up wasting a perfectly wonderful vegetable. I searched my copy of Vegetarian Times Complete Cookbook and found a recipe. Angel Hair Pasta with Fennel and Saffron, page 252 if you own the book...here is the link to the online copy if you do not.

I had to do a bit of research online because I didn't know what VT meant by fennel fronds. Well, it's the dill-look-alike things on the top of the fennel stems. Here is a picture for those of you who are visual learners like myself:

Looks like grass, eh?

My overall opinion as the cook: If you don't have the ingredients on hand, this can be a very expensive dish. Saffron, pinenuts, fennel seeds and currants tend to be pretty expensive, at least here in Vermont. Also, the prep time took at least an half-an-hour. You must boil the fennel bulb before adding it to the sauce, otherwise the fennel is tough. After prep time, the recipe cooked pretty quickly. I consider this a weekend dish, just because you need a few spare minutes.

Tom's opinion: As someone who dislikes celery-textured vegetables, he said that he loved how the fennel (which can have a celery-texture) was not stringy and tough. The fennel and onion flavors were not as overpowering as one might think. The sauce was very mild. The currants added a touch of sweetness, while the pinenuts gave the dish an occasional crunch. Tom gave it two thumbs up and said that he would eat it again, with pleasure.

Another winner to add to the family cookbook binder.
Here is the finished dish:

Wednesday's Menu:
*Angel Hair Pasta with Fennel and Saffron
*Multi-Grained Farm Bread served with garlic infused olive oil
*Salad Greens with Italian Dressing
*Sinful Chocolate Mini Tarts (see next post for more details)

Beverage Paired with Dinner: Bully Hill's Love My Goat

I graduated from William Smith College, located in the heart of New York's Finger Lake Region. During college, wine touring was a popular weekend activity. The president of our college offered a wine-tasting course to of-age students...took it...loved it! I discovered Bully Hill Vineyards, located in Hammonsport, NY, with my parents on my 21st birthday. Their business is run very similar to Ben & Jerry's, meaning their tours and wine tasting sessions are lead by sassy employee's who will stop at nothing to make you laugh. Tom and I always make our way over to Hammonsport on our annual tour of the Finger Lakes Region.

He Ate Eggplant!

2006-07-12T07:28:00.000-04:00

In the past, Tom has been a reluctant consumer of vegetables. Over the past three years he has come to love most vegetables and I can only assume that my fabulous cooking is to be credited for his change of heart. Most recently, Tom has taken a liking to onions (my all-time favorite, second to garlic), which was a huge step for him. Today brought Tom another step closer to the wonderful world of vegetables...he ate and loved an eggplant dish that I served for dinner last night. HE ATE EGGPLANT!

Tuesday's Menu:
*Eggplant Napoleons
*Salad Greens with Watermelon tossed with Balsamic Vinaigrette
*Pasta tossed with scallions, olive oil, and herbs
*Strawberry Rhubarb Pie

Eggplant Napoleons
One Eggplant, peeled and cut into 1/2 inch rounds
Vegan Mayo
Breadcrumbs, add Italian seasoning, salt and pepper to taste
Homemade Pesto Sauce (From Fat Free Vegan Kitchen)
Fresh Tomatoes, sliced into 1/4 inch rounds

Heat oven to 350 degrees...

1) Place eggplant rounds on a towel, sprinkle with salt, cover with a second towel and let stand for at least one hour. This is a trick that my mom taught me, it removes some of the water in the eggplant, making it easier to bread.

2) Slather both sides of the eggplant round with vegan mayo and then dredge the eggplant round in seasoned bread crumbs. Place breaded eggplant round on greased (I use Olive Oil Pam Spray) cookie sheet. Repeat this process until all eggplant rounds are breaded. Place in oven and cook for 30 minutes.

3) Remove breaded eggplant rounds from the cookie sheet, top with a layer of pesto sauce, then a tomato slice, and a finally a second layer of pesto sauce. Anything higher will topple over.

Serve warm.

Just a quick note on the Salad Greens with Watermelon and Balsamic Vinaigrette...sounds weird but it tastes great. I must give credit where credit is due...I got the idea from our local newspaper's food critic Debbie Salomon (a fountain of information and a great source of inspiration for me as a young girl learning how to cook and now as a young woman looking for new and fresh ideas).

Full Moon Farm Pick-Up

2006-07-12T07:08:00.000-04:00

Included in this weeks bounty:
Fennel
Beets
Summer Squash
Cukes
Salad Greens (pictured above)
Scallions
Onions
Dill

Farmer Dave told us that they were able to harvest the first few cherry tomatoes this past weekend, so samples will be forthcoming and we should be able to bring some home in a week or two. The watermelon are coming along nicely, they are the size of softballs. Sweetcorn and beans are "not toooo far way." And potatoes and corn are around the corner.

We pick up our CSA share at Magic Hat, so every week we recycle our glass growlers (1/8 of a barrel or 1/2 gallon...we have two provided by Magic Hat...you pay less for recycling the glass growler) and pick out two other beers to accompany our meals for the week. This weeks picks: Circus Boy: The Hefeweizen and Hocus Pocus. We each had a pint last night...yum!

Monday's Menu--Featuring Roasted Tomato Bean Spread

2006-07-11T09:05:00.000-04:00

Susan V's blog The Fat Free Vegan Kitchen has been one of the best sources of information, recipes and inspiration for me during our transition to veganism. I frequent her blog almost daily. Tom is a very picky eater and after three years of marriage, I know that when I am introducing something new, be it a vegetable or dish, Tom is more willing to try something new if he has previewed the recipe and/or seen a picture. Susan's blog includes recipes with pictures as well as reviews from family members. Her blog and website Fat Free Vegan Recipes (an index of tried and some untried recipes) have been godsends.

Last night I made Susan's Roasted Tomato Bean Dip. Mashed chick-peas provide the base, while fresh basil and roasted tomatoes add full-bodied flavor. Here is the final product:

I served the bean dip with moderate sized chunks of multi-grain farm bread(purchased from the local gourmet market). Tom absolutely LOVED the bean dip. He ate every last bite.

Monday's Menu:
Mom's Zucchini Soup*
Roasted Tomato Bean Dip
Multi-Grain Farm Bread
Salad w/ Thousand Island Dressing**
Strawberry-Rhubarb Pie***

* I will post the recipe with a picture later this week.
**Recipe for dressing can be found in Joanne Stepaniak's Table for Two: Meat-and dairy-Free Recipes for Two page 72.
***The pie was consumed before a picture could be snapped. The recipe can be found on the back of any Kraft Minute Tapioca box. Just substitute vegan margarine for the butter.

Rising to Meet the Challenge?

2006-07-10T09:09:00.000-04:00

I woke up this morning and decided that I wanted to bake homemade bread. At first, I feared treading on Tom's territory (he loves to bake bread but rarely has the time) and then... I got over it. I'm planning on serving Mom's Zucchini Soup today and homemade bread would make a great addition. How could Tom get upset? And if he were to get upset with me, I know that one taste of my bread would make him forget any and all negative thoughts.

Such a lofty goal for a steamy July day...should I hand knead the dough...no it's too hot, plus I already worked out today...then perhaps this is the day to break out my Cusinart and put the dough blade to work.

One major problem...I'm scared shitless of the Cusinart. My Aunt Pate gave it to us as a wedding present three years ago and after opening it and seeing the caution "sharp blade" warnings I quickly closed the box and shoved it to the side. Three years of dust have settled on our "Premier Food Processor" and it's shameful to let such a beautiful, not to mention very expensive, kitchen appliance sit unused.

To get over my fears, I settled down on my couch and watched the 45 minute introductory video that comes with the food processor.

Then, I pulled all of the pieces out of the box and assembled my chrome kitchen appliance. Miraculously, I didn't slice and dice my fingers. I'm feeling quite confident that I can safely use the food processor.

Minor problem...My kitchen time is limited today because Mom and I are going to the movie theater to see The Devil Wears Prada. Upon reviewing my bread recipe, it became very clear that I would be cutting things pretty close...so perhaps tomorrow I will be better able to rise to the challenge and make a couple loaves of bread.

Our Weekly Cache--July 9th

2006-07-09T16:30:00.000-04:00

Cache: Anything stored or hidden Webster's New World College Dictionary

As a working woman, I find it difficult to come home from a busy day at work and slave over a stove. Unfortunately, it is near impossible to find healthy vegan take-out in Vermont and when you do find it you end up paying an arm and a leg for something that you know you could have made yourself. So for economic, health, and guilt reasons I have learned to cook for the week in advance.

This is not to say that I don't pull a "Dad Move" and bi-pass the casserole in the fridge and take the family (hubby) to Subway...because sometimes I do, but most of the time I stick to the meal plan.

Tom and I belong to a local CSA (Full Moon Farm) and every Tuesday we are presented with a basket full of beautiful organic fruits, vegetables and herbs. Included in this week's basket was a bunch of deep green basil...perfect for Thai Green Curry and Italian Pesto. Also, included in the basket were several small zucchini which I used to make a HUGE batch of Mom's Zucchini Soup.

It's the tail-end of strawberry season in Vermont and so we must take advantage of our favorite berry....for our dessert this week...Strawberry Rhubarb Pie and Strawberry Shortcake.

We will have other meals, such as Boca Burgers with Sweet Potato Fries, but I don't cook those ahead of time...those meals tend to happen on slow work days.

Tom and I have recently been away on vacation and I cannot easily locate our digital camera...so pictures will be posted later this week and I will include the recipes at that time.

Why go vegan?

2006-07-09T15:42:00.000-04:00

There are so many valid reasons for living a vegan lifestyle/diet...avoid exploiting other living beings, maintain a healthy weight, have more energy, help the environment, reduce famine, and reduce the risk for certain diseases such as heart disease, diabetes and certain cancers.

I did not adopt a vegan lifestyle for ethical reasons. Instead, I was drawn to veganism for health reasons.

Three years ago, my twenty-something husband was diagnosed with thyroid cancer. After two and a half years of living in a vortex of crisis, my husband's health stabalized and we were able to go forward with life. Our expereinces have lead us to "conscious living". We do not take the small joyful moments for granted. We try to live in the moment, knowing that every day is a blessing and that we should take advantage of every moment that we have together (although we both have stressful jobs that like to get in the way). Equally important, knowing that thyroid cancer is caused by both diet and environment, we have become very careful about what we put into our bodies.

My husband is a lacto-vegetarian (he does not consume milk or milk products with the exception of his favorite CHEESE...which is a rare treat) and I am a strict vegan. Since December, we have collectively lost 70 pounds. A long time allergy sufferer, this was my first spring and early summer living allergy-free. And aside from a terrible duct tape related infection (a story for another day), we have been very healthy.

We both thought a major diet change would be difficult and that the food choices would be limited...we were very mistaken. We have never enjoyed cooking and eating as much as we do now. Currently, we are exploring Asian foods...things with tons of spice and heat.

This blog is to serve as a journal for our journey into preparing healthier meals with tons of variety (I hope).