Mofo #8 Cookbooks You Don't Use Nearly Enough

i know we just did one of these, but we're doing one again!

tonight: "vegan taste of france" by linda majzlik. i know, i know. we did a vegan taste of... book last time. too bad.

for dinner tonight, i made the country cider casserole. holy.crap. this was another recipe that took a long time. remember the gyros took a few hours what with the chilling and everything? this is similar. an hour soak on some beans, cooking time, then baking time. overall, it took a little over 3 hours. but it was worth every minute.

leeks, onions, carrot, garlic, beans, apples, and cider all baked together and topped with crunchy walnuts and fresh chervil. whoa. amazing. i love leeks, so right off the bat, i knew i was at least going to like this. but the way the cider infuses into all of the veggies and gives everything a slight sweetness just really sent this over the top for me.


the only thing i would have liked was some nice crusty bread on the side. oh well, next time! and there will be a next time. soon.

a couple weeks ago, i picked up some trader joe's instant pudding. because the boxes were really cute. it says right on the package not to use soy or rice milk. so i used almond milk, hoping it would have enough fat to make the pudding set. it wasn't perfect - more of a soft set, but it got the job done. i love chocolate pudding on veggie casserole night. so cozy.

Vegan Mofo: Cider Donuts

one of my favorite things about the fall is going apple picking. when i was younger, apple picking always meant a drive out to one of the farms a little further north and west. there were farm smells mixed with the smell of the fallen leaves and hay and apples and cider and always always always the inevitable cider donuts.

last year, nowheykatie posted her apple cider donuts based off this recipe. from what i remember, she just replaced the liquid in the recipe with apple cider. just make sure you have fresh yeast for these. the first batch i made (the ones you see in the pictures below) came out beautifully, but when i made them with michael a few weeks later, we must have used some older yeast because they never rose and they were greasy and awful. so go out and buy new yeast!

Vegan Mofo: Iron Chef Challenge

cookie update: as of this morning, all of the cookies are baked and all but the last 25 are in bags and ready to go. whew! i will post the rest of the pictures and a wrap-up tomorrow evening. but for now: iron chef challenge!


katie suggested an iron chef challenge for vegan mofo. competitors would find out the secret ingredients on friday night and have until sunday afternoon to post what they made with the secret ingredients. katie announced the first secret ingredients, apples and ginger, last night. right away, i thought carrot soup. i wasn't going to participate in this week's challenge because i had all the cookies going on, but it turns out i had everything i needed to make soup right here. it was too easy to turn down.

carrot apple ginger curry soup
this soup is thick and sweet and just a bit spicy from the curry powder and ginger. wonderful for a chilly fall day.

i started by making stock out of frozen veggie scraps. you've heard this before, but it's really easy to save carrot peelings, onion skins, ends of celery, and herb stems in the fridge and then break them out every so often to make stock. this time, i had a ton of onion skins, some leek greens, various amounts of carrot and celery, and what looked like some parsley in my zip loc baggie in the freezer. i dumped it all in my big stock pot, added carrot peelings from the carrots i was using in the soup, some sprigs of thyme and rosemary from the fridge, and about a tablespoon of peppercorns.


i added enough water to cover and boiled away. after the stock had reduced to half, i let it cool a bit.

then i drained the veggies and set the stock aside. easy. time for soup!

ingredients
1 tablespoon olive oil
12 carrots, chopped
1 medium onion, chopped
1/3 cup white wine vinegar
6-8 cups veggie stock
3 apples (any kind), chopped
2 sprigs thyme, plus extra for garnish
2 heaping tablespoons powdered ginger
1 heaping tablespoon curry powder

in a large soup pot, heat olive oil over med high heat. add carrots and onion and cook until they start to brown.

once they're brown and the onions have softened a bit, add the vinegar. once the vinegar as deglazed the pan and kind of evaporated off add 3 cups of the stock.

simmer the carrots and onions for 10 minutes. add the apples. for this, i used 2 macintosh and 1 granny smith. add more veggie stock if you need to - it should come up right to the top of the apples or slightly under. add the thyme (add stems and everything. the leaves will fall off into the soup while it's cooking and you can just fish out the stems before blending), ginger, and curry powder.

simmer for 45 minutes or until the carrots are very soft.

remove from heat and let it cool just a bit. using either a blender, food processor, or hand blender, blend until smooth.

i made croutons out of a leftover hotdog roll i found on top of my fridge. relax, i keep bread in a basket on top of my fridge. it's not like it was just rolling around up there.
for croutons, i cut up the hot dog roll into bits, melted some earth balance in a frying pan, added the bread and toasted lightly. i finished off the croutons by broiling them for 5 minutes. sprinkle with some adobo once they come out of the oven and voila. croutons.