Vegan chocolate cake

Someone very special to us turned 2 yesterday. Unfortunately, we were not with him to celebrate. He does not know about us yet, but (hopefully) soon, our lives will be completely and intricately connected. It was a difficult day for me - celebrating the birthday of a son we don't yet know, but love and want. Yes, we are adopting a little boy - he lives with his foster family in India and we are waiting ..
To celebrate his birthday, I baked a chocolate cake and V and I ate the cake last evening. As I was searching for recipes for a cake, I came across this collection of Moosewood recipes. About 8-10 years ago, when I started getting into cooking more, V's aunt, cousin and I discovered this treasure trove of books from Moosewood and I used to use the recipe books regularly. I may have said this before - but, it's the one book that I don't substitute much. I follow the recipes pretty closely. Then, the blogs opened up new worlds and I have not used the recipe books as much.

The vegan chocolate cake recipe looked easy enough and not too much of a hassle. I made it in the pan as described in the recipe and cut down the sugar to half a cup (I just felt that one cup may be too much). I added a few chocolate chips in the batter - for a surprise chocolate taste!

For the glaze (which I liked more than the cake), I added a tsp of orange flavoring to add a little orange twist to the cake. To make it more fun (and because V likes it), I added cherries to the top of the glaze before cooling it!

Verdict - The cake was a little crumbly and not too sweet. It tasted great with the glaze and I loved the addition of the orange flavor. I was not a huge fan of the cake without the glaze, but I never complain about chocolate!!

Stir Fry Noodles

I made a generic stir fry for dinner tonight. Not going to be eating at home much during the week, so won't be too many posts. It is inspired by the whole wheat linguini stir fry that Em mentioned in her last post (on the Vegetarian Times cover).

Ingredients
1/2 package of cooked noodles (I used Thai Rice noodles)
Extra firm Tofu
2 Eggs
Garlic - 2 cloves
Ginger - to taste
Green Onions - 5
Carrots - 3
Red Pepper -1
Green Pepper -1
Mushrooms -8 oz
Celery - 2 stalks
Peanuts - handful
Soy Sauce - 5 T
Brown Sugar - 2 T
Sriracha sauce - 3 T (or you can use any chili powder)
Sesame sticks




I added eggs to Velu's portion. Scrambled eggs (whites only) and set aside.
Saute tofu in warm oil till light brown and set aside.

Add 1 tsp oil in a warm wok.
Add ginger and garlic pieces and let cook for less than 1 minute.
Add all the vegetables and saute till the vegetables are cooked, but still crunchy.

Add soy sauce, sriracha sauce, brown sugar.
(At this point, you can also add some tomato paste and/or 1T of coconut milk)
Add Tofu and cooked noodles.
Let all the flavors mix together.
Add peanuts.
Serve with Sesame sticks on top..

Variations: Use a variety of noodles
Can use any vegetables (broccoli, peas, snow peas, onion)
Add hoisin sauce or black bean sauce instead of soy sauce and srirach sauce.
Play with the flavors and enjoy!!

PS: I put up a photo with the ingredients rather than the finished dish - this looks better!!

No-chicken curry

As I type this, the 'no-chicken curry' is cooking away. This is my quick week-night dinner with the Seitan that I made over the weekend. My 'curries' change every time I make it. It depends on the time that I have and what I feel like doing. Here are the basics. Em, you can make it for yourself when Mike is away?
I sauteed pieces of the Seitan first.
Heat oil. This is the only standard :)
I always add ginger and garlic cloves (cut up) and let them cook a little, with a couple of green chillis cut up. Sometimes, I add cloves, cinnamon and bay leaves too and let them brown.
Add one onion, finely chopped. Cook till translucent.
Add 1-2 cans of tomatoes (based on how watery I want the gravy).
At this point, you can cook it down like this for a few minutes and leave as is or puree the onions and tomatoes.
Today, it was chunky.
The spices I add are also inconsistent. Salt, turmeric are standard. The rest - depends on my mood, again. The choices are pre-made garam masala, paprika, chilli powder, kitchen king masala or a pre-prepared masala powder. Occasionally, I will dry roast some ingredients and grind them too... very very occasionally! Kasuri meth is an option too!
Add the protien - paneer, seitan (today), beans (garbanzo or kidney), black-eyed peas, other lentils, tofu and cook.
Sometimes I also add a vegetable at this stage - peas, spinach (today, I threw in some broccoli) - so, this one dish has it all :) Cook it all together well.
To end, again options include - cream, plain yogurt whippped together, coconut milk or just broth/water to make a tomato-based gravy. I had some left over coconut milk that needed to be used and so it was used! Boil again. If using yogurt, don't boil it for too long. You can also grind together dry-roasted cashews and add them... makes for a nutty texture. Sometimes, I just add cashews for my crunch! (Or I tend to revert to chips... bad, bad)
I *love* cilantro, so that always gets added at the end. Depending on the taste, I add some sugar to cut the acidity or lemon juice to add acidity.
Serve with rice/naan/chappati/tortilla....
The moral of this post - let your taste guide you!!
As the curry cooks, I should confess that I tasted a lot of the seitan when I was cutting it and I am not completely sold on the texture. It is very 'meaty' and I am not a huge fan of 'meaty' textures. So the jury is still out. I have some seitan left, so I will use it in a stir-fry later this week too and see what I think.
Any other Indian-food enthusiasts that read this blog - any other modifications you would make to your curry? Add it to the comments section, please.

Carvel-ish Cake

Now my husband really, really, really loves Carvel cakes. We have been known to pick one up for many a random special occasion. Now that he is avoiding dairy products, I got a bit worried as his birthday approached. I tried to get a little creative and my final product is seen here:

There were some problems. I tried to spread the ice "cream" into a springform pan with the ridiculous idea that it would slip easily out of this pan and I could simpy flip it over revealing a perfectly circular cake from which would then just need a few decorative elements. Um...no dice. Ice cream stuck pitifully to the pan so I just added some chocolate suace to the top and crushed up some peanuts. Everyone was (relatively) happy.

Here is how you too can make a Carvel-ish cake/pie/whatever for your vegan loved one:

Tofutti Carvel-ish Cake

Ingredients

• 2 tubs vanilla Tofutti ice cream
• 2 tubs chocolate Tofutti ice cream
• 1-1 1/2 cup crushed vegan chocolate cookies (I use Mi-Del Chocolate Snaps)
• decorative elements-frosting, chocolate sauce, nuts, etc. (This is all you, I can only take you so far)

You will need a deep pie plate, round cake pan, square cake pan, or do what I did and use a springform although it is unnecessary. Let tofutti warm just a bit (it is typically pretty soft). Scoop chocolate onto the bottom of you pan spreading across as much as possible. Place wax paper over the top and press down to make it as flat as possible. Cover with crushed cookies. You may want to freeze slightly now before adding next layer. Repeat process with vanilla Tofutti. I topped it with "Chocolate Glaze" (http://vegweb.com/index.php?topic=6489.0) which was challenging since it is a warm glaze and, therefore, melted some of my ice cream. Oh well, you live you learn, you stuff your face with the mistakes. I also added some crushed peanuts around the edges sort of like Fudgey the Whale. This cake needs to be frozen at least over night if you want it to slice well but if you cannot wait, grab a spoon and enjoy!