other people's recipes

while I love to be creative and make up my own meals, I have too many cookbooks and too many amazing fellow vegan bloggers to go too long without making other people's recipes. This entry is a bunch of recipes I've stockpiled.
These little babies are the Acorn Squash and Black Bean Empanadas from veganomicon. They were deLICious, especially the dough. My only complaint was that by the book, they should be triangular. First of all, no. That is just not how I want my empanadas to look. Second of all, it is SO much harder to make a triangle than a half circle! Observe:

Also from veganomicon, the Pumpkin Saag:
It's a little mushier, I think, than it's supposed to be, because 1.) I used butternut squash instead of pumpkin and 2.) one of the friends I served it to is allergic to peanuts, so I skipped the peanut oil and added some coconut milk for extra flavor. Still delicious and a big hit.

One of my FAVORITE finds from this post: the chocolate covered vegan's Sauerkraut Salad.
Yum! I made it for my mother when my parents visited and we loved it. I left out the bell pepper (because I'm allergic) and tossed in a bit of chopped chard stem for the same effect. It got better as it got older, too (which, I guess, is the point of sauerkraut).

Curried Lime Tofu from Eat, Drink and Be Vegan:
Pretty, flavorful and not as much work as I find a lot of dreena's recipes to be.

And Creamy Chickpea Soup with Moroccan Spice Oil, from the voluptuous vegan!
The soup itself is very simple - it's pretty much hummus, but thinner, and being the chickpea fanatic that I am, I loved it. It was very plain, but the moroccan spice oil added a nice, warm, complex flavor. I was very proud of myself for taking the time to make it! I made a really tiny batch because I didn't know if I'd want to save any - but next time I'll make more.

Have I mentioned how I feel about the voluptuous vegan? I'm torn as to whether I like it... There are some good, simple recipes, but most of them are elaborate and time-consuming. All the ones I've tried have been tasty, though. I guess this would be a fantastic book in it if you have loads of time and are planning and ritzy-but-intimate dinner party.

That's it for the savory stuff. On to sweets!
Double Chocolate Pecan Chippers from the everyday vegan! I used agave syrup instead of sugar, so they spread out while they cooked. I ate too many.

AND FINALLY!
Chai Latte Cupcakes from vegan cupcakes take over the world!

I'm not a big fan of refined sugar, even organic, so the mass amounts of confectionary sugar involved in making frosting scares me. Instead of making mounds of icing, then, I tend to use glazes or ganache. The Brown Rice Caramel Glaze worked brilliantly (although I didn't have soymilk powder; I improvised by decreasing the liquid in the recipe and just simmering down some soymilk for a while). It just took a little longer for the glaze to set:
I brought these to a small dinner party and all 12 of them disappeared.

I've decided to make every cupcake in vegan cupcakes take of the world. Green tea cupcakes are next!

fruit is so pretty

I like to start my day with fruit. and when I'm not in a blur of a hurry throwing my stuff together for work, I remember to take pictures.

persimmons, in a sexy soft-focus.

the one on the left is a fuyu persimmon, which you eat when it's firm, like a tomato. The one on the right is a hachiya, which have to get basically so soft they seem rotten before they're sweet enough to eat.

Here's a fuyu:

They look so much like tomatoes that they're a little scary for me to eat. But tasty!

My mother and brother often complain all I ever eat is asian food. And looking over my blog... I see how someone could make that claim. But I eat a variety of foods! In fact, I had a very continental day the other day. A huge pesto pasta (no pictures), thanks to the fresh pesto my roommate made, and then:

Stuffed Button Mushrooms

this is not a great picture. But they were good. Quite savory and garlicky. I'm still refining my ideal stuffed mushroom recipe... so I won't post a recipe. I've tried some from christina pirello's cooking with whole foods, which were okay, and adapted this one from dreena burton's everyday vegan to be nightshade- and gluten-free (used chopped walnuts and mashed rice as a grain/binding agent). But I'm not satisfied yet. I'll keep you posted.

(oh snap! "post"ed. ha!)

my sister's visiting this weekend. my thai for dinner tonight, veggie planet for brunch tomorrow (vegan waffles!!!).