Happy VeganMoFo! (and beetroot curry with meyer lemon chutney)

It's the first day of VeganMoFo! In case you've never heard of it before (in which case you must be new to vegan blogs--welcome), VeganMoFo is short for Vegan Month of Food, and it's a celebration of vegan food blogging! Blogs that participate in VeganMoFo commit to writing at least 20 posts about vegan food during the month of October. I love participating in VeganMoFo, and reading the blogroll at the main VeganMoFo headquarters, because it helps me find other great vegan blogs and get inspired  in both my own cooking and blogging. Also it makes me get myself in gear--I may have trouble posting more than once during the other months of the year, but when VeganMoFo comes, I don't kid around!

The past year has been really busy for me. Kevin and I got married and honeymooned, I was promoted at work, and then we bought a house. All of these things have been awesome, some (the house) more time-consuming than others, but it all adds up to me not being as adventurous in the kitchen. Instead of inventing my own recipes, I've mostly been relying on the recipes of others. Most of my VeganMoFo posts will be pointing you to some of the great vegan recipes I've made from around the internet. (I'll also toss in a couple things of my own, but I make no promises.)

Today we start with Beetroot Curry from Jeyashri's Kitchen. It's a pretty simple recipe, to which I added about a cup of beans for extra protein. Because I can't eat nightshades, I make my own sambar powder--anyone looking to do the same can just search for a sambar powder recipe online and just omit the spicy things! (To replace the hot pepper, see my guide for replacing peppers in cooking.)

 To the right, cooking alongside the curry, is Meyer Lemon Cherry Chutney from the Kitchn. I'd had some Meyer lemons that I wanted to turn into something really lemony, and this seemed like the best recipe to try. Despite the fact that Meyers are sweeter than most lemons, this is a really sour chutney! I like sour things, but I wasn't prepared for it. Fortunately the beetroot curry was mild and a little sweet, so the two things together worked perfectly.

Here we had the curry, the chutney, and some plain millet and lettuce to mellow out the stronger flavored food. If you were to try either the curry or chutney recipe on its own, I would recommend pairing the curry with something strong and sharp in taste; pair the chutney with mild, sweet-ish flavors. I strongly recommend both, especially together!

lemon cake with ginger

I spend more time than you would suspect on the Martha Stewart website, browsing through recipes and craft ideas. There's something so soothing about everything on that site; it makes you feel like you feel like you could do anything as long as you follow all the step-by step instructions and pretty pictures. Maybe that's just me. Anyway, one thing I noticed while looking through a cake gallery (yes, there are galleries of cakes and cupcakes. How did you think I got sucked in?) is that a bunch of layer cakes just had icing on top. Or no icing at all, just some powdered sugar or fruit. Icing is always my least favorite part of the cake, so to me, this technique is the perfect cake decoration! I find it quite elegant, and very simple.

For an example of elegance combined with deliciousness, here is a Lemon Cake with Ginger that I made on Monday.

For the cake, I used the vanilla cupcake recipe from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World, with the lemon variation. I made a double batch so I could make layers.

The icing is a variation on basic buttercream (also from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World), using a touch of powdered ginger and ginger juice instead of vanilla extract. And the filling is something new my mother gave me:

Ginger Spread! Have you heard of this? The only ingredients are ginger and sugar. It's like a thin jelly. So far I've only used it for this cake and to put on an otherwise-savory sandwich; it's very warming and delicious. I still have half a jar; what else should I do with it?