Kimchi-Stuffed Sausages & Vegan Finger Foods Review+Giveaway

Perhaps it is fitting that my last post from Houston should be a review for Vegan Finger Foods. It was in Houston, that I found and dived head-first into the “vegan potluck” community. Bounded by a common interest (delicious food), people came from various backgrounds. Some were vegan, others vegetarian, some omnivores, but all were included and encouraged to eat and enjoy the plentiful vegan food.

For me as a cook, it was (mostly) fun to try new recipes or share old favourites. I tend to gravitate to one-pot meals, but now I experimented with appetizers and desserts, knowing there would be plenty of Janet-friendly dishes to sample. As a person, it was comforting to meet others with similar interests, even if only within the realm of veganism. Although especially within the realm of veganism when I first moved to Texas.

Vegan Finger Foods is a fun cookbook, overflowing with ideas for your next gathering. Not only are the recipes suitable for vegan parties and potlucks, they can be mixed and matched for regular main meals at home. There are vegetable-centric bites (think “Bacon” Wrapped Water Chestnuts, Harissa Carrot Zucchini Cups), Finger Foods (think Brewpub Cauliflower Dip and Chips), Dips and Stuffed bites (like Baked Buffalo Tofu Bites with Pantry Raid Ranch and Pulled Jackfruit Mini Tacos), Bread-Based Bites (including Salsa Scuffins) and not forgetting bite-sized desserts (lots of cookies, cupcakes and even Goji Berry Cacao Bites and Tahini Caramel Popcorn).

I appreciate that each dish is a star in itself, even the veggie-centric dishes. I also liked that many dishes are hearty enough to be a main meal (ie, Sweet-and-Sour Sloppy Joes (with tempeh), baked lenteja taquitos (with lentils), baked frittata minis (with tofu) and even a few homemade seitan dishes, including these Kimchi-Stuffed Sausages. No need for company to eat well.

I tried a few dishes from the cookbook, but this one was my favourite and thankfully helped use up some odds-and-ends lingering in the kitchen. Reminiscent of my previous (vegan) cheese-stuffed sausage, these sausages are stuffed with kimchi. Kimchi is also incorporated into the batter making for a flavourful yet chewy sausage. I found it easier just to serve it with a side of even more kimchi, but I love suggestion to pan-fry it and then sprinkle with sesame seeds and green onions. Pan-frying would accentuate the flavours even further.

Thankfully, the publisher is letting me share the recipe AND give a cookbook to one reader living in the United States or Canada. To be entered, please leave a comment here, telling me about your favourite dish to share at potlucks. I will randomly select a winner on July 30, 2014. Good luck!

Other recipes from Vegan Finger Foods shared elsewhere:

Vegan Potato Puffs with Tapenade

Kale Cucumber Cups

Rasta Salsa

Corn Fritters with Tomato Thyme Gravy

Baked Jalapeños

Spinach Swirls (with another giveaway, too)

Pull Apart Pesto Bread

Quickie Marinara

Fig and Nut Canapés

Sushi Rice Rolls

Salsa Scuffins (with another giveaway, too)

Better Buckeyes

Other dishes I shared at the vegan potluck this year:

Peach & Hazelnut Kale Salad with Maple Miso Vinaigrette

Pecan and Cranberry Vegan Cheese Log

Raw Thai Pineapple Parsnip Rice

Curried Chickpea Salad with Carrots and Currants

Peanut Butter and Jam Energy Balls

Tahini Cups with a Sweet Coffee Infused Filling

Pineapple Mint Frothy Drink

Houston played a cruel joke on us earlier this week.

If you thought it was hot outside, it was more hot inside our home. While not too hot outside (highs of 90F/32C), inside our home, it was 86F/29C. It was still 86F inside, after an overnight low of 80F/27C.

Yes, our air conditioner had stopped working.

Sweaty times.

Rob suffered the brunt of it, as he stayed at home (to work) and to greet the 3 separate repairmen. The first 2 could not reach the roof with their ladders. Thankfully, the third team was a charm. By this time, it was closer to 9 pm at night but when the cool air began to circulate through the house, it felt like heaven.

Truthfully, I had a long day at work but I was not rushing back to a hot and humid home. When I finally arrived, all I wanted was a cool drink. We have almost finished the frozen fruit in our freezer and this certainly hit the spot. I would not have considered something so simple as pineapple and mint, but while we were in Toronto last week, we sampled a delicious pineapple-apple-mint juice from Yam Chops. Imagine my surprise after a quick spin in the blender, the froth had taken over. It was glorious! It settled a bit as I went looking for my camera, but I think you get the idea. Definitely the epitome of a frothy drink.

I am sharing this with Cooking with Herbs.

Toor Dal Curry with Spinach (Toor Palak Dal)

Time is a-ticking. Less than a week left in Houston. We have been balancing DO.ALL.THE.THINGS left to do in Houston and DO.ALL.THE.PACKING. Lots of pantry-friendly meals this month as we eat through our kitchen.

We stopped replenishing the red lentils months ago and begrudgingly started eating through the toor dal. Not that we don’t love it (WE LOVE TOOR DAL) but it just takes longer to cook and time is something we are lacking right now.

We left a few Houston must-dos until the end. I finally went to the NASA Space Center, lured by a private tour by an astronaut. An astronaut with a PhD in Cancer Biology, which was right up my alley, as she explained the medical complications of space travel. And let us touch and feel the space stuff. But not wear the space suits, sadly. Astronauts ARE a science experiment in themselves, did you know? They also do deadlifts and squats in space to maintain their bone density.

We also went to Chinatown to eat at one of the rival Malaysian restaurants, complete with the suggested one-hour foot massage for only $20-25 at the neighbouring reflexology spas. It is the thing to do, I swear.

That experience was also our first (and hopefully last) experience with Houston rush hour traffic.

Also, kudos to the American pharmacies. “Yellow Fever Vaccine Now Here”. I can easily obtain travel immunizations without an appointment or a puncture fee. Vaccines tend to be controversial but it is not controversial for me: I would rather not get infected.  So I finally got my hepatitis A shots and re-immunized myself against typhoid for my upcoming vacation.

So, about this curry. It is simple, yet delicious. Lightly spices with all the great Indian spices (cumin, coriander, garam masala) and lightened with a splash of lemon juice, it is a nice hearty meal. An easy way to easily add more spinach, too.

I haven’t really gone into too much detail why I am pro-vaccine (the main reason is the ability to prevent serious diseases, some of which are incurable, which I believe outweighs the potential side effects from receiving the vaccine). Do you have strong opinions either way?

PS. I am sharing this with Bookmarked Recipes, Eat Your Greens, The Spice Trail for Spinach, and In My Veg Box.

Chocolate Mint Chip Ice Cream & The China Study All-Star Collection Giveaway

Houston gets me every single time. You leave for a week or two and you forget how hot and humid it is. Or maybe it just became hotter.

I thought it was ice cream weather before but now it has become a dietary staple. Just like salsas, we will have to wean ourselves from the vegan ice creams at Trader Joe’s.

I have no ice cream maker, but this recipe promised to deliver.

Mint ice cream with chocolate chunks – what’s not to like? I added some spirulina to make it a vibrant green base.

Sadly, it didn’t work out. I actually wonder whether it could be done at all without an ice cream maker.  I quickly realized the chocolate chunks would sink to the bottom if I didn’t stir. So, I stirred the ice cream as it become to freeze, almost every 30 minutes for a few hours. Until it was way too late to stay up. Of course, in the morning, it was solid as a brick and difficult to thaw. I had a hard time getting it into a scoopable form and ended up thawing it in the microwave! It was also a bit icy, I suspect because I didn’t remove the watery coconut water from the coconut milk.

I eventually refroze it into small quantities and ended up adding some soy milk to turn it into a smoothie. Next time, I may try Kari’s idea to put it back in the food processor to whip it back into a creamy state. Or fish out my ice cream maker from storage.

The recipe comes from The China Study All-Star Collection which is a collection of vegan recipes that focus on whole foods with limited refined oils, sugars and salt. Like my cookbook collaboration, the recipes hail from many authors. I was familiar with some of the authors (Dreena Burton, Ani Phyo, Christy Morgan, and Lindsay Nixon) but also new-to-me authors like Chef AJ and Del Sroufe among others.

A cookbook like this makes a great introductory cookbook. You are exposed to the styles of many chefs, hopefully finding a few that really resonate with you, or others that perhaps push you in new directions. Would you like to try Dreena’s Apple Lentil Dal? Or Christina’s Daikon Mushroom Fettuccine? Or Laura’s Cauliflower Steaks with Sweet Pepper Sauce? Or Heather’s Dark Chocolate, Sweet Potato and Black Bean Brownies? Yeah, me too. All four. In fact, you may notice a few repeats from the more prolific writers. Lindsay’s Quick Burgers have been shared earlier as well as Dreena’s Mellow Lentil “Sniffle Soup” and Black Bean Soup with Sweet Potatoes (I shared that one in the fall and it was fabulous!). If nothing else, it may open you up to a whole new library from a new favourite author.

Of note, due to the multiple authors, the writing style of each author is apparent, along with the quality of their accompanying photographs.

Recipes from The China Study All-Star Collection shared elsewhere:

Lemon-Lime Green Smoothie

Creamy Breakfast Rice Pudding

Pumpkin Seed and Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Breakfast Bars

Zucchini and Summer Squash Muffins

Barbecue Portobello Sandwiches

African Collard Stirfry

Gingered Collard Greens

Everything Minestrone

Peanut Butter Fudge Truffles (with another giveaway, too)

Dreamy Baked Bananas (with another giveaway, too)

Thankfully, the publisher is letting me give a cookbook to one reader living in the United States or Canada. To be entered, please leave a comment here, telling me about your favourite ice cream flavours. I will randomly select a winner on June 30, 2014. Good luck!

PS. I am sharing this with Bloggers Scream for Ice Cream and Healthy Vegan Fridays.

Strawberry Balsamic Vanilla Steel Cut Oats

Thank you so much for your positive response to my cookbook. You can see Johanna’s review of it here.

I have been debating whether to go on a complete blog hiatus during the summer or work on some pre-written posts. I am leaning towards a blog vacation simply because my absence will be too long for me to mask or simply dwindle down to a post once a week.

When deciding what to share this week (while I was on vacation last week), I had to see what was lurking in my archives. (Note: I should have added one more tip for food bloggers: have draft posts and lots of them). As such, I have been hunting through my archives of not-yet-published posts. You know – the half-written posts, the posts without any photos uploaded and the worst – the ones without a recipe.  As soon as I discovered these photos, I knew I wanted to share them.

The glowing strawberries are oh-so-ripe and the drizzle of balsamic layered nicely around the oats. I would love a bowl of this right now.

Truthfully, I don’t remember making this but my photo time stamp tells me it was 2011. Obviously around strawberry season. Perfect timing because Ontario strawberries are just starting to appear, as we found out this weekend.

This dish was from a time when I used to toast my steel cut oats as I waited for the water to boil. Now I don’t bother.

It was before I started adding protein powder to my oats. My current concoction is a murky green stew but I am not sure if that is any better than my previous (chocolate) brown variety with berries. I used to share a lot of my morning eats but with my morning monotony there is not as much day-to-day novelty. I already shared a Balsamic Lemon-Blueberry Steel Cut Oats which was likely my inspiration 3 years ago.

Be it resolved to change my morning oats this week? Absolutely!

How about you? Do you have a similar breakfast every day?

Any preferences for my blog sabbatical? I am toying with the idea of a few summary posts (like the best vegan restaurants in Houston and Toronto).

PS. I am sharing this with Four Seasons Food for Red, Shop Local, and Simple and In Season.

Announcing my e-Cookbook: A Vegan Dinner Party & Giveaway

I know I share a lot of great cookbooks with you, but I am beyond excited to share with you a cookbook I have been working on myself over the last year. You guys know that I am a physician but you may not know what Rob does all day. He is a software programmer with special expertise in mobile platforms, like Android, iPhones, etc. For years, I have asked him to make me a “Taste Space App”. He has refused because the wordpress website is rather mobile-friendly. You can find everything you need through the search (if you already know what you’re looking for). It would take him too much time to create an app that would be more useful than what I already offer. So that was that.

But then I was approached to contribute to a new e-cookbook focusing on vegan dinner parties. I was honoured to be included amongst my co-authors: Allyson Kramer of Manifest Vegan and Anya Kassoff of Golubka Kitchen, both with their own gorgeous cookbooks. As an e-cookbook, the focus is on recipes you can access through multiple devices as it can be accessed online, on Kindle, iBooks, and Amazon.

The cookbook includes 28 tried-and-true vegan recipes specifically for entertaining. Most are gluten-free and the benefit of 3 different authors give you a variety of recipes. I contributed some of my favourite recipes that are easy for entertaining, impressive and many of our guests have enjoyed eating. Some of the recipes have videos, too, showing you how to do some of the harder techniques.

The cookbook is part of a series of e-cookbooks called Culinary Quandaries. The other cookbook published so far is a Gluten-Free Dinner Party, if you are interested in that, as well. As one of my readers, you can save 30% if you buy it through these links: A Vegan Dinner Party and A Gluten-Free Dinner Party (the discount should show up automatically). Furthermore, I am giving away a copy to one lucky reader (anywhere in the world).

For the giveaway, leave me a comment about your experiences with e-cookbooks. I will randomly select a comment on June 20, 2014. Good luck!

Raw Mango Ginger Energy Balls & RLCT Recap 2014

This month has and will be a whirlwind.

In fact, this entire summer will be a crazy, wonderful adventure.

I have not leaked my summer adventures here yet. In brief: cycling, long vacation, moving back to Toronto, and yet more cycling. I am warning you now. There may not be much blogging.

For now, my early summer cycling triumphs have been conquered. A month ago, Rob and I rode the 165-km Shiner GASP and I finally got my riding mojo back a few weeks ago in time to ride the 2-day/334-km Rideau Lake Cycle Tour (RLCT) with my father last weekend. This was my third time on the course, but the second time I did the full “Classic Route”. I described the route the first time I did it in 2011, but each year feels different depending on your level of training, equipment and weather.

Despite reducing my weekly cycling from 250 km to 150 km over the last month, I felt reasonably fit for the ride. I knew there were big hills that I just could not train adequately while in Houston, but we found as many hills as we could.

One difference this year, though, was that I did not have my own bike. A friend of my father graciously lent me a road bike for the weekend, although in the end, it was a men’s bike that did not fit me properly. I took it for a ride the afternoon before the ride and was sore. Too sore, too fast. I frantically tracked down a women’s road bike I could rent for the weekend which is hard to find when over 2000 other people are expected to cycle to Kingston. In the end, I found a nice bike to rent from an unlikely of stores, and they even loaned me cycling shoes to boot. This is the first year I have tried clips for my bicycle. There are different systems for clipping your shoes into bicycle pedals and SPD clips have been the bane of my existence. This weekend, I may have found a new clipping system I prefer: KEO.

In any case, while my Dad and I had fun together riding over the hills, I fell victim to all my new things, with saddle sores. Instead of my legs being tired, it was mainly the soles of my feet and my saddle that were the most bothersome. While some of the hills were still challenging, I felt the best prepared of all years. Granted, my Dad did 80% of the pulling. 😉 Thankfully, the wind was not too bad but I think it helped to shave 15 minutes off our return ride along with an hour less breaks.

I actually did not bring anything recipe-inspired with me during my ride. Instead, I ate lots of bananas, dates and almonds. The dates and almonds would have been pulverized into balls anyways, so it was basically deconstructed trail mix. 😉 I will not deprive you of a delicious recipe, though. They are not too travel-friendly though. I soaked the cashews, as recommended by Sarah, but I found them too creamy to be portable. Still delicious, though. I added some ginger, as a nod to the Lovely Lemon Hemp Protein Bites. I actually think these would be better with a shredded coconut dusting on the outside, but I only had coconut chips which don’t lend as well to pretty exteriors.

I am on vacation for the rest of this week and very happy to not be riding for a few days. Our next goal is finding a place to live.

In case you’re interested, another review of this year’s ride was here and one from the volunteers that man the ham radio stations here.

Please tell me about all your plans for the summer!

I am sharing this with Healthy Vegan Fridays.

Quick & Easy Salsa Chickpea Tacos

Did you know that Trader Joe’s is not in Canada? The closest thing we have (well, those who live in Vancouver) is Pirate Joe’s. They temporarily renamed themselves Irate Joe’s as they were being sued by TJ’s. TJ’s lost but is continuing to appeal. In any case, we’re getting our fair use of TJ’s while still in Houston.

Sadly, though, it took me 10 months to locate their perfect salsa. Their chunky salsa is totally my favourite. Perfectly spiced with a robust tomato flavour, I love it. I also managed to go through a container in less than a week.  I started adding it to everything.

In fact, this is such an easy recipe, it is almost non-recipe. I envision this as the perfect travelling meal – mix and eat. Until then, it will have a happy place in my kitchen.

Mix some salsa with chickpeas and chopped bell pepper. Throw it overtop some shredded broccoli and carrots for more crunch on a taco shell, and you’ve got a meal.  I topped mine with a healthy dose of nutritional yeast which became creamy and gooey with the extra salsa. Totally not optional for those who love nooch.

I may go into salsa withdrawal. Can anyone recommend a good recipe? I cannot imagine it being hard to make. 😉

PS. I am sharing this with Souper Sundays and this month’s My Legume Love Affair hosted by Susan.

Laotian Larb Tofu Lettuce Wraps

I told my friend in Houston that I had reached the height of my vegan eats here. There were no new restaurants I wanted to try. She assured me there were so.many.more to try and convinced me to try a nearby Thai restaurant. Oddly enough, Rob has spotted it earlier that week and was amused by its billboard that announced it was MANGO SEASON!

I was apprehensive but she assured me I would love it. She told me they had vegan ice cream. I was sold.

She did not lie. I loved it. So much so, that I quickly tried to figure out how to recreate the dishes.

This is a spin on Laotian larb. Of note, Rob tells me this is nothing like the original and in fact, if you pronounce the r in larb, that is wrong, too.  Make no mistake about its simplicity, this salad wrap was GREAT!

A few fun points: This was the first time I have steamed tofu. I LOVED it. It made it nice and fluffy and once crumbled, it absorbed the flavours of the marinade incredibly well.  Lime juice, cilantro, in a salty-hot-sweet background, it was nice, fresh and light. After an overnight soak, it was absolutely perfect and lasted for a few days of lovely leftovers for lunch.

I took inspiration from the restaurant to serve it next to a quarter of an iceberg. Its solid leaves make for excellent wraps, more sturdy than most lettuces and is rather mild on the green scale. Besides, it is always good to rotate your greens. 🙂

Do you have a favourite green wrap? I thought collards were my favourite but I was rather smitten by the iceberg lettuce. 😉

I am sharing this with Souper Sundays, Eat Your Greens, No Croutons Required and Extra Veg.

Maple Sesame Crackers

Spring cleaning isn’t just happening in our kitchen. Rob has decided it was time to clean up our hard-drives, over-drives and Monkey drives, too. Mostly spurred because, after trying to amalgamate his important files with my important files, it would not fit on our 1 terabyte of online back-up space.

Rob thought it was a bit nuts.

My files are mostly photos. Mostly food, but also from travel and of family/friends.

My shutter count on my six-year-old camera is 101,501. That’s only ~17k photos a year.

Apparently I take too many photos. And I keep them all. And then some.

I will let him tackle the computer while I tackle the kitchen, thank you.

We seem to have an excess of sesame seeds. Sadly, I bought a pack late in the year when I couldn’t find my original package…. I thought we were out. Instead, now we have twice as many sesame seeds. With our sesame seed surplus, I also made these fun crackers.

A simple cracker made with sesame seeds, sunflower seeds, almonds and maple syrup. I remain a bit apprehensive of black sesame seeds since I don’t find them as flavourful as their whole counterparts, but they certainly make for a pretty cracker. The maple syrup bound it all together after baking. Maybe I don’t need brown rice syrup afterall? 😉

Have you checked? What is your shutter count?

PS. In my defence, I take much less photos than I used to….. and my camera has travelled to many fun places over the years)

PPS. To find your shutter count with a DSLR, you can find it embedded within the Exif information of a photo, and it can be easily unearthed through Picasa.

PPPS. I am sharing this with Bookmarked Recipes, Healthy Vegan Fridays, and this month’s No Waste Food Challenge.

Green Pea Curry (Mattar Masala)

Rob did some more investigating. He found a program that would figure out if I had any duplicate files irregardless of the name.

WOO!  After three days, my program to find duplicate files on your external hard drive has completed.  It has found at least 172 GB of duplicate files.  We need to clean them up!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

His emphasis, not mine.

So apparently, I come with baggage. Electronic baggage.

There used to be a time when I couldn’t fit everything on my hard drive, but once I had 1 Tb on my external hard drive, I haven’t thought much about my space usage.

Rob didn’t appreciate my old school way of culling my photos: copying them into a new folder. Sometimes I had 4-5 copies of the same photo with my disjointed backing up. Now we get to do some culling!

Rob is doing a great job tackling our leftover food stuffs. This was an absolutely, wonderfully delicious pea curry he made with the peas in the freezer and spices from the pantry. I am not saying that just because Rob made it and everything tastes better when someone else cooks for you, but honestly this was gourmet Indian and made me a pea-lover. I love beans but peas are not as high in my “love list” but this, guys, was incredible.

Creamy with a rich-tomato broth with bright green peas, this was a keeper. Sadly, this curry has a really long ingredient list, which seems almost disjointed and muddy, but have faith. This was delicious and completely worth the effort (and definitely Rob’s effort!).

Do you like peas?

PS. I am sharing this with Bookmarked Recipes.