Happy Halloween, pals! It’s the last day of Vegan MoFo 2011. MoFoers, are you exhausted? I know that I am, and I didn’t even post half as many posts as I was hoping to.

Today is a perfect example of where my good MoFo intentions and I have parted ways: I woke up intending to take pictures of my food all day for Daily Eats Wednesday. Halfway through eating my breakfast—which was really Milo’s leftover breakfast—I remembered: “Oh, yeah, I’m supposed to be taking a photo of this.” Daily eats, scrapped.

I wanted to post a picture of Milo in his Halloween costume—the Halloween costume I worked on for weeks—but when I asked him if I could take a picture of him in it, he had a full-on tantrum, and I flashed to all the times that my mother asked if she could take a picture of me and I responded by whining, grimacing, or just escaping. I made a mental note to call and apologize to my mom. For probably the 12th time today.

So here is a picture of him that his best friend Jack’s mom took of him on Saturday when he and Jack went trick-or-treating in St. John’s:

I was hoping that the challenges I set for myself for MoFo would be stimulating and thought-provoking, but all I felt was under pressure.¹

I won’t be keeping up Recipe Monday, Daily Eats Wednesday, or Food for Thought Friday after MoFo, but I will still be posting at least once a week. There are really exciting things happening in my life right now, and while I’m not quite ready to talk about them yet, I look forward to sharing them with you soon. And getting your feedback, because I will need it!

Someone I follow on Pinterest pinned this the other day, and I have looked at it twice a day ever since:

That, right there, is a damned good quote.

Have a wonderful Halloween. I wish for you that every piece of candy that comes your way is vegan and that all the cute kids in your neighborhood break your heart tonight. Talk to you soon!

¹ Dun dun dun dundalundun. Dun dun dun dun dundalundun.

When you go to Ikea, do you swing by the food section? I confess that I used to stop only long enough to grab a bag of Swedish Fish for Milo, but last year, I started to poke around and read ingredients list, and I’m so glad that I did.

A surprisingly large percentage of Ikea food products are vegan! I don’t know if it’s intentional or not, but I’m grateful for it.

These are our current favorites:

The product is called “Pepparkakor,” although Milo calls them “flower cookies.” They’re a thin ginger wafer cookie, a knockoff of the brand Anna’s Swedish Thins (which Ikea also carries), and they’re awesome. According to Wikipedia, pepparkakor is the Scandinavian take on the traditional Christmas gingerbread. Scandinavia, you and I are so sympatico. As much as I love fat, tender pieces of gingerbread, I prefer to roll my gingerbread cut-out cookies super-thin so that they get really crispy.

I happened to notice on my way out that Ikea’s gingerbread houses are also vegan! Hooray! I can’t wait to pick some up in a month and decorate some killer gingerbread houses with Milo.

Yesterday, I tried my hand at fermentation. I made a batch of fennel and apple sauerkraut!

Before:

During:

As for the after: I’m going to let it ferment for a full 21 days before trying it, so check back in a few weeks!

• Submitted without commentary: Mark Bittman printed George Faison’s letter to fellow chefs encouraging them to spend the extra money to use antiobiotic- and hormone-free meat—although he noted that Faison himself doesn’t use these meats exclusively.
• Two words: Apple Nachos. from Manifest Vegan.
• Have you ever cooked pasta in a frying pan? There’s a video tutorial at Chow.
• Did you see Isa’s Peanut Butter Caramel Apples? I think that Milo and I will be giving them a try this Sunday.
• This pepperoni pizza quick bread at Chow looks like it would be a cinch to veganize.

Last Friday started out with pumpkin spice coffee and a pumpkin-cider waffle. Pumpkin pumpkin pumpkin!

More coffee:

For lunch, I had a quesadilla.

Have I mentioned yet that I eat nearly all of my meals on salad plates? I feel like some of these photos, because of their extreme close-upness and how much of the plate is covered, look like so much more food than is really there.

I made blackened tofu cubes for a boost of protein mid-afternoon.

When Katie and Kati showed up for Fakesgiving, I made myself a mug of hot apple cider spiked with bourbon:

Fakesgiving feast: seitan with golden gravy, brussels sprouts, and those delicious pumpkin potatoes.

Seconds of seitan and gravy:

Katie brought So Delicious’s new Mint Chocolate coconut milk:

Yum! I can’t wait to try their new nog flavor. Do you think it will be good enough for me to stop making my own nog recipe?

Finally, the perfect end to a Fakesgiving dinner: Katie’s apple pie.

This is my pal Kati B (with her beautiful new pink hair, no less):

Kati B works at Sweetpea with our Katie Jane (and with Matt, for that matter, but that is not relevant here, let’s look at a picture of pretty Katie):

Thus the last initial to distinguish which Kati(e) you’re talking about/to. But I’m not really down with first names & first initial of last name combos. They’re so impersonal. It feels like I’m back in grade school.

So I call her Kati Bee’s Knees.

Last week, I had a mad hankering for Thanksgiving food, and I didn’t want to wait six weeks, dammit! So I emailed Katie and suggested that we collaborate on a mini-Thanksgiving dinner. Fakesgiving, if you will.

Friday night, Katie and Kati came over and together we made a feast: seitan roast, gravy, brussels sprouts, pumpkin potatoes, and apple pie.¹

“Pumpkin potatoes?” you’re asking, I can tell. I know, I was skeptical myself! I tend to relegate pumpkin to sweet treats and baked goods. But I trust in Kati Bee’s Knees, and I’m glad that I do, because these were incredible.

Here is my take on her amazing pumpkin potatoes. Vegenaise stands in here for the traditional sour cream in mashed potatoes recipes. Kati used a full cup of Vegenaise for only 1 1/2 times as many potatoes, and they were truly decadent. If you want your potatoes to be the star of the show, bump up the Vegenaise. Vegenaise is magic, you know? It makes everything better.

Bee’s Knees Pumpkin Potatoes
makes 6-8 servings

3 lbs russet potatoes, roughly peeled, cut into 1-2″ chunks
3/4 cup pureed cooked or canned pumpkin
1/4 cup Vegenaise
2 tablespoons non-hydrogenated margarine
3 cloves garlic, smashed and pressed, minced, or Microplaned
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon paprika or 1/8 teaspoon paprika and 1/8 teaspoon smoked paprika
1/4 teaspoon dried rosemary, crushed
1/4 teaspoon dried rubbed sage
1/8 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

Add potato chunks to a large stockpot and add just enough cold water to cover the potatoes. Salt the water liberally, at least one teaspoon. Cover and bring the water to a boil. Boil the potatoes until tender, usually 10-15 minutes.

Drain the potatoes then transfer them back to the pot they were cooked in or a large mixing bowl. Mash them with a potato masher while they’re still steaming hot. Add pumpkin, Vegenaise, margarine, and garlic, and mash again. Add seasoning and incorporate the seasoning thoroughly using either the masher or a spoon. Serve immediately.

¹ Want more details? You won’t have to wait long. This Wednesday’s Daily Eats will include pictures of all the delicious food we ate Friday night.

When you have a pal like Kittee and she asks if you want to participate in something fun, you answer: “Yes!” immediately. You don’t ask questions! No need to ask questions!

So when she sent me an email about Vegan MoFo Hump Day, I got as far in the email as “Leslie Hall,” and I was onboard. Leslie Hall is amazing! On any given day, you can find me bopping around my house humming her song “Blame the Booty.” I was almost her for Halloween last year, but I could not find enough shiny material, and if you’re going to be Leslie, you better be Leslie all the way. There is no half-assery involved.

Did you know that Leslie recently went vegan? She is sharing this song with us to help us celebrate Vegan MoFo Hump Day. Click to image to listen and download.

Now that you have your soundtrack, let me give you some things to read!

• Pumpkin Cinnamon Roll Pancakes at Recipe Girl
• I’ve also been meaning to try my hand at homemade sauerkraut ever since I saw the recipe for it in the newest Martha Stewart, so I’m glad to see it worked out so well for The Bitten Word men: Apple-Fennel Sauerkraut with Caraway
• Did you see the beautiful Nut and Mushroom Loaf at xgfx this week? I can’t wait to make it. Holy moly.
• I Went Back to the Land, Reluctantly is a New York Times piece about one woman’s decision to grow her own food to feed her family for less than $10/day. I can’t imagine a more relevant piece of food writing.
• Finally, The Edible Schoolyard is putting all of their videos on Vimeo. Do you think I’ll be able to get anyone to watch them with me, or am I the only one I know to whom lectures with titles like “The Politics of Food” are exciting?

Have a fantastic Hump Day and weekend!

I’m excited to announce today that I’m working on a new project.

I get multiple emails a week asking about Yellow Rose Recipes. People read about the book on blogs or vegan forums or have it recommended to them by friends, and then they go searching for a copy to purchase and are surprised to see that none are available. Then they email me and ask: “Is it going to be republished anytime soon? Do you have any more copies left?”

Obviously, I love getting these emails—who wouldn’t?—but I hate them, too, because I dread having to write back and say, “No, sorry, there are no plans for republishing, and I’m saving the few copies I have left to give to charities and to friends and family.”

In about six weeks, I will have a better answer for them!

I am self-publishing a Best Of cookbook, and it will be available in late November/early December.

It will be about 100 recipes from Yellow Rose Recipes, the Potluck Mania zines, and this website.

You know how you always make the same 5-10 recipes out of every cookbook you own, even if the cookbook has over 300 recipes in it? This Best Of book is just those recipes: fan and tester favorites only! I’m also updating the vast majority of them so that there are more options and variations. Don’t worry, I’m not going to ruin your favorites, just give you more choices of how to personalize them to your taste so that they’re even better.

If you have a favorite recipe and you want to make sure that it makes the cut, please comment below and let me know. I’m still picking and choosing and nothing is set in stone yet.

Enough blabber, onto Daily Eats:

This past Tuesday started with coffee and a Banana Breakfast Bar from Vegan Diner:

More coffee:

I am down to 1/3 caff and 2/3 decaf. That is doing the trick for me: I’m still getting a little bit of caffeine when I first wake up and then another tiny burst a few hours later. I’m not interested at this point in cutting caffeine entirely out of my life.

Look at this lunch: nachos (tortilla chips topped with veggie chili and a dollop of cilantro sour cream), carrot sticks, and a BBQ seitan sandwich.

This is Milo’s lunch, actually, and when I put it down in front of him, he said: “Uh, I don’t want this,” and got up and walk away. Dudes, I’m just telling you this so that you know that my child is insane. Look at how good that lunch is!

Do you want to see my lunch?

Nuggets with agave-mustard sauce and veggie chili with cilantro sour cream. Not even half as exciting.

Milo did eventually wander back and eat about 1/3 of his lunch—which is a reasonable amount, because I always give him way too much, since he picks at everything. Matt ate Milo’s leftovers.

At around 4, I got really hungry, but I was expecting friends at 6 and didn’t want to spoil dinner, so I grabbed a handful of Trader Joe’s 12 grain mini snack crackers.

When I invited some pals over for crafting and soup-eating, I forgot all about the fact that there were MoFoers in the mix.

I served the kitchen sink stew I posted about yesterday:

I drank a small glass of white wine (can you spy a Kittee through the wine glass?):

And another:

I like to pour only about a half-glass at a time so that I don’t accidentally overdo it.

And then it was dessert time! Kittee made an incredible four-layer rice krispie brownie peanut butter kitteekake and Amanda made delightful almond halva:

With this plate of sugary deliciousness, I drank some warm apple cider provided by Katie Jane:

And then finally, last but not least, Sayward arrived and brought with her a raw pumpkin pie:

I feel blessed to know so many talented vegan cooks, but next time I might ask someone to bring a salad? Isn’t that what vegans eat? Salads?

I am embarrassed that it has happened so soon, but I’ve missed a Recipe Monday. To make it up to you, here is a recipe on Wednesday.

What do you do when you’re low on cash and have a half dozen friends coming over for crafts and noshing? You make a big pot of kitchen sink stew, that’s what you do!

I make this soup once a week in the fall, sometimes with white beans instead of chickpeas, or without the seitan, or with just corn instead of peas and corn, or… really whatever is in the house at the time dictates the ingredients.

Don’t be intimidated by the length of ingredients here; it all comes together easily and most of the time is spent waiting and stirring rather than doing actual work. If you make it the first time without the seitan or dumplings, you could always try it with one or both at a later date.

Kitchen Sink Stew with Sweet Potato Dumplings
makes 8-12 servings

2 cups dried chickpeas, soaked at least 8 hours
2 T olive oil
2 cups chopped yellow onion (about 1 large onion)
1 cup chopped celery (about 2 large stalks)
1 1/2 cups chopped carrots (about 2 medium carrots)
2 T vegetarian chicken-flavored broth powder
1/4 cup nutritional yeast
10 cups water
2 bay leaves
1 lb yukon gold potatoes, cut into 1/2 pieces
1 recipe Seitan Chunks (see below)
1/2 cup frozen corn
1/2 cup frozen peas
salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 recipe Sweet Potato Dumplings (see below)

Seitan Chunks

1 cup vital wheat gluten
1/4 cup nutritional yeast
1/2 t salt
1/2 t rubbed sage
pinch freshly ground black pepper
1 cup water
1 t Bragg’s Liquid Amino Acids or soy sauce
1 1/2 t olive oil

Sweet Potato Dumplings

1/2 lb cooked sweet potato (about 1/2 large sweet potato)
1 1/4 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
2 t baking powder
1/2 t salt
1/2 t rubbed sage
freshly ground black pepper
2 T olive oil
6 T soymilk

If you haven’t already done so, soak your chickpeas for 8-24 hours before starting the soup, changing the water every 4-8 hours. Rinse well.

Heat olive oil in a large stockpot or Dutch oven over medium heat. Add onions, celery, carrots, and a large pinch of salt, stir, and cover. Reduce heat to medium-low. Cook until carrots are tender and onions are translucent, stirring every few minutes, about 8-10 minutes.

Meanwhile, assemble your seitan chunks. Mix the dry ingredients in a medium bowl. Add the wet ingredients. Stir to combine. Set aside.

Add broth powder, nutritional yeast, water, soaked and rinsed chickpeas, and bay leaves and bring the soup to a boil. Reduce heat to a simmer, give it a good stir, cover, then set your timer for 30 minutes.

Assemble your dumplings. Mash the cooked sweet potato in a medium bowl, then add the dry ingredients one by one, then use a fork to mix the dry ingredients with the potato until it’s small crumbs. Then add the wet ingredients and mix just until wet ingredients are fully incorporated. Set aside.

Come back when the timer comes off, reduce the heat to a low simmer if it’s not already there. Add the potatoes. Drop chickpea-sized seitan chunks into the soup. I do this by hand but you could do it with a spoon, I guess. Cover again, set the timer for 30 minutes. Check every 5 minutes to make sure temperature is staying at a low simmer, adjusting heat as necessary.

After the seitan and potatoes have cooked with the stew for 30 minutes, add the frozen corn and peas, season generously with salt and freshly ground black pepper, and then drop the dumplings into the stew with a teaspoon. Try to keep them from touching each other; I like to work in concentric circles from the inside of the pot out. Cover again and simmer for 10 more minutes.

When the 10 minutes are up and the dumplings have risen to the top, you’re done! Serve warm.

With Vegan MoFo in full swing and most participants still posting on the regular, I know that the last thing you need right now is more food writing. Maybe you can come back here Thanksgiving weekend during one of those times when you’ve snuck away from your family for 45 minutes of peace and quiet and you can read these then. Or maybe you’re like me, a true glutton for punishment, and you just can’t keep yourself away. In that case…

• Have you seen Chickpea Magazine? It’s so dreamy.
• Food and Drink Issue of The New York Times
• The Airy Way is doing close-up pictures of food for MoFo. (See photo above for an example.) I am planning to wait until the end of the month and then going through all of them with Milo.
• I don’t even watch True Blood, but I have been impressed by Jen’s commitment to make True Blood themed food for MoFo. I was hoping that all her Tara food would taste terrible, since Tara is just the worst. (Okay, I used to watch True Blood.)
• Beyond Cabbage: 5 Festive Fall Slaw Recipes at the kitchn

How has the first week of MoFo treated you guys? What were your favorites?

When I was reading the newest issue of Martha Stewart Living¹ this month, I stopped on this page and turned down the corner: Cannellini and Kale Soup. Vegan? Yes! There has been a noticeable increase in the percentage of Martha’s vegan recipes, and I guess we have her vegan daughter Alexis to thank for that.

soaked beans and magazine

There is nothing new about cannellini and kale soup: it’s a classic. Hell, I did a search on marthastewart.com, hoping that this recipe would be there so that you could have it, and while I didn’t find this version, I did find 78 results for similar recipes. What I liked about this iteration, however, is that the soup is blended before the kale is added, and then right at the end, you throw garlic chips on top. It’s easy for a weeknight and perfectly comforting and warming for a chilly fall night.

I did tweak the recipe just a bit. The recipe called for 2 onions, but my onions were large, and after chopping one of them, it became clear that 2 chopped onions would have yielded over 5 full cups of chopped onion, and at that point, the soup would have been Onion and Cannellini and Kale Soup. I also subbed fresh rosemary for the fresh thyme; rosemary grows in my front yard, and I know that Martha would definitely approve of using what you grow yourself over what you can buy at the store.

Because this issue is still on the newsstands, I won’t repost it here, but I highly recommend it you’re already a regular Martha reader: October 2011, page 174.

Cannellini and Kale soup with baked sweet potato

We ate ours with baked sweet potatoes, and that recipe I can share with you:

Baked Sweet Potato with Spiced Maple Butter

makes 1

1 medium to large sweet potato

2 tsp Spiced Maple Butter (recipe follows)

Preheat your oven to 400. Scrub your sweet potato, poke all over with a fork 4-6 times, then wrap in aluminum foil. Place on a baking sheet and bake for 45-60 minutes, depending on size.

After taking it out of the oven, allow to cool until you’re able to touch the foil without a glove, about 10 minutes. Then open it up, cut the potato down the center, and mash the Spiced Maple Butter into the baked sweet potato flesh.

Multiply for however many sweet potatoes you’re making.

Spiced Maple Butter

1/4 cup non-hydrogenated vegan margarine

2 T pure maple syrup

1/4 tsp ground cinnamon

1/8 tsp ground ginger

1/8 tsp ground nutmeg

1/8 tsp ground allspice or cloves

pinch of salt

Combine all ingredients in a small saucepan and cook over medium heat, stirring regularly, until margarine has melted. Serve warm.

When this has cooled all the way, you can store it in the fridge for up to a month. We like it on pancakes and waffles, too!

¹ You read that right. Furthermore: not just a reader; a faithful subscriber for 3 years. And my favorite thing to do on sick days is make a big pile of back issues and read them in bed. I find it soothing, what can I say.

My first MoFo 2011 entry will be short and sweet, since Matt’s parents are in town and we have a busy day ahead of us, so I should get cracking. Or at least change out of my pajamas.

I just want to announce the winner of the Yellow Rose Recipes Vegan Parmesan Giveaway. I entered the number of comments into the True Random Number Service, and it spit out: 3!

Jessy is the winner!

Milo is happy for Jessy and this is how he shows it

Jessy, use the contact form to send me your address and I’ll get you some vegan parm post-haste!¹

Milo is currently running around the house like a crazy person, because his grandparents are due any second, and they are going out to get his birthday-and-Christmas present: a new bike!

And it couldn’t be happening at a more perfect time, because next weekend, Milo will be participating in a tricycle race fundraiser for his preschool. Milo attends a cooperative preschool, and cooperative preschools use fundraising and parent volunteer hours to keep the tuition low so that students who might not ordinarily be able to afford preschool are able to attend.

If you can afford it, please consider donating to his fundraising effort. There are fundraisers for the school throughout the year, but this is the one that we have decided to throw our full weight behind, so I promise that I will not be harassing you on a regular basis. Just these 2 weeks! Thoughtful, right?

I’ll see you on Monday with a recipe! Have a happy MoFo weekend, pals.

¹ Or, really, post-my in-laws returning home.