Vegan MoFo! Post #7: Frickin Pumpkin-Spiced Coffee!

Ugh, I'm STILL sick! I literally slept all day today - hence the sore lack of MoFo posts on my end lately. I don't think I've been ill this long since...maybe ever? I'm seriously on my 12th day of this flu thing. I normally avoid taking any extra medications, so as to build up my body's ability to heal itself (even if that's not scientifically accurate, I believe there is some psychological merit there), but this has been so bad so long that I decided it was some time for antibiotics.

It's a bummer that the past few days, I haven't been well enough to continue my planned themes (Foods That Heal, Cultural Cuisines, & Vegan On A Shoestring Budget). However, as promised, here is the recipe for the Frickin Pumpkin-Spiced Coffee! that my roommate made the other day. It's so obvious it's nuts, but I seriously never thought to do this.

Enjoy, and stay well, people! I will have much more MoFo magic for you within the next few days. I should be back to normal by then. :crosses fingers:

O l i v i a ' s  F r i c k i n  P u m p k i n - S p i c e d  C o f f e e !

...perfect for fall. :)

...also a great trick if you're short on money --> use cheap coffee and spice it up to cover over the flavor. Voila. Gourmet coffee.

Ingredients:
-coffee beans, freshly ground
-pumpkin pie spice

You'll also need a French press. I think this would clog up an electric coffee maker. Er, maybe it wouldn't, but a French press = coffee done right (actually, chemex pot = coffee done right, but I'm not financially there).

Prepare your beans as you normally would, grinding them coarsely and putting them into the French press. Then, add approximately 1 or 2 teaspoons of the pumpkin pie spice and stir it around once or twice. Steep your coffee as you normally would, using boiling water. That's it. I almost flipped out when I realized I could just add whatever to the steeping coffee beans!

Vegan MoFo! Post #6: Brian's Special Vegan Banh Mi

You'll recall that I recently bragged about my roommates' plentiful and delicious vegan cooking. Well, here's the recipe for one of the dishes they made the other day! 

Banh Mi (pronounced "bon ME") is everyone's favorite Vietnamese sandwich. If you live in a major city, you very well may have had it before. It's traditionally made with meat, lots of meat, and, in Vietnam, it is typically a fast food (take out). My roommate's vegan version replaces the meat with tofu and it's deeeelicious. 

 

 Brian's Special Vegan Banh Mi

Ingredients:
-pickled daikon and carrot shreds (available at your local Asian market)
-1/4 avocado, sliced
-1/2 jalapeno, sliced
-Vegenaise
-Sriracha
-a small handful of fresh cilantro
-about 4 pieces of fried tofu, cut into small (approx. 2'' x 2'') squares or rectangles
-baguettes

Line the inside of the baguette with Vegenaise and Sriracha. Add the tofu, then the jalapeno, avocado, pickled daikon and carrot, then the cilantro. That's it!

Vegan MoFo! Post #5: Friendship Is When People Know All About You But Like You Anyway

Oh man, this is like Foods That Heal, Foods of Various Cultures, and The Barebones Kitchen all rolled up into one tasty blog post.

So, I woke up still not feeling well today (for those of you who may've missed my Sinus-Zap Tea post, I've been dealing with a flu-virus-type-thing for the last few days). Today, I am home from work, and yesterday, I even (gasp!) skipped my MoFo post of the day.

But here I am, bringing you vegan tasties, and you know how?

...Because I have fabulous roommates, that's how! I stumbled out into the kitchen this morning (cough, afternoon), my groggy-eyed, hair-like-a-birds'-nest self, and behold! THIS was going on:

 Brian: Do you want a Brian's Special Vegan Banh Mi?

 

 Olivia: Yes, in fact, you can try this Some Kinda Spicy Potato Pancake Thingie! that's still hot:

Yeah, that's a Hello Kitty toaster. Deal with it.

Olivia (adding): Want some Frickin Pumpkin-Spiced Coffee, too?

Me: Um, YES.

Dinero: Can I have some?

Typical cat, right? But he's so cute, so he gets away with it.

Refrigerator magnet: 

I just love this quote. The one on the green magnet, not the word salad thing above.

 I'm going to link to the 3 recipes above...very soon!  Two of the recipes are linked now! Working on the third. In the meantime, you should click on the linkz to said fabulous roommates' astrology and painting sites.

xoxo,
foodchain

Vegan MoFo! Post #4: Raw Vegan Ice Cream at Home for PENNIES!

That's right. Forget about that $6.99 raw vegan grocery store-bought stuff. You can make it at home for WAAAY cheaper! 

About a year ago, I wrote about making raw vegan ice cream out of frozen bananas using the idea I'd read about on Choosing Raw. This stuff is amazing. Seriously, if you've never tried this before, YOU MUST TRY IT RIGHT NOW. It's everything you could want in a homemade ice cream recipe - fast, easy, cheap, healthy, versatile, and delicious. Oh, and kind of magical.

Anyway, this recipe is a staple of my own personal Barebones Vegan Kitchen, and yet I'd never paused to snap a photo of the finished product - until now.

The frozen banana chunks being whipped into ice cream by the food processor.

The final product. Kinda looks like ice cream, right?

And now you have photographic evidence.

Here's what I do:

Ingredients:
-A bunch of bananas

(yeah, that's it.)

Chop each banana into quarters (or whatever) and freeze them. You'll probably want to keep them in the freezer for at least 8 hours, if not longer. I like to keep mine in a re-usable plastic container to keep them from freezer burn.

When the bananas are frozen solid, put them in a food processor and process them until they form a custard-y, creamy texture. You may be tempted to add water at first, but trust me, just let them do their magic. :-)

Eat plain or top with melted vegan chocolate, melted peanut butter, chopped mango, coconut shreds...whatever you love!

Vegan MoFo! Post #3: Capellini with Vodka Sauce

Foods of Various Cultures...

Hands down, my favorite pasta variety is capellini. I love the delicate texture, and how the thinness provides more surface area to pick up even the lightest of sauces and flavors.

That said, vodka sauce is not, by any means, a light sauce. It's okay. It's still a great pairing, trust me.

It is common in Italian cuisine to use alcohol to bring out the flavor in tomatoes and other vegetables. This is often accomplished with wine, but vodka sauce uses, well, vodka. This was my first time making vodka sauce and I totally winged it. I didn't even know I was going to be making vodka sauce until mid-way through the process of making it. If you tend to shy away from free-style cooking, I encourage you to experiment with whatever's in your kitchen. No recipe, no plan, just go with it and feel liberated! When it comes to cooking, I'm a firm believer in not having firm beliefs. This is why there is jalapeno in my vodka sauce.

So, in the spirit of experimentation, take this recipe as a guideline rather than a formula!

C a p e l l i n i  w i t h  V o d k a  S a u c e

Ingredients:
1/2 red onion, diced
1 jalapeno pepper, diced
4 cloves of garlic, minced 
3 large-ish roma tomatoes, diced
2 cups of mushrooms, diced - I used white button
1 1/2 cups basil, cut into fine shreds
1/3 cup French Onion style Tofutti cream cheese 
1/4 cup olive oil
1/2 cup water
1/3 cup tomato paste 
2 ounces of vodka (or, one and a half shots)
sea salt to taste 

Saute the onions until softened. Add the jalapeno and garlic, then the tomatoes, then the mushrooms and 1 cup of the basil.

Heat some olive oil in a separate, large pot. Add the tomato paste and cook until almost boiling. Add the ingredients from above, along with the vodka, olive oil and water. Stir. Add the cream cheese and stir until evenly distributed (the sauce should lighten). Bring to a boil and then immediately turn down to simmer. Cover and let simmer for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally. Salt to your taste.

When serving, garnish with the remainder of the finely shredded basil.

What I'd Do Differently Next Time:
Incorporate the vodka earlier. I think this would enhance the flavors of the vegetables even more than adding the vodka when I did. Use more roma tomatoes.

I served this with a side of broccoli and Tofurkey Italian sausage.

Vegan MoFo! Post #2: Sinus-Zap Tea

Foods That Heal... 

I've been sick for the past week, and I'm at the point where my voice, my sense of smell, and my ability to taste are all compromised. Yep, with a busted tailbone and the flu, I'm in pretty bad shape right now. So I'm in on this lovely Saturday night when I would otherwise be at my friend's birthday party/housewarming bash. I don't want to miss out on more than I already am, so I'm ready for this flu thing to be over! (I want the tailbone issue to be resolved, too, but I realize that takes time and it is healing quite nicely, albeit slowly.) At the helpful suggestion of my roommate, and because of my fascination with Prometheus Springs, tonight I decided to concoct a special get-well-now drink. Not soon. Now.

My favorite Prometheus Springs drink, and really, a favorite juice combo of mine in general, is Lemon Ginger. All of their drinks contain capsaicin, the compound that makes chili peppers spicy. Capsaicin will create a burning sensation in any tissue that it touches, including skin (anyone who's ever chopped jalapenos will tell you this!).

Chili peppers have been used since 5000 BC in South America and China for both cuisine and medicine. Today, the capsaicin in chili peppers is still believed to have a wide range of medicinal properties, including but not limited to improving digestion, helping with stomach ulcers by stimulating the production of mucus, and strengthening heart function [3]. It apparently increases blood circulation, [1] and can prevent or even stop a heart attack [2]. It's also supposed to help with pain relief when applied topically, including mouth sore pain from chemotherapy and radiation therapy, as well as sore throat pain [3] [2]! These are just some of the things capsaicin can do for your health. 

Cayenne pepper, one of the many types of chili peppers, is what I decided to use in creating my own lemon-ginger-capsaicin drink. I used the powdered form. It's such an easy way to incorporate capsaicin into a drink because you can get it relatively cheaply, it's non-perishable (well, within reason), and a little bit goes a long way. Not only that, but cayenne, specifically, is said to be full of vitamin A and vitamin C, as well as some of vitamin B6, vitamin E, riboflavin, potassium, and manganese [1] [2].

It cures what ails ya.

There you have it. And does this miracle food work, you ask? Well, I can tell you that it certainly did temporarily clear my nasal passageways so that I regained my sense of smell and was better able to breath. It also helped temporarily relieve my sore throat pain. See below for what I did!

S i n u s - Z a p  T e a

Ingredients:
100% pure ginger tea leaves (bagged or loose, whichever you prefer)
2 lemon wedges
1/4 teaspoon cayenne powder 

Steep the tea in boiling water. Add the cayenne, then squeeze lemon juice into the cup. Let the lemon wedges remain in the cup.

Let me know if you try this and tell me how it goes for you!

Vegan MoFo! Post #1: Let the MoFo COMMENCE!

Oh, I'm so excited about this year's MoFo! Oh, the delicious and fun experiments I have planned! Oh, don piano!

This is how it's gonna break down:

Foods That Heal  I'm really into alternative medicine and healing, and I've been wanting to have a better understanding of the healing properties of different foods. I'll explore this from various perspectives: Ayurveda, traditional Chinese medicine, herbalism, and others. Of course, all remedies I post will be vegan.

photo cred.

Foods of Various Cultural Cuisines  I'm gonna discover what I never would've discovered before. I'm also gonna re-visit some all-time favorites. This will be all over the place, geographically. Hey, wanna be included? If you have an old favorite that your Burmese/Malian/Swedish/Bulgarian/Brazilian/Mayan/Lebanese (you get the picture) Grandma used to make, send it to me and I'll make a veganized version to post! You and your heritage will go down in vegan infamy.

photo cred.

How to eat vegan on a shoestring budget  Broke? Me too. Let's figure this out. I started The Barebones Vegan Kitchen during last year's MoFo and plan to continue throughout this year's. Follow me as I explore how to subsist - no, flourish - as a vegan with no cash in the bank! This is also useful for helping your broke friends become vegan, promoting the notion that veganism can be accessible to more than just the middle-upper class, removing the financial barriers....veganism for everyone!!!!

Mice forage for food as a primary means of survival. photo cred.

I will rotate among the themes throughout each week of MoFo, so that within every week, you will have the opportunity to see what I've got cookin' in all three of these categories. Sometimes the themes will naturally overlap, as well.

So there you have it. My triple-threat theme for Vegan MoFo 2011. Mangia, my pretties!


Stay tuned for another post later today...