Love, loss, adventure and blueberry pie? Those are all themes that run throughout the new movie My Blueberry Nights, which opens nationwide today. The movie stars singer Norah Jones, in her debut acting role. She crisscrossing the country in an attempt to find herself and in the process, frequents classic diners and eats a lot of pie. Blueberry pie to be exact.
The famous vegan, gluten-free and refined sugar-free New York City bakery, Babycakes NYC supplied all the pies used on the set of the film. They've offered us a rough "recipe" (it's actually a list of ingredients, but I'm sure the intrepid bakers among you might be able to craft it into a pie) for the blueberry pie that Norah Jones is about to take a bite of in the picture above.
Check out the film and, if any of you make this pie, let us know!
Despite some powerful cravings for anything sweet (particularly chocolate), I've managed to stay true to the South Beach diet for another day. However, when it comes to looking for images for this post, I am unable to escape the pull of the desserts and baked goods. This image of a vegan chocolate cupcake with a peanut buttercream frosting caught my eye and I've been staring at it for the last five minutes, wishing deeply that I could drag a finger through that frosting. It comes to us from Slashfood reader/Flickr user/food blogger Meliass. Thanks for adding your picture to the pool!
I was thinking yesterday that I don't spend nearly enough time featuring vegetarian and vegan foods. As an omnivore, I have to admit that I dig the images of big, meaty sandwiches and perfectly roasted chickens. But when I came across this photo of a veganized Tortilla de Patatas, it looked delicious and I liked the idea of altering a traditionally egg-based dish into one that appealed to the vegan folks in the crowd. Best of all, there's a link to the recipe here.
If you've got a dish you think deserves to be seen by the eyes of the Slashfood readers, head over, join our Flickr group and upload your pictures.
An article in today's New York Times Dining and Wine section addresses the question of differing diets in relationships (just in time for Valentine's Day!). The piece opens with a vignette from Shauna James Ahern (aka the Gluten-Free Girl) about a man she dated before she met her husband, who ended things because he loved bread too much and she was unable to eat it. The article then moves on to tell stories of other relationships that ended because of diet differences, before giving examples of people who've been able to overcome their mixed menu situations (including Philly based Urban Vegan aka Dynise Balcavage).
I admit that I would struggle being in a relationship with someone who's eating style differed drastically from mine but I admire the people who are willing to be flexible and able to make it work.
How about you, Slashfood readers? Are you willing to be in a relationship with someone who eats a substantially different diet from the one you follow?
I've heard rumors that Slashfood used to have an "Ingredient Spotlight" post, but it got lost in the shuffle. Well, never fear, Slashfoodies: it's back.
For my debut post, I'm going to go really crazy and choose...tofu. Okay, stop groaning. I know what you're thinking.
But give it a chance. Tofu is like that nerdy kid in freshman year of high school who wore his pants too high and his shirts too low, and still brought his lunch in those insulated, brightly-colored bags with the matching thermoses when the cool kids were brown-bagging it. You made fun of him all year, but when you came back to school in sophomore year, something had changed. He was...different. He held his head higher, he walked up straighter, and he was wearing khakis and polos. And if you titled your head and squinted your eyes just right, he was almost...cute.
That's like tofu. Despite its pale, jiggly appearance and its dorky past, tofu has a lot to offer if you give it a chance. If you know how to use it, tofu can be the homecoming king of dinners.
The history
Tofu is made by coagulating soy milk into bean curd, similar to the way milk turns into cheese as it ferments. (I'll pause as you salivate). It usually comes in soft, firm, and extra firm/dried varieties, the only difference being that soft has the most moisture in the curds, while extra firm has the least. It can also be fermented, made sweet, fried, or frozen before packaging.
Tofu's main claim to fame is that it's really mild, so it takes on the flavor of whatever you cook it with. Its taste and creamy consistency make it a great substitute for most dairy products, a star in smoothies, and a great addition to dressings or sauces.
In all the hubbub over super bowl treats, we can't forget the vegan(s) in our lives. Thankfully, Gail at Cooking at the Pacific Outpost has us covered: here's her recipe for vegan sugar cookies, that can be cut out with football-shaped cookie cutters and decorated with vegan frosting to signify the team of your choosing. Y'know, because you will suffer humiliation when the team from my town defeats the team from your town.
Vegan Sugar Cookies Makes: About 24 cookies
You will need:
¾ cups Earth Balance, softened (FYI: Earth Balance is just a butter substitute - it won't kill you, I promise) 1 cup sugar ½ cup soy yogurt ½ tsp vanilla extract ½ tsp almond extract 2 ½ cups flour 1 tsp baking powder ½ tsp salt
In a large bowl, cream the Earth Balance and sugar with an electric mixer until smooth and creamy.Beat in the soy yogurt and the extracts.Sift in the flour, baking powder, and salt and stir until well combined.Cover the dough and chill it in the refrigerator for at least one hour.
Preheat the oven to 400 F.Shape the cookies and place them 1" apart on an ungreased cookie sheet.
Bake for approximately 8 minutes.Cool completely before icing.
For Christmas, I received a super-cool vegan cookbook (thanks, Mom!) that's become my new favorite. I find that some veggie/vegan cookbooks, while gorgeous and filled with fantastic recipes, have an air of pretension about them that irks me as I struggle to, say, wrap my increasingly-crumbly tempeh in endive.
But Angeline Linardis, author of V Cuisine: The Art of New Vegan Cooking, isn't like that at all. Her voice throughout the book is light and non-threatening, and the recipes aren't nearly as intimidating as some I've come across. (For instance, my favorite chapter name is "Terrifying Tofu.")
So far I've tried a few of the recipes, including the corn chowder (Linardis recommended that you blend half of it with an immersion blender, but I left it chunky, and I'm glad I did - I retained the individual flavors of the veggies and it felt more hearty, like a chowder should) and the tofu "fries," which weren't nearly as crispy as I'd hoped, but plenty tasty and filling.
And while the teaspoon of turmeric the soup called for turned my favorite spatula a permanent shade of shocking yellow, it's a small price to pay for such a fun collection of recipes.
Last Friday I featured one of my favorite cookbooks, The Frog Commissary Cookbook. After writing about it, I left my copy sitting on my dining room table and ended up flipping through it over lunch, looking to be inspired. You see, I was supposed to attend a Philadelphia food blogger potluck that night, and I had no idea what to bring. The pressure is on to make something delicious when you get together with a bunch of foodies and so I was a little stumped.
However, the recipe for Curried Red Lentil Salad caught my eye. It drew me in even further when I realized that I had every single ingredient needed to prepare it already in my kitchen (that is an endearing feature, especially on e a gloomy day). I put the lentils on to boil and stood by my spice cabinet for more than five minutes, measuring spices and whisking in oil and vinegar.
Luckily, it was amazing. The flavors are bright and tasty and the dish shines without any particularly fancy ingredients (it is also vegan if that's a concern). It's a great potluck dish and is one of those magic recipes that improves the longer it is left alone. The recipe is after the jump.
There is something about tomato soup that gives it the ability to hit the spot like no other food item out there. And when paired with a grilled cheese sandwich, well, it becomes transcendently good*. However, in this time of post holiday austerity, you may want to omit the sandwich and just go for a bowl of refreshing and virtuous soup.
If that is the case for you (as it is for me, especially since I just ate two scones in rapid succession), you might want to take a peek at this Hearty Tomato Soup that VJ made recently. It's based on this recipe by Giada De Laurentiis, however VJ veganized it and suggests that you add more garlic and beans than the recipe calls for. I think it sounds lovely and wish that a bowl would appear in front me right now.
*If you happen to be at Reading Terminal Market in Philadelphia, stop by the Down Home Diner and see if they are serving their tomato soup and grilled cheese combo. They don't always have it on the menu, but when they do, it is absolutely worth indulging. They use whole grain bread, amazing sharp cheddar cheese and soup is chunky with veggies. It might just be one of my favorite meals in the world.
I saw an ad in a food magazine recently in which a mother was putting down a platter holding a tofurky in front of her son and girlfriend. It implied that it was the first tofurky that this woman had prepared and that she was doing it for this new arrival who was presumably a vegetarian.
I imagine that there are actually quite a few of you out there who may find yourself with a vegetarian or vegan around your holiday table next week. I actually don't recommend preparing tofurky as my experiences with it have been decidedly unpleasant (it's great in concept but sadly just doesn't taste that good). Instead, you might want to check out this post over at the Well Fed Network which lays out a bunch of tips and recipes for how you might want to make your non-meat eating guests feel welcome around your table.
During the years that my sister was a vegetarian, we typically made lots of veggies and always had several non-meat dishes into which we added chopped and toasted nuts for additional protein. For those of you who aren't meat eaters, how to do you handle these big, celebratory meals?
Back when I was in high school, I discovered that you could get maple sweetened candy canes in the health food section of Fred Meyer (a west coast chain of stores that sell groceries, clothes, homewares and just about everything else. I've lived on the east coast for six years and I still miss it). I bought them instead of the traditional ones because I liked the old-fashioned color the maple gave the candy. I also liked the idea of eating something that wasn't filled with lots of artificial colors.
Now there's another way to get candy canes that make you feel incrementally better about eating them. According to our friends over at Green Daily, you can now get organic, vegan, fair trade, GMO-free candy canes. They are made by a company called Pure Fun. They use all natural, kosher, vegan, gluten-free and Fair Trade ingredients and they source their cane sugar from companies that "green cut" it by hand. You can find Pure Fun candy at Whole Foods or online.
I've always been a fan of baking with cranberries. I have a recipe for cranberry bread that I've been making since I was eight years old (which I'll post as soon as I make it this season) and I often use a combination of cranberries and apples in crisps and crumbles. I spotted this Cranberry Upside Down Cake over at the Urban Vegan on Tuesday and it called to me. It also has the added benefit of being a vegan recipe, perfect for those holiday gatherings with family who have dietary limitations (you could easily un-veganize it if you so desired).
This Saturday, a friend of mine celebrated her small summer wedding with a large fall party for all their friends and family. They borrowed a house on the New Jersey shore, pitched a very large tent and brought in tons of food from a local Trinidadian restaurant. Being the eco-friendly couple that they are, they chose to serve mostly vegan food, knowing that mass-produced meat and poultry are environmentally irresponsible.
I had never really experienced much in the way of imitation meat before, when I found myself confronted with an array of faux chicken legs (in mango or tamari sauces) and seitan spare ribs. I tried it all. The faux chicken legs were unnerving at first, because as I cut into mine, my knife hit something hard in the center. Inside was a thin wooden skewer, representing the bone. The texture was so similar to shredded chicken that my brain and taste buds kept checking in with each other, trying to figure out what exactly was going on. The seitan spare ribs were tasty, but I tend to be sensitive to too much wheat and so after a few bites, my stomach started to protest.
I'm impressed with the creativity that people possess that leads them to conjure up workable meat substitutes. However, I think that I'd prefer to have a meat-free meal than one where the main dish was one built on fake meat. How do the rest of you feel? Fake meat or no meat at all?
My Slashfood friends, I am a sadist. Or is it masochist? I never knew the difference between the two.
Either way, for some reason known only to, well, to no one, I decided to do the most punishing thing ever on a hot summer day: turn on the oven. I know, I must be crazy. The inexplicable thing is, however, that I turned it on to roast something that doesn't need to be roasted. If I needed to make a roasted garlic puree, I could justify it. If I felt like roasting a lemon herb chicken for Sunday supper, it would make sense.
My friends, I roasted tomatoes. Tomatoes! At this point in the season, there is absolutely no need to roast produce that is practically dripping with fresh flavor right off the vine!
However, I couldn't resist after I came across a recipe for Roasted Tomato Soup while flipping lazily through Marcus Wareing's Cook the Perfect cookbook.
I eat a lot of tofu, not because I'm vegan/vegetarian and have to eat some sort of protein, but because tofu tastes good to me. (My being Asian and eating tofu all my life might have something to do with this, too.)
Now, it is just way too easy to pick up several blocks of tofu from the market for ninety-nine cents each, sometimes less when it's on sale, but if you have some time on your hands, you can make tofu at home, per the above video above from Cool Hunting. All you need is 150 g of dried soybeans, calcium sulfate, and the foresight to start soaking the dried soybeans the night before.
An article in today's New York Times Dining and Wine section 
.jpg)
For Christmas, I received a super-cool vegan cookbook (thanks, Mom!) that's become my new favorite. I find that some veggie/vegan cookbooks, while gorgeous and filled with fantastic recipes, have an air of pretension about them that irks me as I struggle to, say, wrap my increasingly-crumbly tempeh in endive. 
Back when I was in high school, I discovered that you could get maple sweetened candy canes in the health food section of Fred Meyer (a west coast chain of stores that sell groceries, clothes, homewares and just about everything else. I've lived on the east coast for six years and I still miss it). I bought them instead of the traditional ones because I liked the old-fashioned color the maple gave the candy. I also liked the idea of eating something that wasn't filled with lots of artificial colors. 
May is National BBQ Month and National Hamburger Month
Cupcakes, not for dessert (unless beef is your idea of a treat)
Because eating French Fries in the car is so tough
