As I mentioned last night, yesterday Shane and I spent the day outside, disassembling a fairly large planter. No complaints here, though; it was a gorgeous day, and I’d much rather spend a sunny day doing manual labor outside than be cooped up in the house, plugging away on office work or somesuch.

And can I just say that Midwestern autumns are effin’ gorgeous?

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I meant to post a recipe today, really I did! But as it turned out, Shane and I spent the day outside, breaking down a multi-tiered planter in our front yard (we needed to reuse some of the stones to finish a retaining wall in the backyard). And then I hopped on the ‘puter after my shower to blog a pumpkin applesauce recipe, and saw that Ann at Feministing linked to that Pork & Tits post I wrote about PETA last month. Alas, I spent what little spare time I had this evening defending my defense of PETA’s “Breast is Best” campaign, which I think she misinterpreted as a defense of all PETA’s campaigns, sexist or otherwise. Which, um, I wasn’t. But y’all can decide for yourselves.

Anyway, some food porn to tide you over until tomorrow.

Yum. Methinks I deserve one of *those* tonight.

Later, veg*ns.

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In the interest of using up another half-bag of apples, I went a-searching for vegan dishes with both beans and apples in the ingredients list. I found a few chili and baked bean recipes with apples, which was enough to reassure me that a bean/apple combo wasn’t totally bonzo. I wasn’t 100% satisfied with any of the baked bean or chili recipes I found, though, so I decided to cook up this Vegan Baked Beans recipe at allrecipes.com and just toss in some apples as needed.

Initially, I’d planned on making one serving, sans apples, and then sampling it myself before doubling it (if needed) and adding the apples to make dinner with a week’s wroth of leftovers for the dogs.

Alas, I am a dolt.

You see, I started cooking without first reviewing the entire recipe. (Never do this, people. It’s all sorts of st00pid.) When I started the dish, I assumed that it called for 6 cups of water. But, not so much. The water is just for cooking the dry beans - then you drain and discard it, and move on from a pot to a casserole dish. Since I was working with canned beans, I didn’t need any water at all. But I didn’t realize this until I’d mixed 6 cups of water with the tomato paste (”Surely they must mean paste instead of sauce,” I thought. “There’s already too much water in this dish as it is!), sugar, spices, etc. Then I was between a light and dark red kidney bean, as it were. So I pushed on, resolving to give this dish to the dogs and make the recipe properly, a second time, for dinner for the husband and I.

So I guess what I’m saying is that I have two adaptations of this recipe to share - one that’s more like chili, the other which is mostly definitely baked beans as intended. Both dishes are actually quite tasty (and suitable for dogs and people alike), though the chili takes about three hours of cooking to boil down enough so that it looks like chili instead of soup.

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Some veg*ns aren’t very fond of faux meats because they taste too much like the “real” thing; clearly, I’m not one of those veg*ns! Perhaps it’s because none of the faux meats I’ve tried come close enough to dismembered animal corpses to actually fool me. The products listed below, for example, are really yummy and have a taste similar to that of meat - but they also all kind of have their own thing going on, too. There aren’t any chunks of fat, or gristle, or hint of muscle texture. “Meat lite,” I guess you could call it.

As a heavy meat eater in my omni days (in high school I was known to down a package of lunch meat per day) - and a very un-creative cook, to boot - I welcome faux meat products as an essential part of my veg*n journey. Would I still be veg if not for Boca Burgers? Mostly likely. It’d be a helluva uphill trek, though.

I certainly don’t fault anyone who chooses to abstain from fake meats, though. With test tube meat becoming less of a sci-fi fantasy and more of a reality, I find myself sympathizing with the anti-faux meat crowd. While my husband, also a veg*n, is eager for test-tube meat to hit the market, I don’t think I could stomach it. Even if it’s completely free of animal products, I can’t see myself voluntarily eating anything that’s made to resemble animal flesh in taste and texture. It’s just too close for comfort.

Anyhoo, here are my top five fave faux meats, in no particular order. Given that beans make me bloat up (tmi, sorry!), I probably eat more of this stuff than I should, for protein’s sake…and yet, my diet is still a gagillion times healthier than it was in my meat-eating days, when I’m sure my LDL levels were through the roof!

1. Boca Burgers

Mmmm, Boca Burgers! Boca and I go way back - it’s one of the first fake meats I tried upon going vegetarian. After all these years, it’s still my favorite “hamburger”/”ground beef” substitute. You can fry it up to a crisp, or pop it in the microwave or toaster oven for a healthier meal. Sam’s Club sells 16-count boxes of the giant burgers; unlike the smaller boxes (of smaller burgers), the “Big Burgers” actually fill a bun. So it makes for a very satisfying alternative to a Big Mac, especially when topped with veg*n condiments and loads of veggies.

For a yummy pasta dish, fry up some Boca, mushrooms, olives, tomatoes and garlic in olive oil and use it to top off a plate of angel hair pasta.

It’s also great in salad!

Just make sure you buy the Original Vegan flavor; not all of Boca’s products are 100% vegan.

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Today I made some yummy mixed berry applesauce (raspberries, blackberries and blueberries, oh my!) for fruit leather. Since I was already up to my elbows in apples and apple peels, I decided to try this apple crisp recipe from allrecipes.com.

I modified the recipe a bit, with the intention of cutting out a little of the extra fat and sugar. Overall, I’m happy with how it came out, but next time ’round I think I might try making the topping into a crust and layering the apples on top, so it crisps up a bit more. Also, because all the spices went into the “crisp” part of the mix, the apples themselves are on the boring side. Before you top them off with the crisp mix, I’d recommend tossing the apples with some spices - cinnamon, cloves, maybe some allspice. Can’t hurt, right?

Apple Oat Crisp

Ingredients

10 apples, diced
1 cup rolled oats
2 cups Bisquick (or veg*n all-purpose baking mix)
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
2/3 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 cup applesauce
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup margarine, melted

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So you’re all excited about trying a new vegan recipe; something involving baked tofu, or perhaps a brick of stir-fried soy goodness. But…lurking among the familiar ingredients is a weird variation of an otherwise ho-hum staple, that old friend we all call “tofu”: “pressed tofu.” WTF is that!?, you wonder in a panic.

Relax! “Pressed tofu” is simply regular tofu - soft, firm or extra-firm - pressed or squeezed, in order to remove some of the excess water from the tofu brick. Though it’s not always necessary to press your tofu before cooking with it, pressed tofu is able to absorb more liquid than off-the-shelf tofu, which is already fully saturated. Thus, if you’re making a dish with a liquid base or sauce, pressing your tofu prior to adding it to the mix will allow it to soak up more flavor.

About.com offers the following instructions for pressing tofu:

1. Layer your cutting board or bowl with two layers of towels and place tofu on towels as shown in picture.
2. Place tofu on board or in bowl.
3. Lay a fresh towel on top of tofu.
4. Gently press down on towel to remove any initial water.
5. Remove damp towel and place two layers of fresh towels on top of tofu.
6. Carefully place a bowl or other weight on top of towels to press down on tofu.
7. Let sit for at least fifteen minutes.

Given that I usually cook with two to three (or more) bricks of tofu at once, my method is a little more hard core:

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As you can most likely infer from the post title, today is the Ralphster’s birthday. My little man, my first-born and -adopted, turns a gray old 11 today. He’s like the Wilford Brimley of the doggeh world, minus the dia-beddies.

I have plenty of Ralphie pix after the jump, of course, but first a recipe for Peanut Butter ‘Nilla Biscuits from Yummy for Dogs. If you like what you see, check out the website and/or order a copy of webmistress Veronica Noechel’s Yummy for Dogs: A Cook Book for Canines. Hey, it’s on my wishlist. I mean, Ralphie’s wishlist. Yeah, Ralphie. (Hint, hint, wink, wink!)

Peanut Butter ‘Nilla Biscuits

These smell incredible!

1 1/2 cups water
1/2 cup oil
3 tablespoons peanut butter
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 cups whole wheat flour
1/2 cup cornmeal
1/2 cup oats

* In a large bowl, combine flour, cornmeal, and oats.

* Stir in oil, peanut butter, vanilla, and water.

* Knead till smooth, adding more flour or water as needed.

* Roll out on a lightly floured surface.

* Cut with cookie cutters.

* Bake on a greased cookie sheet at 400 degrees for 20 minutes.

I stuck to the directions, but added some extra flour and rolled oats, as the dough was initially a little oily. I think I also used more like 5 tablespoons of peanut butter, since my “tablespoons” were heaped to overflowing. The dogs love the pb, though!

I have this cute little bone-shaped cookie cutter that the doggies’ grandmother bought for them/me, so I used that to cut the dough. I rolled the leftover scraps into a faux long rawhide bone with the cute little tied ends (for the birthday boy, natch!), as you can see in the photo. All in all, the recipe produced 53 cookies (40 long bones, 12 short bones and one “rawhide”), which fit on two sheets, no problem.

The dogs loved the treats, but don’t place too much trust in their critique; four out of the five of them eat their own poo! (And the fifth eats the cat’s poo - Rennie, I’m looking at you.) I did try the dough before rolling it into cookies, and it was on a little the bland side (for humans), but edible; and yet, definitely yummy for dogs!

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Given that my fridge is overflowing, methinks I’ll have to lay off the new recipes for at least a few days. Instead, I thought I might make a list of my top five must-have kitchen gadgets. The roundup is applicable to omnis as well as veg*ns, but it’s probably doubly helpful to those of us who have to make some of our own vegetarian and vegan foods, including (cue collective sigh) the elusive perfect vegan cheese.

Of course, this excludes the obvious appliances such as the fridge/freezer, oven/cooktop/range combo, microwave, blender and toaster oven. These things are more or less a given for a given for all but the biggest of city dwellers. And even then…I can’t imagine anyone in NYC going without at least a small fridge.

1. Bread Machine

Maybe it’s the Italian in me, but I’m a carb fiend - especially when it comes to bread and pasta. Since I live way out in the sticks - and the only bakery in town closed weeks before we moved here - store-bought fresh bread is a near impossibility for us. Unless we want to drive an hour and a half, round trip, every time we have a hankering for cinnamon oatmeal or sundried tomato loaves…which clearly we don’t. Plus, the store selection would never whet my appetite for new and unusual flavors of the yummy floury stuff.

Luckily, bread machines make it relatively simple to enjoy fresh-baked bread without leaving the house. The Sunbeam bread machine pictured above is a hand-me-down from my mother. Or at least I think it is; we’ve had it for so long that it’s hard to remember. Despite its old age, it shows no signs of giving out. Occasionally we’ve had to replace to bread pan, but that’s a relatively inexpensive accessory.

In the past, I’ve posted a recipe for Dutch sugar loaf bread, which is a personal bread machine fave (it’s almost pastry-like, especially if you time the addition of the sugar cubes just right, so that they congeal in the loaf’s center, making a sticky sweet mess); as soon as all those zucchinis and apples are gone (and I can move away from the oven-baked breads), I’ll blog some of my other specialties, including one bread recipe featuring tomato paste and sundried tomatoes, and another that uses Kalamata olives.

The beauty of the bread machine, of course, isn’t just the endless supply of fresh breads; rather, it’s the freedom to experiment with different tastes, ingredients and textures. The variety found in a bakery can never rival the variety found in your own imagination!

Plus, bread machines are way easier to use than you’d think. Shane and I are largely lazy cooks and culinary dum-dums, yet even we’ve mastered the bread machine.

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I’ll be on drugs and/or in the dentist’s chair for most of the day today (thank the Saucy FSM for oral-conscious sedation, yay!), so I don’t have any VeganMoFo recipes or ruminations to post. Instead, I thought I might share some photos of the Liberty Corn Maze I took a few weekends ago.

Shane loves the veggie mazes, and I usually just tag along to keep him company. I decided to try my brain at the shortest maze this time around, and actually managed to get us through it with minimum FAIL. We ended up solving 3 out of the 4 - all cooperative stylie - before the heat got to us. This is the earliest in the season that we’ve ever attended; normally, we procrastinate until the last weekend it’s open, which we’ve now realized is a really dumb idea. If you go earlier in the fall, you miss most of the crowds - and since you hit the maze before everyone else, it’s actually intact: no self-made shortcuts, trampled stalks or other cheating to be found. Imagine that.

Now, I know that the Liberty Corn Maze isn’t directly relevant to vegan food, except that corn is a veggie that might otherwise be food, if we weren’t playing with it and all.

But I ask you this: would you dare wander through a maze constructed of slabs of meat and dangling corpses? I think not. So why put that shit in your body, hmmm?

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OK, so I’d wanted to blog a recipe involving watermelon today, since I have 14 or so sitting out in the garage. (That’s one frustrating thing about gardening - some produce seems to come all at once.) But all I could find on the internets were watermelon juice recipes, or recipes that required use of a food mill (don’t have *sigh*), so after a half hour of searching I gave up and changed course.

Instead I decided to look for a bread recipe calling for applesauce and strawberries, so I could use up some of that yummy strawberry applesauce I made yesterday. This recipe for strawberry bread popped up all over the place, so I figured it muse be a sign from the Fruit Fairy. Or something.

With some slight modifications, here’s my recipe for Sweet Strawberry Applesauce Bread.

Sweet Strawberry Applesauce Bread

Ingredients

- Dry -
2 cups flour
1 cup sugar (reduce to 3/4 cup if you’d like a less sugary bread)
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon allspice

- Wet -
Egg replacer for two eggs
1/2 to 3/4 cups Sweet Strawberry Applesauce (Or 1/2 cup commercial applesauce)
2 cups strawberries, chopped
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

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