From the monthly archives: December 2010
The couch is a nice place to welcome in the New Year, especially when one has drastically altered their sleep schedule since the start of winter break. Head-bobbing by 11:15 p.m. and already hung over, dinner in was a deterrent to an unproductive morning after: 1.1.11. Truthfully, I have been in hibernation mode since the blizzard forced me there almost a week ago. Beside sculpting a concavity in the cushion, I have been eating well. Here was what was on the menu for the last evening of 2010.
I was interested in making the Vegan Foodie‘s pecan-crusted seitan buuuut not making the seitan from scratch. Picking up some packaged strip kind, I mixed up the recipe’s hearty pecan and panko blend and fried ‘em up. Dear pecans, you are my favorite nut.
Twice baked potatoes. These gave me great aggravation as I jumped the gun on hollowing out their bellies. I was so anxious to utilize the left over Tofutti sour cream we picked up for snacking accompaniment. Along with the sour cream, there was some Earth Balance, Daiya cheddar and some seasoning. Despite the fumbles, potatoes are really hard to mess up and they came out quite tasty.
I was on beer duty so I had to pick one that was seasonally-appropriate. More than I enjoy craft ales and micro-brews I enjoy their bottles. It’s like art, alcohol and reusable vase all in one easy price plus bottle deposit. This beer hit me hard and made me very enthusiastic about the terrible network programming on the big screen. This was followed by a well of tears in learning of Dick Clark’s stroke. Sweet.
Dinner! Strips of pecan-crusted seitan, grilled white asparagus and cherry tomatoes and a twice-baked potato. My only complaint would be that I should have whipped up a sauce for the seitan as it was a bit dry. The larger pieces of pecans, which had roasted in the frying pan, were an a great addition. Welcome 2011! I’ll have plenty of left overs for more couch surfing on 2011′s first day.
Dessert. So what if I forgot these bad boys were picked up along with the dinner groceries at Wild By Nature… they were meant to be the sweet conclusion of dinner. Yes, So Delicious‘ coconut-almond minis, representing the evolution of dairy-free ice cream. Creamy, bright white coconut milk vanilla ice cream coated in a thin cracking dark chocolate, pebbled with toasted coconut and almond. So delicious indeed.
Ok, 2011. Bring it on.
You’ll likely think me a total dullard when I confess that one of the most pleasurable moments of my week is Saturday morning: biting into a twice-toasted everything whole wheat bagel from Freeport, Long Island’s Bagel Dock smeared with Earth Balance and Bonne Maman four fruit preserves. Sure, sure, it may be because I only have it on the weekend when I am free and rested and comfy at my boyfriend’s house, yes. It’s all of that plus it is the best bagel ever. And Long Island knows a thing or two about bagels.
The Bagel Dock is a few blocks from The Electrician‘s house. So when the blizzard hit, it made for a perfect adventurist walk through the unshoveled side streets. Since there is nary a slither of my existence this pass week, I present a small, subdued photo essay.
Photo #1: En route
Photo #2: Arrival
Photo #3: The reward
…how wonderful life is while you’re in the world.
The List of Love, 2010 version.
1) letterpress printmaking
2) brunch
3) 10-year olds
4) capable men
5) gnocchi
6) Intervention
7) uplifting guerrilla art
8) Bodo Riemer
9) bench seats
10) Cake Wrecks
11) old New York
12) old Brooklyn
13) old everything
14) Orson Welles
15) cats on glass tables
16) baby feet / cat paws
17) Missed Connections drawings
18) Seitan Piccata at Candle 79
19) everything bagels
20) free fonts
21) fffound
22) 
23) Antiques Roadshow
24) Perpetual kid
25) Bodie Broadus
Snowflake time.
Christmas morning and Santa came!
Making quick use of the Electrician‘s new waffle maker and Williams Sonoma waffle tongs.
Christmas sugar cookies.
All dressed up.
Banana everything cookies from Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar
Santa came again at my folks’.
Pancake in her festive collar.
For my class holiday party I needed a batch of bright, kid-friendly Christmas cupcakes. Thanks to N.Y. Cake and their bright gel coloring (also used for the World Cupcakes), my cakes were a rich wintery green. Let’s hear it for artificial coloring!
When you have a green cake, you need red icing. Below is a colored vanilla buttercream.
With a selection of sprinkles, candies and colored sugars, the kids decorated the cupcakes to their liking. Dressing the cakes to impress, here are some of their designs: 
For additional cupcake reporting, check my classroom blog!
Burning your own dessert with a butane torch is not only exciting, it is an interactive way to spark up a holiday potluck! After committing to this dessert some time ago and purchasing all the special supplies {10 ramekins, butane torch, butane, arrowroot, fruit sugar, etc}, it was time to bring it on. Despite my waning health, I needed to cross vegan crème brûlée off my list.
I used Vegan Visitor‘s recipe here. After a slight drain, two packages of silken tofu ready for processing. The blended tofu, fructose, soy milk, vanilla and arrowroot are divided among the ramekins. They cooked in a bath of boiling water in the oven till flubbly [below].
They take some care going in and out of the oven and a level kitchen. This recipe would be a disaster if made at my apartment on my kitchen’s slope. It was time for them to just chill.
Practicing with the torch. Darn child-proof button.
Flash forward to T&A‘s holiday potluck! A gorgeous salad by Em, potatoes and gravy by CandyPenny, sausage and peppers and tofu casserole by T&A, stuffed mushrooms by D. Wow. Feeling the beginnings of what would turn into a butt-crippling flu, I barely had the appetite to eat a bite. On to dessert!
CandyPenny wo-mans the torch, burning the granulated sugar to the dessert’s characteristic crunchy top. Everyone’s top was unique. I realized I hadn’t been putting enough sugar on the custards’ tops. The more sugar, the more sizzzzle!
Whap! Cracking the crème brûlée top.
TimX, less apprehensive with holding a torch, created a deep sienna top.
Here’s to another year gone by with my girls! And to many more years of food memories!
We celebrated Chanukah in my classroom last week. That meant the motherload of potato latkes, fried to perfection right there next to the math bulletin board. Though the wonderful morning already seems like months ago, the classroom still smells of bubbling oil.
My kids’ parents are awesome at making sure I get to eat and be merry despite my vegan restrictions. So a tub of Tofutti sour cream was brought and I brought my Ener-g egg replacer. The kids made the latkes from scratch: peeling potatoes, chopping onion and shredding the potato in a food processor before squeezing out a ton of water. In the interest of time, all the latkes were vegan. Making the equivalent of 10 eggs with the egg replacer, the potato, flour and onion binded (bound?) perfectly for a bath in the hot golden bubbly. So the entire class and parents [and teachers and administrators drawn into the room by their noses] all ate vegan latkes. Everyone loved them and no one knew the difference.
Squeezing out the shredded potatoes– what fun!
The frying station/math wall.
A parent does the frying.
This made about 65 latkes.
With a pinch of fresh parsley, deeeelicious! What a fabulous morning. Check out a full report on the class blog here!
Happy Chanukah!
Vegan Reporting By Location
