Squirrel’s Vegan Kitchen

Well, I have a bucket load of pictures to post, including one of the world’s cutest squirrel pictures taken by yours truly. On with the show!

A couple of weeks ago, I made Susan’s Chocolate-Orange cake. Of course I had to display it just a beautifully as she did.

I will admit to adding a little bit of fat, 1/4 of a cup of oil. Even though a Susan recipe has never let me down, we were having people over for dinner and I didn’t want to risk it, having not made the recipe before. It was extremely good. I think next time I’m going try a grasshopper variation on it and omit the orange and add mint extract. Maybe with some chopped up Peppermint Pucks on top. Yummy.

I love my pressure cooker for the amazing things it can accomplish in 20 minutes.

A quick potato and corn chowder with black-eyed peas, which I’ve been cooking with like crazy. I love how quickly they cook and how they meld with anything. Served with some toasted Dave’s Killer baguette, the perfect addition to any soup.

Christmas was a low key affair for us this year. It was just Jim, the fur kids and myself, so it was basically a day off work with presents (we aren’t religious). As you might remember from last year, I’m kind of crazy about the holidays, normally, but this year I’m just not feeling it. It was my 4th Christmas away from my family, it’s been a downer of a year and it just didn’t feel like Christmas. We didn’t even put a tree up! Even when the kitties were young we still managed a tree. Bindhi’s first Christmas we had a little pre-lit tree that we kept in our second bedroom. We would lock the kitties up our bedroom and bring it out for an hour and then put it away and let them back out. Our last Christmas in Phoenix we took that little tree and suspended it upside down from the ceiling to keep the cats from it! That was bad because after awhile we stopped noticing it and it didn’t end up coming down until March.

Anyhow, this year there was no tree, just presents jammed under our end table. A co-worker gave me this cute little ornament, so I clipped it to the lamp on the table, our make ship Christmas tree.

I clipped it on with a little squirrel clip, which was an early Christmas present. Other than that and the wreath I buy for our front door each year, that was the extent of my decorating this year.

Christmas morning, despite Jim’s pleas, we had to open presents before breakfast. Why? Because part of our breakfast was one of his stocking stuffers. Jim loves anything maple, so when I spotted a jar of maple butter at the grocery store awhile ago, I decided to get it for him for Christmas. It was too expensive for me to justify as a regular purchase, but under the guise of a gift I could excuse away.

VwaV pear ginger waffles with maple butter, cheezy chickpeas and a pear. Yummy! I think I’ve finally learned, though, that I’m more of a pancake girl than a waffle girl. Thankfully all of the VwaV waffle batters make great pancakes.

Christmas dinner was the seitan portabella stroganoff from VwaV.

Yes, those are some accidentally vegan croissants on my plate. Like I said, I just wasn’t feeling it this year and I didn’t want to make real bread for just the two of us. Those were something that I caved into from Jim’s puppy dog eyes at the grocery store. Of course, the stroganoff was wonderful. I need to make this recipe more often.

And now for the serious craziness: I didn’t make dessert. I bought some desserts at Wild Oats. I had two reasons for this. 1) I was feeling lazy, plain and simple, and 2) is that if I made something it would mean there would be a lot of it laying around (cake, cookies, etc) and we really don’t need that. We’re trying to clean up our act, foodwise.

Piece of Cake German Chocolate cake. Very moist and delicious.

Piece of Cake Carrot Cake Bar. It was very good as well, with a strong ginger flavor, but we both agreed that a cream cheese frosting was in order, not a crunchy sugar one.

We often the squirrels in our backyard and recently we’ve been attracting some birds, so I’ve started putting out seed for them as well. This provides food for them, but hours of entertainment for the cats and, honestly, for me too. Now, I’m not some crazy person that things they can tell squirrels apart, but we do have a couple with distinguishing characteristics and I’ve given them names. We have a meaner, fat squirrel who is missing the top half of his tail named Spanky. There is also a large, slightly friendlier squirrel who is missing a chunk of fur from the left side of his tail that I call Chunk. We have 2 younger squirrels who were born this summer. They are incredibly cute, they still haven’t grown into their heads yet and their tails are scraggily looking. I can tell them apart because one of them is missing a bunch of fur from the underside of his tail. I call him Little Chunk. Now, I’m not one to play favorites, but with his boyish charm and baby face, Little Chunk is a real heart warmer. I was taking pictures of him the other day and was really looking at them when I downloaded the pictures a few minutes ago to blog and oh god, I nearly died from this cuteness. If you’ve made it this far into my squirrel-love spiel you are in for a treat, the cutest squirrel on Earth.

Look at how cute he is! That sunflower shell in his hand, the food on his little nose and that open-mouthed smile! Cutest picture ever! My heart physically hurts looking at it.

I told Bindhi that I was going to arrange a marriage between her and Little Chunk. She didn’t look very keen on that idea.

Jenny & Gia M! Email me at squirrelsvegankitchen [dot] com with your addresses! You are each getting a “Vegan Master Baker” apron, a copy of the book and a special mystery treat from Food Fight! Please let me know if either of you have allergies. Congrats!

I have Christmas dinner and other goodies, I hope to post tonight. Hope you all had wonderful holidays! Or at least enjoyed the day off.

Thanks to everyone for your support. I am truly touched by all of your kind words. I will do another food post or two before the year end, so the party’s not over quite yet!

And in the tradition of the gift giving, I’m going to do a giveaway! I’m not telling what or how many, but a couple of folks will get a nice little package to help chase away the post-holiday blues. To enter into this random drawing just leave a comment with your favorite holiday treat. Again, it’s random, but the topic is just to make it a little interesting. I know this is a crazy busy time of year, but I’ll close this on Christmas Eve.

Happy commenting!

Yes, oh yes, I am so excited to have this new, delicious Vietnamese restaurant in town! I enjoy Bay Leaf alright, but otherwise the Asian cuisine in Portland is scarce, not like Seattle. But now with Nhut Quang, I am quite the happy camper. Let me show you why:

(This was take out, hence my own dishes.)

One of the yummiest creations in all the world: BBQ steamed bun. A rice flour bun filled with deliciously marinated seitan-style meat, steamed to perfection. I can taste it just thinking about it.

Vietnamese dumplings. These were filled with mung beans and spices. They were okay, but not what I was expecting. I think I was moreso just put off by the surprise of it being different than I was expecting. Served with a light sweet and sour sauce.

Yellow curry. One of the best curries I’ve ever had. Rather than just relying on heat and turmeric to make you feel like you’re eating curry, the folks at Nhut Quang craft a very complex yellow curry with coconut overtones that is very satisfying. The night I had it, it had broccoli in it, Jim’s had celery this night, with faux chicken.

Flat rice noodles, sauteed in a brown Saigon sauce with veggies, tofu and faux chicken. This meal was one of those perfect ones that just hit the spot. Not overly complicated, just flavorful and comforting with wide rice noodles, sauteed veggies, crisp bean sprouts and a delicious sauce. This is one of my favorite meals there so far.

If you come to town, it’s worth stopping by. It’s rather unassuming, in a little strip attached to a Shell station, but as we all know, sometimes the most understated things are the best.

Around this time, the end of December, it’s always time for some reflection. Time to think about where you are, your goals, etc. Time to start making resolutions, taking stock of things, etc. Naturally, I’ve been doing my fair share of this sort of pondering, for a few months now.

And. I have a little thing to announce. This might be a surprise to some people. I have decided to stop blogging. I have decided to stop Squirrel’s Vegan Kitchen and Damn Tasty Vegan, everything. This has nothing to do with my commitment to veganism, which is very strong. I have met so many amazing people in my nearly 2 years of blogging. I have made friends all over the world and the cookbook has certainly been an experience! But like all good things, it has run its course. I have had a very complicated year this last year. I have a lot of other interests and hobbies that I want to devote myself to. The past months have seen my cooking and blogging dwindling. It has been great and I appreciate you all so much, taking the time to read about my silly life and sharing yours with me. But I’m ready to move on now, to other things and other elements of my life.

This is why we have been having our sale, to help move some of the book related stuff. Thanks to everyone who has purchased stuff! I am going to continue posting this month, but on December 31st I plan to stop blogging and DTV will stop being available. I will keep this blog up and available, however, for whoever comes across it.

Thanks to everyone for your support and I really appreciate each and every one of you.

I’m am just overflowing with chickpea love! I swear I could eat them everyday in every meal. I could eat them in a box, I could eat them with a fox. I could eat them in a train, I could eat them in the rain. They are absolutely my favorite legume. The flavor, the texture, the versatility… but rather than wax romantic all evening, I’ll get on to the pics, saving the best for last.

Jim is really digging on the pumpkin cinnamon rolls from Don’t Eat off the Sidewalk and he actually made the dough for them last weekend! Once again, we made the dough the night before and let it slow rise in the fridge. Once again we added in raisins and I smeared them with Tofutti cream cheese frosting.

I made a tempeh scramble seasoned with nooch and sea salt and a little sage and some shredded veggies, zucchini, etc. On the side was a delish Oregon pear. I love the variety of local produce we are lucky enough to indulge in all year round here. There’s always something. This was a D’Anjou pear, which I think has the perfect stone, sweetness and juiciness.

When I was growing up in a western suburb of Minneapolis we had a local Chinese restaurant in a strip mall by our house called China Star. I’m sure many of you have China Star’s in your backyards, but nothing was like this place. Jim and I used to go eat there for Christmas dinner it was so good. This was, of course, pre-veg. Anyway, I used to always order Chicken with Broccoli, which also has those perfect crinkle cut carrots in them. The sauce was dark and garlicky and thick, more like a glaze. In all my travels around the US I have yet to find a brown sauce with broccoli that can compare. This has become a life calling for me. Whenever I try a new Asian restaurant I always try their broccoli in brown sauce just to see. Alas, it has yet to happen. Sure, many of them are good, but they aren’t the same.

So, in true DIY fashion, I decided to finally try my hand at it. I suck at making Asian-inspired cuisine and while this turned out okay, it was pretty much down there with my other past attempts.

I started with some sauteed minced garlic and incorporated a cornstarch and veggie broth liquid into it, along with a fair helping of soy sauce. It was okay, but I used aseptic veggie broth, which was way too strong and lent an oddly buttery flavor to it. I used some hydrated textured soy chunks I picked up at Food Fight many months ago. I can see why they only carried them for a month or so. They were not very good. I picked mine out and Jim ate them up. The veggies and rice were steamed perfectly at least! You can’t win ‘em all.

Chickpeas! Chickpeas! So amazing and versatile! Breakfast this morning featured Isa’s Fronch Toast, which is, naturally, made with chickpea flour. I made it using this wonderful Breakfast Toast we have been buying from Nature Bake, which is Dave’s brother’s bread company, which is their family bread company. It is a nice dense but moist wheat bread, speckled with walnuts, raisins and orange zest.

Each piece was topped with thawed strawberries and dollop of Ricemellow Fluff. And, of course, cheezy chickpeas on the side.

And for dinner tonight, chickpeas revisited. It’s a recipe that I have been working up all week and I was so excited to finally try it. I’m happy to say it was a great success and I’ll be making it many times.

I’ll post it when it’s tweaked, but it is simple and involves chickpeas, tomatoes, garlic, zucchini, purple kale, kalamata olives, and capers. I served it with some whole wheat olive bread that I picked up at the Whole Foods Formerly Known As Wild Oats.

It’s been awhile since I’ve baked much and I love having a big muffin to eat for breakfast, so tonight I made some muffins from Robin Robertson’s Peanut Butter Planet.

They are peanut butter and cranberry. She has the recipe written for dried cranberries, but I used frozen. They are quite tasty, as is everything else I’ve made from this book. I can’t wait for breakfast!

And what would a post be without a kitty picture? Linus can get sad when I’m away, even if it’s just out for dinner with friends, so he waits by the door for my arrival.

Such a cute and goofy boy. He wasn’t actually waiting for me, he has no patience for that, but whatever he was doing, he was doing it with style.

Later this week I’ll have a yummy review of the wonderful vegan Vietnamese restaurant that just opened up near us. It’s really fantastic, I’ve eaten there twice in the past week and I really hope they thrive and that Portlanders get over their fear of traveling further than 10 city blocks to support them. We have another veg Vietnamese place in town (Van Hahn) that I tried really hard to like, but their food is always so greasy and unpredictable and I always feel sick from greasiness after eating there. Anyway, this new establishment, Nhut Quang, is crazy good (try the Lemon Grass Tofu Sticks and Steamed BBQ Bun!) and I am in big time food love with them. That and more in the next installment of “The Chickpea Lover Chronicles”.