Apple Cider Poached Pears with Maple Pecan Raisin Topping and Tart Apple Cider Glaze

Friends and fellow vegans!

Quite a chunk of time has lapsed since my last update and it’s been even longer since I’ve posted regularly. So much has changed in my life, but I’m finally all moved into my new place and I have my own kitchen again! Finally no more clutter, no more waiting for room to breathe, to create, or to explore food! Still, with this new move and this new job, I often find myself too exhausted to even think about blogging. When you think about it, working on a recipe, testing it out several times (if it’s not great at once, which sometimes it’s not), photographing it, sharing a story and typing it up, posting it, and promoting it is a lot of work. It’s almost like a second job, if you aren’t careless about it.

It’s been really great taking a break from the blog, despite it being forced at first and later, a choice. Yet, I’ve decided to gradually return to this world because cooking, baking, and sharing the abundant deliciousness of vegan food is an important part of  activism and as such, it’s important to me. Many of you keep asking for more recipes, which is flattering and empowering! Thank you! So, you’ll be seeing a bit more posts on here in the next few months. I’m going to try for anywhere from 2 to 3 a month depending on my schedule.

A lot of my eating habits lately have taken the focus off of baking and into more simple foods that focus on a raw ingredient. I’ve been actively trying to cut down, not on sugar, but on cakey-foods. It won’t last long, I’m sure. But for now, here’s a recipe that happened when I had a ripe pear that I didn’t just want to eat raw. Despite how simple and easy this recipe is, it’s quite impressive once served and it’s sure to make people think you’re some sort of healthy dessert genius. Let them be fooled! This dish is so naturally and perfectly sweet that it won’t give you a toothache from crazy amounts of added sugar. Served warm, it is wonderful and the pears cut so smoothly. The topping adds just the right amount of texture and crunch to the dish and if you happen to have pecan topping leftovers (it’s nearly impossible to stop yourself from eating it all at once), then you can refrigerate them and snack on them later or put them in your oatmeal the next day!

I hope you enjoy this treat as much as I did! Bon appetit and happy new year!

Quinoa Stuffed Acorn Squash

I’m still here, still alive, still in MoFo mode. But, it’s been a tremendously busy few weeks. Moving and working full time and MoFo-ing? What was I thinking?! I think I’m still in this. I think I can, I think I can! Anyhow, I finally finished packing and after a 13 hour move out of state, I’m finally settled in and in my new kitchen. So of course after all the cleaning and organizing and attempts to find the perfect lighting for photographing food, I put myself to work on one of my favorite recipes.

My roommate’s boyfriend who works on a farm, graciously bestowed us with a bounty of winter squash. Among them, my favorite — the acorn squash. If you haven’t noticed already, I really like stuffing food into more food (stuffed peppers, stuffed pasta, stuffed apples, stuffed summer squash).  Maybe someday I’ll invent a vegan version of TurDuckEn. So of course, seeing the squash, I felt the need to stuff it. It just had to happen.

This is a recipe I first tried out last year at thanksgiving time and really enjoyed. It went over really well with my family too. It’s very easy to make, has a lot of fall flavor to it, and is very comforting. You can adjust the spices as you wish. If you want it to be more spicy, add more chili powder; more cinnamon-y, add more cinnamon. There’s really no way to make this “the wrong way.” Also, I like to play around with other ingredients. Sometimes I use raisins or dried apricots, this time, I used dates and cranberries. Usually, I like to make this with red quinoa because it looks really beautiful against the orange squash, but I had only white quinoa on hand and that worked well too. If you’re all about presentation come vegan harvest (thanksgiving), then I’d definitely go with the red!

‘Til tomorrow!

Baked Apples with Oatmeal Cookie Stuffing

Hello, friends! After a long, unintentional hiatus, I’m back in action. In the time I’ve been away, I’ve been keeping busy with work, losing sleep, driving back and forth between states, moving back to Boston, and doing some animal rights advocacy. I recently had an article of mine published in Vegan:UK’s online  magazine, “The Abolitionist.” Check it out!

I’ve also been coming up with recipes for the fifth annual VeganMoFo and  as a result, for the entire month of October, I’ll be keeping to a theme (as best as I can). The theme is “Autumn in New England.” Basically, what this means is that if you like comfort food, pumpkins, squash, apples, and food that pleases just about anybody — you’ve come to the right place. The folks over at The Vegan Month of Food require that a blogger post at least 20 entries for the entire month of October in order to remain on the blogroll. So, as you can imagine, this means I have at least 20 ideas for recipes for the month of October. So, roll up your sleeves, get your flax-egg whipping arm ready, get in the kitchen and start feeding the masses! Here we go!

Ok, so here’s the first MoFo recipe. It’s a little funny that I should start with this given my widely known distaste for apples. The only way I can eat an apple is 1) baked and loaded with sugar or 2) there is no 2. That being said, please don’t judge my apple cooking/baking skills on the fact that I don’t like apples. I know how to make them taste good because I work hard to make their flavor acceptable to me.

Here’s a very easy, very satisfying recipe that I love, fully centered around apples and my favorite kind of cookie. Nothing says “Autumn in New England” more than apple picking, warm oatmeal, and maple syrup. I especially love these because the oatmeal takes on a crunchy cookie-like texture at the top, but as soon as you cut into the soft, warm apple, it’s like eating a gooey, chewy oatmeal cookie. These are sure to please any age at any level of apple enthusiasm. Serve them for breakfast, brunch, or with a side of vegan vanilla ice cream for dessert!

Note: You can use any type of apple you want. I chose Cortland apples because they’re good for baking and not too sweet or too tart. Roma apples would be good in this recipe, as well as Granny Smiths, if you want something a little more tart.

Nanaimo Bars

On July 1st, 1867 the three British Colonies to the north of the United States (Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and the Province of Canada) united to form the country we all now know and love called, Canada. On July 1st of every year, the anniversary of Canada’s birth is celebrated all over Canada in a similar fashion to how the United States celebrates their Independence from the British: food, fireworks, parades and sensational nationalism. This day, formerly known as “Dominion Day,” is now simply called, “Canada Day” or, if you’re French Canadian, “Fête du Canada.” Whatever you call it, it’s an excuse to throw a party, eat, drink, and generally be merry — even if, like me, you aren’t the tiniest bit Canadian.

Canadians are great at many, many things. Don’t ask me what those things are, though because I haven’t the slightest clue — I’m American. I’m a New Englander. We are basically raised to think that English speaking Canada isn’t really a “big deal.” But here’s what I do know about Canada: they are better at providing healthcare for their citizens, many great bands are from there, they are good at hockey even though they lost the Stanley Cup to the Boston Bruins this year. Most relatedly though, their cuisine is somewhat of a hodgepodge of the beauty of French cuisine, the drabby goodness of English cuisine, and the “whateverness” of American cuisine.

Over the past few months I have been fortunate enough to befriend some real live Canadians. Well, I mean, as “real” as one can be when they’re from Niagara Falls, which is practically upstate New York. I’m just being cheeky. Jokes about their hometowns and funny accents aside (they actually really do pronounce things properly — PS: that’s a word they seem to like to say a lot), these Canadians are pretty great and proper folks. And lucky for me, they’re all vegan! So, when I was invited to a small, impromptu gathering centered around celebrating this wonderful country’s birth with authentic persons, I gladly accepted. And I agreed to do something pretty scary — feed Canadians something Canadian. I thought, “Well as long as I center the dish around sugar, nothing can go wrong.” And so that’s what I did. I baked, rather — un-baked, because Nanaimo bars, one of Canada’s most famous desserts, don’t require baking.

I’m not sure I can tell you very much about Nanaimo bars other than that they are easy to make, fun to make, fun to eat, deliciously messy (see photos) and very hard to resist. Basically, they’re a three layer bar of glorious unapologetic indulgence. The bottom layer is a chocolate, cookie, coconut, and nut base, the middle is a layer of sweet vanilla pudding, the top is just all-out chocolate. Yeah, it’s like celebrating Canada Day in your mouth. The best part is, you don’t even have to be skilled at Canadian cuisine to make them or enjoy them and it doesn’t have to be Canada Day! I can’t really testify to much else about how amazing these bars are so, you’ll just have to make them and see for yourself! I can say this though: there were six of us and less than half were left after 5 minutes. You do the math.

Because vegan graham crackers are hard to find, I used vanilla snaps that happened to be vegan. You could use ginger snaps, but the flavor might be a bit too overpowering. I adapted this recipe from the Joy of Baking website. There is a helpful video there that walks you through the process (pronounced “PRO-cess” if you’re Canadian). Don’t be misled that this is “hard to make” because there’s a video. It’s quite the opposite. Happy un-baking! And an extended Happy Canada Day to all!

Agave Sweetened Strawberry Banana Bread

It’s rare for me, but it actually happened — I had leftover bananas, too ripe to eat raw. Now, if you already couldn’t tell from all the banana-centric posts, I absolutely love bananas. I especially love it when they stealthily infiltrate traditional treats like chocolate chip cookies or brownies by way of being a replacement for eggs. This time though, I decided to be a little more traditional. And this time, the strawberries decided to foil my plans of tradition. I also decided to use agave instead of sugar. There’s no fancy reason for that other than that I am baking in someone else’s kitchen and so I didn’t have any unrefined (vegan) sugar to work with. I actually really liked it better this way because the bananas are sweet enough as it is. Sugar may have been overkill. So this is it: a sweet and tasty take on a classic — perfect for summer berry picking season.