Vegan Cranberry Loaf

 

This VEGAN CRANBERRY LOAF with orange and walnuts reminds me of my Aunty, who would serve one every year when we visited. It was quick to mix up and an hour to bake. I made two in medium-sized oiled loaf pans. Preheat oven to 350F degrees.

 

Ingredients

 

Dry

3 ½ cups — whole wheat pastry flour (or 2 cups pastry and 1½ cups white flour)

½ cup — granulated organic sugar

1 Tblsp. + ½ tsp baking powder

½ tsp — salt

½ tsp — cinnamon

1 cup — chopped walnuts

 

Wet

1 cup — leftover cranberry-raisin relish, and chopped orange rind (I used my vodka-infused rind, so it was wetter — otherwise, you can just chop up an orange, removing the seeds, of course) about half and half

½ cup — sunflower oil

2 cups — water

Method

Mix together the dry, and mix together the wet. Mix both together and pour into two oiled loaf pans, baking vegan cranberry loaf for one hour.

If you can’t eat it all at once, it would freeze well for later guests.

Barbecue Tofu

It’s easy to make BARBECUE TOFU. Just mix up the following sauce in a measuring cup, pour it over quarter-inch-thick slabs of tofu, bake it in a preheated 425 degree oven for half an hour on one side, flip, and a quarter hour on the other. Serve with rice, greens, and corn.

Ingredients

4 blocks sliced tofu, or one of those bulk-size tofus

 

Sauce

½ cup — tomato sauce

½ cup — water

¼ cup — olive oil

¼ cup — apple cider vinegar

1/8 cup — organic sugar

2 Tblsp. — tamari

1 Tblsp. — molasses

1 Tblsp. — onion powder

½ Tblsp. — garlic powder

¼ tsp — allspice

Sprinkle of red pepper and black pepper if you want it

Mince Moons

Whether as Mince Pie or Mince Moons, vegans can enjoy this traditional treat with no fear of anything scary lurking in the mix. It is easy to prepare and, if it lasts, can sit out for several days with no problem. My daughter named the little pies Moons because they are crescent shaped. A lattice crust is pretty to weave on the Mince Pie.

Filling for One Deep Dish Pie

 

Ingredients

1 ½ cups — raisins (I used to chop them, but have decided it's not necessary.)

4 — apples, pared, cored, chopped

1 — organic orange, juiced, and then rind chopped finely

½ cup — cider

 

Method

Cover these ingredients and simmer until the apples are very soft. Then stir in:

More Ingredients

¾ cup — Sucanat (brown sugar)

½ tsp each — cinnamon and clove powder or allspice

3 Tblsp. — finely crushed pretzels or crackers, or arrowroot powder (this last is to help it bind, but I like the way the crackers fool the eye and make you wonder, “What is that??”

This mixture can be made ahead. I often make it and the pumpkin filling on the Sunday before Thanksgiving, and then it is easy to fill pie shells and bake them the night before.

Method for Moons

For the MINCE MOONS: roll out crust (look elsewhere on this blog for my crust recipe), and use a five-inch round thing (I happened to have a crumpet tin, but a plastic container would work) to cut out as many rounds as you can. Bunch the remaining dough with some more dough and do it again. I had about eleven of the rounds altogether. 

 

Spoon a bit of the filling (heaping tablespoon) on one side, fold the circle in half, and press it together. You can bend them into crescent shapes. Bake at 425F degrees for thirty minutes.

 

 

Method for MINCE PIE

Roll out one crust, lay it in a pie plate, and fill it with the filling. You can pour four tablespoons of brandy over it at this point if you want, but it isn't necessary. 

 

With the second crust, cut it in half inch wide long strips. Lay down one across the width of the pie. Lay another across it perpendicularly. Then weave more strips in, lifting the alternating strips so you get a latticework. It really isn't hard, and I will leave it to you to figure out. 

 

Crimp the edges together to neaten it up. You can bake this the same as the mince moons, at 425F degrees for half an hour or until just beginning to brown slightly. Or you can bake either of them in a preheated 450F degree oven for ten minutes, then reduce the heat to 350 degrees and bake for twenty minutes. Your choice.

 

I feel like I only made the one pie filling but still had enough for the moons and a flatter mince pie. If you double the recipe, you could freeze half of it for a later holiday pie.

Cacao Nib Cookies

I wanted to make chocolate chip cookies, but I only had some organic cacao nibs on hand. Would they work? It turns out they did. Cacao nibs are not at all sweet, but have a strong chocolate flavor. Someone wondered what the little nuts were in these cookies. I thought they meant the rolled oats, but they showed me the little brown nib. I pulled out my foil package of Frontier Cacao nibs to show him what they were.

These roasted bits of the whole cacao bean are full of flavonoids and antioxidants, which, not to bore you, are just generally good for you. They help in the release of serotonin and endorphins in your body, which will improve your mood, and they are a good source of A, B, C, E, beta-carotene, magnesium, zinc, iron, and calcium. They also taste good, along with the other ingredients in these CACAO NIB COOKIES.

Dry Ingredients

2 cups — whole wheat pastry flour

1 cup — rolled oats

½ cup — Sucanat

½ cup — cacao nibs

2 tsp — baking powder

½ tsp — salt

½ tsp — cinnamon

 

Wet Ingredients

¾ cup — sunflower oil

¼ cup — maple syrup

2 Tblsp. — water

Method

Preheat oven to 350F degrees. Stir together the dry ingredients. Add in the wet ingredients. Adjust the wetness until everything is moistened, but it is still a thick moldable mass. Form into eighteen balls and bake on two cookie sheets for fifteen minutes. You could also try pressing them down, instead, but I liked the little round balls. They would cook faster if they were flatter, keep in mind.

Cacao nib cookies are a good alternative to chocolate chip cookies if you don't have chocolate chips or are looking for a healthier alternative.

Vegan Pumpkin Pie and Walnut Cream

 

VEGAN PUMPKIN PIE is appropriate for Halloween, and is certainly necessary later on in November for Thanksgiving. I've made this vegan version for years, and nobody complains it isn't as good as other pumpkin pies. I'd like to think it is better. 

 

A lot of vegan pumpkin pies utilize tofu, but this one doesn't. If you have a soy allergy, you could substitute a rice or nut milk for the soy milk. You could use a can of pumpkin, but I like to cook up some squash or pumpkin for a fresher taste.

It is called vegan pumpkin pie, but for many years I've made this pie with buttercup squash, a squat, green-skinned, orange-fleshed squash with a rich flavor. However, one of my sons thinks he doesn't like squash, but he will eat vegan pumpkin pie (a much friendlier name), and another son insists pumpkin pie should be made with pumpkin.

So this year we bought an organic pie pumpkin, which is smaller and sweeter than the big ones. Today I washed it and cut it horizontally through the middle, discarded the seeds (somewhat guiltily because they can be roasted and eaten, but I don't like them much), and then placed the two halves cut side down on a cookie sheet to bake for an hour at 350F degrees. 

 

When I took it out of the oven it had been sitting for an hour in there without the heat on, and the skin peeled away easily. What was left were two perfect orange halves that looked like they had been molded in a special pan. I thought they looked like they should be served that way with something interesting filling the center, but I will leave that for someone else to do.

Pear Pie the Organic Way and How to Make Vegan Pie Crusts

A generous local organic farmer was kind enough to give me a bag of pears this past week, which I promptly turned into two PEAR PIES. I believe they were Yellow Bartlett pears, and they were very easy to cut in half, remove the centers, and cut into thick slices. 

 

I looked in Joy of Cooking for some ideas of how to flavor pear pies. My memory from a child was that pear pie involved some kind of creamy stuff around it, but I think that's just how my mother made it, and I don't remember it fondly. Yet, pears struck me as being a little more bland than, say, an apple, so I knew it would need to be perked up in some manner.

There was a recipe for baked pears that gave me some guidelines. I ended up adding a little cinnamon, lemon, sugar, chopped walnuts (the part I probably wouldn't have thought of on my own), and a few dribbles of the remains of the lemon-infused vodka. That seemed to do the trick, as the little chewy bits of walnuts were a nice foil to the mushy pears, and the lemon and cinnamon did their perking jobs.

Two Organic Pear Pies

 

Ingredients

 

Filling

½ peck of organic pears (about 16)

½ cup organic sugar

1 organic lemon, juiced

½ tsp cinnamon

1 Tblsp. lemon infused vodka, or maybe some white wine

1 cup organic walnuts, chopped

Crust

2 cups organic whole wheat pastry flour

2 cups organic white flour (with the germ added back in — you can buy it that way)

½ tsp salt

1 cup organic sunflower oil (or enough to turn the flours into crumbly mixture)

Up to ½ cup of water (or enough to be able to form dough into a soft pliable ball)

Coral Mushrooms

 

I finally identified some edible mushrooms out in the woods behind my house yesterday afternoon. They seemed to be Coral Mushrooms. Since they weren't bitter (yes, I tasted a tiny bit), did not bruise brown, and weren't gelatinous at their base, they passed the test. Some were white and some were tan. All grew along a woodsy path attached to rotting branches. I left some behind in hopes they will continue producing.

Always check an expert source before ingesting any wild mushrooms. A few weeks ago I had found loads of what I hoped were small puffballs, but, alas, they were poisonous. My first hint was when they were dark purple when I broke them open. My second was when a friend's mushroom expert friend confirmed their identity. I had also researched them online. In other words, this is not something to take lightly.

A sure sign these coral mushrooms were fine: All of us who ate them last night suffered no ill effects. We made sure that not all of us ate them — so somebody could explain what had happened to the rest of us had the worst happened.

The good news is they were very tasty, indeed, just sauteed in some olive oil with a sprinkle of tamari. First I did have to pick off all the pine needles and leaves stuck to them. Even though I know you aren't supposed to, I submerged them in water to help me clean them. Then I lay them out to dry before sauteing them.

This has been a great wet year for mushrooms and toadstools, if not for people, so be sure to take a walk in the woods to check out the wide variety. There are some very surprising shapes and colors. Most not edible, but all of them interesting to look at.