AVF #4: Watermelon, Cucumber Salad, and Fruit Salad

For the picnic theme, I decided to go with cold things. Actually, this is mostly the fault of the weather, not the challenge, as the heat index has been above 100 and the humidity has made me wonder whether I haven't accidentally morphed myself home. I have a small box air conditioner in my bedroom, but the design of the apartment means that there is no airflow to the other rooms. It's been a challenge, but a welcome one, to think of lots of cold things to eat.

The first picture is sliced watermelons and cucumber salad, which is actually just cucumber with S&P and oil and vinegar. I found the recipe on Tastespotting, but I kind of mangled it by using seeded cucumbers and cutting them thicker. It was still tasty, and I got to try out my white wine vinegar with herbes de Provence. Next, we have a simple fruit salad with apricot, kiwi, strawberries, Granny Smith apple, and seedless red grapes. Tasty! Fresh apricot is a bit tart for salad, but I don't mind it. Maybe next time I'll break down and buy peaches.

AVF #4 Guest Post: Corn Pudding

Things are going to be slightly different this round. It's just me and my new local friend Laura, who was kind enough to send me an entry even though she doesn't have a blog! So these are her words below, and I'll post my Vegetarian Picnic Feast entry tomorrow. Thanks for tuning in!

Like everything I make, there's not really a recipe for this dish. It changes each time but the core ingredients are the same: corn, some kind of fat (butter or olive oil), some kind of milk substance (dairy or soy), veggies for taste and color (onion and pepper, bell or spicy). All of this is mixed together and baked. If I want something heartier, I add flour (or in this case, hush puppy mix - yum!!), an egg and sharp cheddar cheese. In essence it's an excuse to savor the loveliness of cooked-down sweet corn flavor. Put it in a shallow baking dish and it can be almost chewy and carmelized on top. Put it in a deeper glass dish and you have to wait for it to set like a quiche. In any case, it is delicious and a great accompaniment to grilled anything (I'd go for zucchini and eggplant slices with mushrooms, marinated in balsamic vinigriette). I would go so far as to say this dish is worth bringing forks to your picnic...

Here is the "recipe" that I made this time (what is pictured). As you can imagine, it's way better with fresh sweet corn scraped off the cob, but we won't have that around here (Iowa City) for at least another month:

Mix in a bowl:
1 can whole kernel corn, drained
1 can creamed corn
1 slightly-beaten egg
1/4 cup milk
Big handful of grated sharp cheddar cheese
Black pepper to taste
(You won't need salt using canned corn, but might if you use fresh corn)

Sautee in butter until tenderish:
A few tablespoons each of:
Minced onion
Diced red bell pepper
Diced poblano pepper

While still cooking in the pan, add to the veggies:
2-3 tablespoons of hush puppy mix (or flour w/ some added seasonings if you'd like, or just flour)
Mix well to coat the veggies. Let the flour brown a little.

Allow the cooked veggies to cool a bit.
Mix them with the stuff in the bowl

Pour all of this into a buttered glass baking dish.

Bake in a 325 degree preheated oven for at least 30 minutes. Check for the consistency you like. It may take up to an hour to cook in a deeper pan (or if you want it to be more chewy-licious and golden-brown on top).

Let cool as much or little as you want. This is great hot, room tempurature or cold (but admittedly, I like corn more than most people!)

AVF #3: A Vegetarian Feast in a Quiche Roundup

Wow! This round we had quite a few entries to AVF, and I'm super-excited. Y'all must really like quiche.

I'm doing something a bit new this time, in that I've decided to go ahead and do another round in a month, and announce the theme right away, so that we can keep the ball rolling so to speak. AVF #4 will be... a Vegetarian Picnic Feast! This is obviously very open-ended, so feel free to be creative. Meatless grilled items, salads, desserts, sandwiches... whatever YOU like to eat outdoors, that's fine by me. The due date is Friday, July 4th. Now, on with the round up!

First we have Holler, stopping by from her blog Tinned Tomatoes with this amazing-looking Tomato and Broccoli Quiche with a Layer of Pea Puree. She suggests less peas next time, but the quiche is beautiful and colourful, and I want to bite through the screen to get a taste of those tomatoes!

 

 

 

Next up is Sylvie from A Pot of Tea and a Biscuit, and she brings us this Roast Vegetable and Gruyere Quiche. Sylvie, how did you know that I'm a sucker for gruyere and red onion? The courgettes/zucchini at the Farmer's Market have been looking great lately, too. I'll have to try this out!

From Closet Cooking, Kevin brings us an Asparagus and Mushroom Quiche. I think asparagus has to be the quiche ingredient. It just makes me think spring, light, and delicious. And of course, you all know I love mushrooms. Thanks, Kevin! I also applaud your use of local asparagus - well done.

Johanna from Green Gourmet Giraffe is another new face on this blog, and a vegetarian foodblog I haven't seen before - how did that happen? She hails from Melbourne, and though I'd worried that this event wouldn't be very Southern hemisphere-friendly, quiche being such a spring favourite, she stepped up to the challenge with a Pumpkin Cornmeal Quiche, tasty and creative!

As for my own offerings, while my guests all decided to go with the quiche route (and hey, the name was rather catchy), I decided to play with savoury tarts, and specifically with puff pastry. I've never worked with it before, but I had a feeling it would make tarts oh-so-easy (the frozen kind, at least) and delicious. I wasn't wrong! I made a Caramelized Vegetable Tart and a Green Tomato Tarte Tatin (pictured, if a bit blurry, due to camera upload failure). Though I had some troubles with the first one, the green tomato tatin was excellent for spring, and just the combination of Southern and French that I was looking for!

Thank you again to all those who participated and helped spread the word about the event!

Double Vegetarian Event Entry Time

All right, folks. You have a week to get those entries in to me, and I'm very excited that we have several participants this round so far who are neither me nor my mother. In the spirit of vegetarian blogging, I'm entering this post both in my own event as a second entry (because I had to do something with the other half of the puff pastry box) and in Eat the Right Stuff's Vegetables, Beautiful Vegetables event for the UK's national vegetarian week. So if anyone is coming from that event and wants to enter a vegetarian quiche, tart, or savoury pie (cross-posts are welcome!) just comment with the link to your post by Saturday, May 31st. We'd love to have you!

So, on with my experiment. I must admit, a lot went wrong with this recipe. It was still tasty, but not at all what I'd envisioned, and a little frustrating, especially considering how much I spent on all the ingredients. I found a recipe for caramelized vegetable tart at Meeta's blog. I know from others that Meeta has great recipes, and I read her blog regularly, so I'm sure the recipe would work just fine in more capable hands, but man, I just had all the mishaps. One major issue was the fennel. You see me here, charmingly displayed behind its fronds, but the fennel became much less fun after that. I've never tasted it before, and I found that the smaller pieces that got nice and soft tasted fine, but the majority of slices - perhaps because I couldn't figure out just how to slice it - were crunchy and had an odd, bitter taste.

I also had a problem with the pastry, in that I used wax paper (maybe parchment is different, I've never known) and when I pulled it a way, and sizeable chunk of pastry came with it. Thankfully, there was still plenty, but I was a bit annoyed. Next, I toasted the pinenuts in the toaster oven and managed to burn them to a crisp. I have to stop toasting nuts in that thing. I'll never learn. Those were the last of my supply, so no pinenuts. Then the veggies just wouldn't cook fully. I don't know if they were too crowded in the pan, and therefore had trouble browning - next time, I'm using smaller veggies - or if the heat was just too low, but I had to crank it up to medium to make anything happen. After 25 minutes, they never really browned or caramelized, so I gave up. Everything but the fennel was cooked, at least, but I expected more browning in the broiler. After two minutes, the cheese was still blinding white and the pastry was dangerously dark. I gave up. Tasty, but not exactly a success. Better luck next time?

I had a similar opinion of my dessert offering this weekend, which was a coconut panna cotta from La Tartine Gourmande, one of my favourite bloggers. The process itself was blissfully easy, with only a few ingredients and little advanced technique involved. I picked it because I needed a use for the remainder of the buttermilk from the carton I purchased for a challenge you'll see next week. Apparently, though, my tastes just cannot handle cold buttermilk. Really, I knew this. I'm not the kind of Southerner who can drink buttermilk straight. I wince a bit, and it's an unpleasant experience. I like it in baked goods, but for some reason it didn't occur to me that the buttermilk flavour would be so strong here. I thought it would blend with the coconut somehow and not really be noticeable. I do think it would be tastier with the blackberry stew on that post, because some fruit to cut the buttermilk would be perfect, but as it is I'm probably throwing the rest away. Oh, well.

My AVF #3 Contribution: Green Tomato Tarte Tatin

Unfortunately, the next couple of posts are going to be light on the photography (and the photographic quality). I went to upload thirty two recent photos and foolishly deleted the photos from my camera before checking to make sure they all uploaded. My camera has been having trouble with turning itself mid-upload lately, and it apparently did that this time. So all but seven photos are gone, including the beautiful coconut creams in martini glasses that I had to re-shoot in a less-impressive orange bowl. At least with the creams I had one left - the delicious tarte tatin disappeared more quickly, and so I have to stick with what blurry photos I have. Unfortunately, no photos of the finished product on the jam puffs I made with the leftover pastry, either.

Anyway. This is my contribution to AVF, so first a quick reminder that entries are due May 31st! You still have a couple of weeks, but those couple of weeks can fly by! Send your savoury tart, quiche, and pie recipes to me via e-mail to judithavory@gmail.com or in a comment to any post. We've got three so far, and I'd love to have a couple more!

Now, on with the subject of this post: green tomato tarte tatin. A few years ago, when I was deeply enamoured of Charleston, I had big plans to go to Tate Business School at UGA and open my own little cafe/bookshop/music performance space in downtown Charleston, called De Bon Goût (in good taste, in French). There were no independent bookstores in Charleston at the time, only a Waldenbooks, and this bothered me greatly. I would offer alternative titles (feminism, lots of poetry, LGBT stuff, etc) and have five or six little tables where I would serve food made with fresh Southern ingredients, but cooked in a French style. Though the idea quickly fell through, this attempt is my homage to that dream.

When I found tons of delicious, bright green tomatoes at the Farmer's Market last weekend, I knew I had to use them in my tart recipe. I had been thinking of doing something with puff pastry, because it's so easy if you pony up the cash for the store-bought variety, and in the back of my mind I had an idea of doing something like a tarte tatin, the classic French apple pastry. Well, lo and behold, someone had already come up with that idea! So I went with this recipe, with a few variations.

First I rolled the pastry out and cut the circle you see here to fit my small cast-iron skillet. It was the one thing I knew was definitely ovenproof. However, it's only about six inches on the bottom, so I had plenty of leftover dough. Not wanting to waste any pastry, I cut it into irregular squares and plopped blobs of the last of the fig and ginger chutney on top, as well as one with strawberry jam. They were super easy - just pinch up into little cases and bake at 400 for 15 minutes or so. The filling is very, very hot though, so be warned!

Anyway, as for the tarte itself, it went well and was super tasty, but I would recommend using a larger pan (I would even say ten inches, not eight). I used only four tomatoes, and lopped the ends off, but they still didn't fit in the pan. I made two layers, which meant that the butter and sugar all collected at the bottom and the tomatoes closest to the pastry, didn't really caramelize. Still, it worked well and I was able to scoop some of the sugary juices over the top. I didn't bother with the red onion, and I think the sour cream thing is overkill, but the oil and vinegar is a good idea to drizzle on top. For the second tasting, I got a special treat, because Rita brought back a bottle of her dad's homemade green tomato wine from Alabama. It was fantastic! I had no idea you could make wine with something other than grapes, and of course you can't come up with a pairing better than this one.

AVF #3: A Vegetarian Feast in a Quiche

It's time for the third Vegetarian Feast, and this time it's... in a quiche! Okay, not necessarily. I just liked the rhyme. Any tarts, quiches, or savoury pastries will do. If it's flat and savoury and has some sort of a crust, chances are you're fine! For those of us in spring or early summer, this is a chance to show off those early season vegetables, and for those in the Southern Hemisphere, you can submit some tasty autumn recipes. The rules:

1) Post a meatless dish that fits the theme to your blog with at least one photo. No meat, fish, or poultry. Dairy is fine but as always I welcome vegan dishes. Recipes are recommended, but not required. The deadline is Saturday, May 31st.

2) E-mail the web address to your post to me at judithavory@gmail.com or post a comment to any entry on my blog.

It's that easy! I'm hoping for more participants this time, so if you would like to mention the event on your blog I'd really appreciate it. Or, just tell your friends. The more the merrier!

AVF #2: A Vegetarian Feast-in-a-Pot Roundup

Well, again it was a small event, with only two soups this time, but that's all right. I'll keep coming up with a theme every few months in hopes that more of you will get interested!

I'd like to thank Lisa of Lisa's Kitchen for submitting her tasty-looking Curried White Bean and Red Lentil Stew to this round! A great hearty winter meal, and I love basmati rice and saffron. I'll have to try this one out soon!

If you didn't catch it the first time around, I made a Winter Friendship Soup, recipe courtesy of my good friend Cass, for both this event and Lisa and Holler's "No Croutons Required." Not only is it very yum, but it kept me eating for a week and is very filling (and healthy, too!)

Stay warm the rest of this winter, and stay tuned for the next Vegetarian Feast in April!

Reminder

Don't forget! AVF round two entries are due this Friday night! I can't post to Is My Blog Burning, which is sad, but I know I have some readers lurking around from Foodbuzz and elsewhere whose dishes I'd love to see. So post about a vegetarian soup, stew, hotpot, chili, or something of the like, and comment or e-mail me with the link.

(Oh, and by the way - I've been eating on the cheap this week, but expect posts soon! I'll be cooking a little something for Blog Party at the end of the week, and hopefully *another* little something for Blog Party middle of next week, because I was inspired by this month's Gourmet, and then a ton of somethings for my tea party in a couple of weeks. So more recipes coming up!)

Winter Friendship Soup

So my friend Cass told me about this awesome soup recipe, which I knew I had to try as it's like Daddy's beanstroni but with spinach and cheese, which makes everything better, and made up almost entirely of things that were already in my pantry. When I picked the theme for AVF #2, I immediately thought of the recipe, and it turns out this also goes along nicely with another blogging event, No Croutons Required, co-sponsored by vegetarian foodbloggers Holler of Tinned Tomatoes and Lisa of Lisa's Kitchen. I hope they'll forgive me for double-submitting a recipe to take advantage of their soup theme!

The key to this soup is advanced preparation. It's really easy if you have everything ready to go before you start, and then you can just sit back and relax while it simmers away. I started by putting my water on to boil for the pasta, then I dumped my two cans of garbanzo beans and a can of dark red kidney beans into the strainer, rinsed them, and made sure they were fully drained. The recipe calls for a small handful of chopped basil, which is good because once I tore away the brown bits from my basil, which admittedly I should have used sooner, it really only was a small handful!

Once that was ready to go, the water was boiling, so it was time for pasta. The recipe says to use ditalini, but I think rigatoni or penne would work, and I went with mostaccoli since I happened to have some on hand. You want a cup cooked, and make sure it's cooked only to al dente (the recipe was "hard" al dente, but I was afraid of crunchy pasta and mine turned out great). Heat a tablespoon of olive oil (infused if you have it, I just used extra virgin) over medium-ish heat in your soup pot. Toss in your drained beans, a bay leaf, the basil, salt and pepper to taste, and a dash of cayenne. Cook briefly (I just went with the time it took to open my can of tomatoes and get the broth in position to go). Add a can of diced tomatoes (I drained slightly but I wouldn't next time), two cans veggie broth, and two cans water. Bring to a boil. For me, this took a while, and I had to cover the pot and crank up the heat.

By now, your pasta's probably cooked. I just dumped it in the same strainer I had used for the beans and gave it a good shake to get the water out. You want to simmer the soup for twenty minutes once it hits the boiling point, so you can walk away. I put the heat all the way back down to medium and it stayed simmering nicely with the lid off. I thought the soup would be too watery/liquidy, but some of it boils off, and really it could use more liquid for the amount of solid stuff involved. You want to be careful when serving not to put too much liquid in each bowl or you'll run out!

When 20 minutes were almost up, I fished the bay leaf out of the pot and then threw a bag of fresh (organic) baby spinach on top of the pasta in the strainer, picking out the bad leaves, and gave it a good rinse. Once everything was nice and drained, I tossed pasta and spinach in with the soup and added 3/4 cup grated Parmesan. Okay, maybe it was more like a cup. It does kind of like to clump together, so don't stir too vigourously or it'll all cling to the spoon. Cook until the spinach is just wilted but still retains a nice bold colour, which is a minute or two. Serve with a little more grated parm on top. Mm!

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Don't forget, the deadline for AVF is coming up in a couple of weeks! Get those posts of vegetarian soups, stews, chilis, hot pots, etc up by February 22nd and let me know where they are to be included in the round-up.

Scrambled... Not-Eggs

My good friend Kat has been telling me for the longest time that I have to try this recipe for tofu scramble, and as tofu was on sale at the grocery store last weekend, I decided I had to bite the bullet and attempt it. I will admit that the spice blend is pretty fantastic. It has an Indian curry sort of flavour, but it isn't at all spicy. Next time I might try fresh thyme instead of dried, because the little bits get stuck in my teeth and I don't have a mortar and pestle to properly crush it, but I still consider the blend a success. As you can see, I just dumped everything onto a paper plate and swirled with my fingers, which worked nicely.

Like any pan-fried recipe, you want to be sure to have everything ready well in advance of the part involving heat. With that in mind, I went ahead and drained my tofu, squeezing a good bit of the water out, peeled my garlic cloves, got my spice blend all ready to go, washed my mushrooms and piled them on another plate, and peeled my onion (always last because I tend to cry). After I chopped up the onion (I used a medium sweet yellow onion from Peru because they were on sale as well) and threw it in the pan with my oil, I realised I really needed to use my largest pan. So there was a quick transfer and just a bit more oil before the mushrooms went in. I wish I could better capture the beautiful colour of the mushrooms - unfortunately, the one bad thing about this kitchen is that the stove is really badly lit for photographs.

One note about the recipe is that I cooked everything over medium heat because the onions started frying much too quickly at first. Also, my tofu was already pretty moist, so I only added a small splash of water towards the end. I didn't have trouble with anything sticking because I used a non-stick pan, but I did poke the tofu every now and again to make sure it was holding up in moisture. Towards the end, it started to brown, which is lovely. I've always found that tofu is much better when it has that grilled taste. You really don't need to break it up too much at first, because it will crumble more in the pan when you move it around. Also, I couldn't find nutritional yeast, so I used Parmesan cheese and killed the vegan aspect. That said, you could easily use neither and it would be just fine.

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On a little self-promotional note, the Featured Publishers at Foodbuzz are having a little friendly competition this month. What does this mean? Well, if you're a regular reader, thank you, and I encourage you to keep coming back. I'll be posting several times a week whenever possible, and providing you with as many new photos and recipes as I can get my hands on. Also, I'd be very appreciative if you could spread the word about my blog to your friends. It may be small, but it's still growing! Finally, I hope that the AVF challenges will be a way to attract more readers, so I encourage anyone who is interested to participate! I'd love to have you. Also, if you did find your way here from Foodbuzz, it's great to have you dropping by, and I hope you'll come back soon.

Just Like Grandma Used to Make

This recipe is something of a tribute to my late grandmother, along with being a fairly obvious case of Empty Pantry Syndrome. My grandmama was my Daddy's mother, and her food was always the sort of simply, down home country cooking you associate with grandmothers. I don't remember her cookies, but she did make a fantastic squash casserole, and also a broccoli casserole that I vaguely remember involved Campbell's cream of mushroom, broccoli, and some sort of a crumb topping (and perhaps Cheddar cheese). She and my Grandaddy lived in Charlotte, so I didn't know her quite as well as my Grandpa who lived in Raleigh (and whose name will certainly come up when I blog after my birthday tea party). We did try to visit once or twice a year, though, and I still donate to Salvation Army on her behalf whenever I see the little red kettles.
What I came up with was a bit different, because I was constrained by ingredients. I didn't have any Campbell's on hand, so it was a choice between Wolfgang Puck or Amy's. I went with the Amy's, which was tasty, though surprisingly salty. I also had to go with Parmesan cheese, as it was the only variety I had available last week. For the crumb topping, I actually did consult the internet for an idea, which was probably a mistake. The recipe I looked at suggested melting two thirds of a cup of butter and mixing with a cup seasoned breadcrumbs. I used the same amount of butter and a mixture of dried herbs, crushed Ritz crackers, and wheat germs. It was very wet and mealy, and though it did make for a tasty, buttery topping, it could have been a wee bit healthier.
So the recipe isn't really a recipe, but I'll give it to you anyway. Pour a can of soup in a baking dish. I used a 9-inch square casserole dish, and due to the size probably should've gone with two cans of soup. This made a very thin layer. Cook a bag of frozen broccoli and throw in with the soup. Sprinkle with Parmesan cheese. Top with the above described crumb topping and spread out evenly as possible. Bake at 350 for 20 minutes or so, or until the topping is golden brown and the soup is hot. For something so impromptu, I thought it was pretty good. Cheesy and buttery, but with broccoli so you don't feel like you're killing yourself. Next time I would use a less salty cream of mushroom, though.

Speaking of soup, don't forget! AVF #2 entries are due February 22nd! Also, if anyone knows anything about Is My Blog Burning, can you leave me a comment? This is the second time I've tried submitting and gotten an error, and then e-mailed my submission and gotten no response. If anyone would be willing to submit the event for me, or knows of another food blog event listing I could use, please let me know! Thanks!

A Vegetarian Thanksgiving Feast: Round-Up

So the photos still aren't uploading (argh!) but I figure I'd better go ahead and bring you the round-up for AVF #1: A Vegetarian Thanksgiving Feast.

It was an intimate gathering this November, but still very tasty. I started things off with some mulled wine to drink, and then we cracked into our savoury dishes. Eat'n Vegan brought us her Steamed Broccoli and Curly Kale with Pumpkin Vinaigrette, which looks not only delicious but healthy, too! Next, Stephanie told us some stories about her experiences with storebought "tofurkey" and then contributed a homemade Unturkey. I've never tried fake turkey myself, but now I must admit I'm kind of curious!

And then the desserts. Oh the desserts. First, Mom contributed an experiment in baking, Carver's Cognac Almond Apples. I'm glad Mom could join us and make this a family affair, and also thrilled that I got to see her for real for her (we'll call it thirtieth) birthday a couple of weeks before Thanksgiving. The final contributions were my own Pumpkin Bread Pudding, Holiday Scones, Fig Whisky Jam, and a trifecta of pies: Pecan, Chocolate Chess, and something from a magazine that I'm just calling the Ridiculously Amazing Pie Thing.

Thank you so much to those who could make it! Readers, look for the next AVF theme to be announced sometime in January. There was a bit of a glitch with IMBB this time, but I'll try to do better with getting the word out for the next challenge (and feel free to tell your friends!)

Here a Pie, There a Pie, Everywhere a Pie, Pie!

Readers,

I owe you a bit of an apology. Not only have I been very busy lately, but Blogger has been very wonky with the photo uploading and so I've been having a lot of trouble blogging. Never fear, though! I continue to photograph my creations and will be posting about them, just not quite as timely as I would have liked. I never promised to post a certain number of times per month, but I do want to make this a more active blog, and so I'm going to commit myself do that in the coming months. As you can see, this post has no photos, and the last AVF has only about half, but I will be fixing that as soon as humanly possible.

So anyway, later this week, I'll finally be posting the "final roundup" for the first Vegetarian Feast Challenge. But in addition to one more blog link for you, I have a couple of my own post-Thanksgiving treats that I wanted to share.

My Thanksgiving this year did not include any sort of pie, and I decided that, delicious as the dessert I did consume was, that just wouldn't do. Going on a Southern kick, I decided to make two of my favourite holiday creations - pecan pie and chocolate chess pie. At first, I didn't think it was going to happen, because there were no frozen pie shells at Hy-Vee the day after Thanksgiving (raise your hand if you're surprised by this) but then a nice man in the freezer section found some for me in the boxes waiting to be unpacked. So... pie!

Pecan Pie

There's nothing particularly complicated about this recipe. I had a few to choose from, and went with the simplest in my recipe database, copied from an old healthy cookbook whose name escapes me. The recipe isn't really healthy, but it is easy. Beat 2/3 cup sugar, 1/3 cup soft margarine or butter, a cup of corn syrup, 1/2 t salt, and three eggs with an electric mixer. Stir in a cup of pecan halves or pieces, pour into a 9" pie crust, and bake 40-50 minutes at 375 or until set.

I used margarine and light corn syrup, as I always do, and though I did put about a cup of pecan pieces in the batter itself, I also arranged whole toasted pecans on the top in concentric circles, as you can see from the first picture. I also added a handful of sweetened shredded coconut, because as a kid I always thought pecan pie had coconut in it. I baked an entire hour, because no "setting" appeared to be happening. It turns out that this recipe is a little flawed, because it will do most of the setting while it cools. Therefore, my pecans were a little too brown for my taste. I also noticed that it was a little goopier than I like. Maybe beating it a little bit less, or at a lower speed, would have helped. Maybe more pecan pieces. I'm not sure, but hey. It was still mighty tasty.

Chocolate Chess Pie

I did a quick internet search for this one and found a recipe on Allrecipes that suited my tastes. The recipe is here, and I followed it more or less exactly. Again, I had to bake longer than the time stated, and the crust wasn't really browning so I didn't think this was a problem. The middle was still rather goopy, like chocolate pudding almost, but it wasn't exactly a problem. I've been eating it cold, which helps it stay firmer. The top, though, is absolutely perfect, all crinkly with pecans. Mm, mm.

Mulled Wine

To go with my pie explorations, I decided to make some mulled wine. This is one of my favourite holiday beverages (though there are many - eggnog, brandy, cider, the list goes on). My mom used to make it when I was far too young to enjoy it, but since then I've tried mulled wine at several holiday house parties and have been itching to make my own. For this, I combined several recipes and tips from Mom, and it turned out pretty decent. It was a tad too citrusy, so next time I'll probably use less orange.

I made two batches, because the first only made half a cup so I ended up mulling the rest of the bottle (whoo, whee!) I used cheap wine as suggested by Mom, specifically Black Swan cabernet. I took a taste before mulling, and yeah, it's cheap. For the spices, I threw in about a quarter cup of sugar, a couple cinnamon sticks, some cloves, some allspice berries, a dash of nutmeg, and a few wedges of a big orange, peeled with the peels thrown in as well. I heated the wine with this combination about twenty or thirty minutes on a fairly low heat, and then strained the mixture into my cup. I still got some un-dissolved nutmeg, so this could probably use some work!

AVF #1: A Thanksgiving Vegetarian Feast Pre-Roundup

Since I didn't get many entries yet for AVF, I'm just going to go ahead and link what I have at the top of this post of my Thanksgiving contributions and let anyone who wants to add an entry do so until next Monday, when I'll post a formal round-up. I know people have been busy getting their menus together, but I encourage you to submit if you have anything that might apply!

First, we have a delicious looking healthy veggie option from Eat'n Vegan. She asked to submit her Steamed Broccoli and Curly Kale with Pumpkin Vinaigrette, and I wholeheartedly approve, as kale is one of my favorite foods! However, everything in this Thanksgiving meal post looks absolutely scrumptious. My mouth is especially watering for the mashed sweet potatoes with a balsamic reduction! What a healthy, tasty, and colourful holiday meal. Thanks for joining us!

Now, we move on to desserts. I had intended to do a number of different options, some sweet and some savory, for this event, but time got away with me and classes started picking up steam just as National Novel Writing Month also came to call. So instead, I'm going to submit a few baked goods I made in October, and it seems mom caught the sweet tooth as well. Yes, my very own mother kindly agreed to submit something for AVF, in the form of Carver's Cognac Almond Apples. When mom starts experimenting, things tend to get interesting, and this was no exception. I'd love to try this sweet treat, but next time, mom, maybe lay off the brandy a wee bit? :-)

Now, for my own contributions...

Judith's Fabulous Fig-Whisky Jam


This was a somewhat spontaneous idea I had the weekend I made pumpkin flan for blog party and the bread pudding below. I was in such a cooking mood, and so NOT in a study mood, that I randomly decided to make jam. Trust me, this doesn't happen frequently. The recipe isn't really a recipe, as I just started throwing things in the saucepan, and had originally planned on making a savory compote but changed my mind at the last minute. The basic idea is, chop up about a cup of figs, and then add about a cup of water. Bring it to a nice happy simmmer and sit around a while. Eventually, you'll get a nice goop and the liquid will be mostly evaporated. Season with cinnamon and nutmeg and add several generous splashes of Jack Daniels (or finer whisky if you have it on you). I thought about adding brown sugar, but decided it didn't really need it. The result was a delicious warm, seedy jam that was just as tasty cold. For Thanksgiving, you could serve it with some vegetarian stuffing, brioche rolls, or lentil loaf. The next day, try it cold on wheat bread with cream cheese. Mmm mm tasty!

Pumpkin Challah Bread Pudding

I found this recipe on the blog Words to Eat By and knew I had to try it. I've really missed Challah bread since living in Baltimore, surrounded by Jewish friends and the ever-popular Double T Diner with its Challah French toast. I was rather sceptical of the frozen version of Challah dough, which mom and I tried once in the spring, but I didn't really have time to do it from scratch (next time!) so I went for it. I'm not a huge fan of the bread by itself (too yeasty) but it worked just fine for the pudding. I put it on a baking sheet and let it rest covered in greased plastic wrap for about four hours, until it doubled in size, and then baked according to package instructions. Once that was done, I followed the recipe pretty much exactly.

Whisk together a cup and half of milk, 1/2 cup sugar, 2 t pumpkin pie spice (my lid is broken so I didn't really measure), two eggs, two whites, and a fifteen-ounce can of Libby's (pure pumpkin). Once you have a relatively smooth batter, toss in five cups of 1/2 inch Challah cubes. This was the part I ignored, and basically tore a little more than half the loaf into bite sized chunks with my hands. I have no patience with knives, and my bread knife hadn't arrived yet anyway. Anyway, you want to spoon that mixture into a greased 8-inch square dish, cover in foil, and refrigerate anywhere from half an hour to four hours. I think I did it one or two, I don't really remember. Bake in an inch-high hot water bath for half an hour at 350, then remove the foil and bake 10-15 minutes or until a knife comes out clean. At no point did my knife actually come out clean, so I just pulled it out after 17 minutes. Also, keep in mind that when you put the foil on your pan in the first place, you want the piece trimmed pretty well because you don't want to stick your hand in the very hot water bath. Alternatively, you can use my method of just having a corner above water level that you can pull, but it may splash a bit. It's absolutely amazing with maple syrup and chopped toasted pecans, and great for breakfast the next day. Without the syrup, it isn't quite sweet enough for me, but that may just be my tastebuds.

Ridiculously Amazing Pumpkin Pie Thing

This comes to me via the amazing Steph at Cupcake, My Love. When I saw this concoction, featuring layers of cheesecake, pumpkin pie, and pecans with TOFFEE BARS, I knew I had to bake it, pronto. I couldn't find Holiday Baking magazine anywhere, however, so I asked Steph to e-mail me the recipe. Of course, as she's typing this whole long thing out, I find the magazine at Hy-Vee. Sorry, Steph!

Anyway, it turned out absolutely delicious. I will warn you NOT to eat it warm, because the cheesecake part tastes really strange, but it's super chilled. I ended up filling most of the pie crust with cheesecake batter, so I only used half the pumpkin, but next time I'll adjust to make it 50-50.

So, to make the "Pumpkin Praline Pie" (so much more official sounding), you want to start with a frozen 9" deep dish pie crust, the deeper the better. This was Steph's suggestion, and I agree. Homemade pie crusts are good and all, but if it's just plain, I usually take advantage of Pillsbury. You don't have to pre-bake or anything, just have that ready. Now, combine 12 ounces softened cream cheese (NOTE: 12 ounces is the bigger sized tub if you buy Philadelphia) with 1/3 cup sugar. I used light cream cheese, incidentally, and the taste was still great. Beat on low to medium speed until smooth, then beat in an egg, and stir in about a teaspoon of grated (they say finely shredded, whatever) orange peel. Cover and chill half an hour.

Now, preheat your oven to 375, and start on your pumpkin filling. Combine a can of Libby's or whatever other pure pumpkin there is with 3/4 cup sguar and 2 t pumpkin pie spice. Add three eggs and beat lightly. Gradually beat in 3/4 cup half-and-half or light cream. Spread your cream cheese filling into the frozen crust first, then the pie filling. Like I said, this was too much filling for me, so I recommend you adjust the amounts and use a plain 8 ounce tub of cream cheese and 1/4 cup sugar. Since you're using a can of pumpkin anyway, I'd keep that the same and just toss what you don't use, or bake a mini pumpkin pie. Also if you're a spoon-licker, it tastes good raw.

The recipe says to cover the edges of the crust with foil, but mine honestly didn't overbrown. Bake 25 minutes. While it's baking, combine 1/2 cup broken Heath or other toffee bars and 3/4 cup broken walnuts with 1/4 cup packed brown sugar. I found I didn't need quite that much sugar but you be the judge. Sprinkle over the pie and bake another 25-30 minutes or until knife comes out clean. My knife didn't, I just declared it done. Cool on a wire rack. Yes, the melty toffee bits look amazing but RESIST THE URGE (or just pick them off). Chill for at least a couple of hours before eating. The recipe suggests whipped cream and fudge topping but I think that's overkill. Bon appetit!

Holiday Scones

Finally, an adaptation of a recipe from the vegancooking LJ community. Note that my version is not vegan, but you can easily make it so by using Earth Balance and soy milk. The recipe was for brown sugar scones, but I jazzed them up a bit with dried figs and cranberries. The taste was great but they were very dense. I suspect part of the problem was that I worked the dough too much, especially when cominbing the butter and flour. I've since purchased a non stick pastry cutter and will try to be gentler next time. So these turned out looking more like cookies, but they were still yummy, especially with a cup of tea.


The recipe itself is super easy- just mix together three cups flour, a firmly packed cup of brown sugar, 1-1/4 t baking powder, and a cup of butter until crumbly. I recommend that you cut the butter into the flour first, or mix the dry ingredients and then cut in the butter. Gently blend in a cup of milk, then add in a cup of dried, chopped fruit. I accidentally added the fruit before the milk, so it was a bit harder to stir, which may have been another consistency problem. Anyway, you want to drop spoonfuls of the dough onto baking sheets and bake twenty minutes at 375. They will brown a little, but not a ton. Check the bottoms - they should be fairly brown when done.


And that's all folks! Remember, you can still submit entries and I will add them as they come in! Final round-up coming next week!