Fair Weather Vegan

The Post Punk Kitchen's Edamame Pesto

Isa Chandra Moskowitz, one half of the famed vegan cooking team, is at work on a low-fat cookbook.  There's no need to explain how I might feel about that endeavor as a whole ("good lord, the stuff is already vegan, what the hell do you want?" pretty much covers it).  But i was totally intrigued by the thought of edamame pesto, so I dove right into the recipe with more alacrity than I usually show (i.e., any).  It's set out as a two-step meal that also includes a mushroom-based sauce.  I chose to make the pesto by itself, and also made other changes to the recipe since I'm not enamored of cilantro, and also halved some ingredients to create a 'single-serving' option.  I do encourage you to try the original, since it's impossible to go wrong with creminis.  I made my version twice, and was quite happy with it both times.

• 8 oz. shelled frozen edamame, thawed
• 2 cloves garlic
• 5-6 fresh basil leaves
• 1/2 cup vegetable broth
• 1 or 2 tsps olive oil 

Roughly chop the garlic and throw it with the basil into the food processor.  Pulse a few times. Add the other ingredients and blend until smooth-ish.  I use that word because mine always turned out grainier than traditional pesto.  This may be because I have a sad little three-cup food processor and didn't give it enough time, but it might have something to do with the ingredients themselves, so don't be surprised if the pesto has a bit of a crunchy texture.  It adds interest to the dish, which (obviously) lacks the fat of pesto but brings its own lighter appeal.  Makes enough for two large bowls of pasta (I used fettuccine).  Non-vegans, do not put parmesan cheese on this no matter how tempted you are, because it doesn't blend its flavor well.  Moskowitz also recommends it in any place pesto may be used, such as sandwiches. 

What Is So Hard About Making Packaged Humus?

Why are so many brands so awful?  Homemade humus, or humus made in small batches, is simple and usually turns out very smooth, mild, and chickpea oriented.  I still sometimes think about getting back to the Pasadena farmers' market (it's market day, here on FWV!) and finding out if the humus-sellers who changed my opinion of the spread are still there.  But when it's mass-produced brands either use too much tahini or too much lemon juice or both, and it ends up tasting sharp and unpleasant.  I had high hopes for the Trader Joe's house version with roasted red peppers, but it fell prey to these defects as well.  Bah. 

More Tasty Non-Dairy Ice Cream

The real surprise is that I have a Post-Punk Kitchen recipe I've been testing and will be ready to write about tomorrow, but in the meantime, have some coconut-milk ice cream.

Larry and Luna's Coconut Bliss is now hekshered parve with the heart-K.  It's also still vegan, gluten-free, and sweetened with agave nectar.  I found the chocolate hazelnut fudge flavor to be less aggressively coconut-y than prior flavors I've tried, with an extra crunch from the nuts and a strong chocolate flavor complemented by the more subtle hazelnut, which creates a drier sensation on the palate similar to some of their other products.  I suspect this is their homage to nocciola, the traditional gelato.  

Turtle Mountain's Purely Decadent coconut milk mint chip, by contrast, is very icy like a sorbet.  It shares all of the positive production attributes listed above  The mint flavor is quite refreshing and tastes natural.  I am a bit taken aback by the ingredient list, which includes beet sugar to make the (Dutch) chocolate used for the chips, chicory, and carob (the root of all evil), and yet when I was eating it I thought it was delicious, so perhaps I shouldn't have revealed this to you before you tried it. 

It's interesting to me how these non-dairy products, and also something like Soy/Rice/Hemp Dream, use words in their names to emphasize the idyll you will presumably enjoy if you eat them.  It's almost like they're trying to convince skeptics that the stuff will taste good ;) 

Organicville Vegan Ranch Dressing

There is a famous story told in the annals of food science about the moment when ranch dressing first left Oklahoma.  Before then it was a regional delicacy, unknown to most Americans.  When they were trying to make a version to sell nationally, they couldn't get it to taste right because some of the original ingredients weren't shelf-stable.  They fretted about this for long hours, until one employee suddenly realized that it didn't matter: since no one who was going to buy it had ever tasted the dressing before, no one would know the difference.  Whether you think this is a tragic moment or an example of capitalist brilliance, or a little of both, it changed food sales forever. 

Nowadays, the nation puts this new version of ranch on just about everything, giving a nice fat, creamy kick to salads and pizza, but especially spicy things like buffalo wings. If you are a vegan but want ranch, there is even a version for you.  Instead of buttermilk it uses soy milk; it's sweetened with agave nectar instead of sugar, and the tang comes from apple cider vinegar, mustard and onion powder.  Needless to say with a name like that, it's also organic.  The company makes a range of organic salad dressings, sauces, and ketchup. 

So how does this ranch dressing stack up against the non-vegan kind?  Basically if you're eating it on a wing-thing, say the Morningstar farms version, it will do its job of pleasantly cutting the spice fine, even if something with dairy would work slightly better (food science again).  Quibbles include the fact that It's too thin, and it's obviously missing the creamy element since soy milk just doesn't have the fat content.  If you taste it on its own it doesn't always stay consistent between the sweet and slightly sour elements.  One could argue this just makes it taste real, unlike the bland flavor uniformity of lots of other kinds of ranch.  Bottled ranch is not exactly a culinary masterpiece to begin with.  I would choose this dressing over the low-fat dairy version with no qualms. 

Dear Server:

However wonderful you may be at other aspects of your job, please do not presume that because I am a woman and I am thin, I will agree with your banter about how it's praiseworthy that I chose the 'healthier' option or how you too have your plate taken away at the end of the meal so you can't finish all the fries.  I chose the 'healthier' option because it sounded good to me, and I wanted to save room for dessert rather than eat all of my fries.  I am not your co-conspirator in the food shame and guilt game. My being thin has nothing to do with my personal habits and everything to do with the genetic lottery.  I don't take part in the sado-masochistic ritual that assumes that one must eat healthily as some kind of exercise in self-control since all healthy food is assumed to taste bad.  I don't eat 'non-healthy' food as an indulgence for which I must pay a price.  The worst of it is, you would never have said those same things to a fat person, though that she might have been making the decisions specifically because it made her feel her best.  No fat person could already be taking care of herself in the ways you are talking about, right?

Subsidiarization

Our local Safeway, which holds the title for the sketchiest in the chain, recently started carrying the Gardein brand of soy meat products.  Although I generally try to avoid processed soy, I gave their chicken filets a try and for once I cooked them in the suggested manner on the stovetop.  They came already seasoned in some sort of marinade and were of pretty firm texture once cooked, probably because the company uses gluten and grains in addition to the soy protein.  I wouldn't give up my Quorn but this would probably be a good substitute every now and again.  Unfortunately Gardein, which is Canadian, seems to have some sort of amorphous business relationship with Kellogg's behemoth Morningstar Farms, with several MF products listed on their website.  MF does not return the favor on its website, which means it probably doesn't own the company outright.  But since word on the street is that MF farms some of its soy on rainforest land, that's a company a good environmentalist doesn't want to deal with.  I've even taken to eating the vastly inferior Trader Joe's corn dogs.  There's no real replacement for MF's buffalo wings either, but you could probably use nuggets from another source and your own seasoning. 

Hemp Dream: Fail of Rather Large Proportions

Note to people over thirty: that's not a typo....  Grammatical Constructions of the Web 2.0 Generation, how strange they are.  Anyhow, the hegemonic Imagine Foods, which owns a vast number of the nation's organic brands, has just added a hemp milk to its line of 'Dream' products.  Whether this be your first experience or your fiftieth with the hempen stuff, do not try it. If ever a drink tasted like it was made out of something that produces an extremely strong rope, this is it.  It's comparable in price to the much superior Living Harvest brand so you're not losing out on value.  It was a bit unfair to try the plain version of Hemp Dream against the vanilla version of Living Harvest, the differences in taste and texture are so great that I doubt some extra grams of sugar are the real problem here.  No doubt it has something to do with the size of the operation and the production values. 

MeatOut On March 20th!

For all those who think they can't live a day without animal products (and why they'd be reading a blog with this title I don't know), today it is time to think about the impact of food production on the environment: how do we feed and graze all those cattle, ship all those products across the globe using fossil fuels, and deal with packaging waste?  This is the 25th Anniversary of MeatOut, a spring celebration of a plant-based diet.  FWV encourages you to eat mindfully today, trying foods that are grown and produced locally or experimenting with a new plant-based recipe.  Remember, something as simple and tasty as the good 'ol PBJ is vegan! 

Nooo! They Stealin' Mah Pumpkin Pie!

I brought a vegan pumpkin pie to the annual Kay and Oh Thanksgiving, in the full knowledge that Kay's mom had baked a pecan pie and a blueberry pie (with little bitty blueberries!) from scratch.  Got fewer leftovers than I expected, since several of my friends are folk after my own heart and ate pieces of all three, but still a good fourth of a pie left.  Then last night I took it out of the fridge for a late-night snack...and I couldn't swallow due to sore throat attack.  That's one thing when you're eating your luncheon quiche, rich sour cream quiche that it was, but pie?  Damn the man, as my friend Sherry is wont to say. 

This Woman Taught Me How Make Desserts

I was a lousy student.  Still a college young'un, I had not yet developed any interest in food and was more interested in goofing off with my friend Bird and eating chocolate chips.  I have no idea why I chose to take a course entitled 'Vegan Dessert Making,' unless I was having some sort of rogue flash-forward.  But our instructor, Claire Fitts, was not only patient and kind but also on her way to being a master pastry chef already.  Cooking for a demanding kitchen full of hippies will do that.  Now, through the magic of Facebook, I find that she has opened her own bakery.  Butterfly Bakery in Burlington, VT is all about those values she tried to instill in us many years ago: delicious desserts can be made without animal products or refined sugar.  Also that carob is evil, something that I always suspected.  From cookies to scones to amazing-looking fruit truffles, she has turned her passion into her livelihood, which is all we grads were encouraged to do in the first place.