Saturday 31 October 2009

Vegan Mofo III - Day 31- Hamburgers and potato wedge


That's it, the end of the Vegan MoFo. And I promised that I would finish my Top 10 and I will. But I realized that I don't have pictures of none of the one million burgers and potato wedge (these potatoes are a "must" here in Dublin and they are delicious!) that we eat at home. We don't have food for dinner, just sandwiches, so we are always eating hot dogs or burgers. And we love it. So this is my complete top 10, hope next year I can come back with more recipes or great pictures.


(I still have one more post for today, so I will be back in a few minutes :P)

Friday 30 October 2009

Vegan Mofo III - Day 30 - Rice and beans

I want to finish my Vegan Food Top 10 and I couldn't let this combination out! Rice & beans are the best Brazilian combo and it's part of our menu at least once a week. And the best thing is that you can eat with so many other things and have a nutritional and colored meal (you know, you should have a lot of colors in you plate always). I am still using the canned beans but I am planning to buy some black beans to cook here and make some other great Brazilian food, like feijoada.








Vegan Food Top 10 until now:
1. Cupcakes
2. Mushrooms
3. Pizza
4. Soup
5. Risotto
6. Pancakes
7. Pasta
8. Parmegiana burger
9. Rice & beans

Vegan Mofo III - Day 30 - Trick or (vegan) treats II

Yesterday I decided to make some "new" cupcakes (or some that I hadn't done before) and my choice was inspired in the "Toasted Coconut Cupcakes" from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World. I did them a little bit different, but keeping the two most important ingredients: the coconut milk and the cocoa powder. And I can tell you that they are my favorite ones now! They taste so good that I could spend the Halloween weekend eating them all. But they are not for me, but for the Govinda's restaurant.


And I'd like to make some Halloween decoration too, but hadn't nothing at home (and didn't have time to buy), so I did some colored frosting that remember the best thing about Halloween: the colored treats :)


Happy (vegan) Halloween! And have fun :)

PS. I'll be back later to finish my Top 10!

Wednesday 28 October 2009

Vegan Mofo III - Day 28 - Chocolate cookies

We have just a few more days of this amazing Vegan MoFo and I'm really happy to be involved this year for the very first time. The blog has a lot of new readers and my loyal readers are always here to support me (L)!

Last Sunday I have no cupcakes to bake because Monday was a bank holiday, so I decided to bake some cookies (instead of doing nothing at all). I don't know why but I had never baked cookies before and it is something so easy to do! I wanted the regular chocolate cookies and none of my cook books have them, so I saw a lot of recipes in the internet and made a mix of them to bake my own cookies.



So, my recipe is (one more vegan cookie recipe!):

2 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
2 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup sugar

2 tablespoon cocoa powder
2/3 cup maple syrup

1/2 cup oil
2/3 cup chocolate chips (or if you want more, go for it!)


Pre-heat the oven (175ºC) Mix all the dry ingredients. In other bowl, mix the wet ingredients and whisk it. Combine all (use your hands to do this). Make the balls with the size you want and place on ungreased sheet pan with at least an inch between each ball. Put them in the oven and bake them for 15 minutes (I saw different times around the internet and this one worked for me, but keep checking on them every few minutes). They will be done when they seem a little bit softer then you want them to be. They will harden up some as they cool.


And before I forget about it, this is the picture of the last "Pasta al forno" that my husband cooked for us. This is one of my favorite ways to eat pasta and it's so easy to make it (I need to remember to blog the recipe soon):


Monday 26 October 2009

Vegan Mofo III - Day 26 - Brazil Nut

October is flying and with it Vegan MoFo is almost ending too! It's the last week of this amazing month. And for the last posts I saved some surprises. One is that as a journalist, I love making interviews. I think it is my favorite part of this profession. And I decided to start making some interviews here too.

The first one is with Andréa Nichols, from the amazing blog Brazil Nut. Her blog is one of the first blogs about vegan food and veganism that I started to follow when I decided to join this virtual (big) world! She writes in Portuguese and always have something great to say to our Brazilian vegetarian and vegan friends.

Hope you enjoy it as much as I did and I will be back with more interviews soon :)


All about... : Your blog is in Portuguese, so you should have basically just Brazilian readers. Why the decision about making a blog about vegan food and veganism in Portuguese? Do you think about make it in English too?

Andrea: I do think about writing in English all the time. Sometimes I blog in both languages, but it’s mostly in Portuguese. I started the blog in Portuguese because a few years ago, when my husband and I became vegan and I decided to write about it and show how easy it was, there weren’t a lot of blogs in Portuguese and there were a ton in English. Since my point was to help, I figured I should do it in my mother tongue.

Andréa e Clementine

All about... : You live in NY and are always involved in some kind of animal liberation activism. Do you think the city has a lot of groups and people involved? Did you do that in Brazil too? What are the mainly differences, in your opinion, between the activism in Brazil and in the US?

Andrea: Activism here (in the US) is very strong, very powerful. I didn’t feel the same in Brazil when I used to live there. But that was 8 years ago. It’s getting better and better from what I see and read. And I’m hopeful.

All about... : You are always blogging some great recipes. How often do you cook? What do you like to cook more?

Andrea: Thanks! I rarely cook. I’m not crazy about cooking as much as I am about eating, discovering new recipes and taking pictures of food. :) My husband is the one who cooks at our home and he cooks so well. He has no fear. He’ll look at any recipe and go: “I can do this”. And he does! I’m always looking for new ideas and recipes to bring to him. I’d say I’m a lucky gal. :) I like cooking simple things, mostly appetizers. And I like to present them nicely. I’m more about the way the food looks.



All about... : What tips you can give to people that are thinking about becoming vegan?

Andrea: Stop thinking and just go vegan! Anybody can do it at any time. No preparation is needed. It’s much easier that people think and it’s the best thing one can do to help animals, to help the planet and for one’s own health. If somebody wants to be ethical and environment-friendly, going vegan is the 1st thing to do.



All about... : Do you have any favorite vegan cook book?

Andrea: All our cookbooks are awesome. To name a few: The Urban Vegan, Vegan Brunch, Vegan Planet, Veganomicon…

Andrea: Thanks for inviting me to respond to your questions, Glauce! I’m a big fan of your blog and your cupcakes!

Sunday 25 October 2009

Vegan Mofo III - Day 25 - Parmegiana

"This should be the number 1 in your top 10!". That was Matteo told me today about my vegan parmegiana burger. Yes, he loves it. More than I do. But for sure it is in my Top 10. I won't write to much about it because you can find the recipe here and also this recipe will be in the German cookbook Ox #4.

Every time I cook this recipe, I remember about my Brazilian friend Maria Raquel, she made us this parmegiana burger many times and she will be always an inspiration <3.

One more time, I don't have great pics (and I still don't have a good camera), so you have to try this recipe to be sure about how good it is! I will cook this in the next few days too and I am thinking about some variations, so maybe I can write about it again in the near future.



And in this beautiful sunny and cold Sunday, have a cupcake in the afternoon. I made this one this week (I baked so many vegan cupcakes this week!) and I love the colors.

(I also could change the name of this blog to "All about... (vegan) cupcakes!")

Vegan Food Top 10 until now:
1. Cupcakes
2. Mushrooms
3. Pizza
4. Soup
5. Risotto
6. Pancakes
7. Pasta
8. Parmegiana burger

Thursday 22 October 2009

Vegan Mofo III - Day 22 - Pasta

This post is about pasta, another food of my "Vegan Food Top 10". I always liked to eat pasta, even before being vegan. My family loves it, so it was always part of our menu. After becoming vegan it was the easiest option (some brandes in Brazil still have eggs on the pasta but they also have the semolina option), mainly for someone who didn't know how too cook too much stuff. And after having an Italian husband, you can imagine how much pasta we eat! But that's totally fine because it is good and gives you a endless options to cook. My favorite ones: with zucchini and soy cream, with sausages and soy cream, with olive oil and garlic, with mushrooms and soy cream.

But I will let some pictures "talk" for themselves!


Vegan Food Top 10 until now:
1. Cupcakes
2. Mushrooms
3. Pizza
4. Soup
5. Risotto
6. Pancakes
7. Pasta

Monday 19 October 2009

Vegan Mofo III - Day 19 - Pancakes

Back to my "Vegan Food Top 10", I couldn't let the pancakes (or crepes) out! I cook them a lot and I also blogged about them sometimes. But yesterday I think I made the best ones.


"Humm... Huummmm... Huuummmmm!" was the sound that I heard from Matteo when he tried my pumpkin pancakes. Yes, pumpkin again (I told you!). I used the regular dough (recipe here) and for the filling I made a pumpkin puree. All you will need to make it are 1/2 pumpkin (make a soft cream with the food processor, I used also the skin), 1 tablespoon butter, 1 vegetable stock cube and black pepper. You can make it like a regular "potato puree" (mashed potatoes).

The best thing about pancakes is that you have endless options of filling. So, use your imagination and share your ideas with us too :)

Vegan Food Top 10 until now:
1. Cupcakes
2. Mushrooms
3. Pizza
4. Soup
5. Risotto
6. Pancakes

Vegan Mofo III - Days 17, 18 and 19 - Pumpkin cupcakes!

I know I lost some days of the Vegan MoFo but I was blogging a lot, so I think it's totally fine! Since my last post everything in my house is about pumpkin!

Yesterday I baked my first vegan pumpkin cupcakes! They are so good! I used the recipe of Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World with two differences: I used fresh pumpkin instead of the canned one and I used the handheld mixer (they say there to do not use it!).


I also did the small pumpkins with icing sugar :)

And here there are the final cupcakes, with chocolate frosting:


And I still have one more post for today!

Friday 16 October 2009

Vegan Mofo III - Days 15 and 16 - Trick or (vegan) treats

There are many things that are not so popular in Brazil that we have now in Ireland: Halloween is one of those things. Last year I didn't have time to enjoy the arriving of the fall and all the pumping-treats-stuff-around-october, so this year I decided to get involved. So, guess "who" is in the house?!


Hello, Irish pumpkin!


I already did an easy and fast meal with a piece of it (nothing special, just rice and cooked pumpkin with beans), but I am planning to bake my first pumpkin cupcakes next Sunday!

For the Halloween night I'm not sure if we'll do something, but I really like the "trick or treats" thing. I read that "In Ireland and Scotland guising is traditional, and the American jocular threat is not practiced, just "treats" (in the form of "apples or nuts for the Halloween party") given out to the children dressed up as ghosts and witches." I would be happy to have some treats, even not being a child. Better, a vegan treat! Or, maybe because I am not traditional with the celebration, some chocolates and cupcakes like these:




I love Organica chocolates and the Hazelnut bar
now comes with the label "gluten free" too!


What do you want for your Halloween?

PS. Today I am really happy 'cause I just started a new column in a big website in Brazil. It's a column about what we can do for a better planet (showing products, companies, places and people). It's in Portuguese, of course, but it's one of my good news and I want to share with you.

PS 2. Em português: Estou muito feliz pois estou começando uma coluna nova no portal mineiro Uai, no Mundo Ela. O primeiro texto foi publicado hoje! A coluna é sobre como podemos cuidar melhor do planeta (irei mostrar produtos, empresas, lugares e pessoas). O link da primeira matéria está aqui! Em breve terei o meu espacinho, que se chamará Chá Verde, depois publico o link definitivo.

PS 3. I'd like to thank my Russian readers for the visits! I didn't have any visits from Russia before and this is really cool ;)

Wednesday 14 October 2009

Vegan Mofo III - Day 14 - Ox Cookbook

Some weeks ago I told you that I had great news and now I can share the first one with you!

With all this great vibration around the Vegan MoFo and everybody blogging delicious vegan recipes around the world, I am proud to announce that I will have 5 of my vegan recipes in the German cookbook Ox #4! Last May I got the first email of the lovely Uschi Herzer talking about the idea of the book and inviting me to be part of the new edition. And of course I said YES. So we decided that I would have five recipes (all of them with a Brazilian touch). The book will be released soon and it's German. It will be so cool to see the recipes in German (even if I don't understand more than ten words...)! And it's even cooler because I have some German readers here in the blog too, so they will have a opportunity to share some of my vegan recipes with their friends that can't read English.



About the book and the history of the project:

Ox - The cookbook

Almost twenty years ago Uschi and Joachim of the German punk/hardcore fanzine Ox stayed with guys of the "Hippycore Collective" in Tempe, Arizona who back then created their own vegetarian and vegan cookbook "Soy Not Oi!", nowadays a classic. A couple of years later Uschi and Joachim had published so many vegetarian and vegan recipes on the recipe page of Ox that they had enough to put together a whole book, plus some more sent in by readers, bands and other scene people. Of course "Soy Not Oi!" was a big inspiration for the birth of the "Ox-Kochbuch" which just got reprinted in its 8th edition. Since then every 3 or 4 years a new cookbook followed, each one packed with more delicious recipes that actually work because they are all "field-tested". All recipes come with a soundtrack for cooking. In late 2009 cookbook #4 comes out, and Uschi and Joachim already have new plans for 2010: an exclusively vegan cookbook, consisting of the best vegan recipes of the first four books plus some new ones. So feel free to send in your favorite recipe! (And yes, all the books are in German ...).

More info here!

Tuesday 13 October 2009

Vegan Mofo III - Day 13 - Great cause

As I told you in the first day of the Vegan MoFo, veganism for me is not just about the food/diet, it's a life choice, a choice for the life. So this is a short update to post a link of something great: Lush is launching this week the "Fabulous Mrs Bubble Bar". The proceeds of the product will go to the Hunt Saboteurs Association and you can read more about it here.


How cute are they?

GO VEGAN!

Vegan Mofo III - Day 13 - Inspiration

One of the best things ever is seeing that what you do can inspire people. I am not talking just about big acts but about small things you do. Yesterday I was happy to see that one of my best friends, from Brazil, baked her first vegan cupcakes inspired of all the baking I am doing here in Dublin.

I sent her the recipe in Portuguese with some tips about the replacement for the stuff she wouldn't find in Brazil and she blogged about her first time here!


I don't know if this sounds silly, but I am really glad when I read all these love messages that arrive to me and when I see my friends trying to make delicious vegan food around the world :)

And for those who don't know, my inspiration to start baking the Sweet vegan cupcakes was Cupcake Berlin! If you're going to Berlin, you must go there!

Monday 12 October 2009

Vegan Mofo III - Day 12 - Comfort food

We had some great food this weekend, besides the vegan cheese cake. We had time to go out to buy some stuff for the new apartment and walk around on Sunday night! And we decided to cook some fast, comfort food.

I'll post the tips to make this bread these days! It's the easiest thing ever :)



And this was just a cuscus with leek and seitan. Ready in 5 minutes and delicious!


I have some other tips about fast food here, here and here. Enjoy it!

Vegan Mofo III - Day 12 - Feeling the fall

Yesterday I finally baked my first vegan carrot cupcakes! I love to bake carrot cakes and I was planning to make the carrot cupcakes in the last weeks. I think they match with the fall colors and weather and they are delicious!


I was supposed to use the recipe from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World, but it has to many ingredients that I didn't have at home, so I decided to adapt a recipe I always use to bake the cakes and it worked :)

Dublin Bay yesterday night

Sunday 11 October 2009

Vegan Mofo III - Days 10 & 11 - The first vegan cheese cake



I don't know why but I am cooking a lot this weekend (maybe it is the great combination of the new kitchen + new food processor!) and I finally made my first vegan cheese cake! And it was also my first cheese cake ever (I had never eaten the original one!). I was a little bit afraid about the result because it has a lot of steps, but it is good! I used the "
Triple Threat Chocolate" recipe, from my favorite book ever, "My Sweet Vegan", by Hannah Kaminsky.

The only thing I did different was using a chocolate bar instead of the chocolate chips. And the only negative point I saw on this recipe is that it is expensive to make it here in Dublin (just the vegan cream cheese costs almost 5 euros!). But it is worth it, the labor, the price, everything!


I'm thinking about adding this option at the Sweet menu (for orders)... let's see! Now I want to make a strawberry one :)



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