Happy (vegan) Valentine's Day

Vegan Chocolate Love cupcakes by me (Sweet)

♥♥♥

Organic food bag = lots of quality vegan food

A few weeks ago I saw my lovely friend Aoife Barry (Adventures in Veg...) writing on her Twitter about Home Organics. I looked for their website and found some interesting information: "We are a small family-run business started by Sarah Merrigan and Paul Fingleton in 2002. Because Sarah worked as a chef in Barcelona for years she organises what goes in to all our selections each week and sends everyone very simple but incredibly yummy recipes so you're never left with stuff you cant cook. Paul has an environmental background and generally sorts all the things Sarah can't figure out."

Because of the good words of Aoife B. and another Twitter mate (@icanhascook), who is also Aoife, I decided to make my first order after we've moved house. I ordered the Seasonal Fruit and Vegetable Bag (€22) and I was very excited when I got my first bag. I got spinach, potatoes, carrots, parsnips, broccoli, cauliflower, onion, garlic, avocado, apples, oranges, lemon and grapefruit!! Everything looked amazing and I couldn't wait to start cooking with these organic items.

And I have to say that it was enough for one week and me and Matteo eat at home basically every day (lunch and sometimes dinner). I didn't took pictures of all the meals but I do have some. And I'm sharing the soup recipe because it's the easiest thing ever and it's awesome.

Soup recipe:

1 parsnip
3 potatoes
2 carrots
1 onion
1 garlic clove
salt

olive oil

Cook all the vegetables in salty and boiling water until they all become soft. Mix them with most of the water (it will depend of the consistent you want) in the blender. Add two or three tablespoons of olive oil and mix until getting a smooth and homogeneous mix. Serve it hot with your favourite bread (we buy our bread at Blazing Salads).

We actually made soup twice and still have one parsnip at home!

So here's some of the other meals we had using Home Organics vegetables (and we still have some at home!):

Spinach and broccoli risotto

Carrots and soy mince to make the sauce
that was the filling of the salty pie below

"Cheezy" love crackers

First things first. I know it's not Valentine's Day yet but I don't care. Love is always a good reason to make special things. And also I'm not that used to VD at all. In Brazil the celebration is on June 12th and while me and Matteo were living in Brazil it was the official date to celebrate (although we started to do something on the February 14th as well because it was the right date for him). Since we've moved to Ireland we've inverted things, but still celebrate on both dates. But you know I will always do things for him out of these dates, they are just one more excuse to celebrate.

Now, the crackers. I receive the C'est la Vegan newsletter and this week it brought two main topics: Valentine's Day and Super Bowl Eats and between the links I found the "cheezy crackers". The recipe mentioned in their post is about Celine's "cheezy quackers" recipe (she writes the amazing Have Cake, Will Travel blog that I've been following for a long time). So I decided to give them a try. BUT I am not that kind of person that follow too much the rules and I came up with some changes in the recipe. And because of that I wrote to Celine to ask her the permission to write my version of her recipe. "Go for it!" she said, so here it is:

Cheezy Love Crackers

1 cup all-purpose flour
1/3 cup dairy-free/vegan parmesan
(I used Parmazano by Life Free From)
1/2 teaspoon black pepper and garlic
1 teaspoon fine sea salt
1 teaspoon dried paprika
1/4 cup vegan margarine
1/4 cup soy milk

Combine flour, pepper & garlic, paprika, salt and parmesan. Cut butter on top, add the milk and combine with your fingers until dough forms.

Preheat oven to 180°C. Roll it out and cut. I used the heart cutter this time. Place crackers on baking sheets. Bake for 15 to 18 minutes, depending on thickness. Let them cool and enjoy it!

I made more than 40 crackers and they didn't last too much.

(vegan) Snacks make me happy

I wish I knew the translation to all Brazilian snacks. I'm not sure if they even exist though. But there's one thing that I'm pretty sure: they are amazing. Snacks are suitable for a lot of things: lunch break at school or university, to birthday and wedding parties, or just something delicious to eat when you're not that hungry to have a meal. They are very popular in Brazil and there are a lot of variety of them. They are sold everywhere too, from fancy places to shops on the roads. Unfortunately, they are never vegan. So the only ways to a vegan person like you and me to eat them are cooking or ordering.

Today I'll try to help you with the first option and I guarantee that you will be a happier person when you taste these snacks called "pasteis" (or "pastel" for the singular). A few days ago I saw a recipe in one of the Brazilian vegan blogs that I follow - A Delicia de Viver o Que Acredita - and decided to try it. The recipe is just for the dough cause you can be very creative with the filling and use basically whatever you want (just like the "sfihas" recipe that I've posted here before). I used a basic soy mince (TVP) + broccoli filling and it was delicious. But the most traditional filling is a sweet corn pure (recipe for this coming soon!).

These vegan "pasteis" go into the oven, but there are other "pasteis" that are fried and I hope I will try them soon to share the recipe here too.

Recipe - Dough

2 cup plain flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
2 full tablespoon (or 1/2 cup) vegetable (vegan) margarine
3/4 cup soy milk (or water)(I used soy milk)

Make the filling and set it aside.

Combine everything in a bowl using your hands until it forms a smooth ball that pulls away from hands (add more flour if you think it's necessary). Open the dough and cut it in circles using a glass, put the filling in the middle and close the edges with your fingers (two "silly" but important tips here, that I've learned from my grandmother: moisten your fingertip and pass on the edge before closing it and use a fork to close it and not your fingers). Brush the outside with olive oil or soy sauce (shoyo) to give a nice colour. Place them in a baking sheet and take it to the oven (200º C) for 15-20 minutes or until the "pasteis" become golden brown.





Enjoy it!

PS. Receita em portugues aqui!

Bye for now!

In February 2010 I wrote this post about we leaving Dublin 1 (after living in two apartments there) to move to the house we're living now, in Dublin 12. And now, surprise... surprise... Here I am again writing about moving house. It will be our fourth place in 2 years and 4 months in Dublin. Too much for me, have to admit, but I'm excited.

It was amazing to live in a house for one year. If I could I'd take the house with me! But we're having some issues with the area and I'm sure it was the best decision. Time will tell. As you all can see, 2011 started to surprise me soon. This week I saw myself and my vegan cupcakes in an article in the Irish Independent (article here and pic of the print version here), baked a lot of other cupcakes for a student event, had my last day of work for MUZU.TV and now, saying good bye to the house.



We had great moments here, amazing food too, a lot shared with old and new friends and family.

Life goes one. Even more full of good memories.

Lovers gonna love

I'm not sure if I'd ever wrote about the fact that it was just after becoming vegan, 13 years ago, that I started to eat a lot of vegetables in a regular basis. If not, I'll make a list someday about everything I added to my diet. My family is not a huge fan of vegetables and I didn't like most of them. But being vegan is about not using animals but also about having a healthier life. To have all the vitamins I need I had to welcome a lot of new elements to my life. I learned to love some of them, but I still hate a few.

One of these vegetables that I really don't like is beetroot. It's has a beautiful colour, I have to say, but I can't stand the taste. It is an important vegetable however, rich in iron (and calcium, and zinc, and folic acid and vitamins B1, B2 and C). So if you like it, good for you!


A few weeks ago Matteo started to buy them and to make a juice (beet + orange). I tried and... nope. Can't drink it too. It wasn't the fist time I had it, I used to drink it many years ago in the place I used to work. It wasn't good, it's still not.




But in an effort to have at least a little bit of this precious vegetable I decided to make something that I really like with it to see if I could eat: risotto! So last Saturday I made a very creamy risotto with beets and zucchini - had to use something that I liked to balance it too.

The result was beautiful. Really, the pictures are not that great, but it looked great! It wasn't the best food on earth but I have to admit that I liked it. Matteo loved it, no doubts about it. But, yeah, I didn't hate it. I ate all my plate :)

If you want to try it, make your favourite risotto recipe and add small pieces of beetroot in the end (before 5 minutes to the end), so you won't cook it too much and it will keep most of its properties.

Subversive

Every time I write about savory pancakes I feel like a subversive. Subverting the natural order of things sounds good sometimes. And make me think about the rebel I used to be when I was younger. Not in a political or social-cultural way, although believing that I could do something to make this world a better one was the main reason to go to hardcore shows, becoming vegan and straight edge. But well, I was never a person of big actions.

So, bringing all this 'subversion' to the food universe, I decide not just to cook savory pancakes (or crepes) in the way I usually do, but to serve them like the classic ones. It was my second time doing this and I hope fans of sweet classic pancakes don't go mad on me!

To make things a little bit different, I added some herbs (basil, black pepper and paprika) to the dough recipe I always use. The sauce was made with 2 cup tomato sauce, 2 tbs shoyo, 2 tbs soya cream, one vegetable stock cube and 2 chopped vegan sausages.

With this easy recipe I made my way back to the kitchen after almost three weeks just studying for my exams. Matteo said he will lock me there and enslave me! Hopefully it will help me to come up with more stuff to the blog ;-P