Revisiting past recipes...

Once upon a time I ran a blog called A Vegan In South Dakota. I've been revisiting some of those recipes lately and wanted to share my two favorites with all of you. I bought some local Rhubarb from the Farmer's Market and plan to make the coffee cake tonight.

Coffee Cake of My Dreams

The batter for this is more like a dough, but it bakes up moist and amazing!

For Cake

1 cup caster sugar

1 cup packed brown sugar

1/4 cup vegan butter

1/4 cup unsweetened apple sauce

1 tbsp cornstarch dissolved in 3 tbsp water

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 tsp baking powder

2 cups all-purp flour

2 cups fresh fruit (I love it with Rhubarb)

For Topping

1/4 cup caster sugar

1 tsp cinnamon

Preheat oven to 375. Prepare a 9 x 13 x 2 baking dish. Cream sugars, butter, and apple sauce. Add dissolved cornstarch and vanilla. Fold in flour and fruit and spread into baking dish. Sprinkle on topping and bake for 35 minutes. Let cool for 15 minutes before cutting. 

 

 

Wonderous White Bean Dip

1 can white beans drained and rinsed

1/4 cup olive oil

1 tbsp Braggs

1 tbsp Paprika

1 tsp Garlic Powder

1 tsp Onion Powder

1/2 tsp Fennel Seed

a mix of chopped fresh or dried herbs

Blend it all up in your food processor and enjoy!

 

Introducing: Season of The Vegan Tasting Parties!

It started as a day dream... and turned into a beautiful way to promote my upcoming book. Tasting Parties, a wondrous way to indulge. But first, I need to gush a bit...

I know I don't update the blog as often as I should, and for that I am very sorry. I'm so grateful for those who have stuck with me and supported this adventure. I wish I could personally hug each and everyone of you! The book is coming slowly, but that's due to my need to release a good product. I want to birth a book into the world that people want to own, that they want to cook from, that they want to share with others. Not just another vegan cookbook that sits on the shelf and gathers dust. I want it to be inspiring in text, taste, and photo. I want people to feel like they are indulging in full sensory eating. I want it to be cherished and loved and delighted in. I know many will buy it because they know me, love me, and want to support me. Or because they've tasted something I've brought to a potluck and always wanted the recipe. But most, will buy it without ever having met me or tasted anything from the book, or anything vegan for that matter, and I want them to have the same amazing experience cooking from it as those who know me. The book is a labor of love from me to you.

The Tasting Party idea came out of a need to be in the kitchen, a need to feed those around me, and a need to promote my upcoming book. The basic idea is such, you (the party host) pays a sliding scale payment of  $35 to $65 cover my time, you select between 4 and 6 items from the list below, then you and your guests each pay a sliding scale payment of $5 to $15 to cover my food costs. In return you get an amazing experience of well prepared vegan faire, everyone receives a copy of the recipes, and you support my publishing costs. Its that easy!

Savory Picks:

Cucumber Tea Sandwiches
Spring Greens Salad
TLT Sandwiches
Crazy Crunch Salad
Grilled Zucchini
Balsamic Black Bean & Corn Salad
Spiced Nuts
Curried Butternut Squash Soup
Black & White Dip with Chips
Baked Artichoke Dip
Stuffed Mushrooms
Oven Roasted Yam Medallions
Brushetta Trio (counts as 3 picks)
Meatless Meatballs

Sweet Picks:

Lemon Poppy Seed Scones
Coconut Cakes with Coconut Frosting
Basil & Mint Fruit Salad
Fresh Cherry Pancakes
Maple Pumpkin Pudding
Pecan Pie Puff Pastries
Oat & Apricot Cookies
PBC Truffles
Dad's Pie Crust Cookies
Coffee Cake of My Dreams
Death By Chocolate Cakes
Mixed Berry Soft Serve
Mini Raspberry Cheesecakes

Libations:

Cranberry Orange Fizz
Cafe Granita
Midnight Champagne Cocktail

To book your Tasting Party please email me at seasonofthevegan@gmail.com 

Renewal, writing, and cupcakes from heaven!

Ah my favorite time of year is finally upon us here in Rapid City. Its warming up and the Earth is coming back to life. Renewal is in the air. <3

There are some big things happening here at SoTV. The book is coming along, all be it not as quickly as I had hoped. I'm hoping for a release date of August 1st. Stay tuned for updates!

We have a wonderful new Vegan business here in the Black Hills that will be up and running in early June. Welcome Ginger Twins Vegan Cupcake Company! I had the joy of meeting the younger Ginger Twin, Shannon Crane, last month when the ladies donated 4 dozen of their amazing cupcakes to our local benefit production of The Vagina Monologues. She then graced my door step a week later with 1 dozen of my new favorite treat, their Pumpkin Cream Cheese Cupcake with Orange Buttercream. These cakes are pure heaven! I was skeptical at first of pumpkin (my personal favorite flavor of anything) paired with orange, but whoa mama are these good! The flavors balance in a way that creates this burst of sublime ecstasy on the palette. I had to share the love at the arts center, otherwise I would have eaten the whole box.

I've also sampled their PB&J, which features white cake filled with strawberry jam, and topped with a wonderfully creamy peanut butter frosting. Its the best PB&J you'll ever eat. Their cakes have a wonderful texture that is neither too dry nor overly moist. Its that perfect middle of the road crumb that gives a delightful mouth feel. Their cakes are also just the right amount of sweet. I often find that vegan bakers up the sugar content in the frosting to tooth achingly sweet. The Ginger Twins have got it just right. These ladies are certainly going to hit the ground running in June! I can't wait to try all they've got and introduce all my local peeps to the goodness that is the Ginger Twins Vegan Cupcake Company.

If you'd like information on how you can indulge in a Ginger Twin creation visit the ladies at their website or find them on Facebook. And be sure to let them know Ashley at Season of The Vegan sent ya!

Season of The Vegan 2.0

Its been a long time! But, I'm back and ready to roll. You'll be seeing some big changes here at the blog. Plus, I have some big news about the cook book!

The beautiful Mrs. Anna Roop has agreed to do the food photography for the SoTV cook book! We start the photo shoots and cooking extravaganza on April 7th.

Stay tuned for upcoming contests, Tasting Parties, new recipes!

Last nights dinner...

Dinner with Robin

As promised, here is a picture of last nights dinner. We had Wild Rice, BBQ Tempeh, Asparagus (that a friend of Robin's canned recently), and Oven Roasted Sweet Potatoes. Such a quick, easy, and tasty meal! Here are the recipes for the BBQ Tempeh and the Oven Roasted Sweet Potatoes.

BBQ Tempeh

I left out the onion and green pepper when I made this batch, due to not having them on hand. Its great with or without them. You can serve this as is or on a bun as a Sloppy Joe.

1/2 a large White Onion, diced

1/2 a Green Bell Pepper, diced

2 tbsp Vegetable Oil

1 block Tempeh, crumbled

1/4 cup Your favorite BBQ Sauce

Heat the oil to medium heat in a large skillet. Saute the onion and green pepper for 3-4 minutes. Add the tempeh and continue to saute another 2-3 minutes. Mix in the bbq sauce and finish heating another 4-5 minutes. Enjoy!

Oven Roasted Sweet Potatoes

2 medium Sweet Potatoes or Yams, sliced into 1/4 inch rounds

4 tbsp Olive Oil

1/4 to 1/2 tsp Sea Salt

a sprinkle of Ground Cumin

Preheat oven to 350. Drizzle a cookie sheet with 2 tbsp of the olive oil and place the slices of sweet potato on it. Drizzle remaining olive oil on top of the slices and sprinkle them with the sea salt and cumin. Bake for 20-30 minutes or until fork tender in the middles and slightly blackened and crisp on the edges. Enjoy!

On the road again...

Hi Folks! Well I'm officially on my way to JCCFS for the winter. I've made it 2/3 of the way from Rapid City, SD to Brasstown, NC. That equals out to be roughly 17 hours of driving that I split between two days. I'm delighted to not have to drive today.

Friday night I stopped in Omaha, NE to stay with Carl's cousin. It was a wonderful evening filled with many a glass of wine. I had originally planned to stay in Omaha for the whole weekend and visit all the vegan hangouts, but decided to cut my time short, so I could spend an extra day in Illinois.

Robin and I celebrated my arrival in Decatur, IL last night with a Mexican fiesta. During my time in SD, I had really missed traditional Mexican food. TexMex and, what I've heard people call, Colorado TexMex just aren't the same as the traditional Mexican food that I grew up eating. Last night I gorged myself on Vegetarian Fajitas and Chips and Salsa. It was the "Welcome Home" that I needed after all that time spent in the car.

Tonight for dinner I'm making BBQ Tempeh, Oven Roasted Sweet Potatoes, and Wild Rice. If I can dig my camera out of my luggage, I'll post picks along with the recipes.

Vegan Love and Many Thanks for reading!

Jon Gorman's White Bean Soup

Here's another piece from Jon's series on cooking vegan as a non-vegan. This recipe sounds like the perfect early fall soup to be served with a hearty slice of toasted Sourdough. Give it a whirl, and tell us what you think. 

White Bean Soup

Ingredients
2 TB palm oil
2 small leeks or one large leek, sliced
2 shallots, diced
2 stalks celery, sliced
1 carrot, sliced
1 medium potato, diced
3 cloves garlic, diced (about two teaspoons)
3 cups white beans, cooked
6 cups vegetable stock
3 cups white beans
1 ½ teaspoon lemon juice

Cook the beans ahead of time.  You can probably get away with canned beans, but since they’re the main focus of this dish I prefer to cook them ahead of time.  I just cook a 1 lb pound bag of white beans by putting them in the slow cooker to soak overnight and filling the slow cooker with water, then setting the slow cooker on low during the day while I work.  We have a cheap light timer we use with our slow cooker to set it to cook for about 8 hours.  The beans should have a bit of snap when you first bite it, but otherwise be soft.  I scoop out three cups for the recipe and freeze half-pound amounts of beans in sandwich bags for other recipes.

Chop up the leeks and shallots.  Put two tablespoons of palm oil into a soup pot.  I’d say at least an 8 quart pot is needed, but if you’re neater than me you might be able to do it with less.  Once the solids have melted and the pan is hot, add the leeks and shallots. If you don’t have leeks and shallots, two or three onions will do. Cook till the leek and shallots become translucent, about 6 to 8 minutes.  And add the carrots and celery and a dash of salt.  Cook until the carrot starts to become tender, about another 5 to 8 minutes or.  Add the garlic for about 30 seconds.  

Then add the stock, another dash of salt, beans, and potato and bring to a boil.  Reduce heat to a simmer, and cook for about 40 minutes to an hour.  Make sure that the potatoes are soft.  Once they are, puree the soup with a blender and then add the lemon juice.  

This recipe is a merger of a couple of recipes I’ve seen for white bean soup.  One, from a cookbook I’ve mentioned before on Season of the Vegan, is “Extending the Table”.  The other is a cookbook I got recently from the library, “Bi-Rite Market’s Eat Good Food”.  Both recipes are similar, but both use pork fat in the dish.

I didn’t want to use olive or vegetable oil, but I’d thought about trying vegetable shortening or palm oil.  I’ve had some packets of palm oil in ramen before, a curious thick shorting-like fat that I’d never think to call oil. In a moment of odd coincidences, a book I was reading had on a flight back from a recent conference gave me the motivation to get off my duff and try palm oil more seriously.

The essay that gave me the motivation was, ironically enough, “An Ode to Pig” by Bethany Ewald Bultman in “Corn Bread Nation 2: The United States of Barbecue”.  The essay mentions how lard ended up being a substitute in many African dishes for palm oil.  That lead me on a quest to one of our local international grocery stores, World Harvest Food.  They didn’t have the block form of palm oil, but they had a less refined and very red bottle of the lumpy red palm oil. It is a wonderful, slightly nutty and sweet fat that I’ve been enjoying.  I am now using it in many dishes instead of butter or pork fat and in some cases mixing it with another oil or fat. I’m curious to try it in an avocado-centric dish, but haven’t yet. You can probably use olive oil or shortening in this recipe, but it’s worth seeking out palm oil if you can.

                  
In Jon's professional life he combines a love of books and computers by working as part of Library IT for a large academic library. At home, he explores another love, cooking. Not a vegan himself, he's striving to become a conscientious eater, eating more vegetarian and vegan cooking in his normal diet. An avid cookbook reader, he'll share good vegan recipes he comes across on this blog.