How to Become a Vegan Domestic Goddess

We've moved to a different blog!

2009-11-25T20:43:00.001+08:00

Hey guys! We've moved to a different blog!

You can find the blog at http://kitchenactivist.blogspot.com/

Why the change?

Well, "How to become a vegan domestic goddess" was just too long a blog name. I've been wanting to change it since forever and now I have. Oh and now that I think about it, it kinda sounds pretentious. I still don't think that I'm a domestic goddess. And if I do claim domestic goddess-ness, I give you permission to hit me on the head.

Why kitchen activist?

This is actually what I call myself because I'm a vegan who loves to tinker around in the kitchen. I think the simple act of choosing veganism means you are choosing compassion for animals. You are standing against the animal agriculture industries. You choose not to support animal cruelty.

Anyway, see you 'round http://kitchenactivist.blogspot.com/ !

Vegan MoFo fail + news shmews

2009-11-24T03:23:00.005+08:00

Hey Vegan MoFo'ers, sorry for my embarrassing Vega MoFo performance. Nine MoFo's is really sad. But I have a good excuse. I was busy all October trying to help victims of Typhoons Ondoy and Pepeng. So things got busy. Which is too bad, because I wanted to blog about awesome things, like:

My lentil and quinoa Sunday lunch, which Francis seemed to like.

Vegan food activism in the office which you can definitely do at least once a year or when it's your birthday and your coworkers require you to feed them. In this case, it's a farfalle and black bean salad which I believe knocked their omni socks off.

Being vegan in Hong Kong, which was hecka easy.

And other non-MoFo topics, like despedida food!

Despedida meal #1 at Healthy Kitchen in Serendra; featured: fresh Thai spring rolls.

Despedida meal #2 at Som's, Rockwell; featured: Pad Thai.

Despedida dinner at home with the family; featured: tomato and aubergine linguini.

Why despedida? Well I temporarily closed up my baking shop and resigned from my real job because I'm gonna be away from home for at least half a year... I'm going to culinary school in New York! Which is another reason why I've been neglecting this blog -- I have been busy with work, baking and getting ready for school. I'm excited for this new adventure because I can't wait to seriously hit the culinary scene.

Watch out Manila, I'm gonna set you on vegan fire!

Gorgeous grilled vegetable sandwich: Vegan MoFo #9

2009-10-18T15:05:00.004+08:00

This will be a quick post as the photo speaks for itself. Had a lovely brunch with my 2 lovely cousins, Miren and Monica, and my brother's girlfriend, Bea at Cafe Mary Grace in Alabang Town Center. We came for the chica session but I gotta say, this vegetable sandwich somehow stole the show.

Hey vegans! Cafe Mary Grace may not have a lot of vegetarian breakfast / brunch options but don't feel sad. Grilled vegetables on foccacia was some kind of awesome. It's usually served with caesar dressing inside but tell your server to kindly substitute the dressing with the tomato-wansoy salsa. The salsa is actually one of the fillings of one of their omni sandwiches. If your server doesn't seem to relent, just ask for Glen - he was our server who was only too happy to follow my vegan wishes.

The homemade potato chips is usually served with garlic mayo -- go ahead and sub it for the salsa, but do yourself a favor and just get good old-fashioned ketchup. It's hard to scoop salsa with tiny chips.

What made this sandwich gorgeous? Uber-smoky eggplant and balsamic-glazed oyster mushrooms. Cafe Mary Grace usually adds in grilled zucchini but with the whole Typhoon Pepeng catastrophe, it's been difficult to get fresh vegetables from Benguet. They ended up doubling the eggplant -- no complaints from this customer! I heart eggplant, I can eat it all day.

For vegans who miss puchero: Vegan MoFo #8

2009-10-14T18:50:00.004+08:00

Holy crapparoni, I’ve missed 2 days of MoFo’ing. I gotta get my ass into shape…

What I’d like to share today is a vegan version of another childhood favorite: puchero.

I think this dish is something every Filipino family has its own version of. Puchero actually came from Mexican and South American cuisine. It arrived in the Philippines via Spain and I guess, puchero is one good thing we can thank our colonizers / slavemasters of 300 years for.

Puchero, Spanish for “stewpot”, comes from Argentina, Uruguay, and Spain. According to Wikipedia, the preparation and ingredients of the dish vary by region. Spain particularly likes chickpeas while Argentina and Uruguay like theirs meat-based. Puchero is usually made up of a soup of meat and vegetables.

Here in the Philippines we use chicken, beef, cabbage, baguio pechay / Chinese cabbage, and potatoes. We also like having boiled saba / cooking bananas served on the side. For families who can trace their roots to Spain (fun trivia, on my paternal grandfather’s side we get our Spanish blood from a friar), we like adding chorizo / pork sausage and chickpeas. I believe puchero is usually eaten as a hearty soup but for those with Spanish influences, we like ours soup on the side, meat and veggies served separately, and with rice.

I fondly remember the Sunday puchero tradition upheld in my family. We usually chop up the meat and veggies and mix it with rice, tomato sauce, olive oil, and vinegar in a huge wooden bowl. Each of us had an assignment, whether it’s chopping the meat, or the veggies, or pouring the sauce. My dad usually added the final touch, whether it was a splash of vinegar or a dash of salt. It was a family affair and it was so satisfying to sit down and eat the fruits of our labor.

When my brother Michael and I turned vegan, we no longer joined in this tradition. We missed the family food preparation. When everyone else would enjoy the puchero, we would have some completely different vegan meal.

Last Sunday we had puchero for lunch and for the first time we were able to enjoy a vegan puchero! It felt completely familiar at once and incredibly satisfying to eat. We missed our puchero. For our version we cooked our vegetables (cabbage and baguio pechay) and saba bananas in gently boiling water until tender. Chickpeas, usually an afterthought, became one of the main stars of the dish. We cooked ours in garlic, onions, tomatoes, salt and pepper.

And I confess, I missed chorizo – or rather, the smoky saltiness it imparts. Luckily I had a stash of homemade vegan chorizo (off Isa’s Vegan Brunch cookbook) in the freezer. I threw in a couple of chorizos in a sautee pan with about 1 inch of water and simmered them until tender. I then sliced the sausages in half, and then in quarters diagonally. So as not to throw out the now flavorful cooking liquid, I sautéed some sliced onions in it with a splash of olive oil until tender. After setting the onions aside, I added another glug of olive oil in the same pan and fried up the chorizos.

Eating puchero after years of no puchero was… nothing short of amazing. We didn’t have the time to slice up the chorizo and veggies and mix it up with chickpeas, rice, tomato sauce, olive oil and vinegar like our family usually does but it was rewarding just the same. I got bits of everything and couldn’t even fit rice onto my plate.

If you come from a family that regularly eats a meat-based puchero – you can have your puchero veganified! So to summarize:

Cook vegetables and saba bananas separately from the meat.
Gussy up your chickpeas – cook them with garlic, onions, and tomatoes.
Fry up your favorite vegan chorizo, either store bought or homemade. Check out Julie’s Spicy Italian Sausages, they’re a good substitute.
The puchero seasonings – tomato sauce (cooked with garlic and onions), olive oil, and vinegar – are already naturally vegan!
Mix everything together and dig in!

String beans that will make you sing: Vegan MoFo #7

2009-10-12T01:11:00.004+08:00

You've probably grown up having your own fair share of sucky vegetables. You know what I'm talking about -- vegetables steamed, blanched or boiled to flavorless oblivion, sometimes sauteed in grease and some bits of animal protein, often discolored from too much cooking. Blech.

The humble string bean (here at home, known as the Baguio Bean) is almost always the sad victim of under- or overcooking. I quite frankly detest steamed or blanched string beans because they're just so... boring. Eating blanched string beans feels like a chore. This is why omnivores are omninivores and not herbivores.

I love string beans, they're one of my favorite vegetables. They're dirt cheap and easy to cook so they taste awesome. And and and, if you've got a party and want to serve your guests a non-salad vegetable, string beans are the way to go.

Beans before being stuck in the oven, and they already look lovely.

My favorite way to cook beans? Roast 'em. Lay them on one layer on a baking sheet, brush with olive oil, sprinkle on a good dose of sea salt and black pepper, that's it. No need for some fancy spice blend, leave that for carrots and potatoes. Pure heaven. I can eat these all day.

They usually cook for 20 minutes in a 400 deg F oven, but I like mine quite toasty so I leave them in for an extra 10 minutes. Heck, just eyeball it. Just make sure they don't turn too yellow-green.

Definitely make them garlicky by topping the beans with a smashed garlic / olive oil / salt / pepper mixture before sticking them into the oven. The garlic should be well lubricated in oil so it doesn't burn.

String bean love!

Vegan birthday dinner 2 - a photo essay: Vegan MoFo #6

2009-10-09T02:03:00.005+08:00

Best birthday dinner, especially when you didn't have to lift a finger to make it or have to clarify a hundred times that it's vegan.
Thanks mom.

Samosas from Assad's Mini Mart on Jupiter St., Makati

Lumpiang Macau: friend spring rolls stuffed with seasoned shredded tofu,
served with sweet and sour sauce.

Japchae: Korean glass noodles with vegetables topped with toasted sesame seeds,
spring onions, and sauce (sesame oil, soy sauce, ginger, brown sugar)

Fried tofu slabs to go with the Japchae.

A well-loved dessert from my childhood: Vegan MoFo #5

2009-10-07T21:35:00.003+08:00

Oh mais con hielo, how I've missed thee. I haven't tasted your icy corny goodness in years. How I've longed for your juicy kernels, your crunchy shaved ice, your sweet surrender, your ability to cool this humid tropical weather -- but alas, you are almost always served with dairy evaporated milk. For shame, for shame. It's a good thing mother took me literally when I said I wanted you, and only you veganified, for my birthday dessert. No birthday cake for me, heavens no. And you taste just as good, if not better, with coconut milk. You don't need cow's milk to make you all creamy and lovely. You just need a good dose of creamy non-dairy milk and a healthy serving of sugar (and in my case, brown) to sweeten you up.

While I only had you 2 nights ago, I do hope we see each other very, very soon. I can't wait until our next rendezvous.

Vegan birthday lunch with the parents: Vegan MoFo #4

2009-10-07T01:37:00.004+08:00

Ugh, it's just one of those days where you bake til 1am and you wanna take a bath but you're too tired to get off the chair...

So yesterday was my official birthday and the parents were nice enough to take me out to lunch in Power Plant Mall in Rockwell. Lucky for me, Power Plant has a few good restaurants with vegan options. One of my favorite restaurants there is Wild Ginger, which I've mentioned before in this post. It's not a fancy schmancy restaurant, it just has a good selection of Filipino, Thai, Malaysian, Indonesian, and Indian food.

First up: fresh Vietnamese spring rolls with spicy peanut sauce. It was good, not great. If only they added purple basil or cilantro inside the roll. The roll contained vermicelli noodles, lettuce, cucumber, and carrot.

Spicy tofu peanut salad. This is one salad that did not suck. Very few leaves, lots of fresh bean sprouts, julienned cucumber and jicama, fried tofu, and cilantro in a spicy peanut dressing.

One of my favorite sandwiches: spinach and dal chapati. This time it came with curry sauce on the side. This is usually served with yogurt sauce, so tell your server you want a coconut milk-based curry sauce.

And, the highlight of my lunch! Back story: I haven't had ice cream since January and I've been dying to get my hands on some. I made the mistake once of ordering a vanilla soy milkshake from Chimara in Greenbelt. People, please don't waste your money on Chimara soy anything, it is not good. This is the kind of stuff omnivores make fun of vegans for. I once tried their strawberry ice cream, blech!

I was told that a certain Italian restaurant named Pazzo served vegan gelato. The sad thing is, Pazzo is right in Power Plant, in the Rockwell Center where I work. And for the 2 years I've been working for my company, not once did I try Pazzo's gelato. I deprived myself of ice cream for 10 months for NOTHING.

Pazzo didn't have vegan gelato yesterday but they did have sorbet, which was naturally vegan, IN A WHOLE ARRAY OF FLAVORS. Strawberry, lychee, watermelon, lemon, limoncello and lovely tropical flavors such as calamansi, guava, and pomelo.

I got to taste pretty much all the available sorbet flavors and I ended up choosing a scoop each of lemon and pomelo. It sure was nice to taste some icy, fruity goodness.

Good lunch :)

Happy Feast Day, Vegans! + a vegan birthday dinner + bodacious birthday apple cobbler: Vegan MoFo #3

2009-10-05T21:46:00.010+08:00

Belated Happy World Animal Day, guys!

Hey vegans, it’s our Feast Day too! Yesterday was the feast day of St. Francis of Assisi (1182-1226), the Patron Saint of animals and the environment. Since becoming vegetarian, St. Francis has become my favorite saint; so favorite, I named my third cat after him.

Bear with me for a few paragraphs! I’m lifting this straight from the Catholic Encyclopedia entry on St. Francis. He truly was an amazing person. Omnivores and vegetarians alike could all learn a thing or two from this man:

‘The very animals found in Francis a tender friend and protector; thus we find him pleading with the people of Gubbio to feed the fierce wolf that had ravished their flocks, because through hunger "Brother Wolf" had done this wrong.

‘And the early legends have left us many an idyllic picture of how beasts and birds alike susceptible to the charm of Francis's gentle ways, entered into loving companionship with him; how the hunted leveret sought to attract his notice; how the half-frozen bees crawled towards him in the winter to be fed; how the wild falcon fluttered around him; how the nightingale sang with him in sweetest content in the ilex grove at the Carceri, and how his "little brethren the birds" listened so devoutly to his sermon by the roadside near Bevagna that Francis chided himself for not having thought of preaching to them before [as pictured up there].

‘Francis's love of nature also stands out in bold relief in the world he moved in. He delighted to commune with the wild flowers, the crystal spring, and the friendly fire, and to greet the sun as it rose upon the fair Umbrian vale. In this respect, indeed, St. Francis's "gift of sympathy" seems to have been wider even than St. Paul's, for we find no evidence in the great Apostle of a love for nature or for animals.’

According to legend, on his deathbed St. Francis thanked his donkey for carrying and helping him throughout his life and his donkey wept (okay I got this from Wikipedia).

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Anyway, on to MoFo’ing. My birthday comes right after St. Francis’s feast day, I don’t know why I wasn’t named Francesca, or Frances, or Francine, or whatever derivative you can think of. I am not so big on naming my future children after Saints, but Francis I wouldn’t mind :)

I was so set on blogging about the completely vegan dinner I had last night with family in Corner Tree Café (same guys who buy my cupcakes; a vegan-friendly, vegetarian restaurant) but man, I gotta be quick on my toes with the photographing. For appetizers, we had:

This awesome starter plate of fresh vegetable sticks (cucumber, jicama, carrots) “on the rocks”, chunks of crusty wholewheat bread, white bean hummus, olive oil, and dukka – an Egyptian sesame-seed-and-spice blend.

Wholewheat breadsticks with marinated herbed olives. Not a huge olive fan, my family seemed to like it, but I thought it was way overpriced. They gave us only 2 breadsticks.

And an organic green salad with carrots, beets, and walnuts in a lemon-mustard dressing.

I’m not a big fan of sugary drinks (I wouldn’t mind fresh buko juice or calamansi juice) but I ordered this lemongrass iced tea. It was different, a good kind! Lemongrass-y and gingery.

This is where I stopped taking photos because my 18-month old nephew got hold of my camera. We were also pretty much starving and dug in right away when the servers brought out the food.

We also had the tomato and bread soup, which was nice and chunky.

Our entrees include:

North African vegetable stew with couscous. Flavorful, almost curry-like without the coconut milk but not heavy on the tummy at all. Corner Tree used “gentler”, less heavy spices.
Vegetable koftas in tomato sauce. Just like Italian meatballs except the koftas were a bit more tender.
Tofu-walnut burgers topped with crispy onions with a side of gravy. This was a winner for Michael, my vegan brother. Last time I was here I ordered mine in a whole-wheat bun, this time this was served platter-style, with a side of red rice.
Spaghettini with broccoli, pine nuts, and lemon. This dish was flavorful thanks to the lemony goodness.
Kare-kare na gulay. A Filipino peanut stew of vegetables (leafy greens and mushrooms). Omnivores usually eat this with bagoong or fermented shrimp paste. This was served with vegetarian bagoong made from tausi, aka fermented black beans (a typical Chinese condiment). I didn’t get to taste this dish but my dad said it was good.

Corner Tree Cafe (Vegetarian Food)
Francesca Mabanta
150 Jupiter Street Bel-Air, Makati, Metro Manila
(632) 897-0295
NB: They are closed on Mondays.

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So this was the second time in a row that I had to make my own birthday dessert, but I didn’t mind! I made a super quickie, seriously thrown-together apple cobbler from The Joy of Vegan Baking. I swear, Colleen Patrick-Goudreau is my hero! I love her piecrust-making methods, I’ll never make pies a different way again.

From start to finish including baking, it took me about an hour and fifteen minutes to make this cobbler – but I had help with the peeling and coring of apples. I was set on making a strawberry cobbler with frozen strawberries but I couldn’t find the right recipe (most needed fresh berries). Luckily I had some Fuji apples so I made an apple cobbler instead.

Er, apologies for the crap photo… someone’s little hands smudged up the camera.

Fruit-based desserts are definitely tastier than any other kind, in my book. I don’t want to brag (well it wasn’t my recipe to begin with) but everyone loved it :) Will definitely make this again, especially since it was a no-brainer. Seriously, please make this.

Colleen’s recipe is super easy to follow, it’s like the apple pie for lazy people or for people who are still iffy in the piecrust-making department. Some notes on apple cobbler-making:

The recipe called for an 8- or 9-inch baking pan but I chose to use an 8x10 glass pan because the cobbler had to serve 14 people.
If you’re doing the 8x10 glass pan, I highly recommend adding an additional half recipe of the cobbler dough just so you get enough spread on top.
The recipe called for 5 cups of tart apples, I used 5 sweet Fuji apples. I’m not a fan of tart fruity desserts, sorry. The apples amounted to more than 5 cups = no problem. No need to adjust the sugar mixture you combine with it.
I’m not a fan of white sugar either. Definitely substitute washed / raw sugar. If you don’t have that on hand, then use a 50-50 mixture of white and brown to ease up on the empty calories.
No margarine? No problem. Use unbleached coconut oil. Coconut oil smells amazing and lends a good round “fatty flavor” to the dough. I can’t explain it better, just that coconut oil is awesome. I bought mine from Tindahang Sakto .
I brought the cobbler from the oven to the restaurant. If you’re transporting a dish that came straight from the oven, I highly recommend you cover the dish with foil and place it on a wooden tray with a thick layer of newspaper for protection. Don’t use a plastic tray! I even added a dish towel between the dish and the newspaper.

Not a bad birthday so far.

A salad that doesn't suck for vegans: Vegan MoFo #2

2009-10-03T00:53:00.006+08:00

Edited to add: I just reread this entry and man oh man did I have a lot of grammatical errors. That's what you get when you blog at 3am...

I know there are vegans out there who LOOOOOVE their salads. Some eat one at least once a day. Sorry guys, I'm not one of you. Quite frankly I detest salads. If I'm in a very veg-unfriendly restaurant I'm usually served a couple of leaves with tomatoes, onion, and store-bought dressing. I've been vegetarian for almost 2 years now (anniv on October 8, woohoo!) and in that span I've had a couple of really bad salads.

There must be wrong with chefs out there. For some reason they think that vegetarians would be perfectly happy with a salad that was unethusiastically put together. So, no actual edible vegetarian food on menus except for the boring salad. The sad thing is, salads can be lovely to look at and to eat -- no restauranteur wants to invest in them because they'd rather focus on the meat.

Don't get me wrong, there will be times when I would enjoy a salad as long as the salad is interesting. I love my salads with lots of color and lots of vegetables. I'm not a big fan of the leaves but of the concept of a hearty mixture of veggies.

I made this salad back in September but never got around to blog about it. But check out the picture. Now, wouldn't you want to consume it? I've never come across a salad that interesting in this country. If you have, do let me know, I'd want to check the restaurant out.

What a salad should have so it doesn't suck:

Color. Even the salad greens shouldn't be all green. Check out the varieties with purple leaves. Raise your hand if you hate iceburg lettuce. Add reds with tomatoes, orange with carrots, yellow with peppers, purple with eggplant and Thai basil.
Texture. An all leaf salad is just that, all leaves. Add crunch with bell pepers, carrots and jicama, tenderness with roasted eggplant, juiciness with tomatoes.
Flavor. Leaves have a fresh taste, but you can add even more freshness with bell peppers. Any baked vegetable gives it smokiness too, such as roasted peppers or eggplant.
Herbs. They aren't just for sauces or marinades. Herbs really play up the gourmet factor for cheaps. I added dill in mine, and the large bundle I bought from the grocery store that day was P6!!! I also like lots of parsley, basil, cilantro / wansoy, tarragon.
A good vinaigrette. I get tired of vinegar + oil dressings with no thought given to their flavor. Add herbs to your dressing to make it more flavorful. I like thyme with lemon, cilantro with lime. I've tried dill with balsamic vinegar, not a bad combination. Play up the acid! There are so many vinegars out there that isnt' your regular red balsamic. I've tried white balsamic and it's fruitier and less acidic than the red. Kalamansi is great for tropic salads. Mix in some fruit in the dressing such as mango. Adding jam to your dressing also tones done the acidity. Try some ideas here and here.
Wildcard ingredient. Make your salad definitely not boring with toasted nuts, dried fruit, fresh fruit (I love apples, mango, and suha / pommelo in salads), beans (flavored with dressing).

If you're an omnivore / restauranteur and reading this, give your vegetarian friend / customer a break and make her a salad that doesn't suck.

Vegan MoFo is upon us! Vegan friendly relief good items: Vegan MoFo #1

2009-10-01T01:41:00.013+08:00

Hey bloggers and readers! Last year I blogged every weekday of October in celebration of Vegan MoFo, or Vegan Month of Food. I had a blast and it really gave me the push I needed to be a frequent blogger.

What's Vegan MoFo, you ask? I quote from The Post Punk Kitchen's website:
"The idea is to write as much as you can for the month of October about vegan food. The blog entries can be about anything food related - your love of tongs, your top secret tofu pressing techniques, the first time your mom cooked vegan for you, vegan options in Timbuktu - you get the idea. There is no strict guideline for how much you have to write, but we shoot for about 20 times a month, or every weekday."

Vegan MoFo is a blog event celebrated around the world in celebration and promotion of vegan food. If you're a local reader, excuse me when I sound like I'm talking to the international community.

I would have loved to start off MoFo #1 with something home-cooked or home-baked but maybe this post will be something completely different from what other Vegan MoFo bloggers would blog about. If you haven't heard the news, my beloved country, the Philippines, was hit by massive Typhoon Ondoy over last weekend, leaving 80% of Metro Manila completely flooded and half a million people displaced. I believe the death toll is 246, according to the Philippine Daily Inquirer. Floods have reached over 10 feet high and they have not receded in some areas. People say that Ondoy is worse than Hurricane Katrina.

The great thing about the Filipino spirit is that we want to help out in any way we can. To be a Filipino in this state of calamity means giving your all for your fellow countrymen. No dependence on the government for us, nosiree (that's a whole different rant). Everyone has and is chipping in -- whether it's through donating relief goods, cash, or time to volunteer at packing centers or evacuation centers. Classes have been called off for the week and even the kids are helping out.

Flood refugees are in immediate need of food, and fast. The usual food care package a refugee and his/her family receive is composed of rice, canned goods (usually sardines, corned beef, and / or luncheon meat), instant noodles, and water. I'm not about to get on my high horse and say they shouldn't be eating meat. When you've lost your home and are struggling to survive and get your life on track, you definitely don't have the luxury of choosing what goes in your mouth.

But if you're someone who wants to donate to disaster victims and would like to give something different, let me enlighten you: give something vegan. Not only are vegan items more nutritious than their meat counterpart, they give you more bang for your buck.

Here are some food ideas one can donate to a refugee's care package:

Rice -- always a staple grain in Filipino cuisine and something that easily fills you up. White rice is of course more preferable, as it cooks more quickly than the brown or red varieties.
Mongo beans -- this local legume is absolutely cheaper than meat and has a long shelf life. It's a good source of protein and fiber, which canned meat lacks. Best to get cracked mongo beans so they cook quicker. True, dried mongo beans need to be cooked and not all victims have access to cooking utensils, a makeshift stove, and drinking water for that matter. Perhaps soup kitchens that are popping up everyone should consider making mongo guisado over arroz caldo with chicken. Cheaper, more nutritious.
Canned beans -- beans in tomato sauce are usually available in most supermarkets and there are always the kind packed in salted water. True, beans-in-water isn't as tasty as anything floating in sauce, but when you're a refugee, I'd think you'd take whatever you can get. Oh and, these are cheaper than canned meat.
Crackers -- something that also fills you up cheaply. I am partial to the regular Skyflakes kind because it doesn't have milk (their wholewheat is not vegan).
Peanut butter -- who doesn't love peanut butter, aside from those allergic to it? My favorite brand is Lily's because it doesn't contain additional oil and high fructose corn syrup. Made from local peanuts too, so you support local peanut farmers. Peanut butter is a quick source of protein, fat, and fiber, and easily goes with crackers and bread which are cheap. I've actually once eaten rice with peanut butter once, when I didn't have access to more palatable vegan food. Not the worst thing.
Bread -- I like Olsen's over Gardenia because [a] it's cheaper, [b] it's vegan, and [c] it doesn't have an ingredients list that requires you to major in Chemistry.
Soymilk -- I know I know, some brands are pretty expensive, but I love the brand Soyfresh because it's in the same price line as cow's milk. Aside from 1-liter tetra packs, Soyfresh comes in individual-sized drink boxes. Something for the kids, who need as much calcium as they can get.
Sugar -- Most refugee parents would like to get sugar in their care packages because they mix this with water and feed it to their kids. I can't pull up a site right now but I think it's got something to do with dextrose. Or even blood sugar. Not only is brown sugar "healthier" than white, it's cheaper too.
last but not the least... Water.

I hope this post enlightened you.

Hey international readers! If you'd like to help us out, please visit Google's site on Help for Typhoon Ondoy victims. Scroll down to "credit card / paypal donations" if you'd like to make a monetary donation. Scroll down to "US-based drop off points" if you'd like to make a donation in kind. Sorry, I don't see any other drop off point for other countries. You can check Google's site frequently for updates. What's urgent right now is monetary donations because these will reach us faster.

If you're wandering what's happening to the non-human flood victims, the Philippine Animal Welfare Society is spearheading rescue efforts in Marikina, one of the most devastated cities in the metro. They currently have 16 animal refugees. More information on and pictures of the flood rescues here. Anyone can also drop off their pets in the PAWS Animal Rehabilitation Center here, while he/she attends to his/her survival. If you would like to make a monetary donation, view their instructions here. If you prefer in kind, view instructions here. Find out what they really need here. For the international readers, best to donate money.

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Best effort to do a Vegan MoFo post every weekday in October but given that we're in a state of calamity, I'll do my best :)

Birthday buko pie

2009-09-21T12:42:00.006+08:00

Happy happy birthday to Michael, my awesome brother who turned vegan the same time I did and has been my animal-rights fighting buddy ever since. I can honestly say that vegan life would've been more difficult if not for him. He was the only vegan I knew for the longest time (until the vegans started coming out of hibernation when they heard about my bakery) and the person I'd rant to when I'd get angry about an AR-related issue. He also convinced me to adopt our cats when I was still hesitant about keeping pets.

Here he is with my mom, my 2 other brothers Gabriel and Antonio, and the birthday pie I made for him: buko pie. Ever since my triumph with my first vegan pie, I've been dying to make buko pie.

Buko pie is one of those Filipino desserts that is usually not vegan and something that I've missed eating. Usually the pie crust is made with butter or dairy margarine, or it's got eggwash brushed on top, or the filling's made with milk. Michael requested buko pie for his birthday instead of traditional cake, and so I went on a mission to make my first buko pie.

Quick lesson: buko is the young version of coconut. While the coconut looks like a hard ball of brown hair, buko is a hard green ball. The coconut's meat is used to make coconut milk while buko meat is softer and is used fresh in fruit salad or other Pinoy icy desserts. Also, it's from the buko that we get one of the best juices in the world: buko juice.

I immediately turned to my mom's favorite cookbook when it comes to all things Filipino: Let's cook with Nora, by Nora V. Daza, the Julia Child of the Philippines. As you can see in the photo it's been well used. A lot of the newsprint pages have been splattered with sauces and the book cover had to be wrapped in plastic because it was in a serious state of disintegration. My mom bought this in 1996 for a whopping P85. For the foreigners out there, according to this site the peso was around P26.25 to the US dollar in September '96, so the cookbook would've costed a whopping US$3.24! I believe this edition was the 1969 edition with retro drawings of the dishes.

The recipe was easily veganizable. Actually I'm surprised that buko pie isn't naturally vegan. The recipe for the pie filling called for buko meat, sugar, coconut water (aka buko juice), cornstarch, and evaporated milk. Why do people insist on using cow's milk when making a coconut dessert? What's wrong with coconut milk?

I made the 10" pie crust from The Joy of Vegan Baking (you can use VeganYumYum's pie crust recipe here). The buko pie filling recipe was for an 8" pie so I just added 1/4 more of the ingredients.

You can buy buko meat and buko juice from your local coconut purveyor, usually found in markets / palengke. I bought mine from the market in BF, Paranaque, along Palanca St. for P17 per buko. The coconut guys sell both adult coconuts and bukos -- fresh as they hack open the fruits right in front of you. For this recipe, just ask your coconut guy for the juice and meat of 3 bukos. Get the meat as a whole, don't get it slivered up. While waiting for them to prepare your order, enjoy a glass of buko juice.

Buko pie
adapted from Let's Cook with Nora by Nora V. Daza

1 prepared 10" pie crust (top and bottom)

2 1/4 c. buko meat, sliced into chunks
3/4 c. + 3 tbsp. raw sugar
1/2 c. + 2 tbsp. buko juice
1/2 c. + 2 tbsp. coconut milk
1/3 c. + 1 tbsp. + 1 tsp. cornstarch

Preheat your oven to 400 deg F.

Place the buko meat and sugar in a medium saucepan. In a medium mixing bowl, whisk the cornstarch, buko juice, and coconut milk together. Add the cornstarch mixture to saucepan.

Heat the pan on medium heat and cook, stirring continuously until thick. The consistency of the mixture should be like thick gravy. Add the mixture into the prepared crust and top it with top crust. Crimp the edges with your fingers or with the tines of a fork. Make slits on the top (or use a fondant cutter to make cute holes like I did).

Bake the pie for 30-45 min or until golden brown. Cool the pie in room temperature for several hours, then place in the refrigerator to cool down further. The pie is best served cold.

Notes on making buko pie:

If you want a pie with more "bite", get your buko meat malakanin. This is thicker than the usual mala-uhog type, which is softer and better suited for buko salad.
Keep the buko meat and buko juice in the refrigerator at all times!
I used canned coconut milk -- in fact I think I used light coconut milk. If you want a richer pie, feel free to use regular coconut milk or even coconut cream. If you're feeling domestic, why not make your own coconut milk?
I used raw sugar to keep things white-sugar free, but feel free to use white sugar. This pie isn't super sweet so it's perfect for people who aren't into desserts. If you'd like a sweeter pie, you can increase the sugar to 1 to 1 1/4 c.
The proportions of the ingredients was 1 + 1/4 of the recipe in the cookbook. The pie could actually use more filling, so if you want a meatier pie, try these proportions: 2 1/2 c. buko slivers, 1 c. + 1 tbsp. raw sugar, 3/4 c. buko juice, 3/4 c. coconut milk, and 1/3 c. + 2 tbsp. + 2 tsp. cornstarch.

Happy pie making!

A day for the animals, a hearty Indian-ish dinner, an attempt at homemade vegan cheese

2009-09-17T00:52:00.011+08:00

A day for the animals

Photos by my coworker, Jeanette Mactal

So I finally got to visit the PAWS Animal Rehabilitation Center in Quezon City 2 Saturdays ago with a couple of coworkers, bringing gifts of food for the shelter dogs and cats. After the feeding activity, Anna Cabrera, the Philippine Animal Welfare Society Program Director, gave us an orientation and tour of the facilities. Let me just tell you, WOW. It's really amazing what PAWS does to help the plight of Pinoy dogs and cats, also known as askals (street dogs) and puskals (street cats). The place was brimming with 36 dogs and 184 cats (as of September 5), all looking for their forever homes. The feline quarantine area was full of days and weeks old kittens. The canine quarantine area had its own fair share of sadness. The guy up there was rescued from the dog meat trade. A lot of them were abused and abandoned by their former owners. The rehabilitation PARC gives them is amazing. It's really different when you're sitting pretty at work and at home with theoretical veganism, and when you see animal cruelty staring at you literally in the face. Hearing their rescue and rehab stories truly is a testament to the philosophy of living compassion and non-violence in one's life.

Anyway, the day-for-the-animals was made complete when my vegan brother (who tagged along at this office volunteer activity) and I stopped for awesome practically-fast food veggie burgers at Good Burger in Pasig, across Tiendesitas. It's sooo nice to be able to eat vegan fast food! Good Burger sells veggie burgers with the option to remove non-vegan items, such as mayo and cheese. They also sell chicken burgers, which is insane... I mean, I would think meat eaters would go for beef rather than chicken when it comes to burgers. I seriously doubt their chicken burgers were any good... Oh, and after the Good Burger lunch, my brother and I spent the afternoon making:

Julie Hasson's Spicy Italian Sausages, recipe here.

Excellent excellent day. We hung out with the shelter dogs and cats, scarfed down veggie burgers, and made a ton of veggie sausages.

Indian-ish dinner
On the Tuesday after the PARC visit (2 Tuesdays ago), it was so nice to sit down and have a hot hearty meal after a grueling day at the office. I was supposed to ride home with my brother on that day but it was pretty traffic from his office to mine -- he ended up arriving at my workplace at around 7:30. So we headed to the nearby mall, specifically Powerplant, for a satisfying dinner at a restaurant, particularly Wild Ginger.

Wild Ginger is one of the few restaurants in Powerplant that has good vegan options, and I'm not even talking about tomato sauce + noodles. They have legumes! I've eaten there several times but it was my first time to try their dal and spinach chapati sandwich, which was really good. I call it an Indian-ish dinner because I'm not certain Indians would use 2 chapatis to make a sandwich. It looked more like a no-cheese quesadilla. It usually comes with a yogurt dip which is easily do-withoutable. It was topped with basil, but I think it would've been better if topped with cilantro. The cumin and (I think) coriander really shone, and the dal wasn't dry at all.

I also had the Asian tomato soup -- awesome as well. It was flavored with lemongrass, a pleasant surprise, chili, and cilantro.

Soup and sandwich -- such a Western meal, yet it was Indian.

An attempt at homemade vegan cheese

Eek, I know, what a crap looking photo.

With the success at making vegan sausages under my belt, I decided to venture out and make my first vegan cheese. "Mostarella", to be exact, from the pages of The Uncheese Cookbook. I'm glad that it doesn't taste like dairy cheese. It has cheese-like qualities -- it's savoury, slightly sour, and it melts. The sourness can be attributed to my addition of tahini and a combination of lemon and calamansi juice. I'm glad I finally experimented, although the results were just alright. I guess I don't miss cheese that much that I'd want to scarf down the fake stuff. It is a nice alternative topping on toast, which I usually have it on in accompaniment to a bowl of beans for breakfast. It actually does spectularly in vegan lasagna, together with Veganomicon's tofu ricotta. By the way, that tofu ricotta is pretty good stuff in Italian-inspired dishes.

Shelter dogs and cats deserve your love too

2009-09-03T20:05:00.005+08:00

Nothing much up in veganland, I'm just really excited to visited the PAWS Animal Rehabilitation Center, or PARC this Saturday with some officemates. For all my vegan exclamations I have not yet set foot in an animal shelter. One day I hope to put one up near where I live, but it sure is a vocation that needs a lot of dedication, hardwork, and of course, money. A farm animal sanctuary would be heaven too... I live in Southern Manila and PARC is all the way in the north -- one of the reasons why I haven't been to a shelter. While the country is brimming full of unwanted dogs and cats, we only have pretty much 1 shelter (does anyone else know of a shelter?).

Just wanted to blog about that bit... Now if you're thinking of buying a pet, I highly encourage that you think of all the unwanted dogs and cats for a moment. These all deserve a good home just as much as that pet you're about to buy. Only that by adopting a shelter dog or cat, you're doing both of yourselves a favor. Buying a pet kills a shelter animal people, please believe me. You buy a pet, a shelter animal wallows away. Another reason why sometimes I feel like I'm about to explode when people can't understand this concept and decide to buy anyway... Or God forbid, have their female pets get pregnant and sell the babies...

Open mouth, insert foot: confessions, justifications and apologies from an animal lover.

2009-08-25T23:57:00.004+08:00

Would you adopt me even if I didn't have a pedigree?

Okay, I will confess. Since becoming vegan, I have become more judgmental and less forgiving. Sometimes I’ll be cold if you say something I find insensitive that pisses me off more than before. With all my how-dare-you’s, I’ve had to do a lot of I’m-sorry’s. I know, blowing up at people is the best thing to get you to the vegan side! But hear me out loud please.

Before I became vegetarian in October 2007, I lived in a man-centric world where everything was meant for our pleasure. Food made from cow reproductive secretions? Yum! Skinned lambs on our backs? Bring it on. Mascara tested on bunny eyes? As long as it makes me look like I actually have eyelashes, I’ll buy it. And yes, I used to not like animals. I’ve had pet chicks and a rabbit which I bought from a school fair. Yes they all died.

I lived in a world so convenient for me, I was like Neo before he found out about the Matrix. Ignorance was indeed bliss. And then through some careful research, the veil was lifted, my paradigm shifted, and I learned all the shit happening to animals everywhere. It was pure torture. Heart ache. I’d cry watching the undercover videos. I couldn’t handle the truth, partly because it went against everything I was taught in life. Sometimes I wish I would go back to my pre-vegan days for the convenience thing. It sure was a lot easier when I didn't have to check if the bread I was buying contained whey and that the cute winter coat had no wool.

And then I think of myself (haha, still on the [wo]man-centric thing). Would I want to live in a cage my whole life, have all sorts of crap put in my eyes just to make sure someone else wouldn’t suffer what I had to suffer? Or, how would I feel being raped and impregnated over and over again, just to have my baby ripped from my arms and having machines suck my nipples to get my milk to “more deserving” people? For those who didn’t know, cows have to be pregnant and give birth in order to be milked. I can’t imagine it and I’d hate those lives. I’d surely kill myself before being killed.

I will always remember April 30 as the day Lucky came into my life. He’s my first cat and despite his I’m-too-cool-to-pay-attention-to-you attitude, I love him and my other 2 cats, all rescues, to death. Some people (namely my family) think I’m crazy because I hug them and kiss them and yes, talk to them. Everyday. I will brave dengue-carrying mosquitoes to go to their cat house to scoop out the poop from their litter (sadly my cats no longer live in my home as my mom is convinced my youngest brother is “allergic” to them). I will even weather a storm to bring towels to them in the middle of the night to make sure they’re warm. One of them needs antibiotics? I’ll give it in a syringe and say that “you’re such a brave, brave cat.”

That’s just the tip of my iceberg craziness, people. When Lucky was 2-3 weeks old my dad stepped on him (yes Pop, you’ll never hear the end of it!) and he looked like a mangled pirate kitten. His legs were broken. He could not poop on his own (actually, all kittens need help in the crapper). It was summer and my 3 younger brothers and I took turns monitoring him 24 hours a day. My shift was between 5am and 7am. One morning I was massaging his butt with a moist cotton ball to try to coax the poop out. He ended up squirting shit on my hand, and some on my shirt. And here was this one-eye-swollen-shut kitty struggling to get away from me and my poopy hands with his useless legs, and all I could do was laugh and clean up. What fun cats bring, and I'm not even being sarcastic.

Believe it or not, animals can bring us humans a lot of joy. In fact, you don’t need to be vegan to learn this truth. If you’ve got a pet at home, and I’m assuming you’re a pretty loving owner, you know what I’m talking about. Pets don’t care if you’re getting fat or your hair’s seen better days. Even if you accidentally forget to leave them food in the morning, they. Will. Always. Come. Back. To. You. Because yup, sure we’re taught they aren’t rational beings, but how can irrational beings have unconditional love for us? Here’s another question: how is a purebred cat any different from a cat from the street, other than its color?

So what am I getting to? I’ve been vegan for almost 2 years and yes, aside from the food and no-leather, no-stuff-experimented-on-animals thing, I have changed. Knowing what I know now, I’d like to think I’ve changed for the better. Yes, I am the crazy vegan lady who is often insensitive and is almost always the party pooper when it comes to “I love foie gras!”, “I want a labradoodle!”, "I just want my cat to experience the joy of kitten birth!" exclamations. Yes, if you ask me “If you’re stuck on a desert island with a lion, would you eat it?”, maybe I will eat YOU. And we’ve ALL heard about the vegetables-scream-when-you-eat-them joke, harharhar. We’ve never heard THAT one before. Or how about, “If you’re so much against animals being abused, why do you have cats and why don’t you let them roam free?”

It’s been more difficult for me to be more patient, because sometimes I forget that people don’t know or don’t want to know the truth about the plight of abused farm animals, pet overpopulation caused by our breeding of dogs and cats, horrors of vivisection, what goes on in a fur farm and egg farm, etc etc. Which is why, a lot of the times my responses to animal-related questions may sound condescending, bitchy, and downright icy enough to make you sound like the enemy. Which is why I would like to sincerely apologize to readers of this blog who I may have accidentally alienated with my answers regarding your questions related to animals and animal rights. Maybe you were just really curious and didn’t mean any harm. Sorry guys.

I’d just like to make a point though, with regards to pets. Yes I have my cats and I am not against having pets. I have them partly for selfish reasons, partly because the other option was for them to become road kill, and partly as a symbolic promise to all animals that I will help them in any capacity that I can.

I am, however, against the purchase of animals for pets and am fully supportive of adoption. Our country, no this world, is TEEMING with millions of dogs and cats who just want a home and a loving human companion. These guys didn’t just pop out of nowhere, we bred them into existence. They’re not coyotes and tigers, they are animals domesticated by us over hundreds of thousands of years. And then when we feel too tired to take care of them, we let them “go free”. Or, sometimes we just chain them up and forget to feed them, whatever floats our boat. Sometimes we’ll shout at them when they piss on themselves because we’re too busy to take them out to exercise and do their toilet business. We complain when our female cats get pregnant because, who wants to take care of kittens? Let’s not spay her, oh no that’s too expensive. Let’s just stick her babies in plastic bags and drown them. We also looove to rant about all the street dogs and cats that populate our communities, and sometimes, we secretly love to run over the slow ones who don’t manage to run across the road as we step on the gas. Maybe if you had an opportunity, you’d shoot that tomcat that just loves to stroll around your garden. Who gives a shit, right? They’re not humans.

So next time I answer really snarkily, I’m really sorry and I hope you’ll forgive me. Please remember that I don’t meant to attack you, I’m just thinking of all the poor animals out there that are abused and unloved. Sometimes I forget to think before I talk, I end up being an ass and I stick my foot in my mouth. No hard feelings, okay?

To readers out there – I’d like to ask you a question. Do you often find yourself short tempered when it comes to asinine-sounding questions? How do you manage your temper and your mouth? To the vegetarians and vegans out there, how do you deal with your pent-up emotions about the animals, and how do you make sure you don’t come out as the crazy vegan?

Would you want my life?

Where to get your vegan cupcake fix in Manila + rant on Jupiter cr Nicanor traffic guys

2009-08-24T20:27:00.007+08:00

These chai latte cupcakes will make you sing.

If you're craving for tasty, moist cupcakes that promise that no animals were harmed in their creation AND don't taste like sawdust, but you're kinda broke to buy a whole box from you-know-who, then please, step into Corner Tree Cafe on Jupiter Street in Makati.

That's right folks! I'm so pleased to blog that for the past few weeks, I've been supplying fabulous tasting cupcakes to this quaint vegetarian restaurant that is very vegan-friendly. It helps that the dishes are inexpensive and the place is easily accessible to both Northern and Southern Manilenyos alike.

I was very fortunate to come across this opportunity when my good friend Pet and I had dinner here one Friday night. I had heard much about the restaurant from co-vegans and was encouraged to try their tofu-walnut burger and lemony brocolli pasta. After dinner, Chiqui the owner went up to me and introduced herself. Pet told her that I was vegan and that I made vegan cupcakes. She was the one I sent a sample box of cupcakes to mentioned in this post!

Lucky for me she liked 'em, and now I supply 'em. The usual available flavors this establishment orders include those in the picture and red velvet cupcakes. Who knows, maybe they'll order the other flavors.

Just a heads up!

Corner Tree Cafe (Vegetarian Food)
Francesca Mabanta
150 Jupiter Street Bel-Air, Makati, Metro Manila
Cell: Chiqui +63917-8481004 or Leah +63916-6149927

NB: Corner Tree is closed on Mondays.

If after eating in Corner Tree you decide to get out of Jupiter St. via Buendia, I highly recommend you watch out for those traffic guys in yellow that are just begging to catch you run the light when you turn left into Nicanor. I delivered some cupcakes to Corner Tree last Saturday and I almost got a ticket. I almost cried too, because Saturday just wasn't my day -- I had rushed making an apple pie beforehand and I was running late to Ateneo to watch a play. Anyway, the guy told me I ran a red light when I distinctly saw it was green. Apparently you had to wait for the green arrow to light up before turning left. I cordially argued with him and I even got down from my car and we walked to the light. I showed him that the arrow was not in fact red, that the arrow never lit up. I emerged unscathed and un-ticketed. Those fuckers caught a ton of cars "running the red arrow" when there was no red arrow! I told the guy that maybe he can tell his boss to put a sign on the traffic lightpost so drivers can follow the law more accordingly, or to have the light fixed so that the red light would light up. He just told me to go to the MMDA to file my complaint. He probably thought he'd get a bribe out of me, well tough! May they rot in the humid heat while trying to catch innocent motorists who run the non-existent red arrow.

A mention in Philippine Daily Inquirer's Sunday Magazine :)

2009-08-22T00:44:00.004+08:00

Nothing much up in vegan land today, except...

I got featured in last Sunday's Philippine Daily Inquirer's Sunday Magazine!

For those not familiar with PDI, it's the top newspaper in the country. I didn't know it came out until one of my good friends sent me a text congratulating me. Of course I ran down to the breakfast table and took a look for myself. I felt so guiddy :)

That Sunday I got a lot of texts, some emails, a lot of invites to be my contact in Multiply. It felt really nice for strangers to inquire about vegan baked goods. Finally, vegan baking is being recognized by national media!!!

VEGAN BAKED GOODS FTW!!!

Apple pie and black eyed peas and cats, oh my!

2009-08-16T00:40:00.011+08:00

Today (Saturday) was one swelteringly humid day(probably 30 deg C or +90 deg F in the kitchen!), but that didn't stop me from baking my first vegan pie. Quite frankly I get intimidated with pies... I am not good at making crusts. The last time I made a pie was 2 years ago for my mom's birthday -- a (non vegan) apple pie. I hated rolling the dough on our kitchen counter because the dough would almost always stick on the surface.

But can you believe I haven't had pie in 8 months? And before that, about a year and a couple of months? Yeah, if I craved pie, I'd have to make it myself (ditto with cake, cookies, or cupcakes)...

So I did just that today. At first I was looking at Lauren Ulm's blueberry hand pies, but I was thinking, maybe I should stick to traditional pies (also, where the heck would you find blueberries in this country?). Then I spotted her mini apple pies, then I remembered Colleen Patrick Goudreau had an apple pie recipe in her cookbook, The Joy of Vegan Baking. That pretty much sealed the deal.

Colleen's instructions for her flaky pie crust were extremely easy to follow. I was a bit apprehensive about pie-making today because of the heat, but her tip to freeze everything -- the margarine, shortening, and flour -- helped mixing the dough a breeze. There's a 1-hr waiting period between mixing the dough and rolling it out into a crust, which was perfect because I was able to run errands and buy some apples. Her cookbook called for refrigerating the dough for 1 hour but I ended up freezing mine. If you live in a tropical country, you'll know that freezing dough makes more sense than refrigerating it.

Then came the hard part: rolling it out. I cheated and lined my kitchen counter with my Silpats, which helped immensely (I know I know, I'm a fake baker!). I suppose you can roll it out on plastic wrap or wax paper. And wow, how easy it was to transfer the rolled out dough from Silpats to pie dish! I may just make pies more frequently now.

Diced apples with lemon juice, raw sugar, cinnamon, and a pinch of salt.

Colleen's recipe was super easy to follow and before I knew it, I had a pie baking in the oven. What excitement! What joy! I was so giddy. Unfortunately I stuck the pie in the oven at around 6pm and it didn't make it in time for dessert -- the recipe recommends letting the pie cool for 3-4 hours, to let the juices thicken. Actually this waiting process was a blessing in disguise... My family is having lunch out tomorrow for my dad's birthday, and he absolutely adores apple pie. So right now I can't say for sure how good the pie tastes like, except that it looks pretty good. Nevermind that the crust looks *slightly* brown -- so I tried to healthify it by using raw sugar instead of brown, big deal. The recipe called for sprinkling the top of the crust with a cinnamon-sugar mixture (I had to cover the pie in foil half-way through baking to avoid even more burntness). Here's to hoping it tastes as awesome as it looks.

PS I never used to crimp the edges of my pie crusts, I'd always just press the tines of a fork in the edges to seal them. I truly feel like a domestic goddess with the whole crimping action :)

************************

So after sticking the pie in the oven, I was left with an extra peeled apple. Let me tell you that refrigerators (yes we have 2 - the vegan and the omni. Three, if you count the one sitting in my garage, unplugged and unused) in my house don't bode well for little bits of leftovers. Leftovers often get shoved into our refrigerators, never to be seen or heard of again until we go around hunting for extra food containers (because we almost always run out of food containers with all the leftovers being shoved in the fridges -- what a vicious cycle!) and unearth food with fuzz.

I ended up sticking the extra apple in a black eyed pea spiced stew my brother and I were having for dinner (before you gag, read on!). We had a leftover container of this black eyed pea-tomato sauce mixture which didn't really have much taste... It had no spices (except for chili) or herbs whatsoever, only the usual garlic and onions. I decided to throw in a teaspoon of cumin seeds in a skillet of hot oil, sautee some slivered onion and sliced apples, add a dash of smoked paprika, oregano, and cinnamon, then mix in the black eyed pea mixture along with chopped cilantro. Oh and I added in the juice of half a lemon, whose other half I used for the apple pie (I am a total leftover saver!).

An apple and black eyed pea spiced stew = yum!

What a fortunate fortunate discovery -- the apples did not weird the dish out at all! For some reason the sweetness of the apples tempered the spices, especially the cumin. I can't say for sure how long I cooked the dish, because I just winged it. The apples weren't mushy -- they were softened a bit yet crisp. So, tip: apples go well in spiced bean stews.

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Just some gratuitous pictures of the babies:

Poor poor Lucky, the little man has had fever for over a week and seems to be recovering. Last Saturday night I found a lump (!!! I thought it was a cyst!) in the left side of his throat which turned out to be an infected wound that turned into some sort of boil. The vet said he may've gotten bitten by another cat :( Unfortunately for us, the cats can't stay indoors because my mom believes that my youngest brother (who is fond of the cats himself) is allergic to them. We've built a nice cattery for them in the garden and I let them explore the garden during the day. Often times they meet stray cats, and believe me this country is brimming with stray cats. Lucky's on antibiotics for 2 weeks (now on his 2nd week) and we had to spread some ointment on his lump to speed up the healing process. He's had a fever for a week which made him pretty lethargic and sleepy most days. Today he decided to venture into the garden and disappear for the whole afternoon. As I put him back in the cattery I found out that he has another lump, this time in the right side of his throat :( Will have to consult the vet again tomorrow morning.

The little lady herself, who used to be healthier than Lucky, isn't in tip top shape either! Last Thursday night as I cuddled her, I smelled this awful sewer-like smell seeping from the top of her head. As I laid her down I felt my hands were wet and smelled like the sewer. Lo and behold, her bum leg was seriously infected. Apparently, since she doesn't use the paw on the bum leg, her thumb nail had grown so long and grew back into her paw. It caused a nasty infection, which spread onto her bum leg and her chest, causing her fur to fall out! In addition to the ingrown nail was rain getting stuck in her fur -- whenever her chest and bum leg would get wet, they wouldn't dry off properly because of the way she folds her leg over her chest. The vet was able to cut out the ingrown nail and prescribed an anti-bacterial cream to be spread on her leg and chest 2-3 times a day for a week, and antibiotics for 2 weeks. Included with the drugs is this cone she has to wear around her neck so she won't lick off the cream. Oh and, whenever it rains she's not allowed out :(

And Francis Boy over here is the healthiest of them all. This little guy hasn't experienced any sickness or complication whatsoever. Francis loves hanging out in the garden, meowing for attention and getting his ears rubbed by us. He absolutely hates being picked up. Sometimes he can be such a dear dear pet, always begging to be loved, but when he knows you want to put him back in the cattery, he runs for his life and disappears up the mango tree. I guess you can say he's the most streetsmart of 'em all because he loves climbing trees and fences and going into our neighbors' gardens, with nary a scrape or wound on him. He grooms himself quite splendidly and I'm sure he's aware he's one good looking cat.

The picture on the left is of little Francis as a baby, when we newly rescued him. This was taken in October 2008 and I'm guestimating that he's about a year old now. If you look at the pictures on the left (then) and the right (now), he still has the same dagger-eyes expression! Despite his fierce appearance, he is the sweetest, most lovable cat there is. He is almost like a dog in the sense that he doesn't look down on his human, as most cats do :)

Stuff I've been doing + a duck photo

2009-08-11T23:20:00.006+08:00

Sorry blog, I neglected you once again. Here's what I've been up to since my last post:

Chocolate cupcake and almond rosewater cupcake.

Tinkering around with rose-inspired frosting designs. I've been spying cupcakes frosted to look like roses 'round Flickr and it's been driving me crazy. I really couldn't figure out how those bakers did it! After a few experiments I finally broke the code. I'm not sure if this is supposed to be a super baker's secret, but what the hell. You basically use a 5-point star tip, start frosting from the center and work your way out. So simple yet so stunning.

Missing old childhood food. I don't miss the dead animal flesh mind you, I just miss the familiarity of eating a burger sandwich, using an actual bun, filled with ketchup and mustard. I took this photo about 2 months ago and uploaded it in Flickr 3 weeks ago. As of this post it's received 99 views. Hmmm. I guess vegans do miss familiar food. This is a burger bun filled with 3 vegan burger patties, a couple of lettuce leaves, and a good dose of mango vinaigrette. I know, not conventional, but it went pretty well. The vinaigrette was a version of this recipe but with cane vinegar subbing for the calamansi juice and olive oil subbing for the sesame oil. The burger patties are a version of Vegan with a Vengeance's.

Promoting vegan cupcakes to mainstream media. I sent a box of these cupcakes to a well known local food magazine for a pictorial. They actually found me on Multiply! So so tickled. Anyway, the magazine edition with the cupcakes should come out sometime in the 4th quarter. This box has 6 flavors.

Top, L-R: red velvet, chai latte, lemony.
Bottom, L-R: banoffee, carrot cake, almond rosewater.

I sent the same box to a vegetarian restaurant in the Makati CBD called Corner Tree Cafe. They seem to like 'em, they've been ordering every week for their customers. If any of you readers are around Jupiter St. in Makati, hit up Corner Tree Cafe! It's near Aristocrat.

(I also sent another box of cupcakes to a lifestyle magazine targeted to Southern Manilenyos, not pictured. Well received too!)

Cupcake-catering for my lolo's / grandfather's 95th birthday party. My dad asked me to make cupcakes for giveaways for guests. In the span of 7-8 hours I was able to come up with 100+ cupcakes, packaged in these beautiful silver cardboard-plastic boxes. They looked smashing, if I do say so myself. I just cringe when I think about the amount of waste these generated. I hate using plastic...

Anyway, here are some closeups:

Red velvet cupcakes.

Banoffee cupcakes. Banana cupcakes topped with coffee buttercream and shaved dark chocolate.

Lemony cupcakes.

I can't resist some cupcake porn:

Closeup of a red velvet cupcake.

I'm really loving the foil cupcake liners. They're pretty costly but they look so professional. They go really well with the silver boxes, and they don't absorb moisture from the cake (vs. paper liners). I like that they hide cupcake batter spills too!

I also can't resist a gratuitous photo of cute animals:

I found these guys trying to cross a major road in my village as I was heading out to Sunday lunch. I quickly snapped a photo of them before herding them back to the creek from whence they came. I'm glad to report that no one got hurt! Motorists actually halted for these cuties.

That's about it, so I've been quite busy. Hopefully my next post won't be too far off.

Orecchiette with chorizo and peppers

2009-07-16T22:15:00.004+08:00

If there's one thing I wish this country had, it's vegan sausages. You can't find a decent vegan sausage anywhere. I've tried Tofurky's Italian Sausages in the US but sadly, it was a short love affair. There is a local purveyor of mock meats in Manila -- I've found their stuff in the shelves of Makati Supermarket -- but I'm sad to say they, well, suck. It's like tasteless texturized "food". I've stopped buying them actually, and am just finishing up my stash. They aren't so bad when you make adobo, but it's the garlic, soy sauce and vinegar that make it completely different.

What's a girl with no commercially available vegan sausages to do? Make your own. I am in love with Everyday Dish / Julie Hasson's spicy Italian sausages which were sooo easy to make. I love them. They're great when you fry 'em up with tons of onions and peppers. I also like Fat Free Vegan / Susan's pepperoni -- in sandwiches or fried up with garlic and tomatoes.

Here's another super easy recipe by Have Cake, Will Travel / Celine: seitan chorizo crumbles. Super easy to make. I highly encourage you to try it. I used a nonstick skillet and the only thing I regret is not doubling the recipe.

While you're at it, make this easy pasta dish which I threw together for a huge family lunch one Sunday in May. Smoky thanks to the addition of smoked paprika. I used orecchiette which nicely cupped the crumbled chorizo, so you know you're getting a good amount of chorizo in every bite. I tend to be lazy with chopping veggies, so I left the garlic cloves whole, onions in long slivers, and peppers in chunks. Feel free to slice them more finely, but why fuss?

Orecchiette with chorizo and peppers

1 recipe of seitan chorizo crumbles, cooked (I recommend doubling it!)
2 1/2 cups dried orecchiette
3-4 tbsp olive oil
1/2-1 head of garlic, peeled (leave cloves whole)
2 medium onions, sliced into slivers
3 or 4 bell peppers, any color, sliced into wide chunks
2-3 tsp smoked paprika
salt and pepper to taste
cayenne pepper (optional but recommended)
roasted tomatoes (optional but recommended -- I made mine plain roasted with salt and pepper)
zest of 1 lemon (optional)

Cook the orecchiette according to package directions.

In the meantime, heat olive oil in a skillet on medium-high heat. Toss in the garlic and shake around until it turns golden brown. Remove with a slotted spoon. Add in the onion and saute until translucent. Add in the bell peppers, paprika, salt, pepper, and cayenne pepper. Toss around until the skin of the peppers wrinkle up and turn brown. Add in the crumbled chorizo, garlic, and cooked orecchiette. If there are brown bits at the bottom of the pan, add in a splash of water to loosen things up.

In the serving dish, arrange the roasted tomatoes on top of the orecchiette. For color and decoration, grate the zest of 1 lemon on top and add in a few sprigs of parsley.

Blah blah blah... Kitchen Revolution stuff

2009-07-05T22:17:00.004+08:00

Arghhh, sorry blog, the real world's been keeping me quite busy. For now the only update I can give you are the 2 marketing collaterals I've been working on in relation to Kitchen Revolution. Enjoy. More blogs to come. :)

PS Just came back from a holiday in Boracay... I am in love with that place. I want to move there and run a cafe.

Another feature in Appetite Magazine + pretty good vegan alfredo and edamame pate

2009-06-17T19:56:00.004+08:00

More vegan love in the local food magazine scene. I contributed some vegan baking tips to this month's Appetite Magazine. I also handed in an original oatmeal cookie recipe, fairly similar in taste to the old butter-and-egg laden version I used to make in my pre-vegetarian days.

Pick up a copy of the June 2009 issue of Appetite Magazine!

PS If you recall, my vegan baking business Kitchen Revolution was given a positive review in this magazine's pages last February 2009.

Zoom in to check it out!

*************

Finally a restaurant in the metro is showing some vegan love. Healthy Kitchen in Serendra, Bonifacio High Street offers some nice vegan options that don't rely on fake meat and Indian spices. Sorry, no offense to India -- I mean I love Indian food, I eat Indian probably once a week. In the past if I wanted some good vegan food, I'd have to go to an Indian restaurant; Indian food can get tiring though if you eat it all the time. So if you have the option to eat good vegan food in a non-Indian restaurant, you take it.

Like Healthy Kitchen. I'll admit, at first I did not appreciate this restaurant's name. While health is certainly important, the word "healthy" tends to scare people away. Not sure if this is a manifestation of the scary H word, but the past 3 times I've been in the restaurant, majority if not all of the customers were female... I got 6 brothers and I know they aren't a fan of the H word.

Anyway, I like that this restaurant actually displays the V word prominently. And I'm not even talking about vegetarian, but vegan. Such a big relief that a food establishment recognizes veganism!

Here's one of HK's dishes -- wholewheat spaghetti with vegan alfredo sauce and tofu. I honestly did not have any expectations because I've never tried to make a vegan cream sauce (okay once I made the pine nut sauce from Veganomicon (link to amazon), which frankly sucked. I think I added too much lemon juice). I was pleasantly surprised. It tastes nothing like traditional alfredo sauce, but it's got a nice savory taste which I think comes from mushroom broth and onions. The cubed tofu was seared and tasted great with the sauce.

The next time I was in HK was for a merienda thing and I ordered the edamame pate with tortilla chips. The chips were supposed to be a combination of blue and red but the restaurant only had blue, which I didn't mind at all. The pate was very hummus-esque, with only its green tinge separating it from it's tan cousin. Good merienda, however I think it would've been tastier if it was served with salsa.

Healthy Kitchen also serves tofu adobo, vegetarian burrito wraps and Boca burgers.

I caution you not to take any of the green tea frappes, even if you can have them made with soymilk -- the green tea mixes HK uses has milk.

What the restaurant seriously lacks is vegan dessert. I miss being able to buy dessert...

HEALTHY KITCHEN
141C Serendra Place, Bonifacio High St,
Global City, Taguig
900.6514

Check out their menu here.

Jerk tofu to the rescue

2009-06-07T15:46:00.005+08:00

Okay, this was one of the most amazing tofu dishes I've ever had. Get the recipe here.

I guess what attracted me to this recipe was the fact that it had the word jerk. I love exploring new recipes and using spices I don't normally use in savoury dishes -- such as allspice, nutmeg, and cinnamon, usually found in fall / winter desserts. I may've tried cinnamon in a curry, but usually in combination with cumin, cardamom, coriander, etc where you can't almost detect it. I was pleasantly surprised with the results of this dish -- spicy and sweet, totally different from anything I've tried. Am now a fan of Carribean food, even though this Jerk Tofu isn't a traditional dish.

The recipe calls for maple syrup. Instead, I used a muscovado-ginger syrup from Tindahang Sakto, a brilliant liquid sweetener for the maple syrup-, agave nectar-deprived. I've used it in brownies too, and it's great because it's got this deep earthy taste, perfect for baked goods that don't call for butter but need a little more depth. BTW these guys sell vegan-friendly, earth-friendly bath soaps (one soap has honey, so avoid if you don't use honey) and eco-friendly cleaning agents! They sell super fragrant coconut oil which I've purchased and can't wait to try in baking. And I love reading the blogs by one of the owners (Yapak / Yakap and Gardencore) :)

Anyway, do try this recipe. It also calls for jalopenos, which you can't really find here; you can sub with sili labuyo or just add more cayenne pepper.

Also don't be scared about all the prep time. I usually keep some blocks of tofu in the freezer. You can defrost them in the fridge during the day (give it 24 hrs in the fridge); if it's still partially frozen, dunk it in hot water for a few minutes. To remove excess water I wrap it in a dish towel and put a heavy mortar and pestle on top -- let sit 15-30 min. I marinade usually for 15-20 min before I fry it.

Oh and quick tip, use a non-stick skillet. The marinade with the onions tend to burn if you use a regular skillet. Also, tofu will stick to the bottom of a regular skillet unless you add copious amounts of oil.

AND, play around with the spices! I've tried this without the allspice, cayenne, nutmeg, and cinnamon, and instead added dried rosemary, thyme, marjoram, and sage.

AND AND AND, it makes a lot of marinade. After frying up the tofu, cook the marinade a bit (it's chunky due to the chopped up onion). Pour it over the tofu or mix it up with rice -- instant fried rice!

Lentils with smoked paprika and coriander

2009-06-02T00:01:00.007+08:00

I've been pretty lazy with cooking with legumes these days. I've been relying a lot on good old lentils that cook up real quick and take on any flavor you put on 'em.

I usually cook my lentils with the usual garlic, onions, and tomatoes, sometimes I'll throw in some bell peppers, then I'll play around with the spices. Fennel seed is one of my favorites, like in this dish. I like whole cumin seeds too. I've tried Isa's Ethiopian lentil stew with like, 12 spices, and that was great with rice or even with linguini. I really love Isa's French lentil soup with thyme and tarragon too. If I have fresh herbs I'll add those in too.

So last week I really wanted a lentil dish that wasn't too Indian-y tasting 'cause I've been doing too much of that. One other spice I really really love is coriander seed because of its fresh lemony taste -- pretty different from the cilantro herb we all know and love. So with a little experimentation, I came up with...

Lentils with smoked paprika and coriander. I was amazed with the results because I've never used smoked paprika in my life, ever! I'm more familiar with sweet paprika, which quite frankly doesn't taste like anything. To be honest, I only thought of adding paprika for color, so using the smoked kind was a pleasant bonus.

If you have the chance of acquiring smoked paprika, GET SOME PLEASE. Not sure if regular grocery stores carry it, you can try Santi's or an Indian grocery store like Assad's. This is what I use:

Lentils with smoked paprika and coriander
Makes 4 servings

1 cup dried lentils, picked over and rinsed
olive oil or canola oil
2 small onions or 1 big onion, minced or in long slivers
4 cloves of garlic, minced
5 egg tomatoes, diced
1-2 tsp coriander seed, mashed in a mortar and pestle
2-3 tsp smoked paprika (don't use sweet paprika, it ain't the same)
cayenne pepper (optional)
salt and pepper to taste
handful of cilantro or parsley, chopped (optional)

Place the rinsed lentils in a sauce pan and add 3-4 cups of water. Bring to a boil on medium heat then turn down to the lowest heat. Simmer for 20-25 minutes until al dente. Drain.

Heat some oil in a skillet on medium heat. Add in the onions, coriander seed, and cayenne pepper (if using), cook until fairly translucent. Add in the garlic, cook for 2 minutes then add the tomatoes, salt and pepper. Cook until the tomatoes break down, about 5 minutes. Add in the drained lentils and mix. Throw in the smoked paprika and mix well. Taste, add in more salt and pepper if needed. Throw in the chopped herbs if using.

Spoon the lentils in the serving dish and sprinkle more smoked paprika on top.

sorry, crap photo.
but you know what i mean about sprinkling smoked paprika on top.

Flattered

2009-05-30T11:17:00.007+08:00

So I spent some time last night uploading photos to Flickr just to beat the 150mb-a-month quota before May ends. Will blog about some of them in the future but someone beat me to one of my photos!

Just a bit of a back story on the photo: I had a victory lunch with the Mano Amiga Dance-a-thon crew last Monday in The Old Spaghetti House in Market Market, Taguig. Thank God they do not have boring pasta for vegetarians. This is spaghetti with sun dried tomatoes, roasted garlic, and ground cashews. Here's a close up:

Good pasta. Not completely filling as the cashews were more of a condiment like cheese, but still good. The roasted garlic was amazing.

For those who don't know who Erik Marcus is who blogged about it up there -- he's one of the vegan bigwigs in America. Has written books on animal rights, has a podcast (which I listen to regularly), and runs the Vegan.com blog, which covers current events, news, and topics of interest in the vegan world.

Just wanted to share :)

Baking for scholarships and vegangelism

2009-05-29T23:05:00.006+08:00

Last Saturday was the Mano Amiga Dance-a-thon (more info here and here) and I sponsored vegan cupcakes which were raffled off to lucky dancers, given as prizes to the Dancing King and Queen as well as second placers, and given to the deejays and hosts.

Just some photos to share with some commentary...

Preparation actually started the Monday before, assembling the boxes and sticking on the decor and labels by a one-woman-machine while watching the first season of Dexter. Apparently the tear-free tissue paper Hallmark peddles does not stick with mere double sided tape (don't even try regular scotch tape). Good old white glue's the only thing that could make 'em stick.

boxes ready for their minicupcakes.

I actually took a half day vacation leave from work on the Friday before the big day and spent the afternoon baking and making frosting. Started at 3pm, ended at 3am. No idea why I took so long... Oh I made these for dinner and that ate up a good 1 1/2 hrs. Then I took an 1 1/2 break watching more Dexter...

red wine break between frosting duties.
notice the salad bowl cupcake pedestal from this post.

boring old boxes are turned from these...

into these! combo of red velvet, banoffee, carrot cake, and lemon minicupcakes.

1-dozen minicupcake boxes almost ready.

box of 1 dozen minis.
from left to right: red velvet, banoffee, chai latte, lemon

me with the boxes of 4 minicupcakes, ready to hand out to winners.

The fundraiser was a success, the cupcakes were a success. I have nothing to complain about. There are always opportunities when baking for non-animal rights related fundraisers -- I got to talk to the hosts about veganism AND the cupcake recipients would've been made aware about the word "veganism" and what it means.

For those who went -- thanks for supporting!

OOTW muffins take 2

2009-05-26T20:58:00.005+08:00

So I honestly couldn't get enough of these muffins and I still had a cup of mashed banana in the fridge. Those banana chocolate chip muffins sure are tasty and so easy to make. This time I tried to healthify them.

I forgot to purchase a bag of wholewheat flour from the baking supply store earlier but then I remembered I had a bag of wheat germ in the fridge, which was actually almost a year old BUT smelled perfectly fine. A little googling and I found out that you can sub 1/2 to 1 cup of flour in a recipe with wheat germ (as per HowStuffWorks). For these babies I subbed 3/4 cup flour with wheat germ. Instead of doing 1 cup brown sugar, I tried to lighten their color up by doing 1/2 raw, 1/2 brown.

What makes wheat germ healthy? According to this website, wheat germ is a good source of: folic acid (pregnant women need this!), calcium, fiber, omega-3 fatty acids, potassium, etc etc. It also has this phytonutrient called L-ergothioneine, a powerful antioxidant that lowers cholesterol and promotes heart health.

Maybe I should've altered the baking soda or ratio of wet ingredients or something, because they didn't have perfect dome tops that we all love on muffins. They came out brown and squat, and despite the wheat germ? They were soft!

Hmm. While the old school muffins on the left side look a lot prettier, the hippie muffins on the right are healthier and still taste just a good.

Oh and if you're wondering where you can find cheap wheat germ, try Bake Masters along Sucat. Last year I got 1 kg for P60 ($1.25).

Happy muffin making! Need the recipe? Let me know!

PS These could almost pass as cupcakes -- that's how moist and soft they were. You can top 'em with frosting and eat them for breakfast and (maybe) not feel guilty!

Muffins that are OOTW

2009-05-24T12:03:00.006+08:00

Just wanted to share these awesome out-of-this-world muffins that I made yesterday afternoon before heading off to set up for the Mano Amiga Dance-a-thon (more on the cupcakes in a future post).

These are banana chocolate chip muffins from The Joy of Vegan Baking and they are aMAzing.

When I have to bake banoffee cupcakes, I try to buy more overripe bananas than I need for them. People of Manila -- if you're looking for bananas that are overripe and don't have to sit in your kitchen for several days to get to that stage, I highly recommend heading to Rustan's Supermarket where they try to keep their displayed bananas all pretty and immaculately yellow. They usually keep their ugly spotty bananas in the back. Just go up to the weighing scale person and ask for overripe bananas. They sell them super cheap too -- while regular bananas cost P35/kg (or $0.72/kg), overripe bananas cost about P15/kg ($0.32/kg)!! Seriously, and this is Rustan's. Overripe bananas are cheaper in Rustan's than in the palengke. I can only vouch for Rustan's Supermarket in Powerplant though. Not sure about other branches.

Anyway, so if you have extra overripe mashed banana lying around, please try these muffins. These are really easy to make and they went well with the omnivores. Frankly I am not a fan of muffins but I am a huge fan of anything with bananas. I've had some bad experience with coffeeshop-bought muffins that are always too hard and dry and bland. But these, man oh man, these were perfectly moist with the perfect crumb. Chewy exterior, tender interior. Not too sweet, even with the chocolate chips. I can almost see myself eating them for breakfast, if only they were made with wholewheat (these ones weren't).

In the spirit of trying to make these healthier (haha) I made them with brown sugar, hence their amber-brown hue.

I'm wondering if these are any good made with some instant coffee mixed into the batter. Hmmmm...

And I still have extra mashed banana lying around...

Win vegan cupcakes for free

2009-05-20T21:27:00.003+08:00

Do you live in Manila and are you free this Saturday night? Want a chance at scarfing down free cupcakes AND put poor kids through school?

Join the Mano Amiga Dance-a-thon (MAD)! I'm helping Mano Amiga Pilipinas, a school committed to providing quality international education to underprivileged children, raise scholarship funds. You know how education these days is expensive, and Filipino families in the CD socio-economic classes can't afford to put their kids in good schools, and public schools aren't exactly the best...

By dancing (or attempting to dance) for 6 hours and getting pledges from donors to pay you to dance, help Mano Amiga change the lives of underprivileged Filipino kids!

Learn more about Mano Amiga Pilipinas and the Mano Amiga Dance-a-thon (MAD) here.

Visit the MAD Facebook event page here.

Oh and, how do you get free cupcakes? We're raffling off several miniboxes of minicupcakes! More on my vegan baking business here.

Homemade pizza #2 + a sort of media mention

2009-05-17T20:15:00.007+08:00

Arghhh, so my one-blog-a-week resolution just went out the window about 3 weeks ago. I don't really have much of an excuse, just that things have been crazy-busy with work and baking.

Oh! Some news-ish. My baking business got mentioned in the Philippine Daily Inquirer, a major daily in my neck of the woods. You can check it out here. It's tiny, the article is essentially a list of websites that can help you be more eco-friendly, in the spirit of celebrating Earth Day last April 25. Kitchen Revolution is "eco-friendly" because it's vegan and I don't use parchment paper and disposable frosting bags. Wheee!

Anyway, on to real food. I've ranted in the past about the suckiness of pizzeria-pizza. My feelings have not altered, except maybe they've been a lot more strongly opposed to lazy vegetarian pizzas pizzerias try to sell to us lowly vegetarians. It's like we are afterthoughts! Pizzerias, you know who you are.

I love my aunt / tita Colette because she always tries to accomodate my and my brother's veganism when it comes to food for family reunions or dinners at her home. She invited me and my brothers to an impromptu pizza night last Friday and again, we made pretty awesome homemade vegan pizza which pwns any pizzeria pizza any day.

This time I used mini wholewheat tortillas, which are great because [a] they're wholegrain and [b] they're so tiny you can stuff yourself with 2-3 pizzas and not feel guilty. They crisp up nicely despite the overload of toppings -- I believe the trick is to be sparing with the tomato sauce.

My tita made a thick tomato sauce out of tomato paste, garlic, onions, and basil which tasted surprisingly sweet -- tomato paste is usual sour. It was quite thick, I had to use a spatula to spread it on the tortilla.

Toppings include: leftover roasted vegetables (zucchini and broccoli), roasted eggplant, mushrooms, slivered onion, chopped garlic, sliced green peppers, Italian herbed tofu, and toasted pine nuts. Out of the oven, I added torn arugula leaves, parsley, and chili-infused olive oil. May I just say, pine nuts on pizza are aMAzing. Try it please.

I swear, best pizza ever, nevermind a wholewheat tortilla isn't a traditional pizza crust.

I've got 2 recipes to share: the Italian herbed tofu and the chili-infused olive oil. I employed a version of Isa Chandra Moskowitz's Italian marinated tofu from Vegan with a Vengeance. The chili-infused olive oil, I winged it :) Seriously, please don't waste your money on store bought infused oils when you can simply make your own.

Italian herbed tofu

Ingredients:
1 block of 350g firm tofu
1/2 cup white wine
2 tbsp olive oil
2 tbsp white balsamic vinegar (may use regular)
2 tbsp soy sauce
2 tbsp apple cider vinegar
3 cloves of smashed garlic
1-2 tsp each: dried basil, marjoram, and rosemary

oil for frying
brown sugar

Drain tofu and wrap in a dish towel, lumpia style. Place something heavy on top, such as a huge can of tomatoes or a marble mortar and pestle. Let press for 15-30 min.

Meanwhile, make the marinade: mix the other ingredients together in a glass / ceramic bowl or measuring cup.

Slice the drained tofu thinly, like 1/4-1/8 inch in width. Make it thin like how you would slice cheese. This will help crisp up the tofu. Place the sliced tofu in a container and cover with the marinade. Best if you marinade the tofu overnight, but since last Friday was impromptu pizza dinner, I marinaded it for about 15 minutes.

Heat some oil (3-4 tbsp if I recall correctly) in a skillet on medium heat. Fry the tofu slices until crisp on both sides. I drizzle a bit of the marinade and sprinkle a bit of brown sugar on both sides in between flipping -- it makes the tofu all yummy and caramelized. That's it!

Chili-infused olive oil

Place 1/3 cup olive oil in a cold saucepan. Add in about 2 tbsp dried chili flakes. You may add chopped garlic as well (as much as you want). Heat the pan on the lowest heat setting, until you see bubbles appear on the oil's surface. Do not raise the heat! The point is to let the oil draw out the chili's and garlic's flavors, not the fry them.

You can store your infused oil in a bottle in room temperature. Drizzle this lovely oil on anything and everything.

How green is your diet?

2009-04-21T22:35:00.007+08:00

Photo taken from here

Take this short test below.

These are my results: I’ve saved 420 animals thanks to my vegetarian diet.
If I stick to it, I will save over 15,680 more animals from dying and 184,800 pounds of CO2 emissions from polluting the Earth during my lifetime.

Happy earth day people! I know I know, earth day’s still tomorrow (at least in my time zone). For those of you who don’t know, according to our friend Wikipedia, Earth day is a day designed to inspire awareness and appreciation for the earth’s environment. It was founded by peace activist John McConnell in 1969 partly to generate awareness on overpopulation.

Anyway, if you’d like to celebrate earth day in your safe bubble, why not go vegan? For the day, for the week, for 3 weeks! Slowly adapt to 1 vegan meal a day, to 2 meals, to 3, to meriendas. Get ideas from here, here, and here.

These are the reasons why veganism = environmentalism without mentioning animal cruelty, as quoted in the UN Food and Agriculture Organization 2006 Report by Vegan Outreach.

The livestock sector is a major player in climate change, responsible for 18% of greenhouse gas emissions measured in CO2 equivalent. This is higher than emissions of transportation vehicles.
Livestock is responsible for 64% of anthropogenic ammonia emissions (read: POOP and URINE) which contribute to acid rain and acidification of ecosystems.
Livestock accounts for over 8% of global human water use, mostly for irrigation of feedcrops. It is probably the largest sectoral source of water pollution. The major sources of pollution are from animal wastes, antibiotics and hormones, chemicals from tanneries, fertilizers and pesticides, used for feedcrops, and sediments from eroded pastures.
70% of previous forested land in the Amazon is occupied by pastures and feedcrops cover a large part of the remainder, all for livestock production.
The livestock industry is the leading player in the reduction of biodiversity since it is a major driver of deforestation, land degradation, pollution, climate change, overfishing, sedimentation of coastal areas and facilitation of invasions by alien species.

A vegan diet requires 300 gallons of water per day while a meat-eating diet requires more than 4,200 gallons of water per day, says this site.

A 2006 University of Chicago study found that a person switching from the average American diet to a vegan diet would reduce CO2 emissions by 1,485 kg per year.

Something to think about, guys :)

A cookie with a twist: Chocolate, PB&J Cookies

2009-04-19T18:12:00.004+08:00

Here are some cookies I made yesterday before heading off to a potluck get-together with my missionary girls from Rizal missions. Been hanging around the kitchen during my spare time (when do I not hang around the kitchen?) and wanted to make cookies... Not typical oatmeal / chocolate chip cookies, but something different. So I did some research in my cookbook library and found "You Got Peanut Butter in my Chocolate Cookies" from Eat, Drink, and Be Vegan by Dreena Burton.

I love that Dreena Burton's cookie recipes don't use specialty egg replacers including flax meal and tofu (I think?). Instead, she uses liquid sweeteners such as maple syrup to help with the binding. Well I don't live in maple syrup country... I'm not a honey-eating vegan and I try as much as possible not to use the fake HFCS crap. I got an AHA! moment when I was daydreaming of a PB&J sandwich and thought that perhaps jam could stand in for the syrup.

If you've got Dreena's Eat, Drink, and Be Vegan cookbook, head on over to page 215. I used all purpose flour instead of the barley / spelt and 1/4 cup + 2 tbsp strawberry jam for the maple syrup and agave nectar. As jams are usually chunky, I recommend sticking all the liquid ingredients in your trusty food processor and give it a good pulse til everything's nice and non-lumpy. After mixing the ingredients all together you may notice that the dough's a bit stiff; I added 1 tsp oil apart from the 1/4 cup called for in the recipe.

You won't notice the jam flavor much but it's in the background. The cookies were nice and chewy :)

Curious about the recipe? Let me know if you want a copy.

Pililla Eats

2009-04-15T20:50:00.007+08:00

As mentioned in my previous post, I spent Holy Thursday and Easter morning doing missionary work in Pililla, Rizal, a rural poor town about 50km north of Makati. Before I start talking about some of the local food I just wanted to share this picture.

St Mary Magdalene Parish Church in Pililla is 425-years old and made of stone. It’s been preserved and restored amazingly well and I’m sorry I didn’t get to take a snapshot of it. But this is a photo of the Virgin Mary in the Church’s courtyard. It’s a pretty huge statue, probably 6 ft tall or so? The church takes care of 4 dogs and I found this scene after having dinner with my co-missionaries and parish priest. The dogs really know whom to seek for shelter!

Anyway, here’s some local food I came across in the Church parking lot.

I love love love peanuts, especially local ones. Planter has nothing on Pinoy roasted garlic peanuts, and I’m not talking about the junky MSG-laden nuts too! A 1-1.5 oz bag of roasted garlic peanuts was P10 or 21 US cents which was a nice distraction from falling asleep during Christ’s 7 Last Words (sorry Jesus). When I take the bus home from my real job (okay I’ve done it twice only) I love buying the same paper bag full of joy. Yum yum.

You can find this happiness-on-a-stick anywhere in the country but it was especially wonderful in Pililla as we trudged through one of the 3 processions we attended. The tindero didn’t skimp on the brown sugar, thank God. I think it was also P10 for 2 saba bananas.

This cart is owned by a man I like to call Green Mango Guy. His cart is attached to his bike so he can pedal wherever he pleases, peddling his awesome green mangoes.

You can tell he’s a skilled green mango connoisseur – he knows where to cut in the right places and how to carve out the skin.

He lays each green mango in a plastic bag on egg crates for easy display to the salivating customers. I recommend getting the green mango that almost looks yellow / ripe.

Didn’t I say he was an expert? He isn’t like us regular folk who cut out mango skin piece by piece. He carves out the skin in one piece, which looks very octopi-like.

This is one thing you won’t find anywhere else, I tell you. Green Mango Guy makes his own ultimate green mango topping: chili salt. He pounds rock salt with sili labuyo / bird’s eye chili until the chili goodness melts into the salt. He then sieves off the chili, leaving this perfectly orange-hued spicy salt (the other topping option was bagoong or fermented salted shrimp paste that smells like the death of the ocean).
The perfect merienda: ripe-ish green mango topped with chili salt. Bliss for only P7 or 15 US cents. I miss this already!

I love love love Green Mango Guy’s chili salt. I think other variations that would work well with green mango are
[1] salt + chili + sugar, and
[2] salt + chili + fried garlic

Overdue post about stuff I've made + out for Holy Thursday - Easter

2009-04-06T22:03:00.008+08:00

Wow, seems like it's been awhile since I've blogged... Hmm, I reckon it's been 2 weeks? And 5 weeks since I've talked about actual food! Truth be told I've been busy with actual baking, actual work (i.e. my real job), and catching up on my favorite shows. I've been watching marathons of The Office, which is my absolute favorite TV comedy. I can watch that show all day everyday and not get bored... My new favorite obsession is True Blood. Well I love the Dracula legend and anything that stems from it.

I am also currently watching The Godfather for the very first time. I got around to readind the book end of last year and I loooove Mario Puzo. Been pining to watch the movies and am glad I'm finally watching them.

Anyway, on with the food.

My last food-related blog was about indoor grilling which I utilized in making this dish -- a toasted couscous salad with chickpeas, zucchini and bell peppers. This was my second time to make couscous, I love it! It's easy to make and people who look and eat it are easily impressed, since who in this country makes couscous in their home? I was going to make a separate blog post about this but I've been lazy -- I mean, busy watching my shows. It basically has toasted cooked couscous, chickpeas (canned), lemon zest, caramelized shallots, basil chiffonade, and grilled zucchini and peppers. The dressing is just lemon juice, olive oil, grated raw garlic, and salt and pepper.

This is a picture of the first savory dish I sold back in mid-February. It's a farfalle and black bean salad with yellow peppers and tomatoes, with a mango-cilantro vinaigrette. A big hit! Wish I took a more appealing photo...

Vanilla cupcakes with lime buttercream. Remember how I would sometimes bake a cake to get rid of excess frosting? Well I do the same (getting rid of frosting) by baking mini cupcakes. Again vanilla is a perfect neutral flavor to any kind of frosting (usually).

Err... This is a vanilla cupcake with chocolate buttercream. Unfortunatley it looks like crap on a cupcake, hence the attempt to make them look more festive with the nonpareils. What do you think -- fail?

I'm a so-so fan of chocolate chip cookies. However I am a big fan of coconut chocolate chip cookies. Here they're made extra-coconutty with virgin coconut oil and muscovado sugar. Heaven.

New favorite cupcake -- the banoffee cupcake. Essentially, a banana cupcake topped with coffee buttercream and encrusted with homemade toffee bits.

Random cupcake porn -- red velvet cupcakes and carrot cake cupcakes.

And, favorite cupcake #2 -- banana cupcakes with peanut buttercream!

***************************

Last year during Holy Week I did some missionary work in Tingloy Island in Batangas. This year it's not a whole week but rather Thursday to Sunday, and not in Tingloy but somewhere in Rizal. I am going to miss the Tingloy kids :( But, I hear they switched to Rizal because it's easier to reach via car while with Tingloy one has to take the bus to the Batangas deck then take a wooden banca to Tingloy. Apparently some parents are still too queasy to let their "little girls" ride a boat to a different island. It was an amazing experience, am hoping this time it'll be amazing as well. I'm planning to subsist on canned chickpeas, cereal, soymilk, and bananas.

For the record, I'm no saint... I mean, I try my best to be a good person -- being vegan is definitely a part of it. I am not super religious, but it's Holy Week and I'm Catholic, so I look at it as an opportunity to do some sacrifice and spend time with my poor countrymen. Wish me luck!

Funerals and spreading the vegan love

2009-03-21T02:41:00.002+08:00

Hopefully I don’t sound (too) offensive when I say that funerals and other death-related gatherings (sorry already!) are the perfect venues for spreading the vegan love. I’m serious. At least in Filipino culture, death is a reason for families, distant families, close friends, and friends you last saw 10 years ago to come together. It’s also a reason to promote veganism and dispel the myths that [a] veganism doesn’t exist and [b] vegan food tastes like crap.

As I mentioned in a previous post, my lola / grandma passed away. While my mom and her siblings were busy fixing certificates, cremation, obituary notices, etc etc, my siblings, cousins and I took care of running the thing. Someone took care of the slideshow of old pictures and documentation of the wake; another took care of getting a priest to celebrate mass (and playing the organ during said mass); another took care of flowers and I-love-you-Lola poster.

My sister, cousin and I headed the food committee and I very well made sure there was always something vegan for EVERYONE. My lola’s wake lasted for 3 full days, with the 4th day being the interment in the afternoon. So for 3 days we had to provide food for merienda / afternoon snack and dinner, for about 50 people each day. It was like a 3-day party with unlimited food.

Tips on veganizing funeral / wake food:

The easiest thing is provide vegetarian junk food. Roasted peanuts, oreos, Oishi’s Pods, Boy Bawang / corn nuts, salted potato chips, you get the idea.
For coffee – none of that instant 3-in-1 stuff! Even though a non-dairy creamer claims to be non-dairy, that devil’s powder contains milk derivatives. Brewed coffee is best so vegans can take it black. If you must cater to drinkers who can’t let go of the white stuff, have the creamer on the side.
Bake something and make sure it looks pretty. No one will care that it is, God forbid, vegan. If something looks good, people will eat. Then tell that person that the food he/she just ate is vegan and let them marvel at your ingenuity. I baked a coffee cake, banana bars, cookies, and mini cupcakes. Make sure to serve desserts in finger-friendly bite-sized forms. Slice the cake / bars into squares, make your cookies and cupcakes tiny.
Make sure you are in good terms with siblings, cousins, and aunts / uncles so they can help spread the vegan love, whether or not they’re vegan. I love that my family is supportive with my vegan baking business. They endlessly pitched the stuff I made to their relatives and friends. My goal wasn’t to promote my business but to promote veganism awareness. Now people know what veganism means and that vegan chocolate cupcakes exist in this world!
In terms of savory food – pasta salads are good. Fried tofu too. Vegetarian pizza.
Hummus is your best friend. Serve these with tortilla chips.

So I jumped on the bandwagon...

2009-03-20T01:36:00.006+08:00

and joined Flickr.

I was skeptical at first but my cousin who's really into photography convinced me to be more active. Honestly I joined a few months back just so I could comment on a few photos. I uploaded some of my food photographs a couple of days ago and am floored by the image quality! Seems like my desserts really come alive in Flickr!

Anyway, add me as your contact if you've got a Flickr account. My name is "kitchen activist".

Thanks for the push in the right direction, Rafa!

Oh yeah, just trivia. I love perusing Flickr for food porn and tattoos.

I ♥ Lola Amy

2009-03-15T03:35:00.004+08:00

Dear Lola / Grandma Amy passed away yesterday (Saturday) at 5:15 pm. Almost everyone in my maternal clan were present praying around her as she breathed her last breath. It was a beautiful peaceful death -- I don't think she felt any pain. Her breath and heart rate just slowed down steadily.

This is a photo of her back in her younger days, probably in her 20's. She is 83 and pretty much has the same skin complexion with very few (practically non-existent) wrinkles, I kid you not.

She had a pretty rough time growing up. Her mom died from cancer when she was just a kid; her dad married a woman who could've been her older sister. Her stepmom ended up being an evil stepmother I'm sorry to say. She was destined for finishing school but was too hard headed to follow her parents. She ended up leaving home and supporting herself through college, which was pretty unheard of back in her days in the late '30s. She had only 1 sibling, my Lolo Ben, whom she took care of all this time.

She had such a passion for music. She was my piano teacher when I was a kid and she used to have 3 pianos and 1 organ in her house. She played beautiful music way until 2005 when she had a bad fall that made her bed-ridden up to yesterday.

Dear Lola Amy. I will miss you so. You were such a warm, fiery, heroic, and simple woman. I am proud to be your granddaughter. I'm going to miss our conversations. Rest well.

My heart is breaking for the pigs :(

2009-03-04T19:30:00.004+08:00

It's been a sad sad couple of weeks for the pigs over at Bulacan. I've blogged about the Ebola-infected pigs issue here and here. Six thousand pigs are set to be slaughtered all throughout this week. About 2,600 have been killed as of today (according to this article) and the government is targetting the killing spree at 1,000 a day. The killing's been slow and everyone's pressured to up the number of carcasses. I am so so sad, particularly because:

1. The pigs have not been given food and water for several days and prior to their deaths they have been crying and wailing all day and night. Farmers say they can't afford to feed them anymore (!!!). Government (Bureau of Animal Industry) says they're doing the best they can. PETA and PAWS have made their sentiments known that this is not the humane way for pigs to be treated before they die. In fact, it violates the Animal Welfare Act (Republic Act No. 8485). But of course, who cares about the animals right? They're just dumb creatures God created for us to abuse and eat.

2. The slaughter method of choice was to stun gun the pigs between the eyes to render them unconscious before piling their bodies into a pit to be burned. Naturally the stun gun wasn't 100% effective. Police men who were present had to shoot the pigs themselves -- several times at that, because their 1 shot wasn't enough. Can you imagine being conscious with a bullet through your head, while someone else is ripping your body apart with other bullets??

3. As if it were the pigs' fault that they had the Ebola virus! Not only are they living a miserable life of a food animal -- they were infected, starved, then killed in a most gruesome manner. No remorse from their farmers and National Federation of Hog Farmers, Inc. at all, except that they lost out on sales.

Last Monday the Philippine Daily Inquirer reported that pictures of the actual slaying would not come out in the papers; however pictures indeed came out in yesterday's and today's issues. One of the reasons for the photo ban was that PAWS did not want the public to see the slaughter. While I respect their decision of honoring the animals (I think this was their reason? I may be making this up. It could also be protecting the public from the gruesomeness), I have to disagree. I think the public SHOULD see the actual kill. They should be obligated to see it - after all, pigs would not have been raised if not for public consumption. We need to konw where our food comes from and how the consequences look like when we screw around with nature.

Holy hell, it's only Wednesday and the week's been so heavy with this news.

A little thought exercise for the omnivores out there -- how would you feel if it was your pet that got Ebola? How about a loved one? What if the government set out to exterminate your pet / loved one because of the disease?

#4 reason why I'm so sad: really, no one gives a shit about farm animals. Let's put purebred dogs and cats on pedestals, let's forget about the other animals. Pigs are smart creatures too (not that intelligence is a factor for one's compassion over animals) -- they are as smart as 2-year old kids! Let's not forget that they are sentient beings -- they feel pain and emotions just as we do.

One article pointed out that the some of the pigs mourned the loss of their compansions who had just been killed -- they trotted around the corpses and cried :(

NB Just something worth mentioning... some of the slaughterers suffered from hypertension after 1 day of killing. Surely being a slaughter house worker is the worst job ever... Why do people support an industry that is cruel to animals and to its workers?

Heavy heavy stuff.

The continuing Ebola-pig saga, more beached aquatic mammals, and a tarsier display ban

2009-03-02T18:39:00.008+08:00

Photo from the Wall Street Journal

Poor pigs :( -- a continuation of my earlier post
Great. Not only did the piggery farmers in Bulacan rear their pigs in such disgusting conditions that their pigs tested positive for the Ebola-Reston virus (typically known to infect monkeys, but that’s a whole other vivisection story; researchers think that bats may have been the carriers) but now all 6,000 pigs are going to be massacred. FYI, 6,000 pigs = 0.05% of the total hog population of 13 million (of the country? Of Bulacan?), according to this news article from the 24th of February. Now the method of genocide is a little fuzzy. According to this article from the 27th, the pigs will be burned (whether alive or unconscious, I have no idea). According to this article from the 1st of March, the pigs will be stun-gunned (more humane than electric prods & co.) and then burned. The government actually considered the captive bolt pistol and electric prods before burning, but we all know how pigs can wake up from unconsciousness after being improperly stunned by those methods. WTF indeed. They call this catastrophe “a depopulation of the hogs”. They are targeting a slaughter of 1,000 pigs A DAY, "humanely".

And OMG, a brilliant quote from the secretary of the mayor of Pandi, Bulacan: “When WHO (World Health Organization) went here, they told us that for as long as the meat is cooked, no problem. But of course, sales in the market in the village where the farm is located has dropped.” By meat, we’re talking about the Ebola-infected meat of course.

According to the same article, “Workers affected by the depopulation will be assisted by the Department of Labor and Employment while financial support will be extended by the Department of Agriculture and the municipality of Pandi.” Great. Not only do our taxes pay for the cruel treatment of the pigs, these pigs got infected by these farmers, and we’re still paying for the massacre AND compensation for the workers.

Bulacan’s not the only province to be monitored for the Ebola-pigs. Other provinces in Central Luzon, Southern Luzon, Pangasinan – watch out.

By the way don't expect any photos on the actual massacre... Media wasn't allowed in during the act. Of course not. The pork industry doesn't want to lose any more sales.

Photo from the Philippine Star

More whale / dolphin drama.
In other news, remember that weird dolphin phenomenon reported on the 11th of February where 200 to 400 melon-headed dolphins beached themselves on the coast of Bataan province? Luckily a hundred or so fishermen with BFAR (Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources), the police and Coast Guard tried to lead them back to deeper waters. Village councilor Rodolfo Joson says, “It looked like they never wanted to leave. They looked sad.” Four dolphins were found dead, including 2 female adults of which 1 had a fetus – all from drowning.

The last time a large aquatic mammal strayed into shallow waters was in 1956 when a big whale beached and died 3 days later.

According to the article, “The dolphins could have strayed in the area due to an undersea quake that might have damaged their eardrums, or they might be following a sick or injured leader.” Another article said other causes could be dynamite fishing and large boat activities.

Reported earlier today, 194 pilot whales and several dolphins beached themselves on an island off southern Australia called King Island. About 144 of the whales have died while a race is ongoing to save the other 50. This latest beaching takes the total number of whales stranded around Tasmania in the past four months to nearly 400.

Photo from this German website

Let’s all hope for the best for the tarsiers.
Bohol province is usually known for its tarsiers, an endangered primate species known for their humongous eyes and elongated ankle bone. Unfortunately the tarsiers have been exploited by being displayed for tourism purposes. According to this article, the local government has placed a ban on the tarsiers’ commercialization. Let’s just hope the ordinance is properly enforced – local businessmen are lobbying for the scrapping of the ban.

Who needs an indoor grill...

2009-02-28T18:02:00.008+08:00

When you've got a cake rack and a stove?

Cake rack as indoor grill and cake rack as cake rack

I came across this nifty idea last Saturday when i had a roasted vegetable dilemma. My oven takes forever to heat up, especially when things are being cooked on the stove. The stove was being used a lot that time... And I had to bake some zucchini and bell peppers quick. I have a toaster oven but with the volume of vegetables to cook I knew it would take even longer.

As with typical Filipino kitchens, my family has 2 stoves. One of the stoves wasn't being used last Saturday. And I had a wire cake rack. I'm sure I heard about this idea from somewhere, probably from Rachel Ray. Anyway, it was a good thing I decided to grill the vegetables. Not only do "grilled vegetables" sound better than "roasted vegetables", they cook a lot faster and taste a lot better. Roasting a pepper would probably take 20 minutes with frequent turning which is quite a pain... you always have to brave the oven heat when you open the door.

Check out the fire action! Love it.

You still have to do the frequent turning thing with your DIY grill though. It's not so bad because the heat isn't as strong. And, grilling a pepper would take about 10 minutes.

If you're not in the know of how to grill a pepper, rub the pepper with oil (preferably olive), salt, and pepper. Brush the cake rack with oil as well and place it on top of your burner. My cake rack is probably about 10x10 inches and it fit perfectly. Turn on your stove to about medium heat. The heating up doesn't take too long.

Place the peppers on the rack, on top of the flames. I only had to cook 2 peppers, you could probably fit 3 with all 3 getting enough heat / fire. Turn frequently until each side is blackened. Once cooked, place the black peppers in a large bowl and cover with a plate. Let them cool until cool enough to handle. Remove the black skin with your fingers.

So, on to the zucchini. You could grill 4 slices of zucchini at one go. Slice at a diagonal, maybe 1/2 inch thick. Brush each side with oil, salt and pepper. Grill at a diagonal as well, maybe 3-5 minutes per side.

I used these vegetables for a couscous salad which I will blog about soon!

Pigs have ebola but the gov't says it's ok to eat them.

2009-02-26T22:17:00.012+08:00

Holy crap. Bro #5 called to my attention a very important issue in the local animal agriculture scene, specifically the pork industry. It's been such a huge deal, it's in the New York Times.

There is an outbreak of the Ebola virus in pigs in Bulacan while 4 particular pigs have been confirmed to have it. Bro #5 saw on the news some footage of these poor pigs eating what appears to be sewage. Good grief, no wonder these pigs are infected, they literally eat shit.

According to the NY Times, a piggery farmer actually caught the virus 6 months ago but this particular strain (the Ebola-Reston) is not known to be dangerous to humans.To risk sounding insensitive, if this is the same farmer who reared these ebola-pigs, don't you think he would've deserved to be infected? You reap what you sow.

So this strain isn't dangerous to us, but you never know how viruses can mutate to hurt us. FYI according to Wikipedia, some serious symptoms of the virus that is dangerous to humans include diarrhea, bloody stool, bloody vomit, hemorrhage, hypotension, and organ damage, among others. "On occasion, internal and external hemorrhage from orifices such as the nose and mouth may occur... Ebola virus can affect levels of white blood cells and platelets, disrupting clotting."

WTF. ABS CBN says, "Unlike monkeys, pigs are farmed for food and far more people are exposed to them, which puts them at risk of getting infected if the epidemic in pigs is not under control." It was in monkeys that the first Ebola-Reston virus strain was found.

Okay, so these pigs have the Ebola virus, and so do the pigs in other Asian countries (according to this article). The government says it's still okay to eat them though. Just, you know, don't buy a pig that died from Ebola (if you can pick the pig out of ground pork or the chicharon). And, make sure you cook it til it's no longer pink.

Of course this is (relatively) good news to the carnivores that can afford to shop at regular groceries. Two-thirds of this country is poor and can only afford to [a] buy meat from the palengke or wet markets (where raw meat is displayed in 30 deg C weather all day, plus all the flies!) or [b] rear their own pigs in their backyards in gestation crate-sized prisons. Let's not forget, a huge part of Philippine food culture includes street food.

These are the government's efforts, according to this article:

The Bureau of Animal Industry (BAI) is set to conduct a Luzon-wide surveillance and improve vaccine coverage against common pig diseases with high morbidity and mortality to reduce outbreaks in the swine population.

The Department of Agriculture (DA) will enhance bio-security measures to prevent and contain any future outbreaks as the government’s second line of defense to the spread of the virus.

The DA and the Department of Health emphasized the need for all animal handlers in commercial and backyard farms to practice safe farming and biosecurity measures.

The Occupational Safety and Health Center of the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) will come up with guidelines to ensure the occupational safety of all animal handlers as well as other recommendations on the proper use of personal protective equipment.

The government is working to prevent the entry of “double dead” meat into the market.

BAI has already enhanced their pig movement and shipment control, and increased strategically located quarantine checkpoints to prevent transport of sick pigs.

The National Meat Inspection Service (NMIS) has also tightened its control and is working closely with local governments to curb this unsafe practice.

Wow. Why not... go vegetarian and save EVERYONE (both human and non-human animals) a lot of heartache? You can't get Ebola, mad cow disease, and bird flu from vegetables, that's for sure.

Baking = nature and art appreciation

2009-02-24T20:52:00.008+08:00

How can one not appreciate the fine art of baking? The whole process from measuring out the dry ingredients to consuming the baked good is pure art. One cannot fully appreciate food if one doesn't know how it is made.

I can stare at ingredients in their original state all day. Or, photograph them all day. Take the humble flour (with other white powders such as baking soda, baking powder, and salt) and the intoxicating cocoa powder. The "rock formations" are something to marvel at. I also like staring at avalanches of powdered sugar.

Once sifted together, the powders look almost homogenous and are not clumpy. From rock formations they turn into powdery chocolate mountains.
Mixing them together, they form craggly rock formations again.

Mixing dry ingredients with the wet, the mixture resembles soft mounds of earth.

Handling your food is always ideal. Cookie batter almost feels like mud.

From deep earthy pebbles...

Into flattened rock...There go the cracks again.

Appreciation of the fissures on the cookie surface.

Baking = truly is, nature appreciation. The satisfaction I get from baking must be akin to what God felt when he created the earth, the plants, the animals, and man. Pure bliss.

Homemade pizza and bruschetta = why even bother going to a restaurant?

2009-02-23T22:01:00.007+08:00

Why do I even bother being patient with Italian restaurants in the metro? Or pizzerias, for that matter? I am so tired of the boring vegetarian pizzas they serve us. It's as if they want to torture vegetarians with blandness. I remember one pizzeria STEAMED their veggies to oblivion before baking the pizzas. Seriously, guys? Lucky for you I forgot your name.

Not all pizzerias have bad vegetarian pizzas. I like Amici di Don Bosco's vegetarian pizza because they actually put other vegetables other than olives and tomatoes, such as eggplant and zucchini.

In all pizzerias, just remember to order your pizzas without the cow reproductive secretions aka cheese. That's usually the only animal product in vegetarian pizzas but always check to be sure. I'm just saying, beware of the tastelessness. You'll wanna dose your pizza with chili.

Homemade pizza is unbeatable. Absolutely zoom in.

I was lucky enough to score an impromptu dinner at my Tita (Aunt) Colette's home last Friday. She bribed me with homemade pizza and promised to make a vegan one for me. How could I resist? I miss good tasting pizza. You can buy regular pizza dough / shells at the grocery store; she says they're P50 (US$1!) for 2 shells.

She dressed this baby up with a good brush of olive oil and marinara sauce. I added pre-roasted mashed eggplant, fresh shiitake mushrooms, onion slivers, minced garlic, and basil chiffonade (I hate that pizzerias don't utilize herbs in their pizzas). By the way, please don't try munching on fresh shiitakes, they taste like wet paper. A good sprinkle of sea salt and freshly cracked black pepper is always welcome.

She laid the pizza on the oven rack at around 350 F until it looked toasty. After coming out of the oven I topped it with freshly torn arugula leaves, my absolute favorite salad green (I hate hate hate fresh salads, only because that's the only thing I usually get to eat at western restaurants and also because their version of salad = leaves + tomatoes + vinaigrette, that's it. But I'll down a salad with arugula any time). This was such a refreshing change from dull restaurant pizzas. Absolutely add dried chili flakes, and homemade tofu ricotta if you have some.

Tita Colette also made some nice bruschetta -- sliced whole wheat batard rubbed with olive oil and garlic, and grilled on the stove on a cast iron grill pan until nice and toasty. Topped with an "Italian salsa" of chopped tomatoes, minced garlic, basil chiffonade, olive oil, balsamic vinegar, and trusty s&p, this was an unbeatable dinner.

Rest in peace, dear sweet Lolo Ben

2009-02-23T07:38:00.006+08:00

My dear Lolo (Grand-uncle) Ben passed away at around 3am this morning. He was the brother of my Lola (Grandma) Amy, mom of my mom. They were good companions to each other since my Lolo Doming (dad of my mom) passed away about 4 1/2 years ago and especially when Lola Amy had a fall and became bed-ridden.

He was always a jolly guy, waking up every morning at 6am for his walk around the block and his gardening duties. He would always eat 2 cups worth of oatmeal everyday.

I laugh whenever I'd see him sneakily eat a few fish crackers -- he has high uric acid and in the past he got gout from an overdose of salty fish crackers!

He was always so proud about his survival of World War II -- at 9 years old in Baguio, he and Lola Amy were running away from the Japanese; one Jap actually hit his head with a bayonet! My lola had to carry Lolo Ben on her back as she trekked the Cordillera mountains to safety.

He was the main source of our news. As a child I remember calling him early in the morning just to see if there was no school for the day (due to typhoon). He was our local newscaster, he knew every piece of news from his trusty FM radio. He could tell you the latest chismis (gossip) about politicians and local celebrities.

He loved playing solitaire and could play that game day in, day out.

There are other memories I have of my gentle Lolo Ben.

Lolo Ben, I'm sure you're in a better place now. Sleep well. We'll miss you!

A study of homemade vs. white powdered sugar

2009-02-19T23:50:00.014+08:00

Okay so here's a post showing my kitchen geekness / Martha Stewartness.

I hate using white flour because it has no nutrition whatsoever. But, you can't make cupcakes with wholewheat flour -- you might as well call them muffins. Or hockey pucks. Next best option should be unrefined, unbleached white flour, but that stuff's not available commercially and affordably. Healthy Options sells Bob's Red Mill organic unbleached white flour but... who can afford that stuff anyway? Who buys that stuff in this country, under these economic circumstances? Probably the expats and the class AAA's. RIght now I'm limited to refined white flour, boo.

My next baking peeve is white sugar. At least in this arena we have alternatives -- brown and raw sugar. I'm trying to switch to raw sugar in my baking permanently. Quite surprisingly brown and raw sugar are cheaper than white by like three pesos (6 US cents?) at the baking supply store. According to this site:

"Unrefined raw sugar is made from the juice from the sugar cane plant and has trace minerals and nutrients present. Refined sugar is devoid of all nutrients. Typically, white sugar is made of pure carbohydrates. Today, it is common knowledge that refined white sugar has devastating affects on the body and health in general. Besides being a certain way to elevate blood sugar levels, refined white sugar is considered to be “empty calories” as it offers no nutritional substance whatsoever. Raw sugar contains minerals and nutrients that are stripped from refined white sugar. Raw sugar contains roughly eleven calories per teaspoon and has the same vitamin and mineral consistency that is found in the juice from the sugarcane plant. These minerals include Phosphorus, Calcium, Iron, Magnesium, and Potassium. In addition, when sugar is refined and processed there are many harmful ingredients that are added to the sugar as a result. Unrefined raw sugar does not have these harmful chemicals. Some of these include: Phosphoric Acid, Sulfur Dioxide, and Formic Acid."

Raw sugar: the lesser of 2 evils

But what's difficult is the frosting. You can't have cake and cupcakes without frosting, and you can't have frosting without powdered sugar. Commercially available and prepared powdered sugar is of course, made of refined white sugar.

I've seen recipes for homemade powdered sugar in a couple of vegan cookbooks which I've been dying to try out. I finally was able to experiment last week. I used the recipe from Eat, Drink and Be Vegan. Pretty straightforward: blend 1 tablespoon of cornstarch and 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 cups of sugar for a few minutes until powdery. Instead of cornstarch I used sweet potato starch; instead of white sugar I used 1 1/4 cups packed raw sugar. In the homemade-powdered-sugar arena, blenders are superior over food processors.

It did take me a few noisy minutes to come up with homemade powdered sugar. I also had to stick a knife in to occasionally break up the clumps (turn off the motor when doing this). Here are the results:

Left: the devil's posion. Right: the homemade stuff.

You can see that powdered sugar made from raw sugar is a little honey-colored while that refined stuff is dead white. Homemade doesn't clump up as much because of the blender -- obviously blenders made for the home cook / baker are less powerful than industrial blenders made for corporations. I think the powdered raw sugar granules are heavier than their white counterpart, hence its non-clumping qualities. The texture is actually slightly coarser but it will still be able to pass through a sieve. Oh yeah, while white powdered sugar has no smell, raw powdered sugar has a slight molasses-like smell.

I used my favorite vanilla frosting recipe and here are the results:

Left: immaculately white vanilla cupcakes with white vanilla frosting.
Right: vanilla cupcakes made with raw sugar, with vanilla frosting made from powdered raw sugar.

I think this world is not ready for vanilla cupcakes made with raw sugar (what more with wholewheat flour?). People are purist about vanilla cupcakes -- they must be white white white. If frosting's not white, okay if some other artificial color. Not saying there's anything wrong with wanting white cupcakes, it's purely a matter of physical preference.

Nature appreciation: La Mesa Eco Park

2009-02-17T00:07:00.017+08:00

A bunch of coworkers and I participated in a company-sponsored tree planting activity in La Mesa Eco Park in Quezon City last February 7. La Mesa Eco Park houses a 700ha reservoir and 2000ha forest. The reservoir is Metro Manila's sole source of potable water and sadly the forest is the last remaining one of its size in Metro Manila. It's always nice to get away from the city (even though the park was in Quezon City) and see an actual forest. I stumbled across some interesting flora and fauna...

A mother duck and her little ones. A little googling and wikipedia-ing tells me that she is a Muscovy duck, aka Cairina moschata. She's not as regal looking as her Google lookalikes though (OMG someone actually cooked a muscovy duck and uploaded a photo in the image search! Beware). I'm sure she's had quite a hard knock's life.... It isn't easy being a duck in the Philippines.

Her babies are the cutest ever. She's one protective mama -- every time I'd try to get close to photograph her and the ducklings she would flap her wings and quack at me. She loved to nestle in the grass and observe her kids run around excitedly.
A kind human offers her and her kids some breakfast.

The fruit of the samak tree. People from Laoag City, Ilocos Norte commonly ferment the fruit, leaves, and bark with sugar cane to make vinegar and basi. What your eyes don't see...

Yellow orchid. I think it is a Odontocidium. From this website: Odontocidium Tiger Crow 'Golden Girl' is an intergeneric hybrid consisting of Odontoglossum and Oncidium. It grows in a wide range of temperature conditions from warm to cool. The flower spikes emerge often twice per year and are colored in yellow and burgundy. The species behind the cross include Oncidium tigerinum, Onc. leucochilum, Odm. crispum, Odm. pescatorei, Odm. hallii, Odm. harryanum, and a host of odontoglossum hybrids.

I think it's so interesting to find out the scientific names of plants and animals, and learn more about them.

NB / disclaimer:
The La Mesa website says it has a "butterfly trail and hatchery" -- I didn't get a chance to visit this place. Oh and La Mesa has horseback riding = not vegan! It has a pond and boating lagoon -- I honestly have no idea if it's manmade or not and whether it has natural fish (versus fish bought from some Cartimar vendor). And, I have no idea if the duck was endemic to that area (or again, bought from Cartimar as a baby in a paper bag).

Braving a cold winter's night with soup + classy impromptu salad dressing #2

2009-02-14T15:46:00.012+08:00

Last Christmas day my family and I trekked over to Lake Tahoe for our first time to experience snow (!!!!). My dad rented a cabin "that could comfortably fit 10-12 people" but in reality could've fit 20. Seriously, there are residential cabins out there that could house 20 people. Anyway all ten of us plus my three cousins made the trip at around 4pm on December 25 and arrived there at around 9:30. It was EXTREMELY cold but we enjoyed every moment of it, especially because we got to snowboard!

What we did NOT enjoy was our first night. So arriving at the driveway we had to shovel the snow off the garage door. Then we entered a 49 degree F / 9 degree C (if I can recall correctly) house, tired, hungry, cold, and cranky. The heater was broken. We literally could see the fog coming out of our mouths when we breathed. We had to wear our winter clothes inside the house.

My mom cooking in her parka. Nice.

While some of the boys tried to figure out the heater issue my mom and I decided to cook some dinner. We didn't have much supplies... To be frank I wasn't in the mood to open a can of beans and chop onions. Everyone was cold and the only thing that could've helped us was soup. We didn't have any soup supplies except for...

Excuse the ugliness and the extremely not vegan taxedermied snake in the background.
The snake came with the house.

Behold the V8 vegetable juice. We bought this because my American cousins don't eat enough vegetables (sorry guys, potatoes aren't really vegetables) and American restaurants don't serve 'em. During my stay in the US I drank this everyday so I could get a dose of veggies and vitamins. Anyway we ended up making fake soup: V8 juice gently simmered with Italian spices, chili pepper, salt and pepper. I think I may have added powdered garlic (too cold to peel and chop fresh). All the spices were found in the kitchen cupboard.

Too simple to make, it shouldn't even be blog-worthy. But it had a cold-winter's-night story so I thought I'd share. Moral of the story: always make sure you have V8 juice on you in case you're stranded in a freezing cabin.

We brought some Boy Bawang (extremely garlicky deep fried corn kernels) from home which made an excellent crouton-like topping. Yum with the ever dependable white rice.

*******************

The next night after a full day of snowboarding I had to make salad dressing. We were in the middle of winter and all my mom got for veggies were salad greens. With no dressing.

Something good always comes out of a salad dressing dilemma, I always say.

This time the only acid on hand was bottled orange juice and the sweetener, strawberry jam. Orange juice isn't as tart as kalamansi juice so we had to add a good dose of salt. It was a good "gourmet-tasting" dressing.

Strawberry Citrus Salad Dressing
1/4 cup orange juice
1 heaping tablespoon of strawberry jam
1-2 cloves of garlic, grated
1/2 to 3/4 cup olive oil, to taste
salt and pepper to taste

Add the juice, jam, and garlic in a small bowl and whisk together -- try to break up the clumps of strawberry with the whisk. Slowly pour in the olive oil while whisking the whole mixture together. Add salt and pepper to taste. If still too sweet, add more oil or splashes of water.

Me making the dressing with Pop, my oil pourer. I had to keep on wearing a beanie to hide my Medusa hat hair.

Hmmm I think this is my last Christmas entry! Finally. Now I can get on with more current stuff.

Bro #6 enjoying the sun and cool air on our way back to the Bay area.

I got mentioned in Appetite Magazine! + a letter opposing animal exploitation

2009-02-09T22:08:00.006+08:00

Wow. I still get giddy thinking about it.

I must've mentioned in my past posts that a local food magazine was to feature my baking company in its pages (come to think of it, I did mention the magazine here). Well, it finally happened. I think I'm the only vegan baking company around (?)... and to be featured in a mainstream food magazine?! To think the Philippines is VERY meat-centric. And dairy- and egg-centric. And not so vegan friendly. We Filipino vegans are a dying breed (I know no vegans aside from bro #5 and the guys at PETA).

Anyway here it is.

PETA Asia Pacific found out about me back in October and I've been on a baking whirlwind ever since. They've ordered pretty much everything off my menu. They've been so supportive and promised to feature me in the veg section in Appetite Magazine called Herbivore. I kind of forgot all about the magazine-feature thing... Several months have passed, I'd check out the magazine every month with no mention, then last Friday I remembered to check it out after doing some grocery shopping during my lunch break... and lo and behold!

This is a big step for veganism in the Philippines you guys! Well I'm no second coming of Jesus... But it's good to let the public know that vegans need not give up cupcakes in order to boycott the dairy and egg industries, no?

I know there are a lot of vegetarians and veg-friendly places in northern Metro Manila... so it's also nice that southern Metro Manila is represented =)

Oh yeah, I may be under "Restaurant Review" but I don't have a restaurant. I churn out baked goods from my oven at home and either deliver or have the things picked up...

Appetite Magazine, February 2009 issue

Herbivore section, page 84

close up of the article, squee!

*****************************

In other news, bro #6 called to my attention that his (all boys) school is having a Father's Day / sports fair (what, no mother's day?) this Saturday. Typically in school sports events small pet animals such as rabbits and chicks are sold like candy. I think you can get a chick for P50 (US$1)? I remember buying a rabbit, duckling and chick once when I was a kid and didn't know any better. Anyway, I didn't want to be that kind of person who's all talky about animal cruelty this and animal cruelty that, without taking any action. So I convinced bros #5 and #6 (bro #4 who also studies in the same school apparently can't grasp the gravity of the situation here) to draft a letter to their school director. They really didn't want to do it... and the rest of my family who are ho-hum about the whole issue didn't help either. But what the hell man, what's the point of taking a stance on an issue when you can't take action when given the chance?

Here's the letter. The fair is this coming Saturday and it's a long shot if the school bans the sale of animals this Saturday. But, hopefully the letter sheds some light on the issue and will stop the sale of animals in the next (2010) sports fair.

I can't wait til bro #5 is faced with the dilemma of dissection (he's in his sophomore year = biology). He claims he's not required to dissect, but bro #4 went through it. While my parents don't give a damn about this issue I sure as hell do. Both brothers don't want to create a ruckus lest they get suspended... I hate that students are encouraged to stand up for some (read: religious) things but turn a blind eye on other things.

Dear Mr. R,

We have noticed that in the past, animals such as chicks, ducklings, rabbits, hamsters, fish, and snakes were sold in Father's Day purely for our entertainment and use. We would not want this to happen in this coming Father's Day and in all future Father's Day events. As men of integrity we realized that we need to stand up and speak out for those who have no voice in this situation.

Chicks and our other animal friends are born in this world purely to be sold and treated like non-sentient objects by us humans. They are ripped from their mothers and packaged in crates, boxes, and plastic bags with no thought to their well being nor their feelings. They are sold to children who look at them and treat them as novelties. These children have no idea how to take care of such creatures and without their knowledge, may not provide proper attention to them. The animals usually die in a short amount of time, unloved, forgotten, and often mistreated.

God has made us stewards of the earth and of the animals, and we believe that this does not give us the right to exploit either of them. We believe that Father's Day can still be full of fun without this form of animal cruelty. We'd hate to think that those who buy these animals may be in conflict with section 6 of the Philippine Animal Welfare Act, which states that "it shall be unlawful for any person to torture any animal, to neglect to provide adequate care, sustenance or shelter, or maltreat any animal" because they bought them in the spur of the moment in Father's Day.

We know Father's Day is a few days away but we hope this letter will be able to do some good. We do not want S to be a school that is known to support animal cruelty and animal exploitation. We hope that in the future, S bans the sale of animals and entertainment provided by them in its premises.

Thank you.

Tofurky Noche Buena & New Year (plus a recipe)

2009-02-08T10:38:00.010+08:00

Christmas 2008 was my first time:

1. To celebrate it as a vegan

2. To celebrate it out of the country

3. To have a Tofurky roast

4. To not cook all day for Noche Buena / Christmas Eve dinner

Normally I despise all store-made, pre-made, catered, pick-up-from-the-restaurant food, generally for special occasions and particularly for Christmas. I belong to the school of thought that homemade food that usually takes all day to make is real food. This is why I'm not a big fan of fake meat. We made an exception to the all-day-cooking rule for Christmas because we were celebrating it in my tita's (aunt's) home abroad. Funny, we spent both Christmas Eve and New Yearís Eve days doing laundry at a Laundromat in Alamo (10 in the family + 1 week of no laundry = 5 loads in the washer); while my brothers waited at the Laundromat my parents and I went to the grocery for Christmas Eve / New Year's Eve dinner.

So anyway, I finally made peace with the fact that I couldn't pull an all-day cooking thing for Noche Buena so I bought a Tofurky veggie roast. This was super easy to prepare; aside from what came in the box I had to prep potatoes, carrots, olive oil, soy sauce, and some sage. It only took one hour in the oven and I had to use the toaster oven because the real oven was being used to cook the dead bird (why oh why must we celebrate an occasion with a cruel death... why?). The tofu-seitan roast had a wild rice and mushroom stuffing and gravy. Good dinner, although I would've preferred something more homemade, like a roasted vegetable dish with tofu and a homemade pie.

2007 was my first Christmas as a vegetarian and the complete opposite of 2008 -- I spent ALL AFTERNOON AND NIGHT cooking and baking. I even remember what I made -- a baked lentil loaf with roast garlic gravy. I was the only veg person then so I had to cook my own food, all by myself. It was pretty sad because there were a ton of people fixing the dead bird / cow while I was going crazy making gravy -- roasted garlic and veggie broth included -- FROM SCRATCH, ALONE. It was about 100 degrees F / +30 degrees C in the kitchen; everyone was in pretty Christmas clothes while I was in a sweaty shirt. So, I guess I really shouldn't complain about the speediness of the Tofurky (by the way the loaf turned out weird but the gravy was a hit to the omnis)...

New Year's Eve dinner was something more semi-homemade, I'm happy to report. Brother #5 and I discovered Tofurky sausages during the Christmas break and made a stir fry out of it. We used Tofurky Polish Kielbasa but the Italian works well too (we actually prefer Italian over the Kielbasa, but we only had Kielbasa on hand then). For the vegans with no access to Tofurky you could use your canned fake sausages (arghh I despise that stuff, it has no taste!!) and just add more spices. I've included the 2 options in the recipe below although I have to confess I haven't tried it with the spices yet.

New Year Tofurky sausage and zucchini stirfry

Ingredients:

splash olive oil or vegetable oil

1 package of 4 Tofurky sausages, any flavor (Italian or Polish Kielbasa)

2 white onions, sliced into half-rings

5 egg tomatoes, sliced into chunks

2 zucchinis

salt and pepper to taste

chili pepper (optional)

To prepare the sausages: slice the sausages in half lengthwise, then slice it into thirds crosswise at a diagonal.

To prepare the zucchini: slice the zucchinis in quarters lengthwise, then slice it crosswise so it's about the same size as the sausage chunks.

Heat the oil in a skillet at medium heat. Fry the sausages until they get a nice crust on both sides, then remove the sausages from the pan.

Heat more oil in the skillet. Add in the onions -- when the onions have turned transparent / caramelized, add in the tomatoes. Cook until the tomatoes have melted into the onions -- add salt and pepper and chili to taste. Place the mixture in a dish and put the fried sausages on top.

Heat more oil and sautee the zucchini slices. Add salt and pepper to taste and be sure to scrape up the brown bits at the bottom of the pan. Lay the zucchini on top of the sausages, and serve.

Variation:

If you live in a non-Tofurky world, you can use canned or frozen vegan sausages (about 540g). The ones I find here in Manila have zero taste and need to be spiced heavily.

Slice the sausages according to the directions above. Place the sausage chunks in a bowl and drizzle in some oil, salt and pepper.

Add in either:

2 tsp paprika, chili pepper (optional), 3/4 tsp ground mustard seeds, and 1 tsp crushed fennel seeds

2 tsp paprika, chili pepper (optional), 1/4 tsp cinnamon, 1/4 tsp cumin, 1/8 tsp allspice

2 tsp paprika, chili pepper (optional), 1-2 tbsp crushed fennel seeds, 1/2 tsp dried oregano, 1/8 tsp ground all spice

Toss the sausage-spice mixture together. Usually the canned veggie sausages here are Vienna Sausage-like in texture, so you might want to coat them in cornstarch before frying to get them nice and crisp. Then, fry as directed above.

NB: spice mixtures inspired from Fat Free Vegan's Veggie Pepperoni, Seitan O' Greatness, and Julie Hasson's Spicy Italian Sausages

Photos of the Tofurky roast courtesy of brother #4 aka Jose Gonzalez.

Bleeding Cupcakes

2009-02-04T02:01:00.005+08:00

My shortest post ever!

Bleeding red velvet cupcakes -- what's a better way to celebrate a vampire themed murder mystery party? The red velvet cupcakes are crimson blood hued, with white vanilla buttercream leaking with freshly spewed cherry blood. Cupcakes are filled with the cherry blood as well. Inspiration taken from here.

The nightmare before Christmas, aka pre-Christmas baking porn

2009-02-01T01:36:00.010+08:00

Remember when I was on an insane baking rampage the few weeks before Christmas? Well I was reviewing my food porn photos and unearthed these... and remembered I hadn't blogged about 'em yet.

Finally got myself a real cake pedestal / turner instead of the overturned-salad bowl-and-plate I used to rely on. Frosting cakes on the turner was a dream! They turned out more professional looking and the cake wasn't in danger of falling off the bowl. Quite difficult to frost cupcakes on this though 'cause you can't stop the thing from swiveling, so for cupcakes I still recommend the overturned bowl.

A 2-layer chocolate cake with vanilla buttercream and shaved dark chocolate on top. I was able to source some vegan dark chocolate at the baking supply store and am very happy with how chic my cakes turn out to be.

A 2-layer vanilla cake with chocolate buttercream and dark chocolate curls. A favorite of PETA.

True blue brownies, unadulterated with the usual banana yumminess. While chocolate purists may prefer their brownies 100% chocolate, I prefer mine with banana.

A successful experiment! Mango cashew cream cake -- a 2-layer mango cashew cream cake with vanilla buttercream, topped with fresh slices of mango. Thank God this country has the best tasting mangoes in the whole world (I'm not kidding) and that they're available year round.

Box of Fall-inspired cupcakes: chai latte cupcakes with spiced buttercream and carrot cake cupcakes with walnut-studded cinnamon buttercream.

I really love this close up photograph of my chai latte mini cupcakes.

Co-vegan brother #5 finally asked me to help him bake some cupcakes to bribe his teachers and classmates with. He lives with a vegan baker and never asks her to bake anything for him. I made him peanut butter cupcakes and a lemon cake for his birthday and I don't think he even touched them! Baaah, boys and their non-existent sweet tooth. This guy reverse-psychology'd me into helping him make vanilla and chocolate cupcakes in the midst of my baking pandemonium! First he asks me if I could help him, then I say I'm up to my ears in cupcakes, then he says "Nevermind," guilting me into fulfilling my job as ate (older sister) and kitchen activist:

Quite frankly bro #5 is a pretty terrific froster. These designs are all his own. I heard that his classmates and teachers told him they looked bakery-bought.

Close up of vanilla cupcakes with vanilla buttercream, dusted with cocoa powder and topped with shaved dark chocolate.

Chocolate cupcakes with pecan-studded chocolate buttercream and dusted with confectioner's sugar.

How can omnivores think that vegans live a poor dessert-less existence? Seriously?

So among the stuff I baked I also had to make lemon cupcakes -- I ended up with 2 extra mini lemons which I've juxtaposed with my messy kitchen.

What your eyes don't see is:

I literally used all the dishes in my kitchen...

How the Nintendo DS led to an Herbivore Lunch and to our car being towed (almost)

2009-01-29T21:02:00.008+08:00

Might as well get this post over and done with, I know it's long overdue. I believe it was after-Christmas-ish when I FINALLY got to visit a completely vegan restaurant during my vacation in SF.

The decision to eat in this restaurant started from the Nintendo DS. So brother #5 got a Nintendo DS for Christmas thanks to his ninong (godfather) who is also our cousin. This cousin of ours has two Nintendo DS's of his own and so does cousin #2 (so 4 DS's all in all). We spent a few days in Lake Tahoe after Christmas and a lot of time was spent in front of the fireplace, boys DS-ing their asses off (apparently this futuristic device has some Bluetooth thingy that allows them to play against each other). Then brother #3 got some moolah for Christmas thanks to his ninang (godmother) and got some other handheld game playing device (the name escapes me of the moment).

Brother #2 got pretty much brainwashed into getting his own DS and with trusty Linda Blair our GPS, we go on a wild goose chase for 2-3 days hunting down a black DS (it HAS to be black because all of bro #2's gadgets are black) with the BEST price -- we did not leave a Best Buy, Costco, and Target store unturned. From San Ramon to Dublin to Walnut Creek and finally to San Francisco we find the perfectly black Nintendo DS of bro #2's dreams (he also bought a crap game in the midst of all his greed). I think I footed the $4 Bay Bridge toll so I DEMANDED that we eat at a vegan restaurant (so I'm cheap, sue me). Also it was about 3pm and we were starving.

Of course being the well prepared person that I am I made it a point to list down every vegan restaurant in the Bay area, in hopes of getting to eat in one of them at least once. My self-proclaimed carnivore and vegetable hater sister wasnít with us during the Search for the Black DS so it was the perfect time to get 2 carnivores (bros #2 and #4) and 2 vegans (me and bro #5) to eat veg for lunch.

So thanks to Linda Blair we parked our car at Herbivore on Divisadero (between Fell and Hayes, I think?) at 3:30pm for a late lunch. Bro #5 and I were soooo excited to finally eat in our first vegan restaurant ever! Actually it was a first for bro #2 and bro #4 as well and good thing they were game. As a vegan let me just say how happy I was to be able to eat anything off the menu, as in anything. Nothing made with the suffering of animals. Nothing contained animals or animal by-products. No one died for us to enjoy our meal. It was such an adventure and a relief.

So first off we ordered a vegetable sampler for our appetizer -- a combination of char-broiled vegetables (zucchini, eggplant, yellow squash, bell peppers, mushrooms, broccoli, tomatoes) with 3 sauces: pesto, tahini, and lemon-garlic. The dish was served with sliced baguette. We enjoyed this very much.

Next up we got 4 different entrees which we all shared together (the family that eats together, stays together).

Bro #4 got the best entree: penne with lemon herb cream sauce with char-broiled portabella mushrooms, zucchini, artichoke hearts, and spinach served with crostini. OMG even the carnivores couldn't believe it was vegan. The sauce was seriously creamy and delicious. I suspect it contained ground cashews or almonds; I don't think silken tofu could get that creamy and satisfying. I tried inquiring with our server what the sauce was made of but she was too busy to pay attention to us...

Bro #2 got a lentil loaf with mashed potatoes topped with mushroom gravy and sauteed greens on the side, with crostini and a tomato sesame salsa. He liked this a lot and the lentil loaf was deliciously rustic and comforting. The greens tasted very much like our local alugbati -- very earthy.

Bro #4 got his comfort food: Pad Thai. Rice noodles sauteed with tofu, red bell peppers, togue (bean sprouts), green onions, wansoy (cilantro), and crushed peanuts with peanut sauce. This was nothing new to us, we heart Thai food so I'm not going to drool over this much. It was good, although I suspect you can get better tasting Pad Thai at a traditional Thai restaurant (that reminds me, I should blog about Som's, a Thai carinderia-style restaurant located near my workplace -- dirt cheap Thai food with a killer veggie pad thai).

I ordered a moussaka -- layers of eggplant, potatoes, soy protein (eek! Fake meat!) tofu ricotta, mushrooms, zucchini, bell peppers, spinach and marinara sauce with crostini on the side. I used to heart all things tomatoes (at one point I even thought I should've been born in Italy instead of the Philippines) but since discovering different kinds of sauces (peanut sauce, hummus, roasted red pepper-cannelini, sunflower seed pesto, curry, you get the picture) my love wavered a bit... My brothers liked the moussaka, I found it okay. Also I'm not a big potato fan (excess starch!) -- maybe if there were no potatoes I would've enjoyed this dish more.

With my food I ordered a green juice, which sounds disgusting but was actually refreshing and yummy. It was a cocktail made of celery, apple, spinach, parsley, mint, ginger, and lime. The green-ness was so bright! I really should be drinking more green juice...

Anyway, on to dessert! We were absolutely stuffed but I really wanted to try some dessert that was not cake or cupcakes. Bro #4 got a coconut chocolate chip cookie which was alright tasting. We shared a blueberry pie with Maggie Mudd vanilla soy ice cream -- what a hit! I love pie -- I feel like it's "healthier" than regular cake and cupcakes because of the fruit component, nevermind that they are all full of sugar. We can't get blueberries in the Philippines so we really enjoyed this pie. Oh I really should experiment with pies in my kitchen...

Oh yeah, so our car was about to be towed while we were inhaling our food. We parked right in front of the restaurant and thought we were so lucky to have found the perfect spot. I put some quarters in the meter to last us 30 minutes. By 20 minutes I added a few more quarters to buy us extra time (the food hadn't arrived). So while wolfing down the moussaka I checked the time on my phone, which showed that I had 4 minutes left til the meter ran out! So I popped out to refill the meter when I found that the front of the car was attached to a tow truck. The tow guy was towing this other car a few cars in front of mine. I thought the tow guys were waiting for the meter to run out so they could tow it so I immediately put more quarters in the meter. Something didn't feel right though. I waited for the tow guy to go back to my car and I asked why he was towing it -- apparently cars were banned to park on the street between 4 and 6pm and it was 4:15 (we sat down at our table at 3:15 -- Herbivore took so long!). I played the sorry-tourist-card and had bro #2 park the car around the block.

So, all's well that ends well. Bro #2 got his Nintendo DS (he also got another Handheld Game Playing Device for bro #6 -- ah, the joys of consumerism), bro #5 and I got our Herbivore lunch, and we didn't get towed. Overall, a good day.

organic soy latte with agave syrup and bro #2 happily playing with his DS

HERBIVORE THE EARTHLY GRILL

531 Divisadero, SF

415.885.7133

http://www.herbivorerestaurant.com/index.html --> check for other locations!

Fine, a post on cake + The lone female kitten in the house (last post on cats, I semi-promise)

2009-01-27T22:06:00.007+08:00

Good grief I know this is supposed to be a blog about veganism or vegan food but I (kinda) swear, this is the last time I'll be making blog posts on each of my cats. Unless something big comes up, I may mention them here and there amidst talking about food.

Actually, the cats have played a big role in my veganism -- everyday I am reminded that all animals think and feel exactly like how my cats think and feel. It's not right that we put "pet animals" on pedestals, that we label them as "not food" (unless you live in Northern Luzon or some parts of China) while other animals -- i.e. cows, pigs, sheep, chickens, fish, other sea animals -- are "food animals". The stories about how they came into my life -- poor defenseless creatures, abandoned by their mothers and shunned by humans -- are things that I will always hold dear. Everyday as I am about to enter my home I am truly thankful to God that my eyes have been opened to the plight of animals and that He has spared these three cats from a terrible life.

More fluff to come about cat #2, aka Velma, but I want to distract you for a little bit.

I made this Almond Rosewater Tea Cake for my mom which she gave to this Indian-Malaysian lady that rents our old house in Pasig. Apparently the lady is vegetarian and is very pro-vegan, particularly vegan desserts. Getting new clients and discovering existing ones never cease to amaze me. For example, last week I organized an employee volunteerism fair at my real workplace and of course invited PAWS. One of the two PAWS volunteers was vegetarian (I made it a point to ask because we had to feed them merienda) and we gabbed about their animal shelter, rescued dogs and cats, and of course food. I mentioned that I was vegan and that I baked vegan desserts, and they both said they were once given a box of vegan cupcakes and cake for Christmas from PETA. I mentioned my baking company's name (Kitchen Revolution FYI) and yes, it was my cake and cupcakes that they ate! I was so tickled. I love that my food gets around and that the word's (a bit) out that there's a vegan baking company out in Manila.

Sorry for the lack of posts on food. I was able to cook for myself (not for sale! how refreshing!) last weekend, it was very relaxing. I experimented with a lemon pound cake, hummus, and my first vegan mac and cheese based on a recipe from The Ultimate Uncheese Cookbook subbing dijon mustard for the mustard powder, whole wheat flour for the flour, and orecchiette for the macaroni; instead of using typical bread crumbs, I used the only bag of crumbs in the house: a bag of communion host wafer crumbs. Short story: my mom bought the bag of crumbs from some Opus Dei center which makes communion hosts for mass; the remnants are bagged and marketed as bread crumbs. Needless to say that stuff is NOT good for mac and cheese. I was supposed to top the mac and cheese with bread crumbs and stick it in the oven for 30 minutes. Crumbs were supposed to turn golden brown, the host wafer crumbs stayed white. You can almost imagine it looks like shredded white cheese except it stuck to the roof of your mouth and tasted like... holy communion.

My weekend was very relaxing because I did not go out at all. I stuck around the Alabang area, hung around the house, finally got to watch some TV, and baby-sat the cats. Last Saturday was probably the most time I spent with the cats. I let them explore the garden and get up close with nature which was exactly what they needed since they've been cooped up in the laundry area because of my brother's allergies.

Cat face off!

So, on to Velma. I love all my cats, but Velma I hold close to my heart (don't tell the others!) partly because she's the lone girl cat and partly because she's such a fighter. She is much tinier than Lucky though they are the same age (she is about the same size as Francis, but she's 10 months old while he's about 5 months old) but she is stronger, faster, healthier, and I'll have to admit it -- smarter. Lucky if you're reading this, I'm sorry but it's true!

Velma came into our lives sometime end-April / beginning of May 2008. By that time we only had Lucky who was a few weeks old. This was also back when half my family lived in my lolo's (grandfather's) house while the other half lived in my tita's (aunt's) house as my house was being renovated. My lolo had a stray gray and white adult male cat living in his garage named Muning, Tagalog for "kitten" (pronounced moo-ning but with a short "oo"). Now Muning loved sleeping on top of the laundry machine in the garage which was right beside the kitchen door entrance. He was completely feral but was friendly with the tenants of the house. Often times Muning would leave his abode and stroll around the block (and perhaps the village?); one day he arrived home with this little calico cat in tow. Muning being the territorial spoiled cat forbade Little Calico Cat from eating his food or drinking his water; he didn't even share his laundry machine space! Poor Little Calico Cat was forced to hide around the corner where Muning couldn't see her. He would hiss and bare his teeth whenever she popped her head out, looking pitifully for some food. It's a wonder that she never left us despite mean Muning.

Now just as with Francis, I did not immediately take a liking to Little Calico Cat. I was busy being a mother to Lucky (my brothers and I were completely new at kitten parenthood) and busy at work. However it was my two brothers (again! they have such big hearts) who fell in love with her and would often bring Lucky out -- then an infant -- to play with her. Back then Little Calico Cat was very affectionate and very friendly. When she'd see you sit down on the lawn chair she would quickly hop on over to you and let you scratch her ears. Sometimes she'd hop back on the floor and rub her ears on your ankles.

Finally I warmed up to her, took her to the vet and had her checked out. Actually back then we all thought she was a he and I wanted to name her Sam, as in Samwise Gamgee. Brother #5 wanted to name him Vladimir, as in Dracula. The vet informed us she was a girl, so Vladimir was transformed into Velma.

Velma is a special cat because she only uses three legs. Her right arm is bum and we have no idea what caused that to happen. There are two schools of thought: [1] she was born with that congenital defect (and she's a runt) or [2] she was hit by something and her arm never healed. Her lacking a fourth leg never stopped her from doing what she wanted though. When wrestling with Lucky she always wins. She runs faster than him and jumps higher. It's almost as if her bum leg has given her extra feline powers of strength.

I'm quite glad that Lucky has Velma because Lucky would've been one spoiled cat if not for his female counterpart. They are almost like husband and wife, or maybe it's brother and sister? They are a perfect pair. Up to now Lucky doesn't know how to cover his poop in the litter box and it's Velma who gets in the box and cleans up his mess. Sometimes when I'm in the middle of cleaning out the box she hops back in and covers the poop up, as if embarrassed about it! When Lucky's feeling extra naughty he jumps and wrestles her but she oh-so-calmly wrestles back and pins him to the ground with one paw. Sometimes she's the mastermind of their naughtiness -- she opens closed doors with her left arm and lets Lucky through before she goes in. They are so sweet together though! At times I catch them sleeping together in one cat bed, Lucky usually lying against her leg, kinda like how a mom would allow her child to sleep on her lap.

Back when we first let her in the house she immediately became un-affectionate and pretty much suspicious of us. It was only after a few attempts when she'd let us catch her and pick her up. She seems to be content that she isn't the cat that everyone fawns over -- I wonder what goes through her head when she sees us baby Lucky. She is such an observant cat, very quiet and very shy. She's a quick learner too -- one time she discovered marbles being kept in a bowl in the living room. Often she would pick one from the pile (with her mouth), drop it on the floor, and proceed to play football with it. With only three legs. I think she also returned the marbles when she was done.

I don't have much stories to share about her only because she's a very private cat. She and Lucky are the best of friends but for some reason, she despises Francis. I don't know what it is... is it because Francis is un-neutered (he'll be neutered in a few days)? Francis has an outdoorsy smell to him? Every time they see each other she hisses at him.

We haven't had Velma spayed yet even though she's reached puberty and is in heat every other two weeks. I'm getting her blood test results tomorrow to see if her little body is strong enough to take the invasive surgery and the anesthesia. Apparently her bum leg may be a symptom of a weaker system. It breaks my heart whenever she yowls and screams because her body is telling her to mate while she's stuck in the house with neutered Lucky... She rubs herself on everyone and everything, and it's upsetting that she can't help that she does those things and can't control it at all. It's like she's writhing in pain and I can't do anything to stop it! Oh well, I hope the test comes out well, I really don't want her accidentally getting out into the wild and getting pregnant...

Oh yes, in another display of her awesome feline strength... Back when I got the cats collars two weekends ago, she was the only one who was able to semi-rip the collar in half after one day of wearing it. The collar holds on to dear life around her neck to this day while the collars on Francis and Lucky are still good as new.