Sad Nighttime Photo of a Most Delicious Risotto

Dinner, when I most want to be creative in the kitchen, is a terrible time to take photos . . . at least until the summer. But on this wet, dark evening, there's nothing I would rather have eaten than this stupendous leek and mushroom risotto. This is a tester recipe for the Urban Vegan's second cookbook. After tasting this, I am even more excited to continue testing! You are going to like this cookbook.

ps. Bonus small blue elephant to be spotted in the above photo.

Vegan MoFo Giveaway Winners, Take Note!

Almost everything has been sent, and my apologies for the delay. I have forgotten what pain there can be at the end of the semester in grad school.

• Kitteh: I need your address so I can send you your book!
• Sin Dawg winners, you'll be receiving your packages this week. The delay is my fault, not the fault of the fantastic people at DKB, so I do apologize!
• Amey, Islaborg, Haymarket8, and stealth package to Burnaby, your packages went out yesterday.
• Primal Strips winners and GoMaxGo winners, your packages finally went out earlier in the week.
• Overseas winners, it seems customs is taking their sweet time. I apologize for the delay. If anything is returned to me, I will be in touch with you individually, but I hope not to have this problem!
  

I'll be delving into new cookbooks soon, and will be posting. Many thanks to Vegan Cookies for hosting a giveaway that I won (for Tamasin Noyes's American Vegan Kitchen!). I've also got a new camera and a new slow cooker to play with. If anyone has recipe ideas for the slow cooker, I would love to hear!

Goodbye Vegan Mofo, and The Winners of the GoMaxGo Giveaway!

Goodbye MoFo, till next year! I had a great time, and now I have 800,000 assignments to finish in about two weeks.

The last winners of the month are VeggieAmanda and Mandi! Congratulations to you both, yay! Please send your full name and address to me at miso...@yahoo.com. (<---make sure to click on the . . . link for the rest of the email address. This is a spam avoidance thing.)

In Which We Reach the End of MoFo, and a Giveaway from GoMaxGo!

How sweet it is! We've reached the very last day of the month, and I'm happy to say I managed to post a blog entry every day for MoFo. Today I'm a bit lame, because I'm nursing a cold and have to drive four hours and get on two planes and get in at who knows what time and still get up for a 9:30 class tomorrow. Woe. So my post will be a bit short. But still sweet!

I'm a fairly new Portland transplant, and I'm not much of a sweets person. Save for a few exceptions that is. I thought that in case you're a Portland resident or perhaps visiting vegan Mecca, you might like to know what my few choices are if I do get a sweet craving.

Sweet Pea Baking (next to Food Fight!) has a great peanut butter brownie that I am never sorry to eat. Piece of Cake, while not entirely vegan, has absolutely killer vegan cupcakes. I prefer the German chocolate. Dave's Killer Bread makes a ridiculously good Sin Dawg; you may have seen me review this a few days ago. And finally, if I want a frozen treat, it's definitely going to be Luna and Larry's Coconut Bliss ice cream--probably Cherry Amaretto. I have yet to head out to VooDoo Doughnut, but it's on the list!

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Today, for my last giveaway of the month, I want to offer two of you something similarly sweet: a full range of GoMaxGo candy bars: Mahalo, Buccaneer, Jokerz, and Twilight! This giveaway is open to everybody everywhere, so please enter if you like candy bars! To enter, please leave a post on this blog entry. Tell me your favorite joke, or tell me a pirate story, or tell me anything at all. The two winners will be chosen by random number generator and posted here tomorrow.

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Well, huh! The winner of the PPK Extravaganza giveaway is none other than Ameyfm. She wished to be named someone's favorite PPKer, and over at the PPK, she was so named. Also at the PPK, she wished to win this giveaway, and . . . she did so win. What super powers does she have that we don't know about?! Congratulations, Amey! Please send your full name and address to me at miso...@yahoo.com. (<---make sure to click on the . . . link for the rest of the email address. This is a spam avoidance thing.)

Birthday Cake, Plus My Favorite Giveaway, Starring PPKers

There is lots to celebrate at my parents' home these days. Over the course of the week: their granddaughter (my niece!) visiting, Thanksgiving, the fact that the granddaughter just might remember Thanksgiving this year, my father's birthday, my parents' anniversary, and the first day of Hanukkah. Most of these occasions, if not all, call for celebratory desserts. The dessert above is the cake I made for my father's birthday, a raspberry blackout cake with ganache frosting from Vegan With a Vengeance. I would say this went over well. In fact, my mother sat on the kitchen floor for some time scraping leftover ganache from the pan with a spatula. It was kind of awesome . . . as was seeing my niece eat chocolate cake for the first time ever.

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Today is my favorite giveaway of the month, because it's starring the PPK. First I want to plug the stars' websites and etsy shops, because they are working hard and putting out great products and I hope you'll support them. First up, Soyfucker quarterly comic zine created by vegan writers and artists. These are awesome and you'll want every issue. Next please head over to the home of friendly monsters and tofu pirates at Panda with Cookie. You will want to feast your eyes on the delicious cookies at the companion shop Panda with Cookie Bakes. You may need them in your stomach, especially if you have a hungry monster or pirate to feed. Since you are already on etsy, you must check out the lovely cards at Chirp Cards. More great cards and art can be found at ilikeapplejuice.

So now let me tell you what the winner will win today. I have for you:

• killer Soyfucker Zine volumes one and two from Erica Soyfucker and friends
• pandaful tofu pirate pin and and panda pin from the fantastic panda with cookie
• adorable hedgehog card from Tahinitoo
• fabulous Heartkite and Saints and Sinners cards plus two great stickers from ilikeapplejuice

supplemented with: one smiling Oregon cloud magnet (you know you love rain), one package Butlers Soy Curls, six Primal Strips in different flavors, two coupons for free Turtle Island/Tofurky products, one coupon for a free Earth Balance product, one cute Amy's blue tote bag, one Amy's pen, and cents off coupons for Tofutti, Follow Your Heart, and Bubbies products.

Interested? The giveaway is open to everyone everywhere, from Philadelphia to Graz to Manila and all points in between. To enter, tell me about a PPKer you like, or a PPKer's art/craft project/recipe/whathaveyou that stuck with you, or tell me anything at all. Note: This does not mean pick your favorite PPKer. Who wants to do that? Not me. There are lots of nice ones. Tell me about one of them. The winner will be chosen by random number generator and posted on tomorrow's blog post. If the giveaway is won by an overseas entrant, I'll choose a US winner for the coupons by random number generator and post the second winner tomorrow as well.

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The winner of yesterday's Animal Camp giveaway is Mandee! Congratulations! Please send your name and address to me at miso...@yahoo.com. (<---make sure to click on the . . . link for the rest of the email address. This is a spam avoidance thing.)

Tortilla Española, Plus an Animal Camp Giveaway from Skyhorse Publishing!

Chances are you've had tapas, right? If not, let me give you a little background. Tapas are Spanish appetizers or snacks. They can be hot or cold, and many are already vegan. You may be familiar with such tapas as patatas bravas, sherried garlic mushrooms, or chick peas with garlic and spinach. Pregan, my favorite tapas dish, and certainly one of my favorite dishes ever, was tortilla española, or Spanish omelet. I started obsessing about my memory of this simple, perfect recipe earlier today and I had to veganize it. It turned out really well, so I'm sharing the recipe. It's great hot, warm, room temperature, or cold. The secret to the eggy taste of the tortilla is the black salt, so try to get your hands on some if you don't already have it.

Tortilla Española

1 onion, thinly sliced
4 Yukon Gold potatoes, thinly sliced (think 1/8 inch slices)
olive oil
12 oz. firm silken tofu
black salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

Using a large frying pan, sauté the onion in olive oil over medium heat until soft, salting lightly to keep from sticking. This should take about five minutes. After the onion has softened, turn the heat down to medium-low and cover the pan. Stir every five minutes until the onions have caramelized, say another ten to fifteen minutes. Scrape the onions from the pan and set aside.

Add a bit more olive oil to the pan and heat over medium heat. Lay a single layer of potato slices down in the pan. Cook them for two or three minutes on each side and then test with a knife to see if they are soft. They don't have to be browned, although it's fine if they are. You just want them soft enough to eat. No crunch left. Remove from pan and place on a plate. Repeat with remaining slices, adding olive oil as desired. (I had five batches total.)

Empty the silken tofu into a large bowl, large enough to accommodate all of the potato slices. Whisk the tofu as smooth as you can, and add black salt and pepper to taste. Remember you're salting for the potato and onion here as well, so be a bit generous. Now mix the potatoes into the tofu. (You may also mix in the caramelized onion here if you like to save a step.)

Heat a bit of olive oil in a small (six to eight-inch) nonstick skillet over medium heat. Layer 1/4 of the potato-tofu mixture in the pan. Sprinkle with 1/3 of the caramelized onions. Layer additional layers, ending with potato-tofu mixture. You may add additional black salt to each layer if you like. Press the top down with a spatula, ensuring that the edges are touching the sides of the pan and that you have a pretty solid potato cake. Allow to cook for five minutes or so, until you see that there is quite a bit of potato browning along the sides of the pan.

Place a large plate over the frying pan and quickly flip the tortilla onto the plate. Shimmy the tortilla, uncooked side down, back into the pan. Cook for an additional five minutes, rinsing and drying that plate while you wait. Now do the same plate-pan flip. You should have a gorgeous tortilla steaming and waiting to be devoured.

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And now I have a great giveaway for you. The generous people over Skyhorse Publishing have kindly provided me with a copy of Animal Camp, by Kathy Stevens. This lovely follow-up book to Where the Blind Horse Sings continues the story of rescued farm animals at Catskill Animal Sanctuary. As a person who initially went vegan after hearing about the horrors of slaughterhouse conditions, and later about the treatment of factory-farmed animals, my heart is warmed whenever I can hear about the wonderful animals that have been saved. I am sure you will agree, and I hope lots of you want this beautiful book. This giveaway is open to anyone anywhere, from the Catkills to Kathmandu to Catalina and all points in between. To enter, please leave a comment on this post. Tell me about an animal you love, a camp you went to, or anything at all. The winner will be chosen by random number generator and posted on the blog tomorrow.

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The winner of yesterday's Daiya giveaway is Sarah! Congratulations! Please send your name and address to me at miso...@yahoo.com. (<---make sure to click on the . . . link for the rest of the email address. This is a spam avoidance thing.)

Khichari, Plus a Daiya Giveaway

This is a bowl of khichari, which I think of as the Indian equivalent of pure comfort food. And it's naturally vegan! In India, if you are ill or unwell, this is what you will eat. It's meant to be simple and soothing and easy to digest. It's basically a porridge made of rice simmered with some type of lentil, bean, or split pea in a fair amount of water, so the whole thing goes to mush. Sometimes vegetables are added. A spiced oil is stirred in, and the whole thing is finished off with cilantro. The version I made can be found in a book called Heaven's Banquet, but there are variations available everywhere. The bowl above is pretty simple, and you could make it without a recipe easily: basmati rice, red lentils, more water than you would for regular rice, cook it to mush and season it. My spiced oil contains a number of Indian spices, turmeric for color, lots of fresh ginger, and a pinch of asafoetida/hing (often used in place of onions and garlic in Indian cooking). I've fed this to omnis before and they have loved it. I hope you find a recipe and try it!

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Today's giveaway is brought to you by the generous people at Daiya! I have a coupon for a free package for you. To enter, please leave a post below, and tell me how you pronounce Daiya, or about a day in your life, or about something you've dyed, or anything at all. This giveaway is open to anyone who can get Daiya products. The coupons do not specify where they can be used, so enter if you can buy Daiya where you live!

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The winner of yesterday's Coconut Bliss giveaway is Monique a.k.a Mo. Congratulations to you! Please send your name and address to me at miso...@yahoo.com. (<---make sure to click on the . . . link for the rest of the email address. This is a spam avoidance thing.)