Join Suzy Spoon and Tracy Smith in Australia for their show The Iron Deficient Chef. It’s a little bit cooking and a little bit learning and a lot bit awesome.

In the latest episode, Not Chickens, we see how to make a curry with Sri Lankan “cooking guru” Kanaga and we learn about the life of “broiler” hens.

Check out more episodes at their website! And for more info about chickens and why we shouldn’t eat them, visit United Poultry Concerns.

Let’s just get the rain out of the way. The weather here is like a three year old tap dancing; completely spastic, rain falls in jerks and starts, the temperature drops ten degrees, you pull down your hoodie, then five minutes later you need to take it off completely, it dries out wrapped around your waist. Then comes the hail. And my feet have been consistently freezing since I arrived. But there’s a reason everyone lies to you and tells you it’s not that bad, something that makes Portland worth it. And that reason, dear reader, is unicorns. The unicorns here in Portland are phenomenal. And everyone gets one.

I don’t know if it’s the unicorn magic (we’re not supposed to talk about it) or the chilly weather, but my cooking has gotten a new lease on life. In Brooklyn I was feeling cramped physically and mentally, unable to roll out a dough or a new recipe. I was relying on my stand-bys, which often included Chinese food from the number on my kitchen calendar. But since I’ve arrived in Portland I’ve cooked every night, and not just to blog about it (which is why you’ll find no recipes or overly staged photos) but to cook. Just to cook! That was something I had lost in the mix. And the last thing I need is for this thing I love to become a source of stress, or worse yet, a chore.

Everything changes when you are cooking to make a recipe, and since I started with this cookbook business I realize how naive I was to not see the difference immediately. There’s an art to recipe writing that isn’t necessarily apparent when you are merely cooking. When you cook you can rely wholly on your senses. A steamy inhale, blowing down a spoon for a taste. A little of this, a splash, a sprinkle, a shake. The music’s on, the window is open, the cats are at your feet and you can smell the garlic two flights down when you walk into the building. “What’s in it?” My friends used to make fun of me when I would answer, “Spices and things.” But that’s how it was, who knows? Why talk about it? Why ruin things with the mundane drabbery of this earthly plane? Just eat. Who wants to break the magic by bringing in modern technology like teaspoons, blenders and google searches? No, just eat.

Enter Amazon stats and kiss it all goodbye. A scrapped piece of printer paper taped to the fridge, a sharpie that seems to never hold enough ink, and an ever watchful eye on the kitchen timer: that’s recipe writing. Gone is “a little of this” and in comes “how the hell many tablespoons was that?” Forget plopping everything onto a plate with a serving spoon and a come and get it. Now it’s straight to the photo set up, pastel backdrop in place. Then to the computer to type it all out, lest you forget just how long you left the lid on and a recipe is lost. And there is fun in that, there is satisfaction and of course, it’s a small price to pay for, god, all your dreams coming true. But.

It hurts your cooking. It changes everything. It tames you. It makes your already tiny kitchen tinier still. And (I’ll switch from second person narration into first now) I need to be free. I guess that’s what I’m saying. Mel Gibson didn’t completely kill freedom, did he?

A completely unstaged photo of a white lasagna I made, with gingered lime sweet potatoes and a cashew cream sauce. Garnished in a completely realistic manner with cilantro.

An inside shot and a side of garlicky kale, it’s easy to eat local in Portland.

I’m in Cheyenne, Wyoming. Home of…I have no idea. I know there’s a bagel place with hummus somewhere around here. But really we’re just trying to get to Portland as quickly and painlessly as possible.

I’ve been downloading NPR shows to curb the boredom of I-80, mostly This American Life. In doing so I came across the NPR Food podcast. It’s been around for a few years, but if I didn’t know about it, maybe you didn’t either. It’s a mishmash of food segments from all of their non-food shows, including Weekend Edition, Fresh Air and All Things Considered. The length of the show depends on how many food segments there are that week, but it seems to average about 20 minutes.

Without further ado, here you go! And I’ll see you in Portland in a few days.

When I’m feeling like I have to be productive but I am way too lazy, I cruise recipe sites like epicurious or allrecipes. It makes me feel like I’m researching. Anyway, today I found Moby’s Vegan Blueberry Pancakes on epicurious. There’s no oil in the recipe so I have my misgivings, but I thought it was cute. Especially in the intro where they say, “Moby has been a practicing vegan for 20 years.” So should we call ex-vegans “non-practicing vegans” instead?

They look good, right?

I haven’t watched yet, but you can also see him make breakfast here. And that’s followed by a vegan philosophy and lifestyle video. I probably should have watched it before blogging, but whatever.

About the big news I mentioned last week. I’m moving to Portland, OR. It was somewhere between a spur of the moment and a many years in the making decision. The short story is that I simply can’t afford to do the things I want to do in Brooklyn. It will always be my home but it’s become quite unlivable for me. It became a constant struggle, not just to make ends meet but also to reconcile the Brooklyn that I grew up in with this new Brooklyn; she of the bizarre glass buildings, 2500 dollar studios and 300 dollar haircuts. And god help me, I was not about to move back to Sheepshead Bay!

Besides which, Portland is beautiful, vegan friendly and a great place for small independent business. It’s also close to things that I love, like mountains! And redwoods! And the Goonies beach! Not to mention so many awesome people. I have high hopes for a new life there. And, most importantly, a big kitchen.

The author of Vegan Planet, Robbie Robin Robertson, has a new blog. It’s very inappropriately titled Vegan Planet.

Hezbollah Tofu is a blog with a mission: veganizing Anthony Bourdain recipes. I can’t wait to try the clafoutis!

Update: Check out Vegan Menu’s veganized Bourdain: Tournedos d’Agneau with Poached Figs.

VegNews Press Pass lets you get a glimpse of the VegNews staff leading a glamorous life that probably is pretty similar to your own if you’ve ever met someone for a late lunch.

Now stop staring at me! I’ve updated my blog! Big news is coming soon. No, I’m not pregnant (I just kind of look it.)

Chicago Soy Dairy sent me four pounds of Teese, their new soy cheese. I hosted a pizza party on Sunday night to see what was what.

When it comes to soy cheese, a key phrase from my days as a cubical inhabitant come to mind: “manage expectations.” And I guess as vegans our expectations have been effectively managed. We don’t require much, if it melts we seem to be sufficiently satisfied. That aftertaste of melted crayons? You know what? We can deal with it. But the thing is, most soy cheeses don’t do a good job of melting and so we’re often left with workarounds like broiling or, god forbid, microwaving and some of us even resort to satanic ritual or boiler room deals with shady characters that promise us they can “make it melt.” Then before we know it, we’re missing fingers and our life savings.

Exclusive photos of the star of the evening, thoroughly undressed!

But let me get straight to the point - Teese forking melts! It doesn’t disentigrate or merely become softish. It melts! And our tasters were also pleased with the taste. General consensus was that it was an improved Follow Your Heart and so it was difficult to discuss Teese on its own merit without mentioning FYH. The taste could be described as tangy and creamy. And, to put it bluntly, one tester said “There’s no nice way to phrase it: it definitely didn’t have the funky smell that FYH has when melted.” Granted, she didn’t care much for Follow Your Heart to begin with. Another tester who was a FYH fan said “It seemed to have lower water content, which made it more cheese-like.” But she thought that it was only a minor improvement to FYH. The only place where FYH won out was that people seemed to think it congealed faster when cooling down.

Patty, our Brooklyn Italian vegan tester and professional pizza model, loving on the Teese

But we’re vegans, who cares what we think, right? Let’s get the opinion that really matters - that of people who eat cheese. Well both cheese eaters at our soiree were impressed. They thought the Teese was best compared to a soft, fresh mozzerella. It didn’t have the stretchy stringiness normally associated with pizza parlor cheese. One of our cheese eating testers thought that it could pass for cheese, the other didn’t think it would fool anyone, but he still enjoyed it. He had, like, 8 slices.

As for me, I loved it. It was a joy to work with and I’m excited to get to the pictures so I’m gonna’ go ahead and shut up and let the pizzas do the talking. Since it’s so image heavy, the pizzas are below the cutsky.

You can order a sample here, for 7.50 a pound. Do it, you won’t regret it.

Read the rest of this entry »

Julie Hasson’s steamed seitan sausages have been calling my name for weeks now and who am I to deny a sausage? I actually purchased a new (and needed) steamer just for the occasion. And wow, just wow. What a great method steaming turned out to be!

This is one of the reasons that I sometimes get frustrated with “vegan secrets.” I’ve written about it a little before and I know it comes across as bisque-y, but the reason behind it is nothing but nice. When you have a great new method for, oh, I don’t know, meringue or frosting or mayo- why not share it? I mean, for free - the way Julie has in her video. People will still support you and buy your cookbook, in fact, they might be more apt to buy your cookbook because of recipes they’ve tried from a blog or where ever. My book sales aren’t hurting because the chickpea cutlet recipe is all over the internet.

But besides just increasing book sales, the experience of collaboration can be rewarding as you watch the recipe morph with every kitchen it passes through. It’s like a game of telephone, except at the end you’ll hopefully have an awesome sausage and not a sentence like “You have titty owls on your head.” But what I’m saying is that in collaboration there is community, in community there is strength. In strength there is…I don’t know. But you get the idea, don’t you? Sharing can only help vegan cuisine.

Speaking of morphing, I did deviate from the original recipe to reflect the way I usually cook. Since my steamer could only fit 4 sausages, I had to change the quantities. I also wanted to try to get a little more texture out of them, so I added some mashed pinto beans for a little Mexican flair. The result is a really nice, slightly spicy sausage that would go well with chorizo type dishes. Really, as Julie says in her cooking video, the variations you could come up with are endless. People on the PPK forums have had good luck with their own variations, including an Apple Sage one that I’d like to hit up someday soon.

Spicy Pinto Sausages

Makes 4 big sausages

1/2 cup pinto beans, rinsed and drained

1 cup vegetable broth

1 tablespoon olive oil

2 tablespoons soy sauce

2 cloves garlic, grated (with a microplane, or very finely minced)

1 1/4 cups vital wheat gluten

1/4 cup nutritional yeast

1 1/2 teaspoons fennel seed, crushed

1 teaspoon red pepper flakes

1 teaspoon sweet paprika

1 teaspoon dried oregano

Several dashes fresh black pepper

Before mixing your ingredients, get your steaming apparatus ready, bring water to a full boil. The rest of the recipe comes together very quickly.

Have ready 4 sheets of tin foil. In a large bowl, mash the pinto beans until no whole ones are left. Throw all the other ingredients together in the order listed and mix with a fork. Divide dough into 4 even parts (an easy way to do this: split the dough in half and then into quarters). Place one part of dough into tin foil and mold into about a 5 inch log. Wrap dough in tin foil, like a tootsie roll. Don’t worry too much about shaping it, it will snap into shape while it’s steaming because this recipe is awesome.

Place wrapped sausages in steamer and steam for 40 minutes. That’s it! You can unwrap and enjoy immediately or refrigerate until ready to use. I refrigerated some of mine in wrappers and some out of wrappers to see if there would be a difference, but there really wasn’t. They’re really great sliced up and lightly sauteed, and this weekend I’ll be trying them on pizzas.

Check out Julie’s video and see just how easy these are. Thank you, Julie! I love you! <3<3<3 Also - you have titty owls on your head.

The boys at Chicago Soy Dairy have been hard at work on their latest product, a vegan cheese called Teese. I have high hopes for this stuff, and I’ll be testing it in my oven at a pizza party next weekend. Until then, you can watch it melt in a pizza oven to a back drop of “Rock You Like A Hurricane.” As if we needed Scorpion to make the melting soy cheese seem exciting!

Teese is being served at a few restaurants in Chicago but not yet available to individual consumers. Hopefully it will be soon! If you have an eatery that serves soy cheese in your hood let them know about this new cheese or contact swade@welovesoy.com and he can get in touch.

All praise to Paula for giving me the title of this blog entry.

Now stop rubbing it in everyone else’s face! The fair and beautiful Katie, who just transplanted her fine self from Chicago to Portland, has been posting the most tempting confections from her new workplace - SweetPea Bakery in the famed Portland mini-mall.

Not to mention one off color cake:

And to add insult to injury, she has announced that SweetPea is offering all you can eat vegan brunch. Okay, Portland. We get it. You win. Now stop showing off, already. It’s tacky.

Details from Lisa SweetPea

“Hi Friends!

xoxo
-lisa”