Leslie's Mincemeat Cake

Today is my sister-in-law's birthday, and my DH's family is coming over for a BBQ.  As well as burgers, I've made vegan potato salad, and an interesting salad with corn, black beans and hearts of palm.  My SIL is bringing a green salad.

In honour of my SIL's birthday, I thought I would make a cake.  My favourite cake right now is my sister Leslie's mincemeat cake.  She's an inventor in the kitchen, my sister, and one day she decided to put half a jar of vegan mincemeat into a cake she was making.  What a fabulous inspiration! Her recipe appears below, and below that, the adaptations that I made to make a gluten-free version that would be suitable for my niece and my MIL.

Leslie's Mincemeat cake

Dry ingredients
2.5 cups flour
1.5 cups sugar
.5 tsp salt
2 tsp baking soda
1.5 baking powder

Wet ingredients
2 cups soy milk with 2 tsp of apple cider vinegar -set aside to curdle
2/3 cup of oil
2 tsp vanilla

Half a jar of mincemeat

Preheat oven to 350. This makes a bundt cake or a two layers or a 16x9

Mix dry ingredients together til all mixed up.

Add all wet ingredients and the mincemeat and beat for about a minute or two

Pour into prepared pan or pans and bake for 25-35 minutes.

Gluten Free Version

I used Bob's Red Mill Gluten-free all-purpose flour.  I didn't know that xanthan gum or guar gum was needed, and I was worried about the thinness of the batter, so I added another 3/4 cup of the gluten free flour.  I had to cook the cakes (I used two 8" square pans) for an extra 15 minutes.

The cake came out fine!

Chunky Vegetable Soup

If I have not mentioned it before, I really love soup, even pea soup, and I'm not a big fan of cooked peas!

On Sunday I made a really nice soup without the use of any packaged vegetable broth, just with the broth generated naturally by the soup's ingredients.

Here is the recipe:

Lisa's Chunky Vegetable Soup

Ingredients
1 tbs canola oil
3 large cloves of garlic finely chopped
1 large onion, coarsely chopped- my favourites are Spanish onions, sweet onions and Vidalia onions
4 large carrots, peeled and coursely chopped in the food processor
3 celery stalks, chopped into 1/4 inch slices
1 zucchini, cut lengthwise in quarters, and chopped into 1/4 inch slices
1/2 head of cabbage, shredded or 1 bag of plain coleslaw
Black pepper to taste
Trader Joe's Everyday Spice Blend to taste

Instructions

1. Add the oil to a heavy soup pot, heat, and toss the onions and chopped garlic in to cook.  Stir frequently until the onion is mostly translucent.
2. Add the other veggies and add water to cover.
3. Add pepper and Trader Joe's Everyday Spice Blend to taste.
4. Bring to a boil, and let the soup boil hard for about three to five minutes.
5. Add more water to top up the pot and return to a boil.
6. Turn the heat down and let the soup simmer for about twenty minutes.

What about Protein?

Once the soup is made you can add rinsed and drained beans.  My go-to beans are black beans but white beans would also go nicely in this soup.

I also put slices of pressed plain tofu in the soup.  The tofu absorbs the flavours and becomes quite tasty.

You can serve this soup with crackers or a nice sourdough bread.  

I discovered quite by accident that this soup is also great when cold.

Can't Sleep

This doesn't happen to me very often: a sleepless night.  Generally speaking, I fall asleep within seconds of hitting the pillow and wake up only intermittently for very short periods of time.

Tonight I was asleep by 9:30 p.m. and then I woke up at 12:30 a.m. and have been awake ever since!  After tossing and turning for two hours, I decided to get up and read.  While reading, I thought I would make a blog entry.  The truth is, I am really tired, and now I'm afraid that if I lay down, I will not be able to get up in the morning.  Five o'clock comes pretty quickly when you are short of sleep!

I've decided to make a cup of tea because tea both relaxes me and energizes me.  My favourite teas? Irish Breakfast by Twinings, and Maritime Breakfast Tea by Just Us, which is a fair trade tea.  I also like the tea I bought in Rwanda.  I'm down to my last four tea bags of that, but I will be buying more this summer when I return to Rwanda.  I don't imagine I will return to Rwanda a third time, so I will have to buy a huge supply, several boxes at least.

I steep my tea for four minutes, and enjoy it with a touch of President's Choice Original Soy Milk. It's the best soy milk I have ever found: has a mild taste which does not overpower the tea, and it's a nice pale colour.

A Smoothie to Anticipate Summer

I have been suffering (and believe me, that's the operative word) with vertigo since Monday of last week.  That's a whole week of having the room spin if I turn my head the wrong way.  I've been cooped up inside our house because I can't really walk without holding on to something, and sure can't drive.   Yesterday I went for a pedi with my sister Linda.  Brought along my own vegan nail polish, but as it turns out, my esthetician uses China Glaze, and that's a line of vegan nail polishes.

It's really sunny out today, but a bit cold and windy for all that it's the beginning of may.   The sun made me feel like having a smoothie, even though I'm sitting in my house wearing long pants, a tee shirt and a fleece jacket.

There is no end to the variety of smoothies that can be made, as you well know.   There are even smoothies-only cookbooks available on the market, and I've read a number of those.  This is my go-to favourite smoothie recipe which my DH and I have developed and refined over a number of years.

Lisa's Best Smoothie Recipe

The Base:

• one frozen banana (make sure you always have two or three frozen bananas, already cut into chunks, in sandwich bags in your freezer)
• 1 cup of fresh strawberries, cut into chunks (frozen works well too)
• I cup of fresh mango, cut into chunks (frozen works well too)

Once you have this base, you can add any number of different liquids to the fruit to round out your smoothie.

• orange juice
• coconut water
• coconut milk
• soy milk
• almond milk

Extras:

From time to time you may wish to add some veggies to your smoothie, but you really need a high-speed blender to liquify them.

• spinach leaves
• chopped kale
• grated ginger

Finally, if you want your smoothie to be a whole meal, all you need to do is add a quarter cup of silken tofu to the blender.  Tofu is tasteless, so you would never know it was there.   This makes your smoothie even thicker than it would be on its own, and has the added advantage of adding a full serving of protein.  This would make a great breakfast-on-the-go!  Just a warning, though, you will need a sturdy straw to use to drink it.

• silken tofu