Easy Biscuits

This is my first Vegan Mofo post!

I experience a particular satisfaction when I can take a non-vegan recipe and make it vegan, and this is what I have done with this biscuit recipe which I adapted from the King Arthur flour company.

The biscuits are tasty and they are quick and easy to make.

The recipe called for King Arthur Self-Rising Flour, but that is unavailable where I live (in Canada) so I used Brodie XXX Self-Rising Flour.  Instead of cream, I used Wilderness Family Naturals Coconut Cream. That's it - just the two ingredients.

Directions

Pre-heat your oven to 450 degrees.

Mix together Brodie XXX Self-Rising Flour and the coconut cream in equal parts by weight, not volume.

Drop by tablespoons onto parchment on a baking sheet (if you have a cookie scoop this would be the perfect place to use it), and brush the tops of the buns with some coconut cream, then bake for ten minutes or until golden brown on top.

That's it!  Quick and easy biscuits that my taste testing team loved!

The flour and the cream before mixing...

and after mixing.

Waiting to go into the oven...

hot out of the oven

Ready for Earth Balance margarine or jam, or anything else you like to put on biscuits!

Vegan Month of Food or Vegan MoFo

I have signed up to participate in the Vegan Month of Food.   It feels like shameless self- promotion but it might be a good way for my blog to get some visitors.

I have to make twenty posts during the month of September - if I don't, my blog will be removed from the MoFo list, and I don't want that to happen.  I had to have a theme, such as Desserts, or Mains.  I really didn't want to limit myself to just one area of cooking, so I selected the less-limiting category of Recipes.

Right now I'm planning my recipes, so that I will have some good posts to make.

Gluten-Free Cookies

I adapted a recipe that I found in Bunner's Simple and Delicious Gluten-Free Treats by Ashley Wittig and Kevin MacAllister.   I used their Spiced Banana Rum Cookies, but substituted Chivas Regal for the rum, and I didn't use any sugar, and I also added a bit of almond flour, too.

The cookies turned out very nicely indeed! I've included a picture, below.  They are sweet, but not cloyingly sweet as some cookies are (and I'll be frank here: I like cloyingly sweet cookies), and that's a good thing because these are for my Mother-In-Law, who is a diabetic, and needs gluten-free foods containing no dairy.  In total, each cookie has 9 to 10 grams of carbohydrate.  That means she can have one or two with a cup of tea if she likes.

I'm going to make them again using Bob's Red Mill Gluten-free Oatmeal, which I will put in the food processor first to break up the oats.  I'm also going to see what happens if I use apple sauce instead of bananas.

I think these cookies will become a regular part of my cookie repertoire.   My family seems to like them.

Ribfest

I live quite close to Thompson Park in Scarborough.  It's a beautiful park, and I love to go for walks there of a pleasant evening or morning.

This weekend, the park is off-limits to anyone with a healthy sense of common-decency: it's time for Ribfest.   Booth after booth of pork and beef ribs and pulled pork sandwiches.

It's utterly revolting.

And the worst thing is, no one who goes to ribfest understands exactly how appalling it is.

Gluten-free Oatmeal

I found some gluten-free oatmeal (Bob's Red Mill) at the supercentre in my Dad's neighbourhood today, so now I'm good to go for making cookies for my MIL.

I won't be able to make them tomorrow though, we must attend a funeral.  I will make them on Saturday.

I'm On A Quest

My dear Mother-In-Law is getting older.  She is a lactose-intolerant, gluten-sensitive diabetic.   Despite our best efforts, she does not always eat foods that are best for her.

When my husband picked me up at the airport, he told me that he had visited her a few days earlier and had found cookies in the house that were not gluten-free, and which contained milk, and their diabetes suitability was questionable.  My FIL claims that it is hard to find the right cookies.  My DH told them they didn't need cookies if they were not appropriate for his DM's dietary needs.   There was unhappiness all around.

I have decided that I will try to make some vegan, gluten-free, diabetic appropriate cookies for her.

Today I went to my supercentre and I purchased some almond flour, some gluten free all-purpose flour and some xanthan gum - all Bob's Red Mill Brand.  The store was out of Bob's gluten-free oatmeal so I will have to go to a health food store tomorrow.  I have a few cookbooks I can use for inspiration, but the final results will be my own invention.   I have to do something about the sugar or syrup that almost all of the recipes call for - these cookies have to be sweetened more or less by their ingrediants.  It helps to remember that cookies don't have to be super sweet to be really good.

I'll keep you posted about my efforts!   I'm starting tomorrow!

I'm home now

I back home from my fabulous trip, and I'm having a bit of trouble with jet lag.

Hopefully it will clear up soon.

London, England: Vegan Haven!

There are so many vegan, vegetarian, and vegan-friendly places in London, that it make no sense to go to a regular restaurant to see if maybe there might be something to eat on the menu.

On the day we arrived, we went for a vegan high tea at La Suite West Hotel, just off Queensway, near the Bayswater subway station.  It was fantastic!  So fantastic that I ate too much, and I am trying to be strict on my diet while I'm away.

Yesterday we went to Norman's Coach and Horses, a vegan/vegetarian pub near Soho.  We both had the tofish and chips, and were very impressed.

Today we went back to the Coach and Horses to meet up with friends from Rwanda. I had the veggie burger and I have to say, with all honesty, that it was the best veggie burger I have ever had.

Vegan in Rwanda

It was not hard to be vegan in Rwanda.  Not at all.  What was difficult was finding a large variety of vegan foods.   Because of the leisurely pace of Rwandan restaurant service, we almost always ate at buffets.   At every buffet there was always rice, potatoes (several kinds - roasted, boiled), sweet potatoes, and always boiled greens such as spinach or cassava leaves (very tasty), as well as a bean stew of some kind - beans with green beans, or beans with sweet potatoes, or beans with beans.   We were never worried about being short of protein, just short of variety.

We were glad that we brought a jar of peanut butter with us, because breakfast most days was toast and fruit.   There were eggs on offer but of course, we don't eat eggs.

Animals being taken to slaughter are treated poorly in North America.  From what we have seen, they are treated worse in Rwanda.   Four years ago, I saw cows stacked (yes, stacked) in a truck as we drove along a highway.   Last week we passed a truck with pigs tied to the top of it.

We could not have been the only vegetarians in Rwanda, yet Rwandan waiters and restaurant staff looked askance at us if we said we didn't want cheese with our brekkie or milk in our tea.

No food posts lately

I acknowledge that I have not posted in a few weeks now, and I really regret the lapse.  I have been so busy planning this trip to Rwanda, and finishing off the school year, that I really have not had time.

Once the trip gets underway, however, I hope to make regular posts, but those posts will not contain recipes, rather they will be posts about maintaining a vegan lifestyle while travelling.

I'm looking forward to a vegan high-tea in London, and I will post a review about the restaurant that offers that, as well as a trip to The Coach and Horses, a London pub that serves only vegetarian and vegan food.   Looking forward to the tofish and chips!!!

Our meals on the airplane are listed as "vegetarian hindu"   I think that means vegan.   I hope it means vegan!

I'll keep you posted.

Party Post-Mortem

My SIL's birthday party at our house was great!

The cake was fantastic, and I have my sister to thank for that great recipe.

I also made a potato salad using small red potatoes - so small, in fact that I only needed to cut them in half before boiling them.  I bought them at my local Loblaw store.  They are called "Little Gems" and apart from being a pain in the neck to cut, they are great for salads.  Loblaws also sells white and coloured Little Gems. I added thinly sliced red onions to the potatoes, and then added the dressing.  I added a few dashes of Trader Joe's Everyday Spice mix to the bowl.

I made the dressing out of vegenaise and dijon mustard, a dash of vegan worcestershire sauce, and plenty of black pepper.

We also had a fruit tray and a veggie tray.  I made a dip from french onion soup mix (it's vegan!), silken tofu and vegan cream cheese.  It was great.

My SIL made a beautiful salad containing a mix of greens and kale, spinach and avocado.

We had a great day!