Zucchini and Carrot Loaf

Many, many years ago, when I was still at university, a friend of my American cousins was visiting us for a few weeks.   Like most of my Californian cousins and their friends, I thought she was wonderful and worldly in a way that we were not.

She embroidered intricate designs on her clothing and on bandanas and she was a really good baker.   One day she announced that she would be making zucchini bread, and I thought at the time that nothing sounded more dreadful than bread made with zucchini.  She promised that it would be great, and went ahead and made it.  I tasted it reluctantly and was more than pleasantly surprised to find that it was fantastic.

That was forty years ago.

The other day as I was making banana bread (here is the link: http://downrightvegan.blogspot.ca/2014/12/cranberry-banana-bread.html) I remembered my friend's zucchini bread and decided I would try to invent a recipe that was vegan version of my friend's cake.  I used my banana bread recipe as a base for it, but had to do some tweaking of it.  For starters, I didn't have enough zucchinis on hand for the recipe and was reluctant to go to the store because I had to play Florence Nightingale to my very sick cat.

My banana bread requires three bananas to make 1 1/4 cups of bananas.  I had that muchzucchini but I wanted to make two loaves so I supplemented my zucchini with carrots, and the loaves turned out just fine.



The batter was very thick and I was afraid that baking soda alone would not be enough to make the bread rise so I also added baking powder.

This recipe makes two loaves of bread.

Pre-heat your oven to 350 degrees

Wet ingredients

Mix together in a large mixing bowl or in the bowl of your stand mixer:

Egg replacer to the equivalent of two eggs.   I used ener-g egg replacer.
2/3 cup of canola oil
2/3 cup of pure maple syrup

Carrots and Zucchini

You will need a total of 2 1/2 to 2 2/3 cups of grated carrots and zucchini.  I measured out a total of about 1 1/3 cups each.  I didn't press the grated veg down too hard in the measuring cup, but the difference in total volume is based on the fact that when I pressed down on the grated veggies to measure them, the veggies expanded back up a little bit.

Add these veggies to the liquid ingredients and mix for for about ten seconds.

Dry Ingredients

Mix together in a large bowl

2 1/2 Cups of all purpose flour
1 tbsp baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon ginger
Pinch of salt
1 cup of chopped walnuts
1 cup of dried cranberries

Add these dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and the veggies in the bowl of your mixer, or if you are using a hand mixer, add them to the wet ingredients.

Mix until blended.  This batter is very stiff.

Prepare two loaf pans in your usual manner and then add the batter evenly to the pans and press down a bit to make sure there are no air pockets in your batter.

Bake in the oven for 30 - 35.  All ovens differ, and when I checked mine at 30 minutes it was not quite done.

Your loaf is done when a toothpick inserted in the centre comes out clean and dry

How I Became a Vegan

Some conversions come like lightening out of the blue and others take a little longer.  As far as being a vegan goes, I am sad to say it took me a long time to come around to seeing the hidden evils of dairy products and eggs, in fact I was a vegetarian who thought that veganism was a little extreme.  How can not eating eggs or dairy be considered extreme when judged against the actions that bring dairy products and eggs to the table?  The dairy industry is cruel - that's extreme.  The egg industry is cruel - that's extreme, too.

I was already a vegetarian long before I became a vegan, and had been since my child was about eight years old.  One day at school, he had learned that meat was nothing more than the bodies of slaughtered animals.  Prior to that he had thought that meat was an item that was purchased at the store and he was unaware that it was the flesh of animals.  Always a very sensitive child, my son's horror at his discovery was palpable.  He was inconsolable about the harm that he had contributed to, and this made me stop and think.   I took our already-made chicken dinner to an elderly neighbour, and we became vegetarians on the spot.

It took me much longer to understand the cruelty inherent in the dairy and egg industry, and therefore it took several years before I became a vegan.  This is the story of how it happened. One morning, before work, I was reading the paper.  There was an article in the Toronto Star about a woman who had a farm sanctuary for rescued hens.  I was drawn to the article because the photo that accompanied it showed a hen wearing a little sweater.  The article explained that that hen, and the others that were rescued, needed sweaters because they lost their feathers due to being jammed together in the too-small crates that are routinely used in egg-laying facilities. It was October and the hens were cold, plus winter was coming and their feathers would not have been re-grown by the time the really cold weather started.  I was aghast at the implications of this.  I looked up the woman's farm on-line, sponsored a chicken for the year.  I could not get the picture of the sweater-wearing, featherless chickens out of my head. Those images followed me around.

About two weeks later I was sitting in church one morning and during the announcements, our priest was talking about the church Christmas luncheon and was telling us that for that dinner we had our choice of turkey, roast beef or salmon.  That bothered me because I was a vegetarian (but that's a topic for another post). And then that image of the chicken in her little sweater popped into my head, and in that moment, at church, I knew that the answer was veganism.  From that moment on I never knowingly ate animal products again.  I became an avid label-reader.  I no longer wear leather or wool or feathers.  I gave my woolen yarn stash to some women at my church who knit scarves and mitts for a shelter in Toronto, and donated my woolen clothes to charity.

It is hard to explain to non-vegetarians or non-vegans how right this decision was for me and for animals.  Some people think there is no moral aspect to the food we choose, but they are wrong, totally wrong.  When a being must die for a person to eat, when that person has options that are just as healthy that don't involve killing or cruelty, that's morally wrong.   Of course I have been offered the "what if you were stranded on a desert island with nothing to eat but animals, then would you kill and eat them?" question.  The answer is:  I'm living in Toronto.  There are no desert islands around here.  When I travel, I travel to the United States and Europe.  There are no desert islands there.  The odds are definitely against me finding myself on a desert island any time soon, but should I find myself there, I would look first to see the plants that the animals on that island were eating.

I am saddened by the specious arguments that non-vegans use to justify their meat eating, and this is everything from "we have canine teeth" to "it just tastes so good."   Our canine teeth are not canine teeth in the same sense as my dog or cats' canine teeth are.  Our canines are more vestigial and ornamental than practical canine teeth.  And of course meat tastes good: I used to love a good steak, but I'm no longer prepared to participate in the cruelty inherent in getting a steak to the table, and I am angered by people who don't care.  I am totally put off by people who say "Mmm, bacon!" when I am eating a vegan meal.  These people I ignore.

This is a link to the article that started me thinking seriously about the egg and dairy industry, and which helped move me into veganism, and which helped me begin to truly live my values of kindness and compassion.


http://www.thestar.com/news/ontario/2009/10/08/how_bald_chickens_help_troubled_kids.html

The Price of Eggs

Germany is the first country to stop grinding up male chicks as part of the egg-laying industry.

I have always believed that shoppers should understand the other price of the eggs they buy, beyond the money they hand over to the supermarket. The ground up chicks, the life of misery of laying hens, even free-range hens, and the trip to the slaughterhouse for hens that can no longer lay hundreds of eggs per year - that's the cost of eggs.
http://animalsaustralia.org/…/germany-stops-shredding-chick…

Veganuary

Here we are at the beginning of a new year.  If you are not already a vegan, why not start the year with a one-month vegan challenge:  eat only vegan food for a month!

Frequently when I suggest this to non-vegans, the answer is "No thank you." And then they follow up their polite rejection of the suggestion with all sorts of reasons why they can't, including "I love cheese too much to give it up, even for a month."

For people who were raised with a meat-centric diet, and I count myself as one of them - meat played a central role in almost every meal of my life - this can be a hard challenge to accept.  But it's not as hard as a confirmed meat eater might think: there are many prepared foods that taste almost like their non-vegan counterparts.  There are vegan sliced meats, vegan chicken fingers, vegan fish cakes, meat loaves, vegan soups, vegan ice cream and cakes, and there are even vegan cheeses.  It's not all tofu! Much vegan food is gluten free or can be made gluten-friendly.  Vegan foods made from scratch are tasty and satisfying and are not difficult to prepare, and are no more time-consuming to make than non-vegan meals.

Most non-vegans are already used to eating all sorts of vegan food, starting with that old stand-by, the peanut butter sandwich.  Other foods that are vegan are baked beans (if they don't have pork or bacon in them), salads with balsamic vinaigrette, fruit cups, other kinds of beans, pasta in plain tomato sauce - the list is almost endless.

There is no need to feel deprived -- the Canadian Dieticians Association says that a well-planned vegan diet is a very healthy diet for any person at any stage of life.  (http://www.dietitians.ca/Your-Health/Nutrition-A-Z/Vegetarian-Diets/Eating-Guidelines-for-Vegans.aspx)

But more than that, there are certain benefits of a vegan diet that go way beyond the food that vegans eat.  Most people consider themselves to be very kind.  They say they love animals and would never intentionally harm animals.  Nonetheless they spend their hard-earned money on meat, eggs and dairy products which can only be obtained through the brutalization, terrorization, and ultimate killing of animals.  When these people purchase meat or other animal products, they have paid someone to do to animals which they could never do themselves - harm and kill animals.  This means that a person who considers herself kind and compassionate, but eats meat and other animal-derived foods is not as kind and compassionate as she thinks she is.  This is a truth that many people don't want to hear.  There is no way to easily kill an animal.  They don't want to die.

So this January, why not try to be true to your values, and try to eat a vegan diet for the month?  It is my guess at you will feel better, both in body and soul, if you do.

International Vegan T-Shirt Day

In honour of International Vegan T-Shirt Day, I am posting a picture of myself wearing a t-shirt that promotes veganism.

International Vegan Junk Food Day 2015

It's international Vegan Junk Food Day, and in the spirit of the day, I'm sending my contributions to the cause!

I went to Starbucks to have a soymilk latte and I purchased a package of chocolate covered dates that had been stuffed with almonds.  Both the latte and the chocolates were delightful.

It's Official

On Wednesday, May 27, I officially informed my employer that I intend to retire effective June 30, 2015.  

I sent one mildly gushy letter to my principal and vice-principal, and a business-like letter to all the necessary people in the head office.

I will miss the people with whom I work, and while I will miss working, I will not miss going to work.   There are so many other things I can be doing besides scraping off my car at 6:30 a.m. to get to the office.

I will be creating a whole set of new routines in my life, and I am looking forward to being able to post much more frequently than I have been posting.

Snack Box

I'm reviewing a vegan snack sampler tonight.

Three months ago, as a birthday present to myself, I subscribed to a three month delivery of vegan beauty products from Vegan Cuts.  Vegan Cuts is a company that seeks out products, checks them to make sure they contain only vegan ingredients,  and then offers these products to vegan shoppers.  This is a great idea.  The boxes came like clock-work on about the 23rd of the next three months, and I was impressed by the products they contained, but I never did a review of any of them.

Towards the end of April I thought I would try a one month sample of the Vegan Cuts Snack Box.  The snack box arrived today.  Check out this photo!

The box contained full-sized packages of a number of snacks and sample size of some snacks.

The full-size snacks were:  Pop Art Thai Coconut Curry Popcorn, RW Garcia Blue & Yellow tortilla chips, Explore Asian spaghetti made from edamame beans, Dog Dark Organic energy drink, and Flamous Brands (yes that's the correct spelling!) felafel chips.   You might notice from the photo that this bag had been opened - we tried them - they're great!  Grab The Gold snack bar in chocolate-peanut butter flavour (I'm taking this to school tomorrow.  For me.)

The sample size snacks were: two packages of YumEarth jelly beans and gummies, Vibrant Health protein powder, and Crunch Master multi-grain crackers.

I'm also going to take the jelly beans and gummies to school.  You never know when you are going to need a snack!!!

Finally, that handsome fellow in the photo is my cat Buddy.

Cauliflower Wings

I’ll admit it: for some time now, I’ve been very intrigued by recipes that suggest that by a clever combination of breading, baking, and BBQ sauce application, cauliflower florets can be substituted for chicken wings.  I haven’t actually believed it, but I wanted to try it.

I have looked at dozens of recipes for this, and ultimately, I invented my own.  Plus I have a secret weapon: Akabanga sauce from Rwanda.

I bought several small bottles of this sauce when I was in Rwanda in the summer of 2014.  I don’t use it as often as I should.

This beautiful head of cauliflower was my inspiration!

Ingredients

I large head of cauliflower
2 cups of the flour of your choice - regular flower, whole wheat flour, gluten-free - it’s up  to you!
2 cups of soy milk or the non-dairly milk of your choice
a pinch of salt
black pepper - as much or as little as you like
2 cups of your favourite vegan BBQ sauce
1/2 cup of unsweetened apple sauce
2 tablespoons of canola oil
your favourite hot sauce, if you are looking for hot wings - if you don’t like hot wings, you can omit the hot sauce


Directions

You will need to pre-heat your oven to 450 degrees

Cut up the head of cauliflower into florets.  Don’t make the florets too small.

Combine the flour, the soy milk (or other non-dairy milk) the salt and pepper in a large bowl and whisk until well combined.

Coat the cauliflower florets in this mixture and place them in an oven-proof pan.  I used a 9 x 13 inch pan and a 5 x 9 inch pan.  My cauliflower was so big I could not fit all the florets in one pan.

You can coat the florets by dipping them one by one in the flour mixture if you like, but I dumped all of the florets into the bowl and gently stirred with a wooden spoon, and then I used the spoon to lift the florets out of the bowl and into the ovenproof pans.

Put your pans in the oven and set the timer for 22 minutes.

While the cauliflower is baking, you can make your sauce.  Combine the BBQ sauce, the apple sauce, the canola oil and about two drops of hot sauce.  Stir until they are will combined.  I used a 4 Cup size measuring cup to do this so that it would be easier to pour the sauce onto the florets.

When the timer goes off, carefully remove your pans from the oven and place them onto  robust hot pads or trivets.

Pour the BBQ sauce mixture over the florets as evenly as possible.  The pans will be very hot and almost immediately you will begin to notice the aroma of carmelizing BBQ sauce.

Put your pans back into the oven for another 8 to 10 minutes.

Serve the florets more or less immediately.  They would go very nicely with a good vegan potato salad or with vegan ranch dressing.   I liked them plain, actually, and  I can  absolutely see them becoming a backyard dinner staple.

The question remains, however, do they taste like chicken wings?  The answer is no, they do not.  And I’m happy that they do not.

Banana Oatmeal Cookies

I was feeling a bit remiss about not having made a post to my blog recently.  I know that I am unlikely to attract new followers if there is not some dandy new content showing up frequently.

We had a Christmas cookie exchange at the school where I work.  There are actually two schools in my school building, and staff (teachers and support staff) from both schools participated.   Two of my good friends from my school brought vegan cookies because they didn’t think it would be sporting to bring cookies that I would not eat.  I have been thinking a great deal about their kindness to me, and about their cookies too! I resolved to try to make these cookies on the March Break, which I am enjoying right now.

I’m starting with these simple cookies, made by one of the teachers at my school.  She had never baked cookies in her entire life, so she was looking for something both vegan and simple - and these cookies hit the mark on both counts.  We car-pool home most nights, and earlier this week I asked her about the recipe.  She said she had looked on-line, and the recipe was so simple I would not have to write it down.   I found I had to tweak it a little bit, but the cookies came out as delicious as I remembered them.

Ingredients

2 very ripe bananas 

2 cups of quick-cooking rolled oats

Directions

Pre-heat your oven to 350 degrees.  Put some parchment paper on a cookie sheet.  If you prefer spraying a bit of oil on your cookie sheet, go ahead!

1. Mash the bananas until they are good and mashed, but still have some lumps.
2. Add the oats and stir to combine.
3. Drop by the teaspoon onto your cookie sheet, and bake in the oven for about 12 minutes.  When you give them a gentle poke and they don’t fall apart but rather, feel a little firm, they are done.

If you can believe it, these are the only two ingredients.  If you are the kind of baker who likes to experiment, you can also add any extra ingredients of your choice: I added 

1/4 teaspoon each of cinnamon and nutmeg to the bowl, and then divided the batter into thirds.  I left one third just as it was, in the second third I stirred 1/3 Cup of slivered almonds and 1/3 cup of dried cranberries, and in the third third, I stirred in 2 heaping tablespoons of unsweetened coconut flakes and 1/3 cup of cranberries.

I was able to fit all of the cookies onto one cookie sheet.  The aroma in my kitchen was quite beautiful.  These are the kind of cookies that you don’t have to feel guilty about eating. 

Pancake Tuesday

Today isn't Tuesday, it's Saturday.  But I'm having pancakes anyways.

It's a snowy Saturday in Toronto which seems to be normal this winter.   I am happy to stay indoors and do some marking, and some tidying up and some cooking - anything to not go outside until tomorrow morning.

I have been thinking about having pancakes all week: Tuesday was Shrove Tuesday, a day I look forward to with great enthusiasm.  Unfortunately, I missed having pancakes on this day, because I left my cell phone in my sister's car and had to retrieve it.   I had evening engagements every night of the week, so I knew my only chance at pancakes would be this morning - a Saturday.

Today I have a helper in the kitchen - my cat Buddy.

Years ago when my son was an infant, we had a nanny, Allie, from the Netherlands.  Shortly after she moved into our house she said she was going to make pancakes for breakfast.  I checked my pantry and found that I had very little pancake mix on hand.  Allie looked a bit puzzled.  "Pancake mix?" she asked.  "What's pancake mix?"  So I showed her the nearly-empty box, and she appeared to be quite surprised.  She said she had never heard of such a thing. "Pancakes are so easy to make!" she exclaimed, "They are just flour, and baking powder and milk and a bit of oil - you don't need a mix!"    She made pancakes for breakfast quite often, never with a mix.  Sometimes she would cut up an apple into thin slices and mix the slices in with the pancake batter.  Sometimes she added chocolate, sometimes fresh berries.  She didn't have a recipe, she just mixed up the batter herself.  She used to say, "It's  one to one - that's all you have to remember!", referring to the ratio of flour to milk.  I must say, however, that I like a bit more milk in mine than the one to one ratio, but that's a personal preference.  I will write down the recipe as I received it from Allie.

In the years since she moved back to the Netherlands, I have used her recipe many, many times, but now I have veganized it.  I no longer use dairy milk, but still mostly keep to the one to one ratio.

 Sometimes I still add fruit.  I often add nutmeg (I did today) because it imparts an interesting depth of flavour to the pancakes.  These pancakes are light and fluffy and are always a hit.

This recipe makes enough for our family - at least twelve very large pancakes or twenty smaller ones.  You can cut the recipe in half or multiply it - it's easy to remember.

Dry Ingredients

2 cups of Flour

2 tablespoons of baking powder

2 tablespoons of vegan-friendly sugar

1 teaspoon of ground nutmeg
1 pinch of salt
Note: if I am adding berries, I use frozen berries and add them to the dry ingredients.

Wet ingredients
2 cups of milk - I use President's Choice soy milk - it's fantastic (I prefer adding 2 1/3 Cups of milk)
4 tablespoons of canola oil



Directions

Pour some canola into a frying pan on high heat and allow the pan to get good and hot.

Mix all of the dry ingredients together in a big mixing bowl.

Mix the canola oil and the soy milk (or other non-dairy milk) in a measuring cup - it won't stay mixed so don't worry if you skip this step.

Pour the oil-soy milk mixture into the dry mixture and stir until combined.  The batter makes better pancakes if it is not mixed perfectly smoothly.  You will notice that the batter is light and fluffy - much fluffier than boxed pancake mixes.

I use a 1/4 Cup measuring cup to scoop the batter into the hot frying pan, and I spread the batter a bit with the bottom of the measuring cup.


It's really difficult to say how long to cook each side of the pancakes, because different people have different ideas about what constitutes a hot frying pan.  For me, it's full speed ahead - I have the pan as hot as my stove can make it, or if I am using an electric frying pan, I turn it up as far as it will go.

Generally speaking, you cook the pancakes until the uncooked side is filled with bubble holes and the bottom looks golden around the edges, and then you flip the pancake over and cook it until the bottom again looks like it is golden around the edges.  Then you put the pancakes on a plate and enjoy them.

These pancakes are great with maple syrup, with Lyle's Golden Syrup (a non-corn syrup) or with brown sugar.