When I started this blog, cooking vegan was a novelty. I'd find myself working excitedly through a recipe, in awe at the crazy ingredients I'd never cooked with before, and always pleasantly surprised upon tasting the final product how good it is. Taking pictures of absolutely everything I made (from scratch or from a box) was a given, and every day always brought something new to try.
7 months later, cooking vegan is no longer something novel and strange...it's just become my new normal. I'm not surprised at how delicious vegan eating is any more...I just expect it. And I think I can honestly say that I have done more actual cooking and baking in the last 7 months than I have in the past several years.
And I love it.
But it would appear that the last time I talked about actually cooking something was in June. The summer bloggin' has seemed to go another route (vegan rants, vegan travel, vegan anniversaries, vegan Filipinos), so I'm definitely overdue for some Kind Diet recipe reminiscing. Granted, I've been repeating lots of my faves and don't need to discuss those every time, but the four new recipes I tried this summer deserve their moment in the sun.
I anticipate that when September comes and I fall back into the school routine again, I'll be more diligent with remembering to get Happy Tongue ratings out of Rob the Husband, but because this is more of a retrospective, I'm just gonna go by what I remember, because Rob is Rob and I can't expect him to remember back a couple of days, let alone a couple of months.
I also figure it might be a good idea to link to the recipes if I can find them online, just in case someone out there doesn't have The Kind Diet (for shame!).
Friday 21.0: Peach Crumble (p. 194)
This is a super yummy dessert that also works awesome as breakfast leftovers because of all the oats in the crust and the fruit. Alicia uses a ton of crust here, but it works because it's d'lish's.
My Crumble crust didn't stay afloat as well as Alicia's does in the pic, and it was kind of consumed by the fruity bottom (and as a result got a bit mushy), but flavour-wise it was a winner. The blueberries and peaches were a fantastic combo, and I'd catch Rob going back to the counter all evening and eating this right out of the pan. No sugar here...just maple syrup and brown rice syrup to sweeten, which makes it easy to indulge. Will definitely be repeating this dish again...it would be especially perfect on a cool, wintery day, snuggled up next to Chris Pine, listening to Alan Rickman read The Time Traveller's Wife while Natalie Portman braids your hair.
Sunday 21.0: Black Eyed Pea Croquettes with Dijon Glaze (p. 242)
On Father's Day this year we had my not-really-family-but-they-might-as-well-be-family over for dinner, and in addition to my tried, tested and true Kind Diet staples, I took a risk and made these croquettes.
They did not turn out.
I blame myself...we used the blender instead of a food processor to blend everything together, which was just a big ol' mess, and then we made them too big, so they ended up lumpy and bland.
The funny thing is that my cousin had just bought The Kind Diet and had been emailing me about it, and after I made these I told him not to bother with them, and he said they had already made them and liked them a lot.
Go figure. This means I definitely have to try them again (and make them the proper way) because they obviously have potential and I'm an idiot for using a blender instead of a food processor, and the Dijon dipping sauce is very good and super simple to make.
I got a feelin' that the next time I try these BEP croquettes imma be out of my head over these lovely little lumps. Fergalicious. No wait...that was her solo album...never mind.
Tuesday 24.0: Cheesy Oozy Guacamole Bean Dip (p. 207)
I was experimenting this day with a bunch of different recipes to serve at a summer BBQ we were hosting, and Alicia recommended this dip as part of her own BBQ meal plan. Perfect. I had been seriously missing seven layer dip, and this was an awesome warm version of it. Lots of Daiya on top resulted in a satisfying, indulgent, decadent piece of heaven that was indeed cheesy and oozy and all kinds of delicious. And I wasn't the only one that thought so...it disappeared super fast the day of our BBQ.
On this Tuesday of recipe experimentation I also gave the Fruity French Lentils (p. 245) a try.
These were really pretty, and the raspberries and basil were a nice combo in the dish, but it wasn't one of my favourites, or Rob's. I dunno...I think I might just prefer lentils in something warm and savoury instead of something sweet and cool and summery. I didn't really dig the texture of the lentils prepared this way, but that's a personal thing. I can see this dish having a wider appeal, because the flavours were light and fresh...just wasn't my cup of tea.
Wait...I don't like tea. So maybe it was my cup of tea. It might be more appropriate for me to say it wasn't my cup of Rum n' Organic Cola.
Mmmmmm.....rummmm.....
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