Category: Cooking

This Sunday my adventures in cooking continued with 2 recipes from this vegan recipe booklet:

You can also read these recipes for free at TryVeg.com

First I tried
Champion Chilli

I used some dried ( then soaked overnight ) black beans instead of kidney beans and I added a tablespoon of cayenne pepper to the recipe but it turned out very tasty. It made a huge pot. I have food for a few days. Very filling too, which was good, because I had a full stomach which helped my self control when I made

Chocolate peanut butter pie

This was so rich even nibbling on a bit of the surplus pie filling completely filled me up and I still don’t want to eat. I have a new appreciation for the cost and time involved in making a pie. I bought my ingredients from a co-op so that added some money, but the ingredients for the pie cost the better part of $20. I used a ready made crust ( whole spelt, couldn’t find grahm cracker crusts anywhere ) so that cut down on a lot of time. All I had to do was melt the chocolate and mix the filling. All I had was a blender so I had to do it in stages. I’m sure if I had a food processor it would have gone quicker. The pie is delicious and it was worth the trouble. It was the first pie I ever made. I enjoyed the experience. To my pleasant surprise baking can be fun. It is creative like programming and like programming you get the fun and satisfaction of making something.

This weekend I decided to take an adventure in cooking and try some things I normally wouldn’t cook. I tried 3 recipes out of this vegan recipe booklet:

You can also read these recipes for free at TryVeg.com

First I tried making these pancakes:

The last time I tried to make pancakes was when I was in high school. I got a gloppy mess that burned onto the pan. Same thing happened this time. I need to get an iron skiddle and practice. The batter tasted great and was cheap to make.

Next, I made this tofu scramble, which I loved. I still have about half left and that will be my next meal:

Lastly, I made this mint chocolate cake.

I was surprised how tasty the batter was. It was just flour, sugar, cocoa and oil. It only took 25 minutes to bake and left very little to clean up. I haven’t tried baking since I was a teenager. So, if I can make this anyone can. I gave some to my neighbours who loved it and I am sure my co-workers will make short work out of it tomorrow. I had a big piece myself and I am glad I am getting it out of my refrigerator tomorrow 🙂

I haven’t read this book.

I have read an earlier book by the same author: “Student’s Vegetarian Cookbook” by Carole Raymond which I thought was great. Almost all of the recipes were vegan and those that were not were easily made so ( i.e. swap out yogurt for soy yogurt ). Many books claim to be about quick or cheap recipes, but this book really delivered on inexpensive and easy recipes. It was also well suited to students as it had information helpful to people cooking for the first time in their lives.

Well it looks like she listened to my plea……or those of many others, to make her book 100% vegan:

Student’s Go Vegan Cookbook: 125 Quick, Easy, Cheap, And Tasty Vegan Recipes