Pickles!

I'm on Day 2 of my VeganMoFo'ing and this post is one that I shoulda coulda written in August. Better late than never, right? Let's get right into the pickles! I'm not a dill pickle kind of girl..I mean, I love a good dill pickle in a certain deli situations but it's rare that I crave this kind of pickle. However, a good bread & butter pickle I could eat anytime! They are sweet and not for everyone but for me and my extended family, they are something we crave. Chopped up in a tofu salad or with a veggie burger: just dreamy. I was previously very intimidated by canning and very slow to warm up to the whole pickle making idea. I didn't realize that pickles are super easy and really hard to screw up! Really, I promise! Here's what you do:

First you start out with some basic equipment along with some canning jars that you should be able to pick up at most markets or indie hardware stores (for whatever reason!). Yes, I did just describe hardware stores as indie. There's a great one around the corner from me with wooden troughs that you can pick just one nail out of. Just one nail! Love it. Besides there is something about Home Dippo that makes me into a raving lunatic. Ack, I just hate that place. Okay, back on track..1 quart jars work well..you'll probably need 3-4 or you can do a mix of whatever you have like I did. You'll also need to purchase (if you don't have):

Canning tongs..seriously so worth it. I tried my first canning experiment without these. It's a horrible difficult job to lift a slippery wet jar out of boiling water without these guys. If you want to expand to jamming and other food preservation, the $5 investment is worth it!

A big ole pot that is several inches taller than the tops of your tallest jars. I got this cheap pot at a discount store and just use it for canning a few times a year.

You'll need cucumbers. Ideally, the small pickling cucumbers (the ones with wrinkly skins) are best but feel free to experiment with other kinds. You want 10 cups of 1/4" sliced cucumbers + 3 3" onions cut into 1/4 slices.

Take your cukes and onions and place them in a bowl. Sprinkle with 3 tablespoons of salt and add 1 tray of ice cubes. Mix to combine. Cover with a towel and let it sit for three hours. This helps remove some of the water from the vegetables and softens them up.

Drain and rinse..gently fill your clean, sterilized jars with pickles and onions. Try to efficiently pack the jars without cramming them too tight. Leave 1/2" head room from the rim of the jar.

Now make your pickle brine. This brine includes: 2 1/2 cups sugar, 1 cup cider vinegar, 1 teaspoon turmeric, 1 tablespoon mustard seed, and 1 teaspoon celery seed. Place all ingredients in a non-reactive saucepan and bring to a boil. Once the sugar is dissolved, pour brine into the prepared jars leaving 1/4" headroom from the top of the jar. Put the jar lids on and screw the metal rings moderately tight. Now you are ready to "process" your pickles! Note at this point you can skip the "processing" if you plan to eat the pickles right away. Simply put them in the fridge and consume them in 1-2 weeks.

Processing simply means placing your jars in a pot of boiling hot water for five minutes cooking time. This create a vacuum seal within your jars making them shelf stable. Place the jars in your boiling water pot and set your time for five minutes..remove with your canning tongs.

As the pickles cool you may hear a popping noise as the vacuum seal pulls the "button" on the top of the lid inwards. When your jars are cool, test to make sure they are vacuum sealed by pressing your thumb down on the "button." If it pops up and down, it is not vacuumed packed. Sometimes if you press down, the button will stay down..that is okay. You may have just pre-empted the vacuum seal but that's fine. As long as the button doesn't toggle up and down, it should be vacuum-packed. If it does toggle, you can either re-process it in a hot water bath or just put them in the fridge and eat them within 1-2 weeks.

And there you have it: pickles! I found a free WebCT course from the University of Georgia two years ago..you'll learn all about different kinds of food preservations and if you complete the course, they'll even send you a certificate showing that you completed the course. This course was excellent and helped resolved some of my anxiety around canning before I starting pickling and jamming. Now I feel like an old pro! However, they are revamping their web courseware..if you check back in January you should be able to sign up. In the meantime, they have a lot of great resources on their web site for the first-time pickler. And if I can can, you can can too =) Blech! Somebody give me a corndog. And pass the bread & butter pickles..

The Great Glass Pumpkin Patch and Red Flannel Hash



Hellooooooo! My last post was August 15th. What the heck was I doing for a month and a half that kept me away from blogging? Gee..it's hard to remember. Watching the passing of summer into fall? Counting my adorable little mini bell peppers as they ripened? Working with my newer bunch of Goos to get them used to sitting on my shoulder? Check. Check. Check.

But the real boring story is that I've been busy working. Boo! Oh yes. However, VeganMoFo III is here to save me once again. This is my second year participating and I have been anticipating it all year! Last year's MoFo gave me the opportunity to meet so many other vegan bloggers online..and it didn't just end with VeganMoFo..we read and comment on each others' blogs regularly. We all know it's hard to find a big group of vegan friends because we are such a small percentage of the population so finding friends online is almost imperative for any vegan looking for a little cooking know-how, support or other tidbits! Hello MoFo!

To start of my "MoFo'ing" here are some pictures I took this weekend at the MIT glass pumpkin festival. The glass studios at MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) do this as a fundraiser for the studio. They do one preview only day where you can look and touch but not buy. Not only is this helpful for my budget, it avoids the madness of the next day where swarms of people descend upon the MIT campus to purchase the pumpkins!

The glass studios put all the pumpkins under a tent on tables. In past years, the pumpkins are all spread out on the glass but since it's a rainy weekend in New England, this wasn't possible.

Literally overwhelming how many different styles and shapes of pumpkins were present!

From more traditional "pumpkinish" colors to crazy colors..

I hope these people brought their checkbooks..the pumpkins are expensive. From $40 for a small, tiny little pumpkin the size of a medium tomato...

To much higher prices..such at the price for this adorable little glass gourd..I loved him immediately but the sticker shock made me that realize he and I were not meant to be! $245..ow!

Of course this is putting me into the mood baking...unfortunately I don't have a cute little pumpkin recipe to share with you so more on that later. Instead I am going to share this weekend's experiment: New England Red Flannel Hash.

This is an old New England dish..I remember my mom making this when I was a little kid and for some reason I think it was always after skiing. Since my fridge is overrun with beets, it seemed to be an ideal time to try to veganize this old favorite. The result was tasty..H had a few servings which is always a good benchmark.

New England Red Flannel Hash (adapted from "Old New England Recipes" by Bear Wallow Books)

4 tbsp. vegan margarine
1/2 cup chopped onion
3 cups boiled potatoes, diced
2 cups (cooked or canned) beets, diced
2 cups vegan corned beef alternative*
1/2 cup soy or almond milk
1/2 tsp. salt
1/8 tsp. pepper
1/2 tsp. hot sauce (or more to taste)

Melt the margarine in a frying pan and sauté onion, Stir in remaining ingredients in order given. Cook and slowly brown. When crust forms, turn as an omelet.**

*I used Gardein BBQ pulled shreds..Lifelight's steak tips would work fine too.
**Mine never turned omelette-y so I just served it as is and it was fine!

The Vegan Big Apple, Part 2

Here's part two of my recent trip to NYC! On the second morning, we had breakfast at home..lingering over African tea, fruit salad and some breakfast breads we brought back from Babycakes.

The breakfast breads were very tasty. I still can't decide if I like Babycakes' banana bread or corn bread better..all the more incentive to buy the cookbook!

Some non-breakfasty treats that we also brought back from Babycakes:

After breakfast, we walked through Harlem to the subway. We passed by Apollo Theater which had a gigantic Michael Jackson memorial outside. A moment of sadness for the king of pop...

I love the old style subway tile decorations..

After a 20 minute subway ride and then a 15 minute walk, we arrived at our destination: The New York Botanical Garden's Edible Garden.

To back track a little, we decided to pack a lunch..so we stopped before our trip at Raw Soul, a vegan raw restaurant. Here's Michelle and Sarah waiting for our tasty takeout.

We ordered a "raw lasagna"..pretty tasty but a little heavy on the vinegar. Otherwise, delicious. When Michelle lived across the street during her grad school years, we would dine here whenever I visited..great place and much more affordable than other raw restaurants in NYC.

Michelle enjoying her lunch in the cafeteria inside the Botanical Garden.

We took a ton of pictures while touring the garden:

The garden included an edible heirloom vegetable garden. These are little peppers! I hope my heirloom peppers plants end up looking so cute (so far, it's promising).

Going all Georgia O'Keefe on you!

Sarah's uncanny ability for locating silly signage photo opps is unparalleled!

We stopped by a food demonstration. Didn't quite catch the theme but it was something about making fruit fun to eat by making it into flower arrangements. It seemed pretty simple..just basically cutting out fruit shapes with flower cookie cutters and putting them on a wooden stick. Easy easy. Now we can make our own edible arrangements, huh?!

Sarah relaxing in the garden shade:

The conservatory:

The conservatory hosts part of the Edible Garden exhibit, Tropical Edibles.

Guava! No, not that Guava..but a guava tree.

Cocoa pods..

Agave--how cool to see what it looks like in person!

Pineapples..

Ginger root...

Hydrangeas..silly comments overhead from passerbys "Oh, I like totally love these flowers. They were all over my Bat Mitzvah. They are my favorite flower." Her companion: "What are they?" She answers "I had no idea!"

Inside the amazing garden shop.

They had a good vegan book selection. This book is adorable!

Michelle and I drooled over this book. Luckily it was very heavy and that discouraged me from overheating my credit card (and myself by lugging it around NYC). But I do intend to get it soon..the photography is inspiring and each recipe is a vegan recipe created by a non-vegan celebrity chef.

After several hours at the Garden, we decided to take the bus back to the subway. We were wilting in the heat and the AC on the bus felt great. This funny sign was posted inside the bus.

After taking a break, we headed to Union Square for the next big part of our day: dinner at Pure Food & Wine. A suitable welcome to three gals heading out to dine at a veggie restaurant in Union Square: a statue of Ghandi.

We started our dining adventure at Pure Food and Wine with an appetizer "Plate of Assorted Cultured Dr. Cow Tree Nut Cheeses and Rosemary Crisps," and a pitcher of sangria. We were all first timers to Dr. Cow cheezes. It's really good! It was worth the nine months I've been waiting to try it.


Coincidentally, I had been hearing a lot about stuffed squash blossoms lately but it just wasn't something I had ever tried. So when I saw it on Pure's menu, "Squash Blossoms Stuffed with Spring Onion and Herb Cheese," I thought, this is the dish for me! It was stuffed with a raw cheeze. Really good. One of the best vegan meals I've ever had.

Sarah had the "White Corn Tamales with Raw Cacao Mole." I love tamales..had no idea you could do a raw version.

Michelle's dish wasn't great. It actually was terrible. I hate writing negative things about vegan restaurants but this dish definitely was not up to par with the other two that we ordered (those both were amazing). If you go, you might want to avoid the "Caper Lemon Roasted Chanterelle Mushroom with Truffle Creamed Broccoli"..the broccoli was very good but the rest was very bitter and not at all pleasant. And a big disappointment for the price. However, the other two dishes we shared and they more than made up for one miss.

The highlight of the meal was dessert..the vegan mint sundae was calling my name like a siren song. And it was so worth it! VeggieGirl has also written about this same dessert and raved about it too. Here's a shot without flash so you can catch the ambiance. I had trouble taking photos at this point because the light was so low so the rest of the photos are with a flash. And also because I risked getting a fork in my arm if I kept my dinner companions from enjoying their sweets!

Michelle's "Chocolate Passion Fruit Tart."

Sarah's "Trio of Dark Chocolate Coated Indian Spiced Ice Cream Treats."

An outside shot..a hot steamy New York night. Perfect for terrace dining. Pure is worth the splurge but the pricing is hard to swallow. Pure also does not offer a lunch menu which is too bad. A lunch menu would make it more affordable for some. Regardless of my complaint, I will be back to Pure. It's unique and amazing so I'm just going to have to deal!

Around the corner from Pure is its sister restaurant, One Lucky Duck, a kind of takeout version of Pure. We stopped there to pick up some Dr. Cow cheeze to bring home.

Very cute inside...

Another veggie restaurant to check out another time..menu is vegetarian not vegan but looks affordable.

A vegetarian chain we kept seeing around town..we checked out the menu and decided it wasn't worth the trip. If you live in NYC and want something fast, maybe, but with so many amazing restaurants nearby, as a visitor, I'd say check out something else first. We also discovered that the Zen Palette nearby has closed. No idea why but at least they still have one location open.

We never found out what this number is. The national debt? Or our bill at Pure? Ha ha ha! Do we really want to know? =)

That's it for now..the next day was spent relaxing and with a little more non-blog worthy retail therapy..then we headed home to Boston (me) and Portland (Sarah) with our heads full of great memories. We can't wait to go back asap. Hopefully Michelle is ready for us. Something tells me yes because she already sent me this link to try for our next trip:
http://www.zenburger.com/