I'll Fly Away

If you were to ask me what my favourite colour is, I would say purple. While my preference is for the bluer, darker purples, I like all colours in the purple family. And most people, when I ask their favourite colour(s), say green or red or whatever. They don't get incredibly specific and say emerald green or scarlet... That is most people. However, recently when I asked a friend what his favourite colour is, he said "sky blue." Since I was planning on making him a quilt, that made it rather challenging. What I would consider sky blue and what he would consider sky blue are not necessarily the same thing. I rummaged through my fabric stash trying to come up with what would be sky blue, which only increased my unncertainty. I actually googled "sky blue" and that just made things more confusing because it came up with multiple colours. 

"Sky Blue" from Wikipedia

Then I thought, well if he wants sky blue, I will give him sky blue. I have several "sky" fabrics in my stash. Initially, I was going to make him the dolphin quilt, which includes both sea and sky fabrics and is on my quilting bucket list. But then I thought I don't have time to mess with applique, and I'm not sure which fabric to use for the dolphins. This was before Christmas and I had to finish 3 quilts I was giving as Christmas gifts, in addition to wanting to get this friend's quilt finished as well. The dolphin quilt became a UFO and I decided to try something different. I decided to pull several sky fabrics from my stash, figuring he could pick which blue he liked as "sky blue" out of the various blues in this quilt top.

I didn't have a metre or yard of each, so I couldn't use a 3-yard quilt pattern. Instead, I devised my own pattern, using stash fabrics. And I think it turned out pretty nice. I "borrowed" the blue minky dot fabric I was going to use as backing for Eccentric to use as backing for this one. (I then used some black minky from a UFO to back Eccentric). 

As for the quilting, I picked Airplanes in the Clouds, and that's how I got the name for the quilt, I'll Fly Away. 
Just a doctrinal note about the song by that name, I'll Fly Away. It's actually not Biblical because we don't go straight to heaven when we die. We go to heaven when Jesus returns and raises His followers to life. To learn more about this, you can read, Are the Dead Really Dead? Or click on Ghost Truth or Hell Truth in the sidebar on the right. 
And my friend liked his quilt and said it was the right colour. 

Moving on from quilts to my kitchen, in the world of economics, there is a principle called "economies of scale". In a nutshell, that means the bigger the customer base, the lower the prices. So, in a country like the United States, which has a population of over 333 million, it's only logical that most things are less expensive there than in Canada, with a population of 41 million. And that things in Ontario (population 14 million) are generally cheaper than in Alberta (population 4 million). But customer base not only affects prices, it also affects availability. Recently, in my small town in rural Alberta, I looked for wasabi powder and tamari. I couldn't find them anywhere. 
Just one of my pet peeves about too many of my cookbooks: price and availability of ingredients. And it came up because I made the Beet Burgers from this cookbook: 

Don't get me wrong - I really appreciate the work of the authors in producing this cookbook.And so far, I've been enjoying it. But I'm sure that it's a lot easier to find wasabi powder where they live than where I live. And it may be fine for them to put a whole cup of nutritional flake yeast in a recipe of 10 or 11 burgers (Wow!), but nutritional yeast is not cheap where I live. 
So, using expensive and hard to find ingredients is one of my biggest cookbook pet peeves. 

As for the burgers, they weren't bad, but not great. I used horseradish instead of wasabi powder, and maybe I should have used more. And I only had about 2/3 cup of nutritional yeast left, so that's all I used. Perhaps those contributed to the fact that I found them rather bland in taste, even with ketchup and mustard. I think they could have used some salt. But, for the most part, the recipes in this cookbook do not use added salt. 

Beet Burger with Grilled Pineapple, saurkraut and alfalfa sprouts

Which brings me to another pet peeve. Too many whole food, plant-based/vegan cookbook authors seem to think that flavour mostly consists of "hot", as in spicy hot: chili peppers, wasabi, black pepper, hot sauce, etc. And I'm not a big fan of "hot". I actually enjoy the flavours of lentils, chickpeas, navy beans, and seasonings like oregano and sage, flavours which just disappear in the onslaught of "hot". I remember years ago, after visiting a vegan restaurant, discussing it with a fellow vegan, and I told her that the food had been too hot. She responded that she felt that too many vegan cooks seem to try to make up for the absence of meat by the use of hot spices. Maybe that's it, because the fat in meat carries flavour. But I've eaten lots of delicious vegan food without it singeing my tongue. 
I had really wanted to like these Beet Burgers (and I still have 9 left) because they are so nutritious, but they are fairly labour-intensive for a burger I just found rather bland. In my many cookbooks, I have lots of burger recipes, many I know that I like, so I don't think I want to buy wasabi powder or play around with other seasonings to try and give these ones more zip. And using a whole cup of nutritional yeast seems rather excessive as well as expensive. So, I likely won't be repeating these burgers. 

Holiday Meals: Recipe and Cookbook Reviews

For my birthday this past year, my daughter gave me an Indigo gift card. It took me awhile to decide what to get with it, but finally on Cyber Monday, when the cookbooks were 30% off, I ordered these two. 

I follow Dreena Burton on Instagram and Facebook and have tried a few of her recipes, so I figured her cookbooks would be good.
As I was flipping through Dreena's Kind Kitchen, I discovered that it has a Holiday Fare section that has some interesting recipes in it. With Christmas coming up, I decided to give some of them a try. 
I generally make the whole Christmas dinner myself. Because of this, I like to have as much made ahead as possible, just having to reheat on Christmas morning. That way, I'm free to enjoy my company without too much hubbub with dinner preparations. 

2022's Christmas dinner consisted of tossed salad (no recipe: spinach, grape tomatoes, red onions, black olives, pumpkin seeds and dried cranberries with vegan mayo), Roasted Squash and Sweet Potato Puree (Dreena's Kind Kitchen), Cauliflower Mashed Potatoes (Oh She Glows), Mary's Brown Gravy (Country Kitchen Collection), Shamburgers (Country Kitchen Collection), Old Fashioned Bread and Celery Stuffing (old family recipe), Guinnessless Sheet Cake (Dreena's Kind Kitchen) and Coconut Cream (Country Kitchen Collection). 
Originally, I was planning on using more recipes from Dreena's Kind Kitchen, but was a little too overwhelmed (very easy to happen when you have mental health struggles) and decided to stick with some old standbys. 
The stuffing was delicious as always.

Country Kitchen Collection is an old favourite cookbook. I find it rather amusing that one of the things that younger people complain about is no pictures in a cookbook. I think I can safely say that the majority of my cookbooks have no/few/black and white pictures/line drawings. And this is one of them. But I've still been happy with this cookbook and Shamburgers is a recipe I have used multiple times. Scrumptious without too much fuss. I had tried Mary's Brown Gravy before, but it's been years. It didn't disappoint. The Coconut Cream I used to top the cake was a new recipe to me, but it was quick and easy and quite tasty. Dreena's Kind Kitchen did offer a couple of topping options for the cake, but this one was simpler and didn't require any obscure ingredients (more on this later). 

I have made the Cauliflower Mashed Potatoes from this cookbook a couple of times before. Prior to that I would never have dreamed of the combination, but it is delicious and has become my standby for mashed potatoes. Tasty and more nutrition, a winning combination. 
The Roasted Squash and Sweet Potato Puree was delicious. The taste was reminiscent of pumpkin pie. However, I don't necessarily want to eat pumpkin pie for my main course. I actually enjoy the taste of squash and sweet potatoes without the addition of spices, except maybe a little sweetening. And what is the purpose of pureeing it? It's just an added and unnecessary step, in my opinion, unless I'm feeding someone with swallowing difficulties. And the Guinnessless Sheet Cake was good, but not great. And I think the spices could have been toned down in this as well. 
Unfortunately, the weather was not great Christmas day, and my family (daughter, grandson and ex-husband) did not make it. I hadn't heated the food up yet, so we planned to try again the next day. As it turned out, we eventually decided to try for New Year's Day, and I ate the leftovers all week, with plans to create a totally different menu for New Year's.

2023's New Year's Menu consisted of Lemon-Dijon Roasted Potatoes (Dreena's Kind Kitchen) topped with Golden Gravy (Dreena's Kind Kitchen), Smoky Kale Caesar Salad with Smoky Caesar Dressing and Bread End Croutons (Dreena's Kind Kitchen), Cran-Apple Compote (Dreena's Kind Kitchen), Rice and Pecan-Stuffed Squash (Vegan Holiday Kitchen), Holiday Dinner Torte (Dreena's Kind Kitchen), Carob Nut Balls (Vegetarian Cooking: a World of Difference), Dreena's Nanaimo Bars (Dreena's Kind Kitchen). 
First of all, I will say that the menu from this meal did not reheat as well as the menu from last week. I can also honestly say that, aside from dessert, the first meal was tastier than the second. 
I ended up making most of the recipes from Dreena's Kind Kitchen that I had originally hoped to make for Christmas dinner. The potatoes were good fresh from the oven when they were first roasted and really didn't require gravy. I did find that they were slightly lacking in flavour and likely would have benefited from more of the marinade. Or possibly a vegan chipotle cheese sauce. The gravy improved them after reheating. The difficulty of making both this recipe and the torte was that they required different cooking temperatures. That would have made it very challenging to cook them both on Christmas morning unless I had a second oven. And my Breville Smart Oven is too small for either of these dishes. I've been eating a vegetarian/vegan diet for a lot of years (decades) and I don't remember ever having to prepare an entree in the food processor. Yet that's what the instructions said to do with the torte ingredients. As my food processor is not very large, I had to do it in batches. It also said to cook it in a springform pan, which would not lend well to reheating. So, I cooked it in a pie plate. Oddly, the recipe called for a diced apple tossed in lemon juice. I know the lemon juice was to keep the apple from turning brown, but since it was being baked in a savoury dish, I was puzzled why the lemon juice was used. Personally, I just waited until I had processed the rest of the ingredients and then peeled, cored and diced the apple, but I did still toss it with lemon juice just in case it was somehow needed in the recipe. I covered my serving with gravy and didn't notice any fruity taste. But my daughter did not use gravy and did notice and didn't like it. I found the flavour fine, but not as delicious as the Shamburgers from last week. And adding the cranberries to the top was a bad idea as they mostly ended up black. As far as the gravy was concerned, I had downloaded the Golden Gravy recipe from the web and tried it on a previous occasion. It said that it only took about 5 minutes, but I was still struggling with it half an hour later, while my guests were waiting for dinner. Trying to make a roux using tahini is, in my opinion, a foolish endeavour, as tahini doesn't melt like butter or margarine. And adding one ingredient at a time prolonged the process unnecessarily. This time, I browned the flour - and I used hard whole wheat flour, not spelt, whole wheat pastry flour or millet flour. When the purpose of the flour is to thicken the gravy, you want the gluten to do the job. I dumped the browned flour into the blender, added the rest of the ingredients (except the bay leaf), whizzed it to combine, poured it into a pan, added the bay leaf and cooked it long enough to thicken. The gravy was fine and much less hassle than following the directions in the book. The compote was not exciting and I found it a little too tangy for my taste. 
The salad was not as exciting as the title sounded. I chose to wilt the kale by pouring boiling water over it first, though the directions said to add dressing and salt to it and leave it to sit before adding the Romaine. Mature kale is pretty tough and I didn't think that just adding salt and dressing would do the trick. I'm beginning to think that humans were not meant to eat kale. It really isn't delcious and even after removing the stems and poring boiling water over it, it still was kind of like chewing on plastic. Which impacted how delicious the salad wasn't. The dressing was good and the croutons were good, but the kale was not. 
The Nanaimo bars were fabulous, but much too sweet. You can find the recipe online here, but it only calls for 3/4 cup of sugar. In the book, it calls for 3/4-1 cup, and it said that the sugar helps to firm it up. I figured I'd better err on the side of caution and used the full amount. Much, much too sweet. I think I could likely get away with half a cup. I used carob, by the way, which is naturally sweet, not cocoa or chocolate, so that was a factor as well. The main ingredient in the middle layer is coconut butter. I live in a small town in rural Alberta - where to find coconut butter? I didn't have time to order online or drive into the nearest city. Fortunately (???), I found instructions for making my own online. It says it should take ten minutes. Well, I didn't run my food processor continuously because I was also working on other recipes and the processor was really vibrating and I was afraid it would rock itself onto the floor. Or burn itself out. However, I would say that it took about 30 minutes of processing time not 10, and even after adding some coconut oil to try to expedite the process, I was still not happy with the results. So I dumped the goopy, grainy mess into a plastic container and stuck it in the fridge and figured we would just have the carob balls for dessert, which I had already made. The following morning, which was New Year's Day, for some perverse reason, I decided I was going to try again with the Nanaimo bars, substituting cashew butter for coconut butter. But when I went to the fridge, the goopy mess had solidified and, after warming it a little in the microwave, I was able to use it in the recipe. 

I picked this cookbook up at a thrift store and hadn't used it at all yet, but I figured the stuffed squash would kill two birds with one recipe: a stuffing and a squash dish. Unfortunately, when I went to Walmart, all they had left for squash was over-ripe and very orange pepper or acorn squash. I'm not sure if that was the problem or the fact that I didn't cook them long enough after stuffing, but parts of the squash were still hard and inedible. The stuffing was delicious, however, and I will try this recipe again when I can get better quality squash and maybe alter cooking times. 

This older cookbook has been in my library for years, but I've seldom used it. That's what happens when you're a cookbook hoarder. Nevertheless, I did remember a carob ball recipe from this book and I made those for dessert. Very good and nowhere near as sweet as the Nanaimo bars. By the way, they are not pure vegan because they are made with honey. 
Now, I'm going to get back to my discussion of Dreena's Kind Kitchen. Most of the recipes I've tried so far are relatively tasty. But I have found some of them are more labourious than they need to be. The gravy and the puree, for example, as I mentioned previously. And even the torte probably doesn't need to be processed in a food processor. 
If you go to the Cookbook Criteria tab at the top of this page, you'll see that number 4 is "limited use of obscure, exotic and specialty ingredients". That's my second issue with this cookbook. I already mentioned my problem with finding coconut butter, but I didn't mention that the recipe also called for "natural icing sugar". Yes, it does give the option of grinding coconut sugar in a blender, but still... (I used organic, unbleached cane sugar). The two topping recipes suggested for the sheet cake both called for pure vanilla bean powder. One of the things I believe about being vegan/whole food plant-based is that it shouldn't cost a fortune. Try looking up how much vanilla bean powder costs (if you can even find it). Another issue is the regular use of fresh herbs. I have nothing against using fresh herbs except that they're not always readily available, they can be expensive and they go bad quickly unless you use them soon after purchase. Then there's aquafaba and coconut milk. If I have a recipe that calls for aquafaba that doesn't also call for chickpeas, where does the aquafaba come from. Yes, I can store it in my freezer as some anonymous beige liquid in individual cubes... And it's really frustrating to open a can of not cheap coconut milk to only use a couple of tablespoons. Then I have to look for more recipes calling for coconut milk before it goes bad. I really believe that whole food, plant-based/vegan cooking should be simple or people are not likely to do it. That includes the shopping, the processing, the time and the cost involved. I have to be honest that some of my older, no pictures cookbooks are more user friendly than this one. I'm on the fence as to whether or not I regret buying this cookbook. I probably should have bought a quilting book from my wishlist instead.

By the way, I'm not prepared to do a review on Oh She Glows or Vegan Holiday Kitchen yet as I don't feel I have tested enough recipes.  

 

Vegan Under Pressure - A Cookbook Review

When I posted to a facebook group for vegan Instant Pot recipes that I had received my order of this cookbook from Amazon, I was asked to share my opinion of it. So I figured the easiest way to do that was to write a cookbook review on my blog. First of all, here's the link to the cookbook:Apparently if you purchase through this link, I will get some money. I have no idea how much because I have yet to earn anything by posting Amazon links... 😄
You might want to click on the "Cookbook Criteria" tab above to review what I look for in a cookbook.
Is it vegan/plant-based? Check.
Is it whole food? Not 100%, but most of the recipes are. It does have a couple of recipes for Seitan, plus recipes that use Seitan, which, of course, is not a whole food. Oil is called for in many recipes, but is usually listed as optional, and it's only small quantities. And the risotto calls for Arborio (white) rice.
Does it use meat analogues (fake meat)? Not that I could find. It even provides a recipe for making your own vegan sausage.
Does it limit the use of obscure, exotic and specialty ingredients? Not sure whether I should put tempeh into this category or the above or the below, but there are recipes that call for it. And tomatillos, soba noodles, ume vinegar, kombu, miso paste, okra... I'm talking about things that are not readily available in the grocery stores in my small town in rural Alberta. For this category, it depends on the individual recipe - whether the item can be left out or subsititued. Or if I, or another cook, really want to try the recipe with that ingredient, am I willing to include it on a shopping list for my next trip to the nearest big city? Maybe or maybe not. Most of my trips to the city involve fabric stores, which are not generally reliable sources of ume vinegar...
Easy to follow instructions: yes.
Limited use of ingredients I don't like: fennel, mushrooms, cilantro and tempeh are found in recipes in this book. However, I have found plenty of recipes that either don't include these or I can readily substitute. Unfortunately, the vegan sausage recipe calls for mushrooms and I'm still debating on whether I will be able to substitute eggplant...
Awesome food photography? Yes, but not enough of it to suit my tastes, and I would rather have it accompany the recipe that's pictured than lumped together in one spot.
Glossary? yes. Plus lots of tips for cooking with a pressure cooker. And seasoning recipes for the seasoning blends called for in recipes in case you want to make your own or can't find them in the grocery store. Also cooking timetables for individual foods (grains, beans, vegetables). Excellent!
While some of the above comments are negative, bear in mind that there are very few cookbooks out there that would have no negatives in response to my criteria. These criteria are ideals, not absolutes.
Now let's explore some of the recipes.

The first meal I made was the Potato Vegetable Salad (page 140) and Black Bean and Quinoa Burgers (page 234), with a side salad. As I mentioned in my Cookbook Criteria, I do not like the taste of licorice. Anything with a licorice-like flavour is not included in my cooking. So I substituted fresh dill for the tarragon in the dressing. And it was delicious! The only correction I would make is that the directions fail to say to drain the potatoes before adding the dressing. Otherwise, you would end up with your potato salad swimming. 

Normally I use a canning jar ring and lid to make my burgers, and they turn out nice and round and uniform, but I couldn't find a lid. They still tasted good, but I felt that they needed some salt added. Perhaps it was because I used low sodium vegetable broth. Otherwise tasty and nice texture. 

The next meal was Graciela's Colombian Beans (page 108) and Basic Risotto (page 78). You'd have to really like "hot" in order to use a whole tablespoon of chili powder in the beans. I used only 1 teaspoon and I still found it too hot for my tastebuds. In step 4 of the recipe, you are to add the vegetables and either bring to pressure and cook for one minute or let sit with the lid on for 5 minutes. I tried just letting it sit for 5 minutes in my Instant Pot and found the veggies still hard and crunchy, so I then did the 1-minute pressure cook and they were fine. And the dish was tasty. For the risotto, I did not use white rice. I don't buy white rice. Instead I substituted short grain brown rice and cooked for 22 minutes, as per the instructions in the rice cooking table (page 53). I also sauteed the onion and garlic in vegetable broth, rather than oil. To the best of my memory, I have never eaten risotto. I wasn't even sure what it was, other than a rice dish. So, I googled it, and this turned out nice and creamy like Google says it should. I threw in some spinach for added nutrition. Afterwards, I looked down at the bottom of the page and saw that there actually is an option for Spinach Risotto, but it has more than just spinach added. I might try that next time. 

I get together with my ex-husband, daughter and grandson for Christmas, and all I'm generally expected to bring is my own vegan entree. So, while I don't generally make or eat Seitan because it isn't a whole food, I decided to give the Chicken-Style Seitan a try and make it "Kentucky Fried" using a so-called KFC Original Recipe that I found online. Unfortunately, I did not get a picture, but I will tell you what I did with the recipe. In the dough, I substituted 1 tablespoon of chicken style seasoning for the 1/2 teaspoon salt. (I used Blaney's brand, and if you're in Alberta, you should too, because it's a local product). In the broth, I switched Bragg's for the tamari and reduced it to 1 tablespoon, omitted the kombu and the ginger and added 3 tablespoons chicken style seasoning. It turned out delicious with a nice texture. Unfortunately, I made the mistake of following the recipe for KFC seasoning. It's been over 40 years since I've eaten KFC, but I highly doubt it was ever that peppery. And this was peppery in the extreme, to the point where pepper is about all I could taste. And I never was a pepper fan. So I definitely do not recommend that you follow this recipe without drastically reducing the pepper. But that's no reflection on this cookbook. The KFC recipe was from an external link. But here's what I actually did do differently with the KFC recipe: for egg, I substituted a ground flax/water combo and for buttermilk, I put a tablespoon of lemon juice into a 1 cup measure and filled it with soy milk and allowed it to sour. And I baked, not fried. If I had an air fryer, I would have tried that, but nothing would have helped tone down the overwhelmingly peppery taste. My grandson wanted to try it, but my daughter wouldn't let him after I commented on how peppery it was. Fortunately, I at least tried the Seitan before I nearly destroyed it with the KFC recipe so that I at least knew it had tasted good. 

Next up was the Spring Split Pea Soup (page 190). I'm not a seaweed fan (not to mention where do I buy it locally?), so I omitted the dulse. Instead, I added a couple of shakes of liquid smoke, and the result was yummy! The only change I'd make would be to cook it a little longer as I found the split peas still slightly crunchy. 

Finally, I tried the Herbed Polenta (page 70) 

and Greek Stewed Lima Beans (page 109). For the polenta, I ate a bowl of it, and then spread the remainder into a square glass baking dish, allowed it to cool, sliced it and baked it, topped with Daiya cheddar flavoured shreds (another product I seldom use, but I had it in the fridge and decided to try it on the polenta), in the oven at 450०F for 15 minutes. Next time I might try the broiler and crisp it up a bit. Otherwise, very good. Another first for me. I'm used to eating cornmeal mush for breakfast with maple syrup and milk. This is the first time I've eaten polenta. And it was good. 

For the lima beans, I swapped out the fennel bulb for celery and the fennel fronds for dill. And it was scrumptious. I brought leftovers of both these last two dishes to work and got comments, "Does that ever look good!" 

All of the recipes I've tried so far are "keepers": ones that I will likely use again. And so this cookbook is also a keeper. In addition to really good recipes, it gives lots of worthwhile information on using the pressure cooker as well. While the author uses a stove top cooker, I personally own an Instant Pot, which is what I used to test these recipes, and found that they worked well. I did do a fair amount of tweaking of the recipes, but that's mostly a reflection of my personal tastes and experience in cooking for many years, not how good this cookbook is. I already have several vegan pressure cooker/Instant Pot cookbooks on my Kindle. But I prefer an actual book when it comes to cookbooks. This one came highly recommended and I second that recommendation. I already have several more recipes from it on my menu for the coming week. It's seldom that I trial this many recipes from a cookbook without having at least one dud. But so far, it's all good.