Lemon Ice Box Pie

OH MY GOD. No, seriously. This is what I had for dinner tonight. And then I had seconds. It’s tart and sweet and cold and delicious and you can bet your sweet ass I’m going to be making this recipe again. In fact, if you choose to make one, and only one of my recipes I post here, please make this one. I promise you it’s worth it. A perfect treat for a hot summers day. Or any day, really.

Lemon Ice Box Pie

Crust:

1 ½ cups crumbled vanilla wafer cookies (see recipe in revious post)

¼ cup margarine

Filling:

1 package tofutti cream cheese

1 oz can sweetened condensed soy milk

1 6-oz frozen lemonade concentrate, thawed

1 box soywhip, beaten until fluffy

For the pie:

Mix the cookie crumbs and margarine and press onto the bottom and sides of a 9” pie pan

and chill. Beat tofutti cream cheese until fluffy, and gradually beat in condensed soy milk and frozen lemonade. Beat in the whipped topping. Pour into pie pan and place in fridge, let sit for 3- 4 hours or until set. Top with more whipped topping if you like.

I can’t tell if I’m giggling because this is like sunshine in my mouth, or because I get to say “box pie.” You decide.

Vegan Buttermilk Hoe Cakes

 
Vegan Buttermilk Hoe Cakes

Sunday. In mine and Lindsey’s house that means pancake day. Really, what is better than sleeping in, rolling out of bed, and munching on fresh pancakes and maple syrup? So, in the spirit of this cooking project, I opened up the WSCC to page 15 and made the “buttermilk pancakes,” which are really more of a hoe cake, since they have cornmeal in them. Apparently hoe cakes are called such because they were originally made on the blade of a hoe over a campfire. So, there’s your history lesson for the day.

Egg replacer for 2 eggs (I use bobs red mill egg replacer for pancakes)

¼ cup vegetable oil

2 cups vanilla soymilk

2 tbs lemon juice

1 tablespoon sugar

2 teaspoons baking powder

½ teaspoon baking soda

½ teaspoon salt

1 ½ cups all purpose flour

¾ cup self rising cornmeal (or ¾ cups cornmeal plus ¾ tbs. baking powder and a pinch of salt)

Mix soymilk and lemon juice and let sit for 10 minutes to curdle. Mix egg replacer and vegetable oil, add soymilk and mix. Mix the rest of the ingredients in order until you have a smooth batter. Pour ¼ cup of batter for each pancake onto a slightly greased griddle. Turn when top is covered with bubbles and cook the other side until golden brown. Serve with syrup or jam. Enjoy your hoe cakes. ;)

Faux "'nilla wafers"

Well, it's not a Whistle Stop Cafe Cookbook, I needed 'nilla wafers to make my next recipe, the crust for Lemon Ice Box Pie. And when in doubt, what do us vegans so? we make our own. So, here's my recipe for some slightly dolled up vanilla wafer cookies.

Fancy vanilla wafer cookies

 ½ cup powdered sugar

1/3 cup granulated sugar

1/4^th tsp dried orange or lemon rind

1/4^th tsp dried cooking lavender (optional)

1/3 cup vegan shortening or coconut oil

egg replacer equaling one egg (I use bob’s red mill egg replacer in baking most often.)

1 teaspoon vanilla

1/8 teaspoon salt

1 ½ cups cake flour OR 1 ½ cups, scant 6 tbs, baking or all purpose flour plus 6 tbs cornstarch

1 ½ tsp baking powder

1 tbs water

Heat oven to 325 degrees

Cream together first  ingredients (sugars, rind, lavendar, shortening, egg replacer, vanilla and salt)

Add flour and baking powder. Add 1 tbs water and continue to mix until dough forms a ball. Roll dough into ¾” balls and flatten slightly onto a slightly greased cookie sheet. Bake for 15- 18 minutes, until cookies are light brown.

They aren't all that close to 'nilla wafers (I did put lavender in, after all) they are good little cookies for tea and quite addictive.

Stay tuned for the recipe tomorrow.

Fried Green Tomato FAIL

I do not take to failure well, especially when cooking. But inevitably it happens. Like mixing up baking powder and baking soda, or that time I ran out of arrowroot when I was making orange crème brulee and decided to try and use guar gum in place since that’s all I had handy. I ended up with something that resembled stringy tapioca/ rice pudding and tasted even worse than that sounds. This was one of those times.

Now, when I think of fried green tomatoes, I envision a light cornmeal coating fried to a deep golden brown, so I have to admit, I was a bit skeptical going into the this recipe (which, by the way, is “Fried Green Tomatoes 1” in WSCC. There are two more recipes in the book. TFG)

The batter is much like the batter I used for the onion rings in my previous post, which does not jive with my dreams of crunchy cornmeal coated tomatoes, but I thought “what the hell.” Which is exactly what I thought after I fried two rounds. I successfully decimated two of my beautiful green tomatoes I had spent many minutes selecting at the farmers market. I ate a few, and Lindsey tried to eat one, but only made it through two bites. They were super oily and half the batter fell off during frying. So sad. The tomato slices that hadn’t made it into the hot oil went in fridge, which means I’ll be snacking on not-fried green tomatoes tonight.

Like I said, I’m glad there’s 2 more recipes to try. Because I really REALLY love a good fried green tomato.

A Little Plate of Fried Snacks (Hush Puppies, Onion Rings and Zucchini Fries)

I knew I couldn’t make it long without busting out the deep fryer my friend Jen got me for Christmas, and today looked like the day to do it. Yesterday was a gorgeous day for a long walk, Lindsey and I took advantage and walked though the city, stopping to pick up some gorgeous onions from the farmers market at the Eastern Market. She’s been begging me for onion rings since I started this adventure, and I figured as long as I had the fryer out, I might as well make zucchini fries and hush puppies at the same time. In my opinion, hush puppies are the king of all southern food, you just can’t go wrong with deep fried corn meal batter.  Let the frying commence!!!

 Hush Puppies

(WSCC pg. 115)

2 cups cornmeal

3 tbs all-purpose flour

1 tsp baking powder

½ tsp baking soda
1 tsp sugar

1 tsp salt

egg replace for one egg (I use bob’s red mill.)

1/3 cup extra firm silken tofu, beaten in blender

1 cup milk soy milk with 1 tbs apple cider vinegar (mix together and let sit for 10 min)

1 tablespoon vegetable oil

3 tbs minced onion

vegetable oil for frying

Mix first 5 ingredients together. Beat egg replacer, oil, silken tofu, and soy milk mixture. Add to cornmeal mixture, onion and stir until blended. Drop 1 ½” spoonfulls into hot oil (375 degrees, approx) and deep fry until golden brown. Drain and serve. And don’t crowd the oil!

“Why add vinegar to soy milk?” you may ask. Well, when you add vinegar (or lemon juice) to soy milk and let it sit, the soy milk curdles and acts more like a buttermilk. And no, it doesn’t work with rice milk. Unfortunately.

Onion Rings and Zucchini Fries

(WSCC pg. 94)

1 cups bisquick

1/3 cup cornmeal

¼ tsp salt

¼ tsp black pepper

1 cup soy milk (or rice)

1 tbs yellow mustard

vegetable oil for frying

1 large onion, peeled, cut into ¼ slices and split into rings

1 zucchini, cut into sticks

Combine dry ingredients into bowl, and beat in soy milk and mustard.

Coat zucchini and onions and place in hot oil until browned, turning once. 

The best to make both of these are probably if you have people coming over. It makes quite a bit for just two people. Even when one of them can eat copious amounts of onion rings.

Collard Greens and Mac 'n' "Cheese"

'Cause I didn’t get to the collard greens last night, they had to be done tonight. No excuses. But what to have with collard greens? Usually when I think of collard greens i think of fried chicken, but seeing as I've been having faux chicken meals all week, that idea went out the window. and then the answer came on page 104. Mac 'n' cheese. So my wife stopped by Sticky Fingers and grabbed some Daiya cheese. And now it’s 9 pm and we’re finally sitting down to dinner. Tasty, tasty dinner that took a while to make and was so worth the wait. Who doesn’t love mac’n’chesse?

Collard Greens

(WSCC pg. 90)

2 lbs collard greens, center veins cut out

2 ounces peppered vegan “bacon” product from Asian health food store (DC peeps, Terry’s Healthy Foods = faux meat heaven!)

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon sugar

8 cups water

Dice peppered vegan “bacon” product, combine with water, salt and sugar in a large stock pot and bring to boil. Add collard greens, turn heat to low, and simmer until tender. Apparently you should cook collards for 6-8 hours. But Fannie says 1-2. I cooked them for about 2 and a half hours. Also, the leftover liquid, called “pot liqour” one is supposed to dip cornbread in. Unfortunately, I didn’t make cornbread, so I can’t actually tell you if that’s any good or not.

Macaroni and “Cheese”

(WSCC pg. 104)

3 tbs margarine

2 tbs all purpose flour

2 cups nut milk (I used soy)

¾ cups silken firm tofu

½ tsp black pepper

½ tsp salt

Daiya cheddar “cheese” in the following measurements: 1 2/3 cups; 2/3 cups; 1/3 cup.

6 cups cooked elbow macaroni

¾ cup panko breadcrumbs

In a blender, combine soy milk and silken tofu until smooth. Melt the margarine in a medium saucepan. Whisk in flour until smooth. Whisk in soy milk/ tofu mixture. Add 1/3 cup daiya cheese and pepper is salt. Whisk until smooth and a little thick.

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Put 3 cups cooked macaroni in large glass baking pan. Cover with 1 2/3 cup Daiya cheese and layer the remaining noodles over the cheese. Pour all the sauce over the noodles and cover with the panko bread crumbs. Bake in the oven for 40 minutes. Sprinkle the remaining cheese over the breadcrumbs and bake for another 10 minutes.

Yum. Yum. Yum yum yum yum yum yum. Yum. 
 

Originally I made this with 8 cups, but upon further reflection I thought it may be too dry. So when my friend Julia asked for a mac 'n' cheese recipe, I told her to try 6 cups instead of 8. She did, and this is what she had to say: "I used jumbo macaroni because we already had it. We (her and her husband) ate it until we felt sick. I've never liked any vegan mac 'n' cheese until now." Thanks Julia!

Creamed “Chicken” and Biscuits

I’m tired and cranky tonight, but I said I was going to make creamed chicken on biscuits and gravy and collards greens. Well, I made it halfway through following through on that one. Didn’t really realize that I needed to cook the collards for 2 hours. 2 whole hours!!! So when I started cooking dinner at 8 o’clock tonight, there was no way in hell I was going to spend two hours waiting for collard greens. Nope, they will just have to wait. Fortunately, for me, creamed “chicken” and biscuits only takes about 20 minutes. Perfect.

So, I popped the cork on a bottle of wine and got to cooking.

Creamed “chicken” and biscuits

(WSCC pg. 20)

¼ cup margarine

½ cup thinly sliced celery

¼ cup all purpose flour

1 ½ cup soy milk (or rice, or whatever)

½ teaspoon salt

Few dashed of black pepper

Dash of chili powder

2 cups diced fake chicken (I used the rest of the “chicken” seitan I made or the bbq the other day, and when I try this recipe again (because I will!) I’m gonna get my hands on some of that gardien fake chicken. That would set this over the top.)

3 large biscuits (I just used bisquick and soymilk. I know, I know, why use bisquick when it’s so easy to make my own from scratch? I just love bisquick. I can’t help it.)

Melt margarine in medium heavy saucepan over medium-low heat and add celery. Cover and cook until tender. Sprinkle flours over mixture and stir until smooth. Cook for 1 minute. Gradually pour in milk and stir until smooth (I use one of the rubberized flat whisks. I love them. They make the best gravy every time). Stir in fake chicken and cook until thick. Serve on biscuits.

Tomorrow morning I am going to make toast and have the left over for breakfast.