(Mostly) Vegan Baby Birthday Cake

Okay, so the husband and I are still trying to decide exactly what works for us food wise. We'd ideally love to be vegetarians, but we're working on trying to do a pesceterian diet, unless we're cooked for or there's no other option. It's been kind of rough, but we'll hopefully get there.


Anyway, the point of that is, if we can help it, we'd love to keep this kid...

...as close to the that diet from the get go. The whole idea being that maybe we can at least instill in him a love of healthy foods, even if we don't stay on this path or he chooses to deviate from it himself later. He's had heritage turkey and tried a tad bit of tuna salad today, but other than that, he's mainly been chowing down on good old grains, veggies, and fruits. So, when it came to making his cake, I wanted to do my best to keep it as far from animal products as possible (though, because we don't know of any nut or soy allergies yet, I decided to keep the milk as is with this recipe), so I did some more research on vegan/vegetarian substitutions. I guess I could have put in water or maybe rice milk, but I didn't think of that at the time. 

So, I knew I wanted to substitute stuff, but I still needed a recipe, so I went searching for some simple versions of a cake I remembered my Gran tell me about years ago, a 1-2-3-4 cake. Here's what I went with after I found this recipe on Cooking.com

1. Preheat the oven to 350.

2. Mix together (preferably in a food processor/blender to blend the banana's thoroughly):

• 1 cup natural applesauce
• 2 cups brown sugar
• 3 cups cake flour
• 4 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 bananas (or 1/2 banana per egg, which was 4)
• 1 cup milk (or you could use the alternatives if you know there's not allergies in your feasters)

3. Pour into a greased pan.

4. Cook until the center is no longer jiggly. For cupcakes/muffins, this is only like 15, but it's closer to 30 for full cakes. I'd go 15 and then check every 5 minutes until it's firm and a fork comes out of it cleanly. 

I added some food coloring since I wasn't adding icing, but that was pretty messy, so I don't know if I'd suggest doing it my way. Either way, it's a delicious treat, one that, after tasting the cupcakes from the night of Adam's birthday, my young sister-in-law begged for the recipe so she could make them, which she did two days later. 

He did his best. 

Wanna-be Asian Stir Fry with Tofu Knots

Hey Everyone,

I was almost going to be too lazy to update this tonight, but my husband just supplied me with some post birthday Peeps on a stick and so, I think I've got enough sugar in me to whip this out really quick.

This week, I had my first ever trip to an Asian Market, where my friend suggested, among other things, these beancurd/tofu noodle knot things, which she said was just like the ones her mom had made for us on Chinese New Year, but a little easier, so they're generally what she gets for something quick.

Picture taken AFTER I had already dumped all of the knots out.

Well, last night was my birthday, so by the time it came to figuring out what I was making tonight, we did something we haven't done in a while and just stopped by Walmart to grab a bag of frozen veggies (a stir fry package with like water chestnuts, broccoli, carrots, snap peas, and that sort of thing), and some sauce to go along with it all.

So today, all I had to do was chop up some red cabbage and green peppers to go along with it all and steam the veggies up top as I cooked the pasta below (like I did a few recipes ago with the spinach if you need a visual). As the internet told me, the knots take about 30 minutes to really soften up properly and fully, so I let it all sit for a while, while I heated up a pan with some Smart Choice butter stuff and two cloves of garlic. The garlic was mainly because my husband got me a mortar and pestel for valentines and I was dying to use it....turns out garlic is DEFINITELY not the right consistency to be mashed in said tool. I'll need to wait, as I figured, until I have something that lends itself better to being smashed/ground to a pulp/dust. It was worth a try though. Garlic's good for you. 

Once that was all done I just poured the knots and the veggies into the pan, along with the sauce, and just let them mingle there for a bit in the heat.

I enjoyed it (and the knots have like 18 grams of protein each serving), though Thomas says he'd like it to be a little saltier next time. So, here's to next try!

My First Tofu

Hey again guys.

Sorry about last week. I failed my project last week pretty bad and just wasn't in the mindset to really talk about it and not get mad at myself all over again, so we'll just forget about that one and start new this week. I think it also makes the blog's missed posts a round month's worth, so I just might start doing two a week, for a few weeks, this week.

Putting all of that aside, there's one protein source I've shied pretty far away from out of sheer intimidation...and that's tofu. I've also only had it a handful of times, so I was very hesitant to take on something I had no real referencial foundation for.

Upon my asking, Japanese friend of mine told me a few times that one of his favorite ways was to just fry it up with a bit of soy sauce in a skillet. I'd always heard stories of how there's more to it than that though, so instead of taking his word for it, I went searching the internet (when do I not?)

I found an article on About.com that told me this long process of draining the tofu, wrapping it in paper towels and a dishcloth and then leaving it under a skillet to flatten it and squish out some more liquid, though I can't for the life of me find it right now.

I then sliced it up and left it to marinate for about 30 minutes in a mixture of soy sauce and ginger dressing.

(I wish some of the next few pictures looked more appetizing than they do)

Finally, I cooked each piece for 5 minutes on each side, as the site said (I don't know what done tofu looks like, so I didn't argue), and then left it to dry on a rack for 5ish minutes. 

Served with broccoli and an assortment of black rice, white rice, and quinoa, it turned out to be a pretty satisfying meal. Even my 12-year-old sister-in-law loved it, so that's definitely a plus. 

When I told my Chinese friend, who's mother is a fantastic chef/owns a restaurant, about all of the drying and what not, she gave me a pretty strange look, so I'm thinking I can do without some of this next time, now that I've done it at least once. So, here's to then! I can't wait.