Damn Hippies

Here's a typical "Hi, I'm a pretentious hippie and I want to feed you things that will keep you alive for a millenium and also taste fucking delicious" recipe.

It has quinoa (pronounced KEEN-wah) and spelt and dried cranberries and olive oil and curry powder and brazil nuts and other things.

Its basically a health food freak's dream salad. So where did I find it?

The Cafe Flora Cookbook, of course!

Curried Whole Grain Salad Pg 102

I have SO. MUCH. QUINOA. Why? Because every time I go grocery shopping, I decide to buy some, in hopes that I'll start eating it on a regular basis.

"What the hell's so great about quinoa?" all the non-hippies ask. Here's a bulleted list of it's greatness:

• It's gluten-free.
• It has an assload of vitamins and minerals, including calcium, fiber, b-vitamins, riboflavin, manganese, and all sorts of other shit.
• It has a 12 - 18 % protein content! Yay!
• It has all 9 essential amino acids.

Now that you know why everyone flips out about it, here's how you cook it.

You know how you cook rice?

Yeah. Cook this stuff EXACTLY like rice.

2:1 ratio of water to quinoa. Boil the water, then put the quinoa in, lower heat to a simmer, cover it, and wait about 15 minutes. Then eat it.

Done.

So for this recipe, you need to soak a cup of spelt or wheat berries (I chose spelt) for 8 hours beforehand.

8 hours later, please cook your quinoa (1/2 cup worth).

This is dry quinoa!

This is cooked quinoa! Notice the cute little swirly things! <3

After all this, you will cook your soaked spelt.

MIX 'EM TOGETHER....

THIS IS WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE ^^^^

Then, you'll make your dijon curry vinagrette. You basically mix these ingredients:

I can't remember the exact proportions, but this sauce includes agave nectar, olive oil, pepper, salt, dijon mustard, curry powder, and a little lemon juice.

Then chop up some nuts (I chose brazil nuts)

Then some cranberrries (dried)

Then mix it all together....

And feast like a true hippie! YEAH!

RATINGS:

Ease of preparation: 4/5
Simple instructions, mildly time-consuming. Especially with the presoaking.

Deliciousness: 4/5
Bright tastes, nutty, delicious texture. A little heavy, though, for a "salad" type dish.

Prettiness: 5/5
Bright colors and fancy looking grains! Sure to impress non-vegans with it's trendy little weirdness.

Cinnamon Spaghetti Fail

So, I decided to make the weirdest, most potentially gross thing ever from the Cafe Flora Cookbook.

Cinnamon Tomato Sauce Pg 132

I wanted to make this because I have an assload of pasta in my pantry and needed someway to get rid of it.

So, funny story...this recipe requires some red wine. Now, I have never opened a bottle of wine before, but I do have a wine bottle opener. So I was like, dude, how hard can this be? Let's buy some wine and do this!

So I got this wine.

Yes, I'm ridiculous, and I bought wine because it says bastard on it and has a funny picture. Either way, I was excited.

Then what the hell did I do?

I fucking attempted to open the bottle and then broke the wine bottle opener and smacked myself in the face and then made the wine bottle unopenable by getting the metal screw-shaped thing stuck in the cork.

I'm fucking AWESOME.

So eventually I will make this weird tomato sauce when I buy a new wine bottle opener and some new wine. And then I will post a blog about how SUCCESSFUL I was at opening a damn bottle of wine.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA I'M SO GOOD AT EVERYDAY NORMAL THINGS.

<3

More Blackberry Madness

Since moving to Seattle, I've been a broke ho. Therefore, I haven't gotten to explore many vegan restaurants in the city.

The good news is, though, that I have been to Cafe Flora! AKA: one of the most amazing vegetarian/super-vegan-friendly restaurants I've ever been to. No lie. :-]

The restaurant is located in Madison Valley and has a cute, comfortable atmosphere. The menu is diverse, featuring different plant-based foods, and only rarely a meat substitute. I went there with my friend Celia when she visited me from California in November! <3

So I bought their cookbook. :-]

It was rainy this afternoon. I was stuck inside. I got bored of playing the Sims, and I'd already been to the gym today. So in my boredom, I decided to make...

Cafe Flora Vegan Coffee Cake Pg 216

Now, this is a baking recipe (duh) so it requires a full pantry's worth of ingredients. Hahahahaha.

Firstly, you're going to prep the weird buttermilk mixture thing. I decided to go with coconut milk this time, because that's just my favorite. You mix a tablespoon of apple cider vinegar with a cup of the 'milk' of your choice, and let it sit in the fridge.

Then, you're going to crumble up 1/4 cup of butter (chopped into pieces) into a mixture of 1/2 cup of flour and 1/2 cup of sugar. You're going to freeze this for later. It will be the crumble topping! Yummmm.

So after that nonsense, you're going to use whatever fruit or berry you want to create a ____ coffee cake. I decided to make a blackberry coffee cake (because apparently I am obsessed with blackberries). You will chop up your fruit, and sprinkle 2 tbsp flour over it. (I still don't know why the flour-sprinkling is necessary, btw...if anyone can tell me, it would be highly appreciated).

So once again, I got to murder some blackberries. Their blood tastes so good! <3

Then you're going to mix together 2 cups of flour with 1 tsp of baking powder, 1/4 tsp of salt and 1 1/2 tsp of baking soda.

So once you're done with THAT, you'll need your biggest bowl to cream 1/2 cup of butter (holy shit, a lot of butter!) with a cup of sugar.

Then you're going to put the flour mixture and buttermilk nonsense into the big bowl, mixing it all in, a little at a time.

 
Then you're gonna play with egg replacer. Now, I've never used egg replacer before. Apparently all you do is mix together 1 1/2 tsp of the powder with 2 tbsp of water, and there you have it - a vegan egg. Looked gross, but I guess it works.

 Finally, you're going to 'fold' this creepy crap into the dough. And then fold in your flour-covered berries. THEN THROW IT IN A BAKING DISH!

THEN SPRINKLE THE CRUMBLE MIXTURE ON TOP!

 Then throw it in the oven!

I'd also like to take this time to thank my little russian dolls.

The white ones, not the blue ones. The white ones are actually measuring cups. It says measurements on the bottom of each piece. AREN'T THEY ADORABLE?! I'm OBSESSED.

Ok enough of that. So when you are done baking this shit...

YOU EAT IT. YUM! <3

RATINGS:

Ease of Preparation: 2/5
It had a bunch of steps, it was a pain in the ass, it took a while, but I don't think I messed anything up. Yay!

Deliciousness: 4/5
Sweet, tasty coffee cake. Kind of wish I'd added lemon peel or nutmeg or something though. Felt like it was missing some special ingredient that could make it super-DUPER-amazing.

Prettiness: 5/5
A pretty little coffee cake full of berries and a delicate streusel crust on top! Adorable!