Chocolate Infused Favorites Friday

I can't believe it's Friday again already!  This week has just flown by.  I've been very busy reading about all sorts of yummy food related things, and there seems to be a theme this week - chocolate.  Chocolate seems to be on everyone's mind and their blogs.  Hmmm, perhaps it has something to do with that holiday coming up this weekend?

I'll go along with the chocolate theme for this weeks Favorites Friday and make everyone happy by pushing the chocolate craze just a little further along.

If your looking for chocolate recipes then check out these posts:

Over at Mixed Greens Blog  you'll find a recipe for Chocolate Pudding featuring one of my favorite chocolate companies, from right here in Seattle - Theo Chocolate -  

Vegan Crunk revisits a memorable dessert from Millennium Restaurant in San Fransisco and tries her hand at recreating it.  The results sound delicious.  Check out the recipe for her take on the Chocolate Almond Midnight Torte.


Love Veggies and Yoga has several options for chocolate fans.  There's the delectable looking Vegan Fudge, the beautiful (they look like something done by a professional chocolatier) White Chocolate, Chocolate Peanut Butter Cups, and one of my all time favorites desserts - Chocolate Covered Strawberries.

I tried out Chocolate Covered Katie's 5-minute Chocolate Mousse recently.  It turned out pretty tasty. (It must have been, I think we managed to gobble it all up before getting any pictures!) It was way richer than I thought it would be.  I'm eager to try different brands of tofu as the base after reading that some are better for this kind of thing.  I also thought it would make a decent raw-like icing for something too so I'll be searching for a raw dessert, maybe with strawberries to try that out.

With all those delicious chocolate possibilities I only ask that you use only fair trade, slavery free chocolate.  If you don't already know about the the slavery issues related to chocolate, you can learn more about it here.  Fair trade is the way to go!

Now, I'm going to be sacrilege and share something completely different for any other lemonphiles out there who would rather serve up a sweet-tart luscious lemon-filled delight.

What is a lemonphile?
lemon - a tart citrus fruit, usually yellow in color
phile - one who loves, likes or is attracted to

Put them together and what do you have?  A lover of all things lemon!  If that's you, then definately check this out this humorous post from The Daily Raw Cafe and the recipe for her Lemon Coconut Pie.

Or maybe you just want a little spice in your life?  How about these Raw Cinnamon Rolls from Rawmazing.  These are on my to-do list!

I hope those links will keep you busy and inspired to spend some time in the kitchen this weekend!

Coming soon to Rutabegas and Other Adventures:

• Sweet Potato Tacos with Chipotle Cream
• Chickpea and Sun-dried Tomato Stew
• Fennel and Grapefruit Salad
• Vegetarian Reubens and Why a Reuben is Special Enough for Valentine's Day (I might even share the story of how I met my husband, it's a good one!)
• A Cookbook Review - Vegan Brunch
• First Ever "Meet Your Food Monday"

And so much more...

My question for anyone who might like to answer it:

Do you have foods or meals that are connected to special memories in your life?  What are they and the memories that make them special?

Have a great weekend and Valentine's Day, everyone!  Till next week, happy cooking!

First Ever Favorites Friday

 These are a few of my

favorite things... 

Yes, I'm starting a new feature on this blog and calling it Favorites Friday.  In these posts I'll cover a few of the recipes and foodie posts from around the web (and maybe elsewhere) that have caught my eye and that I feel deserve a mention.  This will give visitors plenty of places to visit over the weekend while I take my "away from the computer" time.  I'll tempt you to come back with several hints of what's to come over the next weeks and leave you with a question so you can share your wisdom with me.  How's that sound?  Good.  Then let's get started.  

Our first stop along the way keeps with the wise adage "Life's short, eat dessert first."  And what better blog to visit to fulfill that bit of wisdom than Chocolate Covered Katie.  She's got a reputation in this house, already.  When I was searching for where I had seen the recipe for butternut squash fries and started looking through her blog posts, my husband was sure it wasn't going to be at Chocolate Covered Katie - he had come to believe she only ever wrote about stuff meant to appease the sweet tooth monster.  He got this idea from seeing her blog titles on my Google Reader.  I proved him wrong though, because that was exactly where I found the recipe for "Butter(nut) Me Up" Squash Fries.  I have a butternut squash waiting to be transformed so I'm sure there will be more to come about that.  But that is hardly dessert and I said we were having dessert first and indeed it is at Chocolate Covered Katie that I found a recipe for something I've been wanting to try for quite some time.  A quick and vegan version of chocolate mousse.  Check out the recipe for Five-Minute Chocolate Mousse.  I'll let you know how it turns out in the next couple weeks - promise.

While perusing through the posts at The Voracious Vegan I came across a link to the Raw Epicurean.  I'm going to have to find more hours in the day just to explore this website.  It is loaded with recipes (with an ingredient Index - yeah!), interesting interviews, raw lifestyle articles and happy of happies for me an Herb of the Month section (I love all things herbs).  This months is about rose and promises to have articles, information and recipes featuring this herb.  Add to that a section of links to many more raw food blogs for me to get lost navigating through and I could be entertained for days, weeks, months, years!   Thanks to The Voracious Vegan for the link!

Moving along now to Love Veggies and Yoga where I discovered more raw snackybits to drool over.  Specifically the Raw Vegan Oatmeal Raisin Cookies.  Last night I had quite the adventure making these and then re-making them completely different.  One recipe - two totally different raw cookies.  I can't wait to post the results with pictures next week.  Thanks, Averie, for the adventure!

Cooking for a Vegan Lover did a book review on the book Go Dairy Free that caught my attention.  Not because I plan on going completely dairy free anytime soon but because I love to read about alternatives to my normal way of cooking and eating and seeing what wisdom I can glean and what new ways of doing something I can try out.  So I'll be looking to put this book on hold at the library soon.

Finally Vegan Crunk wrote about her experiences with Alicia Silverstone's book The Kind Diet.  I'm on a waiting list several miles long for this book at the library and after reading this review of sorts and hearing about the recipes I am that much more impatient to get my hands on a copy of this cookbook.  The Ginger-baked Tofu she mentions was the final straw.

In the mean time I do have two cookbooks out from the library that I am eagerly going through and look forward to doing more of just that this weekend. 

The Vegan Table is all about recipes for entertaining but from the first glances I think they would be just as yummy if I made them to entertain just lil' ol' Mark and me.  There seem to be several recipes that would make a scrumptious vegan high tea - I'd just have to find some local folks adventuress enough to try it with an open mind.  I'll have to work on that! 

Then there's Vegan Brunch, which has already had a muffin recipe made from it and I'll be sharing about that sometime soon too.  But there are many more dishes in there that I look forward to trying.  My only complaint so far are the number of dishes that call for Nutritional Yeast, something I cannot eat, and an ingredient that so far no one has given a good alternative to.  It is one thing if it calls for only a tablespoon or so, I figure leaving it out is simple enough.  But for recipes that call for 1/4 cup or more?  And that brings me to my question:

If you couldn't use nutritional yeast, for whatever reason, what would you use in its place or how would you alter a recipe to make up for the missing nutritional yeast? 

With so many vegan products and recipes calling for it, I find myself somewhat discouraged by not being able to use it.  I could use help from all you wise peoples out there!

Coming soon to Rutabegas and Other Adventures:

Vegetarian Stroganoff with Seitan

Super Quick Bowl of Noodles and Veggies

Garlic and Kale Soup with Spelt Berries

Vegan Chocolate Almond Moose

Raw Cookies

Butternut Squash Fries

And so much more....

So, until next week (and all its fun-filled, recipe-laden goodness), happy eating, dreaming and exploring the vegetarian life!

Inspiration from Others

I've been reading blogs for a long time now. I enjoy the variety that's out there and I especially enjoy those that inspire others to live life to the fullest by mixing things up and encouraging folks to try to knew things. Among those kinds of blogs are a few that inspire me to keep exploring the deliciousness of cooking and eating in all its wondrous variety. Some focus more on local cuisine like one of my old favorites Mixed Greens Blog. I've been reading this blog off and on for several years and I always found it amazing when I would visit to catch up on their beautiful posts that many of my posts were along similar lines. Maybe it's because we both live in the Northwest and are tied to the local, sustainable and seasonable way of life. It happened again recently when checking in from a longer than usual absence. Though this blog is not specifically vegetarian it features many foods that are and if you don't come away envying their food photography, I'll know something is wrong with you. A recent post of there's also reminded me of why I can only claim to be 98% vegetarian and not an absolute purist. But maybe only someone who grew up on local shellfish would understand.

A blog I more recently came upon that inspires me is The Voracious Vegan. I'm not a vegan, though many of the meals I prepare are, but this nice lady makes veganism very approachable through her wonderful and creative food posts. And if anyone is inspiring others - she is. You should read all about The Great Vegan Challenge of 2010 where her dad (a very open-minded fellow I might add) had some amazing breakthroughs while eating vegan for three weeks - all meals lovingly prepared by his awesome daughter. I think most people would wish they had such open-minded and willing family and friends when it comes to trying out new ways of eating and living. I for one am very eager to try The Voracious Vegan's Chicken Fried Seitan. Nearly all pre-packaged mock meats out there have yeast in them and since my intolerance to yeast is still alive and vicious having some recipes to try home-made versions is very welcome. I've had seitan before and really liked it and this recipe sounds great. I would love to try it in a vegan version of "Chicken" Marsala - loaded with mushrooms and gravy over mashed potatoes. Oh yum!

Another blog I've been reading regularly these days is Love Veggies and Yoga. And it was a recipe from this blog that I recently tried for myself. My own variation of Averies No Bake Vegan Choc Chip Protein Bars. Now I'm constantly making muffins for Mark - he loves them. But I only feel so-so about muffins and much prefer something that doesn't have any leavening for a snack - like chewy granola bars. Well these are like that, only raw. Though Averie does mention that they could be dehydrated and I may just do that for future backpacking trips. Her recipe (scroll down the page of the above link to find it) suggests, no promises, success no matter what combination of ingredients you put in these. So far she seems to be keeping that promise. I replaced coconut with slivered almonds, didn't add chia seeds since I didn't have any, used chopped dried apricots in place of raisins and cut the sweetener (in my case that was agave syrup) from 1/2 cup to a 1/3 cup. And for my tastes I would cut the sweetener even more the next time I make these. I'd also like to use a more sustainable option for individually wrapping them in the future - I hate throwing away saran wrap - even the non-toxic recycled stuff I use - and wrapping up these bars takes quite a bit of it. The bars were definitely worth making and very simple. I love anything with oats and the banana makes a great addition I wouldn't have thought of on my own. In the future I would enjoy trying these with other nut butters, seeds, nuts and fruits - the combinations are endless as are the adventures for the taste buds.