Vegan Mofo 2010 day 2: Black Eyed Peas, Collard Greens & Sliced Vegan Ham

The sliced vegetarian ham from May Wah is by far our favorite fake meat. For those of you not familiar with May Wah you can find their extensive and wonderful products here: http://www.vegieworld.com/.  Even though they list their products as vegetarian most are actually vegan. The kids favorite way to have the vegetarian ham is baked with sliced pineapples and an apricot glaze, my favorite way is with black eyed peas and collard greens - since I do the cooking and 99.9% of the dish washing this time my favorite won. Hurray for me!  You don't need the vegetarian ham to make a yummy batch of black eyed peas and collard greens, a good liquid smoke is all you need. In my old age I have become very loyal to several products, STUBB'S Mesquite liquid smoke is one of those products. http://www.ilovestubbs.com/. In a deep pot I  saute a large sliced onion with a couple of table spoons of Earth Balance, when the onion is soft and somewhat translucent I add 2 cups of vegetable broth, some Annie's natural organic vegan Worcestershire sauce, a couple of dashes of the Stubbs mesquite liquid smoke and salt & pepper to the pot. I bring it all to a boil then throw the collard greens into the pot and simmer until the greens are nice and wilted. Then I put the black eyed peas into the pot and continue to simmer for 15-20 more minutes, if I have the vegetarian ham I'll slice it into pieces and toss the pieces into the pot the last 5 minutes of cooking. Once everything is finished  I sometimes use any extra liquid to make a gravy for mashed potatoes, or I'll leave the broth with the greens and black eyed peas and serve with fresh biscuits. Canned black eyed peas work well in this dish and will cut your cooking time considerably, however I prefer to use fresh or frozen. If you decide to use either fresh or frozen make sure you soak your black eyed peas long enough so when you cook them they will be nice and soft.  Before cooking the collard greens you should remove all thick stalks then wash and chop the greens into bite sized pieces.  Ooooh, I almost forgot the hot sauce!  Keep a bottle of good hot sauce on the table when serving black eyed peas and collard greens.

Sleepy Easter Bunnies.

Easter provides me the perfect opportunity to share with you another one of my true loves, children's books.  One of my all time favorites is The Easter Bunny That Overslept by Priscilla and Otto Friedrich.  The Easter Bunny That Overslept is an adorable story about the Easter Bunny sleeping in one cold rainy Easter Day.  When he finally awoke Easter had come and gone. The Bunny still tries to deliver his Easter Eggs, but nobody wanted the Bunny's eggs - Easter Eggs are only good for Easter after all! The rest of the story follows the Bunny throughout an entire year as he tries to deliver his eggs. 

I first came across this charming story in it's original 1957 printing with Adrienne Adams illustrations.  It has since been reprinted and now features illustrations by Donald Saaf.  While not nearly as whimsical as it's original version, the reprint is still a very good children's book.

                                            

Now I know Easter Eggs are not exactly a welcomed Vegan topic.  But in this sweet holiday fable the Easter eggs are delivered by a rabbit and are always approached as the rabbits "eggs", other then that the eggs origins are never discussed and the eggs are never eaten.  Speaking of  eating......

For Easter dinner we ate Apricot glazed vegan ham and pineapples, black eyed peas with collard greens and roasted garlic mashed red potatoes with gravy. I also made Rice Krispy treats for the first time, they were good but very hard. I used 1cup light Karo syrup, 1 cup organic sugar, 1 tsp vanilla and 1 stick of Earth Balance. I melted everything together and tossed in 8 cups of Rice Krispies, mixed until the Rice Kripsies were completely coated with the sugar/Karo syrup mixture. Then I spread the coated Krispies into a pan coated with Earth Balance and left everything to cool.  When everything was cooled down I cut into squares.   Next time I'll try making the Rice Krispy treats with Dandies - I'm certain they'll be better that way.  The best thing we made was this awesome Pear, Ginger and Pecan Quick Bread from The Garden of Vegan (pg.172).  The bread was very easy to make and extremely delicious.

Pear Ginger Pecan Bread

                         2 cups flour                       1/3 cup olive oil

                         2tsp baking powder          1 banana, mashed

                         1/2 tsp baking soda           1 large pear, cored and cubed

                         1/8 tsp salt                         1/2 cup pecans, chopped

                         1/2 cup dry sweetener        3 tbsp fresh ginger, grated

                         3/4 cup apple juice

Preheat oven to 350F. In a large bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.  Stir in sweetener, apple juice, oil, banana, pear, pecans, and ginger.  Stir together gently until "just mixed." Pour batter into a lightly oiled bread pan and bake for 45-50 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.  Let cool on a rack for 10 minutes before removing from pan.  makes 1 loaf.

Birthday Corn Muffins, Paul Frank, and May Wah.

 

Yesterday our baby girl Em, turned 11.  She didn't want to celebrate her birthday with cakes or brownies, she wanted corn muffins.   If you've visited Home Sweet Vegan Home before you might have noticed that our youngest daughter is a bit of a corn bread/muffin fanatic.  Her favorite corn muffins are the Sunny Corn Muffins  from The Post Punk Kitchen, http://www.theppk.com/recipes/dbrecipes/index.php?RecipeID=68 This is one of Isa's recipes and it produces the lightest, sweetest corn muffins you will ever bake.  I leave out the lemon zest though. 

The only birthday request Em had was a trip to the Paul Frank store.  We ventured into NYC for the afternoon and made our way to the 195 Mulberry Street location. 

Just a few blocks away from the Paul Frank store on Mulberry street is May Wah on Hester.  May Wah for those of you not familiar with them are producers and suppliers of vegan and vegetarian mock meats. You can find everything from vegetarian squid to vegetarian mutton to my favorite, vegan ham there.  If a trip to NYC is out of the question May Wah will ship anywhere in the 50 states. May Wah's entire catalog is available on their website, http://www.vegieworld.com/ . All of their products ingredients as well as the nutritional facts are listed on the site. Many of the products listed as vegetarian as also vegan.

I picked up vegan chicken legs, vegan ham and vegan shrimp. (Well, actually vegan prawns but District 9 killed the word prawns for me so we'll just say that I bought vegan shrimp.)

So a couple of hours and a ton of cash later we headed home from our trip to NYC.  Em, thrilled with her Paul Frank loot and me looking forward to a vegan ham Easter dinner. But Easter dinner will be a post for different day!