VegFest Info. 3 of 3 and food round-up

Ok, Blogger and I have gotten over our issues and are friends again... for now.

So now I can bring you the last installment of my VegFest show-and-tell and also a few images of food from last week.

I know that the animal rights information in my first 2 VegFest posts were incredibly depressing, so I thought I'd conclude on a lighter note: cool foods.

Here are four of the most interesting things I tasted in Boston. (For more VegFest food snippets, visit Nikki's blog)

Soy Feta from the company Sunergia Soyfoods. I've never had soy feta, but the dairy version used to be one of my favorite things. There were 3 flavors to try, and both Daiku and I loved the mediterranean herb. This stuff had the tang, the texture, and the crumble of the real thing. If your market or co-op does not carry it, ask them to right now! You won't regret it. This and Cheezly were vegan cheese revelations at VegFest.

Ok, I might have thought the soy feta was pretty amazing, but May Wah blew me away! They make all sorts of faux meats, and their stuff was delicious. Hot dogs, steak, chicken, if there's any meat you miss, here's the chance to have a cruelty-free version of it. The flavors, and more importantly, the texture were right on. The best part? You can order any of their products on the web.

I know Wildwood for their soy yogurts, but I'd never tried their veggie burgers before, and we got a free 2-pack of their Tofu-vegie Burgers at VegFest. Usually I like my veggie burgers more veggie-packed, but this tofu was a tasty variation.

Here they are coming out of our toaster oven.

Here is the delicious Post Punk Kitchen recipe for Cranberry Chili Dipping Sauce that I promised you. Isa and Terry served this after their cooking demo to go along with their autumn rolls, and it was so so good. Make this sauce right now!

1 cup whole fresh cranberries
1 1/2 cups water
1/2 cup sugar
2 large serano-type red chilies, seeded and finely minced
2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
Curls of lime zest for garnish, optional

In a heavy medium saucepan combine cranberries, water and sugar. Cover and bring to a boil. When cranberries start to pop, reduce heat to medium and simmer partially covered for about 5 minutes. Add minced chilies and lime juice, bring to a boil again and then reduce heat to medium-low. Stir sauce occasionally, using the back of a wooden spoon to mash some of the cranberries on the sides of the pot. Simmer sauce, uncovered, for an additional 10-12 minutes till sauce has reduced a little and looks syrupy. Sauce will thicken up more as it cools. Makes approximately 1 1/2 cups sauce.

* * *

Some food from the past week:

"Everything-but-the-kitchen-sink salad"

I'm often on my own for lunch, and I use the opportunity to throw every imaginable thing into a bowl for a huge salad. In this case, I had kidney beans, canned green beans, shredded cabbage, celery, carrots, onions, toasted walnuts and pine nuts, dried cranberries, and balsamic vinegar and olive oil.

Here's a stirfry we made one night:

Broccoli, peppers, onion, carrots, and zucchini sauteed with black bean paste, tamari, chili oil, sesame oil and some other spices, served with brown rice. I ate this with my favorite chopsticks. (Notice the crunchy things in the background- daikon and cucumber- that I have to have with every single meal.)

We were forward-thinking enough to plant some of our vegetables in containers that we were able to move inside once the weather got cold. Our pepper plants have kept producing a bit and this yellow pepper inspired us to have a taco night. (But then again, do you really need a reason for taco night?)

We cooked up a mess of black beans with canned chipotle peppers, cumin, and other spices and had them with these fixins':

Tofutti sour cream, salsa, chopped cilantro, the yellow pepper, and a tomato that we had picked green and had ripened on the windowsill.

Here is the table. There are some organic blue corn chips to add crunch. We toasted the corn tortillas using the flames of the gas range (a trick I learned as a kid from a friend of the family who is from Mexico and a great cook), which gave them a charred flavor that complemented the smoky chipotle peppers really well.

See?

Daiku made up this stuffed acorn squash one night:

Baked, then stuffed with a mixture of whole wheat couscous, raisins, slivered almonds, pine nuts, and cinnamon. Then baked some more. Yum!

Finally, brownies!

Tania blogged about these brownies from, yes, the Post Punk Kitchen. They looked really good, and I just happened to have all the ingredients, so I made a half batch and they were great! I love my brownies fudge-y, not cake-y, and these delivered. The method was pretty unique (blending silken tofu, water, and flour first and heating them up, almost like a pudding base), but simple. Totally worth it.

In the background you can see my beloved box of Droste cocoa, a high-quality Dutch cocoa powder. Recently, they were bought out, their factory in the Netherlands closed down, and their iconic box design changed. I'm hanging on to this classic box even though it's several years old, because it's going to be a nostalgic collector's item, for sure!

I might not be posting too frequently this week (deadlines, deadlines, deadlines!) but I'll be looking at all of your blogs. Have a great week, everyone!

VegFest Info. 3 of 3 and food round-up