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Rumnog Pecan Cookies

December 17, 2011 – 4:58 pm

Last year, I was looking for a cookie to make to give as a gifts and I came across the Rumnog Pecan Cookie recipe in my beloved Veganomicon and they seemed like a perfect fit — holiday flavors with just enough fancy touches to be special. Also, it gave me an excuse to buy a bottle of dark rum.

Sadly, though, since they were made for gifts, I didn’t get to eat too many of them myself. This year, I decided I was going to remedy that.

Also, I really wanted to buy another bottle of Kraken rum.  I mean, look at how cool it looks? Now, yes, I do think it’s mighty tasty, but come on, it’s awesome.  (And they volunteer that Kraken is “gluten-free and vegan” right on the website, which I appreciate.

So I made my cookies and the frosting. And I did, perhaps, put a bit more rum in the frosting than was called for (because why not?).

I didn’t sample one when they came out the oven. I did, however, accidentally (no, really, it was an accident) drop one in the frosting so I figured, hey, now is as good of a time as any to try one.

And I definitely approved. These cookies are amazingly good.

I know there’s three in the photo, but I think you’d be crazy to eat three of these at once. They are a powerful cookie (and not just because I put all that rum in the frosting) — a little chewy, and incredibly rich and flavorful with just the right balance of sweetness and spices.

I’ve only had two so far, though, honestly, and while I’m happy that they’re all mine (other than the three I gave to a friend — really, three is enough for anyone), I’m going to have to take my time getting through them.

But hey, that’s not really a problem, now is it? Also, I have the rest of that bottle of Kraken to enjoy in various holiday-related beverages.

Also, while we’re talking about putting (possibly ill-advised amounts of ) alcohol into food, I am totally excited to see there’s a cookbook called The Tipsy Vegan. I almost don’t care if this cookbook is good (although the recipes I’ve seen from it sound amazing and inventive). It just charms me that it exists in the first place.

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The saddest Thanksgiving ever

November 26, 2011 – 11:42 am

OK, that’s a joke. It really wasn’t that sad. But my family was too far away to travel to and all my friends were out of town or otherwise occupied with family. My roommate went to his family’s (he did kindly invite me along, but I decline), so it was just me all by myself.

Initially, I felt ambitious and thought “I will make this Pumpkin Cheesecake with Pecan Crunch!” and then I thought better of it (it’s still something I will love to make some day).

But I thought, hm, ginger snap crumb crust … I could still totally make a pumpkin pie.

So that’s what I did:

It wasn’t a complete failure, you know, especially since I basically read a few recipes and made it up as I went along.

I used about a half pound of silken tofu, which I don’t think really did much of anything to help the pie set up. Some recipes also called for cornstarch, which I do think would’ve helped (and I may try that next year). But it still tastes pretty good, even if it doesn’t necessarily hold together too well. And anyway, who am I trying to impress?

I also made a big dish of stuffing. I used Pepperidge Farm’s mix, which is full of things I usually don’t eat (like high fructose corn syrup) but I was feeling lazy and didn’t want to go looking all over the universe for a vegan stuffing mix. (And I figured it was a holiday …) No photo of that, but I did throw in about 3/4 of a cup of dried cranberries since I had them around. And I perhaps just left my fork in the dish for a while and would just wander by and take bites of it every so often. Did I mention no one else is here?

It was fun and it was silly.

But now it’s time to start thinking about making cookies (Rumnog Pecan Cookies from Veganomicon! And I will actually save some for myself this year!) and what I’ll make for my family as my present to them.

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DC is the vegetarian capital

September 16, 2011 – 9:23 pm

Or so says this survey. Well, what it really says is that more people in DC don’t eat meat than any other city in this survey.

The DC metro area is definitely amazingly friendly for vegetarians. We may not have a ton of purely vegetarian/vegan restaurants, but we do have an amazing amount of vegetarian/vegan-friendly restaurants. I almost think that’s more important. There’s an incredible abundance of pizza places offering up vegan cheese now (even a late-night big slice place, which is ridiculous) and a good number of bars serve up vegan eats without question (a legacy leftover from DC’s punk days).

I’ve never had trouble eating in restaurants here. Yeah, it does take a little more forethought, but it’s super-easy to go without meat here. It’s barely even a thing you need to think about.

Some of it, I know, is the awesome work groups like Compassion Over Killing does in the area. They work with restaurants to develop vegetarian and vegan dishes. The goal isn’t to make restaurants entirely vegetarian — but just to encourage them to expand their offerings a bit more.

I will be at DC VegFest next weekend. You should come too!

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