Vegan Mofo #24: Brussels/Belgian Waffles...

Well, this is my last Mofo Post. Today I leave for Vacation and I won’t be back until October. I had a lot of fun this Mofo, I really enjoyed veganizing non vegan recipes. I surprised myself a lot, and found new and interesting ways to combine food, and flavor. I even got to try out a few ‘new to me’ cooking methods, such as flambee!  It’s been a fun ride, unfortunately I didn’t get to veganize all the reicpes I had intended, nor did I get to veganize foods from all the countries I’d wanted. I had really hoped to have more cultural variety but I got kind of hung up on Irish and French cooking, I don’t know why.  Maybe when I come back from my trip I’ll keep going with the veganizing, who knows.

Anyway, for my last recipe I decided to make Belgian Waffles. When we were in Brussels there were waffle shops literally everywhere, you couldn’t throw a rock without hitting a waffle shop or a frites stand, and I loved it! What cool street food right? Interestingly what we call Belgian Waffles here in North America are quite different then what a true Belgian - or Brussels Waffle - really is. Actual Brussels waffles are made a little more complicated by the addition of yeast, it isn’t as simple as whipping together a standard pancake batter and sticking it in a waffle iron. Traditional waffles also use a lot of fat in the form of eggs and butter, so I was really interested to try a vegan version.

I wouldn’t call my experiment perfect, they were a little more dense and bready then I had anticipated, however using yeast that’s only to be expected. Flavor wise however these were amazing! Seriously, my husband said they were some of the best waffles I’ve ever made, and that’s a big compliment.

Now, to serve you can’t simple pour syrup on them, because that’s not how they do it in Belgium, what you need is an assortment of fruits, whipped cream, and chocolate sauce. Some people even top their waffles with ice cream. My personal favorite combinations were Banana and Chocolate or Strawberry and Chocolate Hazelnut. For this recipe I used what I had on hand, Raspberries and made up a Chocolate Peanut Butter Sauce. A big dollop of Coconut Whip wouldn’t be the worst idea on these!

Brussels Waffles 

5 Cups All Purpose Flour
½ tsp Sea Salt
7g Active Dry Yeast
2 Tbsp Light Brown Sugar
1 tsp Vanilla Extract
2 Cups Soy Milk
1 Cup Melted Non-dairy Butter
Ener-G Egg Replacer, enough to equal 6 Eggs

- Combine Flour and Salt in a Large bowl.

- Sprinkle the yeast and Sugar over top

- Using a hand mixer beat together the Ener-G and Milk until foamy. Beat in the vanilla extract.

- Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients. Pour in the milk mixture and fold to combine.

- Add in the melted butter and combine until a dough forms. It might seem a bit loose, not like a bread dough, pretty squishy, and that’s okay.

- Lightly grease a clean bowl with a bit of nonstick spray. Pour the batter/dough into the clean, greased bowl. Then cover with plastic wrap and let rise for 1 hour.

- Preheat a waffle Iron. Use the setting just below half way. (This is important!) When the iron is preheated add enough batter to fill it. Now the batter will be very sticky and stretchy, just use your spoon to break it off from the rest of what is in the bowl. Close the waffle iron and cook until your iron beeps. Do not open the iron before the waffles are done.

- Remove the cooked waffles from the iron, and add the remaining dough to the iron. You’ll probably get 8 waffles out of this recipe if you have a 4 waffle iron.

- Serve waffles with fruit, whipped cream, chocolate sauce, or any of your favorite assorted toppings. They also taste great with a bit of powdered sugar and non-dairy butter.

Enjoy! See y’all In October!

The Valentine’s Day Post...

The Lovely Valentine's Day Flowers My Mom Sent Us

I hope everyone had a lovely Valentine’s Day yesterday, I know I did despite a little pre-V-day stress and a last minute change of plans. The original idea you see, was to go out and have a romantic dinner just the two of us, but a culmination of things turned that into a less then stellar plan. So instead I decided to invite some close friends over for a Valentine’s Day Dinner Celebration which turned out to be a very successful good time, despite the before mentioned stress.

Banana Split Waffles

The stress as it were, was all due to the fact that I wanted to make the perfect Valentine’s Day dinner, and I wanted it to reflect the colors most commonly associated with Valentines, as well as the spirit of love. I searched and searched and searched through all my cook books and the web for recipes I had not yet made that would fit both my criteria and my budget. What I found was an endless supply of dessert recipes and nearly as many cocktail and appetizer recipes but hardly anything suitable for a main meal. It must also be said that there are WAY too many people out there who consider marinara sauce to be an appropriate expression of love. Spaghetti and marinara for Valentine’s? No thanks.

Banana Split Waffles

What I really wanted to do was utilize the beets that were in my fridge. I bought a bunch that I’d planned to use this week and I thought what better time to use them then V-day? Except virtually every beet recipe I came across was for roasted beets. Let it also be said that apparently when it comes to the beetroot most people are seriously lacking in imagination! Roast beets are great, I adore them, but there isn’t anything fancy, romantic or even particularly thoughtful about them served alongside something else.

Banana Split Waffles

The other challenge was the fact that I was cooking for others. Whenever you cook dinner for other people you always have to be mindful of their taste preferences. If someone doesn’t like spicy, or a certain vegetable or this or that it can set the whole thing off. You have to be conscious, and also when cooking for others you want to enjoy their company not spend the whole night in the kitchen. Which means you have to pick a dish, or dishes that are both simple yet elegant. Not the easiest task in the world. Finally I decided to stop worrying, forget looking for the recipe of another and just go with my gut and do what I felt was right. In the end it worked out beautifully, much to my own surprise and amazement, but before I get to the main course lets start with breakfast shall we?

Caponata

For breakfast I made the Banana Split Waffles from "Hearty Vegan Meals for Monster Appetites" by Celine Steen & Joni Marie Newman. Served with Chocolate Sauce, Rice Whip, Maraschino Cherries, and Soy Delicious Purely Decadent Cookie Avalanche Ice Cream. The authors recommend you serve these waffles with their recipe for Cake Batter Ice Cream, and as much as I would have loved that I honestly wasn’t about to dig out my ice cream maker just to make a batch for breakfast. Not to mention the fact that there isn’t room in my freezer for the ice cream maker anyway. We searched high and low for vegan cake batter ice cream at the store, but not finding any my husband picked out this flavor for the waffles. It was definitely tasty! A good choice. As for the waffles they were delicious! Full of flavor and filling and they tasted amazing with ice cream and whip. Never in my life have I had such a combination, and certainly not for breakfast but it was a nice treat. Except I’m the sort of person that while I have a serious sweet tooth I can only take so much sweet and so much chocolate in one sitting before I want to puke. By the time I got to the last of my waffles I was in that mode, and couldn’t finish off the last couple of bites. Sugar overload.

Caponata

With a breakfast like that under our belts there was absolutely no room for lunch. I did however make a lovely appetizer to proceed dinner. The Caponata from "The Mediterranean Vegan Kitchen" by Donna Klein. Garlic, onion, tomatoes, celery, capers, olives and eggplant are cooked down with water, tomato paste, sugar, red wine vinegar, and basil to make a delicious sweet/tart antipasto for toasted bread rounds. Absolutely incredible mix of flavor and the four of us went through 2 loaves of French bread in an attempt to finish off ever last morsel.

Caponata

After that, dinner. Seeing as how I’d made the caponata to start I figured I might as well keep with the Italian theme and so I decided on pasta. I made a lovely Rotini dish with roasted beets, spinach, sun-dried tomatoes and red onions. Keeping with the color theme of Valentine’s I really wanted to use pink, purple or red foods, but decided at the last minute to throw in the spinach for some added "POP" and nutrition. Thanks to the beets the pasta was stained a lovely shade of pink, which really made it feel romantic and fitting for the day. As for the recipe I promise to post it later.

Rotini With Roasted Beets, Red Onion, Spinach & Sun-Dried Tomatoes

After a long period of digestion it was time for dessert for which I’d made the Chocolate Cherry Cheesecake from "Party Vegan" by Robin Robertson. This cheesecake was delicious, very rich and very creamy, but - at least for me - it’s not the kind of thing you want to over-indulge in. The cake was very sweet, and very chocolaty so much so that by the last few bites I was beginning to feel a little ill. Chocolate coma for sure. Everyone loved the cake though, and seconds were had. My only complaint about the cake is that I thought it should have more cherry considering it’s called a Chocolate Cherry Cheesecake. Cherry Jam is spread in a thin layer overtop of a chocolate cake and then the cake is dotted with fresh cherries - or in my case maraschino since I didn’t have fresh - but I thought it would have been better to also blend some of the cherry jam into the batter, or even a few whole cherries. That’s just me though, everyone else seemed to love it as it was.

Chocolate Cherry Cheesecake

To drink we stuck to water and Republic of Tea, though I’d originally planned to make cocktails I’m glad that in the end I didn’t. The Plum Berry White tea and Rose White Tea were the perfect accompaniment to dinner and a great way to end a good evening.

Chocolate Cherry Cheesecake

After our guests left there was some very lovely cuddle time and then a viewing of the film "I Love You Phillip Morris" starring Jim Carry and my all-time favorite actor Ewan McGregor. It’s a film we’ve seen before, and while it is a rather unconventional romance it is still a romance nonetheless. If you haven’t seen it you should! The perfect end to a perfect day, I hope you all had a lovely time as well, and stay tuned for that Rotini recipe!

Whole Wheat Apple Cherry Waffles...

I know, two waffle related posts in just a couple of days, it’s crazy right? I swear it wasn’t intentional. It’s just that after my last post about the pomegranate syrup I awoke the following morning with a wicked hankering for some fluffy, sweet, waffle goodness. It’s been so long since I had a waffle or a pancake for that matter, and when the desire strikes it does so with a vengeance.

I mentioned a little while ago that ever since coming home from vacation my stomach and digestion have been a little off kilter. I mentioned that around Christmas I had been slowly working towards setting myself back to rights, but that I wouldn’t be able to do so fully until the New Year. I’ve been doing very well with it, as you can probably see from the recipes I’ve been posting, a lot of my diet lately has consisted of soup, salad, smoothies, then simple grain or veggie dishes with an emphasis on eating as much raw fruits and vegetables as possible. I haven’t cut either oil or sugar out completely but I’ve significantly decreased the amount that I use. I used to use oil everyday, sometimes for multiple dishes now I seem to use it only a few times a week at most and I honestly don’t miss it much. As for sugar, I’ve been staying away from dessert for the most part, aside from a cinnamon coffee cake I baked the other night when going to a friends, and the occasional Oreo (Oreo’s are vegan by default by the way) this week, I haven’t been consuming much sugar at all. When I have had that sweet tooth craving I’ve been trying to stick to fruit, a fruit smoothie, or in rarer cases I’ve made a flax milk, or almond milk shake or pudding with banana, chia seeds and a tbsp of cacao powder which I’ve found very satisfying.

Digestion wise I’ve been feeling pretty good over the past couple of weeks, and things seem to be going back to normal, which I’m ever so grateful for. Breads and bread-like things - gluten in general really - is one of the things I’ve been avoiding, hence my not having had waffles or pancakes in a while, so when I felt that urge, I thought since I’ve been feeling better why not indulge a little? Of course I’ve made virtually every waffle and pancake recipe in all the cook books I own, barring a few my husband would have no interest in eating - like say chocolate waffles or pumpkin pancakes - so rather then remaking something I’ve already had a billion times, I thought I might as well create something new. I figured if I was going to break the few dietary rules I’d placed before myself I might as well do it for something original. Thus Apple Cherry Waffles were born, more out of necessity then anything else since I’m running a bit low on groceries at the moment. The surprise is that they turned out brilliantly. Who doesn’t love apples and cherries? Well I know I do, and they work wonderfully together. These aren’t an especially sweet waffle and can be made even less so by opting out of using the sugar, as the fruit - particularly the cherries - may be sweet enough for some. This recipe makes eight square waffles, and they come up thick and fluffy. Truly they taste lovely on their own but if you want to jazz them up - as I always like to do - a little pat of Earth Balance or other non-dairy butter, a drizzle of pure maple syrup and just a light dusting of powdered sugar make these waffles really melt in your mouth.

Another great idea would be to enjoy them with a little bit of fresh sauteed apple or some sauteed fresh cherries. Unfortunately the apple in this recipe was my last, and I didn’t have any cherries on hand otherwise I would have been all over that for sure. Feel free to play around to find your ideal topping, and as always enjoy!

Whole Wheat Apple Cherry Waffles

2 ½ C Whole Wheat Pastry Flour
2 tsp Baking Powder
½ tsp salt
2 Tbsp Ground Flaxseed
1 tsp ground cinnamon
2 Tbsp Granulated Cane Sugar
2 C Flax Milk (or other non-dairy milk of choice)
1 Tsp Apple Cider Vinegar
3 Tbsp Canola Oil (or other nuteral vegetable oil)
3/4-1 C Chopped Dried Cherries
1 Granny Smith Apple Peeled and Grated

- Combine Apple cider vinegar and Flax milk in small bowl and set aside to curdle.

- Combine all dry ingredients in separate bowl, make well in center.

- Combine Oil with milk mixture then pour into dry ingredients. Mix until thoroughly combined, and a batter has formed. It’s okay if there are a few lumps.

- Add in chopped cherries and grated apple. Mix until just combined.

- Pour batter into lightly greased heated waffle iron and cook per manufacturers directions. My waffle iron makes four waffles at a time, and about 1-1 ½ Cups of batter is good per 1 batch.

*** Note - If you don’t have a waffle iron you could always turn these into pancakes. Scoop 1/4 -1/3 C batter into a lightly greased heated pan cook till bubbly, then flip over and cook until golden brown. Easy! ***

- Enjoy waffles with favorite topping of choice, perhaps with a side of fruit and a tall glass of orange juice and a cup of tea.

Blueberry Waffles With Lemon Creme....

Though I’m not much of a morning eater - most days preferring a smoothie or a simple glass of tea or juice and a bit of fruit or a scone upon waking rather then a full meal - There are those times when I awake ravenous, and on those occasions I seem to almost always want waffles. Until January I never owned a waffle maker, I don’t know why, I’ve always liked waffles, they remind me of my childhood. My mother used to make big waffle breakfasts, usually on Sunday mornings, and her waffles were the best I’d ever eaten. Then I got married and I seemed to forget about my much beloved waffles. Pancakes I made sure, scrambled tofu yeah, toast, oatmeal, just plain ole’ boring cereal of course, but waffles? They had disappeared from my life.

It wasn’t until Christmas of last year when I was gifted an amazing book - Called Vegan Brunch by Isa Chandra Moskowitz - that waffles re-entered the picture. The book - amazing for many reasons - is full of delicious mouth-watering waffle recipes that I wanted to try immediately. The only problem was I didn’t own a waffle iron! So in January I went out and bought myself one, and I’m telling you it was the best $50 I ever spent.

So is it any wonder that when I bought the book Vegan Yum Yum by Lauren Ulm the first recipe I wanted to make was the Blueberry Waffles with Lemon Creme? And wow are they something! For me it’s the lemon creme drizzled on top that really does it for me, because to be honest a blueberry waffle is a blueberry waffle, but with that lemon creme - mmm! I love blueberries and I love lemon and the two compliment each other so fantastically! I can’t believe It hadn’t occurred to me before! Unfortunately at the time I didn’t have any fresh blueberries on hand to place on top, but I think that sliced strawberries were a very nice improvisation.

These waffles and the lemon creme are so amazing that if you don’t own Vegan Yum Yum you need to buy a copy right now, and if you don’t own a waffle iron, you need to buy one! Like yesterday! You won’t be sorry.