Easy Vegan Chocolate Banana Bread

I've had seven spent bananas sitting in my freezer for nearly a month.  I kept telling myself that I was going to make banana bread.  I WAS GOING TO DO IT.

Yesterday, I finally did.  It's pretty darn good.  I actually think the batter tasted better than the bread itself (not something I usually find true).  But, the bread (cold, with a tiny smearing of Earth Balance on it) it pretty great, too.  I like this recipe, as it's not ridiculously sweet.  It has a decent amount of sugar, but not as much as in many quick bread recipes.

The recipe comes from Isa Chandra on Post Punk Kitchen.  Per loaf:

1/2 c brown sugar

1/2 c white sugar 

(if you're trying to be a good vegan, as I am, try to use unrefined sugar, the refining process is a little horrifying)

1/2 c margarine 

(room temperature or slightly melty)

3 very ripe bananas

(mashed well, I used 7 bananas for 2 loaves)

2 c flour

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/4 c vanilla soy milk curdled with 1 tsp apple cider vinegar

1 tsp vanilla

1 tsp cinnamon

1/4 tsp allspice

(I subbed 1/2 tsp cardamom here)

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 c cocoa powder (my own addition)

Preheat oven to 350 and lightly oil your bread pan.  Cream margarine and sugars together.  Add bananas and curdled soy milk to the sugar mixture.  Sift/wisk together the dry ingredients.  Add wet ingredients to dry and mix very well.  Fill your bread pan (it'll rise about 1- 1.5 inches).  Bake for 50 minutes to 1 hour 10 depending on how psychotic you oven is.

Quick breads are very likely the easiest baked thing to veganize as bananas are an effective egg replacer.

Thawed banana (pre-mushing).  You should have seen it coming out of the peel...

I'm not usually a batter eater, but this stuff tasted like chocolate frozen bananas.

Super moist and awesome for breakfast of with vegan ice cream (bonus points for sprinkling the ice cream with cardamom).

What are your favorite quick breads?

Mint Ice Cream

I love mint ice cream.  In fact, I could really care less about ice cream as a dessert until there's mint involved.  So, I was really excited when I finally found these at Fred Meyer:

The "Purely Decadent" coconut based dessert is about 10 times better than the "So Delicious" soy based flavor.  It's creamier and the mint is much more powerful.  All soy based ice creams have a soy undertone, so I tend to go with nuttier flavors usually.  You can usually taste the coconut milk in these products, too, but I didn't taste any crossover in the mint chip.  Both are made by Turtle Mountain, so proceeds go to helping endangered sea turtles.

Ian chose a color for our bedroom (and Ben painted it, because he is the world's greatest house guest.  He should have his own reality tv show...) and:

Instead of "yellow grass" like it was billed as, it's mint ice cream, too.  I still like it.

Sweet Potato Enchiladas Recipe

Mom asked for my enchilada recipe, so here it is!  It's super easy.

Ingredients

3 large sweet potatoes

10 large corn tortillas

1 bag of baby spinach

1 pack of tempeh

1 cup of cashew cheese

1 can of mild enchilada sauce

olive oil

cumin

chili powder

salt

Oil a baking sheet. Chop the sweet potatoes into 1 inch pieces and coat with olive oil, salt chili powder and cumin.  Bake at 375 for 20-25 minutes.  Steam the tempeh (cut it or tear it depending on what for texture you would like) 10 minutes while the potatoes bake.  Steaming them will eliminate the bitterness tempeh sometimes has.  Spread each tortilla with cashew cheese and fill with the potatoes, spinach and tempeh.  Wrap and place in a baking pan.  Once you've filled the pan, coat with enchilada sauce.  Bake for 10-15 minutes (covered in foil to keep it moist) when you want to eat them!

My cherry sorbet is way more impressive.  I have some sad looking cherries in the fridge, so I'll probably make some soon and post pictures, too.

Loving Hut in Portland!

A few weeks ago Ian and I were driving down SW Jefferson (doing something for Oasis, but I don't remember what) and out the passenger window, what did a see?

A Loving Hut.  A LOVING HUT.

For those of you who aren't familiar with the international chain of vegan restaurants, go here, here, here and here.

Really do follow those links, it's fascinating stuff, albeit a little off putting.

Ian and I first discovered Loving Hut on our first trip to Seoul.  I remember that we looked around for one of the restaurants (which I had found via HappyCow), but then gave up.  That might have been a different trip entirely.  In fact, that might have been Busan.  I don't have a reliable memory.  We'll just say it was Seoul.

We eventually found the restaurant and it became a stand by for us when we were in the city.  We never made it over to the buffet, which I hear beats any of the "menued" locations.

We knew that there were a couple in the US (I actually only thought they were in California, but the website showed me otherwise), but we didn't expect to drive by one in our city.  It was a little surreal, since we associate Loving Hut with Korea.

The Loving Hut on SW Jefferson is in it's soft opening, so we decided to go there for lunch today.  We were so impressed.  

Sterile and simple, just like we remember.  No worries, Supreme Master TV is prominently featured, just like in Korea.   Here are a couple of posts that feature Loving Hut from Everybody Jecheon:  1, 2.

Since they are still in their soft opening, they gave us free sweet and sour soup to try.  I'm not usually a fan of sweet and sour because it's usually too much of one of the flavors.  But, I really enjoyed this.

"Ham salad."  Ian and I shared this as an appetizer.  Lettuce, crispy vermicelli noodles and soy ham.  The whole thing was seasoned with an awesome salty, vegetable seasoning that reminded me of this broth powder we used on basically everything in Korea.

Carrot cake.  It was super moist, dense and literally full of carrots.  It had raisins in it, but it was so good I didn't mind.

I didn't get any photos of our main dishes.  I was too caught up in everything.  Ian ordered a sweet and sour stir fry dish (which I can't remember the cute name for) and I got "Golden Beauty," fried protein covered in a dried lemongrass and chili mixture.  We shared both dishes.  I think the "Golden Beauty" was better, but I'm just not stoked about stir fry dishes that feature pineapple.

We'll definitely be back, the food rocks, even if the organization behind the curtain is a little questionable.

Spicy Cashew Cheese

Last Tuesday we went over to Rob's for dinner.  I brought sweet potato enchiladas with cashew cheese in them.  I had never made the "cheese" before, so I was a little nervous, but it was for naught.

I didn't use an actual recipe and it can definitely be improved upon, but I think it was ridiculously fantastic for something I basically just made up and threw together.

The most important ingredient is raw cashews (sorry it's blurry, I need a real camera).  They aren't cheap, but you can buy them in bulk.

Throw them in a blender and add:

- a generous amount of nutritional yeast

- nut milk

-salt

-green chilis

Blend until it's the consistency of thick hummus.

That's it.  I'm going to experiment with ingredients like white vinegar, olive oil, silken tofu and other spices.  I'm hoping to make a few viable varieties.  

Ian, a big fan of dairy cheese, is all over this stuff.  I think it would be rad on a grilled sandwich with tomatoes or thinned and put over wheat pasta.  Let me know if you try it out.

Random, Delicious

I was craving something saucy for dinner tonight, so I threw a random set of ingredients into a pan and ended up with something really good.  With some work, it could be great.

I'm not going to post the recipe just yet, but I started by browning some almonds and tofu in the pan and then I made a rue out of soy milk, a smidge of Earth Balance, white wine vinegar and nutritional yeast.   I simmered the tofu and green beans in the sauce and seasoned it and added it to the bowl hot and topped it with fresh spinach, allowing the residual heat to cook it a little.

Mmm.  Faux-cheesey.  I think it could have used more sauce, actually.  I'm stoked to perfect this.

Larabars

I recently tried a Larabar for the first time the other day.  I was super impressed.

Larabars are raw vegan nutritional bars.  But, they aren't filled with all the fortified crap that you'll find in a lot of other bars.

These are the five flavors that our neighborhood Trader Joe's has:

-cherry pie

-apple pie

-cashew cookie

-peanut butter cookie

-peanut butter chocolate chip

But, Larabars come in 14 other flavors, too:

-banana bread

-blueberry muffin

-carrot cake

-chocolate chip brownie

-chocolate chip cookie dough

-chocolate coconut chew

-cinnamon roll

-coconut creme pie

-ginger snap

-key lime pie

-lemon bar

-peanut butter and jelly

-pecan pie

-tropical fruit tart

This is the "peanut butter cookie" bar.  It has three ingredients (most of the bars have 5 ingredients or fewer): peanuts, dates and salt.

It tastes like a damn cookie.  I didn't eat that one, though.  I told Ian that I would let him try each of these flavors.  He's not big on bars.

Proof.

It's nice to know that there is a healthy treat out there for grabbing and going, but that's not really why I bought them.  My mom is handing her Ninja blender down to us and I want to experiment with making my own bars.  I intend to use these as a model.

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cupcakes

Or are they muffins?  I choose not to pigeon-hole these delicious little dudes.

I got the recipe from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World, but I subbed most of the oil for applesauce and about 1/3 of the granulated sugar for brown sugar.  I also didn't frost them (the recipe calls for cinnamon icing), for those two reasons, it's up in the air whether they are cupcakes or muffins.

They stick to the wrappers way too much.  It might be because of the low fat content.  Also, these are the cheapest cupcake papers ever.  That could have something to do with it.

I knew that the cookbook had a recipe for pumpkin cupcakes and I had a can of pumpkin puree that I'd been planning to use.  I really like pumpkin and chocolate together, so I thought I was being totally clever when I bought the chocolate chips.  When I got home and flipped the book open to that page, what did I find?  The recipe already called for chocolate.  Go me.

One thing is for sure; they don't taste low fat or vegan.

Delicious.

E'Njoni Cafe

Due to a schedule miscommunication, Ian ended up closing tonight.  Since being stuck in a mall food court makes dinner surprisingly difficult, I decided to swing by and bring him sustenance when I got off work.  I found an Ethiopian (slash African, slash Mediterranean) restaurant on my phone and headed over.

E'Njoni Cafe is tucked away on Killingsworth Street, which makes it a little difficult to get to, but it's worth it.  The place has a fusion atmosphere that really suits the cuisine's region, the staff (I think it's family run) is super friendly and the food is cheap and delicious. I ordered take away, so I didn't take pictures of the place itself.  But, we'll be heading back there.

The place does serve meat, but the menu has a lot of vegetarian (mostly vegan, actually) choices.  I took some pictures of our order with my phone, but forgive the presentation as it's in disposable serveware and we were in the mall.

I also picked up some apple curry bao (Asian (Chinese, mostly) rice buns) from Steamers because I've been curious about them.  I was a little disappointed with those, but Ian liked them.

Peanut Yam Soup $3.  It needed either a little acidity or sodium, but I really liked it.  Maybe my favorite part.

Veggies (greens, red lentils, chickpeas and okra) wrapped in injera (traditional Ethiopian/ Eritrean bread) $8  This wasn't exactly what I expected.  I ordered a plate with the three separate sets of veggies.  I knew it came on bread, but I didn't know it would all be together.  The flavors were great, but I'd rather eat each on its own.

Close up of the okra.

The bao and some brown rice.  Around $6 from Steamers.  The buns were good, but the apple flavor wasn't super pronounced.  The Japanese curry flavor definitely reigned.  The bao was well made, so I think I might try the other flavors.  I also want to try to make bao and other rice cakes/buns at home.  The Pacific Market down the street has rice cake flour.

We also saw The King's Speech tonight.  I highly recommend it.  The cinematography is wonderful and it's beautifully acted.  It has inspired me to learn more about pre-WWII Britain.  It would be "Britain" in that case, right?  And not "England?"  Either way, I'm interested.  I think a trip should be in order for the future.