Experiments in Vegan Cookery

Vegans go to some extreme lengths to make food that resembles animal products. Just challenge someone to go vegan or give up alcohol and you will see the deep emotional bonds humans form with certain food preparations (goat cheese! applewood-smoked bacon! craft beer! mom's apple pie!). 



 

This is some kind of chicken? Or sausage? According to my family, it was tasty...for dead flesh. /vegansnark



First up, I made vegan mousse.

This particular chocolate mousse is not to be confused with tofu mousse and avobachoco. Apparently, by whipping the shit out of the brine from a can of chickpeas, you can make a chocolate dessert. 



I doubled the recipe and skipped the xanthan gum (read the comments and you'll find out that it's not necessary).

 Thank goodness for electric mixers. I beat the brine on speed 5 (out of 7) for about 10 minutes. Cue watching my current fave on Amazon Prime streaming video, Veronica Mars.

I don't like really salty food. I only crave the super-salt when I'm working out a lot and actually need the salt to replace that which I lose in my sweat. Even with two bars of Endangered Species chocolate, the mousse tasted salty. Overnight, it didn't collapse, and the flavour mellowed out some. Overall, it was like eating soap bubbles...salty, chocolate soap bubbles. As I don't like my chocolate with sea salt, I didn't enjoy it. Maybe I'll try it again with unsalted chickpea liquid.



 

The second experiment was Grain-Free Twix. Yep, you read that right.

I have nothing against grains. In fact, I prefer high-carb grain baking versus high-fat grain-free dishes. Confession: even though I'm a health coach and supposed to be agnostic on what people ought to eat, I love to rip on the paleo diet. It can be just as bad as some groups of vegans, with the pseudoscience (paleo psuedoscience, vegan pseudoscience, respectively). I had saved this recipe or it came up on Pinterest for some reason, and when I said it out loud, TC asked me to make it.



This is the cookie crust. So far, so good. I used Earth Balance, so the recipe was grain-free, not paleo or primal. (Because chocolate is so primal. Uh-huh. Can't do without booze, either, paleo people?) Seriously, I'm throwing stones from a glass house because I'm not a perfect person. I'm just another hypocrite pointing out hypocrisy. I'm glad this grain-free recipe exists, though I think I'm going to try the Detoxinista "Snickers" recipe next.

Lots of fat in vegan foods = mess. The caramel did not come together properly, and when I remake these bars, I'm going to use pecan pie filling, with a little less liquid, instead. TIL: Cooked agave/maple caramel just doesn't taste right straight.

Must create a cryogenic deconstruction dessert with the leftovers.

Parting Shots:

TIL: Pei Wei's tofu is not GF. The only VGF option is wok entree veggies in GF sweet and sour sauce with rice. Not going there again.



 

Eye of Ra beer matches our tattoos.



TC made me miso soup with tofu hearts!

 

 

 

Only in Longmont would someone have a petting zoo complete with goats and camels at their birthday party, along with the mini-bouncy house.



It's raining, it's pouring...Totoro is snoring.