Mulberry pie

Thanks to a little urban foraging, we had mulberry pie.

For the filling, I was inspired by the blackberry pie in Vegan Pie in the Sky, but even though I used less lemon than the recipe suggested, I still found it overpowering. Maybe the long cooking time doesn't suit mulberries -- a quick mulberry sauce I made (mulberries, sugar, lemon, heated on the stovetop just until juicy, then pureed) had a much better flavour.

My quest for good vegan pie dough continues. I tried this Serious Eats recipe, using mostly shortening with some vegan margarine, but the crust ended up on the short/crumbly side.

Saffron

I don't really know what saffron tastes like. I've had it quite a few times, mainly flavouring rice, and I just can't pick out the flavour. It tastes good; tastes different from the same dish without the saffron (I think), and yet I couldn't really tell you how it tastes.

So now that you know how untrustworthy my tastebuds are when it comes to saffron: I made these saffron-vanilla snickerdoodles from 101 Cookbooks recently. I really liked them, but they taste like marzipan to me. I should say that this photo doesn't quite capture their golden yellow colour. (I veganized them of course, made smaller cookies (a half batch made a dozen), left out the vanilla bean, and also skipped the refrigeration step and baked them straight away.) I think this recipe, minus the saffron, and plus the regulation cinnamon-sugar, might become my standard snickerdoodle -- the cookies puffed and crumpled nicely, and they had a soft chewiness that I really liked.

Pizza

I've got a new favourite pizza dough: it's the New York Style Pizza dough from Serious Eats. It's easy to whip up in the food processor, and can sit in the fridge for a few days until you need it. I think it tastes best after at least 2 days in the fridge.

Last night's pizzas were delicious: caramelized onion, mushroom, cashew cheese, tomato (pictured); lemon, cashew cheese, tofu mizozuke, rosemary, rocket; and pear, cashew cheese, tofu misozuke, walnuts, rocket.

Broad bean burgers

I had some leftover cooked-from-dry broad beans (fava beans), and remembered that there was a recipe for broad bean burgers in Ottolenghi's Plenty (also appears here). It turns out the recipe called for fresh beans, but the cooked dry beans worked really well. I also replaced the spinach in the recipe with a bunch of greens from the garden: rocket (arugula), fennel fronds, broad bean leaves, and nasturtium leaves. We ate the burgers with a 'coconut sour cream' with lemon and chives. (Inspired by a bunch of experiments with vegan nut cheeses, I made the sour cream by fermenting pureed young coconut flesh with rejuvelac.)

These were really good -- I made them again a couple of days later, which is saying something.

Corn on the cob

I got over my Western-Mass.-induced corn snobbery and bought a couple of ears at the market this week. I decided to go for the classic corn on the cob, and then I felt the need to go all southern for the rest of the meal: seitan ribz; kale cooked collards style, with smoked coconut flakes and magic shroom dust; broccoli, not really fitting into the theme; and biscuits. I based the BBQ sauce on the apricot one in Veganomicon, but used dried apricots and a few random smoked prunes in place of the fresh apricots, used less of the sugary ingredients, and added some vinegar.

100% sourdough bagels

Recipe from Wild Yeast.

Vegan poached egg

I used this recipe, and even though it kind of seemed like a silly thing to make, it ended up being tasty and fun to eat.

I added a little black salt to both the white and yolk mixtures. I also added a few drops of soy sauce and Maggi sauce for a little extra umami in the yolk. I was really pleasantly surprised by the airiness of the white.