I’m traveling this week, so I’ll post photos and all of the amazing food I’m eating as much as I can, but for now, here’s a survey to tide you over, the survey sweeping MoFo, borrowed from Whoa Wren’s blog.
1. Favorite non-dairy milk?
To drink, I really like Silk chocolate, but that is a very rare treat. For most things, I use unsweetened almond milk.
2. What are the top 3 dishes/recipes you are planning to cook?
There’s an Epicurious challenge going on over at the PPK, I also want to make a pasta dish involving soy curls, sun-dried tomatoes, and olives, and something with
3. Topping of choice for popcorn?
Salt and Sugar (aka Kettle Corn)
4. Most disastrous recipe/meal failure?
The first time I made tofu, I sliced it, put it in a pan, and dumped sauce on top. It did not look like the tofu I’d had in Chinese restaurants. I wouldn’t even try it.
5. Favorite pickled item?
Beets! (I still don’t like cooked beets, though)
6. How do you organize your recipes?
I have a lot of cookbooks, but I use Mac Gourmet for things I find online.
7. Compost, trash, or garbage disposal?
Garbage disposal, until we move, then it will be compost.
8. If you were stranded on an island and could only bring 3 foods…what would they be (don’t worry about how you’ll cook them)?
Kale, peaches, and quinoa
9. Fondest food memory from your childhood?
My dad always rewarded me for finishing a school term, no matter how well I did, by taking me out for an enormous meal. He figured, if I did well, I deserved a reward, and if it was a rough term, well, we could celebrate the end of it. It was usually a fancy buffet where we’d embarrass ourselves by staying for hours, eating and laughing until we couldn’t move.
10. Favorite vegan ice cream?
So Delicious Coconut Milk – Coconut or Passionate Mango
11. Most loved kitchen appliance?
My Vitamix!
12. Spice/herb you would die without?
Garlic
13. Cookbook you have owned for the longest time?
Meta Given’s Modern Encyclopedia of Cooking. Some of the advice (and assumptions about women doing all of the cooking) in this book are really out of date, but I learned how to bake yeast bread, make croissants, sift flour, and so many other things from the volumes of this cookbook. It’s falling apart and covered with food, but I’ll never give it away.
14. Favorite flavor of jam/jelly?
Apricot preserves!
15. Favorite vegan recipe to serve to an omni friend?
Pasta, lasagna, and tex mex always go over well. Also, everyone in my family loves my baked goods. No one I know will turn down a cupcake. Well, except my husband, but he is vegan, he just doesn’t do dessert.
16. Seitan, tofu, or tempeh?
It depends, but I use tofu most often.
17. Favorite meal to cook (or time of day to cook)?
Brunch is definitely my favorite. You can serve a combination of sweet and savory foods, and even if you have pancakes, it’s okay to have dessert!
18. What is sitting on top of your refrigerator?
Chips, clif bars, trail mix, a blue klean canteen, cereal, crackers, empty beer bottles…really, what isn’t on top of the refrigerator?
19. Name 3 items in your freezer without looking.
Homemade dog food, several flavors of Cheezly, nuts
20. What’s on your grocery list?
Kale, garlic, fruit, onions, cauliflower, kombucha, clif bars, zucchini, and the rest depends on what I’m making for the week!
21. Favorite grocery store?
Roots Market, definitely, although I need to start just shopping for specialty items there since it can be a bit pricey!
22. Name a recipe you’d love to veganize, but haven’t yet.
My mom’s bread pudding. I know there are other recipes out there, but this is special stuff. It’s a baked custard with raisins, pineapple, and cinnamon, and you can cut it into squares. It’s so decadent I’m not going to bother trying to make it with whole wheat bread or less than a stick of Earth Balance, because I know I’d just be disappointed. Sometimes you just have to indulge!
23. Food blog you read the most (besides Isa’s because I know you check it everyday). Or maybe the top 3?
Where’s the Revolution, Have Cake Will Travel, and Fat Free Vegan.
24. Favorite vegan candy/chocolate?
I love this ginger chocolate bar that my very first PPK swap partner, the lovely Jojo sent me. I also enjoy the GoMaxGo Maholo bars, and now and then, Skittles, since they’re now gelatin-free in the U.S.!
25. Most extravagant food item purchased lately?
Raw cacao powder. At least a little goes a long way!
26. Ingredients you are scared to work with?
Well, I’m not really afraid of anything, but for some reason bread-making seems a lot more labor-intensive in my head than it is in reality. With my stand-mixer, it’s really a breeze, and most of the time isn’t active. I should work with yeast more often!
