Summer coconut custard pie

No doubt summer has arrived as the Bay area was smothered in heat this weekend. Last week I wrote about an end-of-winter dessert, it makes sense that I made a REAL summer dessert this week. It's the Lost Coconut Custard Pie, from another of my favorite vegan blogger Isa Chandra's bestseller cookbooks, Veganomicon. I love sweet treats made with coconut - coconut macaroon, Hong Kong-style coconut bun (better known as cocktail bun), coconut cake/cupcake/ice cream/sorbet, everything - and this stunning custard pie has easily become my favorite. I'd say it's the best dessert I have had in weeks.

The best thing about this coconut custard pie is that it is easy to make. It doesn't involve any messy separation of eggs into egg white and yolk, which I don't even want to try. Instead, the recipe calls for agar powder as a binding agent. Thanks to the large Asian population in the Bay area, I could find agar powder easily (and just 50 cents apiece!). All you have to do to make the custard is stirring together coconut milk, shredded coconut, agar powder, cornstarch, sugar, and a couple of other ingredients over heat. Then pour the mixture into a prepared pie crust, pop it into the fridge, and chill for a couple of hours to let it set. Again, there's no messy butter cutting or dough rolling to make the crust. Simply crush some matzo meal or vegan graham crackers in melted margarine and press the crumbs into a pie pan to form a vegan crust. I didn't go strictly vegan and used Annie's Homegrown honey bunny grahams.

The custard was in a dreamy, snowy white - elegant and unadulterated. It tasted light and silky, with the shredded coconut providing some chewiness. As you can probably tell by now, I am not a big fan of intensely sweet desserts, and this pie fits the bill. The pie can be served as is, with no whipped cream or sauce needed. It'd be an ideal dessert to round up a summer dinner party and you could pretend you took hours to make it! When served chilled, it's also a great ice cream alternative to give you a refreshing break from the summer heat.

Veganomicon's Lost Coconut Custard Pie

Note: I didn't include the recipe for the pie here not only because of copyright issues; I'd highly recommend you to buy Veganomicon if you're interested in vegan cooking. It contains so many innovative (obviously delicious) recipes that are more than worth the price!

Simple summer cooking: make an open-faced sandwich!

The past few days have been hectic and I often got home late, and all I wanted for dinner was something simple. With the sun out till almost 9 pm, I just didn't feel like burying myself in the kitchen heat longer than I needed. I had bought a batard loaf from Oakland's Arizmendi Bakery, and I got a bunch of summer veggies in the fridge, so I decided to make some open-faced sandwiches.

Call it tartine or crostini, the open-faced sandwich is just some savory toppings on toasted bread. I took my inspiration from Deborah Madison's Vegetarian Suppers as well as the July/August issue of Vegetarian Times. Once I heated some chopped heirloom tomatoes briefly in olive oil along with minced garlic and red onion, and finished with a couple drops of balsamic vinegar and seasonings. At the same time, I seared slabs of leftover tofu, then placed the tofu and tomatoes onto the toast, and garnished it with chopped mint. Served warm, the combination was simple, elegant, and delicious. The key is not to overcook the tomatoes so they maintain some structure, and let the tofu beneath them absorb their juices.

Sauteed heirloom tomatoes and seared tofu on toast

On another day I warmed some canned black beans with jalepeno chiles, and mixed them with ad-hoc pickled red onions (simply place the sliced onions in a mixture of apple cider vinegar and some salt and sugar for 15-20 minutes) and chopped parsley. For the sake of adding more colors to my meal, I made a quick Moroccan-style grated carrot salad tossed with olive oil, garlic, jalapenos, allspice, cinnamon, parsley, and lime juice. Then I spooned the two mixtures each on a toast. The entire preparation took just about half an hour. It's good to know that as you bite into the toasts with heaps of toppings on them, you are not piling on calories because there's only one piece of bread. Yeah, I guess this is another advantage of having open-faced sandwiches!

Black beans with pickled onions, Moroccan carrot salad on toasts

By the way, the batard bread from Arizmendi was awesome. The bread literally smelled of wheat and had the right chewiness and crunchy crust. I'd say it's better than the batard from another famed Bay area bakery, Acme Bread Company.

End-of-winter cake to celebrate the Summer Solstice

Today is the Summer Solstice (obviously Father's Day too), which provides another excuse to celebrate with...desserts! I want to feature a cake that marks the end of the long winter months, a light Orange Cornmeal Cake from Martha Stewart's Everyday Food magazine. You are probably wondering - how about spring? Well, while there were days that felt like spring over the last few months in the Bay area, the mornings and evenings continued to be chilly so it's still like winter to me. Now that summer has officially arrived, I hope I don't have to bundle up anymore.

I am fond of Everyday Food because it is the first food magazine that ignited my passion for cooking. I remember poring over the magazine for hours and conjuring up all the dishes I wanted to make. Just a little bit bigger than a wallet, it includes a wide range of easy-to-prepare recipes (both vegetarian and non-veg) every month that are ideal for anyone who wants to cook gourmet but cannot spend hours in the kitchen. Like other Martha Stewart publications, its food photography is top-notch, albeit not as sophisticated looking as that of its sister publication Martha Stewart Living.

Back to the orange cornmeal cake. As summer fruits such as apricots and peaches phase out oranges in farmers' markets, I felt that I was hanging on to the remnants of winter by making this cake. I prefer cakes with some texture and this easy-to-prepare (as always!) cake fits the bill. The cornmeal in the batter makes the cake crumbly but it doesn't fall apart easily like cornbread. The orange juice keeps the cake moist and the zest gives it a slightly tangy flavor. This was actually the first time I used olive oil in baking, and while I didn't taste the oil in the cake at all, I believe the cake became lighter and more delicate because of it. I finished the cake by dusting it with some confectioner's sugar and sprinkling a handful of olalliberries (I bought them from the same farmer as last time) on it. Summer is not the time for heavy, buttercream-laden desserts, so make sure you get to try this cake before the last crop of oranges is over, say for afternoon tea or just as an everyday afternoon snack.

Have a wonderful summer and Father's Day everyone!

Everyday Food's Orange Cornmeal Cake

Missing meatballs? Trader Joe's to the rescue

Note: A WARM WELCOME to my Facebook friends if you reach Guerrilla Vegetarian by clicking on my message on Facebook. I hope you will check back often!

For quite a while in college, my favorite sandwich was nothing fancy, but Subway's footlong Meatball Marinara sandwich. Yeah, you probably just gasped, but I really like the hearty texture of meatballs, especially when they are slathered in a warm and chunky sauce. In fact, meatballs are one of the very few meat products I miss after eating vegetarian (sausages are another). Not to sound like the PR person for Trader Joe's since I wrote an earlier piece on them, but that's why I am excited to have discovered their Meatless Meatballs recently.

It's very easy to prepare these meatballs - just simmer them in whatever sauce you want for 10 minutes and you're done. The last time I ate them I didn't go the usual route of using a tomato-based sauce, but I tossed them with a combination of cooked whole-wheat parpadelle and spinach fettucine, green and wax beans, and some sliced carrots in pesto sauce. I finished the dish by sprinkling some (well, actually lots of) ground pepper to give it some heat. The dish tastes best when it's steaming hot!

You guessed it right: I didn't make my own pesto sauce because (1) I don't have a food processor and (2) I was lazy, and I bought the sauce from Trader Joe's too. As the summer approaches, I should probably at least get a mortar and pestle to grind the onslaught of fresh herbs into all sorts of sauces though. The dish is not vegan because there is egg in the pasta, but you can easily veganize it by using other types of pasta or even grains.

Trader Joe's Meatless Meatballs

Meatball pasta tossed with mixed vegetables in pesto sauce

Start Sunday right with scrambled tofu

I used to like eating out for brunch over the weekend a lot. A leisurely weekend brunch is the perfect time to catch up with friends and just shut down the Internet or whatever that keeps me hyper-engaged during the work week. However, the social dimension aside, I increasingly don't find the weekend brunch to be good value. Call me a cheapskate, but it costs much less to prepare typical brunch food (eggs, French toast, etc.) at home, and most places' brunch offerings are mediocre at best. Especially if I want to eat vegetarian, I can use better ingredients and play with infinite variations by cooking on my own.

A favorite among vegetarians and vegans alike, scrambled tofu is a easy-to-prepare, filling, and nutritious alternative to scrambled eggs for brunch. I love tofu for as long as I can remember, but I had only known of ways to prepare it in Asian cuisines until I discovered scrambled tofu. Since tofu has little flavor by itself, you can scramble anything with it and add any seasonings or spices you want. Because I like to clear out my fridge every Sunday, I usually just improvise and throw in any leftover veggies I have. Onions, grated carrots, black olives, mushrooms, bell peppers, herbs such as parsley and mint all go along well with tofu. Occasionally I include chopped nuts to give the scramble a bit of crunch. Feel free to heat some grated ginger, curry powder, or chili peppers/powder in oil first if you want a more exotic scramble. Serve the scrambled tofu with toast or crusty bread topped with butter (I used the vegan Earth Balance buttery spread) and you'll have a satisfying (and colorful!) brunch spread.

Scrambled tofu served with multi-grain toasts

Remember to press the tofu before cooking though so the scramble doesn't get soggy. This feature from Bon Appetit shows how. I like tofu with a soybean flavor but unfortunately most tofu brands in the US taste completely bland. The better ones are Azumaya from Vitasoy and store brands in Japanese grocery stores. Many recipes call for nutritional yeast to give the scramble a more creamy, egg-like texture but I just leave it out (I don't have it in my pantry anyway) and it still tastes great.

Here are two recipes to get you started: a pretty standard one from Isa's Post Punk Kitchen and an Indian-like version kicked up by a splash of garam masala from 101 Cookbooks. But there's really no set recipe for scrambled tofu and I'm sure you can create one that works best for you.

The quintessential American dessert - carrot cake

I was reading a Bay Area Bites blog post today about the chocolate chip cookie as a classic American dessert. While I agree that there are few treats more satisfying than a warm, gooey, yet slightly crunchy chocolate chip cookie like the one I had at Levain Bakery in New York City (still the best I've ever had), my pick for the quintessential American dessert would be carrot cake instead.

Unlike the chocolate chip cookie or New York cheesecake that suggests decadence and excesses, which unfortunately characterize American desserts for many people, the carrot cake is down-to-earth yet full of surprises. I had rarely had carrot cake before coming to the US, but once I was exposed to it, I got hooked. It's not a fancy dessert for sure, but it so ingeniously incorporates a veggie into a dessert, and along with other ingredients such as walnuts, coconut, and crushed pineapple, the end-result is a delicious combination of textures and flavors that won't leave you with a sugar-high afterwards. I think carrot cake captures the American spirit because most people I've met in the US are simple and forthright, yet they may be passionate about something in such unexpected ways that not only lead to many interesting conversations, but you also can't help but admire them.

Enough of my rambling...this is a food blog after all. My favorite carrot cake recipe is from one of the most unlikely places - the packaging of my Bob's Red Mill whole wheat pastry flour. The recipe creator actually won a baking contest because of it, and the cake did not disappoint. It was smooth, moist, and infused with cinnamon flavor like any good carrot cake. A thin layer of cream cheese frosting (I used the vegan Tofutti Better Than Cream Cheese) rounded out the cake perfectly.

Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting

The next time I make a carrot cake, I want to try another of my favorite bloggers Heidi Swanson's recipe on her award-winning natural food blog 101 Cookbooks. It doesn't contain any processed sugars - always a plus for me since I eat way too much desserts and need to cut back on sugars!

Summer's bounty at the farmers' market

One of the greatest blessings of living in California is that quality produce is available all year round. I shop regularly at farmers' markets because they have the freshest produce, offer organic or pesticide-free produce at a fraction of the prices at upscale grocery stores such as Whole Foods Market, and it's just fun checking out different vendors and tasting their produce! I go to the Belmont Farmers' Market most often since it's open throughout the year and closest to where I live. Many vendors recognize me and they are happy to dole out advice on what produce they have is best. I am glad that I can do my part to support these farmers and the "Eat Local" movement, as I firmly believe buying and eating local is good for our health as well as the environment. This slideshow from the Buy Fresh, Buy Local education campaign gives a good overview of why this is so.

As it's now officially summer, all sorts of summer fruits and vegetables are starting to appear in farmers' markets. I first saw strawberries back in April, then cherries, apricots, peaches, plums, nectarines, raspberries, and mangoes gradually filled up the farmers' stalls. Not as eye-catching as their fruit counterparts, tomatoes, eggplants, green beans, summer squash, and other summer vegetables new to the scene are quietly competing for the shoppers' attention. While I like all fruits, my favorites are plums and white peaches - their luscious and juicy flesh can make me forget whatever is troubling me at the moment. Eating a ripe peach can be messy when its juice spills all over the place, but in a somewhat perverse way, this is what makes eating it so satisfying. I look forward to seeing watermelons, cantaloupes, etc. in the months ahead.

Apricots are all the rage at the market now

Eggplant galore!

Today I bought some organic raspberries, olalliberries (like black raspberries), and strawberries at the farmers' market. They were all ripe at their peak and their fragrance kept me on a high as I toted them back home. I crushed the raspberries and olalliberries a bit and paired them with Haagen-Dazs's new Vanilla Honey Bee ice cream. I normally don't buy Haagen-Dazs because its products often contain high-fructose corn syrup and other artificial ingredients, but I'm glad to find that the Vanilla Honey Bee flavor is just made of simple ingredients I can understand. The slightly tart taste of the berries accentuated the delicate honey flavor of the ice cream, and the combination was VERY delicious. It's the perfect summer treat!

Farmer stall where I bought my berries today

Surprisingly good Vanilla Honey Bee ice cream from Haagen-Dazs

A Chinese stir-fry that reminds me of home

Although I've been living in the US for years and love Western food, I occasionally crave home-style Chinese cooking. A Chinese stir-fry served with rice is not only easy to prepare, but it's also my go-to meal whenever I run out of cooking ideas or simply want to use up what's left in the fridge. Start with some peeled ginger in heated oil, crank up the heat, add some leafy greens or beans, then stir along with cubed tofu, sliced carrots or mushrooms, or anything you have on hand. Finish off with some seasoning and allow the mixture to steam for a couple of minutes, then you've got a satisfying stir-fry - the ultimate Chinese "comfort food."

Sometimes I do want my stir-fry to be fancier, and here's what I tried based on the Sesame-Orange Beef recipe from Martin Yan's Quick & Easy cookbook. I substituted actual beef with veggie beef strips from Trader Joe's, my favorite grocery store (there will be another post on Trader Joe's). The end-result is a cornucopia of beef strips, sliced oranges and veggies (I used green beans, asparagus, water chestnuts, and red scallions) that offers contrasting tastes and textures. I added some dried red pepper flakes at the end to give the dish a spicy kick to counterbalance the sweetness of the oranges and honey in the sauce.

Sesame-Orange Beef Stir-Fry, inspired by Martin Yan
Trader Joe's Beef-Less Strips
A note about Martin Yan - I first learned about him from his Yan Can Cook cooking show when I was a teenager in Hong Kong. I didn't take him too seriously because I felt his funny accent and often clown-like demeanor play into the Western stereotype of a Chinese man, and his recipes are not authentically Chinese. But as I learned more about cooking and the difficulty in getting Asian ingredients in many parts of the US, I began to appreciate what Martin has done to make Asian cooking accessible to Westerners and dispel any misunderstanding surrounding it. For instance, Chinese cooking is A LOT more than Chinese take-outs and insect-eating. It's hard to believe, but every travel show on China that I have seen in the US to date always features insect-eating as if it were something very commonplace in China, while most Chinese that I know never eat insects.

Martin's newest show is Martin Yan's China, now shown on PBS nationwide. He explores different regional cuisines as he travels across China and cooks simplified versions of the dishes he tasted. As always, Martin is full of energy on the show and pulls you along on his culinary journey. Although the show is not vegetarian at all, it's still a pleasure to watch!