An apple a day can keep the doctor away, the oncologist that is. Researchers at Cornell University have identified compounds in apple peel which may help to inhibit cancer growth. This is both good news and bad news for me. The good news is, I love apples; Fujis and Galas in particular. Jane and I even have two separate, specific apple vendors we favor at the farmer's market we usually attend. And come apple season, we buy pounds at a time. The bad news here, is that we usually peel our apples before eating them.

Overall though, this is very exciting. Some of the compounds identified in apple peels reduce the size of tumors while other compounds slow the spread of the cancers.

"We found that several compounds have potent anti-proliferative activities against human liver, colon and breast cancer cells and may be partially responsible for the anti-cancer activities of whole apples," says Rui Hai Liu, Cornell associate professor of food science. Liu is affiliated with Cornell's Institute of Comparative and Environmental Toxicology and is senior author of the study, which is online and published this month in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.

From Science Daily, June 3, 2007

According to Fowler Farms, some varieties of apple performed better than others. Among the stars: Fuji, Spartan and Red Delicious.

Hmmm, maybe I can prevail upon Jane to make an Apple Pie this weekend. It's vegan and cancer inhibiting. That should count for something!

– If you haven’t signed our petition to Oprah asking her to do a piece on factory farming, please consider doing so. We can all work together to make a difference.

This month the Daring Bakers Challenge was Cheesecake Pops. (This is cheesecake scooped into little walnut sized balls, stuck on a lollipop stick and then dipped in melted chocolate, and decorated as you desire.) Yum. But what to do about a vegan cheesecake? I've had a few successes with vegan desserts, but other than the amazing vegan brownies I made recently, I've been somewhat disappointed with the vegan desserts I've tried. Cheesecake seemed particularly daunting, as it is so incredibly delicious as an omni dessert. How could it possibly live up to the original? Time to do some research.

First, I was excited to learn earlier this month that there are enough of us now to have formed a splinter group of Alternative Daring Bakers, wholly sanctioned by the original Daring Bakers. We all play along and follow the same challenge, but because of our varied dietary regimes (vegan, gluten free, etc.), the group has a special forum and held a "bake along" this month. I couldn't participate because it was too early in the morning for me, but I did get some pointers, and many recipe options. Ultimately though, I adapted the Vegan Eggnog Cheesecake recipe from Fat Free Kitchen; if there'd been any vegan eggnog around, I'd have made the original. Anyway, here's my adapted recipe:

2 12.4-ounce package extra firm light silken tofu
2 8-ounce package Tofutti Better than Cream Cheese (make sure to buy the one in the yellow package -- it has no partially hydryogenated oils!)
1 ½ cups sugar
¾ cup almond milk
3 tablespoons lemon juice
6 tablespoons Myer's Coconut rum
1 teaspoon almond extract
1 teaspoon cinnamon
4 tablespoons cornstarch

Drain the tofu and place in food processor along with the cream cheese. Blend well. Then incorporate the sugar. Susan at FFV, suggests letting the food processor run for at least three minutes, and I wholly concur. It really blends things together. Then I added all the remaining ingredients and let the processor run for another few minutes.

Because I wasn't making a cake I poured this mix into two small pyrex dishes. This way I could more easily keep an eye on what was going on. If you are making a cake, you might want to consider the traditional graham cracker crust. Susan also offers an oatmeal cookie crust (in her Vegan Eggnog Cheesecake recipe) which sounds pretty good. Or you could simply press some almond pieces onto the sides of the cake after you've removed it from your springform pan.

Bake at 350° F for anywhere between 45 and 75 minutes (no, I'm not kidding -- this is based on what my fellow ADBs experienced). It took me 75 minutes, but you don't want to burn this, and you'll want to make sure it sets a bit before removing it from the oven. That's a delicate balance. You really have to make a mental note as to how "jiggly" it is before you put it in the oven in order to gauge how much the cheesecake has set. It will definitely still jiggle when you remove it from the oven. It will set further while it's cooling and once you refrigerate it. I let mine brown a bit on the top because I was very concerned that it would be too watery. That worked well as Lane got a bowlful of the browned bits to nosh on as I assembled the pops.

If you're making a cheesecake you definitely want to make sure to use a water bath. This prevents the cake from cracking. If you're making the pops, there really is no need, as you can scoop around any cracks that might form. I used the water bath anyway, because that's the way I've always baked my cheesecakes in the past. That may have accounted for some of the additional baking time.

The cakes need to be refrigerated, I let mine sit overnight. Then you scoop out 2 ounces (about the size of a walnut) and roll it into a ball. These go onto a sheet of parchment paper (on a cookie sheet) and into the freezer for at least two hours. After which you dip them into melted chocolate and decorate as you wish (sprinkles, nuts, white chocolate, icing...) My experience was a little harrowing as it was 96° here today, which meant it was probably about 80° in our kitchen. By the time I got to the end of my pops, they were starting to free themselves from the sticks. Why it didn't dawn on me to leave half of them on the freezer is beyond me. Suffice it to say, I felt a little silly when it finally did!

These were a birthday cake for our cousin who is going to be 60 on Tuesday. So I wrote one pop said "Happy" another said "BDay" and a bunch had 60s and squiggles. There were also all the other pops that I simply put on a plate (not as part of the "centerpiece"). I was pleased with the aesthetics of the individual pops, and the overall presentation. I think this makes a fun take on the traditional cheesecake. And the recipe was DELICIOUS! It even passed the omni test (meaning people asked for seconds, and those who didn't know it was a vegan cheesecake, didn't guess).

The Daring Bakers group now has a message board with two public forums. So, if you'd like to see what we're up to, or get tips from other Daring Bakers -- here's the link.

-- Cheers, Jane

– If you haven’t signed our petition to Oprah asking her to do a piece on factory farming, please consider doing so. We can all work together to make a difference.

Some days, it dawns on me that I took the red pill. If you don't know what I'm talking about, I'm referring to a scene in the movie, The Matrix. The Matrix is a sci fi/fantasy/action adventure movie starring Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne, and Carrie-Ann Moss that came out in 1999. The scene that I'm referring to has Laurence Fishburne's character, Morpheus, offering Keanu Reeve's character, Neo, a choice. Neo can either take the red pill and be awakened to the true nature of the world around him, or he can take the blue pill and continue to live in blissful ignorance.

Going vegan has been like that for me. As an omnivore, I was sheltered from the truth of how the food got to my plate. The closest I ever came to actually seeing the animal I was consuming was the whole fried catfish I had at a local restaurant or the turkey carcass we bought at Thanksgiving. But even then, I had no real idea what horrors these animals suffered before getting to my plate. Then I took the red pill, and now I can never go back.

I'm not the only one who's thought of this parallel. GRACE put together a parody of the Matrix, entitled the Meatrix, in which Moofius and Leo investigate the myth of the family farm and expose the truth about where your eggs, milk, and meat come from.

This is a great site to gently introduce the true nature of factory farming to anyone who is interested in learning more about the topic. It's animated so the the imagery gets the message across in a less graphic manner, which will be more palatable to most people. And I believe it still gets the point across. If you haven't seen it yet, here's a link to The Meatrix. There are parodies of all The Matrix sequels here as well.

– If you haven’t signed our petition to Oprah asking her to do a piece on factory farming, please consider doing so. We can all work together to make a difference.

Last week, Jane made Chana Masala for the first time. It's a blend of spices and onion and tomato forming a delicious sauce, and chickpeas are added to that. It was really good, but Jane used dried chickpeas, and the cooking time in the recipe reflected the use of canned chickpeas. Even though Jane had soaked the beans overnight, they took forever to cook, and we were starving. So when it reached a point where we couldn't wait any longer, we ate the dish, crunchy chickpeas and all.

We had some good comments from Todd, Roger, and Nadir all highly recommending pressure cookers. It's a purchase we plan on making, but in the mean time, we used the canned chickpeas the original recipe (at Orangette's blog) called for.

If you like Indian food at all, try this recipe. You'll love it! We do; it's our all time favorite vegan meal.  Jane made double the recipe, so we'll have it for dinner tomorrow too (yay). Tomorrow she'll serve it with rice, and our requisite green salad.  Tonight we had whole wheat tortillas.  Oh, and we use vegan sour cream in place of the yogurt Orangette recommends.

– If you haven’t signed our petition to Oprah asking her to do a piece on factory farming, please consider doing so. We can all work together to make a difference.

Savia contacted us this morning and suggested a modification to our petition.

Oprah’s not the kind of person who is going to ask her viewers to be vegan. However, it is possible she would do a show about the horrors of the way animals that are raised and slaughtered for our food are treated. I wish you had focused on that instead. Because if you highlighted the abuses and encouraged her to do a show on that, then the natural implication is that people watching that show will come to their own conclusions on becoming vegetarian or seeking out more humaine food options.

I think this strategy would have reached more people and would have had a better chance of success (i.e. Oprah doing a show on livestock abuse/conditions).

And we agree. Since we've only had a few signatories so far, we went ahead with it. We changed the end request from asking Oprah to suggest that her audience consider becoming vegan to specifically asking her to do a story on what goes on in the factory farming industries. We feel that while the wording was changed here, we do not believe we have significantly altered the intent of this petition to Oprah.

Please note -- in the interest of fairness to those who have signed this petition we will not be making any further changes.