In honor of Chanukah, and the first day of winter, Jane made the matzoh ball soup recipe from Vegan with a Vengeance. This is the second time she's made this recipe. The first time, the matzoh balls disintegrated.  The recipe suggests refrigerating the matzoh ball mixture one hour to overnight.  We were both excited about the soup and so, after the hour was up, Jane made the balls and then the soup.  What we got was not-so ball soup, or rather a gelatinous mess at the bottom of the soup bowl.  That was very disheartening as we both loved matzoh ball soup in our pre-vegan life.  We'd been rather hopeful about this recipe since many people have expressed real enthusiasm over this recipe.

Fast forward to yesterday in the grocery store.  Jane grabbed a box of matzoh meal.  I asked what she was planning on making with it.  She replied, "I think it's time to try the matzoh ball soup again."  This time she used extra firm tofu and refrigerated the mixture over 24 hours.  (We decided the previous failure was due to the 1 hour refrigeration.)  As they were cooking the matzoh balls floated; they sank when we removed the lid from the stock pot... as expected.  But even though the matzoh balls held together, we were both unimpressed with the taste.

Over time, I've learned there are just some things you can't veganize.  Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining... perhaps that would have been a complaint last year when I was trying to acclimate to my new way of eating.  But over this last year and a half, Jane and I have discovered some really wonderful dishes we might never have tried otherwise.  I'm just not sure we'll be trying to veganize matzoh ball soup any time in the near future.

Anyway, we wish a happy Chanukah to all of our readers who are celebrating tonight.

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RFDs Asparagus Soup

I've been going to the farmers market to get my produce ever since I moved to California.  Over the years I've noticed a change in the "seasonality" of certain produce, notably strawberries and asparagus.  They used to be available only in the spring.  But not anymore.  The local growers have figured out how to make these items available year round.  Shockingly, the strawberries taste like strawberries, not fake looking strawberries with ae pale white interior that I used to get when I lived in New York.

This week, we picked up asparagus.  We knew it would be a warm week, and Jane had it in mind to make us asparagus soup.  She used the recipe from the Real Food Daily Cookbook, instead of her usual vegan cream of asparagus soup recipe.  I can't honestly say which I prefer.  This soup is more complex than Jane's recipe, with many more spices, while hers is more true to the flavor of asparagus.  I can say however, that the asparagus we had was very fibrous.  In any event, the soup was wonderful.  We rounded off our meal with the end of a loaf of potato bread and a gigantic salad.

Hi All -- It's Jane writing tonight. Well, I finally got around to making the Thai Coconut Corn Soup from Vegan Express, by Nava Atlas. Lane and I love Thai food, and this looked like an old favorite of ours, Tom Ka Gai Soup. Vegan.com ranked this recipe number two in their list of top 10 vegan recipes of 2008, so I've been meaning to get around to it. Actually, I'm planning on trying all ten, but don't seem to be overly motivated these days.

Normally, I try to follow a recipe to the letter the first time I'm making it. Of course, I taste as I go along, so there is the odd occasion when I'll decide to modify a recipe on the first try, especially if the recipe is heavy on an ingredient I don't particularly care for. Tonight, however, I made an outright error. I mistook my container of white pepper for the container of curry powder I was looking for (don't ask me how, since my spices are clearly labeled and every one of them has it's own place). Luckily, I don't love curry powder in significant quantities, so I only put one teaspoon in the pot (the recipe calls for two). It didn't smell overwhelmingly of curry, that was promising. I taste-tested to see if I should add the second teaspoon... And where did that heat come from? Then I looked at the spice container in my hand and lo and behold... "White Pepper." Oy! So, I added the curry, but only one teaspoon... that was enough. And then I omitted the red curry paste as I thought the soup might be too hot if I included that ingredient. (We had red pepper flakes which I put out, like they do at the Thai restaurants we frequent.) Finally, the recipe calls for a red bell pepper, which I thought I had, but it was ready for the compost pile. I didn't tell Lane about my faux pas until after he'd eaten it and given it his seal of approval. I'm not sure the red bell pepper is even necessary, but it would certainly make for a more interesting picture.

So, I didn't quite make the recipe as written, but the soup I made was delicious and oh so easy. And it only took about 20 minutes to get together. I think it will be even better, next time, when I make it correctly. If you're interested in giving it a try, here's the link:

Recipe for Thai Coconut Corn Soup.

Cheers -- Jane

At the beginning of the month Vegan.com put together a list of of his favorite vegan cookbook recipes for the year. I must have been sleeping, somehow I missed it. But I also read the Vegan Planet blog, and Robin posted about it today.

Having reviewed the recipes with Jane earlier, we feel compelled to share this with our readers who might not visit these sites. Some of these recipes look very interesting. And since they rate as "top 10" they're probably very worthy of a test drive.

The recipes that make the cut are:

1. Plantain Omelet - From Mark Reinfeld and Bo Rinaldi’s Vegan Fusion World Cuisine
2. Thai Coconut Corn Soup - From Nava Atlas’ Vegan Express
3. Indonesian Coconut Rice - From Robin Robertson’s Vegan Fire & Spice
4. Baked Ziti - From Beverly Lynn Bennett’s Vegan Bites
5. Moroccan Phyllo Rolls - From Dreena Burton’s Eat, Drink & Be Vegan
6. Italian Stuffed Crepes - From Bryanna Clark Grogan’s Nonna's Italian Kitchen
7. Chickpea Curry - From Hema Parekh’s The Asian Vegan Kitchen
8. Banana Chocolate Bread Pudding - From Isa Chandra Moskowtiz and Terry Hope Romano’s Veganomicon
9. Root Beer Float Cupcakes - From Hannah Kaminsky’s My Sweet Vegan
10. Fresh Mango Cobler - From Ani Phyo’s Ani's Raw Food Kitchen

Make sure to visit Vegan.com for the actual recipes, if you don't already own these cookbooks. We'll let you know what we think after we've tried them, but Jane wants me to put a caveat here: We have amassed a ton of "must try" recipes. So it isn't likely that we'll get through this list in the immediate future. Be sure to let us know what you think!