Tag Archives | recipes

Banana Oat Muffins

By on May 23, 2013 in Recipes!

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These are great grab on the go snack and there is NO SUGAR what­so­ever!  They are also lovely with a cup of tea. These can be made gluten free if you use gluten free Oats. (Added note: These muffins are not the sweet­est. If you desire a sweeter muf­fin, add a few table­spoons of maple syrup to your wet ingredients.)

Banana Oat­meal Muffins 

(Adapted from source)

Makes 12 muffins

Ingre­di­ents:

• 1 cup rolled oats

• 1 cup oat flour (grind reg­u­lar oats in a food proces­sor to make this)

• 1 tea­spoon bak­ing powder

• 1/4 tea­spoon sea salt

• 1/2 tea­spoon cinnamon

• 1/4 tea­spoon nutmeg

• 1 cup pureed over­ripe banana ( 2 large bananas)

• 1 tea­spoon vanilla extract

• 1 tea­spoon apple cider vinegar

• 1/4 cup of orange or apple juice

• 2 table­spoons vegan choco­late chips (optional)

Instruc­tions:

1. Heat oven to 350 degrees F

2. Mix all the dry ingre­di­ents together in a bowl.

3. Blend banana in a food proces­sor until smooth.

4. Mix banana, and the rest of the wet ingre­di­ents together in a sep­a­rate bowl.

5. Add wet mix­ture to dry mix­ture and com­bine. Fold in choco­late chips if using.

6. Fill muf­fin tins 2/3 of the way full. Bake for 15 min­utes or until golden brown and a tooth­pick inserted comes out dry.

Enjoy!

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Oy Vegan Top 5 Passover Recipes!

By on March 25, 2013 in Oy Vegan's Top Fives, Recipes!, Seasonal

Revving up for Pesach and not sure what to bring to the big fam­ily din­ner? Here are 5 vegan items that are sure to impress everyone!

1. Obvi­ously, one needs a good Matzo Ball Soup recipe. Per­son­ally, I make a really tasty veg­gie soup with dill and pars­ley and I make matzo balls using tofu as the binder. I also add nutri­tional yeast for extra health ben­e­fits.  That being said, there are many vegan recipes online. Here are a few that are super tasty!

Check out: Bon­zai Aphrodite’s recipe, The Vegan Stoner’s recipe, and Vir­tu­ally Vegan Mama’s recipe.

2. This may sound cray cray, but I’m excited to try this recipe out today! Check out the “V’ word’s recipe for vegan Gifilte fish!

3. A lit­tle birdie told me that quinoa is kosher for passover, whether you’re Ashke­nazi or Sephardic! Nava Atlas has a tasty recipe for quinoa pilaf that is sure to impress.

4. Chef Chloe does it again with her vegan ren­di­tion of every Jew­ish person’s favourite Passover break­fast item: Matzo Brei!

5. Last but not least, this recipe for sweet potato kugel is scrump­tious, healthy and packed with flavour, unlike many a kugel I’ve had in my day. Here is the Veg­e­tar­ian Resource Group’s recipe. There are a few other passover friendly recipes on their site as well.

Wish­ing every­one a happy passover and enjoy your seders!

I leave you with this: Shalom Sesame’s Les Matzarables!

Happy Passover!

Oy Vegan!

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A very vegan Valentine’s

By on February 13, 2013 in Recipes!, Seasonal, shout out, Special Alert!

Tomor­row is the day of love, hearts, candy and friend­ship. If you came by the  Sun­day Antique Mar­ket at St. Lawrence North Mar­ket this past Sun­day, you might have seen me sell­ing turn of the cen­tury Valentine’s in prepa­ra­tion for the big day.

Vin­tage Valen­tines at the Sun­day Antique Market

For all you love­birds out there who are won­der­ing where to have an ani­mal friendly meal, check out these Toronto estab­lish­ments fea­tur­ing vegan price fixe menus.

Source for list of restau­rants: Toronto Veg­e­tar­ian Association

Hog­town Vegan 

www.hogtownvegan.com

Sadie’s Diner

www.sadiesdiner.com

Raw­li­cious

Check out their V-day menu here.

Veg­e­tar­ian Haven

Check out their V-day menu here.


Of course you can always make your own Valentine’s din­ner! Here’s a recipe for tasty baked vegan dough­nuts that are easy to make!

Raz­zle Daz­zle Valen­tine Doughnuts

Makes 6 doughnuts.

Needed: dough­nut pan

Ingre­di­ents:

1 cup flour

1/2 cup sugar

1 1/2 tea­spoons bak­ing powder

pinch of salt

dash of nutmeg

dash of cinnamon

1/2 cup almond milk (any non-dairy milk is fine)

1/2 tea­spoon apple cider vinegar

1/2 tea­spoon vanilla

Egg replacer (equiv­a­lent of 1 egg)

1/4 cup vegan mar­garine (melted– then cooled. Mustn’t be too hot when added to mixture!)

Choco­late Glaze:

1/2 –3/4 cup of vegan choco­late chips

1 table­spoon coconut oil

red sparkling sprinkles

Instruc­tions:

1. Heat the oven to 350 degrees F

2. In a large bowl whisk together all the dry ingredients.

3. In another bowl, whisk together wet ingredients.

4. Add wet mix­ture to dry mix­ture and mix together until just combined.

5. Scoop out your mix­ture into a pre­pared dough­nut pan. Don’t put too much mix­ture in! Make sure it is level or below the sides of the pan so it doesn’t bal­loon up in the bak­ing process.

6. Bake for 12 min­utes or until a tooth­pick inserted comes out dry. Let cool a few min­utes before turn­ing the dough­nuts out of the pan to cool completely.

Choco­late Glaze:

1. Melt 1/2 cup to 3/4 cup of vegan choco­late chips and coconut oil in the microwave for inter­vals of 30 sec­onds. Stir­ring in between until melted completely.

2. Dip cooled dough­nuts half way in the choco­late glaze turn­ing as you pull them out to avoid drip­ping down the sides.

3. Dip the glazed dough­nuts into another bowl of sparkling red sprinkles.

4. Serve and enjoy!

 

Wish­ing all you lovers and friends out there a Happy Valentine’s Day from Oy Vegan!

 

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Oy Vegan Latkes

By on December 10, 2012 in Recipes!, Seasonal

Happy Chanukah every­one! As requested here is my tasty recipe for vegan latkes. I know what some of you may be thinking…

Fear not! These latkes are sure to impress and, trust me, no one will know the dif­fer­ence. They were a big hit at my big fam­ily chanukah din­ner this year. Add a dol­lop of apple­sauce and cashew sour cream (recipe below) and you’re set!

Oy Vegan Latkes

1 1/2 lbs of potatoes

2 large onions shredded

1/2 cup of  all pur­pose flour (use rice flour for a gluten free version)

Egg replacer* (Equiv­a­lent of two eggs worth)

One bunch of green onions chopped

Plenty of Salt and Pep­per to taste

Fresh pars­ley (optional)

Veg­etable oil for fry­ing (grape­seed or canola work well.)

1. Peel and grate pota­toes and place them in a colan­der. Let the water drain from them and then place them in a large bowl. Add onions, flour, egg replacer, green onion, salt & pep­per, and pars­ley (if using) to the pota­toes. Mix well.

2. Pre­heat the oven to 240 degrees Fahren­heit. Later, you will place cooked latkes in here to keep them warm while you fry up the rest!

3. In a large skil­let, add enough oil to cover the bot­tom of the pan and heat at medium to medium-high heat. Spoon out a small amount of the latke mix­ture and drop into the oil. Press down to flat­ten. Repeat with the rest of the mix­ture. Try not to over­crowd your pan as you will need to flip each latke after 3–5 min­utes. Fry until golden brown on both sides. Place cooked latkes on a plate lined with paper towel to absorb excess oil then trans­fer to an oven safe dish and place into the oven to keep warm.

4. Serve with apple­sauce and cashew sour cream and enjoy!!

* Ener-G Egg replacer is a good brand. Bob’s Red Mill also has an egg replacer that works well but is not gluten-free. These can be found at most health food stores.

 

Cashew Sour Cream

Source

1 cup raw cashews (must not be roasted or salted)
1/4 tea­spoon salt
1 –2 tea­spoon apple cider vine­gar
1 small lemon, juice of

1. Cover cashews with water and soak for a few hours, or overnight.
2. Pour off all water, and place nuts in food proces­sor.
3. Add 1/4 cup cold water, salt, vine­gar and lemon juice.
4. Purée for 3–4 min­utes or until com­pletely smooth and creamy in con­sis­tency.
5. Use in any recipe that calls for sour cream.
6. Refrig­er­ate in an air­tight con­tainer for up to a week

This sour cream actu­ally tastes like the real thing! It’s incred­i­ble. You may have to add some more water for a smoother consistency.

There you have it! Happy Chanukah and may this hol­i­day sea­son bring you magic, light, and miracles!

Oy Vegan!

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Devilishly Delicious Vegan Halloween Treats!

By on October 28, 2012 in Recipes!, Seasonal

It’s that time of year again! All Hal­lows’ Eve is fast approach­ing so hope­fully every­one is get­ting their vegan snack on. This is one of my FAVOURITE hol­i­days. So I’ve com­piled a list of vegan snacks and treats that I will be mak­ing this Octo­ber 31st.

Enjoy if you dare!

Muha­ha­ha­hah­hahha!

Try  these super easy and quick vegan Peanut But­ter Cups from Healthy Happy Life. You can sub other nut but­ters or sun­flower seed but­ter for a nut-free version.

I can’t wait to make vegan “Rolo” knock­offs made with dates and chia seeds.

For a health­ier haunted snack these 3-Ingredient Hal­loween Apple Bites look appro­pri­ately ter­ri­fy­ing. Both of these recipes come from Oh She Glows.

If you don’t feel like mak­ing any treats this year, don’t stress! Check out One Green Planet’s guide or the PETAKIDS.com guide to vegan Hal­loween treats!

Oy Vegan wishes all you ghouls, ghosts, and goblins,

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!

 

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Sexy Summer Salads!!!

By on June 18, 2012 in Recipes!, Seasonal, Special Alert!

Sum­mer is com­ing and if you’re like me, you don’t want to eat really heavy lunches and din­ners. Here are some sexy sum­mer salad recipes that are nutri­tious, deli­cious, and per­fect as we greet the warm weather!

This Viet­namese Salad from chef Lan Cao from Viet Café in NYC is sim­ple and super tasty!

Chef Alan Roet­tinger, author of Speed Vegan, shows us how to make the per­fect Bal­samic Vinaigrette!

This Spicy Peanut Gin­ger Kale salad from Kathy Patalsky’s Healthy. Happy. Life blog is seri­ously out of this world! And her idea for sal­ads in a jar, pure genius!

 

Vegan Yum Yum has a num­ber of gor­geous look­ing salad recipes. Check out Lolo’s Potato Salad Two Ways and her BLT salad which uses smoky tem­peh strips and kale in a healthy, mouth water­ing vegan ver­sion of this classic.

 

As for me, I love a good salad. My secret ingre­di­ent to freshen up any salad? Cilantro!

Add some chopped cilantro to any salad to give it oomph. I’ve included a recipe below that I make all the time. The quinoa gives you a com­plete pro­tein, while the pump­kin seeds pro­vide you with iron which the bell pepper’s vit­a­min C helps you absorb.

Oy Vegan Sum­mer Salad

Ingre­di­ents:

• Let­tuce and baby spinach mixed

• One bell pep­per chopped

• 6 or 7 white but­ton mush­rooms chopped

• A few stalks of cel­ery chopped

• half of a cucum­ber sliced

• one avo­cado chopped

• a hand­ful of cilantro roughly chopped

• a half a cup of cooked quinoa

• Pump­kin seeds

Dress­ing: (Whisk the fol­low­ing ingre­di­ents together until combined)

  • 1–2 cloves gar­lic, minced
  • 1–2 table­spoons minced fresh gin­ger root
  • 3/4 cup olive oil
  • 1/4 cup rice vinegar
  • 1/3 cup soy sauce
  • 1 table­spoons Agave
  • 1/4 cup water
  • 2 table­spoons of fresh lime juice

 

Com­bine all the salad ingre­di­ents in a bowl, toss, and enjoy!

 

Oy Vegan!

 

 

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Hamantaschen for Purim!

By on March 11, 2012 in Recipes!

As many of you may know, last Thurs­day was Purim. My madrachim group for Cana­dian Israel Expe­ri­ence threw an awe­some car­ni­val for kids at the Lipa Green Cen­tre in Toronto which was a blast. Check out pics from Purim Fun 2012 here!

Even though Purim has passed, I thought I would share my vegan recipe for Haman­taschen! These are super delicious.

For more infor­ma­tion on the story behind Purim and what peo­ple do at this time of year, click here.

Enjoy!

Vegan Haman­taschen

Ingre­di­ents:

  • 2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 2 tea­spoons bak­ing powder
  • 1/8 tea­spoon salt
  • 1/2 cup veg­etable short­en­ing (I use Earth Bal­ance vegan shortening)
  • 1 cup sugar
  • Vegan egg replacer (equiv­a­lent of 1 large egg)
  • 3 table­spoon fresh orange juice
  • 2/3 cup fill­ing such as apri­cot or cherry jam.
Preper­a­tion:

Into a bowl sift together flour, bak­ing pow­der, and salt. In another bowl beat short­en­ing, sugar, and egg replacer until light and fluffy. Add juice and beat until incor­po­rated. Add flour mix­ture, stir­ring, until a smooth dough is formed. Gather dough into a ball and flat­ten into a disk. Chill dough, wrapped in plas­tic wrap, at least 3 hours and up to 2 days.

Pre­heat oven to 375° F.

On a lightly floured sur­face roll out half of dough (keep­ing other half wrapped and chilled) 1/4 inch thick. With a 3-inch cut­ter cut out as many rounds as pos­si­ble. Trans­fer rounds with a metal spat­ula to a large bak­ing sheet, arrang­ing about 1/2 inch apart. Reroll scraps and cut out more rounds. Put 1 tea­spoon fill­ing in cen­ter of each round and fold up edges to form tri­an­gu­lar cook­ies resem­bling a tri­cornered hat, pinch­ing cor­ners together and leav­ing fill­ing exposed.

Bake haman­taschen in mid­dle of oven 15–20 min­utes, or until pale golden. Cool haman­taschen on bak­ing sheet 5 min­utes and trans­fer to racks to cool com­pletely. Repeat with remain­ing dough. Keep Haman­taschen in an air­tight con­tainer at room tem­per­a­ture for up to 5 days.

(Adapted from a recipe on Epicurious.com)

Oy Vegan!

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Indian Night, Oy!

By on February 21, 2012 in Recipes!

Dis­re­gard the yid­dish def­i­n­i­tion of Oy for this post­ing as my din­ner and cook­ing expe­ri­ence was any­thing but a disappointment!

Last night my boyfriend and I decided to go on a bit of an adven­ture. We wan­dered down to Coxwell and Ger­rard in the east end of Toronto to lit­tle India/Pakistan. A lit­tle birdie had told us that the best place to buy spices was a shop called Kohi­noor Foods on Ger­rard Street. Boy, was this birdie right!

From the out­side it looks like a neigh­bour­hood con­ve­nience store. Inside, Kohi­noor Foods’ walls are lined with prod­ucts straight from India and Pak­istan. One wall is ded­i­cated solely to spices and legumes pack­aged by Kohi­noor Foods them­selves and priced quite rea­son­ably. We bought a large num­ber of spices for our planned feast. 200 grams of a spice is $2.99– not too shabby con­sid­er­ing the same spices cost up to twice that amount in Loblaws, Sobey’s and Metro. Not to men­tion, a lot of these spices are harder to come by in your aver­age gro­cery store.

The scene in the store reminded us of our time in India, many peo­ple came in and out demand­ing dif­fer­ent prod­ucts and the shop­keep­ers politely tried to cater to their needs.

Din­ner

For din­ner, we decided to make the fol­low­ing dishes using recipes from one of our favourite Indian chefs, Man­jula Jain. Watch below for a video tuto­r­ial on how to cook each of these recipes from Man­jula her­self! You can also click on the title to see the recipe writ­ten out.

1. Aloo Gobi (Pota­toes and Cauliflower)

2. Plain white bas­mati rice– Indian style

3. Bain­gan Bharta (Eggplant)

 

The Aloo Gobi (pic­tured below) was lighter than most, flavour­ful and almost trop­i­cal. We did  have to add quite a but more water than is writ­ten in the recipe. We also used less chilli as we can’t han­dle much heat. All in all a very tasty Aloo Gobi!

 

Fol­low­ing her direc­tions exactly yielded the per­fect Indian bas­mati rice (pic­tured below) . Yum!

The Bain­gan Bharta (pic­tured below) was deli­cious. The sautéed red pep­pers do make for a lovely light crunch. Again, I didn’t use as many chills as the recipe called for. We ate this with Dal Puri (type of Indian bread) which we bought at Kohi­noor Foods.

Cook­ing with all of these spices was a won­der­ful aro­matic expe­ri­ence. I’m so excited to try other dishes using these and other spices in the future. If you like Indian food, you’ll have a blast try­ing Manjula’s recipes. She also has a whole vegan sec­tion on her web­site which is really helpful.

Happy Cook­ing!

Oy Vegan!

 

 

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Oy Vegan’s Top 5 Valentine’s Day Recipes!

By on February 13, 2012 in Oy Vegan's Top Fives

Love is in the air!

Whether you love Valentine’s Day or think it’s a crock, how can you not love these amaz­ingly sexy dessert recipes?!

1. Make your own choco­late truf­fles! Care2.com has posted this deli­cious recipe for all you choco­late lovers out there.

2. Choco­late Straw­berry Short­cake Cup­cakes by Chef Chloe Coscarelli. I made these rich and deca­dent cup­cakes for two dif­fer­ent fam­ily func­tions over the hol­i­days in 2011 and they were a huge hit!

3. Blue­berry Almond Dark Choco­late Bark. One Green Planet shows us how to make one of the eas­i­est and most mouth water­ing vegan desserts out there.

4. Choco­late Mousse Tower with Rasp­berry Coulis.  This recipe for sen­su­ally silky mousse is adapted from a dessert served at NYC’s Can­dle 79.

5. For all those who aren’t choco­holics like me (really? Is this pos­si­ble?) try this recipe for Mango Crème from peta.org.

So grab your lover, loved one or friend, plant a big kiss on his or her cheek and wish ‘em Happy Valentine’s Day with one of these delight­ful desserts.

Wish­ing you all lots of love and lust this Feb­ru­ary 14th!

Oy Vegan!

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Totally Fabulous Vegan Bakeoff!

By on February 7, 2012 in Recipes!, Reflections, Special Alert!

My stu­dents and I (photo by Bar­bara Allen), vegan cookie sam­pler plates, and my pre­sen­ta­tion! (Pho­tos by Sasha Arfin)

On Sat­ur­day Feb­ru­ary 4th, I par­tic­i­pated in the Toronto Veg­e­tar­ian Association’s Totally Fab­u­lous Vegan Bake­off with my gluten-free choco­late zuc­chini loaf. Check out my recipe below!

The event took place at 918 Bathurst Street — a cool com­mu­nity cen­tre with lots of space for events, classes and what­not. The last time I was in the main the­atre space, I was audi­tion­ing for Woody Har­rel­son for a com­edy he wrote and directed last year at Hart House The­atre. 918 Bathurst, while being a great space for audi­tions, was a lit­tle small for the amount of peo­ple who came out for this year’s bake-off. The turnout was amaz­ing! Appar­ently the line went all the way down Bathurst and almost hit Bloor St.

I entered the com­pe­ti­tion in the gluten-free choco­late cat­e­gory. I didn’t win, but I’m pretty sure I came in sec­ond. How­ever, it wasn’t about win­ning or los­ing (says the loser), it was about the expe­ri­ence! So many veg­ans, veg­e­tar­i­ans, and non-veggies came out to sam­ple the many fab­u­lous treats. Local celeb vegan chef Doug McNish judged best in show and even Cana­dian TV and radio gem George Strom­bolopolous made an appear­ance. Appar­ently, Strombo is try­ing out the vegan lifestyle and I have to say, he looks great!

Pho­tos by Sasha Arfin

There was fab­u­lous local cof­fee sup­plied by Kens­ing­ton Market’s Moon­bean Cof­fee  as well as reg­u­lar, vanilla, and cap­puc­cino flavoured soy milk from Nutrisoya.

Many thanks to my par­ents for help­ing me plate my choco­late zuc­chini loaf and for trans­port­ing the sam­ples and dis­play to the venue. Also, a shout-out to my sis­ter Sasha Arfin for mak­ing an incred­i­bly beau­ti­ful sign for my loaf! (See below for sign and recipe!)

Pho­tos by Sasha Arfin

 

Check out this mini high­light video by Richard Arfin!

My gluten-free Chocolate Zucchini Loaf

Jamie’s Gluten-Free Chocolate Zucchini Loaf
This loaf is deli­cious! The zuc­chini adds mois­ture and an amaz­ing tex­ture to the loaf. That com­bined with choco­laty goodness–trust me, it won’t last very long.

Ingre­di­ents:

  • 2 cups brown rice flour
  • 1 1/2 tea­spoons guar gum
  • 1/2 tea­spoon salt
  • 1 1/2 tea­spoons bak­ing soda
  • 1/2 cup unsweet­ened cocoa powder
  • 1/2 cup gran­u­lated sugar
  • 1/4 cup brown sugar
  • 1 tea­spoon cinnamon
  • egg replacer — equiv­a­lent to 2 eggs worth
  • 1/2 cup organic canola oil
  • 1 tea­spoon vanilla extract
  • 1/2 cup applesauce
  • 3 cups grated unpeeled zucchini
  • 3/4 cup semi-sweet choco­late chips

Prepa­ra­tion:

Pre­heat oven to 350° F / 176° C

Lightly grease or oil two 8-inch loaf pans OR two 12-cup muf­fin tins

Place flour, guar gum, salt, bak­ing soda, cin­na­mon and cocoa pow­der in a medium bowl. Use a wire whisk to combine.

In a large bowl, place oil, sug­ars, egg replacer and vanilla and mix until fluffy. Stir in apple­sauce and shred­ded zuc­chini. Stir flour mix­ture into bat­ter until just com­bined. Fold in choco­late chips.

Divide bat­ter between pre­pared loaf or muf­fin pans and bake for 50 min­utes for loaves or 25–30 min­utes for muffins or until a tooth­pick inserted in the cen­ter of loaf or muf­fin comes out clean.

Allow to cool on wire rack for 10 min­utes before turn­ing out.

Yields about 24 muffins or 8–10 slices per loaf

 

Oy Vegan!

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