Recipe 99 - Rapunzel's favorite hazelnut soup and pan fried goldenrod corn bread

Well, Maximus ate my apples again so I wasn't able to make a dessert.. but the rest of dinner was a smashing sensation!

As always, 'Mother' wasn't home.. leading me to attempt to find things on my own and entertain myself.  (J/K, my mother Gothel was in traffic).   Bff husband helped me find my way around the kitchen as soon as I got in and I started to get everything ready.

The hazelnuts had to go into the oven, first until they were 'fragrant' and the skins peeled off.. so in they went, as I tended to the 'garden' in the soup pot to create into a vegan soup (that of which the real mother Gothel had no intention of doing.. but we all know Disney Princesses are vegan, so shame on her!)
Once the hazelnuts were done, I realized Gothel must really have loved Rapunzel.. rubbing the skins off the hazelnuts and moving them into a clean bowl was painful!  But it had to be done because the veggies in the soup and the stock was ready for them to be cooked into it!

At that point, it was time to cook those suckers and prepare the ol' pan fried cornbread.

Why?  You may ask,  Why did you need to make pan fried cornbread?

I have a frying pan.. duh.  You know there are many many things you can do with a frying pan.   One of which is teaching someone a lesson.  (C'mon, you watched the movie).   I'm thinking that I can take a pan to Gothel's head and make her realize I don't want a soup full of chicken stock and cows cream... so, well - I had to make her realize somehow!

(Yah, she's really concerned.)   So, I figured, since I'm supposed to be portraying a loving princess, I would put the pan to better use and create a bread for our soup.  Golden cornbread sounded like the perfect match..  sooo

That's what I did. 
The original recipe wanted it baked in the pan.  We didn't have a pan we could bake with, so I used a different recipe, where you were supposed to turn the darn thing out (after it was much like a pancake) and onto an oiled baking sheet.   Mine kind of didn't come out like it was supposed to - but it baked fine just the same and tasted just as yummy.   When the bread was done, the soup was done.. timed just right!

 So, it was finished.  I served it out to probably the biggest group of people I've fed to date in this blog.  A whopping number of "5".   I had my mother Gothel, I had my Snow White, I had bff jr, bff husband and myself.   Was it a hit??

 Mother Gothel and Snow White (who strangely enough is wearing a Cruella DeVille shirt...  SNOW??!?)   seemed to think so.  So did the bff's on the other side.  And what of our Rapunzel atop her tower (bar stool)?

Yes.. yes she approved.  (I however liked the cornbread more than the soup, but eh? What can you do?)

And a few more photos of the evening.

Mother Gothel now knows VEGAN is best!

princesses and their bird friends

More princesses and animals!

So, veganization number 99 (OMG FOLKS!  I'M ABOUT TO SEE THIS TO THE END!)  was a raving success.  I got nothing but praise for the soup.  I left it with my Mother Gothel - now back to being named the bff.  She even had some for breakfast this morning!
Mother does know best!

Well, we have one more veganization.. number 100.   What princess will we visit? Will we be on land, sea, in the air?  What kind of un-vegan cook will we learn about?
All these questions and more when you tune back in for my very last veganization.. I'll tell you all about it on Monday.  ;)  Yup, it's like a soap opera - you've got to wait!

Music enjoyed while blogging:  People talking

Current Craving:  Chocolate

Current Motivation:  Sleeping in.

Recipe 99 - This mother does know best!

Okay, so I've put this off long enough and after quite a lengthy evening I will sit here and write, because if I don't, I'll never have another chance, I fear.







We're at veganization 99.  That's right, second to the last! And we're moving in on a different kind of villain this time.  Our first week of the month we looked at a  villain who just wanted to poison people with bad (unvegan) stuff - because you know, processed food, the crap we inject our animals with, it IS poison. For them and us.   We found a healthier way.

Last week we learned about the non-vegan who just doesn't know what they're doing.  "We can't do vegan, we don't know how."  We found out how EASY difficult vegan recipes really are so no more excuses!

This week - we're going to let the princess cook. 
Enter Mother Gothel.  She knows best, after-all. Why, she has been cooking this same hazelnut soup for years - with cream and butter and chicken stock.
(That woman needs a straight up frying pan to her head).  Here we have the 'If it's not broken, don't fix it' kind of vegan. She thinks keeping her kid locked away for years will keep her the same helpless child she remembered - so of course she's going to have this mindset.

I for some reason, connected with the Disney version of Rapunzel, I used to say that when her hair was all chopped off, she looked like me.   So...  I get to be the princess this time and show my very own 'mother Gothel' that the adage of 'if it's not broken don't fix it' holds no real substance like a vegan meal.  (She kinda knows this, she's vegan, but she's got crazy Gothel hair, so she gets to play the part - that, and she wants dinner.)

We're going to be making Rapunzel's FAVORITE soup (Hazelnut soup) and as a side treat - I'm going to use the handy dandy frying pan to fry up some goldenrod corn bread alongside our soup.

 I've even got it on good measure that my bff Snow White (from blog 97) is going to show up and giggle with me a lot, so we'll get her on cammy too!





Let's do our numbers:

Hazelnut Soup                   Vegan Hazelnut Soup
Calories  - 250                               145
Total Fat  - 11.2                                6
Cholesterol -24                                 0
Sodium - 940                                  320
Total Carbs -15.5                             8.6
Fiber -2.4                                        1.8
Protein - 7.2                                    3.6
WW Pts - 5                                     3




Pan Fried Cornbread         Goldenrod Cornbread
Calories  - 280                                114
Total Fat  - 6                                      3
Cholesterol -28                                   0
Sodium - 413                                    217
Total Carbs -18                                 12
Fiber -1.3                                           2
Protein - 3.4                                       2
WW Pts - 4                                       2

So, we've got this veganization down pat for Wednesday night.  I'm traveling with my food and going to my "Mother Gothel's" house.  My princess-like self will woo her with the goodness that will come out of the soup pot and the frying pan.  Snow and I will giggle and have fun, and maybe by the end of the night, we'll be able to crown Mother Gothel, Queen Vegan. ;)

Who knows?
You'll just have to stay tuned and hope Maximus doesn't run away with my parsnips!

Music Enjoyed while blogging:  My cell phone text chime

Current Craving:  Brownies

Current Motivation:  Waiting on ganache to cool.

Recipe 98 - "beef" ragout, "cheese" souffle and the ever popular, Grey Stuff.

Princess of the week!  My sister, who graciously played the part of Belle and enjoyed everything I put in front of her.  She's also accompanied by the ghetto versions of Lumiere, Cogsworth and Chip (of whom has no chip) as well as a book she found in the beasts vast library.. now she can teach the entertaining flatware how to eat vegan!







This was a three parter recipe.  Beauty and the Beast is so full of food it was hard to choose.  Honestly just one veganization in my world isn't enough for this particular week of blogging.  We've got some pretty dumb dishes and kitchenware, so we need to make sure they know how to feed our vegan heroine, right?

 I started out with 'The Grey Stuff'.   According to the dishes, it's delicious.. so I wanted to see for myself if this was the truth.  I pulled up the exact recipe from Disney World's very own 'Be Our Guest' Restaurant and started working my magic with the only original thing staying - 'Oreos'.  (I heart oreos.. yes I know they're terrible for you, but once in a while, I do terrible things.. get over it.)

After creating it, I tried it.  And, well, what do you know?  It WAS delicious!   According to the movie, this was served on a cracker, and I just out of luck had some vegan graham crackers to plate this with.  My Belle (claiming she really doesn't like Oreos, making me wonder if she really is my sister) DID try it, said it was good.. but she couldn't finish it.  She handed the rest to my neice (bless her, if she knew there was a cake of tofu in that stuff she'd not have touched it) who finished most of it. ;)

The second part of this veganization was pure Disney magic in that all I had to do was gather up my ingredients, mix them all in the right amounts and put them in a crock pot where they would cook for several hours all on their own.
Imagine my state of bliss when I walked into my kitchen just freshly home from work and smelled this stuff  'bubblin and brewin' in the crock?

I initially thought I'd walked into the wrong house.  My house never smells this good.  Well, maybe it does, but I'm always in it when I'm cooking so I've never been the outsider walking into the scent.   mmMm.   It actually was pretty good all in itself.  We had it on spaghetti as a sauce (it was suggested rice or spaghetti).  My Belle even went back for seconds!

 The last part of this was the 'cheese' souffle.  I had to make this at my mothers house (aka the Beast's castle) because it needed to be eaten right out of the oven.  There you can see my 'Mrs Potts' (mommy) helping me whip 'egg whites' (aka egg replacer) for the souffle.  The souffle of which didn't tell me where to add my cream of tartar, so my souffle's didn't rise correctly.. ggrrr.

Best part of the evening of cooking with my mother was when I asked her to be like my grandma and try something for me.  I gave her a tiny nip of 'Vegg' and she about had a panic attack, insisting that I fed her raw egg yolks.  (I love it when this happens!)  See, I'm telling you.. vegan can take on non-vegan like every time!  (It's what I've been trying to prove day in and out with this blog.)  You'll never regret it because you won't miss whatever taste you're afraid of missing!

All in all the dinner, while less than perfect.. really did mimic what I think Lumiere, Cogsworth, Mrs Potts, Chip and all those dishes were trying to get over to Belle in the original movie.
It was all in perfect taste, It was all yummy, it was all fancy shmancy, it was all fun, and even our 'beast' (my neice) sang a few songs for us.
Best part ever - it was ALL VEGAN.
So now those silly dishes have no reason to not know what they're doing.  They CAN cook vegan!  Just in time for them to become people again.

Special thanks to my sister 'Belle' who did a good job in character and ate all of her food like a good princess.  :)

What's next?
It's the 'mother' of all blogs...  we'll find out if Mother really DOES know best, or if she's just doing things because she thinks they're best.

;)

Stay tuned!


Music enjoyed while blogging:
Not a thing

Current Craving:
French Fries

Current Motivation:
Motivating others.

The bold, The beautiful and the brazen...

So, RoVL fans..  what do I have in store for you next?

Well, there's a tale as old as time out there that's just waiting to be told.   It goes something like this..

Once upon a time there was a girl, who loved animals, and books... oh yes, she loved books too.  Why, she loved animals and books so much she moved into a castle with an animal/man and a library so big she'd never get through the books...all this with a cast of characters ranging from cups to wardrobes that sing to her throughout the day.

Yes, I'm talking about our ever favorite Disney princess, Belle.  But before we get to Belle, let's reflect:
If Belle ate ALL of the un-vegan food given to her by the Beast servants, we all know she'd PROBABLY end up looking a bit like this:

 

This is why one must assume that our favorite heroine is ACTUALLY Vegan, because the way those applainces cook for at least 12 dozen people and Belle so svelte... c'mon.   

She's not having a heart attack, she's not dealing with cholesterol.   She's golden, just like her dress.   A golden vegan princess.

Let's back up here.  Logically, it would turn ANY vegan princess off to have to deal with a hunter who eats 5 dozen eggs a day hitting on her:

Clearly, Gaston is roughly the size of a barge, his cholesterol is through the roof, and he's supporting factory farming.. (and he's a hunter!)  SHAME on you, Gaston!  No wonder you're a villain!

Then enter the 'Animal' of this story... The Beast:

Okay, okay, he's a bit rough and tumble, and can be downright mean sometimes, but he's got a soft spot.. I promise.  So soft he's a vegan too.  (I'm not making this up!)

The dishes and cups though?  I'm not convinced they even KNOW what vegan is.  It's questionable when you sit down to dinner and all of a sudden a symphony of food, appliances and furniture start singing to you.  They're high, or maybe you're high?  In any event.. you can't really ASK your waiters (who, are a candlestick and a clock) if your 'Beef Ragout' has any REAL meat in it; your new room mate is angry, so you're not sure how to handle the thought with him.   What to do?  I mean, can you REALLY trust a drunken high candlestick?

No fear, Belle.. we've got you.  

I promise, once The Beast defeats Gaston, he can ASSURE you of his devout veganism.  And you my dear?  You can have the ladder help you reach the book all about being vegan from the shelf and hand it to your now human servants...

So, what IS for dinner?

Let's look at the numbers and you'll see:

Beef Ragout                              Beefless Ragout

Calories  - 275                                 112

Total Fat  - 7                                       4
Cholesterol -18                                   0
Sodium - 481                                    117
Total Carbs -37                                 15
Fiber -4                                              2
Protein - 11.8                                     4.3

WW Pts - 7                                         3

Cheese Souffle                        Cheeze Souffle

Calories  - 294                                   105
Total Fat  - 15                                      6 

Cholesterol -134                                  0

Sodium - 307                                     112 

Total Carbs -6                                      4              

Fiber -0                                                1  

Protein - 9                                            3

WW Pts -  5                                         2

The Grey Stuff                       The better grey stuff

Calories  - 237                                    142

Total Fat  - 12.5                                     8
Cholesterol -9.7                                     0
Sodium - 233                                        94 

Total Carbs -28                                    15

Fiber - 0.5                                           0.5
Protein - 4.3                                          2
WW Pts - 6                                           4

So, my PERSONAL Belle is pretty health conscious and will appreciate the dinner she's about to be served.  I HAVE heard the grey stuff is delicious (but I'm not sure if asking the dishes is the smartest move in this case) so we'll see exactly how delicious it is.

Before I leave you to work on the preparation of this fancy dinner  - let me end with some joyous song to get you in the mood... 

Click the link and learn why a VEGAN dinner here will never be second best.. remember, GOOD always wins in the end.  The evil hunter/factory farm supporter gets the bump, and the Beast's vegan castle ends up ruling in the end.. I promise!

Until I proudly present 'your dinner'...

Music enjoyed while blogging:

The dishes singing

Current Craving:

Sleep

Current Motivation:

Finishing Laundry

Recipe 97 - Regina's Apple Turnovers

"Snow White: Oh, I feel strange.
[Starts gasping for air]
Queen: [to herself] Her breath will still. Her blood congeal.
[Snow White drops onto the floor]
Queen: [Cackling] Now I'll be fairest in the land!" 



Ah, this is going to be the most fun I've had with Rainbows since the beginning. My goal?  To create the perfect apple treat for my very own Snow White (My bff, Laura Dixon-Caldwell, who quite fits the role in looks, but much spunkier than the original Snow White).    

The reason? 
Good wins out in the end.

This weekend, I chose to veganize 'Regina's Apple Turnovers'.   If you've watched Once Upon A Time, you'll note, Regina is the evil queen, and she used these very turnovers to attempt to kill Henry's mother.. 
I however, did not add any poisonous or noxious ingredients.  No animal was harmed, no princess was harmed.

 I started out with my favorite apples.. 'the granny smith' apple.  I figured, it was a grandmother queen in the Disney movie that peddeled her goods to our fair princess, so it was only fitting.  I'm not a granny, nor can I magically turn myself into one, so I used the next best thing, and kept the skins on to keep all the wonderful non-poisonous vitamins in.

Of course I had to make a turnover dough.  I attempted this dough twice, and changed ingredients the second time around, simply because it wasn't turning out the way I needed it to.  Finally, third time was a 'charm' (as in prince charming, maybe?)  And I was able to roll a dough fitting enough for my apple jewels.

 Inside the dough I added a yummy apple filling of which I had to cook forever on the stove and mix with spices to make it yummy and thick.
Easily enough I folded them over, sealed them up and sent them into the oven to wait for their scentillating appearance.

My perfect golden turnovers were ready and would fool any non-vegan princess into believing they might be trickery.   However, I wasn't done yet.. I had to make them appeal to the young princess, make her WANT to try them because this was going to be a surprise.

 I wrote my princess a note of good-will, charm, sass, and pretty much to get to the point of what I was doing.  Instead of coming right out and suggesting she eat them, I had to Earth Balance her up a little, didn't I?   What else could I do to make this more appealing to her?

Place them in a basket, of course!   I wrapped the basket, then consulted my two favorite dwarves to assist me in re-finding Snow White's little cottage to leave the sweet surprise on her doorstep.
When our mission was complete, my Snow White did something very out of movie context and texted me with a bunch of sweet thank yous.  :)



I only wish I had a picture of her eating them.. and you'd see she didn't need 'True Love's Kiss' after all - all she needed was a glass of almond milk, and some 'Rainbows of Vegan Love' to pull her through as my 'Fairest of them all'.

(I want to thank my princess, Laura for being such a good sport, and I truly did surprise her!  I love you, Laura!)

Next up....  Dancing dishes with non-vegan food?  I don't think so!

Music enjoyed while blogging:
Air

Current Craving:
Chocolate

Current Motivation:
Wondering if my candlestick can sing?

Wicked Vs Snow - Recipe 97

Welcome, foolish mortals (oh, that's from the Haunted Mansion -- right idea, wrong characters).


 Welcome to the very last month of Rainbows Of Vegan Love!  We're about to go out with a big ol Disney bang for a few different reasons.


1.  If you've been with me these past 2 years you KNOW I'm obsessed with Disney.

2. I'm obsessed with Disney Villains

3. Even though I'm obsessed with Disney Villains, we all know that the good wins out in the end over all evil. 

The evil here being the un-vegan ingredients in food.   If I've taught you anything over these past few years it's how to turn non-vegan food into vegan food with the same taste delight.  So, it really does seem no-argument, that good should win out in your diet.

Let's start with The Wicked Queen from Snow White and her deathly poisonous apple:

Oh that crazy old woman.. imagine what WOULD have happened had Snow made a pie or tart out of that apple instead of biting into it?   She would have wiped out a whole gaggle full of dwarves, and that whole "True Loves Kiss" thing would be moot.. because did any of those dwarves have true loves?

Not in the story.

The real evil though in the creation of any pie or tart would be the butter and the eggs.  You don't need me to tell you what they do to baby chicks or baby calves so you can get these ingredients for your apple delights.  We've discussed this at least 10 fold.. please google "Factory Farming" if you need to be enlightened.

Enter 'The Good' in this story:

All good princesses know how to veganize their pies and tarts, and I think Snow White would do what was fair and good for her animal friends.  It's as such, that she should really convince the 'queen' of all evil there to do the same..
And since I'm a villain lover, I'm going to prove that evil can do some good in my next veganization for my very OWN Snow White - who will be receiving these in the sweetest of ways this weekend.

I'm about to go all Regina on you folks:

(Yes I love Once Upon a Time).

We're going to veganize Regina's Apple Tarts.   The very ones she handed over to Emma that ended up in Henry's tummy.

They'll be filled with good.. I promise

Numbers Please!

Wicked Apple Tarts                 Fairest Apple Tarts
Calories  - 190                                    112
Total Fat  - 4                                          2
Cholesterol -12                                      0
Sodium - 80                                          22
Total Carbs -37                                    15
Fiber -3                                                  2
Protein - 1                                              1
WW Pts -5                                             2

And with that, it's time to concoct something for my very special (un-aware, because that's how the original villains do things) princess which, I'm sure will color her pink before she's done with them.

It all goes down this weekend...
We'll turn a poison apple tart - into a fairest apple tart.

:)

Music Enjoyed While Blogging:
Subsonic Radio, of course

Current Craving:
Pretzels

Current Motivation:
Being sneakily sweet.  

Irish eyes are smilin'

Well, call it a lucky charm!  (No, we've already veganized that!). 

I don't recall ever having shepards pie in my lifetime up until now, and I have to say this vegan version was absolutely amazing.  I even went back for thirds!

Thank you, Ireland.




So, it started out on Saturday.. I think I had moved every piece of furniture in my Irish cottage (aka my house) and I was out of bounds exhausted, but.. I had to eat!

It was time.   I pulled out an authentic Shepards Pie recipe and started going to town on it.

Veggies first, please!
I had to saute'  I had to boil, I had to saute some more.





Then it was time to make the 'gravy' portion of the meal (which is really the heart of the shepards pie).

This called for more veggies 'lamb' (no no no no lambies were harmed in the making of this pie), wine (we could review from the last time that I love cooking with wine) a few various other things and  some basic stock... I let that do it's thing and turned on my oven.

When that was ready - I had this amazing thick filling that smelled sooo good I couldn't wait to eat it.. but first, I had to mash my potatoes.

Mash potatoes, you say?
Yup..  shepards pie gets a yummy mashed potato topping on it!

 

It also gets an 'egg' wash (which I did minus the egg) and a sprinkle of parmesan (which I did too - minus the parm..  dang I'm good).

A few moments later and OMYUMNOM!

I will make this again - and luckily, I still have some in my fridge!

So - that closes up our European vacation month I hope I've made your summer vacay time a bit more exciting! 

Rainbows of Vegan Love ends in August.. and we have four more (very magical) veganizations planned..

There will be twists, turns, surprises and maybe even a few 'hug it outs' planned!

You don't want to miss our last month of forever..

You will become witness of the proof that good absolutely triumphs over evil - especially in the culinary world!

See ya real soon!

xo

Music enjoyed while blogging:

Chit chat outside.

Current Motivation:

Getting it all written down in my calendar

Current Craving:

A cookie.