Ryan's Marmalade

After much, much, much badgering, Ryan is not going to start up his blog, Crsipybits at this time.

This is bull#%$^ people! We need to come together to make it happen. I get mad when Ryan doesn't blog. Or when he doesn't do what I want him to do. Which is write his blog and come on vacations with my husband and me.

I know that probably sounds like my husband and I take Ryan on our vacations because he is our sex companion. He is not our sex companion.

Oo, you caught us by surprise!

But we can dream can't we?

Anyway. Fine, then, Ryan. If you're not going to re-boot Crispybits, I'm going to do it.

So ladies and gentemen, I give you:

                                                     

Hi I'm Ryan and I'm super excellent. I'm going to show you people how to make marmalade.

Today we're going to make my jam-tasctic marmalade that I got from a super fancy recipe book from a different country so don't even try to find it and If I give you the recipe, it will be a scanned photo that's hard to read, so just shut up and sit back and watch me do my magic because you can't touch this, you stupid, stupid person.


First you need to plan for 3 different types of marmalade and prep them so that they are at 3 different stages in the process of cooking. This makes it easy to show your friends how to make marmalade and makes me look more like a cooking show host. WHICH I AM!

Then you get your friends to cut up a bunch of oranges, put in some sugar and a splash of booze.

she is only fake laughing.

Boil the sweet heck out of them. The oranges. Not your friends.

Also boil  some jars.

Put the liquid gold into these jars.

Action shots show how dynamic is this process, when you are me.

Here, eat some of these snacks to keep you fortified so you can....

Clean up, you bitches!

I make the 17 month pregnant woman do the hard chores.

Here's some homemade soda bread that I veganized so that pernickety bitch-pants Reid can have some.

I am amazing. And dangerous.

And VOILA, you have marmalade.

The recipe is from Christine Ferber's, Mes Confitures. That's French for My Jams, in case you were wondering. This particular recipe takes 3 days to complete because why even BOTHER doing something that doesn't take that long. Jesus, I am amazing.

So, there you have it. Marmalade. I made it, you enjoy it, you worship me. It's just the way it is. And ever shall be.

Until next time,

Ryan.

Banana Bread

Ryan and I went on a field trip to Michael’s Craft Store last week because Sarah was too terrified to go. She says it’s overwhelming. Like going to IKEA on a Saturday afternoon after taking acid. 

I wonder how she would know what that’s like. She’s had a wild past, I guess.

Anyway, Ryan and I fared just fine and I only got a little sweaty. I got some so much very very needed craft supplies and I also picked up four adorable little ceramic loaf pans that were on mega deep discount. I only regret not getting 12 of the little bastards.

So I made banana bread because I am amazing. I’m going to put ribbons on them and give them to the neighbours.

I used a recipe from the Veganomicon (vegan bible), but made a few twists. The original recipe was posted HERE.   I added mushed up pear and some ginger and allspice. I also forgot to add the .5 C apple sauce the original recipe called for. I know. Idiot. It was the whole point. But I guess the pear helped. 

So it’s pretty darned good, must say. Not terribly sweet, so if you like it sweet, pour a bag of sugar over it and maybe some corn syrup.

You’re welcome.

Lower-Fat Banana Bread 

Makes one loaf or 4 adorable mini loaves

Preheat oven to 350 and lightly grease your loaf pan(s)

2 large very ripe bananas and one ripe, cored and peeled pear

1/4 cup canola oil

1/2 cup granulated sugar

2 tablespoons molasses

2 cup all-purpose flour

3/4 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon ginger

1/4 teaspoon nutmeg

a few dashes of Allspice

1/2 teaspoon salt

Mush up the banana and pear really well.

Add the oil, molasses and sugar. Combine.

Sift in the dry ingredients and stir until just combined - it’ll be all lump-tastic.

Plop into loaf pan(s) and bake for about 50 minutes (40 for mini loaf pans). Oven heats differ, so I’d check your bread after 35 minutes or so. Toothpick should come out clean after poking into the centre of the bread. But you know that kind of stuff already because you’re a superstar.

Oh, and Sarah’s not getting any of this banana bread because she wouldn’t take me to Michael’s. I guess we’re even because I told her I wouldn’t got on her eleventy billion mile charity bike ride with her.

What is up with her?

Jeez.

I love her.

Except when she won’t take me to Michael’s.

And she’ll probably get some banana bread.

Guest Blogger - Leslie G.

Good Wednesday everyone, may I introduce to you one Leslie G. a friend of mine from the University of Winnipeg. Artist, Quilter, Activist and Professional Lute plater. Ok. I am not sure about the lute. She has some things to tell you about stuff and what not.....


xo
E

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I learned something on Monday.

 Sometimes when Ellen posts that she doesn’t know her next blog topic should be and you post a smart ass response, you may find yourself writing a guest blog. 

Rats.

So here  I am. Thinking about what to write about. And then it comes to me. 

Glue.

That’s right. My one (And mostly likely only) blog post is about glue.

My other option was to write about getting stepped on by a horse on Sunday. However, I don’t believe in rewarding bad behaviour. So, Skippy, you can just sit in the pasture and think about what you’ve done. Right now, I think you’re an ass hat and my foot still hurts. Ass hat.

And we’re back to the glue.  Ellen is a special person in my life. We haven’t seen each other in several decades and our online conversations can be described as somewhat random, but demmit....We’ve got glue.

You all know what I am talking about. People in your life that you have that connection with. You don’t necessarily see each other or talk every week. But, you have something that holds you together. Something that means you can meet up and continue where you left off like time stood still. It’s the glue. It’s magical and wonderful. In my world, I think the glue is pink and sparkly. Maybe we should cover Ellen in pink, sparkly glue. Just for shits and giggles (and maybe a youtube video). Oooh, or maybe for the next Crash Test Dummies album cover!

Even though Ellen and I don’t spend a great deal of time together (And yes, I’m jealous, Ryan McKnight. And yes, I did just call you out.), we are connected. For example, I absolutely know that if I was recovering from surgery and full of anesthesia and painkillers, that Ellen would take me to the parp. Our conversation would go like this:

Me: Parp?

Ellen: Parp!

We got glue. Enough said.

So, I encourage you all to take a minute to appreciate your glue buddies, near and far. You are stuck together in a weird and awesome way.

I would like to dedicate this Velvet Underground song to all of you gluesters and to a few people that I am absolutely blessed to be stuck with. This one is for you – Chicky, Avi, Weirdo, Francis and Peter.

Foodie Friday - Vegan Chocolate Cupcakes

There is kind of a glut of recipes for vegan chocolate cupcakes. It's like the lawyer of the vegan baked goods world. There might actually be too many.  Still, when you need a lawyer or a cupcake, you usually need one RIGHT AWAY and don't care it's charging you $400 an hour/400 calories a serving. 

But if I'm going to fit in in the vegan world, I know I have to do a few things: avoid animal products; float 2 inches off the ground at all times; and make a good vegan cupcake.

I love baking. I mean, I really love it. But cupcakes have never been my forte. So I turned to my friend Ryan, who you all know and love, because he is our circle's go-to baker for cupcakes and for high end baked delights. He has his own food blog which we are all imploring him to get back to. After begging him and promising not to draw any embarrassing portrait of him, Ryan consented to help me with this week's post - for Vegan Chocolate Cupcakes with Chocolate frosting.

The original recipe is found at this site, but we made several changes. 

But before we could embark on our morning of baking, as every vegan knows, it is important to align your Chakras before you start. If your Chakas are out of balance, your cupcakes will fail and butterflies will die and the Euro will plunge further.

So we aligned our Chakas.

Whew, that feels better.

Ryan is more of a purist than am I when it comes to baking - he sources out the best ingredients,

sifts his dry ingredients, and weighs them rather than just scooping them up slap dash in the measuring cups like I do. 

He even did research to ensure that the icing sugar we were using was vegan. Lantic icing sugar IS vegan. Redpath sugar is NOT vegan. Ryan says, "you're welcome".

UPDATE (SEPT 8, 2012). I HAVE LEARNED THAT REDPATH SUGAR IS VEGAN. LANTIC SUGAR IS ALSO VEGAN, BUT IT'S SISTER COMPANY, ROGER'S SUGAR, USES BONE CHAR IN ITS FILERING PROCESS, SO ROGERS SUGAR = BAD, REDPATH IS GOOD.

Ryan created a pousse cafe of oil milk and sugar

Sam wants cupcakes. Sucks to be Sam. No cupcakes for Sam

 Here is the recipe as adapted by Ryan and Elpoo:


Vegan Deep  Dark Chocolate Cupcakes with Chocolate Frosting

275 g/2 cups all-purpose flour

100 g/3/4 cup natural cocoa powder  (Hershey's)

1-2 Tbsp espresso powder (Ryan suggests the King Arthur Flour brand of espresso powder)

2 teaspoons (10 ml) baking soda

1 teaspoon (5 ml) baking powder

a pinch of salt

450 ml/1 +3/4 cup unsweetened almond milk

2 teaspoons (10 ml) red wine vinegar

320 g/ 1 + 2/3 cups raw sugar, pulsed to make a fine powder (or caster sugar)

320 ml/1 + 1/4 cups oil (we used vegetable oil - next time I'd use sunflower or canola to keep the soy content down)

2 tablespoons (30 ml) vanilla extract (Rebecca's home made!)

____________________________________________

1. Preheat the oven to 325 F. Line 24 muffin tin cups with paper liners.

2. Sift twice, the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder and salt in a large  bowl. 

3. In a separate bowl, whisk together the almond milk, vinegar, sugar, oil and vanilla extract. Pour into the flour mixture and stir until well combined.

Spoon the mixture into the prepared cupcake pans about 1/2 full,  and bake in the preheated oven for 40-55 minutes.

 A wooden skewer inserted in the middle should come out with almost no crumbs attached, and the middle of the cake, when pressed, should spring back slightly instead of sink. Bake for an additional 5-10 minutes if necessary.  

5. Remove from the oven and let cool in the pan for 10 minutes. Slide a table knife all around the edge to loosen the cake, then remove from the pan. Transfer to a wire rack to cool for 1 hour

They will be VERY moist. So be careful if you take off the paper wrappers. It's better to leave them on, actually. You could refrigerate the cooled cupcakes for a bit to firm them up before frosting them.

Psychotic weirdo puts cupcakes into oven

Dark dark dark and deleeeeeeeeeshus.

Vegan Chocolate Frosting

1 cup (227 g) Vegan, non-hydrogenated margarine. I used Earth Balance or Becel Vegan margarine.

1 cup (125 g) icing sugar (confectioners’ or powdered)

1 tsp espresso powder

1 1/2 teaspoons  pure vanilla extract 

5 oz (145 g) quality bittersweet, chopped, melted and cooled 

1/4 cup (60 ml) almond  milk

pinch of salt

_____________________

1. In a bowl of stand mixer fitted with paddle attachment, combine the icing sugar and margarine and beat on low speed for about 1 minute.

2. Add vanilla and beat on low until well combined. Add the melted & cooled chocolate and beat on medium speed until smooth (about 2 minutes).

3. Add almond milk and salt, and beat on medium speed for another minute. Do NOT over beat. Keep an eye on it.

adding the cooled chocolate to the sugar and vegan "butter"

The frosting should look creamy and smooth. Decorate with vegan approved silver coloured smartie things.

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Full disclosure time. The first time we made this, the cupcakes turned out great. Super moist and dark, almost black. But the frosting was a disaster.

Ellen is saddened by awful icing. Yes. icing an be awful.

We tried to tart up the awful icing with a silver smartie thingie, but it just looked like a silver smartie on a cow pat.

 Not wanting to waste all the time and ingredients, Ryan whipped up a new batch of vegan frosting when he got home so he could take the cupcakes to a barbecue without losing his King of Cupcakes status.

We couldn't figure out why the icing failed so epically. We may have beaten the margarine and sugar too long. Was it because our Chakas were not really aligned? As a vegan, was I not being strident enough? In the end, we decided that it was most likely because instead of using a good quality chocolate to melt and use in the icing, we just used an old Easter Bunny broken up and melted down. 

not really for baking.

What were we thinking? How could I use an innocent chocolate bunny in this, this what was supposed to be VEGAN! I'll never harm another animal shaped food again. Serves me right. I have been chastised. 

Now I have to go and put tiny razor cuts in my leg and sit in a bath tub full of vinegar. Because that's what vegans do when they know they've been bad. 


Anyhooo, have a good weekend. Save the bunnies.

These cupcakes are so good - before he ate this cupcake, Peter had brown eyes.

Foodie Friday: Coffee. How Do I Love Thee?

I love coffee. Coffee is the first thing I think about in the morning, and the last thing I think about before I sleep. Brian knows not to ask me to choose between him and coffee. Although the lack of either would make me very sad, going without coffee makes me physically ill, while going without Brian would just make me feel bored. And I’d rather be bored than be heaving into the toilet with a migraine. 

I guess I could wean myself from my coffee addiction, and it is an addiction. I don’t think it’s necessarily cool to be addicted to coffee. But so far it has not impeded my ability to function in society or go about my daily activities. And I don’t have to rob a convenience store in order to buy my drug. Although I would, if it came right down to it.


I recently got this Bodum. 

Yes. It is gold. I had originally just gone in to get a replacement carafe, but.... it's gold.... and shiny. And Good God What Was I Supposed to DO? JUST WALK AWAY? 


No.

I think there are three kinds of ways one can consume coffee. One can have a coffee; one can go for a coffee; one can take coffee.

Having a coffee is something you do at 6 am when you have to get ready to face the working day. You have a coffee in a meeting. You have a coffee while you walk on your way to the office or while driving your kid to hockey practice. Having a coffee is utilitarian: get this into my bloodstream asap so I do not scream at anyone. Communication is optional, and is usually carried on in grunts and gesturing.

Venues: Car, board room, kitchen, Tim Horton’s.

Getty

brewed-coffee.com

Going for coffee is something you do with Sarah or Ryan. You go to a place and you sit and you have a coffee that probably costs more than it should, but it doesn’t matter, because you are really also renting a chair in the cafe/restaurant as well, so it’s part of the deal. You go for a coffee when you will be visiting with your friend and talking about issues such as their fabulous recent weight loss, your unfabulous recent weight gain, celebrities, your out of control spending habits, Pinterest, their child’s antics, your husbands’ antics, how much you hate your dogs at the moment, food, fake nails, what the hell is it with Megan, and future craft night get togethers. Going for a coffee can involve lattes, with or without “art”. Muffins, scones, biscotti and chocolates are de rigour. 

I love muffins so much

Venues: Starbuck’s (and the like), fancier espresso joints a la Bulldog, Darkhorse, Jet Fuel.

Darkhorse

Bulldog Cafe

Taking coffee is a much more refined affair. You can still take coffee with a friend, but that friend had better have cleaned up a bit. You too, Elpoo. 

ala-parisinne.com

You take a coffee at a fancy hotel, or salon of some sort. You should probably wear a hat if you’re a lady, and a tie if you are a gentleman. 

Cafe Einstein, Berlin

Demel Cafe, Vienna

Hotel Sacher, Vienna

Sacher Torte, originated from Hotel Sacher in Vienna

Vienna coffee house

Austria, France and Eastern Europe are the best places to take coffee, although you could probably do well in Italy, although Italians more laid back elegance. Taking coffee requires a certain element of uptight elegance.

Savoy, Milan

Gran Caffe Quadri, Venice

Topics of conversation include hiring home decorators, general politics (nothing to weighty); acquaintances who are having sex affairs; hair dressers; your upcoming holiday in Italy (unless for some reason you are already in Italy and you will talk about your upcoming holiday in “America”);

 Coffee. Cream. Sugar cubes. And pastries. 

There are no lattes. No foamy designs. No muffins.

Coffee shops in The Netherlands do not count. Sorry Marcel.

There is no hierarchy of coffee. Certain times call for specific manners of consumption of God’s Bean. And sometimes, you’re just desperate, so you’ll go to Tim Horton’s. 

However you enjoy your coffee, I hope you do so in good company, as I am fortunate enough to do on many occasions. Go ahead. Have the muffin.