The Vegan Experiment Day 7 - the big withdrawal

At day 7 of my vegan experiment the big withdrawal hit me. Nothing could really satisfy me that day.

I wasn't craving meat, but something rich, creamy and fatty, that is not oil, but butter, cream and cheese. Or simply REAL milk.

I still had one bag of "vegan chicken nuggets" with sesame oil and was kind of suspicious on whether those will be any good. Especially after my vegan convenience food shock of day one...

But to my surprise they tasted pretty good. The consistency was kind of rubbery but I didn't mind that too much. It didn't taste like chicken at all. Rather like some sort of savory dough? I sprinkled some sweet soy sauce over the nuggets which added a nice flavor to it. 

 

 Maybe it's just because I'm getting used to the whole non meaty stuff and don't taste the soy anymore.

But later that day I pretty much inhaled the rest of the vegan cookie dough ice cream, searching for satisfaction, and, as mentioned, that didn't work...

Earlier that day I had a vegetarian/vegan wantan soup at the one Asian place my colleagues always go to at lunch break.  There is a lot of Asian dishes that are vegan or at least vegetarian. So, if you decide to become a vegan you will always find something to eat there. Careful wth Indian food, though. They often add cream and gee (clarified butter) to their dishes.

 There is only one more day of my experiment left and, since it is fall here, 

it will be all about pumpkins!

The Vegan Experiment Day 6 - The best chocolate-cherry muffins ever! And they happen to be vegan...

Having had pretty mediocre and bad vegan cakes, muffins, ice cream and chocolates in the past days I decided to take on the challenge and make sweet baked goods that actually taste yummy and not like "the vegan version of...". Therefore I searched the internet for cakes that happen to be vegan, but were not necessarily intended to be vegan (you understand what I mean?). 

Again Epicurious.com was the website were I was lucky to find this fantastic recipe! 

They are so dark, it's even hard to photograph them!

I modified it a bit and made probably the best chocolate-cherry muffins in the whole wide world! Seriously! I will definitely make them again. So, so good!

They are so easy and quick to prepare, and you probably have (almost) all the ingredients at home already. The dough is incredibly moist and almost creamy. 

It's rich. It's dark. It's how a good chocolate cake has to be like.

What is interesting is that, except for maybe eggs, a lot of cakes don't even need animal products like milk or butter. Don't get me wrong, I love butter. But butter  burns quicker and makes cookies, cakes & co turn out crispier. I learned that in order to get a moist and soft cake, you're better to use margarine. The best results I had so far were with oil, though.

Eggs are responsible for the density in a cake. They add flavour and color and are part of the maillard-reaction, as well. But it won't make the dough rise or anything. That's what you use the baking soda,  baking powder or yeast for. 

There can be dough without eggs.

And here is the proof!

...and they were so soft that it was tricky to remove them from the pan without having them fall apart.

All you need for the basic recipe is:

• 2 1/4 cups (270g) organic all-purpose flour
• 2 cups (450g) organic cane sugar
• 1 cup (120) organic unsweetened cocoa powder
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 tablespoon organic vanilla extract
• 2/3 cup (160ml) organic canola oil
• 2 teaspoons organic white vinegar
• 2 cups (480ml) cold water - I  the juice of canned morello cherries instead and added the cherries to the dough, as well.

Preparation

Preheat the oven to 350°F/180°C. Grease two 8- or 9-inch round cake pans, or place liners in 2 muffin pans for 24 cupcakes. Set aside.

In a large bowl, sift the dry ingredients together. Set aside.

In a medium bowl, mix the vanilla extract, oil, vinegar, and cold water.

Slowly whisk the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients, being careful not to overmix. 

The mixture will be quite wet, but this is okay.

Pour the batter into the prepared pans and bake until a tester inserted in the center comes out clean, about 30 minutes. 

For cupcakes, the baking time is 24 to 26 minutes.

Cool in the pans for 10 minutes, then invert onto a wire rack to cool. 

The ones on the top are the coffee muffins, the ones on the bottom are with cherries.

 

PS: 

Instead of the two cups/480ml of water, you can use whatever liquid you want. This time I used cherry juice. But I also tried it with strong coffee, which turned out really good, as well.

Or how about orange, cranberry or banana juice? Or even red wine? Yum.

The Vegan Experiment - Day 2

Day two of my vegan experiment is over. I feel pretty good, so far. Still no withdrawal symptoms.
I cannot say that I feel like re-born or something. But things are normal.

I started the day with a vanilla soy milk breakfast. Yeah, that's correct. Since I have it at home, I had to give it another try. I actually like vanilla soy milk. Just not in drip-coffee...

I made a shake that I have made before and which already is almost vegan.
You mix a banana with 200-250g of yoghurt and vanilla soy milk (200-300ml). It tastes delicious! Of course, this time I used soy yoghurt. The result was not as good as with normal yoghurt. But still good. Also, I don't know if I'm being too harsh about this. I wonder if I would taste a difference with this drink at all if I didn't know it was with soy yoghurt instead of with the nomral one. A good side-effect was, that after drinking the shake, I didn't taste the soymilk in my coffee anymore.

Improvement, wohoo!





For lunch I had pretty much the same as the day before. Avocado-tomato bagel with roasted pine nuts.
Only that I added some vegan cheddar cheese to it. The cheese itself isn't that impressive. In combination with other things, for example on a sandwich, it's fine and adds a tiny little bit of sort-of cheese flavor and texture to it. Even though it's much more crumbly than normal cheddar.








I went for this oatmeal-chocolate-energy bar
as dessert, which wasn't that bad either.
At least it tasted like what it was -
oatmeal with a hint of dairy-free chocolate.
And it totally satisfied my needs and got rid
of the sugar craving!













 After work I bought a bunch of vegetables, potatoes, sweet potato, leek, purple carrots, turnip, red peppers, red onion, pumpkin and garlic. I chopped everything up into bite-szed pieces, added a pieces of apple, rosemary, cinnamon and nutmeg and seasoned it with salt, pepper, sugar and balsamico.
I threw everything into a greased (olive oil) baking pan and cooked it in the oven for about 30-35 minutes at 180°C. I sprinkled some of the vegan cheese over one part of the vegetable mix.
Unfortunately the cheese didn't melt.

Everything still tasted pretty good.
Probably because I cooked instead
of eating another one of these shitty
ready-made vegan meat substitutes.