vegan recipes -

by Maids

Perfect Pattypans

Hey ESers, did you miss me? I missed you! I’m afraid I’ve been gallivanting about for about a month and I have severely neglected ES in the meantime (and cooking in general). I’ve been back for a week, and I must admit that my brain is a bit rusty and my cooking thus far has been less than inspired. Does that ever happen to you all after a long time away from your kitchen?

I mean I was missing my kitchen the entire time I was gone, but my cooking muses seem to have expired during my brief journey, leaving me with only enough energy to cook a few stir-fries and throw together some salads. Ugh…. Cookers’ block.

However, lucky readers, before I left for travels, I was struck by no such affliction. In fact, just before I left I hosted a dinner party for which I pulled out all the stops. With my favorite summer ingredient at the ready I made my most delicious and complex pattypan dish yet: Chickpea and Pesto Stuffed Pattypans:

Cupcake Rampage: Gluten-Free Chocolate Mint Cupcakes

_{a. k. a. Bunraku cupcakes. Get it? Of course you do.}

I know several people who have the bad luck to suffer from celiac disease, a disorder of the autoimmune system that manifests itself as varying degrees of wheat intolerance. The impact of this affliction is that they can’t enjoy a lot of the foods that some of us might take for granted; breads, beer, cupcakes, etc.

Vegans and celiacs are like kindred spirits in this sense; we take forever to shop because we inspect every ingredient list in the grocery store aisles, we don’t make any friends at restaurants when we viciously interrogate hapless servers, and we both suffer when we screw up, albeit in different ways. For most vegans, the lifestyle is a conscious choice; celiacs don’t really have a say in the way their bodies behave.

Baking gluten-free isn’t as difficult as it’s been made out to be, although it does require a few extra ingredients and involves an additional step or two. Most gluten-free recipes will call for the use of two or three different kinds of gluten-free flours. The reason for this is that while wheat flour is, for the most part, bland and flat; flours made from other grains and seeds each have their own distinctive flavors and textures that can easily overwhelm and throw off the final result. A good example is corn flour, which has a very identifiable taste and works great for corn muffins or tortillas, but not so much if you’re trying to utilize other flavors, like chocolate.

Recipe after the jump.