Vegan carrot cake.

Because I had a few carrots left in my fridge and because I am leaving in less than a week for a two months vacation in France, I decided to give another try to a vegan cake with flax seeds. Unlike the other time though, this recipe didn't call for "flax egg" but simply for ground flax seeds.

I love a good carrot cake. I am actually obsessed with carrot cake. It satisfies my sweet tooth but looks healthy enough not to make me feel guilty. Same goes for zucchini cake. And I sometimes cook a zucchini-carrot cake, because why not. My previous experience with flax seeds in my zucchini cake was such a disaster I didn't think I would be able to bake vegan cakes ever. But this new experience was a success. I am glad to say I have found a vegan recipe to fulfill my desires. Big up !

Vegan carrot cake.
Adapted from Oh She Glows.

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups finely grated carrot
1 tbsp ground flax seed
1/2 cup organic honey
3/4 cup almond milk
1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil
1 1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract
1/2 tsp apple cider vinegar
2 tsp freshly grated lemon zest
1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground ginger
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp kosher salt

Preparation:
1. Preheat oven to 350F.
2. In a medium bowl, mix together the grated carrot, ground flax, honey, almond milk, oil, vanilla, vinegar, and lemon zest. Set aside for at least two minutes while you gather the dry ingredients.
3. In another bowl, whisk together the flour, cinnamon, ginger, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Pour the dry ingredients over the wet ingredients and stir until just combined.
4. Pour into prepared pan and bake for 40 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool for 10 minutes in the pan, and then transfer the loaf to a wire rack to cool completely.

The texture was perfect and I didn't have to fight in order to bake it all the way. Cooking it for 40 minutes was plenty enough to keep a good consistency without overcook it. Plus the cake does not taste too sweet, which is everything you want in a carrot cake -at least it is what I am looking for when I bake treats with vegetables.

I simply loved it.

Next time, I will try to make it with zucchini and see if it is also a success. If so, I just found my new recipe for a vegan breakfast treat !!!

Asparagus soup.

Some vegetables I have a hard time to cook with diversity. Asparagus is one of them. I usually boil or roast them as a side dish or in a salad. But I also get easily bored of eating the same ingredient the same way all the time. I'm totally for diversity !

Asparagus remind me -and always will- of Christmas at my grandma's. She would cook a bouillon d'asperges as a starter. I used not to like it, because I used not to like asparagus. She always used to scoop out the asparagus to only serve me the broth. That I could deal with. Later, I would eat the whole thing and ask for more.

I was then on search for a comforting bouillon d'asperges online and came upon an asparagus soup instead. It looked so delicious I decided to give it a try.

Asparagus soup. Adapted from Ricardo Cuisine.

Ingredients:
1 onion, chopped
2 tbsp of Earth Balance
4 cups of asparagus, cut into 1 po pieces (keep a few uncut)
5 cups of vegetable broth
1 cup of rice (I used a mixture of wild and regular rice)
Salt and ground pepper to taste

Preparation:
1. Add Earth Balance over low-medium heat. Color the onion and add the asparagus -I threw in the ends first and then the tips of the asparagus. Cook for about a minute.
2. Add the vegetable broth and 3 tbsp of rice. Cover and cook until the asparagus are tender, for about 15 minutes. Meanwhile, cook the rest of the rice in a pot.
3. In a blender, blend the soup. Depending on your blender, sieve the soup to make sure you don't have any filamentous part of the asparagus.
4. In a bowl, serve one or two spoons of rice, cover with the soup and top with a couple of whole asparagus, salt and freshly ground pepper. Enjoy !

I simply loved it. It was tasty, sufficiently copious, and beautiful. I added the rice because I don't have a good blender -I use a Magic Bullet- and it didn't blend the rice so it was left in the sieve in the end. I was also worried it would not be plentiful enough. With the rice added, it was just perfect ! Completely different from my grandma's bouillon d'asperges but still a pleasure for my palate. I will definitely do that recipe again and again... and maybe cook it for my grandma !

Butternut squash spaghetti sauce.

If I tell you I found the perfect Mac 'n cheese sauce and it's totally vegan, would you believe me ? I know, I know, I had a hard time myself. How could the words vegan and cheese be associated ? Like, seriously. And yet...

As usual, I was searching my favorite vegan blog -Oh She Glows- to find a recipe with butternut squash. I felt a bit tired of simply roasting it or blending it as a soup. I was in search of something new, something delicious, something comforting, and something that would make me forget about the rain. I was also craving pasta for some odd reason. And here it was once more, the perfect recipe.

Butternut squash spaghetti sauce.
Adapted from Butternut Squash Mac 'n cheeze by Oh She Glows.

Ingredients:
1 fresh butternut squash, peeled and chopped
Extra virgin olive oil
1 tbsp Earth Balance
3/4 cup unsweetened & original almond milk
1 tbsp corn flour
2 tsp Dijon mustard
3/4 tsp garlic powder
1/2-1 tbsp fresh lemon juice
1/4 cup onion, chopped
4 serving of spaghetti
1 cup peas

Preparation:
1. Preheat oven to 425F. Mix chopped squash with olive oil, salt and pepper to taste. Roast for about 40 minutes, uncovered, or until tender.
2. Meanwhile, prepare the cheese sauce. Add Earth balance over low-medium heat. In a bowl, whisk together milk and corn flour. Add into pot and whisk. Stir in remaining ingredients (Dijon, garlic, lemon, salt and pepper to taste) and whisk over low heat until thickened (it took about 5 minutes or so).
3. Cook your pasta according to package directions.
4. While your pasta are cooking, brown the onion over low heat in a big pot.
5. In a blender, blend the sauce with 1 cup of roasted squash. Reserve remaining roasted squash for later.
6. Add cooked, drained, and rinsed spaghetti into pot, along with cheese sauce, peas and remaining roasted squash.

It was absolutely delicious and it did taste like Mac 'n cheese sauce. The original recipe called for nutritional yeast, which is supposed to give a cheesy taste to your dish. But I didn't have any at hands so I skipped that ingredient, thinking I will never get the cheesy taste I was looking for. Wrong. Even without nutritional yeast, the sauce had the flavor, the consistency and the color of real Mac 'n cheese sauce. I am continually amazed by what you can do with healthy ingredients. Really, everything I used in this recipe is pretty much natural ! This dish has the taste of junk food, but the quality of healthy food. Does it get better than this ? I doubt it.

Try it out and let me know what you think !