Baking

  I used to really enjoy deep fried and greasy meals like Fish N Chips, and crab cakes with remoulade or tartar sauce. I don't eat fish anymore, but as a vegan I wanted to create something comparable to crab cakes to enjoy. I have seen many recipes for vegan crab cakes using hearts of palm but I had another idea -- artichokes and chickpeas... The inspiration for these comes from the classic vegan fake tuna salad recipe -- smashed chickpeas. I love the tuna-like flavour and texture of smashed chickpea salad and I thought it would work really nicely in this recipe. What I didn't want was for these cakes to be too dry or too firm, which can happen with chickpeas. Crab cakes have a lovely soft interior and crunchy exterior...So do my little vegan cakes.   Despite their crispy crunchy and golden exterior these vegan crab cakes are neither breaded nor fried. This is just the end result of baking my "crab" patties. Its almost magic...I created this texture by combining gr...

Spring. Living in Canada, you come to truly adore the changing of the seasons. Its f#$%in cold for a big chunk of the year so when grass peeks its way out from under the snow, people break out their flip flops. I wish I was joking. Generally with the first signs of Spring (a few days above zero, a day above 10 degrees (!), sunshine) people dress as if Spring is in full swing. It can be a little ridiculous, but also encouraging in a weird way. Think t-shirts in 5 degree weather...Me, I bake. Today was a beautiful day, Saturday, and I spent it working from home -- a familiar story these days. By "working" I mean working for my clients and working on this blog. I have to be honest, I have been slacking a little with Baking Backwards. I take food photos weekly for one of my clients now for their social accounts and by the time I take a moment to shoot my own creations I'm tapped out of inspiration and my photos start to look just "ok" -- not great to me. When I wok...

Growing up I ate a lot of mac and cheese. I mean A LOT. It was possibly my favourite meal ever. I am well aware that mac and cheese can mean many different things to different people -- from a neon orange creation out of a box to a truffle laced creamy taste sensation at a fancy restaurant -- and everything in between, I'm sure. Today's recipe is a veganized version of my favourite mac and cheese interpretation -- my mom's baked mac and cheese.  My mom does not cook often. She doesn't really enjoy it. My dad loves to cook so he made most of my meals as a kid. My mom made a lot of sandwiches, delicious holiday meals and a few key dinners like old school mac and cheese. The kind that's crispy on top, uses big noodles (fussilli or penne with no macaroni in sight), real cheese, milk...the works. Though my mom rarely cooked dinner, it was meals like her mac and cheese that I associate with my childhood. Definitely my favourite meal as a kid.  As a grown up, I no longer c...

Crunchy, spicy and creamy savoury wraps. So delicious and the perfect healthy meal or snack when you have some time in the kitchen and you aren't wearing white...more on that in a bit though. This recipe is one to remember -- easy to make and a little exotic.  It all begins with cauliflower, roasted to crisp perfection in a hot oven. It then takes a bath in a vibrant orange coloured,sweet, sour, fiery and creamy coconut-yogurt sauce that's brimming with exotic Indian spices like cumin, coriander, garlic, cardamom, chili, cinnamon, turmeric and paprika . Another trip to the oven with the broil setting makes the bites sticky, sweet and smoky. Irresistible. The awesome cauliflower bites are then loaded into cabbage cups along with a hot and tangy avocado mash, more vegan yogurt, and some red hot for extra kick.  WARNING: Wear a bib and have some napkins on hand -- this s#$& gets messy as f#$%. Who doesn't love a hot mess though?   These wraps are full of healthy vegetab...

I was recently sent a box full of gluten free surprises by the nice folks at Taste Guru . For those of you who aren't familiar with them, they are a cool American company that sells monthly boxes of gluten free products through a subscription service. Food lovers subscribe for a box of  new products to try each month, all totally gluten free. When they contacted me to do a review and giveaway I was happy to take this cool service for a spin. I received my box within two weeks of registering for the service. It was a reasonable sized haul (for something being mailed from another country!), shoebox size, and packed with products, 99% of which I'd never tried or even encountered in Canada. I should note, a few of the products I was sent were not vegan so I didn't try everything myself and my husband had a few in my stead.  Rather than tell you the details of what I got exactly (it changes monthly), head over to their site to view a sample box . Everything was pretty f...

I love cake. If you read this blog you probably already know that about me.  I have a lot of cake memories too. Take for example, the double chocolate fudge and Smarties cake my childhood best friend's mom made without fail for every birthday (and every family member). Or the banana chocolate chip cake my best friends and I went for religiously at 4am after dancing in our early 20s. These days I try to make sure the cakes I consume are delicious but also moderately healthy, vegan and gluten-free. Sometimes this seems like an impossibility. If you feel like this too, you're in luck. Today's recipe ticks all the right boxes and tastes awesome. Just ask my husband who ate 3/4 of this cake in an hour... I do not always eat vegan, though I try to 99% of the time. But when it comes to the desserts I make I do my best to make them vegan every time. Why? Because the only ingredients that hold the majority of  desserts back from being vegan are eggs, milk and gelatin -- and there ...

What do you mean you don't eat bread? Sound familiar? I have more or less abandoned bread. The less being that I occasionally make myself some healthy gluten-free bread, but most of the time I just can't be bothered. Why? Well, most gluten free bread on the market...sucks. Sucks a lot. Like wow. I am and have always been a bread lover. I used to save my money for artisanal loaves from small bakeries wherever I was living (Toronto, Edinburgh, London...). I'd eat bread with almost every meal...every day. It was love. Until it wasn't. Bread and me have a twisted relationship now thanks to my gluten-intolerance. Once I realized I had to stop eating wheat I didn't know what to do about my bread obsession. I tried a few commercial gluten-free breads but they were dry, bland and as dense a brick. They were also full of what I consider questionable ingredients like gums, stabilizers and cornstarch or tapioca starch. These ingredients always upset my stomach so I generally s...