Most of my cooking starts with a single ingredient. I see something unusual or new, buy it, and then find a way to learn a new recipe.

Although I have been stockpiling ingredients (masa harina, corn husks, dried peppers) from trips to the U.S. to make tamales for some time, it was actually the purchase of pasilla peppers from Sobeys Urban Fresh that prompted the tamales finally get made. I’ll admit it, I was intimidated. I have learned how to roll cabbage rolls and make perogies from my Gran before she died, but she’s Ukranian, not Mexican. So I did not know how to roll tamales, and it seemed complicated.

Oh, I had books. Rick Bayless has a multi-page section dedicated to the filling and making of tamales. There are diagrams, tips and descriptive paragraphs, but it just wasn’t the same. Luckily, Youtube came to the rescue with a visual guide on what to do.

Zarela runs a restaurant, and has a series of videos up on Youtube on Mexican cooking. She also had an easy going attitude, and was knowledgeable. In four minutes with her help, I was rolling tamales.

I made the masa dough for a filling and stuffed the tamales full of roasted pasilla peppers, adobe tomato salsa and Monterey Jack cheese. I made a few vegan tamales by making the masa dough with vegetable shortening instead of pork and omitting the cheese.

And you know what? Just like perogies and cabbage rolls, tamales aren’t that hard to do.

First you must acquire corn husks, and soak them so they are pliable. I used the hole filled ones to tear into strips to tie the tamales with. This isn’t a necessary step, but it’s a pretty one.

Bob’s Red Mill masa harina from a Whole Foods in Minneapolis. I would have bought a bigger package, but my luggage was already grossly obese.

I cannot find masa harina in Edmonton. I’m hoping the latin markets will have it, I just haven’t had time to look yet. It’s easier to do my grocery shopping while on holiday, apparently. Safeway, Save-On and Planet Organic all carry a wide assortment of Bob’s Red Mill products, just not this.

What gives?

Masa harina is a corn flour, mixed with lime. It’s used to make a variety of things, including tamales and tortillas.

The masa dough being stirred. You need strong arms and a wooden spoon if you don’t have a mixer. Luckily I’ve been making cookie dough for years, so I can handle my spoons.

Peeling the roasted pasilla peppers. I broiled them in the oven on all four sides, tossed them in a bag for a bit and then peeled, cored and seeded them.

After making an adobo tomato salsa, and cubing the cheese, I rolled. It’s really easy.

Tied with strips of corn husk. Not as easy. I had to redo a few, and some popped on me.

The tamales were steamed for about an hour. The dough gets fluffy, and the smell of corn is wonderful.

A bit moist, still, but I think I had a good dough to filling ratio.

If it seems like I’m proud, it is because I am. The key thing is to have the ingredients. The rest is easy.

Vegan Masa filling for tamales

• 1/2 cup of vegetable shortening
• 2 cups masa harina
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 cup vegetable stock, plus 1/4 cup of water
• 1 teaspoon baking powder

Beat the shortening in a bowl with a whisk until fluffy. In another bowl, mix the masa harina and salt. Combine stock and water. Mix the masa and liquid into the shortening, alternating, until the dough stiffens. Mix in the baking powder. This makes enough for about 15 mid sized tamales.

I made mine sort of chile rellenos tamales, with peppers and cheese. You can use any variety of ingredients however, and make them any size.

While my parents have considerably trimmed back their raspberries bushes and apple trees and we do not have as much to pick, I know not everyone is in the same boat. With no time or simply too much fruit to get to, some home owners have buckets of fruit left to waste on their plants, once the animals have had their fill.

However, a new group of people in Edmonton have gathered to rescue your fruit: Operation Fruit Rescue! The team of volunteers representing OFRE comes to pick your fruit, and the bounty is divided into thirds. 1/3 to the pickers, 1/3 to the home owner and 1/3 to the Food Bank or other food centre. How great is that?

note: this originally appeared on my personal blog on may 10 2009.

Mike’s sister Kim has been away for nearly a year, WWOOFing (Willing Workers on Organic Farms; you work on a farm, in return for room and board) in Hawaii, New Zealand and Australia. Shortly before she left, she made the plunge and took on the vegan lifestyle. To welcome her home, Mike made a huge vegan spread, and I made a vegan cake.

Predictably, there were a lot of lentils. Lots. The dishes were mostly Indian, except for two lentil dishes which were Ethiopian. Dishes included brown mustard seed cauliflower, okra curry, kik alicha and a variation on misir wot. To accompany, fresh roti.

Okra is SO delicious! We used fresh, but if you find it hard to get, frozen is okay.

Mmmm, fresh roti.

I bought some rhubarb stalks last week, maybe thinking I would make rhubarb strawberry muffins. Instead, I used the stalks in a vegan rhubarb coffee cake. It was my first time baking anything vegan, and I can say a few things put me off, as they weren’t my normal mode of baking. Vegan baking obviously doesn’t allow use of animal fats, so butter, milk and eggs are out. Instead, recipes tend to use things like applesauce and oil in place of animal fats. Pouring a whole cup of oil into the cake batter kind of turned my stomach, even though it’s really no different than butter.

The cake took a LONG time to bake. The recipe said an hour, but I think my choice of pan made leaving the cake in for nearly two hours necessary. When I popped it out of the pan, it looked…gelatinous and underdone. The middle started to collapse (again, possibly from pan choice or from all my cake testing during the baking) and it turned out to be more of a rhubarb crumble instead of cake.

I used safflower oil, so the oil choice was a bit healthier than a regular canola oil. The addition of flax seeds helped add texture and nutrition. The cake was pretty delicious, and far exceeded my expectations.

Very rhubarb-y filling!

Upside down view shows kind of a weird bottom, which was very moist and almost gelatinous. Baking it in a different pan would have helped avoid that, I think.

Vegan Rhubarb Crumble / Coffeecake

Adapted from KimmyKokonut.

Crumb topping

• 1/4 cup flour
• 3 tablespoons brown sugar
• 1/4 tsp cardamom
• 1/4 tsp cinnamon
• 1 tablespoon safflower (or canola) oil

Cake ingredients

• 1 tablespoon flax seeds, ground
• 3 tablespoon water

• 3 tablespoons applesauce (I bought a jar of organic baby food applesauce since I needed so little)
• 2 cups granulated sugar
• 2 tablespoons molasses
• 1 cup safflower (or canola) oil
• 4 cups rhubarb stems, medium dice
• 2 1/2 cups flour
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp cardamom

Method

1. Preheat oven to 300 degrees F and get out your 9×13″ pan or 2 loaf pans.
2. Grind flax seeds, and whisk with water and set aside.
3. Make crumb topping: Mix flour, sugar and spices in a small bowl and mix together (whisk, fork, fingers) while drizzling oil in. Once it becomes crumb-y, set it aside. You may need to add more/less oil.
4. In a medium bowl, mix together applesauce, sugar, molasses, oil and flax & water mix.
5. In a separate, larger, bowl, mix together flour, salt, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon and cardamom.
6. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ones and mix until JUST combined.
7. Fold in rhubarb and pour into pan(s). Top with crumbs.
8. Bake for one hour or until a knife inserted comes out clean. (I had to bake mine for nearly 2 hours)
9. Cool on a wire rack. This would be great with soy ice cream.