Pumpkin Pie with Candied Cranberries and Vegan MoFo 2011 kick-start

It is that time of year again........Vegan MoFo (Vegan Month of Food) time, which mans that I will try my best and blog about vegan food (and drinks) everyday during the month of October. A lot of exciting things have happened since Vegan MoFo 2010. I have been cooking up a storm, experiencing with new ingredients and recipes, I have been veganizing more Czech recipes and learning about foods from other countries as well. I found out that my local pizzeria (Mellow Mushroom) offers tasty pizza with vegan cheese so I ditched the boring cheeese-less tomato sauce and veggie pizza from Papa John's. I found a lot of new amazing vegan friends on Twitter and via various vegan blogs. I have been attending a monthly vegan event "Atlanta Vegan Drinks" that my friend Brett started several months ago. And recently I started volunteering at a local vegan/vegetarian restaurant. What have you been up to since vegan MoFo 2010? Are you participating this year? I am looking forward to be reading all my favorite blogs and finding some new blogs.

If you decide to follow my blog for the next month, you can look forward to many vegan food reviews, cookbook review, veganized Czech recipes and many of my new original recipes, including Autumn Apple Crumble and Swamp Gumbo, and maybe an interview or two with my vegan friends.

Let's kick-start the Vegan MoFo 2011 with a perfect autumn Pumpkin Pie! This is the best recipe for a vegan pumpkin pie that I found so far and the taste will fool even your omni grandma :-) I topped my pumpkin pie with candied cranberries that I made according to the this recipe from Vegetarian Times Magazine. The candied cranberries recipe is time and labor consuming-they want you to prick each fresh cranberry several times with a needle and it is 2 cups of cranberries........ The first time I made this, I used a toothpick and religiously prickled each cranberry several times until I was growing spiderwebs on my legs from standing in the kitchen so long. I felt so silly doing this and the results were almost the same as when I did not prick the cranberries. Next time I just skipped the pricking step and my candied cranberries turned out just fine. The candied cranberries make an excellent topping for this pumpkin pie, but you can use warm cranberry jam or non-dairy topping (or both).

Tofu Pumpkin Pie
(Recipe from Robin @ VegWeb)

1 (16-ounce) can pureed pumpkin
3/4 cup sugar or sucanat or 1/2 cup maple syrup
1 (10- to 12-ounce) package silken soft tofu (don't use the low fat version)
2 to 3 tablespoons cornstarch (to firm up the pie filling)
1 teaspoon ground allspice (optional)
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg (optional)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1 (9-inch) unbaked vegan pie shell


1. Preheat oven to 425 F.
2. Blend the pumpkin and sugar. Thoroughly mix in tofu, cornstarch, and spices (allspice, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, salt, and cloves).
3. Pour mixture into pie shell and bake for 15 minutes.
4. Lower heat to 350 F and bake for another 60 minutes. Chill and serve.

Makes: 8 servings, Preparation time: about 1 hour + chilling time, Cooking time: 1 hour 15 minutes