gingerbread

2 1/2 cups sugar
1 1/4 cup oil
1 1/4 cup molasses
5 eggs or 5 eggs-worth of egg replacer
5 cups flour
5 teaspoons baking soda
2 1/2 teaspoons salt
5 teaspoons ginger
1 1/4 teaspoons cinnamon
2 1/2 cups boiling water
grated fresh ginger root or chopped crystallized ginger, if you have it

Mix everything except the boiling water together in a bowl. Add the boiling water last, and pour the batter in to a large baking dish. Bake at 350 F until a knife comes out clean. Serve with whipped cream or a citrus sauce.

Recipe from Cygnet's grandmother.

caribbean beans

1 large ginger root
10-15 cloves garlic
5 onions
12-15 cans black beans
3 peppers of any kind
4 tablespoons orange juice concentrate
few tablespoons brown sugar
few teaspoons nutmeg
cayenne pepper to taste
olive oil
salt

Chop the garlic and ginger finely. Chop the onions in to small pieces. Chop the peppers in to small pieces. Heat some oil in a large pot. Put in the garlic and ginger first. Sautee until the garlic has just started to brown (it should smell very good at that point). DON'T let the garlic burn - it cooks within a minute. Add in the onions. Cook the ginger, garlic and onions until the onions are nice and soft. Then add the chopped peppers. Once the peppers are soft, add the beans, orange juice concentrate, brown sugar, and nutmeg. Taste it, then add as much salt as you like. Once the salt is added, add cayenne pepper to taste. Keep cooking for as long as you can to let the flavors blend.

You can serve this dish over rice (especially rice that has been cooked with a few Rapunzel vegan bullion cubes and a little oil) and/or with salsa. A nice salsa that goes well with this dish is made with: chopped mango, chopped tomato, chopped cucumber, lime juice, Tabasco sauce, salt, and, optionally, very very finely chopped onions.

Inspiration came from a Moosewood recipe.

garlic ginger kale

~10 cloves of garlic
1 medium ginger root
8 bunches of kale
olive oil

Chop the garlic and ginger in to very small pieces. Heat some olive oil in a large wok. (You need enough oil so the kale never sticks to the wok, but not so much that the kale tastes oily at all.) When the oil is hot, add the garlic and ginger, and stir fry them for a very short time, until the garlic starts to brown. Add in the kale. It will be unwieldy at first, but it'll shrink in volume quite fast. Cook until the kale is wilted, but don't cook it so long that the kale turns very dark green and loses all its "spring".