Vegan Month of Food 2016 - Day 9 "Icelandic Christmas Cake!" VEGANIZED!

As I was driving home tonight from checking on, and feeding, the small group of ferals I help look after (only 3 of the 6 tonight, so worried...) I flipped through the satellite stations and somehow landed on a channel that was playing space music, or at least what I call space music. Synthesizers, no vocals, just endless flowing sound. As I continued to drive, I glanced upwards towards the sky noticing it was perfectly clear; full of stars.  I  turned onto my street, and eased into a pullover area, flicking off the headlights. It was so dark. With the space music still going, I opened the windows, got out of the car and looked at the sky. In the brush I heard some rustling, likely a Key deer or two... those that so many of us are working so hard to save. All this was balm for the soul and I wished everyone who matters to me could do the same.

Today, we're tasked with bringing you something from a cuisine or region we've never done before, or rarely do.

Iceland. Home of the midnight sun, Northern Lights, and adorable puffins. This was not my original plan for today's post, but when life hands me lemons, I make cake.

Since my video from Ethos got eaten by the internet demons (explained in the video below), I had to give this some mindful, but quick thought. I've been preoccupied with Iceland for quite a few years. I follow a couple of Icelandic pages on social media, and am ridiculous when it comes to staring at photos and movies of the Northern Lights. I've never seen them, but sure hope to. I want to visit Iceland, stay in an ice cave, forage for vegan food, see puffins in real life, be in a place where McDonald's is (supposedly) banned (can that be TRUE?!!!) and experience a day with practically no darkness. I know I'm all about beaches and palm trees, but Iceland gets a free pass from me, there's just something about it that calls. We've had a few guests from Iceland visit us here through the years as well. Such lovely people. So, with this, I've chosen the cuisine of Iceland to represent today. I learned that pretty much everything in Iceland is not vegan (there's air, there's water....) There's tons of lamb, fish, potatoes (with lamb, and fish), and so forth. But, if I had more time, I could veganize almost any recipe I looked at today. I chose Vinaterta, which is a traditional Icelandic Christmas cake. Actually, it's a shortbread torte layered with prune jam. Prunes do not live in my house, so I used cranberries and dates. Other than the prunes, I had every ingredient on hand for this, and who cares about prunes when ya got dates & cranberries. Even better, for the rebels out there who don't care about tradition, I have visions of chocolate ganache dancing between layers.... but that's just crazy talk, no?

It's been hard to put a post together today, not to mention a video, but I did. If you would like to try this recipe, scroll past the video and you'll see the link. I forgot to mention, I used vegan margarine for the butter, the other vegan substitutions are spoken of in the video.

Let's watch:

Here's the link to the recipe:

http://www.saveur.com/article/recipes/shortbread-and-prune-jam-layer-cake

I don't know how to say "good night" in Icelandic, so I'll say it in English... good night. May tomorrow bring us just that much closer to a vegan world.

xo