I wanted to make chocolate chocolate chunk macadamia cookies and could not for the life of me find a recipe for exactly that… apparently no one else thinks its a good idea?

I did, however, find chocolate chocolate chip cookies and that’s more or less the same thing.

I used a Trader Joe’s extra dark 70% cocao chocolate bar and just chopped it into 1/4 inch chunks, about a 1/2 cup worth. I then chopped up macadamia nuts (which are hell to find, by the way, and about $9 for the smallest jar ever!), and I also used about a 1/2 cup.

The dough turns out kind of crumbly, but then again, that could have just been me and my cookie issues.

Recipe from Post Punk Vegan Kitchen: www.theppk.com/2008/chewy-chocolate-chocolate-chip-cookies/

Easiest. Recipe. Ever.

Wanted to find a use for the ripe bananas I refuse to eat but feel terrible about throwing away. Found a couple of recipes online and made a few tweaks. So easy and soooo good.

I didn’t start this until 9pm so no natural light :(. Ah well, it happens.

Ingredients:

• 3 ripe bananas
• 1/4 cup oil
• 1 cup sugar (next time I might try to get away with 1/2C)
• 2 cups 100% whole wheat flour
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 cup chopped walnuts + more for sprinkling on top

Instructions:

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees. Place muffin liners in one muffin pan. 

Mash bananas with a fork in a large bowl. Add oil & sugar and cream together (I used a hand mixer for this part)

In another bowl, combine together the flour, salt, and baking soda. Combine with the banana mixture, stirring gently. When almost fully combined, gently fold in walnuts. 

Fill each muffin tin and top with remaining walnuts. Bake for about 25 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean. YUM.

I have been meaning to make this bread for a few weeks now but something always comes up! I was hoping to make it before Halloween but pumpkin bread is still ‘of the season’ all the way until Christmas in my opinion; maybe even until New Years!

Very simple recipe (it does call for a LOT of sugar though, 2 cups!). We were able to find organic pumpkin puree from Trader Joe’s, so that’s pretty awesome. Everytime I open a can of pumpkin puree I think of baby food strained carrots and it makes me feel a little ill, but I tasted it and it was pretty mellow; obviously nothing like carrots.  I was so tempted to use 100% whole wheat flour over the white A/P but I didn’t want to start changing things until I’ve successfully made the recipe at least once. That way, if it turns out crappy I know it was the alterations and not just a shotty recipe.

I didn’t have two loaf pans, so I made one batch regular and then mixed in a 1/2C of chopped walnuts in the remaining batter and baked that off once the other one was done. Aaand… I think I under-filled the first loaf but not by too much; it still looks like a loaf, just a little short.

Unfortunately, both breads came out a touch gummy and I probably could have left them in the oven a little longer. I think the batter was just a touch too wet with the addition of applesauce. There’s also some flavor that hits you too strongly; I’m thinking it’s either the ground cloves or the nutmeg. Either way something just isn’t melding correctly with the other flavors (IMO). After the bread is completely cool, though, it tastes better and the gumminess isn’t so bad.

For the photo: I sliced the bread on the thicker side and also a bit crooked so it isn’t as aesthetically pleasing as I might have liked but that was my fault. Jas still took a great photo.

Recipe from The Joy of Vegan Baking, page 65

About five years ago I made this recipe for a Halloween party at my work and the cookies were a huge hit. They weren’t vegan cookies back then, but altering the ingredients to make them vegan was fairly simple. They are basically simple almond sugar cookies with a gruesome twist; perfect for grossing out your friends. This recipe is all over the internet these days so I couldn’t tell you who originally created it, but whoever it is, is a genius!

The recipe came together pretty easily, though I did end up with my newest cookie issue - crumbly dough. The last time I had this problem I tried to just work with the crumbly dough. But because it was a pain in the neck, I figured if this dough was ruined, I might as well try experimenting with it! I added a splash of almond milk while mixing until it started to resemble actual cookie dough again and it seemed to be the ticket. It tasted just fine and baked beautifully.

Naturally, the photo didn’t cooperate as well; but our photos at night rarely do. We were going for a more intimate, candle-lit, spooky feel anyway and I think Jas was able to capture just that.

Anywho, if you have anyone coming over tomorrow you should whip up a quick batch of these. Very easy to make and definitely a great Halloween treat! (Don’t worry if you don’t have the red gel, or don’t want to use it; I think they still look great without it.)

Creepy Witches Fingers Cookies

Ingredients:

• 1C non-dairy butter, softened (I use Earth Balance)
• 1C powdered sugar, sifted
• 1 egg equivalent (Ener-G egg replacer)
• 1 tsp almond extract
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 2/3C all purpose flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp salt
• 3/4 whole almonds, blanched (though they look just as good with their skin on)
• 1 tube red cake decorating gel
• (If your dough is dry like mine was, add a splash of almond milk)

Instructions:

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees, line a pan with wax paper and lightly grease (or use silpat baking mat)
2. Mix sugar & wet ingredients together (butter, egg replacer, extracts)
3. Sift dry ingredients together (flour, baking powder, salt)
4. Slowly mix dry ingredients in with wet
5. Refrigerate dough for 20-30 minutes
6. Remove half of the dough (leave remaining in the refrigerator to chill) and work with one teaspoon at a time. Roll out into a thin finger-shape: pinch dough for the knuckles, slice little grooves at the knuckles to make wrinkles, and push one almond onto the tip for a fingernail. Make them on the thin side as they puff up a little while baking. (When I made these before I made ‘Fat Witches Fingers’ by accident!)
7. Place fingers about a 1/2 inch apart on prepared pan
8. After you have filled your pan, bake for 20-25 minutes until slightly golden. Remove almond, squeeze red gel in the “nail bed” and replace almond. The gel will ooze out from the “cuticles” slightly

**Another use for this yummy dough: Roll it out between two pieces of wax paper to about 1/4” thick. Use whatever cookie cutters you like and then bake the same as above. When baked & cooled, top with your favorite vegan icing (or decorate any way you like)

And just for fun, a family snapshot from a Halloween party we went to last weekend: 

We are not tofu lovers. In fact, before this sandwich the only tofu that has ever convinced me that tofu is actually edible, was from Pick Up Stix. And that’s fast food… might as well have been french fries. However, after making this recipe I now have faith that, if treated right, tofu can be amazing!

For this sandwich I used Trader Joe’s “Organic Sprouted Extra Firm Tofu”, Vegenaise, cracked wheat sourdough bread, and baby spinach.

There’s not much else to say about it because the recipe is pretty fool-proof and delish! (See below for a simple Warm Potato Salad recipe)

Jason took yet another beautiful photo, I’m pleased as punch with it. I don’t know if I can say we’re “fumbling our way” with photography much longer with the way he’s picking it up. But, I’m certainly not complaining.

Smoky Miso Tofu Sandwich - recipe from Vegan Yum Yum, page 152

http://veganyumyum.com/2008/07/smokey-miso-tofu/

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Warm Potato Salad

Ingredients:

• 4-5 baby red potatoes
• 1/4C Vegenaise
• 2 tsp apple cider vinegar
• 2 tsp dijon mustard
• 1/8 tsp black pepper
• 1/4 tsp sea salt
• Pinch of sugar
• Pinch of celery salt (or celery seed)
• (Next time I’ll very finely chop up celery & onions too! This whole recipe was an after-thought as I started the tofu sandwiches)

Boil potatoes until tender, meanwhile add remaining ingredients in large bowl. Remove potatoes from water, cube, and toss with remaining ingredients. Serve while warm!

My friend Lisa’s dad, Lou, makes the best friggin chili this side of the Mississippi. We went to Lisa’s husband’s birthday party last week and Lou sent us home with two containers of leftover chili. I felt like I was getting a gift on someone else’s birthday; it is GOOD!

Anyway, for dinner last night we had leftover chili-a la-Lou and I made cornbread muffins to go with it.

Let me start by saying these are the single most expensive muffins I’ve ever made. The recipe calls for one cup of maple syrup. One CUP! That’s a lot of maple syrup. We buy organic maple syrup which doesn’t come in a big bottle, probably just over a cup and a half total, and it ranges about $8-$10 a pop. Add in whatever the other ingredients cost and the fact that this only makes 12 muffins (though I only got 11) and that is one expensive batch of muffins! But if you’re anything like me, once you commit to starting a recipe, you’ve just gotta roll with it.

I grew up on dry, crumbly, not-sweet-at-all cornbread and while I do enjoy sweet cornbread I still prefer it a touch on the dry side. I also like a little crunch on the top which these didn’t have. I think using syrup over sugar made these muffins quite moist and a bit sticky. The flavor was still pretty tasty, but why wouldn’t it be with a cup of maple syrup!

I didn’t use cupcake/muffin liners because I don’t like the look of them with savory muffins, but I totally should have. At least half of my muffins were stuck in the pan and came out without bottoms.

I haven’t made cornbread successfully, pretty much ever, so I was leary of how liquidy the batter was but to my surprise everything turned out just fine. The recipe was very easy and came together super fast.

For the photo: The evening isn’t the easiest time to get great pictures, especially in our cave house that has no windows in the front of it but with a little creativity (…and setting up outside…) Jas took care of it for me. He wasn’t sure about the photo, but he very rarely is (he’s humble to a fault), and he hates taking pictures with my glass dishes but I think it’s just great.

Cornbread Muffins recipe from The Kind Diet, page 163

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Lou’s Super Awesome Amazing Crazy Delicious Chili (a.k.a. Chili a la Lou)

Ingredients:

• 2 cans black beans, drained
• 2 cans pinto beans, drained
• 2 cans dark red kidney beans, drained
• 2 cans white kidney beans, drained
• 2 cans black eyed peas, drained
• 2 bell peppers (1 yellow, 1 green), cut into strips
• 3-28oz cans tomato puree
• 1 TBL cayene pepper
• 1 TBL black pepper
• 1 TBL garlic powder
• 1 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 1/2 tsp sugar

Instructions:

Put it all together and let it cook for about an hour. Makes a ton but don’t worry, you’ll want to eat this for days.

Supposedly one of Jason’s co-workers challenged me to attempt vegan carrot cake. I say ‘supposedly’ because I can’t be sure who actually wanted the carrot cake; my husbands co-worker… or my husband. Either way, I couldn’t let the challenge go unanswered. So even though I’ve never had carrot cake in my life, it’s on like Donkey Kong.

Again I turned to the internet to find a tried and true recipe. I compared what I thought to be the best one to a non-vegan recipe just to make sure the ingredients weren’t too wacky for carrot cake connoisseurs. Voila! Once again, I found myself munching on batter. Gooooood stuff.

Onto all of the things I didn’t-do-but-should-have: I didn’t use exactly two cups of carrots because I got tired of grating, but I went through three medium sized carrots, so four probably would have been perfect. Also, the recipe says to use one-14oz can of crushed pineapple, but they don’t sell cans smaller than 20oz at my grocery store so I just eyeballed what I thought 14 ounces might be. I also don’t care for coconut at all. The flavor is great but it feels like I’m eating little pieces of plastic. So instead of 1C I only used 1/2. I really don’t know why though as I’m making these to go with Jason to work tomorrow… I won’t be eating them. 

When planning to make these I hoped to pipe the frosting out to give it a really pretty, more professional look but once I actually made the frosting I realized that wasn’t gonna happen! It comes out way too thin to do anything fancy, but it does make a really pretty, smooth layer when you dip the cupcakes into the frosting. I still found it a little plain looking and decided to give it them a Halloween theme with some spiderwebs on top. My first attempt at the spiderwebs was to make some of the frosting darker using cocoa powder, but of course that just left me with grey icing. I didn’t have food coloring but I did have vegan dark chocolate candy bars from Trader Joes. So I chucked the grey icing and just piped on chocolate to make my spider webs (I hope that adding chocolate on top doesn’t break any carrot cake rules). Either way, I don’t think it really affects the flavor much at all.

For the photo: I made sure to have these done by the time Jas got home from work and we had to set up near the front door for some decent light, but we got it! I think it turned out great. The pumpkin in the picture is my baby daughter Romy’s. We went to the pumpkin patch this weekend and got a “mommy, daddy, and baby” pumpkin; her pumpkin is the only one that would fit in the picture though. :)

Carrot Cake Cupcakes:

Ingredients:

• 2 1/4 cups all purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 2 teaspoons cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon allspice
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 cup light brown cane sugar
• 3/4 cup cane sugar
• 3 egg equivalents (e.g., Ener-G Egg Replacer)
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 cup vegetable oil
• 2 cups carrots, finely grated
• 1 can (14 ounce) can crushed pineapple, drained
• 1 cup shredded coconut
• nuts and raisins, optional (I didn’t use either)

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degree Fahrenheit. For cake, in a medium bowl, mix flour, baking soda, cinnamon, pumpkin pie spice, baking powder, and salt.
2. In a large bowl, mix sugar and egg replacer until creamy (works best with an electric mixer), then add vanilla, followed by vegetable oil. Mix wet and dry ingredients together. Stir in carrots, pineapple, and coconut. Add nuts and raisins, if using.
3. Spoon batter into cupcake tins just over 3/4 full. Smooth the top out on each. Bake for 30 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean. Be sure to let the cupcakes cool completely before frosting.


Cream Cheese Frosting:

• 1 (8 ounce) package vegan cream cheese, I used Tofutti
• 1/3 cup Earth Balance butter
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 2 cups powdered sugar

With an electric mixer, beat cream cheese and margarine. Add vanilla, then add sugar.

Spiderweb Design:

• 1/2 vegan dark chocolate candy bar, broken into pieces (or 1/2C chips)

Using a double boiler, bring water to a boil, place stainless steel bowl on top with chocolate and turn off heat. Allow the chocolate to melt for about a minute or so, then stir continually until all chocolate has melted and is smooth. Spoon chocolate into a small sandwich bag and let it cool slightly so it doesn’t melt your frosting. Snip off the very smallest piece of the corner of the bag as you can. Pipe on a small dot in the center, followed by a circle around the dot, and two more circles around that. Take a clean toothpick and lightly drag it from the dot in the center, through the outer circles and repeat all the way around. You can make as many or as few lines as you prefer but make sure you are only going outwards from the center dot, if you go towards it you’ll end up with a flower instead of a spiders web.

Carrot cake recipe from www.vegweb.com

For the last two days I have wanted nothing but pizza. So, what have I had the last two nights for dinner? Why, pizza of course!

WARNING: This post is RECIPE HEAVY

I never make my own pizza dough. I don’t know why but to me, it seems like an impossible thing to master. Thankfully, being vegan doesn’t often allow the luxury of just calling for delivery. So, if you want it bad enough, you’ll have to figure it out.

These recipes are a hodgepodge of internet searches, and I think they turned out lovely! The first night I made this dough I just used jarred marinara for the sauce but it lacked something pizza-ey. So tonight, I set out to find the easiest recipe I could find. Lucky for me, I found one that didn’t even need to be cooked! Sounds kind of scary and gross but I assure you, it tastes divine once the pizza is all done.

I am not a big fan of Daiya cheese, by the way, and I hope all of the vegan Daiya lovers won’t attack me for saying so. It just has a very fake and overly seasoned flavor to me. I tasted it straight out of the bag as I was putting it on my pizza and it grossed me out but, being the only vegan cheese in my fridge, I just went with it. Thankfully, after cooking a while the flavor seemed to calm down and I woofed down 3 slices of pizza. Apparently I don’t mind Daiya that much.

Anywho, if you have a sauce you like or a jar of marinara you can totally skip over the sauce recipe. But I highly suggest trying the dough out… it is goo-oood. The “tomato-basil” part comes in at the very end; no real reason for those particular toppings other than they are my FAV!

Oh! And for the photo… I’m pretty sure Jas would have killed for some natural light but I think he still captured the deliciousness of the pizza and that is all that matters.

Pizza Sauce

Ingredients:

• 1 (8 ounce) can tomato sauce
• 1 (6 ounce) can tomato paste
• 1/2 teaspoons dried basil
• 1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
• 1 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1 teaspoon onion powder
• 1/4 teaspoon sea salt
• 1 1/2 tsp parsley 
• 1/4 tsp sugar

Instructions:

1. Stir everything together in a bowl (Don’t worry! The sauce will cook enough while in the oven)
2. Make this before you start your pizza dough, and let the sauce sit covered in the fridge. (Makes much more than you will need for 1 or even 2 pizzas but freezes well)

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Pizza Dough

Ingredients:

• 1 TBL yeast (or 1 pkg)
• 1 TBL sugar
• 1C very warm water 
•  1 tsp salt
• 1/8 C canola oil 
•  1/4 C oat bran 
• 2 1/4-3 cups flour (1C whole wheat flour + 1C bread flour, plus more as needed)
• cornmeal, for sprinkling pizza pan
• cooking spray, to grease pan

Instructions:

1. Mix yeast and sugar and dissolve in warm water. Let stand for about 5 minutes.
2. Add in salt, oil, and oat bran.
3. Mix in 1 cup of flour. Then continue to add additional flour (up to 3C total, though I didn’t need more than 2 1/2C both times I made this) and knead until dough is smooth and elastic (I used my Kitchen Aid with the dough hook. The dough should clean the side of the bowl).
4. Place into a greased bowl, turning once, cover and allow to rise until dough is doubled in size (about 10 minutes)
5. Prepare pizza pan by coating with cooking spray and sprinkling lightly with fine cornmeal
6. Punch down and roll dough to fit pan

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PUTTING YOUR PIZZA TOGETHER

Ingredients:

• Pizza Dough recipe above
• 1/4C (+ or -) Pizza sauce recipe above (or jarred marinara)
• 1-2 firm Roma tomatoes, thinly sliced
• 4-5 large basil leaves, chiffonade (rolled and thinly sliced)
• 1 bag Daiya brand mozzarella cheese (or any other vegan cheese you prefer)
• Light sprinkle of nutritional yeast (optional)

Instructions:

1. Top your pizza with as much sauce as you prefer; I tend to go a little bit light on the sauce. Add vegan mozzarella cheese, arrange tomato slices, sprinkle with basil, add a little more mozzarella, and finish with a sprinkle of nutritional yeast.
2. For a beautiful crust (crispy on the bottom and soft throughout): Place pizza on the bottom rack in a cold oven, set the oven for 500° and bake for about 15-20 minutes. Keep a close eye on it towards the last 5-10 minutes of baking, you’ll know when its ready!

ENJOY!!!

I asked Jason to pick my recipe for the day. He naturally picked the most involved thing off my list; cinnamon raisin swirl bread. But hey, I’m (..mostly..) up for the challenge!

I haven’t made bread since I was in school over two years ago, and even then we made fairly simple breads like French baguettes, dinner rolls, etc. and we had proof-boxes, food scales, and plenty of counter space. But even without all of that, I think I did ok. It’s still rising as I write this, so whether or not I actually did ok is still yet to be seen!

My loaf pan was an inch smaller than recommended but I hoped that wouldn’t make much of a difference because I have no idea how to alter recipes to compensate for the wrong pan size. I also didn’t really look ahead as well as I thought I did because I didn’t realize how long, or how many times, I’d be letting the dough rest/rise. Jason thought we’d be eating it for breakfast but… its 1pm right now and its not even baking yet. Maybe we’ll make French toast with it in the morning!

So anyway, as I’m very carefully following the recipe I got all turned around when rolling the dough out. The recipe states to roll it out about five inches wide, but then says not to make it any wider than your loaf pan is long, or it won’t fit. For some reason this just wouldn’t compute in my head. I kept looking at how wide my dough was next to how wide the pan is, thinking I needed to fold it in half an additional time just to make it fit. I do this and start rolling it out again, which makes for a super skinny, long rectangle of dough, and I realize I am so not on the right track. I then have to unfold it and hope for the best. The dough was pretty forgiving and didn’t stick together much, but it was still super long. The swirl inside might look crazy tight in the end. We’ll see.

While letting it rise the last time, I went in about fifteen minutes early just to peek and the dough was HUGE! I feared it would outgrow my pan so I went ahead and started baking it early. Hopefully the last fifteen minutes of rising weren’t crucial…

1:45pm - Right now its baking away and the house smells lovely! Even if it doesn’t turn out pretty, with the way it smells it has to be edible; you would think, at least. And someday, SOMEDAY, I will learn to turn my baked goods halfway through the baking time for even color; however, today is not that day.

2:30ish: Yay! Everything turned out great! I didn’t listen to the recipe as far as letting the bread cool completely but I did wait much longer than I would have liked to. I also made sure to slice it very carefully so it wouldn’t fall apart, as warned.

For the photo’s: The reason I started baking so early was to catch some good natural light but since everything took a lot longer than I’d anticipated we didn’t quite get the light we were hoping for. We still had enough natural light to work with thankfully and Jason gave me several great shots to choose from. This is another example of his suggesting “use both?” when I ask him to pick one or the other!  I really love these photos though, can’t stop looking at them.

Recipe from Vegan Yum Yum, page 13

It appears my cookie plague has worsened. I don’t think cookie dough is supposed to be all crumbly…

The good news is the dough tastes delicious, the bad news is it doesn’t want to stick together.I’m reliving my lemon bar crust issues! In this case though, I think I might have over mixed it. In my defense the recipe is worded strangely; when it says to add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients it says to use an electric hand mixer and ”beat until well blended”, but in the same paragraph, when it says to add the flour it only states to “mix until blended”. I think I shouldn’t have used the electric mixer for the flour… but I can’t be sure.

I made two batches and tossed the rest of the dough. Not worth fighting with it. Surprisingly, even with the crumbly dough, the cookies didn’t fall apart! But then again they hardly spread in the oven at all… at least they didn’t turn out flat!

The cookies have great flavor, so it is definitely worth trying this recipe again.

And next time I’ll just spray the pan instead of using wax paper… my kitchen is still all smoky. Woops.

Recipe from The Joy of Vegan Baking, page 116