Chocolate Cherry Pudding

I make pudding all the time because it's just so easy. The fun part is deciding what else to mix in- nut butter, maple syrup, cocoa powder, etc. This week I bought an amazing assortment of fruit that included a bag of delicious cherries (and some green bananas that took a week to ripen, boo). So I've been making this simple, delicious dessert all week.

Chocolate Cherry Pudding

• 1 cup cherries, chopped
• 1 cup soy milk
• 2 TB cornstarch
• 2TB cocoa powder
• 1tsp maple syrup (you'll probably want more)

Add cherries, cocoa, and milk to a small pot and let flavors mingle as long as you'd like (an hour is enough). Add corn starch and stir until it mostly dissolves. Add to medium-high heat (not too hot or it'll burn) and stir constantly until it boils. Once boiling it should quickly thicken up. Remove from heat and stir in maple syrup. Enjoy hot or cold.

Chocolate Bread

For some reason I just had to have chocolate bread tonight, despite it being 9:15 and close to my general bed time. I scoured the internet- surely there is a quick and easy recipe? Finally, in the depths of vegweb.com I found Cocoa Applesauce Bread. I wasn't sure I had enough flour or sugar, then I double checked and I was good to go. Until I got almost through and realized I only had, maybe 1/4 cup applesauce. Ooops. I made several changes to the recipe, partly to cover for my lack of applesauce and partly because, well, that's what I do.

Chocolate Bread

1 2/3 cup flour (can use 50-50 whole wheat)
1/2 cup white sugar
1/2 cup light brown sugar
1/3 cup cocoa
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 cup applesauce
1/4 cup canola oil
2 TB flax in 6TB water

Mix all of the dry ingredients together. Add wet, being careful not to overmix. Bake in loaf pan on 350 for 50 minutes. Let cool.

Well, all my substitutions/changes could not exactly save this bread. It didn't really rise so it came out log shaped. But the taste is delicious- it's not cakey or overly sweet (probably because I cut the sugar in half), but it's definitely chocolatey.

I'll try it again when I have all of the ingredients.

Cherry Biscotti and Mocha Chocolate Chip Muffins

I have some more enticing to get people at work to come to my 9am meeting I scheduled, so I thought I'd make biscotti. I found an easy Biscotti recipe on vegweb that seemed doable. As I was making them I got scared because it wasn't coming out like I'd hoped, so I found this Mocha Chip Muffin recipe on Post Punk Kitchen, thinking the mocha was perfect for the morning. Strangely, both recipes call for emulsifying, a word I can't recall seeing in a recipe ever.

And I apologize for still not having photos. Food blogging without pictures is like driving the scenic route with no windows. Maybe this weekend someone will buy me a digital camera a few weeks early before my birthday. Jeff, feel free to say something to my dad like, "Hey, Bill, I would love to see pictures in Anne's blog, maybe you could get her a camera while she's in town this weekend. You'd be the greatest dad and colleague of all time." Just a suggestion...

Biscotti

Ingredients
1 3/4 cups of flour (half white, half whole wheat)
2 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 cup dried cherries
2 tablespoons flax seeds & 1/4-1/2 cup of water
3/4 cup maple syrup
1/3 cup melted vegan soy butter
2 TB macadamia nut liqueuer
1-1/2 teaspoons grated lime rind
soy milk for browning

Preheat oven to 350F. In a large bowl, combine the flour and baking powder; stir in the dried cherries. In a separate bowl, whisk together the wetness of the flax seeds, maple syrup, soy butter, macadamia nut liqueur and orange rind until thoroughly emulsified. Make a well in the dry ingredients. Stir the wet into the dry until soft, sticky dough forms. I needed to add a ton of flour because it was too sticky.

Transfer the dough to a lightly floured work surface; with hands, form into smooth ball. Divide the dough into about 6 uniform balls and make into 8-12 inch long strips. The original recipe calls to make 2 long logs, but the dough was too sticky so I had to make them smaller. Transfer each to its own ungreased baking sheet. The original recipe says to brush the top of each log with a bit of soymilk for aesthetics, BUT I tried this on half of mine and it didn't work. They ended up sticking to the pan and not cooking as much as the others.

Bake at 350F for 20 min. Remove from oven and allow to cool on the baking sheet placed on top of a cooling rack for 5 min. Transfer each log to cutting board. With a sizable and sharp knife, make firm cuts on a diagonal at about every 2cm. The original recipe says "stand the cookies back up (sideways) on the baking sheets," which makes no sense so I just put them back on a pan and return to oven for 20-25 minutes longer, or until golden. Remove to rack and let cool. A little lesson I learned the hard way- don't put on bottom rack, or if you do, watch them very closely. Some of mine ended up a little darker than I'd hoped. So I did what any good chef does- I coated the bottoms in chocolate. I melted 1/2 cup chocolate chips and dipped the underside of each piece into it, placing them on wax paper in the fridge until cool (about 30 minutes).

If I ever make these again, I'll skip trying to brush with soy milk, and I'll make my logs skinnier. I'd also like to play with the flavors more. One of my coworkers doesn't like nuts so I didn't add any, though the chocolate and cherry combination was great. I'd also avoid the bottom shelf :(

Mocha Chocolate Chip Muffins

Ingredients
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour (I used 1 cup white, 1/2 cup whole wheat)
3/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup unprocessed cocoa
2.5 teaspoons instant coffee
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup soy milk
1/2 cup canola oil
1/2 cup chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 375 F. Line 12 muffin tins with paper liners. In a large bowl, sift together dry ingredients (flour through salt). In a seperate bowl, wisk together wet ingredients (soy milk through yogurt) until emulsified. Pour wet into dry and combine until dry ingredients are moistened. Fold in chocolate chips. Fill muffin tins almost to the top. Bake 18 - 20 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.

These came out amazing! Very fluffy and moist and chocolatey. Originally I was thinking a vanilla cake with chocolate chips, but you really can't go wrong with chocolate on chocolate. I'd go ahead and call these perfection.

Maple Strawberry Muffins and Flourless Cashew Butter Cookies

I'm giving a lunchtime presentation at work tomorrow on a topic that most colleagues probably don't really care about, so I thought I'd lure them there with baked goods. I didn't want to make more brownies or cupcakes, so I though muffins would be nice. But I wanted a twist and remembered the random fresh strawberries in my fridge. Maple Strawberry Muffins seemed perfect though not healthy by any means. I then caved and thought about a cookie and knew I wanted a nut butter cookie. Thus, the Cashew Butter Cookie was born.

Maple Strawberry Muffins

The recipe I used is very close to this Vegan Blueberry Muffin recipe I found online.

Ingredients

2 cups flour, I used half wheat and half white
1/3 cup sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 cup soy milk
1/4 cup margarine
Egg replacer for one egg, I used 1 TB ground flax mixed with 3 TB water
1 tsp acidic fruit juice, I used some pineapple juice but lemon/orange/lime will do
2 TB real maple syrup
1 cup fresh or frozen strawberries

Preheat oven to 400 degrees and lightly grease a muffin pan. In a large bowl, combine the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. Add the soy milk, margarine, egg replacer, maple and pineapple juice and stir until mixed. Add the strawberries.

Spoon the batter in to the muffin pan, filling each cup about 2/3 full. Bake for 20-25 minutes, until muffins are golden brown.

The muffins are a little messy because I cut up the strawberries, but they were pleasant.

Flourless Cashew Butter Cookies

I found this recipe for Flourless Nut Butter and Whatever You Want Cookies on vegweb and decided it seemed intruiging and ridiculously easy.

Ingredients

1 cup of cashew butter
3/4 white sugar
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 TB ground flax seed mixed with 3 TB water
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
Dark chocolate morsels to top cookies

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Mix everything until well combined.

Cover dough and refrigerate for about 30 minutes.

Form 1 tablespoon dough balls for each cookie. Arrange on an ungreased baking sheet, spacing 2 inches apart. Press down slightly with a fork to make criss cross typical of peanut butter cookies. Top with chocolate.

Bake cookies until puffed, golden on bottom and still soft to touch in center, about 12 minutes. Cool on sheets 5 minutes. Transfer to racks; cool completely.

The cookie dough was amazing! I had no idea how much they were going to spread out, however, so I evidently smushed them too flat :( That or the recipe should have called for baking powder, not soda. I'm debating throwing them out, but I'm sure someone at work will eat them...

Chocolate Chip Cookies

I'd been promising my brother and his wife the whole weekend that we'd make cookies, and we got just drunk enough last night for that to come true. I didn't have chocolate chips, just (non vegan) butterscotch chips and pecans. I'm pretty sure we would have eaten it no matter what I put in.

I found this recipe for Amazing Chocolate Chip Cookies on vegweb and used it since I actually had all of the ingredients. I've used Enola in baking the past few times, mostly because I want to get it out of my pantry, and I've become the accidental food chemist. Through several baking attempts and random mental notes, I realized that Enola makes baked goods very crispy and not expand. A long time ago I made the best white chocolate peppermint cookies a few different times because they were so great, but they turned out different each time because, as it turns out, I used Enola once and another oil another time. So these chocolate chip cookies I made ended up like some of the others I've made with Enola- they don't expand and get unusually crispy. But not necessarily in a bad way, it's just different. And we were drunk so it really didn't matter.

Ingredients
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
2/3 cup canola oil
1/4 cup applesauce (or 1 egg substitute)
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 cup of some kind of chips, chocolate or whatever you prefer
1/2 cup nuts

Preheat oven to 375. Mix first 5 ingredients together. Mix flour, salt & baking soda in separate bowl, then add to the first bowl. Mix in your chocolate chips/nuts and drop on ungreased cookie sheets. Bake for about 8-10 minutes.

You can't really go wrong with cookies.

Guiness Cupcakes with Macadamia Frosting

Guinness = delicious, and cupcakes = delicious. So Guinness cupcakes should be stellar, right? A good friend who is a fellow Guinness lover had a medical procedure done where he couldn't eat/drink for awhile, so I thought I would make him some cupcakes for when he got home. And I figured it would be ok to make a dozen of them since my brother and his wife came in later that day. The point being that I knew I wouldn't eat them all because I had enough people to help me.


I found this great recipe on Dulcedo for Guinness Cupcakes with Baily's Irish Cream Frosting and I had to make it. Evidently it's actually from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World, which was an excellent gift from a great friend for my 10 year cancer survivorship anniversary. I must have been too busy ogling the hazelnut cupcakes to notice the stout cupcakes.



Ingredients for Cupcakes

• 3/4 cup soy milk


• 1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar


• 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons flour


• 1/3 cup unprocessed cocoa powder (original recipe calls for Dutch-processed)


• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda


• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder


• 1/4 teaspoon salt


• 1/4 cup Guinness


• 3/4 cup sugar


• 1/3 cup canola oil


• 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract (I omitted this because I'm running low)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. In a small bowl, sift together the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.


In the bowl of an electric mixer, whisk together the soy milk and the vinegar. Add the Guinness, sugar, oil, and vanilla to the soy milk mixture and beat until foamy. Add the dry ingredients in two batches and beat until well incorporated.Fill your cupcakes containers of choice 3/4 full.


Bake for 20-25 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean and the top springs back when lightly touched. Transfer to a wire rack and allow cupcakes to cool completely before frosting.


Icing

I got lazy and made a simple icing:

• 2-3 cups confectioner's sugar


• 2 TB macadamia liqueur


• Splash of vanilla soy milk

Mix together and enjoy.

These were solid chocolate cupcakes. I think I overdid it with the icing- it's incredibly sweet and may detract from the cake. There was a nice thing crunch on top where I evidently overcooked them, but I think it made them better. And you cannot taste the (very minimal amount of) Guinness.

Easy Vegan Brownies with Cashew Butter Icing for the 100th Post!

Since this marks the 100th post (Jennilicious 3, Veganne 97), I'm going all out with brownies. Well, they are actually for work, but I've been waiting for something good to blog about to celebrate the occasion.

I can't believe I've never blogged about these "Scrum-Diddly-Umptious Vegan Brownies" on Recipe Zaar because they is great. It is a good chocolate fix and no worries if you eat half of the pan in one sitting- it's only got 950 calories total so less than 500 calories for half (sans icing). Sometimes it comes out a little cakey, probably when I don't add the chocolate chips. But following the recipe as-is below makes the greatest brownies ever.

Ingredients

• 1 cup unsweetened applesauce
• 1/2 cup raw sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 3/4 cup unbleached white flour
• 1/3 cup cocoa powder
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup semisweet vegan chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 and lightly spray or oil an 8 x 8 baking pan. Mix applesauce, sugar, and vanilla in a medium bowl. In another bowl, whisk flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda, and salt (and cinnamon if using) together. Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients and add the applesauce mixture. Mix until just combined. Gently fold in chocolate chips (and walnuts if using). Spread in prepared pan and bake 25-30 min, until center is firm and not sticky. Cool completely before slicing.

I iced half of the pan with a concoction I made by heating together 3TB cashew butter and .25c soy milk. It wasn't very smooth and not what I wanted- good thing I only iced half. The taste was ok, but the consistency was off. Maybe I should have heated the cashew butter without the milk.

And the camera is dead. Gone to camera heaven. It took 10 pictures on 4 brand new batteries and acted strange. Anyone want to buy me a digital camera?

Baked Bananas

I was doing a little blog checkup this morning and noticed that somehow I've never posted about Baked Bananas- the greatest healthiest treat of all time! I make it every single Saturday and Sunday that I'm home and thinking about making it the rest of the time. Overripe bananas are the best for a lot of things because all of the sweetness comes out. And as I mentioned in another banana post, you can just throw them, peel and all, into the freezer and use for Baked Bananas, smoothies, baking, etc.

Bananas are also very good sources of vitamin B6 and good sources of vitamin C, potassium, fiber, and manganese. Not to mention they protect cardiovascular health, soothe ulcers, improve elimination, protect your eyesight, build better bones, and promote kidney health. And who know how amazing cinnamon is! It's an excellent source of manganese and a very good source of fiber, iron, and calcium. It's anti-clotting, anti-microbial, controls blood sugar, boosts brain function, improves colon health, and protects against heart disease. And how can unprocessed cocoa be bad for you with its flavanoids and healthy fats? Baked Bananas = Super Snack.

Ingredients

1 banana

1TB cocoa (unprocessed and unsweetened)
1/2 tsp cinnamon (optional)

Preheat oven to 350-375 degrees.

Slice 1 banana lengthwise, careful not to pierce the bottom skin. Place banana, the older the better, on foil lined baking sheet or in a Pyrex dish (there are juices that leak out that may harm an otherwise nice baking sheet, though I don't line mine in foil because mine are not nice). Add about a Tablespoon of cocoa inside the banana. You may have to slightly open it up so the cocoa doesn't get all over the pan. And it's probably best to try for about a teaspoon at a time for the same reason. For extra excitement, you can add a half teaspoon of cinnamon. Bake for 15-20 minutes (the peel will be black). It will be soft and mushy so be careful transfering to a plate. Savor and enjoy. And then let me know how amazing I am for introducing you to the greatest food ever.

Chocolate Covered Peanut Butter Pretzels (Dog and Human Treats)

Today my lovely Tara turns 8! In celebration I wanted to make some dog-friendly and people-friendly treats. Pretzels seemed like the right way to go. I did my googling, but didn't use vegan since I thought it might be easier to veganize it myself. But, the first entry for "peanut butter prezel" was this vegan recipe. I had all of the ingredients and it seemed easy enough.

These are the ingredients I ended up using:

3/4 cup all-purpose flour
3/4 cup whole wheat flour
2/3 cup soy milk
3 tablespoons natural creamy peanut butter
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon vegan sugar
1 teaspoon salt

I mixed it all together, split into 2 balls, and then pinched off little bits and rolled into long chains with my hands. Since Tara is 8, I twisted them into figure 8's. They cooked 20ish minutes on 400 degrees and I took them out when they started to get brown.

I was a little worried initially about the consistency- would they be super soft? hard? Well, they came out sort of both. I may have overcooked them, which made them a little crunchy, perfect for dogbart and alright for humans. Then I nuked .5cup vegan chocolate chips for about a minute and dipped some of the pretzels into it. I put them on wax paper and placed them in the fridge to cool, about 30 minutes. These are clearly for humans only.

To make them better for dogs, you just leave them in the oven for several hours once you turn it off. They get nice and crunchy (too hard for humans), perfect for doggies. I would have taken a photo, but the camera batteries died the other day while I was taking a movie of Tara stalking a housefly.

Overall, as human treats the pretzels were not amazing. They seemed a little bland, although I could see them being good as more savory treats (herbs and cheeze, maybe). I might experiment with them again, but they're definitely not going to be used for impressing anyone.

Baked Apples and Peaches

Fruit is amazing when it's cooked. Baked bananas with some unprocessed cocoa are my favorites. But other fruits cook well, too.





I sliced one gala apple and one little peach and put them in a pyrex dish with about .5 cup of milk and some ground cinnamon. They baked on 375 for 15 minutes and I turned and added 2TB flax seed because I was reading something the other day about how great it is and I remembered that I still have quite a bit of it in my fridge that I haven't used in ages. My original plan involved peanut butter. They baked for another 15 minutes or so.

The picture isn't the greatest, but it tasted nice. I should have put the cinnamon on closer to the end and it possibly could have cooked 10 or 15 minutes longer.

Christmas Recap

Since my grandmother is still recovering from her April cancer diagnosis and subsequent treatment, I spent Christmas in Georgia with her and my parents. To ease my mom's constant burden of being her caregiver, I thought I'd cook dinner. Little did I realize, however, that I'd have no access to internet or cell phone because I was back in 1955 rural Georgia. Let's just say my improvisational skills were really tested.

I settled on:
Stuffed acorn squash- I cooked barley and lentils in some veggie broth and added some cranberries, cilantro, and hot Mexican-style chili powder, then stuffed it into the squash. The colors were delightful and very Christmas-like
Pecan stuffing- I made stuffing with a little extra margarine for flavor and some pecans since my grandmother has a pecan orchard and they were fresh off the trees
Sweet potatoes- I added roasted garlic, chives, and margarine to some boiled (w/skins) sweet ptoatoes
Sauteed spinach with caramalized onions
Beer bread

I also wanted to make some gingerbread cookies, but alas, no blog access for the recipe, and I didn't want to buy molasses because I knew no one else would ever use it and it would just get tossed. So I searched my computer and found this recipe for Chocolate Chip Walnut Pumpkin Cookies that I luckily had saved. I omitted the eggs, forgot the baking soda, subbed unsweetened apple sauce for the oil, used pecans instead of walnuts, and added a cup of cranberries. I think it had too much chocolate (blasphemy!) and I'd probably leave it out altogether if I was going to make it again.

I ate these damn things left and right as if I was going to die if my stomach wasn't completely full with cookies. Every 10 minutes I'd scarf down 2 more to the point where I wanted to vomit. Yet I kept eating...

Thanks, Puddin'!

I used this pudding recipe (that I've blogged about before), but I had no cocoa because I used it to make pudding last weekend.

So, I heated up 1c soy milk, added 2 TB cornstarch, and then once it gelled I removed from heat and added 1-2tsp maple syrup and 1TB peanut butter. Well, actually I added them all in at the same time, which resulted in some lumps. But I'm pretending that didn't happen because it was otherwise the tastiest thing I have ever eaten in my life. I'm not sure if it was the maple or what, but it was amazing. And I scarfed it down, so that's why you get no photo.

Did I mention this was the greatest food item of all time?

Gingerbread Cookies

Although LBD sent me her gingerbread cookie recipe (thanks!), I'd already found one from the Post Punk Kitchen that I already actually had all of the ingredients for in my kitchen (except for cloves, which I won't buy because they seem ridiculously expensive).

I've never made gingerbread anything before so this seemed a little daunting. But it turned out easy and absolutely delicious. I also thought I'd ice some of them for no real reason. I did a little digging about found this easy Gingerbread Vegan Icing recipe from the Vegan Lunch Box. I made 2 batches of icing since I cooked half the dough the day I made it and then the other half a day later. For the first batch I used a good amount of vanilla and regular soy milk, and the second included less vanilla and soy nog. I liked the first better, but it was a little runnier.

No style points, but the taste makes up for my inabilitiy to prettify things.

Vegan Cupcake Weekend

Last weekend I celebrated my 10 years as a cancer survivor and received an awesome book as a gift- Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World: 75 Dairy-Free Recipes for Cupcakes that Rule by Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero. It might be the greatest book of all time. So I declared this weekend National Vegan Cupcake Weekend.

From the moment I got the book, the marble cupcakes called out to me. Probably because I had all of the ingredients already in my apartment. But, I had a request to make the maple cupcakes. So I did what anyone else would do- I made both.

The marble cupcakes actually looked cool and weren't that hard to make. I topped them with a coffee buttercream icing. The maple cupcakes were sort of a nightmare for some reason (more my fault than the recipe). I accidentally left out the brown sugar and screwed up the maple coated walnuts. They still came out delicious.

Both icing recipes made enough for 24 cupcakes, so I was forced to make 24 more cupcakes the next day. This time I tried vanilla and chocolate. One of my accidents from the maple cupcakes resulted in my vanilla extract all over my counter, wallet, and bananas. So I replaced it with pomegranate liqeur, but it was barely noticeable and still vanilla-y. The chocolate was delightful. So I alternated the icings and had 6 chocolate with coffee, 6 chocolate with maple, 6 vanilla-y with coffee, and 6 vanilla-y with maple. They were all amazing though not the most beautiful in presentation.

A Day in the Park

My dog and I spend lots of time at the park, often sleeping, when the weather is nice. We always pack lots of snacks and water/drinks, but since we had a guest accompanying us, I thought we'd make something a little more fun.

The first thing that came to mind was some sort of fresh fruit spritzer. I'm not sure what that means, but I wanted something with freshly made juice and whatever people mix it with that isn't alcohol (I'm strangely anti drinking during the day). Strawberries sound delightful, possibly because I was eating them when I dreamt up this plan. But I was worried that our guest wouldn't like strawberries, so I went with mangoes instead, as if those are generally more people friendly than strawberries. I also had some Pink Lady apples, my favorites of all time, so I thought I'd use those as well.

In grad school I purchased the Jack LaLanne Power Juicer that I'd been eyeing for months. It was the best $100 I ever spent- back in grad school. I'd use it every day to make tons and tons of juice, but it's been sitting in my cupboard since I moved to the D.C. area. However, that all changed.

After some quick Googling, I found that I should mix 2 parts fruit juice and 1 part sparkling water or wine. I'm not exactly sure what that meant, so I ended up juicing 4 mangoes and putting the juice in a large water bottle, then filling up part way with soda water. The juice that came out was pretty thick but tasty nonetheless. I did the same with the juice of 4 apples. There was no measuring, but a simple taste test at the end indicated I might have gone a little heavy on the soda because the juice seemed diluted, especially in the mango spritzer. Lesson learned.

And, of course, you have to serve it in glass jars. If I wanted to get fancy, I would have frozen some fruit (grapes, strawberries, pineapple) and used them as ice. Or I would have frozen the puree or edible flowers in ice cubes. Or I would have put some chunked fruit on skewers or toothpicks. And garnished with mint. But, that's too much effort when I'm just going ot the park. (I only added the strawberry for the picture).

And since I was having something so sweet, I thought a nice unsweet treat was in order. I happened to finally tune into Get Fresh with Sarah Snow on Discovery Health this week to see her make some oat/peanut butter/cocoa patty goodness. I am choosing to ignore the fact that honey is not really vegan, and I left out the spirulina because I'm just not sure about it yet. And I left out the whole flax seeds and replaced it with more oats because I'm not sure I'll ever use whole flax again. Oh and my oats were really 5-grain hot breakfast cereal.


I halved the recipe and made one set of patties with peanut butter and the other with cashew butter. I went to great lengths not to let the flavors mix. Everything was fine until I decided I had to use both hands to form patties and put on cookie trays. There was chocoloate/nut butter goodness everywhere. No, I'm not complaining, just saying...I finally made the patties and put them in the freezer as long as I could so they'd harden some.

The "cookies" are essentially a very healthy version of the no-bake cookies you had as a kid. I'd like to try adding a little salt to them, but we'll save that for a time when it's just me devouring all of them.

It was perfect for the park, but necessitated some paper towels. Great times.

Chocolate Pudding

I saw this recipe awhile ago and vowed to make chocolate pudding. But it wasn't until this week when it somehow popped into my head. The recipe as written is less than 200 calories for a lot of pudding, but I have some Godiva liqueur bottles my mom gave me for Christmas that I have been trying to get rid of. Now, I'm fairly certain they are not vegan, but I can't just throw them out...

So I made the pudding according to the recipe and added one mini bottle of the liqueur after removing from heat. At first, eating it warm appealed to me. But then I thought about it a little more and I don't think it's ok to eat warm pudding. It needs to be cold. So I scooped half of it into my beautiful ramekin from my brother and his fiance and set it in the freezer to cool just in time for me to go to bed. And I definitely left the other half in the pot and brought the pot into the living room with me where I proceeded to get every last drop of it off the pot and into my watering mouth.

Without the alcohol, the recipe is very bland and definitely needs something (as mentioned in the recipe) to pep it up. And I have an aversion to cornstarch after an unfortunate episode with Turkish Delight (but I think all TD is disappointing...), so I got a little grossed out by the cornstarch. The chocolate and alcohol helped me get over that really quickly though :)

Valentine's Treat

For Valentine's Day I decided I had to make something heart-shaped and tasty. I rummaged through the kitchen and, surprise, surprise, had about 4 ingredients to work with. Fine.

I began my recipe search looking for a recipe for egg-free fortune cookies, all because the Vegan Lunch Box mentioned them. However, her link sends you to a company that sells them, not a nice recipe for me to follow. After another hour of scouring the internet, I found another vegan fortue cookie recipe, but, *sigh*, I had no Enrg egg replacer, which I'm scared of quite frankly. Boo.

Then I decided I wanted some type of not-too-sweet cookie that I would apply chocolate frosting to (the frosting from last week's cupcakes, sans tea) and make into sandwiches. My search began and ended at vegweb.com, my favorite recipe place. I found this recipe for shortbread cookies...but CRAP, I had no egg replacer. That's ok, we'll use applesauce. So I followed the recipe but added 1/2 cup of applesauce instead of fake egg. And the cookies came out lovely and shaped, mostly, like hearts. But since I love me a good challenge and always seem to be doing something to make life a little harder on myself, I accidentally broke my heart-shaped cookie cutter. No worries, I pulled through with about 26 delightful cookies.

So I followed the same frosting recipe from my cupcakes, only making 1/3 of the recipe. It came out fantastic and I put it in the fridge to cool it down some while the cookies cooled. Then I slathered it on the bottom of one cookie and attached another. Perfect!

I thought they tasted alright, but I eat anything. An independent taste tester said they were yummy, so we'll go with that, though I suspect he was just trying to be nice.

Some thoughts for next time I make them: I'd like to add some orange peel to the cookies for a little ooopmh. Or, I have some Godiva liquers that I got for Christmas and have no clue how to use, so I'd like to add them to the frosting. Some addition of strawberry would be nice, maybe pureed in the frosting? Instead of sandwiches, I may stick a thumbprint in each and fill with something tasty...like the last bit of my pumpkin butter from Trader Joe's. The possiblities really are endless.

Sorry, no pictures :(

Just Peachy

Today was an all around great day, as I knew it would be before I even got out of bed. First, I knowingly slept in. Then I checked my email and found the lecture I was supposed to give at the US Postal Service HQ was cancelled, which was excellent since I didn't actually create a presentation. So I got to work and we got a 1/2 snow day! Score! I came home, ate, no, scarfed down, my leftover green bean delight, and took the dog to play in the snow. I can't feel my toes, but I'm starting to get feeling back in my hands.

When I got back from the park I was famished. I had planned to eat a peach, but the peaches are kind of gross and mushy. And since it was so cold outside, I decided to make warm "peach sauce," which is not a sauce you put on something. It's the same exact thing as applesauce, just with peaches.

So I boiled some water, tore up 2 peaches (you could use a knife if you're all sophisticated, I guess), and watched it fall apart and become saucy goodness. I added some nutmeg and cinnamon and let it boil until it was the right consistency for me. I poured it into two 1-cup pyrex ramekin's that my brother and his girlfriend bought me for Christmas so it would look pretty. I topped off the one I was going to eat immediately with a tablespoon of ground flax seeds and let the other one cool.

I was scared to actually combine the flax and peach so I initially just spread it on top. But it was hard to keep it from getting in the peach sauce so I just mixed it all together. Yummy.

You can do this same thing with similar fruits like apples, apricots, or plums, any combination will work. You *can* add sugar/other sweetener, but fruits are so sweet, especially when you cook them, that I think it's unnecessary. You can also add lemon or lime juice and whatever spices you prefer. It's way better than storebought crap, and way better for you. Takes less than 15 mintues start to finish.

Cupcakes for Dinner

Today (and last night when I came home from work drunk...) I decided to throw healthy eating to the wind. Sort of...The past 2 days have been sort of "calorie-free" for me. Today the craving for chocolate took over and I was unable to control myself. The only logical next step was to make cupcakes. And eat them for dinner.




I used this recipe for the vanilla cake, adding some yummy vanilla hazelnut black tea to steep in the water. For the frosting, I used this recipe and added more tea to it.

Between the Hershey's Kisses, Hershey's Nuggets, and 5 cupcakes I ate for dinner, I'm about to throw up from all the sugar. With the frosting, the cupcakes are very sweet, but in a good way. I just ate too many other sweet things in too short of a time span.

Verdict? They might have a little too much tea flavor and none of the vanilla hazlenut flavor that I cherish when I drink a cup of tea every day. I'm in the midst of a major sugar crash right now and am pretty sure I have sugar-induced depression. Right, back to the cupcakes. They're ok. Will I make them again? Without the tea, maybe. But I'm debating throwing away the entire batch instead of taking them to work. The cakes are stuck in the wrappers, which is no fun.

Yes, I threw them out even though they were probably edible.