Dark Chocolate Wonder Cookies

Yes I made the name up, they were inspired by the Chocolatey Fudgey Oatmeal Cookies in the book Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar. These had a few differences, I used dark chocolate chunks instead of chocolate chips, cranberries instead of cherries and added the pepitas for a salty sweet combo.

These were so good. I took these to work, and they were gone quick, a few of the ladys even asked for the recipe. So for all those who have tried them and those that haven't here is what you need to make a really fantastic cookie:

2 c. quick oats
1 2/3 c. unbleached flour
2/3 cocoa powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp salt
1 1/2 c. sugar
2 tbs. ground flax seed
2/3 c. non-dairy milk
2/3 c. canola oil
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
3/4 c. dark chocolate chunks
1 1/2 c. dried cranberries
1/2c. salted roasted pepitas

In the bowl of a mixer beat together sugar, ground flax seed and non-dairy milk until smooth. Add the oil and the vanilla extract, mix until smooth. Add in the flour, salt, baking powder, baking soda, cocoa and mix until a dough is formed. Fold in chocolate chunks pepitas and dried cranberries. Bake cookies 10-12 minutes for large chewy cookies or 8-10 minutes for smaller chewy cookies. I like big cookies. I use a jelly roll pan and usually have 6 cookies on the pan. Makes 16 larger cookies.

Not Chick'n Noodle Soup

So my best friend decided to let me cook her dinner last night. I know that she loves Mashed Potatoes and they are very easy to Veganize, but what to serve with them without an overload of carbs can be difficult. I usually make dumplings, but I had those last week and they were good, but I wasn't quite ready for them again, so I decided to try the recipe on the back of my bouillon that I bought a few weeks ago, well kind of. I used to be famous for my Chicken Noodle Soup, so this was the vegan version of it and I must say it was fabulous. Here is what you need:

2-3 carrots, sliced

2-3 stalks of celerey, chopped
1/2 large onion, chopped
2 Not Chick'n boullion cubes
10 oz Wide Egg Free Noodles
2 tbs olive oil
2 cloves of garlic, minced

Get the garlic and the olive oil heated in a pan, mix in the other veggies and saute for about 10 minutes. Add the bouillon and if cooking potatoes, for mashed potatoes, add a little of the potato water, this gives the broth an natural thickener. Stir in 4-6 cups of water and bring to a boil. Add noodles and cook according to package directions. Once noodles are done let the soup sit for a few minutes off the heat. This will give the noodles a chance to soak up some of the liquid. Serve over Mashed Potatoes, or add extra liquid if needed and eat as a soup. enjoy.

Whole Wheat Oat Bread

I was flipping through Entertaining for a Veggie Planet and I came across this recipe for bread. I thought hey my lesson tomorrow is on the sacrament, how about I make bread and take in some juice so we can re-enact the last supper, well kind of. I mean I teach 4 and 5 year olds. It was a big hit with the kids. Rowan actually said hey I am still hungry in an attempt to get more, and when I was asking the children what their favorite food is Lacey said bread and juice. I have to admit the bread was really good. Here is what you need:

6tbs molasses
4 1/2 tsp dry active yeast
3 tbs canola oil
1 tsp salt
1 c. Rolled Oats
2 3/4 c. whole wheat flour
2 1/2 c. unbleached white flour

In the bowl of a stand mixer combine 2 1/4 c. very warm water and a drop of the molasses. Sprinkle the yeast over the water and wait about 5 minutes for it to foam. Stir in the remaining molasses, canola oil, and salt until well combined.

Add the oats and gradually add the flour, using the dough hook attachment and mix for 5 minutes.

Transfer the dough to a large oiled bowl. Cover with plastic wrap and dishtowel, and let rise in a warm place until doubled in bulk, about an hour. Oil a baking sheet and divide dough into 3 balls. Arrange the balls on the baking sheet and cover with plastic wrap and a dish towel, let rise again about 30 minutes. Bake loaves about 30 minutes. Cool to room temperature on cooling racks.

Note: I had to use a cookie sheet and a jelly roll pan in order to have enough space for the loaves not to touch. I also baked them in seperate batches as I was unsure of the amount of space needed for the bread to rise once baking. This is why one of the loaves pictured above is a slightly different color.

Peanut Butter Chocolate Chunk Ice Cream

This was SO good! I just wish the picture was better. Here is what you need:

1 1/2 c. Vanilla Soy Milk
1/2 c. Coconut Creamer
1/2 c. peanut butter
1/2 c. brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
4 oz mini dark chocolate chunks

In a blender combine soy milk, creamer, peanut butter, brown sugar and vanilla. Blend until mixture is smooth. Refridgerate 3-4 hours until chilled. Pour into ice cream maker and mix until ice cream forms, when it is almost done add the chocolate chips. The recipe that I had said to melt the chocolate and drizzle it in to form chocolate chips, but I had no luck with this so next time I am just going to add in the chocolate chips. If you are concerned about the ice cream maker and the chocolate chips you could stir them in after ice cream is finished. This recipe will make a quart. I like to have a few 4oz containers on hand to put the ice cream into and freeze, making it easier not to over indulge, which is hard since this stuff is so good. enjoy.

Quinoa Burgers

So I made these last Friday for Lunch with my nieces. It was so great being able to have some time with them and even better was their response to these burgers. They loved them, and I have to admit so did I.
Here is what you need:
1/2 c. diced onion
3 cloves of garlic
12 ounces of cooked chickpeas, I used canned
1/2 c. quick oats
1/4 c. fresh parsley, minced
1 1/2 c. cooked quinoa
1tsp poultry seasoning
1 tsp paprika
2 tbs Bragg's liquid Amino Acids
2 tbs chickpea flour
1/2 tsp salt
freshly ground black pepper
olive oil for cooking

In a food processor add onion and garlic and pulse until finely chopped. Add the chickpeas and oats and pulse until well mixed. Don't puree the mixture. Place the mixture in a large mixing bowl and add in the quinoa, parsley, poultry seasoning, paprika, chickpea flour and Bragg's Amino Acids. If you don't have chickpea flour, place some dried chickpeas in a coffe grinder and grind to a fine powder. Add salt and pepper. Use your hands to mix the ingredients well and seperate into 6 balls, and press into 3-4 inch patties.

Heat a larg cast-iron skillet, no worries if you don't have cast iron, you can make them in a regular skillet. Lightly coat the skillet with olive oil. Add the burgers to the skillet and cook 5 minutes on both sides. Reduce heat if necessary to keep burgers from burning. Let the burgers rest 5 minutes before serving. I would reccomend that you serve them on Garlic Rosemary Hamburger buns. Serve with Lettuce, tomato and vegan mayo.

Dumplings!

OK so I have German Ancestors. Which means I grew up eating a lot of dumplings, or Rivels as my granny would call them, no I agree they are not the same. Dumplings are bigger and cook longer. Rivels are super cheap and easy to make. They are just 4 simple ingredients flour, egg, salt and pepper. However since I am not eating eggs it has been 4 weeks since I have had the ingredients on hand to throw together this super quick meal. I used to eat rivels about twice a week. This will definately be a meal that I will make again because it was fantastic.
Stew:

1 Not Chikin boullion cube
2 carrots diced
2 stalks of celery diced
1/2 onion, chopped
6-8 cups of water

Place all ingredients in a large pot and bring to a rolling boil.

Dumplings Ingredients:

2 c. flour
1tbs baking soda
1/2 tsp sea salt
3/4 c. plus 2 tbs non-dairy milk, plain
2tbs canola oil

Mix together the dry ingredients and then add to them the wet ingredients, stir enough to form a dough. Drop into the stew mixture by spoonfuls. Cover pot and turn heat to simmer cook 15 minutes. Serve over Mashed Potatoes or my new favorite Carrot Mashed Potatoes click here for the recipe

Shake, Shake, Shake your booty

Ok so it is safe to say that I am IN LOVE with my new shake recipe. It is SO easy and tastes even better.

1-2 bananas, previously peeled, sliced and frozen
1 tbs ground flax seed
2 tbs cocoa powder
2 c. Chocolate Almond Milk, or plain Almond Milk and 4 tbs cocoa powder

place all ingredients in a blender and mix until smooth. ENJOY! so good. yum. I had this for breakfast and when I got home I made one with a spoonful of peanut butter added, it was great too. Just not sure that twice a day is great, but hey all the ingredients are good for me right :)

Black Beans and Lasagna

OK I know what you are thinking and I did make black beans and lasagna today, but not necessarily to be eaten together. I was making the beans and flipping through my only vegan cookbook that I own. Don't get me wrong I have several that I borrowed from the library, so the possiblities are endless.

I knew I wanted to make Parmazano as I had seen it a few days ago and was really wanting to make it. Since I bought nutritional yeast flakes yesterday at Native Sun, I decided to go for it tonight. It was super easy here is the recipe.
1c. Nutritional Yeast Flakes
1/2 c. raw almonds, blanched and patted dry
1/2 teaspoon salt
Place all ingredients in food processor and process for several minutes until the almonds are very finely ground. Store in an airtight container in the fridge.

to blanche almonds: place them in a pot and cover them with water. place on stove and boil 1-2 minutes. rinse with cold water and pinch skin between thumb and forefinger to peel off skin.

Ok so I made this and it was awesome, but the jar I had to put it in was a little too small. Looking further in the book I spotted a recipe for vegan cottage cheese and luckily I had most of the ingredients ( I was missing onion powder). So since I had leftover parmazano and all the ingredients to make the cottage cheese, I decided to make lasagna. The cottage cheese was super easy and tasty too. Here's what you need:
1 pkg firm tofu, drained and well mashed
2/3 c. dairy free mayo
3 tsp no salt seasoning (this is what I used since it had onion powder and garlic powder in it) The original recipe calls for 2 tsp onion powder and 1tsp garlic powder
Place all ingredients in the food processor and mix thoroughly. Store in the refridgerator.
So I have a parmesan substitute and a cottage cheese substitute, lasagna was a no brainer. It was good too. I just layered it similar to regular lasagna. In the bottom of a baking dish I poured some sauce, next I placed noodles on top of them, placed some of the cottage cheese mixture on top of that, added some more sauce, noodles and cream cheese mixture. I added more noodles and sauce and then placed the parmazano on top and baked it for 30 minutes. It was really good. Come over and I will feed you some :)

Hump day

Today I was totally craving a grilled cheese sandwich. So I thought, no problem they make vegan slices and I have bread in the freezer and I bought earth balance (vegan butter) last night. So I decided to go to Native Sun on my way home from work. I had a box of Kosher Mushroom Barley soup in the Pantry so I thought no brainer, soup and grilled cheese for dinner. The soup last night was waaaay better and since this was a box, there is no recipe to post. The grilled cheese was pretty good. I caught myself thinking I could get used to this. After dinner I made some chocolate mousse. I adapted a recipe from the Joy of Vegan Baking I couldn't get a good picture of it here is the best I could do. It was pretty good, but my chocolate wasn't all the way melted, so there are bits of chocolate in it. I think that it would have been better smoother. Original recipe:
1c. non dairy semi sweet chocolate chips
12 ounces Silken Tofu
1/2 c. nondairy milk
1/2 tsp vanilla extract I didn't have the reccomended chocolate I only had baking chocolate, which I learned is not sweet at all. So I used:

1oz bakers chocolate
12 ounces silken organic tofu
1/2 chocolate almond milk
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract

Place all ingredients into a food processor and mix until smooth, stopping to scrape the sides down a few times. Refridgerate one hour and serve. It was very good, but not very sweet. Which is my fault I know. I should have used the reccomended chocolate, but hey there is always next time and trust me there will be a next time :)

Kale Soup

I decided to go grocery shopping on my way home from work today. Before I went Vegan that meant, hitting Publix and buying almost everything that was BOGO along with anything else that struck my fancy. Today was very different. I went to Publix, I had a $5 off $30 coupon how could I resist, plus it was payday. Gotta get some food in the house before the bills eat my food budget.

I got some new staples. Like Vegan butter, cream cheese and mayonnaise. These are all made without dairy. I tried a bit of the Toufutti better than cream cheese, and it was pretty good. None of them were on sale, but I figured if I spread the $5 off between these 3 items I still did pretty good. I also got some organic soy milk as silk is $2.50 this week at Publix. I also splurged on some chocolate almond milk, can you tell I am missing chocolate, in my defense it had a $1 off coupon on it. Ok down to business, the soup. This was my last ditch effort to like Kale. I have to say after tonight I am in LOVE.

This soup was awesome. I didn't have a recipe and was too hungry to look for one, so I just threw some stuff in a pot and called it Soup. I have done this a lot over the years and I have NOT always gotten good results. Luck was on my side today though I have eaten 2 bowls and am tempted to go for another.

Here is what I put in the soup:
2/3 bunch of Kale, washed and chopped
3 carrots, peeled and diced
1 can diced tomatoes
1 can of navy beans rinsed
1 can of diced potatoes ( I don't usually use canned potatoes, but this was all I had)
2 vegetable bouillon cubes
Here is what you do. Get a soup pot, fill it half full of water. Put pot on high heat and add bouillon cubes. When water comes to a boil add chopped kale and carrots. Let boil about 5 minutes. Add remaining ingredients. Let simmer 10 minutes. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Enough is Enough - Day Five Juice Fast

So this morning I was still feeling pretty tired. I actually hit the snooze button, which I never do.
I managed to get up though, and had enough time to throw together a Peach Watermelon Juice as well as a juice for lunch.
I thought that the foam was super pretty on this juice. Below is a picture of the ingredients I used for lunch. It made a really pretty scarlett colored juice. In fact it is adapted from a recipe my mom sent me called Scarlett Beauty Juice.
Ok so I got home for work and still didn't feel good. So I decided that enough is enough. I feel like 5 days, while only half of my original goal will have to do. So I made dinner. I made a salad with garbanzo beans and a sweet vidalia onion dressing and a Morningstar Farms Veggie Burger.

I didn't expect that I would like the veggie burger all that much but it was actually pretty good. This is not something I will eat all the time, but I will eat it again afterall it comes in a box of 4 :)