chocolate chip oatmeal pecan cookies.

I made these cookies to welcome my friend back to the office, and to kick off our busy catalog season at work. They were delicious and a hit among the co workers. Those Joy the baker recipes never seem to let me down. I veganized this one, and I cut the recipe in half.

1/2 cup earth balance
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar, packed
egg replacer for one egg
3/4 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 1/4  cups uncooked oats
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 cup semi sweet chocolate chips
1/2 cup chopped pecans

Beat the sugar and earth balance in the bowl of a stand mixer fit with a paddle attachment.  Beat until creamy, about 3 to 4 minutes.  Add egg replacer and the vanilla extract and beat until blended.

Whisk together the oats, flour, baking powder, baking soda, spices and salt.  Add to the butter and egg mixture slowly beating on low speed until just incorporated.  Stir in the chocolate chips and pecans last.

Bake at 350 degrees F for 10 to 13 minutes or until they’ve reached your desired doneness.

spinach, grape, banana & peach smoothie.

Now that I’m back from china – (update on granny stripe blanket coming soon!)  I’ve been trying to get back in the groove of eating regular food. However, I’ve been looking for a twist on the everyday things that I have been finding myself gravitating towards. I had a chance to finally grocery shop last night and the majority of my $100 bill was produce! I’m ready for healthy food again!

I started this morning with a delicious new smoothie!

I used about 2 cups of baby spinach, handful of frozen peaches, two handfuls of purple grapes, and a frozen banana. I added 1 cup of chilled water, and put it in the vitamix. SO GOOD! It made plenty too, so I was able to share (although I could have drank the whole thing by myself easily!!)

fudgy beet cupcakes.

Have you ever baked with beets?

I have one other time, years ago – and although it can be kind of messy (your kitchen can look like a serial killer worked in there if you aren’t careful), its pretty amazing how you can pack something so healthy into something so sweet and not really even know its there. I’m not really a HUGE fan of beets. I can handle them in small doses, or if they are heavily disguised. We juice them alot, but usually I try to mask the earthy taste with something sweet like pineapple or apples. I find on their own they are just too much for me. This recipe disguises the beets pretty well – and if you use natural sugar and some whole wheat pasty flour, you can really pack a healthy treat. Although, Milo had the great idea to stick some chocolate chips in there too….

The original recipe is found here.

• 2 medium beets
• 1 cup unsweetened vanilla almond milk
• 1 tsp white or apple cider vinegar
• 
3/4 cup raw turbinado OR granulated sugar
• 3 T melted coconut oil
• 2 tsp pure vanilla extract
• 1/2 tspn chocolate extract
• 1 cup + 1 heaping Tbsp whole wheat pastry flour or unbleached all-purpose flour
• scant ½ cup unsweetened cocoa powder
 + more for topping
• 1 tsp baking soda
• ½ tsp baking powder

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 375°F, remove the stem and most of the root from your beets, and scrub and wash them underwater until clean.
2. Wrap beets in foil, wrap tightly, and roast for one hour or until a knife inserted falls out without resistance. They should be tender. Set in the fridge (in a bowl to catch juice) to cool to room temperature.
3. Once cooled, either finely grate or puree beets in a blender (adding orange juice or water to encourage mixing). Measure out ½ cup and set aside.
4. Line a muffin pan with paper liners.
5. Whisk together the almond milk and vinegar in a large bowl, and set aside for a few minutes to curdle. Add the sugar, oil, vanilla extract, and ½ cup beets and beat until foamy.
6. Add the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder, and salt to a sifter and slowly sift it into the wet ingredients while mixing with a hand-held or standing mixer. Beat until no large lumps remain. Throw in some chocolate chips if you desire.
7. Pour batter into liners, filling ¾ of the way full. Bake 22 to 25 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Transfer to a cooling rack and let cool completely. Do not try and unwrap them or they’ll stick to the wrapper.
8. Once cooled, dust with cocoa powder and store in an airtight container to keep fresh.

king cake.

Happy fat tuesday!

Fat tuesday is the kick off to mardi gras; meant to be a day of indulgence to be followed up with days of fasting and giving up thing that are bad for you. Kind of silly if you ask me – but it didnt stop me from indulging in some king cake!

I have never had a king cake. Haven’t ever seen a vegan one for sale, but I do remember that Kittee seemed to be the queen of vegan king cake, so I gave her recipe a whirl.

This recipe seems intimidating because it uses yeast and you have to let it rise. But don’t let that stop you. It’s not hard at all. And it turned out delicious. I used some tofutti cream cheese topped with cinnamon and sugar as my filling. It has a hint of orange in the dough, and something about that keeps making me want to go back for more.

I didn’t know how easy it would be to find the traditional mardi gras colors for the sprinkles, nor did I feel like going to the store specifically to try to find out – so I made my own! I just mixed food color with regular sugar. That was easy!

So enjoy your fat tuesday! What do you plan on indulging on today?

original recipe found here:

• 1 cup whole wheat bread flour or whole wheat pastry flour
• 1 1/4 teaspoons active dry yeast
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 cup unbleached granulated sugar
• 1/4 cup (four tablespoons) Earth Balance
• 1/4 cup unsweetened non-dairy milk
• 1/4 cup tepid water
• 1/2 cup non-dairy yogurt
• 1 tablespoon cornstarch or Ener-G egg replacer (dry–don’t mix with liquid)
• 2 teaspoons organic orange zest, divided
• 1 1/2-2 cups unbleached white flour
• 1-1 1/2 cups powdered sugar and more non-dairy milk for glaze.

What You Do:

1. In the bowl of a mixer with a dough hook, combine the whole wheat flour, yeast, salt, and 1/4 cup of the granulated sugar.
2. Heat the Earth Balance and non-dairy milk over medium low heat, until the Earth Balance is melted. Remove from heat and add the warm water. Bring the temperature to 110F.
3. Add the warm liquid to the flour and and beat to combine. Add the yogurt, Ener-G and zest and continue to beat until well blended.
4. Add in 1/2 cup of white flour and mix to combine. Continue to add the white flour in 1/2 cup increments until the dough is soft and firm, but still a bit tacky (mine only needed 1 1/2 cups).
5. Knead for ten minutes by hand or five with a dough hook, until the dough is smooth and elastic (it will be slightly tacky to the touch).
6. Gather the dough into a ball and let rise in a large bowl covered with a tea towel in a warm area, until doubled in size about 2 hours. (I put mine in the oven with the pilot light lit).
7. Once the dough has risen, punch it down, preheat the oven to 350F.
8. Lightly flour your counter and rol lthe dough out into a long rectangle about 26″X20″ (keep the wide end facing you). The dough should be about 1/4″ thin.
9. Once the dough is rolled out, it’s time to fill it. Spread your choice of filling over the whole thing, but leave a 1″ margin at the top and sides to help prevent the filling (see below) from squirting out when you roll it.
10. Starting at the bottom edge, carefully roll up the dough, jelly style–don’t forger to hide a tiny baby in the cake somewhere (you can use a dry bean, too). Pinch the seam really well, and connect the ends to form an elliptical ring. The sides will need to be pinched extremely well too, because they often leak.
11. Carefully transfer to the dough to a parchment covered cookie sheet and bake until brown about 35-45 minutes.
12. Let cool ten minutes and then transfer to a wire rack to cool more.
13. While the dough cools, make the sugar glaze. Sift the sugar in a bowl, and add just a tiny bit of milk-teaspoon by teaspoon- until it’s a thick but pourable consistency. Pour over the mostly cooled cake and decorate with purple, gold and green sugar**.

chocolate chip skillet cookie.

Oh, you bet we ate it with ice cream on top….
recipe is from vegan diner

1 1/2 cups flour
1/2 tspn bkg powder
1 T ground flax
3T hot water
1 stick earth balance
1 1/4 cup brown sugar
1 tspn vanilla extract
1 cup chocolate chips
1/2 cup pecans

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 10 inch skillet.
combine flour and baking powder. In a small bowl, combine water and flax. Mix well.
Set aside to thicken.

In another bowl, cream earth balance and sugar until light and fluffy. add flax mixture and vanilla. Add dry ingredients until batter comes together – don’t overmix. Add in pecans and chocolate. Spread into pan and bake for 30-40 minutes until edges turn brown. let cool about 15 minutes and serve warm.

cold fighting smoothie.

Its like the plague has hit our home. First, pink eye struck. Then a bad cold I’ve been fighting for over a week. Then 103 degree fevers and a trip to ER for milo…. Now my husband is sick. Its been a LOOOONG week. and my cold is still lingering!

I made up this smoothie to help us get some vitamin c in our bodies first thing in the morning. It may not actually “fight” a cold – but I wanted something nourishing and fresh in our bodies to start the day since we haven’t been eating much real food otherwise. It definitely tastes good!

1/2 cup almond milk
1 orange
1 cup frozen strawberries
1 handful spinach/and or kale
Squirt of honey

Mix it in a blender and drink away!

funfetti cookie for one.

After dinner tonight, we decided we needed something sweet. Dj suggested a chocolate chip skillet cookie, but since it was just three of us, I thought that would do TOO much damage (doesn’t mean it wont be coming in the near future…), So i opted for this funfetti cookie for one – in our case…three.

It totally satisfied the sugar craving, and we were able to whip it up in no time. We each got a little taste, and I’m not left with two dozen cookies calling my name all weekend….Probably not the healthiest habit to get into, but it sure was tasty!

Ingredients

• 2 Tbsp earth balance
• 4 Tbsp sugar
• 1 1/2 tspn egg replacer, plus 2 T warm water, combined
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 6 Tbsp all-purpose flour
• 1/4 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 2 Tbsp sprinkles

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray cookie sheet with nonstick spray.
2. In a medium-sized mixing bowl, stir the earth balance and sugar together until creamed. Mix in the egg replacer and vanilla.
3. Stir in flour, baking soda, salt, and sprinkles until just combined. Do NOT overmix.
4. Place the dough in the center of the prepared cookie sheet into a big ball. flatten a little bit -  Bake for 14-16 minutes until the edges are browned. The center may appear undone but that’s what you want. It will firm up. Allow to cool completely ON the baking sheet. Enjoy!

chocolate chip ginger cookies.

If chocolate chip cookies and molasses ginger cookies had a baby, these would be it!

1 stick earth balance
2/3 cup dark brown sugar, packed
1/3 cup  granulated sugar
1 egg replacer
2 tablespoons dark molasses
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup chocolate chiops

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (180 degrees C).

In a large bowl, beat together the earth balance and sugars until light and fluffy. Beat in the egg replacer, molasses, and vanilla extract. Stir in the flour, ground ginger, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Gently fold in the chocolate chunks.

Form cookies using 2 tablespoons of cookie dough (or 1 tablespoon for standard sized cookies). Drop onto a cookie sheet and bake for 8-10 minutes, or until lightly browned. Allow the cookies to rest on the cookie sheet for a few minutes before transferring to a cooling rack to cool completely.

I baked mine for about 9 minutes, but think i might go a little longer next time to get them a little more crunchy.

lentil soup.

It is COLD in chicago. The high today was 9 degrees. When I saw smitten kitchen post this recipe today – and I just happened to have everything on hand to make a vegan version of it…it was a sign that I needed to make it for dinner!  It’s the perfect comfort food when the weather is as cold as it is. Were going to serve it up with some crusty garlic bread and spend the rest of the night under the covers!

Here is my take on it!

olive oil
half a package of uptons italian sausage seitan
1 medium onion, diced
2 celery stalks, sliced or diced
2 medium carrots, peeled and sliced into half-moons or diced
4 cloves garlic
Kosher salt
A pinch of crushed red pepper flakes (optional)
1 cup brown lentils, sorted and rinsed
1 28-ounce can crushed tomatoes
6 cups water
Freshly ground black pepper
3 to 4 cups shredded or thinly ribboned  kale

Heat olive oil  in a large pot on medium heat. When hot, add the seitan, breaking it up with a wooden spoon until it starts to cook a little bit (maybe 2-3 minutes). Add the onion, celery, carrots, garlic, a pinch of salt, and if you like your soup spicy, a pinch of red pepper flakes. Cook with the seitan until the vegetables soften a bit, another 5 minutes. Add the lentils, tomatoes, water, more salt and black pepper to taste. Bring to a simmer and allow to cook until the lentils are tender, about 40 minutes. (It might be necessary to add more water if the soup gets too thick.)

When the lentils are cooked, add the kale and cook until the leaves are tender, just a few minutes more.

ginger cookie sandwiches.

Ginger cookies. yum. One of my favorites for sure, and my love of ginger -baked goods has definitely grown this winter. So when I saw a recipe that turned them into sandwich cookies I knew I was game. Two cookies sandwiched between orange cream cheese frosting; sign me up!

The recipe is adapted from here .These were easily made vegan by subbing earth balance for the butter, and using an egg replacer for the egg. I prefer a cream cheese frosting, so I went that route.

Now, to not eat this whole batch….These did NOT dissapoint. Even the dog wanted in on the action. Found him on top of the kitchen table (all four legs, standing ON TOP of the kitchen table) helping himself to one….