Weird Kind of Morning

Usually when my alarm goes off I do not want to get out of bed. I consider myself mostly a morning person. I am definitely not a night person (I'm usually in bed by at least 10 every night), but I'd almost always rather stay in bed than get the day started. Today, not so much. I was out of bed with gusto when my alarm went off and as a result, I'm almost ready for work a full 30 minutes early. Your benefit I suppose. Here are some things I've been meaning to show you.

I bought a box of the Amy's Bistro Burgers and regardless of the fact that I had no buns and had to improvise with a pita, managed to make a fairly good recreation of a quarter pounder from my youth. Tofutti cheese singles are not the greatest thing ever, but in combination with other foods they make for some decent nostalgia.

 

Quarter pounders don't typically have tomato, but I did, so there. This was delicious by the way.

I went through a couple of weeks where I was making burritos like every other day. I developed this lovely technique of putting the burrito seam side down on a hot cast iron skillet to keep it from opening. Genius? You tell me.

Mostly I use refried or whole beans with rice, lettuce and salsa for the boyfriend and add in some avocado for myself, but these were tofu scramble, greens and potato burritos.

My boyfriend never really shops for food. He works in a grocery store 2 days a week and usually the only thing he'll buy is bananas but one day he bought a couple of things including some chocolate for me! And here's how I used it.

First I mixed some peanut butter with some oats and I think a few mini chocolate chips.

Then I added on the melted chocolate and it was almost like a lazy, more healthy resee's. Only more healthy in that it had oats. Delicious.

One day I was wandering the interwebs when I came across the idea for cinnamon roll pancakes. The recipe was not vegan so I just winged it the next morning, before work mind you. The cinnamon swirl kind of cooked into the pancake instead of staying clearly swirled, but topped with a drizzle of icing, these were unbelievable.

Not exactly every morning food.

And finally, I leave you with the tofu omelette that I made Sunday morning. My boyfriend was not a fan as they were a bit more mushy than he would have preferred, but I thought they were delicious!




Alright, that's enough from me as it is now almost time to leave. Thanks for keeping me company while I wasted time before work!

Banana Everything Cookies

About a year ago I acquired a most wonderful recipe for a cookie using up over ripe bananas. I need to keep better track of my sources so I could give credit where credit is due, but alas, back then, I did not keep track. I just wrote down recipes, tried them and then kept them or tossed them. This one I kept. When I first made this cookie I added walnuts and raisins to make a sort of trail mix cookie. While I loved them like that, my chocolate loving boyfriend would never touch raisins or nuts and so I began making one batch my way and one batch with chocolate chips. These cookies are serious winners either way, and if you decrease the sugar, I say they aren't that bad for you (no health claims are made here as I am not a dietitian or nutritionist). I have tons of pictures of the process for these cookies as I make them all the time. So, let's begin. You will need:

1 medium ripe banana
1/3 cup canola oil
2/3 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla

3/4 cup flour + 2 tbs if dough is too wet
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
2 cups oats

1 cup mix ins. For example, 1 cup chocolate chips or 1/2 cup chopped walnuts and 1/2 cup raisins but be creative. Anything you have on hand would work. And just about everything goes with chocolate, right?

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Perfectly ripe bananas.

I like to make the wet portion of this recipe in my food processor so that the bananas get really pureed. Some recipes call for hand mashing the bananas so that you have chunks, but I like it nice and smooth.

Banana and sugar

This is a sugar that I cannot remember the name of. I believe it is similar to, if it is not actually, sucanat. 

Add in vanilla and canola oil

And process

Meanwhile, whisk together your dry ingredients. Ooh, I wish I had a picture to show you my two favorite baking tools. If you've read many posts then you know I love my citrus press for cooking. For baking, I could not live without my whisk and my silicone spatula.

Oats

 

Oats & flour

Whisk it all toghether

Add your mix ins

These chocolate chips I used a few months ago were really too large for these cookies. This time I used regular sized and they worked much better. So, let's pretend these are regular sized chocolate chips.

Once everything is good and mixed, add in your wet. Oh, hey, there's my spatula. I love that thing. Can you propose to a spatula?

Gooey

 

And apparently I have no pictures of the after mixed stage or the rolling stage. But here's how it goes down. I use a cookie sheet covered with a silpat (I used to use parchment paper) and I scoop out the dough using a cookies scoop. This works really well and the cookies turn out mostly the same shape and size. You could always use your hands and a spoon though.

Bake for 10 - 12 minutes and then let cool for a minute or two on the cookie sheet before transferring to a wire rack. I have found that the trick to vegan cookies is usually to undercook them. This leaves them moist and chewy. Of course, I am probably biased since that is how I like my cookies. If you prefer a crunchy cookie, this recipe isn't the best place to start. And while I am on the topic of undercooked dough, don't forget to taste the dough as you are rolling out the cookies. It is quite delicious. Though it is not nearly as addicting as my go to chocolate chip cookie dough is. Or the dessert hummus. But the baked version of these cookies is more addicting than the blueberry muffins I made this weekend. But not by much. By the way, I have all of those in my house right now. Dozens of cookies, muffins, dessert hummus and even pancakes. Thank goodness for the salad I had for lunch and the taco I'm about to go make for dinner. I don't really want to see any sugar for the rest of the night. 

Enjoy!

Home Made Chocolates

 


When I went to All Vegan a few weeks ago you may remember that I picked up some vegan marshmallows.  Ever since then I had been dreaming of recreating my favorite See's candy:

Scotchmallow

Last weekend I went to Micheal's and bought this brownie candy mold:

 

Then I failed to have the ingredients necessary to make caramel and decided that it wasn't really worth it to try.  So I put away the mold and decided to use it later to make peanut butter cups.

Well, yesterday was later.  First I lined the molds with melted dark chocolate.

 

I then stuck them in the freezer to harden up.  

 

Once the shells were hard I filled half of them with my marshmallows and the other half with my crunchy peanut butter that I ground myself at the People's market last weekend.  I stuck these back in the freezer for a few minutes to harden up the peanut butter.

 

Then I covered them to the top with more melted chocolate and returned them to the freezer one last time.

They turned out fabulous!  Apart from a few of the shells not being thick enough and cracking upon removal from the mold this was a major success.

 

I toyed with the idea of wrapping them individually in foil and bringing them to work to give as samples and then trying to sell them later on, but the amount of work and the cost of the raw materials that went into them was not so very cost effective and also the chocolate has a tendency to melt a bit.  I am going to tinker with it another time and see if I can get it more stable.  Meanwhile, here is what they would have looked like.

Perhaps I will try again if a special occasion arises.  I also made some larger, more traditional peanut butter cups using my silicone cupcake molds.

These are the definition of decadence and I don't condone eating a whole one in one sitting.  Next time I might try to fill the cups less to make them smaller. I also did six of these using almond butter which was a bit runny and they didn't set up quite right.  They all cracked when I took them out of the cups.  They are still delicious but a bit messy.  As for the chocolate covered marshmallows?  Oh my god.  I am keeping these frozen in an attempt to ration them.  The marshmallows themselves are delicious but when combined with dark chocolate, I take it back, that is the definition of decadence.

One more idea I thought of but decided to leave for another day, is to replace the peanut butter and marshmallows in the chocolate shells with ice cream.  Particularly this ice cream from Purely Decadent (notice a trend here?):

Imagine chocolate covered vegan ice cream.  Nom.

Chocolate Covered Katie Love

Today I finally threw together some fudge babies following Katie's recipe.  I found a digital scale right before xmas and have loved having it.  I attempted 3 kinds.

First

Cashew Cookie Larabar
These ended up a little too gooey so I rolled them in shredded coconut.

Then I had a little fun and added some almonds to the top.

Next

 Original Fudge Babies

These were also a little gooey but I think my dates were extra juicy.  I think I could have added a few more walnuts.  But they weren't so gooey that I needed to roll them in coconut.

Finally I attempted the original fudge babies sans cocoa powder but with the addition of chocolate chips.  Unfortunately this one did not come together because it was a little wet.  Doesn't mean it wasn't delicious, it just didn't form into bars.

I also spent some of the day looking over Katie's older posts.  So far I want to try Texas Caviar and Sweet and Sour Seitan.  My boyfriend and I went to dinner at Sipz on Wednesday and though I am usually not the biggest fan of the restaurant or of imitation meat, their "chicken" had the most realistic texture ever.  I really want to try to master seitan.  When I was looking up seitan I came across this recipe that I also really want to try.

And in case you haven't heard, Katie is giving away a vita-mix blender.  If you have ever wanted one, I suggest you visit this page.

Thanks!

Peanut Butter Cups

The first of many posts I have let pile up.

I do not know where this month went, or how it's almost Christmas!

Mostly pictures:

Dark chocolate, chia seeds, flax seeds, peanut butter with a tiny bit of nutritional yeast.  Inspiration from Green & Crunchy.  While these were tasty, there was definite room for improvement.

Chocolate Chocolate Chip Walnut Cookies

This weekend I was perusing the interwebs, looking at random Vegan MoFO, when I came across some Chocolate Chocolate Chip Walnut Cookies that someone had made from Veganomicon.  They looked so delicious that, had I not been out of cocoa powder, I would have made them right then and there.  Alas, I had to wait a whole 24 hours to make them!  Let me tell you, these cookies were worth the wait.  After I mixed up the dough, I had decided to make 1/2 of them without nuts for my non nut loving boyfriend.  This was before I had given the dough a taste.  Seriously, I could have eaten the whole thing raw it was so yummy.  In the end, I decided to make only 1/3 without nuts which left the other 2/3 all for me (and to share with a few select people). This is very unusual for me.  Generally I will give up nuts in an effort to compromise or at least take the smaller portion, but these were just too damn good. 

Seriously, if you make these be prepared to have someone to share with.  The recipe makes 3 dozen and I easily find myself eating one or two and then wishing they were healthy enough to eat at least one more.

Nom.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Balls

Ever year for as long as I can remember, my mom has made peanut butter balls, toffee and peanut brittle to give as gifts for Christmas.  A couple of years ago she taught me how to make them and I began to carry on the tradition.  I don't really have a yearning to continue on with toffee and peanut brittle as they really contain a whole lot of sugar along with high temperatures I am not so comfortable with.  But peanut butter balls?  That's a whole different story.   Sometime this last year I had made some pb granola bars for my boyfriend but had been out of chocolate chips at the time.  I decided to remedy this by dipping the granola bars in melted chocolate at a later time.  I then discovered that any time I have melted chocolate is a good time to make peanut butter balls.

The recipe for peanut butter balls only contains a few ingredients.  My mom uses skippy peanut butter, rice crispies, powdered sugar and butter with a coating of melted chocolate and paraffin wax.  I follow her recipe but replace the skippy with some all natural (non-hydrogenated) peanut butter and some crisp brown rice rather than rice crispies which I haven't read the ingredients on in so long, but I am pretty sure would have high fructose corns syrup.  And of course I used vegan butter.

Peanut butter balls are pretty easy.

1 lb powdered sugar
3 cups crisp rice
2 cups peanut butter (crunchy or smooth)
1/2 cup vegan butter (I used earth balance)

Add all ingredients to a bowl and mix thoroughly with a wooden spoon.
Take a small spoonful and roll it into a ball.
Place on a wax paper lined cookie sheet.
Repeat until they are all rolled.

Melt 12 oz of chocolate along with 1/4 bar of paraffin wax and dip each ball.
Place on wax paper.  Repeat and then put the cookie sheet in the fridge to harden.

I didn't use enough paraffin wax this time and so mine have a tendency to melt in your hand.  I need to do some research though on what goes into paraffin wax...scary thought just entered my head that it might not be vegan.