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!

Guacamole Bowl

Yesterday my friend and I embarked on a journey of gluttony. We attended the 8th Annual Guacamole Bowl in Balboa Park. Upon paying our $5 entry fee, we were handed a bag of tortilla chips and some stickers to use to vote for our favorite guacamoles. Out of 30. I was a little put off when the first three we passed had bacon listed in their ingredients, but was mighty happy that every booth had ingredients well displayed so I could avoid those with meat and dairy. We did come across one booth that listed "dairy" and "love" as two of their ingredients. We stayed well away from that booth.

The event was a charity event to raise money for sports for children with disabilities.

It was a really awesome event and, even passing by the booths that had meat or dairy, we still had plenty of guacamole to indulge in.

Everyone was mighty spirited and encouraged us to try their guac and vote for them.

There were decorated tables, costumes and even a theme song or two.

It was really fun reading the ingredients, tasting the guac and then figuring out first if we liked it (we didn't find any we didn't) and secondly what flavors stood out and what made the best ones the best. I was quite a fan of the ones in which I could taste cumin and lime. I was surprised by the contrasting sweetness of the yellow bell peppers in one we tried.

There were pounds upon pounds of fresh vegetables floating around the building.

We managed to stuff ourselves silly in only a short hour. Luckily I had already been to the gym earlier in the morning and ran a 5K on the treadmill (have I mentioned I am going to attempt a 5K run/race on March 26th?) so I didn't feel so bad.

I'll leave you with one final picture that we took extra care to bring to you. You see, my friend doesn't so much like people in costumes, and this guy disappeared and we had to hunt him down. But here it is, for your viewing pleasure.

Hope you enjoyed my guacamole bowl festivities.

Black Bean Tacos

Do you ever have one of those days where you just know exactly what you want for dinner and it totally peps you up? No, just me? I go to the gym straight from work Mondays, Tuesdays and usually Thursdays along with coming home for a brief 1/2 hour first on Wednesdays. This results in my starting to throw dinner together anywhere from 6 to 7:30 at night. Obviously that doesn't leave much time for intricate dinners. Some nights I rely on weekend leftovers. Sometimes I throw together something quickly like a salad or sandwich and sometimes I rely on boca burgers or meatless balls, jarred spaghetti sauce and whole wheat spaghetti. Occasionally though, as happened tonight, I was struck with inspiration and put together a meal I'd like to share with you.

A few months back I mentioned that I had made Oh She Glows' Easy Avocado-Lime Black Bean Salad. When I set out this afternoon, that was what I was going to make. I saw someone in my office eating tacos for lunch and I instantly thought of throwing that black bean salad on some corn tortillas and having me some yummy tacos for dinner. Luckily I had already set some black beans to soak before I left for work this morning and I had my fabulous new Pressure Cooker to cook them up in no time flat. A trip to the store on my way home to pick up some tortillas and cilantro resulted in a slight shift in the dinner plans. I started thinking about what else I could put on the tacos to jazz them up a bit. I thought about some lettuce and salsa, but those seemed like they would take away from the lovely combination of this recipe, so I ended up picking up a head of red cabbage.

I didn't measure ingredients which is probably a good thing as my salad turned out a bit too oniony for even my onion loving tastes. For the original recipe, make sure and check out Oh She Glows' post and then add in the cabbage if you'd like.

First: Chop your onion

Then add chopped cilantro

Next add the juice from your limes

Blurry picture, but the most used contraption in my kitchen next to my food processor.

Add in some cumin and salt

Slice up your cabbage

I ended up not mixing the avocado in since I didn't want to leave it overnight in the leftovers.

Apart from using too much onion, these tacos were unbelievably delicious! And considering that I could put this together after the gym and a shower on a week night, I'd say we have a winner.

Oh, and I <3 my pressure cooker. I see a long and happy life together.

Key Lime Pie

When I purchased some graham cracker crusts during the holidays my first thought was key lime pie. Months later, I still had not managed to find a suitable recipe even though I scoured the internet searching. When I found key limes on my grocery trip last weekend I knew the time had come. Recipe or no recipe, I was making key lime pie.

I really had no recipe even to base my recipe on so I went with my gut. Silken tofu, lime juice, lime zest, agave, cornstarch and a little vanilla (and a little bit of food coloring). I didn't really imagine it would set up so super well, but I imagined it would taste delicious. Unfortunately, when I poured the concoction into the crust, it fell short of the top by a good 1/4 inch. What to do!? I vaguely remembered Katie's post on making your own coconut butter out of shredded coconut so I tried to do something along those lines to make a creamy coconut topping. Note the word tried. I processed and processed and processed my coconut but it remained grainy. I mixed it with some agave and coconut oil and even tossed in a bit of water, but it remained grainy. So I went with it.

The result is a pretty darn good pie.

Yum. Unfortunately, the rest of the dinner I prepared last night was not as photo worthy. Lentil rice loaf, mashed cauliflower and onion gravy. Have you ever made onion gravy? I cannot believe how easy it was. Melt tablespoon of earth balance in cast iron skillet, add onion. Cook until brown. Remove onion. Add in 4 tablespoons earth balance and 4 tablespoons flour. Cook until well mixed. Add back in onion and 2 cups veggie broth. Stir until thick. Season with salt and pepper. I almost ate this off the spoon it was so delicious.

Have you tried dessert hummus yet? Want some more incentive?

Graham crackers. Banana slices. Dessert hummus. Need I say more?

Dessert Hummus

I know what you're thinking. But hear me out. Today I read a tweet from @mama_pea about having to make the choice between grocery shopping and making dessert hummus. I was hooked instantly. I had everything at home except something to dip in it. I went to the store and got some graham crackers and I was ready.

Once home I rinsed the garbanzo beans, pulled out the food processor, tossed in some peanut butter, maple syrup, vanilla and a pinch of salt and started that baby up. Minutes later I mixed in some mini chocolate chips I conveniently had on hand and tasted one of the most intriguing foods I have tried in a long time. It wasn't oh my goodness love at first bite, but after a few bites I was hooked. Luckily my desire to produce a great picture for all of you stopped my boyfriend and I from devouring the whole batch in one sitting.

This is currently chilling in my refrigerator. Can I have dessert for dinner?

Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Dessert Hummus. This guy's a genius.

A Jalapeno Kind Of Dinner

Tonight's dinner (which took me a good 2 hours in the kitchen to make) centered around farmer's market finds. Last Sunday I bought a basket of jalapenos and a basket of tomatillos with absolutely no plan for them. Over the past week, a plan was formed. I give you:

A Jalapeno Kind Of Dinner

I have a couple more things I'd like to get done tonight so I'll leave you with only a short description, some links to recipes I used as well as two more pictures of kitchen basics.

Back during MoFo, Vegan Eats & Treats did a post about pupusas. I was immediately intrigued but forgot all about it until Wednesday when I went to the Ocean Beach farmer's market and my friend and I started discussing the pupusas they were selling on the side of the street. I googled Viva Vegan Pupusas and found this recipe. I may have to look into actually buying this cook book because these were (apart from some minor trials and tribulations) delicious and fairly easy. I stuffed the pupusas with a veggie mix that contained roasted jalapenos, garlic, onion and sauteed chard, bell peppers and more onion. For my boyfriend I stuffed his with refried beans and a little cheese. Note: I do not recommend refreid beans for stuffing. Use only solid foods for ease of preparation.

Next, I made jalapeno cornbread from this recipe. Oh! And while I'm thinking about it, I have to thank reader Becky who suggested that I try google bookmarks for keeping track of the recipes I'd like to try. This was exactly what I was looking for! I hit bookmark, change the name, add a category if I choose and then there is an app on my phone that I can click on to bring them right up. Genius! But back to the muffins. I left the roasted jalapenos out of half of them for my boyfriend and used whole wheat flour because that was all I had on hand. These were really good topped with a little Earth Balance.

The main goal I had when I set out 3 hours ago though was to use up the tomatillos by making a green salsa. I roasted garlic, tomatillos, jalapenos and onion and here's where you get kitchen tip #1 and #2.

Roasting your veggies in muffin tins is super easy and convenient!

An oven thermometer (even a dirty one) can really help when baking to show you whether or not your oven is really at 400 degrees or not.

But back to the salsa. I roasted everything and then took the seeds out of all the jalapenos. I threw everything except for about half the jalapenos, a quarter of the onion and one of the heads of garlic into the food processor with some cilantro and lemon juice and blended it up. I used no specific recipe for this and it turned out delicious!

Finally, I made a wild rice blend that I seasoned with lemon juice and salt and pepper after cooking.

Plated, I added refried beans and the veggie mix to the top of my pupusas and drizzled with the salsa. This was way too much food but was definitely delicious. Now that I know how all the ingredients go together I think I will be making these more often.

Sorry for the detour from Portland. Probably one more post before I get to it as well as I have one more food I am dieing to tell you about!

Portland: Saturday

I'm still here and I haven't forgotten about the rest of my trip. I'm sure you are all on the edge of your seats waiting for the rest of the story (or at least you were 3 weeks ago when I posted Friday's recap). Without further ado, I give you: Saturday in Portland.

As when someone learns the fact that I am vegan is so often met with the question "Where do you get your protein?", so too is the fact that I want to live in Oregon often met with the question "You know it rains a lot there, right?". I patiently explain that I am well aware of this fact while I roll my eyes in my imagination. My mom and I were pleasantly surprised to find that it did not rain once on Friday. Of course, we joked, it would rain all of Saturday when we had plans for doing things outdoors. Boy were we ever right about that. One of the major things I wanted to check out while we were there was the Farmer's Market at PSU. So we set out Saturday morning with the plan to go there and to the Saturday Market which is a sort of art market. When we left the hotel it was already raining. But, if I was to ever move to Portland I would definitely not let a little rain stop me.

We headed out once again across the Willamette and easily found the market. We also managed to find a parking space pretty close. The market was mostly deserted but was filled with so many beautiful stands of fresh vegetables and fruit. We made our way around about 3 times just to make sure we didn't miss anything before I decided what to get. Since we were staying in a hotel there was very little I could do with vegetables, but fruits I could bring home with me. The only thing I hated about the rain was that I didn't want to have my camera out and get it all wet, so there are no pictures of the actual market but I do have some I took later of my finds. This was especially sad because on my 3rd trip around when I had stopped once again at a stand filled with vegan baked goods, I ran into the fabulous Sayward of Bonzai Aphrodite and her beautiful family! At this point though I was totally drenched and freezing so we didn't stay long and chat.

And when I say drenched, I mean drenched. I had an umbrella and what I thought was a rain proof jacket. I gave the umbrella to my mom as I had a hood and said jacket. This did nothing to protect my legs and as I learned later, really no part of me. My pants were soaked all the way down and my hands were frozen. We left the market after a fairly short time and headed to the Saturday Market.

My mom had suggested the Saturday Market and I am so glad she did. I dried up only a tiny bit on the way there and then we were back out in the rain but with so much to see. There were hundreds of artists of all kinds selling their handcrafted work. I ended up buying some gifts as well as some artwork for myself.

I got this hanging glass art for my boyfriend's grandma as well as a rainbow necklace for his sister that I neglected to get a picture of. I also neglected to get a picture of these totally awesome earrings I bought for her that were made with this metal that changes colors at different thicknesses.

I got these two pieces of art done by artist Sienna Morris. They are drawn entirely with numbers of the clock. There is not one line drawn. If you have the time, I highly suggest checking out her site.



Walking out of the Saturday Market we were even more soaked than before and I suggested we stop in some place to dry off a little bit before getting back in the car. We happened upon Kell's Irish Restaurant & Pub and our initial thought was possibly some Irish Coffee but then my mom asked what kind of soup they had and would you know, it was vegan! 

Hot apple cider, Irish soda bread and kale and white bean soup! This was so delicious and clean and warming and I absolutely couldn't wait to get home to try to recreate it. I am pretty sure it was just vegetable stock, kale, carrots and white beans but it was sooo yummy. I have recreated it since then and mine turned out a little too oily (I don't think oil was even necessary). This restaurant was great though, they took our coats and we attempted to dry off at least a little. This was when I learned that my jacket was not rain proof. Oops.

After we left Kell's we headed out with no specific agenda. We drove around a lot that day and the heater in the car managed to get me almost 100% dry. We went to a couple of used clothes stores but nothing was too great. We went to Bridge City Comics which was a very nice store.

We drove past my Aunt's old house.

I studied the street structure of Portland. There are little inlets on each corner where water flows and stays instead of an underground sewer system. Also, many, many houses had raised gardens in their frin yards! I absolutely love the look of the older houses in Portland.

We traveled to a Trader Joe's that is right across the street from a 24 hour fitness. We didn't go inside either but the Trader Joe's had to have been 3 times as big as the one I shop in.

For a late lunch we ended up at the most awesome block I have ever seen. On the left was Sweet Pea Bakery, then Herbivore Clothing and finally, Food Fight Grocery. All vegan! If I could move in right across the street I think I'd be the happiest vegan on the planet!

At Sweet Pea Bakery I got a seitan filled sandwich. I can't remember what it was called or exactly what was in it, but it was delicious.

My mom and I also got a slice of carrot cake to split after our leftover Thai food back at the hotel. Sorry for the horrible picture. Bonus points though, the container was compostable. And according to blogger, compostable is not a word....Get with the times blogger.

Back at the hotel I was finally able to take some pictures of the days goodies away from the downpours

Delicious gingerbread spice cake with lemon ginger icing.

Peanut butter & chocolate crispy treat.

Hot pepper marionberry jam.

Apples and Pears.

And that takes us pretty much to the end of Saturday. It was a wet but wonderful day and I felt like I got a true taste of Portland.

Hopefully it wont take me three weeks to get back to you about Sunday and Monday.

Thanks for reading! Also, please pardon the formatting of this post. I am tired and do not have the energy to figure out why I can't get the spacing right.