cookies and cream cake!

"Cookies and cream" is one of my favorite flavors, so when I feel like splurging on Newman Os, I return again and again to the cookies and cream cupcake variation in Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World.

When friends and I got together to watch The Room (often hailed as the worst move ever made) a while back, I decided to make some food to go along with the theme: since there is a birthday party, with cake, in the movie, a cake would do! (We also had pizza--some of which was vegan, of course--to fit with the theme.)

I doubled the recipe to make a two-layer cake, with more frosting in the middle. I should have taken a picture of cutting into the cake, so you could see that middle part, but we were running late to the movie.

Have any of you seen The Room? My friends and I still quote it to each other from time to time.

Friday Dessert: cookie-dough popsicles

If you remember, I love popsicles. So when I saw a recipe for Cookie Dough Popsicles on the girlichef blog, I knew I'd have to try it. The original recipe isn't vegan, but all I had to do was swap out the real milk for nondairy milk.

Thanks to the husband for taking this picture!

It's so simple; you heat brown sugar in milk (soy, in my case) until the sugar dissolves, then add a pinch of salt and some vanilla. Let cool, then put chocolate chips in your popsicle molds, pour the milky mixture over, and freeze! I didn't have mini chocolate chips like the recipe calls for, so I just chopped up the chocolate chips I had.

It's amazing how much these ingredients, together, actually taste like cookie dough. One of the reasons I like to make popsicles at home is because I don't like them to be too sweet, and that was the only problem I had with these-they were a little too sweet for my tastes. This could be because my popsicles were bigger than Heather from Girlichef's-she made 10 2.5-ounce popsicles from the recipe, whereas my popsicle holders are a little more standard in size-a scant 4 ounces each, and so I had made an even 6 popsicles. Smaller servings might make the sweetness seem less intense. I'll make them again, for sure, but next time I'm going to decrease the sugar from 2/3 cup to 1/2, and see how I like that. But people who aren't so picky about sweetness, or who make smaller popsicles, will love these as is!

Their Eyes Were Watching God: Tea Cakes

I love food and I love to read. As a result, each month, I combine these two interests in a post about food from literature. I'll mostly be sticking with books from classic literature, so you're likely to know the storylines anyway, but just in case you don't: warning: there may be spoilers ahead.

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Today marks the start of the American Library Association's Banned Books Week. I wrote about my feelings on banning books in last year's Banned Books Week entry, so I'll spare you a second diatribe, but if you care about intellectual freedom, first-amendment rights, or just about being able to read some really good books, I strongly recommend you participate. There are lots of ways to show your support for not banning books. The easiest, and in my opinion, the best, is simply to find out which books are most often banned, and borrow or request them from your library. Libraries can use records of how often a book is checked out to help support the argument against banning that particular book, so not only do you get to read a good book, but you support intellectual freedom! If you're handy with a camera, and have always wanted to read, say, the opening passage from Nabokov's Lolita to an audience, another way to show your support is with the Banned Books Week virtual read-out. You can upload yourself reading passages of your favorite banned books on their YouTube channel! Finally, your local library may be having Banned Books Week events, and I'm always a fan of supporting local libraries. Get involved!

Every time I look at a list of banned books, I'm startled by the titles I see: with some, I can't even begin to imagine how they're controversial; with others, I can't believe parents want to deny their existence to their children. Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God is in the latter category. That is, I get why some people find it controversial: not only is there racism, but the book admits the existence of sex. But there's nothing graphic, and both those themes get the serious treatment they deserve. Their Eyes Were Watching God is a beautifully written, moving book about the importance of being true to yourself, to your feelings, and to your goals and desires. It's about working for what makes you happy, and it's about how love can change and transcend any situation.

Granted, I'm a little biased--I love this book. When I first found it, I read the line "There are years that ask questions, and years that answer" and I was a goner. (I was in the middle of a year that asked questions, and the next time I read it was a year that answered.) Even beyond its well-composed plot and interesting characters, this book resonates with anyone who has longed or searched for something. Janie, the main character, is a black woman who wants to find love. She wants a relationship in which she's treated as an equal, in which she desires and is desired, in which she is able to be herself and is appreciated for that self. Apparently, if you're a pretty black Floridian woman in the early 20th century, that's asking too much. Other characters try to point out to her that she should be happy as long as she has safety or stability or money or anything good at all, but for Janie, that's not good enough. And we understand through Janie that when we long for something--anything, not just love--nothing else will come close. We can't settle, and we shouldn't have to. The book emphasizes how important it is to our psyches to pursue our dreams, even if they can't last.

Also, there's a lot of food in this book, and I'm down with any book where food matters. When picking something to make for this entry, I had quite a few recipes to choose from, but I settled on the most obvious choice: Tea Cakes.

Tea Cake is the man whom Janie loves. His real name is Verigible, but Tea Cake is a nickname, one we can presume the ladies gave him for, well, how sweet he is. "Are you as sweet as all that?" Janie asks, upon meeting him, and with that comment starts up their whole romance. Non-human Tea Cakes are basically sugar cookies, but southern. There seems to be some controversy over whether they should be flat and crisp or puffy with soft insides. The recipe below is for the flatter and crisper variety, but you can roll them thicker than 1/4 inch if you want them softer. You can glaze them, ice them, or create sandwich cookies with them by spreading jam in the middle, but their real raison d'etre is to be eaten plain alongside a nice cup of tea, whose flavor they won't overpower (hence the name).

Confession! Because I am a yankee and didn't know about tea cakes before this, I wanted to turn to an expert for a proper recipe. The following is an adaptation (and veganization) of Paula Deen's Southern Tea Cakes.

As Sweet As All That Tea Cakes

Makes 1.5-2 dozen, depending on how thick you roll it and how big your cookie cutter is. This recipe can scale up if you want to make a lot, in which case I recommend using a mixer.

1/2 Cup sugar
4 Tbsp (1/2 a stick) margarine, at room temperature
2 Tbsp soy yogurt
2 Tbsp soymilk
1/4 tsp vanilla
1 1/4 Cup flour
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder

Cream together the sugar and butter with a fork (for those of you who don't know what "cream" means, mix them until creamy or well-combined). Mix in the soy yogurt, soymilk, and vanilla. Add the flour, baking soda, and baking powder. Mix until it forms a soft dough.

Form the dough into a ball, wrap in plastic wrap, and refrigerate for 30-60 mins. You can skip this step if you want, but you'll have to use a lot more flour rolling it out, since it's such a sticky dough.

On a lightly-floured surface, roll out the dough to about 1/4 inch thickness. Using a cookie cutter, biscuit cutter, or an inverted drinking glass, cut into even circles. Gather up the scraps, reroll and cut, until you're out of dough. (Like Janie when Tea Cake went gambling with her money!)

Place on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Bake at 350 for 10 minutes, until the edges are very lightly browned.

If you want to enjoy these in the style of the characters in the book, eat with tea while telling your life story to a neighbor on her porch.

Or move to the Everglades with them. Whatever you like to do with your Tea Cake is none of my business.

What are your favorite banned books?

you deserve a cookie

I make cookies almost every week. I don't like making them as much as I like making cakes and cupcakes, because I find scooping cookie-sized amounts onto baking sheets more tedious, and also I find that the line between underdone/perfect/slightly burned cookies is basically nonexistent; for me, it's mostly luck. But cookies are the best thing when you've got guests coming or a party to go to or officemates to make happy and you want to make a lot of something quickly. And they're tasty, of course. However I feel about making them, I very much like eating cookies. I don't photograph them much, though, as cookies tend not to be super photogenic. They're basically all little brown and/or beige disks; my cookie pictures all sort of resemble one another, and never convey the tasty cookie experience. That's why while I make them often, I seldom display them here.

I recently noticed that "You [I/We] deserve a cookie" is a thing. A meme, if you will. Lots of people say it, and I don't think we can name any one particular source. It's an interesting meme--it's not flashy, it doesn't appear accompanied by cats or videos or songs; it's just something people say. Unlike some internet humor, it's not poking fun--it's nice. It's universally understandable; no mystery, no wondering if something went over your head: you did a good job, you deserve a cookie.

Well, guys, today I deserve a cookie. Yesterday I sent in my final payment on my student loans. Less than a year out of grad school, I am done paying student loans!!! There is no number of exclamation points that can convey how happy I am about this. So I present you with some cookies.

First, the prettiest cookie picture I have ever taken (due entirely to the light, not to my photography or baking skills):

Ginger Molasses Cookies with Lemon Icing and Basic Peanut Butter Cookies. I am not sure where I got these recipes, as the picture was taken before I owned Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar, but that cookbook has recipes for both kinds of cookie. Anyway, these particular molasses cookies were a not sweet enough; hence the icing.

Martha Stewart's Hazelnut Cookies. I found a recipe for hazelnut cookies on Martha Stewart's website. (I think. Sometimes I just find recipes online, make them once, then I don't love them and don't intend to make them again, I don't save the link.) They are shortbready, so the only veganizing that needed to be done was substituting earth balance for butter.

These too were not as sweet as I'd anticipated, so I covered them with chocolate, and they became "nutella cookies," which my coworkers gobbled up quickly.

A BETTER hazelnut cookie was the recipe I made out of Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar. I liked the sound of the Hazelnut Fudge Dreamies, but I'm lazy and didn't want to turn them into cookie sandwiches. (Nor, I think, did I have all the fudge ingredients on hand.) So instead I made them like normal cookies, then dipped them into melted chocolate.

I think they're cute this way! And less work.

I usually cut down frosting/ganache recipes in order to avoid having leftoves, but if you find yourself with some extra ganache, chilling then rolling it with various ingredients and shaping them into truffles always feels/looks impressive:

Left to right: Plain, orange zest, coconut, peanut butter, and coconut-orange truffles.

Also chocolaty: These are chocolate-chocolate chip cookies! The recipe is possibly from the Veganomicon but sans walnuts, I dunno.

They're blurry because I REALLY wanted to show you the ones on the left; I used up all my baking sheets while I was making these, so I put a few of the cookies into a little shell cake mold I have. They were so cute! But blurry.

Back to Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar. I've already admitted my predilection for citrusy baked goods, so it's probably not surprising that I loved the Citrus Glitters!

I added a little turmeric to the sugar I rolled it in, for extra lemony color.

If you don't own Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar, I strongly recommend it. I find that veganizing non-vegan cookie recipes can be really tricky, and requires a lot of troubleshooting. The cookies in this book range from basic, which you can adapt to fit your own cookie needs, to complex and cool. And there are some great veganizations of cookies you probably missed since going vegan. (Like the Girl Scouts' Caramel Delites! [Samoas for you non upstate-NYers]) Like I said, I don't tend to take pictures of cookies, but I've made a lot from this cookbook. Here's a list of what I made and what I thought. You can find most of these recipes transcribed from the book on other people's blogs just by searching, but I'm too busy celebrating my newfound financial freedom to dig them all up myself.

• Chocolate Fudgy Oatmeal Cookies-These taste amazing and are the easiest and quickest recipe I've tried from the book.
• Chocolaty Crinkle Cookies-These are my fallback cookies for when I'm baking for other people. Everyone loves them, and they take a lot less work than they look/taste. The dough is a lot more like a batter at first; I find that I have to chill it, in the fridge for 30mins or more, or in the freezer for 10-15, to make it a good texture for rolling.
• City Girl Snickerdoodles-Uses a lot of margarine. Taste amazing.
• Tahini Lime Cookies-An interesting tasting cookie. They have a complex flavor that is hard to identify if you don't already know what kind of cookie they are. They make you seem like a foodie.
• Peanut Butter Oatmeal Cookies, Peanut Butter Crisscrosses, Peanut Butter Agave Cookies, Peanut Butter Blondies-I'm grouping all the peanut butter cookies together, because I'm not a huge peanut butter cookie fan and I am therefore not the best judge of them. But I made them all, mostly for other people. All kinds were well received! The blondies were really dense, almost more like peanut butter fudge, but a little drier. I love that the cookbook has an option for agave-based peanut butter cookies, since they are hard to adapt on your own.
• Citrus Glitters-Picture above. Simple and sweet!
• Rocky Roads-When I had stale vegan marshmallows in my fridge, I chopped them up to use in this recipe in place of white chocolate chips. I've made this recipe quite a few times, but I have very little self control and ended up eating a lot more cookies than necessary, so we are on a break.
• Sweet Wine Biscuits with Sesame-Another foodie cookie. I wrote about them here.
• Chocolate Chip Cream Cheese Brownies-I dropped the pan when I was taking these out of the oven, so they never set right, but they still tasted great.
• Pumpkin Pie Brownies-Tasty, and so cool-looking! I wrote about them in this entry.
• Big Fat Crispy Rice Squares-Rice crispy treats, but without the need for marshmallows. I wrote about them here.
• Peanut Butter Chocolate Pillows-These were tasty and it was cool to have a cookie with a surprise inside, but I didn’t think they were quite worth the work.
• Lazy Samoas-THE REASON TO BUY THIS BOOK. I missed Caramel Delites/Samoas SO MUCH, and though these are quite a few steps, the taste is spot-on and so amazingly good. I made them into heart shapes for Valentine's day for the boyfriend last year, and I think I managed to eat more of them than he did. (Oops.)
• Hazelnut Fudge Dreamies-I wrote about these above. Tasty and can be made simpler if you're lazy.
• No-Bake Pecan Chocolates-Really decadent, really delicious.
• Cookie Dough Scoops-I dipped these in chocolate after I made them. Best. Idea. Ever.

give the gift of good taste: edible holiday gifts

I love giving gifts. I like taking the time to find something my loved ones will enjoy, I like making presents look nice, I like making people happy just by handing them something. Most of my gifts are store-bought, because I cook so much throughout the year, but this year, I did more cooking and baking for gifts than ever before.

First, the gifts that aren't edible. I don't like wrapping paper, so I generally wrap gifts in saved tissue paper, newspapers, or pages from the old Yellow Pages. I'm a bit of a closet pack rat, so I usually have that sort of thing around.

One of these packages (for my fairly-newly vegan sister) contains gifts by some other blog-wielding vegans you might know:

One of the adorable panda-with-cookie totes from Panda with Cookie's Etsy shop! AIt was a big hit. And in the tote, I put a copy of Melisser Elliott's Vegan Girls Guide to Life, which I had her sign when she visited last month.

Okay, so those are vegan gifts, but you're here to see edible vegan gifts. So without further ado:

TOFFEE. I have always loved toffee. Almost once a week when I was in elementary school, my mother would go grocery shopping next door to a small bookstore I liked. She'd give me $5 (most of the Fear Street books I liked back then were $3.99 or less), I'd go buy a book while she shopped, then I'd meet her back at the store in time to buy a Skors or Heath bar with my change. I miss toffee, and until I discovered this recipe at the kitchn, I had no idea it was so easy to make. It's not that much work or time, even, though it does require a lot of stirring.

Homemade toffee is VERY easy if you have a candy thermometer. I recommend getting one; I use it often to measure water temperatures for breads, oil temperature when I'm frying, and yes, for candy. I think mine was around $5 at the local hardware/homeware store. However, if you don't have a candy thermometer, neither did the lady who wrote the kitchn recipe above! She judges by color. I always get paranoid about having to tell the difference between "dark golden brown" and "blond" and "honey-colored" in recipes, so I stick to the thermometer. Also, I used a large, rimmed baking sheet to cool my toffee. If you don't have one (why don't you?), you can use several baking dishes, like 2 9x13s or something. Whatever you use, line the bottom and the sides with foil, and removal will be a snap. This recipe makes a lot of toffee; a large baking sheet full, enough to give as gifts to at least 4 people.

Homemade Vegan Toffee

1 lb (that's 2 cups, or 16 ounces) Earth Balance (vegan margarine). That's one box of the buttery sticks, or one tub plus 4 Tbsp
2 C sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1 1/2 cups chocolate (chips and/or chopped baking chocolate; I did a mix since I didn't want the chocolate layer to be too sweet)
toasted almonds, roughly chopped (optional)

Line a baking sheet with foil, set aside. Get out all of your ingredients ahead of time.

In a large saucepan over medium-high heat, melt the butter and sugar together. Stir this mixture constantly until it reaches 300 degrees fahrenheit. I've seen ranges between 285-310). If you don't have a candy thermometer, that's the point at which it's very thick and has turned dark golden brown. I think this is the "firm ball" stage, if you're one of those people who tests with a glass of water. It's going to be really bubbly at first, and thickens as it hardens. Anyway, that took me about half an hour. DO NOT STOP STIRRING, because if this stuff burns, all will have been for naught. Once you've reached 300 degrees, remove the saucepan from heat and stir in the vanilla. Pour the mixture into the prepared baking sheet; use a spatula to smooth out. Do this quickly, because it will start to harden.

Sprinkle the chocolate across the surface, and allow this to sit for a few minutes, until the chocolate is glossy (3 minutes, 5 if your chocolate chips/chunks are large). Use a spatula to smooth the chocolate over the toffee. If using almonds, sprinkle the almonds over the top.

Allow to cool. Our kitchen is cold, so it was totally cool in under 3 hours, but it might take longer if you have heat in your kitchen. Anyway, once the bottom of the baking sheet is cool to the touch, remove the whole thing, foil and all, from the baking sheet. Peel the foil off the toffee (it comes off really easily), and break the toffee into whatever sized pieces you'd like. Store toffee between sheets of wax paper in an airtight container.

It's dangerous for me to know how easy it is to make toffee. The only thing that is not preventing me from making it (and eating it) all the time is that it takes a whole pound of Earth Balance, which is both pricy and fatty. It is a special occasion food, Sarah, remember that!

If you have trouble cleaning up the saucepan and spoon, I recommend running your hottest tap water or boiled water over them. This loosens up and dissolves the sugar.

Okay, so maybe toffee still seems too tough to you, or isn't your thing, or, like me, you want a sampler of desserts to give to relatives. What else is a good edible holiday gift?

Chocolate bark! This is another one of those things I thought was harder to make than it actually is. In fact, it is so simple that I feel silly giving a recipe for it, so I will just give you instructions.

Melt equal parts sweetened and unsweetened chocolate (ie, chocolate chips and baking chocolate) together in a double-boiler or bain-marie.

While it melts, chop up what you're going to put into your bark. In my opinion, the perfect chocolate bark consists of four flavor sensations: chocolate, nuts, dried fruit, and something that's surprising and/or has a kick. You can experiment at will, but here are some suggestions:

• Nuts: Almonds, hazelnuts, cashews, macadamias, peanuts;
• Dried Fruits: Cranberries, raisins, apricots, apples, dates, figs, currants, mango?;
• Something surprising/with a kick: candied ginger, candied citrus peel, prettily zested citrus, crushed candy canes or other flavorful candy, vegan white or butterscotch chips, pretzels (okay, those don't all have a kick, but are surprising and fun, so they go in this category).

Depending on how much chocolate you use, you want from 1/2 to 1 Cup of each of these things.

As with the toffee, you shape the bark by pouring it into a foil-lined pan. for 16 ounces of chocolate, you'll need at least 9X10 inches. I only used about 10 ounces of chocolate, so I used my 7x11 baking dish, and if you'll note, the bark is still pretty thick. Anyway, pour the chocolate into the pan, then sprinkle your chopped ingredients over the top. Use your hands to press them down into the chocolate. Let this cool for several hours. When the bottom of the pan is cool to the touch, you can remove it from the dish, peel back the foil, and cut it into pretty squares--or break it into rustic chunks.

I also made treats for my coworkers: Almond Crescent Cookies. When I was little, my mom made these a few times. She didn't like to make them, because blanching and grinding all the almonds was a real chore, but I LOVED them. I have never actually thought Crescent Cookies look like crescents; as a child they reminded me more of worms, so in my head, they will always be Worm Cookies.

I cheated: I used Bob's Red Mill almond meal instead of grinding the almonds myself. I made this recipe from Martha Stewart, substituting Earth Balance for the butter. The "dough" never came together; it was all crumbly. I added a Tbsp of soymilk, though, and it behaved EXACTLY like it should. The resulting cookies are very good, very subtle, and one of my coworkers came up to tell me that the cookies were exactly like the Vanilla Kipferl his German grandmother used to make (Kipferl is German for Cresent).

Finally, for my brother Robby, I made homemade grenadine. I used the recipe from the Cupcake Project as a starter, but changed a few things. I'll write more about it soon. (I'm planning an epic Pomegranate Post coming up in January.)

I also gave Robby some Chocolate Peppermint Penguins, which I made by taking the leftover chocolate and crushed candy canes from my Candy Cane Biscotti, mixing it, and pouring it into my Penguin Ice Cube Tray. I love that thing; I got it for free back when I worked for a publishing company that was a division of Penguin Books. I forgot to take pictures of the penguins, though, so you will just have to imagine how cute they were.

Did you give any edible or vegan gifts this holiday season? Did you get any? What were your favorites?

Candy Cane Biscotti

I really like biscotti. A not-so-sweet cookie that was designed to eat with tea or coffee? How can you not love it? However, vegan biscotti is hard to come by, and even then, if you buy it, you often end up with chalky or rock-hard biscotti. Between Boston's vegan biscotti dearth and my own pickiness, I have come to the conclusion that if I want good biscotti, I really just have to make my own. I've been toying with the idea of making my own biscotti for a while, and when I found out Earth Balance's recipe page is having a dessert recipe competition, I headed into the kitchen and got to work.

After some experimenting, I ended up with a delicious Candy Cane Biscotti. You can see my recipe here on the Made Just Right site.

The biscotti aren't super sweet, but the candy cane garnish is additional sugar, so to keep the sweetness down, I used baking chocolate with only a little added sugar to dip them in. They were delicious. I brought them to a friend's Rock Band party to share, so that way I wouldn't eat them all by myself, but they went so quickly that I think my next batch of biscotti will be for me and me alone.

If you look closely, you'll see that the candy canes aren't bright white and red. This is because I used Tru Sweets' organic candy canes, which are made from organic sugar and brown rice syrup and are only colored with fruit juices. They taste and behave just like commercial, chemically candy canes, but have real ingredients.

Did you notice how GORGEOUS the above biscotti photos are? That's because I didn't take them myself. My friend Michael is a real photographer, and is the one who hosted the Rock Band party. I told him the fee for my biscotti delivery service was that he had to take snappy pictures for me. And they're so gorgeous! Thanks, Michael! Michael has a blog that I totally recommend called Dazed and Infused, which teaches you how to infuse your own spirits and make tasty drinks with them. He also includes occasional pictures of his adorable, Godzilla-sized kitties.

snacks

I am a snacker. I've always been a snacker; some of my earliest memories involve three-year-old me procuring and discussing snacks. My mother calls me a "grazer," because I tend to eat food throughout the day. On a normal day, I eat breakfast around 8, need snack #1 around 10:30, eat lunch at noon, need snack #2 at 3pm, have a smaller snack at 5:30 or 6ish, and then dinner around 8pm. Except for dinner, all of these snacks/meals are pretty light. If I were to eat a large breakfast or lunch, I might be able to delay the need for each snack by an hour or two, but my metabolism is such that snacking is essential.

My usual go-to snacks are fruit, soy yogurt, pretzels, roasted nuts, rice cakes, or chocolate. But sometimes I feel like something different. So here are some of my recent snacks!

This is not a great picture (because I took it with my phone at my desk at work), but it is my hands-down favorite snack ever. Mashed avocado on toast. With salt. I discovered this by accident once (I started to make a sandwich but realized I was out of my other components) and thought I was a genius, only to be informed by my South African roommate that that is a traditional breakfast in South Africa. Avocado on toast is my perfect trifecta for snacking: carbs, protein, some fat; all of these take a while to digest, allowing you to feel fuller longer. I use about 1/4 to 1/2 an avocado per piece of toast.

In keeping with the carbs-protein-fat trifecta, I present to you last week's emergency snack. I don't normally snack after dinner. Last Thursday, however, I was out all day, and my dinner--on-the-go-falafel from my favorite place--had an accidental tomato in the wrap that I discovered well after I'd left the place, so I had to abort dinner after only eating half a wrap. When I get hungry, I get first light headed, then really tired, and then REALLY CRANKY, so I was in a downward spiral by the time I finally got home at 10ish.

Toast with arugula pesto to the rescue! It's a clove of garlic, some walnuts, a large handful of arugula, olive oil, salt and lemon juice. Look how adorable our mini food chopper (on the right) is! I call it a mini food processor, but the boyfriend pointed out it's actually a "chopper." I've broken this thing so many times I've permenantly set off the safety shut-off and have to jam electrical tape into a slot in the base to override it and get the chopper to do anything.

I try not to have too much sugar in my snacks, because I like to pretend I'm healthy and because I tend to crash faster after sugary foods. But sometimes you just want sweet snacks.

Sweet Wine Biscuits with Sesame from Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar. A friend of mine recently visited Jewell Towne Vineyards in New Hampshire, and upon finding out that their fining agents are vegan (clay), she brought us back some port. Which meant I could finally make these cookies! First of all, they are very good. A little unusual--I don't think I'd've recognized that they were made with wine if I didn't know the recipe. Second, even though the picture in the book makes them look all pink and rosy, they came out purple!

Purple! I made these when we had some friends over. I like to feed my guests, mostly because I'm a good hostess, but also in part because I won't feel bad snacking if my guests are snacking. Plus if any of them are like me and need food like all the time, they don't have to worry about getting hungry when they come over!

Speaking of friends coming over, Melisser, the Urban Housewife is coming to promote, sign, and talk about her book The Vegan Girl's Guide to Life TONIGHT at 7pm at Peace o' Pie. She's staying with me, so in anticipation of her arrival, I have made:

Low(er) Fat Banana Nut Muffins! I used the recipe for Low(er) Fat Banana Bread from Veganomicon, but added a cup of walnuts, a splash of nondairy milk, and put them into muffin cups. (And halved the baking time, of course.) I haven't tasted them yet, but they smelled amazing cooking. I imagine they'll be denser than muffins normally are, but hopefully not drier--that's why I added the splash of milk. I will eat one as my 3pm snack and let you know!

martha stewart and lima bean hummus

I didn't know what marmalade was when I first read the Paddington Bear books as a kid. I assumed it was an English thing. And then the first time I tried marmalade, I was blown away. It's like other jams/jellies, but it's A MILLION TIMES BETTER. I have tried many kinds of marmalade, but I have never made it myself.

UNTIL NOW.
(Pictured on homemade wheat bread)
I got the recipe from Martha Stewart, but I changed it (because I never follow recipes). I halved it, first of all, which I recommend because it makes so much. I also used different oranges: two "normal" oranges and two tangelos.* But also, the amount of sugar in Martha's recipe is astronomical, so I cut it down to 1/2 cup for every cup of goop. I still thought that sounded like a lot, but the mixture was really sour, so I went with it. And it tastes delicious. And while I will probably never make it again because it's rather tedious, I am really glad to have tried it once!

Um, by the way, I now have an absurd amount of marmalade, way more than I have toast. Any recipe recommendations?

I also relied on a Martha Stewart recipe for Valentine's Day!
These are her Pecan Linzer Cookies with Cherry Filling. Again, I halved the recipe, and to veganize it, I used soy yogurt instead of egg. Also, I didn't strain the jam because that was too much work. But I didn't alter anything else (no whole wheat flour, no agave--their point was to be decadent, not healthy). They were GORGEOUS and tasted like cookies I used to get at the corner bakery when I was little.

I don't have cookie cutters, so I used a glass to cut the rounds and a knife to cut out the hearts.
Sprinkling them with sugar was fun AND pretty.

But I do not rely on Martha Stewart for everything. For example, I had some dried (white) lima beans taking up space on my shelf for to long, so I cooked them up... and realized I have no idea what to do with lima beans. So I made up a dilly lima bean hummus! This will also work with any white beans, like cannellini.
Lima Bean Hummus

2 Cups lima (or any other white) beans
1/4 to 1/2 cup fresh dill, loosely chopped
3 Tbsp Vegenaise (if you don't have/like/want vegenaise, use olive oil)
1 Tbsp lemon juice or vinegar
1/8 tsp salt (1/4 if you use olive oil instead of vegenaise)
a few twists freshly-ground black pepper
1 tsp dulse flakes or ripped-up dulse (optional but delicious)
1 tsp nutritional yeast (optional but delicious)

Blend all ingredients. It will be gross and goopy, but such is hummus.

It's good as a dip or a sandwich spread. You can also water it down and use it as a sauce for middle eastern and/or greek meals (like tahini or yogurt sauce, but healthier).

*-I do want to remind you all to use organic food whenever possible, but especially when you are using a food's peel/rind/zest.

heidi swanson = the new rachael ray?

alternatively titled, someone else I love to hate.

As some of you may remember, I dislike Rachael Ray and everything she stands for (ie, dunkin donuts). AND YET she has some great recipes that I can't resist making/veganizing.

Rachael Ray has been replaced in my life, with Heidi Swanson of 101 Cookbooks. For those of you too lazy to click on the link, 101 Cookbooks is a vegetarian food blog whose conceit is that the creator, Heidi Swanson, has 101 cookbooks and realized one day she had to start cooking from them before she could allow herself to accumulate more. Heidi Swanson posts gorgeous pictures with cute little stories and fairly healthy recipes.

Other than her loose definition of being a vegetarian (oh, you had soup made from chicken but wouldn't eat beef cheeks? that's okay then), I have no reason to hate Heidi Swanson. And yet every time gmail links to one of her recipes above my inbox, I groan. Stupid Heidi Swanson and her soothing white and beige blog and her so-pretty-they're-practically-pornographic pictures of food. I refused to try any of her recipes for months.

But then! I got home late one night to find a note from my roommate: she had made a tofu scramble, I could help myself if I was hungry. So I did. It was THE GREATEST TOFU SCRAMBLE I HAVE EVER HAD. I'm not exaggerating. The next day I told my roommate how amazing it had been... and she told me where she got the recipe.

I still irrationally dislike Heidi Swanson. But yeah, okay, now I sometimes check out her blog. And dangit, I pretty much always like the recipes.
Broccoli Pesto from 101Cookbooks.com

For the first time in a while, I too, have been turning to my cookbooks. Here are some of the results:
Smores Cupcakes from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World

Chocolate Thumbprint Cookies and Chocolate Chip Cookies, from Vegan with a Vengeance and Vive le Vegan, respectively.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Pie, from pamela's blog - but slightly healthier, I swear! I halfed the amount of chocolate chips and sugar, and instead put in a little extra tofu and some cocoa powder, and if you look closely, you'll see I used sliced bananas instead of a cookie crust:
I mean, it's practically health food, right?

And finally, Paradise Casserole from the Candle Cafe cookbook.
When I had this at the Candle Cafe, there were waaaaay more sweet potatoes on top. The recipe called for 4. Next time, I say at least 6! I made it for my mother when I was back in upstate NY. ALSO in upstate NY, I got to meet and enjoy delicious vegan milkshakes with bazu of where's the revolution?!

sweet treats! and NYC

...in approximate order of healthiness.
Did you know that the plural of Mango can be either mangos or mangoes? I can't decide which I like better.

I have this problem with recipes that involve mango: I eat the fruit before it makes it into a recipe. BUT last week I had a delicious mango one night, then went to Whole Foods the next day and - organic mangos on sale for $1.50 each! That is a humungous bargain. I had to buy one, though I had been sated the previous day on fresh mango. Finally, an opportunity to use one in a recipe! I've always been a bit jealous of omni friends who order huge thick mango lassis when we go to Indian restaurants, so this was a necessary modification:
Super Easy Mango Lassi
Serves 2

1 Mango
1/2 cup soy yogurt*
1 cup soymilk*
1 Tbsp Agave**
1 pinch cardamom

Peel the mango, cut the fruit away from the seed, and chop the pieces. Put all ingredients into a blender and blend until it's smooth.

*-Or rice yogurt/milk, or almond milk, or whatever floats your mango boat. Do they have mango boats like they have banana boats? Oh man, the image of a boat full of mangos... Anyway, if you don't have non-diary yogurt, you can use more soymilk - it just won't be as thick.
**-Or sugar, or whatever sweetener you're into these days. OR, if you use a sweeter brand of non-dairy yogurt, you can omit the sweetener altogether.

A little less fresh, but still fairly healthy:
Banana Bars
I had a flatmate once who wanted to make brownies but realized we didn't have any chocolate, so she used bananas and we called them bananies. I adapted a recipe from sarah kramer's la dolce vegan.

And finally, for NEW YORK CITY sweets: I WENT TO BABYCAKES!
I bought spelt cupcakes, though there were gluten free options for each kind. Pictured, from left to right: Lemon, Red Velvet, and Chocolate. I swear, I didn't eat all these myself. In fact, I didn't eat any of them - I gave them to friends and made them let me try a piece of each. The chocolate was incredible, the lemon was reallllly good, and the red velvet was okay, but I didn't really know what it was supposed to taste like anyway. I'm not usually a big fan of frosting, but their frosting is creamy and smooth and sweet but not obnoxiously so. And I ate a lot of the frosting, as I DID buy myself a frosting-filled cookie sandwich:
Babycakes uses unrefined sweeteners: mostly agave, but some unrefined sugar, too. Check out their website for a list of the amazing breads and brownies and cookies. I had one of their biscuits, too, which was not sweet, but that was while I was at the bakery and I ate it before I could take a picture. It was delicious.

I'm afraid those are the only pictures I took of my food in NYC, but I DID eat out at the Candle Cafe ("organic and vegan? Oh, honey, that's us," my mom said wistfully when I told her about the trip). I'd heard mixed things, but I went there twice over the course of the weekend and LOVED it. I went there with my friends Janet & Angry Jenny, who are omnis. They loved their meals, too! The Mezze Plate was a great starter, and Paradise Casserole was really simple and hearty. The Chocolate Mousse Pie was one of the best desserts I've had. And that's really saying something, as I eat a lot of desserts... Janet ordered the homemate mocha (soy) ice cream, but they were out, so she got another kind - and then our waiter came back later with a free bowl of the mocha on the house, ebcause he'd found it and felt bad he'd lied to us!

I went back with other friends two days later and had the Pumpkin-Seed Crusted Tofu, which was very good, though the quinoa salad underneath it was kinda boring. Had the pie again, and my friend Greg tried the homemade pumpkin ice cream, which was awesome. I have to start making my own ice cream!

no, wait, no, the last thing I need is ice cream any time I want it.

I went with another friend to Red Bamboo. I wasn't a huge fan of this place, but it's vegan Soul Food, and soul food isn't a very nightshade-allergy-friendly cuisine. The menu is almost entirely meat analogs, which is another strike against them in my book. We split the soy chicken satay skewers, which were really rubbery. They had a good charcoal-grilled flavor, though, and came with a tasty peanut sauce. My friend had the eggplant parmesan and was not impressed. I had the soy salmon with a ginger teriyaki sauce that I never really tasted. The food was really heavy, so we were too full for dessert, which is apparently really good here - maybe that could've made up for an otherwise so-so meal.

I also went to Souen, a macrobiotic restaurant by Union Square. Also organic, and since its macrobiotic - nightshade free! I went with two co-workers, and though we all found the desserts here to be lacking much in terms of flavor, the entrees were worth the visit! I had the generously portioned Chickpea Croquettes with miso-curry sauce and roasted squash. I'm melting a little bit just thinking about it, and my co-workers had the carrot leek soup (in a HUGE bowl) and the stuffed pita. I'm definitely hitting this place again when I'm in NYC.

There are still so many places I didn't get to... I'll have to go back again soon!

a superbowl spread

I never really watch the Superbowl, but I've never missed one. That is, every year, I end up in a room with people who are watching it, sometimes even voluntarily. I'm not a big football fan, but I always seem to be surrounded by people who are. My father, for example, my brothers, my friends and now my roommate, who is a HUGE Patriots fan. So when roommate Mish suggested a superbowl party - what's more, an all-girl, potluck (snacks) superbowl party - I could not refuse!

Here's what we provided:
All vegan! What guests brought (not pictured): ice cream (vegan [thanks S!] and diary), vegan lentil koftas (thanks Lo!), a fruit plate, hummus, dried lychees and candied ginger. (Also not pictured: Mish's famous non-vegan pizza.)

We had chips of all kinds (corn chips, all-natural triscuit equivalent [Quilts!], Mish's amazing homemade pita chips), so we needed some dip to go with it. Hummus and salsa are standard, of course, but we also had Veganomicon's Curried Carrot Dip:
I was worried "Curried Carrot Dip" would sound a little too foodie/vegan for our guests, but everyone dug right in. This was a big hit! and since I am obsessed with carrots, of course I loved it. I used some of the leftovers for a tasty sandwich spread earlier this week.

Mish has a super-decadent, VERY not-vegan Williams-Sonoma Dessert Cookbook, in which every recipe calls for approximately 5 cups of butter and 10 eggs. She kindly veganized (earth balance and flax seeds - hooray!) the chocolate chocolate chip recipe:
("I really did it just so I could be on your blog," she joked.) I ate four that day.

And because one dessert is not enough: pineapple right-side-up cupcakes from vegan cupcakes take over the world!
I used almost entirely whole wheat flour for this recipe, and the pineapple I used didn't have a lot of juice in the can, so the cupcakes came out pretty squat and dense:
But needless to say, they were delicious.

I even used what was left in the blender after making the recipe to make a little pineapple-soyyogurt smoothie!

Finally, I will actually post a recipe for you. I am a big fan of Cracker Jack, but not a big fan of high fructose corn syrup or all the pesticides involved in producing non-organic peanuts. So I have come up with a solution to this problem:
Cracker Jack-y Popcorn
(makes a pretty big bowl)

For the Popcorn:
1/2 C popcorn kernels
1 Tbsp olive oil

For the Topping:
3 Tbsp peanut oil
1/3-1/2 Cup Molasses, depending on how much of a molasses fan you are.
1/4 Cup agave (or sugar)

Optional:
1/2 cup Shelled Peanuts

Heat the oil and popcorn kernels in a large (6-quart) pan over medium heat, partially covered. Once the kernels start to pop (1-2 minutes later), cover all the way and shake continuously until most of the popping stops. Remove from heat, keep covered until all popping stops. This whole process takes maybe 5 minutes.

Now make the topping! In a small pan, combine all topping ingredients and bring to a boil over medium heat, stirring constantly. Stir for about 30 seconds after it has reached a boil, then remove from heat. Pour over popcorn and mix well! Add optional peanuts now if you so desire, then let it cool for a few minutes before serving, stirring occasionally.
I am off to New York City for a work meeting thing this weekend - I'm going to try to hit up as many vegan restaurants as I can. Wish me luck!