cookies and stuff

Someone in my office asked me the other day if I had any recommendations on what to make for a vegetarian that they are having over for dinner during the Christmas holidays. My first thought was Toforky. It's easy for a non-veg person to prepare, and it's widely available in our city's major supermarkets.

But Gardein also has a huge variety of meatless proteins too. In fact, I have yet to try one that I don't like. My faves are the mandarin orange crispy chick'n and the turk'y cutlets. And as I'm looking at their website right now, there are some new items that I haven't even see in stores yet. Breakfast patties and meatless meatballs?! Yum! This kind of stuff is a treat for me because I make so many of our meals from scratch.

And this reminds me, last week my (non-veg) aunt made us spaghetti and she crumbled up a couple of veggie burger patties in the sauce to make it nice and hearty. It was such an easy thing for her to do, and made our dinner extra nutritious. Love her! Unfortunately I didn't take a photo of it, so I'll leave you with these butterscotch walnut cookies that I made recently.

White Chocolate Craisin Cookies

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas full of joy and laughter.  For those who don't celebrate this holiday, I still hope you had a chance to enjoy the best the season has to offer - whether it was amazing deals while shopping, or some really good food.

This year I hosted some of my out of town relatives for Christmas.  And being the good hostess that I am, I wanted to bake them a festive treat.  I chose white chocolate Craisin cookies because I like how the color reflects the holiday season.  They turned out crispy on the outside, and chewy on the inside.


White Chocolate Craisin Cookies

1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp ground sea salt
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 cup Earth Balance (or other vegan margerine)
2/3 cup brown sugar
Egg replacer equivilant to 1 egg (ie 1 1/2 tsp egg replacer + 2 tbsp water)
1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract
1/4 cup Craisins
1/4 cup vegan white chocolate chips

Combine flour, sea salt, and baking soda in a medium-sized mixing bowl.  In a seperate mixing bowl, cream together Earth Balance/margerine and brown sugar. Add "egg" and vanilla, and beat until smooth.  Add dry ingredients to the wet, and mix well.  Fold in Craisins and white chocolate chips.

Using a cookie scoop, drop balls of dough on a slightly greased baking pan.  If you don't have a cookie scoop, you can use a regular spoon to scoop the dough out, and then roll the dough in the palm of your hands to form a ball.  Flatten each dough ball slightly before placing them in the oven.

Bake at 375 for 8-10 minutes.  Cool slightly before removing from pan. Makes about 24 cookies, depending on size.

It's Pumpkin Season

When I think autumn, I think pumpkin.  I also think of foods like squash, hearty soup, cranberries, and hot cocoa.  And speaking of pumpkin, VegNews recently posted a Perfect Pumpkin Muffin recipe that I'll no doubt be making in the next few days.  But the first of this season's pumpkin baking for me was a recipe from La Dolce Vegan.  I replaced chocolate chips for the cranberries and made a couple dozen of these:

What are your pumpkin plans this season?

Holiday Yummies

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, whatever you prefer.  I wish all of you a joyous holiday season and may you be blessed all year with good friends, family and yummy FOOD!

I've had to miss a couple of days of work due to some bad weather.  In fact, my flight to be with my family for Christmas was cancelled, so I'm spending the holiday with friends and hoping that my rescheduled flight on Boxing Day doesn't get cancelled. 

On the bright side, being snowed in and stuck at home leaves lots of time to bake some old favorites for our guests. 

I made a batch of Almost Sugar-Free Peanut Butter Cookies subbing in almond butter...

And I made some of Dreena's Chocolate Mint Melties.  These are soooo good.  If you've never made them, you must find any excuse to do so.

And I also made a carrot cake.  I had an abundance of carrots from my weekly produce bin (Green Earth Organics) so carrot cake was the perfect way to use some of them.  I used a recipe from Martha Stewart's website and made a few substitutions.  You can refer to the original recipe here, but I'll list it with my substitutions below:

  

1/4 cup olive oil

1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/4 tsp ground ginger

1/4 teaspoon salt

4 tbsp ground flax + 6 tbsp water

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1/3 cup packed light-brown sugar

1/3 cup unsweetened almond milk

1 cup finely shredded packed (about 2 medium) carrots 

Quick Glaze, or confectioners' sugar

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Lightly oil an 8 inch round baking pan and set aside. In a medium bowl, whisk flour, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt; set aside.

In a small bowl, whisk flax/water, sugars, almond milk, and oil until smooth. Gently mix wet mixture into dry ingredients until moistened; mix in carrots. Transfer batter to prepared pan.

Bake until a toothpick inserted in center comes out clean, 40 to 45 minutes (if browning too quickly, tent cake with aluminum foil). Cool in pan, 15 minutes. Turn out of pan, remove paper, and cool completely on a rack, right side up. Apply glaze, or dust with confectioners’ sugar. 

 Right now I've got a batch of Lavash baking, and I'll be making some lemon-dill hummus to go with it.

RIP Paul Newman

The founder of our beloved organic, vegan Newman-O's, Paul Newman has died at the age of 83 after a long battle with cancer. Read the full story here.

The official Newman's Own website is unavailable due to high traffic but there is a lovely write up there at the moment.

Almost Sugar-Free Peanut Butter Cookies

Sometimes traditions need a little bit of an alteration.  Like the one where my dad always stops at a fast food place or gas station and buys peanut butter cookies for a road trip.  They are full of hydrogenated fats, animal ingredients and other things that are not healthy.  But it's just not a road trip without his beloved peanut butter cookies.

So I baked a batch of organic cookies for him to take along on his trip that are lower in fat, and way lower on the glycemic index than their sugary cousins at the convenience store.  Stevia has 0 calories and registers 0 on the GI.  Agave nectar is quite low as well.

I used a recipe from La Dolce Vegan as a base, but only followed it halfway as I needed to make these more diabetic-friendly and lower in fat.  Plus, I didn't quite have enough peanut butter so I topped up my measuring cup with tahini. (it was either that or pumpkin seed butter, which I might try next time)  The result is a moist cookie that is not overly sweet.  If you like your cookies sweeter, it's probably better to stick to the original La Dolce recipe, which I have made before and I can tell you they are really good. 

Almost Sugar-Free Peanut Butter Cookies
1 1/4 cups whole wheat flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp ground sea salt
1 "flax egg" (2 tbsp ground flax + 3 tbsp water)
2 tbsp stevia
1/4 cup peanut butter
1/4 cup tahini (or other nut/seed butter)
1/3 cup agave nectar
1/2 cup water
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 cup semi-sweet vegan chocolate chips*

Preheat oven to 375.  Combine flour, baking soda, and salt and stevia in a medium bowl.  In a seperate bowl, stir together "flax egg," peanut butter, tahini, agave nectar, vanilla and water.  Add wet ingredients to dry, and stir until mixed, adding in the chocolate chips last.  Spoon onto a baking stone or lightly oiled baking sheet. Press cookies down a little bit and bake for 12 minutes.  Makes 16 cookies.

* I wouldn't recommend carob chips for this recipe as they tend to be bitter and may not compliment the subtle sweetness of the other ingredients.