Vegan Baking Weekend!

Homestyle Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies!

Mmm, my house smells like chocolate chip cookies! With no animal products! These cookies are so freaking amazing, I think I might have to make them weekly. And let me say that that is a lot of cookies, because I'm the only one in the house who can eat chocolate! Chad's allergic, and because of that we're keep Silas away from chocolate until he's a little older. Luckily this recipe only makes 11-12 cookies, so it's not too bad. They're sooo good, I might only eat cookies today! Seriously, these are like tollhouse cookies, just perfect. I'm so in love.

So how can you enjoy these fabulous cookies? They are courtesy of Dreena Burton, author of Eat, Drink and Be Vegan and Vive Le Vegan and The Everyday Vegan. She also has a blog, eat, drink and be vegan and a recipe blog, Dreena's Vegan Recipes. It all looks delicious!

You can find the recipe for these cookies here. OR! Even better, you can watch a show of Dreena making these cookies here! They are simple and delicious. Make them!

Dreena's Apple Hemp Muffins

As I'm blogging this I've come to realize that I'm having a Dreena kind of weekend. ;) Friday morning I woke up and whipped up a batch of Apple Hemp Muffins, which are awesome. They are tender and subtle, not too sweet, perfect for the morning with a cup of coffee or green tea. Or a snack in the middle of the day with some chocolate almond milk! The recipe can be found in the Mar/Apr 2008 edition of VegNews. I would definitely make these again. Those little hemp seeds are nutritional powerhouses and this recipe is GREAT for using up applesauce that might be on the verge of going bad in your fridge (it uses a whole cup).

Chickpea Navy Bean Cutlets!

So earlier in the week I cooked up a big batch of navy beans (like a whole pound). The original use was for White Been Leek Cassoulet from Veganomicon - which was awesome! But it certainly didn't use up the whole batch of beans, so I've been throwing them in things all week. So last night as I was trying to decide what to make for dinner, I wondered if any other bean would work in the Chickpea Cutlet recipe from Veganomicon....and the answer is yes, navy beans are your friends! I followed the original recipe exactly, except instead of mashing the beans with a potato masher, I blended them in the food processor with the oil - those little buggers kept slipping through my potato masher unscathed. This went a lot faster than mashing, anyway, and I might do this in the future for whatever bean I use. I've also found that these cutlets - whatever bean you use - are improved by being very, very thin. And because they have vital wheat gluten in them you can really pat them thin without the risk of falling apart on their way in to the frying pan. So smoosh the crap out of those suckers, baby! Thinner! Thinner! Yes, really, they can be thinner than that, keep going!

We had these with smashed red potatoes and a side green salad. Oh, and the red wine roux from V-con. Which was kind of a pain to make and not really worth the effort, imho. Although our mediocre results could certainly be from the quality of the wine we used, or lack-thereof as the case may be. It was seriously bad. Undrinkable. I think it was a bargain bin purchase, and now I know why. No legs at all, just so flat flat flat! But other than that, it was a good meal. And some ruby port after dinner was a nice way to quickly forget how bad the wine was.

Oh yeah! One more thing I made that I unfortunately didn't get pictures of....The original title of the recipe was something like Peanut Butter Chocolate Bars, and it's by Collen Patrick-Goudreau out of the Mar/Apr 2008 issue of VegNews. The original recipe is basically peanut-buttery rice crispy treats covered in a layer of chocolate. Ok, sounds awesome, right? Well....Silas isn't eating peanut butter yet, so we subbed Cashew Butter. And Chad's allergic to chocolate, so nix the topping. So after getting everything else mixed together and pressing it into the pan, we realized that they probably weren't going to cut or hold shape without the chocolate topping. So we threw it back in the bowl and rolled them into little no-bake balls instead. OH MY GOD. These things were so freaking good! Chad and I agreed that they taste really similar to the peanutty goodness of the Whatchamacalit candybar. And because of this, we would like to rename our version Watchamyballs. Hahaha! No, but seriously, you have to try them!

Whatchamaballs
2 cups of crispy brown rice cereal, crushed
1 1/2 cups cashew butter
2 cups powdered sugar
1/2 cup earth balance margarine, melted
1 tsp vanilla

Mix all the ingredients together in a large bowl. Roll small balls of the dough in your hands to form whatever sized balls you like. Try not to eat them in one sitting. Store leftovers in the fridge!

For some reason Chad convinced himself that they're healthy so we ate these in no time flat. "What, they're all cashew butter and brown rice! What could be better?" And I'm thinking, yeah, healthy....powdered sugar and margarine, part of the four food groups...But really, it's a pretty good compromise.

So now I've got the house to myself for a while. I'm so psyched! I'm planning on hanging out in my sunny kitchen, listening to cool podcasts, planning this week's meals and cooking. What could be more relaxing! :D