Tag Archives: recipe

Vanilla Spice Oatmeal Cookies

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veganmofoHappy Monday!

It’s been a very busy weekend for yours truly. We had our second weekend of yoga teacher training and can you believe that the teachers-in-training are already practice teaching? They are doing a fabulous job – I cannot wait for our next training weekend in November!

Because of the teacher training, this past weekend was not a typical weekend in terms of cooking and baking but I did manage to fit in a few runs :)

  • Friday: 6 miles at an 8:40 pace
  • Saturday : 3.25 miles at a 9:30 pace during my lunch hour
  • Sunday: 7.20 miles at an 8:40 pace

Today I’m going to take a yoga class with Tori at Flow Yoga – I’m really looking forward to it :)

For the last two weeks I’ve been working on a new recipe for Vanilla Spice Oatmeal Cookies. After numerous trial batches I am happy to say that I think I’ve got it down. These cookies are slightly crispy on the edges yet chewy in the center, with a hint of vanilla and sweet bursts of crystallized ginger throughout. And on the How Healthy Is Your Cookie scale, I’d say they are pretty much on the healthier side thanks to the minimal amount of oil and sugar being used – YAY!

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Makes 20-22 cookies


Ingredients

  • 1 cup whole wheat pastry flour
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1.5 teaspoon ground cinnamon
  • ½ teaspoon ground ginger
  • ½ teaspoon baking soda
  • ½ teaspoon salt
  • ½ cup packed brown sugar
  • 1/3 cup granulated sugar
  • ¼ cup unsweetened applesauce
  • 2 tablespoons canola oil
  • 1 Tablespoon flax seeds plus 3 Tablespoons water whisked together until frothy
  • 1 Tablespoon vanilla extract
  • 1 T minced ginger root
  • 1 ½ cups old-fashioned rolled oats
  • ½ cup diced crystallized ginger

Directions

  1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Coat two large baking sheets with cooking spray.
  2. Combine the flour, baking powder, cinnamon, ground ginger, baking soda, and salt in your food processor and pulse 4-5 times. Transfer to a large bowl.
  3. In a small bowl, combine the brown sugar, granulated sugar, applesauce, oil, flaxseed mixture, vanilla, and ginger root and blend well with a hand mixer.
  4. Add the wet mixture to the dry mixture and stir until combined.
  5. Stir in the oats and the crystallized ginger.
  6. Drop the batter by rounded tablespoons, 2” apart, onto the prepared baking sheets. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes or until golden brown. Let stand on the baking sheets for two minutes before removing to a rack to cool completely.

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Peanut…Peanut Butter…AND JELLY!

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OMG I can’t believe I forgot to tell you about the Peanut Butter and Jelly Pie that I made a few weeks ago!

Where is my head?!

I recently discovered a lovely blog by Celine, who posts delicious recipes – mostly baked goods -  my favorite! Every time I look at her recipes I want to make all of them. I think Celine is my Baked Goods Hero!

The other day Celine created a Peanut Butter and Jelly pie recipe that is sheer genius. I knew as soon as I saw the recipe that I would HAVE to make it.

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I used grape jelly – you can just see it peeking out of the peanut butter top crust :)

When I told D. that I was going to make this he informed me that he doesn’t like peanut butter and jelly.

HUH?! Is that even legal?

DSC_0176 revDSC_0175 revHe liked the PB&J pie though!

This is probably the best pie I have ever made. Really. I could not stop eating it.  The recipe is perfect.

But as much as I LOVED this pie, I WILL NOT make it again unless I have somewhere to take it! It is downright DANGEROUS to keep this pie in your home. Consider yourself warned.

Baked Vegan Donuts

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I’m so happy it’s the weekend! I found myself running around quite a bit these last few days and it’s so nice to finally have a day that’s completely free!

Today I woke up at 6am and took the pups for a walk. Then I made my usual smoothie:

  • vanilla Spirutein protein powder
  • spinach
  • lite vanilla soy milk
  • a little peanut butter
  • banana

Then I was off to teach yoga. Boy was it HOT in the studio! Everyone was drenched at the end of class.

When I got home I had a DONUT!

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Yes I made donuts again. If you remember I tried making them last weekend and while they tasted pretty good, they were flat! This time the donuts turned out so much better, yes? :) I used a different recipe that I found at Vegan Verve. Vegan Verve has a few donut recipes posted and I tried the “revised version.” It was a tad tricky to follow but here’s what I managed to come up with:

Vegan Verve’s Vegan Baked Donuts

Makes 20-24 doughnuts, depending on size.

Ingredients

  • 2 cups soymilk – plain or vanilla
  • 1/2 cup sugar
  • 1/4 cup canola
  • 1/4 cup agave nectar
  • 2 + 1/2 tsp yeast
  • 1/4 cup applesauce
  • 1 + 1/2 tsp vanilla
  • 1/2 Tbsp salt
  • 4 + 3/4 cups unbleached all purpose flour

Directions

  1. Bring the soymilk, sugar, canola oil and agave nectar to a boil. As soon as it boils, remove from the heat and cool until it is about 110°F (this can take about an hour). Once it’s at 110 degrees, add the yeast and let sit for 5-10 minutes.
  2. Next add 4 cups of the flour and mix until fully incorporated. Let the dough rise to about double the size (about an hour).
  3. Once the dough has risen, add the remaining ¾ cup flour, applesauce, vanilla, and salt. Mix completely and let rest for at least 10 minutes. The dough will be  sticky.
  4. To make doughnuts sprinkle some flour on your hands and on the surface of the dough. Take a small amount of dough and work it into about a 6 inch rope. The width of the dough “rope” depends on how large you wish the doughnuts to be. Remember that the dough will expand to at least double the size it is at this point. When you have determined the size of doughnuts you want, attach the two ends of the “rope” and adjust the hole of the doughnut to the size you want. Place doughnuts on a greased cookie sheet.
  5. At this point you could let the doughnuts rise for about 30 more minutes then place them in a 350°F oven and bake for about 10 minutes. Watch them carefully and try to remove them before they start to brown OR…
  6. Lay towels or aluminum foil over the cookie sheets and store in your fridge overnight. The next day, let the trays sit at room temperature for at least an hour so the doughnuts can rise some more. Adjust the holes before you place in the 350°F oven and bake for 10 minutes.

I made some doughnuts right away (step #5) and some I made the next day (#6). I thought the next day doughnuts were lighter and better but D. liked the first batch better.

I made three different icings:

Vanilla Glaze

  • 1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
  • 3 Tbsp vanilla soymilk
  • 1 tspn vanilla

Chocolate Icing

  • 1 cup powdered sugar
  • 1/3 cup cocoa powder
  • 2 1/2 Tbsp vanilla soymilk
  • ½ tspn vanilla

Peanut Butter Icing

  • 1 cup powdered sugar
  • 1/3 cup chocolate pb2
  • 2 ½ Tbsp vanilla soymilk

I applied the icing while the doughnuts were piping hot out of the oven. For some I applied the icing with a pastry brush and others I dunked the doughnut right in. Then I moved the doughnuts to a baking rack to cool.

The doughnuts are super yummy – just make sure you have enough people around to eat them! My batch made 20 large donuts!

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Homemade Soy Yogurt

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Today I experimented with making homemade soy yogurt.

I don’t think I ever blogged about this, but I tried making soy yogurt once before. I used my new Salton yogurt maker (for some reason, these yogurt makers are now being sold for about $100 – but just 2 1/2 months ago I paid $21.82. Inflation?!) and I used a recipe that called for agar agar powder. Well I bought agar agar FLAKES, thinking ok similar enough. Well, the yogurt ended up having a horrible texture. I threw it all out and decided to try again when I came into possession of agar agar powder, which hasn’t happened yet.

Then the other day I stumbled on what I’d call a very “casual” soygurt recipe on Have Cake Will Travel.  (This looks like an awesome blog by the way. Her current recipe for PB&J Pie looks amazing! I think I will follow the blog but OH NO WHERE’S THE RSS FEED SIGN UP??) So I tried the soygurt recipe today and gosh darn it’s looking pretty good!

Here are some (not-so-great) photos of my process:

Mixed together the ingredients and got this:

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After one minute in the microwave it looked like this:

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After another minute in the microwave:

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You really have to watch the soygurt closely to make sure it doesn’t foam over and mess up your microwave!

And finally, it looked like this:

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The recipe recommends adding in fruit and flavorings at this point but I am keeping it plain. This way once I’m ready to eat it I can add in whatever I’m feeling in the moment.

So the soygurt is going into the fridge to chill and thicken. The flavor is good, so we’ll see what kind of texture we get. I can’t wait to see what I have tomorrow morning! Stay tuned….

Do you have a great non-dairy yogurt recipe?

We took this picture of Marty tonight while we were out on our walk. She’s walking herself LOL!

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The Best Damn Vegan Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

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Last night we had our end-of-yoga-teacher-training celebration. It was really fun – everyone brought some food to share. I made desserts! I made the Light Lemon Cake from The Joy of Vegan Baking (one of my favorite cookbooks) – it turned out really good. I also made a vegan Fruit Pizza which I found at about.com.  The FLAVOR was good, but it was really messy. For some reason the cream cheese (Tofutti) layer turned out kinda runny.

Finally, I ALSO made amazing Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies! I found the recipe on allrecipes.com and made a few changes. I think they would be better if they were a bit more peanut buttery, so I’m going to tweak the recipe and see if I can get it there. I also want to see if I can replace the corn syrup and some of the sugar. Anyway, here’s the recipe for what I baked yesterday. I wish I had taken pictures but I forgot!

Giant Vegan Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

Ingredients
1/2 cup Earth Balance, softened
1/2 cup peanut butter
1 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
3 teaspoons Ener-G egg replacer + 4 tablespoons water
2 tablespoons light corn syrup
2 tablespoons water
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup dairy-free chocolate chocolate chips

Directions

  1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C).
  2. In a large bowl, cream together the butter, peanut butter, brown sugar, and white sugar until smooth.
  3. In a separate bowl, beat the Ener-G and the 4 tablespoons of water for about 2 minutes.
  4. Slowly add the Ener-G mixture into the peanut butter mixture while stirring. Then stir in the corn syrup, water, and vanilla. Sift together the flour, baking soda, and salt; stir into the peanut butter mixture. Fold in chocolate chips. Drop by 1/4 cupfuls 3 inches apart onto ungreased baking sheets.
  5. Bake for 12 to 14 minutes in the preheated oven, or until edges are golden. Allow cookies to cool for 1 minute on the cookie sheet before removing to wire racks to cool completely.