Procrastination..

I have a paper to write for my epidemiology class but instead I am on twitter and what do I find...

bacon is a gateway drug! check it out

http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2011/01/30/133304206/why-bacon-is-a-gateway-to-meat-for-vegetarians?ft=1&f=1001&sc=tw&utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

and another interesting article

http://pcrm.org/news/dietary_guidelines_back_plant-based_diets_fight_obesity_110131.html

and my lunch from today/dinner from Saturday night :) (I love left overs)

falafel, spinach, saffron rice, veganese, kalamata olives, and home made hummus
nom nom nom

Enjoy!

Breakfast

My daddy just surprised me with two new cookbooks in the mail and I was so excited because I love getting presents and I love getting mail! On wednesday I accidently slept through my class so to cheer myself up I made brainless banana pancakes from How it all Vegan by Tanya Barnard and Sarah Kramer. These are the easiest pancakes to make and they were delicious!

1 cup flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 banana, mashed
1 1/4 C soy milk
1 Tbsp sweetener (I used agave)
sliced fruit for garnish (I used raspberries)

In a large bowl sift together dry ingrdients and in a small bowl mash the banana and add 1/4 cup soy milk and mix untill there are no lumps. Then add the banana, the rest of the soy milk, and the sweetener to the dry mix and stir until just combined. Then just cook them on both sides and you have some delicious breakfast. I added some dark chocolate chips to mine but they would be just as good plain. This recipe makes 2 or more servings.

Today I woke up extra early for class so I wouldn't sleep through it again and I needed to catch up on some reading. Since I was up I decided to make another delicious breakfast, Fabulous French Toast from this same awesome cook book.

1 1/2 C soy milk
2 Tbsp flour
1 Tbsp nutritional yeast
1 tsp sweetener
1 tsp cinnamon
8-10 slices of bread, stale or lightly toasted (I missed the memo about stale or toasted and would recommend this because my toast was a little soagy but still delicious)

In a large bowl whisk together milk, flour, yeast, sweetener, and cinnamon vigorously. Soak one slice of toast in batter until bread is gooey. Fry on both sides and garnish with fruit. I used bananas and put a little powdered sugar on top. Makes 8-10 slices.

GOOD MORNING!

Vegan Nutella

The first time I ever had "real" nutella was when I was in middle school and I spent the night at my cousin Kari's house and her husband Max from Italy made me some delicious waffles for breakfast and instead of syrup we had nutella.... and it was heavenly! Ever since I have been obsessed but unfortunately the real stuff is full of milk and non vegan ingredients. So in my new VEGANOMICON cook book, by Isa Chandra Miskowitz, I found a nice mocha-y recipe for not-tella!

Ingredients include:

1 generous cup of toasted and skinned hazelnuts
2 T hazelnut liquor (such as an airplane bottle of Frangelico)

1/4 t vanilla extract
3/4 C. powdered sugar
1/4 C. unsweetened cocoa powder
8-10 T peanut oil

First toast your hazelnuts at 300 degrees for 8 to 10 minutes until the skin is peeling back but do not burn your nuts!

Take the hot nuts and put them into a dish towel and roll them in with the ends all twisted to remove the shells. If you cant get all the shell off its okay it will just give it a more nutty taste which some may prefer.

Next put your hazelnuts, which I found out are also called Filberts, into either a food processor or if you have a juicer with a blank used to make nut butter use that (I used my juicer and will take a lot less time).

Blend until you have a creamyish butter and then add the hazelnut liquor, vanilla extract, powdered sugar, and cocoa.

Blend until it is crumbly and then add 4 to 5 T of oil and scrape down the sides and keep blending in your food processor. Now you will have a some what fudge like mixture. Add the rest of the oil a tablespoon at a time until you have a desired consistency. If not sweet enough add 1-2 more tablespoons of powdered sugar. Store in an air tight container in the fridge. When you take it out of the fridge let it sit out for 20 minutes to let it become spreadable again. I had mine on toast and by the spoonful but it is also great on fruit or with your soy ice cream!

ENJOY!

best vegan blog and bread

Amazingly I had never seen cup cake wars until the other night which is very hard to believe because I am obsessed with anything to do with cupcakes, cakes, and baking! I love ace of cakes and the food network so how I over looked this wonderful little show is just unknown, but go figure the first time I watch there is an adorable vegan girl who makes the best vegan cupcakes, Chef Chloe. She has some amazing award winning recipes on her blog so check them out

http://www.chefchloe.com/blog.html

Any ways after watching her I got the baking bug and was just itching for exams to be over so I could get home and start making some delicious food with my family! Later that night instead of studying for my exams of course I was surfing the net looking at vegan blogs and I stumbled on another blog, which so far has been the best vegan blog I have found http://www.meettheshannons.net I some how found their challah bread recipe and since it was the last night of Chanukah and my family occasionally celebrates jewish holidays I decided it would be perfect especially since my jewish grandparents were coming to town. Any ways I ended up staying up all night with nothing else to do (nothing to study for the next day) kneading my bread and it turned out perfect so here is the recipe taken from

The Betty Crocker Project: Challa Atcha'! on http://www.meettheshannons.net/2010/12/betty-crocker-project-challah-atcha.html

Challah Bread

3 Cups Flour
1/4 Cup Sugar
1 1/2 Teaspoon Salt
1 Teaspoon Nutritional Yeast
1 Package Quick Active Yeast
1 Cup Very Warm Water
2 Tablespoons Olive Oil
1 Tablespoon Applesauce
Olive Oil Cooking Spray - for baking sheet
Vegan Vegetable Shortening - for greasing bowl (I just used some vegan butter and it worked fine)

Vegan "Egg Wash"

1 Tablespoon Water
1 Teaspoon Olive Oil
1 Teaspoon Apple Juice (I used fresh juice from a juicer)
1 Teaspoon Nutritional Yeast

In a large bowl, mix 1 1/2 cups of the Flour with Sugar, Salt, Nutritional Yeast and Quick Active Yeast. Add the Water and Oil and blend with an electric mixer for 2 minutes. Be sure and scrap the sides of the bowl often to make sure all the ingredients are mixed in. Then blend in the Applesauce and remaining Flour until the batter is smooth.

Place Dough on a lightly floured surface and knead for 10 minutes. Grease a large bowl with Vegetable Shortening. Place the Dough in the greased bowl and spin it around a few times to get a light coating. Loosely seal the bowl up with plastic wrap and place in a warm place to rise for an hour or until it doubles in size. We let ours sit overnight.

Heat oven to 375.

Spray a light coating of Olive Oil Cooking Spray over a cookie sheet.

Once the Dough has doubled in size and is springy to the touch, remove it from the bowl and divide it into 3 equal segments. Roll each segment into a long rope - try to keep them about the same size. Here's a tip : Don't stretch your dough. We did and you can see it caused the bread to have that pulled and well just not smooth appearance. Just roll it out.

Lay the 3 ropes in a row and start braiding them loosely from the center out. Then pinch the ends under to secure them. Brush a light coating of Olive Oil over the bread and then place the Loaf on your greased cooking sheet. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rise in a warm place for another hour.



In a small bowl mix mix all the ingredients from the Vegan Egg Wash with a whisk. Once the loaf has risen, brush the Loaf with the Vegan Egg Wash.

Bake 20-30 minutes (I baked mine for 15 minutes). Remove from the oven once it is golden brown. Thicker braids may take longer to bake.



I hope you enjoy this recipe and this blog it really has some great recipes I can't wait to try out a few more!

Mushroom pasta

During exam week food is usually the last thing on everyones mind and I usually end up eating out a lot or eating animal crackers for dinner. After a long day at the library and a very difficult exam I wanted something delicious and luckily we had some mushrooms in the fridge and I thought why not try to make something delicious. My room mate had told me about these irresistible mushrooms she had at thanksgiving a few years ago and it was just simply button mushrooms sautéed in worcestershire sauce. I decided to put my own spin on this and use what I had so this is what I came up with.




1/2 a package of White mushrooms
a sprinkle of red pepper flakes for some heat
olive oil
worcestershire sauce
1/2 cup bow tie pasta or as much as you want

This was only a single serving so if you want to make more just use more shrooms and pasta and use a little more sauce for marinating.

Put a pot of water on the stove to boil for the pasta while you are preparing the mushrooms. I don't usually wash my shrooms I just brush off any dirt or peel back any of the dirty spots. Then heat up the oil, worcestershire sauce and let the red pepper flakes heat up so the oil can absorb some of their heat. Next throw in the mushrooms, I left mine whole, and sautéed them in a fry pan with the olive oil, worcestershire sauce, and pepper flakes. let them cook on medium low until they are a darker color and a little bit smaller. Be careful how early you start cooking them because I had a hard time resisting them and ended up eating half of the mushrooms before the pasta was even done!



Next throw the pasta in the boiling water and cook for 7 to 8 minutes or however long your pasta package recommends. You can taste a bow tie and see if there done around 7 minutes if you like your pasta al dente. Then toss with the mushrooms after draining the pasta and enjoy!

Tempeh

The other day I had a greek salad at Mellow Mushroom with tempeh on top and it was sooo delicious. I had never cooked with tempeh before but every time I try it out I always really enjoy it so I figured it must not be too hard to make. Plus when I went to the store they had it for so cheap I just picked some up and figured I could think of something to make with it.



I used an asian toasted sesame dressing to marinade the tempeh in the fridge for an hour before cooking it.



While the tempeh was marinading I chopped up some carrots and red pepper into bite sized pieces and grabbed a handful of walnuts to throw in with the tempeh.



I added the carrots, peppers, and walnuts and let it soak up a little more of the dressing while I heated up a pan with a little bit of olive oil in it.



After adding the tempeh mix to the pan I let it cook on one side for 5 minutes and the flip it over to cook on the other for another 5 minutes or so. Next I poured the rest of the marinade over top of it and let it cook up while stirring it around making sure to not let the marinade burn or have the tempeh stick to the pan.



After it was done cooking I spooned the tempeh mix over some fresh baby greens for a delicious tempeh asian salad but you could always mix this with rice, noodles, on a sandwich, or even use it as the filling for a lettuce wrap .



Enjoy.

Cinnamon Bun Pie Pockets

I found this recipe on stumble upon last year and saved it as a favorite but then just never made them for the longest time and I wish I would have thought to make them sooner because these are delicious! After not doing so hot on my spanish test I needed a little pick me up and so I thought these would be perfect especially since it is getting nice and cold out a warm little treat was just what I needed in this fall weather!



The blog where I found these on is called gimme some oven an it is not a vegan site but I easily converted her recipe so I suggest you check it out plus she has a lot better pictures for prep work and instructions. http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/2ezR42/gimmesomeoven.com/cinnamon-bun-pie-pockets

These were so easy to make and so delicious so make a list and go get:

2 refrigerated 9-inch pie crusts (they come in a pack of two)
1 tub (8 oz.) vegan cream cheese (I used tofutti brand)
1/4 cup brown sugar, packed
1 tsp. ground cinnamon (1/2 for filling, 1/2 for topping)
1 Tbsp. sugar
2 Tbsp. vegan butter, melted (I always use Earth Balance)
1 cup powdered sugar
2-3 Tbsp. soy milk or water (I used almond dream vanilla)

First set your oven to 350 F, line a baking sheet with parchment paper or aluminum foil, and put out all the ingredients and measuring utensils. Then clear a counter or cutting board and sprinkle it with flour before spreading out the pie crust dough. I did not roll the dough so just using the pie crust as is yielded 8 little bun pockets but I think if you were to roll it out you could get at least a dozen. It just depends how thick you want your crusts to be and if you need to make more you can always double the batch!

After spreading out the dough on the floured surface pick what shape you want to make. I stuck with the circles just for the first time but next time I will definitely be breaking out my heart shaped cookie cutter. Also if you do not have any cookie cutters you can do like I did to make the circles I just found a wide glass to cut them with (about 3 inches across). Cut two circles for each pie, one for the top and one for the bottom and place the bottoms evenly spaced on the baking sheet with the tops set aside (you can put them fairly close because they dont rise too much).

Next is the fun part grab a medium sized bowl and mix together the cream "cheese", brown sugar and half of the cinnamon (1/2 tsp.) I used a hand mixer but if your up for a work out you could surly beat it with a fork just make sure to let the cream "cheese" soften first.

After this you can scoop a generous portion of the cream "cheese" mixture into the center of each circle. Then rub a little bit of water around the edges of the circle to wet before placing the top circle on. seal the edges with either your finger or pressing with a fork. Now mix together the sugar and remaining cinnamon. Spread the melted butter on top and sprinkle the cinnamon sugar mixture on top before baking. The cinnamon shouldn't burn on top which I was fearful of; it will just darken up the tops a bit.

Bake for 25 to 30 minutes or until the dough looks a little golden brown.



While your letting them cool a little whip, up the last addition to these tasty treats, the drizzle. Mix the powdered sugar with the soy milk using either a fork or a whisk until a desired consistency. I like mine to be a little thick but drizzle-able. Now slowly pour the frosting glaze over the buns and serve while there still warm.



Enjoy them while they last cause mine sure were gone fast!