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Friday Favorites and Peanut Butter Triple Chocolate Cookies

Posted in Life, Recipes, tagged chocolate, cookies, Fall Out Boy, Friday Favorites, Full House, Nail Polish, peanut butter on January 31, 2014| 2 Comments »

So today I’m sharing with you Peanut Butter Triple Chocolate Cookies, aka, The Resolution Breakers. These can be eaten in cookie format OR in cookie dough format. They have three kinds of chocolate, they have peanut, they have sugar, they are basically everything that people give up when they start the New Year and swear to eat health. I’m sorry but they are just too good not to share.

But first, Friday Favorites!

This commercial, which has me dying to know where my pogs went and if we can make them a thing again

This Full House Reunion, which begs the question ‘Has Uncle Jesse been living in a bubble because he looks EXACTLY the same’:

This song and the entire Save Rock and Roll album by the Fall Out Boys. I’ve listened to it every day this week during my work outs and I can not get enough. For some reason, I just really love FOB when I am in a foreign country. I can’t explain it

Sally Hansen- Golden Rule nail polish. It’s gold and glittery and nothing like the normal nail polishes I wear, which are black or red. But I’m half way through my Golden Rule bottle and I still love it so that speaks volumes. I tried to take one of those fancy pinterest photos of my nails and the nail bottle and honestly, it just wasn’t happening. Google it. You’ll find pictures a thousand times better then mine.

from Sallyhansen.com

and finally, these Peanut Butter Triple Chocolate cookies. I’ve been craving chocolate like there’s no tomorrow lately and these seem to hit the spot. I threw in some peanut butter on a whim. My all time favorite peanut butter is Teddy’s and I received two jars from the states for Christmas. I’ve pretty much been eating it on everything which may or may not be a good thing. So, when I was making these cookies I thought, why not throw some peanut butter in? And then I thought, why not dunk the thing in even more chocolate. Yeah…I think I have a problem.

Peanut Butter Triple Chocolate Cookies
recipe adapted from Cadbury Double Chocolate Chip Cookies

1/4 C. butter, softened
1/4 C. all natural peanut butter
½ cup brown sugar
⅓ cup sugar
1 Energ-E egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
1½ cups self raising flour
½ cup cocoa
¾ cup vegan chocolate chips

1 cup of vegan chocolate chips for dunking (optional)

1. Cream together butter, peanut butter and sugars until light and fluffy. Whisk in “egg” and vanilla. Stir in flour and Cocoa then fold in the chocolate chips
2. Roll into balls and place on greased baking trays. Bake in oven at 320°F/160°C for 10-15 minutes or until cooked. Cool on a wire rack.
3. Once cool, melt your chocolate chips in a double boiler (my preferred method) or in the microwave. Dunk half the cookie in the chocolate and place on wax paper to dry.

These also make DELICIOUS cookie truffles. To make, just skip step 2. Instead, roll your dough into balls, chill and then dunk in melted chocolate. This is equally delicious and you can save yourself 10-15 minutes if you are UBER craving chocolate. Or you can just mix the dough and eat it straight out of the bowl. I’m not judging.

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BBQ Polenta Bites

Posted in Recipes, tagged appetizer, bbq, polenta, snack, Super Bowl on January 30, 2014| 1 Comment »

Last year for the Super Bowl, my friend Amelia (who created this hummus and helped with my Aussie header above), strolled into my super bowl party with Buffalo Polenta Bites. At that point, I had had polenta exactly zero times. It’s just not something we ever had around the house. After trying them though, I couldn’t get them out of my head. They were SO good.

Since then, I have thought of those buffalo bites at least once a month and always tell myself that I need to try and make them. As polenta is not something I normally have and frying the heck out of pseudo-cornmeal screams ‘special occasion’, I just never really got around to trying this recipe out.

Plus, it sort of scared me because I seriously always think placenta in my head. True story. Even as I’m typing this, I keep triple checking myself. Cause really, those are just not two things that you should get mixed up. Ever.

Anyway, as I’m currently kicking it in Australia, I’m not sure if I will be able to watch the Super Bowl but I couldn’t resist a chance to recreate Amelia’s recipe. Of course, I couldn’t find Buffalo Sauce here which sort of breaks my heart, so I had to go the BBQ route. Feel free to sub your favorite kind of sauce for BBQ sauce. I imagine it would taste great with Buffalo, teryaki or hoisin sauce. Whatever floats your boat!

BBQ Polenta Bites
inspired by Amelia and based off of Taste.com.au

3 C. of water
3/4 C. instant polenta
1 TBSP of vegan butter (I used nuttelex lite)
1/8 C. nutritional yeast
1/4 c. flour
salt and pepper to taste
1 tsp smoked paprika (or more to taste)
vegetable oil
1/4-1/2 C. BBQ sauce

Grease a small cookie sheet and set aside.

Bring water to a simmer in a saucepan over medium heat. Gradually add polenta in a thin stream, stirring constantly. Reduce heat to low and cook for 3-5 minutes, continuing to stir constantly, until the polenta is thick and soft. Stir in the butter, nutritional yeast and salt and pepper to taste.

Pour the polenta into the prepared pan and smooth the surface. Set aside to cool. Once cool, cover and place in fridge to set. I checked mine after an hour and it was all set.

Cut the polenta into bite size pieces, mine came to about 20. Mix the flour, smoked paprika, salt and pepper together. Add the polenta and toss to coat.

Heat vegetable oil in a non-stick pan over medium heat. You want enough vegetable oil so that when you lay your polenta in the pan, it hits your pieces at the mid-way mark. So the amount of oil will depend on the sizes of your polenta bites and your pan.

Add the polenta bites to your pan a few at a time. You do not want to crowd your pan so make sure you have plenty of room for your bites to cook. I fit 7 pieces into my frying pan at one time. Cook for 4 minutes on each side or until golden. Transfer to a plate lined with a paper towel.

Once all your polenta bites have been fried and are cool, place them in a large mixing bowl. Add about 1/4 C of BBQ sauce and toss gently with a large spoon until covered. Add more BBQ sauce if needed. The amount will depend on the type of BBQ sauce used and the number of bites you have.

So now for the all important question- Who are you voting for in the super bowl? I’m routing for the Broncos and Welker. If you follow my blog at all, you know Welker holds a dear place in my Dad’s heart. It was a sad, sad day in our house when he was traded from the Patriots. So this is our chance to root for the guy once again and what kind of daughter would I be if I didn’t take this chance to cheer on my Dad’s man crush? I mean, Come on! So, let me know if you will be joining my Dad and me as we cheer on Welker or if you are throwing in your lot with the Seahawks. Look, I even included a poll so you can vote. I’m getting fancy up in here! After you vote, leave a comment and tell me what you’re making. I’m living vicariously through you guys. Help a girl out!

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Passionfruit Mango Green Smoothie

Posted in Recipes, tagged breakfast, mango, passionfruit, smoothy on January 27, 2014| Leave a Comment »

Welcome back, everyone! I hope you had a fantastic Christmas and New Years. The holidays were very strange for me. It’s summer here and I’ve never spent Christmas in warm weather. It’s so weird! Christmas should be cold and snowy and… cold!

The upside is that Australia has fantastic fruit during the summer and I’m a fruit fiend. You name it and they have it, probably locally grown also. I went to my friend, Kate’s, right before New Years and her parents had so many fruit plants in their back yard that I was green with envy. It’s been over 10 years of not-so-patient waiting and I still haven’t received apples off my Dad’s trees! Though the peaches were delightful.

Passionfruit!

Since the fruit is grown locally, most of it is really reasonably priced so I can’t help take advantage of it. This smoothy is actually inspired by a smoothly I got at the chain, Boost. It’s crazy popular here. I see just as many people walking around with Boost cups as I would see people with Dunkin cups in Boston. Ok … maybe not quite that many since Bostonians reach freakish levels with their love of Dunkins. But it’s close! The first time I went there, I bought the Green Caribbean smoothy and was hooked! This smoothly is based off that.

Passionfruit Mango Green Smoothie

1/2 of a mango
1 passionfruit
1 banana, frozen
handful of spinach
3/4 c. coconut water
ice
1/4 c. coconut milk (optional. If omitted, may need to bump the coconut water to 1 cup depending on your blender)

Put everything in a blender and mix until well combined. Close your eyes, sip and pretend your kicking back on a beach somewhere.

Actually, I bet this would taste amazing turned into a cocktail. Splash some coconut rum in there and yum!

I decided to break my holiday hiatus with this recipe as I know so many people make diet/health goals for the new year. I figured one of the 3 chocolate recipes I’ve been tweaking should probably wait for a bit. Like, Friday. I think that’s plenty of time!

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Chocolate Peanut Butter Banana Bites

Posted in Recipes, tagged banana, chocolate, peanut butter, snack on December 9, 2013| Leave a Comment »

This recipe is a huge cop out. Like, I don’t even know if it’s considered a recipe. But here we go.

As I mentioned last week, I’ve been in a HUGE food funk. These overnight oats are what I have for breakfast, followed by some sort of toast with hummus for lunch and leftovers for dinner. I’m just not feeling food. It’s too hot here! Add to that the fact that the kids are now on summer break so I no longer have all afternoon to myself and there goes my cooking time! I did try to make some M&M cookies last week with the kids. The M&Ms weren’t vegan but I had leftovers from when I was making cookies for the kids’ teachers. The results were these colorful, flat-as-crepes cookies. Yeah…one of the kids put 1 1/2 c. of flour in instead of 2 1/2 c. of flour. Whoops.

So basically, my cooking time slot has been narrowed down to the 30 minute reading time I force upon the kids each day. Well, it’s supposed to be 30 minutes but after taking out the 10 minutes I spend telling them to “focus” and “stop talking” and “stop making faces at each other” and “stop kicking each other!” and “Oh my gosh if I have to tell you one more time to read your book…!”, it’s usually only about 20 minutes. That’s why this recipe is perfect. It takes about 10 minutes to prepare, you pop them in the freezer and the result is a little bite sized cold, chocolately/salty treat that you can grab in between activities. It’s hot here so they are perfect as an alternative to bites of ice cream. As for those in colder weather, they may be a healthier alternative to munching on holiday cookies?

Either way, I thought these were a great little treat for myself but silly me, I made them in full view of all three kids. Which means I had to share. And they loved them. Which means they didn’t last nearly as long as I thought they would. I don’t know if that is a good thing because they were clearly tasty or a bad because now I have to use my precious 30 20 minutes of free time to make a much larger batch tomorrow.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Banana Bites
from Nom! Nom! Nom! Blog
serves 1-2, but can easily be doubled

1 banana

1/8 c. of peanut butter, approximately

1/2 cup of vegan chocolate chips

Line a baking sheet with wax or parchment paper and set aside.

Cut your banana so you have round discs that are about 1/2″ thick. Top the discs with peanut butter.

Melt your vegan chocolate in the microwave or on the stove with a double burner. I prefer the double burner method but whatever you find easiest. If your chocolate isn’t melting smoothly, add a little bit of shortening. Once your chocolate is melted, remove from heat. Dunk your banana into the chocolate. I found the easiest way to be with a fork. Pierce the side of the banana with the fork, then dunk it into chocolate. Use another fork to slide the chocolate-covered banana off the first fork and onto the wax paper.

Freeze until the chocolate hardens. Remove from wax paper and place in a baggy or container and return to the freezer.

I feel like the directions for this are really wordy. It could also read “Cut banana. Put PB on top. Dunk in Chocolate. Freeze.” 3 ingredients, 10 word instructions, and we’re done!

Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go secretly make another batch of these and hide them where the kids can’t find them. Why can’t they just be satisfied with messed up, flat M&M cookies? Sheesh!

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Veggie Packed Mac and “Cheeze”

Posted in Recipes, tagged cheese, cheeze sauce, dinner, Kale, pasta on December 2, 2013| Leave a Comment »

Things have been terribly uninteresting, food-wise, here in Aussie. For the past few weeks, I have been totally and completely uninspired. For breakfast, I have grapefruit and toast. For lunch, I have veggies and store bought hummus. Sometimes I go wild and have peanut butter and celery. Hold me back!

As a result, new and interesting foods have been scarce. I’ve tried one or two new recipes but they have all fallen short. I think I’ve temporarily lost my kitchen mojo!

This could very well have to do with a hacking cough and lingering feeling of ‘blah’ that I haven’t been able to shake for about a week or so. I’ve been downing green tea and honey like it’s going out of style. And I’ve been craving soup except it’s hot out! Maybe I just need to feed my soup craving and all will return to normal.

Despite the boring food phase I’m facing, I do have this recipe that I promised you a bajillion years ago (or 3 weeks) that I just haven’t gotten around to posting. It uses the Cheeze sauce recipe that I made for Halloween. I made another batch and have been using it for Mac and Cheeze, which is at least somewhat of a comfort food. Even if it isn’t the piping hot soup I crave.

Veggie Loaded Mac and Cheeze
serves 2

-3 TBSP olive oil

– 3 cloves of garlic

-half an onion

-half a bunch of curly leaf kale

-1/2 c. of tomatoes (I used small cherry tomatoes)

-1 1/2 – 2 c. of pasta of your choice (I used gluten-free buckwheat spirals)

-about 1/2 c. of Cheeze sauce, or more to taste

Heat oil over medium -low heat in a medium sized skillet. Add the onions and the garlic and saute for 2-3 minutes. Add the tomatoes, stir and cover, cooking until the tomatoes are soft and mushy. This should be about 5 minutes. My goal here was to create a really flavorful oil base to cook the kale in. Once the tomatoes are soft, add the kale and toss so it’s covered in the oil. Cover for 5 minutes until the kale and bright green and cooked down. Give it another good toss. Reduce the heat to low.

While the kale is covered and cooking, put your pasta on. Cook according to instructions. Once cooked and drained, add it your kale mixture. Toss everything together. Add your Cheeze sauce and stir/toss to coat. Add more if desire. Keep heat to medium low and heat your mixture until the sauce is hot. Serve right away.

Half recipes if you are making for one person. Leftovers to do not heat up well.

I’ve made this a few times and more often then not, I serve it in a big bowl and eat it curled up on the couch reading. It’s such a good comfort food meal. You will never pass this off as real mac and cheese to your non-vegan friends but it’s a great, veggie packed recipe that hits that craving when you want the blue box.

I do have a Travel Tuesday for you tomorrow and, hopefully, a Friday Favorite that I’ve been sitting on forever! We’ll see how I come along with the recipes. Fingers cross I create something not sucky soon!

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Vegan Graham Crackers

Posted in Recipes, tagged graham crackers, snacks on November 18, 2013| 1 Comment »

So. I’ve been in Australia about a month now and here’s the food scoop:

1. Tim Tams are the shit. Pardon the language but there’s no other way to word it. The grocery store sells a mini pack of them which has 5 cookies in them and seriously, I downed about 1 of those things a day when I first got here. Since then, I no longer can fit into any of my clothes so you know, I’m trying to cool it but they. are. good.

2. Australia does not have marshmallows, fluff, good peanut butter (despite rumors, they DO have pb, just none without sugar), vegan ice cream in the grocery store, canned pumpkin (serious, this is absolutely killing me), their oreos taste weird, black beans are hard to find and graham crackers don’t exist.

It’s been a rough month.

But I have prevailed! (Mostly with copious amounts of Tim Tams).

Truthfully, I can live without most this stuff but the hardest was graham crackers! Or canned Pumpkin. But this post is about graham crackers so let’s go with that for now. I really love graham crackers with Teddy’s pb and mini vegan chocolate chips. It’s hands down one of my favorite snacks. But seeing as they didn’t have graham crackers and I haven’t found mini chocolate chips (especially vegan ones), I’ve had to get creative.

Enter, the homemade graham cracker!

Oh She Glow’s Vegan Graham Crackers
from Oh She Glows,

DRY

3/4 cup + 1 tbsp whole wheat flour
3/4 cup white flour
2 tbsp brown sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1/8th tsp ginger
2 tsp cinnamon
1/8th tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp baking soda
Turbinado sugar or coarse sugar, for garnish

WET

3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
Modified flax egg: 1/2 tbsp ground flax + 1 tbsp warm water
3.5 tbsp almond milk
2 tbsp pure maple syrup
3 tbsp blackstrap molasses

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350F (175C) and line a baking sheet with parchment paper or a non-stick mat.

In a small bowl or cup mix together the modified flax egg: 1/2 tbsp ground flax and 1 tbsp warm water. Set aside for 5 minutes so it can gel up.

In a large bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients and make sure everything is combined very well.

In a small bowl, whisk together all the wet ingredients, including the flax egg, but give the flax egg a good stir before mixing it in.

Add the wet mixture to the dry mixture and stir well with a spoon and then set the spoon aside and get in there with your hands and squeeze the dough together with your fingers.

Form the dough into a ball and place it on a very lightly floured counter. Be sure not to use too much flour or it will dry out the dough. Lightly flour a rolling pin and begin rolling out the dough until you have a rectangle that is about 1/8 inch thick. You want to roll it as thin as you can while still being able to remove it from the surface. The dough tends to crack in the initial rolling stages (and this was true for all different trials of the recipe), but I found that once I worked with it more it began to hold together better. If the dough cracks for you, you can form it into a ball again and restart the rolling process if need be. Sometimes I just patch cracks with another piece of dough and press it into the crack. Don’t worry because they don’t need to be perfect!

Once your dough is rolled out you can use cookie cutters, a pizza slicer/pastry slicer, or even a knife to cut the shapes you want.

Now pull away the scrap dough around the edges and set aside. Using a flat spatula/pancake flipper, carefully slide it underneath each cracker and place the cracker onto the baking sheet about 1 inch apart.

Grab your scrap dough and roll it out and repeat the cookie cutting process. Place onto baking sheet.

Now grab a fork and pierce each cracker a few times so it has air holes.

Sprinkle with turbinado sugar (or coarse sugar/white sugar) and bake for approx 15 minutes, rotating the pan 180 degrees half way through the baking time. There is no need to flip the crackers during baking. Baking time will vary depending on how thick your crackers are, so keep that in mind.

Allow the crackers to cool on the baking sheet for about 10 minutes. They will firm up quite a bit

I was super impressed with this recipe. The graham crackers were nice and crunchy and were’t too sweet, which is exactly what I was looking for. The molasses really stuck out though, which was a little different from the store kind. I don’t know how they would taste with s’mores (hint send graham crackers in care package hint) but I really enjoyed them as a snack with pb.

I actually had to squirrel these away on my side of the cabinet behind some boxes so the kids wouldn’t eat them. Sorry kids! You can have the store brand cookies. These homemade treats are for me!

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“Cheeze” sauce and Veggie Cheeze Quesadillas

Posted in Recipes, tagged butternut squash, cheeze sauce, dinner, mexican food on November 5, 2013| 3 Comments »

This post just didn’t want to happen. I’ve opened WordPress approximately 800 times to write it and approximately 800 times I’ve managed to do just about anything else.

I feel like the kids when I’m trying to get them to do their homework. They want to do just about anything BUT what’s in front of them.

Talk about the day: Check.

Put their head down and whine about how much they hate school: Check.

Sing Lady Gaga: Check.

Dance to Lady Gaga: Check.

Pretend the chairs are the bars from gymnastics: Check.

Fall off fake gymnastic bars because they are, in fact, chairs and have a fake melt down: Check.

Literally, anything other then doing actual work is an option. They’ll do one problem or read one sentence and they’re off doing something else and I have to refocus them. That’s exactly how I’ve felt writing this blog but no one has been around to refocus me so instead I:

Write post cards: Check.

Sing Taylor Swift: Check.

Dance to Taylor Swift: Check.

Write 2 other blog posts for later in the week: Check.

Look up xmas presents on the most obscure websites ever: Check.

Check every single on line store I have ever shopped at for an update on their products (I’m looking at you Toms and your super cute new star shoes): Check.

Work out: Actually….uh, nah! I think I’ll blog. lol!

Despite my new found A.D.D, this “cheeze” sauce was divine. I originally made it for the Halloween Quesadillas and then began putting it on pasta with kale and tomatoes for a sort of vegan, veggie loaded Mac and Cheeze. I seriously can’t get enough. Here is the recipe for the quesadilla. I will share the pasta with you next week.

Do you like my fancy bowl?

But first, let’s start with the sauce:

Vegan “Cheeze” Sauce
by Oh She Glows

Ingredients:

1 fresh butternut squash* (peeled and chopped) OR 1 cup canned butternut squash OR canned pumpkin (I only tried it with roasted squash, a combo of butternut and japanese, but pumpkin is next if I can find it canned!)
Extra virgin olive oil, S & P
1 tbsp Earth Balance (or other non-dairy butter replacer)
3/4 cup unsweetened & unflavoured almond milk
1 tbsp arrowroot powder (or cornstarch) (arrowroot is cheaper in Australia, so I used that)
6 tbsp nutritional yeast, or more to taste
2 tsp Dijon mustard
1/4-3/4 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp onion powder
1/2-1 tbsp fresh lemon juice
1/2-1 tsp kosher salt (to taste) & ground black pepper, to taste

1. If you are roasting squash, preheat oven to 425F. Line a casserole dish with tin foil. Mix chopped squash with EVOO, S & P. Roast for about 40 minutes, uncovered, or until tender. Remove and set aside to cool.

2. Next, prepare the roux in a pot on the stove top. Add non-dairy butter over low-medium heat. In a bowl, whisk together milk and arrowroot powder (or cornstarch or flour) until clumps are gone. Add into pot with butter and whisk. Stir in remaining ingredients (nutritional yeast, Dijon, garlic, lemon, S & P) and whisk over low heat until thickened (about 5-7 minutes or so).

3. In a blender, blend the roux with 1 cup of roasted squash (or if using canned, simply stir 1 cup into the pot).

Voila! You have a cheeze sauce. Now, what to do with it:

Veggie Cheeze Quesadillas
makes approximately 4 quesadillas

vegan butter

1 yellow onion, thinly sliced

olive oil

1 garlic clove

1 red pepper

8 oz of mushrooms

salt and pepper

1 batch of vegan Cheeze sauce

option toppings: guacamole, salsa, vegan sour cream

In a small pan, melt a bit of vegan butter over medium low heat. Once melted, add your sliced onions and stir to coat. Let sit, stirring occasionally until caramelized. This should take 15-20 minutes.

While your onions are caramelizing, slice up your red peppers. Heat some olive oil in a different frying pan over medium heat. Add your garlic and sautee until fragrant. Add your red peppers. Stir occasionally until soft, this should take about 15 minutes. After the peppers have been cooking for about 5 minutes, throw in your mushrooms and continue cooking for the remaining 10 minutes. Season with salt and pepper to taste at the end.

Once your veggies are done, Preheat oven to 350. Lay out your tortilla shells. Cover 4 of the shells in Cheeze sauce. Top with your cooked veggies. Place the remaining shells on top. At this point, you can cover the quesadillas and place in the fridge if you are making them ahead of time. I would not recommend leaving them in the fridge for longer then 1 day. The edges tend to dry up and get stale.

Once you are ready to cook, place in the preheated over and cook for about 10 minutes until the tortilla shells have started to turn golden. Remove from the oven, slice up, add your toppings of choice and devour!

Another option would be to cut up all your veggies and cook them with a taco or fajita seasoning, either in the oven or on the stove. I really wanted caramelized onions though which is why I opted for the stove top veggies.

This recipe is customizable so go crazy with it.

Pumpkin faces totally optional, but it does make it more fun!

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Vegan Brownie Cups aka How to Entertain a 5 Year Old For 30 Minutes

Posted in Recipes, tagged brownies, dessert on October 29, 2013| Leave a Comment »

Hello all!

I am officially reporting to you from Australia, the land of kangaroos, koalas and no halloween. This first week or so has been interesting!

I will be staying for 6 months in Toowoomba, Queensland and nannying for a family with three kids- 12, 11 and 5. Toowoomba is about 1 and a half from Brisbane and north of Sydney. So far, all is going well.

I have managed to drive on the opposite side of the road on the opposite side of the car without killing anyone. I’ve been to trivia with a few Aussies where I woefully let the team down by answering every question about American presidents wrong and learned a little about AFL (Australian Football League). See a picture of their field below. All I can say is it sure ain’t like the NFL! I also learned that some slang for the male genitalia is Doodle, which I find hilarious, and Plum. This came up in casual conversation, I swear.

I also managed to find the only organic food market and place that serves vegan food. I found this on Day 1 and have already eaten there twice. It also has a juice bar. It also makes Whole Foods prepared food section look cheap. So I don’t think this will be a regular habit but it is nice to have at least one go-to vegan eatery.

As for vegan eats, it has not been easy! I asked for no cheese on my pizza at trivia and they told me no changes were allowed. I do my best.

Anyway, I thought my first week would be a transition week but on the second or third day in, the 5 year old girl ended up having to stay home due to several nose bleeds. Which meant I had the fun of entertaining her all day while not knowing a lot about her. Also, without any sort of crafty, artsy materials. No crayons, no coloring books, no nothing! We also had the unfortunate situation of her being out of school because her nose kept bleed but she felt fine! So by noon, she was bouncing around the house full of energy when she was supposed to be taking it easy. I was about to throw in the towel and take her to a park when her nose started to bleed again.

After we cleaned her up, I became desperate. If I heard the words “I’m booooooored” one more time I would cry (which is crazy cause I had successfully kept her relatively busy to this point). So I turned to the kitchen! Cause nothing is more fun then making a mess with flour and eating raw (vegan) batter!

Hence, the vegan brownie cups. It earned me 30 whole minutes of quality entertainment. hallelujah!

Vegan Brownie Cups
from All Recipes
makes 16

2 c. all-purpose flour
2 c. white sugar
3/4 c. unsweetened cocoa powder
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1 c. water
1 c. vegetable oil
1 tsp. vanilla extract (I used 1 tsp vanilla paste which is my new favorite thing)
chocolate chips for sprinkling (optional)

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F (175 degrees C).

In a large bowl, stir together the flour, sugar, cocoa powder, baking powder and salt. Pour in water, vegetable oil and vanilla; mix until well blended.

Divide evenly into 16 cupcake liners. Top with chocolate chips, if you are using them. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until a knife inserted into the center comes out clean.

These definitely came out more cake-like then fudge-y brownie-like. This has been my constant issue with vegan brownies. The texture is never that of a fudge-y brownie. They are either too fudge-y or too cake-y. These were so tasty and easy to make though that I don’t care. I was able to make them with a 5 year old with the ingredients that were already on hand, no weird flour or ingredients. My pantry is no longer stocked with 8 kinds of flours nor do I want to buy said flour when I know I’m leaving in 6 months, so this simple recipe was perfect.

Also, it was really, really yummy! No one in the family knew it was vegan and that is perfectly ok with me.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go pin some ideas for rainy day/stuck in the house activities on pinterest because I don’t think the mom I’m working for would appreciate baked goods every time the kids are bored! Though, I’m pretty sure the kids wouldn’t mind.

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Friday Favorites and Southwestern Pumpkin Burgers

Posted in Recipes, tagged mexican, pumpkin, veggie burger on September 20, 2013| 4 Comments »

I made the world’s best tasting vegan burgers!

But first, Friday Favorites! It was really hard for me not to do all Friday Favorites this summer, especially with music, but I managed to contain myself! Here’s a few from this week:

Lorde- Royals. Poor Matt had to listen to this at least 10 times during the Cape trip. Every time it came on, I belted it out. Love it.

A Day in the Life of a Food Blogger I’m no where near this cool. I’m lucky if I change out of my pjs

The Republic of Tea’s Pumpkin Spice Black Tea. I’m pretty much the only person in the universe who doesn’t like Starbucks Pumpkin Spice Lattes. This, though…this is delicious! I found mine last year at Crate & Barrel but I believe this link is the same kind I have.

Laurel Hill Pumpkin Seed Tortilla Chips. Your answer to a savory, salty pumpkin fix. Because clearly we need pumpkin in all parts of our life!

The Neighbourhood- Sweater Weather.

And incase you aren’t totally OD’ed on pumpkin stuff already, I made these pumpkin burgers this week and they are Ah-Maz-Ing! I can’t even stress how flavorful they are!

Southwester Pumpkin Burgers
modified from Eating Well

6 teaspoons extra-virgin olive oil, divided
1 medium onion, chopped
1/2 cup finely chopped red or green bell pepper
1/2 cup fresh or frozen corn ( I used fresh and it was delicious!)
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 teaspoons chili powder
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 cup canned unseasoned pumpkin puree
1/2 cup toasted pecans, processed in the food processor until fine (or 1/2 c. toasted wheat germ)
1/2 cup fine dry breadcrumbs
2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley
1/2 teaspoon salt
Freshly ground pepper, to taste

Heat 2 teaspoons oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium heat. Add onion and cook, stirring often, until softened, 5 to 7 minutes. Stir in bell pepper, corn, garlic, chili powder and cumin; cook, stirring, until fragrant, about 2 minutes more. Transfer to a large bowl; let cool to room temperature, about 10 minutes.
Add pumpkin, pecans, breadcrumbs, parsley, salt and pepper to the onion mixture; mix well. With dampened hands, form the vegetable mixture into six 1/2-inch-thick patties, using about 1/2 cup for each. Firmly, squeeze the ingredients together so they won’t crumbly in the pan.
Using 2 teaspoons oil per batch, cook 2 to 4 patties at a time in a large nonstick skillet over medium heat until browned and heated through, about 4 minutes per side. Adjust heat as necessary for even browning.

You can serve these on a tortilla, a hamburger bun or on top of a salad. I have had them all three ways and it’s great. This week, I have been serving them hot on top of a salad with spinach, bell peppers, tomatoes, avocado and salsa. Black beans would be delicious, too. I think the salsa and avocado are a must no matter how you serve them, though.

These burgers are so packed with flavor. I have served them to just about everyone (mostly meat eaters) and I haven’t had a single complaint. They are amazing. They do get soft when they are refrigerated, so be aware of that. It doesn’t take away from the taste, though. To reheat them, I like to bake them at 350 for about 20 minutes.

Know what else these taste good with? Pumpkin Seed tortilla chips and a pumpkin beer. Am I embracing Fall or what?

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Mini Pumpkin Loaves

Posted in Recipes on September 19, 2013| 2 Comments »

Guys, I have a problem: I am addicted to Halloween stuff. This isn’t even logical. I am moving my entire life to Australia and all I want to do is load up on all the Halloween stuff from Michaels.

The first week I was in my new pad, I discovered there was a grocery store within walking distance. Victory! So, one day, when I was joyfully unemployed and had the whole day in front of me, I thought, “I’m going to take a stroll down to Star Market and pick up x, y and z”. It was sunny and warm and I was in good spirits. I got to the plaza and to my shock, the entrance to Star Market was right smack dab in the middle of TWO entrances into Michaels. Well, that’s convenient…I guess. I do need to get spray paint…I guess. So into Michaels I went. I just need white spray paint, I said. I just need white spray paint.

Then, I descended the stairs and there were all the halloween decorations.

I was unprepared for the Halloween onslaught! My defenses were down!! I was vulnerable!!! I wasn’t prepared to say no!!!!

The next thing I knew, I was in line with a basket full of halloween stuff and an hour of my life was gone. Wait, what? What am I buying? Scrapbook paper? A book of pumpkin carving patterns? A count down calendar to Halloween when I am not even going to be here for Halloween??

I had to take a deep breath and do some seriously editing. Clearly.

I settled for the world’s cutest paper straws with little skulls on them, the Martha Stewart Halloween magazine (It’s like getting the Toys R Us magazine when you were a kid, SO EXCITING!), two mini loaf pans and a little ramekin. And some cupcake liners, which I forgot about until I looked over my instagram photos for this grid. Whoops!

Trust me, that was edited!

Then, I had the difficult task of actually utilizing said Halloween items because, clearly, I needed to justify the purchase of them!

Say hello to these mini pumpkin loaves, the cutest way to eat pumpkin! I made three versions with one batter: regular pumpkin bread, pecan streusel pumpkin bread, and chocolate chip pumpkin bread.

Mini Pumpkin Loaves
modified from OregonLive.com

1 1/2 C. whole-wheat pastry flour
1/2 C. granulated sugar
3 tsp of pumpkin pie spice
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/8 tsp of salt
1 cup canned pumpkin
2 tablespoons unsulfured blackstrap molasses or maple syrup ( used molasses)
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
2 tablespoons water (if needed)

For the chocolate chip loaf (optional):

1/8 c. chocolate chips

For the streusel topping (optional):

1/4 C. all-purpose flour
1/8 C. brown sugar, packed
1/4 stick unsalted butter, chilled
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
1/8 C. finely chopped toasted pecans

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

In a mixing bowl stir together the flour, sugar, pumpkin spice, baking powder, baking soda and salt.

In another bowl, whisk together the pumpkin, molasses and oil until smooth. Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients and pour in the wet mixture. Stir together until completely mixed. If the batter is too stiff to mix, add a very small amount of water to loosen it a bit, but it should remain thick.

Divide the batter among three lightly oiled mini-loaf pans.

If you are adding the optional streusel, mix all the ingredients together with a fork until everything is well incorporated. The butter will remain crumbly. Layer on top of one loaf (or all three if you choose).

If you are adding the optional chocolate chip, stir it into one of the loaves. (if you want to make all three chocolate chip pumpkin, stir the chocolate chips in before you divide the batter).

Bake 20 to 25 minutes, or until a knife inserted into the center tests clean.

These are so, so cute. I think the chocolate chip and the streusel are tied for my favorite. The toasted pecan streusel is perfect with the pumpkin and the chocolate, is, well, chocolate. Everything is better with chocolate!

Go make these pronto. They’re too cute to pass up. Also, if you go to Michaels to get these, let me know what else you get! Cause you know you can’t leave there with just the things on your list.

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