Its been a while…

Sorry! I know its been ages since I’ve updated! I’ve just been insanely busy with school and work for the past few weeks. I’ve been running around shooting video for two different video projects I’m working on right now, trying to keep up with my school work, finishing editing on one of the documentaries I’m working on, and all sorts of other general busy-ness.

One of the problems with being so busy is that I don’t have time to cook! So I’ve been buying a lot of my meals for dinner for the past few weeks. And even when I do have time to cook, I haven’t been following a recipe, so most of what I do cook is pretty repulsive. However, this weekend I’ve been doing a lot of sleeping and recuperating, which means I’ve been doing some baking and cooking as well. Here’s what I came up with:

Today I made a tofu, broccoli, bell pepper stir-fy type thing. I marinated the tofu in lemon juice, brown sugar, honey, etc. Then I slapped everything together in a delicious stir-fry. This was delicious on its own, but I also added a peanut butter, soy sauce and honey “dip” on the side, and it was even better.

A lot of the dinner meals I make for myself I don’t really use or write a recipe. This used to work out really well for me when I first started cooking, however my cooking experiments have been less successful lately. To be honest, after I went to Morocco last summer I kind of forgot how to cook without using a recipe. For weeks I was forgetting to add spices to my meals and was left wondering why everything came out so bland! But, hopefully, things are taking a turn for the better.

I also baked some “healthy” cookies today.

One of my friends from work sent me a recipe that he wanted me to make. The recipe was already vegan, but I still changed a few things to suit the ingredients I had on hand.

These cookies are pretty good for having no added sugar! …but its probably all the chocolate chips I added…

2 bananas, mashed
1/4 cup applesauce
1/2 cup peanut butter, creamy, natural
1/4 cup coconut oil
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 cups old fashioned oats
1/3 cup shredded coconut
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp salt
1 cup chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 F. In separate bowls, mix together wet ingredients and mix together dry ingredients. Mix all ingredients together. Bake on cookie sheet for 12 minutes.

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Oreo-Stuffed Chocolate Chip Cookies and Better Food Photography

So many different food experiments happened this past weekend that I absolutely have to lump them all into one, extremely overwhelming post!

First, I’ll talk about my (slightly) improved food photography. I had an assignment last week for my photojournalism course to take photos using an external flash. Now I don’t know about you, but this seemed really intimidating to me at first. I don’t own an external flash, so instead of purchasing one, I borrowed a camera from my work which came with an external flash. To anyone who knows anything about DSLRs, the camera I borrowed might be a little impressive: it was the Canon 5D Mark II. Whoo! Everything was way over my head. There was definitely a learning curve coming from my Sony Alpha A55. So, long story short, I was super intimidated for about a week.

Thankfully…miraculously…somehow… I got over my initial fright and just started snapping photos of food last night. To my absolute delight, they came out looking quite nice! However in the future I’ll try not to shoot everything on a bright blue backdrop (which actually doubles as my bedroom curtains).

So the first thing I baked this weekend was a semi-failure. I baked a pan of slutty oreo brownies, from a recipe I found on What’s Gaby Cooking. These looked absolutely sinful, however, I made the amateur mistake of using salted vegan butter when the recipe actually called for unsalted butter. This was definitely a no-no. The salted butter made the brownies super oily and gross looking. I tried baking them for about 20 extra minutes, but all that did was overcook them and leave them with the curious description of solid yet oily. Gross.

I was quite disappointed in myself. (Also, I took this photo on my cell phone, not the 5D Mark II.)

However, one success did come out of that recipe! In the recipe it requires that you make too much cookie dough, and recommends saving the extra dough to make chocolate chip cookies later. Thankfully, the cookie dough came out marvelously, and I was still able to salvage the day of baking. I made oreo stuffed chocolate chip cookies, which were awesome. Sweet, but not too sweet.

They look funny, but they are awesome! And oreos are totally vegan! Doesn’t that blow your mind?

Finally, on Sunday evening I made myself something healthy to eat. It was an offshoot of the brussels sprout potato hash I made a few months back. I basically used the exact same recipe, but substituted broccoli for brussels sprouts. It was still delicious.

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Tried and Tested: Vegan Thanksgiving Recipes

Sorry for the uber late Thanksgiving post. But, hopefully some of these recipes and ideas can at least benefit someone for next year’s Thanksgiving:

I’m honestly not sure if I took any photos over Thanksgiving, which is a shame, because I have a ton of great recipes to recommend. Either way, I feel it’s necessary to share all of the great (and easily convertible) vegan recipes we made over Thanksgiving dinner.

1. Vegan Pumpkin Pie

I searched for days to find a delicious and simple recipe for vegan pumpkin pie. Last year at Thanksgiving my vegan (and gluten free) pumpkin pie recipe was a failure, however, this year things turned out much better. I found this recipe on a blog called So Good and Tasty. I didn’t use the recipe for the crust (although it looked delicious), because it seemed too time consuming, however the important part- the pumpkin center- was all that really mattered to me.

I love this recipe because it uses coconut milk, which just seems like a stroke of genius. I made the pie on Wednesday evening after returning home from school. Once I arrived home my Mother gave me a list of demands to accomplish, (all baking oriented of course) and I got to work. The first thing on my list was this pie. It was also the last thing I put in the oven, so it ended up a little overcooked. (However it was still fantastic!)

2. Cornbread

I can’t remember the last time I ate my Mom’s cornbread. Its the most delicious treat, and made even better by the fact that I can pour syrup all over it without an ounce of guilt. I used a recipe from an old cookbook that my Mom always uses, and made it vegan. Thankfully, it was quite simple to convert.

3. Cranberry and Orange Muffins

I’m not really sure how this is a traditional Thanksgiving food, but it was on the list of things my Mom wanted me to make once I returned home. I pulled the recipe out of my Mother’s Betty Crocker cookbook, and made it vegan. Also quite a simple conversion. Unfortunately, I can’t say how good these were because I still have yet to try one! However, they did disappear quite quickly…

4. Veggie Loaf

This recipe was all my Mother’s doing. She’d emailed me about this delicious vegetable loaf she’d eaten a few months ago and said that she would make it for me for Thanksgiving dinner. Good to her word, the loaf was actually quite good, however I’m not sure it really suited my tastebuds well. It tasted a little too much like stuffing, which I’ve never been a fan of. However, I have to recommend this recipe to anyone who might just love it!

5. Pumpkin Spice Cookies

When I came home I found a bag of these sitting on the counter with my name on it. Literally, a dream come true. A bag full of delicious, homemade cookies, just for me! Apparently these cookies freeze well, because my Mom said she baked them over a month ago and simply stuck them in the freezer for the next time I came home. I would never have guessed, because they tasted delicious and freshly baked.

6. Zucchini Banana Bread Pancakes

Again, I have no idea how this relates to Thanksgiving, but my Mother made them for breakfast on the big day, and they were just as delicious as usual.

7. Pumpkin Bread

Again, my Mom is taking on vegan baking on her own time. She made loaves of pumpkin bread to give everyone on Christmas (freezing them again), and I got to taste one of the fresh baked loaves. Delicious, and highly recommended.

8. Mashed Potatoes

These are super easy to veganize. Just peel and boil the potatoes, mash them, add a bit of vegan butter and soymilk, and keep mixing until desired consistency is reached. Vegan mashed potatoes don’t typically come out as creamy as “regular” mashed potatoes, however I’ve never heard any complaints about them, and I think they taste just as delicious!

Non-Traditional Halloween Cookies

Tomorrow is Halloween, and if I don’t celebrate in any other way, I will (of course) bake something delicious to celebrate the holiday. In the spirit of the Halloweekend, I baked pumpkin chocolate chip cookies to celebrate.

I found this recipe on Food Gawker (once again). I only had to change one ingredient to make it vegan.

The Recipe:
1 cup canned pumpkin
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup canola oil
1 egg replacer egg
2 cups white whole wheat flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp pumpkin pie spice
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
1 cup chocolate chips (or to taste)

Preheat oven to 350 F. Mix together pumpkin, sugar, oil, and egg replacer in medium bowl. In separate bowl mix together flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and spices. Add wet ingredients to the dry and mix well. Stir in chocolate chips as desired. Bake for 10-15 minutes. (I found that 10 minutes gives a softer, moister consistency.)

My Review:
These cookies are delicious! They taste remarkably like regular chocolate chip cookies, but with slightly more spice. I have to take them into work tomorrow to share with my co-workers. This is good, because I’ve found that it always helps to have other people taste my baked goods. I think I’ve eaten so many different varieties of cookies that my taste buds are biased to find everything surprisingly bland.

Banana Apple Oatmeal Cookies

Once again I found myself scouring the internet for recipes that utilize the ingredients I have lying around my kitchen. This time it was cookies with apples.

I’ve been flipping through Food Gawker lately and keep running across a similar recipe for oatmeal cookies with apples in them. They looked good, but I wasn’t quite sure I wanted to try making them until I found myself strapped with a giant bag of fresh picked, organic apples. The chances that I can eat this entire bag of apples in one week are slim, so I decided to bake the apple-oatmeal cookies. I definitely didn’t regret it. The only bad thing about this recipe was that it only used 1/2 cup apple (meaning approx 1/2 of one apple). I still have the entire bag left! (Perhaps there is apple pie in my future…)

1 1/2 cup flour (I used white)
1 1/2 cup oats (I used old fashioned)
1 tsp cinnamon (heaping!)
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 cup sugar
2/3 cup soymilk
1 tbsp oil
1 egg replacer egg
1/2 cup chopped apple
1/2 cup mashed banana (about one banana)

Mix dry ingredients together. Mix wet ingredients together and add to dry. Mix well, but the batter should remain lumpy. (Here I added one extra tbsp water to moisten the batter, add as needed). Bake at 400 F for 20 minutes.

I found this recipe on SparkRecipes.com. I replaced the egg and changed the Splenda to real sugar, however I still assume the calorie count will come out about the same. Frankly, I don’t bake cookies every week because I’m thinking about the calorie count, but its sometimes nice to know that you’re eating a cookie which tastes delicious, and isn’t completely terrible for you.

My New Love? Avocado Cookies

I consider myself lucky to have found this recipe online today which utilized all of the spare ingredients I had lying around my kitchen. It’s from a blog called Deconstructing the Home, and I only had to change one ingredient to make this recipe vegan.

I’ve been wanting to try baking with avocado for a long time, but most recipes I’ve found require more than one avocado. Thankfully, this recipe only requires one, and I just happened to have a perfectly ripe avocado sitting on my kitchen counter, begging to be eaten!

These avocado cookies turned out to be extremely delicious! They taste a lot like plain chocolate chip cookies, but are extremely soft! My only qualm is that I may not be able to stop eating them!

The Recipe:
1/2 cup avocado (about 1 avocado)
3/4 cup sugar
1 egg replacer egg
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup white wheat (or whole wheat) flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1 cup chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 290 F. In a medium bowl, mash avocado until smooth. Add sugar and mix well. Add egg replacer egg and vanilla and combine until smooth. In a separate, larger bowl, mix flour, baking soda and salt. Mix in wet ingredients until smooth. Add chocolate chips.

Bake for 15 – 20 minutes.