roasted root vegetables

This is one of my all-time favourite dinner dishes. My mom and I have been making this throughout the winter for the past few years and it has never failed to be delicious.

Ingredients (pick as many or as few as you like from this list):
beets (red and golden)
sweet potatoes (hana, garnet)
garlic (whole cloves)
garlic (minced)
red potatoes
yukon gold potatoes
purple potatoes
fingerling potatoes
russet potatoes
parsnips
carrots

Preheat oven to 400 degrees fahrenheit.
Cut up root veggies into small/medium pieces. Place beets in glass oven dish and pour olive oil in (so beets are coated). Roast for about 15-20 minutes. Add the rest of the veggies (including whole cloves of garlic). Add olive oil generously. Roast for about 15 minutes. Add minced garlic and salt veggies. Roast until veggies are soft/cooked to your liking!

I hope you love this recipe as much as I do!

Southwestern Pizza

Today at work I got a free Alvarado Street Bakery sprouted whole wheat pizza crust!
Jonathan doesn't like tomatoes and I don't like pesto, so I had to get creative. Here's the result!

Ingredients:
1 Alvarado Street pizza crust (make sure you get the cheese-less one)
refried black beans (with salt)
corn
jalapeños
daiya pepperjack (vegan) cheese

Directions:
Preheat oven to 450 degrees fahrenheit. Heat black beans (I made my own with delicious spices...which I certainly recommend) with corn. Sauté the jalapeños in a little bit of oil (this is not necessary, but I prefer the flavor this way). Spread beans/corn onto the pizza crust and cover with daiya cheese. Then add jalapeños! Cook for about 10 minutes.

I found this surprisingly good and I hope you do too!

Note: The vegan cheese tastes a thousand times better than it looks, and I'm the only vegan that ate this tonight and certainly not the only one that was a fan of it.

peanut butter chocolate chip cookies!

A little while ago, I bought some peanut butter and was disappointed by the lack of deliciousness. But I kept it, figuring that it would taste fine (or delicious) in some peanut butter cookies! How right I was :)
Here's the recipe:

Ingredients:
1 cup earth balance
1 cup peanut butter (crunchy is best)
1 cup sucanat
1 cup organic unrefined sugar
ener-g egg replacer for 2 eggs
1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
1 cup all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips (it is easier to get vegan ones than you think. while I obviously recommend the organic ones you'd find at a health food store, ghiradelli, for example, makes vegan ones. just check the ingredients!)

1. Cream together the earth balance, sucanat and unrefined sugar, and peanut butter. Then add in the egg replacer.
2. In a medium sized bowl, mix together the flours, baking powder, salt, and baking soda.
3. Slowly add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients. Add in chocolate chips.
4. Put dough in refrigerator for at least an hour.
5. Preheat oven to 375 degrees fahrenheit. Roll dough into one inch balls and place on a baking sheet (if you have a silpat, definitely use it!). Flatten ball slightly with a fork in the classic criss-cross fashion. Don't over flatten, because you will have a lot of difficulty getting them off the baking sheet if you do.
6. Bake for 10-12 minutes. Do not over bake. It may be extremely difficult to get them off the baking sheet and onto a cooling rack at first, so wait a few minutes.

ENJOY!!!

Hamburger Buns!!

I make these awesome veggie burgers with millet and quinoa sometimes, and tonight I decided that I might as well make the hamburger buns from scratch as well.
They turned out great and were pretty darned easy!
Here's the recipe!

To make 6 buns:

1/2 cup soy milk
1/2 cup water
1 tablespoon earth balance
1/2 tablespoon sucanat (if you don't have sucanat you can use sugar)
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/4 cups whole wheat flour
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 an envelope of dry yeast (.125 oz)
small handful of sesame seeds (optional)

Step 1:
In a small saucepan, combine the soy milk, water, earth balance, sucanat, and salt. Heat until thoroughly melted and mixed. Remove from the heat and let cool until lukewarm. If the mixture is too hot when you add it in step 2, it will kill the yeast.
Step 2:
In a medium-large bowl, combine the flour and yeast. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients. Stir until the dough pulls together.
Step 3:
If you have a kitchen aid, use the dough hook attachment to mix for 7-8 minutes.
If you do not have a kitchen aid, knead the dough on a floured surface for 10-12 minutes (don't add too much extra flour though!).
Step 4:
Place dough in a greased bowl and turn it to coat. Cover and let it rise for 1 hour!
Step 5:
Punch down the dough and divide into six balls. Make tight balls out of the dough by pulling the dough tightly around and pinching it at the bottom. Put the sesame seeds in a saucer. Using a pastry brush, glaze the tops of the dough balls with water and then roll the tops in the sesame seeds. Place on a baking sheet lined with a silpat (or parchment paper). Let sit for 1-2 minutes. Flatten each ball with the palm of your hand until they are about three inches wide. Set rolls aside to rise again for about 45 minutes.
Step 6:
Preheat oven to 400 degrees fahrenheit.
Step 7:
Bake for 15 minutes. As soon as you remove them from the oven, glaze the tops of the buns with earth balance. Place on a cooling rack.
Step 8:
ENJOY!!



And here's Jonathan's veggie burger...with vegan mashed potatoes!

"Cheesy" Cornbread Muffins!!!!

These are seriously delicious. It's very serious...how delicious these are. The cheese gets all melty and amazing. For real.
Okay, here's the recipe:

1 cup organic cornmeal
1 cup organic unbleached all-purpose flour
1/3 cup organic sucanat (or unrefined sugar)
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon sea salt
1 cup non-dairy milk (I use Earth Balance Soymilk)
6 tablespoons earth balance
ener-g egg replacer for one egg
organic fresh corn cut from one ear
a full handful of daiya pepperjack cheese (or more!!)

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Put muffin tin liners in a muffin tray and lightly grease them (Spectrum makes a coconut oil spray that is perfect for this).
Stir dry ingredients together in a bowl. Then stir in non-dairy milk, earth balance, egg replacer, fresh corn, and daiya pepperjack cheese.
Spoon batter into muffin cups and bake for about 20 minutes!

flour tortillas!!

Organic tortillas are pretty expensive. You end up spending about $5 for 6 tortillas, and if your household is anything like mine, you go through about one pack a night.
SO!
I spent a while perfecting an easy tortilla recipe.
This will make about 4-6 tortillas, so if you have more than two people eating, you may want to double it!

1&1/3 cups of flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon oil
1/2 cup water

Mix the dry ingredients. Add the wet ingredients. Do not add extra water!! Use your hands to to make the mixture hold together, but don't over-work the dough. Leave the dough in the bowl and cover with a towel for 20 minutes or so. NOTE: This dough will NOT rise, the waiting period is just because for whatever reason it seems to work best this way!
Then take a ball of the dough and roll it out! It shouldn't stick to the rolling pin, but if it does, just lightly flour the rolling pin/chopping board.
Pour a little oil (I use rice bran oil) into a frying pan on high heat. Let the pan heat up. Fry the tortillas!

I made the recipe very generic so you can use whatever flour/oil you like (though I don't recommend using all corn flour with this recipe because it will come out too sticky), but here is the recipe again with the specific ingredients I use!
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup white unbleached flour
1/3 cup corn masa
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon pink himalayan sea salt
1 tablespoon olive oil or rice bran oil
1/2 cup water


I hope you all love this recipe and find it as easy as I do! Because I make these almost every night, I just filled a gallon mason jar with the dry ingredients so all I have to do each night is add the oil and water! YUM!!!

cornbread waffles! with chili!

So good even Sibyl wants to try them.......






I wanted waffles this morning, but didn't have time to make them before work. Jonathan suggested I try savory waffles. I was thrilled at this idea and discovered the joy of VEGAN CORNBREAD WAFFLES! I am so excited! I hope you love this as much as I do.

Ingredients:
1 3/4 cups organic all-purpose flour
1 1/4 cups organic yellow cornmeal (make sure it's organic, you don't want GMO!)
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon sucanat (you can use organic sugar if you don't have sucanat)
1 teaspoon salt (pink himalayan sea salt!)
2 cups organic soymilk (or other non-dairy milk)
3 tablespoons organic rice bran oil (you can use a vegetable oil of your choice)
ener-g egg replacer for 2 eggs
spicy chili (obviously homemade is the best, but I wasn't prepared so I used a can of Amy's Spicy Chili, which was delicious!)
Daiya Vegan Soy-Free Cheese (this is optional)

Preheat waffle iron.
In a large bowl, combine organic flour, cornmeal, baking powder, sucanat, and sea salt. In a medium sized bowl, combine milk, oil, and prepared egg replacer. Add the liquid combination to the dry ingredients, stirring until smooth.
Pour batter onto hot waffle iron and bake until fluffy and slightly crispy!
Serve with chili on top (and vegan cheese if desired)!

chocolate chip cookies!!

There are a million different chocolate chip cookie recipes out there, but I am particularly fond of this one!

1 cup earth balance buttery sticks (room temperature)
3/4 cup organic unrefined sugar (or maple sugar!)
3/4 cup organic brown sugar (you can use sucanat or palm sugar instead...I always do!)
ener-g egg replacer for 2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract (singing dog brand is my favourite!)
1 1/4 cups all purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat pastry flour (if you don't have this, you can use all purpose flour exclusively)
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups chocolate chips
(if you want, you can add a cup of nuts)


Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. I use Silpats to keep my cookies from sticking to the pan, but you could line the pan with parchment paper if you don't have a silpat.

In a medium bowl, beat the butter and sugars until fluffy. Beat in eggs and vanilla until mixed.

In a separate bowl, combine flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Add the dry ingredients to the creamed mixture and beat until mixed, adding the chocolate chips (and nuts if you want) about halfway through mixing.

The dough will likely be very soft. You may want to cover and refrigerate it until somewhat firm (probably 30 mins).

Bake for 10-14 minutes!


ENJOY! <3

waffles!

I've been getting more into making breakfast foods because the vegan breakfast offerings of Sonoma County...well...let's just say they leave a lot to be desired.
So, I've been making waffles lately and they are just SO YUMMY!

Here's the "veganized" and slightly altered recipe:

1 cup whole wheat pastry flour
1 cup unbleached white flour
1 teaspoon salt
4 teaspoons baking powder
2 tablespoons granulated coconut palm sugar (or standard sugar)
ener-g egg replacer for 2 eggs
2 cups warm non-dairy milk (i use earth balance soy milk)
1/3 cup melted earth balance shortening
1/3 cup melted earth balance buttery sticks (you can use only the buttery sticks if you don't have the shortening and it should turn out fine)

Put the flour, salt, baking powder, and coconut sugar in a mixing bowl and stir with a fork until blended.
Make your egg-replacer eggs in a separate bowl. Stir in the milk. Combine with the flour mixture until mixed. Add the melted e.b. shortening and e.b. buttery sticks and beat until blended (the shortening and butter will melt at different rates...this is normal - don't worry about it!).
Grease your waffle iron using Spectrum Coconut Oil spray (or another oil spray of your choice).
Pour about 1/2 cup batter into a very hot waffle iron. Bake the waffles until they are golden and crisp! Serve hot (and with earth balance and maple syrup on top!).

YUM!

breakfast muffins!

These are so delicious! My mama always used to make these and I found the recipe and decided to try to "veganize" them!
So, here's the vegan recipe:

1/3 cup earth balance shortening (or buttery sticks if that's all you have)
1/2 cup organic unrefined sugar
ener-g egg replacer for 1 egg
1 1/2 cups organic all purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 cup non-dairy milk (I used earth balance original soy milk - SO delicious!)

topping:
1/2 cup melted earth balance
1/2 cup organic unrefined sugar (combined with spices of your choice: cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, cardamom...etc!)


Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease the muffin tins (if you're not sure what the easiest thing to use for this is and, like me, you avoid canola oil, spectrum makes an organic coconut oil spray and it's fantastic!).

Put the e.b. shortening, org. sugar, and egg replacer in a mixing bowl. Beat well. Mix together the flour, baking powder, salt, and nutmeg and add to the first mixture. Pour in the non-dairy milk and beat until blended and smooth.

Fill the muffin tins about 2/3 full. Bake about 20 minutes or until lightly golden!

For the topping, have the melted earth balance ready in a bowl that is just large enough to hold one muffin. Have a shallow bowl ready nearby with the combined sugar and spices. As soon as the muffins are done, remove them from the tin and dip them one by one into the melted butter and then roll them in the sugar-spice mixture!

DELICIOUS!