Vegan Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Brownies!

We're discontinuing one brand of peanut butter at work, so it's super cheap, and I bought a ton so I could experiment with more recipes!
So.......
These are seriously so yummy. It's ridiculous.

1/4 cup earth balance (room temp)
1/2 cup peanut butter
1 cup organic unrefined sugar (I used turbinado sugar)
ener-g egg replacer for 2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract (singing dog is the best!)
1 1/2 cups organic unbleached white flour
1 1/4 teaspoons baking powder
1/3 cup non-dairy milk or silk creamer
3/4 cup chocolate chips (guittard makes vegan fair trade ones now!)

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees fahrenheit.
2. Cream together the earth balance, peanut butter, and sugar.
3. Add the egg replacer and vanilla extract.
4. Mix together the flour and baking powder.
5. Add some of the dry mix to the buttery mix.
6. Add the non-dairy milk and the rest of the dry mix.
7. Add the chocolate chips.

Spoon the mixture into greased cupcake liners (in a tin).

Bake 20 minutes. If you stick a knife/toothpick into the brownies, it will not come out totally clean but that is o-k!

Let them cool for a while, and if you want, frost them to make brownie cupcakes! I found they didn't need frosting because they are already so sweet and rich.

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!!!