Self-destruction menu: Brownies and Corn Dogs

I was in self-destruct mode yesterday and my M.O. was death by food. It didn't work - I'm still alive I think. Turns out I'm hardier than I thought I was!

This was my self-destruction menu:

Brownies

1 cup of flour (whole wheat pastry or all purpose)

1/2 cup of brown sugar (I don't like them too sweet, so you might want to use more)

1/4 cup of cocoa powder

1/2 tbsp of baking powder

1/4 tsp of salt

1/4 cup of softened Earth Balance or oil

1/4 cup of mashed banana (to avoid lumps mash it like you mean it until it's smooth)

3/4 to 1 cup of soy milk (or whatever milk)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Combine dry ingredients in a medium bowl.

Combine liquids and banana in a small bowl.

Add the liquids to the dry mix and stir with a spoon or spatula. I started with 1/2 cup of Silk soy milk and worked my way up to almost a full cup to make the batter workable. It should be creamy but not too runny.

Spray a baking dish with non-stick spray, pour batter into the baking dish and bake for 20-25 minutes (mine took 22 minutes).

I used a 7 x 11 Pyrex dish, they would be a little thicker on an 8" square dish.

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Peanut Butter Frosting

1/2 cup of smooth peanut butter
2 tbsp of maple syrup (adjust this to your taste buds)
1/2 to 3/4 cup of soy milk

Using an electric mixer, mix together the peanut butter and maple syrup.

Gradually add the milk until and keep mixing until the peanut butter looks lighter in color and fluffy.

Add enough milk until the frosting is soft enough to spread on top of the brownies.

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Corn Dogs

4 veggie dogs cut in halves (Edit: I use Lightlife jumbo dogs)
1/2 cup of cornmeal
1/2 cup of flour
1/4 tsp of salt
1/2 tsp of baking powder
3/4 to 1 cup of soy milk
oil for frying

Combine dry ingredients in a large shallow bowl (I use a vegetable serving bowl that is just perfect for this).

Add 3/4 cup of soy milk and stir with a spoon to form a pretty thick batter. It should be pretty thick but not so thick that it's impossible to coat the dogs. Add more milk if needed.

Dump the veggie dogs into the batter and coat them thoroughly.

Pour some oil on a non-stick frying pan, I used about 3 tbsp of oil.

Preheat and cook the corn dogs on medium heat, flipping them over when the bottoms look golden brown.

Flip them over again to cook the third side. They will look somewhat like a triangular prism!

Chocolate Chip Scones & Improper Cottage Pie

English Royalty Chocolate Chip Scones from allrecipes.com

These were really good! I changed the original recipe to make it vegan and also had to add more juice and fat.

These is the final recipe after all the changes that I made:

1 3/4 cups of whole wheat pastry flour
1/4 cup of sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
8 tablespoons of Earth Balance
1/2 cup of chocolate chips
8 tablespoons orange juice

In a large bowl, combine the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt.

Rub the EB into the dry ingredients until crumbly.

Stir in the chocolate chips.

Add the juice and blend everything with a spoon just until a dough forms.
Make a ball with the dough. Pat the dough down to make a 1/2 inch thick circle and cut the dough into triangles.

Spray a cookie sheet with non-stick cooking spray. Transfer the scones to the cookie sheet and sprinkle them with a little bit of sugar.
Bake in preheated oven until golden brown, about 12-14 minutes.

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Proper English Cottage Pie from allrecipes.com

By the time I got done with this it was a very improper cottage pie! My very improper version has three layers: a bottom layer made with croutons, the "mince" layer in the middle and a top layer of mashed potatoes.

For the bottom crouton layer:

1 bag of croutons or bagel chips (what? I was out of croutons!)

1/2 to 3/4 cup of water or vegetable broth

1 tbsp of Earth Balance

fresh parsley to taste

salt to taste

Combine the croutons and water in a saucepan or small pot.

Bring to a boil and simmer until the croutons are soft and all the water is absorbed. If the croutons absorb all the water and they are still dry, add more water and simmer until the croutons are soft.

Remove from heat and stir in Earth Balance, parsley and salt.

For the "mince" part:

1 bag of frozen Morningstar Farms Grillers Recipe Crumbles (or other veggie ground)

chopped onion (don't know how much, I'm not a big onion person)

1 shredded carrot

1 tbsp of chopped parsley

3 tablespoons of tomato paste

3 tablespoons of applesauce

olive oil

paprika to taste

salt to taste

Saute the onions in the olive oil until tender and transparent. Add the shredded carrots and saute for a couple more minutes. Add the veggie ground and cook until thawed. Stir in the tomato paste, applesauce, paprika, salt and parsley and cook for five more minutes over medium heat.


Putting it all together:

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees.

Spray an 8 inch square baking dish with cooking spray (or pour some vegetable or olive oil on the bottom and spread it to cover all sides and bottom of the baking dish).

Spoon the hydrated croutons into the baking dish and spread it to make an even layer.

Bake for 10 minutes.

Remove the dish from the oven and and spread an even layer of the mince mixture over the crouton layer.

Bake for 5 more minutes.

Remove the dish from the oven and cover the mince mixture with an even layer of mashed potatoes. You don't expect me to write about how to make mashed potatoes, do you?

This is where my improper cottage pie ends. I might top the mashed potato layer with some rice cheese, but you really are supposed to bake it until the cheese is bubbly. Personally, I like "whippy" mashed potatoes and the oven kills all the "whippiness".

Blueberry-Banana Ice Cream

It's frozen fruit treat day! Today we had blueberry-banana ice cream, another brain freeze worthy dessert!

This is how it all went down:

1 cup of frozen banana slices
1 cup of frozen blueberries
2 tbsp of Silk creamer (soy milk or other types of milk would work just fine)

I pureed the frozen bananas in a food processor. Added the frozen blueberries and ran the food processor until the blueberries and the bananas were blended together. At this point, it looked like a big lumpy ball, so I added the 2 tbsp of Silk creamer and ran the food processor for about a minute until it looked and felt soft and creamy. That was it!

No sugar needed - the blueberries take care of the sweetness and then some! This is one of my favorite frozen treats, a very close second to the strawberry version!

Chocolate Chip Waffles

Well, I'm sure I'll get over this new waffle maker obsession eventually, but in the meantime I've been experimenting with different flavors.

I start out with a basic waffle recipe and then try different add-ons. The chocolate chip ones are by far my favorite, of course! They can be frozen and popped in the toaster for a quick snack!

Basic Waffle Recipe

1/2 cup of flour (whole wheat pastry flour works great)
1 tsp of baking powder
1/2 cup of soy milk or your favorite milk
1/4 cup of oil or melted Earth Balance

1/4 tsp of vanilla

Preheat your waffle iron. Combine dry ingredients, add liquid ingredients. Cook on a greased waffle iron according to manufacturer's directions until golden brown! This makes four 4x4 inch waffles.

Winging it: Half of the oil can be replaced with applesauce or mashed banana. Jazz'em up by adding 2 tbsp of chocolate chips to the batter. You can also add a couple of tablespoons of coconut flakes, blueberries, nuts, etc.

HAWKE - Humane Association of Wildlife Care and Education

Being a web designer gives me the opportunity to help animal rescue organizations by donating my services. One of those terrific organizations is HAWKE, a non-profit run by the lovely Melanie Cain-Stage in Elkton, Florida.

Armed with hard working and generous volunteers, HAWKE rehabilitates injured and orphaned local wildlife. Because they are a non-profit organization they depend entirely on donations and fund raising events.

Here are three easy ways to help HAWKE continue to protect our wildlife:

• You can make GoodSearch.com your default web search engine and support H.A.W.K.E just by searching the Internet!
• You can also shop online through GoodShop.com and a percentage of your purchase goes to H.A.W.K.E!
• Every time you shop on Amazon.com through their affiliate link a percentage of your purchase goes to HAWKE!

Learn more about HAWKE's mission and meet some of their very adorable rescued animals at their website HawkeWildlife.org

Tofu scramble with hash browns and veggies

"Tofu scramble", there you have two words that will paint quite a repulsive picture for the tofuphobes. Now for the tofu lovers that's a whole different picture! We have tofu scramble about once a week, normally with a side of hash browns and some veggies.

I like winging it with whatever I have in the refrigerator. This one was made with sautéed onion, green and red pepper, sliced carrots, sliced celery, cherry tomatoes, Tofurky italian sausage, fresh parsley, salt and spices. I always spice up tofu scramble with paprika and saffron.

I don't really have a recipe for this, I use a whole block of extra firm tofu (not silken!) and run it through the food processor for just a few seconds. First I sauté the veggies in a cast iron pan and then I add the tofu and the spices and cook it until it's not soggy anymore, about 15-20 minutes.

Cherry tomatoes, basil, and curious visitors!

So many tomatoes! I got two cherry tomato plants and a basil plant as a gift from my mother in law. The basil has grown incredibly tall and leafy and we've had tomatoes to spare!

Of course us humans aren't the only ones enjoying the crop! There's a little bee that comes to feast on the basil flowers every day. The squirrels are mystified by the whole pot and they walk around it ever so sneakily, like this one in this badly taken picture...

Acknowledgements: Thanks to Mr. Grackle for the fertilizer, we couldn't have done it without your top of the line product!

Grilled Ham and Cheese Sandwiches!

So the grilled stuff craze continues with some ridiculously delicious and easy to make grilled "ham and cheese" sandwiches.

We spread some Earth Balance on two slices of whole grain bread and layered on the goodies. The ham is Lightlife Smart Deli Baked ham style and the cheeses are Galaxy Foods Rice Vegan Slices (American flavor) and Vegan Gourmet (Mozzarella)

I like grilling these on medium heat for about 5 minutes and then crank up the heat for 5 more.

The medium heat gives the cheese time to melt and get gooey!

Grilled Pizza Sandwiches

We have been experimenting with our new waffle maker/grill. It seems like everything we have eaten in the past couple of days was either a waffle or some sort of grilled sandwich.

We're trying to come up with meals that don't require baking so we decided to have some grilled pizza sandwiches! So easy a culinary challenged monkey could make these...

Ingredients:

pita bread
pizza sauce
pizza toppings
oil (olive or canola)

Cut the pita breads into halves or quarters. Spread some pizza sauce on all your pita bread pieces. Add pizza toppings to half of the pieces and cover them with the non topped half.

Brush some oil on the surface of a non-stick grill and cook according to manufacturers directions. Ours took about 5 minutes on each side (we flipped them so they cooked more evenly)

Our toppings: Lightlife pepperoni slices, red and green peppers, black olives, onion and Vegan Gourmet cheese.

Are you comfy there, buddy?

This summer heat is brutal, what's a bird to do? This guy couldn't resist the comfy chair under our cabana! He slept and stretched and relaxed there for a good while - I felt like I should have brought him a little drink with an umbrella on it!

By the way, thanks for the poop buddy!

Mini Lemon Pies

Pie time! Lemon pudding on shortbread crust with vanilla cream topping:


Shortbread crust:

1 cup of flour
1/4 cup of sugar
1/2 cup of Earth Balance
2 tbsp of water (you might need more)
1/2 tsp of vanilla

Cream the EB and the sugar with an electric mixer, add the vanilla and the water. Using a large spoon mix in the flour and more water if needed. You don't want it to be crumbly but not too soggy either. Spray a muffin/cupcake pan with non-stick oil and line the bottoms and sides with the shortbread dough. Bake at 400 degrees for 10-12 minutes or until golden brown.


While your mini pie crusts cool on a cookie rack prepare the lemon pudding:

2 tbsp of sugar
5 tbsp of white flour
2 cups of soy milk or your favorite milk
1/4 cup of lemon juice
1/2 tsp of vanilla

Mix the sugar and the flour in a microwavable bowl. Gradually add the milk, bit by bit and stirring constantly to avoid lumps. Microwave on high for 2 minutes. Stir. Microwave on high for 1 minute. Stir. Microwave on high for 1 minute. If it thickened, then you're done with the microwave, if not microwave on high for another minute. Add the vanilla and the lemon juice and pour the hot pudding into your mini pie crusts. Refrigerate the pies for an hour or until they don't feel warm to the touch.


Vanilla Cream Topping

3/4 cup of Earth Balance
1/2 cup of vegetable shortening (Spectrum brand non-hydrogenated)
1/2 cup of powder sugar
1/4 cup of soy milk or your favorite milk
1 tsp of vanilla

Cream the EB and shortening with an electric mixer for about one minute. On the lowest setting of your mixer add the powder sugar, mix for another minute, add the milk and vanilla and mix for another minute.

Top the pies with your vanilla cream and refrigerate for another hour - if you can wait! But really, they are better when they have had enough time to chill!

Winging it: The lemon juice can be replaced with OJ, pureed strawberries, melted chocolate chips, banana, pumpkin puree...