Wing-It Vegan

Happy Halloweegan!

2011-10-29T16:15:00.001-04:00

Ahoy there! Yes, I am indeed alive. Alive but completely without any creative mojo! I tried and tried and tried to think of a few good Halloweegan treats, but the mojo is nowhere to be found! So instead, I've compiled a list of my favorite Halloweegan goodies since 2008. Will that do? :)

Before we get all creepy and spooky, I need to thank everyone who has poked me and checked on me during my blog hiatus. You guys are da bomb! [Cindy, I don't know how to contact you, so let me thank you publicly for checking on me and always being around! You rock! :)]

OK, let's get freaky!

Jack-O-Lantern Bell Peppers (Halloweegan/Vegan MoFo 2008)

And then I made them again for Halloweegan 2010!
I luves mah quinoa-stuffed Jack-O-Lantern peppers!

Meatloaf Scramble With Mashed Potato Ghosts, 2008

Sandwich Cookies for Halloweegan 2009

Whoopie Pie Spiders! Creepy crawlies! Cutie crawlies?

Dead Man Burgers

Coffin Cake, with Dead Dude

A nice assortment of Halloweegan mashed potato ghosts

Some crafty, non-edible Halloweegan coasters!

And here is a complete (ish) list of all my Halloweegan posts, plus lots of links to more Halloweegan fun. That'll do, pig. That'll do.

I hope you all have a fun Halloweegan and a lovely holiday season! Please remember to link back to my blog if you decide to make (and blog about) any of my Halloweegan goodies. Kthxbai!

*POOF*

XGFX.org, Spanish Tortilla, and Second Chances

2011-04-18T09:58:00.000-04:00

What's with all this frequent blogging, eh? I'll go back to being a lazy blogger soon, but first I want to share fantastical link with you. In case you've been living under a rock, yesterday was the grand opening of xgfx.org, an all vegan and gluten-free website created by three beautiful ladies!

A few of my favorite things about xgfx.org:

100 recipe links you should know about.

Gluten-free product reviews.

A gluten-free flour guide.

The community driven recipe section...

... where you can find a recipe for vegan chocolate-hazelnut butter! Yeah baby!

And since we're talking about the recipes, check out my humble contribution to the database - Spanish Tortilla!

I originally made this Spanish Tortilla (potato omelet)
for my guest post @ Go Dairy Free last month. Thank you again, Alisa!

Now go check out xgfx.org! It's an awesome site! And speaking of awesome, VegNews has apologized and promised to never use meaty pictures again. That's all most of us wanted! I'm all for second chances!

Second chanz kitteh has a happy!

Cookbook Love: My Sweet Vegan (With Recipe!)

2011-04-13T20:19:00.002-04:00

This working/travelling and blogging business... was it my idea? Oy with the lack of time and willpower already! The truth is that my limited me-time has been completely hogged by Ally McBeal, so blame my non-blogging on her and her weird dancing baby. Blame it on Ally's Nick and Nora pajamas. Blame it on The Biscuit's whistling nose. Blame it on Janet Reno's wattle. Blame it on Netflix for adding all five seasons of the show to their streaming catalog. Anyway, bygones.

Back in August I won an awesome giveaway courtesy of the one and only Ms. Alisa Fleming, queen of Go Dairy Free and Alisa Cooks. One of the cookbooks that I won was My Sweet Veganby the sweetest vegan of them all, Hannah Kaminsky, and even though I didn't have a chance to try as many recipes as I intended before Mr. Wing-It and I hit the road, I still managed to make and photograph quite a few of Hannah's awesome goodies. Between all the beautiful full color pictures, the enticing and easy-to-follow recipes, and Hannah's beautiful personality that shines through her writing, I'm not at all surprised that this is such a popular and massively loved cookbook. One of my favorite things about My Sweet Vegan? It even has a recipe for a tasty little doggy cake!

Ooooh cupcake!

My mother in law's pup was the lucky recipient of the (evidently mesmerizing) Canine Cake. I teased him with it for a few minutes, because everything tastes even better after a good tease, and when he finally snatched it up he ran away with it and ate it before I could take a picture of him enjoying his treat. It must have been the best cake ever! Because Piggly Wiggly (that's his witness protection name) is so small, I made four chihuahua-sized cakies instead of making one muffin sized cake. He's such a tiny little pup!

Moving on to the human food, I made the Coffee Break Shortbread using Pero instead of coffee. It took about twice as much Pero than coffee because it's not nearly as strong. I love shortbread, so I knew I would love this recipe as soon as I spotted it! They are crispy and flavorful and there's no way you could just eat one... or two... or three... or elebenty...

I went with square cookies. Mr. Monk would approve.

The Pfoof... pfeef... fleffler... Pfeffernusse (phew!) were wonderfully spicy cookies that were awesome even though I managed to flatten them too much (you're not supposed to flatten them at all. Attention to detail *FAIL*)

They're so lovely!

These perfect-for-the-holidays spicy cookies are coated with powdered sugar, but whenever I make something that needs a good coating or sprinkling of powdered sugar, I have to leave a few naked ones because Mr. Wing-It never fails to choke on the stuff. True story! :P

*nom... cough cough*

Scones. I would eat scones every day and never get sick of them. I could eat Hannah's Chocolate-Glazed Peanut Butter Scones every day and never get sick of them! Crumbly peanutty goodness drizzled with soft gooey chocolate, anyone?

Oh yea, they're good. I can't recommend these enough! Scones are supposed to be fairly dry by nature, so enjoy these little gems with some coffee or fauxfee or tea or whatever floats your boat.

I wish we were home so I could bake another batch!

Mmmmmm, doughnuts. Hannah's Golden Glazed Doughnuts are the bomb! If you're brave enough to be around hot oil, then follow the recipe and fry them, but if you're a clumsy little oaf like me then you can totally bake them! I baked mine at 425 degrees F for 11 minutes, in case you're wondering. They were delicious and I did not miss the fry-factor at all. Fluffy, soft, sweet, sticky, I feel like writing them a naughty love song...

Homer approves!

As soon as I saw the recipe for Root Beer Float Cupcakes I knew I had to make them! I'm not a fan of root beer, but Mr. Wing-It is, so these were his special treat and he devoured them while he emitted *om nom nom nom* noises. I still loved them though, they were very mild because I didn't have any root beer extract.

I made the happy little cupcake toppers using vegan white chocolate
and a silicone chocolate mold courtesy of the BFF. No, you can't have her.

And now for the closing act, my favorite recipe, the cupcakes that will forever be on my list of mostest favoritest, the laziest self-frosting cupcakes ever... I give you... *dun dun duuuunnn*

Self-Frosting Peanut Butter Cupcakes! Oh my yum! So easy! So divine! So chocolaty! So peanutty! The cupcakes are soft and tender and the chocolate frosting is hiding in there so nobody will see it coming! You frost them *before* you bake them! Brilliant! I'm pretty sure I messed up the recipe when I halved these because it made extra frosting, which turned out to be an *EPIC WIN*

I vow to always screw up this recipe and make extra frosting.

Self-Frosting Peanut Butter Cupcakes from My Sweet Vegan (reproduced with permission from the author ~ Hannah Rocks!)

Peanut Butter Cupcakes:

2/3 cup plain soymilk
1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup dark brown sugar
2 tablespoons flax seeds
1/4 cup water
1/2 cup creamy peanut butter
1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt

Chocolate Peanut Butter Frosting:

1/2 cup creamy peanut butter
1/4 cup Dutch process cocoa powder
2/3 cup confectioners sugar
1/4 cup plain soymilk

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) and line one dozen muffin tins with cupcake papers.

In your stand mixer, combine the soymilk and vinegar, and let sit for a few minutes before whisking vigorously until frothy. Mix in both sugars. Grind the flax seeds into a powder with a spice grinder, and whiz them together with the water. Stir the flax seed mixture, peanut butter, applesauce, and vanilla into your mixer, and beat until thoroughly combined. In a separate bowl, add the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Slowly stir these dry ingredients into the batter. Mix until there are no more lumps, but be careful not to mix more than necessary.

In a separate bowl combine all of the ingredients for the frosting, and blend until completely smooth. Set aside.

Divide your batter equally between the prepared muffin tins. Drop a dollop of frosting into each cup of raw batter, and swirl it around with a toothpick, covering the entire top. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into a cupcake comes out clean. When testing for doneness, be sure to find a spot that is free from frosting, as it may cause the toothpick to appear wet, even if the cupcakes are ready. Let the cupcakes cool inside the tins for at least 10 to 15 minutes. You can either let them cool the rest of the way atop a wire rack, or serve them immediately for a warm delight.

Makes 12 cupcakes.

Do you have a copy of My Sweet Vegan?What's your favorite recipe? I tried to make the Orangettes but trying to peel the oranges so neatly almost made me lose the will to live. But they look so good! Have you made them? Should I suck it up and power through the tedious orange-peeling?

The VegNews Mess Through LOLCats (and other cuties)

2011-04-12T11:40:00.000-04:00

At first I was like:

And then I was like:

And then they were like:

But they were also like:

So then I was like:

And then they were like:

When they should have been like:

When they do apologize, some people will be like:

And some people will be like:

Until then, this situation is like:

(all images via icanhascheezburger.com)

Cookbook Love, Kitchen Makeover, and Netflix Finds

2011-03-21T15:18:00.005-04:00

Long time no post again! Mr. Wing-It and I have resumed our travels and there has been no time or energy to even look at the computer, but I'm hoping to be able to manage my time better so I don't have to disappear for weeks or months while we're on the road. I miss you guys!

So here's some of what's to come on Wing-It within the next few weeks: Cookbook Love for My Sweet Vegan:

Peanut Butter Scones with Chocolate Drizzle.
I won this cookbook in a giveaway months ago. Thank you, Alisa! :)

Cookbook Love for Sweet Utopia:

Lovely Lemon Hearts
I won this cookbook in a giveaway too! Thank you, Cassie! :)

Cookbook Love for The Happy Herbivore Cookbook:

Red Lentil Dal. It didn't photograph all that well, but it was delicious.
I received this cookbook for review from the publisher.

That's what's to come, but I also have some pre-trip stuff to share with you. Mr. Wing-It's birthday was in February, and what do you think he wanted as a birthday present? Bird houses! That is the most selfless birthday present request ever! The birds moved into one of the houses less than an hour after he put them up.

See that tiny twig or dry grass Mr. Sparrow is bringing home?
Mr. Wing-It asked for three birdhouses just like this one <3

Before we hit the road, I gave our kitchen a little makeover because it was way too boring and colorless. This is the before:

Yawn. That is the red kettle that sparked the Red Fever.
It was a gift from Mr. Wing-It, so the makeover is his fault, really!

This is the colorful after:

Yay! Color! Some day I'm going to paint that wall a different color,
but I have to procrastinate a bit more first.

I painted the spice shelves red and flipped the top ones upside down, added a few red picture frames with some of my own favorite food pictures, threw in some red kitchen goodies, and added some cream colored crafty signs because all the red was a little too much.

This was the first crafty sign that I made. It only took me about an hour.

Amirite or amirite?

I made this clock with the lid of a paper mache box.
Meh. Not my finest hour (see what I did there)

Susan (one of my favorite bloggers and everyone's favorite vet!) has given me a Stylish Blogger Award. Stylish? Me? Mmmkay, but you should know that I am sitting here typing this in my pink squirrel pajamas. Thank you, Susan! You rock! Now I am supposed to tell you guys seven things about myself, but you already know I'm a rebel so instead I will share seven TV shows that I have found (and loved) on Netflix streaming. Deal? Just so you know, I am not affiliated with Netflix or Hulu in any way. Just sayin'.

Doc Martin - This was my first British Telly find on Netflix. This show is brilliant! Doctor Ellingham is a brilliant surgeon from London that has developed a fear of blood, which of course keeps him from operating on his patients. Not being able to practice as a surgeon anymore, Doc Martin packed his bags and moved to the fictional little village of Portwenn, where he now works as the local GP. He has zero social skills and he clashes with all the quirky and colorful locals on a daily basis. I can't recommend this show enough! The first three seasons were awesome, but the fourth one was not quite as good. It's not a very vegan friendly show though (there's a graphic scene involving a chicken on the first episode) so don't say I didn't warn you! It looks like seasons 2 and 3 are available for free on Hulu if you want to watch them online. Because of adult content you will need to create a (free) Hulu account. Here's Doc Martin being so very charming and caring:

Robin Hood - I loved the first two seasons of this show. It was exciting, funny, full of adventure, and the women kicked butt. Marian and Djaq were awesomely badass! Besides, this show has the best Little John ever, him... I liked. The sheriff is quite annoying during season one, but he gets better during season two. I did not like the way season two ended and season three was not very good. It's still worth watching though! I couldn't find a good clip for you, but if you do a youtube search for Robin Hood BBC you'll find plenty of clips.

Merlin - Possibly my favorite Netflix find! Usually it takes at least a couple of episodes for a show to get good, and for the actors to get comfortable with each other, but this show started off perfect from scene#1, take #1! Merlin and Arthur have the most awesome bromance going on, and their chemistry couldn't be better. This show airs on the SyFy channel in the US, and I think you can catch the first two seasons online on Hulu for free. Here's one of my favorite Merlin/Arthur moments:

Legend of the Seeker - It took me a while to get into this show for some reason. I went back and watched the first episodes after I finished watching both seasons and now I think they're great. I guess it took me a while to get to know the characters, so if you like adventure shows but you also find it hard to get into this one, do stick with it because it definitely gets awesome! I ended up loving it! The scenery couldn't be more beautiful, the production is excellent, and it's very epic-like. Cara and Kahlan kicking butt together were amazing. In fact, all the fight scenes were awesome! Too bad they didn't make a third season. Boo to the TV networks that don't renew shows because they're not making them as filthy rich as they would like to be! Boooo!! You can catch the first season online on Hulu for free. Here's a video of the first few minutes of the show: (there is blood and violence throughout both seasons)

Eureka - So geeky! I love it! The first episode was way too long and boring, but I'm glad we didn't give up on it because now we both love it! It's very funny and quirky, and somehow Sheriff Carter always manages to save the day, even though he's the only one with the average IQ in a town full of brilliant scientists. This show also airs on the SyFy channel in the US.

Drop Dead Diva - Netflix kept recommending it, but the name of the show sounded so stupid that I kept ignoring it. I'm glad I gave it a try! It's like a cross between Ally McBeal and Legally Blond... and Freaky Friday.

Mr. Wing-It and I also watched all eight seasons of 24 (some were good, some not so much) and now we have been watching Kyle XY. OK, so that's eight shows, not seven. There are lots and lots of TV shows available on Netflix streaming, now if only they would add a few more of my favorites: Alias, Gilmore Girls, I Love Lucy, Miranda, and Samantha Brown's Passport to Europe. And it wouldn't kill them to add more Austen and Hepburn.

Well, I think I've done my damage here. See you guys next time from... somewhere! :)

They're heeeere! Vegantine's Day Strawberry Love Bugs!

2011-02-10T15:51:00.001-05:00

Brace yourself for the post with the most pictures eva'! It will hog up all your bandwidth! It will break the interwebs! The planet will implode! Took it too far?

The Strawberry Love Bugs are back! Remember the ones I made in 2009? These are pretty much the same, except that I printed out their little signs instead of making them by hand.

Which one are you teaming up with for Vegantine's Day? I *heart* You or Love Stinks? If you've been reading my blog for a while, then you probably know that I always like to throw in a Mr. Grumpy Pants along with the happy faces, you know, for balance. Wanna make some? First you're going to need to wash and pat dry about a pound of strawberries...

Then you're going to need about two ounces of melted semi-sweet chocolate chips. I melt mine in the microwave at half power, stirring every 45 seconds. If you're a proper double-boiler person, then go for it. Dip the tips of the strawberries in the melted chocolate...

I use bamboo picks to dip them, but you can use regular toothpicks too. Place the strawberries upside down inside a small ramekin or other fairly shallow container...

Purdy strawberry bouquets!

Refrigerate the strawberries while you make the antennae. The antennae are totally optional, and I'm not going to lie to you, they can be a pain in the gluteus maximus. If you want to make them, check if your melted chocolate needs a few more seconds in the microwave to soften it up. Mine did. Then transfer it to a small ziploc and cut a small tip off one of the corners. You can print out my antennae pattern if you would like to use it, then tape it to a chopping board and tape a piece of wax paper on top of the pattern paper. When you're ready, use your chocolate-loaded ziploc bag to trace the little swirly antennae. If you have no idea how to do that, check out my chocolate spider-legs video that might paint a clearer picture.

Place the chopping board in the freezer and let's make some buggy dots! Use the same ziploc to drop little dots all over the tops of the strawberries, except for the heads, of course.

This next step is also optional, but I like to flatten the chocolate dots with a hot (dry!) knife.

Totally optional, and maybe even unnecessary. But I like them better flat...

Now it's time to draw some eyes and mouth on'em. I used melted vegan white chocolate chips, but you can also make them with a very stiff powdered sugar and water icing. Use another ziploc to pipe the melted chocolate/sugar icing and draw their little faces. Mr. Grumpy Pants needs a pair of grumpy eyebrows.

Now pipe a little drop of the semi-sweet chocolate in the center (or not!) of each eye. Or you can dip a toothpick into the melted chocolate and then "poke" the center of each eye. Also, this would be a good time to attach the antennae. Use a generous drop of melted chocolate as glue, on top of their heads, and then quickly attach the antennae. If your hands are too hot and the antennae melt in your hands, you can always use some kitchen-only tweezers to grab them.

Now they need their signs! You can make your own or you can print mine out if you want. I *heart* You signs are here, and Love Stinks signs are here. Your choice! Just cut out the signs and tape a toothpick to the back of each sign.

Insert the signs to the top/back of each Love Bug and you're done!

At this point I realized that the leaves were looking a little dry and ugleh, so I trimmed them...

A nice little row of bugs, coming to steal your heart!

They also make cute cupcake toppers!

Even Mr. Grumpy Pants!

Did you guys catch my Gluten-Free Almond Butter Blondies at Go Dairy Free? Alisa is the coolest and she invited me to do another guest post! These are a gluten-free version of my wheat-based almond butter blondies. These wheatless goodies are fudgy, rich, almondy, and they have a yummy crusty top, which is absolutely necessary in a blondie. Amirite or amirite? Thank you, Alisa! :)

Teeccino Winners and Date-Sweetened Ice Cream

2011-02-01T20:12:00.008-05:00

**If you landed here via Tastespotting looking for the Teeccino review, you can find it here. Sorry! I must have entered the wrong URL when I submitted my picture! *dummy*

How fun! Congrats to all 50 winners! I just realized that I didn't ask Ashley (the sweet Teeccino elf behind this giveaway) if she was OK with me posting her email address here for all to see. Oy! So you can email me your mailing address and I will happily forward it to Teeccino so they can send you the goods. I promise not to sell your info to the devil.

The list of lucky winners:

Nichole
Maggie
Robynrawr
Cartercam
Denise
Animal-Friendly
Aimee
Jane
AJP
Patricia
Crash
Suzanna
Kim g.
Vegyogini
SF Bay Area
Carissa
Lori
Andrea
Susan@sweetimaginations
AmyL
Corrin Radd
Heather
Kristen
Brenda W.
Elaine
Angela DiGiovanni
Diane
baxtersmom396
jackie-snape80
Ricki
Tory
Katie
Brewed Bohemian
kmm22
Danielle
HeyitsBeth
Edmontonjb
Dolmadez
Krystle Rose
Claire
Amanda
Tiffany Miller
Cadry
Heather
Theuglyquip
Morgan
Michele (you sure you WANT? You didn't quite make that clear! :P)
Katy Spring
Hyperwink
Maggie

You can email your name and address info to wingitvegan (at) gmail (dot) com. Enjoy!

Now I'm feeling awkward about publishing a foodless post. How'bout some date-sweetened ice cream?

Date-sweetened ice cream with chopped carob chips.
I had to take new pictures! The ones I showed you before were horrid! :D

Date-Sweetened Vanilla Ice Cream

4 oz pitted dates (about 1 cup)
1/2 cup water
1 14 oz can of full fat coconut milk, cold
2 tsp vanilla extract

1. In a small pot or sauce pan, combine the dates and the water and bring to a boil.
2. Remove from heat and let the dates soak, covered, for 15 minutes.
3. Pour the coconut milk into your blender, add the vanilla and the dates along with their water. Blend until smooth.
4. Transfer the blended mixture into a bowl (with a spout, you'll thank me later!) using a fine mesh strainer to catch little bits of date that might have been left unblended. Refrigerate for an hour or until cold.
5. Once cold, use a fine mesh strainer again (I'm really not happy about tiny bits of date in my smooth ice cream) to pour the mixture into the bowl of an ice cream maker and freeze according to the manufacturer's directions. It takes my awesome Cuisinartabout 30 minutes to churn this bad boy.

NOTES:

This is plenty sweet for my taste, but if you like a sweeter ice cream you can always add some maple syrup.

Add some chunky goods when the ice cream maker is done churning! Chocolate or carob chips, nuts, fruit...

I always have a can or two of coconut milk in the fridge, that way if I need to make a quick ice cream or whipped cream I don't have to wait for the milk to chill. If you're making this ice cream with room temperature coconut milk, the ice cream mixture will probably need to chill in the fridge for a couple of hours instead of just one.

Keep it in the freezer (O rly?) and take it out a few minutes before serving. It will be way to hard to scoop straight out of the freezer! One of these days I'm going to buy some vodka and I'm going to add a little splash to my ice creams just to see what happens. It shouldn't freeze so hard if it has some vodka in it, right?

*omnomnomnom* via icanhascheezburger.com

Teeccino Review - Win a Free Sample!

2011-01-31T16:06:00.002-05:00

Why didn't I try Teeccino before? Somebody slap me and put a dunce cap on my head! Yep. I found it. I found my favorite Fauxfee. Or Faux-Joe. Which one do you like better, Fauxfee or Faux-Joe?

The Teeccino elves were lurking around the blogs when they saw my previous review of Pero and Roastaroma, and they offered to send me some samples of their goods for me to try. I intended to buy a whole bag of Teeccino next time we took a trip down to Whole Foods, but testing a free sample first just in case I didn't like it sounded like a good plan. Of course after trying and loving the sample, I had to buy a big 11 oz bag! Actually, I got a pack of 3 big bagsfrom Amazon for just over $7 each! Seven bucks! Score!

The samples that I chose were the Maya French Roast (formerly Caffé) and the Mediterranean Java. The Java is a little bit sweet with a caroby flavor, and even though I thought it was yummy as a dessert or afternoon fauxfee, this review will be all about the awesome French Roast Teeccino which was my favorite.

Dude, this stuff is the bomb-diggity! I'm not going to tell you that it tastes just like coffee, because only coffee tastes just like coffee, but Teeccino French Roast has filled a void left by my precious Joe when we broke up.

The ingredients of Teeccino Maya French Roast are: Roasted organic carob, organic barley, organic chicory, organic ramon nuts, organic coffee flavor. Check out this page on Teeccino's website for detailed info about all their ingredients.

Reasons why I'm in love with Teeccino French Roast:

First of all - you brew it in a coffee maker! Just like coffee! The ritual, people! The sacred morning ritual has been restored!

It's not watery like a regular tea, I assumed it was because of the ramon nuts, but then I realized that the nuts are fat free. That Ramon dude sure sells some good nuts! :P

It tastes good! Even though nothing could ever taste exactly like coffee, this stuff is good enough to drink in my Luke's mug. Oh yea, I said it! The Luke's mug usage had been suspended since I quit coffee, because only coffee is worthy of it. Not anymore! Teeccino has now been granted access to the honorable Luke's mug!

One bag will last me a loooong time. The first cup that I made was way too strong and bitter because I made it with one heaping teaspoon, so keep in mind that a little goes a long way. For me, a flat teaspoon is plenty for one cup of coffee... fauxfee!

Worthy of my Luke's mug!

I also got to sample a little French Roast Tee-Bag, but instead of brewing it, it's prepared just like tea. I can't notice a difference in flavor between the brewable and the tea bag versions, but the little Tee-Bags sure come in handy when you're in a hurry!

OK, so now you want to try a sample too, don't you? No problem! The Teeccino elves are going to send out a sample to 50 lucky people! Here's the deal:

If you want to try a sample of Teeccino, all you have to do is leave a comment here that starts with the word *WANT* The first 50 comments that begin with the word *WANT* will get a free sample. Comments that don't start with the word *WANT* won't be counted. I didn't mean for that to sound all drill-sergeanty, it only means that if you don't need a sample but you still want to say something, you can! :)

The fun is only available to US and Canadian residents. Sorry worldly people - you know I still wuv you!

Winners will be announced when we reach 50 *WANT* comments. I will not contact the winners directly, (fifty people, that's too many!) instead I will post a list of winners on a new post - so come back and check to see if you made it!

To claim your free sample, you will have to email your address to the Teeccino folks and C.C it to me to avoid sneaky sneaks falsely claiming their fauxfee! I have trust issues.

The Teeccino French Roast samples available are: 25 Trial Packets of the brewable kind, and 25 Tee-Bags. The Teeccino folks will choose who gets what randomly.

Oh, you noticed those two chocolate cookies sitting prettily by my cup of Faux-Joe? Those are my yummy spelt chocolate-mint cookies that came all the way from Canada! Ricki sent me a box full of Canadian goodies because she's cool and awesome like that! Don't you love receiving goodies from your favorite blog buddies?

Cookies! Chocolates! Cassava craquelins! Omnomnomnomnom! I can officially tell you that I am now addicted to cassava crackers! But I don't ever want to say the word cracker again, from now on it's craquelins! And look at that adorable embossed bar of soap! Everything came wrapped in beautiful kitchen towels! Isn't that the most eco-friendly idea ever? Brilliant! Oh wait! Check these out:

Squeeee!! I love my Canada mittens! They are so warm and soft! Now if I ever visit Canada I can blend right in with the locals, right? Thank you, Ricki! You rock some serious socks! But you already know that! :)

UPDATE: We reached 50 *WANT* comments! Check to see if you won a free sample!

Wheat-Free Orange Anise Rolls and Lovely Crafty Gifts!

2011-01-18T12:29:00.001-05:00

Thank you for all the fauxfee recommendations! Quite a few of you guys think Teeccino is good, so I'm most excited to try that one first!

Last week I teased you with those Wheat-Free Orange-Anise Rolls that I was having with my Pero fauxfee, so let's not dilly-dally and jump straight to business! These rolls are crusty on the outside thanks to their sugar coating, but they are not overly sweet. They are inspired by Celine's Almond Spelt Sweet Rolls of insane awesomeness, which I have blogged about before. See the picture that I took of Celine's rolls? Now look at the one I took of these anise rolls. Yep. Just call me a one trick pony.

Orange Anise Rolls and Roastaroma!

Wheat-Free Orange Anise Rolls (Inspired by Celine's Almond Spelt Sweet Rolls)

3/4 cup brown rice flour
1/4 cup almond flour
1/4 cup golden flax seeds
1/2 cup potato starch
1/3 cup sugar
2 tsp ground anise seed
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp xanthan gum
1 tsp baking powder
1 tbsp active dry yeast

2 tbsp margarine, melted (I use soy-free Earth Balance)
1/4 cup orange juice, warm
1/4 cup almond or rice milk, warm
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tbsp orange zest (more if you're an orangey nut!)

sugar for sprinkling

1. In a medium sized mixing bowl combine the brown rice flour, almond flour, golden flax seeds, potato starch, sugar, ground anise seeds, salt, xanthan gum, baking powder, and yeast. Mix well.

2. Add the melted margarine, warm orange juice and milk, vanilla extract and orange zest.

3. Use an electric mixer to beat the dough for about a minute. The dough should not be stiff and crumbly, it should be firm but quite sticky. Thicker than muffin batter, but softer and stickier than a wheat based yeast dough.

4. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F and spray a muffin pan with cooking spray. Scoop about 2 tablespoons of dough into one of the muffin pan cavities (I wish they weren't called cavities, they remind me of dentists!) Watch it for a couple of seconds. If the dough spreads down and to the sides, it means it's too soft. Add a tablespoon or two of brown rice flour to the dough until it complies. The dough should be soft enough to *scoop*, but not too soft that it spreads to the sides. Fill each cavity with about two tablespoons of dough.

5. Place the muffin pan on the stove top (with the stove top off, you're just putting it there so it stays warm!) and sprinkle each roll with plenty of granulated sugar (turbinado works OK, but in this case the evil white stuff works better) If you want to throw a few anise seeds on top for decoration, go for it. Let them rest for 20 minutes.

6. Bake for 18 to 20 minutes or until golden brown. Remove from the oven and transfer the rolls to a cooling rack. Eat them while they're warm! :)

Makes 12 rolls.

NOTE: These aren't as yummy at room temperature or cold. Give them a quick flash in the oven/toaster oven if you need to reheat them.

*nom*

It took me a few weeks to get the hang of wheat-free baking. I found that there's a fine line between a perfect dough and a dough that is too dry or too sticky. The dough for these burger buns/hockey pucks was obviously too dry...

Mmmm, hockey pucks.

On a non-food related note, check out all the crafty gifts I've received lately! Lately? It's been weeks! There's no excuse, I'm just a slowpoke. Bianca sent me this rockin' craftiness that now lives happily in my kitchen:

Kiss my grits! Isn't it super crunky and awesome? It's cross stitch perfection! Such meticulous work! I love it! It lives by the bread maker, and it goes with all the red stuff I have in the kitchen. Score! That picture is blurry, here's a close-up:

Thank you, Bianca!

I also received a fabulous crafty gift from Katie! Check out this bird-tastic pouchy pouch!

Thank you, Katie!

So colorful and fun! This is excellent ~~craftsmanship~~ craftswomanship, people. I can only dream of one day being so skilled with a sowing machine. It's my new makeup pouch, and it carries all my make up: concealer, blush, and lip balm. Lip balm isn't even make up, is it? :P

One more thing before I go burn or break something in the kitchen. When I deleted the gigantor MoFo bundle from google reader, it took along with it a few of my pre-MoFo subscriptions! They got deleted just like that! I only realized yesterday that I have been involuntarily snubbing some of you, but the problem is fixed now and all the missing subscriptions have been restored... I think! Please let me know if I have been involuntarily snubbing you so I can add your blog to my reader again! Kthxbai!

I've missed my daily MoFo LOLCats!

Adventures in Coffee Alternatives: Roastaroma and Pero

2011-01-10T21:30:00.000-05:00

I need caffeine. Whatever form you've got, I haven't had any all day. I'll drink it, shoot it, eat it, snort it, whatever form it's in, gimme! Words of wisdom by Lorelai Gilmore.

So I'm on a quest to find my favorite coffee substitute. There's an oxymoron if I've ever heard one! There's no substitute for coffee, is there? There's no substitute for that morning ritual when you're half asleep still, tumbling around towards the kitchen, you somehow manage to pour water into the coffee maker but not without accidentally pouring some up the sleeve of your pajama top as well, you spend five minutes trying to separate one filter from the rest, scoop the coffee into the filter, clean up the mess you made because it's way too early for skilled motor coordination, hit start and... aaaahhh! It's coffee time! Yea, there's no substitute for that.

So far I have tried two different kinds of coffee alternatives, or as I like to call them - fauxfee. The first one I tried was Roastaroma tea by Celestial Seasonings. It ain't coffee, let me tell you! The Celestial Seasonings website says it's a "full-bodied, caffeine-free alternative to coffee." I wouldn't say it's an alternative to coffee, but it *is* a very tasty and unique tea. When I first opened the box, all I could smell was cinnamon, which made me think I was going to *hate* this tea. As soon as I poured hot water into my mug, the smell changed completely and so did my expectations! The cinnamon wasn't as dominant as it smelled when the tea bag was dry, and there was a wonderful chicory scent that gave me hope! Hope! Joy! The hint of allspice and star anise compliment this tea perfectly without overpowering it. It tastes like nothing I've ever tasted before, and I'm glad I decided to give it a try! It's watery like tea, not thick like coffee, but after a few cups I'm used to that now. The only problem is that it's not available locally, so I have to order it online by the case.

The ingredients are: Roasted barley, roasted chicory, roasted carob, cinnamon, allspice and Chinese star anise.

Next I decided to try Pero. I spent a few minutes in the coffee isle at Whole Foods trying to decide if I wanted to try Pero or Cafix first, but Cafix lists beet root as one of their ingredients. Hmm. My super taste buds might be able to detect a beety taste, and while I do enjoy beets, I don't want them in my coffee... fauxfee. So for now, I have chosen Pero. It does taste pretty coffee-like. Not like the freshly brewed kind, but like the instant kind. I can live with that! Something that tastes similar to instant coffee is better than no coffee at all. Amirite or amirite?

The foamy foam that forms on top is my favorite part! You just scoop a well rounded teaspoon into a mug (or a well rounded tablespoon if you are me) add hot water and sweetener if you want and you're good to go. It smells good, it tastes good, and it's a little thicker than the Roastaroma tea. Just know that it's not going to taste like a regular cup of freshly brewed coffee made with freshly roasted and ground beans.

The ingredients are: Barley, malted barley, chicory, rye.

Overall I like both Roastaroma and Pero, but I can't really compare them because they are very different products. Only Pero tastes somewhat similar to coffee. Roastaroma doesn't taste much like coffee at all to me, but it's very tasty in its own unique way and sometimes I prefer it to Pero. If you're trying to give up coffee, I can definitely recommend that you experiment with these two products! By the way, I bought these myself and nobody has given me anything in return for these reviews. Just sayin'.

What? Those rolls? Funny you should ask! My next post will be about these Wheat-Free Orange-Anise Rolls. I already have the recipe ready to go, but this post already has way too much text! Next time, I promise! :)

My next fauxfee adventures: Teeccino and Cafix. Have you tried them? What should I expect? Will the Cafix taste beety? Will either one taste feety?

Chocolate Treat Day: Chocolate-Almond Cupcakes (Wheat and Wheat-Free versions)

2011-01-05T14:57:00.007-05:00

Hello, Wing-a-lings! Long time no see! I didn't mean to disappear for so long, but I was searching for the Stone of Tears when I was ambushed and killed by a Mord Sith. But then another Mord Sith gave me the Breath of Life, and then I distracted her with yummy cupcakes and escaped! Can you tell I've been watching Legend of the Seeker on my Netflix streaming? :)

Tasty enough to distract a Mord Sith!

Remember that soy-free, all-chocolate eCookbook I mentioned before? You were supposed to get that for Christmas, but between the mean-reds and some annoying health issues, well, the cookbook just didn't happen. It pains me to say this, but I've had to make some drastic diet changes for the sake of my health. I tried making other changes first, but deep down I knew what I had to do. I didn't want to, believe me. But in order to keep my body happier, I decided to... give up caffeine! Mwahahaha! What did you think I was going to say? Mwahahahaha *snort snort* :P

Oh, what a dork. Anyway, instead of putting together one single eCookbook, I decided to slowly release the recipes into the wild. I will treat myself to chocolate goodies once every four or five weeks, and I will share my treats with you along the way. Deal? Mkay. Here's the first installment of my Chocolate Treat Day posts, which just happens to be a double treat with a wheat and a wheatless version of these yummy Chocolate-Almond Cupcakes.

Chocolate-Almond Cupcakes (Wheat Version)

3/4 cup almond or rice milk
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1/2 tbsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp almond extract
2/3 cup sugar
3/4 cup whole wheat pastry flour, sifted
1/4 cup almond flour, sifted
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder, sifted
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line a cupcake pan with liners and lightly spray them with cooking spray.

2. In a small mixing bowl, whisk together the milk, oil, extracts, and sugar.

3. In a medium sized mixing bowl, whisk or stir together the flours, cocoa powder, baking powder, and salt.

4. Pour the wet ingredients over the dry, and without overmixing, fold until just combined.

5. Pour the batter into the prepared cupcake pan, filling each cavity just over half way full. The batter should be fairly thin, but not totally liquid.

6. Bake for 18 to 20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle of a cupcake comes out clean. Transfer the cupcakes to a cooling rack and let them cool completely.

7. Spread a generous amount of Chocolate-Almond Ganache (recipe below) on top of each cupcake and decorate with sliced or ground almonds.

Makes 12 cupcakes.

Quick! Take the picture! We're running out of light!

Chocolate-Almond Cupcakes (Buckwheat Version)

3 tbsp cornstarch
3/4 to 1 cup almond or rice milk
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1/2 tbsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp almond extract
3/4 cup sugar
3/4 cup buckwheat flour, sifted
1/3 cup almond flour, sifted
1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder, sifted
1 1/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt

1. Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F. Line a cupcake pan with liners and lightly spray them with cooking spray.

2. In a small mixing bowl, dissolve the cornstarch in a little bit of milk. Stir in the rest of the milk, oil, extracts, and sugar. It's best to start with 3/4 cup of milk, and then add more later if needed.

3. In a medium sized mixing bowl, whisk or stir together the flours, cocoa powder, baking powder, and salt.

4. Pour the wet ingredients over the dry and stir until smooth. The batter should be quite thin, a little thinner than wheat cupcakes, so if you might need to add a little milk until it's *just* thinner than wheat cupcakes.

5. Pour the batter into the prepared cupcake pan, filling each cavity just over half way full.

6. Bake for 18 to 20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle of a cupcake comes out clean. Transfer the cupcakes to a cooling rack and let them cool completely.

7. Spread a generous amount of Chocolate-Almond Ganache (recipe below) on top of each cupcake and decorate with sliced or ground almonds.

Makes 12 cupcakes.

Chocolate-Almond Ganache

3 ounces unsweetened 100% cacao baking bar, chopped*
1/3 to 1/2 cup almond or rice milk
3 tbsp smooth almond butter
1/3 cup sugar
3/4 to 1 tsp almond extract

1. Combine the chopped chocolate, 1/3 cup of milk, almond butter, and sugar in a medium sized saucepan and melt over medium-low heat. It will only take a minute or two, so keep an eye on it and stir constantly! It shouldn't boil, if it starts to boil remove from heat for a minute, lower the heat and try again.

2. When everything is melted and a smooth chocolate cream forms (thanks to your diligent whisking) stir in the almond extract and more milk, if necessary. The ganache shouldn't be runny, it will be quite thick.

3. Taste it for sweetness and almondness and add more sugar and extract if needed. This is plenty sweet for me, but normal people might enjoy a little more sweetness. If you do need to add more sugar, stir vigorously until it dissolves completely. It's OK if you need to warm it up a little again. Let it cool at room temperature and top your cuppies! :)

Makes enough for 12 cupcakes.

* The only reason I use a 100% cacao bar is because it's the only type of baking chocolate I can find that doesn't have any soy lecithin. If you don't have a problem with soy, go ahead and use a semi-sweet bar instead, or even semi-sweet chocolate chips - just remember to skip the sugar or it will be too sweet!

I have made about elebenty batches of these cupcakes (both wheat and buckwheat versions) and I never get tired of them. I *think* I like the buckwheat cuppies better, but don't quote me on that.

See how flat they are on top?
The batter has to be fairly thin for that to happen!

See how they sank a little on top? I made this batch way too runny
and the cupcakes had a thumbprint on top.
I had to mask my blooper with white chocolate stars!

This was my favorite batch! I made them in a brownie pop mold.
That's vegan white chocolate melted on top,
along with tiny raspberries and mint leaves.

Speaking of Flakemas, I need to show you a few gifts I received from some crafty fellow bloggers, but I'm going to have to leave you with that cliffhanger because this post is already way too long!

PS: I did manage to finish my Happy Post, so if you're ever in need of some silliness, check it out! :)

Beyond Vegan MoFo - Additional Scenes!

2010-12-01T12:30:00.001-05:00

If you want a happy post, then a happy post you shall get! I'm working on an *extra* happy post that should be ready soon, but YouTube is fighting me and not letting me embed a couple of videos that I have already spent hours searching for! The cretins!

Anyway, I totally let MoFo kick my butt, and now I have a few pictures of some awesome foods that I didn't get to blog about and I must share them before I procrastinate some more!

Why don't we start with a big, over the top burger? I saw the recipe for these lentil patties on Alisa's blog, and I immediately knew I wanted to devour one! Alisa adapted them from Vegan on the Cheapto use less vital wheat gluten because her gluten has "super-binding power." That's what made me want to try them, because I often find that gluten based patties are too tough and chewy for my taste. These were perfect!

Look at that monster! I hope you brought your stretchy pants!

Alisa's Speedy Wheat Hamburger Buns are my to-go quick burger bun recipe. They are fluffy and springy and soft and perfect! The recipe calls for one egg or a substitute, but I have made the recipe without an egg replacer and they were just as awesome. I added a bit more water to make up for the egg, but I always wing it so I'm not sure exactly how much extra water I add. As long as I use bread flour and as long as they rise somewhere warm for about 15 minutes before they bake in a well preheated oven, they always come out soft and fluffy.

Stop staring at my fluffy buns!

Eggplant balls, anyone? These are Jenn's award-winning Basil Eggplant Ballz of awesomeness. You have two options, you can make them "meatballier" or "eggplantier," I went for the eggplantier version. They have a lovely texture and they are deeelicious! Now I wish I had made the sauces that were also a part of the award-winning dish, but when the lazies attack, there's no fighting back!

Messy plate, tasty balls!

Sal's Lentil and Sausage Soup had me at hello! This soup is a cold winter's day's best friend! Smokey fauxsages, hardy lentils, yummy spuddy and veggie bits, herby goodness, it all comes together to become one big comforting soup that is sure to warm up your belleh! Pair it up with a nice chunk of bread and let the wind blow! (Hmm. That was not intended as a double entendre because of the *windy* lentils!)

Next up is Kiersten's Cheesy Broccoli and Rice Casserole of greatness! Kiersten's casserole is going to become a regular meal here in the Wing-It household, it's filling, it's warming, it's delicious, and it's easy to make! It satisfied my cheezy craving and then some! I love the smothered broccoli bits and the crustiness that formed on top of the dish. When I was gathering all my ingredients I noticed that I was out of brown rice (oy!) but I did have some brown rice couscous, which is basically brown rice broken into small couscous sized pieces. I was determined to make it, and waiting a few more days to go grocery shopping wasn't an option! So now I can tell you that it also works wonderfully with brown rice couscous! :)

Aerial shot!

Tooootally aaaawesome!

And now let's have some dessert! Celine's Almond Spelt Sweet Rolls are the bomb-diggity-bomb! Do you have Celine and Joni's book 500 Vegan Recipes?You do? Awesome - you can find the recipe there! You don't? That's OK, Celine is the coolest cat and she shared the recipe on her blog! The rolls are amazing! That sweet, crunchy top with zesty orange is the best! Gimme one of these beauties and a cup of hot coffee and I'm a happy camper!

Why would I use that silly dish? It makes the roll look like it's floating.

Well, I've done my damage here, I think. Regular weekly posting has now been restored, and the Happy Post will follow shortly! Happy December! :)

Vegan MoFo - Shelly's Peanut Butter Cup Cookies!

2010-11-24T18:25:00.002-05:00

*Maybe if I act nonchalantly nobody will notice that I missed a good chunk of Vegan MoFo and I've been hiding from the world for a couple of weeks*

Thank you for all the encouragement! You guys are the bestest! I promise I am done being a slowpoke and I will work hard at getting this e-cookbook finished as soon as possible!

The mister and I celebrated Thankspiggin' a couple of Sundays ago, and now we're ready to celebrate Flakemas whenever we get the first good snow of the season. Flakemas will be all about celebrating the purdy snow, the cold weather, the purdy lights and decorations around town, eating festive cookies, gift-giving, and whatever fun stuff we feel like celebrating. There will be snowy movie marathons and plenty of hot chocolate and sweet treats! I like the element of surprise because we don't know for sure when the first good snow of the season will be. Bring on Flakemas! What's with all the made up holidays, you ask? Meh. I'm bored with all the traditional stuff.

What I am not bored with is good food! Particularly cookies.

How d'ya like that mug, Shelly? :)

Awful pictures, awesome cookies! I knew I wanted to make these as soon as I saw them on Shelly's blog, and I have already made them several times. These ganache-filled, thumbprint Peanut Butter Cup Cookies deserve some major Blog-Love!

Today's Blog-Love goes out to Shellyfish @ Musings From the Fishbowl! Shelly's blog is très fabuleux (totally had to use google translate!) There's the délicieux side of Shelly's blog, where you will find lots of vegan recipes in a brand new and neatly organized recipe index, and there's the super crafty side of Shelly's blog which will make you *squee* at all her W.I.P Wednesdays adorableness! If you're lucky enough you might even catch a glimpse of her little Guppy, the official Sprinkle Sprinkler! Check out Shellyfish's blog! :)

I had to add some extra ganache because for some reason I was all prudish and dainty with the pre-baking application of the chocolate and they didn't have as much ganache as they should have. I felt pretty badass about making them with my own homemade peanut butter, brown sugar, and brown rice milk. You must make these cookies! You must! I'm telling you they're the bomb-diggity-bomb-bomb! Check out Shelly's recipe!

PS: I'm thinking about writing a "Happy Post" that I can use to cheer me up whenever I have the mean-reds and I want to hide from the world. It would consist of a few of the things that never fail to make me laugh or at least smile. What do you think? Does that sound really cheesy or would you be interested in reading a Happy Post?

Vegan MoFo - I've Been Outed, the Chocolate e-Cookbook Is Imminent!

2010-11-11T19:31:00.004-05:00

Well, I've been outed. I've been secretly working on a soy-free, all chocolate e-cookbook for way too long, and yesterday Becks publicly *poked* me about it, so now I have to stop procrastinating and finish it up! Becks consulted with me before she outed me though, don't think she did it out of rudeness! :)

Want a sneak peek?

Soy-Free Chocolate Sandwich Cookies

Soy-Free Chocolate-Almond Cupcake with Almond Ganache Frosting

Soy-Free Chocolate-Caramel Rolls

Whaddyathink? Look good? All recipes are free of margarine, not because I have something against it, but because I know soy-free margarine is hard to find for some of you. Hmmm. Now I feel terrible that I'm showing you pictures of my goodies but not sharing any recipes. Can I make it up to you with some of my previous soy-free chocolate recipes?

Flourless Chocolate Cookies

Eureka Brownies

Flourless Whoopie Pies
(Awesome Wing-It Apron courtesy of Becks, the *poker*)

Quick and Easy Chocolate Ganache (Strawberry Santa Hats!)

Chocolate Mousse

Well, there it is. Now that it's out in the open I'm going to have to start working hard. No more procrastination! Starting tomorrow...

Question for the soy-free peeps: Is it difficult for you find soy-free chocolate chips and baking bars? I'm talking about that pesky soy-lecithin stuff that they add to everything.

Vegan MoFo - Andrea's Orange Chocolate Chip Cake

2010-11-10T20:58:00.003-05:00

Today's Blog-Love goes out to Andrea @ Andrea's Easy Vegan Cooking! You probably already know who Andrea is and you're most likely a fan of her blog too, but just in case you're the new kid in town, it's my duty to point you in the right blog-direction! Andrea has been a vegan for more than 29 years, so she knows her vegan shiitake like no other! Her blog has a humongous list of recipes and lots of product/restaurant reviews. You might be lucky enough to catch a glimpse of lovely little Miss E working hard in the kitchen, or maybe you will even get to meet that adorable curly-haired Buffy! Check out Andrea's blog!

Zesty!

This is one of Andrea's recipes that I bookmarked a while ago, it's an Orange Chocolate Chip Cake that I baked in two medium sized ramekins (I'm only baking halved or even quartered recipes during MoFo.) Andrea originally made them as the cutest little bundt cakes, and you can also make them as one big yummy cake.

Ridiculously tiny slice, because I'm a big fan of the ridiculous.

The addition of almond and coconut flour gives this cake a lovely texture. It's flavored with orange zest and ginger, which is a perfect combination! The soft chocolate chips add a delicious contrast, and if you're into cranberries that's an extra bonus. I'm not a cranberry person, so I added a few more mini chocolate chips instead! Thanks for sharing this scrummy recipe, Andrea! :)

Kitteh Cake!

Vegan MoFo - Ricki's Fudge Nut Clusters!

2010-11-09T18:30:00.002-05:00

How to read this post:

1- Grab a bucket.
2- Place bucket on your lap.
3- Scroll down and read the rest of this post.
4- Drool profusely into bucket.
5- Put bucket down and wipe off any excess drool from your chin.
6- Go hug Ricki for sharing this obscenely amazing recipe.

Fuuuuuuudge!

Nutty!

It took me about 20 minutes to make these little clusters of heaven, so I figured I'd take my sweet time taking lots of pictures for my hungry readers. They are fudgy and nutty and chocolaty and dreamy! The recipe calls for cashew and macadamia butters, but I am a broke vegan and all I had was almond butter which worked wonderfully anyway. If they are *this* good with almond butter, I can't imagine how friggin' awesome they are with yummy macamadia... see I can't even spell properly thinking about a batch of madacamia... macadamia nut butter based Fudge Nut Clusters! I did have a few macadamia nuts that I used for the nutty bits, along with almonds. Thanks for sharing yet another addictive recipe, Ricki! :)

Fudge on death row. NEXT!

Need a bigger bucket?

Vegan MoFo - Jeni's Lentil and Mushroom Loaf with Savory Potato Filling

2010-11-08T22:05:00.002-05:00

Did somebody slip a little catnip in my drink? I've had ants in my pants for a few days and I can't sit still for more than a couple of minutes. What the fork?! I've upped my Omega 3 intake significantly recently (thank you Mr. Flax!) It's either that or one of you slipped something in my tea. *stinkeye*

Do you not believe me? Here's what I made for lunch today:

I cooked all that for lunch instead of eating whatever scraps I find in or under the fridge as usual! Isn't it purdy? It's Jeni's Lentil and Mushroom Loaf with Savory Potato Filling, with a side of roasted carrots and parsnips and some greenery. The recipe is for one big loaf, but I only made a couple of small individual loaves for my lunchypoo. The lentil-mushroom part of the loaf is gloriously non-mushy, and the savory, oniony potato filling is the bomb! This loaf will become a regular here at the Wing-It Kitchen. Thank you for sharing the recipe, Jeni! :)

Today's Blog-Love goes out to Jeni Treehugger @ Heathen Vegan! Jeni has been a resident of Blogville since 2008, and I was very lucky to have found her blog only a couple of months after it went live. Jeni is a badass cook and an awesome cute cake maker! Her blog has lots of vegan recipes, and many of them are for traditional UK dishes that Jeni has veganized and awesomized! Also, she's a cat lady and a good witch who specializes in shenanigans and jiggery pokery! Check out Jeni's blog!

This post seems like a good time to announce my celebration of the upcoming made-up Thankspiggin' holiday! What? Thankspiggin'! The mister and I are going to be celebrating it this coming Sunday and we're going to stuff ourselves silly with tasty Autumn offerings and general yumminess. It's a very unofficial celebration, and you are welcome to join in. Food. We're going to celebrate food. Do we really need a reason?

Vegan MoFo - Katie's Beet Cookies!

2010-11-05T21:33:00.008-04:00

The first week of Vegan MoFo is almost over already! Where does the time go? Today marks the end of the beet trilogy: first I brought you beetaroni, then I brought you a beetloaf, and now I bringeth dessert!

No, seriously! They're beet cookies! And they taste like sweet treats, not beets! Aren't they the purdiest cookies ever? Don't you want to invite Tinkerbell over for tea and pink cookies? I couldn't stop staring at them while they were baking because they're so lovely. Mental note: pressing one's nose against a hot oven door is not a good idea. These Happy Pink Cookies came courtesy of Katie, which brings us to today's big Blog-Love!

Today's Blog-Love goes to Katie @ Making Food and Other Stuff! Katie is so cool you might mistake her for Shaft.* Not only does she make awesome food and crafty other stuff, she's also getting a PhD in Bird Nerdery. Katie is researching the Southwestern Willow Flycatcher (a cutie patootie endangered bird) so she can figure out a way to restore their habitat, which is being destroyed by us lovely humans. Katie is my hero! She's super fit and strong too, so don't you mess with those birdies... just sayin'. Check out Katie's blog if you're in the mood for something witty, hilarious, delicious, and downright awesome! I'm telling you it's fascinating! (Like her beet cookies!)

Extreme close-up!
I started with regular sized chocolate chips but they seemed grotesque,
these little beauties got the dainty mini-chips treatment.

UPDATE: Katie said that she has made these with pureed beets from a can, so those of you who don't want to touch beets can still make these cookies and avoid getting pink fingers!

Aww, how could anyone say no to that face?
I'd give him my cookies, my credit card, my Blendtec, and my soul!

Happy weekend! I'm off MoFo-duty until Monday, because blogging on the weekends would get in the way of my slothing around.

* I stole that line from one of my favorite sarcastic TV characters Lorelai Gilmore! :)

Vegan MoFo - The Stripey Cat's Beetloaf!

2010-11-04T18:37:00.010-04:00

Thank you for your sweet comments about the Ellen Turkey! I'm so glad you guys could tell he was holding up a sign! :)

This Vegan MoFo has been so much fun already! And it's only day four! This was definitely the right approach for me, I don't have to come up with any recipes, you guys do all the work, my belleh is happy. It's a win-win-win. Here's something that made my belleh happy...

Doesn't it look festive with all the red and the green goods?

It's beetloaf! Yes! More beets! This dinner came courtesy of The Stripey Cat. Cutest blog name or what? This isn't a faux meatloaf, it's exactly what the name of recipe implies, a beetloaf! The loaf is soft and tasty, made with wholesome ingredients like ground nuts, tahini, herbs, and of course beets. Look at the color! Isn't it beautiful? I had my beetloaf with a side of mushroom quinoa and a good dose of mint dressing. Definitely try this recipe if you're a beet nut! :)

Poor hungreh kitteh

Are you a beet fan or am I putting you off with all the beet posts? Even if you're a beet hater, tomorrow's beet post (last one!) is going to make you want to eat something beety! Oh yes. It will. How much do you wanna beet? I mean, bet.

Vegan MoFo - Ricki's Beetaroni and EL-LENd Me a Hand!

2010-11-03T22:10:00.003-04:00

Thank you for all your marshmallow/white chip tips and recommendations! All your input has been duly noted and archived and I will make a decision soon. And then it will be blondie time! And rocky road cookie time! And rocky road ice cream time! :)

Let's get started with today's Blog-Love! (during MoFo, there will be Blog-Love every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday!)

Today's Blog-Love goes to Ricki @ Diet Dessert and Dogs! Ricki is the Queen of alternative cooking and baking! She points and laughs at dietary restrictions, or at least she should. Ricki's blog is loaded with vegan recipes, anti-candida friendly recipes, gluten-free recipes, you name it! With her amazing creativity and imagination (and maybe a magic wand?) she can turn black beans into fudgy brownies, and beets into a delicious pepperonesque pizza topping! And by the time your belly is full and happy, Ricki will treat you to funny anecdotes and interesting stories while her Girls try to talk you into slipping them a treat. Check out Ricki's blog!

And speaking of pepperonesque beets...

Beetaroni!

No, really! Those are beet slices! And they taste totally un-beety! The combination of liquid smoke, along with fennel, spices, and magic dust makes a perfect marinade for the thin beet slices. Don't take my word for it, check out the recipe and treat yourself to some beetaroni! (I love saying that word!)

So, since we're already making Ricki blush all shades of red, let me go on for a little longer. I was trying to think of new ways to support Ricki's EL-LENd Me a Hand campaign, and all I could come up with was that maybe we need to send Ellen tangible things, instead of relying entirely on emails and facebookery and twitterness. Nothing terribly expensive, just a token of our fierce determination - that'll show that pesky Ellen! Ellen is a vegan, so I thought a little Thankful Turkey for Thanksgiving would be fun!

Gobble gobble! Thank you for not eating me, Ellen and Portia!

He's holding a sign. Can you tell? I had a hard time with the sign. This is my first non-electronic contribution to the campaign. What do you think about this new plan of attack? If all of Ricki's groupies out there want to join in, all you have to do is make your own craftiness and send it to Ellen along with your own handwritten card/letter. How can she say no to handmade gifts and handwritten notes? Even if you're not feeling crafty, I'm sure even a nice purdy note will be... noted.

Just a disclaimer: Ricki did not put me up to this! This is just me being her groupie! :)

Possibly my favorite Lolcat of all time!

Vegan MoFo - Mandee's Cauliflower Cheeze!

2010-11-02T12:33:00.004-04:00

Before I share my lunch with you, I have a very important question to ask you guys: should I order Dandies Marshmallows or Sweet and Sara? Actually two questions: which vegan white chocolate chips should I order? Because I want to make white chocolate chip blondies like the ones Becks made today and I'm not sure which chippers are the best ones. Help?

On to the yummy food! My lunch today came courtesy of Mandee @ Cupcake Kitteh! Mandee is doing an E.A.T World themed MoFo, (yay!) and when I saw her Endive au Gratin dish today, it reminded me that months ago I had bookmarked her recipe for Cauliflower Cheeze, and because I can't hold a thought in my head for more than five seconds I totally forgot to make it. Until today!

Individual pot of tasteh!

Isn't it purdy? It almost looks like a soufflé! The cauliflower became soft and tender in the oven, and the cheezy sauce was smooth and nutty. I broiled mine for a few seconds because I wanted to crack it like a Crème brûlée. I'm quirky like that. Definitely a dish I will be making over and over again! Thanks Mandee! :)

What an awesome Vegan MoFo this has been already! Everyone is kicking butt and taking names! Aren't we a cool gang? *snap*

Vegan MoFo - Dreena Cookies for Becks!

2010-11-01T11:33:00.002-04:00

It's MoFo time! Whoa! The official Vegan MoFo blog says there are 556 blogs signed up this year! If you haven't signed up yet and now you're feeling left out, the deadline to be included in the final blog roll and RSS feed is tomorrow (November 2nd.) Hurry! It's fun, it's crazy, it's MoFo!

Like I said on my previous post, my MoFo plans are very simple and very laid back. I have been lurking around your blogs looking for recipes that are quick and easy so I don't have to exert myself too much this month. It will be as if a sloth was running my MoFo. But less cute. The slothy-cooking won't be limited to blog recipes though, there will be the occasional cookbook-cookery, but only if the recipes are available somewhere online for everyone to see.

Which brings us to today's noms.

Dreena Cookies!

These are the Homestyle Chocolate Chip Cookies from Vive le Vegan, Dreena Burton's book of awesome. Check out the recipe for these mapley-sweet, wonderfully addictive cookies, courtesy of mapley-sweet Ms. Dreena.

Manually applied chocolate chips for even distribution.
One chip per bite. Chocolate is serious business.

Why am I kicking off Vegan MoFo with these dreamy cookies? Because they are my buddy Becks' favorite! Becks has decided to come out of hibernation and her blog is going vegan for the MoFo celebrations all throughout November! (Check out the Chocolate Viennese Whirls that she made today!) Which brings us to...

Today's Blog-Love goes to Becks @ Not A Rabbit! (I've been wanting to say that for a long time!) Becks has just returned from a two year long hibernation. If you've been around Blogville since 2008 and were lucky enough to know her blog back then, then you're probably screaming with joy! Not A Rabbit is restarting from scratch, so you will need to update your url/feeds/stalkery-tools. For those of you who weren't around to be Rabbit's groupies, let me tell you that you're in for a treat! Not A Rabbit is a baking blog, so expect to suffer from dehydration by drooling. Becks' witty and effortlessly funny writing style is going to charm you like a snake... or something less scary. And fluffier. She's going to charm you like a Rabbit! Go check out her blog and join the Not A Rabbit fan club! :)

I intend to end all my MoFo posts with a food-relevant fluffeh creature

Final Halloweegan, Go Dairy Free Guest Post, and Vegan MoFo!

2010-10-28T12:44:00.005-04:00

Oy with Halloweegan already! This post marks the end of Halloweegan, thanks to my cursed kitchen that keeps sabotaging my every attempt at cooking. I think one of the mashed potato ghosts managed to escape from the haunted cottage pie and it's creating havoc in the kitchen now. Somebody call the Ghostbusters! Do you guys ever go through these phases of kitchen-rebellion?

Luckily, before the ghost escaped, I managed to make stuffed Jack-O'-Lanterns for my guest post on Go Dairy Free! YAY! Alisa was so kind to ask me if I wanted to be a guest blogger, and I am beyond honored to have been one of the chosen ones! Go Dairy Free is overflowing with information about moo-juice-free living and I am most flattered to be able to contribute a little som'n som'n to Alisa's awesome site. Here's a picture of the spooky squash, check out the recipe at Go Dairy Free!

And now here's my latest *fail*

Meh

OK, so it doesn't look incredibly horrible, but this is not what I wanted to do with them! Frankie seemed to be the most popular felt coaster, so I wanted to do some little Frankie cakes that would look similar to the coaster. Well, that didn't work. They were supposed to have purple facial features and hair, but frozen blueberries from a berry-mix do not make blue food coloring. Nope. It's pink. A pink Frankie? No! Do. Not. Want! Anyway, after I realized that the frosting wasn't going to work out, I decided to decorate the faces with melted chocolate. Can you tell I put zero effort into them? Meh.

In case you're wondering, the cake is green because it has baby spinach in it. Don't gag. It doesn't taste like a salad, it tastes like yummy cake! The cake is the basic vanilla cupcake recipe from VCTOTW, baked in an 8 inch square pan for 28 minutes. To make it green, I blended raw baby spinach with the milk before I added the apple cider vinegar. Also, I added a couple of teaspoons of lemon zest, which played a trick on Mr. Wing-It's mind and made him think the cake was lime flavored, because it was green! Mwahahaha! :D

You can check out all my Halloweegan goodies from this year and also from Halloweegans past here. And if you want to add your own goodies to the Halloweegan flickr group, go for it!

Now that I am all done with my Halloweegan assignment, I am ready for YOU to do the cooking for me! Bring on Vegan MoFo! This year I am going to leave my dinners, desserts, and snacks up to you, so I will lurk around your blogs like a creepy, hungry stalker looking for recipes that are quick and easy. Halloweegan was a lot of work! I want to sit back and enjoy someone else's work now! *Lazeh*

Lazeh kitteh iz ready for lazeh MoFo

Have you signed up for Vegan MoFo yet? I hear that about elebenty billion bloggers have registered already. And have you checked out the confirmed list of speakers @ Vida Vegan Con? I think University Place Hotel is going to explode with awesomeness!

Happy Halloweegan! *POOF*

(Sorry, I had to disable comments on this post because the spammers are obsessed with it)

Halloweegan Coasters and Napkin Rings!

2010-10-25T12:44:00.003-04:00

OK. After this I'm all Halloween-crafted out! These felt coasters are very easy to make, but if you're a little obsessed with neat stitches it can be very time consuming. But then again there's always felt glue which would make these the speediest coasters ever!

Basement Cat!

I ain't afraid of no ghost

Frankie say relax!

Yet another dead dude

Hey! You're not a coaster!

Spider man, spider man...

You like? If you want to make your own, here are the spooky designs:

Little characters, small circle for plastic lining, big circle for felt.

Print out the patterns that I so kindly and generously shared (what?) and cut out all the little characters. Trace them on Halloween colored felt and cut them out. Sew the little details (eyes, noses, etc) to the main faces like this: (you will also need to do some backstitching for the spider's legs, the cat's whiskers, and Frankie's mouth)

Done? Also trace and cut 12 of the larger circles - you will need two felt circles per coaster. Now sew the little characters to half of the felt circles. Like this:

You will also need felt and some sort of plastic sheet to sandwich between two felt pieces, or else your coasters won't be very effective. We're striving for impermeability here! I used some leftover cupboard liners that we had saved "just in case." See? It pays to be a pack-rat! Anyway, you will need six plastic circles (the smaller circle) - one per coaster.

Make a sandwich! Take a felt circle, place a plastic circle on top of it, and a dolled up felt circle on top of the plastic circle.

Now blanket-stitch with colorful floss all around to secure the plastic between the two pieces of felt and you're done!

I also made some batty napkin rings from this site. Super easy and cute! If I had some red beads I would have given them creepy beady eyes.

That's all the Halloweegan craftiness I had in me, I think. Back to food posts next Wednesday! *POOF*

Mini Halloweegan Throw Pillows!

2010-10-22T14:40:00.002-04:00

Hello Wingalings! The crafting-induced headache is gone and Halloweegan is back on regular schedule! This is a non-edible post, so please don't eat this pillow:

I can has cheezburger?

It's a black kitteh pillow! Meow! I don't know why black cats are still considered creepy and bringers-of-bad-luck in the era of science, but it would feel wrong to have a Halloween without some sort of black cat decoration. The inspiration came from this Woman's Day tutorial for an even easier pillow. I complicated it a little bit because I wanted to make it from scratch. And I wanted whiskers that you could play with!

Curly!

You can curl this kitteh's whiskers and it won't shred your face with those pointy claws. Unless the pillow is haunted. Which is possible. OK let's make one! You will need two 9 by 12 inches felt rectangles, buttons for the eyes, chenille stems for the whiskery whiskers, a button for the nose, some floss, thread, and some sort of batting/stuffing. Please excuse the following disgraceful pictures.

I used three chenille stems for this kitteh's whiskers

Arrange the chenille stems and sew them to one of the felt pieces with a thick thread or floss:

Several stitches in the middle, right where the stems meet will keep them in place

Sew a little nosey button in the middle to cover the whiskery stitches. For the eyes, I went with two large white buttons and then two smaller green buttons on top. Sew them to the felt just above the nosey button.

Now it looked like it needed a little something extra, so I backstitched a vertical line from the nose down:

Crooked - I did this with only one eye open, the other one was down for maintenance

The face is all done, now it's time to make the pillow. Place the felt rectangle you've been working on face down on top of the other felty rectangle. Sew along three of the sides, leaving one side open.

I folded in the whiskers to avoid a sewing machine disaster

When you're done with that, flip the pillow inside out and stuff it with the batting material.

Sew along the open side to close the pillow and you're done! I also made a little ghosty pillow:

Boo!

Same method as the cat pillow, except there are no stems or buttons, and the eyes and mouth are also made with black felt. Here's a quick ghostly design - print, cut, trace on felt, cut, sew black eyes and mouths to one white felt cut-out, finish making the pillow just like the cat pillow.

More Halloweegan craftiness coming up next week! More food too, but right now I'm feeling more crafty than bakey.

Have you made any Halloween crafts? The Halloweegan Flickr group is hungry for creepy treats and spooky craftiness! :)

EDIT to add that I'm an airhead and forgot to mention that this is an official entry to Shellyfish's W.I.P Wednesday... on a Friday. Check out Shelly's too cute black cat craftiness! *SQUEE!*

Halloweegan Interruptus

2010-10-20T19:52:00.002-04:00

Oy! I have had a wild headache all day and I just cannot look at the computer without wanting to poke my eyes out. Normal Halloweegan services will resume Friday! Sorry about the interruption, I promise the craftiness is coming in just a couple of days! :)

*POOF*

Request granted: Halloweegan Coffin Cake!

2010-10-18T10:55:00.002-04:00

*Screechy door opening*

But not just any door... a coffin cake door!

Yep. I killed another gingerbread man shaped dude. Megan requested a coffee flavored coffin cake, and because I'm such a good blogger I happily obliged. As a child I hated coffee flavored desserts, and I haven't had any since the last time a mocha cake made me gag when I was five or six years old. So for this one I went with a mostly chocolate cake with a *hint* of coffee, just in case I'm still a mocha hater. I used my Strawberry Santa Hats recipe for the cake and the ganache, replacing the oat milk with strong brewed coffee. You can always add a teaspoon or two of instant espresso powder to the cake if you want a stronger coffee flavor.

Any 8 by 8 inch cake will work though. To make the coffins, cut the cake in half so you end up with two 4 by 8 rectangles, and then cut out the corners of each rectangle to shape it like a coffin. Here's a visual:

The open coffin with the gingerbread dude was a bit of work, a closed coffin is definitely less fussy.

The closed one requires little work, just spread the ganache all over the top and sides of the cake. I piped some leftover-from-last-week chocolate buttercream all around the bottom to make the border look nice and even. The white cross is a simple powdered sugar icing, and I was *this close* to writing R.I.P on the top when I remembered that I suck at piping letters. Phew!

To make the one with the gingerbread dude you will need to slice the top 1/3 off the unfrosted cake and slide it over a piece of wax paper. Spread a thick layer of ganache all over the top and freeze it for 10 minutes or until the chocolate is solid. Carefully flip it over so the unfrosted side is up and spread a generous amount of ganache all over the top and sides. Freeze it for another 10 minutes while you frost the bottom 2/3 of the coffin cake and place a poor little gingerbread dude on top. Peel the frozen cake off the wax paper (if you're going to draw a cross on top, do that first) and place it *cattywampus* over/on the side of the bottom cake. Done!

On non-Halloweegan related news. Are you a Netflix member? (not an affiliate link, I'm just psyched about it!) Mr. Wing-It and I recently joined and we were getting rather frustrated with their limited online browsing feature for their streaming movies. Grrr! But yesterday I found this awesome site that has all of Netfix's available streaming movies neatly organized into categories! YAY! Are we the only Netflix members that were unaware of this goldmine? It's called instantwatcher (not an affiliate link, I'm just psyched about it!) and it even has a subgenre directory that lets you be as choosy as you want! Foreign movies sorted by country? Check! Horror movies sorted by creepy subject, perfect for Halloween? Check! A subcategory for Super Swashbucklers? Check!

We also bought a Roku Playerso we can watch streaming movies on the big TV. YAY! Oh, and guess what's available on Netflix streaming? My beloved Lost in Austen!Just for that, Netflix gets elebenty brownie points.

Today's Blog-Love goes to DJ @ Skint Vegan! If some day someone comes up with an International School for Future Awesome Moms, DJ should be a member of the board of directors! She is raising her children to be punks (her words!) and those two cutie patootie kids are lucky to have such a cool mom! DJ's blog is home to the cutest Hello Kitty cake, the most original The Arc de Triomphe costume, and lots of tasty vegan nom noms. Check out DJ's blog!

PS: Have you seen the updated list of speakers that are going to attend Vida Vegan? Holy shiitake, Batman!

Halloweegan Pizza FAIL

2010-10-15T12:00:00.002-04:00

It's pizza time! So I made three different types of pizza, and only one of them was somewhat decent. Let's start with that one and work our way toward the *epic fail*

Jack O' Lantern Mini Pizzas

Not too bad. I used mushrooms to make the eyes, noses, and mouths, and I used a combination of Daiya cheddar and mozzarella. All cheddar would have been better, but I didn't have enough. To make the pumpkin shaped mini pizzas I rolled out the pizza dough and used a cookie cutter to cut out the little pumpkin shapes. These would be perfect party food, and I bet tiny hands would love these mini pizzas too! Next? Mini Ghost Pizzas, sort of.

*FAIL*

Not so good! I pictured it better than it turned out. They don't really look like ghosts, do they? They look more like mummies, which led me to attempt pizza #3:

*Epic Fail*

Mmmkay. That didn't work. It would have been a fun treat if I had executed the plan properly! Oy! This is what they should have looked like.

The reason why I wanted to make white pizza, is because I wanted to try this awesome white pizza recipe from Vegan Pandamonium. Awesome is right! I think I am going to take a little break from regular pizza because the white kind is too yummy! Instead of the Gardein crispy tenders, I went with thinly sliced mushrooms under the cheezy sauce because I needed my ghosts and not-mummies to be flat on top.

And I found the white pizza recipe through this post at the Perfect Pizza Press blog. First of all - I want a Perfect Pizza Press! I need to get me one as soon as they're available for sale! I don't like slicing pizza, and those pizza cutter/roller things are the work of Lucifer. Mr. Wing-It is in charge of pizza slicing here, but I'm afraid he's going to be out of a job after we get the Perfect Pizza Press.

Also, on that same post, Kelly appointed me the High Priestess of Halloweegan. I accept! Heeheeee! I am going to need a black cloak, a glittery staff, a pair of witchy boots with curly toes, and a black cat named Seitan. How would I go about changing my name to Elvira? Though if I change my name to Elvira, there are *a couple* more changes I need to make as well...

Halloweegan craftiness coming up next week! *POOF*

Halloweegan Bat Pancakes and Vida Vegan!

2010-10-13T10:42:00.002-04:00

Thank you for helping keep the Halloweegan fire burning! On top of each sweet comment, Becks offered me a whoopie pie to "stoke the creative furnace", Megan offered me lots of suggestions (and now I'm just going to have to make a Coffin Coffee Cake!), and Cindy suggested I throw in some crafts like I had intended to do. I'm all re-inspired now and ready to tackle the second half of Halloweegan! Thank you for all your support! :)

Like I promised, today we have a Halloweegan blooper courtesy of Ms. Buffoonery. I made some batty pancakes that were supposed to look like this:

Look at those perfectly round heads! That's how they were supposed to be, but the first time I made them they looked more like a bunch of flat tires:

*Wha wha whaaa*
*EPIC FAIL*

*Sigh* The chocolate cream that I made was way too soft and it completely melted on top of the warm pancakes! Dummy. The second batch of heads went better, and I decided to go with a regular chocolate buttercream instead. Buttercream for breakfast? Well, yes! It's Halloween!

I made silver dollar Pumpkin Pancakes and replaced three tablespoons of flour with three tablespoons of unsweetened cocoa powder + two tablespoons of sugar. The buttercream was Chocolate Buttercream Frosting from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World. Only the bottom of the buttercream got a little melty this time which left me with round heads!

To plate the pancakes, cut them in half (straight or zig-zag) and place them on a plate like this:

Wings!

If you want to decorate the plate with a strawberry or raspberry or cranberry sauce for a bloddy effect, that makes them look extra creepy! I was really winging it with the sauce, but it was similar to this allrecipes sauce. Use a cookie scoop or ice cream scoop to, well, scoop little frosting heads right in the middle of each set of wings.

The eyes? They're dried cranberries. Yuck. They're only there for decoration and I ate around them to avoid chewing on a piece of evil. You can use whatever you want though, raspberries, nuts, chocolate chips...

Unrelated Halloweegan cuteness! Check out who was hanging out in our back yard yesterday!

So cool! I don't think I had ever seen a huge praying mantis up-close and personal like that before. This guy was checking out our every move. If we moved to the left, his head moved to the left in a very security-camera, robotic way. If we moved to the right, well, you get the point.

Do you see that look of disapproval on his face? (I know he was a male, he said his name was Dwight) That's because I had just told him that I wasn't going to attend the Vida Vegan Blogger Conference because I am an anti-social hermit who also happens to be broke. Are you going? You should, you don't want to disappoint Dwight. He'll never let you hear the end of it! Plus, it looks like it's going to be awesome and all the cool kids are going to be there! :)

Halloweegan Strawberries-and-Cream Ghosties

2010-10-11T10:57:00.003-04:00

♫♫ If there's something strange, in your neighborhood, who ya gonna call? GHOSTBUSTERS! *everybody now!* If there's something weird, and it don't look good, who ya gonna call? GHOSTBUSTERS! ♫♫

More ghost fun! I mentioned on my last post that I like strawberries, and I like chocolate, but I don't like chocolate-covered strawberries. Cream-covered strawberries though? Gimme!

Strawberries and Cream Ghosts

OK, so they were supposed to be more ghostlike, but that's the best I could do with the stupid little lollipop sticks that I bought. Not the right tool for dipping strawberries in cream! Doh! If you want to make your own ghosties on a stick, a mini-fork party pick is the way to go. Like this bamboo pick:

See how the top looks more ghostly with the right tool? *facepalm*

Anyway, once you arm yourself with the right dipping tool, making these is super easy! To make the cream, you will need a can of coconut milk that is cool enough to have the fat separate itself from the watery part. Mine was plenty solid at room temperature, but if yours isn't solid you can refrigerate it for an hour or so. Once cold, open the can of coconut milk and scoop out the fat into a mixing bowl, leaving the liquid in the can. Use an electric mixer to whip the coconut cream until fluffy, add maple syrup and vanilla to taste, and whip until combined. One tablespoon of maple syrup and 1.5 teaspoon of vanilla was plenty for my taste.

Wash the strawberries and pat them dry with a paper towel. Cut off the stems, insert a pick in the bottom of one strawberry, dip it in the coconut cream and roll it around to coat it with the yummy cream. If the cream is too firm and the strawberry isn't getting coated, you can microwave the cream for 5 seconds and stir until it complies. Repeat if necessary, but too much microwave will turn your cream into coconut soup! :)

Decorate the ghost's face with mini chocolate chips, or do what I did and draw the eyes and mouth with melted chocolate chips.

You will need to insert the pick into a block of styrofoam to keep the strawberries from sticking together. Use a screwdriver to lead the way if the pick isn't cooperating. There's your first ghost! Repeat until you're sick of making ghosts or until you run out of berries. I had enough coconut cream to make 16 ghosts/strawberries.

Organic strawberries are best for this, because they're more evenly shaped than those non-organic, gigantor, weird-shaped Chernobyl berries that would never look remotely ghostly! :)

You think this is cute? You think everything I make for Halloweegan is cute? Wait until you see my bloopers later this week! Oy! There will be some unintentionally melted bat heads, and a mummy pizza that looks like... a regular pizza. HELP! I'm losing Halloweegan steam!!

Today's Blog-Love goes to Mandee @ Cupcake Kitteh! Mandee is an animal-hero who, along with her heroic baking partners, holds bake sales to raise money for animal rescues and charities. Somebody give the woman a shining armor! Visit the Sidney Vegan Bake Sale official blog to marvel at their epic spreads, and check out Mandee's blog for some amazing gluten-free vegan eats! Also, the cutest blog-header award should go to Mandee! :)

*POOF*

Mashed Potato Ghosts of Halloweegans Present and Past

2010-10-08T12:06:00.000-04:00

Hang on to your souls! This post is all about mashed potato ghosts! My favorite! Remember the Dead Man Burger from a few days ago? It inspired this Ghostly Dead Man dinner. The dead dude is an individual veggie meatloaf shaped inside a gingerbread man cookie cutter... *spooky music*

They have come to claim his soul.
Don't worry, these are nice ghosts. Mostly.

To make mashed potato ghosts, all you need is some fairly firm mashed potatoes, a pastry bag or ziploc bag with a tip cut off, and whatever you want to use for the eyes, which you will be applying with a toothpick. I like making ketchup eyes, because they're red and creepy! Just load up your bag with mashed potatoes and squeeze out little ghostly shapes onto a plate, applying more pressure at the base of the ghosts and less toward the top. To make the eyes, dip the tip of a toothpick in ketchup and gently "paint" the eyes on the ghosts.

It's best to start with warm mashed potatoes, not piping hot, or your poor hands will hate you. Make the ghosts first, then heat them up in the microwave or conventional oven if you're using an oven-safe dish, and then finish plating your dinner. Making mashed potato ghosts is easy as pie - Haunted Cottage Pie!

The problem with a Haunted Cottage Pie is that unless the bottom is very firm, you will end up with a ghost massacre on your plate. I might have done that. A nice firm crust on the bottom would probably keep you from committing a ghosticide.

Here are some Ghosts of Halloweegans Past:

Mummy Dogs and Mashed Potato Ghosts

Spooky Veggie-loaf Coffin and Mashed Potato Ghosts

Veggie-loaf scramble with Mashed Potato Ghosts

Before I magically disappear, I want to thank you all for all your awesome comments and feedback! You guys are the bestest! I was used to blogging once a week, and I wasn't sure if blogging three times a week was going to be too exhausting, but all your positive feedback has kept me from wanting to quit! Thank you!! :)

I made a Facebook page for Wing-It. Don't ask me why because I am never on Facebook! But anyway, there it is and it will automatically, magically really, post new Halloweegan updates to its wall. Cool! If you want to check it out, you can find it here. *POOF*

Halloweegan Spiced Pumpkin Sandwich Cookies

2010-10-06T10:32:00.002-04:00

Today we're having a not-so-kooky Halloweegan treat. Spiced pumpkin cookies with a sweet chocolate filling, anyone?

These are a reversed version of the Pumpkin-O's of Halloweegan 2008. Those were chocolate cookies with a pumpkin buttercream filling instead. The first batch of this new version had carved faces, but I didn't have too much fun with the carving process...

So I just drew the faces instead when I made the second batch. You can do whatever you want, but it might work better to refrigerate the cookies for a while before you carve them, if that's what you want to do. Also, because I don't use artificial food colorings they're not very orangey, but if you're OK with using food coloring then go for it! :)

Spiced Pumpkin Sandwich Cookies

Chocolate filling:

1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
4 tbsp rice milk

1. In a microwaveable glass bowl combine the chocolate chippers and the milk. Microwave at 50% power for a minute.

2. Stir and microwave for another 30 seconds. Repeat until the chocolate is completely smooth. Let it cool at room temperature until you're ready to spread it on the cookies.

For the cookies:

1/2 cup margarine, cold (I use soy-free Earth Balance)
2/3 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup pumpkin puree, cold
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground ginger
1/8 to 1/4 tsp ground nutmeg*
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp turmeric (optional, for color)
1/2 tsp sweet paprika (optional, for color)
1 3/4 to 2 cups whole wheat pastry flour or all purpose flour

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F and spray a large baking sheet with cooking spray.

2. Use an electric mixer to cream the margarine and sugar. Beat on high until fluffy and creamy.

3. Add the pumpkin puree, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, salt, turmeric, and paprika and beat on high until smooth.

4. Stir in the flour, adding 1/2 cup at a time, until a somewhat firm dough forms. It should be just a little sticky, but not soft. How much flour you will need depends on how liquid your pumpkin puree is.

5. Roll out the dough to 1/4 inch thickness on a lightly floured surface. If the rolling pin keeps sticking to it, lightly sprinkle some flour on top of the dough.

6. Use a 3.5 inch pumpkin-shaped cookie cutter to cut out the cookies. Transfer the cookies to the baking sheet. Gather the leftover dough, roll it out again and repeat.

7. If you're going to carve the faces out, use a small, pointy knife to cut out the eyes, nose, and mouth. This was no fun for me, but if you want to do it go for it! Leave half of the cookies uncarved.

8. Bake for 12 to 14 minutes or until the edges start to barely brown. Cool on the baking sheets for a couple of minutes, transfer the cookies to cooling racks and let them cool to room temperature.

Putting them together:

1. Spread a generous amount of chocolate all over the top of a cookie. Place another cookie on top of the chocolate and gently press down. If you carved the top cookie, the chocolate will come out of the carved areas. If it doesn't, you can microwave the chocolate for 4 or 5 seconds to barely soften it.

2. If you decided not to carve them and you want to draw the faces on top instead, you will need to use a clean, dry microwaveable bowl to melt about 1/4 cup of semi-sweet chocolate chips in the microwave. It takes my microwave 90 seconds on medium power, stirring every 30 seconds, to melt the chips completely. Transfer the melted chips to a small ziploc bag and cut the tip off one of the bottom corners. Draw the faces on the cookies as you squeeze the chocolate out of the little opening. Keep and serve at room temperature.

Makes 8 (3.5 inch) sandwich cookies.

Notes:

* I liked the batch that I made with just 1/8 teaspoon of nutmeg, but Mr. Wing-It liked the 1/4 teaspoon batch best. I guess it depends on your tastebuds!

* The sandwich cookies might be slippery at first, but the chocolate will harden up nicely after a half hour or so.

I wish the cookies looked so bright-orange on the outside too!

Fabulous Ms. Monique has given me a Versatile Blogger award! Aww, thank you Mo! You rock some serious socks and you are the Queen of Everything! So now I have to tell you seven things about myself that might be shocking to you. Hmm. I'll try! :)

1. When I was younger I spent many nights (I see where your dirrrty minds are going) making royal icing flowers, filling cream puffs, and dipping tiny things in chocolate for my mother's catering business.

2. This is embarrassing, but I can't cook rice! My rice is always a mushy, pasty disaster.

3. I love chocolate and I love strawberries, but I don't really like chocolate covered strawberries! :D

4. When I was a teenager I wanted to be one of the Spice Girls, but I don't think they were looking for a Mild Spice.

5. I have massive trust issues :)

6. I grew up with a parrot who could swear like a sailor...

7. I might have taught that parrot a dirty word or two.

There! Now the rules of the award state that I must pass it on to seven bloggers. I usually have a hard time choosing, but this one is a non-brainer because I have been meaning to *poke* a few blogs that haven't been around for a while: Eat'n Veg'n, Musings From the Fishbowl, Show me Vegan, Spotted Devil Cat and His Vegan Assistant, Vegan for the People, VeganView, Zoey's Kitchen. So there, we miss you and we want you back! Consider yourselves poked! :D

Halloweegan Dead Man Burgers!

2010-10-04T09:30:00.000-04:00

This is possibly one of my favorite Halloweegan treats ever! It's like some sort of voodoo burger! Chomp chomp chomp!

At first it was just going to be a normal bun, but ha! I laugh at normality! Honestly, the whole thing looked like a turtle at first. So Mr. Wing-It said what if you could make the bun look like a mouth eating the dead dude? By golly, I married an evil genius! So I grabbed the mustard and the ketchup, and drew eyes on the bun. Huge difference! It sure didn't look like a turtle anymore.

Test run. Mr. Wing-It's genius idea

But because we didn't have any lettuce to make it purdy, plus I wanted to make the bun look like it had monstery teeth, the original Dead Man Burger was deemed just a test run. The second batch of Dead Man Burgers had toothy buns, which were easy to make by cutting the front of the bun in a zigzag motion instead of a straight cut, like the rest of the bun.

Use a small, serrated, pointy knife.

The second batch also had more bloody ketchup all over! Mwahahahaha! I think I like the mustardy eyes from the test-run batch better than the ketchupy eyes though. They stand out more. And I totally forgot to draw eveel ketchup eyebrows on the bun the second time. Oy!

nom nom nom

To make the Dead Man patties you're going to need a gingerbread shaped cookie cutter, some wax paper, breadcrumbs, and your favorite veggie burger recipe. Instead of shaping the patties as you normally would, place the cookie cutter on the wax paper, sprinkle with breadcrumbs to prevent stickiness, and drop a chunk of patty mix in there. Press the mix down with your fingertips to cover the whole gingerbready area, remove the cookie cutter, peel the wax paper off the dead dude (heehee!) and cook as you would cook normal non-creepy patties. To peel the dead dude off the paper, place it on the palm of your hand (man-down, paper-up) and carefully use your other hand to peel off the paper. I would share the recipe for the veggie burger mix that I used but it was a little mushy. Now that's eveel!

Hey, guess what? My little Leggy Whoopie Spiders were featured on Craft Gossip! YAY! And there are lots of other Halloween goodies there! Mostly non-vegan, but what can't be veganized these days? Check out the super cute Halloween Edible Crafts category at CraftGossip.com. I know I said there would be Halloweegan craftiness going on at Wing-It, but I seem to have procrastinated and I got not'n. Luckily, there's plenty of Halloween craft porn at Craft Gossip! :D

Today's Blog-Love goes out to Jessy @ happyveganface! Jessy took a break from blogging and now she's back! She livens up the blogosphere with her positive and happy energy, and her fantasticalness has been greatly missed! Her recipes are always rockin', and Dan's (her firefighting hubster) cooking is totally awesome as well! I'm sure you're already a fan of Jessy's, but if you're new to the vegan blog scene and you still don't know which blogs are a must-read, you have to check out Jessy's blog!

*POOF*

Halloweegan Kicks Off With Leggy Whoopie Spiders!

2010-10-01T12:03:00.007-04:00

Good eeeevening, fellow Vampires and Witches! OK, I know it's only noon, but good afternoooon doesn't sound quite creepy enough. Halloweegan is here! YAY! It has been two years since the original Halloweegan. An emo vampire bit me last year and I was too *meh* to do anything. I am now older and rustier, and unfortunately not quite as insane as I was then, but this month will still be 100% dedicated to creepy cuteness! Because I am old and rusty, and because Vegan MoFo is going to take place in November this year, I won't be blogging every single weekday. My goal is to blog three times a week (Monday, Wednesday, and Friday) but if my rustiness makes me feel too overwhelmed I will probably reduce the crazy to twice a week. But I'm aiming for full on crazy!

If you make your own Halloweegan goodies, please send me a link so I can add your creepy cuteness to the main Halloweegan page. I even made a Halloweegan flickr group that you are all more than welcome to join. Let's do it! Let's get eveeeeeel! Mwahahahaha *cough cough* mwahahahaha!

Creepy crawlies!

Leggy Whoopie Spiders (Gluten-Free and Soy-Free)

For the whipped ganache:

1/2 cup full fat coconut milk
1 tbsp maple syrup
1 tsp vanilla
7 oz semi-sweet chocolate chips (it's about one heaping cup)

1. Bring the coconut milk and maple syrup to a boil and immediately remove from heat.

2. Add the vanilla and the chocolate chips and whisk as if your life depended on it! The chocolate should melt completely and it should become lovely and smooth, but if it's not happening you can warm it up for a few seconds while stirring or whisking constantly. Watch it carefully, burnt chocolate is the only type of chocolate that sucks.

3. Refrigerate for a couple of hours or until it's completely cold. We will whip it later...

For the cookies:

1/2 heaping cup rolled oats
1/4 heaping cup dried coconut flakes
1/2 cup ground turbinado sugar or white sugar
2 tbsp tapioca starch
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup full fat coconut milk (at room temperature)
1/4 cup smooth peanut butter or other smooth nut butter
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 tsp almond extract (optional)

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F and spray a baking sheet with cooking spray.

2. Grind the oats and the coconut in a blender or food processor. I use my Magic Bullet with the short blade base. Sift them into a medium size mixing bowl. There will be gritty bits left in the sifter that you will discard, which is why you will need heapingness when you measure the oats and the coconut.

3. Add the sugar, tapioca, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda, salt, coconut milk, peanut butter, vanilla, and almond extract. Beat with an electric mixer for about 30 to 45 seconds.

4. Use a medium size (1.5 tbsp) cookie Scoopto drop one cookie onto the baking sheet and watch it for a few seconds. The soft batter should barely flatten itself on top, but it shouldn't spread more than a couple of millimeters. If it spreads too much. add a little more ground coconut. If the top doesn't flatten at all add a little more coconut milk. When you're happy with your batter, scoop the rest of it onto the baking sheet leaving a couple of inches in between cookies.

5. Bake for 12 minutes. Gingerly remove the cookies from the oven without banging the baking sheet against the oven walls or rack or they might *de-poof*. Let them sit on the sheet for five minutes. Use a thin metal spatula to transfer the cookies to a cooling rack and let them come to room temperature.

To assemble the cookies:

1. When the ganache is cold and the cookies are at room temperature, use an electric mixer to whip the ganache. Beat on high for about a minute or until it looks soft and fluffy and the color changes from dark brown to a lighter brown. If it's too hard and it's refusing to whip, add a tablespoon of coconut milk. It shouldn't be too soft though, or it won't stay put between the cookies.

2. Test the ganache on a cookie: grab a cookie bottom-side-up, scoop a generous amount of whipped ganache on top, and top it with another cookie bottom-side-down. Gently press down the top cookie just a little to help the ganache spread toward the sides. If it spreads out too much and it runs down the sides of the bottom cookie, add 1 tablespoon of sifted powdered sugar plus 1/2 tablespoon of sifted unsweetened cocoa powder to the rest of the ganache and keep beating until well combined. Keep adding sugar and cocoa powder until it's firm enough. That's it! Finish the rest of the cookies and move on to the fun part - leg making!

To make the legs:

1. Set up your leg making station. Print out the leg pattern and tape it to a chopping board. Tape a piece of wax paper on top of the pattern, just big enough to cover it.

2. Melt about 1/3 cup of semi-sweet chocolate chippers in the microwave in a dry glass bowl. It took my microwave 90 seconds on medium power, stirring every 30 seconds, to melt the chips completely. Transfer the melted chips to a small ziploc bag and cut the tip off one of the bottom corners. Just a small cut, no more than three millimeters.

3. Ready? Fun! Squeeze the melted chocolate out of the little opening and onto the wax paper, drawing the legs as you squeeze. I knew this would be hard for me to explain, so I made a video of my hands making the spidery legs. Instead of dragging the chocolate against the wax paper, squeeze it out from about a half an inch above the paper and let the stringy chocolate fall on it as you draw the legs. See? I told you I wouldn't be able to explain it! The video should help, it's right below the recipe :)

4. Take the whole chopping board to the freezer and let the chocolate harden for about five minutes. Remove from the freezer and gently peel off the legs using a thin metal spatula. Transfer the legs to a compulsively dry large plate. Repeat until you've made enough legs for 6 spiders.

5. Working quickly, because those legs will melt in your fingers if you dilly-dally, insert four legs into a side of one spider's creamy filling (insert the shortest tip into the filling) and four more legs into the opposite side. You'll notice that the pattern pint-out has four legs facing one way and four legs facing the opposite way, that is so that no legs look flat from the front.

Are you tired of working on them or do you want to add eyes to them? You do? Awesome!

Combine 1/4 cup of powdered sugar plus 1/2 tablespoon of water and stir until well combined. It should be rather stiff, but if it's crumbly you can add a few more drops of water until it complies. Use a little ziploc bag with a cut-off corner again to squeeze the little eyes onto the tops of the spiders. At this point, you probably have a little leftover chocolate from all the leg making, use a toothpick to drop a tiny drop of chocolate in the middle of each eye. Warm up the chocolate in the microwave for a few seconds (though not in the ziploc!) if it's too hard. Now we're all done! Phew!

This adventure makes 6 (3 inches wide) Whoopie Spiders! :)

Notes:

* You can definitely use a spoon instead of a cookie scoop to drop the batter onto the the baking sheet, but the cookies won't be as round and neat.

* I will most likely add more notes as I will probably remember more tips later! :)

* EDIT: Yep, I remembered something else. The edges might not seem soft enough for whoopie pies, but the whipped filling softens them up.

Can't see the video? Watch it here!

Googly eyes!

Extreme leg close-up. Same legs, different whoopie pies.

You want? :D

Inside shot of the cakey goodness.

There it is! My first official Halloweegan post of 2010! YAY! I can't believe it's already here! See you guys next Monday! *POOF* (I magically disappeared, by the way)

Hang Loose Buns, Baked

2010-09-27T08:18:00.003-04:00

These are my breakfast buns, duuude. I have had one of these for breakfast every morning for like yeeears. They're toootally cool buns, maaaan. They're easy to make, they don't require a whole lot of effort on my end, there's no kneading-dough-on-a-floured-surface mess to clean up, and they're made with wholesome ingredients. Toootally aaawesome, duuude.

Dense and whole grainy goodness

Hang Loose Buns

1 1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup rye flour
1/2 cup oat bran
1/4 cup flax seeds, ground
2 tbsp turbinado sugar
1 tsp salt
1 packet (2 1/4 tsp) active dry yeast
3/4 cup water, warm
3/4 cup brown rice milk, warm
2 tbsp vegetable oil

1. In a large bowl stir together the flours, oat bran, flax seeds, sugar, salt, and yeast. Add the water, milk, and oil and stir with a large spoon until a smooth dough forms. It should only take a few stirs, dude. At this point you'll think it looks way too soft, but the oat bran and the flax seeds are going to be quite thirsty and they will drink up some of the liquid while the dough rises. The dough shouldn't be soupy, but it will be fairly soft. If it is soupy add a bit more flour. Cover and let the dough rise for 45 minutes. Take a nap and chillax, man.

2. Spray a baking sheet with cooking spray and preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Take chunks of dough and shape them into balls. How many? Whatever, dude. I get nine or ten buns out of one batch, but if you want big monster-buns you can shape them into bigger balls. Place the dough balls on the baking sheet as you shape them and brush the tops and sides with a little bit of rice milk. Let them rise for 30 minutes.*

3. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes or until the buns look toasty brown. Remove from the oven and let them sit on the baking sheet for a couple of minutes before transferring to a cooooling rack.

Serve warm and preferably, toasted.

For best results:

* I don't proof my yeast because it doesn't have enough time to lose its potency in this house. I bake something with yeast two or three times a week. But if your yeast is old and you suspect it might not be active anymore then go ahead and proof it.

* Do you have a meat thermometer?It was one of the best investments I've ever made, because I make sure all liquids that I use in yeast breads are perfectly warm (110 degrees F) which makes the yeast happy. And the thermometer is totally cool about not having anything to do with meat. No worries, duuude.

* Placing the baking sheet on the stove top as the oven preheats and the buns rise also makes the yeast happy.

* Sometimes I like adding two tablespoons of vital wheat gluten along with the flours, for a change. It makes them a bit chewier but I think I prefer them without the extra gluten.

* These buns aren't all that at room temperature, but they're totally righteous straight out of the oven or sliced in half and toastily toasted.

All puns intended. I'm not stoned. I just had a tofu scramble and you know how soy makes me all dopey! Why so relaxed? Because Halloweegan starts next Friday and there will be plenty crazy going on then! Whoooo!!! I mean, aaawesome, duuude.

I'm starting a new blog feature called Blog-Love. From now on I will randomly choose one of my favorite blogs and I will tell you a little bit about them at the end of each post. This week's Blog-Love goes out to Susan @ Kittens Gone Lentil! When Susan isn't cooking up vegan deliciousness and making cookbooks look irresistible, she's off being a super-vet and saving kitties with her magical powers! Susan is a true cat hero! She always ends her food posts with a perfect dessert: a very sweet "Cute Kitty Photo of the Post." Check out Susan's blog!

Apple-Cinnamon Muffins and Gingery Apple Quinoa

2010-09-21T18:43:00.004-04:00

It's time for another SOS Kitchen Challenge entry! This month's (very season-friendly) ingredient is the juicy and versatile forbidden fruit! Bananas! Oh no, wait... *looks up this month's ingredient* Apples! Ricki and Kim have chosen apples for this month's SOS Kitchen Challenge!

What to make? What to make? I wanted to make something with an apple and cinnamon combo - that's all I knew! After much internal debating, I decided to go with Apple Cinnamon Muffins with a crunchy, nutty topping. The original idea was to make them with oat bran, and the first batch did indeedy have oat bran.

Airhead Apple Cinnamon Muffins.
It was so hard to get a decent picture of this muffin! Son of a batch!

The second batch? Nope. Mr. Wing-It and I were having a FRIENDS marathon, and I was making these muffins while we were watching The One With Ross' Tan. Not a good idea because I am not a good multi-tasker! I totally forgot to add the oat bran to the second batch, so when I was going to pour the batter into the muffin pan it was way too runny. Soup muffins? No, thanks. So I added another 1/4 cup of flour which was oddly enough the amount of bran that I left out. *I haz the dumbz*

Crunchy nutty topping

I did remember the oat bran for the third batch - I'm not totally dumb, just a little bit occasionally. Here's the Airhead version with no bran, and the bran variation is below... maybe... if I remember...

Airhead Apple Cinnamon Muffins With Nutty Topping

3/4 cup whole wheat pastry flour
2 tbsp ground flax seeds
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp turmeric
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup brown rice milk*
3 tbsp vegetable oil
1/4 tsp almond extract, optional
1/3 cup brown sugar
1 Golden Delicious apple, peeled, cored and cut into 1/4 inch squares

For the topping:

1/4 cup chopped walnuts
1 tbsp brown sugar
1/4 tsp cinnamon
2 tsp maple syrup, optional

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Line a muffin pan with paper liners and lightly spray each one with cooking spray.

2. In a medium size mixing bowl, whisk together the flour, flax seeds, cinnamon, turmeric, and salt.

3. In a small size mixing bowl, whisk together the milk, oil, almond extract, and brown sugar.

4. Pour the wet ingredients on top of the dry ingredients, throw in the diced apple and gently fold until all ingredients are just incorporated. Spoon batter into the prepared muffin pan, filling each three-quarter full or all the way full if you like big muffin tops.

5. Sprinkle the chopped walnuts evenly on each muffin top and gingerly press the nutty bits down just a little so that they won't fall off the muffins after they're baked. Stir together the brown sugar and cinnamon and sprinkle all over the muffin tops. I like to drizzle the tops with just a few drops of maple syrup to get them nice and glossy, but that's totally optional. Just use a measuring spoon to gently drizzle the maple syrup all over the nutty tops. One teaspoon per three muffins is plenty.

6. Bake for 22 to 25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle of a muffin comes out clean. Makes 6 muffins.

Non-airhead variation: Replace 1/4 cup of flour with 1/4 cup of ground oat bran. They will need a few more minutes in the oven, about 25 to 28 minutes.

Notes:

* I used my homemade brown rice milk for this, but you can use any type of milk. If you're using a very thin milk, like almond or store-bought rice milk, you might want to start off with 1/3 cup instead of 1/2 and then add an extra tablespoon or two if needed. The batter should be fairly thick.

* I like using golden flax seeds for light colored baked goods, but you can definitely use regular flax seeds instead.

* I make my own brown sugar by mixing 1 cup of ground turbinado sugar and 2 tablespoons of molasses.

Turmeric gives them a lovely yellow color

My favorite muffin top! Via icanhascheezburger.com

For the savory part of the challenge, I went with a Gingery Granny Smith Quinoa With Slivered Almonds.

Granny Smith Quinoa with Veganomicon BBQ Tofu splurge

Gingery Granny Smith Quinoa With Slivered Almonds

1 tbsp olive oil
1/2 cup onion, chopped
1/2 cup mushrooms, chopped
1 garlic clove, minced
1/2 Granny Smith apple, peeled, cored and cut into 1/4 inch squares
1 tbsp fresh parsley, minced
1/4 tsp salt
freshly ground black pepper
1/2 tsp ground ginger
2 tbsp slivered or sliced almonds
1/4 cup uncooked quinoa
3/4 cup water
1 tsp prepared yellow mustard

1. Heat the oil in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Add the onions and saute for about five minutes or until soft. Stir in the mushrooms and the apple and saute two more minutes. Stir in the garlic and saute for just about 30 seconds.

2. Add the parsley salt, black pepper, ginger, almonds, and quinoa. Add the water and stir in the mustard. Reduce heat to low and simmer for 15 to 18 minutes or until all the water is absorbed and the quinoa is soft and fluffy. If the quinoa is still crunchy you can add more water and simmer it for a few more minutes. Serves 2.

Notes:

* If you want it to be really appley you can use a whole apple. One half is plenty for my wimpy taste buds. And if ginger scares you, you can start with 1/4 tsp which makes it way milder.

* The slivered almonds give this dish a nice crunch, but you can skip them if you're not into finding crunchy bits in your quinoa.

This recipe also makes a great Acorn Squash stuffing! It's enough to fill two halves.

Well, that's all the appley news I have. In other news, I've been working on some Halloweegan goodies and I'm getting all worked up here! Is it October yet? Only a few more days! Are you planning on getting a little crazy for Halloweegan this year? :)

Aerolatte Fun and Smart School Time Recipes

2010-09-13T20:08:00.003-04:00

Have you downloaded your free copy of Smart School Time Recipes yet? I have! It has been fun going through the e-cookbook and discovering new bloggers through the recipes that they contributed to the project. Check out the recipes I have tried so far:

Alisa's Speedy Wheat Hamburger Buns. Alisa is the creative, hard-working mastermind behind this awesome communal cookbook. These buns were fluffy and speedy indeedy! The good kind of fluffy though, not the Wonder Bread kind of fluffy that disappears in your hand if you squeeze it hard enough. That's just wrong! These are fluffy *and* bready! *WIN* :)

*drooooool*

Hannah's Maple Cinnamon Glazed Almonds. Don't be scared of all the cinnamon, it seems like it's going to be a lot but it's just the perfect amount. No need to have your dentist on speed-dial either, they're just sweet enough but not too sweet. Fine print: these almonds are very addictive! I dare you not to eat the whole batch in one sitting!

And here come Katie's Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Muffins. Oh yea. These things are tasteh! Elvis would definitely approve. The recipe calls for an egg, but I used a flax egg and it worked like a charm. I made mini muffins, because I can. It's easier to just pop'em like candy that way! :D

Oh, you noticed that cup of coffee that I very nonchalantly placed in the background there? That is my super foamy coffee made with my super duper Aerolatte! Watch me make lots of foam with my cool gadget:

Can't see the video? You can watch it on my flickr. See how I don't whip the milk in a mug, and instead I do it in a little glass measuring cup? That's because when I first whipped it in my precious Luke's mug the pesky thing scratched off some of the finish! *sadface*

Mr. Wing-It bought me the Stainless-Steel Deluxe Edition Aerolatte for Christmas, which comes with a spiffy stand, but there is also an Aerolatte To Go that comes with a handy case to take to work in your purse... or man bag... or backpack... or fanny pack. Hey, it's cool, I'm not the fashion police! :D

My super Aerolatte

The milk that the Aerolatte whipped so beautifully is brown rice milk, and it also works with millet milk, white rice milk, oat milk, soy milk, and even almond milk. The almond milk doesn't get quite as foamy, and the foamiest of them all is the soy milk. I only whip it for about 20 seconds because dipping my nose in foam as I drink my coffee is no fun, but if you like dipping your nose in your coffee, whipping it longer makes more foamy goodness. A few of you swell readers requested a recipe for brown rice milk and millet milk, and because I am such a diligent blogger...

Brown Rice Milk (makes just over 1 quart)

To cook the rice:
1 cup water
1/3 cup brown rice, raw
1/4 cup cashews, raw

To make the milk:
4 cups water
pinch of salt
sugar to taste (optional)

1. Bring the water to a boil in a large pot over high heat. Stir in the rice and the cashews and cook covered over low heat for 45 to 55 minutes or until all the water is absorbed.

2. Transfer the cooked rice and cashews into a blender, add the water and salt and liquefy until smooth. Let the blender run for a couple of minutes until you don't see any big chunky bits of rice or nut. If you want to sweeten it, add sugar by the teaspoon and blend until you're pleased with the sweetness.

3. Strain the milk into a pitcher using a fine mesh strainer. If you're going to be drinking this straight up, you might want to strain it through a layered cheesecloth. I use it for baking and to make yummy lattes, so a fine mesh strainer does the job for me.

Notes: If you want to leave out the cashews that's OK, but the milk won't be as rich and it won't get all whippy with the Aerolatte. For millet milk, swap the raw rice for raw millet and keep an eye on it after 35 minutes of simmering. I have yet to try quinoa milk, as Vegyogini so cleverly suggested, but I'll let you know how that goes when I try it. Enjoy! :)

Blendtec Fun! (And Peanut Butter Cups!)

2010-09-07T20:19:00.005-04:00

Warning: I'm a little loopy and stuffy-nosey as I type this. There might be some nonsensical stuff goin' on here. Please ignore! :)

I am so spoiled! Mr. Wing-It wanted to buy me an end-of-our-exhausting-travels present and after much research he decided to buy me a Blendtec! YAY! Do I have the bestest husband or what?! A Blendtec! I am one of the cool kids now! :D

Perfectly smooth peanut butter

Doesn't that peanut butter look perfect?! My first attempt at making peanut butter with my new toy was kind of a disaster. The end result wasn't really peanut butter, it was more like a peanut paste. Odd. It was my fault because I added some maple syrup to the peanuts before they were *completely* butterized (yea, that's a word now) and the peanut paste never became smooth. That's cool, I used the peanut paste to make peanut butter blondies (same recipe as the almond butter blondies but with peanut butter... or paste) and they were grrrreat!

Wanna see my Blendtec in action, turning roasted peanuts into peanut butter? Watch this video! Don't ask me why I decided to end it with a curtsey though. Too much Austen, I guess! :P

Awesome stuff! Can't see the video? It's OK, don't feel left out, you can watch it on flickr.

*EDIT: The video is one minute and thirteen seconds, but the actual peanut butter making process took longer! Roughly about eight minutes, including all the stirring that happened in between cycles.

One pound of roasted peanuts made about nine ounces of peanut butter, and I turned some of it into peanut butter cups! These are nonconformist cups, because the filling is not the traditional one made with powdered sugar, this one is gooey and it's made with maple syrup.

Nonconformist Peanut Butter Cups (makes 12 mini cups)

2 tbsp creamy peanut butter
1 tbsp full fat coconut milk
1 tbsp maple syrup
1/4 tsp vanilla extract
pinch of salt (or more if you like it sweet *and* salty)
2 tbsp ground almonds
1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

(You will also need 12 candy cups or mini cupcake liners)

1. In a small mixing bowl combine the peanut butter, coconut milk, maple syrup, and vanilla extract. Mix well and thoroughly stir in the salt and the ground almonds. Set aside.

2. In a dry glass bowl, microwave the chocolate chips on medium power for 45 seconds. Stir the chips around a bit and microwave again, on medium power for 30 more seconds. Stir and repeat until the chippers are completely melted.

3. Separate your candy cups or mini cupcake liners and use a butter knife (or any small knife with a rounded point) to coat the bottoms and sides of all the cups with the melted chocolate. A generous layer is best to keep the peanut butter cups from breaking. Freeze for five minutes or until the chocolate is hard and solid. *

4. Fill each cup with the peanut butter filling, but don't fill them all the way up to the top, leave a couple of millimeters for the chocolate topping. The filling should be quite sticky.

5. Top all the little cuppies with the rest of the melted chocolate. Spread the chocolate so that all the cups are nice and brown on top. You might need to reheat the chocolate if it's not soft anymore. Just 30 seconds in the microwave on medium power should do it. Freeze or refrigerate the cuppies until firm. I froze mine because I *wanted* them right away! :D

* I placed the cups in a mini muffin pan so they would have a nice even shape, but that's just my OCD talking.

Nonconformist gooey filling

A few pictures of the peanut-butter-cup-making process:

This is the bottom chocolate layer, already cold.

Peanut butter filling. Sorry about the awful picture.

Chocolate topping with a swirly top

My new toy also makes super smooth hummus! Although the first time I used it to make hummus it was also a disaster. That's what I get for following the recipe that came with the recipe book! I forgot to wing it! :D

Perfectly smooth hummus. Yes, I eat hummus with potato chips.

This blender is fairly easy to clean, which is always a plus! I use a long brush to wash it and unless I make something super sticky (like peanut butter!) cleaning it is no big deal. This thing has some serious power, and it gets very loud! Not loud enough for me to complain about it, especially because it doesn't need to run very long to destroy whatever you throw in there. And it makes smooth smoothies, unlike my old rinky-dink blender that made chunkies! And I have made elebenty batches of dairy-free milk. Oat milk, white rice milk, brown rice milk, millet milk...

Millet milk. I don't drink plain milk of any kind. This picture is a sham!

And as if I weren't spoiled enough, the mailman just delivered an awesome package from Alisa of One Frugal Foodie (and Go Dairy Free!) Oh yes, Alisa had an awesome giveaway and I was the lucky winner of four cookbooks! Four!! The contents of my bounty: My Sweet Vegan, Vegan Brunch, The Urban Vegan, and Ani's Raw Food Kitchen! Whoooo! Thank you again, Alisa! I am psyched!!

Don't be jealous, you can also have an awesome new cookbook, and the best thing is that you can have it right now! Alisa has created an amazing eCookbook with 125 recipes and over 100 photos - all donated by lots of stellar food bloggers and cookbook authors! Oh yea, and it's free! This communal gem is called Smart School Time Recipes: The Breakfast, Snack, and Lunchbox Cookbook for Healthy Kids and Adults and you can download it here! Not all the recipes are vegan, but most recipes can be veganized these days. I will be doing a cookbook spotlight for this awesomeness very soon! :)

PS: Is anybody interested in a millet milk post/recipe, complete with creamy aerolatte foam and all? Or maybe a brown rice milk? Or both? :)

Mint Chip Ice Cream, Minty Steamed Potatoes, and More Flourless Cookies!

2010-08-30T20:29:00.004-04:00

Slowpoke! That should be my nickname. Captain Slowpoke. Tomorrow is the last day to enter this month's SOS Kitchen Challenge and here I am entering just now, almost at the last minute. It's almost disgraceful! But still, I made a savory dish *and* a dessert, so I'm hoping that will earn me some brownie points. Or in this case minty points! Let's start with the savory for a change! :)

Steamed potatoes with herby mint dressing

This is the easiest dressing ever! It works great with steamed potatoes and it was also super tasty with my weekly baked tofu splurge. Assuming that you already know how to steam potatoes, here is the recipe for the herby mint dressing.

Mint and Parsley Dressing For Steamed Potatoes

1/4 cup fresh mint leaves
1/4 cup fresh parsley leaves
1 garlic clove
2 tsp extra virgin olive oil
1 tsp balsamic vinegar
1 tsp fresh lemon juice
1 tsp paprika
1/8 tsp salt
freshly ground black pepper
2 steamed or baked potatoes, cut into six or eight pieces each

1. Mince the mint and parsley leaves. Mince the garlic as fine as possible.

2. In a small mixing bowl whisk together the olive oil, balsamic vinegar and fresh lemon juice until well combined.

3. Add the paprika, salt and black pepper to taste. Stir in the minced herbs and garlic and let the dressing rest for 10 minutes.

4. Pour over the steamed potatoes and toss to coat.

That'll do pig. That'll do. This was enough dressing for two steamed potatoes which weighed about 6oz/170g each, raw. Serve hot and sprinkle with more salt and pepper if needed.

Oh, what'd ya say? You just ate these garlicky potatoes but you didn't remember you had a date with one of the Cullens? Oh no! Quick! Have a bowl of minty ice cream to freshen up your breath!

Coconut Milk Mint-Chip Ice Cream

Mmmmminty! This is my new favorite ice cream flavor! I've never been a mint ice cream person, but I am a convert. Even Mr. Wing-It loves it! At first he found it too herby, but now he's coo coo for minty ice cream! This recipe was inspired by David Lebovitz's non-vegan mint chip ice cream.

Coconut Milk Mint Chip Ice Cream

1 cup fresh mint leaves
1/2 cup turbinado sugar
1/2 cup water
1 14 oz can full fat coconut milk
1/4 cup raw baby spinach leaves (really packed! 12-15 leaves)*
1 tsp vanilla extract
pinch of salt
1/4 to 1/2 cup grain sweetened chocolate chips**

1. In a medium saucepan combine the mint leaves, sugar and water and bring to a boil. Lower the heat and simmer for 10 minutes. Let it steep for 15 minutes.

2. Pour the contents of the saucepan into a blender jar, add the coconut milk, baby spinach, vanilla and salt. Liquefy for about a minute or until smooth. It should look nice and green now!

3. Strain the mixture into a medium size mixing bowl (if possible, one with a spout for easy pouring.) Let it cool in the fridge for an hour or until the bottom of the bowl feels completely cold.

4. Once chilled, strain it again into your ice cream maker's bowl, and freeze in your ice cream maker according to the manufacturer’s instructions. It took just about 30 minutes in my awesome Cuisinart Ice Cream Maker. Place a food storage container (where you want to keep your ice cream) in the freezer. Don't have an ice cream maker? That's cool, Mr. Lebovitz tells you how to make ice cream without an ice cream maker here.

5. A few minutes before the ice cream maker is done churning, melt the chocolate chippers in the microwave in a dry glass bowl. I don't do double boilers (yawn.) It took my microwave 90 seconds on low power, stirring every 30 seconds, to melt the chips completely.

6. Now comes the fun part! When the ice cream maker is done churning, remove your food storage container from the freezer and spread about half of the ice cream on the bottom. Drizzle about half of the melted chocolate all over the ice cream and stir to break up the chocolate into tiny chips. Beat it into submission if you have to! Repeat with the other half of the ice cream and the rest of the melted chocolate.

7. When you're done having fun breaking up the chocolate, cover the bowl and freeze the ice cream until firm.

I always take it out of the freezer about five minutes before serving so it's not too hard and it's way easier to scoop.

* It won't taste like spinach! Honest! The baby spinach is just there to give the ice cream a nice green color, because it's so purrrrdy that way!

** This recipe calls for grain sweetened chocolate chips because I'm a good girl and I'm playing by the SOS Kitchen Challenge rules, but any type of chocolate chips or baking chocolate will work. Wouldn't it be nice if they made maple sweetened chippers? Anyway, I only do 1/4 cup of chocolate chips because Mr. Wing-It doesn't like a lot of chocolate, but if I was going to make this only for myself I would probably go with 1/2 cup for extra chocolateness!

Mint Chip Ice Cream in a gluten free cone

That's it for my SOS Kitchen Challenge entry! I made it! YAY! I'm looking forward to next month's challenge already! Check out Ricki's blog and Kim's blog if you too want to participate in this fun challenge! And check out Ricki's Mint Chip ice cream too! :)

Now before I go have another scoop of ice cream, check out these amazing flourless peanut butter cookies courtesy of Ashley of the (never home)maker blog!

Ashley blogged about my Mutant Flourless Almond Butter Cookies and she even made her own awesome version! They are made with chunky peanut butter for extra crunchiness, and they are super delicious! I knew I wanted to make these peanut butter goodies as soon as I saw them on Ashley's blog. Go check out her pictures and you'll see why I couldn't resist! Thank you for sharing the peanutty goodness, Ashley! :D

OK - ice cream's meltin'... gotta run!

Almond Butter Blondies and More Vegan Crunk Testing

2010-08-24T09:05:00.002-04:00

Phew! That's a big jar of almond butter, Mr. Costco! I have already gone through half of that gigantor jar, which has given my weight-gain-quest a big push! There's still a lot left though. What do you do when you have a surplus of almond butter? Make almond butter blondies, of course! :)

Fudgy goodness!

These blondies are fudgy and moist with lots of soft chunky bits thanks to the addiction addition of chocolate chips and almond paste. The key to their fudginess is in adding just the right amount of milk. The batter should be just moist enough that it's not crumbly, but not too moist or they will be a bit more cakey. If your batter is a little too moist you might want to bake them for an extra minute or two.

Almond Butter Blondies

1/2 cup almond butter
1/3 cup rice or almond milk*
1/4 cup vegetable oil
2 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 tsp almond extract (optional)
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 cup whole wheat pastry flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/8 tsp salt
1/4 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips, plus a small handful to sprinkle on top
2 tbsp almond paste chunks, plus a few chunks to sprinkle on top**

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F and lightly spray an 8x8 metal baking pan with cooking spray.
2. In a small mixing bowl stir together the almond butter, milk, oil, vanilla extract, almond extract, and sugar. Stir until a smooth creamy mix forms.
3. In a medium size mixing bowl stir together the flour, baking powder and salt. Gently stir in the chocolate chips and almond paste chunks.
4. Pour the liquid mix on top of the flour mix and gently fold until all ingredients are just incorporated. Take care not to over mix or stir too much! The batter should be very thick and stiff but not crumbly, if it's crumbly add an extra tablespoon of milk.
5. Spoon the batter into the prepared pan and spread it with a spatula or the back of a spoon. Sprinkle a few chocolate chips and almond paste chunks on top. Give the almond chunks a little push so they sink a bit into the batter.
6. Bake for 14 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out with only a few moist crumbs. They won't rise much at all. Cool for at least 30 minutes before cutting it into squares. Or if you're me, start eating them right away even if you have to use a spoon.

* I have made these a few times, each time with a different type of milk. The ones with soy milk (naughty!) took a half cup, and the ones with the thinner milks (almond, rice) took a third cup.

** The almond paste chunks are optional, but they really make these extra yummy! You can throw a handful of sliced almonds in there instead for an extra almondy crunch. I'm not a big fan of crunchy bits in my blondies though, gimme the fudgy bits!

I love those chunky bits of almond paste!

Now if only Mr. Costco would sell me some super cheap almond paste! That would be awesome! Maybe I'll start making my own from now on because that stuff is way too expensive for an almond-holic. Soon I am going to have to sell pictures of food-pornz to support my habit! :D

Look at that chunky chunk sitting there just teasing us!

Now that we've had dessert let's indulge in some savory treats courtesy of Bianca from the rock'n Vegan Crunk blog! As one of Bianca's very lucky recipe testers I get an exclusive preview of her awesome soon-to-be Southern/soul food cookbook. I'm cool like that. Have you checked out my previous crunky post? Every single one of Bianca's recipes has been amazing - every single one! Bianca develops recipes that are not only delicious, but also easy as pie to make. And the ingredients called for in all the recipes I've tried are either already in my pantry or they are easy to find at a regular grocery store. Even non-vegans will love her cookbook because the food is so flavorful and approachable. Case in point - last night's dinner:

Bianca's Fried Squash

This fried squash is amazing! Again, super easy to make and so yummy! Crispy on the outside, tasty squashiness on the inside... *sigh* It's what breaded and fried dreams are made of. There's five slices on my plate there, but I had to go back for seconds! Really, Bianca, you need to create a recipe that sucks, you now, for balance purposes and yin yang and all that stuff! :P

BBQ Black-Eyed Pea Burgers (sans bun)

I *LOVE* these black eyed pea patties! Too bad I didn't have any buns, because they really would have made a great burger. The barbecue sauce is practically life-changing! I'm not a big fan of barbecue sauce but I absolutely loved Bianca's! It's that good!

Memphis-Style BBQ Sauce

Mmmm *drool!* Even Mr. Wing-It who is very picky about his BBQ sauce gave it two thumbs up! We're not doing store-bought sauce from now on - Bianca's BBQ sauce is where it's at, y'all! That's right, I'm turning into a Memphian! :P

There's more crunky goodness on my previous crunky post, and check out Bianca's blog, Vegan Crunk, to hit the yummy mother-lode and to stay up to date with her cookbook progress! :)

Mutant Flourless Chocolate Cookies (and some amazing Costco finds!)

2010-08-17T17:39:00.003-04:00

Guess where I am! Guess where I am! I'm home!! Guess where I will be for the next few months! Home!! YAY! Normal blogging services have been restored and I am already making Halloweegan crafts for Vegan MoFo. How will I ever manage not to show them to you until October? That will probably be a big challenge! Let's keep ourselves busy with chocolate until then! :)

Mutant Flourless Chocolate Cookies

Mr. Wing-It ate lots of low glycemic-load treats while he was on his triglycerides-lowering diet last year, and flourless nut-butter cookies made their way to his happy belly a couple of times a week. His were sweetened with agave nectar to keep the glycemic-load low, but these are sweetened with brown sugar which I make by mixing ground turbinado sugar and molasses in my food processor.Thanks for the tip, Alton!

These are mutant cookies because on the second day they lose a bit of their outer crispiness and they become a candy bar. Yep. They go from cookie to chewy candy bar overnight! You can play with the ingredients to make them sweeter or chunkier or not so sweet or not so coconutty or whatever. Keeping the nut-butter to baking powder and baking soda ratio, I have made these elebenty times with different variations, like no coconut, less sugar, peanut butter instead of almond butter, chopped walnuts instead of macadamia nuts, and the list goes on and on... hmm, I eat way too many cookies. You can also bake them for only 12 minutes if you want a softer cookie with a gooey center. Anyway, this is my favorite version and my latest obsession. I hope you like! :)

Mutant Flourless Chocolate Cookies

1 tbsp ground flax seeds
3 tbsp cold water

1/2 cup dried shredded coconut*
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup cocoa powder
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/8 tsp baking soda
pinch of salt
1/2 cup almond butter
4 tbsp coconut milk or other non-dairy milk
1 tsp vanilla extract

1/2 cup semi sweet chocolate chips
1/4 cup roasted macadamia nuts

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees and spray a baking sheet with cooking spray.

2. In a small bowl or measuring cup mix the flax seeds and water.

3. In a medium size mixing bowl combine all ingredients except for the chocolate chips and nuts. The dry and powdery ingredients are better off in the bottom of the bowl to prevent a big powdery *POOF* when you start mixing.

4. Beat with an electric mixer for about 30 seconds or until a smooth dough forms. It will look chunky at first but keep mixing and it will become smooth. You can use a large spoon instead, just take care to mix everything well and beat the dough vigorously.

5. Stir in the chocolate chips and nuts. Make them as chunky as you want, as you can see I like a lot of chocolaty and nutty goodness, but you can adjust the chunkiness to your taste.

6. Drop by rounded spoonfuls (or use a cookie scoop for perfectly round cookies) onto the cookie sheet and slightly flatten and shape each future cookie with the tip of a spoon. The back of a spoon only makes a big smeary mess, a swirly motion with the tip of a spoon works like a charm. But then again you might not want to flatten them at all if you like them all round and poofy! Leave about an inch of space in between cookies.

7. Bake for 14 minutes. Let the cookies slightly cool for a minute on the baking sheet before you transfer them to a cooling rack.

This recipe makes about 12 or 14 cookies, depending on how big you make them. If you manage not to eat them all right away and you need to store them, let them come to room temperature and store them in a paper bag. The paper bag keeps them from getting soggy.

* You can grind the coconut to a fine powder in a blender or food processor if the texture of coconut makes you gag. Yea, you know who you are! :D

I flattened these quite a bit before baking them,
they're more crisp and cookie-like,
but I think I like the thicker, softer ones better

Homemade brown sugar.
Awesome Wing-It Apron courtesy of my awesome friend Becks :)

Now that you're all high on sugar, are you ready to feel robbed by your regular grocery store? That's how I felt after finding all these products at Costco:

2 lb packet of active dry yeast - $3.69

2 liter bottle of extra virgin olive oil - $9.99

16 oz bottle of pure vanilla extract - $6.39!!!

6 lb bag of turbinado sugar - $7.69

32 oz jug of pure maple syrup - $11.99

26 oz jar of almond butter - $5.89

I think the vanilla extract is what freaks me out the most! And the yeast! I normally pay $6.99 for a 4 oz jar at the grocery store! If I ever open my own vegan bakery or cafe, I will be doing most of my shopping at Costco. Just with this one trip we would have saved enough to pay for our membership! We went with Mr. Wing-It's mom, who is already a member, to look around and see if it would be worth it for us to join. Umm, yes. It would.

Are you a Costco member? What are some of the most awesome things you've found there? Have you tried their Kirkland salsa? They only had a medium heat salsa so I didn't want to risk buying a gigantor jar only to be stuck with something that was way too hot for me. What about their Kirkland coffee? Is it good?

Sookie's Peach Sauce = Gilmore Girls Geekery!

2010-08-03T18:56:00.006-04:00

Most of you know that I am a huge Gilmore Girlsfan... fan, addict, same thing. Have you seen my Luke's Diner shopping tote? As a true fanatic, I am proud to say that through the years I have recruited several Gilmore Girls fans - ten more recruits and I get a badge! :D

One of my favorite things about the show is that it revolves around food a lot! Not much vegan food, but mostly easily veganizable treats. Sookie, played by actress Melissa McCarthy, is the head chef at the Independence Inn and the Dragonfly Inn. She is an awesome and extremely clumsy chef who is totally obsessed with food. When we first meet Sookie, she is on the kitchen floor practically buried under a big avalanche of pots and pans while her kitchen staff tries to dig her out. She is plastered with band-aids, and her stitches (that she got after she cut her hand making radish roses) have split open. She doesn't even seem upset about the pot avalanche and the split stitches because she's psyched about fixing her peach sauce! Apparently, she was using "too much maple syrup" which "strangled the fruit." So keeping in mind that the peach sauce should be sweetened with maple syrup but not so much that it overpowers the taste of the peaches, I made my own Sookie's Peach Sauce! :)

Sookie's Peach Sauce

3 peaches
1/4 cup fresh orange juice, strained
3 tbsp maple syrup
pinch of salt
1/4 tsp ground anise seeds, optional
1/4 tsp vanilla extract

1. Peel and cut the peaches into chunks. No need to dice them perfectly, Sookie isn't looking! :)
2. Whisk together the orange juice, maple syrup, salt, and anise seeds.
3. In a medium saucepan, combine the peach chunks and the orange juice mix. Simmer for 20 minutes.
4. Remove from heat and transfer everything to a blender. Add the vanilla and liquefy for a minute or until you can't see any chunky bits.
5. Strain the sauce through a fine mesh strainer and refrigerate for at least an hour before serving.

This recipe makes one cup of tangy sauce. If it's too tangy for you, just add maple syrup to the cold sauce until your taste buds are happy. The anise seeds add a tiny little extra som'n som'n, but you can leave them out if you want.

A few pictures that I took along the way:

I blanched the peaches for a minute
and then cooled them in ice water for easy peeling

The skin slips right off!

Uneven peachy chunks

Simmering the goods

Straining the sauce and catching pesky fibrous bits

The tanginess of the peach sauce goes wonderfully with the mild sweetness of vanilla ice cream. My ice cream here is basically one can of coconut milk sweetened with maple syrup and flavored with vanilla extract. My ice cream makertakes care of the rest! How very un-gourmet! :)

Anyway, if you want to see Sookie in action there is a youtube video with a compilation of some of her funniest moments. Needless to say, the video is full of spoilers!

*sigh* Our long weekend at home went by way too fast, and I was so busy being a psycho baker that I didn't spend much time on the interwebs. I have some serious blog-reading-catching-upping to do now - google reader is about to explode! We have only a couple of weeks of traveling left, then all my blogging habits will go back to normal! YAY! :)

Seagull Fun in Northern Michigan!

2010-07-26T06:38:00.000-04:00

Greetings from Michigan! Yep, we're still in Michigan. I hope you don't mind if I keep bombarding you with travel photos until Mr. Wing-It and I go home and I can cook some decent food. I made a lovely peach sauce during our last stay-cation but I cannot find the recipe anywhere, which means that I probably left it at home in my messy recipe notebook. Oy! That's OK, we're going home for a few days next weekend and I will post it then! :)

This time I would like to bombard you with pictures from our recent trip to Mackinaw City, Michigan. We actually stayed in St. Ignace which is across the bridge from Mackinaw city. St. Ignace isn't quite as crowded as M.C. and hotel rates there are a little less expensive. Double score!

Do you like seagulls? I *LOVE* them! And so does Mr. Wing-It! He likes to feed them and I like to photograph them, so we make a great seagull-stalking team! The seagulls in Mackinaw City and St. Ignace are the friendliest birds I have ever met. You can click on the pictures to zoom in on their seagull awesomeness (it takes you to my flickr)

I'm to sexy for Milan, New York and Mackinaw City

Hello!

This picture needs a background sound effect: screeching tires

I love this guy! Thanks for posing, buddy!

No problem, ociffer. I am not drunk, I can line a straight walk...

Sunrise on Lake Huron

One is the loneliest number...

Mother and baby swan enjoying the sunrise

Father Swan never wandered too far from his family.
Lake Huron looks very blue in the afternoon!

View from the Mackinac Bridge.
I love how the water has two distinct colors...

Blue and green!

Where are the pictures of Mackinac Island?! Well, we didn't go there! We would have had to take a boat ride, and I don't do floating things! :D

If you want to see more of our seagulls, I just finished a separate page with pictures of seagulls from around the US and you can check it out here.

That's it for Michigan! Hopefully next time we meet we will be home and I will be able to share that elusive peach sauce recipe. Peach sauce = Gilmore Girls Geekery! YAY!

PS: We won't be able to check into our next hotel until this afternoon, so I won't be able to reply to your comments until then :)

Travel Update: Yellowstone National Park!

2010-07-19T17:42:00.008-04:00

Thank you so much for the warm welcome-back! As Sal would say, you guys rock socks! It feels great to Wing-It again! :)

Is it Halloweegan yet?... How 'bout now?... How 'bout now?... Now?... Now? Oh, come on! I am SO ready for it! *sigh* A couple of days ago I organized all the old Halloweegan posts into a neat index and it only made me long for the spooky season even more.

Speaking of neatly organized indexes, I also made one for the E.A.T World challenge and it was awesome to see just how many entries there have been so far! It's never too late to participate, there are no deadlines or rules and anybody is welcome to join us and play! :)

Anyway, have you ever been to Yellowstone National Park? Mr. Wing-It and I have been there five times and it never gets old! There was one disappointing trip when most of the animals were hiding and there wasn't much to see there for a couple of seasoned Yellowstone visitors like us, but that was the only time that it wasn't as exciting as it normally is. This year we weren't lucky enough to see bears or baby moose, but it doesn't take much to keep us entertained!

This year we were entertained by this dashing raven:

Isn't he handsome? He was happy to pose for the camera in exchange for peanuts, so I took lots of pictures of his shiny awesomeness. You can click on the pictures if you want to see their larger versions (clicking on them takes you to my flickr account)

Overexposed! I think this guy has pretty much perfected the Magnum. He was such a dashing raven that I even made a little video of him being a total rock star. It's 48 seconds long, and just in case you're at work - you might want to mute it because it has a fun song playing in the background! :)

**Blogger is now being a cretin and the video might not play properly**

**OK, I had to remove the video because it's messing up the whole blog. You can still watch it here though! :) **

We also saw this pretty crane that flew away seconds after I took the picture. His wingspan was huge, I wish I could have photographed that!

UPDATE: A-K just told me that this is actually a great blue heron. Thank you A-K! :)

Look at this tiny beaver! It's a terrible picture because I had to zoom in all the way and it was windy and shaky, but I still think you can see the cuteness all the way from here! :)

There seemed to be a shortage of buffalo this year. Every time we go there we get stuck in a buffalo-jam, but this year the roads were almost buffalo-free everywhere. The few buffalo that we saw looked a little sad, I think they were ready for springtime to come and melt the snow away.

The views in the northern part of the park were beautiful! Everything was white and snowy and shimmery!

It makes me wish it was winter already! Can't get enough of Yellowstone? Wish you were there? Maybe this will help - I made a separate page with Yellowstone pictures that we have taken through the years. There are baby animals, itchy buffalo, sleepy elk, some nice sceneries, and more Yellowstone goodness!

We are in Detroit now, and luckily we are leaving tomorrow - this city a far cry from the loveliness of Yellowstone. Did I mention that I am not a big city girl? *hermit*

Wing-It Is Back, Baby!

2010-07-15T14:19:00.004-04:00

Greetings from the land of fickleness! Wing-It is back! Yes. I realize I am fickle, but what kind of a woman would I be if I never changed my mind? Right? So I changed my mind and gave up the other blog. For those of you that haven't been following my nomadism, the other blog is The Crafty Kook. I am still kooky, but now I will be kooky here instead. Again.

I have been missing this dusty old blog for a while, and at first I thought that maybe I could bring Halloweegan back just for the month of October and then go back to The Crafty Kook, but what I really want to do is move back here for good! It all was decided yesterday when I read some super kind words that Bianca had to say about Wing-It Vegan. It was the final extra push that I needed and it made me realize that this is where I want to be! Thanks Bianca! It's good to be home! :)

I feel a song coming... reunited and it feels so good, reunited 'cause we understood,there's one perfect fit, and sugar this one is it...

It really does feel like coming home. The Crafty Kook never felt like home, and now I can't even remember clearly why I wanted to change. I had some reasons, but now they all seem stupid. This is so exciting! I have been constantly smiling like an idiot since yesterday! No need to make a pro-con list, this is what I want! :D

Hopefully my flip-flopping won't be too confusing and annoying for you. I have imported all my posts from The Crafty Kook so there will be no hopping around from blog to blog if I link to an old Kook post. I also replaced all the "Mr. Kooks" with "Mr. Wing-Its". YAY! I have even missed calling the hubster "Mr. Wing-It!"

So here we are again. Do you like my new layout? I drew the little icons and the cupcake myself, which is very strange because I cannot draw! It was some sort of fluke, I'm sure. The drawings were clumsily inspired by the Simon's Cat videos, which I love!

What else? What else? Right! I am working on a recipe index so all my recipes and external links to other recipes will be neatly organized and easily accessible.

Did I mention that I'm bringing Halloweegan back this year? Whooooo!! This time it will be about Halloween themed crafts as well as food. And I intend to join Vegan MoFo again! From now on I will try to keep blogging once a week even if it's not about food or crafts or travels, just to keep the blogging flow going until we go home for Halloweegan. I'm excited! I can feel the mojo! Bring on Halloweegan!! Bring on Vegan MoFo!!

This post is getting long, so let me wrap it up with my very first E.A.T World entry on Wing-It Vegan. This time, we're going to Spain for some Tortillitas!

Tortillitas are basically a chickpea flour pancake that is naturally egg-free! Score! The problem is that they are seafood pancakes. *Sadface*. Not to worry! This veganized version is made with mushrooms instead. The recipe calls for half chickpea flour and half all purpose flour, but I replaced the white stuff with more chickpea flour. The tortillita broke a little when it flipped it, but I didn't expect any less! *I haz a clumsy* I followed this recipe by Mark Bittman, and there is even a handy little step by step video here. Like I said, I made mine with thinly sliced sauteed mushrooms and it was the bestest!

Well, I guess I've done my damage here. Can you believe it's almost the weekend? I hope you guys have an awesome one!

P.S: Is anybody out there still reading this dusty old blog? :)

Cookbook Spotlight: Viva Vegan!

2010-07-08T14:36:00.002-04:00

A couple of weeks ago Mr. Wing-It and I took a few days off from our travels and we went home to "rest" for a while. How was I supposed to rest when I went on a psycho baking and cooking frenzy? As soon as we arrived home I baked a batch of Eureka Brownies. We got there at 3 p.m, and the brownies were done one hour later! This was amazingly fast considering that first we had to unload the car, unpack the cooler, open a couple of boxes of Amazon.com goodies, start our laundry and do other miscellaneous first-day-at-home-after-months-of-travelling things. The brownies were only the beginning of the insanity. I felt like a mostly-indoor dog that goes totally wild when she gets to go to a park to run around. You know, tongue hanging to the side of my mouth, eyes popping out of my face, crazy wide smile, you get the picture! The beast was unleashed! :D

One of the Amazon goodies that was waiting for us at home was Viva Vegan, a fabuloso Latin cuisine cookbook by Terry Hope Romero. There were so many recipes that I wanted to try but there wasn't enough time for all the dishes I had planned to make. As always, this isn't a review (that's too snobby for me) instead it's a spotlight of the awesome recipes that I did get to try.

Let's start with the sweets first! Who wants some Churros?

I loved the churros! They are basically deep fried dough sprinkled with cinnamon sugar, and they are deliciously fun to eat! Oddly enough they weren't as hard to make as I expected. I am used to baking everything with whole wheat pastry flour instead of all purpose flour, which the recipe called for, so they weren't as soft as they should have been. This was totally stupid of me because churros are deep fried! Who cares about using a slightly more healthful flour when you're going to deep fry the stuff anyway?! *Sigh* Sometimes my brain doesn't work properly. Next time we go home for a while I will make them with all purpose flour and they will be even more delicioso!

Anyway, I also made the yummy Chocolate para Churros to dunk the yummy sticks of goodness. Muy rico! :D

More sweet stuff straight ahead, capt'n! Hmmm. I don't know why I just started talking like a pirate there. Check out the Alfajores!

Alfajores are Buttery Cookies with Thick Dulce de Leche Filling. The filling is sandwiched between two cookies, and then the sandwich is rolled in shredded coconut (or crushed almonds I think was the other option.) I love them! They are sweet and tasty and so very purrrdy! Here's an inside shot:

I was way too stingy with the Dulce de Leche filling, so I just spread some dulce on the cookies as I ate them for extra awesomeness.

Now it's time for some tamales! I made tamales! I felt pretty badass after accomplishing such a feat. Don't they look like little presents waiting to be unwrapped and devoured?

Devoured they were! Viva Vegan has a few different recipes for tamale fillings, and the one that I chose was the Black Bean-Sweet Potato Tamales. They were muy sabroso! Black beans and sweet potatoes make a great team, and the corn masa was perfect! Inside shot:

Looking back, I don't think it was that much work to make the tamales. It seemed like it at the time because it was my first time making them and I had a lot going on with the filling, and the masa, and the corn husks, but I think it will be easier next time.

Next up - Chimichurri Baked Tofu! Don't you love that word? Chimichurri!

I adore this recipe! The tofu was baked to perfection in this amazingly tasty chimichurri sauce and it was the best tofu splurge ever! I did manage to mess up the sauce a little and it didn't turn out as green as it should have. Here is some extra Chimichurri Sauce with Smoked Paprika atop a perfect bite of tofu:

One of the side dishes I chose for the Chimichurri Baked Tofu was the Quinotto (Quinoa-Oyster Mushroom Risotto)

It was the perfect side dish to compliment the Chimichurri Baked Tofu! Sometimes I get tired of quinoa, but this dish was different and it was like I was rediscovering that yummy old grain.

The other side dish that I had with the Chimichurri Baked Tofu was the Ensalada Chilena (Tomato Salad with Sweet Crisp Onions)

I have a rule: I only make recipes that I am pretty sure I am going to enjoy. Dammit I broke my own rule! This salad was very tasty, but I just cannot eat raw onions without paying for it later with some major heartburn. It doesn't matter how long I soak them in ice water, they always turn into lava when I eat them. If your digestive system can tolerate raw onions, then definitely try this dish because before it set me on fire it tasted great! :D

There were so many recipes that I didn't get to try, like the Steamed Red (and white!) Seitan, Tempeh Asado, Arroz con Gandules, Empanadas Humitas, Coconut Tres Leches Cake, and the Vanilla-Coconut Flan. There's always next time! Check out more Viva Vegan goodies at Mandee's blog, Cupcake Kitteh, and visit Terry Hope Romero's and Viva Vegan's official website for more info about the cookbook. Thank you Mandee for making me drool over all your Viva Vegan goodies and making me want to buy this gem! :)

Definitely check out Viva Vegan if you want to add some wonderful interestingness to your menu. I give it two thumbs arriba!

I'm not sure exactly when we will take our next break, but whenever that happens there sure will be another cooking frenzy. Isn't it funny that we go home to take a vacation from work? :P

W.I.P Wednesday and Gilmore Girls Geekery! (Luke's Diner Shopping Tote)

2010-07-01T21:43:00.001-04:00

W.I.P Wednesday on a Thursday? I was supposed to publish this last night, but the Sleepy Time Fairies sprinkled some sleepy dust on me and I had to surrender to their magic powers and go to bed. Blame the Fairies! Let's make up for the lost time and jump right into the craftiness!

Let's start with this Wabbit Coin Purse that I made for my buddy Becks... a wabbit for the Wabbit! :)

What a slowpoke blogger I am, I made this little coin purse over two months ago! Anyway, the little wabbit is my own design and I am extra proud of myself for pulling it off. The purse is lined with beige felt, and it has dark brown blanket stitching all around it. Yes, I am 31 years old. Why do you ask? :)

The next project is even older! I made this for Mr. Wing-It's birthday back in February, but I never blogged about it because I am frustrated with myself about the lack of swirly swirls in the sky. It's Starry Night! It's supposed to have swirly skies!! Duh!

Remember the Seagull Wallet I was working on a while ago? It's all done! In spite of its wonkiness, it has earned me a couple of compliments from two complete strangers! Score!

And here is my latest finished project and the first of many Gilmore Girls inspired blog posts - a reusable (and reversible) shopping bag!

It's a Luke's bag! For those of you who are not familiar with the TV show "Gilmore Girls", let me tell you that it is only one of the best shows ever created! I am quite picky about my TV shows, and this one is my favorite - along with another little show called "FRIENDS".

What's with Luke's, you ask? Luke's Diner is a fictional diner in the fictional town of Stars Hollow, Connecticut, where Lorelai Gilmore and her daughter Rory live. Stars Hollow is a lovely little place full of cute little shops and wonderfully quirky residents. Quirky and nosey! The writing is brilliant. You can't just sit there and zone out through an episode because you will miss dozens of fun pop culture and historical references. Oh, and there's food! Lots and lots of food! So, if you're a foodie, if you like quirkiness, if you enjoy obscure (and not so obscure) references, and if you love to laugh, then you have to give this show a chance! You will be hooked and you will find yourself making your own Luke's reusable shopping bag in no time! :D

My bag is made of four cotton bandanas from Hobby Lobby: two brown bandanas and two pink and white polka dot ones. This is the tutorial that I followed to make the bag. It was fairly easy to make and I will probably use the same tutorial again in the future. I printed out this picture of the Luke's sign to outline and cut out the letters and mug, which are made of felt. It's not quite finished yet because at some point the lining/reversible side will have a "Doose's Market" logo.

The bag will be even more awesome if you make it while you watch your favorite episodes of Gilmore Girls! I smell snow! :)

This is my first official contribution to my very unofficial "Gilmore Girls Geekery" blog series. You can expect to see Gilmore Girls inspired craftiness, food, and general geekery in the near or not so near future. We're still traveling, so blog posts are still sporadic. Feel free to join in and start your own Gilmore Girls Geekery series! I'm off to do some shopping now. I need some cornstarch from Doose's Market, purple hair dye from Stars Hollow Beauty Supply, and a meowing pot holder from Le Chat Club. Bye! :)

E.A.T World: Germany (and an update on our real-life travels)

2010-06-11T19:28:00.005-04:00

Yep. I abandoned the blog. Everything was going so well until an unexplained abdominal pain made me lose the will to blog. And cook. And pretty much anything else. To keep this story short, I went to an urgent care clinic with a lower-right abdominal pain right around where the appendix is. There they did a few tests and they misdiagnosed me with something not even remotely close to whatever it is that I have. The tests (including a CT Scan) were expensive, and the only reason why I chose to have them done was because our incompetent health insurance broker (he is our ex-broker now) told us that all tests were covered. We actually called him from the waiting room to double check. Now it turns out that the tests were not covered and we have a big hospital bill to pay - and nobody figured out what the abdominal pain was all about. I am done with doctors and hospitals, even if I grow a furry tail - no more doctors and hospitals for me! If we had been home it would have been better, but we were traveling which made things even more uncomfortable. We are still traveling, but we are going to take a week off soon!

Anyway, I have been feeling better these past few days so enough about that. There hasn't been any craftiness going on around here, but a couple of people at a little health food store in Colorado liked my seagull wallet and asked me if I sell them! It inspired me to get crafty again, so hopefully I will make more goodies to participate in the W.I.P Wednesdays soon.

Travel Update - Who wants to see some furry cuteness?

Our first fun stop of the year was at Theodore Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota. We visit the park every year and we always have lots of fun stalking the wildlife... from a safe distance. I made a little video of the buffalo, wild horses, and cutie patootie prairie dogs. It's shaky and a little awkward but I hope you enjoy it! The background song is Lisa Loeb's very soothing version of Home on the Range. It's my favorite version of that song! Warning: the following video will de-stress you and make you wish you were a sleepy, slow-chewing buffalo.

*Zzzzzz* Did it make you fall asleep? If you visit TRNP, don't forget to check out Theodore Roosevelt's cabin while you're there. It's a charming little cabin where Roosevelt lived for a while. It's furnished with a few of Teddy's personal things, and some period pieces that even though they did not belong to him, they represent what you would have found in a typical cabin back in the 1800s. Unfortunately (though totally understandable) all the rooms are protected by glass panels, so the pictures that I took of the interior don't look too great. Here are a couple anyway:

Just dropping by to borrow a cup of sugar! :)

Bonus TRNP turkey picture!

Moving on from real-life travels to imaginary ones! It has been so long since my last E.A.T World post! What a slacker! The total opposite of a slacker is Mandee, who has been kicking some serious E.A.T World butt! Check out her blog, Cupcake Kitteh, to drool over all the awesome Viva Vegan yummies she has been making. Mandee pimped Viva Vegan so well that she made me buy the cookbook. I'm glad I bought it before we found out about the hospital-bill fiasco, or I would have had to show some restraint! Expect a cookbook spotlight for Viva Vegan and Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar soon! :)

But now... it's time for E.A.T World: Germany! When I decided to make some German dishes, I didn't need to look around for recipes because I knew exactly who to turn to - Mihl from the Seitan Is My Motor blog! Mihl has so many awesome recipes that it was hard to pick just a couple, and I ended up with a long list of dishes and breads to make in the future. First up is the best faux sausage ever with a yummy sauce: currywurst!

Currywurst is a cut up sausage smothered with a curry-ketchup sauce. So simple! So good! Never mind my soggy oven fries, the sausage had an amazing texture and the curry-ketchup sauce was delicious. The texture was excellent actually, sometimes faux sausages can get a little chewy for my taste - not these! Check out Mihl's recipe and definitely make yourself some currywurst soon! :)

For dessert I made some of Mihl's Rote-Grütze, which is a red berry compote that was obviously created by the gods. So fruity! So sweet! So pretty! Mihl said that Rote-Grütze is traditionally served with a thick vanilla sauce or whipped cream. I went with a vanilla custard because I don't travel with an electric mixer, but when we go home for a while I will top it with a good scoop of coconut whipped cream! *drool*

Thank you for sharing such stellar recipes, Mihl! :)

Well, I think I've done my damage here. One more thing about the hospital nightmare - because of the unexpected bill, I have decided to try to monetize my blog a little. See the little Amazon widget on the sidebar? Yep. Those are affiliate links. I do not care much for ads, but I thought this widget which is personalized with some of my favorite things was a good compromise. I hope you guys don't find it too obtrusive! :)

Crunk It Up! (and our awesome hotel kitchen)

2010-04-20T19:26:00.005-04:00

Let's get crunky! I am one of the very lucky recipe testers for Bianca of the Vegan Crunk blog. Bianca is working on a Southern/Soul Food cookbook, which as soon as it is published it will be a gigantor hit full of awesome country classics! I will now proceed to make you wish you were one of her testers too. *Evil grin*

Why don't we start with some Twice Baked Taters?

Oh yea. They're the best baked potatoes I have ever had. They're the kind of food that makes you want to eat until you find yourself beached and comatose on the couch.

Don't stuff yourself too much though, leave some room for Bianca's Old-Fashioned Coconut Pie!

Bianca's Granny veganized her own pie recipe for Bianca's cookbook, and now Granny Crunk only makes the vegan version! Coolest Granny ever! I made two little pies instead of a big one because, well, I'm into small foods. Does anybody want a tiny slice of coconutty goodness?

And since we're talking about sweet treats, let's move on to the Choco-Choco Praline Pecan Cookies! Any recipe that starts with "choco-choco" has my attention!

The best part about these cookies are those delicious pecans, they are prepared in a way that will make you want to enter a never-ending pecan eating contest! I'm not really a pecan person, but the ingredients here really make these one of the most delicious sweet treats I have ever had. See how they entice you with their shiny coating?

Quick! Hand me something green before I go into a sugar coma! Bianca's Cheezy Broccoli Rice Casserole should do the trick!

Creamy, wholesome, comforting, belly-warming, and delicious! And just when you think I'm going to keep throwing the savory stuff at you, here comes the Old-Fashioned Strawberry Pie!

This is another one of Bianca's Granny's pies! Atrocious picture, awesome pie.

Here's another atrocious picture. You might have already seen this one when I blogged about it on my old blog, but here it goes anyway.

It's a Sweet Potato Bread that because of my tiny foods obsession I made into muffins. And apparently I couldn't resist taking a big bite off the muffin top before I took the picture. Don't judge! They were irresistible! As were these Cinnamon Pecan Waffles that I also blogged about before...

Best. Waffles. Ever. The whole house smells like cinnamon heaven while these are baking. Who needs air freshener when you can make waffles instead? They are multi-purpose waffles! :D

And yet one more picture that you might have seen before, Bianca's Country Potato Soup of awesomeness...

*Drool* No more teasing you with recipes that you cannot have until the book is published. I can though. *Evil grin* Check out Bianca's blog for more awesome vegan goodies! :)

**UPDATE: I blogged about more crunky goodness here**

A few of you were impressed with some of the things I cook and bake while we are travelling, and while I do have to manage with only a microwave and a single burner most times, there are times when we stay in extended-stay type hotels that have pretty decent in-room kitchens. So you see, it's not that impressive when our hotel room has a kitchen like this:

An oven! A dishwasher! A full-size sink! This is the best hotel kitchen ever! There is also a full-size fridge and some pots, pans, dishes, utensils, etc.

Not all extended stay hotel kitchens are like this though, most of them don't have dishwashers or ovens, but even the ones with just a two burner stove-top, tiny work space and a decent sized fridge are a nice break from regular hotels. Plus many extended stay hotels have lower rates than the regular ones because they only offer housekeeping services once a week. Score! :)

Speaking of *SCORES*, have you heard that Ellen DeGeneres listed Sweet Freedom on her "Books Ellen Reads" page? It sure seems like we will be watching Ricki cook up some delicious treats on The Ellen Show soon! If you haven't seen it yet, check out Ricki's EL-LENd Me a Hand video and enjoy some fancy Ellenesque dancing and an awesome recipe for vegan coconut macaroons. The video is hilarious! Head on over to Ricki's EL-LENd Me a Hand headquarters for more info about the campaign. That's it from me, see you next week for another coin purse W.I.P Wednesday! :)

E.A.T World: Greece! What you mean he don't eat not meat?!

2010-04-07T22:32:00.003-04:00

Welcome to Greece! The first thing that most people probably associate with Greece is the Parthenon, or maybe Mount Olympus, or ancient Greek Mythology, or that it's the birthplace of the Olympic Games. Unless you're me. Then you think about this...

I can very much relate to the main character, Toula. We both grew up with in-your-face families and without much wiggle room to develop our own personalities, which is probably the main reason why we are both a little deficient in the self-confidence and self-esteem departments. One of my favorite scenes of the movie takes place when Toula announces that her fiancé is a vegetarian...

That scene always makes me laugh! Here is something else that just happens to be vegetarian: Fasolatha!

Fasolatha (though I have seen it spelled fasolada and fasoulada) is a white bean and vegetable soup made with lots of olive oil. Lots of it! It was very tasty but extremely filling, if I make Fasolatha again I probably won't use as much oil. I used this recipe and this recipe as my guides. It's not something I'm anxious to try again very soon, I think the idea of olive oil exorbitance sounded better in theory, but it was too heavy for my poor tummy.

Don't worry! My Greek adventures didn't end there! Raise your hand if you want some cookies!

These pretty ladies are called Koulourakia and they are beyond exquisite! The combination of anise seeds and orange zest should be the next "P.B and chocolate". Sorry Reese's, you had a good run.

This is the recipe that I went with, but I used Earth Balance instead of butter, flax eggs, and orange zest instead of lemon zest. These beauties will grace our Christmas cookie trays forevermore! :)

Extreme close-up!

More Greek goodness ahead! Marion, a super sweet reader from Greece, offered to send me some of her favorite recipes. How could I pass on an inside scoop?! The first recipe is called Riganada, which consists of toasted bread brushed with olive oil and topped with tomato, oregano, and cheese. Yes, please!

You're supposed to toast the bread in the oven, or a toaster if you must. Our hotel didn't have a toaster, let alone an oven, but we did have a single burner and a frying pan, so I "grilled" my bread instead. Marion said that the cheese should be feta or another soft, white variety, so I used Tofutti slices and they worked just fine. This is something that I will be eating quite frequently, because it was very easy to make and so so delicious! Toasted bread + olive oil + tomato + oregano + cheesy topping = *drool*

Miss Marion sent me another recipe that was also very easy to make and very tasty. Cinnamon toast, anyone?

Sorry about the poor hotel lighting

It's like a sweet cinnamony treat! So simple too, it's just toast with margarine (Earth Balance) and a good sprinkling of cinnamon sugar on top. Awesome!

Thank you again, Marion! :)

I would love to receive more suggestions for my upcoming E.A.T World posts, so if you are reading this and you think that I should most definitely try one of your favorite recipes from wherever you might be from, please do send me an email or leave me a comment to let me know! Even if your recipes aren't vegetarian or vegan, I can always play with them to make them fit my dietary choices. :)

There will be another "G" post in a couple of weeks. The recipes will come via Mihl's blog... of course! I'm so proud of myself for not abandoning my blog while we travel! *happy*

One more thing before I sign off - have you heard that Ricki is campaigning to get on The Ellen Degeneres Show? How awesome would it be to help a fellow food blogger get on the best daytime show ever?! It's no secret that I want to be Ricki's groupie, so I have already contacted The Ellen Degeneres show asking them to please have Ricki as a guest. If you want to help too, all you have to do is either tweet Ellen at @TheEllenShow or send her an email asking her to invite Ricki Heller to her show. If Ricki does get invited, every commenter who participates in this campaign will win a FREE copy of the ebook version of Sweet Freedom, which is exactly the same as the paper copy! Woo hoo!! Ricki's cookbook rocks! I already have a copy of Sweet Freedom and I have already raved about it here, but if you're missing out, then hop on over to Ricki's blog to participate.

Elsie, one of Ricki's girls has also joined the campaign!
(Picture via Diet, Dessert and Dogs)

♫Get up, have a little fun today... Get up, give a little love away!♫ :)

Mini-Giveaway Winners & Some W.I.P Craftiness

2010-03-31T21:54:00.001-04:00

Greetings from LaCrosse, Wisconsin! Are you confused yet? Between my imaginary E.A.T World travels and my real mystery-job travels I barely know where I am anymore!

What I do know is that it's time to reveal the winners of the Kalonji giveaway! I asked Mr. Randomator to choose two numbers between 1 and 21. Mr. Randomator consulted with his muse and then he spoke: "nine... and seven".

Comment number seven belongs to a certain someone who is vegan... and strong... it's Gina! Comment number nine belongs to Danielle, who decided not to enter the giveaway because she lives near an Indian grocery. So thanks to Danielle's convenient location someone else gets to win a bag of Kalonji! Thank you, Danielle, for giving someone else a chance to try some black onion seed goodness! :)

Mr. Randomator consulted his muse again, but this time he only needed to choose one number. Mr. Randomator spoke: "four".

Comment number four belongs to someone who just cannot resist a cute mini bundt pan... it's Andrea! Congrats ladies! Please send me an email with your address at thecraftykook (at) gmail (dot) com so I can send them to you as soon as possible. YAY! This was fun! :)

Moving on to crafty things, I am very excited to inform you that I am officially joining Shellyfish's W.I.P Wednesdays! My objective is to sew something new at least every two weeks and then blog about it here. I will most likely do little giveaways instead of keeping my crafty stuffs for myself.

A couple of things I have already made:

Cupcake Coin Purse

Happy Apple Coin Purse

And I am currently working on this:

Meet Captain Piggull. He was supposed to be a seagull, but his feet make him look kind of like a pigeon, so he's a Piggull. This will actually be my new wallet, if I ever finish it.

Every couple of weeks I will do a crafty giveaway and one of you will get up close and personal with my rookie stitchery. Again, no need to alert the media, this isn't a way for me to attract more interwebs traffic, I just want to share the craftiness! :)

Any special requests in case you are one of my craftiness victims?

E.A.T World: India (and a tiny giveaway!)

2010-03-22T14:05:00.005-04:00

(The giveaway is at the bottom of this post. Don't alert the media or quit your job though, this is just a very tiny gift. It's minuscule. It's almost invisible. Really, you will have to squint to see it.)

I like Indian food! I like Indian food! Who knew? I have always been scared of all the spices and the heat factor of most Indian dishes, and the fact that I am not a fan of coriander didn't help at all. Well, somebody slap me for being such a philistine!

As you can see, my E.A.T World entries won't be posted in alphabetical order anymore. Our travels make it difficult to organize any kind of meal plan and it will be easier for me to just wing-it.

Anyway, because I am so new to Indian cuisine I have been relying on other people's recipes instead of creating my own. Like this awesome recipe for Butter Chicken from allrecipes.com:

This recipe was perfect for a newbie like me! Instead of chicken I used tofu chunks, and instead of heavy cream I used a combo of coconut milk and oat milk. Knowing my wimpiness when it comes to too much heat, I reduced the amount of cayenne pepper significantly.

Get a little closer, don't be shy...

I also made an awesome potato dish (with the cayenne toned down again) from allrecipes.com called Aloo Phujia. The saucy rice stuff on the side is Mushroom Korma which I made after reading 1,258 chicken korma recipes. I was really winging it with that one.

And then I made the Aloo Phujia again, but instead of cooking the potatoes in oil, I tried Earth Balance, and I also added some mustard seeds. Awesomeness!

OK, now it's time for my latest addiction! Ladies and gentlemen and all creatures of the universe, I give you... Peshwari Naan!

*Drool* This stuff is IT! I could eat Peshwari Naan every day for the rest of my life! And to think that I never would have had the pleasure of stuffing myself senseless with this if my buddy the Wabbit hadn't passed on her addiction to me (Thanks buddy!). The filling is a delicious concoction of ground almonds, coconut, sugar and apple. It's supposed to have raisins instead of sugar, but raisins and I are sworn enemies.

For the dough I used this recipe (quartered) minus the egg, and instead of garlic I used black onion seeds, AKA kalonji. For the filling I used this recipe minus the evil raisins, and instead of applesauce I used fresh pureed apple. The step by step pictures were very helpful! We don't have a gas stove so I cooked them on a cast iron skillet.

If you're thinking about making your own naan, you should definitely get yourself some black onion seeds! I have a feeling that naan would be much like plain pita without them. Those little seeds can be very elusive though! I checked the international foods isle at two standard grocery stores, and I looked all over our local Whole Foods but they were nowhere to be found. Luck was on my side and I was fortunate enough to find an excellent India Market not ten minutes from here! Joy! They are not expensive (I paid $2.49 per each 7oz bag) but they are not too easy to find.

Kalonji/black onion seeds

Finally, I made some Mango Lassi which is a colorful drink made with mangoes, yogurt (I used this kind) and milk or water. Meh. What was I thinking? I don't really like yogurt! It would probably be more compatible with my taste buds if instead of yogurt it had a few tablespoons of coconut milk.

*Cheers!* :)

Oh no! I was holding the glass up too high and it's in front of my face! How does that keep happening? :D

This has been my favorite gastronomic adventure so far! I probably never would have found out that I love Indian food if it wasn't for E.A.T! This is the most smitten I have been with this challenge since it started back in January. *smitten kitten*

Now about that giveaway. Instead of pointing and laughing at those of you who cannot find black onion seeds/kalonji locally, I am giving away two bags! Interested? Anyone can enter! You don't have to do anything special, no twittering or facebooking or standing on your head while you do the Macarena, every comment left on this post gets an entry. Unless you don't want the seeds, of course. But then again if you don't want them you can always nominate another blogger, and if Mr. Random Number Generator picks you, the seeds go to your nominee.

Mr. Randomator will pick two winners on March 31st (some time after Mr. Wing-It and I check into our hotel) and each winner will get one 7oz bag of Kalonji. I will mail them as soon as possible from wherever Mr. Wing-It and I might be that week.

P.S: Do you like my new blog header? All the widgets from the sidebar disappeared for some reason and I had to add them all again, including the blog links. They will get there, I have to add them all one by one! :)

E.A.T World: France! Chocolate Mousse and Ratatouille

2010-03-09T21:05:00.002-05:00

(This post will seem never-ending but it's mostly just a long recipe)

Bonjour!

Whenever I think of France, I think of the movie Sabrina (1954), more specifically the scene where Audrey Hepburn sings La Vie en Rose to Humphrey Bogart. Audrey lovers know what I'm talking about, and for those of you who haven't seen Sabrina, here is that scene:

*Sigh* That scene always makes me all misty-eyed and aware of my own plainness. I could gush over Audrey Hepburn's loveliness and gracefulness forever, but not today. Today is all about the moose!

No wait. The mousse! It's all about chocolate mousse! :)

All the recipes that I found for dairy-free chocolate mousse called for silken tofu, but I wanted to make this dessert soy-free as well. What to do? Well, consult with the all-knowing entity that we know as Alton Brown, of course! His non-vegan chocolate mousse recipe inspired the following gelatin-free, dairy-free, soy-free chocolate mousse.

Alton's recipe calls for whipping cream, but of course I used coconut milk instead. Are you shocked? I swear I don't own stock in any coconut milk manufacturer, I just love the stuff! Anyway, the can of coconut milk should be refrigerated for a few hours, or ideally overnight. This gives the coconut fat plenty of time to separate itself from the liquid so we can whip it up and turn it into a beautifully fluffy cream. Don't throw the clear liquid away though! We're going to use the whole can of coconut goodness!

Chocolate Mousse (Inspired by Alton Brown's recipe)

1 14oz can coconut milk (cold, full fat)
2 tablespoons powder sugar or sweetener of choice
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 teaspoons agar flakes
3/4 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

1. Open the can of cold coconut milk and scoop out all the separated cream into a medium size mixing bowl. Try not to scoop out too much of the liquid along with the cream, it's best to leave some bits of fat floating around the coconut water in the can than to mix too much liquid with the fat.

2. Add the sweetener and vanilla extract to the cream. Using an electric mixer (with cold beaters) beat the cream until light and fluffy for about two minutes. Refrigerate it while you work on the chocolate (you will need the beaters again later).

3. Pour the liquid contents of the coconut milk can into a saucepan and stir in the agar flakes. Let the agar flakes soak in the liquid for 15 minutes. Simmer for about 8 minutes until the flakes are mostly dissolved. My flakes never dissolve completely! If your agar flakes are rebellious too, just transfer the saucepan contents to a blender or magic bullet and blend for a minute or two.

4. Place the chocolate chips in a medium sized bowl. Using a fine mesh strainer to catch any undissolved agar flakes, pour the hot liquid/agar mixture right over the chocolate chips. Stir until smooth. Not getting smooth? Microwave it for 20 seconds and stir vigorously until smooth. Repeat if necessary. Refrigerate for two hours.

5. Remove the cold chocolate from the fridge and use an electric mixer to beat it until soft and creamy, about one minute.

6. If you were able to resist eating the coconut cream by the spoonful, remove it from the fridge and use a spatula to gently fold (don't stir or beat or whisk!) 3/4 cup of cream into the chocolate. This will leave you about 1/4 cup of coconut cream that you can serve as a topping later. Refrigerate for at least an hour, but the longer you wait the better!

A few pictures that might help you visualize what everything should look like:

Coconut fat straight out of the can, pre-whipping:

Coconut fat, whipped:

Cold and set chocolate/agar liquid mixture:

And then whipped with an electric mixer:

Folding the coconut cream into the creamy chocolate:

I like to top mine with some of that delicious leftover whipped coconut cream...

And some sliced strawberries are a perfect addiction... I mean, addition! :)

Open wide! Here comes the airplane!

Keep in mind that I have only made this mousse twice, and it came out different both times. The first time it was more porous and the second time it was creamier. The first time that I made it I did not use the whole liquid part of the coconut milk, which made the chocolate too stiff to whip. Both versions were very délicieux though! :)

Oh, yeah. I made ratatouille too.

Ratatouille on millet

Poor ratatouille, the chocolate mousse totally stole its thunder. It was still very tasty and awesomely stewy though. Stewy ratatouille recipe.

Bon appétit! :)

Eureka Brownies!

2010-03-01T21:24:00.006-05:00

This post will be short and SWEET! Yesterday was my birthday (thank you for all your kind Facebook and email birthday wishes!) and I celebrated with an awesome batch of vegan brownies. I received so many presents that I feel incredibly spoiled. To fix that, I would like to give you my lovely readers a present...

Eureka Brownies!

I call them Eureka Brownies! because this is my first recipe that has rendered a deliciously fudgy brownie with a wonderfully crusty brownie top - not a soft cake top! Eureka!

Eureka Brownies!

3/4 cup turbinado or white sugar (see notes)
1/4 cup canola oil
1/2 cup coconut milk (at room temperature)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3/4 cup whole wheat pastry flour
1/2 cup regular cocoa powder
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips (optional)

1- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F and spray an 8 inch square baking dish with cooking spray.
2- Pulverize the sugar in a blender or food processor. I use the Magic Bullet and it works like a charm. This is the most important step, the sugar should be very fine and flourlike.

3- In a mixing bowl or measuring jar whisk together the oil, milk, and vanilla. Stir in the pulverized sugar and whisk until everything is well combined and smooth.

4- In a medium size mixing bowl stir together the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, and salt. Stir in the chocolate chips to somewhat coat them with the dry ingredients.

5- Pour the mix of sugar and liquids on top of the flour mix and gently stir until just until combined. It's extremely vital that you don't overmix the batter!

6- Spoon the batter into the prepared baking dish and spread it evenly. It shouldn't be pourable like cake, it should be pretty thick.

7- Bake for 14 to 16 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out with a few moist crumbs attached but not gooey. Check two or three different spots in case you hit a deceiving chocolate chip! Let it cool completely in the pan before cutting them into squares... or if you're like me, dig in while they are still at tongue-melting temperature.

Notes:

- Really pulverize the life out of the sugar. Let it sit in the blender or food processor for a minute after you pulverize it to avoid a sugar *POOF* in your face when you remove the lid. I use the Magic Bulletwith the flat blades. My buddy Becks found a baking tip somewhere on the interwebs that said that melting the sugar and butter together is what gives brownies that perfect top. That is why I grind the sugar and make it as fine as possible, so the big turbinado crystals can easily dissolve in the oil. If you would like to try them with some sort of melted buttery spread instead of oil, go for it! I wanted to make them with oil so my soy-free readers could enjoy these too.

- You can make a smoothie (using a blender) with the sugar, oil, milk and vanilla instead of pulverizing the sugar first. The brownie tops don't get quite as crusty as they do with the pulverized sugar, but if you're having a brownie emergency it will save you a couple of minutes! ;)

- You might want to increase the amount of sugar to 1 full cup instead of 3/4 cup. My taste buds don't like things that are too sweet and I usually reduce the amount of sugar that is called for in most recipes. If you have normal taste buds, then you probably should do one cup of sugar.

- You can use any kind of milk if you don't want to use coconut milk. I like the extra richness that coconut milk gives to baked goods. O rly?

- Replace some of the cocoa powder with equal amounts of melted chocolate chips/baking bar for extra fudginess.

- The brownies come out thin like the ones in the picture, double the recipe if you like thicker brownies.

I love these, I have made them so many times in the past few weeks that they are second nature to me now. I hope you enjoy them too! :)

UPDATE: Sophie made a "Mint Chocolate Chip" version of these brownies. The mint chips make the brownies look so festive and yummy! Check out her recipe!

UPDATE #2: Krys made an "Almond Joy" version for the Worldwide Vegan Bakesale for Haiti and they sound ridiculously delicious. Check out her recipe!

UPDATE #3: DennyBerry (who needs to start a baking blog *hint hint*) tried these with powdered sugar and they weren't as brownie-like. Then I made a batch with powdered sugar to see exactly how they turned out, and they were pretty crumbly and cakey. Pulverized (or very well dissolved) turbinado or white sugar still reign supreme!

Mr. Wing-It and I are back on the road and incredibly busy, but I refuse to neglect this blog like I did with poor Wing-it Vegan. Next week the E.A.T World series will resume with a virtual trip to France and a recipe for soy-free chocolate mousse! Speaking of France, check out Mandee's amazing E.A.T World: France post! Enjoy Mandee's délicieux Mushroom Bourguignon, Potato Gratin, Bohemienne, Croissants, and Croissant-hungry kittehs! Bon appetit and au revoir! :)