Vegan Cookies that ROCK!

my father, bless his heart, has been on this infuriating diet for years now...granted, he is thinner than he's been in 35 years, and granted it does a lot to make him worry less about hereditary heart problems, but GAH! dr. dean ornish is a brilliant man, but sometimes i'd like to write him a letter, informing him that he needs some damn mashed potatoes! with cheese!

so, i've adapted this recipe (that lovely, lovely jane sent me) to be even healthier than it was before. now, i'll be real with you...the next time i make this, it will be at home, and i will use 1/2 cup brown sugar, and i will put chocolate chips in this beast, but this is pretty good. it's vegan, whole grain, sugar-free (except for the naturally occurring fuit sugars...i can't speak to its diabetic-friendliness), and oil-free (again, excepting the naturally occurring oil in nuts. yeah, i typed that.) now the texture of these cookies will be a bit fluffier than you'er used to. if you use brown sugar or molasses instead of sugar-substitute, it should weigh them down slightly. also, i find that using quick oats instead of the old-fashioned oats that i prefer can get your cookies a little more mucked-up and squooshed together. what? shakespeare made up words too, you know.

Your ingredients:
1- 1/2 c. mashed bananas
1/2 c. applesauce (dad makes his own, out of his homegrown, organic apples, with no added sugar. isn't he precious? i love it here.)
2 t. vanilla extract
1/4 c. + 1Tbsp Sugar-equivalent sweetener. (we use apriva, which is a splenda knock-off)
1 c. whole wheat flour
1- 1/2 t. baking powder
dash salt
dash nutmeg (i always add more nutmeg than asked for, especially with bananas or peaches...so let's call it a smidge!)
1 t. cinnamon
3/4 c. oatmeal
1 c. add-ins (i used 1/2 golden raisins and 1/2 crushed pecans. on a related note, how will i ever go back to my apartment and our small-sized cuisinart, which i have to get off the shelf and plug in every time? i am spoiled by food processor accessibility.)
peaches. (this one is the kicker. i only figured this out after the first batch, because my father is also tooling around in the kitchen. he's making peaches to freeze and eat later, because he bought 30 lbs of ripe peaches from the farmers' market yesterday and there's really only so much you can do in 24 hours. so he parboiled them, then threw them in icewater [to stop the cooking process, and it also makes it so you can shrug them right out of their skins.] then he removed the skins, cut them up, and threw them in a big bowl with more artificial sweetener & a bunch of cinnamon and nutmeg. this is what i had on hand, which makes me a lucky young lady. you may use whatever you'd like, but i'm betting canned peaches will do the same thing.)

perhaps you find yourself wondering what song was stuck in my head the whole time?

so, anyway,


preheat oven to 350*

i think there should be a degree symbol key, so i choose asterisk in defiance.

blend bananas, applesauce, vanilla, and sugar or sugar substitute. you guessed it. i used the food processor.

in another bowl, mix flour, baking powder, salt, nutmeg, cinnamon, & oatmeal. don't be shy here. add more cinnamon, more nutmeg, some almond extract, a dash of clove...do what you will! it'll be lovely!

pour wet and dry together, mix 'em up, and then fold in additions.

drop those babies onto some parchment paper on a cookie sheet (see? no need for oil here either! plus, easy cleanup!). now comes the beauty part. did you ever have those cookies when you were little that looked like a hershey's kiss was growing out of them? do that, but with peaches. you will thank me for it. i prefer to add the peaches after 3-5 minutes of baking time, so that the cookies are starting to take form before i squish something into them. bake for about 15 minutes, total. when done, you can pluck them right off of the parchment paper.





so here are a couple of observations ala kate:





i feel comfortable eating 1,237,583 of these, as i have convinced myself they are basically a warm sip of smoothie. feel free to follow my bad example.





vegan cooking and baking can be fun, if you have the right substitutions! i've been on such a butter kick lately, i was starting to forget! of course, i am eating one of these warm, delicious cookies right now, with a huge glass of milk, so stick that in your vegan organic corncob hashpipe and smoke it.





i watched julie and julia today. it was lovely and made me proud to have this blog, even if the only people who look at it are my dear friends that i force to read it! except that the other day, we got a comment from a person named amber. who are you, amber? are you evan's girlfriend? are you a friend of lis'? are you *possibly* just a random person? in any case, thanks for liking the blog. here's to you, amber.





here's to you, dad! i'm proud of your commitment to healthy eating and living. i'm proud of your commitment to having a light carbon footprint (even though you don't call it that...to you it's just the way you know to love the planet). thank you for influencing me to be a workaholic who spends her few days off in the kitchen, entertaining, cooking, baking, laughing, and generally caring for my loved ones, near or far. you're a prince, daddy.

lime-in-da-coconut cupcakes

do you ever find yourself motivated to do something, just because you have a song stuck in your head? well. yesterday, i should have just listened to the joy of cooking about how to make that sweet, subtle, coconut milk pudding. but i did not. because i started thinking to myself...you put the lime in da coconut and shake it all up, you put the lime in da coconut...etc. but that shit tasted gross. so today, i made it into delicious cupcakes. take that, failure! when life gives me lemons, i'll fucking bake some shit! i'm not even scared.

furthermore, this entry serves to be a reminder of my firmly-held belief that the reason we all think that baking is a careful science is that type-a bakers and bakresses are just trying to make us feel badly about ourselves. i jacked up that pudding recipe. and these cupcakes showed warning signs of disaster several times. but they turned out light, fluffy, delectably crispy around the top edges and addictive like a teen aged girl reading twilight, you feel me?

ok, cream together:

1 stick u/s butter

1/4 c light brown sugar

1/2 c granulated sugar

add:
1 whole egg, plus 1 egg yolk

then, if you're a jackass like me, you can add:
1/2 c. lime-in-da-coconut pudding (the recipe, as i altered it to its detriment, went a little like 1 can coconut milk, juice of 1/2 lime, scant 2T sugar, scant 2T cornstarch, scant 1/8 t salt) you are lucky i am not posting the picture i took of that ugly dessert. ew. what you can do, instead, is use 1/3 cup coconut milk and the juice of 1/2 lime, plus one more tablespoon of sugar. that's really a much better idea. the joy of cooking is the bible to little ladies like me. i don't know why i was all worshipping a golden calf of adding lime juice! what's that? no one except me thinks golden calf jokes are funny? oh, ok.

at this point, my batter started to have that really unfortunate, i'm-trying-to-separate-from-myself look..you know the one...all slimy...i blame the pudding. (gentle reminder that no one should be intimidated by fear of baking disaster!) in any case, i shut that shit down by adding...

the dry ingredients:
1- 1/4 c. a.p. flour
2- 1/2 t. baking powder
1/4 t. salt
zest of 1/2 lime

wow, that baby goes fast!

except, they didn't taste really delicious yet. i kept thinking of adding vanilla or almond extract, but i didn't want to overpower the coconut milk. i did find the oldest known bottle of imitation coconut extract in the cabinet...

can you believe that shit? ...but it was actually empty. i just left it there, because that shit is hilarious! it was actually price marked 75 cents...ummm...ok, did you guys realize that the cent symbol is not even on the keyboard anymore? man, i am so old.

anyway, right around this time, i had my first brilliant epiphany, and added:

3 T. shredded sweetened coconut flakes. btw, i had a long talk with my mother this evening about how she needs to replace that wallpaper.
(and another 1/4 t. baking powder, but i'm not convinced that was necessary. yeah, ignore that)

this made the batter delicious enough for my favorite method of kitchen-aid beater cleanup:



the other epiphany was about the glaze on top. can you guess what it might involve?

bake until they're damn well good and ready. (this is why i think the other 1/4 t. baking soda was superfluous. they got all excited and exceeded their cups!) my parents have this little device called a cake tester. i get my obsession with kitchen gadgets naturally. the thing is, a toothpick actually works better than this device. but who am i to judge?

while the cakes were not yet cool enough to consume (i really just can't learn), i made my glaze.

now, i find the taste of confectioner's sugar overpowering and ooky, so i am always trying to alter it. this time, i did:

1/2 c. confectioner's sugar

1t. orange blossom honey

3 t. spiced rum

blend and drizzle, my frizzle.

except that the taste still grossed me out, so i added 2- 1/2 more teaspoons rum, poured over cupcakes and poked holes with the cake tester(finally! a good use for it!), so the booze would get all up in there. the cakes were pretty friggin' alright then. but when they cooled, they were freaking delicious.

you should know that this idea was inspired by a coconut cake recipe in the new york times cookbook, which substitutes coconut milk for milk. you should also know that this cookbook is ever present in my childhood memories. for example, this is the page with the pancake recipe. can you see the evidence of all 3 kids there? and how much we loved dying breakfast green on st. patrick's day?

unemployment cupcakes (peach cupcakes with lemon almond buttercream)

ok, blogworld. two things are granted:

one - we have been ignoring this blog. sorry. couple of undependable bitches, we.

two - i am unemployed and in tactical retreat. this means i have come to visit my parents. which, in turn, means:

a. i have nothing but time,

b. my parents' anniversary is today, so i wanted to make some dessert for them, and

c. i drove through gaffney, sc, 2 days ago, which means

I. i have ripe peaches in my possession.

sooooooo, i invented peach cupcakes. yeah. and it was a reeeeeally good idea.

i roughly based this recipe on something in the joy of cooking (the bible), a cake recipe called lightning cake. this means that many of my measurements are in hillbilly language, like scosh(sp?), pinch, dash, splash. i took that recipe, added a ton of deliciousness and a little more baking powder and put it into a paper-lined muffin pan. god bless the u. s. of a, baby. freedom of choice.

ok, cream together: (that means the kitchen aid beater that looks like an upside-down, melted peace sign, in my book.)

1 stick butter (unsalted, room temperature...i would think you knew that by now.)

1 cup white sugar

Then add, one at a time, while still beating:

3 eggs (room temperature, or i pity the fool!)

then add

the zest and juice of 1/2 lemon (btw, lemon = glory. i fucking love that tart little motherfucker.)

dash of nutmeg

splash of almond extract. (call me crazy, but organic almond extract is way better than normal)

and then stop beating your batter, perv!

stir in with a wooden spoon, a whisk or whatever suits you:

your flour mixture. what's that? you wanna know more? ok, fine.

1 cup all-purpose flour

1 1/4 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

i always just give a quick whisking to my flour mixture before adding it to the batter, to combine ingredients and do a quick lump search, because sifting is for suckers.

now, stir in:

one fucking delicious, ripe, perfect peach, diced. no need to peel. it worked just fine this way. but if you'd like, i recommend dropping it for a few seconds into boiling water, then ice water...the skin will peel right off! i also considered pureeing it in the cuisinart, but was too lazy, so if you go that route, let me know how it works out, ok?

pour into paper-lined muffin pan, 2/3 full...bake at 350 for...ummm...ok, i wasn't paying attention, but i'm sure it's somewhere between 15 and 25 minutes, and you know how to check if it's done! golden top, toothpick inserted in center comes out clean!

now make some buttercream!

i did a half recipe, because i didn't want to ice all 12 right now, and my father won't eat much butter anyway.

whip (that's right, baby, the whisk-looking attachment on the kitchen aid! as a general rule, when whipping anything, i start at stir, slowly work my way up, and don't go beyond 8 for whipping!)

1/2 stick butter

1 scant cup confectioner's sugar

2 splashes vanilla extract

zest of 1/2 lemon

1 wee scosh almond extract.

whip until it's a little fluffy. now the tricky part is actually letting your cupcakes cool. warm cupcakes will seriously melt and sabotage your buttercream, but if you're anything like me, you'll do it anyway. (and i recommend trying a cake warm, because those baked warm peaches are sexy.)

sorry, loves, i am away from my faithful webcam, so i do not have a picture of these, but rest assured, they are golden, with a slightly more browned tinge on top from the peach juice. the buttercream ended up kinda taupe, because i was waaay excited about the vanilla. anyway, the following is a picture of what they taste like: