Pie eating! Pie eating! Yeah! (Pie Day Part 2)

True confession, I used to hate pie.  I was a kid, and I didn’t know any better, okay?  I think it’s safe to say I’ve made up for lost time.

I dedicated an absurd amount of Monday to pie making.  After my breakfast pie, I took my sweet time making my first completely from scratch (even the crust, unlike my apple pie) pumpkin pie using this recipe from Healthy Happy Life.  I made my own pumpkin puree and reduced the amount of sugar so I could use the last of my chickpea buttercream instead of cream cheeze, but otherwise I was true to the recipe.

Overall, I consider it a success.  It was totally delicious and had a great texture.

It just took me too long to get everything ready to make it.  I’m sure the fault lies with me more than the recipe, but I am interested in dating around.  If anyone has suggestions, I’m open to being set-up.

‘Cause it’s Pie Day, Pie Day. Gotta eat up on Pie Day.

This last weekend was busy, friends and MoFo’ers!  My brother-in-law flew in for a few days, and balancing a house guest and two small children can be exhausting.  I’m not complaining though.  We live far away from our closest family and friends.  It is always a treat when we do get to be with them.

Today was BIL’s last day so I made him his favorite kind of pie, apple — which I conveniently have an abundance of.   Since he was leaving in the afternoon, I had to make it bright and early this morn’.  We had pie for breakfast, ya’ll.  Jealous?

We’ve been taking it easy since he left, but I did manage to peel myself off the couch long enough to roast a pumpkin, and I’m hoping that sometime before midnight I’ll have turned this pumpkin into a pie.  Update to follow.

chickpea buttercream frosting

Inspired by Chocolate Covered Katie’s Cookie Dough Dip (so delicious even my ever skeptical husby enjoys it) which left me wondering what other sweet yum-yums I could add some fiber to.

And then it came to me, Chickpea Buttercream!  Skeptical Husby and visiting omni brother-in-law approved.

1/3 chickpeas

1/4 shortening

2 tsp vanilla

3+ C powdered sugar (ya know, just keep adding until it’s as stiff as you want)

milk (as needed)

Puree chickpeas and shortening– I found my huge food processor grabbed everything better when I added 1/4 C of the powdered sugar.  When the beans were sufficiently pureed I added the vanilla.  Then started adding powdered sugar and blending until it was as thick as I like.

Honestly, it doesn’t even feel like a recipe since all I did was substitute pureed chickpeas for some of the fat in a normal buttercream recipe.  You could probably just as easily use marg instead of shortening or smaller amounts of marg and shortening plus chickpeas.  All you should really take away from this is that adding pureed beans to your buttercream is a thing you could do.  If you wanted.  Which I do.

MoFo Week One (Link Love)

Wow, you guys, this past week has been positively inspiring.

There have been so many great posts.  I think I could spend the rest of the month just cooking food from and inspired by other MoFo’ers.

Joanna’s Nutritional Comparison of Nuggets was insightful.  It even made me feel pretty good about store bought nuggets.  But, the best part is I don’t need to buy them anymore because my crazy picky 3 year old will eat her tasty seitan nuggets.

Being raised Catholic in Wisconsin, I have always associated Fridays with a Fish Fry.  I’d love to recapture that tradition vegan-style by pairing Olives for Dinner’s Faux Fish with some homemade coleslaw.

This Braised Cabbage and Seitan Sausage recipe from The Taste Space strikes me as the more interesting cousin of Brats and ‘Kraut.  Totally appealing to my Midwestern roots, and I’m positive my Yooper husband would love it.

I love getting Asian take-out on the weekend, but maybe this time I’ll keep it in house.  I could whip up some General Tso’s Tofu inspired by Food Stains or maybe some of Meet the Wikos’ BBQ Seitan Steamed Buns.

Last weekend at the Farmer’s Market I bought a couple small pumpkins to make my first completely from scratch pumpkin pie.  I’ll be using Your Daily Vegan’s instructions for roasting the pumpkin flesh, and then I’m going to gourmet up the seeds with some of the spice combos from The Angry Vegan.

Finally, one of my very favorite posts of the week was the Brownie Showdown at La Vide Vegga.  She laid out her criteria for the perfect brownie (all of which I completely agree on), and proceeded to test and compare three recipes.  The clear winner was Joanna’s (yes, the same Joanna of the aforementioned awesome nugget post) recipe, All-Time Very Best Vegan Brownies.

After all that brownie love, my cravings got the better of my will-power.  I was left with no choice but to make MY favorite brownies (which I believe meet all the criteria listed in the showdown), Dreena Burton’s brownie recipe in Vive Le Vegan.

Not only do they meet all the criteria of The Showdown, they meet a check-in-the-box I consider vital for a recipe to make it into regular rotation at  my house.  All of the ingredients are extremely pantry friendly.  I’m talking “you’re at your mother-in-law’s and all she has for you is a jug of soy milk and the veggie burgers she bought when you were visiting LAST Christmas” friendly.  Literally, the most esoteric ingredients in this recipe are non-dairy milk and maple syrup (and you could easily sub out the syrup).

They are great brownies, and Vive Le Vegan is a great book.  I recommend them, the book, AND doubling this recipe (I actually penciled the measurements in the margins) then baking in a 9×13 pan instead of an 8×8.

So, why don’t you bake up some MoFo inspired brownies this weekend and give the blogging a rest?  We can all catch up on the literally thousands of posts from this past week and regroup for week two!

magically magical sauce of magicalness

I was instantly drawn to this recipe on Heidi Swanson’s blog, 101 Cookbooks.  It just looked so perfectly… savory… herby… reddish brown.  And, then there’s the name.  It’s called MAGIC sauce.  Seriously.  Magic sauce.

What I love most about this recipe, beside its name, is how simple it is, from ingredients to directions.  Though, I don’t really know how to smash my garlic into a paste– At least not raw garlic.  Am I missing something really obvious?  I am, aren’t I?

It came together in a blink– Believe me, if I could think of a clever way to bring up Doctor Who right now, I would.

The only things I did different, besides mincing the garlic, was use dry herbs and a combo of smoked paprika AND sweet paprika.  I did take a premature taste right before adding the lemon juice, and that was a mistake.  Turns out that tang was essential.  Everything really came together in the end though.

I enjoyed the magic on my pasta, but Heidi suggests putting it atop baked potatoes or garnishing soups.  There’s a lot of room for experimentation here.  Personally, I think I’m gonna slather it on some chickpeas next, and then when I get sick of that I’m going to slather it on some chickpeas and BAKE them–  I am full of wonderful ideas like this.

yummiest ugly cake ever and pinterest post

This is Isa’s Raspberry Blackout Cake from Vegan with a Vengeance.  Actually, this is a strawberry version, which is how I always make it.  See, instead of jam I make the filling for the blondie bars from VWAV.  Again, using strawberries instead of the recommended  fruit– can I do nothing as directed?  Truly, I am a rebel (No, I am not).

It’s our birthday cake.  As in, THE birthday cake for all birthdays in our household.  Well, all adult birthdays (maybe when you hit the double digits, darlings).  So, I make this cake often enough (multiple times a year every year since VWAV came out), and I can NEVER get it to look nice.  Literally, this is the prettiest I’ve every made this cake.  Most often it looks like a heap of, well, not nice things that should make you lose your appetite.  Thank goodness it is so delicious our stomach’s love overrides our eye’s logic (something like “DO NOT WANT I want you inside me!”).

But, I hadn’t meant to talk so much about this hideously delicious cake.  I just didn’t want to make a post dedicated solely to my MoFo pinboard.

Pinterest has really added another dimension to this year’s MoFo.  It’s hard to keep up with all the blogs participating, and Pinterest has been a great way to see what other people are digging and find stuff I overlooked whilst perusing my reader.    So, yes, I have a VeganMofo pinboard on Pinterest (Yes, I did just link to it twice).  Do you?  Post a link in the comments, and I’ll follow.

a rare recipe post

I have one of these.

He enjoys eating these.

Often enough, he can’t eat them all as fast as they go bad.  So, I get to make this.

This is one of few recipes I’ve modified so significantly I feel I can claim it as my own.  After bed time, I’ll come back and edit the recipe into this post.  Until then just know that if you’ve put chocolate chips in your banana bread you need to stop immediately.  It’s blueberries for the win.

EDIT:

Well, the toddler is in bed with Papa, and I’ve got a sleeping baby on my lap.  So, here it is.

Blueberry Banana Bread (modified and veganized from Betty Crocker)

1 C sugar
1/2 C coconut oil (or earth balance)
2 flax eggs (1 T flax + 3 T water, times 2)
1 1/2 C pureed banana
1/2 C almond milk + tsp or so ACV (mix and set aside beforehand)
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 1/2 C AP flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1 C blueberries

Mix wet ingredients (including sugar) together.  Sift in dry ingredients.  Try not to over stir.  Fold in blueberries.  Place in a greased loaf pan and bake at 350 for 1 hr 15 min or until cooked through (check with toothpick or butter knife).

monday mash-ups

*In which I combine a bunch of random foodstuffs from about my house*

True facts, I am pre-TTY lazy.  I live one block from a small grocery store, but when I run out of food I generally opt to mope about my house reopening the same bare cupboards instead of just popping out to restock.

Things are looking sparse today (I would eat leftover BBQ tofu, but I, uh, ate it all last night).  So, I bring you this Monday Mash-up, a pumpkin spice smoothie.

Not really the full meal I was aching for, but tasty enough that I did take a minute to bask in the cleverness of me.

Ingredient suggestions:

• creamer/yogurt (Whichever non-dairy version you prefer, obvs)
• pumpkin puree (I had some left over from making Joanna’s Pumpkin Spice Syrup from last year’s VMF, which I also added)
• Pumpkin Spice Syrup (Alternatively, some sweetener and pumpkin pie spices)
• Half a frozen banana

I didn’t include measurements because I just threw in what I had left or to taste. That’s just how we do on Mash-up Monday, ya’ll– I’m saying that like it’s a thing, but it’s not really a thing.

in which i eat a carton of tofu by my lonesome.

There’s not a lot to say about BBQ tofu that hasn’t been said.  Delicious.  Easy.  Deleasy– ok, no one says that.  It’s a portmanteau of delicious and easy that I just made up.   My deepest apologies.

Keeping it brief, my bullet points from this meal…

- Everyone suggests marinating tofu before cooking, but I completely disagree.  I prefer browning the tofu first and adding the marinade to the pan.  Cooking it all together on med-med hi heat until the liquids have all cooked down.  The sauce perfectly coats the tofu, and I didn’t need to plan any of it in advance (BONUS!).

- Tofu Xpress is magic.  I was way skeptical.  I mean, I know how to press tofu.  But, I cannot argue with the results.  I don’t think I’ve ever been able to cook tofu on cast iron without some of it getting stuck.  And, dang, it comes out so firm.

- Rough Rider BBQ sauce from Vegan Diner is so good.  Stop buying it and start making this recipe.  NOW.

vegan month of food

It’s here!  And, I am woefully unprepared.  So, uh, vegan food.  Yeah.

Ha, okay.  Topic… topic… topic.  Let’s talk about about apples!  I went apple picking for– don’t laugh– the first time last month.  My parents and aunt and uncle were in town, and it seemed like something one should do with guests during the pre-fall season in Upstate NY.

I broke into my half bushel by making pie, of course.

After remembering I'd left one of two pie plates at a friend's house the second pie became a tart.

I cannot remember if the Betty Crocker recipe is completely vegan or if I just vegan it up in my head as I go, but it’s close if not vegan and very reliable.  BC is def my go-to gal when I want to make something taste authentically Midwestern-American (or, like it did when I ate it growing up).   I’ve had very good luck veganizing recipes from The Big Red Book.  It will always have a place in my kitchen.

The pie crust was, admittedly, store bought.  I went completely blank at the grocery store and could not find shortening– I know!  I realized exactly where it was right after I loaded my pies into the oven.  I’ve since acquired shortening and made a very satisfying crust using Julie Hasson’s recipe in Vegan Diner, an impulse purchase that I have not once regretted.

Both pies were cheerfully devoured by the end of the next day.  We’ve been slowly working our way through the remainder of our half bushel.  The darling toddler has made a respectable dent eating them straight up during snack time, but I’ve also made some apple butter.  I used a stove top recipe, but next time I’m going slow cooker fo sho.

Honestly though, I’m not really sure what else to make.  Applesauce isn’t really my jam, and I’m already pretty overwhelmed by the apple butter (uses other than putting on toast?  anyone?  beuller?).  Oh well, guess there are a few more pies in my future.  Not complaining.