MAKE THIS TODAY!

I had some bananas that were getting ready to go bad and searched online for a yummy vegan banana bread recipe and ran across this. It just so happened that I had an extra zucchini in my fridge that was crying to be used and was just enough for me to double this recipe. I made 2 loaves and cut into one as soon as it was cool enough. Sweet sassy molassy!!! IT. WAS. SO. GOOD.

The skeptical roommate nearly bit my hand off trying to get more. He took the rest to work with him and his coworker (the same one who loved the cookies) ate it and told him to leave the rest of the loaf so he could eat it for breakfast the next morning.

The other loaf was taken to a bbq (or cookout depending on where you're from) where we were made to leave half the loaf. They really should rename it "Crack Bread".

The only changes I would have made are: due to the fact that the bananas I had were so ripe, I would have cut back a little on the sugar and I would have used whole wheat flour in place of some (if not all) of the flour that I used. Aside from that, this bread was PERFECT.

Make some today. You won't regret it!


Here is the link in case you missed it up top: http://vegweb.com/index.php?topic=28286.0

No Bake Cookies!

Recently, I've been seeing these already made at the grocery store. As the name suggests, they are cookies you don't have to bake and therefore a TIME SAVER. I think it's terrible that people are too lazy to even make their own no bake cookies anymore.

My mom used to make these all of the time when I was a kid. We had trouble waiting for the delicious piles of goop to set up before we ate them, and even when I make them now I will eat the remnants off of the utensils and whatever is left in the pot.

This was an incredibly easy recipe to adapt to being acceptable to a vegan diet. I even made an addition that isn't in the traditional recipe that the roomie agreed was a wise decision. The roomie took a few of them to work and his coworker had a hard time believing they were vegan. Vegan or not, give them a shot!

No Bake Cookies
1-1/2 cups sugar (evaporated cane juice)
1 stick non-dairy butter (Earth Balance)
1/2 cup non-dairy milk (I used almond.)
1/3 cup cocoa powder (I used Ghiradelli. Worth it.)
1/3 cup peanut butter (I used natural. Don't be like me and forget to stir it AND refrigerate it. Even if you ARE like me, your cookies will still turn out splendidly.)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract (Don't use imitation. That's just gross.)
3 cups of Rolled Oats (May need a little more.)
1/2 cup cocao nibs (My addition. Do it.)

1. Combine first four ingredients in medium sized saucepan. Cook over medium heat stirring occasionally. Once the mixture comes to a boil, continue to cook and continually stir for 1 minute.
2. Remove from heat. Stir in peanut butter and vanilla extract. Add oats and cocao nibs. Pay attention to how the mixture is coming together. May have to add extra oats depending on the mixture. I ended up adding one more cup of oats for a total of four cups. Mixture should look glossy, but not be runny with excess liquid.
3. Scoop out large tablespoon-fulls onto wax paper or aluminum foil. (I like to scoop them out using an ice cream scoop with a lever to push them out.)
4. Allow to cool and set up. Yield: About 16-24 depending on size of scoops

You're welcome.

The Other Night's Dinner

I got a little behind on posting our dinners and different delicious dishes I've made, but I'm going to make an attempt to catch up starting now.

One night last week I faced a common dilemma: What to make for dinner.

Spaghetti is always an option for me and it just so happened that we had spaghetti and organic/vegan pasta sauce. So, I decided that's what I should make.

We had a bunch of in season veggies and I knew I wanted to incorporate those some how. I sliced eggplant and sprinkled it with salt to draw out the bitterness. I then sliced zucchini into thin "planks", drizzled them with olive oil, sprinkled with salt and pepper and slid them under the broiler for a few minutes. I made whole wheat spaghetti noodles and cooked them to the desired done-ness and drizzled them with olive oil so as not to stick together.

I roasted asparagus the same way I did the zucchini and decided to not roast the eggplant the same way since I had already roasted 2 other veggies. I instead cut the eggplant into chunks, sauteed it in olive oil and added diced red onion and minced garlic later on. Of course, I seasoned this with salt and pepper as well and added some cracked red pepper flakes. I added the jarred pasta sauce and warmed it all together.

After the veggies came out of the oven, I served up spaghetti with the sauce on top and got all fancy like and fanned the zucchini over the top. I served the asparagus on the side.


IT WAS SO DELICIOUS! It tasted like eggplant Parmesan without the Parmesan...but the cheese was not missed. I would HIGHLY recommend making this dish as even non vegans will be satisfied. Dinner dilemma solved!

Happy eating!

Happy Independence Day!

Sorry I've been so lazy with the posting this weekend. I will be back tomorrow with some meal ideas and reviews, but for now, hope you're enjoying the 4th with people you love.

God Bless America!!!

Bakery Review!

Last week I was bored and wandering around online and stumbled across a new bakery that had it's Grand Opening two weeks ago. I am all about new bakeries as that's my cup o' tea and was pretty excited to find out it was an allergen free bakery! When I worked at the cupcake store, there was at least 1 inquiry a week about whether or not we did nut free, egg free, dairy free, gluten free, sugar free cupcakes. I never knew where to send these people! Turns out, the need was big enough to open a whole bakery dedicated to it. Not only does the bakery do allergen free, but does egg and dairy free (i.e. VEGAN!) as well. On my way to fill out an application and change my driver's license to my current residence after almost 10 months, I decided to check the little bakery out. Come along!

The name of the place is Annie May's Sweet Cafe and it is located at 3110 Frankfort Ave. in Louisville. Their phone number, hours and full menu as well as an ingredients list are all available on the website.

When I got there the lunch hour had just started. There was a taco truck sitting out front serving all of the local business people on break. I would assume that they have something worked out with the Cafe's owner as customers were bringing their tacos and whatnot into the cafe. The cafe was very clean and cute. There were plenty of tables and chairs inside. Something else I noticed was how clean the case looked. I wish I would have had the presence of mind to take pictures inside the cafe, but I was on a mission!

I had been craving a cupcake since yesterday and as I am still slowly collecting the more expensive products to make vegan baked goods, I decided the cheaper option would be for me to just purchase one.



On the left is an allergen free vegan chocolate chip cookie and on the right is an allergen free vegan chocolate cupcake with vanilla buttercream.

As soon as I got into my car, I acted like a fat chick and ate my cupcake in no time flat. It was fantastic. It is gluten free and I immediately tasted the rice flour used in it. There is also non dairy milk in the frosting and I could tell it was rice milk. Since rice does not have that strong of a taste and it is not offensive, I did not find this disagreeable. The cupcake was rich and dense and the frosting is super sweet and delicious. The size of the cupcake and the amount of frosting were just right. It was wonderful.

The cookie was a different story. I kept it in my car while I ran errands figuring if it got a little warm, it wouldn't really be an issue. Who doesn't like warm chocolate chip cookies?! After running a particularly frustrating errand in which I did not get what I set out to accomplish done, I was SO looking forward to that cookie. I broke a piece off of it while still sitting in my car and popped it in my mouth. Of course it was warm but it was also super soft. I was salivating before even getting it into my mouth. As soon as I began chewing, I was disappointed. The cookie wasn't horrible, but it was obviously gluten free. The rice flour made it almost disintegrate and left a chalky residue in my mouth. All I wanted was a big, tall glass of milk with the thing, but of course, that would defeat the whole purpose. I understand that gluten free items are always going to be a little different than the products they're trying to imitate, but this was particularly bad. The suggestion I would give to improve this recipe is to change the blend of flour and perhaps not rely so heavily on the brown rice flour. Whether or not that will ever happen, I don't know, but until then, I'll stick with the cupcakes.

The bakery also does vegan cinnamon rolls mostly every day, but I naturally visited on a day when they did NOT have them. A return visit is in order.

For a special vegan or allergen free treat, I would definitely recommend this bakery.

Failures

We all know that failures are a part of life...especially when trying to drastically change your lifestyle.

I'm going to post about a few today and later post something more sunshine-y and interesting, so for now, bear with me.

1. The roomie is done with the "vegan thing" as he puts it.
Admittedly, this lifestyle is not an easy one to follow, especially without proper advance planning. Vegan friendly meals are more readily available in larger cities, and we even have a few restaurants here that are becoming vegan friendly, but to run out and grab a quick bite to eat at a fast food joint is not conducive to the vegan way. I wish he would have given it a few more days, but in the end, it's his decision. I'm still going to be following the lifestyle and cooking vegan meals at home, roomie or not.

Speaking of fast food,
2. I went to Wendy's today and ordered one of those new berry almond chicken salads sans chicken...
...but forgot to tell them no cheese. I ended up picking off most of the cheese that I could, but some was still ingested. I also used the nasty excuse for a dressing they give you with it. Not. Satisfied. I will probably be smelling the results from my dairy ingestion later. Pleasant, eh?

3. I still haven't been able to wriggle free of the vice grip that Diet Coke has on me.
I ordered a large Diet Coke with my salad...and I'm still drinking it. I am fully aware of how horrible the stuff is for me, but I have made a lot of big changes so far and am not 100% ready to let that one simple, horrible pleasure in life go just yet. Sue me. Shun me. At least I get my D.C. fix.

That's all for now.

Last Night's Dinner

The past few nights around our house have been rushed, and as I'm still not very well versed in vegan cooking, I was having a hard time coming up with something fast to fix for dinner last night. I had bought things to make a version of "Texas Caviar", so I decided to wing it and go with that.

What I came up with was very, very similar but I didn't use bottled salad dressing. Instead, I added olive oil and red wine vinegar to taste and added Italian seasoning. I also added the juice of one lime and since I didn't have a bell pepper, I just didn't put it in. I didn't have any cherry or grape tomatoes, so I diced two Roma tomatoes and added those. My recipe also had 2 cans of black eyed peas, though I'm sure one would have sufficed. I added about a cup of frozen corn kernels that I intended to just thaw but ended up cooking. Oops!

This is what I ended up with (forgive the blurry picture, I was using my old, crappy phone):The roomie seemed to like it okay, but was pretty disappointed when I notified him that this WAS dinner. I served it with blue corn tortilla chips (all natural, organic and all that jazz) and we ate it like salsa. After a few chip-fulls, I ended up eating it like a salad with crumbled chips on top of it.

Once we were satisfied with this, we polished off a carton of strawberries between the two of us. We were both satiated and didn't feel like a couple of slugs. We had plenty of energy to go check out the new Transformer's movie!

This is a recipe that works great as a summer side. You can serve it as a salad or like I did with the chips. Either way, it's pretty darn tasty. It's better the next day after it's been given a chance to let the flavors meld. Give it a try and let me know what you think!

Happy eating!