Chocolatey Goodness

Here are a few pics of some desserts we've been eating lately. As many of you know, I was on a major cupcake kick for the biggest part of a year. While I still love cupcakes, and plan to be baking them again soon, I thought it was time indulge in my other favorite sweet treat for awhile....Brownies!!

Until now I've been quite disappointed with vegan brownies. Don't get me wrong, I've made and eaten them. They tasted fine, OK, they tasted good. But they just didn't' have that satisfying, moist gooey goodness that I love in a brownie. I've found most vegan brownies to be dry or cake-like, and to be honest, just too darn healthy. I love health food, I even have strange cravings for it at times, but when I eat a brownie, I don't want it to be health food, ya know?

Flipping through Vegan Planet one day I fast forwarded to the dessert chapter, and saw the recipe for some sort of peanut butter swirl brownie. It really started the brownie craving, but a) peanuts are forbidden in our house, and b) I don't like things mixed into my brownies. Lo and behold, the recipe had an option to leave out the peanut butter. Lucky me, I had all of the ingredients and went straight to work. This brownie recipe is both delicious and gooey. As a matter of fact, best I can remember, it's just like its non-vegan counterpart. I am convinced that what does it for this brownie is the chocolate chips melted in canola oil. This is what lends that gooey brownie goodness. Most brownies call for cocoa powder, which in my opinion just makes them cake. Anyway, if you are a brownie lover, get this book and make these brownies STAT!!


Next up is another recipe that I can't quite remember the exact name of. It comes from Eat, Drink, and Be Vegan. The name of it goes something like this, Chocolate Chunk Spice Cookies. Really though, the name's not that important, what you people want to know is, are they good. Good, you ask......these are delicious!! I didn't have enough dark chocolate to chunk, so I combined chocolate chunks and chocolate chips for these cookies. The chocolate and spice is a perfect combination as we finish out these last few weeks of winter.

Speaking of finishing the last few weeks of winter..........I can't wait!! I can't wait for my CSA to begin. I can't wait to get some things planted in the garden. I can't wait for the grocery store to be full of fresh, local produce. I can't wait for the days to get longer. I can't wait to have natural light when I photograph my food!!

To take some of the burden of all of that waiting we are taking the girls to Disney World for Spring Break in a few weeks. We are staying in a cabin at Fort Wilderness, so a lot of our meals will be cooked by me there. But, I am excited to check out our vegan options throughout the park. We have one special dinner planned with the princesses, and when I told them we were vegan and had food allergy issues with Stella the chef from the restaurant called me and assured me that we would all have plenty to eat. I'm also under the impression that both Rice Dream ice-cream and Tofutti ice-cream are available at the ice cream shops in the parks!!! So, expect a Disney review coming up here in a few weeks!!

One Bite Brownies

Satisfy your sweet tooth with these delicious One Bite Brownies. They are perfect for when you need a quick chocolate fix, but feel too guilty to eat a whole brownie, cupcake or cookie. They are great stored in the refrigerator for a chocolate "pick-me-up" any time of day.

One Bite Brownies

2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour

1 cups white sugar

3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

1 cup vanilla soy milk

1/4 cup vegetable oil

3/4 cup unsweetened applesauce

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/3 cup semi-sweet vegan chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350. Combine all ingredients in a large bowl and mix well. Spoon into mini muffin cups, filling cups almost full. Bake for about 20-25 minutes, until top is no longer shiny. Remove from oven, let cool for 1 minute in pan, then remove to wire rack to cool. Makes 3 dozen mini brownies.

Quick and Easy Repeat

I have to attend a CEU course all weekend , which means getting up at 6am, and not returning home until around 6pm. Not my idea of a pleasant weekend, but something that unfortunately has to be done.

So tonight's dinner was a repeat of ED&BV's Popeye Pasta that I have blogged about before. I think this is a great recipe, it's quick and it's delicious. And an added bonus, it's a great pairing of an iron rich leafy green with the necessary Vitamin C. Just for an added iron boost we had a spinach salad with blood orange vinaigrette to go along with our pasta.

Tonight Mairin ate a surprising amount of pasta and claimed that now she "loves spinach". I will be the happiest mama on Earth if that's the case, but I'm skeptical, and pretty sure that tomorrow she'll be turning her nose up at the leftovers!!


For dessert we finished off our Cherrybrook Kitchen brownies, as there were exactly 4 left since we ate 4 of them last night.

OK, I guess by now you are wondering how I made 8 brownies in a square pan, right?? You got me, there were actually 9. Don't tell my kids, but I ate one of them slathered with peanut butter for breakfast ;)

Anyway, tonight we topped the brownies with ED&BV's Warm Raspberry Sauce. Oh my, was that ever a good idea!! Raspberries and chocolate rock!!

Vegetable soup, cornbread, and some chocolately vegan goodness

I didn't do a lot of cooking this weekend. We ended up eating out on Friday night because I had some shopping to get done. Then on Saturday we took Mairin to see Arthur Live!, while my mom kept Stella for us. We again had dinner out with Mairin after the show.

Having had enough restaurant food for one weekend, I was really looking forward to eating at home on Sunday. Not to mention, it was 6 degrees here today, and there was no way in hell I was going to leave my house!!

For lunch today I was really feeling like having something light since we'd done so much eating out (although I did eat fairly light while we were out, except for those delicious fried mozzarella triangles last night.......mmmm, fried cheese!). Anyway, back to lunch. For lunch I just threw together a salad dressed with some balsamic-dijon vinaigrette, some hummus that I made for Saturday's lunch served with whole wheat pita, and some apple quarters. It was a great lunch. And look how colorful.

For the dressing I used about 1 Tbs dijon mustard, about 2 Tbs of balsamic vinegar, a few tsp of sugar and whisked in some good Italian olive oil until it was the right taste and consistency. It was a really good dressing. I usually make it without the mustard, but will be including dijon from now on.

For dinner tonight I made the vegetable-orzo soup that I've blogged about before. I made essentially the same recipe as before, only this time I didn't have any lima beans, and instead of using corn and peas separately I used a mixed vegetable mix that had peas, corn, and green beans.

This is a very good vegetable soup. Rob and I like it so much better than the usual tomato based vegetable soups that you usually see. This one is so hearty and so filling, and just what we needed to warm us up on such a frigid day.

****Dalai Mama, you'll get a kick out of this.....my friend just e-mailed me to tell me that she made this very dish for dinner tonight!!! Something very strange is going on!!!!****

To go along with our soup I made some cornbread. Since Stella can't tolerate most dairy and at the moment can't eat eggs I found this vegan recipe for cornbread. The only thing I did differently was to use rice milk instead of soy milk.

This cornbread was unbelievably good. I'll never make cornbread any other way. It was very moist, not dry and crumbly like a lot of cornbread I've eaten. It was also just right on the sweetener. Some mixes I've found are much too sweet. However, I don't like drab, bland unsweetened cornbread either. This one was as close to perfect as I'll ever get.

And finally, for a little sweet treat, I whipped up these vegan brownies. They are very good (maybe not as good as their traditional counterpart, but still, good). They are extremely moist, without having that "raw", uncooked feel to them. I searched the web for a recipe and couldn't come up with a completely suitable one, so I improvised and combined what I liked from several different recipes. The resulting recipe was this:

Vegan Brownie

2 cups unbleached all purpose flour

1 cup white sugar

1 cup dark brown sugar

3/4 cup dutch processed cocoa powder

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp salt

1 cup original flavor rice milk

1/4 cup canola oil

3/4 cup unsweetened applesauce

1 tsp vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350. Lightly oil and flour a 9x13 inch baking pan. In a large bowl combine all dry ingredients. Mix in liquid ingredients and combine until well blended. Spread in baking dish. Bake for 35 minutes, or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Let cool for 10 minutes before serving.

We all know that vegan treats are usually healthier for us than their traditional counterparts. We all know that eating vegan treats is healthier for the environment. And, of course, we all know that eating vegan treats prevents unnecessary cruelty and suffering to animals. But, do you know the BEST thing about vegan treats????????????

Your mommy let's you lick the (egg free) batter from the spoon!!!!