Summer A La Mode

I have literally only used my oven twice this summer.

Last week, to make this:

Rosemary Potato Chips (from my amazing CSA potatoes). 

And this: 

In that same oven. Breaded Eggplant (oven baked).

And this week to make this:

Dr. Fuhrman's Zucchini Bread (uses 4 cups of grated zucchs, yeay!)

And this:

Chocolate Chip Cookie Pie (I halved the recipe). OH YES. 

Otherwise, I've been mostly making things that can be minimally cooked (like on top of the stove for a few minutes) or not cooked at all.  And with this kind of CSA haul, it was pretty easy.

CSA Week #12 (8/15/12): A dozen potatoes, a big bag of giant shallots, zucchini (4), a pint of cherry tomatoes, slicing tomatoes (5), the most amazing tasting eggplant (3) , a HUGE bunch of scallions, ghost peppers (3), sage, parsley, and the BIGGEST watermelon in the world.

We got to our CSA pick up first and had choice of all the melons (they were outside the box, so we got to choose our own).  Of course we chose the monster one!

With which I made this:

Juicy Watermelon Sorbet (from Vegan A La Mode).  I used black and white chocolate chips to mimic the black and white seeds in the watermelon :-)  

I have made four ice creams so far from the book: PB Bombshell, Fresh Corn, Peach (with cookies instead of a raspberry swirl), and now the Juicy Watermelon Sorbet.  This is an amazing book!  

Other things I did not cook:

Raw platter from Week #12 with a Savory Cashew Dip 

Hazelnut Chia Pudding (4 T chia seeds, 1.5 cups organic hazelnut milk, 1 tsp vanilla, 2 T organic maple syrup. Shake in mason jar, leave in fridge overnight.  Top with walnuts, fruit, or anything else you like). 

More seeds.  A LOT more seeds.   

Our giant heirloom sunflowers were unbelievable.  So were the three other varieties (teddy bear, black-eyed's, and another kind I forget).

What have you guys not been cooking?

Dawn's Secret Chippers

These are so good I considered keeping them as a "secret family recipe."  Has anyone ever done that? Several years ago, a neighbor in my old South Philly hood (no, she was not Italian) made these awesome peanut butter candy brownie things.  She gave me some, me likey, me ask for recipe, she no tell me recipe. She said it was a "family secret." It was probably a box mix. I'm no good at keeping recipe secrets.  I am, however, good at keeping other secrets, so feel free to share juicy bits of your life in the comments section.

Dawn’s Secret Chippers

 Inspired by the chocolate chip cookie recipe in The Joy of Vegan Baking.

10-12 tablespoons of Earth Balance non-dairy butter (1 stick + 2-4Tbs)

1 ¼ cups sugar (3/4 cup packed organic brown sugar, ½ cup organic white sugar)

2 tsp vanilla extract

4 ½ tsps of Egg Replacer Powder

1/3 cup (6 Tablespoons) of water

2 ¼ cups white whole wheat flour, King Arthur brand preferred*

*Another secret is to substitute ¼ to ½ cup very finely chopped walnuts for the same amount of flour (ex: if you use ½ cup walnuts, leave out ½ cup of the flour). I chop the nuts by hand until they resemble coarse flour, you can also use a food processor to chop for you! People don’t realize they have nuts, but know they taste awesome. Do not use to trick people with nut allergies, though!

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt (yes, a full tsp)

1 ½ cups chocolate chips, choco candy pieces, nuts, etc.

*I like a certain saturation ratio of chocolate chips to plain cookie, not too many and not too few chips, and I find that 1 ½ cups of chips (for me) gives the perfect ratio.

_____________________________________________________________________

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.  Cut butter up into pieces and put in the bowl of a stand-mixer, which is what I use for this recipe—or, use a large bowl if you are going to use a hand mixer or good ol’ elbow grease and a wooden spoon.  Put the measured butter in the bowl first so it can come to room temp while prepping the rest of the recipe. 

Whisk the egg replacer powder and the water together in a small bowl until creamy and very well combined.  I use my mini whisk (the Whisk O’ Doom) to do this and it works great.

Sift the dry ingredients into a medium sized bowl.

Once butter is soft/at room temp (should be soft after you prepare the egg replacer and the dry ingredients) add the sugar and the vanilla and mix on low speed until creamed.  Add egg replacer mixture to the creamed butter/sugar and mix until well combined.  Add the flour mixture gradually, and mix on low speed until just combined (you will have to stop it and scrape down the sides manually, get dough out of the paddle, etc.), then add chocolate chips. Give it a few more turns to incorporate the chips, scrape all the dough out of the paddle, and you are ready to go.

Use a “medium” oxo scoop (=1.5 tablespoons) to scoop cookies out onto a Silpat-lined, heavy cookie sheet or jelly roll pan.  If you don’t have a Silpat, use parchment or just grease your cookie sheet.  With the flat side of a small measuring cup (I use a ¼ cup or 1/3 cup dry measuring cup for this) dipped in a little flour, press the cookies down a bit on the sheet just so they are flat. They will be ablout ¼ inch thick. 

Bake for about 15-16 minutes on the middle rack of your oven.  You can check your cookies earlier, but mine are never done until about 16 minutes (on my dark cookie sheet) and even 18-19 minutes on my lighter aluminum cookie sheet, just sayin’.  Allow cookies to cool about 4 minutes on the sheet, then transfer to a baking rack to cool completely.

Makes 34 cookies (if using a “medium” Oxo scoop= 1.5 T measure).  

Once cookies are completely cool, wrap each one in foil.  This really preserves the freshness of the cookie and I recommend you do it whether you freeze them or not!  I save the wrappers for the next batch, too. You can then freeze them in a zipper locked freezer bag for quite a while.  Just take the cookie out for about 5 minutes to come to room temp before eating.  We also eat them directly out of the freezer, no problem. 

Enjoy with some freshly brewed tea.

Himalayan tea from The Tea Trekker! 

What's your secret?

Become A Flax Chicken

Stock Your Pantry, Episode One:

You want to be able to bake for the holidays, but you are going vegan or you ran out of eggs!  Problem solved.  Become a Flax Chicken.  First, you need some flaxseeds:



The brand doesn't really matter.  Bob's Red Mill makes organic ones (pictured above), Hodgson Mill makes them packaged in a box, etc.  Just get some.  I like the ground/milled ones so that you don't need to grind them yourself, but you could do that, too.  Keep them in the fridge or freezer (if you have room in there!).  I didn't know that until recently, so my first box of flaxseeds just sat in my pantry for a year, and honestly, they still seem fine.  I'm still here, basically unharmed, and the box is empty.  Go figure.

Anyway, my very first ever and now beloved vegan chocoate chip cookie called for ground flax, and I got permission to post the recipe.  They are crisp-chewy and almost candy-like, thin and delicious.  We are going to make them together, and I took pics to help you out.

Wheat-Free Chocolate Chip Cookies
It is from a fantastic vegan cookbook called Veganomicon.  Check it out.

1 3/4 cup oat flour (I always just use Old Fashoined Quaker Oats and grind them in the food processor)
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/3 cup canola oil
1 tablespoon ground flaxseeds (yeah, baby, the SYP item is right here! This is going to be your "egg")
1/4 cup soy milk (I love Vanilla Silk or Eden Soy Organic Original, they are very different, though, so see what you like)
1 tsp vanilla
3/4 cup chocolate chips

Preheat your oven to 375.  So far, so good.

Now, in the bowl of your food processor, add the oats, just measure them in your dry measuring cups and put them right into the bowl with the metal blade attachement.  Also put in the baking soda and the salt, I just like to wizz it all together and wha-la, your dry ingredients are done:

If you have the oat flour, then just sift the ingredients together into a large bowl.

Ok, now, get a medium mixing bowl and in it, put your flaxseeds. Get your Teeny Tiny Wisk O' Doom, too.  Unless you haven't lost your Sir Whiskalot, that is. It will look like this:

Now, just wisk the flaxseeds and the soymilk together.  No big thing, nothing magical will happen, excepting that now you have become the unimaginable, you have become a FLAX CHICKEN!  You have laid your first flax egg (or maybe your 300th if you are a vegan already!).  Sorry to say, that for your first one, it is pretty liquidy (unlike some other flax/liquid mixes that use less liquid, like 2 or maybe 3 tablespoons per tablespoon of ground flax.  Then, you will then get an egg-white like consistency, but not in this recipe).
Then it will look like this:

I have thought about adding another tablespoon of ground flax to get a more egg-whitey consistency.  I think I will try that next time.  Anyway, let us soldier on...

Now you are going to add the brown and granulated sugars and stir, add the vanilla and stir, and then, start adding the canola oil in a thin stream, wisking vigorously (really give the Tiny Wisk O' Doom or a bigger Sir Wiskalot a workout) until it is emulsified.  I find it takes a few minutes of adding the oil and wisking a lot (at least with the Tiny Wisk O' Doom, anyway).  Then it will look like this:

Now you are going to commit a baking faux pas, unless you want to dirty another bowl.  I always err on the side of NOT dirtying another bowl, so, my true bakers, please turn your heads...
Add the dry ingredients into the wet ones (NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! But, a tiny voice says, yes!! Do it!! It will be fine!).  Mix them around.  It will look like this:

Now, get out your cookie scoop (a medium Oxo scoop  if you want to know what I use) and plop those bad boys on your silpat or on a greased cookie sheet (Veganomicon says ungreased, but I don't like to take chances, these cookies are crisp-chewy and candy-like, and I have had them stick), like so:

And bake them in your 375 degree oven for about 10-12 minutes.  You will see the edges start to brown slightly, they are done when you see that.  Take them out and let them cool for about 5 minutes before transferring them to a wire rack to cool the rest of the way:

If you try to take them off the sheet too early, they may tear, so wait the full 5 minutes!  I get 18 cookies using that medium oxo scoop.

Congratulations!  You have vegan cookies for the holidays and you have Stocked Your Pantry with some very useful ground flaxseeds.  A nice seasonal variation that I have tried is to sub 1/4 tsp of orange extract plus 3/4 tsp of vanilla extract (instead of the 1 tsp vanilla extract in the original recipe) and adding dried, organic cranberries (about 1/3 to 1/2 cup) and reducing the chocolate chips to 1/2 cup. 

Enjoy!