Lessons in Love: V-day feast, Temp Tatts, Contest Win, Two Pies and a Tester

I love temp tatts, and I suggest you get 'em on for this post!  

Emory's Flaming Panther

 Daddy's Cobra

Mommy's BBQ Dragon

I love blueberries.  And lemon.

 Homemade Blueberry Lemon Compote

 Over Hoecakes!

Next...I really loved this recipe!

 DIY Bisquick from Betty Goes Vegan.  So useful! So fun to make!

I needed it to make the amazing...

Cheezeburger Pie (this is SO good).  I love savory pies!

A delicious, cheezy, doughy bite.

Onto another tester from Joni's upcoming book, 

The Sesame Sriracha Sauce:

I am in love with Joni's new book!  And, now I'm more into spicy stuff than ever (and that's saying a lot since I always loved spicy stuff).

Sesame Sriracha Sauce over Korean Fresh Noodles with Organic Baby Kale, "Heathy Food" Vegan Shrimp (:-) and Black Sesame Seeds.  SO GOOD.

I had never, ever seen baby kale before, but Wegmans had it last week in the pre-washed salad greens-in-boxes section.  It's DELICIOUS and super convenient.  I hope they will carry it on a regular basis.  I LOVE BABY KALE.  

A more traditional, Asian presentation.

And this year, I made a special Valentine's Day Dinner.  I used two recipes from The Inspired Vegan:

Beet Tapenade Crostini and (from scratch) Jerk Tempeh and Peppers over Coconut Lime Rice. 

Molded Beet Tapenade Crostini.

Unmolded! Served with a surprise olive oil (see below!). 

Jerk Tempeh:

This was a wonderful Jerk sauce, even though it had, like 1,000 ingredients!

For dessert, I was out of my Whoopie Pies, but, my friend had made a batch of her own (a GF version of the recipe in BGV!).  She had extras leftover and was nice enough to 

re-purpose some of them over to me :-)  

These were SO delicious.  She promises to give me her GF recipe for them, guys!

I love whoopies!

And, I got a big box on my porch earlier this week...

What could it be?

 Ah ha! My prize from winning The Urban Vegan's Colavita contest!  

I got both the Private Selection and the Argentinian Fruity Olive Oils. SCORE!

I love winning :-)

And here's an early birthday present to myself (to fill all those future whoopie pies I still want to make!):

I was a little tired of the pastry bag thing (they always have some kind of issue), so I thought I might try this gadget.  Got good reviews on amazon, so, we'll see...

My birthday is coming up (I love my birthday!!) and I'll have more exciting stuff to show you and recipes to share.  If you can't wait, here's my birthday post from last year! Gonna be hard to top that...

Anyhoo, have a great rest of your weekend, everyone.  

(I love Mondays off for President's Day :-)

XOXO

Chocolate Chip Cookie Cake (Updated)

My Chocolate Chip Cookie Cake...an easy, crisp-chewy cake with a toothsome crust, tender crumb, moist interior and complex, salty-sweet-smoky flavors owing to the olive oil, significant portions of brown sugar and kosher salt and the nuttiness of the white whole wheat flour.  

I made it again last night to nail down the recipe and the bake time.  The result was magnificent!

A crisp-chewy cake perfect for the cookie lover and cake needer alike.

This cake is so easy.  Everything goes into one big mixing bowl!

The Chocolate Chip Cookie Cake

1 Cup Organic Granulated Sugar

1/2 Cup Organic Brown Sugar (I use TJ's)

3/4 Cup Best Quality Extra Virgin Olive Oil*

*I know! It's fantastic, trust me! This would be great with Colavita Private Selection Fruttato EVOO or the Colavita Argentinian Fruity EVOO...therefore, it is my entry into the Colavita Contest hosted by The Urban Vegan!  

1/4 Cup Organic, Unsweetened Applesauce

2 tsp. EnerG Egg Replacer Powder (just the powder)

1 tsp. Vanilla

1 tsp. Kosher Salt

2 and 1/3 Cups White Whole Wheat Flour--a whole grain! :-)

(I love King Arthur's brand here)

1 tsp. Baking Powder

1 and 1/2 Cups Best Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips 

(I like WF 365, Ghirardelli, etc.)

Optional: 1/2 Cup Chopped Walnuts (if you are so inclined)

Method:

Preheat your oven to 375 degrees.

Combine Sugars through Kosher salt in a mixing bowl and blend with a hand mixer until thoroughly combined:

It will have a gel-like consistency.

Now, add your dry ingredients (I use a fine mesh sieve over the bowl to sift the dry stuff in and save a bowl!) and mix with a spoon or spatula until well combined.

It will look like this.  Like sticky pieces of sandy dough.

Now, add your chips!

It will look like this :-)

Now, press all the dough into a well-greased loaf pan.  This is a "large" NordicWare pan, it measures eight inches across the floor, and almost ten across the top.

Dough packed into the pan.  I pressed it in with a spatula.

Now, bake her at 375 for 20 minutes (the higher heat gives a nice crispy crust) then lower the heat to 350 (as not to dry it out) and bake another 25 minutes.  The edges will get a bit golden and a toothpick will come out clean.

This cake will not rise very much (hardly at all).  It is a dense, delicious olive-oil based cake (so tender! so rich!) so don't worry that it didn't puff up. 

Close up of the golden edges.  It's harder to tell how "golden" the edges are when using White Whole Wheat flour, but you can see it there.

Allow to cool, then cut and serve!  It's OK if it is still a little warm :-)

When you cut it, use a sharp paring knife as the outer crust will be crispy, but the inside is soft, moist and cookie-like.  

Pack it for lunches, too!

I wrap individual slices in foil then store them in a zipper freezer bag, too, for cookie cake anytime :-)

EVOO is sweet!

Enjoy, guys. This one is worth a splurge!