So I decided to start up a new blog!  Head on over to halivegan, yay!

-Ashley

It has been hmm…quite some time since I have posted last!  I’m a bit at a loss as to what to do with this ol’ blog.  I’ve contemplated starting fresh, creating a new blog or perhaps I should just keep posting away at this blog pretending as if I have not had an almost over 1 year hiatus.

I think whatever the case, the blog will be a bit different.  I’d like to write about things other than food (but trust me, there will be still lots of food) but maybe have more words on other aspects of a vegan lifestyle.  Maybe book reviews?  Discussions on various ethics?  Pictures of cute puppies?

I’m not sure, but I do know I’ve been itching to blog again so I think I will be back soon!

Ash xo

…like amazing cookies…

Orange Cappuccino Cookies

No-Bake Chocolate Oat Bites

…and delicious drinks…

Pumpkin Spice Coffee

Mexian Hot Cocoa

…and yummy desserts!

Peanut Butter Pudding

(And lots of savoury stuff too, I’m sure you all know this but I have a major sweet tooth)

It turned out amazing and was not only approved by my skeptical sister but by my equally as skeptical non-vegetarian mother!  I wasn’t planning on taking a picture and sharing it with you all (I mean, it’s not very pretty…) but I decided to anyway just because it’s so tasty.  I mostly followed the original recipe, only subbing their TVP for tempeh and using the crust recipe from Veganomicon.  So maybe the holiday season is over and the number of guests at your dinner table is tapering off, this would make an excellent winter meal when you need something warm, hearty and comforting.

Vegan Tourtiere
Makes 8 servings

1 package of tempeh
2 tbsp olive oil
3 ribs of celery, diced
2 onions, diced
2 cloves of garlic, minced
2 cups cubed peeled potatoes
2 tsp tamari
1 1/2 tsp dried savory
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
1/4 tsp allspice
1/4 tsp ground cloves
2 bay leaves
2 cups vegetable broth

*You will also need a double-pie crust, I used my favourite from ‘Veganomicon’

1. Bring a pot of water to boil, add tempeh, lower heat and simmer for 15 minutes. Drain, set tempeh aside to cool.

2. In a large pot (or dutch oven if you have one), heat olive oil over medium-high heat; cook celery, onions and garlic, stirring every so often, until golden, for about 10 minutes.

3. Stir in potatoes, tamari, savory, salt, pepper, allspice, cloves and bay leaves. Crumble in tempeh (hopefully it’s cool enough so you don’t burn your fingers!). Cook, stirring often for about 5 minutes or so.

4. Stir in the vegetable broth and 1 cup of water. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat, cover and simmer until potatoes are tender, 30 to 40 minutes.

5. Smash most of the potatoes with the back of a spoon. Simmer, uncovered, until thickened slightly, 7 to 10 minutes. Let cool.

6. Roll out your pastry. Fit bottom crust into 9-inch pie plate. Spoon in filling. Roll out your top crust and place over filling. Brush the top with water, pierce pastry with fork or cut steam vents.

7. Bake at 400 degrees for about an hour.

Sparkled Ginger Cookies from ‘Vegan with a Vengeance’ that were given to my co-workers today.

1.  Inspiration!

Don’t know where to start?  There are tons of sources of inspiration for holiday cookies such as magazines, cookbooks or maybe even your grandmother’s handwritten recipe cards.  Here are my favourite online resources:

Martha Stewart’s Cookie of the Day delivers a recipe for a mouth-watering cookie to your email inbox each day. For the month of December, it will be a Christmas cookie. I get a lot of inspiration from these, this is where I found the recipe for the Linzer Cookies I baked earlier.

Toronto’s The Star is hosting a very special event, A Cookie a Day Until Christmas, with each day featuring an unusual cookie that look amazing such as Pumpkin Ginger Pillows and Sicilian White Cookies.

Joy of Baking’s Christmas Cookie Recipes has a recipe for every one of your holiday cookie needs and then some. They also provide you with a history and origin of the cookie which is always fun to read and allows you to impress people with your ability to whip out an interesting cookie fact like “Did you know that Peanut Butter Cookies were invented in the 1890s by vegetarian Dr. Kellogg who was looking for a substitute for dairy butter?”.

2.  Bake!

Okay, you may have noticed that the links I gave you under resources were not very vegan.  So before you’re all like ‘hey!  what gives?’, I’m going to tell you that veganizing cookies is all kinds of crazy simple. See:

Butter.  I replace butter with Earth Balance Buttery Sticks or Shortening.  Sometimes I’ll use oil, it all depends on the recipe (like if the dough calls to be rolled, I always use EB because I’ve never had any luck rolling out an oil dough).  Just reduce the amount a little bit, Isa wrote in Vegan with a Vengeance that you can replace 1/2 cup butter with 1/3 cup canola oil.

Milk.  A non-dairy milk obviously. 

Eggs.  There are SO many things you can replace eggs with and you’re probably familar with them.  My go-to egg replacer for cookie baking is always 1/4 soy yogurt for one egg, I’m almost always happy with the results.  I’ll also use a flax egg-1 tablespoon of ground flaxseed + 3 tablespoons of water=1 egg (but be careful because in a light coloured cookie, the flax is quite visible). 

Oh and while all this baking goes down, put on the Christmas music!  I happen to be an avid fan of christmas music, here a few of my favourites:

Merry Christmas Baby-The Ramones
Christmas Wrapping-The Waitresses
A Christmas Duel-The Hives & Cyndi Lauper
A Beguiled Christmas Sales-Jason Collett
Santa, Bring My Baby Back to Me-Belle and Sebastian
Hey Guys! It’s Christmas Time!-Sufjan Stevens

3.  Wrap!

Ok now that you’ve got your cookies all baked and decorated, it’s time to wrap them up.  I usually use tins because they’re cute, reusable and extemely cheap.  But if you want to get your cookies all fancied up check out Martha’s Cookie packaging ideas.

4.  Give!

So now that all the planning, measuring, mixing, baking and wrapping (and eating lots of dough in the process) has been done, give away your cookies to someone you care about!  Show them how delcicious veganism is!  Maybe if you were really generous, you’ll have included a copy of the recipe with your cookies so that they too can whip up a batch of cookies if ever the need arises.  I hope you have fun and your effort is appreciated, I don’t know about you but I certainly have trouble saying no to a gingerbread man this time of year…

Last year for Christmas I received a set of Linzer Cookie cutters as a gift and decided yesterday to finally try them out. And because I’m still in study-mode, here’s a cookie history lesson! Linzer Cookies (or Linzer Eyes and related to Linzertortes) are an export of Austria, believed to have been first baked way back in the 1700s in the City of Linz (hence the name!). They are a sandwich cookie with the top cookie that is cutout with a small shape so that the pretty jam filling can be seen and dusted with a layer of confectioner’s sugar. I thought that this pretty cookie would be the perfect cookie to jump-start my holiday cookie baking venture for the next few weeks so here they are, Linzer Cookies!

I simply veganized a recipe of Martha Stewart’s and they turned out wonderfully. Using my cutters, they made way more than her estimated count of 16. I can’t remember my final quantity, I forgot to count and they disappeared rather quickly. I’m going to say about 30ish? Or more?

Linzer Cookies

1 cup of unblanced hazelnuts
1 cup (2 sticks) of Earth Balance Buttery Sticks
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup soy yogurt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups + 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour, plus more for work surface
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon table salt
Confectioners’ sugar, for dusting
Jam for spreading the sandwiches with (I used strawberry but traditionally raspberry or black currant preserves are used)

To toast the hazelnuts
1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
2. Place hazelnuts on baking sheet and toast for about 10 minutes, watching them so they don’t burn.
3. Remove hazelnuts from oven and place them in a clean kitchen towel and rub them vigorously to remove the skins as much as possible. Set aside the nuts to allow them to cool.
4. Process the hazelnuts in a food processor until they are finely ground and set aside until they are completely cool.

To make the cookie dough
1. In a large bowl, cream the earth balance and the sugar until light and fluffy. Add the soy yogurt and beat until smooth. Stir in Vanilla.
2. In a separate bowl, whisk together the ground hazelnuts, flour, baking soda and spices. Add this to the earth balance and sugar mixture and beat until combined.
3. Divide dough into two discs and chill in refridgerator for at least an hour.

To bake the cookies
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line baking sheets with parchment paper.
2. Roll out dough on lightly floured surface and cut out an even number of tops and bottoms.
3. Bake cookies for 8 minutes, until the edges are ever so slightly golden. Allow the cookies to cool on wire racks.

To assemble the cookies
1. Sift a layer of confectioner’s sugar on to the cookie tops (the ones with the cutout).
2. Spread the cookie bottoms with a thin layer of jam.
3. Make the top cookie and the bottom cookie kiss and there! You have a linzer cookie! 

Enjoy them with your favourite holiday movie.

On the food front, it’s been rather boring lately but a few weeks ago I made my first ever vegan cheesecake!

It was the now defunct Delicious Choices’ recipe for Creamy Cheesecake with a chocolate ganache topping. It was SO good! I froze some of it in an attempt to save some of it but I ended up eating a few slices frozen which were like ice cream bars, it was wonderful, horrible yet still so wonderful.  If you want the recipe, google for a download, that’s what I did.

What else is new with me?  We had a snowstorm last weekend and it was pretty.  I’m betting anything though that it will be 15C on Christmas day.

And Max has probably grown a bit since the last time you saw him. He learned how to play fetch and he likes Christmas lights.

I will be finished school for the year next Saturday so hopefully I’ll be able to update more for the holidays! See you around!

What to do when you’re in the middle of your craziest week yet? Bake cookies and try out your new cookie press!

I opted for very seasonal cute little pumpkins with orange sprinkles and simply veganized a recipe found in the The Joy of Cooking.  And my first trip into cookie press territory was a success although I did admittedly have trouble at first but once I figured it all out, it was pretty simple and fun!   A nice break from the studying I’ve been drowning in lately. 

Spritz Cookies

2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp salt
3/4 cup sugar
1 cup Earth Balance Shortening
1/2 cup soy yogurt
1 tsp vanilla

Preheat oven to 350F.

1.  Cream together the sugar and shortening.
2.  Add the soy yogurt and vanilla, beat to combine.
3.  Sift in the flour and salt and cream until dough forms.
4.  Place dough into cookie press and press cookies onto ungreased cookie sheet.
5.  Bake for about 10 minutes until lightly browned.

There’s been this look in the magazines that they’re calling rock or something like that and I love the accessories-big boots, bags with studs…none of it seems to very vegan though. Other than that, just the classic looks I was talking about earilier.

There’s no one whose style I model myself after but I do admire the wardrobes of these people:

VeggieGirl!
Melisser!

But this post isn’t for excuses, it’s about breakfast.  I love breakfast, it’s easily my most favourite meal of the day.  That and brunch, which is still breakfast in my books.  But I often get stuck on breakfasts.  For example, all summer and most of September I was having a slice of ezekiel sprouted bread toasted with almond butter and banana slices.  EVERY morning.  And it took me a long time to get tired of it. 

Now I’m stuck on something new.  Well, technically it’s not new because it’s what I had for breakfast all last winter.  Oatmeal.  I looove oatmeal.  It has to be made with steel-cut oats though as I do not like mush for breakfast.

This is the version of oatmeal I’ve been enjoying, Apple-Cinnamon, trying to use up the large surplus of apples we have from apple picking a couple of weeks ago.  It’s delicious and keeps me full until lunch.  What are your favourite versions of oatmeal?

Oh, and I’ve started another blog.  It’s not a food blog and I’m still not sure if I’m going to keep it yet so I won’t give you the link yet. 

I’ll try not to neglect this blog anymore, there are only 8 days left of Vegan Mofo!