Posts filed under 'chocolate'
Rocky Road Cookies
One goal of mine this year is to add original dessert recipes to my site. I developed a great Plum Cake last summer and failed to post about it and now it just doesn’t make sense to post it until you all can get plums in season. I did however buy a jarred ingredient today that I’ll have plenty of leftovers and thought of using them in place of the plums. So perhaps I can post it soon! A few weeks ago I bought some Dandies Marshmallows in the hopes of creating a Rocky Road Cookie and/or a Rocky Road Muffin. So far I’ve come up with only the cookie recipe but it needs some help. They came out really good but I didn’t want to eat all of them which to me means that the recipe needs some tweaking. They were like a cross between a cookie and a brownie, which isn’t a bad thing, but not what I was going for. Another problem is that Dandies are pretty big marshmallows! I had to cut each one in 1/2 and use my biggest ice cream scoop to scoop the cookies onto the baking sheet and still 1 or 2 cookies didn’t get a single marshmallow in them! So that needs to change also mainly because cutting marshmallows is really annoying.
Italian Plum Cake
I love creating baked goods/desserts. I just hate fine tuning the recipes but I’m trying. :)
March 10th, 2011
Just some photos of what I’ve been eating recently:
Kung Pao “Chicken”
From Veggie Heaven, Teaneck NJ. This reminds me to work on my Kung Pao recipe that I created months ago.
At Home Chipotle
Our closest Chipotle is in a strip mall that has the worst designed parking lot I’ve ever seen. Its basically just for people who drive Mini Cooper size cars not for the larger SUV type cars most people drive around here. On the strip malls busiest days/hours if I want Chipotle I make it myself at home. 
Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Bread Pudding
Courtesy of Urban Vegan’s cookbook which is amazing if you haven’t purchased it yet. I’m excited to hear she is writing another one!
Chickpea Salad Sandwich
A favorite weekend lunch of ours.
Jambalaya
I use to teach cooking classes with my friend Donna and she showed the class how to make this dish one day. It was genius and easy. Peter and I love it. Her recipe doesn’t have beans in it but since i’m in need of extra protein because of the pregnancy I added some kidney beans the last time I made it and I’ll forever be adding kidney beans to it. So delicious.
and just for shits and giggles…here is the best photo I’ve ever taken of my cat Riley.
February 10th, 2011
Chocolate Chip, Coconut, Cinnamon Scones
We have been having a lot of snow here in NJ this past month and by a lot I mean A LOT! We have yet to have a day this year that there wasn’t any snow on the ground. There is no place to put the snow anymore and our front yard has a snow pile that is way over the top of my head. Its ridiculous but I don’t mind because I love the snow plus I have nowhere to go usually so I’m completely fine with being snowed in. On most snowy mornings I like to make us scones for breakfast. I always make the same ones and I call them Blizzard Scones. They have chocolate chips, coconut and lots of cinnamon in them. I usually top them with cinnamon sugar before popping them in the oven but was lazy this last time. These things are so good. I always say I’m going to make a different flavor scone and always end up making the same ones over and over again.
On this particular snow day I also made us one of my favorite tofu sandwiches….
Lemon-Mustard Tofu Sandwich
Unfortunately somewhere after making the above scones and turning off the oven and then turning it back on to bake the tofu my oven broke. It was devastating. I had tofu marinating in a great lemon and mustard marinade to bake off in the oven and couldn’t. I ended up searing them on the stove top which made them still delicious but it’s not the same as that slow baked tofu texture that I love. I make this tofu a lot in the summer months when I want to make my French Sandwich which is just a riff off of a vegetarian sandwich I became obsessed with while I was in Paris once many many years ago. That sandwich contained hard boiled eggs and this tofu is a great replacement for it. The above sandwich is not the French Sandwich however. I’ll make a post on that sandwich in the summer months when I can get great fresh/ripe veggies for it (hopefully from my garden). The sandwich above is just a simple mini baguette spread with veganaise and some whole grain mustard, mesclun greens and the tofu. A simple sandwich for a simple day stuck inside because of the snow. Here is my recipe for the tofu:
Lemon-Mustard Tofu
1 block extra firm tofu, pressed (I use and swear by my Tofu Xpress)
1 1/2 tablespoons tamari
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1 tablespoon maple syrup
2 teaspoons whole grain mustard
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
Combine and whisk all the ingredients, except for the tofu, in a small bowl. Cut tofu in 1/2 so you have two rectangles. Place each slab of tofu on its side and slice each piece into 4 slices. You’ll have 8 rectangle pieces of tofu. Pour 1/2 of the marinade in a large shallow baking dish and place the tofu on top of the marinade. Pour the rest of the marinade on top and place in the fridge for at least one hour.
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Have a sheet tray covered with parchment paper ready and transfer the tofu onto the sheet tray. Bake for 25 minutes. Flip over each piece of tofu and bake for 20-25 minutes more.
Let cool and use however you like.
January 27th, 2011
Raw Chocolate Chip Cheezecake Swirl
It’s been hot as balls here the last 2 weeks. Hot. As. Balls. Chocolate is melting, plants and trees are wilting, people are cranky and cooking is just impossible. One Saturday my sister threw a BBQ with a couple of friends and I decided to make dessert but refused to turn on the oven too do so. Then I remembered a dessert my friend Dianne made for a vegan dessert potluck we attended. It was Ani Phyo’s Chocolate Chip Cheezecake Swirl. I had all the ingredients, it’s raw which means the oven didn’t need to be used so it was decided that this is what I was making.
There are 3 parts to this, not including the raw cacao pieces aka..chips: the crust, which is super simple to make. You are just processing medjool dates and nuts and pressing them into a spring form pan.
the cheezecake layer made of cashews, lemon and a few other things well blended
chocolate sauce, which again is just about 3 recipes blended in a blender.
Now I don’t own a Vitamix. It is my ultimate dream product to own. I had to rely on my weak blender to blend up the cheezecake layer. My poor blender was really suffering through the whole process but it managed to do a semi decent job. It wasn’t as smooth as a Vitamix would have made it but it was passable and no one complained about the slight chunkiness of that part of the cake.
Once it’s all assembled you just pop it into the freezer and take it out about 20 minutes before you are going to serve it. If it’s hot as balls out you can take it out 5-10 minutes before serving because it will start to get really soft and melt a a bit. We had about 9 people at the party who ate this and there was still 1/2 a cake left. Its very rich. You can’t eat a huge piece of this which is great if you need too make a dessert for a large group of people. I really can’t wait to make this again!
July 17th, 2010
Me and some pals are throwing together a sorta last minute entry into the Worldwide Vegan Bake Sale on May 1st outside of Go Lightly Eco Store in Montclair, New Jersey. If you are in my area please stop by and say hi and buy some delicious treats to benefit a good cause. If you are not in my area of the world but have friends and family who are..please pass on the info to them. Do it for the animals!
April 21st, 2010
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