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Vegan Banana Bread

Mar 5, 2012 In Daily Ramblings, Recipes

You should know that the only credit I deserve for this post is for the picture I took…and possibly for the fact that I have so much energy that I am actually enjoying baking again.

Jim and Ravyn were amazing enough to hook me up with the recipe, which you can find here.

Dude. You must. Make. This. It doesn’t even have to be vegan. You can use regular milk if that’s what you have on hand. There are no eggs, egg replacers or crazy weird typical vegan ingredients in this bread – just wholesome goodness. Make it. Enjoy it. Then don’t shut up about it and you can be just like me!

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Peanut Butter Pie

Sep 24, 2010 In Daily Ramblings, Recipes

Um…yes.  This pie was heaven.  Remember how I was obsessing over it for about a week?  Well, I not only promised to make it, but I promised to show you pictures and give you a recipe.

I also promised twitter that it would be organic, but that didn’t happen.

First, start with a pie crust.  You can use a premade one, like this amazingly delicious and healthy organic whole wheat pie crust from Virginia’s Health Foods…or you can use Joy the Baker’s recipe.  Whichever you prefer.

You want to pre-bake that pie crust, so that it is nice and crunchy and flaky before you fill it with the non-bakeables.  (Yeah, I made that word up.)  Poke holes in the crust and bake for about 10 minutes.  Let cool.

Now for the filling.  You need 3 things to fill your pie: vanilla pudding (homemade or from a box), peanut butter crumbles (homemade), and whipped cream (if this isn’t homemade, I will punch you in the face).

I tried to make a homemade vanilla pudding, using all organic ingredients, but it never thickened up.  Luckily, I had a box of the powdered stuff in the pantry.  Prepare your pudding and set in the fridge.

For the peanut butter crumbles, mix about 2/3 cup of crunchy peanut butter with at least a cup of powdered sugar.  Mash together until it looks like these crumbles, adding more powdered sugar when necessary.

Now for your whipped cream.  You need 2/3 cup cold heavy whipping cream and about 3 heaping tablespoons of powdered sugar.  Put both ingredients in a mixer and beat with the whip attachment until light and fluffy.  So easy and so gosh darn yummy.

Now all you have to do is put it all together.  Here is the order, from the bottom up: pie crust, pb crumbles, vanilla pudding, pb crumbles, whipped cream, pb crumbles.

BAM!  Its done.  Now get a fork and eat it all by yourself on the couch while watching a Harry Potter marathon.  I’m not judging.

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Strawberry Bread

Sep 13, 2010 In Daily Ramblings, Recipes

You asked for it (Amy and Joy), so here it is!  My strawberry bread recipe.  This is one of the easiest and quickest things to put together.  Please enjoy.

Strawberry Bread

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

1 cup smashed strawberries, fresh and very ripe

1 egg

3/4 cup sugar

1/2 tsp vanilla

1/2 cup canola oil

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.  Prepare one loaf pan.

Combine the first four ingredients in a large mixing bowl and whisk together. In another medium sized mixing bowl, add the smashed strawberries, egg,  sugar, canola oil and vanilla.

Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients and pour in the strawberry mixture.  Quickly fold the wet and dry mixtures together just until all the flour is moistened.  Do not overmix.

Pour into loaf pan and bake for 45-50 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

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The anatomy of pie.

Sep 8, 2010 In Daily Ramblings, Recipes

While lounging in the living room, watching an ever so delectable episode of Man v. Food, I was overwhelmed with the uncontrollable urge to make myself a peanut butter pie, just like they make it at Yoder’s in Sarasota, Florida..  Since I don’t feel well and lack the energy to actually get off my ass and make one, I decided to sit at the computer and make a virtual pie, if you will.  Ladies and gentlemen, let me introduce you to my peanut butter pie dream:

Here we have a slice of dreamy virtual peanut butter pie.  Let me break this monstrosity down for you, from the bottom up:

1 – Peanut butter crumbles.  This is the most simple, yet most important part of a virtual peanut butter pie.  This is where all of that peanut butter flavor comes from, and must therefore be sprinkled (or painted) liberally throughout the pie’s layers.  In the real world, this would only require two ingredients: peanut butter and powdered sugar.  That is all.

2 – All butter pie crust, baked to a beautiful golden brown.  Need I say more?  All you need for this to become a reality is butter, flour, salt, and water.

3 – Vanilla pudding.  Homemade, of course.  This needs a few more ingredients (milk, sugar, cornstarch, vanilla, etc) and takes the most time to prepare, but I guarantee it will be worth it.  If you have never had homemade pudding, you are depriving yourself of something magnificent.  It is the only kind of pudding I will eat, in the virtual AND real worlds.  So there.

4 – More of those fantastic peanut butter crumbles.  Bet you didn’t think MS Paint could get your mouth watering, did you?

5 – Fresh whipped cream.  Heavy cream.  Powdered sugar.  Kitchenaid mixer.  Hot damn that’s amazing.

6 – The piece de resistance.  Top that baby off with MORE peanut butter crumbles, and you’ve got yourself a delicious, homemade peanut butter pie.  (Or…just…you know, draw yourself one and call it a day.)

I make two very important promises to you right now, dear readers:

1 – I WILL be making this pie this weekend.  And I will blog about it, recipe and all.

2 – Instead of vanilla pudding, I’m going to make chocolate…which was actually my original intention, but I completely forgot about that until after I drew my slice.  I mean, if I’m too lazy to go make myself a pie, do you really think I’m going to RE-make my drawing?  Idon’tthinkso.

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Vegan Almond Eggplant Parmesan

Aug 10, 2010 In Daily Ramblings, Recipes

I’m kinda sorta eating low carb.

And I kinda sorta fell in love with almonds recently.

And The Hubs kinda definitely loves my eggplant parm.

So I decided to tweak it a bit and not only make it extremely low carb, but vegan friendly as well.  I know, what am I thinking?

This eggplant dish is tasty, crunchy, and completely guilt free on all fronts.  Give it a shot.  Fall in love.  But don’t send it love letters and roses, because its not sending any back.  It only has yumminess to offer.

Vegan Almond Eggplant Parmesan

1 medium sized eggplant, peeled and sliced longways into thin strips (think lasagna noodles)

1 cup roasted salted almonds, ground in a food processor

egg substitute (the equivalent of 2 eggs) plus 1/4 cup water, mixed together

1 jar of your favorite organic marinara sauce

1 cup grated mozzarella-style almond cheese (found at your local health food store, hopefully)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Dip eggplant slices into egg mixture, then into almonds, and place onto a cookie sheet.  Make sure you get both sides of the eggplant covered.  Bake eggplant slices for about 20 minutes.  No need to flip.

Once eggplant slices are baked, get out your favorite casserole dish and start layering the eggplant, mozzarella, and sauce as if you were making lasagna.  start with a little bit of sauce on the bottom of the dish, then add eggplant, cheese, and sauce.  Repeat until you have used up your ingredients.  You should get 2 or 3 layers, depending on the size of your dish and eggplant.  Add a little more cheese and some parsley, if you like, to the top layer.  Bake for 25-30 minutes, or until casserole is bubbly.

There you go!  Serve it with a light side salad and you have just made your husband’s day (or your fave vegan friend).  You’re so very welcome!

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Mexican Chocolate Cupcakes

Jun 16, 2010 In Daily Ramblings, Recipes

I ate this for breakfast.

And before long, it looked like this.

Yes, it was amazing.  But these cupcakes were not originally intended to be eaten for breakfast.  We threw The Hubs a 30th Birthday Mexican Fiesta this weekend, and these were just left over from the celebration.  Any self-respecting girl would never leave a cupcake to rot.  I’m just sayin.’

As soon as I get the pictures from my friend’s camera (ahem, Billie), I will be showing you all the amazingness that went down at our super fun fiesta.  But in the mean time, I want to tell you how to make these cupcakes.  Because it is necessary that you make these cupcakes.  You will not be disappointed.  In fact, you will most likely be pleasantly surprised!

While I can’t tell you the actual cupcake and frosting recipe (my boss will not give in, I swear!), I can tell you how to make any chocolate cupcake with chocolate icing a “Mexican Chocolate Cupcake.”  See, these cupcakes are spicy.  They don’t taste spicy, they still taste like chocolate…but after a few seconds you will start to feel the heat and think, “Wow!  That’s pretty neat!”  And its sooo easy!  All you do is mix a little Crystal hot sauce into your icing (trust me, you can’t taste it), a little bit at a time, until it tastes spicy enough for you.  But be careful not to add so much that the icing gets soupy and won’t stay on top of your cupcake.  If its getting too thin, but its still not spicy enough for you, then add a little cayenne pepper to finish it off.

You MUST make these.  You will not be disappointed!  And then have one for breakfast and thank me.

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