Witch's Brew

Happy Halloween! I can't believe it's the end of October. This month was a whirlwind. I bring you witch's brew with a witch's finger to celebrate today and wrap up Vegan MoFo!

The soup is a cheesy broccoli soup. While I love all of the ingredients in this soup, the flavor left me wanting more. I'm not sure what it was, but it was definitely missing something. I googled a simple bread stick recipe and used this one. The flavor was great! I just added a sliced almond on the end for the fingernail.

Thank you all so much for the great feedback during Vegan Mofo, whether it was here, Facebook, or Twitter! I loved reading your thoughts and your experiences; it made Vegan MoFo that much more fun! 

Halloween 2011 Part 1

So if you didn't notice, I missed the past two days. Part of me is annoyed with myself because I typically don't like not meeting goals. The other part of me knows how crazy the past week has been, more so than usual, and this same part of me knows how much time I spent in the kitchen over the weekend, too. So forgive me, but I have Halloween treats to make it up to you.

My cousin Johnathan and two of his friends threw a Halloween party last night, and it was crazy! They did an amazing job of transforming the garage into a legitimately cool party space, complete with black lights and fog machines, and Mike played the best dance music all night. I made some treats, but between being busy preparing everything and my camera's recent bitchassness, I didn't get a ton of photos. In fact, some things didn't get photographed at all. Womp, womp. In addition to the s'more-pumpkin cupcakes, I made taco dip, pumpkin chocolate chip cookies (with better results than the first go-round), black bean dip, and vanilla cupcakes.

Another Alice! And a Mad Hatter!

Halloween and Vegan MoFo posts wrap up tomorrow with a bewitched soup and pumpkin carving. How did you spend Halloween weekend?

Pumpkin Brownies

I bring you yet another pumpkin baked good. At this point, it's a miracle I haven't turned into a pumpkin. I saw these on Oh She Glows and wanted to give them a try. I refused to let these sit around my kitchen, tempting me with their dark deliciousness, so I brought some into work. Omni Mom did not like the texture, but just about everyone else said they loved them! And for what it's worth, I think they're pretty good, too. ;]

Ingredients:

Pumpkin Brownie Layer:

• 1 cup canned pumpkin
• 1/2 cup + 3 tbsp sugar
• 1/4 cup coconut oil, softened
• 3/4 cup white kamut flour (or white)
• 1.5 tsp pure vanilla extract
• 1 tbsp cornstarch (or arrowroot/tapioca)
• 1/4 cup dutch processed cocoa powder
• 1/2 tsp sea salt
• 1/2 tsp baking soda

Pumpkin Pie Layer:

• 1 cup canned pumpkin
• 2 tbsp cornstarch (or arrowroot/tapioca)
• 1 tsp pure vanilla extract
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 3 tbsp almond milk
• 2 tsp pumpkin pie spice (or 1 1/4 tsp cinnamon, 1/2 tsp ginger, 1/4 tsp nutmeg)
• Shaved chocolate, for garnish

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350F and grease a muffin tin.

2. For brownie layer: In a stand mixer or by hand, mix together the coconut oil, pumpkin, vanilla, and sugar until blended well. Sift in the flour, cocoa powder, cornstarch, baking, soda, sea salt and mix until incorporated. Take about 2 tbsp of the mixture and place in muffin tin. Wet fingers and spread around evenly so it is smooth. I made 8 large cupcakes and 2 small ones.

Brownie batter.

3. For pumpkin layer: In a large bowl mix together the pumpkin, vanilla, and milk. In a small bowl, mix together the cornstarch, sugar, and pumpkin pie spice. Slowly add the dry ingredients to the wet and mix well until all clumps are gone. Now add approx 1.5-2 tbsp of the pumpkin pie mixture on top of each brownie in the pan. Garnish with grated chocolate (I used a lemon zester to grate the chocolate).

Layering the pumpkin.

4. Bake for 30 minutes at 350F. Remove from oven and cool for 20-30 minutes and then move to the fridge to chill for 1.5 hours.

Ready for the oven!

5. Serves approx 8-10. I made 8 large cupcakes and 2 small ones (for kids). Enjoy with vegan vanilla ice cream.

This is what I did at work the other day. I love working with pre-k, but especially around holidays. For some of my students, the activities we do, like carving pumpkins, are the first time they experience something like this. And for most of them, regardless of their previous experiences, this is when they start forming memories of this sort of thing. It's really fun to be a part of it, and seeing how excited they get over things like this makes holiday activities even more enjoyable for me. 

Stuffed Biscuits

Halloween, hands down, is one of my favorite holidays. I love absolutely everything about it, and it also happens to be Dakota's birthday. I've got loads of Halloween-inspired recipes coming up this week and I'm super excited to share them with you!

First up are stuffed biscuits. I can't remember how I stumbled across this recipe, but I immediately fell in love with it and wanted to try it. I didn't have any kids to share this cute and fun food with... but my excitement over this more than makes up for it. I followed this recipe pretty much to the tee, but added some baby carrots and a stalk of celery to the onions while sauteing. Yum!

Cutting faces was tough; I was lazy with some of them.

Now it's Monday Night and the Ravens are on MNF. Are you ready for some football?!?!

Dakota's ready.

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies

My two favorite cousins are hosting a Halloween party later this month. A friend of ours asked me to make some food because I "always come up with the most delicious vegan treats." While his comment was flattering, he obvious doesn't know me well: I'd already bookmarked about 10 vegan Halloween recipes, and a whole host of other recipes that I think I could veganize.

I'm kind of paranoid with feeding other people though, because while I'll eat something slightly overcooked or something that looks a hot mess but tastes good, I've got high standards when it comes to feeding other people. So I've started testing out the new recipes in anticipation of Halloween!

I made pumpkin-chocolate chip cookies from Very Vegan Holiday (the most amazing holiday-themed blog!!) over the weekend. Prior to making these, I had a mini-lesson in types of flours, because I didn't realize just how many types of flours there are. The extent of my flour use was basically all-purpose and whole wheat. Pretty limited once I took a good look at the baking aisle in Whole Foods. This is when I accidentally bought baking flour when I wanted all-purpose flour, too. When I got home, I figured baking flour would be fine since I was baking cookies.

Not the case.

 I don't know if it's that's how the recipe is supposed to turn out, or if the flour had something to do with it, but the cookies had a serious cake-like texture. They weren't bad, and in fact were quite flavorful, but the texture was not right. And that's exactly why I test out new recipes before feeding them to people. 

Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Cookies

Ingredients:
- 1 1/4 cups granulated sugar
- 3/4 cup brown sugar
- 1/4 cup shortening
- 1/4 cup + 1 tablespoon unsweetened applesauce
- 15 ounce can pumpkin puree
- 1 1/4 tsp vanilla extract
- 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 1/4 tsp baking soda
- 1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1/2 lb semi-sweet chocolate chips

Directions:
- Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.
- In a large bowl, cream together the sugars, shortening, applesauce, pumpkin, and vanilla until light and well-combined.
- Mix in the flour, baking soda, and cinnamon until just combined.
- Stir in the chocolate chips
- Drop by teaspoons onto a lightly greased baking sheet. Bake for 12-13 minutes or until set.
- Let cookies cool on a rack.