amy eats vegetables

She’s back!

The wedding is over, and I have lots of new kitchen toys to play with. I used my new KitchenAid mixer to make some salted chocolate chip cacao nib vegan cookies. I’ll be back more once the thank you cards are done, but here’s a taste of what’s to come.

EDITED: After some research from the two celiac sufferers in the office, we determined that spelt is NOT gluten-free, however it is not quite as glutinous as regular wheat flour and can be tolerated by some people with gluten allergies. sorry for the confusion! if any celiac sufferers have experience with spelt, please let me know!

what a long name for a cookie!

i made these because yesterday some AMAZING looking cookies were delivered to the office, and vegan me and our gluten-free intern were sad to be missing out.

this is made with spelt, which i love! it’s an ancient grain and it has more protein than normal flour, so i like to bake with it even though i’m not GF.

this is based on the chocolate chip cookie recipe from the ppk.

INGREDIENTS
1/2 c. brown sugar
1/4 c. white sugar
2/3 c. canola oil
1/4 c. vanilla almond milk (or whatever non-dairy milk you like - if you don’t use vanilla, feel free to add more extract)
1 tbs tapioca flour (or cornstarch)
1 tsp vanilla extract

1 1/2 c. spelt flour
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt

a generous shake of chocolate chips and chopped pecans. i usually eyeball this one, but definitely less than a cup!

DIRECTIONS
Preheat oven to 350 F.

Mix together sugars, oil, milk and tapioca flour. Use a pastry cutter, whisk, or fork for this step. Great tip from the PPK- mix really well, for about 2 minutes, until it resembles smooth caramel. Add the vanilla.

Add 1 cup of the flour, the baking soda, the baking powder and salt. Mix until well incorporated. Add in the rest of the flour. Shake in however many chocolate chips and pecans you like and mix them in with a wooden spoon or your (washed) hands.

I like to use a cookie scoop for this part, but you can use your hands or a tablespoon too. Scoop the dough onto a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper and smoosh the dough down a little bit with two fingers. Space them out evenly so you fit about 12 on a sheet. Bake for 8-10 minutes and let cool for a few minutes before nomming.

Healthy and delicious vegan zucchini muffins! These were a big hit in my office. I love to share treats with my co-workers, but it’s even better when I can slip them a little nutrition! The recipe is from Happy Herbivore.

no cookie left behind!

next weekend, one of my friends is helping to put on a charity bake sale to benefit share our strength, which helps hungry kids.

this isn’t a vegan bake sale, per say, but they would love to have more vegan goods to offer. spork foods is offering a gift certificate in the raffle, so yet another great reason for vegans to get involved!

sadly, i will be away that weekend so i won’t be able to attend, but if you can donate baked goods or go to the bake sale to buy some, please help out this great cause! and, if you needed more reason to go, it’s at scoops, so you can get some of that yummy oreo vanilla vegan ice cream i posted the other day!

click the image to go to rsvp on facebook or email nocookieleftbehind AT gmail DOT com if you can bake!

Banana cinnamon muffins (vegan)! Recipe from the Skinny Bitch Ultimate Everyday Cookbook. Yummy (almost) healthy breakfast. Might try them again with whole wheat flour and less sugar…

This has got to be one of the best vegan baked goods I’ve ever made! Vanilla yogurt pound cake from Veganomicon (seen here with a tall glass of almond milk). The taste and texture were perfect! I’m going to try it again with some almond extract for a different flavor.

Merry Christmas from these pumpkin pie brownies (and me)!

after vegan mofo, i was a little burnt out on blogging and on being vegan, hence the big pause in my posts… during vegan mofo, i was reading a lot more vegan blogs, and i felt like there was a standard i had to live up, which i didn’t like. i just wanted to do something that was healthier for me and for the planet, not get indoctrinated into a food religion…

so, around thanksgiving i started backsliding a little. half of it was because it was thanksgiving (i’m talking butterey stuffing and pie, i wasn’t eating turkey) and half of it was to rebel against the “veganer-than-thou” attitudes that were getting me frustrated! i wasn’t downing grilled cheese sandwiches or doing shots of milk, but i was starting to care less about food that had dairy in it, mostly sweets. i just kept going with it, and now that it’s the holiday season and treats are all over the office, it’s hard to stop! 

i think it’s harder for me because i don’t feel as fundamentally against dairy as i do about meat, but i definitely don’t feel as good when i’m eating it! plus, i’ve started to feel guilty about letting my body down (i’m so tired lately) and my guilt was personified on friday when i was out to eat with my boyfriend. i got a veggie burger with some truffled ricotta on it at a trendy burger joint. i didn’t even like it that much (big macro from m cafe is much better), and while i was eating it, one of the spork sisters walked by! she didn’t see me, and they would NEVER cop that vegan police attitude, but it woke me up a little… so, i thought that since blogging kept me on track initially, i better get back into it! 

my first step to combat the office challenges is to bring my own sweets. tonight i made thumbprint cookies from the kitchn. they’re tasty, hearty, and don’t have a lot of sugar in them! picture to come… yum!

I made a lot of biscuits today! I used the super easy recipe from How It All Vegan. I’m bringing them to a friend’s house for a pre-thanksgiving dinner. Yum!

apple pie is surprisingly, not hard to veganize. i used olive oil in my pie crust, which i’ve heard a lot of non-vegan grandmas swear by! the recipe on vegweb looked super easy, but i had a hard time rolling out the crust. it didn’t look so pretty, but it still tasted good. i might try it with earth balance in the future, since i missed that buttery taste…

i can’t remember what recipe i used for the filling, but you bassically just need to cut up apples, toss them with sugar and cinnamon, and bake. a little flour and some extra spices make it even better. next mission” the perfect vegan whipped cream to top it with.