Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

For Christmas, my best bud Jennifer, gave me "Soy, Not Oi!" It's a pretty humorous read but also has some great recipes. This is the first one I have actually made from the book.

Mmmmmm Cookies...




This recipe made 76 cookies (It could have been more, but I "sampled" the dough as I was making them.



The recipe:
J@ck's Highly Requested Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

2 cups peanut butter (creamy or crunchy)
1/2 cup vegan margarine, softened (I use Earth Balance)
1 cup sugar (I use evaporated cane juice)
1 cup brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla
2 tsp arrowroot powder
2 tsp water
3 cups flour (I use whole wheat pastry flour)
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1 cup soy milk (or rice milk, or almond milk...)
1 12oz package vegan chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350. Mix everything in a bowl, except the soy milk and chocolate chips. Add in the soymilk, a bit at a time until the consistency is not too wet, but not too dry, and in the chips. Drop spoonfuls on cookie sheet (I use silicone sheets, so you might want to spray your sheets with non-stick spray) and bake for 8-12 minutes (mine took 12) Let cool. Enjoy.

Joanna's "White Girl" Channa Masala

I only recently discovered Channa Masala at an Indian Restaraunt in the Tustin Marketplace that has an entire vegetarian menu. SOOO good. Then Joanna put up a recipe for her "White Girl" Low Fat Channa Masala, So I tried it out last night. OMIGOD! To think I could've been making this all along?

The directions were easy to follow and the flavor was very good. This dish is extremely satisfying and could easily be served to picky omnis since it doesn't have any "fake" foods in it. Or as my husband always asks, "Is there anything weird in there?" I didn't have any brown basmati rice, so I served it with a wild rice blend. So yummy.

Joanna's Tester Spicy Almond Noodles

Alright, I made this, and loved it! I kept thinking as I was making it...this is not going to be spicy enough, but sure enough, this dish has some KICK! I made it exactly as directed, and it was quick and simple. The only modification I made was that I chopped up my mushrooms instead of slicing them. I SUCK AT SLICING MUSHROOMS! I will definitely make this again and again and again.

Anyways...here's some pics:

Valentine Tacos

Dan and I made Tacos for Dinner on Valentine's Day. We like to make an effort to make dinner together every once in a while, by making dinners that are the same but different. His tacos were traditional fried corn tortillas filled with ground beef, sour cream and a little PicoPico sauce on top. Mine, however, were a bit more creative. I had soft tacos with multigrain tortillas, Joanna's TVP taco meat, shredded cabbage, diced red onion, Joanna's tangy tofu sour cream, and Joanna's nacho sauce. Mine were so, way better.

Joanna's Tofu Scramble (Tester Recipe)

As a general rule, I don't eat breakfast. But this morning, I said to myself, "Why not?" So I made this, without any of the variations. It came out nice and yellow and full of flavor. I made it as written, but in the future I would probably crumble the tofu instead of cubing it. That way the flavor of the spices, and there are a lot of spices in here, go all the way through the tofu, not just on the outside. The nutritional Analysis gave this one an "A" and I would agree. You get a nice filling meal for very little calories!

Joanna's Tamale Pie

I followed the recipe exactly. It fills the 13x9 dish perfectly. I used the Joanna's TVP taco meat for the meat, black beans and corn for the filling and Joanna's Nacho Sauce on top. I garnished with Avocado. Honestly, I really wanted this to be better than it was. It tasted good, and made the house smell GREAT, but it was a lot of work for just me. I would probably make this again, if I was going to a pot luck or having people for dinner, but since I am the only vegan in my house hold, it was a lot of food. I have enough leftover to have a whole week's worth of lunches! Is the crust supposed to get hard? Mine didn't.

Here are the Nutritional stats based on how I made it:
8 svgs, per serving:459.5 Calories, 10.68 gr fat, 73.62 gr carb, 18.52 gr fiber, 24.47 gr protein.
I also garnished with Joanna's Tangy Sour Cream, but didn't add that to the nutritional facts.

Stephan's Birthday Salsa by Joanna

Tester Recipe from Joanna's Yellow Rose Recipes

"Waldorf" Style Chx Salad Romaine Wraps

I really don't think this is anything like a waldorf salad, but people kept calling it that so that's now what it's called. I didn't have a real recipe for this one either, but it was inspired by Katie (No Whey) and her "Amazing" blog. (Link in the sidebar)

Ingredients:

• 1 block extra Firm Tofu, drained and pressed
• 1/2 of a medium/large red onion, diced
• About 1 Tbsp Olive Oil
• some garlic powder
• some celery, chopped
• some golden raisins
• some walnuts, chopped
• Vegannaise
• salt and pepper to taste
• Hearts of romaine leaves

Directions:

• Cut the tofu into tiny little cubes
• Heat Olive oil in a skillet on Medium
• Add tofu to skillet
• add some garlic powder
• cook about 10 minutes
• Let cool
• Mix in celery, raisins, onion, Veganaise, walnuts and salt and pepper to taste
• refrigerate until ready to use
• scoop into lettuce or make into sandwiches or put on top of a bed of greens

Tofu Egg Salad Sammiches

Nothing too difficult or special about these. I didn't follow a specific recipe, but it's pretty much like making a Tofu Scramble, and adding Vegenaise!

Generally speaking:

• 1 package of Extra Firm Tofu, drained & pressed
• 1/2 of a medium/large yellow onion, diced
• About 1 Tbsp of Olive oil
• some Turmeric
• some ground yellow mustard
• some Vegenaise
• some yellow mustard
• some salt & pepper to taste

Directions:

• Heat Olive oil in a skillet
• Add onions, saute until translucent
• Crumble tofu with your hands and add to the skillet
• Add spices
• Cook for about 10 minutes
• Remove from heat and let cool
• Mix with vegenaise and a little yellow mustard
• keep refrigerated until ready to use

Basic Chocolate Cuppers with Peanut Buttercream Frosting & Chocolate Chips

Yummy Yummy Yummy!

Recipes from Vegan Cupcakes take over the World.

7 Layer Dip

This was originally inspired by my cousin Leah, who makes an awesome 7 layer dip for every holiday get together. Unfortunately for me, NOT VEGAN!

Then I started testing recipes for Joanna, and she had some great mexican dishes. So now this 7 layer dip is also inspired by the great Joanna (Who's Magazine is going to be called "Yellow Rose Recipes"and I will keep you posted on when it can be ordered!)







Layer 1: Black Refried Beans
I used Joanna's recipe, but any vegan refried beans will work.

Layer 2: Taco TVP "Meat"
I used Joanna's recipe, but I think any packet of taco seasoning mixed with reconstituted TVP would work fine.

Layer 3: Nacho Sauce
Once Again, I used Joanna's recipe, but there are a million noochy nacho sauces out there.

Layer 4: Salsa
I like a lot of flavor, so I used Joanna's salsa recipe, but you can use any store bought salsa, or even just some diced tomatoes.

Layer 5: Sour Cream
Joanna's Tangy Sour cream is AWESOME, but any vegan version will do.

Layer 6: Avocado
Just diced and tossed in some lemon juice. Guacamole would be an excellent choice here too.

Layer 7: Olives
I don't really like olives, but the color is nice. I suppose green onions would work well as a sub.