Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar ~ Cookbook Review

I haven't done a cookbook review in awhile. So. Let's pick one of the dozens I've got on my shelves.

How about Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar? 

I bought this tiny little cute book for a cookie baking blitz last November. It's joined us for two years of Vegan baking. Will it join me for a third? 

Uh Yeah! 

Great pictures and some great recipes. I think I've made ten or so of them. So here is the list of favorites....

The Peanut Butter Chocolate Pillows are worth the price of the book if you are a peanut butter chocolate fan. My pillows looked like little hats when finished so I'd recommend parchment paper or more chilling time. But the taste? Sweet mercy. She calls for black cocoa which is the stuff that makes oreos dark, but I used the regular stuff and they were fab. I'm a cheapskate so I don't buy a lot of non-dairy flavored chips like peanut butter and butterscotch etc and my hubby loves those chocolate cookies with peanut butter chips so I have yet to have made them since going vegan. Now I don't have to, the Peanut Butter Chocolate Pillows scratch that itch. 

The second recipe that makes the the book a must keep forever...Caramel Pecan Bars.

Warning. If you have a sweet tooth, you will be tempted to eat the whole pan. A-m-a-z-i-n-g. 

We also tried the following which involved mixed opinions but were solid none the less: Mocha Mamas which were nice, tasty little cookies. Starry Fudge Shortbreads were kinda meh in my opinion and a lot of work, but one girl who joined us both years is still waxing eloquently about how much she loved them. 

They have classic Christmas recipes, too. The Roll Out Sugar Cookies and the Gingerbreads were both great, and turned out well. The ladies know their biscotti, we didn't make a recipe from this book but the ones in Veganomicon were outstanding. So the biscotti recipes are on my radar.  

The cookies we haven't tried in Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar: Roasted Almond Cookies with Fleur De Sel, Rocky Roads, Peanut Apple Pretzel Drops, Citrus Glitters, Macadamia Ginger Crunch Drops...and the list goes on. 

It's a keeper. For sure. 

Scraps and Snippets ~ Wild Rice Caulifredo Soup - Vegan

Wild Rice Caulifredo Soup

Ready for this? The base of the soup is pureed steamed cauliflower and garlic. And it's so creamy. Makes 4 big servings or 8 smaller servings.

10 cloves of garlic

1 head cauliflower (cut the leaves off but leave the white branches. Break into chunks.)

1/2 onion diced

1 tsp salt

1 tsp lemon juice

4 Cups broth/cauliflower steam water

1 TBSP fat of Earth Balance

3 Cups unsweetened, unflavored non-dairy milk

1 Cup wild rice (rinsed and uncooked, or chopped broccoli)

1 Cup chopped mushrooms (or other item that sounds tasty to you)

Steam cauliflower for about 20 minutes. ( I have a saucepan that has a metal colander that fits on top and a lid. I fill the base of the saucepan with water, drop the chunks of cauliflower into the colander, put the lid on and turn the heat on. The water steams and softens the cauliflower.)

Let the cauliflower cool a bit. In another pan melt half the Earth Balance and add onions and diced garlic, sauté until caramelized and golden. Place cauliflower, salt, lemon juice, onion and garlic in a food processor or super blender. Puree. Add a little cooking liquid to the mixture if it bogs. When pureed add the mixture to the rest of the cooking water and make up the difference with broth. In the same pan you sautéed onions and garlic in add the rest of the Earth Balance and toss in mushrooms. Heat until they change texture and color. Add to the soup pan with the wild rice. Simmer this for approximately an hour until the rice plumps. Add milk to get the consistency you want in the last 15 minutes before serving.

Serve with crusty chunks of bread.  

Scribbles and Scrambles ~ Crochit mouse

A friend ordered a sweater online the other day.  The guy who took her order had not been there long...or perhaps had failed his textiles class in college...or maybe came from a long line of knitters who felt superior.  

He confirmed the order for the crocheted peplum but said crotchet like crotchit. My friend told her husband and they had a nice laugh.

A few nights later they went out to dinner.  Dessert was offered so her husband asked about the texture of the mousse cake. The waiter told him it was delicious and densely cakey and then said "and it has a little mouse on it" 

You say tomato I'll say tomato. You say mouse, I'll say mousse. Ha.Ha.

How do you not order the chocolate mousse cake after that? My friend and her husband laughed about the mouse and crotchit while they waited. Then the cake showed up!

Scribbles and Scrambles ~ Breaking Glass and Scattering Beans

& read me a post she saw on the www the other evening. True or not it left us both bawling like big babies. A woman had adopted a dog at a shelter and had a two week challenging transition. Finally, she decided to read the note that the previous owner had tucked into a bag of tennis balls requesting that it be forwarded to the new owner. The previous owner turned out to be a deployed and killed-in-action soldier who'd temporarily turned in the dog because he had no family, and in the case of death he'd left the request that his branch of the military would call the shelter to release the dog for adoption.  He told the story of his relationship with his dog and gave her the dog's real name. As the new owner read the letter all the missing parts and pieces fell into place. Once she said the dog's real name and gave him his beloved tennis balls their relationship changed. 

And that got my mind churning about things like perception and that truth can change everything in a matter of a split second. The past year has been full of challenges and obstacles. Ha Ha. My life has been full of challenges and obstacles, who am I kidding? Anyhoo. As I continue to change and grow my desire is to, each choice I make, grow into a more heavenly creature vs. a hellish one. And often the choice to be the creature I want to be is the choice that requires me to go under the knife of truth, give up a pound of fleshly attitude and expose my carefully guarded heart to people who aren't going to know who I am, my real name, my story.

In Bible study, which I reluctantly agreed to do because my kid asked me to, because honestly, I'd rather use that time for something else, I am hoping to uncover some lies and misinterpretations that keep me in bondage. I shared with my group that I can always tell when I am in self protection mode and am hardening my heart to shield it. My barometer is my lack of tears. I know when I'm glassy hearted that things don't penetrate and I don't feel the depth of pain but I also don't feel the depth of joy either. One of the gals in my small group pointed out that this is not an early warning sign, more the equivalent of finding out you have high cholesterol after having a heart attack.

I chatted with another gal I am in Arbonne with. I told her that my accountant is going to shake his head at my change in direction again with the ebb and flow of my sideline business. He's dealt with me using writing as a side business with deductions and income and then jewelry sales and now I've got Arbonne income and outgo and when Michelle and I sell Out of the Frying Pan there will be both income and outgo there again, too.  My friend said. "Get your accountant's voice out of your head. He's not the one you answer to."

True. So. Here is my hard won wisdom from the week. Success is me ending up as a heavenly creature at the end of my life, one who leaves a legacy of truth and love and inspiration behind. And to do that I have to do hard things and follow the path laid out for me, even when I don't want to. My heart, behind a glass wall is not going to facilitate that goal or journey, nor is the bean counter in my head.

How about you? You need to break some glass or whack an internal bean counter?

Scraps and Snippets ~ Mushroom Stroganoff

Mushroom Stroganoff 

I love mushrooms. Yum. So I usually buy a big package of them at Costco and then have to come up with ways of using them up. I also brought home some Vegan sour cream from our trip to Minnesota. Michelle is so accommodating and spoiling when we visit. She's way more adventurous and generous than I am ingredient wise. She seriously bought a luxury non-dairy cheese for a recipe. I'm like, yeah, we'll just cut out the cheese. I don't usually buy vegan sour cream unless I have a very special use for it because it doesn't last long once it's opened. So I had this partial container of sour cream languishing in my fridge. No way I was letting that go bad. The picture is before the corn starch and sour cream so it was much thicker. 

2 Cups vegetable broth

2 cloves minced garlic

2 Cups chopped mushrooms

1 TBSP soy sauce or liquid aminos

2 TBSP nutritional yeast

1 tsp of lemon juice

1/2 tsp of mustard

1 TBSP corn starch or arrowroot  (mix with a TBSP of cold water to make a liquidy paste)

Non-dairy sour cream (I used a cup, next time I may up it a bit - plain unflavored, unsweetened yogurt would work, too)

Prepared quinoa, pasta, rice, potatoes or toast

Add garlic and mushrooms, lemon juice, mustard and soy sauce to the vegetable broth in a saucepan. Simmer until mushrooms change color and density. Add the cornstarch and simmer until the broth thickens. Remove from heat and add the nutritional yeast and stir well, then stir in the sour cream. 

Serve over your pasta, quinoa, rice, toast or potatoes.

Serves 4ish

Scribbles and Scrambles ~ CHILL Already...

Do you ever have a day or portion of a day where you accomplish virtually nothing?

Do you feel guilty about it? 

Yeah. Me too.

What is that? 

If stress is one of the major contributors to disease, and a crazy lifestyle can be a cause of stress doesn't it make sense to just chill sometimes? I didn't feel all that hot on Saturday so I declared it a "sick day". My floor has a coating of dust/dog hair, my Christmas decorations are still up and I've got an article due on Wednesday. But I slept in til 9:30 and read most of the afternoon. And felt guilty. 

Of course, I was reading the book tied to the article, but I liked the book so somehow that, too, is guilt inducing. 

And I often don't take one of those breaks until I'm worn down enough that I don't feel good. What's wrong with that picture? 

At Bible study last night we talked about how difficult it is to stop and be still and listen for God in the chaos of the world around us. As we broke into small groups mine had to admit that we often realize that during prayer time our minds will wander and we are multi-tasking, actually making grocery lists and planning ahead for what needs to be accomplished tomorrow. And I have to admit that very often my time spent in the Bible is just because it's one more thing I have to do that day rather than the very words of life. 

All of this makes me feel dry and unstable. And it annoys me. How about you all agree to take ten or twenty or forty minutes to do something that drops your stress and fills you up...today.  I will, too. Great. Glad we had this little chat. 

Scribbles and Scrambles ~ Pink Skies

I am always slightly frustrated that I can't capture the beauty of a moment. The double rainbow we had a couple months ago was a mere shadow, an apparition of the beauty in the sky when I tried to snap a picture. 


Yesterday I woke to a glorious sunrise. The lightening midnight blue horizon was streaked with vibrant pink. My I-Phone was beside my bed so I snapped a picture of what I saw upon awakening. And this is it. If I hadn't told you about the blue and pink you'd not have a clue why I dropped this picture into the blog post. 

I suppose my inability to capture moments is a powerful truth. After all, "You had to be there" is a statement that occasionally needs to be shared. (In my case it's because I'm trying to tell about something hilarious that happened to me and am usually laughing -- make that hooting and laugh-crying -- and ineptly trying to get a story across to some poor soul who can only stare at me and occasionally nod.)

Writing is part of that drive to capture moments, too. Why do I blog, or write or create? It's to communicate something inside of my mind to others. An attempt to boil down an event or happening or thought or idea into a "photograph" that someone else can benefit from. 

Maybe the unique lens that we see through, the experiences we have, the aha moments, the "you had to be there" adventures, maybe those are treasures for us. Little unique blessings that touch our souls and minds for a searing second or so, and our spirits long to grasp the depth, so we snap a picture or make a memory and try to share it with someone else. And when we can communicate the beauty that touches our souls and changes us (because I believe we are changed by our moments) we possess another beautiful moment. 

My misrepresentation photo is not frustrating, it's beautiful. So I will continue to look at two dimensional attempts to capture the elusive and choose to see behind the anemic shadow to what lies beyond, the vastness, the glory, the gorgeousness of life and creation.