Scraps and Snippets ~ Pink Piggy Cupcakes...

Strawberry Frosting. Yum. And cupcakes to place under it, with a fun little decoration idea. 

Coconut Vanilla Cup Cakes (makes 14)

1 egg substitute (1 TBSP ground chia or egg replacer)

1/2 TBSP baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1 Cup almond or coconut milk

1/2 Cup of coconut oil

1 1/4 Cup sugar

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

2 1/4 Cup flour

Put milk and egg replacer powder together in a bowl and set aside. Cream coconut oil and sugar together. Add salt and baking powder, mix until incorporated. Pour half the milk and the extracts in and mix. Pour in half the flour and mix well, add the rest of the milk, stir then the additional flour and mix for two more minutes. 

Fill cupcake liners 3/4 full. Bake at 350 for 17-19 minutes or until knife comes out clean.

Strawberry Frosting

3 TBSP strawberry jam

3 TBSP shortening. Earth Balance or coconut oil

1/2 tsp of vanilla

(if you are making the pigs, scrape the middles of 7 golden oreos into your frosting and set the cookies aside)

2 Cups powdered sugar 

If too thick add just a splash of coconut milk, if still too wet add a little more powdered sugar. 

When the cupcakes are cool frost each cupcake.  If you are making pigs you will need four chocolate chips for each cupcake and will need to save a little frosting for glue to put the chocolate chips on the cookies. (If you want to make ears you could use a triangle of fruit roll up type snacks. I tried extra chocolate chips and they didn't look right. An extra dollop of frosting would work.) Place a cookie round on the bottom 2/3 of the frosted cupcake. Place two chocolate chips for eyes right at the edge of the cookie. Then dip two chocolate chips in frosting and glue them right inside at 9 and 3 (where they would be on a clock) on the cookie.

Scraps and Snippets ~ BBQ Sauce and Vegan BBQ Beets and Franks...

Natural Grocers is a new chain grocery store in our area. It's small. Kinda like a cross between a Whole Foods, Trader Joe's, a local mom and pop store and a traditional hippie health food store. In the past few visits I've scored some great organic past-their-prime fruits and veggies for various and assorted uses. The bargain produce bin is really a great deal. Last week we made the discovery that the freezer and refrigerated section have clearance, too. 

I scored $.50 non-dairy yogurt and 1/2 price tempeh, vegan hot dogs, and seitan. 

Now I needed a use for vegan hot dogs that doesn't involve a bun, mustard and ketchup. 

Rob likes BBQ sauce and keeps asking me to make BBQ for him. I had a sweet potato to use and a golden beet. 

BBQ Beets and Franks for dinner.

I sautéed the chunked sweet potato with small dice onions and leeks and the beet. I chopped two vegan hot dogs into slices and added them to the sauté. 

BBQ Sauce

5 TBSP tomato paste (I used frozen TBSP chunks from a previous can I opened. This was a great idea I saw somewhere.)

5 TBSP water

1 1/2 TBSP vinegar (I used red wine)

1 1/2 TBSP soy sauce

1 1/2 TBSP agave, brown sugar or maple syrup

1 teaspoon chili powder

1 teaspoon garlic powder

1 1/2 teaspoons onion powder

1/4 teaspoon paprika

1/4 teaspoon smoke seasoning (I used Trader Joe's smoke blend grinder)

two pinches salt

We dolloped BBQ sauce over the sauté and ate up. 

This is a hint of sweet, smoky, rich, garlicky BBQ sauce. It's thick and makes about 1/2 cup. Rob and I both liked the flavor. So I think I'll use it for various assorted BBQ needs in the future. Pulled Jack sandwiches, roasted BBQ cauliflower tenders. 

Scribbles and Scrambles ~ Weird Pooch

We are dog sitting the grand dogs. We miss them when they don't come by very often. They've been here two weeks and we have one more week to go. I don't know what's more fun. Their unbridled enthusiasm when either of us come home, or their couch cuddling. 

Lola, pictured here, has to have something in her mouth to greet us. Anyone who comes through the door causes her to scurry looking for something. Often, she goes right for the recycle bin. Whatever she finds becomes a treasure and she parades it around. 

For two days Lola showed off her empty peanut butter jar.  She carried it out when she went to pee. She managed to hold it in her mouth by two teeth so it looked like she needed a sign saying, "Will work for treats!"

The only time she dropped it was snuggle time. 

Scribbles and Scrambles ~ Wednesday Wordless.

Scraps and Snippets ~ So Delicious Coconut Chippers...For Reals

So Delicious Coconut Chippers

3/4 Cup room temperature coconut oil
2/3 Cup sugar
2/3 Cup coconut sugar (or use brown)
2 TBSP egg replacer (I used EnerG)
6 TBSP So Delicious vanilla or original coconut milk
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 1/3 Cup flour
2/3 Cup chocolate chips

Cream the sugar, coconut oil, milk and egg replacer. Add baking powder and salt and mix well. Add vanilla and stir. Stir in flour until blended and finally add the chocolate chips. Roll dough into balls. 

Preheat oven to 350. 

I made half the batch in a 20 count silicone pan and baked them for 14 minutes.

The rest I baked on a cookie sheet for 12 minutes.

Makes about 3 dozen. 

I'm entering this recipe in the Spring Fling So Delicious Recipe Contest. It's open til May 19th. Got a recipe to enter? Go there. 

Scraps and Snippets ~ Fudgy, Chewy Brownies AKA Panic Brownies

I had about 5 minutes to find a brownie recipe on Friday. My day had gone differently than I had planned and I had just enough time to whip up brownies, get em baked and get out the door. I looked through 5 vegan cookbooks trying to find one. They were in there...but each called for time consuming or unavailable or texture tweaking ingredients like coffee, espresso powder, tofu, two different fat sources, bittersweet chocolate, maple syrup etc.  Sometimes brownies are cake-like anyway so I didn't want to gamble on texture. I grabbed a traditional 1,000 recipe cookbook and spied a blondie recipe. Since I wanted the chewy of a blondie, I thought that would be a definite, but I needed chocolate. 

The blondie recipe was kind of the inspiration for these brownies as the time wound down to nothing. I say inspiration because I changed every single ingredient. Seriously. And this is what came out. And they were delicious. This might be THE brownie go to recipe. A huge plus for this on that particular evening was that they were a thinner batch that didn't need to bake for 40 minutes. 

Panic Brownies

1 and 1/2 sticks Earth Balance (3/4 Cup)

1 1/3 Cup sugar

2 TBSP egg replacer (I used EnerG)

6 TBSP water or non-dairy milk

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon vanilla

1/2 teaspoon salt

2/3 Cup cocoa

1 2/3 Cup flour

1/3 chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350. Grease a 9 x 13. Mix Earth Balance and sugar until blended. Add cocoa, egg replacer and water/milk, vanilla and mix well, add salt, baking powder and vanilla and stir. Pour in flour and mix. It will be thick and more like cookie dough. Press into pan. Bake for 23-26 minutes. I believe I'll try it in an 8 x 11 and bake it for 10 minutes more and see how it does in a thicker brownie.

Frost with failed Easter candies experiment. (Ha. Ha.) That's what I did. Unfortunately,  I'm not able to recreate that easily. Nor do I want to. 

A simple chocolate ganache or frosting would be great.  

Scraps and Snippets ~ Quinoa Muffuletta...Fun with Quinoa Part Two

Quinoa and Easter.

I took this cold quinoa muffuletta salad to one location and the ring to the other.

Follow the directions below for the basic quinoa to make either dish. The amount of cooked quinoa will be slightly over 2 cups.
1 Cup quinoa
1/4 Cup dried mushrooms
1/4 Cup diced onion
2 Cloves garlic minced
2 Cups veggie broth

Toss all in a pan and bring to a boil. Turn down to simmer and cover and let simmer about 15 minutes.

The ring recipe is here. 

Cold Quinoa Muffuletta Salad

Dressing: 

3 TBSP lemon juice

2 TBSP olive oil

1/2 teaspoon garlic powder

1/2 teaspoon dried oregano

1/2 teaspoon of agave or maple syrup

1/2 teaspoon of yellow or brown spicy mustard

dash salt

Mix well. 

Add the following:

1/2 Cup chopped mushrooms

1/4 to 1/2 Cup chopped green olives

1/4 to 1/2 Cup chopped kalamata olives

1/2 Cup shredded kale

The dressing 
The cooked quinoa mixture

Mix well.