Cinnamuffins(Vegan); Vanilla Pudding(Easily Veganized)

Wonderous, glorious, much-needed day off, thank God! Today and tomorrow both are my days of freedom, the two days a week that I live for, honestly. Work hasn't been all that bad this past week, but still, I dearly love my time at home, locked securely into my little cave, with nowhere to go and nobody...hopefully...to see! Talk about reclusive, eh? I wonder how I'll be when I go into partial retirement this coming fall? Will I still be this reclusive, or will I get cabin fever, no matter what time of year? Time will tell....

For right now, tho, spring is on the way. I've seen a couple robins in the past few days, and the little tiny yellow jonquils in my front yard are blooming. Such brave and pretty little flowers, that even tho yellow isn't one of my favorite colours, I love those little things. Hmmmm, I think I might just pick a few and bring them in the house...they would look lovely in a cobalt blue vase, I think. And it's time to start changing my tchotkes(did I spell that right?)around, too, to bring out the more springlike ones. And time to start sitting out in the sun for a few minutes a day, too...to combat my depressive tendencies as well as get my daily dose of vitamin D.

This is my favorite time of year, albeit the hardest, for me. Yesterday was Ash Wednesday, and the beginning of my 40-day observance of the season by fasting from chocolate and desserts. Groan. It's going to take a lot of prayer, but I'll make it. Only one year did I give up: after 23 days, I just couldn't take it any more!!!

These two recipes come from one of my first, and favorite, vegetarian cookbooks: "The New Laurel's Kitchen," by Laurel Robertson, Carol Flinders, and Brian Ruppenthal. Actually, the original "Laurel's Kitchen" was my first love, but I've since lost it, and this new one is a wonderful substitute. I'm not sure if it's even in print any more: It was copyrighted in 1976.

The muffin recipe is already vegan, and it's very easy to veganize the pudding recipe: Substitute soy milk for the whole milk. That was an experiment for me, as a friend of mine had told me that soy milk won't thicken like whole milk, but it did just fine with this recipe. So, here we go....

CINNAMUFFINS

1/4C oil 1/2C dark molasses 1C applesauce

1 1/2C whole wheat flour[I used all-purpose white flour] 1/2tsp. baking soda
1 1/2tsp. baking powder 3/4tsp. cinnamon pinch cloves
1/2tsp. salt 1/2C raisins

Preheat oven to 375ºF. Grease a 12-cup muffin tin...use the smallish-sized cups with this recipe.

Mix oil, molasses and applesauce. Sit together the flour, soda, baking powder, cinnamon, cloves, and salt. Stir together the wet and dry ingredients and raisins. Drop into muffin cups and bake 18-20 minutes.

These are really good, and I will make them again sometime when I feel like baking. I didn't add the raisins as I didn't have any. Wonder how chopped nuts, or chocolate chips, or maybe blueberries would work in this? I also didn't use a muffin pan, because I have a set of 12 silicone cups, which I love. They just sit on a cookie sheet, don't have to be greased, and the muffins don't stick to them like they do to the paper cups or even, sometimes, the muffinpan cups.

VANILLA PUDDING

2C fresh milk 1/4C brown sugar 1/8tsp.salt 2Tbs. cornstarch or arrowroot
1tsp. vanilla

Gently heat 1/1/2 cups of the milk in a heavy pan. Stir in the sugar and salt.

Combine the cornstarch or arrowroot with the reserved milk. Add to the milk when it is very hot; cook and stir over low heat until thick. If you are using cornstarch, cook and stir over very low heat for a few minutes more. (If you want a richer pudding, you can stir a beaten egg into 1/2 cup of the pudding, then beat that into the whole pudding while it is still very hot.) Cool somewhat and then add the vanilla.

Makes about 2 cups to serve 4-in theory. Sometimes it actually serves two. Good warm or cold.

This pudding only served one, lol, but I manage to make it last for two days. Altho the recipe doesn't say to do this, when I put it in the 'fridge, I put plastic wrap over the surface of the pudding, as most pudding recipes say to do this to keep from forming a skin. This stuff was excellent, I couldn't believe how good it was...and no, I didn't add the eggs. I think it's rich enough without them, and of course, vegans won't use them anyway. It did take quite a long time to thicken up, about 20 minutes, but it was worth it. It would make a great filling for a cake of some kind...sort of like a Boston Cream Pie, with that wonderful chocolate glaze on the top...............

Now, some more about my homemade seitan. I have to sort of apologize for my first very critical and mostly negative review of it. After sitting overnight in the 'fridge, it was much, much better than when I first made it. I still haven't tried to make a sammich with it, even tho it's supposed to be "lunch meat." What I did, tho, was to dice it up into bite-sized pieces, and stir it into the leftover Fettucine with Vegetarian "Ham," to take the place of the ham. Reheated, it was very good that way. There's still some of the first roll of seitan in the 'fridge, wrapped tightly in foil, so possibly it's still good. I have no idea how long it's suppsed to keep. Oh, I almost forgot: The rolls...logs, if you prefer...have a very tough skin on them, almost like sausage, which my dentures couldn't handle, lol, so I peeled it, just like I used to have to peel kielbasa or smoked sausage, back in the day. You may not have a problem with it, but I did.

Until next time, Happy Eating.

JB's Chocolate/Coconut/Banana Pie with Rice Crust

And it didn't turn out as yummy as I had thought it would, sigh. I'm quite disappointed in it, in fact. After thinking about it, I realized that when it comes to chocolate, I'm much too much of a purist to like a pie with so many other flavors in it. The rice crust was totally an experiment, and I learned something: It don't work, lol. Next time it will be a plain ol' chocolate pie with a graham cracker crust.

The pie isn't actually bad, not at all. It just has too many things going on to suit me, that's all. The rice crust was made just like a graham cracker crust, but with cooked rice...butter and brown sugar...patted into the pan, which was a 9" round cake pan. Then I made the chocolate: blended one package of silken tofu, 1/2C unsweetened cocoa powder, 2/3C sugar, 3tsp. vanilla extract, 3Tbs. of cornstarch all together until it was smooth and creamy, about 4 minutes, I'd say. While it was all whirling merrily in the blender, I patted the crust into the pan, and sliced a large banana over the crust. When I stopped the blender, I poured about one cup of sweetened grated coconut into the mixture, stirred it all in with a rubber spatula, and poured about half of it into the pan, covering the bananas. Then I sliced another banana on top of that, and finished pouring the rest of the chocolate mix on top of those bananas. Then I sprinkled a good handful of the grated coconut over the top, and put the whole thing in a 325ºF pre-heated oven for 45 minutes. The 45 minutes, which was a guess, was the perfect timing for this pie, as it came out exactly like I had hoped it would: solid, but not burned.

Now. Do I like it? Not too much, no. Will I make it again? Nope, I sure won't. Will I try a plain chocolate pie sometime? You bet your sweet whatever I will, lol. And, I will use more chocolate and less sugar, too.

For dinner last night, I went into my beloved freezer and pulled out the last of the cabbage/tomato/sour cream concoction I made, um, last week? I think so. Anyway, I heated that up, baked a potato, and heated up some frozen winter squash I'd found at Kroger this past Wednesday. It's been a long, long time since I've had that kind of squash, and truly enjoyed it, and there's enough left for another meal with it. YUM!

So, I'm thinking that possibly I'll use that leftover squash tonight to make a sorta/kinda/but-not-really succotash for dinner. What I'm thinking is to drain and rinse a can of Great Northern beans, and mix those and the squash together, along with some roasted red peppers and some onions. Maybe. Not sure yet, but will let you know later on, lol.

Until next time, Happy Eating!!!

Vegan Fettucine Alfredo; Vegan Eggnog Cheesecake

I realized I had a couple more recipes I want to post here, here I am again. But first of all, I need to explain something, sigh, something stupid I've done...which isn't all that unusual, btw. Anyway, on the left of the blog there's a section called "Tags." When I did it, I had hoped that it would link itself automatically into my posts, but, um, nope, it didn't, and I don't know how to do it. I'm going to leave it there, tho, because it will give you some idea of what to expect to find here, even if it won't take you right to each category. Sorry about that,

This next recipe is for Fettucine Alfredo, it's vegan, and I found it on www.vegweb.com submitted by Melissa. It's incredibly good, and I was delighted with it, so, many thanks to Melissa for sharing her recipe.

Fettucine Alfredo

1Tbs. oil(whatever kind you like)
8(or more, or less{or none})mushrooms, chopped
5(or more or less)cloves of garlic, minced
1/2C coconut milk(you want the creaminess here, so I wouldn't recommend soymilk)
some vegan soy parmesan{I used quite a bit, but she said that she'd never used it.}
about 1/4tsp nutmeg(makes the recipe, don't leave out{I put it in, like she said, and don't know how it affected the recipe at all, lol}
1/2-1tsp black pepper(freshly ground is nice)
You can also add some lemon juice to the sauce, freshly squeezed is best, or garnish with lemon wedges{I didn't use any lemon, but next time I make this, and believe me, I will, I'm going to try the lemon...as well as add a little more nutmeg, just to see what happens}
Salt to taste

Directions:
Saute the mushrooms and the garlic in a pan over med-low heat, until it looks yummy. Separately, bring the coconut milk to a boil over the lowest heat possible, and as soon as it starts boiling, add the parmesan, nutmeg, pepper, lemon if you're using, and remove from heat. Mix it all together.

Add the coconut sauce to the mushrooms and garlic, and simmer onlower heat until the sauce reduces. Make sure to stir it constantly or else it will burn. Just stir until it comes to a consistency that looks like alfredo sauce, and serve immediately over fettucine noodles. I like to use black pepper fettuccine, but any kind is good. This recipe is awesome! Tastes as good as it sounds.

And yes, she's right, it's really excellent. I used plain old-fashioned egg noodles, as I had no linguine. I've never heard of black pepper fettucine, but I bet it's good, and will try to remember to look for it next time I shop.

This next one is from another blog I found, Fat Free Vegan Cooking, and I'm so ashamed to have to admit that I don't have the URL nor the owner's name. My very sincere apologies to this lady, and I hope she doesn't mind that I'm posting her recipe here, because it's an excellent recipe, and I will be making it many, many times in the future.

Vegan Eggnog Cheesecake
1(12.3oz.)pkg. extra firm light silken tofu
1(8-oz.)tub Tofutte "cream cheese"
3/4C sugar
1/2C vegan eggnog OR vanilla soymilk(I used Silk brand vanilla soymilk)
2T lemon juice
2 1/2 Tbs. brandy or rum(I'm a recovering alcoholic, so left this out.)
1/2tsp. vanilla
1/2 tsp. ground nutmeg
3Tbs.cornstarch
1 prepared graham cracker crust(the first time, I had to make it without a crust, and loved it anyway. The second time I made my own graham crust, and loved it more, lol.)

Preheat oven(I neglected to copy the temperature down, but 350ºF seemed to do quite well, altho 325ºF might be better...less chance of browning it.)
Drain tofu and put it and "cream cheese" into food processor and blend until smooth(I don't have a processor, so I used my blender, and it was fine.). Add sugar and milk, process again until sugar is dissolved, about 3 minutes. Pour into pie crust and bake in middle of oven about 55 minutes-do NOT brown(well, I did, and it tasted ok to me. Might not to you, tho.) Filling will be slightly jiggly, not set, until it has chilled.

Remove from oven, let cool, and chill, the longer, the better.

So, a couple comments here. The second time I made this, I used half the lemon juice, and a full tsp. of vanilla. The next time I make it, I'm going to use a full tablespoonful of vanilla...since I didn't add the alcohol, I need a boost of flavor. I also will add another 1/4 tsp. of nutmeg, for the same reason. All in all, tho, this is just plain wonderful, and like I said, I'm going to be making this over and over and over and over!!!!