Vegan Tortillas with Maseca

If you remember, I made vegan tamales a while back. Because of that I have a lot of left over Maseca (corn maise). I was thinking about how i really wished i had tortillas or chips the other day because I had two avacados ripen and I needed to eat them. That’s when I remembered there being a recipe for tortillas on the maseca bag… I found it online here (as i didn’t have the bag any longer). It took a few tortillas to get the hang of grilling them just right but since the recipe yields 16 that wasn’t a problem. I made some quick refried beans and guac and voila! lunch. 

Recipe: 

2 Cups Maseca

1 1/4 Cups water

1/2 Tbs salt

Mix all ingredients in mixer, separate into 16 balls and flatten with a tortilla press (if you have one) or, if you’re like me, sandwhich each ball (slightly larger than a cookie dough ball) in parchment paper and use a rolling pin to roll out. 

Grill in a pan on the stove (no oil needed) on each side for about 1 min to 1 1/2 min. (you can always fry them to make tortilla chips). 

Vegan Brioche

As brought to you by have cake, will travel. 

I was bustling about the other day and decided I wanted to make some bread. Usually my vegan pretzel bread is my go-to but I wanted something different. Since at the time my birthday was upcoming, I decided to go with something fancy… Brioche. I looked online at a bunch of recipes (both vegan and non) and settled on a fairly simple one… That loaf turned out like a brick… it was dense and heavy (not at all light and buttery like brioche should be). So when i saw that have cake, will travel had a recipe on her blog i got excited. (If you haven’t checked that blog out, you should. There are lots of amazing recipes up and all the pictures are beautiful.) The recipe was complicated but I had already tried the simple route and it didn’t work so i figured what the heck i’ll give it a go… here’s what happened. 

Recipe really just copied from have cake, will travel and modified for bread machine use. If you don’t have a bread machine full “old fashioned” instructions are on the original blog so you can follow the link for the original. 

NEED:

1/2 cup water

1 Tbs cornstarch

1/2 cup full fat coconut milk (from a can at room temp)

3 Tbs sugar

1/2 tsp salt

2 Cups flour

1 Tbs yeast (active)

4 Tbs cold cubed butter (as usual I used earth balance)

Cooking spray (like pam olive oil)

DO SOMETHING:

This recipe has a really creative way of getting the eggy texture needed for the fluffly-ness of this bread… I kinda want to try it in cake sometime. 

Mix the cornstarch with 2 TBS of the water (until dissolved) in a pan.

Once it’s all liquid add the rest of the water and bring to a boil until it gets cloudly and gelatenous (you can do 1 min in the microwave if you have one)

Now put that gelatenous mix into the fridge and let it cool completely (about 7-10 min)

In the mean time you can put your coconut milk, sugar, and salt in your bread machine (the order you do things may vary between machines). Once the cornstarch as cooled you’ll put that in with the liquids as well and add the cubed butter. 

Layer the flour on top and put the yeast on top of that. (so the yeast doesn’t touch liquids and activeate early)

Your gonna rock the dough cycle for this bad boy. 

Once the dough is done you want to take it out of the machine and place it in a sprayed or greased loaf pan. Cover that pan with plastic wrap and refridgerate for 6-10 hours (overnight). 

Then you’re gonna take it out and remove the wrap slowly and let it rise at room temp for another 1 1/2 hours. Preheat to 400 and bake uncovered for 10 min. Lower temp to 350 and bake for 15-20 until golden brown is reached. (I probably could have baked another 5 or so but i didn’t want to risk burning it). 

Cool and enjoy! (Pictured is with butter and peach preserves)

vegenista:

Happy Mother’s Day to all the sweet, caring & nurturing mamas!

VEGAN BANANA COOKIES

Everyone has the moment when they realize they have a few bananas that are all about to go bad the same day. By now I think everyone has the same reaction: 1: scour the internet for banana recipies that use the exact number of bananas you have going bad or 2: freeze them for later recipe scouring. 

So if you’re mid scour and you’re not looking forward to another round of banana bread or muffins then here is something a little different. Banana cookies. These bad boys are actually really easy to make and sweet (so a different taste than muffins) and more of a cake like cookie than a crunchy one. It also has nuts and bananas in it so it might make a good mid day snack for energy… though they do also have sugar (which  you could replace with agave) but i wouldn’t call them “healthy” they are still cookies. 

So here’s the low down:

1/2 cup vegan butter (I use Earth Balance)

1 Cup white sugar (you could cut this down by maybe 1/4 cup depending on how sweet your bananas are)

1 EnerG egg replacer egg

1 cup mashed bananas (2.5 bananas but i used 3 and just cut the sugar down)

1 tsp baking soda

2 cups flour (I haven’t tried this gluten free yet but it seems like an easy recipe to do GF or even Paleo for that matter)

1/8 tsp salt 

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp nutmeg

1/2 tsp ground clove

1 cup nuts (I used pecans and peanuts) But you can use whatever

Optional vegan dessert sprinkles (I used some cake decorations for color)

How to:

Preheat oven to 350

Mix bananas and baking soda in a bowl and let sit for 2 min (a reaction is happening to make the bannas fluff when baked)

Cream the butter and sugar together in a mixer and add the enerG egg replacer egg. 

Blend Dry ingredients in sperarate bowl and slowly add to butter/sugar mix. 

Add banana mix into dough then add the nuts/decorations. 

Scoop with a spoon 1 TBS sized blobs onto a cookies sheet and bake 11-13 min. Cool and enjoy. 

I actually find these to be really delicous and not too banana-y. You will definately want to start with less sugar and add it as you make the dough though if you’re like me and think bananas are crazy sweet to begin with. 

PILLSBURY VEGAN CREAM CHEESE DANISH

So long time with out a post… so as usual i’ll throw a few up at once. 

I recently had a few rolls of Pillsbury crescent rolls in my fridge leftover from when i was making a Vegan Chicken Potpie. I was vaguely curious as to what other delicious things i could make with them. I went over to Pillsbury’s webiste and started scouring through their recipe section. I came across a Cherry-Cheese Danish Braid recipe and decided to try it (but used berries i already had in my fridge instead). I obviously am not as good at braiding dough as the people at pilsbury as mine turned out kinda in larva blob form (pictured). But once i garnished the slices with fresh fruit it looked ok and tasted awesome. The only thing i’d advise is that if you too are using berries and are bothered by the seeds than you’re going to want to go the extra mile and crush the berries first and strain them before adding them to the cream cheese. I don’t mind the seeds so much so i didn’t do that and everyone still thought they were good. 

So without further adieu:

What you need:

1 Can Pillsbury Crecent rolls (double check the label as they make different kinds but regular and reduced fat are vegan)

1/2 cup vegan cream cheese (one 8oz pkg) (I used Tofutti)

2 TBS white sugar

1 EnerG Egg Replacer (available in the baking asile at most groceries)

1/2 cup crushed berries or small diced fruit of your choice

1 TBS water

1/2 tsp baking soda

1 tsp sugar (for garnish)

The original recipe has a glaze that they add but i left it off as i didn’t really feel like i needed more sugar for this recipe. 

What you do:

Heat oven to 375

In a bowl mix the cream cheese, 2 TBS sugar and egg replacer until blended then add the berries. 

Roll out the crecent dough in a single rectangle. 

Spoon cream cheese mix down center of dough (only 2” wide) because you’ll need to cut strips into the sides to make the braid. 

on the remaning clean dough (on either side of filling strip) cut 1” wide strips perpendicular to the filling (so you can fold them across the filling making a braid). You will probably want to pinch the dough where it crosses to it dosn’t unfold while baking (like mine did) and get all weird looking. 

Mix the 1 TBS water with the baking soda and lightly brush the top of the danish and sprinkle with the remaing tsp of sugar

Bake for 15-20 min until brown and remove immediately from baking sheet when done. Garnish with extra fruit to hide any ugliness. 

Vegan chocolate macaroon bars

So I had a roll of Pillsbury cresent rolls left over and wanted to do something fun with them. As we all know crecent rolls are accidentally vegan. What I did not know was that Pillsbury actually has a huge site of crecent roll recipies that are almost all easily veganizeable. I spent an hour in their dessert section alone. I found this recipe for chocolate macaroon bars, and since I had everything the recipie needed I went with it. 

Ingreidents:

1 Roll Pillsbury crecent rolls

1 Cup vegan condensed milk (2 cans coconut milk 1/2 cup agave simmered to 1/2 it’s liquid [corn syrup texture])

1/2 cup dried coconut

1 bag vegan chocolate chips

1/2 cup peanut butter

Do What?!?

Preheat oven to 375

So your unroll the cresents into 2 rectangles in a 9x13 baking pan (cut a little off the ends to make a crust at each 9” side)

sprinkle dough with coconut and then cover with the condensed milk

bake at 375 for 16-20 min

Remove from oven and cool while you melt the bag of chips and peanut butter until liquid “creamy” 

Pour chocolate mix over coconut and refridgerate for about 30 min. 

Slice and enjoy. 

Photos are of the baked coconut/condensed milk then then the finished bar (I topped with peanuts but the original recipe suggest almonds)

Anatomy of a Vegan Stir Fry

So this was dinner last night. Pretty straight forward but figured i’d post it as a “don’t forget this is really easy to make” recipe. 

What I used:

1/4 cup Button Mushrooms

1/2 Cup temphet sliced and chopped

1 Carrot sliced

1/2 onion chopped

1/2 Orange bell peper chopped

1/4 cup nutritional yeast 

1/2 tsp spices each:

Purple basil

paprikia

tumeric

oregano

and salt and peper to taste

About 1 TBS coconut oil for the frying

1/4 cup rice or cous cous steamed

What I did:

Set my rice up in my steamer for 45 min

melted coconut oil in a wok and tossed my veggies and tempeh in it for 5 min.

added spices as well as 1/4 cup water and mixed 

I put a lid on the pan and let the veggies steam for about 5 min (to soften carrots)  then removed lid and stir- fried until the water was gone. 

Combined veggies with rice and got my nom on. 

Vegan Tamales!

So every now and again I see people eating delicous looking Tamales… and it saddens me because I know I can’t eat them. A lot of Tamales are pork or chicken or some other meat and if they are veggie they have chicken broth or cheese in them. Usually i sustain my tamale cravings with Amy’s frozen black bean tamales HERE. However, recently a friend of mine kept talking about how her dad makes amazing tamales and it made me think… “hey, why don’t i make tamales?” So I got this recipe from Meatless Monday (I know it’s kinda cheating if the recipe is already vegan) but i like black bean tamales. I also found this steamer at the goodwill and since i don’t have a dutch oven (fart joke) or large steamer already i figured why not. It worked pretty well for the inital making of these bad boys. 

So the recipe official is here but here’s the breakdown:

Ingreeds:

Dried corn husks (about 20) (i got them online at amazon b/c they were out of season)

3 cups corn kernels (cobbe, frozen or canned)

2 Cups masa harina (in the ethnic section of your food store. or online at amazon again)

1/2 cup warm vegetable broth

1/2 tsp salt

3 tbs canola oil

1 red onion diced (i used yellow cuz it’s what i had)

1 32 oz can black beans drained

1 tsp chilli powder

salt and pepper to taste

What’s doing:

separate your corn husks and put them in a bowl of water to soften for about 10 min then place them on towls to dry off

put 2 1/2 cups corn into a food processor or blender or stick blend them into a puree

mix that corn with the masa harina, broth, salt, and canola oil. mix it with your hands till it’s paste like 

oil a frying pan and cook the onion, beans, and remaining 1/2 cup of corn and season with chilli powder, salt and pepper (about 5-7 min)

heat up your steamer/double boiler/fill your oster. 

Assemblage:

This starts out kinda hard but gets easier as you do more

scoop out about 3 TBS  of the dough mix into a ball (think large cookie) 

put that in the center of a corn husk and flatten it into a 1/4” thick circle

spoon about 1 TBS of blackbean corn mix in the middle 

kinda fold the husk in half then and fold the two ends up (see pic above) 

tear a fairly thick strip of one of the other husks and use that to tie the tamale up… then put it in the steamer

repeat until you run out of beans and corn or dough. 

Steam them for 60 min and serve hot (i got some salsa verde and franks hot sauce for mine). 

Enjoy. 

It’s kinda time consuming to make but it yeilds 15ish tamales so you can eat them for a few days or do them for a party. They are pretty small (not like some of the giant restaurant style ones i see) so 2-3 per person is a serving. 

I re-heated mine by putting tamales in a small baking dish, then putting that dish in a larger dish with 1/2” of water in it and covering with foil. Then i baked them at 400 for about 20 min (until i could hear the dish “dancing” on the boiling water) It’s a poor mans steamer but it worked pretty well for re-heating. Not sure if cooking them the first time that way would work or not. 

You know you want them. VEGAN MUDDY BUDDIES

Possibly the easiest and fastest vegan dessert/snack you can make. 3 ingredients and about 25 min. Stock up on your vegan chex cereal because between this and Vegan Chex Mix you’re gonna need it. 

What you need:

1 box vegan chex cereal (gluten free or reggie)

1 bag vegan semisweet morsels 

1/2 cup peanut butter (smooth)

1 cup powdered sugar

OPTIONAL (not pictured) 1/2 cup peanuts (really i just do the traditional)

What you need to do:

In a medium pot melt the chocolate chips

Stir in peanut butter

Pour cereal into a large bowl and coat with chocolate peanut butter mix (stir gently)

dump confectioners sugar in a large paper bag (like from a grocery store) or a large ziploc bag 

Add chocolately chex (still all melty and warm)

Shake until coated and transfer to a bowl.

Refridgerate until chocolate is not longer melty (or freeze some real quick because you’re fat and want to eat them immediately) 

Anatomy of a Vegan Chicken PotPie

So my former roommate and his lady came over to see my new place and eat some dinner the other night. It was cold and rainy out so i made them Robin’s fav- Vegan Chicken Potpie.

The original recipe if frompillsbury grands biscuits (used to be on the roll) Now most grands are not vegan. There are one variety that are (it’s like the heart healthy one) but if you don’t want to stand in the refridgerator section of the food store reading every label on every roll of grands then you can just use pillsbury crecesnt rolls or make some bisquick biscuit dough (again not all bisqucks are vegan) and use that in place of grands. I’m a crazy person so i went to 4 different stores to find the grands that don’t have dairy. 

What you need:

1 Lb Vegan Chicken Cutests (you’re gonna dice them so you can use strips or whatever  your vegan chicken of choce comes as- just go unbreaded) I used 3 Gardien cutlets

1 Cup Sliced carrots (you’re trying to make all components the same size/thickness so they cook the same)

1 Cup frozen peas (or canned)

1/2 Cup sliced celery (same size as carrots)

1/3 cup vegan butter (I use earth balance though you could use oil)

1/3 Cup chopped onion

1/3 cup flour (might need more if doing gluten free)

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 tsp celery seed

1 3/4 cup vegetable broth

2/3  cup vegan milk alternative (i use unsweetened coconut milk)

2 rolls grands (vegan) or crecent rolls or 20 biscuit yeild of bisquick recipe. 

What to do:

Preheat your oven to 400 

-boil carrots, peas, clelery

-add chicken once veggies are about ready

- on medium heat in a separate pot heat onions and butter until onions start to brown/get clear

- stir flour, salt, celery seed into butter/onion until paste forms

- add vegetable broth, and milk and simmer until thick (gravy like)

- grease the bottom and sides of a square baking dish and line the bottom with 1 roll of biscuits or cresents/bisquick dough

- bake for 1/2 the time indictated on roll (i think it’s 5 min) until they just start to puff but are not brown (they will finish cooking with the rest of the potpie)

-strain the vegetable/chicken and pour into square dish on top of 1/2 baked biscuits

- cover vegtables/chicken with gravy 

- top with 2nd roll of grands/crecents/bisquick mix

- bake for 30-35 min until top layer is brown and not burnt

cool for 10 min before attempting to cut into it (it gets really steamy/hot)

ENJOY!

VEGAN PEANUT BUTTER CHOCOLATE BROWNIES

So I had some free time today while doing laundry and thought “i’ll make brownies”. Lets not talk about how I had already made blueberry pancakes for breakfast… 

You’ve seen the pictures so here’s the how to:

For peanut butter part:

6oz (one package) Vegan cream cheese (I used tofutti which is actualy 8oz but i just adjusted the recipe to add a little more peanut butter) 

1/2 cup peanut butter (I used crunchy and used more like 3/4 cup to make up for the extra cream cheese.)

1/4 cup vegan sugar

1 flax egg (2 TBS ground flax heated in 3 TBS water)

2 tsp milk alternative ( I used flax milk)

For the chocolate part:

3/4 cup vegan butter melted (i used earth balance buttery sticks)

2 cups vegan sugar

2 tsp vanilla

3 egg replacer eggs

3/4 cups flour

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

1 cup vegan chocolate chips (available at whole foods)

What to do:

beat the cream cheese, peanut butter, sugar, egg and milk together and set aside

in a separate bowl mix the melted butter, sugar, vanilla, and eggs for chocolate part

In another bowl combine coco, flour, baking powder, salt

combine wet and dry ingredients

stir in chocolate chips

preheat oven to 350 

grease a 9x13 pan and spread the chocolate mix in it

drop peanut butter mix on top and use a spoon to swirl it into the chocolate. (In this case i merely spread the peanut butter on top #lazy)

Bake for 35-40 min I usually rock 35 cuz I like my brownies fudgy. 

Cool and enjoy!

Vegan Holiday Baked goods Trays! I spoke of these in my earlier posts. Here’s what’s on them: 

Vegan Saltine Bark

Vegan Blue Berry Muffins (gluten free)

Vegan Orange Sticky Rolls (Made with Tangerines this time)

Vegan Jelly Thumbprint Cookies

Vegan Maple Thyme Biscuits

Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies

Some trays also came with a loaf of Vegan Pretzel Bread and some Vegan Chex Mix

All said and done it took about 6 hours of baking one night to make these. They all seemed well received. 

UPDATE: Vegan Pretzel Bread post now has pictures!!!! The recipe can be found here. I just made more bread for my holiday baked goods trays so I finally got some pics for you!!

So for the holidays, like a crazy person, I baked some friends a few trays of baked goods. Most of what was on them the recipes can already be found on this blog. The one thing I made that I hadden’t already posted about were Blueberry Muffins. I made this batch gluten free because my old roommate is on Paleo diet and not rocking gluten. This recipe also works for other berries or mixed berries as well. 

What’s needed:

1 Cup vegan milk (I went on a limb and used flax seed milk this time)

1 Ener-G Egg replacer Egg

3 TBS Melted Earth balance butter

1 tsp Vanilla

2 Cups gluten free flour (I used bobs redmill mix)

2 TBS gluten free dough contidioner (recipe here)

1/2 tsp xantham or guar gum

1 Cup Rolled oats

1 Cup brown sugar

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp pumpkin pie spice (or 1/8 tsp cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, clove)

1/2 tsp salt

1 1/2 Cups Berries (I just used 2 Pints)

1/4 Cup raw sugar

Preheat the oven to 400 and get out your muffin tin and line 12 holes with paper

Mix the Milk, egg, butter, brown sugar, and vanilla in your mixer

In a separate bowl mix the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, spices, and oates

Slowly mix the dry into the wet ingredients but don’t over mix (the oats will get too crushed)

I add the berries into my electric mixer because I like that half of them get crushed and the other stays whole but if you want more whole berries mix them in by hand. 

Fill each cup to the brim with mix then sprinkle the raw sugar on the tops generously

Bake for 20 min

PICTURES:

So I was cruising whole foods looking for a vegan alternative to cream of mushroom soup and I found they started carrying vegan worcestershire sauce. Which is the key ingredient to making delicious chex mix. I’ve tried to do this recipe in the past replacing this nugget with things like liquid smoke and soy sauce, even liquid aminos, and it’s never the same. So I figured it couldn’t be any more clear, the universe wanted me to make chex mix. 

I gathered everything I needed (but veganized) and set off to do it right. 

What I gathered:

1 box vegan natural chex like cereal (not sure what brand I got but some hippie stuff)

1 cup vegan natural cheerios like cereal (just read ingredients)

1 cup roasted lightly salted peanuts (would have preferred non-roasted but it was all they had)

1/2 cup cashews lightly salted

optional (and most people would probably want) 1 bag vegan pretzels (but I find the dry so I replace them with the cheerios.. though you could do both)

1/4 cup (4 tbs vegan butter ) (earth balance)

4 tsp worcestershire sauce (though i use closer to 1/4 cup cuz I love the flavor

dash liquid smoke

1/2 tsp garlic powder

1/2 tsp onion powder

1/2 tsp salt 

1 tsp soy sauce

what you want to do:

preheat oven to 250

on the stove, melt the butter and mix in the soy, liquid smoke, worcestershire, garlic and onion powders, and salt (you can add some cayenne for extra kick)

In a bowl mix the cereals, pretzels, and nuts

once butter mix is melted pour it over the dry mix and use wooden spoon to gently mix.

Transfer the mix into a baking dish (9x11) or 2 smaller ones but try to it pretty flat for better toasting

bake for 45 min stirring every 15 min (I’ll add more seasonings/butter to taste/crunchiness)

then cool and enjoy!