Cooking Away

Today has just been cooking, shopping, and prepping for this weekend’s camping trip. From the looks of it I think we’re pretty much set. All I have to do now is make the vegan pesto. Even though today’s food doesn’t look like much, I have been munching all day. I seemed to lost count of how many things I’ve unconsciously grazed upon and didn’t think to take pictures. Maybe I should have because it would have probably given me a little more control and awareness. Speaking of taking pictures, last night I ran out of batteries in both my camera and spare, so I was not able to document that. ARR!

It wasn’t too exciting though, just a slice of whole wheat toast topped with grilled boca burger, grilled mushrooms, red onions, mayo and mustard.

Anyway, onto the tempting cookies that you see pictured below. They’re from VwaV’s. Let me just tell you that these are NOT healthy cookies! There’s no egg, but there’s a TON of sugar! 2 WHOLE CUPS to be exact. The bowl with the wet ingredients looked so unhealthy that I got a little scared (and grossed out). In addition to the crazy amount of sugar, there was almost 1 full cup of oil. The small bowl that I had the mixture in was almost overflowing with the oil on top. Going along with the recipe anyway, I decided to make the cookies smaller by using a small ice cream scoop (I think it’s # 18..?), so that the serving would be smaller.

When they came out of the oven and cooled, I let Long be my guinea pig. He loves PB in sweets. I on the other hand, normally enjoy my pb in nut state or butter state, but after taking a bite of one of these sinful, and I do mean sinful cookies, I fell in love. They are soooooOoo peanut buttery good!

Vegan with a Vengeance’s Big Gigantoid Crunchy Peanut Butter-Oatmeal Cookies. (1/2 of batch is with pb chips)

1/2 of Long’s banana

coffee and a small pb oatmeal cookie

wheat flakes with vanilla soy milk and strawberry slices

sliced almonds

I found this recipe of a vegan cornbread from The Kosher Blog. I never would have thought that ground flaxseed would provide such a nice flavor and bind so well in this moist bread! I absolutely love cornbread, so I was ecstatic to find one that didn’t require any eggs. Just awesomeness all around today.

Mock meatloaf topped with A1 sauce and mushroom gravy with a side of vegan cornbread.

I found this granola recipe on Kath’s blog who found it on Suite Apple’s blog. They both had their own take on it. Kath’s looked amazingly delicious, while Suite Apple’s sounded amazingly delicious. I couldn’t decide between the two, so I did a little bit of both.

The oats provided a pleasant chewiness with rich, nutty flavor from the almonds. While the maple syrup and brown sugar gave strong flavors, there were also subtle hints of buttery coconut. By far, this is the best granola I’ve ever had. Hands down.

Maple, coconut, Brown Sugar Granola (recipe below)

Suite Apple + KERF’s = Sweet.Success.

1 cup of quaker oats

1/2 cup of unsweetened coconut

1 cup of sliced almonds

1 T. of canola oil

1/4 cup pure maple syrup

1/2 t. golden brown sugar

1 t. pure vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 300F

Mix all ingredients in a medium sized bowl

Cover half sheet with parchment paper

Spread out granola mixture evenly.

Bake for 15 minutes, stir then bake for another 5 minutes.

P.S. I’ve been tagged by Emma, but I am sorry to say that I will have to tend to that when I get back. I won’t be posting this weekend, but as usual will be taking pictures. Don’t worry this time my camera batteries are fully charged. Enjoy my pictures and have a fun and safe weekend everyone!