So I know it’s supposed to be MUFFIN THURSDAY but I’ve been slacking on the muffin front, so instead its emotionally-charged chocolate eating Thursday…which doesn’t really have the same ring to it. But alas. I’m taking this really awful Research Methods course, and one example that the professor used in class recently was a study about chocolate affecting mood. I checked the citation, and it turns out that yes, it is a real study, and yes, chocolate makes you happier. SHOCK AND AWE. Anyway, over the last few weeks I’ve had a couple instances where chocolate was the only answer.

Vegan Rag Pie

I don’t think I need to go into the origins of the name, but just know that it is lovely alongside 40’s of malt liquor in your living room with your friends. It combines the two best friends of most premenstrual women: chocolate and peanut butter. It is also super easy and quick to make when you decide to have your friends over for malt liquor at the last minute.

You will need:
4 one-ounce baking chocolate squares, melted (if you are lucky enough to have vegan chocolate chips around, use about ½ cup and melt them)
½ cup creamy peanut butter
1 container silken tofu
2 TBS soy milk
1 premade crust (I used a shortbread-style, you can use whatever your lazy heart desires)

Blend the first 4 ingredients in a food processor. Keep the soy milk on hand, as I had to add slightly more to get the filling to a good “filling” consistency, but you may not. Pour into the premade pie crust and chuck that baby in the fridge for at least an hour.

Cut…

EAT EAT EAT

Sorry these pictures are on the terrible side, somebody (Rob) was too busy (malt liquor/Mario Kart) to take them for me.

And that’s not all…

For those of you who don’t know Rob or me in real life, we had a minor medical scare last week that involved Rob having to go to the emergency room. The diagnosis was good, but as anyone who has spent an evening in the ER knows, it’s stressful and depressing and all-around sucks. We came home and moped around for awhile, unable to sleep, when I decided that clearly what we needed was brownies. These were awesome. I found the recipe online and veganized it, and I have to say, I’d been thoroughly underwhelmed with vegan brownies before this version. They are thick and gooey and get stuck in your throat (a quality of a good brownie.) They also maintained their quality pretty well throughout the week. The recipe makes so many that I was forced to pawn some off on my cousin Celeste, who promptly asked, “Are these gonna be on The Food Sex??” Hope you liked em, C.

Post-Emergency Room Brownies

You will need:
2 cups flour
2 cups white sugar (I used slightly less than 2 cups because geez, that’s a lot of sugar)
¾ cup cocoa powder
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1 cup soy milk
½ cup vegetable oil
½ cup unsweetened applesauce
2-3 squares baking chocolate, chopped into little bits

Mix all the dry ingredients (flour, sugar, cocoa powder, baking powder and salt) in a big bowl and mix the wet (soy milk, vegetable oil and applesauce) in another. Add the wet to the dry and mix.

Pour roughly half the batter into a prepared 13×9 pan. Sprinkle half the chopped chocolate over. Is this necessary? No. Is it gluttonous? Yes. Does it make the brownies better? Definitely. Pour the rest of the batter over and top with the rest of the chocolate.

Bake at 350 for really only about 15 minutes for a gooey brownie. Remove from the oven and let sit for 10 minutes before cutting.

Here’s the pan:

and here are the brownies:

Unnngggh….

Well, that being said, Robbo and I are on vacation all next week on a road trip, where I will likely NOT be posting from the backwoods of Virginia. Have a good week!!

Really, I do. Independence rules because there is an entire day for it and you DON’T have to go to work but you DO get to barbecue, drink and possibly even set things on fire. With your friends! See also: why I love Memorial Day and Labor Day.
This is actually the 3rd annual Fort Jane 4th of July BBQ, as Rob and I have had our friends over on the 4th each summer that we’ve lived here. This is what we ate this year:

Julie Hasson’s Spicy Vegetarian Italian Sausages

Now, if you’ve ever read a vegan blog you’ve seen Julie’s recipe from Everyday Dish in action. You may have made it, you may have been intimidated by it, but I promise you, it is easy and delicious and you will love it. This recipe is supposed to make 8 sausages, but somehow I always end up with 9. I’m not complaining.

You will need:
2 & 1/4 cups vital wheat gluten
1/2 cup nutritional yeast flakes
1/4 cup chickpea flour
2 tbsp Bills Best Chik’Nish Seasoning (if using another brand which is salty, or saltier than Bill’s Best, you’ll want to greatly reduce the amount you use) (note: I don’t even know what this is, but did a Google search for “chicken-style seasoning mixes” and found some good stuff)
2 tbsp granulated onion
1 to 2 tbsp fennel seed, optional
2 tsp coarsely ground pepper, preferably freshly ground
2 tsp ground paprika
1 tsp dried chili flakes, optional
1 tsp ground smoked paprika
1/2 tsp dried oregano
1 tsp salt
1/8 tsp ground allspice
2 & 1/4 cups cool water
6 to 8 cloves garlic, minced or pressed
2 tbsp olive oil
2 tbsp soy sauce

1. In a large bowl, mix together all of the dry ingredients. Whisk together the water, garlic, olive oil and soy sauce and using a fork, gently stir into the dry ingredients. Stir just until ingredients are mixed. If dough mixture is too dry, you can add another tablespoon of water or as needed.
2. Scoop 1/2 cup dough mixture at a time and shape into logs. Place logs on piece of aluminum foil and roll up, twisting ends. Place sausages in steamer and steam for 30 minutes. Once sausages have cooled, remove from foil and refrigerate until ready to eat. After cooling, the sausages may feel a bit dry on the outside. Don’t worry, as they will soften and firm up considerably after chilling.

Or! You could go here and watch Julie make it herself.

This is what the dry ingredients look like:

This is what your dough will look like:

See how the one in the back isn’t tightly twisted?

Yeah, this is what happens:

This is my bamboo steamer on my ancient stove. There is the lid, carelessly tossed onto another burner:

Why am I showing you all this? I’m not sure. Here are the sausages:

They are good. They are so, so good. Stick them in the fridge for a bit to congeal, and toss them on the hot grill for a few minutes on each side. They are equally good with sautéed onions and peppers in tomato sauce as they are with spicy mustard. A few days later, I sliced one up and sautéed it with squash and zucchini and made a sandwich. These will not let you down.

And because no BBQ is complete without it, I made:

Vegan Potato Salad

You will need:
3 pounds little red potatoes, halved if they are big
1/2 red onion, diced
3-4 stalks celery, chopped
1/2 block of extra firm tofu, diced (in place of hard boiled eggs)
1/2 cup sweet pickle relish
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp black pepper
2/3 cup Vegenaise. You could also use Nayonaise, but Vegenaise is what they carry at our Whole Foods.
2 TBS Dijon mustard

Boil the potatoes until soft but still holding their shape, about 15-20-ish minutes? I immediately drained them and stuck the whole strainer in the fridge so the potatoes would cool and firm up a little. You can do this the night before, which is always nice. When you are ready to make the salad, just take the potatoes out and cut them into little chunks. Mix the potatoes, onion, celery, tofu, relish, salt and pepper in a big bowl. Evenly distribute the relish. In a smaller bowl, mix together the ‘naise and mustard and pour that over the top. Toss everything well (but gently!) to coat evenly. Cover this and put it in the fridge for as long as possible. The more time everything has to sit together, the better it will be.

See? Independence rules.

Except when you get attacked by snakes aaaaah!

Oh whew, they are just garlic scapes. You were scared. I am so lame. Anyway, my friend Carrie got a bunch of these in her CSA that week and gave me a few. Here they are, to scale. Remember that my hands are giant (and my kitchen floor is filthy.)

Anyway, I love garlic, so these guys, which are essentially the shoots that grow out of the ground from the garlic bulb, are like my idea of heaven…if only I could figure out what to do with them. A quick google search found this delicious dip, which I think is originally from the NY Times:

White Bean and Garlic Scape Dip

You will need:
1/3 cup sliced garlic scapes (3 to 4)
1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lemon juice, more to taste
1/2 teaspoon coarse sea salt, more to taste
Ground black pepper to taste
1 can (15 ounces) cannellini beans, rinsed and drained
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil, more for drizzling.

In a food processor, process garlic scapes with lemon juice, salt and pepper until finely chopped. Add cannellini beans and process to a rough purée.

With motor running, slowly drizzle olive oil through feed tube and process until fairly smooth. Pulse in 2 or 3 tablespoons water, or more, until mixture is the consistency of a dip. Add more salt, pepper and/or lemon juice, if desired.

Spread out dip on a plate, drizzle with olive oil, and sprinkle with more salt.

It turned out this really pretty light green color. The dip was very garlicky but because the scapes don’t have that hot bite that raw garlic cloves do, it’s really pleasant.

I served it with homemade pita chips (Cut a whole wheat pita into triangles like you’re cutting a pizza, put them on a baking sheet, drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle liberally with salt and bake at 350 for, I dunno, 10 minutes? Keep an eye on them, they burn fast.)

Bitchin! I also made tofu-and-pepper kebabs with a vegan basil aioli sauce for dippin’, but I didn’t take any pictures because I was hungry. Definitely not because I’d been drinking all day. I’ll make them again soon and blog them.
In conclusion, Independence Day is awesome, and I will probably continue to live in America. Thanks for not wanting to pay your taxes, early Americans. Sorry about your luck, Native Americans. Smallpox sucks. Anyway.

This week’s installment of MUFFIN THURSDAYS comes to you from my spare bedroom, because I actually took a vacation day today. I’m in my underwear right now. Things you didn’t need to know. Anyway, this installment is also brought to you by the number 3, the letter B, and the May 2008 issue of Vegetarian Times, where this recipe is taken directly from. Actually, it was a reader-submitted recipe, so thanks, Haley Fredrickson!

Lemonberry Muffins

You will need:
1 cup whole grain spelt flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/8 tsp salt
1/2 cup soy milk
1/2 cup brown rice syrup
1/4 cup canola oil
1/2 tsp lemon extract (I actually added a bit more)
3/4 cup raspberries (fresh or frozen)

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt. In a smaller bowl, whisk together the soymilk, rice syrup, oil and lemon extract.
2. Add wet ingredients to dry ingredients. Mix well.
3. Gently fold in raspberries. Fill the cups of a 12-cup muffin tin 2/3rds full
4. Bake 20-25 minutes.

The whole point of these muffins is that they have no added sugar. Except, I found them to be slightly not-sweet-enough for me, and I don’t have that much of a sweet tooth, so I think most people would want them to be a bit sweeter. So thus, I took those no-sugar-added muffins, and topped them with sugar.

So sue me! A little sugar won’t hurt you. Unless you’re diabetic, I guess, in which case I’d say you should probably skip the dipping-in-sugar step.

And that concludes this edition of Muffin Thursdays…I’m going back to watching daytime TV. Fabulous.

One of the crappiest things about having class Monday, Tuesday and Thursday nights, Ukiah practice on Wednesdays and usually some social event on Fridays is that I have no time to cook, which is why I’m putting up some backlogged recipes. I made this back in February with black bean soup, but I figured I’d spare you another hot soup recipe now that it’s July, and just post the tortilla bowls.

Tofu and White Bean Tortilla Bowls

You will need:
1 lb firm or extra firm tofu, diced into bite-size pieces
1 can white beans (I think I used navy beans in this because they are my favorite, but cannellini or great northern would be fine also), drained and rinsed
1 clove of garlic, minced
Spinach
Salsa of yer likin’
Tortillas (fajita-size, I believe)
Cumin
Chili powder
Olive oil
Salt and pepper
Cilantro

My goal for this recipe was to make an edible tortilla bowl, like the ones they sell at Mexican chains like Qdoba (as my friend Nikki says, “It’s a bowl. That you can EAT!”) for salads and the like, but without frying it.

What I did was spray the inside of two deep cereal bowls with cooking spray, and jammed the tortilla down in there to fit the shape of the bowl. After drizzling the tortilla with olive oil and seasoning it with salt and pepper, I stuck something heavy (that, for the life of me, I can’t remember now—a rock? My cat? I’m not sure. Oh, stop writing the nasty email right this second, I was joking.) wrapped in aluminum foil in the bottom to hold it down, and baked it in a 350 degree oven for 10-15 minutes. The result? Ehh. It looked nice, but wasn’t much to write home about. I guess sometimes frying things is really the only way to do them.
So anyway, in a bowl, toss the tofu with the beans, a glug of olive oil, and a healthy sprinkling of cumin, chili powder, salt and pepper.

In a hot skillet, add another glug of olive oil and cook your garlic for just a minute. Dump in the tofu and bean mixture and heat, stirring occasionally, until the tofu is cooked to your liking. Throw in a handful of spinach (a prize to the first person to comment with the number of times I have used the phrase “handful of spinach” on this blog—seriously) and stir until it wilts. Take it off the heat and divide between your tortilla bowls.
Top each with a spoonful of salsa. Rob and I went through a phase over the winter where we were obsessed with Frontera brand tomatillo salsa:

So I used that and then sprinkled the top with a little more chili powder for color and topped it with cilantro. It was pretty good, but I guess the point is that you could use any kind of spices or salsa that you wanted. Next up= learning to fry a damn tortilla bowl. We’ll work on it.

Aaaaand the close-up: