Apple Crumb Pie

This is Adam Apple Mouth. This is what happens when you are a little brother and you've been expected to entertain yourself while all the grownups are watching football or cooking. All day long. And then your sister tries to make an apple pie and your mom sliced up the apples, which was awesome of her, but your sister isn't quite ready to assemble the pie yet and there are apples sliced up and sitting on the counter and one of your favorite foods is apples.

After a very long two days of painting and cooking, everything else was in the oven or on the counter ready to go for dinner and I was making this pie to go in the oven while we ate. Adam likes apples. And there were plenty left for the pie. And the pie was a complete success. I even suggested tweaking something for if I make it again and Sam said something about how I couldn't ruin the best pie ever. So, apparently, it's the best pie ever.

Adam Apple Mouth

Pie after being sliced into

Also, I love this blog I've been reading Hyperbole and a Half. Everyone else has probably already heard of it, but I just discovered it. Allie's posts about depression (post one and post two) are hilariously insightful and her post on procrastination and guilt seems like it was written directly to me. Please read it, it's wonderful! (There are some curse words though, just so you know)

Pie before crumble topping

Onto pie. The recipe came from My Sweet Vegan by Emily Mainquist. This is an awesome book that has so many recipes I want to try and came to me courtesy of Trina from Your Vegan Mom. The pie was super easy and quick to put together, but I did have to bake it for about an hour longer than stated. It was all good though, we were playing Yahtzee and not ready for pie yet. I added some lemon juice and apple butter to the filling and used about 1/3 cup sugar instead of 3/4. Other than that, I followed the recipe exactly so I don't want to publish it here -- go buy the book! Seriously, it's great.

Action shot

The tempting bowl of apples

Pie crust, apples, and look at our green dining room!

More to come on green bean casserole, dining room before and after, roast squash, cranberry sauce, eating (some) garlic and onions again, and actual recipes!

Chickpea Florentine Tart with GF Breadcrumb Topping

Here's another one out of Cooking for Isaiah. I've modified it quite a lot to replace the eggs, and what I've ended up with is a deliciously hummus-y florentine tart that both me and Sam can eat! Yay!

1 can great northern beans, drained and rinsed
1 can chickpeas, drained and rinsed
1 T tahini
1 tsp egg replacer powder (optional, I think)
1/2 tsp garlic powder or onion powder
juice of one lemon
1/2 cup water
salt and pepper, to taste
1 package spinach, thawed
1 T olive oil, to grease the pan

2 small tomatoes, thinly sliced and lightly sprinkled with salt
1/2 cup rice cereal crumbs
1/2 tsp red pepper flakes
1 clove garlic, grated
more olive oil, for drizzling

Add everything from the first list except the spinach and oil to a blender. Blend for a couple of minutes, until thick and smooth. Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Mix spinach with bean mix. Grease a cast iron skillet (a pie plate would probably work too) with the olive oil. Use the whole tablespoon, to create a nice crust.

Spoon the mixture into your skillet, top with the tomatoes, and place in the oven for about 50 minutes.

Process a bunch of rice cereal (Chex), into a breadcrumb texture. Reserve 1/2 cup, and save the rest in an airtight container-- trust me, you'll want some more later, the topping is the best part! Put the 1/2 cup back into the food processor, grate a garlic clove in there, and add 1/2 tsp red pepper flakes. Pulse. When your tart is finished, and looks golden around the edges, take it out, top it with the crumb mixture, and drizzle pretty liberally with olive oil. Broil for about 3 minutes. You can totally eat this hot from the oven, but it will slice and serve much better if it cools to at least room temp and can be served cold. Enjoy!

Black Bean, Corn, and Yellow Rice Enchiladas and a New Cookbook!

Last week on Meatless Mondays, I made some pretty amazing enchiladas from Cooking for Isaiah by Silvana Nardone. This is a really cool cookbook that Sam picked out at Barnes and Noble a couple of weeks ago. All of it's recipes are dairy and gluten free, and while it is by no means a vegan, or even vegetarian cookbook, there are a few vegan recipes that look delicious and I plan on veganizing some of the other ones. Sam is gravitating to more and more gluten and dairy free things, which gives me another way to challenge myself in the kitchen-- challenges are what keep me cooking! I just got all of the flours and starches to make her gluten free flour blend, and I'm going to try my hand at gluten free baking. I'm hoping that I can find an egg replacer that works with the flour blend because all of the bread and cake recipes in the book include eggs, although I did see one recipe for bread sticks on her blog that is vegan. My usual go-to egg replacer is flax, but Sam is allergic to flax, so I'll find something new. Does anyone have suggestions for a good egg replacer for gluten free baking?

Our whole perspective on meatless Mondays for him is that we want more things we can eat together, without making two separate meals. It's fun to eat the same thing, it's easier, and it's something we want our future family to be able to do, for the most part. That's where these blackbean and corn enchiladas come in. They are delicious! They feature a homemade red enchilada sauce made with red wine that is so flavorful, the carnivores may not miss their meat, at least for one night!

I don't think the recipe is out there on the interwebs and I didn't really adapt it so no recipe today, but if you are into non-vegan cookbooks or veganizing amazing recipes, I recommend this one! It has some beautiful photography, amazing reviews, and if this first recipe is any indication, some pretty darn good recipes!

so yummy!

Carrot-Cake Muffins with Molasses Buttercream

Just look at these. The bits of raisin and carrot, the crystallized sugar on top, the swirl of caramel-y molasses buttercream. Wow, they're good. And perfect for ushering in the fall. Nights are starting to cool down (which for us means getting down to 80 every now and then) and bugs are making their merry little way into the house (not the best harbinger of fall). Soon, we'll be able to wear jackets and snuggle up on our couches with mugs of hot tea. Maybe it's not blazing hot where you live and you already do this. Either way, these carrot-cake muffins are delicious.

The recipe for the muffins is from Simple Vegan!, which was in a giveaway package I won from Your Vegan Mom. She even wrote about this recipe here! I think this is the first thing I've made from here, and if it's any indication of the rest of the recipes, I'll be making more! It was already pretty healthy, so I didn't feel like I needed to substitute anything. This book seems like it's filled with really simple (hence the name), relatively healthy recipes. The only negative I'd give it so far is that it's so simple in terms of vegan knowledge-- for example, in one of the asides it mentions that the only chocolate vegans can eat is some kinds of dark chocolate. No mention of all the lovely vegan products out there that are milk or white! I think this could be off-putting to old vegans who know better or new vegans who might feel more restricted than they need to. We have lots of options, new vegans!

Besides that, it looks like a really good resource and was published by the folks at Good Housekeeping, which means both that the recipes have been extensively tested by vegans and non-vegans, and that vegan eating is continuing to make it's way into the mainstream-- two very awesome things! The buttercream is my own recipe, and it is flipping delicious if I do say so myself. Which I do. Now, after all of that chatter, on to the recipes!

Carrot-Cake Muffins
makes 6

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup quick oats (I think regular old-fashioned would work well too)
• 3/4 cup flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp pumpkin pie spice (recipe follows if you don't have it)
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup plus 2 T almond milk (or other non-dairy milk)
• 2 T unsweetened applesauce
• 1 1/2 T vegetable oil
• 1 tsp molasses
• 1 cup shredded carrot  (mine was 1 large carrot)
• 1/4 cup raisins
• 3 tsps coarse sugar (the stuff I have is from Wilton)

Directions

• Preheat oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit.
•  I almost always halve muffin and cupcake recipes, so my version makes 6. Mix all of the dry ingredients in one bowl-- from the beginning of the list through the sugar.
• Mix wet ingredients in another bowl-- the almond milk, applesauce, vegetable oil, and molasses. The original recipe calls for brown sugar but I was out and adding the molasses here gives a brown sugar taste!
• Mix the 2 bowls together and fold in the raisins and carrots. The optional walnuts would be lovely but I didn't have any. If you do, fold in 2 T here.
• Fill your muffin cups (I used liners for easier portability and less cleanup!). They will be pretty darn full.
• Top with the coarse sugar. You can use regular sugar or just omit it, but the coarse kind really gives it that bakery/coffee shop feel. And don't we all like to feel fancy, even at home?
• Bake for about 25 minutes.
• Eat plain, with a bit of non-dairy margarine, or with my molasses buttercream!

For one of 6: cals: 188kcal | fat: 4.61g | carbs: 34.83g | prot: 2.86g


Pumpkin Pie Spice

Ingredients

• 4 tablespoons ground cinnamon
• 4 teaspoons ground nutmeg
• 4 teaspoons ground ginger
• 3 teaspoons ground allspice

Directions

• I didn't have any pumpkin pie spice (you can tell I didn't plan on making these muffins, no?) but I had all of the ingredients to make it. I used this recipe and it turned out beautifully! Just put everything in a small jar and shake it up. Then it's ready to use in your muffins, plus extra for pie or oatmeal later!

 Molasses Buttercream

Ingredients

• 1/4 cup of your favorite margarine
• 1 tsp molasses
• 1-2 cups powdered sugar

Directions

• Beat the margarine and molasses together with an electric mixer.
• Slowly add the sugar in, mixing after each addition, until your desired consistency is reached. Mine never got as thick as a normal buttercream-- I think the liquid in the molasses changed things up a bit, but just pop it in the fridge and it'll firm up!
• Spread on everything and eat with a spoon (I won't judge, I did).

For 2 T. Based on using 1.5 cups sugar: cals: 115kcal | fat: 2.52g | carbs: 23.07g | prot: 0.00g


And since this post didn't have very many pictures, I'll leave you with this one. This is March, one of the kitties we rescued a few months ago. I wrote about them in this post. He's normally very reserved but he loves posing for the camera-- this is his "fierce" pose. Cracks me up every time I see it. I'll be sure to put up pics of the other two soon!

Thanks, Trina!

A few days ago I found out that I won a blog giveaway. I've never won anything like this before (neither had my husband until last October when he won a Whole Foods giftcard at the Texas State Veggie Fair). Anyway, I was super duper excited to be getting such an amazing box of goodies from Trina at Your Vegan Mom, and even more excited when the package showed up my doorstep this afternoon! 

I had some of the Sweetriot chocolate while perusing the 4 cookbooks she included. There's also The China Study, which I've been wanting to read, delicious-looking homemade brownies, some homemade coconut cake body scrub that smells wonderful, coupons for Quorn products and Tribe hummus, and a sweet little note.

I've been sewing today (that's something I do a lot-- I'll be re-launching my etsy shop soon), and soon I'll workout and make some lentil tacos for dinner from a recipe I've had my eye on over at Runner's World, and wait for my awesome husband to get back from work. All in all, I'd say it's been a really great day.