And the winners are….. plus lava cake

First off, a big thank you to everyone who posted a comment for the contest and a big thank you to Coconut Bliss for donating the coupons.  There were some pretty yummerific ideas.  A quick recap:  liz likes to make ice cream cookie sandwiches and roll the sides in flaked coconut, mmmorgan adds berries to straight up vanilla, jeff is a fan of milkshakes, and animal-friendly swirls peanut butter into the softened vanilla.  Yum!  I want it all.  And a bunch of you go for it straight out of the carton which in all honesty is how I eat it most often.  Once one has procured the deliciousness that is Coconut Bliss, it’s near impossible to have the patience to do much more than grab a spoon.

On with the winners….Animal-Friendly in the US and mmmorgans in Canada.  Congratulations!  Email me your address and I’ll get your coupons mailed out asap.

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Lastly, I wanted to share one more recipe idea that is a superb accompaniment to a healthy scoop of Coconut Bliss:  lava cake.  In all its ooey gooey glory, who can resist little individual chocolate cakes with an oozy chocolate center?  And these really are pretty darn easy.  I made them in advance for a small dinner party, so I had to microwave them a bit before serving.  I think the reheating may have contributed to my molten chocolate interior being a little more on the thick side.  Just the same, these were out of this world and I offer a few ideas for improvement if you want to give it a try.  This recipe provides enough raspberry sauce to decorate the serving plates, but if you want to have enough to spoon sauce over the cakes, you may want to make a bit more.  I baked my lava cakes in ramekins coated with Earth Balance margarine for easy removal.

Molten Lava Cakes

Yield: 6 cakes

1 recipe for a dozen (vegan) chocolate cupcakes

Molten Chocolate Interior:

1/3 cup plus 1 -2 tablespoons non dairy milk

1/3 cup well chopped chocolate (Newman’s Own Organics, Theo, and Sjaaks are brands I like that use fair trade cocoa from Latin America)

1 teaspoon non hydrogenate margarine such as Earth Balance

Raspberry Sauce:

1 cup frozen raspberries

2 tablespoons granulated sugar

I used 1/3 cup non dairy milk.  When making this again, I will probably try adding an additional tablespoon or two of non dairy milk (as the ingredient list notates) to thin it out a bit.  First, you need to make the molten chocolate interior which is basically a thicker version of a ganache.  Stirring frequently, heat the non dairy milk in a saucepan over medium to medium high heat (but do not let it simmer).  Remove from the heat and stir in the chopped chocolate as well as the margarine until melted.  Once the saucepan has cooled a bit, transfer to the freezer to thicken, stirring every 5 - 10 minutes or so until the ganache has the consistency of thick frosting.  At this point, you can use either a pastry bag or a spoon (a little messier) to form slightly flattened chocolate balls a little larger than the size of a cherry.  You may have some ganache left over (just melt gently by microwaving for 30 second intervals and pour on top of finished cakes before serving).  Transfer chocolate centers to a plate lined with parchment paper and place in the refrigerator.  Next up:  prepare cupcake batter.

For the cupcakes, I used Your Basic Chocolate Cupcake recipe from Isa and Terry's amazing Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World (Rapunzel makes a great cocoa powder that is both organic and from Latin America).  Make sure you coat your ramekins with some margarine before beginning.  And remove your molten chocolate interiors from the fridge about 5 minutes before finishing the cupcake batter recipe.  Simply fill each ramekin a little less than 3/4 full, then add the flattened ganache ball to each ramekin and spoon a bit of the left over batter on top to cover.  Place ramekins on a cookie sheet and bake for 13-15 minutes (when I pulled my cakes out, the oven temp had crept up a bit and I let it go for the entire 15 minutes, which I think was a bit too long).  You want the cakes to be firm to the touch, but be wary of over baking or your center won’t be very "molten".  Place ramekins on a cooling rack for at least 10 minutes (and loosen edges with a butter knife) before inverting onto a serving plate.

While the cakes are baking, prepare the raspberry sauce.  Simply heat raspberries and sugar in a small saucepan over medium heat, stirring frequently, until the berries have broken down and the sauce has thickened.  Remove from heat to cool.

To serve, spoon cooled raspberry sauce into a zip lock bag and clip a small amount off a bottom corner.  Pipe onto a plate.  Invert lava cake onto the raspberry sauce and serve with a generous scoop of Coconut Bliss.  Enjoy!

Coconut Bliss Giveaway and Ice Cream Cookie Pie

Coconut Bliss

I’m a huge ice cream nut.  It is my clear favorite dessert choice.  After becoming vegan, I had a rough time finding a non-dairy ice cream that I really liked.  Eventually, I came across Luna & Larry’s Coconut Bliss.  Sweet relief!  Finally, a creamy, rich, delicious non-dairy ice cream that is genuinely the best stuff ever.  It tastes so much better than dairy-based ice cream.  Every friend or family member I’ve encouraged to give it a try has loved it.  It’s made with coconut milk (obviously) and sweetened with agave syrup.  It’s also soy and gluten free, certified organic, fair trade certified, and they use cocoa from the Domincan Republic (see this post on why this is important).  Current flavors include naked almond fudge, pineapple coconut, chocolate peanut butter, naked coconut, dark chocolate, vanilla island, mint galactic, cappuccino, cherry amaretto, and chocolate hazelnut fudge (plus they’re releasing 4 new flavors in 2011).

And for the final hurrah?  Coconut Bliss donated a coupon for a free pint for a lucky US and a lucky Canandian resident.  To be eligible just post a comment stating how you like to dress up your ice cream or if you eat it straight up, state your favorite flavor.  Oh, and please state in your post whether you have a US or Canadian address so I can quickly separate into two groups.  Post your comments by the 28^th and I’ll randomly select and announce the winners on the 1^st. 

Ok.  So I’ll go first.  I like cookies with my ice cream.  So, with combining ice cream and cookies as my inspiration, I created a chocolate cherry ice cream cookie pie for Valentine’s Day.  It’s over the top amazing.  Just as a heads up, there’s a lot of prep time involved, but most of it is inactive so don’t be intimidated.  And you could always simplify by using a (vegan) store bought cookie crust  If you can, try to make it the day before serving to allow plenty of time for all the layers to really set up.

 Chocolate Cherry Ice Cream Cookie Pie

Chocolate Cookie Crust:

2 teaspoons ground flaxseed

2 tablespoons water

1 cup plus 2 tablespoons unbleached all-purpose flour

3 tablespoons cocoa powder

3/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

6 tablespoons canola oil

6 tablespoons brown sugar

6 tablespoons granulated sugar

3/4 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1/4 teaspoon almond extract

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.  Lightly coat a 9 in spring form pan or pie plate with non stick spray.  In a small bowl, whisk together flaxseed and water.  Set aside.  Sift together flour, cocoa powder, baking soda and salt.  Set aside.  In a medium-sized bowl whisk the oil and sugars together vigorously with a fork.  Add the extracts and whisk again.  Add the flour mixture and stir gently to combine.  Place cookie dough into pan and, using a small square of wax paper as a non stick barrier, push the cookie dough out to the edges and up the sides a little to form a crust.  Bake for 12-13 minutes.  Leave the crust in the pan, but place the pan on a cooling rack.  Once the pan is has mostly cooled, place in refrigerator or freezer to cool further.  In the mean time, place one pint of the cherry amaretto coconut bliss in the refrigerator to soften and prepare the ganache, sweet cherries, and cookie crumbs.

After the cookie crust has cooled in the refrigerator or freezer for about an hour, remove and scoop 3/4 of the softened pint of cherry amaretto coconut bliss into the crust.  Spread and smooth with a spatula.  Return to the freezer to harden, and place the dark chocolate coconut bliss in the refrigerator to soften.  Wait one hour. 

Scoop 3/4 of the softened dark chocolate coconut bliss into a small mixing bowl.  Add cookie crumbs, reserving enough aside for garnish.  Stir the cookie crumbs into the ice cream and scoop on top of the cherry amaretto layer.  Use a spatula to spread and smooth and return to the freezer to set.  Place the rest of the cherry amaretto in the fridge.  Wait one hour.

Scoop the remaining pint and half of the new pint of the cherry amaretto onto the chocolate cookie layer and spread and smooth with a spatula.  Return to the freezer for one hour.  Now you are ready to decorate.  I like to spoon the cooled ganache into a zip lock bag, then use scissors to cut just a little of one bottom corner off for easy piping.  Or you could reheat just a touch and drizzle (just be really careful not to let it get too warm or it’ll melt the ice cream).  Sprinkle with the left over cookie crumbs and adorn with sweet cherries.  Freeze for 4 hours or up to overnight.  Allow to defrost in the refrigerator for 20 minutes or so before serving.  Also obviously if you used a spring form pan, remove from pan before serving.

Ganache:

Simply a two to one ratio of chocolate to non dairy milk.  I used 1/3 cup well chopped chocolate (Newman’s Own Organics - cocoa is not from West Africa) and 2/3 cup almond milk.  Put the non dairy milk in a small saucepan, stirring often while heating at a medium to medium high heat until very hot, but before simmering.  Remove from heat and add chopped chocolate.  Stir until melted.  Set aside to cool.

Sweet Cherries:

about 15 or so frozen sweet cherries

1 tablespoon granulated sugar

Place cherries and sugar in a small saucepan.  Heat on medium until cherries fully thaw and most of the liquid has evaporated, stirring often.  Remove from heat to cool.

Cookie crumbs:

3/4 - 1 cup coarsely crumbled chocolate cookies (such as Newman’s Own Alphabet Cookies)

Place cookies in a zip lock bag and crush with a rolling pin.  In this instance, I don’t like to use the food processor because I feel like it makes the crumbs way too fine.

Ice cream:

1 pint dark chocolate coconut bliss (you’ll use about 3/4)

2 pints cherry amaretto coconut bliss (you’ll use about 1 1/2)

Let’s Talk Cocoa and Chocolate

For me, being vegan is about doing the best I can to avoid causing harm, period.  Before proceeding, please let me clarify that my intention is not to sound preachy or to be judgmental.  This is relatively new information for me, and I simply want to pass on a brief summary of the issue as well as some resources I have found helpful. 

By chance I happened across the documentary, Slavery:  A Global Investigation (you can watch it here).  It explores slavery in the carpet industry in Northern India, cocoa in the Ivory Coast (the world’s largest producer of cocoa), and domestic slavery in Britain and the US.  As cocoa products are something I purchase and consume frequently, I found the issue of slavery in the cocoa industry particularly devastating.  The film defines slavery as “people paid no money, locked away, and controlled by violence”.  Unfortunately, this type of treatment is the reality for the majority of people who help produce the world’s chocolate, many of them being children. 

Furthermore, I recently learned that purchasing only Fair Trade Certified cocoa products does not guarantee that child or slave labor was not used (recently, due to evidence of child labor, several West African supplier’s certifications have been revoked).  And choosing not to buy cocoa at all isn’t a good option either as it continues to drive down the price farmers receive, causing further incentive for them to use child or slave labor, and those farmers who are actually paying their workers can’t compete. 

The Food Empowerment Project has done a lot of work trying to educate the public about this issue and find those companies who can actually be sure their cocoa wasn’t produced using slave labor.  At this time, they recommend buying “only fair trade and/or organic chocolate from Latin America”.  You can see the list they made of companies who sell slave-free, vegan chocolate here.  Unfortunately, I have not been able to find a single company selling vegan chocolate chips whose cocoa is supplied by Latin American…which is some serious bull shit.  But hey, if you know of one, speak up.  So instead, I’ve been using chocolate bars, and therefore, chocolate “chunks” in their place.  And, really, chunks kick chips arse any day (bigger bits of chocolate, plus all the irregularly shaped bits are so….rustic!).  **See my recipe for Menage a Trois Cookies.**

Menage a Trois cookies with chocolate chunks

Lastly, I just wanted to offer encouragement to take the time to write to your favorite companies.  Let them know this issue is important to you.  Find out where they stand and either thank them or encourage them to be more vigilant.  My next few posts will include recipes spotlighting cocoa products that are from Latin America and are Fair Trade Certified.

As a side note, I was super bummed when I didn’t see Coconut Bliss, my favorite non-dairy ice cream, on the list so I contacted them and am delighted to say the cocoa they use is from the Dominican Republic.  And, I‘ve created a couple recipes spotlighting their delicious ice cream.  And, I’ll be doing a giveaway for a coupon for a free pint!  Stay tuned.

Spicy Sweet Potato Peanut Stew

This is a nice, thick, stick-to-your-ribs type of stew that is bursting with flavor.  It is oh so comforting to snuggle up with on a chilly winter night.  The marriage of sweet potato and peanut butter is a match made in heaven and hot green chiles add a good kick.  Most of the sweet potato is blended together with everything else to create a luscious stew, and the last bits of sweet potato are cubed and added at the end to provide unexpected bursts of sweet potato flavor. 

Speaking of sweet potatoes, use the orange variety.  If you’re feeling ambitious, go ahead and roast your sweet potatoes.  If you’re crunched for time (like I always seem to be), wash/scrub your sweet potatoes (don't forget to pierce several times with a fork) and start microwaving them right away.  Then get out the rest of your ingredients and get started on everything else.  You should be able to have the soup ready to eat in about 30 minutes.  Serve with some crusty bread or a simple green salad, and you’ve got yourself a meal.  Oh, lastly,  I like my spicy foods, well, spicy.  If you have a low tolerance for spicy foods, start with just a couple tablespoons of chiles and go from there (or just use mild chiles). 

Spicy Sweet Potato Peanut Stew

2 large sweet potatoes (about 1 1/2 lbs)

1 small yellow onion, chopped

2 cloves garlic, chopped

1 4oz can diced hot green chiles

1 teaspoon ground allspice

2 teaspoons minced fresh ginger

1/2 teaspoon sea salt

Freshly ground pepper to taste

2 cups vegetable broth

1/2 cup smooth natural peanut butter

1 28oz can tomato sauce

Chopped cilantro for garnish, optional

First, cook the sweet potatoes.  Prick them in several places with a fork and microwave on high until just cooked through, about 7 to 10 minutes.  Set aside to cool.

Meanwhile, heat a few tablespoons of water in a large pot over medium-high heat.  Add the onion and sauté until it begins to soften, 3 minutes or so.  Add the garlic and cook, stirring for 1 minute more, adding water by the tablespoon as needed to prevent sticking.  Stir in green chiles, ginger, allspice, sea salt and pepper.  Add the peanut butter, then add a little of the vegetable broth at a time stirring in the peanut butter as you go.   Add the tomato sauce and cook until the sauce just begins to bubble.  Turn the heat down a bit and let simmer for 6 minutes.

In the mean time, peel the sweet potatoes and chop into bit-sized pieces.  Reserve about a third of the chopped sweet potatoes and dump the rest in the pot.  Turn the heat down to low.  Use an immersion blender to blend into a smooth puree (Don’t have an immersion blender?  See tip below.).  Add the last third of the sweet potatoes, and season with additional salt and pepper to taste.  Season each bowl with a sprinkle of chopped cilantro if desired.

Tip:  No immersion blender?  No worries.  You can still make this recipe.  You may want to let everything cool down for a bit.  Blend in batches making sure to leave the blender lid slightly ajar to let steam escape.  Otherwise the pressure will build, and stew will likely end up all over kitchen which would be very very sad.

Pumpkin French Toast

So it’s been just shy of a month since my last post.  I’ll skip the excuses and try to make up for it by getting straight to the recipe.  The recipe is from Isa Chandra Moskowitz’s cookbook Vegan Brunch and can be found on her website here.  It’s so wonderfully delicious, I’ve made it twice within the last month.  And if you think December is too late for pumpkin, I say phooey.  You must get over it and make some french toast.  I like my pumpkin with a little extra spice, so I used fresh ginger and some freshly grated nutmeg (my amendments are italicized).  Serve with cranberry sauce for a Thanksgiving throw back or with some Earth Balance and good ol’ fashioned maple syrup.

Served with cranberry sauce for a post-Thanksgiving brunch

Pumpkin French Toast

1 cup pureed pumpkin (from a can is just fine)
1 1/2 cups almond milk (or your favorite non-dairy milk)
2 tablespoons cornstarch
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 1/2 teaspoons ground ginger

**1 1/2 teaspoons freshly minced ginger
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves

**1/4 teaspoon freshly ground nutmeg
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1 stale Baguette, sliced diagonally in 1 inch pieces (see tip), or 8 pieces thick sliced bread

Cooking oil for the pan

Mix together all ingredients (except for the bread, obvioulsy). Spread out baguette slices on a rimmed baking pan in a single layer. Pour on pumpkin mixture and flip to coat. Let sit for 20 minutes, then flip over and soak for 10 minutes more.

Preaheat a large non-stick skillet over medium heat (I use cast iron). Spray with cooking oil, or drizzle a little into the pan, and cook about half of the soaked breads at a time for 5 to 7 minutes on one side and about 3 minutes on the other. They should be golden to medium brown and flecked with darker spots. Keep warm on a plate covered with tin foil while you cook the second batch.

If not serving immediately, cover and place in a 200 degree oven for up to an hour. Serve with maple syrup and earth balance, of course.

Tip: These french toast recipes call for stale bread because it’s going to be soaking up custard, but you still want the bread to hold its shape. Fresh bread will get mushy and, worst case scenario, fall apart. A 3 day old loaf should be just fine and 5 days old might be too late (make it into breadcrumbs instead.) If you have only a fresh baguette, you can cut the slices and then put them in a 300 degree oven for about 10 minutes, until they are hardened a bit but not toasted. Then proceed with the recipe.

Dreena Burton's Homestyle Chocolate Chip Cookies with a Twist

Who doesn’t love chocolate chip cookies?  Apparently the whopping 39 members of the Everybody Who Hates Chocolate Chip Cookies facebook page.  Sorry chip haters, you’re outnumbered.  In any case, this is my go-to chocolate chip cookie recipe that will satisfy any cookie seeker’s craving.  It’s brought to you by Dreena Burton’s Vive le Vegan! and posted on her blog here.  This recipe is easy to make and uses common ingredients most people have on hand.  Make sure you use real, pure maple syrup.  If you don’t have blackstrap molasses, regular ol’ molasses will work just fine.

Ready, here comes the twist.  One of the first few times I made this recipe, I was a little shy of the maple syrup so I just used blackstrap molasses to make up the difference.  Behold, my now famous Maple Molasses Chocolate Chip Cookies were born, and I’ve been making them that way ever since.  I know you’re thinking, that’s the twist?!  But, really, molasses (especially blackstrap molasses) has such a strong flavor that just a little extra really does make the cookie base taste a bit more like a super light gingerbread. 

I almost always use the spelt flour variation (see recipe note below) for its nuttier, sweeter flavor.  Spelt also has a much broader spectrum of nutrients than flours in the wheat family (it’s a great source of vitamin B2, manganese, fiber, niacin, thiamin, and copper).  And, not only does spelt contain more protein than wheat, the protein is also easier to digest.  On occasion, when the mood strikes, I’ve added 1/4 cup of chopped walnuts with the chips.  They add great crunch and really compliment the nutty, sweet flavor of the spelt flour.  Oh, and you must try Dreena’s idea for ice cream sandwiches.  Kiddos love them….and, of course, so do adults!

Dreena Burton's Homestyle Chocolate Chip Cookies with a Twist

1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour (see note below for wheat-free version)
1 tsp baking powder
1⁄2 tsp baking soda
1⁄4 cup unrefined sugar
1⁄4 tsp sea salt
1⁄3 cup pure maple syrup

**For the twist, use 3 tablespoons plus 1 teaspoon
1⁄4 tsp blackstrap molasses

**For the twist, use 2 tablespoons plus1/4 teaspoon
1 - 1 1⁄2 tsp pure vanilla extract
1⁄4 cup organic canola oil (a little generous 1/4 cup)
1⁄3 cup non-dairy chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350°F (176°C). In a bowl, sift in the flour, baking powder, and baking soda. Add the sugar and salt, and stir until well combined. In a separate bowl, combine the maple syrup with the molasses and vanilla, then stir in the oil until well combined. Add the wet mixture to the dry, along with the chocolate chips, and stir through until just well combined (do not overmix). Place large spoonfuls of the batter on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper and flatten a little. Bake for 11 minutes, until just golden (if you bake for much longer, they will dry out). Let cool on the sheet for no more than 1 minute (again, to prevent drying), then transfer to a cooling rack. Makes 8-10 large cookies.

Note: Unbleached all-purpose flour produces a cookie with a very classic taste and texture, but you can use whole-wheat pastry flour and still have delicious cookies! For a wheat-free version, use barley or spelt flour. With spelt flour, you may need to add an extra 2-4 TB of flour, if it is a refined spelt flour. Also, if using all-purpose flour, if the batter is heavy and dense when mixing in the wet ingredients, add another 1-2 tsp each of maple syrup and canol oil and work through.

Idea: Make a really special dessert treat... ice cream cookie sandwiches! Using two cookies that have been completely cooled in the refrigerator, spread some softened soy ice cream on the underside of one cookie, then place the other cookie on top. Wrap in plastic wrap and freeze until firm!

Carnival Squashes Stuffed with a Lemon-Herb Rice Medley

I’m really excited about this recipe.  It looks so pretty plated, and the sweet flesh of the carnival squash (think sweet potatoes or butternut squash) paired with the nutty flavor of the rice medley and the fresh lemony-herby bursts is purely sublime.  You should easily be able to fill 5 squashes, halved.  Maybe more.  My assembly went something like… fill a squash half with stuffing, eat a few spoonfuls, repeat.  So I can’t say for sure.  Plan to serve one full squash per person if this is your main dish. 

Make sure you read the instructions thoroughly, get out all equipment/ingredients, wash your produce, and peel the carrot before you start.  If everything is ready to go, the recipe should take about an hour to make, give or take.  I served this squash dish with the orange-glazed beets (I added a garnish of toasted walnuts) from Vegan with a Vengeance and grape focaccia bread.  Yummy in my tummy!

Pretty Carnival Squash, pre-recipe

Carnival Squashes Stuffed with a Lemon-Herb Rice Medley 

5 carnival squashes, halved

2 cups rice medley, uncooked

*mine had wild rice, brown rice, red rice, and wheat berries

1 low sodium vegetable bouillon cube

6 cups water

4 cups loosely packed chiffonaded kale (cut into thin strips)

4 cloves garlic, minced

1/2 large softball-sized onion, chopped

3 stalks celery, chopped

1 carrot, peeled and chopped

zest and juice of 1 large lemon

1/2 teaspoon salt

several turns freshly ground black pepper

1/4 cup coarsely chopped fresh Italian parsley

1 tablespoon chopped fresh rosemary

1 tablespoon chopped fresh thyme

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.  Then, start cooking the rice medley.  While bringing the water to a boil in a large stock pot, rinse the rice well using a small-holed strainer.  Once the water is boiling, add the rice and vegetable bouillon cube.  Cover and reduce heat to medium.  Simmer for 25 minutes.

While the rice is cooking, prepare the squashis.  Cut each squash in half top to bottom and scoop out the seeds.  Place cut side down on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper and bake for 20 minutes. 

While the rice and squashes cook, chiffonade the kale and set aside.  Zest and juice the lemon into a small bowl.  Add the salt and pepper and whisk with a fork to combine.  Set aside.  Chop the fresh herbs and set aside.  After the rice has finished cooking, add the kale to the brothy rice and give the mixture a quick stir.  Immediately strain and transfer to a large bowl.  Don’t forget to take the squashes out of the oven after 20 minutes.

Rice medley and kale mixture

Preheat a few tablespoons of water in a skillet on medium heat.  While the water is preheating, mince garlic and chop onion, celery, and carrot.  Add the onion and garlic to the skillet and sautee for 2-3 minutes, adding additional water by the tablespoon as needed to prevent sticking.  Add carrot and celery and sautee for 5 minutes or so until crisp tender, again adding water as needed.  Add to the rice/kale mixture.  Add both the lemon juice dressing and fresh herbs as well.  Stir to combine.  Scoop some of the flesh out of each squash half, taking care to leave enough flesh to hold the shape.  Add the excess squash to the rice mixture and stir gently to combine.

Sprinkle each squash half with a little salt and pepper; then with a spoon fill each half with the rice stuffing, creating a mound of the stuffing on top.  Bake the stuffed squashes for 10 minutes.  Season with an additional dash of salt and pepper.  Serve warm.

Ready for eating