i am spent

I'm sure you can tell from the lack of posting/commenting, school has taken over my life. I am pretty much at school or doing something for school from 8 in the morning until I go to sleep around 11 every night. It's madness how much work I have, especially for my chemistry class and lab. I seriously don't remember college being this rough . . . but I have been out for about 6 years. Plus, summer session is only about 8 weeks, so it is like whirlwind and flash taking 3 classes in that short amount of time. Not the best way to start college, but I only have 6 more weeks!
Jared and I are seriously on opposite schedules, so I barely get to hang out with him these days. Sucks a lot! Nearly as horrible is that my eating habits have gone down the drain. My head has been so into books that I have been not eating all that much. I have a hard time breaking away from studying and feel a bit guilty when I know I could be doing extra work . . . so, forget cooking and baking for fun. It's basically survival eating, which is not fun at all.
I was feeling bad for not making anything special for Jared, so last night during a brief break, I made an open-faced style apple turnover bake with all the apples we've had a round for a while and a frozen puff pastry I have been wanting to get out the house. It was just okay. Not my best creation, but it didn't stop us from eating it. If we had a little soy ice cream on top, it would have been so much better (as so many things are!)

Dangerous Brownies

When I became vegan, like the rest of you, I thought that some of my favorite childhood recipes would be completely out of the question. This was especially true regarding the “Killer Brownie” recipe my step mom, Delia, is famous for. If I recall, her brownie recipe was simply sugar, flour, eggs, butter and some sort of extract such as vanilla, almond or orange. Somehow, these few ingredients (and tons of them) baked into magical bite-sized squares that could be devoured in a day or two. They were dangerous but amazing. I never thought any vegan brownie recipe could match up to Delia’s Killer Brownies until I made Hannah Kaminsky’s Crumb-Topped Brownies out of My Sweet Vegan.
Due to some personal preferences, I did make a couple changes to Hannah's recipe. I am not a huge fan of cherries, so instead of using black cherry soy yogurt, I used raspberry soy yogurt. Raspberries and chocolate are one of my favorite combos, so this was a good move for my taste buds. I also left out the instant coffee powder because coffee isn't too kind on my body. I do love coffee and I know what it does in chocolate dessert recipes, so I can only imagine how awesome the hint of coffee would have been. Along with the vanilla extract, I added a touch of almond extract. The crumb topping and the chocolate chips were a nice touch and made me feel like I was eating a gourmet brownie you’d get at a fancy pants bakery, but honestly, I could’ve skipped the topping and left out the chocolate chips and they still would have been ranked one of the best brownies out there. While Hannah’s recipe does have quite a few more ingredients than my step mom’s recipe and created a sink full of mixing bowls, spoons and measuring cups, they are just as rich, fudgy, decadent and deadly as the Killer Brownies I grew up on.

Spring Cleaning Pizza Party

Man, I'm beat. Jared and I have been cleaning like crazy today. It actually started last night with us taking everything out of our little computer room/nook, scrubbing it down and reorganizing the whole room in order to make it a haven for me to get some serious studying done once school starts. Then, before we knew it the rest of the house became shiny and new. To reward our immaculate surroundings (at least to our standards), I decided to throw Jared and I a mini pizza party. I made the pizza dough from VWaV in my bread machine (on the dough setting), and it turned out awesome! I made 2 pizzas, which were a little bigger than personal-pan size, both with tomato sauce, Teese, veggie pepperoni, garlic salt, dried oregano, nutritional yeast and red pepper flakes. I would've added extra stuff like bell peppers and onions, but I was so wore out from cleaning. Seriously, if you can get your hands on some Teese, make a pizza ASAP! So freakin good!!!


I even made a sweet pizza with the left over pizza dough that had cinnamon and sugar! Jared said it was really good but I think if I made this again, I'll roll the dough out thicker to form bread sticks. Perhaps I'll make a Tofutti cream cheese icing to drizzle over it too.

the BEST strawberry pie, ever

I have already informed Leigh from Raspberry Swirl that it is her fault that I made this particular pie today. After all, she brought this No-Bake Strawberry Pie to the potluck yesterday. The recipe is from this adorable zine called Papa Tofu by Kittee (Cake Maker to the Stars) and it is probably one of the best pies I have ever had. It kinda tastes like a cheesecake with serious strawberry action. The pie is basic but does have a few steps that make it interesting to make.
First, I made her piecrust (which does requiring baking). I couldn't find my pie pan, so I used a 9-inch cake pan and it worked just fine.

While the crust baked, I made the strawberry jam (that's right HOMEMADE jam) topping so that it could be cooling at the same time as the crust. I also whipped up the Tofutti Better than Cream Cheese and let it set out to so it wouldn't be so hard to spread on the cooled crust.

These beautiful strawberries were sliced while the crust and jam cooled and the cream cheese was brought to room temperature.

With the piecrust cooled, the crust bottom was slathered with cream cheese.

Next the sliced strawberries were arranged on the cream cheese layer. I didn't get a great pattern, but hey, if about the taste in the end!

Last, the strawberry jam was poured over the whole pie. I kinda wish the strawberries were peaking through more than they did but I wasn't about to waste any of this amazing jam.

Don't you want a slice?

Then you need to buy this zine. Look how cute it is!

However, if you need to make this pie like right now, Kittee was kind enough to post the recipe here.

My First Vegan Potluck

Besides feeling a little guilty about Jared being at work while I got to play, today's potluck, my first vegan potluck, was a total blast. I can't even begin to tell you how much food I ate. Actually, I ate a nice amount of "food" but WAY too many desserts. In fact, I think I might be in a slight sugar coma at the moment. I got to meet a lot of cool people including the genius behind Dulce Vegan (who brought one of the best pineapple upside down cakes I have ever had) and a fellow Atlanta blogger, Laura of Eden In The Kitchen.
We had two tables worth of food! There were a couple pasta type dishes, tofu quiche, tempeh, chickpea salad, potato salad and watermelon (just to name a few)! Plus four kinds of cupcakes including pink lemonade (my favorite), root beer, chocolate and chick-o-stick. Leigh from Raspberry Swirl made a Strawberry "cream cheese" pie that rocked my socks off. Everything I ate was spectacular but I have to say the Goddess Pasta Salad Ashley made (out of Yellow Rose Recipes) was my favorite.


This was my first plate of food. Isn't that pink lemonade cupcake the cutest?

I made Mac and Cheeze, which was my version of this recipe that I added a little agave nectar and cayenne pepper to and topped with cracker crumbs with melted Earth Balance. It was pretty darn good, if I do say so myself (can't you tell I'm very modest).

Many thanks to Ashley (Vegan Invasion) and Armando for making today happen! You are the coolest!!! (and the cutest!)

Alright, time for a little nap to shake off this sugar! Wish y'all could have been here today.

Labor of Love Cupcakes

I love Jared, that's clear. I have to say though, the biggest proof of my love and devotion to Jared is the fact that I tackled these cupcakes. I'm talking about the Brooklyn vs. Boston Cream Pie Cakes (from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World) I made for Jared's birthday tomorrow. These were a multi-step venture not for the faint of heart. I started making these cupcakes at 5pm and just got done around 9 pm! These are the days I am glad I'm not employed because I couldn't see making these in an evening after a least an 8 hour shift and an hour or two commute. The cupcakes themselves weren't that difficult, just measure, mix, bake and cool, nor was the chocolate ganache topping. The hard part was the Vanilla Vegan Pastry Cream filling. This was the first time I used Agar Flakes and boy was it labor intensive. I had to whisk the Agar/Soymilk concoction for at least 15 minutes just to get the "cream" base smooth. After about 20 minutes of cooking, the Agar/Soymilk/Arrowroot base kinda looked like silly putty, not the most appetizing looking stuff. Once the sugar, vanilla extract and silken tofu was blended together with the base, I guess I can see how it tasted and looked like pastry cream. To fill the cupcakes with the filling, I had to make a whole with my impeccably clean finger in the middle of the cupcake, which sounds easy but I kept accidentally blowing out the sides. I did successfully fill each cupcake with the filling, allowing the cupcake liner to hold everything together, and top each with a generous amount of ganache frosting (even though it did ooze over the sides). After all the measuring, mixing, whisking, boiling, cooling, stuffing and topping, I sure do hope Jared likes these babies!

Silky Peanut Butter Chocolate Pie

Oh wow, sometimes I even amaze myself. This pie I made today is really, really awesome. It kinda tastes like chocolate mousse meets peanut butter pie meets heaven. I HAVE been eating way better but Jared has a birthday coming up (on 3/11) so, instead of celebrating just one day, we usually celebrate for at least a weekend, if not a whole week. So, to start off the celebration I made him this pie. Something this good shouldn't be kept secret, so I will share. You'll have to make your own though, unless you come over!

Pie Crust:
1 sleeve of Cinnamon (no Honey added) Graham Crackers
4 generous tablespoons of Earth Balance (or other vegan margarine)
1/4 cup of natural vegan sugar

Preheat oven to 350. In a food processor, pulverize the graham crackers until it is a fine crumb and transfer to a mixing bowl. Melt the margarine and add to the graham cracker crumbs along with the sugar and combine until everything is moist. Add mixture to a 9 (or 10) inch pie pan and form wet crumb to the top of pie tin. Bake in the oven for 8-10 minutes. Set aside to cool and make filling.

Filling:
1/2 cup vegan chocolate chips
2 tablespoons (maybe more) of Vanilla Soy Milk
1 12 oz box of Firm Silken Tofu (I used Mori Nu)
6 generous tablespoons of Natural peanut butter
1 tablespoon agave nectar (this is optional, I just like the flavor)

In a small glass mixing bowl over a sauce pan of simmering water (double boiler action!), melt the chocolate chips and soy milk together. Once melted, set aside to cool a minute. In the same food processor that was used for the pie crust, combine the tofu, peanut butter and agave nectar (if using) until completely smooth. You may need to scrap down the sides a few times. While the tofu/peanut butter/agave is mixing in the food processor, pour in the melted chocolate chip/soy milk mixture until everything is well incorporated. If the mixture isn't pourable (it shouldn't be totally watery though) add a touch more soy milk. Taste to make sure it is sweet enough (I don't know . . . you may have a crazy sweet tooth). Add the mixture to the baked graham cracker crust and refrigerate for at least 1 hour or until firm (I let mine set for over 2 hours).

If you have some kind of soy whipped kream, add to the top for extra naughtiness.

Lori's Party Bars (inspired by My Sweet Vegan)

I am probably the last vegan out here that finally got a copy of My Sweet Vegan by Hannah Kaminsky. I am totally blown away by this cookbook. Not only is the author a great recipe writer, she is also a great photographer. I love how there is a picture for every recipe (or just about). I also like how there is such variety with decadent recipes, lower fat snacks, and both fruity and chocolaty treats. The first recipe that caught my eye was the Party Mix Bars. I mean, who doesn't like a party?
I didn't have the exact ingredients My Sweet Vegan's called for so, I made up my own version. My version made 16 bars each that came out to 175 calories, 3 grams of fat, 115 grams of sodium, 36 grams of carbs, 1 gram of fiber and 2 grams of protein. They are very delicious and not a totally naughty snack.

Lori's "Don't Be A Fruit, Come To My Party" Bars
4 cups of Berry Blast Oats (like Cheerios . . . I used a generic/store brand that has dried blueberries, raspberries and strawberries)
2 cups of mini fat free pretzels (with salt)
1/2 cups cocktail peanuts (with salt)
1 tablespoon whipped Earth Balance margarine
1 cup light corn syrup
3/4 cup vegan sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Mix the cereal, pretzels and peanuts together in a big mixing bowl. In a saucepan, melt the margarine. Once melted, add the corn syrup and sugar and continue to cook on medium heat until sugars are dissolved, being careful not to burn by stirring. Take margarine/sugar mixture off of the heat and stir in the vanilla. Pour sugar mixture over the dry ingredients and carefully combine until everything is evenly covered in the sugar syrup (careful not to break up the cereal). Spray a 9 x13 pan with cooking spray and pour the mixture in evenly. With your fingers (or a spatula if you aren't very personal with your food), mash the mixture into the pan. Let the mixture cool completely before trying to cut and eat!

Sesame Crusted Seitan, Lemon Gem Truffles

I know anyone reading this blog knows how wonderful it feels to be in the kitchen after not being in it for a while. I spent a good couple of hours in the kitchen today making homemade seitan and what was suppose to be Lemon Gem Cupcakes. Both the seitan recipe and the cupcake recipe came from Vegan With A Vengeance. The seitan turned out pretty great and the cupcakes turned into a complete disaster.
First up, the homemade seitan. This recipe is simple, used only a few ingredients and was easy to follow. It was the first batch of seitan I made that didn't turn out too mushy. For the wet ingredients, I had to use ketchup instead of tomato paste because I only had frozen tomato paste (that's how I store left over tomato paste from the can). I also added a couple of bouillon cubes to the cooking broth for extra flavor. This recipe made so much seitan! For dinner tonight I wasn't super hungry so I made some sesame crusted seitan nuggets. I coated the nuggets in flour, then into a flax meal/water slurry and then into toasted sesame seeds. I fried the nuggets in a little canola oil and made a dipping sauce of Dijon mustard and maple syrup. This was sooo good!

Now on to the cupcakes. They turned out horrible. Jared made these cupcakes before and had disastrous results as well, but I thought I'd give them another shot. The batter was so runny that it spread over the top of the muffin tin and made a crunchy flat top. I made the lemon icing which was also too runny and had a weird texture. So, following one of my fellow blogger buddies, Amanda from Walking the Vegan Line, I made these cupcakes into truffles!!! I added the cupcakes to the food processor to make them into crumbs and added enough of the lemon icing to hold the crumbs together. I used a small ice cream scoop to get equal mounds and rolled them into balls. I then dunked each ball into the remaining icing and put them in the fridge to set up. While they tasted like lemon truffles, they kind of looked liked glazed doughnut holes. Amanda is a genius!

Tofu Scramble, Po' Boy, Beanballs and Lemon Squares

We had lots of yummy food today. We started off with a scramble with soy sauce-marinated tofu, fingerling potatoes, red pepper, onions, and fresh herbs.

Then, one of the best things I have had in a while. The Chile Cornmeal-Crusted Tofu Po' Boy from V-con. Holy crap was this good. It was a bit labor intensive but well worth it. We made a tartar sauce to go with the fried tofu, cole slaw and pickles.

Bonus pic of the endless sandwich.

For din din, we made some Spaghetti & Beanballs, also from V-con. Lori helped out with these quite a bit. We just made the beanballs and used a jarred sauce. Ours turned out a bit mushy, but they were still delicious. I think we will bake them next time instead of frying.

I made desert, too. Once again, from V-con (I love that book, btw), we had the Lemon Bars. Lori just walked by and said how good they were as I writing this. And she is right; they were super good.

100th Post: Pizza, Banana Bread!

Proudly, I am writing my 100th post. I have enjoyed writing in this blog since I started back last July. I became vegan in May 2007 and this blog was a way for me to keep myself on track with a vegan diet. What I learned was my conscience, soul and morals kept me on track and really this blog became just a document of my journey.
Now on to food. I went to Whole Foods this morning to pick up some maple syrup and olive oil and came home with pizza making groceries. I made my basic pizza crust I posted about before. I cooked the pizza on the stove top with olive oil spray until the crust was golden. I finished cooking the crust in the oven with the toppings. Whole Foods was out of Vegan Mozzarella, so I bought some silken tofu to put on the pizza instead and I am so glad I did. I also topped the pizza with pasta sauce left over in the fridge, vegan pepperoni, green bell pepper, red onion, thinly sliced heirloom tomatoes (a yellow one with green stripes and a red one with blackish-green stripes), Vegan Parmesan, dried oregano and red pepper flakes. I don't like my toppings cooked to death, so I baked the pizza in the oven until they were a bit wilted but still had a nice crisp bite to them and the tofu had a brown touch to it. Good God was this amazing! Probably the best pizza I ever made.

We also had three bananas on the verge of being tossed out but I salvaged them and made the banana bread from The Damn Tasty Vegan Baking Guide. The recipe only called for two bananas but I went ahead and threw in the third banana and it turned out great. I also added a little vanilla extract because it seemed a bit flat. This is Jared's Valentine’s Day treat, since we are trying to eat healthier, I figured this is a good "healthier" treat. I got my Valentine's present early, so I made him this early . . . that and the bananas wouldn't have lasted until Thursday ; )
Out of the oven and cooling:

Sliced and seconds away from being devoured:

treats from a friend, fruit shake

Jared and I have really, really great friends. We are fortunate enough to have the same friends and some of our friendships have lasted as long as our own relationship (7 years). I met our friend Jon through Jared because they were both guitar players in a band called The Chain Link Disaster. Jon and I instantly bonded over our love of music and of cooking/baking. The cool thing about Jon is that once Jared and I became vegan he immediately started experimenting with vegan treats for us. So, much to my surprise, when I got back from Tampa, Jon had mailed us 4 kinds of HOMEMADE vegan treats all the way from Brooklyn! He made us oatmeal raisin cookies (although they are mini muffin shaped), brown sugar cookies, a giant cinnamon sugar cake thingy and a spiced fruit cake. The oatmeal raisin cookie/muffin treats are my favorite (can you tell? I have 2 on my plate). What a great guy! Sorry ladies, he's taken.

I haven't been too hungry at night, which is a good thing, so for dinner lately I've been drinking my dinners in the form of fruit shakes or smoothies. I'm not sure if I've mentioned this before but I have had several smoothie/juice bar jobs in my day. In fact, I am known as the Smoothie Queen in my family. So, I am fortunate to know how to make really great shakes and smoothies at home. Tonight's drink was less like a smoothie, since I didn't use fruit juice and more like a shake, since I used soy milk. This beauty is 1 cup of vanilla soy milk, 1/2 a pint of fresh blueberries and 1 medium frozen banana. That’s it!

Harmony, Bake Off

After reading about Harmony Vegetarian Restaurant from Luminous Vegans' blog (who I actually got to meet today!) we have been there 3 times and it gets better every time. It is on the outskirts of Atlanta and takes a bit to get there but it so worth the drive. One of my favorite things they have there is actually something they give to use at the start of the meal. I eat it as both a salad and palate cleanser and it is made out of grated carrot, daikon radish and cabbage marinating in a sweet rice vinegar. I am gonna start making this at home because it s that good.

I got the General Tso's "Chicken" (my new favorite thing there)

and Jared got the "chicken" with sting beans, which also rocked!

Today was the 2007 Holiday Bake-Off at Cosmo’s Vegan Shoppe. I ended up making an Amaretto Cheezecake with a cinnamon graham cracker crust. It actually turned out really good . . . But not good enough to win : (
Here are some pictures of the bakeoff goodies:


Jared and I at the bake off

It was a lot of fun being in a room full of like-minded people. It was especially cool to meet fellow local vegan bloggers (check them out Luminous Vegans), who we hope to hang out with in the near future.

Nog Cheezecake

***UPDATE- MAKE THIS THE DAY BEFORE YOU PLAN ON EATING IT. IT TASTES EVEN BETTER THE LONGER IT SITS!***

Ever since I heard about the 2007 Holiday Bake-Off at Cosmo’s Vegan Shoppe I have been racking my brain as to what I would make. I knew I wanted to try something new, which is brave and bold for a bake-off. I felt a craving of eggnog come over me. Then I remembered my Dad making a Pumpkin Cheesecake, so I decided to start searching for and practicing a vegan holiday cheezecake. Today I made a Vegan Eggnog Cheesecake I found on the Fatfree Vegan Kitchen blog. I followed this recipe exactly this time, just to see what the taste and texture would be like. It rocked, if you are an eggnog fan like I am. Since one of the rules in the bake-off is that if a recipe from another person's cookbook (and I assume also someone's blog) is used, it cannot be an exact copy of the recipe. So, I think I am going to try to incorporate pumpkin in my cheezecake, use brown sugar instead of regular sugar (not bleached!) and use Disaronno Amaretto, which is apparently suitable for vegans. OR maybe I'll just use the Disaronno and add cinnamon in addition to the nutmeg. Who knows . . . I'll come up with something tasty though.
I cannot wait to make a few changes to see if I can win one of the categories in the bake-off! If it doesn't work out, at least I found an awesome vegan cheezecake recipe.

PB & J Balls

When we are running low on baking items in the pantry (like flour, sugar, chocolate chips, etc) I make some sort of peanut butter ball since we always have peanut butter in the fridge. I made up this recipe a while back since I was having a sweet tooth attack and have been making different versions of it since, including some with melted chocolate!
Preheat oven to 275
Melt together in a medium pan on medium heat:
2 rounded tbsp natural peanut butter
2 tbsp Earth Balance
3 tbsp agave nectar (you could probably cut this to 2 tbsp)
3 tbsp maple syrup (you could probably cut this to 2 tbsp)
a dash of sea salt
Once all that is melted together, take it off the heat and stir in a splash of vanilla extract. Next, fold in 1 1/4 cups rolled oats and 1/3 cup of either pre-roasted almond pieces or slivered & blanched almonds toasted in a pan.
Spread out the mixture in a thin layer and bake at 275 for about 15 minutes. Take the mixture out of the oven and let it cool for a few minutes. Once cooled, I spread half the mixture with raspberry preserves and the other half with blueberry preserves. The last step is a messy one. Pinch golf ball sized pieces off and roll into balls. I got 15 balls out of this batch. When I make these chocolate covered, I basically make a chocolate ganache out of dark chocolate chips, soy creamer and Earth Balance (melted together in a double boiler) and dip the peanut butter balls in half way.
The lighter ones are the raspberry PB balls and the darker ones are the blueberry PB balls. I let these cool completely before I start sampling them. They can be stored in the fridge wrapped up or well covered and left on the counter top.

the results are in . . . i guess?

After doing this elimination diet for the second time, both as a vegan this time and non-vegan the last, I have come to the conclusion that food is only a part of my digestive health issues. I did find that my body does react negatively to most everything I eat; some are just more extreme than others. This time around, I found that TOFU is not my friend : ( I did try soy milk, soy sauce and things that had soybean oil and didn't have nearly as bad a reaction as I did when I just ate tofu. Other things like onions, tomatoes, bell peppers, watermelon, broccoli and tree nuts didn't agree with me but were tolerable. I think I am going to avoid tofu for a few months and revisit again. The onions, tomatoes, bell peppers, watermelon, broccoli and tree nuts will be kept to a minimum in my diet. I tended to do okay with romaine lettuce and sprouts (shocking to me, since I had issues with these last time), wheat/gluten products and corn products though.
I can't say the elimination diet made me feel any better but as hard as it will be to avoid tofu, I at least know I really should avoid it.
Anyway, back to normal . . . I made an apple crisp for Jared and I tonight that was just lovely. It had granny smith apples, lime juice, flour, brown sugar, sea salt and cinnamon for the apple mixture and for the topping it had earth balance, natural sugar, flour, cinnamon and rolled oats. I LOVE crisps since you don't have to follow a recipe to still have an awesome outcome.

clearing out the kitchen

Every now and again, I like to clear out the kitchen and restock. This includes canned goods, dried herbs and flour in the cupboards, fruit on the counter tops and veggies in the fridge. It started last night with a veggie and tomato soup. I used up the majority of the veggies in the fridge including carrots, celery, green beans, zucchini, fresh thyme and parsley along with onions and potatoes from my veggie basket. I also included a box of veggie stock, a can of tomato sauce, dried rosemary, oregano, basil, sea salt and black pepper. I also made whole wheat flour biscuits using hazelnut milk instead of soy milk, which surprisingly went with the soup, despite having a heavily hazelnut flavor.

For dessert, I used up the plums that, on their own, were kind of mealy and flavorless. After splitting, coring, filling the center with brown sugar and whipped Earth Balance and baking for a few minutes, they came back alive.

Tonight, I didn't feel like cooking, so I whipped up some hummus that had fresh lemon juice, lemon zest, fresh garlic, canned garbanzo beans, tahini, almond butter, olive oil, agave, sea salt and black pepper. In an attempt to get rid of a bag of unbleached all purpose flour, I also made a loaf of bread. I spread the hummus on the fresh bread with sliced tomatoes and red onion. It turned out to be a pretty great dinner.

nutty apricot bundles

A few weeks back I bought phyllo dough not knowing exactly what I wanted to do with it. Jared was never a huge fan of baklava (although, I liked it) so I knew I wasn’t going to try to veganize a real baklava. Its hard for Jared to pin down what he didn't like about baklava, but I think it had something to so with the some times use of pistachios and rosewater. I still wanted a sweet treat and nuts and apricots came to mind with a buttery and crispy phyllo cover.
My concoction started with a simple syrup of water and turbinado sugar, a cinnamon stick and a couple of whole cloves. I added in a handful of dried apricots and rehydrated them in the spiced simple syrup. Once the syrup cooked down to about half and the apricots were soft, I removed the cinnamon sticks and cloves and added a bit of whipped Earth Balance. This created a sort of spicy, loose caramel sauce. Once the syrupy apricots cooled, I added the apricots and all the syrup to my food processor with a handful of walnuts, a handful of pecans and a pinch of salt. After grinding in the food processor, what resulted was an extremely thick paste. Next I melted a few tbsp of Earth Balance buttery stick and individually brushed each sheet of phyllo dough about four sheets high at a time. I cut the four stacked buttery sheets in strips and placed them in muffin tins to create a cup. I added the filling and folded over the laps of phyllo, brushed the tops with the left over melted Earth Balance and baked them (in a preheated oven) at 350 until brown and crispy. While these did kind of have a baklava taste and feel to them, Jared still gobbled them up, as did I.
Bundled and baked:

Baked, cooled and cut open to see the filling:

Molasses Cinnamon Rolls

No need for an intervention, I swear I have a legitimate reason for making all these sinfully delicious yeast based baked goods lately. The next 2 weeks we will be having visitors. Last I heard, this coming weekend, our friends Star and Lepley are coming up for a bike race and also to help our friend Hank move up here. Star is also a vegan. Her and I have already been discussing what goodies we want to make. I'm hoping to nab her sugar cookie recipe.
THEN, the weekend after this, my dad and step mom, Delia, are coming up. WOO WHOOO!
SO, you see, I had to test out these cinnamon rolls. Right? Yep.
For these treats, I made my crazy bread dough except I put in approximately 2 tbsp of molasses with the slurry and palm oil instead of olive oil. Once the dough had risen once, I rolled out the dough to probably around a half inch thickness, brushed a little bit of melted Earth Balance and sprinkled a sugar/cinnamon mixture on the rolled out dough. I then rolled the dough up into a log and cut the log into 12 spirals. I placed the spirals in a pan (with cooking spray) and let them rise again. They were baked at 350 degrees for what seemed like forever (it was probably around 20-30 minutes) and then poured an icing I made with a couple of tbsp powdered sugar, a splash of soy milk and more cinnamon.
Right out of the oven without icing:

Plated with icing (notice it isn't drenched in icing):