My favorite recipe: Banana Pancakes

I have been making these pancakes for a couple years now. I got the recipe from Post Punk Kitchen and have adapted it a little to make it easier and more to my liking. Basically, the only modifications are how I mix in the bananas and that I don't use All Spice because I never have it. And I don't really understand what All Spice is. All the spices? That is a lot of spices. I also add chocolate chips. Yum.

So, first I blend the soymilk and bananas together.


Then I mix it with the dry ingredients.


Then I put them on the stove on a griddle-like pan, flip them, and I am done. These are the easiest vegan pancakes you will ever make. Seriously easy and seriously delicious.

CUPCAKES!

Inspired by this post on my friends' blog Gastrofabulous, I decided to make a vegan version of the chocolate chip cookie dough cupcakes. The recipe my friend used was not vegan so I had some research to do. I looked for a recipe for vegan yellow cake but all the pictures I found made the cake look kind of green and soggy. Then I found a picture where the baker had used the recipe from the cookbook Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World by the authors of my favorite website Post Punk Kitchen. I didn't have the book so I stopped at the bookstore before picking up the ingredients and copied the recipe down (unfortunately, I threw out the little piece of paper by accident). For the icing, I used the regular recipe, substituting vegan butter for regular.

The cupcakes were supposed to look like this:


But I don't have an icing tube so the icing did not look as appealing. But it was an easy recipe and I thought they were pretty good. And they are all gone so they must have been OK.

The yellow cake recipe was so easy. I put all the ingredients in a bowl and stirred. Piece of cake. Or, rather, piece of cupcake.


The icing was a little complex but not bad at all. Just two steps. I first made the vegan chocolate chip cookie dough, which is basically regular without eggs. Then I made a white icing with confectioner's sugar. Then I just put them together.


Add some chocolate chips and you are in business.


Tried to get a good closeup shot but the foil wrappers made it blurry.


My sister like them.


So did I.

I think this is a really great, yummy recipe. You should try it. The recipe is linked on Gastrofabulous.

On TV while I ate: Party of Five. I have been watching from season one. I don't know why I didn't watch this as a kid. It is so my kind of show :)

Soups on! Vegan Chikin and Dumpling Soup x2

Today I recreated a soup that I made back on December 3rd with my friend and co-worker Jay. It reminded me that I never blogged about that crazy cooking experience! We attempted this recipe that Jay had made with his mom over Thanksgiving. In my small kitchen, it was quite an adventure!

Fist we had to make the dumplings. We mixed vegan butter with flour, and baking powder. We mixed this until it crumbled. We had to clear off the table in our living room to have enough space to roll out the dough for the dumplings. I am sorry to say the table is back to all clutter.


Then we added soymilk and it became a dough.


Kneading the dough was a little messy.


Then Jay rolled it out.


Meanwhile, I began to chop the vegetables. I was really excited to use my new chopper. We were going to use more carrots, onion, and celery, than the recipe called for, so it was going to be a big job.


But the chopper proved more difficult than I had expected. I had to use a lot of muscle.


The onion we used was CRAZY! It was so strong. It was a spanish onion. I was crying my eyes out.


Even my sister, in another room, not helping, was affected by the onion.


After all was chopped, Jay put the onions, celery and some vegan butter in a saucepan and sauteed it until soft. He added flour to make a paste. He then put the mixture in boiling vegetable stock. I didn't get a picture of this step because I was busy chopping carrots. After stirring the mixture, we added the carrots and some fake chicken or "chikin." We used traditionally flavored Seitan, the blue box.


Then Jay stirred the pot.


I took over stirring while Jay cut up the dumplings and started bringing them over to go into the soup.


I was amazed that my sister helped with this part! I think she just wanted us to be done so she could eat it!


(I couldn't get this picture to rotate, but I think this way it emphasizes the craziness of the occurrence. Bizarre!)

My kitchen was a little small for this project and being that I wasn't familiar with the recipe, I didn't plan right. As a result we had a little accident with the cutting board and the stove.


It just melted a little. I always like to clean up right away. So I started on the dishes while the soup simmered.


We didn't know how we were going to get the flour off the table without getting it all over the floor and carpet. So I came up with a very effective method. I used the spatula to push the flour onto tin foil and then wrapped up the tin foil and threw it away. Very clean and easy.


The soup was so thick!!


It was a big project. But I had help. So it wasn't one bowl wonder.


It wasn't even two bowl wonder.


It was THREE bowl wonder!!! My sister, Jay and I all enjoyed the soup. It was hearty and delicious.


And very filling.


What a fun night cooking with friends!


I recreated the soup this snowy day because I was in the mood for something hearty. This time I wanted to make it a little easier. So I got pre-chopped onions, celery, and carrots. A little more expensive but totally worth the time and energy. I also used a baking sheet to roll the dumpling dough so I didn't have to clean off the table. I also put a little more broth in this one so it was not SO thick.



I was able to avoid melting any kitchen equipment this time, too. It is really a very yummy soup.

Thanksgiving Part 2: The Dinner

When we arrived at my aunt's house we delivered our food. Another relative had brought some deli salads and sliced turkey. I was glad we had cooked. Here is my Thanksgiving plate (definitely missed my big blue and green plate):


Other than what we brought, I ate a potato knish, some kasha varnishkes (bowties with buckwheat), and a stuffed grape leaf. Not very traditional to the holiday but it was OK.

Here was our table. We wanted to keep it simple and clean so my aunt did not have to clean up.



I thought my mom's veggies looked really good. They tasted good too.


EW, gross. But people did like the chicken.


Then there was dessert from our family bakery. Follow us on Twitter: @MindysDesserts or become a fan on facebook.





This is a Pumpkin Cheesecake Pie which I could not eat due to the cheese.


Apple Cranberry Pie.


Birthday cake for my Bubby since it was her Birthday.


Blueberry pie, which I did eat and enjoy.


It was a fun and very tasty night. It was nice to have all the cousins in one place. I don't think we have been all together for about 3 years. Unfortunately, we forgot to take a picture of all of us. But here are a few fun family pictures.

My sister.

3 generations! Me, my Bubby, and my mom.


Two generations! My Zayda and my cousin.


A word about my Bubby and Zayda: They are the best! My Zayda just turned 89 and he is a reader of this blog, we instant message and email all the time, and he is soon going to join facebook. My Bubby just turned 82. She tells the best family stories from her childhood and her teaching days.

And, to end the post, a picture of my aunt bringing the cake to my Bubby for her birthday.


All in all, a good holiday!

Thanksgiving: Part 1

What is a food blog without a Thanksgiving entry? However, being vegan (kind of), this will not include a detailed account of our Turkey. In fact, this Thanksgiving my family did things a little differently and we did not even have a Turkey (yay!). But we did have chicken (ew!). My cousin was recently in a car accident. He is OK but cannot leave the house for a while. So we went over to my aunt's house to see him. Given all that she is doing to take case of my cousin, she didn't want to make a big dinner. She makes the best turkey (apparently, I don't eat it so I don't know), so no one wanted to make turkey if it was not going to be hers. So my mom and I cooked a couple of dishes and brought them over. Part one of the Thanksgiving post will detail our cooking adventures on Thanksgiving day while watching the parade.

Early in the morning, my mom got up and made two roast chickens to bring. Being that the chickens really gross me out, I did not chronicle their creation. I will say, my mom makes very good chicken and everyone always loves it. But it is not featured here because I think meat is gross.

I did watch the parade on TV. My favorite part was on CBS when Mayor Bloomberg went on about how NYC was great and how other cities are mosaics while we are a more of a mixture. And he didn't stop there, he then went on about how we tolerate people who are different and they tolerate us. Talk about putting your foot in your mouth. But after the parade it was hard core cooking time. So while my sister watched Dexter on TV, my mom and I cooked.


So I started to make the stuffing that we brought. I began cutting up carrots, celery, zucchini, onion, and mushrooms. Cutting the onions was brutal:
All the vegetables chopped up looked like, a mosaic.
But then, all together, it was more of a mixture...just like NYC.


Then it was time to add the bread. I had to take off all the crusts. In retrospect, a nice whole wheat bread, unsliced, probably would have been delicious. But I used a mix of sourdough and challah instead. I had to card the crust off the challah. I felt like the bakers on the Challenge on the food network when they carve the cake.


And here is the bottom of the challah. A little goupy from being in the sink, but I thought it looked kind of crazy. So I wanted to show you, too.


And, since we made A LOT of stuffing, I was back to using a pot as a big bowl, just like in New York. Sometimes a big soup pot is just the best mixing bowl.


So then, after mixing, I laid it out in the pan and poured the wine, vegetable stock and spices over it all.


I put it in the oven to bake but it became a little too soggy on the bottom and too crispy on the top. So we mixed it together and heated it in a big pot.


Then we put it back in the oven. It looked pretty good when it came out. I guess stuffing is supposed to be made in a turkey, but I thought it came out OK.



Next time I will sautee all the veggies and spices first then mix it with the bread. The veggies were a little crunchy, but it tasted OK.


Meanwhile...I was also making sweet potato mash. I boiled the sweet potatoes.


Then mashed away!


And added some cinnamon.


Mixed some more.


They came out very good.


Finally, all this time, my mom was working on a massive cold vegetable dish. She steamed broccoli, asparagus, and green beans. She had to cool them down really quickly in ice water.


Then she made a sauce with mushrooms, soy, ginger, garlic, etc. and poured it over top of the vegetables.


The it was topped with some toasted sesame seeds.


It looked very good. Then we packed our bags to head over to my aunts house.


We also brought dessert from our family bakery.


Stay tuned for Part 2: The Dinner...