L-dog style garlic bread

You need:
toaster oven or real oven
Loaf of whole wheat bread or whatever you please
minced garlic
garlic powder
onion powder
oregano
black pepper
Earth Balance whipped spread
Vegan parma or whatever(optional)
Marinara sauuuce(also optional, but delicious)

1.) Preheat toaster oven to toast, or real oven to 350.
2.)Spread lots of EB on bread, COVER in garlic. Seriously, garlic everywhere.
3.)Sprinkle with onion powder, garlic powder, oregano and a pinch of black pepper.
4.) Bake until lightly browned around the edges and EB has melted!
5.) Dip in marinara sauce or just shove in your mouth.

Banana Cream Pie(sorta)

Okay so, if it's not evident already, I love bananas, and will come up with any excuse at all to make some kind of delicious dessert that uses them. Thus, when my friend Mike forgot the apples we were going to use to make Caramel Apple Pie, I decided we would use the fast-ripening bananas to make vegan banana cream pie instead.

I veganized the recipe found here and used the pie crust recipe from the strawberry rhubarb pie. It turned out pretty good, although next time I may just bake the crust and refrigerate the topping, as this will get rid of the weird skin on top. Or so the internet tells me D:

Banana Cream Pudding Pie

9" pie crust
3/4 cup white sugar
1/3 cup all-purpose flour(I used whole wheat flour)
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 cups soy milk
4 1/2 tsp egg replacer + 6 TB warm water(equivalent of three eggs)
2 tablespoons earth balance or other margarine
1 1/4 teaspoons vanilla extract
4 bananas, sliced


1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheight. In a saucepan, combine the sugar, flour, and salt. Add soymilk in gradually while stirring gently. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until the mixture is bubbly. Keep stirring and cook for about 2 more minutes, and then remove from the burner.

2. Stir a small quantity of the hot mixture into the beaten egg yolks, and immediately add egg yolk mixture to the rest of the hot mixture. Cook for 2 more minutes; remember to keep stirring. Remove the mixture from the stove, and add butter and vanilla. Stir until the whole thing has a smooth consistency.



3. Layer the sliced bananas in the bottom of the pie crust and pour the pudding mixture over the top.



4. Bake for 20-30 minutes and transfer to the refrigerator until solid and completely cool.

SutoRAWberry Rooobarb Pie

I went to the Farmer's market today with two of my friends and we decided that something that NEEDED to be made was Strawberry-Rhubarb pie. So, using the pie crust recipe from this book, and the recipe from here, I think we managed to put together a pretty little number.

Strawberry-Rhubarb Pie

Crust Ingredients

1.5 cups all-purpose flour(or 1/2 white 1/2 wheat)
1 TB sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/3 cup vegan, non-hydrogenated shortening
1/4 cup cold water, plus 2 TB if needed
2 tsp apple cider vinegar

I used my break maker for this, so I just put the wet ingredients in on the bottom, and the dry ones over it. I put it on the dough cycle, and checked after 15 minutes to break up some of the shortening and make sure it was forming into a ball correctly. If you want an open cobbler type thing, you can make one, but we made two to do a lattice pie :D


Filling Ingredients

3 cups rhubarb stalks cut into 1/2 inch pieces (Trim outside stringy layer of large rhubarb stalks; make sure to trim away any and discard of the leaves which are poisonous; trim ends.)
1 cup strawberries, stemmed and sliced
1 cup sugar
3 Tablespoons of quick cooking tapioca
1/4 teaspoon of salt
1 teaspoon of grated orange peel
Unbaked pastry for two-crust 9 inch pie

1 Mix the rhubarb and the strawberries with the sugar, tapioca, salt, and orange rind. Let sit for 10 minutes.



2 Turn into a pastry lined pan. Top with the lattice strips pastry, trim the edge, and crimp the top and bottom edges together.






3 Bake at 400°F for 20 minutes, reduce heat to 350°F, and bake an additional 30-40 minutes longer. Cool on a rack. Serve warm or cold. If you do cool to room temperature, the juices will have more time to thicken.

Banana Split Cookies!

I suck at posting :/

I guess working in a bakery killed my desire to bake. Anyway, I've cut down to once a week at Everyday Gourmet, so now I have time to cook again! Yesterday, I had an outrageous desire for something filled with bananas! I bought a bunch of bananas, and so did my roomate, so altogether we have about 4,567. Someone needed to do something about this, so I took it upon myself to make banana cookies.

Though these technically only contain about 3/4 of banana split ingredients, I thought the chocolate ganache on top made them look like a banana split, so that's what they're called! I made up this recipe myself, and I'm really happy about how it turned out.

Banana Split Cookies

-1 large banana
-1 cup Earth Balance or other vegan margarine
-3/4 cup brown sugar
-3/4 cup granulated sugar
-2 tsp vanilla

-2.5 cups unbleached flour/ spelt flour
-1 tsp baking soda
-1 tsp salt

Ganache

-Vegan chocolate chips
-Soymilk

1.) Preheat the oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit. Smash the banana with a fork or electric mixer in a large bowl until it is very mushy and has a paste-like consistency. Add butter, vanilla, and both types of sugar to the bowl and beat until sugar has been creamed into the butter.

2.) Combine the flour, baking soda, and salt in a bowl, and little by little add it to the wet mixture until it forms a dough.

3.) Scoop the dough onto ungreased baking sheets with an ice cream scoop or large spoon, and bake for 10-15 minutes or until the cookie edges are slightly browned. Flatten if necessary.

4.) Combine soymilk and chocolate chips and warm in the microwave for 1-2 minutes or until it resembles a thick, chocolatey mixture. Drizzle over top of the cookies and let cool.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

Making desserts I was unable to eat all day gave me a wicked craving for cookies, so I decided to put my new book to use and make ones of the chocolate chip variety.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

• 4 1/2 teaspoons of egg replacer plus 6 tablespoons of water

-OR-

• 1 1/2 bananas


• 1 cup vegan butter


• 3/4 cup granulated sugar


• 3/4 cup packed brown sugar(light or dark)


• 2 tsp vanilla extract


• 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour, or 1 1/8 each whole wheat and all-purpose


• 1 tsp baking soda


• 1 tsp salt


• 1-2 cups vegan chocolate chips

1. Preheat the oven to 375F. Whip together the egg replacer and water, or mash the bananas.


2. Cream together the butter, both sugars and the vanilla extract. Add the egg replacer or bananas and stir until combined


3. Mix together the flour, baking soda and salt in a separate bowl until combined. Beat the flour into the wet mixture. When combined, stir in the chocolate chips.


4. Roll into balls and place on a cookie sheet. Bake in the preheated oven for 8-10 minutes, or until done.


5. Place on handy dandy wire cooling rack, then eat!

These cookies were amazing, and got the seal of approval from my very skeptical non-vegan boss. I had to bake them for a little longer than the recommended amount of time, so just keep checking them if they're not done after the 8 minutes. I like my cookies chewy and moist, so I didn't let them get too brown.

Whole Wheat Tortillas

Okay, so I wanted some more tortillas, but I'm not going to go grocery shopping until this weekend. The answer? Make them myself, obviously! I used the recipe found here, and they came out pretty good, although I think I'll make the dough balls larger next time to in turn make larger tortillas, because I wasn't able to shape them very well, and they came out a little bit too small for loading with rice and beans. All in all, however, I was very pleased with this first attempt to make tortillas! I think they taste better than the store bought brands, and they're extremely easy to make.

Though technically not baking, I'd lump these into the category of "things-you-never-thought-you-could-make-at-home-but-actually-can-quite-easily."

Mexican Whole-Wheat Flour Tortillas

• 1 cup all-purpose flour


• 4 cups whole-wheat flour


• 1/2 cup vegan shortening(I use Earth Balance)


• 2 teaspoons salt


• 1 1/2 cups boiling water


• flour for sprinkling and rolling

1. Put some water on to boil. While you're waiting, mix the salt, all-purpose flour, and whole-wheat flour together in a large bowl.


2. Using your hands, rub the shortening into the dry mixture. I found it easier to cut the shortening first, and then rub the pieces in individually. Make sure there are no large chunks of shortening remaining, and that it well-incorporated throughout the mixture.


3. Roll them into balls and let them sit for about an hour. The original recipe said to roll them into golf-sized balls, however I found that that size made something I would describe as "mini-tortillas." In order to get a larger tortilla, make larger balls, but make sure to roll them out until they are quite thin or else they will have trouble cooking


4. When the hour is up, put an ungreased skillet on the stove(nonstick works well) and turn the heat up to medium high. One at a time, roll out a dough ball into a tortilla shape and place it on the skillet. When a bubble appears, flip it over and cook it for another 10-30 seconds. They don't take long at all to cook, so don't walk away or your tortilla will burn! When you're done, you should have delicious tortillas to eat :)

Whole Wheat Sub rolls

I've been wanting to make sub rolls for a while, because the shape my breadmaker makes bread into just does NOT lend itself to sandwich making.

I modified the recipe found here to be vegan.

So because I was feeling a little bit lazy, I let the breadmaker knead the dough and let it rise until the proofing(final rise) when I took it out, shaped it into sub rolls and let it rise again. You can do it by hand if you like :P

Whole Wheat Oatmeal Sub Rolls

* 1 1/4 cups water (70 to 80 degrees F)
* 2 tablespoons molasses
* 2 tablespoons vegan margarine, softened
* 1 1/4 teaspoons salt
* 2 tablespoons nonfat dry soy milk powder
* 1 3/4 cups bread flour
* 1 cup whole wheat flour
* 1/3 cup quick-cooking oats
* 1 1/4 teaspoons active dry yeast

So, according to my breadmachine instructions, I put the wet ingredients into the breadpan, layered the dry ones on top, and made a little pocket for the yeast. I set it on the basic setting with a light crust, and checked the times in the manual to see when the last rise starts.

As the machine was beginning the final proofing stage, I took the dough out of the machine, formed it into two sub-type shapes, placed them onto a cookie sheet covered in tin foil, and covered them with a clean dish towel. I preheated the oven to 350 degrees, and let the rolls rise for about 35-40 minutes.

I poked them and watched the hole fill back up to make sure they were ready, then I baked them for another 30-35 minutes. I started checking them when they had five minutes left, just to be sure. When you knock on the bottom and they sound hollow, they're done.

I then placed them on a wire rack to cool. When they're cool, feel free to slice them up and fill them with whatever kind of delicious fillings you like!!

Here's what mine looked like. I realize the one on the left looks a bit like a stubby, less delicious cousin to the first one, but you have to remember that baked goods have feelings too! :D


I can't wait for sannnnnnndwiches!!