Peanut Butter Chocolate Cake Pie

Peanut Butter Chocolate Cake Pie

Madness! Madness I tell ya!

Myself and Conor were talking about this show called ‘Pushing Daisies’ where these two people make pies in their pie shop. In one episode the girl proposes the idea of making ‘cup pies’ – little single serving pies.

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=haVmuz_DjfI

Of course when I heard this I thought of cupcake pies… and then the idea of blending the two into one fascinated me so much I became fixated on the idea of making a cake pie – a cake filled pie.

I couldn’t quite wait long enough to go to the shop to make a cake of other flavours, so we used what we had. With this so it became peanut butter and chocolate (peanut butter and cocoa being what we had). It was so easy though and such an uplifting little thing to try.

Ingredients:

Your basic pie crust (double the flour to butter):

- 1½ cups flour

- ½- ¾ cups vegan butter/margarine

- 1/3 cup water (or however until mixture isn’t too dry/wet and sticks together)

- Cinnamon (to make it more sweet)

Your basic vegan cake recipe:

- 1½ cups self raising flour

- 1 cup sugar

- ¾ cup soya milk/water

- ½ cup oil

- 1 tsp vanilla essence

- 1 tbsp vinegar

Also: 1 tablespoon peanut butter, 1 tablespoon cocoa powder

1. Make pie crust: mash flour and butter (along with cinnamon if using) together until cannot do so anymore with a knife. Then use the very tips of your fingers to mix the rest in until like breadcrumbs. Add water and mix, roll into a ball.

2. Make basic cake recipe: mix the wet ingredients, mix the dry ingredients,. Mix two sets together. (or mix the wet, add the two dry ingredients in together then). Split the mixture into two different bowls.

3. Add peanut butter to one bowl, cocoa powder to the other.

4. Get your shortcrust pastry ball and split into two pieces (so that one is twice the size of the other). Roll into a circle and place on pie tray/9 inch baking tray. Roll the other into a circle too.

5. Add your chocolate cake mix into the bottom pie crust, then the peanut butter cake mix on top. Place circular top crust on top and secure at edges. Prick at top with fork. Bake for ~30mins at 180 ̊

Must admit these kind of reminded me of the Reeses chocolate cup things.

I think I might try it again even, though perhaps with even more confusion - …. I’ll put apple cake on the inside!!!

This has been rather a weekend of madness (we ending up playing Snakes & Ladders!) and cakes (mocha cake for my brother’s birthday, shown below), and study (in my case, as exams in 1.5weeks!).

Spicy Wedges yam yam

Spicy Wedges

This recipe is really easy, and will only take a little while to make.

You’ll need:  (Try play around with the recipe)

- About 5 large salad sized potatoes         - A bit of Chickpea flour (use anything, we used chickpea)

- Spices:  Cumin, Paprika, Chili powder, Rosemary, Oregano, Basil, Pepper, salt (a smidgen)

- Make sure you have a lot of those spices           - Some Nice oil (like olive)

And whatever else you think will be yummy….

Turn on the oven to about 220 Celsius.

Slice the potatoes into thumb sized wedges (Don’t use your own thumb to judge while slicing!!!) Leaving the skin on. Then put the wedges in a bowl of water for soaking.

Mix hearty amounts of all the spices and the flour together in a bowl.

One by one put the wetted potatoes wedges into the bowl and cover with the spices mix.

Put in a dish in the oven and douse with oil. Leave in the oven for ~ 30mins,

We served with peas, roasted veg and these ‘mix’ veggie burgers we found in the press.

Green lentil filled focaccia

Green lentil filled focaccia

We’ve been waiting to try this recipe for a few weeks now. The oven in the house Conor lived for college was very much a ‘student’ oven and wouldn’t cook anything, so we had to wait until we had access to an oven that could cook this. This recipe is actually pretty simple and makes a lovely thing for a lunch. You can put anything in the middle though depending on what you have.

Ingredients:

- 3 cups flour

- 1/4 cup oil

- 1 sachet dried yeast

- 1/2 can green lentils

- Vegetables: 1/2 onion, 1/2 tomato, Small bit of courgette, and/or any other vegetables

- 1 tablespoon rocket lettuce

- 2-3 sundried tomatoes

- Tomato puree

- Garlic (to taste)

- Spices; rosemary, black pepper, cumin, coriander, chili powder, oregano (to taste)

1.  Mix flour with rosemary, cumin and coriander. Add yeast to 1/2 cup warm water, then add to flour mix. Add the oil.

2. Knead into a ball, making sure the mixture is not to dry (add more warm water if needed). Leave to rise for 1hour.

3. Very finely chop the garlic, onion, tomato, courgette, rocket lettuce, sundried tomato and/or any other vegetables being used. Add black pepper, chili powder and oregano (or any herbs of preference), 1 teaspoon tomato puree and lentils. Mix.

4. Get the ball of dough and divide into two equal pieces, then roll them into two equal sized ovoid shapes.

5. Spread vegetables/lentil mix onto one of them. Then put the other piece of dough on top and close the edges. Cook at 220 ̊ until lightly browned (20-30mins).

We were convinced that as this made a small enough focaccia (about the size of a plate) that we might need something to eat with it, but it’s so filling it can be well eaten just as a thing in itself.

Gribnie kotlety (Mushroom cutlets/patties)

Gribnie kotlety (Mushroom cutlets/patties)

I have quite a fondness for Russian food, particularly as it reminds me of my childhood. Russian food tends to focus a lot on meat though unfortunately. My dad was always the good cook in the family when we were growing up and since I became vegetarian eleven or so years ago, and particularly since I became vegan, has tried adapting more traditional recipes to be veggie friendly so I can still enjoy them. This was one that I was particularly impressed with as it captures the taste and texture of Котлеты so well. Mushroom kotlety are the usual vegetarian adaption used by people, but the buckwheat used here really adds. Unlike the kind of ‘burgers’ one would usually find that are cooked all through and the same throughout, kotlety are supposed to be more round, soft on the inside and crispy on the outside. Usually they’d be served with some potatoes and Russian salads.

Ingredients:

- 1 cup buckwheat

- 1.5 packs of mushrooms

- 2 onions

- ½ cup flour (depending how wet the mixture is)

- Spices/Herbs; parsley, thyme, rosemary, black pepper (to taste)

1. Cook the buckwheat fully by boiling in water (but not to the consistency of porridge).

2. Fry the mushrooms and onions. Place in a blender and blend until a rough paste.

3. Drain buckwheat and mix with mushrooms and onions mixture. Add flour and spices.

4. Fry on until each side is browned.

Technically this recipe could have been made without the flour, but I personally felt while making it that some should be added. It might have taken away from the taste somewhat though so I would use it in slight amounts again perhaps.

Not that I haven't been making sweet things these days... (lime cake, lemon cake, chocolate brownie in a bowl, chocolate orange cake) but I've been keeping to old trusted recipes that I adapted and that aren’t 'new' things to be putting up here. The third one is newish though, and it’s something everyone should try: http://artofdessert.blogspot.ie/2010/11/quick-fix-microwave-brownie.html

 Just use dairy free milk and butter, top with chocolate Swedish Glace/Sorbet and some chocolate sauce…. Careful though, it’s very indulgent!

Broccoli & Seitan stir fry in Ginger sauce

Broccoli & Seitan stir fry in Ginger sauce

So, a while back we were watching an entry of a really good cooking youtube channel called the ‘Vegan Black Metal Chef” (really awesome – you should check it out) http://www.youtube.com/user/VeganBlackMetalChef?feature=watch

In one episode he was using Seitan for cooking – “All Hail Seitan!!”, this being the first time I had heard of it.

What’s seitan you might ask? It’s essentially wheat protein bound together, which absorbs flavour in with whatever you want to cook with and has a good texture. (kind of like tofu but good texture & less plain)

You can buy Seitan from a shop, but for this recipe we’ll try make it from scratch.

Attempt 1:

Credit to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AAHvXAJl8oAand http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7_bNpSS9xg&feature=related for their videos which helped us out in the method a lot.

Basically, you need to get ‘Vital Wheat Gluten’, mix & knead it with water and you’re sorted. However upon looking we couldn’t find vital wheat gluten anywhere, nor anyone who’s ever heard of it! :s  So we had to try by filtering the stuff out of plain ol’ flour…..

- get 1 kg of flour. We used the Aldi plain flour (~55cent per kg)

- get about 550ml-600ml of water and mix it in

- knead it a bit, then let it sit in water for 30mins

- then play with it in the water till the water turns milky white, drain the water, fill It up & do again

- do this over and over until the water doesn’t milkeyify any more and take out what’s left

- You’re left with the vital wheat gluten & Seitan! (we microwaved it to remove some of the water)

As you can see, it didn’t turn out so well the first time… We got seitan out, but the ball fell apart in the water, and the shape was malformed. We cooked it in some stock & and onion to flavour & fried it and it was OK, but there was barely enough for two people…. So we try again the next night.

Attempt 2:

We read online that if you knead the crap out of the ball of flour at the initial part it’ll hold together much better. So we did the same method as above except this time we punched it, rolled it, squished it, really beat the crap out of it for about half-an-hour!

This makes all the difference as the ball held together great that time, we got a lot of seitan this time round!

We chopped and cooked it in stock & onion pieces to give them flavour, then chopped them into bite-sized chunks.

The actual meal part:

For this we used the following

- 1 whole broccoli, chopped into stalks                   - 1 red pepper, sliced

- 1 Onion                                                               - 2 carrots chopped into strips

- a cupful of beansprouts                                        - some waterchestnuts  (if you have them)

- A 3-cm cubed bit of fresh Ginger, crushed           - some Teriyaki sauce (or soy sauce/ whatever)

- 3 cloves of garlic, crushed                                    - spices etc..

While this is cooking get the sietan pieces and fry them in some oil until golden brown.

  

 -

Chop up everything, fry the onion, broccoli stalks and carrot first, then add in the pepper and beansprouts. Crush up the garlic and ginger and add it in also.

Then add in the seitan pieces and mix in the teriyaki sauce and your spices.

Serve with rice and enjoy J

French Toast

French Toast

It’s a beautiful sunny Bank Holiday Monday so we thought we’d make something a bit nicer for breakfast. We discovered while doing so that we have different ideas of what French toast is. To me it used to be a savoury lunch tinged with a bit of cinnamon, while to Conor it’s a sweet fruity type thing for breakfast. We ended up trying two recipes because of this.

Recipe 1: - 3/4 cup soya milk - 1/2 banana - 2 tablespoons flour - 1 tablespoon chickpea flour (can be omitted) - Spices: cinnamon, nutmeg.

Recipe 2: - 3/4 cup soya milk - 1 tsp egg replacer (mixed as per box) - 2 tablespoons flour - Spices: cinnamon, nutmeg

1. For both recipes, we just mixed all the ingredients together, making sure banana is mashed in.

2. Then we dipped bread in so both sides of the slice of bread are covered. Each slice is then put into a pan with a little oil on medium heat until slightly browned.

Trying both recipes, we could both agree the second one tasted more like egg- made French toast and I must with a cringe say I prefer it, though I dislike using egg replacer. The first one also comes out great though more sweet, and I’d say could do so if you leave out the chickpea flour even. I’d be tempted to try it with avocado or a more savoury thing instead of banana...

Crème brûlée

Crème brûlée

This idea has been sitting in a list of ‘ambitious things to try’ for a long time and we thought we’d finally give it a go. It was so ridiculously simple yet it seemed almost like a more decadent thing to eat that I’d definitely remake it again, especially for a special occasion. I think the recipe here is pretty much like that which you would use for Crème brûlée normally, though using coconut milk instead of cream.

The short list of ingredients are:

- 1 can coconut milk

- 2 tablespoons cornflour

- 3 tablespoons soya milk

- 1/2 cup sugar

- 1 tsp vanilla essence

- Spices: cinnamon, mixed spice, nutmeg

1. Put coconut milk, sugar, vanilla, spices in a pot and bring to boil.

2. Mix soya milk and cornflour until no lumps. Add to pot and reduce heat.

3. Once thick enough (consistency of thick custard) pour into suitable little containers.

4. Cover with thin layer of sugar. (We used a bit too much here). We tried to use a lighter thing at this point to melt the sugar, but gave up and just put it under the grill which worked as well. Let it cool then though, about 1 hour or less depending how warm you like it. 

Cucumber and Mint Soup, with Stuffed Cucumber

For the past few weeks I had been doing exams, so haven’t been doing too much cooking (mostly helping by eating things), but now that that’s all done, I’m cooking something again.

It was a lovely summer’s day, and I love cucumber.

Cucumber & Mint Soup with stuffed Cucumber (mmmmm..)

 

The soup is easy, all you need is:

          -          2 Cucumbers

          -          2 handfuls of fresh mint leaves (we got some fresh peppermint in Moore st.)

          -          Salt, pepper, herbs and a bit of Mixed spice.

Chop the cucumber up roughly, stick into blender with the mint etc. Blend up the whole mixture until very very blended. Make sure you serve cold and with some mint leaves on top J

The stuffed Cucumbers:

You can really stuff them with anything, but we stuffed them with kidney bean, red pepper stuff:

         -          3 Cucumbers

         -          A sweet red pepper (the long, dark red ones)

         -          1 red onion & 2 spring onions

         -          A tin of kidney beans

         -          2 cloves of Garlic, Cumin, Cajun pepper, mixed herbs and chili powder

Hollow out the cucumbers by cutting them in half and sticking a knife down
the centre of the squishy bits, then twist the knife until the innards are all out.

Fry the onion and spring onion then dice and add the red pepper. While frying, drain
the kidney beans and squish them up using a fork or potato masher. Add it
to the pan with  the garlic and spices then cook through. Then leave it to cool a little bit.

Take about a handful of it per section of cucumber, using your hands (trust me; much easier) stuff them with it and serve.

This is a lovely light and refreshing lunch / dinner recipe. We had it with some hummus and bread also and it turned out lovely. But the important thing is that cucumber is amazing and that I hope to eat it for every meal of the day.

See how amazing cucumbers are!: http://message.snopes.com/showthread.php?t=53536

Mmmm… cucmbers…..