Waffle All The Things!

It's not a new craze, but waffling food other than waffles is pretty amazing. Waffle irons are pretty versatile. You can cook tofu, hash browns, cookies and more. 

I wanted something brunchy today and decided to try an experiment. Sometimes they work, sometimes not so much. Lucky for you all, this one worked. 

Banana Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Waffles

1/2 a banana, smashed

1/2 cup quick oats

1/2 cup organic pastry flour

1/4 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp baking soda

1 tsp vanilla 

1/4 cup chocolate chips

3/4 cup almond milk 

Pinch of salt

You know the drill. Mix dry, mix wet, combine and pour into the waffle iron. Voila. 

The shell crisped up nicely in the waffle iron and the inside was cakey and oatey like I wanted it to be. The chocolate chips got a little toasty for my liking- in future I would probably add them after the fact, or just make a chocolate drizzle. This would also work well with raisins.

Being the glutton that I am, I added coconut whipped cream and cinnamon to mine. You should do the same. It was spectacular. 

Note: if you wanted to make it sweeter (I didn't add any sugar to the mix) you could add 1/4 cup of sugar.

 

Sausage Rolls!

Seitan is something that I usually buy, but rarely make. Which is silly, because it's not difficult to do and tastes so much better home made. 

The basics of Seitan are wheat gluten and spices (the "dry"), mixed with water/stock and a binding agent (the "wet"). When I make my Seitan ribs I use natural peanut butter as the binding agent, but for sausages I wanted a different flavour. I have seen in other recipes that some people use beans so I thought I'd give it a try. 

To make the sausages you'll need:

The "wet":

3/4 cup baked beans in tomato sauce

2 tbsp minced garlic

3 tbsp tamari

1/2 tbsp hickory liquid smoke 

2 tbsp chili oil (or olive if you don't want them spicy)

1.5 cups vegan beef broth 

The "dry":

2 cups wheat gluten 

1/3 cup nooch 

2 tsp smoked paprika

1 tsp chili powder

1/2 tsp black pepper

1 tsp ground sage

1/2 tsp onion powder

In a food processor thoroughly mix the wet ingredients until smooth. Switch the blade to a dough hook and add in the dry mix until a batter forms evenly.

Using lengths of heavy duty aluminum foil  add even mounds of batter and roll into sausage lengths, twist ends closed. Repeat until all batter is used, 8-10 sausages depending on size.

Bake in the oven at 350 degrees for 40 minutes and let cool in the foil. 

Now that you have sausages, the possibilities are endless! BBQ and top with sauerkraut and mustard, slice and fry for pasta dishes, or create some great holiday apps! 

To make sausage rolls, once cooled you need to slice them in half and cut into 1.5" sections. 

Roll out your puffed pastry and wrap each square evenly. Bake at 350 for 25-30 minutes or until golden brown.

Serve with specialty mustard, and enjoy!

When you dip, I dip, we dip!

Firstly, who gets the song reference? Hooray for 80's kids! 

Moving along.....PIZZA!!! Now that Pizza Nova has vegan mozarella, at a reasonable price no less, I can once again embrace my inner (ok; maybe outer  too...) fat kid and eat my feelings via take-out! 

The one thing they don't have is a vegan dipping sauce. My fave FAVE dip was the Cheddar Jalapeño dip that most pizza places carry. So creamy, and cheezy and with a nice bite.

When you order pizza that you're too lazy to get dressed to drive and go pick up, it leaves a 40 minute void. Mostly, this time is filled with peeking through the curtains brimming with hope that THAT car has your pizza, contemplating getting dressed to exchange money for carbs (but ultimately deciding against it) and/or swearing and wishing that they would just HURRY UP WITH MY PIZZA damnit!!

Maybe I'm maturing, because I spent my 40 minute void concocting dipping sauce! Truth be told, I ordered pizza on several different occasions which gave me the opportunity for trial and error. There wasn't a lot of error, per se, but I did find a great recipe that tastes amazing and is easy peasy.

Without further adieu, VEGAN CHEEZY JALAPEÑO DIPPING SAUCE!!! 😁

1 cup vegan mayo (I used Nayonaise)

1/4 cup nooch (or more if you want it really cheezy. Always add more nooch!)

2 tbsp hot sauce (for both added heat and colour)

1/2 a jalapeño, finely diced

Add all ingredients into a blender and purée until it's a nice saucy consistency. If it's too thick for your liking, add a bit of liquid. Water or unsweetened, unflavored milk will do. 

Enjoy!

Baked smashed potatoes!

I'm tired and cranky. The kind of tired and cranky that only starch can fix. Bring on the potatoes! 

I bought a few bags of those little mini potatoes. They might have a real name, but I already said I'm tired. After boiling them, I arranged them on a parchment lined paper and used a wooden spoon to smash them. 

You can really garnish them with anything you want, but I used:

- Earth Balance

- Sea salt 

- Fresh minced garlic 

- Scallions, chopped finely 

Pre-heat the oven to 375 and bake for 35-45 minutes. Then, eat all of your feelings and hopefully be a little less cranky! 

Pierogi!

Starch fried in (vegan) butter may as well just be called HEAVEN! 😍

Oddly, not everyone agrees with that. As you may have gathered from previous posts, my other (better) half doesn't like a lot of my favourite things. Like bread, sandwiches, pierogi. Basically, if it's starchy and or fried, she wants none of it. She likes her food to be nutritionally complete, where I like mine to replace feelings and cause bloat. I know, I'm not sure how we make it work, either. 

So I wanted to try something that kind of met half way. Let me have my fried starch while being (somewhat) nutritionally complete. So I thought, why not use processed chick peas in lieu of potato, add a ton of nooch and some other good stuff? Win win? I think so!

To make the pierogi shell, I googled and came up with this:

3 cups unbleached all purpose flour 

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 cup sunflower oil 

1 cup warm water

Blend flour and salt in a food processor, then add oil and water and mix until combined. Hand roll into a ball and set aside while you make your filling.

For the filling I used:

- 1 large 28oz can of chick peas, rinsed and puréed in the food processor

- 2 medium white onions, finely chopped

- 1 tbsp fresh minced garlic

- 1/2 tbsp ground sriracha (aka THE GREATEST SPICE EVER!) 

- 1/2 tsp turmeric

- 1/4 cup nutritional yeast

In a large frying pan, sauté the onions and garlic. Then season with sriracha (or other spice with a nice heat) turmeric and nutritional yeast. Lastly add in the chick pea mix and combine well. 

On a floured surface roll out the dough to desired thickness. Use a cup to make the shapes for your pierogi. Spoon one tbsp of filling onto the centre of the shell. Pinch near the middle to seal and then continue along both sides until you have a crescent shape. (See photo for detail)

Once they're all formed, crimp edges with a fork and get ready to boil. Do not overcrowd the pan; only boil 3-5 at a time and then set aside. When they are all done, preheat a large frying pan and sauté in vegan butter until lightly browned on both sides. 

Top with your fave vegan sour cream (or not) and enjoy! 

Nacho Cheez!

I'm back! Two weddings, three events and the general chaos of life has subsided (kind of) and I'm back to the blogosphere! Yay!

Nacho night is one of my fave nights. I bought Yves new soy free veggie ground round with pea protein and figured the best way to try it out would be spiced into oblivion with veggies from our garden. And then I had a hankering for nacho cheez sauce. You know the kind that you see at the 7-11, except minus the plastic-y look. Without further adieu...

Nacho Cheez Sauce

1 cup hot water

1 cup raw cashews

3/4 cup nooch (nutritional yeast)

1.5 tsp salt

2 tbsp lemon juice

2 tbsp pimento, drained

1/2 tsp onion powder

1 tsp garlic powder 

1 tsp smoked paprika 

1/2 tsp cumin

1/2 tsp cayenne pepper

1 tbsp tapioca starch

1 whole jalapeño, diced 

Blend well in a high powered blender with nut blade attachment and voila! Creamy, tangy, spicy cheez sauce!

 

Toffee Apple Pie!

Every fall I bake a billion apple pies. Every year I say I'm going to learn to make my own crust and NOT use those oh-so-convenient pre-made, ready to roll crusts. This year, I actually made my own!

I'll include the recipe, but truth be told it is finicky and may need alterations to make sure it's the right consistency. 

For the crust:

2 cups of unbleached, all purpose flour 

1 cup of vegetable shortening 

1/2 tsp salt

1-3 tbsp cold water

Combine salt and flour. Using a pastry cutter, add in 1 cup of shortening. Once combined well, knead with your hands and start sticking it together into a giant ball. Add cold water 1/2 tbsp at a time until your dough is moist enough not to crack, but not too sticky that it is too doughy. (I told you, finicky!!) 

Once it's in good form, split into two and roll out onto a well floured surface. Place the bottom into your pie plate and roll out the next half for the top. You'll need to cut it into strips to make a lattice top. Mine is ugly, yours can be too. You need the lattice top for the toffee. 

Peel, core and slice the apples and fill the pie plate. Make it nice and tall because it'll cook down a lot. You don't need to add anything to them. Add your lattice top and set aside while you make the toffee. 

Preheat oven to 425. 

For the toffee:

1/2 cup of earth balance

3 tbsp flour

1/4 cup of water

1/2 cup unbleached cane sugar

1/2 cup brown sugar

In a saucepan, melt earth balance. Add flour and whisk until smoothe. Add in water and sugars and bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer. 

Using a large spoon (I suggest silicone) spoon the toffee over the lattice of the pie. You'll want to take your time because you want the mixture to seep into the middle. Make sure all of the lattice is covered and as much of the crust as you want. 

Mine always looks messy because I like the mix of the sticky crunchy toffee with the soft crumbly crust. 

Place in the middle of the centre rack and bake for 15 minutes, then reduce head to 350 and bake for another 35-45 minutes or until the crust is golden brown.

What you should now have is a crunchy, chewy toffee apple pie! Let cool before serving. Enjoy!