Mushroom Mounds and Treats – 2 Recipes

In my previous post I said I would give you the recipe for Baked Mushroom Mounds if you wanted, and many of you said you did. They were so good I made them again, just a little differently, so I’ll give you some options in the recipe.

Baked Mushroom Mounds

Ingredients:
2 cups chopped fresh mushrooms (a 10 oz. bag)
1 cup chopped onion
margarine, oil, or broth to sauté
1 – 1-1/2 cups bread crumbs or oats
1/3 – ½ cup water
(for the first batch I used 1 c. oats and 1/3 c. water; for the second batch I used 1-1/2 c. oats and ½ c. water)
2 egg replacers (for the first batch I used chia seeds; for the second batch I used EnerG)
1 T. chopped fresh herbs of choice (I used oregano)
½ t. salt
½ t. pepper
any other seasoning you want

Directions:

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Oil a 12 cup muffin tin.

Saute mushrooms and onions in liquid of choice (I used broth. I also did not sauté the mushrooms in my first batch). When soft, let cool slightly, then place into the bowl of a food processor. If you don’t have a food processor, chop the mushrooms and onions finely before sautéing, then put into a mixing bowl and proceed by hand.

Soak the bread crumbs or oats in water for about 5 minutes (I used oats to be gluten free.) Add to mushrooms and onions and mix well. Add in the egg replacer and seasonings and pulse or stir until incorporated.

Spoon the mixture into the muffin tins. (I got 11 in the first batch and 12 in the second.) Bake for 20 – 25 minutes, or until set. Let cool a few minutes before removing from tins.

Which batch was better? The first batch tasted better, but was a little mushy on the bottom. The second batch baked better, but had less flavor. Ah, the vegan dilemma of mushy patties…. When I make a third batch, I think I will sprinkle a little oat flour in the bottom of the tins OR I will shape them into patties and pan fry them. Please let me know if you play around with this recipe and how you like it. I promise they taste wonderful! I've been snacking on them cold from the fridge.

If you remember, this recipe was adapted from the old cookbook I found, and I showed this picture and asked you to guess what it was.



You veg’ns are so smart! The title under the picture is Yams and Sweet Potatoes. I suppose there is a stick of butter on top and cabbage on the bottom. Now I know I’ve already made fun of the pictures in this book, but I have to poke fun of this recipe too. I mean, for a Culinary Institute cookbook I expected a little more direction.

Yams and Sweet Potatoes

Yams or sweet potatoes
Salt
Butter (optional) – yeh right! We saw all that butter!

Boil yams and serve plain sprinkled with salt and, if desired, topped with butter. Or barbecue yams on a grill 4 inches from ash-covered coals, turning frequently, until soft. Or bake yams until tender.

I really have a problem with recipes that instruct you to *cook until done.* I like to have at least a vague idea of how long something will take to cook.

Okay, now for a really really yummy recipe! By the way, Chase is out of town so our next dinner together will be – well, I don’t really know with Spring Break next week. But I made these treats for him and I am trying very hard not to eat them all! I adapted a recipe from This Crazy Vegan Life for Almond Bar Cookies. I made Peanut Bar Cookies and got to use my peanut meal.

Peanut, Banana, and Chocolate Chip Bar Cookies

These bar cookies are a peanut lovers dreams, but if you dream of almond or other nuts, feel free to substitute in your favorite nuts and nut butter.

Ingredients:
½ cup peanut meal (finely ground peanuts)
¼ t. salt
1 cup granulated sweetener (I used tubinado)
1 T. brown rice syrup
½ cup margarine
½ cup peanut butter
2 t. vanilla extract
1-1/4 c. whole wheat pastry flour
1 t. baking powder
¼ c. banana chips, crushed
¼ c. chocolate chips

Directions:

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Oil a 9-inch square baking pan.

Combine peanut meal, salt, sweetener, brown rice syrup, margarine, and peanut butter in a small sauce pan. Set over low heat and stir until margarine is melted and sweetener is dissolved, about 2 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in extract.

Transfer to a mixing bowl and add in flour and baking powder. Stir in chips. (I mixed by hand and my batter was too thick to stir in the chips, so I just mashed mine into the top.)

Spread into prepared pan and bake for about 25 minutes. Cool completely before slicing into bars.


I hope you enjoy these recipes. Please let me know if you try them!

This Crazy Vegan Life

HAPPY NEW YEAR crazy vegans! And to all nonvegan readers as well. I hope you enjoyed saying goodbye to 2008 and are looking forward to a healthy and happy 2009. I am looking forward to continuing to provide you with healthy vegan recipes this year, and I hope that you, like me, have resolved to commit or recommit to be the healthiest and best vegan crusader you can be.

I was contacted awhile back by a publishing rep and asked to review Christina Pirello’s new book, This Crazy Vegan Life. So this first post of the new year will contain my thoughts about her book, as well as several recipe reviews. (My compensation for this review was a copy of the book.)

I very much enjoyed reading This Crazy Vegan Life and I highly recommend it to practicing vegans, new vegans, and nonvegans. If you are not familiar with Christina, perhaps you are familiar with her PBS show and website, Christina Cooks. Christina was diagnosed with leukemia and given 3 months to live – 25 years ago. She attributes her health and healing to a vegan macrobiotic diet and lifestyle.

The first half of the book deals with the principles of veganism, including health and nutrition, animal compassion, and environmental issues. We vegans know that meat, dairy, eggs, and processed foods are cruel to our bodies, animals, and the environment. But I learned a lot from the in depth descriptions of how and why this is so. For example, even though I consider myself fairly knowledgeable about vegan nutrition, I was fascinated to read about the process of digestion and the toll nonvegan foods take on our bodies. Christina’s goal is to arm you with all the information and personal testimony she has to get you to commit, with no more excuses, to living a healthy vegan lifestyle so you can feel great about your body and your lifestyle choices. As she stated in the introduction (and I feel her pain!), “As a teacher/advocate of healthy vegan cooking I agonize over the fact that many people listen to what I say and agree that it makes sense. But there is a huge disconnect between hearing, understanding – and doing.”

The book also gives plenty of emphasis to the “criminal” ways of our food industry. Advertisers, lobbyists, and researchers dupe the public into eating their junk foods in huge portions. Corporate manufacturers contaminate and genetically modify our foods while marketers tell us it’s helpful for our health and the world’s food supply.

In the second part of the book, Christina shares her philosophy about food and eating and provides a list of kitchen staples and over 100 vegan recipes. She tells you not only what to eat, but why, when, and how to eat. Two points she reiterates are (1) you truly are what you eat; and (2) it’s the calories that count; you must expend more calories than you consume in order to lose weight – period. She asks you to commit to her eating plan for 21 days to break your dependence on unhealthy foods and reintroduce your numbed tastebuds to the wonderful, delicate flavors of natural foods. She also says 21 days on her plan can turn around a lifetime of unhealthy habits. She includes a nice chapter of 12 exercises with photos to get you moving. One of my favorite passages from the book is “Take a good, hard look at what you ask of your body each and every day and then think about what you do for it in return.”

I will admit that I have tried some recipes from the Christina Cooks website and was disappointed with the lack of flavor, so I was skeptical about the recipes in this book. I made a main dish, side dish, and soup, and to my surprise I was absolutely thrilled with the outcome.

First up – Cauliflower in Spiced Tomato Sauce




I loved that I got to prepare a whole cauliflower again, and the tomato sauce was fabulous! To serve it, I cut it like pie.

Next, Roasted Winter Squash with Basil. I used an acorn squash and left the skin on. I normally don’t like my squash sweet, but this had just a teaspoon of sweetener and I loved it. It was really delicious.

The soup I made is what Christina calls a home remedy broth designed to dissolve hardened fat deposits that lie deep in your organs and jumpstart weight loss. I didn’t expect it to be noteworthy, so I didn’t take a picture. But this 5-ingredient remedy took mere minutes to prepare and honestly is one of the tastiest things I’ve ever had.

The last thing I made was a treat. Christina says her sweetener of choice is erythritol, and even though it sounds like a chemical, it is completely natural made from plant sugars. I was completely unfamiliar with this substance, and I’m not really sure how I feel about it. I bought a bag of Z Sweet. 300 grams, which I believe is 1-1/2 cups, for $8.00. There are 60 calories in the whole bag. Current research deems it completely safe as it is absorbed into the bloodstream and quickly excreted. It does not cause cavities. It does not raise blood sugar and is therefore safe for diabetics. It looks like this:

Apparently erythritol will make your baked goods grainy, so to overcome this, Christina’s recipes have you boil it with other ingredients to dissolve it before mixing it with your dry ingredients. Two problems I had with that – first, it’s an extra step and an extra pot to dirty, and second, you have to wait for the boiled mixture to cool before mixing it with your dry ingredients or else it melts your chocolate chips, as I discovered when adding them to the Mini Pumpkin Cupcakes recipe. (The recipe didn't call for the chips; I just wanted chocolate.)

I baked them in a disposable tin, so you are only seeing their tops. They really baked up beautifully and they were not overly sweet, just like I like them. The texture was fine and the flavor was nice. I have enough Z Sweet to try out a few more recipes. In the meantime, I would love to hear from any of you who have used this sweetener.

To sum up, I highly recommend This Crazy Vegan Life for great insight into the vegan lifestyle provided by an experienced, passionate, and healthy vegan author. I also recommend it for great recipes. I have many bookmarked that I can’t wait to try.

If you want to see Amazon’s review, read it here.

Now, since it is New Year’s Day and I adhere to the tradition of eating blackeyed peas for good luck, I made Chipotle Blackeyed Peas from Get It Ripe! to have for dinner tonight.

I’ve got a nice bunch of kale to serve with them, and I’m going to eat as many as I can for extra good luck in 2009! I'm such a crazy vegan....