Spring Break Treats

Okay, I put this post off long enough. I had a fabulous Spring Break week. I’m sad that it’s over. My sister went back home, and she took my nephews and our mother with her. I feel bored and lonely. I guess it’s back to the real world tomorrow, getting up at 5:45, going to work, a workout with my trainer, bills to pay, a dentist appointment, and having my car worked on. I got the spring fever bad!

We had lots of food fun during the week, mostly lunch outings and then snacking on leftovers for dinner.

We had a lunch at Houston’s where I knew my only option would be salad, but I love salad for lunch so I didn’t mind. The last time I went there they put eggs in my salad and I had to send it back. This time I got cheese and I had to send it back. I brought my own dressing. Do you carry salad dressing in your purse like me and my sister do?

We also had a lunch at California Pizza Kitchen. Chase had a nice hummus plate, and I had a super salad that had grilled corn in it. That was a nice touch and I need to remember that this summer.

Of course our favorite lunch outing was to Marble Falls about 45 minutes from Austin where my cousin has opened her second restaurant, TexasNation. I said in my last post I hoped to get a special vegan dish, but would have been fine with a salad. Well, I got both! Here’s a picture of my amazingly delicious gluten free fettucini with mushrooms, avocado, black beans, red bell peppers, green onions, and capers.



Like I always say, I never expect to get a fab vegan dish when I go out. I really just go for the company. But it’s so nice when you do get great vegan food. I would say I ate waaaaay too much last week!


As far as cooking last week, I made the LDV Biryani again because it’s now a favorite. I also made another new favorite, Chickpea Tacos from VegTimes. The filling recipe is merely mashed avocado, chickpeas, and lime juice. I had to spice it up just a bit by adding cumin, garlic, and salt.

We put this on tostados and topped it with crispy salad and salsa. Oh, man, these were terribly good. A big hit for sure.


As far as baking last week, I made several treats.

Banana Bread – can’t remember what recipe I used.

Black Bottom Blondies – from My Sweet Vegan. I have to say these weren’t the hit I had hoped they would be. But you know what? It’s not Hannah’s fault because I saw that Kim had made them too (and enjoyed them) and mine look exactly like hers. It’s that dam* Earth Balance! It tastes horrible and I am never using it again.

Banana Oat Bundles – from one of Dreena’s books, Vive I think, and always delicious.

I have to say that since my sister was driving such precious cargo 1000 miles back to Alabama, I offered to make her any cookies she wanted, even ones with real butter and eggs. She asked for more Sticky Chewy Chocolate Cookies. I made them again, and they are still so chocolaty yummy. You really should bake yourself up a batch!

Right now I’m working on Chase’s Sunday dinner. I promise to try to catch up with all of your posts soon. I really haven’t even had time to peek but I know you’ve all been up to something delicious!

I leave you with a little mosaic of fun from the past week – scooter rides, Blogger Bash, and lunch with family at TexasNation. (You can see individual pictures on my Flickr page.)

See you again soon!

Iron Cupcake:Earth Basil Challenge

Basil is this month's Iron Cupcake Challenge. Basil makes me think of tomatoes. Tomatoes remind me of an incredible tomato and peach gazpacho I sampled which was prepared by our Lake Austin Spa chef. I don’t even like gazpacho, but his concoction was something I’ve never forgotten. So for this challenge I created Peach Gazpacho Cupcakes.

The cake is based on the old tomato soup cake recipe. I couldn’t satisfy myself that Campbell’s condensed version is vegan, so I improvised with soygurt and tomato paste. I adapted a Sarah Kramer recipe from Veg Family. The peach part of the recipe is merely peach preserves, to which I added the basil. The basil flavor is very subtle, so if you want more, double the amount I used. And because of my aversion to buttercream frosting, I topped my cuppers with one of my favorite soup garnishes – popcorn, cinnamon flavored for this recipe.

Peach Gazpacho Cupcakes

Makes 1 dozen

The cake is slightly spicy and light in texture. These cupcakes are super quick and easy to make.

Ingredients:
8 ounces plain soygurt
2 T. low sodium tomato paste
2 T. canola oil
2 t. vanilla
¾ cup sugar
1-1/2 cups flour
1 t. cinnamon
1 t. freshly grated nutmeg
1 t. baking soda
1 t. baking powder
pinch of salt

12 t. (1/4 cup) peach preserves mixed with 2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh basil.

1 cup popped popcorn sprinkled liberally with cinnamon

Directions:
Heat oven to 350 degrees. Line a cupcake tin with paper liners.

For the cake: In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the soygurt and tomato paste. Whisk in the oil, vanilla, and sugar. Sift in the flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Stir until combined.

Spoon into cupcake pan. Smooth tops and add 1 t. peach preserves to the top of each cupcake. Bake for about 22 minutes.

When cupcakes are done, remove them to a wire rack. The tops will be just sticky enough for you to stick on the popcorn topping.

This was another fun challenge and rendered some very tasty cupcakes. You can view all the entries in the Iron Cupcake flickr pool and you can join this monthly challenge at any time - find out how at http://ironcupcake.blogspot.com.

I know my lowly vegan blog and loath of buttercream will never beat out the mainstream competition; nonetheless, to participate I must post the voting time and prizes awarded to the winner.

Voting will begin on Sunday, September 27 at 12 noon at NO ONE PUTS CUPCAKE IN A CORNER, and will be open through Tuesday, September 30 at 12 noon.

Prizes this month are provided by:

ETSY artist METAL SUGAR, HEAD CHEFS by FIESTA PRODUCTS, HELLO CUPCAKE by Karen Tack and Alan Richardson, JESSIE STEELE APRONS, CUPCAKE COURIER, and TASTE OF HOME.

Thanks for visiting!

Sweet Heat – Texas Torpedo Cupcakes

I have joined the Iron Cupcake:Earth bakers challenge! Each month a secret ingredient is revealed and bakers are challenged to come up with a winning recipe, much like the Iron Chef America show I still love so.

I’ve been in need of a challenge in the kitchen, so I took this challenge seriously, as I’m sure all the competitors did. Obviously, adding a teaspoon of chili powder to a cupcake recipe is not much of a challenge. I challenged myself to REALLY use chilies creatively and produce a little cake that I would bake again because it tastes great. I further challenged myself to use only ingredients I had on hand and not shop for any exotic chili spices or specialty chocolates. I did not bake gluten free for this first challenge. I have never made gluten free cupcakes, but my experience with the dry tendencies of gluten free treats made me think a gluten free version wouldn’t hold up to the mix-ins I was going to include. So what did I decide on?

As much as I love the combination of deep dark chocolate and a kick of heat from peppers, I figured lots of folks would do the chocolate chipotle combo, so I looked to something different. You may remember the big bag of red jalapenos I got from the farmers market recently. Jalapenos are the king of peppers in Texas. They are hot, slightly acidic, and are added to everything TexMex – migas, soups, breakfast and dinner tacos, breads, margaritas, and on and on. I thought about how I have used jalapenos, especially in salsas in combination with strawberries, mangoes, and pineapples, which are all wonderful.

Believe it or not, I had no fresh or canned pineapple on hand, but I did have dried pineapple. I made this nonvegan dessert, from Anna at cookiemadness, for my mom to take to a party and knowing it would be a huge hit, I bought extra pineapple to make a vegan version. I just haven’t gotten around to it yet. Anna found chopped pineapple, but this is what I have.




Yes, I do love my chocolate so I did include a bit. Any good chocolate lovin’ gluten free health conscious vegan keeps cocoa nibs on hand, right? So that’s how I came up with the combination of jalapenos, pineapple, and cocoa nibs.

As for the name I chose, “Texas Torpedo” usually refers to a cream cheese stuffed jalapeno (aka “popper”), but really it can be applied to anything with jalapenos as an ingredient, e.g., Texas Torpedo sandwich or cupcake! My cuppers are topped with a cream cheese frosting.

Now for the recipe.

Texas Torpedo Vegan Cupcakes:
(adapted from Golden Vanilla Cupcakes
from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World)

1/3 cup candied jalapenos (recipe follows)
1 cup nondairy milk
1 t. apple cider vinegar
1 ¾ cup all purpose flour
2 T. cornstarch
¾ t. baking powder
½ t. baking soda
½ t. cinnamon
½ t. salt
1/3 cup canola oil
¾ cup sugar
2 t. pineapple extract
½ t. vanilla extract
2 T. dried sweetened pineapple, diced
2 T. cocoa nibs
Vegan Cream Cheese Frosting (recipe follows)
Cocoa powder for dusting (optional)

Begin by making the Candied Jalapenos. This is best done the day before. It is a bit time consuming and messy, but so much fun to make!

Candied Jalapenos

8 medium jalapeno peppers
1 cup water
1 ½ cups sugar
extra sugar for coating (optional)

Put on rubber gloves. Cut the tops off the peppers and slice in half lengthwise. Remove the seeds and membranes. Slice each half into 1/3 inch wide pieces and put into a large saucepan. Cover with cold water and bring to boil. Let boil for 3 minutes, then drain. This will soften the peppers and remove some of the acidity.

Oil a cooling rack and set it over a parchment lined baking sheet. Combine the sugar and water in a saucepan and bring to boil, stirring until sugar is dissolved. Add the pepper strips and boil, stirring occasionally, until most of the syrup is absorbed, about 15 minutes. Turn the peppers onto the rack and separate the strips. Let them dry uncovered at room temperature for 4 to 8 hours, or until they are only slightly sticky.

I coated my candied pieces with additional sugar to make chopping them easier, but yours may not need it. Chop enough strips to make 1/3 cup for your cupcakes.

You will have more than enough candied strips for the cupcakes, so use the leftovers for garnish and/or snacking.


Pineapple Cupcakes:

Heat the oven to 350 degrees and line your cupcake tins with paper liners.

Mix the milk and cider vinegar and set aside for 5 minutes.

Sift together the flour, cornstarch, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt in a bowl.

In a stand mixer or with electric beaters, beat together the sour milk, oil, sugar, and extracts. Slowly add in the flour mixture and mix until smooth. Stir in the peppers, pineapple, and cocoa nibs.

Fill your paper lined cupcake tins about 2/3 full. Bake for about 21 minutes or until done. Let rest 5 minutes in tins, then remove to a cooling rack to cool completely before frosting.

The cupcakes turned out perfectly.

Vegan Cream Cheese Frosting
(from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World)

¼ cup margarine, softened
¼ cup soy cream cheese, softened
2 cups powdered sugar, sifted
1 t. vanilla extract

Cream together the margarine and cream cheese until just combined. Using electric beaters, add in powdered sugar a half cup at a time. Mix until completely smooth, then add in vanilla. Keep refrigerated until ready to use.

Texas Torpedo Cupcake

Do you like the Iron Chef logo positioned peppers? Here’s the inside.

Honestly, these cupcakes are perfectly delicious. The crunchy nibs and chewy candies add excellent texture to the soft cake, and the jalapeno did exactly what it was supposed to – leave a lingering, subtle heat.


Please vote for my pretty little spicy cupcake! Voting begins 9:00 a.m. August 31st and runs through noon September 4th at No One Puts Cupcake in a Corner. Some really nice prizes have been donated for the winner of the competition.

The winner will get all this:

The complete line of HEAD CHEFS from Fiesta Products,

A copy of the new book HELLO, CUPCAKE,

A one-of-a-kind piece of original CAKESPY art by ETSY artist Jessie Oleson,

A luxury hostess apron from JESSIE STEELE,

The next generation of the CUPCAKE COURIER,

And a new publication from the library of TASTE OF HOME BOOKS.

You can view all the outstanding entries for Iron Cupcake on the IRONCUPCAKE FLICKR GROUP page.

Why don’t you join Iron Cupcakes too! The next challenge starts soon. Learn all about it at ironcupcake.blogspot.com.


This challenge was so much fun and I can’t wait for the next one. Let the battle begin!

Birthday Cake!

We all enjoyed celebrating Chase’s birthday yesterday. We began our evening with a wonderful meal at our favorite neighborhood veggie restaurant, Mother’s Café and Garden. After dinner we went to my mom’s to open presents….



… and have champagne and birthday cake!

I wanted to make a beautiful and delicious Lemon Strawberry cake for my wonderful and deserving son, and the best way I knew to accomplish this was to make the layer cake from Vive and the lemon buttercream frosting from VCTOTW. I added the zest of a lemon and a half teaspoon of lemon extract to the cake recipe. I had big beautiful organic strawberries to make the filling and decorate the top of the cake.

I really wanted to split the layers and have a four-layer cake and do some fancy decorating, but I had to transport the cake 15 miles down the interstate to get it to my mom’s house. So I thought that would be just a little too risky. Thankfully, the two-layer cake survived the trip. The cake had just the right amount of lemon flavor to complement the strawberries and was so moist and light. The buttercream was slightly lemony and held up perfectly.

I wish you all could have had a slice!

Spaghetti Squash Mexicana

Another successful V-con recipe. It’s not quite as pretty since I used pinto beans instead of black beans as the recipe called for, but I had just made a pot of homemade pintos and actually didn’t even have a can of black beans. I also didn’t have all the ingredients for the yummy pineapple salsa to go with it, so I sliced some avocado and used my favorite local tomato salsa for the topping. But I did have the basics – spaghetti squash, corn, and plenty of cilantro – spicy and delish!

Breakfast

Diann made breakfast? Yes, but served it for dinner. I know you guys do breakfasts all the time so most of this post will be old news to you, but I did come up with a few new twists.

This dinner was Chase’s idea after I made him Breakfast Pie earlier this week. I made a shredded potato and onion crust.



I prebaked the crust to get the potatoes as crispy as possible, then filled it with spicy sausage crumbles and cream cheez, and topped it with a sliced tomato.

Chase really loved it, and then asked me to do a whole breakfast for dinner – tofu scramble, potatoes, biscuits and gravy. My issue with breakfast, besides generally not being a fan, is that the food is not pretty (see above pie!). Sure muffins and pancakes are pretty, but scrambles and hash, not so much. And it’s really difficult to get everything to come out hot. So my plan was to make as much as possible ahead of time that could be easily reheated.

On the menu was Migas Casserole, Chicago Diner Hash, LDV biscuits and VWAV Chickpea Gravy, VWAV Tempeh Bacon, broccoli, homemade black beans, Gingerbread Waffles, and fresh fruit salad. Casserole, beans, gravy, and fruit salad I made ahead.

Migas Casserole turned out so good! Migas are the favorite scramble around these parts. Texmex style migas must include onions, tortilla strips, and peppers. For my casserole, I used LDV’s BLT Brunch Casserole as a go by. I made the cheez sauce from that recipe. I made my migas by scrambling extra firm tofu, onions, tortillas strips, and medium hot salsa. To make the casserole, first I layered tortillas in the bottom of oiled dish.

I topped with half the cheez sauce.

Added all the migas, then some chopped fresh tomato.

Then added the rest of the cheez sauce and finished with chopped green onions.

This is really already cooked so it just needs to be heated in the oven before serving. The cheez sauce was mildly flavored and perfect to hold the casserole together – very yummy.

The chickpea gravy was great over LDV’s giant biscuits, which I opted to bake in muffin tins.

Chase and I made the bacon and the hash while the biscuits baked and the casserole heated. The bacon was okay. The Chicago Diner Hash was outstanding. It’s made with chopped baked potatoes, onions, and green peppers. We left the skins on the potatoes. Not a pretty picture, but really good stuff.

We heated up the gravy and beans, steamed some broccoli, and put everything on the table.

Chase’s plate – he was so happy.

My plate. I had to partake of just a little soy and wheat.

For dessert, waffles of course! I found a Belgian waffle maker in the top of my coat closet. Apparently I had used it before, but I can’t remember doing so. One thing I had to come up with was something besides pancake syrup to top the waffles with because Chase hates it. I figured I would have to do fruit and powdered sugar. I did make a fruit salad with what I had on hand – fresh mango, orange, apple, banana, and canned pineapple.

I thought about Isa’s banana waffles and adding peanut butter to the syrup, but then I ran across a recipe for apple cider sauce – 2 cups of apple cider reduced to 1 cup, a little cornstarch slurry, and a tablespoon of EB. Oh, wow, this is so delicious! I used the VWAV Ginger Pear Waffles recipe, substituting apple for the pear, and using lots of gingerbread spices to make Gingerbread Waffles with Cider Sauce and fresh fruit.

I think my waffles turned out right. They tasted fantastic and the leftovers Chase can pop in the toaster. Breakfast is not so bad after all!