Pumpkin Snicker Doodles

I love Pinterest.  There are so many fantastic products, projects and best of all recipes!  The most recent recipe I found was for pumpkin snicker doodles.   What a great idea!  Unfortunately I cannot share my lovely photos that I took last week because Blogger is having a hard time recognizing them from my iphoto application to post onto here, so I will just have to list the instructions.  The original recipe can be found here.

First combine 1 cup of room temperature butter with 1 cup of sugar and 1/2 cup of brown sugar.

Add 3/4 cup of pumpkin puree.

1 egg and 2 tsp vanilla extract.

Now the dry!  1/2 tsp salt, 1/2 tsp baking powder, 1/2 tsp cinnamon and 1/2 tsp nutmeg.

And 3 3/4 cup of flour.

Cover and refrigerate for an hour.

While this cools, combine 1/2 cup granulated sugar, 1 tsp cinnamon, 1/2 tsp ground ginger.

Scoop the dough

Roll in the sugar mixture and bake in a 350 degree oven for 12-14 minutes.

And voila!

These came out so tasty, albeit a little sweet.  So sorry about no pictures today.  Hopefully I can figure it out.

Enjoy!

The Naturally Good Cook

Last weekend, I went tot he farmer's market and met two really nice ladies selling a cook book they wrote, and giving out free samples of the recipes that lie within.  After tasting the goodies, and talking for a while with them, I decided to buy The Naturally Good Cook.

It is full of delicious recipes and charming art work which reminds me of cook books my mother and grandmothers owned in the past.

I also got it autographed by the authors, Sandra and Kathleen.

I asked them if I could use some of the recipes on this blog, and they told me to go ahead!  So, I'm excited to share with you, the first recipe I've tried out of The Naturally Good Cook: Maple Pumpkin Cookies!

First, beat together 1 cup of butter and 1/2 cup of sugar.

Beat in 1 egg

and 1/2 cup of maple syrup.  I used Grade B cooking maple syrup.

Add 1 tsp of vanilla and 1 cup of pumpkin puree (I used some that I made and froze last year).

Next, mix in the dry.

1 tsp of baking powder, 1/2 tsp of baking soda, 1/2 tsp of salt, 1/2 tsp of nutmeg (fresh!) and 1 tsp of cinnamon

and 3 cups of flour.

After the dry is mixed in, stir in 1 cup of raisins (I used craisins)

and 1 cup of chopped nuts, I used pecans.

Bake in a 350 degree oven for 15 minutes.

These came out fluffy, sweet and delicious!

Fear not, if this book is not being sold at a farmer's market near you, you can easily buy it on Amazon.com!  Thank you so much to Sandra and Kathleen!  You have made a beautiful book, and I'm going to love trying out every recipe!

Enjoy!

Carrot Cupcakes!

I have been student teaching the past three weeks, and have not had any time for baking, except Friday night.  I had purchased some beautiful carrots from the farmer's market, and after using some for soup, decided to use the rest of carrot cake!  I hadn't made a cupcake in so long, I missed it!

Carrot cake actually uses the muffin method of baking, so I mixed up all the dry ingredients first (Flour, baking soda, cinnamon, salt, and sugar) in a bowl and set it aside.

Next I mixed up 4 eggs, 3/4 cup of canola oil and 3 cups of grated carrot.

Add the dry to the wet.

And mix.

I baked them in a 350 degree oven for 30 minutes.

Now I moved onto the frosting.  Cream cheese is the traditional, so why not keep up the tradition?  I beat together 1/2 stick of butter with one 8 oz package of cream cheese.

Added a splash of vanilla.

And then about a cup of powdered sugar.

The carrot cupcakes came out looking lovely.

After about 20 minutes, they were cool enough to ice.

Super tasty!  I promise to try and keep up with this blog.  I recently bought a cook book by some local cooks/authors with delightful rustic illustrations, and tasty recipes that I'll be reviewing and sharing with you.  I've also discovered a few do it yourself baking fixes I'd like to share!

Enjoy!

Dining Adventures with a Vegan

So, my sister is a vegan.  She makes delicious food where you don't even notice the lack of animal based fats or animal proteins.  She and I love going out to eat, and having food adventures together.  Unfortunately, it isn't always easy going out to eat when you're a vegan, so whenever a good restaurant with some vegan fare appears, my sister will make an effort to go and eat there.  I was visiting her in Florida last week, and on my first full day we decided to get some lunch.  We found a Thai and Sushi place and decided to give it a try.

Well, walking in, it looked like we were transported to some Buddhist temple in the far off east.  The food was inexpensive, and there were some interesting Asian delicacies.

Like Baby Octopus.

I've had this before, but always in sushi so what you see are the tentacles, never the entire body.

This distressed my lovely sister.

They were very tasty though, albeit a little chewy.

I also got a peanut chicken lunch special.

All in all an exciting dining experience!  Nyssa had some delightful options that were easily made vegan, like Pad Thai, and veggie sushi.  I hope you enjoyed this dining adventure, and see you next time!

Enjoy

Dark Vegan Noire

So, it's been a while since i've done any vegan baking.  I recently was watching Felica Day's "Flog" and in this past week's episode she makes Seitan from a vegan site called The Post Punk Kitchen.  I did exploring on their site and came to the realization that the authors of this website are also the authors of my beloved vegan baking books!  So I explored and found some awesome savory food I'd like to make (vegan food can be very tasty) and I also found these.

Raspberry truffle brownies.  Chewy, gooey, berry-ie...  I had to give them a try.

I melted 4 oz of unsweetened chocolate in my small sauce pan and set it aside.

Next I combined 1/2 cup unsweetened apple sauce

1/2 cup white sugar

1/2 cup seedless raspberry preserves in a bowl.

Next I added 2 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

as well as the melted chocolate.

Mix.

Add 1 1/2 cup of flour

1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

1/4 tsp of salt, 1/2 tsp of baking soda and 1/4 tsp of baking powder..

Mix!

Then, instead of adding frozen raspberries, I added some fresh ones that took an unfortunate beating on the way home from the farmer's market.

Looks good already!

I wrapped my baking dish in aluminum foil and sprayed it with some non-stick spray.

Then it was time to turn out the brownie mix.

I had to use my hands.

Bake in a 350 degree oven for 16-18 minutes.

I wish you could smell how this made my house smell!  And the taste?

Well, this is probably one of the tastiest things I've made.  Brownies aren't too bad to make vegan apparently, and when they taste this good, who cares if they're vegan or not!

Enjoy!