no stress baking!

i love recipes where you start with a solid base and then can just throw in whatever. usually this kind of laid back approach is confined to cooking, not baking. baking, in fact, is one of those things where people are all, "you HAVE to follow the recipe or it's gonna get all messed up." yeah, i respect that some forms of baking employ a certain careful chemistry that burritos or a stir fry do not, and that's cool. sometimes it's really satisfying to follow every step of a recipe to a T, and produce a flawless sponge cake or a beautiful cream pie (though i don't think i've actually ever made a sponge cake or cream pie...).

but some kinds of baking break away from that stringent, sometimes stressful chemistry and allow for wiggle room. let's call this "casual baking," good for quiet afternoons and any other situations when you want kitchen time to be relaxing, not intense or super focused. for instance, the cookies i made today: they resemble granola in the kaleidoscopic possibilities of fruit, nuts, and sweets that could go in them. and with banana, rolled oats and whole wheat flour, they are the closest to a healthy cookie you can really get without heading into the territory of wheat germ, kelp powder, hemp seeds, and the like. to the simple batter, i folded in chopped almonds, pumpkin seeds, chocolate chunks, and a tiny bit of shredded coconut that was hiding out under some brown sugar on the baking shelf. i topped each cookie with the dregs of a bag of pecans and they turned out so well! any kinds of dried fruits, other seeds or nuts, carob chips, etc. would be great too...see below for the recipe.



"tim's** variation to pat walton's oatmeal cookies"
from the tassajara cookbook
~~makes about 4 dozen small cookies~~
~~takes about 1/2 hour, start to finish~~

-preheat the oven to 375 F.

- mix together 1/4 cup soy or rice milk with 1/2 teaspoon apple cider vinegar. set aside.

- cream together 1 mashed banana, 1/4 cup canola oil, 2 tablespoons molasses, 3/4 cup liquid sweetener (brown rice syrup, honey or agave nectar), 3/4 tsp vanilla and 2.5 cups rolled oats. when all that is well combined, add in the soymilk and cider vinegar mixture.

- in another bowl, combine 1.5 cups whole wheat flour, 1/2 tsp salt, 3/4 tsp baking soda, 1.5 tsp cinnamon, 1/4 tsp nutmeg, and 1/4 tsp ground clove.

- add the dry mix to the wet mix and stir gently to combine. then fold in 2.5 cups of whatever morsels you like. the original recipe calls for 1 cup of chopped pecans, 1 cup of chocolate chips, and 1/2 cup flaked coconut. but don't feel held to this! seriously, throw in all kind of odds and ends, the more the better.

- drop rough tablespoon sized pieces of batter on a well oiled baking sheet. your silpat, or any silicon baking sheet (or even parchment paper), is perfect for this, too.

- bake for 12 minutes and immediately transfer the cookies to a wire cooling rack.

love,
emily

** who is tim? i don't know, but i like his style.

c is for come to me now

isa chandra moskowitz of post punk kitchen fame, as well as the author of vegan with a vengeance and veganomicon has uploaded some cookie photos from her upcoming cookie cookbook and let me just say:

OH MY GOD!


not to mention that the photos are beautiful but also kind of funny with their bright, spunky backgrounds. my favorites include: black and whites (of course), peanut butter blondies, grapefruit shortbread and cream cheese brownie. maybe it's time to buy that gym membership i've been putting off for months...

if you like cookies as much as we do, make sure to check out her blog, and patiently wait for the book's release. meanwhile, her vegan brunch flickr ain't half bad either! and her brunch cookbook homestyle recipes worth waking up for drops may 25th, just in time for my birthday (hint hint)!

-lauren

Peanut Butter Cookie Time

i've been shacked up in bed with a little bit of a fever and a little bit of an infection for two straight days and you can only watch so many episodes of 30 Rock before you feel the need to do something even slightly productive. so i cleaned my room, changed my bed sheets, applied for a few jobs and to top it all off i thought, well why don't i go ahead and bake something.

it's no longer a secret to everyone that i love sweets. tonight, after a hearty meal of leftover pasta with lentils courtesy of sister emma, i had a little craving for something warm and dessert-like. i immediately remembered the new addition of some oats to our kitchen and furiously rustled through the pages of a September '08 copy of vegetarian times that touted "homemade vegan cookies & brownies" on the cover. ahhh yes, peanut butter-oatmeal cookies, i've been waiting to make you. here they are on the cooling rack, note the big old pieces of oats, that makes them "healthy", people.

i guess these being healthy and all, i can eat 3 right off the cooling rack. the hard thing about doing a food photo shoot, besides my lack of photography skills, is that when a hot meal is in front of you, you just want to dig in! but when a whole 2 dozen cookies are in front of you, it's hard to stop digging in. did i mention i love peanut butter?

if you missed the recipe link above, here it is again. they were pretty easy to make, with tony as my co-baker, we banged these out in about 10 minutes. the problem is they are SO good, SO bite sized and SO adorable that this triple threat makes it really difficult to stop yourself from eating 5.

cookies they smudge

Last week I attended what was supposed to be a small, homey get together. The anti-rager, I kept calling it, the kind of party where the "partying" consists of sitting around cozily and lazily, listening to records, wearing sweaters, drinking vegan-nog, recapping your holiday gifts (regiving your unwanted gifts, perhaps?) and, yes, eating cookies, some vegan, others, not so much:


It was still the holidays back then, and I suppose it is now, because I certainly am still eating cookies. Unlike my sister's fancy day-tracker, I know the time of year by the telltale culinaria (winter = baking, summer = juicing, autumn/spring = salads!). Suffice to say, the party soon dropped the anti and was just a rager, but never fear, the cookies still were eaten and compliments were heartily passed around.

So as to arrive fashionably and foodily late, I decide to whip up a batch of Sparkled Ginger Cookies from Vegan with a Vengeance before heading over, one of my favorite cookbooks and a simple, tried and true recipe at that. I was extra excited to make this recipe because Em and I each received Silpats for Christmas, something I've been wanting for a long time, but was never really sure if I wanted to drop $25 at Foster's on just one item. Silpats are amazing because they transform our shoddy, kinda busted cookie trays into non-stick producers of moist, chewy and golden victuals. Unfortunately, due to my desire to get every last dish done in the 10-12 minutes the cookies were to bake, I didn't really check or rotate the trays as I should have, and a whole dozen burned to little flat pancakes of sadness. However, the two trays on the top tier of the oven must have had a bit more moxy, as they turned out reasonably well and definitely edible. See:

Later, at the party, I was lamenting the loss of those poor dead cookies and how much it sucks to throw any food away, especially something you just got done making. A nice lady told me that with the Silpat, you should reduce your baking time, or at the very least, check in on your goods about 5 minutes before the recipe says to. So, now I'll have to try again, and again, and again and maybe again after that. Just because the holiday season is winding down doesn't mean i can't continue to enjoy cookies! Cookies for all I say! Moist, delicious, well baked cookies for all!

Sparkled Ginger Cookies
makes 2 dozen cookies

4 tablespoons turbinado or demerrara sugar (regular sugar works well but coarse is best and most sparkly)
2 cups all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 1/2 teaspoons ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 cup canola oil
1/4 cup molasses
1/4 cup soy milk
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Lightly grease two cookie sheets. Place the turbinado sugar in a small bowl. Sift together the flour, baking soda, salt, and spices. In a separate large mixing bowl, mix together the oil, molasses, soy milk, sugar, and vanilla. Pour the dry ingredients into the wet and combine well. Roll into 1-inch balls, flatten into a 1 1/2-inch-diameter disk, press the cookie tops into the turbinado sugar and place 1 inch apart sugar side up on a prepared cookie sheet. Bake 10-12 minutes, let cool on cookie sheets for 3 to 5 minutes then transfer to a cooling rack.