Food Bloggers Against Hunger: Banana Oatmeal Cookies

I made it! I went a week of living on $4 a day to see what it is like to live on food stamps. I ate vegan and healthy with mostly non-processed foods from scratch. At breakfast, I ate one packet of instant oatmeal.  For most lunches, I ate salads with lettuce, corn and black beans. At dinner, I typically ate spaghetti with red sauce. I had a few sides and snacks including apples, roasted potatoes, mandarins, green beans, and tofu vegetable stir fry. It was a boring week in my kitchen but I can’t believe it only cost $28. I still had a can of green beans, 1/2 of a box of spaghetti, and a couple mandarins leftover.

Why did I spend the week eating like this? It’s all due to a wonderful event hosted by The Giving Table. Today, there are lots of bloggers posting about hunger in order to raise awareness. Check out the trailer for A Place at the Table for more information. It is a new movie from the creators of Food, Inc all about the hunger crisis in America. To get involved,  I not only ate for $4 a day one week but I also decided to make a budget-conscious recipe to share. Get ready for… banana oatmeal cookies!

This is definitely the easiest cookie to make. The best part is that it might just be the healthiest cookie ever, too! The cookies are free of dairy, eggs, flour, added sugar, and nuts (unless you want to add nuts). I almost don’t want to post the actual recipe since it’s so easy. Just one banana and a half cup of dry oats mixed together and baked at 350 for 15 minutes. They are delicious and healthy enough to eat for breakfast. Yes, I ate these for breakfast and it was guilt-free. Ok, I threw in a small handful of vegan chocolate chips too since I’m going through a chocolate chip phase. But they are still somewhat healthy.

Ingredients:

• 1 medium-sized banana
• 1/2 cup of dry oats
• Any small amount of mix ins you desire such as chocolate chips, walnuts, or cinnamon

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2. Mash together a ripe banana and the oats in a bowl with a fork. Add in any additional mix in items.

3. Form the batter into cookies on a greased cookie sheet. Bake for 15 minutes until slightly browned.

Yields: 4 cookies

Source: The Burlap Bag

Chocolate Chip Cookies

Happy St. Patrick’s Day! I put specks of green in my cookies for today but you can’t tell they’re green from the picture. Oh, well. I finally got around to buying my first bag of vegan chocolate chips after years of being without a bag in my pantry. Whole Foods is the only place where I live that sells vegan chocolate chips as far as I know. Looks like I will be making trips to Whole Foods more often now!

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup Earth Balance butter substitute
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
• 1 egg substitute (I used Ener-G Egg)
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp hot water
• 1 cup vegan chocolate chips

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2. Cream together the Earth Balance, white sugar, and brown sugar until smooth and fluffy. Slowly stir in the egg subsitute and the vanilla. Dissolve baking soda in the hot water and add to bowl. Add salt, flour, and chocolate chips and stir to mix thoroughly.

3. Drop 1 Tbsp serving size of batter onto an ungreased cookie sheet. Repeat until all dough is formed into cookies.

4. Bake for 10 minutes or until edges are slightly browned.

Adapted from: http://allrecipes.com/recipe/best-chocolate-chip-cookies/

Valentine’s Sugar Cookies

Happy Valentine’s Day! Here’s some sugar. I may or may not have eaten 20% of the dough prior to baking these. It was too good. And it’s egg-free which means I could’ve eaten the whole bowl but I figured I’d bake just a few instead.

Ingredients:

• 3/4 cup Earth Balance (or other vegan butter-substitute), softened
• 1 cup white sugar
• 3 tsp Ener-G Egg Replacer
• 4 Tbsp warm water
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt

Directions:

1. Cream together Earth Balance and sugar until smooth.

2. In a separate and smaller bowl, mix together thoroughly the Ener-G Egg Replacer with the water. Add the egg replacer and vanilla in to the bowl with the Earth Balance and sugar.

3. Stir in the flour, baking powder, and salt.

4. Cover the dough loosely with plastic wrap and keep it in the refrigerator for an hour to chill.

5. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

6. Loosely flour a counter top surface and roll the dough out with a rolling pin. Use your favorite heart-shaped cookie cutter to create shapes. Lay the cookies on an ungreased cookie sheet about 1 inch apart.

7. Bake for 6-8 minutes and cool on a wire rack.

Yields: 30 cookies

Adapted from: allrecipes.com

Strawberry Muffins

I’m gearing up for Valentine’s Day with a little red twist on my favorite blueberry muffin recipe. These muffins hold together well and still maintain a soft chewiness. I’m normally a big fan of blueberry muffins but I might start liking these more!

Ingredients:

• ¼ cup Earth Balance
• ½ cup unsweetened applesauce
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• ½ cup soymilk
• 2 cups fresh strawberries

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350°F.
2. Line muffin cups with paper liners or spray with nonstick spray.
3. Mix all ingredients together until moistened.
4. Divide batter evenly among the muffin cups. Each should be filled 3/4 full.
5. Bake 35 minutes or until the tops are firm.
6. Cool on a wire rack.

Yields: 12 muffins

Adapted from: http://low-cholesterol.food.com/recipe/vegan-blueberry-muffins-123809

Caramel Brownies

It’s the Monday after a good, long holiday break and we all need brownies, right? Decadent brownies! I love that this is another vegan baking recipe with nothing weird in the ingredient list. I’m all about vegan baking but the idea of buying “hemp wheat yeast-infused tapioca syrup” is too much to stomach when all I want is brownies. And usually I want brownies now, not after I go to the grocery store and hunt down some item that no one has heard of. This is a quick and easy way to satisfy a sweet tooth or simply survive a Monday.

Ingredients for the brownies:

• 1 cup flour
• 1 cup sugar
• 1/3 cup cocoa powder
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 cup water
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Ingredients for the caramel:

• 1/2 cup butter
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 1/4 cup corn syrup
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

For the brownies:

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
2. In a large bowl, stir together the flour, sugar, cocoa powder, baking powder and salt. Pour in water, vegetable oil and vanilla; mix until well blended. Spread evenly in an 8×8 inch baking pan.
3. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes in the preheated oven, until the top is no longer shiny. Let cool for at least 10 minutes before cutting into squares.

Adapted from: AllRecipes.com

For the caramel:

1. In a medium saucepan over medium heat, melt butter. Stir in brown sugar, corn syrup and salt. Bring to a boil, stirring constantly. Boil without stirring 4 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in soda and vanilla.

Adapted from: AllRecipes.com

Drizzle the caramel over the brownies. Top with fresh raspberries as an added bonus!

Yields 9 brownies

Obvious and Not-So-Obvious Vegan Foods

Breaking news: Hershey’s Chocolate Syrup is vegan. How is this possible? I have spent the last two years avoiding this product and any similar product because I assumed they would contain dairy. Rather than being excited that I can eat this product, I am a little disappointed that I “gave up” eating something delicious that I didn’t need to give up. Granted, should I have spent the last two years pouring Hershey’s Chocolate Syrup down my throat every night? Probably not healthy. It’s basically just chocolate-flavored high fructose corn syrup. Yum.

This discovery got me thinking. How many other products have I been avoiding that are actually vegan? I Googled “vegan Hershey’s chocolate syrup” and Peta’s website popped up with an entire list of “Accidentally Vegan” grocery store products. I already knew that Oreo’s are vegan but a few more items surprised me…

• Reese’s Puffs Cereal
• Ghiradelli Hot Chocolate
• Sour Patch Kids
• Swedish Fish
• Teddy Grahams (both chocolate and cinnamon)
• Little Debbie Cake Donuts
• Jell-O Instant Pudding (chocolate, banana creme, lemon and vanilla)

Do I plan on eating any of the above items… ever? No. Okay, fine, I totally intend on eating Sour Patch Kids but we’ll keep that between us. Regardless, I’ve learned it never hurts to read ingredient lists even when I’m positive that a chocolate bar contains dairy. For example, I love Chocolove Raspberries in Dark Chocolate Bars and I literally re-read the ingredient list every time I purchase one. I swear there has to be dairy somewhere in the list but the dark chocolate bars are magically vegan.

I supposed it’s pretty shocking that something as delicious as ice cream can be vegan. I would double-check the ingredient list on vegan ice cream if they didn’t put “VEGAN,” “ALMOND MILK,” “DAIRY FREE,” and “HEY TREE HUGGER, COME EAT THIS” all over the container. So from now on, I’m keeping my eye out for more products that are “Accidentally Vegan” because you never know what you could be missing out on. I normally stick almost exclusively to the tried-and-true produce section but maybe I’ll venture out into the rest of the grocery store one of these days. Maybe.

Peanut Butter and Banana Bites

I saw these on Pinterest and was immediately excited for two reasons: 1. I have a sweet tooth but I hate going straight to a candy bag. 2. I love a quick and healthy snack after I run. However, I was quickly disappointed that the original recipe contained yogurt. I knew I could make the concept of this recipe easier and veganier. Why not just put peanut butter in between the banana slices? Can’t it be that simple? Yes, it can.

Ingredients:

• 1 banana
• 2 Tbsp peanut butter

Directions:

1. Peel and cut the banana into 1/4 inch thick slices.

2. Build sandwiches by spreading peanut butter in between two slices until all slices have been used up.

3. Place your bite-sized sandwiches on parchment paper and place into the freezer for 2 hours.

4. Remove them from the parchment paper. Either store them in a bag or eat all of them in one sitting (guilty as charged).

Yields roughly 10 bites

Adapted from: FitSugar.com

Chocolate Almond Blueberry Muffins

When I first started out in the kitchen, I changed the rules everyday when it came to cooking. I substituted ingredients and changed measurement sizes in literally every recipe I made. Most of the time, I didn’t even used a recipe. But with baking, it was a different story. I was intimidated since baking needs to follow exact measuring, timing, and ingredients. However, now I’m crawling out from behind this conservative approach. I’ve already experimented enough with “veganizing” non-vegan recipes and now I’m ready to just make stuff up. So here’s my late night “let’s throw random stuff in a bowl and hope it tastes like muffins” recipe.

Ingredients:

• 2 cups flour
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 Tbsp baking powder
• 1 Tbsp cocoa powder
• 1/4 cup Earth Balance or other vegan butter spread
• 1/2 cup apple sauce
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/2 tsp almond extract
• 1/2 cup chocolate almond milk
• 1 cup blueberries

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2. Mix dry ingredients and wet ingredients together in separate bowls.

3. Add the wet ingredients to the dry and mix thoroughly.

4. Divide batter evenly into paper liners.

5. Bake for 35 minutes.

It’s My Birthday and I’ll Eat Vegan Marble Cupcakes If I Want To

I’ve been trying to eat healthy lately which has resulted in a steady decline of cupcake consumption per capita. However, today is my birthday. So I’m eating whatever I want and simultaneously ignoring any signs of cupcake recession in my oven’s economic forecast. Today I want chocolate and vanilla marble cupcakes with an orange glaze. These are delicious with hints of almond, chocolate, vanilla and orange. I finally got my hands on a copy of Vegan Cupcakes Takeover the World and this is what happened. Enough said.

Ingredients for vanilla-chocolate marble cupcakes:

• 1 tsp apple cider vinegar
• 1 cup soy milk
• 1 1/2 cups flour
• 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/2 cup Earth Balance, softened
• 3/4 cup plus 2 Tbsp sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1 tsp almond extract
• 1 Tbsp cornstarch
• 2 Tbsp plus 1 tsp cocoa powder

Directions for cupcakes:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees and line a muffin baking pan with cupcake liners.

2. Mix together the apple cider vinegar and soymilk in a small bowl. Allow it to sit for a couple minutes.

3. Sift together the flour, baking powder and salt in a small bowl.

4. In a medium bowl, cream the Earth Balance and sugar together. When the ingredients are well-blended and fluffy, mix in the vanilla, almond extract, and cornstarch. Slowly add in the milk mixture and flour mixture to the medium bowl alternating between the two mixtures until everything is together in one bowl. Mix until smooth.

5. Add 1 inch of water to a small sauce pan and bring to a boil. Place the cocoa powder in a small bowl. Add three Tbsps of the water in with the cocoa powder and whisk together. Remove one cup of the batter and add it in with the cocoa powder mixture. Blend it together thoroughly.

6. Add one large spoonful of each batter to the cupcake liners. I suggest putting each spoonful side-by-side in the liners. Blend them together in a swirl using a toothpick. It doesn’t have to be perfect – get comfortable with the fact that each one will be different!

7. Bake for 24-26 minutes and transfer to a cooling rack. Allow cupcakes to fully cool before adding the glaze.

Ingredients for orange glaze:

• 1/2 cup Earth Balance, softened
• 2 cups powdered sugar
• 2 Tbsp orange juice
• 1 tsp vanilla extract

Directions for glaze:

1. Add the Earth Balance to a bowl and slowly add in 1/2 portions of the powdered sugar. Add a small amount of orange juice with each addition of the powdered sugar. Beat the ingredients together. Add vanilla and beat for another 3-5 minutes until fluffy.

Slightly adapted from: Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World

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Brownie Cookies

I’ve been busy lately but definitely wanted to get these posted. They taste just like brownies. I crumbled a couple of these up and added them to a granola mix. Delish!

Ingredients:

• 1 cup Earth Balance
• 1 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup apple sauce
• 2 tsp vanilla
• 2 cups flour
• 2/3 cup cocoa powder
• 3/4 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 tsp salt

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2. Beat Earth Balance, sugar, apple sauce and vanilla until fluffy.

3. Combine dry ingredients and add them to the Earth Balance mixture until well blended.

4. Drop batter by teaspoonfuls onto cookie sheet.

5. Bake for 8-10 minutes.

Yields 48

Adapted from : Chocolate Chocolate Cookies