Vegan Oreo Cakes!

Well, you could cookie cutter out nice little circles and put a thin layer of frosting in between two, but why make homemade oreos to mimic the things that I don't really like about oreos? For one, the cookie is a bit hard and too strong for me and there's just not enough of that delicious creme in the middle. So, a bit makeshift but, I made these crazy vegan oreo cakes!

They were absolutely delicious! You only need one to feel satisfied and it doesn't hurt to wash them down with a nice glass of vanilla almond milk (my absolute favorite!)

The recipe is actually really simple.

Cookies:

3/4 cup non-hydrogenated vegetable shortening

1 cup sugar

2 tsp. pure vanilla extract

1/2 cup non-dairy milk

1 1/2 cups all purpose flour

1/2 cup Dutch cocoa powder

1/2 cup black cocoa powder

2 tsp cornstarch

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 tsp baking soda

You mix together the shortening and sugar until it's fluffy. Then mix in the milk and vanilla. After that, mix in the rest of the ingredients. If it's a bit too gooey (mine was) just stick it in the fridge for a few and it will stiffen up so that you can mold it into the cookies.

Filling:

1/4 cup of the shortening

1/4 cup of margarine

2 1/2-3 cups of powdered sugar

1 tsp pure vanilla

Mix together the margarine and shortening. Slowly mix in the powdered sugar. Add the vanilla.

Bake the cookies at 325 degrees F for 12 minutes. Let cool, then add the frosting in between and you're done!

Hints:

1. I was using an electronic handheld mixer and the frosting didn't look like it was completely coming together, it kinda stayed in little balls/clumps but they were easily molded together by hand after a few minutes of mixing.
2. Also, I'm not sure what black cocoa powder is..I happened to have a bit of regular cocoa powder and then some dark and I just used what I had in the same amount (1 cup altogether) and they came out fine.
3. The frosting by itself isn't very sweet but altogether it definitely is..I think frosting that was extra sweet on its own would just be too much.

I would definitely make these again!

Kristi(E)

Peanutbutter Blondies

Delicious!!!

I used the recipe from Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar but substituted white chocolate chips instead of the peanuts on top. The best part is you only need one bowl!!! Easy cleanup.

It stays together better than this photo, I just could not wait long enough for it to cool completely. Plus, I have some chocolate icecream in the freezer. Hot peanutbutter blondie with cold chocolate icecream!?

YES, PLEASE!

CUPCAKES!

Everyone loves cupcakes, right? My coworkers sure did! I've been talking up my vegan cupcakes BIG TIME for at least six months now. So when I finally decided to bring some in, there was a lot of pressure! I decided on cookies-n-creme and peanutbutter chocolate. Who doesn't love those combos right? Both of the recipes came from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World.

Everyone loved them!! :D

(I only have my phone as a camera so bare with the not-so-awesome photos). Either way, I still think they look delicious!!!

Then, for pre-Mother's Day (Saturday since I worked all of Sunday), I went and visited my Mom! I made a nice summery pasta for lunch and we sat in the patio and talked for a bit. I really enjoyed the pasta! The recipe was from Vegan YumYum but I think it's pretty simple to just guesstimate everything.

It had rotini pasta, sundried tomatoes (but I used regular diced 'cause I'm weird and not a huge fan of sundried), lemon zest mixed with parsley, garlic and breadcrumbs, the secret ingredient crushed red peppers, and I threw on a heaping spoonful of Parma! to top it off. Absolutely delicious! We finished off the whole bowl.

SUMMERTIME!

I'm gonna go with, IT'S OFFICIALLY SUMMER!!! I am more than looking forward to having some free time to get my life organized again. I was doing pretty well for the first few weeks of the year until college started back up. I just finished up the last of my essays and took my last exam last night so I am home free!

See, Summer!!!!!

I have Tuesday off which will begin my cleaning and crafting sweep. Bit of a late start on the whole spring cleaning thing but 'better late than never.' I've been compiling a list of projects and foods to tackle. Check these out!!

1. The whole not biting my nails resolution has been on and off...when I put effort into painting them and find a design I really like, it helps.

2. IDK what those are but don't they look delicious?? Some sort of oreo cupcake. Whatever it is, I will be making something similar this summer.

3. I think the flower on the cuff is such a cute idea! My pants are ALWAYS too long and I've resorted to cuffing them. I think the accessory makes the super long cuff look not-so-daunting.

Happy summer!!

Kristi(E)

P.S. I always save 8 million photos but never attach a source to them. I'll try to do this more in the future and apologize in the meantime for stealing!

Also, NEW BLOG LAYOUT! I know it's not fancy but the colors are inspiring for summer...at least for me! Whatever keeps me typing.

Food and Whatnot.

The other day I made extra meaty meatless chili. Chew on that!!



Also, here's a picture of the peanutbutter ball ingredients from a few posts back:


Note the microwave face! I really don't know what I did with all those stickers :-/

Besides my Toms boots, I have these:

and this week in the mail I received an envelope from Toms with a cute little note and a Toms bracelet to wear!

This shirt always raises a few questions:

Tofu Never Screams!

I think this was me driving to school for the first time this semester

I got that tanktop at Target and I love it, I love stripes!! and I had once bought that sweater for work but now I realize it's actually kind of cute with some outfits! I just stuck a few pins on there (shout out to the flaming tsunamis) and I was ready to go!

This is me eating on next to no money haha

Shout out to the Hello Kitty Toaster!!

Marc had bought the chicken for a pizza he made a while back so we still had some leftover! Then rice=cheap, that was the rest of the brocolli I had from the week before, I had the orange (free) from school and a big thing of baby tomatoes only cost me $1 this weekend.

We went to Homossassa flea market, a flea market in Hernando, Crystal River State Park, the Manatee festival in Crystal River, and the Crystal River Mall. I thought it was going to be REALLY nice to be outside since the weather had been gorgeous for a couple of days but I guess it rained and therefore, Saturday was PRETTY CHILLY to say the least. Since I went through the trouble of packing a lunch, we picnicked at the state park anyways:





I'm sure there's something I should be doing before work.. looking forward to having Wednesday off if my homework doesn't get in the way. Soooo much reading!

80) Kristie

Waffle Pancakes

I tried to make waffles. I am terrible at making breakfast food. Maybe because I really HATE breakfast food, but Marc loves it. I just don't like pancakes or syrup at all. Maybe it was the waffle maker, or the fact that I am careless when it comes to measuring, or a bit of both but they just didn't cook in the waffle maker! So I made pancakes instead...but they still weren't pretty. They are lemon corn w/ blueberry sauce.

Now I'm going to mix up some chili and stick it in the crockpot. It is one of the best meals ever because 1) You can't really mess it up and 2) It practically cooks itself!

I work 3:30-9:30...have some reading to do but I really just don't feel like doing anything. The kitchen is about 10x messier than before (after trying to make those waffles with the 10 million ingredients) so I should go put the chili in the pot and get to washing :-/

8o) Kristie

Hair Time.

Well, IDK but I woke up today just knowing I was going to lose half my hair, from either side of my head. So long to growing my hair out (basically)...



Mohawk again..I'm just drawn to it over and over but boy oh boy do I need to redye my hair! I had it all these different shades of orange/red/faded black/blonde/yellow/etc. and now that I shaved the sides, one's mostly blonde and one's 1/3 black 1/3 red 1/3 blonde. It looks pretty funny. I rarely ever spike it when I have it, just wear it down. I forgot HOW GOOD it feels not to have all that hair, even if my hair still wasn't extra long. Fresh air on the sides of your head feels so nice (I'll probably regret this when it's in the 30s tonight). Anyways, I'll try to get a good picture (maybe after I redye it haha).

And I would looove to have a dread on either side of my head where I did these little braids..


This picture is such a weird angle! Looks like I have no chin and I have gauged ears but it's right on so my ear just kinda looks weird. ha

Also made chocolate covered peanutbutter balls! Yum!


The recipe *off the top of my head* really simple, 2 cups pb, 4 cups powdered sugar, 1 cup butter, then I crush up graham crackers (you can use rice puffs, trail mix, whatever) until it's an okay consistency, clump them together, cover in chocolate and then stick in teh freezer on some wax paper for a bit. Pretty simple although a bit messy and I always have issues with clumping them together super easily.

Hope you all have a lovely weekend!

:0) Kristie

Good morning!

This morning I decided to brave this cold and windy weather to get some breakfast ingredients (which I found out later I had at least half of already...) I decided to make chocolate chip scones with an orange glaze!!

They were super yummy! I grabbed the recipe from this book.

When I went to make the glaze, I misread "orange juice" for "orange extract" so just put less extract and added some vanilla almond milk to smooth it out. still turned out fine :)

Last night for dinner, I made chickun w/ cheezy mashed potatoes and some raw veggies. yum!!



Happy Eating! :D

Also realized after REbuying a bunch of ingredients today that I totally need to reorganize my kitchen!! I work all night but tomorrow I'm off so have to start a list of projects to accomplish!! Pictures when it starts getting interesting :)

Vegan No Bake Cookies!!!

Guess what, the semester's almost over. That means I'm seriously (seriously) even though my own boyfriend doesn't believe me seriously going to do this blog!! Look, I'm going to start right now. I've been trying to research really HEALTHY eating but am CRAVING some dessert foods.. I decided to look up no-bake cookies when I realized that I have a BUNCH of oatmeal leftover from a previous roommate. (I HATE oatmeal but I LOVE oatmeal cookies.)

So, I found this simple, vegan, no bake (I just used a microwave for the whole heating thing) cookie recipe on this vegan forum. Thanks!

No Bake Chocolate Peanut Butter Oatmeal Cookies

2 tablespoons of E.B. or another butter substitute
1/4 cup cocoa
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup soy milk
dash salt
1 tsp. pure vanilla
1 heaping tablespoon peanut butter (optional: add more to taste and increase the oatmeal) - I personally used soynut butter - but any nut butter will do.
1 1/2 cups UNCOOKED oatmeal
-heat butter until the butter is melted. Add 1/4 cup cocoa and blend until the cocoa is dissolved into the butter.
-Add the sugar, milk and salt. Blend well.
-bring ingredients to a full boil. You want a full boil, but because it will continue to cook for awhile once it's removed from heat, heating it too long can cause the mixture to scorch.)
-Add the vanilla, peanut butter and oatmeal. Stir well. Drop by tablespoon-full on waxed paper and allow to cool.

They are absolutely delicious!! I used vanilla soymilk (maybe this helped since I didn't actually have any vanilla but I use it for everything, even mashed potatoes.) As an added sweetener, I poured in some agave nectar. I used my new favorite earth balance soy-free butter and tahini nut butter instead of peanutbutter (which I happened to be out of). I probably used at least 4 times the peanutbutter it called for.. it helps make them thicker plus I am a huge fan!!! Try them out, delicious :D

p.s. makes more than shown above but i'm currently chowing down on the rest of the mixture. I would also usually use almond milk but my grocery store was out--but that would make them soy free as well!

Last night I decided

that I was craving something with peanutbutter. SO.... what better to make than chocolate covered peanutbutter balls? By the time I got to the "chocolate" part (you have to freeze them before and after adding chocolate) I was running out the door so I can't say I made them in perfect little chocolatey circles. I moreso dumped some chocolate on top of them and ran out the door. Are they still delicious? Of course. And for those depressing nights I honestly say hey, just throw the ingredients together in a bowl, stir, and enjoy. Your stomach won't thank you any less.

What's not always vegan? Well, I decided I didn't feel like using any butter or margarine *vegan brands are.. smart balance/earth balance* cause sometimes things like butter, mayonnaise, etc. just gross me out even when I have the vegan alternative. Will they stick together better WITH melted butter? Probably.

I did throw in some graham crackers which honestly made them awesome. Anything non-"honey maid" will work for that.

and then the chocolate :) Ghirardelli dark chocolate chips (and I believe their semi-sweet chocolate chips) are dairy-free. Although I'm honestly not a fan of either on their own, they have both turned out wonderful in baked goods.