Warm and Cozy Butternut Squash Soup

So today I finally got to use the stock pot my mom gifted me with for Christmas (she knows me so well!) AND my brand new food processor (yesssss) and my go-to recipe was one of my favorite soups. The rich aromas of butternut squash, onion, garlic, and fresh ginger wafted through my apartment all afternoon and kept me warm while our little blizzard raged on outside. This is a filling, super healthy soup that is actually the easiest thing in the world to make. Have I convinced you to make it yet?

Pureed Butternut Squash Soup

1 tablespoons Earth Balance

1 small onion, chopped

1 piece (2 inches) peeled, chopped fresh ginger

2 garlic cloves, chopped

1 butternut squash, peeled, seeds removed*, and cut into ¾ inch cubes

¼ cup orange juice

Salt, pepper, and red pepper flakes to taste

• Melt Earth Balance in a large pot over medium heat.
• Cook onion about 2 minutes.
• Add ginger, garlic, and squash and cook (stirring occasionally) for 6-8 minutes.
• Stir in 4 cups of water and bring to a boil.
• Reduce heat and simmer until squash is tender, about 20 minutes.
• Remove from heat and puree the soup in two batches in a food processor (or blender).
• Stir in orange juice, salt, pepper, and red pepper flakes.

*

Roasted Butternut Squash Seeds

• Preheat the oven to 275 degrees. Line a baking sheet with aluminum foil.
• After removing the seeds from the butternut squash, rinse with water and remove any strings and bits of squash. Pat dry.
• Mix the seeds with a drizzle of olive oil, salt, and pepper until evenly coated.
• Spread out on the baking sheet and bake for 15 minutes.
• Cool before serving!

Crispy Tofu Croutons

(2 servings)

1/3 block of extra firm tofu, cubed

Olive oil

Salt + pepper

• Press the tofu (use a clean tea towel to put pressure on the tofu and remove as much water as possible).
• Heat approximately 2 tablespoons of olive oil in a medium sized frying pan on medium-high heat.
• Add the tofu (carefully, as to avoid the splattering oil!) and let cook until brown.
• Flip the tofu cubes and add salt and pepper, to taste.
• Remove from heat when browned on both sides.

Now all that's left is ladling yourself a bowl of this orangey goodness and topping it with the tofu croutons and roasted butternut squash seeds! And then you can drift away to a warm and cozy place regardless of the snow piling up outside.  

YUMMMMMMMMMM

A Girl, a Snowstorm, and a Mountain of Vegan Doughnuts

I don't know about you, but an impending snowstorm sends me into burrowing mode and turns my kitchen into a warm, comfy laboratory for delicious experiments. As soon as I heard the weather predictions, my mind went to one thing: DOUGHNUTS.

After over a year of lusting at doughnut pans from afar, I finally ordered one. Now it seems like a whole new world of sweet concoctions is open to me now! So, without further ado, let me present to you the chocolate doughnut with chocolate glaze and coconut almond topping. 

Baked Chocolate Doughnuts (from Chloe Coscarelli's Chloe's Vegan Desserts)

(Makes 14-18 doughnuts)*

2 ½ cups all purpose flour

1 cup sugar

3 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder

2 teaspoons instant espresso powder

2 teaspoons baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

1 ¼ cup soy milk

¼ cup canola oil

¼ cup white vinegar

1 teaspoon vanilla

• Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Lightly grease your doughnut pan(s).
• In a large bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients: flour, sugar, cocoa, espresso powder, baking soda, and salt.
• In a separate bowl, whisk together the wet ingredients: soy milk, oil, vinegar, and vanilla.
• Pour wet mixture into the dry mixture and whisk until combined. Do not overmix. The batter will be sticky!
• Using a pastry bag (or a plastic bag with the tip cut), pipe the batter into the doughnut pan and bake for 10-12 minutes. Remove the pans from the oven and let sit 5 minutes before unmolding.

Chocolate Glaze

¼ cup semisweet chocolate chips (I used the mini chips from Enjoy Life)

2 tablespoons + 1 teaspoon soy milk

½ cup powdered sugar

• In a double broiler or microwave, melt chocolate chips and soy milk together.
• Whisk in powdered sugar until smooth.
• Let sit for 5-10 minutes and then assemble your treats!

You can really top these beauties with any number of delicacies (sprinkles, nuts, coconut, chocolate chips, crushed cookies, etc.) but I decided on one of my favorite flavor combinations: chocolate/coconut/almond. Yummmmmmm!

For the coconut/almond mixture I just pulsed a large handful of coconut with a large handful of raw almonds in the food processor to chop 'em all up.

To assemble, I poured the chocolate glaze into one bowl, the coconut/almond mixture into another, and some chocolate chips into another (because unfortunately, not everyone loves coconut. TRAGIC). Then you simply dip each doughnut into the glaze, twist it around, and bring it up as you twist so as to catch alllllll of the delicious glaze. Then dip into your desired topping and voila! Your own little masterpiece!

*This recipe yielded 18 doughnuts for me instead of 14, so I had to whip up a bit more of the chocolate glaze for the remaining doughnuts. For this mini batch of chocolate glaze I added a heaping tablespoon of homemade peanut butter and melted it all together for chocolatey peanut buttery goodness. What more could you want?!

These doughnuts are unbelievably delicious. The batter itself isn't incredibly sweet, so it makes it easier to pile on sweet toppings without going into a sugar coma. Baked doughnuts are often called out as being cupcakes in a different shape, but I noticed a real difference with this recipe. The texture and the flavors aren't identical to the average chocolate cupcake, and that's a really good thing in this case.

Obviously I'm obsessed with doughnuts now. Wouldn't you be too? Stay warm everyone! 

Out of Hibernation...

So I guess I took another inadvertent vacation from the blog – whoops! My apologies, but the last three months have been nonstop - birthday celebrations, Thanksgiving, Christmas, graduating from college, time at home, and my return to New York kept me rather busy.

Now that I'm getting back into the swing of things (and temporarily unemployed), I can't seem to stay away from the kitchen! Expect more frequent updates as I cook and bake my way through this transitional period in my already food-obsessed life.

Yay!

P.S. Here's some of what I've concocted in my time away...

(clockwise from top left)
1. Sugar cookies with mint icing
2. Christmas salad with crispy tofu and quinoa
3. Green smoothie
4. Salted caramel cupcake

(clockwise from top left)
1. Peanut curry with brown rice, tempeh, and veggies
2. Grain-free pumpkin pie
3. Tofu burrito with cilantro cashew cream sauce
4. Homemade peanut butter

Thanksgiving feast!
(clockwise from top left)
1. Citrus tamari tofu steaks
2. Homemade cranberry sauce
3. Sautéed purple and curly kale with garlic
4. The whole shebang!
5. Maple roasted brussels sprouts
6.  Mashed sweet potatoes with ginger

October Oatmeal

My love affair with fall flavors continues, as it should for the remainder of this joyous season. It's all this pumpkin butter's fault!

I woke up yesterday (after getting a lot of sleep) and headed right into the kitchen where I got to work on a new recipe. What started as basic oatmeal quickly morphed into a warm, filling, bowl of autumn goodness!

Apples? Check!

Pumpkin? Check!

Cinnamon? Ginger? Allspice? Nutmeg? Check check check check!

All of these flavors have me singing a familiar song:

October Oatmeal

(Makes 2-3 servings)

2 ¼ cups water

¾ cup oats (I use Trader Joe's quick cook steel cut oats)

½ teaspoon cinnamon

¼ teaspoon ginger

1/8 teaspoon allspice

1/8 teaspoon nutmeg

1 medium-sized apple, chopped into small pieces (Honeycrisp are divine this time of year!)

3-4 tablespoons almond milk

3-4 tablespoons pumpkin butter

½ tablespoon brown sugar

2 tablespoons of walnuts

• Bring the water to a boil in a medium-sized saucepan.
• Add the oats and the spices and bring the water down to simmer.
• Cover the saucepan with a lid but make sure to stir frequently for about 4 minutes.
• At this point the liquid should be mostly absorbed, so mix in the almond milk and the apple and cover again.
• After a few more minutes, when the oatmeal has reached the desired consistency, remove from the stove.
• Stir in the pumpkin butter and the walnuts and top with a thin layer of brown sugar.
• Optional step: curl up in bed with a warm bowl of this and save the dishes for later :)

This oatmeal makes a perfect breakfast in bed or brunch addition. The recipe makes 2 large servings or 3 smaller servings, but if you're having a solo breakfast (embrace that “me” time!) you can refrigerate the leftover amount and reheat the next day like I did. I added a splash of almond milk this morning and zapped it in the microwave for a bit, and it was good to go!  

Warm, gooey, rich flavors. Heaven!

Magic Fall-Inducing Muffins

Guys, I think it's safe to say that it's finally fall, which means that for the next two months (if we're lucky!) I can revel in boots, sweaters, warm beverages, crunchy leaves, and pumpkin flavored everything. While fall is definitely my favorite season, it doesn't mean as much as it once did when I lived in Vermont, where the mountain views and intense reds and oranges of the foliage were right outside my door.

Photo courtesy of Vermont Academy

I miss it, especially now that I'm in New York and walk outside to the smell of garbage and urine instead of that distinct autumn scent.

Ok. That took a gross turn. To distract you I'll just show you these bad boys:

Back to the whole pumpkin flavored everything. Since high school, I've made it my mission to devote the entire month of October to one of my favorite flavors: once upon a time this included pumpkin ice cream, pumpkin donuts, bagels with pumpkin cream cheese, pumpkin lattes, pumpkin whoopie pies (OH MY GOD YUM), and once the month came to a close, the grand finale: a pumpkin birthday cake with cream cheese frosting.

So. Moral of this story is that I love fall, I love October, and I love pumpkin. The problem this past week? I think the weather forgot that it couldn't be summer anymore. So with temps in the 70s and low 80s, it was anticlimactic! Never fear, sometimes you just have to take things into your own hands. That's where these delectable muffins come in...

A visit from my boyfriend this weekend gave me an excuse to bake a new treat, but who am I kidding, I definitely don't need a reason to bake (and you don't either!). I decided it was finally time to kick the pumpkin into high gear and turned to a comforting classic. The spices in this muffin are really key – feel free to play around with the amounts of each, and maybe even throw in some ground cloves for more dimension. And you can obviously omit the chocolate chips, add walnuts or dried fruit, or just leave them plain. But I don't know why you wouldn't want the chocolate chips melting in every bite. It's pretty fantastic.

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins

(Makes 12-16 muffins)

1 ¾ cups flour

1 ¼ cups sugar

1 tablespoon baking powder

¼ teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

½ + ¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg

½ teaspoon ground ginger

¼ teaspoon ground allspice

1 cup pureed pumpkin

½ cup almond milk (This wasn't quite enough, so once you've mixed all of the ingredients together, just add more almond milk, one tablespoon at a time, until your batter is the desired consistency)

½ cup canola oil

2 tablespoons molassses

Chocolate chips (go as wild or as mild as you'd like!)

• Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Line or grease your muffin tins. Blah blah blah.
• In a large bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients: flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, and spices.
• In a separate bowl, whisk together the the wet ingredients: pumpkin, almond milk, oil, and molasses.
• Pour wet mixture into the dry mixture and whisk until combined.
• Throw in as many chocolate chips as your heart desires (Just a tip: the mini chips create the perfect chocolate to pumpkin ratio!)
• Fill the muffin tins about 2/3 full with batter and bake for 18-20 minutes.

Do yourself a favor and eat a ton of this batter with a spoon. Your life will be better for it. 

As fate would have it, today it finally felt like fall! I wore my cute new boots and fall jacket, there was a brisk breeze. Aaaahhhh. I think it was my muffins that did it, right?! So as I walked home from class I stopped into one of my fave places - Peacefood Cafe - and grabbed my favorite warm beverage for the occasion. Their apple ginger soy drink is heaven in a cup - refreshing, crisp, foamy, warm. The perfect alternative to coffee that didn't even make me miss pumpkin spice lattes (RIP), this drink is incredible. I attempted to capture just how frothy this drink is, but not even pictures can do it justice: 

To complete my fall frolic, I stopped into Trader Joe's for some groceries, where I FOUND THIS!!

So now I'm in heaven. If you're in New England, enjoy the foliage for me pleaseeee! 

You Never Need a Reason to Make Cupcakes

Weekends. Aahhh, weekends. As someone who appreciates sleeping in, lounging around all day in pajamas, and brunch (because it's just an excuse to eat sweet and savory foods at the same time), weekends have pretty much always rocked. Ever since my boarding school days, when I had classes and sports practice/games on Saturdays, I have grown to really appreciate my time away from the normal routine. However, I've quickly realized in the last month that weekends come to mean a hell of a lot more once you're out in the working world.

What? You guys don't frolic around Harlem on the weekends, stopping to take a pic with Freddy D?!

Now, as I only have three months left to enjoy the blissfully wonderful class schedule of a second semester senior in college, I have taken it upon myself to reflect on what awaits me in the big bad real world that exists one step beyond receiving my diploma: it's not pretty. Both my roommates leave the apartment (one in pantyhose and heels – shudder) in the morning and return home at the end of the day, frustrated and uninspired by their menial employment.

Moral of this story? Fuck excuses, fuck birthdays, fuck rational thought. Just make cupcakes for the hell of it. You don't need a reason, and they're often better if you have none. Just scamper off to Whole Foods like a deranged addict (wait, is that just me?) and bake your little heart out. Because we all deserve an escape from the mundane.

P.S. new shoes from your mom help too

So. These fluffy, moist (sorry all you moist haters) little pillows of deliciousness were brought in to celebrate making it through another week. It's a basic vanilla cupcake that's probably the best vanilla cake I've had since going vegan, topped with a salty, but still incredibly sweet, caramel frosting. This is what sugar comas are made of folks. Embrace, enjoy, and celebrate absolutely nothing!

Salted Caramel Cupcakes (from Chloe Coscarelli's Chloe's Vegan Desserts)*

(Makes 12 cupcakes)

1 ½ cups all purpose flour

1 cup sugar

1 teaspoon baking soda

½ teaspoon salt

¾ cup almond milk

½ cup canola oil

2 tablespoons white vinegar

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

• Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line or grease your cupcake tins. Blah blah blah.
• In a large bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients: flour, sugar, baking soda, and salt.
• In a separate bowl, whisk together the wet ingredients: almond milk, oil, vinegar, and vanilla.
• Pour wet mixture into the dry mixture and whisk until combined.
• Fill the cupcake tins about 2/3 full with batter and bake for 20 minutes

* This recipe may seem insanely familiar if you've perused my chocolate cupcake recipe from last week. These basic chocolate and vanilla cupcake recipes always yield scrumptious results from very little effort.

Caramel Frosting

½ cup Earth Balance

1 cup dark brown sugar

¼ cup almond milk (I needed more)

¼ teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

3 cups powdered sugar

Sea salt, for sprinkling

• In a medium saucepan, melt Earth Balance and whisk in brown sugar, almond milk, and salt.
• Bring to a gentle boil and let boil for 3-4 minutes.
• Remove from heat, stir in vanilla, and let cool (I put it aside for 20-ish minutes).
• Once cool, slowly beat the caramel mixture with the powdered sugar using a hand mixer (When I did this it produced a crumbly mess so I took Chloe's suggestion and added in a couple of tablespoons of almond milk which smoothed it out into a recognizable frosting).
• Beat on high until smooooooooth.
• Optional: I threw my bowl of frosting into the freezer for 20-ish minutes to firm it up a bit. There's nothing worse than going to assemble your cupcakes and having the frosting slide down the cupcake because it's too warm or too runny.
• Once the frosting is firm, spread it generously on the cupcakes and sprinkle those bad boys with some sea salt to give them that extra kick!

Bonus:

if these cupcakes last the weekend they can serve as an incentive for making it through your mopey/manic/mundane Monday! Coming home to this little treat will no doubt put a smile on your face :)

Omnivore-Approved Chocolate Cupcakes

Hello world! I'm back: back in New York, back in the blogosphere, and back in the kitchen! Being unable to cook or bake for two and a half months this summer was brutal - but I love my job and adore escaping to the middle of nowhere in Maine, so it's worth it, even for a foodie like me.

When I came home I found myself making really basic things to eat - salads with bottled dressing for lunch, crispy tofu when I was feeling uninspired, and peanut butter sandwiches when I didn't feel like doing much. I think I actually had to remind myself that I loved to cook and bake!

So, there I was, seeking out more recipes online, making longer and longer Whole Foods lists, and perusing cookbooks at the public library. And then I remembered that it was going to be my roommate's birthday and BAM! I was in the kitchen and donning my apron like I had never left. Both roommates came home to the smell of chocolate cake wafting through our apartment and an extra tub of frosting sitting in our freezer. There are worse ways to spend a Friday night, right?

The birthday girl didn't have any crazy requests, so I decided to whip together something that we would all enjoy: chocolate and peanut butter. Because let's get real: who doesn't love this sweet and salty combination?!

These cupcakes are sheer perfection. Time and time again I've turned to this recipe when I need a dose of chocolate, or when I'm slightly weary of serving baked goods to people who expect the familiar tastes of cholesterol-laden Magnolia Bakery cupcakes. You see, I can accept that my taste buds have grown accustomed to substituting almond milk for cow's milk, Earth Balance for butter, and flax seeds for eggs, but it can be difficult for some people to see beyond the ingredients they think they are missing when they're eating vegan treats. Let me tell you – these cupcakes definitely don't have that problem! People are too busy devouring these beauties to even miss those unneeded ingredients.

I've made this chocolate cupcake for friends and family, and it's a personal favorite of mine, but until this recipe I hadn't experimented with very many types of vegan frosting. While I usually turn to the reliable chocolate ganache topping, I decided to try something new and turned to one of my old, pre-vegan favorites – cream cheese frosting. It is my belief that there are two types of people in this world: cupcake people or frosting people. I am definitely a cupcake person, and believe that there shouldn't be a huge glob of frosting on top to distract from the main event, however, you always need a little something to bring in a new flavor or enhance the cake aspect. I'm a huge fan of this frosting because it balances out all the sugar (and there's a lot!) with the tartness of vegan cream cheese and slight saltiness of peanut butter. Yummmm!

Before you get going on the cake, you should probably make the frosting first so as to let it chill in the fridge or freezer while you're baking. This firms it up to a perfect consistency when it's time to put it all together.

Peanut Butter Heaven (or peanut butter “cream cheese” frosting)

6 oz vegan cream cheese (I used Go Veggie! brand)

3 tablespoons peanut butter

½ teaspoon vanilla extract

1 ¼ cup confectioner's sugar

• With a hand mixer, cream the vegan cream cheese and peanut butter in a large bowl.
• Slowly add the confectioner's sugar ¼ cup at a time until it is fully incorporated.
• When everything is properly mixed, stir in the vanilla extract.
• Place in the fridge (or freezer if you're short on time) to chill!

Omnivore-Approved Chocolate Cupcakes

(This recipe makes 12-14 cupcakes, depending on how much batter you want to eat. My recommendation? Make 12 cupcakes and spoon the rest of the chocolately goodness straight into your mouth as you smell these babies baking away in the oven. This method was roommate-tested, Brenna-approved.)

1 ½ cups all purpose flour

1 cup sugar

1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

½ teaspoon salt

1 cup cold coffee

½ cup canola oil

2 tablespoons white vinegar

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

• Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line or grease your cupcake tins. Blah blah blah.
• In a large bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients: flour, sugar, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt.
• In a separate bowl, whisk together the wet ingredients: coffee, oil, vinegar, and vanilla.
• Pour wet mixture into the dry mixture and whisk until combined.
• Fill the cupcake tins about 2/3 full with batter and bake for 16-18 minutes

When the cupcakes have cooled, spoon the frosting into your pastry bag and go to town! With the help of my handy roommate-assistant, I topped these beauties with tiny semisweet chocolate chips (courtesy of Enjoy Life) and subsequently devoured them in the name of birthday celebrations! 

Now that I've caught the baking bug again, what am I going to make next week?!