Recipe Review: Cookie Dough Dip

Chocolate Covered Katie's Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Dip is delish! A big hit with adults, kids, and everyone in between. I have made this dip twice and it is super easy. The recipe scores an 8/10 easily in my book. The only downside is that I have to try and not eat the whole bowl. You can find the recipe here. I just threw all the ingredients except the chocolate chips in my ninja and ninja'd for a good long time to smooth everything out.

The dip looks a little runny in these pictures but you can just pop it in the fridge for 30-60 minutes and it thickens up. Serve with graham crackers. Just be sure to keep the secret ingredient a secret... chick peas!

Recipe Review: Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Muffins

Fall is in the air... and I had some left over pumpkin to use after I made chocolate chip pumpkin brownies last week...

And so we have chocolate chip pumpkin muffins! I found the recipe here (and you can too) from All Recipes. These muffins are moist, thick, chocolatey, and delicious. Super bonus: they are also low fat. The pumpkin takes the place of any oil or butter.

I followed the recipe almost exactly but I used white wheat flour, mini-chocolate chips, and sprinkled a little cinnamon sugar mix on top.

I give this recipe a 6/10. I love the festiveness of the orange muffin, but I prefer my muffins filled with fruit instead. :-) Also, after the muffin cooled it was a big spongey. It is great for the season though. I love that a muffin is practically a dessert that can pass as a good breakfast option too.

Happy Fall! I hope you all are staying warm. I'm using my oven as much as possible to help heat up the house!

Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Brownies

I found this fall-appropriate brownie recipe just in time for the cool weather to come rolling it. These brownies are so fudgey and delicious! Another great recipe from Chocolate Covered Katie. You can find it publicly posted here.

I give this recipe an 8/10. It was very easy and quick. I used all-purpose white flour instead of ww pastry flour and baked my brownies a little longer than Katie suggested: about 27 minutes at 330 degrees. My husband voted for a 7/10. After I tell him what is in the recipe he always changes his mind a little. I did add a little squirt of Hersey chocolate syrup before I baked these - a brownie habit (HFCS!) that is hard to break.

Recipe Review: Cheezy Broccoli Orzo

Time and again I have been disappointed by "cheezy" sauce recipes or mixes or jars. I am happy to announce that today I finally made one that is as good as it looks! I made just a few slight variations to this recipe which can be found posted publicly here on My Vegan Cookbook or pinned to my Vegan Recipe Pinterest board here.

First, I omitted onion powder because we didn't have any, second, I added a squirt of Dijon mustard and third, I cut the amount of nutritional yeast in half (because I'm not a huge nooch fan!). I also steamed (instead of boiled) extra broccoli because I love love broccoli!

I give this recipe a 10/10. It is so creamy and comforting. I hope it heats up well... I'll get back to you on that. I think this would make a really great side dish or even an entree. I ate it by itself for lunch today. It reminds me a lot of non-vegan broccoli rice casserole but even better.

P.S. Isn't orzo amazing?

Zucchini Pasta and Homemade Marinara Sauce

My spiralizer arrived! And it is as amazing as I was promised it would be. Check out this beautiful zucchini pasta:

I also made a sauce from scratch to go with the veggie pasta for a super healthy dish. I used the recipe in the Vegan Stoner Cookbook and actually made it a few days ahead of time when I already had the tomatoes and cutting board out and the kitchen was a mess. It takes about an hour on the stove so it is a good weekend project.

Overall I would give the marinara recipe a 6/10. It was pretty good. A little on the sweet side and time consuming. It felt much healthier than Prego out of the jar though!

Pie Crust Recipe + Quiche & Cookie Tarts

Making apple pie in the fall is must, and making cookie tarts out of the leftover pie crust is an important tradition in my family. Sometimes I just skip the apple pie and make a big batch of cookie tarts instead! I have only made the vegan version of my mom's cookie tarts a couple of times but both times they turned out great. 

While not the healthiest food, cookie tarts are a very special treat. To make the cookie tarts simply whip up a pie crust recipe and cut it into rounds. Add a spoonful of jam to the center of each one and cover with another round. Press around the edges with your fingers. Sprinkle sugar on top and bake! Above, the "cutting flour into shortening" step is shown.

Vegan Pie Crust 
(makes 2)

3 cups all purpose flour
1 1/4 cup shortening
1 Tbl vinegar
1 1/2 tsp egg replacer mixed with 2 Tbl warm water (I use Ener-G)
1 tsp salt
4-5 Tbl ice water

Cut flour and shortening into small pieces (see photo above). Add egg replacer, salt, and vinegar. Mix. Add in ice water 1 tablespoon at a time. Mix with a fork until the dough clings into a ball. Do not over handle. Roll out 1/4 at a time.
Bake at 375 for 1 hour (for pie) Bake only 10 minutes for cookie tarts.


I like to use an upside down cup to get the perfect round shape. Cookie cutters work great too.

Bonus recipe review: Vegan Tofu Quiche from the Vegan Stoner Cookbook
I used the rest of my pie crust recipe for this delicious quiche!

The recipe called for mushrooms, onion, and broccoli but I am not a mushroom fan. I subbed in extra broccoli and carrots.

This quiche is seriously amazing. One of my new favorite recipes! 10/10 for sure. I have always been a little nervous to try tofu quiche because really, how could it possibly be good? It really really is. The recipe uses soft tofu which I have never really experimented with before but it blended up nicely in my ninja.

Lentil Loaf Recipe Review

Behold, Lentil Loaf.

This stuff is good. And healthy. And most importantly, good. The Vegan Stoner Cookbook is filled with easy to make, totally delicious, comfort food! I haven't met a recipe in there yet that I didn't love. This recipe gets an 8/10 because a meatloaf-like meal can only possibly score an 8 in my world. So it is at the top of the meatloaf-like charts! The Vegan Stoner actually has this recipe on their website, so you can find it right here!

What better to pair lentil loaf with than mashed potatoes? Yum!

Anyone else out there cooking up some comfort food? What if the ingredients are just beans, nuts, and veggies, making it a totally healthy comfort food (plus a little ketchup)? Does that still count?

Recipe Review: Vegan Sugar Cookies + Cream "Cheese" Frosting Recipe

Last week as I was heading into my birthday weekend, I decided I wanted to make something I usually only reserve for special occasions because it takes a lot of work: sugar cookies with cream cheese frosting. I love love love to make these for holidays like Christmas and Valentines day (with cookie cutters of course!).

Since I've been vegan I haven't yet found quite the right sugar cookie recipe to mimic the cookies of my childhood. The cookies I rolled out with my mom as a kid had buttermilk in them and the cream cheese frosting was to die for. It was a very distinct taste combo. While these are close, I wouldn't say they are a match. Overall I give the recipe a 6/10 with the hopes I find one that matches just a little bit better someday. I do have to give Chocolate Covered Katie props for making a healthier version of the sugar cookie as I'm sure the ones I had as a kid were hundreds of calories each, and these are only 110 calories each!

The recipe I used can be found here, on Chocolate Covered Katie's website. I love that it only makes 9 cookies (mine actually turned out to be 8 after I ate some dough right from the bowl!) because why in the heck would my husband and I need more than 9 cookies!?! A recipe can always be doubled for holiday gatherings.

I made the cream cheese frosting by kind of winging it, but it turned out really good.

Vegan Cream Cheese Frosting

2 Tbl Vegan Cream Cheese (I use tofutti)
1/3 cup powdered sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla

Start by working the cream cheese a little with a spoon to warm it up. Add the powdered sugar and once combined, add the vanilla to make it a little runnier/creamier. Throw in a drop or two of food coloring if desired. This should make enough for at least 8 cookies!

What kind of holiday baking traditions have you veganized? Did you find a perfect match or are you still working on it?

Chocolate Oreo Cupcake Recipe

Birthday weekend continues and today I bring you the cupcakes I made for my family birthday party over labor day weekend. I brought these bad boys:

They were pretty darn fantastic! The frosting was definitely the best part. My nephew can back up my story - he licked the frosting clean off of a few of them! Isn't it amazing that Oreos are vegan? One of life's little accidental gifts. The fam knew the cupcakes were vegan and ate them anyway. 1 point for open-mindedness! What they didn't know was that the devil's food cupcakes had a secret ingredient, one that freaked me out at first and I am pretty brave with my desserts these days: mayo! Well, Vegenaise to be precise. I found the cupcake recipe here (another one of Chocolate Covered Katie's!) and doubled it. The Devil's Food/Mayo cupcake gets a 9/10 from me... it is really really good, rich, and thick. You are supposed to store them in the fridge and now I know how delicious cold cupcakes can be!

Vegan Oreo Frosting

2 cups mashed Oreo cookies (approximately 10-12 cookies)
1/3 cup Earth Balance or other vegan margarine
2/3 cup vegetable shortening
4 cups powdered sugar
3 Tbl almond milk
1 tsp vanilla

Cream together the shortening and margarine in a mixer. Then mash up the 2 cups of Oreos pretty fine but not too fine. The best part when eating them was getting a little chunk of Oreo every once in awhile in the frosting. I mashed mine fine enough that I knew they'd fit through the hole in my pastry bag when frosting the cupcakes. Add the oreos to the shortening/margarine mixture and mix until combined, then add in the powdered sugar one cup at a time. The frosting should be really dry now - add the 3 Tbl of milk and vanilla and it will magically become frosting-like as you mix it the rest of the way together. I like to then beat the frosting on a fast speed to make it fluffy. Throw it in a pastry bag or ziplock with one of the corners cut out and frost away!

I bought a bag of mini Oreos to garnish the top of each cupcake with. They were a big hit with the kids too!

 My niece and I celebrate our birthdays just 2 weeks apart... so we like to celebrate together! 

The Vegan Stoner Cookbook

The Vegan Stoner cookbook came in the mail today! I am so excited, and just in time for Vegan MoFo - now I can cook my way through this baby and post about it here. Get ready for some recipe reviews. I am most excited to try the Potatoes Au Gratin and Broccoli Quiche recipes.

The name of this book and their corresponding website might be throwing you - but the recipes I have tried from the site are simple, delicious, and very munch-able, so I think you should check it out too. Not to mention the illustrations! To die for, and very funny. I mean, look at these veggies doing yoga! What could be better?

Another one of my favorites:

CCK Single Lady Cakes

Chocolate Covered Katie is my favorite blog out there. It combines two things I love - being mindful of what I put in my body and... chocolate! If you haven't been there yet, stop what you are doing and go there right now! Katie seems like a really sweet girl who is about my age, so I like that about her blog too.

This past weekend my hubby went on a trip with his high school buddies so I was home alone. I ventured to a part of CCK that I have never been to before... the single lady recipes. This proved to be an eye opening experience. I tried the one minute chocolate cake and the chocolate peanut butter cake. Find the recipes at those links. These recipes are SUPER easy and quick - they bake right in the microwave in less than 2 minutes! And I managed to only dirty one bowl when making them. You can bake them in a mug or a little dish. I used cute little ramekins.

The one minute chocolate cake was delicious, decadent, and fudgey. I felt like it was a little salty but that was probably just the bitterness of the chocolate coming through. I will add a little more sugar next time I make it. I mixed together some syrup, almond milk, powdered sugar, peanut butter, and a little more cocoa powder for a frosting for this cake. And of course topped it with sprinkles and a few chocolate chips. Unfortunately I have no pictures to share of these cute little cakes but I will try and take one soon! Or you can go to Katie's site and see her beautiful photography of them.

The chocolate peanut butter cake was especially exciting to make because it calls for PB2, which I recently found at my local Walmart! I had looked into ordering it online but then I chickened out. I find that I am way my stingy with my money when I shop online but seeing it in the store made me take the plunge. PB2 is a lower calorie version of peanut butter than comes in a powdered form and you mix it with water yourself. A lot of the bad-for-you oils are removed. Anyway, it was a nice alternative in this recipe that kept the calories down. I also made a really yummy cream cheese frosting for my chocolate peanut butter cake by combining a little Tofutti cream cheese and powdered sugar (which I'm sure is not CCK approved :-) ). Overall this cake was even better than the chocolate one I had made before, but it was not quite as moist. This one was a little dry so I would add more almond milk next time.

You just can't beat the low calories in these guys (around 200 each), especially if you convince yourself to save half the cake for the next day! I successfully managed that the first time but ate the whole thing in one evening the next time.