Easy, Fool-proof, Vegan Peanut-Butter Cookies

It's a lazy Sunday; grey, cold, rainy - just a "cookie" sort of day.

When I dragged out this tattered, scribbled-on, annotated-a-hundred-times recipe, I knew it was time to post it to my blog, mainly so I remember where it is!!

Now, you have a yummy recipe in front of you, the rest of a Sunday to waste, no excuses, go make some cookies!

Easy Peanut-Butter Cookies

1 cup peanut butter (any type; crunchy or smooth)
1/3 cup Earth Balance or other vegan margarine, cold - do NOT use Smart Balance (OR use 1/4 cup coconut oil, cool and firm but NOT rock-hard, I prefer the finished texture when using coconut oil)
1 cup lightly packed brown sugar
1 tablespoon vinegar
3 tablespoons water
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour


Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
In a medium bowl, cream sugar, peanut butter, and margarine or coconut oil together just until mixed. Add vinegar, water, vanilla, salt, and baking powder. Mix in flour until well blended. You may need a Tbsp. or so more flour, the dough should be "play-dough" consistency but not dry!

Roll dough into 1-inch balls and place about 2 inches apart on ungreased cookie sheet. Using a sugar-coated fork, make an “x” on the top of each cookie, gently press and flatten just slightly as you do so. Bake for 9 to 11 minutes depending on elevation and oven - or until browning on the edges and firm, but not hard and crispy.

Cool on cookie sheet several minutes until firm enough to remove with spatula.

Crazy Christmas Catch-Up (and Cookies!)

I have an embarrassing number of e-mails wondering whether I have dropped off the face of blogging forever. Eeeep.
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No, I have not.
People, Thank-You. But I am just not that interesting, I don't have anything amazing or yummy to report or any breath-taking photos I just have to share.


Life has somehow charged into overdrive and I'm attempting to keep up. Or catch up. The rest of my blogger-friends seem to be surviving beautifully, but somehow I'm a bit swamped. After Christmas it'll be WAY less crazy in this household and I'll be back to blogging as much as ever. Not to fear; I enjoy cooking vegan, creating messes, inventing interesting recipes and eating tasty food FAR too much NOT to keep talking (or blogging) about it.

But, for those who asked - here's what the Fairly Odd Tofu Family has been doing the last few weeks...

¤ Dressing up pretty for School Christmas Concerts, Holiday Banquets, Choir Productions and other fun and festive Christmas-type events.

















¤ Playing the Role of VERY PROUD MOM for all my kids' events.


















¤ Hanging out with loved ones. (My oldest 'Sprout' and her Auntie - aren't they beautiful?)

















¤ Hanging out with crazy friends.

















¤ Choosing and cutting the "perfect" tree. (The tiny one above was for my oldest daughter's dorm room).


















¤ Playing in the snow.



















¤ And baking Christmas cookies!!















YES! I have a recipe, and it's actually a timely, and useful one!!
Here's my all-purpose basic sugar-cookie recipe. It's simple vegan-ized Betty Crocker or someone, more of a short-bread texture than some Christmas Cookies. I didn't include a frosting recipe because that part is open to your preference and interpretation....

Christmas Sugar Cookies for Decorating

1 cup (2 sticks) vegan margarine (I use Nucoa because it's cheap, but Willow Run is good too)
1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
"Egg-replacer": 1 Tbsp. tofu blended with 1 Tbsp. soymilk and 1 tsp. flax seeds

OR if you don't like the "specks" in the cookies use commercial egg-replacer powder mixed with water equiv. to 2 eggs.

1/2 tsp vanilla

2 - 3 drops anise, lemon or rum extract

3 1/2 cups sifted flour

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp cream of tartar

1/4 tsp salt

Preheat oven to 400°.

Cream margarine and sugar until fluffy.

Add egg-replacer, vanilla, and extract.

Beat well. Sift together dry ingredients.

Add slowly to wet mixture. Form into ball of dough.

You may need to add a tiny bit more flour or water to get the perfect consistency for rolling (I do have to "play with it" a little bit here) .

Chill for 1/2 hour.

Have extra flour on hand to sprinkle on the rolling pin and on your hands.

Roll out on very lightly floured board, a little over 1/8 inch thick.

Cut rolled dough into fun shapes.

Bake on ungreased cookie sheets for 8 minutes at 400° or until firm and barely starting to brown.

Cool on wire racks and decorate with glaze, frosting and/or sprinkles...

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Hope you're all getting ready for Holidays in a safe, sane and FUN manner.

Gingerbread Houses and 15th Birthdays

Once again, in keeping with our yearly tradition, we celebrated my middle "Sprout"s birthday with a delightfully messy, sugar-filled annual Gingerbread House-making Birthday party.


















Teen girls and lots of sugar. It gets crazier every year.

But every year the girls are older, they can do more of the prep work themselves, clean up more of their own mess, and their creations get prettier and more lavish.

Everyone loves it. I have Moms calling in September asking if we're making houses again this year.

I always have the house "parts" baked and cooled ahead of time, and after many years of doing this, we have it down to a science.

This year, however, I used the gingerbread recipe from Vegan Dad's blog, as I haven't really liked the texture of the other vegan gingerbread recipes I've used.

I'm not much of a recipe follower, which is why you'll rarely see links to other recipes here; there's millions of better recipes than mine, I just stubbornly prefer to muddle through until I've concocted my own creation (or disaster!).

However, with my daughter's time-honored Gingerbread party I didn't want to experiment. And happily, (as you'll see) the gingerbread turned out great.
(Here are some good cut-out-and-assembly instructions, we use slightly smaller measurements since we're making 6 houses...That equals a LOT of dough!

We DO use commercial Royal Icing however, just to "cement" the house parts together. Yes it has egg-whites. But any and all attempts I have made at decent vegan royal icing have ended up in collapsed houses that look somewhat like a Hurricane Katrina re-creation... Not the effect you're going for at a Holiday party!

However, once the houses are assembled and "set", we mix up some fairly decent vegan frosting for the final (and fun, messy, sticky, icky, sugar-coated) step of decorating...

And no, I am sure some of the candy isn't vegan. Bring on the vegan Police.

Here is my approximate icing recipe (and <-- here is what happens when big sisters get bored with Gingerbread houses); play with it according to the humidity in your kitchen and how much liquid your powdered sugar absorbs.

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"Almost" Royal Icing

7 Tablespoons water

4 Tablespoon Ener-G egg replacer (don't use another brand)

7 cups of powdered sugar (you can make non-bone-char powdered sugar with beet sugar and cornstarch in a coffee grinder, Whole Foods sells vegan powdered sugar too)

1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar

Mix dr ingredients together. Add to water. I don't usually add all the powdered sugar/cream of tarter, just keep mixing it in until the right consistency. It still takes longer to set up than royal icing

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And just in case you're thinking this is a worthless post with nothing but frosting, here are the amazing vegan chocolate-chip muffins that big sister Jessika made for everyone for breakfast. (She made the birthday cake too! )

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Pretty generous of her since she had to put up with a housefull of "younger" girls all night!

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Chocolate-Chip-Banana Muffins

3 very ripe bananas
1/4 cup coconut oil
1 cup sugar
2 cups sifted whole wheat pastry flour (or white, or whatever)
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
1 cup chocolate chips, chopped to make them a bit smaller, and tossed with a bit of cornstarch so they don't "sink" in the batter

Pre-heat oven to 360 degrees.
In a large bowl, mash the bananas with a fork till mushy.

Add the oil and sugar and mix together until creamy.
In a separate bowl combine the dry stuff.

Combine with the banana mixture, stirring gently just to combine.
Grease (WELL!) or line a muffin pan, and fill each muffin about 2/3 full with batter. Bake for about 25 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into a muffin comes out clean.

Here's hoping your Holidays are sweet and memorable.

Happy Earth Day; And Let Me Rant A Bit...

I suck at remembering special occasions, birthdays, anniversaries, even Earth Day. But just so I don't sound like a totally unprepared slouch, I'll try to make it appear as if I planned something special...

Let's see... To celebrate Earth Day:

• I ate vegan, significantly reducing my carbon footprint - more significant, some statistics say, than driving a Hybrid car (of course, I've been vegan every day for the last five or so years)


• And I used my new reusable grocery bags instead of paper or plastic. (I've had the bags for months, in the trunk of my car... forgetting to use them!)


• And we carpooled (my kids and the neighbors', trading rides to and from school as we've been doing all year).


• We've reduced our household trash output by 75%! I set out the recycling and trash this AM and I realized I am down to one small can a month of 'regular' trash (our neighborhood has a great recycling program, I can say that, but we've also reduced what we use drastically.)


• I air-dried a load of laundry (which I have done with shirts and things for years, I have a dryer phobia, I don't know.)


• I used my own travel mug at Starbucks this morning rather than a paper cup.


• And I purchased three organic hemp shirts today, in my slow attempt to use less cotton. (Don't even get me STARTED on cotton, it's the latest Earth-saving bandwagon I'm jumping on...)

Did you know:

Using 4.5% of the global land area, cotton requires 22.5% of the world's insecticides and 10% of the world's chemical fertilisers. Globally, the World Health Organisation estimates 3m instances of pesticide poisoning and 20,000 deaths each year, mainly among poor cotton farmers in developing countries.
The simple act of growing and harvesting the one pound of cotton fiber needed to make a T-shirt takes an enormous toll on the earth’s air, water, and soil, and has significant impacts on the health of people in cotton growing area.
United States farmers alone applied nearly one-third of a pound of chemical fertilizers and pesticides for every pound of cotton harvested, and this amount is significantly higher in less regulated countries.
Cotton crops are grown in 19 states, and account for twenty-five percent of all the pesticides used in the entire U.S. Some of these chemicals are among the most toxic and dangerous ones classified by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Yet environmental impact studies estimate that 90% of those chemicals end up in the soil, air and water around the fields and not on the crops themselves.
(Organic cotton is slightly better; it doesn't use the pesticides, but still leaches nutrients out of the soil, and uses a great deal of water and land inefficiently).

But enough ranting. Think about it though.

To top off the day, my daughter made vegan cookies. (recipe here).

Happy Earth Day!!

Olivia's Best Chocolate Chip Cookies Ever - again

I've posted this recipe before.

But it deserves repeating because it's SO GOOD!

OK, to be fair, I tried the chocolate chip cookies in two brand-new, well-known (and will remain unnamed) vegan cookbooks over the weekend. And honestly? They were OK.

I know all those authors are far, far more experienced cooks than I, their recipes have been tested by hundreds of people, they probably know FAR BETTER how to make the "perfect" cookie, but "perfect" is in the eye (and tastebuds) of each individual - this is still THE BEST Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe that I've run across.

And I know I'm plenty biased since my daughter created this recipe JUST FOR ME from several non-vegan ones, figuring out and tweaking the vegan substitutions all on her own. But we all love this recipe. Everyone I know loves this recipe. Everyone. Even cookie-haters (yes, there ARE some out there).

I have no illusions that I will ever publish a cookbook. My recipes are not top secret. They are not filled with spelt, high in fiber or nutritious with whole grains. But they are vegan, and they are yummy. The "Toll-House" kind of cookies you grew up with. Here you go. Bake some, sit back and watch "American Idol". Enjoy.

Olivia's Amazing Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies

2 1/4 cup all-purpose flour

1 tsp. baking soda

1 tsp. salt

1/3 cup coconut oil

1/4 cup Smart Balance Light (or regular Earth Balance will work fine too, though for some reason SB Light just works the best)

3/4 cup white sugar

3/4 cup packed brown sugar

1 heaping Tbsp. flax meal

1 heaping Tbsp. Ener-G egg replacer powder

1/4 cup soy, almond or hemp milk

1 tsp. vanilla (use real vanilla if you can)

2 cups vegan chocolate chips (Good quality vegan chocolate chips are absolutely essential here. Guittard Semi-Sweet is my favorite - available in regular grocery stores and VEGAN!)

1.) Preheat oven to 375 F.

2.) In a small bowl, mix soy milk VERY WELL (until creamy) with Ener-G egg replacer and flax meal using an electric mixer or hand (immersion) blender. Set aside.

3.) In another bowl, mix together flour, baking soda and salt. Set Aside.

4.) In a large bowl, cream together coconut oil, Smart Balance and sugars. Add soy/flax mixture and vanilla. Beat with electric mixer until smooth.

5.) Gradually add flour mixture to liquids. Stir in chocolate chips.

6.) Drop by small well rounded teaspoonfuls (actually less than a teaspoon, more like 3/4 tsp) onto ungreased cookie sheet. Bake for 8 - 10 min. until lightly golden. Watch the time, it depends on the pan.

7.) Let cool on the pan 5- 6 min., just until set enough to remove to wire rack.

You can add nuts, raisins, coconut, whatever... but we like them just as they are!

Valentine's Treats!

So for Valentine's this year, I decided to skip the gift-giving of sugary, non-vegan, and expensive artificially flavored candy hearts and junk, and give useful and interesting if not pretty, gifts instead. So with my Sprouts' help and advice (!) we assembled some pretty cool-looking "Cookie-Mix-In-A-Jar" and "Soup-in-a-Jar" mixes. They looked so pretty I had to share a picture.

The soup mix (on the left) is one I found online and sadly, I don't remember where, but it's got layers of barley, red lentils, split peas, tiny star pastas, vegetarian 'chicken' bullion powder, herbs, a bay leaf, dehydrated onion and oatmeal! We did a test batch and the soup turns out really yummy! Hopefully even though the jars look pretty, people will use them!

The cookie recipe on the right is one we've had in our family forever (I think my Grandma copied it from an oatmeal carton years ago...) but I now use vegan ingredients. I simply layered the ingredients and included instructions on a cutesy card, for adding the liquid ingredients and making cookies...

Chocolate-Chip, Oatmeal, Dried Cranberry Cookie Mix-In-A-Jar

3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1/3 cup white sugar
3/4 cup vegan chocolate chips (some Guittard and Ghirardelli, Safeway brand and even Wal-Mart semi-sweet chips are vegan)
1 1/2 cups quick or old-fashioned oats
1/2 cup chopped pecans or hazelnuts
1/2 cup raisins or (my choice) dried cranberries

A large canning funnel helps here, as well as something to firmly tamp down the ingredients.
Put white sugar in 1 quart wide-mouth jar. Press brown sugar down firmly in a layer over white sugar.
Combine flour, baking soda, cinnamon and salt in small bowl. Place flour mixture on top of brown sugar.
Layer remaining ingredients in order listed above, pressing firmly after each layer. Seal with lid and decorate with fabric and ribbon.
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RECIPE TO ATTACH (I used vegan instructions for my vegan friends of course):
Beat 1/2 cup (1 stick) softened margarine (I prefer Earth Balance) 1 large egg (or vegan option: 4 Tbsp. silken tofu blended until liquidy or equiv. Egg Replacer), and 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract in large mixer bowl until blended. Add cookie mix; mix well, breaking up any clumps. Drop by rounded tablespoon onto ungreased cookie sheet.

Bake in preheated 375° F. oven for 8 to 10 minutes. Cool on cookie sheets for 2 minutes; remove to wire racks. Makes about 2 dozen cookies.
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HAPPY VALENTINE'S Everyone!

Shortbread Cookies

<-- My littlest Sprout takes cookies in to school tomorrow for a Valentine's party.

Instead of something more traditional (well, OK, I'm not exactly sure what would be considered "traditional" treats for Valentine's anyway - pink cupcakes? blechh...yeah...) she wanted to make shortbread cookies.


So naturally I hadn't tried "veganizing" my shortbread recipe yet, and didn't have time to experiment, but we tweaked it only slightly and it turned out GREAT. Here ya go...

VEGAN SHORTBREAD CUT-OUT COOKIES

-- 3/4 cup of margarine (the kind in cubes, like Earth Balance Buttery Sticks - NOT the softer tub-style)
-- 2 TB (or a bit less) coconut oil
-- 1/2 cup powdered sugar
-- 2 cups flour (sometimes I use whole wheat pastry flour)
-- 1/4 teaspoon vanilla (oh please use real vanilla!)

1. Preheat oven to 350F and lightly grease a baking sheet.
2. Cream margarine and sugar very, very well.
3. Add vanilla.
4. Add flour slowly.
5. When well incorporated and forming a dough, roll into a ball and refrigerate for at least 20 minutes, to overnight. (We couldn't wait much longer than 20 min!)
6. Flour surface and rolling pin, and roll out a 1/4 of the dough out a time to between 1/4 and 1/2 in. thick. (Thicker will be more dense and shortbread-like, thinner will be more crisp, we made ours pretty thick!) Cut out using cookie cutters of choice.
7. Bake until the edges begin to brown, 6-10 minutes. Keep an eye on it, depending on how thick you roll the dough.

BEST EVER, FOOLPROOF, VEGAN CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIIES!

Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookie recipes are tough to find, even if you're using butter, eggs and whatever else. My 12-year-old adjusted this recipe from an old family favorite one day when she was home alone and wanted to surprise me with some vegan cookies. We didn't exactly have "enough" of several crucial ingredients so she substituted - played around with the recipe and the end result was the most wonderful cookies EVER!!

It is honestly AMAZING (hence the name). Now her recipe is famous among family, friends and her classmates, most of whom had never heard the word "vegan" before - at least now they associate the word with yummy cookie goodness.

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Amazing Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies

2 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
1/2 cup coconut oil
1/4 cup Smart Balance Light (or regular Earth Balance will work fine too, though for some reason SB Light works the best)
3/4 cup white sugar
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
1 heaping Tbsp. flax meal
1 heaping Tbsp. Ener-G egg replacer powder
1/4 cup soy milk
1 tsp. vanilla
2 cups vegan chocolate chips (Good quality vegan chocolate chips are absolutely essential here. Guittard Semi-Sweet is my favorite - available in regular grocery stores and VEGAN!)

1.) Preheat oven to 375 F.
2.) In a small bowl, mix soy milk VERY WELL (until creamy) with Ener-G egg replacer and flax meal using an electric mixer or hand (immersion) blender. Set aside.
3.) In another bowl, mix together flour, baking soda and salt. Set Aside.
4.) In a large bowl, cream together coconut oil, Smart Balance and sugars. Add soy/flax mixture and vanilla. Beat with electric mixer until smooth.
5.) Gradually add flour mixture to liquids. Stir in chocolate chips.
6.) Drop by well rounded teaspoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheet. Bake for 8 - 10 min. until lightly golden. (Can also be made into bar cookies in 9 X 12 pan)

You can add nuts, raisins, coconut, whatever... but we like them just as they are!

Vegan Christmas Baking: GINGERBREAD!

VEGAN GINGERBREAD!

My daughter celebrates her birthday at the end of November every year with a "Gingerbread-House Making Party" for several of her (not so little anymore) friends. It's always a HUGE hit and the girls spend hours making beautifully (?) decorated little houses.

I realize some of the candies you'll see pictured are NOT vegan but the gingerbread is, and actually VERY tasty. Besides making the sheets of gingerbread for the houses, I always make plenty extra, just to be baked into cookies that we eat...

GINGERBREAD COOKIES

1/3 cup canola oil
3/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup molasses
1/4 cup plain soymilk
2 cups whole wheat pastry flour or all-purpose flour (or a mix of both)
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
spice blend:
1/2 teaspoon each ground nutmeg, cloves and cinnamon
1 1/2 teaspoons ground ginger

Directions:
In a large bowl beat together oil and sugar for about 3 minutes. Add molasses and soymilk. The molasses and soymilk won't really blend with the oil but that's ok.

In a seperate bowl, sift together all the other ingredients.

Add the dry ingredients to the wet in batches. MIx together with a firm spoon or spatula until well combined. You should have a pretty stiff dough. Flatten the dough into a disk, wrap in plastic wrap and chill for an hour or up to 3 days in advance. (If you chill longer than an hour you may want to let it sit for 10 minutes to loosen up a bit before proceeding).

Preheat oven to 350 F. Lightly grease your cookie sheets.

On a floured surface roll you dough out to a little less than 1/4 inch thick. You can do this in 2 batches if you don't have the space. Cut out your shapes with your cookie cutters and gently place on cookie sheets (if you are using them to decorate with remember to cut a hole with a straw or something before baking).

Bake for 8 minutes.Remove from oven and let them cool for 2 minutes on the baking sheet then move to a cooling rack. Wait until they are completely cool before icing.

If baking "walls" for a gingerbread house, make cookies 1/2 inch thick and bake at 300 F until very firm - about 15 minutes or longer. Then let cook on a rack overnight.