Peanut Butter Chocolate Pretzel Cookies

This may be a recipe I shouldn't share, because I think I could make million selling it... but quite frankly I'm not all that industrious, so you might as well make some too.

I think there's something in testosterone that makes men go nuts for peanut butter - even moreso when it's pared with chocolate. The only male-persons I've know who would not get all glossy eyed over peanut butter baked goods were those who were allergic to peanuts. That's a waay different look, and generally involves epi-pens and ER visits. The boy is obsessed with PB, so I think I've baked just about every PB (+/- chocolate) recipe in every vegan cookbook I own. Some recipes are better than others, but overall, I find vegan cookie recipes to be really crumbley. Even adding more liquid doesn't resolve the issue, and underbaking doesn't make them less dry. A conundrum for sure.

Going on what may seem like a complete segue, upstate NY has entered the 21st century and we now have a Trader Joe's. Trader Joe's shopping makes up a very small percentage of my overall grocery purchases, but they do have some key items at good prices that I enjoy (like olive oil, and nuts, and dried fruit). One such item are the accidentally vegan Dark Chocolate Covered Pretzels. They make PMS so much more manageable (how did this post go from testosterone to PMS? I don't know. I promise it will end well).

Having bought one of these bags of wonderful, beeps and I were pondering how we could make them even better, and the obvious answer was bake them into a peanut butter cookie. This dream became a reality when being laid off has left me with way more time in the kitchen. I didn't want to pair the pretzels with a dry, crumbly peanut butter cookie, however so I decided instead to veganize a peanut butter cookie recipe and hit up Ms. Crocker for her best. It came out exactly how I wanted it! The cookie is moist and chewy and peanut buttery! I had to make a few batches to experiment with different cookie sizes and pretzel placements to get the pretzel to cookie ratio correct (and because they kept vanishing!), and I think a small cookie scoop does the trick! A small cookie scoop scoops 2 tsp of dough, which is about the size of... a large gumball? It doesn't look like enough dough to support a pretzel, but jam that sucker in there! It'll all work out in the end.

Before - the pretzel barely covers the cookie...

After! Pretzel is firmly in the center of a delicious peanut butter cookie!

Peanut Butter Chocolate Pretzel Cookies

1/4 cup earth balance shortening
1/4 cup earth balance buttery stick
1/2 cup brown sugar, packed
1/2 cup white sugar
1/2 cup peanut butter
1/4 cup vanilla soy yogurt
3/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 bag Trader Joe's Dark Chocolate Covered Pretzels (or if there's another brand I don't know about, certainly use those! they're mini pretzels though, that's important...)

1. Preheat the oven to 375

2. Cream the shortening, butter, peanut butter, sugars, and yogurt until light and fluffy.

3. Add the dry ingredients and mix until combined.

4. Scoop 2 tsp dough balls onto cookie sheet. Press one pretzel into the top of each cookie.

5. Bake for 7-8 minutes or until the edges are just barely golden. (longer for crunchier cookie, less for chewier)

The hard part is now. Leave the cookies sitting out until the chocolate re-sets. It takes longer for the chocolate to set than it does for the cookie to cool, so if you can't wait to eat one, don't -- just make sure you wipe your face before you try to go do anything respectable in the community (voice of experience. i once grocery shopped with chocolate all over my face. so embarrassed in retrospect).

Look at them all! So happy tumbling around on the cookie sheet!! 

Chipotle Ketchup, a.k.a. Chipotle Catsup

Summer tiiiime and the tomatoes are eeaasssyyyyy!! 

My garden is in full swing, and the tomatoes are finally ripening fairly steadily which means it's time to get preserving! My usual MO in the summer is to skin, cook down, and freeze the tomatoes in quart containers, ergo ending up with a freezer full of tomatoes and no space for everything else. I need to get over my fear of killing people with botulism via canning, so I thought I'd start with ketchup. Not just any ketchup, but Chipotle Ketchup. 

I first encountered Chipotle Ketchup at Tavern 27 in New Hampshire where the boy and I went on vacation last summer. With advanced notice, they prepared a wonderful vegan tapas platter for me, including chickpea fries with chipotle ketchup. While much recipe related googling yielded several companies that manufacture this fine condiment, I've never seen it in person, and set out to make my own. I couldn't find a ketchup recipe that really suited my needs -- for example, I do not need to make 25 lbs of tomatoes worth of ketchup, and I wanted to use fresh tomatoes not canned, so in the end I cobbled together a few recipes, maintaining appropriate tomato to vinegar ratios, and my first experience in canning was a success. You don't HAVE to process this ketchup for canning, however. You can just put it in the jar and store it in the fridge. I'm trying to avoid using refrigerator space for my projects, so I canned it. 

 My only criticism in the end is that the ketchup turned out much spicier than I had anticipated. My husband loves it, and its a fast burn, but when I make it again, I will probably cut the chipotles from 4 to 2, or try to get the seeds out of the peppers before adding it to the mix. Ergo, my advice is to adjust your peppers according to how hot you like things. 

This recipe calls for 6 lbs of tomatoes. Before you get too anxious, this is what 6 lbs of tomatoes looks like:

Eight good sized tomatoes, and a few handfuls of cherry tomatoes. Not too bad!

Chipotle Ketchup

Yields approximately 2.5 pints of ketchup

Ingredients:

6 lbs tomatoes, peeled* and rough diced

3/4 tsp celery seed

1 small cinnamon stick

1/4 tsp allspice berries

1/4 tsp mustard seed

1 tsp whole cloves

1/4 tsp pickling spice

1 bay leaf

3/4 cups apple cider vinegar

1/2 sweet onion, rough chopped

1 clove of garlic, crushed

2-4 chipotle chilis, or to taste

1/4 cup brown sugar

3 tbsp molasses

1 tbsp salt 

* Before we begin, to peel tomatoes, make an X in the bottom with a serrated knife and carefully lower them into a pot of boiling water for about 30 seconds until the peel starts to split up the side, then transfer them to a bowl of ice water, then the skin will easily slide off! 

1. Tie all the spices into a piece of cheesecloth. In a small pot, add the vinegar and bring to a boil. Turn off the heat, add the spices-in-cheesecloth, and allow to steep for 25 minutes, like a very bizarre tea.

Ok, granted, this picture is sideways and won't rotate no matter what I do to it, but you get the idea about the spices in the cheesecloth in the vinegar.

2. In a large pot, place your tomatoes, onion, chipotles, and garlic, and cook at a low boil for 25 minutes. 

3. Add the steeped vinegar (not the cheesecloth), to the tomatoes, and simmer for another 30 minutes. 

4. Puree the whole mess. You can do this with an immersion blender, a food processor, or a regular blender - just be very careful when pureeing boiling hot food. 

5. Return the tomato mixture to the pot, add the sugar, molasses, and salt. Cook the mixture down at a high simmer until it reaches ketchup thickness - about 2 hours. Puree again if you feel it needs to be smoother. 

Now is decision time! You can just put the ketchup in a bottle or jar and stick it in your fridge and you're good to go! If you want to can it, the fun has just begun... 

To can!

1. Wash your jars with soap and water or run them through the dishwasher. 

2. In your large pot, place the jars and the bands and cover completely with water. Bring the water to a boil. Your goal here is to get your jars to about the same temperature as your ketchup so they don't explode. 

3. In a smaller bowl, place the (new! always new) lids in hot water. DO NOT BOIL!

4. Once your jars are nice and hot, place a folded kitchen towel on the counter. Carefully fish a jar out of the boiling water with your jar lifter, and carefully empty out the boiling water. The jar does not need to be dry. Place your funnel in the top of the jar, and fill it to 1/2 inch from the top. Place a lid on the jar, and finger-tighten the band on. Repeat until your jars are full.

* I had ALMOST five half-pint jars full. The fifth I did not process because it was not full, and placed in the fridge for immediate use. Do not process jars that are not full to 1/2 inch from the top. 

5. Lower the jars carefully back into your pot of hot water. If there is a lot of room in between your jars, place empty jars (no lids) around them to keep them standing up. Be sure your jars are completely submerged in the water. Bring the water back to a rolling boil, and process the jars for 15 minutes. The water must be kept at a rolling boil the entire time!

6. Turn the heat off from under the pot, and allow the jars to sit for five minutes. 

7. Carefully remove the jars using your jar lifter, and place them back on the kitchen towel on the counter. Sit back and listen to 'em pop! 

8. Just don't touch them for a while. One, they'll be hot. Two, you want to let them settle or something, I don't remember exactly, but everything I read about how not to kill your family via home preserves says to leave them alone for a bit. I left mine on the counter untouched overnight. 

9. 12-24 hrs later check your seal! The buttons on the top should all have "popped" in, and when you remove the bands, you should be able to lift the jars by just the lids and not have them come open. Store your jars in a cool place WITHOUT the bands on. Also, label them with the date and contents. When you go to open them again, check to make sure the tops are all still popped in, that they aren't bulging, that they make the popping sound when you open them, and that they look and smell normal. When in doubt, throw it out! 

I can't believe I just veganized that...

Hey MoFo'ers! I hope this is a better late than never game. 'Round Megatarian land this has been Megan Month of Stress. ENOUGH WITH THE STRESS!! More with the food. I'll catch up, really, I took a bunch of pics and made a bunch of food. What better way to start in the end of the month than with a food that probably should not have been veganized, but as I type, the boy is sitting in the recliner beside me making yummy sounds.

Here's how it started.

KFC started running commercials for their NEW KFC Famous Bowl... with Bacon. The boy and I were watching TV and this commercial aired. I admit it, I married an omni with a junk-food-tooth. I think he may have started drooling. I told him he better not get that because he'd probably die on the spot. He pouted. I looked up nutritional info - the original bowl has almost 700 calories and over 2000 mg sodium. That's WITHOUT bacon!! NO!! I said. More pouting. OK OK I THINK I CAN VEGANIZE IT JUST DON'T BUY IT! He perked up. And so... tonight I veganized the KFC Famous Bowl with Bacon.

And here's how...

This was actually more complicated than I had expected, and I didn't exactly have everything I wanted to use. A KFC bowl is mashed potatoes, corn, fried chicken bits, gravy, cheese, and bacon.

Step 1: Make mashed potatoes (I used a half dozen organic red skin potatoes, skins on, mashed with earth balance, unsweetened original almond milk, a splash of apple cider vinegar, salt and pepper)

Step 2: Heat corn (Frozen corn + boiling water)

Step 3: Prepare Gardein Chick'n Tenders according to package directions

Step 4: Make Gravy (broth + poultry seasoning + nooch + tamari + cornstarch/almond milk slurry)

For cheese I used melted We Can't Say It's Cheese spread, and for bacon I used fake bacon bits.

Now here's the trick with these steps. You actually have to have everything ready at the same moment. Once it's all ready, layer and enjoy! This was where my fatal flaw came in -- I put gravy on top of everything, and the gravy is SUPPOSED to go over the potatoes with everything on top. This apparently did not ruin the integrity of the dish. The boy's only complaint was that the cheese texture was wrong. I hadn't planned on making this tonight; if I had I would have bought some Daiya shreds, but all in all yummy noises prevail*.

(* I'm not included in the taste test because I hate mashed potatoes!!! This actually looks really gross to me. Anything mashed potatoes based does. BLEH! But it's apparently quite good. The boy licked the bowl)

CSA Share Week 4

Our shares are starting to get bigger! Still plenty of lettuce and cabbage, and I have to admit, at time of posting I have 2 1/2 heads of cabbage in my refrigerator. In my own defense, I also went out of town for a few days following the pick up of this week's share, so I didn't cook for a few days. I've begun sharing some of my share with my good buddy Erica, as our garden is also starting to produce and I've already got squash coming out my ears. I think squash pickles are going to be in our future!!

This week was lemon balm, lettuce, yellow squash and zucchini, swiss chard, garlic scapes, a broccoli crown, and some cabbage.

Not pictured -- I made a big pitcher of iced tea with the lemon balm. It isn't pictured because it tasted like cough drops and I ended up dumping it. It was worth a shot. haha.

I gave one yellow squash to Erica and she can tell you what she did with it! The other I sauteed with some olive oil, garlic, parsley and some shell peas from the garden. This was served with Tuscan Baked Beans made in the crock pot (great to keep the kitchen cool!) and a Kalamata roll from the co-op.


Lettuce and broccoli were both used in my tofu lettuce wraps and sauteed broccoli. I simmered tofu in some broth infused with sesame oil, ginger, garlic, soy sauce, and cilantro from the garden. I then sauteed up some bell peppers, celery and carrots and crumbled in the tofu and added some black sesame seeds. It was served in lettuce leaves alongside some broccoli sauteed in the rest of the tofu simmering liquid.

So neat and tidy!

I then had a "cleaning up the veggie drawer" night where I made EPIC VEGETABLE PASTA!!! It has mushrooms, corn, zucchini, garlic scapes, broccoli, eggplant, chard, spinach, garlic, fresh parsley and basil from the garden. Basically every veg drawer scrap there was!


I didn't get to the cabbage this week... hence the reason they're building up. I think one will go home with Erica this weekend. Maybe I'll make her contribute to this project too!!

CSA Share Week 3

Now the problems come in. Now I actually have to remember what 3 weeks ago looked like. Oof, got all caught up in life and things. I did get results from said medical tests back - my digestive system is permanently screwed up from some infections I had, I have cyclical nausea and vomiting syndrome, and have gastritis. At this point it's just a battle to manage symptoms. I think the moral of this story is don't let your appendix burst.

Onto happier things... CSA SHARE!

This week we got some more nappa cabage, cilantro, spinach, squash, garlic scapes, and red leaf lettuce.

The squash, along with some other veggie friends, got seasoned and quick roasted under the broiler.
Took them, along with some of the fresh spinach and hummus and made some lovely vegetable wraps, which we enjoyed with some sweet corn on the cob.
The cabbage got turned into Asian cole slaw with jicama, carrots, apples, and a peanutty dressing. Shown here with a Southwestern Tofu Burger and some of Kali's awesome tofu.

The lettuce was turned into a giant taco salad, with black beans seasoned with cumin and chili powder and tomato paste and some of the fresh cilantro. The rest of the cilantro and some garlic scapes went into the zesty cilantro lime dressing.

CSA Share Week 2

I actually just picked up CSA Share Week 4... so I'm a few weeks behind, as usual. I had busy things, and sick things, and medical procedure things, and vegan potluck BBQ things, so BUSY!


Week 2's share contained Easter Egg Radishes, Nappa Cabbage, Lettuce, Spinach, and Garlic Scapes.

Garlic Scapes met up with Broccoli this week in a Broccoli Pesto stirred into whole wheat elbow macaroni, served along side carrots sauteed in Earth Balance and Dill and Gardein Crispy Tenders.



I sauteed the cabbage and spinach with red bell pepper, carrots, more garlic scapes, and what was supposed to be thin sliced 5 spice seitan, but my food processor mostly turned into ground seitan.

The lettuce and radishes went into a salad with a homemade vinaigrette and topped with a modified version of Chickpea Hijiki Salad from VwaV (no carrots; diced celery, dill). The boy looked at me like I was insane when I put this on his plate.... then ate two massive plates full of salad.

Now, with any luck, I'll get week 3 posted before week 5!

Homegrown Veggies

This summer we are going to be overflowing with home grown veggies! First, we expanded our garden. It is now approximately... gigantic! 25 ft long by 25 ft wide surrounded by chicken-wire bunny fencing! It is so awesome. I planted stuff we haven't planted before, and all the usual things like tomatoes and peas and eggplants. I've also planted herbs in the garden this year, whereas in the past they've all been in pots. We have herbs in pots too! I love fresh herbs.

In addition to the garden, we joined a CSA! The joining of the CSA occurred before we finished expanding the garden. For those perhaps not in the know, CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture. You buy a share of a farm, and in exchange you get locally grown yummy veggies every week for the growing season! We joined the Otter Hook Farms CSA, which conveniently offers a half-share, for those of us with crazy gardens. I pick up at the co-op after work on Thursdays, which is also convenient because it's on my way home! (for the most part.)

This is what we got in our box last week:
Left to Right you've got mixed salad greens, scallions, radishes, rapini and a pile of garlic scapes!

Here's what they all turned into!
The scapes made friends with some basil and made this super yummy pesto! It was 1 large bunch of basil, 1 handful of scapes, 1/4 cup olive oil, 1/4 cup pine nuts, a few tbsp nutritional yeast, the juice of a lemon, and salt and pepper to taste. A little spin around the food processor and you've got delicious zesty pesto!


The rapini (aka broccoli rabe) was sauteed in olive oil with garlic, red pepper flakes, and lemon zest, topped with a few pine nuts.

The radishes and mixed greens went into a roasted portabello mushroom salad. This is based on the recipe in Veganomicon, though I marinated the mushroom in equal parts balsamic vinegar, tamari and water with oregano, basil, and rosemary. I roasted them off in the oven, and they're sitting on a bed of salad greens with chickpeas, avocado, radishes, and cherry tomatoes. (The boy's salad also included onions)

Not pictured, the boy ate the scallions in his eggs in the morning.

Meanwhile, in the Kaleyard... (pretend there aren't tons of weeds, ok? It's been downpouring and the weeds are VERY happy. So are the veggies, so I guess it's only fair. Also pretend there isn't a damned basketball hoop pole there :| We're still addressing that issue)

Overview

Peppers! Basil! Squash of many varieties! Beans! Peas!
The shell peas are flowering!

Tomatoes on really, really, really big stakes.
The kale is growing like mad, but it's hard to tell with all the weeds. The cauliflower and cabbage and things are getting really bushy!!