Vegan, Gluten Free Chocolate Chip Cookies...and other treats :)

Ok so it might have happened.

I might have decided to keep some of the leftover melted vegan chocolate instead of putting it away in the fridge like a good girl. I even might have taken some peanut butter out of the fridge, and dropped a teaspoon full of it into the melted chocolate. I might have mixed it all together, and taken a wooden spoon, and eaten the chocolaty peanuty goodness like it was a fine soup. That also might just be how I came up with my very own first unique set of gluten free vegan recipes: vanilla donuts with chocolate peanut butter glaze anyone? How about banana donuts with chocolate peanut butter glaze? Oooh: vegan brownies topped with caramelized bananas!! Or better still: vegan peanut butter brownies topped with caramelized bananas! Heck, we could even use almond butter instead, and make chocolate glaze with an almond butter swirl!

Are you drooling yet? I’m going to need some taste testers. Any volunteers?

Suffice it to say that I went off on a cooking and baking tangent this week. These ideas gave way to savory cooking in addition to baking, and I’ve been on a mission. Check it out:

Let's start with my Mother's day tea sandwiches!  Apple cheddar dijon sandwiches, beet, avocado, goat cheese dijon sandwiches (a creation by my great friend, Denise Woods), and my famous chocolate chip banana bread!

Pasta anyone? Garlic, olive oil, arugula and tomato. Simple, light - yummy!

How about some coconut curry soup?

I paired this with an Asian Peanut Salad:

Feeling like a good burrito, but not wanting the dairy and gluten, I designed a vegan, gluten free veggie burrito! Homemade mexican quinoa, homemade guacamole, homemade tomato sauce, chopped tomatoes and onions, a little Daiya vegan cheese, and some black beans, all on a brown rice tortilla. YUM!

Feeling a craving for sugar, I went back to my roots. I experimented with more donuts. This time: vegan, baked, gluten free chocolate chocolate glazed donuts! My first round of gluten free vegan baking after a lifetime of traditional ingredients was successful. But it was also beginner’s luck. I should have known! These chocolate delights gave me a few problems! The first round taught me a lesson – if you underbake gluten free baked goods, they are extremely difficult to get out of the donut mold! So difficult, in fact, that they don’t hold their shape. I ended up with a stomach ache from eating the crumbs that came out of the mold rather than the pretty little shapes they were supposed to be. Woops!! Once I stopped gorging, I realized – no problemo! I can save the crumbs and use them as a crumb base in some other dessert. Oooh – how about caramelized bananas mixed with the crumb base? Then we can warm it up, and put vanilla ice cream (coconut base) on it! YES!!!

Moving right along: vegan, gluten free, chocolate chip cookies for my friend Steve's birthday. I tasted 5 of them, just to be sure they were good :) 

Finally, Joy the Baker inspired me to try her vegan, ginger cookies. I'm not a big ginger fan, but man alive, these are DE-lish!

In the midst of all this baking and cooking (and receipts from countless grocery stores, including a new restaurant supply shop I discovered that has become my new version of heaven) I hit a bit of what can be considered a detour in my journey to Delectable You: the bakery. This sort of thing is inevitable when our minds are left to their own devices for a hot minute, and life swoops in and tries to get us to change course (or to help remind us how badly we want something, and what we're willing to do to get it).

A wonderful friend of mine, Jacki Carr, has been inspiring me since the day I met her. Sometimes, she’ll drop me a line, a note to say hello, or something she saw that made her think of me. Her timing is usually impeccable. She once wrote this to me:

"Whilst in the pursuit of a grand and wonderful dream, should you all of a sudden round a bend and see before you an enormous uncharted mountain with towering cliffs, jagged rocks, and seemingly impenetrable walls, just consider it a sign that your dream is considerably more worthwhile than you had previously imagined, and that you are exactly where you're supposed to be. "

When she sent that to me, her timing couldn’t have been more perfect. So much so, in fact, that I cried (betya’ didn’t know that, miss Jacki! Well, now you know :)). Well, in the last few days, as some more of those jagged rocks have reared their ugly (or shall we say, beautiful?) heads, I found myself having to re-reading this passage. I thought I would share it with you. I don’t know where you are in your life right now – maybe everything is great! If so, save this quote for a rainy day. If not – take solace in the words above – trust that you are exactly where you are supposed to be, and that closed doors will only help lead you to the wide open doors your are destined to walk through.

Now go eat a cookie and forget about it!

Love you!!

Lauren

xxx

P.S If you want some or all of my recipes, ask and you shall receive :)

Chocolate glazed baked vegan gluten free donuts

The results are in – the vegan, gluten free, baked donuts have been kid tested and guess what: they have been approved!

I think parents everywhere may have just jumped up and cheered! Then again, it could just be the t.v. (at this moment, there happens to be a Paula Deen impersonator on Paula Deen’s show, doing an impression of her as they cook together, side by side – this is good stuff, people! Good stuff!).

Anyway, basking in the glory of this wonderful news (that kids will eat these), I decided today to take a baby step forward. This time, I remade the donuts the same way first: by dipping them in cinnamon sugar. But then I made another batch, and melted down some vegan chocolate chips and coconut oil, which I used to glaze the second batch. I won’t lie to you, friends – it’s good. It’s really good!

Tomorrow? Gluten free, vegan brownies, baby! Yes – you heard right. I promise to be back with an update.

In the meantime, check out the recipe I put together for a yummy (and yes, vegan and gluten free) butternut squash soup – soooooooooo good!

Lauren’s Butternut Squash Soup

2 medium onions, finely chopped
1 cup celery, chopped (no need to take the leaves off if they are there)
5 fresh sage leaves, finely chopped
2-3 tablespoons unsweetened apple sauce
1 tsp ground nutmeg (or to taste)
3 tablespoons brown sugar
Sea salt and black pepper, to taste
1-2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
5 cups (about 3) butternut squash, roasted (roast on a cookie sheet, halved and interior side down, at 375 for about an hour or until tender)
4 cups vegetable stock

In a large soup pot, heat up the olive oil, then saute onion, celery and sage over medium heat until soft, about 5 minutes. Add the roasted butternut squash, the apple sauce, the vegetable stock, and S and P to taste. Bring it all to a boil, then cover partially and let simmer for 20-30 minutes until tender.

Puree the soup in a blender or food processor, and add it all back to the same pot (you might have to do this in batches if your equipment isn’t big enough). Bring it back to a simmer, and add the sugar. Play around with the salt until the flavor of the butternut squash is just right.

 

Until we meet again!

Lauren

xxx

The Vegan, Gluten Free Donut has Arrived!

Guess what!

I mixed a little bit of this (xanthan gum) and a little bit of that (potato starch) with a little bit of a lot of other things (garbanzo and fava bean flour, brown rice flour, arrowroot, and coconut oil) and I got this:

Vegan, gluten free donuts covered with cinnamon and sugar!

I’m feeling like Columbus, friends! To quote Nina Simone’s classic song: it’s a new dawn – it’s a new day – and I’m feeling….good (insert musical interlude here, and bust out your dance moves).

The catalyst to this event came a few weeks ago. I had a conversation with a lovely woman named Debbie who, after reading the article about sugar in the NY Times, was concerned about her children’s sugar intake (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/17/magazine/mag-17Sugar-t.html). More specifically, she spoke about the school ritual where on a child’s birthday, the parent of that child is to bring in dessert for the kids in the class in order to celebrate. There is a particular brand of donut that most children bring in which is full of bad fat and sugar. Debbie told me that if I could make a healthier alternative that is kid tried and tested, she would be delighted.

Ever up for a good challenge, I ordered my donut mold on Amazon (once again, love this company), and, already armed with Erin McKenna’s Babycakes Covers the Classics, when it arrived 2 days later, I got to work.

The batter was questionable at times, a little lumpy at others, but I went with it, and came out smiling! Six different people have tried the donuts, and they are amazed – they are delicious! I gave a few to some moms here and am eagerly awaiting the results and feedback from the ultimate taste testers: their children. Yoikes!

Now, I’m pooped! But before I head off to bed, I leave you with this thought, perhaps a reminder of something you already know: we cannot discover new oceans unless we have the courage to lose sight of the shore.

I wish you the love and strength to have the courage to take a leap of faith, not knowing if there is solid ground on the other side. You just might find yourself chomping on a gluten free, vegan donut, cinnamon sugar all over your mouth, surprised that something so healthy could taste so good.

Your friend,

Lauren

xxx

Organic, Vegan, Gluten Free - nice to meet you!

I don’t know if this happens to you, but sometimes when I go into a grocery store, I get so overwhelmed by all the brands, and all of the ingredients that I get flustered and don’t know where to start! I end up wanting to throw my hands up like an idiot and storm out of the store, or wanting to crawl into a little ball in the corner somewhere, and just hire someone to do the shopping for me. This, of course, is quite irrational. I know this. I’m not sure why it happens. It’s sensory overload, I suppose. I see all these things, and I think, “I can do this and this and this, and if I do this, then I need this, and if I do that, then I need that ingredient” and before I know it, I’ve got a $1000 grocery list in my head, and no time, nor kitchen or refrigerator space in which to do it.

Hello, and welcome to Lauren’s tangent! Sigh…

Perhaps all of this is coming up because I’m moving into new territory, and quite frankly, I’m intimidated. Or is it downright frightened? In the midst of designing my business plan and the menu for the bakery, I’m constantly seeing and hearing signs, both direct and indirect, that I need to have gluten free, vegan and organic options on the menu. In an effort to listen, and listen well, I’ve purchased Erin McKenna’s 2 Babycakes cookbooks (thank you, Ashley Rogers, for introducing me to her!!) and have spent money I don’t have (thank you, visa), and much time traveling to 4 different grocery stores to gather up the ingredients that I have no idea how to bake with. I know what I’m good at right now: baked goods with refined sugar and non-organic ingredients. It’s tried. It’s tested. And it’s true. People love it. Will they – you - also love my new experiments? That remains to be seen, friends.

So here I go – Bob Mills products in hand (including the very important xanthan gum, a product I don’t even really know how to pronounce and a key ingredient in gluten free baking) off into the land of healthier baked goods. Confidence is weary, and I’m sure there are tears on the horizon, but I know I will emerge on the other end, bruises healing and cuts bandaged, gleaming with some healthy food for you to enjoy, all in the quest to open up the first of many Delectable Yous. Here I go!

Fast forward a few hours and...

.... 3 kinds of organic muffins! Blueberry explosion, chocolate chip banana, and morning glory, baby - all organic. I figured I would start there. Tomorrow? Vegan, baby - here I come!

Sweet dreams, all :)

Lauren

xxx