Cream Cheese Sprinkle Sugar Cookies

Has everyone been following along with the fantastic vegan cookie swap party going on this month over on Keepin' It Kind? All the recipes have been amazing, and I am very excited to be participating today with these fun Cream Cheese Sprinkle Sugar Cookies.

You can take a look at all the recipes in the cookie swap here, and a huge thank you to Kristy for sharing my recipe today!

Happy Holidays Everyone!

Spritz Cookies

It's not the holidays in my mind until these Spritz cookies come out of the oven. My Mom and I got together for our traditional Swedish baking fest, and my main goal of the day was to successfully veganize these family favorite cookies.

These cookies are so simple to make, and work best if you have a cookie press. You could make these into any shape, but over the years we have perfected these little circle wreaths and find they come out the best.

Spritz Cookies
adapted from love like a vegan

2 1/2 C all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp salt
3/4 C sugar
1 C vegan butter
1/2 C plain soy yogurt
1 1/4 tsp vanilla extract
variation - use almond extract instead of vanilla

Preheat oven to 350 F.

With an electric mixer, cream together the sugar and butter. Add the soy yogurt and vanilla, and mix well. Sift in the flour and salt and mix until a dough forms.
Put your dough into a cookie press and form cookies onto an ungreased cookie sheet.
Bake for about 10-12 minutes until lightly browned. Watch carefully so they don't start to burn.

These cookies came out just right! They're perfectly buttery, crunchy cookies with a little touch of vanilla. From my little corner of the internet to yours, I hope everyone has a wonderful holiday season!

Thanks for stopping by!

Salted Caramel Chocolate Chip Cookies

Today I am sharing my recipe for Salted Caramel Chocolate Chip Cookies over on Sunday Morning Banana Pancakes!
I'd love it if you'd pop over and say Hi to Heather, and check out the cookie recipe too. Hope you enjoy!

Magic Cookie Bars

I'm so happy to welcome back Heather of Sunday Morning Banana Pancakes today with an amazing holiday treat guest post! I am also sharing my recipe for Salted Caramel Chocolate Chip Cookies over on SMBP today, but make sure you check out Heather's beautiful creation below before clicking over to see those. Thanks for sharing your recipe, Heather!

I am so excited to once again be guest posting here at Vegan Fling! You all know how much I love Meliss and her blog from my other guest post, so it should be no surprise that I jumped at the opportunity once again, to share a recipe with YOU - the wonderful readers of Vegan Fling!

Vegan in Paris

I recently returned home from a trip to Paris. My husband and I decided to go for a fun sight-seeing vacation as well as to celebrate our first anniversary. We fit a ton of museums, historical sights, wandering and shopping into one week and we had a great time. I was nervous about finding things to eat in a city that in famous for loving it's meat and cheese, but with some planning ahead of time things were actually easier than I thought. Check out my restaurant stops below as well as some general tips if you are planning a trip to Paris!

The one food related activity we booked ahead of time was a market tour and cooking class with La Cucina di Terresa. It offers vegetarian cooking classes with Terresa in her quaint Paris apartment. We met her at the Sunday organic market and picked out ingredients for our lunch, and some extra things like homemade dairy-free chocolates. Terresa was a great tour guide and pointed out some sights to us as we walked back to her home. It was great to have a local to show us around and give insider tips on shopping. We created some tasty dishes in her kitchen: a farinata (chickpea flatbread), a Swiss chard pasta with a lemon walnut sauce, and a traditional French dessert made from almond milk with pomegranate called Blancmanger. Terresa was happy to make our menu fully vegan for me. We tried some local natural wines too. I was feeling a bit jet lagged and Terresa sent me home with leftovers and herbal tea at the end of the class- so nice! It was a pleasant way to spend a day in Paris.

Farinata made in our Paris Cooking Class

We had dinner one night at the vegan restaurant Le Potager du Marais. It is a small place, but was not at all crowded when we got there around 7pm. They have an impressive menu with some vegan versions of french food and some other interesting creations. We ordered the soup of the day which was Green Pea and vegetable, a French Onion soup, and then a Quinoa Burger with gratin potatoes and a dish called "Pink Lentil Balls". We enjoyed the soups a lot - the portions were way bigger than we expected. The main dishes were good too, but just not quite to our taste. I think from reading some reviews online that the dishes here are a little hit or miss. We did split the chocolate mousse for dessert and this was excellent. I would say it's a good vegan option in Paris but maybe not a "must go".

Chocolate mousse at Le Potager du Marais.

Here are some other various foodie photos I took while in Paris. The top left is a veggie and hummus sandwich, tabbouleh salad, and juice that I grabbed for lunch from Le Bio d' Adam et Eve, near the Les Halles station. Let me tell you, when we got to this place I was SO happy because they actually had vegan labels on their selections! The food was very tasty too, and is all organic. Wonderful place!
The top right is another meal we had from Veggie, a place we found on the fly while realizing we were hungry after visiting the Musee d'Orsay. It's a small shop and deli type restaurant and while they didn't have menus the waiter told us 3 specials for lunch that day and assured me of which was vegan. We weren't really sure what we were getting but ended up with a stir fry and vegetable type dish with salad, and a tasty baked vegetable dish that had potatoes, carrot and squash and was served with rice. Definitely a solid stop if you're near the area.
Bottom left - the fresh french bread that we enjoyed almost every day. There are a lot of choices in the bread shops (boulangeries) but I felt pretty safe with the Pain Traditional.
Bottom right - selection of tofu and other mock meats inside a natural grocery store called Naturalia.

Pictured above is the fabulous lunch we had at Les Cinq Saveurs d'Anada which is located near the Pantheon. They have mostly vegan options, but do serve some fish and other things. If I remember right the menu was marked with what was vegan. This place is amazing! I tried fresh carrot apple juice and a salad plate, and my husband got a tofu plate with rice, quinoa, and salad. Everything was really delicious, especially the tofu. It was so nice to have a fresh and healthy meal. This place would be on my "must go" list for sure!

The last recommendation on my list is the Gentle Gourmet Cafe. This is a fairly new vegan restaurant in Paris (It used to be a B+B) and we had a great dinner here on our last night. Pictured above is a pumpkin leek soup (with a hot chocolate in the background), a Mediterranean salad with chickpeas, a potato gratin type of dish with salad, and the most amazing dessert crepe of all time. We seriously almost licked that plate clean. I got my wish of trying a crepe in France, and it was even filled with soy milk ice cream! Yum. Definitely make a stop here!

View from the top of the Arc de Triomphe at night, Pyramid at the Louvre, Notre Dame and the Seine, Stained glass inside Sainte-Chapelle.

 
Some General Tips
1. You can't really just pop in to any place and expect to find something vegan-friendly on the menu or be able to modify something like is common in the US. Most places we passed just walking around I would have had a hard time finding something to eat. I did a lot of research ahead of time on Happy Cow and other sites and made a list of restaurants that had vegan options. My husband got a map app for his phone and we put in all the sites we wanted to see as well as my list of restaurants. That way if we were out sight seeing and wanted to find food nearby, we could just look it up and see what was close. This was seriously a life saver!

2. We rented a small studio apartment through Flipkey, and this turned out to be a great advantage too. In addition to feeling like you are living more like a native, we had a small kitchen and were able to eat some easy meals at home. We would get fresh bread and bring it home for a snack almost every day. I stocked up on snacks like trail mix and fruit, and would bring something along when sight seeing.

3. Neither of us speak any French, and I was a little worried about getting by. Almost everywhere we went like restaurants and shops we had zero problem. We asked people nicely if they spoke English and most either said "of course" or that they would try their best. I think being friendly and not expecting things goes a long way. Most of the menus in restaurants had English translations too!

I hope that this post will help anyone planning a Paris trip, and maybe inspire a few people to think about going! I think traveling and experiencing new places is worth it, and I'm happy that with careful planning it's easy to find some great vegan food there as well.

Thanks for stopping by!

Thanksgiving 2012

I know this post is a little late, but we just got home from our trip to Paris (post on that coming soon!) and I still wanted to share what I had for Thanksgiving this year. Hope you don't mind!

Someone's ready to eat!

As the only vegan at a Thanksgiving dinner for six people, I figured I might be bringing a lot of my own food. However, my family rocks and they all brought things to share that I could eat as well. My Mom made a delicious salad with roasted squash, carrots, and pears to start things off. My sister made some tasty mashed potatoes with earth balance and almond milk.

We also had asparagus, rolls, and homemade cranberry sauce. I volunteered to make stuffing, baked beans, and dessert. Clearly there was already too much food planned, but that didn't stop anyone.

The stuffing I made was adapted from this recipe, and was delicious! This was my first attempt at homemade stuffing, and It was totally worth it. I also whipped up some quick vegan gravy to top my potatoes and stuffing.

Even though baked beans aren't really a traditional Thanksgiving dish in my family, I decided it might be a fun addition. I made some sweet and spicy baked beans in the crockpot, and they had a really good flavor.

For dessert I used my recipe for Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies, but just poured the batter into my mini bundt pan. It worked great and we really enjoyed our pumpkin bunts! (Sorry I don't have a picture - I think we ate them too fast.)

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday!

Sloppy Joe Mac 'n Cheese Pizza

Did your jaw just drop a little bit? I think my husband laughed out loud when I first told him what I was making for dinner. Sloppy Joes plus Mac 'n Cheese all on top of a pizza? I will admit I was a little skeptical myself, but I just had a hunch it would turn out pretty awesome.

I was inspired by Richa and her month of pizza recipes where she had both a sloppy joe pizza and a mac 'n cheese pizza. I thought both ideas were so unique! I decided to add them together and see what would happen.

Sloppy Joe Mac 'n Cheese Pizza
4 small pitas or other flat bread
1 recipe of lentil sloppy joes
1 recipe pumpkin mac 'n cheese (made without the chard and pine nuts)
panko breadcrumbs

*note: I had lots of both the sloppy joe mix and the mac 'n cheese leftover, so if you don't want extra I'd half both recipes to make the pizzas.

Preheat oven to 400 F. Brush a little olive oil over the pitas.
Spread the sloppy joe mixture on the pitas, then top with some of the mac 'n cheese.
Sprinkle some panko crumbs over the whole thing then bake for 10-15 minutes or until the edges of your pitas are golden brown.

I was pleasantly surprised by this pizza combo! It reminded me a little of eating baked ziti, but on a pizza. If you are feeling a little crazy I would totally recommend it. What is the weirdest pizza combination you've ever had?

Thanks for stopping by!

Tangerine French Toast

Even in my pre-vegan days, I wasn't really a huge fan of french toast. I would never choose it over say, waffles or cinnamon rolls. I tried to make it at home a few times, but it always came out not quite right. My husband is a much bigger french toast fan than I am, so when I was given a sample of the Vegg to review, my first thought was to whip up some vegan french toast and see what happened.

The Vegg is a vegan product that is made to resemble egg yolks. It comes in a powder form, and you need to mix it in a blender with some water to get the correct consistency. Conveniently there was even a recipe for french toast included on the package! I decided to use this as my base recipe, and added some other flavors in for fun.

Tangerine French Toast
 makes 3-4 servings

2 tsp Vegg powder
3/4 C water
3/4 C almond milk
1 tangerine, juiced (about 1/4 C juice)
few drops vanilla
4-6 pieces bread - cut into thirds
vegan butter
for garnish: powdered sugar, maple syrup, tangerine slices

Mix together the Vegg powder, water, and almond milk together in a blender.
Pour this into a shallow dish. Stir in the tangerine juice and a few drops of vanilla.
Heat a skillet over medium-high heat and melt some vegan butter.
Slice your bread into strips and dip both sides into the liquid mixture. Fry the bread in the heated skillet, adding more vegan butter as needed. Flip to cook both sides until golden brown.
Top with powdered sugar, maple syrup and tangerine segments.

When I was mixing the Vegg powder in the blender I was surprised by how much it actually smelled like eggs. It's not a smell I'm used to anymore, so it was a little weird! I was worried the french toast might taste too much like an egg, but actually the end product was delicious! I think with all the other flavors going on and the fact that I covered the french toast with a nice layer of powdered sugar and maple sugar it was hard to go wrong. The tangerines were so perfect too!

I do think that you could easily make this recipe without the Vegg in there, but if you are really missing eggs in your dishes or for someone who is still transitioning to a vegan diet, I think this product could be very useful. I was happy to test it out, and I think I'll make this french toast again!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Chocolate Chip Coconut Oatmeal Mini Bundts

Mini bundts have a special place in my heart. We served mini bundts at our wedding reception instead of cake, and they were awesome. Recently Heather featured some amazing looking mini bundts over at Sunday Morning Banana Pancakes, and it prompted me to go on a mission to find my own mini bundt pan. After finally securing one, I set about to test my first batch.

Chocolate Chip Coconut Oatmeal Mini Bundt Cakes
makes 12 mini bundts, adapted from peas and thank you

1 C old fashioned oats
1 1/4 C boiling water
1/4 C coconut oil
1/4 C almond butter
2/3 C applesauce
1/2 C sugar
1/2 C brown sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 C flour
1/2 C. coconut flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 C vegan chocolate chips
optional: powdered sugar to sprinkle on top


Preheat oven to 350 F.
Boil the water in a pot, stir in the oats and remove from heat. Set aside to allow oats to absorb the liquid.

In a medium bowl blend the coconut oil, almond butter, applesauce, sugars and vanilla together with an electric mixer.

In a separate bowl, sift together the flours, baking soda, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon.

Add the wet ingredients into the dry. Stir in the cooked oats. Mix in the chocolate chips.
Grease the mini bundt pan and fill with the batter.
Bake for 25-30 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean when inserted into cake.
Let cool then top with sifted powdered sugar.

I was so happy (and kind of surprised) that they came out so well. Only one broke apart when taking them out of the pan! I think the key is greasing the pan well. These cakes had a great consistency and flavor, but were not overly sweet. Perfect for dessert or even breakfast. I can't wait to try out many more recipes with my new mini bundt pan!

What type of bundt cakes would you like to try?

Thanks for stopping by!

Caramelized Tofu with Brussels Spouts and Saffron Rice

Back in my middle school days, at least once a week I'd be over at my best friend's house and her family would invite me to stay for dinner. Her Dad would make this really delicious yellow rice, and I always loved when it was on the menu. Last month when I was visiting my friend in Philadelphia, I asked her if she had her Dad's recipe for the rice. She did, and so we made some. It was just how I remembered it (I probably hadn't eaten it in 8 years). I knew I had to get the recipe from her and share it with all of you!

This yellow rice was delicious as always, and went with the brussels and tofu dish perfectly. The tofu has a crispy and sweet coating and the brussels have a nice crunch. A great easy dinner!

Caramelized Tofu with Brussels Spouts
serves 3-4, adapted from 101cookbooks

1 block extra-firm tofu, cut into 1" strips
sea salt
sesame oil
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/3 cup walnuts, roughly chopped
3 tablespoons brown sugar
1/2 lb. brussels sprouts, cut into thin ribbons

 Press your tofu to drain excess water. Cut into 1 inch strips. Heat a skillet with a splash of sesame oil, and cook the tofu strips until golden on both sides. Add the minced garlic and the walnuts and saute for another minute. Add the brown sugar and stir. Cook for another minute to allow the sugar to caramelize. Remove tofu from the pan and set to side.

Add another splash of sesame oil, and a pinch of sea salt to the pan. Add the brussel sprouts ribbons and cook over medium high heat. Saute for a couple minutes until the brussels are cooked through but not entirely wilted. Serve topped with the tofu pieces.


Yellow Saffron Rice

1 and 1/4 C rice, rinsed

1/2 inch diameter handful of vermicelli or angel hair pasta (break into small pieces)

2.5 C vegetable broth

1/4 tsp paprika

1/4 tsp turmeric

4-6 strings of saffron

1 Tbsp oil

Add all ingredients to a pot. Stir while bringing to boil. 

Lower heat, cover and stir every 10 minutes, and toward the end every 5 minutes until done - about 30 minutes total.
(If rice seems dry, add more vegetable broth or water as needed).

 

I have finally achieved tofu success! Every attempt before this (besides in a scramble) has been kind of a flop, but this tofu recipe turned out great. The outside got crispy and had a delicious sweet flavor. I was so excited that I even did a celebratory fist pump in the air. True story - my husband witnessed it.

He is also now as equally obsessed with the yellow rice as I am. I see a lot of yellow rice in our future. Thanks for sharing the recipe, D. As your Dad would say... it was yum yum. :)

What is your favorite recipe success story?

Thanks for stopping by!