Mocha Almond Fudge Xmas Biscotti

Merry Christmas Everyone!

For Christmas this year, I made my dad 3 types of biscotti. I did the same thing last year, and it was a big success... so I figured I may as well do it again! This year I made three flavors: Classic Hazelnut, Almond & Anise-seed, and Mocha Almond Fudge. These are all based on the "Kitchen Sink Biscotti" from the "Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar" book... but switched up a little.

I bundled each flavor up in a little fancy cellophane bag, tied it off with a golden twist-tie and a little label.

Generally, I am a fan of the classics. I like the plain biscotti without chocolate chips or rainbow sprinkles or whatever the heck people are doing. But, I gotta tell you... these Mocha Almond Fudge Biscotti that I dreamed up were damned good. I will share the recipe with you, acknowledging with appreciation that it is based entirely on the aforementioned recipe/cookbook*.... it does require a few weird ingredients like coffee extract & instant coffee granules, but if you can track them down, it'll be worth it in the end.

Mocha Almond Fudge Biscotti:

(*recipe instructions almost verbatim from VCIYCJ)

1/4 c almond milk (plain, unsweetened)

2 Tbsp ground flax seeds

1/2 c canola oil

1 c sugar

1 tsp vanilla

1 1/2 tsp coffee extract

2 Tbsp instant coffee granules

1 c all purpose flour

1/2 c + 2-3 Tbsp whole wheat pastry flour

1 1/4 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 c blanched whole almonds

1/3 c mini chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 F. Like a cookie tray with parchment paper.

In a large bowl, whisk together the almond milk & flax seed. Let sit for a few minutes to thicken. Add in the oil, sugar, vanilla & coffee extracts, & coffee granules and whisk well to combine.

Add in the flour, whole wheat pastry flour, baking powder & salt. Stir well to form a smooth dough, then knead in the almonds and mini chocolate chips. Make sure to push in any pieces that pop out.

Form a log about 10 inches long and 4 inches wide on the parchment paper. Bake for 30 minutes. Some cracking is okay. Remove from oven and turn off the oven. Place the cookie sheet on a wire rack and allow to cool for at least 45 minutes. If any edges of the log are too browned, use a sharp knife to remove them.

Preheat oven to 325 F. Very carefully slide your log off the baking sheet to a cutting surface. With a sharp, heavy knife, cut the log into 1/2-inch-thick slices, using one quick and firm motion, pressing down into the log. Very gently transfer the cookies back to the baking sheet, trying to bake them standing on their bottom edge if possible. Bake for 26-30 minutes. They should appear dry and the almonds should look lightly toasted. (I ended up baking mine for about 35 minutes). Allow them to cool for 10 minutes on the cookie sheet before carefully removing them to a wire cooling rack to cool completely.

By the way, it bears mentioning that I made a really delicious dish for Christmas dinner! I made the "Three Sisters Polenta Casserole with Pumpkinseed Pesto" from "Healthy Hedonist Holidays." YUMS. As some of you know, I have a complicated family to cook for: 7 vegans (including one gluten-free & one who prefers no oil and no salt), 1 vegetarian, and many omnis (including one soy-free). This does create a challenge!

This delicious recipe met all our needs! I did use a tiny bit of oil to coat the baking pan, and about 3/4 tsp salt in the casserole... but otherwise it was right on track! I slightly increased the filling for the casserole - which had beans and butternut squash and tomatoes and spices - and subbed in soaked cashews for the pumpkin seed oil in the pesto. Also, the pesto called for 1 tsp salt, which I left out and it was still very tasty. This recipe was FULL of flavor, not hard to make, and definitely definitely something I'll make again.

I'm off for India tomorrow! See you later, friends!

Foodie Gifts!

They say that "the way to a man's heart is through his stomach," but I think it's true for ladies too! Just in the last week we have been given so many amazing foodie gifts and I am feeling such gratitude!

My dear old friends K & C made a *delicious* little loaf of French Country Bread & a jar of Grape Jelly (Mr. Vegan Eats & Treats favorite flavor!)... Also, there was a little loaf of cranberry bread... but that didn't quite make it to the photo shoot. If you know what I mean.

I guess I talk about food all the time when I am teaching yoga, because 3 of my yoga students each brought me some delicious foodie treats. D brought us a homemade loaf of walnut bread that is truly out-of-this-world. Some of my favorite bread ever. It's totally amazing. J made some cranberry relish & K brought me some homemade quince jam!! Quince! I haven't tried the preserves yet, but I can't wait. They look amazing!

Another sweet yoga student gave me these pretty dish towels and a fancy green oven mitt. I've never had an oven mitt before and I love it! I've been using it all week. Plus, I always love pretty new dish towels.... especially featuring two of my all-time favorite foods: cherries & strawberries!

Mr. VE&T has a favorite restaurant where he goes out to eat pretty much every day for lunch. At this restaurant, he has a favorite waitress, who is really cool. Well, she gave us the most incredible gift-basket. It was so amazing and touching. This isn't even all of it. Loads and loads of persimmons (I just put a few in the picture), homemade cookies for Mr VE&T, and two jars of her heavenly apricot jam (my all-time fave jam flavor!), a jar of persimmon jam, a huge jar of canned apricot halves, and a jar of bread & butter pickles! So generous and so amazing.

So you can see that we have been quite blessed with such abundance! Thank you everyone!

To keep the wheels of generosity turning, I picked out the 25 winners for my cookbooklette giveaway:

PotterBee, Aimee, Kelsey, dreaminitvegan, FriedHippee, foodfeud, Kristi, Eve, Radioactivegan, Becky, Alana, Laura, Jill, Ricki, GiGi, Chantal, Molly G., Jill T, Jacklyn, Tami, T, Mo, Caiti, Terri & Shannon O.

Congratulations everyone!

I've sent all of you an email or blog comment asking for your mailing address... let me know if you didn't get my communique!

--

Also, there probably won't be a ton action on my blog for a little while, as I am one week away from a 6-week trip to India to study yoga. Mr VE&T will stay home with the furry friends, and I'll be off sweating and studying. I'll try to post an occasional missive from overseas... but it won't be too frequent! If history is any indicator, I will return home with a passion for fresh salad, home cookin', and baked treats! In the meantime, I am running around like a ninny trying to get myself ready to leave!

Gingerbread House Party & Cookbooklette Giveaway!

Here is a recipe for FUN: Loads of friends, loads of kiddos, bowls & bowls of candy, bags and bags of icing, good weather, and healthy snacks. Mix all the ingredients together and have a gingerbread house decorating party. Fun!

I think I made a gingerbread house with my mom when I was little... but I hadn't made one since then. So, I used a combination of the Vegan Lunchbox Recipe (via VeganDad) and the Joy of Cooking recipe (*my recipe at end of this post*). It came out perfectly! For the vegan royal icing, I used the recipe from the recent issue of Vegetarian Times. Whoa. That stuff is thick. I had to add a little extra water just to get a little traction. However, it worked like a charm and glued my little house together in no time flat. You can see how I have put my friend pomelo to work, holding up the roofing sheets while the frosting dries.

For snacks, I wanted to stick with healthy and light fare... since I knew we'd all be nibbling on spice drops (personal fave!!) and red hots and such. So, first I made a big platter of fresh veggies and two big bowls of hummus. Mmmmmm!

Also some nice whole wheat bread and a batch of the Cucumber Cashew Dip from Veganomicon. I love this recipe so much! Fast and easy, with a very nice flavor. Today's lunch will be leftover hummus and cuke dip with veggies. Mmmm. It's always a good idea to make too much.

I also made up a big batch of gingerbread folks. Large and small. The small people were great for the gingerbread houses (to scale!)... but somehow they disappeared quickly into people's bellies. They are a little more tricky to get out of the cookie cutter, therefore slightly annoying, but apparently I should make more of them next year. There was also a big platter full of many, many colors of icing for people to decorate their gingerbread friends. These are the Lowfat Gingerbread Men from good ol' Joy of Cooking... easy to veganize!

CANDY!! I picked out all vegan candies, of course! There were a surprising number of options. Mostly I just read the labels, but I also reviewed PETA's vegan-friendly candy list before leaving the house. It felt completely weird and subversive spending $20 on candy at the drug store... not my usual scene! :)

My mom had the good idea to get out muffin tins and make a little assortment for each table... In all we had 4 tables and 10 kids and a few adults all building gingerbread houses. It was awesome! A sea of candy and concentration and festivity!

Here's my mom and my little nephew CW hard at work on their candy creations...

... and later with their completed Gingerbread Houses!

Julie and Leila's cute little houses!

JP & little B with their totally glorious creation! A little sagging in the roofline... but that's okay. :)

Alana made this most awesome Hanukkah Hut! Complete with dreidels and a giant squirrel and a camel and other great animals. It was so pretty!

Here I am, hard at work. I relinquished my decorating spot at some point to accommodate some cute little guests... and by the time I picked it up again, there was not much frosting left over...

...but still I managed to make the most of it, and my mini-gingerbread person still got a red hot beret.

Another view of my finished creation! This morning some of the candies are already dropping off. I guess I'll have to eat them! This party was so fun, and something I've wanted to do for a long time. I had everyone bring their own Gingerbread House (or graham crackers for a quick and easy solution), and then I supplied the candy and icing. It was awesome. Also, we covered the sofa and all the card tables with old sheets... because there was some serious sticky-finger action going on!

Last but not least! As some of you will know... each year I make a little hand-drawn cookbook with some of my favorite recipes from that year. Not usually my own recipes, because I'm not too good at that, but recipes I discovered and fell in love with. And, every year I do a giveaway of some of these cookbooklettes for my faithful blog readers! So, this year I will giveaway 25 Cookbooklettes!! You have until Friday December 17th to enter, and then I will pick 25 names. To enter, leave a comment on this post, and if your blogger comment doesn't include a link back to your blog, please include your email or I won't be able to notify you.

Amey's Gingerbread House Recipe

(bastard love child of Joy of Cooking recipe & Vegan Lunchbox Blog)

Makes 1 big house!

1/2 c Earth Balance/margarine

1 1/4 c packed brown sugar

1 cup molasses

2 "eggs" - I used EnerG Egg Replacer (3 tsp powder + 1/4 c water)

6 Tbsp water

6 cups flour

1 tsp baking soda

3/4 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

4 tsp cinnamon

4 tsp ginger

1/2 tsp allspice

With a fork or mixer, mix together the margarine, brown sugar, molasses, & egg replacer in a large bowl. Mix in the water. In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, ginger and allspice. Add the dry to the wet, stirring well. It may be a little dry, but if it's really dry, add a little more water. Cover with plastic wrap and let sit for 2-8 hours at room temperature.

Preheat your oven to 350. Line your baking sheet with parchment paper. Take out half the dough and knead it a little to get it incorporated. On a lightly floured surface, roll out the dough to a scant 1/4 inch thickness. Maybe even a little thinner (especially for the roof pieces!). Use a template to cut out your pieces for a gingerbread house, being sure to cut out any windows or doors now. The dough will be really hard when it's done cooking. Carefully transfer your pieces to the cookie sheet. Bake for about 12-14 minutes until the surface is firm. Transfer to a wire rack to cool.

xo!

Around the World continues: An Iraqi Feast!

When my special friend Gabrielle made plans to come to town for one night, we decided to cook up a fancy feast for ourselves. We were discussing the many appealing cuisines I hadn't had a chance to try during my Around The World in 30 Days veganmofo adventure. Eventually, we settled on Iraq, and I got to work planning out a menu.

First up we made this stew - Shorbat Rumman, or Pomegranate Soup. In fact, there are only 2 tablespoons of pomegranate molasses in the whole thing, so it's a bit of a misnomer. This soup was really good - chock full of flavors and textures and nutrients: beets, been greens, spinach (we subbed collard greens), split peas, lime juice, fresh herbs... It had a little touch of sugar, and along with the naturally sweet beets and the pomegranate molasses, it had a definite sweetness about it... but not in an overpowering or unpleasant way. This recipe made a lot, so I have been enjoying it as left overs. Lucky me!

We also made Vegetarian Spinach Stew - Spinakh, using this recipe. We used fresh spinach (10 oz) instead of frozen.

This was my favorite dish of all. The spices added both depth and tang, and the whole thing came together quite quickly. The spices for this dish were really special. First off, I got to use a spice neither of us had ever used before: crushed dried lemon (lemon omani). Gabrielle and I poked our little fingers in and were amazed at the lemony power punch! (instead of 1 crushed lemon, we used 1/2 tsp pre-crushed dried lemon). Also, this recipe required mixing up a batch of "Arabic Spices," we followed this recipe... but since we technically only needed 1/3 tsp, I didn't feel like making three cups of the stuff. You can find our way pared down recipe at the end of this post. I really recommend this recipe, it was delicious!

Gabrielle also threw together this simple and yummy Sumac Salad. It's just cucumbers, tomatoes, onion, a little olive oil, and a bunch of sumac. We cut the sumac in half and felt like it was just right that way... It's always nice to have a little fresh salad with your soupy entree!

And of course we made some bread to go with our soup and salad! It's so fun to make bread from different countries, because it seems like every country has their own rich tradition of bread making and bread varieties. I found this recipe online for Iraqi Samoon bread. We halved the recipe and still ended up with a LOT of bread: 5 loaves, and they were at least 2 servings per loaf. It's a moist dough, which results in a light, fluffy bread. There are little specks of wheat bran in there, which give the bread a little more substance and character.

We made two nice desserts. First up, we just had to make Kleicha cookies, which evidently are the national cookie of Iraq. (*recipe at end of post*) It seems like it would be wrong not to make them! The dough is very faintly sweet and has a generous dose of cardamom in it... which results in a very delicate flavor. And we made 2 different fillings: half were made with a sweetened walnuts & rosewater filling and the others with dates, earth balance and rose water. Both very good, and worth making again! The walnut filling was surprisingly scrumptious!

Our second dessert item was Date Truffles, aka Madgooga. Hello, friend. These are so super simple, so super quick, and so super yums. The truffles are made with just dates, tahini and a little cardamom. The recipe offers ideas for all different things to roll them in, and we decided to pick 4 toppings and make a few truffles with each. We made a half batch and ended up with about 18-20 little truffles.

Here is our date-truffle-assembly station. Small bowls with each of the 4 toppings, and another small bowl with the date-tahini paste. Ready to go! Sticky fingers! The toppings we picked were: cocoa powder, shredded coconut, chopped hazelnuts, and toasted sesame seeds.

Naturally, they were all delicious. But - to my surprise - the toasted sesame seeds were my favorite topping. In fact, I think all three of us liked these ones the best. Somehow, it was a perfect harmony of flavors and textures. Those crunchy little seeds were great with the mooshy truffle interior. Mmmmm!

Arabic Spices

based on this recipe, but makes only a couple of tablespoons

3/4 tsp ground black pepper

3/4 tsp ground cinnamon

1 tsp ground allspice

1/16 tsp ground cardamom

pinch of ground cloves

pinch of red pepper flakes

1/2 tsp crushed dried rose petals

1/8 tsp ground nutmeg

Kleicha Cookies:

Makes 16-18 cookies

based on this crazy conversation, but quartered, and modified

Dough:

1 cup flour

2 Tbsp sugar

3/4 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp ground cardamom

1/4 c earth balance margarine, preferably cold out of the fridge

1/4 c almond milk

Date Filling:

1/4 cup fresh dates, chopped up

1 tsp earth balance margarine

1 1/2 tsp rose water

Walnut Filling:

1/4 c crushed walnuts (mince 'em up fine)

1 1/2 tsp sugar

1 1/2 tsp rose water

To make the date filling:

Melt the earth balance and mix it together with your dates and rose water into a paste.

To make the walnut filling:

Mix it all together. Don't eat it all.

To make the dough:

Preheat your oven to 350 Whisk together the flour, sugar, baking powder & cardamom. Cut in the earth balance. Add in the almond milk and stir to create a dough. Put it on a lightly floured surface and roll it to about 1/8" thick (maybe a little thicker than that). Cut it with a round cookie cutter. Take about 1/2-3/4 tsp filling and put it in each cookie, fold it over, use a little water to help seal the edges, and use a fork to crimp the cookies shut. Put on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper and bake for 14-16 minutes, until golden on the bottom.

enjoy!

VeganMoFo: Rootbeer Pinwheel Cookies!

Hoorah! I really love traveling, but I always loving coming back home again too!

So, as a final goodbye to the glory of VeganMoFo 2010, I leave you with a fun little recipe...

Rootbeer Pinwheel Cookies!

I found this the recipe for these tasty little morsels in my newspaper, of all places (*recipe at the end of this post*). Of course, I veganized, but I also de-glutenized it. I took these cookies with me when I went up to Oregon a couple of weeks ago... and I wanted to bring some to my friends Kittee & Sandy, both of whom appreciate a gluten-free treat. Plus, rootbeer is totally super duper American... I remember the look of horror and disgust on the faces of my Italian friends when they tried it. Hee hee. They don't know what they're missing!

The dough is amazing, and I found it very easy to work with (even with my de-glutenizing). You roll out two big sheets, one vanilla and one rootbeer flavored. Then you carefully set the one on top of the other and roll them up. Isn't that exciting looking? My slice is not perfectly clean, because I had to grind my own GF oat flour, and it ended up a little chunky!

Here are all the sliced babies, resting on the cookie tray, waiting to become super crunchy tasties!

Close up!

And here is the final product! They were really good! They were super crunchy, and had a great flavor. Truth be told, there wasn't a ton of rootbeer flavor, but every once in a while you got a good hit of rootbeer flavor. Next time I might add even a little more rootbeer extract! I totally loved the way they looked, and they were a great little cookie. You'll like 'em if you make 'em!

Also, thanks so much to everyone for all your super nice comments on yesterday's post. I had such a great time doing mofo this year.... and I can't believe it took me this long to think of including little cartoons in my blog. Duh! Now, I'll finally have time to go through the reader and look at everyone else's exciting posts that I didn't read during mofo!

Rootbeer Pinwheel Cookies

(Makes about 52 cookies)

Adapted from a recipe in Maida Heatter's "Book of Great Cookies" (Knopf, 1978)

Store for a few weeks in an airtight container at room temperature.

1¾ cups flour (I needed about 2 - 2 1/4 cups of my gluten free flour mix (see below))

½ tsp. baking powder

¼ tsp. salt

1/2 c. Earth Balance

1 tsp. vanilla extract

¾ cup sugar

1 egg equivalent - I used EnerG Egg Replacer

1 1/4 tsp. root beer extract

Whisk together the flour/s, baking powder and salt in a medium bowl.

Place the margarine in the bowl of a stand mixer or hand-held electric mixer; beat on medium speed for 2 to 3 minutes, until it is smooth and creamy. Add the vanilla extract and sugar; beat to incorporate, then add the egg replacer and beat to combine. Reduce the speed to low; slowly add the flour mixture and mix just until the dry ingredients are incorporated. If it seems too soft, add in a little more flour.

Transfer half of the dough to a mixing bowl; add the root beer extract. Knead the extract into the dough until blended. The dough will look slightly marbled; that's OK.

Cut four 20-inch pieces of parchment paper. Working with one dough half at a time, place the dough between two of the sheets and pat down to form a flat disk. Use a rolling pin to roll the dough into a thin oblong about 14 by 17 inches. Repeat with the remaining dough.

Remove the parchment from the root beer dough. Remove the top sheet of parchment from the plain dough. Place the root beer dough on top of the plain dough so they align as closely as possible. Trim away any excess edges.

Starting with the long side facing you, roll the layered dough into a tight jellyroll, peeling it off the parchment as you go. Trim the ends of the roll neatly. Roll up the dough in the parchment paper, twisting the ends to seal the cylinder of dough.

Transfer to the freezer for at least 1 hour and up to 2 days.

When ready to bake, preheat the oven to 350 F. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper.

Unwrap the dough rolls from the freezer and place on a cutting board. Use a thin, sharp knife to cut the dough into 1/3-inch-thick slices. Arrange on the baking sheets spaced 1 inch apart. Bake 1 sheet at a time for 10 to 12 minutes, until the cookies just start to brown at the edges. (I cooked mine for about 15 minutes for extra crunch). Use a spatula to transfer to a wire rack to cool before serving or storing.

My Gluten Free Flour Mix

I adapted this from the PPK discussion boards... mostly from Isa & Kittee... It makes about 4 cups.

1 1/4 cup white rice flour
1 cup sorghum flour
1 cup GF oat flour
3/4 cup tapioca flour
2 teaspoons xanthan gum

Happy Cookies to You!