Home Made Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Ice Cream

If only this picture did it justice...


I can't wait until the weather is actually warm permanently- this will be my first summer with the ice cream maker, and I am going nuts thinking about the possibilities!

Vegan Mofo: Candle Cafe Pumpkin Pudding

Cookbook: The Candle Cafe Cookbook: More Than 150 Enlightened Recipes from New York's Renowned Vegan Restaurant
Author(s): Bart Potenza & Barbara Scott-Goodman

Result: I got this book for my birthday from my buddies at work, and there are so many fantastic recipes I had no idea where to start. The last night my Mom was here and we were cooking dinner, I decided to throw this together because I had most of the ingredients on hand, and if you have been reading this blog you know I can't resist anything involving pumpkins.


I replaced cornstarch for the arrowroot or powder or kuzu powder the recipe called for, so I am not sure if the taste was affected or not. All in all it was a fine desert, especially when topped with a little vanilla-coconut ice cream. It could have been a tad sweeter, so with a little more maple syrup added and maybe some straight up vanilla soy ice cream (minus the coconut which didn't pair so well) dusted with cinnamon I could see this being a lovely vegan holiday desert.

Individual Peach Upside-Down Cakes

I have just started baking for Craig's Kitchen, a soup kitchen in my neighborhood that asks people to volunteer every week to make a desert for their Wednesday night dinner. Not only do I think what they are doing is awesome, but I have been having a lot of fun baking for others who could use a yummy desert. In the summer if you are baking you can swing by the church where the kitchen is housed and pick up fruit donated by a local CSA to bake with. Last week I made individual blueberry pies, and this week I made individual upside-down peach cakes. There were two extras so we are going to try them after dinner, just to make sure they are good (as Ina Garten would say)! ;-)

Cake Decorating

This past Wednesday I took a cake decorating class at The Brooklyn Kitchen. It was a lot of fun, although I was probably the worst (and messiest by far) person in the class. I learned a lot though! I need to practice my new skills, so I am going to have to create some cake projects for myself... Maybe I can just quit my job and make vegan wedding cakes? Or not. Anyhoo, here are pics of my final creation from the class.

Busy Bee...

I've been a busy lady lately, even though technically I am on summer vacation... I have been cooking a lot, baking for a soup kitchen in my neighborhood once a week, and took a cake decorating class (more on that in a bit). AND I dropped my computer and it died, so I had to buy a new one, which I should have soon... I hope. I know. I'm a genius.

Last night, my fabulous friend Tommy came over for dinner. I made my trademark pizza...




And a flour-less chocolate tart, from my newest cookbook, The Vegan Table.



Pizza was yum, as always, and the chocolate tart was yum but very rich. So rich I didn't even have a second piece, which is unheard of for me! I had so much fun with Tommy, and he brought me beautiful flowers- what a doll! I felt just like Ina Garten with Jeffery out of town!!!


Last Sunday, we made Mushroom Risotto, also from The Vegan Table. I've only attempted to make risotto twice, and both times I have given up and Phil has taken over and stood over the pot stirring constantly for a looong time. It was pretty yummy and filling, and would probably be even more delish on a cold winter day (instead of a miserable muggy summer one!).

Vegan Zwetschgenkuchen

Say what!!???

Zwetschgenkuchen (pronounced svet-ch-ken-koo-gan, I guess) is a German plum tart. The word on the street is no one makes it like my great-grandmother, who served it with whipped cream.

I changed her original recipe (converted from metric and German by my mother and grandmother) to veganize it. The result probably didn't taste exactly like the traditional kind (which I have not had in a long time) but was yummy and gobbled up quickly.

ZWETSCHGENKUCHEN

Apparently this is tradionally made with Italian plums, which are not in season until August. Use whatever is ripe and looks good at the grocery store.

3-4 plums
1 cup whole wheat pastry flour
1 Ener-G egg replacer "egg"
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
1/2 stick "butter" of your choice
1/4-1/2 cup water
cinamon sugar to sprinkle on top

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Combine flour, "egg", sugar and vanilla extract in a mixing bowl. Crumble butter in using your hands. Add a little bit of water at a time until the dough comes together. Form a ball and put into the fridge or freezer.

While the dough is chilling, carefully cut plums into small slivers.

Remove dough from fridge/freezer after about 30 mins. Roll out on a floured surface until about 1/4-1/2 inch thick. If the dough is not holding together well, knead it up into a ball again a few times, your hands will melt the butter a little bit and the dough will become more elastic.

Place the crust in a greased pie tin and fold sides down on the insde so the crust only comes up about an inch. Now arrange the plums in a circle starting at the outside and working in. Sprinkle with cinnamon sugar. Bake for 40-45 mins until crust is browned and plums look cooked.

Serve with vanilla soy or coconut ice cream.