You guys, I did it! I figured out how to turn So Delicious’ Coconut Milk Nog into a rich, creamy, honest-to-goodness ice cream!

My first attempt, you might recall, resulted in a sorbet-like concoction. Assuming that the nog was thick enough as is, I just dumped a chilled quart of the stuff into my ice cream machine and let it do its thing. Apparently there’s a higher concentration of water in the nog than I realized, because the finished product, when completely frozen, is rather hard and full of ice crystals. Delicious, but difficult to eat and not especially ice creamy. (Seriously, you have to let that block defrost on the countertop for a good half hour before you can shave a spoonful off of it!)

So this next time around I tried a different approach. Not only did I add some arrowroot “slurry” to thicken the batter up (a standard procedure in soy milk-based ice cream recipes), but I simmered the rest of the nog on the stove top for a bit, so that some of the excess water evaporated. And it worked! Once it was chilled, the batter had the consistency of pudding (that’s good!), and the frozen dessert is rich, thick, and creamy – much more like ice cream than Italian ice!

If you’re anything like me, you stocked up on nog while it was in season and now have a fridge full of drinks set to expire. (I have three more quarts, all dated February 8!) Ice cream to the rescue! Freeze that deliciousness and enjoy it all year long. Errr, not that it’ll last long enough for you to celebrate Christmas in July. Probably you’ll polish it off well before spring – it’s Coconut Milk Nog Ice Cream, yo! But still, one can dream.

Seen here with a chocolate, raspberry ganache-filled heart from Rescue Chocolate!
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Coconut Milk Nog Ice Cream

(Makes about 2/3 of a quart.)

Ingredients

1 quart So Delicious Coconut Milk Nog, divided
2 tablespoons arrowroot powder

Directions

1. Pour 1/4 cup of the nog into a small mug or bowl. Add the arrowroot powder and whisk briskly with a fork. Set aside.

2. Pour the remaining nog into a medium-sized sauce pan. Bring to a boil and then reduce the heat to medium-low. Simmer for 30 to 45 minutes, stirring or whisking the liquid every few minutes so as to prevent burning. When done, increase the heat and bring the liquid to a boil. Remove from the heat and immediate add the arrowroot slurry. (You may need to whisk the slurry again before doing so, in case the powder has settled to the bottom of the mug.) This will cause the batter to thicken noticeably.

3. Cover the container and chill the batter in the fridge for three to six hours or more. (I prefer to make the batter the night before, and let it chill in the fridge overnight.) When cold, process according to your ice cream machine’s instructions. Enjoy immediately as soft serve or chill in the freezer for a half hour or more for a firmer ice cream. When kept in an airtight container, you can store homemade ice cream in the freezer for months at a time!

FYI: This process would probably also work well with other seasonal nondairy drinks, such as Silk’s Pumpkin Spice, Nog, and Chocolate Mint flavors. I usually have good luck making ice cream with Pumpkin Spice and arrowroot powder, but the Nog and Chocolate Spice produce an icier dessert. Simmering them on the stove top first (as outlined above) could help fix this problem, I think.

Another pizza roundup, because it’s been entirely too long since the last one!

The Vegan Pizza Day That Was Giveaway!

Hey friends! Do you love pizza? Of course you do! Now through Monday afternoon, take a pic of your vegan pizza and share it with us at fuck yeah vegan pizza for a chance to win one of three prize packages stuffed with goodies from Tofurky, Daiya, Lightlife, Gardein, Nasoya, Tofutti, Field Roast, Bob’s Red Mill, and Upton’s Naturals (for US & Canadian readers) or a ginormous box of vegan meats and cheeses from Redwood Foods (for mainland UK residents).

Even if you lose the giveaway, you still win at life! (‘Cause you got to make and share pizza, duh!)

(Too much shameless self-promotion? Never!)

I am a Pizza, by Charlotte Diamond

So I was searching for music for a pizza mix tape (NO I SHIT YOU NOT) and found this video on the youtubes. I’ve listened to it at least a dozen times now and the lyrics are stuck all up in my head. I sang it to Peedee and O-Ren during our afternoon walk in the park, but I don’t think they enjoyed it. Whatever, they’re dogs, they eat poo. Anyway it’s dope and you should totally give it a listen so that it sticks in your noggin too. Then I won’t be the only weirdo wandering the streets yelling “I AM A PIZZA!” at the top of her lungs.

Cheesy Penne Pizza

With mozzarella Daiya, sauteed carrots, mushrooms, garlic and tomatoes, and baked penne pasta, all on a fluffy white pizza crust. I have yet to write up a recipe, but basically you just make up a dish of your favorite oven-baked pasta and set aside a few cups (three? four?) for the pizza prior to baking it. (Two meals in one!) Layer it on top of some red sauce, top with a lil’ extra cheese, and bake the pizza as you would normally. Nom!

Extra-Easy Vegan Bisquick Cheese Pizza

Aside from using store-bought bread, this Bisquick pizza crust is about as easy as it gets! Because it doesn’t contain any yeast, you don’t need to let the dough rise at all. (Pizza in a pinch, anyone?!?) It also makes for a pretty foolproof thin crust recipe – what you see is what you get! Quick and yummy, and super-useful for those nights when you’re craving pizza but are in too of much of a hurry to make a proper dough. Definitely a keeper!

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Sure, so maybe the holidays are, like, SO LAST MONTH. But my house is still dressed to party, and besides, better late than never! Vegan foods never go out of style, yo.

Let me begin by saying that I didn’t do nearly as much baking this year as last. With the exception of some cookies for our neighbors, I didn’t make any gifts by hand. Mostly ’cause I was pressed for time, but also because I’m still trying to work off the ten pounds I gained by “taste testing” 2010′s handmade presents.

Instead I hit up Vegan Etsy: an assortment of vegan candies from NoWhey for my grandma Arnie; SuperFoxySweets vegan chocolate truffles for my grandma Vita; and a PB lover’s sampler box, along with peppermint patties, extra peanut butter cups, and a pumpkin roll (all from Sweet Vegan Delight) for my mum – all for less than $150! SUCH A STEAL!

Elsewhere on the internets, a box o’ vegan wine for my aunt Cindy and her BFF Hank (from Clos LaChance Winery, though I don’t see any vegan options at the moment) and a Ron Swanson mug for Shane.

“Just give me all the bacon and eggs you have. Wait … wait. I worry what you just heard was: Give me a lot of bacon and eggs. What I said was: Give me all the bacon and eggs you have. Do you understand?
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(From Peachy Apricot on etsy, in case you want one for your own bad self.)

My sister Meesh was easy; her only wish was more fruit leather, so I sent her a few pounds of the stuff. (We have a huge container in the freezer. Great for distracting Ralphie from his allergy shots!)

My brother-in-law sent us a basket of vegan goodies from Marge’s Bakery in Northridge, CA. It’s not an exclusively vegan establishment, but it has a decent number of vegan options relative to its non-vegan offerings.

The basket included four varieties of cookies: California Snowballs (melt-in-your mouth good!), Kiss of Lemon (thin and crispy and very lemon-y; my least favorite of the bunch), Ginger Snaps (soft, chewy, and surprisingly delicious, since I’m usually lukewarm on these) and Chocolate Chip Pecan Cookies (crunchy, like most store-bought cookies, and super-delish – but also quite small). They were devoured in less than a week.

Also present: two loaves of sweet bread. Namely, zucchini bread and carrot cake. (The latter is technically a cake, I guess, but it had the look and feel of a sweet bread to me. It was remarkable similar in texture and sweetness to the zucchini bread, in any case.)

The zucchini bread was at least as good as my own recipe, but not necessarily better. Sweet but not sickeningly so. I especially loved the sweet glaze on top of the bread, which added that little extra something to the bread. (Note to self: you simply must find that recipe!)

The highlight of the carrot cake was most def the frosting, which was delightfully spicy (Not in a hot way! I detected hints of Pumpkin Spice – but then my palate’s not all that sophisticated, so who knows?) and stood a good inch in height. Maybe this is what transforms a humble carrot loaf into a cake? Either way, NOM.

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Okay, so maybe Vegan Pizza Day has moved to June 28th. But the party’s still on at fuck yeah vegan pizza!

Come celebrate the Vegan Pizza Day That Was with us, ALL WEEK LONG! Americans & Canadians, share your vegan pizza photos with us for a chance to win one of three awesome prize packages featuring buttons, tees, totes – & more free product coupons than you can wag your tongue at! – from Tofurky, Daiya, Lightlife, Gardein, Nasoya, Tofutti, Field Roast, Bob’s Red Mill, Upton’s Naturals, & more! I may or may not have burned a few mix tapes especially for the occasion!

We also have a special Early Vegan Pizza Day giveaway for those in the mainland UK. Share your vegan pizza photos for a chance to win a prize package of vegan meats and cheeses from Redwood Foods! There are enough goodies here to keep you happily snacking for a month or more. (Or a week, if you’re anything like me. omnomnom!)

A cheesy, saucy, sexy time will be had by all! Vegan Pizza Day, so nice we’re celebrating it twice.

Up until last year – when I received a free sample of the stuff with a basket of vegan goodies from Sweet V Confections – I’d never heard of “puppy chow.” At the time, I thought it sounded gross. Looked gross, in fact. (I’m not joking when I say that I’m the fussiest eater you’ll ever meet, at least outside of the six- to eight-year-old age group. Hey, I’m working on it!) The baggy of white stuff sat in the fridge for nearly a year before I cracked it open. (And then, only after I’d finished most of the other junk food in the house.) Then I promptly devoured it all. Not that there was much of it, but still. PUPPY CHOW IS DELICIOUS, Y’ALL!

So much so that I made a batch all for my own bad self. I started with a rather simple recipe from PETA, which I altered slightly; the recommended 1 1/2 cups of powdered sugar wasn’t nearly enough to coat all the squares, so I ended up using nearly twice as much. Also, the chocolate-peanut butter sauce required much more time in the microwave, especially near the end: the hotter the sauce, the more fluid – and the more fluid, the easier to mix with the rice cereal.

Anyway, it’s really good! Not as pretty as Sweet V’s specimen – really, I found it impossible to evenly coat all the rice squares, and ended up with a number of large globular chunks of chow – but still yummy. And that’s what counts, yes?

Vegan Puppy Chow (for Humans Only!)

(Based on this recipe from PETA.)

Makes 9 cups.

Ingredients

1 cup semi-sweet vegan chocolate chips
1/2 cup creamy peanut butter
1/4 cup vegan margarine
9 cups rice cereal squares
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 1/2 to 2 1/2 cups powdered sugar

Directions

1. Combine the chocolate chips, peanut butter, and vegan margarine in a microwave-safe bowl and heat in the microwave for one minute. Remove and stir; continue microwaving in 15-second increments, stirring in between, until the chocolate, peanut butter, and margarine are blended well. Add the vanilla and mix well. Then microwave the mixture for 15 to 60 seconds, so that the chocolate-pb sauce becomes hotter and more fluid.

2. Place the cereal squares in a large (preferable flat and shallow) container and pour in the chocolate mixture. Stir gently until all the squares are coated.

3. Add 1 1/2 cups of the powdered sugar to the container and seal with a lid. Shake gently until the sugar has coated all the squares. Add additional sugar and repeat if necessary.

4. Place in the freezer for 30 minutes, or until the chocolate hardens. Once solidified, store in the refrigerator.

So this is a slight variation on the Ginormous Oven-Baked Pancakes, using Silk Pumpkin Spice in place of plain soy milk, and with a few extra teaspoons of Pumpkin Spice seasoning for an extra kick. This recipe may or may not come in handy right about now, as all that seasonal Pumpkin Spice soy milk you hoarded throughout December expires faster than you can consume it in the new year. (Personally I’m still chugging my way through four cartons that expired on 12/30. Friday is the day of reckoning!)

At first I wasn’t as in love with these giant, baked pancakes as I am the griddle-made ones, but this dish is seriously growing on me. Super-simple, and the leftovers keep better than traditional pancakes, too! You know how regular pancakes tend to get soggy when reheated in the microwave? Especially if you add syrup? Well not these bad girls! They soak up syrup like a sponge while still retaining their fluffy, pancake-y texture. Powerpuff pancakes, these are!

Also, they will make your house stink of pumpkin spice. In a good way!

Baked Pumpkin Spice Pancakes

(Make two very large, 9″ round pancakes. Serves two to three people.)

Ingredients

2 cups Bisquick
1 1/2 cups Silk Pumpkin Spice soy milk
Egg substitute equivalent to two eggs (I used Ener-G Egg Replacer)
2 teaspoons Pumpkin Spice mix
Toppings to taste (I used maple syrup and powdered sugar)

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F. In a medium bowl, combine the Bisquick, Pumpkin Spice, soy milk and egg substitute and mix well. (A whisk might come in handy here!)

2. Spray two 9″ round cake pans with cooking spray and pour equal amounts of batter into each pan. Bake at 425 degrees F for 20 minutes or until golden brown. Remove the pancakes from the pan and serve immediately!

IT’S THAT EASY!

Remember that hash brown pizza I was working on? Well, it’s done! And it is awesome! Seriously one of my favorites yet, third only to the Cheesy Vegan Tater Tot / Garbage Plate Pizzas and the Vegan Bacon & Cheddar Double Potato Pizza.

In contrast to the original hash brown pizza, I made a cheese sauce (a la mac & cheese) and mixed it with the hash browns and breakfast sausage before adding it to the pizza. This made all the diff. So much cheese! So moist and gooey! The hash browns alone are delish, but the cheese sauce is what makes this pizza amazaballs! It’s always about the cheese, amirite people?

Anyway, recipe here. Eye candy below. Holiday food roundup coming soon.

Okay, so this is a pretty simple recipe that’s based on the AMAZEBALLS! pancakes and sausage on a stick that I made for veganmofo. Upon our success with the pancakes and sausage – the batter for which is baked in the oven in canoe pans – I thought it might be fun to try out a baked pancake dish. So I got to searching the internets. Many of the bake-able pancake recipes I found online are for thicker, denser, almost pastry-like pancakes. I tried one and, alas, it was a complete and utter failure. I never could get the damn things to bake all the way through. Plus I was really craving a more traditional, American style pancake anyway. So I went back to the drawing board and decided to stick with the original batter recipe. Voilà! Sweet, sugary, syrupy success!

These pancakes aren’t quite as light and fluffy as those baked on the griddle, but they’re awfully close. Plus they have the advantage of simplicity: just make the batter, divide it evenly between two cake pans, and pop ‘em in the oven for twenty minutes or so. No hovering over a hot griddle! No flipping pancakes! No doughy mess! A great go-to recipe for slackers and stoners, in other words.

“Protect your friends. You only have one hometown.
If you think you’ve had a bad date, remember, it can always get worse.
And it’s okay to eat breakfast for dinner.”
- Amy Poehler in New York Magazine on what she’s learned from Leslie Knope (via)
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Ginormous Oven-Baked Pancakes

(Make two very large, 9″ round pancakes. Serves two to three people.)

Ingredients

2 cups Bisquick
1 1/2 cup soy milk
Egg substitute equivalent to two eggs (I used Ener-G Egg Replacer)
Spices to taste (I used a tablespoon of Pumpkin Pie Spice)
Toppings to taste (I used maple syrup and powdered sugar)
Vegan meaty sides (I had two links of Lightlife Smart Links, Breakfast Sausage styley)

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F. In a medium bowl, combine the Bisquick, soy milk and egg substitute and mix well. (A whisk might come in handy here!) Add spices to taste.

2. Spray two 9″ round cake pans with cooking spray and pour equal amounts of batter into each pan. Bake at 425 degrees F for 20 minutes or until golden brown. Remove the pancakes from the pan and serve immediately!

…made by Natalie at Bake and Destroy! I won these bad girls in a contest and yes, they are every bit as delish as they look.

Better still: Natalie was nice enough to share the recipe, so you can make them your own self. AND SEND THEM ALL TO MEEEEE!!!!

This is a slight reworking of my go-to zucchini bread recipe, which I shared many years ago. (In internet time, that means three!) Since the recipe makes two loaves, I decided to split the batter in half and make two different flavors. (I know, GENIUS!) The original recipe calls for raisins, but here I made a loaf each of cranberry and chocolate chip zucchini bread. Both flavors were yummy, but. Since this is a rather fluffy sweet bread, I think the cranberries worked out better than the chocolate chips; the dried, sliced cranberries seem to better match the lightness of the grated zucchini, whereas the chocolate chips weighed the loaf down a bit. But try both and be your own decider person! Or sub in your own favorite secret ingredient! It’s your kitchen, do what you want!

Excuse the dreadful pictures, allright. I managed to butcher both loaves while removing them from their respective bread pans (and thus didn’t have much to work with, photo wise), but that’s okay! Still delish!

Zucchini Bread for Two

Ingredients

2 cups zucchini, grated (1 medium-sized zucchini should do it!)
Egg replacer equivalent to 3 eggs (I used 3 tablespoons of ground flax seeds and 9 tablespoons of water, mixed well in a blender for 30 seconds.)
1 cup vegetable or canola oil
1 cup white sugar
1 cup brown sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 cups white flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon baking soda
1 tablespoon cinnamon
2 teaspoons nutmeg
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 cup “extras” per loaf (this recipe makes two loaves): cranberries, chocolate chips, raisins, etc.

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 350F. In a large bowl, combine the grated zucchini, egg replacer, sugar, oil, and vanilla and mix until well blended. In another bowl, combine the flour, salt, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, and baking powder; stir well. Gradually stir the dry ingredients in with wet mixture. Stir well.

2. If making two different types of zucchini bread, equally divide the batter between the two bowls. Stir in a half a cup of “extras” per loaf: cranberries, chocolate chips, raisins, nuts – whatever your heart desires! Cranberries are my personal favorite; for this batch, I made a loaf each of cranberry and chocolate chip zucchini bread.

3. Spray two loaf pans with cooking spray. Pour each batch of batter into its respective pan and bake at 350F for 40 to 60 minutes. (Mine was nicely browned after 40 minutes, so keep an eye on it starting at 30 minutes!) Be sure to rotate the pans at the halfway mark!

4. Enjoy warm and often!