old favorites...they live!

Sometimes a girl just wants spaghetti and meatballs (without the meat).  It's hard though, isn't it, to find a decent vegan meatball?  Store bought ones are...ok, but they lack oomph, plus they're full of stuff I can't pronounce.  A lot of the ones I've made at home either fall apart or are incredibly mushy (sorry, Vcon), or just don't have a good flavor.  However, I've finally come across an incredible vegan meatball, by way of our buddy Jessy over at Happy Veganface.  Actually, her hubby Dan created these balls of awesomeness.  I give you...  Dan's tempeh meatless balls!

little beauties

And seriously?  So easy to make.  And they didn't fall apart, once they were browned.  They have the best flavor of any meatball I've had, ever actually.  I can see why Jessy and Dan chose to eat theirs over some rice, as the flavor would really shine that way.  Still, our goal was spaghetti and meatballs, so I just paired them with a plain, but tasty, sauce and some angel hair.

could not stop eating this.

We decided not to simmer the meatlessballs in the sauce for fear that they would fall apart with all that liquid, but I don't think we needed to worry, as they held up really well, even once I mixed all that spaghetti together.  Oh, yes, and that is garlic bread you spy perched atop my plate.  Michael made the most crazydelicious garlic bread on the planet.  It's rosemary ciabatta bread that he spread with melted butter (vegan of course), loads of garlic powder, and parsley.  Possibly other things.  I wasn't in the kitchen when he made it.  But hot damn, this was the best garlic bread I've had in a very, very long time.  I highly reccommend that you go make some rockin' spaghetti with these amazing meatlessballs, though.  You will not regret it!

Yesterday I told Michael that I would make him whatever he wanted for dinner and dessert, as he was a sweetie to me when I felt like shit on Friday (tummy bug, blegh).  He opted for biscuits and gravy, with toaster hash browns and greens.

nothin' like some soysage gravy, now is there?

First off, I used my mom's whole wheat biscuit recipe (scroll down for the recipe).  Then I crumbled up some GimmeLean sausage in the cast iron skillet to brown.  Then in went some flour and butter.  Then soymilk, and seasonings.  The only problem with making gravy from storebought soymilk is all the freaking sugar they put in that stuff.  I never notice it (and hence, forget) until I try to make something savory like gravy with the stuff.  Still, with the help of poultry seasoning and loads of salt, we counteracted the sweet.  Next time, I'll remember, and start off with veggie broth, and add soymilk at the end for a little creaminess.  Anyway, it was still totally rad.

The greens are collards, which I have not had success with before last night.  These turned out really great though!  I sauteed some garlic and an onion, then added the chopped greens and some apple cider vinegar and let them steam, covered, for about 15 minutes.  I finally learned that the longer they cook, the less bitter they are (but I feel like they lose some nutritional value when I cook them that long...oh well, I guess).  Anyway, once they were nicely soft, I added a few dashes of liquid smoke, some more vinegar, salt, and a pinch or two of cayenne.  They were so yummy!  I'm not scared of collard greens anymore.  Now I just have to master turnip and mustard greens.  Le sigh.  

Michael opted for toaster hash browns from our friendly neighborhood freezer section, as they're his favorite anyway, and I'm not really to be trusted when it comes to making something like that from scratch.  All in all, it was a hit!

As for his cookies, Michael asked for "chocolate macadamia cashew cookies" to which I added white chocolate chips.  Voila!

omg.

I adapted this recipe from Dreena Burton's Double Carob Cashew Cookies in Eat, Drink and be Vegan.  I've never actually made this recipe as it's stated, as I have no need for carob anything when I can have chocolate, plus they call for spelt flour, which I've never seen anywhere here.  Still, the recipe lends very well to adaptation, which just goes to show you what a genius she is.  Here's my version of her cookies.

Chocolate Macadamia Cashew Cookies with White Chocolate Chips

1 cup AP flour (or whole wheat pastry flour)

1/4 cup cocoa powder

1 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp cinnamon

1/4 cup unrefined sugar (I used sucanat)

1/4 tsp sea salt

1/4 cup white chocolate chips (or regular would be good too, if you don't have white)

1/8 cup chopped macadamia nuts

1/8 cup chopped cashews (both nuts should be unsalted)

6 Tbsp maple syrup

2 Tbsp almond butter

1 1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract

1/4 cup + 1 tsp canola oil

Preheat over to 350F.  In a medium bowl, combine flour, baking soda and powder, and cocoa powder; mix well.  Add in cinnamon, sugar, and salt; mix again, then stir in chocolate chips and nuts.  In a smaller bowl, combine the maple syrup, almond butter, and vanilla and stir until well combined.  Stir in the oil, then add the wet mixture to the dry mixture.  Mix until just combined.  If needed, add a splash of soymilk for added moisture, if it doesn't come together quickly (we had to do this).  Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper, then form 12 cookies out of your dough, flattening each one (they'll be about 1.5 inches across this way).  Pop in the oven for exactly 11 minutes.  Take them out and leave them on the cookie sheet for about 5 minutes, then transfer to a cooling rack.

These cookies are not for the faint of heart, by the way.  They are fudgey and moist and incredibly rich.  The nuts add just enough crunch to mix things up a bit.  However, they are ridiculously easy to make for such a dangerous cookie.  From mixing to baking, they're done in about 20 minutes.  Bake with care.  We finished the entire dozen in about 15 minutes (with the help of a friend).  By the way, omni approved.  As were the collard greens.  Go me.

So yeah, it's been a pretty decadent weekend so far.  Hope yours has been just as lovely.

year end review

I cannot believe the year is over already.  It's been a whirlwind, folks.  I graduated from grad school, had an awesome show of my work, then got a terrible 9-5 job to pay the billz, went vegan, started blogging, had a miserably hot summer, a tragically short fall, and am well into a topsy turvy winter.  It was 70 degrees (F) on Saturday, and we were 3 hours north of where I actually live!  What!  Anyway, I know I've been gone for a little bit from the blogosphere, but I'm back now.  This post will probably suck because it's mostly just going to be a bunch of pictures of food from the past week or so, and they are all really bad pictures because it just got darker and darker in my kitchen until a week ago, so...  pardon that.  Also, I had a couple recipes in my head, but then never wrote them down, time passed, and I've forgotten what they were all about.  I plan on remaking them though, so look forward to yumminess in the future.  Without further ado....

Christmas food first.  

cookie craziness

The only thing crazy about these were how awesome they were.  My mom made these special family cookies vegan for me and they were WONDERFUL!  Upon her own admission, you cannot even tell the difference.  Score one for team vegan!  The gingerbread guys are crispy and buttery and spicy and just wonderful.  The candy cane cookies have just a hint of peppermint and are soft and delicate.  My mom rules hard.  Just wait.

makeshift pizza time

Well, when I went to my parents' house for Christmas the weekend before actual Christmas, we were having pizza for lunch.  Everyone else had a frozen number, and they got me this awesome shell that's all crackery crispy (yum yum), but...  Mom and Dad had no veggies in the fridge.  Apparently things had been busy around there (imagine that!) and veggies had been overlooked (seriously an anomaly in our house).  So I made this thing up.  It's kinda mexi-style.  There's tomato sauce, fire roasted tomatoes, black beans , some green peppers I found in the freezer, some chipotles in adobo (spicy!  spicy!), some garlic powder, cumin, and nutritional yeast.  It actually turned out fricking awesome, for a complete fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants type deal.

holy hello, cinnamon rolls!

So yeah, I told you my mom rules.  Those are cinnamon rolls and they are amazing.  They are identical to the cinnamon rolls of my youth.  In fact, sometimes I think that my mom just says that things are vegan to make me happy, that's how good she is at veganizing stuff.  Like, she's way better at it than I am.  Maybe someday I'll be as good a cook and baker as she is.  We also did some of the minicrustlesstofuquiches (what a mouthful that title is, jeez).  They had very few veggies in them and didn't photograph well, so no pic, but they were really delicious too.  I brought leftovers home to Michael and he asked me if they had cheese in them.  Um, no.  Duh.  But they were really rich, so I could understand his doubt.

perfect xmas brekkie

Just look at that.  It's crazy how awesome those were.

foodie gifts

Michael and I teamed up for presents for my brothers and their wives by making kahlua (me) and biscotti (Michael).  We got to eat the overdone (burned?) bits of biscotti and thought they tasted pretty rad.  The kahlua wasn't anything to scoff at, either.  It was especially good in some cocoa on xmas morning.

lasagna for xmas eve

My family has always had lasagna for Christmas eve dinner.  This year, even though the day was different, the food was not.  I made a sillyradtastic lasagna full of a tofu ricotta concoction that started with homemade tofu and then combined the two ricotta recipes from Vcon.  So...basil-y and cashew-y and very rich.  I put FYH mozzarella on about 1/3 of the dish so that if anyone else wanted to try it, they wouldn't have to eat vegan cheese.  We all know that that stuff is an acquired taste.  I like it, though.  All was very yummy.

For actual Christmas dinner, Michael and I got a tofurkey roast so that I wouldn't have to spend all day in the kitchen when I could be sitting on the couch drinking mimosas instead.  Still, we spent a nice bit of time on the side dishes and all.  Here she is nestled amongst loads of roasted veggies, including broccoli, beets, sweet potatoes, red potatoes, and carrots.

beets like to spread the love

The veggies were perfection, and the roast wasn't half bad either.  Best of all, it was easy peasy.  I did make a nice stuffing that had dried cranberries and some cayenne, but no crunchy nuts this time.  It was moist, in a good way.  I thought my Thanksgiving stuffing was a tad dry, so I upped my veg broth a bit.  The gravy is Roasted Garlic and Shallot gravy from the cookbook Michael got me, The Idiot's Guide to Cooking Vegan.  Jerk-y name, but a really good cookbook, actually.  If I'm gonna judge it by the gravy, it's fanfuckingtastic.  Yum.  And so low fat!  No roux!  Shocking!

big ol' plate of yumminess

That's it for Christmas food, but here's something cool:

not dope!

Those little bags contain teas that my parents and my grandma got for Michael.  It's called Numi Tea and it's the kind that blooms when you brew it.  See?

lovely!

It's tasty, too.  Jasmine.  Yummmm.

So...I'm running low on blogfuel, even though I have like 8 more pictures of food to show you from my meals surrounding the holiday.  They are going to have to wait until tomorrow, methinks.  Until then, tide yourself over with a picture that totally sums up Michael and my first Christmas alone together:

fun!

That's season 4 of LOST on the tv, a mimosa slurped through a silly straw, the xmas tree, and some completely awesome giant sunglasses.  Oh yes.  Multiply that by 10, add in a dash of sleepiness, subtract any motivation to move and you get a perfectly laid back Christmas day.

i do still cook, i swear it

Back to the food, eh?  This has been a week of easy dinners.  We even ordered pizza on Tuesday.  But I have been cooking, I promise.  On Monday, I made this:

chili with vcon skillet cornbread

I never really have posted my chili recipe...  It's one of those things that I am just naturally good at making.  I don't have to think about it, I just do it.  Onions, peppers, beans, tomatoes, chili powder, garlic powder, cumin, chipotle pepper in adobo...  Oh, but this time I added 2 cups of water and a 'beef' bouillon cube.  It was ohsogood.  Spicy.  Yum.  We ate it for lunch for 2 days afterwards, and it was wonderful.  It's been rainy and chilly (ha!) here this week, so a big bowl of steaming chili with some cornbread broken up in it is just what the doctor ordered.  (by the way, I'm not sick anymore!)

daddy bowl and mama bowl

I made both of those bowls, too.  A lot of the dishes you see (besides the fiestaware) is stuff I've made.  Did you know that?  I'm crafty as hell, people.

Last night, Michael and I wanted sloppy joes.  We went to the store to get tomato paste and basil to put into the mix we had in the cupboard.  Then we came home and realized...  no mix!  Well, luckily I knew about the sloppy joannas recipe in YRR.  It turned out startlingly similar to the Fantastic brand mix we usually buy.  How nice to know that we don't have to buy it anymore!  

yep, those are curly fries you see.  jealous much?

We did change the recipe a bit, but not too much.  First, we doubled it so that we could have some for lunch today.  Instead of 2 cups of TVP, we used 1 cup TVP, one cup of crumblers.  Added into the mix were a green bell pepper and about 1/2 cup fresh basil.  Have you ever put basil in your sloppy joes?  Do it, it's amazing.  It adds a flavor dimension that will knock your socks off.  I can't take credit for this, it's on the back of the box of the mix we buy as a suggestion.  But a good suggestion it is!  Indeed.  Oh, I think we also added a bunch of garlic powder, onion powder, and salt to the recipe as well.  I made a salad to go with it, I promise, I do eat green veggies occasionally.

I ate mine on a slice of homemade bread, openface style

So uh...  lots of fake ground beef, tomatoes, and peppers this week, eh?  Oh well.  It was all very, very good.  And!  Since Virginia got her cookies, I can now show a picture of the cookies I made last week.  These aren't identical to hers, but they are damn close.

my new favorite cookies.  f'realz.

I really must thank Celine again for coming up with such a fabulous pumpkin cookie recipe.  These have white chocolate chips.  And I doubled the recipe and made like 2 dozen small cookies instead of 6 big 'uns.  Virginia didn't get white chocolate chips in her version, but honestly...  I don't think they added much.  These chips are going to be best when I put them in a full-on chocolate cookie, I just know it.  In these, they were just little pockets of sweet.  The flavor got lost in the pumpkin.  That's why I made hers with just regular semi-sweets.  They go nicely in this cookie.  

Now it's time to go work on dinner again.  And there is possibly a trick up my sleeve.  Stay posted!

corndog bread! and cookies...much needed cookies.

I like corndogs.  However, I am a bit fry-phobic.  It just seems...unnecessary to fry stuff, most of the time.  All that added fat, for what?  I say that anything that can be fried, can probably be successfully baked.  Oven baked fries?  sign me up.  Baked mock crabcakes?  yes, please!  So why not corn dogs?  Well, they have to be battered, which wouldn't hold up in the oven, really.  All of this is an example of the roundabout conversations Michael and I have had over the past few months as to how to get a corndog into our dinnertime without frying it.  Then he had a brilliant idea:  encase the dogs in cornbread.  Now, I will admit, after he came up with this, I researched it a little bit and saw a few blogs with corndog muffins.  Well, I didn't wanna screw with muffins.  So I made cornbread with hotdogs in the middle of it.

i couldn't get to it before michael cut it

I used the skillet cornbread from Vcon, and it worked perfectly.  Since the cast iron skillet was preheated in the oven, the bottom layer of batter firmed up pretty quick so that I could put down a layer of cut up hotdogs without them sinking to the bottom.  Slather on the rest of the batter, bake, and voila!  Corndog bread.  And it was good!  We ate it with some ketchup and mustard, baked beans (that I spruced up with spicy mustard and some vinegar), and these:

roasted brussels sprouts, broccoli, and leeks

The leeks didn't mush up like I thought they would, but this was still pretty yummy.  I just put them all in a pan, sprinkled with fresh rosemary, dried thyme, garlic powder, and pepper, then poured on a little veggie broth.  Cover with foil, roast in a 400F oven for 30 or so minutes.

All in all, it came together quite nicely.

it works best when you smoosh all this together to eat

Earlier in the evening, I had made a batch of cookie dough to refrigerate until after dinner, so they could be freshly baked when we ate them.  I made some pumpkin chocolate chip cookies from Celine's blog, Have Cake, Will Travel.  If you haven't been there yet (where have you been!?), go.  She comes up with some fabulous ideas for baked goods that will make your knees tremble.  These are the first recipe on that page:

oh so perfect cookies

These cookies are amazing.  I had to modify because I didn't have any arrowroot, but I found something online that said 1tsp arrowroot = 1 Tbsp wheat flour.  The recipe calls for 1 Tbsp arrowroot, so I used 3 Tbsp wheat flour.  It made them a little dry, so I then added more pumpkin.  Didn't make any difference, in my opinion.  These are SO GOOD!  This is my first recipe tryout from Celine's blog, and I'm happy to say that she's a genius.  These have the texture of a really fabulous oatmeal cookie (not the kind with coarse chunks of oats..you grind the oats in this cookie) with a lovely pumpkin flavor and sweet chips everywhere.  Any recipe that calls for the same amount of chocolate chips as it does flour, I'm game.  So!  Very well, Celine, I am convinced of your complete awesomeness now.  I did manage to make 8 cookies instead of 6, thank goodness.  Seeing as I ate 3 of them last night, I'd be sad if they were all gone so quickly.

Next up, the results from my 3 hour baking spree on Monday.  Vegan Addict got her package and put up pics, so I will now show mine!  Although...I think hers might be better.  First up, Lemon Poppyseed Crackle Cookies from Eat, Drink & Be Vegan.  These were really, really, really amazing.  I kept a couple of each thing I made for...Michael...to...taste....yeah.

little drops of lemony wonderfulness

Next up are cookies that I based on the carob-carob chip cookies from the same book, but didn't have carob anything (or any real reason to use it), so I put chocolate everywhere it said carob.  Those are crushed cashews on the tops.

much chocolatey goodness

For a sort of healthier option, I made the hearty autumn muffins from Vegan Dad.  I reaaalllly liked these.  They are just slightly sweet with nice little apple chunks and not too many raisins.  Pumpkin-y, but mostly spicy.  Not like hot spicy...you know what I mean.  Plus, there is a full cup of bran (wheat and oat) in these.  So, yeah.  They're good for that reason too.

i love my vegan muffin tops

That's it for now...  I don't think I'm cooking tonight, but you never know.  I might whip something up.  But I just had a giant bowl (i.e. an entire package) of popcorn with nutritional yeast and am going to a party later, and I have the feeling (given my mood this evening) that I will be happy to dine on the remainders of those pumpkin cookies and go straight to bed.  But we shall see.

Hmmm?  What's that?  You want a cute and cuddly kitty picture?

Geesh.

Well, ok.

Vegan Mofo day 7: a pretty yummy dinner...and COOKIES!

Last night was a bit of a hodge podge that ended up coming together rather nicely.  And it looked like this:

minted couscous, mashed sweet potatoes w/kale, cajun spiced tofu

The tofu recipe came from Yellow Rose Recipes. It was pretty good...  Not as flavorful as I would have liked, but the texture was lovely.  I think my new favorite way to make tofu is to broil it.  It comes out all chewy and lovely, but in so much less time than baking!  But you really need a flavortastic coating for it to chill in because the less time it cooks, the less time it has to soak up yumminess.  I guess I could marinade things.  But I didn't think of it last night.

it almost looks like breaded fish here...weird!

The minted couscous was based off a recipe from my new Linda McCartney cookbook.  I changed it though, for ingredient availability and the fact that couscous does not need 2/3 cup of olive oil..  EVAR!  I'll put in my revised recipe for this at the bottom of this post.  It was pretty tasty.  I had the leftovers for breakfast and lunch today...   mostly because I'm lazy, but also because it was good.

there is just something about couscous...  maybe it's the way it gets stuck in my throat when i eat it too fast, or maybe it's the delightfully flufftastic texture.  tossup.

I had some kale in my fridge and a big bunch of sweet potatoes from the farmers market, so I whipped up another batch of Mashed Sweet Potatoes w/Kale.  I know I posted a recipe for this once before, but I don't feel like looking for it, mostly because the recipe pretty much IS the title, except for the addition of some garlic, shallots, and a little margarine.

best way to trick myself to eat kale

Finally, I stumbled across a recipe for Cashew Butter Cookies on Cupcake Punk's blog last week.  I had recently bought some cashew butter and loathed it in sammiches (it was just...wrong for some reason) and this seemed the perfect use for at least part of my jar.  That crap is too expensive not to use!

these adorable cookies are a big hit with omnis too!

That's right, I took some to work today.  They gobbled them up and were practically begging for more.  Unfortunately, the recipe only makes about a dozen cookies, so I had only brought in enough for 1 each.  I'm going to make these again soon, though, because they were ultra easy to make, taste fabulous (so much more...sophisticated than peanut butter...not to knock the ol' PB...but sometimes you want a grownup cookie, and this is it), and is a good way to use up the remainder of that cashew butter just hanging out in my cupboard.  Go make some!

And now, for my recipe:

Minted Couscous

1 cup couscous

2.5 cups water

drizzle of olive oil

juice and zest of 1 lemon

1/2 cup diced sweet pepper (bell or otherwise, preferrably not green..go red, yellow, or orange)*

4 scallions, finely chopped

4-6 Tbsp chopped fresh mint

2-3 Tbsp chopped fresh parsley

salt and pepper to taste

Boil the water, then add the couscous.  Remove from heat, cover, and let sit until water has absorbed (about 8-10 minutes).  Add olive oil, zest and lemon juice; stir.  Stir in peppers, mint, and parsley, then add salt and pepper to taste.  I like mine salty.

* i used 2 sweet fresh banana peppers (red and orange), but 1 bell pepper would be about 1/2 cup

Simple!  Delicious!  You have no excuse not to make it!

My apologies to Linda McCartney for not wanting to be a fat fuck and add almost a cup of expensive ass olive oil to my side dish.  what!

Oh, and finally, as promised, the ingredients on the pumpkin butter: Pumpkin.  Brown Sugar.  White Sugar.  Lemon.  Water.  Spices.  'spices?'  yes, 'spices'.  So I guess you're on your own for that one!  

Oh, wait again.  Someone in my comments asked what cheese sauce I use on my nachos...  I start with this recipe, then add lots of cumin and chili powder to make it mexistyle.  It's even better if you blend in some diced tomatoes!  Oh, and you'll have to cook that on the stove to thicken it up.

That is all for now.  No dinner plans tonight, but I'm sure we'll think of something.

at last! plus, lots of food.

I shouldn't have said that thing about Comcast fucking me over. Because they did. But it's all fixed now, so I won't go into it. Suffice to say, it was incredibly infuriating.

So. Let's start with lunch today! Michael had the brilliant idea to make pepperoni rolls. It's very simple, just take some croissants (some are vegan, just search em out) and some fake pepperoni (we used Yves) and go to town! We put 3 pieces of pepperoni on each croissant, sprinkled them with Italian seasoning, and rolled them up. Serve with pizza sauce for dipping:

Pepperoni Rolls!

Last night we had spaghetti for dinner (perfect for after the bar...) with garlic toast. For those of you who for some reason don't do this, please start salt and peppering your noodles before you put on the sauce. It is ....very very good. Just very good. Try it.

start doing this. now.

Ok, so then just top it with your sauce, duh. We sauteed some onions, garlic, and diced yellow bell peppers, added a can of diced tomatoes, then just some canned suce. For the garlic bread, I spread some bread with Earth Balance, then sprinkled on garlic powder. Pop em under the broiler for a bit until they're toasty, and you're set.

yummy drunk food. or just quick and easy, if you're not drunk.

It feels so nice to actually be posting something with pictures. I know they're kinda crappy... We do most of our cooking at night time because Michael works until 10 or 11 pm most days, the lighting in our apartment is most terrible, and my HP camera blows. Next week I'm borrowing my dad's nicer digital camera. I mean, I could take them with my real camera, but then I'd have to get film developed all the time and put onto disks... I mean, I'm not a fan of digital photography for the sake of my artwork, but it's nice for just uploading my food pictures, yes? Anywho... what else should I show for this post. Something nicer than spaghetti and pepperoni rolls, I think. It's just been kind of hectic around here lately, so our meals haven't been too... overproduced like usual. Oh, I know. Cookies!

I've been on a chocolate chip cookie making frenzy lately. Here's a couple of examples. First, the ones I made from this recipe. They're pretty simple, but you really really have to make sure you don't bake them too long, even though they won't look done. They harden up quite a bit after you take them out of the oven, but they'll be smooshy right after you take them out. Just trust the cookie, and don't overbake. Like I possibly did. No worries though, if you overbake them, just microwave them before you eat them and they'll soften right up.

Happy Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies

Next is a set that Michael made, upon my insistence. I wanted em, but I was being lazy, so lovely boyfriend that he is, he whipped these right up, based off of this recipe. However, we didn't have applesauce. So we just used lots of EB. Which made them a bit greasy. I suggest we add a bit of baking soda to help them rise, in case the applesauce was supposed to be the egg in the cookie. It didn't really do much. I think Michael also added some cocoa powder and chocolate syrup so that they would have a 'marbled' effect. It was rather nice, but I'm not sure it was ...healthy. But they're cookies. Who cares. Here he is happily stirring cookie dough.

And here are the results:

Chocolate Chipe Cookies Like They Should Be

I'm not sure I completley agree with that title, but... They tasted good. Another tip for cookies, is that for some reason, vegan cookies don't seem to spread out like omni cookies. You know how with those cookies, you can just put a ball of dough on the baking sheet and you end up with big, flat cookies? Not so with vegan cookies. Or maybe it's just chocolate chip cookies. I dunno. What I do know is that if you put a ball of dough on the sheet, you take a ball of cookie out of the oven. So smoosh em down a bit if you want them to be flatter. We forgot this time, obviously.

That same night, for dinner, we made BBQ chickn sandwiches with coleslaw, based off of this recipe from Yeah, That "Vegan Shit". However, I altered the recipe because I cannot leave well enough alone. Sort of. That recipe has the chickn and coleslaw in the same marinade, and I wanted a different flavor for my chicken, something more traditionally "barbeque-y". We also changed up the coleslaw a bit, not only to reflect the fact that we just made enough marinade for the slaw, but also because in order to make it creamier, we added..some stuff. So my recipe below reflects that. If you want to make enough to cook the chickn in as well instead of using bbq sauce, just double it. Anyway, here's what it looked like. (don't judge, ok?)

BBQ Chickn Sandwich with Carolina Style Coleslaw

I think it looks hilarious, kind of like it's a monster with a mouth full of...something interesting. Anywho, here's the recipe:

For the Chicken:

1 bag of fake chicken strips (we used Morningstar Meal Starter ones)

1 bottle of your favorite bbq sauce

salt & pepper

chili powder

cumin

dried thyme

some mustard

some brown sugar

some ketchup

For the Coleslaw:

Half a head of cabbage, sliced ultra thin

1 carrot, sliced ultra thin

some onions, also sliced very thin

(or you could use a bag of coleslaw mix. we just happened to have some cabbage on hand, so made our own.)

1/2 cup cider vinegar

1 Tbsp brown sugar

1/2 tsp red pepper flakes

1 tsp ground black pepper

salt, to taste

about 1/2 cup dijon style vegan mayonaise (or, the same amount of regular, plus some dijon mustard... add this to taste, as you may not like it that creamy)

about 1/8 - 1/4 cup ketchup

good squeeze of half a lemon, about 2 Tbsp of juice

Do your coleslaw first, so it can marinate while your chicken's cooking. Prepare the marinade and stir in the coleslaw veggies. Cover and refrigerate until the chicken is done.

Heat up some olive oil in a pan, and add your chicken, plus the spices, to taste (chili powder, salt, pepper, cumin, thyme) and saute until browned. Then pour in your bbq sauce, plus the mustard, ketchup, and brown sugar, to taste. Cover and simmer on low for about 30 minutes, stirring occasionally. The longer you cook it, the better it will be, making it nice and tender and flavorful.

When you can't stand it anymore, toast up some buns, add some chicken, and top with coleslaw. Done!

Ok, I think that's it for now. I do have other pictures, but this post has gotten mega long. Sega!