The Quest to Find the Perfect Vegan Brownie- Part 3

Ok I've almost got this down. I've been searching for the perfect vegan brownie recipe. I've had a couple near successes so far, with one recipe producing cake like brownies, and another one that was more moist, but not as fudgy as I'm looking for. After a failed attempt or two, I finally came up with these. They're moist, fudgy and rich. A little too rich though, since they're incredibly sweet. It's not too often that I say something is too sweet, but I could only have a few small bites of these before my sweet tooth objected. They really hit the spot when you have a craving for sweets, that's for sure. I have a couple ideas on how to perfect this one, so stay tuned for part 4!

Example of a failed attempt. Not sure what happened here..

Logan is having a great time on this "quest",
especially since he's my official taste tester. The
Christmas decorations in the background are an
indicator of how long I've been at this.

Sweet Brownies!

• 1/2 cup apple purée or applesauce
• 2 bananas, mashed
• 1/2 cup coconut oil, melted
• 2 cups sugar
• 1 cup cocoa powder
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract
• 1 cup flour
• 1/2 tsp. baking powder
• 1/2 tsp. salt

1. Preheat the oven to 350.
2. In a large bowl, combine the banana with the apple purée.
3. Stir in the coconut oil.
4. Add the rest of the ingredients and stir until combined.
5. Pour the batter in a greased 8 x 8 pan and bake for 40 minutes, or until a knife comes out clean.

Banana Oat Cookies

I make these as a healthy snack or dessert for Logan, but they go pretty quickly since everyone else can't keep their hands off them, including me. They never held together well though, so I pretty much had to follow Logan around with a broom. But in a stroke of genius, I used coconut oil instead of safflower, in hopes that the cookies wouldn't crumble as easily. It worked!

There is no added sugar in this recipe, making it the perfect snack for kids, and even adults who are looking for a heathy alternative to regular cookies. They're a breeze to make, and have only 5 ingredients.

Banana Oat Cookies

Makes about 3 dozen

• 3 ripe bananas, mashed
• 2 cups rolled oats
• 1/2 cup dried blueberries
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract
• 1/3 cup coconut oil, melted

1. Preheat oven to 350º.
2. Mix together all the ingredients in a large bowl.
3. Let the mixture sit for 15 minutes. The coconut oil needs time to solidify and hold the cookies together.
4. Drop the mixture on greased cookie sheets.
5. Bake for around 17 minutes, or until the cookies start to brown on the sides.

Cheery Cherry Chocolate Ice Cream

Oh. Em. Jee.

I never knew how easy it was to make vegan ice cream! Three ingredients. That's it. Coconut milk, bananas, and fruit of your choosing. The difficult part for me was blending the frozen chunks together. My blender was struggling, and I'm surprised I didn't blow the motor. I need a food processor. My blender did the trick, but a food processor would have made things a lot easier.

This was better than any store bought ice cream I've ever had, so keep it movin Ben & Jerry's! It was smooth, creamy, and packed with flavor. I'm looking forward to summer more than ever now, so I can experiment with different flavors as different fruits come into season.

Cheery Cherry Chocolate Ice Cream

Serves 4

• 1 cup of coconut milk
• 4 bananas
• 2 cups of frozen cherries
• Handful of vegan chocolate chips

1. Pour the coconut milk in a large, shallow dish. This will make it easier to break up once it's frozen.
2. Peel the bananas and place them in the dish with the coconut milk.
3. Cover the dish and put in the freezer.
4. Once the milk and bananas have frozen solid, remove from the freezer and thaw for a couple minutes, or until you can break the bananas and milk into pieces. I did this by stabbing through them with a knife.
5. Blend the milk, bananas and cherries in a blender or food processor until smooth.
6. Throw in chocolate chips and blend for a few more seconds to break them into pieces.
7. Serve immediately.

I'm not sure how well this would freeze. I'm guessing it would solidify into a frozen, solid chunk if refrozen, so enjoy it right away. This ice cream is so good, I doubt there would be leftovers anyways!

St. Patrick's Smoothie

What can I say, I'm in the holiday spirit. I adapted this recipe from one I found somewhere online. Probably Pinterest. This smoothie tastes like mint chocolate chip ice cream, but it's much much healthier. I kept the ingredients the same, I just changed the amounts to suit my taste. After making this smoothie, I think I need to add mint to my garden!

St. Patrick's Day Smoothie

Serves 2

• 1 cup coconut milk
• 1 loose handful of spinach
• 2 small bananas
• 1/4 cup mint
• 1/4 tsp. vanilla extract
• 3 Tbsp. chopped chocolate
• 2 cups ice

1. Blend everything except the chocolate until smooth. 
2. Add the chocolate and blend for a few more seconds, or until the chocolate has been finely chopped and incorporated.

Vegan Chocolate Pudding

Even though I promised myself to blog a new recipe on a semi regular basis, I've let myself slip this week. I got caught up reading the Hunger Games trilogy. The books were so excellent I couldn't put them down! A lot of things got neglected while I was reading away, including my kitchen. Now that I've finished the series and am resting up since throwing my back out last night (thanks Logan), I hope to get up to speed with the posts.

I've had this one in my arsenal for a couple months now. I got the recipe from Kelli over at animal-friendly eating. It's a great place to find vegan recipes. This is the only one that I've tried so far, but I can't wait to try her recipe for vegan sugar cookies next week for St. Patrick's Day. I wasn't sure what to expect with this recipe. Blending avocados with cocoa powder didn't sound very appetizing, but I'm glad I tried it anyways! The result came out just like a traditional chocolate pudding, and it was delicious. I've made it a couple times since then, and it's always a hit. It the most tasty when topped with bananas and cinnamon, but feel free to get creative with other toppings!

Vegan Chocolate Pudding

Serves 4

• 2 avocados
• 1/2 cup of agave
• 4 Tbsp. water
• 1 tsp. vanilla
• 2 Tbsp. melted coconut oil
• 5 heaping Tbsp. of cocoa powder
• Dash of salt

1. Blend everything together in a blender or food processor until smooth.
2. Divide the pudding into 4 dishes, cover, and put in the fridge to chill for a few hours.
3. Add any desired toppings, and enjoy!

Gone Bananas

The first place I go when I walk into Stop and Shop is the cart of produce "seconds". It's a cart they put out full of produce that needs to be sold and consumed ASAP. I often find large bunches of organic bananas for 50 cents on there, and go, well.. bananas. I buy just about every single package on there. Bananas are easy to mash and freeze, I have plenty of recipes for them, and Logan eats at least 2 or 3 a day. They're by far his favorite food.

I've been meaning to make a vegan banana bread for awhile now. I have a recipe from my mom that was passed down from her grandma. It's an instant favorite and is always requested at family gatherings. Making it vegan was very simple. I substituted oil for butter and apple puree for eggs. Mom usually adds chocolate chips, which is the icing on the cake. Everything tastes better with chocolate! I used half of an Endangered Species Chocolate bar, to keep it animal product free. The bread came out amazing. It tastes just like the original. The only difference is the color, which is a few shades paler than the non vegan version. I only made one loaf, but I wished I made more. Logan keeps going up to the counter and saying "cake". I'm glad to have his approval!

Banana Bread

Makes one loaf

• 3/4 cups granulated sugar
• 1/4 cup safflower oil (you could use vegetable oil too)
• 1/2 cup apple puree
• 1 cup of mashed banana (about 2 1/2 small bananas)
• 2 cups flour
• 2 tsp. baking powder
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 1/4 tsp. baking soda
• 1.5 oz of vegan chocolate, chopped

1. Preheat the oven to 350º.
2. Mix the sugar, oil, apple and banana in a large bowl.
3. Add the flour, powder, salt and soda. Mix well.
4. Fold in the chocolate.
5. Grease a 9 x 5 loaf pan, and fill with the batter.
6. Bake for 45 - 50 minutes, until a knife or toothpick comes out clean.

I still had a lot of bananas leftover, so I pulled out the dehydrator and made banana chips. I sliced 5 bananas very thin (about 1/8 of an inch), dipped them on a plate sprinkled with cinnamon, and placed them on the dehydrator trays. They took forever to dry, about 10 hours.

I put some of the dried bananas in a jar to have on hand for a snack. The rest I crushed up and added to some organic green tea. I buy loose tea from a cute little tea shop called You, Me and Tea in Port Jeff. It gave the tea a very subtle banana flavor, but it was hardly noticeable. I can't wait to try the same thing with strawberries this spring!

Valentine's Day Brunch

I hope everyone felt the love yesterday! I definitely did. I got so many kisses from Logan, got to see one of my best friends, and had a wonderful day with Andrew. I don't care how many people call it a "hallmark holiday" or complain about it for whatever reason.. Scrooges. I like any excuse to get dressed up, go on a date, get flowers and feel extra loved. We skipped hallmark this year anyways and made our own cards, much more sustainable and less wasteful than those commercial cards that usually get tossed in the garbage. I got an idea from pinterest (where I seem to be getting all my ideas these days), and made cards out of Logan's drawings.


Megan, who I've been friends with since forever (we can never figure out how long we've known each other for), came for a vegan brunch in the morning, since she was taking Logan on a date as her valentine. I made heart shaped pumpkin pancakes by scooping batter out with a 1/4 cup measuring cup and pouring it in a "V" shape on the griddle. They came out much better than I thought! With more "pinspiration" I made a couple creative fruit platters, along with a vegan whipped cream using only two ingredients.

Coconut whipped cream

• 1 can coconut milk (not the lite stuff)
• Cinnamon, to taste

1. Refrigerate the can of coconut milk overnight. The liquid will separate, and you will be left with a semi solid chunk of coconut.
2. Remove the solid portion with a spatula and/or fork and transfer to a bowl.
3. Whip the coconut into a cream using a whisk.
4. Add cinnamon, starting with 1/2 a tsp and adjust according to your taste.

Don't throw out the liquid after removing the solid.
Add it to a smoothie or drink it straight.

While not as flavorful as whipped cream, it's still pretty good, and it's definitely healthier. I forget where I was reading this article, but a British chef was saying how Americans have lost their taste for the "subtle". It's true. It seems that unless it's packed with flavor, it's not considered tasty. I hope to break that stereotype and train my palette to appreciate everything along the flavor spectrum. 

Meditazione, meaning "meditate" in Italian.

Andrew and I took our date all the way east to Bridgehampton. Around Christmastime I heard about a new type of wine. It's actually not all that new, but it's something that's recently come back to modern day vineyards. It's not a white, nor a red nor a rose, but it's an orange wine. It's only being fermented in a few places in the world, and we're lucky enough to live about an hour away from Channing's Daughters, one of it's producers. The drive was totally worth it, I've never tasted a wine like that in my life! It tasted like a white, but with characteristics of a red, and it had a unique orange color. We sampled two different types, Envelope and Meditazione. The latter was so delicious that we bought a bottle to bring home. This is a must try for anyone who appreciates wine!

I'm so glad my forsythias were in bloom for Vday.
I took branches from a tree at my moms and placed them in
water. It took 2 weeks, but they're worth the wait!
Photo cred Meg_Shut. Find her on Instagram.