Vegan Pumpkin Pie

After my battle with the cheese pumpkin I swore off making my own purée. Then I became intrigued by the use of sugar pumpkins in baking. Now that I've come up with an easier way to make purée, I'm swearing off the canned stuff.. at least when pumpkins are in season. The sugar pumpkins make delicious, flavorful purée, that tasted excellent in pumpkin pie.

Sugar Pumpkins 

We have an impostor!

I made the purée by cutting the pumpkins in half and scraping out the seeds. They were placed cut side down on a greased baking sheet and baked for about 30 minutes at 400º. Once cool enough to handle, I scooped out the flesh and puréed in a food processor. This was much easier than peeling and cubing the pumpkin before it was cooked, like I did with the cheese pumpkin.

Scoop out the seeds

Bake cut-side down

They're done when easily pierced with a fork.

For the past couple weeks I have been experimenting with different vegan pumpkin pie recipes to make the perfect pie for thanksgiving. I've finally developed a winner! I couldn't find any appealing vegan recipes online, so I did what I always do and just made my own! Traditional pumpkin pie calls for sweetened condensed milk (or whatever that stuff is called), but I replaced it with a mix of coconut milk and coconut oil. I used a homemade egg replacer, also.

I was worried that this wasn't going to work, since it didn't seem to be cooking through in the oven. I took it out, thinking I had another failure, and left it on the counter overnight. The next day, I decided to have a bite, and it was great! I guess the coconut oil just needed time to solidify. So if you're making this for Thanksgiving I would make it a day or two in advance (like tomorrow.. these holidays keep sneaking up!) and leave it in the fridge. (Update*- I made this again, this time with only 1/4 cup of coconut milk instead of a 1/2 cup. It came out much more solid, and had the perfect consistency of a regular pumpkin pie.)

Vegan Pumpkin Pie

• 1 1/2 cups of pumpkin puree
• 3/4 cups sugar
• 1 Tbsp. flour
• 1 tsp. pumpkin pie spice
• Dash of cinnamon and ginger
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 1 egg substitute (see below)
• 1/4 cup full fat coconut milk
• 1/4 cup melted coconut oil

I rimmed the edges with fall themed sprinkles.

1. Preheat the oven to 450º.
2. In a large mixing bowl, mix the puree and sugar.
3. Add in the flour, salt and spices.
4. In a small bowl, whisk up the egg substitute (3 Tbsp of water, 2 Tbsp of flour, 1 tsp of baking powder, and 1/2 tsp of baking soda) until frothy.
5. Add the egg substitute to the pumpkin mix and stir until combined.
6. Gently stir in the coconut milk and oil.
7. Add the mix to a pie crust that has been fitted into a dish. I used my recipe for a galette as the pie crust, but you could use a pre-made crust, too.
8. Bake for 10 minutes. 
9. After 10 minutes, turn the oven down to 350º and bake for an additional 35 minutes.

You're just going to have to trust that it's done, since a knife won't come out clean. Just leave it on the counter to cool, move (covered) to the fridge to chill for a day or two before serving. 

Is there anything I can't do?? Ok, I'm done bragging now.

Cantaloupe Bread

I adapted this bread from a recipe sent to me by my creative culinary coworker, Terra. She saw cantaloupes ripening past their prime one day and made bread with them. Genius! The second she told me about them I knew I had to make a vegan version. Logan loves cantaloupe!

Cantaloupe Bread

Makes 2 loaves

• 2 cups cantaloupe, mashed
• 1 cup organic sugar
• 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
• 1/2 cup safflower oil
• 3 cups unbleached flour
• 1 tsp. salt
• 1 tsp. baking soda
• 1 tsp. baking powder
• 1tsp. cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp. ginger
• 1 Tbsp. vanilla extract
• Egg replacer (replaces 3 eggs):
• 9 Tbsp. water
• 6 Tbsp. unbleached flour
• 1 Tbsp. baking powder
• 1 1/2 tsp. baking soda

1. Preheat the oven to 350º.   40 minutes
2. Combine all ingredients except the egg replacer in a large bowl and mix until combined.
3. In a small bowl, whisk together the egg replacer until thick and foamy.
4. Add the egg replacer to the rest of the ingredients and stir until incorporated.
5. Pour into two greased 9 x 5 bread pans, and bake for 40 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Vegan Sugar Cookies

My cousin Liam decorated his own
cookie. Now that's a cookie!

Any holiday can be celebrated with sugar cookies, and ever since my mom bought me 100 assorted cookie cutters, every holiday has. Making sugar cookies is no fun if your kids can't eat them, so I've been searching for a vegan recipe for awhile. After coming up empty handed I finally found one on animal-friendly eating, a wonderful blog for vegan and raw food. Kelli's recipe uses an egg substitute that you make by whipping together water, flour, baking powder and baking soda. I've never heard of an egg substitute like that, but it works! I can't wait to try it for other recipes.

barf.

I found the picture on this flour 
package to be pretty anti-feminist.
 Is it just me? Regardless, it was still great flour.  

I made my first trip to Trader Joe's last week. I'm normally a loyal Whole Foods customer, but I checked out Trader Joe's since I was told it was cheaper. It is, but their selection isn't that great. After stocking up on organic produce and other basics I still had to go to Whole Foods across the street to complete my shopping. I was looking for Bestlife, but the only butter substitute I could find at Trader Joe's was Earth Balance buttery spread. Has anyone ever tried this? I'd love to hear your thoughts on it, because I thought it was one of the most disgusting things I have ever eaten. A lot of vegan blogs rave about it, but I couldn't stand it! I can't be the only one who feels this way. It left the most awful taste in my mouth, like I just licked a plastic patio chair after someone had been sitting in it in the hot sun and they left a pool of sweat on the seat. Not that I've ever done that, but I imagine that's what it would taste like. I will never, ever eat that stuff again. Since it was the only butter substitute I had (I don't know why I didn't think to use shortening), I used it anyways, hoping that the other ingredients would mask the taste. They didn't. I ended up masking the rancid flavor by adding extra sugar and some almond extract. The end result wasn't bad at all. You couldn't taste the salty, offensive flavor of the Earth Balance, and the cookies came out light, fluffy, and delicious. I've found a new holiday staple!

Vegan Sugar Cookies

Makes about 18 cookies

• 3/4 cup of butter substitute (like Bestlife, but NOT Earth Balance)
• 1 1/2 cups of sugar
• 1/4 tsp. vanilla extract
• 1 1/2 tsp. almond extract
• 2 egg replacers (see below)
• 2 1/2 cups flour
• 1 tsp. baking powder
• 1/2 tsp. salt

Egg Replacer

Substitutes 2 eggs

• 6 Tbsp. water
• 4 Tbsp. flour
• 2 tsp. baking powder
• 1 tsp. baking soda

1. Preheat oven to 350º.
2. In a large mixing bowl, cream together butter substitute and sugar with an electric mixer.
3. Blend in the vanilla and almond extract.
4. In a small bowl, whisk together the egg substitute ingredients until thick and foamy.
5. Add this to the mixing bowl and stir with a wooden spoon until incorporated.
6. Add the flour, baking powder and salt, and stir until thoroughly mixed. 
7. Roll batter on a floured surface to somewhere between 1/8" to 1/4" thick.
8. Make shapes using cookie cutters.
9. Place on a grease baking sheet and bake for about 10 minutes, or until the edges start to brown. 

This particular batch was made into shamrocks for St. Patrick's Day!

Ginger Snaps

I made these a few weeks ago. It's been in my archive of vegan recipes to blog about, and today is the perfect time to write about them. I bought fresh ginger specifically for this. I had a small piece lying around from making real home made ginger ale, but stocked up on more roots in anticipation for this recipe. I'm so glad I did, since it helped me combat the stomach virus that attacked Logan last night. It was the first time he ever got really sick, so it was scary and stressful for both of us. After his first bout of nausea (at 1 in the morning- of course) I crushed up some of the root and added it to water in his sippy cup. I put a little extra ginger juice on his pacifier and he was over the sickness by 3 am. I'm convinced it would have gone on longer if I didn't have the ginger in my arsenal. 

Anyways, back to the real reason I bought the ginger. My friend Nikki gave me a recipe for ginger cookies. I really wanted to try it, but I didn't have molasses in the cabinet (nor will I ever again, since I found a great substitute- more on that in a minute). Turning to the internet, I tried to google a recipe for ginger cookies without molasses. I couldn't find one that didn't have it, so I got creative. At this point I forgot all about Nikki's recipe, and used one that I found somewhere on the internet. This recipe called for molasses, but I took a chance and made my own. I started by putting 3 Tbsp. of brown rice syrup (I use the organic Sweet Dreams brand, I hope that's not one of the brands containing alarming levels of arsenic. I haven't been following that story too well) in a measuring cup and adding brown sugar until I had 1/4 cup of the mixture. It wasn't exactly molasses, but it worked. 

With a few changes to the original recipe to make it vegan, the addition of fresh ginger, and a substitute for molasses, I ended up with ginger snaps. Not the intended result. At first I thought the recipe was a bust. The cookies ended up spreading really thin on the baking sheet, so they came out flat and crisp. They weren't the chewy, soft cookies I was expecting. I kept them anyways, since Logan seemed to like them. A couple days went by with me just staring at them on the counter, occasionally passing one to Logan. I don't know what made me try one, but they were delicious! They definitely had a bite to them, the ginger being the prominent taste, but it was balanced nicely by the rest of the ingredients. It took me a couple days to realize that just because they didn't come out how I expected, it didn't mean that they weren't good. I'm glad this recipe made so many, because I couldn't get enough of them.

Ginger Snaps

Makes 6 dozen

• 2/3 cup safflower oil (vegetable oil works too)
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 1/4 cup apple puree
• 3 Tbsp brown rice syrup
• < 1/4 cup of brown sugar
• 2 cups flour
• 1 tsp. ground cinnamon
• 1 Tbsp freshly grated ginger
• 1/2 tsp. salt

1. Preheat oven to 350º.
2. Mix oil and sugar in a large bowl.
3. Add apple puree and mix well.
4. Put brown rice syrup in a 1 cup measuring cup, and add brown sugar up to the 1/4 cup mark. Add this to the bowl and mix well.
5. Add the dry ingredients and mix until combined. 
6. Pour a small amount of granulated sugar in a bowl. Form a tsp of dough into a ball and coat with the sugar. 
7. Place dough on a greased cookie sheet, and bake for about 7 minutes. 

Keep your eye on these while they're baking. I burnt the first couple batches since the original recipe had them in for 15 minutes. Also, don't make the dough balls too big, or you'll end up with a full sheet of flat cookies, like this one.

Vegan Pumpkin Chocolate Chunk Muffins

You know what the best part about vegan baking is? You can eat as much of the batter as you want. So I do. I probably end up with one less muffin or so because of it, but I can't help myself!

This was the first baked goods recipe I altered to make it vegan. It was the first time I used apples as an egg substitute, and oil instead of butter. It came out perfect the first time, and it's a recipe I make again and again. Unsurprisingly Logan goes nuts for them, and so does Andrew. I've made it with any combination of unbleached flour, whole wheat flour, plain white sugar and turbinado sugar. It all works so use whatever you have on hand.

Vegan Pumpkin Chocolate Chunk Muffins

Makes 12 muffins

• 1/2 cup apple purée
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 cup pumpkin purée (about 1/2 of a 15 oz. can)
• 2 Tbsp. vegetable oil
• 1 1/2 cups flour
• 1 tsp. baking soda
• 1 tsp. baking powder
• 1 tsp. pumpkin pie spice
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• Vegan chocolate bar or chocolate chips (about 3 oz.)

1. Preheat the oven to 400º.
2. Mix the apple, sugar, pumpkin and oil in a large bowl.
3. Add the flour, soda, powder, and pumpkin pie spice and mix thoroughly.
4. Stir in the chocolate.
5. Pour into a greased muffin tin and bake for 17 minutes.

Supermarket Showdown

Skimming through the circulars in the Sunday paper, I came across a coupon for organic gala apples for $0.99. Ninety nine cents! We go through a lot of apples in this house. Logan and I have oatmeal with apple puree in it almost every morning, I substitute eggs with apple puree while baking, and Andrew eats them constantly. I ripped out the coupon and headed to Shop Rite the next morning. The section containing the organic apples was pretty small, but I was determined to get them all. I started filling up my basket when a woman approached, who evidently had the same idea. I planned on sharing, until she subliminally bumped me with her cart to nudge me out of the way. Bring it on lady. I scooped up the rest as fast as I could as she did the same. I didn't even bother to put them in one of the plastic bags I brought from home. (Yes, I'm one of those nuts who reuses the produce bag). After giving her my most apathetic expression, I checked out with over 10 lbs. of delicious organic galas, and she walked away with maybe 2 lbs.

I'm getting way off the topic of Resolution Kitchen. Anyways, the point of talking about this shopping excursion is to show how convenient apples are in vegan baking. It's easiest to have pureed apples on hand before you start baking to save yourself some time. I pureed nearly every one of these apples and froze them for long term storage.

To start, wash and core the apples. Steam them in a large pot equipped with a steamer. If you don't have a steamer you can boil them, but produce loses more nutrients that way. Once they're soft and easily pierced with a fork, puree them in a blender, adding a little bit of water to thin them slightly. Freeze in BPA free ice cube trays. Each ice cube section holds about 1/8 cup of puree, which is equal to half an egg when they're used in baking. For each egg called for in a recipe, just pop two cubes into a dish and let defrost before adding to your recipe. And don't throw that cooking water out! After steaming or boiling the water is left with a subtle apple flavor. Once it cools down I pour it in a sippy cup for Logan, or a "big kid cup" for myself.