Animal, Vegetable, Miserable

On Thanksgiving, some food for thought. Article is here.

Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

You may recall that I am completely obsessed with Peanut Butter & Co's White Chocolate Wonderful peanut butter. It makes everything so delicious. It is soooo dreamy to bake with.

So here is my ultimate cookie tribute to White Chocolate Wonderful, which I really believe will be the most valuable trade item in a post-apocalyptic Terminator-style future. Buy lots of this stuff for your bomb shelter or secret Skynet-proof cave. And if you need to up the ante, whip up some of these suckers in your solar oven, or whatever.

White Chocolate Wonderful Peanut Butter Cookies With Chocolate Chips

1/3 cup peanut butter - preferably White Chocolate Wonderful, but you can use any ol' kind.

1/3 cup almond butter

1/3 cup margarine

1/3 cup brown sugar

1/3 cup white (vegan, duh) sugar

1 ½ teaspoons Ener-G Egg Substitute

2 tablespoons water

2 tablespoons soymilk

1 teaspoon flaxseed meal

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1 cup all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

Just a pinch (1/8 teaspoon) kosher salt or sea salt

1 cup chocolate chips (I love the Tropical Source ones)

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 375°F, and line your cookie sheet with parchment paper.
2. Mix water and egg replacer together in a small bowl, set aside.
3. In big mixing bowl cream together peanut butter, almond butter, sugars and margarine.
4. Mix in soy milk, egg replacer, flaxseed meal, and vanilla.
5. Sift flour, baking powder, and salt into mixture. The dough will be moist, but don't worry!
   
6. Stir in chips! Mix'em up and then start rolling spoonfuls of dough into balls, then flatten slightly on parchment paper.
7. Place cookies 2 inches apart onto cookie sheet.
8. Bake for 8 to 15 minutes in the preheated oven, or until edges are lightly browned, but center is still a bit soft, as it will harden as cookies cool. In my unspeakably dreadful, unpredictable oven, these took 14 minutes and came out beautifully.

The IC says that I should've doubled the recipe. He took some photos, too. I like this one, which looks like the cookie is hovering in space:

These deliver everything I want in a cookie. They have crispy edges. They have chewy centers. The chocolate chips are melty. The peanut butteriness is pitch-perfect. It's been a long journey to find a good recipe for these! But these are pretty dang good. So good, I'm going to go and eat a couple more of them. Yummy.

Pumpkin Time!

I love fall. I love pumpkins. At this time of year, I want everything to be pumpkin. I want pumpkin pie, pumpkin cake, pumpkin bread, pumpkin pancakes, pumpkin soup, pumpkin nice cream, pumpkin pumpkin pumpkin. Another seasonal favorite is Silk Nog, or Pumpkin Spice Silk, which just landed in the refrigerated section of Whole Foods this week.

So, in honor of pumpkin and Silk Nog time, please enjoy this really wonderful pumpkin bread recipe! I've tried out three or four different versions, and all of them were a little lacking - too dry, too dense, too...something. This one is a Goldilocks-perfect "just right." If you don't have access to Silk Nog, any really creamy non-dairy milk will work - coconut milk would probably be a great stand-in.

I like mine really spicy, so I used 3 teaspoons of Trader Joe's pumpkin pie spice. If you're not a spicy pumpkin person, you go right ahead and take it down a notch. That won't hurt my feelings.

Obviously, you can add raisins, cranberries, walnuts, or whatever you like to this, but it really is LOVELY just all on its own. It can also be made gluten-free - just follow the directions at the bottom of the recipe. This makes 2 loaves of sweet, delicious pumpkin bread - you can cut the recipe in half if you want, or you can make one for yourself and another for a friend. Or, you can bake it in a bundt pan. Or whatever.

Ingredients

3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour*
2 cups packed dark brown sugar
2/3 cup white sugar
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon nutmeg

3 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice

1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 can (about 2 cups) pumpkin puree
1 cup canola oil, or ½ c. oil and ½ c. applesauce
2/3 cup Silk Nog or Silk Pumpkin Spice Soy Milk
2/3 cup flaked coconut

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease and flour two 8" x 4" loaf pans or one bundt pan.
2. In a large bowl, stir together the flour, brown sugar, white sugar, baking soda, salt, nutmeg, and cinnamon.

3. In a separate bowl, combine pumpkin puree, oil (and applesauce, if you are using it), and Silk.

4. Combine the wet and dry ingredients and mix thoroughly. Add in coconut.
5. Bake for about 1 hour (up to one hour and 15 minutes) in the preheated oven or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Remove from oven, and cover pan(s) tightly with foil. Allow the bread to steam for 10 minutes. Remove foil, and turn out onto a cooling rack. Tent loosely with the foil, and allow the bread to cool completely.

* If you prefer a gluten-free version, simply replace the flour with Bob’s Red Mill Gluten-Free Baking Mix and add 1 teaspoon of Xanthan Gum. Nothing else needs to be changed. It’s easy and there’s no appreciable difference between the wheat version and the gluten-free version.

Serve plain, or with powdered sugar, or make a little not-cream-cheese frosting and eat it like cake! Share and enjoy!