Lemon Icebox Cookies
Next on our cookie agenda are these lovely lemon ice box cookies. These tiny little cookies are the perfect bite-sized snack or after dinner treat. They would be great gathered in a pretty bag and given as a gift. They’re sweet and crunchy with just the right amount of lemon.
You start with the lemon zest. There is something that always excites me about putting lemon zest in a recipe. Perhaps it’s because I know it’s going to be delicious. I can’t wait till we have a home where I can have a lemon tree. I hate buying lemons, as I never seem to use them quickly enough, so I often don’t buy them and then I don’t have them when I need them…but I digress.
For this recipe we’re going to use a food processor. Make sure you have a big enough bowl (a mini food processor won’t do) or you’re better off just working by hand with a dough mixer. It is rather pleasing to watch your flour and Earth Balance mixture turn to dough, just like that, but don’t get carried away and over mix. Remember to pulse!
This makes a fairly large batch, probably double what I was expecting, but the tiny cookies will most likely “magically” disappear once made. Plus you can keep the dough frozen for a few weeks and bake a few whenever you like.
Now I have a little confession with this recipe. As I mentioned before, one of the most difficult parts of taking a standard cookie recipe and making it vegan is replacing the eggs. Eggs play many different rolls in baked goods and different substitutes serve different purposes. Since this recipe used only egg yolks, I wanted to add a little bit of moisture back into the cookies. The obvious answer here is water. So I plopped in 3 tablespoons of water, before I had mixed the dough, and right before I remembered that there were only egg yolks, not full eggs (think less volume). Immediately the dough was overly wet and impossible to handle. I had to add back about a 1/4 cup of flour to bring it to a better consistency.
That being said, you might be fine just leaving out the water all together and only using 2 cups of flour, but I’ll give you the recipe as I made it since I’m sure it still comes out tasting fantastic.
Lemon Icebox Cookies
from Martha Stewart, originally found here
- 2 1/4 cup all purpose flour
- 1 cup powdered sugar
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 Tbsp plus 1 tsp lemon zest (about 4 small lemons)
- 1 tsp fresh lemon juice
- 1 cup Earth Balance
- 3 Tbsp water
- 1/4 cup granulated sugar for rolling
Put the flour, sugar, salt and lemon zest in your food processor and pulse until combined. The lemon zest will basically disappear.
Add the Earth Balance into the bowl and pulse until it combined into a granulated mixture. Add water and lemon juice until a dough is formed.
Separate the dough into 3 sections and shape into 1 – 2 inch rolls. Wrap in plastic and freeze for at least two hours.
Preheat the oven to 300º and line two baking sheets with parchment paper. On another piece of parchment, sprinkle the remaining sugar and roll your logs to coat the outside. Slice into 1/4 inch rounds and lay about an inch apart on your baking sheets. Cook for 16 to 18 minutes, rotating the sheets half way through. Let cookies cool on a wire rack and enjoy.
Espresso-Bean Shortbread
Dear readers, in the next few weeks, Cute and Delicious will be filled with cookies. You don’t mind, right? I was searching for inspiration for some holiday cookies and kept coming back to a bunch of Martha Stewart recipes. I felt it was most necessary that these be veganized, so I’ll be doing just that, and sharing my experience and recipes with all of you.
I started with a very simple and appealing recipe for Espresso-Bean Shortbreads. This appeared to be not only one of the most enticing flavors, but also the easiest to make a vegan version. The only non-vegan ingredient is butter, which I personally don’t even think about for a second, as Earth Balance is such a superb replacement. It’s really a no-brainer. With cookies, it starts getting tricky with replacing eggs.
Now there are a few things you need to know about Martha Stewart cookies.
- They use a lot of butter. This recipe uses 1 1/2 cups. Mostly they average about one cup. Consider yourself warned. Like I said, Earth Balance works great as a substitute.
- They involve a bit of advanced preparation. There is nearly always a fair amount of chilling time, so make sure you read through each recipe in advance. Don’t think you’ll just be popping these out of the oven in 1/2 an hour.
The little espresso guys are easy to make and easier to eat. They’re dense, slightly crunchy and not too sweet. Moreover, they definitely pack a caffeine kick. Not cookies you want to eat right before bed time, trust me. I didn’t have a single complaint with the recipe, except that it took quite awhile with multiple chilling and freezing periods. I would recommend making them sort of flat, and not to make sure they are cooked all the way through.
So here are the humble but delicious beginnings of my cookie marathon. I personally think cookies make a great gift, and the ones here are sure to impress, but also travel well. Even though I’ve just begun, I can already see how easy it will be to get lost in a black hole of holiday cookies…but off we go anyway.
Espresso-Bean Shortbread
from Martha Stewart, originally found here
- 1 1/2 cup Earth Balance
- 3/4 cup plus 2 Tbsp powdered sugar
- 1 Tbsp instant espresso powder
- 2 Tbsp warm water
- 2 Tbsp finely ground espresso beans
- 3 cups plus 2 Tbsp all purpose flour
- 3/4 tsp salt
Cream together Earth Balance and sugar in a stand mixer. Using the paddle attachment, beat until slightly fluffy.
Combine the espresso powder and warm water in a small bowl and stir until combined. Beat the espresso mixture and beans into the EB and sugar.
Whisk together flour and salt and gradually add to butter mixture, beating until combined. Wrap the dough in plastic and refrigerate for at least 2 hours or overnight.
Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper. Using a tablespoon or cookie scoop, and your hands, create small ovals bean shaped cookies. Place each cookie on the baking sheet 1 – 2 inches apart. To create the split in the coffee bean press a chopstick over the top of each cookie. Place each tray in the freezer to firm for 10 – 20 minutes
Bake for 16 to 18 minutes rotating sheets half way through. The bottoms should be browned, with the tops, just barely browning when you remove them. Let cool completely on a wire rack before eating.
vegan hot wings
Hello my dears. Happy December! With all the holiday advertising I feel like December has been here for weeks. Needless to say, while it’s chilly in Los Angeles, our city doesn’t quite have that winter wonderland feel. I guess I need to get with the program and put up some holiday decorations.
So let’s begin this lovely month with hot wings, shall we? Let’s also pretend I didn’t have these for dinner because they aren’t exactly dinner fare. You know, I was never even interested in hot wings, but ever since we went to Portland and I had some at the Mash Tun, I’ve been secretly dreaming about tempeh hot wings. I was going to make some over the holiday weekend but we were too stuffed to eat them.
I used this great recipe from Vegan Dad for the breading and sauce (although I used some bread crumbs as well as the corn flakes since I didn’t have enough). Instead of making seitan, I just coated some pieces of tempeh and tofu. The whole process of double coating the pieces with the “buttermilk” mixture is genius. So many times I have breaded something only to have it get cakey or fall off all together. Of course, with the tofu pieces you have to make sure they’re pressed and there isn’t extra liquid, or the breading still won’t stick.
I whipped up some dill dip to go along with them, with just some tofutti sour cream and a seasoning packet. I think next time I’d rather go with a homemade tofu ranch dip, something a little less flavorful even, just to cut the heat of the sauce, but not overpower the spiciness. Needless to say, these guys were awesome; spicy and flavorful. They definitely fall under the category of “just because it’s vegan doesn’t mean it’s healthy” but pay no attention to that. (On the other hand, you can tell the non-vegan naysayers the tempeh is a great source of protein.) They make a great snack or appetizer and would be perfect for a party.
Ok, now I think I’ll get to my decorating. Where are those darn Christmas lights?
Thanksgiving leftover hot pockets
It may seem like I’m a little obsessed with leftovers. It’s true. But Thanksgiving always leaves you with so many of them. Even though we didn’t cook this year, we still ended up with a few nights worth of holiday food. I wanted to spice things up a little bit, just so we weren’t having exactly the same meal over and over. Hence the creation of the Thanksgiving leftover hot pocket.
All you have to do to make these is make some pastry crust (I used the flakey pie crust recipe from The Joy of Vegan Baking
) and assemble as if you were making ravioli. You could easily use puff pastry if you didn’t feel like making a crust.
Start by preheating your oven to 425° F. Roll out your crust (or one sheet of puff pastry) and set aside one half. Put a few tablespoons of stuffing or tofurky or whatever leftover you want in a grid on the dough, leaving about an inch between each filling. The next part is really important, you must drizzle a little bit of gravy over your filling. Make sure the filling isn’t piled too high or your crust may crack.
Carefully lay the other half of the crust over the prepared fillings. Press the spaces between each filling together with your fingers, starting in the center and working your way out. It’s ok if a little bit of gravy or whatever leaks out the side, but try to seal it best you can around the edges. Using a pizza cutter or a pastry cutter, cut the hot pockets into individual pies. Slice a few diagonal slits in the top of each. Transfer to a baking sheet and cook for 20-25 minutes, or until golden brown.
These would also be great with your holiday meal, they’re not just good for leftovers. Let’s face it, everything is better in a pie crust. We had ours with some celebration field roast, more stuffing and some kale.
The bottom line is that pretty much anything is good in these. Get creative. If you want them filled with sweet potatoes and dandies, I’m sure they’d be extra awesome. Feel free to keep them simple or get crazy.
Vegan Thanksgiving Potluck
Every year there is the question of what to do with all your leftovers from the holidays. Even if you eat through all your Tofurky and potatoes, there is usually some side dish that you’ve got an abundance of. This year, our friends Kim & Ryan had the great idea of having a day after Thanksgiving leftovers potluck with a handful of vegan friends.
While a bunch of people made new dishes, there were definitely a bunch of leftovers involved for sure. I made a ton of mashed potatoes, some carrots, and the fantastic gravy from The Native Foods Restaurant Cookbook
Surprisingly, without a ton of coordination, everyone seemed to bring different dishes. We had pretty much everything covered (except for tofurky, which was fine by me).
There was quinoa stuffing, green bean casserole, kale salad, bread pudding, various vegetables, sweet potatoes topped with dandies, crescent rolls and more I’m sure I’m forgetting.
Everything was fantastic and it was super nice to hang out, talk vegan food, and swap stories about our Thanksgivings and such. It was nice to just relax in a super cozy environment over some delicious food for the afternoon.
Not to mention, we got to scarf what was left of Kim’s amazing Pumpkin Butterscotch Trifle, which was pretty much to die for. You really can’t go wrong when you have friends that can cook. That is something I learned for sure this weekend.
Hope everyone had an awesome long weekend. I can’t believe December is almost here.
