Who Knew Vegan Could Taste So Good?!? {Recipe: Vegan Beet Cupcakes}

Wow! October is already over half way gone! It seems like summer just ended. Anyway, last Tuesday, October 18th was National Chocolate Cupcake Day (like I really need a special day to make chocolate cupcakes), but it did give me an excuse to try to make these vegan cupcakes. 

My sister has been telling me for years that she makes vegan cupcake that is better than a regular cupcake, but it just didn't seem likely that a vegan cupcake would be THAT good. I mean they don't have eggs or butter in them, so how could they possibly as good?!? Well, this chocolate cupcake recipe proves me wrong. These cupcakes are absolutely delicious and have the perfect texture and crumb. This will now be my go to chocolate cupcake recipe, period..

Vegan Beet Cupcakes

Original recipe is from Minimalist Baker at http://minimalistbaker.com/fudgy-vegan-beet-cupcakes/

1- 8.25 ounce can of unsalted sliced beets, drained*
1 cup unsweetened almond milk, at room temperature**
1 teaspoon apple cider 
3/4 cup organic evaporated cane juice
1/4 cup melted coconut oil
1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract
1 cup + 1 tablespoon whole wheat pastry flour
scant 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder, + more if dusting cupcakes with cocoa powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
pinch of salt

1. Preheat oven to 375°F.
2. Puree the beets in a blender until smooth. An 8.25 ounce can should yield 1/2 cup of beet puree. 
3. Line a 10 wells of a muffin pan with paper liners
4. Whisk together the almond milk and vinegar in a large bowl, then set aside for a few minutes to allow the milk to curdle. Add the sugar, coconut oil, vanilla extract, and 1/2 cup pureed beets and beat until foamy. 
5. Put the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder, and salt into a sifter and slowly sift it into the wet ingredients while mixing with a hand mixer or standing mixture. Beat on low until no large lumps remain. Be careful not not over beat, this can result in tougher cupcakes. 
6. Fill the cupcake liners with the batter until 3/4 full. Bake 22-25 minutes, or a toothpick inserted comes out clean. Transfer cupcakes to a cooling rack and cool completely. It may be hard to wait, but if you try and unwrap them while they are still warm they will stick to the wrapper. 
7. Once cool you can dust with cocoa powder, powdered sugar or glaze with Vegan Chocolate Glaze (recipe below).

Yields 10 cupcakes

*The original recipe calls for fresh oven roasted beets, but I did not have time to do this. To make oven roasted beets: Preheat oven to 375°F. Remove the stem and most of the root from 2 beets. Scrub and wash them underwater until clean. Place beets on a piece of foil and drizzle with a little canola oil, then wrap the foil tightly around the beet and roast for about an hour or until tender. To test for tenderness, insert a knife and it should go through with no resistance. Set the beets in a bowl and place in the refrigerator to cool to room temperature. Once cool, puree the beets and set aside 1/2 cup for the cupcakes. Two beets will probably yield more than needed, the Minimalist Baker website has a recipe for beet hummus that looks amazing!

**I first used cold almond milk and the coconut oil seized up, so I had to warm it a bit in the microwave to get it to meld again. Using room temperature almond milk should prevent the coconut oil from seizing. Also, the original recipe calls for unsweetened vanilla almond milk, but I just had regular unsweetened on hand, so I upped the vanilla from 2 teaspoons to 1 tablespoon. 

Vegan Chocolate Glaze

Recipe adapted from a Chocolate Glaze recipe found on Epicurious.com

3/4 cup confectioners' sugar
2 tablespoons cocoa powder
1+ tablespoons water
1 teaspoon vanilla 

Sift together the sugar and cocoa powder in a medium bowl. Slowly stir in the water and vanilla, adding a little water at a time to make a smooth spreadable glaze. 

Makes enough glaze to cover 10 cupcakes. 

These cupcakes are sure to please vegans and non-vegans alike!

Enjoy!

Loco for Hoco! {Recipe: Churro Popcorn}

With fall comes homecoming for high schoolers. These kids take their homecoming pretty serious! Our house has been taken over with the homecoming float building crew. Which means we have had a house full of hungry teenagers.

As far as I am concerned, there is only so much pizza and chips you can serve. Therefore I set out to try and think of something different. Popcorn is always good and who doesn't like churros?!? So with this popcorn and a big pot of homemade turkey chili, I think we have some happy, well fed, teenagers!

Churro Popcorn

Recipe is adapted from one found at: http://homemadehooplah.com/recipes/churro-popcorn/

Ingredients for cinnamon, butter and sugar coating:

1 cup popcorn kernels
1 cup butter 
1 1/3 cup granulated sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons ground cinnamon
4 tablespoons light corn syrup
2 teaspoons vanilla

Ingredients for churro sugar coating:

1 cup powdered sugar
1/2 cup sugar
3 teaspoons cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt

Instructions:

1. In a small bowl, mix together the powdered sugar, sugar, cinnamon, and salt for the churro sugar coating, then set aside. 
2. Prepare popcorn using your preferred method. I like using an air popper. Place popped popcorn in a very large bowl or a brown paper bag (this is my favorite trick to coating popcorn), set aside.
3. In a medium saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat. Add sugar, salt, cinnamon, corn syrup and vanilla. Simmer and stir constantly until the mixture is smooth and sugar granules have desolved. This should take about 2-4 minutes. 
4. Slowly pour the cinnamon/butter coating over the popped popcorn a little at a time. Use a large spatula to gently stir and coat the popcorn. Continue to pour a little and stir until the popcorn is well coated. Better yet, using the brown paper bag method coats the popcorn easily (this is a trick I learned years ago and it's a great way to evenly coat popcorn), pour a little of the cinnamon/ butter coating over the popcorn in the brown paper bag. Fold the top of the bag over and give it a good shake; repeat until all the cinnamon/butter coating is used. Then fold the top of the bag over again and vigorously shake the bag. 
6. Sprinkle the about 1/3 of the churro sugar over the cinnamon/butter coated popcorn and toss to coat. If using the brown bag method, add 1/3 of the churro sugar to the bag,  fold over the top of the bag and give it a shake. Repeat whichever process you use until all the churro sugar is used. 

Happy Shacking!

Pace Yourselves... {Recipe: Peanut Butter Granola}

Taking a break from everything pumpkin. Last year we went a little pumpkin crazy and got really sick of it. In fact it was a little difficult to get into the mood for pumpkin this year. Although once fall hit it did start to sound good again, but this year we will pace ourselves.

There are lots of yummy pumpkin granola recipes out there and we will probably share one on here, but enough of the pumpkin for now. So here is the latest granola we made, and it's a good one!

Peanut Butter Granola

2 1/2 cups old-fashioned rolled oats (make sure to use gluten free, if needed)
1/2 cup ground golden flax seed
1/3 cup creamy peanut butter
1/3 cup honey
1/4 cup water
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1. Preheat oven to 300°F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or Silpat liner, then set aside.

2. In a large bowl, mix together the rolled oats and ground flax seed. Set aside

3. In a small sauce pan, heat the peanut butter, honey and water over medium-low heat, stirring constantly until smooth. Once the mixture is smooth, add vanilla and cinnamon until well incorporated.

4. Pour the peanut butter mixture over the oat mixture and stir until the oat mixture is evenly coated. 

5. Spread the mixture onto the lined baking sheet in an even layer. 

6. Bake at 300°F for 35-45 minutes. After baking for 15 minutes, using a spatula, flip large pieces of the granola over (this promotes getting nice big chunks of granola). Then repeat after 10 minutes. Check the granola again after 10 minutes. If it is starting to get too browned, pull it from the oven. If not, give it another stir and bake it for another 5-10 minutes. Keep a close eye on it too it doesn't over bake. 

7. The granola may be a little soft coming out of the even, but let it cool completely uncovered for at least an hour on the baking sheet and it will get hard and crunchy. 

Note: Roasted peanuts, honey-roasted peanuts and/or chocolate chips can be added after the granola has cooled. 

Enjoy!

No One Makes Soup Like Mom {Recipe: Chicken Sausage Chowder}

My mother was the soup queen. She made soups all of the time. They were usually really good, but you never really wanted to know what went in them. She never wasted food, so any little bit of food left over was put in the freezer then eventually made it into soup. I don't think she ever followed a recipe.

The effects of the depression was evident in how my mother treated food. It was never, ever wasted. Even if there was just a spoonful or two of food left from whatever, it was put into a small Tupperware container and frozen. I guess it was good that no-one forced themselves to finish up that last little bit, but whatever was left usually found it's way into soup.

Usually using a little bit of this and that along with some homemade stock or broth, some seasoning  and maybe some home canned tomatoes made for a pretty tasty soup. There is only one incident that it did not work so well that I can recall. My brother was the "lucky" recipient of some gross gelatinous stuff in his bowl of soup. It turned out, my mom threw some frozen leftover egg white into the soup and did not wait long enough for it to cook-ewwww!!! The take away here is always simmer the soup for awhile after adding an ingredient.

While I do not like to waste food, I am not as careful as my mother was. If there is a spoon full of something left, it is usually gets eaten, full or not, or tossed. If I make a soup, I follow a recipe. With the exception of chicken noodle or vegetable-then I just wing it.

Recently I made this soup. It is really good! The entire family loved it and fought over who got the leftovers for lunch the next day.

Chicken Sausage Chowder

This soup is adapted from a recipe found @ http://simplehacksliving.com/2014/12/healthy-bratwurst-chowder/

2 tablespoons olive oil
8 chicken sausage links, Oktoberfest or bratwurst, chopped
1 large onion, chopped
1 1/2 cup chopped carrots (about 3 whole carrots)
1 cup chopped celery (2-2 1/2 celery stalks)
1/3 cup all purpose flour
2 cups milk
4 cups chicken broth
1 15 ounce can of corn, rinsed and drained or 1 small bag of frozen corn
1 tablespoon garlic powder
1 tablespoon onion powder
1 teaspoon basil
3/4 teaspoon thyme
Salt and Pepper to taste

Sharp or Extra sharp Cheddar cheese, chopped green onion and/or fresh cracked black pepper for topping

Heat olive oil in a dutch oven or stock pot over medium heat. Brown chopped sausage. Add onion, carrots, and celery and sauté until the vegetables are softened, about 4 to 5 minutes. Sprinkle 1/3 cup flour over the sausage/veggie mixture, stir and cook about 2 more minutes. Add milk, chicken broth, garlic powder, onion powder, basil, thyme, salt and pepper (I added 1 teaspoon of salt and 1/2 teaspoon fine ground pepper, but you can taste to check seasoning). Bring to a boil, then reduce temperature to low. Simmer on low for 30 minutes.

Note: This recipe can be adapted for the crockpot. Sauté the sausage and veggies according to the instructions above, then spoon into the crockpot. Add remaining ingredients and cook for about 6-7 hours on low. 

Update: Adding 2-3 potatoes, peeled and chopped, is a yummy addition to this soup. Add the potatoes after the milk and broth; simmer until the potatoes are tender.

Makes  8 servings