Pumpkin Brownie Bites

This is the recipe that I'm going to bring in to work for our Vegan Treat Parade! Hopefully people like it, I really do. It's all kinds of tasty. I adapted this recipe from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World's Pumpkin Pie Brownie.


Food Items!

For Pumpkin Layer

• 1 cup canned pumpkin
• 2 tbs cornstarch
• 1/2 cup rice or soy milk
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 2 tsp vanilla
• 1 tsp pumpkin pie spice

For Brownie Layer

• 1 cup canned pumpkin
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup oil
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 3/4 cup flour
• 1/4 cup cocoa powder
• 1 tbs cornstarch
• 1/4 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/2 cup bittersweet chocolate chips

Cooking!

1. 
   Mix all the ingredients for the pumpkin layer until thoroughly combined.
2. Mix all the ingredients for the brownie layer EXCEPT the chocolate chips.
3. 
   Melt the chocolate chips. (I'm just out of college so I definitely don't have a double boiler. So if you're like me, you can do it the janky way using a glass mixing bowl over a pot of boiling water)
4. 
   Add melted chocolate to brownie batter.
5. 
   (I went a little crazy with my roommate's mini-muffin tin this weekend. That's what I used for these brownies and it makes them bite-sized! Anyway, you should be able to just use your normal 9x9 baking tin or a springform. Just make sure you grease it.) Grease your baking tin and fill about half way up with brownie layer.
6. 
   Add pumpkin layer.
7. Bake at 350F for about 25 minutes. Let cool on wire rack and then cool in fridge for 1 hour. (or eat straight out of the oven!)

Tomato Spinach and Basil Tartlets

Food Items!

• 3/4 cup flour plus more for rolling
• 4 oz cold butter
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 cup whipping cream
• 1/2 cup feta cheese
• 3 medium tomatoes
• 2 handfuls of spinach leaves
• about 10 leaves of fresh basil

Cooking!

1. Mix four and salt. Cut in butter until mixture resembles coarse bread crumbs. Sprinkle in about 4 tablespoons of very cold water one at a time, mixing between each. Knead the pastry until it forms a workable dough.
2. Roll the dough out on a floured surface. Cut however many rounds you have muffin tins for. (Note: My roommate has this awesome mini-muffin tin [24 cups] and I was able to fill that plus seven regular sized muffins.) It all depends on how thin you roll the pasty. Put the rounds in the muffin tin.
3. Whisk eggs and cream. 
4. Chop up tomatoes and give the pieces a good squeeze over the sink to get rid of seeds and excess goop. Add to eggs.
5. Cut up spinach and basil. Add to egg-tomato mixture.
6. Fill the pastry with the mixture.
7. Cook at 400F for 10 minutes. Reduce temperature to 350F and continue to cook for another 10 minutes or so. 
8. Enjoy! (after cooling down a little bit)

Vegan Clementine Walnut Muffins

So, my company is having a vegan bake-off in two weeks and I've never done any vegan baking so I figured I'd get some practice in before the event. This recipe is adapted from Post Punk Kitchen's Orange Cranberry Muffins. 


Food Items!

• 2 cups flour (I used whole wheat but all-purpose would work)
• 2/3 cups sugar
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup orange juice
• 1/2 cup oil (I used olive oil because that's what I had on hand and it turned out alright)
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
• a few clementines (I started with six but I think I only used about two and half in actual baking because I was constantly nibbling at them :D

Cooking!

1. Mix all dry ingredients together.
2. Add the rest of the ingredients except the clementines. Mix until just moistened.
3. Fill about 1/4 of the tin. 
4. Peel the clementines and put two segments (or carpels as I recently learned is the correct term, at least according to Wikipedia) in each muffin. If you can fit three, I'd totally recommend it!
5. Put some more batter on top of the clementine segments.
6. Top with a bit of walnut pieces.
7. Bake at 375F for about 25 minutes.

Note: These are amazingly moist and have an awesome texture! I'm definitely going to be doing some more vegan baking because these turned out so well :D

Sweet Potato Apple Bake

Food Items!

• 2 medium-ish sweet potatoes
• 3 of your favorite apples (I used Gala)
• 2 small onions (about 1 cup after cut up)
• handful of walnut pieces
• 3 or 4 leaves of fresh sage
• some olive oil

Cooking!

1. Cut up onions, sweet potato and apples. I would do the onions first and start cooking them (step 2) while you're cutting the other stuff. I'm a big texture person and I like my veggies cut really thin so that's how I did it. It made it nice for layering that way too.
2. Cook, saute, caramelize, whatever you feel like doing, the onions. When they are mostly finished add in the sage after mincing it.
3. Spread out half of the cut sweet potato in a layer in a 9x9 baking pan.  Add half of the sliced apples in another layer.
4. Repeat the sweet potato/apple layers.
5. Drizzle with olive oil. Shake a bit of salt on there.
6. Top with cooked onions.
7. Sprinkle with walnuts.
8. Cook at 350F for 40 minutes.

Butternut Squash and Blue Cheese Polenta Bake

Food Items!

• 1.5 cups polenta
• 1 lb. butternut squash
• ~ 3 oz. crumbled blue cheese
• ~ 3 oz. of ricotta cheese

Cooking!

1. Heat your oven to 375F and bake squash until tender, about 45 minutes. (Note: I didn't do this, but I'm pretty sure it will make this a lot easier.)
2. Bring 3 cups of water to boil (you won't be draining this because that would just be silly, so don't just fill your pot, :D)
1. While that's going on, mix your dry polenta with 1 cup cold water and little bit of salt. (I haven't actually tried it any other way, but I'm pretty sure this step makes it less likely that the polenta will get all clumpy.
2. When the water is boiling, add the polenta mixture and stir it for a bit. Reduce heat to low and let simmer uncovered for about 15 minutes. Stir occasionally. It will be kind of a grainy thick paste when it's done. 
3. While that's going on and after your squash is done, get all the fleshly part out from the rind and put in a mixing bowl. Mix in the cheeses. It looks kind of gross but it tastes nommiful :D



Butternut Squash and Blue Cheese mixture


4. Grease a baking pan (I used one about 6x4x2.5 but I would recommend something more along the lines of a 9x9 square, maybe a little bit smaller) and spread a third of the polenta along the bottom. Put half the cheesy squash mixture as a layer, then more polenta, then the rest of the cheesy squash and then the rest of the polenta.
5. I topped mine with a bit of chopped fresh sage but that is totes up to you.
6. Let the whole thing cool down to room temperature for about an hour. Then, chill it in the fridge for at least three hours, I did mine overnight. 
7. Bake at 350F for about 40 minutes.
8. Enjoy!

After Eating Note: I find this a little bland; I think the cheese I used wasn't quite as pungent as I would have liked. I've been eating leftovers with spicier stuff on the side: tonight I had it with homemade spaghetti sauce and spinach (that turned out quite nicely!) and I'm thinking about cooking up some black beans and salsa to go with it another night this week.