Vegan Orzo Verde Recipe

One of my favorite dishes is Damn Delicious' Slow Cooker Enchilada Orzo. I've made it many, many times over the years. Originally, I made it exactly as written, Crock Pot and all. 

As time went by, my roommate's biological feud with tomatoes threatened to remove this beloved meal from my repertoire. I wasn't willing to let it go without a fight. Thus, the recipe morphed into a tomato-free, all vegan, stovetop version that let me keep my roommate and my menu.

If you're looking for a pasta dish without tomatoes, I hope you give this one a try. It's crowd-pleasing. It's easy to throw together. And yes, it is damn delicious.

 

Vegan Orzo Verde (adapted from Damn Delicious)

Ingredients:

• 1 jar salsa verde (about 16oz)
• 1 can green enchilada sauce
• 1 can chopped green chiles (can be omitted if your salsa is on the spicy side)
• 1 cup veggie broth (I use Better than Bouillon concentrate) 
• 1 can black beans
• 2 cups orzo pasta (I'm sure you could use another small pasta shape, such as stars or ditalini, but I'm hooked on the texture of orzo "grains")
• 4oz vegan cream cheese (Tofutti and Violife both work great)
• 1 cup frozen corn
• Cilantro to taste

Instructions:

• In a soup pot, combine the salsa, enchilada sauce, chiles (if using), veggie broth, and black beans. Cover and bring to a boil.
• To the boiling pot, add orzo and cook just shy of desired tenderness.
• Stir in cream cheese and frozen corn until the cream cheese is fully melted and the corn is warm.
• Add cilantro to your heart's content and serve as big ol' bowls of cozy.

 Bonus points if you have Lauren Toyota's Nacho Cheese and some chips on the side.

Baked Apple Cinnamon Rolls

Everyone loves cinnamon rolls; it's a universal truth.

Cinnamon rolls are an excellent social distancing food because they're familiar and comforting, they take a long time to make (so they're boredom-busting), and they don't require any weird-ass ingredients that you'd have to leave your house to get. Understandably, I decided my pandemic experience would be incomplete without indulging in cinnamon rolls at least once. (It would be more than once, but now I'm out of butter.)

When I waddled upstairs to start baking this morning, I remembered I had some really really sad looking apples that I bought the first day of the shutdown because I thought it would be responsible to buy fruit to ward off scurvy. Turns out though, I don't eat apples. Even when I put them in a fruit bowl all pretty-like.

So I decided, right then and there, to invent Baked Apple Cinnamon Rolls to use those suckers up.

The Best Vegan Oatmeal Raisin Cookies in the Universe

If you've been here for a hot second, you probably know that I love cookies. And cookie dough. And Oreos. But guys. All of that pales in comparison to my love for oatmeal raisin cookies.

I love oatmeal raisin cookies.

No, like really. I LOOOOOVE oatmeal raisin cookies. It's even in my bio.

One of my great moments of shame as a child was when my mother baked oatmeal raisin cookies for a meeting she had and I kept sneaking into the kitchen and stealing one and then another one and then another one and then I filled my teeny art kit suitcase with cookies and hid behind a chair and ate them all.

But you know what? I don't even think I regret it. Because oatmeal raisin cookies are the best.

Spinach and Chickpea Stuffed Shells

After I went vegan, I tried to make stuffed shells with a tofu ricotta because one of the YouTube vegans swore up and down that it was the most amazing stuff ever and you couldn't even tell the difference between tofu and ricotta.

She was wrong.

It was terrible.

So I've been skeptical about trying anyone else's ricotta substitutes, let alone a recipe like stuffed shells that highlights said ricotta substitutes, but then I stumbled across a 6-year-old recipe from some dude named Andrew Olson and I figured it was worth the risk: https://www.oneingredientchef.com/chicotta-stuffed-shells/.

This recipe makes the filling out of chickpeas, cashews, and spinach--all things I'm willing to eat on their own (tofu, not so much). So this afternoon I took the leap and made the shells.

People. They were incredible.

Oh my god.

Look at 'em:

Look at 'em some more:

They're yummy, they're filling, they're healthy, and they're not a total pain in the ass to make. In fact, you could probably do all the prep in advance, freeze a tray of these, and just stick them in the oven when you're ready to eat.

My only complaint is that the filling seems a bit gritty, but I think that's my blender's fault more than anything else. Next time I might blend the filling in shifts to see if that helps, but even if it doesn't, I will still make this on the regular because DAMN is it delicious.

Vegan Pumpkin Pie is My Superpower

Dear citizens of the Internet:

I am writing to you at this time, fully interrupting your holiday merriment and whatnot, to inform you that I am--100% confirmed--a vegan goddess. Yes, you read that right. My vegan awesomeness has officially transcended this dimension and become supernatural, otherworldy, and downright magical.

I have made a vegan pumpkin pie. And it. was. BOMB.

I swear. I didn't know this was possible. If I had known this was possible, I would have made one a long time ago. I would have...I dunno...attempted world domination or something, because in a universe where I can make a vegan pumpkin pie that is EXACTLY as phenomenal as traditional pumpkin pie, anything is within my reach. I am an unstoppable diva, and I defy you to prove anything different.

(Please don't prove anything different. I deserve this high.)

Look at this pie in all its poorly-photographed majesty:

I know. It's a little ugly, but just think of it as one of those evolutionary self-protection things. The pie thinks if it looks cracked and lopsided, no one will want to eat it.

Well the joke's on that pie, because it is completely irresistible and delicious.

I am mind boggled.

Or, I would be, if I weren't a goddess.

If you would like to replicate this luxurious, heavenly, perfect pie at home, you can find the recipe from Lisa, aka The Viet Vegan: https://thevietvegan.com/vegan-pumpkin-pie/. I followed the suggestion in the comments to whip the aquafaba with sugar before folding it into the pumpkin mix, and I think it really helped the texture. But even without that, I would drink this batter with a straw. It's that amazing.

You may now return to your regularly scheduled holiday festivities. I'll be over here with my pie.

Curry ala Greg

Once upon a time, there was a guy who thought veganism was stupid, but he wanted to get into my pants, so he cooked me curry.

His name was Greg.

This is his recipe.

Full disclosure: This is not some kind of love potion curry. It's delicious. It's totally worth making for yourself or sharing with a date. And maybe you'll get lucky. But Greg didn't, and I make no promises for anyone else who makes it.


Here's what you'll need:

2 onions
Oil
3 carrots
Sweet potato (one big one or two little ones)
Seasonings: ginger, garlic, turmeric
1 head broccoli
1 can chickpeas
1 can diced tomatoes
1 can coconut milk
4oz red curry paste
Peanut butter
Rice

Here's what you do:

1. Cook some rice. Whatever kind you like. I don't judge. If your auntie lets you use her rice cooker, do it that way.

2. Chop all the veggies.
 

3. Put the onions in the pot with the oil and let them do onion-y things until they are soft. Shake in some seasonings until you think it smells good. Then dump in all your cans of stuff and all your veggies and maybe some water if the cans of stuff don't cover the veggies, and cook it until the veggies are soft. This is a very specific recipe.

4. Stir in a big spoonful of peanut butter.

5. Serve over rice.


That's it. Best wishes for your curry-related conquests. You got this.

Snickerdoodles and Snowstorms

On Tuesday I celebrated the first snow of the year by baking a batch of snickerdoodles.

Before Tuesday, I'd never made snickerdoodles. In fact, I'd probably only eaten snickerdoodles once or twice, so I didn't have very high expectations for these cookies. All I knew was that snickerdoodles remind me of Snickelfritz, and that makes me happy.

(If anybody out there knows who this is, we can be best friends and I'll give you cookies.)

I completely stole this recipe from the internet, so it's nothing 4,000 people haven't already declared awesome, but holy crap, these things are incredible.

First of all, snickerdoodles are insanely easy to make. You mix the stuff, then you mix the other stuff, then you mix the stuffs together, then you roll it around a little bit and then you bake it. Easy peasy.

Coming out of the oven, the snickerdoodles are all crack-topped and oozy, but after a few minutes, they develop perfectly crisped edges with chewy centers and a gentle spiciness that makes you want to curl up in a blanket and watch the snow. And yes, that is exactly what I did.

Call me crazy, but I think these might be my new favorite cookies. The dough is smooth and squishy and fun to roll. The cinnamon and sugar coating makes them slide right off the cookie sheet and into your mouth.* They are practically perfect, just like Mary Poppins.

Without further ado, here is Beth Sigworth's Snickerdoodle recipe:

Ingredients:
2 3/4 cups flour
2 tsp cream of tarter
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup shortening
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 eggs
2 tsp vanilla

2 tbs sugar
2 tsp cinnamon

Instructions:

1. Sift together flour, cream of tarter, baking soda, and salt. I added a little bit of caradmom, but that is completely unnecessary unless you happen to have an otherwise useless bottle of cardamom in your cupboard.

2. Cream together butter and shortening and sugar.

3. Beat in eggs and vanilla.

4. Mix the flour and stuff into the butter and stuff.

5. In a tiny bowl, stir together the sugar and cinnamon. Roll dough into balls and roll it around in the cinnamon sugar until evenly coated. Keep in mind that bigger balls mean bigger cracks. (Insert bad plumber joke here.)

6. Put the balls on a cookie sheet covered with parchment paper and bake at 400 degrees for 8 minutes (ONLY 8 MINUTES!). Cool on the cookie sheet for a couple of minutes before transferring to a cooling rack.

7. Eat with a steamy mug of white hot chocolate.

*Not recommended for safety reasons. Cool until touchable before consuming.

Oatmeal Scotties

My roommate's friend has the balls to question the earth-shattering awesomeness of my oatmeal raisin cookies. This friend has requested (the nerve) a batch of Oatmeal Scotties for comparison.

Now, I'm half tempted to poison them, just because I can, but I'll be damned if I can't make the best freaking batch of Oatmeal Scotties to ever exist.

And where do you go when you're looking for the best ever Oatmeal Scotties recipe? Nestle. Duh.

Before I go telling you these things are phenomenally awesome, they're not. They're okay. They're really, really, really, really sugary. Like, really sugary. But if sugar coated sugar is your thing, maybe you'll like these.

At any rate, I'm fairly confident my good old oatmeal raisin cookies are going to thwart the opposition yet again, but just in case they don't, here's the recipe.

Ingredients:
1 1/4 cup flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 cup butter, softened
3/4 cup white sugar
3/4 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1 1/2 cups quick oats
1 1/2 cups traditional oats
11oz Nestle Butterscotch Morsels

Instructions:

1. Sift together flour, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon.

2. In a separate bowl, beat together butter and sugars.

3. Add eggs and vanilla to butter mixture.

4. Mix flour mixture into butter mixture.

5. Stir oats and butterscotch chips into dough.

6. Scoop dough out in tablespoonfuls. Bake at 375 for 10 minutes.

Makes, like, 50 absurdly sweet cookies.


P.S. Yes, I pronounce it "scotties" instead of "scotchies." Deal with it.

Oreo Cream Pie

Pie:

Pie:

And also, pie:

But not just any pie. No, this is Oreo Cream Pie, the greatest of all the pies. Well, okay, maybe not the greatest of all the pies. Maybe, like, the second greatest, because, yaknow, apple. And maybe pumpkin. Because Thanksgiving wouldn't exist without pumpkin pie. So let's say the third greatest of all the pies.

Don't let it's third-place status fool you, though. This pie is delicious. I've been looking forward to it all week. My coworkers were all like, "So, Katie, what are you doing with your Saturday off?" And I was all, "Sitting on my couch. Eating pie." And my coworkers were all, "Who are you, Homer Simpson?" And I was all, "Shut up or I won't share my pie."

And then they shut up. Because nobody messes with this pie.

(Actually, no, not really. They did call me Homer Simpson, but I didn't offer to share my pie. They're not pieworthy. Very few people are pieworthy.)

So how do you make this glorious circle of pieness, you ask? I'll tell you how. You get your ingredients.

And then you squish some of your ingredients.

And then you put your other ingredients in a bowl and squish them together.

And then you add the squishy ingredient into the other squished ingredients.

And then you pour it into an Oreo pie shell and sprinkle leftover squishedness on top.

Then you stick the whole shibang in the freezer for, like, some hours....or however long you can stand to wait before pulling it out and devouring it, which may be considerably less than some hours.

And then you eat it. Potentially all by yourself. Because Oreo Cream Pie is awesome.

Oh, and in case you were wondering, here are the actual directions....

Ingredients:
Approximately 10-ish Oreos
3oz cream cheese
2 tbs sugar
1/2 cup Half-and-Half
8oz Cool Whip
1 Oreo cookie pie shell

What You Do:

1. Whirl maybe, like, sevenish of your Oreos around in a food processor until they're nice and crumbly. You're looking for one full cup of Oreos, so you may have to add or take away (read: eat) based on how accurate my Oreo counting skills are.

2. Squish up your three ounces of cream cheese with the sugar. Do not accidentally use a full 8oz package. That would be bad.

3. Pour the Half-and-Half into the cream cheese and mix.

4. Stir in the Cool Whip.

5. Stir in the Oreo crumbs.

7. Pour into the pie shell.

8. Top with chopped up Oreos. Not crushed Oreos. I may have gotten ahead of myself and crushed up too many Oreos, which I then threw on top of the pie because I figured, hey, they're Oreos, they'll be delicious no matter what. I did not take into consideration the fact that crushed up Oreos kind of look like crap. For a minute or two I considered going back to the store and buying more stuff to make another Oreo pie, but I'm pretty sure the people at the grocery store are about ready to start calling me the Crazy Oreo Chick, so I decided to hold my horses and stick with the crappy-looking pie.

9. Throw the whole thing in the freezer, preferably overnight, preferably right next to some Oreo Klondike bars that aren't nearly as good as Oreo Cream Pie. Remove from freezer approximately 15ish minutes before cutting.

Be sure to share this pie only with pieworthy people. Like me.

Giant Bakery Style Chocolate Chip Cookies

If you don't follow me on Twitter then you are an incredibly lame individual and we can't be friends. Also, if you don't follow me on Twitter you probably don't know I got a new day job. A new day job 45 minutes away from home that required me to work an 11-hour shift on Sunday.

Since you have none of that information, you will probably not understand why I woke up this morning all, "oh, crap, it's Monday, I gotta blog!" Please, don't be offended. I love to blog. Blogging is great, but sometimes unprepared people like me approach things a little, well....unprepared. Which is why I decided at, oh, I don't know, like, 10am this morning that I would bake you my world famous secret recipe chocolate chip cookies.

That plan worked out great until I opened the fridge and remembered I ate all my chocolate chips. In a speedy Plan B, I pulled out the crappy semi-sweet chocolate chips and decided to make mammothly monster-sized cookies instead.

Ta da!

Okay, so they're not as mammothly monster-sized as they could have been, but they're still pretty darn big. Consider yourself warned. I cannot be held responsible if you fall into a diabetic coma halfway through one of these cookies. I also cannot be held responsible for any damage incurred from you bouncing off the walls during your sugar high.

What You Need:
2 cups flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
3/4 cup melted butter
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
1 tbs vanilla
1 egg
1 egg yolk
1 1/2 cups chocolate chips

 What You Do:
1. Sift together your flour and baking soda and salt. Set it aside.

2. In a big bowl, beat together the melted butter, brown sugar, and white sugar. It might look a little funny. That's okay.

3. Mix in the vanilla and eggs.

4. Mix the flour and stuff into the butter and stuff.

5. Stir in the chocolate chips.

6. Scoop the dough out into slightly-bigger-than-a-ping-pong-ball-sized lumps and drop them onto a cookie sheet covered in parchment paper. (By the way, has anybody else noticed that ping pong balls can now be purchased in the booze aisle at the grocery store? Also, has anybody else ever thought about how hilarious the term "ping pong" is? It's hilarious. You should think about it more.)

7. Bake at 325 for 15-17 minutes, depending on how gooey you like your cookies.

8. Take them out and let them cool on the cookie sheet for a minute or two until they're mostly solid and then move them to a cooling rack.

Despite the fact that these pictures are awesome (duh), I feel the need to explain to you that these cookies, while not as awesome as my world famous secret recipe cookies (which, spoiler alert, are almost exactly like these ones),  are incredibly incredible. They are the cookie equivalent of a Kraft Singles grilled cheese sandwich--go ahead, rip it in half and watch the chocolate ooze out. You know you want to.

View the original recipe here.

Peanut Butter M&M Cookies

Guys! Today is the day! Are you excited? Are you? Are you? Huh huh huh?

Today I am finally giving you my Peanut Butter M&M cookie recipe. *the crowd goes wild* But first, I need to tell you a short story.

For some time now I have been on a quest to discover the world's best peanut butter cookie recipe. I started out, as everyone does, with the classic Peanut Butter Blossom cookies, adorned oh-so-sweetly with a Hershey Kiss. I didn't like those. So I tried my own Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip cookies. They were alright, but I didn't love them. After that I invented my own recipe while laying in bed half-asleep and attempted to bake them the next morning from my scrawled notes. I kind of forgot all about the egg, because, evidently, sleepy me doesn't care much for eggs. I tried a couple more times and tweaked the recipe to become what you're getting today, and I'm pretty happy with it. However, throughout this journey to find the perfect peanut butter cookie recipe, I have come to realize something very important about myself.....I don't like peanut butter.

Yes, you read that right. So long, Peanut Butter M&M cookies. So long, Reeses Peanut Butter Cup Oreos. So long, horrible peanut butter sandwiches my mother used to make without jelly. (I feel like that last one may have started my psychological aversion to peanut butter, but who knows. Maybe I had a peanut allergy in a past life or something.)

Since I've hyped this recipe so much lately--and since I invested so much stinkin' time trying to perfect it--I'm going to share it today whether I like it or not. People around me who like peanut butter claim they're delicious. If you don't like them, blame my friends.

Here's what you'll need:
1 3/4 cup flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup butter, softened
3/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup sugar
1 tbs egg replacer
3 tbs warm water
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup peanut butter
1 cup mini M&Ms
Note: I don't use eggs and used the egg replacer and warm water as a sub. I'm pretty sure it's the equivalent to approximately two eggs....or maybe an egg and a yolk....but probably two eggs, so give that a whirl and let me know if I need to adjust the recipe for egg-eaters.

Here's what you do:

1. Sift the flour, baking soda, and salt together into a medium bowl.

2. Beat together the butter and sugars.

3. In a tiny bowl, mix together the egg replacer and water and then beat it into the butter mixture. If you're using real eggs you can skip the tiny bowl....unless you really want to pour your eggs into a tiny bowl, in which case, follow your dreams and stuff.

4. Beat in vanilla and peanut butter.

5. Add the floury mixture into the peanutbuttery mixture in two portions, beating after each addition. Dough should be squishy. Be sure to test for squishiness by squishing.

6. Stir in 1 cup of mini M&Ms. Or mini chocolate chips. Or candied ants. Whatever you happen to have on hand is fine. I happened to have a few M&Ms.

7. Roll dough into approximately tablespoon-sized lumps, place on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper and squish slightly because squishing is fun.

8. Bake at 350 for 10-12 minutes.

9. Cool on a wire rack.

Makes roughly 32 cookies depending on how big they are and how much dough you eat.

How do you feel about peanut butter? Did your mother put jelly on your sandwiches? Was it delicious? I bet it was....

Dill Dip and Dirty Jokes

I was recently inspired to combine my affinity for pickles and my love of dipping things into other things and decided to make you a batch of dill dip.

 

Now, I know every lady loves the taste of a thick, juicy gherkin, but when you slide one in your mouth and it's all squishy, it kind of loses its appeal, which was my problem with the first recipe I tried. As tasty as a kosher dill coated in sour cream can be, the odd squishy texture of the pickle really turned me off. Thus began my search for a dip that would satisfy my big pickle urges without the bothersome softness that can occur when a kosher dill is left in the cold.

Enter this recipe from AllRecipes.com, which, all kidding aside, really got me going. It's full of flavor, it's silky smooth, and when it slides down your throat you'll want to swallow more again and again. It's every boyfriend's dream.

The best part of this dip? It's easy. Just like your semi-drunk single cousin at every wedding reception ever. You toss everything in a bowl and stir it together. (Except your keys. Don't put your keys in the bowl. This is not that kind of party.)

What do you toss in, if not your keys? I'll tell you:

1 cup of mayo (the real stuff, not Miracle Whip or "salad dressing")
1 cup of sour cream (save the rest to put on noodles)
1/2 tbs dried parsley
1 1/2 tbs onion (chopped up into super-teeny-tiny bits--do not include severed fingers)
2 tbs dried dill weed (dill weed, not the other kind of weed)
1 tsp seasoning salt (optional)

Once all that's mixed together, stick it in the fridge overnight. Do not cheat on this step. I know you want to eat it all immediately, but the good things in life are worth waiting for; or so the abstinence advocates tell me. (For more information about the frequency of my sex life, check out this post.)

When it comes time to pull out the dip, serve it up with some kettle-cooked chips and a fizzy beverage.

(This was actually my dinner Thursday night and I have no regrets! Well, okay, maybe I have one or two regrets....)

Give this a whirl for yourself and if you want to turn me on to your favorite dip, leave a link in the comments!