No, This is Not a Tray of Dirt

It's a raw brownie! It didn't stick together like it was supposed to - it should have plopped right out of the tray. It's my fault. I should have seen the signs: It came out of the blender all crumbly, when it should have been sticky. But I tried it, and it was so fabulous! It had a great flavor. I made a 1/4 batch of this recipe. Sooo good, and quite nutritious too. Can you believe a brownie could only have four ingredients? I'll know better next time, and I'll either soak my raisins to make them plumper and juicier or add some agave nectar to make it more adhesive.




Here they are, my first dorm kitchen pancakes! I wasn't sure how well they would work using a pan from a different kitchen, but the non-stick pan never fails me in the world of pancakes. (P.S. That's the secret to awesome pancakes!!) These were so good! With the deep flavor of blackstrap molasses, these subtly sweet pancakes tasted kind of like luscious, healthy gingerbread cookies! Would you like your own serving size of these Nutty Fig Molasses Pancakes? Well, you're in luck:



Nutty Fig Molasses Pancakes
Adapted from Vegan with a Vengeance

Serves 1 (yields 3 pancakes)

4 tablespoons whole wheat pastry flour
1 tablespoon quick oats
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
pinch salt
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 tablespoon canola oil
4 teaspoons water
1/4 cup + 1 tablespoon soymilk
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 tablespoon blackstrap molasses
1 dried Turkish fig
1 tablespoon walnuts, roughly chopped

Mist a big non-stick pan with cooking spray and preheat on medium-high for a couple minutes.

Combine whole wheat pastry flour (I do it in tablespoons to avoid clumping instead of with a 1/4 cup measure [then you don't have to sift the flour]), oats, salt, baking powder, and cinnamon in a cereal-size bowl. In a teacup-sized bowl or mug, combine oil, soymilk, water, vanilla, and molasses. Add the wet ingredients to the dry, mixing lightly to combine. Do not overmix. Tear the fig into smallish pieces with your fingers and throw it into the batter along with the chopped walnuts.

At this point, I turn the heat down to just below medium. Using a 1/4 cup measure, ladle out batter onto the pan. You should have just enough batter to fit all three pancakes into the pan - perfect! Cook pancakes until browned (and slightly dry) around the edges and bubbles appear on top. Just before you flip each pancake, lightly mist the pan surface underneath with cooking spray. Cook other side until bottoms are browned and surface begins to firm. Relocate to serving plate. Top with yumminess of your choice! (I heated a mixture of 1/4 cup mashed bananas and 1/2 teaspoon agave nectar in the microwave for my topping.)


Moving on... I eat at the cafe where I work for lunch four days out of the school week. This is by no means a vegan cafe, so I wanted to show you how I manage to feed myself at lunchtime. This particular day was one of those days I got really lucky!



Our menu changes daily, and I saw that we had a creamy butternut squash and sweet potato soup coming up. I asked the chef if he would save a little soup for me before he added the butter and cream. He makes vegetarian soups every day, but often (as in 99% of the time) will add butter or cream to vegetarian dishes so that they are inedible for poor little vegans. Every once in a while, though, he'll surprise me and say, "I made something vegan today!" So, he made the huge batch of soup the day before it was to be served - without adding any butter or cream - and he also tried it himself. He kept exclaiming how good it was without the cream and dairy, and about how pleased he was with how it turned out! But by the next day, the soup appeared in the cafe all creamed and dairy-ed up. I still thoroughly enjoyed the vegan portion he had saved and set aside for me: it was thick with orange vegetable goodness!



I also lucked out with some vegan meatloaf that day. I believe it was made by Match Foods. It was my first time to have "meatloaf" (and I've never had the meat version, either). I have to say I was quite frightened when I first bit into it! The texture and taste were so similar to real meat that I was afraid that I had gotten the real thing by mistake! (But it was vegan, no worries.) It was super delish dipped in some nummy to my tummy vegan tomato gravy, and I had steamed carrots and organic, crusty French bread on the side. Mmm! I worked on the hot line that day and convinced a lot of people to try the meatless "meatloaf" - and they liked it!


I also managed to do a lot of cooking this weekend. I tried a recipe for Caramelized Tofu with Pecans and Brussels Sprouts, which I served over a bed of nutty quinoa. This was sooo good! The recipe came from 101cookbooks.com.



I didn't have any brown sugar, so I did the great swap-a-roo of turbinado sugar plus blackstrap molasses. I think this made it even yummier than it would have been with brown sugar! The molasses formed a crunchy, mildly sweet layer around the tofu, and it added a great dimension to the taste of the crushed pecans, too. Wow-ee wow wow! This dinner made me very happy. You should try it. :)




I've been making a lot of new and exciting combinations for oatmeal breakfasts. Coming up soon, I shall share! I promise not too stay away from blogging for too long this time though, hehe.