Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner and More Scones

I have mind boggling, insanely slow and annoying internet in this new place. Hence the lack of post last Sunday and yesterday. Bah-humbug I can’t wait to get out of this place. But before that…

Las Vegas!

And San Francisco. I can’t wait to get new food ideas there. And shop. And gamble of course.

While getting some beautiful photos. Should make for a great birthday and end to a wonderful summer.

No guarantees I’ll be able to post while I’m there for two weeks but I should have lots of good stuff afterwards.

And to make up for the past little bit, I am excited to share a delicious ‘breakfast’ scone that I like to enjoy at any time. Just recently I served it with the petit fours for the Spa Night I organized at work.

(Speaking of which, my Cheesecake Stuffed Strawberries made a come back at our Wrap Up BBQ by popular demand!)

What You’ll Need:

• 3/4 cup cold buttermilk
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 2 tsp vanilla
• a large egg
• 2 tsp cocoa
• 1 cup all purpose flour
• 1 cup soy flour (I used Bob’s Red Mill, you can substitute this for whole wheat or another extra healthy flour)
• 1 tbsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 3 tbsp cold, cold butter (just not frozen)
• 1 cup chocolate chips
• 1 large egg white
• sprinkle of sugar

What To Do: 

Preheat your oven to 375 degrees. Cut the cold butter into small pieces to make your future much easier. Combine the buttermilk, sugar, vanilla and egg in a medium bowl with a whisk.

In a large bowl, combine flour, baking powder, salt and cocoa and mix well. Cut in the butter pieces with a pastry blender if you have one. If your like me, use two knives. You want this mixture to resemble coarse meal:

Once that’s done, fold in the chocolate chips. Carefully add the milk mixture and stir just until it’s moist.

Flour a hard surface. Scoop the dough out and knead lightly with floured hands so it’s less runny. On a floured baking sheet, form the dough into a circle (roughly 9 inches but I’m very bad with those things). With a good knife cut the dough into wedges, 9-12 of them, all the way through so it leaves a dent. This makes it a lot easier to cut later.

Brush the egg white on the top and sprinkle some sugar over it lightly but even. Bake until golden, around 18-20 minutes. Cut and enjoy!

Certainly not the healthiest recipe I’ve ever done, but I figured such an absence deserves some deliciousness. It’s roughly 5-6 points a serving, depending on the size of your scone.

Strawberry Cheesecake. Except Very Small, Very Yummy, and Very Easy.

These past couple of weeks have been crazy and stressful. There was a leak in my apartment building and I’ve had to move out for an undetermined amount of time. As I’m sure you can imagine, it has been very annoying.

It also means I am not in my own kitchen. And this one is small.

In addition to all of this, I organized a spa event for work last Thursday of which I planned to do all the baking in my own time. Work stress plus personal stress plus having to bake new recipes for about 30 people? It is such a relief I find peace in baking.

One of the most popular recipes from the spa night were my Cheesecake Stuffed Strawberries. Adults loved them, kids adored them and I really enjoyed their simplicity.

What You’ll Need:

• A whole pile of strawberries.
• 1 package of light, plain cream cheese, softened
• 1/2 cup of powdered, confectioners sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• graham cracker crumbs

What You’ll Do:

In a larger mixing bowl, beat the cream cheese, sugar and vanilla until well mixed and creamy. Scoop the cheesecake mix into a Ziploc bag until needed. Just before you’re ready to serve, cut the top off of rinsed strawberriesand hollow if need be. Ensure the strawberries are dry before you fill them. Cut the tip of one corner of the Ziploc bag off, making a tiny hole to pipe out of. Squeeze until the cheesecake fills the strawberry and leaves a nice round top. Fill all of the strawberries then sprinkle them with graham cracker crumbs. Serve chilled.

Using the Ziploc bag as a piping bag can be tricky and requires some practise. But it is a very handy trick to have up your sleeve. Now enjoy these delicious treats!

S’mores without the Smoke

I love to go camping — with the exception of campfire smoke, mosquitoes and gross bathrooms. But I love just sitting around the fire, relaxing in a lake and making s’mores! During summers like the one I’m having (aka without any camping) I probably crave s’mores every day. So I did something about that.

What you need:

Four ingredients, how hard can it be? Organic chocolate sauce, Dandies vanilla flavoured vegan marshmallows, a little vanilla and graham wafers. The Dandies might be the hardest to find but are so worth it. And buy a few bags, they are addictive little sweets. Honestly, I prefer them over regular marshmallows.

What you do:

Preheat oven to 250 degrees. Line your baking sheet with tinfoil and give a quick spray of Pam or another non-stick spray. Evenly spread out the bottom half of your wafers and give each about a 1/4 tsp of vanilla per s’more. Cut your marshmallows in half and stick them on each corner of your wafer, two sticking to each wafer. Put a dollop of chocolate in the middle, add your top half and stick them in the oven. Let them sit in there for about 10 minutes. Take out and enjoy!

One annoying thing I found was the vegan marshmallows didn’t want to melt, no matter what. They became a little stickier but they just don’t melt like regular marshmallows. But that didn’t take away from their deliciousness. You can try to turn up the heat or leave them in longer if you want. If you find something that works, let me know!

Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Dip

I’ve often thought I would like to ditch my current career plans to open a flower shop with some sort of social good twist. Obviously I would use social and environmentally responsible  flowers, but I would somehow turn my little, imaginary flower shop into a socent (jargon alert: socent is a hashtag (#) used on twitter to signify social entrepreneurship and innovation). These days I have begun to add and grow my flower shop to include a vegan, healthy bakery/cafe/treat shop of sorts. Now I’m questioning if I’ve become a hippie but I think this is a shop with some potential in a place like Vancouver (please nobody steal my idea, it would make me sad). The reason for the addition probably has to do with my recent foray into vegan experiments in the kitchen.

Like this current work in progress. I’ve noticed cookie dough dips have become popular online and I wanted to try my hand at making a recipe. I got the general idea of what is required through my research and I wanted to make a recipe that could be done with what I currently have in my kitchen, which isn’t a lot. Oh, and it has to be WeightWatchers friendly of course.

I’ve only attempted one batch so far and I know there’s a lot of improvement to be made. And if you have ideas on how to make it better, I wouldn’t turn down any suggestion (except coconut, I despise coconut).

Ingredients: 

• 1 package of silken tofu
• 4 Tbsp light peanut butter
• 2 Tbsp or less sugar
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• pinch of salt
• 1/2-1/4 cup vegan dark chocolate chips

{you’ll need about 10 oz of tofu to make a large enough batch to blend}

Instructions:

In a food processor (or blender) combine all but the chocolate chips. Process/blend until all mixed and smooth, scrape down the sides as much as you can to make it right. Pour into a bowl and add chocolate chips. Mix well. For a chunkier texture, add half a cup of oats to the food processor/blender also.

I foolishly didn’t use silken tofu but just soft regular tofu. It caused a lack of thickness with my dip and I will not make the same mistake twice. Because of this, I used more peanut butter than I would have liked and it’s given my dip a strong flavour. Good for us who love peanut butter but don’t be

afraid to use less than four tablespoons. I’ve also stuck my dip in the freezer to thicken a bit more. Don’t use more than two tablespoons of sugar but if you want it a little healthier snack, this is an area that can be cut back. Be careful on the salt because I started with way too much and it was gross.

Originally, I wanted to make a batch half this size, but as I began to blend I realized there wasn’t enough ingredients to actually mix. I would also love to have a food processor.

Another area for possible improvement is the peanut butter. I would like to try making this with an almond butter. Or chickpeas instead of a tofu.

The dip will go with a variety of foods, from fruits to crackers to a spoon. Good as a snack or a dessert.

{to help prevent eating the whole thing in one sitting, I dished out each serving in a mini mason jar}

This recipe provided six 55g servings which are 4 points each with WeightWatchers.

Vegan Peanut Butter and Chocolate Cream Cups

I am lucky enough to know a woman who enjoys making semi-vegan, healthy treats and shares them with me at work. The other day, she made this delicious peanut butter and chocolate dessert and I had to have the recipe for. It comes from this delightful “vegan” recipe blog, Oh She Glows.I’ve got vegan in quotations because she seems to use non-vegan chocolate amongst some other dairy items but these are easy things to substitute. I decided to attempt her ‘Mini Peanut Butter Cups in a Jar’ recipe I was given, with some slight changes.

For example, I don’t have little mason jars. However, I highly recommend using them rather than a bowl like I did. The bowl didn’t help create the right consistency and texture. Also, jars are portion controlled for us dieters and super cute. Tie some ribbon on them and they would make a fun, decorated dessert for guests. It would also be easier to keep large batches for a longer period of time. I also couldn’t find coconut oil and guessed that coconut milk would work just as well. I think because of this I had to use more milk to get the desired effect. Also, I should have melted more chocolate because I didn’t have enough to cover the top. I could have melted it for longer too. I did make a double batch so there could have been slight problems from this. Either way, I must perfect this delicious desert over time!

Anyway, here’s my modified recipe for ‘Vegan Peanut Butter and Chocolate Cream Cups’:

Ingredients: 

Crust:

• 1/2 cup graham cracker crumbs
• 1.5 tbsp light maple syrup, more if desired
• 1 tbsp coconut oil or 1.5 tbsp coconut milk, or more if crust not moistened enough
• 2.5 tsp cocoa powder

Filling:

• 200 grams soft organic tofu, roughly cut-up into sqares
• 1/4 cup light peanut butter
• 4 tbsp powdered sugar
• 1 tbsp almond milk, unsweetened
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• pinch of salt for taste

Chocolate topping:

• 3 tbsp vegan dark chocolate
• 1.5 tsp coconut oil or 2 tsp coconut milk (which made it fairly thick)

{ingredients of the crust with a hint of chocolate}

Instructions: 

1. Add crust ingredients in a food processor or blender and mix until crumbs are damp and darker. Hint: Because I don’t have a food processor and didn’t want to pull out my blender, I tried stirring the ingredients together. Don’t attempt this. Pull out the blender.
2. Spread crust evenly in bottom of a small bowl (medium if doing a double batch) or about 2 tablespoons worth into each mason jar (covering about 5 mason jars).  Flatten.
3. Add the filling ingredients in a cleaned-out food processor or blender (I learned my lesson at this point and grabbed my blender). Mix until silky smooth and no peanut butter sticks to the side.
4. Divide filling amongst jars or spread evenly in bowl. Shake smooth and stick in the freezer, uncovered, to firm up. If using jars, leave in there for about 30 minutes. If in a large bowl, leave a little longer. Hint: I left my double batch in for over an hour and my centre was still fairly liquid-y.
5. Remove from freezer and melt chocolate.Hint: It is important to note that you don’t start to melt the chocolate until the filling has set. Otherwise your chocolate will be melted, the filling wont be ready, and the chocolate will begin to harden again by the time you want to spread it.
6. Evenly spread chocolate on top of filling and smooth by quickly spinning jars/bowl.
7. Place back in freezer for chocolate to set.
8. Enjoy cold or let melt a bit for a creamier texture.

{filling ingredients to be blended}

If your like me and the first/last time you melted chocolate you ended up burning it in your parent’s microwave, be very careful. Don’t do it in the microwave again for once. It stinks up the house/apartment. Stir often and make sure it’s melted enough. Mine ended up being very difficult to spread as you can tell from the photos. I left my extra dessert in the fridge so it wouldn’t be frozen every time I had a craving.

{I’m melting, melting!}

Like I said in the instructions, don’t melt the chocolate while your filling sets. Instead, take the waiting time and be productive. For example, in the hour I waited I:

• cleaned up my kitchen
• prepared the chocolate for melting
• took out the trash
• sorted and took out recycle
• cleaned my living room
• danced
• washed strawberries
• took photos
• edited photos
• blogged (see the tea-sicle post here!)
• made dinner
• ate dinner
• danced some more
• checked my Facebook/Twitter
• looked for more recipes to bake

I’m organizing a BBQ at work and I think this recipe would be perfect for a dessert. Takes no time to make and could be enjoyed by many people.

For those doing WeightWatchers like me, this recipe is about 7 points per serving, yielding 5 servings. To make it less, rather than making a peanut butter cream you could use a fruit like filling or some other thickening ingredient.

{I messed up the chocolate part but you get the idea. Besides, still scrumptious}

If you make it, let me know what you think!!