Carrot Cake

I don’t know why springtime and Easter scream “carrot cake” to me. Maybe it’s the association between bunnies and carrots? Nevertheless, carrot cake ranks in my top 5 favorite desserts. Banana cake is my all time fav, but that’s a different recipe for another day. I don’t usually tell people this is a plant based or vegan cake because when they hear that, they assume it’s going to be dry and have no flavor and this cake is anything but that! You can easily make this gluten free with all oat flour or a mixture of flours, I’ve done it and it comes out well but I like the texture of this one a little better. You can add 1/2-1 cup of raisins if you’d like. I don’t. For me, raisins belong in oatmeal cookies and that’s about it. I hope you love it and/or it brings back happy memories….carrot cake was all rage in the ‘70’s & ‘80’s!

2 cups shredded carrots

1/2 cup shredded coconut

1 cup drained crushed pineapple (save the juice)

1 cup nuts (walnuts or pecans)

1 cup unbleached flour 

1 cup whole wheat pastry flour

1 cup oat flour 

1 tablespoon ground cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon ginger

1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice

1 teaspoon baking soda 

2 teaspoon baking powder 

1 teaspoon salt 

1 cup organic sugar or coconut sugar 

1 cup organic brown sugar

3 flax ‘eggs’ 

1/2 cup avocado oil or melted coconut oil

1/2 cup applesauce

1 tsp orange zest (optional)

2 teaspoons vanilla extract 

2 cups shredded carrots 

1 cup chopped walnuts or pecans

For the frosting:

1 cup (8 ounces) vegan cream cheese, room temperature

1/2 cup vegan butter, room temperature

4 cups powdered sugar, (approximately, you may need a bit less or a bit more depending on humidity, altitude & temperature)

1 tsp vanilla extract

a pinch of salt

a pinch of orange rind (optional)

Drained pineapple juice

Garnish with chopped nuts and carrot ribbons or shredded carrots, if desired

Directions for the frosting:

Beat the butter (room temperature) until creamy. Add the plant based cream cheese (Toffuti, Miyoko’s, Kitehill or Trader Joe’s brands are all good), add the vanilla extract and orange zest (optional). Beat until creamed with the butter. Add the powdered sugar 1 cup at a time, until you have the desired consistency, it it’s too thick add some the drained pineapple juice 1 tsp at a time, if it’s too thin add a bit more powdered sugar. Refrigerate until ready to use.

Directions for the cake:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Lightly grease two 9 inch cake pans (I use coconut oil spray) or 24 muffin tins 

For the flax ‘eggs’ use 1 Tbsp flax meal and 3 Tbsp of water for each ‘egg’ (you can grind the seeds in a food processor). You can also use an egg replacer or chia ‘eggs’. Mix the flax and water and set aside until it’s a gelatinous texture.

In large bowl, combine flour, cinnamon, baking soda, baking powder and salt, mix well. In separate bowl, combine sugar and flax ‘eggs’ beat until well blended. Add oil and vanilla; beat until combined. Stir in carrots. Add flour mixture; stir just until moistened. Pour evenly into cake pans or muffin tins, with muffin liners. Bake in preheated oven for 40-45 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. For muffins bake 20-22 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean. Cool in pans for 10 minutes.

Remove cake from pans; cool completely on wire rack, frost, sprinkle with nuts and ribbons of carrots if desired and, Enjoy!

Corn Chowder

Every time I went to Mimi's Cafe, I’d order the corn chowder. It’s warm, sweet, savoy, basically the perfect comfort food. I've had their recipe for several years and love to make it at home but like everything else I've modified it to make it plant based.

Ingredients
1/4 cup vegan butter
1/2 cup onion chopped
1 cup celery, large dice
3 cups hot water
2 1/2 cups raw potatoes, peeled and cut into 1/2 cubes
16 oz bag frozen corn (white or yellow)
1 Tbsp sugar
2 tea salt
1/2 tsp white pepper
5 Tbsp flour/gluten free flour
5 cups of plant milk (I use hemp milk)
Fresh ground pepper

Directions:
In a large pot or dutch over, melt vegan butter. Add onion, celery, simmer until softened but not browned. Add water potatoes, corn and seasonings. Cover and simmer 30 minutes or until tender. Whisk flour into 1 cup of plant based milk and stir into soup. Add remaining plant milk, adjust seasoning if needed. Simmer 15 minutes, until soup thickens. Add salt and pepper. To thin add a little more milk, to thicken simmer 5-10 more minutes. Serve with fresh ground pepper. Enjoy!

Beet burgers

This recipe is inspired by Eureka Burger in Berkeley and a recipe I saw in a magazine from The Change cookbook. I like simple recipes that use things that are mostly in my pantry. Also, it’s a pet peeve of mine to say something like “1/2 medium beet grated or 1 portobello mushroom chopped” Tell me how many cups dang it! Your idea of a medium sized beet and mine might be very different. And have you seen some portobellos, they’re literally the size of my head….okay enough bitching, lets get on to cooking these bad boys. Also, these freeze well, I sent some patties with my daughter to school and they were still really tasty.

Beet burgers

1 cup raw walnuts (1/2 walnuts and 1/2 almonds works great too)

1 cup uncooked oats

1 medium white onion finely chopped (any onion will do, even 4-5 green ones)

1 cup finely chopped portobello mushroom

3/4 cup beet, grated

15 oz can kidney beans, rinsed & drained

1/2 cup cooked rice (brown or white, quinoa works well too)

3-4 cloves of garlic, chopped

1 Tbsp olive oil

1 Tbsp chopped chives

3 Tbsp bbq sauce (smoky, spicy, whatever you like)

1 tsp smoked paprika

1 flax egg (1Tbsp flax meal & 3 Tbsp water)

1/2 tsp pink salt

1/2 pepper

In a dry skillet toast the oats for about 3 minutes and put into a food processor. Do the same thing with your nuts. Pulse them together until you have a fine meal that resembles sand. Pour in your olive oil and sauté onion stirring frequently until translucent. Add the garlic, mushrooms and chives, cook until the mushrooms are soft and remove from the heat. Stir in the grated beets, they’ll release a beautiful pinkish red color.

Get your kidney beans into a large mixing bowl and mash with a potato masher so you have some mashed and some remain whole, add the rice, oatmeal/nut mixture, mushrooms, flax egg, bbq sauce and spices until you have a moldable dough. This recipe makes about 8 burgers.

You can grill these outside or on a grill pan but this time of year I’ve been cooking them in a cast iron skillet or in the toaster oven (mine has an air-fry setting and that makes them crispy on the outside and moist on the inside). They only need to cook 3 to 4 minutes on each side.

Serve on a bun with more bbq sauce if you’d like. I like mine with vegan mayonnaise, tomato, sprouts, avocado, lettuce and some vegan cheese. French fries or sweet potato fries with spicy ketchup make the perfect addition. Enjoy!

Vegan Persimmon Pudding

This is one of my favorite desserts, it just tastes like Christmas to me. It’s one of the first desserts beyond sugar cookies I learned to make back in high school. You have to have super ripe and squishy persimmons for this. I get mine from the farmers market, they save them for me every year. I used walnuts but you could also use pecans. If you like raisins you could add those as well. For the pulp I strained the persimmons through a colander into a large bowl. (Remember to compost the skins and stems).

Persimmon pudding

2 cups of persimmon pulp

3 egg replacement (I used Follow Your Heart’s)

1 1/4 cup sugar

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

2 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp ginger

1/2 nutmeg (or pumpkin pie spice)

1/2 cup melted vegan butter

2 1/2 cups almond or cashew milk

1 1/2 cup whole wheat or unbleached flour

1 cup chopped nuts

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.  In a large bowl add the egg replacement to the persimmon pulp, whisk in the sugar.  Add baking powder, soda, salt and spices.  Pour in melted vegan butter, stir & pour in the almond milk.  The mixture will be sort of soupy, whisk in flour, fold in chopped nuts.  Pour into a greased 9 X 13 pan.  Bake for 1 hour or until knife comes out clean.  Serve warm or room temperature with vegan whipped cream.

Cashew mozzarella

Caprese salad is one of my favorite summer dishes. So when I went plant based it was definitely something that I missed. Tomatoes perfectly ripe, mozzarella, basil, good quality olive oil and a drizzle of balsamic vinegar or glaze with a little salt and pepper. That right there is near perfection.

I experimented with quite a few cashew cheese recipes, it took a bit of tweaking to find the right combo. The garlic powder in this is totally optional, I’ve made it with and without and both are great. I didn’t let my cheese set up very long before slicing, more like tearing the cheese when I made this. You can soak the cashews anywhere from 2 hours to overnight, I’ve done both and it’s come out fine either way. The longer it sets the easier it is to cut. I love this cheese on pizza and of course there’s always good ole grilled cheese (with tomato soup please). Anyway, use this anywhere you would normal mozzarella.

Cashew Mozzarella

2 cup raw cashews, soaked & drained

1 1/2 cups water

1 tsp apple cider vinegar

2-3 Tbsp nutritional yeast

1/2 cup tapioca starch (this is what makes it stretchy)

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp garlic powder (optional)

bowl of ice water

Blend all ingredients in a high powered blender (a regular blender will work too, it just takes a little longer) until smooth.

Transfer to a medium saucepan and cook over medium to medium-high heat, whisking continuously. (Don’t walk away this happens really fast!) As the mixture heats, it will form clumps. Keep whisking until the mixture is smooth, thick and pulls away from the sides of the pan. Remove from heat.

Using a small scoop, make balls and drop them into the ice water bath. You can shape them into small or large balls. It will stay fresh a few days in the fridge, if you don’t use it all immediately, like I usually do. Enjoy!

Lemon Zucchini Bread

.

This year my garden has gone a little crazy. I’ve got more zucchini than I know what to do with. This particular one was too big for my spiralizer so I grated it, I still have tons of it! If anyone has some great zucchini recipes send them my way.  You can use any egg replacement you want, chia or flax seeds….whatever I just happened to have aquafaba (the liquid you get when you drain chickpeas) that needed to be used. You can also use whatever kind of sugar you’d like, I used raw sugar, and I used olive oil. Hope you enjoy!

Lemon Zucchini Bread

1 cup oat flour
1 cup barley flour
1/2 cup sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
grated peel of 1/2 lemon
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
the juice of 1 lemon
6 Tbsp aquafaba
1/2 cup almond milk
1/3 cup oil
1 1/4 cup (packed) shredded zucchini

Preheat your oven to 400°F. Grease and flour (or line with papers) a 12-well muffin pan.

Combine the flours, sugar, baking powder, salt and lemon peel in a large bowl. Stir in the walnuts. In a
smaller bowl (or a two cup liquid measure), combine the aquafaba almond milk, lemon juice and oil. Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients and add the wet ingredients. Stir just until barely combined and then
fold in the zucchini. Spoon the batter into the pan.

Bake for 20 to 25 minutes or until the muffins spring back when you press them with your fingertips.

Remove from oven and turn out onto a cooling rack. Serve warm or with a little vegan butter. Store, in an air tight container, for 3 days at room temp.