Pomegranate and Caramelized Pecan Muffins

What a lucky girl I am! I get to test wonderful baked goods for Carla of The Year of the Vegan blog, for her upcoming cookbook Vegan Bakesale!!

Here was yesterday's delight: Pomegranate and Caramelized Pecan Muffins. So wonderfully muffiny, cinnamony, fruity, nutty, and tasty!

Fabulous Chocolate Chip Pecan Cookies

I love chocolate chip cookies, and I know you do too!! What can make these simple, delicious, classic cookies even better?? Pecans!! I think these are absolutely perfect...I suspect you'll agree! Chocolate Chip Pecan Cookies (makes 2 dozen)
2/3 cup vegan margarine
1/4 cup non-hydrogenated vegetable shortening
2/3 cup brown sugar
1/3 cup natural sugar (I use evaporated cane juice)

Egg replacer equivalent to 2 eggs (such as Ener-G brand or flax seeds)
1/4 cup brown rice syrup
2 tsp vanilla extract

3 cups whole wheat pastry flour
1 Tbs plus 1 tsp baking powder
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp sea salt
1 tsp cinnamon

1 cup vegan chocolate chips
1 cup chopped pecan halves

Preheat oven to 325 F. Line 2 cookie sheets with parchment paper.
In a large bowl, cream together the margarine, shortening, and sugars. Add in the egg replacer, brown rice syrup, and vanilla extract. Whip until fluffy. Sift in the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon. Stir until just combined. Fold in the chocolate chips and pecans until well incorporated.
Divide dough into approx. 2 Tbs pieces. Roll into ball and slightly flatten with your palm to 2 inches for thicker, chewier cookies or 3 inches for thinner, crispier cookies.
Bake for 8-10 minutes until golden brown on the edges and slightly firm, being careful not to overcook, as they will firm and set fully as they cool.
Let cookies remain on cookie sheet for 10 minutes before transferring to cooling rack.
Best served slightly warm!

Long Time, No Test....New Tester Treats!!

Not that you were keeping up, but I have been slacking on one of my tester projects, Bianca's (of the Vegan Crunk blog) Cookin' Crunk cookbook! It's all vegan Southern food, all the time! So goooood! With the holidays and some new cookbooks and my supper club, I have not been on the ball with testing out some of the recipes. But, I'm making up for it now with cookies! Yay! Specifically, Chocolate-Chocolate Chip-Praline Cookies! They are chocolate cookies with chocolate chips and pralined pecans (which you make yourself)...a delicious combination of salty and sweet, crunch and chewy, nutty and chocolaty! I'm in!

Can't wait to do some more crunk testing!

And btw, I just became a tester for another cookbook, Vegan Bakesale, by QueenV (of The Vegan Year blog)! I have a lot of cooking to do!!

Vegan MOFO Day 1: Vegan BLT Sandwiches!

Vegan MoFo is here again, everybody! For those of you who don't know, October is Vegan MoFo, or Month of Food. This gives all us vegans...especially the foodies!...a great excuse to talk as much as we can about food, cooking, cookbooks, veganism, health, etc. And you know we love to talk about what we eat, not to mention talking about what everyone else is eating, too! So all in all, Vegan MoFo is like our month-long food porn fest. yeah.

For the first day of Vegan MoFo, I will share about my underground restaurant. It doesn't have a name or anything yet, but I'm working on that! Basically, I serve food restaurant-style out of my apartment once a week on Sundays. I make one meal and dessert, and whoever hears about it and wants to come is MORE than welcome! It's going around by word of mouth right now, and word of blog I suppose, so I hope that it will continue to grow as I keep working at it! This past weekend was the fourth installment of the "supper club" type get-together, complete with all the good stuff....

The main dish: Vegan BLT Sandwiches!! One of my favorite things to make in the summertime to celebrate the abundance of awesome tomatoes. Since I still had plenty to use up at this end of summer period, I figured BLT's were a must. They have tempeh bacon (see a few posts ago for that recipe!) from local tempeh, crisp organic lettuce, my mom's homegrown tomatoes, avocado, and vegan mayo, all on homemade millet bread! What a sandwich!!

On the side, I made Local Potato Salad (made with local potatoes, red onion, garlic, and carrots!)...

The other side was Citrus-Spice Pickled Watermelon Rind from Terry Bryant's Vegan Soul Kitchen cookbook. I loved these!! I saved all my watermelon rinds from my last local watermelon of the season and pickled them with lemons, oranges, and spices. Delicious! A perfect item for that summer to fall transition!!
And NO meal would be complete without dessert!! In keeping with the local produce theme, I decided to make a tester recipe from Terry Hope Romero's upcoming Vegan Latina cookbook: Sweet Corn Ice Cream!!

Corny, creamy, simple, delicious. Even more irresistable when I topped them with Praline Pecans!! I mixed barley malt syrup, Earth Balance, soy creamer, cinnamon, salt, sugar, nutmeg, and pecans together and poured the mixture over the yummy ice cream...
Let's just say I had no complaints!

More MoFo to come!!