Thursday, December 8, 2011

Fake-Bacon Blue Cheese Apple Dinner Pie

I made this based off of this recipe.

Ingredients:

6-8 slices vegetarian "bacon"
1 (6.5 oz.) package Hodgson Mill cornbread mix (or similar vegetarian-friendly cornbread/muffin mix)
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1 tsp. chili powder
1 Tbsp. ground flaxseed meal
4-5 Tbsp. water
1/4 cup rice milk
4 oz. blue cheese crumbles
1 large Golden Delicious apple (cored and thinly sliced)
2 Tbsp. safflower oil


To Make:

Brush the bottom of a skillet with part of the oil (just enough to coat the bottom). Place over medium heat. Once heated, place "bacon" in a single layer and cook for 3 minutes, flipping each slice halfway through. Chop into good sized pieces and set aside.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

In a small bowl, mix flaxseed meal with 2 Tbsp. of water. Let sit for a minute. In the meantime, combine the cornbread mix, flour, and chili powder. Stir in the milk and flaxseed mixture. Add 1-2 Tbsp. of water as needed if mixture is too dry when combined. Knead dough until it comes together in one large ball. Grease a 12" pizza pan. Fill pan with dough, flattening it to about 1/2" thickness all around.

Sprinkle about half of the cheese in the middle of the dough, leaving about an inch between the cheese and the edge of the pan. Place the apple slices on top of the cheese in the same manner. Fold the edge of the dough up over the filling. Brush apples and dough with the remainder of the oil.

Place in middle of oven and cook for 10 minutes. When done, remove and cover with the "bacon" and the remainder of the cheese. Return to oven for an additional 7 minutes. Remove and cut into quarters. Serve fresh. Top each slice with fresh thyme or another similar garnish, if desired.

Thursday, August 25, 2011

All-Natural Frozen Chocolate Peanut Butter Mini-Pies

This is my version of this Chocolate Peanut Butter Pie recipe I found on a forum. It's made with (mostly) full-sugar, full-fat, all-natural ingredients, so it's 163 calories per pie, not 130 calories. Unfortunately, some of these ingredients may be hard to come by unless you live close to a Whole Foods or similar grocery store. Even Trader Joe's stopped carrying the all-natural pudding mix. I was not happy when I discovered this.

Ingredients:

6 tablespoons flaxseed meal*
2 tablespoons butter (salted or unsalted), melted**
1 cup unsweetened rice milk
1/2 cup + 1 tablespoon all-natural, unsalted peanut butter (creamy or crunchy)***
1 package Natural Desserts instant chocolate pudding****
1 cup Greek yogurt (0% or 1%)**


To Make:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a 12 cup muffin pan with paper liners. In a small bowl, combine flaxseed meal and melted butter. Press the mixture into bottom of lined muffin cups (about 1 teaspoon of crumbs per muffin cup). Bake at 350 degrees for 5 minutes. Remove pan from oven and cool completely before filling.

In a large mixing bowl, beat the peanut butter and rice milk together on low speed. Add the pudding mix and beat for 1 minute. In a separate bowl, beat the yogurt on medium speed for about five minutes. Fold the yogurt into the peanut butter mixture. Spoon the mixture into the muffin cups.
Freeze for several hours or overnight.

To serve, remove pans from freezer. Remove desired number of pies from pan, peel off liner and let stand at room temperature to soften slightly, about 5 minutes. Enjoy!

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*I initially made the crust with only 5 tablespoons of flaxseed, but then I couldn't get them out of the pan because the seeds didn't hold enough of the butter, so I switched the recipe to 6 tablespoons. Feel free to experiment with this.

**I used regular Greek yogurt in the hope that I could get it to fluff up like whipped cream, but it didn't quite do the job, so I'm going to try soy yogurt next time. I used butter because it was what I had, but feel free to try some vegan alternatives for both (and let me know how it goes).

***All-natural is the stuff you have to stir, like Adam's. I used unsalted because I think it tastes better, and there was enough salt in the other ingredients. It's just what I'd recommend, but, you know, it's not set in stone.