chili + choco chip cookies

last night i had some pals over to watch the season finale of real housewives of beverly hills (no shame) and for it i made a big pot of vegan chili and some “healthy” chocolate chip cookies.

the chili wasnt from a recipe and its pretty traditional but the one twist i was excited about was the addition of whole wheat berries. I had a bunch in my pantry from the rejuvelac process and i thought they would add a chewy nutty carb to the chili which it totally did, i highly recommend giving it a try.

the cookies are “healthy” because they contained rice flour instead of wheat flour, agave nectar instead of sugar and rapeseed oil instead of butter. theres also puffed amarinth, some oats, and sunflower seeds thrown in.

the original recipe can be found here.

sunday cinnamon buns

during my layover in new york on my return flight to berlin i caught sight of a cinnabon, and glimpsing those gooey shiny cinnamony buns inspired an attempt at vegan cinnamon buns. So this past sunday my friend drea and i put in the effort, and were rewarded. Our buns werent perfect, since they didnt cook through to the bottom during the allotted cooking time we had to put them in for longer which turned the sugar from a goo into a hard-goo, but they were still awesome. a dollop of vegan cream cheese frosting on the side, always a plus.

recipe for "perfect cinnamon buns" from vegan yum yum

xmas cookies

im home for the holidays and the christmas cookie baking has begun. Today my mom and i made mincemeat pies the easy way...

we bought mincemeat filling (which incase you dont know has nothing to do with meat and is kind of a spiced-mixed-fruit-medley-preserve thats a traditional christmas treat in the UK) and whipped up some simple vegan pie crust. theyre kind of a taste that has to grow on you but i love them and love that instead of dragging some packaged ones back from England we got to bake them fresh.

These smore's cookies have absolutely nothing to do with christmas but i made them anyways. Since im in America, the land of plenty, i kind of went bonkers in whole foods and one thing i splurged on is some vegan marshmallows, which inspired this delicious treat. the original recipe can be found below, and i was totally stoked by the idea of using graham cracker crumbs in a cookie! bummer that they dont really taste like graham cracker at all but they are totally amazing choco chip cookies.

http://littlehouseofveggies.blogspot.com

cranberries

the past few weeks fresh cranberries have been available in select german grocery stores. theyre pretty pricey and are definitely nowhere near local, but this week my friend drea couldnt resist and snapped up a bag. With them we decided to make Pumpkin cranberry muffins, since i just made a fresh batch of pumpkin puree. after the baking and before the eating we did a little foot styling sesh with some of her kitchen goodies...

things got a little cheesy, but we got some nice pics of the muffins sugary crusty tops... mmm...



the original recipe can be found here:
http://www.dreamydish.com/pumpkin-cranberry-vegan-muffins