Crazy Bean Sports League

On Sunday I had a Kickball/Going Away Picnic in the park with all my favorite deputies.  It was AMAZING. A few games of kickball (in which we recruited four other picnickers) turned into ultimate frisbee and then a tennis tournament.  It was like we were all five years old at a field day!  I had so much fun and I’m really grateful to everyone who came for giving me such a nice send-off to New York.  Of course, I had to test out some new recipies on my loved cronies.  After two failed attempts at making vegan brownies (ugh), I decided to make the salad you see above and Oatmeal Cream Pies!  At the picnic, everyone referred to my salad as:

That Crazy Bean Salad

Recipe

Ingredients

• 1 Red Bell Pepper
• 1 Green Bell Pepper
• 1/2 Purple Onion
• 1 Ripe Avocado
• 2 Tomatoes
• 1 can sweet corn
• 1 can black beans

Directions

• Chop the peppers, onion, and tomatoes into 1/2 inch pieces and put in a large bowl
• Drain the corn and beans and add to the bowl
• Mix it all up like you’ve got something to dance about

I had this salad a couple nights ago at my aunt and uncle’s house and fell in love with it.  It was perfect for a hot day of running around and kicking things and crashing into people.  Just in case you need a recipe for that.

What’s that?  Oatmeal Cream Pies?

These things are so sweet and decadent that you’d think I’d have only been able to polish off one.  You’d be wrong four times.  The oatmeal cookie part is based off of Kittee’s Oatmeal Cookies minus the chocolate chips and cherries.

Recipe

Ingredients

• 8 oz Earth Balance (half a tub) or soy margarine
• 2 T molasses
• 1 1/2 cups unbleached granulated sugar
• Ener-G egg replacer for 1 1/2 eggs (follow box directions)
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 1 1/2 cups unbleached flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 2 cups rolled oats

Filling

• 1/4 C vegan margerine
• 1/4 C vegetable shortening
• 2 1/2 C powdered sugar
• 1 t vanilla extract

Directions (copied from pakupaku.info)

• Preheat the oven to 350F.

• In a large bowl, cream together the margarine and both sugars until light and fluffy.

• Add the prepared egg substitute and beat together.
• Add the vanilla and mix to combine, scraping down the sides of the bowl.
• In a separate bowl, sift together the flour and baking soda and stir it into the creamed mixture until well combined.
• Add the oats and mix to combine.
• Spoon a heaping teaspoon of dough onto an ungreased baking sheet. Repeat, spacing the cookies at least two inches apart. You should have room for three rows of four cookies.
• Bake cookies until golden brown, 14-16 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack to cool. Makes four dozen delite-full cookies.

• Begin to prepare the filling by creaming the sugar and margerine for two minutes.
• Add in the powdered sugar and beat until light and fluffy.
• Add the vanilla and mix until incorporated.

• Construct the cream pies by spooning a heaping teaspoonful of the filling and smashing it between two cookies.
• Refrigerate until ready to serve.

Everyone seemed to like the cream pies, but I’m not sure anyone appreciated them quite as much as this guy:

Theo managed to snag a cookie and got through a third of it before I noticed.  Sneaky little mustache man.

Che Pizza!

I had two cornmeal crusts hanging out in the fridge asking to be used.  There’s a sun-dried tomato tapenade at a restaurant I love in town, and I really wanted to try something like it as a pizza base.  This was my lunch/ the boy’s dinner later that night!  I made up a recipe for pizza sauce that was unlike anything I’ve ever had – and really good.

Sundried Tomato Pesto Sauce

Recipe

Ingredients

• 1 jar of sundried tomatoes packaged in olive oil
• 1 large bunch of basil leaves, with the stems trimmed off
• 1/4 C pine nuts

Directions

• Put everything into a blender and blend until everything is incorporated and smooth.  Facile.

On top of the sauce, I put a basic “cheeze” sauce involving nutritional yeast, flour, corn starch, mustard, and water.  Next time, I’ll add more liquid because it thickened up quite a bit.  However, after it was in the oven for a while it had a really nice cheesy texture.  I sliced up a tomato to put on top and popped everything into an oven set at 400 degrees for about 15 minutes.  It was really satisfying with the crunchy cornmeal holding all the gooiness together.  It’s a bit unconventional, but tossing an apron in the face of authority is always a good time.

Another Cake, What is Wrong With You!??!!!?

Clearly there is some demon compelling me to turn on the oven in 90 degree weather.  Demon, thy name is birthday month.  Everyone is born in August.  There is some surplus in baby-making that goes on around the holiday season and results in subsequent massive cake consumption in the month of August.

So, what up Chocolate Mocha Cake with Strawberries and Chocolate Buttercream Icing?

Cake Recipe can be found in Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World.  Isn’t it about time you own that?  I multiplied the recipe by 1.5 and filled two 8 inch cake pans with the batter.  I also added some instant espresso powder just for kicks.  I’ve heard that espresso gives chocolate a deeper flavor.  Mmm.

Icing

1/2 C vegetable shortening

1/2 C margerine

4 C powdered sugar

1/4 C unsweetened cocoa powder

2 T maple syrup

Directions

• Mix the shortening and margerine together until combined and creamy.
• Add in the powdered sugar and whisk until thoroughly incorporated.
• Add the cocoa powder and mix until color is even throughout.
• Stir in the maple syrup until thoroughly combined.
• Chill in the fridge until ready to use.

I added the maple syrup because I felt like the icing needed something to make it richer.  Since the cake wasn’t too sweet, the icing flavor wasn’t cloying.  I thinly sliced up strawberries and added them in with a layer of the buttercream between the two cake layers.  As the cake set up in the fridge, the strawberry juices soaked into the cake and added even more moistness.  Awesome.

We had the cake at a restaurant in Silverlake to celebrate my friend Greg’s birthday.  Our waitress was so nice that we gave her a big piece.  So … the cake was eaten Monday night.  It’s now Friday night and I’m still getting compliments on how good it was.

Those people aren’t singing “Happy Birthday.”  They are singing “Thank You Sweet Baby Jesus In Diapers For Inventing This Cake” to the tune of the Hallelujah Chorus.  And the birthday boy with his eyes closed?  He’s not laughing – he’s having an out-of-body cakesensory experience the likes of which human minds cannot conceive.

Cakejoy.

Sorry about the blurry nighttime pictures.