The Collegiate Vegan

Hello Blogland!

Oh, and happy Thanksgiving! I know, I know, who the heck spends Thanksgiving creating a blog!? Um, this girl. That's who. While most of America was consuming ungodly amounts of turkey, I was spending my first Thanksgiving as a vegan eating green beans, spuds, cranberry sauce, and fruit salad. I don't like pumpkin pie *gasp* so not eating that was as a piece of cake... pun intended. Instead I made some tasty chocolate peanut butter pocket cookies! People thought it was going to be hard to go through this holiday as a vegan, but it wasn't hard at all. I ate things I loved and I was full like the rest of my family, goal for everyday.

Here's what I ate for dinner:

mmm, look at those green beans!

Lettuce-free fruit salad ;)

Now, I didn't really make much of my dinner because I was at my mother's house. However, I did whip up those green beans, and I must say they were devine!

Sautéed Green Beans:

What you'll need:

• 1 lb of fresh green beans
• 1 tbsp Extra Virgin Olive Oil 
• Garlic powder 
• Fresh cracked peper
• Salt

What you'll do:

• After rinsing the green beans, snap the ends of both sides (this is optional, however I prefer them without the ends on).
• Heat skillet on high heat until you can drop a couple drops of water on it and they dance around (aka sizzle). When that happens, swirl your olive oil around on the skillet, just to coat the bottom of the pan.
• Carefully add green beans to the skillet. Keep them from burning by tossing them with tongs, stirring them with a heavy spatula (what I did), or by shaking the pan (also, what I did).
• Add garlic powder, salt, and pepper when whenever you please. (I did it a little earlier so I could add more garlic powered right before taking them off, because I love garlic.)
• The beans will be done when they look bright green and are still crunchy, about 7 minutes. Be sure to taste check them for seasoning before serving.

There were more than five, I swear!

Look at that texture, yum.

*Hey, those don't look like the other ones!* I'll explain...

First vegan cookie experience was a success, thankfully! I know there will be some faults, some day. I pray those days never happen, but we'll see.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Pockets:

All of this stuff = cookie coma

What you'll need:

• 1/2 cup canola oil
• 1 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup honey (not make truly vegan, substitute maple syrup)
• 5 tbsp non-dairy milk- separated (all I had was almond milk, worked fine)
• 3/4 tsp vanilla extract- separated
• 1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
• scant 1/3 cup cocoa powder (any cacao %)
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 3/4 cup peanut butter (I used natural raw peanut butter, any kind will do)
• 2/3 cup powdered sugar

What you'll do:

• Preheat oven to 350º F.
• In a larger mixing bowl combine oil, sugar, honey, 3 tbsp non-dairy milk, and 1/2 tsp vanilla. Mix until smooth. 
• In a small bowl add flour, cocoa, baking soda, and salt. Mix together briefly. 
• Sift contents of the small bowl into the larger bowl. Stirring to incorporate well. 
• In another mixing bowl, stir together peanut butter, powdered sugar, and the remaining milk and vanilla. If it's too wet to be handled, add more powdered sugar. If it's too dry, add another tbsp of your milk. Roll into balls the size of a nickel.
• On a cookie sheet, drop a spoonful of chocolate dough. Add a peanut butter ball, sealing it shut by pulling dough up around it. Leave a couple inches of space between each cookie as I found them to expand greatly.
• Bake for 10 to 11 minutes. Leave them on the pan for a few minutes after removing them as they are too fragile to transfer immediately to cooling racks. 3-5 minutes later place on cooling racks or enjoy them nice and hot!

Now here's what happened to those other ones, you know the ones I'm talking about. I wasn't pleased with the size of mine (this recipe fixes the size problem) because they were SO big. I'd rather have many small cookies than a few big cookies, they last longer (or do they...)! Anyways, so a just folded the peanut butter into the dough and mixed it in really well, baked at 350º for 10 minutes, cooled 'em, and stuck 'em Ziplock.

Hope you enjoyed. Good luck cooking. See you next time with more pics, more recipes, and who knows what else!