Real American Apple Pie

Mmm, made from scratch apple pie. You're not an American if you haven't baked or eaten apple pie at least once in your life. And if you haven't ever thrown a pie/shoved someone's face in it/accidentally dropped a pie on a sidewalk on the way to a neighbor's pool party, you haven't had a childhood, either.

So back to the real, good, made-from-scratch apple pie. You're going to need pie crust (recipe here) along with a couple other ingredients, namely, eight apples.

They can be apples of any color/variety. I've done Granny Smith before and this one uses Golden apples, which were the only ones available in French springtime. This is a great recipe to use for Thanksgiving, but why not make it for Easter as well?

Ingredients:

8 apples
1/2 cup white sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup vegan butter
1/4 cup water
3 tablespoons flour
Pie crust

#1. Do the pie crust. It takes a while. When you're done, separate the dough in two (a slightly bigger dough for the crust, and a smaller one for the lattice work on top).

#2. Peel, core, and slice the apples thinly.

#3. Melt the butter in a saucepan, and add the flour. Stir until combined, and add the water.

#4. Add the sugar a little bit at a time, and bring to a boil. Then, reduce the heat and let simmer. The sauce needs to be slightly liquid.

#5. Arrange the sliced apples inside the pie crust in neat circles, packing the slices together.

#6. Preheat the oven, then cover the pie with a lattice work. If you don't know how to do it, watch the friendly video below.


#7. Pour the sauce on top for a crunchy sugary touch.

#8. Bake for 40 minutes at 180°C. Enjoy!

Vegan pot pie

Now, what does one do when there are fresh zucchini, asperagus, and carrots in the refrigerator?

Vegan pot pie, of course!

I came upon this recipe by chance and adapted it to whatever I had in my refrigerator. I used these vegetables right here :)

Ingredients for the filling:

One large zucchini
A carrot
A can of corn
Half of a leek
Chickpeas (quantity is up to you)
Three asparagii
1 onion
2 cups vegetable broth
Bay leaf
1/4 cup flour
1/4 non-dairy milk
1 tsp. Paprika
1 tsp. Thym
2 tablespoon vegan butter


And you'll also need pie crust. Check out the recipe for pie crust here.

Steps
1. Make the vegetable broth and let the bay leaf simmer in it for about 5 minutes.
1. In a seperate pot, sauté the onion in the butter for 10 minutes, until soft.
2. Add paprika, thym, and flour. Stir until combined, and cook for 5 minutes.
3. Add milk.
4. Add the vegetable broth and take the bay leaf out. Add remaining ingredients, except for the asparagi (I added them on top of the pie,  at the end).
5. Bring to a boil, then lower the heat, and cook for 10 minutes. It should look bubbly and sort of creamy. Pre heat your oven for 15 minutes at 180°C.
6. Place inside pie crust and decorate with asparagi.

Almost done. . .now it just needs to bake!

7. Cover the pie crust and make a few holes in the top with a knife. Bake for 20 minutes.

A slice of vegan pot pie when it's finished:

Vegan Thanksgiving : Spaghetti Squash!

Hey guys! :)

I grew up celebrating Thanksgiving with my family in the United States. As I grew up, though, I started to question my turkey-beliefs and eventually I gave up Turkey-day all together. Mostly because celebrating Thanksgiving doesn't feel right when you know it's about how the pilgrims invaded North America and killed off the natives. But today, Thanksgiving is about gathering the entire family together for a good meal, being thankful for everything in your life. For that, I still hang on to some Thanksgiving values.

Minus the turkey, of course.

This year I made three vegan Thanksgiving recipes. Check them out!

Spaghetti Squash with tomato sauce

You will need:

A spaghetti squash
Tomato sauce, or make your own with a couple of tomatoes, garlic, onion, and basil!
A friend to help scoop the seeds out and to share your meal with

#1. Preheat your oven to 220°C. While your oven is heating, make several large cuts in your squash. This is IMPORTANT. The squash might explode if you don't do this. Even if you make a lot of cuts, there might be a time when the squash starts to hiss like a pressure cooker. Don't worry. It's the air escaping.

#2. Cut the squash in half length-wise and scoop the seeds out. Save the seeds to bake for a tasty salty snack later, or throw them out.

#3. Take a fork and shred the squash with it. You'll start to see the spaghetti strands. Scoop that out into a bowl.

#4. When you're done, top with tomato sauce!



 Enjoy the wintery goodness for squash.

Gluten-free fluffy pancakes

Hey guys! I decided to do an extra post this week, dedicated to all my gluten-intolerant friends.

So I was making gluten-free bread, something I'd promised to do countless times for my gluten-intolerant friends, and I had a little flour mix left, about a cup. The recipe I'd found online asked for 350 grams of flour mix, and 350 grams of water. I figured I'd use the cup of flour mix that I had left, and add one cup of water to that, since they were equal measurements, right?

Wrong, it turns out. Very wrong. I added more flour, but didn't have enough to make up for my clumsy mistake. So I was left with a batter that I couldn't do anything else except...

Pancakes!!!

And those turned out VERY GOOD indeed.

My vegan pancakes for a celebration brunch :)

So this what I used for ingredients:

• 1 1/4 cup gluten-free bread mix (it comes with all types of flour: rice flour, sorghum, etc. You can buy it at a natural food store or at some supermarkets).
• 1 cup warm water, soy milk or another vegan milk
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 8g of Brewer's yeast or 'beer' yeast (A pinch of baking powder will work as well).
• A teaspoon of salt 
• A teaspoon of sugar
• Margarine or oil for frying

Steps

#1. Mix warm water/milk with the brewer's yeast.

#2. Add olive oil.

#3. Add flour mix, salt and sugar. Mix until the batter is homogeneous. 

#4. Place oil or margarine on a skillet, and heat it up.

#5. When oil is sizzling, scoop batter with a ladle and place it in the middle of the skillet.

This is the tricky part now- realizing when one side is done. The bottom side is done cooking when tiny bubbles are piercing the top side, and the top side isn't as shiny anymore.

#6. Flip the pancake and cook the other side.

Enjoy!!

Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

Oatmeal raisin cookies, a Christmas classic! Yum! This is one of my favorite recipes because:

1.       The ingredients are easy to find and you probably have them at home already

2.       It’s one of those classic ‘toss everything in’ recipes,

3.       It smells like Christmas in a box.

4.        It’s healthy and has a good dose of iron in the oatmeal.

Did I convince you to make them now? J

Oh, and they’re the soft type of cookie, not the crunchy type, which is my personal favorite.

Here’s what you’ll need:

• 3 cups of oatmeal
• 1 cup flour
• 1 cup brown sugar
• ½ cup white sugar
• ½ cup soy milk
• ¾ cup margarine
• ½ teaspoon salt
• ½ teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 2 teaspoons of all spice, or 1 teaspoon cinnamon, ½ nutmeg and ½ cloves
• 1 cup raisins

Add both sugars with margarine and mix until fluffy.  Slowly add the soy milk, mix well. Add flour, baking soda, and spices. Mix until smooth, and add the remaining ingredients.

I find that the cookies taste better after the batter is refrigerated for at least half an hour, but you can bake them now.  Drop them on a greased cookie sheet, making round balls.  Bake for about 20 minutes to 180°C.
And wait for them to cool down before eating or they'll be all crumbly!!! Sheesh. I've done that 3 times now until I've learned my lesson.