(Bacon) Bourbon Truffles

Photo by Edrabbit

I know, I know, it’s a little late, but these rich treats are a perfect Valentine’s day gift. Bookmark this for next year! I made these for my sweetie this year. I made half of them with bacon and half of them without. Both versions are delicious, it just depends on how much you love bacon. They’re dairy free, and if you leave out the bacon they’re vegan!

(Bacon) Bourbon Truffles

Adapted from Williams-Sonoma

INGREDIENTS

For the filling:
1/4 cup soy milk (or heavy cream)
4 tablespoons dairy-free margarine, like Earth Balance (butter works too, if you aren’t vegan) (Note: replacing part of this with bacon grease would be good if you really like bacon!)
12 oz semisweet chocolate (I like Guittard chocolate chips, which are vegan)
1/4 cup bourbon (I used Bulleit)
4 pieces of bacon
Cocoa powder, for rolling

For the coating:
12 oz. semisweet chocolate (again, Guittard chocolate chips are great)

DIRECTIONS

1. Cut bacon into bits and cook it in a frying pan. Allow to drain on paper towels.
2. In a heavy saucepan, combine the soy milk and margarine over medium-low heat. Stir until the margarine melts and the soy milk simmers. Remove from heat and add 12 oz. chocolate and stir until melted and smooth. A whisk is helpful here. Pour in the bourbon and bacon bits and mix thoroughly. Pour into a bowl. Cover and freeze until just firm enough to mound in a spoon, about 40 minutes.
3. Line the bottom of a baking sheet with aluminum foil. Scoop out the filling by tablespoonfuls, spacing them evenly. Roll them into rough balls. This will be messy, and they don’t have to be perfect-looking. Cover and return to the freezer for 30 minutes.
4. Pour cocoa powder onto a plate. Roll chocolate balls in cocoa powder to coat evenly. Re-roll balls to even them out — the cocoa powder will help them not melt and stick to your hands. They should look more like actual spheres now.
5. Return truffles to the foil-lined baking sheet, cover, and put in the freezer while you prepare the coating.
6. To make the coating, melt 12 oz. of chocolate in a double boiler until it’s smooth. Remove from heat.
7. Re-roll truffles between your palms to remove any loose cocoa. Gently drop one truffle ball into the melted chocolate coating, tilting the pan if necessary to coat the ball completely. Slip a fork under the truffle, lift it from the chocolate, and tap the fork gently against the side of the pan to allow any excess chocolate to drip off. Using a knife, gently slide the truffle off the fork onto the foil-lined baking sheet. Repeat with the remaining truffles.
8. Refrigerate, uncovered, until firm, about 1 hour. Store in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 3 weeks.

(Bacon) Beer Bread

My friend Mazzie tipped me onto this crazy stuff. Beer bread is a quickbread, but some reaction between the beer and the flour gives the bread a texture that’s surprisingly similar to yeasted bread (which, of course, takes significantly longer to make). It has a slight sweetness to it, making it somewhat perplexing: is it savory, or is it for dessert? Well, honestly, you could have it either way. It would be great with a hearty stew. You can also put whatever you want in it. I chose to put bacon in it, but chunks of cheese would be a good choice too. Or, if you leave the bacon out, the bread becomes vegan. It takes about 5 minutes to stir together and an hour to cook. Easy peasy.

(Bacon) Beer Bread

Adapted from this recipe

INGREDIENTS

3 cups all purpose flour, sifted*
3 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup sugar
1 12-ounce can of beer
4 slices bacon (omit for vegan)
1/4 cup bacon grease, or butter, or margarine

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat oven to 375°F. Grease a loaf pan.
2. Cut bacon into bits and cook in a frying pan. Place on paper towel to drain.
3. Mix dry ingredients with beer.
4. Pour batter into greased loaf pan. Pour bacon grease, butter, or margarine over the top of the batter.
5. Bake for 50 minutes to 1 hour. Remove from pan and let cool at least 15 minutes before serving

* According to the recipe I used, sifting is not optional. If you don’t want to sift, you can spoon the flour into the measuring cup. The goal is to avoid scooping it out of the container and leveling it off, which compacts the flour. If you do that, you’ll add too much flour and the bread will turn out brick-like. I used the spooning method and it worked fine.

Peanut Butter Cookies

When I was a kid, I loved my mom’s old Betty Crocker Cooky Book. I think it was all the colorful cookies that enthralled me. Oddly, I only ever made one recipe from it regularly: Peanut Butter Cookies. They’re fantastic cookies so I never got bored of it. A few years ago for my birthday, my parents gave me a reprinted version of this book, which was originally published in 1963. It was then that I renewed my love of this peanut butter cookies recipe. Tonight I made a vegan version for a bunch of friends and everyone raved about how good they were. Thanks Betty!

Betty Crocker’s Peanut Butter Cookies

This recipe is doubled from the original, and produces about 3 dozen cookies.

INGREDIENTS

1 cup peanut butter (best if you use good, natural, unsalted, crunchy peanut butter)
1 cup butter
1 cup sugar
1 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat oven to 375°F
2. Mix butter, peanut butter, sugars, egg.
3. In a separate bowl, mix all dry ingedients.
4. Mix dry ingredients with wet ingredients until well blended.
5. Roll dough into 1 1/4″ balls and put them on a cookie sheet. Mash with a fork in a criss-cross pattern. Bake in a 375°F oven for 10 minutes. Cookies should be very slightly browned around the edges but still gooey and shiny looking in the center. Allow them to cool for about 5 minutes on the cookie sheet before transferring to a cooling rack.

To make these vegan, I substituted Earth Balance margarine for the butter, and Ener-G egg replacer for the egg. Two eggs worth of replacer is 1 tablespoon of egg replacer powder + 1/4 cup warm water, whisked together. I found that there wasn’t enough moisture though, so I added some soymilk, a bit at a time, until the dough came together with the right consistency. It should stick together and not be crumbly, but it shouldn’t be too mushy. I also added a little canola oil because some of the peanut butter I’d used was extremely dry.

Rum Balls

This is another Lynch family classic recipe. I’ve been making these with my mom for as long as I can remember. Be warned: since these aren’t baked, they remain slightly alcoholic. However, the amount of alcohol in a single rum ball is pretty minor so you don’t need to worry about getting drunk unless you eat a whole batch (in which case you probably have other problems to worry about, like a stomachache!). I don’t know where the recipe originates, but I think it’s one of those 1960’s recipes that was passed around between housewives. I have at least one other friend who grew up making these.

The funny thing is, these decadent confections can easily be made vegan, with a little attention to ingredient lists. Make sure that your chocolate chips have no dairy (Guittard is my favorite) and look for generic brand Nilla wafers that don’t contain any eggs or dairy. The brand I use, Valu Time (!) is actually far “better” for you than name-brand Nilla Wafers. The name brand version contains all kinds of hydrogenated oils and high fructose corn syrup, whereas Valu Time is mostly real sugar and non-hydrogenated oils. And they leave out the dairy products too (name brand Nillas have whey in them).

You can make these with bourbon instead of rum if you wish. I’ve never done it (the family tradition is to use rum) but I bet it’s delicious!

Rum Balls

INGREDIENTS

6 oz. semisweet chocolate chips (vegan)
3 tablespoons light corn syrup
1/2 cup rum or bourbon
2 1/2 cups crushed Nilla wafers (approx. 1 12-oz. box) (real Nillas are not vegan, but sometimes the generic brands are)
1/2 cup powdered sugar, plus more for rolling
1 cup chopped nuts (walnuts or pecans)

DIRECTIONS

1. Crush Nilla wafers in a food processor, blender, or by putting them in a bag and rolling them with a rolling pin. Chop nuts, if they’re not pre-cut.
2. Mix nuts, powdered sugar, and crushed Nilla wafers in a large mixing bowl.
3. Melt chocolate chips and corn syrup in a double boiler.
4. Pour melted chocolate mixture over the Nilla wafer mixture. Add rum and mix well.
5. Let stand 1/2 hour at room temp for 30 minutes. Do not skip this step! It gives the rum time to soak into the Nilla wafer crumbs.
6. Roll dough into balls and coat with powdered sugar. Store in an airtight container.

Martha’s Cranberry Sauce

I know, I know, Thanksgiving is a couple weeks past already. But this recipe is just too good to not share! I brought it to two Thanksgivings this year and everyone was a big fan. It’s the perfect balance of sweet and tart. It’s also incredibly easy to make. Thanks, Martha!

Pictured above on a post-Thanksgiving dinner midnight snack: a tiny turkey & cranberry sandwich, featuring my dad’s delicious dairy-free biscuits.

Cranberry Ginger Relish

From Martha Stewart Living, November 2008

INGREDIENTS

1 12-oz. bag cranberries, fresh or frozen
1 cup sugar
1 tablespoon grated fresh ginger
2 tablespoons water
2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
pinch salt

DIRECTIONS

1. If using fresh cranberries, rinse well and pick out any mushy ones.
2. In a large saucepan, bring everything except vinegar to a boil over high heat. Reduce heat to medium-low and simmer until most of the cranberries have “popped”, 10-15 minutes.
3. Stir in vinegar.
4. Remove from heat and let cool to room temperature. Serve at room temperature, or refrigerate up to 3 days. (Personally, I find it lasts much longer than 3 days in the fridge, given the high sugar and acidity.)

Coconut Chicken (or Tofu) & Rice

Tonight was one of those nights. I got home from work and asked Ed, “Have you thought about dinner yet?” “I would like to eat it.” “Yeah, me too.” Both of us were feeling pretty apathetic about the whole thing and neither of us had a clue what we wanted to eat. Being accustomed to eating out all the time, we have these nights pretty regularly now that we’re trying to cook at home more often.

I decided I would make something with chicken and rice, since we had both readily available. But what kind of chicken and rice? “Chicken and rice” sounds so utterly boring. I searched the internet and came up with a million recipes involving cream of mushroom soup. No thanks. Even if that was something I stocked my pantry with — and it’s not — Ed would never in a million years be able to eat it. Finally, I happened across this recipe — a breath of fresh air! I decided to spice it up a bit, leaving out the things I didn’t have (pimiento, saffron, green peppers) and adding a bunch of things I did (coconut milk, raisins, red peppers, and a bunch of spices). The result was hearty and delicious — salty, sweet, and subtly spicy: an updated version of the classic cream of mushroom soup recipes. Perfect fare for those freezing nights when all you want to do is eat some comfort food and curl up with a good book.

This dish is also dairy and gluten free, and can easily be made vegan by substituting cubes of tofu for the chicken. And did I mention it was incredibly easy to make? Just leave a bit of time for it to bake; it needs to be in the oven about an hour and a half.

Coconut Chicken & Rice

Yield: 4 large servings, plus extra rice
Time to cook: 1 1/2 hours, plus a few minutes of prep

INGREDIENTS

4 1/2-lb pieces of chicken (I used 2 bone-in thighs and two boneless skinless breasts) (replace with 1 pound of firm tofu, cut into 1cm cubes for vegan)
2 cups short grain brown rice
1/2 medium yellow onion, chopped
3 small cloves garlic, smashed
1 red bell pepper, chopped
2 tablespoons olive oil
8 oz frozen green peas (half of a 16-oz. package)
2 teaspoons kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon cumin
1 teaspoon turmeric
1/4 teaspoon cayenne
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon fresh ground black pepper
3/4 cup raisins (I used thompson flame raisins)
1 13.5oz can of coconut milk
1 1/4 cups water (stock would be tasty too, I bet)

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat the oven to 400°F. Heat a cast-iron dutch oven (or similar heavy, oven-safe pan) over med-high and add olive oil. Sautee pepper and onion until onions are starting to get translucent and soft.
3. Turn off the heat and add all other ingredients except chicken (or tofu). Stir well, till everything is mixed. The veggies will float but that’s okay.
4. If using chicken, dunk chicken pieces into the mixture till submerged, then bring them back out and rest them on top of it (chicken will be submerged about halfway). Sprinkle a little more kosher salt over the tops of the chicken pieces. If using tofu, just mix the cubes of tofu in with the rest of the ingredients. Cover the pot and bake for 1 1/2 hours. Remove cover and cook for 5 more minutes. That’s it!

Dairy-free Cherry Ice Cream (vegan, if you eat honey)

At the request of my lovely lactarded fiance, I made some cherry ice cream with coconut milk. Added bonus: it cleared some of those damn cherries out of our freezer!

Dairy-free Cherry Ice Cream

Adapted from 101cookbooks.com

INGREDIENTS

1 14 oz. can of full-fat coconut milk
1/4 cup honey
1/2 cup pitted, chopped cherries (I used ones I picked during the summer and froze)
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 tablespoon Amaretto or cherry liqueur

DIRECTIONS

1. In a bowl, mash the chopped cherries so some of their juice comes out. Add juice + everything but the amaretto to a saucepan and heat until honey is melted. Don’t let it boil fully — just heat it.
2. Remove from heat and stir in Amaretto. Cover and put in the fridge to chill until it’s cool. Be patient — if you try to freeze the mix while it’s still warm, your ice cream won’t have a good texture.
3. Freeze per your ice cream maker’s instructions. Put in containers and let freeze fully in the freezer for another 12 hours or so.

Veganifying “Mrs. Fields” Chocolate Chip Cookies

Remember this? It’s my favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe in the world. My only problem with it is that it’s not vegan, nor is it dairy free. This means that neither my fiance nor many of my friends can eat them. Needless to say, that’s not a good situation for my waistline. So I figured out how to veganify them. They’re just as delicious without animal products — though be warned, they don’t stay good for nearly as long. If your house is anything like mine, though, that won’t really matter.

Vegan “Mrs. Fields” Chocolate Chip Cookies

Yield: About 50 cookies

INGREDIENTS

1 cup Earth Balance margarine
1 cup sugar
1 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 tablespoon Ener-g egg replacer plus 1/4 cup warm water, mixed well
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 cups flour
2 1/2 cups oatmeal
1 12-oz. package vegan chocolate chips
1/4 cup soy milk (approximately)

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat the oven to 375F.
2. Cream the margarine, sugars, and vanilla with a mixer until fluffy.
3. Add replacer + water. Mix well.
4. Add salt, baking powder, baking soda, flour. Mix well.
5. Put the 2 1/2 cups oatmeal into the blender and whiz it till it’s ground like flour. Add to the dough and mix well. It should be pretty thick at this point.
6. The dough will probably be pretty dry and crumbly at this point. Add some soy milk and mix it in until it’s the consistency of thick cookie batter — about 1/4 cup.
7. Add chocolate chips and mix with a wooden spoon until thoroughly incorporated. It should look about like this:

   

8. Roll into balls and place on a cookie sheet.
9. Bake one sheet at a time for about 9 minutes, or until the peaks of the cookies are just getting golden brown but the rest of the cookie is still light and looks uncooked (it should still be shiny).
10. Remove from oven and let cool on the cookie pan for 5 minutes. Transfer to wire cooling rack. (Cookies will fall apart if you try to transfer them sooner.)
11. Devour.

Vegan Alfredo

Inspired by Arlette, I’ve been making Vegan Yum Yum’s vegan alfredo the past couple of weeks. The only reason I haven’t posted about it yet is because it’s surprisingly hard to photograph: by the time you remember to get the camera out, you’ve already eaten it all! This happened to me at least twice. It’s just that good. No, it’s not exactly the same as “real” alfredo but who cares? It’s tasty in its own right, and far healthier.

I like to call this recipe a vegan chemistry experiment. It’s made out of a bunch of random pantry and fridge staples that most people would probably never think to combine. It’s really satisfying to turn a pile of ingredients into something you’d never expect from them.

I took a cue from Arlette and doubled the cashews. I also reduced the soy sauce and nutritional yeast quantities a bit because the first time I made it, those flavors were too strong for my taste.

I have to say, this recipe is one of the easiest things to make in my dinner arsenal. You literally throw all the ingredients into a blender, turn it on, and about 1 minute later you’re done. Oh, and boil the pasta. Seriously though, cooking doesn’t get much quicker than that. It reheats pretty well too (unlike real alfredo).

Vegan Alfredo

Adapted from Vegan Yum Yum’s Hurry Up Alfredo

Serves about 4 people — depending on appetites.

INGREDIENTS

1 cup soymilk
2/3 cup raw, unsalted cashews
2 tablespoons nutritional yeast
1 tablespoon soy sauce
2 tablespoons Earth Balance
1 tablespoon tahini
1 tablespoon lemon juice
2 teaspoons dijon mustard
1 clove garlic, smashed
1/2 teaspoon paprika
pinch nutmeg
black pepper, to taste
toasted pine nuts (optional)

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Boil water and cook your favorite pasta to eat with alfredo.
2. While the pasta’s cooking, put all ingredients into the blender. Blend on high for about 30 seconds to a minute, until it’s reached a creamy consistency.
3. Pour sauce over cooked, drained pasta and toss. I like to throw in some toasted pine nuts too. The sky’s the limit when it comes to what you add to this dish.
4. Serve with fresh ground black pepper. (Don’t tell but I like to put fresh grated parmesan cheese on top of mine. Hey, I never claimed to be vegan myself! I just like to make tasty things for my lactose intolerant fiance and my vegan friends.)
5. That’s it!

Swiss Chard with Bacon and Habanero

Last weekend, my dear friends Morley and Mike had Ed and I over for dinner. Morley whipped up this incredible swiss chard, which she made with habanero infused olive oil. Tonight, I decided to see if I could make something similar. I didn’t have any habanero infused olive oil, but I did have a delightful little orange pepper at my disposal. I’d seen a recipe for chard with pancetta in a magazine, so I was inspired to throw a slice of bacon in, too. The result? Absolutely delicious.

Swiss Chard with Bacon and Habanero

Serves 2 as a side dish.

INGREDIENTS

4 stalks/leaves swiss chard
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 piece bacon, chopped (I like thick-cut applewood-smoked bacon) (omit for vegan)
1 clove garlic, smashed
a bit of habanero, minced — to taste
kosher salt, to taste

DIRECTIONS

1. Mince habanero (use gloves, as this is a spicy spicy pepper). Chop bacon. Cut stems off of chard, chop into bite-sized pieces. Chop chard leavees into rough, bite-sized squares. Keep leaves separate from stalks.
2. Heat oil in large pot over medium heat. Cook bacon bits a minute or two, turning, until it’s nearly done.
3. Add garlic and habanero; sautee another minute or two.
4. Add chard stalks and toss. Sautee 4 minutes.
5. Add chard leaves. Sprinkle generously with kosher salt. Toss until everything is mixed well.
6. Cover and cook 4 more minutes, or until leaves are wilted and soft. Serve immediately.

Note: Can easily be made vegan by omitting the bacon. Still quite tasty without it!