Tag Archives: recipe

Good Things Come in Small Batches

Do you want a brownie but find you’re afraid to commit to an entire pan? I don’t have that problem anymore. And I don’t even need to figure out how to half an egg.

tiny brownies

Makes two brownies. Or one great big brownie if you don’t like to share.

Small Batch Brownies (vegan – but don’t be scared)

Preheat your oven to 350F.

Pull out a small mixing bowl and put in the following:

  • 4 1/2t. unsweetened cocoa
  • 1/4c. all purpose flour
  • 1/4c. sugar
  • 1/8t. baking powder
  • 1/4t. salt
  • 2T. water
  • 2T. cooking oil
  • 1/4t. vanilla

Mix it all up well and pour it into a greased 3×5 loaf pan. You can sprinkle the top with crushed pecans or walnuts if you like them. I like roasted, salted pecans myself.

Bake in the preheated oven for around 20 minutes. The top will look a little dry when it’s finished.

Let Ellie lick the bowl because

omnomnom

Hey! No eggs!

These are pretty rich. You can moderate that with a big scoop of ice cream and some homemade chocolate sauce.*

Or skip the baking altogether, it’s the perfect amount if all you want is brownie batter. I will not judge you for Brownie Indiscretions.

*Put 1/2c. water, 1/4c. sugar, 1/3c. cocoa, and a big pinch of salt in a small sauce pan over medium heat. STIR. I mean it! Don’t walk away! It can go from delicious to napalm in an instant. When you are happy with the viscosity, stir in 1/2t. vanilla. Store in the ‘fridge in a lidded container.

Happy Chili

One of the things lost to Project Eat with Kindness was my favorite chili. Before anyone gets too excited, it was made from a mix (oh the shame). It was a mix that came in a little yellow envelope and contained beef bouillon so I couldn’t just drop the hamburger. It’s not gourmet, it’s not from scratch (I have another recipe for that), it’s just an easy chili for chili dogs or chili cheese fries or in a bowl with a grilled cheese on a cold evening. Wipe your tears away, I’ve recreated it. Close enough that I don’t miss it anyway.

Three Bean Chili Without the Mix

Awesome Yellow Pot is not required.

  • 1 can each kidney beans, pinto beans, black beans – undrained
  • 1 can of diced tomatoes (not the great big one)
  • 2 t. chili powder (not chile powder – you’ll be sorry)
  • 1 t. onion powder
  • 1/2 t. each of cumin, salt and oregano
  • 1/4 t. garlic powder

Throw it all in a pot and bring it to a boil. Then reduce the heat and simmer for 20-30 minutes. Nothing to it.

Enjoy with corn bread, sour cream, cheddar on top, on a veggie dog, or (my personal favorite) dump it over homemade fries* and add a little shredded cheddar.

Happy noms.

*Slice a potato into fry shapes, toss them in canola and garlic salt, spread on a cookie sheet and bake at 425 for about 22 minutes.

Baking

I don’t just want to replace the butter with some kind of butter substitute. For one thing, most margarines still contain dairy and for another, most of margarines have whatever kind of hydrogenated is bad for humanity. I want to add recipes to my repertoire that don’t rely on dairy at all.

That means vegan. Stay with me here: if there wasn’t vegan food that tasted good, only true martyrs would stay vegan very long. So I checked Veganomicon out of my library.* And then I made Chewy Chocolate Raspberry Cookies.

chocolateraspberrycookie

So. Good.

Try them. You’ll be shocked by the dense chocolaty goodness. SHOCKED.

Put the oven on 350F and put this stuff in a bowl and mix it up:

  • 1/2 c. raspberry preserves (we used blackberry freezer jam: the freezer is full of it since the blackberries did really well last summer)
  • 1 c. sugar
  • 1/3 c. canola oil
  • 1 t. vanilla (we left out the 1 t. of almond extract: blech)

The next ingredients are supposed to be sifted in another bowl. That was too fancy for us. Dump in and mix up:

  • 1/2 c. + 2 T. cocoa powder
  • 1 1/2 c. AP flour
  • 3/4 t. baking soda
  • 1/2 t. salt (that’s double what it called for: chocolate requires salt)

The dough is really thick, so you either need some upper body strength or willing toddler hands to get it all combined. Then we used the scoop and smush method (medium ice cream scoop and the bottom of a glass) to arrange them on a parchment lined baking sheet. They don’t spread much so you can do a lot at one time. Ellie sprinkled kosher salt on top. If you missed it: chocolate requires salt.
Bake them 10 minutes. They’ll get dry and cracked on top. If you don’t want oval cookies, wait a minute before you move them to a cooling rack. They taste just as good oval.

Next, eat them all in two days. Ellie and I did this and we are not ashamed. If you want to negate the lack of dairy: 2 cookies + microwave for 12 seconds + vanilla ice cream = swoon. The goal for 2010 is to reduce, not eliminate.

*I am just as surprised as you are. And it was at my personal branch.