Dessert & a movie: The Social Network

For The Social Network (which I liked, by the way, although I don't think it quite lived up to all the Best Picture of the Century hype), we went with a fancy college food theme. We had a salad and a delicious homemade pizza, which I unfortunately didn't take pictures of. And for dessert, I made Vegan Milanos from the Post-Punk Kitchen! I was a little afraid they would be above my skill level, but they turned out pretty well. If I do say so myself, they were a hit. Not as big of a hit as Facebook, of course, but if I had a bigger kitchen 500 million people might want to eat these cookies.

Ingredients:

• 1/3 cup rice or soy milk (I used soy)
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup canola oil
• 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
• Scant 1 teaspoon finely grated orange zest (I didn't use this but I bet it would make the cookies even awesomer)
• 2 cups flour
• 2 tablespoons cornstarch
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 6 ounces bittersweet or semisweet chocolate, chopped (or use chocolate chips)

1. Preheat the oven to 350 F and grease two cookie sheets.
2. Mix the sugar, oil, milk, vanilla, and zest.
3. Add half of the flour, along with the cornstarch, baking powder and salt and mix well.
4. Add the remaining flour and mix until you have a soft, pliable dough.
5. Set aside a little bowl of flour and dust your hands before making every cookie!
6. Take a small spoonful of dough and roll it into a log in your hands. Then squish it flat until it's like, the shape of a Milano.
7. Keep making Milanos until you use all the dough, then bake them for 10-ish minutes.

8. Meanwhile, melt the chocolate. I use a makeshift double-boiler of a small pot inside a slightly larger pot of boiling water. If you don't melt chocolate often, let me stress... stir the chocolate like there is no tomorrow or it will burn and be horrible! Also don't let any water splash in there or it will also be horrible.

9. OK, so the recipe advised you to dip each cookie facedown in the chocolate and then push them together to make a sandwich, but I was afraid I'd drop the cookies or something. So I just dropped about a spoonful of chocolate on a cookie and then squished another one on top of it.

10. Put them on a tray in the fridge for an hour or so. Then let them get back to room temperature before serving them.
11. Hurrah!

awesome vegan chocolate chip cookies

OK, I've been dabbling with different vegan chocolate chip cookie recipes and I hit the jackpot with a slight variation on this one.

Ingredients:

• 2-1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup Earth Balance*, softened (although Earth Balance is the best, you may use any other non-dairy butter/margarine)
• 3/4 cup white sugar
• 3/4 cup brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup plain applesauce
• 2 cups chocolate chips

I think the real key was my vegan semi-sweet chocolate chips. I got them from the bulk bin at the local co-op, and they were delicious. And I didn't measure them, I just used a whole big scoop of them which I think was more than 2 cups. Lesson learned: don't use crappy chocolate chips! You deserve better!

Anyway, preheat the oven to 375. Then mix the flour, salt, and baking soda in a small bowl. In a bigger bowl, mix everything else except the chips. Then add the flour mix, and finally the chips. Spoon out the dough onto an ungreased cookie sheet and bake for 10 minutes-ish.

I am serious, these cookies were awesome and everyone I gave them to flipped out about how awesome they were. They were a little soft and cake-y but also a little crispy. And, again, excellent chocolate content. Mmm.

Vegan-ish Chocolate chip Oatmeal Cookies

These are almost vegan except I used regular chocolate chips. If you get vegan ones, or just use raisins instead, they will be vegan! Whoaaa.

I kind of made this recipe up based on the oatmeal cookie recipe that came on the Meijer brand oatmeal package. They are delicious, if I do say so myself!

Ingredients:
1 cup applesauce (just the regular kind from a jar. I thought using my homemade applesauce would make it too apple-y and cinnamon-y, but who knows, maybe it would have been awesome)
1/2 cup Smart Balance spread
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 1/2 cups flour
3 cups oats
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1 cup chocolate chips

So, first I creamed together the sugars, applesauce, and Smart Balance. Then I added the vanilla, flour, salt, and baking soda. Last I stirred in the oats and chocolate chips! I baked them for like fifteen minutes at 350, but I like my cookies crisp and golden brown. Start checking them after 10 minutes if you want them softer.

PS this makes really delicious dough that you can eat without fear of salmonella! Yeah!