happy valentine's day / smlove pie!

happy v-day to everyone out there - whether it means celebrating love, vagina monologue performances, or birthdays (like my cousin isaac and my friend matt!). my valentine and i celebrated yesterday evening, and my gift was chocolate, because everyone should celebrate chocolate.

which we did. with the magnificent 'smlove pie' from veganomicon, and which the lovely authors have kindly decided to post about on their website. check it out: its a doozy. i wanted something really decadent that i knew would be appreciated, and i was also curious to finally try out a fancy vegan dessert. there are about 20 other blogger who have boldly gone where i did before, so i figured it would turn out well. and it did.

thank god.

because it took hours.

**

it starts with some graham crackers, which you see before you hanging out in the magical food processor. they look so innocent.

look - a few seconds later - crumbs!

and all you have to do is add a little oil and its pie crust!

the main filling begins with this:

now, i know what you are thinking. you are thinking, "this is disgusting. there is no way this will work. you are crazy, shayna punim." i understand this, because i was thinking it too. i looked at the following scene and tasted a bit of the tofu stuck to the container and almost gave up.

but then i reconsidered, in part because of one of the ingredients in the above picture:

seriously, nothing with kahlua can be bad. plus you can drink some and pretend you are The Dude. there's a beverage here, MAN.

but i digress.

the following ingredient also made me reconsider giving up. note the fancy improv double boiler.

and, really, this doesn't look so bad.

i may have tasted this. and my impression may have been that it was a delicious chocolate pudding.

here is the delicious chocolate pudding in the pie shell, about to be baked for 40 minutes.

and...here it is coming out of the oven. almost unrecognizable.

we now say goodbye to the pie as it chills for three hours. in the meantime, we make maple candied pecans by toasting the pecans with maple syrup and a touch of oil and salt:

then they chill, because they are too sticky right now. also, they burn your tongue at this stage. not that such a thing occurred to me.

let us now move on to the peanut butter caramel sauce. it involves peanut butter, maple syrup, and a few tablespoons from this almost-eight-dolla jar right here:

its natural. and slightly caramel-y.

assembly time! i do believe this is looking good...

one might even use the word 'professional.'

all it needs now is some ganache.

we don't need no stinkin'-pastry-bag-because-ours-is-in-storage for application, because we have...ms. plastic bag with a tip cut off!

oh yes. come to mama.

money shot!

they say happiness is a warm gun, and it is. but its also the last bite of a slice of this pie. that is all.

vegan rocky road cookies!

i may have revoked my promise to myself to only make healthier desserts. which i will also be breaking tomorrow since i'm doing a valentine's day dessert - but nevermind all that.

so, a few days ago i made rocky road cookies from 'vegan cookies invade your cookie jar,' and i believe they are the least healthy cookies i have made from the book so far (we're not including the pecan bars here, since, you know, they were bars. totally different.)

anyway. these rocky roads totally taste not healthy. delicious. i think its because of this:

yes. chocolate. its all my fault.

see, there was a snowstorm, and my urge to make happy snowbound cookies overcame me. getting to the grocery store wasn't possible, but dark chocolate bars at the corner store were. which i think may be more decadent than chips. plus the fact that the dough contains half a cup of cocoa powder and real sugar - no syrups involved. oooh - although there were some chopped almonds involved...

as usual, they look very...unappetizing...going into the oven. especially under the crappy flash.

but look how pretty they turn out...mmm. melted chocolate.

martha stewart's chewy chocolate gingerbread cookies!

in 2001 i bought a special magazine/booklet of martha stewart's that was nothing but holiday cookies. i leafed through the first few pages and spotted 'chewy chocolate gingerbread cookies,' and thought they looked fun. so, i made them.

and they were the best things ever. ever ever. and i've been making them ever since on the holidays. one day, i vow to make a second recipe out of that booklet. but it hasn't happened yet...

i pretty much follow all the directions exactly as described in the link. i think the important thing is to have fresh, grated ginger. enlist help for this, as its a big pain in the buttocks to grate fresh ginger. also, the molasses is a must. and, if you are lucky enough to have a kitchen aid in your midst, break it out mos def.

i love the kitchen aid, even if it isn't mine. it mixes everything, even flour.

although, for the record, i've never made just one batch of this recipe. this year i merely doubled it (since i was making a million of the cookies i posted about last time), but i have made up to four batches at a time, and you really can't put four batches in a kitchen aid - cause it just won't fit. alas. anyway - when all is mixed you wrap each batch in plastic wrap and stick it in the fridge for a few hours - like this:

and then, you take each piece and tear off little pieces and roll them into balls with your hands. and, for the record, the chocolate chunk pieces might not do fun things to your hands as you're rolling little balls, but you must ignore the pain, because the chunks are essential. in case you were wondering.

and then, the balls go back into the freezer for 20 minutes, and when they come out, you roll them in granulated sugar before baking them. they are pretty like this - see:

here they are going into the oven...

and here they are on a drying rack. seas of cookies are fun.

mmmm. check out the sugar crystals. these are the best cookies that i make - eight years and counting. try them out and thank me later. you're welcome.