monkey / gorilla cakes!

so, i had a huge pancake craving for dinner. i could see it coming miles away - since i missed national pancake day and haven't had any in ages. and, as luck would have it, one of the most fun vegan food bloggers out there, "chocolate covered katie," is having an awesome contest wherein you make pancake roll-ups and are entered to win a whole bunch of products courtesy of artisana.

and so, i thought, "why not make pancake roll-ups?" yes, why not.

i decided on this recipe, because i wanted to use up some spelt flour and because moby is cool. alongside the spelt we have wheat bran (didn't have any oat), baking soda, salt, and soymilk. some rogue cinnamon may have snuck its way in there.

and a little stevia, because one needs some sweetness in one's pancakes. and, yes, that is a blurry "sense and sensibility" in the background, because one needs some jane austen while one makes pancakes.

and, no, you don't see any blueberries up in there. instead, i used a banana and some unsweetened coconut.

and so begins the fun game of heating the pan and creating the tester pancake. we've got bubbles!

successful flipping!

mmm. yes, they taste like "healthy" cakes, but one sees nothing wrong with that.

yet it is at this point, looking at the finished batch, that one runs into a problem. and by "one," i mean me. you see, these are thick and fluffy and lovely...but they do not really appear conducive to, um, rolling.

but one must do the best one can. a little slater of all-natural, organic, creamy peanut butter...

a makeshift roll with some added banana (ignore the fact that it looks like a burrito about to fall apart)...

and some more banana on top, alongside some powdered sugar and a little drizzle of pure maple syrup.

i was going to christen these monkey cakes, but they were too big to be monkies. plus, i could only eat half of them. instead, i believe they are gorilla cakes. i dedicate them to joe, a gorilla who lives in the st. louis zoo.

thanks for the inspiration, katie!

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.

peanut butter toffee cookies / worst post EVAR!

this, my two blogger readers, is my worst post ever, ever-ever.

this is because all i have are two very bad pictures and no recipe. why even include it - you ask? well, its important to learn humility.

so.

when i was in philly last week i went on a sudden dinner date at a good friend's house. they did dinner, and i was to bring dessert. i had just enough time to do something short that didn't require running to the store, so i settled on cookies. specifically, the bag of toffee (i think it was hershey's heath bar toffee bits with chocolate?) in the cabinet.

usually, when i make toffee cookies, its just plain, straight up...you know...toffee cookies. but the recipe on the back of this bag advertised peanut butter toffee cookies, and that is what i made. i cannot give you the recipe because the bag is now in trash that's a week and a half old and at a dump somewhere, and, oddly enough, i cannot find it online.

but...here is what they looked like coming out of the oven...

and on a plate ready to go into the car, still warm...

yup - we can all say it - worst pictures ever. but, the bright side is that these actually tasted good. i think i like plain toffee best, but everyone needs some peanut butter now and then.