Best (Vegan) Chocolate Chip Cookies Ever!

I may be one of the last people to have read the New York Times article on chocolate chip cookies. (On a recent visit to Whole Foods, I found the recipe displayed alongside the recommended chocolate disks, just in case I hadn't already seen it all over the blogosphere.) Well, I already have a chocolate chip cookie recipe that I love (even though its not vegan) and I didn't have much interest in switching, but I did want to try my hand at some of the recommendations in the article.

First, I veganized the recipe I already had. I love this recipe, because it calls for oatmeal to be ground to a fine powder--upping the nutritional content without sacrificing texture. I subbed out earth balance margarine for butter and egg replacer for the eggs, which got me close, but the recipe required a bit more tweaking to get the moisture content right.

Next up, there's this whole idea of resting the batter in the fridge for 36 hours before baking. This whole cookie experiment took place over two weekends and four batches of cookies. (I take this stuff seriously, people!) The first couple batches were baked at 0, 24, and 48 hours after mixing. 36 hours may be optimal for the cookies, but its darn inconvenient for me. If I mix up a batch of cookies in the evening, I sure don't want to be baking them for breakfast two days later! As the article suggests (and other foodbloggers have confirmed) the cookies definitely taste better after resting. 24 hours is better than 0, but 48 hours was even better. The cookies had a better flavor and took on a richer color after baking. Even the raw batter was better after resting!

Left to right: 0, 24, and 48 hours after mixing

I was also intrigued by the addition of sea salt in the NYT recipe. I'd already discovered the amazing combination of sea salt with caramel, but it wouldn't have occured to me to add extra salt to cookies. I mean, there's already salt in the batter, right? The second weekend (and next two batches) were dedicated to exploring the addition of salt, as well as continuing to work out the moisture issue with the batter. I can't tell you whether just upping the salt content of the recipe would work the same way, but there is something added with the extra sea salt on top of the cookie. I didn't measure the amount, but a more generous sprinkling did produce a better tasting cookie. I started out with a light dusting and ended up upping the amount a couple times.

In the end, the boy and I couldn't stop eating these things. They were really that. good. Go make them, but don't say I didn't warn you!

Best Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies

1 cup Earth Balance margarine
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup granulated sugar
egg replacer equivalent to 2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1/4 cup non-dairy milk
2 cups flour
2 1/2 cups blended oatmeal (measure oatmeal, then blend in a food processor to a fine powder)
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
12 ounces chocolate chips
4 ounces dark chocolate, grated (optional)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Blend the oatmeal and combine with flour, salt, baking powder, and baking soda in a large bowl. In a separate bowl, cream the earth balance and both sugars until the mixture is pale and fluffy. Add egg replacer, vanilla, and milk and mix until combined. Slowly add dry ingredients to the wet and mix just until combined. Stir in chocolate chips and grated chocolate, if using. Scoop onto parchment lined cookie sheets (I use a #20 scoop and divide each scoop into two balls). Flatten each ball slightly and liberally sprinkle with kosher salt. Bake for 10 minutes, rotating sheets midway through cooking.

Even though the oatmeal makes me feel slightly less guilty indulging in these, they are still pretty outrageously high in fat and sugar. My next cookie experiment will involve lightening these up a bit, but I'm in too much of a sugar coma to think about that right now.

Pinkie Blankie

With a name like that, could it be any other color?

Pinkie Blankie by Julie Ridl (Ravelry link)
Knit with 6 skeins of Knit Picks Comfy in the Flamingo color on US2 Addi Turbos (honestly, I don't think I ever use different needles, unless I'm making sock on US1 DPNs)

Knit for Mr. Sweetie's new baby neice. I followed the pattern fairly closely, changing it only to add an extra border of stockinette between the garter stitch edge and the lace pattern. I knit 9 repeats across, but could have added a couple more. I was concerned about running out of yarn and ended up with some leftover and a smallish blanket. The baby arrived as I was casting off, so I wouldn't have had time to knit it bigger anyway. Small as it is, I love this pattern and the yarn is super soft and comfy (good choice of name, those knitpickers are always thinkin'!)

T is for Tamale

I've always loved tamales and I've wanted to learn how to make them for a long time. Since its pretty difficult to find a vegan tamale at a restaurant, I figured I'd try my hand at a homemade version over the long weekend. As with most things, this journey started with google. I found several recipes that looked good, but ultimately decided to use the masa recipe here along with the fillings here and here.

Note: I had a hard time finding chipotles in adobo sauce, dried corn husks, and dried ancho chiles at my regular supermarket, but I was able to find them all at a spanish grocery near my house. (The checker asked if I was making tamales and then I'm pretty sure she laughed a little bit after I said yes. Mockery only makes me more determined people!)

The first steps were to soak the corn husks in warm water and to prepare the masa dough. I set those both aside while I whipped up the ancho chile sauce. This stuff was quite a bit of work and made a huge mess. Word to the wise--be very careful when pouring this stuff to strain it. It looked like a murder scene in my kitchen with all the red spatters everywhere. (And my pan did eventually come clean, although I had my doubts at one point). This sauce was then added to the filling from the banana leaf tamale recipe. I slightly modified this recipe by using zucchini instead of calabacitas and, of course, leaving out the cheese.


After I added the chile sauce to the veggie mixture, I felt like it still needed a little kick, so I added one chopped chipotle pepper with some extra adobo. Problem solved--this stuff was screaming hot. It had this gringa crying. I should have started with a 1/2 pepper. Lesson learned and maybe the supermarket checker had reason to giggle.


On to the sweet potato filling. I modified this recipe as well. I wanted to make a half batch and didn't want a 1/2 can of tomatoes left over, so I used a couple fresh tomatoes along with the red chile sauce I had already made. I didn't learn my lesson and added a full chipotle pepper; however, the recipe calls for 2-3, so at least I was starting to catch on. I mashed up the baked sweet potato and all the ingredients were ready.

The boy helped with this next step and it took a little bit of trial and error to figure out the best method. I had read somewhere online that you should flatten a piece of dough with your hands, place it on the husk, top with filling, and then form another piece of dough for the top. We didn't have much luck with this, as it was impossible to keep the filling from seeping out between the two layers.

Don't do it this way!

I have also seen people making tamales by spreading the dough onto the husk with a spatula. This was the method we ended up using--we spread the dough onto about 2/3 of the husk and then put filling on one side of it so that one side would fold over with dough for the top and then the opposite side would fold over the first with no dough. There are good folding instructions here. We also had better luck with the sweet potato filling because it would smoosh down and allow for better folding--the squash filling tended to come out and make a big mess.

After what seemed like hours of folding, we were ready to start steaming these bad boys! I crammed as many as would fit into the top of a steamer pan and left them to their own devices for about 30 minutes.

Having a steam bath.

To round out the meal, I made salsa with homemade tortilla chips and salad. I'm no salsa expert, but I like to chop the tomatoes, add salt, and let them sit and juice for a few minutes.










Leave us alone, we're juicing!

Then, I added red onion, garlic and cilantro. Lime juice and some jalepeno would have also been good but 1) my limes were bad and 2) my mouth was still on fire from tasting the chipotle sauce, so I left well enough alone. The chips were easy peasy--cut up some flour tortillas and bake in a single layer at 350 until crisp, turning once.

I had originally planned to make a more spanish-inspired salad but, again, I couldn't bear the thought of putting anything else spicy in my mouth so it ended up being a pear, fig, and baby spinach salad with balsamic vinaigrette. The cool pears were the perfect counterpoint to all the spiciness of the tamales. Wanna know my secret for vinaigrette? Good quality balsamic, a dash of olive oil, and two pinches of sugar. So simple and so incredibly delicious!

We especially loved the sweet potato tamales. The sweet offset the insane heat of the sauce, making the whole thing extra yummy. I'm not sure how soon I'll be setting aside an entire day for this process, but at least now I can say I've done it. Plus, I have a freezer full of tamales for the next craving.

Geo-what?

We had a lovely weekend over here in southern Connecticut. The weather threatened to ruin it for us Friday evening, but the rain cleared up and made way for gorgeous weather on Saturday and Sunday. The sweetie and I decided to visit a park we hadn't been to before and took a lovely hike along (and over!) a dry creek bed filled with boulders. At one point, about halfway through our hike, we found ourselves climbing up to the top of one of the largest boulders for a view of the park. As we were looking around, I saw something carefully wedged under a smaller rock, just barely out of sight. It was a plastic container and I first thought someone had forgotten their lunch after stopping for a rest, but as I got closer, I realized that it was a geocache! I've heard of these before and the sweetie and I have even talked about going looking for some, but we'd never found one. Essentially, someone leaves a box with a logbook and, sometimes, little trinkets hidden somewhere and then posts the gps coordinates on a website so that others may try to find it. We just stumbled upon this one, but the thrill of finding it was enough to make us interested in going out to intentionally find some more.

Presenting . . .

A completed shortypants, with not a shred of yarn to spare!


Mr. Greenjeans from knitty.

Sporfarm Merino Wool 2 skeins at 400.0 yards each in the Spiced Pumpkin colorway on size US2 addi turbos

My gauge was off, so I followed the 3X directions to end up with the XS size. Right after dividing for the armholes, I ended up being an inch worth’s of stitches short, which worked well. I didn't have smaller needles for the ribbing at the waist, so I fudged it by decreasing another inch worth's of stitches and stopped when I got too nervous that I would run out of yarn (just above my hips).

I then evenly divided the little bit of yarn that was left (including my gauge swatch) and knit on the sleeves until it was all gone.

It required the most severe of blockings in order to fit, but I love it still! Its difficult to capture in the photos, but the orange has the most subtle color variations--from almost yellow to almost brown in color that gives it some interest. Lovely!