Pop Rocks Chocolate Lollipops

Take your childhood candy plus chocolate and whoa-la! MyMy Bijoux adapted these lollipops from the Top Chef finalists' Bryan and Michael Voltaggio. These pop in your mouth with the fantastic taste of chocolate. If you want to order these in milk chocolate, dark chocolate or both, email My My Bijoux at mymybijoux@gmail.com.

Tropical Oatmeal Brownie Cookies

So I'm off to visit some people in Phoenix tomorrow and I wanted to take them a thank you gift. I could buy something local like pralines, but I think the best gifts are homemade (when giving food. Fellas, never give your girl something homemade when you can get her diamonds!). So I decided to make some oatmeal cookies (because I am craving oatmeal for some reason), but I wanted to make them different. How? How can I make them different? Well. I scrambled through my cupboards and pulled out everything I could find and see how I could add them into a cookie. Well here's what I cam up with.

Tropical Oatmeal Brownie Cookies
2 egg whites
1 tsp vanilla
1/3 cup agave nectar
2/3 cup oat flour
1 cup old fashion oats
1/3 cup sugar
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup dried chopped tropical fruit
1/2 cup coconut
1/3 cup Hershey Dark Chocolate cocoa powder
1/2 cup soy milk
Preheat the oven to 350. Line a cookie sheet with wax or parchment paper and lightly grease it. 
In a mixer, beat the eggs white until they peak then add the agave and vanilla. Continue to beat for a few more seconds to make sure the ingredients are well mixed.
In a separate bowl add flour, oats, cocoa, baking soda, salt, and sugar. Stir well then slowly fold in the egg white mixture. Add the dried fruits and coconut and stir well. Slowly add the milk- I add the milk last because maybe 1/2 cup can be too much. It just depends on your batter. You want it to be moist, but not runny. Once everything has been incorporated, grease your hands slightly and make balls out of the batter (I get a dozen cookies out of this recipe). Place the cookies on the cookie sheet leaving about an inch between each cookie and bake for 10 minutes.

Why did I use oat flour? Well, certain people that will be enjoying these yummies has a wheat allergy. You can totally use white flour or brown (when using whole wheat flour remember to do half white. This is because whole wheat flour can have a bitter taste).

Tofu and Hummus Sandwich

First of all, I apologize for the blurriness of the picture. After today I'll start using my camera instead of my iPhone to take the pictures (turns out when you blow up iPhone pics they get fuzzy a bit).

So I went to Brighter Day Foods last week and had this tofu tahini sandwich and I thought, "self, maybe I can re-create this somewhat". Well, I could easily have bought all the ingredients, but for some reason tahini is like 8$ a bottle, whereas hummous is 2.99$. And as for the bread, well I decided to get a little creative. I decided, instead of making a sandwich on bread, why not put it on a scone? I think its because every time I turned on the Food Network everyone was making scones. So here's the scone recipe I used:

Dried Fruit Scones

Ingredients

1 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup oats
1.5 T ground flaxseed
1/2 T baking powder
1/4 t salt
2/5 T margarine
1/4 cup soy milk and 1 T
1/4 cup chopped dried fruit
1/3 cup agave nectar
1 egg white

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. I mixed all the dry ingredients in the food processor except for the dried fruit. Then add the margarine and pulse the food processor to mix well. Add the dried fruit and pulse. In a separate bowl mix 1/4 cup milk with aganve nectar and egg white. While the food processor is on, slowly add the liquid via the feed tube on your machine. Flour your surface well (and your hands) and roll out the dough to 1/2 inch thickness. I used a drinking glass to cut out rounds in the dough (so six scones total). Place the scones on a greased sheet and brush them with the left over milk. Bake for 20-25 minutes.

When the scones are cooled take one, slice in half and spread some Nayonaise on one side and hummous on the other. Add some sprouts, tomatoes and bell pepper. For the tofu I drained the water and added some tamari, parmesan, salt and pepper, chili flakes, and cumin. I took 1/4 cup of the tofu mix and put it over the veggies then topped the whole sandwich with the other half of the scone.

No, your eyes are fine... blurry pictures

So I realize some pics are a little blurry. Well, I've been using my iPhone to take the pictures and turns out that when I try to enlarge them, they get a little blurry. Sorry. I'll leave them @ normal size.

Cranberry Chocolate Cheesecake

Yes, that's right. I made a cranberry chocolate cheesecake. Simply, I used the recipe for the Pumpkin Chocolate Swirl Cheesecake from Vegetarian Times and replaced the can of pumpkin with a can of cranberries and instead of 3 eggs I used 3/4 cup silken tofu, and dark chocolate instead of bittersweet. For the crust I used one package of chocolate GoldFish graham crackers and I used Earth Balance instead of butter. Oh, I used fat free cream cheese and cottage cheese as well.

Black Bean Veggie Burger

So I'm finding that veggie burgers are just the easiest, most healthy form of dinner for me due to my schedule. I'm up at 630 am everyday and by the time my day is done its 530pm and I'm really not in the mood to go all gourmet and make a sexy plate of food. So I grabbed a few things from the kitchen, dumped them into a bowl et voila, bean burgers. So what did I put my quick and easy dinner this time? Well, I dumped a can of black beans with half a chopped onion, minced garlic, salt and pepper, cayenne powder and grilling seasoning, 1 package of spinach (defrosted and liquid squeezed out) and one chopped zucchini. For my binders I used 1/4 firm tofu and 1/2 cup TVP (already soaked in 1/2 cup water). Using my hands I mixed the ingredients well and them formed them into five thick burger patties.

Once the patties were formed, I heated some oil in a skillet and placed the burgers in the skillet. it took somewhere like 5-7 minutes for the burgers to cook well on one side, and once they were browned and looked like they wouldn't fall apart, I flipped them over and cooked the other side.

I served up the bean burger with a cup of brown rice topped with a 1/4 cup of tropical dried fruit and a cup of steamed broccoli seasoned with a lil' salt and pepper. Really, its so easy to be creative with veggie burgers that I think I can def be eating them for a long while.

Mom's Granola- Courtesy of Alicia Silverstone's mom

So I wasn't planning on making granola, but I was rummaging through the pages of Alicia Silverstone's "The Kind Life" and I came across a granola recipe that her mother made for her when she was a child. Well, since its after to make a batch of granola one time and eat it throughout the week rather than making oatmeal on a daily basis, I decided to give it a try. I made a few small changes which I've underlined just because I used what was available in my kitchen.

Hope you enjoy!

Mom's Granola

Ingredients:

• 6 cups quick cooking oats
• 1/2 cup maple sugar (I used 1/4 dark brown sugar)
• 3/4 wheat germ (I added 2 tbsp of ground flaxseed as well)
• 1/2 cup shredded coconut
• 1/2 cup sesame seeds (I used pumpkin seeds)
• 1 cup raisins
• 1/2 cup safflower oil (I used 4 tbsp Earth Balance)
• 1/3 cup maple syrup
• 1 1/2 tsp vanilla

So spread the oats on a sheet pan and bake for 10 minutes in a 350 degree oven. Then remove the oats and mix them with the other ingredients in a large bowl. Spread the mixture evenly divided between two sheet pans and bake for 10 minutes, stirring at 5 minute mark. Let the granola cool and then break and store in an air tight container. My version a half cup serving is 204 kcals 29 grams carbohydrate, 9 grams fat and 4 grams protein.

Birthday Cupcakes

My birthday is in a few days and E Lo gave me a nice surprise...CUPCAKES! She had these delivered to my door today and I had 2 tonight they were so good. These cupcakes are from Free For All Cupcakes located in Fairfax, VA owned by 2 sisters. As soon as I opened the box the smell of the chocolate cupcake and buttercream icing leaked through the air. Thank you E Lo for a great bday treat!

Homemade Bean Burgers

So my friend J came over last weekend and we decided to have dinner @ Ruby Tuesday's as I had one of those "Buy One Get One Free" coupons. Well, its not much of a restaurant if you're vegetarian. The ONLY vegetarian meal- besides the lame salad bar- is the Veggie Mini Combo, which is two veggie sliders with fries and a salad bar. The burgers, not that bad, made of rice and beans, but nothing special. There really wasn't much going on in terms of flavour, and the burgers didn't hold well. So that's when I decided that I was going to try my hand at the bean burger. I looked up some recipes and I found this pretty awesome one on Whole Foods' website. I decided to make a few changes to the recipe because I really didn't feel like going to the store and planned on using what I had @ home.

Homemade Bean Burger

Ingredients:

• 1 can of mixed beans
• 1 cup of rolled oats
• 1/2 cup of apple sauce
• 1/2 a chopped onion
• 2 minced garlic cloves
• sea salt, black pepper, thyme, oregano
• 1 cup shredded carrots
• lettuce and tomato
• Joseph's whole wheat flax pita

So I took all the ingredients, except for the tomato, lettuce and bread, and mixed them well with my hands. Add as much seasoning to your taste I prefer to use fresh herbs, but dry is just as good. Remember though, dry herbs are more pungent. Mix the ingredients well and form 5-6 patties (just depends on how big you make them). Heat olive oil on a pan at med-high heat. Once heated lay the patties on the pan and cook until browned then flip and cook the other side.

Warm the pita then cut in half. Spread a little Nayonaise or Veganaise on the pita with whatever else you like. I like grainy, spicy mustard. Then place lettuce and tomato on one pita, then a bean burger, then top with the pita.

I roasted some broccoli and asparagus and served it as a side (because I'm not into french fries much).

Bone appetit!