Stuffed Peppers

The other night my husband and I collaborated on dinner. Stuffed peppers, yum! We started by making black beans and yellow rice. For the rice, just follow the instructions on the package.

For the beans we always add quite a bit of apple cider vinegar, some spices, salsa and garlic. It gives them kind of a sharp taste and it is amazing!

The key is to let the beans cook for a while so they are nice and soft.

Next, we started the "meat." Boca makes really good ground crumbles. They actually taste similar to ground beef, especially when they are mixed with something else. Add whatever spices you want with a little bit of oil and let them cook all the way through.

Once everything is on the stove...

...it's time to get the peppers ready.

Cut the tops off.

Next, create a tinfoil holder for each pepper. This way they don't fall over while they are cooking in the oven. 

Fold it in half, for thickness.

Then, fold each corner in against the pepper.

Voila!

After the peppers are ready, mix the rice, beans, and crumbles together in a large bowl.

Fill the pepper with the mixture until it looks "stuffed."

Replace the pepper top.

Place the peppers in a pan, and put a little bit of sea salt on top of each one.

Add water.

Bake at 350 for about 30 minutes, depending on how soft or crunchy you want them. 

The tops should be a little wrinkled when they are done. They would be wonderful with some tofutti sour cream and veggie cheese, but that's another post. Bon appétit!  

These are Vegan?!

Well, I finally baked something from my vegan cupcake book. I decided to go with the chocolate cupcakes because I had all the ingredients on hand. To go with my cupcakes I chose a peanut butter frosting from my recipe box, and edited it to be vegan, which is not difficult to do. They came out a little bit greasy, but tasted amazing. Our non-vegan friends loved them, which tells you they are good by everyone's standards, and I hope you will too. Here are some pictures and instructions. Happy baking!

1 cup soy milk
1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1/3 cup canola oil
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/3 cup cocoa powder
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt

Preheat oven to 350 degrees fahrenheit and line muffin pan with cupcake liners.

Whisk together the soy milk and vinegar in a large bowl and set aside to curdle for a few minutes.

Add sugar, oil and vanilla extract to soy milk mixture and beat until foamy.

In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder and salt.

Word of advice, don't try to clean it with water, it will take forever and get moldy. Instead, bang it against the sink a few times to make sure the excess flour is out.

Next, add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix until no large lumps remain.

Pour the batter into the cupcake liners and fill them three quarters of the way up. (My cupcake liners are too big for my muffin pan, oops!)

Bake 18-20 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.

Transfer to cooling rack and let cool completely.

Now make the frosting! Yum!

1/2 cup dairy free butter, soft

1 cup peanut butter

3 tablespoons soy milk

2 cups confectioner's sugar

I use Earth Balance butter. They have many varieties to choose from and all of them are great. 

There are other brands of vegan butter as well, Smart Balance makes a couple. Just be sure the container says it is vegan or dairy-free.

Ok, back to the frosting. Combine the softened butter and peanut butter, it will very soft and kind of greasy.

Next, add the confectioner's sugar and soy milk. Mix until well blended.

Finally, frost your cooled cupcakes and enjoy! They should be stored in the fridge because, depending on what kind of peanut butter you use, the frosting could get greasy. Thanks for reading :)

Does he do honey?

Haha. I went to lunch with a new student the other day, and when I told her my husband was a vegan she immediately asked me if he "did honey." Then her husband proceeded to say that even though the bees are not physically hurt in the process of making honey, it does hurt their feelings.

The answer to the question is, yes, he does do honey, if I am baking and need a maple syrup substitute.

Before we changed our eating habits, I used to bake all the time. However, baking is not so conducive to being a vegan, that is unless you learn the basics of vegan baking! This is not going to be a baking tutorial. Instead, I want to point you to two amazing vegan baking books that are full of useful information.

You can find both of them on Amazon for about 10 bucks a piece. Each book begins with an explanation of what products are common for vegan baking, and even gives you brand names to look for. I have yet to bake anything from the cupcake book, but the cookie book is incredible! I recommend the Peanut Butter Pillows, the Peanut Butter Blondies (my husband loves peanut butter), and the Chocolate Chip Cookies. All are delicious! Next time I turn to these books for inspiration, I will post pictures. That's all for now. Thanks for stopping by.