After lunch yesterday, I spent my time switching between studying math and an inspired day of vegan cooking. Why was I inspired? Well, once of my favorite recipes is a vegan chili (I didn’t make it this way, it just is). And, since we had a bbq planned last night for folks in the Econ Graduate Department, with a few vegan participants, I wanted to make sure they had ample food to eat. And thus, my day began.
After having soaked the pinto beans yesterday and overnight in the fridge (I soaked the beans a little longer than normal, because I like the beans to be extra soft for this recipe), I began the madness.
Vegan Chili (makes 6-8 servings)
(Inpsired by Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything)
- 1 pound (about 2 cups) dry pinto beans
- 2 small onions, one whole & peeled, one minced
- 1 cup vegetable stock (I use a vegan vegetable bouillon)
- 1 fresh chili (I use jalapeno), seeded & minced
- 1 tsp cumin (ground)
- 1/2 tsp dried oregano
- 1 tbsp minced garlic
- salt & pepper (to taste)
- chopped fresh cilantro
To cook the beans, soak for at least 8-10 hours in 4x the amount of water (so, for 2 cups of beans — 8 cups of water). Then, boil vigorously for a half hour. Then, put the whole, peeled onion in, season with salt & pepper, and cover and simmer for 1-2 hours.
While its cooking, mince up the second onion, chili & garlic.
After simmering for 1-2 hours, remove the whole onion and drain the beans.
Return the beans to pot, add the vegetable stock, onions, garlic, chilies & spices (or in other words, everything but cilantro). Cover and simmer until beans are real tender.
Serve, adding cilantro to taste.
While I was on my vegan chili cooking binge, I decided to tackle my first vegan cookies. While I have made dairy free cookies many times before, I’ve never made vegan cookies before, as the flax seed egg has always kind of terrified me. But, since I’m not one to be scared away by a challenge, I dove in.
First things first — making the flax seed egg.
Flax Seed Egg (makes one egg replacement)
- 1 tbsp ground flax seed
- 3 tbsp water
Mix the flax seed egg with the water in small saucepan. Boil until the mixture thickens. Remove from heat.
Once the flax seed egg is made, then move onto your baking endeavor! Mine, of course, is the vegan chocolate cookie!
Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies (makes about 2 dozen)
(Inspired by Vegan Food Suite 101)
Ingredients
- 2 cups unbleached flour
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1/4 tsp baking powder
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1 stick of Earth Balance, softened
- 3/4 cup brown sugar
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 2-3 tbsp Diamond Breeze Unsweetened Vanilla Almond Milk
- 2 Tb. ground flaxseed, mixed with 6 Tb. water (as described above)
- 1 bag of Guittard semi-sweet chocolate chips
