Tag Archives: roasted

Use the leftover apple cinnamon syrup to make apple cinnamon roasted peanuts! (Recipe)

Posted by Banana Curl Vegan Girl in Apples, Nuts, Original Recipes, Other Vegan Food Blogs, Snacks and tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

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Okay, so my recent cupcake idea (posted the other day-the one before this one- the apple cinnamon cupcakes) actually branched off from my desire to have vegan “honey” roasted peanuts. I had thought it would be cool to try and replicate Bee Free Honee which is made from apples. Then I decided after some research to add some cinnamon to it, which resulted in the cupcake idea. However, I still had a hankering for the peanuts, and had plenty of leftover apple cinnamon syrup from the cupcakes. (I had also put the syrup on some pancakes I made, which was delicious!)

I’ve also been toying with getting vegan peanut brittle I’ve been seeing at my local grocery store, except it has some ingredients I try to avoid like high fructose corn syrup and such in it…So this was a good alternative.

The basic skeleton of this recipe came from Miss Kitchen Witch, another vegan blog. You should try that recipe, too!

I’m re-writing the recipe I used even though much of it is similar to make it easier for you.

Ingredients:

  • 1 pound unsalted dry roasted peanuts (I’ve never seen blanched peanuts around me so this is the next best thing. I think it reduces the cooking time slightly due to them being roasted instead of blanched).
  • 1/3 cup apple cinnamon syrup from my Apple Cinnamon Cupcake recipe
  • 3 tbsp apple butter, store bought or homemade
  • 2 tbsp Earth Balance buttery sticks
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract
  • 4 tbsp coconut palm sugar

Directions:

  1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F.
  2. Line a baking sheet with foil and spray a hefty coating of cooking oil on top.
  3. In a saucepan, combine the syrup, apple butter, Earth Balance, and salt on medium low heat until the Earth Balance melts.
  4. Stir in the vanilla extract.
  5. Place peanuts in a large bowl (one that won’t melt when you pour in the sauce) and coat completely with the sauce.
  6. Transfer to the baking sheet.
  7. Spread out in a single layer.
  8. Heat for 5 minutes, take out, then stir with a wooden spoon. Be sure to keep them in a single layer.
  9. Continue baking for 5 minutes at a time and then stirring until about 20 minutes have passed. At twenty minutes they should be done, I could tell by eating one. I think the peanuts would get a bit crispy and burned past this. But feel free to experiment, they may need an additional 5-10 minutes more.

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Simple Roasted Chickpeas with Agave Mustard!

Posted by Banana Curl Vegan Girl in Original Recipes, Snacks, Veganized Recipes and tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Before I went vegan I was obsessed with honey mustard. In fact, I used to be a honey mustard fiend. Luckily for me, it’s easy to make a vegan version. I just mix vegenaise, yellow mustard, and agave and it comes out pretty much the same. Today I made some of it to dip a pretzel into…and then I was like “hmmm this would be amazing on chickpeas” so I whipped this recipe up.

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Basically what I did was, well, I will just format it like a recipe. Here it is:

Ingredients:

  • 15 oz can chickpeas, drained, rinsed, and patted dry a bit
  • 2 tbsp vegenaise
  • 2 tbsp prepared yellow mustard, divided
  • 1/2 tbsp agave syrup

Directions:

  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
  2. Place chickpeas in a shallow baking dish in a single layer.
  3. Mix 2 tbsp vegenaise, 1 tbsp yellow mustard, and 1/2 tbsp agave into a small bowl and stir until combined.
  4. Pour over the chickpeas and stir until evenly coated.
  5. Place in oven for about 25 minutes.
  6. Take out after 25 minutes, stir, and add the other tbsp of yellow mustard and stir again until incorporated.
  7. Place back into the oven for another 20 minutes or so. You may want to check after 10 minutes to make sure they’re not burning…but they should not be unless your oven is hotter than mine.
  8. Let cool for a few minutes and eat while hot, they’re best right then!

Foodie (Photo) Friday, Thanksgiving Edition!

Posted by Banana Curl Vegan Girl in Bake and Destroy/Natalie Slater, Eat To Live Cookbook, Food for Fall, Foodie Friday, Holiday Food, The Vegan Stoner Cookbook and tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

I’m still kind of super tired, I guess my cold is not totally gone and it’s upsetting to me a bit.

So I apologize, but I’m going to try to get through posting this fairly quickly so I can go to bed early, haha.

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This was one of my better Vegan Thanksgivings though. I ended up making a Tofurky roast feast in the crockpot with this recipe. I also cooked up the gravy that came with it. My grandmother brought some jarred pearl onions and we cooked them with some pepper, paprika and earth balance. I don’t know why, but I always liked that, it’s simple and really good. Probably the most elaborate thing I made, besides the pumpkin pie I ended up making, was the green bean casserole. It was well worth it though, it was quite tasty. Actually, I had been worried about it because I thought it might taste too parsnip-y, but it balanced really well. I only put 1/2 tsp salt in it total, though, and it was fine. The recipe calls for 1 1/2 tsp! No way. I’ll definitely be making it next year, though (well, if I decide to make a green bean casserole…and other factors…heh).

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Additionally, I made potato latkes for Thanksgivukkah. I also made Baba Ganoush for an appetizer. I don’t think I can link the recipe to it though, I found the recipe that I had printed out awhile ago and have no idea where I got it from now. But it’s quite tasty. You roast 2 eggplants with some garlic (you put the garlic on it halfway through cooking the eggplants). Then you use the roasted garlic, sesame seeds, sunflower seeds, olive oil, salt, etc and make a paste in a food processor, then add the eggplant and combine.

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I know I had said I was making pumpkin pie graham cracker squares for dessert, but I ended up getting the Eat To Live Cookbook I had ordered and they had a fantastic sounding pumpkin pie that I decided to make instead. So I did. It’s sugar and flour free, which is awesome. It’s sweetened with dates instead. Aside from the fact that the crust is made from almonds, I couldn’t tell any other aspect was done differently than the traditional recipe. It was soooo good and I liked the cashew cream to put on top but I should have made a little less since I ended up giving a lot of the pie away without it so that I wouldn’t end up eating the whole thing myself (my family is not big on pumpkin desserts for some reason, but I am…)

My meals leading up to Thanksgiving basically just consisted of two things:

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Pumpkin Echiladas from the Vegan Stoner Cookbook, and Green Bean Casserole Pizza from Bake and Destroy.

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I hope you all had a very Happy Thanksgiving, or Thanksgivukkah (Hanukkah…although it’s still happening…) if that’s your thing too. I was very glad to have a cruelty free and vegan Thanksgiving for myself once again, so I’m going to leave you this picture of me in my majestic Compassion Company Thanskgiving t-shirt.

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Post Halloween Recipe by me: Vegan Ranch Seasoned Roasted Pumpkin Seeds

Posted by Banana Curl Vegan Girl in Halloween, Original Recipes, Pumpkin Obsession, Snacks and tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Hope you all had a very vegan Happy Halloween! Sorry I am slightly late in posting this recipe I created. I hope you haven’t had the chance to roast the pumpkin seeds you were drying out from carving your jack-o-lantern yet so you can try these!

Vegan Ranch Seasoned Roasted Pumpkin SeedsImage(I ate some of these before I took the picture, oops)

Recipe:

Ingredients:

About 1 cup raw pumpkin seeds, rinsed and set to dry overnight

  • 1/2 tbsp oil
  • 1 tbsp nutritional yeast
  • 1/2 tsp garlic powder
  • 1/2 tsp dried marjoram
  • 1/4 tsp dried dill weed
  • 1/4 tsp black pepper
  • 1/4, 1/2 tsp salt, separated

Directions:

  1. It may seem counter-intuitive to dry the seeds out and then boil them the next day, but supposedly it helps to make them easier to digest. So, take your dried pumpkin seeds, place in a pot of water with 1/2 tsp salt, and put on a high heat stove until they begin to boil.
  2. When boiling, turn the heat down so the water and seeds are simmering.
  3. Boil for 10 minutes.
  4. Preheat oven to 325 degrees.
  5. Strain water from pumpkin seeds.
  6. Dry with a paper towel (I just dabbed them a bit in the strainer).
  7. Place seeds in a plastic Ziploc bag and put the oil and spices in the bag.
  8. Shake until coated.
  9. Place on a baking sheet (you may want to spray the baking sheet with oil to prevent further sticking but it may not be necessary really, but I did.)
  10. Place into oven. Cook for 10 minutes then check them. According to this blog I referenced, check them frequently and make sure they’re not browning on the inside by snapping them in half. I checked them 3 minutes after the initial 10 minutes (since my oven is wonky) and had to keep going for a while, checking every 2-3 minutes. I think this is a good idea, ovens vary and such…Unfortunately I lost track of the total time it took.
  11. When they are crunchy and not browned on the inside, they are done.
  12. Let cool a bit, and then eat!

Enjoy! Let me know if you try them what you think! I found them to taste sort of like a peppery ranch flavor. I may play around with the seasoning in the future to get a better ranch flavor…

Salad of the week: Thanksgiving Salad!

Posted by Banana Curl Vegan Girl in Original Recipes, Salad of the Week, Seasonal Fall Foods and tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Okay, so I have to admit I have been making so many pumpkin things lately I’m starting to get a bit pumpkin’d out.

Today for my Salad of the week I made a salad that reminds me of those thanksgiving sandwiches. The ones with like, leftover Tofurky, stuffing, cranberry sauce, gravy, and whatever. It doesn’t have stuffing in it unfortunately. But it still tastes super good with breaded vegan chickun patties (I used a cut up Boca patty).

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I made my own creamy poultry seasoning dressing as well. It sounds weird but it tastes pretty good all together!

Here’s what I did:

To make the dressing: 

Ingredients:

  • 1 lb lite silken tofu (the kind that is refrigerated in a pack like regular tofu, not the small vacuumed pack Nori Nu kind
  • 1/3 cup apple cider vinegar
  • Juice of one small lemon
  • 1 tbsp maple syrup
  • 4 tbsp nutritional yeast
  • 1/2 tsp vegan poultry spice/seasoning blend (or make your own…there should be tons of them if you google it)
  • 1/4 tsp black pepper
  • 1/4 tsp seasoned salt

Directions:

Place all ingredients in blender or food processor and pulse until fully combined. You can adjust seasoning to your liking as you go or afterwards as needed.

To make the salad:

Ingredients:

  • Lettuce (about 2 cups)
  • 2 tbsp jelly cranberry sauce (the kind I found at my local grocery store IS vegan…but here is a recipe from a vegan blog if you cannot find that near you, or prefer to make it from scratch)
  • Vegan chicken or turkey cut into pieces (You can use whatever! Would be good with leftover Tofurky roast, or Tofurky slices, but I used Boca fake chicken breaded patties to give it a breaded kind of flavor reminiscent of stuffing)
  • 1/8-1/4 cup pecans
  • As much dressing (above) as desired.
  • Roasted butternut squash chunks (Optional)

Directions:

It’s kind of obvious! Make a salad with these ingredients! I found that this was one of those salads that taste extra good when you really mix up the ingredients well instead of leaving them separate. Sometimes I want to put my salad dressing on before I finish putting all the ingredients together, but I always refrain because then everything gets too soggy.

I haven’t tried it with the butternut squash yet but I think it will be amazing and am going to roast it now and put it in tomorrow! Yum!