Vegan Pão de Queijo

An absolutely delicious Brazilian street food, pão de queijo is a Brazilian cheese puff/bread. They are, of course, made with cheese (usually parmesean). I tried to replicate the flavor as best I could! Traditionally, they are cooked with tapioca flour which makes for a very light texture. I didn't have any of this on hand, so I used a heavier garbanzo bean flour... it made for moist, cheesy, dense cookies. I think they'd be perfect with raspberry preseves.

Ps. pão de queijo is pronounced like (poh-jeh-kay-zjho). The more ya know!

Since the oven in my apartment gets to about 8,000 degrees, I YET AGAIN nearly burnt my fingers off despite buying new and adorable parrot-themed potholders. Damn you, oven, damn you.

Pão de Queijo
(literally "bread of cheese" or Brazilian Cheese Bread)
1/2 cup olive oil
1/3 cup water
1/3 cup unsweetened almond milk
1 tsp salt
2 cups garbanzo bean flour (or tapioca flour)
2/3 cup nutritional yeast
2/3 cup vegan cheese (Daiya, or any other brand!)
dash cracked black pepper
1 tsp garlic powder
egg replacer for 2 eggs



**Preheat oven to 375 degrees.


1. Boil the olive oil, salt, water, and almond milk over the stove. Remove it immediately and add it to the flour mixture.

2. Stir in the garlic power, egg replacer, and cracker black pepper.

3. Add the nutrional yeast.

4. Fold in the vegan cheese.


5. Make small 1-inch circles and place onto an ungreased baking sheet. Cook for 15 minutes, or until the tops are lightly browned. My oven was being whacky so I had to cook each side separately for about 8 minutes to get it browned without burning it. Sigh, my oven.


(My conscience is saying, AT LEAST YOU HAVE AN OVEN. So right.)

Vegan Grilled Polenta

I have raw alfredo and raw pesto sitting in the fridge, and became suddenly possessed by the idea of cooking polenta the other day when I saw it at the store. Or really, when I saw the pricetag of it in the store (2.50).

So I invented this recipe which is really, superbly great tasting. If I don't say so myself, and I am saying so myself *gentlemanly wink* It makes a great summer appetizer.

I'm a lazy f*** so I bought the pre-cooked Polenta. Really, who wants to sit and stir polenta for 45 mins in a (specifically) copper pot? I might have on another day, just because I think it is hilarious all the recipes say a "copper" pot.

What would happen if I cooked it in a steel pot?? The world may never know.

Vegan Grilled Polenta
1/4 cup walnuts
1 package pre-cooked polenta
canola oil
vegan pesto
vegan alfredo
3/4 cup julienne sundried tomatoes
1/2 cup red wine
salt
cracked ground pepper
4 gloves minced garlic
parsley to taste




-First, soak the sundried tomatoes in the red wine. Leave it for later.

-Next, sautee garlic, salt and pepper in canola oil. I used an electric frying pan to do this.

-Chop polenta into thick pieces. The thin ones don't do too well during grilling. Throw them into the frying pan to singe them - this will not take very long.

-Next, lay the polenta onto a cookie sheet and cover with dash salt/pepper, parsley, pesto, walnuts, and sundried tomatoes.

-Put these homies in the oven on 350 for 10 minutes.

-Cover with vegan alfredo and serve warm! nom nom nom

Raw Vegan Zucchini 'Alfredo'

This is the most amazing recipe, so quick and easy and absolutely delicious. There's only 1 semi unavailable ingredient in this, and it's the Nutritional Yeast (most disgusting name of anything ever), and you should go out for it (usually only 5$ at places like Whole Foods) because it really makes this dish.

The awesome thing about recipe is that it's veritable proof you can take something that is normally nine trillion calories and horrible for your body and abusive to your poor digestive system and turn it into something 101% good for you.

In less relevant news:

Indiana Pwns! He also must eat a ton of zucchini (wink wink) to get a physique like that (nudge nudge)

                                                                       (frantic shake)

Raw Vegan Zucchini 'Alfredo'

3/4 cup water

3/4 cup nutritional yeast

2 tsp white pepper

dash black ground pepper

dash nutmeg

1/2 cup olive oil

splash almond milk

1 tbsp lemon juice

1/2 cup cashews

2 cloves garlic

3 medium-sized zucchinis, peeled (for 'spaghetti')

-if your sauce comes out a little heavy on the olive oil taste, add more lemon juice and a splash more almond milk. Add all ingredients (except zucchinis) into the food processor and voila

-Next, use the "grate" tool to grate 3 peeled zucchinis, in order to make the "pasta." Zucchinis make really good 'pasta' because they have a very neutral taste.

Mix the two together, and there ya go, partner.

Death By Chocolate Raw Vegan Cheesecake

THIS. IS. sogood. It's so assaultingly chocolately it should come with a warning label.

It's okay, Wolverine. I can handle it this time.

Death By Chocolate Raw Vegan Cheesecake

Crust:

1/2 cup pecans (soaked 1 hour)

1/2 cup walnuts (soaked 1 hour)

2 tbsp cacao nibs

2-3 tbsp agave

dash salt

Filling:

3 1/2 cups cashews (soaked 1-4 hours)

4 dates

3/4 cup agave

1/4 cup maple syrup

1/2 tsp ground coffee

1/2 cup coconut oil

1/2 cup water

2 tsp vanilla

1/2 cup cocoa powder

1/2 cup dark cocoa powder

dash salt

-Notice how I gave the recipe a clever name this time? Yeah, I thought it was awesome and cute. Shut the fuck up. Now that we've exchanged pleasantries:

-First: soak all the nuts 1-4 hours before cooking. Raw cheesecake really is worth all the waiting on the nuts, ahahaha everytime I type nuts I think of testicles. Anyhow, it is SO good, the raw cheesecake, not the testicles. In my opinion, actually far better than real cheesecake. And howwwwdy, better for ya.

-Next, combine all the ingredients for the crust in the food processor and press "ON." Yeah, I think I'm just a witty little fuck, you know. Cacao nibs are basically like the best thing ever: they're the unsweetened cocoa bean, and they are packed with mood/cognition enhancing Theobromine.. blah blah science. They're small and crunchy and the Aztecs used to chew on them. That makes them awesome.

-Next, put the soaked cashews, agave, maple (Canada!), coconut oil, cocoa powders, dates, salt, vanilla and water in the food processor. I know I always go on and on about how awesome Canada is, but in reality, it's New Zealand. I was listening to different countries' national anthems last night at around 1 AM (I have no life, it's accepted), and NZ has the most amazing fucking national anthem I've ever heard. The instrumental sounds like the intro to a game show. HAHAHA Behind dooooorrrr number one we have: the entire country of New Zealand!!!

Needless to say, it is AWESOME. You should definitely listen to it here on Youtube while you cook. You won't be disappointed. The first verse is, I think, the aboriginal version.

-Anyways, other than New Zealand's success at life, you should empty the contents of the food processor into the pan right now (that's what she said) and be a success yourself!

-om nom nom nom, soooo chocolatey!!

-Voila! Store in the freezer for 2 hours, and then "defrost" 1/2 a half hour in the fridge before serving.

-Wow, you did it!

PS. I had to look up how to spell "success" like 8 times.

Vegan Cashew Nut 'Cheese'

I was on the Whole Foods website (loser) and I found their recipe section, and in it, voila, this recipe.

I have read about a ga-zillion recipes for raw vegan cheese, which calls for the soaking of nuts, and a long process of letting it sit for days and days and years, and wrapping it in cheesecloth and about a million other things I am FAR too lazy to achieve. If I were an animal, I would ALWAYS be the roadkill on the highway, probably because I was walking too slow.

Anyway, now that we're talking about road kill, let's make some food:

This is like an easy version of raw vegan cheese, using cashew (bless you) butter instead of soaked nuts. I had no nutritional yeast, (different from baking yeast, infused with B vitamins and gives a really 'cheesy' flavor to vegan/vegetarian dishes), so I dicked around with the recipe a little to make it work regardless.

Now you don't need to ask the grocery store worker if they have "nutrional yeast," and get pointed to the feminine hygiene aisle, if you don't want to.

Vegan Cashew Nut 'Cheese'

adaption of Whole Foods recipe

1 cup of cashew butter

1/4 cup unsweetend almond milk

2 tablespoons of tahini

4 tsp of apple cider vinegar

1/2 tsp of onion powder
1 tsp garlic

3/4 tsp salt

1/2 tsp white pepper

-All you have to do is throw everything into a food processor and you're done. Yay!

-The downside to all of this is that in their pure forms, all the ingredients look startlingly close to catfood. I honestly might have thrown up if I looked at it too long. This is the least cat-food looking shot of the bunch. See? I do care about you.

-Thankfully I didn't have to look at it too long. I think this is awesome to put on bagels or whatever.

-My little dog Taz fell asleep in my arms when I was singing to him Complainte du la Butte. I think he's sick today. What does this have to do with cooking? Well, nothing, you heartless bastard.