Friday 7 September 2018

VeganMofo 2018 #7: Recipe Round-Up: Sinfully Vegan


I've been challenging myself to use some of my older and underused cookbooks this year, and one of those books is Sinfully Vegan by Lois Dieterly. This is a vegan dessert cookbook, but I just find it pretty uninspiring to use. While there are some nice sounding things, many of the recipes use an obscene amount of maple syrup. Given that maple syrup here costs upwards of $7 per 250mL, it is something I use sparingly. So this book has languished on my shelf, with only a couple of recipes made. I recently picked it up to go through it again, and found some recipes that looked like they would be worth trying... without bankrupting me. I won't be making most of this book, but there are a few things that look affordable and tasty to keep in mind. This is the first round-up I have done of this book, though you can see another recipe I made for a bake sale here.

Home-Style Chocolate Chip Cookies: These were super quick to make, and use only 5 ingredients. I made 1/4 batch of the recipe, so I didn't bankrupt myself on maple syrup. A whole recipe makes 4 dozen cookies anyway, so a dozen cookies was fine for me. But I actually got closer to 20, using a tablespoon as a scoop. The flour used in here is barley flour.
Rating: :)

Home-Style Chocolate Chip Cookies


Mom's Warm Peanut Butter Cookies: Another very easy to make recipe, this time my 1/4 batch gave the expected dozen cookies. Again, she uses only five ingredients, though the flour this time is regular plain flour.
Rating: :)

Mom's Warm Peanut Butter Cookies


I Can't Believe They're Not Sinful Brownies: I guess these get their name because she uses apple sauce instead of oil, though there is a hefty dose of sugar. I don't like this sort of naming of foods, sugar and oil aren't sinful or guilty. Enjoy your food! This was a very runny batter, so make sure to smooth the top as much as possible before baking. The brownies baked up cakey and fudgey, which was nice. No maple syrup at all here!
Rating: :)

I Can't Believe They're Not Sinful Brownies


Gingerbread Cake with Vanilla Glaze: The actual title of this recipe is 'You Can't Catch Me I'm The Gingerbread... Cake'... but I prefer the shorter version. The only cake I have made from this book, it still used 3/4 cup of maple syrup! I changed the recipe to make two round cakes instead of one large sheet cake, and layered them with some jam. The cake was nicely spiced, with a generous dose of molasses. The glaze is just a simple mix of vanilla, soy milk, and icing sugar. And you can see was very thin.
Rating: :)

Gingerbread Cake


Orange Creamiscle Smoothie: I persist with creamiscle smoothies, but I just am never much of a big fan. I did have to change the recipe to use regular OJ with some orange essence added, rather than OJ concentrate. I just can't get that here, unless you buy Orange Drink concentrate, which is horribly sweet. Milk, vanilla, and crushed ice made the rest. Time to admit that I prefer my orange and cream side by side, like a Weis bar, and not blended into a smoothie together?
Rating: :|

Orange Creamiscle Smoothie


Berry Delicious Smoothie: This pretty coloured smoothie was thick, cold, and fruity. I used a mix of apple juice and coconut water for the liquid (instead of AJ and water), froze the banana, and only used a small handful of ice rather than 1 cup of it. I don't like using ice to thicken smoothies too much as it just dilutes out the flavour. Though really, between the frozen banana and frozen berries (I used a mix of blueberries and raspberries), you don't need ice at all.
Rating: :)

Berry Delicious Smoothie


Pink Passion Smoothie: Another fruity smoothie using apple juice and coconut juice and frozen strawberries. Even though I decreased the amount of apple juice and increased the amount of coconut water, the apple flavour was still very strong in this one. I froze the banana again, and with a small handful of ice had a very thick and icy smoothie, you really don't need the ice at all if you are using frozen banana. Though I guess that is why my apple flavour would have been stronger, without the dilution from the ice.
Rating: :)

Pink Passion Smoothie


Cute Kitty Photo of the Post

Dim Sim and Gizmo


Dim Sim is not a fan of other cats, and never really became happy with having her two sisters foisted upon her. So photos of her with other cats are very precious! Here she is, pretty much giving Gizmo a subtle stink eye in the background.

10 comments:

  1. I agree! Food is not "sinful" for being sweet or high in calories. Sometimes, we may need that (I've had times I couldn't eat much and I was grateful for high calorie smoothies).

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    1. It make me sad that there is so much of this talk around food still.

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  2. I've been enjoying your recipe round ups this week - thank you for sharing them! You and I manage to have a lot of the same books but you make different recipes from me, LOL.

    I'm not much of a dessert person but I have to say, I'm definitely eyeing that gingerbread cake.

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    1. I love seeing what people make from books I have as well, because it often seems to be very different recipes.

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  3. Bummer about the maple syrup! I hate when recipes use it, it is pretty pricey here in the states as well. When you learn about the process it becomes obvious why, it takes a lot of maple sap to make just a little maple syrup. I suggest you listen to Gastropod's episode on Maple Syrup: https://gastropod.com/the-maple-boom/

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    1. I will have to look into that podcast, thanks!

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  4. I shy away from maple syrup in recipes because of the cost too!! And I agree with you about naming foods certain ways. The brownies do look good though!
    As soon as I saw the picture of Gizmo and Dim Sim I thought Dim Sim was definitely giving stink eye!

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    1. Seriously, who has that sort of budget for maple syrup? Some of them call for over two cups, which would be over $14 in syrup on a single cake. Yikes.

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  5. The peanut butter cookies sound great, and the berry smoothie looks so pretty!
    Dim Sim's expression is hilarious!

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