Recipe Round-Up: Vegan Pie In The Sky

I have to confess, I am not a big pie maker. I love the idea of them, I love getting a slice of them if I ever see one out and about (a fruity one preferably), but I find I have little patience for pastry. Also little skill, but I guess that is in part due to lack of practice. Sweet pies are not a huge thing here in Australia, when we think of pies we normally think of savoury pies. The meat pie is an Australian institution, and there are a few vegan versions around, but really anything savoury and saucy can be stuffed in a single serve pie. Vegan Pie In The Sky, but Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero, is 100% in the sweet category of pies. I have only made a few recipes from this book, so this is my first ever recipe round up, but I definitely hope to make more

Basil Peach Pie: This pie called out to me from the moment I bough the book, but I only made it very recently. Frozen peaches aren't a thing here, so I had to wait for peach season. That season being summer, I rarely thought to make a pie while it was so hot and humid, and so the years passed. But finally, I cranked the air con and I was so glad I did! This uses the Buttery Double Crust recipe from the book, and my efforts were a bit messy but overall delicious. The photo in the book has a fancy lattice top, I kept it simple with your basic pie lid. The peaches need to be peeled, and the easiest way I have found to do this is to pour boiling water over them, drain, and let cool. Then it just slips off. I had to bake this for an extra 15 minutes in my oven to cook properly. The basil flavour was quite subtle, you could up it a bit, but all round this pie was amazing.
Rating: :D





Chocolate Peanut Butter Tartlets: Chocolate and peanut butter really are a match made in perfection. I love it, my friends love it. This recipe is perfect to share, because it makes adorable little individual tarts and they are also really rich so a little goes a long way. The base is a pressed chocolate cookie crust, topped with a peanut butter based filling and then a delicious ganache on top. The recipe for ganache uses coconut oil, but you can leave it out.
Rating: :D



Brownie Bottom Peanut Butter Cheesecake: As advertised, the base of this cheesecake is a fudgy brownie baked into the bottom of a pie pan. This book doesn't use any vegan cream cheese in the cheesecake, instead basing them on silken tofu, nuts, and/or bananas. This one had peanut butter, mashed banana, and silken tofu. The banana taste was strong in the peanut butter layer, which was still nice but did through off the expected flavour a bit.
Rating: :)



Chocolate Mousse Tart: I made this beauty for my Mum's birthday a few years ago, a birthday meal that I apparently never got around to posting about. A Chocolate Shortbread Tart Shell is filled with chocolate mousse and then chilled. The book calls for the mousse to be chilled first and then piped in using a pastry bag into a big spiral, but that sounds exhausting and might look like a certain emoji, so I opted to just scoop the filling straight from the food processor into the tart shell and give it a gentle swirl on top. I think it still looks lovely! The mousse is very rich, made from silken tofu and a lot of melted chocolate.
Rating: :)



Cute Kitty Photo of the Post



I met this cutie goof at yoga. They were obsessed with rolling around in this little pothole in the carpark, and even let me rub their belly as well! Unfortunately, said pothole was right in front of my car, so I did eventually have to encourage them gentle out of it.