Smoothies All Around

It’s been a very long time since I’ve made anything, not since that brownie in upstate NY back in November. I was living in the city up until December with a live in job, so I could not use the oven, not even a blender. I left that job, spent Christmas week in Miami then came to Nicaragua while looking for another job back in Miami. My grandma had given me mangoes, a neighbor had given us cantaloupe and I cut some maduro from the backyard, which is the banana’s cousin, so it was all organic.

I diced up some a whole giant mango, two “bananas” and froze them.

The cantaloupe came after and stayed fresh since a neighbor gave them to my dad and I incorporated them into the smoothies.

The mango was so frozen and hard to break apart that my knife just stayed in place.

The first smoothie was mostly mango based an I just called it a mango lassi.

My mason jar is back in Miami, so here I use a drink cup with a lid that came from ordering a smoothie somewhere.

Added the rest to a martini glass that came from a 12 piece set from Ross to make it fancy.

The other smoothie had a little bit of mango, but mostly cantaloupe, which were almost 2 whole ones. Both smoothies had the “banana”.

I poured this one into a wine glass to keep the fancy going. Both smoothies were delicious and all raw.

Fancy Fancy eh.

Snowflake Pancakes in Miami

During Christmas time, I spent a week in Miami with friends. I hadn’t been in my hometown in over a year, so everything looked different. We did a nicely dressed Christmas Eve and an ugly sweater party, so for a brunch we were going to make peppermint waffles, but the waffle maker had been thrown out. Instead I made pancakes with a snowflake pancake maker my friend had. Worked great for Christmas.

We had a bisquick packet instead of the premade frozen waffles to make more.

Unwrapped a bunch of peppermint kisses to use as the topping when melted.

We used butter for the first batch and it just made them burn, so for the rest we just poured them on the griddle.

Turned out pretty well.

This post was officially finished on February 7th, but for some reason the app was never working on my iPod, so whenever I had WiFi it never worked. Well, I am finally paying it now and through my phone. I have made some other goodies and will be making some more this weekend, stay tuned.

Back to Basics…in New York

Yes, it has been a long time since I’ve posted anything, that’s because I’ve moved to NYC and have been working all the time, so I haven’t baked anything, until now. I’m working as a personal assistant and my only day off is Saturday and this past one I finally went upstate to visit my cousin and she put me to bake with her son, I was not complaining!

It was a prepackaged gluten free brownie mix, we just added grounded flax seeds, melted vegan butter and water.

Added coconut oil to the pan and baked for 40 minutes.

End product was a gooey brownie that would’ve been better with nuts, but none were added.

This was taken in Ossining when I had just passed Sing Sing prison. Up here the leaves have changed and are already falling off, not yet in the city.

This was at my cousin’s house where they are surrounded by trees. Big difference up here than in the city, fresher air, more peaceful, less stressful, definitely needed this.

Banana Bread with Homegrown Bananas

Well I now have an oven way out here and of course I was the first to use it! My parents have many banana trees and by the time we were going to get the oven, the bananas were going to be ripe and I definitely had to make banana bread.

The new gas range.

Mixing my ingredients and mashing bananas with music of course, I was in a country mood.

I wanted to make more than just bread, so mom found me this short muffin pan.

The kitchen smelled the way a kitchen should smell! It was making dad hungry while painting the walls.

Presented the muffins on a glass cake stand and found a plate that actually belongs to a candle set for the bread, which fit perfectly.

Original recipe
With these goodies, since in Nicaragua, I used organic bananas from parent’s land and pure vanilla extract that was very thick.

Patriotic Desserts

Well the other day I saw a big pan my mom had and thought it would be good to make the yogurt pie recipe into one big one and into a flag since the 4th of July was coming up. This week I was trying to get my ingredients, blueberries and whipped cream are extremely difficult to get in this country and especially since I’m in a small town. I was able to get yogurt, strawberries, gelatin and some cookies to crush to make the crust, I usually buy the ready made crusts. I had to look for ways to substitute or make my own whipped cream, I used a recipe I found online.

Only had to use one package of cookies for the crust.

Would’ve been better to use a 9×13 because clearly this pan was bigger.

I made the whipped cream in a blender.

Dissolved the gelatin.

Added the yogurt.

Then the whipped cream.

Spread it on the crust then to the fridge it went.

Used strawberries for the red stripes, melted white chocolate for the white stripes and blue candy for the blue area.

Dipped some strawberries in white chocolate and then blue sprinkles for the striped effect. Not to bad for my first attempt even though my dad bought me cookies n cream instead of plain white chocolate, there wasn’t any other.

Found my mother’s cake stand!

I had leftover coconut milk so I decided to make piña coladas, still in the patriotic spirit.

Hope you all enjoy your 4th of July weekend!

Original pie recipe here

Whipped cream is 1 cup milk, 2 tbsp corn starch and after well combined 1 tbsp flour.

The piña colada was not measured at all.

Summer Iced Tea (Part 1)

Since in Nicaragua with no oven, I can’t make any baked desserts, but can make other things. I’ve been wanting to make the drinks I saw in the June issue of Martha Stewart Living for a while now and finally got the chance to make one yesterday.

I brewed two tea bags in the hot water I had boiled then put it in the freezer to cool it faster.

This was my first time making simple syrup and it’s pretty fast and “simple”.

Poured all my ingredients into one of mom’s pitcher’s which were still packed so I was the first to use one of them. I needed a clear one to achieve the look I wanted.

Sent dad to go cut a lime from a nearby tree, cut some slices and added them to the pitcher with some ice.

A clear pitcher was definitely needed to be able to see the limes floating.

Mini Vegan Marble Cake

It was a snowed in kind of day and I was in the mood to bake something. I wanted something simple and started looking at my recipes, didn’t want any of those so I looked through Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World and settled on the chocolate cupcake recipe. I had done that recipe before so I wanted to make it different this time and another experiment in the kitchen was underway. I decided on making it half chocolate and half normal so I can turn it into a marble cake.

I had made marble cake in the past so I knew how to get “my swirl on”.

I mixed up the ingredients like adding some coconut oil and also made them gluten free.

Poured the chocolate half, then the non chocolate and swirled!

Came out looking very nice out of the oven and smelling good.

I made it on a Friday which worked out well because a cousin from DC was visiting that weekend and arriving that day, so we all had some together. The end result was very moist and not too sweet, it was good, but I would probably tweak it some next time I make it.

Original recipe:

Vegan Chocolate Cupcakes

• 1 cup soy milk
• 1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
• 3/4 cup granulated sugar
• 1/3 cup canola oil
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/2 teaspoon almond extract, chocolate extract, or more vanilla extract
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/3 cup cocoa powder, Dutch-processed or regular
• 3/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt

1. Preheat oven to 350°F and line a muffin pan with paper or foil liners.

2. Whisk together the soy milk and vinegar in a large bowl, and set aside for a few minutes to curdle. Add the sugar, oil, vanilla extract, and other extract, if using, to the soy milk mixture and beat until foamy. In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Add in two batches to wet ingredients and beat until no large lumps remain (a few tiny lumps are OK).

3. Pour into liners, filling 3/4 of the way. Bake 18 to 20 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Transfer to a cooling rack and let cool completely.

Adapted from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World by Isa Chandra Moskowitz & Terry Hope Romero

Vegan Maple Nut Cookies

Well I hope you all had a great holiday and new year’s! I wanted to make the maple pumpkin cookies I had made for Thanksgiving, for my cousin and her family since they were in India at the time. I took out all the ingredients ready to make my first dessert of 2014 except the pumpkin puree had gone bad. We were already in the mood to have cookies and I had taken all the ingredients out. My cousin told me to come up with something, I did a little research and decided to just experiment with other ingredients I could add.

I added milk, a little bit more maple syrup, walnuts and raw chocolate chips.

It made 6 whoopie pie size cookies, but could get more smaller size cookies.

I was afraid on how they would turn out in taste, but they were actually pretty good. I had mine with hazelnut hot chocolate.

Original vegan maple pumpkin recipe

Vegan Thanksgiving Cookies

Well I hope you all enjoyed your thanksgiving! This was my first thanksgiving in New York and my first vegan one as well. My neighbor/family member and her husband were having a potluck thanksgiving, I finally decided what to make and bring the day before. I had a recipe for vegan maple pumpkin donuts, but would make them into cookies. I searched the kitchen and the only ingredients I needed to buy were pumpkin puree and nutmeg. I went to the local supermarket on thanksgiving day and only bought the puree because that nutmeg was too expensive, luckily I actually found real nutmeg in the pantry.

This was the real nutmeg I found, the one you have to grind, I had always wanted to do this.

I used gluten free flour from the same brand as the pizza crust, namaste.

Mixed the oil, maple syrup, salt, spices, baking powder and pumpkin puree. Smelled amazing!

My cousin has whoopie pie pans and that’s where I decided to make the cookies, I was able to make nine.

It was dinner time and there was more food than there were people, but it was all good.

It was dessert time and almost all the guests brought one. Chocolate cake, pumpkin pie and my cookies, all dishes featured pumpkin.

Everyone loved the cookies, they were a hit. I still have pumpkin puree to make another batch.

Vegan Maple Pumpkin Donuts (6)
• 1/4 cup vegetable oil (I used safflower oil)
• 1/2 cup maple syrup
• 3/4 cup pumpkin puree
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp ginger and nutmeg
• 1/2 tsp salt (used Himalayan salt)
• 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 3/4 cup + 2 tbsp all purpose flour, sifted (I used gluten free flour blend)

Preheat oven to 350ºF. Lightly grease pan.
In a small bowl combine oil, maple syrup, pumpkin puree, spices, salt and baking powder. Whisk together until smooth.
Add sifted flour and mix to combine. Do not overmix, you do not want the gluten to develop (in my case it was fine since I had gluten free flour).
Evenly spoon batter, it shoulf be nearly to top. Smooth tops and place in oven.
Bake for 15-18 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean.
Muffins bake for 25-30 minutes.

Adapted from thesweetlifeonline.com

Homemade Pizza

My cousin before leaving for India, showed me a pizza crust package she has and told me I could make pizza while she was away. I was finally able to make it just before my friend flew back home to Miami before the Thanksgiving traveling chaos, especially now with this storm.