Gluten-Free Vegan Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies

Our community potluck is coming up next Friday and I'd like to bring some seasonal goodies.  It's October and time to cook some pumpkin.  I've got two new pumpkin recipes to try:  pumpkin chocolate chip cookies and a pumpkin carrot cake. I didn't get very many pumpkins from my garden this year.  I am lucky to know some local organic farmers, Mike and Ruth from Willow Grove Gardens.  They have a very large portion of their farm dedicated to pumpkins.  They host a large part of the community every day through October.  They bring the animals out for a little petting zoo and have a pretty nice hay cart ride out to the fields where there are hundreds and hundreds of pumpkins to choose from.

I cooked up two of them today thinking I wouldn't have enough purée.  I ended up with about 5 quarts. Half made it into the freezer, the other half will be pumpkin carrot cake and pumpkin chocolate chip cookies.

These cookies are from the latest Food Issue of the VegNews Magazine.  They're vegan and gluten-free.  I've been practicing with gluten free more and more since my granddaughter has been advised by her doctor to try to avoid gluten.  We have quite a few guests at the potluck who are sensitive to gluten and avoid it.  These are a light cake like cookie.   I tried a batch and I'll make another and freeze them right away.  They'll be perfect if I take them out of the freezer Friday morning and that will give me some more time to work on that pumpkin carrot cake with a vegan creme cheese frosting.

I didn't have enough almond butter, but I do have some pumpkin seed butter.  It worked out great. The recipe called for white vegan chocolate chips.  I am lucky to find regular vegan chocolate chips at our stores.  I just used dark ones and only 3/4 of a cup.  I also used cinnamon, fresh ground nutmeg, and a dash of cloves for the pumpkin pie spice.

Gluten-Free Double Chip Pumpkin Cookies

                  Beverly Lynn Bennett

1/2 cup water
3 tablespoons ground flaxseeds
1 1/3 cups brown sugar, packed
2/3 cup canned pumpkin, (I used fresh pumpkin)
1/2 cup nut butter of choice
3 tablespoons sunflower oil
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
2 cups gluten-free flour
1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
1 teaspoon baking powder
3/4 teaspoon xanthan gum
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup each vegan gluten-free white and dark chocolate chips

1.  Preheat oven to 375º degrees.  Line two cookie sheets with parchment paper or Silpat liners.  In a large bowl, stir together water and flax seeds and set aside for 5 minutes.  Add brown sugar, pumpkin, nut butter, sunflower oil, and vanilla, and stir well to combine.

2.  In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, pumpkin pie spice, baking powder, xanthan gum, and salt.  Add dry ingredients to wet ingredients and stir well to combine.  Fold in chocolate chips.

3.  Portion cookie dough using a 2-inch scoop or heaping 2 tablespoonfuls onto the prepared cookie sheets, spacing 2 inches apart.  Bake for 12 to 14 minutes or until very lightly brown on the bottom.  Let cool slightly before transferring to a rack to cool completely.

Using a 2-inch scoop this recipe yields three dozen cookies.  I noticed they weren't spreading out any.  I didn't want pumpkin balls. I flattened them a little with a piece of parchment paper and my hand about 6 minutes into cooking.  Then I cooked them another 8 minutes.

Winter Squash Soup with Roasted Beets

It's finally here, the rain, the can't see in front of your face while driving kind of rain.  I worked up north for a bit today.  It was a nice ride up towards Olympia.  The rain on the way up wasn't so bad.  It was raining, but with sunshine breaks.  On the way home was a different story, I was praying out loud for a few more sun breaks.  The rain was coming down hard and it was a busy time with huge trucks on either side of me the whole way.  Just as I'd pass one another would join me spraying more water than I needed on my windshield. I only had about a 45 minute drive on the freeway, but it seemed like longer today.

I didn't work my usual daily schedule. I had to get on the road north by noon so I ate a small salad around 11:30. I didn't plan my food well and didn't bring anything to snack on in the afternoon. I was very hungry on the way home as well.  I didn't want to stop though.  Even though I wanted to get out of the weather, it didn't seem like it was going to get any better waiting it out. I would be home soon and there's plenty of 'good' whole foods to eat there. I thought about the little winter squash that looked like little pumpkins I roasted Saturday.  I also remembered I roasted three large beets last night.  I bought them Saturday and didn't use them right away.  If I roast them, they were more likely to get eaten.  Oh I'm so glad I did.

I made it to the house around 6:15 p.m., changed my clothes and proceeded to the fridge where my roasted roots and squash were waiting.  I chopped a red onion and about three stalks of celery, sliced two small jalapenos from the garden, and minced a couple cloves of garlic.  I sauteed them all in a soup pot with about 1 tablespoon coconut oil.  I added sea salt and fresh thyme to the mixture. While they were sauteing, I took the skins off the squash and placed them in the blender and diced the roasted beets. I added about 2 cups organic soup stock and half the tender onions and celery and blended until smooth.  I poured the mixture in the soup pot and added about 2 more cups soup stock and the diced roasted beets. I let that all simmer together for about five minutes. I was pretty happy to see that dinner was ready and it was 7:00.  I think I made this soup in about 20 minutes or less. 

October Harvest Au Gratin ~ Vegan & Gluten Free

 Yesterday was a lovely day.  We had a sunny day and time to hang in the garden.  It was what we call a sunny day in the PNW, there were still some clouds. We're still getting lots of great produce: potatoes, tomatoes, beets, chard, a couple winter squash, lots of herbs, and even a zucchini.  There are some new eggplant coming out too.  The eggplants seem to like the moist, cool weather.  On the way out there I was thinking about what to do with the squash I had already.  I was thinking of doing some kind of zucchini/winter squash bake.  My granddaughter has been advised to avoid gluten so I want to try to make more and more dishes gluten free. I thought I'd use some brown rice flour or black bean flour and make a roux, but I ended up using par boiled potatoes instead. I came up with a kind of Au Gratin dish.  I think I put a little too much sauce, but it was creamy, warm, colorful, and comforting on a cool fall night.  My son was surprised that I made this up myself and said I should write it down.  He hasn't seen my blog, that's one of the reasons I do this, so I can go back and find dishes I've made like this and make it again sometime.

I made layers of the sliced fresh veggies: butternut squash, sweet potatoes, green and yellow zucchini, fresh beets and chard. I covered them with a sauce I made with a large red potato we dug up yesterday and baked it all until it was tender.  For the sauce I chopped the potato, a couple fresh onions, a shallot and simmered them in about 2 cups water for ten minutes.  I placed them in my Blendtec with a handful of cashews, some coconut spread, nutritional yeast, a dash of tamari, thyme, oregano, sea salt, freshly ground black pepper, and a dash of cayenne.  This made a warm creamy sauce without any milk or flour. 

The sauce:

About 2 cups chopped potato
1/2 cup chopped onion
1 small to medium shallot chopped
2 cups water

The following ingredients are estimates, I really didn't measure, adjust to your own taste.

1/2 cup cashews
3 TB Earth Balance coconut spread or vegan margarine
2 TB Nutritional yeast
1 tsp Tamari
1 Clove garlic, minced
1 TB Thyme (dried)
1 TB Oregano (dried)
1 tsp ground sea salt
1/2 tsp ground black pepper

3/4 cup Daiya Mozzarella cheese

Place the chopped potatoes, onions, shallots, & water in a small saucepan.  Bring to a boil then cover and gently simmer for ten minutes.  While the potatoes are simmering place the remaining ingredients in a large blender.  When the potatoes have finished simmering let them cool a few minutes then pour the whole thing, including the water in the blender.  Blend until creamy.

Layer the veggies in a 9 x 13 baking dish with a layer of sauce between half of it and on top.  I started with chard leaves, a layer of sliced butternut squash, green and yellow zucchini slices, a couple sliced beets I had from thinning the beets, for the first layer.  The second layer I used sliced sweet potato in place of the butternut squash.

Cover and bake at 400º for about 35 minutes, remove the cover and cook another 10 to 15 minutes until the sauce is bubbling.

I also added some shredded Daiya cheese on the top of each sauce layer.  That was probably overkill, but I wanted my son to enjoy this meal with us and he is still a little leery of all my vegan delights.  It worked, he loved it.  He decided he didn't want any salad with his meal, he might try some later.  Funny, the green salad had most the same ingredients that are in the casserole, they're just raw.

"Almost Raw" Vegan Pizza

I got to spend both weekend days at home this weekend.  I did my cooking for the week this weekend and managed to squeeze in some treats to bring to work Monday.  I made a nice pot of beans from my cranberry beans I grew in the garden this year, a couple batches of raw cookies, a Rosemary Oregano noodle salad using fresh yellow zucchini for the noodles, and some great "almost raw" pizza with recipes from a one of my favorite vegan cookbooks, The Complete Idiot's Guide to Eating Raw.

The 'almost raw' vegan pizza starts out with raw buckwheat sunflower seed crusts.  I doubled the recipe and made a dozen personal sized crusts.  I blended together some freshly picked tomatoes and herbs into a raw marinara sauce and made a batch herb cashew cheese. For a nice variety of toppings I marinated some of the Shitake mushrooms I dried last week in a little olive oil and tamari, marinated dried tomatoes in olive oil and lemon juice, roasted red bell peppers, and grilled some yellow zucchini and eggplant rounds.  I probably would have been content with the cashew cheese, but my son is very new to plant based food and I thought I should add some Daiya mozzarella cheese to the choices.  It looks more like cheese he's used to seeing for pizza. I especially like that I have the ingredients all ready to just build one this week.

There's a little bit of preparation to each part of this pizza, but once everything is prepped it can be stored in the refrigerator for up to three days, the crusts a week.  We can stop by the kitchen and build a little pizza for a quick lunch or dinner.

Buckwheat Sunflower Seed Pizza Crust
     The Complete Idiot's Guide to Eating Raw, page 212

1 cup buckwheat groats, soaked for at least 1 hour to overnight
1 cup sunflower weeds, soaked at least 1 hour to overnight
3 TB flax seeds, ground
2½ TB fresh herbs such as oregano, parsley, and thyme
1 TB freshly squeezed lemon juice
1/4 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. freshly ground black pepper
1 TB nama shoyu or tamari

1.  Drain buckwheat and sunflower seeds, rinse thoroughly, and drain again.

2. Place buckwheat in a food processor fitted with an S blade.  Add sunflower seeds, ground flax seeds, fresh herbs, lemon juice, crushed red pepper flakes, salt, black pepper, and shoyu.  Process on high spread for 20 to 30 seconds or until a chunky but unified batter forms.

3.  Scoop batter onto 2 Teflex-lined dehydrator trays in 8 equal portions.  Flatten with your hands or use the bottom of a slightly oiled glass or plastic container to form circles. Or form dough into 2 larger pizza crusts.  Dehydrate at 110º for 15 to 18 hours, flipping them over midway though and removing Teflex.

The Sun-Dried Tomato Sage Sauce is also from the Complete Idiot's Guide to Eating Raw.  It's on page 143. I am enjoying playing with these recipes.  I've been happy with everything I've made so far and most items have been very easy with maybe one or two directions.  It's mostly blender and dehydrator work.

The cashew cheese is just a basic cheese recipe:  2 cups raw cashews blended and placed in a large glass pitcher or mason jar with plastic wrap and placed in a warm spot in the kitchen overnight.  I chopped some herbs, garlic, and bell pepper and added a dash of sea salt and pepper, mixed it all together with the nut mixture and set it to cool for a couple hours.

Comer Bien