In my previous post I had mentioned that I had to bake cookies for my son’s class. This was the other cookie I baked for his friends. I used this recipe, but instead of using silken tofu as the egg replacement, I used EnerG egg replacer powder. The instructions in the EnerG box mention that it does not work well with store bought mixes. I took a chance anyway and was surprised that the cookies came out so well. These cookies were also chewy and did not spread as much as the silken tofu ones. Last time I had used Duncan Hines cake mix and this time I used Betty Crocker’s german chocolate cake mix and I felt that the latter ones had a smell which I didn’t relish. I think the flavorings in the Betty Crocker cake mix gave that smell. Nobody else could really feel it. I’m known for my exceptional “nose-power”. So the next time I bake these cookies I’m definitely going to use Duncan Hines. Also this time I used dried cranberries instead of raisins, reduced the amount of chocolate chips and increased the quantity of dried fruit.

These Cranberry Chocolate Chip Cookies go to Egg Replacement Event – Egg Replacer Powder hosted by me.

Palada Pradhaman (pudding) is a very famous sweet dish in Kerala. It is made using rice flakes, jaggery syrup and coconut milk. These days the rice flakes (called ada) are readily available in Indian grocery stores. Also originally whole coconut is grated and ground to extract the milk in 3 stages, which is called the first milk, second milk and third milk. But nowadays both coconut milk and coconut milk powder are readily available, making the process of preparing pradhaman very easy.

I found this recipe for preparing Oats Pradhaman in a magazine. As I have mentioned earlier the recipe calls for coconut milk prepared right from scratch. So I have modified the recipe to simplify the procedure by using store bought canned coconut milk. The pradaman was yummy. It did not taste like oats at all.

This is my entry for Vaishali’s Sweet Vegan.

I thought of taking a “baking-break” for at least 2 weeks because of a couple of baking disasters. But I found out that I’ve sort of become a “baking addict”. Moreover when surrounded by a lot of cookbooks it’s really very hard to resist the temptation. Recently I bought “The Taste of Home Baking Book”. It’s a neat book with more than 700 recipes, 600 photos and also has a lot of baking tips. Earlier I have tried 2 recipes from “The Taste of Home” magazine and both of them were great success. So I was sure that the recipes from that magazine are tried and tested.

The German Chocolate Cookies recipe was so simple and I was also tempted by the description provided. It said that the cookies were chewy and have a wonderful bakery-shop flavor. I have baked eggless chocolate chip cookies earlier and it was the crispy one. Since I have a few successful recipes in the “silken tofu-cocoa combination”, I wanted to try this recipe too using silken tofu. I’m very glad that I found this recipe, because the cookies turned out very well. The description given is 100% true. These eggless chocolate chip cookies are chewy definitely have a bakery-shop flavor.

This is my another entry to the Egg Replacement – Silken Tofu Event.

For long time now, I have wanted to prepare vegetarian burgers, or rather it was my husband’s long pending request and I finally made it yesterday from Jai and Bee’s blog. Their Spicy Kidney Bean Burgers is a fantastic recipe. I was able to prepare it for dinner in no time.

I used canned and drained kidney beans (2 cans, 15.5 oz each). It was also the “No Salt Added” store brand canned beans, this allowed me to control the sodium content in the burgers.

I don’t have a food processor, so at first I just drained one can and rinsed it well and mixed all the other ingredients listed in the recipe and blended it using my Indian mixer. And let me tell you, it was little tricky to get the right consistency. Initially it did not grind at all and once I added a little water it became very mushy. I was glad that I reserved the other can. Now I opened the 2nd can, drained and rinsed it and mashed the beans nicely with a potato masher and mixed the ground mixture to this. Even then I was not able to make balls out of it. So instead of adding flour to the mixture as they had mentioned, I added a handful of quick cooking oats and I got the desirable consistency to shape them into burgers.

I also used curry powder and Maggi’s tomato chili ketchup to give it a desi taste. The original recipe mentions to use either ajwain (omam) or cumin, but I strongly suggest to go with ajwain, because I felt that it gave a very good flavor and aroma to the burgers. I also did not have nutritional yeast, so used roasted chick pea flour (besan) instead. Also don’t forget to add the 1/4 cup of chopped almonds, because this gives a nice crunch to the burgers, which you don’t want to miss.

I used a stove top non stick griddle to cook the burgers. Sprayed the grill with non stick canola oil spray and placed the burgers on it. It took around 8 -10 minutes for one side. Let it cook completely on one side, don’t be in hurry and bother to turn them immediately, because it will lose it’s shape. After 8 minutes or so, slowly flip it over the other side and let it cook for another 7-8 minutes. For 2 cans of beans I got 8 medium size burgers.

For the buns, I used Arnold’s Select 100% Whole Wheat Sandwich Thins. It is a mere 100 calories, with 6gm fiber and 5gm protein and it doesn’t taste like mulch also

We had our burgers on a bed of iceberg lettuce, grilled zucchini with a side of potato/sweet potato fries. (Ya I know, was trying to reproduce their original menu!)

Jai and Bee we loved them absolutely. Thank you very much for such an easy and healthy recipe. Your Recipe Rocks!

This is also my entry to Zlamushka’s Tried and Tasted event.

Ingredients:

Procedure:

1) Heat oven to 325  F
2) Combine oats, brown sugar, flour, cinnamon and baking powder in a large bowl.
3) Mix in butter with fingers or a pastry blender until mixture is crumbly. Add raisins and apricots.
4) Pat mixture firmly into a ungreased 9*13-inch baking pan.
5) Bake 20-25 minutes until golden brown. Cool in Pan 30 minutes. Cut into bars and cool completely. Remove from pan with a metal spatula.
6) For a quick dessert, serve with vanilla ice cream or sandwich 2 cookies with ice cream and freeze. Serve frozen.

My Notes:

1) Makes 24 cookies.
2) I used quick cooking oats and light brown sugar.
3) I also added 1/4 cup of slivered almonds.
4) I was not sure if it was done after 25 min, so I baked it for another 5 min, so the bars were a little crispy than chewy. So just bake for 25 min and remove it from the oven and let it cool.