Cookies and Pasta

Since today is Christmas, I thought it only fitting to make some sugar cookies. I veganized a recipe from my mom's old Better Homes and Gardens cookbook and ended up with the following very unhealthy, but delicious, recipe:

Sugar Cookies
2/3 cup vegetable shortening
3/4 cup sugar
1 t vanilla
2 T water
1 tsp orange juice (you can really use whatever kind of liquid you want in place of water and OJ, the original recipe had milk and eggs, but I didn't have any soymilk or applesauce for substitutes)
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 t baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
sprinkles, small candies, or icing for topping (optional)


Cream the shortening, sugar and vanilla. Add the water and orange juice and beat until combined. There may still be a little liquid that doesn't get absorbed, but this is fine. In a separate bowl, sift together the rest of the ingredients. Blend into the creamed mixture. Divide dough in half and refrigerate for at least an hour. The longer you chill the dough the easier it will be to work with.

On a lightly floured surface roll half the dough to about 1/4" thickness. Leave the other half of the dough in the refrigerator to stay cool. Cut rolled dough into desired shapes with cookie cutters. If you are using sprinkles or other toppings put them on top of the cookies now. Bake at 375°F for 7-10 minutes. Remove cookies from trays to cool. Repeat with the other half of the dough. If you are icing the cookies make sure they are completely cool before icing them.

Makes about 3 dozen cookies.

I'm always taking shortcuts with recipes so my cookies only chilled for about twenty minutes. The dough ended up a little sticky but it was still manageable. I couldn't find any fun cookie cutters so I cut the cookies out with the top of a glass. I didn't feel like rolling out the second half of the dough because it was really sticky so I just shaped the cookies in my hands and they came out fine. The longer these bake the crunchier they will be. I like soft cookies so I only left them in for 7 minutes.

the beauty of a plain sugar cookie (excuse the bad lighting in my kitchen):

Since I ate an embarrassing number of cookies today, I opted to go for a slightly healthier but just as easy dinner.

Pasta with organic kale (which we froze over the summer), bell peppers, diced Chinese eggplant, garlic, frozen peas, and crushed tomatoes. I threw the topping together in a frying pan while the pasta cooked and I was ready to eat in ten minutes.

matzo balls, cookies, seitan

I'm still alive!

Everything has been crazy lately but I'm finally off on my break from school. I'm keeping up [or trying to] four blogs, moderating over at VeggieBoards, and kicking my own butt with stuff for school, band, and [hopefully] college admissions for next year.

On the cooking front, I made five dozen cookies to give out for Christmas, the Sparkled Ginger cookies from Vegan with a Vengeance were the most popular ones. I also made the Gigantoid Oatmeal Peanut Butter Cookies from VwaV.


On Christmas Day I took advantage of the day off and made matzo balls (also from VwaV). They came out really well despite my less than optimistic expectations. The soup was just something my dad pulled together from the stuff leftover in the refrigerator.


Yesterday was my first ever seitan experience. I made a hybrid of a few recipes I found online and the results were mediocre. I baked the seitan so there wasn't a brainy texture issue, but it's kind of soft and squishy still. I froze most of it so I'll probably be messing around with it to see how to make it better in the next few weeks.

I received both the Vegan Lunch Box cookbook and Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World for Channukah, but I've yet to make anything from either (although they both look great).

Hope everyone's holidays have been less hectic than mine and a happy new year to all.