Don’t be put off by the Vegan aspect – this cake is delicious! It’s also totally safe to lick the batter since there are no raw eggs in it. (Not that I worry too much about that…)

If that STILL doesn’t grab you – think of this as the: “I haven’t been to the store in a while but I still want cake!” cake.

Besides love, all you need is:

INGREDIENTS:
2-1/4 c all purpose flour
1/2 c cocoa powder (I used Hershey’s but original author recommends Dutch processed)
1-1/2 c granulated sugar
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 c warm coffee
1/2 c plus 1 TBSP vegetable oil
2 tsp pure vanilla extract
small handful of chocolate chips/chunks

Let’s get started! I promise you will like this. Mine came out almost like a brownie.

1. Preheat oven to 350. Grease a 9 in bundt pan (I don’t have one so I used a loaf pan. I’ll include cooking times for both bundt pans and loaf pans.) and dust with cocoa powder.

2. Whisk dry ingredients (flour, cocoa powder, sugar, baking soda, baking powder & salt) together in a large bowl.

3. In a medium bowl, whisk together coffee, oil and vanilla.

I didn’t take a picture of this so let your imagination run wild! Oooooo yeahhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!

4. Add wet ingredients to dry ingredients and stir until just combined. Fold in chocolate chips.

5. Pour batter into the prepared pan. Pay attention to these baking times!

9″ BUNDT PAN: 30-35 mins
LOAF PAN: 35-40 mins
(or until a toothpick inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean)

Dust with powdered sugar! I didn’t because one of my kids got the child proof lock off two of my kitchen drawers containing lots and lots of small tupperware dishes and lids as well as assortments of sippy cups and their various attachments. Well, anyway, I was distracted by my own yelling.

Serve with chocolate syrup, a glass of rice milk, or my favorite: a glass of cabernet.

From Joy the Baker.

How many Sunday nights have I found myself making promises? To myself.

“Starting tomorrow, I’m going to cut out all sugar.”

“Starting tomorrow, I’m going to do 100 crunches every morning.”

“Starting tomorrow, I’m going to finish _____________.” (Fill-in the blank with one of any countless unfinished projects.)

Screw that! I’m going to make one goal that’s easy to accomplish. I’m going to eat something healthy.

Here’s a simple, yummy recipe for “Meatless Monday.” I think I ate the whole thing myself.

You need:

Too bad, Libby!

INGREDIENTS
2 large eggs (I used egg replacer)
1 c cottage cheese
1/2 c sour cream
1 tsp Dijon style mustard
Salt
1 TBSP olive oil or unsalted butter
8 oz crimini mushrooms, chopped
1 large yellow onion, finely chopped
3 cloves garlic, finely chopped
3 c cooked wild rice (and/or brown rice) Btw: it’s a little embarrassing to reveal what a flake I am but I actually boiled 3 c of dry wild rice. Do you know how much COOKED rice that is? A ton. You are supposed to end up with 3 c of cooked rice. But if you do accidentally make a few vats of rice, just put it in some freezer Zip-locs and chuck it in the freezer for next time!
1/3 c grated Gruyere cheese
1 tsp chopped fresh tarragon or thyme

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat oven to 350. Grease a medium-large baking dish with olive oil or butter. (I used an 8×11 casserole dish.)

2. In a large bowl, whisk together the eggs, cottage cheese, sour cream, mustard, and a scant 1/2 tsp salt.

3. Heat olive oil over high heat in a large skillet with a pinch of salt.

Stir in mushrooms.
After stirring to coat with oil, leave mushrooms sautéing for about 5 minutes.

Continue cooking, stirring every couple of minutes.

4. Add onions to mushrooms & cook for another 4-5 minutes, until onions are translucent.

Add garlic, stir and cook for another minute. Remove pan from heat.

5. Add rice to skillet & stir.

6. Add rice mixture to the cottage cheese mixture and stir until combined.

7. Pour mixture into greased baking dish.

Sprinkle with two-thirds of the grated cheese and cover with aluminum foil.

Sometimes I don’t read the directions closely, so I added my tarragon at this point. I actually had fresh tarragon for the first time in my life, having just planted it in my backyard. Even though this is the wrong order, doesn’t this look delish?

Anyway, bake covered for 30 minutes. Remove foil and bake another 20-30 minutes, until the casserole is golden brown.

This is seriously so good! Serve with a green salad. I didn’t because I never have time to make more than one component. But I would! If this didn’t turn you on, stay tuned for REALLY easy chocolate cake. Remember my No Knead Bread? This is the No Knead Bread of Chocolate Cakes.

Here’s a gratuitous kids shot. Valentine’s Night.

From Heidi Swanson’s Super Natural Every Day.

Regardless of how you feel about this holiday, these yummy cupcakes will bring happiness to anyone who eats one!

Here’s what you need:

CUPCAKE INGREDIENTS:
2-1/2 c cake flour
1-1/2 c sugar
1 tsp baking soda
1 TBSP cocoa powder
1 tsp salt
2 large eggs
1-1/2 c vegetable oil
1 c buttermilk (how to make buttermilk if you’re out!)
2 TBSP red liquid food coloring
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp distilled white vinegar

For the frosting:

FROSTING INGREDIENTS:
8 oz cream cheese
5 TBSP unsalted butter, at room temperature
2 tsp vanilla extract
2-1/2 c confectioners’ sugar, sifted

Let’s do this!

1. Preheat oven to 350. Line cupcake pans.

2. In a medium bowl, whisk together cake flour, sugar, baking soda, cocoa powder and salt.

3. In a large bowl, combine eggs, vegetable oil, buttermilk, food coloring, vanilla, and vinegar. Beat on medium speed until well blended. Add dry ingredients a cup at a time, blending all the while, about 2 minutes.

4. Pour batter into lined pans.
Hoo boy – that looks weird pouring out of that spoon.

Pop into oven.

5. Bake for about 18 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Let cool in pans for 5-10 minutes.

6. Now make the frosting! Combine the cream cheese and butter with a mixer until smooth, about 2-3 minutes. Mix in vanilla extract. Slowly add confectioners’ sugar and continue mixing until smooth.
Hooooooooooooo boyyyyyy! At this point I realized I accidentally threw in the entire stick of butter. Yes, 3 extra tablespoons. Let’s see if anyone notices…

7. Frost/decorate as desired!
I made these little bugs by hand to match the cupcake liners. It was really easy, I just had to create the design in Illustrator, then print on custom cut labels, and stick to toothpicks.

HAHAHAHAA!!!! ‘Course I didn’t do that! I bought them at Ralph’s for like $1.00 a few weeks ago. I was prolly there buying dishwasher rinse or something sexy like that.

Remember this cupcake thief from last September?

Alright, FINE!!! A cupcake for breakfast…just this once.

From Annie’s Eats.

We’ve cut back on sugar and desserts this year, saving them only for special occasions, treats & bribes. But once in a while you just want to eat some chocolate chip cookies (‘specially while you’re waiting for the Thin Mints to arrive…) I figure homemade must be healthier than store bought so here we go…

Let me tell you right away: leave a couple sticks of butter out a few hours ahead of time. I just leave them out the night before but you could take them out when you get home from work & then make the cookies after dinner too.

Also, there are a couple of oddball ingredients in here. Smoke ‘em if you got ‘em!! But if you don’t have ‘em – don’t worry about it!

Here’s what you need:

Some of that stuff is optional so don’t get stressed out looking at it!

INGREDIENTS:
1 c butter, softened
1 c firmly packed brown sugar
1/2 c white sugar
2 eggs (I used egg replacer which reduced the cholesterol & no chickens were harmed – except knowing my luck, the truck carrying the boxes of egg replacer ran over a truck of chickens)
2 tsp vanilla extract
2-1/4 c all-purpose flour
1 tsp (heaping) instant coffee granules (I accidentally used 2 TBSP and loved the result!)
1 tsp baking soda
1-1/2 tsp salt
2 TBSP ground flax seeds (OPTIONAL)
3/4 c semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 c (heaping) milk chocolate chips (or use just one kind of choc. chip)

Hopefully you are already excited about the amount of chocolate chips in this recipe. Yayy for chocolate chips!

1. Preheat oven to 375.

2. In a LARGE bowl, stir together butter, brown sugar & white sugar until combined.

Add egg replacer & vanilla, stirring to combine thoroughly.

Best thing about using egg replacer instead of eggs is that you can taste the raw dough without that pesky salmonella worry in the back of your mind!

3. In a medium bowl, whisk dry ingredients together.

Don’t ask me why I had instant coffee. I think Tim & Liana picked it up when we were camping last Memorial Day weekend. I’m glad they did!

The whisk is nothing but a blur!

4. Add flax seed if desired. I add this to everything – smoothies, cookies, breads etc. Here’s the Mayo Clinic’s take on flax seed.

It looks so healthy but you really won’t notice it.

5. Add chocolate chips

& stir to combine evenly.

6. Drop balls of dough onto a cookie sheet and bake for 11-13 minutes.

I cooled them on wire racks. I also ate a few to test them.

Slightly adapted from The Pioneer Woman.

I love mushrooms!! I haven’t cooked with them for years because *someone* doesn’t “dig on fungus.” But now that *someone* is working late a lot, and *someone’s* parents are in town and unable to eat anything with too much vitamin K in it (thanks, a lot, Blood Thinner!) I decided to cook them again! Why not? After all, he usually strolls in around 11PM claiming to have eaten at work anyway… This dish should be classified as an adult dinner due to the alcohol content. It may have burned off but it sure didn’t taste like it did. Or it sure did taste like it didn’t!

This is pretty easy – I chopped the mushrooms & onions ahead of time during someone’s (not my) nap. Let’s get started! You’ll need:

INGREDIENTS:
24 oz (weight) mushrooms, thickly sliced (I used crimini) (Baby Bellas are recommended but they were $$$ so I got crimini)
4 TBSP olive oil (2 for roasting mushrooms & 2 for sautéing onions)
1 large onion, peeled & sliced
1 c dry white wine
3/4 c whiskey (or another 3/4 c white wine if you don’t have whiskey)
1/2 c vegetable broth (I used bullion)
1 c heavy cream salt & pepper to taste
12 oz pasta, cooked al dente (I actually used the whole 16 oz bag so that I’d have extra “noonles” for the kids.)

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Drizzle mushrooms with olive oil, sprinkle salt & pepper on top. Roast for about 20-25 minutes. Drain & set aside.

Gorgeous, earthy little shrooms…

While they’re roasting, stand back & observe your child or pet.

If you don’t have a child or a pet, lie down on the pristine couch with Bravo TV on and be happy.

2. In a large pot, heat remaining olive oil over medium heat. Add sliced onions & saute for 4-5 minutes or until translucent.

Forgive the ugly lighting as I took it at night (I prepped the veggies during the day!) and do not have my lighting down yet:

Check on kids every once in a while.

Yes! Dinner is almost done!

3. Add wine & whiskey. I used Charles Shaw b/c we have a lot since Patsy’s visiting & Maker’s Mark (which is probably a little too “nice”) since we have loads as it’s G and his dad’s trademark father-son drink.

Ode to Patsy:

Ode to Jack:

Let this concoction bubble for a few minutes. Add the broth and let it reduce for another few minutes. (You can use vegetable or mushroom broth. I was out so I used Vegetarian Chicken Flavored Bullion added to water. It’s LOADED with sodium so I use caution and add much less than its label advises.) You are now up to 2 sets of a few minutes. About 4-5 minutes according to my calculations. Now add cream and reduce heat to low. Add mushroom, salt & pepper. Allow to simmer until it thickens.

Reserve a little of your pasta water in case sauce needs thinning after you’ve added pasta. Add cooked pasta & toss together! Season with salt & pepper to taste. Delicious & not for the Designated Driver.

Slightly adapted from The Pioneer Woman.

Final verdict: the kids picked out & ate only the noodles. Although Maddie likes mushrooms, she likes them alone. She is definitely not French. But why would she be?

Oh, and guess who strolled in early & hungry that night? None other than *someone.* D’OH!