Pomegranate Bars

Last night I got experimental with the POM Wonderful pomegranate juice. Instead of stocking up at the liquor store and mixin’ and drinkin’ until I ended up with my arms wrapped around the toilet, I decided to try something a little safer. Pomegranate Bars. You know, like lemon bars, but pomegranate. I also tossed in some orange zest to make it interesting.

I was a little concerned when I tasted the filling. The pomegranate wasn’t coming through as much as I’d like. Also, the mixture ended up a kind of muddy greyish pink. So I added a little food coloring. The finished bar actually tasted better than I thought it would come out. But it still needs work. The bars would be awesome if some pomegranate seeds were stirred in just before pouring the filling into the bars. It would be pretty and give an interesting texture to them. To get more intense pomegranate flavor, next time I would reduce the pomegranate juice a little over heat to concentrate it. Another possibility is to mix it with lemon or lime juice to give it more of a tart flavor.

Butterscotch Bars

Last weekend Kevin and I had a secret mission in South Carolina. The internets told me that Food Lion has these magical vegan butterscotch chips. Okay, maybe more chemical-filled than magical, but it’s not every day you can get your hands on vegan butterscotch chips so I bought a few bags. Since the damn things hadn’t baked themselves up into anything tasty all week, I took matters into my own hands this evening and busted out these butterscotch bars. They came out nice and crisp at the edges and chewy in the center. Good stuff.

Lady time food

 

image shamelessly stolen from Cosmo's because all I have left is an empty wrapper
pic shamelessly stolen from Cosmo's

I know I’ve seen at least one mention of lady time food during VeganMoFo. I’m going to add to that. Yesterday was the peak of the unpleasantness that comes with lady time, so I treated myself with a Sweet & Sarah Smore Pie. The peanut butter one to be exact. Now, I’ve never bought the marshmallows because I don’t miss them all that much. But when you slap it between cookies and cover it in chocolate it becomes way more appealing. And it did not disappoint. The peanut butter flavor was fairly mild. The chocolate was outstanding. And the marshmallow texture was intriguing. I can imagine how fascinating this would be to eat stoned, so don’t hit up Cosmo’s or your local Smore Pie carrying establishment while you’re wasted or you’ll spend your whole paycheck on this things.

Whoopie Pies

Lately I’ve been experimenting with whoopie pies. And judging from the reactions to these, they are definitely a keeper. Sorry, no recipe on these. We’re trying to start a bakery up over here, okay? Can’t give away all our secrets. That said, there are recipes online. See, here’s one for Pumpkin Whoopie Pies. It’s similar to what I did and I’m sure you’ll have great results.

 

Pumpkin Whoopie Pies
Pumpkin Whoopie Pies

 

Innards
Innards

 

Oh yeah, there were also oatmeal whoopie pies with cinnamon filling. I’m sure I’ll get around to making standard chocolate ones sometime soon. I wonder, are whoopie pies the new cupcake?

 

Oatmeal Whoopie Pies with Cinnamon Filling
Oatmeal Whoopie Pies with Cinnamon Filling

 

Pumpkin Bundt with Maple Glaze

A couple of weeks ago we had a big ‘ol vegan Thanksgiving to send off a friend to Ghana since she was going to miss it. We had all the appropriate goodies like Tofurky, stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, etc. It was a huge carbfest! The best part is that we get to do it all again when real Thanksgiving rolls around. Woo hoo! I brought an apple pie and this Pumpkin Bundt with Maple Glaze.

It’s a veganized version of this recipe. I used flax seeds for a couple of the eggs and vegan sour cream for another couple. Then I just added a bit more soy milk to make up for the 1 less egg’s worth of eggy sort of stuff. And subbed maple syrup for the honey in the glaze.

So I’m going to try and participate in VeganMofo this year. That’s a post about vegan food every weekday for the entire month of October. Oy. We’ll see how that goes.