Red Velvet Whoopie Pies, by Joanna.

OMG it’s my little sister Joanna! Joanna recently graduated from college with a B.A. in Anthropology and minors in Spanish and Religious Studies. And now she’s trying to figure out WTF to do with a B.A. in Anthropology and minors in Spanish and Religious Studies. I just tried these cookies and think she should open a bakery. -Lillian

The space between one phase/state and another is called liminality in anthropology. This is the transitional phase, and it comes from the Latin word for “threshold.” Many cultures go to great lengths to guard against this state, usually using rituals or strict rules. It’s a dangerous region where anything can happen: you are not one thing nor another; there is no structure or order; it’s like floating in an abyss full of uncertainty and ambiguity, and hoping to come out on the other side. Sounds fun, yes? For me, this area is also called post-graduation. Oh, happy times!

Post-college, I decided to hold off furthering my education and instead glide into a life of full-time-job-stability. My schedule would be set: no more ungodly early coffee shop hours, no more working for tips, no more weekend shifts (hallelujah!). A new, shiny stage, and munayyy to burn, honey booboo chile!

…Cue the wah-wah noise. Turns out, liminality came back to bite me in the you-know-what. As a 9-5er, I was commuting 1 ½ hours each day (in a gas-guzzling Blazer, mind you), bored to death, and having to pull money from savings to support myself. I was miserable, so I quit. Now, I’m back to the service industry, waiting tables, and sighing heavily on the weekends, in preparation for work.

But… It’s okay, I’ve realized. We have liminal stages, and we can’t escape them. I tried to bypass swimming in obscurity by forcing myself into what I thought was a mature, steady life. People guard against liminality because it translates as “the unknown,” and that’s scary. James Taylor said that the secret to life is enjoying the passage of time. It sounds simple, but these words are golden: to actually enjoy the space between phases, instead of combating it—refusing to agonize over the future or the past, letting yourself be right in the middle of the passage, and liking what you see. My threshold has given me a cookie recipe, and used the time I used to spend driving in rush hour to bake them.

I decided on a Red Velvet Whoopie Pie with Cream Cheese Frosting. The special thing about this cookie is that the red comes not from dye, but from beets. That’s right. Earthy, rooty, beets. Just like liminal phases, these beets will surprise you.

So, here we go… The baking. Now I have to preface this by saying that I am no baker. Repeat: I did NOT inherit the baking genes of which my beautiful and precise sister Lillian boasts. I love to cook, but part of my love of cooking is the ability to be (as my dad describes my method) “fast and loose.” Furthermore, I just seem to have bad luck baking. Case in point, as I was pureeing the beets used for this recipe, the circle plastic thing that goes in the middle of the blender lid dropped into the blender as it was blending, sending pieces of plastic everywhere, including throughout my beets. So, of course, I had to literally plop every small spoonful of pureed beets into my hand to carefully extract each and every little plastic chard before putting it into the measuring cup. (Please scroll to the 21 second mark of this video.)

So, that said. Here’s the recipe! (Watch your moveable parts! –Lillian)

1 cup sugar (granulated)

¾ cup coconut oil

¾ cup red beet puree

1 Tbsp vanilla extract

½ cup agave nectar

½ cup cocoa powder

2 ½ cups whole wheat pastry flour

1 Tbsp baking powder

1 tsp sea salt

1. In a large bowl whisk together the coconut oil and sugar. I had to melt the coconut oil in increments in the microwave because it hardens at room temperature here.

2. Beat in the beet puree, vanilla, and agave until smooth.

3. In a smaller bowl, combine the flour, cocoa powder, salt, and baking powder. Add this to the big bowl with the beets.

4. Leave this mixture in the fridge overnight to firm (yes, sometimes liminal stages take time). I just covered the bowl tightly with a plastic bag and threw it in there.

5. The next day (or at least until the dough is pretty firm), roll the dough into 2-3 inch balls, and bake them in a 375 degree oven on a baking sheet covered in parchment paper. Let cool when done. I smooshed mine flat a bit right out of the oven to prepare them for their fate as whoopie pies.

As they are cooling (or baking if you prefer), make your frosting:

8 oz. cream cheese, room temperature

5 Tbsp butter, soft

2 Tbsp vanilla extract

2 cups powered sugar

Whisk the cream cheese, the butter, and the vanilla together. Add the powered sugar in increments until the sweetness suits your taste. I used about 1 1/3 cups.

Drop a dollop onto a cookie and smoosh it together with another one. I like to keep them in the fridge so they stay cold.

So, these cookies did not come out as red as I was hoping, unfortunately. Just as my 9-5 gig did not come out as lovely. Next time, I might have to add some red food coloring just for presentation. But hey, they taste sensational, and after all, that’s what cookies (and liminal stages) are for, right?

Sickie Sickie, Gnar Gnar [sic], Or Compost Cookies and Dog Biscuits, by Cristyn.

You may be wondering where the crew of old Dillywheats has been. Well, my friends, we have been transitioning from a bicontinental blog to a tristate blog. Slowly but surely, we will all be living in the great U.S. of A., albeit spread out across the country. Part One of this transition involved moving Lil out to Utah. By car. Let me repeat that. Lillian and I spent no less than a cumulative 24-30 hours in a rented Ford Explorer that was stuffed to the gills with all Lil’s worldly possessions. By the time we made it to Boulder, CO, a good 16-18 hours into the trip (about 12 of which felt like they were spent in Nebraska), it was clear to me that Lil and I would be lifelong friends, namely because we were not at each others’ throats. Needless to say, after nearly a day of driving, we were a bit slap happy, a bit exhausted, and a LOT hungry. Enter Lillian’s friend John. In addition to putting us up for the night, he was kind enough to have brats and veggie burgers and grilled corn and PBRs waiting for us upon our empty-handed arrival. Oh, he also has the cutest black lab pup, Toby, that I have ever seen. Anyways. This post is in their honor. (Don’t worry, we also mailed the fellas the fruits of this post’s labor.)

Now. This was my first trip out West EVER. This means I was basically utterly blown away by just about everything; my first glimpse of the real Rockies was sort of life changing.

(I had assumed the foothills we were seeing approaching Boulder were the “mountains” I had heard so much about. THIS WAS FALSE. THERE WERE MORE, BETTER MOUNTAINS TO BE SEEN.) Anyways, in addition to breathtaking views, I had the additional pleasure of climbing some crags tucked away in these amazing canyons. Canyons! And mountains! And foothills! And while our plan was to climb virtually every one of the limited hours I was spending in Utah, after about 4 straight days of hiking, scrambling, climbing (cracks!! slabs!!) at a higher altitude than I have ever encountered, we were a little spent.

Thus, my last day in Salt Lake City was devoted to my second favorite past time—BAKING. This seemed like the best idea ever. Until I turned the oven on and the apartment began to feel like a sauna…was this uncomfortable? Yes. A deal breaker? No. So I persevered.

Moving along. I decided that since these were “gift baked goods” I would explore beyond my vegan cookie repertoire. The options seemed endless…it was like a whole new world. (Don’t get me wrong, I love being vegan. But there are just some things that you cannot make vegan substitutes for…”LIL SHOULD I MAKE JOHN BACON COOKIES??!”) Anyways, since John is getting his PhD in Environmental Science and is all about composting and saving water and all that jazz, I made him some “compost cookies,” which as far as I can tell just means they have a lot of random ingredients. Nevertheless, it seemed apropos. Since Toby is a dog, I made him dog biscuits.

For the cookies I basically followed this recipe with a few adjustments. The measurements are a bit unconventional due to halving it. And while the list of ingredients may seem intimidating… just remember, you can add/subtract pretty much any of the fixin’s. Here are the ingredients I used for John’s Sickie Sickie Compost Cookies:

I forgot to draw the pretzels. SORRY.

1/2 C butter, softened

1/2 C sugar

1/3 C brown sugar, packed

1/2 Tbs light corn syrup

1 large egg

1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/2 C + 2 Tbs AP flour

1/4 tsp baking powder

1/8 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 C chocolate chips

1/4 C graham cracker crumbs (I crushed up some of Annie’s Honey Bunny graham crackers. Sorry bunnies.)

2 Tbs oats

1 C potato chips, crushed

1/2 C pretzels, crushed

Handful dried cranberries

Here comes the hard part. Cream together the butter and sugars and corn syrup. Not so hard if you have some sort of a mixer. But if you don’t…it can present more of a challenge. However, totally still doable! You just might get your biceps/triceps workout in for the day! Add the egg and vanilla and continue to mix/beat. (According to the recipe you MUST beat this for 7 to 8 minutes. Since my arm was about to fall off after about 3, I stopped then. Things turned out just fine according to my taste testers.) Next dump in all the fixin’s!

Mix til everything is just incorporated. Scoop by heaping tablespoon onto a greased cookie sheet leaving plenty of space for them to spread out. Then stick them in the fridge/freezer. The recipe was also very, very adamant about this part. Based on the claim that the “cookies will NOT bake right” if you omit this chilling stage, I bit the bullet and stuck them in the freezer for about an hour. [BUT WAIT! What are you supposed to do for the whole HOUR those are in the freezer?! You could make some dog biscuits! Skip ahead my friend!] Since we could only locate one small cookie sheet in the newly inhabited apartment, I stuck the portioned batter onto a sheet of tinfoil in the freezer and then popped 4 at a time onto the baking sheet.

Bake those suckers at 375°F for about 15 minutes. The edges will be a beautiful, light brown and the middle should still be nice and golden.

Moving right along! Since I wouldn’t want you to get bored while you are waiting for your compost cookies, here is another recipe to keep you busy. Alternatively, you could listen to this song on repeat. [Side note: WHY IS THIS SONG SO SHORT. HEY, THE LUMINEERS, GIVE ME MORE.] I listened to this WHILE baking more. See, I know how to multitask. Sadly, this recipe is not intended for human consumption (although based on the ingredient list, it is completely and utterly edible. Had it not been for the inclusion of eggs…I would have totally tried one. It probably just would taste like a peanut butter cracker.) Anyways! I basically followed this recipe, halving it (it still made 13 bone shaped biscuits), and omitting the vanilla because that just seemed plain weird. Here are the ingredients you will need for Gnar Gnar Dog Biscuits!

1/4 C water

1/4 C oil

1 egg

2 Tbs peanut butter

1 C flour

1/4 C cornmeal

1/4 C oats

Blend the wet ingredients together with a fork. Mix in the dry ingredients to form a stiff dough. Now you can either roll the dough out and use cookie cutters, cut it into squares, triangles, circles, etc. I mean, they are for dogs… so they probably don’t care what they look like. I recommend doing whatever is easiest for you and requires the least amount of clean up. I formed walnut sized balls of dough into little bones, because it made me happy. They looked cute.

Bake at 400°F, on a lightly oiled cookie sheet for about 20 minutes. Turn off the oven and let them cool/dry out in the oven. They will continue to bake a bit more, so make sure they don’t burn. You want them hard and dog-biscuit-like, but not charred. That’s it!

So, while it may be a day (or like 10) late, I think it bears repeating… THANKS, JOHN, FOR YOUR AWESOME WESTERN HOSPITALITY. TOBY TOO.

I LOVE AMERICA, By Cristyn.

Photo compliments of beach day spent with DW super fan Renee. Thanks girl!

I think it should be abundantly clear from my previous posts that I FREAKING LOVE SUMMER [see post: Vegan Lemon Barz]. Do you know what else I love? AMERICA. And so in honor of the Great American Memorial Day Three-Day Weekend, I present to you a vegan, All-American Buckle. What is a buckle you ask? A delicious cobbler/crumble/pie/cake treat that might just be as old as America itself. It was probably/maybe invented by some of the first colonists, who were pretty good at adapting English recipes to their new homeland. This is one thing I love about Americans…WE ARE RESOURCEFUL. And I mean, while some of our inventions might seem a bit superfluous and extravagant, and some may even contribute to the stereotype of Americans as lazy, obese wastes of space, like the LiquiGlide condiment bottle lubricant and the fashion abomination that is the Skechers Shape-Ups; there are also some examples of American ingenuity and practicality, like:

• Smoke Detectors
• Doggles
• Crash Test Dummies (Not the band—they’re Canadian).
• Jeans
• Paper Clips

So I wanted to celebrate this great nation that I love the best way that I know how…with treats. And what looks more American than some dessert covered in raspberries, strawberries, and blueberries, and topped with ice cream??

(Okay, maybe like apple pie or something. But I am trying to step outside the box here). Now, while this buckle could be made with virtually any type of fruit, unless you are a communist or hate America, I recommend sticking with red and blue hued ones. (This recipe is adapted from the Summer Fruit Buckle Cake in Vegan Pie in the Sky).

To make America, you will need!!

3/4 C Sliced almonds, ground into a coarse meal

1 1/2 C Flour

2 tsp Baking Powder

1/2 tsp Baking Soda

1/2 tsp Salt

1/4 tsp Cinnamon

1/4 tsp Cardamom (I recommend leaving this out, as I maintain that Cardamom is the Devil’s spice, and will ruin any otherwise perfectly delectable treat. Sorry if you disagree, this is just how I feel.)

1 C Non-Dairy Milk

2 tsp Apple Cider Vinegar

2/3 C Sugar

1/4 C Canola Oil

1 1/2 tsp Vanilla Extract

1/2 tsp Almond Extract

1 lb Fresh Fruit (By God, it better be red and blue.)

Now the recipe also calls for a streusel-like topping made of cinnamon and sugar. You might want to add this…or you might completely forget about it because you didn’t read the recipe through all the way because you are soooo excited to toss this guy in the oven and get it baking. Either way, things will be fine, and it will be delicious. (If you want the added excellence of more cinnamon and sugar, also have at the helm an additional tablespoon of sugar mixed with another 1/4 teaspoon of cinnamon).

Preheat the old oven to 350°F. Line a 9″ cake pan (or a 9.5″ pie pan if you, like me, do not own such extravagant baking dishes) with parchment paper and grease with oil. Then, mix the milk with the vinegar and leave it for a few minutes to curdle. This is not gross, we are just making vegan buttermilk. Get over it. While this is happening, chop up any fruit that needs chopping and mix the dry ingredients together (for reasons I never fully understood, sugar does not count as a “dry ingredient.” It is always added in with the wet ingredients when recipes call for mixing the two categories separately. This does not make sense to me. Sugar is clearly dry. I digress). Add the rest of the wet ingredients (including the sugar, WTF) to the buttermilk mixture.

Add the wet ingredients to the dry and stir until just mixed. Your batter will still be lumpy. Pour the batter into the baking dish of your choosing. Dump the fruit on top of the batter (or as the recipe recommends, carefully place the fruit in a spiral formation… BUT SRSLY? WHO HAS TIME FOR THAT. I WANT TO EAT THIS NOW, DAMMIT. Unless you are realllllly trying to impress someone, spiral formations just waste time in my opinion). If you had the foresight to prepare some topping, sprinkle that on top too. If you didn’t, oh well!

What’s that in the background? Just a delicious lime-raspberry mocktail, NBD.

Bake the buckle for 50ish minutes… I KNOW. This seems like a long time to wait. And it is. But maybe you can entertain yourself by watching Wet, Hot American Summer (featuring an all-star comedic cast, this happens to be one of my all-time favorite summer movies). About half way through the movie, check on the buckle. You could do a knife test and see if the knife comes out clean…or you could just sort of jiggle it and make sure it appears semi-fully cooked. I did a sort of combo; the knife definitely didn’t come out clean, but the cake didn’t appear RAW. Perhaps a bit undercooked, but I didn’t feel like waiting any longer and I mean, it’s vegan, so it’s not like I am going to get salmonella or anything. Now you could wait for it to cool for 20 minutes, flip it onto a plate, peel off the parchment paper, let it cool a bit more, and flip it over AGAIN onto ANOTHER plate… I mean if you have the patience to do this, KUDOS!!! If all you can think about is HOWMPFing (I believe this is the noise I make when I rapidly ingest delicious treats) this as quickly as possible, you could just give it five or so minutes and then slice it like a pie/scoop it like a cobbler. Add some ice cream and quickly get back to the movie. You should make it back in time to see Molly Shannon receive marriage advice from the 9 year olds in her craft class.

Now off with you!! Go celebrate your day off!!!* Go to the beach! Go to a barbeque! Go to a pool! Make a treat! Ride a bike! Watch a movie! BY GOD, JUST TREAT YOURSELF!

*Sorry if you are not American and must work this day…you can still enjoy your buckle and all things red, white, and blue.

One-at-a-Time Chocolate Chip Cookies, by Lillian.

Hi.

Photo from Williams-Sonoma’s Comfort Food cookbook

I am here to tell you that my friend Beth is a brilliant woman. Beth, like me, lives alone. And what she does is she makes a lot of food and then freezes it. I know, it sounds simple. People all over the world freeze food and nobody gets excited about it. This is different. Beth will make full recipes, divide the recipes into single-serving portions, put the portions in plastic bags, and then freeze them. This means that when she comes home at 9 or 10 at night, as some of us tend to do, she doesn’t have to eat cereal, or peanut butter straight from the jar, or scrambled eggs for dinner. Instead, she reheats homemade baked ziti or chicken parmesan or chili or something else that is delicious and satisfying. For a while I had struggled with how to Make Food For One, for although I like to cook, I also never seem to go through leftovers before they go bad, and I felt that making most meals was kind of, therefore, a waste. So most of the time I found myself eating cereal, or peanut butter straight from the jar, or scrambled eggs. Beth’s method changed my Single Girl Life.

So the other thing Beth does is that she makes cookie dough, freezes it, and then makes—yes—one cookie at a time. If you lived alone, say, and you made an entire batch of cookies, you’d be faced with the prospect of either eating all of them yourself, and all at once, because they taste SO GOOD right out of the oven (not such a bad option? but maybe it will make you sick, so be careful), or storing them, and resigning yourself to the fact that your cookie, two or three days later, is just simply past its out-of-the-oven prime. BETH HAS SAVED YOU FROM BOTH OF THESE TRAGEDIES. The One-Cookie-at-a-Time method was my approach for many months this past year: I would come home after climbing, make a cookie, drink a beer, and watch Colbert on Hulu all by my lonesome. It sounds a little sad. It was not. It was glorious. I grew up in a house with seven other people, and let me tell you, the absolute solitary contentment that comes with one cookie, one beer, and one episode of Colbert, with the knowledge that no one in the world is going to disturb you (nope, you do not have to answer the phone if you don’t want to) is truly an unmatched pleasure.

Well anyway last weekend I didn’t do that. Things change. Life goes on. I made the entire batch. And I will tell you, they did not taste as good. Don’t get me wrong, they were fine: chewy, chocolate chip-y, and, like all good chocolate chip cookies, a tiny bit satly. But they weren’t the same.

No matter! I’ll tell you how to make them anyway. You may make them all at once, or one at a time, with a beer and Stephen Colbert.

Alright the other thing. These cookies are to be made with plain old all-purpose white flour. Sometimes (most of the time) I do this thing when I bake where I go to the store without checking the recipe first. I end up in the baking aisle thinking, “So I need some chocolate chips, butter, and baking powder, but oh yeah I totally have flour NBD.” Don’t do that. I got home to realize that I had four canisters of baking powder, more butter than is reasonable (3 boxes?), and a collection of several kinds of flour that only by sheer luck added up to the 2 1/4 cups that this recipe called for. Most of it, for better or worse, was whole wheat.

Whole wheat flour imparts more of an, er, chew, so they did not turn out to be the melt-in-your mouth cookies of my Colbert and beer days. I recommend, therefore, making the recipe as listed below. However, if you’re looking for more of an I’m-going-on-a-hike-and-need-sustenance cookie, substitute 1 1/4 c of the all-purpose flour with whole wheat, and increase the butter by 1/4 cup (alternatively, you could add about 1/4 cup of whole milk—you just need to increase the moisture content).

Yeah okay anyway. First, as ever, please preheat your oven. This time, to 350 degrees. Zen, assemble ze ingreeedients.

They are:

2 1/4 c all-purpose flour

1 t baking soda (note that the recipe calls for soda, not powder—which is too bad given that now I have four canisters of the latter)

1 t salt

1 c butter

2/3 c granulated sugar

2/3 c firmly packed light brown sugar

1 egg + 1 yolk

2 T honey, maple syrup, or corn syrup (I recommend maple syrup, but used corn syrup because that’s what I had—again, check cupboards before going to the store, Lillian)

2 t vanilla

1 12-oz bag semi-sweet chocolate chips

So. Flour, baking soda, and salt: whisk them together. In a separate bowl, combine the white and brown sugars, and then cream the butter using a hand mixer (actually before I bought a hand mixer I just used, well, my hand, and a fork, and that worked out okay, too) until fluffy. I like to chop the butter up first so that it blends more easily.

Beat in the egg and additional yolk, and then add the syrup or honey and vanilla. Now, combine the two bowls. Do this in stages so you don’t run into the flour-all-over-you-and-apartment problem. Start by using a spatula to fold the two mixtures together, and then return with your hand mixer on low-to-medium speed.

A word on: Corn syrup. I know, so bad. We hate all that HCFS. It makes us stupid. But for now, please chill out. Corn syrup in your daily can of Coke is, I would argue, bad for you, mostly because you’re consuming a daily can of Coke. But these cookies? I would say 2 tablespoons distributed over 3 dozen cookies is not that big of a deal. This man agrees, and he, in fact, is a big deal. Anyway choose honey or maple syrup if your panties are all in a knot about it.

Okay so then after everything is gently—gently—combined, fold in the chocolate chips. Now, you have to choose: you can make all of the cookies at once, or you can sequester enough dough to make a few just for you (treat yo self!), dutifully freezing the rest. Either way, bake them for about 9 minutes per sheet (if you’re making the entire recipe, at 12 cookies per sheet you should go through about 3 rounds). When you take them out of the oven, they will feel a little too gushy and not quite done. That means that they are perfect. Take them out, let them cool on a cooling rack for a bit, and then nom your little heart out.

You may also consider placing the majority of them in a ziploc bag and pawning them off on your climbing gym friends. May I make a recommendation though? You. Beer. Cookies. Colbert. Go forth.

Oh also this song!

The Icing on the Cake, by Bethany.

As a 26-year-old woman, I feel as though I’ve truly moved into that phase in my life where it is no longer acceptable for me to prepare and eat a meal that features Ramen Noodles, Pop-Tarts or canned Progresso chili. I actually eat vegetables now, and soy products, and other foods that don’t even come with microwave directions. For the most part I don’t miss the slightly drunk feeling I get from consuming astronomical levels of sodium or high fructose corn syrup. There’s just one item from my Fast-Track-to-Type-2-Diabetes Diet that I can’t get away from.

Frosting.

Lillian can attest to my Problem With Frosting. In college, there was usually a tub of half-eaten Pillsbury frosting in our fridge. If you opened the top, it was obvious to the observer thatsomeone had the habit of scooping out the contents with his or her (her) index finger. I mean sometimes I’d use a spoon, like, if we had company. But really, once you’ve done away with the customary baked good vehicle on which frosting is traditionally spread, what’s the point in getting all fancy with utensils? There’s just something about eating straight frosting out of a plastic tub that causes you to lose all semblance of etiquette…or self-respect. Honestly, I’m no hillbilly.

Anyway. Fast forward 4 years (AHHHHH how am I so OLD?) and I’ve now done away with most of my Disgusting College Eating Habits. I also live in Costa Rica, where imported tubs of Pillsbury frosting cost the equivalent of a barrel of crude oil. As I am being paid in mangos and hugs, buying pre-packaged American frosting is no longer an option. Making frosting, however? That I can do. And so can you, my darlings!

Which brings me to my point. I made a batch of frosting this weekend, and since I needed to take this frosting to a baby shower as a potluck contribution, I even made a cake on which to display the frosting. The cake itself was inconsequential (albeit tasty) and so I’ll just say that it was a Craisin and sunflower seed quickbread recipe from Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything book. It was easy to make and would have made for a boring post. In reality, it served as a scaffold for the frosting, which was LEMON-VANILLA BUTTERCREAM in flavor and TASTED LIKE HEAVEN.

Here’s what you’ll need to frost a 9-inch cake round:

½ stick butter (softened)

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 tsp lemon juice

1 tsp grated lemon zest

2 cups confectioner’s sugar

1 large egg yolk

Start by creaming the butter (with a mixer, if you have one), then add in the vanilla, egg yolk, lemon zest and lemon juice and mix very well to combine. Then begin working in the confectioner’s sugar in small doses. Sift that sugar, if you have the means—I did not do this step, and thus my frosting turned out a tad lumpy. The whole procedure should only take about 10 minutes. If you’re like me, the quick timeframe will probably make you reconsider the whole frosting-making business. As in: why don’t I make frosting more often? Why have I not explored several, nay, DOZENS of frosting recipes in my life? How on Earth have I not created and sampled a smorgasbord of frosting delights as part of my recent quarter-life crisis?

Which brings me to my point, which is also the title of this post: The Icing on the Cake. We think of icing/frosting as the extra, bonus stuff. Let’s be real. It’s the best part. It doesn’t have to be some rare, only-sometimes-attainable, ambrosia-like substance. It takes 5 ingredients and 10 minutes to assemble, and doesn’t require electric gadgets or even any heat. It’s hard to screw up, and if, like me, your frosting comes out lumpy, just do what I did: cover that cake with sprinkles and commence to shoveling it into your pie-hole.

Icing on the Cake? Screw the cake. Get down to business with the icing, which is what you’re here for anyway. If, for the sake of pretense, you need to eat this frosting on a baked good, then do so. But if you don’t, then stop being a snob and eat it with your fingers or a spoon. You won’t regret it.

All Dried Up, by Cristyn.

While that title can be interpreted in so many directions (water content in any number of things, emotional state, weather, inappropriate innuendos, etc.) I am really just trying to say that I learned how to dehydrate food. You see, while we may have been absent from the interwebs for the last week (or two…) we have been busy! I swear! Even with a little baking! Okay, a LOT of baking. Like, last week, I made nine dozen cookies for a big camping/climbing trip. Let me repeat that. NINE DOZEN COOKIES. That is 108 individual treats in three different varieties. Do you want to know how long it took us to consume said treats? About 40 hours. Now, while I could regale you with the recipes for these cookies, or about how much of a disaster my kitchen was for about a week, or I could bore you with the details of how amazing the trip was (PRETTY DAMN AMAZING. One might even call it life changing? In fact it pains me to think about the fact that it is now over)… instead, I am going to talk about that new dehydrator I got. I know that it is not baking, but it was a bit of a game changer for me.

It all started with the Clymb… their amazing cursed sales get me on a semi-regular basis. So when I saw this half off gem entitled Another Fork in the Trail: Vegetarian and Vegan Recipes for the Backcountry, I had to get it. Imagine my surprise when I opened it up and realized that without a dehydrator, I could make maybe 10% of the recipes in it… BUMMER. I toyed with the idea of creating my own contraption á la Alton Brown via a box fan and some air filters, but this seemed unappetizing and like an inordinate amount of work. I also considered just using my oven at a very low temperature…then quickly realized that leaving a gas oven on at a barely perceptible temperature for 10+ hours was a potentially hazardous situation for myself and Mr. Owl. So, I broke down and purchased an electric dehydrator. Then it immediately became my mission to get as much use as possible out of it. GOOD THING WE HAD A TRIP TO PARADISE PLANNED.

So, you might ask, what does one need to make delicious camping/vegan friendly meals? Oh… just a few things.

If this looks overwhelming, it is because it was. I spent 2 days in the kitchen… Okay, not two FULL days, but at least 12 intermittent hours total. It was like a factory in there. In fact, if it weren’t for that pesky little thing called Health Code, I would consider turning my kitchen into a full fledged bakery. Turns out cat hair in your kitchen is frowned upon by the Chicago Sanitation Board. Talk about a real bummer.

Now the basic premise of dehydrating food is as follows:

1. Make the meal like normal. (We had Chana Masala, Couscous and Mixed Veggies, and Roasted Red Pepper Hummus).
2. Let it cool.
3. Spread it out on the dehydrator trays.
4. Turn on the dehydrator/glorified fan.
5. Wait.
6. Wait.
7. Wait.
8. When it is dry, crumble it up and put it in a bag.
9. Rehydrate.
10. Nom.

As you may have noticed, there is a lot of waiting involved in dehydrating. But because we are talking like a good 12 hours, you are free to DO things. And it doesn’t really matter if you forget about the fact that you left it on and don’t remember for like a full 18 hours. (Like I may or may not have done). I mean, it can only get so dry. And once you package it, you can store it in a cool, dry place for MONTHS. So, if you are worried about the coming apocalypse, you might want to start making some meals. Or you could just cook all weekend once a month and make food for like a full 30 days. Or you could just do this when you are camping/backpacking to lighten your load. Or you don’t have to ever dehydrate anything at all. I just thought I would let you know what we have been up to.

Now, so I don’t leave you COMPLETELY in the lurch, here is one of the cookies I made (these made up the bulk of the 9 doz).

MEXICAN HOT CHOCOLATE SNICKERDOODLES

1/2 C. Canola Oil

1 C. Sugar (plus 1/3 C. for rolling/topping)

1/4 C. Maple Syrup

3 Tbl Soy Milk

2 tsp Vanilla

1 2/3 C. Flour

1/2 C. Cocoa Powder

1 tsp Baking Soda

1/2 tsp Cinnamon (plus 1 tsp for rolling/topping)

1/2 tsp Cayenne Pepper

Pinch of Salt

This is what a double batch of these babies looks like...MASSIVE.

Set your oven to 350 °F. Mix the cinnamon and sugar for the topping on a plate and set aside. Mix all the liquid ingredients together. Add the dry ingredients and stir. Grab a tablespoon of dough, roll it into a ball and then roll it in the cinnamon/sugar mixture. Flatten the ball on a greased cookie sheet. Repeat. Bake for about 10 minutes. Eat in large quantities. I’ve always heard that spicy foods increase your metabolism… and these cookies have a nice spicy kick to them…so you can probably eat like 5 dozen and not feel guilty.

Sorry.

Dillywheats is on hiatus.

Vegan Lemon Barz and Getting the Good Sun, by Cristyn.

Thought you couldn’t make the jellied lemon goodness of lemon bars without gelatin?

You thought wrong, my friend.

The unseasonably warm weather we have been experiencing in Chicago has led me to the following conclusion: global warming is not so bad, when you only look at the short term, immediate effects (namely, that I am not cranky anymore because I am getting a suitable amount of Vitamin D). It also reminded me that I LOVE SUMMER. Love it so much, that if the temperature threatens to drop below 65 for more than a day or two in a row, I will probably spiral into a deep depression, mourning the delay of all the wonderful summertime activities I have been planning. What does summer mean to me you ask? Bike rides, beaches, picnics, festivals, swimming, climbing (OUTSIDE), shorts, skirts, NO SOCKS, sunglasses, flip flops, smoothies, long walks, open windows, ceiling fans on 24/7, cold salads, roof top reading, day drinking, listening to summer music (cue up Sublime and Minus the Bear), fireworks, and getting the good sun. My first summer in Chicago, my jobless roommate and I used to head out to the beach mid morning, just about every day, to “get the good sun.” This meant getting there before it got to crowded, and soaking up the sun prior to like 3 pm, when the rays were most direct and we could get the best tan. (I realize this might not have been the safest habit, but I wore sunscreen okay!?) I have since appropriated the phrase “gotta get the good sun” to mean taking advantage of things while you can. SO. In the spirit of enjoying the gift of summer in March, and riding this weather high before the Fates (or a cold front) take it away from me,  I decided to make lemon bars. Because lemon is a total summer flavor. It is so happy and yellow and in your face. It’s all “HEY, I’M YELLOW. I’M HAPPY AND YOU PROBABLY SHOULD BE TOO. HEY LOOK AT THE SUN, IT IS YELLOW TOO. WE ARE THE SAME COLOR, THAT’S NEAT.”

SO HERE’S THE INGREDIENTS (as taken from Veganomicon):

Crust:
1 3/4 C. AP Flour
2/3 C. Powdered Sugar
1/4 C. Cornstarch
1 C. Butter or Margarine (or… perhaps try using 3/4 C. as I did).

Lemon Goo Filling: 
1 1/3 C. Plain Old Water
3 TBL Agar Agar Flakes (See rant in disclaimer below).
1 1/4 C. Granulated Sugar (that means regular).
1/8 tsp Turmeric (or omit, like I did, if you don’t care how yellow your lemon barz are).
2/3 C. Lemon Juice
3 TBL Arrowroot Powder (or substitute more cornstarch, as I did)
+1 TBL Lemon Zest
1/4 C. Soy Milk

Now. While this recipe (and well virtually every lemon bar recipe in the world) calls for powdered sugar… I COULDN’T FIND ANY IN CHICAGO?! (Okay, so I actually only looked at two stores and then got annoyed and just came home). But, because I had this knowledge under my belt–POWDERED/CONFECTIONER’S SUGAR IS JUST NORMAL SUGAR GROUND UP FINER –I went all hardcore and made my own powdered sugar, no big deal. I just threw some granulated sugar into my little Cuisinart and ground it up into powder. Voila. I sure my neighbors appreciated me doing this at 11 pm.

Another part of this recipe that made me feel hardcore…JUICING THOSE LEMONS. I think it only took me about 3 lemons to get the 2/3 cup of lemon juice. But I absolutely dessicated these lemons. I squeezed the ever-living outta them. By the time I was done with them, they looked like Bunnicula had gotten to them. (This book was a LOT more frightening as a child.  Speaking of my childhood, I had this strange habit as a young’un. Way back when I was a shy, quiet little carnivore, my parents tried to feed me meat. I am told I would chew the daylights out of it and then spit it back on my plate once it was “dry as sawdust.” I am not sure exactly what this means, other than I was a freak as a kid, or why I thought it necessary to do this, but I felt like it had some relevance to the Bunnicula reference). ANYWAY(Z) if you do not want to hurt your fingers, you might just want to buy more lemons…or invest in some sort of a juicer as opposed to repeatedly cranking a rogue fork into the lemon’s pulp, narrowly missing your fingers with each twist. Also, it is probably not the best idea to make these the day after you tear up your hands doing some rock climbing in Wisconsin. Remember, lemon juice stings even the tiniest, invisible cuts. Please learn from my mistakes.

[DISCLAIMER]: Now, this recipe is not HARD per se. It is just a bit time consuming. But most of the time is just waiting for stuff to bake or cool/chill in the fridge. During which time you can do any number of things. For instance, you can pet your cat, water your plants, read a book, go for a walk (probably not while the oven is on), do a few cartwheels, check your mail, etc. I’ll let you figure it out. Also, it begs mentioning…these agar agar flakes. This is the sort of weird junk that gives vegan baking a bad rap. But if you are categorically opposed to gelatin, sometimes you have to use weird junk. I am not going to lie to you. Agar agar flakes WEIRDED ME OUT. I mean, they are described as a “sea vegetable,” a “seaweed gelatin substitute.” And frankly, they don’t smell great when you reconstitute them in water. Kind of salty, watery, briney. They smell even worse when they start boiling. When I was making these bars, I kept thinking “WHAT’S THE POINT, THEY ARE JUST GOING TO TASTE LIKE SUSHI.” BUT TRUST ME, THEY DID NOT. YOU WILL NOT BE ABLE TO TASTE ANY AGAR AGAR WEIRDNESS IN THESE LEMON BARS. I WOULD NEVER LEAD YOU ASTRAY. The lemony goodness that you create completely masks any oceany flavors you might be afraid of. PROMISE.

OKAY. Let’s get back on track. Let’s make these lemon barz. We shall start with the crust. Grease a 9 x 13″ pan. Now, the actual recipe called for 1 CUP OF BUTTER. I decided to try using just 3/4 cup because the idea of using two whole sticks of butter made me a little queasy. Especially when I considered the fact that Lillian was out of town, and I would inevitably be eating this whole pan of barz myself. Just pulse all the crust ingredients together in your (mini) food processor (in batches) or cut it all together like you would pie crust. I was a little worried that the crust would end up being too crumbly and not be cuttable, or support the lemon goo. But it worked out fine! I just packed the crumbly crust mixture down into the pan really, really hard. Once you’ve got it all good and packed in your pan, pop it in your fridge for 30 minutes. THEN bake it for 25 minutes in a preheated 350 degree oven. I am not sure why you have to do this, but I did, and it worked, so let’s not mess with it.

While this is baking (and then cooling), you can make the lemon goo. Time to brave those agar agar flakes. (I feel like a joke is in order here…”the sea vegetable so nice, they named it twice?”). Mix them with the water in a medium saucepan. Let them sit at room temperature for about 15 minutes, until the flakes start to get gooey/rehydrate. I kept smelling them, thinking, maybe they will smell different after they soak a bit. Do not do this, you will psych yourself out. Just leave them alone.
Note: Don’t breathe this.

While they are soaking, maybe you can juice/zest your lemons. If you have a zester, kudos, use that. I just used my mini grater from World Market. It is cute and easy to clean. Mix the cornstarch in with the lemon juice.

After 15 minutes have passed and your nostrils are now filled with a pleasant lemony aroma, put the agar agar/water solution over medium-high heat and bring it to a boil for 10 minutes, until you can no longer see any flakey particles. Stir in the granulated sugar and stir to dissolve. The recipe also called for some turmeric at this point. I opted out. I am 99.9% sure this was just to add yellowy color to the barz. Since I was already a little freaked out by the agar agar flakes, I did not want to add a spice that I normally associate with savory curries to my (hopefully) sweet lemon barz. So I omitted this, and I do have to say, the pale yellow that the barz ended up being was quite pretty indeed. Anyway(z) after assessing the risk/benefit of adding turmeric, add the lemon juice/cornstarch mixture and stir. Then add the soy milk and the lemon zest. (It is safe to smell your lemon goo now). Whisk this over medium-low heat, until it starts to thicken, but try not to let it boil. I think it took mine about five minutes. Then pour it over your (cool-ish) crust. Tilt the pan to spread the goo around. Let this settle/cool for a few minutes and then pop it into the fridge until your goo settles up. Or as long as you think you can wait. I waited about an hour, then tentatively poked a spoon in, to try some…after realizing that they did not taste like seaweed, I helped myself to a few more spoonfuls. And then a few more.

Now. At this point you are probably thinking, “BUT WAIT. Lemon barz alllllways have powdered sugar sifted on top?!” Here’s where I tell you, “Not this time girlfriend.” Because I did not have any more homemade powdered sugar on hand (or store bought for that matter), and because I had a little extra time on my hands… I decided to make STRAWBERRY SLURRY. I don’t know if that is the real name for it. In my family, we (okay, actually I think it is just ME) call it ELIXIR. It is actually just strawberries sliced up and allowed to macerate (a fancy word for “soak” that will leave more immature crowds stifling giggles) with some sugar so it gets all sweet and syrupy. SO. Add some sort of topping if you want, or not, and call it a day. You still gotta go get the good sun.

FIN.

See below.

Click to zoom, if you want.

It’s Treat Yo Self Sunday!

But the Chicago Diner hasn’t been treating our wallets very well. So treat yo self at home!

  

Oh hey ewe didn’t think we treated ourselves to vegetables, did ewe?

Wafflez, ice cream, and homemade carmel.