Wednesday, September 14, 2011

Lazy Woman's Enchilada Sauce


I enjoy making enchiladas out of leftover rice, spinach, and beans.  I tend to do this on weeknights, when I've just gotten home from work and I'm not really in the mood to sit down and cook a huge meal.  Rather than go to the trouble of making a from-scratch enchilada sauce, sometimes I take half a jar of spaghetti sauce and modify it to make it an enchilada sauce.

This idea occurred to me when I looked at the ingredients of a jar of tomato and garlic spaghetti sauce and noticed that enchilada sauce had the same base ingredients: tomatoes, garlic, and oregano.

To transform plain ol' pasta sauce into Lazy Woman's Enchilada Sauce, add:

2 tablespoons unsweetened baker's chocolate
4-5 tablespoons cinnamon
1 tablespoon chili flakes
2 tablespoons all purpose flour (for thickening -- don't use if you plan on keeping enchiladas warm in the oven for some time)

Combine in saucepan, simmer for 4-5 minutes, pour over enchiladas, and then bake.

Monday, September 5, 2011

Apple Cinnamon Vegan Cupcakes

O-kay.  I have not abandoned this blog, although it might seem like I have.  An unusually frantic Spring* turned into a huge Summer writer's block, and now it's Labor Day Weekend and here we are.

It is fitting, then, that my latest recipe is a Spring / Summer cupcake recipe that I have modified for Fall.  So here we go....


Apple Cinnamon Vegan Cupcakes
(Inspired by the recipe for strawberry cupcakes from the book The Happy Herbivore, by Lindsay S. Nixon.)

Ingredients (makes 12)

2 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 cup applesauce
1 cup sugar
1 and 1/2 cups Vanilla flavored Almond Milk (I like Silk's Real Almond)
2 tsps lemon juice

Dust the tops with powdered sugar, or you can use a quick (non vegan) cream cheese frosting.
(I have not tried to make tofu frosting yet, trying to do so will be another post.)

Quick Cream Cheese Frosting

Ingredients
1/4th cup powdered sugar
1/2 of a stick of cream cheese
1 tsp vanilla

Cream together the powdered sugar, vanilla, and cream cheese until they are fully blended together.  Should frost 12.







*My grandmother got very sick and died.