Vegan Cooking with TLC

This week I'm taking a break from sharing recipes because I want to discuss developing recipes, particularly the failures that teach. I have quite a few recipes written and ready to share. Almost every time I make one of the recipes I've already written, I find some small tweak that makes it a little better. This is why I'm often reluctant to share a recipe. I don't think a recipe is ever "perfect" for everyone. I have better recipes and even the best-for-the-time-being recipes. It's not unusual for my husband and other taste testers to disagree about whether or not a particular recipe works or could be better. Let's talk a bit about failure....  Cooking involves failure. There I said it. Many of the recipes I decide to share have undergone numerous attempts and therefore failures before I share them. Now, I have two choices with each of these failures. I can give up or I can learn from what went wrong. Sometimes a recipe just never works, but I

The first time I made pumpkin pie using a pumpkin instead of canned pumpkin I was in college. I called my Grandma Stamm long distance and she patiently talked me through the process. My pumpkin pie has definitely changed over the years, but every time I make a pumpkin pie I remember that first time with fondness. Creating a vegan pumpkin pie was a must do when I started eating a plant-based diet. Pecan Pumpkin Pie with Persimmons 1 small pie pumpkin 2 persimmons 1 cup date sugar 1 tablespoon cinnamon 1 teaspoon ground ginger ¼ teaspoon cardamom (optional) ¼ teaspoon nutmeg 1 teaspoon vanilla extract 1 pinch ground cloves 1 ½ cups walnut milk 1 tablespoon chia seeds 1 vanilla bean (optional) 1 cup pecans Preheat oven to 425 degrees. If using vanilla bean, slice down the middle and scrape insides out. Discard outer husk. Peel and seed pumpkin. Cut into ¼ inch pieces. Pull top off persimmons and squeeze persimmon fruit out. M

Pie crust can be a tricky thing to make, but I really wanted to make a pumpkin pie with a crust, so I got busy. As you can see I got a little excited about the crust and started adding the pie filling before I took a picture of the the crust. I was so happy my idea worked I actually did a little dance in the kitchen. I love finding creative ideas to make recipes fit my desires and my needs. I anticipate using this pie crust recipe for a multitude of pies in the coming months. Pie Crust with Pecan Butter 1/2 chilled pecan butter 1 ½ cups whole wheat flour 2 tablespoons date sugar 8-10 tablespoons water Place the flour and date sugar in a bowl and whisk together. Add pecan butter. Cut into the flour until mixture becomes crumbly. Add water 1 tablespoon at a time until the mixture comes together and forms a ball. Be careful to not overmix. An overworked crust will become tough. Place crust in the refrigerator and chill for 20-30 minutes. Spread a littl

When I decided to make a pumpkin pie (recipe coming soon) for Thanksgiving I wanted a "traditional" crust for it, but I wanted it to be both vegan and healthy. I did a little research on various traditional crust recipes as well as vegan pie crusts and eventually decided I wanted to try replacing the "fat" in the crust with a nut butter. I particularly like pecan with pumpkin, so I decided to try making a crust using pecan butter. That meant I needed to make pecan butter. I looked at my previous nut butter recipes and did a little research on pecans. Then I came up with this. It worked really well! Tasty! I used what I didn't need for the crust (recipe coming next week) to make a salad dressing (if I can replicate it I will share it, but I didn't write it down at the time.) later and it was delicious! Pecan Butter 2 cups pecans Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Bake pecans 5-6 minutes until lightly browned. Cool 5-10 minutes. Pr