Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

This was one of those recipes that came out of utter desperation - a sudden crazy craving for peanut butter cookies! I've always loved a good peanut butter cookie, it was always one of my go-to cookie recipes when I was a child - yes, baking at a young age I was :-) 

Here I decided to throw in some chocolate chips for obvious yum reasons and I am so happy with the outcome; seriously one of the best PB cookies I've had, vegan or not! Perfect texture and flavour, dead simple and ready in no time....yay! Hope you like them :-)

Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies:

Yields 12 cookies

¼ cup vegan butter, softened
¼ cup smooth peanut butter
¼ cup caster or granulated sugar
¼ cup light brown sugar
¼ tsp vanilla extract
½ cup + 2 Tbsp plain flour
½ tsp baking soda
¼ tsp salt
¼ heaping cup vegan chocolate chips (50g)

Preheat the oven to 180C / 350F and line a baking sheet with baking paper.

In a large bowl cream together the butter and peanut butter until well mixed. Add the sugars and vanilla and beat until well mixed and slightly fluffy. In a separate bowl whisk together the flour, baking soda and salt. Add the dry ingredients to the butter/sugar mixture and mix well with a wooden spoon until no more flour shows then stir in the chocolate chips. The mixture should look slightly crumbly by hold together if you give it a squeeze.

Take about tablespoons full of the mixture and squeeze and roll into a ball and place on the baking sheet. Repeat with the rest of the dough, you should get about 12 cookies here. Now take a potato masher and give each one a gentle stamp just to flatten slightly - don't take your frustrations out on them here and pound them into oblivion :-) Just a little stamp down!

Pop them in the oven and bake for 10 - 12 minutes or until lightly golden brown, especially around the edges. Remove from the oven, they will be soft so leave them on the tray for 5 minutes to firm up then transfer to a wire rack to fully cool. 

Note: the 2 missing cookies here were NOT from me being an impatient greedy so and so. Sadly 2 slid off the tray and straight on the floor when I was moving the tray - oh the humanity!

Now, I just slide the baking paper with the cookies onto my wire rack. Let cool slightly and either enjoy warm with melty chocolate loveliness or wait until they are fully cool. Lovely with a glass of ice cold almond milk :-)

♥

Nutritional Information: based on 1 cookie out of 12

Calories: 132
Fat: 6.5g
Sat Fat: 1.2g
Protein: 2.0g
Fibre: 0.8g
Carbs: 14.5g
Sugar: 10.7g
Sodium: 134mg

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Carrot & Thyme Tart

This was lovely - light and flaky puff pastry spread with almond feta and topped with caramelized red onion and soft and tender thyme glazed carrots. I was inspired here by this Carrot Tart Tatin dish on BBC Good Food. Like most people I am drawn to anything in pastry but I loved the idea of carrots taking the centre stage here as they are usually confined to a side dish or are just another component  like in a stew. And why shouldn't they take centre stage? Carrots are awesome! 

Now, I made a few changes to the tart tatin recipe - both with the ingredients and cooking method. I've replaced the reblochon cheese with the awesome almond feta, I omitted the sun-dried tomatoes as I just didn't see them going in this and instead of making a tart tatin which is an upside down tart, I made a regular, right side up tart :-) 

I also kept thinking of other flavours that go really well with carrots and considered adding them to the tart. Things like walnuts, orange and parsley for example. I was thinking some chopped roasted walnuts in the tart would work well or even some orange zest stirred into the almond feta would be nice. In the end I decided to add all those flavours to the side salad instead which worked really well. It's a wonderful accompaniment to this tart with mixed baby leaf, roasted walnuts, fresh parsley, orange segments and my go-to balsamic dressing. A wonderful meal!

~ Recipe Notes ~

• The size of this tart is really up to you, I unintentionally made mine smaller than I wanted. What you see in the photos here only served 4 people and they were pretty small slices at that. You might prefer to make this rectangular as that is how ready rolled puff pastry comes. It would be a better size and that way there would be no leftover pastry to waste. In my head however this was a round tart so I went that way but it's totally up to you. The amount of carrots given here will be enough either way....and if you have leftover carrots they reheat just fine or throw them in a stew. If you have too many onions they go great in the side salad!

• The first time I made this I used the almond feta after it has been drained but before it's baked. This way it is much easier to spread onto the pastry and it still gets baked in the oven. The second time I made the tart I did use already baked feta. This was harder to spread onto the pastry but I do think it had slightly better flavour. So basically, you can use it either way! :-)

• Most store bought puff pastry is vegan but of course, check your labels as all brands are different.
• Apologies for not providing the nutritional information on this one but it will entirely depend on what size you make the tart - particularly with how much pastry and almond feta you use. FYI -my small tart worked out at 298 calories for 1 slice out of 4.

Carrot and Thyme Tart:

375g peeled carrots
1 tsp light brown sugar
4 sprigs thyme leaves 
2 Tbsp vegan butter
1 red onion, sliced (can use white as well)
Freshly ground black pepper
Almond feta, drained but not baked (see recipe notes above)
Ready rolled puff pastry

Preheat the oven to 180C / 350F with a baking sheet inside.

Melt 1 Tbsp of vegan butter in a frying pan and add the sliced red onion. Add about 9 grinds of freshly ground black pepper and fry on low heat until very soft. Pop a lid on now and again and if it starts to look dry add about 1 Tbsp of hot water and allow that to cook off. When the onions are very soft and lightly caramelized transfer to a bowl and set aside.

Put the carrots, other tablespoon of butter, sugar and thyme leaves in a wide shallow frying pan with a lid. Note: ignore my photo here and add the thyme leaves not the whole sprig as I discovered they are hard to remove after cooking!

Add enough water till it just comes up to the carrots.

Cover, bring to a simmer then cover and cook until the carrots are almost tender. Remove the lid, turn up the heat and cook until all the liquid has evaporated and the carrots are soft and lightly glazed looking. Transfer to a bowl and set aside. 

Unroll the puff pastry and either leave it as a rectangle or cut out a circle (mine was 23cm). Place on a sheet of baking paper. Score another smaller circle inside, leaving a 1½” border (or do the same with the rectangle). Make sure you don't cut all the way through here, you just want to score it. Pierce the inner circle with a fork to stop it rising while baking. 

Spread the ‘forked’ area evenly with some of the almond feta, a thin spread will do as it's so flavourful.

...then scatter over the onions. Note to self: cooked red onions can look like worms....don't use in photos! lol...

Lay the carrots over top in a nice design - make sure you overlap them well as they will shrink up in the oven a bit.

Lastly, carefully brush the top of all the carrots with some melted butter, this will help stop them drying out in the oven. (I just melted some in the same pan I just cooked the carrots in.)

Remove the preheated baking sheet from the oven and carefully slide the baking paper with the tart onto the baking sheet. Pop it all into the oven and bake for 25 mins or until the pastry is golden, puffed around the edges and cooked through.

Remove from the oven and leave to stand for a few mins. Transfer to a cake stand or serving plate. Serve warm with the Baby Leaf, Roasted Walnut and Orange Salad with Balsamic Dressing.

Baby Leaf, Roasted Walnut and Orange Salad with Balsamic Dressing:

80g mixed baby leaf: spinach, lambs lettuce, red chard etc...

handful of fresh flat leaf parsley, torn

1 - 2 navel oranges, segmented

50g walnuts

1/4 tsp olive oil

pinch of sea salt

Dressing:

1 ½ Tbsp extra virgin olive oil

½ Tbsp balsamic dressing

½ tsp Dijon mustard

1/8 tsp sea salt

freshly ground black pepper

Preheat the oven to 180C / 350F. Using your hands toss the 1/4 tsp of olive oil and a pinch of sea salt with the walnuts until fully coated. Spread out on a baking sheet and roast for 5 minutes, giving the pan a shake halfway through. Remove and let cool.

Mix together the lettuce, parsley, orange segments and cooled walnuts. Whisk together the dressing until smooth then pour over and toss it all together. Serve immediately.

♥

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Lemon-Dill Petite Pois Falafel with a Chargrilled Asparagus and Red Onion Salad

Well, hello Spring! I've missed you asparagus!! This has easily become my new favourite salad: chargrilled tender asparagus, soft sweet chargrilled red onions, avocado, mixed baby leaf with a simple drizzle of olive oil and balsamic vinegar then topped with these fantastic spring fresh lemon dill petite pois falafel. Phew! This is definitely a main dish, knife and fork kind of salad....It's also what we are having for Easter dinner this very evening with a nice chilled glass of white wine :-) 

This salad also works beautifully as a filling and satisfying wrap...

Same ingredients as the salad but instead of the balsamic dressing I've added a crazy simple "cheats" garlic cream sauce. Hint: it's just vegan sour cream, garlic powder and a pinch of salt! Apologies - I did get photos of the wrap with the sauce but they all looked positively obscene, lol! Anyway, it's just a white cream sauce, nothing you need a photo of ;-) For the wrap I also fried up smaller falafel than I do for the salad then simply wrap it up in a warmed flour tortilla. It's gorgeous!

♥

The falafel themselves are wonderful, recipe is adapted from Cassie Best's recipe for Pea Falafel on BBC Good Food. Mine took a few attempts to get right, I was mostly having problems with texture. They were initially much too soft inside, almost like deep fried balls of houmous (actually, that doesn't sound too bad!) Not what I was after though of course. In the end I reduced the liquid by omitting the lemon juice, upped the dry ingredients by adding my vegan parmesan - which also adds wonderful flavour and making sure I only briefly pulsed the mixture. Over mix and you'll end up with houmous. 

The other aspect that made a big difference was the brand of chick peas I used. Apologies as this will only apply to those of you in Ireland or the UK but I used Tesco's own label tinned chickpeas here which are smaller and much more firm than most tinned chickpeas making them perfect in falafel. After all, traditional falafel is made by using dried chickpeas that have just been soaked then they are cooked from deep frying. I've always found that much too risky to attempt at home so these firm little cooked chickpeas are a god send! You can still use the larger, softer type chickpeas more common in tins, but do be careful not to overprocess....

~ Recipe Notes ~

• As you can tell from the length of this post, the recipe is rather involved. I recommend making the falafel batter the day before so it is ready to fry.

• I've used smoked sea salt throughout the recipe here as I feel it really adds to the chargrilled flavour of the asparagus and red onion but obviously you can use regular sea salt if that's all you have.

• I've had the salad both with the onions and asparagus warm and with them room temperature. Both are good but I definitely give the edge to having them warm. It's easier in that case to make them first and just give them a quick re-heat in a frying pan before assembling the salad.

• I didn't do it here in these photos but my Tamari Roasted Pumpkin and Sunflower Seeds are an awesome addition to this salad! 

• .....and yes, if you don't fancy making the falafel, this salad is just as good without it :-)