Things are going quite well! I have set an outline for recipes to experiment with, giving myself approximately 4 per week to play with. I have so far successfully created original recipes for:
- Chocolate Chip Cookies
- Old-fashioned Gingerbread Cookies
- Orange Spice Muffins
- Vegan Filled Chocolates
- Chocolate Pudding Pie
- Buckwheat Pancakes and
- Pumpkin Pie Ice Cream
And I haven't attempted any that are on my list so far this weekend. I'll be doing that tomorrow.
I have so far failed one experiment. I'm thinking of putting off a redo until the end of the month to see if my time warrants it. The recipe was for peanut brittle. I burnt my sugar! And it tasted like it, too!
One of the things I've found helpful is preserving some of what I've been making to save for later. I have frozen some of the cookie dough and intend to do the same with any other cakes or treats I may develop. That way, nothing will go to waste, I won't go into sugar shock, and I'll be able to whip up a bunch of different things throughout the month of November with little effort. That'll make Thanksgiving a whole lot easier!
As mentioned in the first paragraph, this will be a book of sweets. It is also, however, a book geared toward making your holiday indulgences a little less bad for you. The recipes will include ingredients like whole wheat pastry flour, coconut oil, and tofu and will avoid shortening, hydrogenated oils, chemicals, etc. I'm a firm believer in the eat it when you want it philosophy, and in that sugar-free is not an expression that should come before the word dessert. I do believe in moderation, though, and in that if you can make something just a little bit healthier without sacrificing flavor it benefits everyone to do it.
Take, for instance, the following picture of my vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies. There's whole wheat pastry flour in them! But you'd never be able to tell by looking (or by tasting). Here's a visual. See what I mean?
I'll be devoting this weekend to beverages and cake. Next weekend will be for a couple of redos and then last minute ideas. We may be looking at a mid-November release date instead, but I'm pretty pleased with my progress so far.
After that, I'm not sure what will be my next project. I really like developing recipes for cookbooks, more so than for blog posts, but we'll see how things blossom after the new year. I've been trying to eat more simple foods when I'm not developing these recipes. A lot of our dinners consist of greens and a protein these days. I'm enjoying it! But there's not a lot of "recipes" I can share based on what I've been making for dinner, if you know what I mean.
In closing, I'd like to hear about your own favorite holiday recipes. Is there anything from your childhood you'd like to see veganized? So far, my favorite recipe for this book has been the one for Chocolate Pudding Pie. It really blew my socks off! Thanks for reading, everyone!
No comments:
Post a Comment