Fabulous Vegan Recipes

My stress eating during this pandemic is slowing down (yay, I only had one of these cupcakes after I made them) but I still have the urge to bake. These cupcakes are amazing and I used my usual icing for them (get lemons or lemon juice!) Other than that, I am just taking one day at a time during this period of isolation and trying to put good food in my body and move everyday (mostly weight lifting) You should have all the ingredients for these cupcakes in your pantry but I also added a cool unusual ingredient: blackstrap molasses. It goes so well with pumpkin and it has a great amount of iron in it...and I want to use it up. You don't need to add the molasses but I like the subtle taste. I also used powdered sugar because I had no other sweetener but feel free to use coconut or brown sugar. These cupcakes turn out pretty moist and springy and taste great with and without the icing.

If you bake regular chocolate box cake and crumble up the cake and put it in a bowl, you will get my raw chocolate cake consistency. These cupcakes are so much like the "real" baked thing that it will be hard to resist them even if you're a non vegan who is opposed to any vegan baked goods. By the way, it drives me nuts when non vegans put their nose up to vegan food simply because they have't tried it, but that is a separate blog post! 

I was contacted by Organic Gemini ,  a company that sells snacks, oil, flour and cold pressed drinks made from tigernuts; they asked me to try their products and review them.  Tigernuts are high fiber root vegetables that are actually nut free, sweet and chewy. I was familiar with Organic Gemini products because I tasted their tigernuts at The Seed Experience event, a free NYC event with local vegan vendors.  Organic Gemini sent me tigernuts, granola, flour and their cold pressed horchata drinks. I made a few recipes with their products and I have a few photos on my Instagram .

It's T-3 1/2 hours until my birthday and I'm thinking about cupcakes-I've been thinking about them all week.  I have concentrated on cooking at home versus ordering takeout or eating out over the past couple weeks and I feel at peace. I feel at peace when I eat clean, cook with my own ingredients and listen to my body.  So, I've avoided stopping at my local bakery or grabbing a slice of vegan pizza because I can use that money to buy ingredients that will last me all week. The best recipe for my birthday?  Cupcakes of course!  I originally made these with garbanzo bean flour but you can also use 2 cups of oat flour with 1/2 cup of garbanzo bean flour.  I love oat flour; it's simply rolled oats in your food processor.  I love everything about oats.

I have had a sweet tooth all week!  I made two huge salads with the ingredients I got at the farmer's market but I have wanted sweets all week so my meatless monday recipe is a healthy cupcake/small cake recipe with some cool toppings.  I want to try some soups as soon as the weather gets chilly again so stay tuned for more pumpkin pumpkin pumpkin!  I also want to make my pumpkin cupcakes again and later in October I will be making chocolate chip muffins.  I hope no one minds all the sweet food.

Cupcakes are always a work in progress for me.  I always use healthy flour and sugar and it changes the way the cupcakes taste compared to what one would be used to in a bakery or at a birthday party.  Most of those cupcakes are not vegan and if they are, they may still be baked with white sugar and flour.  I used garbanzo bean flour and agave nectar for this recipe (actually an agave/maple syrup blend that Trader Joe's sells).