Coffee Cupcakes with Whiskey Frosting!

This is pretty much the same as the Lemon-blah-blah-blah cupcakes... A few differences.


First, pre-heat your oven to 350. Then set up your cupcake tin with the foil cupcake liners. For some reason, the paper ones really, really, really stick. Don't waste your cupcakes on paper liners.

1/2 cup Tofutti Better Than Sour Cream,
2/3 cup vanilla soy milk
1/3 cup canola oil
3/4 cup plus 2 tbsp granulated sugar

Then sift these things together and put into the wet mixture.
1 cup plus 2 tbsp all-purpose flour
2 tbsp cornstarch
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt

Mix it all up and add some Instant Coffee. I like about 3 Tablespoons. You may not. I don't know. Just add until it tastes right. There are no dangerous raw ingredients, like eggs, so just taste it.

Fill your cupcake liners just about 2/3 of the way and bake your cupcakes 20 to 22 minutes and then, transfer 'em to a cooling rack to let cool.

For the frosting, I mix up like 1/4 cup of vegan shortening, a 1/4 cup of vegan cream cheese, and a bit of Earth Balance with a ton of powdered sugar---really all the powdered sugar I can fit into the yummy fats. Then add about a Tablespoon of Jack Daniels. Then add a bit more powdered sugar. Beat the heck out of it.

I cool the cupcakes and the frosting overnight in the fridge, but you may not be able to wait that long. You'll have to let the cupcakes cool a bit, otherwise your frosting will melt and you don't want that.

Yum.

Eat 'em up.

Next time I make them, I'm going to shave some tasty vegan carob and pretend that it's tabacco sprinkles.

Vegan Creamy Cheesy Ham & Peas Pasta

I made something like this years and years ago with prosciutto and actual cream... I can't remember what the recipe was called and my google-fu is failing me, so... Well... Yeah... There's that, then... (Nice intro, right?)

This morning, I was remembering how it tasted and thought I could probably make up a vegan version with the fake ham (http://www.yvesveggie.com/products/detail.php/meatless-ham-slices) that I had left over from my Vegan McMuffins that I made earlier this week (Yum!).

So, I put some pasta on to cook and started prepping my ingredients. I used the same pot to cook up my sauce while my pasta drained in the sink.

I took some finely chopped green onions out of the freezer, then finely minced a clove of garlic and thinly sliced a few slices of that faux ham and sautéed those three things in a mess of Earth Balance butter.

When they were heated through and yummy (really, heat it through so that any sharpness from your garlic is gone), I added some soymilk (I buy those lunch soy milks to cook with, since I do not like drinking the plain kind.), the nutritional yeast, and two slices of fake cheddar cheese (also leftover from the Tasty Vegan McMuffins).

Truth be told, I had to keep adding soymilk to keep the sauce from really firming up... I used about a box and a half total, but started with just the one box.

Then, I tossed in a bag of frozen petite peas. I was going to just use half the bag, but those peas looked so darn tasty that I threw caution to the wind and put 'em all in.

When the peas were done, I put the pasta back in the pot and just stirred it all up.

I served that tastiness up with some ground pepper. White pepper would have been nice. As would have freshly ground pepper, but a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do.

I froze several servings in single serve Ziploc plastic bags to take to RockIt, because she just had a baby and needs food for her freezer!

Ingredients:
1 box of sulfite-free orecchiette pasta
1/4 cup fake butter
1/2 cup green onions, (about 1/2 cup)
1 small bag of frozen petite peas
4 slices fake ham, cut into thin strips
1 1/2 - 2 lunch sized boxes of plain soymilk
3/4 cup Nutritional Yeast
2 slices of vegan cheddar/American cheese
pepper to taste (really, you're not going to need *any* salt here)