The World's Best Vegan Pancake Recipe

This is an adaptation of the Candle 79 recipe, which calls for white flour, a substance banned in my kitchen. My use of whole wheat did not detract from these pancakes awesome fluffiness. I also opted for a soy-free version.

Combine:
1.5 cups whole wheat flour
2 tbsp baking powder
1 tbsp raw sugar
1 tsp sea salt
1 tsp cinammon
1 tbsp Ener-G egg replacer (dry, not combined with water)

Mix well, then add:
1/4 cup Earth Balance spread, melted**
2 cups almond milk
1 tsp vanilla extract

Use a whisk to fold ingredients together until fully combined into a thick batter.

Spray a nonstick pan with cooking spray over medium heat. Wait a minute or two for pan to heat up, then ladle a nice healthy dollop of batter into the pan. You can do huge IHOP style pancakes or several smaller silver-dollar type. You will know it is time to flip when bubbles have formed and then popped around the edges: about 2-3 min per side.

Enjoy topped with maple or agave syrup and fresh fruits.

** I use the Soy Free variety of this excellent, chemical-free and hydrogynated oil-free brand. You could use any butter substitute but try to avoid those laden with chemicals. I melt mine in a little dish in the toaster oven.

Raw Vegan Lasagna

This "lasagna," another recipe adapted from the Candle 79 Cookbook, does not require pasta-- or cooking! It does require a food processor, and nutritional yeast, which creates a cheese flavor and also is a massive powerhouse of B vitamins. Also, all of the vegetables are currently in season and came from the farmer's market!

The Parts:
Cashew Cheese
Soak 3 cups of raw cashews in water for 6-8 hours. Rinse and drain.
Add:
2 tbsp nutritional yeast
1 tbsp lemon juice
1 tbsp olive oil
2 tbsp water
Process in food processor until smooth (it will take a while.)
Add:
6 basil leaves and a tbsp parsley, chopped fine, mix well

Tomato Sauce
2 large tomatoes
1/4 onion
1 tbsp olive oil
1 basil leaf
Salt and pepper
Cut the veggies into large chunks and pulse 3-4 times in the food processor

Pesto
1 cup basil leaves
1 cup fresh parsley
1 clove garlic, sliced
1 tsp lemon juice
2 tbsp nutritional yeast
2 tbsp olive oil
Salt and pepper
1 cup pine nuts**
Place all in food processor and puree.
** I couldn't find pine nuts in my neighborhood so I used a melange of raw sunflower seeds and raw pumpkin seeds, about a half cup total, and it didn't seem to detract in the slightest.

Raw Vegetables
2-3 big tomatoes, sliced
2-3 zucchini or yellow squash, halved and sliced very thin length-wise
1/2 onion, chopped, and soaked in a tbsp of olive oil and a juice of half a lemon, with a dash of salt and pepper
(The original recipe calls also for sliced mushrooms but I had none so I skipped it.)

The process:
Create a tower:
Spoon of tomato sauce
3 slices squash
Dollop (heaping tbsp)  of cashew cheese
Slice of tomato
Spoon of onion
Repeat once.
Top with another spoon of tomato sauce and a healthy dollop of pesto.

One squash and one large tomato makes about 2 "lasagne" servings. I had enough "cheese" and pesto for 4 servings total. The towers will be probably be a little messy and precarious.

This seems complicated but in actuality it took maybe 25 min because basically all of the "cooking" consists of using the food processor. It was even yummier the next day.

Vegan Chocolate Mousse

This is another one from the Candle 79 Cookbook, which is super simple and quite decadent. In my usual fashion, I didn't totally stick to the recipe.

The original recipe calls for:
2.5 cups semisweet dark chocolate chips
1 cup soy milk
1 lb silken tofu
3/4 cup maple syrup

I used:
1 70-percent cocoa chocolate bar (about a cup of chocolate)
1 cup soy mlik
1 14-oz package of silken tofu
1/2 cup agave

Either way, what you do is dissolve the chocolate in the soy milk over a double boiler. Add the mixture to the tofu and sweetener, blend in the blender for about 3 min. Pour into cups and chill in the fridge overnight.

The whole process takes about 20 min, tops, and the result is a super-yummy and relatively low-fat dessert!

Black Bean Burgers

This dish is from the Candle 79 cookbook, which contains recipes made at the very upscale vegan restaurant Candle 79. Most of the recipes in this book either A. Would take me all day to make or B. Involve ingredients which are difficult to find and probably expensive. This was one of the simpler recipes (still much more time-consuming than my usual cooking), and the only things I omitted were a piece of kombu (sea vegetable) and I used regular chile powder instead of chipotle. 

It requires:
1.5 cups dried black beans
1.5 cups brown rice
1 cup raw pumpkin seeds (pepitas)
1 onion
Paprika, chili powder, olive oil, salt

Soak the beans overnight, drain, re-cover with water, and add a tsp of chili powder, 1 chopped onion, and a sprinkle of salt. Cook 1.5 hrs in a regular pot or about 15 min in the pressure cooker.

Meanwhile add 3 c water and a pinch of salt to the brown rice, cook 45 min in a regular pot or about 20 in the pressure cooker.

Saute the pumpkin seeds in olive oil , pinch of salt, and a tsp of paprika (the recipe called for "smoked paprika" so I added a splash of liquid smoke flavor) about 5 min on medium heat until browned.

Combine these 3 ingredients in a bowl and mix well. Take half of the mixture and puree it in the food processor, then mix it again. You should now have a not-too-goopy mix you can form into patties. Make patties about 3 inches wide and one inch thick and fry in olive oil, about 2 min on each side. Baking is also an option: grease a pan with olive oil and bake at 350, 15 min per side.

I served these initially on whole wheat buns with the traditional lettuce and ketchup. A more interesting choice would be to top them with salsa and avocado.