Cookbook Challenge Day IIII

Wow, I can't believe we're into the second week of MoFo already! I'm loving reading so many new blogs and cooking even more than usual. Today is cookbook challenge day & I knew it was off to a great start when I pulled Vegan Planet out of the hat & the generator came up with page 457, Apple Cinnamon French Toast. This was a very weekendey start to the week but my husband works on a Saturday so Sunday & Monday are his days off, perfect.

I really really like French toast but I've never actually attempted to make it before. Of course I decided to use my new love, the Grill & Griddle again...I swear they're not paying me to link to it every day! I just love it!

The recipe was very simple but as I'm not very awake in the mornings I managed to throw in the full amount of sugar even though I was halving the recipe. Normally I'd give up on my halving at this point & throw in another 1/2 of everything else but, alas, I was out of applesauce so it wasn't to be. I figured that an extra 1/2 TBS of sugar probably wouldn't do too much harm & I was correct.

It turned out great & it definitely wasn't too sweet, I actually added quite a lot of extra maple syrup after the picture was taken! I would say that next time I might try a different bread, I'm unsure what the perfect bread for French toast would be though, I'm guessing a baguette? I would also use a different apple topping, probably the one Isa used to top these Apple Pie Pancakes, it's thicker, has more flavour and doesn't use oil.

After a morning of grocery shopping & visiting my tattoo artist to see the artwork for my next piece it was time for lunch. I'd pulled The Urban Vegan out of the hat & the generator directed me to page 128, Haricots Verts et Tomates. This French inspired green bean & tomato dish is sweetened, either with sugar or agave - I went with agave, and stewed until the tomatoes break down.

Of course I couldn't just have beans for lunch & as I'd opened a new box of silken tofu to make the French toast I decided to make this omelet from the blog Fat Free Vegan Kitchen. I filled it with vegi bacon, Cheddar Cheezly & chopped tomatoes.

I have to say that the omelet ended up being the star of this meal. Whilst I thought the beans were okay I found the sweetness a little odd, they weren't really to my taste & I probably wouldn't make them again.

Nick took one look at the bean recipe (he's a hater!) and had one of yesterday's burgers for lunch, on a toasted bun with peanut butter, vegi bacon, melted cheese & tomato ketchup. I think he might be a genius!

The third recipe of the day comes from 100 Best Vegan Baking Recipes & the generator threw out the Chewy Chocolate Peppermint Cookies. Awesome. I made a cookie recipe from this book last year during MoFo & it also contains the recipe for my favourite banana bread.

This recipe is a little more involved than a cookie recipe I'll ever end up using regularly, melting chocolate is a bit of a hassle & I prefer to bake with oil rather than margarine, but they were definitely worth it. Because the cookies have both cocoa powder & melted chocolate in the batter they pack a double chocolatey punch to the tastebuds & once the peppermint icing was added they were pretty damn perfect .

Just outa the oven...

The recipe says that it makes 2 dozen cookies but it became apparent that if I was also making them 1 teaspoon in size like the recipe suggests I'd end up with closer to 50 cookies rather than around 20. I decided to make the cookies 2 tsp in size & ended up with 30 cookies, pretty perfect.

Here are the cookies after they were iced with a simple soya milk & sugar icing which is flavoured with peppermint extract.

These were seriously the hardest thing I've ever tried to photograph at night! I'm trying not to hold it against them though because they are delicious!

That's it for day 4 of my cookbook challenge but I'll be back with more random eats tomorrow!