Nov 28

cranberry pecan sheet cake

This past Thanksgiving weekend I was down for the count.

Knee brace. Crutches. Kitty.

I did something dumb to my knee on Wednesday night and I didn’t leave the apartment again until this morning. That’s 4.5 days. I was losing my mind. Even the cats were like okay, enough, get out of here!

I’m feeling much better now, though. Forced rest will do that to you.

Despite the pain, Moose and I were able to throw together a nice Thanksgiving dinner. He did most of the work and I did most of the eating. I needed the extra calories to heal my knee, you see. Sebastian told me that sweet potato casserole has secret healing properties.

My stomach is full from all those leftovers, but I’m still thinking about cake. What else is new?

Last month my friend and I went on a work adventure to a magical land called Illinois.

That’s Kelly. She’s pretty awesome.

I stumbled upon an old issue of Midwest Living in our hotel and flipped through it as we watched The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills prepared for the next day’s meeting.

Inside I discovered a recipe for a Cranberry Layer Cake that had won an award and, more importantly, the key to my heart. I combined the ingredients from that recipe with the ingredients from Amy Sedaris’ vanilla cupcake recipe, veganized the whole thing and ta-da! A sheet cake was born.

Cranberry Pecan Sheet Cake
Cake recipe adapted from Amy Sedaris via Epicurious
and Midwest Living

Printable recipe

Cake ingredients:

3/4 cup Earth Balance Natural Buttery Spread
1 1/2 cups refined sugar
1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce
1 1/4 cups vanilla almond milk
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon sea salt
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon distilled white vinegar
2 cups cranberries, fresh or frozen, chopped
1/2 cup toasted pecans, chopped
2 tablespoons orange zest

Frosting ingredients:

2 cups confectioners’ sugar
1/3 cup dairy-free cream cheese, softened (I used Trader Joe’s This is Not a Tub of Cream Cheese)
1/3 cup Earth Balance Natural Buttery Spread, softened
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat your oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit. In a large bowl, mix together the Earth Balance and refined sugar on low-medium speed until combined.

Stir in the applesauce, almond milk and vanilla extract.

In a separate bowl, whisk together the baking powder, baking soda, sea salt and flour.

Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix on low-medium speed until fully combined.

Stir in the vinegar and then gently fold in the cranberries

pecans

and orange zest.

Pour the batter into a 9×13″ pan

and bake for 25-30 minutes, or until a toothpick can be inserted and removed cleanly.

Allow the cake to cool completely before adding the frosting. To make the frosting, place all ingredients in a bowl and mix on low-medium speed until combined. Spread the frosting on the cake

and take a big bite!

Then take another big bite. And another. Now another.

Nov 21

earth balance coupon winners

Harrison wants you guys to know that he really wanted to give Earth Balance coupons to every single one of you. He loves you all so much. But alas, only four could be chosen, and those four are:

Vegan Wheekers

Nicole D

Lara

Kim

Congrats, winners! Please shoot me an email at Nikki@TheTolerantVegan.com with your address and Harrison and I will get those coupons out asap!

Nov 18

friday five and some butter love

Oh, hi. It’s me again. I’m reaching out to you twice in one day! Is this a record?

In addition to the super awesome Teal Cat Project news below, I want to say thank you to Robin from The Hungry Birdie for featuring me in her Friday Five today!

Robin is a super cute vegan living in Ottawa and her blog is GORGEOUS. She’s also a law student and it blows my mind that she is able to juggle everything in her life so beautifully. Please head over there and check out The Hungry Birdie. It will become one of your favorite blogs, I promise.

And finally, a big giant THANK YOU to the folks at Made Just Right for putting the spotlight on my vegan raspberry butter today.

I know you’ve already seen the butter if you follow this blog, but you should still go over to Made Just Right because they’re giving away free Earth Balance to a lucky commenter! I love free stuff, don’t you?

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend! I’ll be in a long line at Trader Joe’s, stocking up on Tofurkey* Day ingredients!

*I do not plan to actually buy Tofurkey. I’ve never had Tofurkey. Have you? It intimidates me.

Nov 18

teal cat project

Happy Friday, y’all! Thank you so much for your kind blog birthday wishes! I love you guys. Seriously.

I have something wonderful to share with you today. Drumroll please…

The Teal Cat Project is back and just in time for holiday gift giving! Woohoo!

The Teal Cat Project was started earlier this year by Isa Chandra Moskowitz, Denise Muller and Anna Dorfman as a way to raise funds for feral cat organizations.

Teal cats are spray painted vintage ceramic cats, adorned with a numbered tag with the Teal Cat Project logo. Like fur cats, teal cats are each wild and unique. You can choose from a kitty that is perfect for your trinket shelf, a larger one more suited for the mantle, or a big, beautiful centerpiece kitty.

This time around, funds from Teal Cat sales will go to Alley Cat Allies.

Click here to read all about this wonderful organization.

If you’re not into kitty tchotchkes, they also have t-shirts and plush kitties for sale, or you can make a donation.

Get a kitty, give a kitty, save a kitty.

Nov 16

chocolate orange cupcakes – and the tolerant vegan turns 1!

Chocolate Orange Cupcakes with Orange Frosting or Orange-Bourbon Glaze

One year ago today, I sat down and typed out the first post for The Tolerant Vegan.

Can you believe it’s been a whole year?

I want to say thank you to everyone who clicks over here to my side of the interwebs every now and then. Thank you for taking a moment out of your busy lives to spend looking at my cats and my frosting and my rants about hockey. Thank you for your comments and your e-mails. I had no idea that I’d make so many new friends through food and I’m grateful every day that I have the chance to connect with so many awesome people. Thank you for welcoming me into your worlds and your stomachs.

To celebrate this happy day, the kind folks at Earth Balance have sent over some coupons to give away to a few lucky readers, just in time for your holiday meal planning. To enter, just leave a comment on this post by midnight on Sunday, 11/20.

Harrison will choose four commenters at random on 11/21 to receive a couple of coupons via snail mail.

Now let’s talk cupcakes.

I saved this Chocolate Orange Cupcake recipe for this special occasion. And because I just couldn’t settle on one topping, I’m going to talk about both. One one hand, we have a fluffy orange frosting recipe that I adapted from the lemon frosting I used earlier this year.

On the other hand, we have an Orange-Bourbon Glaze from Boulder Locavore.

Why pick just one? Exactly.

Chocolate Orange Cupcakes with Orange Frosting or Orange-Bourbon Glaze

Cake recipe from Chef Chloe Coscarelli via Veg News
Glaze recipe from Boulder Locavore
Makes 12 cupcakes
Printable recipe

Cake ingredients:

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 cup vegan refined sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon sea salt
3/4 cup orange juice
1/2 cup canola oil
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 tablespoon orange zest

Orange Frosting ingredients:

6 cups vegan confectioners’ sugar
1/2 cup Earth Balance Natural Buttery Spread, softened
2 teaspoons orange zest
6 tablespoons fresh squeezed orange juice

Bourbon-Orange Glaze ingredients:

1 cup vegan confectioners’ sugar
1 tablespoon bourbon
2 tablespoons fresh squeezed orange juice

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, cocoa, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt.

In a separate bowl, whisk together the orange juice, canola oil, vanilla and orange zest.

Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and stir until fully combined.

Fill each cupcake liner about 3/4 of the way to the top and bake for 18-20 minutes, until a toothpick can be inserted and removed cleanly.

Place the cupcakes on a wire rack to cool.

Now you have a very important decision to make. Are you going to frost your cupcakes, or are you going to pour glaze all over them? Or are you going to be like me and do both?

If you’re going the frosting route, make the frosting by simply combining all ingredients in a large bowl and mixing on low-medium speed until fully combined. Wait until the cupcakes are completely cool and then top with frosting.

If you want to use the glaze on your cupcakes, make the glaze by whisking together all ingredients

While the cupcakes are still warm, spoon the glaze on top. Or do what I do and fully dunk each cupcake in the glaze.

Whichever option you go with, I promise you won’t be disappointed.

Nov 12

chocolate-covered cherry cookies

It’s a quiet day in TTV land. Court Kitty is perched by the bathroom window, watching the squirrels dig through the neighbor’s garden.

Sebastian has claimed the camera case as his bed

and Harrison is watching from up high, the King of the Wok, looking over us all and laughing at how silly we are for doing anything other than napping

I’ve spent the morning thinking about Kentucky. In just under six weeks, Moose and I will be heading to the Bluegrass State for the holidays and I can’t wait.

These cookies were inspired by my mom and her love for chocolate-covered cherries. Chocolate-covered cherries are the one gift that she is always guaranteed to receive on Christmas morning. When I was a kid, I didn’t really understand the appeal. Soggy cherries swimming in some kind of weird gel, dipped in chocolate? No thanks.

But now that this traditional candy has been transformed into a chewy cookie, I’m totally on the chocolate cherry bandwagon.

So preheat your oven, friends! It’s cookie time!

Chocolate-Covered Cherry Cookies
Recipe adapted from Taste of Home
Makes approximately 24 cookies
Printable recipe

Ingredients

1/2 cup Earth Balance Natural Buttery Spread
1 cup refined sugar
1/2 ripe banana, mashed
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/4 teaspoon sea salt
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
24 dark morello cherries in syrup
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips
1/2 cup non-dairy vanilla milk (I used soy)
3 teaspoons morello cherry juice, from jar

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit and place the Earth Balance Natural Buttery Spread and refined sugar in a large bowl. Mix on low-medium speed until fluffy.

Add in the mashed banana and vanilla

In a separate bowl, whisk together the all-purpose flour, cocoa, salt, baking powder and baking soda.

Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients, mixing on medium speed until fully combined. The cookie batter will be pretty thick.

Scoop the batter onto a baking pan and scoop the cherries out of their jar.

Make a thumbprint in the center of each cookie, then place one cherry in each thumbprint

In a small pot over low heat, melt the chocolate chips and non-dairy milk, stirring constantly. Once melted, remove from heat and stir in the cherry juice.

Spoon 1 teaspoon of the melted chocolate over top of each cookie

and bake the cookies for 10-12 minutes

Remove the cookies from the oven, spoon another teaspoon of chocolate over each cookie and allow them to cool to room temperature.

Oh yeah. That’s the stuff.

Nov 04

banana cake revisited

Happy Friday, peeps! Who wants cake?

Remember that Banana Cake with Coconut Cream Cheese Frosting that appeared here on TTV back in March?

Well, it’s making its debut over at One Green Planet today AND in even more exciting news, I have a couple of photos to share with you from super awesome readers who gave this recipe a try.

Such beautiful cakes from Cindy

and from Elena!

Guys, you have got to get in on this. I promise this cake is a winner!

Thanks so much to Cindy and Elena for sharing your photos. It’s still hard to believe that anyone actually makes the recipes that I share on this blog. Thanks for being so wonderful.

Nov 03

agave nectar ketchup

I eat a lot of ketchup. Catsup? Ketchup? However you say it, I eat a lot of it. I love it. I love ketchup just as much as Sebastian loves to face-plant into his brother’s booty floof. Which is to say, I love it a whole lot.

When I stumbled upon this recipe over at The Kitchn, I knew I had to try it. It’s a different kind of ketchup. It’s sweet and tangy all at once. It’s not super salty. There’s zero high fructose corn syrup involved. And there’s molasses in there. Who doesn’t love a little bit of molasses?

I’d love to try this ketchup with these fries. Oh man.

And if you bottle this ketchup and give it as a holiday gift, everyone will think that you’re super fancy. I know I would.

Agave Nectar Ketchup
Recipe from The Kitchn

Ingredients:

1 28 ounce can of whole tomatoes
1 medium onion, chopped
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon tomato paste
1/2 cup agave nectar
1 tablespoon molasses
1/2 cup apple cider vinegar
1/2 teaspoon sea salt

Place the onion and oil in a large pan and cook the onions on medium heat until they soften a bit, around 8 minutes.

While the onions are cooking, pour the can of whole tomatoes into a blender and blend ‘em up

Grab your tomato paste, agave nectar, molasses, apple cider vinegar, sea salt

and blended tomatoes and pour it all into the pan.

Simmer over low-medium heat for about an hour, stirring occasionally. You’ll see the mixture start to thicken.

Remove from heat, allow to cool for about 10 minutes, then puree in batches in your food processor.

Place the ketchup in a container and let it cool for two hours before using.

From The Kitchn: will keep for up to 3 weeks if refrigerated in a well-sealed container.