VeganMOFO: Pub Cheddar with Chives

More kitchen experiments with Artisan Vegan Cheese! This book is so fun, seriously. I have been eyeing the Pub Cheddar with Chives for awhile, and finally took the plunge. For some reason, I had it in my head that this would be like a crock cheese (you know, like they used to make you sell in band, back in grade school, to raise money for new uniforms and whatnot? Did you have to do that too? They gave you a catalog of super-processed cheese logs, ew!)  Anyways, this was not a spreadable crock cheese that was bright orange, but instead was a very sliceable and tangy cheese dotted with bites of yummy chives.  This was SO good paired with pears or apples. Also pretty excellent cubed up and mixed into a salad. I was pretty into it.

VeganMOFO: Pear Frangipane Tart

I'm not a huge pear-lover, but I've been getting so many in my CSA lately, that a pie (or two or three!) needed to happen to take care of them. Along comes Vegan Pie in the Sky to the rescue! I went for the Pear Frangipane Tart, not expecting to super-love it, because of my meh feelings about pears, but I was totally wrong! Turns out pears are delicious when baked! And this pie is like whoaa. Nik feels the same way about pears and we were both really in love with this pie. Isa and Terry are awesome and put the recipe for this up on the PPK, for your own getting-rid-of-pears-pleasure! The custard-y-part of this pie is sooo damn good.

(my little sis got me this ceramic baking dish for Christmas last year and I'm in love with it!)

VeganMoFo Day 6-Apple-Pear Bread

This is a childhood favorite bread, that my Mom used to make every summer, with the bounty from our white peach tree in the yard. I needed to use up the ridiculous amount of apples and pears that I have already started accumulating (seriously! Need to make a pie soon!), so I decided to substitute the peaches and make this lovely sweet bread.



Apple-Pear Bread (makes 2 loaves)

Ingredients:
5 cups flour
1 cup sugar
1 cup brown sugar
2 TBS baking powder
2 tsp salt
6 TBS vegetable oil
2 1/2 cups soy milk
2 egg replacer (I used ener-g)
2 cups chopped apples and pears
2 tsp vanilla extract

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 F. Mix dry ingredients together in a (very)large bowl. Add remaining wet ingredients and mix gently. Bake in two greased loaf pans at 350 F for 1 hour or until toothpick inserted comes out clean. This is a really, really moist bread, so I usually refrigerate it so it lasts longer!

VeganMoFo Day 6: Plum-Pear Muffins

I have had some pears and plums sitting around for almost two weeks now and they were very near rotten, so I had to do something PRONTO with them. Muffins it is! They are pear-plum with an (accidently) candied topping of almonds and walnuts. YUM. I based the recipe off of Amy Argh's Blueberry Muffins (because those are my most favorite muffins in the world!). This is what I did:

In a large bowl combine:

1 cups all purpose flour
1/2 cup oats
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp baking powder

Then mix in:

1/3 cup vegetable oil
2 ENER-G eggs
1/3 cup unsweetened soy milk

Mix it all together, and then fold in 1 cup mix of pears and plums (add about a TBS of water if dry)

Spoon this into lined muffin tins, and then in a smaller bowl with a fork, mix:

1/4 cup Earth Balance
3 TBS sugar
3 TBS slivered almonds
3 TBS walnuts

Sprinkle the mix over the muffins and pop in into a 400 degree preheated oven for 25 minutes.

Let cool FULLY before removing from pan or they will completely fall apart (ahem, this may have happened to me). Also, I completely forgot to add the flour to the topping part, but it was a happy accident resulting in a super-addictive candied nut topping.