your goose is probably only half-baked at this point

I made this recipe as a treat to take to the first screening I attended of Star Wars IX: Rise of Skywalker , which I enjoyed far  more than I'd thought I would (translation: I loved it, shrieked several times with joy, laughed, and at the end, I sobbed because I'm just a hot mess sometimes, whaddya want).  I saw the movie with a bunch of coworkers, so of course I offered to share my snack with them, only to discover that New Englanders don't know what puppychow/dog food/muddy buddies  is.  Like ... how?   Did y'all never go to day camp in the summer?  Vacation Bible School?  4H? (The answer: no.  And if they did, this wasn't served.  I and all of my midwestern acquaintances are horrified , I tell you! Horrified.) I'm uploading this recipe because a) the original recipe  makes twice as much as will fit in my largest mixing bowl and y'all I don't need that much of this treat lying around my house; b) I really don't like having to do me...

I do love a good challenge, and making things that are a) vegan, b) gluten-free, and c) still delicious is one of my favorite  challenges out there.  I originally started adapting this recipe  so I could bake for a vegan colleague, but then I found out that he's allergic to both peanuts and chickpeas, so that's me back to the drawing board for him, but as a nice side-effect, I now have a recipe for AMAZING chocolate chip cookies that are approximately 200% less a pain in my ass than regular chocolate chip cookies. And they're full of chickpeas and peanut butter, so they're ... actually sort of good for you?  Will wonders never cease. The only real difference between these and the usual chocolate chip cookies of the world is that they're not at all improved by dipping them in milk (I personally like them better with a cup of unsweetened green tea than I do with a cup of milk) and they're better cooled than warm straight from the oven.  They're also irresi...

... and it's vegan, no less! (Shamelessly ganked from  this recipe for chocolate silk pie , which was shamelessly adapted from  this young lady's recipe , but I've never had much shame about anything, so it's fine.  Sets me up great to shamelessly make this frosting, smear it all over some  vegan wedding cake , and eat it with my bare hands.) ... and I'm not even vegan, wtf. Come to the Dark Side We Have Dark Chocolate Frosting Ingredients 16-20 oz silk tofu 2 tsp cocoa powder 2 Tbsp coffee liqueur OR vanilla extract Pinch salt 1 Tbsp sugar 12 oz vegan dark chocolate* (if you can get your mitts on some  Taza chocolate , you'll have a REAL treat) Instructions In a food processor, combine tofu, cocoa powder, liqueur/vanilla, salt, and sugar. Process until smooth. In a double-boiler (or SUPER carefully in the microwave?  I've heard this works for people, but it has never worked reliably for me) melt your dark chocolate. Pour the melted c...

You know that vegan cooking has arrived when a pair of non-vegans do a cake taste-test for their wedding cake and decide that the vegan cake option is, hands-down, the BEST cake out of all the options.  Like, nobody cares that it's vegan, so much as they care that it's just plain delicious.  Which it is, really -- dense and not too sweet, but very vanilla-y, a perfect offset to the sweetness of  the best-ever cream cheese vanilla buttercream frosting  I smeared all over it.  Oh, and because it's so dense, we had no problems at all with the wedding cake trying to tip over, despite being three layers tall, made taller by the amount of frosting I shoved between the layers. Yup. The groom's cake , on the other hand, was completely, unnecessarily vegan, frosted with a vegan tofu chocolate frosting that defies description, it's so tasty.  One batch of the stuff was enough to frost 6 cupcakes and thickly frost the moustache cake and still have probably half ...

I was looking for a Farmers' Market that sells local eggs and accidentally discovered that a) Somerville, MA, which is next door to where I live, is the birthplace of Marshmallow Fluff , b) this year (2017) marks the 100th birthday of Marshmallow Fluff, and c) to celebrate, the Union Square Farmers' Market is hosting an entire event dedicated to the celebration of Marshmallow Fluff. Part of that event is a cooking contest.  I can't NOT enter something like that, come ON. This is my entry. Gimme S'more'a that Fluffernutter Pie Ingredients Marshmallow fluff, divided: 1/2 cup + 1/2 cup + 1/2 cup = 1 1/2 cups total 13 graham crackers 16 oz silk tofu 1/2 cup unsalted smooth peanut butter 2 tsp cocoa powder 1 Tbsp white sugar Pinch salt 2 oz milk (I used soy, but I don't think it matters) 12 oz dark chocolate chips The patience of a saint (required; see * below) Instructions - Break 3 1/4 graham crackers into their small rectangle pieces and...

Today is Memorial Day, and also my partner's and my 12-year wedding anniversary.  It's also 50* and drizzling outside because apparently the great state of Massachusetts likes giving the unholy middle finger to anyone who wants to have a cook-out on a holiday in late May, how dare you even think that's a doable thing. My partner made me some amazing Bespin Eggs for brunch, and of course that put enough calories into my system for me to want to go for a "quick walk" (read: 3-mile trot) afterwards, and because it's Massachusetts out there, we ended up getting well misted for the whole thing and came home cold and wet. Hot cocoa to the rescue, for that!  I made this up as I went along, and oh my stars 'n garters is it good.  Doesn't make a grand amount of cocoa, but just enough to warm body and soul. Creature Comfort Hot Cocoa Ingredients 1 2/3 cup milk 2 Tbsp unsweetened baking cocoa 2 Tbsp white sugar 1 Tbsp dark chocolate chips 2 tsp Amar...

I love pancakes, but man they do not love me back.  Probably because they're nothing but oil and sugar with a bit of processed flour, combined with an egg and fried in butter -- can't imagine  why a human stomach might look at that and say, "Uh, no.  Please and thank you no ." But hey, if you eat pancakes with a veggie-heavy smoothie, they won't kill you as much, and that's awesome because it means you get to eat pancakes, which is just how some weekend days need to go. The name comes from that scene in the original Star Wars  where Luke comes into Leia's holding cell aboard the first Death Star  and tears off his helmet, declaring in his adorably bratty way, "I'm Luke Skywalker!  I'm here to rescue you!"  It must have been humid on that set (I'm betting from the water in the trash compactor, but try not to think about that too hard) because the way his hair fluffs out all over the goddamn place as he's delivering his heroic ...

My partner and I went to a restaurant a few weeks back and for dessert, we got a slice of something called the "Imposible." It was advertised as "chocolate cake with custard drizzled with caramel." As it turns out, that's like telling someone about Niagara Falls by saying "It's some rocks with water falling off it." This thing was ACTUALLY chocolate cake made with cinnamon and cayenne pepper, topped with a thick vanilla custard, dusted over with cinnamon, and drizzled in rich warm caramel sauce. We each took a bite and melted a little because holy heavens it was good. "I know how to make this," I told my partner. "Really?" he said. "This is a thing?" "No," I said (around a mouthful of cake, I wasn't about to let conversation rob me of my fair half of the slice), "but I can make this." (Side-note: my other superpowers include being able to nap anywhere, diving way too deep way too fast in...

I was in the grocery buying the stuff I needed to make Thanksgiving dinner and I happened upon a display of Milano cookies, which are one of my partner's favorite cookies. And, since I'd left him outside to mind the bikes while I battled the other shoppers who were all in my way begone the lot of you , I figured it'd be a nice treat to buy him some of the flavors he'd not yet gotten to try. Among the flavors available were mocha and lemon, both of which I purchased. We've not yet cracked into the mocha, as of the writing of this post, but we got into the lemon cookies as soon as we got home and lord preserve me they were stupid good. I mean, lemon and chocolate? Not what I usually think of, or thought of, but now ... Mmph. The following night, we fell asleep on the sofa together until 3:30 am, and because we showered when we woke up, I was all kinds of awake and feisty, so I made the lemon curd used as frosting for this dish. By the time we went to bed (like ...

Back when the Star Wars  prequels were coming out, my father -- who is not a Star Wars  fan, by the way -- got ALL excited because KFC had a drink-cup shaped like R2D2, and dragged the entire family out for dinner at KFC just so he could get the drink-cup. I didn't get the appeal at the time, and strongly disliked that cup, because one night, when I was wandering around in the dark, scared, with a flashlight, its shadow projected onto the rocking chair in the living room and gave the illusion of a man sitting in the rocking chair, only there wasn't a man and it terrified me and oh by the way I was a complete and utter chicken  when I was younger. Except I still am now, never mind. *cough* So I've now seen the orig-trig and have a deeper understanding of why my dad wanted that R2D2 cup. Artoo is just a little bucket of sass, he's legitimately the only  reason Luke survives half the stuff he survives, and (unlike me) he isn't afraid of anything . He's easily m...

I got a bee in my (Easter) bonnet yesterday to make a new chocolate recipe. Cakes and brownies are nice, but I needed some variety, you know? So I googled for "best chocolate recipe" and lo and behold, the first one I clicked had stuff I could get 'hold of easily and looked DELICIOUS. Fast-forward to Friday night, biking home from work. "I need to stop at the market and buy Hawaiian bread," I tell my long-suffering (but very well-fed) partner, fully expecting "why" to be his response. Instead, I got, "Okay," mostly because Hawaiian bread is delicious and the suggestion to have it in the house is not likely to ever meet with resistance from him. Only Market Basket didn't have  any Hawaiian bread. They had Sweet Bread, which smelled like Hawaiian bread but weighed considerably more. I bought some, along with two hands of bananas, a small thing of heavy whipping cream, and a carton of cherry tomatoes, then - in an act of extraordinary s...

Because if you eat this and you don't  fall instantly and irreparably in love, you're probably missing a heart. Or a soul. Probably both. Love Potion Hot Fudge Sundaes Ingredients Brownies 1/2 cup flour (I use whole wheat, but don't be fooled, nothing healthy about this recipe) 1/2 cup unsweetened baking cocoa 1/4 tsp baking powder 1/4 tsp salt (I totally eyeball the salt) 1/2 cup olive oil 2 eggs 1 cup sugar 5 tbsp coffee liqueur Hot Fudge Sauce 1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, which you will melt 1 1/2 cup sugar 1/4 cup unsweetened baking cocoa 5 oz evaporated milk 1/2 tsp vanilla Toppings Vanilla ice cream Pecans/walnuts, crushed Maraschino cherry (took three tries to spell "maraschino" correctly, yeesh) Instructions Brownies - Preheat oven to 350*F and grease a 9x9 square baking dish. - In a cereal bowl, whisk together flour, cocoa, baking powder and salt. Set aside. - In a small mixing bowl, using the same whisk, beat olive oil and ...

I found  this recipe  on a young lady's blog and decided to give it a go. It's a chocolate pie made with tofu, which is terribly exciting all by its onesie, but the fact that it  is THE chocolate pie is significant. You see, I've made lots of chocolate desserts over the years I've been cooking. Cakes, pies, puddings, shakes, drinks, ganaches, chocolate-covered you-name-its ... all kinds. This blows all of them out of the water. Way, way out of the water. We cut 1/8th slices and they were too rich for us - we'll cut smaller slices next time. Those are really small servings , and yet they'll be satisfying. (Also, it's made with tofu, which means there's a nod to healthiness in it, but don't be confused - this is a sinful, decadent adventure into hedonism that will make Zachary Comstock frown enthusiastically in your general direction see if it doesn't.) THE Ultimate Chocolate Pie Ingredients 16 oreos (you will need 6 more later) 3 ...