Peanut Butter Cookie Monster

I love dessert.  I love eating dessert.  I love the idea of making my own dessert creations.  Truth be told, however, I rarely actually do that.  I would much rather search for a recipe, be inspired by a blog post, or buy a cookbook by someone who is clearly more experienced than I, and avoid being disappointed.  You’d think, as someone with a science background, that the science behind baking would intrigue me, but...tis not so.    

Luckily, I got two vegan dessert cookbooks for Christmas:  My Sweet Vegan by Hannah Kaminsky and The Joy of Vegan Baking by Colleen Patrick-Goudreau.  I have to say that one of my favorite things about both of these books is all the pictures!  They make the recipes so much more mouthwatering and memorable.    

I was also elated to be gifted with a Kitchen Aid food processor from my parents.  So, the first thing I did was make peanut butter.  This is good for a number of reasons.  First, I can’t control myself around an entire jar of peanut butter, so now I can make limited quantities.  Second...um...I like peanut butter?  I’m not sure why I said there were a number of reasons, peanut butter just rocks.  

   

Anyway, after making my peanut butter, I was flipping through My Sweet Vegan and found the peanut butter cookie recipe.  The best part, they are made with red lentils...not only did I have them in my pantry, but it would make them gluten free!!  

So, you’ll have to get the book yourself if you want to try them, but I will tell you that I woke up bright and early this morning before my yoga class to make them, and they are awesome.  I am pretty sensitive to the bean flour taste, but you can’t taste it even a little in these cookies; they are chewy and peanut buttery and even better than I thought they would be!  I didn’t have parchment paper, so I just used a bare ungreased baking sheet and removed them soon after taking them out of the oven so they wouldn’t stick.  I suggest flattening them a little before baking so they have that flat peanut butter cookie look.  I skipped that on the first batch and they weren’t as pretty.          

Peanut-Plus Cookies  

Nutrition Information:  112.8 Calories; 5.5g Total Fat;  0.9g Saturated Fat;  0.0mg Cholesterol;  11.7g Carbohydrates;  1.1g Fiber;  3.3g Protein

These were perfect with a nice glass of unsweetened soymilk (sweetened with english toffee flavored liquid stevia).  I had them for breakfast :)  You might want to save them for dessert, but I couldn’t wait until then.

So that’s it for the food.  My holiday was fine, kind of boring, although every single gift I received was fabulous, I feel quite spoiled this year.  I also got Veganomicon and Great Chefs Cook Vegan, both of which I am excited about.  Actually about 95% of my gifts were food related, so I’m sure they will be popping up on here in one way or another!  

I'm going to dinner at my friend's house tomorrow and I offered to bring two appetizers, because they are having non-vegan potato leek soup for dinner.  I'm thinking stuffed mushrooms, any ideas for a second app?

I hope everyone had (or is having, I don’t think Hanukkah is over yet?) a great holiday!  I’ll be able to catch up on everyone’s blogs soon, if I haven’t already...I feel so behind!