Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookie from Joy of Cooking (Update: Good News Monday Edition)

I've made these chocolate chip cookies at least a half-dozen times since quarantine. But when I whipped up a batch yesterday, the feeling of folding in the butter and flour and chips brought with it a sense of new purpose. Now I was baking like I had during "normal" times: for relaxation. For pleasure. Not for stress relief and escape and sugar coma. The results are in: COVID negative. We're elated! Relieved. Grateful. I wonder how many other families received similar news yesterday and how they're feeling. Did they jump into their kitchens and bake cookies?

The roller coaster of emotions we endured while this was all going on was terrifying. And now states (including Missouri) are considering easing restrictions. I hope the virus gets the memo, and surely it has because of course a virus takes direction. I can see it putting on its little coat, fedora hat, grabbing its luggage and just shuffling off into the great unknown. Downtrodden and broken because we, the human hosts--are not going to stand down any longer. We're coming back! 

I've been trying to incorporate whole wheat flour/ground oats or almond flour into as many recipes as I can to extend the use of my all-purpose flour. So far I've only ruined one loaf of bread because my ratio of water wasn't increased enough or something for a proper rise. It became a nice flat bread instead. Waste not, want not.

Use whatever form of chocolate you have on hand here. It can be chopped up chunks, it can be tiny chips, it can be peanut butter chips and chocolate chips. It can be M&Ms--whatever you have on hand that gives you the chocolate jolt you need, use it. This cookie also welcomes any bit of nut you'd like to add as well. 

Here is my modified vegan chocolate chip cookie recipe from Joy of Cooking. 

Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookie 

1 stick Earth Balance butter

1/3 cup sugar

1/3 brown sugar 

1 t. vanilla extract

1 T. ground flax plus 2 T. water and 1 t. olive oil (Flax Egg)

3/4 cup AP flour

1/4 cup whole wheat flour (or sub any kind of flour you have here)

1/2 t. baking soda

1/2 t. salt

1 cup chocolate chips

1/3 cup chopped pecans *optional

Preheat oven to 375. Prep a cookie sheet with parchment paper or light oil. In a bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, salt. Set aside. Prepare flax egg and set aside. In medium mixing bowl, add butter, sugars, extract and mix well. Add flax egg and blend until smooth. Slowly add dry ingredients to butter mixture until all dry flour pieces are incorporated. Then fold in the chocolate and nuts (if using).

Drop by tablespoon onto cookie sheet spaced two inches apart. Place in fridge for twenty minutes. 

Remove and bake for 10-12 minutes or until edges of cookies begin to brown. Freeze any unused dough into round balls for later. 

COVID-19 Hits Home (I will not allow my family to be a "statistic")

This is my sister, Julie. She's the world to me, to my husband, to her husband, to her friends. She's strong, beautiful, brilliant and everything else you'd want in a sister, friend, wife, doggie-mom. Yesterday she called with the news that shook me to my core: her whole house is under 14-day quarantine. It's not pretty. It came on fast. It zapped her energy, the fever--textbook version. The day before she'd been super busy with life: housework, workouts, chatting with me, face-timing with friends, making dinner...just your usual busy "Julie Day." 

In a heap. Crying. Worried. Crying more. Calling/texting my girlfriends, neighbors. 

Hearing my baby sister telling ME: It's going to be okay. No dammit. This virus is insidious and goes from mild to ventilator in a matter of hours. It's effing NOT going to be okay. We pray it WILL be a mild case. . . we bargain, beg and hope for all things to maintain as they are right now.

And testing? What about testing? Good luck with that unless you have A-list status/wealth or some shit. She's getting tested, her doctor ordered it. The results take three days. Three days! 

I'm sick of watching people "march/protest/demand" we Open for Business like this is just another issue of "rights being violated" moment. It's anything but that. It's about supporting ideology over medicine while this country crumbles. It's about sitting comfortably in your ignorance and joining with a chorus of others who subscribe to poisonous political views (and feel righteous and protected while Group Think takes over) when people are dying and our medical system fights to keep others alive. 

To those demonstrating an unwillingness to believe science (I'm married to a scientist)...I become less and less inclined to maintain my "observer" status. I'm furious right now. 

If you aren't part of the solution--you ARE the problem. 

Sewing Face Masks for Healthcare Workers

I am making face masks. I used this tutorial. In the last 24 hours many more face mask tutorials have begun to pop up with a simple Google search. Please note: the CDC has issued a statement regarding the homemade masks here.

I feel helpless, I want to help. So do others. Our very own Missouri Star Quilt Company, Jenny Doan, shared a video face mask tutorial here. 

We are all going through the same unimaginable crisis at once. Our healthcare workers are going to be on the front lines of the brunt of what is to come. I have neighbors and family members who work in healthcare and are now bracing for what is to come. It is terrifying. I am so grateful for each and every one of these brave souls. I am sending them love and appreciation. 

During the days, I spend time at my sewing machine, though I've got the concentration of a hummingbird right now. I've stumbled through knitting and crochet projects in fits and starts. I still manage to get dinner on the table. I did a bit of baking and will share a recipe or two here shortly. 

In the evenings we both try to carve out a little time of zen TV watching--no news! I sit with a project in my lap, hands busy with each stitch.  

From Brene Brown:

"Try to be scared without being scarry."

Vegan Chocolate Chunk Blondies (somehow I must've known it would come to this)

I threw these blondies together as I prepped a big batch of black bean burgers to freeze for later. (Yes, I am food prepping.) Probably made over a dozen batches of these cookies over the past few months. As usual, I took a break from sugary carb-craving in February. Things are much different now. Even though the grass is beginning to green up and my daffodils are blooming, the urge to bake and soothe my soul with comfort foods normally reserved for dark, winter months has returned with a vengeance. 

(As a news-obsessed individual, I'm sure you can guess why.)

My cookbooks lining the kitchen walls are more precious to me than ever right now. I've collected hundreds over the decades. I drop into flea markets looking for Pyrex and instead find myself with a two-dollar cookbook I'd wanted years ago. One more for the collection. Call me crazy, but in my Marie Kondo cleaning frenzy last spring--very few cookbooks left this house. Very. Few.

One of my old stand-by cookbooks, an Alice Medrich classic, stands the test of time.  

Published in 2010, my dog-eared, taped-page and post-it noted guides indicate the cookbook's utility. 

Here's my vegan version blondie--and don't bake these in an 8" square pan. Use instead a rectangle if you can. Mine is 10 x 6" pan I purchased for eight bucks at the grocery store. Once you add the batter to the pan, you may look at it and think: this cannot be right--there's barely enough batter to cover the bottom of the pan. Trust the recipe, they bake up beautifully. And after a night in the fridge, even better. 

Vegan Blondies (adapted)

3/4 cup unbleached AP flour

1/4 cup whole wheat flour

1/2 t. baking powder

1/4 t. fine sea salt

1 stick vegan butter

3/4 cup light brown sugar

1 t. vanilla extract

2 T. ground flax, plus 3 T. water, 1 t. olive oil (vegan egg)

2/3 cup walnuts or pecans

1/2 cup chocolate chunks

Preheat oven to 350. Line pan with parchment paper, lightly spray.

Mix dry ingredients together, set aside.

Place small saucepan over low heat, add butter and sugar and stir until butter melts and sugar is mostly dissolved. Remove from heat. Add vanilla extract and flax egg. Mix well. Add dry ingredients to butter mixture. Mix just until flour is mostly incorporated. Add half nuts and half chocolate. Spread batter in pan, then sprinkle remaining nuts and chocolate over. Bake for about 20 minutes or just until the sides begin to turn golden. Let cool completely, then cut into squares and store in fridge.

With all the bleak AF stuff out in the world lately, my own version of self-care includes a nice vitamin rich juice first thing in the morning. I've had my juicer for a dozen or so years now. It's come in very handy lately (even though it sat literally unused for about eight of these). If you think, "Hey, nice blondie recipe, but then juicing...how's that work?" Um, resistance is futile. I will always have chocolate in my life in one form or another.

This is my favorite juicing recipe:

1 beet

1 carrot

1 celery stick

1 knob ginger

1 granny smith apple

juice of half a lemon

When I can, I make enough for two small pints (one before I eat oatmeal for breakfast, another to drink later in the day--you know, around three in the afternoon when I'd rather scarf down a whole package of M&Ms). I've been a believer in juicing for ages...has it helped? I have no damned idea. It makes me feel good. So yes. It "helps".

Also been intermittent fasting. So basically the day goes like this:

Eat between nine and five. Stop. 

Went to my local WM on Tuesday, just as a precaution, trying to get my hands on bleach cleaner. Wow. I happened to turn the corner and spotted an out of place single bottle left. I was like: "Thank you retail-eagle-eye for helping me spot the thing that wasn't like the other things."