Sesame chicken take two....

Today was probably the most productive day I've had ever.  I literally did not stop moving from 7 am until 7:30 pm.  I moved furniture, hung pictures, vacuumed, mopped, pulled weeds in the garden, walked the dogs... and of course did some cooking to get ready for the week. 

 

On the agenda today was:

Bread

Breadcrumbs

Granola

Cookies

Sesame chicken

 

The bread and the granola is not that exciting so I won't waste too much time on them.  Although I will say that the smell of fresh baked bread is one of the best things in the world. 

 

After that I made some breadcrumbs.  I want to make mashed cauliflower and meatloaf for dinner later this week.  Last time I made meatloaf it was unprocessed except for the breadcrumbs... so this time I want to fix that.  I had half a loaf of Italian herb bread leftover from last week so I cut it up and poured melted butter with pepper over it.  Baked for 15 minutes on 350 and I now have homemade breadcrumbs!!!  Yay.

 

Then onto the yummy part... the cookies.  A coworker emailed out this recipe last week and I was planning to try it on the night of the broken vanilla extract bottle....

 

I did not follow the recipe completely.  I used regular butter instead of vegan, stevia instead of sugar, stevia and molasses instead of brown sugar, milk not water.

 

VEGAN BANANA OATMEAL CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES

Full Recipe	½ Recipe
1 cup vegan margarine, cold (Earth Balance)	½ cup
1 ½ cup tightly packed brown sugar	¾ cup
1 cup granulated sugar	½ cup
1 ripe, mashed, ripe banana	½ (or slightly more) banana
3-5 teaspoons vanilla (be generous)	2-2 ½ tsp
2 tablespoons water or soy/rice milk	1 tb
2 cups all-purpose or whole-wheat flour	1 cup
1 teaspoon baking powder stirred into flour to guarantee dispersion	½ tsp
2 ½ cups rolled oats (quick oats or regular)	1 ¼ cup
2 ½ cups vegan chocolate chips (Enjoy Life, Chocolate Dream or WF 365 Vegan chips)	1 ¼ cup

Preheat oven to 375 degrees, and prep cookie sheet with cooking spray or parchment paper.

 Mix together the margarine and sugars.  Add the well-mashed banana and mix well.  Then add the vanilla and the liquid.  Water will try to separate so keep mixing with figure eight motion and then add the dry ingredients, in order, bit by bit.

 The final batter should appear almost too moist to hold the chocolate chips; If it isn’t, then add more flour and/or oats.  If the batter is too wet, the cookies will flatten while baking and turn out too hard and flat.

 Bake for 10-12 minutes.  Cook longer if you prefer a harder cookie, but be careful because these can turn out hard as a rock!  Let them cool on the sheet to firm up then transfer to a cooling rack or plate before putting them in an air-tight container for storage.  They taste even better after they sit overnight or in the fridge.

 

 

 

The cookies are good... very moist.  But the weird thing was that the chocolate chips just seem to be sitting on the cookies instead of actually being part of the cookie.  Either way... they are yummy.  Just a little weird to look at.

 

More productivity in the afternoon and then I decided to try the sesame chicken again sans broken glass.  Here's the recipe again:

http://www.food.com/recipe/sesame-chicken-44321 

 

I seriously cannot express to you how delicious this is.  I loved it.  I'm excited about the leftovers already.  Does it taste exactly like a Chinese restaurant... not quite... but still, it is very good! 

 

 

 

 Now I am enjoying a glass of wine... and contemplating going back for another cookie... or two.