There are dozens upon dozens of recipes for seemingly straightforward things like chocolate chip cookies or apple pie, with different ingredients, different measurements, different bake times and temperatures. How do you know which recipe is the one you want to follow? Learn the science and experiment. Epicurious’ 4 Levels video series can help.

In this video, an amateur, a home cook and a professional chef make their own delicious versions of a classic: Brownies. Then we hear from food scientist Rose Trout to find out how their ingredients and baking strategies affect the final product.

Related DIY: The New York Times’ collection of brownie recipes.

The post 4 levels of brownies, from amateur to food scientist appeared first on The Kid Should See This.

Woah. I just had the best weekend. After over-indulging the past few days, I’m looking forward to some fresh and healthy, restorative meals. Since we have so many new visitors here (welcome!), I’ve rounded up 29 of the most popular vegetarian main dishes on Cookie and Kate.

These recipes are for you if you’re a vegetarian like me, or you’re:

• Trying to eat less meat this year.
• Looking for Meatless Monday recipes.
• Wanting to eat more veggies and whole grains.
• Interested in trying fun and different recipes.

Basically, they’re for everyone! These crowd-pleasing recipes will convince even the most skeptical carnivores that meatless recipes can be delicious and satisfying.

You’ll find more popular options in our “Reader Favorites” category in the sidebar. If you’re looking for something particular, try hovering over “All Recipes” in the menu bar and you’ll find many more categories to explore.

For more favorite recipes, check out my cookbook, Love Real Food, which has over 100 recipes (most of which you won’t find on the blog). In no particular order, here are the 29 best vegetarian recipes according to readers.

1) Extra Vegetable Fried Rice

Gluten free and easily vegan

“I made this last weekend and love love loved it so I’m making it again this weekend! My husband really liked it too, and it’s a tall order to get him to eat a lot of vegetables so this will be entered into our regular rotation for sure. So glad I found this blog, I’ve email subscribed and have just purchased your cookbook! Thanks Kate!!” – Julia

Continue to the recipe...

The post Cookie and Kate’s Best Vegetarian Recipes appeared first on Cookie and Kate.

As we celebrate Martin Luther King Jr.’s legacy, here’s music to remember the great civil rights leader by.

When Sly and the Family Stone released “Everyday People” at the end of 1968, it was a rallying cry after a tumultuous year of assassinations, civil unrest, and a seemingly interminable war.

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We’re expecting more snow this weekend. What’s better than a mug of great hot chocolate on a snow day? I’ve been working on my own hot chocolate recipe for a while, and it’s finally time to share it.

This hot chocolate recipe is made with wholesome ingredients and tastes much nicer than the packets of hot chocolate I loved as a kid. Whether you’re warming up on the couch or hosting a hot chocolate bar for your friends (check out the variations offered below), I think you’re going to love it.

My favorite hot chocolate is a hybrid between “hot cocoa” (made with cocoa powder, which yields a lighter result since the rich cocoa butter has been removed from the cacao beans) and “hot chocolate” (which is richer since it’s made with chocolate bars, which contain cocoa, sugar and rich cocoa butter).

The combination of the two produces a rich but not overwhelmingly rich hot chocolate with deep chocolate flavor. You can control the intensity of the chocolate flavor by your choice of cocoa powder and, more importantly, your choice of chocolate. I love dark chocolate so that’s what I used.

Continue to the recipe...

The post Favorite Hot Chocolate appeared first on Cookie and Kate.

I first published this recipe in 2007, on page 156 in Super Natural Cooking – the Sushi Bowl. Looking back at the recipes included in that book, this is one that has remained a personal favorite of mine (top five for sure), and from what many of you have told me, it has long been a favorite for many of you as well. Simply stated, we are talking about a de-constructed sushi roll – brown rice, tofu, avocado, toasted nori and green onions served with a tangy, sweet citrus-soy dressing. When I don’t have toasted nori on hand, I swap in a handful of crushed kale chips. 

The Citrus Dressing

This dressing rules. You do a quick simmer of a bit orange and lemon juice, and then season it with a bit of brown sugar and rice vinegar. I wrote the recipe calling for orange and lemon, but I often make the dressing with grapefruit or blood orange juice, and it is exceptionally good – puckery citrus sweetness coating the grains of rice throughout each sushi bowl.

So! If you love avocado rolls, this is a tricked out version, in bowl form. So simple, especially if you have cooked brown rice at the ready. This is the sushi bowl from lunch today, made with kale chips in place of toasted nori. 

Sushi Bowl-ing

When I originally wrote this recipe, it was conceived as a lazy day way to enjoy my favorite sushi roll ingredients. In an attempt to pre-empt comments related to sushi & bowls, I’ll leave you with this. I think there is occasional confusion with the idea of a sushi bowl, because the perception is that sushi is the roll itself. But, as Haruhiko mentions in the comments down below, “Sushi is a term that technically refers to the seasoned rice itself. There’s makizushi, inarizushi, chiraishizushi, etc., and what they have in common is the seasoned rice. You don’t need raw fish for sushi to be sushi.” xo Haruhiko! Hope this helps!

Continue reading A Simple Brown Rice Sushi Bowl on 101 Cookbooks

One thing that’s been especially hard during my recent health struggles is that I’ve had some negative feelings resurface surrounding food and restriction. Those of you who’ve been reading for years may know that one of the reasons I started blogging back in 2008 was to share my journey to health. I spoke a lot about my journey to recovery from disordered eating, something I had struggled with for over a decade.

When I taught myself how to cook and fell in love with making plant-based recipes, I started to make positive associations with food again. And slowly, as I learned to eat intuitively (and embraced therapy!), I built a solid, positive foundation channeling that energy into something that made me feel really good. I don’t know where I’d be now if I didn’t have your support and community along the way. Knowing that my readers were eager to try out the recipes I was sharing kept me immensely motivated to keep going! It still does to this day.

The various symptoms I’ve been dealing with this past year (as well as committing to the dreaded allergy elimination diet) have challenged my relationship with food a great deal. If you’ve dealt with food allergies or sensitivities, you know how much it can drive you crazy in frustration as you try to figure out what’s going on. Every single food becomes suspect. I had incorrectly thought that it was a single food causing my troubles, when in fact it was much more complex than I had realized, with many hormonal imbalances and other systems at play.

Over the past year I found myself starting to question everything I was putting into my body, to the point where for a while I was only consuming a handful of specific foods. I didn’t know what I could eat because everything seemed to be causing reactions. It really messed with my head for a while there! This isn’t my first test by any means, and I know that these challenges and setbacks are a normal part of the journey—there’s no shame in struggling with things you may have thought you’d beaten. I can already tell that this experience has had many silver linings, one of them being a deeper appreciation for my health. And as I’ve seen my health improve over the past couple months, I’ve been so relieved to be getting back to a friendly place with food again by celebrating what it can do for me rather than fearing it!

And what better way to celebrate food this time of year than with the irresistible combo of chocolate and pumpkin? These rich and chocolaty gluten-free and vegan muffins have been enjoyed by everyone lucky enough to get their hands on a trial batch…minus a couple chocolate-hating toddlers roaming around our kitchen. *shrugs* Needless to say, Eric and I have had our fair share throughout the testing process…no complaints over here. Pair the muffins with my popular Pumpkin Spice Latte and you’ll have yourself a delicious and festive autumn snack!

5 from 27 reviews

One Bowl Pumpkin Chocolate Muffins

Vegan, gluten-free, nut-free, refined sugar-free

These moist, dense, gooey pumpkin chocolate muffins are similar to that feeling you get walking through a pumpkin patch, sipping dark hot chocolate, and crunching colourful autumn leaves beneath your feet! Picture a delicious pumpkin chocolate cake or brownie—but in muffin form. What could be better? How about that they take just one bowl to make! This recipe is adapted from Beaming Baker and my Pumpkin Gingerbread Muffins.

Yield
12 muffins

Prep time
15 Minutes

Cook time
22 Minutes

Total time
37 Minutes

Ingredients:

For the chia egg:

• 2 teaspoons (4 g) ground chia seed*
• 3 tablespoons (45 mL) water

For the wet ingredients:

• 1 cup (250 mL) unsweetened pumpkin purée
• 1/4 cup (60 mL) grapeseed oil or melted coconut oil
• 1/2 cup (80 g) coconut sugar
• 1/2 cup (125 mL) pure maple syrup
• 1 teaspoon (5 mL) pure vanilla extract

For the dry ingredients:

• 1 1/2 cups (150 g) gluten-free rolled oats, blended into a fine flour**
• 1/2 cup (40 g) unsweetened cocoa powder
• 2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice***
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt
• 2/3 cup (120 g) non-dairy chocolate chips or chopped chocolate, divided**** (optional)

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (180°C) and line a muffin tin with 12 paper liners.
2. Add the rolled oats to a high-speed blender and blend on high until a fine flour forms. Set aside.
3. In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the ground chia seed and water until combined. Set aside for a few minutes to thicken.
4. To the same bowl, add the rest of the wet ingredients (pumpkin, oil, sugar, maple syrup, and vanilla) and stir until smooth.
5. Add the dry ingredients (oat flour, cocoa powder, pumpkin pie spice, baking powder, baking soda, and salt) to the bowl with the wet ingredients. Whisk until smooth (I love using my big whisk for this task!).
6. Set aside 1/4 cup (45 g) of chocolate chips (if using) for the topping and stir the remaining chips into the batter.
7. Spoon the batter into the paper liners, filling each two-thirds full. Press the remaining chocolate chips into the tops of each muffin.
8. Bake the muffins for 20 to 25 minutes (I bake for 22), until a toothpick inserted into the middle comes out clean.
9. Place the muffin tin on a cooling rack for 10 minutes. Carefully remove each muffin and place it directly onto the cooling rack until fully cooled. Leftover muffins can be stored in the fridge in an airtight container for several days or frozen for up to 1 month.

Tips:

* If desired, you can use 1 tablespoon ground flax in place of the ground chia seed. Proceed with mixing in the 3 tablespoons (45 mL) water as directed.

** You can use 150 grams oat flour rather than grinding your own (this is equal to 1 cup and 7 tablespoons oat flour measured using the scoop-and-shake-until-level method). Alternatively, 1 1/2 cups (233 g) whole-grain spelt flour will also work as a swap for the oat flour. If using whole-grain spelt flour, you will likely need to bake the muffins for a couple extra minutes (until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean). Please keep in mind that spelt flour is not gluten-free.

*** If you're a big pumpkin spice fan, you can use up to 1 tablespoon of spice mix in this recipe.

**** Try chopped walnuts or pecans for a crunchy, healthy twist!

You can make these muffins into a loaf instead. Simply pour the batter into a 9x5-inch loaf pan and bake for 45 to 50 minutes (I bake for 46) at 350°F (180°C) until a toothpick comes out clean.