Monthly Archives: November 2020

Recipes

Vegan Buttercream Frosting

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vegan buttercream

This vegan buttercream frosting is an easy and delicious was to decorate your holiday sugar cookies. I wanted to recreate a dairy-free version of the store bought frosting my family and I used to decorate holiday cookies with. This recipe only requires a few ingredients. I used earth balance vegan butter sticks, vanilla extract, confectionery sugar, and vanilla almond milk (I prefer almond breeze vanilla almond milk).

This frosting acted like real buttercream frosting too and hardened a bit when I left it out overnight. Just to be careful, I froze my frosted cookies for ten to fifteen minutes before stacking them between parchment paper and storing them in my tupperware in the freezer. I like to prepare for holiday festivities ahead of time, by stocking up my freezer with Christmas cookies. When it comes to holiday cooking and baking, I try to make as much as possible in advance. Luckily, cookies freeze well and can be stored up to three months.

Vegan Buttercream
 
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Ingredients
  • 1 stick or ½ cup of vegan butter (earth balance)
  • ½ tsp vanilla extract
  • 2½ cups of sifted confectionery sugar
  • 2 tbsp of vanilla almond milk (almond breeze)
Instructions
  1. Soften vegan butter by letting it get to room temperature.
  2. Sift powdered sugar into a large bowl.
  3. Whip vegan butter in a stand mixer until fluffy and gradually add powdered sugar.
  4. Then, add vanilla extract and almond milk until it has the desired consistency and thickness.

Soups

Tender Beef Soup

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tender beef soup

This tender beef soup recipe took a long time to get right. I’ve struggled with tough beef in my soups, stews, and curries. So, I’m finally happy to say the trick to tender beef soup is to simmer it long enough, for about two and half to three hours and use beef chuck instead of stew meat. I trimmed the hard fat off the beef chuck and chopped it into mostly even size pieces. It doesn’t have to be perfect for it to be tender and delicious.

Since this soup takes so long to cook, add the vegetables towards the end depending on how soft you prefer them. For starchy vegetables such as potatoes, cook them separately and add them at the end. Otherwise, they will disintegrate into your soup and you will have a beef soup that tastes like potatoes instead of beef. Yes, I’ve unfortunately had this happen to me.

Since my husband doesn’t like the stringy texture of celery, I chop it super thin and add it only when the beef is done cooking. It should only take ten to fifteen minutes to cook, or less if you like some crunch.  I use a celery rib to flavor the soup while the beef is cooking and fish it out when done.

Tender Beef Soup
 
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Serves: 4
Ingredients
  • 2 cartons of beef broth
  • 2-2.5 lbs of beef chuck
  • 4-5 carrots peeled and chopped
  • 1 cup of celery thinly sliced
  • 1 celery rib
  • 1 small white onion chopped
  • 1 tbsp of tomato paste
  • 1 tsp minced garlic
  • 1 tbsp of olive oil
  • sea salt to taste
  • (optional) parsley to garnish
Instructions
  1. Chop beef chuck and remove as much hard fat as possible then season with a little salt and sear on one side with olive oil.
  2. Remove meat from the pan once you see a little browning on one side.
  3. Add broth, onions, garlic, celery rib, tomato paste and meat to large pot and simmer for at least one hour and a half.
  4. Then add carrots, and let soup simmer for forty-five minutes to one hour or until carrots are cooked.
  5. Check beef to see if it shreds easily and is tender. Add sea salt to taste if necessary and fish out celery rib.
  6. Then add thinly sliced celery and let it cook for an additional ten to fifteen minutes.
  7. (optional) garnish with fresh chopped parsley