Dairy-Free Tofu Pumpkin Pie, Vegan Gingerbread, and Scrambled Tofu

Many, many years ago (shhh... almost twenty!), I attended a vegetarian Thanksgiving potluck supper where someone brought one of the most delicious pumpkin pies I’ve ever tasted (before or since). Not an egg in sight in this creamy smooth pie, but everything else you’d expect to replicate this holiday favorite.

The great thing about tofu is that although its pretty tasteless on its own, tofu takes on the taste of whatever you mix it with. You can also match the texture of your dish by using the right tofu. In this case, since I wanted an exceptionally smooth and soft filling, I selected a firm silken tofu from Mori Nu. Unlike other tofus, silken does not require refrigeration before opening.

So... pumpkin pie made with tofu in place of eggs is silky smooth and tastes like pumpkin seasoned with ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves.

Oh, and another notable difference is the use of a store-bought graham cracker crust which, if made with margarine, is considered vegan.


DAIRY-FREE TOFU PUMPKIN PIE is best baked, cooled and chilled the day before it is to be used.

Mix in a food processor or blender until smooth:



16 oz. firm silken tofu*
16 oz. pumpkin
1 tsp. each ginger/cinnamon
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. each ground nutmeg/cloves
3/4 cup light brown sugar
1/3 cup vegetable oil

Pour into graham cracker crust (store-bought crusts are made with margarine**). If you make it at home and want dairy-free, don’t use butter.




Bake one hour at 350 degrees Fahrenheit; will set more as it cools

* Mori Nu firm silken tofu usually comes in a 12.3 oz. container, so you’ll need to buy two and measure (weigh) to get the correct amount. The canned pumpkin that I used was Libby’s Pumpkin Filling - 15 oz. My advice would be to use the 15 oz. and only add 15 ounces of tofu, but add the other ingredients in the amounts listed.

** Since this recipe is almost twenty years old, I don’t know if this fact still holds true.






I’ve made this pie many times. This time I used a reduced fat crust and reduced fat whipped topping. I’ve made a note for future reference to stick to full fat next time I make DAIRY-FREE TOFU PUMPKIN PIE. For those who are vegan or simply eating dairy-free, remember that whipped toppings contain milk. Instead try one made with coconut milk, such as this one at Kitchen Simplicity.


************


What to do with leftover silken tofu...

After you make the pie, there will be leftover tofu! I put on my thinking cap and came up with the idea of using a gingerbread mix which, for some reason or other, I bought on sale one day. It called for the addition of one egg and some water.

I decided to substitute 1/4 cup of the silken tofu for the egg and the gingerbread cooked beautifully and tasted very good. Again, I had the whipped topping to serve with it.




Still had leftover tofu...

For scrambled tofu (instead of scrambled eggs), I mixed about 1/4 cup of the tofu with sautéed chopped scallions and tomatoes, then cooked it some more. Added salt and pepper, and then topped with shredded cheese. If I’d had some nutritional yeast, I would have mixed in a couple of teaspoons worth for added color and a more buttery taste.



And that was the end of the tofu.

Gingerbread Cookies ~ Christmas and all-year round!

Gingerbread Cookies are so good, I want to eat them all year round. Hmm, Valentine Gingerbread Cookies (heart-shaped for sure), Washington’s Birthday (I’m thinking little hatchets!), St. Patrick’s Day (4-leaf clovers). You get the idea.

My 9-year old grandson came to me shortly after Thanksgiving with a request for gingerbread cookies for his 4th grade class’s Christmas party. Of course, I said ‘Yes!’

I didn’t have a favorite Gingerbread Cookie recipe, so I surfed the Internet. It was on the Food Network that I found the perfect recipe, courtesy of Rick Rodgers (Christmas 101, Random House, 1999)


It was the comments as much as the recipe itself that got my attention. While the recipe itself seemed pretty traditional, it had the added attraction of 1/4 teaspoon of freshly ground black pepper. In the comments, some readers raved about the perfection of the recipe as is. Others doubled the spices, even adding more black pepper.

As a first time user, I chose to stick with the original recipe. If I never have the opportunity to bake the suggested variations, I’ll still be completely satisfied.

I ended up mixing and freezing the dough two weeks ahead of time, then baking them on the morning of the day my grandson was to come over to decorate them with me. What fun we had decorating, and nibbling on, those gingerbread boys.

You can find the recipe here. And here are my notes on what I discovered while making these cookies.

1 - The directions say to preheat the oven. Wait! You’ll be chilling the dough for at least three hours. Most ovens only take 5-10 minutes to preheat.

2 - You’ll be using meringue powder in the Royal Icing and the author suggests ordering it online. I’ve found it at Michaels and Walmart.

3 - When you’re ready to roll out the cookie dough and cut out shapes, the following three items will come in handy...
LONG ICING SPATULA to slide under the rolled-out dough to make sure it’s not sticking.
PASTRY BRUSH to brush away flour on top and bottom after cut out cookies
NAIL BRUSH to clean under your fingernails -- yes, the dough does manage to work its way under them. (I keep a nail brush in the bathroom and the kitchen. They come in handy every day.)

Rick Rodgers says it’s your choice to make the Gingerbread Cookies thin and crisp or thick and chewy. I made the chewy version. So easy to work with and such an amazing taste and texture!

A bonus when removing them from the oven is the wonderful aroma that fills your kitchen.



*********

My son was home for Christmas for the first time in many years. He’s career US Air Force and can’t always get away, but this year he was here for a week. So, we worked together on Christmas Candy Cane Cookies.

You can find the recipe and the story behind the Christmas Candy Cane Cookies here.

I make this cookie dough several weeks ahead of time, too, color half red (pink?), and freeze it until needed. My son suggested that we forgo twisting ropes of dough together to make the candy cane shapes, and instead roll them out.

We partially rolled out each dough, then cut strips from the red and laid them atop the plain. Then we rolled them together till the dough was the correct thickness. We also rolled the crushed candy canes into the dough (instead of sprinkling them on top). At that point, we used two different sized candy cane cookie cutters to cut out the shapes.

We sprinkled green sugar sprinkles and white nonpareils on some of the cookies before baking them. I had leftover Royal Icing from the Gingerbread Cookies (freezes well) and thawed it to decorate the Christmas Candy Cane Cookies. We sprinkled more green sugar and white nonpareils on the icing.

Organized Kitchen, Organized Cookie Mixes

Monday, I think it was, when the weather was so-o hot and humid. I wanted to bake, but didn’t want to risk turning on the oven and making the entire (upstairs) apartment any hotter than it was.

As I wandered around Pinterest, I came across an idea for making cookies mixes -- dry ingredients only -- and thought to myself: Aha, a way to cook (kind of) without actually cooking! You can see the actual blog post itself at FAKE IT FRUGAL.

Now you’re probably wondering why I titled this blog post Organized Kitchen, Organized Cookie Mixes. It’s because organization fits in with my cookie mix adventure. After I’d made two bags of each of four kinds of cookies...
* Chocolate Chip (I used chocolate chunks)
* Sugar
* Oatmeal Raisin
* Gingerbread
I needed some place and some way to store them. Well, I really do intend to give my daughter some of the duplicates for her boys, but in the meantime, I needed a way to gather them up.

Tuesday I went shopping, at Wegmans of course, and while there came across a cute basket of just the right size for $1.29.

I’ve been reading a couple of blogs about organizing your home. Wish I’d found the great organizing ideas on them years ago, back before I even had a computer.

Now that it’s just me, I don’t have as much to organize as I did when the family was growing...
Me and Hubby #1
Me and Hubby #1 and son
Me and son and apartment-mates (another mother and son)
Me and Hubby #2 and my son and his three kids
Me and Hubby #2 , my son, his three, and our daughter
Me and daughter (son flew the coop and made a career in the USAF)

You get the idea. We needed so badly to have some kind of systems set up.

Fast forward to the present. I’ve been reading ORGANIZING MADE FUN and I (HEART) ORGANIZING and was inspired to buy baskets and little white racks.

Plates, bowls and glasses are so much more organized now that there are two racks instead of high stacks of plates.

I keep medicines in the kitchen; bathrooms are often too hot and humid. That’s the basket on the top shelf. The bottom shelf has the rack, with a basket of herbs beneath it and spices on it.

This lower shelf was organized before I added the rack, but that meant I had to remove the whole stack if I wanted something on the bottom.

Another lower shelf. The black case is a hand mixer that I used to place upright on the right, with the basket of oils and vinegars beside it. It was awkward and when I wanted one of the bottles I had to lean way down (or squat -- awkward!), sometimes having to remove the mixer to pull the entire basket out to reach something in the back of it. Now that the rack is there, I stored the rarely used hand mixer at the lowest level and placed the basket on the top where I can easily slide it out.

I’ve organized other areas of my apartment, most notably a huge closet in the front room, but we’re sticking to the kitchen and maybe you’ll get some good ideas -- or give me some!

******

LIKE Step by Step in the Kitchen on Facebook. I'll be posting extra notes and photos there.