- I love this recipe 'cause it can be done very quickly
in an afternoon for lunch.
And if we're not making a whole batch of cookies,
we may as well make one giant cookie.
Where were you when I was first starting?
(upbeat music)
So the first thing we want to do is mix together
all of our dry ingredients, brown sugar, all-purpose flour,
organic granulated sugar, and some cocoa powder.
Finally, some baking powder.
We're gonna add in our wet ingredients,
vegetable oil, vanilla.
I almost forgot to add a pinch of salt
with my dry ingredients.
Now we're just gonna mix that together.
Oh, it's looking like the cake mix I remember
in my Easy Bake Oven. (bell tings)
Isn't it incredible that we used
the light bulb to bake cakes?
Now we're just gonna transfer it into a mug.
I would recommend using like a wider mug,
and then we're gonna microwave it
for about 1 1/2 to two minutes, and that's it.
Life is good.
And once you take it out of the microwave,
make sure to pop some vegan chocolate chips
on top of there right away,
so the heat from the mug cake
will actually get them to melt.
Now all that's left to do is eat.
Oh, my God!
This tastes very like decadent. It's like nice and moist.
Everybody should try this.
If you want to dip your toes in some plant-based desserts,
you can't turn down one that takes 10 years minutes to make.
(upbeat music)
We're gonna start by making a tofu ricotta.
We're gonna add in some firm tofu, nutritional yeast,
apple cider vinegar, salt, and garlic powder.
Now, we just blend that up. It's really that easy.
And we're gonna let this blend for a couple of minutes
till it's really smooth.
(blender whirring)
I love this recipe 'cause it could be done
like very quickly in an afternoon for lunch.
You can also make
way more of this (bell tings)
and save it in the fridge.
And now we're just gonna assemble our vegan pizza.
I've got some pita bread here.
This is fresh-baked vegan pita bread.
Another cool way to spruce this up
is if you added some roasted red pepper or pesto,
if you wanted, you know, you can get creative with it.
I'm just trying to give you people options.
And then we've got
some good old-fashioned marinara sauce here.
And we're just gonna spread our marinara sauce
over our pita bread,
and then dollop our little ricotta balls on top.
(light jazz music)
And then we're just gonna sprinkle some Italian seasoning,
fennel seeds, and red pepper flakes.
And with that,
I'm just gonna pop this in my toaster oven
and broil it for like five or six minutes.
But you could also cook it in the oven as well.
And that's it. It's that easy.
Oh! Delicious, filling.
And you could customize this.
Add other toppings if you want.
Very beginner-friendly.
10, 10, 10 across the board.
(upbeat music)
Got a nice mug here. It's my favorite mug.
It's my mom's mug, well, she gifted it to me.
Anyway, I've got 1/2 a cup of macaroni here.
I'm gonna pop that in.
And then I've got 1/2 a cup of oatmeal.
We're gonna add some salt and just a little bit of sugar.
Gonna pop that right in the old microwave.
We want to make sure we're watching this diligently.
Diligently.
So when I take it out, I'm gonna give it a little stir.
If you do forget to check,
you will end up with an explosion.
I did this previously when I was trying to make it.
This is what you'll be dealing with here
if you don't stir it every 30 seconds.
You don't want that, trust me, it's a mess.
All right, this is looking good and cooked.
And now we're gonna just add our last few ingredients.
I guess it's not exactly five minutes
'cause, you know, give or take
what it takes for you to put the stuff into things.
But whatever. You get it.
It's really close to five minutes.
All right, we're gonna add in
two more tablespoons of oat milk,
nutritional yeast, and 1/4 teaspoon of rice wine vinegar.
Maybe you're thinking like what? Rice wine vinegar?
The sugar and the rice wine vinegar
are in there to help to mimic the lactic acid
you would get from real cheese.
Science, baby.
Ooh! She's coming together right now.
Magnificent. Where were you when I was first starting?
(upbeat music)
So the first thing we're gonna do
is we're gonna take some refined coconut oil.
It's very important that you're using refined
and not unrefined, because the unrefined
is gonna carry a flavor of coconut in it.
Refined coconut oil,
some light brown sugar, vanilla extract.
And we're gonna just start
by kind of fluffing this together with a fork.
It doesn't need to be perfectly combined
'cause we got a lot more to add in there.
Now I'm gonna fold in my apple sauce.
I'm gonna mix that together as well.
You'll see it's starting to smooth up more.
Just want to try to break down any clumps
that we see in there.
All right, that looks nice and smooth.
Now, I'm gonna add in some all-purpose flour
and fold that in with my rubber spatula.
Wow, it's really coming together
and starting to look like a nice little cookie dough.
I feel like I'm cooking for like
an Easy Bake Oven right now.
It's such a small amount.
So you just want to make sure it comes together,
so we don't see any more flour streaks in there.
And lastly, we're gonna add in some chocolate chips
and a pinch of salt.
And then just stir that up until it's evenly combined.
All right, so everything is stirred together.
We've got this mound of cookie dough.
I've got a microwave-safe plate right here.
And what I did is I just took some coconut oil
and spread it across the bottom
so that our cookie doesn't stick to the plate.
So I'm gonna pour our cookie dough out onto my plate.
Really excited about this giant cookie.
I mean, if we're not making a whole batch of cookies,
we may as well make one giant cookie, right?
I'm just gonna take a couple more chocolate chips
and put them on top 'cause I want to.
So now we're just gonna pop our easy bake cookie
into our microwave on high for about a minute or so
until the top is a little bit dry
and it springs back lightly if you give it a little poke.
Wow!
Look at you!
This is a grown-up cookie!
This is an adult cookie!
This is a legit, big old cookie!
I am so pleased with this. Let's give it a taste.
I'm gonna use a fork.
And I don't want to wait for it to cool down all the way.
So we're just going in there like it's a pancake.
Damn, this thing is basically a cake!
It is so big. It's dense.
(light-hearted music)
Mm, I mean,
I'd say this cookie pretty much
does exactly what we expect of it.
It is sweet. It's tasty.
I wanted a cookie.
I wanted it fast. Here she is.
(upbeat music)
Here we have about 4 1/2 ounces of tofu.
You can use paper towels if you want.
I'm trying to be a little more sustainable.
So I'm using a cloth
and I'm just gonna wrap this up like so.
And now that we've got this all wrapped up,
we're just gonna put a big old book
or you can put a cast-iron pan on top of it
to help drain the liquid.
While I have my tofu draining,
I'm gonna go ahead
and pop two pieces of white bread on the skillet.
So these only need about a minute per side.
Let's take our tofu out.
Now we're gonna add this to our food processor.
Some nutritional yeast, apple cider vinegar,
organic sugars, refined coconut oil, and a teaspoon of salt.
Let's kick that off.
(food processor whirring)
I know what you're thinking.
You're thinking, "Merle, that is like a cream cheese.
That's not a grilled cheese."
But listen, we're not copping out
and doing the store-bought cheese.
We're making it from scratch.
So you got to give me a little bit of flexibility here,
okay?
And technically the bread is toasted.
So, so there.
We're gonna transfer our cheese mixture to a bowl.
Now we're just onto the final step.
We're gonna add in some very thinly sliced chives,
some fresh dill, and some fresh parsley.
And the last bit here is assembly.
We've got our two beautifully toasted pieces of bread.
I'm gonna go ahead and spread my cheese on there.
And I'm just gonna top it off with some tomato slices.
And that's it.
It's got the cheesy flavor from the nutritional yeast
and a little bit of tang from the apple cider vinegar.
It's not a grilled cheese in the traditional sense,
but it only takes five minutes.
It's very healthy. It's all healthy ingredients.
And it's got some good protein to it.
Whoo! That is so good.
Mm, mm, oh, my God.
It's really, really, really good.
(upbeat music)
So you want to grab a microwave-safe mug.
And we're gonna start by making our icing.
We're gonna add some powdered sugar
and mix in a little bit of nondairy milk.
We will whisk that up together until it comes together
and you're able to drizzle it.
Just make sure you add the nondairy milk very slowly
using only a little bit at a time,
because it can go from zero to 100 just like that.
Now we've got our icing all whipped up
and it's time to make the vegan cinnamon rolls.
So I've got a medium bowl here
and I'm gonna start by adding in some flour, sugar,
baking powder, salt, and nondairy milk.
I'm just gonna use a fork to mix that together
so it's no longer dry.
Then we'll start bringing the dough together with my hands
and knead it like one or two times
and just flatten it into a disk.
Basically, we want to form a flat little disk
with our dough.
We just want to make sure there are no dry spots left.
So also I'm gonna quickly toss together my brown sugar
and my cinnamon filling.
I'm just gonna use a fork to toss those together.
Now I'm gonna set that aside
and we're gonna lightly flour our surface here.
I'm going to roll out
the dough until we get like a six-inch rectangle.
Then I'm gonna take a sharp knife
and I'm just gonna go around the edges
so that it looks like more of a rectangle.
Don't worry, we're not gonna waste these.
We're gonna put them right back on here
and just flatten them onto our cinnamon roll.
'Cause it doesn't matter if the inside doesn't look pretty.
We're not gonna see that part.
Now we're gonna take a little bit of water
and just gently press on our cinnamon roll.
That way, our cinnamon sugar mixture
has something to stick to,
and it'll help to seal up our cinnamon roll
when we go to, you know, rolling.
Rolling, rolling, rolling.
All right, now I'm gonna take
my brown cinnamon sugar mixture
and I'm gonna sprinkle that over half of my rectangle here.
And make sure you go right up to the edge.
All right, now it's time to roll it up.
Now, I'm gonna just fold
my rectangle in half like so.
And now I'm going to roll it right up.
Just takes blind confidence. It's gonna be great.
Well, we've got our adorable little cinnamon roll.
Now I've got a mug
and I'm going to spray it with a nonstick cooking spray.
I'm gonna place my little cinnamon roll in there.
And I'm just gonna drizzle
1/2 a teaspoon of water over the dough.
Now it's time to microwave this
for about 75 to 90 seconds on high.
And that's it!
You could honestly just take this
and put it in your cup holder in your car and eat it, mm.
(upbeat music)