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Friday, October 19, 2007

Spiced Whole Wheat Walnut Pancakes

Wow, out of all of the pancakes I have made, this recipe by far is my favorite. I have changed the recipe a bit and it could be made completely vegan if you use something in place of the honey, like maple syrup, agave nectar, corn syrup, golden syrup, etc but I have never tried it that way......

Spiced Whole Wheat Walnut Pancakes

1 cup whole wheat flour
1.5 tsp baking powder
1.5 tsp ground cinnamon
1/8 tsp ground nutmeg
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 cup applesauce
1 cup soy milk
1 tbsp regular olive oil not EVOO
1.5 tbsp honey
1/8 cup chopped walnuts or pecans or to taste....I never measure them

Honey-Cinnamon Topping

1/4 cup honey
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tbsp margarine (LOL, never measure this one either)



1. To make Honey-Cinnamon Topping: Place a small saucepan on low heat; add honey and cinnamon; stir for 1 minute.
2. Add in butter and stir until melted; keep warm.
3. To make pancakes: In a big mixing bowl, combine flour, baking powder, spices, and salt; set aside.
4. In another bowl, whisk the applesauce, milk, oil, and honey together; add to the dry ingredients and mix well.
5. Fold in nuts.
6. Heat a nonstick griddle or skillet over medium-high heat.
7. Lightly brush with vegetable oil ( I find this to be unnessary)
8. Pour 1/4 cup batter onto griddle for each pancake.
9. Cook until bubbles form on the surface; flip pancake over and cook until the other side is golden.
10. Serve warm pancakes with Honey-Cinnamon Topping.

Thursday, October 18, 2007

Vegan Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cookies

I made these cookies today, and if you haven't tried them yet you need to !!!! So rich and chocolately, and almost brownie like, I will make these cookies again and again! They are so easy to make too, so decadent. I halfed the recipe and it made 11 cookies for me and I used regular cocoa as I didn't have dutched cocoa on hand. Rock on Isa!!!

Chewy Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cookies


Ingredients:
3/4 cup canola oil
2 cups sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla

1 tablespoon + 1 teaspoon whole flax seeds
1/2 cup soymilk

2 cups all purp flour
3/4 cup dutch processed cocoa powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup chocolate chips


Directions
Preheat oven to 350 F.

Grind the flax seeds on high in a blender until they become a powder. Add soymilk and blend for another 30 seconds or so. Set aside.

In a large bowl sift together flour, cocoa, baking soda and salt.

In a seperate large bowl cream together oil and sugar. Add the flax seed/soy milk mixture and mix well. Add the vanilla.

Fold in the dry ingredients in batches. When it starts to get too stiff to mix with a spatula, use your hands until a nice stiff dough forms. Add the chocolate chips and mix with your hands again.

Roll dough into 1 inch balls and flatten into a disc that's about 1 1/2 inches in diameter. Place on an ungreased cookie sheet about an inch apart.

Bake for 10 minutes. Remove from oven and let cool for about 5 minutes, then set them on a wire rack to cool completely.

Variations:
For chocolate chocolate chip cherry cookies, replace 1 teaspoon of the vanilla with almond extract, and replace 1/2 the chocolate chips with dried cherries.

For chocolate nut cookies, replace 1 teaspoon of the vanilla with a nut extract (almond, walnut, what have you) and replace the chocolate chips with 1 1/2 cups chopped nuts (hazelnuts, almonds or walnuts all are good).

Sunday, October 14, 2007

Ginger Schezwan Stir Fry

You know when you are outrageously hungry, and you don't know what to eat, haven't planned a meal and are not sure what you have in the kitchen and you throw together a meal with the things that you have and it turns out wonderful? This is one of those times :) I looked in the freezer and a few weeks ago, I had visited the Asian grocer and they had VeriSoy Vegetarian Ginger Chicken, and looked and saw some broccoli, onions, a half container of mushrooms, onion and carrots and decided to make a stir fry. I cheated on this one, all I really did was cook up the veggies and brown rice ( made from the boil on the stove, but hey it was brown rice!) and I used a package of Schezwan Hot and Spicy stir fry sauce from Kroger, just follow the instructions on the sauce packet. Wow this is the most amazing stir fry I have ever made or had.

Thursday, October 11, 2007

Banana Nut Bread and WW Oatmeal Bread



This banana bread is very moist and very, very low in fat. It makes one big loaf and 6 "short" texas sized muffins. I shared with my coworkers and they loved it, wonderful way to get rid of 4 bananas that are overripe.

I also made Celine's WW Oatmeal bread and I had a PB and Jelly made out of some of the bread, not just any PB and J, it had White Chocolate Wonderful PB and Orange Marmalade, definately a grown up PB and J. Sorry, no pics of the actual sammich!

Friday, October 5, 2007

Pumpkin Bread and *VEGAN* Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies




Oh hells yes. Inspired by Celine at Have Cake, Will Travel, I made her wonderful Pumpkin Bread and having 1 cup of pumpkin left over, decided to make some cookies. I used this recipe and substituted the egg with 1/4 cup applesauce (BTW, I used pumpkin puree from a can and I did not add the extra 2 tbsp. water) oh my goodness, these are so damn good. Soft, cakey, slightly spicy and chocolatey, if I make them again I may use whole wheat flour instead of the all purpose. I made sandwiches out of some of the bread and WOW!!!!! I made a kicked up BLT, that is Fakin' Bacon cooked in some EVOO, mayo, fresh Hanover tomato slices, perfectly ripe avocado slices, romaine lettuce. Wow, this is one of the best sammiches I have ever had!!!! Thanks so much for posting this bread Celine, the bread went AWESOMELY PERFECT with the sammich. I also wanted to add that I made this in a convential oven, cooked at 350 degrees F for about 25 minutes and I made it with 1 pkg. yeast as Celine said, kneaded it for about 5 minutes, then let it rise 1 hour, then punch dough down, knead and place in a greased bread pan, cover with a tea towel. Let rise for another hour and place in a pre-heated oven and cook until it sounds hollow when tapped and golden. Turn out onto cooling rack, let cool before cutting.

Here is a bonus photo of my kitty! I am glad I finally got a decent picture of him, it is hard to take a good photo of him. His name is Durn and he looks a little upset, laying in the clothes basket with his ears back.