Peach Strawberry Smoothie

I wanted to make a peach-strawberry smoothie with silken tofu but I was not coming up with a recipe that sounded good to me, or one that used ingredients that I had on hand. I used this recipe as a starting point then changed the yogurt to tofu, added sweetener and soy milk. This is an awesome smoothie! I made it with honey, vegans use agave syrup or another sweetener.

Peach-Strawberry Silken Tofu Smoothie
8 slices of frozen peaches
10 small frozen strawberries
1/2-1 cup silken tofu, drained
1/2-1 cup vanilla soy milk
sweetener to taste
dash ground cinnamon if desired

Blend until very smooth. Serve immediately.

Buttermilk Blueberry Pancakes (whole grain)

When I found this recipe from Pinch My Salt, I knew I had to try it. Yummy pancakes with buttermilk, blueberries and whole grains.....mmmm! I didn't have the oat bran so I am replacing it with oat flour, to make this place oats in a blender or a coffee grinder and pulverize into a fine powder. Store what you don't use for another recipe. I am replacing the brown sugar with honey and I am adding a bit of cinnamon to the recipe. Here is the recipe as I make it. If you have buttermilk, you can use that instead of the milk and sour cream (1 cup buttermilk). Today when I went to the Dollar Tree alas, they did not have blueberries :*( so I am making them plain, but with strawberry sauce.....(from Good Life Eats).

This is not my photo.

Blueberry Buttermilk Pancakes


3/4 cup whole wheat flour
1/8 cup wheat germ
1/4 cup oat flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2-1 tsp. cinnamon (leave out for plain)
1/4 tsp. salt

3/4 cup milk
1/4 cup sour cream or yogurt
1 egg or 1/4 cup egg beaters
1 tbsp. honey
1 tbsp. melted butter, cooled
1/2 cup blueberries (leave out for plain)

Heat up your griddle. Combine dry ingredients in a medium sized bowl, stirring to mix. Toss the blueberries, if frozen with a bit of your flour. Then add wet ingredients to dry ingredients. Fold in blueberries carefully. Drop the batter by 1/4 cupfuls onto your griddle. The pancakes are ready to turn when the bubbles break. Turn and cook about 1-2 minutes or until lightly brown. Serve with real maple syrup or as desired.

Strawberry Cinnamon Pancakes

I love pancakes for breakfast and I wanted to have cinnamon strawberry pancakes. I decided to go with this recipe. I think the next time that I make these I will use honey instead of the brown sugar the next time that I make these, and I also used one egg in this recipe. I also used about 1/2-3/4 tsp. cinnamon. So here is that recipe written out the way I make them.

These are not my photos ^

Strawberry Cinnamon Pancakes

1/2 cup each whole wheat flour and AP flour

dash salt

1/2-1 tsp. cinnamon

2 tsp. baking powder

1/4 cup egg beaters or one egg or 1/4 cup plain applesauce

1 tbsp. honey or King Syrup

3/4 cup milk of choice

3 tbsp. melted butter, cooled

1 cup pureed strawberries (I got 12 ounces of frozen strawberries at Dollar Tree)

Combine dry ingredients, add wet ingredients to dry. Stir to combine. Heat griddle (set at 350 degrees) and use about 1/4-1/3 cup pancake batter per pancake. Cook about 2 minutes or until bubbles break. Flip and cook about 2 more minutes or until lightly browned. Serve with real maple syrup or as desired.

Chai Pancakes & a better Iced Chai Tea recipe

I made these a long time ago with a recipe that I threw together and they were OK, but not spicy like I imagined. Chris mentioned making Chai Pancakes and I found this recipe, which looks and sounds delicious. I both <3 Chai Tea and pancakes so it is a good combination. It has added spices and I didn't think to do this to my recipe. I brewed my Chai Tea the night before with the milk (I cut the recipe in half as it is just Chris and I eating these). I will be serving these with Real Maple Syrup.

BTW, I figured out the best way to make Iced Chai, and that is with 4 tea bags per 4 cups milk and 2 tbsp. Splenda or sugar, bring to boil and turn heat down to low. Simmer for about 5 minutes, cool. Add about 1-1&1/2 tsp. vanilla, optional. Stir. Serve over ice. I now use only the Chai Masala that I got from Laxmi Palace.

So how were they? The verdict is they are the best pancakes I have ever tasted. EVER. Chris agrees, especially since he loves spicy things.

Banana Pancakes

I always end up with really ripe bananas and even though I know that I can freeze them for later use, I hate doing that. Why? Because I forget about them and they get freezer-burnt, even though I have good intentions of making smoothies, ice cream pops or banana bread with them, so they still end up getting tossed. I was looking through Isabelle's Blog and I came across this recipe for banana pancakes and I had a "Eureka!" moment. These look fluffy and delicious.....Chris loves banana pancakes and I am sure getting tired of the egg sandwich we have almost every morning.

Who ate the banana? It wasn't me, and it certainly couldn't be Christopher as he knows I was saving them for pancakes......As I sat down and asked him about the banana he was eating he said it was the ripe ones and he thought that I would make fun of him for eating one of the unripened bananas and even said he hoped it didn't have "brown" inside. I smiled in disbelief and told him that he knew I was saving those for pancakes...."Ooops", said Christopher. XD.........

Anyways, these banana pancakes were delicious and half the recipe made just enough for us. 

Crispy Orange Tofu, Broccoli Stir Fry and Iced Chai Tea

Chris said that he would like some Orange Tofu and I thought that we would need a side dish so I decided on some stir fried broccoli because we usually have broccoli on hand. I decided on this recipe because I liked the finished product photo and the recipe looks simple. I also liked that it is baked. Amazingly enough I have never tried Orange Tofu so this will be a new taste experience for me O.o........ It was delicious! Try this recipe! Just the right amount of heat. The only thing I recommend is to use a tbsp. of cornstarch mixed with a bit of water added to the sauce to thicken it instead of the flour called for.

 The broccoli recipe that I decided on was actually a broccoli and tofu stir fry and I am just nixing the tofu. Here is the recipe that I used....If you like thick sauce, I would use 2 tbsp. of cornstarch instead of the 1 tbsp. called for in the sauce recipe.

I also decided to make some Chilled/Iced Chai Tea today and I used this recipe....I added some bottled vanilla to mine and I used 4 cups skim milk and 6 tea bags and added about 1-2 tsp. of vanilla to the cooled tea mixture....I usually use Celestial Seasonings Chai Tea or Bengal Spice but Kroger did not have them so I used Stash. It sure smells good. I even went to the store and I came back and my entire house smelled like Chai Tea. Feel free to use whatever milk floats your boat, soy, rice, almond, etc. I love soy and almond and I am sure it would be fabulous with any of the listed milks. Chris and I loved this!!!!! Very spicy!

Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies (Vegan)

Decided to make up a batch of cookies, just because. I was craving some chocolate chip cookies but decided to make some chocolate chip oatmeal cookies, it called for less fat (the chocolate chip recipe that I use calls for 1 cup butter/margarine and this recipe uses 1/2 cup) and somehow eating an oatmeal cookie seems healthier LOL ;) I made my cookies with this recipe, however I used vegetable shortening instead of the margarine/butter and in place of the egg 1 tbsp. ground flax seed mixed with 3 tbsp. water. These are so delicious, soft, cinnamon-y and chocolate-y. I love making cookies because they are so easy to make and were perfect on a wintry night. Chris and I loved these and it made about 18 cookies total, it says it makes 2 dozen but I tend to make larger cookies. The website has a lot of the "in a jar" recipes that would be perfect for gift giving and they are easily veganized. I used walnuts, what I happened to have on hand. I love pecans but I just used the last of them up in the whole wheat pancakes Chris and I had for breakfast. Feel free to use your favorite nuts in this recipe if you make it, and I always use vegetable shortening in cookies because it tends to have the best baked result, again use butter or margarine if that is what you prefer.

Chai Cake

This is my very favorite cake recipe and it comes from Chef Deborah Wolfe who has a recipe board at www.vegweb.com

Chai Cake

1 1/2 cups flour
3/4 cup natural sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
3/4 cup soy milk
8 chai tea bags (or Bengal Spice)
2 tsp vanilla
1/4 cup oil
Ener-G Egg Substitute for 1 egg, beaten

Preheat oven to 350 F.

Grease an 8" cake pan.
In a saucepan, put soy milk gently on low heat.
Add tea bags, and simmer 15 minutes, pressing tea bags gently to extract flavor.

Wring out tea bags into soy milk. Top up with more soy milk back to 3/4 cup. Put
this flavored soy milk in fridge to cool.
In large bowl, mix together flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt.
Combine remaining ingredients, including flavored soymilk, and add to flour
mixture.
Beat for 2 minutes. If too stiff, add a bit more soy milk.
Bake for 30 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in center of cake comes out
dry.
Makes one 8" cake.

Here is the glaze that I use with the cake.

Chai Cake Glaze

2 tbsp/30 mL butter or margarine
1 ½ cups/375 mL powdered sugar
1 tsp/5 mL Vanilla
¼ tsp/1.2 mL Cinnamon
Reserved 2 tbsp/30mL prepared Chai Latte from cake recipe

Melt butter in 1-quart/liter saucepan over medium heat. Stir in remaining ingredients until smooth. Drizzle glaze on cake.

Nutella Rum-Rums

Yo, ho, ho a pirate's life for me. Why is the rum always gone? Oh that's why, they are in these cookies and I drank it LOL. Oh my gosh these are one of the best cookies ever. I based these cookies off of this recipe

1/3 cup Nutella
1/4 cup oil (mild olive oil or vegetable oil)
1/2 cup soy milk
1/2 cup white sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 tbsp plus 1 tsp. ground flax seeds
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract (I actually forgot to put this in mine)
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
3/4 cup whole wheat pastry flour or whole wheat flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon allspice
1/2 cup dried cranberries
1/4 cup nuts of choice, I used walnuts
1/4 cup white chocolate chips
3 tablespoons rum

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Soak the cranberries in the rum while you are making the rest of the recipe.Place Nutella, oil, milk, brown and white sugar and vanilla extract in a large bowl. Mix well. In a small bowl, combine flours, baking soda, salt and allspice. Add in small additions to the wet mixture. Add cranberries and rum, white chocolate chips and nuts of choice. You may need to add a bit more soy milk if mixture is crumbly. Spray your hands with cooking spray and form into balls. Leave plenty of room for these, they spread. Cook about 6-8 minutes or until set and crispy. Remove from pan and let cool.