Spiced Apple Ginger Bread

I’ve been pretty busy with school work lately, and haven’t had much time to cook. I was feeling a little under the weather, and wanted to eat as much ginger as I could to boost my immune system and prevent a cold if I could. So I thought besides ginger tea, I would make Spiced Apple Ginger Bread. My photo card is still missing, but here’s the link to the recipe I used as my base, and I believe there are pictures there: http://www.ecurry.com/blog/breads/spiced-apple-ginger-bread/
It’s from eCurry, I’ve never checked that site out before but I think I will now! I love the spice action going on in this bread, I never expected to see curry in a bread recipe but it never hurts to try new things. Warning: Maybe it was the way I shredded the ginger, but it was pretty gingery. I loved this bread, but next time I’ll either use half the ginger, or shred it more finely.

Here we go

Ingredients

1 cup of spelt flour
1 cup of kamut flour
½ cup of applesauce (instead of the oil she used)
¼ cup of vanilla milk
¼ of a cup of brown sugar
1 banana (egg replacer)
1 tsp of vanilla
1 ½ cups of shredded apple (I shredded 1 cup and chopped a ½ cup)
6 tablespoons of grated ginger
2 clementine peels (make sure to wash them carefully)
½ teaspoon of cumin
½ tsp of cinnamon
½ tsp of nutmeg
¾ of a tsp of baking soda
1 handful of almonds chopped

Method

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.
Combine applesauce, milk, banana, sugar and vanilla in a bowl.
In another bowl, combine flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, cumin, baking soda. Add wet to dry and mix.
Add apples, orange peels, and almonds

Scoop the mixture into a prepared bread pan, and bake for 65-70 minutes

Blueberry, Banana, and Oat Bread

This is another recipe I tried from Urban Drivel. It’s Fat Free Blueberry, Banana, and Oat Bread, here’s the link for her recipe:

http://urbandrivel.blogspot.com/2007/06/virtually-fat-free-blueberry-banana.html

This bread got the approval of everyone in my family who tried it, and I love knowing that its got nutritional value annnnnd is delicious. It was very easy to make, and had very few ingredients, and the nutmeg added a really interesting flavour. This is a recipe I want to memorize so I can make this whenever I want.

Ingredients:

1 ½ cups of flour (once again I used half and half kamut and spelt flour)
½ cup of oats
¾ of a cup of brown sugar
½ tsp of baking powder
½ tsp of baking soda
¾ of a tsp nutmeg
½ cup of applesauce (I blended 1 apple)
1 banana mashed
¾ cup of blueberries (we both used frozen)

Method

Preheat oven to 325 degrees
Mix dry ingredients in a bowl
Add applesauce and banana, mix well until everything is well blended
Add blueberries and continue to mix.
Scoop into a greased bread pan
Bake for 50 minutes

Happy Phonograph Day!

Ha, yeah, I didn't know what to put in the title so I googled February 19 and it turns out today in 1878 the phonograph was patented by Thomas Edison. So if you like music, and I do, have a celebration. Maybe start your celebration with......

Pear and Oat Scones!

Well, I lost my camera memory card! That’s why there isn’t a picture, so let me describe them. They’re triangles, brownish, raisony, uhhh…sconey… They look like scones, sheesh.
But they’re really tasty, low fat, vegan and gluten free to boot. Once again, the recipe comes from Urban Drivel and here’s the original recipe: http://urbandrivel.blogspot.com/2008/02/no-pic-vegan-oatmeal-scones.html
Her recipe called for margarine, soy butter or apple sauce, but I didn’t want to use margarine, and I’m out of apples and bananas so I decided to blend up a pear and see how it worked out. And it turned out pretty well if I do say. So use your imaginations, because these scones are worth it.

Ingredients

1 pear, blended or ¼ of a cup of applesauce
1 ¼ cup of flour (I used half and half kamut and spelt)
1/3 of a cup of brown sugar
1 tsp baking powder
½ tsp of baking soda
1 cup of oats
1/3 of a cup of raisins
1 tsp of cinnamon
1/3 of a cup of soy milk

Method
Preheat oven to 375
In a bowl, mix flour, baking soda and powder and cinnamon in a bowl.
Add blended pear and mix until the mixture is crumbly
Add oats and raisins, stir
Add soy milk and stir, use your hands and knead just a bit in the bowl
Sprinkle a baking pan with flour (to keep this recipe gluten free I used kamut flour, but its more expensive than regular flour, so use whatever you want)
Put ball of dough on pan and flatten into a 7” circle. Cut 8-12 triangles and place in the oven
Bake for 15-20 minutes

I spread a bit of jam on mine, it tasted so good!

Beet and Almond Salad

The other night I made dinner, Beet Salad and homemade vegan, gluten free lasagna. I made the noodles from scratch, and it didn't turn out so pretty. The lasagna recipe needs improving, but I was pretty happy with the salad. The only negative I have to say is that those damn beets took a lot of energy to shred. It was delicious and worth it though.

Beet Salad

On a bed of baby spinach, lay down about 1/3 of a cup to 1/2 a cup of shredded beets.

Add a sprinkle of dill on top (I wanted to use cilantro, but I ran out).

Sprinkle a handful of whole, natural, almonds on top.

For the dressing, I used maple syrup, apple cider vinegar, and olive oil, and pepper. I like my dressing more vinegary than sweet and oily, so the cider was the dominant ingredient.

One reason I really liked this was it looked so great with the dark beets against the green of the spinach. Next time I'm going to shred some carrot on top because I think the orange would look beautiful against the red.

Enjoy!

Mmmm Chocolate Bread

Fat Free Vegan Chocolate Bread


One of the reasons why I love Urban Drivel is because she always has amazing bread! I made some modifications because I didn’t have any nuts at all in my house, or “Dutch processed cacao (only the regular kind), or chocolate chips, and the only egg replacer I could use was corn starch. So I’m pleased this recipe came out at all, and even managed to be tasty. That being said, mine is a little dry, but I think it’s my fault and not the bread’s. Don’t blame the innocent bread! Here’s her recipe, from the rating I’m sure it’s…uh, so damn good : http://urbandrivel.blogspot.com/2007/09/vegan-chocolate-pecan-banana-bread.html

Here’s what I did:

Ingredients

½ a cup of spelt flour
½ a cup of kamut flour + ¾ of a cup of kamut flour (more kamut than spelt)
¼ of a cup Cacao powder
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon of baking powder
¼ of a teaspoon baking soda
2 tablespoons of cornstarch
½ a cup of pureed apple
3 ripe bananas (I blended these with the apple, you could just mash them)1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Method

Heat oven to 350 degrees, and prepare a bread pan.
Mix the dry ingredients (flour, cacao, sugar, baking soda and powder)
In another bowl, mix banana, cornstarch, apple and vanilla
Add wet to dry and mix until combined.
Scoop into the bread pan and voila!
(Put in the oven) Cook for about and hour, check after 50 minutes and test to see if its ready with a metal knife.

What's With The Snow?

I never really have an issue with the cold, the way I see it, I live in Canada so forfeit my right to complain about weather. But today I woke up and was genuinely surprised to see it snowing outside. Which is okay, because it put me in the mood for something warm and spicy, and so I give you: Seitan Chili! I used this recipe from the Post Punk Kitchen to make the seitan: http://www.theppk.com/recipes/dbrecipes/index.php?RecipeID=112

But if you have another source of seitan go for it. I really like this recipe so far, but it's a bit salty for my tastes. Extra firm tofu, or even red kidney beans would probably substitute well.

Ingredients

1 can low sodium tomato sauce (just tomatoes, nothing else added)
½ a can of low sodium tomatoes
1 carrot
4 baby red potatoes
4 baby gold potatoes
3 cups of mixed vegetables (cauliflower, broccoli,)
2 cloves of garlic
1 white onion
1 tsp of extra virgin olive oil
½ a cup of frozen peas
About a cup of seitan chopped
½ a cup of frozen corn
Spices:
½ a teaspoon of cinnamon
½ a teaspoon coriander seed
½ a teaspoon of chili powder
Ground black pepper
Sprinkle of red pepper flakes (to your liking)

Method

Heat a large pot on medium high, along with the teaspoon of olive oil
Add onion and garlic, sauté until browned
Add seitan and spices, sauté about 1 minute
Add tomato sauce and canned tomatoes
Add potatoes and carrots
Add frozen vegetables
Taste to see if the spices are right
Cook until the vegetables (pay special attention to potatoes) are cooked

Sorry about the crappy picture, it doesn't reflect the quality of this chili

Banana Apple and Oat Muffins

This morning started off pretty great: my cat Daisy woke me up, and I realized that at this time of year, around 10 in the morning the sun hits directly on my pillow. Nice way to wake up. I felt so good that I was thinking about going for a run…but that ambition ended pretty quickly. Instead I made peanut butter apple and oat muffins haha. But you should have seen me stirring the ingredients…worked up a sweat.
The muffins were pretty simple, I got the recipe from Urban Drivel http://urbandrivel.blogspot.com/) but I changed the recipe around quite a bit. Originally, these were supposed to be peanut butter and banana muffins, which I imagine would be amazing. I didn’t have any bananas, so I swapped them for some apple sauce (just blend two apples).
Here we go:

Ingredients

1 cup of flour (I used half and half kamut and spelt)
¾ of a cup oats
1/3 of a cup brown sugar
1 tbs baking powder
1 cup of soy milk
½ cup of peanut butter (the kind I use is the natural-no-stuff-added-just-peanuts kind)
½ cup of apple sauce
Egg replacer equivalent to one egg (I used 2 tbs of cornstarch)
1 tbs of olive oil
1 tsp vanilla
Handful of oats to sprinkle on top

Method

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Prepare 12 muffin trays.
In one bowl, combine dry ingredients (oats, flour, brown sugar, baking powder).
In another bowl, combine wet ingredients and cornstarch (soy milk, peanut butter, applesauce, oil, vanilla).
Add wet to dry, and mix.
Fill muffin cups about 3/4ths of the way. Sprinkle the oats on top.
Bake these puppies for 16-18 minutes (I cooked them for 20 and the bottoms were too almost too browned).

My other cat buddy, Marble came over to check them out:

But after she was fed, Daisy had no interest. Hm.

Vegan Omelette

Vegan Omelette

So I've been trying out this one for a while, its a omelette recipe I found at Fat Free Vegan (http://blog.fatfreevegan.com/) and its pretty great. The first time I made it, it was too big and broke apart. Since then, I've divided the uncooked batter in two, and make two smaller omelettes. Here you go:

Ingredients

1/2 a package of silk tofu

1 tablespoon of nutritional yeast

1 tablespoon of cornstarch

1 tablespoon of soy milk

1 teaspoon of tahini

1/8 of a teaspoon of onion powder

1/8 of a teaspoon of turmeric

a shake of salt, if you so wish

a pinch of paprika

Method

Mix all ingredients and blend well until its a creamy looking mixture.

On medium high heat, pour half the mix into a pan (mine's non stick, so do whatever you must to prevent sticking) and either swirl around the mix until you have a small plate sized, circular shaped omelette cooking (or use a spatula gently).

Reduce heat to low/medium.

Prepare whatever filling you want, today I used vegan cheese, leftover steamed vegetables (peppers, various mixed frozen vegetables...the original recipe called for spinach and mushrooms), and once the omelette has been cooking for a while, put on a layer of filling on one side of the batter. You're supposed to keep the omelette from browning, but I like mine a little darker. Just don't brown it too much (or burn it obviously). Be very gentle when you check the underside, it took a couple times of making this for me to check and not rip it up.

When the underside looks to you liking (about 5 minutes of low heat maybe?) flip the side without the batter onto the filling, and let cook for a few more minutes (as you would a regular omelette).

Enjoy!

Zucchini AND Carrot Bread!!

The base of this recipe is from the other day when I made zucchini loaf. What I did here was divide the mixture pre-zucchini stage in half, and put in two separate bowls. Then, I added half a cup of shredded zucchini in one bowl, and half a cup of shredded carrot in another. Instead of walnuts, I used 1/4 of a cup of raisins in each loaf, because I ran out of walnuts. Also, I used 1/3rd of a teaspoon of baking powder instead of instant yeast. Really, really great. I couldn't stop taking pictures haha.

Oh, and I sprinkled the top with some oats for looks.

I’m heading off to a friend’s house tonight, and wanted to bring some food along. Around this time of year, chocolate all of a sudden seems extremely appropriate, and when I found this recipe on the Fat Free Vegan website, I was so curious to try it because of the Balsamic vinegar in it. It’s amazing how the balsamic complements the chocolate so well! You can’t taste it really, so don’t worry about your cookies tasting like a soggy salad. The original recipe called for regular flour, and soy yogurt, but I switched to kamut flour and vanilla soy milk. So I’ll be giving these to the people I know with wheat/gluten allergies.

Balsamic Chocolate Cookies

1 cup of kamut flour
½ a teaspoon of baking soda
1/8 of a teaspoon of baking soda
5 tablespoons of vegan margarine
½ a cup of cacao powder
2/3 of a cup white sugar
1/3 of a cup of brown sugar
1/3 of a cup of vanilla soy milk
1 tablespoon of balsamic vinegar

Method

Preheat your oven to 350 F. Line your cookie sheet with parchment paper, wax paper, whatever.
In one bowl, mix the flour, baking soda, and salt and put aside.
In another bowl, mix the sugar and cacao

Melt your margarine, and in another bowl, combine with the cacao and sugar mixture and stir it up.
Then, add the soy milk, vanilla, and balsamic vinegar and mix well. Add the dry ingredients (flour etc) and stir until the ingredients are combined.

Use a tablespoon to drop the mix onto the sheet. I made a rough version of vanilla sugar to sprinkle on top, mostly because I bought some vanilla beans awhile ago because I thought they looked pretty cool, and I wanted to use them up.

These cookies will only take about 12 minutes to cook, so pay attention to them. If they don’t seem completely done, once you let them cool, they harden up, don’t worry.

Let them cool a bit, then remove them from the sheets.

Sooo amazing!
thod

Last weekend I went to Ottawa for Winterlude. I used to travel there fairly often when I was younger, and skate up and down the Rideau Canal pretty much the whole trip. The best part about skating all day long was skating up to a Beavertail station and eating the most delicious thing in the entire world: the Beavertail! It wasn’t until a couple weeks ago that I realized I would never be able to eat a Beavertail again...maybe a good thing for my intestines, but not something to look forward to. WELL let me tell you the highlight of my trip: turns out, the dough is just flour, yeast, and salt…NO DAIRY OR EGGS. It only became non-vegan when they slather it in butter and other toppings. So, I just got it with cinnamon, sugar, and lemon (which is what I always used to get), and it was amazing.

On to the recipe!

There were a bunch of zucchinis in my fridge, and I wanted to use them up. I decided to make zucchini bread, which really is more like cake, either way, deeeelicious.

Spiced Zucchini Bread

2 tablespoons of flaxseed
½ a cup of water
½ a cup of vanilla soy milk
1 cup of brown sugar
2 ¼ of a cup of kamut and spelt flour (half and half)
¾ of a teaspoon of baking soda
½ a teaspoon of instant yeast
1 ½ teaspoons of cinnamon
¼ of a teaspoon of ground cloves
½ a cup of chopped walnuts
1 cup of grated zucchini (one zucchini)

Method

Heat your oven to 350 degrees, grease a bread pan
Blend the flaxseeds with ½ a cup of water, it will take on the consistency of an egg
Add sugar and the soy milk, and continue to blend until smooth

In another bowl, combine the dry ingredients (flour, baking soda, yeast, and spices)
Add the dry to the wet ingredients and mix well.
Add the zucchini and walnuts, mix.
Pour the mixture into the bread pan, pop in the oven for about 60 minutes (poke with a sharp piece of metal to see if it’s ready…metal will come out clean when it’s done)
Let cool, then enjoy!!

Travellin’ Snack


I’m going on a trip in a couple days, and I wanted to make sure there were healthy snacks that wouldn’t hurt my stomach available for me. I love dried fruit and nuts, and I like the flavour that bananas add to recipes. So, I decided to make granola bars! I googled a recipe, but ended up adding many of my own ingredients, doing my best to make it sugar free, gluten free, vegan, and as healthy as possible.

Banana, Fruit and Nut Granola Recipe

1 ½ cups of oats
3 tablespoons of flaxseeds
1/3 of a cup of chopped walnuts
1/3 of a cup chopped prunes
1/3 of a cup chopped dried apricots
1/3 of a cup of raisins
2 teaspoons of vanilla extract
1/3 of a cup of agave nectar
2 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil
1 banana
1 teaspoon of cinnamon

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
Oil a baking pan.
Soak the raisins and apricots to plump them up.
Combine the dry ingredients (oats, flaxseeds, walnuts, cinnamon) in a bowl and mix.
Mash the banana, chop up the prunes and mash into the banana.
Add the vanilla, oil, and agave nectar and mix well.
Add the wet ingredients to the dry.
Mix in raisins and apricots.
Scoop the mash onto the pan, pack down and form into a rectangle (8” by 11” ish)
Bake for about 20 minutes, then 5 minutes under the broiler

Enjoy!

Simple Vegan Macaroons

This recipe is so simple I thought it wouldn't work. There are THREE ingredients. That's right. Three. You need dates, a banana, and some shredded coconut. Instead of blending the ingredients in a blender, I chose to chop everything very finely, because to tell the truth, I really just didn't want to get out the blender. So these are the ultimate slacker's macaroons. I made these with my mom in mind, she loves macaroons, but allergies to wheat, sugar, and dairy have made it hard for her to indulge.


Macaroons

8 regular sized dates (remove the pits)

1 1/2 cup of shredded coconut (the coconut I used was sweetened, but you could use unsweetened because of the natural sugars in the dates and banana)
1 banana

Chop the dates very thinly until they're almost mushy

Chop the banana roughly

Using a potato masher, mash in a bowl

Add your coconut slowly, continue to mash

When all ingredients are blended, generously heap a teaspoon's worth out of the bowl, roll with your hands to form a ball

Place on a baking sheet.

Bake at 325 degrees F for about 15 minutes

I decided to put mine under the broiler for less than 5 minutes until the tops were slightly crispy.

Sooo Good!!

Oh So Delicious Basil Beer Bread

Basil Beer Bread

Wow what a busy day. I just got home from work, and I figured I'd put this recipe up before I pass out from exhaustion.

My love for good, homemade bread began when I was just a wee little girl, growing up, my dad would bake bread almost every week. I love that first slice of bread fresh from the oven. Lately Ive been interested in trying out baking my own bread, but the whole process is a little daunting to me, especially since I've started eat'n vegan, and trying to eat low sugar, sodium, pretty much trying to be as health conscious as possible. Last night I found a recipe for Basil Beer Bread on one of my favorite blogs: Urban Drivel (http://urbandrivel.blogspot.com/search/label/bread\). This site is great for finding interesting, healthy dishes. Her recipe isn't vegan, and I was worried about finding a substitute for the cheese, but I just omitted it and kept my fingers crossed.

There was some confusion about the amount of yeast and the time the bread takes to rise. The original recipe called for a lot of yeast, so I reduced it to about 2 and a 1/2 teaspoons of yeast. Turns out, it called for so much yeast because there was no rising period. Since I put in less yeast, I had to rise the bread for about 40 minutes, but to be honest I probably didn't have to. Here it is:

Basil Beer Bread

Oil a baking sheet, and preheat the oven to 400 degrees F

3 and 1/4 of a cup of whole wheat flour

3teaspoons of instant yeast

1 and 1/2 teaspoons of salt

1/2 teaspoons of black pepper

1 12 ounce bottle of beer (I wouldn't use any beer you wouldn't want to drink...I used Keith's Pale Ale)

Beers for drinking as you work on this recipe! (Don't set your house on fire)

Flour for kneading

1 cup torn (or chopped) fresh basil

Separate the flour into two bowls.

In one of the bowls of flour, add the yeast, salt, pepper, and stir

Add the beer nice and slowly...don't pour too fast or you'll get too much head! (Apparently it helps if you warm the beer up a tad too)

Whisk it all into a nice smoothie consistency, and then slowly add the remaining flour and whip it all together with a fork.

Sprinkle some flour onto a counter, plop down the dough, and start kneading, sprinkling the basil as you go until it has all been Incorporated in.

Let it rise in a warm environment for 40 minutes

Shape the dough into a shape that pleases you ( I shaped it into a loose log), put it on your pan, and bake it for 40 minutes.

I was so nervous to try it when it came out! I've had some pretty unsuccessful flops, and I really was craving some bread. You may not be able to tell from the picture, but the bread was so delicious. I'd say it was a wild success, and it's definitely a recipe I'll be trying again.

Sunday Morning Spelt Crepes

This morning I woke up thinking about a recipe I had read in the Fresh cookbook my sister bought for me. I think there are three Fresh restaurants downtown, but the one I go to is the one at Spadina and Bloor (http://www.juiceforlife.com/fresh.html). It's right by my school, and is a perfect place to go for healthy, vegan, delicious food. The recipe I tried this morning is the Orange Spelt Crepes. They're gluten free, and vegan as well. I made a couple changes to the recipe, for instance, I changed honey with agave nectar, and I didn't have sunflower oil so I used olive oil, just less.

Eventually I want to post pictures on here, but I didn't have any batteries for my camera so you'll just have to fire up the old imagination.

Here we go:

Orange Spelt Crepes

1-3/4 cups of spelt flour

1/2 teaspoon of baking soda

1/2 teaspoon of baking powder

1/2 teaspoon of orange zest

1/2 teaspoon of orange juice

1 tablespoon of agave nectar (Fresh's recipe called for honey))

2 tablespoons of maple syrup

2/3 of a cup vanilla soy milk

1-1/4 of a cup water

4 teaspoons of extra virgin olive oil (Fresh's recipe called for 8 teaspoons of sunflower oil...which I didn't have. I just guessed at what would taste good, because I know olive oil can be over powering)

I mixed the dry ingredients (flour, baking soda, baking powder, and the zest) in a bowl, make sure the zest doesn't stick together and form lumps

I used a container with a lid to mix all the wet ingredients (orange juice, soy milk, maple syrup, agave, oil) so it was easy just to shake it all up. Then I transferred it to a bowl and slowly added the dry ingredients to the wet, stirring all the time to get the lumps out. The Fresh recipe said to "whisk" but I don't have one of those handy contratraptions so I used a fork.

In the meantime, I turned on my burner to low/medium heat. I used a Teflon pan,so no oil was necessary, but the recipe recommended it. The recipe also said to use only 1/8 of the batter at a time, I used 1/4. This resulted in thicker crepes, but that suits me just fine. Put the crepes in the oven at a very low heat to keep them warm while you cook the other crepes.

I chopped up a mango, a papaya, an orange, and sprinkled some blueberries to accompany my crepes, and squeezed an orange over the crepes instead of maple syrup. This was a delicious breakfast, and definitely a keeper!