Growing Kale!

 

From this to this!

 

Can't wait until they get a little bigger!!!!  We're planting more this weekend! 

Quinoa-Banana-Bake

I saw a recipe for a non-vegan, slow-cooker, quinoa, banana "bread"... I had no idea what the texture was actually like, in the picture on the blog featuring the recipe, it looked like a baked oatmeal, maybe slightly more "bready"-- maybe like a bread pudding.

I'm not sure why, but all of a sudden, as I read that recipe, I HAD to make it. I knew I could turn it vegan very easily, but alas, I don't have a slow cooker.

I started googling, "can you use your oven in place of a slow cooker?" After reading some techniques, involving dutch ovens, I decided I could make this without a slow-cooker. I also knew of a recipe to make quinoa in the oven. Whew! All would be okay.

Ingredients:

1 cup of quinoa
1 cup soy milk (could be any non-dairy milk with some fat in it)
1 cup water
1 - 1 and1/2 banana (past ripe)
2 tablespoons chopped walnuts
4 tablespoons maple syrup
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Here's what I did:

Mashed up the banana
Put the rest of the ingredients in the dutch oven or whatever covered item or cooking that you have (I also have no dutch oven), but I have this covered pyrex-type pan.

I pre-heated the oven, but when I stuck the pyrex in, full of cold ingredients, it needed to heat up again. It was at about 280 for 40 minutes until it finally got to 325.

I cheated and stirred around the time it hit 300.  It looked like it had serious yum potential.

I cooked it for about 90-100 minutes. It looked excellent! It does kind of look like a bread until you dip into it. Then you can SEE the quinoa. Nevermind that, it was excellent!

I don't know why I was craving quinoa, but I was! I ate a lot. I will make it for breakfast sometime when I have company. I will make it again for me. It was super easy! One of three of the little girls tried it and "liked" it.  We'll see if she eats more tomorrow morning--we'll heat it up in the microwave.

Here are the nutrition facts.

Alphabet soup

 

Very hearty, tomato-y, yummy!

I found a recipe online and decided I had to try it because it had SMOKED PAPRIKA in it!  However, you should know by now how well I follow directions.  I do not follow them very well at all. In fact, I followed the directions so poorly that I'm not even linking to the original recipe.

Here's what I did:

6 cups veggie broth
1 onion diced
1.5 red bell peppers diced ('cause that's what I had--could be 1 or 2)
3 small yukon gold potatoes
2 cans garbanzo beans
3 carrots diced
3 stalk celery diced
2 cloves garlic
2 bay leaves

I diced all the above veggies and through them into a big pan with the veggie broth. I added all the ingredients above this line and let things cook for 30 or 40 minutes so they got nice and soft.

Next, I added all these ingredients:
1 24 ounce jar of tomato sauce
1-2 teaspoons dried basil
1-2 teaspoons dried oregano
1-2 tablespoons smoked paprika
1-2 teaspoons salt
1/4 teaspoon cayenne (could be more, but I didn't want it to be too spicy for the girls)

I let things cook a bit longer... 20 or so... maybe longer. I was doing other things around the house.

Then a couple hours went by and the soup was on "low." I had to taken a sick kitty to the vet; when I got back and looked at the soup (and tasted it) I decided it would be PERFECT to add alphabet letters to!
So I added:

1 cup alphabet letters
3-4 cups water  'cause it was really thick and I knew it would just get thicker.  (You can add whatever amount of water you want, really.  I could have added a little more.)
After the letters cooked, I added a LOT of baby kale. Then my husband asked if I could stick in a vegan sausage for flavor, so I stuck in one Italian one.

Serve! Enjoy!
Add black pepper to taste

 

The letters!

Results:
5 out of 5 ate it and liked it. The youngest liked it the least well and that was surprising to me, but she did like it.







 

2 more pumpkin recipes I want to try!

http://kirbiecravings.com/2013/09/pumpkin-fruit-leather.html

&

http://theveglife.com/pumpkin-pecan-larabites-vegan/

I have a little modifying to do, but there is much potential YUM!

Pumpkinspiration!

I was inspired by Oh She Glows, but knew I needed to change a few things, 'cause that's what I do. Here's what I did.

Wet Ingredients

• 2 tablespoons ground flax mixed with 4 tablespoons water (make and set aside mix in after 5 minutes or so)

• 1 cup unsweetened canned pumpkin purée (1/2 a can)*

• 2/3 cup of maple syrup

• 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

Dry Ingredients

• 1 cup gluten-free rolled oats, ground into a flour 

• 1 cup gluten-free rolled oats

• 1 cup almond flour (not almond meal)

• 2 tablespoons arrowroot powder (for enhanced binding)

• 1 tablespoon baking powder

• 1/2 teaspoon sea salt 

• 1 -2 tablespoons cinnamon (we like cinnamon, so we use more!)**

• 1/8-1/4 teaspoon ground ginger

• 1/2-1 teaspoon ground nutmeg

• 1/8-1/4 teaspoon allspice
(or use your favorite pumpkin pie spices, in the amounts you like--you can add clove if you like it) 

Yummy stuff (aka as optional, but it's the YUMMY stuff) 

• 1/2 cup pecan halves, chopped

• 4 tablespoons non-dairy chocolate chips

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 350F and line an 8-inch square pan with parchment paper

• Mix flax egg in a small bowl or mug and set aside to thicken for about 5 minutes.

• In a large mixing bowl, mix the pumpkin and maple syrup 

• Pour in the flax mixture (should be thick) and vanilla extract and mix

• Mix the dry ingredients (all of them)

• Add in the Yummy stuff.

• Spoon dough into prepared pan and spread out until smooth and even. The dough will be very sticky, but this is normal. (Tip from Oh She Glows: I like to cover the dough with a piece of parchment paper and roll it with a pastry roller. I didn't do this step.)

• Bake for 20-35 minutes (I baked for 35 minutes)(the original recipe said 15-20 minutes, but I changed a few things). Next time, I might stop at 32. It's done when it has a good texture to the touch. 

• Place pan on a cooling rack for 10 minutes. Then, lift out and place square directly on cooling rack for another 10-20 minutes, until cool. (The bars will crumble slightly if sliced warm, but they firm up nicely when cooled.)

(Tip: I put the whole almonds into the rolled oats I was grinding to make my own almond flour. Do it in two batches in your Vitamix (or other high powered blender) if you're doing this.)

We all really liked this. 5 out of 5 of us give it a gold star! (I left the pecans out of 1/2 because I wasn't sure how girls would react, but 4 of 5 of us like the pecans.) 

I'm going to play around a little with the recipe and try making it with whole wheat flour. We like the gluten free, and I love having gluten free options to make for friends who need it, but we also like the gluten around here. I'll keep you posted on any new variations. Pictures hopefully soon--we just killed off the first batch, in less than 24 hours, but I'll make this again.

 

*I had 1/2 a can left over and needed a recipe for it. This recipe can be paired perfectly with the cornbread recipe I just posted or you can refrigerate the other 1/2 a can and make the recipe again in a couple of days, or freeze it for later if you need more time between baking sessions.

**I've switched to Ceylon Cinnamon. It's the true cinnamon and may have more health benefits than the cassia cinnamon. It's got a milder flavor and I like to use more. If you use cassia cinnamon you may not want as much.

Happy October (a new cornbread)

I finally got around to making this recipe from The Breakfast Drama Queen. Except, I changed it a little. Are you surprised? She likes savory cornbread, and I, while I don't like sweet, do like sweet cornbread. I have even been known to pour a little maple syrup on my cornbread. Sweet cornbread makes sense to me--savory, not so much.

Okay, so what'd I do? I loved her idea of pumpkin, so I didn't change that! I stuck with the recipe she made for the most part, except I added about a quarter cup of maple syrup. I probably should have reduced the soy milk I used (didn't have almond), 'cause it's taking a long time to bake!

From her site, with my modifications.

• 2 tablespoons flaxseed meal

• 3 tablespoons water

• 1 cup pumpkin puree

• 1 teaspoon maple syrup

• 2 ½ teaspoons baking powder

• 1 teaspoon salt

• 1 ½ cups polenta (cornmeal)

•  ¾ cup unsweetened almond milk (or whatever non-dairy milk you prefer)

INSTRUCTIONS

• Preheat the oven to 350°F. Lightly oil a 9x9 pan.

• In a large bowl, whisk together the flaxseed meal and water. Whisk in the pumpkin puree and maple syrup. Add the baking powder and salt, followed by the polenta, and stir well. Add the non-dairy milk, and mix until completely combined.

• Pour into the pan. Bake for 25-30 minutes, (with my extra liquid, it took 30 minutes) or until the tops feel firm. Cool for 5 minutes before eating or transferring to a cooking rack. 

Verdict?  We liked it. It's not that sweet. It's very moist. The amount was perfect for the 5 of us. I served it with My Mexican Soup!