April 13th, 2012
These are sooooo good!
This is actually my first time making crackers. Now that I’ve made some, I have no idea why they always seemed so intimidating. I think it was something about spreading them out thin enough that always scared me off. These crackers are a snap to make (hehe) and make an excellent afternoon snack. They are also seriously healthy – packed with nutritious seeds they provide lots of omega 3 fatty acids, calcium and fiber.
They’re actually quite addictive. Lightly sweet, toasty and super crispy. They remind me a little bit of a healthified sesame snap.
I’m sure you could also make these raw by dehydrating them instead of baking them. I haven’t tried that yet but I likely will this summer when it get too hot to cook so I’ll report back then!
I’m also submitting these to Ricki’s Wellness Weekend!
Cinnamon Sugar Seed Crackers (Adapted from Angela’s Endurance Crackers)
¼ cup chia seeds
¼ cup whole flax seeds
¼ cup ground flax seeds (also called flax meal, I make my own in a coffee grinder)
½ cup sunflower seeds
½ cup sesame seeds
1 tsp cinnamon
¼ cup maple syrup
¾ cup water
optional 1 tbs cane sugar for toppping
Preheat oven to 325 F and line a large baking sheet with parchment paper. Mix together all the dry ingredients in a large bowl. Add the maple syrup and water and stir to combine. Let sit for 5-10 minutes, stirring occasionally, until all the water has been absorbed. The mixture will be wet but there shouldn’t be any standing water. Spread mixture evenly over the lined baking sheet. I just used the back of a wooden spoon to spread it out and because the mixture is wet it spreads very easily. It should cover the whole sheet. Bake for 30 minutes. If you want the optional sugar topping, take the crackers out after 20 minutes and sprinkle evenly with the cane sugar then return to oven. Take out of the oven and using the parchment paper, carefully flip over the entire sheet of crackers. Peel off the parchment paper and cut into squares (I used a pizza cutter and cut into 24 squares). Return to oven and bake for 20-25 minutes more or until all the crackers are lightly golden brown. Remove from baking sheet and let cool completely on a baking rack.
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March 30th, 2012
Sorry for being a bad blogger! I did some work for the Green Party over the past few weeks so life was a little busier than normal.
We had a little taste of summer last week and it sort of felt like coming out of hibernation. All the snow melted, I put my winter boots away and broke out the flip flops. It was blissful (at long as I didn’t think about the looming devastating effects of climate change….). With the warm weather I was craving all things cool and creamy. I’m a big fan of banana ice cream and I sometimes like to play around with other fruits. Mango is one of my favorites as it always blends up nice and creamy. I’ve always loved the combination of mango and coconut so I put the two together for this incredibly yummy treat. I used reduced fat coconut milk since it was all I had on hand and it was still lusciously creamy. But I’m sure it would even better if you used the cream from the full fat milk.
Mango Coconut Ice Cream
2 cups frozen mango cubes
⅓ cup + 2 tbs chilled coconut milk (from can, can be full or reduced fat)
2 tsp maple syrup or agave (can be replaced by stevia)
Put your coconut milk in the fridge an hour or two before you want to make the ice cream. Add mango and sweetener to a food processor fitted with the s blade. Start the food processor and slowly pour in the coconut milk while it’s running. Start with the ⅓ cup and add more until it’s light and creamy but not at all liquidy. Enjoy! (I’m sure a squeeze of lime juice would also be yummy!)
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November 22nd, 2011
Apple Butter Chia Seed Pudding (using white chia seeds)
A few people have asked me about chia seeds lately. They know that chia seeds are super healthy but just aren’t sure how to eat them. So I though I would share how I’ve been loving my chia seeds for the past few months.
For those who don’t know, chia seeds are packed with omega 3 fatty acids, calcium and iron. And yes, they are the same seeds that grew hair on our Chia Pets when we were kids!
I’m a huge chia pudding fan. It’s quick and easy to make, yummy, and incredibly healthy. There are two main ways to make chia pudding, blended and unblended. I used to be all about blended chocolate chia puddings but lately I’ve been making a plain chia pudding in the morning and stirring in different mix-ins based on what I’m in the mood for that day. I find this is faster to make and I don’t have to struggle to clean stuck on chia seeds out of my blender! The consistency of an unblended chia pudding is similar to tapicoa pudding.
For the basic chia seed pudding, put 2 tbs of chia seeds in a bowl or container. Add 1 cup of non-dairy milk and give it a good stir with a fork. If you use unsweetened milk, add a bit of sweetener. I use 2 drops of liquid stevia. Let it sit for 5-10 minutes and then give it another really good stir with the fork and break up and clumps. Ideally, let it sit for at least another hour before you plan to eat it. I make it in the morning before school and bring it with me for my afternoon snack.
Now it’s time to choose a mix-in. If you use a good quality non-dairy milk, the pudding will be yummy on it’s own, but it’s always more yummy with a mix-in! Here are some things that I like to mix in:
- 100% fruit jam
- left over cranberry sauce
- apple butter
- chocolate almond butter sauce
- chopped up fruit (peaches, frozen berries, bananas)
- chocolate chips or cocoa nibs
The options are really endless! I guess I sort of treat it like a plain yogurt.
Do you guys have any other mix-in ideas?
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October 28th, 2011
I don’t have much time for a real post today. Dave and I are going to see Matt Good tonight. We have front row tickets and backstage passes – I’m crazy excited!!
Dinner is left over borsch. I don’t have a recipe for you because this is one of the few soups that I actually use a recipe out of a cook book for. I just wanted to share my love of borsht. I’m not sure if it’s because I went to a Ukranian babysitter for a large chunk of my childhood or because borscht is the one of the few meals I can make with local produce all year round, but I love it!
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October 27th, 2011
It’s my mom’s birthday on Friday and I wanted to mail her some cookies. She has coeliac disease so she can’t eat gluten. I’ve tried a few vegan gluten free cookie recipes before that turned out pretty good but I really wanted one that used Earth Balance instead of oil because I know she loves ‘buttery’ cookies. I couldn’t find a recipe that I liked so I combined a few. When I first took these out of the oven I thought they were a disaster. Then I tried one…then another one…and I couldn’t stop eating them! So I guess they turned out pretty good after all! There are definitely a crispy cookie, not chewy, but the flavor is great. They don’t taste gluten free at all and I’m pretty sure Dave liked these better than my regular chocolate chip cookies. They are a bit finicky so make sure to follow all the baking notes!
Gluten Free Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies
Adapted from Mission: Vegan
½ cup Earth Balance (one stick)
½ cup brown sugar
¼ cup white sugar
1 flax egg (1 tbs ground flax seed mixed with 3 tbs water)
1 ½ tsp vanilla
¾ cup + 2 tbs brown rice flour
¼ cup almond flour
½ tsp baking soda
pinch salt
½ to ¾ cup chocolate chips
Preheat oven to 375 F. In a large bowl, cream together the Earth Balance and sugar with electric beaters. Add the flax egg and vanilla and beat well. Add the flours, baking soda and salt and beat again until combined. Fold in the chocolate chips. Drop dough onto cookie sheets that have been lined with parchment paper by the tablespoon – don’t flatten! The dough will seem very wet and the cookies will spread out a lot while cooking so leave lots of room between cookies. Bake 8-10 minutes or until they start to get lightly golden brown. Leave them on the cookie sheet for at least 5 minutes to firm up or they will fall apart.
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October 23rd, 2011
The Vegan MoFo Iron Chef ingredient for this weekend is coconut. This worked out great because I just discovered that my coconut butter expired in May…yes May. It still tasted fine and I think we can all agree that coconut butter is simply too delicious and too expensive to throw out, so I needed to use it up asap!
One of my favorite things to make with coconut butter is raw fudge, but I don’t really like making it as a brick of fudge because it can be pain to find the right size container and then it can be hard to get out. So I decided to make truffles!
Now, these are seriously decadent truffles, not just health food shaped into a ball and called a ‘truffle’. They can easily hold there own against their dairy filled counterparts. They are incredibly rich and chocolaty and melt in your mouth, and they couldn’t be easier to make!
Raw Chocolate Coconut Truffles
½ cup coconut butter (not coconut oil)
¼ cup macadamia nut butter
½ cup raw cocoa powder
¼ cup raw agave nectar
2 tbs maple syrup
1 tsp alcohol-free vanilla extract
extra cocoa powder and shredded coconut for rolling
Combine all the ingredients together (except the extra cocoa powder and coconut) in a medium bowl and mix with a whisk or fork until combined. Put bowl in the fridge to firm up for an hour or two. With a spoon scoop out approximately a tablespoon worth of fudge, roll in between your hands until it is nice and round then roll in either coconut or cocoa powder. Store in the fridge.
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October 6th, 2011
I got these gorgeous heirloom tomatoes in my CSA basket on Tuesday. Apparently they are called stripped cavern tomatoes and they are meant to be stuffed. They didn’t look like they were going to last long so, despite these last few days before the election being insanely busy, I ended up making a new recipe for stuffed tomatoes. I used my favorite stuffed pepper recipe (Millet Stuffed Bell Peppers from Jae Steele) for inspiration using quinoa because it cooks quickly and white beans since I already had some cooked in the fridge (left over from the Tomato Kale and White Bean Soup that I made yesterday).
These turned out way yummier than I was expecting. The filling got nice and brown and crispy and the tomatoes were juicy and tender. I’m sure you could make this with regular tomatoes or bell peppers.
Quinoa and White Bean Stuffed Tomatoes
8 large tomatoes
½ cup uncooked quinoa
1 onion
2 cloves garlic
½ tsp dried thyme
¼ tsp oregano
¼ tsp salt
2 tsp tamari or soy sauce
2 tbs tahini
½ cup white beans
pepper to taste
Cook quinoa in 1 cup water or broth for approximately 15 minutes or until all the water is absorbed. Meanwhile, saute the diced onion and minced garlic in 1 tbs olive oil or water until soft. Combine the cooked quinoa, onion and garlic with the remaining ingredients and still well combined. Cut the tops of the tomatoes and try to scoop out as much of the insides as you can. You can discard the tomato innards or add them to your quinoa mixture. Spoon as much filling as you can into the tomatoes. I used my thumb to pack it in. The mixture is sticky so you can have it heaping over the top of the tomato. Place tomatoes in a glass baking dish and bake at 375 F for 25-30 minutes until the tomatoes look soft and wrinkled and the filling is golden brown on top.
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October 5th, 2011
I don’t have much time for a post today. But I did find time to make a pot of one of my all time favorite soups. It’s a recipe from the Fat Free Vegan Kitchen and I’ve probably make it close to 30 times! Every time I eat it I wonder how something so easy to make and so healthy can be so delicious! So be sure to check out this delicious recipe for Rustic Red Kale and White Bean Soup!
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October 4th, 2011
I try to eat as local as possible and in the summer the vast majority of what I eat comes from within 100 miles. But bananas are always the exception. Dave and I always have a smoothie for breakfast and it always has 2 bananas in it, so we go through a lot of bananas! But, I discovered last fall that frozen pears are an excellent substitute for bananas in a smoothie. So for a few glorious weeks in early Fall, we’re able to have a completely local smoothie for breakfast.
For those of you with an abundance of local pears in season right now, try using them in place of bananas in your next smoothie!
Local Breakfast Smoothie (serves 2)
2-4 pears, chopped into large chunks and frozen
¼ cup hemp seeds (I buy local hemp seeds in bulk from Cool Hemp)
2 large handfuls of dark leafy greens (spinach or kale are my fav)
2 scoops protein powder (optional, not local)
1 cup frozen mixed berries (I still have a freezer full of berries I picked this summer!)
sweetener to taste
Add all the ingredients to your blender along with 1-2 cups of water or almond milk and blend until smooth and creamy. Taste and add sweetener if necessary. I find the pears are not as sweet as bananas so I usually add a bit of stevia or agave. If you don’t have hemp seeds, substitute with 2 tbs ground flax or chia seeds.
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October 2nd, 2011
It’s Vegan MoFo (Vegan Month of Food) time again and I’m super excited! The timing is pretty crappy for me since I’m going to be super busy with the Ontario provincial election until Election Day on October 6th (hence this post coming in just under the wire!). But I’m going to do my best to post every day! Thankfully I have a backlog of recipes and pics that I never got around to blogging about.
This is my new fav kale salad! I’ve probably made this like 5 times over the last few months. It’s incredible healthy, easy to make, and delicious. What more could you want in a recipe? Make this while there is still beautiful local kale in season!
Creamy Kale Salad
Salad
1 bunch curly kale
1 tsp olive oil
¼ tsp salt
Dressing ingredients (adapted from Sesame-Flax Dressing from The Vegan Chef)
⅓ cup tahini
¼ cup fresh squeezed lemon juice
2 tbs mild miso
1 tbs honey or other liquid sweetener
pinch cayenne
1 inch piece of ginger, minced
1 small clove garlic, minced
½ cup water
De-stem, wash and rip your kale into bite size pieces. Add the oil and salt and massage the kale with your hands until it is bright green and wilted. Blend all the dressing ingredients together until smooth and creamy, add more water to get desired consistency. Add dressing to your massaged kale until it is coated in creamy goodness. You will have left over dressing.
This recipe is great for weekday lunches. I find 1 bunch of kale usually makes 2 lunch size salads. I store the massaged kale and dressing separately and just add the dressing in the morning.
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