Oat Fanatic

That’s me.  The oat girl. I can’t get enough.  

Morning oatmeal, overnight oats, granola.  I adore granola.  I rarely make it because I can’t stay away.  Really.  I’ll eat the entire thing if you let me.  Before it’s even cooled.

Since I used my last cup of rolled oats, I had to be sure to save some for breakfast.

Spicy and chewy, yet crunchy with a hint of sweetness from the banana. It was difficult to resist.

Good thing the book I’ve been jonesing for became available at the library! It might keep me occupied for a bit.

Spicy Banana Granola
1 banana
1/2 cup water
2 tablespoons flax meal
1 tablespoon oil (I used spicy sesame oil)
1 cup rolled oats
1/4 cup dried blueberries
1/4 cup unsweetened coconut
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon anise seed
1/8-1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
dash of nutritional yeast (optional)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a large bowl, toss together oats, blueberries, coconut, cinnamon, anise seed, cayenne and nutritional yeast. Set aside. Puree banana, water, oil and flax, then add to the dry mixture and combine well. Spread evenly on a cookie sheet (I’m stubborn and didn’t grease it but it might be easier if you did) and stick that sucker in the oven. Using a spatula, I broke up the granola “sheet” into pieces about 15 minutes in, then checked on it every 10 minutes or so until it was crispy to my liking. Cool completely before storing or it won’t have any crisp to it!

SOS Adzuki Cakes

One of the really nifty blogs I follow, Diet, Dessert and Dogs, hosts a challenge every month called the SOS Challenge. This month’s ingredient is none other than my favorite bean: the adzuki! Well of course I had to participate!

I went over and over recipes in my head. I still have a few back there I’ll create at a later date. This recipe was perfect since I had everything on hand!

Who else loves the combination of matcha and adzuki? It’s a pretty common combo in asian sweets and boy do I LOVE asian sweets. Every time I go to H-Mart I can’t help but buy another red bean cake. I’ve even got a black sesame version in the freezer. Mmm..
This recipe is a combination of a vegan marble cake and one of those chewy asian rice delights. The only thing I would do differently is to mash up the beans a little before adding them to the batter.

If you want more of a typical cake texture, you can use regular flour instead of the rice flour. Me? I love the unique chewiness. Chewy.. nom nom nom.

Check out Diet, Dessert and Dogs, she’s got some awesome recipes out there!

Adzuki Matcha Cakes
1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons all purpose flour
2 tablespoons glutinous rice flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
2 1/2 tablespoons oil (I used olive oil but coconut oil would be yummy)
1/3 cup (scant) brown rice syrup
1/2 cup plus 1 teaspoon unsweetened almond milk
1 teaspoon matcha powder
1/4 teaspoon freshly grated ginger
3/4 cup cooked adzuki beans, slightly mashed

Preheat oven to 350.

In a medium bowl, combine flours and baking soda. In a separate bowl whisk together oil, milk and brown rice syrup. Pour wet mixture into dry and stir to combine. Divide the batter in half, adding matcha and ginger to one part and adzuki beans to the other part.

Lightly grease a mini muffin tin. Spoon batter into tins, alternating matcha and bean flavors. Bake 15-25 minutes or until the cakes start to pull away from the sides of the tin. Cool 5 minutes in the tin and the rest of the way on a cooling rack.

This recipe made 12 mini muffins for me. There was a little batter left over, so I spooned it into a little dish and microwaved it for a quick treat. That seems to happen a lot. =)

Fluffy but not furry!

Tomorrow is my coworker’s birthday. I wanted to make something to bring in and share that I didn’t think anyone else would make. I went over and over in my head what I should create. I thought about pies, crumbles, fruit filled breads.. and then the perfect idea struck me.

Me, Amy and Andrea

I met Amy almost 2 1/2 years ago. She was my roommate when I moved to Arizona to work on a horse farm. I didn’t know a soul when I moved out there and was terrified of living in a confined space with someone I’d never met before in my life. I lucked out BIG time! Amy and I got along like peanut butter and ginger (corny, I know, but SO true). We liked the same shows, neither of us were morning people and we ventured into the “we only get paid so much so we have to make the most of it” style of cuisine. There was a lot of rice, peanut butter and ice cream to be eaten. We went through about a container of Dreyer’s per week. Each.

Come Thanksgiving a huge feast was prepared. I’m serious, we lived off the leftovers for a week straight. Lunch and dinner. Amy ended up going by a friend of a friend’s house a couple hours away, but not before dropping off her Thanksgiving Day contribution: homemade buttermilk biscuits.

Let me tell you that they were the best damn buttermilk biscuits I have ever tasted. Which leads me into my recipe.

I’m eating differently now but still had that fantastic buttermilk biscuit recipe in my little box. I wanted them. I craved them. So I adopted them to suit my current eating habits. I must say that they are absolutely the way I remember them. I can’t wait to make them again and again. Perhaps paired with a chocolate gravy.

Amy’s Veganized Buttermilk Biscuits
2 cups all purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 tablespoon maple syrup
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 flax egg
1/3 cup almond milk
1 teaspoon lemon juice (or vinegar)
1/2 teaspoon vanilla bean paste
pinch of salt

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Combine almond milk with lemon juice/vinegar and set aside. Make flax egg (1 tablespoon flax meal plus 3 tablespoons water) and set aside. Lightly grease an 8×8 inch glass casserole dish with olive oil.

In a large bowl combine flour, salt and baking powder. In a small bowl whisk together olive oil, maple syrup and vanilla bean paste. Pour oil mixture into flour and mix in with a fork. Add in milk and flax egg, working together until well combined. If your dough is too wet add a bit of flour. Mine ended up a little dry, so I added an additional 3 tablespoons of almond milk.

Turn dough onto a well floured surface and knead for about 5 minutes. Mash the dough out to the thickness of your cutter. In my case I gauged about 1/4-1/2 inch thick. Cut out your dough and place close together in the baking dish. I managed to get 4 rows of 3 across with 4 leftover. My “cookie cutter” was the lid to my non-stick baking spray, to give you an idea of size. Bake about 10-15 minutes or until the biscuits have no give on top and have a sort of “crust” feel. Very technical, I know. =)

Enjoy these plain with butter, hot out of the oven or even cooled with some grape jam!

Coconut Banana Macaroons

I got an email for this amazing recipe from my Oh She Glows subscription the other day.

I immediately fell in love with the idea. As I do with most of her recipes..

Unfortunately I knew I didn’t have enough coconut for the recipe. At first I was going to just reduce it by half.. then that changed to a quarter of the recipe. That just got way too complicated so I started tweaking.

From all the crazy tweaking came the following amazing recipe. My only problem was that I could not puree the coconut quite enough to make it into smooth butter. My food processor doesn’t quite get the job done – it’s on the list for an upgrade! Despite that one tiny problem, the dough came together pretty nicely.

I brought these little gems into work today and everyone that tried them LOVED them. There were only a few left and I stashed them in my drawer so I would always have an emergency snack available. Well.. for as long as they hold out.

=)

Coconut Banana Macaroons (adapted from Oh She Glows)
1 cup unsweetened coconut
3 dates
1/2 banana
1/2 teaspoon vanilla bean paste
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup rolled oats

Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Toss the coconut into your food processor and whip that sucker until you get a beautiful creamy coconut butter (or until your food processor can’t take it anymore..). If you would like a tutorial for making coconut butter, check it out here. Add in the dates, banana, vanilla bean paste and salt, pureeing until a smooth batter forms. Pulse in the rolled oats until just fully combined.

Scoop dough out by the 1/2 tablespoon and form into balls. Place on a lightly greased cookie sheet and bake 10-15 minutes or until just golden on bottom. Cool completely on the cookie sheet and devour!

How Corny!

So Tuesday morning I checked out some more vegan cookbooks from the library. SCORE! I’ve already come across about 30 recipes I have got to try! Some of those I will be posting about after this weekend. It is Annivalentinese New Year celebration weekend for Kyle and I! Greek themed, even! I had to be different.

In the Moosewood Restaurant: Cooking for Health cookbook, I found a recipe for corn bread. Now I’m a cornbread spaz. I can’t get enough. This recipe looked so good I just couldn’t wait until I had all the correct ingredients to try it. So what did I do? I improvised.

This is what came out of it:

Warmed up and topped with my cocoa walnut butter and some sliced nanners, of course!

Chipotle Buckwheat Cornbread (adapted from Moosewood Restaurant: Cooking for Health)
1/2 cup buckwheat flour
1/2 cup cornmeal
1/2 tablespoon baking powder
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/4 – 1/2 teaspoon chipotle chili powder
1/2 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
1/2 tablespoon olive oil
2 tablespoons maple syrup
3/4 cup almond milk

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Lightly oil a 9-inch metal pie plate and set aside. In a large mixing bowl, mix together buckwheat, cornmeal, baking powder, salt and chipotle powder. In a separate bowl, whisk together vinegar, oil, maple syrup and almond milk. Slowly pour wet mixture over dry mixture and stir until just combined. Pour the batter into the pie plate and bake 15-20 minutes or until the center is just set and the edges are slightly pulling away from the side. Allow to cool overnight before slicing.

This was so yummy! I made it with 1/4 teaspoon chipotle but I think I would up the dosage to 1/2 teaspoon or more the next time. I like some kick!

Yesterday I also received an exciting package at work! I recently won a contest on The Kind Life’s website. I was in dire need of some new makeup tools and a makeup bag! Plus I have two extra bags I can set aside!

Sweet!

Snow Day!

I got “lucky”! We NEVER get snow days working at the bank. Then last night that monster of a blizzard (the likes of which I haven’t seen since I was in high school) came through town and BAM, Snow-Whipping City! We got well over a foot of snow overnight, along with some nasty howling wind. It enabled us to leave work early yesterday and have the day off work! Unfortunately for me, this Snow Day came on my day off.

*sigh*

You can barely see my car! And the snow plow "poop" blocking it in..

Oh well, Snow Day = Eat Day, right? I hope so, because that’s all I’ve been doing today! Well, aside from shoveling and napping..

Last night I got the itch again. The itch to make granola. I’ve been craving it like mad but holding off. This time, instead of making my delicious calorie-laden peanut butter and chocolate granola, I decided to go a different route and make some quinoa granola.

Now you see, I’ve tried to like quinoa. I’ve made it into pilaf, cooked it in pineapple juice and stir fried it; I just can’t get into the stuff that way. But I sure do like it in granola form. It stays nice and crunchy and I can’t get enough! Equally as delicious as the peanut butter stuff but much more “figure friendly”. Fit for a day of nibbling!

I loosely followed Ashley’s recipe for quinoa granola over at The Edible Perspective. I made a few changes to fit the recipe to ingredients I had on hand and I’ll repost with the ingredients I did use here. However, if you get the chance to click on over to Ashley’s site, please do. I get amazing ideas from her and her pictures are something to behold!

Maple Vanilla Granola

1 cup quinoa, rinsed well
1/2 cup unsweetened almond milk
1/2 cup water
2 teaspoons vanilla bean paste
2 cinnamon sticks
3 tablespoons flax seed
1/4 cup unsweetened coconut flakes
1/4 cup walnut pieces
2 tablespoons dried cranberries
2 tablespoons dried blueberries
2 tablespoons maple syrup
1/8 teaspoon sea salt

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a medium saucepan, bring quinoa, almond milk, water, vanilla and cinnamon sticks to a boil. Reduce heat to low and simmer until all liquid is absorbed. In another bowl, combine flax, coconut, walnuts, cranberries, blueberries, syrup and salt. Remove cinnamon sticks from quinoa and add the quinoa to the bowl with your other goodies. Stir well and spread evenly on either a non stick cookie sheet or a regular cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. Bake the mixture for one hour, stirring every 15 to 20 minutes to keep from burning. Allow the granola to cool completely before storing.

Mmmmmuffins!

Today is my mom’s birthday!

Happy Birthday Mom!

I wanted to make her something yummy and surprise her at work. She doesn’t have a thing for really sugary desserts and she’s been trying to eat healthier lately, so I scrounged some websites for an idea. Now I know that its a wee bit past pumpkin season, but I saw these pumpkin muffins over at Hell Yeah Its Vegan and I knew that they would be great! I made a few changes and voila! Perfect sweetness for mom and I without masking the beautiful flavor of the pumpkin.

And you know what?

It sure as hell is vegan! And tasty, too!

Maple Vanilla Pumpkin Muffins
1 3/4 cup pumpkin puree
1/3 cup olive oil
3 tablespoons maple syrup
1/2 cup water
1 teaspoon vanilla bean paste
1 3/4 cup all purpose flour (I might substitute some oats next time)
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt

Preheat oven to 350. Combine wet ingredients and stir well with a wooden spoon. Mix dry ingredients together in a separate bowl. Fold dry ingredients into wet until just combined. Spoon batter into lined muffin tins and bake about 15-20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. Because of how moist these cupcakes are you’ll need to eat them fairly soon after they’re baked, within a few days. Or you can freeze those bad boys and make them last forever! Enjoy!

Green with Envy

They aren’t in a half shell and they sure aren’t teenage but they’re green! And they’re fighting against their nemesis – BAD FATS!

I’ve got to stop baking so late. It makes me a little goofy. Delirium can be fun, though, when it involves green-ness!

I present to you: Green with Envy muffins!

Mmm.. avocado-ey, green tea-ey, lemon-ey goodness! These muffins are extremely moist and flavorful. I couldn’t stop eating them long enough to let them cool off! I’m always burning my tongue because of my impatience. Oh well. =)

I made these guys into minis only because I didn’t have any large muffin tin liners but had plenty of leftover Halloween mini liners.  If you decide to make them in the large tin I’d just increase the baking time a bit. Enjoy these unique treats. I sure know I did!

Green with Envy Muffins

3/4 cup all purpose flour

1/2 cup old fashioned oats

1 tablespoon powdered sugar

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon matcha powder

1/4 teaspoon sea salt

Zest and juice of half a lemon

~ 3/4 of one avocado (I decided on this amount since it was all I had left over)

1/4 cup skim milk

1 egg

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Mix flour, oats, baking powder, baking soda, matcha, powdered sugar and salt in a bowl. Set aside. In a blender or food processor, puree avocado, lemon juice, zest and milk. Mix wet ingredients gently into dry ingredients until just incorporated. Spoon batter into lined mini muffin tins (it makes about 20 minis). Bake ~10 minutes or until the tips just start to turn golden. Remove and allow to cool if you can!

I am thankful..

This year is coming to an end.  It’s been such a difficult year, emotionally and physically.  Stupid spine for not being able to handle the impact of running!  I wanted to take a minute to touch on some things I’ve been thankful for throughout the year.  I realized how amazingly strong my family is.  I never sat down to think about how rare it is to have a family that is so incredibly supportive and loving.  Despite all the obstacles my family has had to overcome this year, we managed to get through them together.  I managed to keep my traditions and make some new leaps.  All the “firsts” without my beloved Uncle, my Grandma’s surgery and all the other things in between; I wouldn’t have been able to bear them without the strength I received from my family.  From my family and from Kyle.  I don’t know what I would do without their presence in my life.   I love them all so much.

Now that I’ve gotten all sappy and teary-eyed, I would like to share some of my holiday!

I believe I mentioned a hint of recipes in a prior post and I will not disappoint!  I made gingerbread cookies with a recipe from Simply Recipes. I followed her recipe almost exactly, but cut down on the nutmeg and added in some cayenne. I’m not a huge gingerbread fan myself, but everyone loved them!

Oh yeah. Those are ninjabread men. I made them for Kyle.

Ready to unleash on an unsuspecting Kyle!

I had high ambitions to decorate all the gingerbread I ended up making but WOW I didn’t realize how hard it is to ice cookies with a piping bag. After the six ninjabread men, I had to move on. I had other things to make! I did dip the christmas trees in white chocolate to make them a bit more festive at least!

I made some caramels. Cayenne pepper caramels. They were WAY too delicious. See, I have this problem when I make caramel: I constantly burn my tongue. I just can’t keep the spoon filled with luscious, molten, sugary goodness away from my mouth. Oh well. Its totally worth it! I followed the recipe for salted butter caramels that David Lebovitz has posted on his awesome website. He makes me want to visit France, which is never somewhere I had on my wish list of places to go. It is now! The only change I made to his recipe was to add 1/4 teaspoon of cayenne pepper and to sprinkle some on top of the cooling caramel.

My top two favorite cookies I added to the cookie trays: white chocolate oatmeal cookies with rosemary and this fantastic recipe for kolachkys I discovered after months of searching over at Lemons and Lavender.

This recipe is amazing. I am so happy I happened upon her website! I used jarred apricot jam to save myself a little bit of effort. My dad and brother were so excited! My brother was also super excited about the homemade pumpkin butter I made for him with Angela’s awesome recipe over at Oh She Glows. I substituted orange juice for apple juice and adjusted the spices to taste. The recipe is fantastic and totally fool proof! Just be sure you have a lid or you may end up with pumpkin butter on the walls.

The white chocolate oatmeal cookies with rosemary, while it may sound strange, is a beautiful combination. I wasn’t really excited about the texture of the oatmeal cookie recipe I used, but I urge you to try adding it to your favorite oatmeal cookie recipe (after taking out the raisins.. I don’t think THAT would be such a great combo) and see what you think!

Oh. Those yummy looking pretzels in that jar? Yeah that’s addicting as all getout. Its a recipe my supervisor copied out of a Midwest Living magazine for me. Cinnamon sugar pretzels. Oh yeah. Don’t start eating them. You won’t stop. All you have to do is toss a 16 ounce bag of twist (or snap) pretzels with 2/3 cup canola oil, 1/2 cup sugar and 2 teaspoons cinnamon. Bake them in a large roasting pan in a 300 degree oven for 30 minutes, stirring 2-3 times.

The poor chocolate red wine cookies didn’t get made for the cookie trays because (unfortunately) I came down with some kind of flu/cold bug on Christmas Eve. I simply had no time to fit them in. But don’t worry, Bill and April got their special cookies last night at the bar where my family went to listen to our friend DJ. More on that at another time, though.

I believe I got off on a bit of a tangent, eh?

Well on Christmas Day I felt a bit better. In honor of my Uncle Jeff’s favorite snack (blueberries) I made a fantastic old fashioned blueberry cake I found over at 101 Cookbooks. I had to sub a bunch of ingredients I didn’t have, but the cake turned out wonderfully. It went onto the brunch table at my mom’s with some delicious scrambled eggs, sausage and hash browns. We exchanged a few gifts and made our way to my Aunt’s mother’s house. Dinner was delicious and the love of the family warmed the entire house.

Me with my Aunt and the girls!

I couldn’t have asked for a better way to spend the holiday.

I hope your year has been just as memorable as mine has. Enjoy the rest of it and I will see you all next year!

One of my all time favorites!

Another treat added to my friend’s goodie box!

I can’t believe I’ve gone almost a year without making these cookies! Well, actually, I can believe it. I’m not allowed to make peanut butter cookies. Especially not peanut butter ginger cookies. Why? Well.. because all that’s usually left are crumbs on the plate. I mean it uses my favorite peanut butter cookie recipe from Simply Recipes and it is my favorite exotic flavor combo.

These bad boys are pretty safe, though. They are for Amy. She won’t miss the two I ate to make sure they weren’t poisoned, right?

If you’re looking for something to liven up your peanut butter cookies, give ginger a shot! You won’t be let down!

Peanut Butter Ginger Cookies
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon molasses
1/4 cup unsalted butter, softened
1/3 cup peanut butter (I used natural chunky)
1 egg
~1 tablespoon ginger root juice (I squeezed my fresh ginger with a garlic press to get the juice)
1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons all purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon baking soda, heaping
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon sea salt

Cream butter until it starts to fluff up. Add in sugar and molasses, whipping until well combined. Add in egg, peanut butter and ginger juice, mixing well. In a separate bowl, combine flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Slowly add dry mixture into wet mixture, making sure the dough is well combined. Cover and refrigerate overnight.

On baking day, preheat oven to 300 (375 for crisp cookies). Shape dough into 1/2 inch balls (roughly, just make sure they’re all the same size), place on an ungreased cookie sheet and flatten gently with a fork. Bake 15 minutes (9-10 if you’re baking crispy cookies at 375) or until the cookies just start to turn brown on the bottoms.