Whip Up These!

In attempt to keep the cooking and baking short and sweet, we continue to go back to these two recipes. So easy and tasty and fun to change them up each time.

Awesome Homemade Veggie-Bean Burgers

Makes 10-12 patties

1/2 tsp onion powder
1/2 tsp cumin
1 - 1 1/2 tsp oregano
1/4 cup each cornmeal and wheat gluten
2 1/2 Tb nutritional yeast
2 Tb flaxseed meal
2 cups pinto or black beans
1 Tb canola oil
1 clove garlic, minced
1 Tb Braggs
1 Tb stone ground mustard
2 - 4 Tb diced bell pepper
2 Tb diced onion

1. In a small bowl, mix onion powder, cumin, cornmeal, wheat gluten, nutritional yeast, and flaxseed meal.
2. In a large bowl, mash pinto beans, then add remaining ingredients. Mix until just combined.
3. Add dry mixture from the small bowl to the bean mixture in the large bowl, and mix until well combined.
4. Form 10 - 12 patties. Place on a baking sheet that has parchment paper or has been sprayed with cooking spray.
5. Bake at 375 degrees for 15-25 minutes, or until golden on both sides.Variations: Add 1/2 tsp red pepper flakes or cayenne
Add 1/4 - 1/2 tsp Worcestershire sauce or Balsamic vinegar
Use white beans, lentils, black-eyed peas, or kidney beans
Add 2-3 Tb finely chopped veggies
Add lime juice and jalapeno





Great for breakfast, snacks, or lunches, these extra fluffy soft biscuits are easy to whip up. Serve with avocado, olive oil, nut butter, or jam.

A basic recipe, with lots of variations possible!Fluffy Baking Powder Biscuits

Makes 8- 12 biscuits

2 cups whole wheat, spelt, or kamut flour
1 Tb baking powder
1-2 tsp sugar or agave syrup
1/2 tsp salt
3 Tb oil
1 tsp vinegar
1/2 cup soy milk or non-dairy milk
1/2 - 3/4 cup water

Combine dry ingredients in a large bowl. Add in wet ingredients and mix until just combined. Drop on a baking sheet lined with parchement paper (or use biscuit cutters to cut out biscuits). Bake at 400 degrees F for 12-15 minutes or until just golden.

Variations:
add nuts and/or seeds - such as 1-2 tsp sesame seeds or 1 Tb crushed pumpkin seeds
add nut butter - we use 2-4 Tb sunflower seed butter with about 1 Tb less oil
Oat biscuit - add some quick rolled oats and/or oat flour
Corn biscuit - add 1/4 cup cornmeal and about 2-3 Tb less flour
Pumpkin biscuit - add 2-4 Tb pumpkin puree with 2-4 Tb less water
Make it savory! with 1/2 tsp total of dried herbs or curry powder or even caraway seeds



We also wanted to mention a product that we have our eyes on! Mary's "Gone Crackers Crumbs" look like a wholesome whole grain product to use in replace of those bland and refined bread crumbs! We could whip up a tasty dish with these!

Until next time,

Great Lunch Meals and Delicious No Bakes!

Hi everyone!

It's been awhile ---- we are super busy this time of year at work! Finalizing new Betty Lou's organic vegan bars that taste great and are packed full of nutrition and antioxidants! Get excited for new snack bars that are better than Larabars, Pure Bars, and Cliff Bars! Check out Betty Lou's blog and website for any updates.


January has been milder in weather, but still rainy and damp, so we always enjoy some warm comforting food, especially one-pot meals. One of our New Years Resolutions is to make a dish from one of our vegan cookbooks. So, the past few weeks we've tried Vive le Vegan's Greek Basmati Rice, Veganomicon's Samosa Potatoes, among other great meals and breads.

The Greek Basmati Rice is probably one of the best rice dishes we've tried! Great flavor, not too strong in any particular spice, just an addicting bowl of deliciousness. Full of onion, garlic, olive oil, olives, zuchinni, chickpeas, rice, parsley, and spices we could eat this every day!

Samosa Potatoes was a yummy spiced meal perfect for lunches. Spices like mustard, coriander, onion, garlic, ginger, turmeric, and cumin, this dish was great complimented with olive oil and Food Should Taste Good Olive chips! We didn't stuff the potato with the mixture, we just cooked diced potatoes in the pressure cooker, and added peas, parsley, and carrots.


In one of our bread cookbooks, we've been baking whole grain breads. We discovered a great technique for making great sandwich bread. We mix the dough and knead it, then let sit for 1 hour or so, knead again, then let sit another hour or two. We bake it at 400 degrees F as a round loaf, and we put a pan of water in the oven, so the crust is nice and the bread is airy and soft! Try putting some Bob's Red Mill cereals in your bread (like 10 grain cereal, kamut cereal, or just cornmeal), as it gives a great nutty flavor and great texture.
We love Greek food, and we found on vegweb.com "Real Deal Falafel" recipe. We made modifications, but it was tasty and great with condiments such as olive oil, mustard, tomato sauce, and avocado. When you get home from work it's easy to whip up a delicious dinner.


Of course to polish off a delicious meal you need some sweet treats! Delicious No Bake Oat Bites from Vegetarian Times Oct 2005 issue. We used sunbutter instead of almond butter, reduced the syrup a tad, added chocolate covered cacao nibs, and drizzled heavily with 73% Dagoba chocolate. Messy to roll, fun to make, and awesome to eat! Would be good to try an oatmeal cookie dough version with cinnamon and more raisins.



For some fun time outside of work, we've been busy with scrapbooking. Here's two pages we did, one of the Oregon Coast (we used an old calendar photo for the background), and one of our u-pick excursions this past summer!

Have a great last week of January!

Ready for the Christmas Holiday!

Merry Christmas!

What is everyone planning for their big Christmas feast? Since we are staying in Oregon this year for Christmas instead of traveling back to Texas to visit family, we are having fun planning our meal.


Here's our menu:

• Veganomicon's Cornmeal-masala Roasted Brussel Sprouts
• Creamy Tomato Soup
• Celine's Pumpkin Yeast Bread Rolls, with added cornmeal
• Diet Dessert and Dogs' Tofu Fritata, with lots of good veggies!
  
• Homemade Agave-sweetened Cranberry Sauce
• Italian Cornmeal Cake, sweetened with all natural date sugar
• The Happy Veganarian's Vegan Speculaas
• Cinnamon Roll Biscuits, this time with a cinnamon-maple-fig filling
• "Egg" Nog Spiced Smoothie
  
• Dark Chocolate Bars for sweets! :)

Yummy, lots of leftovers expected!! We are so excited this year to stay here in Oregon and savor our all vegan meal, instead of being surrounded by non-vegan food and smelling the unappetizing meats. All vegan feast galore!What are all your plans for Christmas holidays? We recently attended a wonderful "Sound of Music" musical at our local theater, which got us into the joyful spirit of Christmas. We also plan to drive around and view the beautiful Christmas lights, as well as attend a Christmas Choir concert. Of course, we wouldn't want to miss all of those great classic holiday movies, such as "It's a Wonderful Life"! What is your favorite holiday movies? What is the one thing you most look forward to for the Christmas holidays?

Christmas can be a hectic time, especially if traveling is involved. This year seems to so far be a smoother, easy-going Christmas season. We also finished our gift shopping many weeks ago, mailed them all off in time, and beat the crazy crowds in the stores. Remember to slow down if Christmas gets to stressful! Christmas is more than just gifts and shopping and planning. Christmas is a time to relax, find comfort in family and friends, celebrate Christ's birth, and reflect on all the blessings God has given us.

May Love, Joy, and Peace dwell in your homes and hearts always!
Merry Christmas and God bless,

Southern Cornbread Dressing

Hi everyone,

Sorry it's been so long since we last blogged. Work keeps us way too busy, the evenings we just want to relax and read, and then the weekends seem to be just as busy with chores and cooking meals for the work week.

The fall/winter CSA veggies have been fresh and delicious - lots of salad greens, kale, root vegetables, and cabbage. We seem to eat a fresh salad every day, while during the summer we didn't seem to eat as much salad greens. Here's a pic of some huge napa cabbage - it was like 1 1/2 feet tall.
How was your Thanksgiving? Our dad visited, and we cooked him a tasty Oregon-Southern feast. Cooked garlicy greens, asparagus, butternut squash with pears, and a fancy cornbread dressing!

Our grandmother makes her annual holiday cornbread dressing, and since our Dad wouldn't be able to eat her's, we made our own vegan version for him to enjoy. The week before we made our Harvest Cornbread recipe, without the banana pepper and red bell pepper, and with 3/4 cup corn. We baked the cornbread in a rectangular pan for 40 min, cooled it completely, then cut it into squares and put in the freezer. On Thanksgiving, we defrosted the cornbread, crumbled it into a large Corningware pan, and used the crumbled cornbread pieces to make a delicious cornbread dressing, recipe below! It was a full meal in itself, filled with black-eyed peas and veggies. For leftovers, we added cooked greens and asparagus, and olive oil or avocado slices.

LK's Southern Cornbread Dressing

2 celery stalks, diced
1/2 - 1 onion, diced
1/2 green bell pepper, diced
1 red bell pepper, diced
1 large zucchini, diced
1 vegetable bouillon (such as Rapunzel)
1 1/2 tsp store-bought Mexican seasoning (or a mixture of cumin, paprika, cayenne, whatever floats your boat)
3 cups black-eyed peas
3/4 tsp sage
1/2 - 3/4 tsp thyme
1/8 - 1/4 tsp celery seed
dashes of black pepper
salt to taste
1 batch cornbread
more cayenne or Mexican seasoning if spice is desired

Add veggies except zucchini in a large saucepan. Add some water and the vegetable bouillon, and heat veggies over medium heat until almost tender, then add zucchini and cook another 2-4 minutes until just tender. Combine the vegetable mixture in a large bowl with the black-eyed peas. Sprinkle the herbs and spices over the black-eyed pea veggie mixture, and mix until well combined.

Crumble the cornbread into the black-eyed pea mixture, and mix until thoroughly combined (may need a large bowl). Place the cornbread dressing in 2 medium or large rectangular baking dishs (it makes a lot, great to freeze for another week!). Bake for 40-50 minutes until thoroughly heated and slightly brown on top.

Delicious accompanied with gravy, olive oil, salsa, or a salad dressing. And it's always fun to change up leftovers like adding different spices or vegetables!

Enjoy!













One question for the week - do you prefer veggie flavored dishes and meals, or do you like the meat-flavored foods? Do you like the taste of a vegan faux meat burger or sauce? At work we are experimenting with savory vegan snacks, and it was interesting to get people's opinions about vegan foods.

It was nice to not have any meat-flavored foods for Thanksgiving; our Dad raved about having a delicious meal without the meat and heavy foods!

Happy Holidays!

Mezza, Bread, and the Staples

Hi Yall!

Sorry for the absence in posting, but we've been busy during the weekends with cooking/baking and being creative doing crafts and scrapbook!

Our lovely Mom is visiting us (she says hi to the bloggers out there!) and so we've been having fun with her here.



We visited the lovely Ya Hala Lebanese Restaurant in Portland, one of the best restaurants in Portland! Fresh out of the oven pita bread, with mezza platters that include hummus, tabouli, falafel, kibbeh (bulgur tomato pate), and swiss chard lentil soup! Great feast for a rainy day!



Our bread baking this week was soft wheat rolls! We are having some for dinner with lentil pumpkin seed veggie burgers and a spinach bean dip with tahini, lemon juice, garlic, olive oil, and parsley.


Tomorrow we plan on getting our food staples! Kamut flour, spelt flour, grain cereals, porridges, and flakes all at Bob's Red Mill! Our mom loves Bob's, so she's excited to go to the visitor center, and we also we will be doing the plant tour!

New to Bob's? Check out our visit back last October.


We are apart of the CSA Community Supportive Agriculture program and we've been enjoying fresh greens. Here we made pasta with greens, garlic, leeks, and olives!


Have a great week!

And thank you Fayinagirl for giving us a blogger award! Check back next week for more awards given to bloggers who we feel are extra special!

Oven 24/7 Oh So Sweet

Well, it sure seems like the weekends are all about the oven! We've been using the oven 24/7 to baking sweets, crackers, breads, and to cook casseroles and veggies! :O

It seems that as the holidays come around and as the weather gets cooler and wetter, we get the urge for soft homemade breads and sweet treats!

When we were little, every Saturday morning we would have a breakfast treat. Sometimes it was Pilsbury buttery crescent rolls, sometimes fluffy biscuits and jam, or even pancakes. But the sweetest breakfast we looked forward to was cinnamon rolls! We'd just take the refrigerated Pillsbury cinnamon roll dough from the can and quickly bake up sweet delicious cinnamon rolls. Our favorite was the orange flavored rolls. Don't you smell the sweet aroma of cinnamon and orange in the morning coming from the oven?

As we grew up, we ate less of those delicious (yet sinful, sugar-high) treats. Every once-in-a-while, though, we try to make our own. Very tedious! For an easy alternative, we sometimes make Cinnamon Roll Muffins, but this time we finally decided to try Cinnamon Roll Biscuits!
The biscuit recipe was virtually identical to our favorite biscuit recipe, so it was easy to whip up. This recipe calls for less water, to be able to form a dough that can be rolled out. We spread a filling of date sugar with lots of cinnamon, then roll it up, slice it, and bake it in the oven for ~18 minutes. Instead of margarine, we used coconut oil and brazil nut butter. For the glaze, we used only 1/2 cup powdered sugar and brazil nut butter instead of margarine.

Turned out awesome! The biscuit was flakey, with some crusty edges and soft centers and a delectable gooey filling. It could use even more cinnamon though. Other variations you can try include orange, maple, egg nog spiced, or pumpkin spiced! Great for special family breakfasts or dessert (because they are sweet). Another recipe we have our eye on is Celine's Pumpkin Oatmeal Sticky Biscuits.


For dessert, we baked up some Gluten Free treats!

First up Chocolate Chip Bars. We have the cookbook One Smart Cookie by Julie Van Rosendaal, but we haven't used it in years since we went vegetarian. Recently, though, we decided to try the recipes out again, making them vegan, because Julie really does have great recipes.

For the chocolate chip bars, we followed Julie's Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe and put it in a 9x13 bar pan. We have Bob's Red Mill All Purpose Gluten Free flour blend, so we used that with 1/4 tsp xanthan gum. The flour blend isn't as tasty as the gluten-free flour blend we use for Betty Lou's at work :) but that's ok, the chocolate hid the subtle beany flavor. To replace the egg we used 1 Tb flaxseed meal. We also used coconut sugar and date sugar, which gave the bars a subtle carmelly warm flavor. And of course, we added lots of Equal Exchange 80% and 71% Dark chocolate, which made the bars extra rich and chocolaty! We love chocolate.


Another gluten-free treat - go try Elana's Pantry Gluten Free Fig Bars! We made modifications to make Gluten Free Prune Squares, a perfect snack that's not too sweet but satisfies your sugar craving. We used oat flour instead of almond meal (for a nut-free bar), added a small amount of flaxmeal (for a binder and nutrition), and used prunes and orange juice for the filling. We also recently tried a cranberry lemon version, with dried cranberries and lemon juice. Other variations we would love to try include apple spice, apricot, pumpkin spice...any fruit imaginable!


We would love to hear about more about gluten-free baking and any ideas you all have. Since we do work in the R&D lab at Betty Lou's Inc (check it out!), we are currently focused on gluten free baking and we would love all of your suggestions and tips! Thanks!

So, one last question--what's the place in your house where you spend the most time, and love to be? Of course, ours is our kitchen. Even if it is tiny, we still manage to stay put in our kitchen most of the weekends. You'd think we'd become claustrophobic, lol..

Have a great week!

Texas Gals Southern Cookin'

Even though we live in Oregon, we are Texas gals, and we'll always have a place in our heart for Southern food!

Veggie pot pies, cornbreads, black-eyed peas, biscuits, gravy, and other spicy Southern food.


Cornbread is so easy to make and a delicious buttery (vegan) treat!

How about our Harvest Cornbread or Sweet Potato Jalapeno Cornbread? We've also love just plain cornbread, with a little cornflour for extra softness and melt-in-your mouth deliciousness. Great to make cornbread muffins for easy snacks. (*Update 10/4/09 We baked some jalapeno cornbread, made just a few modifications, and it turned out melt-in-your-mouth awesome).


Instead of the typical Italian calzones, why not a Southern calzone?!
Black-eyed pea calzones with a cornmeal whole grain crust! We just combined onion, garlic, bell pepper, chopped broccoli, black-eyed peas, oregano, and Cajun seasoning and used that for our filling. We served these calzones with homemade mustard vinegrette (with lots of garlic added to this recipe) and an awesome homemade barbeque-cajun sauce (tomato paste, Cajun seasoning, worceshire sauce, bragg's, garlic, oregano, vinegar, oil, and water). A cilantro vinegrette would be good too.


We make biscuits about twice a month! Tahini biscuits and pumpkin cornmeal biscuits, kamut biscuits, baking powder biscuits and cornmeal biscuits, sourdough biscuits, jam biscuits and spice biscuits, and so much more you can do with a biscuit recipe!

We recently tried Tritticale Rosemary biscuits - perfect with olive oil or Southern gravy - and a gluten free biscuit! Gluten-free baking has been an interest to us, especially since we've been experimenting with gluten-free in the R&D lab at work! With a blend of gluten-free flours (sorghum, tapioca, rice, and potato starch), coconut flour, and some xanthan gum, we followed Bob's Red Mill Buttermilk Coconut Pancake recipe (on the back of the coconut flour package) and made Gluten-Free Biscuits. We added 2 Tb flaxmeal and 2 Tb oat bran, and used a blend of hemp and soy milk to make a biscuit baked in the oven. Very good for gluten-free, held together well, and more of a fluffy texture like mashed potatoes in a bread. Good with garlic and gravy.


Veggie Pot Pies are always so comforting, but time-consuming to prepare! So we made it easy!

LK's Easy Veggie Pot Pie

1 vegetable bouillon
1 cup unsweetened soy milk
1 cup water
1 1/2 tsp balsamic vinegar
1 bay leaf
1/4 tsp each salt and pepper
1 clove garlic, minced
3 Tb nutritional yeast
1/4 tsp each sage and thyme
1/4 tsp each onion powder and ground mustard
1/4 tsp celery seed
2 Tb oil
1/4 cup diced bell pepper
1 cup broccoli, finely chopped
1 med yellow squash, diced
2-3 large chives or 1/4 cup onion
1 cup potatoes, diced and cooked
3 Tb flour
prepared pie crust or just biscuits or toast!

1. Add first 9 ingredients (bouillon through nutritional yeast) in a small stove pot and cook on medium high heat for 2-3 min.
2. Then add sage, thyme, onion powder, mustard, and celery seed, and simmer while you chop the veggies.
3. Place veggies in a microwave-safe dish, and cook until almost done.
4. Add flour to the stove pot and bring to a boil. Stir constantly until thickens.
5. Combine gravy from the stove pot with the vegetables in a large container.
6. Store in refrigerator until the day you want to have this for dinner.
7. When preparing your dinner, take your prepared pie crust and bake in the oven according to baking instructions (about 10 min).
8. Place the container of the vegetable filling in the microwave and heat until hot.
9. When the crust is just golden brown, take out of the oven. Pour the vegetable filling over the crust.
10. Cut and serve. This will be messy, so another delicious option is to break off pieces of the pie crust, place on your dinner plate, then pour the warm vegetable filling over it, and serve. Or just serve the vegetable filling over homemade biscuits or toast!


She's the sweetest little rosebud
that Texas ever knew,
Her eyes are bright as diamonds,
they sparkle like the dew;
You may talk about your Clementine,
and sing of Rosalee,
But the yellow rose of Texas
is the only girl for me.

ENJOY!

Crunchin' Away

Crunchin' away with crackers!

With sliced avocado, dipped in hummus or salsa, or to crave those munchies, don't you agree that crackers are a tasty crunchy treat?!

Not so much a treat, when a small 8 oz box can be $4.00 at the store (Mary's Gone Crackers, Doctor Kracker, Back to Nature, Annie's Homegrown...).

Instead, get out your flour and spices, and be creative! Make some homemade crackers. And each time you make a batch of crackers, change up the spices and flours and make them unique.

Here's what we've been crunchin' on this month!

LK's Easy Whole Grain Crackers

Makes 35-45 small crackers.

Basic cracker ingredients:

1 1/4 cup whole grain flour**
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp, optional baking soda
1/3 -1/2 cup water
1 Tb oil
1 tsp, optional Dijon mustard

Spices to add:

Cheesy-garlic-flavored
1/3 cup nutritional yeast
1 tsp paprika powder
1/2 tsp turmeric (for color)
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper (or to taste)
3/4 tsp Garlic granules/powder

Onion-pepper-flavored
1/2 tsp Onion granules/powder
1/2 tsp Black pepper

Curry-pumpkin-flavored
3/4 tsp - 1 tsp Curry powder
1/4 tsp Cumin
1/4 tsp Corriander
2 Tb Pumpkin puree - in place of some water

Herb-flavored
1/2 - 3/4 tsp Dried Oregano
1 tsp Dried Basil

1. Preheat oven to 375 - 400 degrees F.
2. Combine dry ingredients (including spices of choice) in a large bowl
3. Add the wet ingredients to the dry mix bowl, and mix until combined. The dough will be a tad sticky.
4. Sprinkle parchment paper with some flour and roll out the dough with a rolling pin.
5. Roll it out very thin, trying to make it as even as possible, and then cut it into cracker sizes.
6. Place on a baking sheet, and bake for 18-25 minutes, flipping half-way, and baking until they start to brown just a little bit. Let cool.


**In regard to the choice of flours, try Bob's Red Mill whole grain flours, such as Kamut, Triticale, White Wheat, Barley, Oat, Spelt, or gluten-free flours like Teff, Buckwheat, Sorghum, Amaranth, or Millet. Each grain gives a unique flavor, so we enjoy trying different flours to get different flavors, such as nuttier or butterier or wheatier flavor...

What's your favorite cracker flavor? We welcome any tips or comments on crackers and delicious new unique flavors.

Update 8/24/09: Thanks for all the great comments and ideas. Cornmeal would be a nice addition for flavor and crunch. Adding some oat bran, wheat germ, or flaxmeal would also be a healthy addition. And more flavors we thought of - cinnamon or spiced cracker, spicy Mexican cracker, or chocolate cracker!

Have a great weekend!

Saturday Summer Breads & Biscuits

Happy Fourth of July!

We hope you all are staying cool as you celebrate! For us, we are enjoying our 3 day weekend at home - we've been traveling almost every weekend, so this weekend was our time to relax, do some cleaning, hanging out with our cats, and of course cooking and baking.

It's nice during the summer to have cool refreshing meals, which are quicker to make. Salads, dips, sandwiches, fruit smoothies, ice cream, etc. Yesterday we had fun making homemade oatmeal pitas and then had a healthy hummus pita! The recipe was so easy, from our favorite Bread Machine Magic cookbook. We will definetely make these pitas again!

Another delicious Bread Machine Magic recipe was the Shredded-Wheat Bread. This recipe called for crumbled shredded wheat (we used our favorite Arrowhead Mills Shredded Wheat Cereal). The bread had a soft yet slightly dense texture and a great wheaty taste; made perfect slices for sandwiches!

We love to start our Saturdays with breads and biscuits for breakfast. Ricki has an awesome Peanut Butter Biscuit recipe that we had to try! But instead of peanut butter (we try to avoid nuts), we used tahini. These Tahini Biscuits were devoured! Soft and fluffy, with a delicate crumb and a good nutty maple flavor. We served these with pear butter, maple syrup, fresh strawberries and cantelope, and a glass of soy milk.


Another Saturday biscuit that we enjoyed was Pumpkin Cornmeal Biscuits. Moist from the pumpkin puree, nutty and textured from the cornmeal coating on the bottoms, and subtle sweetness from the maple lemon glaze. A good biscuit for breakfast or with a meal. We served these with more maple syrup and coconut oil.

With our pumpkin biscuit we had a refreshing Raspberry Banana Fruit Smoothie with Healthforce Nutritionals Fruit of the Earth Mix. We also recently purchased Healthforce Nutritionals Vitamineral Green mix and both are so good! A blend of healthy energizing rejuvinating vitamins and minerals from natural wholesome raw sources. The Vitamin C and the Maca Vanilla Spice mixes were also very good. Everyday we make smoothies, and these blends have given us more energy! Reviews also say that overall their health improves too, such as healthy hair and skin.


Well, have a great weekend! Happy Independence Day!

Satisfying Nutritious Snacks

During a long work day, we need lots of energy to sustain us throughout the day. Although we love sweets, sometimes snack bars can be somewhat heavy and sweet. For a filling healthy snack, we love homemade muffins and biscuits. (Muffins and biscuits aren't just for breakfast!) Especially with hearty whole grains like oats, cornmeal, kamut, spelt, or triticale, these snacks re-fuel us for the last stretch of the day.

Thanks Bob's Red Mill for these recipes!

Triticale Breakfast Muffins

1 cup triticale meal
1 cup triticale flour
3 Tbsp raw cane sugar
<1/2 tsp salt
1 Tbsp baking powder
1 Tbsp flaxmeal mixed with 2 Tbsp water
1 cup soy milk or other non-dairy milk

Mix dry ingredients in a large bowl, then add flaxmeal and milk and mix until just combined (check moistness - may need to add more milk). Put in a 12-mini-muffin pan and bake at 375 degrees F for about 10-13 minutes or until just golden (don't overbake). We love mini muffins because they make the perfect size snack.


Blue Cornbread Muffins

1 cup blue cornmeal (can use yellow cornmeal)
1/4 cup oat flour or other whole grain flour
1/4 cup spelt flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/8 tsp salt
3 Tbsp flaxmeal
<1 Tb agave
1 Tbsp canola oil
1 cup soy milk or other non-dairy milk

Mix dry ingredients in a large bowl, then add agave, oil, and milk and mix until just combined. Put in a 12-mini-muffin pan and bake at 400 degrees F for about 11 minutes or until just golden (don't overbake). We enjoy the subtle corn flavor and crumb from the blue cornmeal.


Kamut Biscuits

1 cup kamut flour
1 cup whole wheat flour or spelt flour
1/2 tsp salt
1 Tbsp baking powder
1/4 cup canola oil
1 1/4 cup soymilk or other non-dairy milk

Sift dry ingredients in a large bowl, then add oil and milk and mix until just combined. You can make drop biscuits or you can roll out gently and cut using a round biscuit cutter. Place on a baking sheet with parchment paper and bake at 425 degrees F for 10 minutes or until just golden. Makes 8 biscuits. We loved the buttery soft flavor.


What are your favorite snacks to give you sustained energy? What are your favorite grains and flours to use in baking? We love to experiment with different grains and flours.

Have a great evening,

Yes for Breakfast - Biscuits and Granola

A rainbow!

We've been wishing for a fluffy tender breakfast biscuit these days, and without margarine, it's been somewhat difficult baking up the perfect biscuit. With coconut oil, however, the results are pretty close! We found an easy baking powder biscuit online and made a few adjustments:

Baking Powder Biscuits

2 cups spelt flour
1 1/2 Tb baking powder
3/4 Tb sugar
3/4 tsp salt
1/4 cup coconut oil, firm (cold or at room temp)
1 cup non-dairy milk

Combine dry ingredients in a large bowl. In the dry mixture cut in coconut oil as you would margarine. Add milk to the large bowl, and combine until just blended. Flatten the batter out a little or roll out on parchment, then form or cut out 7-10 round biscuits. Bake at 425 degrees F for 10- 12 minutes or until just golden.


Of course we like having different kinds of biscuits too, with different textures and flavors. So, out of the King Arthur Flour Whole Grain Baking Cookbook, we made the Cornmeal Maple Biscuits. We adapted the recipe of course to add in some crushed cornflakes instead of just all cornmeal, which gave the biscuits a nice texture. We did half of the recipe a maple flavor like the recipe states, and then the other half we did an herb version and added dried basil, celery seed, and dried dill. Both were delicious and turned out great! A cross between cornbread and biscuits.

Cornmeal Maple Biscuits

1/2 cup cornmeal
1/2 cup wheat flour
1 Tb baking powder
>1/8 tsp salt
2 Tb coconut oil, firm
1/4 cup + 2 Tb non-dairy milk
1 Tb maple syrup
5 Tb corn flakes, crushed (1/2 cup flakes before crushed)

for an herb variation you can add a mixture of herbs (about 1 - 1 1/2 tsp total) and instead of 5 Tb maple, sub in 1 Tb agave.

Combine dry ingredients (except corn flakes) in a large bowl. Mix maple syrup and milk in a small bowl. In the dry mixture cut in coconut oil as you would margarine, then add cornflakes. Add wets to the large bowl, and combine until just blended. Flatten the batter out a little or roll out on parchment, then form or cut out 4 round biscuits. Bake at 400 degrees F for 12 - 15 minutes or until just golden.


Another favorite breakfast treat is homemade granola! Sooo much cheaper to make your own, and it makes a ton! We love having this with dried fruit or fresh fruit and non-dairy milk, or adding other cereal like flakes or cheerios, or putting it in yogurt or ice cream. A simple base that can be easily adjusted to add different spices and sweeteners.

Easy Whole Grain Granola

2/3 cup each of spelt flakes, barley flakes, and rye flakes (or try other grain flakes or even just oats!)
2/3 cup oat bran or wheat germ
1/4 cup agave syrup or maple syrup
1/2 - 3/4 tsp vanilla extract (or try maple or almond extract)
2 Tb oil
2 Tb water

Place a parchment paper on a large baking sheet. Combine all ingredients, then spread out on the baking sheet. Bake at 300 degrees F for 15 minutes, then stir, then bake another 15 minutes. Makes 2-3 cups.

Mmm Breakfast. So satisfying. Miss Emma is sure happy :)

May your day start right with breakfast! - LK Sisters

Have Cake, Will Travel Reviews

We are bread lovers.

We love baking and eating breads, even drooling at breads that we see at the store or online. Every week we look forward to trying a new bread recipe or modifying a favorite bread recipe.

Our main bread sources include:


King Arthur Whole Grain Cookbook...

Bob's Red Mill Recipes...

online blogs...


and Have Cake, Will Travel.


Celine's breads are always the BEST! We try to make bread every week, and quite often the recipes come from Celine.

So far, here are her recipes that we've enjoyed making (and eating):

Rye Whole Wheat Bread - see our comments about this delicious bread here.

Pumpkin Wheat Bread - Made a Sweet Potato version , described here.

Hummus Bread - comments shown here.



Tahini Rolls that we made last weekend! And Tomato (Salsa) Bread that we made yesterday!


We loved the tahini bread- soo soft and nutty. Great with a veggie burger, hummus, or dipped with olive oil or with avocado slices! We made 7 huge buns; these rose so nicely and have a soft smooth texture. We are thinking of making them again but adding some garlic and/or wheat germ.

We also enjoyed the tomato bread - such a beautiful color. Instead of salsa, we used 3/4 cup chopped tomatoes (1 large roma), 1/4 cup diced sundried tomatoes, and 5 Tb tomato paste. Also used different flours and added 1 tsp basil. A good garden bread (although we made ours a little too moist this time), that would be wonderful in pizza form - to add extra basil and some garlic, and then have a simple elegant pizza topped with olive oil, spinach, and mushrooms! Or to use salsa, make salsa buns, and have them with black bean burgers and avocado!


THANKS for the wonderful recipes Celine, we always look forward to using your bread recipes and getting creative bread ideas from you. - LK

Whole Grain Carb Delights

Here is a taste of some of the carb-rich foods we have eaten and baked throughout the week. Of course, they all are whole grain, healthy, and delicious!

Most of the time for breakfast we enjoy a hearty bowl of cereal and mix in a bunch of nutritious goodies, including dried or fresh fruit, hemp or flaxmeal, and wheat germ or oat bran. When we're not eating cold cereal, we like to soak some rolled flakes (oats, barley flakes, spelt flakes, triticale flakes, etc.) in mylk and enjoy cold, or have a bowl of warm porridge (with flakes or grits/meals such as pumpernickle meal, kamut grits, etc.). We love texture, chewiness, nuttiness, and all things nutritious/whole grain!

Our favorite cold cereals include: Nature's Path Cereals (Millet Rice, Mesa Sunrise, or Gluten Free Whole-O's), and Arrowhead Mills Shredded Wheat. We periodically like Barbara's Bakery Shredded Oats and Puffins. A new cereal we also really liked is Enjoy Life's Cinnamon Crunch Granola (p.s. this is so crunchy, it needs to be soaked in mylk before eating).

This week we decided to do something different for breakfast. We warmed up cereal (in this case it was Peace's Cinnamon Spice Crunch) in the microwave and enjoyed it warm, like la belle vegan does periodically. It was very good - the spiced flavors came out into the milk and the texture was a nice softer bite.












Every week we make homemade bread/rolls and muffins. This week we savored homemade garlic breadsticks dipped in high quality Italian olive oil. Buttery rich, garlicy goodness! We enjoyed them with some steamed kale (with garlic, too), and a bowl of soup with lentils.

Now, for dessert, we love experimenting. We had anise powder hidden in our pantry for quite some time and finally put it to use - with fig anise oatmeal cookies. The idea was cool, and we love licorice flavor, which is similar to anise, but the flavor wasn't right. The anise didn't taste licoricy, and in a cookie, it was odd. The texture of the cookies turned out nice, we just need to tweak the cookie flavor and make authentic oatmeal spice cookies, or other flavors such as maple date oatmeal.

Another flavor we made in the kitchen along with the fig anise was fig orange. Sadly, the orange flavor wasn't strong enough, because we just used o.j. instead of orange peel. We spread on some coconut frosting, which made it a rich cookie!


We are baker fanatics, so had to make another special sweet - this time it came out perfect. Lemon Poppyseed Whole Grain cake from Bob's Red Mill, with added banana, flax, and fresh pineapple. Tropical, sweet, and so deliciously moist!What is funny is that as I am writing this post about baked goods/carbs, I have been eating all raw today, so these foods look very tempting! We are planning to make Sundays >90% raw days - with dried fruits, fresh fruits, smoothies, veggies, seeds, and raw meals. (That means no carbs except raw soaked grains and wheat germ.)

Cravings for carbs galore!
-LK

Muffins, Scones, Pancakes, and Breads

First of all, Happy 2009! We hope for a blessed year for everyone and for joy, peace, and memorable moments to come.
December has been a baking month! We love to bake breads and every week we try new recipes or make variations off of our favorites.

Muffins:
Today we made some quick pancake muffins - an orange variation and a garlic basil variation. For the orange muffins all we did was mix 1 cup of Bob's Red Mill 7 Grain Pancake mix, 1 Tb flaxmeal with 2 1/2 Tb water, 1/2 cup orange juice, 1/2 cup water, and 2 Tb wheat germ. The garlic basil muffins had all water and no orange juice, and had 1/2 tsp each of garlic powder and dried basil. We made 12 mini muffins - so easy and delicious!

Last week we made the garlic basil muffins from Veg News that La Belle Vegan recommended. Here's a link to the original recipe. These were excellent! We changed it up slightly:

Garlic Basil Whole Grain Muffins
2 Tb flaxmeal
5 Tb water
1/3 cup olive oil
3/4 cup water
1/4 cup soymilk
1/4 cup wheat germ
1 cup whole wheat flour
1/4 cup cornmeal
1 1/2 Tb baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
3/4 tsp garlic powder or garlic granules
1 1/2 tsp dried basil
1/4 tsp ground black pepper

Preheat oven to 385 degrees F. Spray muffin tin with cooking spray. In a large bowl, beat flaxseed meal and water with an electric mixer (or a wire whisk) for about a minute. Add olive oil, remaining water, and soymilk. Beat for an additional 30 seconds on medium speed. Stir in wheat germ, whole-wheat flour, cornmeal, baking powder, salt, and spices. Spoon mixture into prepared muffin tin. Bake for 12-15 minutes or until tops spring back when lightly touched. Makes 12 mini muffins.

Scones:
These scones were different than our usual scone recipe, as they used coconut butter and were not as dry as traditional scones. They were like the texture of banana bread - dense and soft. We made one as maple flavor and the other as apple cider flavor. Both delicious, spiced, and with a great rich texture.

Pancakes:
With a Marionberry-Peach-Banana fruit syrup, these oat-sesame pancakes were nutritious and flavorful! From chooseveg.com, we adapted this recipe. The sesame seeds were ground with the oats and batter to give a nutty flavor. We made a few minor adjustments, such as lowering the sugar and omitting lecithin; however, the big change we would recommend for future baking is to add baking powder. The pancakes didn't rise, but they were good anyways. The pancakes are also tasty plain and simple for lunch.
Cornbread:
With pumpkin puree, this cornbread was savory yet slightly sweet, moist and delicious! We followed our cornbread recipe, but modified it accordingly. We added ground coriander into the batter, which complemented the pumpkin savory-sweet taste. Next time we may add even more pumpkin, slightly less cornmeal, and a little banana for more moistness.


Bob's Red Mill's Gluten-Free Hearty Grain Bread:
This bread mix was like pumpernickel in flavor and texture, with hint of cocoa and caraway. We've never really dealt with gluten free food before, so it was hard to assess whether the batter was too wet or normal for gluten free breads. We will try other Bob's gluten free products to experiment more often with different flours and ingredients.

Happy New Year,
LK