Stop and smell the dandelions

Here's one of our backyard buddies teaching us a very important life lesson... sometimes you just have to stop and smell the dandelions!

This squirrel comes with a handle too!

Easiest Cake For Chocoholics

This has to be the easiest chocolate cake recipe I have ever found. I've modified the recipe in many different ways and it always comes out great!

Super Moist Chocolate Cake (VegWeb.com)

I've tried using all whole wheat pastry flour, far less sugar, sometimes I replace 1/2 of the sugar with brown rice syrup, and 1/2 of the oil with apple sauce. Whatever I do to it, it always works out! It's a magic cake! No wonder it has such great reviews on vegweb!

Here it is as cupcakes with chocolate chips on top...

Bunny Wabbit

I finally got a few good pictures of our little backyard bunny!

Isn't he way too cute?

He was just hanging out and having a nice grass salad. Good thing he didn't come earlier because our backyard hawk was here earlier taking a bath! Bunny would have been his lunch!

Feed the kid in you

So here's my latest comfort food, this is usually my lunch when we have no leftovers or when I just want to feed the little junk-eating kid in me.

Hot dogs on pizza! Lightlife jumbo dogs are my favorite and they are a great pizza topping! You don't even have to cook them, just slice them and toss them on the pizza.

This actually tastes better with a baking powder crust instead of yeast. So actually this is one big flat biscuit topped with pizza sauce, Vegan Gourmet cheese and sliced veggie dogs!

Here's the baking powder pizza recipe:

2 cups of flour (1 cup whole wheat and 1 cup white or whole wheat pastry works great)
1/2 tsp of salt
1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 cup of water
1/2 cup of soy milk or any milk
4 tbsp of oil

Mix the dry ingredients, add the liquids, mix everything together, spread on a greased baking dish, add toppings and bake at 400 degrees for 20 minutes.

Frozen Pineapple Treat

YAY! Today was frozen fruit treat day again! This time we had a pineapple/banana sorbet that was definitely worth the brain freeze! I got the idea from fatfreevegan.com

I used one part of frozen banana slices and two parts of frozen pineapple chunks in their juice (canned), ran it all through the food processor and that was pretty much it. Talk about easy!

Brown Bread and Coffee... and Jane Eyre

I read Jane Eyre a few months ago and it was such a great book that I had to start pacing myself towards the final chapters because I didn't want it to end.

But Charlotte Brontë didn't just affect my emotions and my thinking, she gave me a new comfort food... brown bread and coffee! It's what Jane eats on her first day at Lowood, at the end of chapter seven. My brown bread is made with whole wheat flour, oat bran and flax seed, and I generally make buns instead of loaves. It's a perfect fit for one of those moody days when nothing is going right. I guess it's such a comfort food for me because my brain associates the food with the story that I enjoyed so much.

I actually even have a somewhat proper recipe for the "brown bread", and that's unusual. I like to think that Jane would approve!


Jane's Brown Bread

Ingredients

2 ½ tsp dry yeast
¼ cup turbinado sugar
½ cup warm water

3 cups whole wheat flour
½ cup oat bran
½ cup ground flax seeds
½ tsp salt (you might want to use more salt, this is plenty for me)

¾ cup warm milk (I use Silk soy milk)
¼ cup oil or melted Earth Balance
¾ to 1 cup of water


Directions

1- Combine the first three ingredients and let them sit for 5 minutes.
2- Combine the dry ingredients and add the yeast mixture and the milk, oil and rest of the water.
3- Knead until a smooth dough forms.
4- Cover and let rise for an hour.
5- Form buns and arrange them on greased cookie sheets. Cover and let rise for an hour.
6- Bake at 400 degrees for 20 minutes.

Frozen Fruit Frenzy

I drank a lot of smoothies growing up, my mom used to make one every day every summer. They tasted great but I always felt so miserably full after just one glass. Now I know why they were so filling - it was the darn milk!

My smoothies now consist of two things: fruit and water. They are refreshing and energizing rather than super filling. I always freeze my bananas as soon as I buy them - frozen bananas make smoother smoothies!

Frozen fruit makes a great "ice cream" treat too! I use one part frozen banana and one part another frozen fruit, stick them in the blender on the highest setting until they become creamy and either eat it right away or re-freeze it for a firmer dessert like the one below.

Next on my frozen fruit frenzy agenda will be a pineapple sherbet!

My first post - cornbread and chili!

Well, here goes my first blog post!

I've been obsessing over cornbread and chili lately. It's been a pretty new discovery for me - why on Earth didn't I ever try cornbread and chili together before? I had eaten chili and I had eaten cornbread, but I had never put the two together before! I bow to whoever first thought of combining them!

Here's my cornbread and chili. I originally used the Grandma's Cornbread Made Vegan recipe from vegweb.com and now I have reduced the amount of salt and sugar (about 1/4 cup instead of 1/2) and I use whole wheat pastry flour instead of all purpose flour.

I have no recipe for the chili because I always wing it. I do use Morningstar Farms Grillers Recipe Crumbles and I generally add little bit of On The Border salsa to give a little kick!