Tag Archives: Low Ingredient

Busy Weeks Call for Pancakes… Banana Pancakes!

Posted by LD in Beginner Recipes and tagged with , , , , , ,

When I was a kid my father would travel on business a great deal. My mother got in the habitof giving us pancakes for dinner one of those nights when he was away. Usually the night he left. It was about comfort and fun. My brother and I were always beyond excited. She made these enormous, fluffy, bisquick pancakes with a big glass of milk ororange juice and it was like heaven. Since I have been out on my own I realize that when stuff isn’t so fun and life is stressful or when a friend comes in to visit and they arrive late at night, I make pancakes. Then the vegan thing happened and I did not know what to eat. Pancakes were butter, milk, and eggs in my head. Then I went online and googled my life away. PETA has agreat site helper called “accidentally vegan” that lists foods you can eat that already happen to be vegan. They have a standard one and teen site with this. And guess what is on it? BISQUICK!

That being said after a long stressful week I am looking forward to pancakesand not just any pancakes I am going all out and making banana pancakes. My non-vegan stepkids love them and occassionally right before I flip them over I will add a few vegan semi-sweet chocolate chips!

Ingredients:

2 cups Bisquick

1/2 cup Almond Milk (plain unsweetened)

1/2 cup Vanilla Coconut Milk (or vanilla soy milk) + 1/4 cup

2tbs flaxseed (ground fresh in coffee grinder)

2 brown frozen bananas

Optional: vegan semi-sweet chocolate chips

Note: To double the recipe you do not need to double the bananas, I usually just add one more.

 

 

First thing, place the 2tbsp whole flaxseed into the coffee grinder, grind until a fine powder.

In a large mising bowl mix 2 cups of bisquick and the ground flaxseed together until blended.

Add the 1/2 cup of both milks to the pancake powder.

Stir until thick and sticky. It will be very tough to mix and look more like bread dough than traditional pancake mixture.

Place browned frozen bananas in microwave for 30secs and then flip and do another 30secs. They will be liquidy so do not remove right away.

Add extra 1/4 cup of milk now into the pancake dough.

Last add the hot bananas. I rip them down the side over the mixing bowl holding them with a potholder and dump them into the bowl. They will be soupy but this is a good thing!

Mash them into the mixture until well blended.

Heat the griddle or pan until a bead of water dances on the griddle or pan.

Then spray or oil the pan.

Scoop pancake mix onto the pan and seperate it using a utensil or you fingers if you are feeling brave until a flattened circle is formed. This may take some practice. If the dough is took thick when you flip it over just press down and flip back after the second side is down to ensure it is cooked through. You won’t die if its not but because there is no worry of food poinsoning but it gets a weird texture.

Flip when you see bubbles start to form around the edges. This is the “flip me” signal for those that may not cook alot.

Last place them in the oven on warm or about 200-250 degrees until you are ready to serve them all.

I top with nuts, berries, heated rice syrup mixed with earth butter and cinnamon, margarine and maple syrup, shredded coconut and sliced bananas, etc.

ENJOY!

Traveling Vegan: A day at the Museum

Posted by LD in Traveling Vegan and tagged with , , , , , , , ,

Saturday my husband, 2 setpchildren, and I went to the Museum of Science in Boston (www.mos.org). I am always partially worried/terrified during a trip out because not only do all three of them have a dairy intolerance but I am vegan and that is like being Food Court intolerant. There are apps for what you can eat at the fast food places but sometimes they will list a bread roll, ketchup, and shredded lettuce. Not exactly a meal or even tempting to want to try. I am not a super vegan either so french fries even if they are in the chicken finger oil do not bother me, I am still on the fence about honey, and I don’t argue over things like what type of sugar is in this soda. That being said I am more flexible when I go out but still not always flexible enough not to pack a lunch and I really can’t stomach too much junk food anymore anyhow.

When I got up Saturday morning I made little goodie bags for all of us full of snacks to take to the MOS. Everyone got an apple, a granola bar (minus me, I gave my husband 2 due to a casein issue), and then a cheese danish square I made with the girls the night before (recipe to follow). This was easy and allowed for a decent snack that filled everyone up. However to my suprise they have an amazing salad bar at the Museum of Science in Boston. This is a new thing so I encourage everyone to take a website looksie when going to places like the MOS. They really cater to food allergies and healthy living these days. Especially Science Museums! Also, it is a nice day out to have fun, explore, and learn! Although I do wish they had a bigger section dedicated to food!

Cheese Danish Squares

  • 2 Puff Pastry Sheets (I use Pepperidge Farms http://www.puffpastry.com/)
  • 1 8oz tub Vegan Cream Cheese (I use either Tofutti or Galaxy)
  • 1/2cup Brown Sugar
  • 1tsp-1tbsp Cinnamon (to taste)
  • 2tbsp Earth Butter (stick form is easiest)
  • Vegan Granulated Sugar or Vanilla Sugar (to sprinkle on top)

Heat oven to 425 degrees.

Lightly butter or oil a cookie sheet and place on of the puff pastry sheets down on top completely rolled out.

In a medium size mixing bowl combine cream cheese, butter, and brown sugar together. Add cinnamon to taste last. I prefer a whole tablespoon of a mild cinnamon like Ceylon Cinnamon.

Sprinkle cinnamon on top of the pastry dough. Then top with cream cheese mixture.

Place the next layer of dough on top. Sprinkly with cinnamon and vanilla sugar or granulated sugar. I buy vanilla sugar from Penzey’s, like most of my spices.

Place in the oven for roughly 20 minutes or until the pastry is golden and flaky and the filling has melted and is lightly pouring out the edges.

Cut with a long flat knife or pastry cutter into squares. Serve slightly warm or cold.

Never serve hot as the cheese filling gets lava-like!

If you want to get fancy you can pre slice the dough into strips and roll it into yummy cheesecake cinnamon rolls!

Beginner’s Guide to Vegan Ice Cream with TWO Recipes!

Posted by LD in Beginner Recipes, Meatless Monday Desserts and tagged with , , , , , , ,

I love ice cream but now when I am away I have to sacrifice this frozen treat because it has milk. I have two problems with milk. One is before I was vegan I was lactose intolerant and those pills did not help. Second is my post vegan life where I still am not allowed to have it. So I either have to choose a dairy free sorbet at the ice cream stand or I have to forego the frozen treat with dismay. However, when I am home I can go get some Tofutti Marry Me Bars (which I adore) or I can grab some So Delicious Coconut Ice Cream (which is my fave!).

However I wanted to mimic my old favorite ice cream one day so I looked around for ice cream recipes in hopes to discover how to remake a key lime pie gelato from Ciao Bella that I still cannot live without.

Here is how it went. I bought soymilk from the refrigerated section, coconut milk from the refrigerated section in vanilla, key lime juice off the shelf, and then had the sugar and corn starch on hand. Note: Do not follow this recipe as it does not end well. I mixed all these ingredients into a pot and boiled it placing it in the ice cream maker still warm and set it for 30 minutes. It started to separate and then wouldn’t cream up cold. I then placed it in the freezer for 24 hours where it became a solid block of italian-like ice that tasted on point but could not be unfrozen from the ice cream freezer bucket. Lesson? Don’t get too fancy until you can make vanilla.

So here is my vanilla recipe and chocolate recipe with only a few ingredients! PS My step kids love making it!

2 cans coconut milk

1 cup sugar

1 tbsp vanilla extract (Only 1/2 tbsp for Chocolate Ice Cream Recipe)

1 pinch of salt

(2tbsp Full Fat Dutch Cocoa Powder for Chocolate Ice Cream Recipe)

Take all ingrdients and dump into a bowl. Whisk until all items are blended and dissolved. Place in ice cream maker bowl that has been in freezer for at least 24hrs.

Then put on the icre cream machine to blend for at least 15minutes or as much as 30 minutes.

Chocolate ice cream will take longer to stiffen.

Place extra back in the freezer for up to 5 days (if it lasts!).

This is good with a piece of pie or topped with just about anything.

If you want to add mix ins. I suggest doing it after the fact in a seperate container. I added sliced raw almonds and sugared toasted coconut to the chocolate one day and it was heaven!

Quick Vegan Lemon Meringue Pie for Beginner Vegans

Posted by LD in Beginner Recipes, Meatless Monday Desserts, QUICKIES! and tagged with , , , , , , , ,

So I love to travel and I love to eat but last year my surgeon came up to me and said I couldn’t eat what I had been eating and veganism was my new way of life. So after I cried over the loss of my mac n’ cheese and bacon cheeseburgers I took a deep breath and started checking out every Vegan cookbook and blog I could read. Today here I am, over a year later, less tears, and a few tricks up my sleeve. One is making a quick pie for those moments when you forgot you had to bring a dessert…

Lemon Meringue Pie is a party staple. My husband loves lemon and I love pie so it works in our house. Here is my trick Grab frozen vegan pie crust from Whole Foods, some lemon pie filling from just about any grocery store (just check for egg and gelatin most will not have this and be accidentally vegan), dump into the crust and bake to the requirements of the pie mix can. Sometimes you just need to bake the crust so fill it with dried beans to keep it from bubbling on the bottom. Then cool and add filling. Last step is the only real “cooking” part of this. Make a homemade coconut whipped cream topping.

2 cans of cold full fat unflavored coconut milk. (I always keep 2-4 in the fridge these days).

1 tbsp vanilla extract

1/2 cup powdered sugar (use organic or vegan, easy to find at Whole Foods)

3-4tbsp of tapioca flour

1tbsp of Soy Powder

First I seperate the coconut water from the thick cream in the coconut milk cans and discard the wet stuff, thick cream only please! Then, I dump the coconut cream and all the other ingredients in a bowl and whip with a whisk until it is thick. Feel free to add more flour if needed. Some people sub tapioca for coconut flour but I don’t usually have that in my pantry so tapioca will have to do. Last spread onto the pie curd and whip little curls over the top. Freeze for about 30-60minutes and then throw into the fridge until you leave for the party!