Making dinner healthier, one slow cooker at a time.
These cheery pancakes are full of luxurious coconut milk. The whole wheat flour and ground flax seed make them healthier, but they do have fat in them from the coconut milk. They are a snap to make so you could whip up a batch in no time! [Read more...]
You can tell when it’s getting near St. Patrick’s Day by all the green non-vegetable food that pops up. I was looking at some other redos of this minty shake and was shocked to see that many people are putting in food color to make their shakes green. I think that’s a huge missed opportunity! In my household if it’s green there are green veggies in it – and there may be some greens hidden away even if the dish is not green! [Read more...]
I used to love Nutella but it’s not vegan-friendly since it contains milk. I also don’t like that it has vanillin, is full of sugar and palm oil. But there are tons of vegan nutella redos, so I will spare you yet another. Even if nutella-making was out I still had it in my head to make a spread. One that would taste a great dissolved in a cup of coffee or spread on a graham cracker or a bagel. Something rich with no refined sweeteners and, after thinking too much about Nutella, it had to have hazelnuts in it too. I made a coconut hazelnut spread that only sweetened with dates. It has a slight caramel flavor from the dates in a creamy blend with a shading of hazelnut permeating throughout. [Read more...]
Happy weekend everyone! These little single-serving cakes are perfect for a dinner party or could be a special brunch treat. Full of sweet and tart cherries the almonds and coconut add great texture too. The cherry Amaretto sauce makes them an even more decadent treat. [Read more...]
The more I cook with oats the more I find they have an endless amount of uses. Savory oats are my latest obsession. These steel cut oats retain an al dente quality to them just like arborio rice does in a risotto.
Cheryl said she would have never guessed it was made of oats, but I have her prepped with a few barley risottos that I worked on for my new slow cooker book, Vegan Slow Cooking for Two or Just You!, that comes out this fall.
Of course you can pre-order it right now on Amazon. I promise you it will make my day! (Plus if you pre-order now you’ll get the lowest price it sells for between now and the release thanks to Amazon’s pre-order price guarantee.)
These dessert-like pancakes have a secret weapon in the batter – white beans! The beans add extra fiber, protein and all keeps them moist without very much (or even no) oil. Even better the beans do not effect the flavor at all!
I got the idea when I was writing The Great Vegan Bean Book last year. I started using beans in muffins, pancakes and waffles and all of the recipes worked really well. I like using any kind of white beans because the flavor is mild and no one will suspect that they are eating beans!
I think Girl Scout cookies have caused more New Years resolutions to be broken than cakes and brownies combined. The fact that they are available for a limited time only makes it so much easier to give in to temptation.
Of course, when I went vegan they were off my list because none were dairy and egg-free. This year one of the manufacturers of Girl Scout cookies has a few vegan cookies. But my old favorite, Caramel Delights, are not on that list. [Read more...]
Snowmageddon disappointed me. It was a few hours of light snow mixed with some sleet, but it didn’t stick here in Durham like I hoped. That means that I’m at work today instead of conducting slow cooker bread experiments and sitting in front of the fire while it’s cooking. I even had my green owl fleece pajamas set out in hopes of a snowy day in.
Oh well, maybe I’ll get a snow day before winter is over. At least I have a hot mug of sugar cookie tea with homemade nut milk. A good cup of tea can be almost as wonderful as sitting in front of the fireplace.
Today I have a soup recipe for you that’s perfect for a snowy day. You can use less water and make it a full on stew or just serve it with a hunk of whole grain bread to make it a heartier meal. I served mine with a couple of sides – an arugula salad and a pile of steamed broccoli in a nooch sauce. (Water, nutritional yeast, salt and pepper mixed together and then tossed with the cooked broccoli.) Cheryl even liked the broccoli! [Read more...]
Today I have a few more things that can make your weekend even more special! This time I’ve remade some syrups that will make your Sunday morning coffee awesome! [Read more...]
There must be something about seeing 1/1 show up on the calendar that makes us all crave a little change. All week long I’ve been bombarded with blog posts, magazine articles, and new programs that promise to make me healthier and more motivated..
Healthy means something different to everyone. It’s really rooted in where you are at right now. If you are coming from a meaty standard American diet even the smallest changes will have a big impact on how you feel. But if you are farther down the path, or have been eating consciously for years, you may want to up it a notch.
No matter where you are starting from embrace where you are and be kind to yourself. It’s not always easy to make life changes, but many changes can still be tasty.
Speaking of tasty… Cookies get a bad rap because most recipes are packed full of fat, sugar, refined flour and a single cookie can be 2 to 3 servings. While my White Chocolate Cranberry Pistachio Cookies are not 100% healthy they are a few steps ahead of the typical chocolate chip cookies.
They are light and cake-like instead of a typical crunchy cookie. The banana keeps them very moist too. Leave out the white chocolate chips to make them almost fat-free or you can sub regular chocolate chips if you can’t find vegan white chocolate ones. [Read more...]
The Virtual Vegan Potluck is over, but the virtual feast lives on!