Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Shrove Tuesday


Kyle wanted to celebrate Fat Tuesday with some pancakes. Oddly enough, I was just thinking of trying out pancakes with the little one in an effort to try and introduce her to different, yet healthy foods. Here's a recipe that is both adult and baby/kid-friendly. I used baby cereal to boost the fortified iron content, but you could certainly just use flour instead. You can certainly make this without the sweet potatoes and the pancakes are great, but the potatoes make a deliciously dense pancake. This recipe makes a few extras, so I have them stashed in freezer in between a few layers of wax paper in a Ziploc bag.

Sweet Potato Pancakes

1 cup whole wheat flour
3/4 cup unbleached white flour
1/4 cup baby cereal
2 tablespoons sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup cold Earth Balance
3 cups clabbered soymilk (soymilk mixed with 2 teaspoons cider vinegar)
1 1/2 cups cooked and pureed sweet potatoes

Combine dry ingredients in a large bowl. Cut in margarine and use a pastry blender to achieve a coarse consistency. Add clabbered soymilk and stir to combine. Add sweet potatoes and stir until well mixed.

Heat a griddle over medium heat. Spray with oil. Pour out batter onto griddle and cook until bubbles appear and edges are a little dry. Flip and cook for another minute or two. Repeat until batter is gone.

Serve with maple syrup (adults) or fruit (babies).

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Clearing Out the Archives

I was checking out my pics, and realized that I hadn't posted a few gems. Because it's been so long, I can't really remember the exact titles and where things were from, but I'll do my best.

First up, Cardamom Rice Pudding from an issue of Vegetarian Times. I love rice pudding, but I didn't love this one. Maybe it was all of the almonds plus dried cranberries and strong cardamom flavour, but this was a little much. I'll stick to my usual recipe.
I had some baby cereal that tasted way too iron-fortified for Ash to like, so I used it up in my banana muffins recipe! I tossed some in with some oats and added a little extra soymilk. They were my best muffins ever!


Mystery salad alert! I have NO idea what this was, but I think it was from a recent VT issue. I don't think I'll make it again, whatever it was, probably because I wouldn't even know what issue to look in!


Now for all the good stuff - delicious Vegan Lasagna from the latest VT. A little bit of effort, but pretty fast. Instead of cooking onions and garlic separately for each of the Speedy Red Sauce and Spinach Filling, I cooked them together and split them up. Cut down on alot of the time. I have to say that this recipe did confirm that I really don't like vegan cheese. I never liked regular cheese, so I'm not sure why I thought I'd like soy cheese, but I gave it another shot with this recipe and will omit it in the future.
Triple Nut Torte from a holiday issue of VT. Very easy, and super good! Instead of using a double boiler for melting the chocolate, I just stuck chocolate chips in a bowl and put the bowl on the hot cookie sheet (used to toast the nuts). Melted like a charm! Why don't the authors put these tips in? I'm sure it's not just new moms that don't need extra effort nor to wash extra dishes!



Finally, the most delicious Pan Pizza ever. I used the crust recipe from the most recent VT, but filled it with Isa Pizza toppings instead. Way better than the Hut, even for obvious reasons that it isn't laden with pepperoni! I can't wait to make this again. I'm going to try a pile of different mushrooms and onions. I'm so glad that I have a cast iron pan just for this recipe alone!

Monday, February 09, 2009

Ashley Turns One!

More cupcakes! I baked these up during the week and froze them, made the frostings the day before and iced the day of - it was super easy...especially with a little ankle biter yanking on my pants to be picked up all the time! And I know the photo is not totally stylized...we had to hurry to grab a pic since we had 20+ hungry onlookers and a little girl that needed to be served!


For Ash's 1st b-day bash, I made S'mores Cupcakes from VCTOTW that my dad really enjoyed (although he kept calling them Smurf Cupcakes...I guess he never heard of a s'more before?).


Looking for something with more natural sugar for the b-day girl to eat, I made the Vanilla Agave Nectar Cupcakes (half frosted with Vanilla Buttercream and the other half with Not-Too-Sweet Blueberry Mousse...all from VCTOTW too). I was a little scared to use agar, but it seemed to turn out! When I tried the mousse on its own I was worried, since like the title says, it's really not too sweet. But teamed with a cuppie, it was super tasty! For some reason, I also expected a pale blue colour. After the final mixing, I felt relieved to re-read the description that went along with the recipes as it says it's bright purple! I'm going to make these ones again this weekend for the big b-day bash for all the babies in our playgroup. Ash really liked it.




I also made those avocado cuppies I blogged about before, but instead topped with the chocolate tofu mousse from VCTOTW. OMG. My new fave cuppie. The mousse was so thick and really creamy. Yummy!