More Chloe!

I seriously can't get enough of Chloe's Kitchen, Chloe Coscarelli's new cookbook. I swooned over it in a recent blog post, and have found myself making so much from it.

But I was trying to think hard about why I consider this to be one of my go-to books. I've realized now why it is: There is nothing 'weird' in this book. Honest to God, I turn each page and consider making each recipe (of course making necessary allergy subs where need be). I truly believe that this is one book that you can challenge yourself to make each item. And it's not just North American food fare - there are some ethnic-inspired dishes to help encourage trying something new, but they aren't weird! I also have alot of books that have either a million recipes or too many variations of one recipe that seem to complicate things. I find that overwhelming. Or they have a billion ingredients. This book doesn't! It's just so fab.

Anyways, to prove my fondness for this book, here are some more yummy things I've made this past week:

Tomato-Basil Bisque - Roasting the tomatoes, garlic and onion before blending adds such a yummy flavour! Love having the Vitamix since it makes soups so smooth compared to the immersion blender. I didn't make the pumpernickel croutons since I don't have a recipe that is Kyson-safe.

Rosemary Tomato Gallette with Pine Nut Ricotta - Delicious! I felt so fancy. I used Buttah to make the crust, and it was so flaky. Instead of using pine nuts, I used hemp seeds (surprise!). It was great! Would definitely use as a dip!

California Chipotle Chop with Agave-Lime Vinaigrette - Scrumptious! I just omitted the step where one would cook beans with garlic and chipotle since we cant do beans. I had added garlic to the salad but not chipotle so technically I don't live up to the title! Ash loved this and begged for more!

BBQ Pineapple Pizza - Sooooo good! I love her BBQ sauce! I have to admit that I didn't cook her own ketchup ingredients first - I just added those ingredients and cooked them as the BBQ sauce cooked. I just thought the flavours of this dish were so unique!

* Since I'm using mobile blogger, my pics are all shoved at the bottom! Will fix when I get to a PC!

Pizza Roll Ups

I make pizza. Alot. While I can change up the topping, the shape is pretty consistent. I've thought about a calzone style, but it takes forever for it to cool and I don't need the stress of one of the kids getting a burned tongue!

I was happy to read about Pizza Roll Ups in Today's Parent ages ago, and have made them a few times.  Basically, you roll out the dough to a rectangle, top it, then roll it up like a cinnamon bun, slice, and place separately on a parchment-lined cookie sheet to bake (I did mine at 375 for about 15-20 minutes). The kids are actually super pumped about them mainly because they initially think they are having cinnamon buns for dinner, but they remain excited after they realize they aren't filled with sugar - hooray!  And I'm jumping for joy since I have them stuffed with veggies that are easily disguised in this format - double hooray!  They are too busy unwinding them and stuffing their faces to realize that there is spinach, red pepper, mushrooms and nooch in there!

Normally I stuff mine with some minced seitan for added protein.  But it's been nice out the past couple of days, and I've had my mind on ramping up the cupcakes and cookies home baking business, so I've been lazy and haven't made any seitan.  So - why not use my other go-to protein source...hemp seeds!  I figured why not - they made a great sub for lentils in my pasta salad the other night, and they turned out great in the cinnamon buns!  Each roll easily had 2 tablespoons worth, so it bumped up the protein by about 10g per roll!

Ooey Gooey Cinnamon Buns

I've been rather busy in the kitchen lately!

Still loving my new cookbooks! Made Chloe's cinnamon buns...wow! Yummy!

When it came to the 1 cup of raisins called for in the recipe, I wondered what I could use - Ash would never eat raisins and my other idea for cooked apples and I'm sure Kyson would have turned up his nose at both too. I then dreamed about the good ol' days when I would have pecans in there...but alas those days are over.

So what else? Surprise - hemp seeds! And they turned out great! See for yourself!

Cinco de Mayo!

Have no real idea what this occasion is but it was an excuse to celebrate something!

From Chloe's Kitchen, I made Mini Potato Skins Stuffed with Avocado Salsa. Soooo good! I've never had potato skins before so now I'm wondering what else I can stuff these puppies with! I loved her method of roasted the potatoes whole with olive oil and S&P then slicing, scooping and baking again. Ash devoured these! They were so festive! I only cheated a little bit since instead of making salsa fresca I used Farm Boy fresh salsa - so good!

From Eat, Drink and Be Vegan, I made Lime Sucker Coconut Pie without the coconut. As I tweeted to Dreena Burton...sweet Jesus! This was way good. I made the crust using the Graham Cracker recipe from the ppk, crumbled it and used the crust recipe from Vegan Pie in the Sky by my beloved Isa Chandra. Then I achieved something I have never been able to do...have agar that actually sets! And in just over an hour! This pie was so tasty - subbed vanilla rice milk and grapeseed oil for the coconut although I'm sure it tastes even better with the coconut...one day I hope I can make it the real way! One month today until the next allergy test so we will see! Anyways, back to the pie...I topped with fresh raspberries and served with Chloe's raspberry sauce. Soooo good!

Happy Cinco de Mayo!

Protein-Packed Pancakes

So for years now, I've made pancakes with the usual ingredients - flour, nondairy milk, baking powder, a little oil - nothing special. Well, the other night was an eye opener.

Went through Dreena Burton's Let Them Eat Vegan and was happy to see two choices of pancakes for my planned pancake supper. The first - Apple Hemp - looked great, but I worried Ash would be upset at the chunks of cooked apple in there. The next option was Whole Grain Chia - looked good but I really wanted to try the hemp! So I did the latter with the added hemp! Delish!

I think next time I might try subbing the chia for hemp entirely - the chia gets gooey after awhile and despite thinning it with milk, the goo was hard for me to cook away. I love adding small amounts of chia to muffins and such but after attempting a chia pudding a few weeks back, I think I have an aversion to too much of it as it gets gooey.

But the thing I'm totally amazed about is why I never thought of adding hemp to pancake batter! Seriously! Just adding 3/4 of a cup adds a whopping 60 grams of protein! Dividing that across a batch of 12 pancakes, basic math skills tell me that adds 5 grams of protein to EACH pancake - that's in addition to the couple of grams from the flour. That's insane! It was especially insane because the kiddos each ate 4 pancakes apiece! I was one happy mama.

Here they are with fruit and my strawberry and raspberry sauces. Yum!