Tag: vanilla

Vegan Hot Chocolate (Carob)

So today I went to my local cupcake bakery and they had handmade marshmallows so you know I HAD to buy one. They were so freaking awesome, but who just eats marshmallows by themselves? I know I don’t! So I had to make me some hot chocolate (I used carob though) that was equally as tasty as my marshmallow. This recipe makes 1 serving, its about 200 calories (more or less depending on which ingredients you use. Plain nondairy milk will be less). Its naturally gluten free and vegan depending on the ingredients. Of course, you can use regular milk, and cocoa powder. Its just up to you. Feel free to double or triple this recipe!

Ingredients:

1 1/2 tablespoons cocoa or carob powder
1 1/2 tablespoons (or more or less) sugar
2 tablespoons water
1 cup nondairy milk
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
small pinch salt
Marshmallows (optional)

Directions:

In a saucepan on medium heat add your cocoa powder (or carob), sugar, water, vanilla, and salt. Mix with a whisk until combined and it just starts to bubble. Add in your milk and mix well. Heat until just before boiling and transfer into a glass. Top with optional marshmallows and enjoy!

Alternative prep #1: This can be made in a microwave. Heat up your milk on high (700 watts) in bursts of 30 seconds until hot. Milk in rest of your ingredients and stir until combined. Reheat if necessary, and serve hot. Enjoy!

Alternative prep#2: This can be made in a blender, which will prevent any clumps of powder. You will need to warm up the milk and the water in a suacepan or use a microwave on high (700 watts) using 30 second bursts of heat, stirring after each burst until hot. Add liquid into blender first, then rest of the ingredients, blend on high until combined. This method works best for doubling or tripling this recipe. Enjoy!

PLEASE TAKE NOTE: If you are making this and/or cooking for someone with gluten allergies or celiacs disease. Make sure to purchase ingredients that are certified gluten free, and clean your utensils very well. Better safe than sorry.

Gluten Free Red Velvet Cupcakes – Vegan/Low Fat/ Low Calorie

 

Even though they look brown (which they are, but only because I won’t use food dye) these are indeed red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese frosting- (CLICK HERE for recipe). These are amazing to take to office parties or any event where people might have varied diets. These cupcakes are safe for those with gluten allergies or celiacs disease, vegetarians and vegans, (if  using carob) safe for those allergic to chocolate, low fat, and low calorie (compared to most cupcakes)! Whoa! Not many recipes I know of are so socially friendly, so make a batch and take them to your next office party, but you better save a few at home, you might not get any!

Ingredients:
DRY:
2 1/2 cup all purpose Gluten Free Flour – Click Here for my recipe or use any store brought brand
1 – 2 cups sugar (use more if you want it sweeter, I use 1 cup)
4 1/2 teaspoons egg replacement powder – Click HERE for my recipe or any store bought brand works
3 tablespoons roasted carob powder or cocoa powder (I used carob)
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoons guar gum

WET:
1/4 cup water
1/2 cup oil
1 cup banana puree (about 2 large bananas) (if you don’t like banana flavor, use applesauce or 1 extra cup oil if you don’t mind the fat calories)
1 cup nondairy milk + 1 tablespoon vinegar – Mix and let set 5 minutes
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
2 teaspoon vinegar
2 tablespoons red food coloring / beet juice or water (If you don’t want artificial colors, just add 2 tablespoons water instead, that’s what I did)
2 – 4* tablespoons water (depending on the flour you use, you might need more, start with 2 tablespoons)

Directions:

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit
In a large bowl, mix all of your dry ingredients together, if needed sift them to prevent lumps. Set aside.
In a smaller bowl or a blender (which I did), blend all your wet ingredients. A blender works best to prevent clumps of banana/applesauce. Blend until smooth and reserve until ready to bake cupcakes.

It is important to not mix your dry and wet ingredients together until just before you fill the muffin tins, so get them out and line with paper cups or liberally spray with nonstick spray (make sure its gluten free). When your oven is preheated and you’re all ready, Mix the wet into the dry until the lumps are gone. Fill muffin tin to desired levels: full makes about 14 cupcakes with big muffin tops, 3/4 makes 16-18 with just a little top, 1/2 way makes 20-24 cupcakes with no top.

Bake in the middle rack for 20-25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean. If you’re going to frost them let cool completely first or frosting will run. For our frosting recipe please click HERE.

PLEASE TAKE NOTE: If you are making this and cooking for someone with gluten allergies or celiacs disease. Make sure to purchase ingredients that are certified gluten free, and clean your utensils very well. Better safe than sorry.

Prep time: about 5 minutes Cook time: Approx 20-25 minutes
Allergies: banana*(optional) , food dye*(optional)
This recipe is safe for those on a gluten free diet, vegan diet, low fat diet, low calorie diet, and if used, chocolate free diet. This is a great recipe to bring to a party, safe for almost everyone!

(Nutritional information assumes you’re using low fat dairy cream cheese and banana instead of oil, variations in recipe will affect calories:)

Cooking 101 Beginner : Quick & Easy Basic Honey Granola

Making homemade granola these days is not selective to hippies guys! I love to make granola and other breakfast treats all the time and its super simple, but best of all, you tend to save tons of money! What could honestly be better than that. If you have 30-35 minutes, granola is easily within your reach. This recipe is also very basic, you can add 1/2 cup crushed up nuts or seeds (flax and walnut is a great combination), you can toss in dried fruits when the granola is done or you can leave it plain for sprinkling ontop of yogurt. (that’s what I like to do! =)

Ingredients:

4 cups old fashioned oats (not oat groats, not quick cooking oats, not steel cut oats)
1/4 cup olive oil
pinch salt (optional)
1 T vanilla extract (use the good stuff, you’ll thank yourself later)
1 T evaporated cane sugar or raw sugar
1 /4 cup + 1 tablespoon honey  (5 tablespoons total)  (use maple syrup for vegan version)
2 tablespoons water

Directions:

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit (180 degrees Celsius).

In a large bowl add in everything except the oats. Mix well. Add your oats 1 cup at a time and stir well. (don’t be afraid to use your hands, it really works best) After you have all your oats mixed in, let it sit for a couple minutes. 2-5 minutes is a long enough, very easy to do while your oven preheats.

Once your oven is preheated, take a full sheet pan and evenly spread your oat mixture on it. Pop it in the oven for 15 minutes.

(Above photo is granola mix about to go into the oven)

After 15 minutes take the pan out of the oven and stir/flip the oats with a flat spatula. Put it back in the oven for 15 more minutes.


(Above photo is granola mix after 15 minutes in the oven)Take the granola out of the oven again and stir.

(Above photo is granola after 30 minutes, some dark bits and perfect for me)
Depending on your personal taste you can stop now. If you want it darker, continue cooking in 5 minute intervuls instead you reach your desired doneness.

Prep time: 2-5 minutes  Cook time: 30-40 minutes Serves: 4 cups
allergies: honey***, oats**
**Can be gluten-free if you make sure you purchase gluten free oats!
***vegan friendly if you it without honey, maple syrup instead.

And you’re done! See how easy that was. You now have a healthy breakfast treat that costs next to nothing to make and little time spent. A traditional basica granola in a health food store costs $4.99 a pound, YIKES! However, this granola only cost me :

Oats: 53¢
olive oil: 25¢
salt & Sugar: 5¢
vanilla (homemade): 5¢ (store bought would be more like 40¢)
honey: 45¢
Water: free (my water bill is paid)

If we total that up we’re looking at a grand total of….  $1.33 for 4 cups of granola. Talk about saving money. That’s an approx savings of  $8.50! Even if you add in nuts and seeds, you will still save money compared to the granola at the health food store.  Assuming you used 1/4 cup of both flax seeds and walnuts and they were organic, you’re still only looking at about 1.50-2.00 more dollars. Oh and all the above ingredients were purchased organic except my homemade vanilla (purchased many years ago before I cared about organic, and bought in bulk. I got 5 pounds for only 25.00!)

I hope you will try this easy granola and let me know in the comments what YOU would put with it. Me personally, I enjoy my granola with some unsweetened almond milk or on-top of organic Greek yogurt with fresh seasonal fruits, yum yum!

Amazing Bran Muffins

NOTE: This is an old recipe and I’m leaving it here for anyone that wants it. I however do not endorse the eating of milk, meat, or eggs.

These bran muffins are super moist, delicious, and easy to make. Did I mention this is a healthy breakfast idea? Serve a muffin for breakfast with a glass of juice and a piece of fruit.

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cup bran
1 cup approx. flour
1 cup milk
1 tablespoon REAL vanilla extract
1 1/2 t baking powder
1/2 t salt
1/3 cup packed brown sugar
1/3 cup regular sugar
1/4 cup oil
2 whole eggs

Optional Mix Ins:
1/2 cup of nuts, or dried fruits like cherries, strawberries, blueberries, or the traditional raisins

Optional Topping:

1/2 tablespoon coconut chips
1 tsp raw sugar

Directions:

Preheat your oven to 375 degrees.

In a bowl, mix your bran, milk, salt, eggs, sugar, baking powder, oil, and vanilla. Mix well, there should be no lumps. After you mix well, add in 1/2 cup flour and mix until incorporated. Add the rest of the flour little at a time until the mixture if very thick and gloopy.  This is a basic bran muffin recipe, if you want you can stop right here or you can add in fruit or nuts. Add in 1/2 cup of your choice of mix-ins. Mix until combined.

Spray muffin pans with cooking spray or line with muffin paper. Divide the batter evenly between twelve muffin tins. For that little extra something add coconut chips and/or raw sugar.

Bake at 375 degrees for 18-25 minutes or until golden brown and a toothpick inserted comes out clean.

Prep time: 5-10 minutes Cook time: 18-25 minutes Serves: 12 muffins (servings)
Allergies: Egg, Milk, Wheat

Nutrition: 1 muffin (12 servings)
156 kcal , 4g protein, 23g carbs, 6g fat
166mg sodium (11%) , 31mg cholesterol (10%), nearly no saturated fat, and transfat free

Raw Almondy Oat Bread

Hi Guys, Today I’m here with another recipe, today we’re making Raw Oat Bread.
Depending on your belief of oats it could be considered gluten-free, and depending on which ingredients you use, it can easily be vegan. One thing I can tell you is that its raw, budget friendly, and super tasty! This is also really simple, and compared to normal bread it’s extremely quick!

Ingredients:

4 soaked cups of oat groats (2 dry cups)
1 soaked cup of almonds (1/2 dry cup)
1/4 teaspoon coarse sea salt
1/2 tablespoon honey (or another liquid sweetener)
1/2 tablespoon sesame seed (optional, you could also use sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, any other seed or nut you want)
1 tablespoon psyllium husk (you could also use irish moss, flax seeds, or any other thickener)
1/4-1/2 cup water or nut/seed milk * (as needed)
coconut oil (optional for spreading stage)
——————-

Take your oat groats, almonds, sea salt, sweetener, sesame (or other seed/nut), and psyllium hus, into your food processor. Process for about 1 minute, or until it starts to mush up. If your mixture needs more moisture, add in your nut milk(or water) while the food processor is running. I ended up using about 1/4 cup of almond milk, however this will vary for everyone.
Keep processing until it turns into almond pudding, and will hold onto a spoon for several seconds one tipped over (see video).

Spread out on your dehydrator’s nonstick sheets, I went with about 1/4 inch thick, but if you want really thick bread, I would go with 1/2 inch. You can use a spoon but I find using your hands with some coconut oil or olive oil on it really works best. Try to make the “dough” as even as possible to assist with drying. I got 2 full trays out of my mixture.

Dehydrate @ 105 degrees for 12-18 hours. After about 2-3 hours you’ll want to flip your bread sheet over to dry evenly. My bread was done after 14 hours (when I woke up the next day). It was about half the original thickness, and still semi soft but you can tell its dry.  I would still probably store them in the fridge if you’re wanting to save them longer than a few days.

Cut them with a semi sharp knife into equal “sandwich” sized pieces. I ended up with 12 pieces, but accidently broke two of them. I can’t wait to make a nice raw sandwich tomorrow!

Prep time: 5 mins    Dry time: 12-18 hours    Serves: 6-12 pieces (varied on size)

If you wanted to, you could add cinnamon, extra sweetener, raisins, maybe some nutmeg and make this into a great cinnamon raisin bread. I will eventually demo this aswell.
Heres what my finished “bread” looked like :

For those wondering about nutritional breakdowns, heres what I calculated:

Recipe yields 12 servings, 1 serving:
145 calories, 6g protein, 5.2g fat, 20g carbs
(also contains about 5% your daily vitamins, and 20% daily minerals)
(if concerned about vitamins/minerals leave a comment and I’ll post them all)