Quinoa Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

I've been organizing the freezer, and found the quinoa flakes. I enjoy making hot cereal with them, but had forgotten about them since the kids didn't like any of the recipes I'd tried them in. I saw this recipe on the back of the quinoa box (Ancient Quinoa Harvest), and thought I'd give it a shot. It's the first time the kids have eaten quinoa and liked it!

Crispy Quinoa Cookies

1/2 Cup Local Honey
1/3 cup Organic Brown Sugar
1/2 Cup Soy-free Earth Balance
1/2 Cup Organic Peanut Butter
1/2 tsp Organic Vanilla Extract
1 cup Organic Rice Flour
3/4 cup Organic Quinoa Flakes
1 tsp Baking Soda
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup Organic Nuts (optional)

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Beat honey, brown sugar, butter or substitute, peanut butter, and vanilla in a medium bowl till creamy. Combine rice flour, Quinoa flakes, baking soda & salt in small bowl. Add dry to wet mixture and beat until well blended. If desired add nuts.

Drop by rounded teaspoons about 2 inches apart onto ungreased cookie sheet. Bake 12 to 15 minutes or until light golden brown. Cool 1 minute before removing from cookie sheet.

Yields about 3 dozen (small) cookies

My changes:
I added 1/4 cup of Enjoy Life mini chocolate chips, and used slightly more peanut butter (I rounded the 1/2 cup). I didn't add nuts this time.

Taco/Chili Seasoning Recipe

1Tbsp each:
cumin
garlic powder
smoked paprika
oregano

2tsp chili powder
1tsp sea salt
1tsp raw sugar
2Tbsp dehydrated powdered tomato

Everything goes into a jar, then give it a shake. I use this for tacos and in chili. It's got a little spice, but not so much that the kids can't take it.

And, here's what I made with it tonight...

Turkey and black bean chili over Tinkyada gf spirals with daiya jack and sliced avocado. The kids needed to have theirs un-assembled, and mostly ate plain noodles. The bigs liked it lots just the way it's pictured.

Chocolate covered Christmas bean balls

The kids wanted to make Christmas cookies. I've made gluten and dairy free sugar cookies that looked good, but am not thrilled with the way they taste. I decided to do some poking around on the internets and see if I could find another treat that we had ingredients for. A large pot of garbanzo beans had just finished cooking when I came across this recipe for vegan chocolate chip cookie dough truffles. They are grain-free, full of protein, and covered in chocolate. Three things that make them worth a try in my opinion. They were really quick to make in the food processor, and not a lot of mess. After scooping the dough onto a cookie sheet, they did need to firm up in the fridge for about 15 minutes to be able to handle them enough for dipping into the melted chocolate. If we make them again, I'll definitely make them smaller so the dough-to-chocolate ratio is better, and they are more bite sized. The taste is pretty good, possibly a bit "healthy" tasting, but if you didn't know there were beans in there, you'd never know there were beans in there. The girl gave a big thumbs up, but the boy is on the fence (however, he's not feeling well enough to want to eat chocolate, so his vote won't count here.)

Trading lunch style for superhero style

Since the Halloween countdown is now being measured in hours instead of days, and costumes still have details to be worked out, lunch creativity has taken a serious turn. The costumes are totally worth it :)

-Half sunbutter and strawberry on Udi's gf bread, with pumpkin and ghost shapes cut from apricot and cherry fruit leather
-*The Favorite Smoothie* in a Sili Squeeze (see end of post for recipe)
-Bare Fruit cinnamon apple chips

-Half sunbutter and strawberry on Udi's gf bread
-The Favorite Smoothie in a Sili Squeeze
-Glutino pretzels and a small piece of dried papaya
-Apple juice pouch


The Favorite Smoothie (gluten free, dairy free, soy free)
I use a Vitamix, so I haven't tried this in a regular blender to know if the consistency is as creamy as with the VM. Let me know how it works out if you try it! All measurements are approximate.

-1 cup raw organic cashews
-1 cup frozen strawberries
-1 1/2 - 2 average bananas, cut into large bite-sized pieces and frozen
-1/2 cup coconut milk (or other milk of choice, homemade almond is nice)
-Generous swirl of honey (about 2 teaspoons)

Toss everything into the Vitamix for about 2 minutes, or until consistancy is smooth with no cashew bits.
I've switched out the strawberries for blueberries with good results, as well as adding chia and hemp seeds for additional food value. I'll also sometimes add a very small splash of organic vanilla extract.

Now to see which will happen first; finished costumes, halloween, or the "frankenstorm"...

HealthyPants!

-2 HealthyPants muffins
-Wellshire turkey ham roll up
-Kit's Organic peanut butter bar
-Honest Kids organic berry lemonade pouch
-Bare Fruit cinnamon apple chips

Juice pouches are such a rarity in this house since we all choose to drink water throughout the day. I was asked to bring some to soccer last week, and we had a few left over that the kids have been asking about all weekend. They'll still bring their water bottles to school with them to drink during the day, and the juice will be a lunch time treat. 
I made a batch of muffins this afternoon. The boy has been asking for banana bread, so I used a Simply Organic gluten free banana bread mix as the base. Then I tossed a bunch of fruit, veggies, nuts and healthy fat in there and ended up with some super tasty muffins that have to be called HealthyPants. The kids approved heartily. Want the recipe?

1 box Simply Organic Banana Bread mix
1 1/2 cups grated organic zucchini
1/2 cup grated organic carrots
1/2 cup organic raisins
1 cup grated organic apple (with skin)
2/3 cup Organic shelled hemp seeds
1/3 cup Organic Chia Seeds
3 large egg, slightly beaten
1 tsp ground cinnamon
2 Tbsp Organic Unsulphered Blackstrap Molasses
2 Tbsp Organic Extra Virgin Coconut Oil
1/2 cup pecan halves
1/3 cup maple syrup

3/4 cup water

Pour banana bread mix, eggs, and water into a mixing bowl and stir to combine. Add everything else and stir some more. Pour into greased muffin pan (I used coconut oil), and bake 45 minutes, or until toothpick comes out clean. Makes 20 kid-sized muffins. Yes, there are no bananas.

Per Serving (1 muffin):
Calories 180
Carbs 24
Fat 7
Protein 5
Sodium 127
Iron 11

This is an exclusive yoga pose, never before seen on the internets. The boy calls it "The Angler Pose"

UPDATE: This whole lunch was declared a success by both kids, and the boy asked that it be added to his "yes" list. 

Sick, but making the best of it

While it was never fun getting sick as a kid, I still remember how great it felt to be able to get into my parents bed and stay there all day, warm and cuddly, watching tv and eating toast. With two 4 year olds running in circles around me, it's usually not quite as relaxing now as it used to be. How sweet it is, that the mister stayed home yesterday, and I got to stay in bed. I've set up camp in the room that passes as our guest room, since it's the only room in our house with both a bed and a door. I've got a down comforter, a few books, and the laptop. Every once in a while, a little loud visitor comes up to see how I'm doing. It's like a little vacation, and I think I love it. Well, except for the searing pain in my throat, ringing in my ear, and the coughing that wakes me up every hour or so.
With this sudden free time, I've been clicking around on Pinterest, and found a few recipes that sounded like they'd go well with my current state. Thursday night, I made this carrot ginger soup. The only changes I made to the recipe was to add a couple of cloves of fresh garlic and a whole chopped pasilla pepper. I figured the spicyness would help blast some of the germs out of me, and the pasillas have a ton of vitamin C. It was quick to make, and was super tasty.

Source: joythebaker.com via karma on Pinterest

Then, last night, I needed something cold to help put out the fire in my throat. We'd baked a giant squash earlier in the week, so I thought I'd use it in place of the pumpkin in the pumpkin pie milkshakes.

Source: wearenotmartha.com via karma on Pinterest

I had to do some fiddling with the ingredients since we are dairy and gluten free, but it turned out pretty well. I used coconut milk and soy ice cream, and replaced the graham crackers with Envirokids animal cookies. I would have preferred to use the gluten-free craham cracker crumbs that I used to make the s'mores, but didn't have any. It tasted exactly like pumpkin pie, but colder and much more soothing.
An optional part of the pumpkin pie milkshake recipe is a caramel drizzle made by melting caramel candy. To keep ours dairy free, I called on another Pinterest recipe that I recently found.

Source: alwayswithbutter.blogspot.com via karma on Pinterest

I wasn't sure if I'd be able to make this one dairy-free, but I did! In place of the heavy cream I used Mimicreme, and it worked perfectly! I also used raw sugar in place of refined sugar, and cut the whole recipe in half in case it turned out badly. It didn't turn out saucy, I think because I cooked it too long. Since the raw sugar is already darker in color, it was difficult to know when it was finished cooking. So, the finished result was definately not able to be drizzled, but was so unbelievably yummy crumbled up and sprinkled on top of our milkshakes. I guess I'll just have to try making this one again to see if I can get it to come out the way it's supposed to. Darn.

Need some sugar? -Or- GF/Vegan S'mores!!

 

I needed some chocolate, and the kids hadn't done any cooking in a while, so I thought I'd come up with a fun new treat for them. I've been wanting to make s'mores with the kids, but I haven't been able to find a good vegan/gluten-free graham cracker. When I spotted a box of gluten-free graham cracker crumbs in the grocery store, I figured I'd give them a try. 

The recipe is extremely simple, and tooth-numbingly sweet. If there's a next time, I'll tone down (or eliminate) the additional sugar in the crust. 

First, I followed the directions on the box of Kinnikinnick Graham Style Crumbs for a cheesecake crust, adding 6 T of Earth Balance Margarine, and more sugar than necessary (I don't remember the exact amount).

Then, I pressed the crumbs into a lined springform pan and put it into the fridge while I prepared the chocolate. I poured about 3/4 cup of Enjoy Life Vegan Chocolate Chips into a Pyrex measuring cup with a tablespoon or so more Earth Balance and microwaved it in 20 second intervals until almost melted.

I poured the melted chocolate into the crust and spread it as evenly as possible, then put the whole thing back into the fridge for the chocolate to cool. 

After it had cooled sufficiently, the kids helped pour about half a bag of Dandies Vegan Marshmallows on top and made sure they were arranged in a single layer.

We all watched excitedly to see what would happen to the marshmallows when they were put under the broiler. They only puffed slightly, but browned nicely. We took them out before they crystallized too much, to make sure that they didn't get too chewy or hard.

The crust was a bit too crumbly, but they were the best attempt at GF/vegan s'mores that I've tasted yet. The kids were happy to lick the crumbs from their plates, and then spent a lot of time with a rag and a spray bottle of vinegar, cleaning the table.

Fun with Recipe Modification

I'm not a big recipe user, I usually prefer to fly without navigation in the kitchen. I do get Vegetarian Times though (free subscription, yay!) and the Cabbage Casserole with Leeks, Ricotta, and Pine Nuts recipe from the March 2010 issue (pg 73.) looked really appealing. It is already a gluten-free recipe as written, so all I had to do was mod for dairy. Easy enough.
To replace the ricotta, I pureed a bag of frozen organic peas, about 3/4 cup of organic raw cashews, and a bit of salt in the Vita-Mix until it was the approximate texture that I remembered ricotta to have. Since I added the cashews in there, I omitted the pinenuts from the original recipe. I also sprinkled about 1/3 cup of mozzarella style Daiya cheese on each layer between the leeks and the pea mixture. The peas and cashews were great texturally, and added great color to the finished casserole. They were a teeny bit sweet, which was a nice complement to the flavor of the cabbage, leeks and tomatoes. It held together very nicely, and with the wonderful colors it looked great sliced. I think this would be a recipe that would work well with non-veg friends and family, and it's both tasty and filling. Now I'm curious how it would freeze.
I couldn't find a link to the original recipe on the VT website, but I did find it on RecipeZaar.