Vegan Mofo Day 13 - Chocolate Tease Cupcakes

This has been a recipe I have been toying around with for a while. My friend, Noble, is the creator of the original Chocolate Tease Banana Bread, which had milk, eggs, and gluten. She made a gluten free version that went over really well at a gluten free party we had. She sent me the recipe and I've been tinkering around with ingredients and ratios. I have 2 recipes from her original recipe - a loaf and a cupcake. I actually went around handing out samples to friends and family today throughout the day. It went over very well, and no one noticed the banana flavor, and there's only a slight hint of chocolate.


Chocolate Tease Cupcakes
1/4 c Olive Oil
2 ripe Bananas (the riper the better)
1/2 c Maple Syrup
3/4 c Water
1 scraped Vanilla Bean
1 tsp Cinnamon
3/4 c Brown Rice Flour
3/4 c White Rice Flour
3/4 c Teff Flour
3 Tb Tapioca Flour
1 tsp Baking Soda
1/2 tsp Salt
1 tsp Coconut Vinegar
1/3 c Enjoy Life Chocolate Chips

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Combine the olive oil, maple syrup, bananas, water, vanilla bean, and cinnamon in a blender and blend until smooth. Combine the dry ingredients in a bowl and whisk to mix together. Add the liquid ingredients and stir until combined. Add the chocolate chips and coconut vinegar after you have put the cupcake liners into the cupcake pans (or alternatively greased and floured the cupcake pan) and the oven is ready. Bake for about 20-25 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out nearly clean. Overcooking will cause them to dry.

Straight out of the oven, these cupcakes are amazing. They dry out a bit after 24 hours, so it's best to enjoy them the day of baking if possible.

I am still working on a suitable frosting combination. Perhaps the maple chocolate would be tasty...although I am toying with spicing up a version and going with a chai frosting.

Tonight I have big plans. I want to make an apple pie, bake my pumpkin and brainstorm on what I am going to use that for (perhaps combine with a little carrot and apple in a thick soup?), and cook up some quinoa flat-bread for "sandwiches" and Brussels sprouts for dinner. I also want to get to my new vegan cookbooks...

Vegan Mofo Day 4: Double Chocolate Cake with Peanut Butter Frosting

My husband's birthday is today, so I had to figure out a special cake for him. His favorite flavor combination is chocolate and peanut butter. We're both in a sugar coma right now, but everything, especially the frosting, tasted delicious.

Double Chocolate Cake
1 - 10" cake

3/4 cup Teff Flour
3/4 cup Tapioca Flour
3/4 cup Sorghum Flour
1 scant cup Cacao Powder
1 tsp Baking Soda
1/2 tsp Salt
1 cup Agave
2 large over ripe Bananas
1 scraped Vanilla Bean
1/2 cup Olive Oil
1/4 cup Water
1/2 cup Enjoy Life or other Vegan Chocolate Chips
1 tsp coconut vinegar

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Use a fine mesh strainer to sift the cacao powder to break up any large chunks. Combine all of the dry ingredients with a whisk. Combine the bananas, agave, olive oil, and water in a high speed blender and blend until smooth and creamy. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and fold everything together with a spatula.

Put a little palm oil on a paper towel and wipe down the interior of a 10" cake pan. Put a little teff flour in the pan and rotate the pan, patting the sides to evenly coat the pan with a very light layer of flour. When your pan is ready and the oven is preheated, add the chocolate chips and vinegar to the batter, stir vigorously, and then pour the batter into the cake pan. Use a spatula to smooth the top of the cake.

Bake the cake for about 30 minutes, or until the middle of the cake is firm. A toothpick shouldn't come away completely clean because you want some moisture.


There is a slight hint of banana to the cake. If you do not like banana, you could easily add a little more cacao to mask the flavor. Banana, chocolate and peanut butter is a great combo, so we didn't mind (and honestly I think the peanut butter masks the flavor even more).


Frosting
Enough for a little more than 1 - 10" cake

1/2 cup palm oil shortening
1/2 cup "creamy" peanut butter
2 1/2 cups powdered sugar*
2 TB hot water

Put all ingredients in a mixing bowl and add the hot water. Combine with a hand mixer until it is smooth.

*Vegan and Allergy Note: Not all sugar is vegan. Many manufacturers use bone char during processing to make the sugar white and use the bone char as a filter. I run turbinado sugar through a blender to make powdered sugar, although the texture isn't always perfect and doesn't add to the presentation (it's a little lumpy, as you can see in the picture). Wholesome Sweeteners produces sugar without bone char, but they add 3% "corn starch or tapioca starch" to their powdered sugar. If it were just tapioca, I'd consider it, but I'm very allergic to corn. Trader Joe's has powdered sugar with tapioca starch, but it's not on their vegan safe list. Looks like I'm sticking to the blender, but I'll keep checking labels.

I am going to go have a cup of tea and some miso soup to help balance out the sugar swirling through my system. I need to get some sleep so I can go to work tomorrow.

Vegan MoFo and Chocolate "Cheesecake"

It is Vegan Month of Food, so I am going to do my best to post a recipe per day! It's going to be hard to come up with new recipes every day, so I may have to resort to a few vegan food and restaurant reviews. I didn't officially sign up in the blog roll, but I'm more than happy to contribute!

Vegan food can be absolutely delicious and indulgent. The most decadent foods I have ever experienced have been raw vegan. The desserts are rich and creamy without the dreaded sugar crash/hangover. So to kick off the month, I am going to introduce (or reintroduce those raw vegans out there) the raw vegan cheesecake. The chocolate "cheesecake" I have made in the past was so well received by my non-vegan family members that they requested the "cheesecake" in lieu of their "real" birthday cake (and in my family, that is an accomplishment to be proud of). I will contribute to more sustainable and healthful eating however I can and take those small wins.

Chocolate Cheesecake with Raspberry Sauce



Crust:
8-12 pitted medjool dates
1 cup soaked hazelnuts
1/2 cup shredded coconut
1/4 cup cacao nibs
1 vanilla bean, scraped
1 TB Orange Zest

Pulse the hazelnuts until they are broken into small pieces (not a flour, but smaller than gravel). Add the coconut, cacao nibs, zest, and vanilla bean and pulse a couple times to combine. Turn the processor back on and drop in the dates one at a time, until they are well combined and the mixture forms into a ball. Press the "dough" into the bottom of a spring-form pan.

Filling:
3.5 cups soaked cashews or macadamia nuts
1.5 cups water
1 cup agave
2 vanilla beans scraped
1/4 tsp salt
3 Tbs finely ground chia seeds
3/4 c cacao powder
1/2 c melted cacao butter
1/3 c melted coconut oil


Blend the soaked nuts, water, agave, vanilla bean, and salt until smooth in a high power blender. This may take a couple minutes. My Vitamix wasn't turning quickly enough for my taste after this was all combined (I am so impatient), so I poured out the smooth batter and added the ground chia seeds and cacao powder with a hand mixer. After the chia and cacao are very well combined, slowly add the oils while the mixer is on low to low-medium.

Pour into the springform pan over the crust and put on a flat surface in your freezer. The batter needs to chill for 2 hours in the freezer and then overnight (or at least 3 hours) in the fridge for it to have that cheesecake texture. This is definitely something I make the day before.

Raspberry Sauce
2 c. raspberries
5 dates
Combine in the food processor. You can add more dates if you feel this combination isn't sweet enough.

Buckwheat Crepes with Potato Mushroom Filling

What is Buckwheat?

When I first started realizing that I had a problem with gluten, I was pretty ignorant about how many ingredients were out there that I could still use. I didn't really know how to cook, so most of my foods came out of a package and were usually exclusively rice. Any time I saw buckwheat on a label, I put it aside assuming it was just another name for wheat and had gluten. As I got bored with the same old foods, I started doing more research and was happy to find out that buckwheat isn't remotely similar to wheat and most certainly does not have gluten. Wheat is in the grass/cereal family whereas buckwheat is in the Polygonaceae family or "smartweed" family and is referred to as a pseudocereal to emphasize that it is not related to wheat. The part of the plant used is not a grain; the groat is actually a fruit.

If you soak buckwheat, it will become slimy. This characteristic makes it useful in cooking because that actually helps as a binder. To me, buckwheat has a very distinctive flavor that I can only tolerate in moderation. My favorite way to enjoy buckwheat is sprouted and dehydrated. Raw sprouted buckwheat has a much milder flavor than buckwheat flour used in cooking. Baked or cooked buckwheat is something I usually pair with stronger flavors.


Buckwheat Crepes
makes about 10 7-8" crepes
1 1/2 c buckwheat flour
1/4 c sorghum flour
1/2 c potato starch
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
1/3 c olive oil
2 1/2 c water
2 Tb agave

Combine the dry ingredients in a large bowl. Combine the wet ingredients in another bowl and quickly combine the wet and dry together.


Preheat a seasoned pan over medium heat. I run a little bit of coconut, grapeseed, or peanut oil on a paper towel over the cooking surface.


After the pan is heated, put 1/2 a teaspoon of coconut oil in the pan and swirl the pan to coat before ladling in the batter. I use a ladle large enough to put the right amount of batter in the pan at once. Then rotate the pan to spread the batter out thinly. For more tips on cooking crepes, click here.

One the batter bubbles and starts to firm up at the edges, work your spatula under the crepe and flip. Once the crepe is done, I transfer it to a cooling plate, and then to a stack of crepes with wax paper dividing them once cooled. These can be made the day before and refrigerate well.



Potato Mushroom Filling
Fills 5 crepes
2 red potatoes, diced
3 "cloves" shallots, chopped
3 cloves of garlic, minced
2 Tb fresh oregano, finely minced
1 1/2 Tb fresh chives, finely minced
1 1/2 cups chopped mushrooms
salt and pepper to taste
olive oil

Preheat the pan over medium heat. Add enough olive oil to coat the bottom of the pan. Once the oil is ready (will very slightly ripple because of the heat), add the garlic and shallots. Cook for one minute. Add potatoes and herbs. Do not stir often to let the potatoes crisp up a bit before turning them. If you stir before the potatoes crisp, you will end up with soggy, soft potatoes. Once the potatoes are nearly done cooking, add the mushrooms, salt, and pepper.

I cook these two components at the same time because the potatoes don't require much fuss.

Maple Pecan Shortbread

Shortbread was always a favorite of mine. I think that was because it's a little salty and not as sweet as some of the cookies out there. Shortbread tends to disappear in my house quickly, and these were not an exception. Let them cool for a while as they tend to harden as the cool. Of course, a good quarter of the batch didn't get that luxury.

Maple Pecan Shortbread

1 cup pecan flour
1 1/4 cup sorghum flour
1 tsp salt
2/3 cup shortening
1/3 cup maple syrup

Put a little over one cup of pecans in a food processor with an S-blade to make the pecan flour. Don't overwork the pecans or you will end up with a nut butter. You just want them broken down enough to resemble a coarsely milled flour. Put the nut flour in a large bowl and add the sorghum flour and salt and combine the dry ingredients. Measure out about 2/3 cup of palm oil shortening (vegetable shortening is fine I suppose, but I avoid soy and corn at all costs) and mash the shortening into the flour with a fork or pastry cutter. Add in the maple syrup and mix until well combined.

I put baking paper in a 10X10 pan so it wasn't such a chore to get the shortbread out of the pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes. I plan on using this recipe down the road as a cookie as I think they will hold up well in a cookie shape (reduce cooking time to 8 minutes for a drop cookie).

Fresh out of the oven:

Vegan note: It's best to research your maple sources as not all are vegan. Some will use bone-char as a filter or fat to keep the maple from boiling over the sides. I recently checked Shady Maple Farms and they claim they do not use bone char and the maple syrup is vegan. I encourage people to do their own research. If you aren't comfortable using maple syrup, try splitting the amount of maple syrup with date paste and turbinado sugar.

Vegan Cream of Mushroom Soup

Fall is kicking up around here, and the house has been getting colder. A warm bowl of soup sounded really good. The olive oil and zucchini combine to give this soup a creamy flavor and texture without the cow.


Cream of Mushroom Soup
serves 6, prep time: about 30 minutes
1 scant cup onions, diced
2 cloves of garlic, minced
1/4 cup olive oil
2 pounds zucchini, skinned, trimmed, and diced
2 1/4 cups water
1 tsp salt

2 Tb olive oil
2 1/2 cups diced mushrooms
1 clove garlic
1/2 tsp dried thyme
1 tsp dried basil
black pepper
salt

Put the olive oil in a 3 or 4 quart sauce pan over medium heat. Once the oil is ready, put in the onions and garlic and cook them (stirring often) for about 5 minutes or until they are soft. Add the zucchini and stir occasionally for 5 minutes. Add 2 1/4 cups of water and simmer partially covered for 15 minutes.

Dice 2 1/2 cups of mushrooms and mince a clove of garlic. Add 2 Tb of olive oil to a saute pan and cook the garlic for about a minute. Add in the thyme and basil and cook for another minute. Add the mushrooms, a pinch of salt, and pepper to taste. Cook down the mushrooms.

Cool the zucchini mixture a bit and then pour 1/2 in a blender (careful!). Blend until smooth and empty into a large bowl. Blend the other half of the zucchini mixture until smooth and add that to the large bowl. Pour the cooked mushrooms over the top, give a quick stir with a ladle, and serve.

If you are planning to use this as a casserole base, add 1-2 Tb of tapioca flour in the cool water you add to the zucchinis to make it thicker.

Gluten Free Tortillas II

I prefer this recipe over Tortillas I personally because there isn't any starch and it is closer to a whole food. It also avoids rice. It does tend to crack slightly more, but does hold up well to folding when it's warm.

Tortilla II
makes three 5" tortillas
1 cup amaranth
1 heaping tsp palm oil
2-4 Tb water

Use a fork to work in the palm oil. Add the water a little bit at a time to get to a workable consistency. You want it wet enough to stick together well, but not so wet that it clings to your hands much or rolling pin. Dust a surface with amaranth flour, and dust the top of the dough ball and roll out with a rolling pin:

Throw the disk into a hot frying pan heated to medium heat and flip after about 4 minutes or several blisters form:


Take the tortilla out of the pan after another 2 minutes to brown the other side:


Serve when warm. These are pretty easy to make, so I make them after the rest of my ingredients are prepped and are just on low heat to keep them warm.

Gluten Free Tortillas I

A few weeks ago, Lance and I tried some store bought gluten free tortillas that really fell flat. I appreciated that they were vegan, but they didn't tolerate being used as a wrap and would shred, leaving us with a big mess. Fresh made tortillas are worth the little bit of extra effort and tolerate being used as a wrap much better. I have a few different tortilla variations, but this has been my husband's favorite so far - probably because they are the closest to wheat flour tortillas he is used to.

Tortilla with guacamole, mac sour creme, and portabello fajita filling

Tortillas I
makes six 5" tortillas
1/4 c Potato Starch
2/3 c Amaranth Flour
1/3 c White Rice Flour
1 tsp Salt
2-3 TB palm oil (Spectrum Shortening is what I use)
2 Tb Water

Thoroughly combine the dry ingredients with a whisk. Potato starch has a tendency to clump, so be sure to pay special attention. Add the palm oil and combine with a fork or your hands. I find it works better to get in there with my hands to make sure things are combined evenly. Add a little bit of water at a time. What you want is a consistency that sticks together but does not stick to your hands.

Take a 1 1/2" ball of dough and put it on a rolling surface dusted with white rice flour. Dust the top of the ball of dough as well so it doesn't stick to your rolling pin. Roll the ball of dough out into a thin disk and carefully put the disk into a pre-heated frying pan (at medium heat). It will blister up a bit when it is ready to flip (after around 4 minutes). Don't worry, those will disappear once you flip it over.

Cook another 2-3 minutes on the other side.

Ideally, these should be cooked as the rest of your taco meal is nearly finished. My husband helped with the macadamia sour creme and guacamole as I cooked the portabello fajita filling along side the tortillas. It was a lot of multi-tasking, but the meal was quite good if we do say so ourselves. I need to work on the portabello marinade a bit before it's blog worthy.

Pumpkin Lentils

I don't normally post main courses that are easily translated into a gluten free dish, but in the interest of keeping the autumn pumpkin theme, I thought I might as well. It's a great way to use up any leftover pumpkin. This is great over rice or quinoa.

Pumpkin Lentils
1 cup lentils, soaked overnight and thoroughly rinsed
2 cups water
2 Tb grapeseed oil
1 tsp cumin seeds
1/2 onion, diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 tsp fresh ginger
1/2 tsp lemon zest
1-2 Tb lemon juice
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp ground coriander
pinch allspice
1/2 tsp tumeric
1/4 tsp cayenne
1 1/2 cup pumpkin puree
pepper

Fresh chopped cilantro as a garnish

Any time I know I want lentils in the next day or so, I get them out to soak. Soaking and sprouting beans makes them much more digestible, and it greatly shortens the cook time. I try to get them out as I'm cooking dinner the night before so I can rinse them before bed and put them in more soak water and in the fridge for the next day. When I get home from work, they have little sprouts started and are ready for me to thoroughly rinse them and cook them for dinner. Soaking beans helps break down the enzyme inhibitors and remove the complex sugars, oligosaccharides. Oligosaccharides are one of the main sources of gas because they travel through the g.i. tract without breaking down, allowing bad bacteria to feed on them in the small and large intestine. That causes a fermentation, which causes gas. Be sure to throw out the lentil soak water.

Put a pan on medium heat and add 2 Tb of grapeseed oil after the pan warms. Put in the cumin seeds for about a minute and then add the onions, garlic, and finely grated fresh ginger. Let the onions cook until they become translucent and start to sweat. Add the rest of the spices and lemon and thoroughly stir to combine the ingredients. Add in the lentils and 2 cups of water and cover to cook for about 30 minutes. After the water has reduced, add the pumpkin. The lentils should be cooked until they become soft.

Pumpkin Sticky Buns

I set out this morning to bake cinnamon rolls, but thought these were more suited to a "caramel" topping. Caramel is a combination of sugar and cream, but I replaced those with dates and vanilla. I made mini-rolls because I didn't have large surface ready for the whole batch of dough, so I split it into two. Bonus: I feel less guilty when I eat a lot of them :)

Cinnamon Roll Dough
1/2 cup teff flour
1 cup brown rice flour
1/2 cup tapioca flour
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
1 & 1/4 cup pumpkin
4 tb palm oil, melted
1/4 cup agave

Combine the dry ingredients first, and then mash the pumpkin in with a fork. Combine the melted oil and agave first, then transfer onto the batter and combine. If the dough is sticky and hard to handle, it's too warm. I had to let it rest in the fridge for about 30 minutes. Flour a surface and lightly roll out the dough. It will stand up to rolling, which is fairly rare for a vegan gluten free dough.

Once you have rolled the dough into a rectangular shape, soften 2 TB of palm oil and mix in 3 TB of maple syrup to brush over the dough. I made the mistake of completely melting the palm oil, and ended up with a gooey mess, which you'll see below. Delicious, but gooey. A nice addition would be rough chopped pecans. Sprinkle a liberal amount of cinnamon on the dough, a small amount of allspice (just a pinch), and grate some fresh nutmeg on top. Note: Not all maple syrup is actually vegan, so it's best to research your sources. Sometimes they use fat to keep the syrup from bubbling over. If you would rather, you can use turbinado sugar, which to the best of my knowledge and research is never filtered with bone-char.


Roll the dough along the length of the dough (roll long end to long end - don't start at a skinny end, or you'll end up with the fattest cinnamon rolls ever) and cut them about at a length of about 1 1/2 inches. The second mistake I made while making these is not putting baking paper on the cookie sheet. These are gooey, and while cleanup wasn't impossible, it was a little longer than it could have been. The baking paper I use sparingly is unbleached and I reuse often before composting. It's a great way to keep things a little fresher than just sitting in the open.

These buns look a little dry on the outside when they are done (after about 25 minutes at 350 degrees F), but they are quite moist in the middle. They are so yummy.

"Caramel"
4 dates, soaked for a minimum of 45 minutes
3-4 TB of water
pinch of scraped vanilla bean
small pinch of salt

Blend the ingredients in a high speed blender and spoon over the top.

Pumpkin Pie with Pecan Crust

Have I mentioned how much I like the flavors of fall yet? I'm sure I have, but let me reiterate - the earthy tones of fall just agree with me. There's nothing really dainty about apple and pumpkin, and you can combine them with some really strong spices. I don't have to worry about being heavy handed - except when it comes to cloves I suppose. I really am sensitive to cloves and prefer they be used sparingly, if at all.

Prepping the Pumpkin

Lance picked out a very nice sugar pumpkin at PCC for me. There are several types of pumpkin that lend well to baking, but the big pumpkins that are cheap and used for jack-o-lanterns are not a variety that will work. They are too fibrous and dull. The smaller pumpkins can have some really full, buttery flavors. Here is a great link with everything you could want to know (really) about pumpkin varieties:
http://www.allaboutpumpkins.com/varieties.html

We used the Baby Pam, I'm pretty sure. Lance hacked it in half for me, we de-seeded and took the slimy fibers out, then Lance cut it into several good sized chunks. I laid the pieces, flesh side up, on a baking pan and covered it with tin foil to keep some of the moisture in. In retrospect, a bit of water would have been a very good thing (2 cups at least). Set the oven at 400 degrees and cook for 45 minutes or until the flesh can be pierced with a fork. I've put butter and sugar on the pumpkin as it roasts in the past, but it's really not necessary especially considering none of it is going to be eaten as is.

Because I didn't use water when I roasted the pumpkin, the food processor had a time cutting up the tougher, dry edges, and I had to add a decent amount of water to get the food to turn in the food processor. It all worked out though and I ended up with about 4 cups of pureed pumpkin (enough for 2 pies or 1 pie and a baking project, muaahaaha).


Pecan Pie Crust
makes one standard pie crust, bottom only
3/4 cup ground pecans
1 1/2 cup sorghum flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup plus 2 Tb palm oil shortening
1/4 cup agave

Combine the pecan and sorghum flours and salt. I just pulsed pecans in a food processor until they were fine enough for a flour - nothing fancy. Add in the palm shortening and agave and use a pastry cutter to combine the flour. When you pinch some dough and it clings together, it's ready to sit in the fridge for 1/2 an hour to an hour to rest.

Pie crust is a difficult thing to approach without a gluten binder, especially if it's vegan and you can't rely on eggs. It's important to handle it very little so the fats don't get too warm. This crust holds up quite well and keeps its form. Like all gluten free vegan crusts I've worked with thus far, it does not roll out. I pressed it into the pie pan.

Quick baking tip - cover the edges of crust that are exposed during baking with aluminum foil to prevent burning. The rest of the pie has moisture from the filling it can collect, but the edges are exposed and will burn.

Pumpkin Pie Filling

Date Syrup
20 deglet dates, soaked in water for at least 45 minutes
1/3 cup soak water
pinch of salt
1 vanilla bean, scraped

Combine the date syrup ingredients in a high speed blender. It should have a caramel taste almost. Deglet dates are lower in sugar and higher in fiber than most varieties, so it shouldn't be overwhelmingly sweet. If you use Medjool dates, only use about 10. They are much higher in sugar content. Honey dates are supposed to be good as well, but I haven't seen any in Washington - Deglet and Medjool seem to be the two varieties.

Pour the date syrup into a food processor along with the remainder of the ingredients:

2 cups pumpkin puree
2 TB tapioca flour (in just enough water to make the mixture smooth - 2 TB water)
1 1/3 tsp cinnamon
1/3 tsp ginger
1/8-1/4 tsp fresh grated nutmeg
pinch cloves
1/4 cup maple syrup
1/2 tsp salt

Once all of the ingredients are combined, poke holes in the bottom and sides of the pie crust with a fork. Pour the filling into the pie crust and bake at 350 for about 40 minutes. The filling will firm up nicely and should not ripple when you move the pan to check on it.
Serve warm with Vanilla coconut ice cream.

Teff & Sweet Potato Donuts

I think my new favorite ingredient is teff. I hadn't worked with it much, but recently I have been using it to convert some recipes, and I really like the texture and molasses undertones it lends to recipes. Some people consider it sour and it has a strong taste, so I tend to use it as a one-fourth of the flour volume or less. It creates a beautiful dark brown color, and retains moisture really well if you combine things properly. Like most gluten free banana breads, it seemed to settle down and hold much better as day old, although it was delicious as a melty crumble the day of.

Chocolate Banana Tease Bread - note the rich color

Like quinoa, teff has all 8 of the essential amino acids, which would be considered a complete protein. It is very high in fiber, iron, and calcium. It was almost exclusively grown in Ethiopia, but it is catching on in popularity. There is a farm that grows quite a bit in Idaho, so it's fairly easy to find in the Seattle area.

Teff is considered a gluten free grain, but it does contain a form of gluten. It just doesn't have the chain considered to activate celiac/gluten intolerance in people. Both my husband and I seem to do fairly well with it. If it does have gluten, it's not enough. I tried to make a soda bread with it recently, and it was not pliable at all and turned into a powdered mess. Trial and error seems to be my cooking method of choice, and not everything is a home run.

Yesterday, my mom and grandparents came over for a nice big dinner. I have been sick lately and was getting cabin fever, so I was glad they all came over. We had plenty of vegan sides to go with their meat (I stuck to the sides). I had my pea salad with macadamia dressing, lightly blanched broccoli, sweet potatoes, and a nice vegan pumpkin pie with coconut ice cream. It was a very filling dinner. Surprisingly, I actually showed some restraint this time and didn't cook enough for an army, so leftovers were limited. I had about a cup and a quarter of sweet potatoes left over and wasn't sure what to do with them. I've made sweet potato pancakes that are always a hit, but I wanted something different. I settled on pan fried doughnuts. It sounds very unhealthy, but we rarely have anything fried.

Sweet Potato Donuts

1/2 cup teff flour
1 cup brown rice flour
1/2 cup tapioca flour
1 1/4 cup sweet potato (cooked and mashed)
1/2 tsp kosher salt
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp fresh grated nutmeg
4 Tb melted palm oil (Spectrum Shortening is the brand I used)
1/4 cup water
1 tsp vinegar

Toppings:
powdered sugar (corn starch free)
or
granulated sugar and cinnamon

Combine all of the dry ingredients thoroughly with a whisk. Mash in the sweet potatoes with a fork or pastry cutter until it resembles pie dough (pea sized clumps). Melt the palm oil and combine that with the water and vinegar and then combine the wet ingredients with the dry ingredients.

My sweet potatoes were fresh out of the fridge, so it helped temper the palm oil. If everything you start with is at room temperature or warmer and the dough is hard to work with, stick it in the fridge for 30 minutes. You should be able to form a snake or length of dough with your hands really easily. Connect the ends of the dough to form a doughnut shape. I made mine really small because I was pan frying them instead of deep frying. I used peanut oil, but you can use whatever high temperature oil works best for you. Vegetable oil is usually soy and corn, and I am terribly allergic. If you are deep frying them, watch for them to get a nice dark golden color. If you are pan frying, just cook them a few minutes on each side, and be careful to only flip them once. You should notice the side start to turn a golden color before flipping them.


Once they were done cooking, I put them on a drying rack over a sheet pan with raised sides so the oil would drain off. If you put them on paper towels, you will end up with a mess. I didn't have much oil, so I flattened the rest of the batter and made naan bread for my dinner tonight (yum!). This is a versatile recipe, and I may find other uses or variations down the road.

I put 1/4 cup of turbinado sugar in the Vitamix blender and let it whir and ended up with some nice powdered sugar. I strained that over the top with a fine sieve. You could also roll them in granulated sugar with cinnamon while they are fresh out of the pan, but I prefer them with very little sugar for a hint of sweetness.

Lemon Cake

Please note that you will want to use shredded yellow squash, not pureed, baby food or pre-cooked. My mom thought pureeing the squash would give the cake a better texture, but the cake sank. Even my friends with a texture food phobia thought the texture of this cake is very good. I like the old adage, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."

I like using yellow (crookneck) squash because the color blends in very well with the batter. I prefer the squash without bumps in the skin, but you can peel those off. If you can't find the proper kind of squash, you can substitute with zucchini, although I would probably peel off the skin.

Lemon Cake
makes one 10" cake
1 cup brown rice flour
3/4 c sorghum flour
1/4 c tapioca flour
1 1/2 cup sugar (or 1/2 cup turbinado sugar and 1/2 cup agave)
1 vanilla bean, scraped
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1/2 cup olive oil
2 cups shredded yellow squash
1 lemon, zested and juiced

Combine the dry ingredients in a bowl. In another bowl, combine the squash with the wet ingredients. be sure to add in the lemon zest and juice. Combine the liquid and dry ingredients by folding in the squash mixture. This will be a drier than normal cake batter. The squash releases liquid as the cake cooks in the oven and it comes out quite moist. Because the cake doesn't have eggs, feel free to try a very small amount of batter. If there isn't enough lemon flavor, zest half of another lemon into the cake batter.

Bake at 350 degrees for 25 minutes, or until a toothpick comes away mostly clean. You don't want to overcook this cake and a little extra moisture is better than too little.

Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies

My husband is a big fan of chocolate chips and big fan of oatmeal, but he's not such a big fan of raisin oatmeal cookies. I went ahead and indulged his request for chocolate chip oatmeal cookies, and my whole family loved them (even the non-celiacs).

Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies

3/4 cup sorghum
1/3 cup tapioca
1/2 cup turbinado sugar
3 cups oats
1 tsp baking powder (corn and gluten free)
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/3 cup Spectrum Shortening (palm oil)
1/4 cup coconut oil
1 tsp cinnamon
1 cup applesauce
1/4 cup agave
1/2 cup Enjoy Life Chocolate Chips


Combine and whisk the dry ingredients. In a separate bowl, combine the shortening, cinnamon, applesauce, agave and coconut oil and then stir in the chocolate chips with the wet ingredients. I would recommend leaving the coconut oil by the stove for a little while to soften. Then combine both wet and dry ingredients.

I put a heaping tablespoon on the cookie sheet and they were done baking between 8 and 10 minutes at 350 F (I think our oven runs a little cold though).

Lance loved the dough almost as much as the cookies.

I may be taking a short break from posting recipes for a little while. I wanted to get a recipe base established in my first month of blogging, and I think I've got a good start. I need to take some time to focus on the basics - capturing better images, retesting recipes more, and just taking some time to come up with more original recipes. I have several recipes to post, but I want to make sure they are just right. I made some very delicious lemon loaf this weekend, but the consistency wasn't quite there.

This weekend I will be hosting a Gluten Free Gala at my house and my friend and I will be offering samples of our recipes. I'm excited to get feedback and hopefully some fresh ideas.

If you have feedback on any recipe or recommendations, please let me know. I'm happy to take any criticism and aim for improvement.

Teff Waffles

This weekend Lance and I celebrated our anniversary. We woke up Saturday morning and I got to work on breakfast. Lance had wanted waffles for a while, but the batters I had tried just weren't holding up well enough. I decided to try teff - which I had used in a bread recipe that just didn't go over well. The taste was still pleasant enough that I thought it would do well for breakfast.

Teff is a darker grain that has a bolder (but pleasant) flavor, so it's best paired with milder, sweeter grains. It is gluten free and nutrient rich.

Teff Waffles

1/2 cup Teff
1 1/2 cup Sorghum Flour
3/4 cup Tapioca Flour
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp Baking Soda
3 TB Potato Starch
1/2 cup Olive Oil
1/3 cup Agave
1 1/2 cup Water

I highly recommend purchasing a non-aerosol olive oil sprayer. Bed Bath and Beyond carries them for under $10 and they are very handy. I would use grape seed oil to spray the waffle pan prior to putting down the batter. Gluten free batter doesn't hold up quite as well because the gluten acts as a binder. If the batter continues to stick, put more oil in the batter.

These waffles are great with maple syrup or any kind of fruit topping.

Chocolate Chip Cookies I

These cookies are vegan, gluten free, egg free, dairy free, soy free and sugar free (processed cane sugar that is - the dates and agave have fructose and glucose). I am not calling these corn free because the manufacturer for Enjoy Life chocolate chips does not guarantee that the product is corn free. I think the chocolate liquor used in the chips may be corn based. Their distiller claims that all corn protein is removed in the process and it should not be an issue, but if you have a severe corn allergy, I wouldn't risk it. In fact, I don't risk it. These babies are all Lance's and he doesn't have to worry about me stealing a bite. I am in the process of finding a chocolate chip alternative and may write the manufacturer to double check.

Lance really enjoyed this cookie recipe. He's a fan of the texture of Chewy Tollhouse Cookies, so if you liked that texture, this recipe will be right up your alley. I'm personally a fan of home-made cookies that spread out and are crunchy around the edges and gooey in the center, so expect to see more Chocolate Chip Cookie recipes down the road.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

20 pitted deglet dates soaked in water for 45 minutes
3/4 cup date soak water
2 vanilla beans, scraped
1/3 cup agave
1 cup palm oil
1 cup white rice flour
2 1/4 cup brown rice flour
3/4 cup tapioca flour
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
1 package Enjoy Life Foods Gluten, Soy, and Dairy Free Chocolate Chips

Blend the dates, soak water, agave, & vanilla. Get out your hand mixer and cream the palm oil and while pouring in the date mixture a little bit at a time. In a different bowl, thoroughly combine the dry ingredients and then fold the wet ingredients into the dry. I mixed in the chocolate chips last, but it may be a little easier to pour them in the wet mixture and them combine that with the dry ingredients.
The cookies did not spread much after baking them, so roll the dough into a 1" ball and pat down into a fairly thick cookie. These cookies stay nice and moist, and a little pale. Only cook them for 10 minutes at 350 degrees max. Our oven seems to run a little cold, so if you have a convection oven, you'll need to take them out after 7-8 minutes or you'll risk a slightly burned taste and dry cookie.


If you do not have an allergy to corn, I would recommend the Enjoy Life Chocolate Chips. They held up very well to baking.

Saffron Stir Fry

Who says you need soy to have a delicious stir fry?? Every once in a while we have big drawer full of veggies and I don't feel like having another salad. When it's cold and rainy, a nice spicy stir fry sounds great. Any vegetables work, but here's what I used the other day:

Saffron Stir Fry
serves 4
2 "cloves" of shallots, sliced
2 cloves of garlic, minced
pinch of saffron
1 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp coriander
1/2 tsp tumeric
1/2 tsp salt
red pepper to taste
3 peeled carrots cut on the bias
3 stalks of celery, diced
1 head of broccoli, rough chop
2 baby bok choy, rough chop
1/4 lb of green beans, rough chop
Optional: Shitake Mushrooms, Daikon, Mung Bean Sprouts

I cut up the vegetables first and separate them into three groups: aromatics, roots & celery, and then the rest. I use a stove top wok pan set to Medium-High. Every stove top is different, so you want it a little warmer than medium, but you don't want anything to brown. I used peanut oil that day because of the high burn temperature, but you can certainly use coconut or grape-seed oil as they both hold up pretty well.

First throw in the shallots. Once they are a little translucent, add the garlic. Do not let the garlic brown, you just want to cook it for a few seconds, until the kitchen starts to smell delicious. Then throw in the root vegetables, celery, and spices. Once the root vegetables are no longer raw, throw in the rest of the vegetables and continue to stir frequently. This is great over any grain, but I usually enjoy it on its own.

Pumpkin Snickerdoodle Cookies

I really like the fall. The ingredients change and become warming with all of the ginger, cinnamon, and other spices that go so well with them. Cookies are new to me. I'm raw vegan so I haven't done a lot of baking in the last few years. My husband is a Cookie Monster (which I learned after making the thumbprint cookies), so I've been looking for new ways to keep the texture and flavor I look for in a cookie without resorting to the same classic (read occasionally boring) recipes.

This recipe is gluten free, soy free, egg free, sugar free (refined), dairy free, tree nut free, peanut free, and corn free. It's probably free of several other things too, but you get the point :)

Pumpkin Snickerdoodle Cookies
makes 2 dozen cookies
1 1/2 cup Brown Rice Flour
1/2 cup Tapioca Flour
1 tsp baking soda
2 tsp cream of tartar
3/4 tsp salt
1 cup organic canned pumpkin
3/4 cup maple syrup
1/3 cup palm oil
1 tsp vinegar

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Beat together the pumpkin, maple syrup, and palm oil. Put the dry ingredients in a large bowl and whisk them together. Slowly fold in the wet ingredients and combine thoroughly. Form generous 1 1/2 inch balls of dough in your fingers (it will be sticky!) and roll them in the well mixed ingredients below:

1/3 cup sugar (thanks Bitt! Coconut sugar)
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp ginger
pinch nutmeg

Gently press the cookies on a cookie sheet. Bake the cookies for 10 minutes. They will spread a fair amount and retain a spongy/moist texture.

Sweet Carrot Muffins

Lance and I were on a gardening kick this year, and I splurged a little too much at the Seattle Tilth Sale and wasn't able to find room for several kinds of vegetables. My grandparents have a huge yard and my mom loves gardening, so the vegetable garden expanded into their yard. They had tons of carrots, but we had started them in a container instead of straight in the ground. The result were these strange little corkscrew carrots that spiraled from top to bottom. Needless to say, they were a little hard to peel!

Growing your own food is a great experience and I swear things taste so much better fresh picked. Getting food from the large chain grocery stores may mean weeks of travel and irradiation to keep the colors vibrant and food "fresh." My family has always reserved part of their land for food, so we should have known better than to plant the carrots in containers instead of straight into the ground, but our whether was very odd this year.

My family's carrots were fantastic juiced, so we washed a whole batch and Lance helped me juice many pounds worth. I put some of the juice aside for myself and made some fantastic raw vegan soup, and the other part was used in baking. We also reserved the shreds from the juicer and added them back into the baked goods as well.


Carrot Muffins
3/4 cup sorghum flour
1 1/2 cup brown rice flour
1 cup Bob Redmill's All Purpose Gluten Free Flour
1/2 cup tapioca
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1 cup carrot juice
1/2 cup olive oil
1/2 cup apple sauce
1/4 cup maple syrup
1/2 cup carrot grating
1/2 tsp ginger
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 cup raisins

Combine all of the dry ingredients minus the spices (flours, salt, baking powder, baking soda). In another bowl, combine the liquids, spices and raisins. Let that sit for several minutes so the raisins become nice and plum. You don't need much sweetener because both the carrots and raisins will help the muffins' sweetness. Slowly fold the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and put in muffin tins. This is a thick batter that will hold its form, so if you don't want lumpy topped carrot muffins, smooth the batter out. They will need to cook for about 25 minutes in an oven preheated to 350 degrees.

Sauteed Pea Pasta

My mom was over this weekend and helped tremendously around the house. To help make her feel welcome, I prepared meals and treats. This pasta salad was very simple, but full of great flavor.

Pea Sauté
2 cups baby peas (petit pois)
2 shallot "cloves"
1 large clove of garlic
handful fresh chopped basil
1 tsp dry tarragon
1/2 tsp salt
olive oil

My peas were frozen, so I threw them in the skillet as it warmed. After the skillet was warm and the peas had thawed, I threw in olive oil, the shallots, and garlic to sauté. Once the shallot was a bit translucent, I added the herbs and salt. It didn't take long at all to prepare.

I boiled some rice pasta for my mom and Lance, and I personally enjoyed the saute on kelp noodles. Macadamia Cheese is a great addition, although I enjoyed mine without.