When Emma was visiting my parents in Sacramento last month, she convinced them that she would enjoy going apple picking.  As I suspected, she became disinterested in apple picking about 30 seconds into the adventure, but still came home with a big box of apples.  I’ve had these apples in my fridge and most are now past the point of being edible unless cooked.  I’m still trying to work out an apple spice cupcake recipe (after 7 failed attempts!), so I will save some for that.  In the meantime, I thought I could whip up a yummy, healthy granola based on a Raw granola recipe that I made and liked a while ago (which I’m not even sure I blogged about).

Another reason for wanting to make granola is that I picked up a carton of coconut milk (product review to come later), and I thought the milk would go great with some granola.  This recipe is great, has no added fats (as in oil or margarine) and is free of refined sugars.  What more could you ask for?!    The spice in this granola is subtle.  If you want more bang in the spice department, add a little more.

Spicy Apple Granola

3 cups oats

1 cup oat bran (sub more oats if you don’t have oat bran)

2 cups oat groats (or more oats)

1 cup shredded coconut (NOT the kind in the baking aisle, the one that is just shredded coconut without any sugar)

1/2 cup flax meal

1/2 cup raw sunflower seeds

1/2 cup raw pumpkin seeds

1 cup raw pecan pieces

1 cup raw almonds, roughly chopped

1 cup raisins

6 apples, peeled and grated

1/2 cup maple syrup (or agave or liquid sweetener of choice)

1 tsp salt

2 tsp pumpkin pie spice

Preheat oven to 300 degrees.  In a very large roasting pan, combine the oats, oat bran, oat groats, coconut, flax, seeds, nuts, and raisins.  Use your hands to combine them well.  Add the grated apples and mix to thoroughly combine.  Drizzle the maple syrup over everything and sprinkle on the salt and pumpkin pie spice.  Stir to combine, being sure that everything is evenly coated with the syrup.  Bake for 60-90 minutes, or until the granola is light brown and crispy stirring every 15-20 minutes.

I made waffles the other morning and they were just so darn yummy!

To make plain waffles, follow my sweet potato waffle recipe and omit the sweet potato. An easy way to make the batter is to use a blender– start by first whipping the flax seeds with the water, then add all of the other wet ingredients. Once the wet ingredients are pretty well mixed, add the dry. Couldn’t be easier!

For a tasty twist, try adding some chocolate chips to the batter.

As you know, I have LOTS of zucchini around here.  I’ve been using it up by making lots of zucchini bread and giving it away or freezing it for later.  Last night, I really wanted to make these chocolate zucchini muffins again, but I wanted it in loaf form because it doesn’t take up so much freezer space, and I was also in the mood for a little experimantation.  So, I took the chocolate zucchini muffin recipe and smooshed it with the zucchini bread recipe from The Joy of Vegan Baking and came up with this Chocolate Zucchini Bread hybrid.  And it is soooo delicious!

Chocolate Zucchini Bread

(makes 2 loaves)

Wet

2 ripe bananas, mashed well

1/2 cup canola oil

1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce

1 TB white distilled vinegar

2 cups sugar

2 cups grated zucchini

2 tsp vanilla extract

Dry

3 cups flour (I used 1.5 cups whole wheat pastry and 1.5 cups all-purpose)

2 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp baking powder

1 tsp salt

1/2 cup vegan chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.  Prepare 2 loaf pans by spraying them with non-stick spray and set aside.

In a large bowl, combine all of the wet ingredients and mix well.  In a separate bowl, either sift together the dry ingredients (minus the chocolate chips) or use a whisk to break up any clumps.  Mix everything together well.  Add dry ingredients to wet ingredients and stir until just combined.  Divide evenly between the 2 loaf pans and bake for 60-70 minutes or until a tester comes out clean.

Weird combo, huh? Sweet potatoes in a waffle? Surprisingly, it actually works pretty well. This breakfast project originally started out as banana waffles, but when I remembered that I had an extra (already cooked) sweet potato in the fridge that needed eating, a light went off. I’m always looking for ways to sneak in extra veggies, so this was a perfect combo.  To my amazement, the kiddo actually ate some and liked it!

Sweet Potato Waffles

3 TB ground flax seeds

9 TB water

1 1/2 cups non-dairy milk mixed with 1 1/2 TB apple cider vinegar (I used almond)

1 medium sweet potato, cooked and peeled

2 TB brown sugar

2 TB Earth Balance, melted

2 cups flour (I used half all-purpose and half ww pastry)

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

First, mix together the “milk” and vinegar and set aside.  In a food processor, combine the ground flax seeds with the water and process until thick and creamy.  Add the milk, sweet potato, brown sugar and Earth Balance.  Process until completely smooth (no chunks of potato left).

In a large mixing bowl, mix together the flour, baking powder and salt.  Add the wet ingredients from the food processor and stir to combine.  Thin out with a few tablespoons more milk or water if it is too thick.

Cook in a waffle iron according to the manufacturers directions.  I like my waffles extra crispy, so I transfer them to a warm (250 degree or so) oven after removing from the waffle iron.

I made some pumpkin french toast the other day and had a little bit of pumpkin leftover.  I decided to put it to good use and try out the Pumpkin Pie Pancakes recipe from Vegan Planet, which is pretty much pancakes with pumpkin and pumpkin pie spice added.  To go with it, I made a very quick tofu scramble.  I like to add more veggies to my tofu scrambles, but I didn’t have any on hand. 

I can’t say that we feasted on anything Irish, but we did start our day with green pancakes.  Nothing spectacular here… just used the pancake recipe from The Joy of Vegan Baking (my favorite!) and added a few drops of green. I tried at first to use my natural food coloring (made from concentrated vegetable dyes), but it really didn’t work too well. I think I may invest in the paste colors and see if those work better than the liquid.

In addition to being St. Patrick’s Day, it was also Tuesday Party for us.  We had it at our house this time and I made the very Irish dish of falafel.  At least the falafel balls were green– that’s somewhat festive, I guess.

My Dad’s lemon and grapefruit trees are exploding with fruit and I brought home about 70 pounds of citrus from this passed weekend’s visit, so I made some strawberry lemonade.  I found it to be a little too sweet at first, but added in a little more lemon juice and it was tasty.  I used frozen strawberries in place of fresh and plain water in place of sparkling.  Very good with a little tequila!

And for dessert, I made a German Apple Cake (from The Joy of Vegan Baking).  It was really, really good.

It seems like it has rained here the entire month of February and now that March is here, there’s no end to the rain in sight.  I really am not much of a fan of the rain, but we need it and it will hopefully make for a beautiful summer.  To pass the time, my sous chef (Emma) and I have been having lots of culinary fun.

While shopping the other day, Emma nearly sweet talked me into buying Oreo-esque cookies.  Good thing my better judgment took over before I grabbed them off the shelf and threw them in the cart.  As a compromise (and a good way to pass time on a rainy afternoon), we made up a batch of Dreena’s chocolate chip cookies.  And because we’re crazy like that over here at Mission: Vegan, we added some sprinkles to them.  Yum!

We also picked up a starfruit the other day.  At $3 for just one, it wasn’t cheap, but I’ve never had one and wanted to try it.  For being so pretty, it really didn’t taste that great.  It sort of has the texture of a cucumber and isn’t sweet like how I expected it to be.  It almost had a green taste to it, sort of like an unripe banana.  Maybe I needed it let it ripen some more before trying to eat it.  I’m really not sure.

I’m very happy to announce that I have perfected my bread recipe with the addition of some flax seeds and by using whole wheat flour in place of   some of the all-purpose.  Definitely more healthy and I have to say it was the best loaf I’ve ever made.  Yummy!

Whole Wheat Oat Bread

(click here for a printer-friendly version)

1 1/4 cups water
2 tablespoons Earth Balance
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup all-purpose flour
2 cups whole wheat flour
1/2 cup rolled oats
2 tablespoons brown sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons active dry yeast
2 TB flax seeds

Put ingredients into bread machine in the order suggested by the manufacturer.  Use medium setting.

And for breakfast on this rainy morning, my Emma requested waffles.  Not having the desire to make waffles one-by-one in my waffle iron, I convinced her that blueberry pancakes were the way to go.  I can’t say enough how much I love the pancake recipe from The Joy of Vegan Baking.  They turn out perfect every time.  If you don’t have this book and are interested in baking vegan goodies, I highly recommend it.  There’s all sorts of stuff in here from cookies to brownies, scones and muffins, breads and cakes.   And you can’t beat the chocolate cake recipe– easier than a box cake mix and so good that people are often surprised to learn that it’s vegan (because “vegan” surely means that it should taste like sprouts and tree bark).

While I’m on the subject of chocolate cake, I’ll sneak this in.  We celebrated my friend Emily’s birthday this weekend and I surprised her by making a birthday cake.  It’s very simple– chocolate cake with chocolate buttercream decorated with swirls of buttercream and little candies.  This one was a triple layer and was oh-so-good.

I’ve been trying hard lately to eat more Raw dishes; salads obviously being the easiest way to accomplish this goal.  I get tired of the same salads with the same dressing.  In fact, I find myself getting tired of salads altogether if I eat them every day.  So, I try to change it up a bit and give each it’s own uniqueness.

A few days ago, I tried this Fennel Orange Kale Salad from Kristen’s Raw.  In place of the hemp oil, I used cold-pressed organic flax oil.  I also didn’t have any kalamata olives, which was SOOOO depressing because I bet they’re awesome in this salad, so I used some cherry tomatoes.  My salad base was a mix of romaine lettuce and chopped kale.  Raw kale in a salad is a bit much for me, so I had to mix it up a bit with some crunchy lettuce.

Yesterday for lunch, I whipped up this salad using romaine lettuce, fennel, raw beets and cherry tomatoes.  I made this Sweet Dijon Dressing to go over it and it was AWESOME!  I found it to be a little thick, so I thinned it out just a tad with a TB or 2 of water.  This dressing is seriously good.  I think I’ll even try a ranch style version using the raw zucchini as a base and incorporating some of the herbs found in ranch dressing.

Today’s lunch was the same salad from yesterday, except I used a box grater to grate some carrot, beets and fennel.  Once I put the dressing on, I squeezed some fresh lemon juice over the top, which really made it super delicious.  I’ll have to remember to do that from now on.  Today, I had my salad with a banana and some coconut water.  Fresh coconut water is so delicious.  If you’ve never tried it, you’re seriously missing out.  I put mine in the fridge right when I bring them home from the store so that the water is nice and cold when I am in the mood for having some.  And, I’ve found that Asian markets have the best prices on coconuts, about 20 cents cheaper than my Whole Foods.  Be sure to buy the young coconuts (they have white all the way around).  The brown ones are older and don’t have the water inside.  Intimated about opening up a fresh coconut?  Here’s a video to help you:

Okay, I admit it… we were planning a bunch a while back and I had no idea what to make.  Looking for inspiration, I did a quick google search and came up with the most ridiculous thread.  Vegan brunch can be pretty hard, especially if you aren’t vegan yourself, and I tried to keep reminding myself of this while I scrolled through.    The original poster was looking for advice on vegan brunch items because s/he was hosting a brunch and one of the invited people was vegan (and I have to say it’s super thoughtful of this person to try to find a yummy vegan recipe for this lone vegan).  Here is a sampling of the most entertaining responses:

Wow! Everyone…thank you so very very much!
Just re-saw this thread. Looks like there are a wealth of options
for my vegan friend. Now I have to figure out how I’d keep
scrambled tofu warm for her. Maybe in the oven? Do ahead & leave w/
tortillas like mentioned for her to fill herself w/other fillings?
Thanks so very, very much!!

Anyway, enough of that.  If someone happens to search for vegan brunch items, I hope they find my blog because I have a few recommendations.  First, you totally have to check out the cookbook Carb Conscious Vegetarian because it’s awesome.  Tons of breakfast ideas.  And Robin Robertson is a genius– she markets this as a vegetarian cookbook when, in actuality, it’s mainly, if not totally, vegan.  A lot of people are totally turned off by the term “vegan” that they may not have even picked up this book.  But “vegetarian” is far less scary.  So smart!

Another recommendation I have for someone who may find themselves asking the all-knowing Google for vegan brunch dishes is to check out The Joy of Vegan Baking.  A bunch of muffin recipes, coffee cakes, bundt cakes, etc. You can’t go wrong.  To go with our frittata, I made the Jam-Filled Oat Muffins.  One word– yum!!!!  Since I’m sort of watching things right now, I figured if I was going to make a muffin, one that’s made primarily with oat bran would be the wisest choice.  These were great and the recipe was super easy.  Since I very easily found the recipe posted at RecipeZaar, I’ll go ahead and post it here until someone tells me to take it down.

The recipe for this is from another “cook”book that I got for Christmas, Raw: The Uncook Book: New Vegetarian Food for Life.  As you can guess by the name, this is a book filled with raw recipes.  While some are pretty complicated, this berry porridge recipe couldn’t have been easier.  It’s a combination of oat groats (I found them in the bulk foods section at Whole Foods), berries and dates.  The oat groats are soaked for at least 30 minutes (I soaked mine overnight) and then everything gets pureed.  The recipe, which calls for 2 cups of oat groats, says that one recipe serves one.  Emma and I could barely eat half because it was so filling.  We had the other half for breakfast this morning, topped with some extra blueberries.  It’s sweet and filling– in fact, having this for breakfast this morning at 8 am kept me full until lunch at 1 pm.  Surprisingly, Emma really liked this stuff!