I’ve struggled to make tasty pancakes ever since going gluten free several months ago. I’ve tried several recipes, but always found mixes to be better than my homemade ones. I don’t like to make two versions of one food– for example, I’m not about to make 1 batch of wheat-based pancakes and 1 batch of GF pancakes. Instead, I’ve been trying to find a GF version of that food that we all can agree is good (a good example is the cookies we made earlier– they taste exactly like wheat-based chocolate chip cookies; Emma had no idea they were any different).

So I’ve had extremely bad luck with GF pancakes. That is until I tried this recipe here. It’s just as simple as making it from a mix (hello– only 3 GF flours involved here!) and they turned out wonderful. Time saving tip: if you’re whipping these up for a Sunday morning breakfast, prep several ziploc bags or mason jars with your dry ingredients all at once. This way you’ve got all the dry ingredients already measured out (like a DIY pancake mix) and all you have to do the next time you want to make pancakes is add the wet ingredients. Tip #2: what an excellent gift or favor idea!

One itty bitty change I made to the recipe is that I added 1/4 tsp salt. Since I made these plain (not tiramisu like in the original recipe), they needed that wee bit of salt. So there you have it… the easiest, tastiest, homemade gluten free, vegan pancake recipe ever! While following the link to the recipe, spend a little time poking around the pure2raw blog. I follow it and enjoy it quite a bit. I’ve also tried a few of their recipes that I really liked but never did get around to blogging about here.



One problem I had with these guys is that they weren’t very fluffy. I’m not sure what I did wrong (they looked like they would be super fluffy), but I will try adding a full tablespoon of baking powder next time instead of just the 2 tsp called for in the recipe. 1 TB = 3 tsp. We’ll see if that fixes things. I’ve made these pancakes twice for the family and this recipe is our new go-to for pancakes.

For breakfast yesterday, I made some oatmeal. Amanda insists on feeding herself, so I gave her a bowl and let her go to town. She managed to get quite a bit in her mouth… and in her hair… and all over the place. So today I got smart and baked it! I’ve made these once before, but was too lazy to blog about it. I love this recipe so much that I feel bad not sharing.

If you’ve never had baked oatmeal, it’s really quite good. It turns out fluffy and dense, sort of like an oatmeal muffin, and you can flavor it with whatever you want. Check out Chocolate Covered Katie for the recipe. I did change up her recipe a bit just to make it work with what I had. Here’s what I did:

• Quadrupled the recipe (and used certified GF oats).
• Used 1 large ripe banana and 1 small sweet potato (both mashed up) in place of the pumpkin/applesauce.
• Omitted the vanilla. Not for any good reason, except that I just didn’t feel like putting any in.
• Used maple syrup as the sweetener. Didn’t measure, just poured some in.
• Used rice milk.
• Added a generous amount of coconut oil.
• Mix-ins: raisins and shredded coconut.
• Spice: added pumpkin pie spice, about a teaspoon.

I only have 1/2 cup ramekins and used 5 to bake the quadrupled recipe. I plan to freeze some of the leftovers to have on hand just in case I get caught with no baby-friendly foods around.

Stumped for what to make for breakfast, I realize that I haven’t made pancakes in a really long time. Amanda would probably love them, Emma will probably not touch them, but I figured I’d go for it anyway.

I had an opened package of Bob’s Red Mill (BRM from now on) Gluten Free Pancake Mix, but not enough to make a full recipe of pancakes. The recipe on the BRM package says:

1 1/2 cups BRM GF pancake mix
1 egg/egg substitute
3/4 cup milk
1 TB oil

After having made pancakes before following this recipe, I only had a cup of mix left. Why do they do that? They should make the package an even 3 cups so that you can make 2 batches, instead of making it 2 1/2. Typically when I make these pancakes, I use banana or applesauce as the egg substitute because the pancake batter itself is really quite bland. Seriously, these are no wheaty, fluffy, butter”milk” pancakes.

So I find myself with 1 cup of pancake mix, 1 1/2 really old bananas, and some leftover apple cobbler. Really, I’m SHOCKED that these actually turned out and they were really good.

Whacky Batter

To make these, mash 1 1/2 super ripe bananas, mix in 1/2 cup of coconut milk (or whatever milk you like), 1 TB of oil, 1 cup of BRM GF pancake mix, and 1/2 cup of leftover apple cobbler. If batter is too thin, add a little sorghum flour to thicken (maybe 1-2 TB). Pour onto hot griddle… blah, blah, blah… you know how to make pancakes, I’m sure.

Pile O' Pancakes

My Plate of Whacky Pancakes

Emma's Plate of Even Whackier Pancakes

And just as I suspected, Emma ate the fruit off hers but left the pancakes untouched, while Amanda ate the entire thing.

In my last post, I commented how the GF pancakes I made with the GF Bisquick baking mix tasted pretty much like nothing. My friend, Jen recommended throwing some mashed banana in there, so I tried it and it was awesome!! Mashed banana is actually a good egg replacer, so I didn’t need to use anything else to serve that purpose and while I was at it with the banana, I put in all the stuff I enjoy in banana bread. These tasted exactly like my favorite banana bread recipe. The recipe for pancakes is on the back of the box, but since I made some changes, I’ll post it here with my changes.

Gluten-Free and Vegan Banana Bread Pancakes

1 cup Gluten-Free Bisquick Baking Mix
1 cup milk (I used half unsweetened So Delicious coconut milk, half unsweetened rice milk)
1 ripe banana, mashed well
2 TB oil
1/2 heaping tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp allspice
pinch salt
Raw pecan halves or pieces

Combine wet ingredients. Add dry ingredients and stir well to combine. Pour 1/4 cup of batter onto hot griddle. Press pecans into batter. When edges are dry, flip over and cook the other side. Pour on some maple syrup and enjoy!

This morning’s breakfast: oatmeal with a touch of brown sugar and cinnamon, raisins, and chopped green apple topped with Nature’s Path granola, pistachios and rice milk. Seriously. Delicious. I just might have it again tomorrow for breakfast.

I eat quite a bit of oatmeal. It’s such a versatile base that can be dressed up a ton of ways.  And it’s so inexpensive too. Some of my favorite ways to enjoy oatmeal:

• Peanut Butter and Bananas:  peanut butter and agave stirred into the hot oatmeal, topped with sliced bananas.
• Peanut Butter and Chocolate:  peanut butter and agave stirred into the hot oatmeal, topped with chocolate chips.
• Pistachios:  whenever I’ve got ‘em, I always put ‘em on my oatmeal.  I buy the dry roasted and salted ones and I love getting a bite of a salty pistachio with the sweet oatmeal.  I generally add a little brown sugar and raisins to the oatmeal first.
• Brown Sugar and Raisins: the typical topping for oatmeal.

I think I need to branch out a bit, so please share with me your favorite ways of enjoying oatmeal or hot breakfast cereal.  I wonder what a peanut butter and jelly oatmeal would be like.  Maybe I’ll try it tomorrow.

So I missed a day, but I did actually start this post yesterday.  I was just too busy to finish it.  I do have some good news to share:  Amanda is feeling better and it turns out she just has a cold.  Her lab work came back negative for any of the major viruses that cause the flu.  The best part is that she slept well last night, which means I actually got some sleep.  It was nice!

In my last post, I said I was going to make muffins and I actually got it done!  I ended up making LOTS of mini muffins because I like to save some to stash away in the freezer for Emma’s lunches or for snacking on when we’re low on snacks.  Besides that, when you’re making muffins, it’s not that much more work to make a double recipe– it’s certainly less work than making a single recipe on two separate days, right?  I like to think so.  My doubled recipe made about 5 dozen mini muffins.

I’ve been making lots of variations of this muffin recipe lately and it’s served me well.  I can change it up a bunch of different ways and it has always turned out great.  Use fruit in place of the veggies, add some dried fruit, change the up the spices– the possibilities here are endless.  The only fruit I wouldn’t try in this recipe are bananas.  While I’ve never tried bananas here and can’t say for sure how it would turn out, I can say that I’ve never had luck making banana bread or muffins when the recipe uses vegetable or canola oil as the oil.  The best banana bread I’ve made uses vegan margarine.

Spicy Carrot Zucchini Muffins

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

2 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp nutmeg

1/16 tsp mace

1/4 tsp cloves

1/4 tsp allspice

1 cup granulated sugar

1 cup non-dairy milk

1/3 cup oil (or half oil, half applesauce)

1 TB vinegar

1 cup carrots, grated

1 cup zucchini, grated

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Spray muffin tin with nonstick cooking spray or line with paper liners.

2.  In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, salt, sugar and spices.

3.  In a large bowl, combine all the wet ingredients and the carrots and zucchini.  Add the dry ingredients to the wet and stir well.

4.  Fill muffin tins 2/3 full and bake.  Mini muffins take about 10 minutes.  Regular size muffins take about 15.

Friday is our turn to bring snacks to Emma’s preschool and she wants to take muffins.  I’ll be making an apple cinnamon batch of these tomorrow and will post that recipe variation.  Enjoy!

I used up the last of my zucchini last night when I whipped up this coffee cake to have for breakfast this morning.  I definitely put the zucchini to good use, though, since it tasted so delicious that my kid even ate a piece.  Of course, she’s not likely to pass up anything with the word “cake” in it.  The cake part is spiced up with some cinnamon and nutmeg and the crumble topping is kicked up with cinnamon, brown sugar and pecans. Perfect for a weekend breakfast.

I made this by combining a half recipe of the zucchini bread with the crumble topping recipe from the coffee cake recipe from The Joy of Vegan Baking. Does that even make any sense? Didn’t think so…

If you wanted to make this exact coffee cake, prepare half a recipe of the zucchini bread using whole wheat pastry flour and half oil/half applesauce. Pour that batter into a greased 8″ cake pan. Next, prepare the crumble topping recipe from the cinnamon coffee cake and sprinkle on top of your zucchini batter. For the crumble topping, I also used whole wheat pastry flour and half oil/half applesauce. Bake the whole thing at 350 degrees for 20-25 minutes, or until a cake tester comes out clean.

I LOVE this book! If you were ever going to invest in one baking book– vegan or otherwise– that’s the one I’d recommend over any other. My one complaint is that the binding totally sucks. You may remember my post about how my original copy of this book completely feel apart… well, the replacement copy that the publisher sent me has also completely fallen apart. When will publishers get smart and publish cookbooks with spiral binding? Doesn’t that make the most sense? And really, this has not happened to any of my other cookbooks. This is the only one that has serious binding issues.

On Sunday, I made a ton-o-batter for french toast, but only had 4 slices of bread. Yesterday, I made another loaf of bread– this time with raisins and cinnamon– and left the slices out overnight to dry out. With my extra batter from the fridge, I had yummy, warm french toast in a matter of minutes!

For a special Sunday morning breakfast, I made some yummy french toast. I made this up as I went along and it turned out so delicious that I thought I’d share the recipe. This recipe makes a lot of batter (probably enough to make an entire loaf of french toast), but since it uses silken tofu which I have no use for aside from french toast batter, I wanted to use the entire container of it. You may want to scale this back if you plan to only make a few slices.

Maple Cinnamon French Toast

1 12 oz. box soft silken tofu (Mori-Nu brand)
3/4 – 1 cup soy milk, or nondairy milk of choice
1/3 cup maple syrup
2-3 tsp cinnamon, use as little or as much as you like
2 tsp maple extract

Combine all ingredients in a food processor and whirl it all together.  Pour into a shallow baking dish.  Heat your skillet and spray with nonstick cooking spray.  Coat thick slices of stale bread in the batter, allow the excess to drip off, then place onto the hot skillet.  Cook 3-5 minutes per side or until golden brown.  Serve with extra maple syrup.

Yeah, that’s actually a photo of the last batch of granola I made, but they all look pretty much the same that I thought I’d recycle the photo.  And by “recycle the photo” I mean that I’m too lazy to take another.

For my latest batch of granola, I used the rest of a can of sweet potato puree to moisten it.  I like to use grated apples, pumpkin, etc. to moisten the mix because it lets me significantly cut down on the amount of oil and sugar.  My standard granola recipe:

6 cups oats

2 cuts nuts/seeds

2 cups dried fruit

1/2 cup (or more) flax meal

1/2 cup liquid sweetener of choice

1 cup canned pumpkin, sweet potato (or 4-6 grated apples)

2 TB oil

Spice mixture of your choice

This time, I used sunflower and pumpkin seeds for the nuts; brown rice syrup for the sweetener; 1 cup sweet potato puree; 1 TB blackstrap molasses;  spices: 2 tsp cinnamon, 1 tsp nutmeg, 1/2 tsp ground ginger, 1/2 tsp ground cloves.  Flavorwise, this granola was like a spicy pumpkin tasting granola.  Yummy!!