Should I keep you all in suspense or spill the exciting news first? Hmmm… tough call. Okay, okay– here’s the exciting news:

Some of my recipes are featured in a free “Back-To-School” e-book. Yes, it’s free! Alisa over at One Frugal Foodie and Go Dairy Free had the brilliant idea of producing this e-book to help moms and dads with the back-to-school transition after seeing the back-to-school grocery ads featuring cheap cereals and other convenience items that contain little nutritional value. It was a great idea and, of course, healthy eating is something I fully support.  The book is not vegan, but there is a good selection of recipes to suit everyone’s needs and some can probably be made vegetarian or vegan with a quick swap of ingredients.  Download your free copy by either clicking on the image above or by clicking this here link.   My biggest, sincerest thanks to Alisa for coming up with this awesome idea and for putting so much time and effort into it.  And thank you to everyone who participated and contributed their recipes.  I hope this e-book is a big success and kids everywhere are able to enjoy healthy, homemade breakfasts and lunches.

Here are the direct links to the recipes of mine that are included in this lovely gem:

• Sweet Potato Waffle
• Granola
• Faux Tuna Sandwich Filling
• Black & White Hidden Treasure Burritos
• PB&J dilla

This new recipe is a spin on my Whole Wheat Oat Bread recipe, which is also featured in the e-book.  When this recipe was chosen for the book, I realized how long it’s been since I’ve made it so I thought I should give it another test before the book became available.  While testing it, I actually improved upon it and came up with a few substitutions for some of the ingredients.

Whole Wheat Oat Bread for the Bread Machine

1 1/4 cups warm water
2 tablespoons vegan margarine, canola/veg oil or olive oil
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup all-purpose flour
2 cups whole wheat flour
4 TB vital wheat gluten*
1/2 cup rolled oats
2 tablespoons brown sugar, maple syrup or agave
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.

*In lieu of vital wheat gluten, you could use white bread flour and wheat bread flour in place of the all-purpose and wheat flours.  Adding 1 TB of vital wheat gluten for every one cup of regular flour is a DIY way of making bread flour.  I add an extra TB just for kicks.

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!

Emma earned enough stickers on her reward chart to see Toy Story 3 yesterday. When we were walking from the parking garage to the theater, we passed by a pizza place and the smell was heavenly! Matt kept trying to tempt me with the most non-vegan pizzas he could think of– pepperoni, Hawaiian– but now it’s a mental thing. I don’t think I could ever go back to eating meat again. He’s vegetarian, by the way, so it’s not like he would have eaten those pizzas either. He just doesn’t think my vegan pizzas at home are the same as pizza parlor non-vegan pizzas.

So last night after the movie, I was making my menu and shopping list for the week and couldn’t resist trying to prove him wrong. My vegan pizzas are delicious and taste just like their non-vegan counterparts. At least I think they do, but it has been about 9 years since I’ve had real meat– even longer for him. Tonight was our pizza night and I ended up making 4 different kinds:

Plain cheese (for the kid).

Hawaiian – topped with Yves brand vegan Canadian bacon and pineapple.

Veggie – topped with broccoli, black olive and red onion.

Pepperoni (Yves brand) and black olive.

I made the dough from scratch in my bread machine, using the recipe that came in the booklet that accompanied it.  The only change I made was to double the recipe (since it’s not baking in the machine, I figured it would be okay to do that) and I didn’t pre-bake the crust, as the recipe instructs.  All of the pizzas are topped with a jarred marinara sauce and a mix of cheddar and mozzarella Daiya vegan cheese.  All were delicious, but my favorite was the pepperoni and black olive.  Matt preferred the veggie and commented that the faux meats just aren’t the same as the real thing.  He’s wrong, by the way. 

Since there’s no real recipe to this, I’ve made a list of pizza tips I’ve learned along the way:

• Vegan cheese is not like dairy cheese.  When topping your pizza, go easy on the cheese.  It will spread out while baking and the less you have, the better.  To give you an example, I didn’t even use half the bag of cheddar Daiya and I only used about 3/4 of the bag of the mozzarella for all 4 pizzas. Also, if you’re using Daiya that has been frozen, you’ll want to let it thaw first.
• If you’re topping your pizza with anything watery– vegetables, pineapple, etc– put the veggies on before topping with the cheese.  The water from the vegetables will mix with the cheese and make it too runny and weird.  You may notice some of the weirdness in the photo above of the Hawaiian pizza since I put the pineapple on top of the cheese.  It just works better to put the watery stuff underneath the cheese.
• With Daiya, you can bake your pizza at around 400 – 425 degrees and be okay.  With any other kind of vegan cheese (the FYH brand, for example), you’ll need to bake your pizza at a much higher temperature to get the cheese to melt.
• Once you remove your pizza from the oven, let it sit for a few minutes for the cheese to solidify a bit.  Otherwise, a lot of it will slide off when cut into it.

That’s all the tips I can think of.  Anyone else have any to add?

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!!

How I love one pot meals!  What could be easier?!  I made this chili recipe last night for dinner and it was awesome.  All 3 of us enjoyed it… and the simple fact that Emma ate it should tell you how good this is.  I hope my second isn’t as picky of an eater as my first.  This recipe made a HUGE pot of chili, so you may want to cut the recipe in half.  We’ve got a baby coming soon and I’ve been making large pots of soups and stews to freeze for after she gets here.  This recipe made enough for all of us to have a bowl for dinner last night, plus enough leftovers to have later in the week, AND enough to freeze 2 quart jars.  Feel free to add whatever veggies you’ve got on hand; you don’t have to specifically follow my recipe.  I also kept the spice very mild because of Emma.  Even without using any jalapenos, it still had a little kick from the chili powder but is extremely mild.  If you prefer yours spicier, you could use a jalapeno or add some cayenne.  This chili recipe would also adapt very well to a slow cooker– saute the onions, carrots and celery on the stove top, then throw everything (minus the zucchini and potatoes) into the slow cooker.  I would guess 6 hours on low should do it.

Very Veggie Chili

2 TB olive oil

1 large onion, chopped

2 carrots, peeled and chopped

2 stalks celery, chopped

4 cloves garlic, minced

1 head broccoli, cut into bite size pieces

2 large chard leaves; stems removed and finely chopped (I use my food processor)

2 cans pinto beans, drained and rinsed

2 cans black beans, drained and rinsed

2 cans kidney beans, drained and rinsed

1- 28 oz. can/box pureed tomato product (I used strained tomatoes because it was all I could find in a box; you can use a can of crushed tomatoes, or puree a can of whole tomatoes)

1-2 cups water

1/4 cup chili powder (half would be 2 TB if you were cutting back on the recipe)

1 tsp allspice (next time I will use between 1/2 and 3/4 tsp instead)

2 zucchini, chopped

4 small potatoes, chopped

S&P to taste

In a large pot over medium heat, saute the onion, celery and carrots in the olive oil under tender.  Add the broccoli, chard, beans and tomatoes.  Add enough water until the veggies are just covered with liquid.  Add spices and simmer for 20 minutes.  After 20 minutes of simmering, add zucchini and potatoes and simmer for another 15-20 minutes.  When the potatoes are cooked through, taste and season with S&P.

This a spin on the granola recipe posted here.  The thing I like about granola is that you pretty much throw in whatever you’ve got around the kitchen and it usually turns out delicious.  Since I did change up the recipe some, I’ll post it again here with all the changes.  It’s seriously good… I’ve found myself eating 3 bowls of this a day!  I suppose there are worse things I could be overindulging in, right?! 

Spicy Apple Granola, v. 2

6 cups oats

2 cups mixed nuts and/or seeds (or more), chopped; I used a mix of pecans, almonds, walnuts, sesame seeds, sunflower seeds, and pumpkin seeds

1 cup dried fruit; I used a combo of dates (chopped), cranberries and raisins

1/2 cup flax meal

1/2 cup liquid sweetener (agave, maple syrup, etc); I used brown rice syrup

4 apples, peeled and grated

2 TB canola oil

2 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp nutmeg

1/2 tsp ground cloves

1/2 tsp ground ginger

Preheat oven to 300 degrees.  Combine all granola ingredients in a large roasting pan.  Mix well to be sure that all oats and nuts are coated in the oil and sweetener.  Bake uncovered for 60 minutes, stirring often.  The granola is done when it is golden brown.

(I am still without a camera after breaking mine, so you’ll have to settle for this crappy phone pic.  Sorry!  A new camera should be mine soon.)

A good use up for all that zucchini you’ve probably got this summer… we were having a few playdates and I thought it would be fun to bring some “healthy” brownies.  Sure, there’s better ways of sneaking veggies into your kids, but when you’re making a treat, isn’t it an added bonus to make them with vegetables?  I think so.  I’ve never made these brownies before and was super skeptical when I was making the batter, but they turned out really delicious.  The batter will be incredibly dry, almost crumbly, but it will bake up fine.  These zucchini brownies are awesome!  Next time, I will add some vegan chocolate chips to the batter.

I don’t know what inspired this meal, but I have an idea it may have had something to do with this post about a turkey and cheddar biscuit.  I follow lots of bento blogs and while pretty much none of them ever make anything vegan, they can inspire food creativity and some things can easily be veganized.  I must have had the idea of a turkey and cheddar biscuit in my head all day because by the time dinner rolled around, it was all I could think about.  I had a pack of smoked tofurky in the fridge, but no vegan cheddar style cheese.  In the freezer, though, I had some Daiya mozzarella and I thought– tofurky pizza!  Pizza, on a biscuit?  It sounds like a recipe the Duggars may have invented, I know.  If you’ve ever watched their show, you know that they come up with some pretty…  uhhmm… creative?… culinary delights.

The idea didn’t sound so bad, so I took myself to Google to find a vegan (or veganizable) rolled biscuit recipe, since I typically only make drop biscuits when I make them from scratch.  I’m not sure of any brands of store bought biscuits that are vegan, although I’m sure some exist even if they are just “accidentally vegan.”  Beware of funky ingredients like hydrogenated oils and stuff, if you are as turned off by them as I am.  If you can’t find any and don’t want to make your own, I bet you could attempt this pizza idea (or even the turkey/cheddar thing) with crescent rolls.

Anyway, I settled on this recipe and I used Earth Balance shortening for the fat.  I have no preference for shortening over margarine in recipes like these, but the shortening is a wee bit cheaper and a little less versatile than the marg.  I thought I’d save my marg for another day.  So I made the biscuit dough, rolled out to about 1/2″ thickness, used a glass to cut them out, then rolled the biscuits to about 1/4″ thickness.  I topped each with some jarred marinara that I had leftover from our pasta dish the other night– I had cooked up some red lentils and pureed them into the sauce, which was really tasty!  Anyway, then I sliced up some tofurky and put the Daiya on top of that.  When working with vegan cheese, I find it best to put it on top of everything since vegan cheese doesn’t melt the same way dairy cheese does.  And if you’re topping your pizzas with veggies, the water from the veggies will really keep your cheese from melting and may even make it too watery.  That’s just been my experience.

These baked for about 10 minutes and turned out really good.  I’m still craving the turkey/cheddar biscuits, so I may have to make those next week when I can get myself to the store to score some Daiya cheddar.  Emma helped me make these and had fun playing with the leftover dough (hey, it’s way better than playdoh!  Does anyone else gag at the smell of playdoh?).  And, she ended up eating 3 of these pizzas– the recipe yielded 8 biscuits, 4 of which were tofurky and 4 of which were plain cheese.  Even with making biscuits from scratch, this was ready to be eaten in about 20 minutes.  Can’t beat that!

(And sorry for the crappy photo.  I broke our camera and am now relying on my iPhone.  It was my fault and I take full responsibility for the broken camera.  It fell out of the unzipped camera case as I was carrying it and the screen cracked.  Just my luck!)