Wednesday 23 January 2013

Blueberry raspberry mini muffins

 I've got a thing for muffins, they are a delicious comfort food. After a night up with a cranky toddler I decided to make some muffins. I strongly dislike overly sugary muffins that leave you with a sugar high after eating them. With Orions allergies I have to make sure these are dairy and egg free as usual, I find it is helpful to look for vegan recipes. As usual I can never find a recipe that I like so I altered one to suit my purposes. I can't ever decide which type of berries to use, so I used them both! Mini muffins are perfect for portion control and for toddler hands. My toddler has such a short attention span, I was forever finding full size muffins with one bite taken stashed in creative places. FYI a stale month old muffin can double as a cat toy at the most inopportune moments. Enjoy these we certainly did :)


Original unaltered recipe here at egglesscooking.com





1/4 cup Ground Flaxseed
3 tbsp hemp hearts
1 and 3/4 cups Whole Wheat Pastry Flour
1 and 1/2 teaspoons  Alumininum free Baking Soda
1/2 teaspoon Cinnamon
1/2 teasspoon epicure gingerbread spice
1/4 teaspoon  salt
1 cup Coconut Milk
1 tablespoon Apple Cider Vinegar
1/4 cupVegetable Oil
1/4 cup Maple Syrup
1/4 cup Local Honey
1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract
1  cup Blueberries (fresh or frozen)
1/2 cup raspberries


Preheat oven to 375F/190C for 15 minutes. Line a muffin tin with paper liners and grease it well with non stick cooking spray.
Mix together the  milk and vinegar; set aside.
In a large bowl combine together the ground flax seed, hemp hearts, flour, baking soda, cinnamon, gingerbread spice and salt.
In a medium bowl, whisk together the maple syrup, oil, milk mixture, vanilla extract and orange zest.
Make a well in the dry ingredients and stir in the wet ingredients with a rubber spatula until just moistened. Fold in blueberries and raspberries
Scoop into mini muffin pan, fill each cup 2/3 full.
Bake for 12 minutes





Wednesday 9 January 2013

Lemon dill shrimp with green beans

Sometimes you have a night that you just really don't feel like cooking, or you get home late and don't have much time. In these cases it is nice to have an easy meal to fall back on, everything in this meal is something from the pantry or freezer. If I am in a big hurry I will make brown basmati rice or sprouted brown rice. Tonight I wasn't in a huge hurry so I made Calrose brown rice. This recipe is dairy less, casein free, gluten free, egg free. It contains no soy or peanuts. We are lemon lovers in our house, I have included a less lemony version.



2.5 cups chicken broth
1/2 cup lemon juice + 1 tbsp (For the less lemony version only use 1/4 cup lemon juice)
3 tbs lemon dilly dip mix (Epicure)
4 cloves garlic minced
1/2 tsp fresh ground pepper
1 tbsp coconut or other high heat stable oil
2 cups cooked shrimp
 3 tbsp corn starch (For the less lemony version only use 2.5 tbsp of corn starch)
2.5 cups Frozen green beans (I used mixed green and yellow beans since that's what I had in the freezer)

Thaw shrimp, toss shrimp in tbsp lemon dilly, 1 tbsp lemon juice pepper, pepper and garlic, set aside.
Whisk together lemon juice, chicken broth and and remaining  dip mix, reserve 1/4 cup liquid and whisk in corn starch.
On medium high heat sautee shrimp 2 minute in the coconut oil , take out of pan and set aside.
Pour first broth mixture in pan scraping pan bottom well,  add beans bring to boil, then lower to a simmer covered for 3 minutes. Whisk in reserved broth (You may need to give it a little stir before you pour it in), making sure you are stirring constantly, mixture should thicken nicely.
When mixture is thickened put your shrimp back in stir well and simmer for 2 minutes.
Serve over rice



Thursday 3 January 2013

Vegan fudgey brownies

This is the first baking recipe I have ever created from scratch. I originally wasn't going to make up my own recipe for brownies but I couldn't find a recipe that had all the elements I wanted in it, so I made up my own. It isn't a huge sugar overload but still will satisfy your cravings for fudgey brownies. This recipe makes 20 brownies.


2 cups Whole wheat pastry flour
1 tsp baking powder
3/4 cup Sugar (I used white sugar for this one)
1 cup Cocoa

1 small mashed over ripe banana (I always keep some in my freezer)
1/2 cup apple sauce
1/4 cup coconut oil
2 tsp vanilla extract
3/4 strong brewed coffee
1/2 cup soy milk (Or any other dairy free milk)

1/3 cup vegan chocolate chips + 1 tsp coconut oil
1/4 cup Hemp hearts


 Preheat oven to 350F
In a large bowl mix the dry ingredients together making sure to break up any clumps
In a smaller bowl blend the dry ingredients until a uniform texture in reached.
Make a small well in your dry ingredients and stir in your wet, mix until there are no large clumps and batter is smooth, it will be really thick. Spread in a greased 8x8 pan and bake for 30 minutes.

Melt the chocolate chips and coconut oil in the microwave (Don't burn it like I did the first time)

Spread over baked brownies and sprinkle hemp hearts,
Cool cut and serve

Wednesday 2 January 2013

Dairy free left over turkey enchiladas

I look forward to this season every year for the leftovers. I love turkey, there are so many ways to use it.We had no left over turkey from Christmas celebrations with my family this year. I decided I would bake a turkey for New years day. I made a simple turkey dinner and have tons of left overs. I already made two batches of stock from the carcass, I will be canning the broth tomorrow and we will be having soup. Today I wanted to make enchiladas, they seem fairly labour intensive but it is more time then effort. Almost every enchilada recipe I have seen includes copious amounts of dairy. My recipe is gluten free, dairy free/ casein free, egg free, sesame free, nut free and soy free. If you prefer to not use fresh tomatoes you can use drained canned tomatoes. This makes a HUGE recipe, enough for two meals for the three of us, After I cooked it I froze half to thaw for a quick meal at a later date. This isn't too spicy so it is a toddler friendly meal :)



Sauce:
11 small to medium size cored and halved tomatoes (If you are using a variety of tomatoes that isn't very watery like paste you don't need to core unless you dislike seeds)
10 pickled jalapenos slices (I found this great little jar at superstore)
5 garlic cloves 
1 red onion quartered
1 400 ml cans of pure tomato sauce
1 tsp chili powder
1/4 cup nutritional yeast
1/2 tsp salt
1/2  cup mild salsa



Filling:
2 cups finely chopped Left over turkey (I used a mix of white and dark) (You really could use almost any meat here)
3 cups Mild salsa (I used frozen salsa (Whenever I make a fresh salsa I freeze the leftovers, mine has corn, peppers, onions, cilantro) 
1\4 cup nutritional yeast
(If you have really runny salsa add 2 tbsp of cornstarch)


 12 corn tortillas


Make Sauce
In a large pot put your tomatoes, onion, garlic and jalapeno on medium heat, 
Bring to to a boil, boil for 10 minute, mash tomatoes coarsely 
Turn heat down to a simmer and simmer with lid on for 1 hour, stirring occasionally, take lid off and cook for another hour, Puree,
Then add chili powder,  canned tomato sauce, nutritional yeast and  canned sauce, Simmer for 15 minutes

Make filling
Put everything in a pot and bring to a boil, then turn heat down and simmer for 5 minutes stirring often.

To assemble Enchiladas, 
 Preheat oven to 375F
Heat tortillas single layer on a baking sheet in the oven until just pliable (About 3 minutes) Cover the bottom of a 9x13 pan with sauce.
Dip each tortilla in sauce place in baking pan, put about 1/4 cup of filling in the middle, roll up, continue until finished.
Cover pan with foil and bake for 15 minutes, remove foil  turn up the heat to 400 and bake for another 10 minutes
Let sit about 5 minutes before serving