Cornbread (Pancakes)

This weekend I finally bought cornmeal. I found myself with a craving for cornbread last week, and decided to make a batch. So last night I baked vegan cornbread, and this morning, I made vegan cornbread pancakes.

They were delicious!

With both the cornbread recipe and the pancake recipe I added whole wheat flour. I switched half of the white flour for whole wheat in the cornbread recipe, and it came out great. But for a more traditional cornbread taste, you might try adding a bit more white flour.

The Pancake Recipe:
1 cup white flour
1/3 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup yellow cornmeal
1 1/2 tbsp sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
a pinch of salt
1 1/2 cup soymilk
1 tsp canola oil

Mix dry ingredients together in a large bowl. Add wet ingredients and mix well.

It was just that simple! The pancakes were very fluffy, tasted wonderfully like sweet, fluffy cornbread, and were delicious topped with a bit of maple syrup.

Chocolate Coconut Banana Pancakes

I’ve been meaning to update for a while now, and since it took so long, I’m also going to share my newest pancake creation: Chocolate Coconut Banana Pancakes!

As usual, I’ve been extremely busy with school, and life. But these pancakes need to be shared and enjoyed by more than just myself! I was also inspired to get back into blogging by my friend Kathleen who has been baking cupcakes like crazy. Be sure to check out her blog, Cupcakes for Dinner.

The Recipe:
1 1/2 cup flour
3 tbsp cocoa powder
1 tsp baking powder
1 banana mashed
1 tbsp coconut oil
1/4 cup coconut shreds
1 tsp vanilla
1 1/2 cup soymilk
2 tbsp sugar

The order you mix it all together doesn’t really matter, but I usually find it’s best to add dry ingredients, mix those together, and then add the wet ingredients.

These pancakes have a delicious cocoa flavor paired with the always delightful banana and coconut combination. I hope you enjoy them!

The Healthiest Thing I’ve Eaten in a While

It shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone that I haven’t been blogging very much lately. That also means that I haven’t been cooking very much lately. For the past couple of months I’ve just been so busy with school and work that I haven’t really had time. But now that summer is here, hopefully I’ll have a little more time to get back to cooking and baking delicious vegan food.

Today I made myself a tofu scramble from a recipe I found at VegWeb.com. I can’t say that I really enjoyed this recipe very much, but I think with a little tweaking it could be good.

1 tbsp olive oil
1/2 block firm tofu
1/2 avocado, chopped into small pieces
1/4 onion, diced
1/2 large tomato, diced
1 large handful sliced baby bella mushrooms
3 heads of garlic, mashed
Salt and pepper, to taste

Chop onion and tofu and saute in olive oil until onions are translucent. Add other ingredients. Cook for about 10-15 minutes on medium heat.

Like I said, this isn’t the most delicious recipe ever. I really think it needs some more spice. Any suggestions?

Losing my Wisdom

I was lucky enough to have my wisdom teeth removed yesterday afternoon. And although (I guess) I’m glad they were removed, my face still hurts and I still can’t eat solid foods. In preparation for this, I picked up a few vegan friendly childhood favorites at the local health food store. Vegan jello, soy yogurt and organic chocolate pudding, which was veganized by using almond milk instead of cows milk.

While all of these treats turned out deliciously, I quickly grew bored of eating just these three things. I was able to choke down some oatmeal this morning, and just ate a banana with some peanut butter mashed together, but nothing is really satisfactory.

I want to use this post as a place to generate ideas of soft, delicious, vegan foods that can be eaten after wisdom teeth removal, or any sort of procedure where you’re forced to eat soft foods.

Lets start with the obvious things:
- vegan jello
- chocolate pudding
- soy yogurt (also other varieties of vegan yogurt)
- dairy free ice cream
- fruit smoothies
- applesauce
- mashed bananas
- soup
- mashed potatoes (plain or sweet)
- oatmeal (after the first day)
- maybe a tofu scramble (?)

Well, looks like I’m out of ideas.. In that case, I’ll tell you what I ate for my last meal of solid food yesterday morning. This should come as no surprise to anyone who reads this blog with any regularity. I made strawberry and banana pancakes!

Of course, these pancakes were topped with 100% maple syrup, made in Michigan, which I picked up at the Maple Syrup Festival a couple of weekends ago.

Its been a while…

Sorry! I know its been ages since I’ve updated! I’ve just been insanely busy with school and work for the past few weeks. I’ve been running around shooting video for two different video projects I’m working on right now, trying to keep up with my school work, finishing editing on one of the documentaries I’m working on, and all sorts of other general busy-ness.

One of the problems with being so busy is that I don’t have time to cook! So I’ve been buying a lot of my meals for dinner for the past few weeks. And even when I do have time to cook, I haven’t been following a recipe, so most of what I do cook is pretty repulsive. However, this weekend I’ve been doing a lot of sleeping and recuperating, which means I’ve been doing some baking and cooking as well. Here’s what I came up with:

Today I made a tofu, broccoli, bell pepper stir-fy type thing. I marinated the tofu in lemon juice, brown sugar, honey, etc. Then I slapped everything together in a delicious stir-fry. This was delicious on its own, but I also added a peanut butter, soy sauce and honey “dip” on the side, and it was even better.

A lot of the dinner meals I make for myself I don’t really use or write a recipe. This used to work out really well for me when I first started cooking, however my cooking experiments have been less successful lately. To be honest, after I went to Morocco last summer I kind of forgot how to cook without using a recipe. For weeks I was forgetting to add spices to my meals and was left wondering why everything came out so bland! But, hopefully, things are taking a turn for the better.

I also baked some “healthy” cookies today.

One of my friends from work sent me a recipe that he wanted me to make. The recipe was already vegan, but I still changed a few things to suit the ingredients I had on hand.

These cookies are pretty good for having no added sugar! …but its probably all the chocolate chips I added…

2 bananas, mashed
1/4 cup applesauce
1/2 cup peanut butter, creamy, natural
1/4 cup coconut oil
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 cups old fashioned oats
1/3 cup shredded coconut
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp salt
1 cup chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 F. In separate bowls, mix together wet ingredients and mix together dry ingredients. Mix all ingredients together. Bake on cookie sheet for 12 minutes.

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Green Velvet Cupcakes

If these cupcakes seem eerily similar to a recipe I posted last month, you’re right. Last month, for Valentine’s Day, I posted a recipe for vegan red velvet cupcakes. This is basically the same recipe, except these are Green Velvet Cupcakes.

The Recipe:
1 1/4 cup + 2 tbsp flour
1 cup sugar
2 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup + 2 tbsp soy milk
1/2 cup canola oil
1 tbsp vanilla extract
1 tbsp white vinegar
2 tbsp red food coloring

Mix together dry ingredients. Add soy milk, oil, food coloring and vanilla. Mix well. Add the vinegar until just blended.
Bake at 350 F for 13-20 minutes.

My Review:
These cupcakes turned out great. They tasted better than my original batch of red velvet cupcakes, because I baked them for the appropriate time. However, they didn’t come out quite as vibrantly green as I was hoping for, but no one complained about the color. And I’m sure if you use more food coloring (I only used 1 tbsp) that it will work out better for you.

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