• 2-1/4 cups all purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 2 teaspoons cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice or allspice
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt

• 3/4 cup light brown cane sugar
• 3/4 cup cane sugar
• 3 egg equivalent in Ener-G egg substitute
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 cup vegetable oil**

• 2 cups finely grated carrots
• 1 can (about 14 oz) crushed pineapple, drained
• 1 cup shredded coconut

• nuts and raisins optional

Faux Cream Cheese Frosting:

• 1 8 oz package of vegan cream cheese
• 1/3 cup vegan soy margarine (like Earth Balance), softened.
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 2 cups vegan confectioners sugar

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degree Fahrenheit.

In a medium bowl, sift together flour, baking soda, cinnamon, spice, baking powder, and salt.  Set aside.

In the bowl of a mixer combine sugar and egg replacer until creamy.  Add vanilla, then add vegetable oil or applesauce.

Mix wet and dry ingredients together and add carrots, pineapple, and coconut.

Grease pan. Smooth batter into pan. Bake for 40 – 45 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean. Be sure to let the cake adequately cool before frosting.

For a thicker cake, use a 9×9 glass pan. For a thinner cake with more servings, use a 13×9.  You can also make them in a cupcake pan or 2 loaf pans.

Faux Cream Cheese Frosting recipe:

With an electric mixer, beat cream cheese and margarine. Add vanilla, then add sugar.

This entire recipe tastes just like the real thing! It just made it last night and it is so delicious!

Makes: 9 servings, Preparation time: 20 minutes, Cooking time: 40 minutes

**Substitutions**

For the egg replacer – I used pineapple juice drained from the pineapple chunks instead of water.  I had it and I thought I’d give the cake an extra boost of flavor.

Again, I don’t use vegetable oil.  I subbed with applesauce as usual.

Since I had a young coconut in the fridge I used that instead of dried shredded coconut.  I just ran it through the shredder with the carrots.  I tried to run the pineapple chunks through as well, but that really didn’t work.  I ended up cutting up the pineapple chunks I had by hand instead.

I accidentally added 3 cups of carrots instead of the 2 called for – I mixed it up with another recipe.  It worked out pretty well though.

I also added 1 cup of chopped walnuts and 1/2 cup chopped dried cherries.

I don’t do soy-based cream cheese frosting.  Instead of that I used my trusty old standby Whipped Cream Cheese Frosting – wow, was it tasty!

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I am apparently in a baking mood today – zucchini bread and carrot cake back to back.  That or I’m just hungry   I found this recipe over at VegWeb.com where it was submitted by Tate.  I was looking at both this recipe and this one by Ina Garten so I’m sure that there are places other than just the extra cup of carrots that I merged them but I don’t recall them.

Just so you know, these muffins by no means need the frosting – and they are better for you without it – but what is a good tropical-inspired carrot cake without frosting?  I mean really.

So why did I pick a vegan recipe?  Well, I ran out of eggs but I have scads of egg replacer!  Shhh – don’t tell!

So yeah – that’s my version of this yummy cake!  And I would have to agree, next to the Oregon Farms boxed cake (now Sarah Lee), this is one of the best carrot cakes I have tried yet.  I’m still trying to duplicate that one though!  Yum…

Oh – and the kids LOVE it!

These are a tribute to Starvin’ Arvin’s in Grand Junction – the originator of the Green Supreme.  I was missing them the other day and decided to try my hand at making up my own.  It helped that I had some green chili on hand (leftover from the camping trip potluck the night before).

WHAT YOU NEED:

• eggs – scrambled, over easy, sunny side up, filled with garlic, whatever your preference
• green chili – you will need LOTS of this!  Well, if you are like us anyway.  Check out the recipe here
• sour cream
• cheddar cheese
• fluffy biscuits (we made ours with some cheddar inside – sooooo good!)

Basic Bisquick biscuits work great – just don’t roll them out.  You want all of those nooks and crannies to catch everything.   Put 1 to 3 biscuits on each plate – depending on the size of the biscuits and the appetites you are serving.

<biscuits>

Lay an egg or two over and around the biscuits.

<eggs & biscuits>

Cover both with lots of green chili.  Then add some more   Oh, and cheese.  Generously sprinkle the cheese over the eggs and the chili.  Top with a dollop of sour cream.

<all together now>

Voila!  These are soooo good.  Not quite heuvos rancheros, more than just eggs and chili, and just right.

Part of the beauty of these is that you can make most of it a day or so ahead & just warm it up.  Makes it good for a group.

This is one of the more basic batters for crepes, but whe you don’t have a lot on hand and you want a crepe, it does the job!

• 2 eggs
• 2 cups flour (Wondra is recommended, but any will work)
• 2 cups water (we often do 1/2 milk)
• 2 Tbsp. melted butter
• 2 Tbsp. sugar
• 1 Tbsp. vanilla extract

Combine ingredients in a blender and blend for 3-5 minutes, or until very well blended and frothy.

Let it sit for 20 minutes to 1 hour.

Over med-high heat, warm up a crepe pan or 10″ fry pan and add 1 Tbsp butter.  Pour about 1/2 cup of batter in and swirl it around the sides and bottom of the pan.  Let it sit until the sides begin to pull away from the pan.  At this point I flip the crepe, but some say that “isn’t proper”.

The crepe should slide out of the pan easily.

Fill with your choice of fruits, chocolate sauce, whipped cream, nutella & bananas, etc, or go the savory route with an egg crepe (just a whipped egg made in the same way), caramelized onions and sauteed mushrooms, salsa and cheese, etc.

The basic crepe is a wonderful canvas upon which to add a variety of flavors.  Make up a bunch and freeze or refrigerate them for later!

So good…

I was awakened this morning to the industrious sounds of my husband and daughter making these for the rest of the family.  They are an amazing smell to wake up to, and I thought I’d share them.  Oh yeah, they taste pretty good too.

The Dough:

• 1.5 cups unbleached white flour
• 1/2 cup whole wheat flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, chilled and cut into pieces
• 3/4 cup milk or apple juic

Preheat the oven to 400F.

Stir together the flours, baking powder, soda and salt in a medium bowl.  Cut in the butter using a pastry blender ot two knives used scissor style, or a fork, until the mixture is grainy.  Stir in enough milk to form a moist dough.  You may not use all of it.  You want to be able to plop it from a spoon.

The Filling:

• 1 Tbsp. ground cinnamon
• 2 Tbsp. unbleached white flour
• 2 Tbsp. softened butter
• 1/2 cup packed brown sugar

Using 2 lightly oiled baking sheets (or with 2 silicone mats)  form each biscuit from a teaspoon of dough and drop in onto the baking sheet about 2 inches apart.  Make a small depression in the center and fill it with 1/2 tsp of the filling.  Top with another teaspoon of dough, and another 1/2 teaspoon of filling.  Do this with all of the dough.

Bake at 400F until flakey and lightly browned.

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You can make these ahead and keep the dough and filling separate in the fridge.  IN the morning preheat the oven, assemble and bake hte biscuits.

You can also freeze some of the combined biscuits before baking them .  Just let them stand at room temp. for 10 minutes prior to baking.

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This recipe is from the Breakfast In Bed – 90 Recips for Creative Indulgence by Jesse Ziff Cool.

As we have been making kefir, there have been a few times that I let it sit just a little too long, and it fully separated into curds & whey. Not one to be wasteful, I have been looking for ways to use this whey in cooking. One way is to add it to the sourdough starter in place of water. It adds some great nutrients and a bit more tang. These are good things. But where else can it be used?

Oats.

Yes, you can make a tasty sweet-tart oatmeal using kefir whey and honey.

Oh, and it’s best if you start the night before. Soaking, that is.

The basics:

• 3-5 cups whey, kefir, buttermilk or a combination of the three
• 1 cup pin head oats (often called Irish oats)
• 1 small handful dried cranberries, cherries, raisins… dried fruit.
• raw honey
• brown sugar or turbinato sugar (or both if you feel like it)

In a deep, heavy-bottomed pan combine the whey and oats. Toss in the dried fruit and stir gently. Let this sit overnight and soak.

In the morning, turn the heat on to medium low and let it slowly cook, stirring occasionally to prevent sticking. Obviously this only works on mornings that you have extra time.

When it has cooked down to the consistency you prefer, stir in some honey and brown sugar. Let that warm through and serve!
Some options:

• cinnamon
• vanilla
• maple syrup
• butter
• cream

You get the idea. If you want to add spices, add them the night before to let their flavor really meld. I think some cloves and cardamom pods would be a really nice addition too – but that could just be the mood I’m in today.

This will keep and re-heat nicely, so make enough on your day off to last throughout the week, and you have a delicious, nutrient-filled breakfast all week long!

I will warn you though, if you don’t like tangy foods, you won’t like this much. It definitely had a sweet-tart flavor to it, due to the oats fermenting slightly in the whey overnight. Add in the cranberries and the tartness is more pronounced. I love it, my hubby wasn’t quite as fond of it, but ate it just fine. One of my kids loves it, the other hated it. but then, she only likes instant oatmeal to begin with. But then, I never much liked oatmeal before either – too bland.

This is based on a recipe I found over at KefirCheese.com – she has more great ways to use kefir in your cooking! Go take a look.

This recipe comes down from my husband’s Grandmother – each year she would make a Christmas tree out of rolls, complete with green frosting.  She passed away, and no one had a cinnamon roll tree this year.  I knew I had the recipe somewhere, and I just found it, so I’m sharing it with you.

• 1 cup milk
• 4 Tbsp butter
• 1 egg, slightly beaten
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1 pkg active dry yeast
• 1/4 cup  warm water to dissolve yeast
• 3-4 cups sifted flour
• cinnamon
• brown sugar
• more butter
• walnuts, raisins, cranberries or apples as desired.

In a large bowl combine sugar, salt and butter.  Heat up milk, and when it is hot pout it into the bowl over dry ingredients.  Mix until dissolved.

Dissolve yeast in warm water.

Beat egg and add to milk mixture, then add yeast.  Add 3-4 cups sifted flour, enough to make a soft dough.

Put into a well greased bowl and let stand in a warm place until doubled in size (at least 1 hour).

Knead down and roll out to 1/2-inch thick.

Spread with butter, brown sugar, cinnamon, fruits and nuts, leaving one edge clean.

Roll up, starting at the edge opposite the clean edge.  Using your finger, rub a bit or water on the clean edge and seal it to the roll, pinching lightly.

Cut into 1″ slices using dental floss (slide the floss under the roll and bring the ends up around the roll and cross them above it to cut the dough).

Place on a greased cookie sheet and let rise for another hour.

Bake at 375F for about 20 minutes, or until golden brown.

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You can use your favorite frosting or icing for these, but we usually use Whipped Cream Cheese Frosting.  To make the Christmas tree, set the uncooked rolls out on a jelly roll pan in a triangle shape with 2 rolls at the base for the trunk of the tree.  Grandma often put candied fruits or candy on top of the frosting as ornaments.

This is one of those comforting cold weather breakfasts that makes everything seem right in the world.  The hint of apple lends a sweetness to these griddle cakes that negates the need for any topping, although my husband swears that a touch of maple syrup enhances them just perfectly.

Ingredients:

• 2 cups sourdough starter – room temp
• 1/2 cup flour
• 1/3 cup apple cider (natural is best)
• 2 Tbsp. natural cane sugar
• 4 Tbsp. melted butter
• 1 egg
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 large apple – shredded
• ground cinnamon or apple pie spice – to taste
• 1 tsp. baking soda
• 1 Tbsp. apple cider

I know, it looks like a lot of ingredients, but it really isn’t.  The starter is just flour and water that has had a chance to ferment slightly, and I plan to post the easiest sourdough bread recipe here soon to use it… and these pancakes are a great way to use it between batches of bread!

In a medium bowl combine the starter, sugar, flour, melted butter, 1/3 cup of cider, egg and salt.  Shred the apple into the bowl, add the cinamon and stir it all together.  In a small cup mix the baking soda and 1 Tbsp apple cider.  When you are ready to start cooking the pancakes, add the soda mixture to the batter.

Heat your griddle to medium high, and melt some butter on it.  I use a 1/4 cup measuring cup to ladle out the batter onto the griddle, but use your preferred method.

Cook them until they get really bubbly, and flip them over to cook the other side.

Serve them warm – offer maple syrup if desired, or make a syrup out of apple cider that has been cooked down some.  Butter or whipped cream would also be very tasty.

Enjoy!

I was thinking about using my sourdough starter to make dinner rolls last night, but I didn’t get it started in time – isn’t that the usual problem with starter bread? While I was looking at recipes though, cinnamon rolls kept showing up alongside the dinner rolls in google. I love google, it is where I turn for inspiration for just about everything.

The recipe I found was for a bread machine – which I refuse to use – so I have modified it for those of us who are making things by hand.

So now I had the rolls, but I don’t like the old powdered sugar & water frosting. Cinnamon rolls (like carrot cake) needs to have cream cheese frosting or caramel. Or both. Back to google I went this morning. What I found borders on the divine.

Next time you have an evening to pre-plan for breakfast, or you just want to spoil your family, this is a great recipe!

For the rolls:

• 1 cup sourdough starter – room temp.
• 3/4 cup warm milk
• 2 tablespoons butter – very soft
• 1 egg – room temp (or warmed up in a bowl of hot water)
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/4 cup evaporated cane sugar
• 3-1/2 cups unbleached flour
• 1 tsp active dry yeast

for the filling:

• 2 Tbsp butter – very soft
• 1 Tbsp butter – melted
• 1/4 cup evaporated cane juice – divided
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• cinnamon

In a large bowl, combine the starter with the milk, butter and eggs. Stir these up until they reach a soupy consistency. Add in the sugar, salt and yeast. Stir until combined. Add in the flour, 1 cup at a time. If it gets too hard to stir, dump it out onto a lightly floured countertop and knead the rest of the flour in.

Knead for a few minutes, until the four is all incorporated and the dough is no longer sticky.

Put unto an oiled rising bucket or bowl and put it into your cold oven for 5 hours or overnight. Leave the light off. You want this to have a sow rise overnight, but not as cold as the refrigerator. Mine had just doubled overnight.

In the morning, dump the dough onto a lightly floured surface and roll it out in a rectangle to a 1/2 to 3/4″ thickness. Let it rest for a couple of minutes like this.

While the dough is resting, prepare your pan. I used a 9″ square baker and a mini loaf pan. In the baking pan, spread 1 Tbsp of the butter in the bottom of the pan so that it is covered with a thin layer. Get the sides and corners too. Sprinkle 1/3 of the sugar and 1/3 of the brown sugar into the bottom of the pan.

Back to the dough. Gently spread the remaining soft butter over the dough, adding the melted butter when you have it mostly covered. Be careful to leave one long end free of butter so you can seal the roll.

Sprinkle the sugar over the butter so that is covers the dough – you may need a bit more or less. Do the same with the brown sugar – sprinkling it with your hands. Cover the whole thing with ground cinnamon. I like a lot of cinnamon, some don’t like as much. Use the cinnamon to your taste. If you want them, now is the time to add dried fruit or nuts.

Roll the dough up, starting at the long end OPPOSITE the bare edge. When you get to the edge that has no butter, etc, on it, get your finger wet and run it down the edge to help it stick. Press it with your fingers to seal it.

Get a length of dental floss that is about 18″ long. Slip it under the end of the log and bring your hands up and cross them, slicing the dough cleanly. I made mine about 1″ to 1-1/2″ thick. Do this down the length of the dough, filling the pan.

I used about 2/3 of the roll as cinnamon rolls, and left the rest whole and tossed it into a mini loaf pan and baked it as cinnamon swirl bread. yum!

Let them sit to rise for about 20 minutes before pre-heating your oven. Preheat your oven to 350F. Before putting the rolls into the oven, I spread a bit of butter over the tops and sprinkled with brown sugar and drizzled with agave nectar. I like caramel-y rolls.

Cover with foil and bake for 20 minutes. Remove the foil and continue to bake for 15 minutes, or until the rolls begin to brown.

These can be turned over into a pan and served as caramel rolls as-is, or you can add cream cheese frosting.

For the frosting:

• 1- 8 oz. pkg cream cheese
• 1 cup sugar – white or powdered works fine
• 1/8 tsp salt
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1-1/2 cups heavy whipping cream

In a large bowl, beat the cream cheese, sugar, salt and vanilla until smooth. In a separate chilled bowl, whip the heavy cream until stiff peaks form. Add to the cream cheese mixture and whip just to combine – about 30 seconds.

Yep, that’s it.

Be careful when whipping the cream that you don’t over whip it and make butter… although for cinnamon rolls, that would be really tasty too. Starting with a well-chilled metal bowl helps.

So, now your rolls are out of the oven – perfectly caramel-y – and you have this big bowl of frosting. Spread it on thick. Then add some more. The rolls are still warm, so some of the frosting will melt down into them, making a deliciously creamy caramel in the bottom. Since you have just a teeny bit of frosting left you have a choice. You can either lick the bowl clean, or save it to dip fruit into. Or put a bit on each plate for people to add more to their already-covered rolls. They will love you for it.

No, this is not a low-fat recipe. But it is a tasty treat on days that you just want to splurge a little. It is very easy to put together, and in the morning it takes just over an hour start to finish – including baking time. If you start them in the afternoon you can put the pan of rolls into the refrigerator overnight and pull them out when you get up and turn the oven on. If you are using a stoneware pan, you will need it to warm up first though – just a reminder. Metal has no problem going into a hot oven still a little cold.

Let me know what you think! I’m going to go have another roll…

The end of Summer is here, and if you planted it in your garden – and the slugs didn’t eat it all – you may just have a plethora of zucchini lying around waiting to go bad.  What to do?

Make muffins.

Well, you can make bread if you want to, but the muffins seem to last longer around here… something about counting just how many you have eaten already causes us to show some restraint!

These are *healthy* to some extent, but they don’t taste it!  Don’t tell your kids – or hubby – how good they are for you, just how good they are!  The sugary crust that forms towards the top will make sure that they don’t believe they are healthy anyway.

I have no idea where the original recipe came from, but I have tweaked it – as usual – to suit my tastes.  The girls like it this way better too – double bonus!

And did I mention that these make a tasty breakfast?  Yum…

Down to business…

Ingredients:
wet

• 2 cups evaporated cane sugar
• 1/2 cup turbinato sugar
• 1 cup unsweetened apple sauce
• 3 eggs (or egg replacer*)
• 2-1/2 cups grated zucchini
• 3 tsp. vanilla extract

dry

• 2 cups unbleached white flour**
• 2 cup whole wheat pastry flour**
• 1 tsp. baking soda
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 3 tsp. cinnamon
• pinch of salt

• 1 cup chopped nuts, dried fruit, etc – optional

Preheat the oven to 325F.

In a large mixing bowl combine the wet ingredients, making sure to mix the eggs thoroughly.  Add the dry ingredients and mix until just combined.  This will be a wet dough.

If you are adding nuts or dried fruit, gently fold them in now.

Lightly grease your muffin tins, or use paper.  Fill each muffin cup just over 1/2 full.  We use a regular sized pan, and a mini muffin pan – the perfect size for the girls to take to school.  Either way, you should get at least 2 pans worth of muffins.  I usually get 15 regular muffins, and 24 mini muffins.

Bake at 325F for 30 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center of a middle muffin comes out clean.

If you are using a loaf pan, bake for 1 hour, or until the toothpick is clean.  It should fill 3 greased loaf pans.

Enjoy!

*if you use egg replacer to make these vegan, add it with the dry ingredients.  Add the water or apple juice with the wet though.

**you can use 3-1/2 cups white flour instead if you would rather, but the whole wheat adds a delicious flavor!  And helps them be just a tad more healthy.

Breakfast is the most important meal of the day, so you need to make sure it’s a good one!

The kids are heading back to school next week, so we are enjoying the last few days of having “weekend breakfast” during the week, and today was no exception!

I came across a recipe for Mayan Hot Chocolate… something that I have always loved. Yes, the Aztecs invented hot chocolate, or Xoclatl as they called it. This isn’t completely authentic as it often had red peppers in it as well, but this gives you a good “south of the border” flavor. There is mote history on the linked page…

2 ounces (squares) 100% chocolate (baker’s or unsweetened)
1 cup hot water
3 tablespoons honey
dash salt
3 cups hot milk
4 sticks cinnamon bark
Chop the chocolate and heat it in the water until melted. Add honey, salt, and beat the hot chocolate water with a balloon wire whip as you add th warmed milk. To make it more frothy and give more food value, you can beat up an egg or two, add hot chocolate to it, then pour it into the chocolate cooking pot and continue to whip, (but this isn’t authentic). Serve the hot chocolate in mugs with cinnamon-bark stick stirrers in each.

Of course, with the kids drinking it, I had to add a bit more sugar to it, but this dark-chocolate loving girl thought it bordered on the divine! I used a dash of ground cinnamon instead of cinnamon sticks because that’s what I had.

Alongside this delicious confectionery one of the small ones wanted pancakes… and eggs… oh, and why not toss some bacon into the mix too!

So, I got out the bacon (from a locally raised pig – so much better than the store bought stuff!) and started that in the pan while I mixed up the ‘cakes. When the bacon was done, I cracked a few eggs into the pan with the leftover bacon grease (in my opinion, the hands-down, best way to have a fried egg!) and set them fry with the yolks intact. Then I flipped them and smashed that yolk bubble. Yum!

Once the eggs were done, giving the pancake batter a few moments to rest of course, I made some good, thick pancakes.

With all of the ingredients, the obvious choice was a pancake sandwich! Yes, pancake, fried egg, 2 strips of bacon, a sprinkling of shredded cheese and another pancake. Delish!

Of course, if you are a die hard syrup person, you can pour syrup over the sandwich and eat it with a fork, but there is something fun about eating pancakes with your hands in this way! It must satisfy that kid that is buried deep down inside.

No, this is not the most heart-healthy of meals, but the kids sure do love it! Perfect for Saturday mornings…