Chocolate Peanut Banana Flapjacks & Vegan Ham Powder?

By Monica on June 19th, 2008

Feeling ambitious last weekend, I woke up early to make pancakes with the aging bananas on my kitchen counter.

Half way into mixing, I thought I’d add some peanut butter and chocolate chips to really spruce them up.  I could not have imagined that peanut butter would be so amazing inside pancakes!  What could be better than a fluffer-nutter in pancake form?

Chocolate Peanut Butter Banana Flapjacks
1 1/2 cups flour
2t baking powder
1 overripe banana, mashed
1 cup non-dairy milk
4T creamy peanut butter
1 cup chocolate chips
vegetable oil

Whisk together the flour and baking powder.  Then add all remaining ingredients and mix well.  Put your cast iron pan or skillet over medium-high heat and coat lightly with vegetable oil.  When hot, spoon in the batter.  (I made mini-pancakes which were about 2T of batter each.)  Cook until golden brown on each side.  Makes about 12 mini-pancakes.

And secondly, I’m bringing you the first installment of Bizarre Search Terms people have used to arrive at my blog.  Some of them are so wacky I googled the terms myself to see if my page really turned up in the results.  These terms confirm my suspicions that the world is insane.  (My responses are in parenthesis.)

“swastika mason jars” (a collector’s item for sure!)
“cooked testicles” (not vegan!)
“tapioca poisoning” (first tomatoes this week, now tapioca?)
“squirt dairy cream in the ass porn” (I fear this person was gravely disappointed when arriving at my blog.)
“i hate bloomington-normal” (me too!)
“baked silly putty” (maybe vegan?)
“dairy goat software” (for extra smart goats)
“massive wieners”
“great white shark pets and fish tickles” (Does one need a special permit to have a pet great white, or to tickle fish?)
“cat helmet sundae”
“creating a bonsai by digging a tree”
“wet french fries” (ewwww!)
“ass farmer” (The world has enough asses, I don’t think we need to grow more!)
“pictures of foods that are bad for you” (err, thanks?)
“people dressed in pizza” (Best Halloween costume ever, though probably messy.)
“vegan ham powder” (please tell me this doesn’t exist!)

The Clean Out Continues

By Monica on January 22nd, 2008

This week I’ve forced myself to do something with the obscene amount of lentils and beans that have been hiding in my pantry since the last ice age. Despite the frigid weather, I’m not in the mood for soup lately, so using the beans and lentils is becoming a challenge. If anyone has suggestions for them other than soups, salads, or burgers, send suggestions my way!

Up first we have perhaps my favorite use for black beans - Southwestern Pasta Salad. It’s packed with chili powder and cumin, so it satisfies a chili craving while being light enough to call a salad.

I found a bag of tiny black lentils hiding, so I used those to make a quick lentil salad with a tomato-soy yogurt dressing, and threw in an avocado just to be saucy. A meal in itself!

But because woman cannot live on lentils alone, I put some aging bananas to use with a wholewheat version of Sarah Kramer’s Banana Waffles. I need to drag my waffle iron out more often, these are so good!

And last, but not least, a good use for a can of cherries that had been stowed away in the pantry. Honestly, I don’t even remember buying some of the things in there! Cherry Coffee Cake:

Southwestern Pasta Salad
8 oz. pasta
1/3c canola oil
1/4c fresh lime juice
2T chili powder
2t cumin
1/2t salt
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1 1/2c whole kernel corn
15 oz. canned black beans, drained and rinsed
1/2c diced green pepper
1/2c diced red pepper
1/2c fresh cilantro
1c chopped tomato

Cook pasta al dente.
In a large bowl, combine oil, lime juice, chili powder, cumin, salt, and garlic. Stir in cooked pasta and set aside to cool to room temperature, stirring occasionally.
Stir in corn, green pepper, red pepper, cilantro, and tomato. Serve chilled or at room temperature.

Cherry Coffee Cake
Cake:
1C sugar
1/2c softened EB
1c tofu sour cream
4T apple sauce
1t vanilla extract
2c flour
1 1/2t baking powder
1/2t baking soda
1/2t salt
1 21oz. can cherries or cherry pie filling
Topping:
1/4c flour
1/4c sugar
1/4c chopped pecans
1t cinnamon
3T EB, cold

Preheat oven to 325°. Combine 1 cup of sugar and 1/2c EB in a large mixer bowl and beat at medium speed until creamy (1-2 minutes). Add sour cream, apple sauce, and vanilla and continue beating until well mixed. Add 2 cups of flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Beat again until well mixed.

Spread half of batter into greased and floured 13×9″ pan. Spoon cherries over batter. Spoon remaining batter over cherries and spread carefully.

Stir together 1/4c flour, 1/4c sugar, pecans, and cinnamon in medium bowl. Cut in 3T EB until mixture resembles course crumbs. Sprinkle over batter. Bake for 45-50 minutes or until toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean and topping is dark golden brown.

Bramboráky - Potato Pancakes

By Monica on October 10th, 2007

So many cultures have potato pancake recipes, this is mine. Fortunately these are easy enough to veganize by using non-dairy milk if your recipe calls for it, or a replacement binder instead of eggs. Since I’ve always eaten applesauce with the pancakes anyway, I thought applesauce would make a tasty egg replacer and it actually worked pretty well too. They held together beautifully!

If you want the Czech version, make sure to top with both applesauce and faux sour cream, because well, everything Czech is coated in sour cream.

2 large potatoes
1 medium onion
2/3 cup applesauce
1/4 cup lemon juice
2T parsley
2T flour
2T bread crumbs
1/2t thyme
1/2t salt
1/2t pepper

Grate the potatoes and onion, preferably in a food processor so you don’t skin your knuckles. Drain very well and squeeze out all the liquid. Combine with all the remaining ingredients and mix well.

In a large skillet, heat enough vegetable oil to coat the bottom of the pan. Add 1/2 cup of the potato mixture and flatten a little to make a pancake. Cook for about 5 minutes on each side until nicely browned, adding more oil as necessary.

Weekend Review…

By Monica on October 9th, 2007

Instead of using my long ‘holiday’ weekend to cook up new elaborate feasts, I opted to make several easy, snackie foods that we could eat whilst lounging on the couch catching up on movies. So much for productivity!

I always thought eggs were disgusting and would rarely eat them unless disguised in baked goods, so giving up eggs was a snap even though I have hens which lay the most gorgeous brown and blue eggs! Nevertheless, in my omni-days, about once a year I would make egg salad. This satisfies that craving quite well!

Your Basic Eggless Egg Salad
1 block extra firm tofu, dried well and crumbled
1 small red onion, finely diced
1 stalk celery, finely diced
3/4 cup Vegenaise
1/4 cup pickle relish
2T mustard
2t dried dill
1t taragon
pinch of cayenne pepper

Then we moved on to Jess’s Sick Soup, which is truly delicious. I omitted the mushrooms as usual, but added a handful of green beans and sugar snap peas. This is definitely a recipe I’ll make again, and it’s a great excuse to eat more crusty Italian bread (like I need an excuse, I’m a carb addict.)

And finally, blueberry pancakes. I always make too many pancakes, which I think are disgusting reheated, so the dogs typically get a breakfast treat on pancake day. They enjoyed the pancakes thoroughly!