Eggless Whole Wheat pancakes!

We've decided to go more or less egg-free. 

I've got no problem making most foods egg-free, but for some reason, I had a lot of trouble with pancakes. They just were NOT coming out right!

Some kind person pointed me to this vegan pancake recipe, which inspired me to try again. I discovered that my biggest problem was probably my lazy measuring - sometimes when I cook I am too lazy to pull out a measuring cup. That does not work well for pancakes!

So, here's my egg-free but dairy pancake recipe. It was a big hit!

2 cups whole wheat flour
3 tsp baking powder
1/8 tsp baking soda
pinch of salt
3 tsp. sugar
2/3 cup of whey or orange juice
1 cup milk
2 tsp oil

a bit of oil for the pan

 
First, mix dry ingredients together in a bowl, then add liquid ingredients and stir briefly. It can be lumpy.

Coat your frying pan with a very light layer of oil, and heat to med-high heat.

Make pancakes!

Enjoy!

We served these with maple syrup.

Whole Grain Breakfast Muffins (Dairy)

I know, I usually do a lot of vegan baking, but these have dairy. They are extra-moist and truly a great way to start your day, if you're ok with dairy. If you want to make them vegan, just substitute 1 cup of soy milk or other non-dairy milk for the leben. It will work. My kids preferred the dairy version, though, so I'm sticking with it for now!

Whole Grain Breakfast Muffins (Dairy, but no eggs)

4 T. flaxseed
1/3 cup boiling water
2 bananas, mashed (or about 2/3 cup of your favorite fruit, pureed or mashed)
1/3 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
200 ml leben (I used Gil) or yogurt
1 cup orange juice or other liquid (I used the whey that was left after making cream cheese)
3 cups whole wheat flour (or your favorite whole grain multi-grain mix)
1.5 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt

Start by mixing flaxseed and boiling water, and allow to cool for 10 min. Add the rest of the liquid ingredients, and mix well. Add the dry ingredients, mix, but don't overmix. Transfer to muffin tin, lined with baking cups. Bake at 350 F for about 25 min (although I suspect my oven may not be registering the temp properly, check yours at 20 min!).
Makes 12 medium size muffins.

Note: you can use 2 eggs instead of the flaxseed/water mixture if you prefer

Lemon Quick Bread Recipe

We have a lemon tree, and it is producing an amazing number of lemons this year. Probably twice as many as last year! Which is odd, as our orange trees are producing about half as many oranges as last year... strangely opposite cycles, it seems.

I looked at my lemons, and just KNEW I needed to come up with something to make with them.

3 of my 4 children enjoyed this quickbread (which was gone before I took a picture, sorry).

Lemon Quick Bread

2 tablespoons ground flaxseed  
1/4 cup boiling water
1/4 cup oil
2/3 cup sugar
1 package of leben (gil or eshel, whichever. I bought eshel because it was a few agurot less) (if you live in area where leben is hard to find, use 6 oz of plain yogurt instead)
1 tablespoon freshly grated lemon rind
juice of 1/2 lemon (or if your lemons are small, juice a whole lemon)
2 cups whole wheat flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt

Instructions:
Mix flaxseed with water, allow to cool for 10 min.
Add oil, sugar, leben, lemon rind, and lemon juice. Mix well. Add dry ingredients, and mix briefly.
Pour into a baking pan (loaf or cake pan) (I lined mine with parchment paper, I recommend it!). Bake at 350 F / 190 C for 35-45 min.
You could also use this recipe to bake muffins, if you prefer. Muffins bake for a much shorter time (20 minutes or so).

Enjoy the aroma while it bakes, and have a cup of tea with it!

I'd love to hear what you think!

Chocolate Chip Cookies/Squares (vegan)

This post is long overdue.

We had some family over for Shabbat a while ago, and I made these chocolate chip squares. Well, the guests wanted the recipe, and I promised I would write it up.

I'm a little late, but trying to keep my promise!




Ingredients:

3 Tbp ground flaxseed
2/3 cup near boiling water
1.5 cups sugar
1/3 cup oil
1 tsp vanilla extract
2.5 cups whole wheat flour
1/2 cup oat bran
1/2 tsp salt
3/4 tsp baking soda
6 oz chocolate chips

Directions:
Preheat oven to 190C
First, mix the flaxseed with water in a large mixing bowl. Let cool for about 10 minutes before you continue.
Then add the rest of the ingredients (except the chocolate chips, save those for the end) and mix well.
Fold in the chocolate chips.
Spread the mixture out on a large cookie sheet, lined with parchment paper.

Bake for 15 minutes MAX. Take them out a bit BEFORE you think they are done. Trust me, if you wait till they are "done", they will get rock solid.
You can also form these into cookies and bake for 8-10 min
While they are still warm, cut into squares.
This recipe yielded 4 dozen smallish squares.
Watch them disappear, while you smile that your kids are eating a treat that has a few slightly healthier ingredients!

Whole Wheat Cinnamon Monkey Bread

Today's monkey bread is a higher fat version. And is cinnamoney. And a big hit with my kids.

See - I didn't manage a picture before they attacked it!

Whole Wheat Cinnamon Monkey Bread 

This recipe has a LOT less sugar than similar recipes I have seen, and my kids did not miss the extra cup of sugar, really!

Dough

3 cups whole wheat flour
1 T. baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/3 cup oil
1 cup milk

Mix together and knead with hands, for a short time.

Filling:

1/2 c. sugar 
1.5 tsp cinnamon

Mix together in a shallow bowl

Form balls of dough and roll them to coat (lightly in cinnamon sugar mixture.
Layer into a greased baking pan

Use the leftover cinnamon sugar mixture (I had plenty left), add 1/3 - 1/2 c. more sugar. Mix with 1/3 - 1/2 c. oil.

Pour sugar and oil mix over the dough.

Bake 30-45 min at 375 F.

It's our new favorite quick cake! Maybe I'll make it pareve for Shabbat, with coconut milk or something...

Shared with the Hearth and Soul Blog Hop

Chanukah!

It's Chanukah, and that means we all feel compelled to eat fried foods, right?

My plan for this afternoon is to try out making sufganiyot with my kids. I found this pretty easy-looking recipe on King Arthur Flour's site. I love their site, they have great baking tips and some awesome recipes (just some - others can be full of pricey, obscure ingredients that are not found in my kitchen!).

Here's the recipe we'll be using! I'll try to post our review later...

Monday Night, Feb. 28, 2011

I'm suffering from another round of cooking burnout. It's a lot to plan and prepare (and clean up after!) 3 healthy meals every day, plus snacks for a family of 6. I admit, most mornings we have hot or cold cereal, maybe some yogurt and fruit, so breakfast is not really so labor-intensive, but I'm kind of ready for someone else to cook (and clean!). Just one night. Please?

My 6 year old  has offered to cook, but I just can't take her up on it. Although now she thinks she is a master chef, since she made a fruit salad that everyone devoured!

That said, I still have to make supper...

On the way to the table on Monday night:

Sloppy Sams in Pitot
Make-your-own Salad  (lettuce, tomatoes, purple and green cabbage, cucumbers, and carrots)
Couscous (cooked in whatever is left of the vegetable soup from Shabbat)
 Roasted Zucchini, Tomato, and Onion

As long as the oven is already on, I will probably bake something else - but I'm not sure yet what. Whatever it is, it will have to be eggless, since I didn't buy any eggs yet this week! (Everybody ate the eggless cookies over Shabbat, so I'm guessing it'll work out ok!) What should I bake? (I'm thinking muffins or a breakfast bread...)