Fruit Cereal Bars (without a bunch of unnecessary crap!)

I love making these bars because you can make them into just about any combination of flavors you want; so much room for imagination and creativity here! They are awesome for packing into school/work lunches (kids as well as college students looking for a healthier alternative) or just an afternoon snack at home. After they bake, I cut and wrap them individually and store in the refrigerator. Grab one for an on the go breakfast as you're walking out the door!

ingredients
3/4 C coconut oil (butter can also be used)
1/2 C brown sugar, packed (I was out today so I used 1/2 C evaporated cane juice)

cream above together then add:

1 C white whole wheat flour
1 C buckwheat flour or oat bran or a mixture of whatever "flours" you like (you could just use another cup of the whole wheat flour). Today I used 3/4 C Buckwheat and 1/4 C ground flax seeds
3/4 C chopped nuts, dried fruit or seeds (Pumpkin Seeds are great in this recipe) (I omitted this today bc of 1. nut allergies and 2. my kids are pretty sick of raisins right now and that's the only dried fruit currently in the house).
3/4 C rolled oats
1 teaspoon vanilla (today I used 1/2 tea vanilla extract and 1/2 lemon extract)

Press 1/2 of the above mixture into a  greased 9x13 pan

spread about 8oz of your favorite fruit preserves/jam on top (today I used the last of the strawberry jam I canned last summer)

Sprinkle then press the other half of the crumb mixture on top, pressing gently but firmly.

Bake at 350 about 30 minutes, checking at 25 minutes.  If edges are getting brown, take it out.

Cool completely.  Cut into bars.  Eat.  Enjoy.

Basic Vegan Banana Muffins

The girls and I love muffins! I've recently had several requests for my Basic Vegan Banana Muffin recipe so I decided to post it here. I originally found this and tweaked it into the following:

Ingredients:

• 3 bananas
• 1/4 cup oil or vegan margarine, softened (coconut oil gives an excellent flavor)
• 1/2- 3/4 cup sugar, honey or molasses
• 2.5 cups white whole wheat flour
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 cup of any add in you like- We use blueberries, raisins, cranberries...one morning I even minced fresh mango and they turned out awesome! (oh and you can't forget the Vegan Chocolate Chips!)

Preparation:

Pre-heat oven to 360 degrees. In a large bowl, mash the bananas with a fork till soft (I used a potato masher). Add the oil or vegan margarine and sugar and cream together.
In a separate bowl, combine together the flour, salt,baking powder and baking soda. Combine with the banana mixture, stirring gently just to combine.
Fold in your 1 cup of add in ingredients (berries, nuts, chocolate chips)
Grease or line a muffin pan, and fill each muffin about 2/3 full with batter. Bake for about 25 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into a muffin comes out clean.

Ella loves muffins almost as much as she loves Olivia

 I've made this recipe so often (sometimes every day, they disappear so quickly) I have it memorized and can go from start to putting the muffins in the oven in 5 minutes. It's truly an easy recipe and something kids can help out with.

Violet's Friday Food Post- Sweet VS Savory

My Divvies' Bakery Cookbook came last week and I got busy making sweet treats I wouldn't ordinarily make for a 19 month old!

The first recipe we chose (Ella insisted) was Chocolate Cupcakes with Vanilla Icing (both vegan). I even managed to score some cupcake sprinkles made with real vegetable dye instead of yucky red 40, yellow 5 (which V breaks out into hives from) etc.

The Divvies Chocolate Cupcake and Vanilla Frosting

Next time I make these I plan to make a "cream cheese"/powdered sugar frosting as opposed to this "butter cream" recipe. The girls loved them (squeals of "good! good!") and even Chris (a hard sell) said he enjoyed them.

Next from the Divvies Cookbook, Mini Marshmallow Chocolate Clusters, showed up as result of one of my late night cravings for chocolate.
I wish I could post these recipes but just don't feel right about it, especially since this is such a new book. I will say these were absolutely delicious and I will be making these again and again for parties or when I need something sweet in a pinch. The entire make time took about 5 minutes and I had all the ingredients already in my pantry. I used Enjoy Life Chocolate Chips, added about a teaspoon of canola oil (not in the recipe) and Dandies Marshmallows (vegan!). The ultimate test- I had to stop Chris from eating these out of the fridge so I could photograph them the next morning!

chocolate cooling/hardening

look how pretty! so easy and delicious!

Salmon Burgers with Vegan Avocado Dip
The girls were not home at the same time to eat these and loved them so much they each wanted the others serving. Ella tried to convince me that Violet could have bananas for dinner instead!


(egg free variation on Weelicious Salmon Burgers)
Ingredients:
1 Lb. Fresh Salmon, skinned
1ener-G "egg"

1 Tsp Dried Dill
1/2 Tsp Salt


Place ingredients in a food processor and pulse until just combined (you should still see tiny pieces of salmon).
2. Form into patties and place on a sheet tray lined with foil or plastic wrap (mixture will be sticky. Using wet hands will make forming the patties much easier).
3. Cover and refrigerate the salmon patties for 1 hour.
4. Heat oil over medium/high heat in a large skillet.
5. Cook the patties for 3 minutes on each side.

Vegan Avocado Dip 
in a bowl combine with a fork (I like mine chunky but you could food process this mixture for a smoother texture):
2 tablespoons of Grape Seed Oil Vegenaise
1 avocado 
pinch of salt

Summer Rolls
I've come to realize recently these could be filled with just about anything including fruit or meat.
This week my rolls were filled with any combo of avocado (a must for me), carrots, beansprouts, cucumber, plum sauce and Better Than Cream Cheese (didn't much care for it in my rolls).

These were not a kid favorite (yet) but I loved them so much I made them almost every day for my lunch.

Violet's Friday Food Post

This was kind of a crazy week so I didn't get many food photos. I did get to take some of the girls playing at beautiful Kanapaha Gardens (stay tuned for the next post coming up).

Monday nights, meal:

Wilted Kale with Mustard & Organic Beef Hot Dogs 

In my head I head whoever is reading this laughing in disbelief...allow me to explain. Every Monday we go for our local organic produce coop pick up. This particular Monday, I happened to have ordered a few packs of hot dogs from the coop as well. The whole ride home both girls had been snacking on raw kale in the back seat and while I had planned to make them hot dogs for dinner, they were enjoying the Kale so much that for some reason it all sounded good mixed together. So that was dinner. And it was really really good (we promise!).

Another meat item we had this week is something Ella calls Pig Roll-Ups
No photo, but it's a quick and easy snack!

ingredients:
a few slices of ham (Make sure your deli meat is Casein free!)
Tofutti Better Than Cream Cheese (Garlic & Herb)

spread each slice of ham with a light layer of the Tofutti, roll it up and slice into bite sized pieces

Last on our Friday Food Post is a recipe we'll be making quite a bit from now on. While the original recipe comes from Weelicious,  if my friend mØmmacat hadn't blogged about it recently I never would have seen it!

PUMPKIN MILKSHAKES!!! 

We used Publix brand Organic Vanilla soy Milk and they came out AWESOME.
Violet took her first sip, looked up at me and said, "GOOD!"

Violet's Friday Food Post

First up this week is Monday's dinner:
I sauteed some fresh cauliflower in garlic, sea salt, Earth Balance and a little bit of water. In the background you can see 12 lbs of beets from our weekly produce order.

This is a meal the girls and I eat for either lunch or dinner every day:
It's just a light saute of Cut 'n Clean Greens (one of my new favorite things!), broccoli and mushrooms with Braggs, olive oil, garlic, sea salt and a bit of water. They devour their bowls and ask for more!

Last up is Vegan French Toast.. This is no "vegan substitute recipe"- it's far better than any "real" French Toast I've ever tried!

I started with a loaf of white bread baked the night before (I wasn't sure how this would be with whole wheat but after trying the recipe I think it would work and will make it that way next time):

The recipe I used

Ingredients:
2 cups vanilla soy milk
4-5 tablespoons flour
3 teaspoons sugar
dash cinnamon
bread slices (your choice)
sugar to taste

Directions:
Mix flour, soy milk, vegan sugar and cinnamon to form a batter. Dip bread and fry in lightly greased pan until golden brown. Sprinkle with vegan powdered sugar (we also used Earth Balance).

Makes: 4 servings, Preparation time: 15 minutes, Cooking time: 10 minutes

 I made this a second time this week and made E & V thick french toast sticks.

Violet's Friday Food Post

Since her allergy testing a month ago we've changed the way things are made in our kitchen. We are an egg, dairy/casein, oat, peanut and tree nut free home. Friday Food Posts will demonstrate that food can still be awesome with a few changes.


I set the bread machine last night so in the morning we woke up to this:

Rosemary Bread

Shamefully...the loaf made it about 12 hours in our home. It is even more decadently delicious with a bit of Earth Balance Spread.

Muffins I made earlier in the week:

vegan banana bran muffins with cranberries

I used a box of Hodgson Mill Bran Muffin Mix (using Ener-G egg replacer and soy milk) and added in a mashed banana and 1/2 cup of cranberries.

 Fresh Juice:

beetz

Today's organic juice was 4 beets, 1 Pink Lady Apple, one pear and a lime. The girls and I shared our drink and then brought the pulp out to the chickens who were very excited to see all the pink beet pulp. I use a Juiceman II that I bought back in 1997 when I was in college. I was up late one night, no cable and an infomercial came on...and for the first time in my life I was sold. I picked up the phone and called and 13 years later, I'm juicing with that same machine for my daughters.