Healthy Chocolate Chip Pikelets (Mini Pancakes)

It's a half an hour before we need to leave for a play-date and I want to make something to take and share. None of us are dressed. I know I don't have time to bake anything (oh no!). Then the brainwave of chocolate chip pikelets comes to me! 

They were gobbled up by adults and kids alike and can even be made one-handed whilst holding a one-and-a-half year old - need I sell them more?

Healthy Chocolate Chip Pikelets (Mini Pancakes) (slightly adapted from the Flaxjacks in Raising Vegetarian Children)

1/2 cup wholemeal flour
1/2 cup plain flour
2 tbsp sugar
pinch of salt
2 tsp baking powder 
2 tbsp ground flaxseed
1 cup non-dairy milk
1 tbsp oil, plus more for frying
a handful of vegan dark chocolate chips and a handful of vegan white chocolate chips (the combination is really good but of course just use whatever you have)

Combine all the dry ingredients. Add the milk and oil, stir until just mixed and leave to sit for 5 minutes. 

Heat a frying pan with a dash of oil in it to medium heat. Give the mixture another little stir (a few little lumps are fine). Put in small dollops of the mixture (I do about 4 at a time) and turn over once a few bubble start to appear. Cook until nicely browned. Put a bit of oil in the frying pan before cooking each batch. 

These are nice warm or cold!

Rawsome Vegan Baking

I think I could live on raw desserts. If money was no object and I had better kitchen equipment, that is! 

I really wanted to buy this book, Rawsome Vegan Baking, because I like Emily's blog This Rawsome Vegan Life. She has a very bubbly and fun way of talking about her recipes, and her love for raw desserts is contagious. 

Cashew Coffee Vanilla Crème Cake with Cinnamon Chocolate Crust

Another thing I like about Emily's recipes is that they are achievable with fairly basic blenders and food processors and (mostly) do not contain obscure ingredients such as Irish moss paste (I don't even know what that is but it sounds hard to find and expensive!).

Jungle Pie with Chocolate Crust, Banana Slices & Chunky Coconut Topping

The book is gorgeous and Emily's playful personality really shines through.  

I've only managed to make a few recipes so far, but there are so many I can't wait to make. 

Ultimate Caramel Chocolate Squares

Other vegan cookbooks I've recently blogged about: The Oh She Glows Cookbook

Crunchy Chocolate Buckwheat Cereal

Peter calls this cereal "gravel cereal". Yes, it is quite crunchy and does kind of resemble gravel, but it is totally delicious!

This is my favourite make-in-advance breakfast at the moment. It's inspired by the Loving Earth Chocolate Buckinis I sometimes buy. 

I've been making a version of this cereal, from the fantastic book The Vegetarian Mother's Cookbook, for years. The plain version, with just peanut butter and maple syrup, is lovely too. But it becomes something really special when combined with the cocoa, coconut and goji berries. I'm not a big fan of goji berries on their own, but I love them in this!

Crunchy Chocolate Buckwheat Cereal (makes about 4 servings) (adapted from The Vegetarian Mother's Cookbook and inspired by Loving Earth Chocolate Buckinis)

2 cups raw buckwheat groats
3 tbsp maple syrup
1/4 cup peanut butter
2 tbsp cocoa
1/4 cup shredded coconut
1/4 cup goji berries

Preheat oven to 150C. Spread buckwheat on a large baking tray. Bake for 20 minutes, stir around and bake for a further 20-25 minutes until golden. While buckwheat is still in the oven, mix together the peanut butter, maple syrup and cocoa in a large bowl. When the buckwheat has finished roasting, immediately mix with the peanut butter mixture until buckwheat is coated. Add the shredded coconut and goji berries. I eat this with soy or oat milk - yum!

The Oh She Glows Cookbook

I've tried to slow down on my cookbook purchasing lately, but I got fully swept up in the Oh She Glows craze and had to have this one!

I've tried quite a few recipes from Angela's blog, including her quiche, pumpkin alfredo, taco salad, raw almond butter cups and muffins, and been really impressed by them all.

I love finding recipes on the internet, but I think there's something special about having a cookbook to leaf through and spatter with food. And I like to support people dedicating their time to create such worthwhile (delicious) vegan resources.

You can tell that a lot of care was taken with the recipes and photography in this book and that it was a labour of love. Angela's warm and approachable tone really inspires you to try her recipes.

Here are some recipes I've made from the book:

Mighty Chia Pudding Parfait

Cauliflower Mashed Potatoes with Easy Mushroom Gravy

Healing Rooibos Tea

Effortless Vegan Overnight Oats

Apple Pie Oatmeal

Portobello "Steak" Fajitas

Peanut Butter Cookie Dough Bites

Protein Power Goddess Bowl

Pan-Seared Garlic Tofu

The cauliflower mashed potatoes with mushroom gravy, portobello fajitas, chia pudding and the cookie dough bites are stand-out delicious. 

I look forward to cooking my way through the whole book!

Other vegan cookbooks I've blogged about: Betty Goes Vegan, Whole Grain Vegan Baking

Iced Gingerbread Cake

There's not too much to say about this cake. It just made me feel good!

This cake is a mildly spicy version of gingerbread in cake form. I really love this icing - a thin, crisp layer of extra sweetness. 

Perfect with a cup of tea with rice milk!

Iced Gingerbread Cake (adapted from The Wholefood Lunch Box by Janet Hunt)

1 1/2 cups wholemeal flour
1/2 cup plain flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 cup raw sugar
1/2 cup vegan margarine (I used Nuttelex)
1 tbsp molasses
1 tbsp ground flaxseed whisked with 3 tbsp water
non-dairy milk to mix (I used oat milk)

Icing
1/2-3/4 cup icing sugar
2-3 tbsp coconut milk/cream
few dashes of cinnamon
Dash of vanilla

Preheat oven to 180C.

Whisk together the flaxseed and water and put aside.

Mix together all dry ingredients. 

Melt the margarine and molasses together on low heat until melted.

Stir the margarine mixture and the flaxseed mixture into the dry ingredients. Add as much milk as necessary to make a thick batter.

Line a square cake tin with baking paper and pour in the cake mixture. 

Bake the cake for 15 minutes at 180C and for further 45 minutes at 170C, or until cooked.

To prepare icing, simply stir all ingredients together until smooth. Let it cool completely before icing. You can eat it immediately or wait until the icing hardens (or a bit of both!). 

Using Stuff Up

My partner hates wasting food. He will scan the fridge, collect everything near expiration and basically put it on a sandwich. Needless to say, we don't ask him to prepare much in the kitchen!

I don't go that far, but it feels terrible to throw food away and I do get a lot of satisfaction from using up stuff before it spoils. 

Lately I'm trying to cook more with what I have available at home, as opposed to getting a crazy idea to make some obscure dish (which I've usually seen online along with a drool-worthy photo) for dinner/dessert that requires another trip to the shops and two hours/days preparation!

Here are a few of my recent efforts: 

We always have opened jars of tomato sauce and paste in the fridge needing to be used up. This simple pasta and beans concoction turned out beautifully. I fried some garlic and onion in olive oil, added rosemary, tomato paste and pasta sauce and stock, and added the cooked beans and pasta. 

We often have leftover tofu stored in water in the fridge. Sometimes I just fry the tofu with some tamari and the kids really like it. This pad thai style dish and popcorn tofu are also good ways to use it up. 

This is my favourite quinoa salad - a great way to use leftover cooked quinoa. Lexie likes it too, so I tend to make it quite a bit. I've also made Johanna's delicious muffins a few times, which contain cooked quinoa.  

This chocolate and banana pudding from Vegan Lunch Box was a fun way to use up chocolate almond milk. It had slices of banana at the bottom. 

I used up some fresh basil and parsley in this sauce and poured it over baked sweet potatoes. It was so good! The sauce was based on the Green Goddess dressing from Appetite for Reduction. 

Apple sauce and coconut yoghurt - this was a pretty desperate attempt to save an open jar of apple sauce. It was quite nice though, and Lexie liked it. I've made this apple brown rice breakfast a few times which is a very simple and yummy way to use up apple sauce. Kari's carrot cake pikelets also put apple sauce to great use - a lovely, warming and wholesome breakfast or snack!

Baking for Preschool Lunches

I take any excuse to bake. Any. Friends coming over, trying out a new recipe, using up food, to cheer me/someone else up, waking up in the morning... 

Now, I have a legitimate weekly reason to bake - to include wholesome nut-free things in Sylvia's preschool lunches. And of course the rest of us in the household (and anyone I meet in the street) get to sample them too! 

Her favourite are these chocolate chip cookies from Live. Learn. Love. Eat sweetened with maple syrup and made with wholemeal flour:

This banana bread (without walnuts) from the same blog was also successful:

We have enjoyed all the recipes from this blog, especially the peanut butter and jam thumbprint cookies and the cookie dough balls (which both unfortunately contain nuts so can't go in the lunch box). 

These blueberry banana spelt muffins from Oh She Glows were also popular:

I love Angela's recipes! Pretty much everything I've made from her blog has been amazing, especially this quiche. I can't wait to get my hands on her new cookbook!  

Sylvia likes the results of most of my healthy baking binges, but all the cakes, muffins and biscuits/cookies are losing their "treat" status due to the sheer volume I make! Ah well, a kid (and a mum) could have worse problems...