Vegan Pumpkin Pie - Wheat/Gluten, Dairy, Soy, and Egg Free

  The gist of this recipe came from LunchBoxBunch. To be honest, the first time I made this it wasn't so hot, but that was my own fault. I put the cashews in water to soak and then a whole lot of things came up and, well... they ended up soaking for nearly 3 days. That results in gummy cashews that don't lend themselves to blending smoothly. So it was gritty and tasted awful, plus I think I didn't use enough syrup (because I tend to eyeball measurements more than maybe I should).
  But THIS time, following the recipe a tad more closely and with only a few minor tweaks, this pie was YU-U-UMMY!

Vegan Wheat Free Pumpkin Pie

Pie Crust
1/4 cup almond meal flour
3 tsp organic sugar
1/4 tsp salt
1/3 cup melted soy free Earth Balance or coconut oil
2 tsp ice water
Oil or more melted Earth Balance to grease pie pan

Pie Filling
1 1/4 cup raw unsalted cashews
about 2/3 cup water (see directions)
15 oz pumpkin puree (NOT pumpkin pie mix)
1 cup maple syrup
2 tsp pumpkin pie spice
1/8 tsp salt

Preheat oven to 400.
Combine almond flour, sugar, and 1/4 tsp salt in a bowl. Stir in melted Earth Balance or coconut oil with a fork until well combined. Slowly add in  ice water and stir until dough forms a firm ball. Wrap in wax paper or plastic wrap and refrigerate for 30 minutes.
Meanwhile, in a blender, add cashews and just enough water to cover cashews, about 2/3 cup. Blend until smooth and creamy, (I used the Dip/Sauce button on my Blentec twice, if using a regular blender this may take several minutes.) Add pumpkin puree, maple syrup, pumpkin pie spice, and salt and blend again until well mixed. You may have to stop and scrape the sides several times. Set aside.
After 30 minutes, you can roll the dough out on a lightly floured surface  to form a crust or just press it into a 9 inch greased pie plate.
Pour pumpkin pie filling into pie shell and cook for 15 minutes. Reduce heat to 350 and bake another 30-40 minutes, until outer edges of pie filling are puffed and fluffly looking and slightly darker than the rest of pie. If edges of crust start to get too dark, use strips of tin foil to cover. Remove from oven and allow to cool about 30-45 minutes, then refrigerate for 2-3 hours.
Serve with vanilla coconut ice cream. Mmmm!

Chocolate Pudding - Dairy/Soy Free, Vegan, Raw

  My very first post on this blog was for vegan chocolate pudding. Now, you must understand that I was just starting to cook Jack friendly and though I had a lot of heart, I didn't have many tricks up my sleeve. I thought that that pudding was good because I had set the standard for allergy friendly food very low, assuming as most do that it all was going to taste a little off, be unsatisfying, or require me to stop shaving my armpits and start growing my own veggies to enjoy it.
  It's been nearly a year since that first post, and boy have things changed! My standards for allergy free foods now are just as high if not higher than they are for foods with the 'right' ingredients. I love to see the shock and surprise on people's faces when they realize that Jack's food is actually... food!
  So here is my new chocolate pudding recipe. I will add the picture later, I just don't want to forget this recipe!

Chocolate Pudding

1 cup raw cashews
1 cup coconut milk
1 heaping Tbl unsweetened cocoa powder
1 Tbl chocolate syrup, such as Hershey's Genuine Syrup (optional!)
1 heaping Tbl sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract

Place all ingredients in a blender and blend until smooth, about 3 minutes in a regular blender or 45+ seconds in a high power blender like Blendtec or Vitamix. Place into an air tight container and refrigerate for 30 minutes to set. Enjoy!

Lazy Peach Crisp - Wheat, Dairy, Soy Free

  Here's a fun fact; I used to work in the kitchen at a hospital birthing center. My job was to make the desserts for lunch and dinner everyday for all the new mamas, and one of my specialities was "Peach Crisp". When I was first introduced to the hospital's current version, I was horrified to see a gelatinous bowl of peach pie filling with a handful of graham cracker crumbs thrown on top and a plop of melted whip cream. Nothing screams "Get well soon so you can get the hell out of here and eat real food again!" like that sad, sorry dish.
  I only had what was available to us in the kitchen to work with, but with some ingenuity I morphed that worthless recipe into the best tasting institutional peach crisp that's ever been tasted, and we'd get plenty of post dinner calls from nurses, "*Sigh* Do you guys have any more peach crisp? Room 134 is requesting more".
  My recipe? Crushed frosted flakes, graham crackers, brown sugar, and melted butter mixed together into a crumbly mess and then scattered onto a casserole dish of drained sliced peaches and peach pie filling, baked until actually crisp. Yum!

 Oook, so where was I going with that? Oh yeah, I made a lazy version tonight (I would love to recreate teh real recipe once I find a decent graham cracker substitute) that I did not take a picture of because it in fact resembled the original sad, lame looking peach crisp recipe. Even though it wasn't a pretty presentation, I'm putting it on here because it tasted really very good and only required a few ingredients.

This recipe serves two generously.

Lazy Peach Crisp

1 can sliced peaches in light syrup
1/2 Tbl corn starch mixed with 1 Tbl water
1 Tbl brown sugar (or agave nectar, honey, stevia, etc)
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup frosted corn flakes, crushed
1/2 cup vanilla SO Delicious coconut ice cream
cinnamon for sprinkling

In a small saucepan, heat peaches and syrup over medium heat.
Add in vanilla and brown sugar. Bring to a boil and then reduce heat, stirring frequently. Once peaches begin to fall apart (about 10 minutes), slowly stir in corn starch/water mixture. Continue to stir until the syrup thickens, about 2-3 minutes. Remove from heat and allow to cool until luke warm. Serve in bowls with corn flake crumbs sprinkled on top and vanilla ice cream on the side.

Cereal Bar Treats - Dairy, Soy, Wheat/Gluten Free

  We had lots of cereal that was going (or already) stale on our pantry shelves. I was just about to throw it out when I thought, well, I might as well try to make rice-crispy type things out of them and see how they come out. The worst that could happen was I would still end up throwing it out.

  I just started melting random stuff in a pot and lucky for my dear husband, these came out tasting like crunchy Reese's. "Oh my god.... you have GOT to write that recipe down" is just about the best compliment a wife can get :D


Cereal Bar Treats

1/2 cup honey, agave nectar, or corn syrup
3/4 cup natural peanut butter (or other nut or seed butter)
3 Tbl Earth Balance Soy Free Buttery Spread
1 cup allergen free marshmallows
2 cups cereal of choice (We used a mix of stale Honey Kix, Honey Nut Chex, and plain Corn Chex)
1/3 cup or so vegan chocolate chips
olive oil for greasing the pan
1 pinch sea salt

Generously grease a small cake pan or casserole dish with olive oil. Set aside.
In a medium saucepan, heat honey, peanut butter, and Earth Balance over medium heat and stir until smooth. Add in marshmallows and stir until melted. Remove from heat. Fold in cereal and continue folding until evenly coated. Toss in chocolate chips and stir just a few times, enough to spread  them throughout the mixture. They will melt, but you are trying to keep the melted chocolate from completely mixing into the peanut butter. You want to have a marbled effect so some bites have more peanut butter and some have more chocolate.
Spread mixture into the cake pan and pat with a wet spatula until well packed and level. Sprinkle the top with a pinch of sea salt.
Refrigerate for 1-2 hours, until set. Cut into bars and enjoy!

These do not hold up after a few minutes at room temperature, so store in an air tight container in the fridge and serve chilled.

Brownies- Vegan, Wheat/Gluten and Soy Free

  I have made brownies with our new diet restrictions a few times, and while some have been edible, none of them had any real resemblance to the texture of brownies. Most were very dense and in order for the whole middle of the brownie pan to not be completely gooey, the sides had to be burnt beyond tolerable limits. *Sigh*
 A dear friend of mine sent me this recipe from where, I am not sure, but we tried it today for a Father's Day dessert and they came out wonderfully! They are fluffy like cake (in fact you could probably nix the chocolate chips and use this as cake!) and all cooked evenly. Though it was not off-putting to us, you can definitely taste the banana. I wonder if I make these with only one banana and more applesauce if that would make them even better...

Perfect Brownies

2 cups brown sugar
1 1/4 cup Bob's Red Mill Gluten Free All Purpose baking flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
2 ripe bananas
1 large apple, cored and sliced (or 1 cup unsweetened applesauce)
*1/2 Tbl water
Seeds of one vanilla bean OR 2 tsp vanilla extract
2 cups vegan chocolate chips, such as Enjoy Life Mini Chips
Olive oil to grease pan

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
In a blender, blend apple slices and water until pureed (Skip this step if using applesauce, also I left the peel on mine and it did not make a difference but you can remove yours before blending if you like). Add banana and vanilla and blend for 10-15 seconds, until pureed and well blended.
In a large bowl, whisk together brown sugar, flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and cocoa powder until well blended. Stir in apple/banana mixture, making sure there are no lumps. Stir in chocolate chips.
Grease a 9x13 inch baking pan with olive oil. Pour in mixture and spread evenly.
Bake for 35-40 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Allow to cool about 10 minutes before cutting.
Enjoy!

* If using pre-made applesauce, do not add water!

Cookie Dough Hummus - Vegan, Wheat Free, and Deeelicious!

Close your eyes and imagine chocolate chip cookie dough, will you? The perfect balance of sweet and salty, crunchy and soft, awesome and delicious. But then there's the wheat, butter, eggs, milk chocolate part... yeah, super bummer.

We recently found a Bob's Red Mill chocolate chip cookie mix that, once baked is pretty darn good, but the dough is icky icky icky. Can't a girl just get some cookie dough?!

Enter: Cookie Dough Hummus! Whoa, who the heck woulda thought? It's raw, it's vegan, it's no bake, and it only takes (drum roll please....) 5 minutes to make!

Cookie Dough Hummus

1 can chickpeas, drained and rinsed thoroughly
1/4 cup cashew butter (or almond or peanut butter if you don't have cashew and need to try this recipe tonight and can't wait to run to the store... not that anyone would do that or anything)
1/4 cup vanilla almond milk
1/4 cup agave nectar (more if desired)
1 Tbl organic cane sugar
3 Tbs flax meal (finely ground flax seed)
1 Tbs vanilla extract
dash of sea salt
1/8 tsp baking soda
1/3 cup vegan chocolate chips (such as Enjoy Life brand)

Place all ingredients except chocolate chips in a food processor and blend until as smooth as possible. Scoop it into a large bowl, fold in chocolate chips, and serve!! This might be yummy on slices of apple, we just ate it with a spoon, but it's very rich. A little goes a long way!

Vegan Wheat/Gluten Free Cornbread and Milk

This is not so much a recipe as it is another breakfast idea. Cornbread and milk is yet another popular southern thang, as a dessert or breakfast and it's way yummy. On nights my mom made cornbread with dinner my brother Randy and I would eat as little as possible so that later we could crumble the cold cornbread up in a bowl, throw on a heaping scoop of sugar, and drown the whole thing in milk. Mmm! And the leftover cornbread for breakfast the next day is even tastier because it doesn't turn to mush quite as fast. Yum!

Well last night we had a version of Hoppin' John with kale greens and cornbread. We used Bob's Red Mill gluten free cornbread mix with Ener-G egg replacer, 1 1/2 cups of water, and 1/3 cup melted Soy Free Earth Balance buttery spread. Also I prefer to make mine into muffins rather than a big sheet the mix calls for, but that's just me.The cornbread was absolutely delicious while hot with dinner, and it made enough that we had leftovers which worked perfectly for breakfast this morning!

I used vanilla almond milk and a (less than heaping) spoonful of organic non GMO sugar over the crumbled cornbread. The boys loved it and I loved being able to share the familiar treat from my childhood with them in a safe way. :)

Vegan Wheat Free No Bake Brownie Bites

This is waaaay off topic, but I worked at Kohl's for about 3 years, starting when I was 18. They would occasionally have lunches or parties for whatever reason, as most companies do. One time, as I was clocking in for an evening shift, I saw that there had been a party earlier in the day and there was a container of delicious fat filled brownie bites, nearly empty, still sitting on the break table. I LOVED those things but didn't have time to eat any and didn't want them to be gone when I took my break, so I wrapped 3 up in a napkin and put them in my locker. I then promptly forgot about them, and as a teenager, I was a total mess all the time. It wasn't until I was cleaning out my locker 2 years later that I found those brownie bites again, hard as little rocks but perfectly preserved.
Aaaanyway, these delicious brownie bites taste nearly identical to those brownie bites of my yester years, but contain no wheat, eggs, or milk, and are loaded with healthy stuff (and then rolled in sugar, cuz you can't win all the time!) These were very simple to make even though I only had raw almonds and had to roast mine first.
BTW, to roast raw almonds, heat oven to 350 and spread almonds onto a cookie sheet. Bake for 10-12 minutes until the outsides have a deeper brown color than they started with and a few have split slightly. Remove from cookie sheet and allow to cool.

Vegan and Wheat Free NO BAKE Brownie Bites

15 pitted dates
2/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 cup whole roasted almonds
1 Tbl agave nectar (or honey, if not vegan)
2 Tbl water (plus more, if needed)
3 Tbl or so powdered sugar

In a food processor or fancy-pants blender like a Vitamix or Blendtec, process almonds until fairly well ground. It does not have to be like almond flour, but you don't want any huge chunks. Add dates, cocoa powder, agave nectar, and water. Mix until it forms a sticky mass. If it seems to dry or crumbly, add water 1 tsp at a time until you get the desired consitency. Using damp hands (I stood by the sink and rinsed my hands after every 3rd ball), for 1 Tbl dough at a time into a balla nd place on waxed paper. Pour powdered sugar into a shallow wide bowl, and roll brownie bites until completely covered in powdered sugar. If you have too much sugar, roll them between your hands again and a lot will come off. Keep these in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 3 days.