Whole wheat dairy free pancakes

Breakfast for dinner, one of our favorite things :)

Because one of my kiddos doesn't tolerate milk well, we usually have a carton of coconut milk in the fridge, so last night when I went to make pancakes for dinner and found out we were out of reg milk I thought I would give it a try. It worked great, they were fluffy and tasty, what more could you want in a pancake :)

Whole wheat dairy free Pancakes


Ingred;
2 1/4c. whole wheat flour
1/4c. ground flax
1/4t. salt
1-1/2t. baking powder
1/4 c. olive oil
1/4c. agave
3 eggs
1t. vanilla 
2 c. coconut milk, adding more if mixture is too thick

     Stir together the dry ingred, make a well in the center. Into the well put your oil, agave, eggs and vanilla- mix together the wet ingred. Add in the coconut  milk and mix altogether.

Cook on a hot griddle.

These made a great dinner topped off with some homemade raspberry and strawberry freezer jams and eggs  :)

Protein Bites Galore

      I wanted to share some new recipes that have become a fav go to snack at our house. Because of my Husbands health and just in general benefit of our family we have been trying to eat only unprocessed foods, or foods with-out preservatives. Which means that any prepackaged snacks are out. Gone are the granola bars, goldfish, and to my Katy-Kat's dismay her beloved cheez-its.
   I have found a fun recipe and made homemade cheez-its, they were tasty. But our new fav snack around here seems to be protein/cookie bites. I found and altered one recipe and then because my oldest has decided he doesn't like pb I looked for and found several others. So here are all of the ones we have tried so far, they are all awesome, kid approved, picky husband approved, and chock full of good for you stuff.

  First we have our basic protein bites recipe, the original recipe before I altered it is found here at Gimme Some Oven.

 Protein Bites

Ingred;
3c. old fashioned rolled oats
1c. unsweetened finely shredded coconut
1/2c. ground flax seed
1/2c. oat or wheat bran
1/2c. mini choc. chips
1/2t. salt
                                   1/4c. choc. protein powder
                                     1/4c. chia seeds
                                     1/2c. agave
                                     2-1/4c. peanut butter
                                     1/4c. coconut butter

        I mix all of the dry ingred. in a large bowl, then heat the agave, pb and coconut butter in a glass bowl in the microwave for 30 seconds to 1min. until it's warm and easily mixes together. Mix well. Pour it over the dry ingred. and mix together, I find after a bit of mixing that it works best to use your hands, they are going to get messy anyways :)
Form into balls and store in an airtight container. These are ready to eat right away but after a day in the fridge are AMAZING  :)
This recipe makes approximately 50-60 bites.

Second up are the ones I make for my oldest, my sweet son, who will eat whatever I give him with a smile but then later informs me that it was fine but he didn't care for it. His list of likes are getting shorter and shorter, it is really hard to find snacks that he likes so these next 3 recipes are ones I like to have on hand so that I know there is a snack around here that he will eat. The original recipe that I altered is here- A Dash of Compassion,  Natural Vegan baking with Love. 

Kegan's Cookie Bites 

Ingred:
2/3c. almonds, blanched or unblanched raw unsalted
2/3c. walnuts
2/3c. old fashioned raw oats
1/4c. ground flax
1/4t. salt
1/2t. cinnamon
1/4c. chia seeds
1/4c. agave
1/4c. coconut butter (here is a link to make your own if you can't find it), melted. 
1/3c. mini choc. chips

In a food processor blend the almonds, walnuts, and oats until it looks like flour. Add in the flax, salt, cinnamon, agave and coconut butter.  Blend until well mixed, dump into a bowl and with your hands mix in the chia seeds and the choc chips.  Form into balls and store in an airtight in the fridge.


This recipe makes aprox. 40 bites.









        


      This next recipe is in honor of my Grampa, his favorite cake was German Chocolate Cake. So this one makes me think of him. I found the original recipe on Chocolate Covered Katies Blog, if you haven't been over there boy howdy are you missing out. The pictures alone are worth the trip :)

                         Grampa's German Chocolate Bites

Ingred;
1/2c. pitted prunes
1/2t. vanilla
1/16t. salt
1/2c. pecans
2T. unsweetened finely shredded coconut
2T. choc. protein powder
2T. cocoa powder
1T. chia seeds
1/4c. mini choc. chips

In a food processor blend together the prunes, vanilla and salt, when that has become sort of a paste add into your food processor the pecans, coconut, protein powder and cocoa powder. Blend until it all comes together as a dough, dump into a bowl and with your hands work in the chia seeds and choc chips. Form into balls and store in the fridge.

This recipe makes approx 20 bites
(better double it :) 






         This next recipe is so good, just like eating choc chip cookie dough, love it. The first time I made it I followed the recipe to a T, it's found here at- Averie Cooks. It was a little sweet for us so I did a little bit of revising and here is what I came up with.

Raw Vegan Cookie Dough Bites

Ingred;
 1c. raw unsalted cashews 
1/3c. old fashioned rolled oats
2T. agave (going to try only 1 next time)
1t. vanilla extract
1T, vanilla protein powder (or could use powdered milk)
1/8c. mini choc chips

Place the cashews into the food processor and blend until like flour, then add in the oats and blend until it's powdery again. Add in the agave, vanilla, and protein powder. Blend until it forms a dough, dump into a bowl and work in the choc chips. Form into balls and store in the fridge.

This recipe makes aprox 10-12 bites, and I have to tell you my first batch never made it to the fridge. They were snatched up by children and spouse before they even made it into a container :)

All of these taste even better after they have been refrigerated for awhile, like overnight,  it lets everything mesh together better.


        There are a couple more recipes for protein bars that I am working on turning into bites, one with quinoa for my dad. I will be doing those later this summer. A quick shout out to my Sister-in-Law Kristy, I found out recently that she is a fan of my blog. She is super sweet and it was awesome to see her at the reunion a couple weeks ago, hugs girl.

Happy 4th All, I hope you have a Wonderful Independence Day!!!

A New Tradition

My Family has a Tradition of getting together on New Year's Day and having Breakfast together, each of my siblings and their family brings a dish. There are old favorites that everyone insists on being brought, and new dishes that we all can't wait to try!

This is one of the many things that I miss about living close to my Family, it's been a few years since we have been able to be at this event. So this year I resolved to carry on this Tradition in my own little family. We would have our own New Year's Day Breakfast feast! One of the dishes I made is Peaches and Cream French Toast, this has become a big favorite at our house. As a savory dish to go with that I made a yummy Hashbrown Bake, bacon and sliced oranges. I got out the nice dishes, fancy cups (we had OJ with 7up) and we all sat down to a tasty breakfast.

While I still missed being at my parents house and enjoying the company of everyone there, spending this morning with my sweet Family was a great start to a New Year. Cheers!



The recipe that I use for the French Toast I got from MyRecipes.com, I always change it up a little so here is my version-


Peaches and Cream French Toast

Ingredients

• 1 8-oz. loaf French bread, sliced
• 8 large eggs
• 2 cups half n half
  
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1 teaspoon almond extract
• 2 15-oz. cans sliced peaches packed in juice, drained
• 1/2 cup packed dark brown sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/2 cup heavy cream

Grease a 9-by-13-inch baking dish and a 8x8 inch baking dish. Arrange bread in a tight, flat layer in both dishes.

Whisk eggs with half n half, sugar and almond extract until blended; pour over bread, using 3/4 of the mixture in the bigger pan and the rest in the smaller pan. Arrange peaches on top and sprinkle with brown sugar and cinnamon. Cover tightly and refrigerate for at least 8 hours. I always do it the night before.

Remove baking dishes from refrigerator 30 minutes before baking. Preheat oven to 350°F. Bake, uncovered, until casserole is lightly browned on top and just cooked through, 45 to 55 minutes. I have always baked it for the full 55 min, and have never had it dry out. I serve it with a jar of cream so that it can be drizzled over top if they want.

Hashbrown 'n Egg Bake

Ingred.

4 c. thawed, frozen shredded hashbrown potatoes
1/4c. minced onion
1T. minced parsley
1t. onion powder
salt and pepper
1/2c. melted butter
1/2c. sour cream
1/2c. shredded cheddar cheese

1/2c. bacon bits/ or cubed ham.
6 eggs
1c. shredded cheddar cheese

Preheat oven to 350. I used a buttered, lg round dish for this but I think a 9x13 pan would work fine. Mix together the potatoes, onion, parsley, onion powder, salt and pepper, butter, sour cream and 1/2c. shredded cheese. Spread mixture evenly into your pan. Make 6 indentations for your eggs. Place covered in the oven for 30 min. Remove from oven, crack each egg into it's own little indentation, sprinkle with salt and pepper, sprinkle the bacon/ham over the whole top. Cover and returned to the oven for 45 min. Remove from the oven, sprinkle the remaining
1 c. cheese over top and return, uncovered to the oven for 10 minutes more.

Breakfast anyone?

Thank you all the great comments! It's really motivating to have such great support :)

I have a wonderful recipe for you, we made these last weekend and they were soooooo yummy! I think that it will be my main waffle recipe from now on. Do you remember this post? And this one?
About Mochi and Mochiko flour? These waffles are made with half mochiko rice flour and half reg. flour, and they have no butter or oil in them. Not only were they amazing when they were hot, crispy and chewy, but they were wonderful just plain the next day too!
I sliced up some strawberries and mango to go on them and whipped up some Rum Whipped cream to go on top, it was a tropical experience :)

Mochi Waffles
Ingred;
2c. flour
2c. mochiko, rice flour
1/2t. salt
1/4c. sugar
2T. baking powder
3c. milk
3 eggs
2t. vanilla

Stir together the dry ingred. Make a well in the center, add in the wet ingred. and whisk together. Make sure you spray your waffle iron well so they don't stick.

Rum Whipped Cream
Ingred
2c. whipping cream
1/4c. sugar
1t. rum extract

Whip these together in a chilled mixing bowl until stiff peaks form.

What happens when you are a Forgetful Fool

So Yesterday I decided to make bread, I got out all the ingredients, mixed it all together. I was thinking to myself how quick and easy it was. How the dough turned out perfect, not too sticky not too dry. I put my dough in a bowl to rise and started cleaning up, I was wiping the counter when I noticed a carton of eggs sitting on the counter, eggs? hmmm why are those out? Did my recipe call for eggs? Did I put eggs in it?
So I grabbed the recipe, which was sitting on the eggs, yep called for 1 egg, nope I didn't put an egg in it. Dang! What now? Should I try to mix in an egg?? Ummmm no probably not a good plan. Should I toss it or just cook it anyway?
I decided to cook it anyway to see if it would work, then I mixed up another batch of dough. You know, so that I could do the whole scientific thing and compare the 2. Cause apparently I wanted to spend all day in the kitchen, I am such a goof.

So here is my eggless bread-

Here is my follow-the-recipe bread-

They look pretty similar, they taste very similar too! The one without the egg is a bit crumblier, and I decided that next time (this recipe is a work in progress) I will be adding a little more sugar and 1 or 2 more eggs- if I remember them that is!
But if you wanted to make eggless bread, because of allergies or you want to make bread and have no eggs ( been there) this recipe will work! Yay! :)

Easy Homemade Bread
Ingred;
2c. milk
1/2c. butter
1-1/2t. salt
1/4c. sugar
2 1/2T. yeast
2/3c. warm water
1 egg
7c. flour

Place milk in a heat proof bowl, microwave on high for 3 minutes. Stir in the sugar, salt and butter. Let set until butter is melted in. Mix together the water and yeast, let set until creamy.
Mix the yeast and egg into the milk mixture.
Place the flour in your mixer bowl, turn on the mixer, slowly pour in the milk mixture. Mix until well combined, let the mixer continue to knead the dough for a few minutes. Turn dough into an oiled bowl, cover and set somewhere warm, let it rise until doubled- about 30 min.
Heat oven to 350. Shape loaves, place in oiled bread pans and let rise until dough reaches the top of the pans.
Bake about 30-40 minutes.


While we are on the subject of eggs, or the lack of, this morning for breakfast Mr K and I tried a new recipe for eggs, it was a big hit! I'm sure we will be making this one a lot :)


Shirred Eggs
Ingred;
eggs
butter
cream
salt and pepper
shredded cheese

Butter each small ramekin, place about 1T.cream in the bottom of each one. Place on egg in each. Sprinkle with salt and pepper and cheese (if you want cheese, they do cook about 5 minutes quicker without the cheese).
Place in oven, 350, for 15-20 minutes. Enjoy.

Volcanos and Scrubs

Body scrubs not the show Scrubs, I have never watched it.
Today I made a couple of scrubs for my Lil' Sisters B-day present, a Lemon hand/body scrub and a Peppermint Foot scrub. They both smell yummy yummy yummy!

So here we go-

Lemon Hand Scrub
1/4c. coconut oil
1/4c. almond oil
1t. liquid lanolin
1t. vitamin E oil
15 drops lemon oil
about 1c. epsom salts

Put the salt in your container, once again I am thanking Goodwill
for my 2 cute containers. Melt the coconut oil in a heat proof glass bowl or cup. I love my glass Pyrex measuring cups for this. When that is melted stir the remaining ingred. Pour slowly over the top of your salt, I used a fork to stir mine in. It's what I had handy and it worked pretty darn well :)
Close it up and label.

Peppermint Foot Scrub
1/2c. coconut oil
1/2c. almond oil
1t. liquid lanolin
1t. vitamin E oil
15 drops peppermint oil
1-1/2c. epsom salts

Follow the instructions from above. You could use all Almond oil or all Coconut oil, you could even use Olive oil ( but I hear it smells funny after a bit). You don't REALLY need the Lanolin, it's just an extra bonus for extra softness :)
You don't even need the Vitamin E oil, it does help to preserve this so it keeps longer. But if you are making small amounts or are sure it won't last long, couple weeks, I wouldn't bother with it.


I received a sweet award from Lee over at I want to Make that! Seeing all the fun things she's been making always inspires me to get crafting! Thank You Lee!For after school snack today we tried something different, it's a volcano pancake. I have never made one frankly they kind of scared me, what if it doesn't rise???? What then?
Well I finally made one and hurray! It rose just fine, I did have some tense moments early on in the cooking time but waited it out :)
I got my basic recipe from Allrecipes it's here- Volcano Pancake.
But I did a little altering (big surprise) and here is my version-


Volcano Pancake with Strawberry Sauce

Ingred;
3 eggs
1/2c. milk
1/2c.flour
pinch of salt
2T. butter
1t. rum extract

4T.strawberry preserves
4T. o.j.
1t. lime juice

Heat oven to 400, put butter in a 8x8 pan and set in oven until butter melts.
Beat together by hand the eggs, milk, flour, salt and extract.
Pour over top of the melted butter and return to the oven for 30-35 min. While its baking, whisk together the preserves, and juices. After the pancake is done cooking, let it cool a couple minutes then drizzle with the sauce and serve warm.

This was delicious, this is definately a keeper, and it has so many possible ways to change up the flavor! Good Stuff :) :) :)

Breakfast treat on the First Day of School

I am a day late and as always a $ short. But better late than never right? :)
For the kiddos breakfast to go with their cinnamon oatmeal I made them
Baked Granola stuffed Pears.
I even got a picture, the camera was right there first day of school pic's & all that.


Baked Granola stuffed Pears
Ingred;
1-2 cans reg. sized pears, halved
1/4c. plain granola
1T. butter
1/4c. brown sugar
1/2t. cinnamon

Oven 450
Pour the pears, juice and all, into a cake pan or pie plate. Lay with the middle up. Put the rest of the ingred. in a food processor and blend together. Fill the holes in the pears with a spoonful of filling and sprinkle with cinnamon. Bake for about 10 min. then broil until sugar is melted, about 2-5 min.

Ham & Potato Pancakes

Ingred;
1- 20 oz bag of shredded potatoes
1- 1/2c. diced ham
2 eggs, beaten
1/4c. flour
1T. dried parsley
salt & pepper
onion powder
garlic salt

Mix all together, heat 2T. olive oil in a skillet. Place potatoes in mounds and flatten into round patties. Cook about 2 -3 min on each side.

Very good, they even got the seal of approval from all 4 kiddos,
that's certainly a plus.

They were really difficult to make though,
because as you can see here-

There was a little snitcher that
kept taking my diced ham out!
Every time I turned my back-

She thought it was quite funny :) :) :p

Darn Kids, ya gotta watch 'em every second!

Warm Peach Gratin

Since it was a chilly morning here I decided that this would make a wonderful tasty breakfast.

Ingred;
1c. sour cream
1/4c. half 'n half
1/4c. sugar
1t. rum
3-4 peeled and sliced peaches (or you can cheat & use canned ;)
2T. brown sugar

Arrange peach slices in a pie plate, Mix together the sour cream, half n' half, sugar & rum. Spoon over the peaches, sprinkle the brown sugar on top. Broil for a few minutes until bubbly, serve warm.

The verdict on this one- Everyone wished the recipe made more, it was pretty tasty & will definitely be made here again. This would probably be very pretty heated and served in individual ramekins. The rum could be replaced with vanilla or almond extract. The half n' half could be replaced with cream, same amount, or milk, probably half the amount. :)

Graduation Fun

Graduation was Wonderful, the BBQ was a bunch of fun, AND we found a house, whew- big sigh of relief. Now I just have to pack up our 5 bedroom, 2 story house in 2 weeks, no biggie, cause I'm super mom ;)

I actually have a lot of the packing done already, so there isn't too much left, I have a few fun pictures to share.


Also three quick recipes-
BBQ Shredded Chicken
This is just the crockpot bbq chicken recipe I have posted here.

Parmesan Garlic Orzo with Grilled Chicken
The recipe for the Orzo is on allrecipes, I topped it with grilled chicken.

Garlic Chicken Marinade
1T. white vinegar
2T. olive oil
1T. minced garlic
1T. Johnny's garlic spread mix
1/2c. warm water

Mix all together and marinate chicken for 4-12 hours.



Pumpkin Pancakes
Ingred;
3c. flour
1/2c. sugar
4t. baking soda
1t. baking soda
1t.cinnamon
3T. oil
2 eggs
1/2c. pumpkin
1 1/2c. milk

Whisk together the dry ingred. Slowly incorporate the wet ingred. Cook on a hot griddle :)

Happy Thursday!! :) :) :)