Peachy Keen Green

When we visit Robert and Judy, we often get to sample Robert's latest delicious homemade bread.  Robert shared with me the NYTimes recipe he follows for no-knead bread . He uses this recipe (also below, with whole wheat) with all whole-wheat flour, but suggested that I use some white flour the first time. I bought a 6 qt enamel dutch this week for this purpose, using it for the first time yesterday to make a yummy mushroom white bean gratin . Today I gave the bread a go. It turned out great! Definitely doing this again.  Notes: 1/4 tsp yeast is enough for slow rise white; Robert suggested 1/2 tsp for heavier whole wheat bread, or even1 tsp yeast if you want to try shorter rise time (e.g., 10-hour instead of 18 hr). He also adds some flax meal and tries a mix of a few different flours. Ingredients 3 C flour: at least 1/2 C white or oat, rest whole grain; for example: 1 C white flour (or oat flour) 1 C whole wheat flour 1 C whole wheat or rye 2 T flax meal (optional) 1 T honey (...

Larry is harvesting figs by the gallon. In the past I've made fig pie, compote, and jam , and even dried figs . Yesterday I tried a f ig banana bread with a few tweaks: whole wheat flour, less sugar, oil instead of butter, and added pecans. I had put just a few sliced figs on top, but then Larry layered on the figs so that every slice got some -- good call; that made it beautiful! Ingredients Dry: 3 C flour (I used whole wheat) 2 tsp baking soda 1 tsp cinnamon 1 tsp salt 1 C chopped pecans or walnuts Wet: 2 bananas, mashed 3 C figs, chopped 3 flax eggs (3 T flax, 9 T warm water, mixed) 1 C oil 1 tsp vanilla 2/3 C sugar (I used half brown, half white) Sliced figs for topping (maybe 5-7 figs, sliced) Instructions Preheat oven to 350. Make the flax eggs in a bowl; set aside. Mix dry ingredients together. Add wet ingredients and mix.  Pour into buttered loaf pans and top with sliced figs. For mini loaf pans, bake 30 minutes and check. Larger pans may need up to 50 minutes. Large loaves...

Our pantry still has lots of oatmeal and almond butter from pandemic stockups. Looking for recipes to use up some of these ingredients, I came across these healthy almond butter baked oatmeal cups . Low in sugar, high in oatmeal, and super tasty! I didn't change the recipe, am adding it to my blog to remember and share (and not have to do the endless scroll with ads--the huge downside of most recipe sites. I'll put up with ads the first time, but not a second time, if it's blog worthy - and this is!) Ingredients 1 ripe banana 1/4 C almond butter 1/4 C agave or maple syrup 1 1/4 C almond milk 3 C rolled oats 1 tsp baking powder 1/2 tsp cinnamon 1/4 tsp salt 1/3 C chocolate chips Instructions Preheat oven to 350°. In a large bowl, use a fork to mash the banana. Add the almond butter, syrup and milk, and mix to combine. Add oats, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt, and mix.  Coat muffin tin with vegan butter. Distribute the mixture evenly. Add chocolate chips and banana slices ...

It's lemon season! When the frost comes they go bad, so Larry is bringing in scores of meyer lemons and limes. After success with key lime yogurt , I got a craving for lemon cake. Larry said yes, please! (And Sandy says lemon cake is one of her favorites - good to know!) I tried this  loving it vegan recipe , and the cake was delish. The powdered-sugar frosting was sweeter than we liked, though. Then I tried a vegan cream cheese frosting from Vegan Richa , which was pretty good.  It's yummy without any frosting, just as a lemon bread -- which is probably how I'll use this recipe in the future Ingredients Dry: 1 C + 1 T whole-wheat flour 1 1/2 C white flour 1 1/2 C sugar  1 1/2 tsp. baking soda 1/2 tsp salt 1/3 tsp turmeric for color (optional) Wet: 1 T vinegar 1 1/2 C non-dairy milk (oat, soy, or almond) 1/2 C canola oil 1 tsp vanilla Zest and juice from 3 lemons Cream cheese frosting (OPTIONAL; don't need it for bread): 8 oz (vegan) cream cheese  1/3 C maple syrup z...

Pat and Allen shared at least a dozen persimmons with us from their bountiful harvest, along with their persimmon bread recipe. Here's a slightly tweaked, vegan version of their bread; turned out yummy! Ingredients 1 tsp. baking soda 2 T lukewarm water 1 1/2 C persimmon puree 1 1/2 C sugar 1/2 C salad oil 2 flax eggs (2 T flaxmeal, 6 T warm water) Dry: 2 C flour 2 tsp. baking powder 1 tsp. cinnamon 1/8 tsp. cloves 1/2 tsp nutmeg 1/2 tsp. salt 1 tsp. lemon juice 1 C walnuts Instructions Remove skin and puree persimmons in a food processor. Mix baking soda and warm water. Add persimmon pulp.  Let sit a few minutes. Mix sugar, oil, and flax eggs.  Mix flour, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, cloves.  Combine persimmon and sugar mixture.  Add flour mixture with lemon and walnuts. Pour into loaf pans. For a regular large loaf, bake at 400 degrees for 15 minutes; then reduce temperature to 350 degrees and bake for 45 minutes or until done.  For small loaf pans (what I us...

Oh my, these are delicious and healthy. This recipe is adapted from my favorite Isa Does It cookbook to use slightly less sugar and a couple other small tweaks. This makes a dozen; consider doubling so you can freeze some! You'll eat a dozen way too quickly. Ingredients Dry: 1 C whole wheat flour 1 1/2 C wheat bran 1/3 C sugar 1 1/2 tsp baking powder 1/2 tsp baking soda 1/2 tsp salt Wet: 1 C almond milk 1 T apple cider 1/4 C canola oil 1/4 C applesauce 2 T molasses 1 T maple syrup 1 tsp vanilla 1 C blueberries (fresh or frozen; I like small wild frozen) Instructions In a medium bowl, combine almond milk and vinegar and set aside to curdle. Preheat oven to 350. Mix dry ingredients. Make a well in the dry ingredients and add the wet ingredients. Stir the wet ingredients in the well, and then mix the wet and dry together until just moistened, being careful not to over mix.  Fold in blueberries. Lightly butter 12-cup muffin pan. Fill each muffin well most of the way full with batter. ...

Our friend Judy shared this roti for two recipe with us, which just uses flour and water, and is very good! Munira adds some spice to her roti, and luckily, she shared her secrets with me in Whatsapp. I also searched to see what other spices people use in rot. So I've adapted the recipe (below) to include some optional spicing :) Ingredients 1 1/2 C whole wheat flour 3/4 C water 1/2 tsp salt optional spices (mix and match) 1 tsp cumin seeds or 1/2 tsp cumin powder 1 tsp roasted flax seeds of flax meal 1/2 tsp garam masala (or other curry powder) 1/2 tsp turmeric 1/2 tsp fenugreek (if not using leaves, below) 2 T fenugreek leaves or cilantro leaves 1/2 small red onion, finely chopped Instructions In a large bowl, mix the flour and optional spices/leaves of your choices. Add 2/3 cup water and see how wet your dough is; add water until you get pizza dough consistency (don't want it too gummy). Knead a bit. Cover the dough and let it rest for at least 30 minutes....

We like the Trader Joes Sprouted Whole-Grain Pizza Crust for this  homemade pizza , but I wanted to make my own for a Greek meza (photos below) with Yannis, Merche, John, & Elsa. Mom made homemade bread all the time, but I've never made a yeast dough. Judi says it's easy; Nick makes dough for their pizzas all the time. Natalie did a science fair experiment and found that adding sugar, honey, or maple syrup to the wet yeast made it rise more.  Judi says her favorite dough is whole wheat flour with a little maple syrup. So that's what I tried here, while  mostly following the recipe for  Roberta's Pizza Dough , which is surprisingly similar to this greek pita recipe . We made  pizza the greek way  with red onion, capers, oregano, and kalamata olives, and Yannis brought feta. We also had a meza of  stewed okra  in tomato sauce,  greek fava hummus, and  stuffed eggplant , which we ate with pita made from the dough. I used the ...

Larry calls this "danger bread" because he can't stop eating it :) Ingredients Dry: 3 cups whole wheat flour 1 tsp salt 2 tsp baking soda 1 cup walnut pieces Wet: 3 medium bananas, mashed 3 medium apples, chopped 10 dried apricots, chopped 1 cup sugar 3 flax eggs (3 T flax meal, 9 T warm water) 1 cup canola oil Instructions Make the flax eggs in a bowl; set aside to soak. Mash the bananas, chop the apples (I leave the skin on) and apricots, and mix them together.  Mix in the sugar, flax eggs, and oil. Then add the dry ingredients and walnuts. Stir until the flour is moistened. Pour into loaf pans (I used 4 small silicon loaf pans plus a dozen cupcake/mini silicon loaves). No need to grease and flour if you use silicon! Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes; check and take out mini loaves. Leave larger loaves in for another 20 minutes or so (50 min total). Let them cool in the pans for 20 minutes, and then pop them out of the silicon onto ...

Given our abundance of carrots, I decided to tweak my zucchini walnut bread recipe to make carrot muffins. I borrowed some ideas from the Carrot-Raisin muffin in Vegan with a Vengeance, replacing raisins with walnuts and tweaking other ingredients a bit. It has less oil, sugar, and flour than my zucchini walnut bread, and adds almond milk, nutmeg, and (optionally) coconut. I also saw a recipe for carrot cake that used pecans, coconut, and pineapple... reminder to self to try adding pineapple sometime. Note: The first time I made this I used 1/2 C sugar and 1/2 C oil. They were delish. I tried reducing both to 1/4 C, and I think next time I'll do 1/3 C (just right?) Ingredients Dry: 2 C whole wheat flour 1/3 C sugar 2 tsp baking powder 1 tsp baking soda 1 tsp cinnamon 1/2 tsp nutmeg 1/2 tsp salt Wet: 1 1/4 C almond or soy milk 1/3 cup canola oil 1 tsp vanilla 1/2 cup walnut pieces (or try pecans) 2 1/2 to 3 cups shredded carrot 1/4 cup shredded coconut (optio...

From Isa Does It, with a few adaptations to replace the coconut oil and applesauce with coconut yogurt, and reduce the sugar a little (it's plenty sweet). And it's a good opportunity to use my new adorable teeny weeny  silicone baking cup s. Makes about 12 teeny loaves (each about the size of a muffin). Talking with Judi  later: she loves her  cornbread recipe that has a 2 to 1 cornmeal to flour ratio and uses cashew cream and maple syrup. More cornmeal would be better; adjusted the recipe! Also updated based on The Best Vegan Cornbread recipe that Rick and Lauren brought over (up'd the baking powder and sugar) and these tips for good cornbread . Note: There's a sliding scale between cornbread and corn cake. One bread end is represented by just 1/4 C sugar, which we like. Most folks are probably used to sweeter cornbread, though; if that's you, double it (as noted below, by adding agave--or just double the sugar). Ingredients Dry: 3/4 C flour 1 1/4 C ston...

My mom's recipe, with less sugar and whole wheat flour instead of white. Really easy to make, not overly sweet, and hard to stop eating! I like to make mini loafs to give as gifts. (Like for Judi. Her family loves this, yay!) Ingredients Dry: 3 1/3 cups whole wheat flour 1 1/2 cups sugar  1 tsp salt 1 tsp cinnamon (heaping) 1 tsp nutmeg (heaping) 2 tsp baking soda Wet: 1 cup oil (I use canola) 4 flax eggs (1/4 C flax meal + 3/4 C water) 2/3 cup water 1 15oz can cooked pumpkin (2 cups) Optional: Chocolate chunks (I use Trader Joes) Instructions Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix all the ingredients in a bowl by hand. (Don't use a mixer; if you overmix, it will be dense and not rise properly.)  Grease and flour 2 muffin pans, or 2 large loaf loaf pans, or 1 large loaf pan and 3-4 mini loaf pans.  Pour batter pans. Optionally top with chocolate chunks. Bake roughly 35 minutes for muffins, 45 min for mini loaf pans, or an hour for large loaf ...

Mom's easy recipe for zucchini bread, except with about half the sugar, using whole wheat flour, and with flax "eggs" to make it vegan (you can use regular eggs if you're not vegan). Moist and delicious. Thanks, Mom! Ingredients Dry: 3 C flour 1 1/4 C sugar 1 tsp soda 1/2 tsp baking powder 1 tsp salt 1 tsp cinnamon 2/3 C chopped walnuts optional: 1/2 C chocolate chips Wet: 2 1/2 C grated zucchini 1 C canola oil 3 flax "eggs" (which means 3 T flaxseed meal dissolved in 9 T water*) 2 tsp vanilla Instructions Grate the zucchini; rounding up to 3 cups is just fine. Make the flax eggs using warm water; let the mixture rest for 5 minutes. In a bowl, mix together the dry ingredients. Then mix in the wet ingredients. Pour into greased and floured loaf pans. Bake 1 hour at 350 degrees. Makes 2 medium loaves, or 1 medium loaf and 3-4 teeny loaves for gifts! *One flax egg = 1 T flaxseed meal dissolved in 3 T warm water, allowed to rest for at leas...