Peachy Keen Green

 Elsa hosted a birthday brunch last week, cooking up several experiments for us, all delicious! Larry went back for 3 pieces of this yummy lemon blueberry coffee cake. The original recipe called for a vegan cream cheese swirl and a powerdered sugar icing, but she skipped both, and it was great without.  Ingredients 3 C flour 1 1/2 tsp baking powder 1/2 tsp baking soda 1/4 tsp salt 1 C sugar 1/2 C vegan butter 3/4 C dairy-free yogurt or sour cream 1/3 C nondairy milk 1/4 C lemon juice 3 T lemon zest 1 T vanilla 12 oz (1 pint) blueberries Crumble topping: 1 C flour, plus 1 T for coating blueberries 1 tsp cinnamon 3/4 C sugar 5 T vegan butter, melted 1 tsp vanilla 1/8 tsp salt Instructions Preheat oven to 350F. Grease a bundt cake pan with butter and dust with flour. Rinse blueberries and pour in a small bowl. Add 1 T flour and toss to coat. This will prevent the blueberries from sinking. Make the crumble: mix ingredients and set aside. Make cake batter: In a large bowl, ad...

Laurie made an out-of-this-world granola when we visited last week. It's all nuts, plus coconut.  (Larry exclaimed, "What, granola without oats?!") This version is very keto, but of course you could add oats if you like. I might play with in the future. Serve as cereal or on yogurt! Ingredients Toss: 2 C shredded unsweetened coconut 1 C sliced almonds 1 C raw sunflower seeds 1/2 C raw pumpkin seeds 1/2 C walnuts Stir: 1/2 C melted coconut oil 2 T maple syrup (to replace 10 drops stevia; we don't like artificial sweeteners) 1 tsp cinnamon 1 tsp nutmeg Instructions Preheat oven to 325. Line baking sheets with parchment paper. In a large bowl, toss together coconut and nuts and seeds. In a small bowl, stir together the oil, sweetener, and spices. Pour the oil mixture into the large bowl and use your hands to mix together until the nuts are very well coated.  Transfer mixture to baking sheets and spread out evenly. Bake for 30 minutes or until golden brown, stirring at th...

My brother Jeff turned me on to this, and it's my new favorite thing! Delicious, high fiber, and lots of ways to mix it up. Oats are so good for you, as is wheat germ, berries, and nuts. This has replaced morning yogurt for us; it's healthier (more fiber, less sugar), cheaper, and super easy to make. Years ago, I also made an overnight chia pudding that we often had for breakfast and dessert. That's also really tasty, and you can add more chia to this if you like, or a little maple syrup if you want something sweeter.  Ingredients For a small pint jar (more or less; I don't measure): 1 cup oats (regular, not quick cook; sometimes I also mix in some steel cut, but those need to be quick cook) 2 T flax meal 2 T wheat germ 2 T chia 1-2 C vanilla soy milk (to fill the jar) Optional additions for different flavoring: 2-3 tsp cocoa 1-2 T nut butter (almond, peanut) 1 scoop dehydrated strawberry powder Toppings: Fruit (always berries! sometimes bananas) Walnuts Instructions M...

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 ...

In 2020, I bought an instant pot to get the Yogurt button, and made some batches following this  blog post on soy yogurt . I also tried soaked almonds processed in my ninja blender; it was pretty good but a little gritty and more work. Oat and coconut milk did not thicken. With soy, it's critical that the milk you use has zero additives; Trader Joe's soy milk works great. Even so, it was hard to get it to be as thick as I'd like. Cooking longer - I tried up to 15 hours -- helps, but was super tangy! My brother Jeff bought an instant pot and experimented with combinations of soy milk and thickeners (like soy flour & cornstarch) and syrup for the yeasties to eat, dissolved in the boiling milk. His winning combo then was to boil 1 qt soy milk with 4T almond flour and 2T ginger syrup, cool, add 3 TJ  probiotics  pills, and then cook in the instant pot with water around the jars to better distribute the heat. It took almost half the time (roughly 9 hours) and was ama...

We have SO many blackberries we can't keep up. I started putting cups and cups of them in bags in our freezer - which is getting WAY too full. I got an idea: What if I try to use up some of these by making a blackberry syrup? I found this recipe for homemade blackberry syrup from daring gourmet . Oh. My. Flying. Spaghetti. Monster. It's incredible . I'll NEVER complain about too many blackberries again! The following recipe (slightly adapted with a bit less sugar) makes about 1.5 cups syrup. Try it over pancakes or (vegan) ice cream! Double if you can! Oh, and put on an apron -- or wear clothes you don't mind getting stained! Ingredients 4-5 cups blackberries (fresh or frozen) 1 cup extra fine sugar 1 T lemon juice 1 tsp pectin Instructions Place the blackberries in a medium-sized pot and bring them to a boil over medium-high heat.  Once boiling, reduce the heat and simmer for 15-20 minutes until very soft and mushy.  Remove from heat and mash with a potato ...

Jeff texted us (siblings) a photo of his blueberry pancake dinner. It looked delicious, so I called him for the recipe! He made it up (of course),  and says that yeast pancakes -- and these in particular -- are the best he's ever had. And they are SUPER healthy. (Yay, more spermidine from wheat germ.) So I added them to my blog so that I'll make them! Makes 12 pancakes. Ingredients  1 cup whole wheat flour 4 T wheat germ, ground into flour 1.5 C soy milk 1 package yeast (quick rise, or regular active dry) 12 oz blueberries Instructions Mix the flour and wheat germ. Warm the soy milk in the microwave so it's lukewarm, and add 1 package yeast; mix. Add the soy milk mixture to the dry ingredients and mix! If the blueberries are cold, warm them slightly in the microwave (want them to be room temperature. Fold the blueberries into the mix. Go putter around for 20 minutes (if quick rising) or 30 minutes (if regular active yeast). Come back and heat up your griddle (...

When we visited Chelsey and Josh last November, Chelsey made a delicious, super thick oatmeal. The secret? Almond milk and oats, almost equal amount! Then the other day, Jeff suggested adding wheat germ to oatmeal to get the maximal  autophagy benefits of spermadine , so that's a new addition. (See another nice summary of spermidine and other anti-aging agents .) Ingredients   (per very hungry person) 1.5 cups almond milk (vanilla, sweetened ok) 1 heaping cup oatmeal flakes (NOT instant) 2 heaping T wheat germ Topping: blackberries or other berries roasted flax seed Instructions Mix the almond milk, oatmeal, and wheat germ in a saucepan and bring to a boil on the stove. Stir for a minute or two. Turn off heat, cover, set aside to thicken. When it's ready, dish out and top with berries and flax seed. Yum!

So many pears on our tree! So I googled for a pear dessert, and found this recipe for Pear Spice Upside-Down Cak e that looked good - and it was! And relatively healthy, too. The freshly pureed pears makes it spongy and light, and removes the need for oil. I adapted it to make two 8-inch rounds (rather than one 9-inch) since that's what I have -- and why not round up? For the bottom, you can use pear (or other fruit) slices, or  a  berry topping from this NYT recipe  (I did that when we had lots of blackberries!). If you use pear slices, make sure they are very ripe or they can be too hard even when cooked. The pears used in the puree can (optionally) be more green. The pear sauce, ginger, and spice combination in the cake is delicious. Ingredients Dry: 2 1/4 cups whole wheat flour 4 tsp tapioca or 1.5 T cornstarch 2 tsp baking soda 1 tsp cinnamon 1 tsp ground ginger 1 tsp nutmeg 1/2 tsp salt 1/4 tsp cloves Wet: 2 cups (generous) freshly pureed pears (4...

After enjoying our friend Judi's "momba" smoothies so many times, we finally bought a good (Ninja) blender so we could make our own. Dr. Gregor has some videos about research that shows you get all the benefits of the kale and berries in blended form, but that's not true for all fruits. And Larry notes that they taste better than they look :) Ingredients banana carrots (1 or 2 small/medium) kale (5-10 leaves) oranges (1 or 2, peeled) apple or pear (1, cored) almond milk (maybe a cup?) frozen berries of your choice (maybe a cup?) Instructions Put everything in a powerful blender and pulse until mixed. I tend to mix everything but the frozen berries, and then add the berries at the end. Sometimes they come out green (if I go heavy on the kale and lighter on the berries), and sometimes they come out more purple (if I go heavy on blueberries). Makes 2-3 glasses, and keeps fine in the fridge until the next day if you can't drink it all. And with ...

Sightly adapted from a recipe in Vegan with a Vengeance  mostly to add some greens and tomato, and a little more turmeric. Nice served with toast potatoes, guacamole and salsa. Ingredients 1 T high heat oil (e.g., canola, grapeseed) 1 medium onion, chipped 2 C mushrooms 2-3 cloves minced garlic A few leaves of kale or chard or spinach 2 tomatoes, chopped 1 pound extra firm tofu, drained 1/4 C (heaping) nutritional yeast Juice of 1/2 lemon Spice blend: 2 t cumin 1 t dried thyme 1 t paprika 1 t turmeric 1 t salt Instructions Saute onions over medium-high heat for about 3 minutes; add mushrooms and sauté for 5 minutes. Add garlic, leaves and tomato, and saute 2 minutes. Add spice blend and mix. Add 1/4 cup water to deglaze the pan, scraping the bottom to get all the garlic and spices. Crumble in tofu and mix well. Don't crush the tofu, just kind of lift and mix; you want it to remain chunky. Let it cook about 15 minutes, stirring occas...

A wonderful chocolate oatmeal, or make it plain with maple and brown sugar. I found the chocolate version first, on Happy Healthy , and made up the plain version when I needed a change. Both are wonderful with berries on top. I add walnuts and chia to the chocolate version, and flax seeds to the maple and brown sugar version. I also tend to use more water and less almond milk for the plain version. Sometimes I make extra and freeze muffin-size portions like Trader Joes  does, to microwave during the week. Ingredients 1 cup steel-cut oats 2 cups water 3 cups vanilla almond milk* 2 T maple syrup Chocolate version:  1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder  Plain version: 2 T brown sugar *I use more water, less almond milk here Toppings: Berries (Strawberries, blueberries, etc.) Walnuts Chia seeds Flax seeds Instructions For the chocolate version, heat 1 cup of the water in the microwave, 1 minute. Slowly mix the cocoa in the water to p...

Happy Healthy and Oh She Glows both have recipes for chocolate chia pudding. One serving gives you all the omega 3's you need in a day! Happy Healthy has her  Overnight Chocolate Berry Breakfast Pudding for breakfast, and Oh She Glows dresses up her Healthy Chocolate Chia Pudding for dessert with a little shaved chocolate (see photos below). They're similar, and I can verify that even the breakfast version works for dessert! You can omit the chocolate if you want a change; it's fine plain. You might also try using white chia seeds then, and maybe a bit more vanilla extract. 11/20/16 update: Oh my goodness. Stop the presses! Judi's Blended Chocolate Peanut Butter Chia Pudding is the best of them all. Dangerously good! I've modified the recipe below to add optional peanut butter and using a blender. Ingredients 2 cups almond (vanilla or plain) or coconut milk 1 T maple syrup 4-6 T chia seeds (use high end for dessert version) 1 T peanut butter (optional ...

Thanks to Wanda and Judi, who gave me their great recipes, which I merged and played with to get this! Makes about 28 4" pancakes - breakfast for about 5 people, or just store the unused dry mix for later use. I love the light peanut butter taste from the  PB2 . The flax acts as an egg substitute (helps bind) and is a great source of omega-3 fatty acids. Ingredients Dry mix, almond milk, banana, toppings Dry Mix 1 C PB2 or peanut flour 1 C whole wheat flour 1 C spelt flour, oat flour, or buckwheat flour       (or whole wheat if you can't find these) 1/2 C flax meal (ground flax seeds) 2 t baking powder (heaping) 2 t baking soda (heaping) 1 T cinnamon (heaping) 1/4 C sugar Topping options Maple syrup (of course) Sliced strawberries (the BEST!) Blueberries (fresh, or frozen cooked a little to make a light syrup) Peanut butter Mini chocolate chips (dot a few on top of pancakes when they are cooking) Ginger pear compote Instruct...

Judi just gave me a sample of this at work. Oh my. It's delicious. And soooo simple to make. Just oats, flax, peanutbutter, maple syrup, salt -- and optional chocolate chips. See Judi's  Peanut Butter Granola (dangerous!)