Happy Holidays!

Well it's almost Christmas and wow I'm tired. So busy lately baking, shopping, wrapping & cleaning. I need to get as much food prep done before my in-laws arrive later today. Tomorrow my sister-in-law, niece and her boyfriend will arrive.

My husband is cooking something on the bbq spit for all of those carnivores. I will be making seitan steaks, stuffed portobellos, butternut squash sage risotto, salad, roasted root veggies and bread. Apple pie and lots of cookies.

I wish all of you a very happy, warm and safe Christmas.

Yummy holiday treats....

Howdy everyone! I'm running on lack of sleep today, who isn't right now eh? Yesterday I was busy making cookie dough, doing errands with my hubby and shopping. Then last night baking for my son's teachers. More coffee please!!! No I don't really need the caffeine from the coffee but the warm and strong taste hits the spot. Here are some of the baked goods I whipped up.


Pistachio spiced brittle. I'm really not a big candy eater. I do love a good dark chocolate, mabye a bit of caramel and I do love peanut brittle. I've tried to make brittle in the past but it was frustrating and burned just a bit. I was determined to try it again after seeing a picture of Hannah's Chai brittle on her blog. I found this awesome peanut brittle recipe and I got to tell you, this was so easy to make and didn't take long at all! Click here for the recipe. Alterations on the recipe were that I subbed Earth Balance for butter, golden syrup for corn syrup and used organic sugar.

Chewy Chocolate Gingerbread Cookies(Martha Stewart) & Rumnog cookies(VCON).

I so look forward to making and eating these ginger cookies every Christmas. If you love ginger well these use fresh & powdered ginger, and then chocolate!!!! Oh they they make my mouth happy! :) The only change on the recipe is using Earth Balance to replace the butter. There are no eggs in the recipe. I hope you try them you won't be dissapointed!

My next post I'll be teasing you with some pic's of some recipes I've been testing out out for Celine and Joni's new cookbook they are working on. Yes another cookbook from those wonderful girls.

Gluten free noodle kale soup and new products

This soup is made with Tinyada brown rice elbow pasta, kale, tomato, carrots, onion, celery, veggie broth, white wine and herbs. Nice & warm.

I decided to give these treats down here to the left
from Mary's Gone Crackers Sticks & Twigs Sea Salt a whirl since they were on sale.My first bite or two I wasn't so sure about the taste so I put the bag away. Then later when my son got home and I
took out the bag for a treat I tried it again and I changed my mind it's pretty good. They are real crunchy and have a ton of good stuff in them like flax seeds, amaranth, quinoa, chia seeds, etc. I would love to try some of there other flavors.

Then check this out! I found this new product from Wild Wood, it's tofu made with Sprouted Soybeans! How cool is that!!! It doesn't really taste any different from other tofu and since this one is superfirm it would be great grilled or used sliced up as tofu steaks. Now you can feel alot better about eating tofu!

Quick, easy & tasty...

I hope everyone had a good weekend. We felt this weekend went by so fast! Our town had it's tree lighting on Friday and Christmas Parade on Saturday.
It's raining today, yay! We didn't even have to do a rain dance, but I was so ready to.
I was really craving this meal. It's so easy to make and is very comforting...to me anyways. I don't have measurments it's just all by taste.

Cook up some brown rice, set aside. In a large pan, saute onion, few minced garlic cloves. Next add in a chopped bell pepper, shitake mushrooms, once these are getting soft add the brocolli. You make the sauce right in the pan. Sauce: tahini about 1/4-1/3 cup(I love tahini so I had more) a little white wine(dry sherry), ginger, soy sauce & veggie broth. Just stir around with the veggies until warm and add a can of garbanzo beans & 8 oz. cubed extra-firm tofu. Stir until all warmed through. Serve on a bed of rice or grain of choice.

Hubby's B-Day gluten free dinner

Goodmorning to everyone. I'm sitting here waiting for the house to warm, just to get the chill off, don't tell my husband, before I work out. You see it has to be flippin' cold before my husband turns on the heater, but secretly I have turned it on a couple times in the morning. We've been using our fireplace lots lately. Anyhoo, let's move on shall we. My husband had a birthday monday so let's see what I made him shall we?


Dave loves a good veggie loaf, mashed taters and greenbeans mixed with peas. I wanted to change up the loaf a bit since I do make them quite a bit, always making them different, there are one or two I will always go back to but I found this one that absolutely turned out awesome!
I found it at I Am Gluten Free orignially from Gluten Free Goddess. Thanks girls!

Karina's Veggie Loaf
Serves 8
adapted by Ellen A.
and re-adapted by JoLynn

1 – 2 tablespoons olive oil
6 oz cremini mushrooms, diced or sliced
5 large leave Swiss chard or any greens( I had on hand about 6oz. of frozen spinach)chopped.
1 red pepper, diced
1/4 cup oven-roasted grape tomatoes (or sun-dried tomatoes)
1 carrot, cut into chunks
1 cup cooked brown rice, packed
½ cup almonds
1/2 cup walnuts
½ cup gluten free bread crumbs
1 1/2 tsp dried basil
1 1/2tsp dried oregano
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
1 tbsp maple syrup
2 tbsp wheat-free tamari
1 egg-replacer equivalent (Ener-g or I used 1 tbsp flaxmeal + 3 tbsp water, whisk until frothy)


Maple Sauce:
1/3 cup pure maple syrup
½ cup Ketchup
2 tsp. honey mustard or whole grain with a bit of agave added.

Heat the olive oil in a non-stick skillet and cook the red bell pepper. Once the bell pepper is almost soft add the mushrooms and your greens, cook until until soft. Remove from heat and put into a large bowl, set aside. Put the raw carrot, cooked brown rice, and nuts in a food processor and mix until the mixture forms a coarse meal. BE CAREFUL NOT TO OVERPROCESS UNLESS YOU WANT A MUSHY LOAF. Toss into the mixing bowl with the other vegetables and the breadcrumbs. Add the herbs and spices, balsamic vinegar, maple syrup, and tamari. Add the flax meal mixture(or egg) and stir until well-blended. Press the mixture evenly into an oiled loaf pan. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.Make the sauce by combining all the sauce ingredients with a whisk. Pour the maple sauce over the top of the veggie loaf and bake for 45 minutes. Remove the loaf from the oven and allow it to rest for about 15 minutes. This will make it easier to cut, though it will still be a little fragile.
My son loves the leftover loaf for a sandwich.

Dessert for the birthday guy was chocolate chip cookies. I was going to make him a carrot cake but he loves chocolate chip cookies and when I usually make them I add oatmeal and stuff that he doesn't care for. He prefers the good old fashioned chocolate chip cookie. So I broke down and used Soy Free Earth Balance and ener-g egg replacer to make these. He was very happy indeed! Yay!

Rum Jumbie

The first batch of holiday treats and also my first go around with these cookies from VCON. Rum Nog cookies and these babies rock! Slightly soft on the inside, crisp and crunchy on the outside. These would be a nice addition to your holiday cookies this year. I will be making these again for Christmas. One issue I did have was that the dough was rather soft so I just had to carefully roll it into the pecans using 2 spoons. I also cut down the sugar to 3/4 cup.

The only dark rum in the house I had to use for these cookies and the frosting was this cute guy down here, Rum Jumbie. Can you hear the waves crashing and the heat of the sun? Ahhhhh I wish I were back in St. Martin where I got this wonderful rum. I made the frosting this morning and I tell you, I could of started drinking this rum, especially because I was in one of those funky blah moods. Now, now, I'm not saying to start drinking when you are depressed but I tell you, rum makes me so happy!!!

The day after....

To all of you out there who woke up early to go shopping you are very brave! I'm not one for waking up that early and dealing with the crowds especially when we got home late last night. So i'm drinking some coffee and trying to stay warm.
I hope everyone had a nice visit with their family and friends yesterday. We drove down to the in-laws and had Thanksgiving with them. My sister-in-law, father-in-law and husbands' birthdays fall between Nov. 20-30th so we celebrated them all and had 3 different desserts for them.

Since the main course was not such a compassionate one (you know what I'm talking about)my son and I had a cruelty free Field Roast(below).


When I had asked my mother-in-law to buy a Field Roast I didn't specify a Celebration Roast but we had this Smoked Tomato Field Roast instead. It had plenty of flavor and could actually feed at least 3 people. I made a vegan gravy as well. One of my favorite Field Roast Sausages is the Smokeed Apple Sage.yum!

This was the dessert I made and it turned out perfect! It's a Pumpkin Cheescake and the recipe is from Just the Food blog but is also in the new vegan cookbook 500 Vegan Recipes. I actually baked this in a springform pan and made a pecan shortbread crust. Here is the recipe below with my changes but you can see the original recipe by clicking Just the Food blog . It's pretty rich so you don't really don't need a big slice.

Pumpkin Cheesecake Pie

Ingredients:
Pecan shortbread crust (or any one you choose)
2, 8oz containers of vegan cream cheese
1, 15 oz can of pure pumpkin(organic)
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup sugar
3 tbsp Cornstarch(I ran out of arrowroot powder)
1 tsp cinnamon (ground)
1/2 tsp ginger (ground)
1/4 tsp nutmeg (ground)
1/4 tsp cloves (ground)

Pecan Shortbread Crust:
1 C. toasted pecans
1 1/3 C. spelt flour (you can use your choice)
1/3 C. organic sugar
1/2 C. Earth Balance

Directions: First preheat oven to 350.

In a 9 inch spring form pan wrap the bottom at least half way up the sides with aluminum foil. (You'll see why you need this when you bake with the filling).

In a food processor add pecans and pulse until coarsely chopped. YOU DON'T want to pulse into a fine meal. You want to make sure you have a nice crunch to the shortbread. Pour into a medium size mixing bowl and set aside.

Next in the food processor add flour, sugar and EB and pulse until a dough forms. Once that happens pour into the pecans and stir together.

Press dough into the spring form pan and bake for about 15 minutes. It will puff slightly but you don't really want it to brown. Take out and let cool for a few minutes.

Directions for the filling:
Beat all ingredients together in a food processor or electric mixer until smooth. Pour into crust. Place a pan or drip pan full of hot water (about 1" deep) in the middle rack of the oven. Place the foil wrapped spring form pan onto the drip pan. Bake for 45 minutes. Remove and let cool, place in refrigerator until ready to serve, and to set even more.


Note*The reason for the foil is so that the water doesn't seep into the cheesecake and wet the crust. The reason for the water is so the top of the cheesecake doesn't crack.



This dessert you see here is my husbands' favorite that he grew up eating. My mother-in-law makes everyones favorite cake or pie that they like for their birthdays. This pie is a pudding pineapple cream cheese pie. I'm not a big fan of it but the rest of the family loves it and she made it vegan this year. Here is the recipe, it's real simple. Would be a great summer dessert.

Pudding pinapple cream cheese pie:

1 graham cracker pie crust

1 lg instant vanilla pudding box

1 lg can crushed pineapple, drained (squeeze out as much liquid as possible)

2 1/4 c. non-dairy milk(soy was used)

1 8 oz. tofutti cream cheese

In a large bowl pour in a packet of instant pudding mix. Next pour in milk and mix until thick. Beat in cream cheese until smooth. Finally stir in crushed pineapple. Once thoroughly combined pour into graham cracker crust, put in refrigerator until set about a day or overnight.