Vegan Crispy Coconut Cauliflower Tacos with Vegan Mayo - WIN

Let me just start by saying that my family is not vegan. Or vegetarian. I think we firmly land in the meat-atarian category, especially my husband. My brother on the other hand, announced a year ago that he had become vegan. It was quite the shocker, him being the guy who would have a bacon sandwich that included a pound of cooked bacon and two merger slices of bread. But, being the awesome people we are, we embraced is new found veganism and supported his decision. But when my dear vegan brother came to visit and asked me to host is birthday dinner for him and our parents, I suddenly became aware that I had NO idea what to make him! I've cooked many vegetarian meals, but thinking of a meal that everyone, including my kids, would enjoy became a consuming task. Until I came across this little gem.

Vegan Crispy Coconut Lime Cauliflower Tacos with Home Made Vegan Mayo

(it's not as daunting as it sounds)

The first major appealing feature of this recipe is that it didn't require any 'odd' ingredients that required an special visit to a local health food store. It was all stuff I could get easily. The Vegan mayo I replaced with a Vegan Mayo I made myself - the recipe was another Pinterest find.

The second was it could easily pass as non-vegan for my kids. I just told them they were crunchy tacos and they ate them all up!!

See how tasty that looks? Amazing that it looks almost exactly like the pics in the link! How rare is that!

For my first completely vegan meal, it came together quite easily. There was the usually dip - dredge - repeat with the cauliflower as you find with any breaded recipe. As I mentioned before, all the ingredients were things that I normally kept in my fridge or pantry so no special shopping trips or expenses were required. Making the mayo was obviously an extra step. I decided I didn't want a large container of mayo since I already had traditional mayo in the fridge and I'm the only one who eats it in my house. I found the link (see above) which clearly went through three separate recipes for home made vegan mayo - I chose the second with soy milk and olive oil. It was a perfect base for the sauce in this taco recipe, and my brother took the rest with him to eat during his visit.

The cauliflower was crispy on the outside and perfectly flavoured. The coleslaw and aloi were a perfect addition and added a lot of flavour. We added a little dash of a favourite hot sauce for the adults, this recipe is a total winner. And even my brother the vegan agreed!

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Super Easy Pizza Dough - Win!

We had some visitors a few weeks ago and got an amazing housewarming present - a pizza stone!
Now I remember when I was a kid, you used to be able to buy uncooked pizza dough. We loved making pizzas, and the taste never compares to frozen or delivered. Sorry, Panago.
I've told myself for years "I have to make pizza dough" but I've never actually done it. Well, with our new fancy pizza stone, I finally have run out of excuses. PLUS it can go on the BBQ! Seriously, this thing is amazing.

The recipe from Mom's Need to Know was super easy to put together (hence the name) and makes four decent sized thin crust pizzas. If you want thicker crust or larger, split the dough in half instead of in four. Right off the bat I made 3 different pizzas using my stone on the BBQ, and froze the fourth bit of dough. I was cooking for 6 people so there are no pics. Sorry!
My second time was whipping up a pizza in the oven (it was raining) before soccer using the extra dough I had frozen before.

Yes, apparently there is still soccer games when you sink ankle deep into the field because it's so wet.
Good thing tomorrow is laundry day.

The dough comes together easily and is really tasty. It makes a perfect crust, not doughy or chewy, or over cooked. It's a really solid recipe. The recipe suggests flour on the pizza stone / pan which is highly recommended so it doesn't stick. Next time I may get cornmeal which may be a nice touch. I've even doubled this batch and it still worked great. It will be more work if you don't have a stand up mixer, and it'll need more time in the mixer if you do. It was also stickier then the first batch, but it worked out perfectly.

 

Making a well, as seen above, is the method used to mix the wet ingredients and the yeast. There are other methods around, but this worked fine for me.

Before and after rising of the double batch

Homemade pizza is awesome since you can pick and choose and make what ever you want. This is easily a recipe you can make, then bake a pizza for one or two people. We really enjoy it on the pizza stone, but any baking pan would do! Try and make your own pizza dough, you'll never go back to take out again!

Enjoy!

Easy Strawberry Shortcake - Win

It's Father's Day!

And what better gift to give the father of your kids then baked goods. A way to a man is through his stomach, right?
We're heading off to dinner with the inlaws this afternoon and each of the dad's got to pick a course. My husband got to pick desert (yippie!). And one of his all time favs is Strawberry Shortcake.

The timing is perfect for this recipe. Ontario strawberries are coming out and look fantastic, plus this gave me an excuse to pull out my big stand up mixer. I seriously debated pulling out my old recipe using bisquick and cool whip, but decided that a) an entire cake isn't that portable and b) after a recent family health scare, a slightly healthier version might be in order.

A quick search of Pinterest lead to this recipe from Just a Taste. Simple and easy, but looking tasty. Now for the waist-watchers, this recipe does call for heavy cream for the cakes. This could probably be replaces with milk, but I'm not too sure how it would turn out. Also this recipe is egg free, and can easily be made sugar free as well.

The dough is super simple, but REALLY sticky. I have no pictures of the pre-baked dough because it was everywhere! I tried not to over work it, but ended up having to put it all back in the bowl and re-flour my work board and rolling pin. And my rolling pin did jack all. It just kept sticking to the dough. SO learn from my mistakes! Be generous with the flour on your working surface, and butter your hands. I also just used my hands to flatten out the dough instead of my rolling pin, it was much faster. 
After baking the cakes for 15 minutes they came out light and brown and lovely.

I eliminated most of the sugar in the entire recipe, opting for a tiny bit of regular on the scones, in the strawberries, and in the whipped cream. You could really do this to taste, but for health reasons I decided to heavily reduce it. 

One of the best things is I could pre-make everything and assemble it later. It's really easy to transport this way as well.

Don't they look lovely??

Now because I eliminated the sugar they were not sweet at all, which is something that might not be everyones taste. The shortcakes were a bit heavy, but it worked perfectly with a lot of strawberries and fresh whipped cream.

Overall, a perfectly easy summer desert!

One Pot Garlic Parmesan Pasta - Win!

Yet another winner from Damn Delicious! Seriously, this girl has a lot of solid recipes.

As the move-in-chaos settles down I'm slowly getting back into cooking. But I'm also very quickly getting uninspired and bored of my recipes. Maybe it's because I have a really bad desire to reno my kitchen, I'm not sure. So once again Pinterest came to save the dinner!

One Pot Garlic Parmesan Pasta.

Seriously some of my favourite words in this recipe, one pot, garlic, and pasta. Can't go wrong here! And when I asked my hubby after a few bites what he thought, and the response was "Can't talk - Devouring", I figured this is a good one. The recipe is super easy and involves your every day ingredients. And as advertised, it's an under 30 minute dinner.

I personally had a few hiccups, but that could be because I'm still working out the kinks in my new stove (medium heat is hot, and high heat is 'better call the pizza guy, Mommy just burnt dinner'). Mainly my pot ran out of liquid and I ended up adding about one additional cup of milk while cooking. This could be because a) too much heat or b) too much pasta. SO next time I'll start with a bit more liquid and go from there.

Also, when it says stir...STIR! I had to whip out my wooden spatula and scrape the bottom a few times to keep the pasta from sticking.

I used 1% milk, spaghetti instead of fettuccine, and added a pinch of thyme, and the recipe was amazing. 

Now the pasta alone is obviously vegetarian. It can be served as a side, or you could amp it up with some meat and or veggies and make it a full meal. This time I used grilled chicken and broccoli and it was perfect. Even my son, who has been refusing any dinner that isn't PB&J for about a week, devoured it. The possibilities are endless! Broccoli, asparagus, peas, bean, or even wilt some spinach in there and it would be a lovely addition. And chicken, shrimp, salmon, or lobster if you want to go decadent, for proteins. This can easily go from one pot side to a full balanced meal with a couple additions and still remain an easy week night meal. 

My hubby wanted to lick the bowl. Really. Not kidding. 

This recipe will definitely be in our regular rotation. Check it out for something a little different!

Enjoy!

Flourless Chocolate Muffins - Win and Update!

Update Below!

Ah, bananas. Always something I have around. But either we eat so many I can barely stay stocked or they sit around for a week until they're all brown and mushy. There is rarely an in-between. Last week I ended up with two lone ripe bananas. So not enough for banana bread. I could freeze them but since we're moving I'm trying to DECREASE my freezer stock, not increase it. So I looked through my pin boards and came across a recipe that just might work.

Flourless Chocolate Muffins.

A perfect excuse to procrastinate on a rainy Tuesday.

Now I'm going to be honest, I totally thought these were going to fail in some way. Nearly no dry ingredients involved, no flour, no sugar, no egg. I thought they were going to be a gooey mess post-baking.

Boy was I wrong!

These muffins are super simple to make and just require four ingredients. FOUR! And nothing nuts that you'd need to run to a health food store for. Yes the batter is sticky as the instructions state. I was unable to find too lazy to use muffin liners, so I was very generous with the cooking spray and the muffins popped out without a problem. And be prepared for a bit of a mess when scooping the batter from your blender/mixer. But it's still tasty raw!


This recipe made about 9 muffins using a regular muffin pan. Since they don't rise, you don't have to follow the usual rule of filling the muffin cups 2/3 full. You can go most of the way up and they won't bake over. And adding a few chocolate chips on top adds a nice touch.

The taste is great, a nice balance between banana, chocolate, and peanut butter. The texture is like a dense cake, very moist, but not overly heavy like a brownie.







As I said, I was pleasantly surprised by this recipe. These are perfect for a healthy chocolate fix, and I don't feel TOO horrible giving my son a chocolate muffin. And these muffins can be gluten free or even vegan with the right ingredients. 
These are a definite win in my book and I'll be making them again.

Happy Baking!



UPDATE
So I made these a second time. I'm not sure exactly what happened, but I have a good idea, however they didn't turn out the same. This time I was SLIGHTLY under the amount of coco powder, and used REALLY ripe bananas when before they were sorta ripe. I may have also over-blended. They still taste fantastic, but after baking for nearly 30 minutes they still are very mushy and aren't holding together.
So learn from my experience! Be precise with your measurements, don't over mix, and use slightly ripe bananas. If I do this again with really ripe ones I would probably increase the coco powder to offset the moisture content.
Good luck!

Cauliflower Cheddar Soup - Win

I started this post on Rememberance Day, which is always a hard day for me. Every veteran, every poppy, every song played by bagpipes make me think of my Grandpa, a WWII veteran. He passed away 10 years ago this past April. 
When I have a 'sad day' I tend to want to cook, bake, and roast. Note the 'and'. The only reasons I didn't make a huge batch of cookies on top of our Tuesday feast is we're still digging through masses of Halloween candy and we don't need more sugar in the house. 

But I digress

I pinned this recipe under the 'get more vegetables into my kid' recipes. Sadly, Munchkin doesn't like it, but that's because it's White Soup instead of my normal roasted vegetable Orange Soup. He won't eat it because it's not orange, not because of the flavour. I even tried adding broccoli another time to make it green (his favourite colour) and he still refused to try it on the basis that it's not the Orange Soup. Either way, the Hubby and I still like it!

This soup from Closet Cooking is very easy to make and tastes fantastic. The original recipe calls for cream and bacon bits for topping. Bacon is a treat in our house, so it's not a regular thing I have, and I'm not buying cream just for one recipe. So the bacon was eliminated and skim milk was used instead and I still ended up with a lovely, creamy soup. I also reduced the amount of broth to two cups with no ill-effect. 

Perfectly roasted

Simmering away, smelling wonderful

You can see the large pot of soup in the back of the picture below. You get a good amount for one head of cauliflower. 

I went a little kitchen crazy - soup, roasted veggies, and pot roast. And I made muffins...

The soup is lovely, and the roasting adds a lovely flavour. The second time around I added about half a broccoli head to the roasting (to make it green) and it still tasted great. This is a great make-ahead recipe for a dinner party, and keeps well for 2-3 days.

Enjoy!

Baked Ravioli - Weeknight win!

Meals that require minimal effort that yield a tasty meal are almost always a win. Crowd pleases are an added bonus. And since Munchkin's response to this dish was "Mommy this is amazing!", it's now on our regular menu. 

My version is a combo of two recipes. One is super basic, the other adds a few ingredients and time, but I found an extra 10 minutes of cook and prep adds a great dimension to the meal. 

The basic version is simply frozen ravioli, cheese and spaghetti/marinara sauce, layered and baked. The link is here. 
My preference is to use this recipe, repeated below, which adds some herbs and cream cheese to the sauce. I didn't get to add any fresh basil since our September snowfall killed my already stunted plant. 

Easy to assemble, just like lasagna

Spinach and cheese ravioli works great and makes this a totally vegetarian meal. I'd love to try with a beef ravioli if I can find one. But this 30 minute meal is amazingly cheesy, perfect with salad as a side. And the leftovers are just as tasty!

Cheesy goodness!

Sprinkle your serving with a little extra parmesan cheese and chopped parsley for a lovely weeknight meal, and enjoy!