Healthy Oatmeal Cookies

I love making variations of healthy cookies. I eat them for breakfast, as a snack, or just when I am craving something sweet. I really like these because they're sweetened with dates and taste absolutely delicious. This batch is super easy to make in a food processor. I forgot to write down how many this recipe makes, though! Duh! I think it was around 18 small cookies.

Ingredients:
2 1/2 c. old fashioned rolled oats
3/4 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
8 - 10 medjool dates, pitted and soaked for at least an hour
4 tbsp. almond milk
1 tbsp. molasses (I used blackstrap)
3 tbsp. oil or melted margarine
add-ins (I added chocolate chips)

Instructions:
- Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
- Grind up your oats, baking soda, and salt in your food processor. I like my oats somewhat whole so I only processed this mixture for a few seconds.
- Add in your dates, milk alternative, molasses, and oil. Blend this until it becomes a sticky mixture.
- Stir in your add-ins until mixture is well incorporated.

 - Place cookie-sized discs onto a greased cookie sheet. These won't spread when baking so shape accordingly.
- Bake for 10 minutes, leave on cookie sheet for 2 minutes while cooling, then transfer to a cooling rack.

- Eat 'em plain, dunk 'em in milk, spread some peanut butter on top... the possibilites are endless. These things are pretty addicting.

French Toast

I miss the days of going out to eat and getting a delicious batch of french toast. Not many places around where we live have vegan breakfast so I tend to make my own. I normally make waffles or scrambled tofu but decided to venture out and make some french toast! This recipe makes around 8 slices, depending on how thick your slices of bread is. I used some cinnamon apple bread that we got from a local health foods store and the slices were pretty thin.

Ingredients:
1 banana
1/4 c. tahini
1 c. almond milk
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
1 tbsp. oil

Instructions:
- Blend all of your ingredients until it is a thick and smooth consistency. I used my food processor but you can use a hand blender or even a fork. Just make sure to get your banana completely mashed up.
- Dip each slice of bread into your batter and cook on a greased pan on medium-high heat.
- Flip each slice after a few minutes. Your bread should be nice and browned.

- Serve with maple syrup, powdered sugar, jam, or whatever topping you prefer.

Best vegan french toast ever. That's all I can say about this.

Easy Gluten Free Waffles

You know there's something wrong with me when I haven't put on makeup in a couple days. That's right, I am sick. I've had a fever, aches and pains, and a sore throat since Monday. I hate being sick!

I don't have much in me to share a long recipe, but in the meantime, go make these waffles. Some changes I'd recommend to the above recipe: use flax eggs (4 tbsp. flax + 12 tbsp. water), omit the sugar, and add a dash of cinnamon.

You won't regret making these. They are so fluffy, crispy, and actually sort of healthy! If I'm able to get out of bed today, no doubt I'll be whipping up a batch of these.

Breakfast for Dinner

When I was growing up, my mom used to make breakfast for dinner for my 3 siblings and I all the time. It usually consisted of chocolate chip pancakes, although from time to time we'd have an addition like scrambled eggs. I hated scrambled eggs, though, so I just ate the pancakes. This was never an issue for me because I LOVE chocolate chip pancakes. I still like to make myself breakfast for dinner occasionally. Last night I made Michael and I chocolate chip waffles and scrambled tofu.

Chocolate-Chip Waffles

makes a lot

Ingredients:

1 c. unbleached all-purpose flour

1 c. whole wheat flour

1 tbsp. + 1 tsp. baking powder

1 tsp. cinnamon

1/2 c. natural unsweetened applesauce

2 flax eggs ( 2 tbsp. flaxseed meal + 6 tbsp. water)

2 c. + 2 tbsp. milk alternative or water (I used soy milk)

1 tsp. vanilla extract

chocolate chips

Instructions:

- Grease and turn on waffle maker

- In a medium sized bowl, mix the dry ingredients except for the chocolate chips. In a larger bowl, mix the wet ingredients (you may use more or less water or milk alternative, depending on how thick you want your batter). Incorporate the dry into the wet until it is just mixed together. Fold in however many chocolate chips you want.

- Spoon batter into waffle maker, making sure to leave a bit of space around the edges so the batter doesn't come seeping out the sides. Place waffles on cooling racks when done cooking.

Scrambled Tofu

Ingredients:

1 block extra firm tofu, drained and squeezed

2 tbsp. tahini

2 tbsp. soy sauce

2 tbsp. water

2 tbsp. oil

3 tsp. garlic powder

2 tsp. mustard powder

2 tsp. black pepper

2 tsp. oregano

2 tsp. basil

1 tsp. curry powder

1 tbsp. nutritional yeast

1/2 yellow onion, chopped

1/2 green pepper, chopped

1/4 c. peas

3 handfuls spinach

Instructions:

- Combine tahini, soy sauce, and spices in a medium sized bowl. Add the water and oil to make a pasty consistency -- it could be more or less then 2 tbsp. each depending on your tastes and whatnot (I only added water so I wouldn't have so much oil in it).

- Crumble tofu into bowl and fold it into the mix, making sure not to break up the tofu too much.

- On medium-high heat, saute vegetables (minus spinach) for just a couple minutes.

- Add tofu mixture and cook until tofu is browned. When everything is just about done, add in the spinach. Make sure to keep folding the mixture to get all of the spinach cooked.

- If you made your waffles ahead of time, pop into toaster and serve with 100% maple syrup and fresh scrambled tofu!

I sure do love chocolate chip waffles! Anytime I make waffles I try to make a lot so I can freeze them and save for later use (just make sure to individually wrap each one in plastic wrap or else they'll freeze together). I also love scrambled tofu. This is probably my favorite recipe for it -- I would've used more soy sauce except Michael isn't a huge fan of it. I think it turned out quite nice the way it was! It seems like a lot of ingredients so don't feel overwhelmed... most of them are spices! I love recipes like these because you can change them up. I sometimes add in blueberries to my waffles and change up the vegetables in my scrambled tofu depending on what I have on hand (I will say, though, that the spinach totally tops the cake here). Either way, you can't go wrong with breakfast for dinner, especially when it consists of fresh, local ingredients and a little sugar to brighten your day.

Oat-Blueberry Waffles

I was in the mood for waffles this morning but wanted something a little bit healthier than regular waffle recipes. I made this up and I think it turned out quite nice! This recipe makes 6-8 waffles, depending on your batter consistency.

Ingredients:

3 c. oats

2 to 2 1/2 c. water

1 egg replacer (I used 1 tbsp. flaxseed meal + 3 tbsp. water)

1 tbsp. maple syrup

1 tsp. vanilla

1 tbsp. shredded coconut

a dash of salt

a dash of cinnamon

1/4 c. blueberries

Instructions:

- Grease and turn on waffle maker.

- Place 2 of the 3 cups of the oats in your food processor. Process this until it becomes a flour-like consistency.

- Add the rest of the ingredients to the food processor except blueberries (this includes the other cup of oats). Process this until it becomes a batter. Add more water if needed if you feel like the batter is too thick. I made sure not to process this too long so that remaining cup of oats are still like oats and less like flour.

- Stir in blueberries.

- Pour batter into your greased waffle iron.

- Cook these until your waffle maker is done or until whenever you feel like they are ready to eat. I like mine crispy so I kept them in a bit longer than what the waffler maker wanted me to.

- Serve with toppings of choice! I used a scoop of vegan yogurt and a little bit of maple syrup.

- Place the remaining waffles in freezer baggies and pop them into the freezer. When you are ready to eat them, just put them in the toaster and they'll be ready to eat!

Yummm! These were very good! I'm not a huge oatmeal fan but still want to be able to eat oats so I try to think of other ways to incorporate them into my diet. These didn't taste quite like regular Belgian waffles but were still delicious. Next time, though, I will not use the vegan yogurt. I feel like that overpowered the taste of the waffles too much.

Vegetable Medley w/Tofu

Hello! So sorry for the hiatus -- I moved to San Diego from Ohio, so that took a long time. It also took a while to find an apartment and THEN it took even longer to find where to shop and when/where the farmer's markets are! Whew! I am finally back and cooking again.

I wanted to make a scrambled tofu last night but I ended up just pulling out and cutting up so many veggies that it ended up being more of a vegetable medley with tofu rather than scrambled tofu.

Ingredients:

2 small potatoes

1/2 block of firm tofu, pressed

1 regular sized carrot

1/2 green pepper

1/2 zucchini

1/2 red onion

basil

thyme

rosemary

parsley

salt

olive oil

Instructions:

- Heat up a little bit of olive oil in a skillet on medium high while cutting up the potatoes. I like to cut mine fairly small. Once you're done chopping, toss them into the skillet. Make sure to keep an eye on them and stir occasionally.

- While the potatoes are cooking, chop up the rest of your veggies. Here are mine!

- When your potatoes are almost to your liking (I like mine really dark and fairly crunchy), add in the tofu, veggies, herbs, and salt. For the tofu, it's easiest to break off pieces of the tofu and sort of crumble them into the mix.

-Mix and saute these for a bit until your vegetables are just cooked and your tofu is browned a bit.

- Now you are ready to eat!

This tasted way better than I expected. I'm glad I didn't add any spices like I usually do because this tasted very fresh and delicious (thank you, farmer's markets!). Unfortunately both Michael and I ate this whole thing right up so we weren't able to save any for leftovers.

Now I am off to hunt for even MORE food and also some hangers. Both are unrelated but both are much needed...