Puffed Brown Rice chocolate squares

When Orion was really little we used to give him  organic puffed brown rice to snack on, or to let him feel like he was included in the meal. I still have multiple bags in my pantry, I was struggling to find something to do with them and thought of how much I used to love puffed wheat squares. Now the original version would not work with our allergies and the fact that I have an aversion to corn syrup. I had to laugh at all the versions I found that labeled them as healthy when they contain cups upon cups of sugar. My recipe is by no means healthy but it isn't made with refined sugars so I consider it ok in moderation. This would be really tasty with coconut stirred in but my husband hates coconut and would be very disappointed if he couldn't eat these.

1/2 cup palm shortening (You could sub coconut oil here if you would like)
1/2 cup honey
1/2 cup Palm sugar
1/3 plus 2 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder

8 cups organic puffed brown rice
1/4 cup chia seeds

Line a 9x 13 pan with wax paper
In a medium sauce pan, on medium heat melt shortening and honey together, mix in palm sugar and cocoa powder until a smooth consistency is reached.
In a extra large greased bowl mix brown rice puffs and chia seeds, Pour chocolate sauce over it all and mix until it is all evenly coated.
Firmly press mixture into your pan refrigerate for 30 minutes. Pop out of pan and cut into desired pieces

Oatmeal Raisin cookies

Spring is finally starting to show itself here. We played outside until our hands were too cold and we had to retreat back inside, Orions choice of snack lately has been cookies. I decided instead of denying him cookies yet again, we would bake some together. I found a great recipe  on Whole Grain Gourmet  and adapted it to suit our allergies and needs. It was already dairy free, so all I had to do was adapting it to be egg free. It is refined sugar free but does contain quite a bit of honey. Next time I make it I may experiment on cutting down the amount of honey.

Here is my version:
Original recipe here at Whole Grain Gourmet


Oatmeal Cookies (with Honey)

Ingredients:

Dry ingredients:
1 cup whole wheat flour (a pinch more depending on the moisture of the mix)
1 1/2 cups of old fashioned rolled oats (quick cooking is ok too- do not use instant)
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons Epicure selections Gingerbread spice

Wet ingredients:
1/2 cup honey
1/4 cup oil

1/4 cup unsweetened applesauce
1 tablespoon full flavor molasses
1 flax egg (Mis 1 Tbsp ground flax with 3 tbp hot water, whisk and let sit until gooey)
2 teaspoons vanilla extract


1/2 cup raisins
1/4 cup hemp hearts

1/4 cup chia seeds

Preparation:
In a medium bowl, mix all the dry ingredients together.
Add the wet ingredients to seperate bowl and mix together.
Mix the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients. 

Add the raisins, hemp hearts and seeds. 

Cool the mix for 30 minutes in the refrigerator.
Preheat the oven to 335 degrees
Drop by rounded teaspoonfuls onto a baking sheet. Cookies will not spread.

Press down with a fork to ensure even cooking.
Bake for about 10-12 minutes or until golden on the bottom of the cookie. (10 minutes for soft and 12 for slightly crispy around the edges)

Cool on pan for 5 minutes, remove from pan and finish cooling on a wire rack. 

Dairy Free Pizza Pockets

Yesterday I made pizza (Daiya cheese is great for dairy free pizza ) for dinner. My 2 year old is not a fan of pizza crust he picks the toppings off and leaves the crust, I usually make him a thin crust pizza on a whole wheat tortilla (I will post the recipe once I get it perfect) I had a little dough left after making our pizzas so I experimented and made some toddler pizza pockets, they tasted great but needed a little work. My toddler loved his Pizza Pie pockets :) I always have lots of pizza toppings left over, so today I perfected the recipe. This makes a large amount, perfect for freezing so you always have something to pull out of the freezer for a quick bite. You could make this vegan by subbing out the honey for alternate sweetener, don't leave it out all together since the yeast needs something to eat. I didn't have enough Daiya cheese or nutritional yeast to put any in the filling but I'm sure it would be delicious. You can use any sort of filling you would like, the combinations are endless. I've listed some ideas for fillings at the end of the recipe. Enjoy!

Makes 22 snack size or 12 meal size
Filling:
1 400 ml can tomato sauce
1 tbsp Italian spice
dash of garlic powder
 5 1/4 cups your choice filling (I used 2 c diced pepperoni, 1 cup mixed left over pizza toppings, 1 chopped cup mushrooms, 1/ 14 cup chopped fresh spinach)


Dough:
5- 5/12 cups 100% whole wheat flour (The amount of flour depends on many things, the humidity of your house, the moisture level in the flour, the age of the flour, I think your altitude may effect this as well, even the day)
1 1/2tsp salt
3 tbsp local honey
2 cups 105F- 110F water
4 1/2 tsp traditional yeast
4 tbsp Olive oil

In a small non metallic bowl or measuring cup dissolve honey and yeast in water stir well, let it do its yeasty magic for 5 minutes (If after 5 minutes it is not nice and frothy, your yeast might not be active, or your water is too hot)

In the bowl of a stand mixer, mix salt and flour well (Reserve 1/2 cup flour), make a well in the middle of it and pour oil and water mixture in, stir by hand until moistened (You can also use the paddle attachment for this part, I have done both and prefer not having to pick bits and bits and pieces of dough off the paddle)

Knead with dough hook for 4 mins, if mixture is too wet and sticky add the extra half cup of flour. When it is done kneading it should be smooth looking but slightly tacky.

Let rise in a warm place until doubled. (1 hour for me but I live at a high altitude)

Prepare filling by mixing everything together in a bowl and sticking in the fridge while your dough rises.


Preheat oven to 420F

Roll out dough 1/4" (I do half at a time) make into 5" by 6" rectangles (For meal size pops), for snack size roll out 1/8th of an inch and cut into 4" by 4.25" rectangles

How I do the edges

Put a heaping 1/4 cup of filling ( for meal size) Use a scant 1/4 cup for snack size in the  bottom middle of each rectangle, fold over and seal edges by pulling bottom edge over top pressing and crimping  with a fork.

Poke holes in the top of each one (This is an ESSENTIAL step or you will have exploded messy burnt on pizza pockets)

Bake on parchment paper (it is worth it to use the parchment paper, they will ooze a bit and make a mess of your pans) at 420F for 15-20 minutes (meal size) 10-15 for snack size, I measure the internal temperature of  my pizza pops to gauge when they are done, they should read at least 165F, I like them to read about 170F

Ideas for different fillings:
Ham, Pineapple (Well drained crushed works great) and mushroom
Pepperoni, mushroom, peppers
Daiya mozzarella, spinach and black olives
Chicken, red onion, pineapple
Salsa ground beef, red onion, chedder Daiya or nutritional yeast

Crockpot Chipotle bacon baked beans

I really enjoy using my slow cooker for anything involving beans, for some reason if I cook them on the stove I always seem to burn them. I haven't ever tried cooking baked beans in the oven since I don't own a dutch oven. As always these are dairy free, egg free, soy free,  nut and sesame free. They also happen to be gluten free. My husband is in love with these beans, he says he will never go back to eating canned beans again :)

Chipotle Bacon baked beans

3cups dried white beans (I buy my beans at the market and they aren't labeled but I am almost certain that they are great northern beans)
2 cup bacon chopped fine (I used bacon ends that I buy by the case and sent it through my food grinder)
1 onion minced
5 cloves garlic minced
1/2 cup maple syrup
1/4 cup black strap molasses
2 tbsp Dijon mustard
1 400 ml can of tomato sauce
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 cup boiling water
1/3 cup palm sugar
1 tsp Chipotle chili powder



Soak beans in ample water and 1 tsp of baking soda overnight
In the morning boil beans with ample fresh water for 10 minutes
Drain and rinse
Put the rest of ingredients in crockpot  and mix well
Cook on high for 4-6 hours stirring periodically, until beans are cooked.
Serve with bread, biscuits or corn bread.

Delicious biscuits I made, I will post the recipe another day

Blueberry raspberry mini muffins

 I've got a thing for muffins, they are a delicious comfort food. After a night up with a cranky toddler I decided to make some muffins. I strongly dislike overly sugary muffins that leave you with a sugar high after eating them. With Orions allergies I have to make sure these are dairy and egg free as usual, I find it is helpful to look for vegan recipes. As usual I can never find a recipe that I like so I altered one to suit my purposes. I can't ever decide which type of berries to use, so I used them both! Mini muffins are perfect for portion control and for toddler hands. My toddler has such a short attention span, I was forever finding full size muffins with one bite taken stashed in creative places. FYI a stale month old muffin can double as a cat toy at the most inopportune moments. Enjoy these we certainly did :)

Original unaltered recipe here at egglesscooking.com





1/4 cup Ground Flaxseed

3 tbsp hemp hearts
1 and 3/4 cups Whole Wheat Pastry Flour
1 and 1/2 teaspoons  Alumininum free Baking Soda
1/2 teaspoon Cinnamon

1/2 teasspoon epicure gingerbread spice
1/4 teaspoon  salt
1 cup Coconut Milk
1 tablespoon Apple Cider Vinegar
1/4 cupVegetable Oil
1/4 cup Maple Syrup

1/4 cup Local Honey
1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract
1  cup Blueberries (fresh or frozen)

1/2 cup raspberries


Preheat oven to 375F/190C for 15 minutes. Line a muffin tin with paper liners and grease it well with non stick cooking spray.
Mix together the  milk and vinegar; set aside.
In a large bowl combine together the ground flax seed, hemp hearts, flour, baking soda, cinnamon, gingerbread spice and salt.
In a medium bowl, whisk together the maple syrup, oil, milk mixture, vanilla extract and orange zest.
Make a well in the dry ingredients and stir in the wet ingredients with a rubber spatula until just moistened. Fold in blueberries and raspberries

Scoop into mini muffin pan, fill each cup 2/3 full.

Bake for 12 minutes

Lemon dill shrimp with green beans

Sometimes you have a night that you just really don't feel like cooking, or you get home late and don't have much time. In these cases it is nice to have an easy meal to fall back on, everything in this meal is something from the pantry or freezer. If I am in a big hurry I will make brown basmati rice or sprouted brown rice. Tonight I wasn't in a huge hurry so I made Calrose brown rice. This recipe is dairy less, casein free, gluten free, egg free. It contains no soy or peanuts. We are lemon lovers in our house, I have included a less lemony version.

2.5 cups chicken broth
1/2 cup lemon juice + 1 tbsp (For the less lemony version only use 1/4 cup lemon juice)
3 tbs lemon dilly dip mix (Epicure)
4 cloves garlic minced
1/2 tsp fresh ground pepper
1 tbsp coconut or other high heat stable oil
2 cups cooked shrimp
 3 tbsp corn starch (For the less lemony version only use 2.5 tbsp of corn starch)
2.5 cups Frozen green beans (I used mixed green and yellow beans since that's what I had in the freezer)

Thaw shrimp, toss shrimp in tbsp lemon dilly, 1 tbsp lemon juice pepper, pepper and garlic, set aside.
Whisk together lemon juice, chicken broth and and remaining  dip mix, reserve 1/4 cup liquid and whisk in corn starch.
On medium high heat sautee shrimp 2 minute in the coconut oil , take out of pan and set aside.
Pour first broth mixture in pan scraping pan bottom well,  add beans bring to boil, then lower to a simmer covered for 3 minutes. Whisk in reserved broth (You may need to give it a little stir before you pour it in), making sure you are stirring constantly, mixture should thicken nicely.
When mixture is thickened put your shrimp back in stir well and simmer for 2 minutes.
Serve over rice

Vegan fudgey brownies

This is the first baking recipe I have ever created from scratch. I originally wasn't going to make up my own recipe for brownies but I couldn't find a recipe that had all the elements I wanted in it, so I made up my own. It isn't a huge sugar overload but still will satisfy your cravings for fudgey brownies. This recipe makes 20 brownies.

2 cups Whole wheat pastry flour
1 tsp baking powder
3/4 cup Sugar (I used white sugar for this one)
1 cup Cocoa

1 small mashed over ripe banana (I always keep some in my freezer)
1/2 cup apple sauce
1/4 cup coconut oil
2 tsp vanilla extract
3/4 strong brewed coffee
1/2 cup soy milk (Or any other dairy free milk)

1/3 cup vegan chocolate chips + 1 tsp coconut oil
1/4 cup Hemp hearts


 Preheat oven to 350F
In a large bowl mix the dry ingredients together making sure to break up any clumps
In a smaller bowl blend the dry ingredients until a uniform texture in reached.
Make a small well in your dry ingredients and stir in your wet, mix until there are no large clumps and batter is smooth, it will be really thick. Spread in a greased 8x8 pan and bake for 30 minutes.

Melt the chocolate chips and coconut oil in the microwave (Don't burn it like I did the first time)

Spread over baked brownies and sprinkle hemp hearts,
Cool cut and serve