Mustard Carrot Slaw

Photo by norwichnuts

Vegan Carrot Slaw

This slaw my husband came up with one day when he was trying to figure out what he could eat on his restrictive diet and I wasn't home.  If you want to shake it up and you aren't vegan, you can throw in some tuna.

• 1 cup chopped cabbage
• 1 cup shredded carrots
• 1/2 cup chives
• 1/4 cup cilantro (optional)
• 1/2 cup celery sliced
• 1/4 cup mustard (or to taste)
• 1 tablespoon vinegar
• salt and pepper to taste
• 1/4 teaspoon thyme
• 1/4 rosemary

Mix the mustard and vinegar and spices together.  Toss all the vegetables in a large bowl.  Add the mustard mix.  Serve and enjoy!

Surviving a Thanksgiving Dinner Away With Allergies

My newest Parenting Squad article tackles the tough topic of how to survive grandma's when you've got kids with food allergies...and the holiday revolves entirely around food.
Yep.  Pretty much a nightmare.  But you can do minimal planning and have a happy holiday season without annoying grandma.

How to Survive a Thanksgiving Away with Food Allergies

Easy Crock Pot Vegan Apple Crisp

Here's another gem I discovered this weekend.  I got creative and just threw this together and it happened to turn out fantastic!  Take it to Thanksgiving or have it for dessert tonight.  The best part about it is you can make the apple pie filling in the crock pot all day, mix up the crumble and throw it in the oven for 15 minutes and have an amazing finish to dinner.  Vegan and very little sugar to boot.

Before the magic

Crock Pot Vegan Apple Crisp
serves 6-8

• 6-8 apples, peeled, cored, and sliced
• a handful or two of raisins
• 2 teaspoons cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 3 tablespoons honey

For the Crisp Part

• 1 3/4 cup oatmeal
• 1 cup raw organic sugar
• 2 teaspoons cinnamon
• 1/2 cup butter substitute, like smart balance

Throw the apple part in the crock pot and cook on LOW for 6 hours or so.  Place the apple mixture in a baking dish and pre-heat oven to 350 degrees.  Mix in a medium to small bowl all of the crisp ingredients with a small fork.  Spread it out all over the apple dish and bake for about 15 minutes, or until the top is golden brown.  Serve warm.

Vegan Gluten-Free Corn Chowder

This is a pretty surprising recipe.  I've never been a big corn chowder, cream of corn kind of gal, nut my husband loves it, so I got creative and came up with something pretty dang good.  I made a f aux roux, (if that's too many silent x's for you already, hang in there, this recipe is wicked simple,) and thickened the chowder with roasted acorn squash mixed in. 

(A quick trick, buy a bunch of Acorn squash when they go on sale, cut them in half, scoop out the seeds and roast them face down in a baking sheet with a thin layer of water, and bake at 350 degrees in the oven for about 45 minutes.  When they cool, scoop out the filling and store in baggies and freeze.  You can use the filling for anything, cakes, soups, thickeners in sauces, and it adds vitamins and fiber to your meal.)

Vegan GF Corn Chowder
Serves 4

• 1 medium white onion, diced
• 1tablespoon oil
• 2 tablespoons cornstarch
• 1-2 cups rice milk
• 5-6 tablespoons roasted acorn squash
• 3-4 cloves crushed garlic
• salt and pepper to taste
• approximately 1 1/2 cups of corn

Warm up the oil in a nice sized skillet and saute the onion until soft.  Add the cornstarch in and blend until mixed in.  Add 1 cup rice milk.  Add in the garlic and squash.  Keep mixing and add in more rice milk as needed, depending on the amount of thickness you desire.  Add in the salt and pepper and corn at the last.  Serve hot and with spicy sauce, if you're like me.

If you like your corn chowder slightly sweeter, add honey until you get the taste you're after.

Creamy Vegan Potato Soup

I whipped this up and it turned out fantastic.  Best part of it is, I cooked it in the crock pot.

Creamy Vegan Potato Soup

1/2 chopped white onion
2 teaspoons oil
4-5 potatoes diced and peeled
4-5 crushed cloves of garlic
1 tablespoon crushed up raw cashews
3 cups rice milk
salt to taste
2 sprigs rosemary

Saute the onion in a pan with the oil until slightly soft.  Place the onion in the bottom of the crock pot.  Add the garlic, potatoes, cashews, rosemary and rice milk.  The rice milk should come up to about halfway up the potato mixture.  Add a couple teaspoons of kosher salt.  Cook on Low for about 6-8 hours, or until most the potatoes are soft.  Add more rice milk if needed, and salt to taste.  Serve with your favorite gluten-free french bread.
Potato

Gluten Free/Vegan Chocolate Pumpkin Muffins

These things are, as Jeff said, the prettiest muffins I've ever made.  And they're good too.  You won't believe how well the chocolate and the pumpkin meld together in a lovely dance across your tongue.  They make one beautiful baby.  At only 140 Calories per muffin, less than a gram of fat and 2 grams of fiber each, you can use these babies to get you in summer shape as the winter months creep by. 

Gluten-Free/Vegan Chocolate Pumpkin Muffins

Makes 12

• 1 1/2 cup arrowhead gluten free flour (you can use 1/2 cornstarch and 1/2 buckwheat flour if you'd like,)
• 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 3 tablespoons unsweetened baking cocoa
• 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
• 3/4 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 tablespoons flaxseed meal
• 6 tablespoons water
• 1 cup pumpkin puree
• 1/2 cup applesauce
• 1/2 cup honey

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Mix all the dry ingredients together in large bowl, then mix in the wet.  Pour into a greased cupcake pan, until all the batter is evenly divided.  Bake for 18 minutes.  Serve with a wink and a smile.  Bring to Thanksgiving Dinner and daringly put it on the dessert table.
Pumpkin

Homemade Applesauce in 5 Easy steps

I made applesauce today with a bunch of fresh picked organic apples.  It was my first try and I did alright.  It's pretty simple.

1. Take a bunch of apples.
2. Peel, core and slice them.
3. Put them in a giant pot with an inch of water on the bottom.
4. Heat on high, then down to medium high until apples are very soft and mushy.
5. Add cinnamon.

Wonderful.

 This is a heck of a lot easier than I thought it would be.  I'd always been very intimidated by the process.  Probably because of the boiling hot lava apple blobs popping out of the pot like a terrible bog of doom.  But I did it and survived.  Yes, a lid helped.

Apples

Gluten-Free Vegan Pumpkin Pie

I know I am a tad bit obsessed with pumpkin right now, but it's just the perfect food.  I won't even mention the vitamins and fiber, and naturally sweet flesh...it's just plain scrumptious.  So I tried out a recipe that blew me away last night.  I adapted it from gluten free goddess, (love her!)  It's great because I don't even have to mess with the crust, (not my favorite part of baking.)  It creates it's own delightful hint of a crust that dares you to have another slice.
Go ahead.
Bite into it.
It's such a sexy pie.
Plus, I broke down the calories, (because I couldn't resist,) and guess what?  Only 150 calories per slice, 4.6 grams of fat and 2.5 grams of fiber.  If you're doing weight watchers, this is only 3 points per slice.  Yumm.  So this is like marrying the hot guy, who loves kids and you and is handy around the house.  (Basically, my husband.)

Without further ado, the best part of Thanksgiving...

Pumpkin!

Gluten Free Vegan Pumpkin Pie
Makes 8 slices


15-oz can pumpkin
1 1/2 cups almond breeze vanilla milk
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon flaxseed meal
3/4 cup organic light brown sugar
1/2 cup flour
2 tablespoons cornstarch
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon xanthan gum
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
Preheat oven to 350 degrees and lightly grease pie pan.  Blend all the ingredients together in a stand mixer until luxuriously smooth.  Pour into pie pan and bake for just under an hour, (until the edges are brown and the top is firm.)  Let cool slightly to allow it to set.  Enjoy.

The texture at first made my husband wonder if it needed more time.  But the pie sets beautifully, with a wonderful silk texture that will win even the most critical pie eaters. 
Pumpkin

GF/ Honey Cornbread

Just in time for Thanksgiving!

Honey Cornbread

Gluten-Free/Dairy-Free/Egg-Free Cornbread

1 1/4 cups Bob's Red Mill Cornmeal
1/2 cup Masa Corn Flour 
1/2 cup Cornstarch 
1/3 cup honey
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons Xanthan Gum
2 tablespoons flaxseed meal
6 tablespoons water
1 cup almond milk (or soy or rice)
1/3 cup canola oil

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  Place a well oiled iron skillet in it to warm if you like your cornbread with crusty edges.  Blend together all the ingredients, (measuring the oil out before the honey so the honey won't stick to the 1/3 measuring cup.)  Pour into the preheated skillet, (or another greased baking dish) and cook for 25-30 minutes or until edges are lightly browned and the top is firm.  Serve warm with honey drizzled on top.

Gluten-Free Egg-Free Pumpkin Cookies

I am going to do a series of recipes leading up to Thanksgiving that will involve gluten free, egg free and dairy free ingredients.  Most of the time, I try to do all three.  But sometimes, it will be one or two of them.  In any case, Thanksgiving is a great time to branch out and try new things, and these are the weeks to get practicing!  Good luck and have fun.

These cookies are perfect to bring over to someone's home if you'll be away this Thanksgiving.  You can even stow them in your luggage if you have to make a flight.  Yummy.

Photo by Crystl

Gluten-Free/Egg-Free/Dairy-Free Pumpkin Cookies

• 1 cup cornstarch
• 1 cup white rice flour
• ¼ cup masa flour (or sorghum flour)
• 1 teaspoon xanthan gum
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1 ½ teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
• 1 teaspoon baking powder (gluten-free kind)
• ½ teaspoon baking soda
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 1 cup melted butter (or dairy-free margarine)
• 1 cup packed brown sugar
• 1 (15 oz.) can pureed pumpkin
• 2 tablespoons flaxseed meal
• 6 tablespoons water
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 (12 oz) packages chocolate chips (or dairy free chocolate chips)

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease baking sheet.
    
2. Mix cornstarch, rice flour, masa flour, cinnamon, pumpkin pie spice, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a medium bowl. Beat butter and brown sugar in large mixer bowl until creamy. Beat in pumpkin, flaxseed meal, water and vanilla extract. Gradually beat in flour mixture. Stir in chocolate chips. Drop by rounded tablespoon onto prepared baking sheets.
    
3. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes or until edges are lightly browned. Cool on baking sheets for 2 minutes. Move to wire rack to cool. Serve warm.

Pumpkin

GF Dairy/Free Egg/FreePumpkin Pancakes

Want to know what my family has been living off of for breakfasts lately?  Pumpkin pancakes.  I love the fall, this recipe makes it feel like the season has arrived.  Bonus: high fiber, lots of vitamin A and low sugar makes this recipe great for building up your kid's immunity against back to school cold and flu bugs.

Photo by Shelly_Ginger

GF Dairy/Free Egg/Free Pumpkin Pancakes

1 cup pumpkin puree
2 tablespoons oil
2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
1 1/2 cup rice milk
3 tablespooons honey (or brown sugar)
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 tablespoon flaxseed meal
3 tablespoons water
2 cups cornstarch/white rice flour blend (1 cup of each)
1/2 teaspoon xanthan gum
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 teaspoon nutmeg
1 teaspoon allspice

1. Blend in a standing mixer the pumpkin puree, oil, vinegar, rice milk, honey, vanilla, flaxseed meal, and water until well blended.  
2. In a separate bowl, mix in the flour blend, xanthan gum, baking soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg and allspice until well blended.
3. Add in the flour mix to the pumpkin mix until well blended.
4. Pour onto a preheated, nonstick griddle at about 325 degrees, 1/4 cup of batter per pancake.  If the batter seems too thick, spread it around with a spoon.  Turn over when bubbles begin to form  Serve hot and with your choice of topping.

Pumpkin

Gluten Free Salad Dressings

The best way to ensure your salad dressing is gluten free, or dairy free, egg free, vegetarian...etc...is to make it yourself.  You can make salad dressing cheap and easy, saving money and preservatives from those bottled, overpriced things on the supermarket shelf.  Also you won't be wasting any plastic that will just fill landfills, and you only have to make as much or as little as you need.  It's really a no-brainer.  Add to the fact that your guests will be so impressed at the gourmet touch to your dinner...you don't have to tell them how easy it is.

Homemade, Healthy, Gluten-Free Salad Dressings

Photo by erinmahollitz