Mom's Cream of Wheat

- slightly more than 1/3 cup cream of wheat

- 1 cup unsweetened almond milk

- 3/4 cup vanilla coconut milk

- 1 tablespoon local raw honey

- about 1 cup strawberries

- about 1 cup homemade applesauce (local apples)

Boil the coconut and almond milk with the honey and strawberries. Add cream of wheat. Continue to boil about two minutes while stirring constantly. (The cream of wheat will stick to the strawberries making a kind of fruit nugget. I like these.)

Let simmer on low while casually stirring until desired consistency. Stir in applesauce before serving.

On Milk Options

My daughter has had a lot of problems with fluid in her ears. She doesn't get colds per se, it all goes into her ears. We've found that a dairy-free diet helps her get rid of that fluid.

With back-to-school, she had her first incident last weekend-- on a day we were scheduled to meet friends for pizza. Instead of pizza, we had fried chicken.

I'm a big believer in moderation, so I struggle to find a go-to substitute for dairy milk. I think it partially depends on the purpose. I like to rotate my milks, primarily because I don't want to feed everyone too much soy.

Silk Very Vanilla (soy) is the family's favorite drinking milk, though the chocolate is my husband's favorite. I often use the Unsweetened for cooking.

Silk Pure Almond is common in this house, usually vanilla for drinking. My husband likes the dark chocolate, daughter does not. 

Silk Pure Coconut in vanilla is often in the house for drinking (and fruit smoothies) and plain coconut milk for cooking (especially for dishes like Mac and cheese). 

These are the alternative milks that Target carries. Coconut milk is full of fat, which for those on a paleo diet would be considered a good thing. I'm not really a low fat cook, so I don't think we need extra fat.

Almond milk doesn't have protein and since I usually need the extra protein... But we recently tried the protein fortified So Delicious Almond milk which did not have calcium.

Today we tried Good Karma flax milk, which had lots of omegas, but no calcium or protein. But no real fat either.

We also occasionally use the almond milk and soy milk from Aldi. My daughter swears their vanilla almond milk is the best.

15 years ago I always used Rice Dream rice milk that I used to purchase by the case. The nutritional value was minimal and it was all carbohydrates. 

So I still don't have a go-to milk. And rotation is not a bad thing.

Food blues

We're struggling with a very tight budget and trying to get daughter through a long morning at school with no snack.

I haven't cooked much lately. 

So today, since I went shopping yesterday at Wegmans, I tried to make up for my recent string of pasta and hamburger.

Breakfast was half a peanut butter sandwich, papaya fruit salad (from a can, in juice), and Yummy Mummy monster cereal with protein fortified almond milk. (Did I mention daughter is having ear issues again so we've gone dairy free for her?)

I had a smoothie mid-morning of frozen strawberries, almond milk, vanilla yogurt and carnation breakfast essentials powder.

For lunch, I experimented with wedge salads for husband and I: wedges of iceberg lettuce, with Annie's lemon-chive dressing, sliced almonds, golden raisins and mandarin orange slices, accompanied by carrot sticks, a taste of tuna and a few bites of ham.

Breakfast after bloodwork

As some may know, I have a past history of stress-induced severe anemia. This is what ended my almost decade of a vegetarian lifestyle. This also ended my relationship with my former doctor, and led my to a new team of medical professionals who make me feel like they care whether I live or die.

That's a good thing in a doctor. 

So, today I pledged I would take care of my annual bloodwork. Fasting. And of course, my child, the early riser, sleeps until 9. 

But I manage not to eat and we walk to the lab about a half-mile from the house. It's about 9:30 and I'm sweaty already. 

We get home at 10:10 (walking home I'm mentally calculating the distance to the nearest diner). I am completely inept at making coffee. No matter what I do, my coffee turns out double strength. This made me very popular in the Lehigh Valley News Group newsroom. Reporters like caffeine.

To make a decent cup of coffee, I have to use my little espresso machine. Which I did. I took advantage of the fact that I had the espresso brewer out to warm and steam some almond milk to give my daughter a hot cup of chai with local raw honey. I drank what didn't fit in her cup and it was good!

Breakfast was scrambled egg wraps, with a pinch of garlic pepper and a drizzle of Annie's Organic Cowgirl Ranch and a few sprinkles of parmesan cheese.

Cherry pancakes

My husband tricked me into making vegan pancakes. Or at least mixing a batter. I don't handle the holidays well and this year has left us with fairly empty cupboards since my daughter had a double ear infection and some unexpected medical expenses.

This batter was fairly pasty and we're still adding almond milk to thin it out.

- about 3/4 cup unsweetened applesauce
- 1 cup organic white flour
- 1/2 cup ground flaxseed
- 1/4 cup coconut flour
- 1/4 cup sourgum flour
- 2 tablespoons blackstrap molasses
- about 3 tablespoons liquid coconut oil
- 2 tablespoons baking powder
- pinch salt
- about 2 cups vanilla almond milk
- 1 cup cherries

The flavor is delicious!

Super Sweet dairy free ice cream

It's darn cold outside so of course I choose today to make ice cream.

In the ice cream maker I place:
- 1 1/2 cups very vanilla soy milk
- 1 cup vanilla almond milk
- 1/4 cup strawberry syrup imported from Beirut
- 1 teaspoon Bols blue curaçao liquor

(The preliminary tests indicate this is going to be WAY too sweet)

Crêpes with coconut flour

We invented these crêpes and served with berry filling:
- 1 cup vanilla almond milk
- 2 eggs
- 1 cup unbleached white flour
- 3 tablespoons coconut flour
- 2 tablespoons ground flax
- 1 tablespoon local raw honey

These were delicious.

Butternut squash ravioli and sushi

So, tonight was child's night to cook dinner. She wanted to make ravioli. I got her some vegan butternut squash ravioli.

She opted to make a cream sauce with vanilla almond milk, which came to a great consistency but had a flavor way too sweet for me. She also selected broccoli to serve in the sauce with the ravioli and also a side of Sushi from Wegmans.

Our seven year old neighbor cams over to help us cook, which was a tad much for my nerves. He also ate almost a whole loaf of my freshly baked, specially purchased bâtard bread.

Since my child shouldn't have dairy, I served the bread with extra virgin, cold-pressed olive oil with basil and parsley.

Her cream sauce was roughly:
- 1 tablespoon coconut oil
- 1 tablespoon extra virgin oil
- 2 tablespoons flour
- pepper, garlic pepper, basil, parsley, Italian herb seasoning, mustard and nutmeg
- 1 cup vanilla almond milk

It was edible, but not something I would repeat. I suggested some olive oil drizzled on them.

Honey Cornbread

At one of my vegan cooking classes taught by Eileen Breslin, I got this recipe for cornbread:

http://angelfoodcooking.blogspot.com/2010/08/cornbread-and.html?m=1

And it's a family favorite.

What I like about vegan cooking is its minimalism. Unless you're talking about stuff like quinoa or seitan, it is usually stuff you have laying around the house.

A vegan doesn't panic if he runs out of milk and eggs during a snowstorm.

So in addition to the health benefits and animal rights, veganism offers simplicity in the kitchen. And I like that.

Today's cornbread might not be considered vegan by hardcore strict vegan standards because I used honey. The original recipe uses sugar, but I thought honey (from a local orchard) would help our immune systems. We're allergy sufferers in this house.

Today's recipe:
HONEY CORNBREAD
Preheat oven to 350. Batter must go into the oven immediately for best results.

Dry ingredients (mix separately from wet, then combine with dry, mix until moistened and bake 30-40 minutes)
- 1 1/2 cup cornmeal
- 1/2 cup unbleached white flour
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/4 teaspoon fresh ground sea salt

Wet ingredients
- 1/4 cup local honey
- 2 tablespoons blackstrap molasses
- 3/4 cup unsweetened almond milk
- 1/2 cup unsweetened Silk soymilk
- 1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar

Multigrain Batter Bread

This recipe is adapted from the Betty Crocker 25th Anniversary cookbook.

I needed to use up some unsweetened vanilla almond milk that my daughter did not like, so I opted for bread over waffles or cinnamon buns.

I will post the original ingredients first and list my adaptations (which made the recipe vegan) in parenthesis.

FOUR-GRAIN BATTER BREAD
(mine is not four grain)
- 3 1/2 cups all purpose flour (I used unbleached white, and I substituted 1/2 cup whole wheat flour into the mix)
- 2 tablespoons sugar (okay, now the vegan way I would do this is agave nectar, but I also use local honey since I am not vegan)
- 1 teaspoon salt (I use fresh ground sea salt)
- 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
- 2 packages yeast (I don't use the packages. I have a brick in the fridge. I used about 2 tablespoons)
- 2 cups very warm milk, 120-130 degrees (I used unsweetened vanilla almond milk)
- 1/2 cup very warm water
- 1/2 cup whole wheat flour (I used rye)
- 1/2 cup wheat germ (I used Bob's Five Grain hot cereal)
- 1/2 cup quick cooking oats (I used regular)
- 1 1/4 cups more white flour
Cornmeal, olive oil

Mix the first set of flour, the sugar, salt, baking soda and yeast in a large bowl. Add milk and warm water and stir (with wooden spoon) until moistened.

Stir 3-5 minutes.

Add remaining ingredients (not cornmeal or olive oil) until it forms a stiff batter.

Grease two loaf pans and dust with corn meal.

Divide batter between them and shaped with floured hands. Cover and let rise 30 minutes.

Preheat oven to 400. Bake 25 minutes until loaves are golden brown. Cool on wire racks.

Overnight French Toast

I made three loaves of cinnamon raisin bread today-- my best loaves to date-- but something always has to go wrong and in this case, I forgot to grease the loaf pans. One of the three loaves stuck and ended up slightly mangled on the bottom so I prepped overnight French toast. I have a really good recipe but I didn't feel like finding my recipe. I adapted this one from Epicurious.com:

http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Overnight-French-Toast-2083

I sliced the bread and greased a cake pan with butter.

In a bowl I mixed:
- 1/2 stick melted butter
- 4 large eggs
- 1/2 cup brown sugar
- about 2 tablespoons blackstrap molasses
- about 3 tablespoons local honey
- 1/2 cup unsweetened soy milk
- 1 cup vanilla almond milk

I dipped one side of the slices that would line the bottom of the pan in the mix and placed that side facing down in the pan. I poured most of the mix over top. I added one sliced banana and topped with the remaining bread and pored the remaining liquid over.

Cover and chill overnight.

Bake at 400 in the morning. It says 10 minutes.

In reality, it took 20 minutes on 400, then I cranked the oven to 450, cooked it five minutes, flipped it the best I could, and put it back in five minutes.

Rag Tag Meals

tortellini

I made peach muffins yesterday which I thought were mediocre, but my daughter ate six of them so I could be wrong. I didn't post the recipe because I ran out of flour, brown sugar, baking soda and baking powder. I ended up mixing half flour and half oats.

For dinner last night, I made cheese tortellini with a butter/olive oil sauce, with fresh parsley, kielbasa, and peas.

For dinner tonight, we had breakfast. Pancakes my husband made over the weekend and froze. Strawberry ones with real maple syrup. Veggie sausage. Smoothie of raspberry Chobani yogurt, coconut milk, unsweetened soy milk and vanilla carnation instant breakfast. And hot generic grape nuts, with raw local honey, dried blueberries, vanilla almond milk and a touch of blackstrap molasses.

Cinnamon Raisin Cream of Wheat and Nettle Tea

So, as I hoped, feared and expected, my doctor's appt yesterday revealed an iron deficiency. Luckily, not anemia, but a drop in stored iron from my winter high of 46 to a June 10 low of 13. This means I'm back on OTC iron tablets, vitamin C and a multivitamin.

So, I whipped up this iron-rich breakfast for our summer café: cinnamon raisin cream of wheat, lavender nettle tea and Bolthouse Farms mango-cherry Immunity-C Smoothie.

I had already told myself I would splurge on one of those smoothies when I saw Target had the smoothies on sale for $3.49!!! I dilute mine and use it to take my vitamins.

The nettle tea came loose from the local Nature's Way Market. I didn't know how strong it should be so I just dumped some in the bottom of my French press with some food grade lavender. The child likes it with honey. I prefer it straight.

CINNAMON-RAISIN CREAM OF WHEAT
Heat to almost boiling:
- 1 cup vanilla almond milk
- some sugar (less than 2 tablespoons)
- about one heaping tablespoon cinnamon
- one large handful raisins
Then when just starting to bubble add:
- 4 tablespoons farina

Stir until thickened

Dairy Free Banana Bread

I needed something to accompany my sweet potato soup and somehow I thought of banana bread. I adapted this recipe from the Betty Crocker 40th anniversary cookbook.

- 1 cup sugar (mine was more like a 1/2 cup, I ran out)
- 1/2 cup margarine (I used 1/4 cup of Earth Balance)
- 2 eggs (mine are fresh off the farm)
- 4 medium ripe bananas, mashed
- 1/2 cup vanilla almond milk
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 2 1/2 cups unbleached white flour
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 cup chopped walnuts
- that raisin syrup I had in the back of the freezer for ages

Place oven rack in lowest position. Grease bottom of small cake pan with walnut oil. Preheat oven to 350. Mix margarine and sugar. Add eggs and stir. Add bananas, milk and vanilla. Mix. Stir in remaining ingredients except nuts. Stir.

Put 3/4 of batter in pan and spread evenly. Add raisin syrup and half the nuts. Add the remaining nuts to the remaining batter and top the "cake." bake an hour? Or will it go quicker? Because it's shallower than a loaf.

I cooked it about 40 minutes. It is the best banana bread/cake I ever made!!!

Crockpot oatmeal II

Today we started talking about oats and got hungry for crockpot oatmeal. Crockpot oatmeal can be a super hot breakfast, but it requires some forethought. And while you're supposed to cook on low overnight, it probably would only take a couple hours if you turned the heat up. The trick seems to be to make sure there's enough liquid to keep it from drying up since the oats absorb over time.

This can be a very hearty vegan breakfast if you use alternative milks and a margarine product for the butter. I'm trying mine tonight with almond milk for the first time. Silk's new vanilla almond milk is a favorite of my daughter.

Grease the crockpot.

Mix:
- one cup oats, rolled oats NOT instant ( I used one and a half)
- 2 cups milk ( I used about 1.5 cups vanilla almond milk, 3/4 cup soy milk and 1/4 cup whole cow's milk)
- 1 tablespoon melted butter
- 1 chopped apple (I used two)
- 1/4 cup brown sugar
- 1/2 cup raisins
- 1/2 cup walnuts ( I used pecans)
My other add-ins:
- 1/4 cup chopped prunes
- 2 tablespoons vanilla white chocolate chips
- 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
- 3/4 teaspoon fresh ground cinnamon 
- a few chopped dates

Doctored Brownies

So, I had hoped to watch the World Cup (France vs. Mexico) at the local mexican restaurant and introduce my daughter to world soccer, but the restaurant did not have enough interest and canceled the showing.

We used the laptop to stream the game live from ESPN to our television and thus began our new obsession. And after Mexico trounced France, we had dinner at the Mexican restaurant.

The American game today was full of drama and emotion. It ended a few minutes before lunch so I fried up some of those Wegmans spinach feta peorogies.

While I did that, I had my daughter whip up some Duncan Hines brownies. In the house for those emergency chocolate attacks.

The fun with boxed brownies is all about the substitutions.

Instead of two eggs, you could use applesauce. (4 TBS for each egg)
Instead of water, you could use coffee.
Instead of pure vegetable or canola oil, I was wondering what would happen if I included some walnut oil.

Now, in this batch, I stuck to the directions but added lots of chocolate chips and some caramel candies. Then I scooped them into muffin tins since I don't own a brownie pan.

We baked at 325 for 30 minutes.

When they cool, I'm having one with a BIG glass of almond milk.

Arroz con leche

My daughter has a fever today, and a friend recommended Arroz con leche for her.
I found this recipe (and some more complicated) on Cooks.com:
http://www.cooks.com/rec/view/0,1913,144182-233205,00.html

This was their list of ingredients:
1/2 c. white rice, uncooked
1/2 cinnamon stick
1 1/2 c. water
1 c. sweetened condensed milk
2 1/2 tbsp. raisins
Cinnamon for garnish

I didn't quite have that, so I mixed this is the steamer:

• 1 cup white rice
• 1 tablespoon cinnamin
• 3 cups soymilk (I wish I had almond milk)
• 2 tablespoons honey
• 1/2 cup raisins
  

Date breakfast

What my daughter has on her plate right now appeals to me as the perfect breakfast. Three sliced dates, some animal crackers, and a hearty handful of cashews with almond milk to drink.

I made the traditional breakfast offers:
"We have pumpkin waffles in the freezer. Bananas. Dates. Those would go well with animal crackers. We have eggs. Do any of those sound good?"

"Dates," she replied. "And animal crackers."

"Okay, but you need some protein. How about cashews or the chocolate dusted almonds?"

"Cashews."

"Would you like almonds too?"

"Just cashews."

"Pick a drink from the fridge: apple juice, grape juice, almond milk or water."

"Almond milk."

Now, I'm off to make myself a platter.

The great tofu gratin experiment

Deep breath...

This one could suck.

I started with a favorite recipe:
http://angelfoodcooking.blogspot.com/2009/11/steak-au-poivre-with-cauliflower.html
as developed by the chefs at Wegmans.

Today, I mixed the following:

• 8 ounces vanilla almond milk
• 1 teaspoon nutmeg
• 1 block soft silken tofu
• 10 ounces frozen spinach, thawed in the microwave with some water

When that got whirred together, I added

• 16 ounces cauliflower
• About 6 ounces shredded cheddar

I oiled my Le Creuset skillet with some walnut oil from my mom. And poured it inside. Back 40 minutes at 350 degrees, stirring at the midpoint.

Well, the jury is out.
I cooked it for about an hour and it's still got a layer of water to it, because the ingredients didn't solidify like animal products. By husband said it looked good and sunk a fork into it and called it 'bland.' So I tried it. It wasn't bland, it was rich with nutmeg and a hint of nut flavor. He says we just need to put it over rice to absorb that watery layer.

I say he can do it and take it for lunch.

I'm so disappointed.

Silk Pure Almond vanilla milk

So, today I went to Target and I say Silk Pure Almond milk in original and vanilla. I had to try it. It was $2.99 for the half gallon.

Now, I bought the vanilla and it tastes delicious. BUT unlike soy milk, it doesn't offer protein. Just 1 gram per serving. Part of the reason I use soy milk is for added protein. Sigh. And because flavored soy and other alternative milks don't have high fructose corn syrup and preservatives like commercial chocolate milk.

So, here's the nutritional content on 8 oz.:
90 calories
2.5 g fat (all unsaturated)
no cholesterol
150 mg sodium (that seems high)
150 mg potassium (4 % RDA)
16 g total carbs (3%) (1g as dietary fiber 4%)
Vitamin A 10%
Calcium 30%
Iron 4%
Vitamin D 25%
Vitamin E 50%
and Riboflavin, Phosphorous, Magnesium, Zinc, Copper and Manganese