Food Bloggers Against Hunger: Banana Oatmeal Cookies

I made it! I went a week of living on $4 a day to see what it is like to live on food stamps. I ate vegan and healthy with mostly non-processed foods from scratch. At breakfast, I ate one packet of instant oatmeal.  For most lunches, I ate salads with lettuce, corn and black beans. At dinner, I typically ate spaghetti with red sauce. I had a few sides and snacks including apples, roasted potatoes, mandarins, green beans, and tofu vegetable stir fry. It was a boring week in my kitchen but I can’t believe it only cost $28. I still had a can of green beans, 1/2 of a box of spaghetti, and a couple mandarins leftover.

Why did I spend the week eating like this? It’s all due to a wonderful event hosted by The Giving Table. Today, there are lots of bloggers posting about hunger in order to raise awareness. Check out the trailer for A Place at the Table for more information. It is a new movie from the creators of Food, Inc all about the hunger crisis in America. To get involved,  I not only ate for $4 a day one week but I also decided to make a budget-conscious recipe to share. Get ready for… banana oatmeal cookies!

This is definitely the easiest cookie to make. The best part is that it might just be the healthiest cookie ever, too! The cookies are free of dairy, eggs, flour, added sugar, and nuts (unless you want to add nuts). I almost don’t want to post the actual recipe since it’s so easy. Just one banana and a half cup of dry oats mixed together and baked at 350 for 15 minutes. They are delicious and healthy enough to eat for breakfast. Yes, I ate these for breakfast and it was guilt-free. Ok, I threw in a small handful of vegan chocolate chips too since I’m going through a chocolate chip phase. But they are still somewhat healthy.

Ingredients:

• 1 medium-sized banana
• 1/2 cup of dry oats
• Any small amount of mix ins you desire such as chocolate chips, walnuts, or cinnamon

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2. Mash together a ripe banana and the oats in a bowl with a fork. Add in any additional mix in items.

3. Form the batter into cookies on a greased cookie sheet. Bake for 15 minutes until slightly browned.

Yields: 4 cookies

Source: The Burlap Bag

Soybuttersoymilk Blueberry Biscuits

I deactivated my Facebook a couple months ago. I thought it would help me waste less time online. The time that I used to spend on Facebook, now goes toward Pinterest. Oh, well… but at least I’ve found some fun things on Pinterest. For example, I found this recipe for blueberry biscuits. I’ve had plain biscuits plenty of times but never tried them with fruit thrown in. I think I will have to put fruit in every time now. It almost makes the biscuits healthier or at least I can keep telling myself that.

Ingredients:

• 5 Tbsp of Earth Balance butter or other vegan butter substitute
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/3 cup of white sugar
• 4 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 cup soy or almond milk, chilled
• 3 oz of fresh blueberries

Directions:

1. Place the vegan butter in the freezer for one hour.

2. Preheat the oven to 450 degrees.

3. Mix together the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt.

4. Pour the milk into the flour mixture and stir together.

5. Add the blueberries and frozen butter. Spread the butter evenly through the dough.

6. Flour a surface and roll out the dough to 1/4 to 1/2 inch thick.

7. Cut out the biscuits using a biscuit cutter or cookie cutter.

8. Place biscuits on an ungreased pan.

9. Bake for 10-12 minutes.

Yields: 12 biscuits

Adapted from: KenKatschke.com

Chocolate Almond Blueberry Muffins

When I first started out in the kitchen, I changed the rules everyday when it came to cooking. I substituted ingredients and changed measurement sizes in literally every recipe I made. Most of the time, I didn’t even used a recipe. But with baking, it was a different story. I was intimidated since baking needs to follow exact measuring, timing, and ingredients. However, now I’m crawling out from behind this conservative approach. I’ve already experimented enough with “veganizing” non-vegan recipes and now I’m ready to just make stuff up. So here’s my late night “let’s throw random stuff in a bowl and hope it tastes like muffins” recipe.

Ingredients:

• 2 cups flour
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 Tbsp baking powder
• 1 Tbsp cocoa powder
• 1/4 cup Earth Balance or other vegan butter spread
• 1/2 cup apple sauce
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/2 tsp almond extract
• 1/2 cup chocolate almond milk
• 1 cup blueberries

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2. Mix dry ingredients and wet ingredients together in separate bowls.

3. Add the wet ingredients to the dry and mix thoroughly.

4. Divide batter evenly into paper liners.

5. Bake for 35 minutes.

Super Easy Peanut Butter and Banana Smoothie

This smoothie takes 1… maybe 2 minutes. It’s sweet without indulging too much and gives us that “protein” that our carnivore friends always worry about. I love adding peanut butter to smoothies these days because it’s creamy and fills me up between meals. I especially love this as a post-workout snack. Or as a “I’m not working out but I’m going to eat a post-workout snack anyway” snack. Either way.

Ingredients:

• 1 banana
• 1 Tbsp peanut butter
• 1 serving of protein powder (I normally just do 1/2 a scoop for mine because the brand I use has tons of protein in a full scoop)
• 1 tsp cocoa powder
• Water, as needed to thin it out (about 2-3 Tbsp)

Directions:

1. Blend all ingredients together in a blender until smooth.

Strawberry Banana Smoothie

I purchased a new smoothie maker the other day. The top part of the smoothie maker doubles as a to-go cup so it makes the process much easier. I haven’t been sick with a cold in over a year but somehow I developed a bad cold this last week. I decided a smoothie this morning might help cure the congestion.

Ingredients:

• 10 strawberries
• 1 banana
• 2/3 cup chocolate soy milk
• 2/3 cup plain or vanilla soy yogurt

Directions:

1. Cut up strawberries and banana into small chunk and blend with other ingredients until smooth.

Sunday Morning Pancakes

My sister and her fiancee are in town this weekend so I made pancakes today. Just a little more proof that veggie people can eat normal food like the rest of the world. We just eat it a little cleaner. This is their last trip home before the wedding so there is a lot going on but it’s a very exciting time, too! Definitely worthy of pancakes.

Ingredients:

• 1 1/4 cups flour
• 2 Tbsp sugar
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 1/4 cups water
• 1 Tbsp oil

Directions:

1. Mix together flour, sugar, baking powder and salt in a large bowl. Whisk together water and oil in a smaller bowl. Create a well in the dry ingredients and add in the wet. Blend together with a spoon.

2. Heat a large skillet over medium heat and spray surface with cooking spray. Spoon batter onto skillet and cook until it bubbles. Flip and cook until both sides are light brown. Repeat until all batter is used up.

Yields 10 pancakes or enough for 3 people

Source: All-Recipes

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Blueberry Muffins

Tem-pey-con

Ok so I’ve made up a word. I’ll confess. It’s supposed to be a cross between tempeh and bacon but it’s also a tribute to Peyton Manning. So just deal with it. I love Peyton. I would enjoy being married to him. I think we would have cute kids. Not that I’ve ever thought about marrying him and having 3 kids named Peyton II, Peyton III and Tony Dungy II. We would obviously have three sons just like Archie. And a golden doodle named Vince Lombardi.

Anyway,  all of Indianapolis and pretty much the entire state of Indiana (except for the part by Chicago which should technically surrender and become part of Illinois) is super depressed about Peyton leaving. Like super depressed. And this is part of a tribute to a legend who turned a silly little city into a really great town. It was great to have him here and we are sad to say good bye. As for my future with Peyton, I guess I could get used to Miami. Or Arizona. Or Denver. Or Washington. For now, let’s move on to the “bacon.”

Bacon was on of the last “red meat” items for me to give up. I don’t think I’ve eaten bacon for at least 8 years now. When I did eat it, I enjoyed it. However, there are much better things to consume. Like tempeh. I’ll admit: tempeh took me a while to warm up to. I still prefer tofu and seitan over tempeh but they serve other distinct purposes. Tempeh consists of fermented soybeans and it is probably the best item to use for fake bacon. It can be sliced thinly without completely crumbling.

I first had fake bacon during my freshman year of college. I had been a vegetarian for about two years by that point. Our RA (resident assistant) in our dorm made breakfast for everyone one morning. At the end, she announced it was completely vegetarian from the sausages to the bacon. No one seemed very amused (I was excited!) but it was probably just too early in the morning for college students to care about nutrition. Anyway, I found it interesting that she announced this fact shortly after serving the fake bacon. She probably waited until this point because the bacon looked like this:

Ah Morningstar. Bless your little hearts for trying. There’s really no confusing a meat eater here. With many meat products there’s not much use in trying to “veganize” it. And why try? I hate this Freudian idea that food companies have. They insist that we all have meat envy. I very rarely will eat “fake meat” products unless it’s something I’ve made myself. Fake meat can also be incredibly expensive in comparison to the costs of making “meat” yourself. So here’s a DIY bacon recipe from good ole Vegetarian Times. I definitely want to try this on a BLT asap.

Tempacon
Ingredients

• 1 8-oz. pkg. tempeh, sliced into 24 very thin slices
• 1/4 cup low-sodium soy sauce
• 2 Tbs. apple cider vinegar
• 1 tsp. light brown sugar
• 1/2 tsp. ground cumin
• 1/2 tsp. ancho chile powder
• 2 tsp. liquid smoke, optional
• 1 Tbs. canola oil
• Smoked paprika, optional

Directions

1. Lay tempeh slices in 2 13- x 9-inch baking dishes. Bring soy sauce, vinegar, brown sugar, cumin, ancho chile powder, and ½ cup water to a boil in small saucepan. Boil 1 minute, then remove from heat, and stir in liquid smoke, if using. Pour over tempeh slices. Let cool, then cover and chill 2 hours, or overnight.

2. Preheat oven to 300°F. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper. Carefully transfer tempeh slices to prepared baking sheet, and discard marinade.

3. Brush slices with canola oil, and sprinkle with paprika, if desired. Bake 10 to 15 minutes, or until beginning to brown. Flip tempeh slices, brush with oil, and bake 5 to 7 minutes more, or until crisp and dark brown.

Source: http://www.vegetariantimes.com/recipes/10560

Morningstar picture source: http://www.morningstarfarms.com/morningstar-farms-veggie-bacon-strips.html

Tofu Scramble

Substituting eggs can be tricky. There isn’t one egg substitute that will universally work in all recipes. When it comes to scrambled eggs, tofu is the perfect choice.This recipe is super easy to whip up quickly in the morning using just a few ingredients. I typically have all these items on hand anyway. I made this scrambled dish as part of my valentine’s day meal and I am just now getting around to posting the recipe I used. I know. Shame. But it’s delicious so it is totally worth the wait. I hope to get that berry quinoa posted here soon. I love quinoa for breakfast – such a super food! But back to the tofu!

Tofu Scramble

Ingredients

• 1/2 yellow onion, diced
• 1/2 green bell pepper, diced
• 1 block tofu, drained and pressed
• 2 tbsp oil or margarine
• 1 tsp garlic powder
• 1 tsp onion powder
• 1 tbsp soy sauce
• 2 tbsp nutritional yeast
• 1/2 tsp turmeric (optional)

Directions

Slice the tofu into approximately one inch cubes. Then, using either your hands or a fork, crumble it slightly.

Sautee onion, pepper and crumbled tofu in oil for 3-5 minutes, stirring often. Add remaining ingredients, reduce heat to medium and allow to cook 5-7 more minutes, stirring frequently and adding more oil if needed.

Source: http://vegetarian.about.com/od/breakfastrecipe1/r/TofuScramble.htm

Valentine’s Day

Fruit quinoa and scrambled tofu for breakfast.