Lentil Loaf

I was reminded this weekend that lentils exist.  So I browsed a bunch of lentil recipes & found one that looked interesting.  I've made a lot of pseudo-meat loaf in the past, but I'd always used frozen veggie meat crumbles.  This turned out pretty well.  It was a bit too salty/savory for me, and I'd already cut the broth back from the suggested amount.  I'll probably cut it out completely next time -- the BBQ sauce already adds enough saltiness.  I'll probably also take a suggestion from the comments & use this recipe to make veggie burgers rather than a loaf.  It had that trademark bean-based squishiness that a lot of homemade veggie burgers have.  I couldn't get it out of the pan without it turning into just a pile of lentil stuff, but it was still good.  I think you could also make this in different flavors by replacing the onions/garlic/BBQ sauce with other stuff -- chopped + pureed pineapple is what came to mind first for me, to make funky burgers that you could put grilled onions, peach salsa, and guacamole on.

Original recipe here.

• 1 1/2 cups dry lentils
• 1 cup vegetable broth
• 2 1/2 cups water
• 1 large onion, diced
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 3 tbsp olive oil
• 2 cups pre-cooked mixed wild rice (I cooked this with half broth, half water)
• 1/4 cup barbecue sauce
• 1 tsp Italian seasoning

Cook rice if you haven't already.  Mix lentils, broth, and water together, and cook until lentils are well done (squishy), about 30 minutes.  Chop up the onion (a food processor works great) & the garlic.  Sautee onion & garlic until they're softened.  Once the rice & lentils are done, mix everything together.  Oil the sides & bottom of a loaf pan -- this will fill the loaf pan all the way to the top, and maybe beyond that if you have a stumpy pan.  Bake at 350 for 1 hour.

Cereal Sunday: Bran Flakes & Maple Pecan Granola

I was getting ready to go to the supermarket today, and I decided I wanted cereal for breakfast this week.  Then I thought to myself, why have I never made my own cereal?  I've made granola before, but that's as far as I ever got.  So, I took to Google, and found myself a recipe for a non-granola cereal: bran flakes!

I used this recipe, more or less.  I accidentally bought a bit more bran than I needed, so I made 1.5x the original recipe, and I didn't want to buy another kind of flour so I made them more oat-y than nutty.

3/4 cup bran
3/4 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup oat flour (I think it'd be good with any flour)
3 tablespoons turbinado sugar (I bought this for another recipe a long time ago, and I'm slowly working my way through the box)
1/3 tsp baking powder
1/3 tsp salt
1/2 cup milk (I used hemp milk)
1/3 cup water

Mix all the dry ingredients, then add the two wet ingredients & mix it all together.  Because I made 1.5x the recipe, I should've done this in 3 batches; I didn't realize that until just now, but that's why my flakes ended up so thick.  If you're following the original recipe, take half the dough (1/3 of the dough if you're following this recipe) & put it on a cookie sheet sized piece of parchment paper.  Put a piece of plastic wrap over it & roll it out really thin.  The original recipe says to make it super thin, and I'd agree with it that it'd be best super thin.  Bake at 350 for about 10 minutes, or until the edges start to get a little crispy but the middle's still leathery.  Take it out, set it aside to cool, and do the same thing with the other half (or the other two thirds).

This is the part where I started assembling the granola, but I'll give details on that below.

Once the first sheet's cooled,  rip it up into pieces that are however big you want your flakes to be.  They don't shrink much more at this point.  You could probably just cut it into squares if you wanted to do this a little faster, though your flakes would look less pretty then.  Spread the flakes out on the cookie sheet + parchment paper, then bake at 275 until they're crispy, stirring every 5 minutes or so.  Because I made mine thick, this part took more than 20 minutes.  Take them out, let them cool, then store in an airtight container.

I decided to mix the flakes with some granola.  This is probably the best granola I've ever made, and probably among the best I've ever had, and it's super easy.

Based off of this recipe, which is on a site full of breakfast food recipes that I'll have to explore more in the future.  I halved the recipe because I only wanted enough granola (a) for me and (b) to go with the flakes.

1 1/4 cups old fashioned oats
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup chopped pecans
1/4 cup butter, melted
1/4 cup maple syrup
1/2 tsp vanilla (I almost always double the vanilla in recipes these days, so this is double what it calls for)
1/8 to 1/4 cup raisins (I forgot to add these, but I was planning on using a mix of raisins & dates)

Mix together all the dry ingredients except the raisins.  Mix together the 3 wet ingredients, then mix those two mixtures together.  Spread out, breaking the big clumps up into granola-sized pieces, on a parchment papered baking sheet (I reused the parchment paper from the flakes), bake at 325 for 15 minutes, flip the granola over, and bake for another 15 minutes.  If you're using raisins/fruit, toss those in here & bake for an extra 3 minutes.  Take it out, let it cool, and store it in your airtight container.  Super tasty, clumps perfectly, stays together, has a great texture... seriously, it's delicious granola.  The site says you can sub out any fruit or nuts, so I'll probably experiment with it some more in the future.

Breakfast is gonna be delicious tomorrow.

I made two sheets of this many thick 'n' tasty bran flakes

The only sheet of granola -- I already ate a few pieces before I took out the camera...

Vegan Banana Oatmeal Cookies

While visiting home for the holidays, we baked some delicious vegan banana oatmeal cookies.  We had just a few too many bananas around the house, and these were a super delicious way to use them up.  We added raisins to the last batch of them, and those were good too; I'd guess you could add any pretty much any chopped dried fruit to these and they'd be tasty.

Based off the recipe here: http://allrecipes.com/recipe/banana-oatmeal-cookie/

Vegan Banana Oatmeal Cookies
1 1/2 cups flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp nutmeg (could be doubled)
3/4 tsp cinnamon (could be doubled)
1/2 cup applesauce
1/4 cup oil
2/3 cup brown sugar
1/3 cup white sugar
1 cup mashed overripe bananas (about 2 bananas)
1 3/4 cups old fashioned oats
1/2 cup chopped walnuts

Mix together the first 5 ingredients.  Add everything except the oats & walnuts, mix together.  Add the oats & walnuts, mix together.  Place cookies on a greased/silpat'd/parchment papered cookie sheet & bake at 400 for 15 minutes or until they look done.

Honeyboat Squash with Chile Honey Glaze

Squash is something I've only recently discovered.  And it's fantastic.  I bought this one at the farmers' market because it was pretty.  I asked the guy selling it what it was called, and he mumbled it at me twice; all I could tell was it started with "honey".  If you type "squash honey" into Google, it'll suggest the right name: honeyboat squash (which is a pretty sweet name for a squash), aka delicata squash.  It's stripey & delicious.  I also learned (from the Googs) that squash will keep for 1.5-3 months at room temperature, and 3-6 months in the fridge, so now I won't feel like I have to use up all my squashes right away.

I only made one squash, and I certainly didn't have the ingredients suggested lying around, and I completely forgot to add the cumin, so here's what I ended up with (based on this recipe).

Sauce (part 1):
1/2 tsp red pepper flakes
1/2 cup water
less than 1/4 of a purple onion (which was leftover in the fridge)
1 garlic clove
a dash of salt

Put the water & red pepper flakes on the stove; bring to a boil/simmer.  Chop up the onion & garlic in the food processor.  Add everything to the boiling red pepper flakes.  Let all/most of the water boil off (oops, but it worked out) so that everything is softened, then set aside.

While that's going on, cut the stem off of one honey boat squash, and slice it longways to make two little squash boats.  Scoop out all the seeds & stringy stuff.

Sauce (part 2):
1 tsp honey
1 1/2 tsp oil
a dash of salt

Mix a heaping teaspoon of sauce part 1 with everything in sauce part 2 & mix.  Split it between your two squash halves.  Brush it all over the exposed squash insides (I used my fingers); leave the remainder in the boat.

Bake on a foil-lined cookie sheet at 400 for 40 minutes, or until squash is soft but not really dark or anything.  Enjoy everything but the (still pretty) peel; the squash should come off from the peel really easily.

Oreo Cheesecake Cookies

These tasted basically like Oreos, but with the texture of a normal cookie.  Pretty tasty, very easy, and a great way to use up the stale Oreos that were in my cabinet from my last Oreo baking adventure.  I didn't have any mini chocolate chips, so I skipped them.  The cookies still turned out.  I have no idea what makes them rise, but they don't fall flat like I was expecting them to.

http://www.browneyedbaker.com/2011/03/22/oreo-cheesecake-cookies/


½ cup butter (or margarine), softened
3 ounces cream cheese, at room temperature (or straight out of the fridge & tossed in with your slightly-too-melted butter)
1 cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup Oreo cookie crumbs

Mix together everything but the Oreo bits.  Make little cookie dough balls, roll them in the Oreo bits, put them on a baking sheet.  Bake at 375 for about 12 minutes.  I could tell they were done because when I took one off the tray, the bottom was golden brownish.

The first batch before baking.  They don't change size or appearance much after baking.

The second batch after baking.  I had a little less than a cup of Oreo crumbs, so I ran out before the end of the dough, but they still turned out well!

Pumpkin Cream Cheese Muffin Cupcakes

I love pumpkin.  Pumpkin flavored things are the best.  And now it's close enough to fall (even if it is nearly 90 degrees here) that I don't have to feel bad about using it!

I saw these on reddit & thought they looked fantastic; I thought right.  I ended up putting off making them for almost a week because I kept forgetting to create the little cream cheese filling bites in the freezer early enough that I could do the whole process.  I'd call them closer to cupcakes than muffins; they're ridiculously sweet & too squishy to be a muffin.

http://www.annies-eats.com/2010/10/08/pumpkin-cream-cheese-muffins/

I only filled 5/8 of the muffins, and I only made half as much topping as suggested (so that I could leave some of them plain), but other than that I basically followed the recipe.

For the filling:
5 oz. neufchatel cheese (the lower fat version of cream cheese)
5/8 cup powdered sugar

For the muffins:
2.5 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1 tsp. ground cinnamon (heaping)
1 tsp. ground nutmeg (heaping)
1 tsp. ground cloves (a little less, because it turns out grinding cloves with a mortar & pestle is really difficult)
1 tbsp. plus 1 tsp. cinnamon + nutmeg (because I didn't have pumpkin pie spice & it's close enough)
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. baking soda
4 egg substitutes
2 cups sugar
2 cups pumpkin puree
1¼ cups vegetable oil

For the topping:
1/4 cup sugar
2.5 tbsp. flour
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
2tbsp. cold(ish) unsalted butter, cut into pieces

Make the filling by mashing the two ingredients together.  Shape into 15 roughly equally sized piles/balls on wax paper (the piles should be small enough around to fit well inside the muffin cups).  Stick it in the freezer for an hour or two.

Mash together the topping ingredients until the butter's in tiny pieces & the color is mostly uniform.  Set it aside.

Mix together the dry ingredients (except sugar), in another bowl mix together the wet ingredients (plus sugar).  I couldn't get the wet ingredients to combine very well (oil + water-based egg replacer = no mix), so I just dumped them all together and mixed them there & it worked out fine.  This is a big recipe.  It was almost too big for my biggest bowl, so keep that in mind if your bowls are smallish.

Put paper cupcake cup liners into your cupcake pan.  Put a little bit of batter in the cup (it's ok if you almost totally fill it, you'll just have to press the cream cheese bit down into it), put in the cream cheese piece, then cover it with more batter.  If you follow the recipe above you'll get 15 +cream cheese, 9 -cream cheese.  Cover the cupcakes with the topping (be generous enough to cover the whole thing, but you don't need to heap it on.  One forkful was enough for each of mine) -- the recipe above will give you 18 +topping, 6 -topping.

Stick them into a 350 degree oven for 20 minutes or so.  If your oven cooks unevenly like mine does, turn them 180 degrees after 15 minutes.  Take them out, let them cool (the filling is pretty warm), then avoid eating too many in one sitting.

My picture ended up a little discolored -- believe me when I say they're as delicious looking as they were on the website, with gorgeous streuselly topping on top.

Not Waffles

I have tried so many times to make waffles on my own.  It has never quite worked out.  I have a theory that it's a combination of not knowing what I'm doing and having a hard to use waffle iron.  Here's the recipe I used this time (based off this one with some modifications from the comments):

• 1 egg substitute
• 1 cup flour (a dash of whole wheat, the rest white)
• a little less than 1 cup milk
• 1/8 cup vegetable oil
• 1 1/2 tsp white sugar
• 2 tsp baking powder
• a dash of salt
• 1/2 tsp vanilla
• a healthy dash of cinnamon

After the last time I tried to make waffles (and spent roughly an hour and a half later trying to get burnt on pieces off the waffle plates, which don't come out of the iron so I have to clean them in place), I decided to use a ridiculous amount of cooking spray on the waffle iron, reapplying between every waffle.  It did succeed in keeping little burnt bits from getting stuck in it, but didn't manage to cause the waffles to come off cleanly, and resulted in me getting cooking spray all over the stuff within a one-foot radius of the waffle iron.  I think the waffle iron is meant to make really thin (but adorably animal shaped) waffles, and I always put too much batter in, so that when I open up the iron, one half of the waffle sticks to one side and the other half to the other side, and each side then peels off and bends because it isn't thick enough to support itself.  I'm not sure how to remedy this; suggestions are very welcome.  The batter itself wasn't bad, but wasn't anything spectacular.  I'll probably try a different recipe again next time.