Good morning! Are you hungry? I know I am! I’d say I pretty much have omelet making under control, especially when we compare it to my first omelet. Whew!

   

What You Need

2 eggs
a dollop of milk/soymilk/almond milk/etc
fresh spinach
tomatoes
faux ground beef ( Morning Star, Yyves, etc )

What You Do

I didn’t include measurements here because it’s really all to taste. What you’ll want to do is whip up the eggs and milk together in a small bowl and then put them into your medium sized pan and let it cook until it’s mostly solid.

While this is cooking, in a smaller pan put a small amount of margarine in there to just coat the bottom, and then add a small handful of faux meat (I use Yyves, but have used Morning Star in the past, both are good, but Yyves is sassier), along with your spinach, and then you can add your cheese/teese/daiya (or leave it out entirely!) sprinkled on top. And salt and pepper if you wish! Only let this cook for about 2-3 minutes (faux meat only needs to be warmed, not cooked), until the spinach is shriveled and dark green. You don’t want as much as I have picture here unless you’re making more than one omelet.

Put the ingredients on one side of the omelet once the egg has cooked and flip the other side on top of it. Transfer to plate and you’re done!

Who’s up for a Saturday recipe? More specifically a breakfast recipe? I CERTAINLY AM. The best part about this recipe is that the seeds, pecans, and cranberries are all up for substitution! Just be sure to replace them with something similar. For example, you could swap out the sunflower seeds for pumpkin seeds, the pecans for almonds, and the cranberries for raisins. Let me know if you guys come up with any other tasty creations, I’d love to try them!

   
   

The Goods

4 1/2 cups (18 ounces) old-fashioned rolled oats
3/4 cup (3 ounces) shelled, raw, unsalted sunflower seeds
1 1/2 cups chopped pecans
1 cup dried cranberries
2-3 tbsp cinnamon (depends on how much you like the stuff)
1 1/4 cups pure maple syrup
1/3 cup canola oil

Directions

Preheat oven to 325°F. Mix all the dry ingredients together in a large bowl and then add in the syrup and oil, stirring until all dry ingredients are moistened. Spread granola on roughly 12×17 rimmed baking sheet and baked until brown (20-25 minutes), then stir with a flat spatula. Continue baking until it is light golden brown, dry, and fragrant, 10-15 minutes longer. Watch it carefully because during the end it can burn quickly!

While at Bronwyn’s, Brendan made some strawberry mayo for our sandwiches. I know what you’re thinking. What? How on earth could strawberry mayonnaise be any good? And how on earth is it supposed to go well with your delicious tomato, lettuce, whatever-else sammich? Well, believe it or not, it probably will compliment your sandwich. And it’s scrumptious. And I’m not just saying it is because I love strawberries. I tried it with peaches this afternoon and it was still as good. It’s really easy, but still worth sharing.

   

What To Do

*Those of you who rolled your eyes at the Vegenaise, TRY IT. It’s actually “creamier” than mayonnaise, if that were possible! I was surprised.

The most common complaint about tofu is that it’s “too bland”. Well, of course it is when you’re eating it by itself! You need to put some flavor into that sponge and let it soak it up first! So what the heck do you marinate tofu in, other than soy sauce? BBQ Sauce? (Oooh noooo.) Here is a delightful marinade for your tofu, I promise you’ll be delightfully surprised. I think this will a fantastic replacement of chicken or crab to compliment any pasta with white sauce. ENJOY!

What You Need

☑ 4 tbsp olive oil
☑ 2 1/2 tbsp fresh lemon juice
☑ 4 cloves galric, minced
☑ 1 tbsp fresh chopped basil (or 1 tsp dried)
☑ 1 tsp fresh chopped thyme (or 1/3 tsp. dried)
☑ 1 tsp fresh chopped rosemary (or 1/3 tsp dried)
☑ 1/2 tsp salt

Sometimes lemon can be too tart for me, so next time I’m going to try using orange juice instead and see what happens. But for those of you that don’t mind that tart kick, you’ll love this.

So I thought you folks might like a recipe! The strawberries were on sale, and so we bought a bunch, but there’s only two of us and though we are Strawberry Devourers, I was worried they would go off before we had a chance to eat them all, so I thought to myself, “I wonder if I could combine two of my favorite foods here. Do people make strawberry bread?” Oh, yes. Yes, they do. So I started making this, realized I was missing crucial ingredients after I’d already started (I do this all the time, and it’s a terrible habit.) and so I had to make a trip to the store twice, (Oh, you better believe it.) in the storm and pouring rain, because I was determined to make this bread. That alone makes the recipe worth sharing. That and, you know, it’s scrumptious! So without further ado, super moist delicious strawberry bread. Enjoy!

What You Need

4 cups strawberries (2 cups finely chopped, 2s cup puree)
3 1/8 cups all-purpose flour
2 cups white sugar
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 1/4 cups applesauce

What You Do

1. Preheat your oven to 350 °F (175 °C) and prepare two 9 x 5 inch loaf pans.
2. Slice and prepare your strawberries, then put them in a medium-sized bowl and combine with your applesauce. Afterwards set them aside for later.
3. Combine flour, sugar, cinnamon, salt and baking soda in large bowl: mix well. Add your strawberry mixture to the flour mixture, blending until dry ingredients are just moistened. DO NOT be a completionist (ahem, like me) and OVER STIR until everything is blended. You’ll ruin the bread. Chunks of flour are encouraged!
4. Divide batter into pans and bake for 50-60 minutes, or until toothpick inserted comes out clean.

You may or may not remember from last year how much of a all-things-could-be-flavored-pumpkin fan I am. And of course, when I found this recipe for a pumpkin green monster, I had to try it immediately or forever perish in this ridiculous heat wave.

   
   

• 3 cups spinach (steamed if you can!)
• 1.25 cup soy milk or milk (or more, if you’d like)
• 1/3 cup pumpkin puree
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• pinch of nutmeg
• 1 banana

It turned out quite well, actually, despite looking slightly unappetizing. It tasted a lot like a liquid pumpkin pie, without the crust, though I hear there’s a recipe with crushed graham crackers inside as well. (Oh boy, oh boy.) But, I will say, even though I’m a huge fan of pumpkin, there’s something about the air not being quite right, the temperature too hot. Perhaps it’s just me giving myself something to look forward to before winter hits, but I think I’ll hold off this smoothie until autumn hits. Next up is a strawberrylicious green monster. And perhaps pineapple and pear? Oh my!

This gorgeous gal mentioned these green smoothies she’d been making for her post work out snack ages ago, but I finally just got around to making one today. There’s a bit of a funny story behind it, actually. I kept saying, “Today is the day!”, but as it turned out, I was always missing key ingredients. And then I’d forget to add, say flax seeds, to the list of groceries and get everything else, and then go, well crap! But I was determined, because these “Green Monsters” are supposed to be fantastic energy boosters, among other amazing benefits.

The special ingredient for these babies is the spinach! But before you freak out and tell me you hate spinach, (how on earth could you hate spinach?!) hear me out! Spinach is pretty amazing. It’s a great source of Iron, which is important for you veggies out there. This is sort of a side note, but I have 0- blood type, and have always felt that donating blood was extremely important. When I adopted the vegetarian diet, my ability to donate went out the window because I just couldn’t get my iron count high enough. It’s my hope that these smoothies will give me that ability back! But spinach has lots of other good qualities, too. It’s a great source for a wealth of vitamins (A, C, E, K, B2, B6), potassium, protein, and omega-3 fatty acids. What the heck do I care? Well, what all that means is though you’re bound to have increased energy, you can also look forward to hair & nail growth, clear glowing skin, better sleep, a diminished sweet tooth, and a happy heart! There’s lots more, but I figured those would be the ones cared about most.

Although I love spinach, even I was hesitant to have a spinach smoothie. It just didn’t sound very appetizing. But, like I said, I was determined to at least try it. And what do you know, you can’t even taste the spinach! Today I tried the very basic smoothie, and had it for breakfast, it was delicious. Tomorrow I will add fruit!

Ingredients

• 1 tablespoon flax seeds
• 2 cups organic spinach
• 1 banana
• 1.25 cups skim milk

Directions

Add the ingredients (in the order listed) into your blender and blend that sucker for about thirty seconds (if you have a Magic Bullet!) to a minute.

Now, if you’re like me, you want to make the most out of this smoothie. When I made it this morning I used fresh spinach leaves, but after some research I discovered that blanching the spinach first allows the body to absorb more of the good stuff stored in the spinach! There are several ways to do this (stovetop, microwave) but I simply put all my spinach into a bowl and poured boiling water from my kettle onto it. I let it sit for about thirty to forty seconds, and then dumped the whole thing into a strainer.


Now, this is a lot more spinach than is needed for one green monster, but my plan was to freeze it for easy smoothie making in the mornings. After running the batch under ice cold water, I squeezed as much water as I could from the spinach and put it in a freezer bag and packed it away. If you’re not doing a batch, you can just put the spinach for one smoothie into a bowl with water and microwave it! (I also froze my some bananas!)

All in all, I’d say it was a smoothalicious success! Tomorrow for breakfast is either strawberry or pumpkin, I can’t decide. Oh my. Choices, choices.

For those of you that don’t have eggnog, or just don’t want to use the drink in pancakes, there’s a recipe from Joy the Baker on how to get the same taste without using the eggnog. I haven’t tried it yet but I definitely plan to!

★ 1 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
★ 1 tablespoon sugar
★ 2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
★ 1/2 teaspoon salt
★ 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
★ 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
★ 1 1/2 cups eggnog
★ 2 tablespoons oil
★ 1 large egg, beaten

1. In a medium mixing bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Whisk to blend ingredients.

2. Preheat griddle to medium-high (Or electric skillet to 300°F).

3. In a separate bowl, stir together eggnog, oil, and egg. Pour into dry ingredients and whisk just until dry ingredients are moistened. Don’t over mix!! Chunks are okay! Batter will be fairly thick.

4. Scoop your batter onto your pan using a spoon (about two or three spoonfuls per pancake) and spread it into a nice circle. It’s very thick so if you’re used to letting it spread out on it’s own, it’s best to help it along slightly. Cook pancakes until bottoms are golden brown and bubbles appear on the surface. (Because the batter is so thick, check the bottom frequently so they don’t burn.) Turn and cook other side.

Serve pancakes warm with butter and syrup or honey. Enjoy!

★ 1 (15 ounce) can pumpkin puree
★ 4 eggs
★ 1 cup vegetable oil
★ 2/3 cup water
★ 3 cups white sugar
★ 3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
★ 2 teaspoons baking soda
★ 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
★ 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
★ 1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
★ 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
★ 1/4 teaspoon ground ginger

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour 7×3 inch loaf pan and grease one muffin pan.

2. In a large bowl, mix together the pumpkin puree, eggs, oil, water and sugar until well blended.

3. In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves and ginger.

3. Stir the dry ingredients into the pumpkin mixture until just barely blended! DO NOT OVER STIR.

4. Pour into the prepared pans. I find it helps to use an ice cream scoop for the muffins. I filled them 2/3 the way full. The bread was about half way, maybe pushing 2/3.

5. Bake the muffins for 15 minutes at 425° F. Bake the bread for about 50 minutes at 350° F. Goodies are done when a toothpick inserted in to the center comes out clean.

What You Need

• 4 eggs [1 raw, 3 scrambled]
• ^3/4 lb ground beef, tofu, or vegetarian ground beef substitute. (I recommend Morning Star ground beef substitute.)
• ^1/2 cup water
• ^1/3 cup soy sauce
• 1 ^1/2 tsp ginger paste
• 2 tsp garlic paste
• ^1/2 tsp salt
• 2 tbl minced leek (the white part of the leek only) You can also do 1 tbl leek and 1 tbl green onion. That’s what we do. You can also substitute the leek entirely for green onion.
• 1 cup finely shredded nappa cabbage
• dumpling wrappers

Directions

1. Prepare your leek and cabbage and scramble your eggs first! Use only the white part of the leek and make sure they’re minced well. Remember that these little pieces are going into a dumpling, so make them small. 2. Place the pork and water into a bowl and mix with chopsticks. (Around 50 strokes.) 3. Add the raw egg and mix again. (Another 20-30 strokes.) 4. Add soy sauce, garlic, ginger, salt and leek and stir. 5. Add scrambled eggs and cabbage and stir. 6. Now you’re ready to wrap them! Go ahead and sit down, and place a small bowl of water and plate beside you, your mixture, and your dumpling wrappers. You’ll probably also want to grab a regular-to-small sized spoon. Place the dumpling wrapper (round) in the palm of your left hand. Dip your right hand fingers into the bowl of water and wet the outside edge of the dumpling wrapper. Next take your spoon and a dollop size of your mix and put it in the middle of the wrapper. Fold the wrapper in half, sealing the edges shut tightly by pressing them between your fingers. You can also use a plastic dumpling wrapper thingie (pictured below) if you have one. We made these several times without one though. To Cook There are three ways to cook dumplings. You can fry them, boil them, or steam them. I’ve tried both boiling and frying with this. Boiling is my favorite, as fried dumplings tend to be a bit heavier, but most Americans like them fried best, so if you’re only going to try one the first time- make sure it’s one you think you’ll like! (There’s no reason why you can’t do a little of both.) To Boil Put a medium to large size pot on the stove 2/3 full of water and bring to a boil. Place up to 20 dumplings at a time and let them return to a boil. Once boiling let sit for 5 minutes. Remove into strainer over the sink or another bowl and let drain. They are ready to serve with or without sauce. Be careful, they’re hot! To Fry Add oil to your pan and cook over med/high heat for 2-3 minutes until golden. Flip these constantly. Ready to serve with or without sauce. The Sauce The sauce is easy and flexible, if you decide to use any at all. You can use plain soy sauce, or you can add soy sauce and garlic, spicy Asian sauce, dumpling sauce, or anything you feel like, really. (We did soy sauce and garlic, and then there was a spicy version.)

Things You Should Know

This recipe makes about 60/64 dumplings, depending on how small our dollops are. Obviously that’s quite a bit so you may want to half this recipe. Or you can do what we cool cats do and just have lots of leftovers. Be prepared as it takes quite a while to prep, wrap, and cook. (2-3 hours) So if you’re looking for a fast meal, this is definitely not it. But it’s totally fantastic to munch on through out the day.

Here’s a video!