Bright Beet Pancakes

Since Thursday was Valentine's day, and we can't all have breakfast together on Thursdays due to preschool, I decided that we'd have our 'Valentine's Breakfast' on Friday instead... and we made these bright pancakes together.  They turned out rather well, and although more work than my usual pancake recipe, the kids loved them and I would probably make them again... as long as I already had beet puree prepared before hand.  This recipe was once again adapted from Parenting magazine... see page 54 on the Feb 2013 issue for more fun things to do with beets.

 

Bright Beet Pancakes

Ingredients
1 cup all purpose flour
3/4 cup whole wheat flour
3 Tbsp brown sugar (I omitted this and used a bit less than 1/4 cup date paste*)
1 Tbsp baking powder
dash salt
3/4 cup beet puree** (enough from one beet)
1 1/4 cup milk
1/3 cup plain Greek Yogurt
1 large egg
3 Tbsp melted butter (if salted, omit the salt from the recipe)
1 tsp vanilla.

Sift together flours, sugar (if using this.  If using date paste, put that in with the wet ingredients), baking powder and salt into a medium bowl
Whisk together the rest of the ingredients in a large bowl.  Once blended, add dry ingredients and mix until just combined.  Drop about 2 Tbsp of batter onto a greased pan (or pancake griddle) over medium heat.  Cook 3 minutes per side.  Serve with raspberry sauce, honey, or syrup.

We just buttered ours and added fruit to the top.  We also added thawed strawberries and raspberries to the batter to stretch it a bit, and that fruit tasted great in there!

* To make date paste, take as many dates as you can manage and pack them tightly into a large measuring cup. Add water just to fill in the spaces to let them soak and soften (if they are soft enough already, I believe you can skip this step). Soak for 1-4 hours, depending (some say 1hr, some say overnight... I just do whatever until they feel soft enough to process alright). Drain and reserve liquid, and put the dates into the food processor. Process until smooth. If very thick, add some of the reserved liquid. Put in the fridge for up to 3 months. It probably won't last that long though, if you are like me. :) Use as a substitute for sugar in recipes!

**Basic roasted beets: Preheat oven to 375F. Wrap the beets in tinfoil and bake 45-60 minutes, until fork tender. Remove from the foil and set aside until cool to touch. Wear disposable plastic food gloves (or use Ziploc baggies over your hands) to avoid staining your skin, and rub the skins off the beets. Puree in food processor until smooth.

Chocolate Velvet Beet Cupcakes

Adapted this recipe from Parenting Magazine.  Made it a sugar free recipe!

 

This is a nice alternative to red velvet chocolate cupcakes.  The flavor is chocolaty, the color is a deep red/brown, and the frosting a lovely deep pink color.  My kids loved these, and while I wasn't sure how well these would turn out, they were surprisingly good!  I am not a fan of beets, and while you can taste them in this recipe slightly, the cream cheese and the cocoa balance things out nicely so that the beets do not take center stage.  At all.  In fact, if I didn't still smell them in the air from baking them, I don't think I would have noticed them at all!

 

Chocolate Velvet Beet Cupcakes

Ingredients
1/3 cup cocoa powder
1 1/2 cups flour (I used half whole wheat, half unbleached white)
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
3/4 cup sugar (I omitted this and added 3/4 cup date paste* to the wet ingredients)
1/2 tsp salt (I omitted this completely)
2 large eggs
1 cup milk
1/3 cup vegetable oil (I melted coconut oil in its place)
1 large beet, roasted and pureed** (about 3/4 cup puree)
2 tsp vanilla
NOTE:  I found this very thick as there was no milk listed originally, so I added about 1/2 cup milk to the batter.  I found out on the website that apparently they forgot to add the 1 cup milk to the recipe in the magazine.  They turned out OK though, either way.


Preheat oven to 350F.
Sift together the dry ingredients in a medium bowl. 
In a large bowl, whisk the eggs, then add the rest of the ingredients.  Slowly stir in the flour mixture into the wet ingredients mixture.  Pour into 12 paper-lined muffin cups.  Bake 25 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Frosting:
Place into a mixer and beat on medium high until blended:
1 8oz package cream cheese
1/2 cup unsalted butter (I used coconut oil)
1/4 cup powdered sugar (I used honey instead)
1/2 cup beat puree
1 tsp vanilla

* To make date paste, take as many dates as you can manage and pack them tightly into a large measuring cup.  Add water just to fill in the spaces to let them soak and soften (if they are soft enough already, I believe you can skip this step).  Soak for 1-4 hours, depending (some say 1hr, some say overnight... I just do whatever until they feel soft enough to process alright).  Drain and reserve liquid, and put the dates into the food processor.  Process until smooth.  If very thick, add some of the reserved liquid.  Put in the fridge for up to 3 months.  It probably won't last that long though, if you are like me.  :)  Use as a substitute for sugar in recipes!

**Basic roasted beets:  Preheat oven to 375F.  Wrap the beets in tinfoil and bake 45-60 minutes, until fork tender.  Remove from the foil and set aside until cool to touch.  Wear disposable plastic food gloves (or use Ziploc baggies over your hands) to avoid staining your skin, and rub the skins off the beets.  Puree in food processor until smooth.

No Sugar Cardamum-Pear Muffins

So, I've started on 'no sugar' since the beginning of the year (got on board a little late and so the 3rd was my first official day), and I found this recipe today in a magazine for muffins.  I love muffins.  I usually like to grab a bran muffin when we go out vs a doughnut because, to me, they taste better and give me more energy.  Well, muffins have sugar.  The ones from bakeries have lots of sugar.  So... no muffins for 90 days?  Really?

As I was reading the recipe (in my 'Fresh Juice' magazine), I noticed that it did have sugar, but I've modified a few of my tried tested and true recipes to remove sugar completely, and figured I wanted to give this one a shot as well.

So, I did!

I actually changed the recipe quite a bit... and I doubled it so I could use up ingredients that I had that were needing to be used up NOW.  I don't want to trash good Greek yogurt, after all!  Oh the horror!  So, this is the recipe, and the changes I made to it.

Cardamom-Pear Muffins

Ingredients
1 398mL can pear halves in juice from concentrate, drained
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup Greek yogurt
3 Tbsp oil
1 egg
1/4 cup molasses
1/4 cup brown sugar (I used about 1 Tbsp honey instead... yes, it is sweet enough)
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup natural bran
1 cup each whole wheat flour and all purpose flour
1/3 cup ground flax seed (I don't have this, so I used some hemp seed hearts for salads)
1tsp baking soda
1 tsp ground cardamom or cinnamon (mm... cinnamon)
dash salt
1/3 cup chopped pecans (optional... I actually used almonds instead)

Preheat oven to 375F.  Line 12 cup muffin tin with paper liners, grease, set aside.

In a large bowl, mash the pears, add milk, yogurt, oil, egg, molasses, sugar/honey, and vanilla.  Beat until blended.  Stir in bran and let sit 5 minutes.

In a separate large bowl, mix flours, flax seed, baking soda, cardamom/cinnamon, and salt.  Mix the wet and dry ingredients until the flours are incorporated (mixture is actually really thick!).

Spoon into prepared muffin cups, filling to top.  Sprinkle with nuts.  Bake in center of 375F oven for 25-30 minutes, until golden and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.  Let cool in pan on rack for 5 minutes before transferring to a rack.  Let cool.

Woah! Nesting, much?

I'm pregnant, and not quite 13 weeks along... but my morning sickness has gone down and so I believe I'm in nesting mode.  Why?  Let me count the ways...

1. Friday last week I baked 1 dozen fruit bran muffins... strawberry and blueberry (they were tasty)
2. Monday I baked blueberry crisp... with fresh berries I got at 50% off which were already on sale for $4 for almost 1kg.  (that was tasty too... baked goods don't seem to last long here)
3. Tuesday I baked 5 dozen buns, freezing over 3 dozen of them.
4. Today I made a batch of lasagna, freezing 1/2 and having half for supper.
5. Today I cooked an extra lb of beef for perishky I'm planning on making on Friday
6. Today I used the last of the blueberries and made a blueberry pie (I've never made one before), then proceeded to peel, core, and chop 9 crab apples and 2 regular ones, and made 3 apple pies.  I think I've made an apple pie once before, but it's been forever (cause I hate making pie crust... and here I made for 4 two crust pies... at once... I'm insane).
7. Tomorrow's plan is to make mashed potatoes for supper with enough extras for the perishky on Friday.  I also plan to bake cookies.
8. Friday I'll be making the perishky.

Ways counted?  A little much, perhaps... but I started by power cleaning my oven with baking soda paste last week Wednesday, and so the kitchen mayhem continues.  Unfortunately, due to pie spillage, I need to clean my oven again.  Ah well.  Now that I know how, it won't take long.  :)

Plus... lately, it feels like autumn to me.  Fall means cooking, baking, pies, etc.  I'm not sure why.  And it's only mid August.  This is insane.

And here's a pic of today's pies...

Should have put the tinfoil on the three apple, but that tinfoil did NOT want to cooperate on the blueberry, so I left it off.  Hate working with something that won't stay!

Dumplings

I cannot find the specific site I used to make the dumplings, but I didn't use any one recipe anyway as I sort of made my own. They don't look great, but if you look up dumplings on google, and search out tips on how to fold them and make your own, you'll get there! It will take me a while to get better I'm sure.



Dough
1 cup flour plus 1/4 cup water (plus extra if you need, and extra flour for work surface).

Mix the flour and the water. Add a little water if needed. The dough should stick together and pull away from the bowl slightly. I read it is better if the dough is too wet rather than too dry, but it should be workable. Knead 20 times, then roll into a ball and place under a damp cloth for 15 minutes.

Roll into a log, and cut into 'rounds' (this amount should make 20, but I only cut enough for 12, so my dough was thicker, but that's ok). Roll into a circle shape using your rolling pin, place filling in center (about 1 Tbsp) and press filling until not loose. Grab the dough, fold over the filling, and pinch in the center. Then you can make folds all along one side of the pinch until you have a teardrop shape at the end, pinch that together, and do the same for the other side of the center. You should only see folds on one side of your dumpling, the other side would be 'flat'. Really, look this up. I don't thing it really matters how you close them for eatibility sake, but it looks kinda cool. I think this site may have some tips (it isn't the one I used, but I can't find that one now.) Boil until they float, and you are done! Serve with soya sauce for dipping.

Filling - What I used (not an actual recipe... haha)
1/3-1/2 cup (approximate) sausage (I used already cooked leftovers)
1 cooked chicken breast
1/2 Tbsp soya sauce
1/2 cup chopped cabbage (was already steamed and in the freezer...)
1 minced garlic clove
2 minced green onions
1 tsp rice vineger
minced fresh ginger... I'm guessing about 1 tsp? I just added a few dashes of the powdered/dry stuff.

Mix all the ingredients... make sure everything is minced really fine, and store in the fridge until ready to use. I had lots leftover after making only 12 dumplings, so I assume this would fill 30 or more. I am thinking I could use the rest in soup!

Tea Marbled Eggs

I found this recipe over at Steamy Kitchen. It looked awesome, so I had to try it for myself.



Ingredients
6 eggs
3/4 cup soy sauce
2 star anise
2 tablespoons black tea (or 2 tea bags)
1 cinnamon stick
1 teaspoon sugar

I halved the recipe... and I think that may be why my marbling wasn't very dark. It still looked cool, though! I also used different tea, since I don't buy black, which may have been another reason for the lack of dark marbling.

Boil the eggs. I steamed mine until they were done. Tap the shell all over with a spoon (lightly) to crack it, but do not break the shell off (she has some awesome tips and pics on her site... go check them out if you need). Place all the other ingredients in the water used to boil the eggs... as it should still be hot. Place eggs in the mixture, bring to a boil, and then lower heat and simmer for 40 minutes (this mixture smells oh so good!). Remove from heat and let sit overnight (she did 5 hours... mine sat for 13, haha, as I forgot about them). Peel and enjoy!

Almond Cookies

For Chinese New Year, I decided I wanted to make some recipes that they may have usually for the New Year. One recipe I found that I had the ingredients for were almond cookies.
Adapted from About.com.

Prep Time: 15min
Cook Time: 25min

Ingredients
2 cups flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
dash salt
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup shortening
3/4 cup white sugar
1 egg (plus one for brushing on top later)
2 1/2 tsp almond extract
whole blanched almonds (enough for one per cookie... or about 30)

Preheat oven to 325F

Sift flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a large bowl. With an electric mixer, in a medium bowl, mix the butter, shortening and sugar. Add ONE egg and almond extract and beat until well blended. Add the flour mixture... dough will be crumbly and hard to handle.

To make it easier to form into balls, roll dough into 2 10 inch logs, wrap, and place in fridge for 2 hours. I didn't bother putting it in the fridge, and it still worked out well for me.

Take each log and cut into 15 equal pieces... making 30 cookies. Roll each piece into a ball, place on a lightly greased cookie tray 1 1/2 inches apart or more. Place an almond in the center of each and press down.

Brush each cookie with egg (lightly beaten). Bake for 15-18 minutes until golden brown. Cool and store in a sealed container.