Vegan Banana Bread Recipe

Madhuram's Eggless Cooking is an awesome blog dedicated to eggless recipes. I am not vegan and I had my doubts, but this Vegan Banana Bread Recipe is AMAZING! I got the stamp of approval from my sister Caroline and other family members. That to me is the best feeling of all, when you see a smile on someone's face as they are eating your creation and their nod of approval. Some vegan recipe's taste like they are vegan, however I can honestly say this one doesn't. So take out your measuring cups, spoons and bakeware and let's get baking!


Ingredients

• 2 cups All Purpose Flour
  
• 1/2 teaspoon Baking Soda
  
• 1/2 teaspoon Salt
• 1/4 teaspoon Allspice, ground
• 1/2 cup Margarine, room temperature (I used Earth Balance, a soy free natural buttery spread)
• 1/2 cup Brown Sugar
• 1/2 cup White Sugar
• 3 Bananas mashed
• 1/4 cup Almond Milk
• 1 teaspoon Apple Cider Vinegar
• 1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract
• 1/2 cup Walnuts, chopped (I left this ingredient out)
  

Instructions

• Preheat oven to 350F. Grease your loaf pan with non stick cooking spray.
  
• Combine Almond Milk and Apple Cider Vinegar (set aside).
• In a large bowl combine flour, baking soda, salt and Allspice.
• In another bowl, combine the margarine and sugars. Add bananas, vanilla and milk-vinegar mixture.
• Take your moist ingredients and add to the flour mixture. (If you want nuts in your mixture add them here)
  
• Pour batter in loaf pan and bake for 60 minutes. (until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean)
• Let cool for 15 minutes, transfer the bread onto a plate, let cool before slicing. (I find that banana bread is more moist and tastes better the next day)

Yummm!



Please check out more great recipes at Madhuram's Eggless Cooking blog. I am now a firm believer in eggless cooking and can't wait to try more of her yummy recipes!

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Vegan Bite-Size Pumpkin Brownies

Whenever Chocolate-Covered Katie posts a dessert she whipped up on Pinterest, I need to make it.  Her recipes are so easy and don't include ingredients that you have to go to an expensive health food store for.  The other day she posted her Chocolate Pumpkin Pie Brownies.  I looked at the ingredients and knew I had to try it out.  I've made vegan brownies before, seen here and also tried a few other recipes that called for black beans, but they either had too much sugar or simply did not taste like brownies.

Well, now I have the best go-to brownie recipe derived from Katie's Chocolate Pumpkin Pie Brownies.

With some alterations from Katie's recipe, here's what I did:

• 1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1/2 cup flour
• 1/4 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp plus 1/16 tsp salt
• 2/3 cup sugar
• 1 more T sugar
• 1/2 cup canned pumpkin
• 3 T oil
• 2 T non-dairy milk
• 1 1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 330 degree F and grease a mini-muffin pan.  Combine dry ingredients in a large bowl.  Combine wet ingredients in a smaller bowl, then add wet to dry and mix well.  Scoop mixture into muffin pan and bake for about 10, but check with a toothpick first to make sure they are done.  Let cool and add powdered sugar or dip them in some frosting... or eat them as is, which is what I did!

Warning: you will not want to stop eating these suckers!  They are so fudgy and chocolaty.  If you love chocolate, try this recipe out!

 

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Easy No-Bake Oat Bars

I found this amazing oat bar recipe on the Choosing Raw website here.  You will not believe how easy and yummy these babies are!  I cannot cook at all, so I am always on the hunt for quick and easy recipes that will fill me up.  Plus, it's really satisfying to make something so good and at the same time, know how incredibly easy it was to make!  I did deviate from the original recipe, but it still turned out good.

So, here are the ingredients I used for the No-Bake Oat Bars:

• 2 1/2 cups oats
• 1 cup sunflower seeds
• 1/2 cup raisins
• 2/3 cup peanut butter
• 1/2 – 2/3 cup agave nectar

Combine oats, sunflower seeds, and raisins in a large bowl.  In a small bowl, combine peanut butter and agave nectar then add mixture to dry ingredients.  Stir all ingredients together until everything is combined and sticking together (add more agave nectar if not sticky enough).  With a spatula, scoop ingredients into a baking dish.  I used an 8x8 baking dish.  Press ingredients down onto dish and cover with saran wrap.  Place in fridge and cool for about 4 hours.  Once cooled, cut into bar shapes, wrap individually in saran wrap, and store in fridge till ready to eat!

The beauty of this recipe is that you can basically use anything to throw in these bars, like cereal, any type of nuts or seeds, dark chocolate chips, other dried fruits, any type of nut butter, or maple syrup, to name a few alternatives.  Also, the original recipe stated that you can shape the batter into bite size pieces and bake at 375 for 40 minutes to make granola.

Hope you try this or some version of it!  Happy snacking!

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That Healthy Green Leaf

Well, that healthy green leaf is kale!  It seems as though Kale is bombarding it's way through the grocery stores and pushing spinach out of the way!  Although, I love spinach, it's best to have variety and try new things when it comes to vegetables.  The first time I tried kale, I made kale chips.  I will eventually post about how easy it is to make kale chips, soon, but for now, I will share my basic sauteed kale recipe that I actually found on Pinterest from here.

Before I go into the details of the recipe, I need to explain how super nutritious kale is:

• Loaded with Vitamins A, C, K
• Low in calories
• Good source of fiber, calcium, and minerals

Benefits of kale:

• Promotes eye health
• Reduces risk of cancer
• Helps fight against cancer
• Promotes bone health
• Reduces risk of heart disease
• Lowers blood cholesterol levels
• Promotes antioxidant activity

More information can be found here.

As for the recipe here are the simple ingredients:

• 1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
• 1 to 1 1/2 pounds kale, ribs removed, coarsely chopped
• 1/2 cup water
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper
• 2 to 3 teaspoons vinegar of any kind
• 1/4 teaspoon salt

Tip: To make this recipe even easier than it already is, I used packaged, pre-washed kale along with already prepared garlic in a jar.

I deviated somewhat from the original recipe.  I added 1 tablespoon of oil to Dutch oven over medium heat.  I then added kale and cooked it for about 1 to 2 minutes till leaves were bright green.  I then added water and lowered heat to low and cooked covered till leaves were tender.  This took about 10 to 12 minutes.  I then pushed kale to one side of the Dutch oven and poured 1 teaspoon of oil, garlic, and crushed red pepper on the empty side and cooked till I could smell everything.  Then I removed it from the heat, combined and tossed the leaves around in the seasoning.  I then topped it off with balsamic vinegar and sea salt.

Bottom line: This recipe not only tastes amazing and is super easy to make, but it only comes in at 80 calories!  It's a win-win, folks!

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Egg & Dairy Free Brownies

 
I don't normally like to make desserts that are dreadfully fattening and high in calories, BUT I had a craving.  And the recipe I found called for ingredients I already had, so I made these delightfully gooey brownies that are egg and dairy free.  I would say they are vegan, but I used regular cane sugar, which happens to not be vegan unless the sugar is raw or refined.  I won't go into details, but if you're interested to find out why regular cane sugar is not vegan (or vegetarian for that matter) you can look here.

So, while procrastinating on my thesis, I decided to do some baking; a wonderful way to procrastinate!  I used the following recipe from allrecipes.com to make some yummy egg and dairy-free brownies:

2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
2 cups white sugar
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup water
1 cup vegetable oil
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Mix dry ingredients together then add wet ingredients.  Pour into a 9x13 pan and place into the oven for 25 to 30 minutes.

I followed this recipe to a "t" but some ways to make it healthier are to add canned pumpkin or apple sauce instead of oil and use raw sugar or agave nectar as a sugar substitute.  I was bad today and sprinkled some chocolate chips on top 5 minutes before the timer went off.  Don't judge me!  Also, another idea would be to use mini-muffin pans to bake these bad boys in to allow for smaller portion sizes.

From now on, I promise to try and share healthier recipes (I do have plenty to share!), but in case you feel a chocolate craving coming on, this is an easy recipe to try and great to make for friends and family that have egg or dairy allergies!

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