FLOURLESS PEANUT BUTTER COOKIES

Line two baking trays with baking paper and preheat your oven to 150 degrees celsius.

In a bowl, mix together 1 cup natural peanut butter (I prefer crunchy), 1/4 cup agave nectar, 1 tsp baking powder, 2 tbsp LSA mix (linseed, sunflower seed and almond meal mix), 1/4 cup sugar and 1 tsp vanilla extract.

Combine well.

Drop tablespoons of mixture onto prepared trays and flatten gently with your hand. These won’t spread a lot, so you can fit more on trays.

Bake for 20 minutes or until slightly hardened and browned. The cookies will puff out a little, form crackles on the surface and smell lovely. Be sure to watch them so they don’t darken too much!

Let them cool on baking trays for about 5 minutes before transferring to wire racks.

Store in airtight containers and ENJOY!

CAULIFLOWER PESTO SOUP

Prepare four cups broth and set aside. I use massel’s chicken or veggie stock powder to make the stock, as it’s gluten free, vegan and nommy! Chop one head cauliflower into small pieces, removing all leaves.

Heat 1 tsp olive oil in a large pot and sautee 4 cloves minced garlic for a minute, being careful not to burn.

Add the cauliflower and 3 cups of broth. (Be sure to reserve the last cup for later!!) Add pepper to taste.

Bring to the boil and cover the pot. Cook for about ten minutes until the cauliflower is tender, stirring often.

Stir together the last cup of broth with either 1 tbsp arrowroot powder or 2 tbsp cornflour. Mix them well, until the powder is dissolved.

Reduce the temperature to low and pour the last cup of broth over the soup.

Cook uncovered for about five minutes, the mixture will thicken.
Add 1 cup loosely packed basil leaves and mix well, removing from heat.

Blend mixture carefully using an immersion blender or a food processor.

Serve with toasted pine nuts and basil leaves!

YUM!

Feel free to replace the fruit and nuts with anything of your choice, I recommend trying pistachios (but lightly toast them first)!

MARBLED CHOCOLATE BARK

Line a large dish or 1.5cm deep baking tray with baking paper.

Boil water in a large saucepan, make sure you have a smaller saucepan or heatproof bowl that can sit over it easily.

Break 400g sweet william milk chocolate into small pieces and set aside. Do the same with 200g sweet william white chocolate (if you can’t find/don’t like Sweet William, use other vegan/gluten free chocolate).

Place the milk chocolate in the small saucepan. Stir over the heat WITH A METAL SPOON until melted.

Use a rubber spatula to pour onto the prepared tray and smooth slightly.

Quickly clean the saucepan and dry it (or have another one ready) and melt the white chocolate in the same way.

Pour the white chocolate over the mixture (try not to do it as unevenly as I did! but really it doesn’t matter or affect the taste) and, using a butter knife, gently swirl the chocolate together to make a “marbled” effect.

Sprinkle the top with 1/3 cup dried cranberries and 1/3 cup crushed walnuts.

Place in the fridge until firm and break into small pieces before serving.

A must for cookie lovers

PEANUT-SUNFLOWER-CHOC COOKIES

Preheat a fan forced oven to 180 degrees celcius and line two baking trays with baking paper.

In a large bowl, mix together all dry ingredients:
1 tsp baking powder
1 1/2 cups gluten free flour
3/4 cup raw sugar
3/4 cup sweet william chocolate chips (or other v/gf brand)
1/2 cup sunflower seeds

Add all the wet ingredients:
2 tsp vanilla essence
2 tbsp soy milk
1/3 cup PLUS 4 tbsp oil (I used peanut oil but olive oil or canola oil should be fine)
3/4 cup natural peanut butter (I used smooth but I usually prefer crunchy)
2 tbsp golden syrup

Mix to form a thick dough that holds easily. You may need to drizzle in a little extra oil, soy milk or flour if it’s too wet or dry (depending on which peanut butter you use depends on how much oil content the paste has and this effects your dough).

Take heaped teaspoons of dough and roll into balls between your hands. Place on baking trays and flatten slightly. Space cookies at least an inch apart!

Bake for ten to fifteen minutes, checking to make sure they don’t darken too much. You only want them to JUST brown.

Let cool and firm up on the trays for five to ten minutes before transferring to wire racks to cool completely!

BALSAMIC-GLAZED PORTOBELLO MUSHROOMS

Slice three large mushroom caps (preferably portabello) into 1/4 inch thick pieces after removing the stems.

Heat some oil in a large frying pan.

Toss the mushrooms until coated. Arrange the mushrooms into a single layer, and let them cook for five minutes until they begin to release moisture. Turn them over and cook for a further two minutes.

Add 1/4 cup balsamic vinegar and a pinch of salt. Sautee for thirty seconds.

Add two cloves of garlic and sautee for three more minutes.

Done~

These are great served warm or at room temperature, or even chilled and served over a salad or in a sammich!
I used all the leftover vinegar mixture as a dressing for broccoli salad ^.^ (steamed/boiled broccoli with a vinaigrette dressing!).

VEGGIE PACKED CURRY

Cut 1 medium eggplant into thick slices and sprinkle with salt. Leave for 30 minutes, rinse, and pat dry well with paper towel and cut slices into cubes.

In the meantime: dice two carrots, deseed and dice one green OR red capsicum, dice half a butternut pumpkin and chop about one cup of broccoli or cauliflower florets.

You can also add two potatoes, but I chose to leave these out as my sister in law is allergic, and I wanted to share! ^.^ I added extra cauliflower to make up for the loss.

Heat oil in a large pan and saute onion with two cloves minced garlic and one small piece ginger until softened (I used one tsp of minced ginger as I had no fresh on hand).

Add two to three tablespoons red or green curry paste (according to your taste) and stir through, keeping the heat low.

Add all vegetables and one 425g can of chopped tomatoes.

Cover the saucepan and bring to the boil, simmering for 20 to 40 minutes until the vegetables are tender (depends on their size, etc). I added two cups of water to the mix, and stirred it two times during the simmer stage.

Add 1 to two cup of reduced fat coconut milk or cream and simmer for a further 5 minutes, adding two tablespoons of chopped coriander, basil, oregano or herb/spice of your choice.

DONE =D HELLS YEAH!

Serve on it’s own or with rice Garnish with fresh basil if it’s on hand. I added a sprinkling of sunflower seeds to mine just because I felt like it. It was awesome.

I’ve been quite sick, and it’s been a struggle to involve myself with projects that I am normally quite passionate about.

The oven broke. No joke. That rhymed. BUT IT’S NOT FUNNY. It’s so depressing. It should be fixed shortly, fingers crossed.

I also got an amazing new RAW cookbook that I was SO excited about, but found that a lot of the ingredients are hard to source unless you shop at one or two stores that are a little out of my way. There is also one ingredient that is basically impossible to get because of environmental factors, and I collected so many items for this one recipe I was so psyched on and after months and months of searching for the one ingredient I needed, I realized I’d have to give up. It’s still in the back of my mind and I will find a way, somehow, to source what I need, but it was kinda disheartening and put me off.

ANYWAY, I’m back, I’m alive, my cats are awesome, and I just made a massive curry that I shall post. With two more posts following today. Actually.. make that one more, since the photos for one of them have been deleted and are totally dead and gone IF I can source them somehow I’ll post three new recipes todeeee!

Hahahhaha, she hates being picked up so much.

Missed you all, readers, and I hope you missed me too.

SEE? ALIVE! AND PIKACHU!

CHOC CHIP COOKIES

Preheat oven to 180 degrees celsius and line two trays with baking paper.

In a bowl, combine 1/2 cup brown sugar, 1/4 cup white sugar, 2/3 cup oil and 1/4 cup nondairy milk (almond milk is preferable, but I used soy as I didn’t have almond on hand).

Mix thoroughly for about two minutes with a strong fork until the mixture resembles smooth caramel. There’s a chemical reaction when sugar and oil collide, so this step is really important.

Mix in 2 tsp vanilla extract, 1 cup gluten free plain flour and 1/2 tsp baking soda.

Mix in a further 1/2 cup gluten free plain flour.

Fold in 3/4 cup nondairy choc chips.

You should have a soft, pretty dough ^.^

Roll the dough into balls about the size of ping pong balls and flatten the dough onto trays. (they should be 3 inches wide when baked)

Bake for 8 to 10 minutes until they are JUST browned around the edges. You don’t want to exceed this time.

Allow to cool on trays!

If you roll the dough into balls smaller than ping pong balls, bake for only 6 minutes. (these should be about 2 inches big)

FRIED BEAN SPROUTS

Wash 300g bean sprouts, drain 1 can straw mushrooms and dice 2 spring onions.

Place bean sprouts in a bowl and sprinkle with 1 tsp sugar, 3 tbsp gluten free soy sauce and pepper to taste.

Heat 4 tbsp oil in a frying pan until quite hot.

Fry 1 tbsp chopped (or minced) garlc until brown.

Add mushrooms and fry for two minutes.

Add bean sprouts (and all the soy, etc, from the bowl) and fry for one minute.

Add spring onions and stir thoroughly for a few seconds before removing pan from heat.

Serve immediately.

DONUT HOLES

Place 1 3/4 cups almonds and seeds from 1 vanilla bean in a food processor.

Process into a fine powder.

Slowly add 2 cups chopped dried pineapple and 2 cups pitted dates.

Blend well to form a thick dough.

Remove from food processor, and stir together with 1/3 cup shredded coconut.

Form into balls and roll in more shredded coconut.

These beauties will keep for over a week in the fridge.
The pineapple gives them a very sweet, unique taste.
Delicious!