Organic Granny

As you can see, a delicious piece of carrot cake, is being taken down. This is a vegan carrot cake baked by my dear friend, Bonnie. It followed a yummy meal our friends made as a sort of celebration of our dropping by to see their new home and meet their furbaby, Abbey. Bonnie and Stephen aren't vegan so it was very sweet of them to go to the trouble of making something for us that they might not ordinarily eat. We were touched. Recipe next with more notes and chitchat to follow that, for those who are interested. VEGAN CARROT CAKE  by BONNIE INGREDIENTS + Method Preheat oven to 350 F/175 C Grease 9×13 pan or use parchment Grate 2 cups of carrots and set aside Also put aside 1/2 cup dried pineapple pieces *see Notes Whisk the following 'dry ingredients' together in a bowl: *1 cup All Purpose flour *1 1/4 cups whole wheat flour *1 teaspoon baking soda* see Notes *3 teaspoons cinnamon *1/2 teaspoon nutmeg *1/2 teaspoon sea salt Mix the 'wet ingredients' together in a

Oat-based vegan cheese sauce Here is a delicious, healthy Mac and cheese recipe, particularly important for those following a diet geared for low fat heart health.  Besides no dairy, this Cheesy dish contains no poured oils and no seeds or nuts in this recipe! Check your pantry for the following and you are ready to go: Oat flakes (gluten-free, if needed), corn or tapioca starch, nutritional yeast, half a red pepper, salt pepper, a half a lemon (or apple cider vinegar will do) and some Mexican spices if you so wish. Also either onion powder or a half an onion (chopped), liquid smoke (optional, but I use a capful) and a blender . Now go here to the recipe from Mrs. Plant in Texas and get all the measures of the ingredients used. We have been enjoying this quick and easy sauce over pasta, broccoli and cooked other vegetables, and punched up with a little more heat, as a dip.  I know you will enjoy it too!

  Roasted (Grilled) Eggplant Rounds Ingredients 1 Eggplant sliced into rounds tossed in bowl with 3 tablespoons olive oil, to coat 😺😺 Mix in a small bowl: 3 tablespoons nutritional yeast 1/2 teaspoon dried basil 1/2 teaspoon dried thyme 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder 1/4 teaspoon sea salt 1/4 teaspoon fresh ground pepper 😺😸 Package of Daiya vegan cheese shreds 😼😼😼 HOW-TO : Preheat oven to 425° F. Cover flat pan with parchment paper Dust (or dredge) eggplant rounds with herbs Place on oven pan and put in oven for 25 minutes.  At the 15 minute mark add on topping of Daiya cheese shreds. 😼😽😼 Notes : Eggplant, or aubergine, is a Mediterranean fruit (used as a savory or vegetable) and is really delicious cooked with Italian herbs but you are not restricted by such pronouncements.  You could use Middle Eastern, Northern African, Oriental or Mexican herb mixes if those are your taste faves.  No nazis overseeing your kitchen (I hope).  Go with your creativity. Let me know how they turn o

  I'm back! Once during the last few weeks on a "raw vegan cleanse" I kept thinking about pancakes!  The following recipe is the result.  ** NOTE: Whisk together sweet and brown rice flours before starting recipe. So here is a great gluten-free banana pancake recipe that I tweaked until I liked it: Put the following  INGREDIENTS  in your blender: 1 Ripe Organic  Banana 1 T.  Vegetable Oil 1/2 tsp.  Celtic Sea Salt  (or to taste) 1 1/2 C. Nondairy  Milk  or other milk Pinch of  Nutmeg 1 T.  Cinnamon 2 T. Sugar or other sweetener  4 tsp.  Baking Powder . Easy Method for  Making Pancakes: Blend the above ingredients and then pour over: 1/2 C.  Sweet White Rice (gluten-free) Flour 1/2 C . Brown Rice (gluten-free) Flour Mix. Let sit for about 15 minutes. Pour about a 1/4 C. of batter into hot pan and flip when bubbles appear on all sides and elsewhere on panca

Protein-rich Gluten-free Zesty Lentil and Quinoa Pasta Sauce This delightful warming sauce with its plant-based proteins of lentils and quinoa, is adapted from the "Lentil Quinoa Bolognese Sauce" recipe in Kathy Hester's The Great Vegan Bean Book: More Than 100 Plant-Based Dishes Packed With The Kindest Protein In Town .   I love beans-- well, legumes of all ilk-- and I love how Hester has put together this cookbook, with recipes that meet people's dietary and health needs (gluten-free, soy-free, no added-oil, nut allergy recipes are labeled) and in a way that shows the diversity of the protein-rich bean.   There are recipes for everything from the familiar hearty savoury dishes straight through incorporating beans into breads and other baked items to amazing beany desserts (like, how about "Double-Chocolate Devil's Food Cookies" using cooked or canned black beans?)  I hope you enjoy this take-off on her sauce.  I do 'adaptations' when

  We enjoyed this glorious salad on Christmas Eve.   It started out as a "bowl" in that the roasted butternut squash and quinoa were still hot when we added them in.  The next day we ate it as a more traditional salad cold from the fridge. Either way, the textures and flavours come together very nicely-- it is flavourful, yummy and filling while low-fat with no added refined sugar.  It is also vegan and gluten-free. Another winner from Candace Feldman's * Lean Into Plants *.

This yummy easy-on-me plant-based chocolate-cherry cobbler is a recipe of the fabulous *Forks Over Knives* team.  Link below. Chocolate-Cherry Cobbler, an incredible Christmas Confection!  So delicious, and low sugar, vegan, no added oils  and gluten-free if you opt to use GF quick oats. Also, quick to put together with most ingredients already in most of our cupboards.  Two kinds of cherries are suggested for this decadent dessert: frozen unsweetened dark sweet cherries (4 cups) and frozen unsweetened tart cherries (1 cup).  It might be tough to find either one or the other in your local market. You could consider other berries in a pinch  sweetening as needed. You could also use just one of the two berry types.   Find the full recipe HERE . If you have extra cherries, you might want to try the following great fudgy chocolate smoothie (approved by NutritionFacts.org's Dr. Michael Greger) Fudgy Chocolate- Cherry Smoothie                                                   (Click on

Joyeuse Noel!  Soon you will be able to say this-- in a variety of languages-- and really know that you are into the Christmas season. I said "Merry Christmas" to a woman upstairs at Step Above coffee shop today, and she said the same back, so maybe it's begun? If you have missed the previous 3 days of crafts / gifts made from various household items, you can check them out here:   Day 1      Day 2       Day 3      You will notice that we have built in some Gluten-Free Christmas Cookie Recipes as well!   ⁹ Ugly Christmas Sweaters At some point in the 80s or 90s there was a run on really cute Christmas sweaters.  People knit them as gifts and some people spent a lot of money to buy them in fancy stores.   Then the tide turned, and the sweaters were proclaimed "ugly" and ever after people wore these sweaters as some sort of indicator of how trendy they were.  Or something? Now I am happy to say that today's craft makes use of any ugly sweaters-- or perfectly n

Nice to have you here to do a little craft with recycled materials that you likely have around you somewhere.  If you missed the craft from yesterday, you can   check it out HERE DECEMBER 12, 2021 .  A couple of years my husband and I met his cousins at Church.  They are from another city and have a "beach house" in our community.  Like my husband, they grew up in Evangelical Lutheran households-- GERMAN Evangelical Lutheran households.   It was the first day of Advent-- "the Coming of the King of Kings." The Pastor -- seemed like a priest to me-- in vestments, carrying the whole service by himself except for some help at Communion Time and the ladies crewing in the basement with coffee afterwards-- announced that the small fir tree in the Church yard that they had marked to be used this year as a Christmas tree, had been cut down and taken off.  Grinchy thieves.  Last night, apparently. So, today's craft has to do with  wood  in honour of the stolen tree.   Tre

These 10 Days of Christmas on Organic Granny's site are henceforth dedicated to readers who are making a valiant effort to celebrate the Season without consuming gluten!  I was thinking.  When folks are gluten-free during a holiday season, like Christmas, there seems to be an awful lot of time given over to baking and the like.  For the gluten-sensitive person, that might entail a lot of temptation and / or a lot of expensive ingredients used to sub in for something that might not necessarily smell or look or taste like the "usual" item.  Disappointment. So, why don't we just branch out here and do something else creative.  If you have kids you might want to involve them in the activity (no pressure-- you can also do it while they are at school or asleep), A few (maybe up to 10) ideas for crafts or gifts made from stuff you already have about-- old Christmas cards, scraps of wool, mismatched ornaments... we'll see as we go.  One craft a day with a reflection, and

  Several years ago my husband went off to Honduras to help build a church school as a volunteer.  I missed him. I had been eating lots of dopamine-producing foods and honestly had not had any cravings for sweets. And suddenly... well, I invented the most delicious unbaked (not all the ingredients are "raw") brownies that smelled like oreo cookies when I took the top off the food processor.  I will try not to eat the whole pan myself, although that will be hard.  Here is the recipe, but I suggest that you jiggle around with the ingredients to get the exact taste that you want... it's not hard, just put You could, for example, try a little oatmeal for the dehydrated buckwheat crispies (although I think that would be a shame, really, because they give it the 'cookie crumb' texture-- maybe you could try rice crispies?) Melt about 1 T. of extra virgin coconut oil in a dish over hot water. Grind up about 1/2 C. of Buckwheat Crispies into a flour usin

  Yes, yes, yes... I am a beaner (mostly vegan, lovin' legumes) and I also love the cocoa bean-- soooooo.... when I ran across a recipe for "cookie dough dip" made with garbanzo beans AND chocolate chips... well, you know, I just had to give it a go.    And it turns out, it is delisssssshhh.  Yum yum yum yum.Now, notching incongruous innovation up just a bit, have you ever imagined what dipping cookie dough with a potato chip might be like?  Yeah, well, so did I. And I found the perfect light, but vaguely-reminiscent-of-wafer potato chip-- Kettle Bakes in the very simple but elegant SEA SALT (plus sliced potato and sunflower oil) flavour. Not sure where these potato bakes can be purchased now. Into your food processor (one that will really do the job of creaming this cookie dough, such as a Cuisinart) put: INGREDiENTS *1 1/2 C. (250 g) canned  Garbanzo Beans  / Chick Peas (well-rinsed) *1/4 C.  Almond Butter  (I used Maranatha Raw Almond Butter) *2 tsp.  Vanilla  (I used

  I am totally thrilled by this recipe-- it rolls out great and the house smells like Christmas as the cookies bake, and then, of course, they taste delicious.  (See notes and attribution at bottom of recipe.) INGREDIENTS 2 cups  organic   brown rice flour 1 1/2 cups  arrowroot powder 1 1/2 cups  amaranth flour 3 T.  organic   baking powder 2 t.  organic cinnamon 10 drops  Young Living Ginger Essential Oil* 5   drops  Young Living Nutmeg Essential Oil* 5   drops  Young Living Clove Essential Oil* 1 1/2 cups  Organic Cane Sugar 1/2 cup  organic applesauce 1/3 cup  Extra Virgin Coconut Oil,  melted in a cup in a bowl of hot water 1/3 cup  blackstrap molasses 2 T.  vanilla coconut oil, for oiling cookie sheets or you can use a silicone sheet on top of a pizza pan like I did-- no extra oil needed and the cookies don't stick at all. *ONLY USE ESSENTIAL OILS THAT ARE SAFE FOR HUMAN CONSUMPTION AND ONLY IN SMALL SMALL QUANTITIES!!! If you do not have Young Living Essential Oils, I would s

  Carrot-Spice Gluten-free Vegan Cookies Anyone fearful of missing out on Christmas baking because of gluten-sensitivity or CD is really in luck this year-- the internet is teeming with recipes for delicious gluten-free treats. As far as baked cookies go, this next recipe could be classified a "health cookie" (except maybe for the sugar?). Once your mouth gets over the fact that it is not your standard wheat molasses-type cookie, your taste buds say, "al-right!" It's a cookie of substance! 1 cup packed brown sugar 1/2 cup Extra Virgin Olive Oil (EVOO) 1 cup shredded carrots 1 cup raisins or dried cranberries 1 egg substitute (mix 1 T. of ground  flaxseed with 3 T. of water until creamy) 1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce (an apple+ in the Vitamix and whirl) 2 tablespoons molasses 1 teaspoon alcohol-free vanilla 2 1/2 C. brown rice flour 1/2 teaspoon of each of the following: cinnamon, ginger, coriander (ground) 1/2 teaspoon baking powder Christmas cards from Etsy--

  Yes these delightful-looking confections are Black Bean Brownies- moist, vegan (egg-free, gluten-free, dairy-free) There are several (thousand??) black bean brownie recipes on the web... this is my choice, an adaptation of the one by the  Happy Herbivore .  I use Maple Syrup (hey, I'm Canadian) instead of the agave syrup she uses. I also threw in some carob powder because it takes the edge off the bitterness of the cocoa, and is sort of like a light flour without actually being a flour (there are some who call chocolate "the poor man's carob" heheh). This is, in all, an easypeasy recipe and it tastes pretty good too: I used a Food Processor (you could also use a blender) Fit a sheet of parchment paper in the bottom of an 8"x8" cake pan, or grease it up.  Preheat the oven to 350F/180C Put the following into the food processor or blender carafe: 2 ripe, peeled Bananas, in chunks 1 15-oz. can of Black Beans (or 1 19-oz. can of Black Beans, drained of all flui

  This thick tasty smoky white bean spread  is just super for a light topping on a veggie burger, or as a sandwich filler. Just a half a cup (125 grams) will provide you with 10.7 grams of dietary fibre, 14.6 grams of protein, and 0 saturated fat and cholesterol. Makes a nice switch from Hummus!  To read how to cook beans from scratch go  HERE . Ingredients: 3 C. / 537 g.         cooked White Beans  1/2 C. / 70 g         Raw Sunflower Seeds  1 tsp.                    Smoked Paprika 1/2- 1 tsp.             Liquid Smoke 1/2 - 1 tsp.            Sea Salt 1 tsp .                     Apple Cider Vinegar 1 tsp.                     Dijon Mustard-Gluten Free     1/2 C.                   Water 1/2 C.                   Nutritional Yeast METHOD: Add everything (except Nutritional Yeast) to Food Processor and process until smooth Add in a little extra water if it is too thick, and blend up with the Nutitritional Yeast It's delicious right away, but even more delicious if you refrigerate it over

  When you make these delicious gluten-free oat-buckwheat cookies  you wiĺl need to use a light and fluffy buckwheat flour made from dehydrated buckwheat crispies .  Make your own crispies-- easy peas y or buy puffed buckwheat from a health store or Amazon . For this cookie recipe, Step 2 is to grind up the crispies in a coffee bean grinder into a fine flour (you can actually grind the dehydrated groats in your high speed blender into a flour as well if you don't want to soak and dehydrate your buckwheat).  These make a fine, sweet, substantial, fairly soft cookie.  If I'd had any GF chocolate chips around, I would have added them! Preheat oven to 350F. Put the following into a Food Processor: *1/2 C.  Virgin Coconut Oil  (doesn't have to be melted) *1 C. Granulated  Sweetener (I used a combination of Palm Sugar & Stevia) *1  Vegan Egg  (1 T. Flax seed, ground, and mixed into 3 T. warm water) *1 tsp.  Vanilla *1 C.  Buckwheat Crispie  "Flour"  (Crispies groun