Makin Cranberry Pancakes

Pancakes, cranberry syrup, well HELLO Thanksgiving morning, How ARE you? Seriously, Thanksgiving day for most people is like a cooking marathon with a very, very satisfying ending. Well, I propose we take a moment to focus on the beginning of the day. You better start it off right, how else will you have the energy needed to get through one of the most epic cooking days of the year? Why not whip up a batch of fluffy pancakes with homemade cranberry syrup to get everyone in the cooking/festive mood? Sounds like a plan to me, AND these pancakes don't use eggs SO you don't have to worry about running out to the store for more when it comes time to make your famous *insert egg based holiday dish here* A few words about the cranberry syrup. It. Is. Awesome. You don't have to chop, puree, crush anything! Just throw the berries in a pan with some sweet sticky stuff, whisk a few times, and VOILA homemade (mostly) syrup! Cranberries deliciously bursting with every bite of sweet fluffy pancake.... Thanksgiving breakfast reclaimed.

Fluffy Eggless Pancakes

from cooks.com contributed by Dawn Linke
Makes 8 medium pancakes
1 cup all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon sugar

1 teaspoon cinnamon

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 cup whole milk (or soy milk)

1 tablespoon vegetable oil

1 tablespoon water

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 tablespoons butter

Combine dry ingredients and mix. Add milk, oil, water, and vanilla. Mix until just combined, be careful not to overmix, it should be a bit lumpy (and you don't wanna strain a muscle!). Set aside to rest for a few minutes. Heat a large skillet over medium-high heat. While pan is heating throw in the two tablespoons of butter. As soon as the butter is nice and melted, add it to the pancake batter. Return pan to the stove and stir in that butter. When pan is hot (a drop of water should sizzle when dropped on pan), ladle on some batter. Cook until bubbles form on the surface, then flip em over and cook until goldeny brown.

Meanwhile....

Cranberry Syrup

from Cooking Light
1 cup cranberries (thawed if frozen)
1/2 cup maple syrup
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup water
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon lemon juice


Combine all ingredients in a saucepan over medium-high heat. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat, simmer for about eight minutes or until berries begin to pop. Stir occasionally so it doesn't burn/stick to pan. Remove from heat and pour over pancakes.
*Leftovers are awesome stirred into oatmeal or yogurt, OR over ice cream.
Yes. Please.
Bliss....

Linking up at Tatertots and Jello and Under the Table and Dreaming

Vegan Acorn Squash Muffins

This weekend, I tried a vegan recipe! I have been considering going vegan lately, but I am still having trouble completely giving up meat so I haven't fully converted. BUT I think that if we all cut down on our animal intake, or at least focused on eating animals and animal products that are certified humane, the world might be a little better place for our furred and feathered friends :) Anyways, this recipe is super easy and doesn't involve any strange ingredients so don't be scared by the veganness! I found the recipe on Hell Yeah It's Vegan! The original recipe used sweet potato puree, which I am sure would be great, but I only had an acorn squash so I subbed that in, instead. I also used molasses instead of maple syrup and didn't add in any lemon juice (as the original recipe called for). The muffins are PERFECT for this time of year, cinnamon and nutmeg are great complements to the sweetness of the acorn squash. They rose up beautifully and are best served warm with a drizzle of powdered sugar glaze. Enjoy!

Acorn Squash Muffins

Adapted from Hell Yeah It's Vegan

1 c + 2 Tbsp squash puree

3/4 c soy milk

2/3 c brown sugar

1/3 c water

¼ c oil

2 Tbsp molasses

2 c flour

2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

½ tsp salt

½ tsp ground cinnamon

1/8 tsp ground nutmeg

Preheat oven to 400°F and lightly oil a muffin tin. In a large bowl, mix together puree, soy milk, brown sugar, water, oil and molasses. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, soda, salt, and spices.

Combine wet and dry mixtures until just mixed.

Spoon batter evenly into prepared pan, filling muffin cups about 3/4 full. Bake for 20-25 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of a muffin comes out clean.

Let muffins rest a moment in the pan, then cool slightly on a wire rack before serving.

Before the glazing

Glaze

3/4 cup powdered sugar

1-2 tablespoons milk

Mix together, adding milk until desired consistency is achieved.

Yay for vegan muffins!

THE Granola to END all Granolas AKA Maple Nut Granola

Halloween is over... candy is on sale.... I may have indulged a bit too much.... How about a healthy(er) recipe today? I love starting my day off with a bowl of granola. I have tried MANY different recipes, all delicious, but the other evening I hit a combination that transformed my granola into an ADDICTING, CANT GET ENOUGH OF IT, ANY time of day snack! I found myself reaching for granola breakfast, lunch, and dinner (and a heck of a lot in between too). I guess that eating it for every meal may cancel out the healthiness, but this granola is so good, I really didn't care. It combines the essential fall flavors of maple and brown sugar with creamy peanut butter. At first, this may seem a strange combination. But let me tell you, it WORKS! I have been eating this granola on fruit, with milk, in yogurt, on my ice cream, but mostly just by the fist full! It is crunchy and clumpy, which for me is an essential for a great granola. Feel free to mix in whatever your heart desires, but I recommend you just try it as is. You may decide, as I did, that this granola is simply perfection!

2 cups rice krispies

2 cups old fashioned oats

1/3 cup peanut butter

1/3 cup maple syrup

4 tablespoons water

1/4 cup brown sugar, packed

3-4 tablespoons honey (depends how sweet you want it)

2 tablespoons brown sugar

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

In a large bowl, mix together rice crispies and oats.

In a heavy bottom sauce pan, mix together peanut butter, maple syrup, water and 1/4 cup brown sugar. Stir over low heat until sugar is dissolved.

Pour liquid ingredients over oats and krispies, stirring to coat. Empty bowl onto baking tray lined with parchment paper.

Spread granola out into a thick layer. Drizzle with honey and sprinkle with remaining brown sugar. Bake in preheated oven for 8 minutes. Gently flip/stir granola (I use a large rubber spatula and flip it over bit by bit so as not to break up the clumps). Cook for another 6 or 7 minutes, or until lightly browned. Remove from oven, allow to cool completely. Gently break into bite sized clumps.

*Note: Ok, so looking back at the ingredients I used, I realize that this granola has quite a bit of sweetness. But that's probably a good thing since, thanks to Halloween, my sugar intake has been pretty high. I don't wanna quit the sugar habit cold turkey. So this granola will keep me from going into candy withdrawl :)

Crunch, savor, enjoy.

Whisked Away Wednesday: Pear Muffins

Happy Wednesday everyone! It's pear season! We had a breakfast potluck at work this week and I was in charge of bringing doughnuts. Now, I am fond of doughnuts, I even posted a quick doughnut recipe a while back. I don't, however, believe that they are the best way to start a busy day at work. I wanted to bring something that was sweet and indulgent, but not quite as unhealthy as a big ol' doughnut. I had some pears sitting in the fruit bowl, but when I googled pear bread and muffins, all the recipes I found called for shredding the pears before incorporating them into the batter. I wanted to use big hearty chunks of pear! I found this recipe for Peach Almond Bread on the Amanda's Cookin blog. I can't bring anything to work with nuts in it (allergies), so I modified the recipe and used pears instead of peaches. I also made it into muffins, not bread. The muffins turned out DELIGHTFUL! Seriously, my new favorite muffin! They are light and filled with the succulent flavor of pear mingling with vanilla, cinnamon, and ginger. You should probably just make these now... you've made it half way through the week right?? So you deserve them!

Pear Muffins

Based on a recipe for Peach Almond Bread from Amanda's Cookin

Ingredients

1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 cup packed brown sugar

1 egg

1/2 cup sour cream

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 1/2 cups unbleached all purpose flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon ginger

2 cups peeled, chopped pears, (about 2 medium pears)

Preheat oven to 375 Fahrenheit.

Sorry about this ugly picture... but that's what it looked like! Batter aint always pretty... but it makes some tasty muffins!

Beat together first six ingredients (I used my hand mixer.)

Mix together remaining ingredients and add to wet ingredient mixture (don't overmix, using a good old fashioned wooden spoon helps).

Line muffin pans with liners. The recipe ended up making an odd number of muffins (15), so I had to use two muffin pans. A little tip I learned is to fill the unused muffin tins with a bit of water so that the muffins cook evenly.

Divide batter between 15 muffin tins, filling about 3/4 of the way full.

Sprinkle with streusel topping (see below for recipe).

Cook for 15-20 minutes, until golden brown and firm.

Streusel Topping

5 tablespoons butter (don't use margarine!)

1/4 cup flour

1/4 cup white sugar

1 teaspoon cinnamon

Mix together flour, sugar, and cinnamon. Cut in butter until crumbly. Sprinkle over muffins before baking.

Nobody missed having doughnuts at all!

Have a great rest of your week!

Foodie Friday

Scary Little Cookies

Tired of Halloween themed goodies yet? No? GOOD! Me neither! These Halloween cookies are stinkin' cute, if I do say so myself ☺ Got the recipe from the Land O' Lakes butter website. I don't even remember how/why I was on a BUTTER website to begin with... but I digress... I like these cookies, they don't require lots of decorating effort, but they turn out adorable. Don't be deceived by their devilishly good looks, these little guys are darn tasty too. They are cakey, crunchy sugar cookies with the added surprise of coconut in the batter. I liked the fruit snack covered mummys the best, the taste reminds me of a jelly doughnut. Both ghosts and mummys were gobbled up in the first ten minutes of my neighbors Halloween party. What more can you ask for? Taste and looks, these cookies have it all!

Mummy and Ghost Sugar Cookies

Recipe from Landolakes.com

Ingredients

3/4 cup butter, softened

1/2 cup sugar

1 egg

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour

3/4 cup sweetened flaked coconut

1 box (6 rolls) fruit-flavored rolls

Black decorator gel

Mini chocolate chips or small decorator candies (optional)

Heat oven to 350°F. Combine butter, sugar, egg and vanilla in large bowl.

Beat at medium speed until well mixed. Reduce speed to low; add flour and coconut.

Continue beating until well mixed.

Divide dough into balls (I made BIG ones using my ice cream scooper and got about 12 balls).

Shape each ball into a log. Place 1 inch apart onto parchment paper covered cookie sheets. Bake for 12 to 14 minutes or until set. Remove from cookie sheets.

Mummys

Allow cookies to cool completely.

Starting at top of each cookie, wrap 1 fruit roll around each cookie, stretching slightly to cover. Cut off any extra fruit roll.

Leave small opening near top for eyes. Place onto waxed paper. Use black decorator gel to adhere mini chocolate chips for eyes on each cookie.

Ghosts

Extra Ingredients

2 cups powdered sugar

Roll each cookie in sifted powdered sugar while warm. Set aside to cool.

Roll each in powdered sugar again (I actually ended up putting powdered sugar in a bag and shakin the little ghosts). Tap off excess. Add eyes as directed above.

I liked the eyes better when I didn't use the mini chocolate chips, but it's your call ☺ Maybe use some red hots to make them look extra creepy!

Store in loosely covered container between sheets of waxed paper up to 2 days.

Have a great week!