Baking

Sprinklings: breakfast

| mollyeleen

Breakfast used to be my favorite meal of the day…and then I started eating a vegan diet. Plus I am gluten free. So finding something super yummy isn’t always easy and quite frankly I am done with hot oatmeal with berries. So when I found this recipe on Pinterest by The Joy of Everyday Cooking I was super excited! Peanut butter oatmeal bars- YUM!

I have been making them twice a week for weeks now, but yesterday I had a slight panic…not enough honey!

Okay side note- many vegans do not eat honey, harms the bees or something like that. This is not us- we still eat honey, we are vegans for health reasons and I believe the bees enjoy making honey.

Back to the bars…I had to adjust the recipe to what I had in the pantry and they came out divine. So here you go!

barsI hope you try them outsignature

sprinklingSprinklings of my reality is part of a 31 day challenge- read them all

A little vegan sweetness

| mollyeleen

Hello strangers! Well actually I have been the stranger lately.  Ever get into one of those “funks.” You have too much to do and no motivation what so ever to do anything. That was my last week, luckily for me I snapped out of it relatively quickly. Of course the week of not getting much done means that this week I have been crazy busy trying to catch up. The to do list is written and way to long for my own good. Oh well, that’s what I get for feeling blah.

After a fun morning working at pre-school, let me tell you 30 kiddos are loud, really loud, playing with that many kiddos sure does bring out the kiddo in me.  What is better than playing all morning, a special treat for a friday afternoon…we made cookies. Vegan cookies… Vegan peanut butter chocolate chip cookies. Boy howdy are they delicious.  I will even go as far to say they are good for you, as far as cookies go that is.

Of course I am going to share, these are super simple:

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For the oatmeal flour, I use old fashioned oats and whirl it in the food processor.

IMG_6037Mix, mix, mix

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IMG_6047Someone is sneaking the chocolate chips, her very most favorite thing. “Mommy your the best” when chocolate comes into our home, which is NOT very often.

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Waiting for the oven….this dough will be thick, so don’t freak out about that. Seems thicker to me than “normal” peanut butter cookies.

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All done, and yum.  Now I am not one with a major sweet tooth. These cookies are sweet to me, you might want to taste the dough (hey you can! they are vegan!) to see if you want to add extra sugar. For us, they are perfect.

IMG_6050A Friday Tip too, in our house, kiddo eats a bunch of apple sauce, especially the ones that come in the little cups. Did you know those little cups hold exactly a half a cup?  I have a small collection of them, we use them for painting and freezing foods. So with the left over can of pumpkin, I fill up those cups, pop them in a zippy bag and freeze. Next time I need pumpkin, it’s already measured out…smart right.

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Someone said she didn’t sneak an extra cookie, I let her get away with it this time, she has been so awesome lately. Would love to know if you try to make these cookies, they are quite yummy.signature

day 26: it worked!

| mollyeleen

Okay, the little added pressure from yesterday sure worked.  I got super busy today! Not only did we have a wonderful lunch with my mother-in-law, I also got some of my to do list completed, almost!

I worked on the canvases that I posted about last week.  Only one more to go and I can show you the series of nine.  I have hung the canvases up already and I am loving it. Can’t wait to share it with you.

We also did a little baking. Kiddo’s birthday is a week away and I wanted to practice making her cake. Practice? Yep, because I never take the easy route, like baking a “normal” cake.  Truly it would make life easier, but that’s not how I roll.

rainbowcakeLast year, I made the seven layer rainbow cake.  It was awesome! The kiddo’s faces when we cut it open- priceless!  So how could I go from that to normal? Can’t. So this year it’s all about pok-a-dots.

IMG_5892I was so happy it worked! Now this is easy to do, but it takes forever! Really hours. But it’s so worth it right? Of course I wish this was my ingenious idea, but nope it wasn’t. Found the cake idea at Once Upon a Pedestal, you can see her awesomeness here.

How does this improve our little world? Well, items off the to do list- improvement! Not stressed about kiddo’s birthday- super improvement! (I can make anything into an improvement-  LOL)signature

read them all!
read them all!

Keeping up traditions, part 1

| mollyeleen

We have many traditions, especially when it comes to Christmas, or God Jul.  My mom’s family is from Sweden, she is the first generation in the Untied States, so many of our traditions are Swedish.  I love them all, the insane and the fun, and I will do all I can to keep them going, really it’s not that hard.

Yesterday we made Coffee Bread, Vetebrod, for Christmas morning.  My mom, with my “help,” has been making them since 1989.  I know this because the recipe has the number of times she doubled the recipe each year.  She makes a loaf for each family that comes to our Jul Celebration, we have made more than 20 loafs at a time, yesterday “only” 14.  And it was kiddo’s turn to start learning.

Vetebord recipe with years of notes
Vetebord recipe with years of notes

This Jul Coffee Bread is full of cardamon, cinnamon, butter, and sugar.  What could be better.  When we make 14 loaves, it’s an all day event.  Every year, we chat about the upcoming Smorgasbord preparations (more to come on this), who is coming (only 35 this year) and other funny random mom and daughter discussions. My mom says “This is why I don’t like baking, it takes so long.”  And I reply with “If you only made one, it would not take forever, but we are making 14” (or whatever the years number is).  With kiddo helping out this year, it was funny for sure.  “I want to make a pumpkin shaped Vetebrod for halloween, Nanny.”  “The sugar tastes glittery.” and my favorite “You can’t buy houses, they are too heavy to carry home!” HA!

Back to the bread, after the dough rises and has been kneaded, again, it’s time for the rolling and folding.

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Rolling out the bread dough
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Spreading the butter, sugar & cinnamon mixture
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After rolling the dough, you snip, snip, snip
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Then fold, fold, fold
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Second rise while waiting for the oven
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Done, and the house smells amazing!

Now these are in no way shape or form vegan, nor gluten free, but it’s one of those traditions that I will ignore my “food rules” for.  We all look forward to Christmas morning, a bit hung over from the Jul Celebration, with a strong cup of coffee and a slice or two or three of the Vetebrod while watching the kiddo’s open there stocking gifts. I can taste it already, God Jul!

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