Happy Herbivore Carrot Cake Pancakes

Mmmm.   Carrot cake pancakes? There are recipes all over the net but this was the first I'd tried. I like that it didn't use any oil.  I found it Happy Herbivore's Everyday cookbook and I'm so glad I made them.  They aren't too sweet and have a spice cake taste.  The toughest part was grating the carrots. I used a microplane and grated 1 1/2 medium sized carrots to get a 1/4 cup.  Now that I type this, I realize the hardest part was not eating them all! I was able to make 6 medium pancakes and one little Mickey Mouse pancake for the child.  The only tweaks I made were a teaspoon of cane sugar and a little squirt of maple agave.  I did this because when I tasted the batter it didn't seem sweet at all. However, next time I'll skip the sugar. I don't think it added much at such a small amount.  The agave would be enough. And since I made cream cheese "syrup" the pancakes were plenty sweet.

I used about 2 oz of vegan cream cheese, 1 tablespoon of powdered sugar, 1/2 a teaspoon of vanilla and a splash of unsweetened almond milk and blended until smooth. It poured like syrup and while not an exact replica of cream cheese frosting, it was close enough.  Perfect with the pancakes.

Spicy Aztec Bowl….revised

Happy Herbivore's Spicy Aztec Bowl as interpreted by me:

What I did differently:

I added diced a yellow onion instead of green onions. I also added some cumin, garlic powder and a little chili powder. Skipped the hot sauce and served the refried beans on the side.  Salsa was a great topping. Also, I decided not to use the avocado. A simple green salad completes it.

It was filling and tasty.

Creole Rice and Beans from Happy Herbivore

I recently started getting Happy Herbivore's weekly meal plans, complete with menus and shopping lists, as a way to help me stay on track with cooking nutritious meals. Here is one of the recipes I made: Creole Rice and Beans

It was pretty simple to make and it helped that I had the rice already prepared. Open up a few cans, chop a few vegetables and throw in some spices and you're done. I try not to use processed foods but canned beans don't count! Even my 2 year old liked it and that is saying a lot.

Happyherbivore.com

Faux Tuna Salad….Really!

Have you heard of Happy Herbivore? She writes fantastic vegan recipes and here's one I was skeptical about. I love tuna fish salad. In fact, it was the hardest thing for me to give up when I transitioned to a vegan diet recently. Years ago, when I was a vegetarian, tuna salad was the one thing I craved the most and it started me back to eating meat, fish and poultry. So to find a recipe that claimed to taste like the real thing was promising but come on….how could chick peas really taste like tuna?  And then I noticed something for the first time. When I opened the can of chick peas, it actually smelled reminiscent of canned tuna!

Check out HH's site. Here's the recipe: Happy Herbivore Mock Tuna Salad

I am truly amazed. If I hadn't known, the first bite would have fooled me for sure. It's very tuna salad-like but doesn't have the "fishy" taste that some people dislike about tuna. There is also no fishy smell so it's perfect to take to work when you share an office.

Note: original recipe used kelp, which I didn't have. I'll have to acquire some soon!