Raw, Vegan Vanilla Chia Seed Pudding

Lately, I've been eating chia seed pudding. A whole lot. It's probably my favorite breakfast, snack, and even desert. And this is simple, plain, vanilla chia pudding that takes literally little to no time to make. 

What I’m about to share will make four servings of chia seed pudding. If you want to cut this recipe in half, you can, and heck, if you want to go crazy and double it, you can do that, too. But what you need to know is the basic ratio of chia seed to liquid that will yield perfect results. For me, it is:

3 tablespoons:1 cup–that’s what you need to remember! The liquid can be any plant milk, but coconut water and juice are great, too.

When I’m making a single serving of chia pudding at a time, I usually just stir the cup of liquid and seeds together. I wait a minute or two, then stir again. I stir again five minutes later, and five minutes after that. After that, I just let it sit for an hour or two before enjoying. Usually, I’m prepping chia pudding for breakfast, so I let it sit overnight in the fridge. In the morning, I’ll add a tablespoon or two of extra almond milk if necessary.

When I make a bunch of servings at once, though, it’s much easier to make chia pudding in my blender. Here’s what you’ll need to make four servings at a time:

I add my almond milk, vanilla, and maple syrup to my blender and blend them up. Then, with the blender on a very low setting (the lowest setting in a regular blender, or about a 2 or 3 in the Vitamix), I add the chia seed.

It blends up without getting stuck together, and it’s a fast way to mix things up. 

I transfer the whole thing to a mixing bowl and–just as with a single serving–I give it a stir.

I give it another stir a moment or two later. I stir it five minutes later, and five minutes after that. Then I let it sit for an hour (thirty minutes will be enough time if that’s all you have) before transferring it to storage containers.

I usually get about one quart and one small, half pint jar. For me, that’s about four servings.

This chia breakfast is a parfait of 1 cup vanilla chia pudding, two tablespoons of flax seeds and almonds, two tablespoons of shredded coconut, and fresh blackberries. 

It’s as beautiful as it is delicious–and fun to eat. Here it is, in snack size!

I like any berries on top of a chia pudding, but local blackberries have been particular giant (and delicious) lately.

So, that’s my plain chia pudding process. Of course, you can add just about anything you like: ginger, cinnamon, cocoa, protein powder. This dish is easy to customize and uber pretty!

xoxo,

Joanna

Lemon Rosemary Layer Cake

I made my first (decent) cake this weekend. That sounds like a small statement. But listen to me when I say, this is a big statement!

Cake is my baking arch enemy. I have just had so many failures with cakes. Because I made this cake for a larger amount of people, and not just myself, I used regular, normal cake-required ingredients! 

We bakers are known for our patience. Well, let me tell you this: I am not patient! Not at all. And this cake took me all freaking morning to make so it also took all my energy to keep myself in the cake baking game. To keep myself from taking any shortcuts and to just plain finish. I give those wedding cake bakers major cred. They deserve it.

I kept the look of the frosting on this one simple. The reasons for this is 3-fold. #1: I wanted it to look a little old fashioned. #2: I pretty much only like making cream cheese frosting and it’s not the easiest to work with as far as decorating. #3: Let’s be honest, I don’t have any cake frosting skills. This is the best I could do. Oh well, one challenge at a time, folks! 

The cake turned out really light and fluffy! I am pretty pumped about the success! So I wanted to try something different for this post. I did step-by-step photos to help your cake turn out as light and fluffy as mine did! 

Everything is going to go a lot more smoothly if you get all your mise en place (getting everything in it’s place) before you start. Trust me. Then you know you need to run out in the ice to get more sugar before you actually start mixing anything (not that I had that problem or anything).

Hopefully you also put those eggs and that buttermilk out in enough time to come to room temperature too! You want a fluffy cake right? 

Preheat your oven to 350F!

Spray two 8″ or 9″ cake pans and dust with flour. Tap out the excess flour and set pans aside while you get your batter together! (things are getting exciting! more exclamations!)

Gather up a large bowl, a sifter, the flour, salt, baking soda, baking powder, and sugar. Remove 1/4 cup of the sugar and set aside for later. Sift together everything (minus the 1/4 cup sugar).

I like to use a whisk to speed things along since I don’t have a hand crank sifter. Baker’s trick!

Give it all one more quick whisk to combine everything and set the dry ingredients aside.

Moving on to the wet ingredients! Grab your egg yolks, melted butter, oil, vanilla, buttermilk, lemon zest, and chopped rosemary.

And give them all a quick whisk together and set aside.

Whew! This is hard work.

Now whip your egg whites in the mixer with the whisk attachment. Stream in the 1/4 cup sugar you reserved earlier with the mixer on high just until stiff peaks form. Like those ^ up there!

You just made simple meringue, snaps for you!

GENTLY move the meringue from the mixing bowl into a clean mixing bowl and set aside. If you let it move around too much, it flattens. ):

Finally, we can start making the batter! Add that dry ingredient mixture to the mixing bowl and with the mixer on low speed gradually pour in the wet ingredients.

Mix for only about 10 seconds then shut off the mixer and scrape down the bowl. Mix for about 20 more seconds on low speed and shut off. We don’t want to over develop the glutens here! 

Gently fold 1/2 the meringue into the batter being very careful not to deflate the meringue.  Then, gently (see the pattern?) fold the rest of the meringue into the batter.

You will have a few white streaks in the batter. They will bake out. You want to fold as little as possible to keep the cake light and fluffy!

GENTLY divide the batter evenly between your prepared pans. Are you noticing a trend? GENTLE!

Bake at 350F for 20 minutes, rotating 1/2 way through.

Cool on a wire wrack. Ignore the imperfections! The top will become the bottom!

Make your frosting while the cake cools! Lemon cream cheese frosting!

Now frost your cake, take some pretty pictures, and share with someone special (or you could just keep it to yourself) :). 

The cake is not overly sweet and I am obsessed with the herbaceousness that the rosemary brings! 

Fluffy Lemon-Rosemary Layer Cake

Yield: 8-12

Ingredients

• 2 1/2 cups cake flour, plus extra for dusting pans

• 1 1/4 teaspoons baking powder

• 1/4 teaspoon baking soda

• 3/4 teaspoon table salt

• 1 3/4 cups sugar (divided)

• 10 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and cooled slightly

• 1 cup buttermilk, room temperature

• 3 tablespoons vegetable oil

• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract

• 1 TBSP lemon zest

• 1 TBSP fresh rosemary, minced

• 6 large egg yolks, room temperature

• 3 large egg whites, room temperature

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 350F. Grease two 8" or 9" round cake pans. Dust pans with flour and tap out excess any excess.

1. In a large bowl whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and 1 1/2 cups sugar. In another bowl whisk together the melted butter, buttermilk, oil, vanilla, lemon zest, rosemary and egg yolks.

1. For the meringue: In the bowl of your stand mixer fitted with whisk attachment, beat egg whites at medium speed until foamy. With machine running, stream in the remaining 1/4 cup sugar. Beat at high speed just until stiff peaks form. Gently transfer to a bowl and set aside.

1. Add flour mixture to the empty stand mixer bowl fitted with whisk attachment. With mixer running at low speed, gradually pour in butter mixture and mix for about 10 seconds. Stop mixer and thoroughly scrape down the bowl. Mix again on medium for 20 more seconds just until combined.

1. Using rubber spatula, gently fold in 1/2 of the meringue just until incorporated. Fold in the rest of the meringue. Be very gentle to not deflate the air in the meringue. You will have a few white streaks in the batter. Divide batter evenly between your prepared cake pans.

1. Place pans on a half-sheet pan and bake on the center rack in the oven at 350F for 20-25 minutes, rotating halfway through. The cake will begin pulling away Bake until cake layers begin to pull away from sides of pans and will no longer giggle in the center when it is finished.

1. Cool cakes in pans on wire rack for 20 minutes. Run a thin bladed knife around the sides of the pans to loosen cakes then invert on a greased wire rack. Allow to cool completely (about 1 more hour) before frosting.

Notes

Recipe adapted from Cook's Illustrated's Fluffy Yellow Cake

Lemon Cream Cheese Frosting

Ingredients

• 8 oz. cream cheese, softened

• 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened

• 1 TBSP lemon zest

• 2T lemon juice

• 1 tsp vanilla

• 2 1/2 cup confectioners sugar

Instructions

1. Combine all ingredients in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment. Mix on medium speed until combined and creamy. Scrape down the bowl as needed.

Have fun!

xx, Joanna

Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies

Trust me, vegan baking is super duper easy. At first, I thought anything I baked would turn out mushy and gross and just bleh. Turns out, I was wrong! I hope you enjoy this easy vegan cookie recipe and learn a little something about vegan baking. 

P.S.: Feel free to substitute the chocolate chips for anything you want! I made a version of these cookies with peanut butter and pink M&M's yesterday and they turned out delicious!  

My normal non-vegan recipe starts with creaming a sugar with a solid fat, aka butter. But for a vegan option, you can't really go wrong with any vegan solid fat such as Earth Balance, or a nut butter (almond, peanut, hazelnut) if you want that flavor in your cookie.

The next step would be to add something to help bind the cookie together and to also leaven it. In the original recipe I use an egg, but in this recipe you need 1 eggs equivalent of an egg replacement. If you don't have one on hand (literally, who does?) you can mix 1 tsp of corn starch or arrowroot powder with 1/2 tsp of baking powder and 3 tbsp of water. 

The recipe comes together quickly with adding in flour and the chocolate chips. I used Enjoy Life's brand of chocolate chips, but you can use dark chocolate, which is mostly vegan as well. 

It's that simple! 6 easy ingredients and you have delicious vegan chocolate chip cookies! The "base" dough can be used to make tons of various flavors. You can also add peanut butter, and top with a Hershey's Kiss after 7-9 minutes for peanut butter blossom cookies. I will most likely post a recipe on that soon, but it is pretty self-explanatory. 

• Ingredients: 
• 1/2 cup vegan butter
• 1 cup vegan sugar (dark brown muscovado sugar or whatever sugar you prefer)
• 1 tsp cornstarch or arrowroot powder
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 3 TBSP water
• 1 cup + 2 TBSP all-purpose flour
• 1 cup vegan chocolate chips or chunks

• 
  
• Directions: 
• Preheat oven to 375ºF.
• Cream together the vegan butter and sugar together until light and fluffy (about 3 minutes). 
• Whisk together the cornstarch, baking powder, and water until smooth. Mix into the creamed batter.
• Stir in the flour then the chocolate chips until combined.
• Bake at 375ºF until just lightly browned on the edges and middle still looks undercooked. About 8-10 minutes.

Happy (vegan) baking!

xx, Joanna

Brussels Sprout Chips

Brussels sprouts are my food soul mate. For the longest time, I never tried them. I didn't exactly turn my nose up to them. I don't really remember very many times I saw them being served. But of course, I didn't go out of my way to try them either. I mean, why would I? Brussels sprouts and lima beans are the food villains of children's books and movies. Everybody knows they are gross. Duh. But then I got this cookbook, and I saw an easy recipe for brussels sprouts. And the rest is history—it was love at first bite (no, I'm not embarrassed of that pun—love does that to you).

Since then, I've tried brussels sprouts many different ways. Not is it only perfect for those vowing to be healthy this new year, it is also perfect with kale chips! It is easy, quick, and super good for you.

Brussels Sprout Chips

Needed: brussels sprouts, olive oil, sea salt and a lemon.

First separate each leaf. The smallest leaves won't separate so you can either go ahead and cook those too or save them for another meal idea. Lightly coat the leaves in olive oil. Bake at 400°F for 8-10 minutes until edges begin to get crispy. Be sure to keep an eye on them, as they can burn quickly. Remove from oven, squeeze on some fresh lemon juice and sprinkle with sea salt. 

Happy snacking! 

xo. Joanna.

Thai Style Green Beans

Over the weekend I hosted lunch on Sunday with my family. It wasn't until the middle of preparing the food that I realized that I hadn't thought of any small dishes. Starting to panic,  I grabbed the nearest mixing bowl and attempted to think of a fun (and quick!) recipe that was enjoyable. My family loves Thai food, so why not? The result was this delicious, flavorful and super healthy side dish that got absolutely devoured at lunch on Sunday.

Thai Style Green Beans, makes 5-6 servings (as a side dish). 

3-4 lbs fresh green beans

3 tablespoons soy sauce

1/2 tablespoon honey

1/2 tablespoon rice wine vinegar

1/2 tablespoon sesame oil

1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes

3 tablespoons creamy peanut butter

2 tablespoon oil (I used canola)

1 tablespoon fresh ginger, minced

3 tablespoons fresh garlic, minced

1/2 cup chopped peanuts

1/3 cup cilantro

First rinse and chop off the ends of the green beans. This is optional, as it's kind of a preference thing. You can leave the ends on if you like. Just make sure to remove any stems that might still be attached to your fresh green beans.

Blanche the beans in boiling salted water for 4-6 minutes. I like my green beans a little more cooked than the average, so feel free to blanche for only 2-3 minutes if you want to really preserve that green bean crunch. After blanching I strain my beans and allow them to just sit in the colander for few minutes while I prep other things. This will continue the cooking process. If you want to stop the cooking process then plunge your cooked green beans into a bowl of ice water.

Next peel and mince the garlic and ginger. In a small bowl or cup stir together the soy sauce, honey, vinegar, sesame oil, red pepper flakes and peanut butter. Set aside. In a large pot, heat the oil over medium heat. Cook the ginger and garlic until very fragrant but not browned, 2 minutes. Add the green beans and cook an additional 2-3 minutes. Pour the sauce (the soy, peanut butter mix) over the green beans and toss to coat. 

Remove from heat and garnish with chopped peanuts and cilantro. Serve warm. Enjoy! 

xoxo,

Joanna

Accordion Potatoes With Rosemary and Garlic

Potatoes are an absolute must whether your planning a dinner party or Christmas dinner or whatever you celebrate this holiday season. Not only are potatoes delicious, they're also naturally gluten free, so it accommodates a variety of diets. This is a great alternative to rolls or bread if you're serving them. I love making these accordion potatoes (also known as hasselback)! They are a more crispy version of a backed potato. Plus, they are super pretty. I made mine with a couple of lemons to add aroma and a pretty garnish. 

Accordion Potatoes with Rosemary and Garlic

Needed: potatoes (I made 10 total and used a smaller size variety. You can use any variety you like, but this will affect your baking time.), 1/2 cup (1 stick) of butter, 1 tablespoon oil, 2 teaspoons minced rosemary leaves and 1 tablespoon minced garlic.

First wash and dry your potatoes, removing any dirt. Slice 3/4 through in an accordion style. I thought this was harder than it looked. If you find yourself accidentally slicing all the way through your potatoes try placing wooden skewers or chopsticks on each side to create a guide for your knife to stop at. Place the potatoes on a cooking sheet. In a microwave safe bowl combine the butter, oil, rosemary and garlic. Cook just until melted. Use a kitchen brush to coat each potato, taking time to make sure the butter gets between each slice. Bake at 375°F for 38-40 minutes (again, this will vary based on the size of your potatoes. The goal is to make sure they are done on the inside and crispy on the edges.) Then brush with another layer of the butter mixture and serve. I served mine with sides of sour cream, chopped green onions and shredded cheddar cheese. 

xo. Joanna.

Aztec Hot Chocolate

Happy Holidays! After being uncomfortably squished in yet another plane, I'm so glad to be home. Like being back home with my family isn't enough, it's also snowing!!! Anytime my family goes out to the snow, we have a tradition to watch a Christmas movie with hot chocolate afterwards. Coincidentally, one of my all time favorite drinks for winter is hot chocolate. We love the classic hot chocolate, but here's a delightful, delicious way to spice it up!

Aztec Hot Chocolate, makes 4 servings.

I love to serve these with giant marshmallows and a few cinnamon sticks. Have fun spicing up your hot chocolate this season! 

Needed: 6 cups milk (I used almond milk because my family excluded dairy), 10 ounces chopped dark chocolate, 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon, a pinch or two of cayenne (optional) and marshmallows/cinnamon sticks for garnish.

In a pot combine the (almond) milk and chocolate. Melt the chocolate over low/medium heat, stirring constantly. Once melted and the mixture is warmed through stir in the cinnamon and cayenne (if using). Serve hot!

Merry Christmas Eve!

xx,

J