milling mondays: whole wheat chocoloate chip pumpkin bread

It is almost October and fall is kind of here. It has even cooled down here in Arizona ... it is only in the 90s during the day:) So I decided to feature another pumpkin recipe to help bring in the fall. This chocolate chip pumpkin bread is whole wheat and vegan, but that doesn't compromise the taste at all. It provides just the right amount of sweetness with a hint of pumpkin ... and of course the chocolate chips make it even better (chocolate makes everything better:)

Whole Wheat Chocolate Chip Bread

print-email-text this recipe

Ingredients

1 1/2 cup whole wheat flour (1 cup soft wheat berries and 1/2 cup hard wheat berries)

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp. nutmeg

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce

1/2 cup sugar

1/4 cup honey

1 1/2 Tbs ground flaxseed mixed with 4 1/2 Tbs water  

1/2 can pumpkin puree (7.5 oz)

1/2 cup chocolate chips

yields one loaf

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350F.

Grind your flaxseeds and mix together with the water (don't grind it in your WonderMill). This is a great egg substitute. Let the mixture sit as it becomes an egglike consistency.

If you mill your own flour, grind your soft and hard wheat berries. I of course use my WonderMill.

Mix together flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, and nutmeg.

 

In a separate bowl mix together the vanilla, apple sauce, sugar, honey and the flax seed mixture.

 

Combine the dry and wet ingredients and then add in the pumpkin puree before folding in the chocolate chips.

 

Pour the batter into a 9x5 loaf pan.

 

Bake the bread for about 45 minutes.

Let the bread cool on a rack.

 

ENJOY!

 

wordless wednesday

 

bloglovin

Follow my blog with Bloglovin

whole30 meal plan

As I have mentioned in my previous blog post about my Whole30 experience, seeing sample Whole30 meals was helpful. So I thought I would share my Whole30 meal plan (and if I ever do it again I don't have to recreate a plan from scratch) with some recipe links to the recipes I used (if they weren't my own creation). Having a weekly meal plan proved very helpful and a lot easier when seeking to stay within the limits of the Whole30. Hopefully this will be of help to you as well. 

Week One

Day 1

Breakfast: Veggie Scramble - scrambled eggs with sweet peppers, spinach and squash

Lunch: Salad with fruit and nuts

Dinner: Chicken with veggies including sweet potato

Day 2

Breakfast:  Veggie Scramble (with tomatoes instead of sweet peppers)

Lunch: Japanese Vegetable Pancakes (substitution: almond flour and no tangy sauce)

Dinner: Yellow Thai Curry with zucchini noodles and chicken and veggies

Day 3

Breakfast:  Eggs, avocado, and cherry tomatoes

Lunch: Japanese Vegetable Pancakes (leftovers)

Dinner: Chicken with veggies and salad

Day 4

Breakfast: Veggie Scramble

Lunch: CAMPING: Salad with veggies, nuts, chicken and avocado

Dinner: CAMPING: Hotdogs (ones that met the requirements of W30) and sweet potato

Day 5

Breakfast: CAMPING: Scrambled eggs with fruit salad

Lunch: CAMPING: Salad with veggies, nuts, chicken and avocado

Dinner: Yellow Thai Curry with squash noodles and chicken and veggies (leftovers)

Day 6

Breakfast:  Eggs with cherry tomatoes

Lunch: Egg with fruit salad and a sliced apple with almond butter (yes, I needed to go to the store:)
Dinner: Homemade meat sauce with spaghetti squash

Day 7

Breakfast:  Eggs, avocado, and cherry tomatoes

Lunch: Leftover homemade spaghetti meat sauce with zucchini noodles

Dinner: Mexican Chicken with Cauliflower "Rice" with avocado and homemade salsa

breakfast snapshot

Week Two

Day 8

Breakfast: Smoothie with banana, spinach, strawberries, chia seeds and water (I know W30 prefers you don't have smoothies, but we ran out of eggs so I thought this would be the best substitute)

Lunch: Mexican Chicken with Cauliflower "Rice" with avocado and homemade salsa (leftovers)

Dinner:  Roasted Chicken with Root Vegetables with a salad
Day 9

Breakfast:Veggie Scramble with avocado
Lunch: Salad with fruit, nuts and chia seeds and a sliced apple with almond butter
Dinner: Roasted Chicken with Root Vegetables (leftovers) and grilled heart of romaine

Day 10

Breakfast: Homemade Turkey Sausage with sweet potato hash browns
Lunch: Chicken salad on bed of lettuce with homemade mayo, grapes and almonds and an avocado on the side.
Dinner: Chocolate Chili

Day 11

Breakfast: Scrambled eggs with tomato and turkey sausage
Lunch: Chocolate Chili (leftovers)

Dinner: Homemade pesto on zucchini noodles with chicken
Day 12

Breakfast: Eggs with tomato and avocado

Lunch: Homemade pesto on zucchini noodles with chicken (leftovers)

Dinner: Oregano's salad with chicken (no cheese or dressing)
Day 13

Breakfast: Eggs and turkey sausage with avocado and a pear

Lunch: Salad with veggies and chicken
Dinner: Mahi Mahi on a bed of lettuce with homemade mango salsa

Day 14

Breakfast: Omelet with veggies

Lunch: Tuna salad on a bed of spinach with homemade mayo, almonds, cucumbers, tomatoes and an avocado on the side.

Dinner: Salmon and Spinach Frittata

lunch snapshot

Week Three

Day 15

Breakfast: Omelet with veggies and basil

Lunch: Gazpacho

Dinner: Yellow Thai Curry with sweet potato and veggies on spaghetti squash
 Day 16

Breakfast: Egg and turkey sausage
Lunch: Gazpacho

Dinner: Yellow Thai Curry with sweet potato and veggies on spaghetti squash (leftovers)

Day 17

Breakfast: Egg and turkey sausage and tomatoes and blueberries
Lunch: Yellow Thai Curry with sweet potato and veggies on spaghetti squash (leftovers)

Dinner: Mexican Meatza

Day 18

Breakfast: Eggs and apple sauce and flax seeds

Lunch: Paradise Bakery salad (no cheese or dressing)

Dinner: Chicken with sweet potato and veggies

Day 19

Breakfast: Eggs with guacamole and turkey sausage
Lunch: Mexican Meatza (leftovers) with a salad with veggies and nuts

Dinner: Homemade pesto on zucchini noodles with chicken

Day 20

Breakfast: Sweet Potato Casserole and turkey sausage

Lunch: Japanese Vegetable Pancake and heart of romaine
Dinner: Salmon salad with veggies and sweet potatoes

Day 21

Breakfast: Sweet Potato Casserole and turkey sausage

Lunch: Salmon salad with veggies and sweet potatoes (leftovers)

Dinner: Mexican Chicken with Cauliflower "Rice" with avocado and homemade salsa

dinner snapshot

Week Four

Day 22

Breakfast: Eggs, grape tomatoes and turkey sausage

Lunch: Japanese Vegetable Pancakes and banana with almond butter

Dinner:  Chili

Day 23

Breakfast: Eggs with guacamole and grape tomatoes and blueberries

Lunch: Chili (leftovers)
Dinner: Salmon Cakes with homemade mayo

Day 24

Breakfast: Omelet with veggies

Lunch: Chili (leftovers)
Dinner: Rad Rainbow Raw Pad Thai with chicken instead of edamame (substitute: tamari for coconut amino and no maple syrup)

Day 25

Breakfast: Eggs and grape tomatoes and avocado
Lunch: Salmon Cakes with homemade mayo (leftovers) and a pear
Dinner: Chicken with sweet potatoes and veggies with a salad

Day 26

Breakfast: Eggs and turkey sausage
Lunch: Pita Jungle Salad (no cheese, no dressing)
Dinner: Rad Rainbow Raw Pad Thai with chicken instead of edamame (leftovers)

Day 27

Breakfast: Smoothie with water, strawberries, spinach, banana, chia seeds and flax seeds
Lunch: Spinach salad with chicken, veggies and nuts

Dinner: Chicken with veggies

Day 28

Breakfast: Omelet with veggies
Lunch: Tuna salad on a bed of spinach
Dinner: Raw Vegetable "Pasta" with Tomatoes and Herbs with chicken

Week Five

Day 29

Breakfast: Eggs and ground flax seeds in applesauce

Lunch: Salad with chicken and veggies

Dinner: Mahi Mahi with mango salsa on a bed of lettuce

Day 30

Breakfast: Veggie Scramble

Lunch: Salmon Cakes with homemade mayo

Dinner: Vegetable and Chicken Stir Fry with a salad

After day 30 we also completed the reintroduction period as described in the Whole30 book It Starts with Food.

If you plan on using zucchini and carrots instead of noodles, I would highly suggest investing in a Spiral Cutter. The price is a little high in my opinion, but it really helped make the process a lot easier. Spaghetti squash is of course also a great pasta alternative.

Hopefully this meal plan will be of help to you as you embark on the Whole30. 

milling mondays: coconana oat cookies

These cookies combine the wonderful taste of things I love: coconut, bananas, and oats. What a great combination. These soft, moist cookies have such a wonderful taste with just the right amount of sweetness. And they are somewhat healthy for being in the cookies category and even vegan too. They are also super easy to make. All in all, a great yummy cookie.

Coconana Oat Cookies

modified from the recipes for ibs cookbook

print-email-text this recipe

Ingredients

3 ripe bananas, mashed

1 tsp vanilla extract

1/4 cup unsweetened applesauce

1/4 cup agave nectar

1/2 cup oil

1 Tbsp coconut milk

1 cup oat flour (steel cut oats if you mill your own flour)

1tsp baking soda

1 tsp cinnamon

1 cup rolled oats

1 cup shredded coconut

yields about two dozen cookies

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350F.

In a blender, mix together the bananas, vanilla extract, applesauce, agave nectar and oil

 

If you mill your own flour, grind steel cut oats to make oat flour. I of course use my WonderMill.

Add the flour, baking soda and cinnamon to the mixture in the blender and blend it all together.

 

Fold in the oats and coconut.

 

Finally, scoop the cookie dough onto your baking stone/greased cookie sheet and bake the cookies for about 18 minutes.



 

Let the cookies cool on a rack.

 

Enjoy!

 

northern cal vacation: san francisco

 

While we were in Santa Cruz we also made a quick trip to San Francisco. We had a great day exploring some of what the city has to offer including some of the touristy attractions. There is so much to see, we only got a taste, so we will have to return again to finish exploring.

 

 

 

lombard street

the painted ladies and alamo square

mission district. yummy food at tartine bakery and coffee at four barrel

on our way back to santa cruz we stopped by knapstad's place and had dinner.

diy thursday: homemade natural peanut butter

I have been meaning to make my own peanut butter for some time now to save money. I prefer to buy the all natural peanut butter with one ingredient: peanuts. Unfortunately, this is a little more expensive than the peanut butters with more ingredients (you would think they could charge you less if they use less ingredients, wouldn't you?). Often when you make nut butters in a normal food processor, it can take up to 30 minutes which is a long time for your food processor to run (assuming it doesn't burn out before then). So when I was hanging out with my friend the other day, I brought some peanuts and made some peanut butter in her Vitamix. This was SO EASY and it took less than a minute! Amazing.

Homemade Peanut Butter

Ingredients

3 cups peanuts

Directions

Blend the peanuts in the blender  until it becomes the consistency of butter.

 

And Voila! You have peanut butter.

A jar of homemade natural peanut butter costs about $2.50 compared to $4-9 in the store.
Another great perk is that the oil doesn't sit on top like it does in store bought natural nut butters, which means no stirring required making it less messy. 

This method works great for other nut butters as well.

wordless wednesday

 

northern cal vacation: santa cruz

Santa Cruz is beautiful and the weather was PERFECT while we were there.
We really enjoyed our time there exploring the city and hanging out with friends. It was so relaxing.  

 

 

 

Redwood Grove Trail  at Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park

capitola



before we left for santa cruz everyone said we HAD to go here! and they were right. YUMMY

We had so much fun with the Gotthardts. We also hung out with Kelli and Richard, but somehow we didn't get any pictures. Likewise we hung out with the Newmans and didn't get our camera out for that either. Just too busy visiting, no time for pictures:)

 

milling mondays: danish rye bread with seeds and carrots

 

 

As I have mentioned before, Danes love their rye bread. It is a lunch stable for most people in Denmark. It therefore makes sense that there are lots of different versions with different types of additions in it. The one that I am really liking right now is filled with lots of seeds and carrots. It is moist and full of goodness.

 

 

Danish Rye Bread with Seeds and Carrots (Rugbroed)

print-email-text this recipe

 

 

Ingredients

 

Sour dough starter - check out my blog post on how to make the starter

375g whole wheat flour (hard wheat berries)

375g rye flour (rye berries)

5 tsp salt

1/2 L water

500g seeds/grains (I used 175g sunflower seeds, 175g pumpkin seeds, 50g flaxseed (roughly ground), 50g sesame seeds, 50g steel cut oats)

2 carrots, peeled and grated

1/2 bottle dark beer

 

 

 

Directions

 

If you mill your own flour, grind your wheat and rye berries. I of course use my WonderMill.

 

Knead together the wheat and rye flour, salt, water and sour dough starter.

 

 

 

 

Let the dough sit covered for 24 hours.

 

Once the dough has rested for a day, add in all of our seeds/grains, carrots and beer and blend together to form a dough.

 

Remove about 300g of the rye bread dough and set aside to use as the sourdough starter the next time you make this recipe. Store it in the fridge in a closed container. Note, this means you don't have to make the sourdough starter from scratch the next time.

 

Pour the dough into your greased bread pans (1-2 depending on the size). Cover them and let them rise for 4-5 hours (you wont really notice  a whole lot of difference in the size of the bread before and after).

 

 

Pre-heat your oven to 395F. And let the bread bake for 70 minutes.

 

 

Danish rye bread is dense and its crust can become quite hard. In order to remedy this, take the warm bread and wrap it in a kitchen towel and place it in a bpa free plastic bag/zip top bag.
 

Let the bread cool in the bag while the moisture softens the crust. Let it sit overnight before cutting it.

ENJOY!