AMAZING PANCAKES

Yes, that’s right– today’s post will be about PANCAKES!

This past weekend was extremely busy and stressful as I had many assignments and tests to prepare for.

So, having completed one of my assessments today, I wanted to treat myself with pancakes. That is, Banana Bread Oat Pancakes!

It’s been a long time since i’ve indulged in this delicious recipe, so I am eager to share it with you!

Despite the fact that the recipe is gluten free and vegan, by no means does it lack in flavour.

Banana Bread Oat Pancakes: adapted from http://almondsandavocados.com/banana-bread-oat-pancakes-gluten-free-vegan/

Ingredients

– 1 cup oat flour–use gf oats if you are celiac (you can easily prepare this by grinding oats into a food processor of a high speed blender until it becomes a flour)

– 1 tsp baking powder

-1/2 tsp cinnamon

– 2 small bananas

– 1/4 + 1 tbsp almond milk (or any other dairy free alternative)

– 2 tsp ground flaxeed

– 2 tsp maple syrup (you can omit, I did because my bananas were extremely ripe and bursting with sugary flavour)

– 1/2 tbsp coconut oil (or grapeseed or EVOO)

– 2 tsp vanilla extract (I LOVE THIS STUFF)

Instructions

1. In a mixing bowl, combine all the dry ingredients, and mix until incorporated

2. In another bowl, mash the bananas with a fork and add in your milk, flaxseed, maples syrup, oil, and vanilla and mix the batter. Alternatively, you can use a blender or food processor for this step

3. Add your wet ingredients into the dry and mix until incorporated

4. Head some oil in a pan, and once it is hot enough, pour the batter into the pan. When you see bubbles form on the surface of the batter and the edges of your pancake turns brown, flip and cook until the bottom has browned.

5. Serve with maple syrup/ agave/ Nutella and top with toppings of your choice! As well, feel free to whip up a smoothie to go along with your banana pancakes. I did a mix between blueberries, strawberries, frozen banana, watermelon, and chia

ENJOY!

Why Can’t There be Waffles Every Morning?

In light of the past new rainy and dark days, this morning was actually quite nice! So, in celebration of the sun coming out, I decided to make gluten free and vegan banana walnut waffles– YUM!

These waffles were delicious! Every bite into them had crunch from the walnuts as well as sweet flavour from the bananas. The best part about these waffles was that there was NO sugar added whatsoever.

Gluten Free Vegan Banana Walnut Waffles or Pancakes (whatever you prefer!)

Adapted from My New Roots

– 1/3 cup walnuts

– 2/3 cup rolled oats (I used Bob’s Red Mills Gluten Free Oats)

– 1 tsp cinnamon

– One and a half ripe banana

– 1 tsp. vanilla extract

– 1 tsp. coconut oil (EVOO, Grapeseed, or any other oil is fine)

– 2/3 cup almond milk (or any other non-dairy milk– if you want to make the recipe dairy-free)

– 2 tsp. maple syrup

– Feel free to add any chocolate chips (Be sure to check that they are dairy free if you want to make dairy free waffles/pancakes)

The Ingredients (Although a half of a banana is missing!)

 

Directions:

Place the walnuts in a high powered blender, such as a Vitamix or Blendtec (or even a food processor) and pulse the walnuts until they resemble a flour-like texture. Remove the walnut flour from the blender, and add in the oats and pulse them until they become a flour. Add both flours together as well as 1 tsp of cinnamon.

In another bowl, mash the banana, and add in the liquid ingredients and mix them.

Banana and Vanilla Extract

Add the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients, and mix until well combined.

Mixed batter

 

Heat a little oil onto a skillet or waffle iron, and add in the waffle/pancake batter. If making pancakes, check to see if the bottom has browned, once it has, then it can be flipped. If making waffles, sit back and relax until the waffle iron is done cooking. I let my waffles sit in the iron for a bit longer because I was afraid of the batter sticking to the iron. So, if you are planning on using a waffle iron, leave it longer, for the waffle to fully cook.

ALMOST perfect waffle

Once the cooking is completed, feel free to add some toppings to it!

ENJOY!

Gourmet Vegetarian Restaurant

Now that school is over, I have oodles of time to do what I love– EAT and COOK!

To start my morning, I made a large Greens smoothie that contained blueberries, raspberries, kale, chia seeds, and bioflavia.

There wasn’t enough room in the blender for all of those berries and kale, so unfortunately, the raspberries were the ones that had to get squished!

Later on in the day, I was around the Highway 7 area, and decided to stop by at one of my favourite vegetarian restaurants in Toronto, Gourmet Vegetarian Restaurant. They serve some of the BEST vegetarian food in Toronto in my opinion. What I like about Gourmet Vegetarian is that compared to other Asian vegetarian or non-vegetarian restaurants, they do not use too much oil or salt, and can make the dishes without adding MSG, which is a major chemical additive in many of our foods today.

Some of the dishes ordered were the veggie steak with black pepper sauce on hot plate, veggie curried fish, cha shiu bao (which is a traditional chinese dim sum order that contains barbecued pork in buns), and veggie meatballs.

The veggie steak with black pepper sauce is one of the best dishes made at Gourmet Vegetarian– I order it EVERY time I go there. The black pepper sauce is extremely rich in peppery flavour. The veggie steak, which resembles thin slices of beef , is perfectly seasoned and tastes amazing with the sauce. Not everyone has tried mock meat/ seitan before, and if you are wondering, it is fairly chewy and tastes very good with seasoning and flavouring.

Veggie Steak with Black Pepper Sauce on Hot Plate

The veggie curried fish was a new dish that my mom and I ordered and it was up to par with the other foods we’ve tried. The curry sauce was not too spicy, which was perfect for my mom since she doesn’t do overly spicy foods, and having the veggie fish in the sauce was a great addition of flavour. The veggie fish itself is lightly covered in a tempura-like batter, and the taste of the “fish” adds some saltiness to the curry. One of my favourite parts of this dish, is that it wasn’t greasy. Usually, when my mom and I go for curry, the sauce is just so rich with the butter and oil, that we are left feeling sick. However, this curried dish was just right.

Veggie Curried Fish

The dim sum that we ordered were also just as appetizing. The veggie meat balls had tons of juicy flavour to it, and the cha shiu bao had a great fluffy bao, and a sweet mixture of the barbecued “pork” inside of it.

Cha Shiu Bao on the bottom and Veggie Meatballs on the top

After sampling a bit of everything, My mom and I left the restaurant feeling stuffed. There was no way we could have finished all of the food, so we took some of it to go– leftovers for tomorrow 🙂 I urge any one, vegetarian or non vegetarian, to head over to Gourmet Vegetarian to try some of their DELICIOUS asian dishes.

Some of their other noted dishes include deep fried veggie fish, taro & veggie chicken with coconut milk, and chinese style veggie steak with BBQ sauce.

Deep Fried Veggie Fish

Taro & Veggie Chicken with Coconut Milk

Chinese Style Veggie Steak with BBQ Sauce

Dinner tonight was inspired by the taro & veggie chicken with coconut milk

Taro

Coconut Milk

Mock Chicken

… and voila! Taro and Chick’n Coconut Milk Pot!

I am so glad how the hot pot turned out– and the best part is that it wasn’t hard to make at all! The taro was extremely soft and the coconut milk tied the whole dish together. Overall, it was a fantastic meal, and I will definitely be making this again!

Have a lovely evening!

*Also, if you have a TVA card, you get 10% off your meal at Gourmet Vegetarian!

First Post– Holla!!!

Good Morning!

One way I love to start off my mornings is by making Green Monsters. Some of you may think adding vegetables into smoothies is gross, but trust me, you can’t even taste it!

This morning, I decided to use adapt the Classic Green Monster recipe, which includes, a frozen banana, kale, chia seeds, and nut butter. Instead, the recipe I used is as follows:

The Greens- Adapted from Oh She Glows 

Ingredients:

– 5 cubes of watermelon

– 3 stalks of kale or 2 cups of spinach

– 1 cup of seedless grapes

– 1 small frozen banana

– 1 tsp of cashew butter, which I made by processing raw cashews in my Vitamix

– 2 scoops of strawberry coconut yogurt, such as this one

– Half a scoop of bioflavia

– 1 tbsp of chia seeds

Directions: Add all the ingredients into a high power blender, like the Vitamix, and process until smooth, or until desired consistency. If you do not have a high power blender, feel free to add some almond milk or water into the base of the blender before adding the ingredients.

Enjoy this delicious and vitamin-filled drink!

Fresh Organic Kale from Everdale Organic Farm at Brickworks

Pre-blending

Love the vibrant green!

It’s time for me to head downstairs and watch the Wimbledon game.

Later days!