Failure turned great

I learned a very hard lesson yesterday, always check for ingredients before baking. Last time I made that mistake I was 16. At least its not a mistake I make often.

I ran out of white flour. It wasn't that big of a deal, but when you have yeast that has already been proofed then you kind of have to rush. I ended up just using wheat flour for the rest of it.

Vegan Cinnamon Rolls
Recipe from Vegan Yum Yum. (Although I did change a few things)

Yeast Mixture
4 tsp Active Dry Yeast
1 tsp Sugar
1 Cup Warm Water

Dough
1 Cup Almond Milk
2/3 Cup Sugar
2/3 Cup Best Life Butter, melted
2 tsp Salt
2 Ener-g Egg Replacer Eggs, prepared, optional
Yeast Mixture, from above
About 4 cups white flour
About 2 cups wheat flour

Dough Filling
1/2 Cup Best Life Butter, melted
1 1/2 Cups Sugar
3 Tbs Cinnamon

Icing
2 cups powdered sugar
2 tbsp almond milk

Combine yeast mixture and set aside to proof.

In bread machine add melted butter, almond milk, salt, egg replacer, and sugar. Once yeast is proofed add to bread machine. Now add the flour until the dough is no longer sticky but not falling apart. Here is where my oops moment comes in. It is supposed to be 6 cups of white flour but I forgot to check to make sure we had all of the flour. Luckily we had wheat flour that I could use. You can bet I'll always check for flour now before baking!

Before flour.

With a little flour.

Now just let it rise.

Once it has risen, roll it out.

Now spread melted butter all over the dough.

Sprinkle with cinnamon sugar mixture.

Now its time to roll it up.

It is going to make 12 rolls. So cut it in half, then cut the halves in half. Which will make 4 sections. Cut each of those sections into 3. The easiest way to cut them is with thread or dental floss, just run underneath it, cross it and pull.

Coat 2- 13X9 pans with butter and place the cinnamon rolls in them. Two rows of three. Cover and let rise overnight in the fridge.

Next Morning

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Right out of the fridge.

Place in oven and bake for 25-30 minutes or until golden brown. While rolls are baking make icing. Just combine powdered sugar and milk. It will be pretty difficult to stir but it'll get there.

Put icing on cinnamon rolls and enjoy!

They actually turned out great. I was nervous that with the wheat flour they wouldn't taste as good but they were still amazing!!! Definitely worth it.

Vegan Pancakes

In April of last year Gabe and I were house sitting for a family member, we had just woke up and didn't know what to eat for breakfast. We finally settled on pancakes, looked through the cabinets and there was no pancake mix. So I pulled up a recipe through google. I had NO idea that pancakes took so much work. I had to separate the egg and egg white, fluff the egg whites, Stir for exactly 60 seconds. Honestly it just wasn't worth it.

Fast forward 9 months later. Another morning that we wake up and want pancakes. But we eat vegan now, so I had to find a vegan pancake recipe. I am so glad that I did! These pancakes are amazing, and SO easy!

Vegan Pancakes
Recipe adapted from here. 
1/2 cup wheat flour
1/2 cup white flour
1 cup almond milk
1 tbsp baking powder
2 tbsp sugar or honey
Salt

I use a griddle so that I can make more pancakes at once. Preheat the griddle to 300 degrees.

In large bowl combine flour, baking soda, sugar and dash of salt. I usually use a whisk to stir it to help get all the clumps out of the baking powder. Then add 1 cup of milk. Stir until just combined. Now its time to cook them. I use 1/4 measuring cup to get the perfect size pancakes.

Its ready to flip over once it has bubbles and the edges look a little dry. 

I made a double batch this time. They are perfect for freezing. Gabe always leaves for work early so its easy for him to just pop some in the toaster and go.

I am so obsessed with these pancakes that I eat them for breakfast almost every morning. When I was younger pancakes were a special treat. These pancakes make it easy to have a great breakfast any day of the week!

What's your favorite pancake topping? Do you have to have pure maple syrup on your pancakes? I know I do!

It feels good to be healthy!

 I never really knew what I was good at. I always just assumed I wasn't really good at anything. I now know I'm good at being a mom, no I'm GREAT at being a mom. I always knew I would be a mom I just didn't know how much it would change me, for the better of course. Prior to being a mom I ate very unhealthy.

Anika was born on December 31st 2009.

1 day old

She is perfect and makes me want to be a better, healthier person. Breastfeeding was the first choice I made that put me into this lifestyle. Throughout my entire pregnancy I told everyone that asked that yes I would breastfeed, and I stuck to it. Unfortunately, when Anika was 4 weeks old she was diagnosed with a milk protein allergy. Since I was nursing that meant that I had to remove ALL dairy products from my diet, I couldn't even have bread if milk was in it. I cried, a lot! All I ever ate was dairy products. A typical day was cereal with milk for breakfast, pizza for lunch and something cheese related for dinner. It took about 2-3 weeks for me to realize it wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be, and now I couldn't even imagine eating cheese or drinking milk!

3 months old

Then, when she was 3 months old my husband and I made the decision to cloth diaper her, and I am SO glad we did! We have saved so much money by doing so. We initially spent about $75 for her cloth diapers and haven't had to spend a penny since.

5 months old

At around 5 months we began discussing what we would feed Anika when she was allowed to have solids. We decided that baby-led weaning would be the best choice for our family. If you're not sure what baby-led weaning is click here. Which then led us to changing our own diets. We couldn't let our daughter eat some of the horrific things that we were eating! Ok, it wasn't that bad, but not good enough for her. So we started eating healthier. The more I researched healthy food choices the more interested I became. I couldn't believe some of the things we were putting into our body. We watched the movie, Food Inc. and everything changed. I no longer wanted to eat beef and we would only buy the best chicken we could find.

Anika's first birthday!

Fast forward to December 2010. I decided that I wanted to try to eat vegan as a new year resolution. So on January 1st 2011 I began eating vegan. Not to say that I haven't eaten meat since then, I have. When we go out to eat, I will order chicken. But I really prefer to eat vegan. I just feel better now. I used to have stomach aches all the time and never really felt good and now I never get stomach aches! It feels amazing!

My family calls me a hippie. Well if breastfeeding, cloth diapering, eating vegan, and not using chemicals to clean makes me a hippie.... then I am PROUD to be a hippie!