Maple Chocolate Chip Quick Bread

Dear Turkey,

I love fast and delicious quick breads. See what I did there? Fast and quick. Both important.

I love the bread in the link above, but certain members of my family only eat baked goods with visible chunks of chocolate. If I use actual chocolate chunks, however, those get mined out, so I circumvent that problem with mini chocolate chips. This bread is delicious, but it's not super sweet and the maple and cornmeal are an awesome combo. It's also healthy enough to feed children for breakfast. (I had a pop tart for breakfast yesterday, so clearly it's healthy enough for me. At least it was an organic pop tart.)

Crepes

Dear Turkey,

Last week my mom bought a package of really good crepes that had been imported from France. Yup. From France. On a plane or a container ship. They cost $4.99.

I'm not saying that they weren't really good. They were really good. But it got me wondering how many crepes I could make for $5. Answer: a lot. And it took less time to make them than it would take to drive to the store. It's amazing how luxurious crepes taste, considering how easy they are to make.

Use Up Your CSA Cabbage Soup

Dear Turkey,

Your neighbor is wondering if you ever used up the rest of that cabbage from her CSA that she gave you in December. Luckily for you, cabbage keeps a long time.

I have never made a good cabbage soup before. This soup is so easy, so good, and so healthy, you would think that I or my stomach would be sick of eating it for three days straight. Not at all. I also froze some for later. It's really good with a big piece of pumpkin sourdough.

Healthy Vegan Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Bread

Dear Turkey,

In my myriad posts about pumpkin breads, I have failed you. I was googling my own blog (no shame) to find the recipe for the healthy pumpkin bread that I make all the time, and I realized that I never posted it. I guess I make it so often that I always assume I posted it last time.

I developed this recipe because I thought that there would be a way to make my usual famous pumpkin chocolate chip bread with whole wheat flour, no eggs, and less sugar. I replaced the flour with whole wheat flour, the eggs with soy milk and cut the sugar by 2/3 and I thought that you couldn't even tell. At first, my mom (PCCB die-hard) did not approve. But even she came around eventually. Not that there isn't a special place in my life for regular pumpkin bread, but if we are going to plow through one of these in a day or two, it may as well be the healthy kind (and you can eat the batter).

Ricotta Gnocchi

Dear Turkey,

I love gnocchi. Usually I love buying it from the store in a package. But this recipe introduced me to a new technique to form the gnocchi (even though I love making bread, I find all that rolling out and slicing really annoying for some reason), and it was buttery/comfort food-y/light/pillowy/awesome.

If you've never made gnocchi before because you thought it was hard, you should try this. And if you've never made gnocchi before because you think it's too chewy, you should definitely try this, because you really don't have to knead the dough at all, which prevents the gluten-chewiness.

Completely Unhealthy Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies

Dear Turkey,

I won't bore you with how much I love Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies Anything. But these cookies are awesome. They are just as good as any other chocolate chip cookies. And why shouldn't they be? They aren't really any healthier. But they are so awesome. I have already made them 2x. In three days.

And if you don't like the taste of raw egg in batter (me), or you don't want to get salmonella (me, in theory), then they are extra awesome. Enough said.

Strawberry Yogurt and Flax Muffins

Dear Turkey,

In a moment of weakness, you are talked into buying a container of Stoneyfield Strawberry Yogurt. This normally wouldn't be considered a moment of weakness, except that it's one of those big quart containers, nobody in your house really likes it THAT much, and this was three weeks ago and it's about to expire.

Luckily for you me, I had this strawberry muffin recipe that we used to make years ago (like, before we were old). It was so good that we made it over and over for weeks at a time in the early summer (when strawberries are in season in places other than California). I figured that the recipe would work just as well with strawberry yogurt, especially since I modified it from a recipe on the top of a Stoneyfield yogurt container circa 2006; I was right.

Chewy Pumpkin Sourdough

Dear Turkey,

If you are planning to skip yet another post about sourdough bread, just hold the phone, because this bread is awesome. And if you are planning to skip this post because you don't have a sourdough starter, keep holding the phone, because this bread will be awesome without it.

You know that I love pumpkin. quick. bread. But I also love pumpkin yeast bread. The pumpkin is kind of like a cheat to get that chewy baguette-y taste without a really hot industrial oven. Soy milk makes this bread a little bit sweet, so you can eat it for breakfast, but the whole wheat flour allows it to stand up to dipping in soup, salad dressing, whatever.

Gluten Free Pumpkin Breakfast Cookies

Dear Turkey,

Just because gluten and I are friends, that doesn't mean that I'm oblivious to the gluten-free frenzy craziness um, movement.

I saw these cookies online and I was excited that they were vegan and had yummy peanut butter and maple syrup instead of butter/eggs/sugar (not that I'm not friends with those, either). I have rocked breakfast. cookies. before, but they were a little dry/healthy-tasting. I really liked how the quick-cooking oatmeal makes these a bit more chewy and delicious.

Cinnamon Raisin Swirl Bread

Dear Turkey,

These were the instructions:

Remember that chocolate bread that you made? Can you make a bread like that, but with a ridiculous cinnamon raisin swirl?

Well, I know how to make a ridiculous cinnamon raisin swirl. And the main ingredients are neither cinnamon nor raisins.

Ridiculously Good 5-Minute Lunch Pasta

Dear Turkey,

It's lunch time and you just made pasta and broccoli for your toddler. He likes the broccoli PLAIN and the pasta with LOTS of sauce. Like, if you can see the actual pasta, you are in trouble.

Now you have a delicious strainer-full of leftover pasta and broccoli. And five minutes before nap time. My secret pasta-master ingredients of onion powder and garlic powder make this pasta so rich and good, it tastes like you baked it or something. Maybe you think I am overhyping this; try it and get back to me.

Baked Beans and Rice

Dear Turkey,

I always have potential beans and rice recipes floating around in my head. Sometimes they come to me in dreams. True story.

Since I love beans and I love baking, I have been wanting to make baked beans for a while. And while I truly love the baked beans from the can, I was thinking of something more Mexican-y. I was also attracted to the put-it-in-the-oven-and-leave-it concept.

These baked beans turned out really easy and tasty. They have that extra sweet and savory depth that comes from baking (and roasted garlic), but they still have that Mexican punch. I loved finding big chunks of roasted garlic and smashing them around in my rice; if you think that's weird, slice the garlic.